The problem of violence
Reading the morning news, I ran across an upsetting article about the bishop of the Worcester Diocese stripping Nativity Middle School of its Catholic status because the school chose to continue to fly a rainbow Pride flag and a Black Lives Matter flag. The bishop had asked the school administration to remove the flags and the Jesuit school refused because of its “support for making our communities more just and inclusive” and to demonstrate that “all are welcome.” I grew more than upset as the day wore on.
Recently I reacted in a similar fashion reading about a Republican representative, Chris Jacobs, who withdrew from running for a second term because of the intense backlash he received from his own party following his change of position on gun control when he embraced a federal ban on assault weapons. The backlash was immediate and widespread; gun groups going so far as publishing his office and cell phone numbers online. Chris Jacobs’ District includes the City of Buffalo, New York, where a white supremacist murdered 10 people and injured 3. Jacobs’ change in position occurred in response to the premeditated hate crime.
The abuse hurled at Chris Jacobs and the shunning of the Nativity School is violence pure and simple. It is emotional and spiritual violence. It is intentional and designed to diminish the person and the school.
Our society has been descending further and further into violence, but we often do not see it as violence until it erupts into warfare as in Ukraine. Our rhetoric has become more and more violent, often couched in terms of intolerance as opposed to the more obvious acts of gun violence that play out each week throughout the country, the world. It's all connected and we are all at fault.
To call out violence is necessary, as is owning it. The same is true for racism. I suspect they run hand in hand. I came face to face with my own racism by pure accident at the death of George Floyd. A simple utterance in public held a mirror up to my face and made me address my own racism. Initially I called it implicit racism because it sounded less onerous. It sounded like I wasn’t quite as guilty; like it was something I inherited and so could blame on my society; my ancestors. It doesn’t matter for blame is of no consequence. Honest ownership is paramount to eventually eliminating it.
If we own our own violence and recognize it in our daily lives it becomes more apparent in our society. Violence has many faces that we often do not recognize as violence: oppression, exclusion, shaming, shunning, bullying, character assassination, humiliation, blacklisting ...
The most common violence I have recognized of late is intolerance. It seems to be most pervasive and most debilitating perhaps because it is not viewed as violence. The bishop’s action in the Worcester Diocese shunning the Nativity School I see as intolerance of an administration that attempts to be inclusive, just and antiracist. The Republican Party members who attacked Chris Jacobs because he was true to his constituents and exemplary in his position as a representative in a republic, are intolerant and abusive in their bullying behavior.
It is one thing to call out violence and complain about it. It is another to try to do something about it. I recently came across the writings of Brian McLaren. I find his analysis of Christian violence a place to start to recognize violence and perhaps return to real Christian values of nonviolence. Jesus Christ set an incredible example of inclusiveness, of compassion, of nonviolence. His was a message of love not hate; of peace not anger. We have strayed so far from the essential teachings of Jesus that it seems difficult to see those basic truths in the modern world.
Washington has become the seat of power and our representatives spend their time clinging to their power with great tenacity. Our churches have become institutions where power is concentrated in a few who also tenaciously cling to that power. Violence has crept into both government and religion in subtle ways. Church officials are shunning politicians who hold a view of civil law that is contrary to church law in a country founded on the principle that church and state are separate. Tribalism controls party politics. The solution is very simple but difficult to achieve: Return to essential Christian principles and apply them in all of our actions.
— This is the opinion of Times Writers Group member Peter Donohue, who has been involved in the arts in Central Minnesota for more than 35 years. His column is published monthly.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Intolerance is its own form of violence
