Adding Justice to Love, Grace and Forgiveness

Recently I challenged a Wesleyan theologian to complete the Methodist Revolution by adding justice to love. Wesley excelled at love for the poor, but he was a novice at justice for the oppressed poor. And his famous disciple, Wilberforce, who was instrumental in ending the slave trade and slavery, paid reparations to slaveholders, not to the freed slaves.

The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church recently demonstrated marvelous and amazing grace after its pastor and eight other members were murdered by a white racist. Now is the time for white, northern Methodists to add justice to grace and love. Now is the time for Methodists/Wesleyans of all stripes to demonstrate sweeping, radical, and extreme biblical justice to end white ethnocentrism/racism/oppression.

As a nation, we are approaching the Fourth of July when we celebrate our independence and honor the flag---the Stars and Stripes. Because of long standing white ethnocentrism/racism/oppression, the Stars and Stripes are as tarnished as the Confederate flag. As a result, even though the Pledge of Allegiance ends with this great phrase---"with liberty and justice for all," I see little comprehensive and sustained effort by white northern Methodists/Wesleyans to actually do justice. Since the Pledge also contains the phrase "under God," I see myself as a hypocrite by mouthing fine words that have little reality. So until justice floods the nation and washes ethnocentrism/racism/oppression away, I can no longer, in good conscience, say the Pledge.

The sanctimonious North has been engaged in a lot of self-righteous blather about the Confederate flag. But the North itself is deeply racist, both in the past and in the present, though it has never flown the Confederate flag. Is the North's ethnocentrism/racism/oppression tied to the Stars and Stripes?

1. The North was the center of the slave trade---think New England, think the DeWolf family clan (which was worse than the Klan) from Bristol, Rhode Island. The slave trade was even more evil than slavery.

2. At one stage in American history, the North engaged in slavery also; they just ended it sooner than the South.

3. The North partially financed slavery and it profited greatly from the cotton trade, a product grown with slave labor.

4. The North is currently heavily involved in both mass incarceration (including extensive racial profiling), and the massive racial wealth gap. The Confederate flag does not fly over Northern prisons.

5. Senator Ernst and Representative King from Iowa (for the geographically illiterate, Iowa is located in the North) both accepted campaign contributions from an openly white supremist organization.

6. Senator Ernst and Senator Grassley are from Iowa, a state that from time to time has ranked number one in the nation in terms of its black-white incarceration ratio. Strangely, both have been quite silent about this evil in their midst.

7. The Big Banks and Wall Street are largely Northern entities; they drive the racial wealth gap. Wall Street once traded slaves; Wall Street flies no Confederate flag.

8. I see no sign of a deep-seated repentance or restitution by whites in either the North or South. Genuine repentance and biblical restitution would result in the Northern white church aggressively attempting to end both mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap.

9. Hint: Even if the South gets rid of its evil flag, racism will not end in the South.

10. Lincoln and most abolitionists were racists; they believed that whites were superior and blacks were inferior. At one time, Lincoln wanted freed slaves to go back to Africa---self-deport.

For documentation, see PBS documentary Traces of the Trade, section 'Northern involvement in the Slave Trade.'

God said (Isa. 61:8): "I love justice."

God said (Amos 5:24, The Message): "I want justice---oceans of it."

God said (Luke 4:18-19, Noble paraphrase): "Biblical justice releases the oppressed."

My application to the American church: "God wants the church to do works of love and justice to release the oppressed and to repair their damaged individuals, families and communities. If the poverty and oppression is extreme, then justice must be equally extreme, radical, sweeping." So 50 percent of a church's budget should be spent on justice ministries, release the oppressed ministries.

What are the specific steps that are required?

1. A biblical church needs to identify and confront the oppressors. Who are the oppressors?

2. A biblical church needs to identify and release the oppressed? Who are the oppressed?

3. A biblical church must identify and destroy the systems of oppression. What is the nature of oppression? Gender, racial, economic?

Biblical grace, faith, worship, prayer must be mobilized so the church can engage in works of love and justice. The kingdom of God demands justice. The Holy Spirit empowers the church to do justice---set things right.

Both the OT prophet Amos and the NT prophet James were clear, blunt and specific about who the oppressors were---the rich; and who the oppressed were---the poor. So why is the American church so confused about economic inequality issues? Why is most of the American church not busy about releasing the oppressed? Why are the rich oppressors so comfortable and welcome in the American church? Why are the rich oppressors honored and the poor oppressed blamed and dishonored?

In his Introduction to Amos in The Message, Eugene Peterson writes: "Prophets sniff out injustice, especially injustice that is dressed up in religious garb. They sniff it out a mile away. Prophets see through hypocrisy, especially hypocrisy that assumes a religious pose. . . . Amos towers as defender of the downtrodden [oppressed] poor and accuser of the powerful rich who use God's name to legitimate their sin."

Another prophet, Jesus, the Christ, roared his disapproval of the religious rich, the ones who turned the holy Temple into "a den of robbers." The Pharisees who were greedy and lovers of money are described by Jesus (Luke 11:39-42) as ones who "neglect justice and the love of God." When Jesus finished his six woes in which he severely critiqued the religious rich Pharisees, how did they react? Luke 11:53: "The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely." Opposition, persecution, even death may hound those who do justice.

In Amos 2, the religious rich are described : "people for them are only things---ways of making money. They'd sell a poor man for a pair of shoes. They'd sell their own grandmother. They grind the penniless into the dust." (The Message)

I myself am a Wesleyan/Methodist. I have been around Wesleyans/Methodists most of my 88 years. I have lived in the black ghettos of Jackson, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi for 35 years. I have been on a pilgrimage to understand and change white American ethnocentrism/racism/oppression since April 1968.

To my knowledge, no Wesleyan/Methodist scholar has written a comprehensive analysis of the extensive biblical teaching on ethnocentrism/oppression. As a result, by either sins of commission or sins of omission, most Wesleyans either tolerate or participate
in the oppression of blacks.

To my knowledge, no Wesleyan scholar has ever rejusticized the English NT; in the NIV, justice is found 16 times. In a typical Spanish, French, Portugese, or Latin NT, justice occurs around 100 times. The absence of biblical justice creates a social vacuum into which rushes ethnocentrism/racism/oppression. In terms of social evil, Methodists are more American than biblical.

I long for the day when white, northern Wesleyans will repent and then restitute to the degree that even the secular world will be stunned at the amazing justice they see flowing out of the church. May the time come soon when Wesleyans/Methodists will lead the charge to abolish mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap. I long for the day when the biblical faith of white, northern Methodists will match the amazing biblical faith of Emanuel AME Church.

Out of grace should flow works of love and justice. (Eph. 2:8-10)

Out of faith must flow works of love and justice. (James 2)

Out of worship must flow works of love and justice. (Amos 5:21-24)

Out of love must flow works of justice. (I John 3:14-16)

As Graham Cray asserts: "The agenda of the kingdom of God is justice; the dynamic of the kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit."

The Haitian Meatgrinders or Hell on Haiti

Haiti has been put through three different meatgrinders---one made in Spain, another made in France, and one made in the United States. The design of each meatgrinder is somewhat different; the end result is the same; the poor are crushed, smashed by physical and social death.

The Spanish meatgrinder had a flashy motto---God, Glory and Gold; the end result---Genocide; none of the original Indian inhabitants/cultures have survived, not in Haiti, not on any of the Caribbean islands.

The French meatgrinder also had a flashy motto for Haiti---the Pearl of the Antilles; Haiti was highly productive in terms of sugar and other tropical foods. But the Pearl was Hell for the slaves who labored to make Haiti highly productive; Haiti was the French Hellhole.

The American meatgrinder was operated by an American white, rich, male elite in cooperation with a Haitian white/mulatto rich, male elite---an evil blending of color, class and culture with poor blacks oppressed and marginalized.

Scholars give different labels to the mechanical parts of the Haitian meatgrinders: colonialism, neocolonialism, slavery, neoslavery, debt slavery, dictatorship, plutocracy, and 'democracy'. The systems of oppression are redesigned from time to time, given a new coat of beautiful paint on the outside. But each new design crushes the poor---500 years of oppression, 500 years of poverty; 500 years of social death, PTSD, of cultural dysfunction.

How did Jesus describe the meatgrinder of his times? He called the beautiful, holy Temple, "a den of robbers." Jesus warned, "Woe to the rich!" He condemned the evil combination of God and Money. Jesus tackled the twin social evils of oppression and ethnocentrism immediately (Luke 4:18 and 4:25-30).

In America our Temple is called: American exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. The nice sounding mottos legitimate arrogant American exceptionalism, demonic expansion, deistic oppression and superior Anglo culture. This is impressively symbolized by the St. Louis Arch; to white Americans, the arrogant Arch symbolizes exploration and Westward expansion; to Native Americans, the Arch symbolizes exploitation and extermination.



Hell on Haiti: 500 years of political and economic oppression

Spanish military, political and economic domination of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, including the western third of the island now called Haiti, reduced the Native American from an estimated several million down to 29,000 within two decades. Ruthless oppression resulted in near physical genocide, or as one historian termed it, "Hell on Hispaniola." Today, there are no identifiable Native American cultures or peoples left on any of the Caribbean islands---total cultural genocide.

The island was repopulated with African slaves in order to grow tropical crops such as sugar cane for export to Europe. The Hell continued. The French replaced the Spanish as the administrators of Hell on Haiti.

When the French Revolution occurred in France, it inspired the Haitian slaves to rebel in 1791. By 1804, the Haitian slaves had gained their freedom by defeating the powerful French army. But the price was high; the country and the economy had been badly damaged. France threatened to reinvade Haiti so the Haitians built up a military force to defend themselves. Ever since, they have had an overly militarized society which usually has controlled both the political and economic institutions.

France finally agreed to sign a peace treaty with Haiti in 1825, but only after Haiti agreed to exorbitant reparations for another 100 plus years. These massive, unjust reparations to slave holders may have permanently affected Haiti's economy and wealth. At the same time that the U.S. was massively investing in railroads and education, Haitians had little money left over to do so; all the money was going to France. Haiti found it very difficult to create political and economic stability during the 1800s and 1900s.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the United States began a process to gain commercial and military privileges in Haiti. To protect U.S. economic interests as well as to protect approaches to the Panama Canal, the U.S. Marines occupied Haiti from 1915-1934. Haiti signed a treaty establishing U.S. political and economic domination. The HELL continued.

According to Jean Claude Cerin, "one legacy of the American occupation was a unified army, which quickly became a power in itself, constantly seeking political domination." Hell quickly returned to Haiti under the dictatorial reigns of the infamous "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc." These reigns lasted from 1957 to 1986 when a popular revolt drove "Baby Doc" out of Haiti.

One result of this long and tragic history---500 years of oppression---is that approximately 80 percent of Haiti's population lives in grinding poverty. There is no "safety net" to protect the poor so for most Haitians the hell continues.

What light does the Bible shed on this terrible injustice? What is the biblical perspective on oppression?

Thomas Hanks, author of God So Loved the Third World: The Biblical Vocabulary of Oppression and a Hebrew scholar, asserts that there are 555 references to oppression in the OT, that "oppression smashes the body and crushes the spirit." Or one could say that systems of oppression, decades, even centuries of oppression, smash a people and crush their culture. End result; mass individual post traumatic stress disorder and social death with damaged social institutions, a dysfunctional culture, and cycles of extreme poverty.

Exodus provides deep insights into the nature of oppression and the damage it does. According to Hanks, oppression crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes enslaves and kills persons created in the image of God. Read Exodus, chapter 1 in total, but especially verses 11-14 in the NIV. Note these words: slave masters, oppress, forced labor, oppressed, ruthlessly and hard labor. And later, kill. More details on the oppressor, Pharaoh, are found in chapter 5.

After centuries of slavery, God speaks directly to Moses (6:1-9), and forcefully asserts that He IS going to deliver the children of Israel from their bondage. "Moses reported [the message from God] to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement [RSV: "broken spirit"] and cruel bondage."

From The Message, 6:9 reads: "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." When oppression creates hopelessness, what do Christians do? You and I must come along side the crushed, take them by the hand, and TOGETHER create a new future. This new future can be built around Luke 4:18-19; the Spirit-filled church must create Jubilee justice ministries that will release the oppressed poor.

My paraphrase of James 1:27 and 2:8 reads: "Pure religion puts the needs of oppressed widows and orphans, i.e., the poor, as the top priority in the church; this is what loving your neighbor really means---you combine love and justice."

Oppression has reigned for 500 years in Haiti. Are my readers ready to join me in seeing to it that Jubilee justice reigns for the next 100 years? The best place to start in rural Haiti is to assist the Haiti Christian Development Fund in Fond-des-Blancs. Here hope is beginning to crowd out hell.

Physical Slavery and Debt Slavery

The Old Testament Sabbath Year required that slaves had to be freed every seven years and debts cancelled every seven years.

Slaves freed makes sense, but debts cancelled?? Isn't there a moral obligation to repay one's debts? Apparently there are legitimate debts and oppressive debts---debt slavery; some debt slavery is "legal", but legal is not always moral.

Legitimate debt---I borrow $100 from you; I should repay you the $100 plus a low rate of interest. But much debt is tied to a system of oppression---usury, excessive interest---or predatory lending, subprime mortgages.

Jesus called the operation of the sacred Temple "a den of robbers." In the wrong hands, apparently any social institution, even a religious one, can become a system of oppression---financial slavery, debt slavery. The religious leaders loved money; it didn't come from hard work.

In the ancient world, according to Moses Finley, all revolutionary movements had a single program: "Cancel the debts and redistribute the land."

This blog is built around the book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011) by anthropologist David Graeber. When I discovered that Graeber understood both the Old Testament Jubilee and Haitian debt bondage, I knew I had a good book. Graeber's thoughts on Haiti:

"The most spectacular example of this is the history of the Republic of Haiti---the first poor country to be placed in permanent debt peonage [bondage]. Haiti was a nation founded by former plantation slaves who had the temerity not only to rise up in rebellion, . . . but to defeat Napoleon's armies. . . . France immediately insisted that the new republic owed it 150 million francs in damages for the expropriated plantations, as well as the expenses of outfitting the failed military expeditions, and all other nations, including the United States, agreed to impose an embargo on the country until it was paid. The sum was intentionally impossible (equivalent to about 18 billion dollars), [to be paid], and the resultant embargo ensured that the name 'Haiti' has been a synonym for debt, poverty, and human misery ever since."

Note that France did not pay reparations to Haitian slaves for their free labor which helped make France rich. When Britain finally freed it empire slaves, the slaves owners were compensated for the loss of their slaves; the slaves were not compensated for their free labor.

The aim of both physical slavery and debt slavery is to make money, lots of it. As the DeWolf clan of Bristol, Rhode Island, the clan that engaged in both the slave trade and slavery, said, they wanted "Money, money, money, money, money." In some ways, debt slavery is easier and smarter than the hassle and expense involved in purchasing, feeding and controlling physical slaves. Segregation and sharecropping (debt slavery) were probably just a lucrative as actual slavery.

Again, the Sabbath Year identified the two most common and often related systems of oppression---physical slavery and debt slavery. The rich oppressed the poor through slavery and debt. Orlando Patterson, Harvard historical sociologist/anthropologist, has written the classic book on slavery entitled Slavery and Social Death; this book has be summarized as a "full-scale comparative study of the nature of slavery, a work of prodigious scholarship and enormous breadth, which draws on tribal, ancient, premodern and modern worlds." This description could also be used to summarize Graeber's book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Graeber is also an anthropologist with a fine sense of history and a good grasp of economics.

Debt is over 500 pages and clearly written, but most of you will not have the time to read it so I suggest that you read the Wikipedia summary and an article by economist Robert Kuttner who has some expertise in modern bankruptcy and who has written an article entitled "The Debt We Shouldn't Pay." In this article Kuttner writes: "In Graeber's exhaustive, engaging, and occasionally exasperating book [Debt], three themes stand out. One is the 'profound moral confusion' in our understanding of debt. A second is the perennial struggle over debt forgiveness and who receives it. A third is the function of debt in the politics of social class and social control [think systems of oppression]."

Some quotations from Debt:

"This Asian trade [gold and silver from the America's] became the single most significant factor in the emerging global economy, and those who ultimately controlled the financial levers---particularly Italian, Dutch, and German merchant bankers---became fantastically rich."

"While we are used to assuming that the Mexican population was devastated simply as an effect of newly introduced European disease, contemporary observers felt that the enslaving of the newly conquered natives to work in the mines was at least equally responsible."

"When dealing with the conquistadors, we are speaking not of just simple greed, but greed raised to mythic proportions."

"Charles Stamp, director of the Bank of England: "The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the earth; take it away from them, but leave them with the power to create credit, and with the stroke of a pen they will create enough money to buy it back again. . . . If you wish to remain slaves of Bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."

". . . the medieval moralists had a deeper problem than metaphysical entities. They had a much more fundamental problem with the market: greed [and the systems of oppression that greed created]."

"As everybody knows, the world market system initiated by the Spaniards and Portuguese empires first arose in the search for spices. It soon settled into three broad trades, which might be labeled the arms trade, the slave trade, and the drug trade."

Thomas Jefferson: "The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating."

PS. Now that Pastor Francis has spoken on climate change as a major social evil that heavily impacts the poor, the church needs to add the climate crisis to physical slavery and debt slavery as justice issues that must be confronted and changed by the Spirit-filled church.