Posted on 07/15/2013 10:53:42 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
When I heard the words not guilty Saturday night, I felt a variety of emotions. Those emotions ranged from initial confusion and disbelief to anger, and were followed by intense sadness and grief. I felt a renewed sense of loss for the Martin familyonly this time, that sense of loss was compounded by frustration over the injustices theyre enduring at the hands of our legal system. In my despair, I closed my eyes and wished that I could escape the systemthe social system, the class system, the racial system and the legal systemthat weve built here in America.
While sitting there with my eyes closed, I remembered that the desire for escapethe longing for a place in the world where oppressive forces have been defeated, where the least of these have been vindicated and where evil is merely a memoryis a continual theme in scripture. I thought of how the search for some utopian place can be found early in the Hebrew Bible within the story of a people who journeyed for decades with hope of reaching a promised land rich with milk and honey. Its found in the cries of those who desperately sought to escape exile because they were in a land where they were too depressed and oppressed to sing the songs of their home country. It is even found in the cautionary parables of Jesuswords that often paint a picture of a day when God will break into history and right the wrongs of the world.
This desire for escape, vindication and the intervention of God is also central to modern Christian theology. Most of the churches that I know adhere to some form of the Apostles Creed, which offers the claim that Jesus will someday come again to judge the living and the dead. A common belief spans across denominational identities and philosophical leanings: that at some point, Gods people will be removed (or raptured) from their existence in the world so that God can judge and ultimately deal with wicked people, and that at that time, those who have suffered oppression and/or persecution will finally witness Gods justice. This time of interventionthe end times, if you willis understood as the time in history when God will finally balance the scales a time for which many Christians wait with anticipation.
My personal theology has changed in recent years. As I wrote in my personal creed, I no longer hold traditional views about the end times. I dont look for Jesus to return to our stratosphere on a white horse, wielding a sword in his mouth and sporting a tattooed thigh. Despite the shift in my personal beliefs, I do understand the desire for judgment, escape and vindication. I understand it in a deep place within my soul, and I understood it in a very real way Saturday night. I understood it as my friends and family members took to their social media accounts to declare that the American justice system does not have the final say and that God will judge Zimmerman in the end. I understood the complex nature of that belief in the context of its historical and theological roots, and I knew how this theology could remain sustainable throughout history a history that has always featured an oppressive force and a victim.
As I sat on the floor in front of the television set with my eyes closed, listening to the jurors individual affirmations of their not guilty votes, I wished with every fiber of my being for the intervention of some loophole in the legal system, of the judge on television or even of God. I wished for an intervention that would right the wrongs of my society and the suffering experienced in the rest of the world.
In that moment, I understood the desire to escape. But I reminded myself of my responsibility to remain as present as possible. I understood the desire for Gods intervention but also understood that it is my responsibility to intervene constructively. I reminded myself that the intervention of God requires the cooperation of humans I remembered that the tools for changing the world have been entrusted to me.
I fought the urge to escape our society and the urge to wait patiently for divine intervention. And then I prayed for clarity on what I might do to help change the world.
Crystal St. Marie Lewis
And then I went out and looted a store.
Theology? Unitarian Universalist perhaps, but not founded on God’s right vs wrong.
Looks like she could change the world by skipping the snacks and filling food shelves.
Black people proving that they never watched 1 second of the trial
I’ll gladly pitch in money for one way tickets.
She demonstrates the root of the problem. The black churches have abandoned the gospel for a man-centered, collectivist world view with a Christian veneer.
They want to ignore the connection between sowing and reaping.
So this theological student wants to vindicate the wicked thug by punishing the innocent man who was only defending himself? How I wish God would do something about people abusing His Word with sanctimonious tripe like this. /s
Thye worship the gospel of The Black Experience and wait on the Blessed Hope of more and better government programs.
Interesting. I felt great joy and relief that we had dodged a bullet.
But to each his own.
The trial is irrelevant. The evidence is irrelevant. One of theirs was killed by someone outside their tribe and that someone is guilty and a racist. No debate or facts need be offered. Fortunately not all blacks think this way.
NO! Don't fight the urge! Go for it! We'll even help with a one-way ticket!
As far as race and all those issues are concerned, does everyone realize that this case only became a liberal cause celebre because of the death of a black boy?
If the race/ethnicity were reversed, this case would never have seen a courtroom, or become a major nationao news story.
If both Zimmerman and Martin had been of the same race/ethnicity, the case would have ended with the initial police investigation that it was a case of self defense, and would not have been national news.
It’s only due to political correctness, and the perceived need to bend over backwards to prove we’re not racist, that this case even went to trial in the first place.
What other country does this black girl want to go live in, which is superior to America based on her complaints?????
Crystal St. Marie Lewis is a writer, vlogger, theological rabble rouser, advocate for religious pluralism and strong believer in our responsibility to change the world for the better. She is a Jesus follower, a spiritual seeker and a lover of of Buddhist teaching.
E-mail Crystal here: CrystalSLewis@gmail.com
Crystal St. Marie Lewis is a writer, passionate public speaker, and empowerment coach. She lives with a rare, appearance-altering disease of the skin called icthyosis bullosa of siemens which caused her to suffer from severe depression and dangerously low self-esteem forseveral years.
In 2001, Ms. Lewis sought spiritual guidance concerning hercondition, the outcome of which changed her life forever. After severalyears of intensive self-reflection, in-depth study of Christianscripture, and a renewed sense of focus concerning her personal purposein life, Ms. Lewis has transformed her own life into one demonstrativeof self-acceptance, self-love, and God’s emotional healing power.
Ms. Lewis has dedicated her life to empowering women in places nearand far. “My story is every woman’s story,” she often says with apassionate smile. “Some of us wear our scars on the outside, some of uswear them on the inside... but we must all overcome our challenges andlay hold to the fullness of God’s purpose for us in this life.”
Ms. Lewis’s autobiographically-based self-help book, Naked & Not Ashamed: A Journey to God’s Mirror chronicles her dramatic path to inner peace and Christian self-love.
******
Crystal St. Marie Lewis decides she cannot agree to disagree with her seminary classmates about same-sex relationships.
Agreeing to disagree is not the helpful or peaceful thing to do in a situation where oppression is the problem. The helpful and peaceful thing to do is to call oppression what it is: Bigotry. Socially violent. Absolutely and totally wrong. (Crystal St. Marie Lewis, January 17)
According to Social Justice and Derrick Bell's Critical Race Theory (Bell was Obama's hero at Harvard), a white man is not permitted to kill a black man EVEN in self defense. This is because the black man is at a historical and institution disadvantage of having to live in a society based on a foundation of white racism.
Under the theory of Social Justice, the death of Trayvon meant that someone white had to pay with their life.
The verdict, met with anger from politicians, pro-athletes, lawyers, and Liberals, was a blow to the head of Social Justice and Critical Race Theory.
She can escape any time she wants. There are several methods, from buying an airline ticket, to suicide.
My personal theology has changed in recent years. As I wrote in my personal creed, I no longer hold traditional views about the end times. I dont look for Jesus to return to our stratosphere on a white horse, wielding a sword in his mouth and sporting a tattooed thigh. Despite the shift in my personal beliefs, I do understand the desire for judgment, escape and vindication.
When she writes that she "no longer hold(s) traditional views about the end times", I could predict where this was going - and I was right.
As I sat on the floor in front of the television set with my eyes closed, listening to the jurors individual affirmations of their not guilty votes, I wished with every fiber of my being for the intervention of some loophole in the legal system, of the judge on television or even of God. I wished for an intervention that would right the wrongs of my society and the suffering experienced in the rest of the world.
When you declare that you don't trust God's judgment, the next step is to take matters into your own hands.
” I felt a renewed sense of loss for the Martin family”
Blah, Blah, Blah! I don’t. They raised him. They were his example. They were responsible his actions (minor).
What did they raise? A racist, gangsta wanna be, illiterate (in English), dope smoking, Drank drinkin, street fighting, burglarizing, pounding & grounding PUNK.
Do the parents share any responsibility here?
Trayvon got just what he deserved. He assaulted another person for no justified reason. Following someone is not illegal. It does not give you the right to batter someone.
The only crimes here were committed by Trayvon Martin. He brought his street fighting fists to a gun fight. He Lost!
Insensitive, you say? Yes, I’m sick of this politically correct fantasy world we are living in. Even Trayvon Martin understood in the end by uttering those famous last words “you got me”.
Georgia Baby killed
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/us/georgia-baby-killed
The reason? Part of it's due to politically correct censorship. The other part of it is that blacks killing whites (and other blacks) is basically the norm, while whites killing blacks under most circumstances is man-bites-dog.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.