Moral Weirdos
Earlier this summer I joined about 60 other Chicago-area faith leaders for a die-in at a gun shop a few miles outside city limits. We were compelled to gather on that hot summer day and lay ourselves down in front of the store which supplies a disproportionate amount of the firearms used in the crimes committed in our city for the sake of the truth. You see, after the mass shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that state's governor and other influential people used Chicago's gun violence as an excuse not to advocate for federal gun legislation. "There are, quote, 'real' gun laws in Chicago," said the governor after the massacre. "I hate to say this, but there are more people who are shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas, and we need to realize that people who think that, 'Well, maybe if we just implement tougher gun laws, it's going to solve it,' Chicago and LA and New York disprove that thesis."
Governor Abbott is far from the first to use Chicago as a scapegoat for his responsibilities. Our city does not suffer the nation's highest rates of gun crimes but our reputation supersedes the facts and makes us a convenient target. When pundits and politicians seize on this fiction in their attempts to subvert legislation like an assault weapons ban which is proven to reduce violence, they are engaging in blatant deception. While it's true that our city has relatively strong gun laws, those laws only extend to the city's borders. The same can be said about county and state legislation. To circumvent these laws, one only needs to leave the city, county, or state limits, an easy thing considering how close we are to Indiana, a state which no longer requires residents to "obtain or possess a license or permit to carry a handgun."
Chicago has neither a magical moat or a force field keeping out the guns which can be legally obtained just a few minutes away. And this brings us to the clergy protest in front of Chuck's Gun shop, a store linked by the Chicago Police Department to the highest number of shootings in the city. Its proximity to city limits as well as its proven connection to gun violence made it an ideal location to call out the governor's lie. The city's gun legislation has no impact on the death dealing which happens just beyond our borders and to use our suffering as a rationale for inaction is both cynical and cowardly. In an op-ed for Christianity Today, my friend, Pastor Charlie Dates, points out that it's also racist.
We are not your rhetorical whipping boy, trotted out for another session of mockery that serves your political ends. We are not your minstrel show, played on repeat on your news channels as a way to reinforce tropes about the inherent dangerousness of Black people. We see what you are doing and name it for what it is: racism. We know that you do not actually care about the Black lives lost to gun violence here. If you did, you wouldn’t use dead Black boys and girls as a political tool. You would see their tragic deaths as a catalyst for action.
For all of these reasons, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to call Chicago's faith leaders to show up and simply tell the truth.
In an interview earlier this month with philosopher William MacAskill, Ezra Klein asked him about the challenge of living against the grain of the status quo. MacAskill calls this visibly counter-cultural way of living being a "moral weirdo." He says that a moral weirdo "is someone who believes things that are not widely accepted by society. Perhaps they’re even looked down upon or ridiculed by wider society. Nonetheless, that person stands up for what they believe in." And while this sort of lived belief may be diplomatic at times, MacAskill is thinking about more dramatic examples. He points to Benjamin Lay as moral weirdo we've largely forgotten.
Lay was an 18th century Quaker abolitionist at a time when slavery was widely accepted, including among many of his coreligionists. Before immigrating from England to Pennsylvania, Lay was exposed to the brutalities of the slave trade during a brief period in Barbados. Shocked to discover that enslavement was tolerated in his adopted state, Lay took to public protest. During the winter he plunged his uncovered feet into the snow outside a Quaker meeting house to dramatize the conditions of the enslaved. When an enslaver would stand to speak in a meeting, Lay would disrupt him loudly, "There’s another negro-master!" He once hollowed out a Bible before filling it with red liquid. Standing at a meeting to denounce those who trafficked in human bondage, Lay held the Bible over his head before shouting, "“Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures.” He then plunged a sword through the cover and the blood-like liquid splattered throughout the meeting room.
MacAskill makes the point that, as a moral weirdo, Benjamin Lay made room for the truth. At a time when the twisted logic of enslavement was the accepted norm, people like Lay, with their dramatic actions, were able to create space for a different future. His public displays of truth-telling, meant to shake people from their deceived slumber, compelled others to take their own stands for the truth. The less sensational work of passing abolitionist legislation was made possible by moral weirdos like Lay.
Our own action outside of Chuck's was less dramatic and far less costly than anything Lay risked, but I think these sorts of public and dramatic displays of truth stand in his lineage. Of course, it's a lineage which extends much further beyond the American abolitionists. The Hebrew prophets were the original moral weirdos, enacting God's prophetic truth in their bodies. In their dramatic actions - animals cut in half, beards shaved and hair divided into piles, yokes carried, garments ripped - the prophets broke through the lies the people had believed with God's word of truth. "I have made you a sign for the house of Israel." (Ezekiel 12:6)
In our city vulnerable people suffer the lies told by powerful people about guns and violence. The way governors and legislators mischaracterize Chicago impacts people's opportunities to thrive and, frankly, survive. The action of a few committed clergy will not pass the legislation necessary to reduce gun violence and increase our children's likelihood of survival. But it's possible that our moral weirdness, joined with the actions of other faithful truth-tellers, will make room for more righteousness and justice in our city. Will invite others to play their less dramatic parts in the pursuit of peace.
I wonder, where is deception entrenched in your community? Who are a few others who might join you in dramatizing the truth? We need all of the moral weirdos we can get!
The newsletter has been quiet this summer. Partly this has to do with a book proposal I sent off to a few publishers last week. (More on that soon, I hope.) Partly this has to do with a significant possibility our church and nonprofit are discerning. (More on that soon too, I hope.) And, honestly, a large part has had to do with our family's summer rhythm. The boys and I just returned from a week camping at one of our favorite places, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan. If you ever get a chance to visit, take it!
I hope this summer has been good to you.