The following chart outlines both the components and the broad framework necessary to establish a biblically based theology of society built around social evil and social justice. The chart combines the spiritual and social factors; it is comprehensive in nature. Each component has its own integrity in relationship to the other components; spiritual factors cannot be reduced to social factors nor can social factors be reduced to spiritual factors. The Bible treats all levels, all components, as real in themselves. This chart assumes a gospel that has addressed personal sin and personal salvation.
THEOLOGY OF SOCIETY
SOCIAL EVIL versus SOCIAL JUSTICE
SATAN versus GOD/JESUS CHRIST
POWERS AND AUTHORITIES versus HOLY SPIRIT
COSMOS versus KINGDOM OF GOD
ETHNOCENTRISM versus JUSTICE
OPPRESSION versus SHALOM
DAMAGED INDIVIDUALS versus LIBERATED INDIVIDUALS
Next, each component will be briefly defined and discussed.
Satan
Satan, the adversary, is a fallen angel whom God has permitted partial and temporary control of this earth. The Bible identifies him as a prince of this world, a ruler of the cosmos (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Eph. 2:2; and Luke 4:5-7).
Satan is in opposition to God, but he is not the opposite of God because he is not God's equal though he likes to pose that way. Satan is not omniscient, omnipresent nor omnipotent. He is a forminable foe, but we must not overexaggerate his importance. If we unintentionally make him the opposite equal to God, we give him more power in our lives than he deserves. Our unwarranted excessive fear of him will expand his power over us. He is only a fallen angel who wanted to be God; don't make him into a god.
Powers and Authorities
Created by God, these powers and authorities were originally good and designed to maintain order in the universe. Sin invaded the universe and "rather than maintaining order, they took on the status of god and began to regulate human existence and destiny." According to Walter Wink "these Powers are both heavenly and earthly, divine and human, spiritual and political, invisible and structural." Their primary mode of operation is through political and social institutions. The powers and authorities are evil spiritual forces incarnated in human cultural values and social institutions.
John Perkins saw this pattern in operation in Mississippi as he tried to understand the severity of poverty and racism. "I began to see plainly how sin had organized itself into structures and institutions of inequality and oppression. . . . growing out of the very culture and traditions and history of the South and America." Paul's reference to the principalities and power in Eph. 6:12 now made sense to him. (A Quiet Revolution, 1976, pp. 82-92).
Cosmos
In its good sense, the cosmos is the world, the universe, created by God. Sin invaded the cosmos and therefore in the New Testament cosmos is most often used in a negative sense, as evil social order. The evil cosmos includes negative cultural values such as ethnocentrism and oppressive social institutions.
Individual persons, male and female, and material resources were created by God. Because of sin these creation values became the negative cultural values of individualism, sexism, and materialism. Normal human differences became divisive and distorted. Social institutions, whose original purpose was to provide order and structure to human existence, have become instruments of evil.
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's ethnos (people, nation, culture) is superior and that other groups are inferior. Ethnocentrism can and usually does operate separate from racism, but in the modern Western world the two have often been merged. Historically and geographically, ethnocentrism is nearly universal, usually tied to culture and/or religion and/or nation, but usually not tied to race. Race is not a biblical concept, but it is often read into the Scriptures by modern Westerners.
Ethnocentrism turns other ethnic groups into second-class citizens as they are dehumanized. Once this happens, the so-called superior people can oppress the so-called inferior people without their social conscience bothering them; they may even rationalize that this action is God's will.
Ethnicity (ethnic heritage, ethnic group) is positive and contributes to one's social identity; ethnocentrism is a sinful sense of cultural superiority.
Oppression
Oppression occurs when persons in power and authority, usually through social institutions, misuse their power and authority in a cruel and unjust manner to crush, humiliate, animalize, impoverish, enslave and/or kill persons created in the image of God. Oppression is a combination of personal sin and social evil. Oppression is the opposite of shalom and the absence of justice. The Old Testament is far superior to all other human literature in its understanding of the horror of oppression; but strangely orthodox Protestant theology has almost totally ignored this important biblical concept.
Damaged Individuals
The above system of social evil consisting of Satan, powers and authorities, cosmos, ethnocentrism and oppression combines to damage individuals and groups (such as ethnic groups). Each level of social evil must be dealt with on its own merits; one level cannot be reduced to another level; the spiritual cannot be reduced to the social nor can the social be reduced to the spiritual. Some categories of damage: women are damaged by male domination; Samaritans are dehumanized by Jews; the oppressed poor are damaged by the rich. The damage precedes the dysfunction.
I would estimate that 9 out of 10 white Americans blame blacks for their own dysfunction; in other words, they blame the victim. They see the dysfunction, but not the underlying cause of the dysfunction---oppression. Note this important Scripture, Exodus 6:1-9. In 6:1-8, God tells Moses that He IS going to deliver the Israelites from their slavery. Moses reports this very good news to the children of Israel. When Moses delivered this message to the Israelites, "With a tremendous shout, the people, with one voice, praised God for their promised deliverance." This is what I would have expected the response to be, but it wasn't this at all. Because of centuries of oppression, the Israelites were broken in spirit. This was their actual response: "they didn't even hear him [Moses]---they were that beaten down in spirit by the harsh slave conditions."
Don't ever underestimate the damage systems of oppression can do to a people. It is terribly cruel and unfair for the oppressor to blame the oppressed.
Next, I shall examine biblical concepts under the category of SOCIAL JUSTICE
Jesus Christ
The Son of God was not only incarnated in human flesh, but he was also incarnated in human society. In his own life and ministry, he combined the spiritual and the social; he was concerned about both personal righteousness and social justice.
Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the person and power of God incarnated in individual Christians and in the church. The only Power strong enough to break the bondage of cultural values and social institutions to "the Power" is the person, wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit. In my reading, I have not found a single theologian who has tied the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of God and Jubilee justice together as a unit.
There are four ministries of the Holy Spirit: the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit and the kingdom of God, the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.
Kingdom of God
To replace the cosmos (evil social order), Jesus introduced the kingdom of God, the rule and reign over all of life. Just as social evil has infiltrated all of human life, so the kingdom of God must be equally pervasive. Spiritually, a person enters the kingdom of God by being born again. Socially, a person lives kingdom principles in all relationships in human society. In the kingdom of God, individualism, materialism and sexism must be replaced by individuality-in-community, the sharing of material resources, and respect and equality between male and female. Ethnocentrism must be replaced by respect, harmony and equality between different ethnic groups.
Rather than evil social institutions dominating and oppressing individuals, social institutions must be restored to their rightful function of service and structure to provide order and stability to social life. Justice should characterize the functioning of political, economic and religious institutions.
Reconciliation
Through God's grace, humans who were once enemies of God can be reconciled to him. Through God's grace, persons who once hated their enemies can be reconciled to them and learn to love them. Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, rich and poor, all can and should be reconciled.
Both personal reconciliation to God and social reconciliation to humans are made possible through the cross. Ephesians 2:1-10 describes personal reconciliation to God through grace. 2:11-22 describes the "dividing wall of hostility" that once separated Jew and Gentile, but now through the cross "he put to death their hostility." Now, Jews and Gentiles are "fellow citizens" in the church.
Justice
In the Old Testament, we are exhorted to "do justice" (Micah 6:8) or "execute justice" (Jer. 7:5). Community leaders such as judges, kings and priests are called to make fair and just judgments on behalf of the oppressed poor, widows, fatherless and strangers. The act of justice stops oppression and creates the conditions for shalom. Justice/righteousness is both personal and social. (Job 29:7-17). The Jubilee/Sabbatical laws were a concrete call for justice in society, especially for the poor and oppressed. The New Testament kingdom of God is to reflect Jubilee justice for the poor.
Shalom
Shalom is completeness, wholeness and harmony in a community of people living in righteousness and justice. In such a community, individuals experience physical, economic, social and spiritual well-being. Shalom includes spiritual or inner peace, but shalom is much more than personal peace with God.
Liberated Individuals
Oppressed individuals (the sinned-against ones) can be liberated by the good news of the gospel concisely stated in Luke 4:18-19. These verses are a mission statement about the kingdom of God and how it should be incarnated here on earth in human society. "The kingdom of God is . . . justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit." Romans 14:17, Noble paraphrase.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Chapter 2: The Spirit, the Kingdom and Jubilee Justice: A Gospel Relevant to the Poor
"There was not a needy person among them." But there will be no poor among you."
Is our gospel powerful enough to deal with the problem of poverty? Can it stop the horror of oppression?
John Perkins describes the American church as preaching a gospel "that accommodates itself to racism and bigotry." Lee Harper describes Mississippi Christianity this way: "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things [the church] that appeared just." I describes much of American Christianity as an unholy mixture of spirituality and ethnocentrism/oppression or a syncretistic blend of the Christianity and the American trinity.
Without the Spirit, the Kingdom and Jubilee justice as a part of the gospel we preach and practice, the American trinity floods in and corrupts the church. Without the Spirit, the Kingdom and Jubilee justice, we do not have a gospel that is powerful enough to meet the needs of the oppressed poor. The relevant Scripture: the Messianic passages from Isaiah, Luke 4:18-19 and Romans 14:17.
Chapter Two
What does good news to the poor look like? It builds on John 3:16, but it must also include Luke 4:18-19. Good news to the poor begins with a personal sin, personal salvation gospel based on the cross and resurrection, but it must also include the kingdom of God as Jubilee justice for the poor. To my knowledge, no theologian has ever tied the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of God and Jubilee justice in one holistic package---a package different from but as important as the cross and resurrection package. Billy Graham (Transformation, Jan/Feb., 1989) wrote the following when he was about 70 years old, but without any elaboration, not even a reference to any Scriptures:
"I have come to see in deeper ways the implications of my faith. . . . I can no longer proclaim the Cross and the Resurrection without proclaiming the whole message of the Kingdom [of God] which is justice for all." Acts 8:12 and 28:23 and 31 reveal that Philip and Paul preached a two-pronged gospel: "[Paul] preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ."
What happens if we don't preach the second half of the gospel? History teaches us some terrible lessons.
1. The Puritans attempted to be a godly and biblical people and in many ways they were. But they did not understand that justice and shalom applied to all peoples. They saw themselves as God's chosen people---chosen to set up a Christian nation on these shores. But there was more than a touch of biblical ignorance, arrogance and ethnocentrism in their sense of chosenness. And they conveniently forgot that someone else already owned this land---Indians and God. After a period of relative harmony with Native Americans, as Puritans numbers grew and they needed more land, ethnic conflict developed. Increasingly, the Puritans saw the surrounding tribes as heathen, as Canaanites, standing in the way of God's will.
When large numbers of Indians died from disease, Puritans saw this as the hand of God eliminating the heathen from their midst. A religiously legitimated ethnocentrism soon led to acts of oppression---the killing of whole villages, men, women and children, and the offering of bounties for the scalps of Indians. Incomplete biblical truth or more accurately, heresy, had tragic consequences; the Puritans who saw themselves as chosen instruments of God became instruments of evil. They also set in motion the ethnocentric and oppressive pattern that became part and parcel of much of the rest of American history. What was missing from their understanding of the preaching and practice of the gospel? Are we in 2014 still committing the same error? See G.E. Thomas, "Puritans, Indians, and the Concept of Race," The New England Quarterly, March, 1975.
2. The Afrikaners did much the same thing in South Africa. During the time when they governed, most evil Afrikaners attended church. They zealously kept the Sabbath day holy. Public TV opened with Bible reading and prayer (to what God?). Abortion and pornography were low compared to the United States. Sounds like paradise? But at the same time that they manifested this religious spirit [reread Isaiah 58], they treated their fellow Africans as inferior human beings. Their religiously legitimated ethnocentrism led to vicious and ruthless acts of oppression. What was missing from the Afrikaner understanding and practice of the gospel?
3. The American South---the Bible Belt; ethnocentrism/racism and oppression ran wild during the eras of slavery and segregation, and during today's unjust mass incarceration of young black and Hispanic males and our massive racial wealth gap. Far too often, Christians and churches were a part of the problem, not a part of the solution. What was missing from these bible-believing, born again evangelicals understanding and practice of the gospel?
4. The Pentecostal movement. One more sad event in American church history needs to be recounted. John Dawson describes the origins of American Pentecostalism in his fine book Healing America's Wounds:
"The [1906] Azusa St. Revival was a modern Pentecost in which the outpoured Spirit broke the barriers to true Christian unity. Racial division, America's greatest problem, was swept away. The huge dirt-floor barn that housed William Seymor's [Afro American] church attracted scores of ethnic groups from their separate enclaves across Los Angeles. . . . [Then racism enters] This sincere and loving man---Seymor's friend---was afflicted with the blindness of his generation. He admired the Ku Klux Klan and believed that the besetting sin of humanity was racial mixing. . . . After denouncing Seymor, he continues his ministry, preaching against racial mixing and proclaiming the baptism of the Holy Spirit. . . . Pentecostalism divided into two groups. one black and one white, between 1908 and 1914. Glossolia became the new emphasis. . . . and God's true purpose went down the memory hole.
A flawed church that preaches and practices a partial gospel leaves a spiritual vacuum. Evil rushed in to fill that vacuum. What was missing from the Pentecostal brand of the gospel?
5. In Rwanda, supposedly the most Christian nation in Africa (8 out of 10 profess to be Christian), ethnic conflict exploded between and Tutsi and the Hutu. The cross and resurrection were preached; evangelism was widespread. The Holy Spirit was present in a Protestant continuous revival and in a charismatic Catholic revival. Seemingly, Rwanda was deeply Christian.
Some ruthless politicians fanned the existing embers of ethnocentrism which then exploded into a forest fire that ravaged the land. The Christian church had not erected any reconciliation or justice barriers which could stop the raging fires of bitterness and hatred. Flawed colonialism Western Christianity played a major part. Tragically many Christians engaged in the numerous murders and many Christians were murdered. Serious flaws in the understanding and practice of the gospel can lead to fatal consequences.
From these five tragic case studies, it should be very obvious that we need to revisit the Bible and find what has been missing in our brand of the gospel. In my opinion, what has been missing is the Holy Spirit empowering the church to incarnate the kingdom of God as reconciliation and justice, especially among the oppressed poor.
Luke, chapter four, can help us at this point. There are four key concepts in Luke 4:18-19: the Spirit, the poor, the oppressed and Jubilee justice. The poor are the central focus of this passage; any gospel that does not make the poor central in its ministry is not biblical. In Luke the poor are the economically poor. In the Scriptures, the primary, but not the only cause, of poverty is oppression. But the phrase "to release the oppressed" is not found in the quoted Isaiah 61 passage. Jesus adds it from Isaiah 58:6; he goes out of his way to make sure that freeing people from the bondage of oppression is part of the NT gospel. Oppression means to crush, humiliate, animalize, impoverish, enslave and kill. Too often misguided American Christians have engaged in oppression instead of stopping oppression.
How do biblical Christians deal with poverty and oppression. One effective biblical way in to do Jubilee justice. The goal of Jubilee justice: "There shall be no poor among you." The method: cancel debts, free slaves and return lost land to the original family. Jubilee justice stops lifelong or even generational systems of oppression. Jubilee justice also provides the resources for self-sufficiency, for the development of a community---the return of the land. The phrase "the year of the Lord's favor" refers to the OT Jubilee. If justice is done for the poor, then the conditions for shalom in a community are established. If poverty and oppression are sharply reduced, if justice is done and shalom begun, the the kingdom of God is present. When Jesus finished reading from Isaiah 61, he uttered these significant words: "Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Paraphrased Jesus said that the kingdom of God has arrived; not get busy doing Jubilee justice, doing works of justice.
Pastor Graham Cray has nailed this sentiment in this powerful one-liner: "The agenda of the kingdom of God is justice; the dynamic of the kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit." Meditate on and memorize this one.
But Jesus is not done. There is one more major sin that needs to be addressed. After Jesus finished sermon A, he was well received. After Jesus finished sermon B, the same Jews tried to eliminate him, on the spot. At this time the Jews had corrupted their original high calling---to bring into the world the Messiah who would minister to all ethnos, all peoples, all nations. But instead of remaining a servant people, the Jews now saw themselves as a superior people---superior to the heathen, unclean Gentiles.
Jesus recounted and interpreted two familiar OT stories: Elijah was sent to a starving Gentile; he ignored starving Hebrew widows. Elisha was sent to heal a Gentile leper, not to any of the Hebrew lepers. This interpretation---that God equally loved the Gentiles---enraged the Nazareth Jews; to them this was heresy. When Jesus pointed pointed out their religiously based ethnocentrism, they tried to kill him by throwing him over a cliff.
In Luke 9, we find Jesus condemning the ethnocentrism of his own disciples. In the first verses of chapter 9, Jesus gives his disciple his power and authority to heal the sick, cast out demons and preach the kingdom. Great, nothing can go wrong with this arrangement, can it" Yes, and it was almost tragic. 9:51 describes a trip from Galilee to Jerusalem through Samaria. Walking took about three days, so Jesus and his disciples had to stay overnight in Samaria. When a Samaritan village refused to let them stay overnight because they were despised Jews, James and John were incensed. They wanted to misuse their new found power and authority to destroy the whole Samaritan village---pull a Sodom and Gomorrah! Jesus strongly rebuked them, using the same word that is found in verse 42 when Jesus rebuked an evil spirit.
The Jesus seized the teaching moment; a short time later Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. We are to love our ethnic neighbors, not destroy them. Love and justice should control our use of power, not an evil attempts to maintain our ethnic superiority.
So early on in his ministry, Jesus directly addressed both ethnocentrism and oppression---the two social sins that most bible-believing evangelicals do not address; in fact two social evils that American evangelicals often commit. We often send out missionaries who are spiritual and ethnocentric; a terribly tragic combination. Ethnocentrism was a continuing problem in the NT church. Jesus and Paul opposed it vigorously and pushed hard for reconciliation.
Why do the oppressed poor need the gospel of the Spirit, the kingdom of God and justice? Without it, Isaiah 61 describes the state of the oppressed poor as:
a spirit of despair; a pile of ashes; a state of mourning
How destructive can ethnocentrism and oppression get? How much human damage can they do? According to the Scriptures and Jesus, an unbelievable amount of damage to individuals and communities. So why have ethnocentrism and oppression been left out of white evangelical theology? Could it be that by avoiding oppression it is then easy to put the blame for social problems on the victim; find flaws and dysfunction in the victim so whites then have no guilt? What do you think the problem is?
According to Exodus 6:1-8, God speaks to Moses and very specifically says that he will deliver the children of Israel from the slave bondage to the Egyptians. In Exodus 6:9, we find Israel's response to God's promise (RSV): "Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and cruel bondage." Exodus 6:9 from The Message: "But when Moses delivered this message to the Israelites, they didn't even hear him---they were that beaten down in spirit by the harsh slave conditions."
Severe lifelong or even generational ethnocentrism and oppression can so break the human spirit that the promises of God seem empty. Apparently in Exodus 6:9, the large majority of the people, not just a few individuals, were crushed in their spirits. I summarize the generational impact of systems of oppression as:
1. physical death ranging from individuals death to genocide
2. psychological death as in broken or crushed in spirit
3. social death when cultural values and social institutions are shattered thereby preventing their normal functioning including the breakup of the basic institutions of marriage and family.
This sounds like some analyses of America's inner cities. Cornel West asserts that the number one crisis is a spirit of despair, a lack of hope, a void of meaning. Quite literally, many urban youth live by this philosophy: "Eat, drink and seduce, for tomorrow I will likely die or go to prison."
Orlando Patterson, Harvard historical sociologist, argues that the gender relations crisis (marriage and family, male and female) is a major crisis ravaging not only the poor but all classes in the Afro American community. Tensions and conflict, high rates of divorce, low rates of marriage, lack of marriageable black males, makes for high rates of alienation and isolation. See Patterson's Rituals of Blood and Slavery and Social Death.
Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow describes how unjust mass incarceration devastates inner city families and communities. Thomas Shapiro in his book The Hidden Cost of Being African American reveals how the massive racial wealth gap does much the same.
After the Holocaust, many Jews could no longer believe in a God who would stand idly by and let genocide happen. They became secular Jews, but a strange thing happened. They kept a strong sense of social justice; the majority of the 1000 northern volunteers for the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign were secular Jews. Since God, or better yet God's church, wasn't acting to end segregation, these secular Jews played the role of gods and committed themselves to assist Mississippi blacks break down evil, legal segregation.
Obviously, it will take a massive effort by the church to solve the above crises. Recent research (Divided by Faith) shows that the typical white middle class evangelical does not understand these crises nor do they care deeply enough to respond. Instead they blame the victim---the poor and oppressed. They are not acting as God's agents to stop oppression and to do justice, in part, because they are the oppressors and benefit from the status quo. They will engage in charity from time to time, but little justice. I am grateful for every exception to this rule, but we must be clear that these are exceptions.
It will require justice to bestow on the oppressed poor a crown of beauty to replace the pile of ashes.
It will require justice to provide the oil of gladness to replace a state of mourning.
It will require justice to clothe the oppressed poor with a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
Is our gospel powerful enough to deal with the problem of poverty? Can it stop the horror of oppression?
John Perkins describes the American church as preaching a gospel "that accommodates itself to racism and bigotry." Lee Harper describes Mississippi Christianity this way: "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things [the church] that appeared just." I describes much of American Christianity as an unholy mixture of spirituality and ethnocentrism/oppression or a syncretistic blend of the Christianity and the American trinity.
Without the Spirit, the Kingdom and Jubilee justice as a part of the gospel we preach and practice, the American trinity floods in and corrupts the church. Without the Spirit, the Kingdom and Jubilee justice, we do not have a gospel that is powerful enough to meet the needs of the oppressed poor. The relevant Scripture: the Messianic passages from Isaiah, Luke 4:18-19 and Romans 14:17.
Chapter Two
What does good news to the poor look like? It builds on John 3:16, but it must also include Luke 4:18-19. Good news to the poor begins with a personal sin, personal salvation gospel based on the cross and resurrection, but it must also include the kingdom of God as Jubilee justice for the poor. To my knowledge, no theologian has ever tied the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of God and Jubilee justice in one holistic package---a package different from but as important as the cross and resurrection package. Billy Graham (Transformation, Jan/Feb., 1989) wrote the following when he was about 70 years old, but without any elaboration, not even a reference to any Scriptures:
"I have come to see in deeper ways the implications of my faith. . . . I can no longer proclaim the Cross and the Resurrection without proclaiming the whole message of the Kingdom [of God] which is justice for all." Acts 8:12 and 28:23 and 31 reveal that Philip and Paul preached a two-pronged gospel: "[Paul] preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ."
What happens if we don't preach the second half of the gospel? History teaches us some terrible lessons.
1. The Puritans attempted to be a godly and biblical people and in many ways they were. But they did not understand that justice and shalom applied to all peoples. They saw themselves as God's chosen people---chosen to set up a Christian nation on these shores. But there was more than a touch of biblical ignorance, arrogance and ethnocentrism in their sense of chosenness. And they conveniently forgot that someone else already owned this land---Indians and God. After a period of relative harmony with Native Americans, as Puritans numbers grew and they needed more land, ethnic conflict developed. Increasingly, the Puritans saw the surrounding tribes as heathen, as Canaanites, standing in the way of God's will.
When large numbers of Indians died from disease, Puritans saw this as the hand of God eliminating the heathen from their midst. A religiously legitimated ethnocentrism soon led to acts of oppression---the killing of whole villages, men, women and children, and the offering of bounties for the scalps of Indians. Incomplete biblical truth or more accurately, heresy, had tragic consequences; the Puritans who saw themselves as chosen instruments of God became instruments of evil. They also set in motion the ethnocentric and oppressive pattern that became part and parcel of much of the rest of American history. What was missing from their understanding of the preaching and practice of the gospel? Are we in 2014 still committing the same error? See G.E. Thomas, "Puritans, Indians, and the Concept of Race," The New England Quarterly, March, 1975.
2. The Afrikaners did much the same thing in South Africa. During the time when they governed, most evil Afrikaners attended church. They zealously kept the Sabbath day holy. Public TV opened with Bible reading and prayer (to what God?). Abortion and pornography were low compared to the United States. Sounds like paradise? But at the same time that they manifested this religious spirit [reread Isaiah 58], they treated their fellow Africans as inferior human beings. Their religiously legitimated ethnocentrism led to vicious and ruthless acts of oppression. What was missing from the Afrikaner understanding and practice of the gospel?
3. The American South---the Bible Belt; ethnocentrism/racism and oppression ran wild during the eras of slavery and segregation, and during today's unjust mass incarceration of young black and Hispanic males and our massive racial wealth gap. Far too often, Christians and churches were a part of the problem, not a part of the solution. What was missing from these bible-believing, born again evangelicals understanding and practice of the gospel?
4. The Pentecostal movement. One more sad event in American church history needs to be recounted. John Dawson describes the origins of American Pentecostalism in his fine book Healing America's Wounds:
"The [1906] Azusa St. Revival was a modern Pentecost in which the outpoured Spirit broke the barriers to true Christian unity. Racial division, America's greatest problem, was swept away. The huge dirt-floor barn that housed William Seymor's [Afro American] church attracted scores of ethnic groups from their separate enclaves across Los Angeles. . . . [Then racism enters] This sincere and loving man---Seymor's friend---was afflicted with the blindness of his generation. He admired the Ku Klux Klan and believed that the besetting sin of humanity was racial mixing. . . . After denouncing Seymor, he continues his ministry, preaching against racial mixing and proclaiming the baptism of the Holy Spirit. . . . Pentecostalism divided into two groups. one black and one white, between 1908 and 1914. Glossolia became the new emphasis. . . . and God's true purpose went down the memory hole.
A flawed church that preaches and practices a partial gospel leaves a spiritual vacuum. Evil rushed in to fill that vacuum. What was missing from the Pentecostal brand of the gospel?
5. In Rwanda, supposedly the most Christian nation in Africa (8 out of 10 profess to be Christian), ethnic conflict exploded between and Tutsi and the Hutu. The cross and resurrection were preached; evangelism was widespread. The Holy Spirit was present in a Protestant continuous revival and in a charismatic Catholic revival. Seemingly, Rwanda was deeply Christian.
Some ruthless politicians fanned the existing embers of ethnocentrism which then exploded into a forest fire that ravaged the land. The Christian church had not erected any reconciliation or justice barriers which could stop the raging fires of bitterness and hatred. Flawed colonialism Western Christianity played a major part. Tragically many Christians engaged in the numerous murders and many Christians were murdered. Serious flaws in the understanding and practice of the gospel can lead to fatal consequences.
From these five tragic case studies, it should be very obvious that we need to revisit the Bible and find what has been missing in our brand of the gospel. In my opinion, what has been missing is the Holy Spirit empowering the church to incarnate the kingdom of God as reconciliation and justice, especially among the oppressed poor.
Luke, chapter four, can help us at this point. There are four key concepts in Luke 4:18-19: the Spirit, the poor, the oppressed and Jubilee justice. The poor are the central focus of this passage; any gospel that does not make the poor central in its ministry is not biblical. In Luke the poor are the economically poor. In the Scriptures, the primary, but not the only cause, of poverty is oppression. But the phrase "to release the oppressed" is not found in the quoted Isaiah 61 passage. Jesus adds it from Isaiah 58:6; he goes out of his way to make sure that freeing people from the bondage of oppression is part of the NT gospel. Oppression means to crush, humiliate, animalize, impoverish, enslave and kill. Too often misguided American Christians have engaged in oppression instead of stopping oppression.
How do biblical Christians deal with poverty and oppression. One effective biblical way in to do Jubilee justice. The goal of Jubilee justice: "There shall be no poor among you." The method: cancel debts, free slaves and return lost land to the original family. Jubilee justice stops lifelong or even generational systems of oppression. Jubilee justice also provides the resources for self-sufficiency, for the development of a community---the return of the land. The phrase "the year of the Lord's favor" refers to the OT Jubilee. If justice is done for the poor, then the conditions for shalom in a community are established. If poverty and oppression are sharply reduced, if justice is done and shalom begun, the the kingdom of God is present. When Jesus finished reading from Isaiah 61, he uttered these significant words: "Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Paraphrased Jesus said that the kingdom of God has arrived; not get busy doing Jubilee justice, doing works of justice.
Pastor Graham Cray has nailed this sentiment in this powerful one-liner: "The agenda of the kingdom of God is justice; the dynamic of the kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit." Meditate on and memorize this one.
But Jesus is not done. There is one more major sin that needs to be addressed. After Jesus finished sermon A, he was well received. After Jesus finished sermon B, the same Jews tried to eliminate him, on the spot. At this time the Jews had corrupted their original high calling---to bring into the world the Messiah who would minister to all ethnos, all peoples, all nations. But instead of remaining a servant people, the Jews now saw themselves as a superior people---superior to the heathen, unclean Gentiles.
Jesus recounted and interpreted two familiar OT stories: Elijah was sent to a starving Gentile; he ignored starving Hebrew widows. Elisha was sent to heal a Gentile leper, not to any of the Hebrew lepers. This interpretation---that God equally loved the Gentiles---enraged the Nazareth Jews; to them this was heresy. When Jesus pointed pointed out their religiously based ethnocentrism, they tried to kill him by throwing him over a cliff.
In Luke 9, we find Jesus condemning the ethnocentrism of his own disciples. In the first verses of chapter 9, Jesus gives his disciple his power and authority to heal the sick, cast out demons and preach the kingdom. Great, nothing can go wrong with this arrangement, can it" Yes, and it was almost tragic. 9:51 describes a trip from Galilee to Jerusalem through Samaria. Walking took about three days, so Jesus and his disciples had to stay overnight in Samaria. When a Samaritan village refused to let them stay overnight because they were despised Jews, James and John were incensed. They wanted to misuse their new found power and authority to destroy the whole Samaritan village---pull a Sodom and Gomorrah! Jesus strongly rebuked them, using the same word that is found in verse 42 when Jesus rebuked an evil spirit.
The Jesus seized the teaching moment; a short time later Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. We are to love our ethnic neighbors, not destroy them. Love and justice should control our use of power, not an evil attempts to maintain our ethnic superiority.
So early on in his ministry, Jesus directly addressed both ethnocentrism and oppression---the two social sins that most bible-believing evangelicals do not address; in fact two social evils that American evangelicals often commit. We often send out missionaries who are spiritual and ethnocentric; a terribly tragic combination. Ethnocentrism was a continuing problem in the NT church. Jesus and Paul opposed it vigorously and pushed hard for reconciliation.
Why do the oppressed poor need the gospel of the Spirit, the kingdom of God and justice? Without it, Isaiah 61 describes the state of the oppressed poor as:
a spirit of despair; a pile of ashes; a state of mourning
How destructive can ethnocentrism and oppression get? How much human damage can they do? According to the Scriptures and Jesus, an unbelievable amount of damage to individuals and communities. So why have ethnocentrism and oppression been left out of white evangelical theology? Could it be that by avoiding oppression it is then easy to put the blame for social problems on the victim; find flaws and dysfunction in the victim so whites then have no guilt? What do you think the problem is?
According to Exodus 6:1-8, God speaks to Moses and very specifically says that he will deliver the children of Israel from the slave bondage to the Egyptians. In Exodus 6:9, we find Israel's response to God's promise (RSV): "Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and cruel bondage." Exodus 6:9 from The Message: "But when Moses delivered this message to the Israelites, they didn't even hear him---they were that beaten down in spirit by the harsh slave conditions."
Severe lifelong or even generational ethnocentrism and oppression can so break the human spirit that the promises of God seem empty. Apparently in Exodus 6:9, the large majority of the people, not just a few individuals, were crushed in their spirits. I summarize the generational impact of systems of oppression as:
1. physical death ranging from individuals death to genocide
2. psychological death as in broken or crushed in spirit
3. social death when cultural values and social institutions are shattered thereby preventing their normal functioning including the breakup of the basic institutions of marriage and family.
This sounds like some analyses of America's inner cities. Cornel West asserts that the number one crisis is a spirit of despair, a lack of hope, a void of meaning. Quite literally, many urban youth live by this philosophy: "Eat, drink and seduce, for tomorrow I will likely die or go to prison."
Orlando Patterson, Harvard historical sociologist, argues that the gender relations crisis (marriage and family, male and female) is a major crisis ravaging not only the poor but all classes in the Afro American community. Tensions and conflict, high rates of divorce, low rates of marriage, lack of marriageable black males, makes for high rates of alienation and isolation. See Patterson's Rituals of Blood and Slavery and Social Death.
Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow describes how unjust mass incarceration devastates inner city families and communities. Thomas Shapiro in his book The Hidden Cost of Being African American reveals how the massive racial wealth gap does much the same.
After the Holocaust, many Jews could no longer believe in a God who would stand idly by and let genocide happen. They became secular Jews, but a strange thing happened. They kept a strong sense of social justice; the majority of the 1000 northern volunteers for the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign were secular Jews. Since God, or better yet God's church, wasn't acting to end segregation, these secular Jews played the role of gods and committed themselves to assist Mississippi blacks break down evil, legal segregation.
Obviously, it will take a massive effort by the church to solve the above crises. Recent research (Divided by Faith) shows that the typical white middle class evangelical does not understand these crises nor do they care deeply enough to respond. Instead they blame the victim---the poor and oppressed. They are not acting as God's agents to stop oppression and to do justice, in part, because they are the oppressors and benefit from the status quo. They will engage in charity from time to time, but little justice. I am grateful for every exception to this rule, but we must be clear that these are exceptions.
It will require justice to bestow on the oppressed poor a crown of beauty to replace the pile of ashes.
It will require justice to provide the oil of gladness to replace a state of mourning.
It will require justice to clothe the oppressed poor with a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Chapter 1 The Power and Deception
Chapter 1 The Power and Deception of Culture
Culture (cosmos) has an incredible power to shape our thinking, values and actions. Romans 12:2 warns: "Don't let the world squeeze you into its own mold." Or "Don't let the evil social order brainwash you into accepting its values as your own."
Culture possession can be as evil, as demonic, as individual demon possession. Only a small percentage of persons in a society actually become demon possessed, but nearly everyone is a culture is poisoned by negative cultural values. If a person is born into a racist culture and lives in that culture for her/his first eighteen years, such a person is "predestined" to become a racist to some degree. And possibly that individual might even believe that this racist social system is ordained by God.
It is my conviction that American culture is pervaded by the negative values of the American trinity---hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism. And that most Americans serve two trinities---the Christian trinity and the American trinity---at the same time, or at least they try to do so. Most of these American Christians are not aware of what they are doing nor do they realize the deep conflict between the two trinities.
Another way of expressing the power that culture has over our lives is that with every breath of cultural air we take in, we are gradually poisoned with negative culture values. The process is slow, quiet, and subtle so we are usually unaware of what is going on. But over time the amount of cultural poison we absorb is large---large enough to make us sick. But this sickness may appear to be quite normal to most people because these same people are equally sick.
There is a culture war going on in America, but the real war is not between the religious right and the secular left; it is between American culture and the kingdom of God. Unless kingdom of God concepts and values are pervading our lives, we are almost automatic victims of our cosmos culture.
Allow me to illustrate this point by using the life of General Lee Butler, former commander of the nation's nuclear forces, as a mirror to see ourselves. The following is from an interview with General Butler published in Sojourners, Jan/Feb, 1999. Butler was born and raised in Mississippi:
"As a child, it was a burden that I never understood, and did not perceive or feel until my later formative years, after I had gone off to the Academy. Only then did it dawn on me that the society in which I had grown up was so tortured and morally debased by its deep racial divisions.
"I have spent years going back over that historical terrain trying to imagine how it was that I was so indifferent to a world where blacks and whites went to different schools, drank from different water fountains, rode in different seats on public transportation. Where blacks were considered chattel property, were abused and even murdered on whims. All of that was accepted as not just normal but the rightful scheme of things. It was not until I was a young adult and had left that environment permanently that it finally came crashing home how despicable were these circumstances. . . .
"The parallels with respect to my attitudes toward nuclear weapons are very strong, as today I strive to understand how we came to normalize the process of shearing away an entire society, to accept as a routine price of deterrence the slaughter of populations wholesale. We not only treated these policies and practices as normal. but invented sophisticated theoretical schemes and strategic underpinnings to structure this normalcy. In many respects, we elevated it to theology. I think that there are very powerful analogies between dealing with the legacy of racism and the belief systems of nuclear deterrence."
So we see from the life of General Butler, Christian though he was, that he was the victim of two brainwashings; first, by his Mississippi culture, then by his military culture. Fortunately, he was freed from both of these non-Christian ideologies or idolatries, but not before he served them for many years as an oppressor or potential oppressor. Unfortunately, many American Christians go to their death still believing in the idolatrous values of racism and militarism. Can idolaters go to heaven; will church membership save them?
Obviously, we need a more biblical gospel to deal with these issues. Possibly Walter Brueggeman's A Social Reading of the Old Testament, 1994, can help us think more biblically about these social issues. Americans think so individualistically that it is difficult for them to recognize social evil.
Brueggeman is well read sociologically so he combines sociology and theology and sees things many people cannot see. He wants theology to be able to address the great issues facing modern human beings. For example, Karl Marx was deeply disturbed by "the social alienation caused by capitalism and the role of religion in legitimating social structures that are exploitative and dehumanizing." Christianity and capitalism were hastily married; a marriage that ended up supporting individualism and materialism and weakening community. Had there been a clear theology of society, the church would have resisted materialistic capitalism and worked to preserve community.
Max Weber was concerned about the excessive power of a highly rational bureaucracy which also would be destructive of human community. Emile Durkheim was worried about the loss of social cohesion in the midst of social change. Norms are weakened and communities cannot remain healthy in a state of normlessness. Without strong norms, social problems increase.
The prophet needs to question the existing status quo and urge the church to challenge and change the unjust situation, not legitimate it. Brueggeman asserts that the prophets understood how society operated, that it was "an organization of social power," built upon "land, money, hardware and technology." Social power and social systems interacted to create a social system. In the OT, the priests controlled the religiously based social system. When the social system became corrupt, its leaders could hide behind religion to cover their tracks. The prophets task is to expose what is going on, and then to create a new social reality based on truth and justice. But they have to fight with false prophets who are misusing the same religious system to sanctify the unjust status quo. Personal sin is involved, but the problem is much deeper than personal sin alone. Social evil has become incarnated in the values of society thereby becoming deeply entrenched.
Though labeled religious rebels by Isaiah, though engaging in idolatry and oppression, many of the people of Israel still fasted, prayed, worshipped; they seemed to be genuinely religious. Isaiah bluntly tells them the error of their ways. Social evil also pervaded the religio-social system of Jesus' time. The Temple and the priesthood were corrupt. In Matthew 23, Jesus directly exposes their hypocrisy. Jesus was more concerned about Jewish corruption and oppression than he was about Roman oppression.
Unless American Christians begin to think biblically about social concepts such as oppression and justice, we will fall prey to such things as racism and militarism as did General Butler. Social evil will corrupt us even as we fight the battle with personal sin. We must fight on both fronts or we will lose the battle.
In a sense we expect the secular, godless culture to yield to social evil; this is bad, but when the church is penetrated by ethnocentrism and oppression this is much worse. A case in point. Recently I read a small book by Scott MacLoed, Snakes in the Lobby; MacLoed is a musician and songwriter. He describes a vision he had:
"I was standing in a well-known hotel lobby, which I had literally stood in earlier that same day during a very well-known Christian music conference. In the vision the very large and open lobby was packed full. . . . Many were artists, musicians or people directly involved in the business of music. . . . Much to my astonishment and horror, I saw what looked like a massive snake lying on the lobby floor. . . . Amazingly, people were actually leaning up against it! . . . no one else seemed to notice it---they just carried on with their business. Many people were surrounded, and some were even totally wrapped up in its monstrous coils, and yet they were still unaware. They were all in great danger. . . . It seemed almost welcome here. . . . The oversized snakes were everywhere. . . . I knew immediately that the great snakes I had seen in the vision were the principalities and dark power (or evil spirits) that have been controlling and manipulating much of Christian music."
The MacLoed was given an interpretation of his vision. The biggest snake's name was self-promotion. Other snakes' names were lust, pride, insecurity, fear of man, jealousy, etc. One white snake with a light that radiated from it was called religion. In the presence of this white snake "everything looked normal in the lobby---orderly and prosperous. People were smiling, gracious and respectable. There was no sign of trouble."
A spirit told MacLoed, "This is a Christian function. Everything that is done here is done in the name of Jesus." MacLoed explains, "This was none other than the voice of 'Religion,' the same power that had gone against my Savior." There were also snake-keepers in the lobby; they fed the snakes money. This reminded MacLoed of Matthew 23:25-26, where the religious leaders of his day were condemned by Jesus because they were "full of greed and self-indulgence."
I cannot prove that MacLoed's vision is valid, but my sociological and biblical study leads me to a similar conclusion. In Jesus' time, the real enemy was not Roman oppression, as most Jews concluded (Jesus never railed against Roman oppression in the gospels); rather, it was a degenerate Jewish religion led by a corrupt religio-politico-economic elite. In America, the real enemy is not secular humanism, as many Christians assert. In actuality, it is the church comfortably co-existing with the American trinity. The American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism/racism is the snake in our midst; watch out, its bite is deadly!
Back to Mississippi, the state with the worst case scenario of social evil corrupting the church. By and large, the white church supported slavery and segregation. When the federal government finally ordered the Mississippi public schools desegregated, the church helped set up private white schools to avoid segregation. John Perkins said that once again the Baptist church became the bastion of segregation. Some of these Christian private schools are beginning to integrate in 2014, but by and large, schools are still segregated today. Oppression and poverty are still widespread in Mississippi doing enormous damage to blacks, to quality education, etc.
The American trinity has also infiltrated the black church in terms of individualism and materialism. Four blocks east of the Perkins Center in West Jackson, MS is a four square block area bordered by Prentiss and Rose, Robinson and the Parkway. In this poverty-stricken area, there are three impressive church buildings; considerable monies have gone into million dollar church buildings while most of the surrounding residential housing has deteriorated or is deteriorating. Just east of this area, Habitat for Humanity has built around a dozen houses. Just west of this area. the Perkins Center has a model for rebuilding poor communities. Even so, these three black churches have done little to rebuild their surrounding community. The American trinity has infiltrated both the white and black churches in Mississippi. My black friend, Lee Harper who was born and raised in Mississippi, has summed it up well with this one-liner: "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things that appeared just." For injustice ran deep in the white church.
In America, we badly need the Spirit of truth and the Word of truth and prophets of historical and social truth to show us the nature of ethnocentrism and oppression and then to chart the path to justice and reconciliation.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Introduction to blog book: Is Justice a Joke?
Is the biblical promise of justice a joke? (The Message, Habakkuk, chapter 1). Is justice always the loser? (CEV). Is justice always perverted? (RSV). The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk thought so. So does the black American lawyer, Michelle Alexander (2010). And the black journalist, Ta-Nehisi Coates (June 2014). Also the black lawyer/activist, Randall Robinson (2007), An Unbroken [Haitian] Agony.
In "Christian" America, is the promise of justice a joke? A Native American Habakkuk would likely agree that the promise of justice is hollow. So would an Afro American Habakkuk, a Mexican American Habakkuk, a Chinese American Habakkuk, a Japanese America Habakkuk, a Hawaiian American Habakkuk, a Filipino American Habakkuk, a Korean American Habakkuk. In spite of a large Christian presence in America, justice was far too often perverted. Spirituality was divorced from the doing of Jubilee justice; therefore, ethnocentrism and oppression were left unchecked and unchallenged so they run rampant. But worse than this, religion was often perverted to legitimate oppression.
In her ground-breaking book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander argues that America does not really end systems of oppression; it merely redesigns them---in both the North and South.
This is how the front page of The Atlantic ("The Case for Reparations," The Atlantic, June 2014) sums up Ta-Nehisi Coates' thesis:
"250 years of slavery.
90 years of Jim Crow.
60 years of separate but equal.
35 years of state sanctioned redlining.
Until we reckon with [repent]the compounding moral debts of our ancestors, America will never be whole."
Coates documents his argument in both Mississippi and Chicago---the new Mississippi.
This is my summary of Coates' thesis and how the church should respond:
"Until the American church understands both oppression and justice, until the white church repents of its arrogance, ethnocentrism and oppression and engages in the restitution that biblical justice requires, we cannot have shalom in our families, communities and our nation. The beautiful phrase "with liberty and justice for all," will only be hollow hypocrisy."
To Habakkuk, injustice ran so deep and so wide that it appeared to him that God had gone on a deistic vacation. The supposedly just God was AWOL. Habakkuk demanded an answer from God. God did answer Habakkuk (my paraphrase):
"I will take care of this huge injustice problem in due time. I do know what is going on; I am not sleeping on the job. In the meantime, I have a marching order for you, and the church. Continue to live righteously, continue to do justice, even in the midst of massive injustice. Do this by faith, that, in my sovereign wisdom, I will act and bring the unrepentant oppressor to judgment. The choice for us all is: do justice or face judgment. I, God, love justice; therefore I call my people to engage in works of justice."
Is justice a joke in these United States of America? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding, YES! From its colonial beginnings down to the present. Why? Primarily because of the catastrophic heresies in the white evangelical church in terms of failing to preach and practice a comprehensive kingdom of God gospel with a focus on justice for the oppressed poor. To put it simply, we have been plagued with a gospel that promotes a spirituality without justice; or a gospel that weds spirituality and injustice. See Isaiah 58 and its New Testament counterpart, the Sermon on the Mount.
You demand evidence for these strong words?
1. Cite me a single white American evangelical theologian who has written a book on the extensive biblical teaching on oppression.
2. Cite me a single white American evangelical theologian who has written a book on poverty who has included a chapter on the biblical teaching on oppression.
3. Cite me a single white American theologian who had thoroughly rejusticized the New Testament.
4. Two revered Protestant spiritual giants, Jonathan Edwards and A.W. Tozer, promoted a spirituality without justice; both are social heretics.
5. The supposedly biblical Puritans paid money for the scalps of Indians; and they praised God when disease wiped out Native Americans.
6. The supposedly Christian founding fathers made Native Americans, Afro Americans, women and the poor second class citizens.
7. Many Christians supported the near genocide of Indians and the stealing of their land.
8. Many Christians supported the unjust Mexican American was and the settlement which took nearly half of Mexico's land.
9. A praying U.S. president conquered the Philippines, killing roughly a million Filipinos who resisted "God's Will." (The Philippine Reader).
I have briefly described the rampant oppression which has characterized much of American history ( just 5 minutes ago, I read this headline : "Investigation: ATF drug stings targeted minorities: 91% of those locked up were racial or ethnic minorities," July 21, 2014, USA Today.) and the tragic results. But what was/is the cause. The gospel of Luke can help us with this dilemma.
In Luke, Jesus highlights the oppressed poor in his ministry, but in his teaching, Jesus spends more time identifying and confronting the religious rich as the primary cause of poverty. For Jesus, the religious rich are THE social problem, not the poor; the poor have many problems, but they are NOT the social problem. Based on the larger context, Jesus' "Woe to the rich" statement could well have been "Woe to the religious rich!" The religious rich ran the Temple as a "den of robbers"; the religious rich were condemned as a people who neglected justice and the love of God.
Justice is a joke because the religious rich are in control; these religious rich are the oppressors. The religious rich in America co-opt the church, the only social institution in America that could, if it would, release the oppressed from the grips of the rich and then do Jubilee justice. When the church is seduced by the rich and preaches a toothless justice gospel, all hope is lost. And then the rich oppressors praise God; their only potential opposition has been silenced. Religious piety is only good if it is tied to Jubilee justice; this rarely happens in America, and when it does,it only goes halfway.
Centuries of ethnocentrism and oppression in America have produced physical, psychological and social death---from individual deaths to genocide, broken spirits, and damaged cultural values and social institutions---on a large scale; therefore, justice has been and still is a joke. When justice is broken, people are crushed. Systems of oppression such as unjust mass incarceration and the unjust racial wealth gap continue today unabated. As Michelle Alexander asserts, in America we really don't end systems of oppression, we merely redesign them.
Social evil is much more than racism that discriminates:
It is pirates who plunder---lives, land, resources.
It is tyrants who terrorize---destroy families and communities.
It is law that legalizes robbery.
It is ethnocentrism that legitimates oppression.
It is perverted religion that sanctifies all of the above.
White privilege is built upon white plunder.
Theological bankruptcy permits pirates who plunder.
Among the pirates are the Puritans, the Supreme Court, the criminal justice system, banks and real estate brokers and some pastors/churches.
Is Justice a Joke? It is in a nation where white mainland pirates plundered all non-whites; then these white pirates built an Arch to celebrate.
Bibliography
* The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race in America from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth Century by Forrest Wood, Northeastern University Press, 1990. "The central thesis of this book is that Christianity has been fundamentally racist in its ideology, organization and practice."
* Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith, Oxford University Press, 2000. Evangelicals themselves are preserving the racial chasm with an individualistic theology which ignores the biblical teaching on oppression and justice, assert these two professional Christian sociologists.
* "Puritans, Indians, and the Concept of Race," by G.E. Thomas in The New England Quarterly, March, 1975. "The record of Puritan attitudes, goals, and behavior in every major interaction with Indians reveals a continued harshness, brutality, and ethnocentric bias which had fatal consequences for Indians as a race." And, tragically, the Puritan example set the pattern for the rest of American history.
* Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire Building by Richard Drinnon, New American Library, 1980. "From the first Puritan confrontation with Native Americans to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, there have been two constants in American policy and purpose. One is a racism that perceives [all] non-whites as at once childlike inferiors and murderous savages. The other is a hunger for new land and economic markets over which to exert control . . . these factors have interwoven, strengthening the other."
* The Wars of America: Christian Views edited by Ronald Wells. George Marsden, one of the eight professional Christian historians writing the book, declares that the American Revolution was not a just war because the British tyranny was not bad enough to justify a violent revolution. Nor were many of America's wars, yet many Christians enthusiastically supported these unjust wars.
* Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans by Ronald Takaki, Penguin Books, 1989. "A personal and social history of the thousands of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian immigrants to the U.S. Their contributions to this country's development were immense, especially in the West and Hawaii, but they experienced disgraceful ethnocentrism and oppression."
* Cotton and Race in the Making of America: The Human Cost of Economic Power by Gene Dattel. "Cotton and Race in the Making of America is about money and the uses and abuse of power. Because of its connection with race, cotton is uniquely tainted in American history. . . . Once we begin following the money trail, we realize that it leads to the heart and soul of America."
In "Christian" America, is the promise of justice a joke? A Native American Habakkuk would likely agree that the promise of justice is hollow. So would an Afro American Habakkuk, a Mexican American Habakkuk, a Chinese American Habakkuk, a Japanese America Habakkuk, a Hawaiian American Habakkuk, a Filipino American Habakkuk, a Korean American Habakkuk. In spite of a large Christian presence in America, justice was far too often perverted. Spirituality was divorced from the doing of Jubilee justice; therefore, ethnocentrism and oppression were left unchecked and unchallenged so they run rampant. But worse than this, religion was often perverted to legitimate oppression.
In her ground-breaking book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander argues that America does not really end systems of oppression; it merely redesigns them---in both the North and South.
This is how the front page of The Atlantic ("The Case for Reparations," The Atlantic, June 2014) sums up Ta-Nehisi Coates' thesis:
"250 years of slavery.
90 years of Jim Crow.
60 years of separate but equal.
35 years of state sanctioned redlining.
Until we reckon with [repent]the compounding moral debts of our ancestors, America will never be whole."
Coates documents his argument in both Mississippi and Chicago---the new Mississippi.
This is my summary of Coates' thesis and how the church should respond:
"Until the American church understands both oppression and justice, until the white church repents of its arrogance, ethnocentrism and oppression and engages in the restitution that biblical justice requires, we cannot have shalom in our families, communities and our nation. The beautiful phrase "with liberty and justice for all," will only be hollow hypocrisy."
To Habakkuk, injustice ran so deep and so wide that it appeared to him that God had gone on a deistic vacation. The supposedly just God was AWOL. Habakkuk demanded an answer from God. God did answer Habakkuk (my paraphrase):
"I will take care of this huge injustice problem in due time. I do know what is going on; I am not sleeping on the job. In the meantime, I have a marching order for you, and the church. Continue to live righteously, continue to do justice, even in the midst of massive injustice. Do this by faith, that, in my sovereign wisdom, I will act and bring the unrepentant oppressor to judgment. The choice for us all is: do justice or face judgment. I, God, love justice; therefore I call my people to engage in works of justice."
Is justice a joke in these United States of America? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding, YES! From its colonial beginnings down to the present. Why? Primarily because of the catastrophic heresies in the white evangelical church in terms of failing to preach and practice a comprehensive kingdom of God gospel with a focus on justice for the oppressed poor. To put it simply, we have been plagued with a gospel that promotes a spirituality without justice; or a gospel that weds spirituality and injustice. See Isaiah 58 and its New Testament counterpart, the Sermon on the Mount.
You demand evidence for these strong words?
1. Cite me a single white American evangelical theologian who has written a book on the extensive biblical teaching on oppression.
2. Cite me a single white American evangelical theologian who has written a book on poverty who has included a chapter on the biblical teaching on oppression.
3. Cite me a single white American theologian who had thoroughly rejusticized the New Testament.
4. Two revered Protestant spiritual giants, Jonathan Edwards and A.W. Tozer, promoted a spirituality without justice; both are social heretics.
5. The supposedly biblical Puritans paid money for the scalps of Indians; and they praised God when disease wiped out Native Americans.
6. The supposedly Christian founding fathers made Native Americans, Afro Americans, women and the poor second class citizens.
7. Many Christians supported the near genocide of Indians and the stealing of their land.
8. Many Christians supported the unjust Mexican American was and the settlement which took nearly half of Mexico's land.
9. A praying U.S. president conquered the Philippines, killing roughly a million Filipinos who resisted "God's Will." (The Philippine Reader).
I have briefly described the rampant oppression which has characterized much of American history ( just 5 minutes ago, I read this headline : "Investigation: ATF drug stings targeted minorities: 91% of those locked up were racial or ethnic minorities," July 21, 2014, USA Today.) and the tragic results. But what was/is the cause. The gospel of Luke can help us with this dilemma.
In Luke, Jesus highlights the oppressed poor in his ministry, but in his teaching, Jesus spends more time identifying and confronting the religious rich as the primary cause of poverty. For Jesus, the religious rich are THE social problem, not the poor; the poor have many problems, but they are NOT the social problem. Based on the larger context, Jesus' "Woe to the rich" statement could well have been "Woe to the religious rich!" The religious rich ran the Temple as a "den of robbers"; the religious rich were condemned as a people who neglected justice and the love of God.
Justice is a joke because the religious rich are in control; these religious rich are the oppressors. The religious rich in America co-opt the church, the only social institution in America that could, if it would, release the oppressed from the grips of the rich and then do Jubilee justice. When the church is seduced by the rich and preaches a toothless justice gospel, all hope is lost. And then the rich oppressors praise God; their only potential opposition has been silenced. Religious piety is only good if it is tied to Jubilee justice; this rarely happens in America, and when it does,it only goes halfway.
Centuries of ethnocentrism and oppression in America have produced physical, psychological and social death---from individual deaths to genocide, broken spirits, and damaged cultural values and social institutions---on a large scale; therefore, justice has been and still is a joke. When justice is broken, people are crushed. Systems of oppression such as unjust mass incarceration and the unjust racial wealth gap continue today unabated. As Michelle Alexander asserts, in America we really don't end systems of oppression, we merely redesign them.
Social evil is much more than racism that discriminates:
It is pirates who plunder---lives, land, resources.
It is tyrants who terrorize---destroy families and communities.
It is law that legalizes robbery.
It is ethnocentrism that legitimates oppression.
It is perverted religion that sanctifies all of the above.
White privilege is built upon white plunder.
Theological bankruptcy permits pirates who plunder.
Among the pirates are the Puritans, the Supreme Court, the criminal justice system, banks and real estate brokers and some pastors/churches.
Is Justice a Joke? It is in a nation where white mainland pirates plundered all non-whites; then these white pirates built an Arch to celebrate.
Bibliography
* The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race in America from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth Century by Forrest Wood, Northeastern University Press, 1990. "The central thesis of this book is that Christianity has been fundamentally racist in its ideology, organization and practice."
* Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith, Oxford University Press, 2000. Evangelicals themselves are preserving the racial chasm with an individualistic theology which ignores the biblical teaching on oppression and justice, assert these two professional Christian sociologists.
* "Puritans, Indians, and the Concept of Race," by G.E. Thomas in The New England Quarterly, March, 1975. "The record of Puritan attitudes, goals, and behavior in every major interaction with Indians reveals a continued harshness, brutality, and ethnocentric bias which had fatal consequences for Indians as a race." And, tragically, the Puritan example set the pattern for the rest of American history.
* Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire Building by Richard Drinnon, New American Library, 1980. "From the first Puritan confrontation with Native Americans to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, there have been two constants in American policy and purpose. One is a racism that perceives [all] non-whites as at once childlike inferiors and murderous savages. The other is a hunger for new land and economic markets over which to exert control . . . these factors have interwoven, strengthening the other."
* The Wars of America: Christian Views edited by Ronald Wells. George Marsden, one of the eight professional Christian historians writing the book, declares that the American Revolution was not a just war because the British tyranny was not bad enough to justify a violent revolution. Nor were many of America's wars, yet many Christians enthusiastically supported these unjust wars.
* Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans by Ronald Takaki, Penguin Books, 1989. "A personal and social history of the thousands of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian immigrants to the U.S. Their contributions to this country's development were immense, especially in the West and Hawaii, but they experienced disgraceful ethnocentrism and oppression."
* Cotton and Race in the Making of America: The Human Cost of Economic Power by Gene Dattel. "Cotton and Race in the Making of America is about money and the uses and abuse of power. Because of its connection with race, cotton is uniquely tainted in American history. . . . Once we begin following the money trail, we realize that it leads to the heart and soul of America."
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