Could you, please, explain how you reached the conclusions that:
- This is a political push
- It … goes in favor of political based propaganda.
2 Likes
I would say that it’s going to be difficult if you live in a conservative area and attend a conservative church with exclusively white male leadership. Parents in these areas are trying to prevent their children from learning about racism, and they’re trying to get books banned from school libraries.
A pastor who is friendly to the idea of confronting racism might face hostility from the congregation.
We are in the thick of it, just as you have said.
I will never forget… dementia willing, seeing James Baldwin 45+/- years ago on BBC1’s Parkinson (the best celebrity interviewer of all time). Baldwin said that when a white cop arrests a black drug addict mugger he arrests him because he’s black, for being black, the white male British middle class studio audience did something I’ve never heard before or since. They groaned. Half of me groaned with them. But half of me knew he was right. Now all of me does.
3 Likes
I’ve certainly learned from this thread. One of the main things learned is solidifying my understanding of the difference between racial justice and racial reconciliation, and why there is division on that difference. I think for most white folk in the pews, that goes over their head.
3 Likes
I remember him.
Another R, restitution, should be in there too.
1 Like
I would think restitution would be part of justice, but a very difficult one to effect.
2 Likes
The Episcopal diocese of NY has a reparations committee studying the matter. The diocese of Maryland has already started a fund.
1 Like
Just wow!
That’s amazing.
4 Likes
The reparations are to pay for any benefit the Episcopal church derived from slave labor. Not that it can pay back everything, which would be impossible, but it’s something.
3 Likes
Klax, thanks for mentioning this interview. Maybe it’s floating around the internet somewhere. I will have to dig around for it.
I need to read and listen to more of is work. He’s a key thinker, but I haven’t worked with his material much.
I’m grateful for those things like this snippit of this interview, that God (or however you want to understand it) makes significant to us and uses to transform our thinking and minds. I have a relatively brief but vivid catalog of such conversations and other experiences. I might be the only person who found them significant or remembers them. But I am different for having been a part of them. Praise God.
3 Likes
If they’re tortured by taxation enough, for long enough, like all those who have stolen the commons, they will pay all that they owe.
Universities that benefitted from slavery, such as Georgetown, also have begun the process of reparations.
2 Likes
Klax, most churches (as institutions) in the U.S. are tax exempt. Reparations are going to have to be a deliberately planned choice. Which is why so few are even thinking about it.
2 Likes
Same here @Kendel. I would lobby even agitate for taxation of any and all appropriation of commons.
2 Likes
It’d be a start.
1 Like
The main challenge I see in applying that more broadly is that a lot of smaller churches (ones I’ve known enough about to say) really don’t have any extra funding to send toward that sort of thing: the best they can typically manage is to pay the pastor a living wage, maintain their property, and to give a bit of support to a few missionaries. Getting a whole denomination to do it, maybe, but there would be a difficult time getting enough consent for it.
I think that the big problem for most people I encounter is hearing too much of “you ought to be forced to give to those whom your ancestors might have harmed in some way”, and not encountering a perspective of “we should voluntarily assist those who have problems” on this issue (they usually already do voluntarily assist people).
1 Like
It gets serious quickly when you start talking money. And, the question then becomes one of where do you start. So many injustices, so limited resources. Native Americans would have a good claim to everything in the Americas. Ultimately, the change has to be in the institution’s current structures to achieve a measure of equality to be meaningful, It seems that justice is hard to achieve, as George McDonald states in his “Justice” unspoken sermon. As I recall, his point was that sin must not just be forgiven, but also destroyed.
So, ultimately, perhaps the answer is not reparations of finances, but more importantly reparations in the power structure of institutions. Both are hard to achieve.
4 Likes
Neither side accurately reflects what is actually going on. It’s not about force or individual churches assisting people in need. This is about institutions (universities, whole dioceses, etc.) acknowledging that they were racist and made a profit from slavery, and now want to do something about it. Of course the reparations don’t begin to cover the wrongdoing, but are symbolic. The Episcopal diocese of Maryland is starting with one million dollars.
1 Like