[Dialogue] 10/15/2020, Progressing Spirit, Rev. Dr. Velda Love: Racism - How Did We Get Here; Spong revisited

Thu Oct 15 08:26:03 PDT 2020

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Racism - How Did We Get Here
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|  Essay by Rev. Dr. Velda Love
October 15, 2020
The United Church of Christ has a long history of working towards addressing systemic and institutional racism. In 2003, during the UCC’s General Synod the voting body adopted a resolution calling for the UCC to be an anti-racist church stating that "racism is rooted in a belief of the superiority of whiteness and bestows benefits, unearned rights, rewards, opportunities, advantages, access, and privilege on Europeans and European descendants."

In 2018 Sacred Conversations to End Racism (SC2ER), a Restorative Racial Justice Journey study guide was created to address and dismantle racism within the Christian Church and society.  The study guide and accompanying resources debunks and corrects myths that claim Europeans and Anglo Saxons are a dominant culture. 

Dominant people groups do not exist, and race categories were created to justify practices of genocide and enslavement. Sacred Conversations to End Racism (SC2ER) provides research and resources that substantiates the myth of race. Christians must do no more harm to people of non-European descent. The Christian Church, U.S. Supreme Court and government officials instituted policies and developed laws that continue to support in 2020 the myths. As a result, people of color continue to be oppressed, marginalized, stereotyped, and murdered by state sanctioned violence and white supremacy acts of vigilantism violence.

How did we get here—Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and so many other women and men of African descent murdered in the past six months by white supremacy violence? One only needs to go back and study history in order to understand the contemporary times we live in.

One must go back and begin in a beginning. 
 The earth is approximated to be about 4 billion years old.  Prior to the existence of the first known humans the planet was undergoing changes that eventually sustained animal, vegetation, and human life.

In [a] beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light was good…

This text is a poetic narrative that was likely used for liturgical purposes. It is commonly assigned to the Priestly tradition, which means that it is addressed to a community of exiles.  This account of creation is orderly with humans created last, a sign of God’s climatic work. This is Israel’s story held in tension and variation from the creation story in Genesis 2:4b, which comes out of the Yahwist’s tradition. 

The lessons for the hearers in exile in Genesis 1:1 may resonate with those who feel exiled in this present moment.  The text helps readers focus on God as the source of everything that exists. God is the Creator. Everything that was, is, and will be is God’s. God is the sustainer of life and creation. God does not need humans, humans need God. Humans are not equal to God. The earth and everything in it belong to God (Psalm 24:1).

Our species is an African one: Africa is where we first evolved, and where we have spent the majority of our time on Earth. The earliest fossils of recognizably modern Homo sapiens appear in the fossil record at Omo Kibish in Ethiopia, around 200,000 years ago. Although earlier fossils may be found over the coming years, this is our best understanding of when and approximately where we originated.
(National Geographic: Map of Human Migration).

Mitochondrial Eve, a woman who lived in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago is the ancestor to all living humans. Geneticists traced her identity by analyzing DNA passed exclusively from mother to daughter in the mitochondria (Africa’s Great Civilizations).

The documentary Africa’s Great Civilizations is an in-depth study of the world’s first humans, the cradle of civilization, and the birthplace of the Christian religion. Episode one begins a journey through anthropological and scientific discoveries where viewers learn that Africa is the genetic home of all currently living humanity. Episode two debunks the myth that Christianity came to Africa with European colonialism. In this episode, Gates travels to the center of Christianity’s beginnings and the people who built churches to honor Christ on the continent of Africa. As Genesis 2:10-14 claims, the Garden of Eden extended from Africa (ancient Cush/Ethiopia) to Mesopotamia (Euphrates River).

All ancient cultures presented creation as controlled by their god(s) and set in their own backyard, thus there are numerous creations stories handed down and borrowed over time. (People’s Companion to the Bible, Page 111)

Genesis 1:26, 31 Lesson
“And God created human beings in God’s image, in the image of God humans were created, male and female.” God created them. (Revised gender neutral, non-hierarchy, imperial and ethnic-cultural inclusive rendition developed by Velda Love)

Africa is indeed the cradle of civilization and one of the earliest and most spectacular civilizations of antiquity. Africans have been known for their trade with other nations, military acumen, early intellectual and artistic expressions, which reside in museums around the world. The term African is not an original name for people who originate on the Continent. The name Africa came into Western use through the Romans, who used the name Africa terra — "land of the Afri" (plural, or "Afer" singular) — for the northern part of the continent, as the province of Africa with its capital Carthage, corresponding to modern-day Tunisia.

We must never forget that Christianity was birthed and flourished for centuries alongside the Jewish and Muslim faiths on the African continent. It is vital and important for the Christian Church to remember that our history is not complete until we go back further than colonial narratives. Grounded in the truth of history and living faithfully means actively participating in the work of restorative justice. God is calling the Christian Church to restore a broken world based on the harm of racism.

Christianity influenced by Western ideology and Eurocentric beliefs in supremacy has been used for centuries to justify violence in order to maintain its claims of being a dominant religion and its people as exceptional and worthy to rule the world. All others outside this realm were considered—other, heathens, animals—to be in need of conversion. Other included Christian beliefs that did not conform to Eurocentrism and empire. Heterodox Christian teachings considered rebellious, nonconformist, and freethinking were seen as unorthodox and blasphemous.  Unorthodox “others” would not be tolerated within the imperial elite and exclusive religious hierarchy.

The Doctrine of Discovery shaped modern theology and racists structures within the United States. The beliefs serve (the myth) of white supremacy and was further accepted into law by US Chief Justice John Marshall, and the basis for Andrew Jackson’s displacement of Cherokee Indians in Georgia so whites could occupy the land. 

Make America Great… Again?
 There is an historical precedence for how history continues to repeat itself in the Christian Church and society. The mantra quoted over and over again during the 2016 campaign by then candidate Donald Trump is reminiscent of the 1493 papal bull. The edict remains the same; only in 2020 the population within the United States has increased in culture-ethnic people groups, and faith traditions.  Immigrants are threatened with expulsion, children have been separated from their parents, and language depicting their character is dehumanizing.

When we review the historical content of the construction of race and then witness the impact through microaggressions, use of militaristic tactics and lethal weapons in communities of color, acts of vigilante violence, and white supremacy behaviors from local, state, and government officials, as believers in Christ there needs to be more proactive engagement and responses that facilitate reparatory justice. Our role is to be repairers of the breaches created by those who mythologized beliefs in white skin supremacy. We are called to engage and share healing restorative practices that de-centers whiteness. Christians who profess a belief in Jesus whose lineage is directly connected to African ancestry must eradicate beliefs in white supremacy.  Christianity in 2020 means reclaiming radical theologies of liberation, non-binary spirituality, intersectional justice, and genderless depictions of God.

There is beauty in diverse cultures and identities. Sacred Conversations to End Racism is an invitation to be part of a life-long learning journey of restorative practices that helps us see each other through God’s eyes…very good creations.

Sacred Conversation to End Racism moves us beyond just talking about the realities of racism, white supremacy, and white privilege in its many forms. It challenges us to decolonize our very thinking and ways of being, and then leads us to take action to shape a new theology and way of being. This is a groundbreaking resource connected to a strategy and plan of action to end racism throughout our relationships and communities. It’s more than another call to action it’s a demand to transform into the reality of who God calls us to be. If you consider yourself to be a person of justice, you must take the journey.  - Rev. Marvin Silver, Associate Conference Minister, Central Atlantic Conference of the United Church of Christ

"It is difficult to express how this SC2ER study has affected me in terms of my personal, spiritual, psychological being. To be clear, it is the most difficult course of study in which I have ever participated. And in all of these areas, it has been the most liberating. Sacred Conversations is an unprecedented invitation to be part of a transformative vision whose goal it is to eradicate racism. Through in depth study into the historical myths of race, one is called upon to examine all implicit and explicit beliefs about what one thinks they know, in order to truly grasp the gross and immoral impact racism has had, and continues to have, on every system in this country. This study requires commitment to study, a listening heart, a desire to share what you've learned and an immense amount of humility. I promise you will never be the same.” - Rev. Clare Twomey, Senior Pastor, Vista Grande Community Church

~ Rev. Dr. Velda Love

Read online here

About the Author
Rev. Dr. Velda R. Love, Minister of Racial Justice in The Justice and Witness Ministries of The United Church of Christ. Velda has a working knowledge of critical race theory and creates comprehensive and strategic approaches for UCC national conferences, congregations, and staff colleagues to explore and understand the intersection of racial justice with other justice issues. Velda brings an African-centered approach inclusive of biblical and theological knowledge in liberation and womanist perspectives.
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Question & Answer

Q: By Philip

Do you think that Jesus believed he was the Son of God/Son of Man (Daniel 7) and that he physically cured people of diseases and serious disabilities.? If not,what do you think he was trying to achieve by wandering around the countryside with his disciples. 

A: By Dr. Carl Krieg

Dear Philip,

The question that you posed, “What was Jesus trying to achieve?”,  is perhaps the basic question that Christians ask. With respect to the other two issues you raised, Jesus never called himself “son of God”, but he did call himself “son of man” which is another way of saying “man”. As for Jesus healing disease and disability, I do think that the oppressive nature of the ruling regime broke minds and bodies and that by offering love and hope Jesus could help in recovery. I remember a student who was blind and was asked by a fundamentalist group to come to a meeting so that they might pray over him and restore his sight. He was eager to do so, so that he could remove his glass eyeballs in front of them. Jesus did not turn glass into flesh, but psychosomatic healing is another matter.

What was Jesus trying to do? I don’t think Jesus was trying to do anything other than to help others become fulfilled human beings and to live together in peace and justice. As I argued in my column “Jesus and the Void”, Jesus was a fully human being, continually in tune with God and fully loving other people. Part of that being was to teach others about love and truth, to help others open their eyes to God and to embrace one another as children of one God. That was the person and that was the message. Some people caught on, others did not. Psychosomatic healing was a possible manifestation in those whose lives were changed.

Speculation about who Jesus was and who he thought he was, begins in the New Testament itself. Layer upon layer was added to the original story and what we have today in the Christian Writings is far removed from the initial encounter between Jesus and the disciples. One of the last to be added is the famous prologue to John, which states that the eternal Word became flesh in the person of Jesus. The disciples may have been curious about Jesus, but did not come to John’s conclusion. It was not until 325 CE that the Council of Nicaea concluded, under imperial pressure, that Jesus was God. It was in 451, at Chalcedon, that the church threw up its hands and confessed that it had no idea how Jesus could be both God and man. The contemporaries of Jesus confronted no such issues. For them, Jesus was a man, but a man like no other, a man who presented to them who they were and could become.

Because of all the later additions, the original story of Jesus and his followers has been transformed into a story alien to what he intended and what they experienced. We now have someone born of a virgin who dies for our sins, appeasing an angry god, who will come in the future to judge all who have ever lived, and whose power is now controlled by the church. As a consequence, people who are told that they have to believe this to be saved are leaving the church in droves, and secular society sees the story as ludicrous. So the fundamentalist narrative is harmful on three levels: it betrays the message of Jesus, it forces thinking Christians to leave the church, and it prevents any relevance that Jesus might have for secular society. Clearly what’s required is to rediscover the Jesus story, and that brings us back to your question: What was Jesus trying to do? Answer: Trying to help us become the creatures of love and compassion we were created to be. By what power, we may ask, was he able to be so totally loving? Was it because he was God incarnate, or because he was a human being that succeeded in overcoming temptation and was perfect? We’ll never know, and any answer to that is speculation. All the disciples knew was that Jesus empowered them to discover the truth of their humanity.

~ Dr. Carl Krieg

Read and share online here

About the Author
Dr. Carl Krieg received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith, and The Void and the Vision. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife, Margaret, in Norwich, VT.
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited

The Origins of the New Testament, Part XII:
Romans — Paul's Most Thorough Epistle

Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
January 14, 2010
If there is one book in the New Testament that might be called “The Gospel of Paul,” it is the Epistle to the Romans. This letter is different from all of Paul’s other work in several ways. First, Paul had never been to Rome and so he had no relationship whatsoever with the Roman church. He was not unknown to these Roman Christians, but this church did not view him as related to them in any special way. Neither Paul nor any of his disciples had been its founder. He was thus not in charge of its ongoing life and it was not his responsibility to adjudicate their disputes or to solve their problems. These were the things that had in large measure framed the context of Paul’s other letters. Second, and as a direct consequence of this first distinguishing mark, this letter was a reasoned theological treatise with universal themes rather than a response to critical but nonetheless local issues. Third, Paul was a supplicant in this letter to Rome. He was in the position of asking a favor from them, so he was eager to present himself favorably in order to win their support. Paul wanted this congregation in Rome to assist his missionary endeavors by providing him with a base of support, so that he might expand his journeys to places as far away as Spain. To gain that support, Paul was concerned to put his theological understanding of the Christian faith clearly before them and to minimize the negativity that always followed him from conservative parts of the Christian community. For these reasons, Paul’s Epistle to the Romans reflects a clear and concise statement of Paul’s conception of Jesus, the meaning of salvation as he understood it and his version of what Christianity was all about.

The Epistle to the Romans is Paul at his studied best. It is also the longest and most carefully organized piece of Paul’s writing that we possess and is a logical, orderly and systematic treatise. He moves from his introductory and salutary opening verses (1:1-15) to the statement of the theme basic in all of Paul’s work. Salvation, he argues, is the gift of God and it is available to all people. This theme is overtly stated in 1:16-17.

Next, he proceeds to build his case by articulating his perception of the need present in both the Gentile world and the Jewish world for the Christian gift (1:18-3:30). Then he spells out his understanding of the Christ (3:21-4:25). He concludes this section of the epistle with what is probably the most crucial and carefully stated words of Paul’s career by articulating his understanding of what life in Christ is and can be (5:1-8:39). That brings his basic theological argument to its climax and conclusion as he reaches his crescendo in verses 38 and 39 of chapter 8, where he pens these climactic words: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.” We will return to the totality of this Pauline argument in the columns over the next few weeks in order to explicate the earliest understanding we have of the role of Christ in the drama of human salvation. For now, however, I want to move quickly in an effort to create in the minds of my readers a clear picture of the totality of this epistle.

Having come to his powerful conclusion at the end of Chapter 8 Paul next moves on to what can only be understood as a large parenthesis that consumes him in chapters 9 through 11. Here he addresses a question close to his heart as a Jew and about which the Christian movement was at that time still torn in conflict. Why was it that the people of his Jewish nation as a whole appeared to be rejecting the promised gift of salvation that Christ came to bring, which he believed had been promised to them and for which, in Paul’s mind, both the Jewish Scriptures and all of Jewish history had been preparing them? So deeply did the Jesus message resonate with the Jewish Paul that he found it all but unfathomable that all Jewish people did not see it as he saw it. So he wrestles with this question in this great parenthesis in a very public way.

Paul introduces Chapter 9 with assertions that cause us to recognize how painful this dilemma was for him. “I am speaking the truth in Christ, “he begins. “I am not lying,” he assures them. “My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit.” No one uses those particular phrases unless that person is quite apprehensive as to whether his argument will prevail. Then Paul goes on, with much emotion, to express his “great sorrow and increasing anguish in my heart.” He would rather, he says, find himself accursed and cut off from Christ forever than to find his people, his tribe, in their present negative position. He argues that the people of Israel have been given a special relationship with God, which he characterizes with the word “sonship.” He recites the treasures found in Judaism: “The glory of the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship in the Temple and the promises of God.” He traces this Jewish heritage as it flowed down the centuries from the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph until it came to what Paul believes is God’s ultimate gift of salvation found in Christ Jesus. Yet he is aware that the majority of his own kinsmen stand apart from and are even negative to that gift. “Has the word of God failed?” he asks. He finds some consolation in that part of biblical history that suggests that not all the descendants of Abraham were destined to share in the promise. God had chosen Isaac, Abraham’s second-born son, over Ishmael, the firstborn. God had chosen Jacob, the younger twin, over Esau, the older twin. These were not examples of God’s injustice, he argues, but a recognition of the fact that no one receives the promise of God as a birthright, but only as a gift of grace. It is, he argues, God’s prerogative to have mercy on those on whom God decides to have mercy. It is a matter of being receptive. The clay, he states, does not tell the potter what the potter can mold the clay into being. He quotes first from Hosea and then from Isaiah to fortify his argument. He calls Moses to his aid. He suggests that Israel is still caught in its tribal identity and does not yet recognize that there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek since God is Lord of all and does not limit divine grace by nationality or even religion.

Paul wants no one to suggest that God has rejected the chosen ones. He reminds them that he is an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. He then recalls that the Jewish scriptures inform us that both Elijah and Elisha were sent to others and not just to the Jewish people.

Finally, as if the answer he was seeking dawned on him as he wrote, Paul came to a new insight, a new conclusion. The rejection of Jesus by the Jews was simply part of God’s plan. Because of Israel’s apparent inability to hear or to see, the door to salvation had been opened for the Gentiles to enter the Kingdom of God and thus the message of salvation could reach the entire world. Israel’s negativity must be seen as playing a role in the divine drama. The hardness of heart that Jews now displayed toward the gift of salvation was an act of divine providence since it was the means whereby God would offer salvation to the world.

In many ways this was a strange argument, but it managed to bring resolution to what was for Paul an enormous conflict. Salvation was God’s free gift to all beyond every human division and even Jewish rejection was destined to serve that purpose. So Paul, greatly relieved by this new insight, brings this segment of his letter to the Romans to an end with a doxology: “O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.” Even as Paul says this, he offers his explanation of how the mind of God works.

Having completed this long parenthesis, Paul now employs the word “therefore” to hook together the theological argument of his first 8 chapters with the ethical implications of that argument, to which he now turns in chapter 12. He reminds his Roman readers that they are to treat their bodies as a living sacrifice, “acceptable to God.” He urges them not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed so that they do not think of themselves more highly than they ought to think. He repeats his body analogy that the church must be like the human body, a single whole but with many members. Christians are to rejoice in the gifts of all the members. He urges them to let their love be genuine, to hold fast to what is good, to contribute to the needs of the saints and to practice hospitality. Followers of Jesus are not to be overcome with evil but to overcome evil with God.

Next Paul addresses the responsibility of Christians to the civil authorities. He suggests that all authority comes from God so they are not to resist political power. All earthly rulers, he declares, are “God’s servants on earth.” It was a variation of the later divine right of kings argument. We might note in passing that this or similar texts have been used throughout history against all revolutionary movements. The British used it against the Americans in 1776 and the North used it against the South in 1860. Martin Luther King, Jr., had to set Paul’s words aside to carry out his role as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. It is a perennial tactic of the established authority against the rising of a new consciousness.

Paul finally introduces relativity into things when he says that nothing is unclean in and of itself, but it is unclean for those who think it unclean. This idea was contained in Paul’s plea for followers of Jesus to be sensitive to the values of one another. Christ, he concludes, was even willing to become a servant to the circumcised in order that Gentiles might glorify God.

Having glimpsed the sweep of his entire argument, we will turn in the next weeks to examine the core of Paul’s thought in much deeper detail. I hope you will stay tuned.

~  John Shelby Spong
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