Thursday, December 24, 2020

Who Jesus Is

 
So, who is this Jesus Whose birth we still commemorate?

He was at least a good person; a real person from history, right?  Even atheists concede Jesus was a pivotal moral figure in time and place.  Some people today want to stop the universal practice of recognizing our world’s existence by His life – B.C. and A.D. – and adopt a less religious context for dating time.  However, even if such efforts are successful, they would represent defiance against His legacy, not proof that He really wasn't that important after all.

Others of us claim His legacy as a model for how we say we want to live our own lives.  We venerate at least some of His teachings, and at least pay lip service to His moral code.  However, we fancy ourselves as a bit more sophisticated than He was, and our modern cultures celebrate ourselves more than Himself.  We really don’t believe He is the literal Son of God, and that His words really are the text of life.  Calling ourselves “Christians” is mostly an acceptable way to categorize our role in this world compared with other people who worship other people and things.

Then there are people for whom simply settling for religious pastimes is insufficient.   We believe He offers something more personal – and more valid – than moral stories, suggestions, and rituals.  Deeper inspection of the teachings His contemporary followers documented gives us a broader perspective of how He models servanthood.  And ironically, His identity as a member of the Holy Trinity tells us He’s also the Creator of all things - even the things He came to serve.  He certainly has power and authority, but in His incredibly lowly birth, He demonstrated utter humility.  We believe He literally intended to suffer for our sake.  He willingly relinquished His Heavenly status to be abused by His creation.  After all, Who else ever in history has received embalming herbs (myrrh) in commemoration of their birth?

In our contrivances of angst, suspicion, denial, hatred, and selfishness, it would be so easy to find hope and comfort in the panoply we’ve made of Christmas, especially those of us here in the West.  But re-visit this little post on December 26, and tell me how much hope and comfort remains from the day before.  Instead, Jesus Christ did not come to make us comfortable.  He didn’t even come to provide some sort of heroic caricature of virtue to a world more accustomed to depravity.  He didn’t come to provide anybody political freedom.  He didn’t come to make anybody wealthy.  He didn’t come to establish any mortal government or economic system.  He came to be a servant King and Savior, and from His birth until today, He's forever proving His servanthood, and calling us to replicate it within our own spheres of influence, however imperfectly we trust Him to accomplish that servanthood through ourselves. 

Many say Christmas is a season of peace.  However, many still doubt, and scoff, and agitate, and even rise up against Christ, His legacy, and those who claim Him as their Lord.  But 2,020 years later, where are those deniers, and where is He?
 
So, who is Jesus?

If He was just an exceptionally moral person, don’t you think our human race – inventors of democracy, airplanes, the Internet, and trans-genderism – would have found an even more iconic person or thing to universally venerate?  By now, we’ve trashed so many other traditions, and proven so many other fables wrong, isn’t it more than implausible that Jesus Christ remains one of the most influential figures our world has ever known?  We’ve tried to over-commercialize His birth. We’ve tried to over-religion it, too, with all sorts of kitschy cultural tinsel.  But even if a government or a people group could forbid the observance of Christ’s birth, that wouldn’t mean His birth didn’t happen. Or that Christ didn’t happen, or that He wasn’t Who an eternity’s worth of testimony validates Him as being.

So, who is Jesus?  He's more than the merely historic personality many people want Him to be.  He is the Son of God, the only Sacrifice worthy of appeasing the Holy wrath of Almighty God, Who cannot look upon sin.  It's an exceedingly uncomfortable notion:  sin.  But every culture, society, race, and people group ever known has had the concept of wrongfulness or violation, whether defined within a context of Greco-Roman law, or some other hierarchical code of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors.  Indeed, no matter who we are, our sin is as real as Christ's identity, whether we find such a notion comfortable or not.  Christ's time upon the earth He created wasn't a demonstration of royal panoply.  He didn't come to extract the deific deference owed to Him by His creation.  He didn't come to lord it over sinners, but to be the Lord of sinners.  And how better could He prove his Lordship except to serve as our Savior?

Otherwise, Jesus would have been just another ruler, just another teacher, just another enigmatic personality.  Minimize His true identity if you dare, to make His legacy a bit less intimidating to your ego.  But 2,020 years of Christianity is more veneration to one Man's legacy than would be sustainable to such a robust degree than could be explained away as mere morality, don't you think?

So, who is Jesus?  He is the only deity that has ever deigned to condescend to the level of its subjects.  He did that to be my Savior, so I worship Him as my Lord. 

Is He yours, too? 

Thursday, July 23, 2020

Biting, Devouring and Consuming, Oh My!


For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another... By this we know love, that He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers... But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? ...Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:11, 14, 17, 18

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?  This persuasion is not from Him who calls you.  A little leaven leavens the whole lump... For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. Galatians 5:7-9, 13-15


You know, I open up my Bible to passages like this, as I did this morning, and I read it, and I can't help but wonder:  Am I missing something?

I look all around me at the way many self-professing Christ-followers are behaving towards each other.  So many of them are confident in their attitudes and actions, as if their vitriol, venom, and reckless embrace of individualism are all sanctioned by the Gospel.  But is that true?

What does Christ say about how we are to treat our brothers and sisters in Christ?  Is our example to be Rush Limbaugh, or Donald Trump?  Are we to scorn medical experts just because they say things that make us uncomfortable?  Are we to mock others who wear facemasks during this pandemic, or have legitimate concerns about sending their kids back into public schools?  Do you really believe the government we all like to deride actually has such a deep state that could successfully parlay your conspiracy theories into everyday reality?

Or are we to presume all cops are rogue cops?  Are we to paint law enforcement in general with as broad a bigoted brush as some police officers apparently paint non-whites?  Are we to advocate for some people to pay other people reparations for slavery just because of their skin color?  Are we to condone violence or anarchy because we're angry, or jealous of the wealth others seem to have?

If anything, this convergence of unprecedented social media saturation and international crises has exposed humanity's craven penchant for personal gratification at the expense of context, wisdom, and self-control.  And many of Christ's followers have behaved as though the Bible has less to tell us about how we're to model His love as it does to those who don't believe any of it.

In particular, even before this year began, the American Church was already in pronounced decline in terms of its attendance numbers and its credibility with non-believers.  At this point, half-way through 2020, the schisms just within the Church itself are wide enough to swallow whatever credibility it had left.  National politics have come to dominate the Christian narrative, whether from the conservative or liberal sides.  The condescension is palpable just among people who are supposed to be of the same mind, let alone between the Church and those who refute is Founder.

It's become clear that Donald Trump is not the problem - the problem is the people who enthusiastically supported him from the early days of the Republican presidential primaries four years ago.  The problem isn't Joe Biden, either - or any other politician.  The freedom Christ purchased for us is not the political freedom American Christians erroneously associate with Biblical references to the term.  The problem is people who don't take God's Word and read it and let the Holy Spirit reveal its plain truths to them in ways that provoke changes in hearts, minds, attitudes, and actions.

Yes, Christ calls people to Himself as little children, but He doesn't mean for us to do so as selfish brats intent on manipulating our own way.  Does He?

If you're reading this and you're offended by it, are you offended because I'm just as much a sinner as you are?  Because I am, of course, but does that mean I'm wrong?  Or are you actually, maybe, convicted by it, just like I am, as a person who constantly needs God's grace and mercy for survival.  For myself, I'm praying that His Holy Spirit would be working within my own soul to bring about the changes necessary for me to glorify Him in how I think, talk, and act... for His eternal purposes; not mine, or my country's.

And [Christ] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40

Are we loving God if we're not loving our neighbors?


Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Systemic Racism, or Differences Between Races?


- systemic: Relating to a system, especially as opposed to a particular part.
(Lexico Oxford English Dictionary)

We hear a lot these days about how systemic racism persists in the United States.

Not just racism, but "systemic" racism.  Racism that is built into the fabric of our society.  Racism that blacks cannot avoid no matter how hard they try.  Racism that whites have bolted into the way our civic institutions function, how our economy works, how our neighborhoods are built, how jobs are awarded, and how our courts view justice.

But is all of that true?  It sure used to be, especially in the South, before 1865.  But even after Jim Crow laws, redlining, white flight, and all the other phenomena academics and politicians have identified as tools of racist ideologies, we're told that white people like me currently tolerate, promote, and defend systems of subjugation and segregation now, in the year 2020.  We're told that because differences between blacks and whites still exist socioeconomically, it's because racism continues to control the mechanics of being an American.

Today, Reuters put an infographic on their website to try and educate us on what this systemic racism looks like.  Yet instead of proving that systemic racism exists, it appears the only thing these facts prove is something we already know:  That differences exist between whites and blacks.  What remains unproven is whether or not these differences result from systemic racism, or differences in lifestyles that may or may not have much of anything to do with our society's continued suppression of black Americans - if indeed, our society is actively and intentionally suppressing black Americans.

After all, just because life experiences are different for people of different skin colors and ethnicities, that doesn't mean racism is the driving force behind those differences.  Or that just because systemic racism did, at one point in our nation's past, cause those differences, we continue to perpetuate that systemic racism today.  Yes, racism remains a stubborn and ugly problem in our society, but that doesn't mean racism is "systemic" in our society.  Racism exists within many individuals, but does it cripple our institutions?

The reason this distinction is important is because more and more politicians, clergymembers, celebrities, and everyday folk are using the term "systemic racism" or "institutional racism" in describing things from which whites suffer less than - or enjoy more than - blacks do.  These terms are on the verge of becoming functionally irrelevant, however, because as you will see, there's little proof that they actually exist.  So for people who are genuinely concerned about equal opportunities for all Americans, regardless of their race, focusing on what is true, relevant, and actionable should be a priority.  Otherwise, all we're doing is twisting definitions.  And how does that help anything?

So, here are each of the infographic slides provided by Reuters:

https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-RACE/USA/nmopajawjva/index.html

Right off the bat, this slide presentation levies an accusation of systemic racism, so you can see I didn't make that up.  Meanwhile, as we move through this presentation, much of the language more accurately talks about "inequities".  Racism does not necessarily equate to inequities.  We need to be careful here, don't we?  Spurious, sensationalistic, and accusatory language only serves to promulgate division and suspicion, two driving forces behind legitimate racism.  So we should be wary when folks just sprinkle their vocabulary with the word "racism".


Depending on the sentence structure, it can also be sloppy grammar to say that racial "inequality" exists, when the correct word should be "inequalities".  Nobody can deny that "inequalities" - plural in a way that implies not everything is unequal - exist between blacks and whites in the United states.  However, saying that "inequality" - a broader term implying fundamental, across-the-board (or "systemic") unfairness - exists is untrue, and unfair to us all.  Exaggerating the problem beyond accuracy is unlikely to create an environment conducive to fixing what actually needs fixing.


While we're on the subject of grammar, the fact that pregnancy-related deaths are higher for black mothers than white mothers is an example of a "difference", not necessarily an "inequality".  For example, we know that black women are proportionately more likely to have abortions than white women, and that having an abortion can create complications if the mother wants to deliver future children to birth outside of the womb.  There are also differences in diet and other personal choices that likely play significant roles in maternity outcomes.  But systemic racism?  


We hear a lot about black peoples' inability to access "quality healthcare", as if black people are systemically denied quality healthcare because of their skin color.  The fact of the matter is this:  The richer a person is, regardless of their race, the better their ability to afford "quality healthcare".  Poor white people have just as much inaccessibility to premium healthcare as anybody of any skin color.  And, frankly, since all poor people have access to healthcare - government-paid healthcare - doesn't that also imply that government-run healthcare systems are inferior... which begs the question:  Why do Democrats keep advocating for government-run healthcare for all...?


Food insecurity is indeed a problem, and is a sign of poverty, but is it a sign of systemic racism?  Just throwing numbers onto a digital screen and claiming they represent racism isn't proving it.  Is it because grocery stores in predominantly black neighborhoods have closed because their customer base is black (or because their customer base is poor)?  Is it because black families have been denied participation in food stamp programs because of their race?  There are likely a variety of reasons vouching for the accuracy of statistics like these, but is systemic "racism" one of them?


I don't know about you, but many unquantifiable variables exist in this explanation of food insecurity.  For example, how many people are in a "household"?  I imagine the "uncertainty" of acquiring food increases the larger the household is, but are we talking about feeding parents, children, cousins, and grandparents (which could be considered two households or more, depending on the age of the kids).  And what kind of food are we talking about?  For example, I have to pass by many expensive food items at our local Kroger's because I simply can't afford them.  But just because the food I'd prefer is expensive, that doesn't mean I'm "food insecure".


OK, who is arguing this isn't a fact?  But how many blacks are denied entry to college because of their skin color?  Come to think of it, how many blacks are encouraged NOT to go to college because of their race?  How many public school teachers tell their black students their race will make them inferior college material?  The fact that fewer blacks get undergraduate degrees isn't speaking to any systemic racism.  The fact that fewer blacks get undergraduate degrees likely has to do with other facts, such as black males having higher teenaged incarceration rates than whites.  So let's talk about prison reform and whether or not our drug laws need changing.  Let's talk about how earnestly black parents study with their kids, challenge their kids on their homework, and allow their kids to suffer the consequences of undone or poorly-done schoolwork?  I have friends leaving their public schoolteaching jobs because parents (some white, yes, but mostly black) would rather argue with teachers about their kids' poor academic performance than ride the kids harder at home.


This one screen contains an appalling amount of grossly distorted conjecture.  For one thing, what "racial inequality" is being referenced?  No public school turns away black students.  All public schools are funded with tax dollars relative to the community in which the school is located.  Some communities have more resources than others, but that fact is not driven by systemic racism.  For example, poor white school districts in Maine are poor because the state has very little economic activity.  The North Shore region around Oneida Lake, in Upstate New York, where I grew up, used to have 3 elementary schools.  Now it has one.  And it's virtually all-white in that area (literally - it snows like the Dickens up there for much of the year). 

Liberals also like to characterize the differences between mostly-black and mostly-white schools as "segregation".  But doing so marginalizes the actual segregation that used to be lawful across much of the South years ago.  Just because some schools may have students of a predominant skin color does not mean they are "segregated".  Using word games does not help resolve disparities in educational attainment.  Many families of all skin colors and ethnicities move to wherever they believe their children will be able to maximize their public school educational opportunities.  Economics is usually the only metric that prevents families from living in the most desirable school districts.  And even in undesirable school districts - such as the Dallas ISD here in Texas - many non-white parents are transferring their black and Hispanic kids into charter schools, much to the dismay of liberals.  It seems an increasing number of inner-city parents are becoming as savvy as suburban parents, frustrated with lethargic teacher unions, social promotion, and left-wing social engineering that dominates many big-city school districts.  Don't blame the ills of faltering inner-city schools on racism - blame them on liberal educational policies run amok.


Again - how is this proof of racism?  It's proof that black students likely come from poorer families, or perhaps proof that black families don't know the behind-the-scenes rigors of applying for student grants and scholarships.  But racism?  No.

By the way, if you're getting frustrated by the ineffectiveness of these slides, remember - they're from Reuters, not me.  I'm just responding to what they're presenting.


And yet more statistics, but no proof of racism.  Lower income, which translates into less health insurance, is not a proof of racism.  Insurance companies today will sell to anybody who can pay their premiums.


Finally!  At last, buried deep into this slide presentation, we have a chart showing us a disparity that deserves some attention. 

Twenty-percent-longer prison sentences for black men for the same crime as whites?  Why is this happening?  Is this statistic relevant across the board, for blacks in the Northeast as well as the South, for example?  How about for jury trials or for sentences made solely by judges?  Is it because blacks generally can't afford higher-priced lawyers who supposedly know more legal tricks to get their clients reduced sentences?  We've all heard anecdotal stories about bumbling court-appointed lawyers.

Nevertheless, let's consider that these crimes are likely not white-collar crimes, for which the defendant's wealth would probably play a greater role.  How many white families of a defendant on trial for selling drugs, for example, have more money to pay for a high-priced lawyer than a black family would?  Probably not enough to make it statistically relevant, right?  My point is this:  the more we take money out of this equation, the more unfortunate it seems that racism might be playing a role.  And that would mean some sort of systemic racism is in play here.  Which would be wrong.

I would say this needs immediate attention, because if our courts aren't fair places, we can't expect much fairness elsewhere in our society.


This slide purports to build on the nefarious specter of systemic racism introduced in the previous slide.  I have a white friend in the federal prison system, and his experience in two facilities in two different states confirms the general statistics of our country's prison population:  it's disproportionately comprised of black men. 

Unfortunately, however, this slide quickly devolves into the highly debatable topic of police brutality.  And yes, there is room for some debate here.  Black men, for example, seem to resist arrest more than whites of either gender.  Why is that?  Resisting arrest is not a good indicator of emerging from one's police encounter alive.  Resisting arrest is a wholly illogical action for anybody to take, particularly when cops are attempting to arrest you for a less serious crime.  Why do black men - specifically black American men, not even black men of immediate African descent - continue to resist arrest?


And we're back to the spurious, needlessly-sensationalistic slides.  The lack of journalistic integrity posed by this slide is stunning.  It reads as though black people are being denied the right to vote because of their skin color.  And that is simply not true.


It's sad to see Reuters patronize their readers so.  Here, they try to convince us, by referencing the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, that whites have since been passing laws to deprive blacks of their right to vote.  Felony convictions have always carried with them certain penalties that last longer than one's sentence, and some of those penalties have involved voting.  That is not a racist construct, even if such laws may impact black felons.  As long as those laws impact black and white felons equally, they can't be called racist.


Where do most of America's blacks live?  They live in urban areas, correct?  And most urbanites rent, right?  The biggest asset an American usually has is their home, but you have to own your home to have it counted as an asset to your net worth, right?  Many blacks do not own their home (another slide points out this fact). Many non-urban blacks also live in the South, which tends to be less affluent even in mostly-white rural areas, meaning property values are much lower than in, say, California, or the Northeast's suburban regions.  Compound this reality over generations of inheritances, and disparities of net worth are bound to become noticeable.  But is that because of racism?  Perhaps yes, in terms of the racism of the Confederacy and Jim Crow laws.  But neither of those entities exist today.

Remember, too, that at the founding of our country, only white male LAND OWNERS could vote.  Women couldn't own land.  Many white men didn't own land, either; they were too poor to buy it, and many didn't have the political clout helpful in obtaining land grants from the government.  There are levels of wealth between all sorts of categories of people groups.  Jews, Catholics, Baptists, Poles, Italians, the Irish, and Asians - not to mention Native Americans - have all been discriminated against in various ways throughout America's past.  About the only American cohort that has never been discriminated against is the wealthy, white, Episcopal male.  To focus on the differences between levels of wealth just by skin color ignores other sad realities of our history.


This wouldn't be an official slide show by a mainstream media outlet without the tired, fallacious tirade of income inequity.  Do you really think any company afraid of a lawsuit these days would pay a woman less than a man for the very same, exact job?  Or a black person less than a white person for the very same, exact job?  Where both job candidates had exactly the same resume, education, and work-related experience?  If it does happen, it happens in such limited numbers as to be statistically insignificant.  Besides, programs like Affirmative Action, and tax advantages for "minority-owned" businesses, are designed to offset the legacies of past injustices.

Of course, retirement income is also impacted by one's ability to accumulate wealth during one's working years.  But Reuters has yet to prove systemic racism today causes blacks to save less for retirement than whites.

Besides, not having a college degree doesn't necessarily mean one's income will be at a poverty level.  Tradespeople, for example, earn very good money without having a college degree.  We've had many, many tradesmen to our old house over the years - and yes, they were all tradesMEN - because none of them have been women, and frankly, none of them have been black.  They've all been either white or Hispanic men.


OK, let's talk about predatory home loans.  Dig into the research yourself, and you'll learn that a very sophisticated operation was conducted in the United States between the department of Housing and Urban Development and mortgage lenders.

After World War Two, our American government began funding the construction of public housing projects all over the country.  These projects were built by the lowest bidder to the most minimal of standards.  Even if they hadn't been occupied by impoverished people who tended to live in violence and civic neglect, they would have likely fallen into severe disrepair all on their own.  And that's what happened - witness the infamous Cabrini Green in Chicago, and the multitude of similar housing projects from Boston to Los Angeles.  Within a few decades, America's public housing stock was an international disgrace, and needed to come down.

There was no way Washington could pay to fix all those apartment buildings.  And sociological thought had also pivoted from the earlier high-density model, into which it was presumed poor people could be stuffed on top of each other.  No, the current, contemporary vision is low-density public housing, or even better yet - Section 8 vouchers for single-family homes and privately-owned apartments.

As it happened, towards the mid-1990's, plenty of established suburban neighborhoods were fast becoming unfashionable, having been outpaced by newer construction and features that made the first post-war subdivisions starkly dated by comparison.

The only way to fit tenants of the soon-to-be-demolished public housing projects into other housing was to get folks renting low-income housing into a higher level of housing.  That would free up existing space so public housing families could be moved into aging single-family homes or cheap, privately-owned apartments, with the aid of Section-8 vouchers.  The government went to lenders and asked them to devise mortgages that people with sketchy credit histories could obtain, so they could buy-up and out of the properties targeted for Section-8 recipients.  And that created the major contributor to what became the Mortgage Meltdown.  Which, yes, impacted black borrowers the most.  But nobody set out to target blacks - not the government, and not the banks.


Does the fact that certain health problems kill blacks sooner than whites point to racism as a problem in today's society?  Do white doctors and nurses treat blacks with less skill or empathy because of their skin color?

Instead, since we can prove that blacks are generally less wealthy than whites, can't we also extrapolate that blacks probably live in greater numbers next to sites of industrial pollution, since such properties are less valuable?  What about the stereotypical black diet high in starches, fried foods, and sugars?  Black men likely also have jobs requiring heavier labor, which is known to shorten lifespans.  There are many factors that contribute to lifespans, but blaming current constructs of racism doesn't help anything.

Conclusion

Indeed, with the exception of those troubling jail sentences, the vast majority of this presentation is outright wrong.  Nothing here proves that racism today contributes in any significant way to the things that may particularly ail American blacks.  Yes, past institutionalized methods of racism, with slavery and the Jim Crow laws especially, did indeed cripple the black experience in our country.  But from an institutionalized, systemic perspective, there is no proof here that racism remains an impediment to black progress in our society.  There appear to be problems with how blacks are sentenced for the same crimes as whites, and we still need to work on the issue of how cops - both black and white - treat black American men during arrests.  But to characterize race relations in our country today as still plagued with endemic, contemporary, institutionalized racism is itself unfair and, to the extreme, is itself racist.

Equality is most successfully achieved through accountability and accuracy. To promulgate distorted rhetoric such as Reuter's presentation serves nothing but the same old patterns of division against which we're supposed to be fighting.