In a recent Lakelands Institute podcast, titled “Violence Against Asian Americans and the Church,” progressive United Methodist Church (UMC) leaders the Rev. Steven Martin and the Rev. Neal Christie convened to dissect the recent uptick in violence against Asian Americans and how the church should address this issue.
This conversation was released in the wake of the March 16 series of shootings in three metro Atlanta spas, in which eight people, six of whom were Asian American women, lost their lives. The shooting came after nearly 3,800 hate crimes against Asian Americans have been reported to the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Martin and Christie, both progressive past UMC officials (Martin served with the National Council of Churches and Christie with the General Board on Church and Society), convened to discuss the “intersections of faith and violence, and how the church can be part of the solution.”
When host Martin stated that the Atlanta gunman’s church had disavowed him, and implied that it was a good thing, Christie responded, “I have a question to that. Is it good? I mean, wouldn’t it have been better if this church, instead of distancing themselves from him, said, ‘He does reflect our community,’ instead of going into a place of denial.
“In other words, the problem I see in the church is that we disavow racist acts, violent acts, misogynistic acts, rather than saying, ‘This is us. This person is a product of our community to some degree.’”
The church, Crabapple First Baptist Church in Milton, a northern Atlanta suburb, released a statement which stated that the gunman’s “actions are antithetical to everything that we believe and teach as a church.”
Moreover, the statement included a Q&A section listing many of the questions the church had received in the wake of the tragedy. In response to a question asking if the gunman had been a member of Crabapple First Baptist Church, the church stated, “Yes. These actions do not in any way reflect the biblical character of a true follower of Jesus Christ and a member of His Church.”
The church said:
“In accordance with the biblical pattern and our church bylaws, Crabapple First Baptist Church has completed the process of church discipline to remove Robert Aaron Long from membership since we can no longer affirm that he is truly a regenerate believer in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 5).”
The statement specifically condemned violence against Asian Americans, saying, “We also explicitly denounce any and all forms of hatred or violence against Asians or Asian-Americans.”
But is such denunciation the correct response, and does the church bear greater responsibility in accepting its own possible culpability in such tragedies? Martin and Christie seemed to think there is a better way, and discussed the example of the Mother Emanuel AME mass shooting in 2015.
In that case, the gunman was a Lutheran and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton released a statement in the wake of this tragedy which stated, “The suspected shooter is a member of an ELCA congregation. All of a sudden and for all of us, this is an intensely personal tragedy. One of our own is alleged to have shot and killed two who adopted us as their own.
We might say that this was an isolated act by a deeply disturbed man. But we know that is not the whole truth. It is not an isolated event. And even if the shooter was unstable, the framework upon which he built his vision of race is not. Racism is a fact in American culture. Denial and avoidance of this fact are deadly.”
Martin insisted that in this instance, “it was just inspiring the degree to which she [Eaton] said, ‘Yes, this man did grow up in our congregations. This man is a product of our faith. And what does that mean?”
Martin and Christie also discussed the role of evangelical purity culture in the Atlanta tragedy. The gunman had spent time in a treatment center for what he described as a “sex addiction.”
“If this is the case and this is someone who had a sex addiction, then we [the church] need to talk about how addiction plays itself out… we have to unpack addictions that we’d rather not talk about in the church, Christie insisted. “And if we can’t talk about it in the church, where else can we talk about it? It’s the one place it should be okay to talk about it.”
Comment by Dan W on March 26, 2021 at 8:47 am
Crabapple First Baptist is in defense mode. Social Media and Corporate News is in sensationalism mode. The facts of this case will eventually be known, but probably not widely reported. Will any of this help the victims families? What about the suspect’s family? Will our society be safer after all of the blame and finger pointing? Politicians and pundits think prayer is useless in these situations. Believers should prove them wrong…
Comment by floyd lee on March 27, 2021 at 5:52 pm
Crabapple First Baptist Church did the right thing. No junk, no fluff, no whitewashing. Just flat-out honesty and humility. Transparent, Bible-believing discussion. Honest answers to real questions.
But the politically-correct “Woke Police” doesn’t care about honest, factual, humble, transparent, Bible-literate responses to horrific situations. Oh no no.
You’re just supposed to say or confess whatever the PC-Police want to hear. Something like, “The Bible-believing evangelical Christianity that our church believes and teaches, motivated and inspired this young white person to become an Anti-Asian mass murderer.” So Christians, please do NOT fall for the “Woke Police” mess!
You’re just supposed to bow down to THEM.
Comment by floyd lee on March 27, 2021 at 5:58 pm
Oops! Please ignore that very last line, it was to be edited out. (Although it IS true that the PC Woke Police honestly do expect Christians to bow down to them, so please don’t ignore it entirely.)
Comment by Brother Thom on March 30, 2021 at 5:35 am
Could someone kindly point me to the scripture in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that states, we should be tossing anyone to the street for any sin? I can’t find it. What I do find is countless scriptures that suggest we should continue to love the sinner, pray for their redemption and play a role in it. Matthew 22:39, Matthew 25:39-40 along with every other act of Jesus Christ convinces me booting a member to the curb is contrary to being in a walk with the Lord.
Comment by P L June MD on April 5, 2021 at 2:44 pm
There is a lot we do not know about this case.
1. Scripture says in I Corinthians 5 “Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? …..12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” Have the elders of the congregation go to the jail and counselled with the accused?
2. While many of the victims were Asian, does that make this a racist crime? Is that why they were targeted or is that coincidence? Their race appears immaterial to the accused’s stated motive.
3. One possible connection that I have not read discussed is sex trafficking. I have heard nothing about the victims’ families and this may not be an issue, but was there more than aromatherapy going on? I heard them described as “massage parlors”. Was prostitution an issue? We are taught to look for evidence of sex trafficking, so I hope it has been considered and ruled out. If it was involved, these women were double victims.