Systemic Infidelity
The fact I have written a fair amount on systemic racism matters little as the populous is relentlessly reminded, almost hourly, by the unstoppable upsurge of assertions, accusations, and conclusions crashing into almost every shipping lane of our society. These single-purposed, rogue waves robustly bellow the most dangerous and immediate evil in our country today; whiteness. Quizzically, those screaming the loudest are resoundingly endued with an ironic feature held in common with that same evil; whiteness.
All manners of racism are detestable and I stand firmly on this point with our minority brothers and sisters, as I have my whole life. But the exhaustive bandying of the term, “Systemic” has not only made our country tone-deaf to its meaning, but this coordinated onslaught is also making human relations far, far worse.
First, our Universities systematically eliminated nearly all voices which refused to sword-swallow the litany of social justice ideologies. Next, these parasitic thought pathogens are now being released into every corner of our society — including the church.
This infestation is now spreading like a pandemic. So while SARS-COV-2 consumes the nation's ethos, the virus is merely subsumed within the larger pathogen of Critical Race Theory which if allowed, will wreak a far more widespread calamity upon our people. A calamity not of the lungs but of the soul.
Sitting aghast in a church meeting, I watched a pastor flounder as he confessed his unconscious bias, white privilege, and systemically inherent racism before a representative black man in the room. He next offered a dry-cried, proxied apology on behalf of all the white people in the room — and beyond. I say, representative black man because no actual incident of racism had occurred. Instead, this was mock pageantry, as demanded by CRT, which in the long run yielded more division than healing.
As I looked around this predominately confused, multi-raced room of people, I quickly determined this exercise would not deliver the results hoped for. And this is the problem with ascribing a term like, “Systemic” to an issue which is far too circuitous to define so lazily.
In a documentary I watched this week, a liberal white professor legitimately asked an irate black colleague to provide instances of systemic racism so he could better understand her pain. She vehemently dismissed his request as racist because it would only further traumatize her to have to recount and define her plight. How exactly can we solve for a problem few can accurately define?
This led me to consider other nefariously systemic candidates which are perhaps a bit more discernible. Since the word qualifier game is never-ending, allow me to propose a new consideration for the Oppression Olympics: Systemic Infidelity.
Infidelity is a cancer that shatters marriages, children, careers, friendships, and communities across the country at staggering, quantifiable levels. Yet, as devastating as it is, we see no national campaigns, marches, political planking or training initiatives bringing awareness to this destroyer of souls.
Not only is infidelity rampant, I would contend there are very real, well-funded, and organized structures in place to replicate and fuel this systemic malignancy. Cheating is a major theme in movies, novels, reality TV shows, and even modeled for us by the so-called elites. Not to mention, infidelity is a central plot of most porn sagas.
If your first response is akin to infidelity being too distasteful for public discourse, shall we review the endlessly bolstered, near obscene topics on gender and sexuality which have been unashamedly front-loaded into almost every facet of our society — including elementary school classrooms?
Statistics tell us that roughly 40% of marriages suffer infidelity, with men committing the vastly higher percentage of offense. This means roughly three out of every ten married men and one out of every ten married women are either cheating, have cheated, or will cheat on their spouse. This is a measurable, calculable and cataclysmic number which should certainly induct the act of infidelity to the systemic hall of shame.
Change scenes. Now imagine this same pastor had brought his wife to the center of the room and with chest-heaving sobs, confessed infidelity to her. Now we have successfully depressurized the cabin. As your heart bursts for this poor woman and seethes toward this man, you also notice various people beginning to squirm in their seats. Some perhaps awash in guilt for their secret cheating while others flush with sudden unease at the possibly of having been cheated on.
As unthinkable this scene may seem, Christians have known the hard-gained benefits of public confession for thousands of years. Power is released when people confess their sin publicly because true bondage is protected and sustained in the secrecy of such things.
“So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed”.
The Book of James, New Testament
But take careful note: This practice is not to be confused with the Robin DiAngelo-prescribed Whiteness confessionals being erected in classrooms and corporate human resources departments across our country today. Collective guilt is non-specific nonsense used to deflect attention from legitimate guilt. No, I am referring to personal confession for a personal offense. You cannot confess my sin just as I cannot confess yours — or our ancestors’.
I watched this happen in a high school assembly when a brave young student stood up to the mic and confessed his struggle with pornography. Let’s call it; systemic pornography. (If ever there was a word that deserved the qualifier of systemic, it would be pornography). Before we knew it, student after student began confessing the same struggle. This led to not just a powerful time of prayer, but a palpable shift in the school's culture through the end of that year which included students holding each other accountable for their porn consumption.
I wish Robin DiAngelo could have been there to see this. Transformative power was not released through collective, fog-banks of confessions made on behalf of an entire group or race to a nondescript aggregate. Rather, this was intimate and deeply personal.
This was also a major characteristic of the East African Revival, birthed in Rwanda, in the early twentieth century. People were compelled to not only confess offenses one to another but would travel great distances to return stolen items or make amends with an offended friend.
On my first trip to Rwanda, I preached in many churches, the largest being in Gatare, just off the coast of Lake Kivu. Over 600 people were pressed into the large, rectangular stone structure under a metal roof so when the music and singing revved up, it was a uniquely glorious sound.
The large windows were merely openings, so the people outside could surround the building, lean in, and take part in the service. Each time I was asked to speak, (in this particular service I spoke three times, which is not hard to do when the service lasts almost five hours), it was through a translator.
For those who have never spoken publicly through an interpreter, it is a unique and unexpectedly trying form of communication. You have to speak one or two sentences at a time and then pause while the interpreter delivers your message. At times, that pause can feel like eons. As I was giving my second sermon of the service, these pauses were being interrupted in my spirit by a clarion, inward voice.
“Address sexual sin.”
Each time the translator spoke, I had a silent, two-pronged dialogue occurring in my mind. The first prong was trying to form my next two sentences while the second prong was sparring with the, “Address sexual sin” soundbite now playing on a loop.
If the people could have seen what was happening inwardly, they may have thought Sybil was preaching the sermon that Sunday. During the next pause, I hear again, “Address sexual sin”, to which I mutedly replied, “I’m not mentioning sexual sin.”
Upon the next, “Address sexual sin”, I silently scream, “I don’t even know what sexual sin is in this culture”! I would soon learn, sexual sin is systemically similar across every culture.
I finished the sermon and invited people to come forward for prayer. You have never experienced an altar call until you see one in a third-world nation. The color-soaked, incoming tide teems with life, death, tragedy, hope, and desperate expectation. The needs, the injuries, the disfigurements, and the tears. No, you’ve never seen anything like it. It is a breathtakingly sacred display of the human condition.
As the music, dance and celebration erupted again, I took my place behind the altar with pastor/translator, Ananias. At this point, a man stood up in the back of the church. He was desperately thin. His button-down shirt was two sizes too big and his belt barely hoisted his folded pant waist in bundles above his slight hips.
As he began speaking loudly, one of the priests stood front and center to address him. I leaned over and asked, “What is he saying?”
“His name is Solomon. He has two children. He said he has not been in church for many years. He said the Spirit of God moved on his heart during your message. He is now confessing that he has been unfaithful to his wife.”
At this point, Solomon began wailing as he spoke. If only someone could have captured the expression on my face at that moment.
“He said that he had been sleeping with another woman, and now has moved in with her. He said today, he realized he has been wrong and wants God to forgive him.”
“Address sexual sin”.
The priest invited Solomon to come forward and as he walked to the altar, you could palpably feel compassion rising in the room in response to what this man was doing. As Solomon wept before this packed house the priest prayed for him while hands in the room were extended toward him. When this was done, Solomon began speaking again. I leaned into Ananias again asking, “What’s he saying?” Immediately, a woman on the other side of the church sheepishly stood.
“He is now asking if his wife can ever forgive him. And that woman standing is his wife.”
Cue reconciliation.
As the woman stood, she was already in tears. The priest asked if she would forgive her husband and she nodded her head, yes. As the entire room burst into praise, the woman came forward at the priest's invitation. As he turned and invited me to pray for them, I was filled with a myriad of emotions and thoughts which were overwhelming.
Why did I stay silent with what I knew I heard? Could church back home ever become like this? Could my country back home ever become like this? How could she ever forgive him? This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Cue invitation.
Heaven’s culture is an eternal invitation into reconciliation and redemption. It was inviting me to participate and even though I missed the mark, the Kingdom nonetheless and forever advances toward the bullseye and pulls us along in it. So when you know something to be true, release your holy arrow toward the mark and leave the rest to God.
“I feel like someone here today is engaged in some type of sexual sin. The Lord is inviting you to hear His voice, confess your sin, and receive the transforming power of His forgiveness and love”.
Oh, how I will never miss that opportunity again!
Meanwhile, Critical Race Theory continues to spray its dull arrows in every direction without a winning landing spot in sight. While CRT may rightfully diagnose pain and injustice brewing in the human heart, it will never deliver the prescription of true reconciliation, redemption, and restoration because it's a feigned imposter, concocted with all the wrong ingredients.
