Thursday, August 25, 2011

Contradiction?

Read an interesting article today regarding those that do not believe that women should be Pastors,  that vote for a female president and other gender debates. It has provoked me toward another "homework assignment." Hahahaha plus my ideas have evolved in this area. Looking forward to some time to journal on this topic and Black Folk and Obama. Now, that I've transitioned back to NC and I am in a routine it would incite me to do so! So excited to share about my recent experiences also dealing with a community of justice. God's been faithful.

~Ash

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Black Folk and the Obama Administration Pt. 1: hmmmm

January 20, 2009 I watched the T.V. overcome with emotion as America's first black president was being inaugurated. You see a little over 50 years ago this momentous and historical event wouldn't have been imagined and several hundred years before that black people were not even deemed as humans but as chattel or property. Now, at a time where blacks have seemingly been afforded "freedom" and "opportunity" in the "land of the free" it is still clear that racial and social tensions are still prevalent. In a fractured and fallen world this is to be expected. And as a result, African-American's have a special cord when it comes to President Obama and the Obama Administration. He represents so much, however it seems that African-American's (whatever their partisanship) defensive nature also allows a sort of glaze over the issues and blind approach to the interpretation of how certain legislation and value systems affect us.

I came across this article by Star Parker and I am looking for another article that is a counterbalance to this one. The title says it all: 

"Why Do Blacks Still Let Obama Off the Hook:" 

Why do blacks still let Obama off the hook?


Almost a half-century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, too many blacks still don't want to be free and accept the responsibilities that go with it.

Monday, July 18, 2011by Star Parker
A Chicago Sun Times article, headlined "The disappearing black middle class," reports on the disproportionate impact of these hard economic times on blacks.

According to the data, taken from the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, median net worth of white households fell from $134,280 in 2004 to $97,860 in 2009, while over the same period median black household net worth went from $13, 450 to $2,170.

The national unemployment rate stands at 9.2 percent, while black unemployment is over 16 percent.

There's more, but you get the picture. The nation has been hit hard, but blacks much harder.
Which raises a point of interest.

Approval rates for President Barack Obama among whites have dropped from 56 percent in early 2009 after he became president to 39 percent now -- a drop of 17 points. But over this same period, Obama's approval rating among blacks has dropped just 8 points from 93 percent to 85 percent.

Many whites that initially had supported our president are now crediting him for our current misery. But blacks, despite suffering far more, are far less inclined to hang it on Obama.

The message that massive government spending and borrowing does not grow the economy has not reached blacks. Rather, like our president, they seem to believe that the problem is we just haven't yet dug the fiscal hole deep enough.

Is this a racial thing? Whites will jump off the ship run by a black captain in a minute while blacks will ride it out until it hits the iceberg?

No, I don't think so. I think it's both a liberal information thing and a moral thing.

The liberal information thing is that blacks overwhelmingly get their information from liberal sources.

Blacks watch CNN and MSNBC, not Fox. They listen to urban black radio.

They are not going to hear from these sources that if you look all over the world, nations with the most prosperous economies are the ones with the most limited governments. Liberal media refuses to get and pass the word that socialism has failed.

The major organizations that supposedly represent black interests are all on the left, generously funded by big left wing white foundations and by our nation's corporations. The former do it because they are liberals and the latter do it to show that they are not racist.

And, like the Economic Policy Institute, that produced the data reported in the Sun Times article, they are supported by unions.

But I think more corrosive is the moral thing.

Almost a half-century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, too many blacks still don't want to be free and accept the responsibilities that go with it. Too many blacks still believe that the condition of their lives is caused by what someone else does or has.

It is sad that this is true despite the fact that blacks go to church more often, pray more often, and say religion plays a central part in their life more than any other ethnic group in the nation.

Why do a people so inclined to turn to God so readily violate the Tenth Commandment's prohibition on covetousness and measure themselves in terms of what others have? And then use this sin to justify violating the Eighth Commandment and give government license to steal what others have in order to redistribute?

Perhaps most fundamentally, how can a church going people buy into the materialism of socialism?

There is a solution to the general travails of our nation and the particular travails of our black brothers and sisters.

It is called every man and woman taking personal responsibility for their lives, turning to government for protection of life and property -- not redemption, and living as free people according to traditional biblical mores.

Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal & Education and author of the re-released book Uncle Sam's Plantation.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Jeremiah 29:11

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for the wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

This scripture is often quoted in Christian circles. It has provided me with comfort during times of uncertainty and reminds me that God has my back. If it is one thing that I've learned while in seminary is how to better interpret scripture.  What has been most rewarding is learning how to read/'preach' the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. That doesn't mean that OT is not read as Christian scripture but often times stories/scriptures from the Old Testament are taught like "fables" or "character" stories: "Do this like Ruth! Don't do this Like Adam." What's often missing is how does this relate to the center and frame of reference of the Bible: The person and work of Jesus Christ.

Often times I think Christians (including myself), read into scripture themselves as the point of reference. Most times when I hear my friends referring to this scripture it usually is like the peanut butter spread on their dreams or their plans. I've done it also. Don't get me wrong I still think that there is hope in this verse and implicates Jesus as this hope. However, that verse was given at a time where the people of Judah were threatened exile and were in political despair...not during a time where they were in school or branched out unto a new business or were pursuing a new relationship.

Jeremiah throughout the book seems to KEEP warning the people against impending judgment and to urge the people of Judah to come back to a complete dependence in the Lord. Jeremiah 29 brings the reader back to the Hope that is found in the Lord and gives the people a glimpse of restoration at this point in the text. I would like to think if we compare the context of when this was written to a present day application more than likely we would most often see "the peanut butter spread (or what ever spread you'd like) over our lives. Here it seems that God is motivating them not toward whatever "dream" or "plan" that they have to elevate themselves will come to pass but most importantly the peanut butter spread is the "new covenant" (Jer.31). In this book, a true reform needed to take place politically and in the hearts of the people. This hope and promise of wholeness and future could refer to freedom from the exile and destruction that Jeremiah had been prophesying. God was playing no games! Telling them they will see horror, destruction, famine...its not a good picture. But God also displays his mercy and compassion. The people needed a DIVINE intervention literally.

Yes, this text provides us with an assurance for those that are in Christ. But more than any plan, or hope in the future can be taken as a security that we have been forgiven as sinners because we were in need of a Savior and our eternal destination secure. We hold to the promise that He shall return and sin will be no more.

I am sorry but more than my future success, or idea of marriage, thought of children, vocation, career, travel, what I'll eat for dinner tonight or any of MY plans that I want God to see through doesn't compare to the hope found in Jesus. He knows the plans he has for me and that is (Jer 29: 12-14 " you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord..." ) compared to ( Jer 24:10 " and I will send sword, famine, and pestilience upon them, until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.") It just places things into perspective and I am most certainly reading Jeremiah 29:11a little differently!

Hebrews 9:15, 24-27:

15Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.....24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.