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This op-ed by the New York Times Frank Rich called Guns of August articulates what I have been thinking for the last months.  Two months ago I wrote a piece on the shooting at the holocaust museum and before that about the killing of the doctor in his church.   Rich's piece is a frightening portrayal of the rising violent rhetoric and actions of the right fringe and the inability or unwillingness of the mainstream right politicians to confront it.  Read it and weep...

"IT is time to water the tree of liberty" said the sign carried by a gun-toting protester milling outside President Obama's town-hall meeting in New Hampshire two weeks ago. The Thomas Jefferson quote that inspired this message, of course, said nothing about water: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." That's the beauty of a gun -- you don't have to spell out the "blood."

The protester was a nut. America has never had a shortage of them. But what's Tom Coburn's excuse? Coburn is a Republican senator from Oklahoma, where 168 people were murdered by right-wing psychopaths who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Their leader, Timothy McVeigh, had the Jefferson quote on his T-shirt when he committed this act of mass murder. Yet last Sunday, when asked by David Gregory on "Meet the Press" if he was troubled by current threats of "violence against the government," Coburn blamed not the nuts but the government.

"Well, I'm troubled any time when we stop having confidence in our government," the senator said, "but we've earned it."

Coburn is nothing if not consistent. In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, he was part of a House contingent that helped delay and soften an antiterrorism bill. This cohort even tried to strip out a provision blocking domestic fund-raising by foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas. Why? The far right, in league with the National Rifle Association, was angry at the federal government for aggressively policing America's self-appointed militias. In a 1996 floor speech, Coburn conceded that "terrorism obviously poses a serious threat," but then went on to explain that the nation had worse threats to worry about: "There is a far greater fear that is present in this country, and that is fear of our own government." As his remarks on "Meet the Press" last week demonstrated, the subsequent intervention of 9/11 has not changed his worldview.

I have been writing about the simmering undertone of violence in our politics since October, when Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential candidate of a major political party, said nothing to condemn Obama haters shrieking "Treason!," "Terrorist!" and "Off with his head!" at her rallies. As vacation beckons, I'd like to drop the subject, but the atmosphere keeps getting darker.

Coburn's implicit rationalization for far-right fanatics bearing arms at presidential events -- the government makes them do it! -- cannot stand. He's not a radio or Fox News bloviator paid a fortune to be outrageous; he's a card-carrying member of the United States Senate. On Monday -- the day after he gave a pass to those threatening violence -- a dozen provocateurs with guns, at least two of them bearing assault weapons, showed up for Obama's V.F.W. speech in Phoenix. Within hours, another member of Congress -- Phil Gingrey of Georgia -- was telling Chris Matthews on MSNBC that as long as brandishing guns is legal, he, too, saw no reason to discourage Americans from showing up armed at public meetings.

Read more of Frank Rich's Guns of August

People often ask me why I don't blog more often in the crucible of the news cycle when an issue is "hot."  My friends and editors are always trying to get me to speed up--as I tend to be slow with my words.  Last week, for example, I was quiet as the war of words escalated between partisans in the Professor Gates/Cambridge police affair.  President Obama did, of course, jump in the fray with his poorly chosen assessment that the Cambridge police behaved "stupidly," only to apologize a couple of days later and invite the wronged parties to the White House for beer

President Obama's actions underscore my reticence to enter the blog-fray in heated battle.  By inclination and academic training, I'm a historian.  Historians believe that the more time we have to understand a situation, the better.   When seeing the picture of Professor Gates hauled away in handcuffs from his own house, I was shocked.  But I also suspected that something had happened of which I was unaware.  As a commentator, I had a sense of my own limitations.  Better, I thought, to let the picture speak for itself.  And better to hold back before starting to call someone names like "racist" or "bigot" or "idiot" or "rogue cop" or whatever.  The escalation is even more shocking than the original event--culminating yesterday with Glenn Beck calling President Obama a racist!

If nothing else, the events leading up to today's Beer Summit at the White House have underscored the importance of slow words.  Although progressive Christians are known for activism, liberal and progressive Protestantism also is marked by a commitment to intellectual analysis.  As a group, we are often painfully slow at decision-making--sometimes to the point of institutional paralysis.  But we are so slow because we believe that the world is a complex place that defies black-and-white (no pun intended) characterizations.  In particular, morality and ethics are often shades of grey, a shadowy realm of mixed human motives and less-than-perfect choices.  In my religious tradition, moving slowly is a spiritual practice--one that accounts for careful and thoughtful engagement with important ideas and events.

The progressive emphasis on thoughtful analysis is more than a matter of taste or the privilege of educated elites.  It is drawn from--what is arguably the most important of all liberal Christian sacred texts--the New Testament Letter of James.   This week's shouting match is well-described in this ancient paragraph:

For all of us make many mistakes . . . The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.  How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!  And the tongue is a fire.  The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell . . . No one can tame the tongue--a restless evil, full of deadly poison (James 3: 2-8).

The letter's author goes on to say that the tongue is corrected only by "works done with gentleness born of wisdom," by those who "make peace."  Quick and uninformed judgment must be restrained by a quest for wisdom.

Here, at Progressive Revival, Paul Raushenbush and I are trying to create a blog space that reflects the deepest virtues and values of mainline Protestant traditions--a way of being in the world that believes to hold back the tongue--even for a moment--creates the space for understanding, opens new possibilities, and allows us to glimpse God's reign.  Consideration, discernment, and thoughtfulness should never be an excuse to avoid action; rather, they should frame the way we act.  We're not in a contest for speed; we're on a journey toward wisdom. 

In the midst of the fray, I humbly invite spiritual progressives into a "slow word" movement.  Like the "slow food" movement that argues food must be savored to be healthy, so care-filled words also need to be digested in order to be wise, to act justly, and to make peace.  Slow words are a spiritual practice, one much needed in a world of junk politics and faux news events.  Slowing down, guarding our words, might reintroduce a measure of reality into our lives. In order to change the world, we must first learn to bridle the tongue.

I think President Obama was right to soften the tone of his statement the other day on the Gates arrest incident; the word "stupid" wasn't a helpful word choice.

But the word, I think, accurately describes the reaction of a lot of white male commentators to the incident.

Let's assume (for a minute, anyway) that Sgt. Leon Lashley, the African American officer who was present at the arrest, got it right when he said Dr. Gates reacted inappropriately to the investigating white police officer, Sgt. James Crowley. Further, let's assume that Sgt. Crowley acted "according to protocol" in arresting Dr. Gates for his overreaction. And further, let's assume that President Obama spoke inappropriately when he used the word "stupidly" without knowing the full story. I'm not saying this is the whole story, or the best way to view the story, but even if we grant these assumptions ...

What remains truly stupid, in my opinion, is for the discussion to stop where it seems to stop among many cable news pundits, sanctimoniously blaming Gates, Crowley, or Obama for this or that transgression. It's especially unwise for white folks like me ... many of whom remain surprisingly unaware of the concept of white privilege ... to fail to see the background reality into which this incident provides a teachable moment. (For a refreshingly reflective analysis, see this short article.)

Whether it's the Gates incident or the Sotomayor hearings, I am saddened to hear so many white American Christians (Catholic, Evangelical, etc.) jump on the Hannity/Limbaugh/Buchanan/Beck/Fox News bandwagon. Their reactive move toward finding someone to blame -- case closed -- reveals to me how much these commentators (rather than Billy Graham, any recent Pope, the Bible, or any denominational headquarters) have become the primary source of spiritual formation (not just political misinformation) for large sectors of the white American church.

Sadly, many commentators in the world of Religious Broadcasting simply apply a thick coat of cosmetic prayer and Bible-talk to the same ideology of their secular thought-leaders. (If your blood pressure is low in this regard and you need to notch it up a few points, watch, listen to, or read Bill Moyers' recent piece on Right Wing Radio ... Rage on the Airwaves. Especially note Bill O'Reilly's spookily frank comments on the "white male power structure.")

Thank God for bridge-building leaders like pastor Efrem Smith, seeking to provide the American Christian community a more fair, balanced, and wise perspective. He, like many of my friends of color, understands how Dr. Gates must have felt, because he has his own stories of committing the "crime" of DWB or DWH (Driving While Black, or Driving While Hispanic). Notable quote:

It's important that my White evangelical brothers and sisters not let Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh give the proper perspective on seeing this issue. Jesus had the ability in Scripture of seeing the world from the vantage point of the child, the woman, the Samaritan, and the poor. Why are some evangelical conservatives only willing to see this from the vantage point of the police officer? I know that Dr. Gates isn't poor, but he does represent the historically marginalized in our nation. And please don't down-size this social sin to victimization. I'm not a victim, I'm just an African-American male who gets pulled over by the police from time to time for no reason. This is why, I'm with Dr. Gates on this one and you should be too.

"Jesus had the ability ... of seeing the world from the vantage point of the [other]," Smith rightly says. The Biblical word for that ability, I think, is compassion. So, as we assess this situation, may we have compassion for Dr. Gates, for Srgts. Lashley and Crowley, for President Obama, and for all our neighbors of whatever skin color who share an ugly history and a messy present moment and the common challenging of creating a better future.

And yes (I'm preaching to my own soul here), may we also feel compassion for the broadcasters whose punditry serves to reinforce white male privilege and reduce compassion for too many of us. After all, they can only speak what's in their hearts, and right now, there's a lot of fear and outrage screaming inside them. Their fear and outrage will only grow as resistance to white male privilege grows, white male privilege being so inherent to reality as they have known it that they consider it normal and the way things ought to be. Unless they are liberated from their fear and freed to discover a better vision of how things can be, their reactions will only get even more shrill and extreme.

Without compassion, without the ability to see the world from the vantage of the other, we're all TWS (talking while stupid).

cross posted from Brianmclaren.net