Paul Farmer, M.D., has written another masterful book on Haiti---Haiti: After the Earthquake, 2011.
A Haitian, Joia S. Mukherjee, has written a preface entitled "Neg Mawon," Haiti's equivalent to our statue of liberty:
"Haiti was founded by a righteous revolution in 1804 and became the first black republic. It was the first country to break the chains of slavery. . . . Tragically, this history of liberty and self-determination has drawn two centuries of political and economic ire [oppression] from powerful countries [U.S. is one of them] resulting in policies which have served to impoverish the people of Haiti.
"Fear by Thomas Jefferson for their successful [slave] uprising; extorted by France in 1825 for 150 million France [unjust forced reparations] . . . occupied by the U.S. military between 1915 and 1934, . . . . disrespected in their quest for democracy by an unrelenting series of dictators and coup-d'etats backed by Western [U.S.] countries: the free people of Haiti have been continually re-shackled [re-enslaved] politically and economically.
"Admist the rubble of the houses, buildings, and schools, and in front of the once grand National Palace stands Neg Mawon---the symbol of Haiti.
"When I arrived in Haiti on Thursday, January 14, 2010, I asked my friend who was driving---"Where is the free man?' . . . there, rising from the dust of the still trembling earth, stood the statue of Neg Mawon. I was drawn by the image out of the car and as I stood, weeping, an old woman put her arm around me; she too was crying. I said, "the free man is still standing." And she replied, powerfully, "my dear, the free man will NEVER be broken."
This is a truly inspiring story, but it is only a half truth, a hollow shell, a delicious fantasy. Free men need to live in a just society. True freedom, complete requires justice.
Both Haiti and the United States have statues of liberty/freedom. But neither country has a statue of justice. Without Jubilee justice, countries bounce from one system of oppression to another. In the U.S., from Indian genocide to African enslavement to segregation-sharecropping to mass incarceration to dominance by a rich, white, male elite. In Haiti, from Indian genocide to African enslavement to debt slavery to dictatorships to dominance by a small rich elite. Never justice, never justice with freedom.
Freedom and justice are Siamese twins; they must not be separated. When will the American and Haitian churches combine freedom and justice as part of their gospel. As Graham Cray asserts: The agenda of the kingdom of God is justice; the dynamic of the kingdom is the Holy Spirit. But this important part of the gospel seems to be missing from Americanized and Haitianized Christianity
On January 12, 2010, an earthquake killed several hundred thousand Haitians, and destroyed or damaged much of the capital city Port-au-Prince. Most of Haitian higher education was centered in Port-au-Prince; much of it was destroyed as well. ". . . the nursing school had collapsed during class, killing students and faculty alike." "A far greater aspect of the tragedy was the loss of thousands upon thousands of Haitians, students who died at schools and universities, . . . When the seminary fell, all the seminarians in Haiti died. The loss of the national treasure of an entire generation of Haiti's best and brightest is a loss that cannot be measured. The school system . . . must be the first priority"
Paul Farmer uses a medical term to describe the earthquake: "an acute-on-chronic event." Or a natural disaster pile on top of centuries of socio-economic disaster---500 years of oppression first by the Spanish, then by the French (slavery and debt slavery), next by America (neocolonialism), now by a Haitian elite. But when one listens to most American pundits talk about Haiti's problems, one would think the past never happened, a convenient historical amnesia.
Is there any hope? Enter Didi Farmer, Paul Farmer's wife who is Haitian and an anthropologist. She has written a chapter entitled "Mothers and Daughters of Haiti." In this chapter, she compares Haiti with Rwanda; after the genocide/civil war in Rwanda, both Haiti and Rwanda were considered hopeless countries. But Rwanda, thanks to the leadership of its women, it beginning a remarkable turn around. Haiti has yet to educate and marshal the talent of its women. Who will release and empower Haitian women?
The above are just a few of the deep insights one can find in Haiti: After the Earthquake.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
The Wars of America: Christian Views
In 1981, eight professional Christian historians wrote The Wars of America: Christian Views, a scholarly book, a readable book, that will enlighten and shake up your understanding of American history.
It is not easy to apply biblical principles such as oppression, justice and shalom to modern society. They easily get tangled with existing ideologies or co-opted by politicians. Nowhere is this more difficult than in the area of war. Do American Christians support wars, fight in wars, for the right reasons? Were these wars justified in terms of biblical principles?
Fortunately, eight professional Christian historians have volunteered to teach us. Each historian is an expert on the war they describe, analyze and evaluate. Seven of the eight subscribe to the just war theory; only one is a pacifist. None believe that wars should be fought as crusades.
"In general, Christians have advanced three attitudes about war and peace: pacifism, the just war, and the crusade. The early church . . . was pacifist. . . . After the fourth century, when the church became closely associated with the state [Constantine], Christians took over theory extant in Roman culture, the just war [Augustine]. . . . The third position . . . the crusade, emerged in the Middle Ages. A crusade was to be fought under the authority of the church [or later the state when fighting for a 'righteous' cause]."
"The way in which a nation wages war reveals a great deal about its basic values. . . . To examine a nation's experience of war, and its response to it, is to learn something fundamental about a nation's values and its social order." Jefferson was appalled by Europe's tendency toward "eternal war" and wanted the U.S. to be a nation of "peace and fraternity with mankind." Sadly, it didn't turn out that way.
George Marsden on The American Revolution
"Christians have often been in the forefront in turning their 'just wars' into crusades. These modern crusades, however, have not been ones in which the church dominates the world; rather the nation has set the agenda and Christians have supplied the flags and crosses. The American Revolution is a pivotal instance for understanding how modern nations have transformed supposed 'just wars' into secular crusades. It is pivotal for considering other wars of America, since the patterns of nationalism and civil religion established at the time of the Revolution became important elements of the mythology that determined American's behavior on subsequent wars."
Marsden, respected historian of American religious history, continues:
"One of the aspects of the revolutionaries' stance that is most puzzling is how they came apparently to believe that theirs was one of those extreme and exceptional instances when revolution, . . . was justified. . . . their claim that they faced a case of extreme tyranny seems extravagant. . . . the rebelling colonists nonetheless appeared to have been dead wrong in concluding that without armed rebellion absolute tyranny was inevitable."
The Introduction by Ronald Wells
Unless war is fought according to just war principles, it is oppression on a massive scale, often motivated by ethnocentrism and/or nationalism. But the public propaganda covers the ethnocentrism and oppression by declaring our cause is righteous and the enemy's cause is evil. The false prophets did much the same in the OT by declaring 'shalom, shalom,' in the midst of massive idolatry and oppression. The fundamental question raised in this book is whether Christians made their decisions regarding war based on biblical principles or whether they gullibly followed national national leaders into war, accepting their values and reasoning.
Thomas Jefferson asserted that these United States would not be like the nations of Europe which he called "nations of eternal war." But history shows that we also became a nation of war. Why is this so? We believed that we were a unique, chosen nation with a God-given destiny. As a free and just democracy, we would be God's light to other nations
"The spiritual pride of the United States consisted in acting innocently upon the pretense of its special calling despite the fact that it was almost constantly at war, either with Indians at home or with other nations or peoples on this continent or abroad."
We have not consistently practiced what we preached---or did we? Tocqueville, the perceptive French observer of America in the early 1800s, personally witnessed the brutal removal of the Choctaw Indians from Mississippi. He noted the American rationalization of this oppression and wryly commented: "It is impossible to destroy men with more respect for the laws of America." (Democracy in America)
George Marsden's chapter titled "An American Revolution: Partisanship, Just Wars, and Crusades."
At the time of the American Revolution, there was great fear [exaggerated fear] of being dominated by political and/or religious tyranny. One of the reason freedom/liberty was so highly prized was that it was achieved only by hard fought victories in Europe. The colonists did not want to be returned to either religious or political tyranny. Small steps in that direction were perceived to be giant steps. Fear distorted their perceptions of reality.
As an historian, Marsden is quite certain that the level of tyranny did not justify a violent revolution---a civil war. Contrary to what is commonly believed, the American Revolution was not necessary, not justified. But most American Christians at the time were convinced that the revolution was justified and so many even turned it into a righteous crusade. The cynic in me, Lowell Noble, believes that an American rich, white, male elite wanted to replace the British elite.
More of Noble's ideas; none of the eight Christian historians have gone as far as I have in their critique of America though Marsden comes close, I believe. Was the American government ever a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people?" Probably not, in spite of Lincoln's eloquent expression. Our revered founding fathers, many of whom were slave owners, never abolished slavery. Slave owners are tyrants, are they not?
Our founding fathers were a rich, white, male, deistic elite who stole land from Indians and who took Indian lives, who stole labor and liberty from black slaves, who made the poor and women second-class citizens, who were exceptionally ethnocentric and exceptionally oppressive---direct violations of Luke 4:18-30. Instead of a democracy, we got a plutocracy; the British tyrants were replaced by American tyrants. Today, America has a government of corporations/Big Banks/ Wall Street, by corporations/Big Banks/Wall Street, and for corporations/Big Banks/Wall Street. From dictatorial tyrants to democratic tyrants?
Now more from Marsden:
"Yet the American revolutionaries had taken a good cause, the virtues of which they had overestimated because of their partisanship and their political preconceptions, and they had vastly inflated its importance by sanctifying it with biblical imagery. Thus the good cause . . . became an idol.
"Perhaps the most important outcome of this process was that in it a new religion was born. This new religion is the now-famous American civil religion in which the state is an object of worship, but the imagery used to describe its sacredness is borrowed from Christianity. Church and state in the Western world since the time of Constantine had been intimately connected. Indeed it has been this close association of religion and politics that has been one of the greatest obstacles to a genuine Christian critique of the political order, specifically of its military virtues. Now in the new American situation, even with the disestablishment of the church, the religious-political intimacy was maintained by applying sacred rhetoric to describe the status and mission of the secular government. This civil religion . . . has continued to shape, and indeed to distort American visions of her own justice in subsequent wars."
Ralph Beebe, "The War of 1812."
We learned from Gorge Marsden that American civil religion was created to tie informally the cause of church and state together. This sanctifying of the purposes of the state were used again and again to justify future wars---even wars of imperialism, aggression and oppression. This same phenomenon occurred in 1812---an unnecessary war of materialism and imperialism. This was an "In God is our trust" war:
"America was a new nation with an ironically ambivalent self-image that stressed its freedom from the old world's propensity for war, while at the same time the nation pursued a strongly materialistic 'success' ethic that caused its people to engage in pursuits that were certain to lead to conflict."
Jefferson strongly condemned the approaching war which seemed to be designed to secure the immense profits in reexport trade with Europe. In the eyes of Britain, this violated our neutrality in the European wars.
With the British attack on the Chesapeake, previous reason and restraint were thrown to the wind. Now it was a matter of "God and Country" for many American Christians. Beebe concludes that the war of 1812 falls far short of just war standards.
Ronald Wells, "The Mexican-American War"
There was no justification for this tragic war; it was a war of American imperialism, ethnocentrism and oppression falsely justified under Manifest Destiny. Abraham Lincoln was against the Mexican war.
"Over the years Mexicans had become increasingly aware that many Americans looked upon Mexicans as inferior beings. This had frightening implications, for Americans had respect for neither the rights nor the culture of those whom they considered inferior. They had been merciless in their treatment of the Indian and had reduced blacks to a brutal form of servitude. Mexicans were perceptive enough to recognize that a similar fate threatened them should they fall under American domination."
Those clergy and churches that had already approved of the idea of Manifest Destiny supported this unjust war.
Ronald Rietveld, "The American Civil War."
Both the North and South thought they were fighting a just war, but Lincoln concluded the nation was under God's judgment. The unity of the country was shattered largely over the issue of slavery, an issue our founding fathers had left unresolved. This sand in our foundation, our failure to extend liberty and justice for all almost led to the collapse of the nation. Not even the churches could avoid splitting over the issue of slavery.
For Southerners, slavery was righteous, blessed, a Christianizing force.
For Northerners, slavery was wrong, a curse, an evil, a sin in the sight of God and humans.
What did the North and South have in common; both were deeply racist. The Civil War did not solve the racism problem; the values behind the system of oppression were not eliminated. Therefore, a new system of oppression was quickly created---segregation and sharecropping.
Since freedom was not followed by justice, one could argue that the civil war dead died in vain.
Augustus Cerillo, Jr., "The Spanish-American War."
A contradiction: "pretentious views of the purity and innocence of our national motives, actions, and goals and the actual harsh consequences of the exercise of our power." A war that began to liberate Cuba from the oppressive domination by Spain soon developed into "a war of American conquest." The president who declared in his inaugural address: "We want no wars of conquest; we must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression," soon embarked on wars of conquest and territorial aggression.
"The US, so morally repulsed by Spain's treatment of her colonial subjects, was forced to suppress in brutal fashion a Filipino rebellion against American imperial rule."
We began to spread Manifest Destiny beyond our shores. Much of this expansion was driven by economic motives and materialism---the perceived need for new markets abroad.
"America's efforts to expand trade and investment abroad were free from the constraints of the biblical norms of equity, justice, and preference for the poor. By fusing the gospel, racism, and nationalism, evangelical leaders at home contributed to the inordinate amount of national pride that pervaded American thought by giving a sort of priestly blessing."
Richard Pierard, "World War II."
Was the "Day of Infamy"---the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor---preceded by 50 years of infamy by the US against Japan? Did we extend the concept of Manifest Destiny too far into Asia thus threatening Japan? Admiral Perry sailed his fleet into Japan and forced Japan to open itself up to the outside world; to the Japanese, this was an act of intimidation and humiliation.
Another troubling problem. Hitler started bombing civilians and then we started doing the same, first in Germany and then in Japan. We firebombed Dresden; then we dropped two atomic bombs on cities, on civilians. There were military targets nearby. Targeting civilians violates just war principles.
From the Afterword
"Given the prevailing ideology, Americans could not help but think that their wars were 'just,' precisely because their historic role in the world was 'just.'"
"To ask how Christians might have acted in particular wars is to ask how Christians in our day might act in future wars."
"[American] Christian participants, far from being more detached and somewhat immune from the dangers of partisanship, seem more often to be particularly prone to them---especially when they have the Bible in hand. With supporting texts, not only are they likely to perceive their partisan self-interest is just, but they are likely to inflate their cause, seeing the conflict as a struggle between the absolute righteousness of God and Satanic aberration."
PS
The U.S. often in alliance with the French has waged continuous economic, political and sometimes military war with Haiti.
It is not easy to apply biblical principles such as oppression, justice and shalom to modern society. They easily get tangled with existing ideologies or co-opted by politicians. Nowhere is this more difficult than in the area of war. Do American Christians support wars, fight in wars, for the right reasons? Were these wars justified in terms of biblical principles?
Fortunately, eight professional Christian historians have volunteered to teach us. Each historian is an expert on the war they describe, analyze and evaluate. Seven of the eight subscribe to the just war theory; only one is a pacifist. None believe that wars should be fought as crusades.
"In general, Christians have advanced three attitudes about war and peace: pacifism, the just war, and the crusade. The early church . . . was pacifist. . . . After the fourth century, when the church became closely associated with the state [Constantine], Christians took over theory extant in Roman culture, the just war [Augustine]. . . . The third position . . . the crusade, emerged in the Middle Ages. A crusade was to be fought under the authority of the church [or later the state when fighting for a 'righteous' cause]."
"The way in which a nation wages war reveals a great deal about its basic values. . . . To examine a nation's experience of war, and its response to it, is to learn something fundamental about a nation's values and its social order." Jefferson was appalled by Europe's tendency toward "eternal war" and wanted the U.S. to be a nation of "peace and fraternity with mankind." Sadly, it didn't turn out that way.
George Marsden on The American Revolution
"Christians have often been in the forefront in turning their 'just wars' into crusades. These modern crusades, however, have not been ones in which the church dominates the world; rather the nation has set the agenda and Christians have supplied the flags and crosses. The American Revolution is a pivotal instance for understanding how modern nations have transformed supposed 'just wars' into secular crusades. It is pivotal for considering other wars of America, since the patterns of nationalism and civil religion established at the time of the Revolution became important elements of the mythology that determined American's behavior on subsequent wars."
Marsden, respected historian of American religious history, continues:
"One of the aspects of the revolutionaries' stance that is most puzzling is how they came apparently to believe that theirs was one of those extreme and exceptional instances when revolution, . . . was justified. . . . their claim that they faced a case of extreme tyranny seems extravagant. . . . the rebelling colonists nonetheless appeared to have been dead wrong in concluding that without armed rebellion absolute tyranny was inevitable."
The Introduction by Ronald Wells
Unless war is fought according to just war principles, it is oppression on a massive scale, often motivated by ethnocentrism and/or nationalism. But the public propaganda covers the ethnocentrism and oppression by declaring our cause is righteous and the enemy's cause is evil. The false prophets did much the same in the OT by declaring 'shalom, shalom,' in the midst of massive idolatry and oppression. The fundamental question raised in this book is whether Christians made their decisions regarding war based on biblical principles or whether they gullibly followed national national leaders into war, accepting their values and reasoning.
Thomas Jefferson asserted that these United States would not be like the nations of Europe which he called "nations of eternal war." But history shows that we also became a nation of war. Why is this so? We believed that we were a unique, chosen nation with a God-given destiny. As a free and just democracy, we would be God's light to other nations
"The spiritual pride of the United States consisted in acting innocently upon the pretense of its special calling despite the fact that it was almost constantly at war, either with Indians at home or with other nations or peoples on this continent or abroad."
We have not consistently practiced what we preached---or did we? Tocqueville, the perceptive French observer of America in the early 1800s, personally witnessed the brutal removal of the Choctaw Indians from Mississippi. He noted the American rationalization of this oppression and wryly commented: "It is impossible to destroy men with more respect for the laws of America." (Democracy in America)
George Marsden's chapter titled "An American Revolution: Partisanship, Just Wars, and Crusades."
At the time of the American Revolution, there was great fear [exaggerated fear] of being dominated by political and/or religious tyranny. One of the reason freedom/liberty was so highly prized was that it was achieved only by hard fought victories in Europe. The colonists did not want to be returned to either religious or political tyranny. Small steps in that direction were perceived to be giant steps. Fear distorted their perceptions of reality.
As an historian, Marsden is quite certain that the level of tyranny did not justify a violent revolution---a civil war. Contrary to what is commonly believed, the American Revolution was not necessary, not justified. But most American Christians at the time were convinced that the revolution was justified and so many even turned it into a righteous crusade. The cynic in me, Lowell Noble, believes that an American rich, white, male elite wanted to replace the British elite.
More of Noble's ideas; none of the eight Christian historians have gone as far as I have in their critique of America though Marsden comes close, I believe. Was the American government ever a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people?" Probably not, in spite of Lincoln's eloquent expression. Our revered founding fathers, many of whom were slave owners, never abolished slavery. Slave owners are tyrants, are they not?
Our founding fathers were a rich, white, male, deistic elite who stole land from Indians and who took Indian lives, who stole labor and liberty from black slaves, who made the poor and women second-class citizens, who were exceptionally ethnocentric and exceptionally oppressive---direct violations of Luke 4:18-30. Instead of a democracy, we got a plutocracy; the British tyrants were replaced by American tyrants. Today, America has a government of corporations/Big Banks/ Wall Street, by corporations/Big Banks/Wall Street, and for corporations/Big Banks/Wall Street. From dictatorial tyrants to democratic tyrants?
Now more from Marsden:
"Yet the American revolutionaries had taken a good cause, the virtues of which they had overestimated because of their partisanship and their political preconceptions, and they had vastly inflated its importance by sanctifying it with biblical imagery. Thus the good cause . . . became an idol.
"Perhaps the most important outcome of this process was that in it a new religion was born. This new religion is the now-famous American civil religion in which the state is an object of worship, but the imagery used to describe its sacredness is borrowed from Christianity. Church and state in the Western world since the time of Constantine had been intimately connected. Indeed it has been this close association of religion and politics that has been one of the greatest obstacles to a genuine Christian critique of the political order, specifically of its military virtues. Now in the new American situation, even with the disestablishment of the church, the religious-political intimacy was maintained by applying sacred rhetoric to describe the status and mission of the secular government. This civil religion . . . has continued to shape, and indeed to distort American visions of her own justice in subsequent wars."
Ralph Beebe, "The War of 1812."
We learned from Gorge Marsden that American civil religion was created to tie informally the cause of church and state together. This sanctifying of the purposes of the state were used again and again to justify future wars---even wars of imperialism, aggression and oppression. This same phenomenon occurred in 1812---an unnecessary war of materialism and imperialism. This was an "In God is our trust" war:
"America was a new nation with an ironically ambivalent self-image that stressed its freedom from the old world's propensity for war, while at the same time the nation pursued a strongly materialistic 'success' ethic that caused its people to engage in pursuits that were certain to lead to conflict."
Jefferson strongly condemned the approaching war which seemed to be designed to secure the immense profits in reexport trade with Europe. In the eyes of Britain, this violated our neutrality in the European wars.
With the British attack on the Chesapeake, previous reason and restraint were thrown to the wind. Now it was a matter of "God and Country" for many American Christians. Beebe concludes that the war of 1812 falls far short of just war standards.
Ronald Wells, "The Mexican-American War"
There was no justification for this tragic war; it was a war of American imperialism, ethnocentrism and oppression falsely justified under Manifest Destiny. Abraham Lincoln was against the Mexican war.
"Over the years Mexicans had become increasingly aware that many Americans looked upon Mexicans as inferior beings. This had frightening implications, for Americans had respect for neither the rights nor the culture of those whom they considered inferior. They had been merciless in their treatment of the Indian and had reduced blacks to a brutal form of servitude. Mexicans were perceptive enough to recognize that a similar fate threatened them should they fall under American domination."
Those clergy and churches that had already approved of the idea of Manifest Destiny supported this unjust war.
Ronald Rietveld, "The American Civil War."
Both the North and South thought they were fighting a just war, but Lincoln concluded the nation was under God's judgment. The unity of the country was shattered largely over the issue of slavery, an issue our founding fathers had left unresolved. This sand in our foundation, our failure to extend liberty and justice for all almost led to the collapse of the nation. Not even the churches could avoid splitting over the issue of slavery.
For Southerners, slavery was righteous, blessed, a Christianizing force.
For Northerners, slavery was wrong, a curse, an evil, a sin in the sight of God and humans.
What did the North and South have in common; both were deeply racist. The Civil War did not solve the racism problem; the values behind the system of oppression were not eliminated. Therefore, a new system of oppression was quickly created---segregation and sharecropping.
Since freedom was not followed by justice, one could argue that the civil war dead died in vain.
Augustus Cerillo, Jr., "The Spanish-American War."
A contradiction: "pretentious views of the purity and innocence of our national motives, actions, and goals and the actual harsh consequences of the exercise of our power." A war that began to liberate Cuba from the oppressive domination by Spain soon developed into "a war of American conquest." The president who declared in his inaugural address: "We want no wars of conquest; we must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression," soon embarked on wars of conquest and territorial aggression.
"The US, so morally repulsed by Spain's treatment of her colonial subjects, was forced to suppress in brutal fashion a Filipino rebellion against American imperial rule."
We began to spread Manifest Destiny beyond our shores. Much of this expansion was driven by economic motives and materialism---the perceived need for new markets abroad.
"America's efforts to expand trade and investment abroad were free from the constraints of the biblical norms of equity, justice, and preference for the poor. By fusing the gospel, racism, and nationalism, evangelical leaders at home contributed to the inordinate amount of national pride that pervaded American thought by giving a sort of priestly blessing."
Richard Pierard, "World War II."
Was the "Day of Infamy"---the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor---preceded by 50 years of infamy by the US against Japan? Did we extend the concept of Manifest Destiny too far into Asia thus threatening Japan? Admiral Perry sailed his fleet into Japan and forced Japan to open itself up to the outside world; to the Japanese, this was an act of intimidation and humiliation.
Another troubling problem. Hitler started bombing civilians and then we started doing the same, first in Germany and then in Japan. We firebombed Dresden; then we dropped two atomic bombs on cities, on civilians. There were military targets nearby. Targeting civilians violates just war principles.
From the Afterword
"Given the prevailing ideology, Americans could not help but think that their wars were 'just,' precisely because their historic role in the world was 'just.'"
"To ask how Christians might have acted in particular wars is to ask how Christians in our day might act in future wars."
"[American] Christian participants, far from being more detached and somewhat immune from the dangers of partisanship, seem more often to be particularly prone to them---especially when they have the Bible in hand. With supporting texts, not only are they likely to perceive their partisan self-interest is just, but they are likely to inflate their cause, seeing the conflict as a struggle between the absolute righteousness of God and Satanic aberration."
PS
The U.S. often in alliance with the French has waged continuous economic, political and sometimes military war with Haiti.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Nicholas Wolterstorff on Justice
In 2008, Nicholas Wolterstorff, esteemed Reformed philosopher/theologian, wrote Justice: rights and wrongs. The following is my review and interpretation of his three chapters on the Bible and justice. Wolterstorff distinguishes between what he calls primary justice and rectifying justice. I understand primary justice to be an ideal, a standard, an unchanging substance, anchored in the character of God. God is just and he loves justice. Rectifying justice judges and correct the oppression of the vulnerable such as the widows, orphans, resident aliens and the poor. Love and justice are inseparably intertwined. Justice lifts the downtrodden.
Wolterstorff is basic and solid in his chapter on justice in the Old Testament, but he breaks extremely important new ground as he discusses the equally important teaching on justice in the New Testament. He strongly contradicts the common theological interpretation that justice fades in the NT and is largely replaced by personal salvation and love.
Wolterstorff devotes a chapter to the "de-justicizing" of the NT. According to Wolterstorff, one important reason for the de-justicizing of the NT in the English speaking world is the deeply flawed English translation of dikaios and dikaiosune, the Greek words usually translated as righteous and righteousness. The dik-stem occurs around 300 times in the NT so justice should be seen all over the NT or at least justice/righteousness.
But in the KJV, the dominant English translation for centuries, justice is found zero times in the NT. In the NIV, justice is found only 16 times, the whole Bible, 134 times. In the Spanish NVI, justice occurs an astounding 426 times; in the Latin Vulgate, around 400 times; in the French NVS, 380 times; in the German Revised Martin Luther text, 306 times. I interpret the above data and Wolterstorff's comments to reflect a catastrophic English translation failure of the biblical concept of justice, especially in the NT. In the Romance languages---Spanish, French, Latin---, justice occurs around 100 times in the NT.
When dikaiosune is translated justice in the Sermon on the Mount, these verses read: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice" "persecuted for the sake of justice" "Seek first God's kingdom and his justice." I interpret Wolterstorff to believe that the dejusticizing of the NT, the separation of love and justice, the near removal of the word justice in the NT in favor of righteousness, to be one of the great heresies in the history of the church though Wolterstorff is much too judicious to actually say this.
Wolterstorff on Romans: "For while Romans, as I interpret it, says more about justice than any other of the New Testament letters, it has also, ironically, served as the locus classicus for those who wish to de-justicize the New Testament."
To conclude, I would like to present a couple of quotations from Wolterstorff to indicate the quality of his insights: "Those at the bottom are usually not there because it is their fault. They are there because they are downtrodden. Those at the top "trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth." (Amos 2:7)
When center and circumference are one's basic metaphors, the undoing of justice will be described as including the outsiders. When up and down are one's basic metaphors, the undoing of injustice will be described as lifting up those at tyhe bottom. . . . The rectification of injustice requires not only lifting the low ones but casting down the high ones."
"The coming of justice requires the humbling of those who exalt themselves. The arrogant must be cured of their arrogance; the rich and powerful must be cured of their attraction to wealth and power. Only then is justice for all possible.
Wolterstorff is basic and solid in his chapter on justice in the Old Testament, but he breaks extremely important new ground as he discusses the equally important teaching on justice in the New Testament. He strongly contradicts the common theological interpretation that justice fades in the NT and is largely replaced by personal salvation and love.
Wolterstorff devotes a chapter to the "de-justicizing" of the NT. According to Wolterstorff, one important reason for the de-justicizing of the NT in the English speaking world is the deeply flawed English translation of dikaios and dikaiosune, the Greek words usually translated as righteous and righteousness. The dik-stem occurs around 300 times in the NT so justice should be seen all over the NT or at least justice/righteousness.
But in the KJV, the dominant English translation for centuries, justice is found zero times in the NT. In the NIV, justice is found only 16 times, the whole Bible, 134 times. In the Spanish NVI, justice occurs an astounding 426 times; in the Latin Vulgate, around 400 times; in the French NVS, 380 times; in the German Revised Martin Luther text, 306 times. I interpret the above data and Wolterstorff's comments to reflect a catastrophic English translation failure of the biblical concept of justice, especially in the NT. In the Romance languages---Spanish, French, Latin---, justice occurs around 100 times in the NT.
When dikaiosune is translated justice in the Sermon on the Mount, these verses read: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice" "persecuted for the sake of justice" "Seek first God's kingdom and his justice." I interpret Wolterstorff to believe that the dejusticizing of the NT, the separation of love and justice, the near removal of the word justice in the NT in favor of righteousness, to be one of the great heresies in the history of the church though Wolterstorff is much too judicious to actually say this.
Wolterstorff on Romans: "For while Romans, as I interpret it, says more about justice than any other of the New Testament letters, it has also, ironically, served as the locus classicus for those who wish to de-justicize the New Testament."
To conclude, I would like to present a couple of quotations from Wolterstorff to indicate the quality of his insights: "Those at the bottom are usually not there because it is their fault. They are there because they are downtrodden. Those at the top "trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth." (Amos 2:7)
When center and circumference are one's basic metaphors, the undoing of justice will be described as including the outsiders. When up and down are one's basic metaphors, the undoing of injustice will be described as lifting up those at tyhe bottom. . . . The rectification of injustice requires not only lifting the low ones but casting down the high ones."
"The coming of justice requires the humbling of those who exalt themselves. The arrogant must be cured of their arrogance; the rich and powerful must be cured of their attraction to wealth and power. Only then is justice for all possible.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
A Meditation on the Pledge of Allegiance
What does "one nation under God" do? It provides "liberty and justice for all" its citizens. This remarkable phrase "with liberty and justice for all" is a precise and concise summary of both the Jubilee/Sabbatical laws (Lev. 25 and the New Testament kingdom of God (Isa. 9:6-7; 61:1-4; and Luke 4:18-19).
The famous cracked Liberty Bell has this biblical inscription: "Proclaim liberty through all the land unto all the inhabitants." The full message of the Jubilee ties liberty (freedom for the poor and oppressed) with doing justice (restoring land to poor families). The Liberty Bell precedes the Pledge by 140 years. Both the Liberty Bell (1752) and the Pledge (1892) emphasize the same point---liberty---, as does the Declaration of Independence (1776)---"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." But only the Pledge specifically ties liberty and justice together. If I were given permission to change one word in the Declaration, I would make the following change: "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Justice."
Rumor has it that the Pledge was written by a socialist, but don't tell anybody.
What would the priorities be of one nation, under God, that pursues justice: the needs of the poor and oppressed, widows and orphans, immigrants and ethnic groups (our equivalent to the despised Samaritans and Gentiles). Pure religion, according to James, is reaching out to oppressed and neglected widows and orphans. But it seems like most white American Christians are like the Pharisees who "neglected justice and the love of God." (Luke 11)
Job did not neglect justice and the love of God (NIV, Job 29:12-17).
I rescued the poor who cried for help
and the fatherless who had none to assist him;
The man who was dying blessed me;
I made the widows heart to sing
I put on righteousness as my clothing;
justice was my robe and turban.
I took up the case of the immigrant;
I broke the fangs of the oppressor.
If Job were living today, he might add:
I stopped unjust mass incarceration;
I ended the racial wealth gap.
The famous cracked Liberty Bell has this biblical inscription: "Proclaim liberty through all the land unto all the inhabitants." The full message of the Jubilee ties liberty (freedom for the poor and oppressed) with doing justice (restoring land to poor families). The Liberty Bell precedes the Pledge by 140 years. Both the Liberty Bell (1752) and the Pledge (1892) emphasize the same point---liberty---, as does the Declaration of Independence (1776)---"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." But only the Pledge specifically ties liberty and justice together. If I were given permission to change one word in the Declaration, I would make the following change: "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Justice."
Rumor has it that the Pledge was written by a socialist, but don't tell anybody.
What would the priorities be of one nation, under God, that pursues justice: the needs of the poor and oppressed, widows and orphans, immigrants and ethnic groups (our equivalent to the despised Samaritans and Gentiles). Pure religion, according to James, is reaching out to oppressed and neglected widows and orphans. But it seems like most white American Christians are like the Pharisees who "neglected justice and the love of God." (Luke 11)
Job did not neglect justice and the love of God (NIV, Job 29:12-17).
I rescued the poor who cried for help
and the fatherless who had none to assist him;
The man who was dying blessed me;
I made the widows heart to sing
I put on righteousness as my clothing;
justice was my robe and turban.
I took up the case of the immigrant;
I broke the fangs of the oppressor.
If Job were living today, he might add:
I stopped unjust mass incarceration;
I ended the racial wealth gap.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Ownership and Justice: Rich People are Idiots, unless. . . .
I will build my comments upon Luke 4:18-19. Here I find four crucial concepts: the Spirit, the poor, the oppressed and justice, Jubilee justice. Most of 4:18-19 is from Isaiah 61, but the phrase "to release the oppressed" is from Isaiah 58:6. In chapter 58, Isaiah condemned an apparently deeply religious people who worshiped, fasted and prayed, but these same people also exploited their workers and exploited their poor. Isaiah called upon these hypocrites to stop their oppression and do justice.
When Jesus finished reading from Isaiah, the synagogue congregation was amazed as Jesus said, "Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in you hearing." Or my paraphrase, "Today, I begin my ministry of incarnating the kingdom of God here on earth with a special focus on justice for the oppressed poor."
Biblically, the primary, but not the only, cause of poverty is oppression. According to Thomas Hanks, there are 555 references to oppression and its synonyms in the Old Testament, and often one will find poverty in the context. So a biblical ministry among the poor must deal with oppression. Oppression crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes, enslave and/or kills persons created in the image of God.
If oppression is a central biblical concept, then we must identify the oppressor before we can do justice. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus identifies the oppressors in Luke 6:24 and in a host of other references: 1:53; 3:10-14; 8:14; 11:39-42; 16:13-14; 18:22-24; 19:45-46; 19:8. Luke powerfully and concisely summarizes these teachings about the rich and poor in this statement: "Woe to the rich!" The worst oppressors in Palestine were not the Romans; instead the worst oppressors were the local religio-politico-economic elite who ran the sacred Temple and had turned it into "a den of robbers." or a system of oppression. There was so much gold in the temple when the Romans destroyed and looted it and then began to circulating it, that the price of gold dropped by one-half in nearby Syria.
Who are the greedy oppressors? They are idiots who hoard wealth. The Greek phrase "ta idia" means 'one's own." Having enough to be self-sufficient in terms of the necessities of life is fine, but piling up more and more of "one's own," becoming rich, is idiocy. Are you an idiot?
When Jesus finished reading from Isaiah, the synagogue congregation was amazed as Jesus said, "Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in you hearing." Or my paraphrase, "Today, I begin my ministry of incarnating the kingdom of God here on earth with a special focus on justice for the oppressed poor."
Biblically, the primary, but not the only, cause of poverty is oppression. According to Thomas Hanks, there are 555 references to oppression and its synonyms in the Old Testament, and often one will find poverty in the context. So a biblical ministry among the poor must deal with oppression. Oppression crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes, enslave and/or kills persons created in the image of God.
If oppression is a central biblical concept, then we must identify the oppressor before we can do justice. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus identifies the oppressors in Luke 6:24 and in a host of other references: 1:53; 3:10-14; 8:14; 11:39-42; 16:13-14; 18:22-24; 19:45-46; 19:8. Luke powerfully and concisely summarizes these teachings about the rich and poor in this statement: "Woe to the rich!" The worst oppressors in Palestine were not the Romans; instead the worst oppressors were the local religio-politico-economic elite who ran the sacred Temple and had turned it into "a den of robbers." or a system of oppression. There was so much gold in the temple when the Romans destroyed and looted it and then began to circulating it, that the price of gold dropped by one-half in nearby Syria.
Who are the greedy oppressors? They are idiots who hoard wealth. The Greek phrase "ta idia" means 'one's own." Having enough to be self-sufficient in terms of the necessities of life is fine, but piling up more and more of "one's own," becoming rich, is idiocy. Are you an idiot?
The Pillage Must End; God's Kingdom Has Come
Matthew 3:1 and Mark 1:14 both declare that we should repent for the kingdom of God has come; Luke 4:18-19 does the same in different words. See also Acts 8:12; 28:23 and 31. Matthew 3:1 and Mark 1:14 are as an important part of the gospel as John 3:16, but strangely I cannot ever recall a sermon on these verses, not even in CCDA circles. So, hang on, the following is my first sermonette on these verses. Let me know if you have ever preached a sermon on these verses and what the content of your sermon was.
Biblical repentance: radical change, paradigm shift in loyalities, allegiances, includes restitution that leads to the repair of communities.
According to Ta-Nehisi Coates, the white American Dream has been built on pillage---400 years of pillage of life, liberty, labor and land, slave labor and theft of Indian and Mexican land. According to the book, This Economy Kills: Pope Francis on Capitalism and Social Justice, capitalism has been highly productive but socially destructive. I would add that the sacred free Market has far too often been tied to ethnocentrism, oppression and theft. So God issues a call to America to repent.
What does biblical repentance look like? Luke 3:11-14 describes specific acts of repentance---share your surplus food and clothing, don't extort money, don't misuse your power and authority over others. Luke 19 describes repentance and restitution; Zacchaeus gave half of his possessions to the poor, and he gave four times the amount he had cheated.
What does non-repentance look like? Luke 18:18-22 is about the rich young ruler---a personally good and righteous guy who refused to radically repent and abundantly share; he refused to share and repair. Repentance, restitution and repair are major steps on the road to justice. God says he loves justice, that he wants oceans of justice.
According to Graham Cray, the agenda of the kingdom of God is justice; Matthew 6:33 declares that we are to seek first God's kingdom and his justice. So what is biblical justice? Jubilee justice that releases the oppressed poor and then repairs damaged individuals, families and communities.
"Repent, for the kingdom of God is here" The kingdom of God and the American Dream are not the same thing.
Biblical repentance: radical change, paradigm shift in loyalities, allegiances, includes restitution that leads to the repair of communities.
According to Ta-Nehisi Coates, the white American Dream has been built on pillage---400 years of pillage of life, liberty, labor and land, slave labor and theft of Indian and Mexican land. According to the book, This Economy Kills: Pope Francis on Capitalism and Social Justice, capitalism has been highly productive but socially destructive. I would add that the sacred free Market has far too often been tied to ethnocentrism, oppression and theft. So God issues a call to America to repent.
What does biblical repentance look like? Luke 3:11-14 describes specific acts of repentance---share your surplus food and clothing, don't extort money, don't misuse your power and authority over others. Luke 19 describes repentance and restitution; Zacchaeus gave half of his possessions to the poor, and he gave four times the amount he had cheated.
What does non-repentance look like? Luke 18:18-22 is about the rich young ruler---a personally good and righteous guy who refused to radically repent and abundantly share; he refused to share and repair. Repentance, restitution and repair are major steps on the road to justice. God says he loves justice, that he wants oceans of justice.
According to Graham Cray, the agenda of the kingdom of God is justice; Matthew 6:33 declares that we are to seek first God's kingdom and his justice. So what is biblical justice? Jubilee justice that releases the oppressed poor and then repairs damaged individuals, families and communities.
"Repent, for the kingdom of God is here" The kingdom of God and the American Dream are not the same thing.
Monday, August 17, 2015
British White Supremacy and Savagery
The relationship of British White Supremacy and their Savagery against the Irish.
The following ideas have been gleaned from George M. Fredrickson's White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History, 1981. Fredrickson asserts that:
"white supremacy refers to the attitudes, ideologies, and policies associated with the rise of blatant forms of white or European dominance over 'nonwhite' populations. . . . It suggest systematic and self conscious efforts to make race or color a qualification for membership in the civil community."
The concept of savagery developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries "constituted a distorting lens through which the early colonists assessed the potential and predicted fate of non-European peoples they encountered." English plans for colonization were first practiced and perfected against the Irish and later applied across the Atlantic. In 1565, the British officially announced their goal to conquer and colonize Ireland.
"Between 1565 and 1576 a series of colonization enterprises were organized and promoted, involving many of the same West Country gentlemen who were to be leading figures in the earliest projects for English settlements in North America. . . . The rationale for expropriating their land and removing them from it was the the Celtic Irish were savages, so wild and rebellious that they could only be controlled by a constant and ruthless exercise of force."
Since the Christianity of the Irish was weak and superficial and could not control the Irish savage impulses, the consciences of the Protestant British did not bother them as they implemented
"virtually every kind of atrocity that would later be perpetrated against American Indians---women and children were massacred, and whole communities were uprooted and consigned to special reservations."
Once ethnic cleansing had occurred, four fifths of Northern Ireland was set aside for British and Scottish settlers. Fredrickson states that the Puritans who settled New England were an "intensely ethnocentric English community." So it is not surprising that the British settlers soon labeled Native American savages and started oppressing them. The British transferred their ethnocentrism and oppression against the Irish, lock-stock-and-barrel, to American Indians.
Some scholars have asserted that Hitler picked up some of these ideas from the British and Americans and applied them in Germany.
It is true: The historical past haunts our sociological present.
The following ideas have been gleaned from George M. Fredrickson's White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History, 1981. Fredrickson asserts that:
"white supremacy refers to the attitudes, ideologies, and policies associated with the rise of blatant forms of white or European dominance over 'nonwhite' populations. . . . It suggest systematic and self conscious efforts to make race or color a qualification for membership in the civil community."
The concept of savagery developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries "constituted a distorting lens through which the early colonists assessed the potential and predicted fate of non-European peoples they encountered." English plans for colonization were first practiced and perfected against the Irish and later applied across the Atlantic. In 1565, the British officially announced their goal to conquer and colonize Ireland.
"Between 1565 and 1576 a series of colonization enterprises were organized and promoted, involving many of the same West Country gentlemen who were to be leading figures in the earliest projects for English settlements in North America. . . . The rationale for expropriating their land and removing them from it was the the Celtic Irish were savages, so wild and rebellious that they could only be controlled by a constant and ruthless exercise of force."
Since the Christianity of the Irish was weak and superficial and could not control the Irish savage impulses, the consciences of the Protestant British did not bother them as they implemented
"virtually every kind of atrocity that would later be perpetrated against American Indians---women and children were massacred, and whole communities were uprooted and consigned to special reservations."
Once ethnic cleansing had occurred, four fifths of Northern Ireland was set aside for British and Scottish settlers. Fredrickson states that the Puritans who settled New England were an "intensely ethnocentric English community." So it is not surprising that the British settlers soon labeled Native American savages and started oppressing them. The British transferred their ethnocentrism and oppression against the Irish, lock-stock-and-barrel, to American Indians.
Some scholars have asserted that Hitler picked up some of these ideas from the British and Americans and applied them in Germany.
It is true: The historical past haunts our sociological present.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Reagan and Myths America Lives By
Was Reagan exceptionally evil or a normal white American in his implementation of the racial wealth gap and racial mass incarceration? I continue my book review of Myths America Lives By by Richard Hughes; it is my impression that the myths Hughes discusses explain Reagan's red-blooded American behavior.
Chapter 1 The Myth of the Chosen Nation: The Colonial Period
Hughes observes:
"Among the most powerful and persistent of all the myths that Americans invoke about themselves is the myth that America is a chosen nation and that its citizens constitute a chosen people. . . . It is one thing to claim that American is exceptional in its own eyes. It is something else to claim that America is exceptional because God chose America and its people for a special mission in the world."
There was only one chosen people---the nation of Israel. They were chosen for a specific reason---to be a servant people to bring the Messiah into the world. Unfortunately, they violated this covenant and moved from being a humble servant people to being a ethnocentric, superior people. They attempted to make God into their own private God.
As the Puritans saw it, only they and their theology were fully biblical. Other Christians such as Roger Williams were excluded; he was not one of God's chosen. The Puritans became religiously ethnocentric and this led to oppression done in the name of God. Chosenness, ethnocentrism, oppression---a dangerous, demonic mix. Before long Puritans were paying money for the scalps of Indians. Allen Carden, an expert on the Puritans, believe that, in the course of American history, the Puritan example legitimated the oppression of Native Americans which eventually led to the near genocide of the Indian population.
To Native Americans and Afro Americans, it often seemed that America was more like the evil city of Babylon than it was an expression of the kingdom of God. Hughes concludes:
"But when shorn of the notion of covenant and mutual responsibility, the myth of the Chosen Nation easily became a badge of privilege and power, justifying oppression and exploitation of those not included in the circle of the chosen."
Chapter 2 The Myth of Nature's Nation: The Revolutionary Period
During the 1800s, Europe was devastated by religious warfare; "Catholics and Protestant vied for power and control." An Englishman, Edward Lord Herbert, figured out a way to resolve this bloody religious warfare. He concluded that the Bible, especially various new translations, was the problem. It would be better, less controversial, to use a second book that God has authored---the world of nature. Nature's fundamental truth were self-evident and could be agreed upon by all religions. Reason and Nature would take center stage; the Bible would be de-emphasized.
Deism, a religious perspective, and the Enlightenment, a philosophical perspective, undergirded the founding of this country:
"In Herbert's zeal to seek religious truths in nature alone, for example, he scuttled all those doctrines that could be known only from the biblical text. In Deism, therefore, theologies about Jesus Christ as the Son of God went out the window. So did any teachings about the Holy Spirit. All that was left was God. . . . In America, Deism institutionalized itself in the Unitarian Church."
God does not have the same meaning in deism and biblical theism; do not read theistic ideas into deistic statements. The god of deism is a gutted God, a half God, a depersonalized god. Mother Nature is a good deistic phrase. Jefferson regarded the orthodox, biblical teaching of Christianity as "metaphysical insanities." He argued that his brand of deism "represented the heart of Jesus'teachings and the purest form of Christianity." He even created a gutted Bible---the Jefferson Bible.
The Declaration of Independence is pure deism: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, . . . . " Evangelical theists today bring their bible-based, trinitarian ideas of God with them and interpret these beautiful sentiments as Christian, but the original context was deism.
Hughes asserts "that the Declaration made Deism America's national faith." As the reader may have noted, many American presidents mention God in their speeches, but seldom Jesus Christ.
An Afro American, David Walker, opposed Jefferson head-on. Jefferson had argued that 'blacks were by NATURE inferior to whites." This directly contradicted the Declaration of Independence. Walker believed that Americanized Christianity made Christians more racist, more oppressive:
"American whites were bad enough without their religion. As Christians, they are ten times more cruel, avaricious and unmerciful than they ever were. . . . "
Frederick Douglas wrote an equally scathing passage:
"Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference. . . . I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whippping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity."
Some concluding observations by Hughes:
* "I should note that those who absolutized America's national myths were often the powerful and the privileged. . . . "
* "Indeed, I have tried to pay attention to the impact that corrupted and absolutized myths have exerted on the poor and the dispossessed throughout the course of American history."
* "While Americans often absolutize their myths during peacetime, they must absolutize them during wartime." For extensive documentation, see The Wars of America: Christian Views.
My conclusion: Reagan was just being a good ethnocentric white American elitist when he initiated the unjust War on Drugs and targeted blacks and Latinos, when the doubled the wealth gap. The theistic Puritans were ethnocentric and oppressive and demonic; the deistic founding fathers were ethnocentric, oppressive and demonic. Reagan repeated their wrongs.
Chapter 1 The Myth of the Chosen Nation: The Colonial Period
Hughes observes:
"Among the most powerful and persistent of all the myths that Americans invoke about themselves is the myth that America is a chosen nation and that its citizens constitute a chosen people. . . . It is one thing to claim that American is exceptional in its own eyes. It is something else to claim that America is exceptional because God chose America and its people for a special mission in the world."
There was only one chosen people---the nation of Israel. They were chosen for a specific reason---to be a servant people to bring the Messiah into the world. Unfortunately, they violated this covenant and moved from being a humble servant people to being a ethnocentric, superior people. They attempted to make God into their own private God.
As the Puritans saw it, only they and their theology were fully biblical. Other Christians such as Roger Williams were excluded; he was not one of God's chosen. The Puritans became religiously ethnocentric and this led to oppression done in the name of God. Chosenness, ethnocentrism, oppression---a dangerous, demonic mix. Before long Puritans were paying money for the scalps of Indians. Allen Carden, an expert on the Puritans, believe that, in the course of American history, the Puritan example legitimated the oppression of Native Americans which eventually led to the near genocide of the Indian population.
To Native Americans and Afro Americans, it often seemed that America was more like the evil city of Babylon than it was an expression of the kingdom of God. Hughes concludes:
"But when shorn of the notion of covenant and mutual responsibility, the myth of the Chosen Nation easily became a badge of privilege and power, justifying oppression and exploitation of those not included in the circle of the chosen."
Chapter 2 The Myth of Nature's Nation: The Revolutionary Period
During the 1800s, Europe was devastated by religious warfare; "Catholics and Protestant vied for power and control." An Englishman, Edward Lord Herbert, figured out a way to resolve this bloody religious warfare. He concluded that the Bible, especially various new translations, was the problem. It would be better, less controversial, to use a second book that God has authored---the world of nature. Nature's fundamental truth were self-evident and could be agreed upon by all religions. Reason and Nature would take center stage; the Bible would be de-emphasized.
Deism, a religious perspective, and the Enlightenment, a philosophical perspective, undergirded the founding of this country:
"In Herbert's zeal to seek religious truths in nature alone, for example, he scuttled all those doctrines that could be known only from the biblical text. In Deism, therefore, theologies about Jesus Christ as the Son of God went out the window. So did any teachings about the Holy Spirit. All that was left was God. . . . In America, Deism institutionalized itself in the Unitarian Church."
God does not have the same meaning in deism and biblical theism; do not read theistic ideas into deistic statements. The god of deism is a gutted God, a half God, a depersonalized god. Mother Nature is a good deistic phrase. Jefferson regarded the orthodox, biblical teaching of Christianity as "metaphysical insanities." He argued that his brand of deism "represented the heart of Jesus'teachings and the purest form of Christianity." He even created a gutted Bible---the Jefferson Bible.
The Declaration of Independence is pure deism: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, . . . . " Evangelical theists today bring their bible-based, trinitarian ideas of God with them and interpret these beautiful sentiments as Christian, but the original context was deism.
Hughes asserts "that the Declaration made Deism America's national faith." As the reader may have noted, many American presidents mention God in their speeches, but seldom Jesus Christ.
An Afro American, David Walker, opposed Jefferson head-on. Jefferson had argued that 'blacks were by NATURE inferior to whites." This directly contradicted the Declaration of Independence. Walker believed that Americanized Christianity made Christians more racist, more oppressive:
"American whites were bad enough without their religion. As Christians, they are ten times more cruel, avaricious and unmerciful than they ever were. . . . "
Frederick Douglas wrote an equally scathing passage:
"Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference. . . . I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whippping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity."
Some concluding observations by Hughes:
* "I should note that those who absolutized America's national myths were often the powerful and the privileged. . . . "
* "Indeed, I have tried to pay attention to the impact that corrupted and absolutized myths have exerted on the poor and the dispossessed throughout the course of American history."
* "While Americans often absolutize their myths during peacetime, they must absolutize them during wartime." For extensive documentation, see The Wars of America: Christian Views.
My conclusion: Reagan was just being a good ethnocentric white American elitist when he initiated the unjust War on Drugs and targeted blacks and Latinos, when the doubled the wealth gap. The theistic Puritans were ethnocentric and oppressive and demonic; the deistic founding fathers were ethnocentric, oppressive and demonic. Reagan repeated their wrongs.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Reagan and The Politics of Rich and Poor
The demonic Reagan counter-revolution nullified some of the important gains of the civil rights movement, but, of course, not all of them; in a previous blog I argued that Reagan created or expanded two new systems of oppression. One was the War on Drugs which through massive racial profiling targeted blacks and Latinos; the second was doubling the wealth gap between rich and poor with the worst impact on poor blacks. Both systems of oppression are legal---laws were passed creating them---as slavery and segregation legal for many years. Legalized systems of oppression---will they never end?
Now a book review of The Politics of Rich and Poor by Kevin Phillips, a one-time full-fledged Republican who probably voted for Reagan. This book was written in 1990, shortly after the Reagan era ended.
Kevin Phillips is a respected, veteran political analyst with a conservative Republican perspective; he brings an historical perspective and historical parallels to his contemporary analysis of the 1980s. Phillips states:
"The basic messages of The Politics of Rich and Poor were essentially these: that the 1980s had been a decade of fabulous wealth accumulation by the richest Americans while many others stagnated or declined; that the 1980s were, in fact, the third such capitalist and conservative heyday over the last century or so; "
Phillips cites study after study which indicates that the rich got richer and he concluded that "trickle down wasn't trickling." Historically, the masses, even many Republicans, resent the rich getting richer. While Americans are materialistic, they do have some sense of fairness and they react against economic extremes.
Phillips begins his book with this hard-hitting paragraph:
"The 1980s were the triumph of upper America---an ostentatious celebration of wealth, the political ascendancy of the richest third of the population and a glorification of capitalism, free markets and finance. But while money, greed and luxury had become the stuff of popular culture, hardly anyone asked why such great wealth had concentrated at the top, and whether this was the result of public policy."
In American history, at times, public policy has assisted the rich to get richer. At other times, public policy has to some degree redistributed the wealth of the nation thereby avoiding the need for another violent revolution. "Since the American Revolution the distribution of American wealth has depended significantly on who controlled the federal government, for what policies, and in behalf of which constituencies."
"Excesses in one direction have always bred a countermovement in the other direction, and the Reagan era certainly had its excesses." During the Reagan era, both billionaires and the homeless grew in numbers; and the U.S. had the greatest gap between the rich and poor of any Western nation. In my opinion no strong countermovement has arisen; the wealth gap continues to expand and expand; the elite rich are in control politically and economically.
In NT times the era of a religious rich elite running the Temple as a "den of robbers" didn't end until Rome destroyed the Temple. Not even Jesus was able to get the religious leaders to repent. Are we heading in the same direction?
In 1995 in an interview, Phillips said the 1980s Republicans proposed four different budgets to balance the budget and cut the deficit. None succeeded. In reality they were a massive con game to achieve three other goals: 1) cut taxes for their constituents, 2) shrink the role of government and shrink the safety net for the poor, 3) help the stock market.
Robert Wuthnow did some research on faith and economics; he concluded: "Although 92 percent of us believe that the condition of the poor is a serious social problem, our hearts are fundamentally with the rich. What religious faith does more clearly than anything else is to add a dollop of piety to the materialistic amalgam in which we live."
Now a book review of The Politics of Rich and Poor by Kevin Phillips, a one-time full-fledged Republican who probably voted for Reagan. This book was written in 1990, shortly after the Reagan era ended.
Kevin Phillips is a respected, veteran political analyst with a conservative Republican perspective; he brings an historical perspective and historical parallels to his contemporary analysis of the 1980s. Phillips states:
"The basic messages of The Politics of Rich and Poor were essentially these: that the 1980s had been a decade of fabulous wealth accumulation by the richest Americans while many others stagnated or declined; that the 1980s were, in fact, the third such capitalist and conservative heyday over the last century or so; "
Phillips cites study after study which indicates that the rich got richer and he concluded that "trickle down wasn't trickling." Historically, the masses, even many Republicans, resent the rich getting richer. While Americans are materialistic, they do have some sense of fairness and they react against economic extremes.
Phillips begins his book with this hard-hitting paragraph:
"The 1980s were the triumph of upper America---an ostentatious celebration of wealth, the political ascendancy of the richest third of the population and a glorification of capitalism, free markets and finance. But while money, greed and luxury had become the stuff of popular culture, hardly anyone asked why such great wealth had concentrated at the top, and whether this was the result of public policy."
In American history, at times, public policy has assisted the rich to get richer. At other times, public policy has to some degree redistributed the wealth of the nation thereby avoiding the need for another violent revolution. "Since the American Revolution the distribution of American wealth has depended significantly on who controlled the federal government, for what policies, and in behalf of which constituencies."
"Excesses in one direction have always bred a countermovement in the other direction, and the Reagan era certainly had its excesses." During the Reagan era, both billionaires and the homeless grew in numbers; and the U.S. had the greatest gap between the rich and poor of any Western nation. In my opinion no strong countermovement has arisen; the wealth gap continues to expand and expand; the elite rich are in control politically and economically.
In NT times the era of a religious rich elite running the Temple as a "den of robbers" didn't end until Rome destroyed the Temple. Not even Jesus was able to get the religious leaders to repent. Are we heading in the same direction?
In 1995 in an interview, Phillips said the 1980s Republicans proposed four different budgets to balance the budget and cut the deficit. None succeeded. In reality they were a massive con game to achieve three other goals: 1) cut taxes for their constituents, 2) shrink the role of government and shrink the safety net for the poor, 3) help the stock market.
Robert Wuthnow did some research on faith and economics; he concluded: "Although 92 percent of us believe that the condition of the poor is a serious social problem, our hearts are fundamentally with the rich. What religious faith does more clearly than anything else is to add a dollop of piety to the materialistic amalgam in which we live."
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Amazing Justice, how sweet the sound
For many years, I have wanted some justice verses added to the tune of Amazing Grace. This excerpt from "Amazing Sin, How Deep We're Bound," an article by Mark R. McMinn in the May 2004 Christianity Today hints at the idea that Amazing Grace declares only half the biblical gospel:
"In his journal, Newton even wrote that being the captain of a slave ship was optimal for 'promoting the Life of God in the Soul.' Newton's slave trading might have continued for many more years except for a seizure that made a career change medically necessary. In all, Newton spent 10 years trading slaves, most of them AFTER his conversion to Christianity."
The first verse might be revised: "Amazing justice, how sweet the sound, to the ears of the wretched oppressed."
But last Sunday, I asked Pastor Donna Ihns who is both a poet and a musician to help. Today, she handed the following verses:
Amazing grace, please lead me on to see where I am wrong.
And turn my steps, my heart, my voice to sing the justice song.
If justice is the goal I seek, I cannot keep self first;
So every action, thought and word must be my best, not worst.
To judge me as I others judge, the Lord has promised me.
Let justice like great waters roll` that all God's grace may see.
Would any of you like to write more justice verses to the tune of Amazing Grace? If so, please send them to me.
The following are some of my semi-poetic thoughts on some justice content.
From The Message, Amos 5:24: "I want justice---oceans of it. I want fairness---rivers of it."
Liberating justice, Jubilee justice, kingdom justice
Liberating Justice: The Missing Half of the Gospel
Repent of oppression, I did not do,
Because the gospel I heard was flawed.
No preaching on oppression and justice;
the spiritual was divorced from the social.
"Promoting the Life of God" while slaving
Is hypocrisy, heresy, to be exposed.
'I was blind' for far too long;
'Now I see' came far too late
For the thousands I carried cross the sea.
Remorse I felt, but restitution no.
Grace is great, but works came slow;
Justification by grace, but justice no.
No Spirit, no kingdom, no justice means
Untold misery for millions more.
Begin with grace, them move to justice;
Amazing grace, liberating justice must be combined
To liberate the bruised oppressed.
Oppression crushes, oppression humiliates;
It damages the image of God..
Spirit-anointed, liberating-justice
A good news package for the oppressed poor.
Through me, let justice flood the land
Washing away the garbage of oppression.
"In his journal, Newton even wrote that being the captain of a slave ship was optimal for 'promoting the Life of God in the Soul.' Newton's slave trading might have continued for many more years except for a seizure that made a career change medically necessary. In all, Newton spent 10 years trading slaves, most of them AFTER his conversion to Christianity."
The first verse might be revised: "Amazing justice, how sweet the sound, to the ears of the wretched oppressed."
But last Sunday, I asked Pastor Donna Ihns who is both a poet and a musician to help. Today, she handed the following verses:
Amazing grace, please lead me on to see where I am wrong.
And turn my steps, my heart, my voice to sing the justice song.
If justice is the goal I seek, I cannot keep self first;
So every action, thought and word must be my best, not worst.
To judge me as I others judge, the Lord has promised me.
Let justice like great waters roll` that all God's grace may see.
Would any of you like to write more justice verses to the tune of Amazing Grace? If so, please send them to me.
The following are some of my semi-poetic thoughts on some justice content.
From The Message, Amos 5:24: "I want justice---oceans of it. I want fairness---rivers of it."
Liberating justice, Jubilee justice, kingdom justice
Liberating Justice: The Missing Half of the Gospel
Repent of oppression, I did not do,
Because the gospel I heard was flawed.
No preaching on oppression and justice;
the spiritual was divorced from the social.
"Promoting the Life of God" while slaving
Is hypocrisy, heresy, to be exposed.
'I was blind' for far too long;
'Now I see' came far too late
For the thousands I carried cross the sea.
Remorse I felt, but restitution no.
Grace is great, but works came slow;
Justification by grace, but justice no.
No Spirit, no kingdom, no justice means
Untold misery for millions more.
Begin with grace, them move to justice;
Amazing grace, liberating justice must be combined
To liberate the bruised oppressed.
Oppression crushes, oppression humiliates;
It damages the image of God..
Spirit-anointed, liberating-justice
A good news package for the oppressed poor.
Through me, let justice flood the land
Washing away the garbage of oppression.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Black Lives, White Lives
Robert Blauner, a sociologist, wrote Black Lives, White Lives: Three Decades of Race Relations in America, 1989. Much of this book is based on 20 years of interviews with both blacks and whites; this a rare longitudinal study that sees the impact of social change upon American race relations. Social change in America takes place a at rapid pace making it difficult for scholars to keep up. Next some excerpts from the Conclusion of Black Lives, White Lives:
"Among the blacks we interviewed in 1968 there was a marked ambivalence toward integration. Ten years later this ambivalence had become a full-fledged disillusionment; neither integration nor Black Power had brought about the kind of fundamental changes in American society that people had expected. And despite some important reforms, it was clear that a racial revolution was not going to happen in the foreseeable future. . . . " Still true in 2015.
"In the sixties people viewed Black Power and integration as mutually exclusive strategies. . . . Since the early 1980s, black politics has been based on the recognition that a synthesis of the two strategies is needed. Integration alone cannot be expected to bring about racial equality, . . . Today the people left behind have less hope of a better life than their counterparts did in the sixties: the urban ghettos are even more economically and socially depressed. And segregation---though no longer sanctioned by law---remains prevalent in schools and neighborhoods."
"The loss of community is seen as the most serious cost of integration. . . . American society had become more violent and dangerous, more individualistic---even nihilistic--- and less bound by traditional values."
Summary
Only one of the 10 whites interviewed had significant contact with blacks; so most whites only have a superficial understanding of Blacks and the impact of centuries of oppression and poverty.
Most blacks' "life histories go deeper, and are more firmly rooted in a philosophy of life [often a biblical one].."
Neither black nor white have found a way to solve the fundamental problem of American racism/ethnocentrism/oppression. This applies to both black and white churches. All American churches need to dig deep into the scriptural teaching on ethnocentrism and oppression, then move toward solutions using justice, reconciliation, shalom and the kingdom of God.
Blauner's scholarhip and analysis is excellent, but, in a sense, he is outdated. Even as he was finishing his book (1989), events had left his analysis behind. During the 1980s, the Reagan era, the Reagan Revolution, spawned two new systems of oppression---the racial wealth gap and mass incarceration based heavily on racial profiling. These systems of oppression have always been present in American society but they took on a new level of magnitude under Reagan. For documentation on Reagan and the wealth gap, see The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath (1990); for documentation on Reagan and mass incarceration and racial profiling, read The New Jim Crow (2010).
Kevin Phillips, author of The Politics of Rich and Poor, was once a key conservative Republican strategist, a brilliant analyst and writer. After the Reagan era, Phillips was disillusioned by what he saw happening; the gap between rich and poor doubled; the rich prospered, the poor suffered. So Phillips decided he needed to expose what had happened. By this time Phillips had matured, moved beyond ideology to statesmanship. In book after book, a total of 15 quality books, Phillips dug deeply into both American history and current economic and political analysis. Google the Wikipedia on Phillips and the book review of The Politics of Rich and Poor by Brett Crow.
After reading both Phillips and Alexander on Reagan and the racial wealth gap and mass incarceration, both of which Reagan started, I now conclude that the Reagan Era was a demonic one, an evil empire, to coin a phrase, with impacts that none of the following presidents, Republican and Democratic, have undone. So in 2015, during the Obama era, both mass incarceration and the racial wealth are running wild, unchecked by either the government or the American church. Much talk, but little concrete action.
Now a 2014 update from the pen of Dean Starkman; see his article in the June 30, 2014 issue of The New Republic entitled "The $236,500 Hole in the American Dream: The wealth gap between black and white families is greater than ever. Here's how to close it."
Starkman begins his article on the racial wealth gap referring to Thomas Piketty's book on wealth---economic inequality---titled Capital in the Twenty First Century: "Piketty argued that the more important factor driving the divide was not compensation [income] but assets [wealth]. The machinery of a market economy, he demonstrated, grinds out returns on wealth that are higher than income. . . . '
But Piketty ignores the racial component so Strakman turns to Ta-Nehisi Coates' article in The Atlantic titled "The Case for Reparations." "Coates frames centuries of discrimination against African Americans as a story of wealth stolen or denied. Retracing 250 years of ugly U.S. history, he inventories the many ways blacks have been suppressed economically, and sometimes violently: slavery Jim Crow, predatory lending scams, barriers to advancement---both legal and de facto---of astonishing variety."
"Notwithstanding its undeniable historical roots, the bulk of the [current] black-white wealth gap can be traced to current policies and structures that have made the wealth divide grow at an accelerating pace over the past 25 years [beginning in the Reagan era]."
The next experts that Starkman turns to are Thomas M. Shapiro Melvin L. Oliver, white and black sociologists who have specialized in studying the racial wealth gap, their first book (1995) being Black Wealth/White Wealth. In 2014, Shapiro and colleagues published : "The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap; Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide." Starkman summarizes: "In 1984 the median working-age white family had inflation-adjusted assets worth $90,851, compared with a net worth of only $5,781 for the median black family of working age. . . . [in 2010] the median white wealth had jumped to $265,000, while median black wealth was just $28,500."
"Notably, all the material factors the report identifies are traceable to policies put in place in the post-Civil Rights era [primarily the Reagan era]. Wealth in America has continued to be quietly and overwhelmingly funneled to whites, principally because the asset-building policies now in place are aimed at people who already have assets. Meanwhile the better-publicized federal cuts in safety-net programs and aid to cities and states that began in earnest under Ronald Reagan have not only made day-to-day existence more difficult . . . but undermined black asset accumulation as well."
Starkman's conclusion: "African Americans' accomplishments, on their own, will never, ever be enough to dig them out of the hole they've been thrown into." The government will have to make radical and comprehensive changes in policy and the churches will need to make a radical commitment to justice, to the repair of black families and communities.
To tackle housing, residential segregation and predatory loans must be stopped and policies reshaped to favor the poor, not the rich. The same for tax-free retirement plans. "the government could roll out means-tested subsidized education accounts . . . baby bonds." Starkman develops these ideas and more in his article. Current government policies are legalizing systems of oppression the benefit the rich and oppress the poor---in direction violation of James chapter two.
But to change the racial wealth gap will take a political revolution, and the churches will have to lead this revolution. But at this point the church lacks both the theological foundation and the moral courage to do so.
But it may be that the above comments are too factual; possibly the reader needs to hear an astonishingly agonizing and gripping personal account from Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of the widely-read article, "The Case for Reparations." In the September 2015 of The Atlantic, Coates has an article titled "Letter to My Son." This is an unvarnished look at black life; next some excerpts:
". . . white America's progress . . . was built upon looting and violence. . . . the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land."
". . . the [American] Dream rests on our [black] backs."
"But all our phrasing---race relations racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy---serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth."
"What should be our aim beyond meager survival? . . . . I have asked this question all my life. The question is unanswerable."
Some comments on fear in the ghetto:
"All of them [young black men] were powerfully, adamantly, dangerously afraid. . . . My father was so very afraid. . . . the violence rose from fear like smoke from a fire"
"To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease."
"The culture of the streets was essential. . . . I could not retreat into the church. . . . We would not kneel before their God." "Everybody of any import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white."
"Our bodies built the Capitol and the White House."
Millions of black fathers could write this same letter to their sons and daughters. This will only stop when millions of white mothers and fathers write letters pledging to repent, restitute, and repair, to do justice so that the oppressed blacks can experience liberty and justice. If any of you write such a letter, please send a copy to me [ lowellnoble@gmail. com ]
Coates talks a lot about the black struggle to survive and urges his son to continue the struggle, but he does not much hope beyond that. No false hopes are expressed.
How can we end the endless 400 year struggle? Or are blacks doomed to endless struggle? Without White Christians and white churches entering into the black struggle by repenting, restituting and repairing damaged lives, families and communities according to kingdom of God principles, according to Jubilee justice principles, the endless struggle will continue.
Some specific issues which should be tackled:
* mass incarceration
* racial wealth gap
* PTSD or PTSS or PTOS, personal and social
"Among the blacks we interviewed in 1968 there was a marked ambivalence toward integration. Ten years later this ambivalence had become a full-fledged disillusionment; neither integration nor Black Power had brought about the kind of fundamental changes in American society that people had expected. And despite some important reforms, it was clear that a racial revolution was not going to happen in the foreseeable future. . . . " Still true in 2015.
"In the sixties people viewed Black Power and integration as mutually exclusive strategies. . . . Since the early 1980s, black politics has been based on the recognition that a synthesis of the two strategies is needed. Integration alone cannot be expected to bring about racial equality, . . . Today the people left behind have less hope of a better life than their counterparts did in the sixties: the urban ghettos are even more economically and socially depressed. And segregation---though no longer sanctioned by law---remains prevalent in schools and neighborhoods."
"The loss of community is seen as the most serious cost of integration. . . . American society had become more violent and dangerous, more individualistic---even nihilistic--- and less bound by traditional values."
Summary
Only one of the 10 whites interviewed had significant contact with blacks; so most whites only have a superficial understanding of Blacks and the impact of centuries of oppression and poverty.
Most blacks' "life histories go deeper, and are more firmly rooted in a philosophy of life [often a biblical one].."
Neither black nor white have found a way to solve the fundamental problem of American racism/ethnocentrism/oppression. This applies to both black and white churches. All American churches need to dig deep into the scriptural teaching on ethnocentrism and oppression, then move toward solutions using justice, reconciliation, shalom and the kingdom of God.
Blauner's scholarhip and analysis is excellent, but, in a sense, he is outdated. Even as he was finishing his book (1989), events had left his analysis behind. During the 1980s, the Reagan era, the Reagan Revolution, spawned two new systems of oppression---the racial wealth gap and mass incarceration based heavily on racial profiling. These systems of oppression have always been present in American society but they took on a new level of magnitude under Reagan. For documentation on Reagan and the wealth gap, see The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath (1990); for documentation on Reagan and mass incarceration and racial profiling, read The New Jim Crow (2010).
Kevin Phillips, author of The Politics of Rich and Poor, was once a key conservative Republican strategist, a brilliant analyst and writer. After the Reagan era, Phillips was disillusioned by what he saw happening; the gap between rich and poor doubled; the rich prospered, the poor suffered. So Phillips decided he needed to expose what had happened. By this time Phillips had matured, moved beyond ideology to statesmanship. In book after book, a total of 15 quality books, Phillips dug deeply into both American history and current economic and political analysis. Google the Wikipedia on Phillips and the book review of The Politics of Rich and Poor by Brett Crow.
After reading both Phillips and Alexander on Reagan and the racial wealth gap and mass incarceration, both of which Reagan started, I now conclude that the Reagan Era was a demonic one, an evil empire, to coin a phrase, with impacts that none of the following presidents, Republican and Democratic, have undone. So in 2015, during the Obama era, both mass incarceration and the racial wealth are running wild, unchecked by either the government or the American church. Much talk, but little concrete action.
Now a 2014 update from the pen of Dean Starkman; see his article in the June 30, 2014 issue of The New Republic entitled "The $236,500 Hole in the American Dream: The wealth gap between black and white families is greater than ever. Here's how to close it."
Starkman begins his article on the racial wealth gap referring to Thomas Piketty's book on wealth---economic inequality---titled Capital in the Twenty First Century: "Piketty argued that the more important factor driving the divide was not compensation [income] but assets [wealth]. The machinery of a market economy, he demonstrated, grinds out returns on wealth that are higher than income. . . . '
But Piketty ignores the racial component so Strakman turns to Ta-Nehisi Coates' article in The Atlantic titled "The Case for Reparations." "Coates frames centuries of discrimination against African Americans as a story of wealth stolen or denied. Retracing 250 years of ugly U.S. history, he inventories the many ways blacks have been suppressed economically, and sometimes violently: slavery Jim Crow, predatory lending scams, barriers to advancement---both legal and de facto---of astonishing variety."
"Notwithstanding its undeniable historical roots, the bulk of the [current] black-white wealth gap can be traced to current policies and structures that have made the wealth divide grow at an accelerating pace over the past 25 years [beginning in the Reagan era]."
The next experts that Starkman turns to are Thomas M. Shapiro Melvin L. Oliver, white and black sociologists who have specialized in studying the racial wealth gap, their first book (1995) being Black Wealth/White Wealth. In 2014, Shapiro and colleagues published : "The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap; Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide." Starkman summarizes: "In 1984 the median working-age white family had inflation-adjusted assets worth $90,851, compared with a net worth of only $5,781 for the median black family of working age. . . . [in 2010] the median white wealth had jumped to $265,000, while median black wealth was just $28,500."
"Notably, all the material factors the report identifies are traceable to policies put in place in the post-Civil Rights era [primarily the Reagan era]. Wealth in America has continued to be quietly and overwhelmingly funneled to whites, principally because the asset-building policies now in place are aimed at people who already have assets. Meanwhile the better-publicized federal cuts in safety-net programs and aid to cities and states that began in earnest under Ronald Reagan have not only made day-to-day existence more difficult . . . but undermined black asset accumulation as well."
Starkman's conclusion: "African Americans' accomplishments, on their own, will never, ever be enough to dig them out of the hole they've been thrown into." The government will have to make radical and comprehensive changes in policy and the churches will need to make a radical commitment to justice, to the repair of black families and communities.
To tackle housing, residential segregation and predatory loans must be stopped and policies reshaped to favor the poor, not the rich. The same for tax-free retirement plans. "the government could roll out means-tested subsidized education accounts . . . baby bonds." Starkman develops these ideas and more in his article. Current government policies are legalizing systems of oppression the benefit the rich and oppress the poor---in direction violation of James chapter two.
But to change the racial wealth gap will take a political revolution, and the churches will have to lead this revolution. But at this point the church lacks both the theological foundation and the moral courage to do so.
But it may be that the above comments are too factual; possibly the reader needs to hear an astonishingly agonizing and gripping personal account from Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of the widely-read article, "The Case for Reparations." In the September 2015 of The Atlantic, Coates has an article titled "Letter to My Son." This is an unvarnished look at black life; next some excerpts:
". . . white America's progress . . . was built upon looting and violence. . . . the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land."
". . . the [American] Dream rests on our [black] backs."
"But all our phrasing---race relations racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy---serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth."
"What should be our aim beyond meager survival? . . . . I have asked this question all my life. The question is unanswerable."
Some comments on fear in the ghetto:
"All of them [young black men] were powerfully, adamantly, dangerously afraid. . . . My father was so very afraid. . . . the violence rose from fear like smoke from a fire"
"To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease."
"The culture of the streets was essential. . . . I could not retreat into the church. . . . We would not kneel before their God." "Everybody of any import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white."
"Our bodies built the Capitol and the White House."
Millions of black fathers could write this same letter to their sons and daughters. This will only stop when millions of white mothers and fathers write letters pledging to repent, restitute, and repair, to do justice so that the oppressed blacks can experience liberty and justice. If any of you write such a letter, please send a copy to me [ lowellnoble@gmail. com ]
Coates talks a lot about the black struggle to survive and urges his son to continue the struggle, but he does not much hope beyond that. No false hopes are expressed.
How can we end the endless 400 year struggle? Or are blacks doomed to endless struggle? Without White Christians and white churches entering into the black struggle by repenting, restituting and repairing damaged lives, families and communities according to kingdom of God principles, according to Jubilee justice principles, the endless struggle will continue.
Some specific issues which should be tackled:
* mass incarceration
* racial wealth gap
* PTSD or PTSS or PTOS, personal and social
More Myths that the North Lives By
Especially in connection with the Civil War, the North is portrayed as the good guys and the South as the bad guys. At best, only half true. The following are some excerpts from the PBS introduction to the documentary, Traces of the Trade:
"A central fact obscured by post-Civil War mythologies is that the northern states were deeply implicated in slavery and the slave trade right up to the war. The slave trade in particular was dominated by the northern maritime industry. Rhode Island alone was responsible for half of all slave voyages.
"The North also imported slaves, as well as transporting and selling them in the south and abroad. While the majority of enslaved Africans arrived in southern ports. . . most large colonial ports served as points of entry, and Africans were sold in northern ports including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Newport, Rhode Island.
"The southern coastal states from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland were therefore home to the vast majority of enslaved persons. But there were slaves in each of the thirteen colonies, and slavery was legal in the north for over two hundred years. While the northern states gradually began abolishing slavery by law starting in the 1780s, many northern states did not act against slavery until well into the 19th century, and their laws generally provided only for gradual abolition, allowing slave owners to keep their existing slaves and often their children. As a result, New Jersey, for instance, still had thousands of persons legally enslaved in the 1830s, and did not finally abolish slavery by law until 1846. As late as the outbreak of the Civil War, in fact, there were northern slaves listed on the federal census."
For more on the pervasive impact and presence of slavery in the colonies, read Racist America by the sociologist Joe Feagin.
Recently 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 past and present, though it has never flown the Confederate flag. The North's racism has been tied to the Stars and Stripes. My reading of US history would lead me to this conclusion---that far more ethnocentrism and oppression are tied to the Northern flag than the Confederate flag.
1. The North was the center of the slave trade; the slave trade was more evil than slavery.
2. The North engaged is slavery also; they just ended it sooner than the South.
3. The North partially financed slavery and profited greatly from the cotton trade, a product grown by slaves.
4. The North is currently heavily involved in mass incarceration and racial profiling; the Confederate flag does not fly over Northern prisons.
5. The Big Banks and Wall Street are largely Northern entities; they drive the racial wealth gap. Wall Street once traded slaves; Wall Street does not fly the Confederate flag.
6. I see no sign of a deep-seated repentance and restitution by whites in either the North or the South. Genuine biblical repentance and restitution would result in the white church aggressively attempting to end both mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap.
7. Hint: Even if the South gets rid of its Confederate flag, its racism will not end.
"A central fact obscured by post-Civil War mythologies is that the northern states were deeply implicated in slavery and the slave trade right up to the war. The slave trade in particular was dominated by the northern maritime industry. Rhode Island alone was responsible for half of all slave voyages.
"The North also imported slaves, as well as transporting and selling them in the south and abroad. While the majority of enslaved Africans arrived in southern ports. . . most large colonial ports served as points of entry, and Africans were sold in northern ports including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Newport, Rhode Island.
"The southern coastal states from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland were therefore home to the vast majority of enslaved persons. But there were slaves in each of the thirteen colonies, and slavery was legal in the north for over two hundred years. While the northern states gradually began abolishing slavery by law starting in the 1780s, many northern states did not act against slavery until well into the 19th century, and their laws generally provided only for gradual abolition, allowing slave owners to keep their existing slaves and often their children. As a result, New Jersey, for instance, still had thousands of persons legally enslaved in the 1830s, and did not finally abolish slavery by law until 1846. As late as the outbreak of the Civil War, in fact, there were northern slaves listed on the federal census."
For more on the pervasive impact and presence of slavery in the colonies, read Racist America by the sociologist Joe Feagin.
Recently 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 past and present, though it has never flown the Confederate flag. The North's racism has been tied to the Stars and Stripes. My reading of US history would lead me to this conclusion---that far more ethnocentrism and oppression are tied to the Northern flag than the Confederate flag.
1. The North was the center of the slave trade; the slave trade was more evil than slavery.
2. The North engaged is slavery also; they just ended it sooner than the South.
3. The North partially financed slavery and profited greatly from the cotton trade, a product grown by slaves.
4. The North is currently heavily involved in mass incarceration and racial profiling; the Confederate flag does not fly over Northern prisons.
5. The Big Banks and Wall Street are largely Northern entities; they drive the racial wealth gap. Wall Street once traded slaves; Wall Street does not fly the Confederate flag.
6. I see no sign of a deep-seated repentance and restitution by whites in either the North or the South. Genuine biblical repentance and restitution would result in the white church aggressively attempting to end both mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap.
7. Hint: Even if the South gets rid of its Confederate flag, its racism will not end.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Women in Ministry
1. In CREATION, men and women are equal (Genesis 1:27).
2. In REDEMPTION, women and men are equal (Galatians 3:28).
3. In EMPOWERMENT and GIFTS, women and men are equal; "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy." (Acts 2:17).
4. Creation focuses on God the Father; redemption focuses on Jesus Christ; empowerment focuses on the Holy Spirit. These are the CENTRAL TRUTHS in the Christian faith All other biblical statements about men and women should be interpreted in the light of these great biblical truths, not vice versa. For example, the puzzling statement by Paul that women should be silent must be interpreted in the light of Genesis 1:27, Galatians 3:28 and Acts 2:17, not vice versa.
5. Impact of the fall upon women; "he shall rule over you." (Genesis 3:16). The creation norm of reciprocal intimacy is marred, but not totally lost. According to Gilbert Balezikian, "the woman wants a mate and she gets a master; she wants a lover and she gets a lord; she wants a husband and she gets a hierarch." The punishment of women (Genesis 3:16) has too often been accepted and legitimated as the norm for women in society and even in the church. The end result is domination by men and second-class citizenship for women.
6. In contrast to the impact of the fall upon women, note Jesus' treatment of women; Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen writes:
"It is difficult for us to realize how revolutionary Jesus' teaching on men and women must have sounded to his hearers. But the rabbinic and other extra-biblical Jewish writings of the period show that the Jews of Jesus' time had an overwhelmingly negative attitude toward women---an attitude that the women, moreover, simply seemed to accept, since to do otherwise would have been to risk having no place in the community whatever. Through the whole of the Old Testament period, Genesis 3:16 was working itself out in predictable fashion."
Reversing the Effects of the Fall
"Into this setting comes a rabbi who almost never tells a parable using male images and activities without also using a parallel one involving women. To a culture that allowed easy divorce and even polygamy for men, but not women, he insisted on monogamy and the elimination of divorce by appealing to God's original intentions for both men and women. (His disciples were so stunned by this teaching that they suggested it would be easier not to marry at all!) To a culture that was obsessed with blood ties, and in which barren women were a disgrace, he taught that the family of God was so much more important that it might even divide parents from children. In a culture that refused to recognize women as teachers or as witnesses in court, he allowed women to be the first witnesses of his resurrection and a woman to proclaim that event to his male disciples. . . . Over the course of the four gospels, there is a total of 633 verses in which Jesus refers to women, and almost none of these are negative in tone."
7. Paul is famous or infamous for his teaching that women should not teach men (I Timothy 2:12) or that women are to be silent in church (I Corinthians 14:34-36). Paul is not as well known for his recognition of women as ministers and leaders in the church. Larry Lutz writes:
"Paul refers to no less than ten women in Romans 16, referring to some as 'fellow-workers' a term which he uses to describe male workers in the church as well."
8. Men and women were created the same and different. They are both persons created in the image of God and they were created different---as male and female. Women and men have more in common as persons than they have differences is body (sex) and in gender (social roles). Differences which lead to husband and wife, mother and father roles are obviously significant and important, but these differences must not be overemphasized so they transcend the common personhood in the image of God. Social roles must not be constructed in such a way as to dominate or damage personhood.
9. Larry Lutz contrasts the traditional biblical interpretation of men and women with feminist biblical views:
* Traditional: "Women have spiritual equality before God, but limited freedom in church and family."
* Feminist: "Women have spiritual equality before God and social equality as people." Gal. 3:28
* Traditional: "God commanded woman to allow her husband to rule over her."
* Feminist: "God declared that as a result of sin, man would rule over woman." Gen. 3:16
* Traditional: "Man as head is ruler and authority over woman."
* Feminist: "Man as head is source, nurturer and servant-leader." I Cor. 11:3
10. By 1900 more than 48 women's missionary societies were recruiting, funding, and sending women to, and supervising them in missionary fields around the world. By 1929, 67% of all North American missionaries were women. By the 1990s, nearly half the pastors in the Philippine Free Methodist church were women. Women are both the face of poverty in many countries and the key to family and community development.
2. In REDEMPTION, women and men are equal (Galatians 3:28).
3. In EMPOWERMENT and GIFTS, women and men are equal; "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy." (Acts 2:17).
4. Creation focuses on God the Father; redemption focuses on Jesus Christ; empowerment focuses on the Holy Spirit. These are the CENTRAL TRUTHS in the Christian faith All other biblical statements about men and women should be interpreted in the light of these great biblical truths, not vice versa. For example, the puzzling statement by Paul that women should be silent must be interpreted in the light of Genesis 1:27, Galatians 3:28 and Acts 2:17, not vice versa.
5. Impact of the fall upon women; "he shall rule over you." (Genesis 3:16). The creation norm of reciprocal intimacy is marred, but not totally lost. According to Gilbert Balezikian, "the woman wants a mate and she gets a master; she wants a lover and she gets a lord; she wants a husband and she gets a hierarch." The punishment of women (Genesis 3:16) has too often been accepted and legitimated as the norm for women in society and even in the church. The end result is domination by men and second-class citizenship for women.
6. In contrast to the impact of the fall upon women, note Jesus' treatment of women; Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen writes:
"It is difficult for us to realize how revolutionary Jesus' teaching on men and women must have sounded to his hearers. But the rabbinic and other extra-biblical Jewish writings of the period show that the Jews of Jesus' time had an overwhelmingly negative attitude toward women---an attitude that the women, moreover, simply seemed to accept, since to do otherwise would have been to risk having no place in the community whatever. Through the whole of the Old Testament period, Genesis 3:16 was working itself out in predictable fashion."
Reversing the Effects of the Fall
"Into this setting comes a rabbi who almost never tells a parable using male images and activities without also using a parallel one involving women. To a culture that allowed easy divorce and even polygamy for men, but not women, he insisted on monogamy and the elimination of divorce by appealing to God's original intentions for both men and women. (His disciples were so stunned by this teaching that they suggested it would be easier not to marry at all!) To a culture that was obsessed with blood ties, and in which barren women were a disgrace, he taught that the family of God was so much more important that it might even divide parents from children. In a culture that refused to recognize women as teachers or as witnesses in court, he allowed women to be the first witnesses of his resurrection and a woman to proclaim that event to his male disciples. . . . Over the course of the four gospels, there is a total of 633 verses in which Jesus refers to women, and almost none of these are negative in tone."
7. Paul is famous or infamous for his teaching that women should not teach men (I Timothy 2:12) or that women are to be silent in church (I Corinthians 14:34-36). Paul is not as well known for his recognition of women as ministers and leaders in the church. Larry Lutz writes:
"Paul refers to no less than ten women in Romans 16, referring to some as 'fellow-workers' a term which he uses to describe male workers in the church as well."
8. Men and women were created the same and different. They are both persons created in the image of God and they were created different---as male and female. Women and men have more in common as persons than they have differences is body (sex) and in gender (social roles). Differences which lead to husband and wife, mother and father roles are obviously significant and important, but these differences must not be overemphasized so they transcend the common personhood in the image of God. Social roles must not be constructed in such a way as to dominate or damage personhood.
9. Larry Lutz contrasts the traditional biblical interpretation of men and women with feminist biblical views:
* Traditional: "Women have spiritual equality before God, but limited freedom in church and family."
* Feminist: "Women have spiritual equality before God and social equality as people." Gal. 3:28
* Traditional: "God commanded woman to allow her husband to rule over her."
* Feminist: "God declared that as a result of sin, man would rule over woman." Gen. 3:16
* Traditional: "Man as head is ruler and authority over woman."
* Feminist: "Man as head is source, nurturer and servant-leader." I Cor. 11:3
10. By 1900 more than 48 women's missionary societies were recruiting, funding, and sending women to, and supervising them in missionary fields around the world. By 1929, 67% of all North American missionaries were women. By the 1990s, nearly half the pastors in the Philippine Free Methodist church were women. Women are both the face of poverty in many countries and the key to family and community development.
Friday, August 7, 2015
Myths America Lives By by Hughes
A few years ago I heard a well-known, evangelical TV pastor preach an eloquent, but erroneous, sermon on the Christian virtues of the deist, George Washington. At the end of the sermon, I almost expected the preacher to canonize Washington as a Protestant saint. But this supposedly strict biblical preacher had sanitized and sanctified a life that was full of social evil---ethnocentrism and oppression. George Washington owned around 300 slaves. George and the founding fathers were a rich, white, male elite who discriminated against the poor, against women, against Native American and Afro Americans.
A evangelical Afro American pastor friend of mine once told me that he preferred reading American history written by secular historians because they were more honest than most Christian historians he had read. Too often evangelical Euro American writers or preachers have sanitized American history to preserve certain ideological truths regarding our supposed Christian founding.
Good news, Pastor Andy! I may have found an American history book that you would like to read. According to reviewer Greg Taylor, Christian historian of American religious history, Richard Hughes "seriously considers the views of more than two centuries of deprived African Americans and Native Americans. It's a book that can help Christians rethink their role and mission in American life."
To help us begin the process of rethinking American history, let us listen to three Afro Americans reflect on American history. First, Mississippi born and raised, Lee Harper: "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things that seemed just."
Next, the Rev. Bill McGill: "The Christian Coalition should stop preaching the lie that this country was founded on Christian principles and values, and teach their children that only a godless people would be responsible for Indian genocide and African enslavement."
John Perkins, in his book A Quiet Revolution, ponders the causes of horrible oppression and devastating poverty; Perkins writes: "the roots of poverty were in the system itself, growing out of the very culture and traditions and history of the South and America."
Greg Taylor summarizes some of the myths that Hughes debunks: "The myth that the colonists were a chosen people to possess North America fed the myth of Nature's Nation, born in the revolutionary period, that European white colonists, not Africans or Native Americans, were best fit to effect God's purposes."
Liberty without justice for all is hollow and hypocritical. Before we sing "God Bless America" one more time, American evangelicals should first repent of our part in American ethnocentrism and oppression and then engage in restitution to correct the severe damage done to millions of people created in the image of God.
Another Christian book, The Wars of America: Christian Views, is brutally honest about our many wars and why we fought the. The Revolutionary War is discussed by the highly respected Christian historian, George Marsden. Marsden bluntly states that, contrary to popular opinion, especially among evangelicals, the British tyranny was not bad enough to justify a violent revolution. Yet the war was enthusiastically supported by many evangelicals.
If you need additional help in correcting your sanitized understanding of American history, I would recommend two quality books by Afro American historians: Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett and The Great Wells of Democracy by Manning Marable. The Trail of Tears (there many such trails) by Gloria Jahoda documents the horrible story of the forced removal of American Indian tribes east of the Mississippi river. Next read A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki, a Japanese American who specializes in American ethnic history. Then read Reginald Horsman's Race and Manifest Destiny, the detailed story of the myth of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Finally, consider reading Racist America by Joe Feagin; this book includes a lengthy discussion of the pervasive impact of slavery on areas of American life during the colonial period.
With this lengthy introduction to prepare the reader for this review of a very important book, let us begin the discussion of Myths America Lives By. The fact that the noted author of Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah, consented to write the forward highlights the importance of this book. Bellah is deeply worried about how America is using its enormous influence in the world today. The Puritan and colonial past is being lived out today:
"It is precisely at this moment [2004] that Richard Hughes's book is so appropriate. In this hour of danger and anxiety he invites us indeed to look within, to examine the myths we have lived by, and to consider which of them we need to reaffirm and which to revise or even discard."
Bellah declares that there is one myth that we must discard: "the myth of innocence."
"Neither our military nor our economic intervention in the rest of the world has been innocent. No empire with any duration has ever believed in its own innocence. Humility about who we are and what we can do is essential if we are to avoid the many disasters that await us."
In the last sentence to his Foreword, Bellah raises an enormously troubling question: "To what extent can we help America become a responsible empire and to what extent must we stand against empire altogether?" In the first sentence of his book, Richard Hughes makes a stunning statement: "There is perhaps no more compelling task for Americans to accomplish in the twenty-first century than to learn to see the world through someone else's eyes." Too often our myths have blinded us and led us to be ethnocentric and arrogant, but we see ourselves as righteous, good and innocent.
After living as an American for 88 years, most of this time as an evangelical, I would add that evangelicals as a whole have a particularly difficult time sorting out truth from error as far as American history is concerned. They seem susceptible to believing ideological myths, especially if these myths are couched in religious language, even deistic religious language.
Hughes uses "myth" in a scholarly sense---a commonly believed story or narrative. "Contrary to colloquial usage, a myth is not a story that is patently untrue." Yet, as a person reads this book, especially the Afro American and the Native American critiques of these American myths, it becomes clear that many widely believed American myths are deceptions. They are erroneous myths told for an ethnocentric and oppressive ideological purpose.
Hughes warns against absolutizing, making sacred, our myths. When we do this even our virtues can turn into vices. Hughes list five American myths and two additional subpoints.
During the colonial period the Puritan myth---being a Chosen People---took root.
During the Revolutionary era, the myth of Nature's Nation arose. Drawing heavily from deism and the Enlightenment, and marginally from Christian principles, the founding fathers created a new nation.
The Second Great Awakening spawned the myth of the Christian Nation, primarily as a 'badge of cultural superiority," not as compassion for the ethnic poor and oppressed.
About the same time the myth of the Millennial Nation arose. America would usher in a millennial age of freedom, not just for itself, but for the whole world.
Out of the above myths flowed the doctrine of Manifest Destiny---that it was God's will for America to spread from coast to coast. Never mind the millions who would be dispossessed or killed in the process. Also free enterprise capitalism flowed out of these myths; enormously productive, it spawned greed and exploitation.
The final myth---the myth of the Innocent Nation---Hughes finds especially dangerous and troublesome because it is "without redemptive value." It is "grounded in self-delusion." After 9-11, this myth resurfaced and was used to justify the war against terrorism and the war against Iraq. At times even President Obama seems to ground his ideas in some of these myths. Possibly he has studied too much constitutional law.
Though Afro Americans believe deeply in freedom and equality and would love to have these ideals freely available to all, they have been severe critics of the above myths. Seldom have Euro Americans, Anglo-Saxons, practiced what they preached. From the time of the founding fathers, the poor, women, Native Americans and Afro Americans have been discriminated against. For them, Lincoln's eloquent phrase "a government of the people, by the people and for the people," is a hollow promise.
In 1852, Frederick Douglas, a former slave, powerfully indicted America for its failures:
"What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of [British] tyrants brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery; your prayers, hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to Him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy---a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."
Unfortunately, the same could be said in 2015, a time of mass incarceration, racial profiling and a huge racial wealth and income gap,
In a concluding comment to his Introduction, Richard Hughes notes that " in every instance, the five myths reflect a powerful religious perspective." When religion is misused to sanitize or sanctify history, it can become a particularly dangerous form of ethnocentrism and oppression.
A evangelical Afro American pastor friend of mine once told me that he preferred reading American history written by secular historians because they were more honest than most Christian historians he had read. Too often evangelical Euro American writers or preachers have sanitized American history to preserve certain ideological truths regarding our supposed Christian founding.
Good news, Pastor Andy! I may have found an American history book that you would like to read. According to reviewer Greg Taylor, Christian historian of American religious history, Richard Hughes "seriously considers the views of more than two centuries of deprived African Americans and Native Americans. It's a book that can help Christians rethink their role and mission in American life."
To help us begin the process of rethinking American history, let us listen to three Afro Americans reflect on American history. First, Mississippi born and raised, Lee Harper: "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things that seemed just."
Next, the Rev. Bill McGill: "The Christian Coalition should stop preaching the lie that this country was founded on Christian principles and values, and teach their children that only a godless people would be responsible for Indian genocide and African enslavement."
John Perkins, in his book A Quiet Revolution, ponders the causes of horrible oppression and devastating poverty; Perkins writes: "the roots of poverty were in the system itself, growing out of the very culture and traditions and history of the South and America."
Greg Taylor summarizes some of the myths that Hughes debunks: "The myth that the colonists were a chosen people to possess North America fed the myth of Nature's Nation, born in the revolutionary period, that European white colonists, not Africans or Native Americans, were best fit to effect God's purposes."
Liberty without justice for all is hollow and hypocritical. Before we sing "God Bless America" one more time, American evangelicals should first repent of our part in American ethnocentrism and oppression and then engage in restitution to correct the severe damage done to millions of people created in the image of God.
Another Christian book, The Wars of America: Christian Views, is brutally honest about our many wars and why we fought the. The Revolutionary War is discussed by the highly respected Christian historian, George Marsden. Marsden bluntly states that, contrary to popular opinion, especially among evangelicals, the British tyranny was not bad enough to justify a violent revolution. Yet the war was enthusiastically supported by many evangelicals.
If you need additional help in correcting your sanitized understanding of American history, I would recommend two quality books by Afro American historians: Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett and The Great Wells of Democracy by Manning Marable. The Trail of Tears (there many such trails) by Gloria Jahoda documents the horrible story of the forced removal of American Indian tribes east of the Mississippi river. Next read A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki, a Japanese American who specializes in American ethnic history. Then read Reginald Horsman's Race and Manifest Destiny, the detailed story of the myth of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Finally, consider reading Racist America by Joe Feagin; this book includes a lengthy discussion of the pervasive impact of slavery on areas of American life during the colonial period.
With this lengthy introduction to prepare the reader for this review of a very important book, let us begin the discussion of Myths America Lives By. The fact that the noted author of Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah, consented to write the forward highlights the importance of this book. Bellah is deeply worried about how America is using its enormous influence in the world today. The Puritan and colonial past is being lived out today:
"It is precisely at this moment [2004] that Richard Hughes's book is so appropriate. In this hour of danger and anxiety he invites us indeed to look within, to examine the myths we have lived by, and to consider which of them we need to reaffirm and which to revise or even discard."
Bellah declares that there is one myth that we must discard: "the myth of innocence."
"Neither our military nor our economic intervention in the rest of the world has been innocent. No empire with any duration has ever believed in its own innocence. Humility about who we are and what we can do is essential if we are to avoid the many disasters that await us."
In the last sentence to his Foreword, Bellah raises an enormously troubling question: "To what extent can we help America become a responsible empire and to what extent must we stand against empire altogether?" In the first sentence of his book, Richard Hughes makes a stunning statement: "There is perhaps no more compelling task for Americans to accomplish in the twenty-first century than to learn to see the world through someone else's eyes." Too often our myths have blinded us and led us to be ethnocentric and arrogant, but we see ourselves as righteous, good and innocent.
After living as an American for 88 years, most of this time as an evangelical, I would add that evangelicals as a whole have a particularly difficult time sorting out truth from error as far as American history is concerned. They seem susceptible to believing ideological myths, especially if these myths are couched in religious language, even deistic religious language.
Hughes uses "myth" in a scholarly sense---a commonly believed story or narrative. "Contrary to colloquial usage, a myth is not a story that is patently untrue." Yet, as a person reads this book, especially the Afro American and the Native American critiques of these American myths, it becomes clear that many widely believed American myths are deceptions. They are erroneous myths told for an ethnocentric and oppressive ideological purpose.
Hughes warns against absolutizing, making sacred, our myths. When we do this even our virtues can turn into vices. Hughes list five American myths and two additional subpoints.
During the colonial period the Puritan myth---being a Chosen People---took root.
During the Revolutionary era, the myth of Nature's Nation arose. Drawing heavily from deism and the Enlightenment, and marginally from Christian principles, the founding fathers created a new nation.
The Second Great Awakening spawned the myth of the Christian Nation, primarily as a 'badge of cultural superiority," not as compassion for the ethnic poor and oppressed.
About the same time the myth of the Millennial Nation arose. America would usher in a millennial age of freedom, not just for itself, but for the whole world.
Out of the above myths flowed the doctrine of Manifest Destiny---that it was God's will for America to spread from coast to coast. Never mind the millions who would be dispossessed or killed in the process. Also free enterprise capitalism flowed out of these myths; enormously productive, it spawned greed and exploitation.
The final myth---the myth of the Innocent Nation---Hughes finds especially dangerous and troublesome because it is "without redemptive value." It is "grounded in self-delusion." After 9-11, this myth resurfaced and was used to justify the war against terrorism and the war against Iraq. At times even President Obama seems to ground his ideas in some of these myths. Possibly he has studied too much constitutional law.
Though Afro Americans believe deeply in freedom and equality and would love to have these ideals freely available to all, they have been severe critics of the above myths. Seldom have Euro Americans, Anglo-Saxons, practiced what they preached. From the time of the founding fathers, the poor, women, Native Americans and Afro Americans have been discriminated against. For them, Lincoln's eloquent phrase "a government of the people, by the people and for the people," is a hollow promise.
In 1852, Frederick Douglas, a former slave, powerfully indicted America for its failures:
"What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of [British] tyrants brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery; your prayers, hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to Him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy---a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."
Unfortunately, the same could be said in 2015, a time of mass incarceration, racial profiling and a huge racial wealth and income gap,
In a concluding comment to his Introduction, Richard Hughes notes that " in every instance, the five myths reflect a powerful religious perspective." When religion is misused to sanitize or sanctify history, it can become a particularly dangerous form of ethnocentrism and oppression.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
The Subversive Gospel
Thomas Hanks, a Bible scholar who had previously written a book on the OT vocabulary on oppression, wrote The Subversive [NT] Gospel (2000). The following is based on Hanks' ideas.
There are four NT Greek words whose basic meaning is oppression, but these Greek terms are seldom translated as oppression in English translations:
1. Luke 4:18---tethrausmenous: oppress, crush, downtrodden
2. James 2:6---katadynasteou: oppress, exploit
3. Romans 8:35---thlipsis: oppression, affliction,suffering,distress; H. Schlier says there are seven kinds of oppression in Romans eight. James 1:27---thilpsis "widows and orphans in their oppression."
4. Luke 16:9 and 11; also Romans 1:18 and 29---injustice, oppression, wickedness.
In Luke 16, there is a discussion of Mammon, Money obtained by oppression which then becomes an idol. Money combines idolatry, greed and oppression. This understanding helps us to understand Luke's (and the rest of the NT) strong anti-rich/wealth/possessions teaching. This understanding is strongly affirmed in James as well. The Pharisees reaction to Jesus' teaching is highly revealing. They mocked, scoffed at Jesus, because they had created a cleverly designed system which was legitimated by religion and seemingly by God. In other words, a religious racket.
Much the same could be said for most of American evangelical Christianity---a syncretism, a wedding of corporate capitalism and Americanized Christianity and thus seemingly by God. Jesus once untactfully said,
"Woe to the rich. . . . " but American Christians, like the Pharisees, ignore Jesus as they neglect justice for the poor and thereby contradict the love of God.
More ideas from Hanks on the book of James; there are three different words for oppression.
1. James 2:6: the rich oppress the poor.
2. James 2:6; 4:4; 1:2 and 12: Injustice or oppression is what basically characterizes the entire worldly system.
3. James 1:27: thlipsis: the distress caused by oppression. Pure religion includes love and justice for the oppressed widows and orphans. A grasp of this teaching on oppression is key to understanding James strong anti-rich teaching.
The Religious Rich According to Luke
In New Testament times, a rich religio-politico-economic elite ran Jewish society. Therefore, the themes of rich, riches, money, possessions and the poor are prominent in Luke. Note the following passages from the gospel of Luke:
Luke 4:18-19: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to release the oppressed, to proclaim and practice Jubilee justice for the poor." (Noble paraphrase)
Luke 6: 20, 24: "Blessed are you who are poor. . . . Woe to you who are rich. . . ."
Luke 11:39-42: "Pharisees . . . you are full of greed and wickedness . . . you neglect justice and the love of God."
Luke 16:13-14: "You cannot serve both God and Money. The Pharisees who loved money heard all this and were sneering at Jesus."
Luke 18:22-24: "Sell everything you have and give it to the poor . . . When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. . . . How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God."
Luke 19:45-46: "Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. . . . you have made my house a den of robbers."
Luke 19:8: "Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor."
See also Luke 1:53; 3:10-14; 8:14; 12:13-34.
Compare Luke's teachings with the Messianic passages from Isaiah:
9:7 "Of the increase of his government and shalom there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness."
11:1-4 "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him---The Spirit of wisdom and understanding....With righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor."
16:5 "In love a throne will be established. . . . . One from the house of David who seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness."
28:16-17 "I lay a stone in Zion . . . a precious cornerstone. . . . I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line."
42:1-3 Here is my servant . . . my chosen one. . . . I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations."
61:1-4 (Noble paraphrase) "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the oppressed poor, to proclaim freedom and release by practicing Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor."
"To bestow on the oppressed poor, a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."
"These transformed oppressed poor will be called oaks of righteousness or trees of justice."
"These transformed oppressed poor will rebuild the ruined cities."
There are four NT Greek words whose basic meaning is oppression, but these Greek terms are seldom translated as oppression in English translations:
1. Luke 4:18---tethrausmenous: oppress, crush, downtrodden
2. James 2:6---katadynasteou: oppress, exploit
3. Romans 8:35---thlipsis: oppression, affliction,suffering,distress; H. Schlier says there are seven kinds of oppression in Romans eight. James 1:27---thilpsis "widows and orphans in their oppression."
4. Luke 16:9 and 11; also Romans 1:18 and 29---injustice, oppression, wickedness.
In Luke 16, there is a discussion of Mammon, Money obtained by oppression which then becomes an idol. Money combines idolatry, greed and oppression. This understanding helps us to understand Luke's (and the rest of the NT) strong anti-rich/wealth/possessions teaching. This understanding is strongly affirmed in James as well. The Pharisees reaction to Jesus' teaching is highly revealing. They mocked, scoffed at Jesus, because they had created a cleverly designed system which was legitimated by religion and seemingly by God. In other words, a religious racket.
Much the same could be said for most of American evangelical Christianity---a syncretism, a wedding of corporate capitalism and Americanized Christianity and thus seemingly by God. Jesus once untactfully said,
"Woe to the rich. . . . " but American Christians, like the Pharisees, ignore Jesus as they neglect justice for the poor and thereby contradict the love of God.
More ideas from Hanks on the book of James; there are three different words for oppression.
1. James 2:6: the rich oppress the poor.
2. James 2:6; 4:4; 1:2 and 12: Injustice or oppression is what basically characterizes the entire worldly system.
3. James 1:27: thlipsis: the distress caused by oppression. Pure religion includes love and justice for the oppressed widows and orphans. A grasp of this teaching on oppression is key to understanding James strong anti-rich teaching.
The Religious Rich According to Luke
In New Testament times, a rich religio-politico-economic elite ran Jewish society. Therefore, the themes of rich, riches, money, possessions and the poor are prominent in Luke. Note the following passages from the gospel of Luke:
Luke 4:18-19: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to release the oppressed, to proclaim and practice Jubilee justice for the poor." (Noble paraphrase)
Luke 6: 20, 24: "Blessed are you who are poor. . . . Woe to you who are rich. . . ."
Luke 11:39-42: "Pharisees . . . you are full of greed and wickedness . . . you neglect justice and the love of God."
Luke 16:13-14: "You cannot serve both God and Money. The Pharisees who loved money heard all this and were sneering at Jesus."
Luke 18:22-24: "Sell everything you have and give it to the poor . . . When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. . . . How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God."
Luke 19:45-46: "Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. . . . you have made my house a den of robbers."
Luke 19:8: "Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor."
See also Luke 1:53; 3:10-14; 8:14; 12:13-34.
Compare Luke's teachings with the Messianic passages from Isaiah:
9:7 "Of the increase of his government and shalom there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness."
11:1-4 "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him---The Spirit of wisdom and understanding....With righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor."
16:5 "In love a throne will be established. . . . . One from the house of David who seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness."
28:16-17 "I lay a stone in Zion . . . a precious cornerstone. . . . I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line."
42:1-3 Here is my servant . . . my chosen one. . . . I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations."
61:1-4 (Noble paraphrase) "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the oppressed poor, to proclaim freedom and release by practicing Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor."
"To bestow on the oppressed poor, a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."
"These transformed oppressed poor will be called oaks of righteousness or trees of justice."
"These transformed oppressed poor will rebuild the ruined cities."
Monday, August 3, 2015
White Iowans Don't Lynch, They Incarcerate
White Iowans are too civilized to physically lynch Blacks, but they are barbaric enough to socially lynch Blacks through racial profiling and mass incarceration.
Most white Iowans brag about our progressive civil rights record, but out of ignorance or denial we are silent about our number one in the nation incarceration ratio. Iowa's Black population is only 2 percent, but Iowa's prison population is 24 percent Black ( a few years ago). Either Iowa's Black population is highly criminal or Iowa's white population which runs the criminal justice system is highly oppressive.
Michelle Alexander, author of the best-selling The New Jim Crow, states: "Convictions for non-violent crimes and relatively minor drug offenses---mostly possession, not sale---have accounted for the bulk of the increase in the prison population since the mid-1980s."
Whites, Blacks and Latinos use and sell illegal drugs equally---about 6 percent of each ethnic population. So if the criminal justice system prosecuted illegal drugs equally, Iowa's prison population ratio for Blacks should be 2 and 2, not 2 and 24. The new Prohibition on drugs has a racial twist to it--massive racial profiling.
But there is some potential good news. Yesterday (July 28, 2015), the Des Moines Register reported:
"State and community leaders say the state needs to reduce the disproportionate rate of minorities in Iowa's criminal justice system, and they hope an upcoming [third annual] summit will focus attention on the issue. . . . 'This is nothing short of a crisis,' said Betty Andrews, president of the NAACP. . . . Chief Justice Mark Cady of the Iowa Supreme Court has made reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system a top priority."
But Iowa may be moving "with all deliberate speed"---quite slowly; a crisis demands quick action, more walk than talk. Will the appalling silence of Iowa's good people continue allowing racial profiling and mass incarceration or is this the beginning of fundamental change? What happens if Iowans don't repent, restitute and repair? Donald Braman (Doing time on the outside: incarceration and family life in urban America [Washington, DC]) describes what is now happening and what will continue to happen:
"Incarceration, something few families faced fifty years ago, is now an integral part of family life [and community life] in urban America [2004]. About one out of every ten adult black men in the District of Columbia is in prison, and, at last count, over half of the black men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five were under some type of correctional supervision. If these conditions persist, over 75 percent of young black men in the District can expect incarceration at some point in their lives."
". . .impoverished neighborhoods are also deeply injured by mass incarceration. The disassembling of our society's most vulnerable families has wreaked material, emotional and social havoc in the lives of millions, with consequences that will reverberate for generations. . . . families and communities have become collateral damage in the war on crime."
"We need to ask how our criminal sanctions shape the lives not only of criminal offenders but of their children, partners, parents, and communities. . . . accelerating the spiral of entire communities into poverty, illness, and despair. . . . They need real justice, something that is in short supply."
Real justice seems to be in short supply in Iowa; biblically, both the government and the church are called to do justice. For the past 30 years, during the War on Drugs, neither the state government nor the Iowa churches initiated strong efforts to stop mass incarceration and restore justice.. Currently there is talk about doing something, but major, quick and concrete actions are in short supply. The white Iowa churches, if they are biblical, should be leading the way---incarnating the kingdom of God as justice for Iowa's oppressed poor
When chickens were dying by the millions, Governor Branstad declared a state of emergency; he needs to declare another state of emergency to stop immediately racial profiling and mass incarceration.
In conclusion, Braman declares:
"By employing incarceration---the bluntest of policy instruments---as the primary response to social disorder, policymakers have significantly missed the mark. . . . [Instead we need] long-term mandatory drug treatment, public housing programs that move poor families out of the ghetto, employment opportunities . . . and family welfare programs."
This personal and social trauma creates personal and social PTSD, or as Joy Leary prefers PTSS (Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome). Iowa's churches need to heed Pope Francis' admonition : "Leave the security of the sanctuary and enter into the suffering of the streets."
Most white Iowans brag about our progressive civil rights record, but out of ignorance or denial we are silent about our number one in the nation incarceration ratio. Iowa's Black population is only 2 percent, but Iowa's prison population is 24 percent Black ( a few years ago). Either Iowa's Black population is highly criminal or Iowa's white population which runs the criminal justice system is highly oppressive.
Michelle Alexander, author of the best-selling The New Jim Crow, states: "Convictions for non-violent crimes and relatively minor drug offenses---mostly possession, not sale---have accounted for the bulk of the increase in the prison population since the mid-1980s."
Whites, Blacks and Latinos use and sell illegal drugs equally---about 6 percent of each ethnic population. So if the criminal justice system prosecuted illegal drugs equally, Iowa's prison population ratio for Blacks should be 2 and 2, not 2 and 24. The new Prohibition on drugs has a racial twist to it--massive racial profiling.
But there is some potential good news. Yesterday (July 28, 2015), the Des Moines Register reported:
"State and community leaders say the state needs to reduce the disproportionate rate of minorities in Iowa's criminal justice system, and they hope an upcoming [third annual] summit will focus attention on the issue. . . . 'This is nothing short of a crisis,' said Betty Andrews, president of the NAACP. . . . Chief Justice Mark Cady of the Iowa Supreme Court has made reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system a top priority."
But Iowa may be moving "with all deliberate speed"---quite slowly; a crisis demands quick action, more walk than talk. Will the appalling silence of Iowa's good people continue allowing racial profiling and mass incarceration or is this the beginning of fundamental change? What happens if Iowans don't repent, restitute and repair? Donald Braman (Doing time on the outside: incarceration and family life in urban America [Washington, DC]) describes what is now happening and what will continue to happen:
"Incarceration, something few families faced fifty years ago, is now an integral part of family life [and community life] in urban America [2004]. About one out of every ten adult black men in the District of Columbia is in prison, and, at last count, over half of the black men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five were under some type of correctional supervision. If these conditions persist, over 75 percent of young black men in the District can expect incarceration at some point in their lives."
". . .impoverished neighborhoods are also deeply injured by mass incarceration. The disassembling of our society's most vulnerable families has wreaked material, emotional and social havoc in the lives of millions, with consequences that will reverberate for generations. . . . families and communities have become collateral damage in the war on crime."
"We need to ask how our criminal sanctions shape the lives not only of criminal offenders but of their children, partners, parents, and communities. . . . accelerating the spiral of entire communities into poverty, illness, and despair. . . . They need real justice, something that is in short supply."
Real justice seems to be in short supply in Iowa; biblically, both the government and the church are called to do justice. For the past 30 years, during the War on Drugs, neither the state government nor the Iowa churches initiated strong efforts to stop mass incarceration and restore justice.. Currently there is talk about doing something, but major, quick and concrete actions are in short supply. The white Iowa churches, if they are biblical, should be leading the way---incarnating the kingdom of God as justice for Iowa's oppressed poor
When chickens were dying by the millions, Governor Branstad declared a state of emergency; he needs to declare another state of emergency to stop immediately racial profiling and mass incarceration.
In conclusion, Braman declares:
"By employing incarceration---the bluntest of policy instruments---as the primary response to social disorder, policymakers have significantly missed the mark. . . . [Instead we need] long-term mandatory drug treatment, public housing programs that move poor families out of the ghetto, employment opportunities . . . and family welfare programs."
This personal and social trauma creates personal and social PTSD, or as Joy Leary prefers PTSS (Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome). Iowa's churches need to heed Pope Francis' admonition : "Leave the security of the sanctuary and enter into the suffering of the streets."
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