Thoughts on Sam Coonrod and Kneeling For Black Lives Matter

Before last night's Opening Day game at Dodger Stadium, the two teams lined up on each side of home plate up the foul lines with all of the players and coaches kneeling while holding a long black cloth or fabric that stretched the full length of the two teams.  I have to confess I missed exactly what the cloth represented but I assumed it was related to Black Lives Matter and represented some sort of common thread theme?  There was one player who remained standing along the line, Sam Coonrod, a young pitcher on the Giants roster.  OK, I mean, at least he was out there, but was that some sort of protest of his own AGAINST Black Lives Matter?  I guess it's his right to do that and we could have been left wondering about his motivation, but then he opened his mouth.  This is what came out:

"As a Christian, I can't kneel before anything besides God."  He added, "I'm a Christian, like I said, and I just can't get on board with a couple of things that I have read about Black Lives Matter, how they lean toward Marxism and they've said some negative things about the nuclear family.  I just can't get on board with that."

There is a lot to unpack here.  Let me first say, I respect Sam Coonrod's right to believe, do and say what he wants as long as he is not infringing on someone else's rights in the process, but I also believe some of the things he said here deserve some pushback and from a Christian perspective.  As someone who comes from a Christian background and works in a faith-based environment, I find it deeply disturbing that Christianity has become virtually synonymous with a particular segment of the political spectrum.  In fact, based on my upbringing and reading of the Judeo-Christian Bible, I believe Jesus Christ himself would be more at home with those who are trying to bring about more racial and economic equality than those who currently conflate their religion with a more radical right wing, and even reactionary, political approach.  BTW, I refuse to call the current prevailing political philosophy we see in the Republican Party "conservative".  The root word of conservative is conserve and there is nothing conserving about that political brand right now.  The prevailing philosophy in the current Republican Party is extreme, radical and reactionary, not conservative.

Anyway, sorry for the digression.  Back to Sam Coonrod's statements:

"I can't kneel before anyone besides God." 

OK, speaking for myself and what I was taught growing up in a Christian household, yes, I was taught to kneel and close my eyes WHEN POSSIBLE when "talking to God", otherwise called praying, as a sign of respect.  But I was also taught that we could communicate with God at any time, in any place and that God would still hear our prayers in whatever condition and situation we found ourselves in.  I was never taught that I couldn't kneel at other times for other reasons.  I also fail to see how kneeling in support of Black Lives Matter is mutually exclusive to "kneeling before God."  I'm pretty sure God cares about Black Lives too, and there is nothing wrong with bringing that concern to Him/Her/It on a ballfield where players are coming together out of concern for a very spiritual concept, that a black life is worth just as much as a white life, that too many members of a particular ethnic group are losing their lives for no good reason and should not be killed by police in disproportionate numbers to other ethnic groups.  So, based on my experience and understanding, I see no reason why a Christian could not kneel along with the other players, many of whom I am pretty sure are Christian themselves.  I would also point out that a major part of Jesus' ministry involved defending people who were despised and oppressed by the religious and political establishment at the time.  It is not hard to imagine Jesus supporting people who are being needlessly killed by police because of the color of their skin.

"I have read about Black Lives Matter, how they lean toward Marxism and they've said negative things about the nuclear family."

Based on a fact-check article linked by Andy Baggarly of the Athletic, one of the three women who founded Black Lives Matter described herself and one of the others as "trained Marxists."  However, there is nothing in the Black Lives Matter mission statements espousing Marxism and the movement has grown to include people of diverse political and religious orientation.  At this point, dismissing the entire BLM movement as Marxist seem disingenuous at best.  By the way, growing up as a Christian and then reading about Marxism, I never quite understood why Marx insisted on linking atheism with socialism or communism anyway, because it seemed to me that a lot of what Jesus taught involved transferring wealth from the rich to the poor and actually served as the basis for a lot of socialistic ideas.  Maybe Marx just saw that religion had been too often misused to justify persecution and oppression and just wanted to get that out of the way?  I don't know.  Also by the way, I am not a Marxist nor a communist.  I believe in the principles of free enterprise and private property ownership, but that those rights need to be regulated to prevent monopoly by a few ultra-successful oligarchs which ends up being no different than monopoly by government.

As for the statement of the BLM founder regarding the nuclear family, my reading does not see it as a condemnation of the nuclear family, but a recognition that people need the support of a larger community than just the nuclear family.  Here is the actual statement:  "We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure REQUIREMENTS by supporting each other as extended families and 'villages' that collectively care for one another, especially our children, TO THE DEGREE THAT MOTHERS, PARENTS AND CHILDREN ARE COMFORTABLE."  Again, speaking for myself, I do not see an attack on the nuclear family there, only a recognition we are not required to be part of a nuclear family to be supported and any additional support is only up to the point of what a given nuclear family is comfortable with.

So again, Sam Coonrod has the right to say and do what he wants and believes as long as he is not infringing on the rights of others, but his statements were misleading and misrepresenting of both Christianity and Black Lives Matter, and stand to be corrected.