At the time of writing this post, Michael Brown has been dead for over a week, joining the litany of people to die at the hand of the police in America. While the death of Michael Brown is not unique–for the US Bureau reports that “You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist” (Washington’sBlogReport)– it is particular in its reach, sparking widespread conversation about racial politics and police militarization with the mere mention of #ferguson.
Amidst this community’s cacophony, the necessarily jarring voices of anger, grief, and protest, comes the all familiar coos of authority pleading for “peace.” From Gov. Jay Nixon‘s enforced curfew under the premise that “if we are to achieve justice, we must first have and maintain peace” to the archbishop of St. Louis, who declared, “In all circumstances, but especially in these difficult times, we are all called to be instruments of peace through our words and actions,” appeals for peace abound. Pastors in the community and across the country took to their pulpits this Sunday to mirror these sentiments, invoking the life of Jesus, who braved death on behalf of humanity, even death on a cross, as the “true” example of peaceful resistance to oppressive systems. Peace, it seems, is our desired end.
However, I do not think the gospels’ depictions of Jesus’ “peace” are the best analogy for understanding and responding to events like Ferguson. Here are just a few reasons:
1. Jesus was God.
Or was the son of God, then became God, all depending on which early church party you want to follow. But regardless of the ancient Christian perspective you take, Jesus having the emotional, physical, and spiritual endurance of imperial and cultural oppression is no comparison to us mere mortals. So Jesus passively stood before Caesar, the government, and willingly submitted to militarized torture? Tell me how that doesn’t sound like the speech of a modern oppressor.
2. Jesus was part of a larger eternal plan.
According to the gospels, Jesus was part of the Father’s plan to save humanity from their sins. Thus, his extreme endurance and fortitude is attributed to his keen commitment to the Father’s will. But while Jesus was assured of an eternal promise he tangibly experienced, we are left in the here and now to deal with the consequences of oppressive structures. Jesus wasn’t staying here on Earth; he didn’t have to bear children and fear that their lives would be cut short simply because of the color of their skin. His peace was assured, but for the rest of us, we have no such tangible assurance. As Simone de Beauvoir writes, “if man is waiting for universal peace in order to establish his existence validly, he will wait indefinitely: there will never be any other future” (The Ethics of Ambiguity, 119).
3. Jesus wasn’t a black person in America for the past 200 years.
This might sound strange to some, but reading the Bible in context is a necessary starting point. In a recently acclaimed piece, Ta-Nehisi Coates methodically illustrates the complete systematic disenfranchisement of black communities in America. From the intersections of race, class, gender, and our nation’s past, he stirringly calls us to consider the The Case for Reparations:
Perhaps no number can fully capture the multi-century plunder of black people in America. Perhaps the number is so large that it can’t be imagined, let alone calculated and dispensed. But I believe that wrestling publicly with these questions matters as much as—if not more than—the specific answers that might be produced. An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane. An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.
The Bible’s context of Roman imperial might is different from the specific contextual plight of black America. The circumstances of Jesus’ life are no mirror for the circumstances of ours, and we do injustice to our neighbors to so seamlessly juxtapose the two worlds and call for similar “peace.”
While my wit in theological matters might not please many, I feel it is necessary to prick the rhetoric-bubble of “universal peace,” especially peace claimed on behalf of biblical principles. There is a problem in employing epitaphs of “peaceful like Jesus” in conversations about systemic racial, gender, and class issues. Jesus, as the gospels’ depict, had divine support, the promise of an eternal plan, and is contextually specific to a time different from our own. Whatever allusions and appeals to power we want to make to the figure of Jesus for religious purposes, we cannot use peace-language to ignore the problem of race and class in America.
Peace as a universal is a myth, serving to petition sacrifices now in the attainment of a “future peace.” And as a result, we fail to critically examine whom this peace is for and for whom this peace is not. To those calling for peace in Ferguson, what “peace” are you supposedly returning to and what will future “peace” look like? At what cost is “peace” maintained? There has been no peace for black America, and the silencing tactics and respectability politics of white authorities are not peaceful means to justice, but a continuation of the status quo of oppression.
I challenge us to ask: how much of what we perceive as “peace” is actually the ignorance of injustice?
“Murder and crime, compromise and distortion,
Sacrifice, sacrifice, who makes this fortune?
Greed, falsely called progress,
Such human contortion,
Black rage is founded on these kinds of things”
