Tribal Church\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nThe person has been robbed and beaten. He\u2019s bleeding on the side of the road. Unlike the Good Samaritan, we step over him. But we have really great reasons for why we do it.<\/p>\n
1) We don\u2019t want to put on a bandage, because we would not be fixing the deeper problems.<\/b>\u00a0I often hear this as a criticism of people who are actually doing the work of feeding the hungry. It is presented as an either\/or. Either you can work of feeding people, OR you can advocate for larger policy changes.<\/p>\n
Most of us don\u2019t have power and access to change the political system. We can vote, protest and agitate, and that\u2019ll take a couple of days out of the year. But we\u00a0can\u00a0<\/i>give a guy a hot meal and listen to him. The hot meal doesn\u2019t keep us from working on systemic problems. Listening and advocacy need to work together. Working for policy changes without personal interaction can be paltry and patronizing, and even disastrous.<\/p>\n
2) We don\u2019t want to be a bad ally.\u00a0<\/b>We have all seen white people who speak for racial justice, while edging out people of color on the podium. We have heard about the pastor who sleeps out on the street for one night, in order to tell about the hardships of homelessness. We know straight people who dramatize the sacrifices they make on behalf of LGBTQ issues, while failing to mention the actual LGBTQ people who have been killed, tortured, bullied, destroyed and denied because of their sexual orientation.<\/p>\n
If we are middleclass, white, and\/or straight, it\u2019s easy to let our fear of being a bad ally keep us from speaking out in support of others. Certainly, we have to be willing to make mistakes and we have to know our place. We need to be the back-up singers and not the solo. But we still need to lift every voice.<\/p>\n
3) There are people who are worse off.\u00a0<\/b>When Kelly Gissendaner was about to get executed, people were praying for her and speaking out on her behalf. Then there was the kick-back. White men with Ph.D.\u2019s began to give Twitter lectures on Gissendaner\u2019s privilege. \u201cIf she weren\u2019t a white woman,\u201d they said, \u201cwe wouldn\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, all of this came from people who haven\u2019t been a woman in prison. They may not have even known the extraordinary torture of domestic violence. They certainly didn\u2019t know what it was like being threatened every single day, then when you act in self-defense, you get locked up for life. Pointing out the privilege of someone on death row, who is moments away from the injection? That\u2019s a great liberal excuse to do nothing.<\/p>\n
4) Doing social justice work is being too political.\u00a0<\/b>I hear this from pastors who shame other pastors for preaching about social justice. They say that we need to make sure we don\u2019t offend anyone in our congregation. Preaching about an issue means that the tepid equilibrium in our congregation might be disturbed. We are called to be pastors to all people, including the rich.<\/p>\n
Too often, we make the assumption that the rich don\u2019t want to be challenged in their faith, and so we\u2019re not allowing them to be full disciples. So we not only make an excuse to do nothing, but we also make assumptions about the rich person\u2019s faith.<\/p>\n
5) We have compassion fatigue.<\/b>\u00a0There are too many problems, too many issues, and we have a limited amount of time, money, and energy.<\/p>\n
But we cannot let our fatigue be an excuse to do nothing. Instead we can open ourselves and commit to one thing. Even if it\u2019s not the hashtag of the month, even if there are people who are worse off, don\u2019t let the compassion fatigue be another liberal reason that we do nothing.<\/p>\n
Carol Howard Merritt is a R3 contributor and blogs at Tribal Church<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First posted at Tribal Church\u00a0 The person has been robbed and beaten. He\u2019s bleeding on the side of the road. Unlike the Good Samaritan, we step over him. But we have really great reasons for why we do it. 1) We don\u2019t want to put on a bandage, because we would not be fixing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2279,"featured_media":3832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[185,710,187,186],"class_list":["post-3829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carol-howard-merritt","tag-ally","tag-carol-howard-merritt","tag-compassion","tag-social-justice"],"yoast_head":"\n
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