Anger at Injustice

I'm trying to learn more about injustice. Perhaps a lot of you are too in the wake of continued incidences of hate crimes, confusing events involving police and people of color or other 'otherness'. I've been listening to "Pass the Mic", an excellent podcast from two men who speak on justice and Christian faith...also "Truth's Table" whose podcast episode following the Officer Yanez and Philando Castile verdict was heartbreaking. Both podcasts suggest that followers of Christ should be lamenting when injustice occurs. Anna Marie Cox and Jon Ward had a soul-searching conversation on "With Friends Like These."

Since a trip to Haiti a few years ago where I helped coach some micro-businesses, I've been wondering how the church institution and its members promote injustice--intentionally and unintentionally--as it did when slavery was prevalent for hundreds of years in North America. In what ways are we promoting a new kind of abasement for people made in God's image? Even with court decisions like Brown v Board of Education, we as a society have promoted that African-American children are somehow inferior, that African-American teachers are somehow inferior. (Check out Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast on the topic.)

Recently at our church a pastor preached on James 1.20--"Human anger does not produce the righteousness (justice) that God desires." As I contemplated this verse, I remembered the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. James goes on to say we need to humbly "accept" the Word of God. Through James, God is saying do not fight back with anger, uncontrolled language. Instead fight back by taking care of widows and orphans who have put into that status perhaps by oppression. James warns against favoritism and that it is our own desires that tempt us to overlook our own sins and fight others who are in the wrong. Later he writes that it is those same desires--pride and greed primarily--that cause fights, quarrels, shortchanging workers' wages, hoarding our 'treasure' and relying on that same treasure to give us status, security and power. Treasure has become our god and we are double-minded and not fully listening to God.

He is writing to people under persecution and oppression, facing injustice themselves. Is James advocating 'rolling over and submitting' to the oppressors? I believe God is saying that we should be taking care of people hurt through the governmental and social systems that generate injustice and oppression (i.e keeping people from getting ahead socio-economically). I believe the scripture is also saying we should be taking action to help change those systems--not for our own desires and betterment--but for our brothers and sisters who are struggling. The action is not to confront in anger but to work in acceptance and help change the paradigms. You cannot change what you do not accept to be true. If you live in denial, it won't change. If you confront in anger, it won't change; those supporting a particular position just become defensive and resistant. Don't get stuck in depression; if you really believe God is with you, you can count it all joy when you face trials (James 1.2). And in the same way that I counsel CEO's to make a change if they want their organizations to change, we sometimes have to initiate change in ourselves and our behaviors in order to create change. And that may require a sacrifice to not participate in a profitable/uplifting experience anymore (such is the recommendation to protesters at Princeton University over the use of Woodrow Wilson's name).

I protested a policy I considered bad a few times in my life and career. My protest ended in resignation from positions that were beneficial because I could not condone the policies. Did they change after I resigned? No. But I was no longer part of an oppressive, injust system.