Beware of the Experts

Beware of the Experts.  They may be expertly, even catastrophically, wrong, as were the Pharisees who were 'experts' in the Law.  Especially if their area of expertise is not biblically, historically, and socially informed.

Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, is an expert in civil rights law; she is brilliant.  But she confesses that for years she did not see that the mass incarceration of young black and Hispanic males was a new system oppression, a new racial caste system.  All she saw was a racially tainted criminal justice system.  Alexander writes:

"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 the lack 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 was operating in this country.  This 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."

Alexander was not the only one who missed it; 180 civil rights organizations missed it; the Congressional Black Caucus missed it; the NAACP missed it. None of these experts were biblically, historically nor sociologically informed.

Alexander wrote: "A human rights nightmare is occurring on our watch."  Only a few sociologists and social workers saw it, sounded the alarm, but most of the other experts ignored the information.  Only when Alexander began to listen to historians and sociologists did she understand what was really happening.

I used to teach sociology at Spring Arbor College.  At that time, the Bible teachers taught that the justice emphasis of the OT disappeared in the NT.  Justice was replaced by personal salvation.  Wrong! But thousands of students were taught half the gospel, not knowing the other half--the kingdom of God as justice for the poor and oppressed---was also part of the NT gospel.  So finally I had to take two weeks out of my Social Problems class to teach the present and social dimensions of the gospel from the gospel of Luke.  The so-called Bible experts were only teaching fragments of justice.

This American failure is so widespread that each of us will have to develop our own NT theology of oppression.  To put it simply, think oppression whenever you see the word rich in the NT.  Think the word justice whenever you see the word righteousness in the NT.

American experts, even evangelical doctors, can blow it, especially when they ignore Haitian advice about how to fit in.  Some American doctors visited Fond-des-Blancs to hold short term medical clinics.  At the time, there was no hospital---only a small clinic operated by the Catholic Church staffed by a nurse's aide.

Jean Thomas carefully advised the American medical experts to be sensitive to the fact that they were on Catholic turf, and not to be overly evangelical, and fit in with the existing medical delivery system.  The American experts knew better and ignored this wise Haitian advise; they undermined a budding good relationship with Catholics.  Is it impossible for experts to be humble?

After living 90 years as a white American, I would estimate that nine out of ten white American experts are partially or totally wrong most of the time.  Their ideas are not biblically accurate nor historically and socially informed.  So some of us will need to do the hard work/study to provide the more accurate biblical base.