“When I was nine, some kid beat me up for amusement, and when I came home crying to my father, his answer- Fight that boy or fight me- was godless, because it told me that there was no justice in the world, save the justice we dish out with our own hands. When I was twelve, six boys jumped off the number 28 bus headed to Mondawin Mall, threw me to the ground, and stomped on my head. But what struck me most that afternoon was not those boys but the godless, heathen adults walking by. Down there on the ground, my head literally being kicked in, I understood: no one, not my father, not the cops, and certainly not anyone’s God, was coming to save me.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.
James KA Smith calls this “a respectable atheism.” There is no pretense of cool detachment or objectivity; only the visceral emotional objection to an unjust world. What does Jesus say to people getting kicked in the head? Or better, what does he do when he is getting kicked in the head? Check out our sermon on revenge and love below!
