Innocence
I found myself thinking of the term innocence this morning. It is, after all, Sunday and in the religious tradition in which I grew up, Sunday was the Sabbath. Growing up I incorrectly thought that Sunday was the Sabbath for everyone. Although not a religious family, my siblings and I sometimes attended church school. As a high school student I joined the Southern Baptist Church. My paternal grandmother Pickett did, at some point in her adult life, become more religious although our mother did not understand or, perhaps did not trust, this conversion. The Christian Church assured all who entered its hallowed doors that they, if they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior and ask to be forgiven of their sins, could spend eternity with Christ. To this end, the sanctified members of the church would pray for and over those of us who continued to live in a state of sin. It was clear that we were all sinners although we could choose to live in a state of Grace if we obeyed all the rules. In addition to the Ten Commandments there was a long list of potential sins. No one, except perhaps the severely mentally challenged and the smallest of infants, could claim innocence or ignorance as excuse for sin.
Early on, I heard - or did I intuit from sermons and conversational pronouncements - that some were more deserving of redemption than others. I am quite sure that the Sheridan Road Baptist Church did not include people of color, Native Americans, the homeless, those addicted to alcohol or other drugs, and or those who admitted to enjoying sexual relationships with either the same or opposite sex.
I also do not recall any mention of the fact that justice could be bought with money, the right lawyer, or the color of one’s skin.
Neither do I recall hearing about the unequal distribution of wealth or the fact that Jesus seemed to be this homeless person who quit his carpenter job and merely hung out teaching and distributing tokens of love to everyone regardless of their behavior.
In many ways it seemed we were ignorant of the contradictory nature of the teachings of this church. We were led to believe that innocence protected us from eternal damnation.
Today, few people in the United States or in many other parts of the world can claim innocence. Unless a particular country is effective in blocking or limiting cell phone service and access to the internet, one is bombarded with the news of sexual behavior, war, greed, and the theater of the illusion of justice.
Michelle Alexander, an African American civil rights attorney who attended Vanderbilt University and who is the author of the well-read book, The New Jim Crow, points out the fact that behavior which was quite acceptable at a fraternity party landed many others in prison and permanently branded them as the undeserving of jobs, housing and other apparent “luxuries.” She was not taught in college or law school that justice is not blind or equal. After law school she found out that one in four women in the United States will have a family member in prison and one in two black women will have a family member in jail. As has been pointed out by many, as the crime rate in the United States has gone down the incarceration rate has gone up. Unless someone is acutely developmentally or mentally challenged, the claim of innocence of the disparity in so-called justice in these United States could not be validated in any freshman level or even high school level introduction to scientific research.
We humans seem to have an endless capacity for preventing one part of our mind from knowing what another part of our mind knows.
Perhaps on whatever day we celebrate the Sabbath the sin of which we are the guiltiest is that of feigning innocence. None of us are innocent of the lies we tell ourselves and, yet, it is a peculiar trait of we humans to assign blame to individuals rather than to a system which has been designed to feed and justify the lie that we are better than, more than, or more deserving than.
It is wonderful that there are an increasing number of individuals and organizations which are giving voice to the lie of innocence. Yet many of us are not only witnessing but applauding the theatrics of the presidential candidates in the United States who throw stones at each other while claiming innocence. Even the campaign staff of Mr. Trump have claimed that his behavior to date was just theater and that we will soon see a Presidential candidate. Yet, here is a man who can promise one thing in a business contract and do something else and then claim bankruptcy, hurl insults at just about everyone, advocate violence, and blame the Muslims, the press, and some other countries while threating to build a wall and making the Mexican government pay for it. So great is our need to claim innocence or victim status that we could end up electing such a person as President.
Lest we be tempted to throw stones, we must also come to terms with the fact that many, if not all, of us also claim innocence.
The question which I must ask myself is what happens if none of us are innocent and all of us are part of an interlocking system who benefit from this theater of the absurd. Yes, they were right, we all are sinners and not even the “blood of Jesus” is going to wipe away that fact. The good news is that if all of us are sinners and a part of the problem then the use of the term has no meaning and we can safely quit with the name calling, the stone throwing, and the finger pointing.
One of the truths is that the police we hire, the police we train, and the police that shoot the unarmed teenager are doing what we have told them to do. Yes, if we are going to label X as the criminal then we have to punish them. If we are going to label the police office as the criminal, then we have to lock up that police officer. On the other hand, if the problem is not the police officer nor X then we have to assume community responsibility for the issues and assign community responsibility for finding a way to live and work together. Together we have to let go of the illusion of innocence.
Written April 24, 2016
I found myself thinking of the term innocence this morning. It is, after all, Sunday and in the religious tradition in which I grew up, Sunday was the Sabbath. Growing up I incorrectly thought that Sunday was the Sabbath for everyone. Although not a religious family, my siblings and I sometimes attended church school. As a high school student I joined the Southern Baptist Church. My paternal grandmother Pickett did, at some point in her adult life, become more religious although our mother did not understand or, perhaps did not trust, this conversion. The Christian Church assured all who entered its hallowed doors that they, if they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior and ask to be forgiven of their sins, could spend eternity with Christ. To this end, the sanctified members of the church would pray for and over those of us who continued to live in a state of sin. It was clear that we were all sinners although we could choose to live in a state of Grace if we obeyed all the rules. In addition to the Ten Commandments there was a long list of potential sins. No one, except perhaps the severely mentally challenged and the smallest of infants, could claim innocence or ignorance as excuse for sin.
Early on, I heard - or did I intuit from sermons and conversational pronouncements - that some were more deserving of redemption than others. I am quite sure that the Sheridan Road Baptist Church did not include people of color, Native Americans, the homeless, those addicted to alcohol or other drugs, and or those who admitted to enjoying sexual relationships with either the same or opposite sex.
I also do not recall any mention of the fact that justice could be bought with money, the right lawyer, or the color of one’s skin.
Neither do I recall hearing about the unequal distribution of wealth or the fact that Jesus seemed to be this homeless person who quit his carpenter job and merely hung out teaching and distributing tokens of love to everyone regardless of their behavior.
In many ways it seemed we were ignorant of the contradictory nature of the teachings of this church. We were led to believe that innocence protected us from eternal damnation.
Today, few people in the United States or in many other parts of the world can claim innocence. Unless a particular country is effective in blocking or limiting cell phone service and access to the internet, one is bombarded with the news of sexual behavior, war, greed, and the theater of the illusion of justice.
Michelle Alexander, an African American civil rights attorney who attended Vanderbilt University and who is the author of the well-read book, The New Jim Crow, points out the fact that behavior which was quite acceptable at a fraternity party landed many others in prison and permanently branded them as the undeserving of jobs, housing and other apparent “luxuries.” She was not taught in college or law school that justice is not blind or equal. After law school she found out that one in four women in the United States will have a family member in prison and one in two black women will have a family member in jail. As has been pointed out by many, as the crime rate in the United States has gone down the incarceration rate has gone up. Unless someone is acutely developmentally or mentally challenged, the claim of innocence of the disparity in so-called justice in these United States could not be validated in any freshman level or even high school level introduction to scientific research.
We humans seem to have an endless capacity for preventing one part of our mind from knowing what another part of our mind knows.
Perhaps on whatever day we celebrate the Sabbath the sin of which we are the guiltiest is that of feigning innocence. None of us are innocent of the lies we tell ourselves and, yet, it is a peculiar trait of we humans to assign blame to individuals rather than to a system which has been designed to feed and justify the lie that we are better than, more than, or more deserving than.
It is wonderful that there are an increasing number of individuals and organizations which are giving voice to the lie of innocence. Yet many of us are not only witnessing but applauding the theatrics of the presidential candidates in the United States who throw stones at each other while claiming innocence. Even the campaign staff of Mr. Trump have claimed that his behavior to date was just theater and that we will soon see a Presidential candidate. Yet, here is a man who can promise one thing in a business contract and do something else and then claim bankruptcy, hurl insults at just about everyone, advocate violence, and blame the Muslims, the press, and some other countries while threating to build a wall and making the Mexican government pay for it. So great is our need to claim innocence or victim status that we could end up electing such a person as President.
Lest we be tempted to throw stones, we must also come to terms with the fact that many, if not all, of us also claim innocence.
The question which I must ask myself is what happens if none of us are innocent and all of us are part of an interlocking system who benefit from this theater of the absurd. Yes, they were right, we all are sinners and not even the “blood of Jesus” is going to wipe away that fact. The good news is that if all of us are sinners and a part of the problem then the use of the term has no meaning and we can safely quit with the name calling, the stone throwing, and the finger pointing.
One of the truths is that the police we hire, the police we train, and the police that shoot the unarmed teenager are doing what we have told them to do. Yes, if we are going to label X as the criminal then we have to punish them. If we are going to label the police office as the criminal, then we have to lock up that police officer. On the other hand, if the problem is not the police officer nor X then we have to assume community responsibility for the issues and assign community responsibility for finding a way to live and work together. Together we have to let go of the illusion of innocence.
Written April 24, 2016
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