Friday, April 28, 2017

War With North Korea???

Are we fast approaching war with North Korea?  I am afraid that we are.

Trump believes that North Korea will soon have both the nuclear weapon and the missile to deliver the bomb as far as our West Coast.  He believes that we cannot, must not, let this happen.  North Korea has the same mentality; they must have this nuclear capability to protect themselves so they cannot not, must not, denuclearize.  So we are at an impasse; neither country is apt to back down.

Both counties are highly militarized.   Both have millions of highly trained soldiers.  Neither country is afraid of violence, war.  Neither country has millions of citizens trained in love and justice.  The odds of war are high.

When we add ignorance, inexperience, arrogance, ethnocentrism, nationalism and the possibility of error/miscalculation, war is even more likely.

Perspective from Philip Yancey:

"Gandhi died three years after the United States dropped the atomic bomb in Japan. . . . Gandhi believed the West had forfeited its ability to lead the human race and represented a future of decadence, materialism, and armed conflict."

Gandhi was once asked this question:  "What do you think of Western civilization?"  Gandhi replied: "I think it would be a good idea."

Perspective from Jim Wallis "Hiroshima and 13th Street," The Plough, Summer 1995:

Jim Wallis lived in a Washington ghetto filled with violence;

"They have been to so many funerals, they have seen so many of their friends laid out, they wanted it to be known how they themselves should be laid out when they die.  These were 8-, 9-, 10-year-old children.  When young African-American men reach the age of 20 in my neighborhood, they have a party, a real celebration.  It's a milestone.  "I'm 20 years old and I'm still alive!"

"But I do believe that something happened to us in 1945.  Something happened to us that we have yet to really understand.  A threshold was crossed.  It wasn't only Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It was Dresden.  It was the fire bombings.  But it was not only weapons of mass destruction.  It was the deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of civilian populations."

"In World War II my father was in the naval force that was destined and scheduled to invade the Japanese islands. . . .He was certain that he would not have survived an invasion, and so I grew up most of my life being told that the bombing of Hiroshima made my family possible.  My father really believed that.  Later, however, he turned against nuclear weapons and believed that the bomb should never have been dropped."

"What has happened to us?  Violence has been accepted as normative, even enshrined.  Violence has saturated our culture.  Violence is now everywhere."

"Violence is in the White House, the Pentagon; it's all over television, in our streets, and in our homes. . . . We have had an almost complete cultural breakdown, a complete disintegration of values."

According to Wallis, the biblical prophetic vision not only protests against evil, but it also provides an alternative vision of love and justice, of the kingdom of God.

A last word from Gandhi:  "We are not ready for freedom."  So he took two years off to fast and pray. He said, "My greatest fight is with the demons inside me.  My next fight is with the demons inside my [Indian] people, and only after that comes my fight with the British."

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Tom Skinner and the Kingdom of God

Tom Skinner:  "The church must become a model of the kingdom of God, so that when oppressed people ask, "Where can we find justice?" the church can say, 'Over here.'"

My wife and I are going through our stuff and we ran across an article written by Edward Gilbreath titled, "A Prophet out of Harlem," Christianity Today, September 16, 1996.  It refreshed my memory about how I learned about the significance of the kingdom of God.

In April 1968, at the time of Martin Luther King's assassination, I experienced a second conversion---a keen awareness of the horror of American racism and the need for biblical justice.  At Urbana '70, as I heard the prophet-evangelist, Tom Skinner speak; for the first time I began to understand the crucial importance of the kingdom of God.  Some years later, I was mentored by John Perkins on how to incarnate the kingdom in poor oppressed communities by doing Christian Community Development.

Tom Skinner's speech at Urbana '70 "The Liberator has come!" is probably the single most important ever given at InterVarsity.  It called for a radical, even revolutionary, brand of Christianity.  John Perkins describes Tom Skinner's message in this way:

"Tom Skinner had the clearest understanding of the gospel that I've ever heard. . . .  He understood the importance of 'on earth as it is in heaven,'  That was the heart of his message---living out the kingdom.  He was a prophet without honor because he was hitting at themes of reconciliation that were too radical for blacks and whites alike."

Bill Pannell who partnered with Skinner said,"It was at the point when we put together the evangelistic and the prophetic traditions that we were led back to the motif of the kingdom of God."

"Skinner's central motif of the kingdom of God never shifted."  It called for the overthrow of a social order dominated by white superiority and white privilege.  But so far most American white Christians have rejected the kingdom of God; they have refused to repent and restitute.

I have been on a 45 year pursuit of the kingdom of God, its biblical meaning and how to apply it in America and Haiti.  Thanks Tom for getting me started on this pilgrimage.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

It's Wrong to Tolerate Injustice

Proverbs 24 (The Message):

"It's wrong, very wrong,
 to go along with injustice.

Whoever whitewashes the wicked
gets a black mark in the history books.

But whoever exposes the wicked
will be thanked and rewarded.

American application:

White superiority [ethnocentrism] and white privilege [built on white economic oppression] have been whitewashed by the American church.  There has been no call for white repentance; therefore no restitution/justice.  Instead there has been 400 years of white ethnocentrism and oppression with even monuments celebrating ethnocentrism and oppression; Washington Monument [George and Martha owned 300 slaves] and the St. Louis Arch [westward expansion which destroyed not only the buffalo but also thousands of Indian peoples and much of their cultures].

Second Generation of Haiti Christian Development Fund Partners

Welcome to the second generation of Haiti Christian Development Fund supporters and partners.

Thirty plus years have gone by.  The first generation is retiring, passing away soon.  Hats off to the first generation of supporters/partners who carried HCDF through crisis after crisis, slowly but surely rebuilding Fond-des-Blancs.  Not many quitters among them.

Some advice to the second generation.  I want you to excel, to do better than the first generation.

1.  Be exceedingly humble regarding social problems.  They are much more complex than medical problems and medical problems can be very difficult.  Based on my study of sociology and living 90 years in America, I would estimate that 9 out of 10 Americans know only 10 percent of the truth about blacks, yet the readily pontificate about blacks as if they were experts.  This ignorance/arrogance is probably worse about Haiti.

So become a disciplined student, become wise.  Love not directed by truth, wisdom can be dangerous.

2.  Diligently work to improve your theology, especially on the present and social dimensions of the kingdom of God, the deep trauma prolonged oppression causes, the desperate need for Jubilee justice to release the oppressed.  We all need this biblical wisdom; both Haitians and Americans.  Remember that Jean Thomas' brother who knew the language and culture tried starting individual projects but apart from a community development umbrella,  over time they all failed.  HCDF in Fond-des-Blancs is going strong.

3.  In America, recently I have noticed so-called experts in urban education making stupid comments; this includes the Gates Foundation which has poured millions of dollars into improving education with little success.  Why?  For every dollar spent on education, they should invest five in community development.  Education and community development are closely related; you can't improve one without improving the other.

4.  Christian Community Development.  Have you had any experience doing community development; this field is not for amateurs?  Have you read any CCD literature?  If not, give the following your highest priority.

* Attend the week long April Immersion in Chicago sponsored by CCDA.
* Read At Home With The Poor by Jean Thomas.
* Read A Quiet Revolution by Mississippian John Perkins who invented CCD.
* Read Mountains Beyond Mountains which is about the Haitian ministry of Paul Farmer.  Farmer earned both a MD and a Ph.D in anthropology.  He combines physical medicine and social medicine/public health.

5.  If you want the wisdom of a person who has been studying these issues intensely for 50 years, who has lived in black communities in America for 35 years, read my blog.  Google "Lowell Noble's Writings".

Friday, April 21, 2017

The Very Good [Shalom] Gospel book review

Lisa Sharon Harper, a black evangelical, has written a masterful book on the biblical teaching regarding shalom in the context of God's creation and the Fall.  She emphasizes dominion as stewardship before the Fall and dominion as sin/oppression after the Fall.

"Shalom is when the image of God is recognized, protected and cultivated in every single human being. . . . the restoration God desires for every broken relationship" personal, family, community and nation.

Harper often interweaves and illustrates these biblical teachings with her own experiences as a black citizen in America and with the larger black experience in America.  Harper thinks like a sociologist, something few Americans do.  She emphasizes community and connections and relationships.

After reading the utter tragedy of continuing American oppression in The New Jim Crow, The Very Good Gospel provides the Biblical basis for a badly needed positive alternative.

Harper provides a fresh and deep interpretation of the Scriptures.  This is one of my top 10 books.

A suggestion for Harper or someone else:  Follow up with another book on justice titled Rejusticizing the NT.  Nicholas Wolterstorff declares that English translators and theologians have "dejusticized" the English NT.  Steven Voth, a professional bible translator, states that the KJV has zero references to justice; the NIV only 16.  Whereas Spanish, French and Latin translations have around 100 references to justice.  If a person rejusticizes the Sermon on the Mount, it takes on a much different meaning.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Language in Black and White

1.  Amy Frykholm has reviewed the documentary/commentary about James Baldwin in the Christian Century, April 26, 2017 titled "Language in black and white."  "The film moves back and forth between historical and contemporary, reminding the viewer continually that this is not a piece of documentary history but commentary on the present moment."

"The film explores white 'innocence'. Baldwin writes, "I am afraid that most of the white people I have ever known impressed me as being in the grip of a weird nostalgia, dreaming of a vanished state of security and order. . . .  He diagnoses what he calls 'the emotional poverty of whites'---their glaring inability to face reality . . .  to face the fact that they are 'moral monsters'."

"In Baldwin's understanding, white was created at the same moment as black.  Both are fallacies that script an unending cycle of despair."  "the value placed the color of the skin is always and everywhere and forever a delusion."

"Baldwin constantly questioned America's future in a way that suggested his deep identification with it. . . .  Baldwin was a human being first and an American second---all other distinctions were lies that gave false structure to the world.

2.  In the same issue of CC, historian Edward Blum reviews a new book by Michael Eric Dyson titled "Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America."  Blum is a Christian, white historian who specializes in the racial history of the U.S. with a focus on 1865-2000.  He is an expert on W.E.B. Du Bois; see his book W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet in which he argues that Du Bois is a biblical type prophet on race.

Blum compares Dyson's book with Du Bois book Darkwater.  "Dyson implores us [whites] to stop and listen.  He [like Bu Bois] identifies race, and especially the black-white divide, as the primary problem of American history, society, culture, and politics.  He maintains that black people and white people occupy different universes and that the cancer of white racism eats away at the moral body of civil society,"  I would add that most American whites have yet to repent and restitute about their white supremacy and white privilege so nothing fundamental changes from generation to generation.

Dyson writes about "the five stages of white grief"---"a debilitating disorder that he calls C.H.E.A.T.: chronic historical evasion and trickery."  "These stages of grief keep whites in a state of privileged denial where they can feign innocence while reaping the rewards of whiteness [white privilege]."

3.  Related high quality books I recommend:

* The New Jim Crow on unjust mass incarceration.
* Toxic Inequality on the enormous racial wealth gap.
* A 60 Minutes piece on the tragic failure and misuse of the public defender part of  America's criminal justice system.  Combine this documentary with The New Jim Crow.

PS

In 1970, sixteen white, third graders in Riceville, Iowa, in two days learned James Baldwin's insight that "the value placed on the color of the skin is always and everywhere and forever a delusion."

"For two days after Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed, Jane Elliott, a third-grade teacher in Riceville, Iowa, gave her pupils a unique lesson in discrimination.  The first day, brown-eyed children were declared 'superior', given special privileges, and encouraged to discriminate against their suddenly 'inferior' blue-eyed classmates.  The next day, roles were reversed.  What happened astonished  The positive results both students and teacher.  On both days, children labeled 'inferior' took on the look and behavior of genuinely inferior students; they did inferior work.  'Superior' students excelled in their work and delighted in discriminating against their erstwhile friends."  This is recounted in the book A Class Divided.

"Do you think you know how feels to be discriminated against?   It feels awful."

Student Raymond Hansen:  "I felt like a king, like I ruled them brown-eyes.  Like I was better than them.  Happy." . . . . "I felt down, unhappy, like I couldn't do anything, like I was tied up and couldn't get loose."

The children's academic ability changed in an 24 period.  The positive academic results continued on longterm.



Tuesday, April 18, 2017

The Sacred but corrupt Jewish Temple, part 2

The sacred but corrupt Jewish Temple, part 2.

What are some of the lessons to be learned from the Temple confrontation initiated by Jesus?

1.  Social evil in social institutions is deeply ingrained, legitimated at times by religion, and therefore is highly resistant to change.

2.  In order to bring about change, social conflict must be initiated.  The social evil and the oppressive leaders must be aggressively and publicly exposed so the people will understand what is really going on.

3.  At the same time that a person exposes social evil, she must present a positive alternative, i.e., the just kingdom of God social order.

4.  Social change must be two-pronged: the negative exposure of social evil and the positive presentation of social justice.

5.  In this process, the common people must be central.  Remember as Jesus taught in the Temple "all the people hung on his words."  Prior to this the chief priests and the teachers of the Law were the leaders of the people using religion to manipulate the people (Luke 19:47).  The chief priests wanted to kill Jesus immediately, but they did not dare to act because of the power of the people.  Luke refers to "the people" a number of times.

6.  Great care must be identifying the key social evil in society.  What most people and especially the leaders identify as the main social evil may, in fact, be in error.  It may be a smokescreen to divert attention from the really important social evil.

Note that Jesus did not target the Roman headquarters in Palestine or take a trip to Rome to expose social evil.  Though Rome's was oppressive in its imperialistic domination of Palestine, Jesus never engaged in an anti-Roman campaign.  Many Jews did see Rome as the great social evil from which they desired deliverance.  Roman occupation was more than a minor convenience; it added to the already existing oppression by corrupt Jewish leaders.

But Jesus was shrewd enough to realize where the heart of the problems for the Jewish masses.  In Jerusalem.  At the Temple.

Politicians and others who benefit from a system of oppression will often focus on an outside system of oppression as the great social evil to fight against.  Unless Christians are biblically wise, they, too, can be mislead and manipulated and end up battling against the lesser of two social evils.  Beware of anti _________ campaigns which focus on "them" as the bad guys and "us" as the good guys as a cover for a greater social evil in our midst.

For example, Jesus identified Jewish economic oppression and religious ethnocentrism, not Roman oppression as the greater social evil.  Many in the U.S. regard Russia or China or terrorism as our greatest evil when internal wealth inequality or on going ethnocentrism or mass incarceration are likely greater evils.

The Sacred But Corrupt Jewish Temple, part 1

The Sacred but corrupt Jewish Temple.

When good and evil are mixed together in a social institution, then evil/oppression are disguised and legitimated.  For example:

*The necessary but often oppressive American criminal justice system.
*The necessary but often exploitive American financial system.
*The excellent but often exploitive American healthcare system.
*The spiritual but highly segregated American church.

The Sacred Jewish Temple: A Cosmos (evil social order) Social Institution

Juan Mateos:

"The high priests were the official representatives of religion and worship who had charge of the temple, the religious and political center of Israel. . . .  The temple received gifts (Mark 7:11) and abundant alms, above all from the rich (Mark 12:41), not to mention the livestock market for the sacrifices and the currency exchange (Mark 11:15).  All this turned the temple into a great commercial racket administered by the high priests. . . . The Pharisees had immense authority over the people.  In spite of all their observance of religious rules, the Pharisees loved money and exploited the simple folk under the pretext of piety (Matthew 23:25-28; Mark 12:40; Luke 1:39; 16:14)."

Donald Kraybill makes these comments about the holy city of Jerusalem:

"We have seen the spectacular beauty of Jerusalem as Judaism's highest religious peak.  It also towered above the rest of the country in social and economic prestige.  An elite aristocracy called Jerusalem their home.  This included the chief priests of the temple hierarchy, wealthy landowners, merchants, tax collectors, and the Sadducean Party.  Men of wealth who could live off the rent from their estates, skilled artists, clever traders, and poets all migrate toward the metropolis which housed the temple."

Because of the high taxes which forced them to mortgage their property to pay these taxes, peasant farmers were losing their lands.  Many of these properties became temple property.  Kraybill comments:

"Within a few decades, small and middle-sized plots of land had disappeared, whereas the properties owned by the temple and the imperial crown grew beyond proportion. . . .  Driven to misery, many peasants abandoned their land and joined bands of robbers that survived by pillage."

The temple was the center of religious life for the 500,000 Jews living in Palestine and the three and a half million Jews in the Roman Empire.  The temple was huge, covering 26 acres.  It was magnificent; the gold and silver made it look like a snowcapped mountain from the nearby countryside.  "There was so much gold in the temple that after its destruction and plunder in AD 70 the province of Syria was glutted with gold reducing its value by half."  The temple was also "the seat of Jewish power and influence.  Here resided the high priest . . . and the 70-member Sanhedrin, the final and ultimate Jewish authority in religious, political, and civil affairs."

William Barclay comments about the temple:

"Sacrifical victims could be bought outside the Temple, but a victim to be fit for a sacrifice must be without spot and blemish.  The Temple authorities had appointed inspectors to examine the victims.  If the victim had been bought outside the temple, it was quite certain that the inspectors would find a blemish, and the pilgrim would be compelled to buy his offering at the official Temple shops where victims had already been inspected.  This again sounds like a public service, but there were occasions when a pair of pigeons would cost as little as five new pence outside the Temple and as much as seventy-five new pence inside the Temple."

Barclay continues:

"Three things infuriated Jesus about this.  First, the whole business was a ramp [racket] in which the pilgrims were being ruthlessly fleeced.  Jesus' action was first of all a blow for social justice.  Second, the huckstering and the bargaining and the arguing must have made the place a pandemonium in which any kind of prayer or meditation or worship was quite impossible.  Third, the whole business was taking place in the Court of the Gentiles, the only part of the Temple into which a Gentile might come.  This meant that, in the one place where it was open to the Gentile to worship, worship was impossible.  The action of Jesus was a blow for social justice, a scathing rebuke of irreverence, a defense of the rights of the Gentiles."

Luke's description of the cleansing of the Temple is stated rather mildly (19:45-47):

"Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling.  'It is written,' he said to them.  'My house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.'"

The chief priests come on the temple scene for the first time in Luke and Jesus challenges their power and authority.  They pointedly ask Jesus, "Tell us by what authority you are doing these things?"  Then in the Temple Jesus tells a parable directed at the chief priests.  Not only in the physical cleansing of the Temple but also in his teaching in the Temple, Jesus directly confronted the evil leadership of the Temple.

In fact, Jesus took over the Temple for a few days.  In a deceptively mild statement, Luke's first sentence following the cleansing is, "Every day he was teaching at the temple . . . all the people hung on his words."

The chief priests stood helplessly by in a rage plotting to kill Jesus as he took over 'their' Temple, teaching against them and teaching about the kingdom of God.  Two whole chapters in Luke document the nature of Jesus' teaching in the temple.  This section closes with another mild understatement considering the enormous significance of these events at the Temple:

"Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple . . . and all the people came early in the morning to hear him at the temple."

In Matthew, it is likely that most, if not all, of chapters 21:12 - 23:39 took place in or near the Temple.  Apparently the seven woes directed to the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees took place in the Temple.  Jesus used the strongest possible words to condemn the whole corrupt religious system and especially the leaders of that system.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

An Adoption Parable

An Adoption Parable.

A picture and two non-pictures:  weeping for joy, weeping bitterly, weeping over oppression.

About 10 years ago, my wife was asked to care for a new born baby.  For two days, she tenderly cared for this black baby girl.  Then on Wednesday evening at 5:30, the adopting white parents came by/buy to pick her and take her home.  As my wife handed the baby to her new adopting parents, the lawyer snapped pictures of this joyous occasion.  Tears of joy flowed down the new mother's face.  Some white friends had helped the new parents obtain the money for the adoption.

A beautiful story, but allow me to tell the rest of the story---the non-picture stories.

Two days earlier the birth mother wept bitterly as she gave her baby to the adoption lawyer; then the lawyer walked out the door with her baby.  The house was poorly furnished, obviously a poverty-stricken home.  The mother could not afford to raise another child.  The lawyer took no pictures of the weeping birth mother.  This birth mother's tragic story will be lost in history.  She had no 'rich' friend to assist her, to help her keep her own baby.

The lawyer said this was a sad case, but she didn't cry because she knew the baby was going to have a better future. Another person was troubled because a white couple was adopting a black child; would this baby be cut off from its culture, its heritage?

A third perspective.  As I reflected on this story, it symbolized a larger truth.  The adoption cost around $10,000.  For the purposes of the parable, let us assume the birth mother had $1000.  This is a 10:1 ration.  Would the birth mother been able to keep her baby if the $10,000 had been given directly to her?

Guess what the wealth/assets gap is in the U.S.?  A 10 to 1 ratio!  The average white family has ten times the wealth/assets as a black household.  Why this wealth gap?  Many factors, but probably the number one factor would be white privilege/black oppression for the past 350 years.

This is the second non-picture.  Now is the time for all of us to weep over the oppression of the poor. Do you have the gift of weeping in the Spirit for the oppressed poor in America?  Do you have the calling to do justice in the power of the Spirit for the oppressed?

If you and I stop oppression, more birth mothers will be able to keep their own babies.

Three American Systems of Oppression

There are three American systems of oppression that have been growing, some would say exploding over the past 20 to 30 years.  Two are familiar, but the third may be new to the reader.

1.  The wealth gap, especially the racial wealth gap, has exploded over the past 30 years.  Rec. books:  The Politics of Rich and Poor, 1990; Toxic Inequality, 2017.

2.  The mass incarceration of Blacks and Hispanics.  Rec. book, The New Jim Crow, 2010.

3.  The American medical system is broken,  exploited by corporate capitalism.  "The system isn't working for anyone now," says a new book written by a doctor-journalist titled An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business.  This book may become to to healthcare what The New Jim Crow is/was to mass incarceration.

Here are some descriptions of An American Sickness:  "filled with fury and compassion"; describes a medical system that is "dangerous, expensive, and dysfunctional"; "How did things go so bad so fast?"

The cleverest systems of oppression are those which are tied to a legitimate social need; a society must have a criminal justice system, a healthcare system, a financial/economic system.  One financial expert wrote that about half of America's financial experts are unneeded; they are parasites on the economy.  Without question we need doctors, nurses and hospitals and they often provide quality care.  But corporate capitalism doubles the cost.

An editorial in the April 17, 2017 Des Moines Register titled "Wellmark, Aetna exits call for public option."  Iowa will have few private insurers for Obamacare.  A federal 'public option', federal insurance, is needed.  Tax credits and allowing people to buy insurance across state lines will not suffice.

"While much of Obamacare works well, the law's heavy reliance on private insurers to cover millions of Americans is not sustainable in the long run. . . . Insurers are in a position to demand more and more money from taxpayers and customers.  And when they decide not to sell policies, Americans will be uninsured. . . .   Uncle Sam has been a dependable provider of health insurance for more than five decades.  Nearly 120 million Americans---about one third of us---rely on government-run Medicare and Medicaid.  Instead of funneling tax dollars to private insurers who may or may not be there next year, the money can fund a public option administered by a federal government that will be there."

Most of our knowledge about criminal justice systems, financial/economic systems and medical systems is anecdotal and fragmented.  The above recommended books reflects years of careful research.

Monday, April 10, 2017

The Missing Message of the Messiah

The poor and oppressed of Palestine seemed to get the message of Palm Sunday; the religious rich leaders also got the message, but they didn't like it, they flatly rejected not only the message but also the Messenger.

As usual on Palm Sunday, the justice message was missing.  In my 90 years, I have heard only one sermon that included the theme of justice; justice is the repeated theme in Isaiah's six Messianic passages---chapters 9, 11, 16, 28, 41, 61.  Also from Zechariah 9:9:

"Behold your King [Messiah] is coming to you; he is just and having salvation."  Any salvation message that doesn't include justice for the oppressed is biblically deficient.

Read Luke 19:41-47.  Jesus predicts the judgment coming to Jerusalem and the Temple.  It actually happened a few years later when Roman soldiers looted and destroyed the Sacred Temple.  Why?  The chief priests did not repent; instead they turned the Temple into a den of theives.  Or a religiously legitimated system of oppression.

When there is no repentance, no justice, sooner or later God initiates judgment.

Racial Wealth Gap and Mass Incarceration

Is the massive growth in both racial imprisonment and the racial wealth gap a coincidence or are they intertwined; is there a cause and effect relationship?

In 1982, the War on Drugs became the law; as it was implemented with racial profiling, the War on Drugs became a War on Black and Hispanic males.  Over the past 35 years, the prison population has exploited.

In 1984, the wealth gap between white families and Afro American families was $20,000.  By 2007 the wealth gap had multiplied fourfold to $95,000.  Black wealth per family remained static while white wealth grew.  In a 2015 article, "Closing the racial wealth gap," the racial wealth gap had grown to $236,500.

In their book The Spirit Level:   Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger (2009), Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett present data which show a correlation between economic inequality and incarceration.  They compared 22 countries and concluded that "more people are imprisoned in more unequal countries" with the United States leading the way in both economic inequality and incarceration.

Wilkinson and Pickett then compared all 50 states and found the same correlation between inequality and imprisonment.  "More people are imprisoned in more unequal states."  For example, "Louisiana imprisons people at more than six times the rate of Minnesota."

In The New Jim Crow (2010),  Michelle Alexander document the growth in the U.S. prison population:

"In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million, with drug convictions [such as marijuana possession] accounting for the majority of the increase.  The United States now has the highest incarceration numbers in the world dwarfing the rates of nearly every developed country, even surpassing those in highly repressive regimes like Russia, China, and Iran. . . .  The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid."

In 2017, Thomas Shapiro, America's top expert in racial economic inequality has updated us with the latest data on our horrible and expanding racial wealth gap in his book Toxic Inequality.

A concise and quality summary of the racial wealth gap can be found in The New Republic, "Closing the racial wealth gap."  I highly recommend it.

Friday, April 7, 2017

8 films, documentaries on race in America

Kathryn Reklis has reviewed 8 films, documentaries and television shows on structural racism or systems of oppression; also on the culture of white supremacy.  "Avoiding white moral infantilism," Christian Century, April 12, 2017.

1.  I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary about James Baldwin; "Baldwin's words are as prophetic now as they were when he wrote them."

2.  13th is "about the rise of mass incarceration from the end of the Civil War to the present, laying out damning evidence of the persistence of structural racism."  Relies heavily on Michelle Alexander and her book The New Jim Crow.

3.  O.J.: Made in America.  "Ezra Edelman's five part documentary is a master class on race, masculinity, sports culture, pop culture, police practices, real estate zoning, informal segregation, domestic violence, and celebrity culture,. . . .  If you watch the three films in succession, you won't be able to claim that you don't understand how structural racism works or don't know what people mean by a culture of white supremacy."

Other films are Moonlight, Get Out, Fences, Atlanta and Represent.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Lowell Noble's Favorite Quotations

Lowell Noble's Favorite Quotations:

Jesus:  "The Spirit has anointed me [and the church] . . . to release the oppressed."

The Pledge:  " . . . with liberty and JUSTICE FOR ALL."

Billy Graham:  "I have come to see in deeper ways the implications of my faith.  I can no longer proclaim the Cross and the Resurrection without proclaiming the whole message of the Kingdom of God which is JUSTICE FOR ALL."

The Reformed Church:  "Justice is broken."

Thomas Hanks:  "Oppression smashes the body and crushes the spirit."

Mississippian Lee Harper:  "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things that appeared just [the church]."

Martin Luther King:  "In 1963 I talked to the nation about a Dream I had. . . .  [In 1967] I saw that Dream turn into a Nightmare. . . .  Black brothers and sisters on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of [white] prosperity."

Orlando Patterson:  "The simple, sad truth is that Afro-Americans are today the loneliest of all Americans---lonely and isolated as [an ethnic] group; lonely and isolated in their [segregated] neighborhoods; lonely as households headed by women sick and tired of being 'the strong black woman'; lonely as single men fearful of commitment; lonely as single women wary of a 'love and trouble' tradition that has always been more trouble than love."

Mississippian John Perkins:  "How do we restore and practice justice in a society bent on injustice?" in both the South and North.

Martin Luther King:  "I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values."

Haitian Jean Thomas:  "I am at home with the poor."

John Perkins, about the poor:  "Affirm their dignity, and release their own creativity."

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

Multi-billionarie Warren Buffet:  "There is class warfare, all right, but it is my class, the rich, that's making war and winning [and the poor are losing]."

Haitian Jean Thomas:  "God established the Jubilee---when all debts are forgiven, slavery is abolished, and properties are restored---to ensure that no one in his kingdom would be poor forever."

Matthew 6:33 NEB:  "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else."

Don't Be A One-Armed Christian

Without a clear and compelling vision of the present and social dimensions of the kingdom of God here on earth, we will all be one-armed Christians.  Instead, let's combine holiness and justice and be two-armed Christians.

James wrote, "Faith without works is dead."  John Wesley said, "There is no holiness without social holiness."  Lowell Noble asserts, "Holiness without social justice is spiritual self-indulgence."  Derek Prince said the Holy Spirit revealed the following to him, "Do not let them make the same mistake that Pentecostals have so often made in the past by squandering My power in spiritual self-indulgence.  Instead tell them to pray for the future of Kenya."

Sometimes Christians misuse the precious Holy Spirit by just enjoying his presence and blessing.  God wants us to release His Spirit in ministry to the poor and oppressed.

A biblical Christian is a two-armed Christian.  A two-armed Christian is a holistic, Hebrew type Christian.  OT Hebrews believed in both personal righteousness and social justice.  A person could not claim to be personally holy unless one was also doing justice.

Job is a perfect example of an holistic Hebrew; Job 1:1 "This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. . . . early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of his children."  Job was also active in loving the poor, doing justice; read Job 29:12-17.

A religion professor I once knew was very intelligent and a good teacher.  He like to teach the OT prophets and their emphasis on justice.  But he said something rather strange, maybe even heretical; he said the OT emphasis on social justice disappeared when we entered the NT.  The NT was only about personal salvation; nothing much was written about social justice.

Does the NT say anything about social justice, Jubilee justice, kingdom of God justice?  The KJV does not have a single reference to justice.  The NIV mentions justice just 16 times; but a Spanish or French NT has about 100 references to justice.  The NEB does translate Mt. 6:33: "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice."  And Romans 14:17 as, "The kingdom of God is justice. . . . "

Billy Graham (Transformation, 1989) wrote:

"I can longer proclaim the Cross and Resurrection without proclaiming the whole message of the kingdom which is justice for all."

The Cross and Resurrection is one arm of the Gospel; the kingdom of God is the other arm.  See Acts 8:12; 28:23 and 31.

One of the ministries of the Holy Spirit is to empower the church to incarnate the kingdom of God; see Acts 1:1-8.  But in talking with a few experts, I did not find a single person who could identify a single article or book which tied the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of God together.  The most tragic divorce in the history of the Christian church has been the divorce between the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of God.  After this divorce, in America, the church has remarried---remarried to the American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism/racism.  If you are not married to the kingdom, you will probably end up marrying a poor substitute like the American trinity.

Sometimes the devil goes about as a roaring lion, but more often he appears as a deceiver, wearing spiritual clothing.  One clever way to deceive people is to overly spiritualize a biblical doctrine.  For example, the OT concept of the Jubilee.  The OT Sabbatical and Jubilee laws were written to provide economic justice for the poor.  Release slaves every seven years.  Cancel debts every seven years.  Land reform every 49 years.  Even in Jesus' time, Jewish theologians discussed the Jubilee.  Some farmers left their land fallow every seven years. But guess what the Jewish theologians did with the Jubilee; they spiritualized and futurized it.  Sometime in the distant future, God would restore the Jubilee.  By futurizing and spiritualizing the Jubilee, the Jews did not have to implement the Jubilee as justice.  This was a brilliant spiritual cop-out.

Much of the Christian church has done the same thing with the kingdom of God.  If we futurize the kingdom, we don't have to implement it now.  We are called to do justice now.

From the pen of Gerald Bates:

"The founders vision for our church, which seems to have somewhat slid away from us for a century, was not only for evangelism, but also social---free churches, concern for the oppressed, freedom for the oppressed, the year of the Jubilee. . . .  It is long overdue for the Free Methodist Church to go beyond the messages of personal holiness to a full vision of social holiness after the model of Jesus."

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Theological Fragments of Oppression, Justice and the Kingdom of God

To:  Michelle Alexander
From:  Lowell Noble, lowellnoble@gmail.com 206-724-7215
Re:  Writing a book on the kingdom of God
Date:  Oct. 5, 2016

Michelle Alexander:

I am a 90 year old white male who had to have a second conversion to begin to understand the depth of white America's oppression of African Americans.  This conversion led to an extensive study of the biblical teaching on oppression, then to the biblical teaching on justice, then to a study of the present and social dimensions of the kingdom of God.  My second conversion happened when MLK was assassinated.  So I have been on a 50 year pilgrimage to understand oppression, justice and the kingdom of God, first biblically, then historically, then sociologically.

My conclusion:  The American church has no comprehensive theology of oppression, justice and the kingdom of God, only fragments.

Thomas Hanks, Hebrew scholar: we have only fragments, small fragments, of a biblical theology of oppression, therefore;

Karen Lebacqz, injustice-justice scholar:  we have only fragments of a full biblical theology of justice (we first need to begin with injustice), therefore:

Marcus Borg and Donald Kraybill:  we have only fragments of a full biblical theology of the kingdom of God; therefore, the American church can only occasionally do reform, never revolution, transformation; therefore, it will not be any more effective in ending racial profiling, mass incarceration and the War on Drugs than the civil rights organizations, lawyers and politicians, therefore;

The first task is to develop a complete and comprehensive, clear and compelling, theology of oppression, justice and the kingdom of God.

Who best to do this?  Michelle Alexander, a brilliant, black woman scholar who already through both personal experience and scholarly analysis has a keen understanding of past and current systems of oppression.  Therefore, you will, once exposed, understand the biblical teaching on oppression.

Biblically, the place to begin to understand oppression is where the Bible begins, Exodus chapters 1-6.  Taking Exodus 1-6:9 as my larger context, this is my paraphrase of 6:1-9 with a special focus on 6:9:

"When Moses delivered the message that came straight from God's own mouth about their soon coming deliverance from centuries of ruthless oppression, the Hebrew slaves could not even begin to grasp/believe the good news.  Because generations of endless oppression have left them bruised, battered, and broken in both body and spirit."

Or another paraphrase:  "Generations of oppression caused social death; all social institutions were dysfunctional."

Or another paraphrase:  "Generations of oppression caused mass PTSD/PTSS; individuals, families, communities and cultures were traumatized."

This is why Isaiah 58  and Amos 5 insist on tying spirituality and justice together as the way to release the oppressed.  This is why Jesus quotes Isaiah 58:6 in Luke 4:18.  This is why there are 555 references to oppression and its synonyms in the Hebrew OT.

When a person turns to the NT, on the surface, the concept of oppression seems to disappear---from 555 references in the OT to 2 or 3 in the NT.  But if the Greek word thlipsis is translated oppressed rather than afflicted, the word oppression is found more widely.

For example, James 1:27:  "Visit the widows and orphans in their affliction."  This verse would be better translated:  "Visit the oppressed widows and orphans."  Who is oppressing the widows and orphans?  According to James 2, it is the rich.  James issues a scathing rebuke to the church that was honoring the rich oppressors and dishonoring the oppressed poor.  The biblical calling for a Christian church is to combine faith and works---works of justice that release the oppressed poor.

In the NT, especially in Luke, the oppressors are most often identified as the rich, and far too often the religious rich.  They are scorched by Jesus---"Woe to the rich" and the holy Temple he called "a den of robbers."  He condemned the Pharisees as ones who loved money and neglected justice and the love of God.

Justice

Now to the biblical concept of justice.

There are those scholars who assert that in the NT the OT concept of justice disappears and is replaced by an emphasis on personal salvation.  On the surface, this appears to be true; there are no references to justice in the NT in the KJV, and few in the OT.  Even the modern NIV has only 16 references; a typical French, Spanish or Latin NT has around 100 references to justice.  Why?  More on this later.

Back to the OT and justice.

Leviticus 25:  The Sabbath laws and the Jubilee principles were designed to not only release the oppressed---slaves and debtors---but also to prevent lifelong or even generations of oppression from getting deeply entrenched.  Slaves and debts had to be freed every seven years.

It is commonly said that the Hebrews never applied these Sabbath laws.  I disagree.  Read Nehemiah 5.  Almost overnight, Nehemiah ended oppression and demanded restitution; a reasonably just society was restored.

The Law and the Prophets were built upon the principles of love and justice.  The Messianic passages from Isaiah---9:7; 11:1-4; 16:5; 28:16-17; 42:1-4; and 61:1-4---contain a description of the coming kingdom; the themes are: the Spirit, the kingdom, justice and the oppressed poor.  Follow the NRSV 61:1 which uses the word oppressed, not poor.

Next to the NT and justice.  The brilliant Reformed philosopher-theologian, Nicholas Wolterstorff, declares brashly that the English NT has been 'dejusticized'.  Joseph Grassi asserts that the Sermon on the Mount has been dejusticed, that the Greek word dikaiosune which is usually translated righteousness should be translated justice.  The English NEB does translate Matthew 6:33 correctly: "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else."

6:33 is the key verse for the Sermon on the Mount; the kingdom of God and justice are the two main themes in the Sermon.  5:6 should be translated as :  "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice."  The poor in spirit, the crushed in spirit, the broken in spirit desperately need the justice of the kingdom.  The Law and the Prophets are fulfilled when Jubilee justice is done in behalf of the oppressed poor.

One of the most important verses in the NT can be found in Mark 1:15, also in Matthew 3:3 and 4:17:  "Repent, for the kingdom of God is near/here."  This is how Jesus begins his ministry.  Matthew and Luke elaborate on the place and importance of repentance; repentance includes restitution, fundamental change, ending oppression, doing justice; this is how the church incarnates the kingdom.

But Matthew and Mark do not define the content of the kingdom leading some scholars to say the NT is vague on the content of the kingdom of God.  If Luke 4:18-19 is a statement about the kingdom as I believe, then the kingdom is tied to the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit who enables the church to release the oppressed poor by practicing Jubilee justice---Spirit, poor, oppressed, Jubilee justice define the kingdom.

Acts 1:1-8 tie the Spirit and the kingdom together; this combination will reconcile Jew and Gentile, Jew and Samaritan.  It will also prompt the rich to give away surplus houses and lands so that the needs of the poor will be met.

Acts 8:12; 28:23 & 31 summarize the essence of the two-pronged gospel---Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God.  The Jesus part provides justification by faith---deals with personal sin.  The kingdom part provides justice for the oppressed---deals with social evil.

A suggestion: a quick way to produce A Kingdom of God Manifesto:  Oppression and Justice.

Assign in a class the following: a series of 5 page papers, two students or more per paper:

1.  Oppression in the OT
2.  Oppression in the NT
3.  Justice in the OT
4.  Justice in the NT
5.  The Messianic passages from Isaiah and the kingdom of God.
6.  The NT kingdom of God
7.  Application to the American Church
8.  Application to American Society
9.  Application to Mass Incarceration
10.

These 5 page papers put together would amount to around a 50 page manifesto primarily from a direct study of the Bible needing little documentation in the traditional scholarly tradition.  At a later stage, a scholarly book could be produced.

Key books to read:

1. God So Loved the Third World: The Biblical Vocabulary of Oppression by Thomas Hanks.
2.  The Upside-Down Kingdom by Donald Kraybill.
3.  W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet by Edward Blum.
4.  Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome by Joy Leary.
5.  "Biblical Faith and the Reality of Social Evil,"  Christian Scholar's Review, Stephen Mott.

Another suggestion:  A simple exercise that I have found surprisingly revealing.  At a faculty meeting or through an email to all faculty, ask each to write down one sentence definitions (no more than 12 words) of the three following biblical concepts---What do the Scriptures teach that:

1.  oppression is
2.  justice is
3.  the kingdom of God is

Instruction to faculty:  no research, do not open Bibles, no internet search; answer quickly, spontaneously, off the top of your head.

Would you then email me the faculty responses?  Do the same with students in class; have each student share his/her definition with the class.

On my blog "Lowell Noble's Writings",  I have discussed in greater detail biblical, historical and sociological perspectives on oppression, justice and the kingdom of God.