That smirk really annoyed me! As I ate breakfast on Sunday morning with my wife, the news we heard was shocking and saddening. We had been at the March for Life and were thrilled by the massive crowds of young people present. Now we were seeing a teen staring in the face of a native American man, surrounded by laughing peers and it all looked very rude. The news report painted a picture of utter disrespect. My wife and I spoke briefly like a couple of old people about the plight of youth today. Both of us have worked with teens for over 30 years.
What can we learn from this situation that has turned out to be far different than the press originally reported? This tiny little video clip put a black mark on the March for Life when a look at more footage reveals a confrontation occurred before the Covington students arrived. Three parties were ultimately involved and two were clearly throwing racist insults. The one party that took the blame was guilty merely of being political incorrect.
What do we learn from this situation? How does scripture speak to the incident? Where should Christians be on this? And what does 30+ years of working with teens lead me to conclude? I’ll start with two observations about teenage boys that I think should cause us to respond with grace. Then I will suggest a few lessons we can take away before suggesting a future action.
Observations
1. A group of nervous teenage boys are unlikely to respond to a bizarre situation in a mature and politically correct manner. These boys were meeting at this location to get their bus home from the March for Life. They had been given time to see the sites in DC and gathered gradually in the hour leading up to their bus arriving. What they encountered was a confrontation between two groups, the hostile Black Hebrew Israelites and the first Indigenous Peoples March.
The March for Life is itself a very peaceful occasion which did not prepare the students to deal with a hostile situation. We should expect nervous laughter here. Given the high levels of anxiety among today’s teens, it seems unrealistic to anticipate a mature and serious response.
2. A group of teenage boys who are not necessarily left leaning are likely to purchase and wear MAGA hats around DC just for fun. They recognize the absurdity that a hat with a message we should all agree with would be offensive. Adolescent males have a tendency toward antics to get a laugh. The red hat is not morally wrong to wear, nor is the message inherently offensive. Yet the opposition to President Trump has included the interpretation that this hat represents racism and bigotry. Young people may not find this claim to be valid. Instead, they likely found it amusing to be able to so readily purchase and wear these hats in DC.
A few lessons that can be taken from this incident…
Context is vital to understanding.
We who teach the Bible know this fact and it applies to current events every bit as much as the study of scripture. What I saw on Sunday morning was a tiny clip of video without the needed context of what led to that moment or what followed. The context tells us a very different story than the news portrayed. One protest group was harassing the other and when the Covington students arrived, turned their focus on them. The students response was to drown out the racist shouts with school cheers. Then one Native American approached the boys banging a drum while another hurled racist insults at them. Context is vital to understanding!
Assume the best in others until proven otherwise.
Philippians 2:3 reminds us to value others above ourselves. This is the humility that Christ modeled for us. If we do this, we will hesitate to rush into judgement. The students of Covington Catholic school appeared to be mocking the situation and yet they may easily have been working to make sense of a crazy moment that made no sense to them.
Righteousness requires patience.
James 1:19-20 tells us “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” If the mainstream media and social media were to be patient and wait for the facts to emerge, do their research and be slow to speak, then these boys would not have faced threats of great harm. It is shocking that a school had to cancel classes due to security concerns merely on the basis of rash reporting.
The war against Christianity and Biblical values is real.
On Friday the nations capital was crawling with Christians, the largest portion of which were students from church groups, high schools, and colleges. We were there in the sea of hundreds of thousands of pro-life advocates. It’s not by chance that the media jumped on this scene and rushed to judgement. The opportunity to create a narrative was too good to pass by. This week’s decision in the state of NY to legalize abortion right up to the moment of birth tells us enough about the agenda of the pro-choice movement. Christianity and Biblical values are the only thing that stand in the way of that momentum.
Finally, it’s beyond time to speak up! I’d encourage all youth ministry leaders to put next year’s March for Life on their calendar and take a few students to see what it is all about. Learn more about these issues at Students for Life.
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