Christians are called to be imitators of Christ, indeed, to be christs in Christ. They are called to be salt of the earth, to purify and protect the good within creation. They are to take the accomplishment of Christ as high priest and take it to the world, so not only do they purify and protect creation, but they work with grace to restore it to its natural integral unity. What sin has caused to be torn asunder, they are called to unify. When they do not, when they embrace the path of sin, they have lost their saltiness, and Christianity itself becomes disgraced through their example.
Bigotry, racism, sexism, exploitation of the poor, abuse of the innocent – all of these must be condemned by Christians as grave sins which undermine the work and accomplishment of Christ. Such activity seeks to destroy the world, and as such sin continues to grow and thrive, it will become more destructive; what is first kept hidden and small, slowly reveals itself to be a festering cancer which must be excised for the sake of the world. Violence which emerges from such sin is completely at the hands of those who embrace such evil – there can be no justice, no healing, when evil is compared with the good and treated as equal causes for mayhem when it follows oppression. The light is not the cause of the darkness, even if it exposes the darkness, and so the good is not the cause of evil even if in contrast to the evil, some try to make it look as if it helped create the conflict. This is not to say the contagion of sin might not infect those who try to do good, but the source of that infection is in the evil itself, and as it is put into the light, the more demonic its response will be.
When racists violently march in the open, purposefully stirring up the worst emotions in all, they are at fault for what ensues. While their rhetoric is bad enough, their actions are worse, with the grave and reprehensible mistreatment they give to others who show up to speak against them. The deaths which come in their wake is on their hands, and indeed, is to be expected as their own rhetoric is of violent destruction of those who they oppose. This is not an issue where we just treat all as equals, and condemn violence “on all sides;” that is as ridiculous as it would be to blame the Jews and Nazis together for concentration camps. One can wonder if this was a predetermined attack, as it was clear an innocent was likewise framed for the attack, trying to make it look like it was someone against Trump and the march who was at fault, and it seemed too well organized a response for it to be an after-the-fact action of the alt-right.
Christians, therefore, need to expose the darkness in our society, to reject all such evil and to proclaim the truth, even if and when the light exposes the darkness, those in the darkness will fight back. The cancer in society has to be exposed if it is to be treated, otherwise it will grow and become much worse and destructive in the future. Christians need to see the end goal which is to help in the healing of society and overcoming the destruction wrought by the evil that we do. Christians must look to Christ and seek to establish the peace which is in heaven here on earth (as we pray every time we recite the Our Father). In Christ, we are told the divisions established by sin are overcome: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28 RSV). If we are to follow Christ and be in Christ, we are to take this to the world, to seek unity which overcomes the divide in the world established by sin. We must truly work to overcome sexism (neither male or female) and racism (neither Jew or Gentile) and make it our mission if we want to be Christians. Anything else, and we repudiate the priestly work of Christ itself.
[Image=Piles of Salt Salar de Uyuni Bolivia by Luca Galuzzi (Lucag), edit by Trialsanderrors [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons]
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