Nationalism

In an article in The Atlantic, Ross Andersen raises the question: "Did Humans Ever Live in Peace?"

Archeologists have long had evidence of conflict between small rival groups. And the earliest signs of war have been dated to the dawn of civilization (with the Sumerians and Egyptians). But recent discoveries at Laguardia, Spain pushes proof of our warring inclination to the dawn of agriculture. So how far does war go back in our history?

Because war is, by definition, organized violence. Hieroglyphic inscriptions tell us that more than 5,000 years ago, the first pharaoh conquered chiefdoms up and down the Nile delta to consolidate his power over Egypt. A Sumerian poem suggests that some centuries later, King Gilgamesh fended off a siege at Uruk, the world’s first city. But new findings, at Laguardia and other sites across the planet, now indicate that wars were also occurring at small-scale farming settlements all the way back to the dawn of agriculture, if not before.

For nearly a century, anthropologists have wanted to know how long people have been engaged in organized group violence. It’s not some idle antiquarian inquiry. For many, the question bears on human nature itself, and with ruinous wars ongoing in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere, it has become more resonant. If warring among humans began only recently, then we might be able to blame it on changeable circumstances. If, however, some amount of war has been with us since our species’ origins, or earlier in our evolutionary history, it may be difficult to excise it from the human condition.

But Andersen closes his piece with a view of what he thinks is hope:

What separates us most from other species is our cultural plasticity: We are always changing, sometimes even for the better. We have found ways to end blood feuds that implicated hundreds of millions. War may be a long-standing mainstay of human life, an inheritance from our deepest past. But each generation gets to decide whether to keep passing it down.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Andersen's view is common today. It sees humanity as though in constant progress towards perfection. We currently rest at the zenith. His "hope" is for this progress to continue. But a survey of our history reveals that this view is no hope at all. It is simply doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. That is not hope, it is insanity. There is no hope for lasting peace until the Prince of Peace appears (Isa. 9:6-7).

Puerto Rican rapper Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also known as Bad Bunny, recently opened the telecast of 2023 Grammy Awards. It was the first time a musical act that does not primarily speak or sing in English was featured in such a prestigious timeslot. As a result, many Latin American people beamed in pride at seeing someone from their culture (or one adjacent to theirs) be represented on such a big stage.

But one particular detail caused a stir in the immediate wake of the telecast. Viewers responded in real time on social media platforms to the way that Bad Bunny’s performance was captured by the live closed-captioning text at the bottom of the screen. His words and music were not transcribed, but rather described simply as “non-English.”

This was a disappointment for viewers hoping to see a live transcription of Bad Bunny’s Spanish lyrics, considering that he’d been nominated for Album of the Year. That oversight was particularly galling, according Melissa Harris-Perry of WNYC, because it was so avoidable.

Harris-Perry said, “Bad Bunny does not generally or ever perform in English, right? I mean, this should not have been a surprise.”

Dr. Bonilla is director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (at CUNY), and a guest of Harris-Perry’s podcast . Bonilla says that Bad Bunny is so important to Puerto Rican audiences in part because of his refusal to cater to English-speaking audiences, which is causing the industry to change.

Bonilla said, “Okay, you're making history here. For the first time, you have a Spanish language act nominated for Album of the Year. This is the largest streaming artist in the world. You know that he sings and speaks only in Spanish. Do better, Grammys.”

The good news is that this is less a function of malice than of lack of planning or intentionality. Hopefully, the Grammys will be ready the next time they feature a Spanish-speaking act so prominently in their telecast.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Language is one of the ways that we define and reinforce culture. The church can also be sensitive to this and welcome other language speakers into God's family. We can assist in that mission by accommodating the languages of vulnerable people with less power or influence.

When Americans go to the polls, they go to town halls, high school gyms, fire stations, and churches. There are more than 60,000 polling places in America, and roughly one out of every five is located in a church.

Conflicts over the correct relationship between religious communities and the state frequently grab headlines. But church polling places are rarely controversial. Here, governments rely on churches to be safe, trusted civic spaces. And 12,875 houses of worship extend hospitality to their neighbors, opening their doors for elections.

Top Six States in Percentage of Polling Places that Are Churches:

62% - Arkansas

58% - Oklahoma

38% - Florida

36% - Kansas

35% - Arizona

35% - Ohio

The podcast, “The Agent,” tells the story of Jack Barsky, a Soviet-era KGB secret agent embedded in the US, beginning in the 1970s. Gradually, his loyalties shifted and in a remarkable turn of events, the FBI actually eventually helped him to secure US citizenship.

Near the end of the podcast he says,

I had a home again, an official home. … I’d put East Germany out of my mind. I stopped thinking about the folks back there. ... I put it away and put it in a part of my brain that I didn’t want to access anymore. You always want to belong to something. This is one of the basic things that make us human. … Now I had a country again. That felt really good.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Christian's change of citizenship is far more dramatic, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, thanks to Christ Jesus, our King.

Pastor Eduardo Davila tells this story:

I have here an extremely important document. We all have important documents: a marriage certificate, the title to your car, your birth certificate. This one is my naturalization certificate.

My family and I came to the United States as political asylees, leaving the remnants of a country ravaged by war and destructive socialism that did not deliver on its promises. When we came, we had Nicaraguan passports. We were able to come to the US, but we were not given full citizenship. We were not protected by the US. We were not allowed to vote.

But all that changed in 2008, when we walked into an office in Miami, took a few tests, and swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. We were granted full permanent citizenship status. We were fully in.

During the whole process, one aspect that stuck with me was realizing the seriousness of a statement that then-President Bush wrote: “We are united not by race or culture but the ideals of democracy, justice, and liberty.” Beautiful.

Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:19 that "Now you are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family." Praise God! When you come to Christ, you are no longer a stranger or foreigner. You have the full blessing and protection of the kingdom of Christ. You are no longer undocumented. You no longer need to fret over where you belong or how to survive.

At baptism, you renounced your old citizenship and swore allegiance to Jesus, and you were given a naturalization certificate. You are now part of the new humanity: you are no longer strangers and foreigners. Once a citizen of a different kingdom, your ruler was your vices, addictions, and fears. Your ruler was the prince of this world. That is what you left behind when you were baptized and chose to submit yourself to Jesus as your new King.

John Ortberg shares what he learned about civic duty and enthusiasm from being called to jury duty:

It was 9:00 on a Monday morning and I was one of 150 unhappy campers sitting on plastic chairs crammed into a sterile basement room in the San Mateo County Courthouse, reporting for jury duty. We all had one thing in common: We wanted to be somewhere else.

Until Larry happened.

Larry works for the government, and however much we pay him, it's not enough. In a few short minutes, he won over the crowd of prospective jurors and infused us with a sense of honor and purpose. "I know you're all busy people," he said. "But I want to say thank you. I want to tell you, on behalf of the judges and our legal system and the county of San Mateo and, really, our nation, we're grateful for your service."

Although almost no one is happy about getting a summons to jury duty, Larry said, it's actually incredibly meaningful, and it's the foundation of a justice system in which people have a right to trial by a jury of their peers. He told us a story about a ninety-five-year-old woman who was no longer able to drive, but who took three buses to get to the courthouse so she could serve. When she arrived, Larry asked her, "Did you call ahead like you're supposed to, to find out if you're even needed for jury duty?" She said, "I couldn't. I don't have one of those push-button phones." Turns out, she still had a rotary dial phone.

Larry reminded us of the nobility of justice, and the long centuries of struggle for it, and how, even now, people around the world were fighting, and in some cases dying, for the right to exercise this privilege. As he spoke, people stopped texting; they sat up straight; they nudged each other and seemed inspired. By the time my number was called, I was so excited to serve that when the judge asked me whether I could pronounce someone guilty, I told him I was a pastor and that, according to the Bible, everybody was guilty. I said, "I could even pronounce you guilty!"

I wasn't selected to serve on a jury that time, but the point is that a room full of sullen, silent, phone-checking, self-important draftees had been transformed into a community of joyful patriots in a matter of minutes. When people left the courthouse that day, they were talking and laughing like old friends.

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state and never its tool."

Scientists have identified a specific, love-inducing, trust-building chemical called Oxytocin. Psychologists refer to it as the "hormone of love." When oxytocin is present in our brain, we want to reach out to help and bond with other people. However, a 2011 New York Times article explains that apparently this "love hormone" has its limits. Recent research suggests that human oxytocin produces a brand of "love" that only extends to people in our "in-group." In other words, in sinful human beings oxytocin unleashes a narrow, ethnocentric kind of love—a love that extends to "our kind of people."

In recent studies from the Netherlands, a number of students were given doses of oxytocin and then presented with hypothetical dilemmas. In one scenario, Dutch students were asked "whether to help a person onto an overloaded lifeboat, thereby drowning the five already there." In another scenario, the Dutch students were asked whether to save "five people in the path of a train by throwing a bystander onto the tracks." The five people who might be rescued were nameless, but the person who might be sacrificed was given either a foreign or a Dutch name. Students who sniffed oxytocin prior to these tests were much more likely to favor their own kind and sacrifice ethnic outsiders.

The study concluded that oxytocin only increases our love and loyalty for people in our in-group. Conversely, it makes us more likely to exclude those who aren't like us. Clearly, in our fallen state, our love doesn't stretch very far.

How radically different is the love of God! Christ specifically healed, embraced, and then died for blatant outsiders—even his enemies—not just insiders. Then Christ calls us to love enemies and outsiders.

Most of us like to assume that we're enlightened, tolerant, and unprejudiced people. Unfortunately, a new study reveals many of us have a hidden bias against anyone with a foreign accent. According to a summary of the study in The Wall Street Journal, "The further from native-sounding an accent is, the harder we have to work, and the less trustworthy we perceive the information to be." It gets worse: "Researchers found that the heavier the accent, the more skeptical participants became." In other words, if it sounds like you're not from around here, my suspicion radar is on high alert. My bias about you isn't based on your character; it's based on the fact that you talk "different."

The researchers want to reassure us that we're not really racist or prejudiced (thank goodness). Apparently, we're just lazy. Well, again they don't want to pass judgment: we're not actually lazy; our brains are lazy. In the researcher's words, "Our brains prefer the path of least resistance."

That seems like a nice way to say that, despite our best intentions, we all have pockets of prejudice and bias. In biblical terms, we show favoritism toward people who resemble us. Perhaps this study shows why we need Jesus' help to uproot our partiality and love people who don't resemble us, especially people from different racial, ethnic or national groups.

In his 2010 memoir, A Journey: My Political Life, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair shares the following story:

A friend of mine whose parents were immigrants, Jews from Europe who came to America in search of safety, told me this story. His parents lived and worked in New York. They were not well off. His father died when he was young. His mother lived on, and in time my friend succeeded and became wealthy. He often used to offer his mother the chance to travel outside America. She never did. When eventually she died, they went back to recover the safety box where she kept her jewelry. They found there another box. There was no key. So they had to drill it open. They wondered what precious jewel must be in it. They lifted the lid. There was wrapping and more wrapping and finally an envelope. Intrigued, they opened it. In the envelope were her U.S. citizenship papers. Nothing more. That was the jewel, more precious to her than any other possession. That was what she treasured most.

Many Christians, like most of the populace, believe the political structures can cure all our ills. The fact is, however, that government, by its very nature, is limited in what it can accomplish. What it does best is perpetuate its own power and bolster its own bureaucracies.

—Charles (Chuck) Colson, advisor to President Nixon, writer, and founder of Prison Fellowship

It's not all that hard to argue that Ken Burns is the biggest name in the world of documentaries. His stirring works about the Civil War, baseball, and jazz have garnered numerous awards and helped put PBS back on the "must-see" list. What could be argued, though, is his ability to consistently give the Latino population its rightful due.

It began with Burns's 1994 documentary on baseball. In 18 hours worth of material, Latino players were given six minutes of attention—four of which went to Roberto Clemente alone. In 2001, his 19 hour opus to jazz music afforded a little less than three minutes to examine the Latino contributions to the genre. With his new 14hour look at World War II—to air on PBS in September 2007—Burns has done it again. Not one Hispanic veteran was interviewed despite the fact that half a million Latinos fought in the war effort, and their military service "produced a higher ratio of Medal of Honor recipients relative to population than any other ethnic group."

In a CNN.com commentary, Ruben Navarette Jr. wrote: "If either PBS or Burns knew more about the ethnic group, they might have known they were playing with dynamite … A special source of pride are the World War II veterans, who came home to segregated schools, restricted restaurants, and bans on speaking Spanish."

When several Hispanic associations protested the snub, Burns told the press he was going to add an addendum at the end of the 14 hours, celebrating the Latino contributions to the war effort. When his proposed footnote approach received a lukewarm reception, Burns finally agreed to shoot new footage and interviews that he could weave seamlessly into the production.

If Jesus is Lord then he must also be Lord of our politics. That's an unarguable Christian truth--that everybody argues about. ... Too many of us Christians confuse political convictions with spiritual convictions. Insecure with ambiguity, we assume people of one Lord, one faith and one baptism must also promote one political agenda. That assumption leads the church into trouble. First, it prompts us to make judgments about people that ought to be left to God. ... Second, when the church confuses spiritual and political convictions it is tempted to use political power to forward a "spiritual" agenda.