Statues.

We Presbyterians have always had this iconoclastic streak.  We have historically tended to take seriously the prohibitions in the Hebrew Scriptures against “graven images.”  For instance, Leviticus 19:4 says, “Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves.”  And Leviticus 26:1 says, “You shall make for yourselves no idols and erect no carved images.”  And of course the Ten Commandments prohibit making or worshiping idols, which, considered literally, are carved or cast images of animals or people.

Part of this was just the reflexive anti-Catholicism that is part of the DNA of the Reformation churches.  Then, as now, the Roman Catholic Church makes use of statues in worship.

Another reason for this was the outsider and minority status of Protestants in 16th century Europe.  Back then, all statues were of kings and saints.  They were intended to express the views of the political and religious establishment, which the Protestants opposed (and who were oppressing and killing them).    

So, graven images, which is to say statues, are inherently problematic, which is why the Hebrew Scriptures reject them.  For graven images have always been a propagandistic tool of the reigning Empire.  Maybe the Hebrew people learned to hate statues when they represented the slave-owning class back in Egypt.

In Jesus' day, the Roman Empire would deploy statuary as a way to remind conquered and oppressed people who their masters were.  Local towns would feature statues of Roman gods and generals for veneration, basically conveying the message “You lost; we won; get over it.”  In Galatia the Romans apparently even put up statues of defeated, dying, and dead Galatians, in case the people didn’t get the point.

So statues served the same purpose then as these graven images of Confederate generals did when they were erected at the end of the 19th century.  They conveyed the message to a conquered population of who is really the boss.  And the people were reminded of this every time they passed one of these monuments.  

All such monuments are public and expensive, which means that they have to be underwritten by the people in power.  And they all tell a story from their perspective, expressing the agenda and goals of the State and commercial interests who control public spaces and can afford to produce them.  

Of course, once a group takes power, they get the statue bug and whatever principled iconoclasm they may have harbored evaporates.  Heck, there is even a statue now of Oliver Cromwell in London... a statue of an iconoclast.  I am quite confident that many of the Daughters of the Confederacy or whatever they called themselves, who got those statues of Lee and Jackson (and other traitors and terrorists) erected across the South, were Presbyterians.  And plenty of Presbyterians have been content to disregard the Bible and nod in smug approval of having elegant and awe-inspiring statues of all kinds of famous people who did all kinds of awful things to weaker people, deface the landscape.  (And yo, even statues of common soldiers valorize the idea that when the bosses want you to kill and die for them, you need to do it.)

So, no, now that we are in an iconoclastic moment and crowds of demonstrators are bringing down statues of people who implemented or defended slavery and white supremacy, who massacred Native Americans, Mexicans, Philippinos, or others, I am more worried that someone will get hurt in this activity, either by police, vigilantes, or accident (these things must weigh tons), than I am concerned about “losing our history” or some such nonsense.    

For in the end, the most effective anti-statue should be the Crucifix.  The image of Christ our God, nailed to a cross by human sin in the form of Empire, identifying with the lynched and tortured, the executed and the oppressed of every age, is the image that negates and conquers all images of conquerors and victors.  

And even this, when it is domesticated, sponsored, and erected by the principalities and powers of this world, becomes an idol meaning exactly the opposite of what it really means.  The Crucifix has been used as a tool of conquest and mass murder.  Love, when it becomes a graven image, too easily can be made to communicate hate.

(We even see this in the use of creche images.  (The only images that are allowed in Presbyterian churches, apparently.)  These days it’s not so much about remembering the story of God coming into the world in humble circumstances for the salvation of all.  It’s more about making a political statement in favor of “traditional values.”  Well, in the gospels, no one is less in favor of “traditional values” than Jesus Christ.)

Which means I return, at least in this area, to my Presbyterian roots.  I would never bother anyone’s home or church, of course.  But as far as public spaces are concerned?  Leviticus is right.  Statues easily become toxic. 

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Galatians 3:28.

One of the most important verses in the New Testament is Galatians 3:28.  “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”  We say it at Baptism because it describes the new life Jesus gives us.  It is also one of the most radical verses, for it upends the normal order of human society along three important axes.

In this verse, the apostle Paul says nothing less than that God, in Christ Jesus, has abolished nations, classes, and genders.  We are no longer divided by these categories.  All of these (and more) have been used over the ages by the Empire to divide and conquer people.  Indeed, the Empire uses these categories even today to enforce the moralities of domination by which it maintain its power, and keeps people in bondage.

But I fear that we do not take Galatians 3:28 seriously.  If we did we would be living very differently.  Many Christians still tend to believe that nations, classes, and genders not only still exist, but should be allowed to continue to divide us.  Indeed, these divisions infect even our churches.

1.  No nations.

In saying that “there is no longer Jew or Greek,” Paul breaks down the dividing wall that is nationalism or worse, racism.  Now in Christ Jesus, no nation or race is superior or specially “chosen;” no nation or race is exceptional; no nation or race is better or worse than any other; and no nation or race gets to impose its will on another by force or otherwise.  In God’s eyes, nations simply do not exist.  They are as imaginary as the arbitrary lines that nations invisibly draw across the landscape and declare to be “boundaries” of separation and distinction.

If “there is no longer Jew or Greek,” and therefore no longer different nations, how can we lift up one nation, our nation, above all others?  How can we, for example, advocate that people buy products made by workers on this side of an imaginary line, and not buy products made by workers on the other side of an imaginary line, in the name of a “nation” that does not in God’s eyes exist?  How can churches and Christians participate in war and take a side in favor of this or that nation?  Should churches install national flags in their sanctuaries?  

The affirmation that “there is no longer Jew or Greek” does mean that “all lives matter.”  BUT that has to mean that the lives of “others” that have been reduced to not mattering in the current regime have to start mattering.  That’s why the more urgent plea and agenda today is for African-American, Latinex, immigrant, and Native lives to be lifted up.  And those whose lives were thought to matter more need to be brought down.  White supremacy is obviously antithetical to the gospel.

2.  No classes.

In saying that “there is no longer slave or free,” Paul breaks down the dividing wall that separates and causes enmity between economic classes.  But dissolving classes necessarily means a reversal in which the slave is made free, and the free no longer benefit from the slave’s labor.  In other words, Paul’s classless order is inherently and necessarily revolutionary because the only way to dissolve classes is by bringing one up and the other down.  

Like the Lord’s mother sings in Luke 1: “[God] has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” 

The church has to be in the business of abolishing classes by instituting justice for the marginalized, mistreated, poor,  disenfranchised, and exploited.  It has to advocate for the redistribution of wealth and the payment of reparations to those whose ancestors were violently compelled to work without compensation.  Otherwise its claim that there is now neither slave nor free is an empty lie.

3.  No genders.

In saying that “there is no longer male and female,” Paul breaks down the wall that divides people according to gender.  Again, the only way to bring about gender neutrality is to de-privilege the gender which has been dominant — cis-hetero-males — and start making the lives of others matter more.  

Unfortunately, many elements of the church still cling to gender  bigotry as a mark of Christian faith.  Even this week there was much anguish expressed among “Christians” at the ruling of the Supreme Court that mandates the inclusion of LGBT people under our civil rights laws.  

Clearly, can anyone still trying to maintain an exclusive understanding of gender identity claim to be “in Christ Jesus,” given this verse?  Can a church that chronically privileges men do so?  It is pathetic when the Supreme Court, of all institutions, takes Galatians 3:28 more seriously than many Christians do.  (On this, anyway.)  

4.  Now What?

We Christians need to engrave Galatians 3:28 upon our brains and ask ourselves all the time whether our decisions, our words, our actions, our thoughts, the things we decide to post on Facebook… live up to the standard of this verse.  There is much in our culture that encourages and rewards a reflexive nationalism and  racism, that enforces economic classes and maintains gender bias.  It is built into our laws, habits, “morality,” and ways of thinking.

But we are only followers of Jesus to the extent that we are shaped by the basic and fundamental Christian confession articulated in Galatians 3:28.

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