Tag Archive: racism

Slow Reflection Required

June 16, 2020 0 Comments

For a week I’ve been processing the prophetic vision God gave Bob Ekblad. He writes about it here, “Exposing and Repenting of Racial Injustice.”

Then Timothy Dalrymple from Christianity Today writes a painful call for churches to face the painful realities of slavery and their complicity in theft. He writes,

“Two original sins have plagued this nation from its inception: the destruction of its native inhabitants and the institution of slavery. Both sprang from a failure to see an equal in the racial other. As Bishop Claude Alexander has said, racism was in the amniotic fluid out of which our nation was born. There was a virus present in the very environment that nurtured the development of our country, our culture, and our people. The virus of racism infected our church, our Constitution and laws, our attitudes and ideologies. We have never fully defeated it.”

How could anyone read that and not want to be repentant? 

What is the Holy Spirit saying to the churches?

So after watching the Giglio, Cathey, Lacrea video, The Beloved Community, I’m asking myself, “Why is the church so weak?” Lord have mercy we are ASTHENEIA! How can we land in the language of “blessing” for slavery? ever. It’s awful!

Then I’m finding a whole segment of white Christians who still want to argue about personal responsibility as if America is a great moral vivarium and experiment in the exercise of individual rights. These days we’ve been invited to a funeral and all they can talk about is who’s fault is it and all they can say is stuff that basically equates to “Well everybody dies.”

And then I stumbled on the posting of a friend that was normalizing the language of extermination. Vile and wicked so it was. I walked around for an hour deeply grieved. How could this be in a brother’s heart? What cesspool did he dive in to find this stuff?

I think slow reflection is needed.

So if any video or summary of history has moved you a bit, even if it is by Phil Visher from Veggie Tales, please read a book. If you aren’t ready to read a book, at least read some testimonies of what it’s like to Breathe While Black. I’ve been moved by these.

I know you were hoping you could just go ask a co-worker. Don’t do it. Don’t ask them to be your counsellor for change. You are exhausting them.

Slow reflection is needed so read a book.

Some changes are coming quickly for some policy, but in the time that it takes you to read a book, some change could happen in you. Language expresses the heart. And we need some changes at the heart. Reading is marination of the soul.

There’s a lot of gospel work to be done. 

From my own reading list:

Stamped from the Beginning. Ibram X. Kendi
How to be an AntiRacist. Ibram X. Kendi
The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. Willie Jennings.
White Fragility. Robin DiAngelo 
Between The World and Me. Ta-Nehisi Coates
Through the years I’ve read the works of Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou

Slow reflection is needed. Read a book. You will find The Christian Imagination to be especially taxing. Reading slowly and seeking comprehension is good.

I’m forming an opinion that part of the reason we (the white-ish churches of North America) are so weak is that we have narrow emotional veins and our vision of Christian maturity is utterly malformed. Maybe a slow work through The Emotionally Healthy Church could be helpful for learning how to grieve. The lack of empathy still confounds me. But where empathy is lacking perhaps there has been unmetabolized griefs. 

At the end of the day without slow reflection there is no love and no repentance. 

There’s a lot of gospel work to be done. Read the Bible and read a book.

(I know, there’s a lot of podcasts to listen to as well. That’s not my realm. I’ve got one chorus in this post: Read a book.)

Update, 16 Jun3 2020. Louie Giglio has posted an apology for his “blessing” statement.

Change, Relationships, Society

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Arch Towards Hope & The Resurrection

June 10, 2020 0 Comments

I have been reflecting on a question asked by Dr. Willie Jennings in his commentary on Acts. “What would it mean to educate people inside this hope?

Jennings speaks of educating people inside the hope of the Resurrection of Jesus. The context for his question is Paul’s case before Felix in Acts 24. Tertullus represents the argument of the state. Paul represents himself. 

Jennings writes, “We don’t know whether Tertullus is Jew or Gentile, but that is not important for understanding his purpose in this story. What is crucial is that he is intellectual and legal power being marshalled against an innocent man. Luke here marks judicial sin that speaks to a wider condition—intellectual prowess in league with death. How many women, men, and children have been sentenced to prison, torture, and death through this kind of demonic connection? How many well-trained men and woman have used their gifts to destroy life? Here we see the discursive arts fully corrupted, and what makes that even more horrible is that such corrupted discursive arts are being used by the people of God.”

Over the last several years I have watched and listened as people who name the name of Jesus post and repost to their platforms without reflecting theologically about the topic for themselves, or even demonstrating Jesus’ compassion for people. They are very concerned for their political side and have crafted an identity in which Jesus is their politician of choice.  Oh not that they are voting for Jesus. It’s just that their hope seems to be that Jesus has ordained their leader. A look down their feed reveals a famine of the Word or of Jesus’ compassion. I really wouldn’t know that they know Jesus or reflect on His Word much at all. Jesus allows no proxy. Could we be in “league with death” when we do such?

Through the memes and the outrage I have wondered if there is a way through this. “What would it mean to educate people inside” the hope of the resurrection of Jesus?

Why hasn’t the church done better?

I have tried to do two things along the way with Jesus and His Word: 1. Every day, listen to people I don’t reflexively agree with.  And 2. Practice what Dallas Willard calls the “habit of not having the last word.”

That means I have at times allowed others to work out some things in conversation online with me. And I didn’t agree. And I didn’t keep taking them on. I left it. It also means that I have taken the conversation behind the scenes in private messages and that every once in a while I have had to remove a post from my wall. But in general, I’ve tried to remain friends with folks I don’t agree with.

I’ve tried to deny myself. Like a mad farmer, I’ve tried to practice the call of Kentucky’s Wendell Berry: Practice Resurrection.

Not everyone can take it. Some defriend and defund if their loyalties to state or denomination are tested. But still I find myself asking not for my own benefit alone, but for us all: what are we to do with the eloquent arts of this day that come to us in crafted videos and sound bites?

When the religious people joined Tertullus in Felix’s court, Jennings writes, “They build on the discursive power of Tertullus. This is the way of the world, and it has historically been also the way of many churches in many places, operating alongside and inside the machinations of brilliant but evil orators, lawyers, advocates who become our hired guns. Yet what has been more damnable has been our failure, a Christian failure to dedicate against the misuse of intellectual skill, verbal dexterity, and eloquence. Too often we have been mystified by such gifts and have idealized them abstracted from the real history of the horror they have created and the suffering they continue to inflict. We have been too quick to rush to their defence, announcing the inherent goodness of such gifts and the glory of those who exhibit them without counting the cost of their use. Tertullus has become a weapon of unrighteousness, and we must always ask ourselves, how might we prevent creation of such weapons?”

In Acts 24 Paul launches his defense. He states the facts and he moves beyond the facts to weave the gospel into his argument. How are we to think about the skills of Tertullus and Paul. Are they only duelling minds or there another conflict present?

Jennings writes, “Tertullus and Paul represent intellectual life before cross, resurrection, and the coming of the Spirit and intellectual life after these world-shattering and life-creating realities. Paul now speaks inside the hope of resurrection and as one who yields to the Spirit. His words aim at faithfulness and gesture divine presence. He certainly wants to win, finding justice against false accusations, yet the arch of his discursive work bends toward the resurrected body of Jesus. He speaks in witness to the hope of the resurrection.”

Don’t you love that?

Jennings continues, “What would it mean to educate people insider this hope? What would it mean to immerse, that is, to baptize intellectual ability, verbal dexterity, and eloquence inside the body of Jesus, inside his death and resurrection and his sending of th Spirit, so that our words, no matter of what we speak arch toward hope and give witness to resurrection?”

O Glory! What would it be to always speak no matter the subject in such a way that my words arch toward hope and give witness o the resurrection of Jesus?

In these days I’ve been on the look out for anyone who speaks of the pandemic, racism, and the protests of police brutality with an arch toward hope and so they give witness to the resurrection of Jesus. I am not comparing skills. I am looking for the Spirit of Jesus.

Today. Here is an example. Dr. Esau McCaulley writes,

“Racism sweeps our land, and the weakest among us suffer the most.

As I watch the news these days, I see genuine expressions of sympathy for the black situation in America. But I don’t simply want people to feel sorry for us. I want freedom. And in my best moments, I remember where that hope for freedom resides. It resides in the God who conquered death. Although the full fruition of that freedom will not come on this side of heaven, nonetheless, I am not forbidden the beginnings of it here and now. By desiring freedom now, I am not turning America into the kingdom. I am demanding the right to live and love and work as a free black child of God.

The defeat of death is God’s great triumph. It reshapes the Christian imagination, forever obliterating the limits we place upon our Creator. As the protests press on, then, I pray today and every day that we remember the Resurrection, when the entire cosmos became something different. We have yet to realize the full scope of that change.”

Esau McCulley, I Have Only One Hope for Racial Justice: A God Who Conquered Death, Christianity Today, 10 June 2020Esau McCulley, I Have Only One Hope for Racial Justice: A God Who Conquered Death, Christianity Today, 10 June 2020

Arch toward hope and give witness to the resurrection of Jesus.

Willie James Jennings, Acts, in the series Belief: A Theological Commentary On The Bible, 2017, pages 212-215

Change

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Personal Responsibility and Systems

June 8, 2020 2 Comments

Among some of my friends in the face of racism today there’s a call to just take personal responsibility for being a good person. That’s a good start, but they want to deny “systemic racism.”

I don’t think we get a pass as followers of Jesus on not seeing the systems we are a part of. A reading of Revelation in the New Testament is actually meant to disciple us so we can see the systems. Re-look at the use of “Babylon.” We are meant to understand that “powers and principalities” animate our society that includes us.

As to Canada we do have systems that have codified race. Our system was even held up as a model to be copied. I keep hearing folks calling the identification of systems and the codification of race a “liberal” idea. That’s not an idea, it is a reality.

“Canadians were among the most vocal opponents of the South African apartheid system. What’s not so well known is that the South African apartheid system was based, in large part, on the Canadian Indigenous apartheid system.

In the 1940s, when white South African politicians were designing a system that would keep people of different races separate, they came to Canada to study our system: its Indian Act, status cards and reserve system.”

Canada’s persistent apartheid system. Brian Giesbrecht is a retired judge and senior fellow with Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

These SA politicians in the 1940’s actually came to British Columbia for their learning tour.

So, yes let’s take personal responsibility for our internal beliefs, attitudes and actions that are racist. And let’s keep examining our systems with a new vision of life together. The examination will help us recognize that some policies and structures need to be dismantled. But we are resistant to examining systems if we have benefited from them. We are inclined to attend to our “self-interests.” And here’s why protesting is so important: If we do not accept why remaining at “System R” is untenable we will not exert the will to accept the pain and long journey for change — to move toward “System Y.”

The Lord’s Prayer is a protest prayer. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we express a yearning for a system change.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

A kingdom is a system. Jesus is teaching us to pray. Praying the Lord’s prayer has become so habituated that we fail to let the Spirit of God disrupt us so that we pay attention to why in this world we yearn for Jesus to show Himself as King. But this prayer is not just a yearning for the future. It locates us in the present and in our neighbourhoods where in following Jesus we take up His Cross. The prophetic voice and activity of God’s people is meant to be for a whole-bodied salvation. The Lord’s Prayer is meant to bring us into a life fortified by the Presence and Provision of God in the face of the evil one. If that evil shows up in the systems that we are stewards over shouldn’t we do something with God about it?

Society

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The Morning After

June 13, 2019 0 Comments

A Witness to Our Lives

The morning after a friend became a follower of Jesus he started walking. He walked all through the city of Vancouver. He said he walked all day and that it was one of the most difficult days of his life.

As he walked the Spirit of God began to walk him through the memories of his life. He said it was as if “Jesus turned on all the lights.” All these things that he had forgotten came flooding back from childhood and his years in a gang. He said, “I began to remember one act of deceit and violence after another.” He began to give a full account to Jesus. And with every violent remembrance laid at the feet of Jesus, my friend received forgiveness and freedom.

Jesus was cleansing his life. When the day of his baptism came it was a glorious celebration!

My friend began the journey with Jesus and continued living in it the way he began: Having trusted Jesus for the forgiveness of sins the Holy Spirit activated repentance and belief. This is the way for all of us who name the name of Jesus as Lord.

Repentance and Belief

Our Heavenly Father, no matter our family story, our education or our nationality desires that repentance and belief be the reflexive responses to Jesus and His Word prompted by the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul reminded the elders of Ephesus,

“You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.” Acts 20:20-21, NIV

Repentance is a response to grace and truth in which we change our mind about God, ourselves, people, and the stuff of earth. John declared that Jesus had come full of grace and truth and has shown us the glory of God. So if you have a collision with Jesus you have choices to make.

Godly Sorrow verses Worldly Sorrow

The Holy Spirit can bring about a godly sorrow but the enemy prefers worldly sorrow (See 2 Corinthians 7:10-11). Worldly sorrow will sink us deep into deathly shame and will mobilize us to play blame and denial games. But under the influence of godly sorrow we will receive the prompting of guilt (the truth about our attitudes, actions, and beliefs) and will turn away again from that which is opposed to Jesus.

Then, we are learning the ways of grace and keeping in step with the Spirit. Hopefully you will have some company in this. James says,

“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each others so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James 5:13-16, NIV

Set Free to Love

The goal of all this is love. We cannot love if we are bound up by shame. We cannot love freely if we are bound up by oppressive spirits. The deliverance of God is available to us. My friend started a great journey with Jesus that night. And the next day he started to walk with Jesus. He had to keep on listening to the Holy Spirit and discern, “What is God saying to me?” and “What am I saying to God?” That’s repentance and belief. For all of us, the morning after receiving Jesus is just the beginning of life that is meant to be abundant, it is meant to be progressively more free as we live in The Truth.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Jesus
Matthew 7:13-14, NIV

Racism: Willful Participation and/or Stupid Complicity

Racism presents one of the big challenges of repentance for the followers of Jesus: to realize both our willful participation in that which is wrong and/or our complicit participation in that which is wrong. Repentance of attitudes and actions and faulty beliefs about people is necessary. To walk with Jesus and His church means that we enter into repentance and belief with him most definitely even when it concerns our complicity with oppression.

Paul knew the Holy Spirit’s movement of repentance and belief personally so he is able to write,

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:26-29

But Paul, he not only had the words, he had the relationships and actions born out of repentance and belief. Do we?

Change, Discipleship, Jesus, Relationships

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Mountain trails and the fears that bind us

July 15, 2018 0 Comments

This past week Douglas Todd wrote succinctly on seven issues he believes arise in the work of some diversity journalists. He was responding to a CBC piece exploring why minorities are not likely to pursue outdoor recreation. Also this week, The Guardian published the stories of three African Americans who have faced their dread of “hiking while black.”


My reflections follow Wendell Berry’s observations of entering the “big woods.”

 

“Always in big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is an experience of our essential loneliness, for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.

 

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.”

— Wendell Berry, The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky’s Red River Gorge

 

 

To enter the wilderness is to embark on a spiritual journey. 

 

When we enter it, even when the territory is familiar, we enter into the danger it possesses, a danger that may be masked by our familiarity. As one friend cautioned me soon after moving to British Columbia in 1994, “Always respect the river. Always respect the mountain.”

 

The wilderness exposes us to elements beyond our control. And here in BC we can get into the wilderness quicker than we realize.

 

All spiritual journeys generate anxiety. The moment we realize we have stepped out of cell range, may be the moment of intense relief, or perhaps its one of severe anxiety.

 

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

 

I have a friend who trains for marathons on the trails of the North Shore Mountains. One morning he almost kissed a bear. He turned the corner and there was the bear, large and menacing on the trail. Amazingly my friend had the presence of mind to take out his phone and record the bear as it lumbered towards him. My friend retreated slowly. On the video you can see the bear coming toward him and hear his soothing words being offered between shallow breaths, “Whoa bear. Whoa bear. That’s a good bear. Whoa bear.” And then when the bear turned away and moved off into the bush, he turns the camera to himself and says, “That was close.” 

 

Ridiculous right?

 

I asked him, “Why did you take the phone out and record the moment?” He laughed and said, “I wanted to make sure that if the bear did something to me, my family would know what happened.”

 

Does the wilderness contain a real and present danger?

 

I grew up in the foothills of Appalachia and was a frequent visitor to the valleys and towns seen from the Appalachian Trail’s ridges in Georgia. I don’t remember being anxious that my mere presence on the trail would invite violence. However, as an adult I have learned from black friends that they would never venture alone or without the company of another white person through those places, even today.

 

To enter the wilderness, an unfamiliar territory, is to enter into what Wendell Berry calls “a little nagging of dread.”

 

But, what if the wilderness magnifies a dread fomented at home in urban and even rural landscapes? What if it calls out a dread that always lurks around the edges of one’s psyche? What if your body has a history of attracting domination and violence that strives to eliminate you from certain spaces? What if others have turned your body into a permission slip to question your right to be “there?”

 

Then, as you might see we do have a problem in the wilderness. And I say “we” purposely. When my family hikes, we hike as a racialized family. But my concern on the trail is the same concern I have for my daughter on Fraser street or even at her school — will she be respected by others as a person?

 

Really I can’t imagine the full extent and the awful pain a full-bodied dread curated since the slave ships crossed the seas can create.

 

But I do know this: such dread is real enough for the souls who venture out. The fear on the trail then, is not that we might meet a bear. Well honestly, I don’t want to meet a bear and if I do, I want to be prepared. The fear, hanging just behind the joy of being in God’s creation, is that we might meet some de-humanized folk for whom the great outdoors is a space in which they feel free to act cruelly without restraint on their baser, yet finely nurtured, racist impulses. 

 

And then, who would be there to help us?

Change, Discipleship

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