For an unsettled Sunday: Portland is being used

Britt Carlson serves as pastor of community life at Portland Mennonite Church. She described current observations and her reflections for Baptist News. What follows is an excerpt;

... [A]s an Anabaptist pastor who believes the way of Jesus is the way of nonviolence, I’ve also struggled to know how to respond to the protests down at the Justice Center.

How do I talk about the police violence compared to the protesters’ when there is an enormous imbalance of power? The police have guns, munitions and tear gas. The protesters have laser lights, water bottles and the occasional naked woman (nudity is legal in Portland if it is an act of protest). The protesters break windows, but the police are breaking bodies. The protesters light fires, but they’re also being taken away by officers with no identification in unmarked cars.

What do I think about the destruction of property? 

Obviously as a follower of Jesus, I value people over property. But it’s also scary. It feels out of control. And it does come at a cost.

In the midst of all my questions, however, there is one thing I am certain of: Portland is being used. ...

Jesus didn’t mind joining forces with imperfect people. After these protests, whenever I think about Simon the Zealot I picture him as a punk antifa kid — angry at systemic injustice of the world, passionate that things change. Simon, the punk zealot that he was, was a part of Jesus’ crew. ...

... Our calling as Christians isn’t to separate ourselves from imperfect people or imperfect protests. Our calling is to cause them to rise. To lift them. To let the flour and water help us be what we were always meant to be: bread for the world.

 I’m afraid the power moves are sucking the air out of the loaf. I’m afraid a conversation that should be focused on the infinitely precious lives of Black Americans is getting deflated into political set-to. We cannot let that happen.

As the late John Lewis reminded us, nonviolence enables us to make "good trouble."

Engaging in nonviolent protest is not a flight from the ugliness that comes with engaging in struggle against entrenched power. As I learned from that wise non-violent practitioner Barbara Deming,  nonviolence doesn't mean there are no casualties -- it simply means that non-violent resisters choose to take some casualties on themselves in preference to joining oppressors whose hope is in their guns. We have bigger and better hopes. Protesters don't want to sacrifice themselves and try not to, but neither are they going to emulate The Man.

The powers-that-be will always focus on the transgressions of the powerless. The powerless come into their own power when they stay focused on the persistent demand for justice, for life itself.