America on the Brink

is reserved for those in his or her group or selective malevolence for those outside his or her group, it is easy to be snared in hate’s web and guilty of what may be Thurman’s most profound point when he said hate “makes [it] possible for an individual to be life-affirming and life-negating at one and the same time” (Thurman 85). This sounds like a lot of Americans today – life- affirming and life-negating, indicative of a country losing its soul. My second point is a warning. Nothing positive, constructive, or creative comes from hate. For example, look at the condition of our infrastructure or how we responded to the pandemic. Discord cripples our vision and will to respond effectively to social challenges we face. Thurman’s conclusion about hate was threefold. First, he said that Jesus rejected hate. And so, it is ironic that hate has become so acceptable in a country claiming to be Christian and following the teachings of Jesus. The other two things he said was that hate destroys the core life of the hater and dries up the springs of creative thought. By placing it at the center of who we choose to be in this moment and our interactions with others, we are choosing a path with a destructive end because we lack creativity and collective will needed to address the complex problems we face today. Our energy will be consumed fighting one another, which is why Jesus wisely said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” (Mark 3:25). The second core problem at the heart of the American crisis is religious. Many Christian churches, organizations, and leaders are morally bankrupt and unable to bring the great teachings and ideas of religion to bear on our national life . What makes this crisis so acute is that our churches buttress so many families and educational institutions. When churches cannot provide moral support to the nation, it compounds the nature of the crisis we are in and leaves us lost. Faith communities of all kinds play a vital role in society that goes beyond matters of personal piety, teaching, and worship for its adherents. They should contribute to the broader good of society. Churches should draw on teachings in Scripture to remind the country that God is the creator of all humanity and not just Americans or people of one race, that God loves justice and mercy, calls us to live together in peace, and to love our neighbor. We must keep these ideas before the state at all times. In this respect, many, not all, Christian churches are failing. The church in America has been here before during the centuries of African slavery and the Jim Crow era. In the previous era, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was deeply troubled by the apathy and mixed witness of Christianity in a pivotal moment in history. In response to a statement eight clergymen issued in the newspaper criticizing Dr. King’s Birmingham campaign, he expressed disappointment in the church, something he would often do as the movement continued throughout the sixties. “I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church…all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of the stained-glass windows…In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church” (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963).

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