Unarmed Empire Revisited #5
Boasting and Supremacy
In the era of Twitter’s verified blue check mark, when folks with no discernible talent, skill, or gifting reach celebrity and billionaire status, a la the Kardashians, and a political discourse littered with claims of hiring “the best people,” and “knowing more than the generals,” the idea of boasting not only seems natural, but, in some quarters has become a virtue. Nevertheless, the scriptures have a much decreased view of boasting than we do, and, along with it, treats boasting’s mother, superiority, as a vice.
Chapter 5 of Unarmed Empire begins to deal with the trouble at the heart of the New Testament church — superiority. Sadly, the same issues persist in our time. At root, the pages of the New Testament deal with the major problem in the early days of Christianity — Jews and Gentiles.
From the days of Abraham, the Hebrews have been God’s people, but with the death and resurrection of Jesus the “diving wall of hostility” has been torn down. Jews and Gentiles are now invited to worship the one God alongside one another. Yet, the generations of each believing themselves better than the other continue to exist.
God’s answer is that a superiority complex is at odds with the person of Jesus and the work of God in the world. In short, superiority is not a Christian behavior.
This week, I’ve been reading Jon Meacham’s terribly fascinating and wonderfully written new biography of Abraham Lincoln, And There Was Light. As you know — though many people have tried to deny it — the Civil War was about white supremacy. That war is not yet over. There are still countless American who believe in racial superiority. What’s more, many of these women and men cal themselves Christian, and don’t blink an eye when doing so.
White supremacists participate in local and national government, are in our workplaces, our schools, are our neighbors and sit with us in the pew. Their behavior, ethics, moral, intelligence, grace, love, invention, and every other virtue are not only not superior, they are inferior. Yet that reality does not keep them from believing preeminence.
The presence of these people in the church is an affront to the gospel. Simply put: You cannot be a supremacist of any stripe and be Christian. And we know this from, of all places, the Christmas story. There at the birth of Jesus we have wisemen, shepherds, family, and Angels. The birth of Jesus itself, brings the world together.