FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP HAROLD DEAN TRULEAR
Jena 6 Surprise
response. Despite our growing awareness of social issues and our increased influence in the public square, we have not paid much attention to issues of racial justice in the past decade. If we feel that The events that have unfolded in the racial justice has already been achieved, small Louisiana town of Jena over the we are merely engaging in head-burypast two years should give pause for care- ing and will be impotent to work toward ful reflection among people of good any justice, for any cause. will, especially evangelical Christians of No, the problem lies in the smallness social conscience. In the fall of 2006, six of our hearts. Most of our political presblack teenagers from Jena were charged ence coincides with the interests of our with the attempted murder of a white own communities—we are most engaged student in a fight born of long-standing when we see the direct consequences racial tension. Prior to the fight, tensions for ourselves.What could be more natuhad been exacerbated when three white ral, you might ask? But “natural” is not students hung a noose from a tree out- what we are asked by our Savior to be side their school—and exacerbated fur- —Christ calls us to be new creations, actther when school authorities failed to ing not out of natural instincts but from respond to the “prank” with the seri- a renewed and spiritual mind. ousness it merited. As Jacques Ellul warned us a genJena has since joined other pivotal eration ago in False Presence of the Kingdom towns in American history—places like (Seabury Press, 1963), Christians have Scottsboro, Ala., and Philadelphia, Miss. allowed the media to determine what —as an iconic reminder of historic con- social issues we respond to rather than flicts that scar our nation’s landscape. If engage in a process of discernment and Martin Luther King was correct in his research to root out injustice in our assertion that to be human is to be “caught midst, even when those involved do not in an inescapable web of mutuality,” then look like us. We failed to be proactive in there is a lesson in the events that have addressing issues of race and culture in the transpired in this tiny timber town. public square: Where were we when the For American race relations, the events 2004 presidential campaign was silent on remind us of a not-so-distant past that race issues, the first to be so since 1944? still lingers with us today. According to The Jena 6 events temporarily roused CNN, the “noose” incident has been black churches from their preoccupation repeated in a number of places, including with personal-destiny fulfillment; but an office at the Coast Guard Academy after gathering for a ’60s-style protest, in Connecticut, a suburban New York those churches returned immediately to police station locker room, a North business as usual in the aftermath. The Carolina high school, a Home Depot in dominant voices of the black church again New Jersey, and on the campus of the preach self-interested versions of the University of Maryland. Though some gospel that leave little room for social may want to dismiss these as isolated justice. I am still waiting for someone to incidents or foolish pranks, they point preach a sermon on TV that identifies a to something far more serious, some- believer’s destiny as living among the thing between gross insensitivity to a poor and alongside the oppressed, or to tragic/evil past and a tragic/evil desire prophesy “Let justice roll down like waters, to regain that past. and righteousness as a mighty stream.” The events place evangelical Christians Black churches used to be places where in a defensive posture that calls for a people went to meet God (emphasis on PRISM 2008
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God’s presence)—now people go to “get fed” (emphasis on my needs). Meanwhile, our justice system continues to reflect our nation’s punitive ethos, supported by a consensus of fear among ordinary Americans. We want revenge, not healing, and the system is willing to oblige. Thus black youth and their families are left to wrestle with the competing pressures to take a strong stand against racism and to abide by the laws of a system that is often strongly biased against them, without the benefit of a biblically based worldview from which to act prophetically. On the whole, the Jena 6 case caught us off guard. Surely this is because, contrary to popular wisdom, racism— even of the systemic variety—has not been eradicated from the United States. Instead of holding on to Martin Luther King’s dream of racial reconciliation, nurturing and fighting for it as the valuable yet fragile vision that it is, we have instead domesticated it through the celebration of his birthday, a “holiday” that sends us out into avenues of service. Twenty years ago Dr. Charles Adams, a Detroit-based pastor, warned us that the best way to kill King’s dream of justice was to honor King with a holiday, romanticizing his prophetic edge and dulling his prophetic witness. “Often it is easier to honor a dead hero than to wrestle with a living presence,” he said. So while we honor a subdued Civil Rights leader, we in fact stifle the very vision that would confront the systemic racism so ubiquitous in our society that most of us are quite literally blind to it (what color are calamine lotion and Band Aids, anyway, and why?). The dream of a justice system based on facts/deeds rather than bias/color remains elusive. The many sides of the Jena 6 story include none that should take us by surprise. It is a real tragedy that they did. ■ Dr. Trulear teaches theology at Howard University School of Divinity.