https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIQ68W-nCzc

Mark Charles: “Where Does Jesus Stand on Christian Liberty?”

on June 28, 2017

Mark Charles delivered the second of four lectures on “The Doctrine of Discovery, Racial Justice, and the Mission of the Church” at Peace Fellowship Church on Monday, June 12. He followed his introductory lecture by using Luke 9:46-48 to rebuke American greatness and to discuss his perspective on lament.

An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and made him stand beside him. Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.”

Jesus radically defined greatness as servanthood. Charles contrasted this paradigm with white American perceptions of greatness. He first portrayed the electoral college as “deeply rooted in our nation’s racist history…You would have a hard time convincing anyone that we have a great democracy.” He detailed the comparatively inferior American education, healthcare, and economic systems, and he even argued that the United States does not have great freedom because of incarceration rates that “codify slavery.” America is wealthy and powerful not because of God’s blessing, but because of a national political structure that is “systemically racist and inherently unjust.”

He next characterized American greatness, starting with obesity and describing the tragic history of food deserts, which are geographic areas where many live far away from grocery stores. The 26,000-mile Navajo nation of 200,000 people houses only eleven grocery stores with over 90 percent of the food allegedly classified as “junk”. He detailed the unjust confiscation of native lands by the Dawes Act as a root catalyst of this crisis. “Food deserts are literally happening along racial lines,” Charles said. He added that today we “look at our greatness, which is military spending, energy and resource consumption, income inequality, mass incarceration of people of color, military bases on foreign soil, and obesity; all of these things are actually components of colonialism. This is where America’s greatness lies.”

He then discussed how this “greatness” elected President Trump. “The challenge with Donald Trump is he actually understood what made America great in the first place, which was systemic and explicit racism and sexism,” Charles said. He continued to critique the 81 percent of white Evangelicals and the 60 percent of white Catholics who voted for Trump because of pro-life convictions and religious liberty. He criticized the pro-life movement for “not arguing a comprehensive value for life” and the religious liberty movement as “wanting to subjugate people to Christian prayer, and Christian liberty…Where does Jesus stand on Christian liberty? Does it exist? No.” Rather, white Evangelicals supposedly ignored Jesus’ teaching to pray to our Father in secret and, thus, “threw women under the bus, they threw immigrants under the bus, they threw other religions under the bus, all so they could have the freedom to more pious praying in public in a way that absolutely ensured God wasn’t going to hear their prayers in the first place.”

Charles expressed his two prayers that God would prophetically rebuke the white Evangelical Church and that He would prune it. “As Christians, we supposedly have this notion of a Christian church that can be in bed with the empire,” Charles alleged. “Our nation is a Christian Empire.” Lambasting this alleged empire’s attempts at apology, he likened Pope Francis’ controversial canonization of Junipero Serra to “canonizing someone from the KKK.” He then turned to considering a repudiation of this Doctrine of Discovery, but grieved the purportedly shallow intentions of real reconciliation. He finally claimed that perhaps lament is the most appropriate response to the grievances of white Christians. But “if you’re going to go to that dark space of lament, you have to have some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.” For many Christians, this hope is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14:

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

The problem with this comfort is that this hope was specifically directed at Israel, God’s chosen nation. Charles claims “there is nothing in the Scriptures that promise us that if we confess our sin, God is going to heal our land.” This is merely how “we cope with our genocidal path…As Americans, we are the pagans in the Old Testament narrative. The pagans’ hope comes from something very different than the Jewish people’s hope…That’s the way we have to train ourselves as Americans to read the Old Testament because we do not have the same promises and covenants that Israel had with the God of Abraham.” Thus, “the hope we have as Americans doesn’t come from a covenant with God; it comes from the character of God.”

More thoroughly, Charles acknowledged his own complicity in the Doctrine of Discovery while buying and selling land in the United States. “Life is so much easier if we just assume this land was discovered,” Charles said. “What does it mean for us as Christians for us to get out of bed with the Empire?” He answered his own question by telling his audience to live as Christians, and not as Americans. He concluded by interpreting a beautiful picture of lament in Nehemiah 1:4-11.

When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Then I said: “Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’ “They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.”

Charles challenged the audience to model our lament after Nehemiah’s journey. The entry point into the process of reconciliation is “lament till God moves, touches you, speaks to you.” While he began with the New Testament, the totality of his message was grounded in lament of the Old Covenant and had very little discussion about the purpose of the cross, the redemption of grace, or the unconditional love of God. For Charles, Christian reconciliation is grounded not in repentance or forgiveness, but in indefinite lament of our permanent and irreconcilable brokenness.

  1. Comment by Scott on June 29, 2017 at 9:39 am

    Institutional hatred expressed through Christian scripture has always produced a toxic theology.

  2. Comment by Jason on June 29, 2017 at 8:07 pm

    I’ve run across Charles before. He speaks enough truth to make his broad cultural/political interpretations sound plausible. He, however, seems to be a left wing ideologue with neither the historical or theological credentials that he ought to be taken seriously. He is more of a performance artist for the White Guilt crowd on Christian college campuses. Theologically orthodox and politically balanced voices are needed in the important work of racial reconciliation and justice. Unfortunately, too many Christians are seduced by Mark Charles and his ilk.

  3. Comment by Penny Bagby on July 8, 2017 at 1:00 am

    Charles said, “The problem with this comfort is that this hope was specifically directed at Israel, God’s chosen nation.” But God —
    Has he read the New Testament? “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:29 The promise is not necessarily to Americans, but to all Christians across the world. The familiar verse of 2 Chronicles 7:14 can be for any nation whose Christian population dedicates themselves totally to God, including our own. If we are Christ’s, then we are genetically imprinted with every promise he made to Israel.

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