Two Christian reactions to Charlottesville

The Christian blogosphere, like pretty much the whole Internet, is currently focused on Charlottesville...

Here are two examples.

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Does Opposing Nazis Make You “Leftist”?

They were marching with swastikas, and shouts of “Sieg Heil.” Some of them loitered, armed, outside the synagogue in Charlottesville. “Jews will not replace us!” they chanted.

We can argue about whether it’s accurate to call them the “far right” or the “alt right” – or whether “conservatism” is in any way to blame for this – but we can no longer pretend that this rising phenomenon is just a handful of fringe loonies, or a few addled college boys infatuated with Milo.

These are Nazis, by their own admission.

Which is why it is so unfathomable that so many pleasant, decent, respectable republicans are framing this as a conflict between two political sides, both equally extreme. Because opposition to Nazis is not extreme; it is just ordinary human decency. One need not be ideologically far-fetched, nor even morally heroic, to note that mass, systemic genocide is evil. When I say that putting Jews into ovens is wrong, this is not some wild leftist claim.

Black Lives Matter is not a hate group, as the KKK is. Black Lives Matter is not dedicated to eradicating white people, and indeed welcomes white allies. Do Black persons occasionally view White persons with suspicion? Yes, sometimes. But, a) this is not the same as racism; and, b) I can understand why. Especially after this past weekend. As a Jewish woman, I see the false equivalencies, the “well, but….” I see the half-hearted condemnations, and it leaves me wondering whom I could actually trust, were the American Nazis to continue to gain power. At what point might they admit that taking a stand against hatred and genocide is simply our moral obligation as human beings – let alone our religious vocation, as Christians? Or will they continue to justify murder and genocide, because the “other side” pulled down some statues? If I feel angry, I can understand that a Black person, subjected to this every day of her life, might feel considerably moreso. And the anger of the oppressed can not be compared with the violence of the oppressor.

This recasting of the issue as “two sides, both wrong,” is a way of enabling racists while still appearing to deplore them. Seeking to “find a middle ground” is an excellent option, if what you’re faced with is two kids fighting over a cookie, or a married couple disagreeing on home decor. There is no acceptable middle ground between “supporting genocide” and “opposing genocide", however.

Why people are comfortable enabling racists is another matter. I suppose it is that, with our cultural heritage of racism, this sin is deeply ingrained in many of us, even when we dimly know that it is wrong. No one wants to be called a racist – that’s good, right?

That we know racism is bad?

But, if you want not to be called a racist, certain moral efforts may be required of you. This may involve an examination of conscience. It may involve a recognition of a need to repent and mend your ways. But some appear to think that saying “I’m not a racist” is enough. As though I could approach dieting by simply saying “I’m not fat.”And if they are called racist, they experience this as somehow as bad as being a victim of racism: there’s your false equivalency, again.

Yes, there are criticisms to be made about the methods of certain activist groups. As a committed (though reluctant) pacifist, I recognize that groups like Antifa and Black Bloc use methods that perpetuate a dangerous militarism, especially in men. But whatever we say about their means, their end – combatting fascism and racism – are good. And this is not the time to pick them apart as though questionable methods were on a par with genocide.

People lament the smashing of windows as “thuggish.” How prim.

I remember when I was ten or eleven, I found a bunch of old cars that were being saved for parts at the ranch where we lived, and I smashed every single window in every single car, just for the hell of it, to see the smash. That was irresponsible, yes. But you know what I didn’t do? Try to exterminate an entire group of people.

If opposition to Nazis is now a far-left extremist position, I invite you all to become far-left extremists.

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Original article http://www.patheos.com/blogs/suspendedinherjar/2017/08/opposing-nazis-make-leftist/

by REBECCA BRATTEN WEISS http://www.patheos.com/blogs/suspendedinherjar/author/rweiss/

SUSPENDED IN HER JAR http://www.patheos.com/blogs/suspendedinherjar

There may be links in the Original Article that have not been reproduced here.

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Symbols Matter, Confederate Flags Matter

The Day I Changed My Mind About the Confederate Flag

I am a Yankee– more specifically I am a Yankee from the Great State of Ohio. I have lived most of my life in Ohio, though I spent two years in North Carolina attending graduate school.

Growing up a Yankee I learned about the Civil War from a white northern perspective. We must always remember that when it comes to reading history, perspective is everything. I am thankful that my parents instilled in me a real vision of all persons created as equal in the image of God regardless of their skin color. I am thankful I did not grow up in a racist home. It was from that perspective that I understood the terrible and evil atrocity of slavery in America.

But my upbringing did not instill in me the knowledge of the subtleties of racism. I don’t blame my parents for that. We lived in a white world, for the most part, and we were shielded from those subtle forms of racism that African Americans experienced regularly.

But as I got older and my world became larger, I began to realize that racism and racial discrimination were intrinsically embedded in American society in ways I had never realized. One aspect of that embedded racism was the symbolism displayed by society. There are more than a few of those symbols, but the one I speak of in this post is the Confederate battle flag.

As a young man, I began to hear the calls rising from some quarters demanding removal of that flag from government property because of its racist overtones. I confess at the time that I did not understand that perspective. Sure, I understood the connection between the Stars and Bars and the Civil War and the South, but I reasoned to myself that it was silly to get worked up over a symbol and not everyone, I thought, who has a Confederate flag on their bumper surely is a racist. I bought into the line from those who said that the Confederate flag was not a symbol of racism, but a display of southern heritage and pride, much like my fellow Buckeyes who fly the state flag of Ohio. That was my perspective until one day that I will never forget.

When our children were young (they are now grown and gone), we would vacation in the south–Virginia, North and South Carolina– and we regularly visited historical sites. On one particular occasion we were in Charlottesville, Virginia visiting Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello. We had given our children money for vacation to spend on whatever they wanted– souvenirs, et al. At the time our son, Joshua was really into flags and had something of a collection. When we were in the gift shop after our visit to Jefferson’s house, he naturally gravitated toward the display of various small flags. He pulled a Confederate battle flag from the kiosk and brought it to me to purchase. At that moment, I had an epiphany. As I looked at that miniature Stars and Bars, I was not sure I wanted him to have it… and as I stood there, I was not quite sure why. I hesitated for a moment and then told my son that he could not buy that flag. He would have to choose another.

I spent the rest of the day thinking about that moment attempting to make sense of my dis-ease. As I put words to my concerns, it was clear to me. I did not want my son owning a symbol that could not be divorced from the belief that certain people could be property. I could not let him display something that in its original context promoted legalized slavery to the extent that some people were willing to kill and be killed for its preservation. And I had to explain to him why I would not let him buy it. Today, Joshua is almost twenty-three, but he remembers that incident and is grateful for the lesson he learned.

Because of history, certain symbols get so wedded to ideas and movements that it becomes impossible to see the symbol and not think of those ideas and those events that made them prominent; and no amount of denial can change that. During the reign of the Roman empire countless individuals were crucified, but because of Christianity when someone sees a cross today, only one particular crucified individual is remembered. The swastika originally was a symbol of good fortune. It also was used in early Christian and Byzantine art– a gammadion cross– a symbol of the death of Jesus. But because of the Nazis employment of that symbol, it is not possible to see a swastika today without recalling to mind the evil of the Nazis.

The swastika is forever embedded with that evil. Would anyone today seriously suggest trying to employ the swastika once again in our church sanctuaries as a symbol for Jesus’ death?

After my new found epiphany, I began to do some research on the Confederate flag and that reinforced to me even more that it was impossible to separate America’s history of slavery from that symbol. History has a way of dispelling our cover stories, and to say that the Confederate flag is only a symbol of Southern heritage is a cover story that can only be believed when one is in a state of denial. The attempt to divorce our symbols from the context that gives them meaning is to commit willful amnesia as to who we were as a people so that we can deny what we have inherited and must still confront today. To quote Civil War historian, William C. Davis, “Symbols matter. They say at a glimpse what words cannot, encapsulating beliefs and aspirations, prejudices and fears. Having no intrinsic value, they take meaning from the way we use them, changing over time along with our actions.”

When we remove the symbols of our racist history from monumental status to the displays of museums, we are not denying our history, but putting them in their proper context. As displays, they tell the story of who we were; as monuments they proclaim who we still want to be. As displays they remind us of the values that our ancestors embraced; as monuments they continue to proclaim those values as somehow still important. When a community places a monument in public, it is a declaration of what the people who put it there value. No one should be duped into believing that a monument in public makes no moral claims. When communities continue to embrace those monuments, they are affirming the values of those who put them there in the first place.

We must remember the worst of our history. That does not mean we have to idolize it in the town square.

Symbols matter.

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Original article http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2017/08/16/symbols-matter-confederate-flags-matter/

by Allan Bevere http://www.allanbevere.com/2017/08/the-day-i-changed-my-mind-about.html

JESUS CREED http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed

There may be links in the Original Article that have not been reproduced here.