I noticed something heartwrenching today. We watched a video yesterday of Tyre Nichols, a man, being tortured and murdered, and today, nothing changed. Nothing changed. White Americans posted smiling selfies and status updates, and Black Americans posted selfies of their favourite teams and their latest culinary creation. It was as if the torture of a fellow American on American soil didn’t matter. It was like, oh well, he probably deserved it. Or what can I do?
What have we become in America? How numb have we become to the violence, injustice, hunger, greed, and now torture that we can move on as if it never happened?
Where is God in the violent deaths of the innocent or the guilty? Is God seeking to manifest justice in our current US police, justice, and prison systems or do these institutions cause more moral and physical harm to society than they are worth? Do we as Americans even care because no one is going to God seeking clarity, and few will be in church, mosque, temple, or ashram this weekend over it?
The Bible says that there is a way that seems right, but its result is death. Over and over again, our current system of policing and justice has proven inadequate for failing to promote cessation of violence and encouraging the marginalization of people in our country and their physical harm. And in doing so, this policing has only sown the seeds of communal distrust and increasing levels of violence throughout society.
So who benefits? The elites seeking more power, the weapon makers who profit from fear of our neighbours, the media who push the lead of blood nightly, and finally, the political activists who seek extreme policies that pit neighbour against neighbour.
We must realize God is in all of this. We must recognise that neither the left nor the right has an answer that will save us from each other. God is in new approaches and out-of-the-box answers. Instead, we must begin to ask ourselves if what we have been doing promotes justice and mercy. Or even if America stands for either? What good is freedom if it ends in savage forms of death? We must repent and choose differently. How we are dealing with things right now isn’t working. We must choose differently.