In an article by Christopher Gray for Forbes titled “Chloe McKenzie’s Black Fem Is Closing the Wealth Gap for Black Women,” Gray reported about the life and work of Chloe McKenzie. Gray wrote, “McKenzie founded BlackFem, a nonprofit that pushes a financial literacy curriculum in some of the country’s most disadvantaged schools...McKenzie said, ‘The work I do is vital to future global financial health. Demographic shifts can no longer be ignored. BlackFem stands for black feminism, which states that if we liberate those at the bottom, we are really liberating everyone.’...Hinting at a sobering data point often bypassed in conversations about wealth, five dollars is the estimated net worth of black women. For white families, that same number is over $100,000 and rising but for black households it's a paltry $1,700. In fact, experts predict black wealth will fall to zero in the coming generation, but as McKenzie emphasizes, women of color have already hit rock bottom.”
In the Aeon article “Land and the Roots of African-American Poverty,” edited by Sam Haselby, the writers explain, “The Homestead Acts were unquestionably the most extensive, radical, redistributive governmental policy in US history. The number of adult descendants of the original Homestead Act recipients living in the year 2000 was estimated to be around 46 million people, about a quarter of the US adult population. If that many white Americans can trace their legacy of wealth and property ownership to a single entitlement programme, then the perpetuation of black poverty must also be linked to national policy. Indeed, the Homestead Acts excluded African Americans not in letter, but in practice – a template that the government would propagate for the next century and a half.”
The Aeon article above explains just one reason for the racial wealth gap. For more information on the racial wealth gap, you can read the newest BtN blog post titled “Systemic Racism Series: Wealth.” Our present is intertwined with and informed by our past. We must face the past so we can heal the future.
*Edited to add: On June 17, 2020, I came across The Redemption Project with Van Jones for CNN. I read the words, “Face the past. Heal the future.” I will no longer use this phrase for my Headlines and History posts beginning in June 2020.
#chloemckenzie #christophergray #forbes #blackfem #blackfeminism #feminism #whitefeminismisnotfeminism #aeon #wealth #wealthgap #wealthdisparity #economicjustice #loveyourneighbor #seekjustice #lovemercy #walkhumbly #socialjustice #seekjustice #lament #repent #repair #reparations #facethepast #healthefuture #headlines #history #headlinesandhistory #historyandheadlines #challengethenarrative #broadeningthenarrative
Podcast Rec. - Jan. 21, 2020
Current Listen - Can I Say This at Church? podcast: “Atonement with Brad Jersak" (Released April 28, 2018)
“Aside from the problem of the word atonement, there's a confusion. The Gospel I grew up with was an atonement theory. That means we were mistaking the Gospel for an atonement theory. The Gospel is that Jesus came, died, and rose again to save us from Satan, sin, and death, and to renew us to relationship with God. But these atonement theories are just about, ‘How did that work?’ Do you need an atonement theory to preach the Gospel? Well, you do if you think your atonement theory is the Gospel. But if we go to the book of Acts and read every single evangelistic sermon, to Jews or Gentiles, by any apostle or by the protomartyr Stephen, not one of them includes an atonement theory. And by the way, not one of them includes the threat of hell either.”
“Jesus’ whole life, and especially His ministry, when He launches it in Luke 4, and He describes the new covenant, He doesn't say the new covenant will happen when I die. He says, ‘The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, cleansing to the leper, freedom to the captives to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.’ That's all new covenant, right? And then He says this, ‘Today, this is fulfilled in your hearing.’ Day one of His ministry in terms of public preaching. Then we see that being worked out, salvation. By the way, the root word of this is the verb ‘sozo,’ which means ‘healing’ and ‘saving.’ So it's sort of like, ‘making whole again,’ but also ‘rescuing.’ So that's all packaged in salvation so that someone who gets healed by Jesus is being saved. Someone who gets delivered of demons is being saved. Someone who's forgiven of sin is being saved. By the way, all of that's happening before the cross. He's saving people before Good Friday.”
“I believe He had to do it, but not in order to forgive. So then, if it's not like God's anger poured out on Jesus as violence and death dealing, if that's not what releases God to forgive, then why does that need to happen at all? And so here's our answer to that. The cross was absolutely necessary for two reasons. Remember, it's not just Jesus, the man, on the cross; God is on the cross. There's an old Latin expression that expresses how the indivisible Trinity, so remember that for a moment; we believe in one God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - one in essence and undivided. That's in the liturgy that we sing every Sunday. I'll say it again. We believe in one God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - one in essence and undivided. Any atonement theory that divides the Trinity where God and Jesus Christ become separate is a formal heresy, because now you've got either tritheism, three gods, or you've made Jesus Christ less than the Father or He ceases to be God in some way.”
“Why did Christ go to the cross? Two reasons. One, to reveal God as self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love. In other words, God Himself, He gives Himself over to our wrath, He submits to our darkness, to our rebellion. He submits Himself to that. We pour out our wrath and violence and hatred on Him. Then what does He say? ‘Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.’ So He radically forgives the sinners, He forgives all sinners. But also then, co-suffering, and by that I mean He doesn't just forgive sins, He suffers the injustices of all time and all history are drawn up into Him on the cross. He swallows them in love and recycles them as forgiveness. So he's in solidarity with every victim from every war, from every rape, from every murder, from every embezzlement and all. He takes that into Himself, and His love purges it.”
“Be aware of [atonement theories], but you don't have to hold to any of them. But what you do need to come back to is, ‘What is the Gospel? And what does the Bible say about the Gospel?’ So as a result, perhaps what you thought of as an atonement theory, Christus Victor, I would say that's a good biblical metaphor for what the Gospel accomplished. It’s Christ's victory over Satan, sin, and death. Another one that you get in Scripture that you could use as a metaphor, it becomes sort of the early church fathers’, one of their favorites, is the picture of the great physician. Sin is not just law breaking behavior that needs to be punished. Sin is a fatal disease, a wound deep in my soul that needs a great physician, and you will never punish that out of anybody. He didn't just come to save us from the consequences of sin. He came to save us from the disease itself. In that case, you go, okay, instead of looking at it as a courtroom with a judge and a need for punishment, you see it as a hospital, and you get this in the Good Samaritan story, that we're a hospital where the Great Physician has come to heal us of this fatal disease. How does He do that? By uniting with us. When He unites with me, His healing love pours into me in that love union, and it cleanses me of sin. It doesn't punish me of sin, it cleanses me in the same way that if I was a garment with a stain, He cleanses the stain out of the garment, without destroying or hurting or tearing up the garment, or shouting at the garment, or lashing the garment. If that's a theory, the theory is this - His union with humanity heals humanity.”
In this episode of Can I Say This at Church?, Seth Price spoke with Brad Jersak about atonement theories. It was a healing and redemptive conversation for me to listen to. I wish I had given myself permission sooner in my life to explore the atonement theories believed by the early church rather than clinging so tightly to one theory, labeling it the sole truth, and discounting all others. I still have much to learn, but I’m hoping to be full of far more compassion, gentleness, and kindness as a result of seeing God as a medic and a gentle parent.
#sethprice #bradjersak #canisaythisatchurch #podcast #podcastrecommendation #podcastrec #atonement #atonementtheories #medicalsubstitutionaryatonement #faith #evolvingfaith #lovingthebibleagain #lovegod #loveyourneighbor #love #gentleness #gentleparenting #empathy #equality #learning #reflection #action #community #seekjustice #restorativejustice #lovemercy #walkhumbly #challengethenarrative #broadeningthenarrative
Featured Song - Jan. 22, 2020
Featured Song - Jan. 22, 2020
Featured Song: “Playing Hookey” by Andre Henry (@theandrehenry)
“Preacher So-and-So/He ain’ got no good news for me/Even though I’m seein’ bodies hit the street like fallin’ leaves’/He said ‘All I know is Jesus/Yeah that’s all I know to preach’/I guess Jesus doesn’t care if I get killed by the police”
“Deacon So-and-so/She think that I should cut my hair/She don’t like my dirty mouth/She don’t like anything I wear/She don’t like the way I swing my hips when I be in the pew/But she got nothin’ to say about the lies that pass for news”
“I still believe in the One God/Who hovered over the chaos/Who heard the cry of slaves in the brickyard and waged war on the old gods/I still believe in the One God/The One that Dr. King an’ ‘em worshipped/But if they not gonna teach ‘im/Then I’m not gonna listen/I’m just speaking my truth/This sh*t is not good news/If it’s gon’ be that way/I don’t think I’ll go to church this Sunday”
I was convicted and changed by this song the first time I heard it and every time after. This song and the work of Andre Henry have been instrumental to exposing the idol of the lie of white supremacy in my own life. Seeing this idol has helped me continually dismantle in myself as an individual and commit to the dismantling of this oppression in institutions. Click on the hyperlinked song title above to listen to and purchase the song “Playing Hookey” through Bandcamp. (There is also a clean version available.)
#playinghookey #andrehenry #song #featuredsong #seekjustice #socialjustice #lovemercy #walkhumbly #dismantlewhitesupremacy #dismantleracism #endracism #endracismnow #music #faith #evolvingfaith #support #lovegod #loveyourneighbor #challengethenarrative #broadeningthenarrative
Additional Rec. - Jan. 23, 2020
Additional Rec. - Jan. 23, 2020
Additional Rec. - "Healing-Social Justice Using Medical Substitutionary Atonement" with Mako Nagasawa
“Medical substitutionary atonement is the early church’s view, the patristic view, of atonement, which is more rooted in Old Testament imagery and dynamics around atonement. So the idea is that Jesus saves us from our evil, from the corruption of sin as it’s set into human nature, and He did that by taking on our human nature in its fallen condition, struggling against it, being victorious over every temptation, killing the thing that was killing us, and raising His human nature new in His resurrection as a God drenched, God soaked new humanity. Then He can share His new humanity with us by His Spirit and engage with and defeat the evil in us, the corruption of sin in us as we participate in Him. So it’s a very strong union with Christ emphasis, Christ’s union with us.”
“The Shame and Glory curriculum...works for example with our emotions as a way of understanding God’s emotions. So Jesus uses our emotions and our intuitions: like when your kids ask you for food, do you give them a stone? No. Why? It’s because you feel something for them that God feels for us. So He uses our emotions as a connection point into God. So it’s a way of knowing God through our emotions.”
“Another curriculum I highlighted was called Restoring the Captives, and it is working with Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow around mass incarceration and the racial caste system that it creates and using a restorative model of relations to get at how can Christians influence the criminal justice system. So if God is restorative and not retributive, then we have to identify with offenders in order to work in a restorative way to reintegrate them into community and their honor.”
In this 4 ½ minute video, Mako Nagasawa shared about four curriculums when addressing personal healing and social justice using medical substitutionary atonement. I quoted information from the video for two of the curriculums. The two two additional curriculums were the Third Abolition, which is focused on restoring honor to victims of human trafficking, and Out of Eden, which is focused on food, the environment, and our restored relationship to the land. I first heard Mako Nagasawa speak about medical substitutionary atonement when he was on the Almost Heretical podcast. The episode is titled “Beyond Penal Substitution.” I deeply appreciate the tenderness and compassion that Mako Nagasawa exudes as he speaks about atonement, healing, and justice.
#additionalrecommendation #recommendation #makonagasawa #medicalsubstitutionaryatonement #atonement #atonementtheories #faith #evolvingfaith #justice #humanity #empathy #equality #reflection #action #lovegod #loveyourneighbor #love #gentleness #learning #socialjustice #seekjustice #restorativejustice #lovemercy #walkhumbly #challengethenarrative #broadeningthenarrative
Book Rec. - Jan. 25, 2020
Past Read- The Seven Deadly Friendships by Mary DeMuth
“The frustrating truth is that narcissistic people are incredibly attractive in the short term. They perform well in short spurts. And those spurts attract us. We will always have Narcissist Nolans in this world. They tend to thrive, particularly when their narcissism doesn't catch up with them. But we can be wise about how we choose to deal with them. And we don't have to be a game piece in their self-serving game. Like Tyler, we can uncover these Quick Changers and simply stop making transactions for them. And as we separate, we can always pray, process, and forgive” (DeMuth, 2018, p.42).
“Life and vitality come from the ashes of death, and therein is our hope. You may have been wounded in difficult community, but when you connect to perfect community (Jesus) and healthy imperfect community (safe people), you have the profound potential to revive” (DeMuth, 2018, p.175).
“Shahida Arabi, an expert in narcissistic relationships, reminds us how normal this all is-why we gravitate toward that which was familiar. ‘If we were scapegoated as children, we'll feel a sense of toxic shame and pervasive unworthiness that prevents us from knowing we deserve better. When we get tangled up with a narcissist who could possibly be the mirror image of one or both of our parents, we revert back to that sense of powerlessness and shame that plagued us ever since we were young children. While the logical, reasoning part of our brain tells us to get out, our subconscious runs towards the very perpetrator who acts and behaves an awful lot like the ones that we depended on for our survival.’ What is familiar is what entices us, which is why we must unpack our why-why do we gravitate toward those who hurt us? Who do they remind us of? What story are we trying to complete? And how can Jesus fill the broken, needy parts of us so we don't keep pursuing the same deadly friendships?” (DeMuth, 2018, p.178).
WIth Prov. 6:16-19 as a backdrop, Mary DeMuth explored seven deadly friendships: Narcissistic Nolan, Unreliable Uma, Predator Paige, Conman Connor, Tempter Trevor, Faker Fiona, and Dramatic Drake. In the second half of the book, a path to health is explained using the lives of Joseph and Jesus and seven life-giving practices. I also appreciated Mary DeMuth’s reflective question at the end of each chapter that covered the deadly friendships: Am I this person? I bought the book The Seven Deadly Friendships because of the first chapter, which is on narcissism. After coming out from under the control of a leader who demonstrated characteristics of a narcissist, I was trying to learn everything I could about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This book helped me see why I am drawn to people who exhibit narcissistic tendencies so that I can address my wounds, surround myself with safe community, and be gentle with myself as I heal from my wounds.
#pastread #sevendeadlyfriendships #bookrecommendation #bookrec #marydemuth #reading #learning #narcissism #narcissist #narcissistic #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #npd #gaslighting #traumabonding #abuse #narcissisticabuse #narcissisticabuserecovery #begentlewithyourself #youareloved #healing #therapy #mentalhealth #emotionalhealth #reflection #action #friendship #relationship #community #safecommunity #broadeningthenarrative
