May God Have Mercy on Us

To my fellow humans who now feel marginalized, I am sorry. Sorry that your struggles were ignored, your fears increased. But, more personally, I am sorry that I didn’t do more. I allowed my position of privilege to quiet my doubts and to dull my perceptions of the pervasive and systemic bigotry still evident in our population. I falsely assured myself that I was only seeing a loud minority in spite of evidence to the contrary. Instead of finding solidarity with you as a vocal minority, I too often chose to justify my tepid responses with excuses that everyone is entitled to their view, that my voice wouldn’t make a difference, that I was the odd person out. While my apology is too late, my conviction is strong and my prayer deeper for both God’s grace and strength to stand more firmly with you.

To my fellow white evangelicals, the apostle John, in both his Gospel and epistle identifies our love for one another as a defining mark of Christianity, even going so far to suggest that a lack of love is a defining mark that we are not Christians. Matthew reinforces Christ’s message that as we do to the least of these, we do unto Him. This week, 81% of you have assuaged your own fears by increasing those of others, have sought safety by endangering the lives of others, have pursued your own prosperity at the poverty of others, have listened to the screams of hate over the cries of oppression. May God have more mercy on our souls than we have demonstrated this week.