From the Pastor’s Heart OP-ED BY DR. ROBERT KENNEDY
It is quite interesting that during this time when there is an expression of so much corruption and degradation in the socio-political, moral, and spiritual spheres, so many individuals are being co-opted in the train of evil that they are unwilling to offer any resistance.
I cannot say that it was different in Germany when the Fuhrer was peddling his nazification ideas, that there were many resisters. But thank God, there were a few resisters. I think of Corrie Ten Boone with her hiding place room in her house, Deitrich Bonhoeffer with his underground church, and Karl Barth of the Reform Church movement and a few others, but most of the population were mesmerized by the charisma of Hitler and his ideas. If there were not a few resisters, many more than six million Jews would have vanished in the holocaust.
What is most tragic for me is that a majority of religious people and churches got caught up with Hitler. As he came to power, they felt that his dissembling dedication to religion, abstinence from tea, coffee, alcohol, meats, and a few other things, concurred with their faith practices, and made him a savior figure. Thus, when Hitler began to sow the seeds of hatred and strife, many individuals went headlong in offering their loyalty, without any questions.
In referencing what happened in Germany, I am asking where are we going in the United States at the moment? Are there any parallels from which we might learn? Are we just willing to go with what is happening around us without pausing to reflect and resist? Are we prepared to stay on the train that is heading off the cliff without doing anything about it? The call for resistance is not to practice any evil but to be what the late Representative John Lewis called “Getting into good trouble,” or what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. offered as “Non-violent resistance.”
I concur with the many who are reading the times that “we are in a seminal moment.” We only have a little time to resist the path of evil, seeking to divert us from what is just and good. If we do not change the river’s course, we will all be caught in the rapids and tossed down the cliff. In effect, we need people who are committed to standing in the gap.
For some of you who are questioning what you might be able to do, I offer that voting is one way of resisting. I also offer that we need to pray for wisdom in the choices we make in voting. Think clearly of the long term effects of the issues that confront us, think of the generations to come, and do what is right.
Do not just follow the crowd. Do not engage in “group think.” As the lines of one poem says, “Stand on a footing of your own and cultivate a sound backbone.” For the young, I say, do not get caught up in peer pressure. Be careful in what you seek to do, politically, morally, relationally, and spiritually. Learn how to swim against the current – Resist. Learn how to fly – Resist gravity. Many people are settling for anything and everything, negative. But you need to stand out from the crowd and make it clear that the crowd will not be you.
Whenever you see such things as the following – oppression, children being caged, mothers separated from their children, prejudice and racism, disenfranchisement – it would be helpful if you learn that the only way to change things is to resist. Learn that people are failing to resist because they are:
1. Accepting superficiality – That is just looking at the surface of things and not asking any questions about what is going on.
2. Conforming to the social norms or abnormalities, as most persons in societies do.
3. Denying – Stark realities are staring them in the face but deciding to be dishonest and pretend that what they are seeing is not what they see.
4. Foolishly loyal – So loyal to those about them who are peddling falsehoods, but they lack the courage to resist?
5. Following the path of curiosity – They are so fascinated by the hype of the moment and want to satisfy their curiosity so much that they follow the path to the tragic end.
6. Ignorance – They lack wisdom and discernment and are unwilling to find out what is right from what is wrong.
7. Careless – the unwillingness to take responsibility.
8. Lack of courage to fight back.
Let me be biblical by using the words of the apostle James that have been coming to mind for the last few weeks, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7 emphasis mine).
Although some of you might say that Jesus did not engage in the political resistance of his time, I remind you that Jesus was the greatest resister this world has ever known. He demonstrated such in his concern for the children, how he treated widows, in the ways he engaged with the poor and the sick. He criticized the legalistic systems that disenfranchised the downtrodden. His prayer for the coming of the kingdom was a prayer of resistance.
When he said, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what belongs to God” (cf. Matthew 22:21), He was offering a model of resistance. Yes, Jesus resisted all self-aggrandizing efforts of the devil. That is why Jesus was who He was – the Perfect Person.
While we can’t be Jesus, we are called to be like Jesus in resisting the evil order.
