Utilizing the Tenses

Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

By Brandon Morgan

Past, present, and future. Experts in rhetoric cannot overstate the importance of verb tenses in argument. Past is often connotated with blame, and is often associated with justice. Present is often connotated with values and separates the good from the bad. Future is connected with choice and is often associated with good decision making. Unless we see our lives in light of these three tenses, we will fail to see as fully what it is to walk closely with Jesus.

To demonstrate this principle: a child steals a cookie from the cookie jar. The parent comes around to see the child scarfing down the sweet delicacy, and asks: “Child, did you steal the cookie from the cookie jar?”

This is a question of blame. Either the child did it (which they unequivocally did) or not, but there is a cookie missing from the jar. So, someone has to have done it.

Let’s use the same situation for the present tense: the parent might ask something like: “Is this the kind of household where we steal things?” As crumbs fall from the child’s cheeks, that question is answered differently because it’s not a matter of whether someone stole a cookie, it's appraising the value of stealing. Apparently in this house, stealing is something that is codified as “bad” in our household. This could be a way to reinforce that stealing isn’t good.

Let’s change this situation again to a future tense. The question this time is: “Next time you want a cookie, can you ask me?” This question demonstrates choice, and perhaps increases the choice of the child and (potentially) will allow the parent to know when the child is thinking about spoiling their dinner.

I used this example, not to demonstrate that one of these tenses is better than another, but that all verb tenses have their own uses. Without the past, there can be no justice. Without the present, our values are simply something on paper. Without the future, our decision-making power is greatly limited. The past grants us reflection, the present shows us what is important to us, and the future grants us possibility.

Keeping all this in mind, let’s apply this perspective to decolonization [Note 1] and reparative justice [Note 2] towards Indigenous Peoples [Note 3] in the United States.

Past - Reflections

Currently, only about 2.3 percent of land in the US is still stewarded (formally recognized by the federal and state governments) by Indigenous people, whose ancestors were here long before European colonizers placed their feet on the land (Adakai, Sandoval-Rosario, Xu, et al. 2017: 1314-1318). This means the vast majority of land in the US, on which most people in the US live, was formerly inhabited by Indigenous people. The land wasn’t typically purchased through legal and upstanding means, but rather it was often taken through underhanded, deceptive, nefarious, and at times, genocidal means.

Oftentimes, and all over the globe, Christianity was utilized as a tool to take lands away from Indigenous Peoples. This occurred via the Doctrine of Discovery, which was a fifteenth century theological, philosophical, and legal framework put together by the Catholic Church and associated political powers that was used by Christian governments to justify taking away Indigenous lands and subjugating Indigenous Peoples. At some point in history, the name of Jesus of Nazareth, a man from a group oppressed by the Romans, was used to subsequently oppress others. Isn’t that a terrible twist of fate?

Some of you may have known that, and some of you may not have. Regardless of where you are on that spectrum, no one likes feeling blamed, especially when you probably didn’t have a direct hand in the injustice that happened. An example of this can be like a child spending time with a group of kids that may not be the most upstanding. When one of the children gets in trouble, sometimes they all do. Now, based on this example, it may seem like that’s injustice to the individual, but one thing we need to understand in the Church is that we are not simply individuals, but a body. Oftentimes, when someone strikes us, we don’t say, “Your hand hit us,” but we say, “You hit us.” Just as we like to enter into the labors of the itinerants of the Great Awakening, we also need to own up to our foreparents’ mistakes as well.

Concerning seeking justice and reparations for Indigenous Peoples, a lot of us stay in this defensive mentality to avoid feeling blamed. Some may say things like: “That’s not the way Christianity is now,” or even “At least with colonization, Christianity was able to spread to people who may not have known the name of Jesus otherwise.”

Some conflate the Great Commission with acts of colonization, but one thing we have to remember from Jesus’ ministry is this: Jesus stayed in people’s houses. He didn’t take their houses. The problem is that Christianity is not something separate from us. We may try to divorce ourselves from the past, but we “have entered into the labors of others,” and there have assuredly been some “tares that have been sown in with the wheat” (see Matthew 13:24-30).

When some of us do wrong, we are not called to avoid responsibility. In many ways there is blame rightly placed upon the Church for the acts committed against Indigenous Peoples, but we must not be defensive or dodge it. We’re called to sit in the discomfort of that mistake and repent. The Evangelical Church as a whole excels in teaching about repentance on the individual level, but I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a call for repentance on behalf of the Church for when we were on the wrong side of history. It’s almost as though we think we’ve done everything right up to this point. Jesus, himself, called most of the churches in Revelation to repent (see Revelation 2). Are we really so different that we feel we don’t need to?

It’s interesting. Concerning the topic of reparation and decolonization, the Church tends to remain in this state of being in the past, treating everything as history without a present and future tense. Either we’re responsible and there’s nothing we can do, or we’re not responsible (which isn’t true either). We fail to utilize the other two tenses of the present and the future.

Present - Our Values

Utilizing the present tense allows us to examine what our priorities and values are. In other words, this is our theology. Theology can dissuade a lot of people, but all theology does is give answers to the following questions: Who is God? Based on our interactions with God, how does this call for us to treat ourselves and those around us? Theology often gives us the perspective of how we should treat our neighbors based on who God is. With this in mind, how should children of God behave, children who have received every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, who have been called ambassadors of the Kingdom, who have been called to cry out for justice? How should children of God feel about living on land taken from Indigenous people, who have lower life expectancy, lower quality of life, and are at a disproportionately higher risk than other ethnic groups in the United States? [1] Is apathy an appropriate posture? It’s written in James 4:17 that “if anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” With that stated, we know that apathy towards the rights of Indigenous Peoples is not congruent with our life in the Kingdom of God.

Future – Possibility

The future is a beautiful thing. A slightly too optimistic thing if it doesn’t acknowledge the wrongs of the past or the values of the present. Those that accept their past can acknowledge their faults and say, “We messed up.” Those in the present have the opportunity to say, “The values that we hold are not congruent with the state of the world.” The future says, “We can do better.” The future is wishful thinking only if it isn’t rooted in what was and what is.

With the lens of the future, God offers us the opportunity to work hand in hand with him to find his justice, and typically that journey takes us to those that have been marginalized and ask, what is permissible?

I encourage you and your communities to take time to seek God and learn about the past. Should we benefit from the sins of our forebears? Is it too much to say we are responsible for the wrongs of the past? What would you say if someone continued to benefit from the exploitation of your ancestors? If you feel we did wrong, is it okay to say that reparations are too great for us? And can anything be too great for a God who can take five loaves and two fish to feed the thousands?

After reflecting on the past with the Holy Spirit, I encourage you to make a decision as an individual and with your communities. What can we do, even if small, to move towards God’s call? And at the same time, envision the future: what can it look like to love those who have been oppressed and to seek to restore what was lost? How can we join in the work of our Heavenly Father?

Notes

[1] Decolonization is linked to this idea that we should not take and maintain hold of territory that belongs to someone else.

[2] Reparative justice is related to serving to make amends for a wrong done to another. It is one of the first steps in restoring a relationship.

[3] Indigenous Peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups who are related to the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region (Wikipedia 2022).

Sources

1 Adakai M, Sandoval-Rosario M, Xu F, et al. Health Disparities Among American Indians/Alaska Natives — Arizona, 2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2018;67:1314–1318. DOI

2 “Indigenous Peoples.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, January 16, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples.

Brandon Morgan is a follower of Jesus that lives in the Greater Philadelphia area. He is currently a doctoral student in public health at Drexel University. Brandon is brought to life by community work, rock climbing, reading, writing, and spending time with those he loves.