A Heart on the Run

I used to be the youth group kid who only listened to Christian music. A quick scroll through my old iPod would reveal a few playlists labelled: Contemporary Christian, Southern Gospel, Christian Rap, Christian Alternative, and Christian Metal. At the time, this adjective preceding all my music, t-shirts, and even car decals offered the comfort of knowing that all my peers would see me as “upstanding,” “good,” and “respectable.” I can now confess that it was a way of masking my fear that I would never be good enough for God or my fellow Christians. I feared the loss of my Christian identity if I could not assert a moral superiority over my non-Christian peers through “cleaner” music and wearable Bible verses. In other words, if I couldn’t be a better person than my peers, then I felt as if I wasn’t really much of a person at all.

Thankfully, the expansion of my music tastes has allowed me to name the root cause of my teenage insecurities: fear. In order to better understand how fear manifests itself in our lives, our churches, and our politics, I point you to the opening line of a song by Jason Isbell entitled, “Cover Me Up.” It reads, “A heart on the run keeps a hand on a gun. You can’t trust anyone.” This line captures the culture of fear that pervades our communities in the South. When we feel our way of life being threatened by the outside, we retreat to our defenses, which include anything from guns to insults. We are a culture that values protection and defense against our enemies, both foreign and domestic. People conceal carry because they feel unsafe. They make counter-protest videos waving their shotguns because they feel unsafe. Churches staff security forces and lock their doors at the beginning of service because they feel unsafe. But what if we aren’t under attack? What if we are more fearful of being perceived as weak and defenseless than we are of a crisis situation?

I believe that you can often tell what someone fears most by the weapons they deploy against their enemies. It goes without saying that someone fearing the loss of their life will deploy a gun to safeguard against death. However, I want to discuss our more subtle weapons: insults, slurs, and slights. We like to label our opponents and adversaries the very things we fear to become. For instance, it is common for men to insult other men by calling them a “girl,” “coward,” or “p*ssy” because each of these names signify weakness, a dagger for the hyper-masculinized male. Similarly, a favorite political insult these days is “snowflake” because, again, it indicates one’s opponent is weak, fragile, and unstable, and they are not. People who fear being seen as unintelligent or uneducated will often label people who disagree with them as “ignorant” or “stupid.” Rather than doing the internal work of self-growth, we defensively label others with our deepest fears and insecurities. If we reduce our enemies to be the very demons we conceal in ourselves, then surely we can believe that we aren’t as bad as they are.

There is a solution for the false dichotomy of “Us vs. Them,” and it is found in love. James Baldwin writes, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” If we can find the courage, love will free us to live with authenticity, vulnerability, and honesty. Laying our guns, insults, and Facebook rants aside, each of us most deeply fear being seen for who we really are. For we feel deep in our bones that if people truly knew who we were, then they would abandon us. We will do anything to secure love.

Scripture offers this wisdom in 1 John 4:18-19, which reads, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.” The more fear possesses us, the less love has formed us. The more love possesses us, the less fear has any authority in our lives. Fear and insecurity are products of our souls being deprived of love. As Christians, if we are recognized more for our fear and defenses than our love, then perhaps we haven’t quite connected with Christ as much as we think we have. Many churches that I’ve attended and preached in are known for their willingness to comply with traditional norms and their ability to live untouched by the dirt and decay of the world. However, I think this understanding of Christian discipleship points more to a fear of unraveling the lie that is Christian exceptionalism than it does a love of God and neighbor.

Continuing with 1 John 4:20-21, “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” How can we claim to follow God, who perfectly casts out fear and insecurity with love and compassion, while rejecting, neglecting, and dismissing our neighbors? God has not given us the spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7). Thus, if we mainly act out of fear rather than love, then we must also admit that we act more out of our insecurities than our Christian convictions.

Far too many poor, disenfranchised white folks in our community, many of whom are church-going Christians, resort to their defenses because they’ve generationally been taught to see themselves as unsophisticated, slow, and “deplorable.” They’ve been told over and over again that they don’t deserve better health care, broadband internet access, and avenues out of hidden poverty. Because our institutions and bipartisan bourgeoisie have told them they don’t matter, it has been easier to use racial slurs, political mudslinging, and gun taunting as a means of feeling a sense of self-worth again. We’ve come to believe that if we’ve been discarded and forgotten by the powers that be, then we might as well make other marginalized groups feel the very disenfranchisement and rejection we have suffered ourselves. If we can create the illusion that people of color, our LGBTQ neighbors, and poor city folk are inferior to us, then surely we aren’t at the bottom of the food chain, too.

In the words of Cornel West, “The only thing that can break the back of fear is love.” Fighting the fear of being left behind in our society with the fear of the “other” will only create more economic hardship, worse health outcomes, and emptier churches in our communities. But if we will join hands in solidarity with our neighbors who share our pain, regardless of their race, nationality, sexual orientation, and religious beliefs, then we might just begin to build a world where the poor inherit the kingdom of God, the hungry are filled, and those who weep will have cause to laugh (Luke 6:20-21).

My fellow hillbillies, you don’t have to fear being invisible. God sees you. You don’t have to fear being abandoned. You are God’s beloved. You don’t have to bully others to feel a sense of importance and belonging. All you have to do is let the love of God flood your soul and watch the fear wash away.