Flag-Waving SUV - An Introduction by Social Justice Editor Penny Carothers

When Don asked me to contribute to this site I jumped at the chance. It was not feelings of altruism that led me — it was the fact that he tricked me into believing that I’d get to meet Cornel West. Well, almost. But, in truth, I am excited about editing this column for very different reasons. I am not convinced that anyone should actually listen to what I have to say. What I do know, and will share with you first, is that social justice is about much more than I used to think. It is not about me as much as it is about God, not about helping as much as it is about receiving, and last of all, not about how good I am for caring, but how far I have still to come in my love for the people around me.

Let me give you an example. For as long as I can remember, even though I didn’t know it, my sense of social justice was based on anger and distaste for others, and a sense of self-righteousness that at least I wasn’t like them. This feeling was in full swing a year after having left Reed. At that time I was living in Seattle waiting tables, trying to figure out what to do with my life. It was right around the invasion of Iraq and I was feeling pretty unhappy with humanity, and especially humanity of the ultra-conservative persuasion.

On my way to work one day, I turned off of my street and found myself behind one of those SUVs with flags waving in the car exhaust and American nationalist propa…I mean…patriotic stickers covering every inch of the bumper. “What an idiot! Ugh! God Bless THE WORLD not just America!” I practically yelled — at the car. I was yelling at a car. I caught myself up short, completely amazed and ashamed at my anger.

In that moment, I realized I was behaving just like a bigot who judges a person’s intelligence and character based on the color of their skin. At that point, I realized that there was prejudice within me, the same prejudice that resides in the heart of a white supremacist. In that flash of anger I wanted to wipe that yahoo and everyone like him off the face of the planet so I could create a little liberal utopia where no one gets blown up and no one goes to bed hungry. Admirable? Probably. Possible? Not unless I wanted to start a cult — but, no way: been there, done that. Annoying? Most definitely. Part of God’s plan? Certainly not. No matter how often I may think that ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christians were put on earth to torment me, they are here for a purpose. They exist because God made them and loves them, and oh, guess what? I’m just as broken as they are.

It was right around that time that I really started paying attention to my Pastor’s words that all of us — not just the rich or the poor, the married or the divorced, the generous or the miserly — all of us have places in our heart in need of God’s grace. It is far easier to point our fingers and judge than to look at our own lives and ask God to weed out our sin. I am at fault if I judge the multi-millionaire who won’t part with his wealth to help get treatment to people dying of AIDS. I am the one who suffers if I choose to judge rather than change myself.

If I have realized anything since I have become a Christian, it’s that I can do nothing if I judge and condemn, divide and categorize. I am no more morally superior than the man who chose to ram a bunch of planes into the World Trade Center, or the guy who went to war on shady claims, the result being over 2,000 soldiers dead and countless more Iraqis. This is a sobering thought. But it is pointless unless it compels me to do something.

So, I try.

I try to reach out to my neighbors, volunteer whenever I can, give money away, and educate people about the state of the world and the incredible responsibility we, as Americans in the wealthiest country on the planet, have to the world. But I still judge, and I still fail to love. I think it’s OK, no one’s perfect. The point is that we try.

In the articles that I post, and the things I write in the coming months, I will try to balance the personal responsibility to work for justice on a local and global scale, with the absolute centrality of seeing our own sin and weakness as a critical starting point. I am convinced that our acts of service will be treated like chaff if we do not do them in love. And so I hope that you will read these articles and they will spark in you a deeper commitment to knowing Christ and his sense of justice and identification with the poor. I hope that you will lean on his strength as you seek to reach out to those around you whom he calls us to serve. And I hope, above all, that you will do so not because it makes you feel good or so that you can boast about it to your friends or write it on your resume, but because your love for God and your passion for seeing his kingdom come prompts you to love those who are just like you: poor, naked, and in need of God’s grace, even if they can’t hide it as well as you or I.

Posted on December 5, 2005 9:54 PM