Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Jesus and the Christian Faith v Christian Nationalism



Amazon Link

Why do so many conservative Christians continue to support Donald Trump despite his many overt moral failings? Why do many Americans advocate so vehemently for xenophobic policies, such as a border wall with Mexico? Why do many Americans seem so unwilling to acknowledge the injustices that ethnic and racial minorities experience in the United States? Why do a sizeable proportion of Americans continue to oppose women's equality in the workplace and in the home?

To answer these questions, Taking America Back for God points to the phenomenon of "Christian Nationalism," the belief that the United States is-and should be-a Christian nation. Christian ideals and symbols have long played an important role in American public life, but Christian Nationalism is about far more than whether the phrase "under God" belongs in the pledge of allegiance. At its heart, Christian Nationalism demands that we must preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone--Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women recognizes their "proper" place in society. The first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian Nationalism in the United States, Taking America Back for God illustrates the influence of Christian Nationalism on today's most contentious social and political issues.

Drawing on multiple sources of national survey data as well as in-depth interviews, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry document how Christian Nationalism shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there. Americans' stance toward Christian Nationalism provides powerful insight into what they think about immigration, Islam, gun control, police shootings, atheists, gender roles, and many other political issues-very much including who they want in the White House. Taking America Back for God is a guide to one of the most important-and least understood-forces shaping American politics.


* * * * * * * * *


RLC Book Club
Streamed live on Jul 25, 2021

Authors Andrew Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry
discuss their book "Taking America Back for God"
with Shane Claiborne | 57:18




* * * * * * * * *






PODCAST LINK HERE

T

aking an active role in shaping our communities—and nation—is a valid way for us to fulfill Jesus’ mandate to love our neighbor. Such work is both Christian and political. It’s that intersection we’re exploring in this For God and Country series. Once we determine it is our duty to work toward the common good in this way, a new question arises: What kind of community or nation are we trying to build?

In this episode of Persuasion, Erin Straza and Hannah Anderson dig into their fall series called For God and Country. Each episode will tackle an aspect of how faith and politics collide. In this conversation, Erin and Hannah look to the pain points Christians are feeling and use them to unearth the way fear can sway our political leanings. In Christian circles, there has been increasing concern about religious rights and freedoms, as well as rally cries to take our nation back for God. To help us understand the factors feeding these ideas, Hannah speaks with Sam Perry, who has done significant research on Christian nationalism. Together with Andrew Whitehead, Sam authored a book of these findings titled Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. Sam addresses the growing conflation of Christian faith with nationalism, which at its core is political idolatry. Because we are so accustomed to these messages and stances within the Church, we can become blind to how we’ve adopted ideals and stances that are contrary to the gospel:
  • Is it truly our mandate to take America back for God?
  • Are Christians under persecution in the United States—or is it just a loss of privilege and status?
  • Should Christians focus on protecting our own rights or is it more important to reach others with the love of God found in Jesus?
Listen in for dialogue on questions like these as we learn to think more clearly about the intersection of faith and politics. Then continue the conversation on Twitter @PersuasionCAPC or in the CAPC members-only community on Facebook.
Today’s episode of Persuasion is sponsored in part by Plough Publishing House, publisher of new title The Gospel in Dickens, edited by Gina Dalfonzo. CAPC members receive 30% off when purchasing from Plough!
HOSTS
Erin Straza: Web / Twitter
Hannah Anderson: Web / Twitter

PERSUASION PODCAST
Instagram: @PersuasionCAPC
Facebook: /Persuasioncapc

PERSUASION 201 RESOURCES & LINKS

Did you enjoy this episode of Persuasion? Give the entire series a listen:


THEME MUSIC by Maiden Name.



* * * * * * * * *




In the following article I have placed the last section first ahead of the main article because of its relevancy to the topic being discussed today. Afterwards I have posted the entire article as it was originally written.

Hope College of Holland, Michigan, is a private Christian university which is part of the Reformed Churches of America (RCA). They are located not far from where I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where my wife and I for many years had enjoyed their Summer Repertory Theatre when dating and our early years of marriage.

Thankfully, the students and faculty at Hope have a clear enough vision of the Christian faith to say no to Christian racism and Christian nationalism. Which gives me hope that not all Christians are shovelheads. Here are their thoughts....

R.E. Slater
July 28, 2021




... One more thing on this topic, and not just a post script. You could write a whole book on it. In fact, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry already have, and I recommend it to you:

It is a data-driven analysis of Christian Nationalism, people for whom their Christian faith and their American patriotism have fused so completely that they see no discernable difference between the Kingdom of God and the U.S. of A.

Measured in terms of agreement with just six questions (e.g., “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation” and “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan”), Christian Nationalism predicts all kinds of attitudes about race and racism, rooted in a very clear sense of the boundary that divides “us” from “them.”

Christian Nationalists are more likely to believe that “true Americans” are White Christians, born in the U.S. with forebears from the U.S. Everyone else lives on the other side of the boundary, and therefore is highly suspect.

Immigrants are seen as bad people who pollute the purity of the culture. U.S.-born minorities are believed to be lazy or criminal or both - people who deserve substandard housing, low-paying jobs, and inferior schools.

It is absolutely telling that those who have fused God and country are the biggest bigots in the nation. Racism is intertwined in the history of both the U.S. government and the U. S. church. Put them together, and the result is pure White supremacy.

Now please don’t conclude that all Christians in this country are Christian Nationalists. That is far from the truth. Christians who are low in Christian Nationalism have beliefs about race that are completely opposite from Christian Nationalists. (More on that in the next section.)

And many Christian Nationalists aren’t especially Christian, as measured by things like church attendance and Bible reading. It isn’t the Christian faith itself that promotes xenophobia and racism; it is the heresy of White Supremacy that has found its way into the hearts and minds of many, but by no means all, people who profess Christian beliefs.

Peter Wehner, who worked for Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush, summarizes it in this way:

Countless people who profess to be Christians are having their moral sensibilities shaped more by Tucker Carlson’s nightly monologues than by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps without quite knowing it, many of those who most loudly proclaim the “pre-eminence of Christ” have turned him into a means to an end, a cruel, ugly and unforgiving end.

Can I get an Amen?

The Bottom Line: Overt racism is alive and well, and quite visible, especially in recent years. One reason is politics: the Republican party has played on White racial resentment in order to win votes, a strategy that has worked pretty well for them since the 1960s.

A second reason is U.S. Christianity, which has been part and parcel of U.S. racism since Europeans first landed in the Americas. The good news comes in the next post: anti-racism has been on the rise lately, too, offering some hope in what has been a pretty difficult time.


* * * * * * * * *




GETTING RACE RIGHT

A project of Professor Charles Green &
Race in America students at Hope College

"Racial justice is the path to racial progress."

Embracing Racism: Race, Politics, and Religion

"Racial justice as the path to racial progress."

Follow us on twitter @GetRaceRight


I don’t want to write this.

Part of it is the difficulty of writing about race, politics, and religion in a way that is true, honest, and respectful. As a person of faith, I believe every human being is a child of God, beloved by God. That includes people who perpetuate racism. (I keep looking for an asterisk, an escape clause, or a list of exceptions in the Scriptures. No luck as of yet, but I’ll keep you posted.) At the same time, as a person of faith—more specifically as a Christian—I believe that Jesus cared quite particularly for those on the margins. He sought them out and brought them in. He gave them his time, his love, and eventually, his life. And he had no apparent difficulty “speaking truth to power.” When was the last time somebody called you a brood of vipers or a whitewashed tomb?

In the first two posts in this section on “The View from Above,” I wrote about the experiences and perspectives of that plurality of White Americans who rather vaguely want to do the right thing but don’t really know how and, for the most part, aren’t actively trying to figure it out. In this section, I write about that growing number of White Americans who are owning their racism, talking about it in public, sometimes with a veneer of respectability, but increasingly in horrid, shameful ways. They have always been part of the mix, but they now are emboldened. Some of them hold a great deal of political and economic power, and they do not intend to give it up. Others don’t hold much power themselves, but are deeply devoted to maintaining White Supremacy nonetheless. There are real concerns that the backlash to the civil rights movement has gotten so strong that we have entered an age of Jim Crow 2.0—and for good reason. (See, for example, Bentele and O’Brien, 2013.) We need to understand what’s going on and commit ourselves to stand against it. (As you read this, keep in mind that the number of White Americans who take racism seriously and want to do something about it is also rising. More on that in the next section.)


RACE AND POLITICS

For most of our history racism was big and loud and ugly. In the first few decades following the civil rights movement, more people were quiet about their racism, often keeping it “backstage.” Many still do, but an increasing number are bringing it right up front.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson


Historian Heather Cox Richardson puts all this in context for us. During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt interrupted the political Gilded Age by putting the federal government mostly on the side of ordinary Americans (ordinary White Americans, that is). This followed decades of government favoritism for the wealthy and privileged. The 1954 Brown v. Board Supreme Court ruling, however, gave plutocrats the opening they needed: they began to connect, in the minds of many citizens, the policies of the New Deal with equal rights for people of color. They hoped that if working White people believed they had to choose between their economic interests and their racism, many would choose their racism. And, indeed, many did.

The Reagan Revolution was the culmination of that work. With a ready smile, Pres. Reagan cut taxes for the wealthy, reduced government oversight of the market, slashed the social safety net, and—not coincidentally—found ways to let racists know he was on their side.

Ian Haney López, teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley


In Dog Whitle Politics (2014), Ian Haney López, who teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley, calls this “strategic racism.” Powerful people, especially politicians, use other people’s racism to advance their own interests. The specifics of the strategy can change over time (e.g., how openly racist to be), but the goal—to keep money and power in the hands of powerful White people—is constant. In the introduction to his book, López offers this overview:

So we need to be clear: the connection between race and the Republican Party is not accidental, vestigial, or comical, and it’s certainly not trivial. lnstcad, as we will see, over the last half-century conservatives have used racial pandering to win support from white voters for policies that principally favor the extremely wealthy and wreck the middle class. Running on racial appeals, the right has promiscd to protect supposedly embattled whites, when in reality it has largely harnessed govcrnment to the interests of the very affluent. Thc result is an economic crisis that has engulfed the nation . . .

Those who have wondered where in the world Donald Trump came from in 2016 need to understand that Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan all made Trump possible. The big, angry backlash to Obama’s election made Trump inevitable. (What—you thought the Tea Party was about taxes?)

You may or may not like Richardson’s or López’s analysis of the big picture, but here are just a few of the many, many facts about race and politics today:

In their 2020 annual report, the Public Religion Research Institute identified many differences in attitudes and beliefs between Republicans and Democrats—so many, in fact, they named their report Dueling Realities. Here are just some of those differences when it comes to race, ethnicity, and culture:
  • 68% of Democrats believe that racial inequality is a critical issue to address; only 17% of Republicans agree.
  • 77% of Republicans believe that Islam is at odds with U.S. values; only 26% of Democrats agree.
  • 78% of Republicans (93% who trust Fox News more than other news sources) approved of Donald Trump’s handling of Black Lives Matter protests, versus 9% of Democrats.
  • 79% of Republicans (and 90% of Republicans who trust Fox News), compared with only 17% of Democrats, believe that police killings of Black Americans are isolated incidents, and not part of a broader pattern.
  • 49% of Republicans believe that the country is made better when Americans protest unfair treatment. However, only 24% of Republicans (10% of Fox News Republicans) agree that the protests of Black Americans make the country better. Among Democrats, there was no difference—71% for both “Americans” and for “Black Americans.”
  • Republicans are more likely to say that there is significant discrimination against White people than against Black people (57% v. 52%). For Democrats, 92% see discrimination against Black people and only 13% see discrimination against White people.

  • The list goes on, but you get the idea.




One thing to remember when comparing the views of Republicans and Democrats is that, according to the Pew Research Center, 81% of Republicans identify as White while only 59% of Democrats do. When comparing the attitudes of Republicans and Democrats, then, we are comparing a mostly White group of people with a more diverse group of people. However, there are consistent differences between White Democrats and White Republicans, too. For example, an April, 2021 opinion poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News found that 87% of White Democrats believe that ethnic minorities do not receive equal treatment in the criminal justice system; only 36% of White Republicans felt the same way.

Why does Donald Trump maintain such strong loyalty among most Republicans? Thomas B. Edsall offered many reasons and quoted many scholars in a column he wrote in the New York Times. Many Trump supporters believe that White dominance is under attack. The resulting fear and insecurity lead them to a sense of victimhood, and to believe they need to fight to regain the status they believe they have lost. Edsall quoted a political scientist at Temple University, Kevin Arceneaux, who studies the effects of psychological biases on political opinions:

The civil rights movement was about mobilizing an oppressed minority to fight for their rights, against the likelihood of state-sanctioned violence, while Trump’s appeals are about harnessing the power of the state to maintain white dominance. Trump’s appeals to discontented whites are reactionary in nature. They promise to go back to a time when whites were unquestionably at the top of the social hierarchy. These appeals are about keying into anger and fear, as opposed to hope, and they are about moving backward and not forward.

This is dangerous territory. Miller and Davis (2021) found that racism and anti-democratic values often go hand-in-hand:

“White Americans who would not want an immigrant/foreign worker, someone who speaks a different language, or someone from a different race as a neighbor are more likely to support strongman rule in the United States, rule of the U.S. government by the army, and are more likely to outright reject having a democracy for the United States.”

Dr. Oleka


If you are a Republican, no doubt this is difficult reading for you. I ask that you be open to the facts. And please know that I am not suggesting that you leave the party. Frankly, I’d rather you stay right where you are and make a difference from the inside. At the height of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, OJ Oleka wrote an essay entitled Why conservatives should be leading the way to end institutional racism. As a self-described conservative Black man, Dr. Oleka made the following argument:

Modern conservatism defends voluntary community, encourages strong families, praises earned wealth and demands honest labor. Racism oppresses. Conservatism liberates. Conservatives should be front and center, leading the way on how to end institutional racism in America.

Look at it like this: Democrats were the party of Jim Crow racism for nearly a century. 1948 was the first year they adopted a party platform in favor of civil rights. By 1964, only 18 years later, Lyndon Johnson, of all people, pushed the Civil Rights Act through a reluctant congress. Lord knows the Democrats continue to have their own problems with race, but they no longer organize their existence around the perpetuation of overt White Supremacy. There’s no reason the Republicans can’t make the same kind of change—but they first have to decide that it’s time, finally, to do the right thing.


RACE AND RELIGION

Still with me? I appreciate it.


In his compelling book, White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (2020), Robert P. Jones, the director of the Public Religion Research Institute, offers many examples of how White Christians are more likely to be racist than most other White Americans. Just a few examples (all taken from pages 161 – 172):

  • White Christians are more likely than other Americans to assert that generations of slavery and discrimination make no difference in Black people’s ability to get ahead in life.
  • White Christians are more likely to oppose immigration to the U.S., including legal immigration.
  • White Christians were more likely to support Donald Trump’s ban on Muslims coming to the U.S., even for a visit, and more likely to support his vision of building a wall across the border with Mexico.
  • White Christians score much higher on Jones’s Racism Index than any other group of Americans (see chart below).



As you can see, White evangelicals scored a bit higher than White Catholics or White mainline Protestants on the Racism Index, but the differences among these Christian groups are small. The differences between White Christians and other subsets of the population, however are sizeable. That is true for each of the issues in the list. White non-evangelical Christians who think that only evangelicals are racist are letting themselves and their churches off the hook way too easily.

This is just one small glimpse into the research on racism in the U.S. church. I could go on and on and on, but the point, sadly, would be the same: racism in this country is very strong among people whose faith teaches them—above all—to love both God and neighbor. Why would this be?

We have to begin with the role of the church in colonialism. The church was not a bystander; it was an active participant. When European Christians were looking for a justification for genocide and slavery, the church was there to help. The Doctrine of Discovery, laid out over the last half of the 15th Century, was the church’s blessing—a mandate, even—to conquer non-Europeans around the world and exploit their land and their labor. For centuries, the church has blessed Indian removal, slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, racial hierarchy, and racial inequity. There have been prophets along the way who preached the gospel Christ actually taught, but not enough. Mark Charles, a Navajo Christian pastor, explains it like this:

The Rev. Dr. E. Ross Kane of Virginia Theological Seminary argues that in aligning itself with conquest and colonialism, the church so thoroughtly intertwined faith and White culture that it is difficult to know the difference anymore. Merging faith and culture is called syncretism. The Western church has been vigilent in calling out syncretism in colonized lands, trying to maintain the “purity” of the faith in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. But it paid no attention to the myriad ways that the racism of European culture infiltrated the church, from the local parish to the highest councils. Prof. Kane says:

“White Christianity saw itself as the norm and as the primary bearer of divine revelation. It did not expect to discover something new through different cultures’ encounters with Christ. Rather, these cultures were expected to conform to largely White understandings of Christianity. The closer one came to White expressions of Christianity, the less likely one would be dubbed a syncretist. In this way, racism inhibited comprehension of divine revelation by narrowing its scope.”

'We the People' - the three most misunderstood words in US history
| Mark Charles | TEDxTysons | Jan 24, 2019



Dr. George Kelsey (1965), a Christian theologian, believed that White Supremacy in Christians went beyond syncretism. He called it an idolatrous faith. He argued that racism was so inimical to Christianity that racist Christians should be considered polytheists:

“When the racist is also a Christian, which is often the case in America, he is frequently a polytheist. Historically, in polytheistic faiths, various gods have controlled various spheres of authority. Thus a Christian racist may think he lives under the requirements of the God of biblical faith in most areas of his life, but whenever matters of race impinge on his life, in every area so affected, the idol of race determines his attitude, decision, and action. . . . Polytheistic faith has been nowhere more evident than in that sizable group of Christiansn who take the position that racial traditions and practices in America are in no sense a religious matter. . . A probable explanation of this peculiar state of affairs is that modern Christianity and Christian civilization have domesticated racism so thoroughly that most Christians stand too close to assess it properly.”

Baylor University social psychologists (Johnson, Rowatt, and LaBouff, 2010) would agree. They found that White U.S. Christianity and racial prejudice are, indeed, deeply intertwined in our thinking. They primed research participants with Christian words like church, Bible, and Jesus—as opposed to neutral words like shirt, butter, and hammer— and learned that the Christian words led the participants to express more negative attitudes and feelings toward Black Americans—regardless of their own personal religious beliefs.



Christians and non-Christians alike implicitly
associate the Christian faith with racial prejudice.


Gloria Purvis


Friends, this is who we are—both to ourselves and to others—and it’s heresy. Gloria Purvis, who hosts a show on a Roman Catholic radio network, says it well:

“Racism makes a liar of God. It says not everyone is made in his image. What a horrible lie from the pit of hell.”


TAKING AMERICA BACK FOR GOD




One more thing on this topic, and not just a post script. You could write a whole book on it. In fact, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry already have, and I recommend it to you:

It is a data-driven analysis of Christian Nationalism, people for whom their Christian faith and their American patriotism have fused so completely that they see no discernable difference between the Kingdom of God and the U.S. of A.

Measured in terms of agreement with just six questions (e.g., “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation” and “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan”), Christian Nationalism predicts all kinds of attitudes about race and racism, rooted in a very clear sense of the boundary that divides “us” from “them.”

Christian Nationalists are more likely to believe that “true Americans” are White Christians, born in the U.S. with forebears from the U.S. Everyone else lives on the other side of the boundary, and therefore is highly suspect.

Immigrants are seen as bad people who pollute the purity of the culture. U.S.-born minorities are believed to be lazy or criminal or both - people who deserve substandard housing, low-paying jobs, and inferior schools.

It is absolutely telling that those who have fused God and country are the biggest bigots in the nation. Racism is intertwined in the history of both the U.S. government and the U. S. church. Put them together, and the result is pure White supremacy.

Now please don’t conclude that all Christians in this country are Christian Nationalists. That is far from the truth. Christians who are low in Christian Nationalism have beliefs about race that are completely opposite from Christian Nationalists. (More on that in the next section.)

And many Christian Nationalists aren’t especially Christian, as measured by things like church attendance and Bible reading. It isn’t the Christian faith itself that promotes xenophobia and racism; it is the heresy of White Supremacy that has found its way into the hearts and minds of many, but by no means all, people who profess Christian beliefs.

Peter Wehner, who worked for Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush, summarizes it in this way:

Countless people who profess to be Christians are having their moral sensibilities shaped more by Tucker Carlson’s nightly monologues than by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps without quite knowing it, many of those who most loudly proclaim the “pre-eminence of Christ” have turned him into a means to an end, a cruel, ugly and unforgiving end.

Can I get an Amen?

The Bottom Line: Overt racism is alive and well, and quite visible, especially in recent years. One reason is politicsthe Republican party has played on White racial resentment in order to win votes, a strategy that has worked pretty well for them since the 1960s.

A second reason is U.S. Christianity, which has been part and parcel of U.S. racism since Europeans first landed in the Americas. The good news comes in the next post: anti-racism has been on the rise lately, too, offering some hope in what has been a pretty difficult time.


Hope College, Holland, Michigan



Friday, July 23, 2021

What if Roe v Wade is defeated?

 


Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me;
for of such is the kingdom of heaven - Jesus, Matthew 19.14

If pro-life abortion succeeds there will be a lot of unwanted kids sloshing through the foster care system. Solving "the problem of abortion" will create yet another world of trouble for unwanted children on the other side of that "solution." - re slater

What if Roe v Wade is defeated?

I don't say much about abortion because I basically agree with both sides. I agree with the sanctity of life but also agree with the sanctity of the womb that it remains a personal decision. I realize people from both sides play around with the the idea of what constitutes life and when. That late-term abortions seem more inhumane than near-term abortions. For me, its not a when but a what. If it's life, then it's life. Life must have a sanctity to it....

I say this knowing that not only new life, but all life, must have a sanctity to it. How we end up treating all forms of after-birth life continues to apall me. BLM lives matter to me as much as LGBTQ+ lives matter to me. Ghetto lives, homeless lives, non-white races, global ethnicities, and religious life matters to me as much as white Christian and non-Christian lifes mean to me.

More simply, "All lives matter"... not just white, blue, or whatever. All lives. And when we do not serve all lives - but only some lives - I have a deep problem with the "half-and-half" ideological attitudes pushing at one thread rather than at the whole garment.


HOW WILL NEW LIVES MATTER?

So let me say this another way. Let's assume the "half-and-half" boundary attitude people win out and succeed in overturning Roe v Wade. I wonder if they have thought through the consequences of their victory in just this one area of new lives and what to do with those babies when they are given birth?

Sadly, I suspect its all verbiage. The Pro-Lifers wish to preserve life but how do they go about saving those little helpless lives after they are delivered? What plans are they making once they have won?

Perhaps some anti-abortioners wish to place those little lives into the "right kind of homes" to be raised by other Pro-Lifers who feel as they do. But I really don't think they will be able to keep pace with their virtuous alter-egos. There will be too many babies of all colors, backgrounds, and environments to place into ("the right kind of Christian") homes. So that leaves public and religious orphanages and foster care agencies including private homes of all kinds.

But we have a problem right off... I expect to see some very hard consequences to occur if anti-abortion laws win out when overturning Roe v Wade... What are they? Let me share a few thoughts noting that I have no experience with placement agencies but I do have quite a few concerns about new life and what happens to those babies after an unwanted birth...


THE PROBLEM OF PLACEMENT

I tell you this, if-and-when abortion laws are removed, Republicans and evangelical churches need be ready to step up to receive all the unwanted children of society into their families. They will not be able to legislate their way out of this. And if they are planning to organize for the event, it needs to be now... not later.

Why? Because there will be a lot of unwanted kids being birthed... a lot! And I do not think any Christian church, fellowship, agency, or their families really understand what a nightmare this will be to create, maintain, and self-audit themselves (from outside child care agencies) so that public standards of health and welfare are met.

AND, know this... orphanages, foster care, etc, are all ready solutions for abuse, harm, unloving, and uncaring environments for the forgotten, unwanted, and invisible children of society.

These are not solutions in themselves... just as nursing homes must be regularly audited for social health and welfare conditions.

The problem is, many churches I know of do not want the government or public agencies looking over their shoulder. And just as many churches have been found criminal in their conduct towards young people and their faithful congregants seeking to please God in all they do.

Which will be really, really sad... and very little different for most of the helpless unwanted children who were to be aborted because they were unwanted in the first place. To go from a place of not being wanted to another place of not being wanted is the worst thing I can imagine for those babies not qualifying by white (Christian) standards of acceptability.

(And yes, as a white Christian I will be extremely critical of my well-meaning brethren who say they care but in the end may mean nothing more than the air out of their lungs.)

And though joyfully, babies are not being killed under anti-abortion laws, they will also be dying a thousand different ways of death after birth because cause-justifying Christians et al will refuse to adopt the children they are saving. Or create institutions which allow themselves to wipe their hands clean and walk away.

Or, if unaborted babies are adopted, these poor children may readily suffer deep personal and tragic abandonment when times get tough with their adoptive families and they are either mistreated or placed back into the foster care system.


SOCIETAL CONSEQUENCES OF AN ORWELLIAN WORLD

Let's continue to think out loud how anti-abortionist's may wish to go next after their win. I suspect first-and-foremost they will wish to criminalize the pregnant, create fines and fees, seek jail time, and perhaps even suggest unwanted hysterectomies of the pregnant mother.

In the anti-abortionist's mind this may help reduce the numbers of unwanted children through restrictive action for the "social good" of their ideological positions (hopefully excluding the hot hormones of teens and young adults; although I'm sure white prerogatives will take place here as well.)

So now we have entered into the world of the strange and strangely terrifying... where church laws wish to take precedent over public laws of equality and fairness. As a Christian, most church laws I've read of historically have been exactly of this caliber. Unfair, highly subjective, full of hate and judgment, and completely unloving:

Whenever we go to play God we see just how 
fallen from God we have become. - res

So for those white communities who vote for abortions to become non-occurring events, they may then begin to ready themselves to take action in removing the reproductive abilities of unwanted rapes of women who will suffer under male-dominated societies... especially church societies whose ecclesiastical structures are wrapped around patriarchal power paradigms and relationships.

Again, from my perspective, this is highly unfair to the female sex and I would rather point to the male rapists out their to consider their part in the incestuous tryst. Specifically, the white men of all classes - not just the poor, but the rich, the privileged, the clergy, the elder, the deacon, the father of the household, etc. To hold them responsible for their actions rather than the woman.

And in what wretched part of the religious mind would we next find their ginning thoughts?.... exactly. I cannot even write down such cruel speculations. Which is why charging criminality on either sex's part just gets more ridiculous, harsher, crueller, and hellish.

If this is beginning to sound like an Orwellian World of the religiously-minded then you are beginning to see where we may be going as a society trying to play God on all levels... - res

In the final verdict, as harsh as it sounds, it seems women will suffer more than their male counterparts. And will be made to suffer the loss of their rights rather than the males themselves.

Certainly, such unwarranted action may help reduce the number of unwanted children being born out of wedlock due to rape and incest. But what we're creating are inhuman institutions of human slavery, mocking injustice, deep personal harm, and hardened, seared hearts imputing cruel laws.


THE PORN INDUSTRY

While we're at it, and thinking about white males, let's propose to shut down the porn industry so white males have less time interacting in their thoughts about promiscuity, lust, rape, and debasement.

Bear in mind though, looking back historically, the effectiveness of such actions have not worked too well in the past. Consider the bootlegging world of the 20s-40s when prohibition was at its height. The industry never shut down even as good white Christians continued to subsidize it surreptitiously behind closed doors, down dark street allies, and under the counters of local establishments.

I wouldn't expect any different from the porn industry even as I haven't expected any different from the local marijuana trade (I voted to legalize marijuana so that it's overwhelming life consequences of jail, fines, loss of work, etc., would reduce the harm it created on individuals and their families.) Of course, I still support the illegality of drugs including noncertified FDA over-the-counter drugs (usually scripts of questionable viability and frequently containing harming "filler" substances such as chemicals,  metals, poisons, and toxins to the human body).


IN REVIEW

With the removal of Roe v Wade we may now expect some or all of these action items to occur - from one extreme to another.

For myself, I feel for the children even as I did when they were being aborted. I have no confidence in mankind ever doing the right thing unless it is self-serving in some manner. The more to the shame of our species - whether they are religious or not, Christian or not. 

Like money, its is a rare event to see a Christian use this resource aright regardless how religious they think themselves to be. Similarly with the vestment of our lives into the lives of the vulnerable.

If they are not of the right color, gender, sex, race, or genetic creed, I expect white Christians to extremely fail in their equality of vision for at-risk children. Such dear ones will be storage away, out of sight, out of mind, for many.

And how, I wonder, was this any different than before when those little lives had little expectation for longevity. Now, with birthed life these little ones simply become the unwanted refuse of a hypocritical white church claiming rightness over love and kindness to all, at all stations of their lives.

Further, if succeeding, this new calamity will be handled by the very same white Christians who began it. Who pretended to themselves they are caring for aborted babies when in reality caring for babies will require manning up to the facts that churches and communities will be too easily overwhelmed by the very legalese machinery they are rushing to put in place.

Nor would I expect white Christians to admit to their deep failure in managing what they had hoped to achieve through every  theocentric law and dogmatic organization they willingly advocate. Like Solomon himself, the wise king would have a hard time determining the future of the non-aborted.

I believe it was Jesus who said to the religious crowd - who were reviling him - to look into the planks of their own eyes before judging another. That the spirit of the law cannot be fulfilled by religious dogmas and harsh doctrines. That God's love is greater than all militarisms, unjust legislations, or vindictive decrees. - res

And finally, pity the more, the poor infants growing up unwanted and out-of-sight of the Christian church. Placed so innocently, so zealously, into the terrible worlds of the sincere and sympathetic, hoping to rescue those who at the same time are ignorantly promoting pain in so many of their harming discriminatory doctrines across all levels of society.

I sincerely hope to be proved wrong in all my harsh assessments here put forth. But I doubt if I will be. I leave it to the white Christian churches to prove me wrong as I watch in fine detail all the failures and excuses they will give for not being up to the task they had fought so diligently for....

In my experience, it is easier to destroy than to rebuild. There are many like myself who are rebuilders. But there are many, many more who can only tear down. Again. And again. And again. I call them the destroyers. Destroyers without a plan. Full of fury for fury's sake alone.

And this is why I do not write on such a delicate subject. I cannot find a solution on either side of the argument of Roe v Wade. For myself, I would not overturn it, just as I wouldn't remove helpful parental programs and social agencies. I believe it was Jesus who said, "For the one who is not against us is for us (Mk 9.40 ESV)."

But in not removing Roe v Wade I would wish to continue to make inroads into all forms of societies in America and around the world. To help the despairing mom, the raped woman, the hard-hearted teen couple, the abused, beaten, and unloved. Yet, instituting law for love is a no-win situation. We have our laws, let's use what we've got and make them better.

Blessings to the Remnant of God who are Faithful, Loving and Kind,

R.E. Slater
July 23, 2021


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Oct 31, 2013


Luke 18:15-17
15 And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them.
16 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer [the] little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
17 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. 

 


Sunday, July 18, 2021

Forums for Diversity - The Challenge for Birding Societies Everywhere

June 3, 2021
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Corina Newsome is a Black ornithologist, as rare as some of the birds she studies.

When she joined Georgia Audubon last year, the group’s executive director called her hiring a first step to “begin working to break down barriers” so that people from all communities can fully enjoy birding and the outdoors.

But overcoming those barriers will be daunting. As with the wider field of conservation, racism and colonialism are in ornithology’s DNA, indelibly linked to its origin story. The challenge of how to move forward is roiling White ornithologists as they debate whether to change as many as 150 eponyms, names of birds that honor people with connections to slavery and supremacy.

The Bachman’s sparrow, Wallace’s fruit dove and other winged creatures bear the names of men who fought for the Southern cause, stole skulls from Indian graves for pseudoscientific studies that were later debunked, and bought and sold Black people. Some of these men stoked violence and participated in it without consequence.

Even John James Audubon’s name is fraught in a nation embroiled in a racial reckoning. Long the most recognized figure in North American birding for his detailed drawings of the continent’s species, he was also an enslaver who mocked abolitionists working to free Black people. Some of his behavior is so shameful that the 116-year-old National Audubon Society — the country’s premier bird conservation group, with 500 local chapters — hasn’t ruled out changing its name. An oriole, warbler and shearwater all share it.

“I am deeply troubled by the racist actions of John James Audubon and recognize how painful that legacy is for Black, Indigenous and people of color who are part of our staff, volunteers, donors and members,” interim chief executive Elizabeth Gray said in a statement in May. “Although we have begun to address this part of our history, we have a lot more to unpack.”

For Newsome, community engagement manager for Georgia Audubon, the pain is real. When she first wore her organization’s work shirt, “I felt like I was wearing the name of an oppressor,” she said, “the name of someone who enslaved my ancestors.”

She and other ornithologists of color deal with added layers of discomfort while doing research. Alex Troutman, a Black graduate student at Georgia Southern University, says he goes out of his way to smile and wave at every White passerby when he’s in a marsh or field “to appear as least threatening as possible” and ease suspicions that he shouldn’t be there.

Corina Newsome, an ornithologist and community engagement manager for Georgia Audubon, is pushing to make her profession more diverse and inclusive. (Nydia Blas for The Washington Post)
Corina Newsome, an ornithologist and community engagement manager for Georgia Audubon, is pushing to make her profession more diverse and inclusive. (Nydia Blas for The Washington Post)
Ornithologist Olivia Wang, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, says her field’s troubling, racist past must be addressed. (Michelle Mishina for The Washington Post)
Ornithologist Olivia Wang, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, says her field’s troubling, racist past must be addressed. (Michelle Mishina for The Washington Post)

Offensive eponyms compound that sense of not belonging. Despite professional and amateur birding groups’ declared commitment to diversity, only two names have been discarded.

The Townsend’s warbler and the Townsend’s solitaire still invoke John Kirk Townsend, whose journals detail his exploits in traditional Native Americans burial grounds in the West. Townsend, a Philadelphia-born ornithologist in the early 1800s, dug up and collected skulls for studies that sought to prove the inferiority of Indigenous people.

The Wallace’s owlet and five other birds honor Alfred Russel Wallace, a British naturalist, explorer and anthropologist credited, along with Charles Darwin, for conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection. Wallace’s writings frequently used the n-word, including in reference to the “little brown hairy baby” he boasted about caring for after fatally shooting her mother during an 1855 trip to the Malay Archipelago. Some historians believe they were orangutans.

Three birds, including the crimson Jameson’s firefinch, are named after another British naturalist involved in a heinous act committed against a young girl he purchased as “a joke” in 1888 during an expedition in Africa. James Sligo Jameson wrote in his journal that the girl was then given to a group of natives described to him as cannibals. He drew sketches of the child being stabbed and dismembered.

“Conservation has been driven by white patriarchy,” said J. Drew Lanham, a Black ornithologist and professor at Clemson University in South Carolina, “this whole idea of calling something a wilderness after you move people off it or exterminate them and that you get to take ownership.”

Lanham views the issues as part of a much larger historic pattern, one connected to the White enslavers who renamed Africans kidnapped from that continent’s West Coast. “They renamed an entire people” — cancel culture on a global scale, he noted.

In Honolulu, ornithologist Olivia Wang is equally harsh. She regards the honorifics that birds carry with disdain.

“They are a reminder that this field that I work in was primarily developed and shaped by people not like me, who probably would have viewed me as lesser,” said Wang, an Asian American graduate student at the University of Hawaii. “They are also a reminder of how Western ornithology, and natural exploration in general, was often tied to a colonialist mind-set of conquering and exploiting and claiming ownership of things rather than learning from the humans who were already part of the ecosystem and had been living alongside these birds for lifetimes.”

Indeed, White explorers, conservationists and scientists who crossed the world conveniently ignored the fact that birds had been discovered, named and observed by native people for centuries before their arrival.

To the Cherokee, eagles are the awâ'hili and crows are kâgû. The English common name for the chickadee is a butchered translation of the Cherokee name, tsïkïlïlï. Similar-sounding names for other birds that English speakers renamed or mispronounced are scattered throughout East Coast tribes.

Europeans named birds as though they were human possessions, but American Indians regard them differently. The red-tail hawk in some languages is uwes’ la’ oski, a word that translates to “lovesick,” because one of its calls sounded like a person who lost a partner.

“A whole lot of Native people, in thinking about birds, don’t open a book of science. Their book of science is in the knowledge possessed by people in generations before them, the elders,” said Shepard Krech III, a professor emeritus at Brown University and author of “Spirits of the Air.”

Bird lovers have agitated to change eponyms linked to racists for several years but have encountered resistance.

It would cause confusion in the profession and among casual birders, opponents said. Books and ledgers would have to be revised, and people would have to learn new names. Only twice have such objections been overcome and the American Ornithological Society approved a switch. The first was for the oldsquaw, a species of waterfowl now known as the long-tailed duck. And last summer, the McCown’s longspur became the thick-billed longspur — the first time a name with a Confederate past was dropped.

By then, a confrontation in New York City had linked race and birding in an ugly way. In May 2020, Christian Cooper, a Black birder in Central Park, was falsely accused of threatening behavior by a White woman who called police on him after he asked her to leash her dog.

An expedition to Africa in the late 1880s, during which a young girl was cruelly killed, forever stained naturalist James Sligo Jameson's reputation.
An expedition to Africa in the late 1880s, during which a young girl was cruelly killed, forever stained naturalist James Sligo Jameson's reputation. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
John James Audubon, long the most recognized figure in American birding, is now being reconsidered for his abhorrent views and actions against Black people during the early 1800s. (Bettmann Archive)
John James Audubon, long the most recognized figure in American birding, is now being reconsidered for his abhorrent views and actions against Black people during the early 1800s. (Bettmann Archive)

For the leaders of Audubon, the American Ornithological Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, among other groups, systemic racism had hit home.

At the same time, activists in the ranks were growing more aggressive in opposing the eponyms. One of the loudest voices was that of Jordan Rutter, a White co-founder of Bird Names for Birds. She wanted to upend the society committee that names a species and reconsiders historic names.

“White people are credited for discovering [the birds]. White people were the ones to name the birds after other White people. And White people are still the folks that are perpetuating these names,” Rutter said in a recent interview.

A decade ago, that same committee unanimously refused to rename the Maui parrotbill, criticizing the proposed kiwikiu as “contrived,” ridiculous and hard to pronounce. As part of last year’s awakening, activists sought an actual transcript of the debate but were denied. “I called out the AOS and NACC for censoring some racist and offensive comments the [committee] made when discussing the … proposal,” Wang said, referring to the American Ornithological Society and its North American Classification Committee.

The society has since publicly apologized for those and other insensitive comments.

It is clear that leaders in the profession are listening more closely to the protests — and preparing to act. Audubon and the American Bird Conservancy, where Rutter works, have looked inward at their near-total lack of diversity and vowed to change. The American Ornithological Society pledged to “redoubl[e] our efforts toward making ornithology, birding, and access to the natural world equitable and inclusive.”

This spring, society president Mike Webster announced that the internal group responsible for bird names will now be guided by an advisory committee composed of people of different backgrounds — although 13 of the 17 advisers are White and the ethnicities of the four others have not been identified.

The new panel is “not just because we want to feel good about ourselves,” said Webster, who is White. “We see it [as] critically important to understanding and conserving birds. It’s critically important that we have a diversity of people out there doing it.”

A virtual panel discussion took place in April. Every major birding organization was represented, and 535 people joined from around the country as a majority of the panelists — nearly all of them White — agreed that it was time to move beyond racist eponyms.

Jeff Gordon, president of the American Birding Association, stressed that North America lost 3 billion birds over the past 50 years and that saving what’s left will need people of every ethnicity and background to be involved. “The biggest threat birds face … [is] being ignored to death,” he said. “Not enough people know and not enough people care.”

There is no timeline for decisions about the worst eponyms, but the discussion seems unlikely to wane, given participants such as Rutter and Newsome. Within days of the incident in Central Park last year, Newsome helped organize a very public declaration dubbed Black Birders Week — an event that quickly became a viral movement. By happenstance, it took place amid nationwide demonstrations and calls for racial justice following George Floyd’s death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

The 28-year-old again took part in this year’s Black Birders Week, which began last weekend. She is encouraged by ornithology’s increasing focus on diversity and racism. She hopes it will soon extend to what the National Audubon Society and its chapters call themselves. “I believe they should both absolutely change the name. It feels wrong to enter African American communities … celebrating [Audubon’s] name,” she said. “It’s a reality I am wrestling with constantly.”

Yet far more progress is needed. Heads still turn when Newsome is in the field, observing birds. “I’m always questioned, in a seemingly friendly way, ‘Oh, what are you doing out here?’ ”

On urban and rural trails, she quickly lifts her binoculars when she sees White people do a double-take. In a scorching Georgia marsh where she slogs through muck to study a seaside sparrow, she shifts heavy equipment to the side of her body that faces the roadway so suspicious White motorists “won’t think I’m doing something illegal and make trouble for me.”

Across the muddy water is the Brunswick neighborhood where Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger, was chased down and fatally shot in February 2020. Three White men have been indicted in the case. Newsome remembers driving past the neighborhood after the killing as she again headed toward the marsh.

“I felt like my soul couldn’t take being there anymore,” she said. “Like a Black person can’t even be what they’re called to be without encountering such violence.”

CORRECTION

An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the location of an 1855 expedition by Alfred Russel Wallace as Africa; it was the Malay Archipelago. In addition, some historians believe that the mother and baby Wallace wrote about in demeaning human terms during his trip were orangutans. The story has been corrected.

About this story

Story editing by Susan Levine. Photo editing by Olivier Laurent. Copy editing by Carrie Camillo. Design and development by Leo Dominguez.

Bird photos by iStockphoto/Getty Images.

Darryl Fears is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter on the national staff who covers environmental justice. Over more than two decades at the Post, he has covered the Interior Department, the Chesapeake Bay, urban affairs and race & demographics. In that role, he helped conceptualize a multiple award-winning project, "Being A Black Man."