Silence in the face of oppression is compliance, it's participation.
Republished with permission from John Pavlovitz
Will Rogers was famously quoted as once saying, “I never met a man I didn’t like.”
I can still remember my mother’s stern reprimand whenever as a child, I’d comment that I hated this person or that person:
“Hey!” she’d admonish me sharply, “We don’t hate anyone!”
I knew then and still know now what she was trying to teach me: that hating what a person does, doesn’t mean hating who they are; that we can and should try and separate people from their actions. She was reminding me that there is humanity buried deeply, even within those who do the most terrible things, and that I should strive to see it.
My mom and Jesus always seemed to be in agreement on this.
There is in the Christian tradition of my upbringing, a persistent call to love; to love others as I believe God loves me, to love my neighbor as myself—to even love my enemies. For most of my life this has been my greatest aspiration; to see the good in all people, to acknowledge their inherent worth, to believe that every human being is made in the image of God and that I should revere that truth in them.
Right now I may be letting Will Rogers, Jesus, and my mother all down—but I hate Donald Trump.
I’m also pretty sure that I’m okay with it.
For me, this hatred is actually a matter of the deepest, truest love. It is a Jesus-emulating faith affirmation. You see, among his directives to love our neighbor, Jesus also commanded us to love the least; to fiercely protect the marginalized and forgotten and vulnerable, to defend those most-assailed by men abusing their power and preying upon them. Jesus unequivocally, explicitly, and fully detested when people were victimized by the religious and the wealthy and the powerful—and he saved his harshest words and most visible outrage for these offenders.
I’ve been a Christian for most of my life and a pastor for over two decades. My study, experience, and understanding of the Jesus of the Gospels, tells me that he would be fully-sickened by Donald Trump and by those who partner with him—and that they would be directly in the crosshairs of his most furious righteous anger.
If his feet were on the planet right now, this Republican Evangelical cancer currently laying waste to the poor and the sick and the outsiders while claiming his name, would be the very table he would be overturning. And as someone aspiring to emulate him, I am glad to stand in his stead and flip them.
I am okay with my practical hatred of Donald Trump, because I can’t separate who he is from what he does—when what he does is the only tangible experience I have of him; when what he does directly impacts my children, the safety of my family, other people’s children and their families, the lives of hundreds of millions of people, the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the nation we call home.
What Donald Trump does and what this Republican party does comprise the only experience people of color have with them, that Muslims have with them, that the LGBTQ community has with them, that women have with them, that citizens of this country have with them.
In other words, individually this President and each man and woman currently collaborating with him may indeed have a humanity that may or may not be visible up close—but endured together and in the capacity they are impacting the world (which is the only relationship we have with them), they are something of the gravest violence, something fully inhuman, something worthy of disdain.
I can and should hate this malevolence.
All decent, loving, compassionate people should.
Every person claiming to care about what Jesus cared about should hate it.
Good people should unapologetically hate atrocities against humanity.
Christians should be fighting it instead of cultivating it.
I hate him because of the love I have for everything and everyone he is abusing and destroying.
I love and am for people who are sick and facing life-threatening illness—and I stand against those stand between them and wellness.
I love and am for Transgender teenagers and gay couples and lesbian clergy—and I oppose those putting them through hell simply for trying to live authentically.
I love and am for people who flee unthinkable violence and fear to reach this country—and push back against those who offer them no compassion and only contempt.
I love and am for women who’ve lived their entire lives in a culture of misogyny and sexism—and stand against men who perpetuate individual and systemic violence against them.
I love and am for young black men who still fear law enforcement and their government—and oppose those who vilify and condemn them for pleading to be treated with simple equality.
I love and am for Muslims who aren’t able to worship outwardly and freely without derision and harassment—and I stand against those who mischaracterize them and incite such mistreatment.
I love and am for the hurting, the marginalized, the isolated, and the bullied—and I actively fight the wounders, the marginalizers, the isolaters, and the bullies.
And because of the deep love that I have for this country, for its Constitution, and for its beautifully radiant diversity—yes, I hate this President.
I hate what he and those alongside him are doing to good, loving, decent human beings who call this place home, and I’m going to keep hating such things because that is simply the other side of caring for the least of these.
Silence in the face of oppression is compliance, it’s participation.
And opposing it is how I show who and what I am for.
Fierce and clear hatred of injustice is a redemptive way of loving people most threatened by it.
So, I hope Will Rogers, my mother, and Jesus will all be okay with that.
I think I am.
John Pavlovitz is a writer, pastor, and activist from Wake Forest, North Carolina. A 25-year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John is committed to equality, diversity, and justice—both inside and outside faith communities. When not actively working for a more compassionate planet, John enjoys spending time with his family, exercising, cooking, and having time in nature. He is the author of A Bigger Table, Hope and Other Superpowers, Low, and Stuff That Needs to Be Said.
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