Jesus, the Statue of Liberty, Facebook, and Broken Symbols

I don’t know why I argue with strangers on Facebook. I suspect I would be happier not being confronted with the depressingly sad state of social media discourse, but sometimes I think I get some joy from arguing with people. Maybe I just like feeling smarter than people by “winning” an online argument, though we all know that there really is no winning such an argument. But I also think that part of me genuinely hopes I will convince the other person. However, the reason for why I do it doesn’t really matter right now. I want to share a story about a very brief argument I had with a stranger because I think it illustrates a larger point.

I’m part of a Facebook group in which Christians share things they disagree with that had originally been posted elsewhere. When I found out about the group, they mostly targeted things that some atheists said online that obviously misconstrued the Bible, theology, and church history. However, as time has gone on, I’ve noticed a trend in the group to share things from other Christians, particularly progressive Christians. Members of the group claim that these progressive ideas are unbiblical doctrines. I tend to disagree, but one post in particular caught my attention, and I felt like I needed to respond. I’ll quote the original post by Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines in full:

“Christianity isn’t about reaching the sweet by-and-by somewhere in the sky. It’s about creating a world where peace reigns, justice for the marginalized prevails, and compassion permeates all life.”

I will admit that Rev. Dr. Lines is a bit more politically partisan than I am, but this quote is simply good theology. This is correct. Christianity should seek justice and peace in the world. That is a very clear Biblical idea. We pray that God’s Kingdom comes into our world that we may participate in it. I was surprised to see one word of commentary on this post when it was shared into this group: “cringe.” For those of you who may not see this used as much as I do, this is a word that millennials and so-called digital natives use to indicate that something is embarrassingly bad. The comments of this post piled on, talking about how bad this quote was. Some simply dismissed the idea of peace reigning in this world as being ridiculous. One person labeled it “progressive and social justice” as if these were bad things, before going on to describe Rev. Lines as a “Marxist infiltrator of the faith.” Seeing these harsh criticisms, I decided to comment saying that this really was good theology. I got a response saying that it is wrong because it’s chasing after a utopia, which we will never have. Utopias are impossible.

I was stunned. Did this commenter forget that this was a Christian group? Isn’t the Kingdom of God supposed to be perfect? Maybe, he believes that the earth will never see perfection, only heaven, but in the Lord’s Prayer, we plead that God’s kingdom would come on earth as in heaven. Perhaps the most famous and important prayer in our entire faith tradition speaks of God’s heavenly kingdom coming to earth. How could a Christian who gets into arguments with strangers on Facebook in defense of Christianity have a view of God’s kingdom that ignores the Lord’s Prayer?

I wanted to know a little more, so I clicked on their profile picture. The profile and cover photos were full of patriotic imagery: the modern American flag, the Statue of Liberty, and the original flag with thirteen stars. Seeing that statue made me think of the poem “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus. This is the poem inscribed on a bronze plaque inside the pedestal upon which the Statue of Liberty stands. You’ve certainly heard the poem before, and I won’t quote it in full here, but one part is particularly pertinent: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”

Unless, we reject this poem and its association with the Statue of Liberty, we must acknowledge that the legacy of the statue is tied to welcoming the marginalized. She isn’t rejecting the poor and oppressed. She is extending freedom to them. She is calling the rejected, the outcast, the “wretched refuse,” almost mocking the dignified pomp of the Old World. The spirit of the Statue of Liberty is one of welcoming the powerless to immigrate to this country and find freedom and hope away from a system that, at the time, still bore the burden of feudal distinctions. Your birth determined much of your lot in life. I fully understand the fear that we cannot welcome absolutely every unfortunate soul in the world. There are just too many people. We don’t have the infrastructure and resources to take in so many people so quickly. Nonetheless, if we  celebrate the Statue of Liberty, our ideal must be welcoming to the poor and downcast specifically. So, again, how could someone with the Statue of Liberty in their Facebook cover photo be upset with the idea of justice for the marginalized?

First, I should say that I don’t believe my interlocutor was a bad person. I suspect I could get along with him well enough if we met in the real world, but I don’t want to reduce this to simply a problem of Facebook being a bad forum to discuss things. I think there is more going on in this case. This isn’t simply a problem of us misunderstanding each other. This is a problem of ideologies and symbols.

There are a number of ways we can interpret the Statue of Liberty. I think of the poem, but someone else may think of a picture of the Statue of Liberty with a gun, a symbol of the military power of the United States. The Statue of Liberty could be a symbol of American exceptionalism, freedom for the poor and marginalized, vengeance against the enemies of America, or just the American spirit itself, whatever that may be at the time. We can argue over what it really should mean, but ultimately, what we think a symbol means is determined by our own belief system, whether we understand how one impacts the other. As much as I think it is clear that the Statue of Liberty should stand as a symbol of welcome to the poorest of the world, I can be comfortable disagreeing about that. However, I can’t be quiet when people reduce Jesus to a symbol within their own political ideology. 

Reaching out to care for the poor, oppressed, and marginalized while working for peace on Earth are all clearly things Jesus would encourage. This isn’t to say that Jesus wouldn’t have some complicated stances on the issues of the day, but it is bewildering to see people suggest that care for the oppressed is woke nonsense and Marxist infiltration. What do they think our faith actually stands for? Oppression? Ignoring the plight of the poor? Where does Scripture suggest that?

To be clear, this act of reducing the complexities of Christianity to a symbol to fit one’s ideology isn’t one sided. While there are people who tie Christianity to patriotism, and more nefariously, to white nationalism, there are people on the other side who reduce it to simply a message of comfort. That cuts out the life-changing call to repentance and the particularities of Christian salvation, stepping into pluralism that reduces Jesus to one way among many. 

When we flatten Christianity to a symbol, we start to approach it from our own perspectives, which are often crowded with thoughts, feelings, and talking points jammed into our heads through media consumption. When we don’t stop and look critically at what we bring to Christianity, we come out with the world we bring to it, just adding a few ornamental crosses for decoration. 

So that no one misunderstands and thinks I’m a fence sitter, I think if we err, we should always err on the side of helping the poor and vulnerable. I think that is at the core of our faith and Scripture. I don’t know how to convince people for whom modern political ideology completely controls how they interpret Christianity that they are making a mistake, but I can hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will work on all of us so we can step back from our own outside beliefs when we approach Scripture, listen to what God is telling us, and watch God put the breath of life into our faith. Christianity isn’t a cross-shaped necklace to be worn around the neck of Conservatism or Liberalism to justify their actions. Christianity is God’s action in the world to drive it toward the Kingdom, the only ideology that ultimately matters.