DISQUS

ubstu34 · 2 months ago

What do you think of people like Rick Warren?

No1KState · 2 months ago

He's trying to do right. But he's wrong on race.

ubstu34 · 2 months ago

Weren't influential portions of the black church strongly opposed to abortion following Roe v Wade? I know Jesse Jackson was pro-life for a while before he changed positions. This notion that abortion crept its way into the mainstream because "the church" was asleep doesn't pass the muster

No1KState · 2 months ago

I'll be honest, I never even considered what the black church may have thought about abortions prior to Roe. I know by and large, black Christians are against abortions; but the history I don't know.



That said, you point out yet another reason why the notion that the "church" was asleep doesn't, like you said, pass the muster.



I'm not sure how clear I was cause I was a little ranty yesterday. What bothers me about the claim that the church was asleep is 1 - the idea that the white Church represents the "American church." Right? That's just insulting. Like black folk don't love Jesus. We loved him despite the pictures of his blue eyes and blonde hair! And 2 - how, at the very least, they seem to be okay with the white church standing idly by while black Christians, supposed brethren in the Lord, suffured under neo-slavery. That's without pointing out the support of the white church for neo-slavery. It seems kinda apparant that by and large, white Christians have been more concerned with whiteness than Christianity. I think that's still the case. If they really "love" their fellow Christians, they should stop retreating to their "you can't know a person's heart" comfort zone when racism is brought up. Cause after all, "from a man's heart the mouth speaks" - Jesus. It's this sort of scriptural and historical amnesia I take issue with.



And then, when they do acknowledge the sins of the past, it's only a prelude to their aspousing not just conservative policies, which I would find revulting enough cause I don't see much scriptural support for the things they cry about; they aspouse conservative politicians. I can't be upset that anyone would choose any particular cause or another. If for no other reason than that I do the same thing. My problem with conservative Christians on this point is twofold (sorry, reading some rather heavy-handed writing now): 1 - they seem to be motivated more by emotion than fact. Abstinence only sex-ed for example. 2 - And here comes black folks and history again: up until the civil rights movement, these "conservatives" supported Democrats. They'd even support unionizing farm labor/sharecroppers/tenant farmers until they'd have to join with black farmers. I'm sure the big plantation owners didn't allow Southern Dems to support too progressive a tax policy; but this whole gospel of lower taxes didn't come about until the 80s. This whole distrust of the govt didn't come until the govt started supporting racial equality. Do they really think the whole historical timing thing is a coincidence? LIke these tea-parties. Here we have a president lowering taxes for 95% of Americans, a previous president who doubled the budget, and just now they feel the govt is taxing too much? And as far as spending, their resistance to a strong stimulus only illustrates the problem with American education! It's like Opie never learned how we got of of the Depression.