Blind Patriotism or Justice Patroitism?

Blind patriotism or justice patriotism; soldiers blood or black blood; freedom to own slaves (Washington and Jefferson) or freedom to do justice (Martin Luther King and John Perkins).  White patriots killed blacks and Indians.

Donald Trump demands blind patriotism; Colin Kapernick demands justice patriotism.  I side with Colin, not Donald.

Blind patriotism is unethical patriotism; it says. America---right or wrong.  Even the Pledge ends with an ethical statement---"with liberty and justice for all."

On the surface, America appears to have done well with freedom, but terrible with justice, terrible at combining freedom with justice.  Actually, there is no real freedom without justice---except for the white oppressors who enjoy the freedom to do injustice.

Jesus was a Jew, but he wasn't a blind Jew.  Jesus was a justice Jew.  Jesus severely criticized the Pharisees as Jews who "neglected justice and the love of God."  See Luke 11:42.

The typical white American Christian is a blind white American Christian; the large majority neglect justice and the love of God.  They enjoy their white privilege so they won't repent and restitute, then do justice that releases the oppressed and rebuilds poor communities.  Why do they not obey Matthew 6:33 (NEB)?

Fannie Lou Hamer points to the vast injustices in America when she declares "The flag is drenched in [with] OUR blood."  Charles Blow documents Hamer's statement with historical facts in his recent New York Times op-ed titled "The flag is drenched in our blood."  Blow states:

"Many black people see themselves simultaneously as part of America and separate from it, under attack by it, and it has always been thus.  W.E.B. Du Bois wrote over a century ago about this sensation:

'It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.  One ever feels his two-ness---an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.'

"It is through that haze of hurt that black people see the flag."

Most of the U.S. slave trade was done under the Stars and Stripes, not the Confederate flag.  So why is the Northern flag evil largely ignored while the Confederate flag evil is highlighted?

Blow writes:  "The overall slave trade in North and South America caused about 1.8 million deaths.  There was so much flesh being tossed over the sides of those boats---or jumping---that sharks learned to trail the boats to feast on it."

Then Blow discusses the extremely high infant mortality rates as well as the extremely high child mortality rates among American slaves.  Next he mentions the 4,743 lynchings and "the disastrous effects of mass incarceration" among black young men.

A final quotation from Charles Blow:

"So those football players should take a knee if they so choose.  If America demands your respect it must grant you respect and the first order of that respect is equality [justice] and eradicating the ominous threat of state violence."

Are We Committing Civilizational Suicide?

Are we committing civilizational suicide?  Yes, asserts Norman Wirzba in his article in the September 27, 2017 issue of Christian Century titled, "Waking up to the Anthropocene."  This article is not pleasant reading; here is how it begins:

"By century's end, Miami will have disappeared. . . . Along with tens of millions of people around the world, Miami's residents will have joined the ranks of climate refugees who have been either flooded or burned out of their homes. . . . If current trends continue, societies will face massive starvation, plagues and disease, perpetual war, and economic collapse."

The uncontrollable growth of cities is not sustainable.

"The phenomenon of today's mass urbanization is about much more than a change in location.  It is about a change in sensibility, and a shift in desires and expectations.  . . . The world and its many creatures have ceased to be a presence that compels recognition, respect, and responsibility.  Life is navigated through shopping rather than through the care of land, plants, and animals. . . .  To give just one barometer of how far we have come, my grandfather would have understood his life to be a failure if the animals he cared for and the land he cultivated were abused.  My generation, by contrast, depends on energy and agricultural systems that require the abuse of land, water, and resources."

We seem to be locked into a downward spiral directed and anointed by the America Trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism.  "Entire continents and races of people were brutalized to secure commodities and profits.  The project of modern progress, in other words, depended on terrorizing lands and peoples, extracting whatever wealth was available, and thereby keeping vast populations poor."

There is a better biblical way, asserts Wirzba, but few seem willing to change directions, not even most Christians.  We are deranged if we continue on with our "dream of a perpetual growth economy."

Service Systems Fail The Poor

According to John McKnight's 1989 article, "Why 'Servanthood' is Bad," many of our attempts to help the poor often do more harm than good.  As far as this article goes it is insightful, even brilliant.  McKnight asserts that instead of delivering services to meet the very real needs of the poor, we should begin with identifying existing community leaders and existing community assets/strengths.  Build community self-sufficiency on these internal assets, not outside experts.

Asset building community development is a great development strategy, but to be comprehensive, it must be combined with a release the oppressed strategy also.  Prolonged oppression, redesigned systems of oppression, traumatize (PTSD) people, do enormous damage to individuals, families, communities and cultures.  So Christians must end systems of oppression by doing Sabbatical/Jubilee justice.  McKnight does not delve into oppression justice issues.

Back to McKnight's insights:

"Here are five rules to protect yourself from being the agent of the devil in the middle of a church: Saul Alinsky referred to the first rule as the 'iron rule':  Never do for others what they can do for themselves.

"Second, find another's gifts, contributions, and capacities.  Use them.  Give them a place in the community."  Build on existing assets.

"Third, whenever a service is proposed, fight to get it converted into income.  Don't support services.  Insist that what poor people need is income."  Then they can move from income to ownership.

"Fourth, develop hospitality over hospice and hospitals."

And an implied fifth.  Relocate in the area of need; live among the poor.

I would add a sixth.  Become a wise, humble, biblically informed partner with the poor community you have chosen.  The poor need partners for the long haul more than they need services.

Oppression Damage; Damage Dysfunction

After rereading Randall Robinson's book, The Debt, I rethought American history.

First some biblical insights on what oppression is/does.  The 555 OT references to oppression and its synonyms have the following meanings:  crush, humiliate, animalize, impoverish, enslave and kill.  If persons are treated like animals, we shouldn't be surprised if some of them act like animals.  If persons are treated violently, we shouldn't be surprised if some of them act out violently.  If people are crushed, broken in spirit, we shouldn't be surprised by individual, family, community and cultural PTSD.

In America, slavery was quickly replaced by neoslavery which had these components:

1.  Legal/social segregation.
2.  Economic sharecropping.
3.  Criminal justice system enforced prison gangs.
4.  Lawless terrorism or lynchings.
5.  Christian neglect of justice and the love of God.

These forms/systems of oppression caused the following dysfunctions:

1.  Doubled infant mortality rate.
2.  Doubled abortion rates.
3.  Doubled unemployment rates.
4.  Higher separation/divorce rates.
5.  Higher rates of oppression/exploitation of women.

Quotation from Randall Robinson:

"Monstrous systems [of oppression] do turn people into monsters."  The monsters are more visible than the monstrous systems so the individual monsters get blamed more than the systems.  Result: it is easy to blame the victims.

Resulting myths:

1.  Black inferiority.
2.  Criminalblackman.
3.  Black dysfunction.
4.  Lazy blacks.
5.  Black stupidity.
6.  Result: scholars study black dysfunction more than white oppression.

Why are Christian blacks more willing to forgive white oppressors than white Christians are to repent and restitute regarding their centuries of oppression?  Are white Christians inherently self-righteous; self-righteous people think they don't need to repent?

Lisa Sharon Harper:

"Forgiveness cut the ties that bound the oppressed to oppressors. . . .  But if forgiveness was for the sake of South Africans of color, then what was the message for white South Africans---repentance."

"What would repentance look like in your country?"  He said, "Restitution."  "Restitution is simply the act of restoring. . . . Then the relationship could be repaired."

John the Baptist began with repentance, not forgiveness.

Final historical observation by Caitlin Fitz, "The Accidental Patriot."

"On the eve of the [American] Revolution, about 11 percent of the male taxpayers in Boston owned slaves. . . . In Virginia, many masters were fighting for the liberty to enslave. . . .  A [British] parliament that could tax colonies might also free slaves.  The Revolution was racially charged."

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

The election of Trump was racially charged---as much an anti-Obama vote as a pro-Trump vote.  A bigoted billionaire led the racial backlash.

Thoughts From Randall Robinson, Black lawyer/activist

Randall Robinson:  "All of us look.  Few of us see [understand].  How much is deliberate obscurity?"

"As a young man, I worked on Capitol Hill for three years; I walked through the Rotunda countless times.  But I did not see it."  He did not know it was built by slave labor; he was not aware of the absence of black figures among the impressive art.

As a young person, he was not aware of the flaws of American history.  "Truths, half-truths.  Unsupportable myths.  Outrageous lies.  Polished together into history."  After living 91 years, I think there may be more myth and lie than truth in white written histories of America.

The Capitol Dome/Rotunda art is majestic/awesome, but it also hid "the buildings and America's [horrific] secrets."

"This was the House of Liberty, and it had been built by slaves."

"Slavery lay across American history like a monstrous cleaving sword, but the Capitol of the United States steadfastly refused to divulge its complicity, or even slavery's very occurrence. . . .  gold-spun half-truths.  It blinded us all to our past and with the same stroke, to any common future.  Deliberate obscurity."

Our historical past haunts our sociological present, but few of us are deeply aware of this deep and important connection.  So we see and misinterpret our current social problems.  A sanitized past enables us to escape our responsibility for the oppression of the present.  Privilege without responsibility.

In a poor black community, a person driving through might look at a group of black men hanging out on the corner.  Some may have worked the night shift.  Some may have been damaged by decades of oppression.  Concluding that they are shiftless and lazy may not be factual.

You may have benefitted from the systems of oppression that have crushed them.  "Monstrous systems [of oppression] do turn people into monsters."  Lost in the fog of history are "causes unseen."

A final thought/confession by Ivan Filby, president of Greenville University:

"Brenda records the hardships and challenges the Jamaican and Afro-Caribbean population faced at that time [1980s].  What troubled me is that I lived in Birmingham [England] at that time.  I had many Jamaican and Afro-Caribbean friends, but I was completely unaware of the challenges they may have faced.  In hindsight, all the clues were there; I just did not have the eyes to see."

Who killed Jesus? Who lynched Blacks?

The who, what, where and why of the lynching of Blacks.

A distinguished Afro American woman who had seen the movie "The Passion of Christ" said that all persons who saw "The Passion" should also see "Without Sanctuary," a photographic exhibit on the lynching of blacks.  I saw "Without Sanctuary" at Jackson State University.

"The Passion" has stirred much controversy.  Who was responsible for the death of Jesus?  The Romans literally crucified Jesus; the Jewish religious elite requested/demanded his death.  See Acts, chapter four.

The lynching photographs not only show the grisly lynching scenes, but they also show the lynching mob, sometimes hundreds of people.  Sometimes lynchings were conducted on Sundays, after church, in churchyards.  See Orlando Patterson, Rituals of Blood.  Hint.  There may have been some Sunday School teachers in the lynching mob.  Possibly even a pastor or two.

Note that these lynchings were not done in secret, during the dead of night.  They were a proud public spectacle; photographs were made into postcards which were proudly mailed to friends: "I was there."

Without lynchers, there are no lynchings.  Who killed Jesus?  Atheistic Romans and theistic Jews.  Who killed blacks?  Too often theistic Christians were involved.  Or were they Christian?  Could a Bible-believing Christian lynch?  Could they commit Indian genocide?

Is the above related to the following?  According to Ken Minkema, Jonathan Edwards expert at Yale Divinity School, Pastor Jonathan Edwards "did own slaves.  The person who was a great Christian ethicist and theologian for all time believed that slavery was an institution ordained by God."

Theologian Edwards journeyed to Newport, Rhode Island, center of the slave trade, to purchase a slave directly from the slave trader, Richard Perkins.  Later Edwards did oppose the slave trade, but he continued to defend slavery.  He "did not free any of his slaves."

Did Christian support of slavery prepare the way for later lynchings?  Was it only one small step from slavery to lynchings?

Postville: When Two Religious Ghettos Collide

Postville: When two religious, cultural and economic ghettos collide, love and justice disappear.  Correction: Love and justice may never have been present in the first place.

Both the OT (Law and the Prophets) and NT Christianity held high standards for social conduct: love and justice, with a special concern for the poor and oppressed.  Certainly not the exploitation of the poor and oppressed.  As Bloom discusses in some detail both the German Lutheran and Hasidic Jew ghettos, he does not mention the high standard of justice and love as the distinguishing characteristic of either religious community.  Much love and care within each community, but not love and justice for those outside their respective communities.

Religion and capitalism were comfortably combined in each community, but with no demand for equal time for love and justice.  When Pastor Miller of St. Paul's Lutheran Church gently began to raise love and justice issues in his sermons, many of the relatively rich Lutherans frowned on such an uncomfortable gospel.  Pastor Miller soon left town.

When the beautiful mega-church St. James Lutheran cathedral was built, this is how the Postville Review described the event:

"The erection of this church, more than any other cause, has tended to raise the price of land around Postville.  It has brought large numbers of wealthy Germans here, and they all want a house within reach of this elegant house of worship, and they are willing to pay more than anybody else for lands in this vicinity.  The result is that nearly every farm that is sold is sold to a German;"

"When the Jews began arriving in the mid-1980s, Postville, as it had always been, was a closed, insulated, solidly Christian community---as much a shtetl (ghetto) as the Hasidim's ancestors had created in Eastern Europe, as much as the one the Lubavitchers has created in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  Shtetlach were incubators and fortresses of Jewish tradition where religious values were preserved and embellished.  That's what Postville had been for a century for the Lutherans, a kind of goyishe shtetl [Gentile ghetto]."

For the negative side of religious ghettos, read Luke 11 and Matthew 23---"full of greed . . . neglected justice and the love of God."

In the sense of entrepreneurial, hardworking, legitimate profit to survive, feed the family, etc. capitalism is a good economic system.  But without a strong emphasis on love and justice, prosperity can quickly degenerate into greed, to creating economic systems that oppress, exploit cheap labor.  In America, capitalism has often been tied to Indian genocide, Indian land theft, theft of black labor, theft of half of Mexico's land, etc.  It is extremely dangerous to sideline the biblical requirements on love and justice.

Some quotations which reflect Hasidic Jewish greed:

"That the Jews had made so much money in Postville made matters worse."

"But instead of arriving at the lowest rung of the economic ladder, these Jews had arrived already on top. . . . many brought with them large sums of money."

"They wanted their piece of the American economic pie and they helped themselves to it."

The perverse combination of religion, wealth and culture is a dangerous combination; it usually crowds out love and justice.  In this sense, Postville is the best bad book I have read recently, redeemed only by the remarkable Jewish doctor, the Jewish "good Samaritan" who lived among Gentiles, loved Gentiles and served Gentiles for a lifetime.

More on Postville: A Clash of Cultures

The official title: Postville: A Class of Cultures in Heartland America.  Or it might be worded:  A Clash of Religious Cultures.  A Clash of German Lutheran and Hasidic Jew cultures.

Some nuggets from Postville:

In a dialogue with his seven-year old son, Mickey:

"Daddy, who are the good guys and the bad guys?  Well, I don't think either side is good or bad.  They're just different."  I disagree; both the Lutherans and the Jews are bad guys because they both failed to practice love and justice.

"Going deeper and deeper into the story, was like piecing together a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.  Just when you thought you were finished, you'd look in the corner of the box and discover yet another piece.  And when you finished connecting that piece to the puzzle, another piece would magically appear."  A complex story with many pieces; not simply an either-or story.

"In many ways, the [white] people of Postville are close-minded, obtuse, thickheaded, stubborn, unwilling to bend."  They don't know it but they are much like the Hasidic Jews many despise.

"Initially, I had gone to Postville to learn from the Hasidim, to share with them some sense of identity and belonging.  Instead, what the Postville Hasidim ultimately offered me was a glimpse at the dark side of my own faith. . . . I did not want to participate in Hasidim's vision that called on Jews to unite against the goyim [Gentiles] and assimilation."

From the Afterword, about the Hasidic Jews:

"deeply religious. . . . but do they practice faith?"

"To me, Doc Wolf [ a Jew, but not Hasidic] remains an example of someone who didn't practice religion, but by God, he was a man full of faith. . . . Doc epitomized someone called in Hebrew tikkun olam which translates to healing or repairing the world---the entire world, not just the world that belongs to any one faith, race, or religion."  Bloom did not see this religious practice among either the German Lutherans nor the Hasidic Jews, only among Doc Wolf.

Will RICH Triumph Over RIGHT?

A huge battle in the NFL.  The owners are rich; the coaches are rich; the players are rich.  So how deep, how long-lasting will the protests be?  Will the pursuit of riches dominate the pursuit of justice?  Will the protests be a passing fancy?  Or will the NFL's abundant riches be devoted to the REPAIR of the damage caused by centuries of oppression?  Six NFL owners donated a million dollars each to Trump.  Biblical restitution standards require a four-fold response; will each of these owners donate four million each to a racial justice cause?

The NFL and the NBA could become the vanguard of a new civil/human/economic justice movement that releases the oppressed poor.

A suggestion for sports teams of all kinds:  open the first half with the national anthem; open the second half with a justice anthem.  Respect the flag and stand for justice.  Some suggested verses for the justice anthem:

1.  Amazing justice, how sweet the sound
        to the ears of the oppressed;
     When floods of justice cleanse the land,
        then lives be truly blessed.

2.  No justice, peace without release---
        release of the oppressed;
     Let justice like great waters roll
        that all God's grace may see.

3.  From oppressed to blessed,
        love and justice combine;
     To create, shalom sublime.

4.  Amazing grace, please lead me on
        to see where I am wrong;
     Turn my steps, heart and voice
        to sing the justice song.

What happens off the field in oppressed communities is far more the crucial component than what happens in protest on the field.  Will rich owners, coaches and players unite in generously funding organizations such as Habitat for Humanity,  Christian Community Development Association, Salvation Army, etc.?  Opening a pocketbook is better than bending a knee.

Religion and Ethnocentrism: A Dangerous Combination

This is my second blog on Postville by Stephen Bloom.  Since the year 2000, much has happened to the kosher meatpacking plant in Postville including an immigration raid targeting  undocumented immigrants, bankruptcy, imprisonment and new ownership.  Google Agri Star for an update; things are back to 'normal' with 100 new Somali employees, a total of 700 employees.

Postville written by an assimilated American Jew still raises fundamental questions about what happens to an extreme almost cultic brand of religion which is consumed by greed, the pursuit of money, but neglects justice and the love of God.  The Hasidim desire to remain separate and pure, degenerated into a religious ethnocentrism.

This ethnocentric degeneration has happened many times throughout history.  It is almost inevitable if justice and love are not at the forefront of religious theology and practice.

A few examples:

1.  The Jews in the synagogue at Nazareth.  When Jesus showed up, they tried to kill him on the spot. (Luke 4:25-30).  He challenged their deep-seated ethnocentrism; they saw Jesus as a heretic and tried to throw him over a nearby cliff.

2.  James and John, two of Jesus disciples.  Because Samaritans did not allow Jesus to stay overnight in their village, they wanted to destroy the Samaritan village.  Jesus rebuked them for their ethnocentrism.  (Luke 9:51-55)

3.  Peter withdrew from Gentile Christians.  Paul rebuked Peter to his face for compromising the gospel; he did this publicly because mixing the gospel and ethnocentrism was unacceptable.

4.  Flawed white American evangelical gospel.  Divided by Faith shows the damage done by an individualized that does not teach about love and justice.

5.  Hasidic Jews in Postville.  Extremely religious but extremely ethnocentric.

6.  German Lutherans in Postville.  Also combined religion and culture that created a less extreme form of ethnocentrism, but quietly it was still present and damaging.  If you fit their norms, you were O.K.  If not, . . . .

After teaching sociology for 35 years to white evangelical students, after living in black communities for 35 years, I have concluded that most American whites, including most evangelical whites, American whites seem incapable or unwilling to think clearly about complex social problems.  Is it basic ignorance or willful ignorance or a deliberate, knowing oppression?  Probably a mixture of all three.  Also, in part, a deeply flawed, almost non-existent, theology of oppression and justice.

Even if some white evangelicals do confess their social sins, admit their guilt, even issue a public apology, few go further and restitute and repair.  Few whites know what to do and how to do it wisely.  They need extensive training in Christian Community Development.

Back to Postville.  Postville was a very religious town, full of German Lutherans and Hasidic Jews.  Both groups were hardworking, relatively prosperous, and worship oriented; both also were materialistic, self-centered, self-righteous and ethnocentric.  Self-centered in the sense that they did not reach out much beyond their own group.

In Bloom's book about Postville, I don't recall seeing much about love and justice as principles that either German Lutherans or Hasidic Jews lived by.  According to the OT, the Law and the Prophets were built around the principles of love and justice.  In the NT, the kingdom of God should be characterized by love and justice.

Without a major emphasis on love and justice, ethnocentrism and oppression can sneak in and get mixed with worship and prayer.  In Mississippi, this syncretistic mixture of worship and ethnocentrism and oppression was so pervasive that John Perkins said that Mississippi would have been better off without the church.  Unfortunately, I think this is generally true of all of America, North and South.

In defense of the Hasidic Jews.  For centuries, Jews have suffered from anti-Semitism, often much more than nasty words; think murder, slaughter as in the Holocaust, in Russian pogroms.  Jews have two choices: separate or assimilate.  Bloom has chosen assimilation; Hasidic Jews, separation.
Hasidic Jews regard assimilation as "a spiritual holocaust."  So they have chosen extreme separation in an effort to preserve their Jewish identity.

Bloom also had a personal agenda in addition to his professional interest in writing a book.  Could he find a spiritual depth, a religious wisdom that his cultural Judaism lacked?  He didn't find it because spiritual depth wasn't there---religiosity and ritual, but not wisdom.  Bloom may have been looking for biblical love and justice; he found it neither in German Lutheranism nor in Hasidic Judaism.

Nuclear War?

Who is most likely to use nuclear weapons first?  A Korean dictator or an American president?  Contrary to popular opinion, I vote for a U.S. President.  Why?  Because our president would declare it a righteous use as Truman did in World War II against Japan.  Most Americans felt this human horror was, though regrettable, legitimate and necessary.  Is there ever a righteous use of nuclear weapons?  Yes.

Yes, in the same sense, that there was a righteous use of Indian genocide, a righteous use of the slave trade, a righteous use of slavery.  Genocide was declared righteous because it prepared the way for the westward expansion of superior Anglo-Saxon civilization.  The righteous rationalization for the slave trade was that it promoted economic growth in New England; DeWolf said it was all about "Money, money, money, money." Slavery was good because it took Africans out of savagery which was worse than slavery.

Americans, and especially white evangelicals, can righteously rationalize any type of social evil because we have no biblical theology of oppression, no NT theology of justice.

PS

From the August 30, 2017 of Christian Century:

"Woe to the Rich:  There was once an assumption that wealth was not good for the wealthy. . . . wealth harms character and warps the soul.  More recently, a host of behavioral science studies indicate that wealth is bad for a person.  When it comes to vices [does this include presidential lies?], the wealthy are the worst: they evade taxes more than others and give proportionately less to charity.  The stigma against wealth has faded, but 'it's time to put the apologists for plutocracy back on the defensive, where they belong.'"  Washington Post, July 28.

"We ARE the chosen people." So claim Postville Jews.

In Postville, Iowa, a group of Jews have descended on rural Iowa, German Lutheran country, and reopened a closed slaughterhouse , reviving a declining community.  But in the process of economic progress, a clash of cultures took place.

These Jews were ultraorthodox Jews, Hasidic Jews, many from urban New York.  The cultural clash was a religio-cultural clash, unresolvable, because both groups were self-righteous and ethnocentric.  My wife's father came from the German Lutheran clan.

In the OT, Hebrews were actually chosen by God to be a servant people, to bring the Messiah who would bless all peoples, Jew and Gentile.  But somewhere along the way, the divine purpose was hijacked.  The servant people became the superior people, an ethnocentric people, a separate people, a self-righteous people, a dangerous people.

In Luke 11, Jesus describes this perversion of purpose.  He presents the Pharisees as "full of greed. . . . neglected justice and the love of God."

The book Postville was written by a University of Iowa English professor who himself was a Jew, a cultural Jew more than a religious Jew.  Here is how he describes Postville:

"These Hasidim were different from the locals, yes, but they were also different from newcomers anywhere.  Generally, newcomers are eager to assimilate to a new culture.  That's why they came in the first place.  But instead of arriving at the lowest rung of the economic ladder, these Jews had arrived already at the top.  The Jews who settled in Postville came from cities, and many brought with them large sums of money.  They renovated and transformed fine old Postville homes, adding bedrooms, remodeling kitchens, as per kosher requirements, with two sinks, two cupboards, two of everything so that meat and and dairy products never mixed.. . . . they seemed to go out of their way to avoid the locals.  At first, the locals welcomed the Jews, but even the simplest offer was spurned.  The locals quickly discovered that the Jews wouldn't even look at them.  They refused to acknowledge even the presence of anyone not Jewish. . . . To remain pure, the Jews would not allow their children to go to the Postville public schools."

Separateness carried to an extreme, prevented even acts of love.

In some ways, the Hasidic Jews remind me of many white evangelicals---self-righteous and ethnocentric.  Is this part of the reason why 80 percent voted for Trump?

Isolated Incidents or a Social Pattern

A few bad apples with implicit bias or a social institution that oppresses.

The typical white experience in society is much different than the typical black experience; result: we often interpret the same bad event differently.  This even effects interpretations of Scripture; there is no NT theology of justice in white evangelical theology.

Two examples:

1.  A white person who was loving and giving, who wouldn't hurt a flea, was puzzled by BlackLives Matter.  What was going on, who started it and why?  To her, BLM seemed like an over reaction.

2.  A loving black man from Mississippi, a gentle giant, told us the following true story.  As a third grader in a school system that was slowly but grudgingly integrating, his teacher herself discriminated against Phillip.  The very institution designed for a good purpose---education---had itself become a system of oppression.  Phillip was deeply traumatized.  As he retold the story years later as an adult, he was reliving the trauma.

Most whites experience the criminal justice system as a good thing, necessary to preserve law and order, catch and punish criminals.  Most blacks are deeply conflicted about the police who are the frontline of the criminal justice system.  Blacks too want and need law and order.  But what if these same police also engage in widespread racial profiling, harassment and even brutality.

Black Lives Matter is protesting the bad side of police practice.  This is much more than few bad apples; it involves a whole system that oppresses.

Implicit bias training is good, but alone it is not good enough.  We must identify and destroy systems of oppression.  The church must do Jubilee justice.

The Profound Damage Ignorance About Ethnocentrism and Oppression Does.

Mistaken interpretations that journalists, Bible scholars, historians, and politicians make when they don't factor in ethnocentrism and oppression.

1.  Let's begin with journalism.  In a recent USA Today Network/Associated Press Investigation titled "Teens growing up under fire," four reporters combine to report "an epidemic of shooting, smaller cities are bearing the brunt."

In one explanatory paragraph, they state:

"Poverty and a sense of hopelessness in the most violent neighborhoods is a common thread."  They briefly mention job loss due to manufacturing jobs leaving these cities.  Good analysis as far as it goes, but it is only a half truth posing as the whole truth.  There needs to be at least one or two more paragraphs explaining the cumulative impact of past and present economic and racial systems of oppression.  Without this explanation, the typical white reader will conclude this is another case of proving black crime, black dysfunction, black inferiority on public display.

Centuries of white oppression, white ethnocentrism have created and maintain these economic and racial ghettos, thereby this sense of despair and hopelessness.  Read Exodus 9:6.  They got the poverty and hopelessness right; they missed the causal forces of white ethnocentrism and oppression.

2.  Flawed Bible Interpretation

Around 35 years ago, I heard the following report from a Bible scholar at the Christian College where I was teaching sociology.  He had a doctorate in his field; taught NT Greek.

On a sabbatical, he had studied a puzzle in the gospel of John.  The curious phrase "the Jews" occurred 47 times with no explanation or definition of who "the Jews" were.  At end of his study, this scholar reported that he still could not definitively solve this puzzle.

Though I am only a sociologist and an amateur Bible scholar, I had taught the course Gospels and Acts at our prison program.  It was quite clear to me what the solution to this Bible puzzle was.  The answer could be found in chapter 2 of John and confirmed by a cross-gospel comparison.

Chapter 2 includes the story of the cleansing of the sacred Temple; the other gospels place this story near the end of their gospels.  Why did John place this passage so early on in his account?  To make it crystal clear early on who the bad guys were and why?  Why were they the enemies of Jesus Christ?

The Jews had turned the Temple into "a den of robbers"; a religio-politico-economic system of oppression.  "The Jews" were a corrupt elite; this made them the enemies of Jesus Christ.

A little basic research on the gospel of John:

* the 47 reference to "the Jews" were mostly negative.
* there were 14 reference to the Pharisees.
* there were 10 references to the chief priests.
* In chapters 18 and 19, there are 14 reference to the chief priests and Pharisees and 15 references to "the Jews" all mixed together.  Many of the references to "the Jews" occur in or near the Temple.

My conclusion:  The Jews were the religio-politico-economic elite corrupting and controlling the Temple. Or, they were the principalities and powers serving as agents of Satan in the cosmos (evil social order) and the Temple (evil religious order).

Matthew 23 describes in some detail the evil of the scribes and Pharisees; Luke 11:42 describes the Jews as ones who "neglect justice and the love of God."

3.  The ethnocentric and oppressive Puritans

For many American Christians, including an attendee at my CCDA workshop where I presented a severe critique of the Puritans that he admired, the Puritans were a godly and biblical people.  God  and the Bible were freely combined with the ethnocentrism and oppression they had brought with them from England creating a perverse syncretism.  Some of the evils of the Puritans:

* at times they killed whole villages of Indians because they needed more farm land for their increasing numbers.
* they paid money for the scalps of Indians.
* Johnathan Edwards went down to Providence, Rhode Island and picked out a slave for his household.
* the syncretistic pattern they set early on has continued on down to today; white ethnocentrism and oppression are so deep-seated in America that they now seem natural and normal, legit evil.

4.  Yesterday an American president gave a major speech at the UN that was riddled with ethnocentrism and oppression.

* brazenly, blatantly and proudly ethnocentric and oppressive.
* falsely portrayed Americans as victims; actually they have been oppressors, imperialistic.
* Trump is not an aberration; he is 100 percent American in his ethnocentrism and oppression as were many of the 80 percent of evangelicals who voted for him.
* rich, white males are the oppressors, not the victims.
* were some Puritan genes passed down to Trump?

The Unjust Vietnam War and Other Unjust American Wars

In the October 2017 issue of The Atlantic, there is an article titled "How Americans Lost Faith in the Presidency" by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.  Burns and Novick are co-directors of the 10-part PBS documentary series The Vietnam War.  They begin this article with the following quotation:

"More than 58,000 Americans and as many as 3 million Vietnamese had died in the conflict.  America's illusions of invincibility had been shattered [temporarily], its moral confidence shaken.  The war undermined the country's faith in its most respected institutions, particularly the military and the presidency.  The military eventually recovered.  The presidency never has."

Three presidents were involved---Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.  All three had deep doubts about the war, but continued on anyway.  Two quotations from President Johnson:

In 1964, Johnson said, "I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get our."  Johnson again:  "It's damned easy to get in a war, but it's going to be awfully hard to ever extricate yourself if you get in."

Burns and Novick comment:

"Johnson's doubts about whether the war was winnable persisted throughout his presidency.  But he could not countenance being seen as the first commander-in-chief to lose a war."  Presidential pride came before American soldiers' lives.

Burns and Novick end their article in this way:

"The duty of citizens in a democracy is to be skeptical---not to worship our leaders, who have always been fallible, but to question their decisions, challenge their policies, and hold them accountable for their failures."  Should they have added: "refuse to pay taxes for excessive military spending and unwise wars?"

I would like to revisit their statement about 3,000,000 Vietnamese deaths, which is six times more than the tragic 500,000 that have died in the Syrian civil war.  For most Americans the 3,000,000 Vietnamese deaths were a good thing---the evil enemy was dying.  It really doesn't matter that all 3,000,000 Vietnamese were created in the image of God---just like all Americans are.

The American military is an incredibly effective killing machine; American presidents seem compelled to use it every so often to prove a point---that they, Americans, are tough and strong, not that they are wise and caring.  Investing in community development around the world would be a much better use of the military billions.

I would like to recommend a book that is much better than the PBS series on the Vietnam war.  The book is The Wars of America; Christian Views edited by Ronald Wells.  Eight professional Christian historians wrote the book, each an expert on a specific war.  This book is truly a masterpiece; every reader will learn much that is new to them.

Who wrote the chapters in the book?  Mostly Protestants who believe in the just war theory---that under certain condition, war can be just; there was one historian that was a pacifist.  They were honest historians who let the facts speak for themselves.  If Protestants have any bias, it is pro-patriotic---that our founding fathers were Christian, an America first attitude.   So for these eight professional Christian historians to essentially conclude that the majority of America's wars were unjustified is remarkable.  Especially if you conclude, as George Marsden did, that the sacred American Revolution was unjustified, that British tyranny was not bad enough to justify a violent revolution.

Why are most Americans stingy when it comes to spending on social programs, but unquestionably generous on military spending, on wars?

A suggestion for American parents:  demand proof beyond a shadow of a doubt before sending your son or daughter off to war.  If a mistake is made, don't pay taxes to support an unjust war.

Back to the Vietnam war; a question?  Were Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon murders of 58,000 Americans and 3,000,000 Vietnamese since the war was unnecessary and unjust.  To me, needless deaths are the equivalent to murder.

For Christians does blind patriotism take precedence over biblical principles such as love and justice?

Renaming Social Evils With Nice Names

Oppressors are clever propagandists; they rename social evils with nice sounding names.  Some examples:  white ethnocentrism becomes American exceptionalism; white oppression becomes Manifest Destiny; American ethnocentrism and oppression become proudly memorialized in the St. Louis Arch.  Most white Christians because they have no biblical theology of oppression and justice fall for this garbage.

The Puritans literally, but falsely, believed they had a divine right, even a divine assignment, to take "New England" from Native Americans, who were called Canaanites, and establish a Christian Nation.  Following the OT example, Canaanites could legitimately be destroyed.

A divine destiny!  Though often secularized today and therefore stripped of its religious language, this belief in American exceptionalism, of Manifest Destiny is still widespread in 2017.  It is legitimate and good to make white America great again---for rich, white males.

It was the divine will for America to spread from coast to coast, even if this unfortunately involved extermination and enslavement.  It would be slightly uncouth to actually call it ethnocentrism and oppression so we use the nice phrase "Westward expansion" of white civilization.

Jesus faced the exact same issues when he was incarnated as a Jew; the first social evils, national sins he challenged and exposed were religion-ethnocentrism (Luke 4:25-30) and oppression (Luke 4:18).  The Jews actually were a chosen people called to be a servant people who were to bring the Messiah into the world; he would bless all peoples, Jew and Gentile.  The Jews corrupted their high calling; they began to see themselves as a superior people and Gentiles and Samaritans as inferior people.

White Americans were never chosen by God, but they act like they were; actually they have behaved more demonic than God-like.  So white Americans think they are destined, right.  They are self-righteous; there is nothing to repent of; white ethnocentrism and oppression magically become good or at least tragically necessary.  Divinely destined people don't need to repent, restitute and repair.

There is no national movement of repentance, restitution and repair.  Therefore white privilege/whiteness remain intact.  There is even a scholarly field of history called "whiteness" devoted to this phenomenon.

In Luke, in addition to Jesus living among the poor, ministering to the poor, Luke devotes many passages to exposing the rich, often the religious rich, as the oppressors.  The poor had many problems, but Luke/Jesus focused on the rich as THE problem.  In America, white oppressors focus on blacks as THE problem.

All Christian colleges need to teach a course on white ethnocentrism and oppression and the need for white Christians to repent, restitute and repair---do justice.  This course should be team taught by both a sociology prof and a Bible prof.  I never taught such a course in my 34 years of college teaching.  I should have.

Relocation, reconciliation and redistribution (justice); these are John Perkins' famous '3'rs', a strategy for rebuilding poor black communities which he called Christian Community Development.

Repentance, restitution and repair (justice); these are my recent creation that focus on what oppressors need to do.  They have not yet been implemented as such anywhere to my knowledge.  CCD is for the oppressed;  R and R and R is for the oppressor.

Recently I witnessed a TV program on PBS (The Third Rail) structured to promote racial dialogue with the goal of racial understanding.  I myself have participated in similar sessions during my 35 years of living in black communities.  I noticed a common pattern---whites not facing their own deep guilt in creating and maintaining systems of oppression.  Instead they quote stats on black crime, black family dysfunction implying black inferiority.  Instead of white repentance, white restitution and white repair, there was white rationalization after white rationalization, black blame after black blame.

It seems that white self-righteousness runs so deep that it is next to impossible for most whites to take responsibility for centuries of ethnocentrism and oppression.  Fully faced, this would be a terrible guilt to bear.

Successfully Syncretistic or Divinely Pure?

Successfully syncretistic that expands white privilege, that shelters the oppressed or divinely pure that releases the oppressed?

Recently, I heard a prosperity gospel preacher give this principle for success:  "You will only succeed when your assignment becomes an obsession."  He meant personal success, personal prosperity, personal blessing; in essence, the American Dream.  I would rewrite this principle:  "You personally and the church will only succeed when your divine assignment becomes a kingdom obsession."

I taught at Christian colleges for 35 years.  I would guessestimate that 90 percent of the graduates became Christian American successes, became middle and upper class.  Their Christian parents saw them as successes; their churches saw them as successes; their college alumni magazines proclaimed them as prized successful grads.  But many may have been kingdom failures.  Only 10 percent were obsessively focused on the biblical kingdom of God, focused on justice for the poor and oppressed, obsessively releasing the oppressed from their trauma, obsessively doing Jubilee justice, calling out the oppressed cleverly hiding in the church to repentance, restitution, and repair.

Only around 10 percent gave their highest priority to God's kingdom and his justice (Matthew 6:33 NEB).

The worst oppressors, the cleverest oppressors may be church members in good standing, upstanding members of the synagogue.  Check Amos 5:21-24; Isaiah 58; Luke 4:25-30; Luke 11:42; Mt. 23; John 2, the cleansing of the Temple.  Also the American church which tolerated or even participated in Indian genocide and African enslavement.  Some white slave traders professed to be Christian.

Watch out !  The oppressor might be sitting next to you in church praising God for his blessings.  Or, heaven forbid, the oppressor may have crawled inside YOU!  Or the church itself may have sanctified the surrounding system of economic oppression.

By the way, if you are committed to releasing the oppressed do it as a TEAM.  My wife and I have a team ministry; she practices what I preach!  This joke has a large kernel of truth in it; my gift is preaching and teaching; her gift is listening and loving.

Going back to Luke, chapter four.  Some of the oppressed had lost their farms during the last years to a corrupt economic and financial system often centered in the Temple.  But most of the members of the synagogue were themselves religious and ethnocentric against Gentiles---oppressors of a different kind.  Luke 4:25-30.

The Poor: Blessed or Misunderstood?

There are two widely misinterpreted, misunderstood Bible verses regarding the poor:

1.  "You will always have the poor with you, in your midst, in your community."  This is an unfortunate fact of life that you cannot change.  The poor deserve your love and charity, but since most poor are lazy or ethnically inferior there is not much that can be done to change things.

2.  "Blessed are the poor" . The poor are God's favorites; he will take care of them, now or in eternity.

But "Blessed are the poor" is only a meaningless pious platitude if the church ignores, fails to preach and practice, the following related Bible verses.

God asserts that the poor are at the center of his kingdom, that the church should give high priority to ministering among the oppressed poor.  The church should specialize in the following ministries:

1.  Exposing the rich oppressor and certainly not honoring the rich in church.  See James two.  Also Luke 1:53; 3:10-14; 6:24; 8:14; 12:13-34; 16:13-31; 18:18-30; 19:1-10; 19:45-47.  There are far more Bible verses on the dangers and deceit of riches, wealth, possessions, than on demon possession.

2.  Releasing the oppressed, see Isaiah 58:6ff and Luke 4:18-19.

3.  Loving poor, ethnic neighbors as much as God.  See Luke 10.

4.  Incarnating the kingdom of God as justice, Jubilee justice.  See Matthew 6:33 (NEB).  Also Isaiah's six Messianic passages which highlight justice.

Then and only then are the poor blessed; from pious platitude to actual reality.

Shalom,

Lowell Noble

What is Truth---in America?

What is truth in America---biblically, historically and sociologically?  Bits of truth, fragments of truth are being taught as the whole truth, even in Christian colleges, universities and seminaries.

After reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' latest masterpiece on Trump and his deep-seated and dominant ethnocentrism/racism/white supremacy (October 2017, The Atlantic), I pondered again "What is Truth?" or 'How does a person find truth in confused America---biblically, historically, and sociologically?"

Late in life, probably around age 70, Billy Graham discovered an important new biblical truth:

"I have come to see in deeper ways the implications of my faith. . . . I can no longer proclaim the Cross and Resurrection without proclaiming the whole message of the Kingdom [of God] which is justice for all."

This emphasis is supported by Matthew 6:33 (NEB), "God's kingdom and his justice" and by Hebrew scholar Thomas Hanks observation that "Oppression smashes the body and crushes the spirit."

But to my knowledge, Graham never developed, in depth, this all-important part of the gospel.  Graham needed, as I did, a black mentor such as Tom Skinner, Martin Luther King or John Perkins, to help him understand the justice dimension of the biblical gospel.

I needed a second conversion, a justice conversion; my first justification by faith conversion did not include biblical justice.  I also needed 35 years of experience living in black communities.  And I needed three black mentors who had a deep understanding of oppression and justice.  Not all blacks do.

Most white professors of the Bible, history and sociology have not had a second conversion to justice or years of living in a black community or black mentors.  Therefore, their understanding of the Bible, American history and American social problems is flawed, incomplete notwithstanding their doctorates in their fields.  But neither they nor their students know about these flaws.

Coates has written three or four superb articles on white supremacy in America; all reveal a deep understanding of American history, but unfortunately, not the Bible as well.  Theological history is also deeply flawed; Wesley did not add justice to love; the Reformation did not add justice to justification.

The English Bible itself is deeply flawed; justice is largely missing in the NT.   Few American theologians know this nor have they tried to correct this glaring omission.

Biblical spirituality demands a justice component; grace and justice, love and justice, worship and justice, faith and justice.  Rarely do white pastors and churches preach and practice the justice gospel.  Neither do all black churches.

A glaring example of this failure can be found in West Jackson, Mississippi.  I am referring to a three to four square block area bounded by Robinson, Rose, the Parkway and Prentiss streets, not too far from downtown Jackson.   This is a deteriorating area with some boarded up houses and shot shotgun houses.

But in the midst of this community decline stand three well-maintained black churches that are full on Sunday mornings.  Beautiful and full church buildings surrounded by deteriorating housing.

Just to the east of Rose street stand twelve nice Habitat for Humanity houses, visible demonstrations of how to rebuild poor communities.  Just to the west of Prentiss Street is the Perkins Center that specializes in community development.  But the three black churches practice a worship without justice, copying the widespread mistake of most white churches.

Seldom does one find the whole truth in white evangelical scholarship.  A few exceptions:  Divided by Faith, W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet, The Wars of America: Christian Views.

I do not know of a single white evangelical Bible scholar that I can read on a biblical theology of oppression, a NT theology of justice or an integration of the Spirit, the kingdom and justice---Jubilee justice.  This means all teaching of the Bible should cease until these catastrophic omissions are corrected.

Until these omissions are corrected, white evangelicals cannot be relevant to the ethnic poor of America.

GU, the ethnic poor need nothing less than our very best; good is not good enough; in this case the good really is the enemy of the best.

Whether intended or not, the end result of no theology of oppression, no theology of NT justice is continued white supremacy, even on Christian college campuses.  Almost every white person on such campuses would deny they are supporting white supremacy, but by sins of omission they really are doing so.

Ethnic diversity among faculty and students is good, very necessary, but it is only one piece of the solution.  A better, more holistic, Bible is the best.  Ethnic diversity plus a biblical justice that actually releases the oppressed, rebuilds poor communities.  This is the required best.

GU---nothing less than our biblical best.

The White Trump is Negating the Black Obama

In the October 2017 The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates has struck again---with the same quality, brilliance and thoroughness as he has demonstrated in previous Atlantic articles.  His thesis: "Donald Trump's presidency is predicated nearly entirely on the negation of a black president.  And the constituencies he has activated are not going away."

Simply stated, Coates shows that white supremacy is alive and well in modern America; from the beginning of this nation down to the present, racism has always been present.  Blends historical past and current political analysis.  White Trump represents the bold and brash extreme, Biden and Clinton have their serious shortcomings as well, as do most white Americans.  This includes the white church which has not yet confessed, repented, restituted nor repaired the damage done by centuries of white oppression.

A few nuggets from Coates:

"Trump . . . has made the awful [American] inheritance explicit."

"For Trump, it almost seems that the fact of Obama, the fact of a black president, insulted him personally.  Replacing Obama is not enough---Trump has made the negation of Obama's legacy the foundation of his own.  And this too is whiteness. . . . the construct of a 'white race' is the idea of not being a nigger."

"Trump truly is something new---the first president whose entire political existence hinges on the fact of a black president."

"If you tallied only white voters, Trump would have defeated Clinton 389 to 81 in the Electoral College."

"Speaking in 1848, Senator John C. Calhoun saw slavery as the explicit foundation for a democratic union among whites, working or not:  With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black; all the [white] former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals.'"

Coates concludes:

"When W.E.B. Du Bois claims that slavery was 'singularly disastrous for modern civilization' or James Baldwin claims that whites 'have brought humanity to the edge oblivion: because they are white,' the instinct is to cry exaggeration.  But there is really no other way to read the presidency of Donald Trump.  The first white president in American history is also the most dangerous president---and he is made more dangerous still by the fact that those charged with analyzing him cannot name his essential nature, because they are too implicated in it."

Noble comment:  In addition to racial inequality, there is also economic inequality.  When combined, the impact is unbelievably damaging upon all ethnic Others.

The United States As Oppressor in the Philippines

The United States as the oppressor in the Philippines.  Note especially the dramatic difference between the pious prayer by our president and the facts on the ground as reported by The Philippines Reader.

In August of 1994, I, Lowell Noble, spent two and a half weeks in the Philippines teaching Free Methodist pastors and students about social justice, the kingdom of God and community development.  In preparation for the trip, I did some background reading on the history of the Philippines and the U.S. involvement in the Philippines.  I was shocked and shamed as I discovered how Americans had brutalized the Filipino people.

Even though I was a college professor for much of my life, I am now retired, I was ignorant of our treatment of the Filipino people.  Previously, I knew that we had obtained the Philippines during the Spanish American war and after our conquest.  The U.S. had set up a school system and a public health system; after nearly 50 years, we gave the Philippines their independence.  Basically, the history I had been taught made these United States look like the 'good guys.'

]Upon reading The Philippines Reader, which consisted primarily of primary documents, in other words, the actual writings and statements of U.S. and Filipino leaders, I discovered a trail of greed, imperialism, ethnocentrism (false belief that Americans are superior to Filipinos) and oppression on a scale and viscousness  usually associated with a Hitler or a Stalin.

Next an excerpt from a speech by President McKinley to Methodist church leaders on November 21, 1898.  The Spanish had been defeated (largely by Filipino soldiers, not U.S. soldiers); the Filipino people were free from over 300 years of Spanish domination.  McKinley's speech drips with religious piety combined with American ethnocentrism to justify our conquest of the Philippines:

"When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them.  I sought counsel from all sides---Democrats as well as Republicans---but got little help.  I thought first we would only take Manila; then Luzon; then the other islands also.  I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night.

And one night late it came to me this way---I don't know how it was, but it came: (1) that we could not give them back to Spain, that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany, our commercial rivals in the Orient, that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave themselves to themselves, they were unfit for self-government, they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellowmen for whom Christ died.  And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States, and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President."

In January, 1990, a U.S. Senator by the name of Beveridge spoke about U.S. war aims:  our desire for markets for our goods, our need for cheap raw materials and tropical crops, our desire for military bases in the orient, the rivalry with other commercial European powers, and the supposed superior morality of white Anglo-Saxons.

From ethnocentrism to oppression.  How devastating was the U.S. conquest of the Philippines?  The editors of The Philippine Reader summarize the human cost of the war as follows; as you read this account, remember that the OT defines oppression as the crushing, humiliating, animalizing, impoverishing, enslaving or killing of a people:

"How many Filipinos died resisting American aggression?  It is doubtful if historians will ever agree on a figure that is anything more than a guess.  The figure of 250,000 crops up in various works; one suspects it is chosen and repeated in ignorance. . . . Records of the killing were not kept  and the Americans were anxious to suppress true awareness of the extent of the slaughter, in any case, in order to avoid fueling domestic anti-imperialistic protest.  How many died of disease and the effects of concentration camp life is even more difficult to assess.

General Bell, who one imagines might be in as good a position to judge such matters as anyone, estimated in a New York Times interview that over 600,000 people in Luzon alone had been killed or had died of disease as a result of the war.  This estimate given in May 1901 means that Bell did not include the effect of the Panay campaign, the Samar campaign, or his own bloodthirsty Batangas campaign (where at least 100,000 died), all of which occurred after his 1901 interview.  Nor could it include the 'post-war' period, which saw the confinement of 300,000 people in Albay, wanton slaughter in Mindanao, and astonishing death rates in Bilibid Prison, to name but three instances where killing continued.

A million deaths?  One does not happily contemplate such carnage of innocent people who fought with extraordinary bravery in a cause which was just, but is now all but forgotten.  Such an estimate, however, might conceivably err on the side of understatement. To again quote the anonymous  U.S. Congressman, "They never rebel in Luzon anymore because there isn't anybody left to rebel."

General Arthur MacArthur, the father of General Douglas MacArthur, was one of the key designers of the policies to defeat and destroy the Filipino people, mostly innocent civilians.  A General Smith ordered his men to : "kill and burn, kill and burn, the more you kill and the more you burn the more you please me. . . . no time to take prisoners."  When asked to define the age limit for killing, Smith replied, "Everything over ten."  Extermination and concentration camps the order of the day.  The American genocide of Native Americans west of the Mississippi served as the model.

What has happened since the brutal U.S. conquest of the Philippines?

1.  The U.S. government and business elite have allied themselves with the Filipino landowning and political elite with the result that landownership has been more and more concentrated in the hands of a few people and corporations.  The number of landless peasants has increased sharply; poverty and oppression has worsened.  Read Ownership by Charles Avila, a Filipino Catholic priest.  Also read
A Captive Land by James Putzel.
2.  The U.S. invested much more money in the rebuilding of Japan after World War II than it did in the rebuilding of the Philippines.  The Filipino people were promised major assistance from the U.S., but our ally received only a small amount of money.

3.  The U.S vigorously supported a Jubilee type land reform or agrarian reform in Japan, Korea and
Taiwan after World War II; this land reform provided the basis for strong and more equitable economic growth.  Each of these three nations is now quite prosperous with the number of poor sharply reduced.  The U.S. opposed similar agrarian reform in the Philippines; instead it helped crush legitimate attempts by peasants to regain control of their own land.

4.  U.S. multi-national corporations have directed some Filipino agriculture to produce cheap food exports for the United States.  These corporations have made millions of dollars using cheap Filipino labor to do so.

5.  Instead of making the Philippines safe for authentic democracy, the U.S. has made it safe for exploitation.

Is The White American Church Doing More Harm Than Good?

Could it possibly be true that the white American church is doing more harm than good in terms of the social evils of ethnocentrism and oppression?

John Perkins who was born and raised a poor black in Mississippi, now 87, once wrote that Mississippi would have been better off if the church didn't exist.  Mississippi was highly churched in both the black and white communities, but at the same time racism, poverty and oppression continued, unchanged and unchallenged.

It was a church which put white privilege ahead of justice for all.  It had a spirituality without justice.  Shades of Amos 5:21-24 and Isaiah 58!!  Or maybe Matthew 23.  Or Luke 11:42.

Trump is a bad problem, but he is not the real problem; the enormous failures of the white church are THE problem.

Bannon is evil incarnate much of the time (he is right that the U.S. should withdraw from the Middle where we have done far more harm than good), but the white church that puts white privilege ahead of ending systems of oppression is THE real problem.

The Klan and similar organizations are serious problems, but the white church's silence in the face of injustice is THE problem.

The Southern Confederate flag is a problem, but a far worse problem was Northern slave trade often conducted by professed Christians.

There is no NT theology of kingdom of God justice.

There has been 400 year of tragic American ethnocentrism and oppression; the church has not stopped it.

There has been little confession, repentance, restitution, nor repair by the white, self-righteous church.

When will all this stop?  Who will lead the revolution---from love to justice?

Denouncing the lie of white supremacy

As I read the September 13, 2017 issue of CC which contained legitimate and needed editorials and articles condemning white supremacy, I was both impressed and depressed.  Impressed because  CC stance was correct and uncompromising; depressed because it was a tad self-righteous---like the North's emphasis on the evil Southern Confederate flag.  Seldom does the North face up to its own equal evil in being home to the home of most of the slave trade.

Seldom does the American church----evangelical or mainline, Presbyterian or Pentecostal, Mennonite or Methodist---honestly face its own enormous failures both in theology and practice.  As a sociologist, I suspect that most of the white clergy pictured courageously protesting against white supremacy, went home to white privilege.  From protest to privilege; from united in protest on the streets to segregated in privilege at home.

But our failure runs much deeper.  Is it a conspiracy of white privilege, a conspiracy of willful ignorance, or just plain massive biblical ignorance?

Most white church leaders are brilliant and well educated so why have they after 400 years not yet provided a good biblical theology of oppression.  Oppression that crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes, enslaves and kills persons/peoples created in the image of God.  After all, there are 555 references to oppression and its synonyms in the OT, according to Hebrew scholar Thomas Hanks.

Why have white church leaders after 400 years not yet produced a NT theology of justice?  According to Nicholas Wolterstorff, there are 300 dik-stems with meanings of just, justice and justify in the NT.  There is not a single reference to justice in the KJV of the NT, and few in the OT.  Wolterstorff asserts that the English NT has been "dejusticized.  Who will rejusticize the English NT?

There is little white theology that ties the Spirit, the kingdom of God and justice together as a unit as Isaiah does in his six Messianic passages beginning with 9:7 and ending with 61:1-4.  Why has the Holy Spirit been divorced from the kingdom as justice---as Jubilee justice?

These enormous theological failures have left a huge ethical/social vacuum in American society into which rushed white supremacy, whether glaring or quiet.

In my opinion, these theological sins of omission though not as obviously glaring as the sin of white supremacy, a sin of commission, are much worse than the sins of commission that have been in the headlines recently.  I hope a future issue of CC will be devoted to "Denouncing the theological failures of the white church."

In Luke 11:42, Jesus scorches the Pharisees for "neglecting justice and the love of God."  Biblical justice is an act of love.  Both justice and love are action words---do justice, do love.  You are not loving if you are not doing justice.  Warm feelings of love must become actions of justice.

Amos 5:21-24 scorched the Israelites for empty worship, spirituality without justice.  God wants justice to flood the land, to wash away ethnocentrism and oppression.  Trickles of justice, fragments of justice are not adequate to "release the oppressed," (Luke 4:18).  Jubilee style justice is required (Luke 4:19).

What the white American church is now doing is not working.  Doing the same old thing is not the answer.  Possibly a good way to keep the Sabbath Day holy would be to do justice.  How about after Communion, after worship, everyone over ten is fed a large bowl of chili, given a hammer, and as a group the church spends the next four hours building a Habitat for Humanity house.  Bring in a portable swing set, put up a portable plastic fence to keep the kids corralled.

The "old folks" who can't work could sing songs of justice set to the tune of Amazing Grace every hour on the hour during a 10 minute break.  They could write their own verses and then sing them to the Habitat crew.  Some sample verses:

Amazing justice, how sweet the sound

   to the ears of the oppressed.

When floods of justice cover the land

   Then the oppressed will be blessed.

From oppressed to blessed, 

   love and justice combine.

To create, shalom sublime.

A hurricane named oppression

   has ravaged this land for years.

The church must lead with justice and love

   to take away the tears.

The Social Hurricane Named WHITE

For 400 years, the white social hurricanes of ethnocentrism and oppression have ravaged this land from sea to shining sea.  Physical hurricanes last a day or two, ravage the landscape; then we quickly move into recovery mode.  When social hurricanes continue for 400 years, its very hard to recover.

For the next 400 years, the Spirit-anointed American evangelical church, colleges and seminaries must release torrents of justice to cleanse and renew America---floods of Jubilee justice, of kingdom of God justice.  At this point, I see only an occasional burst of trickles of justice, fragments of justice.

Instead of confessing, repenting, restituting and repairing, most whites, including most Christian whites, are busy blaming black inferiority, black dysfunction or savage Indians as the THE problem.  Rather than doing justice, whites talk about white American exceptionalism, white Manifest Destiny, white Christian nation.  All this preserves white dominance, white superiority, white privilege, white self-righteousness.  This type of white Christian chooses to ignore many Scriptures such as Exodus one, Exodus 6:1-9, Leviticus 25, Nehemiah 5, Isaiah 58, etc. etc.

The white-caused social hurricanes of ethnocentrism and oppression continue on 365 days a year, decade after decade, century after century.  There is an occasional outburst of energy to change things such as the abolitionist movement to end slavery; freedom was its rally cry but it did not dig deep on the requirements of justice.  After a brief burst of success, neo-slavery roared back in the form of segregation, economic sharecropping, prison gangs and lynching.  Not much of an improvement over slavery.  Freedom without justice does last long.

For the most part, the white American church has either tolerated or even participated in religio-cultural ethnocentrism and economic oppression.  The DeWolf klan, America's premier slave traders, said they did it for "Money, money, money, money, money. . . ."  They attended the Episcopal church; an Episcopal church was built on top of a slave castle where they held slaves until a slave ship arrived.  Over a 40 year period, 40 out of 44 Lutheran churches moved out of the city of Detroit.  A.W. Tozer and his church moved out of the south side of Chicago because poor blacks had moved in; this black community was "irreparably damaged" in Tozer's eyes.

Can the reader tell the difference between a trickle and a torrent, a sprinkle and a downpour?  I see across the country many white Christians who think they are torrent Christians but in reality they are only trickle Christians when it comes to justice.  Why?  They have no biblical theology of oppression, no NT theology of justice.  So they are fighting the battle with one hand tied behind their back.

I have heard John Perkins say the following many times:

"Justice is an economic issue.  Justice is a stewardship issue.  Justice is an ownership issue.  Justice has to do with access to the resources of God's creation."  In America, whites own most of the wealth.  In America, most Christian whites put their prosperity ahead of their stewardship.  In America, justice is primarily a theological abstraction.

If you want more information on ethnocentrism and systems of oppression, I recommend that you read The New Jim Crow and The Hidden Cost of Being African American.  Yes, the social hurricane named WHITE is still ravaging the social landscape even today.  It is much more than a Southern issue, a Confederate flag issue.

Some conclusions:

1.  What is my definition of WHITE?  A broad definition:  all whites, male and female, including poor whites and those formerly among the oppressed such as the Irish who now identify as white because they can enjoy the privileges of being white.  A narrower definition: rich, Anglo-Saxon males, the ones with power.

2.  Natural hurricanes usually last one or two days, longer if you include flooding.  But rather quickly the affected area moves to recovery mode, a long and difficult period.  But in the 400 year social hurricane there is no recovery period; or you have to try to recover during the hurricane.  An impossible task.

3.  It is the WHITE'S responsibility to end whiteness dominance, not the responsibility of the oppressed.  They already have their hands full surviving, recovering.  They shouldn't have to carry a double burden, surviving AND teaching whites.  WHITES, stand up and be a man, a woman, repent, restitute and repair.

4.  Ethnocentrism and oppression were ravaging Palestine at the time of Jesus.  Ethnocentric priests ran the Temple; Jesus called the operation of the Temple "a den of robbers."  In other words, a religious institution characterized as economic oppression.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus appropriately made attacking and exposing Jewish ethnocentrism (supposed superiority of Jews over inferior Gentiles and Samaritans), CENTRAL in his ministry, not a side issue.  See Luke 4:25-30.  He also called for the release of the oppressed, for the ending of systems of oppression by practicing Jubilee justice.  See Luke 4:18-19.

Jesus reinterpreted two true OT stories about Elijah and Elisha to demonstrate that God's love and grace was equally available to despised Gentiles.  Out of deep gratitude for this Bible teaching, the Nazareth Jews tried to kill Jesus on the spot.  Teaching ALL the Bible is not always popular, even among bible-believing white evangelicals.  Possibly this is why there is no evangelical theology of oppression, no NT theology of justice.

Top 20 Books About Oppression, Justice and the Kingdom of God.

The following 20 books, mostly by Christian authors, that have influenced my thinking about oppression, justice and the kingdom of God, first biblically, then historically and finally sociologically.  To get me started down this road, I first needed a second conversion to social oppression and social justice issues following Martin Luther King's assassination in April 1968.  Next 35 years living in two black communities---one in the North (Jackson, Michigan) and one in the South (Jackson, Mississippi) greatly expanded my thinking on the above issues.  Finally, I was exceedingly fortunate to have 12 years of mentoring by John Perkins after my retirement in 1994 from teaching sociology and anthropology at Spring Arbor University.

1.  The Challenge of Bible Translations, Steven Voth, chapter 14 on Justice and Righteousness where one page lists the data on justice or the lack of justice in various language translation.  English translations are very weak on justice in the NT when compared to Spanish, French, Latin and German translations.  Wolterstorff asserts that English NT translations have been "dejusticized."

2.  Dream With Me, John Perkins.  A third grade dropout, creator of Christian Community Development, Perkins has authored 17 books and received 13 honorary doctorates.  This is his 2017 memoir.

3.  At Home With The Poor, Jean Thomas.  Thomas, a Haitian, had a four year internship under John Perkins in the late 1970s.  For the past 35 years he has been practicing Christian Community Development in rural Fond-des-Blancs, Haiti.  A case where the disciple has done better than his master.

4.  God So Loved The Third World: The Biblical Vocabulary of Oppression, Thomas Hanks.  The subtitle describes the essence of the book.  There is little theology on the biblical teaching on oppression so this fine study by a Hebrew scholar is of great importance.  Oppression crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes, enslave and kills; traumatizes---creates PTSD or PTSS.

5.  Shalom, Perry Yoder.  This fine OT Mennonite scholar puts oppression in the context of justice and shalom.

6.  The Wars of America: Christian Views, edited by Ronald Wells.  Eight professional historians, each an expert in the war they discuss, show that most American wars were not justified.  George Marsden proves that British tyranny was not bad enough to justify a violent revolution.

7.  The Very Good Gospel, Lisa Sharon Harper.  She probes the social dimensions of the gospel, something most white evangelicals are weak on; in the process, she reveals her own searing experiences as a black.

8.  Divided by Faith, Michael Emerson.  Emerson shows that white evangelicalism, an overly individualized faith, has not brought about racial healing; instead it has divided America.

9.  Inheriting the [Slave] Trade, DeWolf.  Modern descendants of the DeWolf klan discover the enormous evil of the northern slave trade.  The 'great folks' were actually enormously evil.

10.  All books by Jim Wallis.  A genius at applying biblical principles to modern American society.

11.   Dear White Christians, Jennifer Harvey.  The well meaning reconciliation has largely failed; it has failed to address oppression/justice issues.

12.  The Scandalous Message of James, Elsa Tamez.  Tamez, a rare expert in OT oppression, reinterprets James through the lens of oppression, the rich oppressing the poor, the widows and orphans as oppressed, not afflicted.

13.  Walking With the Wind, John Lewis.  An insider's mature reflection on the civil rights movement.

14.  W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet, Edward Blum.  Contrary to most scholars of Du Bois who see him as a secular person, Blum sees Du Bois as deeply spiritual because of his understanding of and commitment to justice.

15.  Reforging the White Republic, Edward Blum.  Blum is an expert on the 1865-1900 period of American history which he sees as the reestablishment of white power in the South.  Moody began this by calling a reconciliation meeting of northern white pastors and southern white pastors in St. Louis.  Moody did not try to bring about reconciliation between northern white pastors and southern black pastors.

16.  Tally's Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men in Washington, D.C., Eliot Liebow.  A 1960s anthropological classic giving an inside look at what was really going on in the lives of these men, not the widespread stereotypes of them.

17.  The Politics of Rich and Poor, Kevin Phillips.  A conservative Republican partly responsible for Reagan's election shares his profound disillusionment with the 1980s.

18.  Any book about Ella Baker, the second most important person in the 1960s civil rights movement.

19.  Any book by David Shipler who relies on a combination of scholarship and numerous interviews with the poor and ethnics of America.

20.  Google the blog by yours truly, "Lowell Noble's Writings."  For biblical, historical and sociological perspectives on oppression and justice issues which are badly neglected and misunderstood by white evangelicals.

Three Recommended Experiences

1.  Haiti Mission Trip to Haiti Christian Development Fund ministry in rural Fond-des-Blancs directed by Jean Thomas, the Haitian disciple of John Perkins.  Represents 35 years of CCD; BEST PRACTICES of CCD.  Guide: Cheri Lane,  cheri.marie.lane@gmail.com

2.  CCDA weeklong April Immersion in Chicago.  An intensive on BEST PRACTICES in urban ministry.

3.  A CCDA fall national convention.