A Meditation on Violence

And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

Matthew 11:12 KJV

Every physical and mental motion or action dislodges, dislocates and destroys the inertia that it must overcome in order to act. Inertia is an enemy that only action can destroy. Motion, action is always violent because only violence is capable of moving or acting against the negative force of inertia in the world. To act is to engage in violence in order to overcome inertia. To refuse to act is to allow the violence of inertia to overcome the self. Therefore, the issue is never whether one likes, dislikes, chooses or declines to choose violence, but rather the further investigation of the nature of violence itself.

The violence of child-birth cannot be equated with the violence of cutting off someone’s head. Neither can the violence of building a house for a homeless family be equated with the violence of bombing a village in order to extract the minerals found therein. In the same manner, the violence of freeing oneself from a kidnapper cannot be equated with the violence of enslaving millions of people for their sale to the highest bidder. Nor is the violence of laying one’s life down for another comparable to taking the lives of innocents to demonstrate one’s power to do so. Thus, the false issue of violence versus “non-violence” must give way to the real issue: positive violence versus negative violence.

Positive violence is that powerful word or act which aims at the liberation of enslaved peoples, while negative violence is that powerful word or act which focuses on keeping enslaved peoples enslaved.

The perfect example of negative violence is hate—hate that selfishly takes, enslaves, kills, destroys and steals from those who believe themselves to be powerless and vulnerable.

The perfect example of positive violence is love—love that gives itself unselfishly to free the last, least and lost peoples enslaved by poverty, economic exploitation, and discrimination.

The motive, purpose, use and intent of violence determine whether it will be classified as positive or negative. Every thought, act or behavior that is motivated by hate is negative violence. Contrariwise, every thought, act or behavior that is motivated by love is positive violence.

The Righteous Struggle

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12 KJV

The counter-hegemonic struggle that revolutionary followers of Jesus are engaged in is not a crass struggle for power over and against people, but always a principled struggle against evil, corrupt political, social and economic systems, demonic power structures and the bastions of a Eurocentric nationalist religion that support and encourage global exploitation of the many so that untold riches accrue only to the few.

For revolutionary followers of Jesus, one major battleground for counter-hegemonic struggle is located in the Eurocentric Nationalist church itself and its support of racist policies, politics and politicians, in general, along with its insistence on portraying Jesus as a European who is the idol set up to be worshiped, in particular. The message that God is European (white) drummed into the heads of Africans and other people of color—as well as Europeans who already have an inordinate sense of entitlement and racial privilege—has no place in any 21^st century body of people who claim to confess Jesus as Lord.

The second major battleground is in the Eurocentric-oriented Neo-Colonialist Churches of color and their refusal to call Eurocentric churches out for their denial of the gospel of Jesus, and their own complicity in the oppression of people of color, in general, along with their refusal to proclaim the revolutionary gospel of Jesus for liberation of the oppressed and economic justice for the poor, in particular.

Only such a revolutionary message, made flesh by radical action, true to the biblical mandate, has the power to set the masses of people of color, poor white people, disenfranchised returning citizens, and abandoned U.S. veterans free from the grip of poverty and alienation that destroys them.

The most relevant radical action that we can take now, is to support the Poor People’s Campaign Moral March on Washington, scheduled for Saturday, June 20, 2020. We have an opportunity to model what the kingdom of God looks like in very concrete terms, as we walk together, proclaiming every person’s right to enjoy the basic necessities of life: healthy food, state-of-the-art healthcare, decent, affordable housing, and livable wage employment.

Ode to Freedom

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 NIV

As an African/Edenic person living in a Eurocentric-oriented racist society, I understand that Jesus is the only Revolutionary I can follow because He came to earth to set me, and people of all hues who are similarly situated, completely free from every vestige of slavery and its attendant indicia of bondage. The freedom that Jesus offers us is three dimensional.

First, it is physical in that it affects how we function in the world. Second, it is philosophical in that it affects our understanding of the world and how we process ideas that counter reactionary and backward-looking Eurocentric assumptions that have previously usurped our independent thought processes. Third, it is psychological in that it affects the way we think about ourselves, others and God.

True freedom, at its most fundamental level, is that state of being in which a person, without being enslaved, dominated or otherwise held under constraint, restraint, duress or undue influence, can of her or his own volition make decisions, plan courses of action consistent with those decisions, have unlimited access to and control over resources, and exercise the necessary power to concretely actualize those decisions.

Given this definition of freedom, it is manifestly clear that the last, least and lost of African/Edenic and similarly situated people in America have never experienced true freedom. Despite this, Jesus is offering all of us an unfettered freedom that is firmly rooted in the truth and in the reality.

The truth is that, without a revolutionary relationship with and understanding of Jesus, we  are slaves in a world-system matrix inimical to our best interests, opposed to our limitless capacity for personal human growth and development, and bent on our total destruction.

The reality is that the only road to freedom is our connecting with Jesus and submitting ourselves to his radical leadership so that we can effectively engage in counter-hegemonic (revolutionary) struggle in order to develop our critical understanding—our ability to be transformed from non-critical, incoherent “common sense” people (objects) to kingdom-oriented “organic intellectuals” (subjects) who are willing and able to provide principled revolutionary leadership for establishing the kingdom of God on this earth.

Why Growing Yourself Matters

In the very first chapter of his classic book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, John Maxwell stresses the point that personal growth is not natural, nor is it automatic—in fact, personal growth does not happen unless a person becomes intentional about desiring to grow and then makes and follows a plan to grow.

He gives eight specific reasons why people avoid being intentional about growing themselves. The first reason is that they assume that they will automatically grow mentally and spiritually inside as they have grown naturally and physically outside. The second reason is that they don’t know how to grow. The third is that they don’t think that now is the right time to grow. The fourth is that they don’t want to make the mistakes that are part and parcel of growing. The fifth reason is that they want to find the best—the perfect—way to grow. The sixth is they don’t feel like growing. The seventh is that they believe that other people are better than they are; and the eighth reason is that they discover that it’s harder to grow than they realized.

If you use any of these reasons, or others I haven’t mentioned, that keep you from being intentional about your own growth, then you have built yourself a prison from which you will never escape—you will forever keep yourself from all that God has created you to be, do and have in this life. When you allow any reason to control you, you can never move beyond being stuck where you are, doing what you do now, and having only what you have now—or even less than you have now. Because if you’re not expanding, you’re setting yourself up for contracting.

Being intentional matters because without it you will stay stuck, dooming yourself to a life of mediocrity without any hope for living the life you were created to live.

Here are some serious questions that you should ask yourself right now: Where do you want to go in life? What direction do you want to go in? What’s the farthest you can imagine going? How long will it take? If you haven’t spent time with yourself to wrestle with these questions before, I can guarantee you that the experience will give you a headache, but it will be the best headache you ever had!

This is because asking yourself these questions will help you raise your sights on living a more fulfilled and satisfied life on the one hand, while raising to the surface the five fears you must face and overcome on the other. These fears include fear of failure; fear of trading security for the unknown; fear of being overextended financially; fear of what people you know will think and say to you about what you’re doing; and fear of rejection by the people you value most—your friends and family.

You alone must decide which emotion is stronger: your desire to change, grow and reach your potential, or your fears that are there to keep you stuck and forever afraid to move forward and become your highest and best self.