Any racial progress since King?

Has the US reduced racial tension over the past fifty years?  Some say yes; some say no.

Ask a thousand blacks and you might get a thousand different answers.  A black Iowa doctor might answer with a resounding yes; an incarcerated black in a Mississippi prison might answer with a resounding no.

Ask a thousand whites the same question and you might receive two thousand stupidities.  A seventy-five year old Iowa farmer might answer much different than a twenty year old Des Moines youth who went to school with blacks.  Even experts disagree how much racial progress has been made, if any.

Significant progress in civil rights, but little progress in economic rights.  A person could even quote Martin Luther King against himself; in his famous 1963, I have a Dream speech, he was reasonably optimistic.  This speech was quickly followed up with civil rights and voting rights legislation.  So this is evidence of progress.

But the very same Martin Luther King in December, 1967, said he saw his own dream turn into a nightmare because he saw poor blacks living on a island of poverty in the midst of the nation brimming with prosperity.  So he saw little evidence of economic progress for his fellow blacks.

Personally, I would say signs of real deep progress are few and far between.  There has been more continuity between systems of oppression than there has been abolishment of systems of oppression.

I wish to stress this is not due primarily to the failure of black leaders; we could have had a dozen Martin Luther Kings, a dozen John Lewis, a dozen John Perkins without much more progress.  The real question is where were white leaders on justice; sitting comfortably in white suburbs or busy rebuilding black ghettos?  We need courageous white pastors, white churches who move beyond arrogant self righteousness to repentance, restitution and repair.

Damage precedes and causes disfunction

Oppression damage causes individual, family, community and cultural disfunction.  Cultural inferiority is not the cause of cultural dysfunction; even among the experts there is much discussion of cultural dysfunction apart from the systems of oppression that cause such dysfunction.

If you see someone with a black eye, your first question usually is who hit you, not why did you hit yourself?

The very definition of PTSD is "outside force or trauma", not inner weakness or lack of willpower.

When a physical hurricane destroys the housing in a whole community, such as with hurricane Katrina, we usually don't blame the residents for destroying their own homes.  But when a social hurricane, such as slavery, segregation, share cropping, prison gangs, lynching, hits the Mississippi Delta, we often blame poor blacks.  If we visit the Delta decades later and see the dysfunction, we  blame the residents saying this proves blacks are inferior: we blame the victim, not the oppressor.  The church's response to hurricane Katrina was excellent; the church's response to the social hurricane in the Delta has been severely deficient over the decades.

In 1967 President Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to study the black ghetto and its violence.  Who and what caused it?  The largely white commission surprised everyone by reporting that white institutions were responsible.  White  oppression caused the ghetto dysfunction.  This was a rare and bold decision for any largely white group.

But after a few years most whites including most white churches essentially ignored and rejected this accurate conclusion.  White churches did not engage in massive repentance, massive restitution or massive repair of the ghettos.  Whites quickly reassumed their supposed superior role, their righteousness.  How could they possibly be the oppressor?

Rarely do white scholars see the close connection between oppression damage such as PTSD and cultural dysfunction.  If there is any expertise, it is either in the area of dysfunction or oppression, not both.

J.D. Vance, himself an Appalachian white, represents expertise in Appalachian white culture and its massive individual, family, community, and cultural dysfunction.  Hillbilly Elegy is a masterpiece in describing a culture in crisis, but little is said about the system of oppression that played a large role in creating this culture in crisis.

Matthew Stewart's expertise lies in describing a system of oppression which creates individual, family, community, and cultural dysfunction.  His article, "The Birth of a New Aristocracy" can be found in the June, 2018 Atlantic Magazine.  Here he writes like a secular prophet exposing the political and economical rule by the rich-the upper 10 percent of American society.  They rule at the expense of the other 90 percent of the population-all the rest of us.  According the Stewart, all the rest of us are either in stagnation, or in decline, or in increasing poverty.  The gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow.

Rich, white males have created a system of political and economic oppression rigged by the rich for the rich.  This was even true in 1776.  Most of the founding fathers were rich, white males.  Some of them like Washington and Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves.  So from 1776 to 2018 there has been continuity of rule by the rich.

This rule by the oppressive rich has included Appalachian whites, poor blacks and all the rest of us to one degree or another.

So Vance's fine book tells half of the story-the dysfunction, PTSD.  Stewart's fine article about oppression and exploitation by the rich tells the other half of the story.  So a person cannot read either Vance's book or Stewart's article alone and get the whole story.  One must read both, the book and the article, and then do some of your own analysis before you will see how the system of oppression causes the culture and crisis.

There are two authors that have done a fairly good job of combining oppression and dysfunction, something that is rarely done.  I would recommend Michelle Alexander's  The New Jim Crow.  I would also recommend Joy De Gruy's book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.

Making Germany great again?

To use modern terminology, when Hitler came on the scene in Germany in 1933, he promised to make Germany great again.  This was an appealing promise for Germans because they, a proud nation, had lost WWI, and were humiliated in the Peace Treaty.  So, when Hitler promised to make Germany great again, most Germans, including most Christian Germans, believed what he was saying.  But of course at first, Hitler did not say this did not include the Jews.  So the question has to be asked, "Making Germany great again?" for whom?  It was only for those who were pure German.

In a devotional entitled, "Spiritual Fathers", historian Richard Pierard, pens a devotional titled, "Choosing the Hard Path".  He writes about the German churches' early approval of Hitler's agenda:

"Most Germans welcomed Adolf Hitler's appointment as German chancellor on January 30, 1933.  Few were more jubilant than Protestant church leaders, one of whom declared, "The swastika flags around the altar radiate hope."  The Protestant press in 1933 was full of editorials affirming that Germany's honor would be vindicated.  The humiliation of the lost world war would be left behind.  Old moral values of authority, family, home, and church would be restored.  The stagnant economy would move once again."

Compare this quotation with the advertisement in the June, 2018 Christianity Today titled, "Reclaiming Jesus" signed by twenty-one Christian leaders such as, John Perkins,
Barbara Williams-Skinner, Tony Campolo, Ron Sider and Jim Wallace.
Their opening paragraph reads:

"We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis for moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches.  We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake."

I agree with the six statements of belief and rejection that follow. I would add one more statement of  belief and rejection:
1. The kingdom of God is all about justice--a Jubilee type justice that releases the oppressed.
2. We reject the heresy that America should be ruled by rich, white males, that 10 percent of America's population should oppress and exploit the other 90 percent of our population.

Black--White Dynamics in the United States

The following are my top three recommendations for reading on black-white dynamics in the
United States, especially on the white domination and damage to blacks from 1607 to 2018:

1.  An article by philosopher/historian, Michael Stewart, in the June, 2018 Atlantic, titled
"The Birth of a New Aristocracy".  Or The Rise of the Rule of the Rich.  Or The Oppressive Rule
by Rich, White Males.  The Stewart article is summarized by this one sentence: "The gilded future of the top 10 percent - in the end of opportunity for the rest of us."

This article is about the evil economics of the rich, but it also includes a powerful paragraph on the intersection of race and class in the crucial area of wealth distribution.  Stewart's family clan was once close allies with the Rockefeller clan until they had a falling out.  So Stewart, himself, comes from the rich, white male 10%, but, in this article, he becomes a secular prophet to his own kind.

2.  Next is a book titled, "Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome", by Joy DeGruy, a black social worker, who understands far better than most the deep and extensive damage centuries of white oppression have done to black individuals, families, communities and culture.  She moves beyond supposed black inferiority and black dysfunction to PTSD or, as she prefers, PTSS.

3.  I highly recommend the book, "The New Jim Crow", by Michelle Alexander, a brilliant, black, woman lawyer.  This book is about the massive and unjust mass incarceration of young black and Hispanic males over the last twenty years.  Her analysis combines The War on Drugs, racial profiling, and police brutality.  It is also about white systems of oppression in the U.S. from slavery to segregation, to mass incarceration.  These systems of oppression have even been legalized, sanctified by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Alexander rightly asserts that America never really ends systems of oppression, though on the surface, it appears to do so, it merely redesigns and disguises them.  At first Alexander, herself, was deceived by the subtleties of the system of mass incarceration as were many civil rights organizations.

Now a little historical commentary to put the above reading in context.
In the early 1600's, a slave ship dropped a few slaves off at Jamestown.  At that time, there was no slave law in Virginia, so the first slaves were made into indentured servants-short term, semi-slaves.

Soon tobacco became a good cash crop for Virginia colonists.  It could be sold in Europe.  One problem: growing and processing tobacco required lots of cheap labor in order to be profitable.  By 1660, white Virginians had turned black individuals into life time slaves.  The problem was solved.
Greed and economics drove the creation of black slavery.  It wasn't race or racism that created slavery.  Race/racism came later to justify slavery.

Next a little biblical perspective from Luke 4:18-19 and 4:25-30:
The Gospel, according to Luke, begins with a strong economic emphasis with major themes being the poor, the oppressed and Jubilee Justice.  The economic poor became a primary focus in Luke.  The economic oppressed, as well, with orders "to release the oppressed".  Two chapters later, Jesus makes the rich another primary focus: in Luke 6:24, Luke yells out, "Woe to the rich".  His marching orders for the church were to do Jubilee Justice; specifically this meant to free slaves, cancel debts, and restore land.

In sermon B, 4:25-30, Jesus confronts a second social evil.  This was ethnocentrism, not racism.  Ethnocentrism was the supposed cultural superiority of the Jews over the Gentiles.  Ethnocentrism is based on culture not biology.  Its a cousin to racism in its dynamics, but it is different from racism.  There is no biological racism in the Bible.

When Jesus confronted the Nazareth Jews about their religiously based ethnocentrism, they tried to kill him on the spot.

Most American social problems have multiple causes.  Seldom is there one cause-class or race or gender.  Instead think class and race and gender.  Think rich and white and male.  The founding fathers were rich and white and male.  The ones they oppressed were poor and black and women so the ones they oppressed were triply oppressed.

Most of the 10 percent Stewart writes about are rich and white and male.

A 2018 Secular Profit for America

Listen carefully!  Philosopher/historian, Matthew Stewart, has something important to say.

When the rich rule, the rest of us stagnate, decline or become poor.

In an article in the June, 2018 Atlantic, Matthew Stewart wrote, "The birth of a New Aristocracy."
"The gilded future of the top 10 percent--and the end of opportunity for everyone else."

Since Stewart is a secular prophet, he doesn't use the religious language of an Amos, Isaiah or Jeremiah, but to me, his message is about oppression, justice and judgement.  Stewart's conclusions approximate those of Amos, Isaiah or Jeremiah.

To use the phrasing of the ethicist, D.T., "The system is rigged."  And rigged by and for the rich 10 percent and against, in varying degrees, the other 90 percent.  For some of the 90 percent, they remain economically stagnant; for others, they are in decline.  For others, they experience exploitation/oppression.

The American church has not, by and large, risen up as a religious prophet, so God called a secular prophet--a very good one who knows how to use data to do analysis, to reveal systems at work that most of us don't see and to paint the larger picture which most of us miss.

My grandfather purchased the Noble family farm in 1896.  My father was born in 1891.  Neither one killed any Iowa Indians to obtain the family farm, but fifty years earlier, some Iowans did so, or drove Indians out of the state. My father benefited from an oppressive system that gave him access to rich Iowa farmland.  My father was a knowledgeable farmer, he worked hard, but he still benefitted from the system that oppressed Indians, going way back to the founding fathers, even the Puritans.

Many Ivy League University graduates, who now dominate the 10 percent, would protest about being portrayed as oppressors.  They would say they studied hard, worked hard, and earned their high incomes, but Stewart shows the System has been rigged in their favor.

Now some quotations from Stewart's article:
"The meritocratic class has mastered the old trick of consolidating wealth and passing privilege along at the expense of other people's children.  We are not innocent bystanders to the growing concentration of wealth in our time.  We are the principal accomplices in a process that is slowly strangling the economy, destabilizing American politics, and eroding democracy.  Our delusions of merit now prevent us from recognizing the nature of the problem that our emergence as a class represents.  We tend to think that the victims of our success are just the people excluded from the club.  But history shows quite clearly that, in the kind of game we're playing, everybody loses badly in the end."

"We're a well-behaved, flannel-suited crowd of lawyers, doctors, dentists, mid-level investment bankers, M.B.A.s with opaque job titles, and assorted other professionals--the kind of people you might invite to dinner.  In fact, we're so self-effacing, we deny our own existence.  We keep insisting that we're "middle class"."

"If you are starting at the median for people of color, you'll want to practice your financial pole-vaulting .  The Institute for Policy Studies calculated that, setting aside money invested in "durable goods" such as furniture and a family car, the median black family had net wealth of $1700 in 2013, and the median Latino family had $2,000, compared with $116,800 for the median white family.  A 2015 study in Boston found that the wealth of the median white family there was $247,500, while the wealth of the median African American family was $8.  That is not a typo.  That's two grande cappuccinos.  That and another 300,000 cups of coffee will get you into the 9.9 percent."

You may want to compare these quotations with Jeremiah 6:13-14, Jeremiah 7, Amos 5:21-24,
Isaiah 58, and James 5:1-6.

Now more quotations from Stewart:
"Money may be the measure of wealth, but it is far from the only form of it.  Family, friends, social networks, personal health, culture, education, and even location are all ways of being rich, too.  These nonfinancial forms of wealth, as it turns out, aren't simply perks of membership in our aristocracy.  They define us."

"We are the people of good family, good health, good schools, good neighborhoods, and good jobs.  We may want to call ourselves the "5Gs" rather than the 9.9 percent.  We are so far from the not-so-good people on all of these dimensions, we are beginning to resemble a new species."

"Let us count our blessings: Every year, the federal government doles out tax expenditures through deductions for retirement savings (worth $137 billion in 2013); employer-sponsored health plans ($250 billion); mortgage-interest payments ($70 billion); and, sweetest of all, income from watching the value of your home, stock portfolio, and private-equity partnerships grow ($161 billion).  In total, federal tax-expenditures exceeded $900 billion in 2013.  That's more than the cost of Medicare, more than the cost of Medicaid, more than the cost of all other federal safety-net programs put together.  And--such is the beauty of the system--51 percent of those handouts went to the top quintile of earners, and 39 percent to the top decile."

As a sociologist I long ago discovered how difficult it is for the average white American to think sociologically.  To think in terms of social systems.  We almost, inevitably, revert back to individuals, individual progress, and individual responsibility.  The systems of evil remain invisible to many of us.  So Matthew Stewart will help you bring Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah up into 2018 and make them relevant.

A final thought.  You reject these truths at your peril.  The scriptures teach us again and again that people who reject truth, fail to repent, fail to do justice, sooner or later face a judgement in which they lose it all.

P.S.
The historical past does haunt the sociological present.  The following chart illustrates how it can happen:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18TPSZWH16lHPpnaSg8OC2hO2wQ4R_SPV/view?usp=sharing

Inferior or overcomer?

When a white person uses the terms poverty and oppression to describe a Haitian or a black American, are these terms heard as implying inferiority?  Does the term oppression, a widely used biblical term, need a brief explanation?  The French, Americans, Papa Doc, Baby Doc, and the rich have oppressed Haitians and robbed the poor of the resources to make a decent living.  Biblically, oppression crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes, enslaves, and kills persons created in the image of God.

In Joy Degruy's book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, she comments about African Americans:
"So, who and what are we?  If we are to believe what the dominant society would seemingly like us to believe, the lies the promulgate, we are stupid, criminal, unmotivated, lazy, underachieving, immoral, and undisciplined . . . in a word, inferior.  History reveals a very, very different story.

African Americans are a strong people, a seemingly infinitely resilient people.  We have a long history of enduring and persevering through the severest trials.  Our ancestors endured slavery and persevered through Jim Crow.  Evidence of these qualities can be seen today through our struggle for civil rights and our continuing pursuit of a level playing field.

We are an industrious people.  We have built communities under seemingly impossible circumstances.  During the Great Depression, when the entire country was under enormous duress, we managed to care for one another with fewer resources than even the poorest whites.  Families gathered together, usually in churches, to help sustain large numbers of blacks and see them through those extremely tough times.

We are a creative people.  Through slave times and the oppressive decades that followed, we established a distinctive culture replete with new language, names, customs, and behaviors.  We have invented our own games, foods, music, art, and fashions.  Many of us have managed to carve out a prosperous existence from what at time amounted to society's scraps.

We are a just and forgiving people.  Think about it.  Despite the relentless oppression under which blacks have lived since slavery, there has been no large-scale, organized, retaliatory terrorism fueled by hatred or vengeance.  We have demonstrated time and again that while we can courageously fight for justice, we are not crippled with hatred and rage, proving ourselves to be among the most magnanimous of people.

We are a spiritual, loving, and hopeful people.  It is amazing to me that after all the work done to dominate, diminish and destroy us, after centuries of the most vile and horrific abuses meant to break our spirit and will, we still have faith in God.  It is a tribute to our fundamental decency that we still have a love for humanity.  It is a testament to our fortitude that we still can hope and dream.

These are some of the components of our true nature.  We, as a people, seem to have forgotten that this is who and what we are.  We seem to ave forgotten our own nobility.  We have forgotten our own greatness.  Perhaps many of us have never known!  This is not surprising, given all the time, money, and energy spent over centuries to convince us to accept the degraded status imposed upon us.  Whatever the case, it is vital that we collectively regain this knowledge so we can take our rightful place in the world community.  It is crucial that we come to understand ourselves and have that understanding permeate us to our very ore, for such a deep understanding will make healing from our wounds that much more complete."

PTSS, History and Healing

The following ideas and quotations come from the book, "Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome", by
Dr. Joy Degruy, a black social worker:

"The first step to healing is to know what is in need of healing.  Knowledge of your history is a key to establishing good mental, emotional and physical health.  Any trip to the doctor will illustrate why it is important to know your history when seeking wellness.  Doctors always require that you fill out a form that asks you about your medical history and to the best of your knowledge your family's medical history.  This information is vital to the doctor in understanding the state of your existing health.  Knowing your history is a necessary key to knowing yourself, and it is precisely for this reason that I wrote the book: to help us understand who we were as a people and how the past has influenced our present state of being and the people we have become."  page 211

"During a visit to France, I saw early renderings of the Statue of Liberty replete with chains, so I was rather looking forward to engaging park staff in a dialogue about the monument in its present chainless form."

"The artist, Bartholdi, wanted to build a colossal monument to liberty holding chains in protest of the political repression in his own country and in recognition of the end of the Civil War in 1865 and with it the official end of slavery in America, but Bartholdi was met with opposition by American leadership who complained that the presence of the chains placed too much emphasis on slavery.  The statue was eventually changed to show here clutching something in her left hand."

"I wondered if all the rangers working as tour guides at the Statue of Liberty had this information and why there was such ambivalence about there being a minimal mention of the chains or their being associated with the end of slavery.  How can this edifice, I thought, that so proudly represents freedom and liberty be stripped of any association with the end of human bondage for millions of Africans--Africans who had literally chained and shackled?"

"Once again, America has affectively erased from public view and public conscience our history--black history--American history."

"Perhaps it is shame that causes America to hide the shackles, to covet the silence, to keep secret our nation's brutal past, troubled present and clouded future."

"Frederick Douglass, a formally enslaved abolitionist, knew all to well his country's great disgrace:
"At last our proud Republic is overtaken.  Our National Sin has found us out.  The National Head is bowed down, and our face is mantled with shame and confusion.  No distant monarch, offended at our freedom and prosperity, has plotted our destruction: no envious tyrant has prepared for our next his oppressive yoke.  Slavery has done it all.  Our enemies are those of our own household."

"I had been invited to give a lecture on my research at the University of Chicago.  After my lecture, standing before me, was a frail, dignified, black woman.  After a few minutes of silence she slowly lifted her hands, reached out to me, took both of my hands in hers', and pulled me in close so that she could look directly at me.  She smiled at me and paused before she spoke.  And although she only said a few words, I will never forget them: "I have waited for you my whole life, now I can die."

PTSS stands for Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.  So what happened to this older black woman was Joy had kind of spelled out a version of black history and black dignity that this black woman had never heard.  She had lived all of her life with the shame of being labeled inferior.  So Joy had come along and dignified blacks so that brought an immeasurable healing to this old, black woman; now she could die.

Evangelical Failures in South Africa

The following quotations come from an article titled, "Evangelical Witness in South Africa"; this was taken from an article in Transformation Magazine (January-March, 1987, Volume 4, #1).

Quote: "We realized that our theology was influenced by American and European missionaries, with political, social and class interests which were contrary or even hostile to both the spiritual and social needs of the people in South Africa."

Quote: "We wish to confess that our evangelical family has a track record of supporting and legitimating oppressive regimes here and elsewhere."

Quote: "This crisis of faith is caused by the dilemma by being oppressed and being exploited by people who claim to be Christians, especially those who claim to be born again."

Quote: "What this dualism has done is that one can live a pietistic spiritual life and still continue to oppress, exploit, and dehumanize people."

Quote: " Those we thought were the ones who were born again and reconciled to God turned out to be the worst racist oppressors and exploiters."

Quote: "Whites can remain racists who undermine and dehumanize blacks and still be regarded as fantastic Christians."

The following are Lowell Noble's conclusions:

The Reformation revived the biblical doctrine of justification, but tragically the Reformation divorced justification from justice leaving the western church with a spirituality without justice.  When justice is missing, oppression runs rampant.

So what we badly need is a second Reformation, a Reformation that blends justification with justice, spirituality with justice.

Who will lead the way in creating this second Reformation?

Extreme poverty in Haiti

The following is a description of extreme poverty in rural Fond-des-Blancs, Haiti, in the early 1980's.
Four measures of extreme poverty are: water, food, education, and medical care.  In the early 1980's,  Fond-des-Blancs had no clean water, children were dying of malnutrition, little education, and almost no medical care.

The first request from the people of Fond-des-Blancs was for clean water.  So the Haiti Christian Development Fund told the Fond-des-Blancs community that HCDF would supply the pipe to bring spring water down to the road if the people would supply the labor.  Soon Fond-des-Blancs had a good supply of clean, accessible water.

Thirty-five years later, HCDF is providing quality education for fifteen hundred students.  HCDF is providing a school lunch for fifteen hundred students with a farming project providing most of that food.  The Catholic church and the Kellogg Foundation are providing quality medical care for the Fond-des-Blancs community.

It may take a generation, but Christian Community Development can slowly but surely end extreme poverty.

Slavery by another name

Historian Douglas Blackmon wrote a book titled "Slavery by another Name".  After the Civil War, after the slaves were freed, the South quickly replaced slavery with: segregation, share cropping, prison gangs, and lynching--a combination as bad as slavery.  Is there a kinder and gentler form of slavery in place today?  Such as low wage jobs?

The law of the land and slavery have taken many twists and turns throughout American history.  In 1607, blacks were indentured servants.  But by 1660, in Virginia, black slavery was legal.  Legal slavery continued on until 1863.  From 1863, to the present, physical slavery has been illegal in the United States.

George and Martha Washington, together, owned 300 slaves legally.  If one of their slaves ran away, the sheriff could hunt the slave down and return the slave to the owner.  The sheriff did not arrest the owner for owning a slave.

Fast forward, it is now illegal to own a single slave.  We changed the law.  In fact, the US law is stricter than the Old Testament sabbatical law which required that slaves be freed every seven years.
The US law, no slaves period.

The American church should continually be pushing to make the law of the land more just.  Is it just to pay a poverty wage to a person who works full-time?  The Seattle city council says no.  It recently passed an ordinance requiring a living wage--$15/hour--be paid.  So now, in Seattle, a poverty wage, which might be considered a modern form of slavery, will be illegal in Seattle.

Will the unending struggle for freedom and justice ever end?

In the 2015 Atlantic magazine, there is an excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates titled "Letter to my Son".
At the end of the Atlantic excerpt, Coates urges his son, Samori, whose name means struggle, to continue the unending struggle for freedom and justice in America even though there is little prospect for victory.  "We are captured. . . .we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own.  But remember the struggle, in and of itself, has meaning."

For American blacks, this is tragically true.  In America, Coates can only promise his black son struggle--not freedom and justice.  "With liberty and justice for all" is only an empty mockery because justice has never been closely tied with freedom.  The white American church has not brought freedom and justice together as Jesus exhorted in Luke 4:18-19.

Coates writes to his son: "Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.  Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains--whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains."  Then freed slaves could walk off the plantation, but this turned out to be a hollow victory.  As soon as those freed slaves crossed the boundary line of the plantation, they were instantly homeless, food-less and landless.  So for hundreds of thousands of freed slaves, this meant a battle with disease and soon death.  Freedom to die, not freedom to live.  One historian estimates as many as a million freed slaves soon died because there was no justice that accompanied their freedom.

Today in 2018, for some blacks, freedom now means a middle class standard of living.  Great!
But, for many blacks, in 2018, freedom means poverty so for those blacks the struggle really is a struggle with not much hope for the future.

Coates sees little prospect for whites repenting of their 400 years of racism.  White supremacy reigns, most whites are arrogantly self-righteous; there is little sign of massive repentance, massive restitution and massive repair of the damage done to black individuals, families and communities.  That's why Coates wrote to his son, "We are captured".  The white church has not led America towards repentance, restitution and repair, so white superiority, white oppression remains natural and normal.  Self-righteous whites are not likely to repent, restitute and repair.  That's why Coates admonition to his son can only be struggle, not victory.

Digging deeper on oppression and poverty

The late Archbishop Camara of Brazil is famous for this saying: “If I feed the poor, they call me a saint.   If I ask why the poor are poor, they call me a communist.”

In other words the oppression question is often a very troubling one. 

John Wesley was probably called the equivalent of a saint many times, but I doubt if he was ever called the equivalent of a communist.  

Hebrew scholar Thomas Hanks, after thorough analysis of the 555 references to oppression in the Old Testament, concluded that oppression is the primary cause of poverty.  Sometimes the cause of poverty is laziness or famine, but the principle cause of most poverty is oppression –systems of political and economic oppression.

Being pro poor is good, but alone, not good enough.  John Wesley started a powerful religious movement among the poor later called Methodism.  It manifested a deep love for the poor, but since Wesley never fully understood the extensive biblical teaching on oppression and justice, he made several huge mistakes. 

Wesley believed in the divine right of kings to rule the people, but unfortunately, most kings rule oppressively.  For Wesley this included not raising fundamental questions about the existing economic system, which during the industrial revolution included exploiting the labor of women and children.

Wesley preached good news to the poor, but he did not release the oppressed. According to Luke 4:18, Jesus said the church is called to do both.  Part of preaching good news to the poor is to release the oppressed.  Wesley failed to release the oppressed so during the next century, God had to raise up a secular atheistic prophet named Marx.  Marx developed a strategy to release the oppressed that unfortunately turned violent. 

Moral of the story:  Never talk about the poor without identifying their oppressors and then developing a strategy to release the oppressed.  It is heresy to preach and practice only ½ of Luke 4:18.  To release the oppressed, demands a comprehensive knowledge of the biblical teaching on oppression and justice.   To my knowledge, no white pastor/church has developed both a comprehensive theology on oppression and a comprehensive theology of justice based on the New Testament.

Statement of Faith and Practice

Most statements of faith are doctrinal--what one must believe, not practice—what one must do.  So most statements of faith do not address oppression/justice issues.  Without intending to, most statements of faith feed the favorite American heresy—a spirituality without justice.  For a severe critique of spirituality without justice, see Amos 5:21-24; Isaiah 58:1-5; and James 2:1-6.  For a description of spirituality with justice, see Isaiah 58:6 ff.  This is what a black theologian James Cone thinks of a spirituality without justice.  It allows “White America to domesticate the gospel for racist purposes.”

1.    God created the universe.  God created human beings in His image.  The creator has order and structure in both the physical and social worlds.  Four social institutions were ordained:

Marriage and the family, the economic (work), the political (government) and the church.  These four social institutions, as they now exist, involve God’s creation design and human creativity.

2.    God, as Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, is not only transcendentally separate from His universe, but He is also immanently involved daily in every aspect of His creation.

3.    Adam and Eve rebelled against God and thus introduced sin into the world.  Sin has pervasively damaged every aspect of God’s creation, especially humans, both individually and in their social institutions. 

4.    The Old Testament law was introduced to restrain sin and to show what was right in relationships.  The law covered all areas of life.  Later New Testament redemption was introduced; it, too, is meant to be holistic, to cover every area damaged by sin.  Grace is to be as extensive as sin has been.  The kingdom of God is to be as comprehensive as life itself.

5.    Jesus Christ is central.  He is to be lifted up as Prophet, Priest and King.

a.    As Priest He provides redemption, forgiveness of sin, through His death and resurrection.

b.    As Prophet He fearlessly proclaims the complete truth of God and exposes evil, especially the social evil of political, economic and religious leaders of society (example:  the Jewish religio-politico-economic leaders).

c.     As King He introduces the kingdom of God on earth.  He provides the love, power and principles for a new way of life, a new personal and social ethic (example: Sermon on the Mount).

6.    The relationship of faith and works.  Personal salvation is through faith and grace, not by personal good works.  But personal salvation should result in an abundance of good works.  Good works are the love of God released to love my neighbor.  Faith without such good works is dead. 

7.    The person, fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

a.    The Holy Spirit was given that we might have the power and love to witness for Jesus Christ, that we might understand the truth of God, to detect and expose false teaching, and be able to apply truth to today’s society.

b.    The Holy Spirit was given that we might develop holy, mature, balanced Christian character—the fruit of the Spirit (example: Gal. 5:22—love, joy, peace, etc.)

c.     The Holy Spirit gives the gifts of the Spirit to build up the body of Christ.  The gifts are given so that we can minister to each other’s needs (not to make us super-spiritual) and so we can witness to and glorify Jesus Christ.

8.    The Bible is inspired by God to reveal God to man.  The central focus is Jesus Christ.  It is a book of principles, not laws (rules and regulations).  Its truth lies in the spirit of its principles, not in the letter of the law.  The Bible is to be carefully studied and interpreted with the aid of the Holy Spirit and others in the body of Christ.  This will provide balance among its many important truths and avoid unbalanced private personal interpretations, and avoid faddish teachings by superficially spiritual superstars.

9.    The central focus of the church is persons-in-relationship to each other under their Head, Jesus Christ.  The type of organizations or structure and type of building (house or special building) should be carefully chosen so that the church can most effectively witness to and minister to its culture.  The church should “travel lightly” so that it can remain flexible and mobile under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

10.                  Love, righteousness and justice.  Love without justice has no backbone.  Righteousness without justice produces only personal piety.  Personal piety needs this vision of Christian ministry “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me . . . .to preach the gospel to the poor. . . .to set at liberty those who are oppressed. . . .” (Luke 4:18).  Justice is present when a proper balance of responsibilities and rights produce quality human relationships in a community.

11.                  The kingdom of God, here on earth, is all about justice – Jubilee Justice that releases the oppressed. 

See Matthew 6:33 ‘NEB’, Luke 4:18-19, Isaiah 9:7, 11:1-4, 16:5, 28:16-17, 42:1-4, 61:1-4

12.                  A spirituality with justice gospel should produce worship and works, justification and justice, grace and justice, love and justice, faith and works.