Hurting People Unintentionally

Two Thinking Friends wrote that they were “deeply disturbed” (which I took to mean “hurt”) by my June 30 blog post. Certainly, I did not intend to hurt anyone, but unfortunately, sometimes we hurt people unintentionally.  

Three Episodes

In reflecting upon hurting people unintentionally, I soon thought of the following three episodes that I remember with some chagrin.

1) Part of my July 10 blog post was about Magic Eye pictures, and I mentioned how in the 1990s I used such pictures in sermons a few times—and I remember one such time with some embarrassment.

As the guest preacher at a Japanese church, I talked at some length about magic eye pictures and had some on hand to show during the sermon and for people to look at afterward.

After the service, a woman came up to me and said that she was visually impaired (=blind), so she was not able to get much out of the sermon. I was embarrassed that I had unintentionally hurt her by not realizing that there could be someone present in the service who was unable to see.

2) This month I have read the slim and powerful book The Cry of the Poor (2010). In the first chapter, author Eduard Loring quoted all four verses of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s powerful poem “Richard Cory.”

One Sunday at Ekron [Kentucky] Baptist Church, which I served as pastor while a seminary student, I taught the teenage boys’ Sunday School class, during which I read “Richard Cory” to them.

You can read all of that poem here, but the last two lines say, “And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, / Went home and put a bullet through his head.”

Just as soon as I read that last line, I realized that I had “goofed”: not long before, the grandfather of one of the boys in the class had committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot. I had potentially, but certainly unintentionally, hurt the boy in my class

Even though that incident was nearly 60 years ago, I still remember it with some chagrin. It is embarrassing when we hurt people unintentionally.

3) Back in the 1990s when I was the part-time pastor of the Fukuoka International Church in Japan, one Sunday in December I was preaching about the great joy of the old couple Zechariah and Elizabeth when John, their first child, was born in spite of their old age.

In talking about the joy of John’s birth, I mentioned how happy my oldest daughter and her husband were when after several years during which it was uncertain whether they would be able to have children, Kathy gave birth to a fine baby girl. They named her Katrina Joy.

During the sermon, one young woman got up and left, seemingly upset. After the service, I found her outside, and she was still disturbed. Why? She said my talking about people being joyful at the birth of a child made her feel very sad because she was an unwanted child—and that made me sad.

Three Suggestions

1) Try to be sensitive when speaking to a group, realizing that there are many people who harbor hurts that can be exacerbated by insensitive remarks.

2) Try to speak with political correctness as much as possible, seeking to be aware of the feelings (and internalized hurts) of those who are BIPOC (the acronym that stands for Black, Indigenous, and [other] People of Color), LGBTQ, or any other discriminated-against group of people.

We don’t hear quite so much about it now, but “political correctness,” as I wrote in my 2/19/16 blog post, when used positively “describes the attempt not to use discriminatory or demeaning language about other people, especially about those who are ‘different’ from the one speaking.”

3) Don’t let fear of unintentionally hurting others curtail speaking a “prophetic” word when needed. Sometimes the attitudes, words, and actions of our friends and acquaintances, as well as our own, are injurious to groups of people such as mentioned above.

If our friends or acquaintances are offended when we advocate for the well-being of individuals in such groups, shikata ga nai.*

_____

* Shikata ga nai is an oft-used expression in Japan. It means “it can’t be helped.” 

Is Proclaiming Jesus’ Resurrection Political Incorrect?

A few weeks ago I posted a blog article about political correctness. For the most part I favor the effort to be politically correct, for in its best form political correctness shows empathic understanding of those who are often discriminated against or belittled.

There was some questioning of a more recent article, though, along this very line. There was no direct reference to my not being P.C., but it was implied that what I wrote about the origins of Christianity and of Islam was problematic.

From the beginning I knew that there would likely be some pushback, for what I wrote could be used as an excuse to criticize, discriminate against, or mistreat Muslims today. I tried to counter that possibility by writing what I did in the final paragraph.

Christians around the world have just celebrated Easter (except for those in the Orthodox tradition who will not celebrate Easter until May 1). If there was, in fact, something historical about the resurrection of Jesus, Easter is an event that decisively differentiates Christianity from other religions.

Many have understood Jesus’ resurrection much too literally, seeing it is some sort of miraculous resuscitation of his physical body. That is not the kind of resurrection I am writing about.

On the other hand, many liberal Christian interpretations emphasize that Jesus’ resurrection was mainly metaphorical or “psychological” rather than historical. That is, it is explained as the “resurrection” of the spirit of Jesus in the hearts and minds of his early followers.

John Shelby Spong, for example, contends that the Jesus’ resurrection took place in Galilee, where the disciples had fled after Jesus’ crucifixion, rather than in Jerusalem, where Jesus had been buried in Joseph’s tomb.

Liberals need some way to explain the resurrection so Christianity can be considered just one religion among many that are equally valid and valuable.

That is not the kind of resurrection I am writing about either.

Recently, I have written a review of a book about the life and thought of Lesslie Newbigin. In that process I looked again at some of his notable writings, especially The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989). Newbigin (1909-98), an Englishman, was one of the premier missionaries and missiologists of the 20^th century. (Several years ago I wrote a blog article in praise of Newbigin.)

Newbigin repeatedly used the words “public truth” in referring to the Christian message, and one of his smaller books is titled Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth (1991). The idea of public truth, of course, stands in stark contrast to the relativistic idea of truth in post-modernism and often in liberal Christianity as well.

He wrestles with the problem of truth not just from the standpoint of religious faith but also epistemologically, making repeated references to the significance of Michael Polanyi’s emphasis on “personal knowledge.”

In Truth to Tell, Newbigin avers, “To believe that the crucified Jesus rose from the dead, left an empty tomb, and regrouped his scatted disciples for their world mission can only be the result of a very radical change of mind indeed.”

He goes on to assert that “the simple truth is that the resurrection cannot be accommodated in any way of understanding the world except one of which it is the starting point” (p. 10-11).

Belief in the Resurrection should never lead to arrogance, condescension, or triumphalism. That belief should, however, lead faithful Christians to have confidence in the uniqueness of Jesus and to proclaim, boldly and lovingly, the significance of that pivotal event—even though some might consider it politically incorrect.

What about Political Correctness?

In his first inaugural address in March 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Nevertheless, responding to the widespread fear expressed by people across the nation, on February 19, 1942, FDR took harsh measures toward people of Japanese descent who lived in the U.S.

As a result of his Executive Order 9066, approximately 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry, almost all of whom were law-abiding citizens, were evicted from their homes on the West Coast of the U.S. and forced to live in internment camps across the country.

That was grossly unfair to the vast majority of a whole group of people who were peaceable residents in our nation.

During World War I, German-Americans were sometimes accused of being sympathetic to Germany. The U.S. Justice Department attempted to prepare a list of all German aliens, counting approximately 480,000 of them—and more than 4,000 of them were imprisoned in 1917-18.

I don’t know if my great-great-grandfather Hellmann made the Justice Department’s list or not, but he was born in Germany in 1844 and was living in St. Joseph, Mo., during WWI.

Even though his birth name was probably Johann Friedrich, in this country he went by John Frederick. The census records have my grandmother Laura Cousins’ grandfather’s name as just Fred Hellmann, so he probably didn’t suffer much anti-German discrimination.

But many German-Americans did suffer unjustly because of their name and/or their ethnicity.

The term “political correctness” has been used for many years now, often in a derogatory sense. There are, certainly, some excesses related to what is said, or not said, because of what is said to be political correctness.

On the other hand, when used positively political correctness describes the attempt not to use discriminatory or demeaning language about other people, especially about those who are “different” from the one speaking.

Thus, those who want to be fair emphasize politically correctness for the sake of women, who are often denigrated by men; for the sake of people of color, who are often discriminated against by whites; for the sake of gays/lesbians, who are often demeaned by straights; and for the sake of Jews and Muslims and others adherents of other minority religions in this country, who are often looked down on by many, including some Christians.

Tom Toles is the eminent editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post. Even though I do not have his permission to do so, perhaps since I make absolutely no money from this blog he will not object to my using this perceptive cartoon of his:

As I wrote recently, the President has often been criticized for not using the term “Islamic extremists.” His critics say that this is a grave mistake rooted in the idea of political correctness. During the Dec. 15 presidential debate Ted Cruz declared, “Political correctness is killing people.” Earlier last year, Donald Trump emoted, “I’m so tired of this politically correct crap.”

And about a year ago Ben Carson declared, “There is no such thing as a politically correct war.”

But even in times of war, or especially then, people who are not combatants and especially those who are American citizens, need to be protected from hatred and prejudice.