And blessings to you as well Shannon. I have no doubt as to the orientation of your heart, even where we might disagree. To me, that tension is in a way an essential characteristic of the church. I'm glad we are both in CRC.
And if ever you want that public, "honest conversation about racism," you know where to find me. :-)
Shannon. Thanks for the response. Who knows, maybe you are racist. :-) But let's take the examples one at a time and explore them.
First, your childhood impression of what made for pretty. I was at coffee this morning and talked to the 20-ish young woman that usually serves me. She is white, a Christian, working while going to school, not Dutch, not CRC. We discussed my question to her: "are you racist?" Setting aside for a moment her general response, we also discussed perceptions of physical attractiveness, using your example as a springboard. With a bit of a laugh she said she generally considered darker skin people to be more attractive than lighter skinned people, all other things being equal.
I didn't tell her this but understood, because, frankly, I perceive (as pretty) likewise. I also prefer darker hair to blonde hair, and brown eyes to blue. And I really think freckles are unattractive (sorry to any offended by that). My friend's explanation for her darker skinned preference was "I just do, just like my favorite color is red." My favorite color is blue, not red like my friend's, although I think small cars are best looking in red.
So here's the question. Are you sure your sense, when a child, that lighter skin is prettier is evidence of racism? And then this question. What do you make of my and my young friend's contrary sense of physical attractiveness? Might that be evidence that we are not racist?
I'm not intending to ignore your other 3 points, and will respond in other posts. But I want to stop here in this post so we can have a more focused conversation.
If "being missional ... is simply what the church is," as this article says, it is no wonder the word has always perplexed me. I'm disinclined to add modifiers to words when the modifier means what the word intended to be modified means. When others do that, I have this itch to discover the additional meaning the modifier brings to the word being modified, but it would seem that in this case there is none?
Larry: Just as to your #1, abstract concepts ("ruthless capitalism") don't violate commandments, even if people do. "Capitalism" literally and merely refers to the idea that if one does not consume all that one earns but saves some to invest, that "capital" will generally increase future return, proportionate to the amount invested and not consumed. (Many poor people have used that methodology to become not poor -- I did, having literally nothing when entering my adult life).
OK sure, there are all kinds of other imprecise definitions of "capitalism," but those definitions are just political rants or epithets being thrown about. A "free market economy," a phrased that many would syntactically equate with "capitalism," ruthless or otherwise, and one I would prefer to use instead of word "capitalism," means that the government declines to use the power of the sword to force its citizens to "not be selfish." I think I ought not be selfish, that being selfish violates God's law, but yet I don't think government should restrain me (or others) if I (or others) choose to be selfish, by pointing a gun (or sword) at my head, even if government should restrain me from entering the home of another and taking his money.
This is the difficulty of preaching about broadly labeled political ideas. It can be done, but ...
Where this article "gets it very right" is when it divides two questions: (1) what should the institutional church proclaim about government policy on immigration?; and (2) what should "we" do when there are people in need that come to our lives?
As to #1, the answer is nothing.
As to #2, the answer is to show them love, regard them as the Good Samaritan regarded the injured man on the road.
These two answers are not contradictory, and perhaps that is where factions in the CRC disagree.
Where I cringed when reading this article was where the author, after expressing appropriate concern about politicizing the institutional church, then purports to be an expert on this administration's immigration policy, citing a source at an embedded links which did not effectively support his claim of expertise in any way.
I'm not claiming that expertise myself. What I would suggest, though, is that it is extremely difficult (even impossible) even for persons who very seriously track these issues to formulate meaningful opinions about what governmental policy on these issues should or should not be. Why? For the simple reason that we lack information. We don't get the briefings from the CIA or the NSA or Homeland Security or the FBI or from closed door sessions of certain House or Senate committees or subcommittees. And for good reasons.
Which means the best we can usually do is guess about what good government policy should or should not specifically be.
In contrast, I can analyze the Ninth Circuit's recent ruling denying a stay on the federal District Court Judge's order granting the State of Washington's motion for a TRO as to the President's recently issued Executive Order. Why? Because the District Judge's decision and order are public, the Ninth Circuit's decision and opinion are public, the President's EO is public, and I happen to have the occupational training and experience to meaningfully read them and analyze them. But with all of that, I still have to say "I frankly don't know" in answer to the question, "was the President's EO wise or at least warranty, and good public policy?," again because I don't know that underlying facts, again because I simply cannot (will not be allowed to) know them.
Nor can the author of this article know these necessary facts, which is why I applaud his suggestion to not politicize the institutional church but then cringe when he suggests he has more ability to conclude about the President's wisdom in creating these executive orders than he possibly can.
What I hope, and pray, is that under new leadership, political lobbying and other political spoutings off about what government is doing, as opposed to what we are doing, becomes a much, much lower priority for OSJ. After all, it is not the case that CRC members are in lockstep as to their theories of the role of government, economics and international relationships, and it is the case that the CRC has Article 28 in its Church Order.
How this institutional church (CRC) and its members might respond to those suffering from injustice, hungry, and in need of mercy is beyond a big enough task for us to take on. We don't need to also take on political lobbying, as if there is nothing else that we can uniquely do (because there is lots of that) or as if we haven't covenanted together to be an ecclesiastical, and not a political, institution (because we have, see CO Art. 28).
Shannon: You point to a CNN article that suggests there is a statistical preference in the population for lighter skin pigmentation. While that article may be informative in some respects, it only purports to address a broad statistical reality, not a person-by-person, or individual, reality. One of the critical questions in our conversation is: "are we all, each of us, racist?" You seem to me to say "yes" to that question, while I would answer "no. Your link to the CNN articles addresses a broad statistical question but not the question I'm asking about here.
To recall, I asked, "What do you make of my and my young friend's contrary sense of physical attractiveness? Might that be evidence that we are not racist?"
What is your answer to these two questions? If your answer is, "I suspect if you talk with lots of white women you would hear similar things, but that is unrelated to racism," as you say in your most recent response post, I'm not understanding your answer. You cite your childhood perception that people with light hair and blue eyes are more attractive as not only "related to racism" but as affirmative evidence of your individual racism. So I've presented two white people (me and my 20-ish female friend at the coffee shop) who both perceive that those with darker skin and brown eyes (me as to the eyes at least) are more attractive, all other things being equal. If your childhood perception was "related to racism" and evidence of it, then our perception must be related in some way as well, not?
While I thank you for the reference to books on racism (and I saw that 2010 Anderson Cooper/CNN segment back when it first came out), I don't perceive myself lacking information about racism, nor lacking in time thinking about racism. I may have more experience with the the questions than you might think, but I may have formulated different conclusions than you have. Indeed, it seems clear to me that I have, which is why I'm wanting to have a conversation about it.
Shannon. OK. I wasn't so "interested in learning," except that any exchange can result in learning, as I was interested in having a meaningful conversation. And I'm not arguing the same points that you have responded to, only reiterating when you decline to respond to mine.
This theme of "we are all racists, individually and collectively," seems to be a popular meme these days in the denominational apparatus. There is a recent Banner article on "white guilt," plus a Banner editorial on the same subject, and now your article here on the Network.
I've always thought the Network was intended to be a place for conversations among CRC members, even those who hadn't personally met. I've also often heard the message that "we aren't willing to have an honest conversation about race." Given all of that, I thought this would be a good time and place to have such a conversation, publicly (as your article is public), and that the conversation could be beneficial to the body (those that read Network articles and posts at least).
In terms of free time, I have a pretty full-time day job, practicing law, and doing quite a bit beyond that (right now, building an addition onto a rental I own, getting a bathroom fixed in another rental, working with a surveyor and the county to get a lot line adjustment on property needed to do the addition, taking care of a neighborhood park, and more). I say this to indicate I see this conversation as needed, not something I engage in because I need to pass the time. To be more blunt, you may be mistaken when you suggest you work a lot as a pastor, that I don't in my job, and so I have time to do this while you don't. I'm making the time because I believe this is important. Apparently, you don't think so and that is of course your prerogative.
When I first read this article, I immediately ordered Debby Irving's book (Waking Up White). It arrived two days ago and I'm about half way through it. It is illuminating in a way, but perhaps in a way different than one might first think.
So far, there is next to nothing that Irving "uncovers" as to the real history in the US that I haven't already long known to be the real history. Apparently, she was sheltered from the truth (she says so) and I was not.
What struck me about Irving's story is how incredibly different her life was from mine. Her father was a Boston investment lawyer whose law school education had been paid by the GI Bill. Her family had a really, really nice house, multiple cars and televisions, an abundance of material things generally, a summer vacation place in Maine, and more. Her family is what I would call old New England upper, or at least middle-upper class. She went to college of course, and, like Shannon, her bill for that was paid for, although by family, not by the GI Bill. Indeed, to say that Irving's family "drank downstream" from government and non-government laws and policies is quite true.
But I, started contrast here's my life (I'm white too), which is representative of the lives in the NW Iowa community I grew up in. Irving was born in 1960, BTW. I was born in 1954.
My family's first house, that I remember reasonably well, had no indoor toilet. It was two rooms, a small move-on house plunked on the yard of my grandparents' farm. It didn't even have real running water for that matter. Cold water could be hand pumped from a cistern, but to get it hot, my mom had to put in on the stove.
Our next house was one one that was torn down after we moved off. About the same as the first house, although at least there was regular running water. The third house was the "mansion" (as a six year old of my experience would see it). No, still no indoor toilet (who cared) but it was roomy (in my eyes at least) and on a farm where a creek (even if muddy) ran through the pasture, a quarter mile from the house. We could fish for bullheads in the muddy water. This was indeed heaven.
Ok, there were negative aspects to the house. A full one third was not habitable (even the walls were fallen in). There was no heat upstairs, which is not a small discomfort for kids who slept upstairs during NW Iowa winters on 20 below nights. Mom put "flannels" on the beds in place of sheets, and we learned to start the night in a tight ball, speeding out very gradually, and to share body heat.
We didn't actually get to fish much, but sometime. From age 6 onward, I probably worked 40 or more hours a week, but only during the school year. In the summer, we worked much more. Don't misunderstand, I didn't resent the work. It was just "life." And the dividends that part of life would eventually pay were great.
When I was 12, we moved a true mansion on to the farm and tore down the prior one. This house was apparently insulated (old mansion was not) and warm air actually came through the vents upstairs on winter nights. Wow! A new stage of heaven
Work was still a lot, but again who cared. It wasn't any different for anyone else on my school bus route. Indeed, lots of the boys got on the bus with some manure on their pants. You get up at 5.30 in the morning to milk cows (who produce a lot of sloshing manure), and then just before the bus comes, you run out of the barn, gobble down some eggs and pancakes and hop on the bus. No time to change clothes. Besides, who cared. One less thing to do in life, which was busy enough.
Well, I did start caring once I got to high school. Thankfully, the same mansion that had heat upstairs had a shower in the basement (not enclosed but fine). On some mornings, I was able to shower (quickly!) and now I always changed clothes before school. But work was certainly no less. I couldn't play HS basketball because practice was during milking time and I and my brother were the only milkers. Basketball was for the "town kids" -- sorry. But I did play baseball and summer fast pitch softball, all of which was scheduled with milking (and other chores) schedules in mind. As far as I was concern, life was really great (well, minus some other aspects of it).
So I went to college, Dordt actually, but not in anyway like Irving went to college, or even the author of this article. No one in my family had gone to college. They were all farmers. No one had benefited from the GI Bill. My grandparents on both sides had immigrated from Holland, and neither of my parents had gotten any wealth from theirs. Nor did I from mine. College, if I wanted to do that rather foreign thing, was mine to figure out and do (in every sense of that word). My first year, I paid tuition, room and board by milking cows for a near-by large dairy. Started 2.00 pm on Friday. Got up 2.30 AM Saturday morning, the repeat for Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon. By the time that long weekend was over, I had nearly 40 hours put in. At $1.50 an hour, that was a ton of money (I thought). During Christmas break I could and did put in 80 - 90 hour weeks, still at $1.50/hour, none at overtime rate -- ag work was exempted from those rules). It paid what I needed paid. But I hated it, passionately. It messed with my days and nights, badly.
One early college summer, I worked night shift at a Campbell Soup plant, cleaning up the facility after the day shifts killed chickens and turkeys, cooked them, deboned them, and diced the meat. Hated that too, but irrelevant -- again, it paid the bills.
My last 2 plus a bit years of college, I ran my own insurance office. Got licensed and sold life, disability and health insurance. Boy, that was a learning curve, but no, there was no $ or even other support from family. What I did or didn't do was mine to figure out and do.
Then to law school, in Oregon. Fortunately, the federal government had not yet so badly driven up college and graduate school prices by injecting massive funding into higher education (by providing large grants and loans), so the price of law school, even a well known private one, was within reach. My wife's teaching job paid $9000 a year, tuition was $3000, and we were really good at skimping on expenses. Plus, during my first year, I worked side jobs for area farmers, and then starting my second year, I clerked 40+ hours a week. Poor pay but a lot of experience. Sure, busy, but life was still good, better than it ever had been I thought.
After law school, I hung out my shingle, practiced with a small group of attorneys. We weren't a firm but we shared expenses. A good model, looking back. I made $5000 my first year. No, not disappointing. I was ecstatic it was a positive number and not negative. A solo practice of law was a small business start up after all. Most of those failed and I didn't -- yet at least. Besides, my wife still was a teacher and we could live on her modest salary, even if very modestly. And that was fine. Life was still very good.
That startup year was about 37 years ago. I'm still practicing law, in my solo practice with a small group (members having changed over the years; remember, business startups fail a lot). In the course of those 37 years, I have represented clients of all characteristics, whether by color, gender, orientation, religion, culture, political persuasion, for other background/status. Frankly, life is still pretty good, my wife has been teaching again (after years off because we raised four children). And I've had opportunity to help people and good causes that might not otherwise have gotten help.
So Irving says I'm "white," and thereby I am "privileged." She and this article would suggest that my race (which at the same time is said to not be real as an actual concept, except by perception) has created advantage for me that has given me a good life, at the expense of others (non-whites) and so I should feel guilty, regard myself as indebted, recognize I have unfairly "drunk downstream" from the unfair advantages of my white parents, but that I'm just "not seeing it" --because I am "white" of course.
For all those who read, or might read, Irving's book, should would also read JD Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy, a book that, since I read it, has become a bit known, perhaps because of the election of Donald Trump.
Early Dutch Reformed generations in NW Iowa were not the "white people" Irving broadbrushes. Early on in her book, anticipating the objections, she argues that even though some readers might think that the injustices she is about to reveal stem from class, they really do stem from color. JD Vance's book demonstrates that class disadvantage is color blind. His Appalachian heritage resulted in a very white multigenerational mass that has become known as "white trash," or more recently, part of the "basket of deplorables." While American culture of late says we should sympathize with the part of the poverty class that is not-white, we are allowed to, and should, regard the white poverty class as pathetic, as deserving of our scorn and disparagement, as hicks, as trailer trash, as white trash, as redncks, and as "deplorables."
At a point in his book, Vance describes how he was explaining to someone not from his culture what his culture, and his early life was like. And then at a point in that conversation, he remarks, it dawned on him that his description matched that of how someone else might have described inner big city black ghettos. Some song really, just a different verse.
This is the core of my disagreement with recent CRCNA memes that proclaim "we are all racist" (if we are white) and "we all have drunk downstream, and so have unjustly benefited" from a "systemic injustice" rooted in "white privilege."
The problem with the meme is that it just isn't true. Well OK, it may be true for some (like Irving), but it is not true for so many others (like JD Vance's community, nor the communities I have lived in -- nor me and so many I grew up with).
So what, some may say? So what if Irving's (and the repeated denominational meme) is not true, or not so true? So a lot, would be my answer. To the extent any person or cultural group does well, they will do so because they, and each of them, accept the fact that their own decisions, in the points in time right in front of them, will be the dominant factors as to the outcome of their lives (and I'm not talking about financial outcomes, or even mostly about financial outcomes). Incessant and often factually inaccurate ranting about how the privilege of "whites" are the cause for the lesser wellbeing "non-whites" won't help "non-whites" but hurt them, because they will learn from the repeated message that they themselves were not and are not in charge of their lives and still cannot be.
Thank God (I mean this literally) no one told me I was from a disadvantaged class, that this lady named Irving from Boston and others like her had innumerable advantages over me, and because of that "systemic injustices," I was doomed, unless of course I could find some outside hero, someone who had power I did not and could not have because of my "systemic disadvantage." Thank God no one told me that. I might have listened and believed.
So may be Irving should feel "white guilt" because her life "drank downstream" from "white ptivilege." And who knows, the same may be the case for many CRCers, maybe especially in certain geographical areas of the country. But even if true to that extent, it is still a broad brush caricature, and one that, I would submit, does far more harm than good.
I don't think you are understanding John's comment correctly, Danielle. Or maybe I'm not, but here's my take on what John suggests (and Ed for that matter), which would be mine as well.
First, there are two questions here, perhaps three, and if you don't understand the questions to be two (or three), and not one, you won't understand John's comment or what I think.
Question #1 is this: What should government do in terms of setting laws and policies that allow or disallow refugees from entering the country (US or Canada)?
Question #2 is this: What should we, folks in this country (US or Canada) -- whether as individuals or local churches or even denominations -- do when there are refugees that our government's laws and policies will be entering this country?
Here's the possible Question #3: What should we, folks in this country (US or Canada) -- whether as individuals or local churches or even denomination -- do when there are refugees but in other countries as opposed to ours?
So the answer to Question #1: As to the institutional church, it should simply allow the government to do its job. In terms of those of us who hold the "office of voter," we should exercise that office (hopefully with intelligence and discernment) but certainly, it is not the jurisdiction of the pastor of a local church (or its council, or synod, or the executive director of the denomination) to lobby the federal government in behalf of church members in favor or against one possible government policy or another.
My suggested answer to Question #2: As to individuals and the local and denominational institutional church, we should consider what individual ("love mercy") or communal ("deaconal") responsibility we might have to directly act, working with government but not lobbying it, knowing that refugees may be coming to where we live, and then actually act according to that responsibility (e.g., sponsor refugees -- my church did this in the 1970's/1980's, sponsoring Vietnamese and Loation families).
My suggested answer to Question #3: As to individuals and local and denominational institutional church, we should consider what individual ("love mercy") or communal ("deaconal") responsibility we might have to directly act, knowing that refugees that exist in other countries, and then act according to that responsibility, which might take the form of supporting organizations like World Renew, or possibly by (an individual) deciding to physically going to those other countries to help out.
You may be correct in pointing out, Danielle, that if the government isn't letting refugees in, or so many of them, then we (individuals or local churches, etc) can't enfold those refugees. But there is lots of other work to do it the world. We could address other issues needing addressing (and we won't run out of issues needing addresses). And hey, those of us individuals who hold the office of "voter" can get into the politics of it. But the key point is that it is not the jurisdiction of the institutional church, local or denominational, whether via pastor, council, synod, or ED, to be the political lobbyist for all of us, even if the institutional church, at whatever level, should act in its deaconal role (which does not include being political lobbyist for all member as to government policy).
My answer is part "wait and see," part "these concerns are overblown."
If Trump did everything he might have alluded to verbally at one point or another, all Hispanics unable to produce documentation of their right to be in the US would not be here anymore, but of course that hasn't happened.
Trump's communication style drives me beyond nuts, but it is only style. One cannot simply find an off the cuff point in an off the cuff speech he may have made and conclude that is what he'll do.
The best approach to Trump is to take almost everything he says with a lot of salt, especially when he talks to his hard core supporters or the public in general (and most of us are not privy to Trump's private conversations so this is very difficult), try to decipher major themes amid all his verbal noise, and then, ultimately, wait and see what he actually does.
I think the chances of federal government disability benefits being curtailed because Trump is President, at least across the board, are slim. And it isn't at all impossible that those benefits would increase because Trump is President. In all the things he's said, support for that possibility is more easily found than what some in the disabled community may fear.
Mark: I do appreciate concerns about non-policy aspects of Trump (his mocking a reporter), but one should really consider him an equal opportunity offender, if you will. Trump will rant against and offend anyone and everyone -- and has. So anyone who is looking for Trump to be always be "nice to them" or "nice to the group they are part of" is just going to be badly disappointed -- sooner or later. Russian's Putin, and everyone else, will get the same treatment, sooner or later. :-)
In terms of the broader picture, but perhaps expanding the conversation a bit, I have always been an advocate of smaller government, and for people to look first to their local resources (first private and only after that local and state government) for solutions to problems -- all before looking to the federal government. Why? Because one-size-fits all solutions (solutions "from the top") are clumsy at best, and because things "at the top" can change in the blink of an eye, in which case ... well, here we maybe are, aren't we, at least for some things?
We have been looking increasingly to the "top" for solutions over the past years, decades even. OK, but then we maybe set ourselves up for these kinds of possibilities?
Posted in: Hello, My Name Is. . . Racist
And blessings to you as well Shannon. I have no doubt as to the orientation of your heart, even where we might disagree. To me, that tension is in a way an essential characteristic of the church. I'm glad we are both in CRC.
And if ever you want that public, "honest conversation about racism," you know where to find me. :-)
Posted in: Hello, My Name Is. . . Racist
Shannon. Thanks for the response. Who knows, maybe you are racist. :-) But let's take the examples one at a time and explore them.
First, your childhood impression of what made for pretty. I was at coffee this morning and talked to the 20-ish young woman that usually serves me. She is white, a Christian, working while going to school, not Dutch, not CRC. We discussed my question to her: "are you racist?" Setting aside for a moment her general response, we also discussed perceptions of physical attractiveness, using your example as a springboard. With a bit of a laugh she said she generally considered darker skin people to be more attractive than lighter skinned people, all other things being equal.
I didn't tell her this but understood, because, frankly, I perceive (as pretty) likewise. I also prefer darker hair to blonde hair, and brown eyes to blue. And I really think freckles are unattractive (sorry to any offended by that). My friend's explanation for her darker skinned preference was "I just do, just like my favorite color is red." My favorite color is blue, not red like my friend's, although I think small cars are best looking in red.
So here's the question. Are you sure your sense, when a child, that lighter skin is prettier is evidence of racism? And then this question. What do you make of my and my young friend's contrary sense of physical attractiveness? Might that be evidence that we are not racist?
I'm not intending to ignore your other 3 points, and will respond in other posts. But I want to stop here in this post so we can have a more focused conversation.
Posted in: Understanding Our Missional Identity
Color me as one of those confused.
If "being missional ... is simply what the church is," as this article says, it is no wonder the word has always perplexed me. I'm disinclined to add modifiers to words when the modifier means what the word intended to be modified means. When others do that, I have this itch to discover the additional meaning the modifier brings to the word being modified, but it would seem that in this case there is none?
Yes, confused.
Posted in: How Should the Church Respond to Trump’s Travel Ban?
Larry: Just as to your #1, abstract concepts ("ruthless capitalism") don't violate commandments, even if people do. "Capitalism" literally and merely refers to the idea that if one does not consume all that one earns but saves some to invest, that "capital" will generally increase future return, proportionate to the amount invested and not consumed. (Many poor people have used that methodology to become not poor -- I did, having literally nothing when entering my adult life).
OK sure, there are all kinds of other imprecise definitions of "capitalism," but those definitions are just political rants or epithets being thrown about. A "free market economy," a phrased that many would syntactically equate with "capitalism," ruthless or otherwise, and one I would prefer to use instead of word "capitalism," means that the government declines to use the power of the sword to force its citizens to "not be selfish." I think I ought not be selfish, that being selfish violates God's law, but yet I don't think government should restrain me (or others) if I (or others) choose to be selfish, by pointing a gun (or sword) at my head, even if government should restrain me from entering the home of another and taking his money.
This is the difficulty of preaching about broadly labeled political ideas. It can be done, but ...
Posted in: How Should the Church Respond to Trump’s Travel Ban?
Where this article "gets it very right" is when it divides two questions: (1) what should the institutional church proclaim about government policy on immigration?; and (2) what should "we" do when there are people in need that come to our lives?
As to #1, the answer is nothing.
As to #2, the answer is to show them love, regard them as the Good Samaritan regarded the injured man on the road.
These two answers are not contradictory, and perhaps that is where factions in the CRC disagree.
Where I cringed when reading this article was where the author, after expressing appropriate concern about politicizing the institutional church, then purports to be an expert on this administration's immigration policy, citing a source at an embedded links which did not effectively support his claim of expertise in any way.
I'm not claiming that expertise myself. What I would suggest, though, is that it is extremely difficult (even impossible) even for persons who very seriously track these issues to formulate meaningful opinions about what governmental policy on these issues should or should not be. Why? For the simple reason that we lack information. We don't get the briefings from the CIA or the NSA or Homeland Security or the FBI or from closed door sessions of certain House or Senate committees or subcommittees. And for good reasons.
Which means the best we can usually do is guess about what good government policy should or should not specifically be.
In contrast, I can analyze the Ninth Circuit's recent ruling denying a stay on the federal District Court Judge's order granting the State of Washington's motion for a TRO as to the President's recently issued Executive Order. Why? Because the District Judge's decision and order are public, the Ninth Circuit's decision and opinion are public, the President's EO is public, and I happen to have the occupational training and experience to meaningfully read them and analyze them. But with all of that, I still have to say "I frankly don't know" in answer to the question, "was the President's EO wise or at least warranty, and good public policy?," again because I don't know that underlying facts, again because I simply cannot (will not be allowed to) know them.
Nor can the author of this article know these necessary facts, which is why I applaud his suggestion to not politicize the institutional church but then cringe when he suggests he has more ability to conclude about the President's wisdom in creating these executive orders than he possibly can.
Posted in: Big News at the Office of Social Justice and the Office of Race Relations
What I hope, and pray, is that under new leadership, political lobbying and other political spoutings off about what government is doing, as opposed to what we are doing, becomes a much, much lower priority for OSJ. After all, it is not the case that CRC members are in lockstep as to their theories of the role of government, economics and international relationships, and it is the case that the CRC has Article 28 in its Church Order.
How this institutional church (CRC) and its members might respond to those suffering from injustice, hungry, and in need of mercy is beyond a big enough task for us to take on. We don't need to also take on political lobbying, as if there is nothing else that we can uniquely do (because there is lots of that) or as if we haven't covenanted together to be an ecclesiastical, and not a political, institution (because we have, see CO Art. 28).
Posted in: Hello, My Name Is. . . Racist
Shannon: You point to a CNN article that suggests there is a statistical preference in the population for lighter skin pigmentation. While that article may be informative in some respects, it only purports to address a broad statistical reality, not a person-by-person, or individual, reality. One of the critical questions in our conversation is: "are we all, each of us, racist?" You seem to me to say "yes" to that question, while I would answer "no. Your link to the CNN articles addresses a broad statistical question but not the question I'm asking about here.
To recall, I asked, "What do you make of my and my young friend's contrary sense of physical attractiveness? Might that be evidence that we are not racist?"
What is your answer to these two questions? If your answer is, "I suspect if you talk with lots of white women you would hear similar things, but that is unrelated to racism," as you say in your most recent response post, I'm not understanding your answer. You cite your childhood perception that people with light hair and blue eyes are more attractive as not only "related to racism" but as affirmative evidence of your individual racism. So I've presented two white people (me and my 20-ish female friend at the coffee shop) who both perceive that those with darker skin and brown eyes (me as to the eyes at least) are more attractive, all other things being equal. If your childhood perception was "related to racism" and evidence of it, then our perception must be related in some way as well, not?
While I thank you for the reference to books on racism (and I saw that 2010 Anderson Cooper/CNN segment back when it first came out), I don't perceive myself lacking information about racism, nor lacking in time thinking about racism. I may have more experience with the the questions than you might think, but I may have formulated different conclusions than you have. Indeed, it seems clear to me that I have, which is why I'm wanting to have a conversation about it.
Posted in: Hello, My Name Is. . . Racist
Shannon. OK. I wasn't so "interested in learning," except that any exchange can result in learning, as I was interested in having a meaningful conversation. And I'm not arguing the same points that you have responded to, only reiterating when you decline to respond to mine.
This theme of "we are all racists, individually and collectively," seems to be a popular meme these days in the denominational apparatus. There is a recent Banner article on "white guilt," plus a Banner editorial on the same subject, and now your article here on the Network.
I've always thought the Network was intended to be a place for conversations among CRC members, even those who hadn't personally met. I've also often heard the message that "we aren't willing to have an honest conversation about race." Given all of that, I thought this would be a good time and place to have such a conversation, publicly (as your article is public), and that the conversation could be beneficial to the body (those that read Network articles and posts at least).
In terms of free time, I have a pretty full-time day job, practicing law, and doing quite a bit beyond that (right now, building an addition onto a rental I own, getting a bathroom fixed in another rental, working with a surveyor and the county to get a lot line adjustment on property needed to do the addition, taking care of a neighborhood park, and more). I say this to indicate I see this conversation as needed, not something I engage in because I need to pass the time. To be more blunt, you may be mistaken when you suggest you work a lot as a pastor, that I don't in my job, and so I have time to do this while you don't. I'm making the time because I believe this is important. Apparently, you don't think so and that is of course your prerogative.
Posted in: Hello, My Name Is. . . Racist
When I first read this article, I immediately ordered Debby Irving's book (Waking Up White). It arrived two days ago and I'm about half way through it. It is illuminating in a way, but perhaps in a way different than one might first think.
So far, there is next to nothing that Irving "uncovers" as to the real history in the US that I haven't already long known to be the real history. Apparently, she was sheltered from the truth (she says so) and I was not.
What struck me about Irving's story is how incredibly different her life was from mine. Her father was a Boston investment lawyer whose law school education had been paid by the GI Bill. Her family had a really, really nice house, multiple cars and televisions, an abundance of material things generally, a summer vacation place in Maine, and more. Her family is what I would call old New England upper, or at least middle-upper class. She went to college of course, and, like Shannon, her bill for that was paid for, although by family, not by the GI Bill. Indeed, to say that Irving's family "drank downstream" from government and non-government laws and policies is quite true.
But I, started contrast here's my life (I'm white too), which is representative of the lives in the NW Iowa community I grew up in. Irving was born in 1960, BTW. I was born in 1954.
My family's first house, that I remember reasonably well, had no indoor toilet. It was two rooms, a small move-on house plunked on the yard of my grandparents' farm. It didn't even have real running water for that matter. Cold water could be hand pumped from a cistern, but to get it hot, my mom had to put in on the stove.
Our next house was one one that was torn down after we moved off. About the same as the first house, although at least there was regular running water. The third house was the "mansion" (as a six year old of my experience would see it). No, still no indoor toilet (who cared) but it was roomy (in my eyes at least) and on a farm where a creek (even if muddy) ran through the pasture, a quarter mile from the house. We could fish for bullheads in the muddy water. This was indeed heaven.
Ok, there were negative aspects to the house. A full one third was not habitable (even the walls were fallen in). There was no heat upstairs, which is not a small discomfort for kids who slept upstairs during NW Iowa winters on 20 below nights. Mom put "flannels" on the beds in place of sheets, and we learned to start the night in a tight ball, speeding out very gradually, and to share body heat.
We didn't actually get to fish much, but sometime. From age 6 onward, I probably worked 40 or more hours a week, but only during the school year. In the summer, we worked much more. Don't misunderstand, I didn't resent the work. It was just "life." And the dividends that part of life would eventually pay were great.
When I was 12, we moved a true mansion on to the farm and tore down the prior one. This house was apparently insulated (old mansion was not) and warm air actually came through the vents upstairs on winter nights. Wow! A new stage of heaven
Work was still a lot, but again who cared. It wasn't any different for anyone else on my school bus route. Indeed, lots of the boys got on the bus with some manure on their pants. You get up at 5.30 in the morning to milk cows (who produce a lot of sloshing manure), and then just before the bus comes, you run out of the barn, gobble down some eggs and pancakes and hop on the bus. No time to change clothes. Besides, who cared. One less thing to do in life, which was busy enough.
Well, I did start caring once I got to high school. Thankfully, the same mansion that had heat upstairs had a shower in the basement (not enclosed but fine). On some mornings, I was able to shower (quickly!) and now I always changed clothes before school. But work was certainly no less. I couldn't play HS basketball because practice was during milking time and I and my brother were the only milkers. Basketball was for the "town kids" -- sorry. But I did play baseball and summer fast pitch softball, all of which was scheduled with milking (and other chores) schedules in mind. As far as I was concern, life was really great (well, minus some other aspects of it).
So I went to college, Dordt actually, but not in anyway like Irving went to college, or even the author of this article. No one in my family had gone to college. They were all farmers. No one had benefited from the GI Bill. My grandparents on both sides had immigrated from Holland, and neither of my parents had gotten any wealth from theirs. Nor did I from mine. College, if I wanted to do that rather foreign thing, was mine to figure out and do (in every sense of that word). My first year, I paid tuition, room and board by milking cows for a near-by large dairy. Started 2.00 pm on Friday. Got up 2.30 AM Saturday morning, the repeat for Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon. By the time that long weekend was over, I had nearly 40 hours put in. At $1.50 an hour, that was a ton of money (I thought). During Christmas break I could and did put in 80 - 90 hour weeks, still at $1.50/hour, none at overtime rate -- ag work was exempted from those rules). It paid what I needed paid. But I hated it, passionately. It messed with my days and nights, badly.
One early college summer, I worked night shift at a Campbell Soup plant, cleaning up the facility after the day shifts killed chickens and turkeys, cooked them, deboned them, and diced the meat. Hated that too, but irrelevant -- again, it paid the bills.
My last 2 plus a bit years of college, I ran my own insurance office. Got licensed and sold life, disability and health insurance. Boy, that was a learning curve, but no, there was no $ or even other support from family. What I did or didn't do was mine to figure out and do.
Then to law school, in Oregon. Fortunately, the federal government had not yet so badly driven up college and graduate school prices by injecting massive funding into higher education (by providing large grants and loans), so the price of law school, even a well known private one, was within reach. My wife's teaching job paid $9000 a year, tuition was $3000, and we were really good at skimping on expenses. Plus, during my first year, I worked side jobs for area farmers, and then starting my second year, I clerked 40+ hours a week. Poor pay but a lot of experience. Sure, busy, but life was still good, better than it ever had been I thought.
After law school, I hung out my shingle, practiced with a small group of attorneys. We weren't a firm but we shared expenses. A good model, looking back. I made $5000 my first year. No, not disappointing. I was ecstatic it was a positive number and not negative. A solo practice of law was a small business start up after all. Most of those failed and I didn't -- yet at least. Besides, my wife still was a teacher and we could live on her modest salary, even if very modestly. And that was fine. Life was still very good.
That startup year was about 37 years ago. I'm still practicing law, in my solo practice with a small group (members having changed over the years; remember, business startups fail a lot). In the course of those 37 years, I have represented clients of all characteristics, whether by color, gender, orientation, religion, culture, political persuasion, for other background/status. Frankly, life is still pretty good, my wife has been teaching again (after years off because we raised four children). And I've had opportunity to help people and good causes that might not otherwise have gotten help.
So Irving says I'm "white," and thereby I am "privileged." She and this article would suggest that my race (which at the same time is said to not be real as an actual concept, except by perception) has created advantage for me that has given me a good life, at the expense of others (non-whites) and so I should feel guilty, regard myself as indebted, recognize I have unfairly "drunk downstream" from the unfair advantages of my white parents, but that I'm just "not seeing it" --because I am "white" of course.
For all those who read, or might read, Irving's book, should would also read JD Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy, a book that, since I read it, has become a bit known, perhaps because of the election of Donald Trump.
Early Dutch Reformed generations in NW Iowa were not the "white people" Irving broadbrushes. Early on in her book, anticipating the objections, she argues that even though some readers might think that the injustices she is about to reveal stem from class, they really do stem from color. JD Vance's book demonstrates that class disadvantage is color blind. His Appalachian heritage resulted in a very white multigenerational mass that has become known as "white trash," or more recently, part of the "basket of deplorables." While American culture of late says we should sympathize with the part of the poverty class that is not-white, we are allowed to, and should, regard the white poverty class as pathetic, as deserving of our scorn and disparagement, as hicks, as trailer trash, as white trash, as redncks, and as "deplorables."
At a point in his book, Vance describes how he was explaining to someone not from his culture what his culture, and his early life was like. And then at a point in that conversation, he remarks, it dawned on him that his description matched that of how someone else might have described inner big city black ghettos. Some song really, just a different verse.
This is the core of my disagreement with recent CRCNA memes that proclaim "we are all racist" (if we are white) and "we all have drunk downstream, and so have unjustly benefited" from a "systemic injustice" rooted in "white privilege."
The problem with the meme is that it just isn't true. Well OK, it may be true for some (like Irving), but it is not true for so many others (like JD Vance's community, nor the communities I have lived in -- nor me and so many I grew up with).
So what, some may say? So what if Irving's (and the repeated denominational meme) is not true, or not so true? So a lot, would be my answer. To the extent any person or cultural group does well, they will do so because they, and each of them, accept the fact that their own decisions, in the points in time right in front of them, will be the dominant factors as to the outcome of their lives (and I'm not talking about financial outcomes, or even mostly about financial outcomes). Incessant and often factually inaccurate ranting about how the privilege of "whites" are the cause for the lesser wellbeing "non-whites" won't help "non-whites" but hurt them, because they will learn from the repeated message that they themselves were not and are not in charge of their lives and still cannot be.
Thank God (I mean this literally) no one told me I was from a disadvantaged class, that this lady named Irving from Boston and others like her had innumerable advantages over me, and because of that "systemic injustices," I was doomed, unless of course I could find some outside hero, someone who had power I did not and could not have because of my "systemic disadvantage." Thank God no one told me that. I might have listened and believed.
So may be Irving should feel "white guilt" because her life "drank downstream" from "white ptivilege." And who knows, the same may be the case for many CRCers, maybe especially in certain geographical areas of the country. But even if true to that extent, it is still a broad brush caricature, and one that, I would submit, does far more harm than good.
Posted in: How Should the Church Respond to Trump’s Travel Ban?
I don't think you are understanding John's comment correctly, Danielle. Or maybe I'm not, but here's my take on what John suggests (and Ed for that matter), which would be mine as well.
First, there are two questions here, perhaps three, and if you don't understand the questions to be two (or three), and not one, you won't understand John's comment or what I think.
Question #1 is this: What should government do in terms of setting laws and policies that allow or disallow refugees from entering the country (US or Canada)?
Question #2 is this: What should we, folks in this country (US or Canada) -- whether as individuals or local churches or even denominations -- do when there are refugees that our government's laws and policies will be entering this country?
Here's the possible Question #3: What should we, folks in this country (US or Canada) -- whether as individuals or local churches or even denomination -- do when there are refugees but in other countries as opposed to ours?
So the answer to Question #1: As to the institutional church, it should simply allow the government to do its job. In terms of those of us who hold the "office of voter," we should exercise that office (hopefully with intelligence and discernment) but certainly, it is not the jurisdiction of the pastor of a local church (or its council, or synod, or the executive director of the denomination) to lobby the federal government in behalf of church members in favor or against one possible government policy or another.
My suggested answer to Question #2: As to individuals and the local and denominational institutional church, we should consider what individual ("love mercy") or communal ("deaconal") responsibility we might have to directly act, working with government but not lobbying it, knowing that refugees may be coming to where we live, and then actually act according to that responsibility (e.g., sponsor refugees -- my church did this in the 1970's/1980's, sponsoring Vietnamese and Loation families).
My suggested answer to Question #3: As to individuals and local and denominational institutional church, we should consider what individual ("love mercy") or communal ("deaconal") responsibility we might have to directly act, knowing that refugees that exist in other countries, and then act according to that responsibility, which might take the form of supporting organizations like World Renew, or possibly by (an individual) deciding to physically going to those other countries to help out.
You may be correct in pointing out, Danielle, that if the government isn't letting refugees in, or so many of them, then we (individuals or local churches, etc) can't enfold those refugees. But there is lots of other work to do it the world. We could address other issues needing addressing (and we won't run out of issues needing addresses). And hey, those of us individuals who hold the office of "voter" can get into the politics of it. But the key point is that it is not the jurisdiction of the institutional church, local or denominational, whether via pastor, council, synod, or ED, to be the political lobbyist for all of us, even if the institutional church, at whatever level, should act in its deaconal role (which does not include being political lobbyist for all member as to government policy).
Posted in: How Will People With Disabilities Fare in Trump’s America?
My answer is part "wait and see," part "these concerns are overblown."
If Trump did everything he might have alluded to verbally at one point or another, all Hispanics unable to produce documentation of their right to be in the US would not be here anymore, but of course that hasn't happened.
Trump's communication style drives me beyond nuts, but it is only style. One cannot simply find an off the cuff point in an off the cuff speech he may have made and conclude that is what he'll do.
The best approach to Trump is to take almost everything he says with a lot of salt, especially when he talks to his hard core supporters or the public in general (and most of us are not privy to Trump's private conversations so this is very difficult), try to decipher major themes amid all his verbal noise, and then, ultimately, wait and see what he actually does.
I think the chances of federal government disability benefits being curtailed because Trump is President, at least across the board, are slim. And it isn't at all impossible that those benefits would increase because Trump is President. In all the things he's said, support for that possibility is more easily found than what some in the disabled community may fear.
Posted in: How Will People With Disabilities Fare in Trump’s America?
Mark: I do appreciate concerns about non-policy aspects of Trump (his mocking a reporter), but one should really consider him an equal opportunity offender, if you will. Trump will rant against and offend anyone and everyone -- and has. So anyone who is looking for Trump to be always be "nice to them" or "nice to the group they are part of" is just going to be badly disappointed -- sooner or later. Russian's Putin, and everyone else, will get the same treatment, sooner or later. :-)
In terms of the broader picture, but perhaps expanding the conversation a bit, I have always been an advocate of smaller government, and for people to look first to their local resources (first private and only after that local and state government) for solutions to problems -- all before looking to the federal government. Why? Because one-size-fits all solutions (solutions "from the top") are clumsy at best, and because things "at the top" can change in the blink of an eye, in which case ... well, here we maybe are, aren't we, at least for some things?
We have been looking increasingly to the "top" for solutions over the past years, decades even. OK, but then we maybe set ourselves up for these kinds of possibilities?