Peacemaking, Bullying and a Hamilton School Murder

I’ve had a bunch of blog ideas recently (so many that I haven’t been able to focus on actually finishing one), but something happened recently that I feel compelled to write about. A 14-year-old, Devan Selvey, was stabbed and killed outside of a Hamilton high school in front of his mom. Hearing about how this apparently sweet and kind kid was bullied for months, and then attacked and killed in front of his mother, shook me deeply. I don’t want to talk much about the specific incident, as that is all still under investigation, but I want to talk about some ills it may point to in our culture.

I may be charged with overreacting based on one event that triggers deep emotion. Maybe this event rattled me because I was bullied a lot as a young kid and then did a lot of bullying as an older kid. But my mind has been on these issues for a long time and thinking about this event solidified some thoughts in my mind.

I think we would all agree that the world needs more peacemakers. For Christians, this is less of a goal we should strive for than a command. Here are just a few of Jesus’ calls to be peacemakers:

“Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9).

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44).

“Love your neighbour as yourself” (Matt. 22:39).

Forgive “not seven times...but seventy times seven!” (Matt. 18:22).

“Do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” (Matt. 5:39).

But how many of us actually take these instructions seriously? I know I generally don’t. No, I don’t regularly beat people up (despite my incredible strength). Most of us never viciously bullied or committed violent acts like the youths who killed Devan Selvey. But being a peacemaker is so much more than avoiding physical violence.

As adults, we think of bullying as a problem with kids. In our eyes, it is a big problem, but it’s something we need to help children with, not something we need to change about ourselves. However, I think we need to consider how we’re each contributing to a culture of bullying and divisiveness - a culture where it is in the realm of possibility for a child to decide that it is ok to stab another child because there is something about him that he doesn’t like.

One sign we are not a culture of peacemakers is our incendiary language. Jesus said the words that come out of your mouth defile you (Matt. 15:18). Words matter. The example we set for children matters. When kids see us speaking hatefully and offensively about someone, they are learning that it’s ok to treat someone like garbage if we don’t like them.

It’s an election season here in Canada. I have heard people say things about politicians or people on the other side of the political spectrum that are reprehensible. Or how often are we watching a sports game or a reality TV show and we say we “hate” someone because they aren’t performing in a way that we want? I’m not putting myself above anyone. I’ve said things about referees of Dallas Cowboys games that I wouldn’t say to my worst enemy’s face.

I happened to listen to a podcast the other day that may apply. The guest, Lisa Feldman-Barrett, is a neuroscientist and she talked about how emotions are not necessarily hard-wired into our brains at birth. This has so many implications - I plan to read her book and write about it in greater detail.

Dr. Feldman-Barrett says emotions are sensations that the brain sets in motion based on external stimuli, which it interprets using past experience. Some of this “experience” is in our evolutionary past, but it can also be from our life. In other words, we learn what emotions to feel in a given situation based on our experience and our culture. Emotions are socially constructed.

One example she gave is how grief feels different in different cultures. In Tahiti, they don’t have the concept of “sadness”, so they experience grief more like the flu, or other physical illness. In Russia, grieving feels more like physical pain.

One implication of this is that we are constantly teaching ourselves, and others, especially children who are rapidly forming new neural connections, what emotions to show in different contexts. If we are modelling hate, anger and vindictiveness for children, and teaching them that it’s acceptable to show these emotions in a wide variety of contexts, we are contributing to the problem of bullying and violence in our schools.

A related area where we’re failing at being peacemakers is gossip. We tend to think that there is no harm in saying a few things behind someone’s back. If we talk behind someone’s back and they never hear how you feel, then we are just blowing off steam without any consequences, right? The reality is, with these words we are damaging someone’s reputation - sometimes irreparably.

This doesn’t mean you always have to be nice and avoid conflict. Jesus says, “Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him” (Luke 17:3). But you have to say your piece to the person’s face, not behind their back. And your goal should be forgiveness, not victory. “Forgive” in this verse means “send forth” or “lay aside”. The goal is always to come to a mutual understanding and move on.

But the “move on” can never come before the “mutual understanding”. And mutual understanding often takes a bit of conflict.

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas says, “Most of us learned that time heals all wounds and thus we’re better off waiting for some conflicts to die through the passage of time. Yet Jesus seems to have been working with a completely different set of presuppositions about what is necessary to be a community of peace, of people who love one another. It seems that peace is not the name of the absence of conflict, but rather peacemaking is that quality of life and practices engendered by a community that knows it lives as a forgiven people. Such a community cannot afford to overlook one another’s sins because they have learned that such sins are a threat to being a community of love.”

It seems that being a peacemaker is not about avoiding conflict, but rather doing conflict right. In fact, I think increasing the amount of conflict in our lives will make us better peacemakers. We tend to use our most hateful language towards those we don’t know. It’s easy to say we hate somebody if we’ll never have to look them in the eye - even easier if we’re hiding behind our computer screen. This is not strong-willed, it’s cowardly. And we only speak negatively about family or friends if they’re not around. 

When we speak hatefully, it’s usually in a situation where we are with others, either in person or on social media, who feel the same way and are egging us on. We start to feel justified in our hate and we let this hatred grow in our bodies like a virus. To move from a culture of violence to one of peace, maybe we need to commit to airing our grievances in only one location: standing in front of the person by whom we have been grieved. In this scenario, the criticism is much more likely to be motivated by love rather than hate.

In the name of peace, maybe we need to work harder to embrace conflict.


--
Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay