How Christians Should View the Police

A few days ago, a truly horrific video circulated online of a black man, George Floyd, being held to the ground by a police officer (later videos with other angles showed that he was helped by two others).  One other police officer stood by.  The now former officer Derek Chauvin kept Floyd on the ground by pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for several minutes.  Despite pleas from Floyd and the surrounding crowd that Floyd could not breathe and was struggling, Chauvin did not stop.  Floyd eventually lost consciousness and then died due to complications caused by the physical stress.

The brazen disregard for Floyd’s well-being was shocking, almost unbelievable.  It is one thing when officers make questionable calls on split second decisions, but this was not that: The first video was about five minutes long, and there are reports that Chauvin may have had his knee on Floyd’s neck for as many as nine.  It is also reported that Floyd may have become unresponsive for nearly three minutes and the officer still kept his knee on his neck.  Initial reports that Floyd was resisting arrest are irrelevant; not only does further video evidence not support that, it doesn’t matter because he was already cuffed and on the ground.  This was about as cut and dry a case of excessive force as you’ll see.  The nation is justifiably furious.

When cops do indefensible garbage like this, it can bring up difficult questions for Christians.  Christians should care about justice and should not stand for nonsense like that.  At the same time, the Bible commands that Christians respect and submit to government authority and act peaceably, and generally, Christians tend to honor policemen who take on a largely thankless and dangerous job in order to safeguard local communities.

What I will present is an approach to police that is a bit of a corrective to the typical positions on either side of the aisle.  Against leftism and the tenets of critical race theory, I do not think the constant accusations of hidden, “institutional” racism are the best narrative because it is not supported by broad statistical evidence and is usually grounded on an emotional cherry-picking of stories and trying simply to shame people who find such arguments unconvincing.  Against conservatives, I think a healthy skepticism of police is the wise approach because not only are there bad legal precedents that protect cops too much (which is actually “institutional”), common sense and Scripture should lead to a position where we are cautious about people who wield government power.  That doesn’t mean we should think “all cops are bad” and don’t respect the work that good cops try to do, but it does mean that the default trusting of government authority is naive.  We should hold police to a very high standard because the nature of their job requires it.

The broad problem is sinful people with unchecked power.  It’s an issue that can cause not only racial injustice but injustice generally.  This explanation incorporates a broader range of cases of police malpractice against more people.

Review of “Beyond Retribution”: An Unsuccessful Argument for a Restorative Theory of Justice in Scripture

Recently, a story that had been overlooked due to the coronavirus seized national headlines because a video leaked out: Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man, was shot while he was seemingly jogging by two white men in Georgia.  While I normally advise avoiding rushes to judgment, it’s also hard to think of what kinds of new evidence would make it different than what it looks like: An unjustified killing by two foolish men.  To make matters more controversial, the local police did not initially arrest the two men, a father and his son, and the local DA did not charge them, so it took ten weeks and a public outrage for them to get detained.

This event stirs up feelings of anger and frustration among the vast majority of people.  Not only is it sad that someone was killed, there is an intuitive sense that justice wasn’t served initially.   This intuition is a real thing among most people, but that doesn’t mean that we always understand justice well or are able to articulate what it is.  Not only that, we often disagree about what constitutes justice.  Is the death penalty for a child rapist/murderer just?  Is it just for people to have so much more than others?  Should people go to prison for non-violent crimes?

How one answers these questions can partially depend on what theory of justice is accepted (consciously or unconsciously).  Arguably for much of Christian history, especially in the West, Scripture has been read as assuming retributivism/retributionism, the view that the main component of justice is whether someone gets what they deserve based upon what they do or who they are.  Usually, retribution is discussed in the context of punishment: If someone does something bad, it is just that he is punished proportional to the severity of the offense.  No further justification for punishment is required, though that doesn’t mean that other possible benefits of punishment, such as deterrence and reparation, aren’t considered.

This reading of Scripture has been challenged at times in favor of other theories of justice, such as the restorative theory, which is the view that justice is not achieved unless it leads to the reconciliation between perpetrators and victims and society overall.  It is this theory that is pushed by Christopher D. Marshall in Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment.  The book is an older one (2001), and Marshall, at least the time of its writing, was teaching New Testament at Tyndale Graduate School of Theology in New Zealand.

Despite the book’s age, it is interesting and gives a case that the picture of justice in the Bible is not primarily retributive but restorative, and this revelation needs to transform our thinking about certain theological topics, such as the atonement and hell, as well as political ones like the criminal justice system.  However, I think Marshall is ultimately unsuccessful, and despite his background in the New Testament, he struggles under the weight of biblical passages that grate against the conclusions he wants to reach.

When Political Advocacy Overtakes Kingdom Building: Paying for Pro-Life

I don’t have a problem with Christians having political opinions (I clearly have my own), but I always get uncomfortable when we begin to blend strident political advocacy with Scripture and the Great Commission.  While some overlap between Christian concerns and politics is unavoidable, those two spheres are also nowhere near coextensive because God’s kingdom is not of this world while politics very much concerns itself with the “kingdoms” of the world.  Christians on either side of the aisle who put enormous effort into political activism seem to want “the kingdom without the king,” as one writer put it.  Ironically, such preoccupation with politics takes the emphasis off Christ the King and makes it seem like Christians would rather see their political desires fulfilled than people being saved.

This is why it is concerning to hear Norma McCorvey’s, the “Jane Roe” in Roe v. Wade, deathbed confession that she was paid by some evangelicals to become pro-life and parrot certain messages.  The ironic thing is that there are accusations that McCorvey was used by the pro-choice side in that case: They wanted someone to help them fight against Texas’ abortion laws, and they found a scared young woman who didn’t understand what was going on.  Pro-lifers have long used that allegation as a way to blast the pro-choice movement for being dishonest, but then Christians turned around and basically did the same thing to her with the allure of money.  McCorvey overall just seemed to be a complicated woman (as people often are): While she was still in the pro-choice camp, she reportedly would sometimes express regret that she played a role in Roe v. Wade, but when she was in the pro-life camp, she initially said she had no problem with first trimester abortions.  She also reportedly often had her hand out and would demand money even for interviews.  She sounds like a woman who should have been helped spiritually and financially and then left out of the spotlight, but it was just too tantalizing to get her in front of the cameras.

No, Jesus Was Not a Socialist and the Bible Doesn’t Teach Socialism

While I was in college at the University of Texas, I remember one time I walked by the front of Gregory Gym during what is called Rez Week, a week-long event put on by Campus Renewal Ministries that celebrates the resurrection of Christ.  There was a large board that people could write their thoughts on, and one person had boldly written, “Jesus is a Democrat.”  Just a few inches over, someone else wrote the rebuttal, “Jesus would have been a Republican.”   If only Jesus said something about marginal tax rates, we could settle this important debate, right?

Trying to claim Jesus as part of one’s political team or the Bible as teaching one’s political philosophy is an easy (read: lazy) way to try to score political points as a Christian, but it is an enduring irritation for people who like to read the Bible in context.  I’ve seen some fanciful and bad cases from people all over the political spectrum.  There’s Wayne Grudem’s book on politics that even got some under-the-breath scorn from fellow conservative Christians (I had one professor bring it up and just wonder, “Why the heck did Grudem even write such a book, like, who cares what he thinks about politics?”), and while some parts of it may be helpful, other seem to make God look like the maximally great Republican.  There are Christian anarchists with incredibly stretched interpretations of Romans 13 in order to justify their belief that governments shouldn’t exist at all.  There are the likes of Liberty president Jerry Falwell, Jr. who seem like they want to wed Christianity and Trumpism.  And of course, this list wouldn’t be complete without the progressive Christian, who claims Jesus and the Bible point us to things like socialism or, at least, large government programs.

It is the last one I’ll focus on because I’m hearing it more lately.  Socialism, or nice-sounding variants like “democratic socialism,” are all the rage among the young and the “woke” these days, and many Christians have been swept up in the bandwagon.  Many then proclaim that their denunciation of capitalism and support of socialism proves that they care more for the poor, more about justice, and more about the “red-letters” of Jesus.  Indeed, if you even try to get into discussions with some of them on the history and economics of socialism (ie: you think the labor theory of value is greatly flawed), you are often accused of being heartless, greedy, and defensive of the “power structures” that exploit the masses.  Why bother with the details when one has the moral high ground?

More Partisan Hypocrisy: On Joe Biden and Tara Reade

The presidential race has taken a backseat the last couple of months due to the coronavirus, but a story that has gained steamed over the past week or two is the one about Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.  Reade is a former aide to Biden when he was a senator in the early 90’s, and she alleges that Biden was not only really touchy, as other women have complained, but that he pushed her up against a wall while they were alone and forcibly penetrated her with his fingers.

This would no doubt be a very serious matter if it is true, but it’s also wise to refrain from judgment and continue to listen to Reade and wait for more evidence.  Regardless of your feelings about Biden’s politics, that’s how rational people should react.  However, there is a not so insignificant portion of the population that has put itself in a corner because of how partisan they are and/or how they jumped headlong into the #MeToo movement without checking its excesses.  The result is some blatant inconsistencies that are pretty easy to see.