From the Mind of Meegs

So Jerry Falwell is dead, occasioning much sarcastic commentary. This moves me to offer commentary that I'm sure will piss off some of Jerry's supporters. But I will also probably piss off some of his detractors with my non-PCness. It really was getting tiresome being so well liked anyway.

I'll admit my own first thoughts run a little bit to the snarky side. For example, I'm just itching in anticipation, waiting for Pat "Direct Pipeline to God" Robertson to make a statement on this one. Pat, much like Jerry himself, seems pretty sure about assigning the judgment of God to any illness, death, calamity or other non-advantageous event (and, in the case of Pat, to non-advantageous events yet to happen, but events God has assured him are shortly forthcoming). I mean, Pat and Jerry were basically BFF. Is Pat not going to catalogue Jerry's sins for us? Color me disappointed.

But on the other hand, I think it's sad. It's sad, first of all, because he has loved ones he left behind. It's also sad because, as tasteless as some of the gloating is, it's an indicator of how far the American church has fallen in terms of demonstrating grace to others. I'm sure Jerry was a nice enough guy, and I'm sure he did a lot of good in his life. But he also fumbled, in spectacular fashion, some high-profile opportunities to extend grace to others. He muffed many of his chances to demonstrate humility. He had the chance to pursue peace, and he punted time and time again. (I don't know about this sudden onset of football metaphors.)

Anything that's good in this world--grace, humility, peace, whatever--comes from God. And if the church really aims to be the people of God, then demonstrating the things that are uniquely of God should be high on their agenda. No God, no good. Now, I'm not saying that only Christians can be good people. Even a cursory review of reality will demonstrate that's not the case at all. I am saying (and this is the non-PC part), that anyone who does good in this world is responding, consciously or unconsciously, to what God has already done and what he's already given us. Christians are supposed to stand in that gap, to articulate and embody the link between whatever goodness we find in this earth and the source of goodness himself.

Yes, a lot of the response to his death is utterly lacking in grace. But what else is to be expected? If we cut people off from the source of grace, how are they supposed to demonstrate it? How are they supposed to understand, let alone exercise, grace when they're treated like crap by the very people who are supposed to be the living representation of the creator of grace?

You hear a lot of talk about his death being "karma." Though I'd disagree that his death itself is karma (come on, everyone's going to die), the fallout basically is karma. Give very little grace, get very little grace. But I think there's something even deeper, even more cosmic going on here, particularly for those of us who worship (or at least claim to worship) the person who overthrew the entire idea of karma. Because if you take away grace, all we're left with is karma. The love you take is equal to the love you make, and all that. We've all got the chance to either install grace or karma at the head of each of our lives, and, ultimately, at the head of the whole world. Jerry might have pandered a little too much toward karma, and it turns out that's not such a nice world to live in after all.

And though few of us will ever have Jerry's platform, this applies to all of us, I think.

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