How does a community respond to evil? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Last Sunday, I went out with some students to meet people who worked on Bourbon Street here in New Orleans. Two things New Orleans is definitely famous for are Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras. Sadly, neither of those are usually for good reasons as far as Christianity is concerned. Of course, we are famous for other things, like Jazz, but Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras are hardly associated with holiness.
For me, when New Year’s Eve rolled around, I stayed up and watched a ball come down on YouTube in Dallas-Fort Worth while playing Animal Crossing to get the New Year’s Eve achievement. Around midnight, being a good Baptist at a Baptist seminary, I popped open a bottle of Welch’s Sparkling White Grape Juice. Within an hour, I was in bed.
I could have no way of knowing that while I slept that night, people would be celebrating in my city and have their celebrations destroyed by an evil man driving a car into them.
Let’s start with that. Many times when a great evil happens, we often jump immediately to the idea that the person was mentally ill. We need to stop that. It’s this sort of idea that anyone who had their rational mind in order would not do that. Unfortunately, they do. People have within them the capacity for great evil.
At one of our first stops, I remember one of the students I was with talking to the owner of a store about how we were coming by to visit people after the accident took place. After we left, I told him to not say accident. Losing your car keys is an accident. Punching your wife in the face is a direct evil.
One lady we talked to spoke about how she remembered the event and said that she thought it was tragic for everyone. She wasn’t directly involved in losing someone, but it sure must be hard for everyone else.
Until someone she knew was the last person to be identified among the victims. Her name was Tasha. At that point, I talked about being divorced and gave the talk that someone else gave me about it. Today is horrible. Tomorrow will also be horrible, but it will be a little bit less so.
She told us to be sure to go down to the vigil, which we did.
It’s amazing how many people make crosses when death occurs. Here on a street known for wickedness, the cross still stands out. The emblem of shame in the past is now that of victory and triumph. People think of the cross when death occurs. The Romans used it to shame. We now use it to honor. Jesus has changed that which was shame into that honor.
If you zoomed in on that bottom right picture (At least that’s how it looks to me as I type here), you will see that it is a picture of Tasha. Remembering that, I took a close-up.
This is what happens when you put a face also on evil. To many of us, these are people we have never met and in most cases, likely never would have met. For some people, these are people who played an important part in their lives and now there is a great emptiness there. Tasha probably had a good long life ahead of her. She probably went to the celebration of the New Year looking forward to a year of promise and hope, not realizing that she would be taken from the world in the first few hours of that year.
I thought about the city with that as we walked back to our stop. I did get amused when we passed the Larry Flynt Hustler shop with magazines decorating the doorway. These weren’t full pornographic, but they were certainly risque. I saw a little boy saying to some adults he was with “Look!” and pointing at the business only to be told by one older lady there, “Don’t look! Cover your eyes!”
Had I thought of it at the time, I would have likely said something to him that a woman is the most beautiful sight of creation, but she is not to be treated as mere eye candy. Her beauty is to be held in awe and is only to be beheld by those who are worthy of it. Such a person is the man who marries her. Strive to be that man.
One of the people with me ending up talking to some guy on the way back who was talking about the history of jazz. We went to the Armstrong Park then where we were going anyway and saw a little bit of a jazz event going on. People gathered around on Sundays and just played jazz music.
I remember one of the guys with me talking about how inclusive the event seemed to be, and it was. Sometimes conservatives like myself get told we are opposed to inclusivity and diversity. We are not. We are opposed to forced diversity and inclusivity. When it happens organically with people coming together on their own, it is a beautiful thing. When it is forced on people, it is actually reverse racism.
As we drove back, and I was doing the driving, I was asked about my PhD work. I was told I was doing mine on video games and Christianity and the need for a story. Something I love about telling people that is it seems most everyone has something to say about it. Very few people are, “Ah. Okay.” They always want to say more.
One of the guys told me that gaming was how he bonded with his friends. He was involved in a lot of Super Smash Brothers tournaments and came to see a community of people who had a common love, but also needed Jesus. He said there was too little being done to help them. I agreed and hopefully, we’ll be doing some work together soon in that area.
Also, something we can learn from this is evil is certainly evil, but somehow, nothing pulls a community together often like suffering does. This is also a great time to be doing ministry. Bourbon Street needs the Gospel just like anywhere else does. Mardi Gras should be a holy celebration and not a sinful one.
We have work to do. Let’s do it.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
