Paradise Lost: The Search for Justice
John Milton’s famous poem Paradise Lost is a difficult read. Most guess that the poem’s plot is Adam and Eve being thrown out of the Garden of Eden, but the story is really about what Lucifer, the fallen angel, has lost. He has lost his paradise. The opening scene has him lying on the floor of Hell wondering how he got there and why he has been defeated. He decides to take his revenge on this new creation of God’s called humans that he loves more than the angels. Satan decides, along with his angelic army, to get his revenge on God through the destruction of the human race. He will seduce, destroy, and conquer man. As Satan observes in Paradise Lost, Book I:
“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
What matter where, if I be still the same…
To reign is worth ambition through in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav’n”
Right now, I must conclude that confusion and chaos like a storm front has covered the American mind and, if you are anything like me, you might be asking, “What is going on and how did we get here?” This runs much deeper than race, the police, or political arguments. Lucifer is currently having a very good run at the destruction of those whom God has made, whom God loves, and to whom God has fully given himself.
The need for justice is deeply embedded in the human soul. That is why I have been sitting around recently with my head in my hands. Like Lesslie Newbigin said, “All great thinking begins with a pain in the mind.” I am searching for some great thought and I have experienced some significant mental anguish in my quest to understand what is going on around me. It seems that the protesters in the streets, the heated debates on the cable channels, and the young African Americans expressions of anger all seem to be a common cry of great pain; a world suffering from injustice.
People of my generation have seen this many times over the years going back to the 1960s. We have lived through the civil rights movement. We have clear memories of the Great March on Washington, the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, black Americans being denied access to schools and universities, and the use of dogs and fire hoses to punish black protesters in our southern cities. We also remember the Black Panthers and the more radical element, the more violent aspects of people seeking justice.
Americans largely agreed that racism written into the law was morally wrong. We had already decided that slavery was wrong. We killed each other in large numbers during the Civil War in order to end legal slavery. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act made it against the law to discriminate based on race. America has made great strides in race relations. America is the most-free, least racist nation in the world. We are the least tribal or even prejudiced people in the world. In principle, we are free to have our say, we are free to express ourselves, and we are free to worship our God, or to not worship any god.
While racial injustice is illegal, it does still exist. More than one thing can be true at the same time. We are not by law racist, but in practice we clearly are in many cases.
There are studies that demonstrate that white applicants for jobs get hired at twice the rate as minorities even though they have the same qualifications. It is true that 1 in 7 church goers believe that interracial marriage is morally wrong. Holding these beliefs are not illegal, and they are not always held by the white culture. Minorities are included in these figures as well.
Have many marching in the streets experienced racism? Yes, they have!
Are they fed up? Of course, they are!
Will marching in the streets change opinions? No!
Will the marches and protesting communicate that there is a problem? Yes, indeed!
This is a both/and situation. We can be the least racist nation and, at the same time, have a good amount of racism existing in our culture. Yes, there are some changes to be made in law enforcement, but there are also many long-term issues. And they are issues of the heart. Most of the conversation that should take place will need to be in private conversations, among Christians and non-Christians alike. However, none of this can take place until everyone respects the rule of law. And until everyone’s voice can be heard.
If white males are not allowed to express their opinion because they are the oppressor and, therefore, whatever they say is only trying to protect their power, then meaningful conversation is a non-starter. Assigning motives to every person based on what oppressed group they belong to or oppressor groups they are from is a losing proposition and will go nowhere. It is like the accusation that if you don’t have a vagina, then you can’t have an opinion about the morality of abortion.
So here I sit, hoping and praying that all of us will realize that justice is essential and that God put the need for it in us. God created us, but we have sinned, and we need redemption.
A starting point for me is that God created all of us in his image. Every living soul is equally loved and valued by God. To look down upon or abuse another human because of skin color is a sin. It is a sin against God and against that person. God has promised justice in the end for every living being. He showed us this most clearly in how he invested in us by becoming a human and suffering with us and, finally, in sacrificing himself in what has become the defining moment of our world; he died on the cross for us. That was the most unjust event in human history.
“He who knew no sin, became sin, that we would become the righteousness of God in him.” - 2 Corinthians 5:21
One thing is true of every person marching, looting, policing, and sitting at home sipping coffee and watching it all on television - we have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.
We are to work now for as much justice as humans can provide for one another. It won’t be perfect and it won’t be unanimous, but it could be the dominant characteristic of my life and of your life and those we touch.
In Pulitzer Prize winning author Jack Miles’ book Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God he writes:
“All mankind is forgiven, but the Lord must die. This is the revolutionary import of the epilogue that, two thousand years ago, a group of radical Jewish writers appended to the sacred scripture of their religion. Because they did so, millions in the West today worship before the image of a deity executed as a criminal and –no less important- other millions who never worship at all carry within their cultural DNA a religiously derived suspicion that somehow, someday, “the last will be first, and the first last.” [Matt. 10:16]
I think this is what everyone wants, but not everyone who wants it even understands that they want it, or how to get there …
Pray my friends, pray.
