Across the world, many religious people shall regard this week as holy. Jews shall celebrate Passover, while Christians shall commemorate the Crucifixion. Christians shall soon celebrate the Resurrection, known to many as Easter.
I’m watching a familiar phenomenon happening in America — the cradle of a certain kind of Christianity in the 20th and 21st centuries — and in Israel, the cradle of Judaism.
In Israel, a man indicted for bribery, fraud and breach of trust is prime minister, due to the votes he and his party received in the last election. True, it’s a coalition government where no winner took all, but the fact remains that those who voted for Netanyahu knew of his indictment.
Michael Friday
In America, a man demonstrably corrupt, dishonest and eternally suspected as a repeat-offense white-collar criminal and sexual predator, is being lionized by legislators and political leaders in both the federal government and state governments and by religious people who call themselves “good news” people — evangelicals.
These two items yield what I call the “Barabbification” of society.
People reflecting on a week of events in Israel around 1,992 years ago shall remember on this Friday a man named Barabbas. He was a criminal — specifically, an insurrectionist. For a fleeting moment, Barabbas was equated to another man, one named Jesus. In that moment, a throng of people and a legislator and governor named Pontius Pilate, all looked upon a known and convicted insurrectionist named Barabbas in the same and equal way they viewed a non-violent justice-agitator, humanitarian, compassionate social worker, a mental, physical, social and spiritual liberator named Jesus.
But that moment of false equivalence did not last long; it quickly gave way to a poor choice: The crowd voted to release Barabbas and crucify Jesus.
This is the kind of nonsense that happens when crimes are overlooked, depravity is justified and when — as Proverbs 26:11 declares — a dog returns to its own vomit.
So, Israel elected Bibi Netanyahu — a man indicted for corruption — as their prime minister. What could go wrong? Aha! I know: That man, now wielding immense power, moves to stymie and castrate Israel’s judicial system, enabling him to be the ultimate arbiter over his own legal liability. This is the very definition of corruption in which Bibi is accused.
In America, an intolerably foolish woman named Marjorie whom other foolish people elected as a United States representative from Georgia, is among the loudest rabble-rousers calling for disorder under the guise of protest, pandering to a man named as the co-conspirator in a crime for which the other co-conspirator went to prison. By any rules — logical or literal (but unfortunately not legal, for, you see, this is why the law is referenced elsewhere as an ass) — that man is a convict and a criminal. And by the way, people like Bill Barr, who skewed the Mueller report to create a political hit job against the truth, to save that Barabbas, who now shamelessly and infuriatingly calls the indictment of Donald Barabbas “a political hit job” are part of the crowd contributing to the Barabbification of America.
“Now I can fully understand why those Jews freed Barabbas instead of Jesus.”
Now I can fully understand why those Jews freed Barabbas instead of Jesus. It’s the same reason Israel voted for Netanyahu and Bezalel Smotrich, and the same reason white American “evangelicals” are foolishly enamored with Trump. In a single word: Power.
Today, people like Netanyahu and Smotrich don’t intend to do any real justice for Palestinians, whom they still consider enemies, rather than siblings. (That’s not to absolve Palestine from their violent responses to injustice.) Almost 2,000 years ago, violence was a popular option for Israel to relieve herself of Roman dominance. It was what Judas and Barabbas wanted.
On Sunday, Jesus was thought to be their political and military hero. By Thursday night, the hero was downgraded to a zero when discovered to be thoroughly disinterested in political power and violence. By Friday morning, Barabbas was the clear choice.
You’ll have to read books like White Too Long by Robert P. Jones and Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Du Mez to understand why white American “evangelicals” love political power so much and do not give a rat’s tail about violence that emerges from the quest for that power. And then you’ll understand why Donald J. Barabbas is still the clear choice for white American so-called Christians even during a week called holy, honoring a non-violent man who loved, welcomed and included all people — not just those of his privileged race.
The people committed to fighting “woke” want the people who drink that Kool-Aid to remain asleep, oblivious to the next Barabbas among them for whom they shall vote — including the ones trumpeting the call to “fight the woke.”
They may certainly be found praising Jesus on Sunday but welcoming violence and mayhem on Friday.
Michael P. Friday is president of the American Baptist Churches of Connecticut and interim pastor of Noank Baptist Church. He is a leadership strategist and consultant, with former pastorates in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and New York. He is author of the book, And Lead Us Not into Dysfunction: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Church Organizations and Their Leaders.
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