The supposedly chosen, biblical, godly Puritans generously committed both sins of omission (neglected justice and the love of God) and sins of commission (ethnocentrism and oppression). I see this same perverse blending of religion and social evil among white evangelicals here in Iowa in 2016. Is there a historical connection? I think so.
Historian G.E. Thomas has explored Puritan ethnocentrism/oppression in an article in The New England Quarterly (March 1975) entitled "Puritans, Indians and the Concept of Race."
He writes:
The record of Puritan attitudes, goals, and behavior in every major area of interaction with Indians reveals a continued harshness, brutality, and ethnocentric bias, which . . . had fatal consequences for Indians. . . . "
Continued encroachment of their land became the Indians main grievance and the prime cause of violence between Indians and whites. . . . The Indians' desperation over their tenuous social situation and decreasing land base led to resistance and periodic violence.
The Puritans handled the Pequot problem with savage thoroughness. . . . in a surprise attack on the Pequot village at Mystic, deliberately burned the lodges of the Indians [killing hundreds, men women and children].
Starting in 1694, in King William's War, the Massachusetts General Court offered bounties for the killing of hostile Indians, with scalps accepted as the best and most convenient proof.
In a review article entitled "Jonathan Edwards: American Augustine," George Marsden describes Pastor Edwards as a deeply spiritual person, a "theological genius." Dozens of books and 75 doctoral dissertations have been written about him.
But Marsden also points out some serious flaws. "Even though he proclaimed spiritual equality, the idea of social equality hardly occurred to him. He owned African African household slaves, as was common among the New England elite."
Even though cloaked in theology and spirituality, this elitist social order was, in reality, too often arrogant ethnocentrism which led to acts of oppression against Native Americans. Social oppression/social justice issues, central in the Bible, were not important to Puritan Jonathan Edwards. As Puritan numbers grew, they began to see Indians as Canaanites to be destroyed because they stood in the way of an expanding Christian nation. With relentless zeal, they pursued their deeply flawed idea of an Americanized kingdom of God.
If you wish to trace the Puritan Effect, the demonic thread woven through American history, I suggest you read the following: Racist America, Race and Manifest Destiny, A Different Mirror, The Wars of America: Christian Views, Cotton and Race in the Making of America, Inheriting the [Slave] Trade, W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet, Reforging the White Republic, Divided by Faith and The New Jim Crow, Whiteness and Morality, and Dear White Christians. If you want to skip the horrific history, read Divided by Faith and The New Jim Crow. If you do read the horrific history, you will discover how shallow and sanitized your American history courses were.
What is the solution? I suggest you read 6 articles on the kingdom published on my blog in 2013 and 3 more articles written in 2016. Only by implementing the biblical kingdom can American ethnocentrism/oppression be replaced by justice and reconciliation.
The Puritans were the wrong kind of pioneers---the pioneers of a demonic blend of religion and ethnocentrism/oppression. For nearly 400 years, Americans have walked in the Puritan path. Self-righteous religious people who have gone wrong biblically on social evil are the most dangerous people in the world---much worse than atheists. My black Mississippi, Lee Harper, sums up this tragic history with this one-liner; "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well with things that appeared just."
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Friday, January 29, 2016
Book Review Whiteness and Morality
Whiteness and Morality (2007) by Jennifer Harvey
In 1903, the black scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois accurately complained that whites had made American blacks into "a problem." Jennifer reverses this idea in her book: "white people are THE problem." Whites created the false idea of race; there is no scientific nor biblical validity to the idea of separate and distinct races. Out of the false concept of race, whites created the evil but socially real concept of racism.
In a rare moment of white honesty, the Kerner Commission Report agreed that black disorders in the 1960s were the result of white racism; "White institutions created the racial ghetto. White institutions maintain it. White society condones it." And then white society quickly and conveniently forgot about the Kerner Report and did little about it. Few whites have repented of their racism because they see themselves as superior WASPs. Whiteness is next to godliness and blackness is next to evil making blacks dangerous.
Harvey asserts: "To be white is to be in a state of acute moral crisis." But most American Christians are too self-righteous to repent, make radical changes. John the Baptist and Jesus began their ministries calling for repentance, but the highly religious Pharisees refused to repent.
Most American whites, including most Christian whites, believe that they are salt-of-the-earth people who are preserving society from the dysfunctions of Native American, Black and Latino cultures. I am surrounded by such whites here in godly Iowa. What is whiteness?---the ideology and idolatry of whiteness, white supremacy, white oppression, white privilege.
Mercifully, the Hitler holocaust lasted a few years. But the American holocaust has lasted nearly 400 years, making it more akin to the 400 year Hebrew enslavement which is described in Exodus 1 as ruthless and in Exodus 6:9 as mass PTSD.
The British perfected their brand of ethnocentrism/oppression against the Irish and then the British colonists brought it to America. The British brand was religio-cultural, not racial; the Irish were fellow whites. In the colonies, a racialized white-black component was added creating a deadly and especially perverse blend of religion, culture and race. WASP is a convenient shorthand to describe it.. None of the American revivals, including Pentecostalism, have eradicated WASPness. No church has yet developed a theology that is adequate; half of the biblical gospel has been ignored, pushed aside.
The American who has come closest is John Perkins, a poor black from Mississippi. The following ideas are the core of his Christian Community Development ministry. A white partner, H. Spees, assisted in the development of these principles. They are called the three "r's". I have made explicit some additional ideas which are implicit in John's thinking:
1. Relocation/repentance
* It is a radical change for a white person to leave the suburbs and live in a poor, black ghetto.
* These actions are signs of repentance, more than just words "I am sorry"
* A step toward reversing segregation.
2. Redistribution/repair
* a sharing of education, skills and resources
* a step toward justice
3. Reconciliation
* located in the ghetto so more authentic
* white participation in a black church and black community
* authentic only if preceded by repentance and redistribution
The three "r's" will work at the individual level but they will be much more effective if done at the church level where a suburban church would directly involve 10 percent of its membership, preferably in teams and 10 percent of its financial resources.
To end this review, I would like to focus on the profoundly negative message of chapter 3 "Becoming Uniquely White 'American'" with a few quotations from chapter 2 as well. First, from chapter 2:
"the terminology the English colonists most often used to describe themselves was 'Christian'. From the mid-1600s to 1680 it was 'English' and 'free.' After about 1680, . . . WHITE.'"
"Thus, whiteness would become the bond out of which a unified nation-state and a shared national identity would be forged. This identity . . . depended parasitically upon the existence of a non-free, deeply oppressed racial other."
"People of African descent were also active in the Revolutionary War. Thousands of them fought with the British."
"By the time of the Revolution, the South and North had already become thoroughly reliant on slavery, the slave trade, and the industries made possible by slave labor." The textile industry in New England used slave grown cotton.
"there was not a single New England merchant of the era uninvolved in the slave trade," directly or indirectly.
Next, quotations from chapter 3:
"As far as we could determine, . . . white culture depended primarily upon the exploitation of land, people, and life itself." Vine Deloria, Jr., a Native American.
"Lynchings were communal acts of torture and mutilation in which white people would hunt down, terrify, torture, and publicly murder an African American. . . . " "Almost no words can begin to get at the brutality in which white people engaged; evil and depravity are the closest descriptors one dares to utter in approaching something so atrocious."
"For most of its history, lynching was not perceived widely as social deviance. It was a piece with national, public, white supremacist mythologies about and obsession with blackness."
"One sheriff conceded that he had to give up his intentions to defend a black about to be lynched because 'the first half dozen men standing there were leading citizens---businessmen, leaders of the church and community---I just couldn't do it'"
"Lynching as a socializing force points to the constitution of whiteness as a social identity: white selves and/or a white group being created out of communal blood violence."
Dray is quoted:
"Lynching was an undeniable part of daily life, as distinctly American as baseball games and church suppers. Men brought their wives and children along to the events, posed for commemorative photographs, and purchased souvenirs of the occasion as if they had been at a company picnic."
"Moreover, for all of Jefferson's talk about 'assimilation'---it own form of violence and imperialism---he and other presidents before Jackson pursued incessant warfare against Native peoples. And they did so while crafting an ideology of Anglo-Saxon 'destiny'. U.S.-Americans were increasingly steeped, in this period in notions of being a 'providential people' who would bring liberty and democracy to the globe."
After reading chapters 2 and 3, I thought Could God possibly allow a single white American into heaven?
And I remembered that some Mississippi blacks wondered if there were any whites who were genuine Christians. My mind also flashed to John 8 and the intense dialog between Jesus and the Jews. "To the Jews who believed in him. . . . You belong to your father, the devil." Could we insert white American Christians in place of the Jews?
The legitimate human response to the horrific actions of white people should first be 'grief and rage,' asserts Harvey. I agree; but then move on to repentance and repair following the model of John Perkins.
My next blog continues this topic under the title "The Puritan Effect."
In 1903, the black scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois accurately complained that whites had made American blacks into "a problem." Jennifer reverses this idea in her book: "white people are THE problem." Whites created the false idea of race; there is no scientific nor biblical validity to the idea of separate and distinct races. Out of the false concept of race, whites created the evil but socially real concept of racism.
In a rare moment of white honesty, the Kerner Commission Report agreed that black disorders in the 1960s were the result of white racism; "White institutions created the racial ghetto. White institutions maintain it. White society condones it." And then white society quickly and conveniently forgot about the Kerner Report and did little about it. Few whites have repented of their racism because they see themselves as superior WASPs. Whiteness is next to godliness and blackness is next to evil making blacks dangerous.
Harvey asserts: "To be white is to be in a state of acute moral crisis." But most American Christians are too self-righteous to repent, make radical changes. John the Baptist and Jesus began their ministries calling for repentance, but the highly religious Pharisees refused to repent.
Most American whites, including most Christian whites, believe that they are salt-of-the-earth people who are preserving society from the dysfunctions of Native American, Black and Latino cultures. I am surrounded by such whites here in godly Iowa. What is whiteness?---the ideology and idolatry of whiteness, white supremacy, white oppression, white privilege.
Mercifully, the Hitler holocaust lasted a few years. But the American holocaust has lasted nearly 400 years, making it more akin to the 400 year Hebrew enslavement which is described in Exodus 1 as ruthless and in Exodus 6:9 as mass PTSD.
The British perfected their brand of ethnocentrism/oppression against the Irish and then the British colonists brought it to America. The British brand was religio-cultural, not racial; the Irish were fellow whites. In the colonies, a racialized white-black component was added creating a deadly and especially perverse blend of religion, culture and race. WASP is a convenient shorthand to describe it.. None of the American revivals, including Pentecostalism, have eradicated WASPness. No church has yet developed a theology that is adequate; half of the biblical gospel has been ignored, pushed aside.
The American who has come closest is John Perkins, a poor black from Mississippi. The following ideas are the core of his Christian Community Development ministry. A white partner, H. Spees, assisted in the development of these principles. They are called the three "r's". I have made explicit some additional ideas which are implicit in John's thinking:
1. Relocation/repentance
* It is a radical change for a white person to leave the suburbs and live in a poor, black ghetto.
* These actions are signs of repentance, more than just words "I am sorry"
* A step toward reversing segregation.
2. Redistribution/repair
* a sharing of education, skills and resources
* a step toward justice
3. Reconciliation
* located in the ghetto so more authentic
* white participation in a black church and black community
* authentic only if preceded by repentance and redistribution
The three "r's" will work at the individual level but they will be much more effective if done at the church level where a suburban church would directly involve 10 percent of its membership, preferably in teams and 10 percent of its financial resources.
To end this review, I would like to focus on the profoundly negative message of chapter 3 "Becoming Uniquely White 'American'" with a few quotations from chapter 2 as well. First, from chapter 2:
"the terminology the English colonists most often used to describe themselves was 'Christian'. From the mid-1600s to 1680 it was 'English' and 'free.' After about 1680, . . . WHITE.'"
"Thus, whiteness would become the bond out of which a unified nation-state and a shared national identity would be forged. This identity . . . depended parasitically upon the existence of a non-free, deeply oppressed racial other."
"People of African descent were also active in the Revolutionary War. Thousands of them fought with the British."
"By the time of the Revolution, the South and North had already become thoroughly reliant on slavery, the slave trade, and the industries made possible by slave labor." The textile industry in New England used slave grown cotton.
"there was not a single New England merchant of the era uninvolved in the slave trade," directly or indirectly.
Next, quotations from chapter 3:
"As far as we could determine, . . . white culture depended primarily upon the exploitation of land, people, and life itself." Vine Deloria, Jr., a Native American.
"Lynchings were communal acts of torture and mutilation in which white people would hunt down, terrify, torture, and publicly murder an African American. . . . " "Almost no words can begin to get at the brutality in which white people engaged; evil and depravity are the closest descriptors one dares to utter in approaching something so atrocious."
"For most of its history, lynching was not perceived widely as social deviance. It was a piece with national, public, white supremacist mythologies about and obsession with blackness."
"One sheriff conceded that he had to give up his intentions to defend a black about to be lynched because 'the first half dozen men standing there were leading citizens---businessmen, leaders of the church and community---I just couldn't do it'"
"Lynching as a socializing force points to the constitution of whiteness as a social identity: white selves and/or a white group being created out of communal blood violence."
Dray is quoted:
"Lynching was an undeniable part of daily life, as distinctly American as baseball games and church suppers. Men brought their wives and children along to the events, posed for commemorative photographs, and purchased souvenirs of the occasion as if they had been at a company picnic."
"Moreover, for all of Jefferson's talk about 'assimilation'---it own form of violence and imperialism---he and other presidents before Jackson pursued incessant warfare against Native peoples. And they did so while crafting an ideology of Anglo-Saxon 'destiny'. U.S.-Americans were increasingly steeped, in this period in notions of being a 'providential people' who would bring liberty and democracy to the globe."
After reading chapters 2 and 3, I thought Could God possibly allow a single white American into heaven?
And I remembered that some Mississippi blacks wondered if there were any whites who were genuine Christians. My mind also flashed to John 8 and the intense dialog between Jesus and the Jews. "To the Jews who believed in him. . . . You belong to your father, the devil." Could we insert white American Christians in place of the Jews?
The legitimate human response to the horrific actions of white people should first be 'grief and rage,' asserts Harvey. I agree; but then move on to repentance and repair following the model of John Perkins.
My next blog continues this topic under the title "The Puritan Effect."
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Illegal Aliens or Illegal Occupiers?
In the May 2006, issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Marc Cooper has written a brilliant book review essay of five books on the illegal immigrant crisis. The article is entitled "Exodus: The ominous push and pull of the U.S.-Mexico Border."
But before I examine this review essay, some thought provokers:
* The British settlers of the thirteen colonies were illegal aliens.
* The first American settlers of Texas were illegal aliens.
* Canadians represent the second largest group of illegal aliens in the U.S.
Two books represent a more conservative, partisan and even draconian perspective; they are Illegals by Jon Dougherty and Whatever It Takes by Congressman J.D. Hayworth. The best of the five books, according to Marc Cooper, is Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family by Charles Bowden. Luis Urrea has written two books: The Devil's Highway and By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border. Marc Cooper states:
Altar---around 10,000 people---has become a primary staging area for Mexican migrants before they make their desperate bounce across the border. . . . mostly men, mostly young. Coyote [smuggler] cost, $1500. . . . drawn from future income.
A Red Cross worker asserts: "I tell them they run a great risk."
A wall map reveals: "Hundreds of fatal red dots cluster just above the border. No one listens. The necessity is too great." 40,000 migrants a month through Altar. Jorge Solehage, a Mexican diplomat who works out of the Mexican consulate in Phoenix, "processed the deaths of 219 Mexicans in the Phoenix area."
Charles Bowden "describes the poverty that swamps even the more prosperous Mexican border cities and that relentlessly churns the human flow northward." "Concentrating on the front line of the endless and fruitless war on drugs, he captures the barbaric and bloody energy generated when and where the North's insatiable pull for drugs meets the coke, cash, and corruption pushing up from the south. For Bowden, the same inexorable law of supply and demand explains the flow of human cargo of illegal immigrants."
Bowden: "This is the largest cross-border human migration in human history." 15-20 million people over a period of 20 years. Exodus to "the promised land." The choice: stay in Mexico and earn $4 a day or pick grapes in the US for $60-70 a day.
Cooper: "Making the crossing ever more dangerous [meaning more deaths] seems to be the only tangible result of US border policy in the past decade."
Before NAFTA, 1993, around 2.5 million illegal aliens. Since NAFTA, around 5,000,000. Cheap, subsidized, American agricultural products flood Mexico. Result: "Over a million Mexican subsistence farmers have been wiped out, and left with no choice to head north."
Next, a look at our past history with Mexico based on a book entitled The Wars of America: Christian Views. The War with Mexico, 1846-1848, is analyzed by Christian historian, Ronald Wells. Some Americas saw the war as "unavoidable or necessary;" others saw it as a "blatant act of aggression against a helpless neighbor." If based on human rights, not solely national interests, the war is highly questionable. If based on justice, not Manifest Destiny, the war is highly questionable.
But Manifest Destiny---the idea that it was God's will for the US to spread from coast to coast---dominated the debate. Skeptics would assert that Manifest Destiny was an attempt to get divine approval of US imperialism; that is was really ethnocentrism and greed that drove our foreign policy.
In 1847, Congressman Abraham Lincoln contended "that the Polk administration had deceived the American people and continued in a cover-up of the truth." The real facts were that President Polk wanted California and its ports and was willing to deceive and invade if necessary. First, Texas; then, California. Texas was taken illegally; California was to be next---and what land there was between them.
Ethnocentrism declared Mexicans as "inferior beings." This made imperialism less morally offensive. "The clergy, and the constituencies of most denominations, were generally prowar."
Problems north of the border.
In the US, most news reports focus on problems south of the border---Mexican problems, Mexican dirty laundry such as drug lords. We need more focus on our dirty windows such as :
* an insatiable demand more land, to spread from coast to coast.
* an insatiable demand for drugs caused by a loss of meaning, moral values; America now driven by the shallow American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism.
* an insatiable demand for low-cost cheap labor to grow and harvest our crops.
But before I examine this review essay, some thought provokers:
* The British settlers of the thirteen colonies were illegal aliens.
* The first American settlers of Texas were illegal aliens.
* Canadians represent the second largest group of illegal aliens in the U.S.
Two books represent a more conservative, partisan and even draconian perspective; they are Illegals by Jon Dougherty and Whatever It Takes by Congressman J.D. Hayworth. The best of the five books, according to Marc Cooper, is Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family by Charles Bowden. Luis Urrea has written two books: The Devil's Highway and By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border. Marc Cooper states:
Altar---around 10,000 people---has become a primary staging area for Mexican migrants before they make their desperate bounce across the border. . . . mostly men, mostly young. Coyote [smuggler] cost, $1500. . . . drawn from future income.
A Red Cross worker asserts: "I tell them they run a great risk."
A wall map reveals: "Hundreds of fatal red dots cluster just above the border. No one listens. The necessity is too great." 40,000 migrants a month through Altar. Jorge Solehage, a Mexican diplomat who works out of the Mexican consulate in Phoenix, "processed the deaths of 219 Mexicans in the Phoenix area."
Charles Bowden "describes the poverty that swamps even the more prosperous Mexican border cities and that relentlessly churns the human flow northward." "Concentrating on the front line of the endless and fruitless war on drugs, he captures the barbaric and bloody energy generated when and where the North's insatiable pull for drugs meets the coke, cash, and corruption pushing up from the south. For Bowden, the same inexorable law of supply and demand explains the flow of human cargo of illegal immigrants."
Bowden: "This is the largest cross-border human migration in human history." 15-20 million people over a period of 20 years. Exodus to "the promised land." The choice: stay in Mexico and earn $4 a day or pick grapes in the US for $60-70 a day.
Cooper: "Making the crossing ever more dangerous [meaning more deaths] seems to be the only tangible result of US border policy in the past decade."
Before NAFTA, 1993, around 2.5 million illegal aliens. Since NAFTA, around 5,000,000. Cheap, subsidized, American agricultural products flood Mexico. Result: "Over a million Mexican subsistence farmers have been wiped out, and left with no choice to head north."
Next, a look at our past history with Mexico based on a book entitled The Wars of America: Christian Views. The War with Mexico, 1846-1848, is analyzed by Christian historian, Ronald Wells. Some Americas saw the war as "unavoidable or necessary;" others saw it as a "blatant act of aggression against a helpless neighbor." If based on human rights, not solely national interests, the war is highly questionable. If based on justice, not Manifest Destiny, the war is highly questionable.
But Manifest Destiny---the idea that it was God's will for the US to spread from coast to coast---dominated the debate. Skeptics would assert that Manifest Destiny was an attempt to get divine approval of US imperialism; that is was really ethnocentrism and greed that drove our foreign policy.
In 1847, Congressman Abraham Lincoln contended "that the Polk administration had deceived the American people and continued in a cover-up of the truth." The real facts were that President Polk wanted California and its ports and was willing to deceive and invade if necessary. First, Texas; then, California. Texas was taken illegally; California was to be next---and what land there was between them.
Ethnocentrism declared Mexicans as "inferior beings." This made imperialism less morally offensive. "The clergy, and the constituencies of most denominations, were generally prowar."
Problems north of the border.
In the US, most news reports focus on problems south of the border---Mexican problems, Mexican dirty laundry such as drug lords. We need more focus on our dirty windows such as :
* an insatiable demand more land, to spread from coast to coast.
* an insatiable demand for drugs caused by a loss of meaning, moral values; America now driven by the shallow American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism.
* an insatiable demand for low-cost cheap labor to grow and harvest our crops.
Monday, January 25, 2016
Dirty Laundry?
My pastor is a master story teller; here is her best story:
"A young couple moved into a new neighborhood. The next morning while eating breakfast, the wife noticed her neighbor hanging out her laundry. She commented: 'Those clothes don't look very clean; maybe she needs better soap.' Her husband looked, but remained silent. For three weeks, every Monday he would hear some version of these same comments. But the following wash day, his wife was surprised to see a nice white wash on the line next door. She commented: 'Look, she finally learned how to wash clothes. I wonder who taught her.'"
Her husband responded quietly, 'I got up early this morning and washed OUR kitchen windows.'"
This story about what looked like 'their dirty laundry was really our dirty windows' fits perfectly for a revisiting of Jennifer Harvey's excellent but disturbing book entitled Dear White Christians. It could be subtitled Dear White Christians: Your Windows Are Dirty. Evangelical Christians, your windows are dirty; Liberal Christians, your windows are dirty. Stop complaining about the supposed dirty laundry hanging on your black neighbor's line; first wash your own dirty windows.
Because of massive self-deception, you don't really see how dirty your windows are---smeared with ethnocentrism and oppression, with power and privilege. Confess and repent; find a powerful detergent and wash your own windows, make them spotless.
Most white Christians see the poor, and especially poor blacks, as having lots of dirty laundry. But in Luke, Jesus doesn't see the poor of Palestine (and around 80 percent were poor or near poor) as the number one problem in society. Instead, he makes it crystal clear that the rich were THE problem. And far too often the religious rich who ran the Temple as a 'den of robbers'.
In America, most white Christians see poor blacks as THE problem, not themselves. Their dirty windows distort not only black life, but also, because of the dim light, they falsely see themselves as the normal ones, the chosen, godly and righteous ones.
According to Jennifer Harvey, who has probed American history deeply, it was good the abolitionists eliminated slavery and that the civil rights movement ended legal southern segregation. But in neither movement did Christians think and act deeply enough, biblically enough. Here are some quotations from Dear White Christians:
"Whiteness (white superiority, white privilege) covers up the very connections we must see and disrupt if we are to make genuine progress toward racial justice."
"It is stunning how quickly and with what ease white Protestants turned to long-standing images of Black people as threatening and scary to shape their response" to the Black Manifesto.
"Had whites perceived the nature of oppression differently, it would have been obvious to those debating and denouncing Forman's tactics [regarding the Black Manifesto] that the question of whether it was immoral to disrupt worship was meaningless without first asking whether the manifesto's charges were true."
"In other words, the moral logic of reparations is justice. A debt has been incurred, it remains owed, and repayment of that debt is morally due. The moral logic of reparations is decidedly not charity or compassion."
Black Americans "have been systematically oppressed and suppressed by white people, and the effects of that subjugation remain pervasive in our life together, both within and beyond Christian communities."
"We know that the suffering and marginalization of Black communities in the United States remain, according to virtually every measure of social being, stark and abysmal relative to that of their white counterparts."
Lisa Sharon Harper: "Dear White Christians is a must-read. This kind of unflinching analysis is both rare and powerful. Through thorough analysis accompanied with prophetic vision, Harvey decodes the mystery of the failure of the racial reconciliation movement and offers clear direction forward toward the repair of our racialized society."
An extended paraphrase of the title Dear White Christians; Dear Self-deceived, Unrepentant White Christians, full of ethnocentrism and oppression, neglectful of justice; REPENT and REPAIR.
"A young couple moved into a new neighborhood. The next morning while eating breakfast, the wife noticed her neighbor hanging out her laundry. She commented: 'Those clothes don't look very clean; maybe she needs better soap.' Her husband looked, but remained silent. For three weeks, every Monday he would hear some version of these same comments. But the following wash day, his wife was surprised to see a nice white wash on the line next door. She commented: 'Look, she finally learned how to wash clothes. I wonder who taught her.'"
Her husband responded quietly, 'I got up early this morning and washed OUR kitchen windows.'"
This story about what looked like 'their dirty laundry was really our dirty windows' fits perfectly for a revisiting of Jennifer Harvey's excellent but disturbing book entitled Dear White Christians. It could be subtitled Dear White Christians: Your Windows Are Dirty. Evangelical Christians, your windows are dirty; Liberal Christians, your windows are dirty. Stop complaining about the supposed dirty laundry hanging on your black neighbor's line; first wash your own dirty windows.
Because of massive self-deception, you don't really see how dirty your windows are---smeared with ethnocentrism and oppression, with power and privilege. Confess and repent; find a powerful detergent and wash your own windows, make them spotless.
Most white Christians see the poor, and especially poor blacks, as having lots of dirty laundry. But in Luke, Jesus doesn't see the poor of Palestine (and around 80 percent were poor or near poor) as the number one problem in society. Instead, he makes it crystal clear that the rich were THE problem. And far too often the religious rich who ran the Temple as a 'den of robbers'.
In America, most white Christians see poor blacks as THE problem, not themselves. Their dirty windows distort not only black life, but also, because of the dim light, they falsely see themselves as the normal ones, the chosen, godly and righteous ones.
According to Jennifer Harvey, who has probed American history deeply, it was good the abolitionists eliminated slavery and that the civil rights movement ended legal southern segregation. But in neither movement did Christians think and act deeply enough, biblically enough. Here are some quotations from Dear White Christians:
"Whiteness (white superiority, white privilege) covers up the very connections we must see and disrupt if we are to make genuine progress toward racial justice."
"It is stunning how quickly and with what ease white Protestants turned to long-standing images of Black people as threatening and scary to shape their response" to the Black Manifesto.
"Had whites perceived the nature of oppression differently, it would have been obvious to those debating and denouncing Forman's tactics [regarding the Black Manifesto] that the question of whether it was immoral to disrupt worship was meaningless without first asking whether the manifesto's charges were true."
"In other words, the moral logic of reparations is justice. A debt has been incurred, it remains owed, and repayment of that debt is morally due. The moral logic of reparations is decidedly not charity or compassion."
Black Americans "have been systematically oppressed and suppressed by white people, and the effects of that subjugation remain pervasive in our life together, both within and beyond Christian communities."
"We know that the suffering and marginalization of Black communities in the United States remain, according to virtually every measure of social being, stark and abysmal relative to that of their white counterparts."
Lisa Sharon Harper: "Dear White Christians is a must-read. This kind of unflinching analysis is both rare and powerful. Through thorough analysis accompanied with prophetic vision, Harvey decodes the mystery of the failure of the racial reconciliation movement and offers clear direction forward toward the repair of our racialized society."
An extended paraphrase of the title Dear White Christians; Dear Self-deceived, Unrepentant White Christians, full of ethnocentrism and oppression, neglectful of justice; REPENT and REPAIR.
Friday, January 22, 2016
The Trouble With America
America is in deep trouble. Donald Trump says the reason is flawed and failed leadership in Washington. Bernie Sanders says it is bigoted billionaire oppressors who have rigged the economic and political system. Jonathan Cahn (The Harbinger) says it is tied to both Democrat and Republican leaders who refused, defiantly and arrogantly, to repent after the divine judgments of 9-11 and 2008. I blame our deep trouble on the American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism.
Michel Crozier, a French sociologist, should be put on a par with another famous Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America. Tocqueville wrote about America in the early 1800s; Crozier writes about America from 1946 to 1980. His book Trouble With America was published in 1984, but it may give insight into what is going on in America in 2016.
Crozier first visited America in 1946 at age 25. Disillusioned with France, he became an enthusiastic admirer of America. He found America to be a land of hope. "The people believed so deeply and so sincerely in unlimited social progress, free from violence and revolution, fueled only by sincere dialogue, that only barbarians could reject them."
Crozier returned to America often---in 1956, in 1959-60, every year during the 1960s, again in 1980. "When I returned in the spring of 1980, I experienced a terrible shock. Everything was the same and yet everything was different: what had changed was the meaning. The dream had faded, leaving behind nothing but empty rhetoric." This was true among the young people, the university, the corporations, America as a whole. Crozier believes that America may have put too much faith in "its models of [rational] decision making, its mechanisms of negotiation [labor-management], and its hallowed institutions [the truth-seeking university]." Crozier's first in-depth contact with America was through its labor unions. He was impressed with the ability and faith of the labor leader, in the process of organizing and negotiating. American labor leaders were aggressive, but they were not as irresponsibly radical as were many of their European counterparts. They achieved results. The resulting labor contracts were given a "transcendent significance . At the time Americans were demanding a contract as if they were calling for the end of oppression."
The labor leader said:
Look at me. I came from Russia as a little boy with my parents. It took a very long time for me to understand that when you stay in a corner, you don't get the whole picture. But afterward I worked, I went everywhere, and I realized that you could do anything, really, anything at all. I'm not pushy, I'm not even ambitious, but I loved to work. And I've had a good life, a full life, more than I ever dared to dream. I owe that to America.
Young man, don't ever forget this: you are in the land of freedom. And there's another thing you have to know. Your going to stop off in the Midwest and West., in the states where the Homestead Act applied. You may not know that Congress had required that land be reserved in each state to finance a college. The land grant colleges helped to improve agriculture and later they formed the bases of the state universities. Young people have to be able to study, everybody has to have a chance. Education is freedom, too. It is the new form of freedom. Never forget that, young man; the land of freedom!
Thirty five years later, Crozier states that the "unions have lost much of their vitality."
In chapter two, Crozier discusses "University America" or the "Dream of Truth." Just as labor had a dream and pursued it with some success, so also the American University. "In the university neither race nor color [not quite true] nor religion nor ideology had the slightest importance. The grand army of scientists was open to whoever came to serve the cause of Truth, with the sole stipulation that the norms of scientific work be respected." In France at the time, there was no respect for truth because "it did not exist; it was a bourgeois invention." Truth was a matter of perspective, from what standpoint (class, special interest) you were talking.
The American cult of truth was deeply entrenched at the University of Michigan. Crozier visited UM in connection with "one of the productivity missions which the Marshall Plan had imposed on the Europeans and which made a key contribution toward the transformation of Europe. . . . hundreds of Europeans spent several weeks in the United States, during which they were shown the latest advances in their specialty."
The crash programs were exhausting, exhilarating and "extraordinarily effective." They moved the Europeans from secrecy to open-minded dialogue and sharing of ideas. "French executives have become addicts of seminar training" and continuing education. There was a quasi-religious spirit in this pursuit of truth.
Students also believed in this pursuit of truth. They were less skeptical and more open to dialogue that their European counterparts. But in 1980 those same "quick, open, intelligent, hardworking" students had lost the dream. They studied sadly, necessarily; a "discouraging wind was blowing." Visiting French students had more spirit than their American counterparts. Had the dream just been a fantasy?
Crozier believe that America went through a moral crisis during the agony over the Vietnam War [and the end of the civil rights movement] and this impacted the American spirit. Crozier recounts a class discussion in May 1970 at Harvard. The anti-Vietnam War protest movement was winding down. The students pursuit of justice was only partially successful; the war was continuing:
Our class discussion. . . revolved around the only possible subject: the war. They were so disheartened that all of a sudden they broke into tears, both boys and girls. It came as a shock to me, and I realized sadly that the student antiwar movement had collapsed. They would go no further. This same aftertaste of sadness is what I recognized" in 1980.
The naïve belief in progress, in national righteousness, had been shattered. Faith in science, in truth, as an infallible guide to progress, was disturbed. America "held its truths to be absolutes, forgetting that no one truth is ever complete and that a partial truth [American exceptionalism] embraced for too long becomes an insane idea."
Crozier believes that America needed President Reagan to provide a peaceful interlude with a note of hope. On the other hand, Reagan has provided more rhetoric than reality, because serious unresolved problems remaind in spite of the good feelings associated with a Shangri-La atmosphere. "People care about their own private world, which they do not associate with the public good. They care about holding their own, if necessary, by defending their interests against the public good."
A distinguished black leader says with sadness in his voice that young blacks "don't have that gleam in their eyes anymore. . . . there is no drive, no inspiration. " Among both black and white youth increasingly "everybody is left free to do his or her thing without caring for others."
What is really at stake is America's traditional patterns and values, its image of itself. Not that it should discard its identity, but it may have to rethink and readjust it. . . . German, Italy, France and Japan---they all learned a great deal from their failures and changed a great deal and built a stronger identity.
America must forget "its dreams of innocence and superiority;" make some fundamental changes.
America has depended on a false sense of chosenness, a false sense of superiority, a false sense of exceptionalism, a Manifest Destiny, a self-righteous refusal to learn from the example of other countries. We have been hollowed out from within.
Some summary comments by Noble. Crozier's perceptive comments need to be put into a larger historical context. I think our great time of social evils occurred from 1750 to 1865; this period was characterized by heavy involvement of the slave trade, slavery, Indian genocide, Indian removal. Our founding fathers and first presidents were heavily involved in these evils. They were a small, white, male, rich elite who created the American trinity.
The period of greatest economic equality occurred from 1945 to 1970, the time Crozier came to America. He saw our strengths, but he also observed its disintegration because of sand in the foundation. The American church should have risen to the occasion, introduced kingdom of God principles, but it did not do so. Into the vacuum rushed the American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism; this evil trinity created catastrophic income and wealth inequality and unjust mass incarceration based on the new prohibition, the War on Drugs which was combined with racial profiling. This began in the 1980s and continues into 2016.
Michel Crozier, a French sociologist, should be put on a par with another famous Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America. Tocqueville wrote about America in the early 1800s; Crozier writes about America from 1946 to 1980. His book Trouble With America was published in 1984, but it may give insight into what is going on in America in 2016.
Crozier first visited America in 1946 at age 25. Disillusioned with France, he became an enthusiastic admirer of America. He found America to be a land of hope. "The people believed so deeply and so sincerely in unlimited social progress, free from violence and revolution, fueled only by sincere dialogue, that only barbarians could reject them."
Crozier returned to America often---in 1956, in 1959-60, every year during the 1960s, again in 1980. "When I returned in the spring of 1980, I experienced a terrible shock. Everything was the same and yet everything was different: what had changed was the meaning. The dream had faded, leaving behind nothing but empty rhetoric." This was true among the young people, the university, the corporations, America as a whole. Crozier believes that America may have put too much faith in "its models of [rational] decision making, its mechanisms of negotiation [labor-management], and its hallowed institutions [the truth-seeking university]." Crozier's first in-depth contact with America was through its labor unions. He was impressed with the ability and faith of the labor leader, in the process of organizing and negotiating. American labor leaders were aggressive, but they were not as irresponsibly radical as were many of their European counterparts. They achieved results. The resulting labor contracts were given a "transcendent significance . At the time Americans were demanding a contract as if they were calling for the end of oppression."
The labor leader said:
Look at me. I came from Russia as a little boy with my parents. It took a very long time for me to understand that when you stay in a corner, you don't get the whole picture. But afterward I worked, I went everywhere, and I realized that you could do anything, really, anything at all. I'm not pushy, I'm not even ambitious, but I loved to work. And I've had a good life, a full life, more than I ever dared to dream. I owe that to America.
Young man, don't ever forget this: you are in the land of freedom. And there's another thing you have to know. Your going to stop off in the Midwest and West., in the states where the Homestead Act applied. You may not know that Congress had required that land be reserved in each state to finance a college. The land grant colleges helped to improve agriculture and later they formed the bases of the state universities. Young people have to be able to study, everybody has to have a chance. Education is freedom, too. It is the new form of freedom. Never forget that, young man; the land of freedom!
Thirty five years later, Crozier states that the "unions have lost much of their vitality."
In chapter two, Crozier discusses "University America" or the "Dream of Truth." Just as labor had a dream and pursued it with some success, so also the American University. "In the university neither race nor color [not quite true] nor religion nor ideology had the slightest importance. The grand army of scientists was open to whoever came to serve the cause of Truth, with the sole stipulation that the norms of scientific work be respected." In France at the time, there was no respect for truth because "it did not exist; it was a bourgeois invention." Truth was a matter of perspective, from what standpoint (class, special interest) you were talking.
The American cult of truth was deeply entrenched at the University of Michigan. Crozier visited UM in connection with "one of the productivity missions which the Marshall Plan had imposed on the Europeans and which made a key contribution toward the transformation of Europe. . . . hundreds of Europeans spent several weeks in the United States, during which they were shown the latest advances in their specialty."
The crash programs were exhausting, exhilarating and "extraordinarily effective." They moved the Europeans from secrecy to open-minded dialogue and sharing of ideas. "French executives have become addicts of seminar training" and continuing education. There was a quasi-religious spirit in this pursuit of truth.
Students also believed in this pursuit of truth. They were less skeptical and more open to dialogue that their European counterparts. But in 1980 those same "quick, open, intelligent, hardworking" students had lost the dream. They studied sadly, necessarily; a "discouraging wind was blowing." Visiting French students had more spirit than their American counterparts. Had the dream just been a fantasy?
Crozier believe that America went through a moral crisis during the agony over the Vietnam War [and the end of the civil rights movement] and this impacted the American spirit. Crozier recounts a class discussion in May 1970 at Harvard. The anti-Vietnam War protest movement was winding down. The students pursuit of justice was only partially successful; the war was continuing:
Our class discussion. . . revolved around the only possible subject: the war. They were so disheartened that all of a sudden they broke into tears, both boys and girls. It came as a shock to me, and I realized sadly that the student antiwar movement had collapsed. They would go no further. This same aftertaste of sadness is what I recognized" in 1980.
The naïve belief in progress, in national righteousness, had been shattered. Faith in science, in truth, as an infallible guide to progress, was disturbed. America "held its truths to be absolutes, forgetting that no one truth is ever complete and that a partial truth [American exceptionalism] embraced for too long becomes an insane idea."
Crozier believes that America needed President Reagan to provide a peaceful interlude with a note of hope. On the other hand, Reagan has provided more rhetoric than reality, because serious unresolved problems remaind in spite of the good feelings associated with a Shangri-La atmosphere. "People care about their own private world, which they do not associate with the public good. They care about holding their own, if necessary, by defending their interests against the public good."
A distinguished black leader says with sadness in his voice that young blacks "don't have that gleam in their eyes anymore. . . . there is no drive, no inspiration. " Among both black and white youth increasingly "everybody is left free to do his or her thing without caring for others."
What is really at stake is America's traditional patterns and values, its image of itself. Not that it should discard its identity, but it may have to rethink and readjust it. . . . German, Italy, France and Japan---they all learned a great deal from their failures and changed a great deal and built a stronger identity.
America must forget "its dreams of innocence and superiority;" make some fundamental changes.
America has depended on a false sense of chosenness, a false sense of superiority, a false sense of exceptionalism, a Manifest Destiny, a self-righteous refusal to learn from the example of other countries. We have been hollowed out from within.
Some summary comments by Noble. Crozier's perceptive comments need to be put into a larger historical context. I think our great time of social evils occurred from 1750 to 1865; this period was characterized by heavy involvement of the slave trade, slavery, Indian genocide, Indian removal. Our founding fathers and first presidents were heavily involved in these evils. They were a small, white, male, rich elite who created the American trinity.
The period of greatest economic equality occurred from 1945 to 1970, the time Crozier came to America. He saw our strengths, but he also observed its disintegration because of sand in the foundation. The American church should have risen to the occasion, introduced kingdom of God principles, but it did not do so. Into the vacuum rushed the American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism; this evil trinity created catastrophic income and wealth inequality and unjust mass incarceration based on the new prohibition, the War on Drugs which was combined with racial profiling. This began in the 1980s and continues into 2016.
Friday, January 15, 2016
A Creedal Statement on the Kingdom of God
Over the years, I have asked hundreds of people to write a one sentence definition of the kingdom of God. Nine out of ten definitions have been vague and imprecise, mostly future and spiritual, seldom with any present and social justice thrust. Those surveyed supposedly believed that the Bible was accurate and authoritative, yet they were surprisingly ignorant about one of the major themes in the Bible, one that Jesus himself highlighted again and again.
The oppressed are being crushed, traumatized; they require urgent action on their behalf, today not tomorrow. My proposed creedal statement is one small step in this direction.
According to Acts 8:12, the complete biblical gospel is two-pronged: the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ. The Apostle's Creed covers the Jesus Christ prong, but not the kingdom of God which is equally important. The following sentence versions could be added to the Apostle's Creed. The longer version could be repeated separately.
1. The kingdom of God here on earth releases the oppressed, provides liberty and justice for all.
2. I will give my highest priority to implementing the kingdom of God as Jubilee justice that releases the oppressed poor here on earth, where applying kingdom principles will create better families, communities and nations.
3. I pledge my allegiance to the kingdom of God as liberty and justice for all:
* justice as prophesized by Isaiah (9:7; 11:1-4; 16:5; 28:16-17; 42:1-4; 61:1-4.
* Jubilee justice as preached by Jesus (Luke 4:18-19).
* generosity/equality as practiced by the church in Acts (4:32-35).
* equality as preached by Paul (Gal. 3:28).
* respect/love as advocated by James (James 1:27 and chapter 2).
I therefore will reject any form of idolatry---male supremacy, white ethnocentrism/superiority, national superiority/exceptionalism--that dehumanizes persons and peoples; I will reject any economic system that oppresses persons and peoples.
I will pursue justice as God desires it: "I want justice---oceans of it." (Amos 5:24, The Message).
I will pursue justice in the power of the Holy Spirit: "The kingdom of God is justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Romans 14:17, Noble paraphrase).
I will follow Jesus' high priority for the kingdom of God: "Your business is life, not death. And life is urgent. Announce God's kingdom. . . . You can't put off God's kingdom till tomorrow. Seize the day." (Luke 9:57-62, The Message).
"Seek first God's kingdom and his justice." (Mt. 6:33, NEB).
The oppressed are being crushed, traumatized; they require urgent action on their behalf, today not tomorrow. My proposed creedal statement is one small step in this direction.
According to Acts 8:12, the complete biblical gospel is two-pronged: the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ. The Apostle's Creed covers the Jesus Christ prong, but not the kingdom of God which is equally important. The following sentence versions could be added to the Apostle's Creed. The longer version could be repeated separately.
1. The kingdom of God here on earth releases the oppressed, provides liberty and justice for all.
2. I will give my highest priority to implementing the kingdom of God as Jubilee justice that releases the oppressed poor here on earth, where applying kingdom principles will create better families, communities and nations.
3. I pledge my allegiance to the kingdom of God as liberty and justice for all:
* justice as prophesized by Isaiah (9:7; 11:1-4; 16:5; 28:16-17; 42:1-4; 61:1-4.
* Jubilee justice as preached by Jesus (Luke 4:18-19).
* generosity/equality as practiced by the church in Acts (4:32-35).
* equality as preached by Paul (Gal. 3:28).
* respect/love as advocated by James (James 1:27 and chapter 2).
I therefore will reject any form of idolatry---male supremacy, white ethnocentrism/superiority, national superiority/exceptionalism--that dehumanizes persons and peoples; I will reject any economic system that oppresses persons and peoples.
I will pursue justice as God desires it: "I want justice---oceans of it." (Amos 5:24, The Message).
I will pursue justice in the power of the Holy Spirit: "The kingdom of God is justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Romans 14:17, Noble paraphrase).
I will follow Jesus' high priority for the kingdom of God: "Your business is life, not death. And life is urgent. Announce God's kingdom. . . . You can't put off God's kingdom till tomorrow. Seize the day." (Luke 9:57-62, The Message).
"Seek first God's kingdom and his justice." (Mt. 6:33, NEB).
Isaiah's Definition of the Kingdom of God
In modern America, there is massive ignorance about the present and social dimensions of the kingdom of God, what the content of the kingdom is. For Jesus' disciples, their only Bible was the OT. Their understanding of the kingdom would have been grounded in Isaiah.
A suggestion: Cold, without any comments which might bias or influence your group or class, with your Bibles closed, ask each person to write down a one sentence definition of the kingdom of God. Then have each person read their definition out loud; the sharing of definitions is an important part of the learning process. If your experience is like mine, most will flunk this biblical test.
Then hand your class a copy of the Messianic passages from Isaiah and ask each one to rewrite their definitions based solely on these Messianic passages. these passages from the NIV are:
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 upon him---the Spirit of wisdom and understanding . . . with righteousness he will judge the needy and 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.
42:1-4 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 poor will be called oaks of righteousness or trees of justice. These transformed poor will rebuild the ruined cities.
61:8 For I, the Lord, love justice.
Isaiah 61:1-4 is quoted in part in Luke 4:18-19 with an addition from 58:6. Now carry your Isaiah definition of the kingdom over into the NT as you try to understand Jesus' purpose for the kingdom of God.
My next blog will be on the need for a creedal statement on the kingdom of God.
A suggestion: Cold, without any comments which might bias or influence your group or class, with your Bibles closed, ask each person to write down a one sentence definition of the kingdom of God. Then have each person read their definition out loud; the sharing of definitions is an important part of the learning process. If your experience is like mine, most will flunk this biblical test.
Then hand your class a copy of the Messianic passages from Isaiah and ask each one to rewrite their definitions based solely on these Messianic passages. these passages from the NIV are:
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 upon him---the Spirit of wisdom and understanding . . . with righteousness he will judge the needy and 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.
42:1-4 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 poor will be called oaks of righteousness or trees of justice. These transformed poor will rebuild the ruined cities.
61:8 For I, the Lord, love justice.
Isaiah 61:1-4 is quoted in part in Luke 4:18-19 with an addition from 58:6. Now carry your Isaiah definition of the kingdom over into the NT as you try to understand Jesus' purpose for the kingdom of God.
My next blog will be on the need for a creedal statement on the kingdom of God.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
The Upside-Down Kingdom
When Jesus began his ministry, he announced, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." What were the existing kingdoms like? The Roman Empire? The Jewish kingdom?
Donald Kraybill, in his book The Upside-Down Kingdom, gives us a sociological analysis of the political, religious and economic conditions of New Testament times in Palestine. Chapter two describes the political situation.
First, a brief history. Alexander the Great conquered Palestine in 332 BC introducing Greek language and culture. His successors ruled Palestine for over 100 years. In 198 BC, Syria captured the Jewish kingdom and a madman devastated Palestine.
In 63 BC, Rome conquered Palestine. Herod the Great ran the show. He built the magnificent temple, but soon after its full completion, it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Herod taxed the people ruthlessly, but he did allow the Jews religious freedom as long as they obeyed Rome.
The Zealots could not tolerate the Roman occupation of their sacred land so they led a violent resistance movement just before and during Jesus' time. Dagger men engaged in a "slit and run" tactic. "Palestine was in a state of boiling revolution."
Next, from politics to religion. Or more accurately, the reign of a Jewish religio-politico-economic elite. Church and state were not separate in Jewish society. This was an highly institutionalized religion built around a magnificent temple:
The temple treasury, functioning as a huge national bank, contained the tithes and offerings required of Jews throughout the world and held title to a considerable amount of property. The temple was no small business. It was an elaborate operation which generated the major source of revenue for the city of Jerusalem.
Closely tied to the temple was the Jewish Sanhedrin:
This great [70 member] council had complete judicial and administrative authority in religious and civil matters.
A further comment on the nature of the Jewish kingdom which Jesus often confronted:
The political, social, and religious affairs of all Judea and international Judism were oriented toward the great temple in Jerusalem. Synagogues in each village throughout the countryside faced the holy temple. The temple's influence permeated the hinterland through the network of 18,000 priests and Levites whose social and religious status was tied to the temple operation. The frequent pilgrimages and trips for sacrifice cemented even the ordinary Jewish peasant into the temple's mystique.
The Sadducees were conservative in terms of religious doctrine, but rich and powerful politically and economically. They dominated the Sanhedrin. Jesus found this system oppressive so again and again he directly confronted this corrupt perversion of God's will.
What about the economic situation? Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee. "Poor peasant farmers are pushed off the land by ruthless creditors. . . . the masses are suffering under a system of excessive taxation."
While Jerusalem was the home of much wealth, the masses (90 percent were "people of the land") were dirt poor or near poverty. Galilee was full of these "scum of the earth" people. The common people despised not only the Roman occupiers but also the pious rich Jewish elite. Galilee was a rich land (agriculture and fish) full of poor people. Landlords and landless poor:
Within a few decades, small and middle-sized plots of land had disappeared, whereas the properties owned by the temple and the [Roman] imperial crown grew beyond proportion. . .. At the core of poverty was a system of double taxation [Jewish and Roman]; from forty to seventy percent of the peasants annual income.
Fraud and force, very rich and very poor, few middle class; not a just society. Kraybill summarizes the situation:
A close scrutiny of Jesus' mission shows that his new way undercut the leverage of the three major social institutions of his day: political force, established religion, and conventional economics.
As often happens, these three institutional structures were closely interwoven together. The rich aristocracy of chief priests and Sadducees in Jerusalem owned large estates in Galilee which crushed small peasant farmers. They controlled the mighty Jewish supreme court---the Sanhedrin. This body, in turn, controlled the temple ritual and religious regulations. It was this same upper crust of Jerusalem which was in cahoots with the Romans. They wanted the Romans to stay so their property and plush living would be protected from the rebellious countryside bandits. . . . It was this Jerusalem crowd that shouted, "Crucify him, crucify him," for they perceived the new way of Jesus to be more dangerous---more upsetting in its totality---than the threat of the rebel leader Barabbas who led a revolt in the city. . . . But a new teaching, a new way of living which overturned the political, religious, and economic tables was too dangerous to the plush security and luxury of the Jerusalem elite.
Into the midst of these terrible conditions, Jesus announced, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor [most of the hearers were poor], . . . to release the oppressed [most of his hearers were likely oppressed], and to incarnate Jubilee/Sabbath Year justice for the poor [designed to break patterns of poverty and oppression.]"
Haiti and Galilee have a lot in common: a small rich elite oppressing the poor masses.
This is the first of three blogs on the Kingdom of God. The next blog will be titled Isaiah's Definition of the Kingdom; the third blog will be about a possible creedal statement of the kingdom of God.
Donald Kraybill, in his book The Upside-Down Kingdom, gives us a sociological analysis of the political, religious and economic conditions of New Testament times in Palestine. Chapter two describes the political situation.
First, a brief history. Alexander the Great conquered Palestine in 332 BC introducing Greek language and culture. His successors ruled Palestine for over 100 years. In 198 BC, Syria captured the Jewish kingdom and a madman devastated Palestine.
In 63 BC, Rome conquered Palestine. Herod the Great ran the show. He built the magnificent temple, but soon after its full completion, it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Herod taxed the people ruthlessly, but he did allow the Jews religious freedom as long as they obeyed Rome.
The Zealots could not tolerate the Roman occupation of their sacred land so they led a violent resistance movement just before and during Jesus' time. Dagger men engaged in a "slit and run" tactic. "Palestine was in a state of boiling revolution."
Next, from politics to religion. Or more accurately, the reign of a Jewish religio-politico-economic elite. Church and state were not separate in Jewish society. This was an highly institutionalized religion built around a magnificent temple:
The temple treasury, functioning as a huge national bank, contained the tithes and offerings required of Jews throughout the world and held title to a considerable amount of property. The temple was no small business. It was an elaborate operation which generated the major source of revenue for the city of Jerusalem.
Closely tied to the temple was the Jewish Sanhedrin:
This great [70 member] council had complete judicial and administrative authority in religious and civil matters.
A further comment on the nature of the Jewish kingdom which Jesus often confronted:
The political, social, and religious affairs of all Judea and international Judism were oriented toward the great temple in Jerusalem. Synagogues in each village throughout the countryside faced the holy temple. The temple's influence permeated the hinterland through the network of 18,000 priests and Levites whose social and religious status was tied to the temple operation. The frequent pilgrimages and trips for sacrifice cemented even the ordinary Jewish peasant into the temple's mystique.
The Sadducees were conservative in terms of religious doctrine, but rich and powerful politically and economically. They dominated the Sanhedrin. Jesus found this system oppressive so again and again he directly confronted this corrupt perversion of God's will.
What about the economic situation? Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee. "Poor peasant farmers are pushed off the land by ruthless creditors. . . . the masses are suffering under a system of excessive taxation."
While Jerusalem was the home of much wealth, the masses (90 percent were "people of the land") were dirt poor or near poverty. Galilee was full of these "scum of the earth" people. The common people despised not only the Roman occupiers but also the pious rich Jewish elite. Galilee was a rich land (agriculture and fish) full of poor people. Landlords and landless poor:
Within a few decades, small and middle-sized plots of land had disappeared, whereas the properties owned by the temple and the [Roman] imperial crown grew beyond proportion. . .. At the core of poverty was a system of double taxation [Jewish and Roman]; from forty to seventy percent of the peasants annual income.
Fraud and force, very rich and very poor, few middle class; not a just society. Kraybill summarizes the situation:
A close scrutiny of Jesus' mission shows that his new way undercut the leverage of the three major social institutions of his day: political force, established religion, and conventional economics.
As often happens, these three institutional structures were closely interwoven together. The rich aristocracy of chief priests and Sadducees in Jerusalem owned large estates in Galilee which crushed small peasant farmers. They controlled the mighty Jewish supreme court---the Sanhedrin. This body, in turn, controlled the temple ritual and religious regulations. It was this same upper crust of Jerusalem which was in cahoots with the Romans. They wanted the Romans to stay so their property and plush living would be protected from the rebellious countryside bandits. . . . It was this Jerusalem crowd that shouted, "Crucify him, crucify him," for they perceived the new way of Jesus to be more dangerous---more upsetting in its totality---than the threat of the rebel leader Barabbas who led a revolt in the city. . . . But a new teaching, a new way of living which overturned the political, religious, and economic tables was too dangerous to the plush security and luxury of the Jerusalem elite.
Into the midst of these terrible conditions, Jesus announced, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor [most of the hearers were poor], . . . to release the oppressed [most of his hearers were likely oppressed], and to incarnate Jubilee/Sabbath Year justice for the poor [designed to break patterns of poverty and oppression.]"
Haiti and Galilee have a lot in common: a small rich elite oppressing the poor masses.
This is the first of three blogs on the Kingdom of God. The next blog will be titled Isaiah's Definition of the Kingdom; the third blog will be about a possible creedal statement of the kingdom of God.
Friday, January 8, 2016
The Black Church: Past and Present
The following is my book review of three books by black authors: Marvin A. McMickle, Preaching to the Black Middle Class, 2000 and Dwight Perry, Breaking Down Barriers: A Black Evangelical Explains the Black Church, 1998; Bruce Fields, Introducing Black Theology; Three Crucial Questions for the Evangelical Church, 2001.
The dilemma of the black middle class: How does a person escape the clutches of poverty and racism but avoid being ensnared by individualism and materialism?
The author of Preaching to the Black Middle Class knows from bitter personal experience what it is like to be poor and oppressed, and what the intense seduction of materialism is like. So his writings show insightful understanding of the black middle class, but also a warning and a challenge not to settle for a materialistic mess of pottage. He exhorts the black middle class to aim higher than achieving the American Dream.
But before, I examine the contemporary scene through the teachings and preachings of McMickle, I want to look at the past history of Afro Americans and the black church through the informed eyes of Rev. Dwight Perry, D. Min and Ph.D, author of Breaking Down Barriers. First a quotation:
Africans brought with them a hope for liberation, a strong oral tradition, and a sense of connectedness between their spiritual and physical lives. When Blacks converted to Christianity, these characteristics contributed to a Christian community that was, and is, distinctly different than the White church.
Contrary to many Euro evangelicals who are conservative religiously, politically and economically, many Afro Christians are "staunchly conservative from a religious point of view, while liberal politically and socially." White evangelicals are conservative politically and economically because it helps to preserve the status quo which favors them, helps them preserve white privilege; black evangelicals are liberal because they desperately need revolutionary change to stop oppression and create justice.
Perry states:
The White church in this country developed in the absence of oppression; it could afford to dichotomize the gospel, allowing it to apply to spiritual issues but not to social ones.
True, but I would state this in a stronger fashion. The Euro church was often a part of the oppression of blacks and benefited from their oppression. Therefore, it was to their advantage to divorce the spiritual from the social, especially when other ethnic groups were involved. They could appear to be individually righteous while socially evil with no contradiction, or so they falsely believed; at judgment day, they will discover how wrong they were.
Regarding the Civil War and Reconstruction, Perry notes that there was over 150 years of slavery, then suddenly freedom. Freedom, but not much justice followed. For example, most of the work of the Freedmen's Bureau centered around "temporary relief" which was badly needed, but economic issues such as "property ownership and economic equity" were not addressed. Soon a new form of slavery was instituted and institutionalized---segregation, sharecropping, prison gangs and lynching.
Perry asserts that Euro evangelicals have the "right theology but wrong sociology." By this I assume that he means the evangelicals have a good theology of personal sin and personal salvation based on the cross and resurrection, but they do not practice social justice. I would say that white evangelicals have a partial or incomplete theology which leads to a terrible practice of sociology. Their theology not address ethnocentrism and oppression as the Bible does. Their theology does not understand the kingdom of God as justice that releases the oppressed poor.
Back to McMickle, the pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio; he has a doctorate and teaches at Ashland Theological Seminary. The following quotation reflects the theme of his book:
There is a black middle class that is becoming more and more affluent. There is at the same time, a black underclass that is becoming increasingly impoverished. The question for this book is what the class disparity within the black community means for the ministry of black churches. More precisely, what are the ministry obligations and opportunities of black middle-class churches that are physically located within America's inner cities?
McMickle knows what it is like to be hungry and poor, also the desperate pursuit for something better---a middle class life style; here are some insights from his own personal journey:
The pursuit of prosperity and the American Dream is an especially delicate issue with the black middle class. Many of them are the first generation in their families to enjoy any measure of prosperity. . . . My family never owned its own home. When my father abandoned us, I was ten years old. From that time on, we never owned a car. I will never forget standing on the street corners in Chicago in subzero weather waiting for public transportation. . . . My memories of growing up helped me understand those persons who, like Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, have vowed to themselves "never to be hungry again."
As a teenager, McMickle visited a plush suburban home. But as he returned to his small, dingy apartment, he sobbed and sobbed "because the life I had lived for the past two days seemed out of my reach."
McMickle adds:
I fell into the money cycle immediately following my graduation from high school. . . . Not only was I making union scale as a regular wage, but I could earn double time if I worked Sundays. After having grownup as an active member of a church in Chicago, I worked Sundays without hesitation because in a choice between God and mammon, I chose the mammon. I was determined never again to face an empty closet or a bare pantry. Had my call to the ministry not occurred in the summer of 1966 while I was working in that print shop, I wonder if I would ever have broken out of that cycle.
The intense human desire to escape poverty is understandable, but potentially dangerous. A person, a community, even a church can become quite materialistic in the process. A person may escape poverty, gain the whole world, yet lose one's soul. We must remember to give highest priority to God's kingdom and his justice; then God will take care of the necessities of life.
Most of his book consists of wise advice regarding the ministry of the black church.
Next, Introducing Black Theology by Bruce Fields.
I am angry. What could and should have been a great book, a desperately needed book, a ground breaking book for American evangelicalism, turned out to be incomplete, too theological, not biblical enough. Many theologians were quoted, but there was not much original biblical analysis.
There were some tantalizing statements which led me to believe that this would be a great book:
* "As a symbol of oppression, the concept of blackness allows for fruitful theological reflection."
* "I will address the need for the church to adopt a more prophetic stance on the specific matters of racism and the potential tolerance of systemic sin."
* The church, however, is not totally unlike its societal surroundings. We are still in days of racial tension and division, and it is sheer naivete to believe that a follower of Jesus Christ living and ministering in this present setting is automatically and completely immune to such influences."
* "Racism is a faith. It is a form of idolatry."
These statements reveal the author's personal sensitivity to oppression/justice issues, but there are major omissions in his biblical analysis.
Michael Emerson and Christian Smith in Divided by Faith, 2000, had already documented the failure of evangelicals to engage racial oppression responsibly, biblically. So here was a golden opportunity for an Afro American evangelical to chart the biblical way to stop oppression and do justice. Fields toyed with the concepts/issues, but he essentially failed his assignment. What an enormous tragedy!
If oppression and justice are central concerns of black theology, and if oppression and justice are central failures of the white evangelical church, then a bible-believing evangelical must engage in depth the Scriptures at these points. Strangely, Fields does not do so.
To my knowledge, no white or black evangelical has produced a definitive biblical analysis of ethnocentrism, oppression, justice and reconciliation, and the kingdom of God as justice that releases the oppressed in the power of the Holy Spirit. Any volunteers?
The dilemma of the black middle class: How does a person escape the clutches of poverty and racism but avoid being ensnared by individualism and materialism?
The author of Preaching to the Black Middle Class knows from bitter personal experience what it is like to be poor and oppressed, and what the intense seduction of materialism is like. So his writings show insightful understanding of the black middle class, but also a warning and a challenge not to settle for a materialistic mess of pottage. He exhorts the black middle class to aim higher than achieving the American Dream.
But before, I examine the contemporary scene through the teachings and preachings of McMickle, I want to look at the past history of Afro Americans and the black church through the informed eyes of Rev. Dwight Perry, D. Min and Ph.D, author of Breaking Down Barriers. First a quotation:
Africans brought with them a hope for liberation, a strong oral tradition, and a sense of connectedness between their spiritual and physical lives. When Blacks converted to Christianity, these characteristics contributed to a Christian community that was, and is, distinctly different than the White church.
Contrary to many Euro evangelicals who are conservative religiously, politically and economically, many Afro Christians are "staunchly conservative from a religious point of view, while liberal politically and socially." White evangelicals are conservative politically and economically because it helps to preserve the status quo which favors them, helps them preserve white privilege; black evangelicals are liberal because they desperately need revolutionary change to stop oppression and create justice.
Perry states:
The White church in this country developed in the absence of oppression; it could afford to dichotomize the gospel, allowing it to apply to spiritual issues but not to social ones.
True, but I would state this in a stronger fashion. The Euro church was often a part of the oppression of blacks and benefited from their oppression. Therefore, it was to their advantage to divorce the spiritual from the social, especially when other ethnic groups were involved. They could appear to be individually righteous while socially evil with no contradiction, or so they falsely believed; at judgment day, they will discover how wrong they were.
Regarding the Civil War and Reconstruction, Perry notes that there was over 150 years of slavery, then suddenly freedom. Freedom, but not much justice followed. For example, most of the work of the Freedmen's Bureau centered around "temporary relief" which was badly needed, but economic issues such as "property ownership and economic equity" were not addressed. Soon a new form of slavery was instituted and institutionalized---segregation, sharecropping, prison gangs and lynching.
Perry asserts that Euro evangelicals have the "right theology but wrong sociology." By this I assume that he means the evangelicals have a good theology of personal sin and personal salvation based on the cross and resurrection, but they do not practice social justice. I would say that white evangelicals have a partial or incomplete theology which leads to a terrible practice of sociology. Their theology not address ethnocentrism and oppression as the Bible does. Their theology does not understand the kingdom of God as justice that releases the oppressed poor.
Back to McMickle, the pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio; he has a doctorate and teaches at Ashland Theological Seminary. The following quotation reflects the theme of his book:
There is a black middle class that is becoming more and more affluent. There is at the same time, a black underclass that is becoming increasingly impoverished. The question for this book is what the class disparity within the black community means for the ministry of black churches. More precisely, what are the ministry obligations and opportunities of black middle-class churches that are physically located within America's inner cities?
McMickle knows what it is like to be hungry and poor, also the desperate pursuit for something better---a middle class life style; here are some insights from his own personal journey:
The pursuit of prosperity and the American Dream is an especially delicate issue with the black middle class. Many of them are the first generation in their families to enjoy any measure of prosperity. . . . My family never owned its own home. When my father abandoned us, I was ten years old. From that time on, we never owned a car. I will never forget standing on the street corners in Chicago in subzero weather waiting for public transportation. . . . My memories of growing up helped me understand those persons who, like Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, have vowed to themselves "never to be hungry again."
As a teenager, McMickle visited a plush suburban home. But as he returned to his small, dingy apartment, he sobbed and sobbed "because the life I had lived for the past two days seemed out of my reach."
McMickle adds:
I fell into the money cycle immediately following my graduation from high school. . . . Not only was I making union scale as a regular wage, but I could earn double time if I worked Sundays. After having grownup as an active member of a church in Chicago, I worked Sundays without hesitation because in a choice between God and mammon, I chose the mammon. I was determined never again to face an empty closet or a bare pantry. Had my call to the ministry not occurred in the summer of 1966 while I was working in that print shop, I wonder if I would ever have broken out of that cycle.
The intense human desire to escape poverty is understandable, but potentially dangerous. A person, a community, even a church can become quite materialistic in the process. A person may escape poverty, gain the whole world, yet lose one's soul. We must remember to give highest priority to God's kingdom and his justice; then God will take care of the necessities of life.
Most of his book consists of wise advice regarding the ministry of the black church.
Next, Introducing Black Theology by Bruce Fields.
I am angry. What could and should have been a great book, a desperately needed book, a ground breaking book for American evangelicalism, turned out to be incomplete, too theological, not biblical enough. Many theologians were quoted, but there was not much original biblical analysis.
There were some tantalizing statements which led me to believe that this would be a great book:
* "As a symbol of oppression, the concept of blackness allows for fruitful theological reflection."
* "I will address the need for the church to adopt a more prophetic stance on the specific matters of racism and the potential tolerance of systemic sin."
* The church, however, is not totally unlike its societal surroundings. We are still in days of racial tension and division, and it is sheer naivete to believe that a follower of Jesus Christ living and ministering in this present setting is automatically and completely immune to such influences."
* "Racism is a faith. It is a form of idolatry."
These statements reveal the author's personal sensitivity to oppression/justice issues, but there are major omissions in his biblical analysis.
Michael Emerson and Christian Smith in Divided by Faith, 2000, had already documented the failure of evangelicals to engage racial oppression responsibly, biblically. So here was a golden opportunity for an Afro American evangelical to chart the biblical way to stop oppression and do justice. Fields toyed with the concepts/issues, but he essentially failed his assignment. What an enormous tragedy!
If oppression and justice are central concerns of black theology, and if oppression and justice are central failures of the white evangelical church, then a bible-believing evangelical must engage in depth the Scriptures at these points. Strangely, Fields does not do so.
To my knowledge, no white or black evangelical has produced a definitive biblical analysis of ethnocentrism, oppression, justice and reconciliation, and the kingdom of God as justice that releases the oppressed in the power of the Holy Spirit. Any volunteers?
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