Category: Culture

The (Non) Imitation Game

Silva

“One hundred and fifty-nine million, million, million, if you want to be exact.”  The impossible to crack Enigma machines in use by the German military in WWII had those odds in its favor.  Each day, you have 1/159,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance of knowing what the Germans were going to do.

The history of Enigma and those who tried to break its code went from pre-WWI Germany, to Poland to England.  It was ultimately deciphered by Alan Turing and his team at Blectchley Park in 1943.  As a part of my curiosity in the whole thing, I watched the movie “The Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch.  That movie’s title apparently came from a paper he had written of the same name where, among other things, he tries to explain how a “universal machine” (modern day computer) might work.

The story of Enigma, Turing team and England’s task force ULTRA is very interesting and, frankly, inspiring.  At the same time, once the movie ended, I recognized Turing was a particular genius in solving puzzles and an unrepentant, practicing homosexual.  Whether the movie depicted his life with accuracy or creative license I’ll know soon enough (as I study this in greater detail).  However its portrayal of Turing left me in significant turmoil.

One the one hand, it flashed back to scenes from his young school life where he developed a friendship with a classmate, Christopher, while, at the same time, he was horribly bullied by others.  Christopher appreciated his person as well as his giftedness; the bullies cared about neither.  Turing as a young student was isolated and clearly lonely.  I’m a parent and watching those scenes evoked great sympathy with young Alan and indignation towards those ignorant and mean students.

In the same vein, were two other circumstances.  First, Turing’s work on the “cryptology bomb” (the machine that would crack Enigma) was misunderstood and devalued by his British government bosses as well as the others on the team.  He was mocked, verbally assaulted and ignored by all.  Second, in the modern setting of the movie (set in 1951), a policeman called on to investigate a robbery at Turing’s home, instead pursued what he thought was Turing’s association with the Soviets as a spy.  That part played out in Turing being arrested not for spying but for soliciting a male prostitute for sex.  Whatever his work in the war, it amounted to nothing in sparing him from being charged with indecency and chemically castrated.  This left me feeling that significant injustice and blindness to humanity had occurred.

On the other hand, he was a doggedly tenacious genius determined to do what was necessary to crack Enigma.  His single-mindedness in that effort, his willingness to go it alone when, early on, his team didn’t understand what he was doing, and his courage to withhold the fact that they had cracked Enigma from the majority of the British military are truly inspiring.  Few would’ve been able to be a genius plus tenacious plus courageous.  That left me inspired and humbled.

The question is: to which do you give your heart?

In other words, as a Christian, does compassion for him in light of him being bullied and unjustly treated cause us to overlook his sexual immorality and the fact that homosexual behavior is, truly, indecent according to the Bible?  Do we rise up like the Queen of England in 2013 and congratulate him on his astounding achievement or do we give measured approval for him because he was actually a criminal according to British law at the time?  Do we shake our heads at how truly wickedly the British justice system treated him (chemical castration) or do we agree with the apostle Paul in Romans 1:24-25 that this was God “giving him up” to the dishonoring of his body?

The movie perhaps did what it was supposed to do: it made the murkiness of life, murkier.  It left me with the sense that morality is out of reach and it cannot be known.  What is right and true and good is not what I think it is, what God says it is.

In the end the movie’s agenda was clear: the text displayed before the credits ran spoke of the 47,000 homosexuals the British government convicted between the late 1880’s and the early 1950’s.  Likewise, it displayed the Queen’s posthumous royal pardon for him in 2013.  Whatever else might’ve been true about Alan Turing, the movie wanted us to see the injustice of criminalizing homosexuality.  It wanted us to see how utterly ridiculous it is to punish a man – a man of great achievement – for whom he chooses as a sexual partner.

But that’s the cultural narrative.  It drives us all to imitate its morality and its ethics.  It wants us to be convinced that there is no such thing as real morality; it is all situational and practical.  It wants our experience of shared humanity (our compassion, our indignation over wickedness, etc.) to always overtake God’s revealed will for us.  It wants me to be in turmoil over Alan Turing’s life so that I won’t be so quick to use God’s word to evaluate others’ lives.

No, life isn’t as murky as it seems.  When a follower of Christ steps back into the presence of God the Spirit, the right, the beautiful, the awe-inspiring is plain to see in and in light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Who, by the way, chose His own death as the punishment for those who live in all the ways Alan Turing lived.  In this life, then, I must be human and extend my compassion as a member of mankind with all others to all others.  Jesus was a model of love and kindness and gentleness that He calls me to imitate.  And (and), I will stand holding  the plumb line of Scripture and hold out Jesus Christ to others as the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).  I can not imitate the world in making sin confusing and salvation obscure for that is not the way of love nor the way of humanity.

Frederick Douglass speaks on abortion (also).

Frederick Douglass speaks on abortion (also).

Silva

At some recent point, I was encouraged to read Frederick Douglass’ Fourth of July speech, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?”  It is long, but like reading Owen, profoundly worth the effort.

In addition to highlighting the wickedness of American slavery, he indicts the American church in its complicity.  How, having the ability to overturn the institution, instead, looked away and tacitly gave it support.  These are my religious forbears: Southern Presbyterians and others.

By God’s grace, a long path has been traveled and we aren’t who we once were.  At least not when it comes to slavery.  I’ve highlighted a portion of his speech that in our day applies directly to our inability and unwillingness to abolish the wickedness of abortion. I do make the comparison between the utterly inhuman slavery of men to the unfathomable wickedness of the murder of the unborn.

Just as common sense and decency (to say nothing of our Constitution) did not support the enslavement of blacks, nor does it support the murder of the unborn (Roe v. Wade, notwithstanding).  Slavery resides in the conscience of this country as an indelible stain; perhaps faded from what it was, it remains nonetheless.  It remains to remind us of our potential for wickedness – for the church’s potential for ungodliness.  Oh how I wish we would’ve looked to that mark before we legally endorsed the partiality of man and woman upon those will cause us no inconvenience.

Read on, church, and search your soul.

Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

 

“White Privilege” or Majority Population?

“White Privilege” or Majority Population?

Silva

In the late 1990’s many of the highly charged terms we use to describe each other weren’t around.  “Racist” was about as descriptive as it got.  This struck home with me as I was in a graduate school class called “Social and Cultural Exegesis.”  It was a class dealing with cultural analysis in light of biblical principles.  The professor was a brilliant Chinese man.  The class was populated mostly by Koreans, black men and white women; there were two white men in the class and I was one of them.

At one point in our discussion, I said something that prompted a black man in my class to say to me from across the room, “You’re a racist.”  This hit me in two ways.  First, being born and raised in my part of the Midwest meant I wasn’t exposed to racial tensions like in the South (for example).  I went to school with black folks, women, Asian folks and, I am Hispanic.  I didn’t have the oppressed experiences at the hands of others so I didn’t develop a skin-level animosity towards them.  So, the charge of being a racist didn’t even make sense to me.  Secondly, I had done some thinking on cultural issues and concluded that my views were surely friendly to other minorities.  After all, I was half-Hispanic, so to be called a “racist” was offensive to me given my genealogy and self-reflection.

I stood up and said (indelicately), “You’re the racist.  You hate white people.”  To which, a Korean man stood up and told me I was out of my mind.  Continuing to ramp up our defenses, the three of us, equal in height and build and passion, closed the distance until we were face-to-face-to-face.  A lull in our yelling happened and I turned to the shocked professor and strongly recommended he pray to end the class (I was in training for ministry after all!).

The three of us were rattled.  I don’t think any of us believed the charges we hurled at each other.  What I mean is: each of us were stopped in our tracks and forced to contemplate each other’s words.  We were surprised and doubtful of ourselves.  It was certainly a movement of God since at one point we were just about at blows with each other.  After class, we decided to meet regularly to discuss each other’s perspective.  I for one wanted to show them I was not a racist (not a good motive).

Over time and discussion, those men became some of my closest friends for the rest of my time in seminary.  They patiently taught me something very important – something I wish we’d currently contemplate instead of “white privilege.”  That is, in most cultures, certainly in our own, there are “majority” populations and “minority” ones.

Majority populations are the greatest in number of a particular people group.  European-descended whites are the majority population in our culture (currently).  But, apart from being the most numerous, the white majority population built our culture (as many are pointing out these days).  While, they built it in a way that was consistent with their values, priorities and purposes, they built it imperfectly.  They knowingly and unknowingly built it to suit them.  Of course, this makes sense: any majority population would build and, as long as it was the majority, maintain its culture to suit itself.  This “maintenance” could be just (if it benefits all) or terribly unjust (if it oppresses some to benefit others).  In either case, it is knowingly and unknowingly done with the benefit of the majority population in mind.

To recast this dynamic in terms of “white privilege” is unhelpful and short-sighted.  This is because it confuses race with a sociological dynamic of majority population / minority population that is present in every culture.  Similar categories of violence, oppression and injustice minority populations in this country battle are present in every country in its own minority populations.  To be sure, the struggles and injustices of minority populations will vary depending on the country, but the fact of their existence across cultures remains.

To be the majority population “culture-builder” means to be blind to much of the impact of what was built on minority populations.  This blindness has many causes but sin is its root.  Here I have in mind sins of “omission” as well as those of “commission.”  We purposely curate our lives for our own benefit while at the same time we make those who are in our lives fit in what we’ve made.  The same is true for all of us: this is why marriage is so hard so often.  What we’ve also seen is while this is happening on a micro-level, it is happening at a macro-level: culture-building is happening in the same way.  To be in the majority means doors that open to us were fashioned by us to open to us and for those like us.  Again, this makes sense, persisting in some amount of blindness means we have no other way to build.  For those not in the majority, those doors might or might not open, might or might not “fit.”  They know it keenly whereas the majority does not (“omission”).  (On an important side-note: this is why the kingdom of God is built by the Lord, according to His Law and for His glory.  He asks all who come into it, to fit into what He has done not what we are doing.)

To accuse those in the majority population of racial culpability simply for being in the majority may be unjust and certainly will not lead to discussion and enlightenment.  In the moment, when the men called me “racist” I only wanted to prove to them that they were wrong; I wasn’t interested in listening.  Am I unique?  Can we say our national discourse is characterized by those who want to listen?  It was only after time and Holy Spirit-wrought humility in my heart did I hear those men say:

What we mean is: you are blind because you are not a minority.  Since you are not a minority – not like we are – you cannot see what we see.  Your “cultural glasses” weren’t made to see it.  And you might never be able to see it as we do.

Their expectation of me wasn’t that I become part of their minority population since that was impossible: I was born a white male and I remain that way.  Instead, they wanted me to recalibrate my approach to minorities: to interact with all minority populations as a self-conscious member of the majority population.  Not a value statement, a fact: European whites built this culture and I’m one of their descendants. Among other things, that would mean, (and they didn’t put it this way) they needed me as an advocate for them in the majority population.  In one sense, minorities are “strangers” in the majority population.  Likewise, they needed me to be a humble sojourner with them in their minority spaces where I am a “stranger.”  I believe the only way this is truly possible is not engaging in “privilege redistribution” but that we become citizens of something completely different than anything we have made: the kingdom of God.  (I digress again.)

But today in our culture, many try to press the point by slinging out terms like “white privilege” or “white theology” or “white supremacy.”  And then, demanding the overturning of them all.  For those of us in the majority population, what we hear is sweeping racial disgust solved only by the stripping away of what our forebears have made – that we all enjoy in some measure.  This is no solution.  As cultural slurs or political talking points, these aren’t helpful as they aren’t precise: they are subjective terms the users get to define holding the debate hostage.  “White privilege” when it is used as an accusation or put down will not help those in the majority population to see and to correct the disadvantages present in the minority ones.  It will not further the discussion to the point where blindnesses are overcome and change can happen.  It furthers suspicion and distrust.  It will most often simply lead to making more walls, creating more distance.

Is it possible for majority and minority populations to live justly together?  It’s hard to conceive but it is worth working for.  Perhaps what is gained in the current divisive cultural conversation is the reminder that there will always be work to be done.  Surely, the starting point for this isn’t (again) in privilege policing or racial shaming.