Category: Humanity

Liberty for Some?

Published by mhelbert on August 11, 2020

The year was 1865. The Civil War had just ended at Appomattox. Slavery was officially dead in the U.S. Finally!
Now, came the hard work of Reconstruction. The South was completely destroyed during the war. Not only was it physically bruised and burned, but all of the institutions that had grounded the entire culture had been crushed.
As I look back on that time I can’t help but wonder, how did things after the war turn out like they did? How is it that African Americans are, in so many ways, still in bondage?
The official Reconstruction period lasted a mere 12 years. During that time from 1865 to 1877 Blacks were elected to public office. Ex-slaves became bankers and lawyers and farmers. The future really was beginning to look up.
Then, form 1878 until, well, it’s not really over yet, Jim Crow was born and has lived as a shadow on the land blotting out the sunlight and bring death and hatred in its wake.
What happened that caused the nation to turn its back on those whose backs the country had been built upon?
Last week I mentioned an essay written by Matthew Karp and published in Catalyst. (Except where indicated, all quotes are from Karp’s essay.) In it he provided some insights into how the anti-slavery movement in the North became a political movement that enabled it to gain the power of State that ultimately led to the War.
In order to do that a political party was formed in the middle of the 19th century: The Republican Party. The party was formed in order to end slavery in the U.S. be wresting Washington from the rich landowners from the South. Those landed few were painted as oligarchs who wanted to expand their holdings across the country.
And, in many ways, it appears that they weren’t far from the mark. Frederick Douglass wrote in a memoir about the place where he was held in servitude. It was a large plantation in eastern Maryland. The owner, Col. Edward Lloyd, sat as the royal head of his domain. His holdings included at least 20 outlying farms with all of the necessary masters and overseers for his, according to Douglass, 1,000 slaves. By all accounts, Col. Lloyd was extremely wealthy. There was no law other than that uttered by Lloyd. He was a member of that undisputed aristocracy that ruled over what amounted to a feudal system in America.
These landed few desired nothing more than to retain all that they had and to expand it.
In the North, however, the Industrial Revolution was at full steam. Capitalists were flexing their muscles and gazing about looking for their own ways to expand. In order to do this, though, they needed labor. And, in the North, that was a substantial expense. Workers needed to paid for their efforts. While, south of the Mason-Dixon Live, labor was free.
As I wrote earlier, it seems that aside from a vocal minority, anti-slavery sentiment in the North was not wide spread. Most people simply weren’t affected by it. So, they paid little attention to what happened ‘away down South.’
The Republicans needed a way to get the majority population in the North on board a political program that could sweep away the powerful minority of the South who controlled the government. So, they developed a strategy that would pit Freedom against Slavery.
Karp wrote,

“Above all, Republicans depicted the battle against slavery as a species of class struggle — a social war not simply between slaves and masters, but between the overwhelming majority of Americans and a tiny aristocracy of slave lords who controlled the federal government.”
William Seward described the battle lines succinctly. He “lambasted slaveholders as a ‘privileged class,’ which he later refined into a ‘property class,’ akin to the patricians of Rome and the landlords of Europe.”

By framing the issue this way, the Republicans were able to turn the apathy of many in the North into a political advantage to unite Northern voters behind their party.
Seward stated that the divide was not between North and South, but

“between ‘labor states,’ subject to democratic self-government, and ‘capital states,’ where master-class barons monopolized political and economic power, quashed free speech, and organized all society around ‘the system of capital in slaves.’”

I considered all of these statements and began to see that, while there were many in the North who considered slavery a moral stain of evil on the whole country, many more were simply concerned with the economy and their own well-being. Concern for the welfare of the Black slave was secondary to the security of white labor.
Newspapers at the time captured the prevailing sentiment of many Northerners.

“Southern masters, declared a Cleveland newspaper, ‘enslave the blacks, not because they are black, but because they are laborers — and they contend that the highest civilization demands that the laboring class should be subjected and owned by the ‘higher class.’”

“The election of 1856, argued a Republican editor in Pittsburgh, was ‘not a contest of races, but a contest of institutions.’ It was a fight ‘between the Slave-holding Oligarchy, on one hand, who desire to introduce slave labor and slave institutions into Kansas, and the laboring white people of the country opposed to slavery … who wish to introduce Free Labor.’”

These are things that we were never taught in school. We were told that the North went to war to free the slaves. We heard about abolitionists who risked their lives to rescue enslaved Blacks and conduct them safely into the Promised Land where the Freedom Bell Rang.
No, not really. As with so much in our lives, it all came down to the almighty dollar.
All of this revealed to me the reasons that Reconstruction failed and Jim Crow was allowed to live and breathe in BOTH the South and the North. It explained this quote that is on the wall beneath the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. written by the Great Emancipator himself. In response to an 1862 op-ed written by Horace Greeley, Lincoln wrote,

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
Charles, Mark and Soong-Chan Rah, Unsettling Truths:The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, IVP, 2019, p.144

Africans stolen from their homeland and dragged across the Middle Passage where they were sold as if they were cattle or hogs; who were bred and traded as chattel; who were beaten and abused; who were broken and despised. They were eventually freed, not for the sake of their personhood nor their standing before God. But, because it appeared to be for Lincoln, a necessary concession and politically expedient.
Is it any wonder that African Americans are still treated as secondary? Greater still, is it any wonder that the African American community is, to this day, a place where hope is dimmed by the lived reality of human beings who live in fear and want? I am beginning to see why these communities erupt in violence. Places where not even their own community members are secure against the frustrations that a life of hopelessness can create. When your people have lived for over 400 years under the yokes of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, and derision how are you supposed to live?
Yet, these people, people who bear the Light and Likeness of God within them, continue to love God and, like Jesus before them, love those who persecute them and treat them like second class citizens.
These questions I’ve held in my heart and mind since I was young. The history that we were taught didn’t add up to the reality that I saw outside of my front door. Matthew Karp’s piece helped to illuminate the dark corners where those questions have laid all these years.
It’s not too late for the U.S. to do the right thing and finally free those who have had a white boot on their necks for far, far too long.

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Musing on a Thursday Morning-Slavery Edition

Published by mhelbert on August 6, 2020

Since I retired from active employment a few months ago, I have found myself with more time to read, study, and think about a great many things. One topic that has truly taken up residence within a deep crevasse in my mind is Racism. White folks like me usually shy away from this. We don’t like confrontation with a violent and oppressive past that none of us ever experienced. For many of us, our forebears didn’t even emigrate to the U.S. until well after the Civil War had decided the fate of chattel slavery once and for all. How, then, can we be held accountable for any of that foul history that still rises as a stench, like the gases that seep upward from a long ignored landfill, over this land?
For those of you who know me can attest, I am not afraid to ask questions. Nor, am I afraid to confront the answers that I find.
With that in mind, I’m going to share a few thoughts. Take them for what they are, simply my musings.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about something called systemic racism. For many of us that’s simply stating the obvious. While I don’t endorse everything that was stated in the NYT “1619 Project,” one thing stands out. The United States owes a great deal of its economic wealth and strength to the fact that it enjoyed over 200 years of free labor through the institution of African slavery. There is no doubt about that. We enjoy what we have as a direct result of the economic structures that were erected, particularly during the early 19th century, that have allowed the U.S. to become one of the two most powerful economies that the world has ever known.
So, it’s no wonder that many states in the South fought tooth and nail to preserve that institution.
However, while the institution of chattel slavery was the most publicly voiced reason for the South to challenge the U.S. government. It was not the only one.
To be clear, the South was clearly pissed off that the North was trying to tell them what to do. That’s where the claim that the war was simply about the rights of States to govern their own affairs. Yet, as I read through some of the Articles of Secession from those states, I found one common theme. That theme can best be shown by a quote from Mississippi’s Articles:

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

Please note how slaves are spoken of in this quote. They are “products” and “material interest.” Nowhere are they considered human beings who share in the inalienable rights of all people. No. They are property and objects over whom white landowners have complete control.
PLEASE NOTE THIS!
From the position of the Southern states the so called “War Between the States” was all about slavery.
That may seem obvious to most of us who took high school history. There were chapters in our books that at least mentioned that slavery was the primary issue that sparked the fire that burned half of the nation.
However, there are other concerns and forces that were in play at the time that we were not taught. These are the kinds of things that the publishers of history books conveniently tend to overlook. (Like how the Indigenous People of the continent were abused and killed and dislocated for the benefit of white expansion. But, that’s a topic for another time.)
I owe much of the insight for the next part of this post to an article written by Dr. Matthew Karp, Ph.D. in the Catalyst titled “The Mass Politics of Antislavery.” Dr. Karp is teacher at Princeton University. His area of study and expertise is the U.S. Civil War era and it’s place in the world of the Nineteenth Century.
Humans really like to simplify things. Keep It Simple Stupid is our mantra for pretty much anything and everything we think or do. Evolution may have helped us in this. I can imagine our ancient ancestors in Africa saying, “Ok. You run straight out there and grab the fruit. Then come straight back. Maybe that tiger won’t eat you.”
Simple; straightforward; easy-peasy.
As with all things, we like to think of complex issues like the Civil War in simple terms.
It was all about slavery.
Dr. Karp presents another take on things, though. A take that we may be able to relate to over 150 years later.
(Note: All quotes are from that article by Dr. Karp in the Catalyst.)
Like so many, many other things, we can be encouraged to Follow the Money.
William Seward, yes THAT Seward, was also a staunch abolitionist. But, his reasons were not all about the human cost of slavery. He seemed to be more concerned about politics and economics. In an 1850 speech he stated,

“So long as slavery shall possess the cotton-fields, the sugar-fields, and the rice-fields of the world,so long will Commerce and Capital yield it toleration and sympathy.”

Linking Northern economic concerns to slavery in the South alone would make doing away with slavery, at best, difficult. We all know how hard it is today to ask people to give up anything in order to benefit the “Other.”
Seward saw the need to build a political consensus that would necessitate the erasure of slavery. He stated how developing that consensus might look and how it could be employed in that same speech,

“Emancipation is a democratic revolution.”

Dr. Karp explained that by

“Likening the struggle against American slavery to the struggle against European aristocracy, Seward argued that any challenge to the power of the slaveholding class must come through mass democratic politics.”

Seward, and others, would need to show that the Economy of Slavery was incompatible with, and hostile to, our American democracy.
As I reflected on this, I began to see how Seward’s attempt to spin the story about slavery was both politically expedient and wise. While slavery had been debated ever since the Continental Congress sat down to consider the future of the American colonies, it had always been pretty much a local issue. There were states, like Massachusetts, where Black folks fleeing the horrors of slavery could go without much fear of being sent back into that dark world of the lash. Other states chose to abide by the Fugitive Slave Act that required runaway slaves be returned to their “rightful owner.” There was a degree of ambivalence among much of the population of the U.S. concerning slavery.
Too many people benefited by the institution of slavery for Emancipation to be a ‘slam-dunk.’
The complexity of the issue was a threat to the very Democracy that was still trying to find its way in the world.
The questions that I have revolve around “How was this a threat?”
And, even if it was a threat, why should I think about that today?
Are there issues from this period of the 19th century that are even relevant in the 21st?
I will chase some of these questions in another post.
Stay tuned!

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Love That Person? How?

Published by mhelbert on August 5, 2020

The struggles that we share today are real. There truly is a virus that is turning societies around the globe upside down. Climate change is not an illusion. California is still burning. Unfortunately, so is Portland.
I think that it’s safe to say that we could all use a break from these issues. Someone please stop the news cycle for just a couple days!
Every day we see and hear people shouting at each other. Some of these people wear uniforms that designate the wearer as some authority. Police, Border Patrol, and who knows who else stand across streets with face masks and batons just waiting for someone to be foolish enough to challenge their authority. Other people, with bandannas wrapped around their faces and signs in their hands defiantly dare those authorities to bring it on.
How can we defuse this? Is it even possible to change this destructive narrative and bring about some kind of end to it, let alone reconciliation?
Maybe.
But, it will require effort.
The good news is, that effort can begin on one side of the issue. It doesn’t require everyone involved to be on board. In fact, one side may remain utterly opposed to any movement toward a peaceful settlement.
I have written the past couple days about movements and people who have been instrumental in bringing about peace and reconciliation. They did it without compromising their goals or their principles. And, they changed their world.
I wrote about the Voices of Ghandi and Dr. King. Their commitment to nonviolent resistance was unwavering as they confronted the injustices of colonialism and segregation.
I mentioned Jesus and His love for those who used Him, rejected Him, and betrayed Him. That love truly did flip the world on its ear.
All three of these people embodied a love for their enemies that I don’t see anywhere today.
Yeah, some of the families of murdered African Americans offer forgiveness to those who snatched the life from their loved ones. But, there is no one, no Voice, calling out that love can actually happen. And, that love can actually change anything.
“Really?” you may ask.
“Show me.”
On May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, an officer with the Minneapolis Police Dept. pressed his knee on the neck of George Floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Long enough to snuff out the life of Mr. Floyd. Chauvin has remained, as far as I know, remorseful even after being charged with murder.
Because of this heinous, willful act of violence a movement began to swell that has become a tsunami that threatens to sweep away oppressive systems that infect cultures worldwide.
What will replace those, I wonder. If of violence, racism, and other oppressive systems which form the superstructure of cultures are removed, what will culture be built upon?
These are questions for philosophers and people way smarter than I am.
One thing is necessary, though, for any rebuilding.
Love.
Ok, how can I love someone like Mr. Chauvin? He has a violent past. He has abused his authority on multiple occasions. And, he has callously taken a life that was not his to take.
God knows that’s a hard question. Maybe God can love someone like that! But, I ain’t God!
I’ve written before about how conservative Evangelicals belie their hatred and bigotry in the way they view the “Other.” The current administration in Washington has built its entire worldview on “Othering” people. Mexicans, Muslims, and citizens in cities like Portland are portrayed as “Those People.” Sadly, people who live in the suburbs of the U.S. have recently been assured that the “Others” won’t bother them.
In the pieces that I’ve shared I wrote that considering others as something ‘less than’ or something to be avoided or ignored is contrary to everything that I believe. It is also a foundational point in the one Book that so many people who claim to follow. The Bible calls out anyone who refuses to care for widows, orphans, and the foreigner living among you.
While that is all completely true, is there something there that we can learn about people like that murderer in Minneapolis? How about those damned snowflakes on the left? Those Libtards that don’t know what the world’s really like. Oh, let’s talk about those racist bastards and their Confederate battle flags! A basket full of Deplorables for sure! What can we say about the 1%? All those greedy bastards do is take, take, take.
Do you see what I did there? C’mon, look closely!
That’s right!
I never mentioned anyone’s name. I lumped them into vague categories that allows me to see them all a something less than human.
How many acts of inhumanity have there been in history? How many of those were helped along by first dehumanizing their victims?
“Those Jews are a threat to our pure, Arian race!”
“Blacks aren’t intelligent enough to vote!”
“Those Natives are a nuisance and must be erased!”
Whenever ANYONE dehumanizes another, hatred and violence are not far away.
Mr. Chauvin and people like him are the result of their culture. Just like you and me. Only, for him the influences created a person who has a skewed view of humanity. His world created him. In this way we can see him as a victim of the foul systems that pervade our world. And, because we also are victims of these same systems, albeit in differing ways, we may be able to find a degree of empathy.
Must we forgive and forget what he did?
No. We must never forget. And, forgiveness is not mine to give. He didn’t murder my loved one.
But, we must be able to Love. Not some sappy Hollywood emotional crap. That’s not love.
Love, agape, a verb is how we must move forward. There must be space given where Love can influence and, perhaps, reconciliation can happen.
That will never be possible, though, as long as people use violence and hatred against one another. That’s why we NEED a VOICE that can be heard above the shouts and flash-bangs and the tear gas. That’s why we people need to put down their own personal vendettas and embrace the common good.
I’m suggesting a position that is hard. Damned hard!
But, Love is never the easy path to take.
Just ask Ghandi, Martin, and Jesus.

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Love My Enemy? Well Then, Who IS My Enemy?

Published by mhelbert on August 4, 2020

While wondering about the lack of a Voice in today’s chaotic culture. A Voice that would lift up the call for Freedom; for Equality; for Life and that could help to unite and inspire people to reach for the Heavens of Hope.
I am straining my ears, attentive to the slightest vibrations of air that just might signal someone stepping into the role of Messenger of Hope. I try to position myself on the highest hill where the clear, cool air may reverberate across the landscape that a Voice has finally sounded that call to take up the arms of Love and Peace that we so desperately need to hear.
Then, I wonder…
What would that message actually be?
Would it be some of the “‘same ol’ same ol’” that promises changes to policies that discriminate against certain segments of our population? Can we truly hope that political change alone will cast the demons of Racism, Classism, or Gender out like a priest who sprinkles holy water out of an airplane? Are not the issues facing us today more daunting than implying that simple bandaid solutions wrought by well-meaning and benevolent people continue to offer?
As I study and meditate on people who actually did create a persona that inspired millions to respond positively to the glaring injustices of their time, I began to see something that I alluded to yesterday that powered the engines of change of which they stood at the helm.
Both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Ghandi before him spoke of the need to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
“Love your enemies and bless those that persecute you.”
How revolutionary those words were when they were first spoken!
First century Palestine was in the iron grip of Rome. Caesar and his armies imposed something called the “Pax Romana,” or the “Roman Peace. Caesar Augustus established himself as the Emperor in Rome after a bloody civil war with Marc Antony and his Egyptian ally, Cleopatra. The ensuing peace became the symbol of Roman strength and established her military as the primary tool for enforcing that peace. So, Jesus was well aware of who those following him considered the “Enemy”. It was Rome. When Jesus uttered those words in what we now call his “Sermon on the Mount” he touched a nerve within everyone who heard him. In fact, just before Jesus mentioned this about enemies, he told the people that if “anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.” Every person who heard that would know that the ‘anyone’ that Jesus mentioned referred to Roman soldiers. An edict was on the books that stated any Roman soldier could require any other person to carry his pack for him up to one mile. Jesus pretty much told those listening that not only should they bear the burden of their sworn enemy the required distance, but they should shoulder it for double the distance! Holy crap! What in the world was Jesus trying to do?
The short answer was that Jesus desired that they, in fact, Love their Enemy.
Ok, ok…it was easy for Jesus to say this. But, did he actually ever do it himself?
Well, besides allowing his enemies to crucify him, yes, he did.
I mean, crucifixion was an extreme to be sure. And, Jesus did tell those who followed him that they would need to “take up their cross and follow Him.”
Plus, after Jesus’ arrest, everyone knew that crucifixion was coming. He had no choice in that matter. One could make the argument that Love wasn’t really a factor. Rome did to him whatever they wanted. Love or not.
But, did he practice what he preached while his life was still in his own hands?
I think so.
I was meditating on the passage of the Gospel according to John that recounts Jesus’ actions at what’s called “The Last Supper.” Countless writers and poets and artists have attempted to convey what Jesus did that night. The part of this story that I considered was the scene during the meal when Jesus got up, girded up his tunic, tied a towel around his waist and washed his disciples’ feet. This passage has been used ever since it was written as an illustration of Jesus’ humility. He even told them, “You call me ‘Teacher and Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”
I thought long about this scene.
Who was there?
What were they all talking about around the table?
What were their thoughts?
Was this simply a ‘teachable moment’ for Jesus?
Or, was He making a statement about life itself?
I can’t speak to the last four of these questions with any certainty. No one can.
But, the first one is rather obvious.
The Twelve whom he had called to follow from day one.
So, let me set the stage for you.
Jesus washed the feet of:
1) Peter—who would in just a very few hours deny that he even knew Jesus.
2) Thomas—would not believe the testimony of the others that Jesus had been raised from the dead. He would forever be known as “Doubting Thomas.”
3) James and John—These two brothers tried to conspire with Jesus in order to have the places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom. They tried to use Jesus for their own gain.
4) Judas Iscariot—the text tells us that before Jesus began to wash his feet that “the devil had already prompted [him] to betray Jesus.
5) ALL of the disciples deserted Jesus when the Temple guards, led by Judas, appeared in the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus.
Are all of these men Jesus’ enemies?
No, hardly.
But, they are good examples of the kinds of people that we will encounter in our daily comings and goings. They are the kind of people who will assert their rights over everyone else’s. They won’t wear masks. They will aim their AR-15 at you for saying that Black Lives Matter. They will be the ones who like to say, “It’s the economy, stupid.” These are our neighbors who don military gear and pin a badge on their chest just before they use a baton on the ribs of a person who is exercising their right to assemble and protest.
And, they are the oligarchs who comprise that “One Percent” who seem to own the rest of us.
Jesus said, “Love these. Yes, they hurt people and despitefully use them. Yes, they are selfish and unloving. They are also afraid. They are also your neighbor. Oh, and never forget…God Loves Them, too.”
God Loves Them, too.
How easy it is to forget those few words.
That’s the “Why” we should consider loving our enemies.
Perhaps, tomorrow we can discuss the “How.”

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Where Is The Voice?

Published by mhelbert on August 3, 2020

The late 1950s and early 1960s were a time in our nation’s history when turbulence and peace seemed to reside next to each other. Peace for those who embraced the Eisenhower days and celebrated the U.S. in its distinctions from all other nations. Primarily, the Russian communists. It was in 1954 that the words “one nation under God” were added to the pledge of allegiance. The slogan “In God We Trust” became emblazoned on the very currency that we tendered to one another for all of our goods and services. In fear and trembling at the prospect of the communists, the U.S. charted a path that has ultimately led us to the place that we now fear that the Constitution may be abrogated by a lawless authoritarian.
And yet, most of us simply complain to our spouse or coworkers about our rights and privileges being suspended in the midst of a global pandemic.
Where are the voices of warning for what may be a crisis of democracy?
Today some of our cities are nightly alight with fire. We are able to view the violence perpetrated by both law enforcement officers and protesters alike. People are attacked viciously by teargas wielding people in full combat gear who seem to be guided by the slogan “Give no quarter!”
Those on the other side use weapons like laser pointers to blind the others. They break whatever is breakable and throw teargas canisters back to their owners.
Where are the voices who cry out, “Enough!”
In that troubled time during our history when African Americans did, in fact, cry out “Enough,” there was also the cry of “Freedom!”
That word rang through our nation like a clarion call to action. Nearly 400 years of oppression and abuse had finally run its course. “Freedom” was the call that demanded a response from the powers that had for far too long held the sword of power over the necks of the powerless. There was a Voice who shouted from the halls of power and in the streets of our cities. That Voice cried out in the wilderness where the deaf ears of the white structures that held up the paper walls of segregation. But, it was heard plainly by those oppressed and downtrodden.
There was something else very different in that Voice that shouted, “I have a dream!” And, this is a difference that I do not hear during these days of unrest that reveals all to clearly that the wounds of 400 years of abuse and oppression have not healed. They were merely ‘scabbed’ over. The continued murder of innocent black people at the hands of militarized law enforcement has effectively scratch the scab off and allowed the wound to reopen.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man singularly suited to his day. He was a highly educated man with searching mind and heart. His vision viewed things far afield that others of his day could not see. That little spot on the horizon that Martin saw, that he dreamt of, was a time when all of humankind would be equal. It was a place where segregation and Jim Crow were artifacts left to the dust of history, blown away by the Wind of the Spirit of Peace.
And, especially, where Love reigned in Freedom.
Martin’s love for his enemy was ever present in the words that he used to motivate others. Without love, agape love, he realized that his Dream could only come as a nightmare. Without love, agape love, those who considered him their enemy would always consider him that.
Without love, agape love, there was no hope for the future other than the dust and ashes left behind by the raging wars fired by hatred.
He realized that the only way to achieve that lofty Dream was to travel the same path as another person who had upended history.
In the middle of the 20th century a small, brown man in a loin cloth watched the Sun finally set on the British Empire. Mohandas K. Ghandi, a man educated in Britain, realized that there was no way that force could possibly uproot and throw the weeds of that great empire on the compost pile where it belonged. His gaze was as far reaching as Martin’s. He saw his people finally rid of the segregation and unfair taxation imposed on them. How could this dream of his be realized? He was only one person against an empire.
He found an answer to this perplexing problem by, himself, looking to One Who had come before.
“Love your enemies,” Jesus taught.
“Bless those who curse you.”
Jesus’ words were carried forward by others, like the apostle Paul. “Love is the fulfillment of all of the Law.”
“But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
With these words singing in his ears, Ghandi led a people to their promised land where freedom finally reigned.
Martin learned from the Mahatma. He studied Ghandi and meditated on his words while contemplating the words of Jesus. In both, Martin found wisdom and peace. More importantly, he saw a solution.
In what he termed “Non-violent direct action,” Martin taught a generation to stay their hands. He required those who followed him to recognize that they were not going to go quietly into their night. There was nothing passive about his resistance. Violence was never to be used on any perceived ‘enemy.’ Like Ghandi before him, he told his followers that there would be bloodshed. But, it must always be our own. Never theirs. These brave women and men knew going in that dogs and batons were likely. The late John Lewis attested to this after his skull was fractured on that Bloody Sunday. Martin assured those who looked to him for strength and leadership that they would be handcuffed and thrown into dirty, roach infested jail cells.
There was nothing ‘passive’ about any of this.
Martin’s mantra, “Love those who despise you and treat you badly,” while difficult to adhere to, ultimately won the battles of his day.
So, I write this today and I wonder, Where is that Voice?
Who will sound the trumpet and call people together in order to Love our enemy and, thereby, not only defeat the systems, the Powers and Principalities who allow evil and hatred to flow unhindered into our lives, but also lead our enemies into bonds of love and friendship?
It’s been said that Hatred begets more Hatred. That is all too true. The more people fight and carry weapons and shout at their enemies while the spittle runs down their chins, the more that insatiable appetite of Hate will devour friend and foe alike.
As Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin for our inspiration and guides, let that Voice sound loudly and clearly throughout our cities and across the countryside,
“Freedom!”

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The Virus in Our Midst

Published by mhelbert on July 30, 2020

Yesterday I read a piece by Andrew Sullivan over at “The Weekly Dish.” In it he offered thoughtful consideration on the Corona virus and the effects Covid-19 is having on society. He particularly developed how the pandemic is contributing to the political chaos that we experience every day in the U.S. It is an interesting read for people who don’t think that overly simplistic answers are sufficient about wearing a mask or not. Or, social distancing and all of the complications that this virus has caused.
One of his points struck me.
He wrote how pandemics do cause effects on culture much as they do on individuals. Granted, not all pandemics are the result of viruses. The most famous ‘plague’ was the Black Death in Europe in the 14th century. That outbreak killed millions and was the result of a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. Not a virus. But, a nasty bug none the less.
In our world today the virus called SARS-CoV-2 is what is wreaking havoc. This virus is that causes the infection we know as” novel corona virus-2019”, or Covid-19.
Viruses are called by many “submicroscopic infectious agents.” They aren’t really a viable living organism because they require a host in which to grow and thrive. In this way they appear parasitic. They infect a host where the virus works its way into the machinery of the host at a cellular level. Once inside the cell, a virus will “highjack” various parts of the cell in order to replicate itself.
Over and over and over again.
Viruses may then produce toxins that overpower a host and cause serious illness or death.
As I considered Sullivan’s piece and looked around at much of what’s going on in the U.S. and the world, I began to see similarities between how a virus infects a living host and how it also “infects” society.
We are witnessing upticks in violence and unrest that are becoming epidemic. Shootings and other violent behavior have escalated to the point that local governments and law enforcement are requesting outside assistance. The lawlessness that we see as people disregard mandates designed to protect people from exposure to the corona virus is rampant as people are tired of being told what to do. They are like sick children who refuse the very medication that may cure their illness. The political turbulence is rising like foam on a polluted river. It is sure evidence that there is something desperately sick happening beneath the surface. We are a culture that has contracted a deadly pathogen that is unaware that it is killing its host. And, the pathogen doesn’t care.
It can only replicate itself.
That is its sole purpose.
Make more of ‘Me.’
It’s no surprise, then, that the most insidious symptom of this virus on culture is that it cares only for itself. It does not care on whit about anyone else.
“It’s all about ME!” has become the outward manifestation of this virus.
“You can’t tell ME what to do!”
“I have RIGHTS!”
Yeah, maybe true.
Our culture is the host for this virus.
Life together is how we maintain our own lives and livelihoods.
If this virus is successful, well, the culture dies.
That’s not a very positive prognosis. But, it is the direction that we may be headed.
Corona virus has revealed our vulnerabilities and weakness as a culture. It has caused us to retract into shells that purport protection. This protection is false.
It is only when, or ‘If,’ we can come together and unite in order to fight the effects of this Cultural Contagion that we may see its cure.
We surely must not remain silent as barriers that the culture have meticulously been raised against selfishness, hate, violence, and destruction are ripped down by the toxins that this virus has released on us.
Yet, we must remain vigilant to speak and act and be proactive in ways that encourage dialog and healing and mutual respect.
So, do we accept the treatment?
Or, do we watch our breath slowly ebb away until there is nothing on the mirror but dust?

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Published by mhelbert on July 27, 2020

There are few things in this life that can agitate me to extreme frustration and anger than the misuse of the Name of Christ by those who profess to be ardent followers.
Yeah, I know, I have a particular lens through which I view life. My worldview colors my observations and opinions. This, of course, renders what I think and say of little consequence to any who hold differing thoughts.
That’s ok.
I don’t make any claim to know anything at all, let alone what you or anyone else should think.
That being said, I am at a loss right now to express the sadness and dejection that I feel regarding the Church in the U.S.
I just finished reading the first of three memoirs written by Frederick Douglass. It’s entitled, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.”
I really want to educate myself about the history that none of us who grew up in the bleached whiteness of Northern suburbia ever heard in school. I desire to know the truth that gave breath and life to Douglass and du Bois and King and Malcom. What inspires those who march behind banners of ‘No Justice; No Peace’? How can anyone explain the seemingly wanton destruction of property as a form of justifiable protest?
We are told that the roots of all of this lies in the 400 years of slavery, Jim Crow, Jim Crow, Jr., voter suppression, discrimination, and humiliation.
So, I am looking back in time to those who experienced such breaches of human dignity and enacted atrocities that no civilized culture should ever embrace.
So, I read.
And, in this very first volume of Douglass’ not only do I find the utterly deplorable account of human evil against another eikon of God, I find the Church in the U.S. indicted as co-conspirator.
I grew up in the era when many Protestant denominations began to join hands with those who worked, (and suffered), for equality among races. They, at long last, began to lift their voices in harmony with their African American Sisters and Brothers. Soon, a thing called the “Social Gospel” became evident in the work done by these folks.
Almost immediately, a backlash from other less accommodating churches was unleashed.
I always thought it strange that any church should be against offering a hand to lift those trodden down through no real fault of their own. Excepting the amount of melanin in their skin.
Yet, as I studied church history in seminary I began to see another force at work.
The church of the South was instrumental in propping up the structures of slavery. It served a Balm of Gilead to the harassed consciences of women and men who knew in their hearts that what they were doing was an affront to God. At least, that’s how it looks to me. The slavers needed to know that what they were doing was in some way a just and righteous thing to do. The church of the South provided that assurance.
In my mind, though, I considered the counterparts of these, the church of the North, to be, in fact, righteous! Didn’t they house and protect the runaway? Weren’t their benevolences a means of setting the poor, former slaves on a track of self sustenance?
Well, maybe.
In the appendix to Douglass’ memoir I found in it information about the “Christianity of this land” that seems to include the Church in the U.S. at large.
He set this “Christianity” in contrast to what he named the “Christianity of Christ.”
Of this, he wrote,
“To receive the one [Christianity of Christ] as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked…I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slave holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.”
Pretty strong language.
And, rightly given.
As I reflected on these words I wondered, “what has changed in the 175 years since this narrative was written”?
I looked around, hopefully, to see if there were any, as the prophet Elijah once wondered, if there were any faithful in the land who may be found.
And, happily I saw sparks of hope glittering in the land. I allowed myself a moment to indulge that hope.
Then, I saw that Douglass’ “Christianity of this land” still in ascendancy and power.
For what have we gained as a community of faith when children are still snatched from their families at our southern border? What progress have the faithful made when our cities are still segregated by the remnants of ‘Red Lining’? How can we go to pray to a kind and loving God when our constituents rail against offering a hand to lift our Sisters and Brothers from the chains of ‘White Culture’ that still fetter and bind them?
So, for those who think that I unjustly hold up the dirty laundry of the Church in the U.S. for all to see, please know that I do so only to shine the light of Christ into the darkness of an unjust and cruel community that is complicit in the continued suffering of humans made in the Image of God.
Nor, do I exempt myself from culpability. I have lived my life in the White Light of Privilege that has allowed me to move about freely and without any encumbrance due to the color of my skin. So, before any accuse me of hypocrisy please know that i stand accused and convicted in the systems that have levied such a high cost to our own humanity as we degrade others.
I, too, must work hard to change myself and to see the transformation that God has asked of any who would carry the Banner of Christ.

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A Week in the Life of a Slave-review

Published by mhelbert on July 23, 2020

Everyone loves a good story.
Stories create worlds where everything is possible. They allow us to visit places and times that are far beyond our experiences of everyday life. Stories can also reveal hidden treasures that enrich our understanding of the world in which we live.
The Bible is such a source that allows our creativity to imagine the lives of people who may only appear as a name in a verse or two. What was the lived experience of that person? What did they think about the world? What did they hear and taste and smell? What did they fear?
Dr. John Byron, Dean of Ashland Theological Seminary, recently published a book that opens our imaginations to consider these questions.
“A Week in the Life of a Slave,” published by IVP Academic, tells the story of one of the Bible’s most famous slaves. A man known to us as Onesimus.
I must admit that as I began reading this book I was reminded of nature shows on television narrated by Sir David Attenborough. Attenborough is famous for his story telling style of narration. He takes viewers inside of the thoughts of various critters as they forage for food or search for a mate. Sprinkled within those stories he educates us on the reality of that world.
In a like fashion, Dr. Byron uses his creativity to weave a tale of the ancient world of the Bible. We meet the Apostle Paul as he sits in an Ephesian jail. Philemon, the person who owned the slave, Onesimus, comes to life as a person aggrieved by a slave who “committed the crime of stealing himself.” And, of course, Onesimus the runaway slave.
While most of us in the U.S. think about our own history regarding slavery, very few people consider the practice of ‘human ownership’ in the first century. If we do, like many in the Church today, even consider slavery, we tend to downplay the horrors that were part of everyday life for a slave at the time that St. Paul wrote. Byron, however, paints a very different picture. He does illuminate many differences between the ancient, Roman practice and our own antebellum chattel slavery. The similarities are also revealed to be all too real. Slaves were non-humans. Byron notes that the ancient philosopher, Aristotle, wrote that “a slave is a living tool and the tool a lifeless slave.” No, slavery within the Roman Empire was no walk in the park.
There is another story told, as well. That of the early Church as it fumbled and grasped to find its place in the world. Byron’s story shows the struggle that owners faced in that culture as they tried to reconcile the Love of Jesus with the pain of their slaves. How could Paul say that there was neither slave nor free when the reality of that world stated otherwise? And, how could free people think of themselves as ‘slaves for all’? These questions are ones that we today seldom discuss. We are conveniently ignorant of the labor pains that were present at the birth of our Church. Dr. Byron provides a snapshot of that delivery framed in the form of this book.
Dr. Byron is a well-known scholar who has specialized in studying Graeco-Roman slavery. There is no one better suited to write about this topic, and to present it in this way than Dr. Byron. Students, pastors, and lay people can all benefit from this book. I recommend it for anyone who desires to understand the 1st Century Church and the world it inhabited.

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Ah, Those Were The Days!!

Published by mhelbert on July 22, 2020

I remember…
Memory is a funny thing. It lives somewhere in the mind alongside colors and taste and imagination.
When I was a kid, my friends and I would spend hours drawing flying saucers. In the early 1960s science fiction was a growing genre that was sprinkled like so much fairy dust on our growing and developing little gray cells. We drew them just like they were portrayed on T.V. and in the movies. One long, narrow oval with a small dome on top.
Think of the original “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” How cool was Gort! We all wanted him as a friend.
“Mom! Can I stay up and watch T.V.?”
“No, Honey. It’s time for bed.”
“Gort! Go get her!”
Oh, yeah, I coulda used a buddy like that!

That’s how memory works.
Our minds are imprinted with information from every minute of every hour of every day of our lives. All of that information is retrievable.
But, none of it can help us to actually relive that time.
We cannot go back to that place.
The colors and smells and Feelings we experienced are backed-up on hard drives of flesh that reside within a thin layer of bone and fluid.

We like to think that memory is 20/20.
That those images and other sensory data that was stored within the folds of our minds is infallible is one of the fallacies that those same minds produce.
No one’s memory is infallible.
I think that even people with perfect recall, those who have what’s called a ‘photographic’ or long-term eidetic memory may see images or recall data. But, the ability to truly relive any given moment in time by remembering it doesn’t really exist. At least not for us mere mortals.

If true and complete memory does not exist, what about something like Nostalgia?

We all have moments when we glance back into our history and feel a touch, a longing for the ‘Good Ol’ Days.’ Don’t deny it! You do, too!
For a lot of folks these feelings create warm and fuzzy feelings. That’s what nostalgia does. Particularly, when society and culture are in flux.
I think back to my youth in the 60s when Civil Rights, the Viet Nam war,and Feminism were in the news cycle daily. My Dad and his friends longed for the days of Eisenhower when houses with white picket fences surrounded gardens of bright flowers and there was an apple pie cooling on the kitchen window. It so much better then! There wasn’t any of this demonstrating or riots or uppity Women.

Nostalgia.

One scholar, Svetlana Boym, quoted in https://thewayofimprovement.com/2020/07/22/nostalgia-for-a-past-that-never-existed/
wrote, “inevitably reappears as a defense mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals.”
With that in mind, we can think of Nostalgia kind of as a fear response to progress.
Progress = Change and
Change = ???
I think that we human critters are by nature afraid of change.
At least, it takes an effort to make a leap and embrace it.

Why mention all of this?
Yesterday I wrote a rather scathing piece about White Evangelicalism and politics.
Both groups that I accused of being in bed together are steeped in, c’mon you can guess!
Yep!
Nostalgia!

I don’t want to over-simplify a very complex issue involving feelings and memories and life experience.
However, if we even Could turn back time and flip all of those calendar pages back, we wouldn’t find that idyllic streetscape with all of the flowers and birds and dogs yapping gaily around us. We wouldn’t find Mr. & Mrs. Cleaver in their suit and dress with impeccable hair.
We would find reality.
A place where bullies roamed the schoolyard and bosses assaulted their secretaries.
We would find grit in our eyes from the nearby coal-fired power plants and the newspapers and T.V. news would reveal the dark underbelly of business and politics.

There is no going back.

Period.

Society and culture move forward to some as yet unknown vista.

With the support of family, friends, benevolence, and most of all Love we must look past the Past and, together, embrace God’s future.

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What Will It Take?

Published by mhelbert on July 20, 2020

Earlier this summer we in the U.S. were witnesses to something that purported to be a “Movement.” Black Live Matter was written across our nation in ALL CAPS. Many of us who had lived through an earlier Movement during the Civil Rights struggle of the 60s as well as that of the Viet Nam war resistance viewed this new thing with, I think, a tinge of nostalgia. We were there. Our black and white, rabbit-eared televisions put us in the mix of the struggle.
Of course, most of us were mere children at the time. But, even we could sense the electricity in the air and smell the ozone of the sparks it created.
Many of those sparks erupted into full-blown conflagrations as Watts and Hough caught fire and burned.
I will never forget watching the police in Chicago press the ‘Suppress At All Costs’ button out in the streets during the Democratic National Convention in 1968.
Nor, will I ever stop mourning four dead young people on the campus of Kent State University when Gov. James Rhodes allowed the Ohio National Guard to use lethal force against protesters.

Many changes came about during those moments in history. Voting rights were gained by the disenfranchised in America. A war in some far away jungle was fought on nightly television news. And, we saw the end of an era on April 4, 1968 when Martin Luther King, Jr. Was murdered.

I say an end of an era because in many ways it was.
People in this nation had seen and experienced enough.
Enough anger; enough hate; enough killing.
It seems as though there’s only so much chaos that we humans can endure before we simply stop and close our eyes.

So, we convinced ourselves that we had all done a great job of addressing the many issues of the day. The good results we kept. The not so good we chalked up to ‘experience’ and walked away from.

In most places that process has a name.

Complacency.

That one word describes a sense that All Is Well. Or, at least it’s Not Terrible and we can live with it.
It reveals a people who are tired and who have no desire to press the struggle to its actual terminus.
“We’ve done pretty good! Well, at least pretty OK!” we say as we turn on the ball game and open a fresh bottle of Heineken’s.

Perhaps I’m just voicing my own cynicism.
I’ve seen this process happen so many times.
People mobilize and march and stage boycotts and the news carries this or that spokesperson for the “Cause du jour.”
Then there are the rebuttals that must be shown. Equal opportunity and all that.
Soon, the news cycle shifts to the high price of chicken because of some bacterial thing that made someone in B.F.E. puke.

Then, gone.
Forgotten.

It seems that only when people break windows and burn cars and yell and scream and throw things…it’s only THEN that people pay attention.
I read the NY Times for Sunday.
There was a lot about the late John Lewis. As there rightly should be. He was a giant among Humanity.
However, the causes that he fought for were conspicuously missing.
Black Lives Matter?
The only coverage was about the Federal Government’s illegal activity in Oregon.
I haven’t seen a word about any marches or rallies on local media.
In fact, the absence of coverage for PEACEFUL and NON-VIOLENT activity, the very things that Congressman Lewis gave his life for was deafening.

Seriously, folks.
Do we need to burn the country down in order to secure some semblance of Justice for what the Bible names, “the least of these?”
Will it take more deaths and disaster to finally show us that we are all Equal in God’s eyes? So, dammit! We should be equal in one another’s eyes as well?
What will it take?
We’ve been at this a long, long time and the same issues are still raising their Hydra Heads.

I don’t know.
I hope that I will be able to see some life in our culture before mine ends.
But, that hope hangs on a thread.

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