“What’s wrong with America is … ” For some of us, such words roll off our tongues effortlessly. For others of us, the sound of such syllables stings like a swarm of bees.
Lots of commissioners and advisory delegates to the 218th General Assembly will utter and all will hear such words with some frequency when they meet in San Jose, Calif., on June 21-28. Why do we say such things? Why run down the land of the free and the home of the brave? Cornell West uttered such statements in the Watts Chapel at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education on April 23. The packed crowd (along with an overflow crowd in Lingle Halls watching on closed circuit TV) mostly nodded heads in agreement. Some in the crowd likely bristled as they heard their beloved country being criticized. West went to the seminary to kick off a string of events marking the inauguration of Brian Blount as president. One of the world’s most influential intellectuals, West is a professor at Princeton University and former professor at Yale Divinity School, author of 17 books, editor of 13 more, contributing writer and actor in the Matrix movies, civil rights leader, and committed Christian. He presented a stirring address on the subject, “The Vocation of a Christian Intellectual.” In the process, he pressed the audience to take a hard look at what’s wrong with the country and themselves. Why do so? Well, West has spent a lot of time exploring the words of the ancient prophets. Those words can reassure in times of trouble, but they also demand that we take fearless moral inventory of our personal and collective behavior. Accordingly, West introduced his topic by saying, “I want to try to say something that unsettles, unnerves, maybe even for a moment, unhouses us.” He proceeded to press the attendees to follow a path of self-examination. “How do you get people to actually shift from superficial phenomena and focus on the cross, the lens of the cross, the catastrophic, the scandalous, the horrendous, the monstrous realities that people must come to terms with and the blood at that cross that manifests the very love and unarmed truth and unconditional love in the face of catastrophic circumstances that appears to be impotent and powerless and yet somehow still persists?” He warned, “William Butler Yeates is right when he says that it takes more courage to examine the dark corners of our soul than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.” Looking back over American history, West commented, “We’ve got to correct our dear brother Obama. Slavery is not America’s original sin. No, no no. Black people must not ever allow black suffering to blind us to the suffering of other people. The indigenous people’s land dispossessed, their babies subjugated near extermination: that’s the precondition. And then the other sin was mistreating black people.” His account of American history disrupted the proud Americans in attendance, regardless of skin color. If it’s true to form, the General Assembly will disrupt proud Americans, too. Overtures call upon the GA to speak out against injustice allegedly being committed by us, by our economy, by our government. Study papers prepared by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness, as assigned by previous GAs, propose action agendas to redress wrongs among us. Why do we develop such proposals and write such papers? Because the prophets press us to do so. And the great Christian teachers through the ages press us not only to name the injustices and confess the sins in which we are participating but also to cast a vision for a different set of values to adopt and a different way to live. We will speak out against the sins of other nations from time to time, but like Israel’s prophets, most of our words will be confronting our system, our government, our nation, and ourselves. And we will speak from the resurrection confidence that with God’s help we can be different; we can be “reborn into something grander,” as West assured. The New York Times has praised Cornell West for “his ferocious moral vision.” May our branch of the body of Christ, the PC(USA), be so attuned to the heart of God that we discern the word God would speak, that we respond in obedience, and that we boldly call upon our fellow Presbyterians and fellow Americans to follow in the ways of our Lord. In the process may we cast a ferocious moral vision. — JHH
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