In the October 3, 2016, Time magazine, there is a picture of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture with the Washington Monument looming large in the background. The Monument is a creamy white; the Museum is a dark black color. Time notes the "lively contrast" between the two impressive buildings.
But Time fails to note the historical evil contrast. Time does refer to the "triumph and struggle of black America." And Time does talk a lot about slavery in America. But Time, like all other commentary about the Museum that I have heard and read, fails to take advantage of a golden teaching moment, fails to discuss how the Washington Monument relates to the treatment of blacks in this country. The very president that the Monument honors owned hundreds of slaves. On the same Mall, stands the Jefferson Memorial; Jefferson owned a total of 600 slaves during his lifetime. The nearby Capitol building was built using slave labor; the same with the White House.
As far as the Time article is concerned, these surrounding symbols of both goodness and evil, this WASP evil, remained invisible.
CBS Morning News recently did their whole two hour program from the Museum; a very good program, but they did not mention the historical irony, the massive, but largely invisible, evil surrounding the Museum on the Mall.
Something similar happened with articles about the probable removal of the Confederate flag from the stained glass windows in the National Cathedral. To the left and to the right of the Confederate flag panel were two panels with the American flag, the Stars and Stripes.
In one American flag panel, the flag was tied to West Point soldiers. In the other American flag panel, it was tied to the Mexican America War. American soldiers have far too often been instruments of evil; the killing of Native Americans and the destruction of their cultures, the imperialism of the Mexican American War, the death of a million Filipinos, the Viet Nam War, the War in Iraq. War and American imperialism, ethnocentrism and oppression often have gone hand in hand.
None of the commentary on the Confederate flag in the stained glass window mentioned the above; WASP evil remained hidden, invisible. Confederate evil was highlighted. Somewhat hypocritical.
The same with the St. Louis Arch. To most of white America, it is a good and glorious symbol of Westward expansion, the spread of Anglo, Christian civilization into the West. They largely ignore that the Arch also symbolizes imperialism, ethnocentrism and oppression---the elimination of most Native Americans. Even Christian organizations have used the Arch as a symbol in their advertising, apparently not aware of the enormous evil it represents.
Friday, September 30, 2016
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Appalachian White PTSD
Debra Bendis in a book review of J.D. Vance's book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis titled "narrow escape" says:
"J.D. Vance marvels at how he survived a dysfunctional and dispirited society." "Some people's expectations are so low that they quit trying for a better life."
Sounds like Exodus 6:9 which describes the impact of generations of oppression had on the Hebrew people. Smashed in body and crushed in spirit, the Hebrews could not believe their promised deliverance, delivered in person by Moses. For 400 long years, there had been no action by God. To the people, God seemed to be a deistic God who didn't care about their plight or couldn't do anything about it. "But when Moses delivered the message [direct from God] to the Israelites, they didn't even hear him---they were that beaten down in spirit by the harsh slave conditions."
Vance wrote: "I want people to understand what happens in the lives of the [oppressed] poor and the psychological impact that spiritual and material poverty has on their children." And closely related "the cultural stigma against hillbillies." The deadly and destructive impact that the combination of ethnocentrism, oppression and poverty have on any people. Today the appropriate term is PTSD. The same thing has happened to Native Americans and African Americans.
Ethnocentrism and oppression cause enormous damage; the damage then causes the dysfunction in individuals, families, communities and cultures. Vance is strong on describing the dysfunction, but weak on the causes of the preceding damage.
Some final observations from the reviewer, Bendis:
"Optimism is a precious commodity. According to the Pew Economic Mobility Project, there is no more pessimistic group in America than working-class white people. Their expectations are so low that many simply quit trying for a better life."
"As a result, working-class people feel betrayed. The country that they dearly love and honor has not lifted them up. It has ground them down and kept them in a corner. Their politics are fueled by anger and a belief that an overeducated elite, infiltrated by alien religions and peoples, has abandoned them. . . . No wonder Trump's candidacy is music to their ears, says Vance. "His apocalyptic tone matches their lived experiences on the ground."
They don't know it yet, but Trump's attractive promises are hollow. Hillbillies will actually be worse off as American bigoted billionaires pile up more and more billions. It is a clever billionaire con game that will continue to oppress all of America's poor.
We all need to revisit the Sermon on the Mount. Joseph Grassi, author of the book Informing the Future: Social Justice in the New Testament, calls Matthew, the gospel of Justice, primarily because he understands that the Sermon has two themes: the kingdom of God and justice. I agree.
I think that 6:33 (NEB) is the key verse: "Set your mind [give your highest priority to] on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else." Other verses such as 'poor in spirit' should be interpreted in the light of 6:33. In regard to this book review, I wish to highlight several verses: "the poor in spirit" "hunger and thirst for justice" "salt and light" "fulfill the Law and the Prophets." I tie these passages together in the following statements:
Only a kingdom people with truckloads of Jubilee style justice can truly bless the oppressed poor.
Only a kingdom church busy fulfilling the love and justice mission of the Law and Prophets can bless the crushed in spirit.
Only a kingdom church, anointed by the Holy Spirit, can be salt and light to those broken in spirit.
The Spirit-anointed church is good news to the battered and bruised poor when it takes Jubilee justice to those in a spirit of despair, struggling with oppression-caused PTSD.
"J.D. Vance marvels at how he survived a dysfunctional and dispirited society." "Some people's expectations are so low that they quit trying for a better life."
Sounds like Exodus 6:9 which describes the impact of generations of oppression had on the Hebrew people. Smashed in body and crushed in spirit, the Hebrews could not believe their promised deliverance, delivered in person by Moses. For 400 long years, there had been no action by God. To the people, God seemed to be a deistic God who didn't care about their plight or couldn't do anything about it. "But when Moses delivered the message [direct from God] to the Israelites, they didn't even hear him---they were that beaten down in spirit by the harsh slave conditions."
Vance wrote: "I want people to understand what happens in the lives of the [oppressed] poor and the psychological impact that spiritual and material poverty has on their children." And closely related "the cultural stigma against hillbillies." The deadly and destructive impact that the combination of ethnocentrism, oppression and poverty have on any people. Today the appropriate term is PTSD. The same thing has happened to Native Americans and African Americans.
Ethnocentrism and oppression cause enormous damage; the damage then causes the dysfunction in individuals, families, communities and cultures. Vance is strong on describing the dysfunction, but weak on the causes of the preceding damage.
Some final observations from the reviewer, Bendis:
"Optimism is a precious commodity. According to the Pew Economic Mobility Project, there is no more pessimistic group in America than working-class white people. Their expectations are so low that many simply quit trying for a better life."
"As a result, working-class people feel betrayed. The country that they dearly love and honor has not lifted them up. It has ground them down and kept them in a corner. Their politics are fueled by anger and a belief that an overeducated elite, infiltrated by alien religions and peoples, has abandoned them. . . . No wonder Trump's candidacy is music to their ears, says Vance. "His apocalyptic tone matches their lived experiences on the ground."
They don't know it yet, but Trump's attractive promises are hollow. Hillbillies will actually be worse off as American bigoted billionaires pile up more and more billions. It is a clever billionaire con game that will continue to oppress all of America's poor.
We all need to revisit the Sermon on the Mount. Joseph Grassi, author of the book Informing the Future: Social Justice in the New Testament, calls Matthew, the gospel of Justice, primarily because he understands that the Sermon has two themes: the kingdom of God and justice. I agree.
I think that 6:33 (NEB) is the key verse: "Set your mind [give your highest priority to] on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else." Other verses such as 'poor in spirit' should be interpreted in the light of 6:33. In regard to this book review, I wish to highlight several verses: "the poor in spirit" "hunger and thirst for justice" "salt and light" "fulfill the Law and the Prophets." I tie these passages together in the following statements:
Only a kingdom people with truckloads of Jubilee style justice can truly bless the oppressed poor.
Only a kingdom church busy fulfilling the love and justice mission of the Law and Prophets can bless the crushed in spirit.
Only a kingdom church, anointed by the Holy Spirit, can be salt and light to those broken in spirit.
The Spirit-anointed church is good news to the battered and bruised poor when it takes Jubilee justice to those in a spirit of despair, struggling with oppression-caused PTSD.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Justice: Odds and Ends
1. Protest is good; repentance/restitution is better.
Jackie Robinson: "I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that I am a black man in a white world."
Colin Kapernick: "There's lots of things [racial wealth gap, racial profiling, mass incarceration, War on Drugs] that need to change [white repentance]. One specifically? Police brutality. There's people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That's not right."
What should white Christians do? Start a repentance movement? Symbolized by kneeling on both knees with our foreheads touching the ground whenever the national anthem is sung, whenever the Pledge of allegiance is recited?
Are we "one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all?" Or are we a deeply divided nation, under the American trinity, with liberty and justice for only a few---a rich, white, male elite?
Billy Graham defined the kingdom of God as "justice for all." So at its best the Pledge contains a great truth. But the problem with the Pledge is our founding fathers created a nation for rich, white males; women, the poor, Native Americans and Afro Americans didn't count as full fledged, equal citizens. Today, in 2016, they still don't count as equal citizens. Some progress has been made, yes, but we are still far from full equality. Whites are still choosing to protect their vested interests, not to repent of their widespread social evil, of their ethnocentrism and oppression.
2. New African American Museum on the Mall
As one sees pictures of the African American museum on TV, in the background, the Washington Monument shows up. What a tragic irony! The father of our country who owned hundreds of slaves; on the same Mall, we find the Jefferson Memorial; Jefferson, in his lifetime, owned about 600 slaves. The Capitol building was built by slave labor; the White House was built by slave labor. Georgetown University, in its early days, owned slaveholding plantations which helped finance the university and at one time sold 272 slaves to forestall bankruptcy and closure.
Jackie Robinson: "I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that I am a black man in a white world."
Colin Kapernick: "There's lots of things [racial wealth gap, racial profiling, mass incarceration, War on Drugs] that need to change [white repentance]. One specifically? Police brutality. There's people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That's not right."
What should white Christians do? Start a repentance movement? Symbolized by kneeling on both knees with our foreheads touching the ground whenever the national anthem is sung, whenever the Pledge of allegiance is recited?
Are we "one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all?" Or are we a deeply divided nation, under the American trinity, with liberty and justice for only a few---a rich, white, male elite?
Billy Graham defined the kingdom of God as "justice for all." So at its best the Pledge contains a great truth. But the problem with the Pledge is our founding fathers created a nation for rich, white males; women, the poor, Native Americans and Afro Americans didn't count as full fledged, equal citizens. Today, in 2016, they still don't count as equal citizens. Some progress has been made, yes, but we are still far from full equality. Whites are still choosing to protect their vested interests, not to repent of their widespread social evil, of their ethnocentrism and oppression.
2. New African American Museum on the Mall
As one sees pictures of the African American museum on TV, in the background, the Washington Monument shows up. What a tragic irony! The father of our country who owned hundreds of slaves; on the same Mall, we find the Jefferson Memorial; Jefferson, in his lifetime, owned about 600 slaves. The Capitol building was built by slave labor; the White House was built by slave labor. Georgetown University, in its early days, owned slaveholding plantations which helped finance the university and at one time sold 272 slaves to forestall bankruptcy and closure.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
"Shattering Charlotte's Myth of Racial Harmony"
The Sept 22 The Atlantic has an excellent article on Charlotte, its slave history, its present segregation, its police violence. The Queen City that is bursting with big banks isn't what it is cracked up to be.
White oppressors have not repented of their centuries of ethnocentrism and oppression; white oppressors have not yet released their black oppressed; white oppressors have continued their prized superiority and privilege at all costs. After all, white is right.
Some puzzled white Christian college professors, 50 years after the civil rights movement, are still asking the stupid question, "What do they want?" They are not asking, "What must we do?"
What do blacks want? Freedom and justice. What must whites do? Give both freedom and justice; give up white superiority and white privilege.
In the midst of nationwide racial conflict and tension, some well-meaning whites are calling for dialogue. Not good enough. FIRST, must come white repentance, restitution and release of the oppressed. Blacks are legitimately anger against unending injustice publicly highlighted in Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago, Charleston, Charlotte, Tulsa, New York, etc.
White churches need to lead the way in repentance and justice---incarnating the kingdom of God, not maintaining the American trinity. They will need to dig deeply into the following Scriptures; there are no easy shortcuts: Isa. 58; Mark 1:15; Mt. 3 and 4; Luke 4:18-30; Mt. 6:33; Acts 1:1-8; 8:12; 28:23, 31; Isa. 9:7; 11:1-4; 16:5; 28:16-17; 42:1-4; 61:1-2.
If white churches don't become more biblical, they will continue to use middle class, conventional halfway efforts to deal with radical social evil. Radical social evil demands radical biblical justice, Jubilee justice radicality.
White oppressors have not repented of their centuries of ethnocentrism and oppression; white oppressors have not yet released their black oppressed; white oppressors have continued their prized superiority and privilege at all costs. After all, white is right.
Some puzzled white Christian college professors, 50 years after the civil rights movement, are still asking the stupid question, "What do they want?" They are not asking, "What must we do?"
What do blacks want? Freedom and justice. What must whites do? Give both freedom and justice; give up white superiority and white privilege.
In the midst of nationwide racial conflict and tension, some well-meaning whites are calling for dialogue. Not good enough. FIRST, must come white repentance, restitution and release of the oppressed. Blacks are legitimately anger against unending injustice publicly highlighted in Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago, Charleston, Charlotte, Tulsa, New York, etc.
White churches need to lead the way in repentance and justice---incarnating the kingdom of God, not maintaining the American trinity. They will need to dig deeply into the following Scriptures; there are no easy shortcuts: Isa. 58; Mark 1:15; Mt. 3 and 4; Luke 4:18-30; Mt. 6:33; Acts 1:1-8; 8:12; 28:23, 31; Isa. 9:7; 11:1-4; 16:5; 28:16-17; 42:1-4; 61:1-2.
If white churches don't become more biblical, they will continue to use middle class, conventional halfway efforts to deal with radical social evil. Radical social evil demands radical biblical justice, Jubilee justice radicality.
Monday, September 19, 2016
More Dangerous Than a Trump Presidency?
What would be worse than a Trump Presidency, much worse? Something that it already damaging America.
An American evangelical church that is not preaching and practicing the full, radical kingdom of God gospel of justice---a Jubilee justice that releases the oppressed. For 400 years, the white church, with a few exceptions, has failed to preach and practice the kingdom of God, failed to repent and change, failed to end ethnocentrism and oppression.
America needs "a small body [a team] of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their [kingdom of God] mission can alter the course of history." So says Gandhi.
David Halberstam (The Children) described the Nashville Eight who desegregated Nashville and continued the stalled Freedom Rides in this way: "But these young people were like elite combat troops, well-trained [4-5 months], battle ready, completely willing to accepts the risks [even death]; they were mentally, physically and psychologically prepared" John Lewis was also spiritually prepared; as a teenager over the radio, Lewis heard a sermon by Martin Luther King on the kingdom of God (beloved community). This one sermon was a turning point for Lewis; for the rest of his life incarnating the kingdom became his mission. He was beaten and jailed many times for the cause.
When Jesus Christ himself preached and practiced the kingdom of God as justice, called his fellow Jews to repent and change their ways of ethnocentrism and oppression, the religion-politico-economic elite rejected both him and his message.
They preferred their current ethnic superiority and economic privilege; God's judgment soon followed; the Romans destroyed the Temple. Will America's white evangelicals continue to act like a religion-politico-economic elite or will they respond like the twelve disciples?
We need a team, a group, a movement to rebuild the white evangelical church---make them more biblical than American. Could the NAE or the Justice Conference or ?? be that organization? Only if they go deeper biblically in four areas:
1. Develop both a theology of oppression and a strategy to end systems of oppression. Read Nehemiah five.
2. Tie the Messianic passages from Isaiah with Jesus' statement to "Repent, for the kingdom of God is here!" Also Mt. 6:33 (NEB): "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else."
3. Rejusticize the English NT; tie to the OT Sabbatical/Jubilee laws, Lev. 25.
4. Create a theology of society based on the Spirit and the kingdom of God; Acts 1:1-8; 8:12; 28:23 & 31. Also Romans 14:17: "The kingdom of God is justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit."
Recently on IPT, I watched an excellent documentary on the American struggle over faith and fear, guns and violence. This was followed by a panel discussion by ministers, theologians and activists title Faith and Guns; the panel were supposed experts in the field.
Only in America---awash in guns and racism---could this discussion have taken place. America is also awash with a half-biblical theology.
Much was said about Jesus; but little on the kingdom of God.
Much was said about love, but little about justice.
In America, we feel free to be very selective---accept or reject what we choose from the Scriptures.
But this makes a mockery of the Bible. As disciples we are required to follow both Jesus and the kingdom of God, both love and justice.
An American evangelical church that is not preaching and practicing the full, radical kingdom of God gospel of justice---a Jubilee justice that releases the oppressed. For 400 years, the white church, with a few exceptions, has failed to preach and practice the kingdom of God, failed to repent and change, failed to end ethnocentrism and oppression.
America needs "a small body [a team] of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their [kingdom of God] mission can alter the course of history." So says Gandhi.
David Halberstam (The Children) described the Nashville Eight who desegregated Nashville and continued the stalled Freedom Rides in this way: "But these young people were like elite combat troops, well-trained [4-5 months], battle ready, completely willing to accepts the risks [even death]; they were mentally, physically and psychologically prepared" John Lewis was also spiritually prepared; as a teenager over the radio, Lewis heard a sermon by Martin Luther King on the kingdom of God (beloved community). This one sermon was a turning point for Lewis; for the rest of his life incarnating the kingdom became his mission. He was beaten and jailed many times for the cause.
When Jesus Christ himself preached and practiced the kingdom of God as justice, called his fellow Jews to repent and change their ways of ethnocentrism and oppression, the religion-politico-economic elite rejected both him and his message.
They preferred their current ethnic superiority and economic privilege; God's judgment soon followed; the Romans destroyed the Temple. Will America's white evangelicals continue to act like a religion-politico-economic elite or will they respond like the twelve disciples?
We need a team, a group, a movement to rebuild the white evangelical church---make them more biblical than American. Could the NAE or the Justice Conference or ?? be that organization? Only if they go deeper biblically in four areas:
1. Develop both a theology of oppression and a strategy to end systems of oppression. Read Nehemiah five.
2. Tie the Messianic passages from Isaiah with Jesus' statement to "Repent, for the kingdom of God is here!" Also Mt. 6:33 (NEB): "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else."
3. Rejusticize the English NT; tie to the OT Sabbatical/Jubilee laws, Lev. 25.
4. Create a theology of society based on the Spirit and the kingdom of God; Acts 1:1-8; 8:12; 28:23 & 31. Also Romans 14:17: "The kingdom of God is justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit."
Recently on IPT, I watched an excellent documentary on the American struggle over faith and fear, guns and violence. This was followed by a panel discussion by ministers, theologians and activists title Faith and Guns; the panel were supposed experts in the field.
Only in America---awash in guns and racism---could this discussion have taken place. America is also awash with a half-biblical theology.
Much was said about Jesus; but little on the kingdom of God.
Much was said about love, but little about justice.
In America, we feel free to be very selective---accept or reject what we choose from the Scriptures.
But this makes a mockery of the Bible. As disciples we are required to follow both Jesus and the kingdom of God, both love and justice.
Friday, September 16, 2016
County Wide Christian Community Development
The following essay is based on a Christian Century article titled, "The pastors of Richland County [Wisc]" Sept. 14, 2016.
After my retirement from teaching sociology in 1994, I volunteered for 15 year with the Antioch Community and the John Perkins Center in West Jackson, MS. John Perkins was born in 1930, raised a poor black in segregated Mississippi; he dropped out of school at third grade. God called Perkins to develop Christian Community Development---a strategy to rebuild poor black communities. He has written 15 books; he has received 12 honorary doctorates. His CCD principles are relocation, reconciliation and redistribution.
The Richland County Ministerial Association has created a different type of community development. The RCMA can accomplish things no single pastor or church can do alone. In spite of major theological differences, churches are cooperating to meet community needs. The author, Pastor Larry Engel, doesn't specifically list these principles, but I see the following principles: Christ, Kingdom of God, church and community (county, cooperatives). "We have learned that if religious leaders want influence in the public arena, we must have a unified voice."
The RCMA started a community forum and invited 30 public leaders such as the police chief and and a principal to talk about important issues. "The police chief talked about the decline of the family as the number one issue he saw---a problem that leads to crime. The middle school principal noted the number of divorced families with children in the school and explained that he spent two hours every afternoon just trying to figure out which bus the students needed to board to get to the right parent."
To me as an outsider, this sounds like the churches are failing in one of their primary missions---building and maintaining strong families. As a Christian sociologist, I have concluded that the American trinity of hyper individualism, hyper materialism and hyper ethnocentrism is destroying American society, including marriage and family. The American church has not yet figured this out and developed a counter strategy based on the biblical kingdom of God.
Every ministerial association in every county or city in the U.S. should do the same thing as the RCMA. For ideas on how to go even deeper than the RCMA has gone, see my blog, "Lowell Noble's Writings."
After my retirement from teaching sociology in 1994, I volunteered for 15 year with the Antioch Community and the John Perkins Center in West Jackson, MS. John Perkins was born in 1930, raised a poor black in segregated Mississippi; he dropped out of school at third grade. God called Perkins to develop Christian Community Development---a strategy to rebuild poor black communities. He has written 15 books; he has received 12 honorary doctorates. His CCD principles are relocation, reconciliation and redistribution.
The Richland County Ministerial Association has created a different type of community development. The RCMA can accomplish things no single pastor or church can do alone. In spite of major theological differences, churches are cooperating to meet community needs. The author, Pastor Larry Engel, doesn't specifically list these principles, but I see the following principles: Christ, Kingdom of God, church and community (county, cooperatives). "We have learned that if religious leaders want influence in the public arena, we must have a unified voice."
The RCMA started a community forum and invited 30 public leaders such as the police chief and and a principal to talk about important issues. "The police chief talked about the decline of the family as the number one issue he saw---a problem that leads to crime. The middle school principal noted the number of divorced families with children in the school and explained that he spent two hours every afternoon just trying to figure out which bus the students needed to board to get to the right parent."
To me as an outsider, this sounds like the churches are failing in one of their primary missions---building and maintaining strong families. As a Christian sociologist, I have concluded that the American trinity of hyper individualism, hyper materialism and hyper ethnocentrism is destroying American society, including marriage and family. The American church has not yet figured this out and developed a counter strategy based on the biblical kingdom of God.
Every ministerial association in every county or city in the U.S. should do the same thing as the RCMA. For ideas on how to go even deeper than the RCMA has gone, see my blog, "Lowell Noble's Writings."
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Book on Racism for White Evangelicals
Who would like to write a book on racism whose target audience is white American evangelicals? I prefer the terms ethnocentric and oppression over the term racism. They are more accurate and precise biblical terms.
Evangelicals have had a large presence in the U.S. for the last 400 years; at the same time, ethnocentrism and oppression have run rampant and are still very much part and parcel of American culture today. Have evangelicals been a part of the problem? Don't evangelicals have the biblical knowledge to solve the ongoing problem? Do white evangelicals prefer to maintain white superiority and white privilege over white repentance and restitution? Are white evangelicals less ethnocentric and oppressive than the rest of the population????
Chapter One: Are northerns as racist as southerners?
Chapter Two: Oppression in the OT
Chapter Three: Oppression in the NT
Chapter Four: Justice in the OT
Chapter Five: Justice in the NT
Chapter Six: The Spirit, the Kingdom and Justice
Chapter Seven: 2016---Ethnocentrism and Oppression Still Widespread
Chapter Eight: Wesleyan: Love, but not Justice?
Chapter Nine:
Chapter Ten:
Thesis: Evangelicals in the North are as racist as those in the South. A few generations earlier, northerners owned slaves and were dominant in the slave trade. They finally ended both the slave trade and slavery, but they did not give up ethnocentrism and oppression. They did not repent and restitute. Dwight L. Moody was a racist; he neglected justice and the love of God. Lincoln was also a racist as were most white evangelical abolitionists who did not want freed black slaves to move north and live with them.
Example: There has been a fuss made over the presence of a Confederate flag in the stained glass windows of the Washington National Cathedral. There has been no fuss made over the presence of two American flags in nearby windows. More social evil has been done under the Stars and Stripes than under the Confederate flag. Why this discrepancy?
Six must read books: Cotton and Race in the Making of America, Inheriting the [Slave] Trade, Reforging the White Republic, The New Jim Crow, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, God So Loved the Third World: The Biblical Vocabulary for Oppression.
Evangelicals have had a large presence in the U.S. for the last 400 years; at the same time, ethnocentrism and oppression have run rampant and are still very much part and parcel of American culture today. Have evangelicals been a part of the problem? Don't evangelicals have the biblical knowledge to solve the ongoing problem? Do white evangelicals prefer to maintain white superiority and white privilege over white repentance and restitution? Are white evangelicals less ethnocentric and oppressive than the rest of the population????
Chapter One: Are northerns as racist as southerners?
Chapter Two: Oppression in the OT
Chapter Three: Oppression in the NT
Chapter Four: Justice in the OT
Chapter Five: Justice in the NT
Chapter Six: The Spirit, the Kingdom and Justice
Chapter Seven: 2016---Ethnocentrism and Oppression Still Widespread
Chapter Eight: Wesleyan: Love, but not Justice?
Chapter Nine:
Chapter Ten:
Thesis: Evangelicals in the North are as racist as those in the South. A few generations earlier, northerners owned slaves and were dominant in the slave trade. They finally ended both the slave trade and slavery, but they did not give up ethnocentrism and oppression. They did not repent and restitute. Dwight L. Moody was a racist; he neglected justice and the love of God. Lincoln was also a racist as were most white evangelical abolitionists who did not want freed black slaves to move north and live with them.
Example: There has been a fuss made over the presence of a Confederate flag in the stained glass windows of the Washington National Cathedral. There has been no fuss made over the presence of two American flags in nearby windows. More social evil has been done under the Stars and Stripes than under the Confederate flag. Why this discrepancy?
Six must read books: Cotton and Race in the Making of America, Inheriting the [Slave] Trade, Reforging the White Republic, The New Jim Crow, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, God So Loved the Third World: The Biblical Vocabulary for Oppression.
Are you socially blind, and don't know it ?
Decades ago, I taught sociology at SAU. When teaching social problems to freshmen and sophomores, I noticed that many of my students did not take sociological analyses of social problems seriously. Soc did not have the same authority as theology.
So I decided to teach social problems from the gospel of Luke. For two weeks, I showed my students that Luke/Jesus were concerned about the rich-poor gap, about oppression, about ethnocentrism, about the misuse of power and authority. My students were surprised at how sociological Luke was. From then on, they took the class on social problems more seriously.
Most of my students had already had a course, Gospels and Acts, taught by the religion department, all white faculty. Little was taught about Luke's deep concern about the rich and poor, about oppression, etc. This neglect, this ignorance is typical of white American evangelicals as a whole; theologically and spiritually sophisticated, but sociologically amateur.
We might expect American whites to fail at this point, but some blacks scholars fail also. Are they too so poisoned by American individualism that they cannot see social oppression in the Bible?
About 25 years ago, I listened to a Rupe Sims lecture; Sims is a black biblical scholar who taught at Moody Bible Institute; supposedly, he knew his Bible backwards and forwards. Sims was deeply concerned about the oppression of his people; he desperately wanted change. Most of his lecture was about how Marx's critique of capitalism was accurate and relevant to the black crisis.
I was shocked. Apparently Sims did not realize that the very Bible he held had insights on oppression and justice that are far superior to those of Marx. Why was he blind to this truth? Had American individualism created cultural cataracts on his eyes so that he could not see these biblical truths?
Apparently much the same thing happened to Bruce Fields, an Afro American evangelical scholar who wrote a fine book for evangelicals---Introducing Black Theology. But this book lacked any new creative biblical analysis. He understood the issues facing American blacks, what the theologians had to say, but no in-depth biblical analysis.
When Americans come to the Bible, they fail to see social patterns. Who were the enemies of Jesus? What were the consistent patterns of interaction with Jesus? In the synoptic gospels, the false teachers were the scribes, Pharisees, the lawyers who made up the religion-politico-economic elite. In John, this same group of elite were commonly referred to as "the Jews." They not only ran the Temple, but all of Palestine.
In the gospel of John, there are many references to the Jews and their many attempts to arrest, stone, or kill Jesus. Why is the confrontation between Jesus and "the Jews" so continuous and intense in the gospel of John?
In the synoptic gospels, most of Jesus' ministry takes place in Galilee. In the gospel of John, most of Jesus' ministry takes place in Judea and Jerusalem, often on feast days such as the Passover. Much of the confrontation takes place in or around the Temple.
The first confrontation takes place in chapter 2:13-22 at the time of the Jewish Passover. While there is no specific reference in John's gospel to the chief priests trying to arrest or kill Jesus (as there is in Luke 19:45-48), when Jesus "made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area," he stirred up intense reaction. The Temple was the key social institution in Palestine. It was an economic institution because it served as a bank and treasury. The chief priests were political as well as religious leaders.
The next confrontation occurs in chapter five. Jesus healed an invalid at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath during a feast of the Jews. The Jews persecuted Jesus because he broke the Sabbath; Jesus said he was doing the work of his Father. "For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God."
On another feast day at the Temple, the feast of Tabernacles (chapter seven), Jesus once again is the center of controversy. There are six references to seize, arrest or kill.
In chapter eight, the confrontation continues in the temple courts. Jesus proclaims, "I am the light of the world." The Pharisees immediately challenge him and a debate followed. "Many put their faith in him. To the Jews who had believed in him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Charges fly back and forth. Jesus finally said bluntly, "You belong to your father, the devil." Then the Jews returned the charge with the worst possible insult, "You are a Samaritan and demon-possessed." The Jews tried to stone Jesus.
The controversy continues in chapter ten. Jesus claims to be the Good Shepherd, that he and the Father one. Again the Jews tried to stone him.
Chapter eleven records the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Many Jews believed. The chief priests and Pharisees were deeply concerned so they called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. They condemned Jesus to death and then plotted how to accomplish this.
When looking for the social dimensions of the Scriptures, look for social patterns, themes, not isolated incidents or prooftexts. Do not spiritualize social texts like many scholars do with Luke 4:18-30.
So I decided to teach social problems from the gospel of Luke. For two weeks, I showed my students that Luke/Jesus were concerned about the rich-poor gap, about oppression, about ethnocentrism, about the misuse of power and authority. My students were surprised at how sociological Luke was. From then on, they took the class on social problems more seriously.
Most of my students had already had a course, Gospels and Acts, taught by the religion department, all white faculty. Little was taught about Luke's deep concern about the rich and poor, about oppression, etc. This neglect, this ignorance is typical of white American evangelicals as a whole; theologically and spiritually sophisticated, but sociologically amateur.
We might expect American whites to fail at this point, but some blacks scholars fail also. Are they too so poisoned by American individualism that they cannot see social oppression in the Bible?
About 25 years ago, I listened to a Rupe Sims lecture; Sims is a black biblical scholar who taught at Moody Bible Institute; supposedly, he knew his Bible backwards and forwards. Sims was deeply concerned about the oppression of his people; he desperately wanted change. Most of his lecture was about how Marx's critique of capitalism was accurate and relevant to the black crisis.
I was shocked. Apparently Sims did not realize that the very Bible he held had insights on oppression and justice that are far superior to those of Marx. Why was he blind to this truth? Had American individualism created cultural cataracts on his eyes so that he could not see these biblical truths?
Apparently much the same thing happened to Bruce Fields, an Afro American evangelical scholar who wrote a fine book for evangelicals---Introducing Black Theology. But this book lacked any new creative biblical analysis. He understood the issues facing American blacks, what the theologians had to say, but no in-depth biblical analysis.
When Americans come to the Bible, they fail to see social patterns. Who were the enemies of Jesus? What were the consistent patterns of interaction with Jesus? In the synoptic gospels, the false teachers were the scribes, Pharisees, the lawyers who made up the religion-politico-economic elite. In John, this same group of elite were commonly referred to as "the Jews." They not only ran the Temple, but all of Palestine.
In the gospel of John, there are many references to the Jews and their many attempts to arrest, stone, or kill Jesus. Why is the confrontation between Jesus and "the Jews" so continuous and intense in the gospel of John?
In the synoptic gospels, most of Jesus' ministry takes place in Galilee. In the gospel of John, most of Jesus' ministry takes place in Judea and Jerusalem, often on feast days such as the Passover. Much of the confrontation takes place in or around the Temple.
The first confrontation takes place in chapter 2:13-22 at the time of the Jewish Passover. While there is no specific reference in John's gospel to the chief priests trying to arrest or kill Jesus (as there is in Luke 19:45-48), when Jesus "made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area," he stirred up intense reaction. The Temple was the key social institution in Palestine. It was an economic institution because it served as a bank and treasury. The chief priests were political as well as religious leaders.
The next confrontation occurs in chapter five. Jesus healed an invalid at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath during a feast of the Jews. The Jews persecuted Jesus because he broke the Sabbath; Jesus said he was doing the work of his Father. "For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God."
On another feast day at the Temple, the feast of Tabernacles (chapter seven), Jesus once again is the center of controversy. There are six references to seize, arrest or kill.
In chapter eight, the confrontation continues in the temple courts. Jesus proclaims, "I am the light of the world." The Pharisees immediately challenge him and a debate followed. "Many put their faith in him. To the Jews who had believed in him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Charges fly back and forth. Jesus finally said bluntly, "You belong to your father, the devil." Then the Jews returned the charge with the worst possible insult, "You are a Samaritan and demon-possessed." The Jews tried to stone Jesus.
The controversy continues in chapter ten. Jesus claims to be the Good Shepherd, that he and the Father one. Again the Jews tried to stone him.
Chapter eleven records the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Many Jews believed. The chief priests and Pharisees were deeply concerned so they called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. They condemned Jesus to death and then plotted how to accomplish this.
When looking for the social dimensions of the Scriptures, look for social patterns, themes, not isolated incidents or prooftexts. Do not spiritualize social texts like many scholars do with Luke 4:18-30.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Are You Half Blind And Don't Know It?
Do you think you have 20/20 spiritual vision but, in reality, you only have 20/80? I needed a second conversion to cure my spiritual, historical and socioeconomic blindness.
Based on my 90 years of study and experience, I would hazard a guess that 90% of white, American evangelicals are spiritually, historically and socially half blind, but they are supremely confident that they have 20/20 vision. Why is this the case? Out of ignorance or out of choice? Would full light, full truth, be too uncomfortable to tolerate? Would it provoke too much guilt about their superiority and privilege?
Another way of raising the issue is using the analogy of invisible ink. It seems that some of the Scripture is written in invisible ink so that evangelicals can't see. They don't see the 555 references to oppression in the OT. There is no evangelical theology on the extensive biblical teaching on oppression. Why this horrific omission?
Almost all American, white evangelicals I know are keenly aware of personal sin, but these same people are blind to social evil, social oppression. This includes the thousands of Ph.D's, Th.D's and D.Min's., many of whom know both Hebrew and Greek. They have not discovered that systems of oppression can cause individual, family and community PTSD. Social and historical patterns of evil remain invisible to them. They see corruption, but not oppression; they see voodoo, but not oppression; they see poverty, but not oppression, not systems of oppression.
But it is not only white evangelicals that are blind to, or even deny, patterns of social evil. In 2000, Michelle Alexander, a brilliant, black civil rights lawyer, did not see the new system of oppression that had arisen in the criminal justice system. Here is her description of her blindness (The New Jim Crow):
"I understood the problems plaguing poor communities of color, including problems associated with crime and rising incarceration rates, to be a function of poverty and lack of access to quality education---the continuing legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. Never did I seriously consider the possibility that a new racial caste system [a new system of oppression] was operating in this country. The new system had been developed and implemented swiftly, and it was largely invisible, even to people, like me, who spent most of their waking hours fighting for justice.
After studying the situation for 10 years, Alexander concluded:
"Quite belatedly, I came to see that mass incarceration in the United States had, in fact, emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of radicalized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.
"What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color "criminals" and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination---employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, detail of food stamps, and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service---are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you scarcely have more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it."
To state it simply and bluntly, we have replaced "nigger" with "criminalblackman".
The biblical teaching on oppression and justice seems to be largely invisible to most white evangelicals. The following is my attempt to bring these extensive teachings to light.
The Hebrew scholar Thomas Hanks asserts that if a person considers the whole Hebrew semantic field for the concept of oppression, there are 555 references to the idea of oppression. So why is there no evangelical theological literature on oppression, no preaching on oppression?
Some of the following definitions of oppression and justice were stimulated by reading Six Theories of Justice by Karen Lebacqz. A fine book, but she says that the best biblical scholarship on justice to date only gives us FRAGMENTED theories of justice. I fully agree. If ignorance of the extensive biblical teaching on both oppression and justice is the primary issue, may I offer some thought-starters; at the end of my list of definitions, choose your favorite definition or create your own.
Oppression is organized and systematized injustice; it is not accidental, it is planned and deliberate. But by the second and third generation, the system of oppression may seem to the oppressor natural and normal.
Oppression is the cruel and unjust exercise of power and authority, usually by those who control political, economic and social, even religious institutions.
What does oppression do? It crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes, enslave and kills persons and people created in the image of God; oppression, especially generations of oppression, cause individual, family, community, cultural PTSD. Exodus 6:9. Justice, by contrast, creates, honors, animates, improves and empowers persons and peoples.
Biblically, oppression is the primary, but not the only, cause of poverty.
Ethnocentrism usually leads to some type of oppression; or ethnocentrism is used to legitimate oppression.
Ideologies are often used to legitimate oppression.
Since we live in a fallen world (cosmos), full of poverty and oppression, justice requires that the laws of society reflect a bias toward the poor. (Isa.10:1-2)
In the NIV, the word oppression occurs 128 times; justice 134 times. In the typical Spanish, French, Portuguese, Latin or Italian Bible, justice occurs around 350-400 times.
Oppression destroys right relationships (righteousness); justice restore righteousness.
Justice requires action to restore righteousness.
Justice is an action that liberates the oppressed.
Jubilee justice is good news for the oppressed poor.
Justice occurs when a judge or a king makes a fair and just judgment between two parties.
Justice is an action; righteousness is a standard, a goal.
Justice sets things right.
Justice must identify systems of oppression and then destroy them.
Justice must identify ideologies used to sanitize systems of oppression; then replace them with truth.
Mishap---right judgments and concrete acts of justice.
Sedaqah---one word that combines justice and righteousness; same with the Greek word dikaiosune.
Jubilee justice---cancels debts every seven years; frees slaves every seven years; restores land every 50 years.
Jubilee justice does not allow lifelong or even generational systems of oppression to continue.
Justice and shalom are strong community concepts; oppression destroys families and communities.
Based on my 90 years of study and experience, I would hazard a guess that 90% of white, American evangelicals are spiritually, historically and socially half blind, but they are supremely confident that they have 20/20 vision. Why is this the case? Out of ignorance or out of choice? Would full light, full truth, be too uncomfortable to tolerate? Would it provoke too much guilt about their superiority and privilege?
Another way of raising the issue is using the analogy of invisible ink. It seems that some of the Scripture is written in invisible ink so that evangelicals can't see. They don't see the 555 references to oppression in the OT. There is no evangelical theology on the extensive biblical teaching on oppression. Why this horrific omission?
Almost all American, white evangelicals I know are keenly aware of personal sin, but these same people are blind to social evil, social oppression. This includes the thousands of Ph.D's, Th.D's and D.Min's., many of whom know both Hebrew and Greek. They have not discovered that systems of oppression can cause individual, family and community PTSD. Social and historical patterns of evil remain invisible to them. They see corruption, but not oppression; they see voodoo, but not oppression; they see poverty, but not oppression, not systems of oppression.
But it is not only white evangelicals that are blind to, or even deny, patterns of social evil. In 2000, Michelle Alexander, a brilliant, black civil rights lawyer, did not see the new system of oppression that had arisen in the criminal justice system. Here is her description of her blindness (The New Jim Crow):
"I understood the problems plaguing poor communities of color, including problems associated with crime and rising incarceration rates, to be a function of poverty and lack of access to quality education---the continuing legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. Never did I seriously consider the possibility that a new racial caste system [a new system of oppression] was operating in this country. The new system had been developed and implemented swiftly, and it was largely invisible, even to people, like me, who spent most of their waking hours fighting for justice.
After studying the situation for 10 years, Alexander concluded:
"Quite belatedly, I came to see that mass incarceration in the United States had, in fact, emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of radicalized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.
"What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color "criminals" and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination---employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, detail of food stamps, and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service---are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you scarcely have more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it."
To state it simply and bluntly, we have replaced "nigger" with "criminalblackman".
The biblical teaching on oppression and justice seems to be largely invisible to most white evangelicals. The following is my attempt to bring these extensive teachings to light.
The Hebrew scholar Thomas Hanks asserts that if a person considers the whole Hebrew semantic field for the concept of oppression, there are 555 references to the idea of oppression. So why is there no evangelical theological literature on oppression, no preaching on oppression?
Some of the following definitions of oppression and justice were stimulated by reading Six Theories of Justice by Karen Lebacqz. A fine book, but she says that the best biblical scholarship on justice to date only gives us FRAGMENTED theories of justice. I fully agree. If ignorance of the extensive biblical teaching on both oppression and justice is the primary issue, may I offer some thought-starters; at the end of my list of definitions, choose your favorite definition or create your own.
Oppression is organized and systematized injustice; it is not accidental, it is planned and deliberate. But by the second and third generation, the system of oppression may seem to the oppressor natural and normal.
Oppression is the cruel and unjust exercise of power and authority, usually by those who control political, economic and social, even religious institutions.
What does oppression do? It crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes, enslave and kills persons and people created in the image of God; oppression, especially generations of oppression, cause individual, family, community, cultural PTSD. Exodus 6:9. Justice, by contrast, creates, honors, animates, improves and empowers persons and peoples.
Biblically, oppression is the primary, but not the only, cause of poverty.
Ethnocentrism usually leads to some type of oppression; or ethnocentrism is used to legitimate oppression.
Ideologies are often used to legitimate oppression.
Since we live in a fallen world (cosmos), full of poverty and oppression, justice requires that the laws of society reflect a bias toward the poor. (Isa.10:1-2)
In the NIV, the word oppression occurs 128 times; justice 134 times. In the typical Spanish, French, Portuguese, Latin or Italian Bible, justice occurs around 350-400 times.
Oppression destroys right relationships (righteousness); justice restore righteousness.
Justice requires action to restore righteousness.
Justice is an action that liberates the oppressed.
Jubilee justice is good news for the oppressed poor.
Justice occurs when a judge or a king makes a fair and just judgment between two parties.
Justice is an action; righteousness is a standard, a goal.
Justice sets things right.
Justice must identify systems of oppression and then destroy them.
Justice must identify ideologies used to sanitize systems of oppression; then replace them with truth.
Mishap---right judgments and concrete acts of justice.
Sedaqah---one word that combines justice and righteousness; same with the Greek word dikaiosune.
Jubilee justice---cancels debts every seven years; frees slaves every seven years; restores land every 50 years.
Jubilee justice does not allow lifelong or even generational systems of oppression to continue.
Justice and shalom are strong community concepts; oppression destroys families and communities.
Friday, September 9, 2016
The Message and the Messenger
Pastors, do your messages sometimes get you in trouble? They should, if you are imitating Jesus Christ.
The following comments will be based primarily on The Message translation of the Bible which has no verse divisions.
In Luke 4, after Jesus began his public ministry, we find a variety of human reactions to both his message and his person. Sometimes both the message and the messenger were accepted; sometimes both were rejected; sometimes there was a mixed response. I recently discovered this when I reread Luke 4, my favorite chapter in all of Scripture.
Luke 4:14 "Jesus returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. . . . He taught in their meeting places to everyone's acclaim and pleasure." Very good news to all---message and messenger.
Luke 4:16-24 "He came to Nazareth where he had been reared." He read from Isaiah 61. What was the reaction? "All spoke well of him" (NIV). The message was good news to their ears, but they questioned the messenger; he was only Joseph's son. Could lowly Jesus bring in Jubilee justice, the kingdom of God?
Luke 4:25-30 In essence, Jesus said he loved and cared about the despised Gentiles as much as he did the chosen people Israel. Sermon B got Jesus in a lot of trouble; the Nazareth Jews who shortly before has praised Jesus, now turned on him, "seething with anger . . . throw him to his doom."
Luke 4:31-44 "He went down to Capernaum, a village in Galilee. He was teaching the people on the Sabbath. They were surprised and impressed---his teaching was so forthright, so confident, so authoritative," verse 42 As he preached the kingdom, people "clung to him."
Contrast this reaction to the Pharisee's reaction in chapter 5; they rejected Jesus' teaching as "blasphemous talk."
Pastors, what kind of a response does your preaching provoke? Has anyone ever hit you in the face after a sermon? Has your church ever threatened to fire you? Or do you always receive only a good, polite response? If you are a white pastor, have you ever challenged your parishioner's ethnocentrism and asked them to repent of their superiority and privilege?
The following comments will be based primarily on The Message translation of the Bible which has no verse divisions.
In Luke 4, after Jesus began his public ministry, we find a variety of human reactions to both his message and his person. Sometimes both the message and the messenger were accepted; sometimes both were rejected; sometimes there was a mixed response. I recently discovered this when I reread Luke 4, my favorite chapter in all of Scripture.
Luke 4:14 "Jesus returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. . . . He taught in their meeting places to everyone's acclaim and pleasure." Very good news to all---message and messenger.
Luke 4:16-24 "He came to Nazareth where he had been reared." He read from Isaiah 61. What was the reaction? "All spoke well of him" (NIV). The message was good news to their ears, but they questioned the messenger; he was only Joseph's son. Could lowly Jesus bring in Jubilee justice, the kingdom of God?
Luke 4:25-30 In essence, Jesus said he loved and cared about the despised Gentiles as much as he did the chosen people Israel. Sermon B got Jesus in a lot of trouble; the Nazareth Jews who shortly before has praised Jesus, now turned on him, "seething with anger . . . throw him to his doom."
Luke 4:31-44 "He went down to Capernaum, a village in Galilee. He was teaching the people on the Sabbath. They were surprised and impressed---his teaching was so forthright, so confident, so authoritative," verse 42 As he preached the kingdom, people "clung to him."
Contrast this reaction to the Pharisee's reaction in chapter 5; they rejected Jesus' teaching as "blasphemous talk."
Pastors, what kind of a response does your preaching provoke? Has anyone ever hit you in the face after a sermon? Has your church ever threatened to fire you? Or do you always receive only a good, polite response? If you are a white pastor, have you ever challenged your parishioner's ethnocentrism and asked them to repent of their superiority and privilege?
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Part II on Theological Malpractice, A Modern Application.
In my opinion, the white American evangelical church has never fully understood nor practiced the extensive biblical teaching about the kingdom of God and closely related concepts such as oppression and justice.
Evangelicals may have repented of personal sin, but not social evil. (Daniel 9). Their pastors have seldom preached on cosmos---evil social order, social evil. So, of course, evangelicals have not repented of national social evil. They are comfortable in their white superiority and white privilege; they may even see it as good and God-ordained. Self-righteous as their founding fathers, they think America would be much a better nation if all citizens were like them. Even if their ancestors killed thousands of Indians and enslaved thousands of slaves, that was along time ago and I didn't do it. But you gladly accepted the benefits---free land and free labor---upon which this nation was built. These same people ignore current racial profiling, unjust mass incarceration, and the massive racial wealth gap.
There is no comprehensive biblical repentance, no restitution, no repair, no justice, no setting things right, no kingdom of God. Continued ethnocentrism and oppression, both of which Jesus stressed as fundamental problems, but this teaching has been ignored by most of the American church. The church is full of people who excel in pointing out the sins of others but who ignore their own evils.
All of this comes awfully close to home. Iowa's 2 and 24 incarceration problem (2008), is seared in my mind. Even if, if, Iowa blacks were twice as criminal as whites, we would only have a 2 and 4 incarceration ratio. Most of my fellow white evangelicals either don't know, don't care, or they actually believe that 2 and 24 proves back inferiority, black criminality. That blacks are 12 times more criminal than whites. Of course, if whites believe this, then they don't have to face their own ethnocentrism and oppression, their own racial profiling, their own support of the War on Drugs. The colonial oppression that began in the 1600s continues on in 2016.
Is the appropriate word hypocrisy for those who neglect justice and the love of God? Shades of Isaiah 58 where the people of Israel divorced spirituality and justice. Self-righteous people seldom repent.
The briefly glorious Reconstruction period soon ended; slavery was quickly replaced by neoslavery---segregation, sharecropping, prison gangs, lynching. Some abolitionists who worked hard to end slavery also pushed for justice---land reform. But most abolitionists thought freedom was enough so they neglected justice. Most white churches did not repent, comprehensively, thoroughly, biblically. They preferred to keep the benefits of white superiority and privilege and do some good at the same time. This made everything OK.
If the best of the Reconstruction period could have been kept and expanded long term, a totally different chapter of American history could have been written. Instead, long term, the system of oppression was simply redesigned. The white church again and again failed to repent, restitute and repair.
As I write in 2016, the white evangelical church still has not repented of its ethnocentrism and oppression, its superiority and privilege. Half a gospel may be better than none, by why doesn't the American evangelical church, for the first time in American history preach and practice the whole gospel, the kingdom of God as Jubilee justice for the oppressed? Why not be the first generation to preach and practice the whole Bible they supposedly highly prize?
Evangelicals may have repented of personal sin, but not social evil. (Daniel 9). Their pastors have seldom preached on cosmos---evil social order, social evil. So, of course, evangelicals have not repented of national social evil. They are comfortable in their white superiority and white privilege; they may even see it as good and God-ordained. Self-righteous as their founding fathers, they think America would be much a better nation if all citizens were like them. Even if their ancestors killed thousands of Indians and enslaved thousands of slaves, that was along time ago and I didn't do it. But you gladly accepted the benefits---free land and free labor---upon which this nation was built. These same people ignore current racial profiling, unjust mass incarceration, and the massive racial wealth gap.
There is no comprehensive biblical repentance, no restitution, no repair, no justice, no setting things right, no kingdom of God. Continued ethnocentrism and oppression, both of which Jesus stressed as fundamental problems, but this teaching has been ignored by most of the American church. The church is full of people who excel in pointing out the sins of others but who ignore their own evils.
All of this comes awfully close to home. Iowa's 2 and 24 incarceration problem (2008), is seared in my mind. Even if, if, Iowa blacks were twice as criminal as whites, we would only have a 2 and 4 incarceration ratio. Most of my fellow white evangelicals either don't know, don't care, or they actually believe that 2 and 24 proves back inferiority, black criminality. That blacks are 12 times more criminal than whites. Of course, if whites believe this, then they don't have to face their own ethnocentrism and oppression, their own racial profiling, their own support of the War on Drugs. The colonial oppression that began in the 1600s continues on in 2016.
Is the appropriate word hypocrisy for those who neglect justice and the love of God? Shades of Isaiah 58 where the people of Israel divorced spirituality and justice. Self-righteous people seldom repent.
The briefly glorious Reconstruction period soon ended; slavery was quickly replaced by neoslavery---segregation, sharecropping, prison gangs, lynching. Some abolitionists who worked hard to end slavery also pushed for justice---land reform. But most abolitionists thought freedom was enough so they neglected justice. Most white churches did not repent, comprehensively, thoroughly, biblically. They preferred to keep the benefits of white superiority and privilege and do some good at the same time. This made everything OK.
If the best of the Reconstruction period could have been kept and expanded long term, a totally different chapter of American history could have been written. Instead, long term, the system of oppression was simply redesigned. The white church again and again failed to repent, restitute and repair.
As I write in 2016, the white evangelical church still has not repented of its ethnocentrism and oppression, its superiority and privilege. Half a gospel may be better than none, by why doesn't the American evangelical church, for the first time in American history preach and practice the whole gospel, the kingdom of God as Jubilee justice for the oppressed? Why not be the first generation to preach and practice the whole Bible they supposedly highly prize?
Is There Theological Malpractice on the Kingdom of God?
Roger E. Olson, a better-than-average theologian, has wondered aloud, "Does anyone know anything know anything about the kingdom of God?" Olson, along with many others, complains that the NT itself is vague about the precise nature of or the content of the kingdom of God. Marcus Borg has also complained that theologians have not yet provided a "clear and compelling" understanding of the kingdom of God.
A bible prof at SAU used to make the same point; he liked to teach the justice message of the prophets. But he said that the justice message disappeared in the NT leaving only the individual salvation message.
Over the years, I am now 90, I have asked hundreds of volunteers who came to the Perkins Center in Wast Jackson, Mississippi, to write down a one-sentence of the kingdom of God. Only about one out of 100 nailed it down biblically.
In a Christian Community Development workshop, a Princeton seminary grad said that the Messianic passage handout from Isaiah was the single most valuable part of the workshop. He didn't get this basic biblical information in seminary. Unforgivable! Every seminarian in every seminary should be required to write a major paper how how Isaiah's Messianic passages inform the meaning of the NT kingdom of God. Also a major essay on the biblical teaching on ethnocentrism and oppression. And another paper on the Spirit, the kingdom and justice in the NT.
I myself struggled for most of my life to understand the biblical kingdom of God; I needed a second conversion to oppression and justice at age 42 to begin to grasp what the kingdom is about. In my retirement, its meaning finally became crystal clear.
More from Roger Olson, his 2016 Matson Lectures on the kingdom of God; Olson makes ten points about major themes where there is general agreement:
"First, the kingdom of God was inaugurated by Jesus. . . . Second, Jesus was and is the embodiment of the kingdom of God. Third, the kingdom is a gift with a task. . . . Fourth,, . . .it is a gift to be received through active participation and involvement. Sixth, the kingdom is 'already but not yet' . . . . Seventh, the kingdom is a new, divine social order. Eighth, this new, divine social order is radically countercultural; it is an alternative to all human created social orders. Ninth, the kingdom is somehow related to the church. . . . Tenth, the kingdom is an 'upside down' social order."
Olson provides a number provocative ideas with great potential, but undeveloped potential. He provides more theological analysis than fresh biblical analysis. In this, Olson is like Bruce Fields, a black evangelical, who wrote Introducing Black Theology which turned out to be more theological analysis than desperately needed fresh biblical analysis. Olson is well worth reading. But notice that Olson fails to mention repentance which both John and Jesus stressed; nor justice which Jesus emphasized in Mt. 6:33.
Jesu made two fundamental points about the kingdom; the requirement of repentance before one could enter the kingdom, and two, justice, Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor is at the heart of his kingdom.
Next a few quotations from the Faith in Action Study Bible based on the Zondervan NIV Bible:
1. page 1618: "Matthew showed the depths of Judas's remorse but he stopped short of saying he repented. The word "remorse" (metamelomai) is different from the normal word for repentance (metamoeo). Repentance is a change of heart. Remorse, a weaker emotion means feeling regret. Had Jesus truly repented, he would have been impelled to seek forgiveness from God. Instead, he turned to the chief priests and elders."
"Paul differentiated between repentance and mere remorse. Why would Paul say (2 Cor. 7:10) that remorse (worldly sorrow) is lethal? Because it is self-center sorrow over sin's consequences---not God-centered sorrow over its evil."
2. page 1613: Mt. 25:31-46: "Love isn't a vague sentiment but a concrete action. And love in action is to be expressed not only towards our friends and family, but to the marginalized, suffering, and oppressed."
3. page 1612: Millard Fuller on Habitat for Humanity, a concrete modern day example of the kingdom of God. "When my wife, Linda, and I joined Koinonia Farm, a small Christian community in America's deep South, we looked around and saw many 'strangers' living in abhorrent conditions. The Holy Spirit set us to work building houses in partnership with people on the margins of society, the edges of hopelessness. Habitat for Humanity, a movement to eliminate the disgrace of substandard housing, was born from the sweat of our brows and the passion of our prayers." And from the truth of Mt. 25:31-46.
More on the absolute necessity for repentance; the translation I am using is The Message.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all highlight the importance of repentance as a requirement before a person can enter the kingdom. And biblical repentance requires fruit---in some cases, restitution. Restitution is needed in order to repair the damage done by oppression. Without repentance, any talk about justice is a joke or has limited effectiveness. Repent of your superiority and privilege.
First, Matthew. Most of chapter 3 is about repentance. John the Baptist begins his blunt and austere message shouting: "Change your life [repent]. God's kingdom is hear." Then he quotes Isaiah: "Prepare for God's arrival [repent]" When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized, John exploded: "Brood of snakes! . . . It's your life that must change, not your skin. . . . I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life." In chapter 4, Jesus echoed John's message: "Change your life. God's kingdom is here."
Next, Mark. Immediately, in chapter one, Mark calls for repentance, again quoting Isaiah: "Prepare for God's arrival. . . . Time's up! God's kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message."
Finally, Luke. Luke 3, again from Isaiah, the call for repentance, "Prepare for God's arrival." Then a detailed description of the demands of genuine repentance. "What are we supposed to do?" Noble interpretation: reject materialism, live simply, extreme generosity, stop all forms of economic oppression immediately; this is REQUIRED before you can become a citizen of the kingdom of God.
In Luke 4:18-30, Jesus gives us a mission statement for the kingdom of God. First, repent of two social evils, economic oppression and religiously based ethnocentrism. Then and only then will you be a fit messenger of the kingdom who can bring genuine good news to the poor, genuine and full release of the oppressed poor, be genuine incarnators of Jubilee justice which can release the oppressed.
Now back to Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount. The dual themes of the Sermon on the Mount are the kingdom and justice. 6:33 (NEB) "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else." Give your highest priority to a Jubilee justice that releases the oppressed poor.
The Beatitudes, Noble paraphrase: Doing justice is the best way to bless the poor in spirit, those living in a spirit of despair. Do this even if doing Jubilee justice results in your own persecution. Not everybody will rejoice over the fact that you have released the oppressed poor, those who have had their spirits broken and crushed. Some of your persecutors actually make their living off exploiting the poor.
In doing this, you will fulfill the Law and the Prophets; the Law and the Prophets are built upon combining love and justice in behalf of the oppressed poor.
This brief survey of a few key scriptures shows that the NT is sharp and precise about the essence of the kingdom of God; the problem is the church doesn't have the courage to live out the message.
For part two on Theological Malpractice, see my next blog on a Modern Application.
A bible prof at SAU used to make the same point; he liked to teach the justice message of the prophets. But he said that the justice message disappeared in the NT leaving only the individual salvation message.
Over the years, I am now 90, I have asked hundreds of volunteers who came to the Perkins Center in Wast Jackson, Mississippi, to write down a one-sentence of the kingdom of God. Only about one out of 100 nailed it down biblically.
In a Christian Community Development workshop, a Princeton seminary grad said that the Messianic passage handout from Isaiah was the single most valuable part of the workshop. He didn't get this basic biblical information in seminary. Unforgivable! Every seminarian in every seminary should be required to write a major paper how how Isaiah's Messianic passages inform the meaning of the NT kingdom of God. Also a major essay on the biblical teaching on ethnocentrism and oppression. And another paper on the Spirit, the kingdom and justice in the NT.
I myself struggled for most of my life to understand the biblical kingdom of God; I needed a second conversion to oppression and justice at age 42 to begin to grasp what the kingdom is about. In my retirement, its meaning finally became crystal clear.
More from Roger Olson, his 2016 Matson Lectures on the kingdom of God; Olson makes ten points about major themes where there is general agreement:
"First, the kingdom of God was inaugurated by Jesus. . . . Second, Jesus was and is the embodiment of the kingdom of God. Third, the kingdom is a gift with a task. . . . Fourth,, . . .it is a gift to be received through active participation and involvement. Sixth, the kingdom is 'already but not yet' . . . . Seventh, the kingdom is a new, divine social order. Eighth, this new, divine social order is radically countercultural; it is an alternative to all human created social orders. Ninth, the kingdom is somehow related to the church. . . . Tenth, the kingdom is an 'upside down' social order."
Olson provides a number provocative ideas with great potential, but undeveloped potential. He provides more theological analysis than fresh biblical analysis. In this, Olson is like Bruce Fields, a black evangelical, who wrote Introducing Black Theology which turned out to be more theological analysis than desperately needed fresh biblical analysis. Olson is well worth reading. But notice that Olson fails to mention repentance which both John and Jesus stressed; nor justice which Jesus emphasized in Mt. 6:33.
Jesu made two fundamental points about the kingdom; the requirement of repentance before one could enter the kingdom, and two, justice, Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor is at the heart of his kingdom.
Next a few quotations from the Faith in Action Study Bible based on the Zondervan NIV Bible:
1. page 1618: "Matthew showed the depths of Judas's remorse but he stopped short of saying he repented. The word "remorse" (metamelomai) is different from the normal word for repentance (metamoeo). Repentance is a change of heart. Remorse, a weaker emotion means feeling regret. Had Jesus truly repented, he would have been impelled to seek forgiveness from God. Instead, he turned to the chief priests and elders."
"Paul differentiated between repentance and mere remorse. Why would Paul say (2 Cor. 7:10) that remorse (worldly sorrow) is lethal? Because it is self-center sorrow over sin's consequences---not God-centered sorrow over its evil."
2. page 1613: Mt. 25:31-46: "Love isn't a vague sentiment but a concrete action. And love in action is to be expressed not only towards our friends and family, but to the marginalized, suffering, and oppressed."
3. page 1612: Millard Fuller on Habitat for Humanity, a concrete modern day example of the kingdom of God. "When my wife, Linda, and I joined Koinonia Farm, a small Christian community in America's deep South, we looked around and saw many 'strangers' living in abhorrent conditions. The Holy Spirit set us to work building houses in partnership with people on the margins of society, the edges of hopelessness. Habitat for Humanity, a movement to eliminate the disgrace of substandard housing, was born from the sweat of our brows and the passion of our prayers." And from the truth of Mt. 25:31-46.
More on the absolute necessity for repentance; the translation I am using is The Message.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all highlight the importance of repentance as a requirement before a person can enter the kingdom. And biblical repentance requires fruit---in some cases, restitution. Restitution is needed in order to repair the damage done by oppression. Without repentance, any talk about justice is a joke or has limited effectiveness. Repent of your superiority and privilege.
First, Matthew. Most of chapter 3 is about repentance. John the Baptist begins his blunt and austere message shouting: "Change your life [repent]. God's kingdom is hear." Then he quotes Isaiah: "Prepare for God's arrival [repent]" When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized, John exploded: "Brood of snakes! . . . It's your life that must change, not your skin. . . . I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life." In chapter 4, Jesus echoed John's message: "Change your life. God's kingdom is here."
Next, Mark. Immediately, in chapter one, Mark calls for repentance, again quoting Isaiah: "Prepare for God's arrival. . . . Time's up! God's kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message."
Finally, Luke. Luke 3, again from Isaiah, the call for repentance, "Prepare for God's arrival." Then a detailed description of the demands of genuine repentance. "What are we supposed to do?" Noble interpretation: reject materialism, live simply, extreme generosity, stop all forms of economic oppression immediately; this is REQUIRED before you can become a citizen of the kingdom of God.
In Luke 4:18-30, Jesus gives us a mission statement for the kingdom of God. First, repent of two social evils, economic oppression and religiously based ethnocentrism. Then and only then will you be a fit messenger of the kingdom who can bring genuine good news to the poor, genuine and full release of the oppressed poor, be genuine incarnators of Jubilee justice which can release the oppressed.
Now back to Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount. The dual themes of the Sermon on the Mount are the kingdom and justice. 6:33 (NEB) "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else." Give your highest priority to a Jubilee justice that releases the oppressed poor.
The Beatitudes, Noble paraphrase: Doing justice is the best way to bless the poor in spirit, those living in a spirit of despair. Do this even if doing Jubilee justice results in your own persecution. Not everybody will rejoice over the fact that you have released the oppressed poor, those who have had their spirits broken and crushed. Some of your persecutors actually make their living off exploiting the poor.
In doing this, you will fulfill the Law and the Prophets; the Law and the Prophets are built upon combining love and justice in behalf of the oppressed poor.
This brief survey of a few key scriptures shows that the NT is sharp and precise about the essence of the kingdom of God; the problem is the church doesn't have the courage to live out the message.
For part two on Theological Malpractice, see my next blog on a Modern Application.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Ronald Reagan: Flights of Fantasy and Brutal Social Realities
A PBS documentary on President Ronald Reagan---the person and the presidency---presents him as a person of great faith, politically and religiously. But Reagan was a deeply flawed person who became a deeply flawed president.
Reagan saw himself as the lifeguard for America---the one called by God to rescue America from decline. This Messiah complex apparently goes back to his youth when he was a real lifeguard; he claims that he saved the lives of 77 persons. This was likely an exaggeration, part of his life of fantasy. But like the many B movies he acted in, his political and economic ideology was both fantasy and reality. Operationalized, it became pro-rich and anti-poor, pro-white and anti-black. Or ethnically ethnocentric and economically oppressive; a no-no, according to the Scriptures.
Instead of a promised balanced budget, Reagan created the largest budget deficit in history up to that time. He combined the prohibition-like War on Drugs with racial profiling; result: the unjust mass incarceration of young black and Latino males. He replaced the War on Poverty with a War on the Poor. The Reagan counterrevolution gutted many of the accomplishments of the civil rights movement. For documentation, see these two books: The Politics of Rich and Poor and The New Jim Crow.
The war on drugs became a war against blacks; the war on the poor doubled the wealth gap. Worst of all, these fantasies that became evil social realities, were institutionalized and continued on into the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama presidencies.
This so-called man of faith, of destiny, pursued destructive public policy---pro-oppression and anti-justice. He not only neglected justice and the love of God as the Pharisees did; he opened the door to the greed of the rich which ran rampant during his 8 years as president. He himself may not have been the anti-Christ, but he ruled like one as far as the American poor and American blacks were concerned.
Now Donald Trump wants to "make America great again," echoing Ronald Reagan; but making America great again for WASPs, for the rich, white, male elite, echoing R.R means making America bad again for the poor, women and ethnic minorities, echoing both R.R. and the founding fathers. Both R. R. and D. T. seem to have similar fantasies, Messiah complexes. Are we in for another B movie rerun? Even some Republicans such as David Brooks are scared to death? Will the American masses follow another fantasy political Messiah?
Why did large number of white evangelicals buy into the flawed Reagan fantasies? Why are large numbers of white evangelicals gullibly buying into the flawed Trump fantasies? Something missing in their theology?
Reagan saw himself as the lifeguard for America---the one called by God to rescue America from decline. This Messiah complex apparently goes back to his youth when he was a real lifeguard; he claims that he saved the lives of 77 persons. This was likely an exaggeration, part of his life of fantasy. But like the many B movies he acted in, his political and economic ideology was both fantasy and reality. Operationalized, it became pro-rich and anti-poor, pro-white and anti-black. Or ethnically ethnocentric and economically oppressive; a no-no, according to the Scriptures.
Instead of a promised balanced budget, Reagan created the largest budget deficit in history up to that time. He combined the prohibition-like War on Drugs with racial profiling; result: the unjust mass incarceration of young black and Latino males. He replaced the War on Poverty with a War on the Poor. The Reagan counterrevolution gutted many of the accomplishments of the civil rights movement. For documentation, see these two books: The Politics of Rich and Poor and The New Jim Crow.
The war on drugs became a war against blacks; the war on the poor doubled the wealth gap. Worst of all, these fantasies that became evil social realities, were institutionalized and continued on into the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama presidencies.
This so-called man of faith, of destiny, pursued destructive public policy---pro-oppression and anti-justice. He not only neglected justice and the love of God as the Pharisees did; he opened the door to the greed of the rich which ran rampant during his 8 years as president. He himself may not have been the anti-Christ, but he ruled like one as far as the American poor and American blacks were concerned.
Now Donald Trump wants to "make America great again," echoing Ronald Reagan; but making America great again for WASPs, for the rich, white, male elite, echoing R.R means making America bad again for the poor, women and ethnic minorities, echoing both R.R. and the founding fathers. Both R. R. and D. T. seem to have similar fantasies, Messiah complexes. Are we in for another B movie rerun? Even some Republicans such as David Brooks are scared to death? Will the American masses follow another fantasy political Messiah?
Why did large number of white evangelicals buy into the flawed Reagan fantasies? Why are large numbers of white evangelicals gullibly buying into the flawed Trump fantasies? Something missing in their theology?
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