Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Cross, the Lynching Tree, the Chokehold

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The real scandal of the gospel is this: humanity’s salvation is revealed in the cross of the condemned criminal Jesus, and humanity’s salvation is available only through our solidarity with the crucified people in our midst. Faith that emerged out of the scandal of the cross is not a faith of intellectuals or elites of any sort. This is the faith of abused and scandalized people—the losers and the down and out. It was this faith that gave blacks the strength and courage to hope, “to keep on keeping on,” …. The cross and the lynching tree interpret each other. Both were public spectacles, shameful events, instruments of punishment reserved for the most despised people in society. Any genuine theology and any genuine preaching of the Christian gospel must be measured against the test of the scandal of the cross and the lynching tree.

—James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

Read Theology of Ferguson on Medium

Advent 2014:

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My reflections on Advent have been profoundly affected this past week by the events in Ferguson and the way the mask of a post-racial America has been ripped off to expose the bitter and deep realities of racism and injustice. I’m not alone. #StayWokeAdvent is a thing.

Micky Jones explains it:

Have you ever been stuck in a dark place with only a sliver of light or no light at all? You know those times waiting for news that could bring just as much struggle as it brings resolution? Remember the times of waiting and waiting, not knowing when the answers will come? Times of anticipation, of unknowing, of darkness before more light, are not always joyful, peaceful, or even largely hopeful. These are times of struggle, times of wrestling, doubting, mourning, crying, yearning, times of staying alert to the signs that light may be coming, that things are changing.

This is the time, the time of Advent, to stay alert…to “stay woke”…to your senses, your mind, your body, your feelings, your spirit to where to Spirit is stirring and leaning. Stay woke….to the impact your life has on others…Stay woke…to the injustice that we either contribute to or diminish…Stay woke….to the groanings of the world…Stay woke…to the humble, radical, empire-upsetting ways of Jesus…Stay woke…to the darkness…Stay woke…to the light…and to the sacred and profane in both.

Christina Cleveland reminds us that Advent is a season of darkness:

But we do the Light a disservice when we underestimate the darkness. Jesus entered a world plagued not only by the darkness of individual pain and sin, but also by the darkness of systemic oppression. Jesus’ people, the Hebrews, were a subjugated people living as exiles in their own land; among other things, they were silenced, targets of police brutality, and exploitatively taxed. They were a people so beaten down by society that only a remnant – most notably Anna and Simeon  – continued to believe that the Messianic prophecies would one day come to pass. For many, the darkness of long-standing oppression had extinguished any hope for liberation.

The Very Rev. Mike Kinman of Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis has called on Episcopal Cathedrals (and other churches) to take some time in Advent to address the “he issues Ferguson has raised and where those issues of race, class and the oppression of God’s children are present in your community.” More information on that is here. Grace Church, Madison will be participating.

Also on Ferguson and Advent from David Bailey at the Missio Alliance:

The Washington Post has the story of the church apparently destroyed by arson this week in Ferguson and its pastor’s struggle to understand (Michael Brown, Sr. is a member of the congregation).

A Thanksgiving Prayer

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As we gather at tables, grieving the state of our nation, may we gain spiritual strength for the journey ahead, drawing on the deepest wells of wisdom from those on whose shoulders we stand and the various faith traditions that have fueled their freedom march and continue to energizee ours.

In the spirit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Dr. King, may the pioneers of the civil rights movement collaborate with the young leaders in Ferguson, New York City and other cities, and may they impart their knowledge and understanding of nonviolent resistance that is not passive, but is spiritually active with an abiding faith that the universe is on the side of justice, and that, in the end, love will triumph over evil.

May this spiritual strength, fueled by prophetic fire and love, reveal to us our neighbors’ humanity, our own complicity in their suffering and liberate us once and for all from the history that continues to enslave us.

 

From Cornel West and Peter Goodwin Heltzel

An Epistemology of Ignorance: Charles Mills on Racism

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The radically divergent perspectives on reality of blacks and whites are a straightforward reflection of the radically different realities in which they live. Segregation has deep cognitive consequences as well as the more familiar consequences for one’s chances at a good education, home ownership in good neighborhoods, being able to escape gang violence, etc. That doesn’t mean that black majority opinion is always going to be right, of course. But you would expect that those more subject to the inequities of the system will in general be the ones more likely to have a realistic perspective on it. Whites have not merely an unrepresentative group experience, but a vested group interest in self-deception. Sociologists have documented the remarkable extent to which large numbers of white Americans get the most basic things wrong about their society once race is involved. (See, for some hilarious examples, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s “Racism Without Racists.”) My favorite example, from a poll about three years ago, is that a majority of white Americans now believe that whites are the race most likely to be the victims of racial discrimination! If that’s not an epistemology of ignorance at work, I don’t know what would be.

Read it all here.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Non-Violence, Ferguson and American Society

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What clearly cannot be said is that American society’s affection for nonviolence is notional. What cannot be said is that American society’s admiration for Martin Luther King Jr. increases with distance, that the movement he led was bugged, smeared, harassed, and attacked by the same country that now celebrates him. King had the courage to condemn not merely the violence of blacks, nor the violence of the Klan, but the violence of the American state itself.

What clearly cannot be said is that violence and nonviolence are tools, and that violence—like nonviolence—sometimes works. “Property damage and looting impede social progress,” Jonathan Chait wrote Tuesday. He delivered this sentence with unearned authority. Taken together, Property damage and looting have been the most effective tools of social progress for white people in America. It describes everything from enslavement to Jim Crow laws to lynching to red-lining.

Read it all. Read it all here.

Prayers for Ferguson and for us

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Almighty God, who created us in your image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 260)

A Prayer for the Whole Human Family.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 815)

A Prayer for Social Justice.

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the people of this land], that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 823)

Advent Resources 2014

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I’ve compiled links to some sites and Advent calendars I think help us in this season. Check back from time to time as I’ll update the list.

 Some online Advent Calendars:

Occupy Advent

Rediscovering Advent from Full Homely Divinity: http://fullhomelydivinity.org/articles/advent%20fullpage.htm

From Creighton University, Praying Advent: http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/

A giant collection of Advent Resources from Anglicans Online: http://anglicansonline.org/special/advent.html

A brief youtube video from Rowan Williams:

Looking for something to read during Advent?

Try Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

or Wiman’s recent collection of poems:

Appeals Court throws out clergy housing allowance decision

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A Federal Appeals court threw out a lower court’s decision in favor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s suit challenging the legality of the IRS tax exemption for clergy housing allowances. More here. The court said the FFRF lacked standing to bring the suit. In other words, it did not rule on the merits of the case.

A prayer for today

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Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the people of this land], that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.