{"id":20905,"date":"2020-06-06T05:38:47","date_gmt":"2020-06-06T05:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=20905"},"modified":"2020-06-08T16:11:21","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T16:11:21","slug":"a-justification-for-unrest-look-no-further-than-the-bible-and-the-founding-fathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/a-justification-for-unrest-look-no-further-than-the-bible-and-the-founding-fathers\/","title":{"rendered":"A justification for unrest? Look no further than the Bible and the Founding Fathers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samira Mehta<\/a>, University of Colorado Boulder<\/a><\/em> and Samuel L. Boyd<\/a>, University of Colorado Boulder<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The civil unrest seen across the United States following the killing of George Floyd<\/a> brings to the fore the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s famous observation that \u201ca riot is the language of the unheard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taken from his 1968 speech \u201cThe Other America<\/a>,\u201d King condemned the act of rioting, but at the same time challenged audiences to consider what such actions say about the experience of those marginalized in society.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n

In other words, peace cannot exist without justice. This conviction has deep roots in Christian thought, it can be traced to the authors of the Bible and early Jewish and Christian communities.<\/p>\n

More recently, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, said of the current protests that the church aligns \u201cwith those seeking justice<\/a>.\u201d The comment follow a controversial visit in which President Trump held a Bible<\/a> in front of St. John\u2019s Episcopal Church \u2013 an act preceded by the dispersal of a crowd of protesters and priests tending to them with the use of tear gas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As scholars of biblical texts<\/a> and religion and culture<\/a>, we believe that understanding how, often violent, unrest informed both early Christianity and the foundational stories of the United States itself can guide us in this current period of turmoil.<\/p>\n

Israelite injustice<\/h2>\n

Deep rooted dissatisfaction with prevailing social injustice and actions against such inequity isn\u2019t new. It would have been a familiar theme to the people who wrote the Bible and it is reflected in the texts themselves.<\/p>\n

Unrest lies at the heart, for example, of the biblical story<\/a> about the origins of ancient Israel. As recounted in the books of Genesis and Exodus, Abraham\u2019s grandson Jacob travels to Egypt for food in a time of famine. After Jacob\u2019s descendants are made slaves, Moses delivers Israel from bondage and leads them back to the promised land.<\/p>\n

Here, the event that sparks liberation<\/a> is Moses\u2019 witnessing of the oppression of the Israelites. The book of Exodus details how they left Egypt with gold and silver procured in somewhat uncertain circumstances from their Egyptian neighbors. The manner of this acquisition would be a topic of discussion in biblical interpretation for centuries, for fear that it looks like plunder.<\/p>\n

However, both ancient Jewish and ancient Christian sources viewed these goods as \u201cfair wages,\u201d in the words of the scholar James Kugel<\/a> \u2013 just repayments for the Israelites\u2019 years of slave labor.<\/p>\n

Archaeological evidence<\/a> points to a generally different origin story for the ancient nation of Israel \u2013 though one also of social unrest<\/a>. According to some scholars, the settlement stemmed from the rebellion and regrouping of people who fled the collapse<\/a> of large, urban areas in the southern Levant, modern-day Israel and Palestine.<\/p>\n

The biblical impulse toward social justice appears especially in the prophets of the Old Testament, such as Amos and Isaiah whose call for justice and equality<\/a> is a constant theme. It is little wonder, then, that they were cited in the context of the modern-day civil right\u2019s movement. King cited prophets<\/a> from the Bible repeatedly in his \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech. When he talked of \u201cjustice\u201d rolling \u201cdown like waters, righteousness like an everflowing stream\u201d and \u201ccrooked places\u201d being \u201cmade straight,\u201d he is pulling directly from the Books of Amos and Isaiah.<\/p>\n

Early Christian unrest<\/h2>\n

The New Testament also attests to experiences of social unrest in early Christianity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the Book of Matthew, Jesus is quoted as saying, \u201cI have not come to bring peace, but a sword.\u201d And in confronting money changers in the Temple of Jerusalem, Jesus overturns the tables and whips the money changers for their unjust actions.<\/p>\n

To some<\/a> this might provide justification for the destruction of property. Others, however, observe<\/a> that Jesus claims that the Temple belongs to \u201cmy father\u2019s house\u201d \u2013 meaning his family \u2013 and as such cannot be taken as justification for destroying someone else\u2019s possessions.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Caravaggio\u2019s depiction of Christ driving money changers out of the temple.<\/span>
\nWikimedia Commons<\/a>, FAL<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is clear from many passages that the religious movement had a primary concern to care<\/a> for the oppressed<\/a> and that in that context, unrest can sometimes be justified.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, some parts of the Bible have been used to justify the quelling of social unrest. Jeff Sessions, former attorney general of the United States, recently appealed to Romans 13<\/a> when claiming that enforcement of strict immigration reform was the rule of law: \u201cI would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biblical scholars dispute this interpretation, noting that the word \u201claw\u201d appears only once<\/a> in Romans 13, when Paul states that \u201clove does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civil religion and unrest<\/h2>\n

Biblical passages have been used by American politicians for as long as there has been a United States.<\/p>\n

As historian James Byrd has argued<\/a>, the American revolutionaries claimed the apostle Paul gave Christians the license to resist tyrants using violent means.<\/p>\n

In addition to drawing on the Bible, the Founding Fathers also produced a new sacred canon to justify unrest in the event of injustice \u2013 founding stories referred to by scholars as \u201ccivil religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Think, for instance, of the Boston Tea Party dumping tea into the harbor in a protest against an unjust tax. The national narrative sees this as heroic.<\/p>\n

The fact that injustice requires action is similarly supported by the Declaration of Independence<\/a>. It frames the relationship between Britain and the colonies as one of \u201crepeated injuries and usurpations\u201d which the colonists have tried to solve, only to be \u201canswered only by repeated injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

Repeated injustice, then, was grounds for revolution.<\/p>\n

\u2018Deferred dreams explode\u2019<\/h2>\n

Martin Luther King did not call for violence, but said \u201cpeace is not merely the absence of this tension, but the presence of justice<\/a>.\u201d He also stated that if peace meant silence in the face of injustice, then \u201cI don\u2019t want peace<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Clergy of color lead a march in Minneapolis to protest the killing of George Floyd.<\/span>
\nDavid Joles\/Star Tribune via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

King did not think that riots were the best approach to take. But he warned against condemning them, unless society also condemned the conditions that brought riots about<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As one pastor in Minneapolis<\/a> put it, referencing the poet Langston Hughes as she assessed the protests: \u201cDeferred dreams explode.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>.]\"The<\/p>\n

Samira Mehta<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies & Jewish Studies, University of Colorado Boulder<\/a><\/em> and Samuel L. Boyd<\/a>, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Boulder<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Samira Mehta, University of Colorado Boulder and Samuel L. Boyd, University of Colorado Boulder The civil unrest seen across the United States following the killing of George Floyd brings to the fore the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s famous observation that \u201ca riot is the language of the unheard.\u201d Taken from his 1968 speech \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":20906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1829,8157,8131,3205,2150,4310,4309,777,364,8158,8156,6610],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20905"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20935,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20905\/revisions\/20935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}