As we pass the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, we are witnessing the predictable horror that unfolds when the arithmetic of revenge – “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” – is taken as an exponential license to crush and exterminate.
The violence unfolding in Israel/Palestine is horrifying and heartbreaking. As a follower of Jesus, I stand for peace and am opposed to killing. And as Dr. Martin Luther King said, “There can be no justice without peace and there can be no peace without justice.” The tensions between peace and justice makes this conflict so heavy and morally disturbing.
It’s now been a full week since an 18-year-old white man opened fire at a Tops Friendly Market in a mostly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. I will not say, “This is not who we are,” because clearly, this is us. We are many things in this nation, and the evil of white supremacy is a part of us.
