tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38962007527241670522024-03-13T03:03:25.208-07:00Justice is a verb!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.comBlogger129125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-84293415596183705112019-01-16T09:34:00.001-08:002019-01-16T09:34:44.230-08:00A MALICIOUS SPECTACLE OF MORAL, POLITICAL, AND HUMANITARIAN EVILI am, like many others, vexed about the partial shutdown of the federal government. The following essay that is published by Baptist News Global is an attempt to express my perspective. I invite you to ponder and share it with others.<br />
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https://baptistnews.com/article/trumps-shutdown-a-malicious-spectacle-of-moral-political-and-humanitarian-failure/#.XD9prlxKjIU<br />
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<h1 class="entry-title" itemprop="headline" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "PT Sans", Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.2em; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 0.2em;">
Trump’s shutdown: a malicious spectacle of moral, political and humanitarian failure</h1>
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<a class="category opinion" href="https://baptistnews.com/category/opinion/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 117, 255); box-sizing: inherit; color: #0075ff; font-size: 1.4em; margin-right: 0.4em; text-decoration-line: none;">OPINION</a><a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/author/wendellgriffen/" rel="author" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: inherit; color: #77838c; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Posts by Wendell Griffen">WENDELL GRIFFEN</a> | JANUARY 16, 2019</div>
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<img alt="" class="wp-image-110819 alignleft" height="154" sizes="(max-width: 154px) 100vw, 154px" src="https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen-300x300.jpg" srcset="https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen-300x300.jpg 300w, https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen-150x150.jpg 150w, https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen.jpg 400w, https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen-45x45.jpg 45w" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; float: left; height: auto; margin: 0px 1.5em 0.5em 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="154" />The federal shutdown that politicians and political pundits speculated about more than a month ago is our present reality. Minutes of shutdown turned into hours. Hours of shutdown turned into days. Days of shutdown turned into weeks. Unless things change, weeks of shutdown will turn into months until 2019 will be remembered as the year of the shutdown.</div>
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The workers and families affected by the shutdown are terrified hostages. They are terrified about not having income for basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, childcare and transportation. They are terrified about being helpless. They are not terrified because the United States has been attacked by a foreign adversary. Their dreadful and senseless suffering is caused by a domestic actor.</div>
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President Donald Trump intentionally laid siege to parts of the federal government because of his delusion that a wall along the southern border of the United States will stop desperate immigrants from seeking asylum in this society from the violence of war, cruelty and hopelessness in their homelands. Federal workers and their families, along with many others whose work is related to government contracts, are suffering because Trump decided to shutter federal agencies rather than endorse bipartisan legislative solutions for funding and reopening the government while leaving deliberations on his wall to another day.</div>
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The rest of us know that our American neighbors are suffering. We know that public safety is threatened. And we know the shutdown is a massive and creeping spectacle of moral, political and humanitarian failure perpetuated by a homegrown threat to our neighbors and national security.</div>
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“The shutdown is a massive and creeping spectacle of moral, political and humanitarian failure.”</div>
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The shutdown is the longest in U.S. history, but timing, not duration, is the most profound feature that makes it historic. As Bill Leonard observed in <u style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/american-racism-1619-2019-exorcism-of-this-demon-is-needed-now/#.XD21_1xKjIU" style="background: linear-gradient(to top, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 61, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 112, 68) 2px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 2px) 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #ff3d00; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">a recent commentary</a></u> for Baptist News Global, the first ship delivered African slaves to this country in August of 1619 – 400 years ago this year. Trump’s counselors and cheerleaders appear unable or unwilling to recognize that defrauding workers in 2019 is the latest instance of the slavery, wage theft and other abuse of workers that American society has excused, rationalized and even legalized for the past four centuries. The delusion created by free market fundamentalism, racism, white supremacy, white religious nationalism and xenophobia was the seminal, immoral force that led to the birth of the United States. That seminal force eventually produced the Civil War, the deadliest armed conflict in U.S. history, when more than 600,000 lives were lost.</div>
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No foreign power threatens the 800,000 workers furloughed or forced to work without pay because of Trump’s demand for a monument to his racism and xenophobia. Our neighbors are not threatened by a hurricane, earthquake, drought or other natural calamity. Instead, the fate and futures of our neighbors, the security of our nation and the legitimacy of our claim to be a force for morality in the world has been taken hostage by an autocratic president<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"> </span>(cheered and enabled by political and religious sycophants) who has demonstrated a lifelong penchant for immorality and inhumanity.</div>
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Trump’s weaponized shutdown is its own form of domestic terrorism. The shutdown has besieged the lives, fortunes and hopes of people in our country the same way an armed terrorist would control the lives, fortunes and hopes of hostages.</div>
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“Trump’s weaponized shutdown is its own form of domestic terrorism.”</div>
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It is tempting to believe that time will tell how and when politicians in the U.S. Senate show they love God and their neighbors enough to condemn the federal shutdown and its unnecessary pain as a malicious stunt by a narcissistic maniac, demand that Trump abandon his border wall delusion, and end the terror our neighbors suffer from the shutdown. But we should resist the temptation to believe “time will tell.”</div>
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In his prophetic <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Letter from Birmingham City Jail</em>, Martin Luther King Jr. declared that this temptation stems from “the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills…. [H]uman progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability…[but] comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of [people] willing to be co-workers with God, and <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation</em>” (emphasis mine).</div>
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As Baptist theologian Molly T. Marshall <u style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/declaring-americas-real-national-emergency-and-hearing-and-heeding-the-prophets-among-us/#.XD3XrFxKg2x" style="background: linear-gradient(to top, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 61, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 112, 68) 2px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 2px) 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #ff3d00; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">has noted</a></u>, prophetic people – not time – will determine when and how the federal shutdown ends with its malicious spectacle of massive and creeping moral, political and humanitarian impotence. God and our suffering neighbors are not watching clocks and calendars. God and our suffering neighbors are watching, waiting and yearning for determined and courageous people of prophetic character.</div>
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Are they watching and waiting for us?</div>
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</article></main>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com85tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-28918185329410288812019-01-08T01:11:00.000-08:002019-01-08T01:12:29.087-08:00A MESSAGE TO WHITE RELIGIONISTS ABOUT RACIAL RECONCILIATION<h1 class="entry-title" itemprop="headline" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "PT Sans", Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.2em; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 0.2em;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Last week Baptist News Global published an essay I wrote. I hope you'll take a few minutes to read and ponder it. Here's a link to it in case you'd like to share it with others.</span></h1>
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https://baptistnews.com/article/white-baptists-and-racial-reconciliation-theres-a-difference-between-lament-and-repentance/#.XDRnb1xKjIX.</div>
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<h1 class="entry-title" itemprop="headline" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "PT Sans", Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.2em; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 0.2em;">
White Baptists and racial reconciliation: there’s a difference between lament and repentance</h1>
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<a class="category opinion" href="https://baptistnews.com/category/opinion/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 117, 255); box-sizing: inherit; color: #0075ff; font-size: 1.4em; margin-right: 0.4em; text-decoration-line: none;">OPINION</a><a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/author/wendellgriffen/" rel="author" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: inherit; color: #77838c; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Posts by Wendell Griffen">WENDELL GRIFFEN</a> | JANUARY 3, 2019</div>
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<article class="post-113165 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail category-opinion tag-albert-mohler tag-racial-justice tag-racism tag-southern-seminary tag-white-nationalism entry" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/CreativeWork" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #383d40; font-family: "PT Serif", serif; margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></header><div class="entry-content" itemprop="text" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 1.05em; line-height: 1.45em;">
<div class="at-above-post addthis_tool" data-description="Last month Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), the oldest and most prestigious theological institution affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention – the largest Baptist body in the United States – issued a document titled “Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southe" data-title="White Baptists and racial reconciliation: there’s a difference between lament and repentance" data-url="https://baptistnews.com/article/white-baptists-and-racial-reconciliation-theres-a-difference-between-lament-and-repentance/" style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both;">
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<img alt="" class="wp-image-110819 alignleft" height="149" sizes="(max-width: 149px) 100vw, 149px" src="https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen-300x300.jpg" srcset="https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen-300x300.jpg 300w, https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen-150x150.jpg 150w, https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen.jpg 400w, https://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WendellGriffen-45x45.jpg 45w" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; float: left; height: auto; margin: 0px 1.5em 0.5em 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="149" />Last month Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), the oldest and most prestigious theological institution affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention – the largest Baptist body in the United States – issued a document titled “Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.” The 71-page report is a concise history written by current and former SBTS faculty members about how racism, slavery and other aspects of racial injustice were accepted, practiced, excused, championed and otherwise tolerated from the seminary’s founding in 1859 through the civil rights era of the mid-1960s.</div>
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Reactions have been mixed, as one might expect. A sense of the varied responses to the report is apparent from news accounts such as “<a href="http://bpnews.net/52171/sbts-slavery-and-racism-report-stirs-media-flurry" style="background: linear-gradient(to top, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 61, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 112, 68) 2px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 2px) 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #ff3d00; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">Slavery and racism reports stirs media flurry</a>” (Baptist Press), “<a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/report-laments-history-of-slavery-and-racism-at-sbc-seminary/#.XC0b0VxKg2y" style="background: linear-gradient(to top, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 61, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 112, 68) 2px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 2px) 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #ff3d00; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">Report laments history of slavery and racism at SBC seminary</a>” (Baptist News Global) and “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/12/13/676333342/southern-baptist-seminary-confronts-history-of-slaveholding-and-deep-racism" style="background: linear-gradient(to top, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 61, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 112, 68) 2px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 2px) 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #ff3d00; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">Southern Baptist seminary confronts history of slaveholding and deep racism</a>” (NPR). BNG also published an opinion article by university professor Susan Shaw, “<a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/the-irony-of-a-southern-baptist-seminarys-report-on-slavery-and-racism/#.XCY-G1xKjIU" style="background: linear-gradient(to top, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 61, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 112, 68) 2px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 2px) 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #ff3d00; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">The irony of a Southern Baptist seminary’s report on slavery and racism</a>,” and a related commentary by Bill Leonard, “<a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/american-racism-1619-2019-exorcism-of-this-demon-is-needed-now/#.XC0g7VxKg2w" style="background: linear-gradient(to top, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 61, 0) 1px, rgb(255, 112, 68) 2px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 2px) 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #ff3d00; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">American racism, 1619-2019: exorcism of this demon is needed – now</a>.”</div>
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My immediate reaction after reading the report was that SBTS appears more interested in – and hopes to be commended for – detailing its sinfulness about racial justice than repenting from it. Like others, I noticed how the report conveniently and inexcusably fails to include the last half century of racism practiced by school’s faculty, trustees and other stakeholders. Surely the distinguished authors of the report could have included details of that injustice if they intended to produce an honest and complete history.</div>
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“The report conveniently and inexcusably fails to include the last half century of racism practiced by school’s faculty, trustees and other stakeholders.”</div>
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However, doing so would have required them to speak truth to and about people who have wielded power at and over SBTS during its more recent past, and currently. Whatever the authors of the report and current SBTS President Albert Mohler may think otherwise, some people (myself included) know the difference between a full confession and an announcement that deliberately omits mention of the most recent instances of racism, white supremacy and white religious nationalism practiced and perpetrated at and by SBTS.</div>
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Furthermore, not a sentence can be found by Mohler (who commissioned the report and wrote its introduction) or anyone else among the seminary’s power structure indicating that SBTS is committed to doing anything to repair the harms of white supremacy and racism. Surely, leaders of the oldest and most prestigious of the Southern Baptist seminaries know that repentance involves much more than mere remorse (lament).</div>
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Remorsefulness alone is a far cry from repairing damage done by conduct that harms others. We should hope SBTS faculty make that clear to students studying the doctrine of salvation (soteriology) and the doctrine of sin (harmartiology). Regardless whether that happens, the rest of us know the big difference between remorse (regret about sinfulness) and repentance (changing from sinful ways and thinking to righteous ways and thinking). Remorsefulness, however sincerely and openly expressed, does not require a commitment to change. That is why the refusal of the report’s authors to include the last half century of the seminary’s endorsement of racism, white supremacy and white religious nationalism should not be ignored or excused.</div>
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We should also not ignore or excuse the seminary’s refusal to commit to engage in reparations and restitution for more than 150 years of systemic racial injustice practiced, preached and taught under the guise of preparing people for careers in pastoral ministry, religious education, missions and theological study as followers of Jesus. A robber who will not at least promise to make reparations does not deserve credit for publishing an announcement about having engaged in a career of robbery.</div>
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Rather than commend Mohler and the authors of the study, we should remind them what John the Baptist said about the need to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8). An incomplete report that expressed remorse about systemic racism, white supremacy and white religious nationalism at SBTS is not good fruit “worthy of repentance.” Neither is the refusal to attempt to quantify and repair harm done through racial injustice over the course of the school’s history.</div>
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What then should SBTS do? If we can trust what John the Baptist said to the crowds he addressed, the answer involves at least two obligations.</div>
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First, the seminary must change from being self-righteous and self-serving about its wealth and prestige. That would be consistent with what John the Baptist said about whoever had two coats being obligated to share with anyone who had none, and that whoever had food being obligated to share with anyone who had none (Luke 3:11).</div>
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“Surely, leaders of the oldest and most prestigious of the Southern Baptist seminaries know that repentance involves much more than mere remorse (lament).”</div>
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Repentance will require the seminary’s leaders and other stakeholders to do much more than admit a history of racism, white supremacy and white religious nationalism. SBTS must – in obedience to what John the Baptist said as well as the example of the tax collector from Jericho named Zachaeus who Jesus confronted (Luke 19:5-9) – pledge to give up the ill-gotten wealth it gained and now enjoys in part because of that wicked history. It is telling that Mohler hasn’t shown any sign that he even considered doing that, let alone that he urged the seminary’s trustees to do it.</div>
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Second, SBTS must start using its power to produce justice, rather than using it to maintain longstanding systems of injustice. John the Baptist told soldiers and tax collectors to stop using official authority for personal benefit. For SBTS, that should involve rejecting the slaveholder theology and hermeneutic and heresies of white supremacy, white religious nationalism, materialism, patriarchy, sexism (including homophobia and misogyny), imperialism, militarism, techno-centrism and xenophobia.</div>
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Imagine what the Holy Spirit might accomplish if instead this prominent seminary spent the next 150 years intentionally preparing people for ministry careers based on the gospel of liberation and justice!</div>
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None of this can be done in the echo chamber of the SBC. After all, the seminary’s racism, white supremacy and white religious nationalism are part of the original sin of the SBC, and have always been endorsed and extolled (directly or indirectly) by SBC congregations, pastors, mission workers and religious educators (at SBTS and the other SBC-affiliated seminaries). SBTS needs to hear from and be led by followers of Jesus who are not SBC-affiliated, not white supremacists, not patriarchal and not religious nationalists.</div>
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I suggest that Mohler and other SBC leaders seek help and guidance from a number of respected and reputable sources. One starting point could be Vanderbilt University Divinity School, including Dean Emile Towne, the Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative, and Forrest Harris, director of the Kelly Miller Smith Institute on the African American Church at the divinity school and president of American Baptist College in Nashville. Even closer to home, Mohler might drive a few miles across Louisville to seek prophetic insight and guidance about reparations and restitution from Kevin Cosby, a black SBTS alumnus and president of Simmons College, whose ministry is a shining example of what the Holy Spirit will accomplish when followers of Jesus reject slaveholder theology, hermeneutic and ethics.</div>
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“SBTS must start using its power to produce justice, rather than using it to maintain longstanding systems of injustice.”</div>
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Alert readers will notice that I have not mentioned reconciliation. That is an intentional omission. White religionists and others seem blind to the truth that reconciliation is impossible without repentance, and that repentance is impossible concerning racial injustice (including racism, slavery, white supremacy and white religious nationalism) without reparations and restitution. Until Mohler, SBTS, the SBC and other white Baptists “bear fruits worthy of repentance,” their appeals for racial reconciliation are “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1), and worth “nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2-3).</div>
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So, despite the publicity surrounding Southern Seminary’s recent report, the words of a Stevie Wonder song seem to apply: “You haven’t done ‘nothin.’”</div>
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The authors of the report, Mohler and other SBC leaders need to know why followers of Jesus who reject slaveholder theology, hermeneutic and ethics are not impressed. And they need to be reminded to “bear fruits worthy of repentance.” I don’t expect they will respond favorably to that input. As my father often said, “that would be too much like right.”</div>
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</footer></article>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com75tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-76673687576282023042018-12-30T04:33:00.000-08:002018-12-31T11:48:05.773-08:00A RESPONSE TO OBJECTIONS AND DOUBTS ABOUT IMPEACHING PRESIDENT TRUMP<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is a Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">December 30,
2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
my December 26, 2018 post I declared that the House Judiciary Committee should
hold an impeachment hearing concerning whether President Donald Trump has
committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I write now to respond to concerns about that position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">President
Trump’s supporters do not believe impeachment proceedings are warranted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They object to his impeachment the same way
they condemn and denounce the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller
concerning whether Mr. Trump and his associates engaged in criminal activity related
to the 2016 presidential election. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Trump’s
supporters also condemn and denounce the lawsuits filed against him in federal
court.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those lawsuits allege that he is
violating the ban on emoluments expressed at Article I, Section 9.8 to the
federal Constitution which declares that “…no person holding any office or
profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept
of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any
king, prince, or foreign state.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[Mr.
Trump owns a hotel near the White House that is regularly patronized by foreign
governments and others who seek favorable treatment from his administration.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Others who either disagree with
President Trump’s policies or who may be offended by his personal and business conduct
hold serious reservations about whether impeachment is politically expedient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those persons doubt that the Republican
majority in the Senate would vote to convict Mr. Trump even if the House of
Representatives votes in favor of articles of impeachment recommended by the
House Judiciary Committee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among other
things, they are concerned that Trump would use the impeachment controversy and
spectacle to stoke support for his re-election campaign in 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another
concern is that if Trump is impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate,
Vice President Pence would become President, and then pardon Trump the way
President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon after Nixon’s resignation in the
face of impeachment proceedings surrounding his efforts to obstruct investigation of the Watergate scandal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
observers prefer that Trump and Pence be voted out of office in 2020 rather
than risk a Pence presidency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here’s
my rejoinder to these and other objections to impeaching President Trump:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>appendectomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
the human appendix is infected with bacteria and inflamed, doctors know that an
emergency exists that requires surgical removal of the infected appendix.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is medical malpractice for a doctor to
examine a patient, confirm that the patient has appendicitis (inflammation of
the appendix), and release the patient with a prescription to relieve pain associated
with appendicitis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Appendectomy,
a common emergency surgery, is the long-recognized and accepted way to treat
appendicitis. Patients recover from that routine surgical procedure and go on
to live well for a simple reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
human body does not need an appendix to function normally or well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">More
to the point, the human body is threatened by an infected appendix.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A pus-filled appendix will rupture if it is
not surgically removed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ruptured
appendix then discharges bacteria into the abdominal cavity which requires emergency
appendectomy followed by aggressive treatment with antibiotics to save the
patient’s life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some cases, a
ruptured appendix can lead to death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Donald
Trump’s presidency is the political equivalent of appendicitis for the United
States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However much his supporters and
detractors dislike it, Trump’s impeachment is the political equivalent of an
appendectomy for the nation because Trump’s political incompetence and personal
corruption has infected the presidency with pus-filled policies and practices that
threaten domestic, national, and global well-being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
nation does not need sedatives from politicians and pundits, be they Trump
supporters or Trump opponents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need
surgery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The infected appendix called
the Trump presidency must be surgically removed before it ruptures and
threatens our survival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
should stop hoping that heaven will deliver us from Trump’s poisonous
presidency and personality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
Biblical account of the Exodus, God told Moses to use the staff in his hand
when Moses complained that Egyptian chariots threatened his people as they
stood on the shore of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:15-16).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Impeachment is the tool in our hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It won’t work unless we use it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
is why the House Judiciary Committee should schedule and conduct public hearings
on impeachment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If hearings demonstrate
that President Trump has committed treason, bribery, or other high crimes and
misdemeanors, the Judiciary Committee should issue Articles of Impeachment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a majority of the House votes to approve
Articles of Impeachment, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must convene
the Senate as jurors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chief Justice John
Roberts must preside over Trump’s trial. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If two-thirds of the Senators vote for conviction,
Chief Justice Roberts must declare President Trump ousted from office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That process requires human competence and
courage, not divine intervention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
U.S. House of Representatives and Senate must, like emergency room physicians, think
about what is best for the patient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Donald Trump is not the patient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Partisan political loyalists are not the patient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 2020 election outcome is not the
patient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The patient is the democratic
republic known as the United States of America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
patient is threatened by the pus-filled appendix known as Donald Trump’s presidency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The nation can survive without that appendix if
the House and Senate will act the way responsible doctors routinely act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
can’t survive if the medical team won’t use competent and courageous judgment
and do their job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-10026772887330451652018-12-26T05:28:00.001-08:002018-12-26T16:47:38.075-08:00TREATING DONALD TRUMP LIKE A PSYCHOPATH<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">©Wendell Griffen</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">December 26,
2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">During
the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency I penned and posted an essay to
this blog titled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Explaining Donald Trump in
One Word</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The word I used and
defined in that essay was “psychopath.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here is a link to that essay:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://wendelllgriffen.blogspot.com/2017/01/explaining-president-donald-trump-in.html">https://wendelllgriffen.blogspot.com/2017/01/explaining-president-donald-trump-in.html</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Almost
two years later, President Trump has demonstrated to people in the United
States and throughout the world that he is mentally, socially, politically, and
behaviorally unstable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Granted, Trump’s fanatic
followers </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">(his “base”) </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">of white religious nationalists, white supremacists, free market
capitalists, and personal and political sycophants consider Trump
a fit leader.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The rest of us recognize
that Trump is corrupt to the core.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">President
Trump is a classic example of “a loose cannon.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is a “loose cannon” about truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is a “loose cannon” about ethics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“He is a “loose cannon” when dealing with US politicians
(including those from his own political party), US allies and competitors, his
White House staff, and members of his personal inner circle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is well past time for the rest of us to treat him accordingly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
first thing smart people do when confronted with a “loose cannon” is to stop
and secure it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Loose cannon” people must
be stopped and secured to prevent them from doing more harm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By now the world knows that Trump’s family,
staff, and political colleagues have either failed to stop and secure him or
don’t want to do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
cannot expect help from Vice-President Mike Pence, the heads of departments in
the federal government, and leaders of the Republican Party in
the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Only federal judges have honored their duties to uphold the rule of law
and the U.S. Constitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vice
President Pence, executive department leaders, and Republicans in the Congress
have not done so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">No
one seriously thinks that Pence and the Cabinet heads have enough sense, let
alone honor, to certify Trump constitutionally disabled according to the
Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only in a fantasy world would Ben Carson (Secretary of Housing and Urban Development), Mike Pompeo (Secretary
of State), Matthew Whittaker (Acting Attorney General), and Patrick Shanahan
(the in-coming Acting Secretary of Defense) possess that much honor and patriotism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Because
executive branch leaders are not honorable and patriotic enough to certify
President Trump disabled, the House of Representatives must do its constitutional
duty and conduct hearings on impeachment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, I used that word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The word “impeachment”
exists because from the beginning the founders of this nation realized that
some people are morally and socially unfit to hold public office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Donald
Trump is such a prime example of such moral and social unfitness that calling
him a “loose cannon” may be too kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is reason to suspect that Trump more closely resembles cancer,
something much more dangerous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So
because Pence and the Cabinet officers won’t declare Trump disabled, the House
Judiciary Committee should begin the urgent work of holding public impeachment
hearings after the new Congress assumes office on January 3, 2019 to determine
whether there is evidence that Donald Trump has committed “high crimes and
misdemeanors.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, impeachment hearings
will involve painful work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, Nancy
Pelosi (the presumptive Speaker of the House of Representatives during the
coming session of Congress), would prefer that the House not address
impeachment proceedings among its many other difficult challenges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Experienced
leaders know that duty, honor, and loyalty to principles of truth and fairness override concerns about personal or political inconvenience and allegiance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis
demonstrated that when he resigned his post and stated his reasons for doing so
in his letter of resignation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speaker
Pelosi, Representative Jerrold Nadler (the presumptive incoming chair of the
House Judiciary Committee), other members of the Judiciary Committee, and the rest of
the House of Representatives (including Republican Members of Congress), should
follow the example set by Secretary Mattis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Impeachment
proceedings will not prevent House Members from considering and passing
legislation on immigration, voting rights, and to repair the highways, bridges,
tunnels, and other aspects of the nation’s infrastructure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Impeachment proceedings should not prevent </span>the House of Representatives from considering, debating, and passing legislation to protect Special Counsel
Robert Mueller from political meddling by President Trump and his lackeys in
the Department of Justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By appointing Matthew Whittaker Acting
Attorney General, publicly suggesting that he might pardon Paul Manafort for
the crimes Manafort has pled guilty to committing, and by his obvious attempts
to intimidate Michael Cohen and cajole Roger Stone, President Trump has shown that he will
sink to any depth and employ any tactic to interfere with, obstruct, and derail
the Mueller investigation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If
the House Judiciary Committee votes to issue Articles of Impeachment, and if
that vote is upheld by a simple majority of the House members, then the issue
becomes whether Senator Mitch McConnell (the Senate Majority Leader), Senator
Lindsey Graham (the presumptive incoming chair of the Senate Judiciary
Committee), and other Republican members of the U.S. Senate have honor enough,
loyalty enough, and patriotism enough to follow the U.S. Constitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, that is an open question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
bottom line is that Donald Trump must either be declared disabled by Vice
President Pence and leaders of the U.S. Cabinet (under the Twenty Fifth
Amendment) or impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted by the
Senate of committing high crimes and misdemeanors (according to Article II,
Section 4) in the U.S. Constitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Procrastinating
or denying that painful truth won’t make dealing with it less unpleasant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We, along with the rest of the world, know that President Trump is politically incompetent and psychologically, pathologically, and
socially dangerous.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">It
doesn’t matter whether one terms Trump a “loose cannon,” likens him to cancer,
or thinks he is like a drunk driver.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Loose cannons, cancers, and drunk drivers are mortal dangers that demand
prompt and decisive action.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The sooner
we begin taking it the sooner we will put Donald Trump’s psychopathic
presidency out of our national and geo-political misery.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Founders of U.S. democracy and the drafters of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution foresaw that the nation might someday be forced to deal
with a psychopathic or sociopathic president.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We will find out in the coming weeks and months whether current U.S. leaders
have enough honor, loyalty, and patriotism to follow the course of action and
procedures that the Founders painstakingly established.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-58329949290504619282018-12-01T05:19:00.000-08:002019-01-02T05:16:08.668-08:00A PUBLIC FORUM ON RE-SEGREGATION, PRIVATIZATION, AND DE-FUNDING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION<br />
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">On January 28, 2015, the
democratically-elected and majority black board of directors for the Little
Rock School District (LRSD) was dissolved by the Arkansas Board of Education
(ArBOE). At the time, the LRSD was the largest public school district in Arkansas.
Since then, the LRSD has experienced declining enrollment, closure of schools
in neighborhoods south of Interstate 630, and other problems. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background: yellow; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: yellow;">In
connection with the fourth anniversary of the dissolution of the LRSD school
board on January 28, 2019, in recognition that 2019 will be the 100<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of the September 1919 Elaine Race Massacre and Land Theft, and
because 2019 will be the 400<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the delivery of
African slaves at Jamestown, Virginia, New Millennium Church, the Samuel DeWitt
Proctor Conference, and the Vanderbilt Divinity School Public Theology and Racial
Justice Collaborative will co-sponsor a <b>Public Forum on Re-Segregation,
Privatization, and De-Funding of Public Education </b>at New Millennium Church (21 Lakeshore Drive, Little Rock, Arkansas) on January 24, 25, and 26, 2019.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">
During the Forum, local and community public education advocates, activists,
policy makers, and influence leaders will join respected scholars of history,
sociology, ethics (moral theology), and psychology to address current and past
realities surrounding segregation, privatization, and efforts to de-fund public
education to the detriment of children and families in the LRSD. Because
New Millennium Church is a social justice ministry in keeping with the
liberating gospel of Jesus, NMC is pleased to host and co-sponsor the
Forum. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’m posting this message to inform you
about the Forum, ask that you support the Forum with your prayers, presence,
and contributions, and invite others to attend Forum sessions. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Forum will feature keynote
presentations by the following distinguished persons:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Iva Carruthers, Ph.D.,
General Secretary of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Teresa Smallwood, Ph.D.,
Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Divinity School Public Theology and
Racial Justice Collaborative<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Terrence Roberts, Ph.D.,
Principal, Terrence Roberts Consulting<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Nancy MacLean, Ph.D.,
William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy, Duke University<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></li>
</ul>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">The objectives of the Public Forum on
Re-Segregation, Privatization, and De-Funding of Public Education are:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Provide informed
non-partisan analysis about the political, commercial, social, and moral
issues surrounding the history and current realities of segregation in
public education and their impact on children and families in the Little
Rock School District.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Present perspectives of
parents, guardians, patrons, educators, civic and faith leaders, and
public education advocates and activists concerning the history,
status, and future of public education in the Little Rock School District.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Inform the public how
capitalism influences public education policy and administration, and the
effect of that influence on children and families in the Little Rock
School District.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
</ol>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Here is the Schedule of Events (all
at New Millennium Church):<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">January 24 (Thursday),
2019, 6-8 p.m. – <i>Re-Segregation and Transgenerational Trauma</i>
- Dr. Iva Carruthers (keynote presenter) and Dr. Teresa Smallwood
(facilitator)</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">January 25 (Friday),
2019, 6-8 p.m. – <i>Re-Segregation, Privatization, De-Funding and the
Color of Law</i> – Dr. Terrence Roberts (keynote presenter) and Rev.
Wendell Griffen (facilitator)</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">January 26 (Saturday),
2019, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. – <i>Re-Segregation, Privatization, and De-Funding
of Public Education: The Threat to Democracy </i>– Dr. Nancy MacLean
(keynote presenter) and local public education advocates Dr. James Ross,
Dr. Anika Whitfield, Pastor Toney Orr, and Senator Joyce Elliott
(panelists)</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">On Sunday, January 27, 2019, Dean Emilie
Townes of Vanderbilt Divinity School will deliver a sermon at New Millennium
Church during worship at 9 a.m., and will engage in an informal “town hall”
conversation after the service. The service and “town hall” conversation,
while not part of the Forum, will be open to Forum attendees and the general
public. Dean Townes will also be the featured guest of the
Barbershop Radio Program at 9 a.m. on Saturday, January 26, 2019, on community
radio station KABF, 88.3 FM which airs each Saturday from 9-10 a.m. over the
Internet at <a href="http://www.kabf.org/">www.kabf.org</a>, sponsored by New
Millennium Church. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">A registration fee of $50 per person will
cover all Forum sessions. Online registration at <a href="http://www.newmillenniumchurch.us/">www.newmillenniumchurch.us</a> will
commence December 12, 2018, and continue thru January 16, 2019. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Forum is made possible through
generous support from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, the Vanderbilt Divinity School
Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative, and New Millennium
Church. Persons interested in also supporting the Forum may send
contributions to New Millennium Church online at <a href="http://www.newmillenniumchurch.us/">www.newmillenniumchurch.us</a>, or by
mail to New Millennium Church, 21 Lakeshore Drive, Little Rock, AR 72204
(designate “Forum on Re-Segregation” on the memo of the check). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">I invite you to be part of what will be a
historic, enlightening, and prophetic conversation. Monitor the websites
of New Millennium Church (<a href="http://www.newmillenniumchurch.us/">www.newmillenniumchurch.us</a>),
the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (<a href="http://www.sdpconference.info/">www.sdpconference.info</a>),
the Vanderbilt Divinity School Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative
(<a href="https://www.publictheologyracialjustice.org/">https://www.publictheologyracialjustice.org/</a>),
and community radio station KABF FM 88.3 – “The Voice of the People” – (<a href="http://www.kabf.org/">www.kabf.org</a>) for coming information.
Questions concerning the Forum may be submitted to <a href="mailto:info@newmillenniumchurch.us">info@newmillenniumchurch.us</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Grace and Peace, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wendell Griffen<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Author, <i>The Fierce Urgency of
Prophetic Hope</i> (Judson Press, 2017)<br />
Pastor, New Millennium Church<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.newmillenniumchurch.us/">www.newmillenniumchurch.us</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">21 Lakeshore Drive<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Little Rock, AR 72204<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">(501) 416-1917 mobile<br />
<br />
Hope fiercely! Love boldly!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">We will either find a way or make
one. Hannibal of Carthage<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Love one another. Jesus of Galilee<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com55tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-52759605208779545302018-11-05T03:16:00.000-08:002018-11-05T03:16:04.510-08:00WATCHING FOR SIGNS OF REPENTANCE<br />
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">November 5, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On November 8, 2016, 81 percent of white
evangelical voters in the United States supported Donald Trump despite evidence
of his personal and commercial racism, misogyny, fear and hatred of immigrants,
and deceitfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their votes did not
show that they see God in our neighbors who are immigrants, sick, and otherwise
vulnerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Since then, white clergy who say they
are evangelical followers of Jesus have grinned, applauded, and lavished praise
on President Donald Trump despite daily proof of his dishonest, boorish,
racist, sexist, and xenophobic character and conduct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White clergy who claim to being followers of
the Palestinian Jewish fellow named Jesus – whose parents were forced to seek
asylum with him in Egypt during his early childhood – have been silent as Mr.
Trump has ordered military forces to prevent unarmed immigrants from Central
America from seeking asylum in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White clergy were silent after President
Trump referred to immigrants from Haiti and nations on the continent of Africa
as being from “shithole” countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Most white clergy were silent when
President Trump urged Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act that
guarantees access to affordable healthcare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If many white pastors reminded their congregants that Jesus spent most
of his ministry healing people who were sick and poor and did so without
charging anything – let alone requiring a co-pay – I suspect that would have
been newsworthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t recall seeing
news reports that white clergy in Arkansas, or elsewhere for that matter,
suggested that efforts to dismantle a system of affordable health care don’t
square with the gospel accounts of the healing ministry of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After white supremacists, white
nationalists, and neo-Nazi sympathizers attacked peaceful protestors in
Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, President Trump said that there were “fine
people on both sides.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do you
recall white evangelical clergy saying in response?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you attend a predominantly white
evangelical church, what did you do about that response, or failure to
respond?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Evidence has been mounting over the past
two years about efforts to intimidate, suppress, discourage, and disenfranchise
people of color from voting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Native
American, Latino, and black voters have been deliberately targeted for
gerrymandering, closure of polling places, and misinformation about voting
requirements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How have white clergy and
congregations responded?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I join those who are encouraging young
voters, people from lower income households, women, and people of color to vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope young voters, people from lower income
households, women, people of color, persons who are LGBTQ, senior citizens, and
other people who are marginalized turn out and vote in record numbers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">At the same time, I’m watching to see if
white people who attend evangelical churches across the nation will vote the way
they did in 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m watching for signs
that white people who call themselves evangelical followers of Jesus will turn
away from the hateful, fear-mongering, bellicose, power-driven dishonesty of
President Trump and his political cronies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
watching for signs of repentance from white evangelical voters. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The proof of white evangelical repentance
will not consist of people of color being invited to kum-ba-yah gatherings with
white evangelicals to hold hands, sing “We Shall Overcome,” and exchange
pleasantries during religious dinner parties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The proof of white evangelical repentance will not consist of black and
Latino preachers and congregations being invited to sing, pray, and preach with
white evangelicals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I join others who question whether white
evangelicals are followers of Jesus at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They often seem to confuse the gospel of Jesus with white supremacy and
notions of U.S. empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White religious
nationalism is heresy to the gospel of Jesus, not faithfulness to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So tomorrow night, I’ll watch election
returns to see whether white people who call themselves evangelical followers
of Jesus will, again, prove that they prize white supremacy above the inclusive
and liberating gospel of divine grace, truth, justice, and peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll look for evidence that white people who
claim to be followers of the Palestinian Jewish itinerant prophet and healer named
Jesus are turning away from white religious nationalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll be watching and hoping for signs of white
evangelical repentance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t expect that
election results tomorrow will support my hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet, I hope for justice no matter how
white evangelicals vote tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White
evangelicals have a long history of misrepresenting God and supporting
injustice. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God has a longer history of proving them
wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I hope for justice because I
trust God, not white evangelicals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-29092070484124831682018-09-28T06:41:00.001-07:002018-09-28T06:41:12.851-07:00LESSONS TO REMEMBER ABOUT THE KAVANAUGH SPECTACLE<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is a Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">September 28,
2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now
that the September 27, 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing spectacle involving
Judge Brett Kavanaugh and sexual assault allegation by Dr. Christine Blasey
Ford has concluded, let’s consider a few things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ponder white
male privilege, rage and cultural incompetence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The most controversial issue facing the
nation surrounding Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination is whether allegations that he
engaged in unlawful sexual conduct and bullying behavior as a high school,
college, and law student disqualify him for confirmation as Associate Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Although
Dr. Ford’s allegation that Judge Kavanaugh attempted to rape her when they were
high school students captivated national attention yesterday, Judge Kavanaugh
has also been accused of exposing his genitals to Deborah Ramirez.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has been accused of being present, if not
complicit, when his male friends allegedly gang-raped girls who were impaired
by alcohol and drugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Judge Kavanaugh
has been accused of bullying conduct when inebriated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Senate Judiciary Committee is the body responsible for advising the United
States Senate on the fitness of people who are nominated for lifetime
appointments to the federal judiciary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
what happened on September 27, 2018 didn’t resemble a sensible and competent effort
by the Senate Judiciary Committee to hear any of the serious allegations about
Judge Kavanaugh’s fitness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, we witnessed
an unforgettable display of white male rage, wounded pride, and cultural
incompetence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Reflect
on Judge Kavanaugh’s visceral fury and evasiveness concerning why he refused to
request that the confirmation process be suspended to permit the Federal Bureau
of Investigation to investigate the allegations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Imagine
how senators would consider it disrespectful had a woman or person of color
witness or nominee shouted at Judiciary Committee members during a confirmation
hearing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Imagine
what the response might have been had a woman or person of color member of the
Judiciary Committee shouted curses toward other Committee members as Senator
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina behaved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Imagine
how parents of color would be condemned for allowing teenagers of color to
engage in underage drinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Imagine
what would be said about parents of color if girls were sexually assaulted
during house parties where parents were not present and alcoholic beverages
were openly consumed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ponder
the white male rage, privilege, hypocrisy, and cultural incompetence displayed
yesterday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ponder deliberate
disregard for basic standards of credibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Trial
lawyers and judges know that demeanor is a fundamental aspect of evaluating
witness credibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evasive, belligerent,
insolent, and rude behavior during cross examination does not mean a witness is
telling the truth, but that a witness is offended about the prospect of things
being uncovered which the witness would rather hide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Judge
Kavanaugh’s answers during questioning by Democratic members of the Judiciary
Committee were evasive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He rudely
interrupted questioners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was flippant
in responding to questions about whether he lost consciousness or forgot events
that occurred when he became inebriated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">No
matter where Judge Kavanaugh attended prep school, college, or law school,
allegations of sexual assault, offensive sexual conduct, complicity in sexual
assault, and bullying deserve serious attention by anyone responsible for
evaluating a judicial nominee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But throughout
Judge Kavanaugh’s fiery and sometimes tearful testimony, he repeatedly evaded questions about his willingness to have the FBI investigate the allegations by making
self-serving and self-righteous claims about his academic rank in high school
and college, his efforts as an athlete, and his friendships as if that
information somehow should matter to anyone trying to learn the truth about the
allegations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Does
anyone seriously contend that a woman or person of color who behaved as Judge
Kavanaugh did during testimony anywhere would be considered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">credible</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ponder disregard
for the rule of adverse inference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is
universally recognized – meaning accepted law everywhere – that when a party with
the power to produce information concerning a material issue fails or refuses
to do so, that failure or refusal creates a reasonable inference that the
information would be unfavorable to that party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Trial judges and lawyers recognize this as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">adverse inference </i>instruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
instruction is expressed in Arkansas Model Jury Instruction 106A as
follows:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where relevant evidence is within the control of the party in whose
interest it would naturally be to produce it, and that party fails to do so
without satisfactory explanation, you may draw the inference that such evidence
would have been unfavorable to that party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Judge
Kavanaugh’s refusal to consent to an FBI investigation and President Trump’s
refusal to order an FBI investigation into the serious allegations about Judge
Kavanaugh’s fitness creates an inference that evidence which might have been
uncovered during an FBI investigation – which Judge Kavanaugh refused to
request and President Trump refused to order – concerning those allegations would
have been unfavorable to Judge Kavanaugh’s quest for confirmation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Whatever
one may think about Judge Kavanaugh’s fitness to serve on the Supreme Court,
one thing is obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>September 27, 2018
was not a good day for the Supreme Court, the nation, survivors of sexual violence,
the rule of law, cultural competence, and justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thank
you, President Trump. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-56881166297309477142018-09-27T05:14:00.000-07:002018-09-27T05:14:33.179-07:00THIS IS ANOTHER TAMAR TRAVESTY<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is a Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">September 27,
2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Republican members of
the Senate Judiciary Committee go through the motions surrounding the sexual
assault and other allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, I invite you to
recall the Old Testament account concerning Tamar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">According
to 2 Samuel 13, Tamar was “a beautiful sister” of Absalom, King David’s second son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was also half-sister to Amnon, King David’s
first son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amnon raped Tamar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At 2 Samuel 13:21, we read that King David refused
to punish Amnon because “he loved him, for he was his firstborn,” meaning the
crown prince.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2 Samuel 13 offers important
lessons about patriarchy, male privilege, objectification of women, and the
ways powerful men mistreat victims of sexual assault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Judge
Brett Kavanaugh denies that he sexually assaulted Dr. Christine Blassy Ford
when they were teenagers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He denies that
he was present along with Mark Judge (his college roommate) when young women
were plied with alcohol and sexually assaulted by other men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He denies that he engaged in offensive sexual
conduct toward women at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then what makes
the Old Testament lesson about Tamar relevant to Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like
Tamar, Dr. Ford and the other women who accuse Judge Kavanaugh of sexual
violence have been maligned by powerful men who are determined to shield Judge
Kavanaugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Trump, Majority
Leader McConnell, Judiciary Chairman Grassley, and Republican members on the
Senate Judiciary Committee seem determined to shield Judge Kavanaugh from an
impartial and professional investigation concerning the accusations by Dr. Ford
and the other women who have accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Judge Kavanaugh, like Amnon, is getting “crown
prince” treatment from the very people who have the authority and obligation to
investigate the sexual assault allegations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Don’t
be fooled because Senator Grassley has hired Maricopa County, Arizona
prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Dr. Ford before the Judiciary Committee
today. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seasoned prosecutors and defense lawyers
question witnesses publicly only after thoroughly investigating the background
of those witnesses and the subjects the witnesses will testify about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The FBI hasn’t investigated the sexual
assault allegations about Judge Kavanaugh by Dr. Ford or anyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The FBI hasn’t investigated Judge Kavanaugh’s
denials of those allegations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because Judge Kavanaugh, like Amnon, is
getting “crown prince” treatment from the people who can require FBI
investigations into the sexual assault allegations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Neither
the prophet, Nathan, nor any other prophet spoke up for Tamar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No religious leader denounced what happened
to her, or condemned the way King David and other powerful men shielded Amnon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, none of the religious leaders who
brag about their access to President Trump and influence with Majority Leader
McConnell, Chairman Grassley, and other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have
been quoted in the media concerning the sexual assault allegations made by Dr.
Ford and other women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because Judge Kavanaugh, like Amnon, is
getting “crown prince” treatment from religionists who claim to be moral
counselors to Judge Kavanaugh’s political sponsors and allies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Amnon,
as crown prince, was positioned to succeed David as king of Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Judge Kavanaugh is positioned to succeed Justice
Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court of the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Tamar, Dr. Ford and other women who have
accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual violence are being patronized – but not
protected – because they are viewed as disposable obstacles to the elevation of
a privileged man to higher office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Privileged
politicians and religious leaders – all men – are shielding Judge Kavanaugh and
mistreating Dr. Ford and other victims of sexual violence in 2018 the same way privileged
and powerful politicians and religious leaders – all men – shielded Amnon and mistreated
Tamar in the Old Testament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’ve
written this essay to condemn the latest example of the Tamar travesty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m also calling on Senators John Boozman and
Tom Cotton of Arkansas to refrain from voting whether to confirm Judge
Kavanaugh until the FBI has investigated and issued a written report to the
Office of the President and the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning the accusations
from Dr. Ford and other sexual violence victims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
are you doing to condemn and prevent the current example of the Tamar travesty?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-16486549110198242822018-09-26T05:30:00.000-07:002018-09-26T05:39:32.126-07:00HAIL TO THE HYPOCRITES<br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">September 26,
2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier
matters of the law:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>justice and mercy
and faith… You blind guides!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You strain
out a gnat but swallow a camel!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Matthew 23:23-24
(New Revised Standard Version)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Those
prophetic words by Jesus concerned moral and political leaders in Palestine
during his lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also apply,
sadly, to evangelical religious conservatives and national political leaders regarding
the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States (SCOTUS).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Constitution of the United States vests authority in the President of the United
States (POTUS) to nominate “Judges of the supreme court” (Article II, Section
2.2) “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Trump is the only person authorized
to nominate Judge Kavanaugh to become Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is also the only person
authorized to request an investigative report, in writing, from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation in the Justice Department concerning Judge Kavanaugh’s
background for honesty, integrity, legal competence, and moral and ethical
fitness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">President
Trump is the only person who can authorize the FBI to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">investigate</i> the allegation by Dr. Christine Blassy Ford that Judge
Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Dr. Ford when they were teenagers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">President
Trump is the only person who can authorize the FBI to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">investigate</i> the allegation by Deborah Ramirez that Judge Kavanaugh
sexually exposed himself to her when they were students at Yale
University.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">President
Trump is the only person who can authorize the FBI to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">investigate </i>reports by Judge Kavanaugh’s former schoolmates that
Judge Kavanaugh engaged in boorish and offensive conduct during bouts of
drinking when they attended high school, college, and law school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>President Trump is the only person who can authorize the FBI to investigate whether Judge Kavanaugh's denials about the allegations are true. He knows this. Judge Kavanaugh knows this. The members of the United States Senate know this.</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Senator
Charles “Chuck” Grassley and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of the U.S. Senate
are the people can request that President Trump direct the FBI to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">investigate </i>the allegations that Judge
Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Dr. Ford, sexually exposed himself to Ms. Ramirez,
and engaged in drunken and boorish conduct during his years in high school,
college, and law school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They refuse to
do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And they also refuse to subpoena people with knowledge about Judge Kavanaugh's background concerning the sexual assault, sexual exhibitionism, and intemperate drinking allegations.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">President
Trump despises the FBI and its investigative role because he despises the rule
of law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mr.
Trump fired James Comey as Director of the FBI after Comey refused to declare
personal allegiance to Trump.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">President Trump
regularly criticizes the FBI for investigating allegations about corrupt
practices, dishonesty, and other misbehavior by Trump administration officials,
by Paul Manafort (Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016), Trump’s personal attorney,
and people involved in Trump’s business practices.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">President
Trump is a notorious misogynist and self-admitted sexual predator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He once described his daughter as “a fine
piece of ass.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He once bragged that his
maleness, celebrity, and wealth enable him to forcibly grab women by their
genitalia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Majority
Leader McConnell and Chairman Grassley know these things about President Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Republican members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee know these things about President Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> They and other Republican members of the Senate are not requesting </span>President Trump to authorize the FBI to investigate serious allegations of sexual assault, sexual
exhibitionism, and intemperate drinking by Judge Kavanaugh. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Those leaders know that President Trump despises the FBI. And they know the FBI is routinely trusted to conduct non-partisan investigations concerning the backgrounds of all federal judges. Each member of the Senate could properly refuse to vote on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination unless and until the Senate Judiciary Committee has received an FBI report and had the opportunity to conduct proceedings concerning the allegations against him based on that report. Any member of the Senate could publicly announce that he or she will not vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh unless and until the FBI has investigated the allegations, issued a report concerning them to the Office of the President and the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Judiciary Committee members have included the report and any questions they have regarding it in confirmation hearings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is telling that no Senator has announced that he or she will take that principled stance. Their refusal to do so makes each Senator complicit with President
Trump’s gross disregard for the rule of law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Judge
Kavanaugh denies the allegations that he sexually assaulted Dr.
Ford, exposed himself to Ms. Ramirez, and engaged in intemperate drinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, because President Trump refuses to authorize
the FBI to investigate those allegations, Judge Kavanaugh knows the
allegations will not be investigated by the only non-partisan investigative
agency authorized to question him and anyone else about them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Make no mistake, Judge Kavanaugh doesn't want an FBI investigation into those allegations. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Otherwise, Judge Kavanaugh would have issued a statement along the following lines: "In the interest of transparency, the integrity of the confirmation process and the integrity of the Supreme Court, and justice, I ask President Trump to authorize the FBI to investigate the sexual assault, sexual exhibitionism, and drunken misconduct allegations that have been asserted against me. For the same reasons, I also ask the Senate Judiciary Committee to suspend further consideration of my nomination until the FBI has conducted that investigation and issued a written report concerning the investigation to the Office of the President and to members of the Judiciary Committee. I pledge to cooperate with FBI investigators and look forward to speaking with them concerning the allegations." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Judge Kavanaugh has the power to issue that statement. One word - <i>hypocrisy </i>- explains why he has not done so and will not do so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wealthy
donors to Republican politicians and self-proclaimed evangelical religious
conservatives are determined to get Judge Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court at all
costs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want Judge Kavanaugh to overturn
SCOTUS rulings that uphold reproductive freedom for women and girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want Judge Kavanaugh to limit the power
of federal agencies to protect people, animals, the air, soil, and water from
health risks posed by corporate polluters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They want Judge Kavanaugh to limit access to voting by people who have
been historically disenfranchised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
want Judge Kavanaugh to vote against protections for workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="font-size: large; mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hail to the hypocrites! One longs to see people who believe in justice, mercy, and faith denounce them the way Jesus did. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: large;">Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you ...have neglected… justice and mercy
and faith… You blind guides! You strain
out a gnat but swallow a camel! </span></i></div>
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-2721135418119174352018-09-19T21:44:00.001-07:002018-09-20T02:56:03.078-07:00MISOGYNY, HYPOCRISY, AND THE BRETT KAVANAUGH SCOTUS CONFIRMATION PROCESS<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!</span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To use the lyrics of a song by Stevie
Wonder (You Haven’t Done Nothing), I’ve been “amazed but not amused” by the way
people have reacted since Dr. Christine Blassey Ford’s allegation surfaced last
week that Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were
teenagers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is amazing that people who profess to
be “tough on crime” now seem willing to treat an allegation of attempted rape
as mere horseplay because it allegedly was perpetrated by a drunken teenager
named Brett Kavanaugh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is amazing that people who profess to
support law enforcement – including members of the Judiciary Committee of the
United States Senate – are unwilling to allow the premier law enforcement
investigative agency in the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">investigate</i> an allegation of
attempted rape by a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is amazing that the President of the
United States, Donald J. Trump, is unwilling to direct the FBI to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">investigate</i> the allegation that
President Trump’s nominee, Judge Kavanaugh, sexually assaulted Christine
Blassey when they were teenagers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It makes no difference that other women consider
Judge Kavanaugh to be a decent man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
issue is whether he tried to rape Dr. Christine Blassey Ford when they were
teenagers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he did, then the issue is
whether attempted rape – even as a juvenile – is conduct that should be
considered in determining whether Judge Kavanaugh should be confirmed for
appointment as an Associate Justice of the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In short, the issue is whether the
nation deserves an impartial investigation concerning an allegation of juvenile
misogyny, and whether that conduct, if it occurred, should somehow be excused
decades later when the alleged misogynist is a candidate for a lifetime
appointment to the highest court in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do we really mean what we say when we say that
women and girls deserve to be safe from sexual assault?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or are we only paying lip service to the
belief that sexual assault is despicable conduct, regardless to the age of an
alleged assailant?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chairman Charles “Chuck” Grassley of the
Senate Judiciary Committee should formally request that President Trump direct
the FBI to investigate Dr. Ford’s sexual assault allegation against Judge
Kavanaugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, investigation of
presidential nominees for key appointments in the federal government, including
appointments to the SCOTUS, is what the FBI routinely does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, I doubt that will happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chairman Grassley, his Republican colleagues
on the Judiciary Committee, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell know how
much President Trump dislikes – despises is probably the more accurate word –
the FBI, the Justice Department, and the investigative process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Trump holds the wrong-headed belief
that the Justice Department owes him, rather than the nation, personal
loyalty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is also rather unlikely, for another
reason, that President Trump will ask the FBI to investigate Judge Kavanaugh
regarding sexual assault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President
Trump has a less-than-favorable record when it comes to fair treatment of
women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He once bragged that his wealth, maleness, and celebrity allows him to forcibly grab the genitalia of women.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">One is reminded of how King David, the second ruler of Israel, and other male leaders of his government failed after David's son and crown prince, Amnon, raped his half-sister and David's daughter Tamar (see 2 Samuel 13). Tamar spent the rest of her life as an un-vindicated sexual assault victim because David and other male leaders were more interested in protecting Amnon than they were concerned about her. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I hope Dr. Ford holds fast to her demand
for an FBI investigation of her sexual assault allegation against Judge
Kavanaugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever the outcome of such
an investigation might be, the nation can be sure that it will performed by
qualified law enforcement professionals, including people skilled in performing investigations of sexual assault allegations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Professor Ford deserves to have her allegation investigated by the FBI.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Judge Kavanaugh also deserves it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Above all, the nation deserves it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It remains to be seen whether hypocrisy will
cause Senator Grassley, his Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, Majority Leader McConnell, and President Trump to try to fool the nation and wider world into believing
they want a thorough investigation about whether Judge Kavanaugh engaged in a
sexual assault – attempted rape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 49.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Stevie Wonder put it so well in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You Haven’t Done Nothing</i>, “we are amazed
but not amused by all the things you say you’ll do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-62752954980014228852018-07-17T05:26:00.000-07:002018-07-17T05:27:22.609-07:00IMBECILE IN CHIEF<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">IMBECILE IN CHIEF<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wendell Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is a Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">July 17, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We’ve
had vicious kings and we’ve had idiot kings, but I don’t know if we’ve ever
been cursed with a vicious idiot for a king.</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Tyrion Lannister (from Game of Thrones
spoken regarding King Joffrey Lannister, his nephew)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">People
familiar with the Home Box Office blockbuster Game of Thrones television series
will recall that line spoken by Tyrion Lannister (the character portrayed by
Peter Benchley) to describe King Joffrey Lannister (his nephew portrayed by
Jack Gleeson).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now the world knows the
current President of the United States is a vicious idiot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
has been widely known for years that Donald Trump is vain, untruthful, and a
rich fool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, President Trump’s behavior during his recent European
trip shocked longstanding observers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
poor fellow scolded U.S. NATO allies about not paying enough for their own
defense, then praised Russian president Vladimir Putin for being strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr. Trump engaged in the feckless act of
publicly extolling the veracity of Putin, a former KGB intelligence officer,
over the unanimous findings of the entire U.S. intelligence community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Add
“Imbecile-in-Chief” to Mr. Trump’s title.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Central casting could not have found a better person to portray the role
of a fool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, Trump is not playing
a theatrical role.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
the last few days the world has seen what other people have known for
decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Donald John Trump is an
intellectual dullard, narcissist, pathological liar, and a fool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His main competence (if not his only
competence) is self-adulation and shameless showmanship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trump’s Fox News white supremacist and religious
nationalist base can crow all they please about “let Trump be Trump.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Donald Trump is not a comedy show or practical
joker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is President of the United
States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His feckless behavior affects our
lives and livelihood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Senator
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was correct during the 2015-16 campaign for
the Republican Party presidential nomination when he called Candidate Trump a “kook.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Trump is intellectually,
emotionally, politically, mentally, and morally unhinged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The issue is how we will deal with that
reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
United States House of Representatives could begin hearings on whether there is
ground to impeach Donald Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It won’t
do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most Members of Congress love
their own political standing more than they love protecting the nation from the
threats presented by our demented chief executive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States authorizes Vice
President Pence and a majority of the Cabinet Secretaries to report to Senator
Mitch McConnell (President pro tempore of the Senate) and Speaker Paul Ryan of
the House of Representatives “that the President is unable to discharge the
powers and duties of his office.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
won’t do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Congress, they love
their political standing more than they love protecting the nation from the disabled
fellow occupying the Oval Office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Our
situation reminds me of the Biblical account about King Saul, the first king of
Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Mr. Trump, Saul was a
megalomaniac, emotionally unstable, and a threat to his allies and his nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, Saul was denounced by Samuel, the
judge and prophet who anointed him to be king.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Don’t
expect Mr. Trump’s white religious nationalist cheerleaders to follow Samuel’s
example regarding Saul, nor that of Tyrion Lannister regarding Joffrey Lannister
in the HBO Game of Thrones dramatic television show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White religious nationalists are Trump’s most
faithful supporters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
unpleasant truth is that Donald Trump’s presidency is both a curse on the United
States and a curse from the United States on the wider world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks
to the election of 2016, the security of our nation, sanity of our world, strength
of U.S. armed forces and our NATO allies, stability of our economy, tranquility
of our society, and health and welfare of our population are threatened by one
reality:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the President of the United
States is a vicious idiot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
are cursed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Welcome to the “new normal.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-24088227544087297762018-07-11T07:13:00.000-07:002018-07-11T07:13:03.270-07:00THE DOMINANT RELIGION OF THE UNITED STATES IS WHITE SUPREMACY<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">July 11, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many
people have experienced the pain of learning unpleasant news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day people cope with learning they have
been diagnosed with terminal illness, news about the deaths of loved ones, loss
of jobs, termination of romantic relationships, and other traumatic events and
situations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today I bear similar
unpleasant news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White supremacy is a moral
and ethical cancer threatening the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Communities
of color have challenged, protested, and condemned racist policies in our
society for centuries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is time to
admit that the problem of racial injustice has always been deeper than unjust
policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Racial injustice exists and has
persisted across the entire history of this society – legally, economically, politically,
socially, and culturally – because white supremacy is now – and has always been
- <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sacralized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>By <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sacralized
</i>I mean that white supremacy has always been considered sacred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whiteness has always been the standard of
“rightness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
is, therefore, a fundamental mistake to view and treat white supremacy as
merely an attitude or a set of practices and policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White supremacy is something approaching a
theology in this society, if not the world!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The evils of mass incarceration, state sanctioned abuse and homicide of
black and brown people by police agencies, racist immigration policies that
target persons from South and Central America, South Asia, Africa, and Muslims,
dislocation and other economic oppression of communities of color through
gentrification and other commercial schemes, and the refusal to engage in the
long overdue work of reparations are based on the conviction that white norms
are superior, that white culture is superior, that whiteness entitles one to a
presumption of superior morality, dignity, intellect, and privilege, and that
the only legitimate remedies for racial injustice are those fashioned and/or
accepted by white persons based on white norms and objectives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 27.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In this sense, race is not only a social
construct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White supremacy is a
theological construct whereby white norms, goals, and aims define what is
right, good, true, healthy, fair, and otherwise worthwhile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This theology
deified whiteness, demonized non-whiteness, and has deceived many people for
such a long time and so thoroughly that even theologians have not recognized
its religious nature and effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
because we have not treated white supremacy and white racism as sacralized
evil, we have not understood that white supremacy and racism must be
“de-sacralized” and exposed as demonic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 40.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hence, police officers routinely get
away with slaughtering unarmed black and brown people because white supremacy
has sacralized police brutality against black and brown communities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have the challenge of “de-sacralizing”
police brutality against black and brown people by calling police brutality demonic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 40.5pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 40.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Real estate speculators and developers are
allowed to dislocate communities of color – now as in the past – because white
supremacy has sacralized the idea that white presence on land and white
perspectives about who should be on land and decide how it is used are more
valuable and valid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We face the
challenge of “de-sacralizing” gentrification and other neo-urban renewal
schemes by saying that gentrification schemes are demonic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Opioid
addiction is now being widely considered a health crisis while heroin addiction
and other substance abuse have been viewed as proof of moral depravity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must “de-sacralize” the racist double-standard
and hypocrisy surrounding drug addiction, and declare that hypocrisy and deceit
to be demonic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Militarized
white people who openly carry firearms are lionized as protectors of public
safety and civil liberty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
people of color from the Native Americans to the Black Panther Party have been
vilified for insisting on the right to defend their communities from homicidal
and otherwise abusive white assaults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
have the challenge of “de-sacralizing” white supremacist- driven discourse
about public safety, and expose the deceit and hypocrisy surrounding “gun
rights” as demonic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
poisoned water in Flint, Michigan is sacralized evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Disregard for Puerto Rico after Hurricane
Maria is sacralized evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Religious
endorsement of a lifelong bigot to lead the nation is sacralized evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dislocating communities of color is
sacralized evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evil becomes embedded
and part of the ongoing life in a society only because it is sacralized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have the hard and urgent task of
“de-sacralizing” it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">For
starters, we must admit and declare the hard truth that racism and white
supremacy are not restricted to notorious white nationalists such as the Ku Klux
Klan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Racism and white supremacy are so embedded
in the foundational moral perspectives of white people as a whole, and in many
people of color for that matter, that most people do not recognize that white
supremacy dominates and defines what we think and behave!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now,
as it did before the Civil War, after Reconstruction, and during the challenge
to racial segregation, the wicked religion of white supremacy threatens the
moral, social, civic, and political future of our society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will followers of Jesus disavow and condemn white
supremacists and white Christian nationalists as heretics to the religion of
Jesus?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have we forgotten his words near
the end of the Sermon on the Mount?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Not
everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only
the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord,
did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many
acts of power in your name?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I will
declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers’” </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Matthew 7:21-23
(NRSV)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-52550295326483473862018-07-01T14:26:00.000-07:002018-07-01T14:26:17.408-07:00SORTING, SAYING, AND SEEING<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">July 1, 2018
(Sixth Sunday after Pentecost)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">New Millennium
Church<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Little Rock,
Arkansas <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #F9F9F9; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">God of hope,<br />
you are ruler of night as well as day,<br />
guardian of those who wander in the shadows.<br />
Be new light and life<br />
for those who live in the darkness of despair,<br />
for prisoners of guilt and grief,<br />
for victims of fantasy and depression,<br />
that even where death's cold grip tightens,<br />
we may know the power of the one<br />
who conquered fear and death. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2;">
<b><span style="color: #880000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Matthew 25:31-46<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">31</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the
angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">32</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All the
nations will be gathered before him, and <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">he will separate people one from another as a shepherd
separates the sheep from the goats, </span></span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">33</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats
at the left. </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">34</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">Then the king will say to those at his
right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world;</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">35</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">for I
was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to
drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">36</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I was
naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in
prison and you visited me.” </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">37</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then
the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and
gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">38</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you
clothing? </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">39</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited
you?” </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">40</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you
did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup><span style="color: #0000bb; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">*</span></sup></a><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> you
did it to me.” </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">41</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">Then he will say to those at his left
hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels;</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">42</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">for I was hungry and you
gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">43</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I was a
stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">44</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then
they also will answer, “<span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">Lord,
when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or
in prison, and did not take care of you?” </span></span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">45</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you
did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">46</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life.’</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I know that today is the last Sunday
before the U.S. Independence Day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
the first Sunday following the end of the 2017-18 term of the U.S. Supreme
Court.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is Day 526 of the presidency
of Donald John Trump.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">And as I pondered these facts, I keep
remembering the words of Jesus found at the end of Matthew 25.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am wondering about what Jesus would think
about the moral and ethical health of our society and world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">What would Jesus think about policies –
in the United States and in other nations – that treat immigrants as threats to
be imprisoned and quarantined rather than neighbors to be welcomed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">What would Jesus think about the “zero
tolerance” policy of the Trump administration that treats immigrants who seek
to the U.S. fleeing hunger, poverty, violence, and other harms and do not have
authorization to cross our borders as justification for tearing immigrant
children – infants, toddlers, and children of older years – from their parents?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">What would Jesus think about people who
call immigrant strangers “animals?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Where does anyone find justification in
the teachings of Jesus for treating anyone in these ways?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What in the teachings of Jesus justifies
putting immigrant children in internment camps?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">And finally, how would Jesus treat
people who treat immigrants this way?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The words of Jesus at the end of Matthew
25 provide clear answers to these questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus included the way strangers and people in prison are treated in the
list of things that distinguish people who are righteous (just) from those who
are wicked (unjust).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">According to Jesus, how we treat
immigrants matters to God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">According to Jesus, how we treat people
in prison – think of the immigrant adults in detention centers across the U.S.
and think about the immigrant children interned in separate locations from
their parents – matters to God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">There
are several why what is happening to immigrant families – parents and children
– in the United States and elsewhere around the world matters to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most urgent reason is that immigrants and
all other vulnerable people represent God’s presence among us!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lord,
when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or
in prison, and did not take care of you”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it
to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Immigrants are surrogates for God,
anywhere and everywhere <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In every society and age, there are
people who need shelter, food, and clean water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are people who need healing from disease, illness, and
injury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are people who have been
locked out and kept away from opportunities because of prejudice and
bigotry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in every society and age,
there are people who leave their homelands in the hope of finding a safe place
to live and work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">According to Jesus, these people,
including immigrants, are images of God among us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way we treat immigrants shows whether we
are righteous/just or wicked/unjust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">A
second reason why we should focus on the present way immigrants are treated is
that there are many passages in Scripture about the moral obligation to welcome
migrating people and treat them with fairness and dignity.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The words that appear in Scripture that apply
to non-citizens of a society are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">foreigner,
alien, stranger, and sojourner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Here
are some passages that address the moral duty owed to non-citizens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">You
shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of
Egypt</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">
(Exodus 22:21).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">You
shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you
were aliens in the land of Egypt </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">(Exodus 23:9).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">When
an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The alien who resides with you shall be to
you as the citizens among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you
were aliens in the land of Egypt </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">(Leviticus 19:33-34)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">For
the LORD your God is God of Gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and
awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, are executes justice for the
orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and
clothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You shall also love the
stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">(Deuteronomy
10:18-19).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">You
shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether other
Israelites or aliens who reside in your land in one of your towns </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">(Deuteronomy 24:14).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">You
shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">(Deuteronomy
24:17).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The
LORD watches over the strangers…but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">(Psalm 146:9).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">…
I will be swift to bear witness against those who thrust aside the alien… says
the LORD of hosts </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">(Malachi
3:5).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Now remember the words of Jesus at
Matthew 25:43:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I was a stranger and you did not welcome me</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Thirdly,
remember that in Jesus, God appeared in humanity as an immigrant!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> John’s Gospel
declares:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Word became flesh and lived among us </i>(John 1:14).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matthew’s Gospel recites that after Jesus was
visited by magi, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">an angel of the LORD
appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother,
and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to
search for the child, to destroy him.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to
Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod </i>Matthew 2:13-15).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Jesus, God has appeared among us as
Immigrant-in-Chief!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">According
to Jesus, God loves immigrants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is
especially concerned that immigrants are welcomed and treated fairly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God condemns those who mistreat immigrants,
who oppress immigrants, and who reject immigrants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Let
me put it bluntly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an offense
against the love and justice of God for anyone to mistreat foreigners, aliens,
strangers, and sojourners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is
wronged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is wounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God suffers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God will not ignore nor excuse injustice against and oppression of
foreigners, aliens, strangers, and sojourners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">That
is why followers of Jesus must declare Trump administration policy towards
immigrants to be wicked!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is wicked
because it is unjust, unloving, and unwelcoming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t allow anyone to fool you into thinking
that the actions of our nation towards immigrants will “Make America
Great…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They won’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wicked harms suffered by immigrants have stirred
people from every ethnic, political, religious, and economic background to rise
up in protest because Trump administration immigration policy is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wicked</i>!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Finally,
we should learn from Jesus how to define and deal with people who mistreat immigrants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Then
he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me
into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels </i>(Matthew
25:41).’” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Jesus
did not bless blessing on people who mistreat immigrants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus did not talk about praying for them or
being patient with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus did not
excuse them or show leniency toward them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And Jesus did not merely declare them to be wrong; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus cursed them</i>!<a href="file:///C:/Users/Wendell/Documents/Sermon_SORTING,%20SAYING,%20AND%20SEEING%20(Matthew%2025.31-46).docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-highlight: yellow;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">If
Jesus cursed immigrant hating people, why shouldn’t followers of Jesus curse
immigrant-hating politicians?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Jesus
cursed immigrant hating policies, why shouldn’t we curse them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Jesus refused to pray for immigrant hating
people, where do followers of Jesus find justification for behaving
differently? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Jesus called immigrant-hating
people offensive to God to the point of deserving eternal condemnation with
“the devil and his angels,” followers of Jesus can and should denounce and
condemn the people responsible for oppressive immigration policies as hellish.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">That
is why I do not ask you to pray for President Trump, Stephen Miller, Jefferson
Sessions, and the other politicians and operators of oppressive immigration
policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We, like Jesus, should curse
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The idea of praying for people who
conceive and enforce wicked policies violates the very words Jesus spoke in
this passage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That idea also violates the
other passages in Scripture that call on us to treat immigrants the same way we
treat citizens and remind us that God loves immigrants and is offended by people
who oppress them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">We
should curse the wicked politicians, and their religious enablers, who treat
immigrants as threats to national security and public safety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All information worth believing shows
immigrants to be the most law-abiding and hard-working people in our
society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should curse the “national
security” and “public safety” arguments concerning immigrants as deliberate
falsehoods, untruths, and lies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we
should curse the people who make those lies as hypocrites and liars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">We
must stop allowing hypocrites and liars to scare the society into mistreating
immigrants by using fear-mongering and bigotry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That means we should confront U.S. Senators and Members of Congress and
demand that they call on President Trump to re-unite immigrant parents and
children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should demand an end to the
“zero tolerance” criminalization of undocumented immigrants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should join protest demonstrations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should engage in acts of non-violent civil
disobedience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By these and other
actions, we show God and our immigrant neighbors that we love them, and that we
curse the wicked ways and words of our government leaders towards immigrants.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Beloved, the ways we treat immigrants
and view immigration are much more than political issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are profound moral questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Let
us sort these issues guided by God’s perspectives towards foreigners that are
clearly set out in Scripture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let us see
immigrants as surrogates of God, who in Jesus has lived among us as
Immigrant-in-Chief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And let us, as followers
of Jesus, say – as clearly, loudly, and strongly as we can – that hateful
people who practice and preach mistreatment towards immigrants are wicked,
unjust, and cursed.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
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<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Wendell/Documents/Sermon_SORTING,%20SAYING,%20AND%20SEEING%20(Matthew%2025.31-46).docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Scripture reveals that people can reach such a morally depraved condition that their
moral fate is sealed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When that happens,
God will not even listen to prayers on their behalf and prophetic people are
divinely ordered not to pray for them!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">As for you, do not pray for this people, or
lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call
on me in the time of their trouble</i> (Jeremiah 11:14).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Then
the LORD said to me:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though Moses and
Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Send them out of my sight, and let them go! (Jeremiah
15:1); </i>see also, Luke 16:19-26, where Jesus illustrated this point in the
vivid lesson about the fatal deficiency of an indifferent wealthy man and the
impossibility of altering his divine condemnation on account of that moral
defect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-64224489340707419182018-06-26T05:40:00.001-07:002018-06-26T05:40:25.928-07:00IT’S TIME TO REFOCUS<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">June 26, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">News
about the hateful words, policies, and practices of the Trump administration
dominate the airwaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s understandable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Trump’s comments, policies, and
practices should be discovered and exposed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">However,
we who believe in love and justice should focus more attention on building a counter-movement
to the hate, fear, hypocrisy, deceit, and authoritarian mindset that Donald Trump
represents, and that is particularly evident among white religious nationalists
in U.S. congregations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, white
religious nationalists pushed Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy ahead of
the rest of the Republican field in 2015 and 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They overwhelmingly voted to elect Donald
Trump, and remain his most faithful constituents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Any
hope that the U.S. can become an inclusive, thoughtful, and just society doesn’t
depend on President Trump or his white religious nationalist base.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Donald Trump and the white religious
nationalists who idolize him are white supremacists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t expect them to change their views or their
ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
hope depends on people who believe in justice, inclusion, and thoughtfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must turn our attention from Mr. Trump’s
hateful ways and words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must re-focus
our efforts on building and advancing a counter-movement that offers a vision of
a hopeful, thoughtful, inclusive, and just future for our society and world,
and works to make that vision the new reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
is not enough to merely be “anti-Trump” and “anti-white religious nationalist.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People need an alternative to hateful,
fearful, and otherwise wicked perspectives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They need to believe in light, not merely rail against darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
counter-movement focused on light will proclaim the truth that all are
neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Immigrants are our neighbors
from other lands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People in Puerto Rico
are our neighbors struggling to recover from the devastation of Hurricane
Maria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Women and girls, people holding
different views about faith, people of color, workers, people who are frail
because of illness, age, and other vulnerabilities, LGBTQ persons, the soil,
air, water, vegetation, and animals are our neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A counter-movement focused on light will say
so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
counter-movement of light will declare justice as our highest value, and that
justice only results from powerful love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A counter-movement of light understands that people can and will trust powerful
love more than vitriol and resentment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Shared
trust and commitment to powerful love can overcome hate, fear, deceit, hypocrisy,
greed, and violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
counter-movement of hopeful, thoughtful, inclusive, and just people will
out-shine any darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
counter-movement of truthful, freedom-loving, generous, and hospitable people
will out-shine deceit, hypocrisy, oppression, selfishness, and unwelcoming
people and policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
hope we will focus on being that counter-movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s turn our attention from the faces and
voices of darkness (Mr. Trump and his followers).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, let’s focus on being people of light
and powerful love, together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Cursing
darkness doesn’t create light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only
shining does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we focus our energies
on shining together, the resulting light of our powerful love will overcome the
darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
result of that powerful love will be justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-72530167771271666582018-06-22T05:09:00.000-07:002018-06-22T05:09:37.368-07:00UN-AMAZED AND UN-FOOLED<br />
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wendell Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">June 22, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Unlike
many people, I am not amazed that public policy in the United States towards
immigrant families from South and Central America is cruel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
am not amazed that President Donald Trump, his advisers, and political
supporters have lied – meaning they have said and persist in saying things that
are categorically untrue, false, inaccurate, and fraudulent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
am not amazed that immigrant children have been forcibly separated from their
mothers and fathers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
am not amazed that Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions quoted the
Bible in a shameless effort to justify that conduct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
am not amazed that religious leaders who supported Donald Trump to become
President of the United States are now trying to distance themselves from the hellish
Trump administration “zero tolerance” policy toward immigrants who commit the
misdemeanor offense of crossing the border without authorization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
I am not fooled by people who say the cruelty, dishonesty, and hypocrisy we are
witnessing every day is somehow a break from what the United States truly
is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
am “un-amazed” and “un-fooled” because I know the true history of this
nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This nation separated Native
American children from their parents and communities. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This nation separated and upheld the
enslavement and sale of African children from their parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This nation separated Japanese children and
their parents from their homes, schools, and neighborhoods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
nation separated Mexican children and their parents from lands their families
owned for generations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This nation
separated entire Native American communities from lands they occupied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">White
religious nationalists voted for the people who developed and carried out those
policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White religious nationalists profited
from those policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White religious
nationalists refused to join the victims of those wicked policies in calling
for reparations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yes,
we are living in a distressing time for people who care about justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are living in a distressing time for
people who care about democracy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are
living in a distressing time for people who care about immigrants, women and
girls, people who are black and brown, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are living in
distressing time for people who are followers of Islam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are living in distressing time for people
who are injured, ill, workers, aged, not affluent, and not white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are
living in a distressing time for people who believe in truth, generosity,
hospitality, justice, love, peace, and hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">However,
we should not be amazed or fooled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
U.S. has always behaved this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Donald
Trump’s administration is proof about the ugly, yet un-amazing, truth about
white religious nationalism and the demonic theology of white supremacy on
which white religious nationalism has always stood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">People
in the U.S. have always pretended they do not know that white supremacy is the
dominant theology of this society – no matter what religious affiliations they claim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White religious nationalism is how the
theology of white supremacy influences public policy at every level of this
society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
am un-amazed and un-fooled by the distressing things we are seeing, however
much I am distressed by them, because I have long understood that white
religious nationalism is not limited to the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizen
Council and other notorious white nationalist hate groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White religious nationalism is the pernicious
operating philosophy for the entire society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>White supremacy is the theology that undergirds it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
is why Donald Trump became President of the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why immigrant children have been
separated from their parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is
why the U.S. leads the world in mass incarceration, including detention of
children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why black and brown people
are routinely slaughtered by law enforcement agencies with impunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
should be saddened, distressed, angered, and determined to resist white
supremacy, white religious nationalism, and the unjust policies and practices
associated with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we should not be
amazed at it nor fooled by people who claim to be surprised about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
is what the United States has always been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
truth is ugly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
is not new. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-34459548126868267892018-06-13T04:52:00.000-07:002018-06-13T04:53:30.507-07:00UN-PROPHETIC WHITE BAPTISTS AND THE STATE OF THINGS<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">June 13, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are the
largest two bodies of white Baptists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So,
as Southern Baptists and Cooperative Baptists convene separately this week in
Dallas, Texas, a year and a half into the Trump presidency, ponder a few
questions with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Trump administration has been hard at work trying to deport undocumented
immigrants almost from the moment President Trump took office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What have Southern Baptist and Cooperative
Baptist leaders said or done to voice support for the immigrants subjected to that xenophobia and racism?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
did they say it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
did they appear before Trump administration officials and challenge the
policies as contrary to the gospel of Jesus?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
did they appeal to their constituents to mount phone, social media, and other
communication efforts to members of the U.S. Congress and Senate?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Where
are the prophets among white Baptists who have been speaking up for immigrants
who currently resemble the Palestinian Jewish family that, according to the New
Testament gospels, migrated to Egypt when their infant son named Jesus was
marked for death by a tyrant named Herod?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Prophetic
people nudge a society toward the moral imperative of repentance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I shared the following thoughts on that issue
during a 2015 lecture at Hardin-Simmons University in Texas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Bible also reveals that persons and societies are
called to repentance by prophetic challenge, not internal impulse.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Genesis we read of God confronting Adam
and Eve following the Fall and God confronting Cain after the murder of
Abel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we read of Noah confronting
his society before the Deluge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Exodus
Moses is the prophetic agent sent by God to confront the Egyptian empire with
the repentance imperative concerning oppression of the Hebrew population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The prophetic call to repentance is always an act of
protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an observation and
objection that the way we live violates the Great Commandment that we love God
with our whole being and love others as ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow, people are inspired to recognize that
people are not living as God would have us live, meaning that our relationships
are not right with God and each other, whether because of actions we take or
duties we neglect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow, the Spirit
of God inspires people with insight about love, truth, and justice
(righteousness) who are then impelled to protest conditions and situations that
violate the love, truth, and justice of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Without that protest, idolatry of self prevents us from recognizing our
sinfulness and confronting the imperative for repentance.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So repentance
does not begin with us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Repentance begins
with God whose love, truth, and justice define the meaning of right and wrong,
good and evil, healthful and harmful, just and unjust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God inspires people to see situations and
relationships from the divine perspective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then God commissions those inspired people to become prophetic
protestors with God for love, justice, and truth and confront persons and
societies to confess sinfulness, return to God, and restore what has been
harmed because of sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is no repentance, personally or societally, without
the disturbance of that subversive protest, subversive in that it asserts a
different and counter-cultural version about life, love, truth, and justice
from what is the dominant narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God
is literally Protestor in Chief concerning our actions and attitudes that
violate divine love, truth, and justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God summons prophetic protestors to proclaim God’s demand that we live
according to divine love, truth, and justice and protest our failure and
refusal to do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And in repentance, we join God in protesting our
transgressions and derelictions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We not
only agree with God that our transgressions and derelictions are wrong and
harmful. We agree to turn back toward God in repentance to protest our
sinfulness with God, and in repentance turn away from that sinfulness toward
God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With God’s help we become
protestors of our ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We not only
agree with God that our ways require prophetic protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In repentance we become God’s people of
protest, prophetic and subversive agents of divine love, truth, and
justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We never become repentant
people without somehow becoming prophetic people about God’s love, truth, and
righteousness (justice).</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus, the Hebrew
prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus and the people who followed Jesus were
prophetic subversives of repentance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They were markedly and intentionally inspired to view life and living
from the radically different perspective of divine love, truth, and justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That inspiration caused Moses to confront
Egyptian unjust treatment of Hebrew workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nathan was inspired to protest to David about misusing personal and
political power in his relationships with Bathsheba and Uriah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel
were inspired to protest the ways that power was abused to oppress widows,
children, immigrants, workers, the weak, and people who were poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus was inspired by the Holy Spirit to
protest the ways power was abused by religious authorities to oppress rather
than to liberate, to rupture fellowship rather than nurture reconciliation, and
to benefit the wealthy while disregarding the plight of suffering people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ponder
how history might have been different if white Baptists had entered into honest
dialogue with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rather than catered to popular racial
prejudice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ponder how history might have
been different if white Baptists had entered into honest dialogue with Dr. Samuel
DeWitt Proctor (who inspired Rev. Jesse Jackson and Dr. Jeremiah Wright).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ponder how history might have been different
if white Baptists had entered into honest dialogue with Dr. James Cone about
black liberation theology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ponder
how the coming years might be changed if Southern Baptists and Cooperative
Baptists learned from Dean Emilie Townes, one of the leading contemporary thinkers
about womanist theology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ponder how the
state of things might be challenged and changed if Southern Baptists and
Cooperative Baptists would bother to re-think the gospel of Jesus by hearing
from Dr. Cornel West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Each
person I have mentioned is or was black.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Each is or was recognized as being prophetic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">White
Baptists could benefit from more exposure to prophetic people who are not white
and privileged.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
exposure might inspire a new consciousness in them about faith, love, justice,
peace, truth, and hope. The new consciousness might lead to a deeper and
stronger awareness about the urgent need for repentance among white Baptists
and other religionists about white supremacy, patriarchy, xenophobia, racism,
sexism (including homophobia and transphobia), capitalism, imperialism,
militarism, and techno-centrism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
other words, it would force white Baptists to confront the idolatry of self and
its unjust societal and global results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
would be a very good thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-57052258945553972242018-06-12T06:03:00.000-07:002018-06-12T06:03:42.796-07:00BAPTIST MENDACITY ABOUT MISSIONS THIS WEEK IN DALLAS, TEXAS<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">June 12, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
week the Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
convene, separately, for their annual meetings in Dallas, Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>SBC and CBF constituents will – separately - sing,
pray, preach, hold hands, and talk about God’s love for the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Separately, leaders of both groups will
profess commitment to the Great Commission Jesus issued to his followers to
make disciples. This week in Dallas, Texas the largest white Baptist bodies in
the United States will put on the latest demonstration of their mendacity about
love and justice. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both groups will behave
as if religious ceremony, religious entertainment, and marketing schemes can undo
or make up for systemic, deliberate, and sacralized bigotry, discrimination,
and practiced disregard for victims of systemic injustice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Southern Baptist Convention meets this week on the heels of revelations about
sacralized misogyny in SBC seminaries led by Dr. Paige Patterson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Patterson has denied treating women and
girls unfairly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, credible
evidence that he condoned, enabled, and/or openly endorsed sexist, abusive, and
otherwise misogynistic treatment of women as leader of Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary led to his recent dismissal as President of Southwestern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Southern Baptist Convention was formed in 1845 by white Baptists who were
determined to permit slave owners to be appointed as foreign missionaries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Southern Baptists sang, preached, prayed,
held hands, and talked about God’s love for the world while insisting that
owning other humans and treating them like breeding stock was consistent with
God’s love and the religion of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Southern
Baptists supported racial segregation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Southern Baptists opposed and criticized the efforts of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Southern Baptists continue to deny women
opportunities for pastoral leadership.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
revelations surrounding Paige Patterson are merely the latest episode in Southern
Baptist sacralized bigotry and discrimination perpetrated in the name of the
Great Commission of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">White
Baptists displeased with fundamentalism, power politics, and sacralized
hostility to women in ministry formed the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in
1990.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the Convocation of the Baptist
Fellowship in Atlanta, Georgia on May 9, 1991, Cooperative Baptists adopted a
document titled “An Address to the Public,” considered the founding document of
that body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Early in that document one
finds this sentence:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Being Baptist
should ensure that no one is ever excluded who confesses, ‘Jesus is Lord (Philippians
2:11).’” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet in 2000, nine years later,
Cooperative Baptists adopted a hiring policy that banned employment of persons
who are lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Two
years ago, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship launched its Illumination Project
during its annual meeting at Greensboro, North Carolina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the Illumination Project was
purportedly created to give constituents a process aimed at reaching consensus
about contentious issues, one thing was clear from the outset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Illumination Project was contrived to game
dialogue and policy about the discriminatory hiring policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After an eighteen month period of “listening
sessions,” in February of this year the CBF Governing Board replaced the discriminatory
hiring policy that totally banned employment of LGBTQ persons with a policy
accompanied by an “implementation procedure” which bans married LGBTQ followers
of Jesus from employment as mission field personnel and several leadership
positions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
serve as pastor of New Millennium Church, an inter-racial welcoming and
affirming congregation in Little Rock, Arkansas that has been affiliated with
CBF since its formation in May 2009.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each
year since 2009, persons from New Millennium have attended and participated in annual
CBF General Assembly gatherings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">However,
I and others from New Millennium Church will not attend the 2018 General
Assembly in Dallas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We refuse to engage
in a charade whereby claims about professed devotion to the Great Commission of
Jesus and buzz words such as “big tent” and “denomi-network” are used by CBF to
justify excluding married LGBTQ Baptists from mission field and other
employment opportunities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
week, Southern Baptists and Cooperative Baptists will sing, pray, preach, hold
hands, and engage in other ceremonial acts two years after the Pulse nightclub
massacre in Orlando, Florida.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will
engage in religious preening three years after the Emmanuel A.M.E. church
massacre in Charleston, South Carolina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
the residents of Flint, Michigan continue suffering the toxic consequences of
the evil that has them purchasing unleaded fuel for automobiles while being
poisoned by leaded water, Southern Baptists and Cooperative Baptists will profess
commitment to the Great Commission of Jesus but say and do nothing to demonstrate
the compassion of God for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">SBC
constituents are unlikely to confess that the SBC enabled and condoned misogyny
and sex discrimination against women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CBF
constituents are unlikely to confess CBF bigotry and discrimination against
LGBTQ Baptists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both groups are unlikely
to say or do anything prophetic about the fact that unarmed black and brown
people are routinely slaughtered by law enforcement agencies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither group is likely to say or do anything
that approaches being prophetic about the injustice of gentrification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The harms suffered by victims of SBC and CBF bigotry,
misogyny, and discrimination will not be confessed, let alone remedied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no sign that either group will express
disappointment, let alone prophetic outrage, about how the people of Puerto Rico
have been mistreated and disserved by the Trump Administration since their
lives and communities were devastated last year by Hurricane Maria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
will be lots of singing, preaching, praying, and hand holding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, victims of sacralized bigotry and
discrimination will be ignored, patronized, blamed, and otherwise
trivialized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To put it plainly, white
Baptist mendacity about love and justice will continue without apology,
remorse, or any serious effort to begin repentance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
week, SBC and CBF constituents will demonstrate separate, albeit common, devotion
to their versions of religious empire, while professing love for God, their neighbors, and the creation in a blazing exhibition of sacralized mendacity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever else that audacious sacralized mendacity
may be, it isn’t obeying Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-65627728871674412152018-06-02T13:49:00.000-07:002018-06-02T13:49:05.724-07:00Paige Patterson's Misogyny Exposes Pervasive Bigotry and Patriarchy Among White Baptists <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/06/01/southern-baptist-seminary-drops-bombshell-why-paige-patterson-was-fired/?utm_term=.3748717e6d6a<o:p></o:p></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am
reminded of Dr. King's powerful statement that the moral arc of the universe
sweeps wide, but bends towards justice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How
do victims of Paige Patterson's wickedness achieve reparations? Do current
leaders of these religious institutions see no similarity between Patterson's
reign of misogyny and sexism and the abuse cases involving Catholic priests and
vulnerable persons?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Expect
some of the leaders to take solace in statutes of limitation which will work to
defeat claims dating beyond three to five years. That answers the legal
liability question for "stale" - the legal term - claims. It does not
address the moral, emotional, physical, and ethical harms inflicted on untold
women and girls at the hands of Patterson and any other persons whose similar
conduct he may have enabled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship convene,
separately and ironically, later this month in Texas. It will be interesting to
observe leaders of both groups try to ignore or play down the crocodiles of
longstanding injustices against women and persons of color (SBC) and persons
who are LGBTQ (CBF) that the world knows and sees in their respective bathtubs.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Those
efforts are doomed to fail. The "nones" - meaning persons who no longer are affiliated with any religion - include a growing influx of
former Baptists. SBC and CBF efforts to stop the bleeding by appealing to black
and Latino clergy and congregations cannot and will not change what the world
already accepts as true about their respective realities: notwithstanding their
pietistic rhetoric and pretensions about "inclusion," SBC and CBF are
merely different manifestations of white religious nationalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Civil
rights activists share a slogan, "No justice. No peace." </span>As
CBF meets later this month in Dallas on the heels of its Illumination Project exercise to apply
pietistic Great Commission makeup on a generation-long history of open bigotry and injustice toward followers of
Jesus who are LGBTQ, CBF leaders should ponder that slogan. They should think
of the Paige Patterson SBC history. They should think about the longstanding
bigotry and injustice CBF has tolerated and continues to empower aganst persons
who are LGBTQ. And, CBF leaders should remember what Dr. King said about the
moral arc of the universe.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Repentance
is a moral and ethical imperative and prerequisite to attaining reconciliation
and doing justice. Unfortunately, it appears that the largest predominantly
white Baptist bodies in the U.S. lack the capacity to perceive and pursue the
urgent imperative of repentance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
is not "good news" for victims of injustice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
is not "good news" for the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
is merely the latest manifestation of hatefulness masquerading in the costumes
of religion and empire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-35864398355990604482018-04-18T13:16:00.000-07:002018-04-18T13:16:46.072-07:00ONE YEAR LATER<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 69.3pt center 3.25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>ONE
YEAR LATER<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is a Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">April 18, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One year ago I and other members of
New Millennium Church took part in a peaceful and reverent Good Friday prayer
vigil outside the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion to express our moral and
religious opposition to capital punishment and our solidarity with Jesus of
Galilee, the leader of our faith who was put to death by crucifixion at the order
of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Palestine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We remembered that Jesus was a subject of
capital punishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On the following Monday (April 17,
2017), the Arkansas Supreme Court permanently banned me from all civil and
criminal cases involving capital punishment, the death penalty, or the method
of execution in Arkansas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So last October,
I filed a civil rights lawsuit against each member of the Arkansas Supreme
Court in federal court.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In that lawsuit, I challenged the
permanent ban issued by the justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court as a
violation of my First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of
assembly, freedom of religion, and freedom to exercise my religion, and my
Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law (because I was not given
notice nor a hearing before it was imposed).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I also challenged the permanent ban as a violation of my Fourteenth
Amendment right to equal protection under the law (because it is more severe
than punishment imposed to white judges who committed notorious and illegal
conduct such as accepting a bribe, drunken and reckless driving, and demanding
and accepting sexual favors from defendants in exchange for issuing lenient
sentences).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I challenged the
permanent ban because it resulted from conspiracy by the justices of the
Arkansas Supreme Court and others to deprive me of the powers of my elected
office based on animosity against me because I am African-American.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On April 12, 2018, the federal court
ruled that my lawsuit asserts factually plausible claims that the justices of
the Arkansas Supreme Court violated my rights to freedom of speech, freedom of
assembly, freedom of religion, freedom to exercise my religion, due process of
law, and equal protection under the law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The federal court also ruled that my lawsuit asserts a factually
plausible claim that the permanent ban issued by the justices of the Arkansas
Supreme Court resulted from an illegal civil conspiracy to deprive me of my
right to equal protection under the law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now my lawyers will uncover and expose the facts that bear out my legal
claims, facts that the justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court and others are
desperate to hide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am as committed to the rule of law
today as I was a year ago, if not more so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am as committed to holding and expressing my moral and religious
opposition to the death penalty as I was a year ago, if not more so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why I joined other members of New
Millennium Church last night (April 17, 2018) in attending another peaceful and
reverent vigil and demonstration outside the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I lay on a cot in silent prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I had my Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I wore a button calling for an end to
the death penalty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Arkansas law makes death by lethal
injection one of two alternative punishments for capital murder (the other
alternative is life imprisonment without parole).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I followed that law before Good Friday, 2017,
and I will follow it whenever my authority to preside over capital cases is
restored. I took an oath to follow the law, including laws that I consider
objectionable on moral and religious grounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">My obligation to follow the law does not
compel me to agree with every law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The First
Amendment to the US Constitution <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>protects my freedom to hold and express moral
and religious opposition to the death penalty, including freedom to peacefully and
lawfully question the morality of state-sanctioned premeditated and deliberate
killing of people who have been convicted for the premeditated and deliberate
killing of other persons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If a person who has been convicted of premeditated
murder is deliberately and premeditatedly killed, we should condemn that
killing as murder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Murder is wrong, even
when the state hires people to do it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anger
and bloodlust are not excuses for the state to commit premeditated murder of people
who have committed premeditated murder for an understandable reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two wrongs don’t make anything right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That was true a year ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is true a year later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-28128944160004178932018-04-04T04:34:00.000-07:002018-04-04T04:34:20.553-07:00DISHONORING DR. KING’S MINISTRY AND MEMORY THRU EULOGY<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://m.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/apr/04/half-century-later-20180404/">http://m.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/apr/04/half-century-later-20180404/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As people across the world
commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. today, the feature editorial in today's issue of the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette newspaper chose to eulogize Dr. King rather than criticize
injustice as he did. The editorial can be found at the link posted above. It
focuses on Dr. King's prophetic Letter From Birmingham City Jail response to
white moderate religionists in Birmingham who criticized Dr. King's presence
and direct nonviolent civil disobedience challenges to racial segregation in
Birmingham, Alabama. The editorial author chose to use the 50th
anniversary of Dr. King's assassination to applaud Dr. King's eloquence and
clarity in that letter penned from a jail cell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some observers will consider the
editorial a fitting, if not flattering commentary. However, that is neither
fair nor fitting to Dr. King's memory and ministry. Martin Luther King, Jr. did
not die on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee because he penned the eloquent
Letter From Birmingham City Jail in 1963. He was slain because he insisted and
persisted in confronting the United States about its flagrant hypocrisy about
and damning dedication to injustice. The Democrat-Gazette editorial dodged that
subject, as if King's greatest contribution to humanity was being an eloquent
scrivener. Dr. King's death should not be dismissed by flowery words
about his eloquence, erudition, and rhetorical competence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fifty years after Dr. King was
murdered, the giant evils of racism, militarism, and capitalist materialism he
challenged with increasing alarm and anger during his last years should not be
disregarded and discounted by resorting to eulogy. Respect for Dr. King's life
and the way he died deserves much more than pleasant words about his skill as a
communicator.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fifty years after April 4, 1968,
black, brown, red, and poor white people are routinely being slain by law
enforcement agents in the US. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Immigrants are being mistreated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Women and girls are being assaulted
and subjected to other unfairness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Voting rights are being undermined.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The air, water, and soil are being
poisoned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">US war-making continues 50 years
after the assassination of the prophet who courageously insisted that
war-making is a human rights issue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fifty years after Dr. King was
murdered in Memphis, workers are still being exploited in Memphis, Tennessee,
Little Rock, Arkansas, Dallas, Texas, and elsewhere across the US.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fifty years after Dr. King was
slain, religionists of all stripes are still more interested in civic
ceremonies than social justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fifty years after Dr. King's voice
was silenced, we should not be deceived when people eulogize Dr. King after
they spent the last half century working against social justice. We
should not accept shallow sentimentality as a substitute for societal repentance
and a fierce insistence on doing justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dr. King's memory and ministry
deserve much more than sentimental eulogies from us. Justice is a verb,
not a platitude.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wendell Griffen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Author, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Written from Memphis, TN<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hope
Fiercely! Love Boldly!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-20936407706341669222018-03-30T07:31:00.000-07:002018-03-30T07:54:15.199-07:00GOOD FRIDAY, EASTER, AND THE “RE-ASSASSINATION” OF DR. KING<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is a Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">March 30, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Good Friday marks the
crucifixion/assassination/lynching of Jesus, the Jewish prophet whose ministry
of healing and preaching presented the people and powers of 1<sup>st</sup>
Century Palestine with a radical alternative to imperial religion, commerce, government,
and culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do not experience Easter
correctly by ignoring, discounting, or deliberately mis-stating this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year Good Friday and Easter occur within
days of April 4, 2018, the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the assassination of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The coincidence is more than ironic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Good Friday reminds us that religion, commerce,
government, and culture are constantly tempted and threatened by notions of
empire, including the myth of sanctified violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>South African theologian Allan Boesak makes
this point in his latest book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pharaohs
on Both Sides of the Blood Red Waters</i>, in the following words.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Empires not only create realities of
dominations and subjugation; they also create myths:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of invincibility, endless power, infinite
duration, great beneficence, and divine incarnation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crucial to all these is what Walter Wink
called the “myth of redemptive violence.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead of acknowledging the violence it uses because it is needed for
continued domination, subjugation, and exploitation, the empire “enshrines the
belief that violence saves, that war makes peace, that might makes right.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently violence is not only necessary;
it is the only thing that “works.” <a href="file:///C:/Users/Wendell/Documents/GOOD%20FRIDAY,%20EASTER,%20AND%20THE%20RE-ASSASSINATION%20OF%20DR.%20MARTIN%20LUTHER%20KING,%20JR._Justice%20Is%20a%20Verb%20(March%2030,%202018).docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The sanctioned violence that killed
Jesus resulted in the recent slaying of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black father,
brother, and grandson, by two Sacramento, California police officers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stephon Clark was shot 20 times in the
backyard of his grandmother’s home, where he lived until he was slain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was given no medical attention for several
minutes after he was gunned down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
being shot 20 times, Stephon Clark was handcuffed, but denied medical attention
or assistance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stephon Clark was
mutilated so much from the gunshot wounds and two autopsy procedures that his family
was forced to hold a closed casket funeral service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If we do not connect Stephon Clark with
Good Friday it is because we are somehow unable or unwilling to detect the similarity
between the slaying of Jesus and the slaying of Stephon Clark, Alton Sterling,
Philando Castille, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown,
Jr., Amadou Diallo, Rekia Boyd, Tamir Rice, Eugene Ellison, and so many other
black, brown, and poor white unarmed persons by the armed and militarized agents
of political, commercial, religious, and cultural empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we do not connect the assassination of Dr.
King with Good Friday, we are not likely to connect the slaughter of Stephon
Clark and so many others with Good Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like Jesus and Dr. King, people like Stephon Clark have been slain after
being hounded, spied on, and threatened by armed and militarized agents of
political, commercial, cultural, and religious empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, it is important that we realize
how Dr. King’s memory, ministry, and message are “re-assassinated” by
self-serving political, religious, commercial, and cultural agents of empire. When
people gather on April 4 to commemorate the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Dr.
King’s death, politicians, captains of greed, religious pretenders, and
cultural hijackers of all varieties who have spent their careers distancing
themselves from or opposing Dr. King’s work of social justice will clamor to be
seen, heard, quoted, and considered as disciples of his prophetic devotion to
the Beloved Community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In Arkansas, Governor Asa Hutchinson is
scheduled to be the “keynote” speaker for a mid-day gathering at the State
Capitol on April 4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Governor Hutchinson’s
official bio states that he is a graduate from the University Of Arkansas
School Of Law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It does not disclose that
he graduated from Bob Jones University in South Carolina in 1972, four years
after Dr. King was slain. On Easter (April 17, 1960), Bob Jones, Sr. delivered
a radio sermon titled, “Is Segregation Scriptural?” which served as the
University racial position paper through the ’60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bob Jones University did not enroll Africans
or African-Americans until 1971, three years after Dr. King’s death and one year
before Governor Hutchinson received his undergraduate degree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1976, the Internal Revenue Service revoked
the tax exemption for Bob Jones University, retroactively to 1970, because the
institution practiced racial discrimination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Governor Hutchinson enrolled in and attended a racially-segregated
college four years after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for which Dr.
King labored and countless people suffered and died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Administrator of the federal Drug
Enforcement Agency, Governor Hutchinson led DEA actions that contributed to
mass incarceration of persons of color and low-income white persons for non-violent
drug offenses, a problem described by Professor Michelle Alexander as “the new
Jim Crow.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Governor Hutchinson’s “keynote”
speaker role on the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination is more
odious because of his past advocacy with the National Rifle Association.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recall, that Dr. King and his mother were
murdered by persons who shot them to death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Recall that the NRA has led opposition to regulate firearms and has
resisted governmental attempts to study the health impact of firearms in the
U.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Given this history, Governor Hutchinson’s
“keynote” address will amount to “re-assassination” of Dr. King’s memory when
the governor pimps Dr. King’s moral authority on the steps of the Arkansas
State Capitol on the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Remember Jesus, Dr. King, and Stephon
Clark, and other victims of state-sanctioned violence on Good Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember the names and faces of the racists,
militarists, and materialists who have spent the last half-century pimping Dr.
King’s name and memory while fighting the causes for which he lived and
died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then remember the part of the
Sermon on the Mount that is rarely quoted, but which speaks with unflinching
accuracy on Good Friday, Easter, and any other time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Beware
of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are
ravenous wolves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will know them by
their fruits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are grapes gathered from
thorns, or figs from thistles? ...You will know them by their fruits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">(Matthew 7:15-16, New Revised Standard
Version).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
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<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
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<br />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Wendell/Documents/GOOD%20FRIDAY,%20EASTER,%20AND%20THE%20RE-ASSASSINATION%20OF%20DR.%20MARTIN%20LUTHER%20KING,%20JR._Justice%20Is%20a%20Verb%20(March%2030,%202018).docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Allan Aubrey Boesak, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pharaohs on Both
Sides of the Blood-Red Waters:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prophetic
Critique on Empire-Resistance, Justice, and the Power of the Hopeful Sizwe—</i>A
Transatlantic Conversation (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), pp. 81-82.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-14876668641326442222018-02-22T10:58:00.000-08:002018-02-22T10:58:09.205-08:00REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF REV. BILLY GRAHAM<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF REV. BILLY
GRAHAM<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wendell Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Reverend Billy Graham moved from
life in God among us to life in God beyond us on yesterday at the full age of
99 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Known and revered across the
world as a congenial preacher of the gospel of Jesus, Reverend Graham’s passing
has received the accolades and recollections appropriate for someone who worked
so long and was acclaimed by so many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having
been received by US presidents from both major political parties across the
years, it is understandable that Rev. Graham is remembered in news accounts as
pastor to presidents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should also,
however, acknowledge that Rev. Graham was patriarch to his biological
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As that family engages in the
necessary efforts required to honor his life, ministry, and paternal influence,
we should include them in our prayers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Much has been written and said about
Rev. Graham’s influence as a religious leader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>More will be said and written in the future about his influence on the
evangelical Christian movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have
read tributes to Rev. Graham from faithful people I know who embraced the gospel
of Jesus during one of his evangelistic crusades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These people are sincere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their reflections are moving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Rev. Graham should also be remembered for
refusing to accommodate racially segregated seating during his evangelistic
crusades at a time when Jim Crow segregation was followed due to custom and the
force of law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That fact is noteworthy
because it was a drastic departure from the practice of most white religionists
in the US South.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Billy Graham Crusades
included Ethel Waters singing along with his preaching when few US white
congregations would allow black people to worship with them, let alone be
featured as soloists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should not
treat that fact lightly in our reflections about Rev. Graham’s ministry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
During his later ministry, Rev. Graham expressed
regret that he had not devoted more attention to social justice in his
preaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As one Catholic observer
pointed out, “<span style="color: #333333;">Billy Graham was asked once why he
preached only personal salvation and not peace and justice. He said that as
people become converted, they would be peacemakers and justice-seekers. He was
pressed further. How come he’d been converted, and wasn’t more upfront about
these things, then? From that day, to his credit, Graham included more of the
dimensions of the Good News in his preaching. Following Jesus, we’re called to
make visible the Good News, and that means both putting it into words and showing
by our lives what it means in terms of justice and love.” <a href="http://www.catholicsocialteaching.org.uk/themes/peace/reflection/ten-reasons-justice-essential-gospels/">http://www.catholicsocialteaching.org.uk/themes/peace/reflection/ten-reasons-justice-essential-gospels/</a>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">If we are to
think and speak accurately and honestly about Rev. Graham’s ministry, we must acknowledge
that Rev. Graham’s pastoral ministry to presidents and his worldwide fame as an
evangelist did not include much, if anything, about justice and peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not because Rev. Graham was not urged
to include social justice in his public ministry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, Rev. Graham was prodded to proclaim
the gospel of Jesus as more than a religion of personal salvation during a
visit from Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor when Dr. Proctor served as special
assistant to Sargent Shriver in the federal Office of Economic Opportunity
(OEO).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Proctor succeeded Rev. Adam
Clayton Powell, Jr. as pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, was
personal friend and mentor to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was a pastoral
neighbor and collaborator with Rev. Gardner C. Taylor, who served as pastor of
Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY for many years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Proctor was also president of North
Carolina A & T College when Rev. Jesse Jackson was an undergraduate (and
football quarterback), and was president of Virginia Union University when Rev.
Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. was a seminary student at that school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">In his book
titled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Moral Odyssey</i> (Judson
Press, 1989) - which has a foreword written by Bill Moyers - Dr. Proctor
recounted something he experienced while serving in the Johnson Administration
as President Johnson was trying to garner support for the War on Poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">Once President Lyndon
Johnson asked me to visit a widely acclaimed evangelist to solicit his moral support
for the war on poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did, and what
a shock!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lived like royalty and told
me that he did not get involved in such things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He only “preached the gospel.” When I reminded him of what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the gospel said</i> in Matthew 25 about
feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, visiting prisoners, and taking
in strangers, he took refuge in some inane, insipid theological irrelevancies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without knowing it, he dismissed Jesus as a “liberal.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(pp. 134-35, emphasis by Dr. Proctor)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Dr. Proctor wrote more expansively about this encounter
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Substance of Things Hoped
For:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Memoir of African-American Faith</i>
(Putnam, 1995) as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">One day Bill Moyers called
from the White House and asked me to leave fast, go to the airport, and fly to
Charlotte, North Carolina, with Billy Graham.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We were helping a lot of poor mountain people near where he lived, and
we wanted his support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">All through the flight down
we talked church, religion, and social change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When we reached his mountaintop home, we had a delicious lunch and more
conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It all settled down to a
stalemate:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Graham felt that his
business was to preach the gospel and change the hearts of individuals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Changed persons would then change society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">I countered with the
teachings of Jesus in Chapter 25 of Matthew’s gospel, in which he admonished
that at the day of judgment we would all be separated into sheep and
goats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One got to be a sheep by feeding
the hungry, giving water to the thirsty and clothing to the naked, visiting
those in prison, and taking in the stranger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The sheep entered into the Master’s joy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Goats did not do such things and were consigned to a burning hell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">Reverend Graham smiled and
said that I was making Jesus into a “liberal.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was odd, though, that while he officially avoided political
involvement, he often boasted of advising several presidents. (p. 123)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As a follower
and preacher in the religion of Jesus, I join the rest of the world in
acknowledging the long and wide preaching ministry of Rev. Billy Graham.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I join the rest of the world in praying for
his family in this time of bereavement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No one should deny that he influenced many people in ways that were
personally profound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet, as we reflect on Rev. Graham’s
ministry in the world and the reception he enjoyed among presidents and other
powerful figures in the US and elsewhere, it is fair to point out that Rev.
Graham was not involved in the March on Washington in 1963.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rev. Graham did not openly endorse the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed segregation based on race, sex, religion, and
national origin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rev. Graham did not
support the war on poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did not
oppose the war in Southeast Asia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called
for an end to US military involvement in Southeast Asia, Rev. Graham’s strong
voice was strangely silent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
indigenous people in India and Africa were struggling to throw off oppressive
colonizers from Europe, Rev. Graham’s powerful voice was strangely silent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Africans were being slaughtered and
Nelson Mandela was jailed for decades in South Africa, Rev. Graham’s voice was
strangely silent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Palestinians were
being thrown off their ancestral lands by Zionist Jewish settlers and the
United Nations was adopting resolutions declaring Jewish settlements illegal,
Rev. Graham was silent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Rev. Graham was silent when the Reagan
administration engaged in illegal gun-running by allowing drug cartels to smuggle
cocaine into the US and accelerate mass incarceration through the hypocrisy of
a war on drugs. He was silent about racial profiling, mass incarceration,
violence against women and girls, and people who are LGBTQ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One searches in vain to find Rev. Graham
relating the struggles of working people to the gospel of Jesus, despite the
fact that Jesus hailed from a working class family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That
strange silence about social justice, more than anything else, may be the most
lasting effect of Rev. Graham’s long and wide ministry, for all its otherwise
laudable contributions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever else
one may say or think to commend Rev. Graham’s ministry, the recent words of
George Will in the Washington Post are indisputably true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rev. Graham was “no theologian… Neither was
he a prophet.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/billy-graham-was-no-prophet-thats-why-america-loved-him/2018/02/21/398ce31a-1722-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html?utm_term=.4ed7e3d10740">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/billy-graham-was-no-prophet-thats-why-america-loved-him/2018/02/21/398ce31a-1722-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html?utm_term=.4ed7e3d10740</a>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">For if anything is obvious from the US
presidential election of 2016, four out of five people who self-identify as “evangelical
Christians” voted for Donald Trump, described in one BBC news article as “a
thrice married casino-building businessman.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As I wrote in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Fierce Urgency
of Prophetic Hope </i>(Judson Press, 2017): “On November 8, 2016, 81 percent of
the people who profess to be evangelical followers of Jesus in the United
States refused to proclaim by their votes that God cares about people who are
hungry, thirsty, homeless, frail, imprisoned, and unwelcomed”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(p. 141).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Perhaps
their pastors are imitating Rev. Graham, whose understanding of the gospel of
Jesus somehow did not move him to challenge US presidents, other powerful
people, and the multitudes who attended his evangelistic events to see God in
our hungry, thirsty, sick, imprisoned, and immigrant brothers and sisters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps that is why people are rejecting the
term “evangelical” in their religious identity as followers of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not comfortable or pleasant to
contemplate as we reflect on Rev. Graham’s life and ministry, whether now or at
any other time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people prefer to
not contemplate it at all, but instead limit their reflections about Rev.
Graham to eulogies and platitudes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That discomfort and
preference, however, does not change the truth we know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite all that Rev. Graham did to proclaim
the love of God, the evangelical movement that celebrates his legacy and that he
represented is widely – and sadly – identified with and supportive of policies and
practices that are racist, sexist, patriarchal, militaristic, imperialistic,
homophobic, economically dismissive or oppressive towards workers, poor and
otherwise vulnerable and frail people and the creation, and xenophobic. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that regard, the evangelical movement now lionizes
Billy Graham while it pays lip service, at best, to Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As we remember
Rev. Graham’s ministry to the world, his pastoral relationships with several US
presidents, and the enduring effect of his ministry on people who call
themselves evangelical Christians, one wonders how different and better the
last fifty years might have been if Rev. Billy Graham had joined his voice with
that of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bill Moyers, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell,
Jr., Rev. Gardner Taylor, and Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One wonders as we ponder Rev. Graham’s influence
on the people who occupy pulpits, pews, and voting booths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And one wonders as we think of the issues and
people Dr. Samuel Proctor urged Rev. Graham to advocate for and include in his
preaching during the day they spent together over fifty years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We may never
know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We who are followers of Jesus can
only strive to embrace and embody a prophetic faith that is much deeper and
wider than personal salvation, however much that was valued by Rev. Graham and
is emphasized by his evangelical followers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The religion of Jesus is not only about God saving individual souls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is about God saving the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rev. Graham had many opportunities to make
that plain to multitudes and by his personal ministry to the powerful and
privileged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, he refused to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should not follow that example.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-91290402499034971872018-02-10T11:00:00.000-08:002018-06-02T13:56:20.069-07:00FOLLOWING JESUS BY LOVING LGBTQ PEOPLE, NOT RELIGIOUS EMPIRE<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">FOLLOWING JESUS BY LOVING LGBTQ PEOPLE, NOT RELIGIOUS EMPIRE<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A Pastoral Response to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Decision
to Discriminate in Hiring Decisions Involving Married LGBTQ Followers of Jesus<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©Wendell Griffen, 2018<b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<i style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I sent
the following email message on February 10, 2018 to more than seventy persons in response to a decision by the Governing Board of the Cooperative
Baptist Fellowship to discriminate against married LGBTQ followers of Jesus in
hiring persons for missions field personnel and supervisory positions. Because I serve as pastor of New Millennium
Church, a congregation affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF)
since it was organized in the spring of 2009, I am publishing the email message
on my social media platforms. </span></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Colleagues,</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
After engaging in an almost two-year process, yesterday the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship adopted a policy that bans married persons who are LGBTQ from being employed as missions field personnel or in supervisory positions. This policy is unjust. It reinforces bigotry towards LGBTQ people. It violates the Great Commandment of Jesus that we love our neighbors as ourselves. As pastor of New Millennium, I denounce the announced policy as unworthy of our support.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
I will request that New Millennium meet to discuss the CBF decision. Pat Griffen and I were involved in the CBF co-sponsored Conference on Sexuality and Covenant in 2011 that convened in Decatur, Georgia. Our congregation co-sponsored and hosted a conference in April 2016 titled "Embracing Diversity and Inclusion of LGBTQ Persons in the Black Church." We are in active fellowship with the Church Within A Church Movement, a voluntary association of followers of Jesus committed to LGBTQ equality and inclusion, and Pat Griffen and I were presenters during the 2017 CWACM gathering in Washington, DC. We are the only Arkansas church in the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists (AWAB). Our Holy Saturday seder observances intentionally include and reference solidarity with persons who are LGBTQ. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Plainly, CBF and New Millennium Church disagree about LGBTQ equality and inclusion. The Illumination Project process and the CBF decision on yesterday proves that CBF does not choose to be, plan to be, or desire to walk with LGBTQ people and with us concerning this love and justice imperative. New Millennium Church now must decide whether to keep faith with our affirmation to welcome all persons in God's love, or walk away from our open and unapolgetic solidarity with Jesus and LGBTQ persons for equality and inclusion.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
I will not support continued funding or involvement in CBF initiatives. CBF has chosen love of its purses above love of God's LGBTQ people. I am unwilling to follow that path as pastor of New Millennium Church. If our congregation is to keep faith with the love and justice imperatives in the gospel of Jesus, we should not be seduced by claims about following Jesus to carry out the Great Commandments and Great Commission by a body that consciously and proudly celebrates a decision to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, and marital status.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
I am sending this message to our congregation, to persons with whom we have fellowship relationships in CBF, to leaders in the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, to local and national leaders in the Church Within A Church Movement, AWAB, and other faith leaders with whom I have been in dialogue and fellowship about LGBTQ equality and inclusion. I do this to make my pastoral position clear. Some people will disagree with or disapprove of my position. No one should be unsure about it.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Please share this message with anyone in our sphere of ministry I may have omitted. I will reprint it on my personal blog and social media platforms, and ask that it be posted to the church website and social media platforms.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Sincerely,</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Wendell Griffen<br />
Author, The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Pastor, New Millenium Church</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Calibri, "Slate Pro", sans-serif, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<a href="http://www.newmillenniumchurch.us/" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank">www.newmillenniumchurch.us</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-7982083675295934212018-01-15T04:11:00.000-08:002018-01-15T04:11:37.332-08:00A CLOSE LOOK AT GOD, FAITH AND PROSPERITY<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">A CLOSE LOOK AT GOD, FAITH AND PROSPERITY<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">New Millennium
Church, Little Rock, Arkansas<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">January 14, 2018
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Second Sunday
after Epiphany (Year B)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Martin Luther
King, Jr. Holiday<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2;">
<b><span style="color: #880000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Luke 16:10-15, 19-31<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">10</span><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;"> ‘Whoever is faithful in a very
little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is
dishonest also in much. </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">11</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">If then
you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth,</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #0000bb; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">*</span></sup></a><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;"> who will entrust to you the true riches? </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">12</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to
another, who will give you what is your own? </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">13</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either
hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the
other. You cannot serve God and wealth.’</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #0000bb; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">*</span></sup></a><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">14</span><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;"> The Pharisees, who were lovers of
money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">15</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">So he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves
in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts;</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">for what is prized by human
beings is an abomination in the sight of God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">19</span><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;"> ‘There was a rich man who was
dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">20</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered
with sores, </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">21</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">who longed to satisfy his hunger with
what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his
sores. </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">22</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">The poor man died and was carried away
by the angels to be with Abraham.</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #0000bb; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">*</span></sup></a><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;"> The rich man also
died and was buried. </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">23</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">In Hades, where he was being tormented,
he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #0000bb; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">*</span></sup></a><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;"> </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">24</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">He
called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip
of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.”</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">25</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your
lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things;
but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">26</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has
been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so,
and no one can cross from there to us.”</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">27</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He
said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— </span><sup><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">28</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">for I
have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into
this place of torment.” </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">29</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">Abraham
replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">30</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">He said, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them
from the dead, they will repent.” </span><sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">31</span></sup><span style="background: yellow; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: yellow;">He said
to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be
convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” ’</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> We worship God today on the Sunday
before the US national holiday to honor the life, faith, and fellowship of Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Followers of
Jesus have long viewed Sunday as our worship day because the New Testament
Gospel accounts about Jesus report that his resurrection happened on that day
of the week. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Next to Easter (Resurrection) Sunday,
the Sunday before the King Holiday may be the Sunday cherished most by
followers of Jesus who believe in social justice. This is because Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
unlike other persons for whom a US holiday is named, is remembered for his devotion
to social justice. Dr. King never
sought nor held any public office. He
did not serve in the military. Dr. King
was not financially wealthy based on the standards of his day. Yet, his fierce and nonviolent advocacy for
social justice has left a more lasting and profound impact on life in the US
and the rest of the world than did the careers of the presidents and generals
of his era, or even since then for that matter.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We do Dr. King a disservice, however, if
we ignore or forget that he always labored, agitated, demonstrated, spoke, and
protested based on his identity with and ministry in the religion of
Jesus. In that sense, Dr. King not only
rose above the politicians of his time and ours. He rose above the religious leaders of his
time and hours in the US and across the world.
Rev. Billy Graham was welcomed by and held evangelical rallies in cities
across the US, and he was hosted in the White House by several presidents. But Rev. Graham’s ministry is seldom – if
ever – remembered for having challenged the conscience of people in the US and
around the world concerning the evils of inequality, war, racism, greed, and
the suffering people experience because of those realities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Followers of Jesus also do Dr. King a
disservice if we do not view the conditions, situations, and experiences of our
time as he did, through the lens of the love and justice ethics of the Hebrew
Bible and the life and teachings of Jesus preserved in the New Testament. We should take avoid the common mistake of
remembering Dr. King as “a civil rights leader.” Dr. King was a prophet from God and disciple
of Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Dr. King was a preacher. He served with his father as co-pastor of
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
And, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. became co-founder and the chief
theologian for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In all these roles Dr. King functioned as a
prophet in the tradition of Jesus. If we
do not remember Jesus and his ministry when we honor Dr. King, we not only do a
dis-service to Dr. King’s life and ministry; we do a dis-service to the love
and justice ethics of God that Jesus lived, taught, and for which Jesus (and
Dr. King) ultimately died. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The lesson Jesus taught in Chapter 16 of
Luke’s Gospel is strikingly relevant concerning our thinking about God, faith,
and prosperity in 2018 as we reflect on the life and ministry of Dr. King. Many people are familiar with the saying that
“no one can serve two masters.” I
suspect that few people, however, associate that saying with the lesson Jesus
issued and that Dr. King often mentioned about God, faith, justice, and
prosperity. In proclaiming the lesson
about the rich man and the pauper named Lazarus, Jesus was expounding on the
fundamental moral, ethical, theological, and social view that knowing and
loving God involves becoming one in fellowship and peace with our neighbors,
including persons whose situations are different from our own. In doing so, Jesus issued a scathing
condemnation about the idolatry of wealth under the guise of prosperity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Jesus set up the lesson about the rich
man and Lazarus with the following statement:
“<i>Whoever is faithful in a very
little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is
dishonest also in much…No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either
hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the
other. You cannot serve God and
wealth.” </i>We then read these
words. <i><span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">The Pharisees, who
were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, “You are those who
justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for that
which is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”</span> </i>(Luke
16:10, 13-15) We find the lesson about
the rich man and Lazarus after reading that the Pharisees – described by Luke
as “lovers of money” – ridiculed Jesus for saying “you cannot serve God and
wealth” (mammon in KJV). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Nothing
in the lesson about the rich man and Lazarus suggests that the rich man did not
believe in God. Neither the rich man nor
Lazarus is identified as religious in this lesson. What the lesson emphasizes is that the rich
man idolized wealth with complete disregard for Lazarus and his miserable plight.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> That point is highlighted when the lesson
mentions how the dogs showed compassion toward Lazarus licking his sores while Lazarus
was unable to even depend on table scraps from the rich man. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Lazarus was conspicuous in poverty and
misery; the rich man was conspicuous in luxury and comfort. The rich man only noticed and named Lazarus
in the afterlife, when his situation was defined by agonizing misery while
Lazarus was at peace and comfortable. Then,
the rich man who refused to offer table scraps to relieve Lazarus from the
agony of starvation when they were neighbors wanted Lazarus to provide a drop
of water to relieve the agony of his thirst.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">The
rich man idolized wealth during his lifetime.
He enjoyed the comforts of wealth.
Nowhere does the lesson suggest that the rich man paid any regard for
Lazarus and the clear inequality of their situations. In this regard, Jesus used the rich man in
this lesson to condemn the Pharisees, religious folks who “were lovers of
money.” This is the way Jesus expounded
on his teaching that “you cannot serve God and mammon.” The lesson about the rich man and Lazarus was
how Jesus tried, in the way of Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, to “make it plain” that
idolatry of wealth is “an abomination in the sight of God.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Wendell/Documents/Sermon_A%20CLOSE%20LOOK%20AT%20GOD,%20FAITH,%20AND%20PROSPERITY%20(Luke%2016.10-15,%2019-31).docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">What
Jesus made plain is that the Pharisees, like the rich man in this lesson,
justified themselves “in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for
what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke
16:15). That point is profoundly made in
the teaching about the rich man and Lazarus.
While the formerly sick and starving Lazarus is envisioned in the
afterlife feasting in blissful fellowship with Abraham, patriarch of the Hebrew
faith and people, the man who idolized wealth is envisioned in everlasting and
agonizing separation from God and from the faithful community.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The figure of speech “Abraham’s bosom” in
the lesson indicates that Lazarus had a place of safety and security in the
afterlife. This figure of speech is
drawn from the ancient banquet custom of was reclining on couches during a meal
so that head of one person would reach the chest of the next person. To engage in conversation with that person,
one would lean his head back against the person’s breast. It was a sign of high honor to be seated next
to a celebrated guest at a banquet, and to be seated next to the host was a
sign of the highest honor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">So,
in proclaiming this lesson, Jesus dramatically not only showed the great moral,
ethical, and social distance between the rich man and Lazarus. Jesus declared that the rich man was eternally
out of fellowship with the entire community of the faithful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">This
lesson was a powerful condemnation of the Pharisees, religious folks who loved
wealth, as being hypocrites. Remember
what Jesus said: <i>Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and
whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much</i>. Jesus termed religion that loves wealth
dishonest (Luke 16:10) and “an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke
16:15). And Jesus used the lesson about
the rich man and Lazarus to drive that point home!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">More
than any other person in recent memory, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. exposed the
abominable (meaning morally detestable and despicable) dishonesty (hypocrisy) and
idolatry to wealth of religion and culture in the United States. Unlike the current president of the United
States, Dr. King did not see or speak about poor and unprivileged people in
vulgar terms. Unlike the self-professed
“religious conservatives” who have been the chief supporters and defenders of
the current president of the United States, Dr. King spoke up for poor people,
sick people, oppressed people, and people who suffered from the effects of
wars. We do Dr. King’s life and ministry
a tremendous injustice by allowing his memory to be defined by anything less
than the love and justice imperatives found in the religion of Jesus that he
preached and lived. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">When
we follow the love and justice imperatives in the religion of Jesus that Dr.
King preached and lived, we will do much more than engage in annual daylong
acts of service. We will join voices and
forces to denounce, condemn, and resist the idolatrous religion of empire and
greed that traffics in fear, hypocrisy, and violence. We will denounce, condemn, and resist
policies, politicians, and other powerful actors that marginalize and threaten
people across the world like Lazarus, people who live in conspicuous misery
while others celebrate conspicuous consumption.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">When
we follow the love and justice imperatives in the religion of Jesus that Dr.
King preached and lived, we will denounce President Trump and every other
person who thinks and speaks about any child of God as being from a “shithole”
country. We will not only cringe about
people who, like the rich man, live with callous disregard, outright disdain,
and hellish hypocrisy towards our neighbors who suffer, we will confront and
challenge them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">When
we follow the love and justice imperatives in the religion of Jesus that Dr.
King preached and lived, we will confront and challenge our imperial lust for
wealth while refusing to share with people in Haiti, El Salvador, across
Africa, and elsewhere in the world. And
we will prophetically challenge President Trump and anyone else with the truth
that idolatry to wealth inspired the white supremacy and racism responsible for
so much of the poverty, disease, and other suffering in Haiti, El Salvador,
Africa, and other black and brown areas of the world.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Idolatry of wealth motivated white
European versions of President Trump to plunder, rape, and commit violence in black
and brown societies across the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Idolatry of wealth drove white colonizers
and imperialists to steal land from and kill indigenous black, brown, and red
people in Africa, India, and throughout the Western Hemisphere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Idolatry of wealth inspired white
religionists to disregard the love and justice imperatives in the religion of
Jesus in order to justify trying to exterminate indigenous people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Idolatry of wealth inspired white
religionists who, like the Pharisees who ridiculed Jesus, were lovers of money
rather than God, called the entire hellish slavery empire organized and
operated in this society righteous. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px;">Idolatry of wealth inspired white religionists to sanction slavery and manifest destiny, sanction discrimination against immigrants, and support laws and policies that legalized discrimination, bigotry, and abuse of people like Lazarus.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Idolatry of wealth inspired those white
religionists to call resistance to slavery and anti-discrimination and anti-poverty advocacy evil. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">When
we follow the love and justice imperatives in the religion of Jesus that Dr.
King preached and lived, we will remind President Trump and anyone else what
the Psalmist declared long ago at Psalm 24:1:
<i>The earth is the LORD’s and all
that there is in it, the world, and those who live in it…</i> We will remind President Trump and anyone
else who idolizes wealth that God became incarnate as a colonized child in a
poor family. We will remind President
Trump and anyone else who idolizes wealth that when the child Jesus was
threatened by a maniacal ruler named Herod an angel directed Joseph to take
Jesus and Mary to Egypt, a nation in Africa.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">When
we follow the love and justice imperatives in the religion of Jesus that Dr.
King lived and preached, we will declare that President Trump’s spirit resembles
that of the rich man Jesus spoke about.
We will proclaim that the idolatry of wealth that President Trump has
worshiped across his personal, professional, and political career is enabled,
supported, defended, and even championed by people who call themselves “evangelical
Christian conservatives.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Then
we will, in the spirit of Jesus and Dr. King, position ourselves with the
Lazarus people of our society and world.
We will do this because we refuse to turn our backs on the love and
justice imperatives in the Great Commandment that we love God wholeheartedly,
intentionally, and courageously, and that we love our neighbors – including our
neighbors who suffer from the effects of poverty, abuse of power, income inequality,
sickness, violence, racism, nationalism, imperialism, sexism, and other wickedness
because of human idolatry of wealth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Finally,
we will warn President Trump and the current version of the Pharisees who
idolize wealth how idolatry to wealth works to separate them from what is real
prosperity. Biblical prosperity is never
self-centered; it is always communitarian.
A prosperous person, community, and society is one that protects,
provides, supports, and nourishes people like Lazarus, not one that belittles,
marginalizes, and oppresses people like Lazarus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">By
refusing to protect, provide, support, and nourish Lazarus during his lifetime,
the rich man came to a dreadful and tormented end. Jesus prophetically warned anyone who shares
the idolatry of wealth illustrated by the rich man in this lesson that God does
not condone and will subject to severe judgment the idolatry of wealth that
President Trump and his self-proclaimed religious conservative sycophants
represent.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Why?
“No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one
and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Why?
“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and
whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Why?
“You cannot serve God and wealth.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Jesus said it. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lived, preached,
and died in obedience to those love and justice imperatives. Let us honor Jesus and his prophet, Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., by proclaiming those love and justice imperatives with
steadfast courage and fierce hope. This
is how we can challenge and condemn the idolatry of wealth demonstrated by the
current version of Pharisees and President Donald Trump, their “rich man.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Wendell/Documents/Sermon_A%20CLOSE%20LOOK%20AT%20GOD,%20FAITH,%20AND%20PROSPERITY%20(Luke%2016.10-15,%2019-31).docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. is Pastor-Emeritus of Allen Temple Baptist
Church, Oakland, California, Emeritus Professor of Homiletics, American Baptist
Seminary of the West, and a former President of the Progressive National
Baptist Convention.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896200752724167052.post-33954539318049163722017-11-15T03:13:00.001-08:002017-11-15T03:13:15.930-08:00THE CHALLENGES PRESENTED BY WHITE EVANGELICALS, DONALD TRUMP, AND ROY MOORE TO DEMOCRACY AND THE RELIGION OF JESUS<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">©Wendell
Griffen, 2017</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice Is A Verb!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">November 15,
2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like
many other people in the United States and elsewhere, I have observed the daily
events and controversy surrounding the candidacy of Roy Moore for election to
the U.S. Senate from the state of Alabama.
Like many other people, I do not know why people would elect a
politician to higher office who has consistently dishonored his sworn duty to
uphold the Constitution of the United States, and who has twice been removed from
judicial office for doing so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
do not know why people who say they care about decency would support a
middle-aged candidate whose former co-workers confirm allegations that he
repeatedly engaged in questionable – no, predatory – conduct toward teenaged
girls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
do not know why I should believe people who profess concern for women and girls
to be sincere about that concern when they now support Roy Moore after having previously
overwhelmingly endorsed, supported, voted to elect, and now continue to defend
Donald Trump, a known and serial misogynist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
I do not know why I or any other follower of the gospel of Jesus should believe
white evangelicals are followers of Jesus who support Donald Trump, Roy Moore,
and the policies and practices associated with them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
is clear, however, is that there are people – in Alabama and elsewhere
throughout the United States – who profess belief in democracy while supporting
politicians such as Donald Trump and Roy Moore, persons whose personal and
professional histories are defined by bigotry and other forms of oppression
towards vulnerable people, including women and girls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And,
it is clear that Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and their white “evangelical
Christian” supporters are determined to return the United States to an era when
white patriarchy, white supremacy, and white nationalist militarism were the
defining features of every level of government (local, state, and national) in
the United States. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Donald
Trump, Roy Moore, and their white “evangelical Christian” supporters are not
patriots to democracy. They are
neo-fascists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Donald
Trump, Roy Moore, and their white “evangelical Christian” supporters are, also,
not followers of the Jesus who respected women, who included women among his
closest followers, and who ordained women the first prophets of the resurrection
gospel of grace, liberation, justice, peace, and hope. Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and their white “evangelical
Christian” supporters are heretics to that gospel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
hard reality is that white “evangelical Christians” support Donald Trump, Roy Moore,
and politicians like them, including people like former Arizona sheriff Joe
Arpaio (who received a presidential pardon from Trump from his federal criminal
contempt conviction for refusing to stop using his office to racially profile and
terrorize Latinos). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
hard reality is that white “evangelical Christians” must be denounced as political
and religious bigots, neo-fascists, and heretics. They are not devoted to democracy. They are not devoted to the Jesus of the New
Testament gospels whose life and ministry was defined by inclusive grace, truth,
compassion toward vulnerable persons, justice, peace, and resurrection
hope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Instead,
their true devotion is to white religious nationalism. That is why white “evangelical Christians”
overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump’s candidacy for president of the United
States in 2016. That is why white “evangelical
Christians” are now determined to elect Roy Moore to the U.S. Senate from
Alabama. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
devotion to white religious nationalism – a mixture of white supremacy, white
patriarchy, and religious nationalism – means white “evangelical Christians”
will turn out in record numbers to vote for Roy Moore in Alabama. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Devotion
to white religious nationalism will inspire them to engage in or disregard
overt and covert efforts to suppress, intimidate, and otherwise interfere with
efforts to vote by people who are poor, persons of color, progressive minded
women, students, senior citizens, and naturalized citizens of the United States
when voting occurs in Alabama for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by current
Attorney General Jeff Sessions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Devotion
to white religious nationalism is what inspires white “evangelical Christians”
to claim a divine right to rule the United States, and to impose their will on
the rest of the world in the name of American Empire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So
what should people who truly believe in democracy do?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
should prophetic-minded followers of the gospel of Jesus do?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">People
who believe in democracy should resist the politics and religion of white
religious nationalism and white “evangelical Christians” and call it what it
truly is – neo-fascism, not democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Prophetic
followers of Jesus should denounce white religious nationalism as moral and
theological fraud and a heresy to the gospel of Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">People
who believe in democracy and prophetic followers of Jesus should organize
against white religious nationalism and neo-fascism. We should join forces to expose, challenge,
resist, and inform ourselves and others about the hateful claims of Donald
Trump, Roy Moore, and other favorites of white religious nationalism. Working together, we should defeat
politicians like Trump, Moore, and Joe Arpaio – along with the hateful and
fear-mongering policies they champion – at the ballot box in local, state, and
national elections. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
is how we can, and should, protect and honor our cherished belief in
democracy. That is how we can, and
should, protect and preserve the United States as a free, inclusive, and
welcoming society. That is how we can,
and should, prevent our society from being controlled by bigoted religionists
who lust for power to impose their notion of American Empire on our nation and
the rest of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
issue for us is not what neo-fascists and white religious nationalists do or
what they will do. The issue is what
will people like you and I do. We have
the power to determine the future of our society. We have the power to step up together and
defeat the forces and menaces threatened by white religious nationalism and the
politicians embraced by white religious nationalists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Do
not draw back from this challenge. Lean
into it as people who believe in and love democracy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
if you are a follower of Jesus, lean into it because you refuse to allow white
supremacists, lovers of patriarchy, and white “evangelical Christians” to
hijack the gospel of Jesus in the name of American Empire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hope
Fiercely!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01903035964585622764noreply@blogger.com0