Frisk Risk Mars Racial Recognition

Imagine it.

You're walking along, wearing a hoodie.  You're young (remember - we're imagining here) and not Caucasian.  Suddenly, a male with lighter skin than yours demands that you stop and explain yourself.

No, you're not Trayvon Martin, but an even younger multiracial teenager in Harlem named Alvin, walking down 116th Street after visiting your girlfriend, wearing a hoodie in the early June air, and an empty backpack.

And this was your second time today to be stopped and frisked by New York's "finest."

Not because they had a bulletin from the precinct to be on the lookout for somebody looking like you who'd just robbed a bank.  But just because you're not white, and you're young.

If the Zimmerman verdict has proven anything, it's that the death of Trayvon Martin will not be contributing positively to our nation's dialog about racial profiling.  It's been woefully tainted by bias and crippled by a lack of irrefutable proof.  Meanwhile, farther north up the East Coast from Florida, a longstanding police policy that has been vehemently criticized for almost as long as Trayvon was alive has languished outside of the national spotlight.  It's a policy within the New York City Police Department called "stop-and-frisk," in which cops can basically detain anybody they deem suspicious on the spot.  They can frisk a person without reading them their Miranda Rights, or advising them of the crime with which police intend to charge them.

In fact, in the overwhelming majority of stop-and-frisk cases, no crime at all is involved.  Unless, of course, you count the actions and attitudes of the cops.

The practice has been heavily used and debated in the Big Apple for nearly two decades, with minorities and limousine liberals decrying stop-and-frisk as unconstitutional, while whites and the business community generally have been ambivalent about it, since it's been credited with helping give the city incredibly low crime rates.  The city lost a court case over stop-and-frisk ten years ago, but that didn't stop the practice.  Police officials are convinced that those low crime rates are due in no small measure to the success of their widely-used stop-and-frisk initiative.

It hasn't helped discourage the practice having bigoted agitators like Al Sharpton acting as spokespeople against it.  Nor has it helped that the overwhelming percentage of crime in the city is perpetrated by minorities, or that the "gangsta" culture prevalent among minorities intentionally intimidates whites in the city's streets, mass transit, elevators, and parks.  Stop-and-frisk became synonymous with the "broken window" theory, in which it's believed that the best way to increase public safety is nip crime in the bud, starting with the most basic of anti-social events, like a broken window, or a person who "looks suspicious."

Even though plenty of New Yorkers were uncomfortable with stop-and-frisk, it seemed to be working, and hardly anybody except the guys who were being stalked by the police really knew what happened during these stop-and-frisk episodes.  Episodes which took place a staggering 4.8 million times during the past decade.  And which, as statistics are now revealing, provided evidence of a crime - such as illegally possessing a weapon - only 12% of the time.

The Nation, a left-wing periodical based in New York and devoted to helping progressive urbanists feel ever so superior to everybody else, has been an ardent opponent of stop-and-frisk.  In 2011, they produced a video based upon the audio recording Alvin made that day on Harlem's 116th Street of an experience with stop-and-frisk.

For conservatives who had insisted that the NYPD conducted this practice professionally, it was an obscene wake-up call.  Literally:



In terms of their overall objective, please understand that The Nation espouses an exceptionally left-wing political platform with which I cannot agree.  However, it's quite obvious from this video that Alvin is not a pawn in any partisan agenda.  He was not stopped for any reason other than a punitive, vicious form of racial profiling.  There are times in which racial profiling can be relatively benign, such as when my friends and I were accosted for supposedly being rich homosexuals on the subway.  But there was nothing benign, partisan, or moral about how Alvin was treated by the cops.

Which begs the question:  out of nearly 4.8 million stop-and-frisks over more than a decade, how much of an exceptionally brutal example of the practice was Alvin's recorded encounter with it?  Doesn't it seem to you as though this was all part of their day's work for the cops?  Routine?  Kinda fun, even?  In a macho, drunk-on-power kind of way?

How could this continue for so long in one of the most liberal cities in America?  Well, as it turns out, the NYPD didn't pull stop-and-frisk out of thin air.  It's actually based on a Supreme Court decision from 1968 in which the Constitution's Fourth Amendment provision against unlawful searches doesn't apply when a police officer believes a person could be an imminent participant in a crime.  However, that was then - and in Cleveland, Ohio, too, where the Supreme Court case, Terry v. Ohio, originated.  Today, what stop-and-frisk has apparently degenerated into is a thinly-disguised form of racial profiling.  Currently, two bills are before New York's city council that seek to discourage stop-and-frisk, but the bills themselves represent typical political posturing that may not resolve anything.  A federal class-action lawsuit against the city that has been waged since 2008 may be decided by Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin as early as this month, with legal experts predicting that Scheindlin will appoint a federal monitor to oversee the city's deployment of stop-and-frisk.  But powerful city officials continue to stake their professional reputations on stop-and-frisk's legitimacy.

Many New Yorkers, including the police chief, and its current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, have opposed any interference in stop-and-frisk since the tactic was introduced back in the early 1990's.  The time right before the city's crime rate began to dip drastically.  That's not coincidence, stop-and-frisk's defenders insist.

Maybe not.  Maybe some form of stop-and-frisk has a place in law enforcement's arsenal, as long the police are acting on credible information, and have specific characteristics for which they're looking relative to that credible information.  Nevertheless, no police department should simply assume that "crime is going to happen" so it's safe to assume that people who fit a broad generalization regarding what typical criminals look like can be harassed in the off-chance they might be walking away from a crime, or getting ready to commit a crime.  Can simply frisking people without a warrant and finding a knife or a gun on them 10% of the time be sufficient grounds for perpetrating stop-and-frisk on an entire race or gender?

According to The Nation's video, and the accounts of other whistleblowers within the police department, an unofficial quota system exists for stop-and-frisk that has likely corrupted the original intent of the practice.  Doesn't it make sense to start there, within One Police Plaza, the department's headquarters, and dis-incentivize stop-and-frisk?  Terry v. Ohio was about "reasonable suspicion," but New York City's version of it looks like "unreasonable racism."

Indeed, what's not up for debate is whether or not the treatment 16-year-old Alvin received from the police on that sidewalk in Harlem is acceptable.  It absolutely, definitely, incontrovertibly is not.  It's not a question of liberal or conservative, black or white, New Yorker or Texan, rich or poor, urban or rural, law or chaos.  It's basic humanity.

This is what many people wanted the Trayvon Martin tragedy to be about.  And maybe many cases of stop-and-frisk aren't as clear-cut as the one shown in this video.  But still, why the disparity in our mainstream media's coverage of both stories?  Was it the "gated community" or "stand your ground" buzzwords?  Was it the fact that Trayvon got killed, whereas Alvin was "only" humiliated?  Was it Zimmerman's gun?  Was it the fact that New York's profilers are intimidating, "professional" cops?  Even in New York City, while stop-and-frisk has generated heated debate, it hasn't been nearly as polarizing as the Zimmerman verdict.  Maybe that's because what happened to Alvin really is the exception, instead of the rule.  And maybe not knowing whether that's the case gives the same ambivalence about the practice to New Yorkers as the Zimmerman case gives to many whites.

That same ambivalence towards racial profiling that blacks have long suspected whites of harboring may have helped fan flames of pain and unrest among blacks after the Zimmerman verdict.  But much of what the Zimmerman verdict lacked in terms of its applicability to the subject of racial profiling is present in sobering abundance as we near a verdict in New York's class action lawsuit against stop-and-frisk.

Alvin's biological father is a cop.  If you listen closely, you'll hear one of the cops in the video even recognize him as the son of a cop.  But by then, the recognition came too late.

Seeing people for who they are can't be all about assumptions.
_____

Update - August 12, 2013:  Judge Scheindlin has ruled stop-and-frisk as unconstitutional, and will appoint a monitor to oversee the city's wind-down of the practice.

Profiling the Content of One's Character

Zimmerman Verdict Series
1. Sourcing Zimmerman Verdict Angst
Today's essay is #2
3. Eulogy For Home From Zimmerman Verdict

_____


We were three young, white, single guys.

Thin, well-dressed, well-groomed.  And yes - even I was thin, back when I lived in New York City!  I used to have a 29-inch waist.  No lie.  Of course, this was over twenty years ago, when even daily pints of Ben & Jerry's couldn't put fat on my bones.

Twenty years ago, too, the Big Apple was a far more dangerous place than it is today.

We left the Yankees game early.  Probably because it was a work night.  Probably because the Bronx Bombers were losing.  Probably because we didn't want to wait for the crush of fans at the Lexington Avenue Line subway platform alongside the venerable stadium after the game ended.

The subway car we boarded was practically empty.  But not for long.  A few minutes into our trip back into Manhattan, as the train creaked and rolled through the notorious South Bronx ghetto, the rear emergency door suddenly crashed open, and into our car swaggered a group of young black men.

And we three white boys were sitting ducks.

Boisterous and emboldened by our presence - and the lack of anybody else's - they hollered and bellowed in a gangsta dialect as they made a big production of coming over to where we were seated.  The three of us whiteys quietly glanced at each other, bracing for anything.  Those guys weren't coming over to chit-chat with us about the score of the Yankees game.  That wasn't necessary.  We all knew the score.

Those of you who've ridden New York City subway cars know there's a metal bar that hangs from the ceiling and runs down the length of the car, parallel to the seats.  Those young men came right where we were sitting, hanging onto the overhead bar, leaning down into our faces.  One of them plunked himself right down beside me, practically sitting on my lap.  I started perspiring.

I don't know how long it lasted, but these punks jeered at us for being rich (even though we weren't), white (which was obvious) and gay (which we weren't - but in New York City, it's rare to see three thin, stylishly dressed young white men together who aren't gay).  The guy who'd sat down next to me rubbed himself against me, and in my mind, I was playing the scenario I'd rehearsed about what I'd do if I was ever mugged:  give them my wallet with the $20 bill inside and the credit card, and hope they don't find the $20 bill, drivers license, and medical insurance card that I'd hidden in the socks I was wearing.  I'd heard that most muggers would be content with a $20 take, and if they roughed you up, most cabbies would still at least take you to the nearest hospital for $20.  The credit card could just be cancelled out, and maybe even used to catch whomever had stolen it.

By this time, my friends and I had been pushed tightly together by our tormentors, who were relishing the fact that we were all now perspiring, trying so hard to look at the ceiling of the subway car and ignore them, even though they were taunting us from mouths mere inches from our faces.  They weren't yelling, just amusing themselves with all the different vulgarities they could come up with for gay people, white people, and rich people.

Suddenly, the subway's passenger doors slid open, and other riders trickled into the car.  This was the signal our tormentors used to effortlessly step back from us and disappear from the subway car, while other people were still boarding.  The three of us silently reclaimed a bit of personal space between us, but remained quiet, not saying a word, nor looking at each other for the rest of the ride.  We were deeply relieved, woefully humiliated, and I can't remember us ever talking about it.  It was just part of what we should have expected, being in another ethnic group's territory.  Plus, it could have been much worse.

Facts Create Context, and Context Matters

As I've struggled for the past two days with the complaints black Christians are making about the insensitivity of us whites towards the Zimmerman verdict in Florida, two disconnects appear to be taking shape.  One of them has to do with the facts of the case, which I believe have been grossly misrepresented by the mainstream media, yet assumed to be accurate by many blacks, for whom television is a primary source for information.  The other has to do with the issue of racial profiling, which, as we all know, has been left utterly unresolved by both the trial and the verdict.

Now, the racial profiling those thugs performed on my friends and me during that subway ride may have been an isolated incident for us, but I tell the story so people will understand that I know what it's like to be racially profiled.  What I don't know about is being racially profiled like that multiple times during my life - or indeed, daily or weekly, but I can imagine how distressing and humiliating it must be.  I remember my brush with it vividly because it only happened to me two times during my three years in New York City (the other was also on the subway, by Puerto Rican and Dominican teenaged girls, who also presumed I was too thin and well-dressed to be straight).  If racial profiling is the issue blacks hoped the Zimmerman case could resolve, please understand that while I can't understand a life of such profiling, I've had a taste of what it's like.

Yet I still insist that this case was never going to resolve the issue of racial profiling, and while I'd like to be wrong about this, blacks who've allowed themselves to hope for even a productive dialog on the subject will only continue to be deeply disappointed.  And while whites may be responsible for some of the pain they're feeling, I believe that the mainstream media is mostly to blame, because they're the ones who turned a shooting in a gated condo community into a circus, full of glittery promises, hollow reality, and bitter endings.

It has been popularly believed that if it wasn't for racial profiling, Zimmerman wouldn't have gotten out of his car and confronted Trayvon Martin.  Yet while Zimmerman used the term "a**hole" while in his car, and then possibly the racially-derogatory term "coon" under his breath while he was on foot, looking for Trayvon, it was Trayvon who used explicitly racial terminology in describing Zimmerman to his girlfriend over the phone.  In terms of racial profiling, Trayvon's attitude was far more cavalier than Zimmerman's, which could speak to what his demeanor may have been like during his physical interaction with Zimmerman.

We also now know that Trayvon used marijuana, was a juvenile delinquent, and did not live at that condominium complex.  All three of those facts likely contributed to behavior witnessed by Zimmerman that combined to paint a portrait of somebody who might be up to no good.  What was the teen's mental state at the time?  How might his belligerent attitude been reflected in how he moved?  Being relatively unfamiliar with the complex, at night, and in the rain, how disoriented might he have been?  And how was Zimmerman to know that Trayvon may have likely been displaying this behavior not because he was trying to evade detection, but because other factors were impacting his demeanor?  Remember, the condo complex had recently experienced other burglaries.  If you were on patrol and saw something suspicious, would you just drive in the opposite direction?

Now, granted, Zimmerman did a number of stupid things.  He called 911, but he was impatient, and didn't want to wait for the police to arrive.  He got out of his car, which during a rain storm at night wasn't a wise thing to do.  We don't know much more than that, except that both Trayvon and Zimmerman had the right to defend themselves, and one of them ended up dead.  And the other one with bloody scars on the back of his head.  Considering all of the facts that were presented to them during the trail, Zimmerman's jury decided that it was reasonable to assume he was protecting himself, and they ruled accordingly.

That's what this case was about.  It wasn't about race, or racial profiling, or even a sweet, naive teenager being gunned down near his home.  The condo Trayvon was going to was owned by his father's current girlfriend, somebody he'd apparently started dating relatively recently, since Trayvon had been living with his stepmother until around that time.  It's entirely probable that Trayvon's troubles at school and use of narcotics stemmed from confusion, disappointment, and insecurity over his father's serial fornication.

Zimmerman obviously is no angel, but how likely is it that he's now going to have to live the rest of his life with Trayvon's death hanging over him because the youth's father didn't take his paternal role seriously enough?  Teenaged boys need their father to be morally stronger than Trayvon's was.

Content of Character Is Also Context

What does that have to do with racial profiling? Well, if we're going to go into the reasons why Zimmerman felt compelled to leave his car and pursue Trayvon, don't we have to consider the reasons Trayvon was acting the way he was to attract such attention from Zimmerman?  Remember, we don't have enough proof that Zimmerman was after Trayvon because he was black.  There's just as much proof that, had the teenager Zimmerman spotted that night been white, and had been acting the same way as Travon was acting, Zimmerman likely would have done the same thing.

But we don't know, do we?  And that is why this case is not a case for proving racial profiling.  Zimmerman was a gun-toting vigilante who was looking for anything suspicious.  When the 911 operator first asked him to identify the suspect's race, Zimmerman said he though it was black.  It wasn't until after he'd gotten a better look that he confirmed Trayvon's race to the operator.  By that time, Zimmerman was well into a state of high alert, and for people like him - see?  I'm profiling Zimmerman now - once you're that far along into a 911 call and following a suspect, race likely becomes a minor detail.

Sigh.

Part of me tells me to simply move on.  Drop it.  That's what plenty of other whites are doing, either out of their own well-worn frustrations over being unreconciled to blacks, or out of a closet racism that says blacks are their own worst enemy.  Part of me rationalizes that, attention spans being what they are, the media will soon pounce on something else, and the Zimmerman trial will become one of those wounds that scabs over, just like so many others.

Meanwhile, another part of me asks if I should ignore the reality that many people are still genuinely suffering over the Zimmerman verdict.  Wouldn't it be unkind - unChristian, even - to let them languish in their emotional pain?  Especially when they're brothers and sisters in Christ?  When one of us hurts, we all hurt, right?  Besides, I don't want to be a bigot in my heart.  Nor do I want other people to think I'm a bigot.

If explaining how the facts in this case doesn't help assuage the hurt blacks are feeling over its verdict, about all I can do is ask blacks not to fall into the same stereotyping traps into which we whites fall all too often.  We need to remember that racial profiling is a two-way street, and something all of us do in a variety of situations.  We also need to remember that different races and ethnicities are not our enemy, but the evil one who makes us think they are.

Didn't Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. have it Biblically correct when he elevated the individual above their appearance?

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

I'm not some white man rhapsodizing on a standard-bearer for civil rights simply to elicit some emotional affirmation.  If "content of character" is what we're aiming for, doesn't that set the bar a bit higher than the Zimmerman trial?

For all of us?

Why We're Not God's Pets

Do you have a pet?

If you do, is it happy in your home?  It probably is, isn't it?

After all, dogs and cats and hamsters don't get together down at the coffee shop or obedience school and compare notes about what kind of food their owners are feeding them, or the thread count of the fabrics upon which they sleep.

Children usually start out in life thinking their parents are the best.  It's not until they start socializing with other little kids that they begin to realize that not everybody has it as good as they do, or that their own home isn't as luxurious as those of other families.

We develop our jealousies early, especially when it comes to the amount of time we expect our loved ones to lavish on us.  But it's not until we start comparing ourselves to other people - even other little people - that we begin to learn about stratification, hierarchies, degrees of affluence, and the value of money.

Pets can be jealous, but not because one of them lives in a mansion, and the other one lives on the street with its homeless owner.  Jealousy among pets seems to occur strictly over levels of affection, not levels of materialism.  Some neighbors of mine walk their two dogs almost every night, and we're all great friends - except when one of the dogs thinks I'm stroking the other one more, or talking to it more.

My brother and sister-in-law used to live in a subdivision with low chain-link fences separating the backyards.  One of their neighbors had a big old black dog of indeterminate breed, and since they were hardly ever home, their dog spent a lot of its time pacing along the fence it shared with my brother's backyard, because my nephews and niece would be outside playing.  One year, my parents and I visited with my father's dog, a handsome, pure-bred collie.  Dad was over by the chain-link fence, petting the neighbor's dog, and talking to it.  But Dad's collie was not pleased!  He went over there, moaning and fussing, making whining sounds in his throat.  He actually tried to push himself between Dad and the chain-link fence, to physically separate Dad from the other dog!

"Hey!  This is my owner!" Dad's dog seemed to be saying to the neighbor's dog.  Of course, the neighbor's dog barked and barked, afraid of having my Dad's affection withdrawn in favor of this visiting collie from Texas.

Tucked down in a cul-de-sac where I live is a rambling house on a deep lot where a big, goofy dog named Hoss lives.  I've written about Hoss before; a happy-go-luck white-haired Lab who doesn't have a mean or jealous bone in his body.  He gets out of his yard all of the time, and our neighbors are afraid of him - but not because he'd bite or anything.  He's simply so big, he could literally knock some of our elderly neighbors over just trying to be friendly.  Once, when he was loose, of our neighbors made the mistake of letting him inside their own home while they called Hoss's owners to come get him, and with his stiff Lab's tail wagging and slapping about in the excitement, Hoss managed to knock practically everything off of their kitchen table!  The neighbor's wife told me she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

When I'm out for my evening walks, and Hoss is loose, he'll come bouncing down the street to greet me, his tongue flapping out of the corner of his drooling mouth, his eyes full of mirth, and he'll bang himself into my legs and hop up for some instant affection from me.  Then he'll tag along as I walk back to his house, where he belongs.  He never stops, wanting to go home with me instead.  Hoss knows where he's "supposed" to be; he just happens to be on the loose, but he's not looking for anyplace else to live.  He has no idea how other households run, or whether another family would be even more loving towards him than his current family is.  He knows where his home is, and he never considers other options.

Don't you think God could have made us like that?  He made pets that way; why not us?

Because we're not God's pets, are we?

He cares for us, provides us with shelter and food, and grants us salvation through His Son.  He's invested infinitely more into us that we could ever invest in our own pets.  And while God expects us to render to Him our devotion, He hasn't wired into us the innate homing mechanism that automatically precludes our consideration of anything else that might be better than what we already have.  The Holy Spirit is our Guide, and the more we progress in the process of sanctification, the more "at home" we'll be in Christ, but that process of sanctification is often derailed by our wanderings when, unlike Hoss, we wonder if other enticements aren't better places to go and abide.

Sometimes I wonder if you and I aren't looking around at what the world offers and evaluating whether or not maybe that stuff really is better than what we already have in Christ.  I know that I live where I live, drive the car I drive, and wear the clothes I wear not because I'm perfectly satisfied with them, but because they're what I can afford.  I often look at what other people have and catch myself feeling slighted by God because I don't have what they have.

Do we live the way we live out of loyalty to our Master?  And if we're happy with our lives, is it because we're content in Christ, or content with the things and accomplishments He's allowed us to acquire?

One reason God hasn't made us to be His pets is because He wants us to show Him - and the world - that we can be content and loyal without being forced into it through biology or even emotion.  Or bought with status symbols.  He wants us to "come home" to Him without hesitation or second thoughts, because He is our Heavenly Father.  And He has a holy jealousy for our affection.

Weird, huh?  We normally wouldn't think it to be healthy if we were jealous of the affection our pet gave somebody else.  But that's another reason why we're not God's pets.  His Son died for our sins.

We wouldn't think of sacrificing a loved one in repayment for our dog's tail sweeping a neighbor's tableware onto their kitchen floor.  Yet that level of insignificance is how we often view our sins.

According to 1 Corinthians 6, being bought with a price means that we are not our own, and the Price that was paid is yet more reason for why we're not God's pets.  He desires from us a relationship that exceeds loyalty and affection, so that regardless of where we live, or our life's circumstances, we are at home in Him.

Not looking anyplace else for comfort, affirmation, or peace.

Saints Unbecoming

Two weeks ago, an article entitled "How Do I Know When It's Time To Leave A Church?" was the most-read article on Crosswalk.com.

At the time, I commented about how telling it must be that such discouraging subject matter - a strong dissatisfaction with one's church - would be the top article on one of Christianity's most popular websites.

So, it's been two weeks, which can be an eternity in Internet time.  Who knows how many topics, headlines, crises, opinions, and tweets have come and gone.  You'd think the article about leaving one's church would be long gone, too, wouldn't you?  At least, it wouldn't still be listed among Crosswalk's top ten.

But you'd be wrong.  Okay, so it's not number one today... it's number three.  After two other articles of similar subject matter.  Currently, the most-read article is "What You Are Wearing To Church," which has likely been a weekly debate in families across the Western world for centuries.  The second-most-read article currently is entitled "Seven Viruses That Infect the Church."

Ouch.

Isn't this "church" thing supposed to be helping us?  Isn't it supposed to be the place where our faith walk can find refuge from the sins of the world?  Judging by what people are choosing to read on Crosswalk, however, it looks more like church is a thorn in our side, or a cross we have to bear.

When Doing Church Becomes One's Undoing

Maybe I'm back on this topic of dissatisfaction with church because I've been interviewing somebody for an upcoming article of mine for Crosswalk.  After years of trying to act like a Christian, find a church where she can grow as a Christian, get involved in ministry with other Christians, develop Christian friendships, and plug her young son into a similarly God-focused faith community for his age level, she's thrown in the towel.

She walked out of church.  She's not really bitter, or even angry, although she's sad, and almost bemused at what the rest of us continue to tolerate in our faith communities.

Looking back on her conversion experience, she figures it must have been an emotional reaction to her failed marriage.  She was told she needed God in order to have peace.  And for a while, it all seemed to work... until she tried to assimilate into a large church that asks people to "come as they are."  So she did.

Things went downhill from there.

Early in her faith walk, a small-group leader chastised her in front of their home group for professing to enjoy a popular but mildly-raunchy television sitcom, but then she witnessed him in his own home watching something even raunchier on cable.

She found out by accident that malicious gossip was being spread around her church about her and her son.

Her son went on a couple of church youth outings and witnessed adult sponsors of the events getting tipsy on contraband liquor.

She herself attended events with fellow church-goers where alcoholic beverages were flowing.

It was as if everybody else was as wounded, anxious, and depressed as she was, and church had become simply another crutch, or a glorified passport to Heaven.  The church people she saw drinking weren't living under grace, they were addicted to the stuff to fill the void she thought churchy stuff was supposed to fill.  Preach hellfire and damnation for the world's gays, but adultery within the church is only wrong if you get caught.  None of it matters - your passports to Heaven have already been stamped.

When she started expressing her doubts on Facebook, church friends either ignored her, or de-friended her.  When she saw one of her pastors at their kids' mutual sporting event, he didn't want to talk to her.  She realized she was more wounded, anxious, and depressed now that she had gotten involved in church, than she was before "professing her faith."

So she relinquished her faith.  Returned it, even though she didn't get a refund for all she'd been through.  She didn't expect to find a bunch of holy-roller saints in church, but she didn't expect a bunch of sinners who self-righteously claimed to be holy-roller saints, either.

"Don't pray for me," she's asked me, "because that's so patronizing.  I have explored your faith option and found nothing that comforts me more than my own awareness of my own spirituality."

Preachers Missing a Teachable Moment

We evangelicals might be tempted to parse this woman's refutation of Christianity in order to find clues to its theological inadequacies, but before we do that, consider the haughtiness with which one of our celebrity preachers recently praised a fellow celebrity preacher friend of his.

Mark Dever, senior pastor at Washington, DC's wildly popular Capitol Hill Baptist Church, served as a guest preacher earlier this month in the pulpit of Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

Sovereign Grace Church is the new congregation established by C.J. Mahaney, the embattled former director of Sovereign Grace Ministries, which has come under fire for hiding allegations of child abuse.  However, Dever has come out not only in support of Mahaney, but veiled contempt towards those who have filed a lawsuit against his former ministry as its alleged child abuse victims.

In what appears to be an arrogant affirmation of the indicted despite a Biblical need to be sensitive to any harm that has befallen alleged victims, Dever offered Mahaney's congregation a heavy dose of hero worship.

"If you’re visiting or if you’re sort of new to Sovereign Grace," Dever said in his sermon, regarding Mahaney, "you have a privilege in having this man as your pastor that you don’t fully grasp..."

Not only does one celebrity pastor inadvertently chastise fellow Christians who dare question the integrity of another celebrity pastor, but he appears to display a degree of impunity that seems to defy the Gospel of Christ.  It's not that during a time of crisis in one's personal life or public ministry, a minister of the Gospel shouldn't be able to depend on his peers for comfort, friendship, and support.  But it almost appears as though Mahaney's friends have willfully ignored the facts in this case.  Indeed, the fact that we need to keep talking in abstract terms instead of facts betrays the fact that Mahaney and his friends have not broached the accusations with the seriousness the rest of us have accorded them.

Either way, their attitudes and actions don't seem to square with the Gospel they've built their careers preaching.

I don't personally know any of the people about whom I've written here today.  The woman who's returned to atheism was referred to me by a mutual friend, who thought I should hear her story.  Our mutual friend is saved, and the only church friend who remains in contact with this woman who's left the church.  I've never met either Dever or Mahaney, and only know of their disturbing, stubborn alliance through what I've learned about it online.

But hey - even if all the rest of this is anecdotal, don't we know how hard it is to do church?  We don't need to be told this by an atheist, or preachers pretending that accusations of child molestation don't exist.

Still, I believe that God is sovereign.  He knew from eternity past that these days would come for His North American church, when His people would be so cantankerous, malicious, hypocritical, self-righteous, and unlike Christ.  Yet still, the church is His invention.  He has purposes for it, even if we can't see them.  I believe that, because I believe God is sovereign.  We can't irrevocably screw up His church, even though it sure looks like we're giving it our best shot.

What am I to make about all of the feedback I've received from this atheist, who, frankly, seems almost freer now that she thinks she can cross "God" off of her list of things to make her happy?  I don't know.  After all, most of the world today sees religion as simply one of many means to an end, with the end being some sort of self-realization.  All the better to find those things that don't work earlier rather than later, right?

What our celebrity preachers are doing in the name of this God, however, truly unnerves me.  The God in Whom the Holy Spirit has given me faith is not a God to be mocked by elitist games of personal favorites during - of all things - sex abuse cases.  In their cloistered world of church plants, seminars, and doctrinal associations, it's almost as if the guys with the biggest bully pulpits win the day, while hapless sheep bleat in the fields.

Or go online in droves to Crosswalk.com, getting advice on evaluating how sick their church may be.

Sounds of Praise Worth the Effort

Was it worth it?

All that hard work.  The tedious practicing.  Hours of it.  Hours upon hours.  Those interviews with the press.  Time away from his fiance, family, and friends.

My musical friend, Alex McDonald, spent months in intensive preparation for the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition currently underway here in Fort Worth, Texas.  He has a day job as a piano instructor, both privately, and for a local college.  But in addition to that, Alex managed to squeeze in a full workweek's worth of practice to compete at the prestigious Cliburn.  And his fans were pleased when he survived the initial round of pressure-cooker tryouts - weeks before the actual competition - simply to win one of 30 coveted spots in the Cliburn's first official round.

When the Cliburn got under way last week, he played two different mini-concerts in the first round, and was warmly received by his audiences, if not his critics, who apparently weren't aware that Alex actually did some of his doctoral work at Julliard on the composers whose pieces he played.  I've always been skeptical of music critics - well, of critics who review most of the arts in our culture - because the ones who make a living doing so rarely seem to have the professional credentials they expect the artists they're reviewing to achieve.  Siskel and Ebert, for example, never produced a feature film in their lives.  Ada Louise Huxtable, the inimitable architecture critic for both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, was never a certified architect.  Although all three of these personalities were able to carve out good livings offering generally solid feedback on their preferred art forms, like another artist friend of mine advised me recently, when you're not the one having to design something for a client, it's easy to forget that it might not be the composer, director, or architect whose faults you're seeing, but the person who signed the check for it.

Suffice it to say that Alex did not get paid for competing in the Cliburn.  None of its contestants do.  In fact, there's a small army of volunteers that make sure it runs without a hitch during its quadrennial appearances on the music world's stage.  And it is a big international deal.  Musicians on the jury come from countries like Israel, France, and China, and many contestants come from Japan, Russia, and Italy.  It's been thirty years since this competition, always held in Fort Worth, had a contestant from anywhere in north Texas.

Indeed, the Cliburn is not the provincial talent show people outside of classical music's orbit may assume it to be.  When it first started, back in the early 1960's, some music teachers from what was then more of a small-town social club approached Van Cliburn - then one of the few fantastically-famous musical Texans who didn't strum or pluck a gee-tar - with the hopes that he would lend his name to their fledgling contest for young pianists.  Typical amateurish local-boy-makes-good publicity.  According to legend, Cliburn's fawning mother, Rildia Bee O'Bryan Cliburn, encouraged her son, who was balking at the idea, to let the little people back in Texas use his name.  "It will only be a one-time contest," she's reputed to have dismissively advised.

So much for mother knowing best.  Today, that nice little contest in Cowtown has become one of the premiere classical music competitions on the planet.  According to the organization that runs the Cliburn, tens of thousands of people come from all over the globe to attend portions of the sprawling event, while over two million more watch online.  Not only does this add real cash to Fort Worth's tax coffers, but it provides the city with valuable publicity.  Dallas, Houston, and Austin - the other three arts capitals in the state - have nothing like it.

Okay.  So it's a big deal.  Even if classical piano music is more of a cultural niche than, say the Superbowl or the World Series.  But how did he do?

Well, last night, the names of those 12 contestants who will be advancing to the second round were released, and Alex's name wasn't on it.

Frankly, I can't imagine how disappointing that must have been for him.  I've never worked so hard for something so prestigious.  I've certainly never worked so hard and failed to gain something so prestigious!  In Alex's chosen profession, winning the Cliburn would have set his career on a trajectory of renown that only He and God could change.  The Cliburn's cash prize is a paltry $50,000, but it's the instant fame and professional booking services to manage that fame for which contestants are truly vying.  Having the Cliburn organization managing your new career in the classical music world can open a lifetime of coveted concert hall and recording studio doors.  That may not sound like much to many Americans, but classical musicians can gain iconic stature in places like Japan, China, and Russia.

Angling for all of that professional career management, however, soon came to trouble Alex.  He was a prodigy - hardly anybody can train themselves from scratch to compete at the Cliburn's level; you have to be born with the gift.  He's lived his whole life as a student of the craft that is part of his being.  As a follower of Christ, he knows he's been blessed with this ability, and he desires to use it primarily for God's glory, even if he has to commercialize it a bit to put food on the table.  Even there, he knows he's one of the fortunate ones:  somebody who knows what they do well and can earn a living at it.

So how much did he need the Cliburn?  Was trying out for - and winning a rare spot in - the Cliburn more an act of arrogance and blind ambition on his part?  Or was God in this, leading him, placing within him not only the ability, but the desire, and the tenacity?  As he pushed himself through his grueling practice regimen, he desired for God to be at the center of it all.  He didn't want to be like so many others of us who set a goal and try to drag God along for the ride, when He hasn't been the one opening those doors to begin with.

Anybody who has ever heard Alex play knows that if he didn't try for things like the Cliburn, it could almost be said that he risked suppressing the talent God has given him.  Such accusations are extremely dangerous to make, since few of us can get into the same wavelength of heart and mind between God and the individual to whom He's given such abilities.  But still, now many skills and proficiencies do we actually end up dishonoring God with by our ambivalence towards them?  This isn't about art necessarily, but maybe the gift of administration, or helps, or child-rearing, or evangelism, or writing computer code.  Maybe they won't earn us the type of money or privilege we think we want or need.  We can still honor God if we do something else, so that's what we do instead.  It's a tough call, especially with people to whom God has given such obvious expertise.

So I sent Alex a note today, and this is what I shared with him:

"From what I can tell, you've honored God with this effort, and that is the whole point. If success is doing what God wants us to do, you've been wonderfully successful! And you've treated us to some great music in the process. Thank you!"

For all practical purposes, as a professional pianist and music teacher, Alex will still be able to put on his resume that he made it through the first round of the Cliburn.  There's considerable prestige in simply being accepted into the competition.  He's not going to win the $50,000, or the instant-career-starter-kit promised by the Cliburn organization, but he's still a lot farther ahead than those who've never tried or never been accepted.

He also has now mastered - at least as far as the general public is concerned - an impressive repertoire of classical piano music that, besides making him Dallas' newest attraction at dinner parties, could help him with concert events that don't involve ticket prices topping out close to a monthly car payment.

Most importantly, however, remains the fact that Alex loves the Lord, sought His guidance and peace, and demonstrated well the gifting with which He has generously blessed him. 

So, was it worth it, even though he didn't make it to the second round?

Man looks at outward things, but God looks at the heart.  And while I would never intentionally put words in God's mouth, I can see no reason to doubt that God has seen Alex's heart all the way through this musical journey.  He was Alex's only true Audience.  Then, too, God not only knew Alex would "lose," as we mortals might say, but that even in losing, Alex would honor Him.  And that, as Alex has already done in front of those of us who've been following his musical journey, he would still give God glory.

Praise be to God!  And, bravo, Alex.

At Mount Olivet's Doughboy

That's me, just to the left of center (go figure!), in a light blue t-shirt, looking up to a nearby bridge,
where some Boy Scouts are preparing to toss a ceremonial wreath into the Trinity River
while a bagpiper plays.  This was during the maritime portion of yesterday's Memorial Day observance.

It gets shorter every year.

My friends and I guesstimate that we've been attending Fort Worth's annual Memorial Day observance at Mount Olivet Cemetery for fifteen years.  For 8 decades, Mount Olivet has hosted a traditional, no-frills commemoration of military servicemembers killed in the line of duty.  It's become the official Memorial Day event for both the city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County, usually attended by mayors, city councilmembers, county commissioners, and other local dignitaries. 

But unlike some ceremonies, this one has been getting shorter every year.

They've thrown in an extra speech - a speech to introduce the person who's giving the main speech.  This year, they added the sanctuary choir from one of the oldest congregations in Tarrant County, the politically and theologically liberal First Christian Church in downtown Fort Worth.  About 40 people dressed in red and black sang the National Anthem, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and a choral benediction.  They sounded quite good, considering they had no amplification and it was a breezy evening.

Maybe the singing helped the service seem to fly by.  But, then again...

It's never been a pretentious affair.  An executive from a local veterans association runs the show, which includes proclamations from the city and county thanking the private cemetery for underwriting the evening.  Interspersed are some military flourishes, such as a Presentation of the Colors, the playing of "Taps," a 21-gun salute by handicapped veterans in wheelchairs, and the solemn Retiring of the Colors, during which we in the audience stand in utter silence.  It's very cool hearing how respectful, dignified, and patient people can be when they want to be.

There's also usually a bagpiper from the Fort Worth Fire Department who bleats out "Amazing Grace" while marching in full regalia along rows of big American flags.

One year, the soldiers got it wrong while folding up the Stars and Stripes during the Retiring of the Colors.  They didn't have enough of the flag left over to tuck inside and create the appropriately-stiff triangle of star-spangled hallowedness.  So, instead of fudging it, they slowly and methodically unwrapped what they'd done, and started folding it again.  The whole thing must have taken ten minutes, and that's a long time when all you're doing is watching two young men fold up a piece of cloth.  But we all waited, quietly, almost religiously, to make sure it was done properly.  Veterans in attendance kept their sharp salutes the whole time, and in the stifling May heat we usually have for these ceremonies, that's no small feat.

One year, it had been raining all day, and it was drizzling as we gathered at the cemetery for the ceremony, so officials moved it indoors to one of the chapels.  I remember that the air conditioning was turned down so low that I was actually freezing - the only time I've been cold during these Memorial Day services!  I think they made the bagpiper play in another room down the hall; the low-ceilinged chapel being too small for the sound.

Yes, we could all fit into a funeral home's chapel back then.  When my friends and I started attending, the crowds were definitely small, which was one of the reasons we decided to keep attending.  The theology is thin to non-existent at these services, which are designed to be ecumenical.  And most of the speeches are by either politicians or commanders at one of our local military installations, so their quality is decidedly hollow.  But we've felt a certain obligation to make this yearly service a part of our Memorial Day Mondays, not out of a punitive sense of compulsion, but as a necessary reminder of the fact that real people have fought in real wars and died real deaths for our country.

No, we don't all agree on the merits of certain political causes, or the decisions our elected officials have made regarding warfare and picking fights with other nations, but the fact remains that our military consists of men and women who willingly - and often enthusiastically - agree to put their life on the line for the honor of our country and the freedom for which it stands.  Surely there's some sort of gratitude we're to demonstrate for such self-sacrifice?  Before being executed by the British, colonist Nathan Hale reportedly proclaimed his regret that he had "only one life to give for my country."   Even being willing to give that one life, and managing to escape armed conflict to retire from the service, never having to make good on that pledge, as most servicemembers are able to do, is worth more than many lesser Americans pledge for the lifestyle we so often take for granted.

After the main speech every year, representatives from area veterans groups line up and place ceremonial wreaths at the "Doughboy Statue," Mount Olivet's version of the "Tomb of the Unknowns."  Lest you've forgotten, the term "doughboy" comes from the Mexican-American War in which soldiers would get covered in colorless dust, and ate flavorless dough as part of their rations.  "Doughboy" became particularly popular as an affectionate reference for American soldiers during World War I.  At Fort Worth's Mount Olivet Cemetery, the "Doughboy Statue," dedicated in the 1980's, helps to anchor a section were many veterans are buried.

The number of veterans groups that participated in this part of the service used to be considerable, and the time it took for everybody to present their wreaths and observe a moment of silence could stretch for what seemed like hours, even though it was probably twenty minutes or so.  Yesterday, they were finished in less than five.  Veterans still march towards the statue in their dress uniforms, their spouses wearing outfits in patriotic colors; a few military widows and mothers, some white-haired, all of them usually dressed to the nines; many of them escorted by members of the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic fraternity of men who wear black tuxedos, sashes, and tall hats with plumes of feathers, holding long silver swords at attention.  Solemn and silent, they walk down, and their line tends to bunch up near the Doughboy as the ones in front of them linger a bit too long in their salutes.

Only there are far fewer of them than there used to be.

For a while, it seemed as though ever year, we could notice who wasn't there.  Particularly the older men, who would shuffle with a peculiar gait, or whose comb-over was exceptionally pronounced.  There was a Japanese woman who was a member of a Japanese wives auxiliary, but when she died, apparently so did that auxiliary.  And that's been the pattern over the past fifteen years we've been attending.

There's still one tall, elegant gentleman, always in a black suit and crisp white shirt, with a tie, no matter the heat or humidity.  His full head of thick white hair blows about whenever there's a breeze, and he never sits - he's constantly wandering the periphery of the event, tiny camera in hand, taking photos of everything and everybody.  Teetering about on long, thin legs that seem about to give out on him, but still, he makes his circuit, around and around, never even flinching during the ear-popping 21-gun salute.

Each year, although we have no idea who he is, my friends and I hope to see him, knowing that one of these years, we won't.

Afterwards, on the drive home last night, my friends and I joked about maybe having to form our own auxiliary and signing-up to present our own wreath during the Doughboy part of the ceremony.  My friends were dating when we started attending these, and now they have two elementary-school-aged kids they bring along for a lesson in patriotism.  Apparently, newer generations of GI's don't join veterans groups when they leave the service, and considering the rowdy, beer-swilling, vulgarity-laced reputation many of these VFW halls have had for decades, that's likely not a bad thing.  And since the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, the attendance at Mount Olivet has been climbing almost every year.  There were probably three hundred or so people in attendance yesterday, which my friends and I thought looked like the largest crowd yet.

But somebody's still gotta lay down the wreaths, right?

In remembrance of those who've laid down their lives for our country.

Apologizing to the Central Park Five

 
Did cops commit theft themselves?

Back in 1989, "New York's finest" responded swiftly and decisively upon learning that a white woman had been brutally raped and left for dead in a notoriously dangerous region of Central Park.  A ragtag group of teenaged scofflaws had just been brought in to the department's precinct house, a dilapidated outpost within Manhattan's legendary green space.  Might there be a connection between this savage crime and these teens' self-professed "wilding" that evening?

It had already been a violent night in Central Park.  A couple of hours earlier, a homeless vagrant had been assaulted, as well as several joggers and bicyclists.  All of the incidents had taken place in the northern reaches of the long park, far from the relatively safe and more heavily used recreational spaces clustered in Central Park's southern "white" zone, near many exclusive hotels and luxury apartment buildings.  Whereas few New Yorkers with common sense ventured into the park after dark, those who did had less to fear if they stayed close to its outside borders.  But a lone, young, white, female jogger took the risk of going deeper and further north.  She was a privileged stock broker from Pennsylvania who perhaps didn't truly appreciate the grim realities of 1980's New York City.

Not that what happened to her was her fault.  But plenty of idealistic young people coming to the big city to make money underestimate how some people without it live.

Darkness Deeper Than the Night

It was after 9:00 pm on April 20, 1989.  A darkness more pervasive than the nighttime sky had swallowed the socioeconomically distressed slums teeming in uncomfortable and paradoxical proximity to Manhattan's impressively elite neighborhoods.  For better or worse, stretching more than 50 blocks, Central Park can't help but link Manhattan's have's and have-not's.  And it does so with a seductive canopy of marvelous trees, romantic winding pathways, and a misleading atmosphere of tranquility.

Entering this realm was not only the successful Wall Street broker, jogging through for just another night of exercise, but five restless teenagers from a world completely opposite that of the accomplished Pennsylvanian.  Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Kharey Wise were kids, a mix of blacks and Hispanics, mostly from the projects, and of somewhat disreputable conduct, who decided to go out for a bit of adventure.  Neither hard-core criminals nor choir boys, they tagged along with a larger group of more hardened punks who caroused along and into Central Park looking for trouble.

And they found it.  McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, and Wise would soon become known to New Yorkers as the "Central Park Five," but were they the hooligans cops assumed them to be?  Their group's pouncing on a disoriented homeless man disturbed these five boys, and they began to have second thoughts about those with whom they were associating.  As some of the others began targeting additional victims who had ventured too far north into Harlem's domain, these five kids started backing away.  But it was too late.  Before they knew it, cops were swarming over them, and the Central Park Five was formed as the boys were rounded up and dumped at the precinct house.

New York then wasn't the same New York most tourists know today.  New York then was a city of incessant muggings, murders, rapes, Crack cocaine, and pervasive fear.  And everyone wanted the cops to do something about it.  At first, when the five hapless teens were brought in, police were simply interested in getting a handle on that evening's crime spree.  Just another night of mild mayhem - by Big Apple standards, anyway.  However, when the rape report came in, everything changed.

Before long, cops who were either overzealous, or indifferent to justice - or both - had gotten the Central Park Five to individually confess to a crime they didn't know anything about.  Their videotaped confessions were not consistent, nor did they align with pertinent facts, but they were enough to help police officials convince New York's voracious media machine that the Central Park Jogger's rapists had been caught.  That the enraged city could relax.  Everything was under control.

Any rape is a heinous crime, of course.  But the rape of the Central Park Jogger came to represent an apex of the city's anger towards its criminal element.  The case also became a sort of rallying point for not only recognizing the depravity of its collective conscience, but a determination that New Yorkers could not allow things to get any worse.  Its symbolism and the arrest of the Central Park Five resonated throughout New York's spectrum of people groups:  rich whites were relieved by it, poor blacks were resigned to it, and everyone hoped it was a turning point in the right direction.

Blinded By Racism's Power

I wasn't living in New York in 1989, but I was by 1990, and I remember the brou-ha-ha in the media over the Central Park Jogger case and the much-hyped trials of the Central Park Five.  Not that I followed the trials very closely, however.  For one reason, I was preoccupied with the mechanics of working and living in one of America's most stressful environments.  But for another thing, I was young, naive, and apparently, more of a racist than I am today.

Late this past Friday evening, however, I was surfing television channels before going to bed, and I stumbled upon a Ken Burns documentary on our local PBS station here in north Texas.  It was about the Central Park Five, a case that this past Friday, I barely remembered.  But I quickly caught on, and recalled how the five punks had been found guilty and sent to prison.

"Ken Burns is doing a documentary on these guys?" I thought to myself.  "I wonder what his angle is?"

The show started with personal interviews of the Central Park Five, and they were admitting to being in the park, and to being a part of the pack of teens that beat up some innocent visitors to the park.  So I assumed that Burns wanted to explore how these thugs have been able to turn their lives around after serving their time for such wilding.

But Burns caught me completely by surprise.  As each of the boys - now, thirty-something-year-old men - kept insisting they didn't rape the Central Park Jogger, I was reliving the same "I'm not buying your sob story" mentality I had back when their trials were taking place.  Burns lined up the videotaped evidence each boy gave prosecutors so we viewers could see how they didn't match, but still, I was sold on their guilt.

It wasn't until Burns' show was more than half-way finished that he introduced Matias Reyes, a serial rapist in the city back then, and then the shocker:  Reyes did it.

Several years after the trials, Reyes not only confessed to raping the Central Park Jogger, but DNA evidence proved it.  No DNA evidence from any of the Central Park Five was found at the rape crime scene.  Reyes was able to corroborate details about his crime that cops had never released to the media, and which none of the Central Park Five could confirm.  Reyes' infamy was also already known to the cops before the infamous rape in Central Park.  However, as Burns tells it, New York's district attorney's office and police department appear to have intentionally stolen the youth of these five boys.

In order to avoid an embarrassing, public-confidence-busting, and legal-Pandora's-box backtrack from that fateful night in the Central Park precinct house, city officials pressed forward with their original yet utterly contrived version of what happened to the Central Park Jogger.  Officials did not want to publicly second-guess the cops.  The district attorney's office refused to admit that, aside from those videotaped confessions, extracted through duress and outright lies told by cops to the teens, they had a flimsy case. Instead, city officials placed their trust in the public's reliable racism and the jury's likelihood of rendering a verdict based solely on whatever videotaped evidence is presented to them.  Apparently, it's well-known in legal circles that juries will place greater weight on anything they see and hear on a videotape, even if it contradicts hard facts in a case.

Compounding matters, remember, was the city's boiling-point anger against roving gangs of minority boys and men, and the impunity with which people with threatening demeanors could terrorize neighborhoods.

Granted, it didn't help anything that activists like Al Sharpton were organizing protests against the trial, the district attorney's office, and the police.  Parents of the Central Park Five had appealed to anybody who would listen to them - and that consisted only of people like Sharpton - because of how the evidence had been so egregiously compiled against their sons.  For all the rest of us, even other impoverished minorities in the city, it proved far easier to assume the cop's case against these teenagers was as true as it seemed.  And we were content to let them be found guilty and go to prison.

For something for which, I learned Friday night, however, they weren't guilty.

Oh. No.

I'm So Sorry

The Central Park Five today:  From left, Antron McCray,
Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam and Kharey Wise

Of course, I'm leaving out a lot of details from this story, and for those, you'll have to watch Burns' special.  After all, I'm not here to steal Burns' storytelling thunder.  My purpose in this essay is to do something that is uncomfortable, and sad, but something that is also rather freeing.  Freeing, at least, for me.  Ironic, since it's the Central Park Five who should have gone free on the rape charges.

For what it's worth, to Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise, I respectfully apologize for being one of those people who automatically assumed you were guilty because of your race, your family's economic situation, and the stereotypes I held - and still hold - about how kids like you behave.  You were not innocent until proven guilty.  I figured that since the cops said you did it, and since you seemed to be the type of kids who would do it, you had done it.  I am so very sorry, and ashamed.

I don't pretend to be the most righteous person out there, and like most of us, I struggle with varying degrees of racism.  But it was too easy for me to let the pieces of this case fall together against you based more on my own racism than the facts - or lack of them.  Granted, I was not on your jury, and I didn't hear all of the evidence, nor did I know then what I know now about what the police knew - but didn't tell the public.  And there's nothing I can do now - or could have done then - that would have made any difference in how your case turned out.

Yet I was a member of the New York City community during those years when your parents wanted somebody to listen, and hardly any of us did.  One of the reasons why New York's media did not stop and listen to your families was because people like me thought putting people like you in prison would help the city's crushing crime problem go away.

Instead, you were put away, along with your youth, and whatever potential you might have been able to build upon without the psychological stigma both you and society hold about prison time.

You'll probably never hear me make this confession, and offer this apology, but hopefully, as Burns' film lends credence and publicity to you, your ordeal can stand as a testament to the ugly power of racism.

Indeed, there were five more victims than cops realized in Central Park that night.  Six, if you count justice as one of racism's casualties.
_____

Update 6/19/14:  The exonerated Central Park Five settled their claim of false imprisonment by the City of New York for approximately $40 million, to be split amongst them.

What Would You Do With $2 Billion?

You're not gonna believe this.

If you attend a church, take a guesstimate at how much it's worth.  If you don't attend a church, pick the biggest one in your community, and go a little wild with how much you'd guess it's worth.  Go ahead:  add it all up.  Property, buildings, vehicles, cash-on-hand, parsonages, religious icons and custom artwork, sound equipment, musical equipment... throw it all in and add it up.

Does it add up to $2 billion?

Billion.  With a "B."  Actually, does it add up to MORE than $2 billion?  Because that's how much New York City's mainline Episcopal Trinity Church estimates its worth to be.

Incredible, huh?  I'm laughing out loud as I type "Manhattan Church Worth Over $2 Billion."

Liz, Phil, and Anne

Now, granted, it's hard to put a pricetag on the church's historic worship spaces.  These include St. Paul's Chapel, one of the oldest continuously-used religious buildings in the United States, plus the congregation's flagship space, an elegant jewelbox of a miniature Gothic cathedral built in 1846, anchoring the head of Wall Street.  What its main sanctuary lacks in size - compared to its massive European cousins - it more than makes up for in lush hallowedness and hushed venerability.  You can practically smell its ancient auspiciousness as you enter off of cacophonous Broadway, walking right over the threshold embellished with a plaque commemorating Queen Elizabeth II's royal visit in 1976, during America's Bicentennial.

The Queen, of course, is the figurehead of the Church of England, from which Trinity's Episcopalian denomination is an offshoot.  So even though I've always thought it unusual in multiple ways for a church to have a brass plaque in honor of Her Royal Highness, perhaps what's genuinely goofy about it is what's immortalized on it:

"ON THIS SPOT

STOOD

HER MAJESTY

QUEEN ELIZABETH II

ON THE OCCASION OF

HER GRACIOUS VISIT

9 JULY 1976

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE PRINCE PHILIP

STOOD NEARBY"

Again, I find myself laughing as I type this out, even though I'm glad having the Queen's husband in such close proximity to her hallowed ground was worth being acknowledged in such grand fashion.  He's certainly played second fiddle all his married life.  Considering how theologically and socially liberal Trinity has been for years, perhaps referencing a royal spouse this way was a bold - albeit contrived - form of gender equality.

Indeed, since Trinity has a legacy of liberalism, doesn't it seem odd for the church to be one of Manhattan's largest landowners?  All of that $2 billion isn't tied up in their sanctuary, chapel, and cemeteries along Broadway.  Trinity owns 14 acres of land in Manhattan, which is some of the world's priciest real estate, regardless of what's built on it.

When it comes to money and wealth, however, everything is relative, isn't it?  Although Trinity owns 14 acres of highly-coveted city property, it used to own a whopping 215 acres, mostly farmland north of what is now the Financial District.  England's Queen Anne donated the land in 1705, back when Trinity was part of the Church of England.  Imagine the church's worth today if it still held even half of those 215 acres!  In a way, Trinity could be considered poor by comparison.

Putting On Airs

It's not even as though Trinity is the only church with extraordinary finances in New York City.  Several churches, particularly those on Manhattan Island, have been able to parlay their real estate portfolio - as meager as most are - to their financial advantage.

The new St. Peter's Lutheran Church (in red circle)
sits underneath a corner of the Citicorp Center tower

St. Peter's Lutheran Church, for example, used to be housed in a grand old Gothic edifice at the corner of 54th Street and Lexington Avenue.  In the late 1960's, when Citicorp Bank was putting together parcels of land to construct its new skyscraper east of Lexington, in what used to be a residential part of Midtown, the congregation decided it couldn't fight change.  Rapidly shrinking in size from white flight to the suburbs and Midtown's rapid conversion to high-rise office space, the church sold out to the bank in exchange for a smaller, modernist, yet opulent facility tucked underneath the new "floating" skyscraper.

Just this past February, the legendary Zeckendorf family of developers paid over $40 million to Christ Church, a Methodist congregation, for the air rights over its prime Park Avenue sanctuary.  In New York City, air rights refer to the volume of space that exists between the amount of construction the city's zoning laws allow, and what is currently built on the site.  In other words, if you own a parcel of land in Manhattan, and it's about five stories high, but zoning for that parcel of land allows something of up to 30 stories, you could sell the air rights for 25 stories to a developer to use on another project that needs air rights.  So Christ Church sold the air over its sanctuary for $40 million to developers who plan on using those air rights to increase the allowable size of a residential skyscraper they're building next door.

And if you think $40 million for empty air is a hefty price for the church to charge, consider that the Zeckendorf family plans on charging up to $48 million per apartment in their new tower.  Prices are that crazy in New York.

But, even so:  a church holding a portfolio worth two billion dollars?

Some say such an eye-popping amount is really only due to the city's unprecedented explosion in real estate values.  Trinity Church didn't set out to amass such a windfall, even if they have administered their properties adroitly.  If the church truly was money-hungry, would they have allowed their real estate holdings to dwindle so significantly over the centuries?  Plus, it's not Trinity's fault that Manhattan property values are ridiculously high.  Neither is it like the church has been on a buying spree, snapping up properties for profit.

In addition, this two billion dollars could be considered a form of endowment to help hedge the church against lean economic times.  Granted, two billion dollars represents a veritable concrete fortress instead of a lush hedge, especially for an organization whose enterprise is generally believed to be a break-even charity.  And considering the wealth and prestige many of its well-heeled members individually enjoy, it seems most unlikely that Trinity's collection coffers are going to run dry anytime soon, necessitating a run on the parish's rainy day fund.

A Billion Here, A Billion There...

The question has arisen, however, as to what the church plans on doing with its wealth.  It's been the type of question most congregations never get to ask, or if they do, the amount of money they're bickering over totals far less than two billion dollars.  But New York City is anything but normal, average, or conventional.  Except in one aspect:  at Trinity, the question has sparked what's turning into a good-old church split of sorts, and so far, one lawsuit.

Who says money can't buy happiness?  Many people in Trinity's membership, apparently.  They're not pleased that out of the church's $38 million operating budget for 2011 - yes, I'll let that sink in:  2011's annual budget was $38 million - less than 10% was spent on philanthropy.  True, Trinity funds the usual social programs expected of liberal churches, such as an AIDS walk, letter-writing to prisoners, an anti-racism campaign, and a community center, but these are mostly low-budget initiatives churches much smaller and poorer than Trinity also run all over the country.

And that's what galls an increasing number of Trinity congregants.  Most of Trinity's budget gets put back in the bank.  Shouldn't that money be out in the community, working on whatever churches traditionally are expected to do - but on a grand New York scale?  We evangelicals wouldn't expect a church with the type of theology as Trinity's to develop evangelistic programs and church planting efforts around the world.   But Trinity already spends some money helping Anglican churches in Africa, and some of Trinity's members think they could do far more of that.

Then there's New York's grinding poverty that Mayor Bloomberg may have been able to conveniently hide during his extraordinary three terms, but still stubbornly exists.  What two billion dollars couldn't do to help provide affordable apartments for indigent senior citizens!  Or run comprehensive transitional shelters for abused women and children, or fund scholarships at private schools in neighborhoods with sub-standard public schools, or even help subsidize late-night mass transit routes so the working poor can get safely home from their off-hours jobs in a reasonable amount of time.

It's not rocket science:  money talks in New York City.  It talks louder there than anyplace else in America - other than Washington, DC, of course!  In fact, it's the very same loud money that has helped Trinity to realize the stunning valuation of its 14 acres.  Fourteen measly acres - how many mega-churches across suburbia sprawl over so much more land that's worth a fraction of Trinity's two billion dollars?

Meanwhile,  Trinity is facing a revolt within its membership over whether hoarding money is helping to serve its community.  What about "the least of these," the folks for which limousine liberals usually sympathize?

Are they quietly standing nearby, negligible, an afterthought, just like the Queen's husband?

What The Carpenter Said

"At the appointed time."

It's a phrase that appears numerous times throughout the Old and New Testaments in various contexts.  Yet, since it's a prepositional phrase, it's easy for us to gloss over it and concentrate on what actually happened upon the "appointed time."

However, in that natural and innocent process, we likely forget to realize that in these instances, the timing itself represents some measure of significance.  After all, God uses time for His plans and purposes, even if we tend to take it for granted.  "In the fullness of time" may have a poetic ring to it, and we assume to understand what it means, but it also holds some poweful theology in and of itself that may not be immediately apparent.

Because God is the God of order, doesn't it make sense that schedules matter to Him?  He ordains that certain things take place at certain times - and not before, or even after!  We say we know that intellectually, but don't we normally conduct our affairs as though we're the ones charting our own future?

We often forget that this world in which we live isn't for our benefit exclusively, but for His benefit - exclusively.  True, we share in the benefits of His grace towards us, but we are the created, and He is the Creator.  The freedoms we enjoy in Christ carry a responsibility, while God is not obligated to us for anything.  It is through His providential care and sovereign grace that we can enjoy anything, or participate in any way in His Kingdom work here on Earth.

And that includes the plans we think we're making unilaterally.  Or maybe with a group of people.  And, hopefully, even in consultation with God.

Meanwhile, His timing remains in ultimate control over our universe.  Sometimes, through the mysterious allowances of free will, we appear to have a certain level of control over the things we schedule and the activities in which we participate.  I suspect these times are not so much to "liberate" us from the bondage of time and, as Charles Hummel says, the "tyranny of the urgent," since mostly, we have only ourselves to blame for the crushing demands we allow to commandeer our days.  Instead, I think these vast stretches of "free time," if you will, are given to us by God so that we can demonstrate our reliance upon Him in the way we prayerfully seek His will for our lives and the way we spend the time He gives us.  To the extent that we allow worldly preoccupations to clutter our schedules, whose fault is that?

According to the rich history of our world documented for us in God's Word, however, there are precise, fixed, definitive, ordained, "appointed" times in which God planned before His creation of our world to exercise specific events for and to each one of us.  He placed Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden at a specific time.  He provided miracles at specific times.  Many things are recorded for us that appear to be the result of mankind's free will, but how many of those events really were?  Conception and birth, for example, are two profound miracles that parents think they control, but are actually provisions of God's life-giving power.  This is the main reason why believers in Christ so passionately advocate for the unborn.  Life - and its timing - is not ours to deny.

Speaking of life, Christ's death, burial, and resurrection took place at the precise moment and time across history at which God ordained it to happen.  Some have speculated about why God waited so long after the Garden of Eden, or why He didn't wait several thousand years after the point at which humankind began recording time as "anno domini."  Yet this singular, pivotal event took place exactly when God decreed it would.
  
"For while we were still weak, at the right ('appointed') time Christ died for the ungodly."  - Romans 5:6 ESV

I was reminded of all of this yesterday at church, but it wasn't from any of our ministers.  After the third service, an usher who works the doorway I normally use each Sunday came over and chatted with me for a bit.  We don't know each other well - we don't even know each other's names - but in a large church, it's understood that always being on a first-name basis is a bit unrealistic.

Still, despite our relative ignorance of who each of us are, our conversation managed to effortlessly branch out to a variety of topics.  I learned he went to seminary, but ran out of money, and never graduated.  He's now a carpenter, and the Lord has blessed him with a good career.

"I think a lot of it is professional courtesy," he joked, since Christ's vocation was carpentry as well.

Suddenly, he made a comment that echoed something my Mom had been discussing with me only last week.  I've been particularly anxious about some unresolved situations in my life, and to have this brother in Christ who barely knew me affirm what a parent of mine had been encouraging me with really struck home to me.

"Think about all of the moments in Scripture when God waited until the appointed time," my new friend mused.  "We're to wait on Him, and sometimes, His timing seems so wrong.  But it never is, is it?  He appoints the time, and whatever it is won't happen until then."

I can't tell you how much I needed to hear that.  And how encouraged I was to hear that!

Church has become such a drag lately, I wasn't even intending on going at my usual time.  I'm in the chancel choir, and we sing at the two later services, at 9:30 and 11:00am.  But yesterday, I figured the 11:00am service would be enough.  I didn't even set my bedside alarm Saturday night.  Yet I got up, had breakfast, and finished my ablutions with enough time to get to the choir's rehearsal hall before the 9:30 service.  That's quite a feat for me, even when I wake up on time.  I figured the Lord might be telling me He wanted me at both services.  So I went.

If I had just gone to the last service, I would have been sitting in the sanctuary, listening to the morning sermon, during the time I had my conversation with the carpenter.  As it was, I sat through the sermon during the 9:30 hour, and was biding my time in one of our church's parlor areas before our organist played the last postlude for the day - a particular favorite of mine, Louis Vierne's "Carillon de Westminster."

Now, perhaps you'll think me foolish for supposing this, but I believe God got me out of bed, even though, in my "free will," I wasn't planning on doing so.  He got me to the 9:30 service and had me in place for His messenger, the carpenter, to share with me this word of encouragement towards the end of the morning.

At the appointed time, wouldn't you say? 

From one Carpenter, through another. 
_____

"Wait on the LORD: be of good courage , and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait , I say, on the LORD."  - Psalm 27:14 (KJV)