Our Agenda is Justice
David Phillips Hansen
Our
agenda is justice. When the political, economic, and spiritual life of
the nation moves toward justice there is joy in the land and the whole
body politic is healthier. But today we are confronted by a system of
growing inequality and naked injustice. Wealth and power are increasing
concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people and corporations.
Oppression and exploitation act with impunity. There is work to be done.
At
the moment the future is unclear. Will we become a kleptocracy, as many
fear, or a democracy? Will we have a government of the wealthy, for the
wealthy, by the wealthy? Or, will we be able to defend, preserve and
protect a government of the people, for the people, by the people? The
answer to these questions may come sooner than we expect. Government and
legislative leaders across the land are telling us that children do not
need quality public education, health care is not a right but a
privilege, and national parks and monuments are not a treasure to
preserve but an economic resource to exploit. We are being asked to
believe that people are expendable and the earth is a commodity.

But
in town hall meetings, congregational gatherings and union halls people
are standing up and fighting back. Movements like Black Lives Matter
and Resist have taken to the streets and to capital steps. People's
courage and commitment is breathtaking. Each of these struggles is
necessary. Each is important. What is missing is adequate theological
analysis. Our theology is not as helpful as it could be. We need a more
adequate understanding of our history. We still want to believe that the
United States is "the land of the free and the home of the brave." We
want to sing, "My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty. . . .Long
may our land be bright with freedom's holy light."
We
have yet to grapple with the darker side of our nation's history. We
cherish the words of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men [sic] are created equal, and
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." These
are powerful words that cause emperors to quake and empires to crumble.
But we have forgotten that this same document, the Declaration of
Independence, labels American Indians "merciless savages," and it goes
on to say that their "known rule of warfare is an undistinguished
destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions." We want to forget that
many of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence also bought
and sold human beings in the slave market.
We
have not yet come to terms with this side of our history. We have
forgotten that there were 70 to 80 million Indigenous Peoples in the
Americas when Columbus "discovered" America in 1492. Native People lived
here for 20,000 years or more before the dawn of the European Age of
Discovery and Domination. We have not yet come to terms with what
historian Charles Mann describes as the largest deforestation project in
the history of the world, which happened as Euro-Americans moved from
the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi River.

Only recently have we,
white people, been willing to acknowledge that Indian boarding schools were
by design what historian David Wallace Adams calls, "education for
extinction." The motto of these schools was "Kill the Indian, save the
man." Today some Native Peoples call Indian reservations "extermination
centers." Extermination centers in the heart of the land of the free and
the home of the brave. We have not yet come to terms with this side of
our history.
The
United States today is a house divided. We have two histories that are
met in a single document, the Declaration of Independence. One side
extols our virtues, the other side reveals our shame. We have yet to
come to terms with the fact that the United States is and was from the
beginning a settler nation. White people suffer from what Navajo scholar
Mark Charles calls "white trauma." White people are shamed by our
history of Indian genocide, Black slavery and ecocide. Because we cannot
accept responsibility for our history, we project the myth of American
exceptionalism. We tell ourselves that the United States is the last
best hope for freedom. We extol the virtues of rugged individualism and
the free market. Because we deny the truth about our history, we justify
colonial wars in distant lands, and label movements like Black Lives
Matter and Resist as terrorist organizations.

Because
white people suffer historical trauma, we gave tacit assent to then FBI
Director James Comey when he formed an Interagency Terrorism Task Force
to investigate and interrogate water protectors, members of the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their allies who tried to block the North
Dakota Access Pipeline. It is not by accident that 480 people were
arrested there. Indigenous People were protecting their water and
defending the land guaranteed to them by the Fort Laramie Treaty of
1851. In that treaty the U.S. government promised the Indians that the
land would be theirs as long as the sun rises in the east and the rivers
flow. The Fort Laramie Treaty is one of 370 treaties ratified by the
United States Senate. It is noteworthy that the United States has
unilaterally violated every one of these treaties. Yet, it was the
Native Peoples and their allies who were sprayed with mace, attacked by
dogs, shot with rubber bullets, locked in cages, and arrested. What we
witnessed at Standing Rock is the increasing militarization of law
enforcement and the criminalization of dissent.
We
are a nation divided. Lincoln warned long ago that a house divided
cannot stand. But there is a balm in Gilead to heal our sin sick soul.
Jesus promised that if we tell the truth, the truth will set us free.
The prophet Isaiah told us, "beautiful upon the mountain of care are the
feet of those who bring good news to the captive." President Obama said
that if we love our country we have a responsibility to change it. Dr.
King reminded us that "the great glory of American democracy is the
right to protest for the right."
When
we "pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," let
us remember that those words were written by Edward Bellamy in 1890. He
was a Baptist preacher and a Christian socialist. He wrote the Pledge
of Allegiance in the Gilded Age in the hopes that it would spark a moral
vision and reign in rampant materialism and excessive individualism.
Katherine Lee Bates penned, "My country tis of thee sweet land of
liberty," in 1893. She was a lesbian and a Christian socialist.
There
is a balm in Gilead to heal our sin sick soul. In March of this year
the Jesuits returned 525 acres to the Lakota Sioux Tribe on the Rose Bud
Reservation. More recently Andover Newton Theological Seminary reached
out to 396 Indigenous tribes and nations with an offer to return stolen
items that are housed in its museum. These may seem like small steps but
they are important steps. Returning stolen property is an act of
justice. It is a sign of hope. It is a healing balm.
It
is a sign of hope when people and institutions withdraw funds from
banks and financial institutions that seek to profit from pain and
injustice. To date more than $5 million has been withdrawn from banks
and financial institutions as part of a global effort to defund DAPL. It
is a movement that must continue and spread. Energy companies are
building pipelines in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Florida. In all these
places Native Americans are protesting these developments as violations
of treaty agreements.
We
must connect the fight for interracial justice to the fight for
economic justice. We cannot have one without the other. Institutions
like the Native American Bank are investing in economic development in
indigenous communities. In many states there is renewed interest in
public banking and co-operatives. There is growing consensus among
economists that the present neoliberal economic system will not last
another 40 or 50 years at most. If we want to create a more transparent
and democratic economy the time to act is now.
Saint
Augustine said long ago that God has given us a world in which there is
enough to meet everyone's need, but not enough to satisfy one person's
greed. Yet, greed has become the basis for global economic growth. The
World Council of Churches reports that every day private financiers
exchange $1.5 trillion worth of currency. Less than five percent of that
vast sum goes to the creation of actual goods and services.
A
rising economic tide does not lift all the boats. It does not end
poverty. It exacerbates poverty. The gap between the rich and the poor
is as great as the chasm that separated Dives and Lazarus in the parable
of Jesus found in Gospel of Luke. It is the power of the wealthy and
the weakness of the poor that perpetuates poverty. But there is a balm
in Gilead to heal our sin sick soul. The World Council of Churches has
produced important study documents we need to use in our churches. The
WCC has identified global capitalism as an idolatry. Market
Fundamentalism is a misguided faith in the sanctity of private property
and power of the so-called "free market." It is a system that privatizes
wealth and imposes the burden of cost on the public, while at the same
time stealing vital and necessary resources and reserves from the public
purse.
To
help us better understand what is happening the World Council of
Churches proposes that in addition to talking about the poverty line, we
also need to talk about the "greed line." When one person's annual
income is measured in terms of millions and billions of dollars, when
most of a person's income comes from favorable tax codes, royalties and
rents, dividends and deferred payments, when those in the front office
are earning on average 471 dollars for every dollar paid to the person
on the shop floor, we need to talk openly about the connection between
greed and poverty.
As
a justice-seeking, justice-loving people let us counter the Gospel of
Prosperity for the few with a Gospel of Good News for all. The measure
of the economy is not the GDP, or the S & P, or the DOW. The true
measure of healthy economy is the well-being of the people. We need an
economic measuring stick that values access to health care, decent
housing, safe communities, good schools, and jobs that pay a living
wage.
As
a justice-seeking, justice-loving people we need to cherish this good
earth. A Native American scholar told me that the difference between
white people and Indians is that white people think the earth belongs
to them, Indians think they belong to the earth. Caring for the earth is
what makes and keeps us grounded. Our watchwords for the future are
cooperation and balance, not competition. We can learn to respect
boundaries without making them barriers. Faith communities can be, must
be, pioneers in creating a civil society.
In Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch Bible, in
the Sermon on the Mount the words of Jesus are unmistakable and clear:
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice; for they will be
given plenty to chew on." My friends, God has given us plenty to chew
on.
Dr.
William Barber challenges us with these words: "It is time to dig a
little deeper, work a little harder, organize a little better." In the
words of Isaiah, "Those who wait on the Lord shall mount up on eagle's
wings. " We shall run and not grow weary. We shall walk and not faint.
With heads held high we shall sing, "My country 'tis of thee sweet land
of liberty."