"Eclectic" means it can even go beyond my taste. Not a big fan of this song, the original group, or the ukulele... yet what this gent does is pretty wonderful. Thanks to reader Randy Talley for the tip:
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Friday, December 26, 2014
Warfield's masterful statement on the Trinity in the NT
In case you've never read it, here is superb theologian/scholar Benjamin B. Warfield's statement on how we find the doctrine of the Triune God in the New Testament:
It is an old saying that what becomes patent in the New Testament was latent in the Old Testament. And it is important that the continuity of the revelation of God contained in the two Testaments should not be overlooked or obscured. If we find some difficulty in perceiving for ourselves, in the Old Testament, definite points of attachment for the revelation of the Trinity, we cannot help perceiving with great clearness in the New Testament abundant evidence that its writers felt no incongruity whatever between their doctrine of the Trinity and the Old Testament conception of God. The New Testament writers certainly were not conscious of being “setters forth of strange gods.” To their own apprehension they worshipped and proclaimed just the God of Israel; and they laid no less stress than the Old Testament itself upon His unity (Jn. 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:4; 1 Tim. 2:5). They do not, then, place two new gods by the side of Jehovah as alike with Him to be served and worshipped; they conceive Jehovah as Himself at once Father, Son and Spirit. In presenting this one Jehovah as Father, Son and Spirit, they do not even betray any lurking feeling that they are making innovations. Without apparent misgiving they take over Old Testament passages and apply them to Father, Son and Spirit indifferently. Obviously they understand themselves, and wish to be understood, as setting forth in the Father, Son and Spirit just the one God that the God of the Old Testament revelation is; and they are as far as possible from recognizing any breach between themselves and the Fathers in presenting their enlarged conception of the Divine Being. This may not amount to saying that they saw the doctrine of the Trinity everywhere taught in the Old Testament. It certainly amounts to saying that they saw the Triune God whom they worshipped in the God of the Old p 143 Testament revelation, and felt no incongruity in speaking of their Triune God in the terms of the Old Testament revelation. The God of the Old Testament was their God, and their God was a Trinity, and their sense of the identity of the two was so complete that no question as to it was raised in their minds.
The simplicity and assurance with which the New Testament writers speak of God as a Trinity have, however, a further implication. If they betray no sense of novelty in so speaking of Him, this is undoubtedly in part because it was no longer a novelty so to speak of Him. It is clear, in other words, that, as we read the New Testament, we are not witnessing the birth of a new conception of God. What we meet with in its pages is a firmly established conception of God underlying and giving its tone to the whole fabric. It is not in a text here and there that the New Testament bears its testimony to the doctrine of the Trinity. The whole book is Trinitarian to the core; all its teaching is built on the assumption of the Trinity; and its allusions to the Trinity are frequent, cursory, easy and confident. It is with a view to the cursoriness of the allusions to it in the New Testament that it has been remarked that “the doctrine of the Trinity is not so much heard as overheard in the statements of Scripture.” It would be more exact to say that it is not so much inculcated as presupposed. The doctrine of the Trinity does not appear in the New Testament in the making, but as already made. It takes its place in its pages, as Gunkel phrases it, with an air almost of complaint, already “in full completeness” (völlig fertig), leaving no trace of its growth. “There is nothing more wonderful in the history of human thought,” says Sanday, with his eye on the appearance of the doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament, “than the silent and imperceptible way in which this doctrine, to us so difficult, took its place without struggle—and without controversy—among accepted Christian truths.” The explanation of this remarkable phenomenon is, however, simple. Our New Testament is not a record of the development of the doctrine or of its assimilation. It everywhere presupposes the doctrine as the fixed possession of the Christian community; and p 144 the process by which it became the possession of the Christian community lies behind the New Testament.
[Benjamin B. Warfield, The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield: Biblical Doctrines, vol. 2 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 142–144.]
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Monday Music - Bela Fleck's Christmas music feast
It's been a very Flecky, banjo-y month, so we close with a really terrific assortment of Christmas songs by banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck. Enjoy!
Music starts about 0:58.
Music starts about 0:58.
Friday, December 19, 2014
The rapture, unmanned cars, and absurd scenarios
I am reading through Craig Blomberg's commentary on Matthew, with varying degrees of enjoyment and profit.
Commenting on Matthew 24:40-41, he said this:
But what really catches my eye is his snorting at "absurd scenarios," like "cars suddenly without drivers." I pair that with brothers I hear sneering that they "don't believe in the rapture."
You don't? Then you're almost assuredly not a Christian.
Note: I did not say pre-tribulation rapture, or mid-tribulation rapture, or any other particular position on the timing of the rapture. Yet that's what I hear, again and again: "I don't believe in the rapture."
But if you're a Christian, you do believe in the rapture.
What is "the rapture"? It's the resurrection of believers, which involves raising the dead and glorifying those who are alive at that time (see 1 Cor 15:51-57; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Non-pretrib theologian Wayne Grudem defines it thus:
When does this happen, in relation to the Tribulation? Ah, that is where we part company.
But back to sneering Dr. Blomberg. If in conversation, I'd ask him: when Jesus comes and living believers are caught up to meet Him in the air... do cars exist? And, if they do, is it possible that some Christians will be driving cars? And if they are, and the Lord catches them away to meet him in the air...?
Well, if Dr. Blomberg thinks that an unmanned car is an "absurd scenario," then one can only assume that he thinks some sort of notice will be given in advance. Perhaps something like, "The rapture will occur in five minutes. Will genuine regenerate Christians please pull over to the side, park, and get out of their cars?"
Tell me: which one is the absurd scenario, again?
Commenting on Matthew 24:40-41, he said this:
Some have seen a “secret rapture” in view here (in which believers mysteriously disappear from earth, leaving everyone else to wonder what happened), which often leads to absurd scenarios (e.g., the modern-day notion of cars suddenly without drivers). But the only coming of the Son of Man described so far has been the climactic universal return of Christ in v. 27. The imagery of vv. 38–41 does not suggest anything different.
[Craig Blomberg, Matthew, vol. 22, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 366.]When the scare-quotes are used for "secret rapture," you know you're reading a detractor of the doctrine.
But what really catches my eye is his snorting at "absurd scenarios," like "cars suddenly without drivers." I pair that with brothers I hear sneering that they "don't believe in the rapture."
You don't? Then you're almost assuredly not a Christian.
Note: I did not say pre-tribulation rapture, or mid-tribulation rapture, or any other particular position on the timing of the rapture. Yet that's what I hear, again and again: "I don't believe in the rapture."
But if you're a Christian, you do believe in the rapture.
What is "the rapture"? It's the resurrection of believers, which involves raising the dead and glorifying those who are alive at that time (see 1 Cor 15:51-57; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Non-pretrib theologian Wayne Grudem defines it thus:
rapture: The “taking up” or snatching up (from Latin rapio, “seize, snatch, carry away”) of believers to be with Christ....
[Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 1253. Grudem concludes the sentence "when he returns to the earth," which is the point of contention.]All Christians believe in this. This is not a point of division.
When does this happen, in relation to the Tribulation? Ah, that is where we part company.
But back to sneering Dr. Blomberg. If in conversation, I'd ask him: when Jesus comes and living believers are caught up to meet Him in the air... do cars exist? And, if they do, is it possible that some Christians will be driving cars? And if they are, and the Lord catches them away to meet him in the air...?
Well, if Dr. Blomberg thinks that an unmanned car is an "absurd scenario," then one can only assume that he thinks some sort of notice will be given in advance. Perhaps something like, "The rapture will occur in five minutes. Will genuine regenerate Christians please pull over to the side, park, and get out of their cars?"
Tell me: which one is the absurd scenario, again?
Racism: We're All Victims
When I was a small child in the late 1960's, my family visited friends in a mostly black neighborhood in California--and my mother decided to warn me about playing out in the front yard while we were there. My memories of this are very sketchy. I think she said something about black people being mad at white people right now. Whatever she said, it caused me to have nightmares. I remember those vividly. In my dreams that night, coal-black men burst through the door of our hotel room and snatched me away.
Then we returned to the lily-white suburban neighborhood where I grew up, and the nightmares didn't follow me. I wasn't aware, for a long time, of any lingering effects. After all, there were only two black boys in my school district, and they were friendly and familiar.
But a dozen years later, I was at a Lutheran summer camp. It was the first day, and activities hadn't started yet. After dumping my things on a bunk in the boy's dormitory, I walked around the campground for half an hour. Then I decided to read under a tree, and so headed back to the dorm to get my book.
Three black teenagers were there, chatting and laughing. I froze in fear. I almost turned in the doorway. But I stopped myself. I forced myself to walk into the room, say hi, and get my book. They didn't beat me up. Instead, they said hi back. And I, still flushed with adrenalin, went and found a tree to read under.
In light of recent news out of Ferguson and New York, I've been thinking quite a bit about my childhood nightmare, and about my encounter with my gut-level racial fears in that summer camp dorm room. They are evidence of something--namely, that I've been harmed by growing up in a racist society. My best self has been harmed.
One of the things that profoundly shaped Martin Luther King, Jr.'s approach to fighting segregation was his conviction that the struggle was not between white people and black people, but between human beings and the racist system.This is one crucial reason why he insisted on an approach that eschewed violence and expressed love for the white oppressor: We're all in this together. All of us should work together to overcome racism, because all of us are its victims.
Let's be clear: King didn't mean that blacks are just as racist towards whites as the other way around, and that we're therefore all on the same footing. When a social system--defined by deeply rooted cultural practices and patterns of thinking and feeling--causes one group to enjoy privileges at the expense of another, there is no equal footing. And when members of the marginalized group lash out against the privileged group, it has a very different meaning than when members of the privileged group invoke their privilege to put the oppressed in their place.
Racism is not just about harboring animosity towards members of a racial group. It's about the oppressive use of social power. And unlike the frustrated lash-back of its victims, such oppressive use of social power can look very subtle, almost benign, to those who aren't its victims. When the oppressed behave badly, it looks like rioting. When the privileged behave badly, it looks like business-as-usual.
King called on all of us to stop behaving badly--but that call demands different things from the privileged than it does from the oppressed. It is one thing to resist the urge, in the wake of years of frustration and resentment, to lash out with flailing fists. That can be hard, especially in moments of acute outrage at specific injustices. But that challenge--to resist behaving badly in the face of an acute injustice--is very different from the challenge of resisting the urge to do what is socially acceptable, what is invisible, what you don't even know you are doing when you do it.
Racism drives the oppressed to moments of acute frustration, where it becomes hard to be your best self. But racism confronts the privileged with easy injustice, and it sometimes takes moments of acute emotion to begin learning to resist temptation. Racism harms me, a white male, not only because it make me unjustifiably afraid of my fellow Lutheran campers. It harms me because it makes it so easy, so painfully easy, to fall short of my moral aspirations.
And this is what King meant when he said that the racist system harms us all. White supremacists have been inhumanized by racist ideologies even as their black victims have been dehumanized. Well-meaning white people have had their best intentions undermined by subconscious prejudices that they don't even know are there, and black people have felt the accumulated weight of the micro-aggressions that result.
Research shows that even people who loathe racism are affected by unconscious prejudices. And no one is immune. Those in my profession are as guilty as anyone, as a recent study of college professors reveals. The evidence also shows that black children feel the effects of this unconscious racism very early on--starting as early as pre-school. Black children who behave the same way as white ones are perceived by white authority figures as a problem in a way that their white peers are not. It starts in preschool and just keeps happening. For some personality types, this may lead to a kind of cowering effort to avoid notice. In some, it may inspire a concerted effort to be better-behaved than everyone else, so that one can come off looking to unconsciously racist eyes as almost respectable.
But for some personality types, it can lead to growing frustration, growing anger, a growing sense of injustice. And if those personalities don't also possess uncommon resources for expressing their sense of injustice with eloquence and creative nonviolence--if they don't have the uncommon resources of a Martin Luther King, Jr.--they may strike back in more antisocial ways, creating a kind of feedback loop. Authorities treat you as a problem, so you react in ways that lead authorities to treat you as a bigger problem, and so on--culminating, perhaps, in a black teenager lashing out in explosive rage at a white police officer who orders him off the street, and a white police officer seeing a problem so terrifying that shooting seems the only way to get home to his family alive.
I've thought quite a lot about the tragic encounter between Officer Darren Wilson and teenager Michael Brown, and I'm uncomfortable with knee-jerk reactions in either direction. It was a black police officer who said, at a panel discussion I attended in early September, that the evidence available to him pointed to a justified police shooting. But if we accept that judgment, and also the judgment of the Grand Jury, it doesn't mean that racism isn't deeply implicated in what happened in Ferguson. Rather, it points to the deep truth that the racist system in this country has victims who are both black and white.
If Darren Wilson was justified in pulling the trigger, then it's because a system of anti-black racism worked itself out in the history of Ferguson, MO, and in the lives of the people involved, in ways that put that police officer into a desperate corner. Black boys grew up unfairly singled out as problems rather than people. A system evolved such that a city of mostly black citizens was policed by mostly-white officers who lived elsewhere, who were both physically and racially segregated from the community they served and so were unlikely to feel deeply connected to the community and its members.
The police have been targeted for a special kind of scrutiny by recent events, and given their important role in our society, and the power with which they are invested, I suppose such scrutiny makes sense. But the problem of racism is a social problem, not a police problem. I know a number of police officers and respect them all. They are good people devoted to serving the public good. As in all professions, there are bad apples. And as in all professions--including my own--the broad social influence of systemic racism will have its effects.
One of those effects is unconscious racial bias. The thing about such bias is that, unlike deliberate prejudice, we are not morally blameworthy for it. The enemy is the racist system; the fact that we acquire unconscious racial biases is a sign of the way that we all are victims. When blacks internalize such bias, it leads to self-destructive patterns, an internalized racism that leads them to underestimate their own potential. When whites do, it cuts them off from the full fruits of fellowship with their black neighbors, and leads them to unconsciously carry out patterns of behavior that defy their own values.
The moral questions comes into play when we wrestle with what to do with our racial bias.
When I came face-to-face with my own racial bias at that Lutheran summer camp, it awakened me to something I hadn't been aware of before. I might have pretended that race had nothing to do with my reaction--that I was just following a gut instinct that the teens standing there in the dorm were bad news. But I saw my own racial bias in that case, and over the years I have become convinced that there are many forms it takes which I don't see.
So what do I do with that? Here's one thing I do with it. You know that instinct you have, sometimes, not to get in an elevator when you see who's inside, or to cross to the far side of the street when you see who's coming towards you? I have that instinct. And here's the thing: I am probably more likely to feel it when the person in the elevator or coming towards me is black. But for that very reason, I am more likely to act on it if the person is white. Because if the person is black, chances are it's the legacy of the racist system at work within me--and that's something I ought to ignore. But if the person is white, I may be intuitively responding to something that I should pay attention to.
In other words, I am more suspicious of my instincts when it comes to my reactions to black strangers than to white ones, because I know how insidious covert racial bias can be. In relation to intuitive responses to white strangers, I hesitate less because there is less reason to mistrust my instincts. In relation to black strangers, I hesitate more. Now this still means I treat whites and blacks differently--perhaps differently in ways that might be noticed, that might still work in ways that are harmful. But it is the best I know how to do under the circumstances.
There's reason to suppose that white police officers in general have internalized the same lesson. A recent Washington State University study shows that, despite the evidence of unconscious racial bias in police officers (mirroring the unconscious racial bias in the general population), in circumstances that mimic real-life decision-making, white police officers hesitate more and make fewer errors when shooting black suspects. This is true even though the same study shows that the participants were more likely to perceive black suspects as threatening.
One way to understand this finding is that the police trust their gut more when the suspect is white, and so don't hesitate as long (and so make more errors). When the suspect is black, they have developed a meta-level instinct not to take their first-order fear-response as trustworthy. And so they hesitate longer, and make better decisions.
If this is right, then when it comes to the split-second decision-making of whether to fire their weapon or not, most police officers are doing the best they know how to do under the circumstances. Of course this is just one study, but it is a hopeful one. While there is little reason to suppose that the police are any more immune to unconscious bias than the rest of us, there is reason to think that, in general, police have some awareness of racism's potential to bias judgment and have--perhaps unconsciously--developed meta-level instincts to counteract those effects.
But racism is a many-tentacled monster, and doing the best you know how to do in split-second decision-making isn't enough to overcome a long legacy of oppression and injustice. Racism will sometimes rear its monstrous head in the form of overtly racist officers. Some police departments may foster a culture that discourages self-reflective awareness of racial bias and its effects, so that that the meta-level instincts to counteract such bias never take root.
But the bigger problem is that the police cannot be expected to become immune to racism in isolation. They cannot be expected to cope effectively with a society that treats black boys as suspect from earliest childhood, and reinforces that message so deeply through the years that it becomes a struggle not to internalize it. They cannot be expected to take responsibility for the whole range of social forces that turn the police into a group of outsiders entering a community they don't belong to and being received as an occupying force rather than as officers of the peace.
The police, like the rest of us, are victims of a racist system. As King insisted half a century ago, that system is the enemy. It's not the police, and it's certainly not the protesters in Ferguson and New York around the country who are rising up to say that black lives matter.
Racism has made victims of us all, but we don't have to stay victims. The trick is to remember who the enemy is, so that we don't turn against each other, human against human, and thereby allow the many-tentacled monster of racism to continue to do its terrible work unresisted.
Then we returned to the lily-white suburban neighborhood where I grew up, and the nightmares didn't follow me. I wasn't aware, for a long time, of any lingering effects. After all, there were only two black boys in my school district, and they were friendly and familiar.
But a dozen years later, I was at a Lutheran summer camp. It was the first day, and activities hadn't started yet. After dumping my things on a bunk in the boy's dormitory, I walked around the campground for half an hour. Then I decided to read under a tree, and so headed back to the dorm to get my book.
Three black teenagers were there, chatting and laughing. I froze in fear. I almost turned in the doorway. But I stopped myself. I forced myself to walk into the room, say hi, and get my book. They didn't beat me up. Instead, they said hi back. And I, still flushed with adrenalin, went and found a tree to read under.
In light of recent news out of Ferguson and New York, I've been thinking quite a bit about my childhood nightmare, and about my encounter with my gut-level racial fears in that summer camp dorm room. They are evidence of something--namely, that I've been harmed by growing up in a racist society. My best self has been harmed.
One of the things that profoundly shaped Martin Luther King, Jr.'s approach to fighting segregation was his conviction that the struggle was not between white people and black people, but between human beings and the racist system.This is one crucial reason why he insisted on an approach that eschewed violence and expressed love for the white oppressor: We're all in this together. All of us should work together to overcome racism, because all of us are its victims.
Let's be clear: King didn't mean that blacks are just as racist towards whites as the other way around, and that we're therefore all on the same footing. When a social system--defined by deeply rooted cultural practices and patterns of thinking and feeling--causes one group to enjoy privileges at the expense of another, there is no equal footing. And when members of the marginalized group lash out against the privileged group, it has a very different meaning than when members of the privileged group invoke their privilege to put the oppressed in their place.
Racism is not just about harboring animosity towards members of a racial group. It's about the oppressive use of social power. And unlike the frustrated lash-back of its victims, such oppressive use of social power can look very subtle, almost benign, to those who aren't its victims. When the oppressed behave badly, it looks like rioting. When the privileged behave badly, it looks like business-as-usual.
King called on all of us to stop behaving badly--but that call demands different things from the privileged than it does from the oppressed. It is one thing to resist the urge, in the wake of years of frustration and resentment, to lash out with flailing fists. That can be hard, especially in moments of acute outrage at specific injustices. But that challenge--to resist behaving badly in the face of an acute injustice--is very different from the challenge of resisting the urge to do what is socially acceptable, what is invisible, what you don't even know you are doing when you do it.
Racism drives the oppressed to moments of acute frustration, where it becomes hard to be your best self. But racism confronts the privileged with easy injustice, and it sometimes takes moments of acute emotion to begin learning to resist temptation. Racism harms me, a white male, not only because it make me unjustifiably afraid of my fellow Lutheran campers. It harms me because it makes it so easy, so painfully easy, to fall short of my moral aspirations.
And this is what King meant when he said that the racist system harms us all. White supremacists have been inhumanized by racist ideologies even as their black victims have been dehumanized. Well-meaning white people have had their best intentions undermined by subconscious prejudices that they don't even know are there, and black people have felt the accumulated weight of the micro-aggressions that result.
Research shows that even people who loathe racism are affected by unconscious prejudices. And no one is immune. Those in my profession are as guilty as anyone, as a recent study of college professors reveals. The evidence also shows that black children feel the effects of this unconscious racism very early on--starting as early as pre-school. Black children who behave the same way as white ones are perceived by white authority figures as a problem in a way that their white peers are not. It starts in preschool and just keeps happening. For some personality types, this may lead to a kind of cowering effort to avoid notice. In some, it may inspire a concerted effort to be better-behaved than everyone else, so that one can come off looking to unconsciously racist eyes as almost respectable.
But for some personality types, it can lead to growing frustration, growing anger, a growing sense of injustice. And if those personalities don't also possess uncommon resources for expressing their sense of injustice with eloquence and creative nonviolence--if they don't have the uncommon resources of a Martin Luther King, Jr.--they may strike back in more antisocial ways, creating a kind of feedback loop. Authorities treat you as a problem, so you react in ways that lead authorities to treat you as a bigger problem, and so on--culminating, perhaps, in a black teenager lashing out in explosive rage at a white police officer who orders him off the street, and a white police officer seeing a problem so terrifying that shooting seems the only way to get home to his family alive.
I've thought quite a lot about the tragic encounter between Officer Darren Wilson and teenager Michael Brown, and I'm uncomfortable with knee-jerk reactions in either direction. It was a black police officer who said, at a panel discussion I attended in early September, that the evidence available to him pointed to a justified police shooting. But if we accept that judgment, and also the judgment of the Grand Jury, it doesn't mean that racism isn't deeply implicated in what happened in Ferguson. Rather, it points to the deep truth that the racist system in this country has victims who are both black and white.
If Darren Wilson was justified in pulling the trigger, then it's because a system of anti-black racism worked itself out in the history of Ferguson, MO, and in the lives of the people involved, in ways that put that police officer into a desperate corner. Black boys grew up unfairly singled out as problems rather than people. A system evolved such that a city of mostly black citizens was policed by mostly-white officers who lived elsewhere, who were both physically and racially segregated from the community they served and so were unlikely to feel deeply connected to the community and its members.
The police have been targeted for a special kind of scrutiny by recent events, and given their important role in our society, and the power with which they are invested, I suppose such scrutiny makes sense. But the problem of racism is a social problem, not a police problem. I know a number of police officers and respect them all. They are good people devoted to serving the public good. As in all professions, there are bad apples. And as in all professions--including my own--the broad social influence of systemic racism will have its effects.
One of those effects is unconscious racial bias. The thing about such bias is that, unlike deliberate prejudice, we are not morally blameworthy for it. The enemy is the racist system; the fact that we acquire unconscious racial biases is a sign of the way that we all are victims. When blacks internalize such bias, it leads to self-destructive patterns, an internalized racism that leads them to underestimate their own potential. When whites do, it cuts them off from the full fruits of fellowship with their black neighbors, and leads them to unconsciously carry out patterns of behavior that defy their own values.
The moral questions comes into play when we wrestle with what to do with our racial bias.
When I came face-to-face with my own racial bias at that Lutheran summer camp, it awakened me to something I hadn't been aware of before. I might have pretended that race had nothing to do with my reaction--that I was just following a gut instinct that the teens standing there in the dorm were bad news. But I saw my own racial bias in that case, and over the years I have become convinced that there are many forms it takes which I don't see.
So what do I do with that? Here's one thing I do with it. You know that instinct you have, sometimes, not to get in an elevator when you see who's inside, or to cross to the far side of the street when you see who's coming towards you? I have that instinct. And here's the thing: I am probably more likely to feel it when the person in the elevator or coming towards me is black. But for that very reason, I am more likely to act on it if the person is white. Because if the person is black, chances are it's the legacy of the racist system at work within me--and that's something I ought to ignore. But if the person is white, I may be intuitively responding to something that I should pay attention to.
In other words, I am more suspicious of my instincts when it comes to my reactions to black strangers than to white ones, because I know how insidious covert racial bias can be. In relation to intuitive responses to white strangers, I hesitate less because there is less reason to mistrust my instincts. In relation to black strangers, I hesitate more. Now this still means I treat whites and blacks differently--perhaps differently in ways that might be noticed, that might still work in ways that are harmful. But it is the best I know how to do under the circumstances.
There's reason to suppose that white police officers in general have internalized the same lesson. A recent Washington State University study shows that, despite the evidence of unconscious racial bias in police officers (mirroring the unconscious racial bias in the general population), in circumstances that mimic real-life decision-making, white police officers hesitate more and make fewer errors when shooting black suspects. This is true even though the same study shows that the participants were more likely to perceive black suspects as threatening.
One way to understand this finding is that the police trust their gut more when the suspect is white, and so don't hesitate as long (and so make more errors). When the suspect is black, they have developed a meta-level instinct not to take their first-order fear-response as trustworthy. And so they hesitate longer, and make better decisions.
If this is right, then when it comes to the split-second decision-making of whether to fire their weapon or not, most police officers are doing the best they know how to do under the circumstances. Of course this is just one study, but it is a hopeful one. While there is little reason to suppose that the police are any more immune to unconscious bias than the rest of us, there is reason to think that, in general, police have some awareness of racism's potential to bias judgment and have--perhaps unconsciously--developed meta-level instincts to counteract those effects.
But racism is a many-tentacled monster, and doing the best you know how to do in split-second decision-making isn't enough to overcome a long legacy of oppression and injustice. Racism will sometimes rear its monstrous head in the form of overtly racist officers. Some police departments may foster a culture that discourages self-reflective awareness of racial bias and its effects, so that that the meta-level instincts to counteract such bias never take root.
But the bigger problem is that the police cannot be expected to become immune to racism in isolation. They cannot be expected to cope effectively with a society that treats black boys as suspect from earliest childhood, and reinforces that message so deeply through the years that it becomes a struggle not to internalize it. They cannot be expected to take responsibility for the whole range of social forces that turn the police into a group of outsiders entering a community they don't belong to and being received as an occupying force rather than as officers of the peace.
The police, like the rest of us, are victims of a racist system. As King insisted half a century ago, that system is the enemy. It's not the police, and it's certainly not the protesters in Ferguson and New York around the country who are rising up to say that black lives matter.
Racism has made victims of us all, but we don't have to stay victims. The trick is to remember who the enemy is, so that we don't turn against each other, human against human, and thereby allow the many-tentacled monster of racism to continue to do its terrible work unresisted.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Gurnall on how Satan induces paralyzing guilt
In a wonderful section which I'll only partly reproduce, Gurnall talks about how Satan troubles the Christian by trying to sound like the Holy Spirit, and pointing the Christian to the greatness of his sin. "He vexeth the Christian by laying his brats at the saint’s door, and charging him with that which is his own creature," Gurnall says — in other words, Satan both fathers, and accuses the believer for, these sins (William Gurnall and John Campbell, The Christian in Complete Armour (London: Thomas Tegg: 1845, 57). He also makes a great big fuss about the terrible nature of the saint's sins, though "not," Gurnall notes, "that he hates the sin, but the saint."
So he will focus us on what a wretched job we do of walking with God, how half-hearted we are, how poor our obedience, how half-baked our works. I'll quote at length two of Gurnall's proposed remedies in pointing to the fallacies of Satan's arguments, because they're pretty wonderful:
So he will focus us on what a wretched job we do of walking with God, how half-hearted we are, how poor our obedience, how half-baked our works. I'll quote at length two of Gurnall's proposed remedies in pointing to the fallacies of Satan's arguments, because they're pretty wonderful:
First, He will persuade thee that thy duty and thyself are hypocritical, proud, formal, &c., because something of these sins are to be found in thy duty. Now, Christian, learn to distinguish between pride in a duty, and a proud duty; hypocrisy in a person, and a hypocrite; wine in a man, and a man in wine. The best of saints have the stirrings of such corruptions in them, and in their services; these birds will light on an Abraham’s sacrifice; but comfort thyself with this, that if thou findest a party within thy bosom pleading for God, and entering its protest against these, thou and thy services are evangelically perfect. God beholds these as the weaknesses of thy sickly state here below, and pities thee, as thou wouldest do thy lame child. How odious is he to us that mocks one for natural defects, a blear eye or a stammering tongue? Such are these in thy new nature. Observable is that in Christ’s prayer against Satan, Zech. 3:3, ‘The Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee; is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?’ As if Christ had said, Lord, wilt thou suffer this envious spirit to twit thy poor child with, and charge him for, those infirmities that cleave to his imperfect state? he is but new plucked out of the fire, no wonder there are some sparks unquenched, some corruptions unmortified, some disorders unreformed in his place and calling. And what Christ did for Joshua, he doth incessantly for all his saints, apologising for their infirmities with his Father.
Secondly, His other fallacy is in arguing from the sin that is in our duties to the non-acceptance of them. Will God, saith he, thinkest thou, take such broken groats at thy hand? Is he not a holy God? Now here, Christian, learn to distinguish and answer Satan. There is a double acceptance. There is an acceptance of a thing by way of payment of debt, and there is an acceptance of a thing offered as a token of love and a testimony of gratitude. He that will not accept of broken money, or half the sum for payment of a debt; the same man, if his friend sends him, though but a bent sixpence, in token of his love, will take it kindly. It is true, Christian, the debt thou owest to God must be paid in good and lawful money; but, for thy comfort, here Christ is thy paymaster; send Satan to him, bid him bring his charge against Christ, who is ready at God’s right hand to clear his accounts, and shew his discharge for the whole debt. But now thy performances and obedience come under another notion, as tokens of thy love and thankfulness to God; and such is the gracious disposition of thy heavenly Father, that he accepts thy mite: love refuseth nothing that love sends. It is not the weight or worth of the gift, but ‘the desire of a man is his kindness,’ Prov. 19:22.
[William Gurnall and John Campbell, The Christian in Complete Armour (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845), 59–60. Bolding added]Love this book. Also available in a paperback set.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Monday Music - Victor Wooten's Christmas jam from 2009
As with classic Chicago, each musician in Bela Fleck and the Flecktones is amazingly talented. Not one whit less than Bela himself, Victor Wooten is an absolutely amazing bass player.
Sorry this is an audience recording, with all the rude and inconsiderate chatter, but hear Wooten's Christmas jam from 2009:
Sorry this is an audience recording, with all the rude and inconsiderate chatter, but hear Wooten's Christmas jam from 2009:
Monday, December 8, 2014
What Does the Manger Have to Do with the Grave? Christmas and the Value of Human Life
“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:3) How Jesus’ coming to earth changes everything.
Preface: The nation’s collective conscience about the value of life is changing. We are losing our understanding of the intrinsic value of human life. However, the incarnation, the entrance of Jesus Christ to this earth as a baby, teaches us about why life is so valuable.
The Drive for the “Right to Die”
Brittany Maynard was a 29 year old woman who was diagnosed with a terrible and terminal disease, stage four glioblastoma. She decided to use her final days on earth to promote “Right to Die” laws in the United States, and, in a video presentation that went viral, declared the date that she would take her life. She kept her promise and on November 1, she took an overdose of barbiturates and died.[i]
It would be only the most calloused individual who would not sympathize with Brittany’s plight. The challenges of receiving a terminal diagnosis test the mettle of any individual, and any true Christian must look with compassion upon such a hurting individual and her family. Still, two troubling issues emerge: 1) Brittany wanted to use her illness as a pulpit from which to be a missionary for legalizing assisted suicide in every state; 2) The organization “Compassion and Choices” used Brittany as the poster child of their advocacy of so called “death with dignity.”
At first blush, it might be thought, “What is the problem with assisted suicide for the terminally ill?” After all, a person should be able to dictate the terms of their death, just as they live, right? Failing to allow that seems cruel and who wants to promote the continuation of pain and suffering of hurting people? One key word is “autonomy,” the ability to be in charge of one’s own life. The “right to die” advocates have quite an affection for autonomy. Why should the state, they reason, have an interest in stopping me from asserting my autonomy about when I will die? In fact, Brittany Maynard, in one of her last videos, expressed it this way, “The worst thing that could happen to me is that I wait too long . . . and somehow have my autonomy taken away.”[ii]
The Christian Response to the “Right to Die”
How does the Christian respond to such a compelling figure as Brittany Maynard? It is helpful to pull back from her personal story for a bit and see the landscape that legalized assisted suicide will bring us. It will bring us the utilitarian view of life—that life is worth living only as long as that life produces something of value. This leaves us with two questions—who determines what is “valuable”? And how can we know “value” from “non-value”? Let’s back up from Brittany’s diagnosis and consider a person who is not terminally ill but is perpetually depressed. Should we leave it to them to live or die? How about a person who is really, really sad because they faced a really, really bad day? How much pain does it take to become “unbearable”? Who gets to decide what is bearable and unbearable?
The focus on the primacy of the individual assumes that the individual knows what is best for himself. Is that true? “Right to die” advocates actually disagree about this. Some suggest that once a certain point is reached in lack of autonomy, others should be allowed to make the decision for the patient. So, the focus on autonomy ends up with a person having to prove his own value, does it not? What happens when a doctor determines that you no longer have an “autonomous” life? Does that mean that the state is compelled, by “compassion” of course, to kill you?
An ethic of life based on autonomy and utility will lead to people not admitting their needs for fear that they will be deemed to lack “quality of life.” At the very best, this ethic promotes the wrong kind of living, people living lives that are separated from others because we would not dare reveal that we are needy. There would be little reason for sacrifice to care for hurting people. Why sacrifice your autonomy and utility to care for someone who “ought” to be dead anyway?
The idea of the “right to die,” while presented as a compassionate response to human suffering, is actually a cruelty which will bring untold suffering to our nation. Rev. Dr. Ignacio Castuera, one of the leaders of this “right to die” movement, cleverly named “Compassion and Choices,” said in response to the Catholic Church’s rejection of this ideology, “Even many Catholics disagree with the Vatican on numerous issues, ranging from birth control – to a woman’s right to choose – to end-of-life choice.”[iii] Note that it is Castuera, an advocate of this position, who equates the position with the right to abortion.
Horrific Problems Ahead
Here are some of the horrific problems which will occur in our country if this “right to die”—“death with dignity” view is embraced:
1) Society does not want to bear the costs of human suffering. Already we are seeing that our government dependence of health care is creating all sorts of questions about the cost of that care for the value received. This will lead to an increasing dependence upon an exit, as in assisting people to die. People, especially the elderly, will feel guilty about being a burden on others when they do not have “autonomy.” 2) It is anti-God. Joanna Rothkopf, declares in a salon.com article, “The issue with outlawing assisted suicide for those certain, justifiable cases is that the law then assumes that life, by any means, is more important than personal philosophy and comfort. And that life-centric view is largely derived from our predominantly Western Christian society.”[iv] Rothkopf admits that the only real hindrance to an America shaped in her image is the “life-centric view” that Western Christianity provides. As Al Mohler notes, “the restraining power in America, when it comes to the issue of legalizing assisted suicide, is the continuing influence in America of its Christian heritage, of the Christian worldview, that continues at least in some way to shape the society.”[v]
3) The “right to die” view assumes that the highest good is to avoid all suffering. This will lead to ever increasing reasons to take suicide as the preferred option in the face of suffering. This is particularly true where one person’s suffering creates suffering for someone else.
4) Death, rather than being fought as an enemy, will be embraced as a friend. This leads to a diminishing of the value of life at every stage, no matter how autonomous, no matter how useful.What Does This Have to Do with Christmas?
By now, you are probably asking, “What does this have to do with Christmas? Isn’t a pastor supposed to write about Christmas in a December blog?” I have good news for you! This most certainly is about Christmas, the celebration of the incarnation of God in the flesh. Let me show you how:
1) Instead of not wanting to bear the costs of human suffering, Jesus willingly came to this planet to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. We do not have feel like we are a burden to God, because He took our burdens upon Himself! Isaiah 53:4-5, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Philippians 2:6-7, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
2) Instead of being anti-God, Jesus came to earth to make God known! John 1:14, 18, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.”
3) Instead of avoiding human suffering, Jesus embraced the cross. His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, but He did not take an escape route (although He could have called down legions of angels to escape the suffering). He, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross. Matthew 26:53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? Philippians 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross; Hebrews 12:2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God; Matthew 26:37-38 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”
4) Instead of death being a friend, Jesus entered this world, fought death, and was victorious over it. As Douglas Moo writes, “The resurrection of Christ means a final and decisive break with death and all its power.”[vi]1 Corinthians 15:55-57 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ; Romans 6:9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.; Acts 2:24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
So, I urge you to resist the siren call of our age to think of death as a welcomed friend, to believe that the highest good is to avoid suffering, to live as though God does not exist. Instead, remember the Savior, Jesus Christ. He bore the costs of human suffering. He came to earth to make God known. He embraced His own suffering for our sake. He fought death and defeated it utterly.
Just over a year ago, I shared at East White Oak's services about a friend of mine who was suffering from stage 4 glioblastoma (ironically very similar to Brittany Maynard). My friend Suzy died about 14 months ago, but instead of taking her own life, she continued to live and to share Christ will all around her until the Lord took her home. Her testimony was so compelling that the staff at the hospital where she received treatment had a special meeting with her to ask her why she could endure such hardships. Here is what she said:
"I believe in and have faith in God and that has helped me through everything. Because Jesus died on the cross to forgive my sins I believe that I will spend eternity in heaven with Him. And so death is not a scary or frightening thing for me. It is just the time when I will get to meet Jesus face-to-face. Right now I feel like I am being held in the palm of his hand. And as long as I am on earth, as long as I have breath, I want to experience the joy of living as He wants me to live and doing what God put me on earth to do."
Be glad. Your Savior values your life. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” John 1:3.
Merry Christmas,
Scott Boerckel
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Briefly? We're never safe
Gurnall expounds another time — or a pair of times — which Satan finds advantageous for the attack:
Fifthly, After great manifestations of God’s love, then the tempter comes. Such is the weak constitution of grace, that it can neither well bear smiles nor frowns from God without a snare; as one said of our English nation, Totam nec pati potest libertatem nec servitutem; it cannot well bear liberty nor bondage in the height: so neither can the soul; if God smile and open himself a little familiarly to us, then we are prone to grow high and wanton; if he frown, then we sink as much in our faith; thus the one, like fair weather and warm gleams, brings up the weeds of corruption; and the other, like sharp frosts, nips and even kills the flowers of grace. The Christian is in danger on both hands, therefore Satan takes this advantage, when the Christian is flush of comfort, even as a cheater, who strikes in with some young heir, when he hath newly received his rents, and never leaves till he hath eased him of his money; thus Satan lies upon the catch, then to inveigle a saint into one sin or other, which he knows will soon leak out his joy. Had ever any a larger testimony from heaven than Peter, Matt. 16:17; where Christ pronounceth him blessed, and puts a singular honour upon him, making him the representative for all his saints? No doubt this favour to Peter stirred up the envious spirit sooner to fall upon him. If Joseph’s party-coloured coat made the patriarchs to plot against him, their brother, no wonder malice should prompt Satan to show his spite, where Christ had set such a mark of love and honour; and therefore we find him soon at Peter’s elbow, making him his instrument to tempt his Master, who soon espied his cloven foot, and rebukes Peter with a ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’ He that seemed a rock even now, through Satan’s policy, is laid a stone of offence for Christ to stumble at. So David, when he had received such wonderful mercies, settled in his throne with the ruin of his enemies, yea, pardoned for his bloody sin, now ready to lay down his head with peace in the dust; Satan steps in to cloud his clear evening, and tempts him to number the people; so ambitious is Satan, then chiefly, to throw the saint into the mire of sin, when his coat is cleanest.
[William Gurnall and John Campbell, The Christian in Complete Armour (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845), 48.]So to the question "When may I safely lay down my guard and take off my armor?", the answer would be, "Never in this life."
Christmas tracts
In short: does anyone know any really good ones — readable, pointed, Christ-centered, from the perspective of the doctrines of grace, affirming God's sovereignty in salvation?
Share, and (this is the part people forget) explain why you like the tract. Anecdotes are especially welcome.
Share, and (this is the part people forget) explain why you like the tract. Anecdotes are especially welcome.
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