Over a period of several years, I have asked a wide variety of people to write down a one-sentence definition of the kingdom of God. Those asked included young and old, male and female, Afro American and Euro American from a wide variety of denominations. I also asked a group of about 100 persons who attended my "Understanding Poverty" worshop at the Pittsburgh CCDA Conference.
I discovered that there is no consensus on what the kingdom of God is; definitions were all over the place. Most were rather vague and imprecise; they tended to be future and spiritual in their orientation. The kingdom of God does have a future component; it will fully come with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Obviously, the kingdom has a spiritual component; one enters the kingdom by being born of the Spirit.
What was missing from most of the definitions was a present and social dimension, even from those involved in Christian Community Development. For example, only one in ten, generously interpreted, included anything on justice. And the Holy Spirit was seldom mentioned.
Few of the definitions had enough clarity, sharpness or specificity to challenge a person to want to commit her/his life to incarnate the kingdom of God here on earth as we are taught to do in the Lord's prayer: "Your kingdom come . . . on earth."
Why this biblical ignorance, this lack of clarity, on the essence of the kingdom of God? I myself have been on a lifelong search to understand the kingdom of God; I am now 88 years old; only in the last 20 years do I feel that I have grasped the full biblical content of the kingdom of God. Even though I had the privilege of studying every book in the Bible in undergraduate and graduate school in my younger years (no prof ever tied the kingdom to the Messianic passages in Isaiah), I was still puzzled about the nature of the kingdom.
Recently a scholar, Marcus Borg, surveyed the literature on the kingdom of God which had been written during the 20th century. He concluded that for most of the century the future and spiritual dimensions dominated the discussion. Only toward the end of the century did a present dimension begin to develop. Borg concluded that the church lacks a "clear and compelling" biblical vision of the kingdom of God. What is the consequence of this lack of a biblical understanding of the kingdom? Borg asserts that the American church is a syncretistic church which mixes Christianity with American culture. Borg states" "We live in a Babylon often declared to be Zion."
In my own personal reading of the scholarly literature on the kingdom of God, I have not found a clear and compelling vision of the kingdom of God. A Princeton seminary graduate attended on my workshops; he said the single most helpful idea was how the Messianic passages from Isaiah were central to an understanding of the New Testament kingdom of God, a perspective he did not receive at one of America's finest seminaries.
The Christian church in general and Christianity Community Development people in particular need to ground their ministries in a biblical understanding of the kingdom of God. CCDA's emphasis on the poor, justice and reconciliation is already biblical, but we need to base their ministry more specifically and comprehensively on the kingdom of God.
What should the kingdom of God look like here on earth today? Isaiah 9:6-7, Luke 4:18-19 and Romans 14:17 (my paraphrase) are the best capsule summaries of the present and social dimensions of the kingdom of God.
Isaiah 9:7, a Messianic prophecy about Jesus and his coming kingdom, says the kingdom will be characterized by justice/righteousness and shalom. The other Isaiah Messianic passages also highlight justice; some of these passages mention the important role of the Holy Spirit. Read 11;!-4; 16:5; 28:16-17; and 42:1-4.
I believe that Luke 4:18-19 is intended to be a summary statement, a mission statement, if you will, about the essence of the kingdom of God. Luke 4:18-19 is quoted from Isaiah 61 and 58:6. To understand this passage from Luke, we need to return to Isaiah.
In addition to idolatry and immorality, Isaiah was profoundly disturbed by social oppression/injustice targeting the poor. The phrase from 58:6 "to set the oppressed free," or "to release the oppressed," is one of several similar statement from chapter 58. The full chapter describes a supposedly spiritual people---"they seek me daily, they delight to know my ways, the delight to know God, they fast and pray." At the same time the Israelites were oppressing their workers and neglecting the poor. God refused to hear their prayers because of their social sins. Isaiah teaches that spirituality cannot be divorced from social justice/kingdom justice. My paraphrase of Isaiah 61 highlights what God desires:
"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the oppressed poor,
to proclaim freedom and release to those in bondage
by practicing Jubilee justice for the poor.
to bestow on the poor:
a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
These transformed poor will be called oaks of righteousness
or trees of justice.
These transformed poor will rebuild the ruined cities.
For I, the Lord, love justice."
Jesus, by reading from Isaiah 61 and 58:6, describes the essence of his ministry here on earth; and he himself modeled this type of ministry. Here is my paraphrase of Luke 4:18-19:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me;he has anointed me to preach good news to the extreme poor,
to release/liberate the oppressed by implementing a Jubilee/kingdom type justice for the poor."
As Jesus sat down, "The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. . . . All spoke well of him." The Jews from Nazareth had heard some very good news and they were positively impressed. In that synagogue congregation, there were some of the poor and oppressed Jesus had read about from Isaiah. And they knew what Jubilee justice would look like, what it would do for them. In modern lingo, they would have given him a standing ovation.
Galilee had the best farming land in Palestine (meager by Iowa standards). But this rich land was full of poor people. Why? Over the years, cruel and corrupt people had gained control of most of the good land through high interest rates, excessive taxation, poor crops, fraud or some combination of the above. So rich Jews, rich Romans and rich Gentiles got control of the land leaving the masses landless or on poor quality land. Some of the rich Jewish owners were religious absentee landlords from Jerusalem.
Judaism at the time of Christ was corrupt through and through. The leaders and the social institutions they controlled were much like they were in the OT at the time of Amos and Isaiah. The sacred temple had become a "a den of robbers," so Jesus moved in and cleansed it. Note the incredibly strong words of condemnation from Matthew 23.
Galilee was like a Third World country today---a few rich elite controlling everything and crushing the masses who were poor. Under the Jubilee/kingdom of God, the landless poor would get their land back. Then they could farm and be self-sufficient. Charity for the poor was not enough; these oppressed poor needed kingdom justice. The OT Jubilee was a set of divinely created principles to protect and empower the poor. The kingdom of God was, in part, to be a NT version of the OT Jubilee.
But another type of oppression was occurring in Galilee and all over Palestine. Some of the economically oppressed Jews were themselves oppressing others. How could the powerless poor be oppressors?
After Jesus was so well received because of his Isaiah 61 sermon in the Nazareth synagogue, the conservation continued. Jesus moved from preaching good news to meddling, or so the Jews thought. To address another type of social evil (ethnocentrism), Jesus recounts two familiar OT stories. First, "there were many widows in Israel in the day of Elijah [a time of famine] and Elijah was sent to none of them." Instead he was sent to a hungry widow in the land of Sidon. The second story: "And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of [the Jewish] them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." After Jesus told these two true stories with his interpretation of them, "all in the synagogue were filled with wrath." Then they tried to throw Jesus over a nearby cliff and kill him. From "all spoke well of him," to "all were filled with wrath," in the space of a few minutes. Why this sudden change by the synagogue Jews?
The Jews were God's chosen people---chosen to be a servant people who were to bring the Messiah into the world to bless all people, Jew and Gentile. Over the years some of the Jews had corrupted their high calling. They reinterpreted their calling from being a servant people to being a superior people. They now saw themselves as a superior ethnos---people, nation, culture. Non-Jews or Gentiles were considered unclean, idolatrous heathen. God was now the God of the Jews alone. To keep themselves pure, they separated themselves from the unclean Gentiles. In a word, this distorted sense of superiority is called ethnocentrism---own-culture-centered.
In these two OT stories that Jesus summarized, he made the point that God made a special effort to reach out to Gentiles. Jesus was directly exposing and attacking Jewish ethnocentrism. In the eyes of the biased Jews, Jesus had committed heresy. So they tried to kill him on the spot.
In Luke four then, we find two social evils that the kingdom of God here on earth must confront as directly as Jesus did: 1) the oppression of the poor, and 2) ethnocentrism/racism of any kind. These evils must not only be exposed, something better must be put in their place. The oppression of the poor must be replaced by Jubilee/kingdom justice. Ethnocentrism against other racial/ethnic groups must be replaced by reconciliation and equality. At the end of Luke four, Jesus says, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose." Our purpose, our calling today is also to preach and practice the kingdom of God---the kingdom of justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit.
The third key verse in understanding the kingdom of God is Romans 14:17. In the NIV, it reads: "The kingdom of God . . . is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." In the New English Bible, Romans 14:17 is translated as: "The kingdom of God . . . justice, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." The Greek word dikiaosune means both justice and righteousness. The traditional English translation of righteousness is understood by most readers as: "I am made individually righteous through Christ" but it does not include the idea of kingdom justice.
So my paraphrase of Romans 14:17 reads: "The kingdom of God is . . . justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit." This paraphrase communicates that incarnating the kingdom of God here on earth is possible only through the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, that this kingdom is all about justice and shalom. The individual-in-a-church-community experiences justice and shalom (See Perry Yoder's Shalom). If a person in community experiences justice and shalom, this is solid ground for authentic joy; a person receiving only charity may experience a fleeting joy dependent on a handout.
There is more to the biblical ministry of the Holy Spirit than personal blessing. The person and power of the Spirit is essential to enable the church to destroy ethnocentrism and oppression. These social evils are deeply embedded in the cultural values and social institutions of our society. It is much more difficult to cast out these demonic values from society than it is to cast out an evil spirit from an individual person.
Often ethnocentrism and oppression are cleverly disguised in American society by using terms such as Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism; they are also portrayed as good by mixing them with the religion of society. Lee Harper said the following about her life in Mississippi: "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things that appeared just." The supposed superiority of white Anglo-Saxons is covered by an appeal to our rich Judeo-Christian heritage. It takes divine wisdom from the Spirit of truth to sort this out. Once ethnocentrism and oppression are recognized and exposed, it will still take enormous power to destroy these negative values and replace them with justice and shalom. Here again the person of the Holy Spirit is crucial.
In summary, then, Isaiah 9:7; 61:1-4; Luke 4:18-30 and Romans 14:17 are all saying the same thing: that the kingdom of God here on earth should focus on the special needs of the poor and oppressed by preaching and practicing justice/righteousness; when the church does this it will lead to personal and community shalom. This can only be done through the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth.
With this background, Acts 1:1-8; 8:12; 28:23 and 31 make more sense. Two themes are highlighted in Acts 1:1-8: the kingdom of God and the Holy Spirit. After Jesus' resurrection and before his ascension, Jesus spoke of "the kingdom of God" and "the promise of the Father---you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." Howard Snyder in his book A Kingdom Manifesto, 1985, paraphrases Acts 1:6-8 as follows:
"His disciples ask, 'are you finally going to set up your kingdom?' Jesus replies,"The time for the full flowering of the new order still remains a mystery to you; it is in God's hands. But . . . the Holy Spirit will give you the power to live the kingdom now. So you are to be witnesses of the kingdom and its power from the very ends of the earth.'"
Wait until you are filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit; then you will have the power to incarnate the kingdom of God here on earth. The day of Pentecost soon came when the Spirit was poured out on the church.
What did the church do? Acts 8:12: In Samaria, Philip "preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ." Acts 28:23: Paul spoke to the Jews in Rome "testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus Christ from the law of Moses and from the prophets." Many of the Roman Jews rejected this message from Paul so he turned to the Gentiles "preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ."
So the book of Acts is about the empowered church preaching and practicing a two-pronged gospel message: personal salvation based on the cross and resurrection, and a second and equally important theme---the kingdom of God as justice and shalom for the oppressed poor. The complete gospel includes both personal righteousness and social justice. Both are absolutely necessary if we are to minister to all the needs of a person and a community.
Previously from Luke four, I have identified ethnocentrism and oppression as two social evils the church must expose and challenge. If the church does not address these social evils, the church itself may become an agent of ethnocentrism and oppression. Remember that biblically ethnocentrism is a false sense of ethnic superiority; that oppression crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes, enslave and kills people created in the image of God.
Next, I will examine some tragic examples from the history of the church when the church itself became an agent of ethnocentrism and oppression. In these examples the church was usually faithful in proclaiming the cross and resurrection, sometimes the anointing and filling of the Holy Spirit, but failed to preach and practice the kingdom of God as justice and shalom.
The Puritans attempted to be a godly and biblical people and in some ways they were. But they did not understand that justice and shalom applied to all peoples. They saw themselves as God's chosen people, chosen to set up a Christian nation on these shores. But there was more than a touch of biblical ignorance in their sense of chosenness. After a period of relative harmony with Native Americans, as Puritan numbers grew and they needed more land, ethnic conflict developed. Increasingly, the Puritans saw the surrounding tribes as heathen standing in the way of God's will. When large numbers of Indians died from disease, Puritans often saw this as the hand of God eliminating the heathen from their midst. This religiously legitimated ethnocentrism soon led to acts of oppression---the killing of whole villages, also offering bounties for the scalps of Indians. Incomplete biblical truth---the lack of understanding that the kingdom of God requires justice for all---has had tragic consequences. The Puritans who saw themselves as instruments of God became instruments of evil. They also set in motion the ethnocentric and oppressive pattern that contaminated much of American history.
Much the same happened in South Africa. The Afrikaners also saw themselves as a people chosen to establish a Christian nation. During the time the Afrikaners governed, most Afrikaners attended church. The zealously kept the Sabbath day holy. Public TV opened with Bible reading and prayer. Abortion and pornography were low compared to the United States. At the same time they manifested this religious spirit, they treated their fellow Africans as inferior human beings. Their ethnocentrism led to inhuman acts of oppression. They did not preach nor practice the kingdom of God as justice for all people.
In the American south---the Bible Belt---ethnocentrism and oppression ran wild during the eras of slavery and segregation. Far too often, Christians and churches were a part of the problem. Only a scattered few stood for justice and shalom for all.
In Rwanda, supposedly the most Christian nation in Africa, ethnic conflict exploded between the Tutsi and the Hutu. The cross and resurrection were preached; evangelism was widespread. The Holy Spirit was present in a Protestant continuous revival and in a charismatic Catholic revival. Seemingly Rwanda was deeply Christian. But apparently there was little biblical teaching on the kingdom of God as standing against ethnocentrism and oppression and for justice and shalom. Some ruthless politicians fanned the existing embers of ethnocentrism which exploded into a forest fire which ravaged the land. The Christian church had not erected any justice barriers to stop the raging fires of hatred and bitterness. Tragically, many Christian were involved in the killings. Serious flaws in the understanding and practice of the gospel can literally lead to fatal consequences on a large scale.
One more sad event in American church history needs to be recounted. John Dawson describes the origins of Pentecostalism in his book Healing America's Wounds:
"The [1906] Azusa St. Revival was a modern Pentecost in which the outpoured Spirit broke the barriers to true Christian unity. Racial division, America's greatest problem, was swept away. The huge dirt-floor barn that housed William Seymor's [Afro American] church attracted scores of ethnic groups from their separate enclaves across Los Angeles. . . . This sincere and loving man---Seymor's friend---was afflicted with the blindness of his generation. He admired the Ku Klux Klan and believed that the besetting sin of humanity was racial mixing. . . . After denouncing Seymor, he continues in his ministry, preaching against racial mixing and proclaiming the baptism of the Holy Spirit. . . . . Pentecostalism divided into two groups, one black and one white, between 1908 and 1914. Glossolalia became the new emphasis. . . . and God's true purpose went down the memory hole."
A flawed church that preaches and practices a partial gospel leaves a spiritual vacuum. Evil floods in to fill that vacuum. In 1989, Billy Graham (Transformation) wrote: "I can no longer proclaim the Cross and Resurrection without proclaiming the whole message of the kingdom which is justice for all."
Sidney Rooy, in an unpublished manuscript entitled Righteousness and Justice, comments on the discoveries his family made as they read the Bible together in Spanish:
"Soon we discovered that righteousness and justice are universally translated justicia, our word for justice. Suddenly the bible was full of texts about justice. But why should that surprise us? Much later we learned that the English word justice does not occur in the New Testament of the King James Version. . . . To [Jesus and the apostles] it was transparently clear that justification, righteousness and justice were integrally part of the same reality [same root word in Greek]. We, on the other hand, tend to make idea-tight compartments for each."
Wolterstorff asserts:
"The God of the Bible is a God who loves justice. Injustice is a desecration. That's obvious in the Old Testament; but it doesn't change when we arrive in the New Testament. This would be starkly clear to all if our New Testament translators would follow their classical Greek colleagues and translate the frequent occurrences in the New Testament of the Greek words dikaiosune and dikaios with the English words 'justice' and 'just.'"
Jesus began his ministry highlighting the kingdom of God ( Mt. 4:17; Mk. 1:15: Luke 4:18-30). Jesus ended his ministry highlighting the kingdom of God (Acts 1:1-8). In between, Jesus urged us to pray for his kingdom to come on earth (Mt. 6:10). And he ordered his followers to give highest priority to incarnating God's kingdom as justice (Mt. 6:33). Paul also made the kingdom central in his gospel (Acts 8:12; 28:23 and 31; Romans 14:17).
Marcus Borg: "The coming of the Kingdom as an epiphany [revelatory manifestation] of the Spirit creates a new way of life." "Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom calls the church to be an alternative community with an alternative lord and alternative loyalties."
Graham Cray sums it up best: "The agenda of the kingdom is justice; the dynamic of the kingdom is the Holy Spirit."
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
The Dangerous American Values Crisis: The American Trinity or the Kingdom of God
Conservative Christians are partly right when they assert that flawed values lie at the heart of our many and massive social problems. They urge us to restore traditional family values, to oppose homosexuality because such acts are sinful, to oppose abortion because it is a frontal attack on the fundamental value of life. (This article was originally written in 1999.)
What many conservative Christians fail to recognize is that they, along with most other Americans, have bought into another set of flawed values which, in part, underlie the very problems they are so deeply concerned about.
America may be the most individualistic nation in the history of the world, though the Corinthians of Bible times may run a close second. The Corinthians twisted the gifts of the Spirit which were meant for church edification into self edification or spiritual self-indulgence. Americans built individual rights into our founding documents to protect against domination by kings; unfortunately, we did not protect against domination by a rich, white, male elite. Conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger in a speech given at Ripon College in May, 1967, stated that through laws and court decision Americans have greatly expanded these individual rights from the years 1933 to 1966. In 1997, Burger stated that this process was continuing and was threatening the welfare of our nation. Burger stated regarding this excessive emphasis on individual rights: "It is a truism of political philosophy rooted in history that nations often perish from an excess of their own basic principles." Today, we emphasize freedom/liberty far more than we do justice.
In modern America, precious individual rights have degenerated into individualism---an excessive emphasis on rights not properly balanced by social responsibility. Individualism underlies the demand for abortion; also the proliferation of handguns and our high murder and divorce rates.
Conservative Christians decry the corrupt values of secular humanism, not realizing that they share some of those same values. Such Christians have organized extensively, politically and through the media, to try and change things with limited success. Until they honestly confront their own values crisis and repent of their over identification with some basic aspects of American culture, they will not succeed.
Many American Christians of all stripes are too identified with the American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism (racism). They legitimate their individualism with an appeal to individual rights; they cover their materialism with more innocent sounding words such a prosperity or a rising standard of living; they cover their ethnocentrism/racism with an appeal to a superior Judeo-Christian-Anglo-Saxon heritage.
Covering our social evils of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism with self-righteousness will not solve our social problems. Our founding fathers began the process of mixing Christian principles with the American trinity. The Puritans, claiming they were establishing a Christian nation, stole land from Native Americans, paid money for scalps of Indians, and, at times, even murdered whole villages of men, women and children. They narrowly defined the kingdom of God as applying only to themselves, to their kind (ethnos). Their sense of superiority led to oppression; they set and legitimated a pattern which was repeated time and time again in our nation's history.
The American trinity undermines, tears apart, our social fabric, thereby opening the door wide for social problems to develop.
America is a great nation with many strengths and serious weaknesses.
First, a list of positives:
1. Freedom, democracy
2. Strong economy, highly productive
3. Abundant natural resources
4. Quality private and public colleges and universities
5. Highly churched when compared to Europe
6. Unparalleled set of Bible schools, Christian liberal arts colleges, and seminaries
7. A host of parachurch organizations designed to meet specific needs
Next, a list of negatives:
1. High divorce rate
2. High crime and incarceration rates
3. High drug and alcoholism rates
4. When compared with 19 industrialized countries, the U.S. ranks first (worst) in 21 social problem categories.
This set of U.S. strengths is unparalleled in the history of the world, especially the Christian strengths. Our Christian schools graduate thousands and thousands of well-trained leaders in the areas of business, education, social work, ministry, etc., each year. These Christian leaders should be a massive "salt and light" influence in society; as a result, our nation should have relatively few social problems. Yet the reality is quite different; when compared with other educated and industrialized countries, we have the worst social problems record. Strangely, most of the countries with a low rate of social problems have comparatively few church members; we have high church attendance and a high rate of social problems.
Is American Christianity flawed? Is Americanized Christianity a part of the problem? Marcus Borg thinks so:
"The church to a large extent participates in our culture's conventional wisdom, indeed often legitimating it. Much of contemporary American Christianity is 'enculturated religion', radically adapted to culture and domesticated within it. We live in a Babylon often declared to be Zion."
The only explanation that I can come up with is that American Christians have overly individualized Christianity (read Divided by Faith) and therefore they do not understand the biblical teaching on either social evil or social justice. At its worst, American Christianity is "spiritual self-indulgence." Derek Prince, a charismatic, said the the Holy Spirit used this phrase in speaking to him about a Pentecostalism that is overly concerned about personal spiritual blessings and not concerned enough about Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor.
Americans have wedded the American trinity (our brand of idolatry) with Christianity thereby gutting the social dimension of the kingdom of God. Unintentionally, we legitimate many of the forces tearing our society apart, so in spite of our charity the American church often does more harm than good. There are exceptions to the above generalization, but the generalization still stands.
I would argue that today individualism and materialism are doing more damage to poor and ethnic communities than ethnocentrism/racism is; ethnocentrism is still active and doing much damage. But now all of American society, including poor and ethnic communities, are being ravaged by individualism and materialism. Achieving the American Dream by climbing out of poverty and becoming middle class may be a hollow victory if it means that poor people are seduced by individualism and materialism in the process.
The only possible way to defeat the powerful and pervasive American trinity that I know of would be to create a set of biblical concepts to help us all better understand and address both social evil and kingdom of God justice. From these biblical concepts, we could create a theology of society grounded in the kingdom of God. Without biblical concepts to guide our thinking, we will think American; all of us are more corrupted in our thinking than we realize. The following are a set of crucial biblical concepts which can form the building blocks of a theology of the kingdom of God.
First, a set of concepts about social evil:
1. Satan
2. Principalities and Powers
3. Cosmos
4. Ethnocentrism
5. Oppression
6. Damaged Individuals
Next, a set of concepts about social justice:
1. God/Jesus Christ
2. Holy Spirit
3. Kingdom of God
4. Reconciliation
5. Justice/shalom
6. Liberated Individuals
SATAN
Satan, the adversary, is a person, a fallen angel, whom God has permitted partial and temporary control of this earth. He is identified as a prince of this world, ruler of the cosmos (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Eph. 2:2; Luke 4:5-7).
Satan is in opposition to God, but the is not the opposite of God because he is not God's equal. Satan is not omniscient (all-knowing, omnipresent (everywhere present), and omnipotent (all-powerful). Satan is a formidable foe, but we must not overexaggerate his importance. If we unintentionally make him the opposite equal to God, we give him more power in our lives than he deserves. Our unwarranted excessive fear of him will expand his power over us. He is only a fallen angel who wanted to be like God; don't make him into a god.
PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS
Created by God, the principalities and powers were originally good and designed to maintain order in the universe. Sin invaded the universe and "rather than maintaining order, they took on the status of god and began to regulate human existence and destiny." According to Walter Wink, "these Powers are both heavenly and earthly, divine and human, spiritual and political, invisible and structural." Stephen Mott asserts that the principalities and powers are fallen angelic being whose primary mode of operation is through political and social institutions. The powers and authorities are evil spiritual forces incarnated in human cultural values and social institutions.
COSMOS
In its good sense, the cosmos is the world, the universe, created by God. Sin invaded the cosmos and therefore in the NT, cosmos is usually used in a negative sense. Cosmos is now evil social order, Satan's kingdom here on earth (Luke 4:5-6). The cosmos includes negative cultural values (ethnocentrism) and oppressive social institutions.
Individual persons, male and female, and natural resources were created by God. Because of sin, these creation values became the negative cultural values of individualism, sexism and materialism. Also through further development of creation and human creativity, race and ethnicity became important social forces. Sin distorted these factors into racism and ethnocentrism.
Social institutions whose original purpose was to provide order and structure to human existence have become instruments of evil. Sinful individuals and groups gain control of social institutions and incarnate negative social values for selfish advantage.
ETHNOCENTRISM
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's ethnos (people, culture or nation)) is superior and by implication that other ethnic groups are inferior. Ethnocentrism turns other ethnic groups into second-class citizens; they are dehumanized. Once this happens the "superior" people can oppress the "inferior" people without their social conscience bothering them; then often they rationalize that this is God's will. Ethnicity (ethnic heritage, ethnic group) is positive and contributes to an individual's social identity. Ethnocentrism is a sinful sense of cultural or national superiority.
OPPRESSION
Oppression occurs when persons in power and authority, usually through social institutions, misuse their power and authority in a cruel and unjust manner, to crush, humiliate, animalize, impoverish, enslave and/or kill persons created in the image of God. Oppression is a combination of personal sin and social evil. Oppression is the opposite of shalom and the absence of justice.
In the OT, there are 555 references to oppression and its synonyms. In the NT, the rich are commonly identified as the oppressors.
DAMAGED INDIVIDUALS
The above system of Satan, powers and authorities, cosmos, ethnocentrism and oppression combines to damage individuals and groups. For example, women are oppressed by men, Samaritan are oppressed by Jews, the poor are oppressed by the rich.
GOD/JESUS CHRIST
Final authority in the universe and in human society rests in the hands of a sovereign God. Through his grace and love, personal and social righteousness are possible in human society.
HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit is the person and power of God incarnated in individual Christians and the church. As individuals are sometimes demon possessed, so also cultural values and social institutions can be possessed by the powers and authorities. The only power strong enough to break the bondage of cultural values and social institutions to the "Powers" is the person and power of the Holy Spirit. There are four ministries of the Holy Spirit: the Spirit of Truth, incarnating the kingdom of God as justice, the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.
KINGDOM OF GOD
To replace the cosmos, evil social order, Jesus introduced the kingdom of God, the rule and just reign of God over all of life. Just as social evil has infiltrated all of life, so the kingdom of God must be equally pervasive. Spiritually, a person enters the kingdom by being born again, by being born of the Spirit. Socially, individual persons and the church are called to live kingdom principles in all relationships in human society.
Individualism, materialism and sexism must be replaced by individuality-in-community, the sharing of material resources, and respect and equality between the sexes. Racism and ethnocentrism must be replaced by respect, harmony and equality between different ethnic groups.
Rather than evil social institutions dominating and oppressing individuals, social institutions must be restored to their rightful function of service and structured existence to provide order and stability to social life. Justice should characterize the functioning of political, economic and religious institutions.
RECONCILIATION
Through God's grace humans who were once alienated from God can be reconciled. So also, through God's grace, through the cross, persons who once hated their enemies can be reconciled to them and learn to love them. Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, rich and poor, can be reconciled and live in unity. See Ephesians, chapter 2:11-22.
JUSTICE
In the OT we are exhorted to "do justice" (Micah 6:8). In Amos 5:24, God says (The Message): "I want justice---oceans of it." Community leaders such as judges, kings and priests are called to make fair and just judgments in behalf of the oppressed poor, widows, fatherless and strangers. The act of justice stops oppression and creates the conditions for shalom. Justice/righteousness is both personal and social (Job 29:7-17).
Because of flawed translations and flawed theology, English-speaking people have little sense of the extensive NT teaching on justice. There are around 300 NT dik-stems (justice) in the NT, but the KJV has no reference to justice; and the NIV has only 16 reference to justice in the NT. A typical Spanish, French or Latin NT has around 100 references to justice. Properly understood, the kingdom of God is built around justice for the oppressed poor.
SHALOM
In the OT, shalom is completeness, wholeness, harmony in a community of people living in righteousness and justice; in the NT, eirene is a rough equivalent to shalom. Shalom/justice are at the heart of the kingdom of God. In such a community, individuals experience economic, social and spiritual well-being.
LIBERATED INDIVIDUALS
Oppressed individuals (the sinned-against ones) can be liberated by the good news of the gospel. Luke 4:18-19 is a mission statement about the kingdom of God. It includes a Jubilee type of justice for the oppressed poor. It combines personal righteousness and social justice; both are necessary for complete liberation. With liberty and justice for all.
Now let us revisit the American trinity in American history in greater detail in order to understand in greater depth the nature of our American values crisis and how desperately we need a kingdom of God theology of society to enlighten and liberate us.
The American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism is not a recent development; it, unfortunately, has been part and parcel of American history beginning soon after the thirteen colonies were established. By the time of the founding fathers, the American trinity was deeply ingrained in American culture. American history is a tragic mixture of high ideals, some of them Christian principles, and evil values and practices---the worst kind of ethnocentrism and oppression. The best documentation of this syncretistic history is found in Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, 1993.
Even before British settlers/invaders landed at Jamestown and Plymouth, the British were busy practicing their ethnocentrism and oppression on the nearby Irish. They created an ethnocentric vocabulary which dehumanized the Irish; they called the Irish savages, beasts and uncivilized, and then the British proceeded to burn, brutalize and slaughter the Irish. Some Irish were relocated on reservations; then the British took over their land. Sound familiar?
This pattern of ethnocentrism and oppression was repeated by the "godly" New England Puritans and the Virginia settlers. The Puritans demonized the Native Americans, and then proceeded to brutalize them and take their land. The Puritans believed that this action was necessary because the evil "Canaanites" had to be eliminated before a "Christian" nation could be established. Takaki comments: "Once the process of cultural construction [legitimating ethnocentrism and oppression] was under way, it set a course for the making of a national identity in America for centuries to come."
In a somewhat more gentlemanly fashion, Thomas Jefferson agreed with the Puritans: "Indians were to be civilized or exterminated" or relocated west of the Mississippi River.
Early on Virginia settlers began growing tobacco, a lucrative cash crop with a good European market. Growing tobacco is labor intensive; cheap, abundant labor is crucial to making a profit. So by 1660 Virginia law had taken the first steps to institutionalize slavery. Takaki comments:
"The very abundance of land and the profitability of tobacco production, however, unleashed a land boom and speculation. Colonists with financial advantage quickly scrambled to possess the best lands along navigable rivers. Representing a landed elite, they dominated the Virginia assembly, and began to enact legislation to advance and protect their class interest."
Jefferson was part of this landed elite who owned slaves. Jefferson was well-educated and in some ways a person of high ideals; many of these principles found their way into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But Jefferson was deeply torn; he was part of a system that was deeply flawed by racial and class division. Such divisions were a dangerous threat to the social order---a social time bomb in his eyes.
Ethically, Jefferson knew that slavery was wrong (he owned several hundred slaves), but economically he could not bring himself to free his slaves. His own place of wealth and status had been built upon the backs of his slaves. Jefferson expressed the dilemma is these words "At it is we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation is the other."
Jefferson knew what justice demanded, but he chose not to do justice. Jefferson, the man of high ideals, chose self-preservation. For the future of the nation, choosing self-preservation over justice had a high price. In 1860, a Civil War tore the nation apart; multiplied thousands were killed. The social disorder Jefferson feared came to pass. The founding fathers sowed ethnocentrism and oppression; the nation reaped the whirlwind of disaster and barely survived.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who wrote with such great insight about America in the early 1800s, was both impressed and troubled by what he saw. He noted "an inordinate love of material gratification." Takaki called it "a frenetic pursuit for individual materialistic success." What the tobacco planter had started in the 1600s was running rampant in the early 1800s. The American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism had taken over America. Huge cracks in the soil of American culture were created by the cultural schizophrenia of the syncretistic combination of the American trinity and the Christian trinity.
Jefferson concluded that the removal of both Afro Americans and Native Americans was necessary to preserve the Anglo social order, in order for American civilization to develop. President Jackson implemented this policy with a vengeance; he professed to being a biblical Christian. Tocqueville saw the removal of the Choctaw Indians from Mississippi with his own eyes. He wrote about this brutality and death and how the dominant Anglo-Saxons rationalized and legitimated their behavior; President Jackson called it just! Takaki states:
"What struck Tocqueville was how whites were able to deprive Indians of their rights and exterminate them 'with singular felicity, tranquilly, legally, philanthropically, ... without violating a single great principle of morality in the eyes of the world.' Indeed, he wryly remarked, it was impossible to destroy men with 'more respect for the laws of humanity.'"
What many conservative Christians fail to recognize is that they, along with most other Americans, have bought into another set of flawed values which, in part, underlie the very problems they are so deeply concerned about.
America may be the most individualistic nation in the history of the world, though the Corinthians of Bible times may run a close second. The Corinthians twisted the gifts of the Spirit which were meant for church edification into self edification or spiritual self-indulgence. Americans built individual rights into our founding documents to protect against domination by kings; unfortunately, we did not protect against domination by a rich, white, male elite. Conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger in a speech given at Ripon College in May, 1967, stated that through laws and court decision Americans have greatly expanded these individual rights from the years 1933 to 1966. In 1997, Burger stated that this process was continuing and was threatening the welfare of our nation. Burger stated regarding this excessive emphasis on individual rights: "It is a truism of political philosophy rooted in history that nations often perish from an excess of their own basic principles." Today, we emphasize freedom/liberty far more than we do justice.
In modern America, precious individual rights have degenerated into individualism---an excessive emphasis on rights not properly balanced by social responsibility. Individualism underlies the demand for abortion; also the proliferation of handguns and our high murder and divorce rates.
Conservative Christians decry the corrupt values of secular humanism, not realizing that they share some of those same values. Such Christians have organized extensively, politically and through the media, to try and change things with limited success. Until they honestly confront their own values crisis and repent of their over identification with some basic aspects of American culture, they will not succeed.
Many American Christians of all stripes are too identified with the American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism (racism). They legitimate their individualism with an appeal to individual rights; they cover their materialism with more innocent sounding words such a prosperity or a rising standard of living; they cover their ethnocentrism/racism with an appeal to a superior Judeo-Christian-Anglo-Saxon heritage.
Covering our social evils of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism with self-righteousness will not solve our social problems. Our founding fathers began the process of mixing Christian principles with the American trinity. The Puritans, claiming they were establishing a Christian nation, stole land from Native Americans, paid money for scalps of Indians, and, at times, even murdered whole villages of men, women and children. They narrowly defined the kingdom of God as applying only to themselves, to their kind (ethnos). Their sense of superiority led to oppression; they set and legitimated a pattern which was repeated time and time again in our nation's history.
The American trinity undermines, tears apart, our social fabric, thereby opening the door wide for social problems to develop.
America is a great nation with many strengths and serious weaknesses.
First, a list of positives:
1. Freedom, democracy
2. Strong economy, highly productive
3. Abundant natural resources
4. Quality private and public colleges and universities
5. Highly churched when compared to Europe
6. Unparalleled set of Bible schools, Christian liberal arts colleges, and seminaries
7. A host of parachurch organizations designed to meet specific needs
Next, a list of negatives:
1. High divorce rate
2. High crime and incarceration rates
3. High drug and alcoholism rates
4. When compared with 19 industrialized countries, the U.S. ranks first (worst) in 21 social problem categories.
This set of U.S. strengths is unparalleled in the history of the world, especially the Christian strengths. Our Christian schools graduate thousands and thousands of well-trained leaders in the areas of business, education, social work, ministry, etc., each year. These Christian leaders should be a massive "salt and light" influence in society; as a result, our nation should have relatively few social problems. Yet the reality is quite different; when compared with other educated and industrialized countries, we have the worst social problems record. Strangely, most of the countries with a low rate of social problems have comparatively few church members; we have high church attendance and a high rate of social problems.
Is American Christianity flawed? Is Americanized Christianity a part of the problem? Marcus Borg thinks so:
"The church to a large extent participates in our culture's conventional wisdom, indeed often legitimating it. Much of contemporary American Christianity is 'enculturated religion', radically adapted to culture and domesticated within it. We live in a Babylon often declared to be Zion."
The only explanation that I can come up with is that American Christians have overly individualized Christianity (read Divided by Faith) and therefore they do not understand the biblical teaching on either social evil or social justice. At its worst, American Christianity is "spiritual self-indulgence." Derek Prince, a charismatic, said the the Holy Spirit used this phrase in speaking to him about a Pentecostalism that is overly concerned about personal spiritual blessings and not concerned enough about Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor.
Americans have wedded the American trinity (our brand of idolatry) with Christianity thereby gutting the social dimension of the kingdom of God. Unintentionally, we legitimate many of the forces tearing our society apart, so in spite of our charity the American church often does more harm than good. There are exceptions to the above generalization, but the generalization still stands.
I would argue that today individualism and materialism are doing more damage to poor and ethnic communities than ethnocentrism/racism is; ethnocentrism is still active and doing much damage. But now all of American society, including poor and ethnic communities, are being ravaged by individualism and materialism. Achieving the American Dream by climbing out of poverty and becoming middle class may be a hollow victory if it means that poor people are seduced by individualism and materialism in the process.
The only possible way to defeat the powerful and pervasive American trinity that I know of would be to create a set of biblical concepts to help us all better understand and address both social evil and kingdom of God justice. From these biblical concepts, we could create a theology of society grounded in the kingdom of God. Without biblical concepts to guide our thinking, we will think American; all of us are more corrupted in our thinking than we realize. The following are a set of crucial biblical concepts which can form the building blocks of a theology of the kingdom of God.
First, a set of concepts about social evil:
1. Satan
2. Principalities and Powers
3. Cosmos
4. Ethnocentrism
5. Oppression
6. Damaged Individuals
Next, a set of concepts about social justice:
1. God/Jesus Christ
2. Holy Spirit
3. Kingdom of God
4. Reconciliation
5. Justice/shalom
6. Liberated Individuals
SATAN
Satan, the adversary, is a person, a fallen angel, whom God has permitted partial and temporary control of this earth. He is identified as a prince of this world, ruler of the cosmos (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Eph. 2:2; Luke 4:5-7).
Satan is in opposition to God, but the is not the opposite of God because he is not God's equal. Satan is not omniscient (all-knowing, omnipresent (everywhere present), and omnipotent (all-powerful). Satan is a formidable foe, but we must not overexaggerate his importance. If we unintentionally make him the opposite equal to God, we give him more power in our lives than he deserves. Our unwarranted excessive fear of him will expand his power over us. He is only a fallen angel who wanted to be like God; don't make him into a god.
PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS
Created by God, the principalities and powers were originally good and designed to maintain order in the universe. Sin invaded the universe and "rather than maintaining order, they took on the status of god and began to regulate human existence and destiny." According to Walter Wink, "these Powers are both heavenly and earthly, divine and human, spiritual and political, invisible and structural." Stephen Mott asserts that the principalities and powers are fallen angelic being whose primary mode of operation is through political and social institutions. The powers and authorities are evil spiritual forces incarnated in human cultural values and social institutions.
COSMOS
In its good sense, the cosmos is the world, the universe, created by God. Sin invaded the cosmos and therefore in the NT, cosmos is usually used in a negative sense. Cosmos is now evil social order, Satan's kingdom here on earth (Luke 4:5-6). The cosmos includes negative cultural values (ethnocentrism) and oppressive social institutions.
Individual persons, male and female, and natural resources were created by God. Because of sin, these creation values became the negative cultural values of individualism, sexism and materialism. Also through further development of creation and human creativity, race and ethnicity became important social forces. Sin distorted these factors into racism and ethnocentrism.
Social institutions whose original purpose was to provide order and structure to human existence have become instruments of evil. Sinful individuals and groups gain control of social institutions and incarnate negative social values for selfish advantage.
ETHNOCENTRISM
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's ethnos (people, culture or nation)) is superior and by implication that other ethnic groups are inferior. Ethnocentrism turns other ethnic groups into second-class citizens; they are dehumanized. Once this happens the "superior" people can oppress the "inferior" people without their social conscience bothering them; then often they rationalize that this is God's will. Ethnicity (ethnic heritage, ethnic group) is positive and contributes to an individual's social identity. Ethnocentrism is a sinful sense of cultural or national superiority.
OPPRESSION
Oppression occurs when persons in power and authority, usually through social institutions, misuse their power and authority in a cruel and unjust manner, to crush, humiliate, animalize, impoverish, enslave and/or kill persons created in the image of God. Oppression is a combination of personal sin and social evil. Oppression is the opposite of shalom and the absence of justice.
In the OT, there are 555 references to oppression and its synonyms. In the NT, the rich are commonly identified as the oppressors.
DAMAGED INDIVIDUALS
The above system of Satan, powers and authorities, cosmos, ethnocentrism and oppression combines to damage individuals and groups. For example, women are oppressed by men, Samaritan are oppressed by Jews, the poor are oppressed by the rich.
GOD/JESUS CHRIST
Final authority in the universe and in human society rests in the hands of a sovereign God. Through his grace and love, personal and social righteousness are possible in human society.
HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit is the person and power of God incarnated in individual Christians and the church. As individuals are sometimes demon possessed, so also cultural values and social institutions can be possessed by the powers and authorities. The only power strong enough to break the bondage of cultural values and social institutions to the "Powers" is the person and power of the Holy Spirit. There are four ministries of the Holy Spirit: the Spirit of Truth, incarnating the kingdom of God as justice, the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.
KINGDOM OF GOD
To replace the cosmos, evil social order, Jesus introduced the kingdom of God, the rule and just reign of God over all of life. Just as social evil has infiltrated all of life, so the kingdom of God must be equally pervasive. Spiritually, a person enters the kingdom by being born again, by being born of the Spirit. Socially, individual persons and the church are called to live kingdom principles in all relationships in human society.
Individualism, materialism and sexism must be replaced by individuality-in-community, the sharing of material resources, and respect and equality between the sexes. Racism and ethnocentrism must be replaced by respect, harmony and equality between different ethnic groups.
Rather than evil social institutions dominating and oppressing individuals, social institutions must be restored to their rightful function of service and structured existence to provide order and stability to social life. Justice should characterize the functioning of political, economic and religious institutions.
RECONCILIATION
Through God's grace humans who were once alienated from God can be reconciled. So also, through God's grace, through the cross, persons who once hated their enemies can be reconciled to them and learn to love them. Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, rich and poor, can be reconciled and live in unity. See Ephesians, chapter 2:11-22.
JUSTICE
In the OT we are exhorted to "do justice" (Micah 6:8). In Amos 5:24, God says (The Message): "I want justice---oceans of it." Community leaders such as judges, kings and priests are called to make fair and just judgments in behalf of the oppressed poor, widows, fatherless and strangers. The act of justice stops oppression and creates the conditions for shalom. Justice/righteousness is both personal and social (Job 29:7-17).
Because of flawed translations and flawed theology, English-speaking people have little sense of the extensive NT teaching on justice. There are around 300 NT dik-stems (justice) in the NT, but the KJV has no reference to justice; and the NIV has only 16 reference to justice in the NT. A typical Spanish, French or Latin NT has around 100 references to justice. Properly understood, the kingdom of God is built around justice for the oppressed poor.
SHALOM
In the OT, shalom is completeness, wholeness, harmony in a community of people living in righteousness and justice; in the NT, eirene is a rough equivalent to shalom. Shalom/justice are at the heart of the kingdom of God. In such a community, individuals experience economic, social and spiritual well-being.
LIBERATED INDIVIDUALS
Oppressed individuals (the sinned-against ones) can be liberated by the good news of the gospel. Luke 4:18-19 is a mission statement about the kingdom of God. It includes a Jubilee type of justice for the oppressed poor. It combines personal righteousness and social justice; both are necessary for complete liberation. With liberty and justice for all.
Now let us revisit the American trinity in American history in greater detail in order to understand in greater depth the nature of our American values crisis and how desperately we need a kingdom of God theology of society to enlighten and liberate us.
The American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism is not a recent development; it, unfortunately, has been part and parcel of American history beginning soon after the thirteen colonies were established. By the time of the founding fathers, the American trinity was deeply ingrained in American culture. American history is a tragic mixture of high ideals, some of them Christian principles, and evil values and practices---the worst kind of ethnocentrism and oppression. The best documentation of this syncretistic history is found in Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, 1993.
Even before British settlers/invaders landed at Jamestown and Plymouth, the British were busy practicing their ethnocentrism and oppression on the nearby Irish. They created an ethnocentric vocabulary which dehumanized the Irish; they called the Irish savages, beasts and uncivilized, and then the British proceeded to burn, brutalize and slaughter the Irish. Some Irish were relocated on reservations; then the British took over their land. Sound familiar?
This pattern of ethnocentrism and oppression was repeated by the "godly" New England Puritans and the Virginia settlers. The Puritans demonized the Native Americans, and then proceeded to brutalize them and take their land. The Puritans believed that this action was necessary because the evil "Canaanites" had to be eliminated before a "Christian" nation could be established. Takaki comments: "Once the process of cultural construction [legitimating ethnocentrism and oppression] was under way, it set a course for the making of a national identity in America for centuries to come."
In a somewhat more gentlemanly fashion, Thomas Jefferson agreed with the Puritans: "Indians were to be civilized or exterminated" or relocated west of the Mississippi River.
Early on Virginia settlers began growing tobacco, a lucrative cash crop with a good European market. Growing tobacco is labor intensive; cheap, abundant labor is crucial to making a profit. So by 1660 Virginia law had taken the first steps to institutionalize slavery. Takaki comments:
"The very abundance of land and the profitability of tobacco production, however, unleashed a land boom and speculation. Colonists with financial advantage quickly scrambled to possess the best lands along navigable rivers. Representing a landed elite, they dominated the Virginia assembly, and began to enact legislation to advance and protect their class interest."
Jefferson was part of this landed elite who owned slaves. Jefferson was well-educated and in some ways a person of high ideals; many of these principles found their way into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But Jefferson was deeply torn; he was part of a system that was deeply flawed by racial and class division. Such divisions were a dangerous threat to the social order---a social time bomb in his eyes.
Ethically, Jefferson knew that slavery was wrong (he owned several hundred slaves), but economically he could not bring himself to free his slaves. His own place of wealth and status had been built upon the backs of his slaves. Jefferson expressed the dilemma is these words "At it is we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation is the other."
Jefferson knew what justice demanded, but he chose not to do justice. Jefferson, the man of high ideals, chose self-preservation. For the future of the nation, choosing self-preservation over justice had a high price. In 1860, a Civil War tore the nation apart; multiplied thousands were killed. The social disorder Jefferson feared came to pass. The founding fathers sowed ethnocentrism and oppression; the nation reaped the whirlwind of disaster and barely survived.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who wrote with such great insight about America in the early 1800s, was both impressed and troubled by what he saw. He noted "an inordinate love of material gratification." Takaki called it "a frenetic pursuit for individual materialistic success." What the tobacco planter had started in the 1600s was running rampant in the early 1800s. The American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism had taken over America. Huge cracks in the soil of American culture were created by the cultural schizophrenia of the syncretistic combination of the American trinity and the Christian trinity.
Jefferson concluded that the removal of both Afro Americans and Native Americans was necessary to preserve the Anglo social order, in order for American civilization to develop. President Jackson implemented this policy with a vengeance; he professed to being a biblical Christian. Tocqueville saw the removal of the Choctaw Indians from Mississippi with his own eyes. He wrote about this brutality and death and how the dominant Anglo-Saxons rationalized and legitimated their behavior; President Jackson called it just! Takaki states:
"What struck Tocqueville was how whites were able to deprive Indians of their rights and exterminate them 'with singular felicity, tranquilly, legally, philanthropically, ... without violating a single great principle of morality in the eyes of the world.' Indeed, he wryly remarked, it was impossible to destroy men with 'more respect for the laws of humanity.'"
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Democracy or Plutocracy?
The following is a review and commentary on the 2013 book by anthropologist, David Graeber, entitled The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement. Built around the Occupy Wall Street movement (Graeber was one of its 'leaders'), this book covers in depth much more---what real democracy and economic inequality are all about, what the 1 percent are doing, and how to build consensus, equality and broad participation, or a just, fair and free society.
We, the rich, white, male elite, wrote the Constitution. We, the People, were not happy with the result, so we, the People demanded that a bill of rights be added to the Constitution. Today, another rich, white, male elite, the famous 1 percent, have turned our democracy into plutocracy---the rich rule. Now is the time for We, the People, the 99 percent, to demand our rights, to demand "liberty and justice for all."
Graeber writes: "The men who wrote the Constitution didn't want to include a Bill of Rights. That's why they are amendments." A people protest demanded the the Bill of Rights be included. The elite leaders---the founding fathers---were forced to include the Bill of Rights by We, the People. Today, We, the People, must rise up and take control of the political and economic spheres away from the rich, white male elite. America's elite today are as bad as King George of Britain was at the time of the American Revolution.
Occupy Wall Street "created a crisis of legitimacy within the entire system by providing a glimpse of what real democracy might look like." New ideas were placed in the public consciousness about the nature of the problem and the possibility of a solution." Now Bernie Sanders is running for president, essentially on the Occupy ideas. Without radical change, another 2008 financial/economic crisis will soon repeat itself.
America needs "a profound moral transformation." Graeber is calling for kingdom of God paradigm but without God---only human wisdom and commitment. "What's being called the Great Recession merely accelerated a profound transformation of the American class system that had already been underway for decades" through "the financialization of capitalism." Or in other words, American corporate, crony capitalism has become, in Jesus' words, "a den of robbers."
Debt is occurring at every level, increasing the wealth of the 1 percent. Usury has been legalized creating uncontrolled greed, bribery and corruption. The unanswered question is: Will the 99 percent organize and act?
"When a true revolution does arise, everyone, including the organizers, is taken by surprise!" ". . . . transformation outbreaks of imagination have happened, they are happening, they surely will happen again."
Joseph Stiglitz, an economist, wrote a column for Vanity Fair called "Of the 1%, By the 1%, and For the 1%." Stiglitz asserts that "Virtually all U.S. senators and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office." Both political parties represent the top 1 percent---a true plutocracy.
A common refrain from Occupy participants: "I did everything I was supposed to. I worked hard, studied hard, got into college. Now I am unemployed and $20,000 to $50,000 in debt."
"One of the themes of my work on debt [see his book Debt] was that its power lies in the intense moral feelings it invokes, against the lenders and, more to the point, against the indebted themselves; the feeling of shame, disgrace that one is a loser. . . . to begin one's life as a debtor is to be treated as if one has already lost." Graeber documents that debt is forcing many young women into prostitution as the quickest way to pay off debt.
"Today, student debt is an exceptionally punishing kind to have. Not only is it inescapable through bankruptcy, but student loans have no expiration date and collectors can garnish wages, social security payments, and even unemployment benefits."
In his previous book, Debt, Graeber shows a clear understanding of the radical nature of the OT Jubilee---its concern for justice and equality. His sees that Occupy is a secular version of the Jubilee principles.
Google "Pope Francis Calls on World Youth to Rise Up Against Global Capitalism" Sound like Pastor Francis and Occupy Wall Street are on the same wave length.
We, the rich, white, male elite, wrote the Constitution. We, the People, were not happy with the result, so we, the People demanded that a bill of rights be added to the Constitution. Today, another rich, white, male elite, the famous 1 percent, have turned our democracy into plutocracy---the rich rule. Now is the time for We, the People, the 99 percent, to demand our rights, to demand "liberty and justice for all."
Graeber writes: "The men who wrote the Constitution didn't want to include a Bill of Rights. That's why they are amendments." A people protest demanded the the Bill of Rights be included. The elite leaders---the founding fathers---were forced to include the Bill of Rights by We, the People. Today, We, the People, must rise up and take control of the political and economic spheres away from the rich, white male elite. America's elite today are as bad as King George of Britain was at the time of the American Revolution.
Occupy Wall Street "created a crisis of legitimacy within the entire system by providing a glimpse of what real democracy might look like." New ideas were placed in the public consciousness about the nature of the problem and the possibility of a solution." Now Bernie Sanders is running for president, essentially on the Occupy ideas. Without radical change, another 2008 financial/economic crisis will soon repeat itself.
America needs "a profound moral transformation." Graeber is calling for kingdom of God paradigm but without God---only human wisdom and commitment. "What's being called the Great Recession merely accelerated a profound transformation of the American class system that had already been underway for decades" through "the financialization of capitalism." Or in other words, American corporate, crony capitalism has become, in Jesus' words, "a den of robbers."
Debt is occurring at every level, increasing the wealth of the 1 percent. Usury has been legalized creating uncontrolled greed, bribery and corruption. The unanswered question is: Will the 99 percent organize and act?
"When a true revolution does arise, everyone, including the organizers, is taken by surprise!" ". . . . transformation outbreaks of imagination have happened, they are happening, they surely will happen again."
Joseph Stiglitz, an economist, wrote a column for Vanity Fair called "Of the 1%, By the 1%, and For the 1%." Stiglitz asserts that "Virtually all U.S. senators and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office." Both political parties represent the top 1 percent---a true plutocracy.
A common refrain from Occupy participants: "I did everything I was supposed to. I worked hard, studied hard, got into college. Now I am unemployed and $20,000 to $50,000 in debt."
"One of the themes of my work on debt [see his book Debt] was that its power lies in the intense moral feelings it invokes, against the lenders and, more to the point, against the indebted themselves; the feeling of shame, disgrace that one is a loser. . . . to begin one's life as a debtor is to be treated as if one has already lost." Graeber documents that debt is forcing many young women into prostitution as the quickest way to pay off debt.
"Today, student debt is an exceptionally punishing kind to have. Not only is it inescapable through bankruptcy, but student loans have no expiration date and collectors can garnish wages, social security payments, and even unemployment benefits."
In his previous book, Debt, Graeber shows a clear understanding of the radical nature of the OT Jubilee---its concern for justice and equality. His sees that Occupy is a secular version of the Jubilee principles.
Google "Pope Francis Calls on World Youth to Rise Up Against Global Capitalism" Sound like Pastor Francis and Occupy Wall Street are on the same wave length.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Adding Justice to Love, Grace and Forgiveness
Recently I challenged a Wesleyan theologian to complete the Methodist Revolution by adding justice to love. Wesley excelled at love for the poor, but he was a novice at justice for the oppressed poor. And his famous disciple, Wilberforce, who was instrumental in ending the slave trade and slavery, paid reparations to slaveholders, not to the freed slaves.
The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church recently demonstrated marvelous and amazing grace after its pastor and eight other members were murdered by a white racist. Now is the time for white, northern Methodists to add justice to grace and love. Now is the time for Methodists/Wesleyans of all stripes to demonstrate sweeping, radical, and extreme biblical justice to end white ethnocentrism/racism/oppression.
As a nation, we are approaching the Fourth of July when we celebrate our independence and honor the flag---the Stars and Stripes. Because of long standing white ethnocentrism/racism/oppression, the Stars and Stripes are as tarnished as the Confederate flag. As a result, even though the Pledge of Allegiance ends with this great phrase---"with liberty and justice for all," I see little comprehensive and sustained effort by white northern Methodists/Wesleyans to actually do justice. Since the Pledge also contains the phrase "under God," I see myself as a hypocrite by mouthing fine words that have little reality. So until justice floods the nation and washes ethnocentrism/racism/oppression away, I can no longer, in good conscience, say the Pledge.
The sanctimonious North has been engaged in a lot of self-righteous blather about the Confederate flag. But the North itself is deeply racist, both in the past and in the present, though it has never flown the Confederate flag. Is the North's ethnocentrism/racism/oppression tied to the Stars and Stripes?
1. The North was the center of the slave trade---think New England, think the DeWolf family clan (which was worse than the Klan) from Bristol, Rhode Island. The slave trade was even more evil than slavery.
2. At one stage in American history, the North engaged in slavery also; they just ended it sooner than the South.
3. The North partially financed slavery and it profited greatly from the cotton trade, a product grown with slave labor.
4. The North is currently heavily involved in both mass incarceration (including extensive racial profiling), and the massive racial wealth gap. The Confederate flag does not fly over Northern prisons.
5. Senator Ernst and Representative King from Iowa (for the geographically illiterate, Iowa is located in the North) both accepted campaign contributions from an openly white supremist organization.
6. Senator Ernst and Senator Grassley are from Iowa, a state that from time to time has ranked number one in the nation in terms of its black-white incarceration ratio. Strangely, both have been quite silent about this evil in their midst.
7. The Big Banks and Wall Street are largely Northern entities; they drive the racial wealth gap. Wall Street once traded slaves; Wall Street flies no Confederate flag.
8. I see no sign of a deep-seated repentance or restitution by whites in either the North or South. Genuine repentance and biblical restitution would result in the Northern white church aggressively attempting to end both mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap.
9. Hint: Even if the South gets rid of its evil flag, racism will not end in the South.
10. Lincoln and most abolitionists were racists; they believed that whites were superior and blacks were inferior. At one time, Lincoln wanted freed slaves to go back to Africa---self-deport.
For documentation, see PBS documentary Traces of the Trade, section 'Northern involvement in the Slave Trade.'
God said (Isa. 61:8): "I love justice."
God said (Amos 5:24, The Message): "I want justice---oceans of it."
God said (Luke 4:18-19, Noble paraphrase): "Biblical justice releases the oppressed."
My application to the American church: "God wants the church to do works of love and justice to release the oppressed and to repair their damaged individuals, families and communities. If the poverty and oppression is extreme, then justice must be equally extreme, radical, sweeping." So 50 percent of a church's budget should be spent on justice ministries, release the oppressed ministries.
What are the specific steps that are required?
1. A biblical church needs to identify and confront the oppressors. Who are the oppressors?
2. A biblical church needs to identify and release the oppressed? Who are the oppressed?
3. A biblical church must identify and destroy the systems of oppression. What is the nature of oppression? Gender, racial, economic?
Biblical grace, faith, worship, prayer must be mobilized so the church can engage in works of love and justice. The kingdom of God demands justice. The Holy Spirit empowers the church to do justice---set things right.
Both the OT prophet Amos and the NT prophet James were clear, blunt and specific about who the oppressors were---the rich; and who the oppressed were---the poor. So why is the American church so confused about economic inequality issues? Why is most of the American church not busy about releasing the oppressed? Why are the rich oppressors so comfortable and welcome in the American church? Why are the rich oppressors honored and the poor oppressed blamed and dishonored?
In his Introduction to Amos in The Message, Eugene Peterson writes: "Prophets sniff out injustice, especially injustice that is dressed up in religious garb. They sniff it out a mile away. Prophets see through hypocrisy, especially hypocrisy that assumes a religious pose. . . . Amos towers as defender of the downtrodden [oppressed] poor and accuser of the powerful rich who use God's name to legitimate their sin."
Another prophet, Jesus, the Christ, roared his disapproval of the religious rich, the ones who turned the holy Temple into "a den of robbers." The Pharisees who were greedy and lovers of money are described by Jesus (Luke 11:39-42) as ones who "neglect justice and the love of God." When Jesus finished his six woes in which he severely critiqued the religious rich Pharisees, how did they react? Luke 11:53: "The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely." Opposition, persecution, even death may hound those who do justice.
In Amos 2, the religious rich are described : "people for them are only things---ways of making money. They'd sell a poor man for a pair of shoes. They'd sell their own grandmother. They grind the penniless into the dust." (The Message)
I myself am a Wesleyan/Methodist. I have been around Wesleyans/Methodists most of my 88 years. I have lived in the black ghettos of Jackson, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi for 35 years. I have been on a pilgrimage to understand and change white American ethnocentrism/racism/oppression since April 1968.
To my knowledge, no Wesleyan/Methodist scholar has written a comprehensive analysis of the extensive biblical teaching on ethnocentrism/oppression. As a result, by either sins of commission or sins of omission, most Wesleyans either tolerate or participate
in the oppression of blacks.
To my knowledge, no Wesleyan scholar has ever rejusticized the English NT; in the NIV, justice is found 16 times. In a typical Spanish, French, Portugese, or Latin NT, justice occurs around 100 times. The absence of biblical justice creates a social vacuum into which rushes ethnocentrism/racism/oppression. In terms of social evil, Methodists are more American than biblical.
I long for the day when white, northern Wesleyans will repent and then restitute to the degree that even the secular world will be stunned at the amazing justice they see flowing out of the church. May the time come soon when Wesleyans/Methodists will lead the charge to abolish mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap. I long for the day when the biblical faith of white, northern Methodists will match the amazing biblical faith of Emanuel AME Church.
Out of grace should flow works of love and justice. (Eph. 2:8-10)
Out of faith must flow works of love and justice. (James 2)
Out of worship must flow works of love and justice. (Amos 5:21-24)
Out of love must flow works of justice. (I John 3:14-16)
As Graham Cray asserts: "The agenda of the kingdom of God is justice; the dynamic of the kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit."
The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church recently demonstrated marvelous and amazing grace after its pastor and eight other members were murdered by a white racist. Now is the time for white, northern Methodists to add justice to grace and love. Now is the time for Methodists/Wesleyans of all stripes to demonstrate sweeping, radical, and extreme biblical justice to end white ethnocentrism/racism/oppression.
As a nation, we are approaching the Fourth of July when we celebrate our independence and honor the flag---the Stars and Stripes. Because of long standing white ethnocentrism/racism/oppression, the Stars and Stripes are as tarnished as the Confederate flag. As a result, even though the Pledge of Allegiance ends with this great phrase---"with liberty and justice for all," I see little comprehensive and sustained effort by white northern Methodists/Wesleyans to actually do justice. Since the Pledge also contains the phrase "under God," I see myself as a hypocrite by mouthing fine words that have little reality. So until justice floods the nation and washes ethnocentrism/racism/oppression away, I can no longer, in good conscience, say the Pledge.
The sanctimonious North has been engaged in a lot of self-righteous blather about the Confederate flag. But the North itself is deeply racist, both in the past and in the present, though it has never flown the Confederate flag. Is the North's ethnocentrism/racism/oppression tied to the Stars and Stripes?
1. The North was the center of the slave trade---think New England, think the DeWolf family clan (which was worse than the Klan) from Bristol, Rhode Island. The slave trade was even more evil than slavery.
2. At one stage in American history, the North engaged in slavery also; they just ended it sooner than the South.
3. The North partially financed slavery and it profited greatly from the cotton trade, a product grown with slave labor.
4. The North is currently heavily involved in both mass incarceration (including extensive racial profiling), and the massive racial wealth gap. The Confederate flag does not fly over Northern prisons.
5. Senator Ernst and Representative King from Iowa (for the geographically illiterate, Iowa is located in the North) both accepted campaign contributions from an openly white supremist organization.
6. Senator Ernst and Senator Grassley are from Iowa, a state that from time to time has ranked number one in the nation in terms of its black-white incarceration ratio. Strangely, both have been quite silent about this evil in their midst.
7. The Big Banks and Wall Street are largely Northern entities; they drive the racial wealth gap. Wall Street once traded slaves; Wall Street flies no Confederate flag.
8. I see no sign of a deep-seated repentance or restitution by whites in either the North or South. Genuine repentance and biblical restitution would result in the Northern white church aggressively attempting to end both mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap.
9. Hint: Even if the South gets rid of its evil flag, racism will not end in the South.
10. Lincoln and most abolitionists were racists; they believed that whites were superior and blacks were inferior. At one time, Lincoln wanted freed slaves to go back to Africa---self-deport.
For documentation, see PBS documentary Traces of the Trade, section 'Northern involvement in the Slave Trade.'
God said (Isa. 61:8): "I love justice."
God said (Amos 5:24, The Message): "I want justice---oceans of it."
God said (Luke 4:18-19, Noble paraphrase): "Biblical justice releases the oppressed."
My application to the American church: "God wants the church to do works of love and justice to release the oppressed and to repair their damaged individuals, families and communities. If the poverty and oppression is extreme, then justice must be equally extreme, radical, sweeping." So 50 percent of a church's budget should be spent on justice ministries, release the oppressed ministries.
What are the specific steps that are required?
1. A biblical church needs to identify and confront the oppressors. Who are the oppressors?
2. A biblical church needs to identify and release the oppressed? Who are the oppressed?
3. A biblical church must identify and destroy the systems of oppression. What is the nature of oppression? Gender, racial, economic?
Biblical grace, faith, worship, prayer must be mobilized so the church can engage in works of love and justice. The kingdom of God demands justice. The Holy Spirit empowers the church to do justice---set things right.
Both the OT prophet Amos and the NT prophet James were clear, blunt and specific about who the oppressors were---the rich; and who the oppressed were---the poor. So why is the American church so confused about economic inequality issues? Why is most of the American church not busy about releasing the oppressed? Why are the rich oppressors so comfortable and welcome in the American church? Why are the rich oppressors honored and the poor oppressed blamed and dishonored?
In his Introduction to Amos in The Message, Eugene Peterson writes: "Prophets sniff out injustice, especially injustice that is dressed up in religious garb. They sniff it out a mile away. Prophets see through hypocrisy, especially hypocrisy that assumes a religious pose. . . . Amos towers as defender of the downtrodden [oppressed] poor and accuser of the powerful rich who use God's name to legitimate their sin."
Another prophet, Jesus, the Christ, roared his disapproval of the religious rich, the ones who turned the holy Temple into "a den of robbers." The Pharisees who were greedy and lovers of money are described by Jesus (Luke 11:39-42) as ones who "neglect justice and the love of God." When Jesus finished his six woes in which he severely critiqued the religious rich Pharisees, how did they react? Luke 11:53: "The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely." Opposition, persecution, even death may hound those who do justice.
In Amos 2, the religious rich are described : "people for them are only things---ways of making money. They'd sell a poor man for a pair of shoes. They'd sell their own grandmother. They grind the penniless into the dust." (The Message)
I myself am a Wesleyan/Methodist. I have been around Wesleyans/Methodists most of my 88 years. I have lived in the black ghettos of Jackson, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi for 35 years. I have been on a pilgrimage to understand and change white American ethnocentrism/racism/oppression since April 1968.
To my knowledge, no Wesleyan/Methodist scholar has written a comprehensive analysis of the extensive biblical teaching on ethnocentrism/oppression. As a result, by either sins of commission or sins of omission, most Wesleyans either tolerate or participate
in the oppression of blacks.
To my knowledge, no Wesleyan scholar has ever rejusticized the English NT; in the NIV, justice is found 16 times. In a typical Spanish, French, Portugese, or Latin NT, justice occurs around 100 times. The absence of biblical justice creates a social vacuum into which rushes ethnocentrism/racism/oppression. In terms of social evil, Methodists are more American than biblical.
I long for the day when white, northern Wesleyans will repent and then restitute to the degree that even the secular world will be stunned at the amazing justice they see flowing out of the church. May the time come soon when Wesleyans/Methodists will lead the charge to abolish mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap. I long for the day when the biblical faith of white, northern Methodists will match the amazing biblical faith of Emanuel AME Church.
Out of grace should flow works of love and justice. (Eph. 2:8-10)
Out of faith must flow works of love and justice. (James 2)
Out of worship must flow works of love and justice. (Amos 5:21-24)
Out of love must flow works of justice. (I John 3:14-16)
As Graham Cray asserts: "The agenda of the kingdom of God is justice; the dynamic of the kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit."
Saturday, June 20, 2015
The Haitian Meatgrinders or Hell on Haiti
Haiti has been put through three different meatgrinders---one made in Spain, another made in France, and one made in the United States. The design of each meatgrinder is somewhat different; the end result is the same; the poor are crushed, smashed by physical and social death.
The Spanish meatgrinder had a flashy motto---God, Glory and Gold; the end result---Genocide; none of the original Indian inhabitants/cultures have survived, not in Haiti, not on any of the Caribbean islands.
The French meatgrinder also had a flashy motto for Haiti---the Pearl of the Antilles; Haiti was highly productive in terms of sugar and other tropical foods. But the Pearl was Hell for the slaves who labored to make Haiti highly productive; Haiti was the French Hellhole.
The American meatgrinder was operated by an American white, rich, male elite in cooperation with a Haitian white/mulatto rich, male elite---an evil blending of color, class and culture with poor blacks oppressed and marginalized.
Scholars give different labels to the mechanical parts of the Haitian meatgrinders: colonialism, neocolonialism, slavery, neoslavery, debt slavery, dictatorship, plutocracy, and 'democracy'. The systems of oppression are redesigned from time to time, given a new coat of beautiful paint on the outside. But each new design crushes the poor---500 years of oppression, 500 years of poverty; 500 years of social death, PTSD, of cultural dysfunction.
How did Jesus describe the meatgrinder of his times? He called the beautiful, holy Temple, "a den of robbers." Jesus warned, "Woe to the rich!" He condemned the evil combination of God and Money. Jesus tackled the twin social evils of oppression and ethnocentrism immediately (Luke 4:18 and 4:25-30).
In America our Temple is called: American exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. The nice sounding mottos legitimate arrogant American exceptionalism, demonic expansion, deistic oppression and superior Anglo culture. This is impressively symbolized by the St. Louis Arch; to white Americans, the arrogant Arch symbolizes exploration and Westward expansion; to Native Americans, the Arch symbolizes exploitation and extermination.
Hell on Haiti: 500 years of political and economic oppression
Spanish military, political and economic domination of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, including the western third of the island now called Haiti, reduced the Native American from an estimated several million down to 29,000 within two decades. Ruthless oppression resulted in near physical genocide, or as one historian termed it, "Hell on Hispaniola." Today, there are no identifiable Native American cultures or peoples left on any of the Caribbean islands---total cultural genocide.
The island was repopulated with African slaves in order to grow tropical crops such as sugar cane for export to Europe. The Hell continued. The French replaced the Spanish as the administrators of Hell on Haiti.
When the French Revolution occurred in France, it inspired the Haitian slaves to rebel in 1791. By 1804, the Haitian slaves had gained their freedom by defeating the powerful French army. But the price was high; the country and the economy had been badly damaged. France threatened to reinvade Haiti so the Haitians built up a military force to defend themselves. Ever since, they have had an overly militarized society which usually has controlled both the political and economic institutions.
France finally agreed to sign a peace treaty with Haiti in 1825, but only after Haiti agreed to exorbitant reparations for another 100 plus years. These massive, unjust reparations to slave holders may have permanently affected Haiti's economy and wealth. At the same time that the U.S. was massively investing in railroads and education, Haitians had little money left over to do so; all the money was going to France. Haiti found it very difficult to create political and economic stability during the 1800s and 1900s.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the United States began a process to gain commercial and military privileges in Haiti. To protect U.S. economic interests as well as to protect approaches to the Panama Canal, the U.S. Marines occupied Haiti from 1915-1934. Haiti signed a treaty establishing U.S. political and economic domination. The HELL continued.
According to Jean Claude Cerin, "one legacy of the American occupation was a unified army, which quickly became a power in itself, constantly seeking political domination." Hell quickly returned to Haiti under the dictatorial reigns of the infamous "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc." These reigns lasted from 1957 to 1986 when a popular revolt drove "Baby Doc" out of Haiti.
One result of this long and tragic history---500 years of oppression---is that approximately 80 percent of Haiti's population lives in grinding poverty. There is no "safety net" to protect the poor so for most Haitians the hell continues.
What light does the Bible shed on this terrible injustice? What is the biblical perspective on oppression?
Thomas Hanks, author of God So Loved the Third World: The Biblical Vocabulary of Oppression and a Hebrew scholar, asserts that there are 555 references to oppression in the OT, that "oppression smashes the body and crushes the spirit." Or one could say that systems of oppression, decades, even centuries of oppression, smash a people and crush their culture. End result; mass individual post traumatic stress disorder and social death with damaged social institutions, a dysfunctional culture, and cycles of extreme poverty.
Exodus provides deep insights into the nature of oppression and the damage it does. According to Hanks, oppression crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes enslaves and kills persons created in the image of God. Read Exodus, chapter 1 in total, but especially verses 11-14 in the NIV. Note these words: slave masters, oppress, forced labor, oppressed, ruthlessly and hard labor. And later, kill. More details on the oppressor, Pharaoh, are found in chapter 5.
After centuries of slavery, God speaks directly to Moses (6:1-9), and forcefully asserts that He IS going to deliver the children of Israel from their bondage. "Moses reported [the message from God] to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement [RSV: "broken spirit"] and cruel bondage."
From The Message, 6:9 reads: "But when Moses delivered this message to the Israelites, they didn't even hear him---they were that beaten down in spirit by the harsh slave conditions." When oppression creates hopelessness, what do Christians do? You and I must come along side the crushed, take them by the hand, and TOGETHER create a new future. This new future can be built around Luke 4:18-19; the Spirit-filled church must create Jubilee justice ministries that will release the oppressed poor.
My paraphrase of James 1:27 and 2:8 reads: "Pure religion puts the needs of oppressed widows and orphans, i.e., the poor, as the top priority in the church; this is what loving your neighbor really means---you combine love and justice."
Oppression has reigned for 500 years in Haiti. Are my readers ready to join me in seeing to it that Jubilee justice reigns for the next 100 years? The best place to start in rural Haiti is to assist the Haiti Christian Development Fund in Fond-des-Blancs. Here hope is beginning to crowd out hell.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Physical Slavery and Debt Slavery
The Old Testament Sabbath Year required that slaves had to be freed every seven years and debts cancelled every seven years.
Slaves freed makes sense, but debts cancelled?? Isn't there a moral obligation to repay one's debts? Apparently there are legitimate debts and oppressive debts---debt slavery; some debt slavery is "legal", but legal is not always moral.
Legitimate debt---I borrow $100 from you; I should repay you the $100 plus a low rate of interest. But much debt is tied to a system of oppression---usury, excessive interest---or predatory lending, subprime mortgages.
Jesus called the operation of the sacred Temple "a den of robbers." In the wrong hands, apparently any social institution, even a religious one, can become a system of oppression---financial slavery, debt slavery. The religious leaders loved money; it didn't come from hard work.
In the ancient world, according to Moses Finley, all revolutionary movements had a single program: "Cancel the debts and redistribute the land."
This blog is built around the book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011) by anthropologist David Graeber. When I discovered that Graeber understood both the Old Testament Jubilee and Haitian debt bondage, I knew I had a good book. Graeber's thoughts on Haiti:
"The most spectacular example of this is the history of the Republic of Haiti---the first poor country to be placed in permanent debt peonage [bondage]. Haiti was a nation founded by former plantation slaves who had the temerity not only to rise up in rebellion, . . . but to defeat Napoleon's armies. . . . France immediately insisted that the new republic owed it 150 million francs in damages for the expropriated plantations, as well as the expenses of outfitting the failed military expeditions, and all other nations, including the United States, agreed to impose an embargo on the country until it was paid. The sum was intentionally impossible (equivalent to about 18 billion dollars), [to be paid], and the resultant embargo ensured that the name 'Haiti' has been a synonym for debt, poverty, and human misery ever since."
Note that France did not pay reparations to Haitian slaves for their free labor which helped make France rich. When Britain finally freed it empire slaves, the slaves owners were compensated for the loss of their slaves; the slaves were not compensated for their free labor.
The aim of both physical slavery and debt slavery is to make money, lots of it. As the DeWolf clan of Bristol, Rhode Island, the clan that engaged in both the slave trade and slavery, said, they wanted "Money, money, money, money, money." In some ways, debt slavery is easier and smarter than the hassle and expense involved in purchasing, feeding and controlling physical slaves. Segregation and sharecropping (debt slavery) were probably just a lucrative as actual slavery.
Again, the Sabbath Year identified the two most common and often related systems of oppression---physical slavery and debt slavery. The rich oppressed the poor through slavery and debt. Orlando Patterson, Harvard historical sociologist/anthropologist, has written the classic book on slavery entitled Slavery and Social Death; this book has be summarized as a "full-scale comparative study of the nature of slavery, a work of prodigious scholarship and enormous breadth, which draws on tribal, ancient, premodern and modern worlds." This description could also be used to summarize Graeber's book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Graeber is also an anthropologist with a fine sense of history and a good grasp of economics.
Debt is over 500 pages and clearly written, but most of you will not have the time to read it so I suggest that you read the Wikipedia summary and an article by economist Robert Kuttner who has some expertise in modern bankruptcy and who has written an article entitled "The Debt We Shouldn't Pay." In this article Kuttner writes: "In Graeber's exhaustive, engaging, and occasionally exasperating book [Debt], three themes stand out. One is the 'profound moral confusion' in our understanding of debt. A second is the perennial struggle over debt forgiveness and who receives it. A third is the function of debt in the politics of social class and social control [think systems of oppression]."
Some quotations from Debt:
"This Asian trade [gold and silver from the America's] became the single most significant factor in the emerging global economy, and those who ultimately controlled the financial levers---particularly Italian, Dutch, and German merchant bankers---became fantastically rich."
"While we are used to assuming that the Mexican population was devastated simply as an effect of newly introduced European disease, contemporary observers felt that the enslaving of the newly conquered natives to work in the mines was at least equally responsible."
"When dealing with the conquistadors, we are speaking not of just simple greed, but greed raised to mythic proportions."
"Charles Stamp, director of the Bank of England: "The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the earth; take it away from them, but leave them with the power to create credit, and with the stroke of a pen they will create enough money to buy it back again. . . . If you wish to remain slaves of Bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."
". . . the medieval moralists had a deeper problem than metaphysical entities. They had a much more fundamental problem with the market: greed [and the systems of oppression that greed created]."
"As everybody knows, the world market system initiated by the Spaniards and Portuguese empires first arose in the search for spices. It soon settled into three broad trades, which might be labeled the arms trade, the slave trade, and the drug trade."
Thomas Jefferson: "The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating."
PS. Now that Pastor Francis has spoken on climate change as a major social evil that heavily impacts the poor, the church needs to add the climate crisis to physical slavery and debt slavery as justice issues that must be confronted and changed by the Spirit-filled church.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Repentance, Restitution and Justice
Repent! The kingdom of God is near, here. Repent, repair and do justice. Biblical repentance requires restitution.
Repent America! If you don't change your ways, you cannot enter God's kingdom of justice.
Repent America! Though America likes to think of itself as a Christian nation, with unrepented of genocide, slavery and segregation, America does not meet the biblical standards for entrance into the kingdom of God.
Repent America! Do justice or face judgment. Love and justice are action words, not just theological concepts.
Worship without justice is dead (Amos 5:21-24).
Faith without works of love and justice is dead (James 2:14-26).
Grace without works of love and justice is dead (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Love without works of justice is dead (I John 3:1-10).
Spirituality with works of justice is dead (Isaiah 58---The Message, and the Sermon on the Mount).
From the Poverty and Justice Bible (CEV), Insert, page 21, "Sabbath"
"Leviticus is often viewed as a book full of obscure rules and ritual, yet it contains one of the most astonshing pieces of social legislation in history: the Sabbath years and the Jubilee. Every seven years, the land had a Sabbath, 'time off', allowing it to recover. During this year slaves were to be freed (Exodus 21:2) and debts were to be cancelled (Deut. 15:1-11)."
"And every fiftieth year there was a Jubilee, . . . where the entire social structure of Israel was to be reset. Every Israelite became, once again, a free citizen. Everyone could wipe the slate clean and start again, and, significantly, the year began on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 25:9)---the day of national repentance and reconciliation. So, fresh starts spiritually and physically [socially]---a whole life view."
The New Testament kingdom of God should model the Old Testament Sabbath Year and Jubilee principles---justice for the poor. Matthew 6:33: "Give your highest priority to God's kingdom and his justice, but first you must repent of your evil ethnocentric and oppressive ways.
Repent America! If you don't change your ways, you cannot enter God's kingdom of justice.
Repent America! Though America likes to think of itself as a Christian nation, with unrepented of genocide, slavery and segregation, America does not meet the biblical standards for entrance into the kingdom of God.
Repent America! Do justice or face judgment. Love and justice are action words, not just theological concepts.
Worship without justice is dead (Amos 5:21-24).
Faith without works of love and justice is dead (James 2:14-26).
Grace without works of love and justice is dead (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Love without works of justice is dead (I John 3:1-10).
Spirituality with works of justice is dead (Isaiah 58---The Message, and the Sermon on the Mount).
From the Poverty and Justice Bible (CEV), Insert, page 21, "Sabbath"
"Leviticus is often viewed as a book full of obscure rules and ritual, yet it contains one of the most astonshing pieces of social legislation in history: the Sabbath years and the Jubilee. Every seven years, the land had a Sabbath, 'time off', allowing it to recover. During this year slaves were to be freed (Exodus 21:2) and debts were to be cancelled (Deut. 15:1-11)."
"And every fiftieth year there was a Jubilee, . . . where the entire social structure of Israel was to be reset. Every Israelite became, once again, a free citizen. Everyone could wipe the slate clean and start again, and, significantly, the year began on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 25:9)---the day of national repentance and reconciliation. So, fresh starts spiritually and physically [socially]---a whole life view."
The New Testament kingdom of God should model the Old Testament Sabbath Year and Jubilee principles---justice for the poor. Matthew 6:33: "Give your highest priority to God's kingdom and his justice, but first you must repent of your evil ethnocentric and oppressive ways.
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