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?
But Larry, the CRCNA already opposes "slavery, apartheid, racism and sexism." No one opposes that institutional "speaking out" because such speaking out is ecclesiastical (CO Art. 28), just as is speaking about about homosexuality or the human obligation to be a steward of creation.
But it would seem you want the CRCNA to be a political lobbyist as well, as if there is no distinction between pronouncing, as an ecclesiastical matter, that racism is sinful and lobbying congress to pass certain legislation that, say, deals with nuances of voter registration requirements. There is a difference and even the IRS knows the difference.
To plumb the specifics of your posture on this, would you also want the CRCNA to train paramilitary forces just in case a Hitler-like despot takes over, so that the CRCNA can not only oppose this "Hitler" in words but also with deed? If not, why not?
Or to ask another way, just what are your jurisdictional limits, if any, for the CRCNA? What should Church Order Article 28 allow the CRC assemblies to take up beyond "ecclesiastical matters" (the present church order imposed jurisdictional boundary)?
You are taking some logic leaps there Larry but I assume you know that. In case you don't, I can't imagine how exactly you can make the case that any kind of ban on Syrian refugees by a sovereign nation for a finite period of time for whatever reason is unbiblical. Too much nuanced knowledge is required, and there are too many variables that potentially come into play, in my view at least, to be able to responsibly declare the scripture will always be violated when such a ban is implemented by a particular sovereign nation.
And I can't follow you when you say you must preach about all the things you list, BUT on the other hand, I think you certainly can preach on topics than involve greedy capitalism, irresponsible socialism, materialism, etc. It might take some degree of in-depth knowledge about the subject matters to have the sermon come off as "credible" and not a cheap political pitch, but sure, these subjects are, or their component parts at least are, the object of scriptural admonitions.
Defined contribution (DC) plans are simply more precise and predictable than defined benefit (DB) plans.
Some simple definitionscan be helpful here. In a DC plan, dollar contributions are made to the person's account, whether from employer or employee, or both. Then at retirement, the total accumulated amount (contributions plus investment income) is precisely known. Sure, it can at the employee's option be annuitized at that point (that is, the large amount exchanged, in whole or in part, can be exchanged for a monthly payment for an unknown remaining life span), but the retirement dollars that are available are precisely known and the employee has control of the entire amount.
In a DB plan, while contributions are also made, the dollar amount of total contributions made at retirement is somewhat irrelevant. What is more relevant is the contractual benefits that were promised years earlier, in exchange for the contributions.
DB plans are somewhat a bundle of guesses, about what future benefits will cost, about what income will be acquired from investing all those contributed dollars before retirement arrives, etc etc etc.
DB plans often favor some retirees over others. For example, because the "defined plan" might have a "benefit feature" that provides income only for as long as one lives, a retiree who dies soon after retirement might leave nothing or little for children even if that retiree's contributions were worth much, much more than the benefits turned out to be. DC plans treats retirees according to their contributions. In other words, in some respects, DB plans can be said to generally be a bit or much more "forced socialism" as to all retirees.
The biggest danger for DB plans is that the guesses made about the costs of the post-retirement benefits, or the assumptions about how much income the pooled contributions would make before retirement, turn out to be wrong. If those guesses or predictions are wrong in one direction, some retirees are given more generous benefits than they "deserved" (but always at the expense of someone), and if they are wrong in another direction, some retirees are given less generous benefits than the "deserved" (which will always benefit someone else).
All other things being equal, I tend to favor defined contribution plans because they are more precise, calculable, and certain in an overall way.
In my state, public employees have in the past received far greater benefits than they "deserved" because their defined benefit plan (PERS) was based on "bad guesses and predictions." It as nice, very nice, for some past employees of course (my wife among them), but counties, cities, and present workers are all paying for it, dearly, today.
While I certainly don't oppose the kind of action that was taken by Obama's EO, Mark, I always wonder about the ratio of "show to go" with federal action. In my neck of the nation's woods, the biggest employers of the disabled (including a neighbor of mine that I've know for his entire life), are private non-profits. My guess is that next to no one in my geographical area is benefited by Obama's EO (or Clinton's before that).
I think there is much more promise for increased employment of the disabled in the private sector, profit and non-profit, perhaps with some tax credit assistance from government, federal, state, and/or local even.
One thing everyone is likely to agree on is that is it better for the disabled to work, at whatever level that might match their abilities, than that they not work. Even if they worked for no compensation, their lives are made better by working. And frankly, I think that sentiment is quite bipartisan, and shared by those who like big or small government.
My thought: don't send notes. Doing that necessarily sets you up for distinguishing gifts that are "greater" or "more important" than others. These are gifts.
If a particular deacon wants to say a verbal thanks to a contributor, fine, but even that shouldn't be a "planned exercise."
I'm not following Larry. How is it that someone has said or otherwise suggested "we cannot be good samaritans in our world"? I see that being done all the time by Christians. I practice it quite regularly. I advocate it.
I quite agree Shannon that race is biologically not real. I've thought that all my adult life, if not a bit longer. But unlike you, I don't think I'm racist. Never have been and am not now. No, no, no, that doesn't mean I don't consider myself quite sinful, inclined to hate God and my neighbor as you say, but I'm also not a terrorist, a mysogenist, a burglar, a robber, a drug dealer, or a number of other words, all of which denote rather specific ways of acting out one's sinful state. I have plenty ways I act out my sinful state but acting as a racist or terrorist or drug dealer are not among them.
My question to you is, why do you think you are -- call yourself -- a rscist? I'm not trying to be personal (maybe that is in fact a specific way your fallen nature expresses itself?), but I gather from your article that perhaps you call yourself a racist merely because you are half white (as you say), or merely because you were raised in a culture you apparently equate with white, as you say (I have a bit of a hard time understanding that), or merely because in our society at large you conclude, again as you say, that whites, statistically speaking, have some kind of power advantage over non-whites. But none of these latter "reasons" are cause for you to be designated a racist, nor is your inherent sinful nature.
Unless, of course, the meaning of the word itself, "racism," is changed. But that would be cheating, I submit, in a dictionary definition-strategy kind of way.
I understand the inclination, in a good Calvinist kind of way, to be up front about our sinfulness, but I think it does no good, and does do harm, when we so expand the definitional meaning of a word until it covers anything and everything (like the word "Smurf" in that cartoon with the little blue people).
Now I do believe racism exists and that some people are in fact racist, just as terrorism/terrorists exist or murderous assassination/murderous assassins exists, but it wouldn't do good to call everyone a terrorist or an assassin either. If we call everyone all these specific "ways of sinning," the meaning of the words are lost and we no longer distinguish between sinfulness generally, and specific ways we might, or might not, act out our sinfulness. And that is not helpful either -- at all. Among others things calling everything and everyone "smurf," or "racist," results in losing the idea of the specific thing, as well as the ability to deal with it (how would you deal with the problem of "smurfyness" after all, because you don't know what the problem actually is).
I hear often that "we aren't willing to have honest conversations about race and racism." It would seem that you are. I am too. Let's have a conversation. :-)
Respectfully Larry, I think you are failing to distinguish between biblical admonitions to people and biblical admonitions to governments. I am obliged to be a good neighbor even to those who have committed crimes like theft or drug dealing or even rape or murder. Notwithstanding my obligation to those, government's obligation to those same persons is different. Government is obliged to curb those evils, which may often mean prosecuting and incarcerating those people.
Your and my roles are often quite different than government's role. We may be required to turn the other cheek, but government couldn't do what God would have government do if its policy is turn-the-other-cheek based.
I'm not saying I know that the current administration's policy on this immigration time-out is good policy, but I am saying its duties, responsibilities and obligations are not correctly understood by applying the lesson of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Again, this doesn't mean the administration's policy is good policy, but, as I have suggested, neither you nor I nor the institutional church (nor even the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals frankly), are privy to the information required to in order to determine the wisdom of the administration on this policy. Congress gave this power, and the right to have the information, to the executive branch. Some in Congress have the right to the information, and to oversight, but you don't, I don't, and the institutional church doesn't.
Beyond that, there are plenty of neighbors that we can be good Samaritans too. There is no lack there I don't think.
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?
Posted in: How Should the Church Respond to Trump’s Travel Ban?
But Larry, the CRCNA already opposes "slavery, apartheid, racism and sexism." No one opposes that institutional "speaking out" because such speaking out is ecclesiastical (CO Art. 28), just as is speaking about about homosexuality or the human obligation to be a steward of creation.
But it would seem you want the CRCNA to be a political lobbyist as well, as if there is no distinction between pronouncing, as an ecclesiastical matter, that racism is sinful and lobbying congress to pass certain legislation that, say, deals with nuances of voter registration requirements. There is a difference and even the IRS knows the difference.
To plumb the specifics of your posture on this, would you also want the CRCNA to train paramilitary forces just in case a Hitler-like despot takes over, so that the CRCNA can not only oppose this "Hitler" in words but also with deed? If not, why not?
Or to ask another way, just what are your jurisdictional limits, if any, for the CRCNA? What should Church Order Article 28 allow the CRC assemblies to take up beyond "ecclesiastical matters" (the present church order imposed jurisdictional boundary)?
Posted in: How Should the Church Respond to Trump’s Travel Ban?
You are taking some logic leaps there Larry but I assume you know that. In case you don't, I can't imagine how exactly you can make the case that any kind of ban on Syrian refugees by a sovereign nation for a finite period of time for whatever reason is unbiblical. Too much nuanced knowledge is required, and there are too many variables that potentially come into play, in my view at least, to be able to responsibly declare the scripture will always be violated when such a ban is implemented by a particular sovereign nation.
And I can't follow you when you say you must preach about all the things you list, BUT on the other hand, I think you certainly can preach on topics than involve greedy capitalism, irresponsible socialism, materialism, etc. It might take some degree of in-depth knowledge about the subject matters to have the sermon come off as "credible" and not a cheap political pitch, but sure, these subjects are, or their component parts at least are, the object of scriptural admonitions.
Posted in: Let's Talk About Pastor Compensation
Defined contribution (DC) plans are simply more precise and predictable than defined benefit (DB) plans.
Some simple definitionscan be helpful here. In a DC plan, dollar contributions are made to the person's account, whether from employer or employee, or both. Then at retirement, the total accumulated amount (contributions plus investment income) is precisely known. Sure, it can at the employee's option be annuitized at that point (that is, the large amount exchanged, in whole or in part, can be exchanged for a monthly payment for an unknown remaining life span), but the retirement dollars that are available are precisely known and the employee has control of the entire amount.
In a DB plan, while contributions are also made, the dollar amount of total contributions made at retirement is somewhat irrelevant. What is more relevant is the contractual benefits that were promised years earlier, in exchange for the contributions.
DB plans are somewhat a bundle of guesses, about what future benefits will cost, about what income will be acquired from investing all those contributed dollars before retirement arrives, etc etc etc.
DB plans often favor some retirees over others. For example, because the "defined plan" might have a "benefit feature" that provides income only for as long as one lives, a retiree who dies soon after retirement might leave nothing or little for children even if that retiree's contributions were worth much, much more than the benefits turned out to be. DC plans treats retirees according to their contributions. In other words, in some respects, DB plans can be said to generally be a bit or much more "forced socialism" as to all retirees.
The biggest danger for DB plans is that the guesses made about the costs of the post-retirement benefits, or the assumptions about how much income the pooled contributions would make before retirement, turn out to be wrong. If those guesses or predictions are wrong in one direction, some retirees are given more generous benefits than they "deserved" (but always at the expense of someone), and if they are wrong in another direction, some retirees are given less generous benefits than the "deserved" (which will always benefit someone else).
All other things being equal, I tend to favor defined contribution plans because they are more precise, calculable, and certain in an overall way.
In my state, public employees have in the past received far greater benefits than they "deserved" because their defined benefit plan (PERS) was based on "bad guesses and predictions." It as nice, very nice, for some past employees of course (my wife among them), but counties, cities, and present workers are all paying for it, dearly, today.
Posted in: How Will People With Disabilities Fare in Trump’s America?
While I certainly don't oppose the kind of action that was taken by Obama's EO, Mark, I always wonder about the ratio of "show to go" with federal action. In my neck of the nation's woods, the biggest employers of the disabled (including a neighbor of mine that I've know for his entire life), are private non-profits. My guess is that next to no one in my geographical area is benefited by Obama's EO (or Clinton's before that).
I think there is much more promise for increased employment of the disabled in the private sector, profit and non-profit, perhaps with some tax credit assistance from government, federal, state, and/or local even.
One thing everyone is likely to agree on is that is it better for the disabled to work, at whatever level that might match their abilities, than that they not work. Even if they worked for no compensation, their lives are made better by working. And frankly, I think that sentiment is quite bipartisan, and shared by those who like big or small government.
Posted in: To Thank or Not to Thank
My thought: don't send notes. Doing that necessarily sets you up for distinguishing gifts that are "greater" or "more important" than others. These are gifts.
If a particular deacon wants to say a verbal thanks to a contributor, fine, but even that shouldn't be a "planned exercise."
Posted in: How Should the Church Respond to Trump’s Travel Ban?
I'm not following Larry. How is it that someone has said or otherwise suggested "we cannot be good samaritans in our world"? I see that being done all the time by Christians. I practice it quite regularly. I advocate it.
Posted in: Hello, My Name Is. . . Racist
I quite agree Shannon that race is biologically not real. I've thought that all my adult life, if not a bit longer. But unlike you, I don't think I'm racist. Never have been and am not now. No, no, no, that doesn't mean I don't consider myself quite sinful, inclined to hate God and my neighbor as you say, but I'm also not a terrorist, a mysogenist, a burglar, a robber, a drug dealer, or a number of other words, all of which denote rather specific ways of acting out one's sinful state. I have plenty ways I act out my sinful state but acting as a racist or terrorist or drug dealer are not among them.
My question to you is, why do you think you are -- call yourself -- a rscist? I'm not trying to be personal (maybe that is in fact a specific way your fallen nature expresses itself?), but I gather from your article that perhaps you call yourself a racist merely because you are half white (as you say), or merely because you were raised in a culture you apparently equate with white, as you say (I have a bit of a hard time understanding that), or merely because in our society at large you conclude, again as you say, that whites, statistically speaking, have some kind of power advantage over non-whites. But none of these latter "reasons" are cause for you to be designated a racist, nor is your inherent sinful nature.
Unless, of course, the meaning of the word itself, "racism," is changed. But that would be cheating, I submit, in a dictionary definition-strategy kind of way.
I understand the inclination, in a good Calvinist kind of way, to be up front about our sinfulness, but I think it does no good, and does do harm, when we so expand the definitional meaning of a word until it covers anything and everything (like the word "Smurf" in that cartoon with the little blue people).
Now I do believe racism exists and that some people are in fact racist, just as terrorism/terrorists exist or murderous assassination/murderous assassins exists, but it wouldn't do good to call everyone a terrorist or an assassin either. If we call everyone all these specific "ways of sinning," the meaning of the words are lost and we no longer distinguish between sinfulness generally, and specific ways we might, or might not, act out our sinfulness. And that is not helpful either -- at all. Among others things calling everything and everyone "smurf," or "racist," results in losing the idea of the specific thing, as well as the ability to deal with it (how would you deal with the problem of "smurfyness" after all, because you don't know what the problem actually is).
I hear often that "we aren't willing to have honest conversations about race and racism." It would seem that you are. I am too. Let's have a conversation. :-)
Posted in: How Should the Church Respond to Trump’s Travel Ban?
Respectfully Larry, I think you are failing to distinguish between biblical admonitions to people and biblical admonitions to governments. I am obliged to be a good neighbor even to those who have committed crimes like theft or drug dealing or even rape or murder. Notwithstanding my obligation to those, government's obligation to those same persons is different. Government is obliged to curb those evils, which may often mean prosecuting and incarcerating those people.
Your and my roles are often quite different than government's role. We may be required to turn the other cheek, but government couldn't do what God would have government do if its policy is turn-the-other-cheek based.
I'm not saying I know that the current administration's policy on this immigration time-out is good policy, but I am saying its duties, responsibilities and obligations are not correctly understood by applying the lesson of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Again, this doesn't mean the administration's policy is good policy, but, as I have suggested, neither you nor I nor the institutional church (nor even the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals frankly), are privy to the information required to in order to determine the wisdom of the administration on this policy. Congress gave this power, and the right to have the information, to the executive branch. Some in Congress have the right to the information, and to oversight, but you don't, I don't, and the institutional church doesn't.
Beyond that, there are plenty of neighbors that we can be good Samaritans too. There is no lack there I don't think.