“Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
    happy is the one who repays you
    according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
    and dashes them against the rocks.”

After the initial feelings of intense discomfort and repulsion at such a notion, we seek to find some rationality for this passage being included. Seemingly in such a matter-of-fact manner. And so unlike the “Happy are the peacemakers” Beatitudes that we’ve grown accustomed to. Searching commentary upon commentary to convince ourselves that surely God is not endorsing such an option for our rage and revenge against another group – and especially infants for goodness and God’s sake!

Matthew Poole’s commentary mentions the idea of this representing “just retaliation.” In Barnes’ Notes, Albert Barnes and James Murphy write,

“In regard to this passage, we are not necessarily to suppose that the author of the psalm approved of this, or desired it, or prayed for it. He looked forward to the fulfillment of a prediction; he saw that a just and terrible judgment would certainly come upon Babylon.

Marc Zvi Brettler, Professor of Judaic Studies at Duke University, shares that similar language can be found in Isaiah 13:16, 2 Kings 8:2, Hosea 14:1, and Nahum 3:10. However, he goes on to assert, “Heaven help us all if we ignore the savageness of this text, and instead discuss it only as historical-critical philologists, in a dispassionate manner.”

I would agree with the word “savageness.” I understand its meaning is ascribed to both people and behavior. It is used to remove humanity from those assigned the name savage or merely as three – fifths human. Savageness is also condoned by those who declare inhuman status on anyone. Sometimes collaterally to everyone. This includes infants and babies.

It’s 2024. The hope is that no one is taking their cues from the savageness of this text!

Because we remember the beautiful Indigenous children of God and the devastating legacy of calculated genocide that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful African children of God and the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Japanese children of God and the terror of the atomic bomb that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Jewish children of God and the hellishness of the Holocaust that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful African American children of God and the sheer terror of KKK lynching and bombings that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Cambodian children of God and the horrific Killing Fields that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful South African children of God and the apartheid system that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Congolese children of God under King Leopold’s brutal reign and the horrors now that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Bosnian children of God and the systematic ethnic cleansing that dashed their infants against the rocks.

What all these atrocities have in common is that at some point misinformation and propaganda about the humanity of a certain community of children of God, nurtured rage and hatred. People became comfortable with collateral damage. They felt justified to see collateral damage as a viable and justifiable option.

Today we hear the cries of the beautiful Ukrainian children of God fighting for their existence with war all around that is dashing their infants against the rocks.

This past Christmas, we heard the sermon, When We Justify the Bombing of Children by Palestinian Christian Pastor Munther Isaac. Asking the world to hear the cries of the beautiful Palestinian children of God. Fighting for their existence with war all around. Literally, dashing their infants against the rock as he declared that Christ could be found this year not in a manger, but in the rubble.

Despite the inclusion of such a horrific passage of unyielding brutality, other Psalms like 127, declare “Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?” Psalm 139 reminds us that all humanity is fearfully and wonderfully made. Being made in the image of God, found in Genesis, looks more revolutionary and remarkable when mirrored by the way Jesus taught on a mountainside surrounded by rocks. Instead of “happiness” being linked to the savageness of dashing infants against them, in the Beatitudes, He spoke of happiness being correlated to those who are merciful, pure in heart and peacemakers. Peacemaking is what children of God do. War is not the answer, is what we were supposed to remember. Remember?

There are accusations of being “anti” this group or that one. We hear aggressive demands to demonstrate where you stand in every conflict. Many, who are now canceled for refusing to stand passively among the rubble, find themselves in between a rock and a hard place. Because they dared to desire peace and justice instead of more war. They are compelled to actively live out their peacemaking child of God status. Unhappy to continue witnessing devastating horror and terror that dashes any human being created in the image of God, against the rocks.

I kept seeing images of Anita Hill being questioned exactly 19 years earlier. It was 1991, I was about 10 years into my very conservative-leaning faith journey. I was being asked to believe that liberals were so sinister and conniving that they basically had this woman waiting in the wings for decades, preparing and willing to create an ugly sexual harassment story about a decent conservative man. It represented a conspiracy theory that joined many others.

I was discipled to believe that liberals were godless and had an agenda to create the U.S. in its own image. God-loving, Bible-believing Christians were members of the agenda-reveal party: making sure that people of the word were not celebrating with people of the worldly. Featured prominently was the abortion agenda, the gay agenda, anti-Christian agenda, and the social gospel agenda. And yet as my committed pro-life eyes watched this decent, intelligent woman of faith share her very credible story, the conspiracies seemed more delusional than her account. She was principled, composed, and a preview to sexually harassed women finding their voice, even if the words were delayed, the timing was complicated, or the behaviors were confusing.  Evangelicals endorsed these theories whose role in my Christian formation I am now examining and decolonizing.

The conspiracy theory maintains the fear that fuels white supremacy. It grants power to those who have craved it all their lives. It maintains power for those who had always had it. It protects money. It creates divisions. It discourages investigation. It denies that all people were created in the Image of God. It gives people permission to believe in ungodly means to a possible God-endorsed end. Even though Jesus himself reminded his followers that demonic forces do not promote God’s goodness. Conspiracy theories had a starring role in the president’s courtship with evangelical Christians. He spent 5 years wooing them with a Birther Conspiracy theory about Barack Obama, a man who was too intelligent for White supremacy’s own good. He felt confident they would permit him to be the Birther of a Nation, because he watched how Conspiracy theories made their way into the gospels and were repeated and memorized like scripture. 

I have watched Evangelicals continue to swoon in support of this administration, and now they follow leaders so confident that God was on their side, they did a victory dance before the ball even began. Celebrating their pro-life Supreme Court shifting nominee, with faces uncovered, revealing their designer masks of weakness, just like the president modeled. A man who has made the coronavirus the enemy of his hubris instead of the annihilator of humans. A garden party, ominously called by Stephen A. Crockett Jr. a “coronavirus cotillion”, was a prestigious display of who’s who in the defender of pro-life world.

Prominent clergy Franklin Graham and Greg Laurie were in attendance. Growing more comfortable everyday with turning evangelical churches into another trump tower. Suggesting by their presence, that Evangelicalism and the Pro-life movement were loving dance partners at this noble Republican soiree, while science stood as a ridiculed wallflower. This was a gathering where 11 people to date took home Covid-19 as a garden party favor, including the president of the United States—a man successfully convincing people that their freedom, liberty, and rights were under siege by wearing a mask, while the COVID-19 death toll of 228,000 plus children of God was climbing every day.

READ: Hope in Hard Times: An Element of Our Prophetic Vocation

Never in the history of the pro-life movement—now recognized as merely a pro-birth movement—has so much death been deemed acceptable. 

As a Black woman, my ancestors have always co-existed with conspiracy theories: about our history, our story, and our humanity. The very notion of our God-given dignity was also classified as a hoax. However, as followers of Jesus they were also followers of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Conspiracy theory kryptonite!

Like the evangelical label, I’ve also removed the pro-life label. I continue to be deeply committed to Jesus and the sanctity of all life. Being merely pro-life within a party is incomplete without being committed to loving all your neighbors as yourself. As a pro-all life democrat, my position cares deeply about:

Unborn life

Malnourished life

Impoverished life

Discriminated life

Mass Incarcerated life

Racially Traumatized life

First Nation life

Caged at the Border life

Health Care less life

Disabled life

LGBTQ life

Impacted by Guns life

Israeli life

Palestinian life

U.S. life

International life

Military families’ life

War torn families’ life

Muslim life

Religious freedom life

Prematurely ended life

Graciously extended life

Front line pandemic life

228,000 Covid-19 lost life

The sacredness of all life

This Elections season, endorsing my own invisibility was not an option. I could not remove the flourishing and dignity of so many others from my ballot, nor can I in the months going forward.

I stared at the image of a police officer’s knee on his neck, a knee that would remain there for over 5 minutes. George Floyd was surrounded by three other officers who never once considered loosening the grip of his noose. One officer’s gaze dared any onlooker to question his actions of Black Lives Matter defiance. Surveying the crowd with indignant eyes, he poised to exercise his muscles of terror on anyone who dared to threaten his catch-of-the-day photo-op. I couldn’t stomach to watch for more than 30 seconds.

The officers were responding to the suspicion of a forgery taking place: An unarmed, we-have-you-on-the-ground, surrounded and subdued, forgery suspect. A man hoping to be seen as worthy of dignity. Worthy of basic decency. Worthy of being allowed to breathe. Instead he was guilty of false hope. With his face forcefully scraping the asphalt, he was also found guilty of impersonating a human being; a complete counterfeit of a man whose life mattered. The exception to being a child of God. A man was lynched by the police yesterday.

Minutes before this story, there was an incident of a woman calling the police in Central Park. She called 9-1-1 and fired off the phrase, “I’m being threatened by an African-American man!”—like a loaded gun. Amy Cooper pointed her historically deadly, Emmett Till-engraved, verbal weapon more than once. Frantically stating, again for effect, the threat to both her and her dog, she demanded the same level of obedience from a man who should have every reason to be afraid.

Amy Cooper said the words “African American” as an indictment of a crime already committed. How dare you demand your humanity with me, the move insisted. As justice would have it, the video of her threatening rant was unleashed to a disapproving public—a public not impressed with her ability to remember all the lines from her Birth of a Nation, Jim Crow era, damsel-in-distress plays. After her theatrical phone call went viral, then came the written, requisite, if-anyone-was-offended statement. She noted being humble, twice, as she issued an “I desperately want to keep my job and my non-racist reputation” apology. She asked for forgiveness for an intentional threat: the kind of 9-1-1 calling threat that could easily be categorized as an attempted murder. One man averted being lynched yesterday by white supremacy while another was taken.

Harvard graduate Christian Cooper (the Black man with the latest hashtag #BirdWatchingWhileBlack) says he continued recording Ms. Cooper because he wasn’t going to be intimidated and would not participate in his own dehumanization.

WATCH: Black People Are Tired

Begging the question: How many people out there continue their silent, complicit participation in Black dehumanization? How many families? How many institutions? How many systems? How many churches?

I don’t know the answer to that question. And I’m no longer holding my breath.

My Black life was already out of breath when I woke up this morning. 

Already enduring too many laps of the resilience and lament race, not having the privilege of dealing with and relaxing my way through episodic grief, I instead needed a psychological ventilator to resuscitate my breathing from the 24-hour news levels of pain and anguish.

Sure, I remain standing. Knowing that Black Lives Matter to God. That in addition to creating life, God is the author and finisher of life, the One who actually sings and delights over my life, who sits on the throne of righteousness and justice, who literally breathed life into all humankind.

And yet,

My hope is out of breath

My patience is out of breath

My trust is out of breath

My peace is out of breath

My joy is out of breath

My tears are out of breath

My words are out of breath

My love is out of breath

My prayers are out of breath

My longing for justice is out of breath

A man was lynched by the police yesterday.

Out here in these pandemic streets.

He couldn’t breathe. 

When will we be able to breathe?