Dr. Raymond A. (Randy) Blacketer

Reformation Historian, Historical Theologian

Leave Resolutions Behind

By

On December 29, 2021

In Christian Life, Church History

Jonathan Edwards, 1703–1758

New Year’s resolutions are almost universally unpopular, and with good reason. They rely on willpower, which is as reliable as the microchip supply chain at this moment. Our wills are weak. Ironically enough, New Year’s resolutions are associated with the American Reformed theologian Jonathan Edwards, who came up with 70 strenuous, laborious resolutions. Edwards is not my favorite theologian for quite a number of reasons, but you can add this one near the top of the list.

So, for example, Edwards begins with this preface:

 

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

Ok, right. Like I’m going to read my resolutions every week. I bet that would last until week three. But notice also that, for an ostensibly Reformed theologian, Edwards has a high estimation of what he can accomplish, albeit with God’s help. Despite the appeal to grace, Edwards ends up with as strenuous a view of the Christian life as any monk or ascetic. So his first resolution:

  1.  Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

There’s nothing wrong with this resolution, and it’s admirable. But again, it is a resolution to be strenuous at all times. It’s a far cry from John Calvin’s description of the Christian life, which he often described as two steps forward and one step back. And some of Edwards’s resolutions are simply grim, austere, and rigorous. They portray a view of the Christian life as a burdensome chore. A few examples: 

10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

Well, that’s lovely. Is this to deny the reality of one’s pain? To minimize the need for grief and lament? I have a suspicion that it is, at least among Edwards’s modern admirers.

15. Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.

I grant that this is a good one. Quite a good one, in fact. Never get angry at animals or inanimate objects.

38. Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, or matter of laughter on the Lord’s Day. 

No humor, no lightheartedness on the Lord’s Day. Purely a human tradition and a false form of works-righteousness in which God is not honored in the least, but in which the Lord’s Day is made miserable. 

In any case, there are 70 of these resolutions. Many of them are excellent, most are fine, some, like the last one I cited, are dubious. But my point is, we usually cannot even keep one resolution, whether it be about diet, gym attendance, social media addiction, you name it. Instead, someone recommended to me that I think about what I should leave behind in 2021, things I do not want to bring with me into 2022. So here are some ideas that a person recommended to me today.

  1. Leave behind excuses for not doing what you know you need to do.
  2. Leave behind your failure to understand your own worth as a person created in the image of God and uniquely gifted.
  3. Leave behind all guilt for taking care of yourself, for nurturing your soul, exercising your body, getting enough sleep. 
  4. Leave behind working to excess, and taking on too much, and over-committing.
  5. Leave behind self-doubt. Sure, you’re not perfect, but neither do you have to be. 
  6. Leave behind postponing things to the last minute, which generates stress.
  7. Leave behind the tendency to remain silent when you are unhappy or disagree.
  8. Leave behind the all-or-nothing approach to your projects. Leave behind perfectionism, in other words.
  9. Leave behind your habit of negative thinking. Pessimism. For me, this means that I say to myself, “I know that I will get beyond my grief and pain, and I will thrive again,” instead of what I actually said today: “I’ll try.” Do, or do not. There is no try. 
  10. Leave behind your excessive concern about what people think of you. That is, regarding external, trivial things. Your looks, your height, your weight, your job. 
  11. Leave behind what some call the “Sunday Scaries.” I did not make that up; I would try to think of something better. But in any case, this is when you spend your whole weekend worrying about the next week’s work.
  12. Leave behind living in the past. The future is ahead of you; receive it with gratitude.
  13. Leave behind your imposter syndrome. This one is hard.
  14. Leave behind your inability to say “no.” And also, your inability to be told “no.”
  15. Leave behind the pressure to look a certain way. I imagine this could take various forms, from your clothes, to your hair, your makeup, your weight, or to keep up some kind of façade.
  16. Leave behind your guilt about the list of things you have not managed to accomplish. You are not a machine, and the sum total of your life is not the number of completed projects.
  17. Leave behind pointless debates. Ouch. This applies particularly to social media. Yeah, this one also hits the mark. I love how some people never engage the trolls or the extremists, or when they do, it is in such a calm manner.

So, there are some things that you might be better off leaving behind in 2021. Next I hope to reflect on what to bring into 2022. 

On Calling Out Racist Heresy

By

On February 17, 2021

In Christian Nationalism, Pastoral Ministry, Racism

The following is a letter I wrote to denominational and classis officials in the Christian Reformed Church in 2012, alerting them to a CRC pastor who was teaching a form of racist ideology called “Kinism.” He was a pastor who used the overly large loopholes in our church polity to get into ministry without theological education or proper vetting, on the basis of “extraordinary gifts,” which in this case turned out to be the gift of preaching racism and rabid Christian nationalism. I contacted Executive Director Joel Boot, Peter Borgdorff who was also still acting like the Executive Director for some reason, and I also sent the letter to the Stated Clerk of Classis Lake Erie, Robert Arbogast. In addition, I spoke on the telephone to and forwarded the letter to Rev. Esteban Lugo, Director of Race Relations at the time. Finally, I also sent this information to Robert DeMoor and Gayla Postma of The Banner.

This “pastor” and his congregation are in the news again because they have been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center

The links that I cite do not work anymore, because the formerly Reverend Brett McAtee seems to have deleted a lot and he now goes by pseudonyms like “Perry Wilkins.” But you may be able to find some of these articles on his the site where I first found his racist rants, faithandheritage dot com, or by searching Internet Archive for now-deleted posts from his Nazi-like blog called Iron Ink.

 

As far as I can tell, my concerns in the letter were completely ignored. I received a few emails from denominational leaders that expressed concern worthy of Susan Collins at an impeachment hearing, but that was it. 

It wasn’t until 2019 that this “pastor” was dismissed from the denomination, and his ideology rejected as heresy.

For the record, they were told. 
I told them. I warned them.
Others did, too. 

Click to Read the Letter

Calvin: Refugee and Pilgrim

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On February 12, 2021

In Books, Christian Life, Church History, Pilgrimage

Calvin’s Self-Identity as Pilgrim

John Calvin, born Jean Cauvin, was a Frenchman who spent most of his life outside of France. He was forced to flee his native country because of his involvement with the rebellion against the Roman Catholic church, the Reformation. Scholars have commented on how Calvin’s experience as an exile, as a refugee, shaped him as a theologian and pastor. And as an exile and refugee, Calvin embraced the age-old Christian image of the Christian life as a pilgrimage.

Bruce Gordon, in his excellent biography of Calvin, writes about how this experience of exile was formative for Calvin.

From his earliest Christian writings the young Frenchman described the Christian life with metaphors of journeying and pilgrimage. The imagery was as old as the ancient books of the Hebrew Bible, but Calvin’s brilliance lay in his ability to infuse old traditions with new life. Conversion, he believed, was the beginning point of a journey, not its conclusion. Whether speaking in terms of mental anguish or of sudden conversion he sought to explain how God had acted to change his life and put him on a new course, to send him out in a different direction. 

BRUCE GORDON, CALVIN, 34

This experience of exile from France, his homeland, and from the Roman Catholic form of the faith, the faith of his childhood—both of which must have been traumatic—comes out in his first theological writing, Psychopannychia. The title, loosely translated, means “soul sleep,” and refers to the doctrine that the soul dies with the body and is resurrected at death. It was taught by the Avignon Pope John XXII and later condemned as a heresy. In Calvin’s day, the doctrine was revived by some Anabaptists, but also, more importantly, by Michael Servetus, who also denied the doctrine of the Trinity. Calvin wrote this treatise in 1534, but did not publish it right away, instead publishing his summary of the Protestant faith, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. For Calvin, the pilgrimage that is the Christian life ends with the vision of God, even before the resurrection of the body at the last day. This is not a novel or unusual doctrine; it was also the teaching of the church catholic, with only occasional exceptions, such as in the case of Pope John XXII. To deny that, Calvin believed, was to deny the clear teaching of Scripture and to deny the true Christian hope.

 

Again, Gordon writes about Calvin’s Psychopannychia:

In this meditation on the Bible Calvin set out a theme that he would continue to develop throughout his life—the Christian life as a pilgrimage through the world towards eternity.

BRUCE GORDON, CALVIN, 44

Calvin looked to the passage in Hebrews 11:8-12 where Abraham receives the promises of God and, exiled from his homeland of Ur, lives as a pilgrim and wayfarer, never seeing the fulfillment of the promises the Lord made to him. Calvin writes in Psychopannychia:

The Apostle speaks of Abraham and his descendants who inhabited a foreign land among strangers, not only as exiles, certainly as aliens, barely keeping a roof over their bodies in lowly shanties. This was in obedience to God’s command that he gave to Abraham, that he should leave his land and his relations. God had promised them what he had not yet shown them. Therefore, they welcomed the promises from a distance and died in the confident faith that one day God would make good on his promises. In keeping with that faith, they confessed that they had no permanent residence on the earth and that there was a homeland for them beyond the earth that they longed for, namely, in heaven.

CALVIN, PSYCHOPANNYCHIA, CO 5:218 (MY TRANSLATION)

Looking ahead to being in the presence of his Savior after this life, Calvin compares it to the Israelites entering the promised land, and the holy city of Jerusalem. In this, Calvin reflects the tradition of Christian spirituality that sees Jerusalem as the symbol of unhindered fellowship with God, as depicted in Revelation 21:10.

 

 

Thus, the souls of the saints, which have escaped the hands of the enemy, are at peace after death. They exist in sumptuousness, of which it is said, “They will go from abundance to abundance.” But when the Heavenly Jerusalem has risen up in her glory, and Christ, the true Solomon, the Prince of Peace, sits in his exalted judgment seat, the true Israelites will reign with their king.

CALVIN, PSYCHOPANNYCHIA, CO 5:214 (MY TRANSLATION)

But it’s very important to note that the traditional, Christian view of pilgrimage is not a journey of self-discovery. Nor is it a search for an unknown God. Nor is it a solitary, self-focused enterprise; there are companions on the journey. Fleming Rutledge brought up this potential objection with me when I was posting about the topic of spiritual pilgrimage in connection with Lisa Deam’s beautiful new book, 3000 Miles to Jesus. The warning is well-taken, given the individualistic focus of modern Western spirituality and its tendency to create one’s own reality and to focus on our own achievements rather than on what God has done for us. 3000 Miles to Jesus describes a very different activity, one centered on Christ and what he has already done for us. She addresses this head-on:

Focusing on our destination sounds distinctly countercultural today.  Often, when it comes to pilgrimage, we hear sayings like “It’s the journey that matters” or “The search is the meaning.” Yet this viewpoint would have been unimaginable for medieval pilgrims. Sometimes we forget that, historically, a pilgrimage almost always had an endpoint. The pilgrim arrived! The goal was attained! The journey was completed! Yes, the act of travel might itself have been transformational, but it led pilgrims to a single destination the way a well-shot arrow hits its mark.

LISA DEAM, 3000 MILES TO JESUS, 35

Rutledge pointed out that what is most important is Jesus’ journey to us. Indeed it is, and Lisa Deam writes about just that fact, that Jesus came to us to draw us to himself:

But how will the pilgrim get there? How will she survive the turbulent waters? How will any of us? “So that we might also have the means to go,” writes Augustine, “the one we were longing to go to came here from there. And what did he make? A wooden raft for us to cross the sea on.” A raft might seem a bit rickety for the raging sea, but Augustine explains: “For no one can cross the sea of this world unless carried over it on the cross of Christ.”

LISA DEAM, 3000 MILES TO JESUS, 110-111

In his day, Calvin repudiated the practice of pilgrimages as a means to earn merit by one’s own exertions. But the biblical theme of the Christian life or the life of the church as a pilgrimage is dear to him, just as it was to many throughout the history of Christian thought. Not a pilgrimage of self-discovery. Not a pilgrimage to accrue merits. Not a pilgrimage to make oneself worthy. It is the journey through this world, this life, to our true home, and to our Lord, who made the pilgrimage from heaven to earth to be our Savior. As such, the Christian life is not a pilgrimage of works, but a pilgrimage of grace. Not a journey of self-justification, but of the Spirit’s sanctification.

 

 

Along the way, we have practices to help us on this lifelong trek. Lisa Deam writes of the practice of prayer, for example:

“For prayer is its own pilgrimage and a mountainous way. It transforms us into travelers who walk a steep and winding path. When we pause to pray or meditate, we leave behind our surroundings in the outer world, with its unceasing clamor, and journey to what Saint Bonaventure called the interior Jerusalem—that place deep within where Jesus awaits. In its own way, the inner road to Jerusalem is as demanding as the physical quest of the Alps.”

LISA DEAM, 3000 MILES TO JESUS, 80

Pilgrimage in Calvin’s Institutes

 

 

As I work on a new translation of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, the image of pilgrimage and its related themes show up frequently. So, for example, Calvin interprets the Old Testament promises to Abraham as ultimately pointing to the New Jerusalem:

We see that all these things [the promises to the patriarchs] do not properly apply to the land of our pilgrimage, or to the earthly Jerusalem, but to the true homeland of the faithful and that heavenly city in which the Lord has decreed blessing and life forever.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 2.11.2

The Holy Spirit sustains us in our journey, one in which we might feel like “the walking dead,” spiritual zombies, so to speak:

For the same reason [the Spirit] is called “the pledge and seal” of our inheritance (2 Cor. 1:22) because, as we are making pilgrimage in the world and are like dead people, from heaven he makes us alive in such a way that we are certain that our salvation is secure in God’s dependable protection. 

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.1.3

We can get distracted from our destination, tempted to take a permanent detour to enjoy pleasures and diversions along the way. But Calvin urges us to meditate on that future life, to stay focused on the goal:

On the contrary, Christ teaches us to continue as pilgrims in the world so that we will not lose or be deprived of our heavenly inheritance.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.7.3

We can use and enjoy God’s early gifts, but we are also called to recognize that we do not live for these things; they are provisions for the journey:

Through his Word, the Lord prescribes this measure [for the use of earthly goods] when he teaches that the present life is like a pilgrimage for his people in which they are making their way toward the heavenly kingdom.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.10.1

Contrary to the late medieval idea of striving to become deserving and anxiously trying to accrue merit with God, Calvin describes the Christian life as a pilgrimage of sanctification. It arises out of gratitude for the justification we have received in Christ.

In the same way, if we have died with Christ (as suits his members) we must seek the things that are above and be pilgrims in the world, that we may aspire to heaven where our treasure is.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.16.2

The journey is not one of drudgery, Calvin says, but one in which we experience joy because of our salvation in Christ:

The sole and perfect happiness is known to us—even in this earthly pilgrimage. But this happiness sets our hearts afire more and more each day to desire it until it satisfies us with its full fruition.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.25.2

Finally, Calvin rejects asceticism, and he thinks it an act of ingratitude to reject what he sees as the Lord’s gifts, his supplies, provisions, and aids for the journey. He numbers the civil government among these gifts, and so he denies the teaching of the Anabaptists that the civil government is irredeemable and to be repudiated by Christians:

But if it is the will of God that we make pilgrimage upon the earth while we aspire to our true country, and if that same pilgrimage requires the use of such aids [as the civil government], then those who take this away from people deprive them of their own humanity.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 4.20.2

Sin has made us exiles from our true home. We are refugees from the Garden. But Christ, who made pilgrimage from heaven to earth for us (Phil. 2:5-11), guides us by his Word and Spirit, in the company of our fellow travelers, toward the New Jerusalem.   

 

Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

By

On October 24, 2020

In Biblical Interpretation, Books, Theology, Women in Ministry

Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. How the Church Needs to Rediscover her Purpose. By Aimee Byrd. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2020. 235 pp. $18.99.

            It is an unfortunate development that the terms complementarian and egalitarian have come to describe the position one takes on the ordination of women to ministry. Egalitarians do not deny that, in a general sense, masculine and feminine traits complement each other in society and in the church. Nor do complementarians necessarily deny that women are ontologically equal to men. Not necessarily. But the past several decades have witnessed a rising and more aggressive form of complementarianism that describes women as ontologically weaker; it claims that women are defined by submission to male authority. To bolster this teaching of general male authority and leadership, and a corresponding general female submission and receptivity, a few of these “hard complementarian” theologians projected their gender categories back into the immanent trinity, resulting in a teaching now referred to as ESS, the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son. In 2015, Aimee Byrd, who styles herself “The Housewife Theologian,” was one of the first to call out this transgression into heretical Trinity doctrine, and her suspicions that this was a form of subordinationist heterodoxy were confirmed by a number of leading experts on trinitarian doctrine.

            In this book, Byrd examines that hyper-authoritarian, male-centered movement among very conservative churches. Her title is a cheeky play on the title of the 1991 book, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, produced by the parachurch organization specifically founded to promote male authority and leadership and female submission, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). One of the problematic developments Byrd calls out in her book is that the CBMW has produced two “statements” that they encourage church leaders to adopt, the 1987 Danvers Statement, which states that church leadership is reserved for men and condemns biblical interpretation that begs to differ, and the 2017 Nashville Statement, which affirms heterosexuality and condemns homosexuality and “transgenderism,” while betraying no familiarity with the reality of sexual dysphoria. Byrd points out that parachurch organizations have no business putting out these quasi-creedal statements for the adoption of churches. It is the job of the church to do so. But, as Byrd points out, churches have outsourced much of their discipling work to such parachurch organizations.

            The cover of Byrd’s volume points to its major theme, taken from the 1892 short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, by women’s rights advocate Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The yellow wallcovering functions in much the same way as gaslighting, keeping persons from seeing the truth of their situation. Byrd argues, persuasively, that there is a kind of “yellow wallpaper” that dulls the senses and obscures the authentic biblical view of women among many Christians and churches today, and particularly in the extreme complementarian movement, in which the patriarchal and racially-incendiary teachings of Douglas Wilson and his disciples should also be included. Byrd aims to peel away the wallpaper, often comprised of unconscious social stereotypes, that keeps us from seeing the authentic biblical picture of men and women. This picture is not centered on “authority and submission, strength and neediness” (22), but on men and women truly complementing each other in the family, society, and the life of the church as co-workers and partners.

            After this all-important introduction, the book proceeds in three parts, the first of which examines how men and women read Scripture. Byrd peels back the yellow wallpaper to expose how gender-specific study Bibles reflect patronizing stereotypes of women and assume that men cannot learn from women. Byrd goes on to demonstrate how Scripture, while reflecting a patriarchal context, also challenges that patriarchy. She reviews a number of “gynocentric interruptions” in scripture, episodes in which women take center stage, disrupting the usual male-centered narrative, including the narratives of the Hebrew midwives in Egypt, Rahab (whom she relates quite effectively to Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman), Ruth, the judge Deborah, and Elizabeth and Mary the mother of Jesus. These women are not merely passive and submissive. They take initiative. They lead. She emphasizes how many women in Scripture act as “tradents,” handing down biblical teaching to the next generation. Curiously missing here are the names of Lois and Eunice, who taught young Timothy the faith and are clear examples of women teaching the faith. However, Byrd likely wants to emphasize how so many women in scripture teach and lead adult men, which is more controversial for strict complementarians.

            In the second part, Byrd talks about how discipleship in the church is a joint enterprise involving both men and women. Here she peels away CBMW’s claims to represent a biblical view of male-female relations. She questions why churches are looking to parachurch organizations both for discipling members and for considering issues such as gender and sexuality. She exposes how the CBMW perspective, which claims that men and women are inexorably characterized by authority and submission, is shaped profoundly by cultural assumptions, not solid biblical exegesis. She refutes the idea that the Bible teaches different ends, static and unchanging roles, or different virtues for men and women. She rejects the claims of CBMW that tend to make the affirmation of male authority and female submission the litmus test of orthodoxy and the central teaching of the faith, as Owen Strachan did with his audacious claim that “the gospel has a complementarian structure” (121). Byrd only parenthetically mentions intersex persons (121­–122), albeit in a gracious way, but she never brings up the issue of gender dysphoria, which is a pressing issue today. A few sentences commending humility and graciousness in such situations would have been welcome.

In the final section, Byrd examines the responsibility of every believer. Here she focuses on men and women as allies and coworkers in the work of discipleship, transmitting the faith, and worship. Byrd consistently draws on some of the leading voices in Reformed theology and biblical studies, as well as outstanding scholars from other traditions. She believes that it is important for both women and men to know their doctrine, and she exemplifies this learnedness herself. She frequently corrects misconceptions, such as the idea that Eve’s creation subsequent to that of Adam implies that Eve is inferior; rather, Eve’s creation has an eschatological meaning, pointing to the man’s end and glory. She foreshadows both humanity’s redemption as the Bride of Christ, and the Bride of the book of Revelation, representing the completion of the redemption of humanity and of all creation.

Byrd affirms how the differences between men and women are positive and, in fact, genuinely complementary, and she encourages churches that have exclusively male ministers not to conduct ministry that is exclusively male-centered. Byrd, who affirms male-only ordination but eschews the labels complementarian and egalitarian, suggests (without citing examples) that egalitarians gloss over these differences. Here one must object that persons have become egalitarian precisely because they have witnessed how women minister and lead in ways that contribute something that men simply cannot; men and women in ordained ministry complement each other and fundamentally improve the work of ministry. But Byrd intentionally avoids the topic of ordination, for good reason. She is especially addressing a rather conservative audience; she speaks from within that conservative tradition and calls believers to a more biblical and more affirming attitude toward women in the church, even if they continue to restrict ordination to males.

Byrd shows that women in the New Testament helped to plant churches and also led house churches. She emphasizes the confidence and authority Paul placed in Phoebe when he entrusted her with delivering his crucially important Letter to the Romans, though she hesitates to affirm that she held the office of deacon. Byrd demonstrates how Paul does indeed refer to Junia as an apostle, though she recognizes how perilous this acknowledgment is for those who claim ministry is reserved exclusively for men (227). Byrd’s arguments are strong, particularly where she critiques the rigid, universalizing claims of CBMW and its flirtation with anti-Nicene heresy. Her biblical interpretation is solid, and often it is fascinating. Some points are more debatable, such as her acceptance of a reading of the highly-contested Eph. 4:12 that denies equipping the saints for ministry and instead emphasizes formal ministry, or the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs; but both of these issues are tangential. One matter that is regrettable and perplexing is a consistent and conspicuous lack of editorial care on the part of the publisher; this mars the book’s style and frequently interferes with the communicative flow of Byrd’s argument. Byrd’s book deserved better.

Byrd’s guide to recovery from the extreme positions of CBMW comes at an important moment; some evangelicals are advocating overt patriarchy as the one faithful and biblical model of church, family, and society life. It is also a moment in which Christians, churches, and Christian organizations are facing the reality of abuse in churches, or sometimes refusing to face that reality. No doubt, Byrd’s volume will truly enable persons, especially women but also men, to recover from the unbiblical constraints of hyper-complementarianism.

Shortly after the publication of this volume, Byrd was vilified in her own conservative Presbyterian and evangelical circles. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals hosted her blog and the podcast that she shared with theologian Carl Trueman and Pastor Todd Pruitt. When she published her book and interacted with some of her critics, the ACE cut ties with her; she had to move her blog and she was removed from the podcast. Moreover, she was the subject of vile, misogynistic attacks and ridicule by Presbyterian and Reformed pastors on social media, which were later exposed to the public. Not only does this behavior serve to prove her point, it also raises a serious challenge to Byrd herself and to the churches she is addressing. Can churches that prohibit women from ordained church leadership—even if they manage to avoid the hyper-complementarianism of CBMW—still affirm women’s gifts and crucial importance to the church? Can such churches take women seriously as coworkers in discipleship and the church’s mission? Historically speaking, they have not. The prospects seem doubtful. Maybe there is still one more bit of yellow wallpaper that needs to be torn away for women to truly be able to thrive according to the biblical model that Aimee Byrd so convincingly brings to light.

—Dr. Raymond A. (Randy) Blacketer

On an “Election Year” Definition

By

On August 14, 2020

In Uncategorized

Jeff is an old classmate of mine, a very good guy, an evangelical pastor, great sense of humor. He posted this on his Facebook timeline:

election year [ih-LEK-shun yir] noun
1. A time when decent people throw off their personal responsibility of how they speak about people in authority, in order to promote someone else. Anyone else.
2. A period every four years when otherwise balanced thinkers abandon core values (Example: sanctity of life, etc.,) in order to rationalize supporting someone else. Anyone else.
3. A moment when many citizens celebrate a right paid for by someone else. Anyone else.

Francis Shaeffer admiring his
knickers and deploring abortion.

I found the post rather interesting in its assumptions. And it recalled to me the variety of Christianity that was the centerpiece of my Evangelical / Fundamentalist high school: Woodcrest Christian School, in Riverside, California. I liked my high school. I’m still in contact with a number of my classmates. My graduating class numbered 24. We studied New Testament Greek in the 9th and 10th grades. We had courses in biblical hermeneutics and systematic theology. But at the same time, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jerry Falwell was promoting his Moral Majority movement. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family was making its way into every evangelical household through books and radio programs. Many of us kids had seen the terrifying film “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” narrated by pioneer culture warrior Francis Shaeffer with his creepy, weird knickers. There we learned that true Christians are about being against abortion, and that abortion is the most wicked injustice ever. It was in the beginning days of the fusion of Christ and the GOP.

Jerry Falwell helped align American fundamentalism and Evangelicalism to the GOP and right-wing politics.

I know where Jeff is coming from. But I’m definitely not in that place. It’s not my Christianity; it is the faith of my past. It is one that I came to reject, even while I was in school and attending the Christian Reformed Church. All those fundamentalist emphases were beginning to make inroads into my church, too; but there was more than that in the Dutch Reformed tradition. There was a tradition of respecting science, of establishing actual universities and not Bible colleges, of caring about society, and not just political power. It was certainly not a perfect tradition, and it still is far from perfect. It was (and still can be) patriarchal and it had (and sadly is still plagued with) the typical assumptions about white superiority (note Apartheid in Dutch Reformed South Africa); but it was a different world than American fundamentalism, with its anti-intellectual tendencies and its fear of science.

So this was my reply to Jeff:

I find this post… very unsatisfying. It makes me wonder, a lot. It makes me wonder if we know the same God, or worship the same Christ, or read the same Bible. It prompted me to respond. This is not a personal attack, but a radically different view from an old classmate.

First, #1, it seems to try to silence people from criticizing those who are in authority. Scripture does not mince words in criticizing wicked rulers, and even calling for their downfall and for God’s judgment upon them. We should call out wickedness and lies, and never align themselves with them, even when we think it’s for a higher purpose (which can only mean banning abortion, which for American fundamentalists is the only reason Christ came to earth) because it never is for a higher purpose. It’s about power, and control, and nostalgia for a past that never was. Psalm 52 is a good place to start here. Moreover, we only tend to say this to protect the leaders we like, the GOP ones.

Re: #2: This seems to me like a blatant statement that you better vote GOP or you’re abandoning your core values. Except some people have core values like rejecting racism and white supremacy, loving the poor and immigrants, hating putting kids in cages and separating from their moms and dads; rejecting demonization of differing views, rejecting culture war Christianity, rejecting the normalization of lies and deceit, affirming the importance of the free press and not demonizing and lying about the press, affirming good science and repudiating conspiracy theories, affirming good relations with our international allies, rejecting pandering to our enemies, and rejecting using religion and the Bible as a cheap election prop. Perhaps none of those values really matters, though, because Christ only came to earth to overturn Roe vs. Wade. This one is exceptionally offensive and shortsighted; it’s as if everything Jesus said never mattered. Christians don’t love abortion, but guess what? Not all Christians think it’s a good idea to criminalize it. Nor do all Christians think it makes sense to scream “murder!” to shut down any dissent from the culture war mantra. And when Christians claim to be pro-life, while denying the pandemic, resisting a simple, neighbor-loving thing like wearing masks, and spreading lies and conspiracy theories, and urging the police to violently suppress black people when they rise up after yet another unarmed black person is murdered by the police, people can see that American Christians don’t really care about human life. Abortion has just become their idol; it makes us feel righteous when we are anything but righteous.

#3 Just seems foolish to me; it’s simply wrong. No soldier ever paid for my rights. Stop comparing soldiers to Christ and his cross; it’s blasphemous and it simply reflects American militarism and civil religion. The Constitution says where my political rights come from: I am naturally endowed with them by my Creator. And that applies to every human being: white, black, brown, soldier, pacifist, liberal, conservative. So that’s just bull, pardon my French, and very offensive to me as an American and a Christian.

This kind of Christianity, if that’s what it is, is utterly foreign to what I would consider the gospel. In fact, I think the American church is becoming apostate; it worships political power and right-wing ideology. The church in the US is declining at the fastest rate ever, and I can see why: The church does not follow Christ. It follows the GOP. They will believe any lie as long as it serves the agenda of maintaining power. But Americans are seeing through the lie, and either turning away from the faith altogether or turning away from militaristic, white male-dominated Fundamentalism. Our friend [a mutual friend who later became an atheist] rejected this faith, and I don’t blame him one iota.

A young friend said to me recently: Why would I ever go to church? All the Christians I meet are just so full of hate. They’re so racist. They believe all kinds of lies and spread lies and conspiracies and “All Lives Matter” slogans all over Facebook and bully people who wear masks during a pandemic. Well, yeah. Why would she? Too many American Christians are hateful, angry, bigoted hypocrites. The latest example: Jerry Fallwell, Jr. Next week there will be a new candidate.

I was personally shaped by this political Christianity at Woodcrest [Woodcrest Christian School, our high school]. But my own church tradition was a bit outside the Evangelical bubble. We had a tradition of caring about the poor. We had a tradition of loving education and science. We weren’t afraid of dinosaurs. These things enriched our faith, rather than threatening it.

This is just to let you know that there are followers of Christ who utterly reject what you seem to be saying here, and who think that the gospel is a whole lot more than trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, and maybe isn’t even about that at all. Maybe culture war Christianity is not even real Christianity and is a false gospel. I am deeply ashamed of American Christianity for selling its soul (Christ) for a mess of pottage (political power and influence). It is terribly discouraging for me as a Christian, and it forced me out of a pastorate where people did not want their prejudices challenged. I doubt I will ever go back into ministry because of what this has done to my soul.

If you want evidence and footnotes, and if you’re *really* interested in where I’m coming from, read my friend Kristin Kobes DuMez’s new book: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.

On the Racism of Christians

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On June 8, 2020

In Uncategorized

I was evangelized into the Christian faith, with my single mom and my younger sister, in a small congregation of the Christian Reformed Church in Riverside, California, now called Hope Community Church. We were baptized, catechized, discipled. Adults in that congregation taught us the faith. I learned that human beings are deeply sinful. I learned that God loves all people, despite their sins and failings. I devoted my life to ministry in the Christian Reformed Church.

This morning I came across a Facebook post from one of those adults, one of those people I looked up to, who has known me since I was 11 years old. It was a link to the misleading video by the vile grifter Candace Owens, who has profited off being a token black voice for hate, division, and even racism. In the video, Owens denies systemic racism and trashes the name and reputation of George Floyd, the man killed by police recently.

It is profoundly disappointing to see someone, whose family helped disciple me, whom I looked up to as a child, post something that seems like a denial of the gospel of Christ’s love for people on the margins, a denial of our collective guilt and complicity in racism. It’s a post that makes white people feel good about their prejudice and enables them to deny their racist attitudes and shift the blame for police brutality onto the victims of that brutality. We believe in total depravity, but not when applied to us or our society.

Poster made by Kara Slade @KaraNSlade, shared on Twitter by Fleming Rutledge @flemingrut.

The Christian Reformed Church explicitly recognizes and calls out systemic racism for the oppressive sin that it is. From an email that pastors in the denomination received last week:

These high-profile cases are not anomalies. They are not simply the result of some rogue police officers. Instead, they underline the systemic nature of racism and its pervasiveness in our culture. George Floyd is one among way too many African American men disrespected as image-bearers of God in the US. And in Canada, there are similar systemic realities that result in precious children of the Creator taken too soon.

George Floyd had a criminal history. He spent five years in prison for armed robbery. In 2013 he was paroled, and after his release, he became involved in a ministry called Resurrection Houston. In 2014 he moved to the Minneapolis area. In 2017, he filmed an anti-gun violence video. In 2020, he lost his security job because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He had five children, including two daughters who reside in Houston, ages 6 and 22, and an adult son in Bryan, Texas.

On May 25, George Floyd was accused of passing a fake $20 bill. Was he guilty? Did he do it knowingly? We’ll never know because he never had a chance to defend himself. A police officer, who also has a history of violence and is now charged with murder, acted as judge, jury, and executioner.

To respond to the cry “black lives matter” with the indignant “all lives matter” is a denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a rejection of what Christ says about the Shepherd leaving the 99 to search for the one, and what he says about the father welcoming the prodigal son while the elder brother only thinks about the boy’s faults and sins.

To pretend that systemic racism is not real is evil. It is a lie, a falsehood, designed to make privileged people feel comfortable about their hate and prejudice.

George Floyd was a sinner. He also believed in Jesus Christ and looked to him for forgiveness. Christianity Today published a profile: “George Floyd Left a Gospel Legacy in Houston.” Below is a photo of George Floyd’s friend, former NBA star Stephen Jackson, with George’s six-year-old daughter Gianna, who is now fatherless.

Was George Floyd a saint? Well, actually, yes. In the New Testament, a saint is someone redeemed and forgiven by Jesus Christ. Some people in the congregation of my childhood seem to have completely forgotten that basic fact of the gospel. As the little boy discipled in that church, it is profoundly disturbing to me. As a minister of the gospel, I condemn and repudiate it, and I call for those who deny Christ in this way to repent.

Memento Mori; Memento Vivere.

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On May 3, 2020

In Christian Life, Latin

Working with the Latin language every day makes for some interesting social media ads on my feed. A while back I was scrolling through my poorly-used Instagram account, and I ran across an ad for a medallion stamped with the phrase: Memento mori, “remember that you will die.”

That caught my interest. Not only because I like Latin phrases, which I do. But also because the Christian church has long urged believers to not only be aware of but to actively cultivate a healthy sense of one’s mortality. Long before that, the Hebrew Scriptures shatter our illusions of invincibility with this stark and often unwelcome fact:

“In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Genesis 3:19

This verse comes into the liturgy for Ash Wednesday: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It’s a fact. We know it. It’s foolish for me to deny it. But why do I have to remember it? That sounds a bit morbid–literally.

I don’t know a great deal about art history, but it doesn’t take much to know that the image of a skull is a kind of memento mori, a warning against vanity. In older art, this motif is nearly ubiquitous and one that we today might find morbid simply because we live in a culture that denies and avoids the thought of death. I have always found the 1892 drawing, “All is Vanity,” by C. Allan Gilbert to be particularly effective.

Earlier generations thought about death intentionally. It was, in fact, a form of moral and spiritual discipline.

A common genre of writing was the Ars bene moriendi, the art of dying well. One of the Puritans I have studied, William Perkins, wrote such a book in 1595. It bore the prolix title: A Salve for a Sicke Man: or A Treatise Containing the Nature, Differences, and Kinds of Death: As also the Right Manner of Dying Well. The title page listed a few life-threatening occupations and situations: And it may serve for spirituall instruction to 1. Mariners when they goe to sea. 2. Souldiers when they goe to battell. 3. Women when they trauell of child. Seafaring and warfare are obviously dangerous. Travelling with children might seem to have its own perils; but here the word means to travail, that is, to be in labor with a child. Many women, of course, died in childbirth, as did many children.

And until modern times, death was much more in people’s faces. You couldn’t deny death when it was an exception for a couple not to have lost a child. When women regularly died giving birth. When the plague could sweep through a region and kill a large percentage of the population (which seems a timely bit of history to remember at this moment, as COVID-19 ravages).

Pastors like Perkins reminded their parishioners, and not only those who were sailors or soldiers or great with child, that they were mortal. They were going to die. And they should remember that every single day. Well, that sounds like a downer.

The other day, I was reminded of how utterly foreign this concept now appears. I was meandering through a little-known cemetery here in Grand Rapids. It’s on the grounds of what used to be the “poor farm,” a place for impoverished and even disabled persons a century ago. Residents were buried on the grounds at county expense. Years ago, I had heard stories of this hallowed ground, located behind the Lutheran nursing home. But the other day, I took my energetic corgi Blue on a walk, and we stumbled across the rows of minimalist headstones. I knew what it was right away. The simple markers were ordered in the simplest way, by dates of death, which spanned the years 1894 to 1907. Many more depressions in the earth betrayed unmarked graves. One slab marked the final resting place of a Civil War veteran. I posted a few pictures of the headstones from this walk, and a close relative asked me why in the world I would ever intentionally spend time in such a sad place. Why think about death on purpose?

Now, it’s true; one could be morose about this. One could morbidly focus on death. It’s possible to think only about death, only about impermanence, only about decline. One could live a whole life of mourning, reciting lines from Ecclesiastes about how nothing that gives us joy means a thing, in the end. Memento mori could sound like an invitation to a thoroughgoing pessimism, a worldview of nihilism, a personal attitude of melancholy, or even unremitting depression. But that’s not the point of memento mori. Quite the opposite in fact.

And that brings me back to jewelry ads on social media. Another item on that website (yes, I clicked) was a similar medallion, with a different Latin phrase: memento vivere.

This Latin phrase means: “Remember to live.” And this one also caught my attention, because it is the flip side of memento mori, properly understood. The spiritual guides who wrote treatises on dying well, for sailors and soldiers and expectant mothers and everyone else, were not calling people to a morose, morbid, melancholy existence. Rather, the way to die well is to spend your days living well. Live for something more enduring than things, than being in control, than being right. And if the gospel means anything, it means that death is not the end. It means that beauty and vigor and physical strength will all fade. Your wealth will pass to another. The key to living well, and thus dying well, is not to live for these transient things. Remember to live well. That’s the point of remembering that you will die.

And for some of us, just remembering to live is important. If you carry a heavy load of grief, for dear persons lost, or for dreams long buried. If your outlook on life tends to the melancholy, from depression, from past trauma and wounds imperfectly healed. In that case, do not only recall that you will die. Remember to live in the meantime. Receive the gifts of the day, and the gift that is the day. Give and receive love. Cherish people. Steward your life, and take care of your body, and relish God’s gorgeous creation.

Were I to try to put these two Latin phrases together, my best guess would be this: Memento mori ut memineris vivere. Remember that you will die, so that you will remember to live. 💀

“God is a Refugee and a Foreigner”

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On January 9, 2020

In Uncategorized

Check out this post from Lisa K. Deam, who is writing a book on the spirituality of pilgrimage. She observes that Jean Gerson, reflecting on the flight into Egypt by Joseph, Mary, and the child Jesus, makes the bold statement that God is a fugitive and a foreigner (“Deus est fugitivus et advena”). In an era in which so many American Evangelicals are joining the anti-immigrant bandwagon, it’s an important reminder that Jesus wants us to identify with those who are powerless and not with the privileged and powerful, and it is a call to “see Jesus in our fugitive neighbors.”

The Mystery of the Golden Mouth, or, The Case of the Dubious Reference

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On September 21, 2018

In Church History, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Theology, Translating

Sherlock Holmes making deductions in his mind palace about John Chrystostom

Historical research is punctuated by mysteries great and small. I solved a micro-mystery today.  It was The Case of the Dubious Reference, or The Mystery of the Golden Mouth. “Golden Mouth” (Chrysostomos, Greek: ὁ Χρυσόστομος) was a title given to the preacher and Bishop by the name of John (St. John Chrysostom, c. 349-407) who preached in Antioch and was consecrated Archbishop of Constantinople. He was called “the golden mouth” because of his gift for preaching. Centuries earlier, a Greek philosopher and orator had also been honored with that title, Dio Chrysostom.

John Calvin often cites John Chrysostom, both positively and negatively. When it came to biblical interpretation, Chrysostom was one of his favorites, because his exegesis tended to be more literal than some other church fathers who preferred to find allegories all through the biblical text. But Calvin was rather unhappy with Chrysostom’s theology of grace and human free will. Chrysostom frequently emphasizes human efforts and virtue in salvation and asserts that grace has to be merited, and that salvation is a cooperative effort between God and sinners. This was not uncommon in the early church, before the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius. By contrast, Calvin was quite critical of Augustine’s exegesis, because he was quite prone to this kind of spiritual interpretation, which Calvin found fanciful and speculative, particularly because medieval Roman Catholic theology used this kind of spiritual exegesis to justify doctrines that the Reformers rejected. But Augustine was Calvin’s favorite when it came to the doctrines of grace, the bondage of the will to sin, and a divine predestination not based on foreseen merit.

Now for the mystery. Calvin cites Chrysostom several times in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.2.4, when he is talking about the capacities of the human will after humanity’s fall into sin. These references originated in the second Latin revision of the Institutes from 1539. This is a topic on which he thinks Chrysostom is quite wrong, and it’s not just because he doesn’t understand Chrysostom’s homiletical context.[note] Pace an otherwise interesting article by György Papp, “Aspects of Calvin’s use of Chrysostom-Quotations Concerning the Free Will,” in Herman J. Selderhuis and Arnold Huijgen, eds., Calvinus Pastor Ecclesiae: Papers of the Eleventh International Congress on Calvin Research (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 423-433). Papp underestimates Chrysostom’s emphasis on human striving, effort, and virtue, and he does not take into account the fact that rejecting late medieval semi-Pelagianism was a central doctrinal concern of the Reformation. [/note] Calvin cites three statements from Chrysostom’s Homiliae in Genesim (Homilies in Genesis) and gives references for the first and third of these citations.[note]Opera Selecta 3: 245, McNeill-Battles ed., 1: 259.[/note] Footnoting was random and capricious in those wicked and dark days of the sixteenth century. The editors of the Opera Selecta (Karl Barth’s brother Peter and two other Barthian scholars, Wilhelm Niesel and Dora Scheuner) identify the second reference as In Gen. hom. 25.7. This is wrong.

The first clue that this is a mistake is that Calvin introduces the next citation with the words “Dixerat autem prius,” “He had previously said”–Autem here is basically a comma; ignore it–and then Calvin cites a passage from In Gen. hom. 53.2. So one would expect that the previous citation would occur after that sentence in homily 53.2. I don’t blame the editors; it can be exceptionally hard to figure out Calvin’s references, and he is prone to mistakes in citations, particularly biblical citations. But still, I am surprised that they did not look for something that occurs after the third citation.

One of the difficulties is that there are a number of Latin translations of Chrysostom that are and were available. Calvin’s Latin does not appear verbatim in the Latin translation that was included in the 19th-century edition thrown together by J-P Migne, the Patrologia Graeca. But Calvin can also paraphrase a passage or alter it to fit the grammar and syntax of his writing. Calvin’s citation or paraphrase reads:  Item, Sicut nisi gratia Dei adiuti, nihil unquam possumus recte agere: ita nisi quod nostrum est attulerimus, non poterimus supernum acquirere favorem. (“Further, he says that, just as we cannot ever do anything correctly apart from the grace of God, in the same way, unless we bring what is our own, we will not be able to obtain favor from above.”) You will not find those exact words in the Patrologia Graeca. 

Nevertheless, I persisted.

Because you have to be somewhat obsessive in this field. Just enough to enable you to make discoveries, but just short of needing to be institutionalized.

I searched Chrysostom’s homilies on Genesis for something that sounded similar, and which occurred after homily 53, section 2. Fortunately, I found something rather similar at the very end of homily 58, except that it refers to obtaining God’s help rather than his favor.[note]Sicut enim nisi illo subsidio fruamur, nihil umquam possumus recte agere: ita nisi quod nostrum est attulerimus, non poterimus auxilium obtinere. [/note] This could be a simple matter of a different translation, however.

Greek text in de Montfaucon’s edition

I checked the passage in the 19th-century edition of Calvin’s works that the Opera Selecta editors used, edited by Bernard de Montfaucon (1655-1741) who invented the science of paleography. in the process I learned that the Latin translation in de Montfaucon’s edition is the one “borrowed” by the prolific plagiarist Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Graeca.[note]See Sancti patris nostri Joannis Chrysostomi opera omnia quae exstant, ed. Bernard de Montfaucon, 13 vols. (Paris: Gaume Fratres, 1834-1838), 4: 658-659; Migne, Patrologia Graeca 54: 513. [/note]

But there was more. During my investigations, I ran across some fascinating recent work by Drs. Jeannette Kreijkes on Calvin’s use of Chrysostom. She is writing a dissertation on this topic at the University of Groningen. She has refuted the common assumption that Calvin only used one edition of Chrysostom’s works, the Latin translation published in Paris in 1536 by Claude Chevallon, which does not include Chrysostom’s Greek.[note]Jeannette Kreijkes, “Calvin’s Use of the Chevallon Edition of Chrysostom’s Opera Omnia: The Relationship between the Marked Sections and Calvin’s Writings,” Church History and Religious Culture 96.3 (2016): 237–265. She refutes some of the main arguments in Alexandre Ganoczy and Klaus Müller, Calvins handschriftliche Annotationen zu Chrysostomus: Ein Beitrag zur Hermeneutik Calvins (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1981), and in W. Ian P. Hazlett, “Calvin’s Latin Preface to his Proposed French Edition of Chrysostom’s Homilies: Translation and Commentary,” in. James Kirk, ed., Humanism and Reform: The Church in Europe, England, and Scotland, 1400-1643 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 129-150.[/note] I had a very good conversation with her as well, and I learned from her something about the various editions that were available during Calvin’s day. She also has access to the 1536 Chevallon edition, which is nowhere online and quite hard to find. How does Chevallon’s translation of the passage read?

Eureka!

Chevallon’s edition is much closer to Calvin’s citation, and in fact, the latter part is identical.[note]“Sicut autem nisi illam habeamus, nihil unquam possumus recte agere possumus, nisi superna gratia adiuti. Sicut autem nisi illam habeamus, nihil unquam possumus recte agere: ita nisi quod nostrum attulerimus, non poterimus supernum acquirere favorem.” Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani Opera, 5 vols. (Paris: Claude Chevallon, 1536), 1: fol. 118 vo.  [/note] Does this prove that Calvin was using the Chevallon edition? Not at all.

Johannes Oecolampadius and his rather square beard.

Some scholars tend to assume that Calvin used the Chevallon edition throughout his career. When I first found that the Chevallon edition corresponded to Calvin’s citation, that was my first thought as well. But the Chevallon edition is identical in this passage to the translations found in editions prepared by Oecolampadius [note]Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi… in totum Geneseos librum Homiliae, trans. Johannes Oecolampadius (Basel: A. Cratander, 1523), fol. 169 vo .[/note] in 1523 and Erasmus[note] D. Ioannis Chrysostomi archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani opera quae hactenus versa sunt omnia, etc. ed. Desiderius Erasmus, 5 vols. (Basel: Froben, 1530), 5: 307. [/note] in 1530.

But I think it was Oecolampadius. Why? Because immediately afterward, Calvin cites Chrystostom’s Genesis homilies again, this time In Gen. hom. 53.2. [note]Patrologia Graeca 54: 466).[/note] Except that Calvin’s marginal reference does not indicate homily 53, but homily 52. And the homily that the other editions number as 53, Oecolampadius numbers as 52, because, for some reason, he omits the first homily that the others include and enumerate as homily 1. But that’s a mystery for another day. It is possible that there was another edition that numbered the homilies the same way that I have not found, or that Calvin simply made an error, but my detective instincts do not lean that way. For now, I think Oecolampadius is the prime suspect, and at the very least he should be handcuffed, read his rights, and hauled down to the station for further questioning.

Solving these little micro-mysteries is very satisfying; who doesn’t enjoy a good mystery? (My favorite mystery writer is Lyndsay Faye, whose mysteries are set in the 19th century). And along the way, I met a fellow historical detective, Jeannette Kreijkes, who is a formidable Calvin scholar, to whom I owe much of what I found and learned on this case.

On Nike© Outrage

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On September 6, 2018

In Christianity and Politics, Racism

The latest expression of white populist outrage has been directed at Nike, after the corporation launched a campaign that features NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s face, along with the words, “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” Of course, the Nike motto, “Just do it” and the iconic swoosh logo appear at the bottom of the image. Corporations generally make decisions based on what they think is good for business, and not usually for purely altruistic reasons, and by not usually I mean practically never. So, Nike executives must think that this is a good move for their brand, at least in the long run. In the short term, their stock dropped three percent, but that could be temporary and due to other factors. Meanwhile, the President’s divisive and racially-charged rhetoric has inflamed the issue. In a move that will surprise exactly zero persons, he has condemned Nike’s move in an interview with the far-right, white-supremacist-tainted Daily Caller, while reluctantly conceding that they have a right to make their own business decisions. Tucker Carlson cast aside all restraint and reached for the most extreme rhetoric available in Fox News’s pantry. He claimed that Nike’s ad was “an attack on America.”

 

Now, as far as I know, Colin K. has not hijacked any airliners for the purpose of flying them into skyscrapers or launched an aerial bombing raid on battleships anchored at Pearl Habor. Those things are attacks on America. But maybe Tucker means an attack on American principles. In that case, I would suggest that trying to silence persons, dismissing the voice of a minority, and white people telling minorities how they are allowed to express themselves—those things are an attack on American principles. But they are not coming from Kaepernick; they are coming from his detractors, from the President himself down to all of his outraged (and overwhelmingly white) supporters, who have taken the tack of cutting the iconic Nike swooshes out of socks they have already paid for, burning their athletic shoes, and calling for a boycott of Nike.

Apparently John Rich, a country music star from a while back and a former contestant on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, is still angry about an incident in which Kaepernick wore socks depicting police officers as pigs.  I agree that this was a significant misstep on the quarterback’s part, because it painted with an overly-broad brush, and sent only served to give ammunition to a segment of the country that wants to frame the issue as in terms of bad people and criminals hating all police in general. But John Rich should know that it’s not about the pig socks; it’s about regular, systematic police discrimination against African Americans.

Now, when I first noticed the Nike ad,  I was struck by a sense that it was risky, even if a business calculation ultimately lay behind it. I am not a huge football fan, and I would not have written about this, except that I noticed white Christians posting anti-Nike memes in my social media feeds, expressing their outrage at this black man for daring to kneel during the national anthem, and at Nike for taking up his cause.

The most notable anti-Nike meme features NFL player Pat Tillman, who volunteered for military service in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and who died in a friendly fire incident. He is called a #RealHero. Ironically, the military initially lied about and covered up the incident; they spun a false narrative about Tillman to use him as a propaganda tool, prompting several investigations, justified outrage from the Tillman family, and an apology from the Pentagon. It turns out Tillman came to openly oppose the war and was preparing to give an interview to noted scholar Noam Chomsky before he was killed by members of his unit, who then tried to cover up the real cause of his death. Whether it was an accident or murder is still an open question. But back to the meme and its message.

The meme exalts military service, and particularly dying in military service, as the ultimate form of sacrifice, and perhaps the only one that counts as heroic. At the same time, it mocks and denigrates any sacrifice that Colin Kaepernick may have made in carrying out his kneeling protest during the national anthem. But another message that it more subtly communicates is that a real American hero is white and wears a military uniform. A #realhero looks like Pat Tillman, not that black guy. So it is both militaristic in a quasi-religious sense, and thus, for Christians, a form of idolatry, and it is not so subtly promoting a white “hero” over a black one.

What message are white Christians sending when they post this meme? Many, but I will just note a few.

First, it telegraphs that white Christians either do not understand why some NFL players are kneeling or that do not believe the kneeling players when they explain why they are kneeling. According to their own statements, these athletes are not protesting the national anthem. They are not protesting the military. They are not protesting the flag. They are protesting the killing of unarmed black men by police in cities across the United States. Kaepernick explained that he was kneeling because, in important ways, the country was not living up to what the flag represents: Freedom for all. Justice for all.

Second, it sends a clear message that white, American Christians refuse to listen to, or believe, the lament of fellow citizens, and even fellow Christians. Those who post this meme seem to think that black football players are protesting something that is not really a problem. “All lives matter,” they say. “Blue lives matter.” Those statements about what lives matter are true, of course, but also completely irrelevant. They are slogans intended to make us ignore the unequal treatment of inner-city minorities. There are outrageous extremists in the Black Lives Matter movement, so we can totally ignore the laments emerging from the cities, and paint every protestor with the same extremist colors. The message this meme sends is: Black people, just shut up and don’t force me to think about the conditions of the inner city, or the terrible suffering and discrimination and struggles that millions in this country endure. I don’t want to hear about it, and I don’t want to be reminded of it. I really don’t care.

Third, it sends the message that patriotism is about flag-waving and adulation bordering on idolatrous worship for the military and the flag. But forced patriotism is no patriotism at all, and if the flag means anything, it means equal justice for all. It means the right to protest, “in order to form a more perfect union,” as someone wrote in some forgotten document. All the talk about disrespecting veterans is nonsense. Veterans served to protect the country, but also the ideals of the country, which we are far from perfectly embodying, especially when it comes to the Constitution’s stated purpose to establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility. Many veterans get this.

So, when we post the Tillman / Nike meme, we’re saying, “We don’t care that you get called a nigger. Don’t kneel at the sacred, holy event of a football game. Don’t defile our secular liturgy. Behave like we white people want you to behave. Stop making us uncomfortable. Stop making us face ugly claims about who we are as a nation, as individuals.” The fact that American evangelicals habitually combine their exaltation of American nationalism with their faith is also a serious problem, but political idolatry is a subject for another post or twelve.

Fourth, it sends the message that we really think black men should know their place. Very wealthy people own the NFL teams (they also happen to be overwhelmingly white, and none are black). But much of the angry rhetoric conveys the idea that the black players should be grateful for the (overwhelmingly white) owners’ generosity. They pay your very high salaries. You should be grateful for how lucky you are to be given this opportunity by others. This is utterly ignorant and profoundly racist, of course, since no NFL player was handed their position. Every player earned it, in a highly competitive arena, often overcoming tremendous obstacles along the way. But we still view black people as second-class citizens and their laments as an irritating inconvenience, or even an attack on our sense of self-righteousness.

Even the NFL issued a statement of support for Kaepernick’s cause, albeit one that some consider weak and tepid. NFL Executive Vice President Jocelyn Moore issued the statement:

“The National Football League believes in dialogue, understanding and unity. We embrace the role and responsibility of everyone involved with this game to promote meaningful, positive change in our communities. The social justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action.”

But do white Christians really care about black communities? Do we have any understanding of the discrimination and inequitable treatment that black persons face in this country every single day? When we post the Tillman meme, we are saying: We don’t understand. We don’t want to understand. We will not make an effort to understand. And we don’t care.

The fact that white Christians are posting this meme is a symptom of the failure of American Evangelicalism to put the gospel of Jesus Christ into practical action. It even fails to accurately represent its quasi-religious faith in Americanism, given that it fails to represent the principles of the Preamble. American evangelicalism has, in large measure and particularly among its white majority, created a gospel of middle class, politically conservative, flag-waving comfort. We don’t like it when someone barges in and ruins the picture we have painted of our nation and ourselves. We hate it when someone suggests that racism is a problem, or that we are part of the problem.

But take a clue from Christ himself. He actively sought out the poor, the despised, persons in the minority, like Samaritans. He took the time to listen to these people, to hear their stories, to treat them as image-bearers of God. Before you post that angry meme, do a little research. Talk to, or at least read an article by, an actual black person—and I don’t mean those few obsequious outliers who seem to embrace our current outburst of angry racism in exchange for Twitter followers. You don’t have any black friends or aquaintances? Well, then don’t you dare post memes about NFL players. And what does that fact tell you about yourself? Take some time to listen to a story very different from your own. Just do it.™

 

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