My opinion is that white evangelicals throughout American history have often "neglected justice and the love of God" (Luke 11:42). Indian genocide, slavery, segregation, sharecropping, prison gangs, lynching, theft of nearly one-half of Mexico's land, the exploitation of Chinese labor, the imprisonment of innocent Japanese Americans, the stealing of Hawaii, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, have all occurred on our watch, often with our silence or even with our approval and participation. In the midst of this rampant ethnocentrism and oppression, far too few evangelicals have stood for justice and the love of God.
Far too many white evangelicals literally believed and still believe in American exceptionalism---a code word used to legitimate American ethnocentrism---Manifest Destiny, imperialism, White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant, the American trinity. American exceptionalism has been misused much like the OT false prophets misused the beautiful word shalom, to cover oppression. Even today, most candidates in the Iowa cacuses still advocate American exceptionalism---that God has chosen and blessed America---and they do not admit the massive social evil that has been part and parcel of this false teaching.
White evangelicals have been strong on the cross and resurrection gospel, but they have been weak on the kingdom of God gospel as justice for the poor and oppressed; they have been strong on justification by faith, but weak on Jubilee justice.
During the run up to the Iowa caucus, the Holy Spirit has brought my attention again and again to this disturbing verse that Jesus used to describe the hypocritical religion of the Pharisees---"full of greed . . . you neglect justice and the love of God." White evangelicals today are ignoring or approving of the mass incarceration of black males; and they are also participating in an economic system that has created an enormous racial wealth gap; and far too often oppose humane immigration policies. If Iowa evangelicals believe very word in the Bible, why are they violating the extensive biblical teachings on oppression, justice and love?
If Jesus were here in Iowa today and he were visiting all 99 counties preaching the kingdom of God, he would be angrily proclaiming to white evangelicals "Woe to you hypocrites---you are neglecting justice and the love of God. My love, my justice, demands that you stop oppression, release the oppressed. Repent, restitute, repair! Close your church doors for a while, go into the streets, occupy the state house and demand that Iowa stop its unjust participation in the War on Drugs immediately, end racial profiling and the mass incarceration of blacks and Hispanics.
Last Sunday, as she read the Scripture from the pulpit, Leola wept, appropriately so. She was reading from Matthew 25; "I was hungry and you did NOT feed me" etc. With each NOT sentence, she wept.
Jesus himself alternated between weeping and anger. Luke 19:41: "As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it." This was the city of God, the city of justice and shalom, that rejected and stoned the prophets. This was the city that soon was going to reject the Son of God and crucify him. This was the city that God was soon going to destroy using the Roman armies. Jesus appropriately wept over Jerusalem.
But quickly, his weeping turned to anger. He entered into the temple area, overturned the money-changer's tables, and drove out those who were selling. He yelled, "You have made my house a den of robbers!" For a fuller description of Jesus' anger, see Matthew 23. Did Jesus' weeping come from his love? Did Jesus' anger flow from his sense of justice?
In Amos 5:24, we are exhorted to "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an overflowing stream." My paraphrase: "Let just judgments flood the land, and let justice flow like an artesian well." Luke 4:18-19, my paraphrase: "The Holy Spirit has anointed the church to preach good news to the poor; the Holy Spirit has anointed the church to release the oppressed; the Holy Spirit has anointed the church to incarnate Jubilee justice in society."
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