My Two Cents Worth on the Ferguson Issue

I have been asked by folks in my church for an opinion on the Ferguson situation since the first shots were fired by a law enforcement officer who obviously felt threatened by the behavior of an individual who was a suspect in a felon committed minutes earlier. I’ve wrestled with a plethora of emotions over this since the news of the unfortunate event hit the air waves. Judicially speaking the court resolution on this has been intentionally ignored. The result of that intentional ignorance has been looting, rioting and an absolute total disregard for the judicial system and law enforcement in Ferguson. This manifestation has been provoked and encouraged by those who belong to certain “race baiter” groups – not excluding our current Presidential Administration and his “team”. I find it ironic that involvement from the White House and supporting service personnel are willing to ignore the beheading of an innocent grandmother by a raging lawless Muslim while propagating resistance to law and authority in an event deemed justifiable by the court system they are sworn to support. Instead of grief for the loss of a grandmothers life by a radical terrorist – the WH praises the mosque he was associated with just a few days later. I can’t even begin to tell you how violated my “civil rights” feel when I see this kind of intentional ignorance of moral law from our political leaders. A military general is killed in the line of duty and our President fails to attend his funeral – but is willing to make a show of force for manifest lawlessness in Ferguson. It’s no wonder we are struggling with simple obedience to law – we can’t find it in our own governmental leadership. Enough of my ranting.

I have finally arrived at a conclusion for myself on this issue. While I can’t and won’t attempt to speak for my church I will definitely speak to my church and the readers of my blog on this one.

First of all, death of a human being is something we should all grieve – regardless of the cause. Life is a gift from God and should be accepted as such. When we see a young persons life taken for any reason – it should effect all of us. I can’t imagine the emotions that Adam and Eve went through when informed of the death of one of their sons at the hand of the other. We have since then experienced the perpetual and unjust taking of lives throughout history. Just as violently as Abel lost his life we see far too many innocent and criminally guilty young people lose their lives today. Weapons designed for our protection are the issue here. Disobedience to law is. Violence for the cause of murder is something that adversely affects all of us in one way or another.
But lets stop for a moment and review the events of Ferguson. The young man who lost his life wasn’t the innocent angel the DBM claimed him to be. He was a suspected felon who was engaged in showing no respect for law enforcement and or adult authority – much less the store owner he threatened minutes prior. Evidence unknown to the offending officer would later prove his guilt. I agree, the fact he was an un-convicted felon didn’t give unjust cause for the loss of his life. His behavior as an un-convicted/suspected felon did give the officer in question the right to defend himself. Was his defense to harsh? Could he have taken a different form of defensive action? Hard to say because we were not in his shoes. He has just had his face pummeled by the suspect in question. He did what he and many of us – black or white, would have done. He acted on self defense impulse.

The court would eventually rule the loss of the life of this young man was not unjust. The officer was cleared of all misconduct and criminal behavior. The problem is now is not the event itself. The “event” – the tragic loss of life – was solved by the court. The problem now is an extended problem of irrational behavior by certain individuals who lean toward anarchy. Instead of being part of the greatest democratic nation in the world and showing pro-active behavior toward perceived injustice – they choose to act out through lawless behavior. The result is they burn their own city down. They burn down, loot and demolish the businesses of their own race – people who like every other business owner in America – work hard to make a simple living for their families. I simply don’t and will never understand this type of behavior. It is mob mentality and motivated by self-centeredness.

When I think about this event and the ensuing behavior that followed I can think of two principles that would solve about 90% of all these types of incidents. I found these two principles in Scripture – mind you I realize that scripture means nothing to the lawless minded hoodlums burning the city of Ferguson down – but to some of us – it means “life balance” as God intended it.

I refer to a simple passage of scripture that gives us two powerful principles of human behavior.
John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

The Obedience Factor
It is the opinion of this blog author that a high percentage of all police confrontations would be null and void if we would do one simple thing – obey the commands of law enforcement/civil authority. I cringe at the mockery of certain high profile NFL players who enter the playing field as immature high school children instead of adults who want to be proactive with law enforcement. As with their profession – not all NFL players beat the daylights out of their wives but the rest of us don’t mock NFL players as a whole because of the behavior of a few. Without a doubt there is a percentage of law enforcement who push their authority over the line of justice and morality. But not all law enforcement personnel do. These guys, in my humble and simple opinion were out of line. Ignorance surfaced with their behavior – not proactive support for obedience.

That being said, obedience is something that we obviously – as a civil society – have difficulty with. Obedience isn’t a race issue. Obedience isn’t an academic issue. Obedience isn’t even a religious issue. Obedience is a moral issue. To be an obedient citizen or morally balanced person one doesn’t have to have a commitment to religious faith. One simply has to understand moral values given for human behavior. Obedience doesn’t know race, religion or creed. Obedience is a moral factor given for the restraint of human behavior. A young mans life was probably lost due to his simple disobedience to authority. A law enforcement officers life will never be the same due to someones disobedience and disregard for law. Both could have been avoided by obedience and not disobedience.

Some law enforcement confrontations occur because lawless minded people judge all police activity as being wrong or unjust. We tag the justification for our misbehavior and rejection of authority as “civil discrimination”. What about my “civil rights” being violated by those who deem lawlessness as just behavior toward authority figures? This argument could go on and on with endless scenarios custom fit for all of us. The simple fact here is that we are failing to teach obedience to children in our homes. We have stopped teaching the requirement of obedience in our educational systems. We have stopped requiring obedience to employers. Instead we find ourselves negotiating our will in place of established law and order. We now negotiate with three year olds in day cares to thirty year olds on college campuses. We negotiate employee commitment based on personal and narcissistic desires. Negotiation isn’t a commitment to moral behavior. Negotiation is often a trade off from the original to self defined and applied law – “I’ll trade you my will for yours!” The standard of behavior whereby law was fixed is can never be negotiated for disobedience. We no longer can judge misbehavior or punish alleged misbehavior as being wrong and therefore we have relegated obedience to the trash can. Obedience to law and those who uphold the law has been disarmed by our own doing. I beg you to read Romans 13. For starters I will include verse 2: Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.

Resistance to established and appointed authority results disobedience for law and order from the home to the streets. We have, in America, an disobedience factor. We have in America a sin factor that can only be healed the work of Christ.

The Love Factor
Obedience is based on honor, trust and love. God gave us 10 commandments for human behavior. Most of theme have been deemed antiquated by those who oppose God as the Ultimate God of the Universe – and its starting to show in our behavior toward one another. One of those ten commandments is “Honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20.12). Honor infers obedience and respect. When we lower the standards of obedience we by default lower the standards of respect for others – much less respect for authority figures.
I may have missed it here but years ago I was taught obedience as one of many principles for moral human behavior. This doctrine of obedience came from parental influence. I loved my parents to the degree that their “commands” for me were not burdensome or hard. I loved them and wanted to show my love for them by my obedience to their “laws” or authority in the home. Our home was secure with peace and tranquility – until the laws were broken and we engaged in disobedient behavior. I have discovered when the peace and tranquility God intended for us as humans is ignored and resisted we create a culture of lawlessness. When we choose to disobey His commands we do two things: intentionally without remorse disobey law and disregard human relationships. Rather those “commands” are in relationship to societal/civil responsibility, marriage covenants, domestic relationships or familial relationships – when we engage in disobedience for law and disregard the care of relationships – we wreak chaos and violence as a result. History only needs to be studied to prove this point.

If a law enforcement officer is wrong in his/her request there is a right way to disagree and even disobey. Although the early church stated that we should obey God rather than man – their obedience was manifest in the fact they followed through with their appearance in front of the Sanhedrin court. Note something here: they responded in disagreement by their simple obedience to established law – no matter how unfair that law was. If we all refuse to obey the law – we establish anarchy based on individual and or even group resistance and biased self defined law. That is a prescription for chaos and violence. Hence the issue at Ferguson.

If the young man who lost his life would have just listened and obeyed the request of law enforcement – there would’ve been no confrontation at the police vehicle nor on the streets. Had he initially shown respect for the store owner – he may have salvaged his own life and the reputation of an entire city. Life in Ferguson itself would have been salvaged. Lies would not have had to be concocted. Businesses wouldn’t have to have been burned down. Court decisions wouldn’t have had to be disrespected. Race would not be an issue. There are certain residents in Ferguson who made the event a race issue. Obedience, again, is not a race issue. It’s a moral issue. Disobedience to law was the cause of the violence displayed in Ferguson. When Martin Luther King Jr. resisted established and culturally accepted racism and discrimination – he did it within the confines of moral and civil law. He marched – he didn’t burn cities down. He marched – he didn’t show disrespect for authority figures. He marched – he didn’t threaten the lives of other human beings who may have even proved to be his sworn enemies.

If we love this country – we will obey its laws. We will obey them in moral fashion. If there is perceived injustice within any law or command – there is a venue to process our disagreement and if need be – even engage religious disobedience. Disobedience in Ferguson wasn’t in response to a commandment or law created to effect the faith of an individual. Disobedience in Ferguson was the result of disobedience and lack of respect (love) for authority. The Ferguson type of disobedience will always be manifest in lawless behavior by those who disregard the law as good for all moral human behavior.

Let’s not kid ourselves anymore. There is a group of self centered, disobedient, anarchical, rebellious people out there that will always disrespect and disregard law. There is a segment of our populace that will always resist law – Holy Writ informs us of their existence: Romans 13.2 “Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.” Note here that its not moral law that condemns the lawbreaker – its their disobedience to established and God ordained law that condemns the lawbreaker.

These rebellious and dishonoring individuals give themselves over to lawlessness – rather God’s law or man’s law. They have no regard for law – period. They are without a doubt immoral people who know only how to serve themselves through their disobedience. How’s that working for them?