I donât really give a withered fig about Phil Robertson or Duck Dynasty or any other unreal ârealityâ show on basic cable. But I do care, a great deal, about people who are being harmed. And I also care a great deal about the state of the Christian church and whether it stands on the side of people who are being harmed or on the side of those who are inflicting that harm.
This isnât complicated or difficult. This is Christianity 101. This is humanity 101.
When vulnerable people are being harmed, we have two and only two duties â two and only two acceptable responses. We can rush to aid the victims, or we can seek to stop those who are harming them. We can act as pastors or we can act as prophets.
Thatâs it. Those are the only options.
Well, those are the only options if you want to be a decent human being and not a jerk. Being a jerk and refusing to be a decent human being is always an option, I suppose, and if you want to go that route then, by all means, feel free to ignore the pain of the people being harmed, refuse to protect them, or even cheer on those who are doing them harm. You can do that. Doing that is a possible thing that you can possibly do.
But you canât do that without being a jerk â without embracing jerkitude, placing the crown of jerkhood upon your head and transforming yourself into a complete and utter jerk. Thatâs just how it works.
And thatâs why the Duck Dynasty affair was a huge deal. It was a test for the Christian church. It was an incredibly easy test for the Christian church. And the white evangelical church in America failed that test. Completely, utterly failed. The overwhelming majority of white evangelicals did not respond as pastors and they did not respond as prophets. They responded as jerks.
Some were loutish, brutish jerks, cheering for the bullies, chanting âGive us Barabbas!â and piling on to multiply the harm being done to the vulnerable and the powerless and the least of these. Some were smarmy, supercilious jerks, refusing to side with the victims by pretending they were above taking sides and that bystanders are morally superior.
Either way: not pastors, not prophets. Just jerks.
That matters. That does real harm to real people.
And when white evangelicals pull that crap â again and again â and say theyâre doing it in Jesusâ name that matters too. It makes Jesusâ name a banner for jerks.
Thatâs bad. Thatâs really, really bad.
Many people passed the test. Many people were decent human beings instead of jerks. They saw harm being done to others (or to themselves and to others) and they either rushed to protect and support the victims or they rushed to condemn and prevent further harm being done. Most of those people who responded as either pastors or prophets were not white evangelicals. Many were not any kind of Christian at all. But for Christâs sake their response looked a lot more like Jesus than the giant Jesus-Jerkfest the majority of white evangelicals were celebrating â celebrating, because they seemed to think of kicking down at the vulnerable as some kind of victory.
Iâve collected a bunch of the better pastoral or prophetic responses â examples of people who passed this test, and Iâll be posting a few round-ups of those this week.
But first I want to direct your attention to Rachel Held Evansâ important post today on what it means when white evangelicals so badly flunk such an easy, basic test: âWhen evangelicals support Phil Robertson âŚâ
âRather than writing about this myself,â Rachel says, âI thought Iâd open the floor to some Christian brothers and sisters who can explain what evangelical support of Phil Robertson communicates to them.â
And she does. And they do. And I pray to God that someone is willing to listen.
âI wonder how we worship the same God, when Phil Robertsonâs God seems to hate gay folks and be perfectly fine with the subjugation of Black folks (and women),â Brittany Cooper writes. âWhen evangelicals support him and his offensive views, they make it clear that they donât support me, a fellow Christian.â
Benjamin Moberg writes:
When evangelicals support Phil Robertson, it tells me that they want me gone, that theyâll do whatever it takes to scare me away. They will âstand with Philâ in comparing me to alcoholics and terrorists and those who have sex with animals. They will whip social media into a storm I cannot outrun. âŚ
And Osheta Moore writes:
When evangelicals support Phil Robertson and his comments, it tells me weâve grown to love our positions more than people. As an African American woman, it tells me that the Church is not interested in Calvary-like reconciliation; weâd rather stop short at empty words of âIâm with the blacksâ and insensitive generalizations like âthey were godly; they were happyâ and uneducated assumptions that, because you have not heard, seen, or have been party to mistreatment, it doesnât exist.
This matters. This matters a lot.
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