In 2019, Amber had worked a double shift as a police officer. She came home to her apartment exhausted and accidently entered the wrong apartment, one floor directly above her own. When unlocking the door, she realized it was already unlocked. Assuming someone had broken in, she opened to see a man inside and shot him dead in what she claimed was self-defense. Only when she turned on the light did she realize she was in the wrong apartment. What a tragic story!
One may simply dismiss this as a horrible accident, but there was one problem: Amber Guyger is white and Botham Jean is black, which immediately changed the optics, reframing the story along contours of systemic racism and racial injustice in the American media. At the sentencing trial for murder, Botham’s brother had a chance to address Amber. Incredibly, instead of condemning her, Botham’s brother told Amber that he loved her, he forgave her, and he did not really want her to go to jail, but he truly wished the best for her—the best being to give her life to Jesus. That is what Botham would have wanted and that is what he wished for her as well. He assured her if she called on God and confessed her wrongdoing, that God would forgive her! Here was a young man who had a real injustice committed against him and his family, and yet he laid down his hurt, hatred, anger, and sorrow to forgive the one who took away so much from him. He asked the judge if he could give his brother’s killer a hug. And when they hugged, Amber wailed and sobbed.[1] This was perhaps one of the most beautiful and tear-jerking examples of reconciliation that I have ever witnessed.[2]
For this is the gospel lived out––the reconciliatory work of Christ demonstrated as a powerful object lesson for all viewers. Paul states:
For he is our peace, the one who made both groups (Jew and Gentile) into one and who destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility, when he nullified in his flesh the law of commandments in decrees. He did this to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace, and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by which the hostility has been killed (Eph 2:14–16; NIV).
The gospel destroys the hostility between both God and man, and between fellow humankind, simultaneously reconciling us to God and to one another. Though unjustly handed the death sentence for being “I am who I am,” the innocent and sinless Jesus laid down his life to forgive undeserving, sinful humankind in an act to reconcile humankind, whom God so loved, back to himself and reconcile man back to one another. Only through Christ’s reconciliatory example can we also forgive our neighbor of injustices, granting true and lasting peace which overcomes manmade divisions of race, sex, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and other such barriers that divide us.
Critical theory (CT) attempts reconciliation of injustices by a different means. Based on atheistic, political, socialist-Marxist principles, CT does not view people as God’s image bearers, individually having intrinsic value and equal worth. Rather, people’s value is solely based on their group identity to which dichotomous category they are placed: oppressed or oppressor, poor or rich, powerless or powerful, marginalized or the majority, proletariat (worker) or bourgeoisie (elite). For these two groups, (historically exploited by those with ultimate ruling power, ironically), are much like India’s caste system. The category one is assigned, based solely on one’s external identity, is the default in which one will forever be––never more and never less. This segregation is not only unfairly demeaning, but it breeds discontentment, greed, hatred, jealousy, envy, and suspicion of one another. According to this ideology, reconciliation of mankind is neither the goal of CT nor can it ever achieve peace.
When comparing the two approaches, the gospel works to tear down resentment and the partition walls separating us from one another while CT works to build up aggressions against our fellow man; the gospel eliminates bitterness through truth and love towards one another while CT entrenches deep division and pits us hatefully against our fellow man; the gospel humbly seeks to let go of hostility toward one another while CT resentfully grips tight to hostility, not allowing it go. CT ultimately attempts to “reconcile injustices,” but, in actuality, drives deeper wedges of division by polarizing those perceived as having historic power against the perceived historic powerless. What a contrast!
Dividing one another into this simplistic, one-dimensional category of oppressed and oppressor is neither helpful, nor is it biblical, for the Bible calls us to a different and non-polarized way of living. If we, Christians, choose to adopt this Marxist lens of looking at one another, those with whom we share God’s imprint, we no longer carry the vision that Christ calls us to, nor do we align with the reality that Christ’s death on the cross has accomplished. Paul challenges us to a different perspective:
…since you have put off the old man with its practices and have been clothed with the new man that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. Here there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all (Col 3:9–11; NIV).
Though we once viewed each other as divided into certain categories, we are no longer clothed in our old selves. Our salvation has renewed our understanding of God’s intentional design for humanity. However, by aligning with the world’s current, populist ideology as is being pushed by people who are neither transformed by Christ nor know of his lavish grace, we are reclothing ourselves in our “old man” tattered rags. For the only consistent dichotomous categories that biblical authors divide humankind into are those who believe in Jesus and those who do not.
After meting out the 10-year jail sentence, Judge Tammy Kemp, a black woman, came down and hugged Amber. She went to her chambers and brought back a Bible for Amber to help her get started in her faith.[3] By reaching across our manmade divisions, both Botham’s brother and Judge Kemp sought to eliminate the only dividing line that eternally matters, seeking to help reconcile Amber unto salvific faith in Jesus.
Sources:
[1] “See Victim’s Brother Hug Convicted Ex-Cop Amber Guyger,” You Tube Video, October 3, 2019, CNN News, 0:00-3:37, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkOXpmePoDE&t=17s.
[2] I was reminded of this moving incident mentioned in: A.D. Robles, Social Justice Pharisees: Woke Church Tactics and How to Engage Them (New York: Morgan James Faith, 2021), Kindle Edition, n.p.
[3] Brie Stimson, “Judge hugs Amber Guyger, gives her a Bible after murder conviction, causing stir,” October 3, 2019, Fox News, https://www.foxnews.com/us/judges-embrace-of-convicted-murder-amber-guyger-in-courtroom-causes-stir.
