RIP Ruth & Robert

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (d. September 18) and I had little in common. Our faiths were different and our political persuasions were opposites. Our world views were contradictory. Our sense of moral law was dissimilar. Views on government, economics, jurisprudence, and justice may have been far apart.

I was amazed when I learned she graduated at the top of her class at Yale University Law School and still was unable to find a job with any law firm in Manhattan because she was Jewish, a woman, and a mother. She entered the law profession at a time when women were treated in vastly different ways than today. Codified in the law were injustices like racism, inequality, and discrimination. She fought against these culturally sanctioned gender inequities all her life. I agree with many who say she was a true trailblazer.

Incredibly, she was the first woman in the history of this nation to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. How is that possible? How has our culture overlooked the achievements of other women trailblazers?

Growing up Methodist my faith was a mixture of Christian doctrine and social justice. My faith emphasized the works of faith that focused on the poor, the hungry, the uneducated, the disenfranchised. Social justice was the proving ground for faith. It was the only way I could demonstrate I was a disciple of Christ.

When I aligned myself with evangelicalism, I found ways beyond the realm of social justice by which I could define my faith. Bible reading, worship, and witnessing to others about Christ became the benchmarks for what it meant to be a Christian. At least for me, there was never any mention of social justice from those who mentored me. There simply wasn’t time to engage the forsaken and forgotten because the study of the Bible required a great deal of time and witnessing was as arduous a task as any.

It feels the same way for me decades later. My faith requires almost nothing of me when it comes to current social issues. Like the adage suggests I am so heavenly minded I am of no earthly good. This seems to be a charge brought against the evangelical church from the more liberal wings of the faith. I’m so single-mindedly focused on reading and studying the Bible, and reading about the rapture and the second coming of Christ, and how to use my faith to speak things into existence, and worshipping God, and attending conferences and boring men’s retreats…

…that I just don’t have time to consider low-wage jobs, illegal immigration, drug and sex trafficking, law enforcement overreach, the military juggernaut, pollution and renewable energy, minimum wage rates, greed disguised as capitalism, prison reform, homeless shelters and soup kitchens and food banks, and remedies for elective abortion that include family planning services, healthcare, and safety nets for the mother who chooses to bring her baby into the world.

Maybe the evangelical rightwing needs to take a cue from a leftwing woman like RBG and build a broader understanding of what it means to be Christ’s disciple. The Christian faith is not only an inward process of individual renewal through the Spirit of Christ but also an outward process of community transformation through the Body of Christ. The gospel involves works of social justice as much as it does acts of spirituality. I don’t have to agree with Ruth on anything to recognize that it was a good thing that she devoted her life to righting social wrongs, especially as they affected women.

Live in the moment, and look to the future.

Robert Schuerman (d. September 22) was a colleague of mine at Regent University’s School of Public Policy from which we both graduated. He was a free spirit from Omaha and his hometown proximity to Des Moines made him an instant friend and ally when I first met him in Virginia.

If Robert had a vision for his life I never knew what it was. He wanted to change the world for Christ, and his first step in that direction was to become a missionary. Yet, for him it was like he was a missionary without a mission field. As such, he seemed to wander and meander from one thing to another all the while getting married and fathering seven children.

At some point he learned how to fly an ultralight aircraft, which led to his getting a pilot’s license, which led him to become a missionary pilot in Kirgizstan. He and his family lived there for years in conditions typical for the Far East. He lived the missionary life and forsook the amenities common for nearly all Americans.

When his tour of duty ended he brought his family back to the USA and worked as a flight instructor for an organization that trained missionary pilots. It was small potatoes but Robert would not have cared. Yet, this ended sooner than expected and he was back to drifting.

Remarkably, just about six months ago, Robert was given the opportunity of becoming a private pilot for a sheik in Saudi Arabia who owned a fleet of aircraft, including a snazzy jet. He moved to Saudi Arabia and left his wife in the United States while he set up a household for her to join him later.

Perhaps for the first time in his life, Robert had a sense of his destiny – being the pilot for a sheik who had personal ties to many of the princes within the royal family. His last correspondence included his hope that he would become like Philip and his supernatural encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch. (The Book of Acts, chapter 8) Robert saw himself as a divinely appointed apostle to this sheik and through him to the Kingdom. His influence, by God’s grace, could spark an unbelievable spiritual revolution for Christ in the midst of an entrenched Islamic faith.

Two days after writing down this vision for his life, the plane Robert was piloting lost power. He plunged to his death within seconds. His wife had joined him in the country only a day before after a six-month separation.

Why did God lead Robert to a Saudi Arabian sheik only to die months later? What were God’s hopes for Robert and his steadfast faith inside this Muslim citadel? Could Robert have triggered a spiritual insurgency that in time would have transformed the nation? We will never know the answer to these questions here. All we can believe is either Robert fulfilled his life purpose or something went terribly wrong. He was only 59.

A liberal, Jewish woman reminds me the Gospel of Christ is more than spiritualism. It is engagement with the world as it is, not as I want it to be. An old friend, living by a faith I can’t imitate, reminds me that life bends all roads, some suddenly without warning.

Life can be better than we believe and shorter than we think.