That can be done in an instant by the Holy Spirit. Reforming minds takes longer.
True. And it can only be done by the Spirit.
When I said for all citizens that means simply that and nothing more.
It’s always amusing how one day about one subject results in me being called a liberal or something along those lines and the next I’m called a bigot or conservative.
You don’t believe that segregation that ended just a generation or two ago does not affect how everything is now?
What about things like gentrification and someone buying up land and turning it into a incredible nature park in a city that results in property values skyrocketing so rent goes up forcing out those that lived there to find cheaper communities and so on?
Though, I’ve been told by some in here thats just capitalism and perfectly fine as though ethics is not part of the discussion.
I don’t have a negative view of American history. I am proud to be a citizen of America. I’m proud to be a southern and I don’t even have any issues with the confederate flag. When my house is built I’ll have both flags flying. I’m very much against cancel culture. I pushed for Trump in the first election and I’m glad he won the first time compared to Hillary and especially Sanders. Though admittedly I grew very tired of him by the end of his term and I believe he incited violence and ect…
When I make those statements I’m normally accused of being a bigot , conservative, uneducated white hick with limited compassion for minority communities.
But then when I say we need to make sure we are aware of how the African American community was obviously mistreated heavily up until the 70s and that it plays a part in issues now days it’s somehow this die hard liberal paradigm where I’m some kind of “soy boy sissy saturated in guilt of some kind”.
You know I feel zero guilt for what happened to African Americans and native Americans. Zero. I think it sucks. But I have no reason to personally feel like I should be held accountable for it. My family was not even in USA until my grandfather immigrated here in the 30s. So it really has nothing to do with me or my lineage and so on.
What I said was not some mind bending concept born out of political paradigms or guilt. It’s just clear that hundreds of years of societal racism did not just completely vanish with my generation. Lots of it still needs to be tore down, and fixed.
I disagree completely with the idea that only way systemic racism can be addressed in our country is if everyone becomes a Christian and gets sanctified. Unfortunately some of the most resistance to anti-racism efforts are from the supposedly sanctified wings of our population, which is a travesty. Any society can change for the better if enough citizens work toward solutions. We have seen this happen many times in our own country.
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Well, back to the podcast, I finally got a chance to listen to it this morning. One of my take always is the insight he had in comparing Jesus’ words on divorce with how it applies to slavery in the Bible. Adam and Eve in the garden gave the ideal for human marriage relationships, spoiled by sin and the damage mitigated by the laws in Deuteronomy permitting divorce, though not in line with what God had intended, and likewise the one human family put forth in Genesis, spoiled by sin and the law trying to moderate the effect of the reality of a world gone wrong, but not in approval of it. Finally, we see in Revelation the healing of those broken things in the restoration of right relationships.
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This is not true. And this is racist.
Patrick, we’ve heard enough of your unsolicited opinions on race on this thread. Don’t contribute any more unless you are going to specifically interact with something in the podcast. You are just derailing the conversation.
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Same here. I’ve never made that connection as strongly before until hearing the way he presented it. Which is why I think , as most people here probably do, it’s very beneficial to hear something being told through different experiences and thoughts. It’s not that the information is missing from the texts, it’s not that there are not all kinds of clues being mentioned, and it’s not that it’s being interpreted in a new way but instead it’s being systematically interpreted with different focuses and how it applies to us.
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That is certainly not what I was implying.
Agreed.
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You are arguing about things you feel, and your feelings don’t apply to reality.
And tell me. How racist is America compared to 75 years ago, or 170 years ago? More or less?
About the podcast:
McCaulley: “And so when we say like, “Yeah, but the violence—” “I understand that. We’re gonna get to the violence in a second.” And the interesting thing about this is, and this is important, what tends to happen is, we’ll say, “I know George Floyd is bad—what happened to George Floyd was bad, but violence—” And the “but violence” takes up the other 1000 words in the essay, and the first 10 words are about Floyd. But how about you do it the other way? How about we have like 1000 words about this problem, and then we could talk about the violence. As if—because like the people who suffered most from this violence are usually black and brown neighborhoods in the first place. And so we don’t want our neighborhoods distressed. But we realized that we can deal with that issue. It’s not that—America is united in the idea that burning down a building is bad. America seems to be remarkably un-united on the question of the injustice African Americans are facing. And so condemning the violence doesn’t move us forward. Or, sorry, a decontextualized, unsophisticated condemnation of violence outside of an extensive discussion of injustice, doesn’t move us forward.”
If you don’t understand what’s wrong in that, then we’re discussing different subjects entirely.
What do you see in your selected quote from McCaulley that you think is so wrong?
Are you imagining that he is “failing to condemn” the violence of the riots? Because if so, then you haven’t listened to what he said. He isn’t trying to make excuses for violence - which he notes is already pretty universally condemned among all mainline segments of our society. What isn’t yet universally condemned among all those same segments is the systemic inequity that allows for and even excuses police brutality and other racially-aligned injustices which continue to persist in our justice system. He is simply calling us all to account for our failure to condemn our systemically protected violence, as well as all the attempts to divert attention toward bad actors that will inevitably be found along the edges of any large movement. Such “whataboutism” is revealed to be an excuse to ignore the concerns of a victimized minority by trying to impose an impossible bar of expectation on them: We effectively say to them, “Before we will listen to you, we first insist that there is absolutely no malfeasance associated with your movement anywhere” - which is an expectation that no one ever appeals to on behalf of any cause they really care about. A failure to make that distinction reveals more about the true motivations of the speaker than it does about the cause they continue to sideline.
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Hi,
Just chiming in here as BioLogos staff. As an organization, we recognize systemic racism as a valid critique of the current world we live in. Racism is not only about individual prejudice, but also about power, which is why the systems that were created to benefit some and not other are racist. You are not permitted to argue further with me about these points.
We will not be permitting views to be expressed that discount the lived experience of our guests or authors of color. They are all invited to participate in the Forum if they would like, and they do not come here to have to expend more emotional labor trying to explain to people what has been explained elsewhere.
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Thank you for bringing an end to that disgraceful diatribe, Hillary.
I’m reminded of a passage in Pascal where he discusses a certain type of unbeliever:
They believe they have made great efforts for their instruction, when they have spent a few hours in reading some book of Scripture, and have questioned some priest on the truths of the faith. After that, they boast of having made vain search in books and among men. But, verily, I will tell them what I have often said, that this negligence is insufferable. … In truth, it is the glory of religion to have for enemies men so unreasonable.
This person shows up at BioLogos to dispute anything and everything, even systemic racism, and knows next to nothing. I say, with Pascal:
In truth, it is the honor of BioLogos to have for enemies men so unreasonable.
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He also just did a podcast with The Bible Project as well. It’s similar but a little different. He mentions a previous book as well. I really enjoy his digging at you personality.
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Staff Mod Note: There may be some gaps appearing in this conversation, as offensive sentiments have been removed from a poster. The labor of the other contributors has attempted to be preserved.
Arguments around the existence of racism have no place on our Forum and are not up for negotiation.
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I saw that on his IG today, I will have to go listen now!
I just started listening to his podcast, The Disrupters as well. Or rather he hosts it. Was the one by Lecrae and enjoyed it.
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Thanks so much for posting this excellent podcast.
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I am listening to this with my 13 and 10 year old boys. We are using it to discuss the Bible and justice more thoroughly. Thank you!
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The Bible does not say God so loved the USA, it says that God so loved the world.
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Thanks Kendel!