"Oh, hell no."

"Oh, hell no."

That was the response that one woman put on another woman's Facebook post.

C. is a Christian woman.  She's African-American, a single parent to a wonderful teenage boy.  I know them both.  

Yesterday, she wrote that someone she knew posted the following on Facebook.

"All of this could have been prevented if:

1. George Floyd would have used an actual $20 bill and not to try to pass off a counterfeit bill.

2. Gave the cigarettes back to the store when they asked for it.

I don't agree how the officers handle [sic] the situation.  I believe all of them should and have been held responsible for there [sic] actions.  They all have been arrested and charged.  There has been a lot of lives and business lost over something that could have been prevented."

C. went on to write, "I really wonder if people understand how much this hurts."  Then added:  "I am tired of the justifications ... if if if . . . He was murdered on camera over eight minutes."

J., another woman, who's white, and whom C. and I also know, wrote the following in reply:

"Oh hell no.  Y'all.  It's time to take back the church from this kind of co-opted, tone deaf, insulated Americanism.  No. No more."

Some of you that read that sentence are going to be offended at her use of the term, "Hell no."  After all, she's a follower of Jesus and she shouldn't swear, right?

I'm reminded of a quote attributed to preacher Tony Campolo: 

 "I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a $%*&. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said $%^& than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."

We Christians, especially us white, American Christians, are very touchy when it comes to certain subjects.  We're especially touchy when it comes to sex and swearing.  We don't want to talk about sex because it might encourage kids to do it.  And we especially don't want people to swear around us because it offends us.  Not because it's offensive, but because it offends us.  There's a difference.

I am sick and tired of our white-bread, sugar-coated Christianity that emphasizes a shallow theology composed of "accept Jesus into your heart, and here's five ways to be a better Christian (man, woman, wife, husband fill-in-the-blank)."  Like the audiences Tony Campolo spoke to, we are more offended by swearing, sex, and the lack of prayer in schools than we are about poverty, racism, domestic violence, and the general poor treatment of people of people in our society.  We'd rather have our greed and our appetites filled than have any sort of care and compassion about those whose bank accounts and stomachs are empty. 

We women, especially, are encouraged to buy our pink, lace-covered Bibles with soft, breathy sayings from the current celebrity de jour of Christianity.  We're encouraged to keep a clean house and homeschool our many children and are shamed when we can't/don't.  

I don't plan to make a habit of swearing.  It is offensive and indulging in a steady diet of cuss words is a bit like eating junk food for every meal.  Lay's and Fritos taste good, but after a while, they make your body sick.  We Christians should be better than this. 

But isn't it time to lay aside our sugar coating, our white bread, our lacy pink Bibles, and confront our sin and engage in some serious repentance, on our knees and maybe on our faces?  

I don't know if George Floyd knew that the $20 bill he handed to a cashier was counterfeit or not.  (I probably would not know the difference between a real and counterfeit $20 bill.)  I've heard reports that "he was a criminal who was turning his life around".  I've also read where he had fentanyl in his system at the time of death.  I've read that he was positive for COVID-19.

Even if he had a criminal past, even if he had committed a crime, even if he was resisting arrest, does that give anyone the justification to put their knee on another person's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds while that person is saying "I can't breathe"?

Isn't it time for us to think about how that is just one more piece of evidence that the life of a black man is not worth as much as the life of a white man?

Isn't it time for us to listen to our friends of color who are afraid to go jogging, afraid to wear a mask to the store, afraid that their teenage sons might be stopped by the police on suspicion of fill-in-the-blank and possibly shot even though they obeyed orders? (See Philandro Castile.)

Isn't it time to think about how what we post on social media will affect our Christian brothers and sisters of color?

Isn't it time to stand up and say, "Oh, hell no!"

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.