Several years ago I was walking down the street in Usulutan, El Salvador, when a local man called out to me in perfect English. Obviously this got my attention so I approached him and struck up a conversation. He looked to be in his early twenties and I immediately began to notice some telling characteristics from his appearance. Shaved head, entire body, including the face, covered with obvious gang tattoos, sitting outside a bar drunk and high. Each of us was curious about the other. He wanted to know why a white American man was walking through his neighborhood and I wanted to know why he spoke English so well. I explained that I was a Christian missionary in El Salvador to talk to people about Jesus. We sat and talked for about three hours, during which time he began to tell me his story. He spoke perfect English because he had spent many years in the United States, living in Virginia, DC, Texas, California, all over. He was back in El Salvador because he had been arrested and deported due to entering the US without going through the proper channels. He was an MS-13 gang member, or Mara salvatrucha, as they refer to themselves. Our president refers to them as, “an animal, not even human.”
When he was a young boy (8-10 if I remember correctly), he was confronted after school by a group of older boys who made a demand of him. He was told that he was to take a package of drugs home with him and bring it back the next day and give it to a man who would be waiting near the school. Because police recognize gang members, the gangs utilized school children to disguise their transactions. When he refused they assured him that if he didn’t, when he got home from school the next day, his mother and sisters would all be murdered. I want to ask you a question, answer honestly, what would you have done when you were in the 5th grade? This tactic continued for several years, escalating each time, requiring him to smuggle drugs, money, guns, whatever they wanted. Eventually he was coerced into committing criminal acts (stealing, robbing, violent attacks), culminating in his being blackmailed (at the threat of his mother and sisters being raped and murdered in front of him) into committing a murder, effectively crossing a bridge from which there would be no return. Eventually, what was done to him, he had to begin doing to other young boys. This is how they operate, grow, spread, and overtake communities, countries, and regions. Eventually their numbers are great enough, the violent consequences are sever enough, and the money abundant enough, that they begin to corrupt police officers, business owners, and government officials. The drugs and the alcohol he abused wasn’t about partying as much as self medicating and sedating his shredded conscience.
During the hours that he told me his story he gradually sobered up and began to weep. Not shed a tear, not cry, weep. He had his head on my chest and sobbed while I held him and I wept with him. He told me he knew that he was going to hell and that God could never forgive him for what he had done. This “animal” was very much human. To this day I grieve every time I think of him, and I feel ashamed at all of the verbal stones I have cast, protected from such evil realities and impossible circumstances by the privileged life I was born into, affording me the luxury of ignorance.
I’ve spent time in El Salvador and Honduras, two countries inundated with gangs like MS-13 (which ironically was born in the United States, and “immigrated” to their countries), both of which are considered some of the most dangerous countries on earth. During one week while I was in El Salvador there were a hundred murders in the capital city, while I posted Instagram pics of the chef made waffles and omelets I dined upon, resting under a down comforter watching a 60 inch HD television, safely behind barbed wire, guarded by men with machine guns outside my hotel. On one occasion, in Honduras, I had to essentially hide out because I was in an area that local Christians deemed too dangerous for a white American who would stick out like a sore thumb. I was taken to an apartment and told not to leave and when it came time for me to leave I did so at night while lying in the floor of the car. These are dangerous countries (as if a country where we get randomly shot up in schools, movie theaters, malls, and concerts on a weekly basis is “safe”) and there are some very dangerous people in them, but these are also beautiful countries with by far the most humble, friendly, generous and hospitable people I have ever spent time with. I was nothing more than a tourist momentarily bumping up against the harsh realities that their citizens must navigate daily. Imagine how difficult it is to live in an environment where gang violence and influence is so strong. I have a good friend and fellow preacher in El Salvador who has to deal with these terrifying realities everyday. I will never forget the helpless and hopeless, and useless feeling I had the night he contacted me asking for prayers and advice on how to deal with the gang members who were making the same threats and demands of him as the man I mentioned earlier. At the time I was sitting on my couch watching Netflix. Another preacher friend who has translated for me more times than I can remember, often tells me stories of life in his hometown of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Days when riding the bus can be a traumatic experience as gang members board the bus and assassinate drivers, passengers, whoever, and then casually get off and walk away. Some of you don’t have to imagine because you live in a similar world where you must fear white citizens calling the police on you because you were black and barbecuing, or walking through your neighborhood at night wearing a hoodie, or using a Starbucks bathroom, or checking out of an Air BnB, or moving into your own apartment, or speaking Spanish in public. You are afraid because just living your life like everyone else around you might result in you being arrested, beaten, or even killed. These kinds of stories tend to put my having to deal with a long line and rude cashier at Starbucks complaints in perspective.
“I thought this was supposed to be about Donald Trump?” Patience friend, we are almost there. These days it seems there’s no shortage of people who seem to live for and thrive on debates, diatribes, and denouncements. Controversy is the currency of cable news and social media, and outrage is it’s native tongue. To each their own, but I just don’t think it’s healthy for us, individually or societally, to exist in a perpetual state of outrage and controversy, so I mostly hold my peace to keep my peace. But sometimes things hit me in such a way that I can’t help but yelp.
Yesterday morning I woke up to yet another controversial comment from our commander in chief. Admittedly, this happens frequently, and I haven’t responded before, and I likely won’t respond very often going forward, but today I had to say something. Confession is good for the soul. What he said made me feel “dirty” and this is the closest thing to a purification ritual or confessional I have access to. President Donald Trump said, in response to a question about deporting MS-13 gang members, “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people, these are animals, and we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before.” Predictably, everyone went to their corners and began spinning this comment to fit their personal perspectives. Many “liberals” decried the president and implied, by taking the quote out of context, that he was saying this about all immigrants. I will be the last one to defend the president on issues of immigration, he has earned his reputation on that topic, but I also believe in keeping what people say in context and not twisting their words. He was not talking about all immigrants, just MS-13 gang members. Many “conservatives” applauded him for unapologetically saying what millions of Americans were thinking, while also lamenting the “liberal” media for twisting his words, which, in their minds, “they always do.”
The reason not speaking out would leave me feeling “dirty” is because I too have uttered those same, or very similar, if not worse, words myself, and I bet you have too. My tongue has dispensed labels as quickly as a label gun in a supermarket. Plenty of people have been called “animal” or “thug” or “trash” or “worthless” or “racist” by my mouth. Different people have been victims of my rhetorical drive-by’s for different reasons. For some it was the way they were dressed and “carried” themselves. Others were guilty of mistreating vulnerable people like children and the elderly (what else am I supposed to say about someone who molests a child or scams a widow of her Social Security?). In some cases it was the “dead beat dads” who refused to financially support their children, but would smoke dope with them, “so they’d know what it was like.” Our president said an ugly, ugly thing, but if I’m being honest, I’ve said similar things about him. Even if the things I said about him or others was true, “it still don’t make it right.”
This disturbs me because it is such an affront to the description of man in Scripture. All humans are created in the image of God and are called to bear that image honorably, reverently and to His glory, and yet NONE of us have done a very good job at it. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Think for a moment about the pain and suffering you have caused in your world/community/family by your selfish words and actions or inaction. Think of the tears that have been shed because of you. Think of the relationships that are damaged or broken because of you. Think of the pain that exists in the world because of you. “Oh be careful little mouth what you say.....” For one of us to say that others of us are “animals” is terrifying. When we dehumanize others we are actually dehumanizing ourselves. We are becoming less human when we strip our neighbors of the dignity that is inherent in all men. Having crossed this moral Rubicon it soon becomes easy to justify any atrocity, and history bears witness to this reality time and time again.
Jesus knew a thing or two about being labeled and how quickly a tongue lashing can become a literal scourging. People called Him a drunk, a glutton, a liar, a blasphemer, and they suggested He was a bastard, a terrorist, mentally ill, and possessed by the devil. Because He was from Nazareth He was the first century version of “trailer trash” and, like Nathanael said, “We all know nothing good comes from there.” Perhaps that is why He warned us about being so loose with our emotions and careless with our tongues in labeling people. Everyone knows it’s wrong to murder, but He warned us that the hatred and judgemental attitude which utters insults like “fool” or “idiot” or “worthless” (Matthew 5:21-26) can quickly become a chorus of voices chanting “Crucify Him!” The spark of anger in the heart quickly kindles scorching words of hatred on the tongue, which leads to the fires of torment. Jesus takes this sort of thing pretty serious. I’ll include a list of Bible verses at the end to illustrate what I mean.
What I hate the most about Donald Trump is that he is often a larger than life exaggeration of the things I hate the most about myself. Things like arrogance, pride, boastfulness, selfishness, objectification, delusion, dismissiveness, and denigration. The biggest difference between us isn’t that he is a billionaire, or the president, but that his “ugly” is publicly broadcast to billions of people around the world, and mine remains in my own mind at best or in the small sphere of people around me at worst. And yeah, I get it, the president must be careful with his words precisely because they do carry so much weight with so many people around the world. That’s exactly what makes comments like this, and those describing how powerful men can get away with sexually assaulting women, those labeling refugees as being from s******* countries, those referring to white supremacists as part of the “good people on both sides” so very, very dangerous. But let’s not kid ourselves. I may not have the global reach in an instant that the president has, but my words carry a lot of weight too, and so do yours. Think about what your children hear coming out of your mouth in the car, at home, on social media, day after day, for years, and how that influences and shapes their thinking. Think about what the people at work, or church, or the golf course, hear you saying and how that influences their view of the world and those in it who are different.
This is what I hate the most about Donald Trump, he is just a caricature of me, of you, of all of us. He says ugly and awful things on the news, we say them at our dinner tables or on Twitter, or share the ugly things that someone else says on Facebook. Cable news talking heads who have monetized controversy, “gotcha journalism”, Twitter trolls and Facebook haters, they appeal to the worst in us. I don’t need help bringing out my ugly. It’s always there just beneath the surface, like molten lava looking for a fissure to erupt through the surface and unleash scorching fire that consumes everything in its path and releases toxic gases that poison the air around me. Just like lava when it cools off, over time my eruptions solidify and harden and leave behind a scorched and permanent reminder of the event. In my mind I have to deal with it but when I say it or post it, now it’s out there and you have to deal with it, along with anyone who comes across it. It’s verbal litter, word pollution. Just like actual litter, it pollutes my environment. When we see actual litter everywhere we lose the restraint to not add to it. Who cares if I toss mine down and leave it behind? Everyone else has already thrown out their garbage, what’s it going to hurt if I toss out mine. The way I see it, verbal litter is no different. If the president calls people animals, so can I. If others are labeling people a racist for an ignorant cultural faux pas, I’ll join in with them. At the end of the day we are all living in a landfill. I can’t help but wonder what kind of difference it would make if we all embraced the “adopt a highway” concept with the words spoken in our presence. I may not have made the mess but I’m going to try and help clean it up rather than adding to it. This blog post is my attempt at adopting the information superhighway.
One last thing, yeah, I get it, the MS-13 gang members he was speaking about are guilty of atrocious crimes. No one is defending or dismissing that fact, at least I’m not. No civilized society can prosper unless it deals with those who perpetrate violence against other humans. That’s not just true of gang members, but also abusive husbands, white supremacists, those who abuse the badge they wear and the oath they take to protect and serve, those who abuse the power of their elected office, those who abuse their authority, those who seek to silence victims, those who exploit their fellow man for financial gain, and those, like me and you, who use our words as weapons, whether it be words of bigotry, condescension, hatred, or insult.
Not so many years ago I was taught a valuable lesson that I wish I had learned earlier in life. Perhaps it would have restrained some of the flood of ugly things that gushed out of my mouth about people. Hurting people hurt people. Our president is obviously a man who was hurt deeply at some point, and instead of healing, it festered and spread and now that pain is vomited on everyone within earshot. I too have been hurt, but I am committed to healing. Not just healing my own wounds, but to healing the wounds I have inflicted, and if allowed, healing the wounds inflicted upon other by others. I am compelled by the One Who heals me to love Donald Trump and to love the MS-13 gang member, or any representation or variation of them I may encounter in my world. My hope is to one day love them as my brother. At the very least I can love them as my neighbor. If I must I can love them as my enemy.
(If you stuck it out this far, here are the verses I mentioned previously. Proceed with caution.)
“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.” (Ephesians 4:29-31).
“If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless” (James 1:26).
“Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (1 Peter 2:1).
“For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers...who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain.” (Titus 1:10-11).
“Remind them...to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.” (Titus 3:1-3).
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