Part 4 of 4 – Mixing Yellow & Blue (read Part 1 HERE)

Yellow Team Christians and Blue Team Christians are each right about a lot of things when it comes to living out the Way of Jesus in a Violent Society – a passion for justice, valuing the sanctity of human life, a desire for peace, etc. However, both Yellow and Blue leave significant gaps in their approach to a violent world, both theologically and practically, but when you mix them together…

…I find an ethic for living in a violent world that is both reality-based and true to my faith and hope as a follower of Jesus. In short the ethic is this: Engage the systemic contributors to violence when you can while being prepared to survive the violent encounters when you have to.

The key factor here is time in relation to a violent encounter. Outside of the time constraints imposed by a violent encounter it is possible to engage systemic contributors to violence in all sorts of ways. When a violent encounter narrows the possibilities down to what can be accomplished within seconds or even fractions of seconds, the techniques and tools of survival may be necessary.

The violent encounter however will not impose constraints on what is possible forever. They typically begin and end quickly. When they are over, if you are alive and not critically injured, the possibilities begin to open back up again. You may be in a position to help someone who is wounded, even one of your attackers if that seems wise at the time. You may visit another victim or even one of your attackers in the hospital. You may begin visiting one of your attackers in prison. You may even look into mentoring one of your attackers. Or you may use what you learned from your encounter to help someone else avoid a similar experience.

At the moment here are some of the ways we are fleshing out this ethic in our own lives:

• Along with some wonderful people, we are creating a community of faith, love, hope, equality, and redemption – Edgewood Church
• We work with community leaders and organizations to provide resources for those working their way out of poverty – food pantries, food co-ops, clothing closets, legal aid, etc.
• We provide encouragement and resources for single parents – we periodically have dinners at our house specifically designed to give single parents a chance to get themselves and their kids fed without having to worry about affording the food, cooking, or cleaning up while also enjoying the company of other adults.
• Recruit tutors for struggling students
• Mentor at-risk teenagers
• Formed and leading the Edgewood Security Patrol to build up the sense of community in the neighborhood and get more targeted police presence where it is needed
• Getting the best training on personal protection available – avoiding, de-escalating, deterring, and surviving violent encounters – and teaching what we learn to others
• Providing access to trauma counseling through an arrangement with a wonderful counselor at our church
• Getting emergency first responder training so that we can help ourselves or others after a violent encounter

We may learn better in the future, but for now this approach to following the Way of Jesus in a violent world is the most reality-based and faithful to what we believe.

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