How does the church speak into this moment? What do we say?
Eight people are dead after a deadly rampage in the Atlanta area on Tuesday night. Six of them were women of Asian descent. Today, these families are engulfed in grief, and Asian and Pacific Islander communities around the world and within our church are anguished and afraid.
Here, in the United States, we have become accustomed to waking up to news like Tuesday’s--news of another mass shooting--another violent act against women--another incidence of violence against persons-of-color.
Whether or not the act of this gunman was motivated by racism will be revealed. Yet this shooting did not happen in a vacuum. It happened at a time that anti-Asian violence is increasing in the wake of racist rhetoric about the pandemic. Such rhetoric is grounded in hate, and by its very nature is violent, especially when it targets already marginalized people.
Of course, this does not happen just in one country. The scourges of racism and tribalism happen everywhere. Ideologies of hate are on the rise throughout the world. Divisive and racist rhetoric happen around the globe. Still, how does the church speak into this? What do we have to offer the world beyond thoughts and prayers?
The Old Testament Book of Leviticus, which articulates the Holiness Codes, demands that God’s people center their relationships with one another and with their neighbors, in love, as an expression of their holiness before God. The tone of the book is direct and commanding.
“Do not go around slandering your people. Do not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed…You must not hate your fellow Israelite in your heart…you must love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.†Leviticus 19: 16-18.
This passage places slander alongside the shedding of blood. In so doing, it suggests that rhetoric matters. And the rhetoric that we have heard, recently, blaming Asian people for the pandemic matters. To engage in such rhetoric could be considered slander, given the framing offered in Leviticus. The passage suggests that to fail to challenge those who engage such rhetoric would be allowing the slander of our neighbors. Such slander can lead to the shedding of blood. To ignore the shedding of the blood of our neighbors, or even the possibility of it happening, is against God’s commandment.
Our God recognizes all people as God’s children--part of the good creation, and calls us to treat each other as neighbors. Ultimately God’s commandment is to love neighbor as self. “Love doesn’t do anything wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is what fulfills the law.†Romans 13:10
This is a word that the church must speak in this moment, first to itself then to the world. We are called to love. We are called to preach love. We are called to say in the strongest of terms that ideologies of racism, white supremacy, xenophobia, misogyny and hate, in any of its forms, are antithetical to love.
Love does no wrong to neighbor. Love does not hold grudges or use violent rhetoric against a neighbor. Love is patient and kind and finds its purest expression in the welcome and embrace of a neighbor. To love is both holy and prophetic.
In this moment, let us stand in prophetic solidarity, as neighbors, with our family members, friends, and colleagues who are of Asian descent. Let us stand, as neighbors, with Asian and Pacific Islander communities in our church and in our world. Let us stand with our neighbors in the holiness of love.
We are called to love. We are called to preach love. We are called to say in the strongest of terms that ideologies of racism, white supremacy, xenophobia, misogyny and hate, in any of its forms, are antithetical to love.