The Mad Parson

Awesome.

Dear Congressman Etheridge:

I am a Presbyterian minister who, from 2003 to 2006, served as your former colleague Eva Clayton’s pastor in a cross-racial ministry. While I labored in her district, I lived in yours, and had the pleasure of meeting and/or speaking with you on a number of occasions.

On one occasion in particular, I chaperoned my older daughter’s fourth grade overnight trip to Washington, D.C. Congress was in session during our trip, so after our arrival, I called your office and informed your staff that thirty fourth graders from your district were touring the capital on a school outing. You rearranged your schedule to spend nearly an hour with our group, giving the youngsters a personal tour of the Capitol and answering their manifold questions about government in general and your service in particular. I deeply appreciated, and still do, your altering your day on a moment’s notice to give these children the highlight of their trip. I’m confident it was no small feat.

I write this partially by way of introduction, but more to describe my experience of you as a kind, thoughtful, and dutiful public servant. Political ideologies aside–and ours overlap, by the way–I’ve always thought you to be an upstanding representative and a good man.

Imagine my surprise and alarm, then, at the viral video of you manhandling two persons who were taping their queries of you in regards to your support of the president’s agenda. Like many in the public sphere, I decry the burgeoning of ‘ambush journalism’ made popular by the likes of Michael Moore and Bill O’Reilly. Like many in the public sphere, I sympathize with a public official being accosted on the streets after a long day’s deliberations. I even suspect, like many in the public sphere, that the design of the two persons in question was to generate a melodramatic response.

How unfortunate that they succeeded. For one, you have now given your ideological opponents quarter in their arguments concerning you and your party. At a time when our public discourse needs more ideas and less ideology, you have participated in an event that does the opposite. Your lack of restraint–why not simply walk away?–has unwittingly served to poison the well even more.

But that’s politics. What is truly disturbing to me is your use of violence. The interviewers’ impropriety and your fatigue neither individually nor in concert justify your use of physical violence, Congressman. What you did qualifies as assault and battery, to be truthful, and the fact that you refused to release one person from your grasp even after repeated pleading is even more concerning.

Sufficiently concerning that your heretofore apology isn’t enough. To say that you are “deeply and profoundly sorry” doesn’t meet the action you have perpetrated. Your behavior is not a “poor response” as you called it; it is an act of violence at a time of great tension in our country. To call it anything less is to be dishonest about what you’ve done–not to mention reinforce your critics’ imprecations of you as entitled and irresponsible.

The good news here is that true confession can result in moral standing, specifically because the confessor has realized the awful consequences of her or his actions and can speak to them directly and experientially. Confess what you’ve done, Congressman. Admit openly that the clumsy (and probably staged) interview did not merit anything approximating your violent response. Ask for forgiveness from those you manhandled–regardless of their original motives or the consequences of their unfortunate success.

And after you’ve done so, use your newfound moral standing as a transparent and contrite servant to call for restraint on all sides. Remind us of our democratic privileges and responsibilities in the public sphere. You do not need this humble correspondent to tell you that people are shooting out the windows of BP stations, protesting on the lawns of private citizens, and talking openly of storing weapons in the event of an overreaching government. These are difficult times. You have added to the difficulty. Now use your actions to confess, repent, and begin our trek back to a more productive engagement of both sides.

Yours,
The Rev’d C. Todd Hester

An amazing story on the power of soccer in apartheid South Africa here.

Here is a link to a site that will transpose the current size of the Deepwater Horizon oil slick over your hometown, so you can get an idea of the size.