An open letter to the Christian who believes the shooting in Atlanta wasn’t a hate crime
Content warning: murder, sexual exploitation
Hello, fellow Christian. I pray that you are well and that this letter finds you in good spirits.
For the past two months, I have been studying more into the letters written by Paul and other apostles that make up the New Testament. They are both divinely inspired by God and deeply human. They teach us about our own Christianity because they are — like we all are—wrestling with what it means to be a Christ-follower. So, in the spirit of the letters, I write openly and honestly to you.
This past week, it has been extremely difficult to watch some of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ brush off the tragedy in Atlanta as merely a young man wrestling with his “sexual temptations.” While I do believe the murders of these eight innocent humans—six of whom were women of Asian descent—can in part be attributed to personal sin, I do not agree with those who say this is not the time to speak out against increased hate crimes and violence against the AAPI community in the U.S.
Writing off my hurt and pain I experienced by hearing about the death of these women reinforces to me that my feelings and experiences do not matter. Just because the murderer did not post a diatribe on his Facebook account that denounced Asians as “people who eat weird stuff and deserve getting sick,” or “the reason for the coronavirus,” doesn’t mean that we should remain silent when our community is brutally attacked. We have every right to speak out and stop hate towards any person or group.
Why we must speak out now
According to statistics, since the start of 2020, Asian hate crimes in the US have risen nearly 150%. Many of these hate crimes have occurred because of the harmful rhetoric around the nature of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which was not well understood at the time. There was a lot of fearmongering by prominent voices in politics.
Words have power. Even if you didn’t personally agree with the language that was being thrown around, it doesn’t mean that others didn’t take those words to heart and used them as justification for increased violence and hatred towards Asians and Asian Americans.
Jesus called peacemakers blessed. It is our job, as followers of Christ, to be peacemakers in our own lives. Sometimes the job of a peacemaker is to speak truth into uncomfortable situations. Whenever you see something or hear something that is wrong, speak out. Use your voice to bring awareness to others that their words and actions have consequences.
How Christians are called to love
All of the law, according to Jesus, hangs onto two commands: Love God and love others.
Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matt. 22: 37–39
Jesus later goes onto to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan to explain to followers who their neighbor truly is.
If we are to call ourselves Christian and want to make known how Jesus has transformed us, we must live in accordance with His commandments. The ways in which we love cannot be passive; it must be an active form of love. We must show love in the ways in which we speak to others, in the ways in which we lift each other up, and in the ways in which we stand up for one another.
Why this moment matters
Even if you, as a Christian, believe solely that this man murdered eight creations of God because of his “sexual addiction,” you must acknowledge the decades of racist and stereotypical media that have consistently marginalized and hypersexualized people of color, especially women of color.
We cannot divorce this man’s sexual addiction from the sad and un-Godly reality that Asian women have been largely fetishized and sexualized by mass media and culture. We have been stereotyped as exotic, sexually deviant, and submissive. To deny this man’s actions were not rooted in racism is to deny the underlying history of sexual violence against women of Asian descent.
So, I call upon you all to have empathy and to show compassion to those who are vulnerable. I ask you to listen and to start to understand our stories. Do this because we are all God’s children—He knew each of us while we were still in our mothers’ wombs, and He calls us His beloved.
If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. — 1 Corinthians 12:26
In Christ,
Brooke
