Steve Biko
In our home my wife and I have a kneeling chair. It belonged
to my mother’s cousin, Anthony Stubbs, an Anglican monk. For many years he
served in South Africa, his strict spirituality influencing a generation of
ordinands. He was also a friend to those who fought against the injustice of
apartheid.
Steve Biko was one such activist. He was the first president
of the South Africa Students’ Organisation and a pioneer of the Black Consciousness
movement. For his outspoken criticism of the racist minority government, Biko
paid a heavy price. In August 1977 he was arrested, on September 12th
he was beaten to death in prison. He was just thirty years old.
All around the world the blood of men and women like Steven
Biko, murdered by their own governments, cry out for justice.
The cry of injustice, different answers
That cry cannot be ignored by Christians. However when that
cry arises, different voices in the church are heard.
We should just pray and fast.
No, we must show our support.
We must march and chant with others.
No, we must cause some non-violent disruption.
We must write letters to powerful politicians.
No, the quiet conversation is better.
It was just the same in Jesus’ day: rank injustice,
different answers. As Christians in our generation wonder how to respond to official
injustice, even state murder, it is surely profitable to consider how Jesus
responded.
Jesus lived in a world seething with government injustice.
In the Roman Empire there were sixty million slaves. There was severe
discrimination between those who were Roman citizens, and those who were not.
For the Jews it was worse. Their taxes were high and any Roman soldier could
demand that a Jew carried his luggage for at least a mile. Moreover Judea was
directly ruled by Pontius Pilate, a man with a reputation for gratuitous
cruelty towards those he ruled.
All the Jews faced this injustice, but they had very
different answers. For the Zealots, it was violence: an armed uprising for regime
change. For the Qumran Community, living in caves the desert, it was complete separation
from the filth of Rome and intense prayer for the Messiah to come. For the Pharisees,
it was to keep the law of Moses very strictly. For the Sadducees collaboration
with the Romans was the pragmatic way forward.
Jesus refused to identify with any of these groups. This though
does not mean he was neutral regarding government injustice. Not at all. He
responded.
However his response was rough for everyone: rough for those
suffering because of injustice; rougher for those responsible for the
injustice; and roughest for himself.
Jesus’s response to injustice: rough for the victims
Millions of Jews looked to Jesus to deal with the blatant
injustice they faced daily from the Roman regime. And millions were severely
disappointed. Jesus’ response stung. It was often not what they wanted to hear.
Take that rule that any Roman could ask a Jew to carry his
luggage for him for two miles. Some of the Jews hoped that Jesus would denounce
this injustice and hear him say that it was the duty of every Jew to refuse the
demand of the bullying Romans.
Jesus said the exact opposite of what the Jews wanted to
hear: ‘If anyone forces you to go with him one mile, go two miles.’ Matthew
5:41.
Or consider the occasion when a Roman centurion came to him
pleading for the life of his servant. The Jews hated the Romans. They were the
enemy. The Zealots would have killed the centurion and his servant; the
Pharisees would have shaken their heads and ignored him. But Jesus healed the
Roman’s servant.
What lies behind these two responses? Radical love for the
enemy as an individual. Yes, the man is a Roman, but he needs help, so go that
extra mile for him. Yes, the centurion belongs to the system that oppresses our
people, but now he needs compassion, not politics.
There are other, rougher, examples of Jesus’ response for
the victims of injustice.
Many Jews wanted Jesus to condemn the payment of taxes to
Rome. These taxes were oppressive, and, worse, they supported a cruel and pagan
government. Jesus refused to denounce these taxes. When asked about them he
famously said – ‘Pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs
to God’. The message is clear. Taxes must be paid, and paid to Caesar. This was
Tiberius, notorious for executing those suspected of treason. Enemies of the
Roman system were shocked at this response.
Perhaps the most scandalous response for the victims of
injustice is found at the beginning of Luke 13. Here Jesus is told about a
terrible atrocity: Pilate had mixed the blood of some Galileans with the blood
of the temple sacrifices. For this outrage the Jews were surely expecting Jesus
to denounce Pilate, perhaps even start a campaign to remove this monster from
office. Jesus’ answer was almost brutal:
‘Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all
the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but
unless you repent you will all likewise perish.’ Rather than dwell on Pilate’s
sins, Jesus turns the camera and asks his listeners to consider their own sins,
sins which will most certainly be punished. It was not the answer those
listeners – or us – were looking for.
Jesus’ rough response for victims included his own family.
When his cousin, John the Baptist, sent him a message from prison, Jesus’ answer
was very hard. In his message John asks if Jesus is the Messiah, because, if
so, why is he unjustly in prison? At the heart of this message was a question about
what Jesus intended to do about government injustice.
And Jesus gives an answer that John did not want to hear: ‘John,
you are in prison and I am not going to get you out. That is not my mission. My
mission is healing the sick and preaching good news to the poor.’
And when Jesus heard that Herod had executed John we do not
read that Jesus assembled a regime change committee to oust this evil ruler.
Rather we read that Jesus wanted to go to a desolate place (Matthew 14:13),
presumably to grieve. When Jesus was later threatened by Herod, he sent a
message via the Pharisees, saying, ‘Go and tell that fox.’ That is the worst
word Jesus used for Herod. It was hardly going to bring the government down.
Victims of government injustice want immediate action. Jesus
refused to give it. Instead He demanded that his followers practise radical
love for their enemies, give sensible support to the political system they are
living under, and be very wary of thinking their own spiritual situation is made
better just because a government practises inflicts terrible atrocities on its
people.
If this were Jesus’ only response one might be tempted to
think that He supported government injustice. Not at all. His response for the
victims of injustice is rough. His response for those responsible for injustice
is rougher.
Jesus’ rough answer for government injustice: The Kingdom
of God
The modern church is so soaked in a sentimental version of
Christianity that if you were to ask the average church goer what Jesus’ main
message was, they would say, ‘God’s love for sinners.’ Mental laziness has let
us take John 3:16 (For God so loved the world…) and spread it all over the
Gospels. The careful reader will swiftly realise this is not Jesus’ emphasis.
For there is nothing about God’s love for sinners in his first sermon, not in his
last, nor much in the ones in between. The truth of God’s love for sinners sits
beneath a greater truth which is the main emphasis of Jesus’ preaching: the Kingdom
of God.
The Kingdom of God means there is going to be a terrible
judgment. Taking someone’s bag a couple of miles, paying some taxes, even
enduring prison and execution slips off the Richter scale when it comes to what
the coming of God’s Kingdom will mean for those who have been responsible for
injustice.
The Kingdom of God is mentioned 53 times in Matthew, 17 in
Mark, and 29 times in Luke. That is a total of 99 times in the Gospels. As
Jesus stepped into national ministry He raised his voice and said, ‘The time is
fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel’. Later
we are told that this Gospel is not about God’s love for sinners, but the
Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 4:23, 9:35, 24:14; Luke 4:43, 8:1).
In his preaching Jesus kept on explaining what the Kingdom
of God was going to be like (see especially Matthew 13, 21, 25; Mark 4, 10,
Luke 9, 13, 17,18). He told his disciples to pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come’, He sent
them out to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, and He gave Peter the keys of the
Kingdom. On his last night, Jesus took the cup of wine and proclaimed that He
would not be drinking the fruit of the vine again, ‘until the day I drink it
new with you in my Father’s kingdom’. A few hours later when asked by the
Jewish Council if he was the Messiah, the king, Jesus answer unequivocally:
‘Yes, I am the king, and you will see me coming on clouds of glory.’
From start to finish Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God. He
did not just preach. He also acted in three ways. He demonstrated the authority
of the Kingdom; He set up an organisation to continue to proclaim the Kingdom;
and He marched as the King right into the presence of his enemies.
To underline the authority of the Kingdom of God, Jesus
worked miracles. It is a mistake to think that his miracles were only for those
who were healed of their diseases or delivered from demons. They were also a
proclamation of the Kingdom of God. People listened to Jesus talking about the Kingdom,
because he demonstrated He had the power of a king. He underlines this in his
answer to John the Baptist. ‘Yes, John, you are in prison, but I am working
miracles, I am proving to Herod and Pilate and all the people who rule unjustly
that God’s authority is real, and one day they will have to give an account to
God’s authority’. Herod probably never listened to the Sermon on the Mount, but
when he heard about Jesus’ miracles, he was frightened.
To ensure the ongoing witness of the Kingdom of God Jesus
established the church. Like another Moses, He came down from a mountain
accompanied by His twelve apostles, one each to represent the twelve tribes of
Israel. Jesus’ answer to injustice was not to chant slogans full of hate
demanding the death of Caesar the dictator. His answer was to found the church,
the oldest, largest, and most successful organisation in the world. Preaching
salvation, strengthening Christians, helping the poor, and speaking up for
justice, the church, for two thousand years, has outlived many Pilates and
Herods.
Many protesters look back at their life and just see a
ripped and faded placard. Jesus looks back and sees his church that has brought
about real change, and a measure of justice, for billions. To mention a few of
her grander successes: winning the Roman Empire, establishing Christian Europe,
Russia, and the Americas, abolishing slavery, and in our own generation
defeating apartheid in South Africa and communism in the former Soviet Union.
To make sure that the unjust rulers of his day rightly felt
threatened by his higher power, Jesus led a peaceful march right into their territory.
The crowd that entered Jerusalem with Him did not come with clenched fists and
angry slogans; they came with raised hands, and filled the skies with praise
for the Son of David, praise for their king coming to his capital. Jesus’ march
into Jerusalem was an action. Yes it was a peaceful action, for He was riding
on a donkey, but it was action. It was not a prayer. It was not a polite petition.
It was much more. It was an act of prophecy. Jesus was proclaiming in deed that
the king of righteousness was coming and all unrighteousness would be whipped away
in terrible judgment. No wonder the rulers wanted to arrest him.
In the immediate context Jesus’ response for those
responsible for government injustice does not seem that rough. They still get
their bags carried, the taxes come in, and they can deal with trouble makers
however they like. However in the certainty of the future, Jesus’ response to
them is indeed rougher. With almost every word and action Jesus is spelling out
that the Kingdom of God is coming and that means all those guilty of wrongdoing
will be justly punished.
Jesus gives some description regarding this punishment. The
unjust will find themselves in the ‘outer darkness’, where there is ‘an
unquenchable fire’, and where ‘the worm does no die’. In this place of ‘eternal
torment’ the wicked will ‘gnash their teeth’ in regret. There is no escape. This
is the certain fate of those who are responsible for injustice. They will go to
hell. That is not what Jesus told the victims of injustice. That is why it is
correct to say that Christ’s word for the unjust rulers was rougher than his
words for the victims of injustice.
The roughest answer to injustice though was not for the
victims, nor for the perpetuators. The roughest answer was for Christ himself.
When dealing with injustice, Christ took the roughest
road.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem on that donkey he knew this
action would cost him his life. And once in Jerusalem both the victims of
injustice, the Jews, and the perpetuators of injustice, Caiaphas, Herod and
Pilate, they all came together to crucify Christ.
For the Jews, Jesus was a great disappointment. He had given
them no immediate answers to the injustices that they were facing. Therefore, when
they were asked whether they wanted to save Jesus or Barabbas from execution they
chose Barabbas, a violent terrorist.
For Caiaphas and the rulers in Jerusalem Jesus’s constant
preaching about the certainty of the coming Kingdom of God unnerved them and threatened
their kingdom with the Romans. Jesus’ preaching and miracles had to end.
Suffering and death awaited Him, but still Jesus entered
Jerusalem. He did not run away. So there is the arrest, the mocking, the unjust
trial, the whipping, the crucifixion. This is a degree of suffering and
violence that we can hardly bear to imagine.
There is a price to pay for responding to injustice. And
Jesus was ready to pay that price. Not because He wanted to suffer. He no more
wanted to be hung on a cross than we would have done. He shrank from it.
However he believed that God had a purpose, that God could use this cruel
injustice to bury all injustice, that this dark chapter of His life was
absolutely necessary for the coming of the Kingdom of God.
This then was the roughest answer to injustice. The cruellest
death, the crushing wrath of God bearing down on Him from a silent and dark
sky, the bleak separation from all goodness in hell. This was rougher than the
suffering John the Baptist endured; rougher too than what faced Caiaphas, Pilate,
and Herod, for, unlike Jesus, they could repent and avoid the terrors of hell.
Here then is an overview of Jesus’ response to injustice, an
overview that shows his response was rough for everyone.
It leaves us with a question.
What should we do?
It would probably be unwise to unpack a two plus two equals
four from this overview and plonk down rules for how we respond to government
injustice. However surely there are signposts here to look up to so we can make
sure we are not driving in the wrong direction.
Here are the signposts in the order they appear in this
overview.
Signpost One: Be Wary Of The Party-Line
For Christians living in a democracy supporting a party is
the oxygen of the whole system. To abstain would be irresponsible. However it
is salutary to remember that Jesus never gave his support to one party. His
faith was always beyond a party manifesto, and surely that should be the same
as ours. We are Christians first, and then socialists, conservatives, or
whatever.
And when it comes to government injustice we should be
especially wary of allying ourselves with a particular group claiming that they
can oust one regime and usher in paradise. Jesus refused to do this, so should
we. If we feel it is right to draw close to a political party we should do so
fully aware that all men have feet of clay and there are severe limitations on
what any party can actually achieve.
The church should be especially wary of political groups
that seek to curry her favour. Christ’s agenda for the church is much greater
than any party manifesto, and it is that agenda Christians must constantly
support. The church is not to become a footnote in the history of another
group.
Signpost Two: The Individual
Jesus refused to see people through the lenses of politics
or race. Rather he saw the individual and their needs (the man with too much
luggage, the Centurion with the sick servant). If in our reaction to injustice
we find ourselves talking in grim angry generalisations about whole swathes of
people, we will look up and see that the Jesus signpost is against us. That
signpost asks us to love our enemies as individuals, to remember that they and
their families have real needs, and perhaps the living Christ is asking us to
reach across the divide and offer help.
Signpost Three: Support The Overall System
There is nothing in Jesus’ response to injustice that asks
his followers to campaign for the downfall of a government. It is the opposite.
He expects his followers to support the system, which in Jesus’ day meant tolerating
discriminatory laws, paying taxes, and not seeking revenge in the face of
government atrocities. If our reaction involves inciting others to pull down a
government we will look up and the Jesus signpost will be pointing in another
direction. This signpost is not blind to injustice, but it is pragmatic. For if
a system comes crashing down, then so does transport, commerce, law and order,
defence. Normal life ceases, anarchy and civil war arrive, and the blood of the
innocent flows even more furiously.
Signpost Four: Remember That Anger Can Cover Up Sin
On hearing about a government atrocity, the natural response
is to rise up in judgement against those responsible. This though implies that
we are better people than those committing the atrocity. Jesus rubbishes this
slick vaunting of moral superiority and tells everyone to make sure they repent
of their sins. For when it comes to people, even those chanting slogans against
a government, Jesus is no sentimentalist. He is blunt: evil resides in every
human heart (see Matthew 5:19-20). Alexander Solzhenitsyn had every reason to
protest against the evil of the people who had sent him and thousands of others
to the prison camps of Siberia. But Solzhenitsyn concurs with Jesus: ‘The line
dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.’ Jesus here
warns us against thinking our own moral situation is hunky dory just because we
have found an atrocity to protest about. The lesson is to make repentance our
default move, and not fall in with the crowds who in history have so often
turned out to be more murderous than the unjust kings they overthrew. As
happened in France. And Russia. And China. And Iran.
Signpost Five: The Kingdom Of God
We are followers of Jesus. Surrounded by a toxic political environment
from start to finish He had one passion: the Kingdom of God. Hence that too
must be our passion. Here then is a largest signpost of all for the Christian. Indeed
we can say with certainty that proclaiming the Kingdom of God, this is
Christian protest, this is the Christian response to government injustice.
From our overview we saw that this Christian protest has five
characteristics.
Christian protest is a proclamation that the days of
injustice are limited, that the perpetuators will soon face their day in God’s
court, and so rather than a protest, it is in fact an invitation for unjust
rulers, and their armies of cruel interrogators and torturers and prison
wardens to repent and prepare for the coming Kingdom of God.
Christian protest comes with the authority of miracles. Just
as Herod was alarmed when he heard about Christ’s miracles, so too Herods in
our generation will be alarmed as they hear that the church that proclaims the
Kingdom of God is also the church that is healing the sick and casting out
demons, demonstrating that there is a authority way beyond that of their
government.
Christian protest is not for lone cowboys. They are to be
mistrusted. No, Christian protest is rooted in the authority of the institution
that Jesus set up: the church. If a government commits an injustice the place
where the Christian must go to for action is not a political group, but the
church meeting. And the true Christian will submit to the leadership of the
church.
Christian protest will take the message of the Kingdom of
God right into the offices of those causing the injustice. Jesus entered
Jerusalem in full view of his political enemies, but it is important to note
that the crowds around him were not angrily changing murderous slogans against
the government. There was no ‘Death to Caiaphas’ or ‘Death to Pilate’. No.
There was a massive, irrepressible surge of worship to the Son of David. So too
for the church today. Yes, there is a time to peacefully march, but that march
is not about pulling down, it is all about looking up to fill the skies with
praise for the King of Kings who is coming.
And finally Christian protest is costly. Entering Jerusalem
cost Christ his life. And during the last two thousand years countless
Christians have spoken out against injustice, have bravely entered their
Jerusalem, and they too have paid a steep price, imprisonment, even death. And
just like Jesus, these Christians have chosen to believe that their suffering
has happened with God’s permission, and that in time it will be clear that as
God worked good from the evil of Calvary, so too He will work out good from this
suffering.
This is not a two plus two equals four as to how Christians
should response to government injustice, but here we have a check list, based
on how Christ responded. Injustice bites in our hearts and creates a strident
demand for action. That is good; however it is also good to ponder this check
list to make sure that our response carries the fragrance of Christ’s response.
Post Script: Steve Biko and my mother's cousin
You might be wondering about what my mother’s cousin Anthony
Stubbs did when Steve Biko was murdered in prison. He was expelled
from South Africa for his support for Steve Biko. He could have returned to the
UK, but he did not. He went to Lesotho, a country near South Africa and there gave
all his time and energy to intercession for God’s kingdom to come.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, a former student of Anthony
Stubbs, Bishop Desmond Tuto, had become a major leader of the anti-apartheid
movement. Tutu was also a man of strict spiritual discipline and prayer. After
one night of prayer in September 1989 Tutu believed God wanted him to organise
a peaceful march. The time to enter Jerusalem had come. When other Christians
leaders asked him how many would come, Tutu said he did not know. 30,000 came.
It is possible to date the unravelling of apartheid from that
Christian march led by Desmond Tuto. Five months later Nelson Mandela was
released from prison. The first house he went to was the home of Desmond Tuto, the
student of Anthony Stubbs who had so faithfully interceded for South Africa.
Four years later Nelson Mandela became the first democratically elected
president of South Africa.
Steve Biko’s death was not in vain. Anthony Stubb's prayers were not in vain. And Desmond Tutu's march was not in vain.
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