Social Justice that Jesus Could Support

Okay. So "social justice" wasn't the next post after writing about the Bible's liberal bias. :eye roll:

I wanted to take my time with this. I didn't want to just lambast a bunch of idiots and their idiocy like I usually do. I took this seriously cause dammit, they had to go bring my God into this!

Now, I've already done a post on what I think about social justice:

For clarification, according to Glen Harold Stassen and David P Gushee, in Kingdom Ethics (p151), the Hebrew word for "righteousness" means "delivering justice."

--the kind of justice that delivers the downtrodden from domination and brings the outcasts into community

I pulled my working definition so that we could have it in front of us. I increased the font size so that I would stay in front of us.

Happily, I doubt this will take as long as I had thought. I read several articles and essays on social justice and especially whether or not "welfare" did more harm than good. I had hoped to get to hard and fast numbers, but that wasn't as easy I had hoped. But what I found is more than sufficient for my purpose.

And that purpose is to not so much argue conservative Christians to my perspective as is challenge them to question their own. By that I mean taking a good look at reality, read the studies and do the research, and then ask yourself if you really mean what you say about God and government.

More importantly, I wanna get God out of partisan politics. Don't get me wrong. I'm not asking that people leave their faith outside the voting booth. No. I'm asking taht people who vote based on religious conviction also take into account facts and reality. Let's have our working base be a just and righteous government, regardless of its size. Let's put in place laws and agencies to ensure justice and righteousness then worry about size.

Cause ultimately, I suspect far too many conservative Christians are forcing religion to fit their predetermined political leaning. And while that make happen with liberal Christians as well, liberals aren't complaining that the Bible is too conservative. Let's be clear. A bible which highlights and emphasizes passages concerning the environment and man's relationship to nature is quite different from a bible translated with an end goal in mind. (There is no "feminist" bible, only feminist interpretations.)

I was with the author of the article on Christian social justice for a good portion of the essay actually. It's when the discussion turned to government's roll that the author lost me. For example:

A word of caution about socialism (democratic or otherwise) is in order here. Should Christians advocate a state political and economic system that to some extent redistributes wealth in order to bring about equality and lift up the poor? This temptation to use the state as a collectivist Robin Hood that steals from the rich and gives to the poor must be avoided at all costs. In fact, socialism, in any form, only hurts the poor in the end. Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute clearly addresses the dangers of socialism in his paper, “Capitalism and Christianity: an Uneasy Partnership”:

Really? Shouldn't a person at least define socialism before issuing a word of caution? Or, have a more concrete idea of which just and righteous acts are better done by individuals and which government before being so cautious?

And from the same essay:

Some examples of seemingly helpful actions – distributing condoms in Africa, clean needles to drug addicts, or incremental welfare to unwed mothers – may address immediate or surface problems, but over time, they can lead to much worse social problems. It has been widely shown that distributing condoms, clean needles, and incremental child welfare only perpetuate the social problems those state distribution programs are attempting to alleviate. Christians have a duty to offer prudent and wise solutions.

So I did attempt to find hard numbers showing that these seemingly helpful actions can leed to much worse social problems. Nothing. I did find a study on how much teens in low-income families work. It was helpful to the extent that the teens who could use jobs the most had the least access to jobs and/or just not a good employment model. But nothing suggesting that distributing clean needles and condoms actually increased the number of AIDS infections. And the only time child welfare "perpetuated" the problem is when due to the costs of transportation, childcare, etc, remaining on welfare was just the better, wiser decision. But most conservative Christians I hear and see don't suggest bringing good-paying, green jobs into urban centers. No, instead they rail against Van Jones, a person who did. They don't suggest easier access to childcare or an increase in the minimum wage. Do they? No, they just . . .

I'm sorry. I forgot I'm trying not to point fingers. So let me make my point another way.

Let's take abortion as an example cause that's an issue that can run people hot. And let me make my position clear. I'm not "pro-abortion" as though I think every woman should have one at least once in her life. I'm pro-choice because whether or not to bring life to fruition is between a woman and her god. I'm not going to tell some teenager or even 40-year-old career woman that they have to carry this . . . I'm sorry. People have names and memories. So I can't say "person." And I can't say "baby." But whatever the term, that's 9 months in a body that's not mine wearing shoes that don't belong to me. And that's not even getting into the 18-year commitment.

You know what. Yes. Let's get into the 18-year-long commitment. If I'm gonna force a woman to have a baby against her will, as though that's not rape, because I want to protect the life of the unborn, shouldn't I really put my money where my mouth is? But remember the big hubbub about S-CHIP? And what about making sure all kids get a quality education? Cause trust me, it ain't just urban schools that are crumbling. Poor white kids are going to piss poor schools to.

But that's not all. Long-term studies show that poverty can damage the brain's growth. So basically, no matter how much the child studies or the parents are involved or turn off the TV; if the child is in a precarious financial situation, the stress of wondering what you'll eat and how much you'll get to have or where you'll live is gonna damage his/her prospects for school and life. Now, while we previously thought poverty only affected the child to the extent that s/he received proper nutrition and medical care, and only recently are we looking into the effects of stress chemicals on the child's brain; we've known for a very long time that a child born in poverty really didn't have "equal opportunity." But just recently, Republican Cynthia Davis of the Missouri house suggested that "hunger can be a positive motivator."

Again, I haven't found anything suggesting that people willingly choose welfare over work out of sheer laziness. Or anything suggesting that clean needle programs actually increased the rate of illegal drug use. So please. Before you start taking the Lord's name in vain politics, first have a concrete idea of what social justice should look like absent prejudices for any particular "size" of government; second, deal with the facts and not speculation and conjecture; last, just flat keep YHWH out of partisan politics!

What really pissed me off in the previously referred to essay on Christian social justice was this line: If the church were awake when abortion was passed in the 70’s, it wouldn’t have happened. But the church was asleep” (Goodstein, “Disowning Conservative Politics”). Now granted, he was quoting someone else. And granted I think I may have heard the quote before. I just wanna pop go the weasel till the weasel go pop!

Ram Rush

If I'm honest, I'm not sure how I feel about the possibility of Rush Limbaugh owning an NFL team. That's why I haven't posted anything about it. Though, the NFL Players' Union is against it.

See. My first thought is that it would be repulsive for the Rams to be sold in part to Rush. Don't get me wrong. There're other owners who's politics I might find disagreeable. But only Rush is on the air every day spreading racist nonsense. The players have a morality clause; team owners should have one as well.

Then again, it might be interesting to see what kinda team Rush could manage to put together. Maybe Pat B could be the quarterbacks' coach. Glenn Beck could be the wide receivers' coach. Michele Bachmann would head up the cheerleaders.

Nobel Obama (with Added Thoughts)

And another thing!: If Pres Obama doesn't deserve such accolades, he doesn't deserve the condemnation we've seen since his first day in office, either.

On second thought: Pres Obama is the first person of color to become president in the Western world. And for that, there's gotta be something higher than the Nobel Peace Prize for that! Cause Lord knows I didn't think I'd see one before my 40s or 50s, and I'm still in my 20s!

President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm a bit surprised. It's kinda quick.

The Nobel committee sited his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Now a lot of people criticize Pres Obama for being a celebrity. Well, a lot of conservatives and idiots and haters. And well, the committee itself says, "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."

Then of course are those who got bent-out-of-shape when Pres Obama said he was a citizen of the world. And well, the committee itself says, "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

And there're those who decry his diplomatic style and "apologizing" for the US to the world. And well, "Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. . . .Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened."

I don't know. I just find it interesting that the things some condemn you for, others will praise you for.

Gotta go now. Other things to work on. Life calls.

Got Give It Up for Mississippi

I'm not finished with the whole "lets make the Bible more conservative" issue, but I just got this in the inbox. Thought I'd share. And mind you:

White children who got the full story about historical discrimination had significantly better attitudes toward blacks than those who got the neutered version. Explicitness works.

And a sentence I think I'll try to flesh out more cause I find it interesting:

"It also made them feel some guilt," Bigler adds. "It knocked down their glorified view of white people." They couldn't justify in-group superiority.

Mississippi Mandates Civil Rights Classes in Schools

All students will study the nation's racial troubles and progress in US history
courses.

By Carmen K. Sisson
The Christian Science Monitor
October 4, 2009
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1008/p25s02-usgn.html

McComb, Miss. - The boxwoods are perfectly trimmed to
spell out McComb. It's a warm, Mississippi welcome from
"The Camellia City of America," where streets are named
for states, and flowers spill from planters accenting
century-old architecture.

Only when you stroll beyond downtown, into older
neighborhoods, do you catch a faint whiff of another
time, a summer when the air seemed to always be filled
with smoke, the streets stained with blood - a time
when McComb had a darker moniker: "The Bombing Capital
of the World."

Most Mississippi children have never heard of Emmett
Till, the 14-year-old black child whose 1955 lynching
in Mississippi by a white mob galvanized the civil
rights movement. They haven't heard of the 1964
"Freedom Summer," when 1,000 volunteers swept into this
area to register black voters. They don't know about
ordinary citizens who faced extraordinary odds to bring
change.

But they're going to know all about it soon. In a
groundbreaking reform - believed to be the first in the
nation - Mississippi will require civil rights as part
of its US history curriculum. McComb schools made that
move in 2006; but starting next fall, the stories of
the civil rights era will be taught - and tested - in
all public schools.

In many places, it will end a decades-old culture of
silence. People here don't like to remember the nights
of church bombings and explosions; the sound of rifles
being loaded in the dark as citizens patrolled
sidewalks and sanctuaries, trying to stem the violence.
They don't like to remember the fear and distrust -
between blacks and whites, but also among themselves.

"They just don't talk about it," says Jacquelyn Martin,
a black civil rights organizer. "People don't
understand that part of the healing begins when you
talk about it, so they just keep it to themselves."

Making it a subject in school is "a pretty drastic
change," says state curriculum specialist Chauncey
Spears. "But how can you have a strong education
program when you have high-achieving grads who have
such little understanding of their own history?"

Mississippi Senate Bill 2718, passed in 2006, mandates
all kindergartners to 12th-graders to be exposed to
civil rights education. In the younger grades, students
will read books such as "I Love My Hair!" as a way to
discuss concepts like racial differences in skin
complexion and hair texture. Later grades will delve
more deeply into how ordinary citizens shaped the civil
rights movement and the long-term effects those changes
had upon the nation.

Mr. Spears says the new curriculum is being taught this
year in 10 pilot programs. Teacher workshops begin this
month, taught by the state Department of Education in
conjunction with the Fannie Lou Hamer National
Institute on Citizenship and Democracy at Jackson State
University, Teaching for Change in Washington, and the
William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at
the University of Mississippi.

Mandating the new curriculum was the only way to ensure
it would be taught, says Spears. It's not that teachers
haven't wanted to teach civil rights, though he admits
that's probably the case in some places. It's more a
symptom of a nationwide problem, an educational
stricture some say is an unwelcome byproduct of the No
Child Left Behind Act: Teaching to the test. As the
stakes become higher, the curriculum narrows.

In some schools, Spears says, there's such intense
pressure to rectify faltering math and reading scores
that everything else is "pretty much ignored."

But how do you chart such relatively new territory in a
state where the history is still so fresh?

WHEN EDUCATORS BEGAN ASKING these questions, they
sought inspiration in the McComb High School classroom
of teacher Vickie Malone. Three years ago, when she
began teaching "Local Cultures" as an elective to
seniors, she had no idea what the course would become.
She just wanted her students to hear all the voices of
history, both black and white, taught in an open way
that promoted understanding, not fear.

"I wanted them to understand choices, and how
profoundly they can affect the rest of your life," Ms.
Malone says. "A lot of kids today are just numbed out,
but back then, the kids were the movers and the
shakers."

(Indeed, in 1961, 300 students walked out of Burglund
High School to the McComb City Hall in support of
voting rights - 116 of them were jailed.)

It's painful, this exploration of history, but then,
nothing has been easy since Malone developed the class.
Because it's new, and not a critical course like math
or reading, it's often left off the master schedule by
accident, forcing her to recruit students. Even then,
it's not a quick sell. They don't need it for a
diploma. It won't get them into college.

The class is fashioned more like a college seminar than
a high school elective. There are no rigid rows of
desks, multiple-choice tests, or rote memorization.
Instead, students gather at a table to talk about
issues that even their grandparents and parents - some
of whom were participants on both sides of the civil
rights battles - may have difficulty discussing.

In one class last month, they examined dual
perspectives, and each student wrote a poem from two
angles, examining life through the eyes of another.
There were the expected combinations:
Popular/unpopular, rich/poor, white/black. But there
were surprises as well, and as they read their work to
their peers, there was occasional muffled admiration.

"Whoa," a student said, after one reading. "That's
deep."

Sometimes, discussions get heated, like the day a white
student became incensed by a black classmate's seeming
nonchalance to learn that one of McComb's top black
athletes had been recruited by an exclusive, all-white
academy.

"I thought she was going to leap across the table,"
Malone recalled. "She kept saying, 'Doesn't it make you
mad that you can't go there?' "

Some days there are tears. For Sarah Rowley, 17, the
class has been a watershed. Initially she saw it as "an
easy grade," but quickly realized she was wrong. Much
of the class centers on gathering oral narratives from
residents who grew up in a radically different McComb,
a place where inequality and violence was a part of
life. In the middle of one interview at the home of
Lillie Mae Cartstarphen, Sarah asked an innocent
question about the role of law enforcement during that
time.

Sarah's grandfather had been a McComb policeman and,
later, chief of police during the 1960s. In her
family's eyes, he was a hero. But, says Sarah, her
voice trembling as she recounts the answer: "[Ms.
Cartstarphen] said you couldn't trust policemen, that
they were just as involved as the KKK. Even now, it
makes me want to cry. I thought, 'I have to regain my
composure. I can't let this interfere with what I'm
here to do.' But I felt like I was in a tug of war.
Here is this woman telling me this, but my family .
they're such good people. What do I do?"

She talked to Malone and to her father. She prayed.
Eventually, Sarah says, she made peace with the legacy
of a man struggling to keep his job, feed his family,
and survive in a troubled era. She's certain he'd make
different choices if he were alive today.

It's more difficult to talk about things with her
boyfriend, who attends Parklane Academy, which is 99
percent white. When Sarah reads books like "The
Mississippi Trials, 1955" she's overwhelmed by sadness.
But he doesn't want to hear about it, she says. "He
thinks it's over with and in the past. He gets up and
walks out.... He's growing up in this mind-set that's
so sheltered. It breaks my heart."

Malone's emphasis on seeing all perspectives makes it
easier for Sarah to cope. "I have to remember that if I
was in his shoes, I'd be the same way," Sarah says. "In
the South, it's a very, very touchy subject."

But Sarah believes passionately in the class - she took
it twice and returned this year as a teacher's aide:
"Stories like Emmett Till's - that should tear
everybody up. People need to know ... like they know
the Civil War.... Being in your little bubble isn't
going to help you at all."

And ultimately, say proponents of the curriculum
changes, that's the goal: Making Mississippi's future
better, even if it means dredging muddy waters.

DR. SUSAN GLISSON, director of the William Winter
Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University
of Mississippi, spends a lot of time thinking about
this, analyzing where the state has been and where it's
going. Pockets of progress are punctuated by serious
challenges.

"Kids are practically being funneled from school to
prison," Ms. Glisson says. "When you throw in a failing
economy, terrorism, fears of wars abroad, and the first
African-American president, you have a potentially
dangerous situation. It requires us to be as vigilant
as ever."

The Southern Poverty Law Center cites a 50 percent
increase in hate groups and extremism in the US since
2000. As part of the Klanwatch project, the nonprofit
monitors more than 900 such currently active groups, 22
of them in Mississippi, and nearly 400 concentrated in
the remaining secession states: Texas, Louisiana,
Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida,
Virginia, and the Carolinas.

In McComb, the curriculum change has sparked a storm of
controversy. In his Aug. 29 editorial, "A Relevant
Subject," McComb Enterprise-Journal editor and
publisher Jack Ryan tried to allay fears that kids will
be force-fed a message of "white people bad, black
people good."

He says the issue "cuts too close to the bone." When
officials began talking about teaching civil rights,
they discussed omitting McComb church bombings. In
1984, when the newspaper published a 20-year
anniversary "Freedom Summer" report, a white employee
told him she wished they'd "just leave that stuff
alone."

Those feelings are echoed in public comments posted on
the paper's website below Mr. Ryan's editorial.

"I can't imagine what this course will accomplish other
than to open old wounds, some of which aren't healing
well as it is," says one poster.

But Spears says that's why Mississippi should pioneer
civil rights education: "It's not over, and that says a
lot about what this state can potentially become. We do
struggle, and out of necessity, we can't just stand pat
with the challenges we face."

Glisson agrees: "Mississippi owes this to the nation,
because so often we have led negatively. With better
understanding, we can make the state better."

That may come from the younger generation of
Mississippians like Delisa Magee, a black student in
Malone's class.

"We're not bad people; it's just our past," says
Delisa, as she puts away her notebook and heads to a
pep rally. "There's still so much racism down here on
both sides. It needs to change."

God Has Heard Your Prayers!

And in record time, no less, as it was just last week that I requested your prayers. However sarcastic I may have been.

A group of conservatives have decided that the Bible as currently translated has a liberal bias. That includes the King James Version. Here's where they're collaborating to retranslate the Bible with it's true conservativism. Cause Jesus would've been a Republican. And my mother is Phyllis Schlafly.

You can google "conservative Bible project" to read a lot of opinions. They range from "liberal" mocking to religious admonishing. And let's not kid ourselves. If you're a conservative being chastised by beliefnet.com, you may have taken things a little too far.

Now, I'm going to address a few problems I have with the project right now. Then, I need to eat. But mostly, since one of their gripes is the the Bible as it's currently translated "improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians," I'm gonna take some time later to show where the Bible encourages "social justice" regardless of the political bent of the translators/ions.

But as of right now, a few things. First, of course, is the most obvious, and that's the error of politicizing the Bible. And let me be clear. Am I a registered Democrat? Yes. Do I believe there is Biblical support for my political position? Yes, and by the way, I can use the original texts of both Testaments to prove my point.

If I'm wrong here, please correct me; but I never have and never will declare that Jesus would be a Democrat.

Again, I want to make sure I'm perfectly understood. Given the option of the two major political parties, and the civic duty to vote, do I think Jesus would vote Democrat? Yes, I actually do. That's my personal opinion.

So what am I trying to say, right? It's more than just not politicizing the Bible. It's my view that God is beyond partisanship. Just like I believe God is beyond gender. I try not to refer to God as "he" as though God is masculine, with a penis and testicals and facial hair. And unless I'm trying to make the point that we could pray, "Our Mother, who aren't in heaven," I shy away from "God/ess." It's not just because typing out "God/ess" is more cumbersome, but that I believe that God is beyond gender so much so that even to suggest God is both male and female would be incorrect. In my personal notes, yeah, I refer to God as "he"; again, it's easier to write than God; I've used that language all my life; and, I know what I really mean. But I don't believe God has a scrotum anymore than I believe God has a vagina. Listen, God is Spirit. God is Immaterial. God didn't come from dust. So let's not bog God down with "dust" labeling.

You get my point? If I were speaking to a group, I might even refer to God as "He" and in other masculine-form nouns to be able to speak about God in a way that wouldn't be distractive. But understand that part of the reason God is referred to as "He" in the Bible is that the word's available to descibe an All-Mighty Being were masculine! Just like "wisdom" in Proverbs is talked about like a woman; but it's the same concept John referres to in his Gospel where he says: "In the beginning was the Word."

So, are we all on the same page here? Yeah, it's my personal opinion that Jesus would be a liberal or progressive. I doubt that Jesus would vote for Democrats if there were a more liberal 3rd party. But my first instinct is that God is far above and beyond 21st century American partisanship.

Especially in light of the fact that even European conservatives support single-payer health systems!

Now. I don't have a problem with someone getting the original Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic so that they can better understand Scripture. In light of the fact that my health prevents me from taking a class in Greek or Hebrew, and that the different lettering makes my head buzz, I watch a lot of Pastor Melissa Scott. I dig her cause she uses these classroom size dry-erase boards to write out the original language, then goes through translating it in her sermons. Oh, it's just great! The lettering still makes my head buzz, but it's not as bad with the English written out nearby. And sorry folks, a complete interlinear Bible is out of my budget right now . . .

Though, if you wanna send a donation, let me know. I'll see if I can set that up! LOL!

So, no. I don't have a problem with the desire to go and dig out the true meaning of the Scriptures. But seeking to translate, or even retranslate (Not everyone wants to go so far as to start from scratch. Some are satisfied with editting the King James Version.), the Bible for the purposes of partisanship is unseemly and even wicked.

That's my first point.

Now, I like others think their goal of "Express[ing] Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning" is asinine, as well as wicked and false. But, I also think they're ignorant as to the meaning of "social justice." Or, at least what activisst mean when we use the term.

So, hopefully in my next post, I'll flesh that out as well as demonstrate God's call for social justice through the entire Bible, any version.

Oh! Let me just say here before I forget and not say at all that social justice, doing what's right and just throughout society, (Did I just flesh it out? I sure hope so.) shouldn't be so partisan an issue that someone would claim that Christians either shouldn't be involved in a movement for social justice or are motivated by false Bible translations that supports  it. (What? Huh?) In fact, it shouldn't be a partisan issue at all.

But anyway, God heard your prayers. :eye roll: