From The Red Summer To Today: The Lived Experiences Of This Generation (Planting The Wind; Harvesting The Whirlwind, Part 3)

This is the third in a series on the history of slavery and racism in the United States

In Part One, "1619 To The Civil War: Slavery Before Emancipation," I noted the biblical basis for caring about the history and the legacy of racism in our country before giving an overview beginning in 1609 through the Civil War and Emancipation. Basically, we should care because Jesus cares. If you have not yet read the first post, I encourage you to do so. There is a lot of information that will add context to what you are reading. 

"Emancipation To The Great Migration: Jim Crow, Reconstruction and Sundown Towns" continued to look at the sinful impact and harsh legacy from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. 

We pick up our narrative in 1921. Starting now, there are still people alive today who experienced these things. 

Emancipation To the Great Migration: Jim Crow, Reconstruction And Sundown Towns (Planting The Wind; Harvesting the Whirlwind, Part 2)

 This is the second in a series on the history of slavery and racism in the United States.

• From 1619 To Emancipation
• Emancipation To the Great Migration: Jim Crow, Reconstruction And Sundown Towns
• From The Red Summer To Today: The Lived Experience Of This Generation 
• Where Do We Go From Here?

In From 16019 To Emancipation, I started by noting the biblical basis for caring about the history and the legacy of racism in our country before giving an overview beginning in 1609 through the Civil War and Emancipation. Basically, we should care because Jesus cares. If you have not yet read the first post, I encourage you to do so. There is a lot of information that will add context to what you are reading. 

We pick up our narrative right after the Emancipation Proclamation.

From 1619 To Emancipation (Planting The Wind; Harvesting The Whirlwind, Part 1)

We learn some important things about how we, the followers of Jesus, ought to be present in the world simply by looking at how Jesus was present with the people in his time.

·    He “saw” people^[1] (It’s a loaded word - see Matthew 9:36 – but it led to compassionate action.)

·     He listened and thoughtfully responded (See the Rich Young Ruler^[2]; the woman who touched his garment^[3]; the woman caught in adultery.)^[4]

·     He spent time with them (He was that crazy ‘friend of sinners,'^[5] an insult Jesus embraced.) 

·     He invited himself into their homes. (Zaccheus)^[6]

·     He went to their unclean neighborhoods. (Samaria)^[7]

·     He empathized with them (Hebrew 4:15). ^[8] “In our pain; Jesus is pained. In our suffering, he feels the suffering as his own even though it isn’t… his heart is feelingly drawn into our distress.. His human nature engages our troubles comprehensively.”[9]

·     He poured out his life for them. (#crucifixion)

·     He offered them hope. “I have come that you might have life.” (John 10:10)

This is what the love of God looked like expressed through Jesus. We model the loving example of Jesus when we see, listen, spend time together with others, seek to sympathize and empathize, and pour out our lives so that we might faithfully and lovingly re-present Jesus in hope-filled attitudes, actions, and words.  

Because I want to write about an aspect of life that ought to inspire a motivating sorrow as we see the impact of evil in the world, it’s worth noting that a key way in which is described: “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.”[10] 

“Twice in the Gospels we are told that Jesus broke down and wept. And in neither case is it sorrow for himself or his own pains. In both cases it is sorrow over another – and in one case, Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), and in the other, his deceased friend, Lazarus (John 11:35). What was his deepest anguish?  The anguish of others. What drew his heart out to the point of tears? The tears of others.”[11]

There is a movement of people leaving white evangelicalism (#leaveloud) because of ongoing frustrations with how the brutal legacy and ongoing painful reality of racism is (or isn’t) being addressed. A recent Barna survey revealed that “more than any segment of the population, white evangelical Christians demonstrate a blindness to the struggle of their African American brothers and sisters.”[12] It doesn’t feel to many non-white evangelicals like the church is a place where the heart of Jesus for those hurt by sin is on display. Their experience is that the church is refusing to see, listen and take seriously the ongoing legacy of the pain of racism. That feels a lot like a refusal to love by a refusal to empathize.[13]

Thinking From Behind A COVID-19 "Veil Of Ignorance"

(a thought experiment inspired by John Rawls)

 

John Rawls (1921-2002) argued that we could determine just ethical principles by seeing what a free and rational people would choose if they attempted to create a just society from behind a ‘veil of ignorance’. 

 

John Rawls proposed a famous thought-experiment in which a group of humans come together and have to devise a set of principles for their society to work by. The imaginary part of this is that the individuals doing the deciding are told that there will be some people of greater and lesser intelligence, greater and lesser degrees of health, greater and lesser pigment in their skin, ability to lead, to follow, to carve wood, to care for babies, etc etc – in other words, these people would represent a reasonable cross-section of the types found in human society. However, the deciding individuals did not know which attributes they themselves possessed...

This ‘veil of ignorance’ Rawls thought would ensure a just distribution of rights and duties in his hypothetical society – just as if you were in charge of cutting up a pizza to share and only knowing that you would get the last piece: you would do your best to cut it equally. (“Deontological Ethics.” http://www.sevenoaksphilosophy.org/ethics/deontology.html)

 

Rawls thought that people would likely agree to things that would benefit the population no matter their situation: freedom of speech; a limited role for a government influenced by or answerable to the people; an equitable social system wherein people have equal opportunity, access to resources; a system that encourages virtue, etc. 

 

This veil of ignorance would make people aware that that they could be among the disadvantaged or marginalized, and they would want to make laws that would protect them if they were one of the weaker members of society and not punish them if they were one of the stronger.  

 

With that foundation in mind, let’s apply that idea to COVID-19.

MemeTalk: Are We Being Conditioned To View Freedom As Selfish?

I've been seeing commentary on freedom during COVID-19 pop up on social media, and why not? Who doesn't love freedom? And who doesn't want to avoid being conditioned by "they"? It got me thinking about how we Christians wrestle with notion of freedom in general, especially our exercise of the freedoms guaranteed to us as citizens of the United States. 

My thoughts are almost certainly incomplete and perhaps misguided, but I really think we need to wrestle more deeply with the broader theme that this meme addresses.

Living In Fear Or Faith? COVID-19 Edition

Person A wears a mask all the time, social distances, and sanitizes because they do not want to get the coronavirus. 

Person B takes Vitamin D, some herbs, essential oils, and works on building their immune system naturally because they do not want to get the coronavirus. 

 

1. A is living in fear.

2. B is living in fear.

3. A and B are both living in fear.

4. Neither A nor B are living in fear.

 

If #1 or #2, what distinguishes the two?

If #4, what word would you use to describe them: “They are living in _______”

The Life, History, and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea, The African Preacher. Compiled and Written by Himself (1811)

I recently purchased African American Readings Of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation, by Lisa M. Bowens, Emerson B. Powery and Beverly Roberts Gaventa. Beginning in the 1700’s, this book draws from personal narratives and historical accounts to uncover the religious dynamics of various eras in American history, focusing on how African Americans have handled the writing of the Apostle Paul in the face of often terrible misuses from the white population around them. 

Today I was reading a section recounting incidents from the life of John Jea as compiled in his narrative The Life, History, and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea, The African Preacher. Compiled and Written by Himself (1811). Like all the stores from the slave era, it’s a heartbreaking read. The physical violence, dehumanization and humiliation coupled with purported ministers of the gospel butchering the Bible to enable slavery is really hard (but important) to read. One thing that stands out is how God brought the truth of His Word to life to the enslaved even in the midst of such overwhelming misrepresentation. 

Jea was born in 1773 in Old Callabar, Africa. He and his family were stolen, shipped to America, and sold as enslaved Africans in New York to a Dutch couple. The following contains excerpts pulled directly from the book. I am italicizing only Jea’s entries so as not to cause confusion with the book’s additional commentary. 

Three Anti-COVID Vaccination Arguments I Understand (But Don’t Necessarily Agree With), One I Kind of Do, and One I Don’t

THE THREE ARGUMENTS I UNDERSTAND

“The COVID-19 vaccine is morally compromised.” 

Christians (such as myself) have consistently wrestled with whether or not we formally or materially cooperate with evil if we use vaccines developed from the stem cell lines of aborted fetuses harvested in the 1970s and 1980s. Questioning the development (and testing) of COVID-19 vaccines is consistent with this concern. Because I share that concern, I’ve read numerous statements from church leaders and Christian bioethicists concerning the COVID-19 vaccines. Here is a short sampling:

•      From the Vatican

•      From the Charlotte Lozier Institute

•      From The Center For Bioethics And Human Dignity

•      From The Ethics And Religious Liberty Commission

Generally, Pfizer and Moderna get a green light; Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca get a yellow light tinged with red.  

So while I understand and appreciate the moral concern associated with COVID-19 vaccines, I believe there are at least two options that avoid the potential for immoral cooperation in a bad thing. 

“The COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe.” 

There has long been concern over the introduction of vaccines into the human body, as there are often side effects.  With the COVID-19 vaccine, there is the additional concern over a) the speed in which the vaccines have been rolled out, b) the use of Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA rather than straight up approval, and c) the lack of time to do long-term studies on side effects. These all deserve serious responses. It’s not like the history of vaccines has been above reproach, and we have only had months instead of years to study the impact of the recent vaccines. 

From what I can tell, the speed in which these vaccines reached the public was the result of a number of things.