An Open Letter to the White Man Flying a Jesus Flag at the Capitol Riots

In addition to our prayers for peace and for the wisdom and discernment so desperately needed in our nation, we feel called to share this open letter with our communities.

An Open Letter To the White Man Flying the Jesus flag at the Capitol Riots:

Beloved child of God, we watched you carrying the name of Jesus and are under the impression that you claim to follow Jesus’ teachings. Peace be with you.  A note about our assumptions shared below: we’d love to be wrong.  We would love to hear that you were begging for peace, calling for calm and compassion, and were present to offer words of love in the midst of unspeakable hate.  We would love for our assumptions about the presence of a flag bearing Jesus’ name in the midst of these acts of violence and insurrection to be wrong.  

Our hearts broke as we watched you wave a flag bearing God’s name in the midst of violence.  We believe God’s heart breaks when we speak in violence and act in violence.  God heart breaks that life was taken in these acts, not far from your flag flying with the name of Jesus on it. 

We believe that in his life and ministry on earth, Jesus worked to bring good news to the poor and the oppressed, to welcome the stranger and the outcast, to shine the light of the world to bring about warmth and hope and peace.  Jesus preached from mountaintops to bless the peacemakers, those who work for justice and use their words and their actions to sow seeds of reconciliation and hope.  

The violence enacted today cannot bear Jesus’ name.  We cannot begin to conceive of your motivations or the foundations of your beliefs.  We do not believe that we follow the same Jesus.  The Jesus we worship cannot be associated with what we saw today: white supremacy, toxic masculinity, immeasurable privilege, and abounding deceit.  The Jesus we worship was born to a family of refugees, washed in the waters of baptism, and spent his life proclaiming God’s grace, preaching words of hope, of inclusion, of love.  Jesus is love.  

Jesus was not about doctrine or party or politics.  Jesus was not about denomination or country or law.  Jesus is not about violence or war and certainly not hate. The wave of a flag bearing his name in the midst of unspeakable violence and hate is blasphemy.  Jesus is peace.  Jesus is love.  And those of us who seek to follow Jesus are called to love, with our words, our actions, our votes, our finances, our resources, our relationships and the whole of our very lives.  

On a day when many who follow Jesus celebrate Epiphany, the light that brought foreigners before a child born to bring peace, who then went home by another road for fear of the tyranny of a leader, the events of today are eerie and frightening.  

Jesus is found on the roads to peace, on the roads paved with hope, Jesus is found wherever love is spoken in words and actions, even in the midst of flags flown in support of tyranny, lies, white supremacy and other horrors, calling for peace, inviting the work of reconciliation to begin.  May the peace of Christ inspire us and empower us to the work of peace today and evermore.