Saturday, August 02, 2008

Not all bad, not all good

As I have thought about what I have read and heard this last week about the shootings in TN, I have come to recognize some themes I think are problematic. I would like to share them, though I doubt they will all be popular.

Greg McKendry is being portrayed as a hero/saint who used his body as a living shield. I was not there, we don't know what Greg McKendry thought, but I doubt he was a saint. I suspect he was a real person with lots of good traits and a few not so good traits. What I do know, is that by being a living shield, regardless of intention, he was living out a principle of love and compassion. When we give for the sake of others, even though the personal costs are high, we become all that is good in humanity. In the moment that Greg McKendry became a living shield, he came as close to emulating Christ as is possible.

Jim D. Adkisson, the man accused of the shootings, is not a saint or a hero. Jim Adkisson is not totally evil either. Rather he is a man who was unemployed, losing his source of food, divorced, and angry. His anger was channeled against liberals in general and the UU church in particular. It was not who he knew, but what he hated about UUs. It would be easy to say he is crazy, because I think premeditated murder is crazy in general, but there is no evidence that Jim Adkisson is anything other than a sane man who acted on his rage. I don't know if he claimed to be a Christian, but his actions take him far from emulating Christ.

I don't hate him – I feel sorry for him. I don't want him to die; I do want him to find peace from the hatred.

I believe that people are essentially good, but that there are a few who are evil. I believe that UUs, like every other group, has some good people and some who are not good. I believe that most Christians are good people and that there are a few Christians who are not good. But what startles me is how someone who claims Christ can also preach intolerance and hatred. Jim D. Adkisson acted on hatred of that apparently influenced by the books of the right-wing Conservatives. How any person who claims to be Christian can stand the hatred some of these people spew is beyond me.

And that is where I get stuck. It is beyond my understanding. Some of the web postings show no compassion, yet they think UUs are a cult because UUs are not Christian like they believe a Christian should be? I don't get it. Christ preached love and compassion. He acted out that love and compassion. Perhaps Rev. Laurel Hallman said it best "We are committed to the dignity of every person. Every person is a child of God." We may not be Christians as others think we should be, but how could any belief be less Christian…