Race: A Theological Account by J. Kameron Carter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you follow my blog, I was very captivated with this book when I began it. It's overall thesis was startlingly new to me: the discourse of white supremacy had arisen from modern Christian theology as that theology during the Enlightenment distanced itself from the actual Jewishness of Jesus (distanced from particularity in the search for the universal).

This distancing first gave rise to anti-Semitism, and Carter engages in a very devastating critique of Immanuel Kant on this point. Christianity became identified with Western European civilization, essentially, Christianity was a white religion. This had global, colonial implications. In America this developed in white supremacist discourse.

Black people, of course, existed within this discourse and were oppressed by it. They also worked to subvert it and to develop a Christian theology and religious experience that ran against the grain of modern theology. That black theology, in contact with some ancient traditions in Christian theology, can provide the opportunity for a new Christian theological discourse to be created in the twenty-first century. A theology that does not dismiss the particularity of Jesus' covenantal Jewish flesh and unites all flesh together.

I am still captivated by this overall flow of ideas. But Carter's book becomes very dense in the presentation of this argument. It is a comprehensive book that engages many different scholars ranging from Irenaeus and Gregory of Nyssa to Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson. I can recommend it, but only if you want to seriously, academically engage the topic. And he isn't the most eloquent of authors; his writing style is not engaging. It would be very nice if he could write a smaller, more popular-oriented version of his basic argument, as I think many more would be interested in reading it.

View all my reviews

I met William last night, he's in town performing the Mikado.  Here is a NYTimes video about how he and his husband Kim met and got engaged:

 

Enjoy the Fruit

Jeremiah 31:1-14, 31-34

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational UCC

25 March 2012

 

 

    There are times when we move away from God's will for our life. There are times when we make decisions that we later regret. Decisions that alienate us from other people. Even decisions that alienate us from who we really hope to be.

    Barbara Brown Taylor, who is a retired Episcopal priest living in rural Georgia and one of America's best preachers has a powerful little book entitled Speaking of Sin in which she eloquently describes this experience:

 

Deep down in human existence, there is an experience of being cut off from life. There is some memory of having been treated cruelly, and – a little deeper, perhaps – the memory of having treated someone else cruelly as well. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of seeing the light and turning away from it, either because it is too beautiful to behold or because it spoils the dank but familiar darkness. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of reaching for forbidden fruit, of pushing away loving arms, of breaking something on purpose just to prove that you can. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of doing whatever is necessary to feed and comfort the self, because there is no one else to trust, no other purpose to serve, no other god go follow.

 

I assume that you've had that experience sometime. Sometime when you've felt guilt, shame, or regret for something you've said or something you've done. Or maybe it was something you failed to say or do. Sometimes we don't realize what we've done until we run into the wall of the consequences we didn't take the time to consider.

In these moments we can find consolation in the stories of our tradition. For these stories remind us that God is gracious. God forgives us. God will help us to rid ourselves of our destructive and unhealthy traits. And God will help us to start again.

 

Today's scripture passage from Jeremiah 31 comes in a part of the Book of Jeremiah called the "Book of Consolation." Jeremiah is mostly known as a doom and gloom sort of prophet, warning people of their sin and the consequences that are soon to follow. But there is this section of the Book of Jeremiah in which the prophet looks beyond those consequences, beyond the time of exile, to the time of restoration. And what the prophet sees there is a glorious vision.

"The days are surely coming," he says. Yes, the days are surely coming. Time marches on. When we get through today there will be tomorrow. Will tomorrow be just like today or will it be something else? The days are surely coming, the prophet says, when the Lord will restore the fortunes of the people of Israel.

    "I have loved you with an everlasting love," says our God. Though you have broken covenant with me, I will uphold my covenant with you. In fact, I will make a new covenant with you. And what a surprising act! Usually if someone breaks promises with us, we are very unlikely to enter into promises with them again in the future. But God will make a new covenant.

    "I will gather you. I will comfort you, and again I will build you," says our God. And in response you will take your tambourines and go forth dancing. You will sing aloud and raise shouts of praise. You will plant vineyards and enjoy the fruit!

    You "shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; [your] life shall become like a watered garden, and [you] shall never languish again."

 

    Of course this is not directly our story, our vision, our dream. It is the story, dream, and vision of the ancient people of Israel as they looked forward to the time after exile. But we can enter into this story and claim it as our own, for the subject of it is God. It tells us who God is and what God does for us.

    Yahweh, the God of Israel, is like a gardener. This is an image used in Isaiah and Jeremiah. Walter Brueggemann writes that this is a "metaphor of sustenance," and there are a handful of others in the prophets – potter, shepherd, mother, and healer. Like a gardener God both cultivates and plucks up. Brueggemann writes that these sorts of metaphors and the actions associated with them remind us that the relationship with God is open and on-going and that God can surprise us. We aren't dealing merely with "a concept." We are in a covenantal relationship with a particular, free, active agent with a name and a history.

    In Jeremiah this free active agent who is like a gardener does some mighty things. Yahweh gathers the people, loves them, heals and restores them, comforts them, forgives them, builds them up again, and enters into a new covenant with them. There are lots of active verbs in this passage. And that in and of itself is a consolation to us. When we have alienated ourselves, we often wonder if God has forgotten or rejected us. We sometimes feel the absence of God. But Jeremiah reminds us, through these active verbs, that God takes the initiative to restore us. That God is ever looking to the future and new possibilities.

    This week, as I studied for this sermon, I was struck by how the great Old Testament scholar and UCC member Walter Brueggemann interpreted this passage from Jeremiah and its themes. For instance, he wrote,

 

All of these verbs, and Yahweh's actions to which they testify, mean that Israel is freed from all that had failed. Israel is now completely unburdened by its past.

 

Wow! I don't think we usually think of forgiveness in such broad and powerful terms. When God forgives and restores us, we are freed of all our failures. We are unburdened of our past. We can start fresh.

    Just imagine. That deep down experience in human existence that Barbara Brown Taylor spoke about, you are completely freed of that. It does not burden you. It does not weigh upon you or bring guilt or shame or regret.

    Now, the truth is, I don't know if that is even psychologically possible. If you are like me, things I thought I forgave myself for a long time ago, might suddenly pop up in my awareness again, and I feel just as lousy about them as I did before. So, it's probably not the case that the past disappears. But what should be the case, is that when those lousy thoughts do re-appear, we can immediately draw upon the grace of God and remind ourselves that we have been unburdened of that experience, that it does not define who we are, we are free to live into a new covenant and be a new person, born again by the grace of God.

    Brueggemann goes on to say other profound and liberating things. He writes that the future is not dependent upon our obedience. The future "is in the hands of the One [Yahweh, God] who is . . . faithful." That no matter what we do or how often we might fail again, God will always be faithful to us, loving us eternally, restoring us, and helping us to rebuild again. Just like a faithful gardener who prunes and cultivates and brings forth new fruit every season.

    I also found this sentence particularly powerful and liberating -- Brueggemann writes, "Yahweh refuses to be governed by circumstance, so the prophets urge Israel to refuse to succumb to circumstance, even when the circumstance is generated by Israel's ethical failure."

    Even when the consequences are of our own choosing and making, God is powerful enough to liberate us from them. That is a message all of us need to hear at various points in our lives. The awful circumstances that at the moment feel like a trap from which you will never emerge, you do not have to succumb to those. You can continue to live into a future filled with other possibilities, including your own restoration. A future where you can dance and sing and build and plant again and enjoy the fruit.

 

    Now, lest you think that all personal ethical responsibility is removed, that is not the case. To enjoy the fruit means that we must live into the covenant. We must repent and participate in God's new future. Brueggemann writes that God does the gathering, healing, forgiving, and loving and will always do that, but it is up to us as the people of God to reconstruct our new life given this reality. Our ongoing work is responding to this "miracle of a future."

    And the Season of Lent was created by the church to remind us of exactly that. As Barbara Brown Taylor explains, "Lent was set aside for the greening of the soul." She describes it with metaphors that fit beautifully with our "Tend the Soil" theme:

 

As any good gardener knows, new life requires some assistance. The life itself is entirely God's gift, but the cultivation of it calls for work. There is some tilling and fertilizing to be done, some weeding and pruning of dead branches. Without such intentional participation in the renewal of life, the roses will eventually disappear under the pokeweed, and the Japanese beetles will eat all of the peaches.

 

    God creates the possibility and helps us do the good, hard work. And then once all the good hard work of gardening ourselves is done, then we get to reap the benefits and enjoy the fruit. We get to experience what Wendell Berry, in our contemporary reading for today, described as the "satisfactions of the mad farmer."

 

raspberries ripe and heavy amid their foliage,

currants shining red in clusters amid their foliage,

strawberries red ripe with the white

flowers still on the vines—picked

with the dew on them, before breakfast;

 

grape clusters heavy under broad leaves,

powdery bloom on fruit black with sweetness
-- an ancient delight, delighting

 

    An ancient delight indeed. Makes me hungry just imagining these fruit. But remember, these are also metaphors. We aren't talking only about literal fruit, we are talking about the fruit we cultivate in ourselves through the work of repentance and participation in God's covenant. And what might those fruit be? How about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? How would you like to trade guilt, anxiety, shame, and regret for love, joy, and peace?

    You can. God, in God's grace and everlasting love, offers us precisely that. God has created the possibility. How do you respond?

I had never heard of this story before.  How interesting to know that we engaged in our own sort of pogrom.  Also very exciting to see the change of heart in Grant and how different and pro-Jewish he was as president.  This article is well worth the read (and it isn't long).

My friend Rob Howard sent me this letter, which I had missed, from the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  It discusses religious liberty and, in particular, the contraception issue.  I have a few replies, as I continue to be surprised by the novel interpretations of religious liberty that the Catholic Church has been embracing recently (I've posted about this a number of times in recent months).

First off, the final paragraph surprised me, particularly this line: "our First Freedom—religious liberty—which is not only protected in the laws and customs of our great nation, but rooted in the teachings of our greatTradition."  Historically the Roman Catholic Church has never been understood as big defenders of religious liberty nor have they actively embraced it and argued for it in those nations where they are dominant.  As a former Baptist who were among the very first to argue for religious liberty, this very much surprised me.

There are three issues that the bishops raise against the contraception rule.  First, "The mandate includes anextremely narrow definition of what HHS deems a “religious employer” deserving exemption—employers who, among other things, must hire and serve primarily those of their own faith. We are deeply concerned about this new definition of who we are as people of faith and what constitutes our ministry."

As a matter of law the government often has to make these sorts of decisions.  I'd refer you to Martha Nussbaum's great book on the history of religious liberty and our constantly developing application of our constitutional doctrines.  Her overall estimate is that we generally have done a good job in law and the courts of adjudicating these matters, with some clear failures along the way.  Government must in order to avoid the chaos and anarchy that Justice Scalia warned of in a religious exemption case in the early 90's, decide these sorts of questions.  Admittedly there is a wide gray area and any decision deserves scrutiny and re-examination based upon empirical consequences.

But I don't think that the government has tried to define what is religious and what is not.  They have tried to determine what employers are subject to the law and which are exempt.  In a wide range of laws churches are exempt (but not all, building codes for instance) in ways that church-owned businesses such as schools and hospitals are not.  That is already the case.

The courts have consistently held that when institutions receive government money they have to abide by the rules set by the government.  Some religious traditions, therefore, do not accept any government money because that leaves them free to act.  In fact, Baptist churches I served had intentionally avoided government money for this reason.  The Roman Catholic Church has often accepted government money for its programs.  They seem to be upset about losing establishment privilege and don't want to be a sectarian group (as I've often written, we also provide you the opportunity to be a sectarian group and live separately from society if you object to society -- think of the Amish).

Many churches have gotten out of the medical care business precisely because the rules and regulations for medical care might not align with their doctrine.  This doesn't mean that they have to sacrifice doing ministry.  They may still contribute large amounts to health care, but they often spin off their hospitals to be separate businesses not owned by the denominations.  Frankly, if the pluralistic, American democracy determines that X will be the standards all people should accept in health care, and the RCC does not want to accomodate X, then they should get out of the direct health care business.  That is the best way to actually protect their religious liberty.   Religious liberty does NOT mean that the rest of us have always to accomodate your doctrinal beliefs (though there is a place for accomodation as the courts have consistently held).

The second point they make is, "Those deemed by HHS not to be “religious employers” will be forced by government to violate their own teachings within their veryown institutions. This is not only an injustice in itself, but it also undermines the effective proclamation of those teachings to the faithful and to the world."

Some of the points I made above apply here as well.  The government can set standards in order to do business.  Abiding by those standards does not in and of itself violate your conscience or your religious beliefs.  Generally those standards mean that you cannot impose your beliefs upon others -- customers, clients, patients, employees.  Does this mean you may have to do things you'd rather not do, even things that you think are wrong?  Yes.  But that happens all the time.  It is part of living in a pluralistic society.  For instance, my tax money continues to support wars, capital punishment, and other activities that I believe are wrong.  The government does not accomodate my religious objections.  

Let us also remember that the government is not telling anyone they have to personally take contraception if they don't believe in it.  That would be government force and a violation of conscience.  The government is saying that you have to make it available for others who want to use it based upon their freedom to choose to use it.  The freedom of individual is being protected from the institution.

Which gets us to the third point of the Bishops Conference:

The HHS mandate creates still a third class,those with no conscience protection at all: individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and moral values. They, too, face agovernment mandate to aid in providing “services” contrary to those values—whether intheir sponsoring of, and payment for, insurance as employers; their payment of insurancepremiums as employees; or as insurers themselves—without even the semblance of anexemption. This, too, is unprecedented in federal law, which has long been generous inprotecting the rights of individuals not to act against their religious beliefs or moralconvictions.

This is the claim that has outraged me in recent months because it is such a wild distortion of the tradition of religous liberty which is so important and quasi-sacred to me.  If an individual businessperson can follow their own conscience in violation of the law, then the chaos Justice Scalia warned of would in fact ensue.  The reasoning used by the Catholic Bishops here is analogous to saying that if your religious belief was against Jews, you could deny them employment or custom.  If your religious belief was that women should not work, you could not employ them.  If your religious belief was prejudiced against black people, you could deny them service.

This is NOT what religious liberty is all about.  Quit bastardizing it because of your inability to surrender your privilege and live in the pluralistic, twenty-first century.

According to Walter Isaacson's biography, Steve Jobs told Rupert Murdoch, "The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive."  He told Murdoch that FoxNews was on the destructive side of that axis.

FoxNews aside, I found this to be an interesting and potentially insightful analysis.  It does explain the confusion around some issues where historically liberal, moderate, and conservative people now agree and yet all get lumped together and viewed negatively by a group of people that generally is described as far right, despite many of them engaging in a form of populism and historically having been members of the Democratic Party (evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Southerners, for instance).

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have never owned an Apple product. I've liked playing with my friends Apple products at times and, as everyone, I'm mesmerized by their design and have enjoyed some of their commercials. But I've never bought into the Apple world. Steve Jobs may be right that they are better products, but I've never been willing to pay the price. Maybe that means I "suck" (to quote Jobs often in this book) because I settle for inferior products, but the up-to-date techno-design lifestyle that Apple relies on simply isn't mine. In fact, the times I have generally decided I was ready to buy a product, they'd already moved on to the next one. I'm also not for that fast-paced world where every year one must upgrade to the latest thing.

Oh, and I am still one of those folk who want to right-click and get annoyed whenever I'm sitting at a friend's Mac and can't do that. As much as I've bitched about various Microsoft operating systems and programs over the years, I often feel confused when sitting at a friend's Mac. I've never found them as intuitive as Mac's more recent products -- unlike an iPad which was so freakishly intuitive the first time I picked it up.

So, why did I read this biography? Well, I wanted to know more about Jobs, I knew many friends and congregants were in the Apple world, I knew many people would be reading this biography, and I hoped I might find some interesting insights for church administration and the design and technology work that is part of my job. And I did mark up some things that I'm sure will appear as illustrations in sermons.

I also felt some reassurance about the importance of being personally confident and pursuing one's vision, even when others don't completely understand what you are doing. In some ways Jobs resonated with William James' description of the strong soul.

But he was also an ass hole. I don't think I've ever read a biography where it comes across so strongly and clearly how awful a person someone is. I'm glad I never knew him or encountered him. Despite his great gifts for design and business and marketing, he was not a good human being, so I am surprised by the quasi-spiritual guru status he seems to hold within popular culture.

I did not expect great writing from Isaacson and was not disappointed. He reports in a straightforward matter. He does engage in a little hagiography here and there, and clearly even he is captivated by his subject. But he also doesn't pull many punches in discussing Jobs' failures as a human being and businessman.

View all my reviews

I was very disturbed from the first time I heard of this story and continue to be, the more facts that are reported.  Setting aside my visceral reaction, there is a reasoned, philosophical problem with not arresting and charging the killer.

At the root of our understanding of the role of force, and particularly deadly force, in civilized society is Lockean social contract theory.  In the state of nature we possess the right to use force, including deadly force.  When we enter into the social contract, we surrender that right to the state.  Only in situations of self-defense do we maintain that right.  As I see it, there are two major areas of problem with the Martin-Zimmerman case.

First, Mr. Zimmerman was not justified in his use of deadly force against Mr. Martin.  One maintains the right to self-defense within the social contract, but one is only justified in using the level of force necessary to respond to the force used against you.  You cannot shoot someone for yelling at youor simply throwing something at you.  You can only use deadly force when deadly force is being threatened against you.  That means even in a fist fight where all the parties are doing is beating the crap out of each other, deadly force is not justified if deadly force is not used or threatened.

To this end, there is absolutely no grounds to justify Mr. Zimmerman's using deadly force against Mr. Martin.  If Florida law actually does allow Mr. Zimmerman to use deadly force in this situation, then the law itself is unjustified and morally wrong and must be condemned.  

If Mr. Martin yelled at Mr. Zimmerman, charged at him, threw his skittles at him, kicked him, or even punched him -- none of these would justify Mr. Zimmeran using deadly force in response.  And there is no evidence as yet that Mr. Martin even acted in these ways, but even if he did, it would not justify deadly force.  Mr. Zimmerman, philosophically and ethically, should be investigated and, if the facts bear out, charged with murder.

The second issue is that Mr. Zimmerman was the aggressor.  Zimmerman disobeyed law enforcement and followed Mr. Martin.  It appears that Mr. Zimmerman then confronted Mr. Martin.  Mr. Martin's reponse, whatever it was, was in response to an escalation by Mr. Zimmerman.  If self-defense is at issue in this situation, it would be for Mr. Martin to claim.  Mr. Zimmerman was the one who escalated the situation and, it appears, was the aggressor.  It seems clear to me that he cannot, then, justify his use of deadly force because he was the one who escalated the situation to that level, not the victim.

So, even without race getting involved in the analysis of the situation, and I firmly believe that race was at issue, one should conclude, given the facts we currently have, that Mr. Zimmeran should be arrested for the unjustified homocide of Mr. Martin.