A Voice Crying in the Wilderness: Oppression in America

New York City Today:

We are still oppressed in America. We are still captives to the State, to oppression and injustice.

Oh, well well, here we go again…more bullshit from the State. If you’ve been following this case like I have, you should be outraged.

A man, not just any man, but a black man gets shot 50 times, count that, 50 times. Not 5, 50. 50 times a man is shot, that’s not just injustice, it is sacrilege. That the state would acquit those responsible is a blatant disrespect for human life and justice. New York, you are guilty of perjury, fraudulence of Justice, and oppression. You are being held accountable for the life of a man who was about to be married, a future father, a son to a mother, to a father, a future husband, a close friend. You are being held responsible for the crimes you have committed. You have withheld Justice, and thrived on the fat of the rich, you have sided with the oppressors and forsaken Justice. You have ignored the pleas of the needy, and the desolate, you have made yourself an enemy to Truth, and to Righteousness.

This is not just about what sounds good. This is about respect for a human being. Is it racially motivated? I can’t say, but I do believe they were not charged with the mutilation of a body, nor were the officers held accountable for anything. Sean Bell was gunned down using 50 bullets from three officers, one White, one Black and one Hispanic.

Exodus 23:6 : <!– 6 –>You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in their lawsuits.

Sean Bell was gunned down on his wedding day, it could have been any other day and it would be just as wrong, but this is intolerable. The acquitted officers may have made a mistake, but it is one that they should be held accountable for. Justice requires retribution, and these officers regardless of excuses need to be removed from the force at the very least, New York’s finest, I’m sorry but with these standards any memory of heroics is invalidated, any longing for honor among the force as a whole slips right out the window. These three men need to answer for their sins. Not only them but the Judges as well.

“We are all Sean Bell” the demonstrators shouted. “-http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23663924-38198,00.html?from=public_rss

Deuteronomy 16:19 You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

I think that we have seen a radical injustice, and that the state would arrest the Rev. Al Sharpton for standing for justice shows the oppressive nature of the state. Traffic should be blocked, civil and respectful protest is encouraged. This case cannot go by unnoticed. People of America, and the World, I encourage you to stand for Justice, love good, hate evil.

The Prophet Amos reminds us in the 5th chapter of his book:

¹⁴Seek good and not evil,
that you may live;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
just as you have said.
¹⁵Hate evil and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;

…

²⁴But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

To a voice crying out in the wildernesss of an unjust State, Let Justice flow like rivers, to the judges in power, to the attorneys and the police force, let righteousness reign like an ever flowing stream. I am in support of all non-violent resistance, let America hear us.

As the Great St. Martin Luther King once said:

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. [1]

Many thanks to: http://vegannramember.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/we-are-all-sean-bellnypd-go-to-hell

for the pictures.

All Bible Quotes taken from NRSV translation.

The Yahoo News Website Link:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080507/ap_on_re_us/police_shooting

[1] Steve Mount Presents: Martin Luther King Jr. “The I Have a Dream Speech” USConstitution.net. 14 Jan. 2008. http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html 05 May 2008.

To My Mother

In honor of the up and coming Mother’s Day 2008, I would like to write a special thank you to my own mother, a woman of faith whose life illuminates my own. I am grateful for the love evidenced in her life, and the beauty of her person, and since I am far, I keep you near in my heart. I feel as if your love and dedication to being a good mother has helped form me into the man I continue developing into. I dedicate this page to you, and honor you.

In honor of a wonderful woman, within whose love everything has place to become itself, as in CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce, mother, you cultivate and nurture into life even those things which are dead. Your love gives place for all things to flourish, may you continue to live such a wonderful expression of the sacred heart of Our Lord.

Blessed are you mother, from whom love flows in abundance,

Blessed are you woman, giver of life, expression of Our Lady unto Christ,

Blessed are you mother, from which I drew my life,

I honor the life I have been given as a sacrifice unto Our Lord,

May you live Forever in His Presence

May you be honored greatly for your unseen, unknown works,

Blessed are you, Woman of God, for your heart is bountiful in mercy

Thank you for your forgiveness,

Thank you for your endless love

Such as only a mother can give

May you be Blessed, not only today, but forever

Such as is the will of the Triune Lord

In the Name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit

Amen.

Evangelicalism and Politics: Beginning of the End?

Many people that I have been around recently say that politics is too closely tied to Christianity to the detriment of both, because the Church becomes a political institution and politics becomes muddled in religious wars and cultural wars. A ray of hope may be breaking forth on the horizon.

First of All, I’d like to thank my lovely girlfriend for drawing my attention to the article in the first place. Seen here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080503/ap_on_re/evangelical_manifesto;_ylt=At4QSytfrvEuUD7Ujn10xIE7Xs8F

I think that the downfall of Evangelicalism has been to conserve enlightenment ideals alongside traditionally Christian ethical practices. This marriage between Christianity and politics has proved to be detrimental to Evangelical culture, since the faith was watered down to primarily political collectivism rather than a dynamic faith community. Christianity is not about becoming a collective body of angry people united as a massive superorganism of political activism without being informed by faith. The downfall of the evangelical model of Western Christian Culture has been in being politically active at the expense of dialogue with faith.

The Christian conception of culture needs to be informed by faith, and what today are labeled “liberal”
concerns as far as social issues go. The Christian faith should not have a single political party, that’s absurd, what we need is careful evaluation of the direction of culture as issues arise. It seems ridiculous to me that the “Christian” political party is more concerned with keeping people out of America than with helping devise a new method of economic wealth for the planet, than with espousing a positive view that would empower minorities and women to run for president, that would be concerned with protecting and cultivating the environment.

It’s sad that the conservation is not of the teachings of Jesus but Enlightenment superiority of the white race, conservation of capitalist economics without social concern, conservation of oppression rather than liberation, biblicism rather than biblically informed dynamic life within scripture. It strikes me as odd that Christians are largely the beneficial idiots to either party rather than being actively engaged in culture.

We are an eschatological faith that looks to the end of time when all things will be reconciled to God, and in that faith we seek out the end, but it should not cost us our awareness of the present reality as unimportant. We need to look to the end as the source of the final hope, but that should nto remove us from culture or politics today. Republicans pander to Christians telling them what they wish to hear in order to easily win votes, and the recent trend to incorporate faith into Democratic politics is no better. Both sides are pandering to a culture that is dry, dominated by old money, and seeks to retain that money. We should be actively concerned with human rights, not torture, and taxes.

As a Christianity, we need to be Christianity, not a political body, but a faith community first. Everything else is secondary. It’s sad that Christianity is not known for its spirituality or personal connection to faith, but to politics. On the popular level, we are a civic religion, conceived of as a political party with a tax exemption.

Faith is always independent of culture, and it should be. This does NOT mean cut off from. They need interrelation, dialogue, and dynamic life as expressed in the idea of perichoresis, or interpenetration that is dynamic and alive. Culture and Christianity are not to be opposed to each other or removed form each other, but as Christians in culture, we have to meet the judgments of both God and culture in out advance forward.

The way to do this is not to retreat as is the case of many fundamentalists, or to accept cultural virtue as the highest virtue as is the case with theologically liberal people. We need an Evangelicalism that supports itself by being a faith community first, then engages in politics, perhaps as a whole, but still actively and dynamically weighs the issues, not with cursory glances and ignorance, pandering to the soundbyte culture that is so prevalent, but really researches the country we should be.

I find that my professor was right in saying, “If you salute the American flag in your church, I doubt your salvation.” We are not the state, the state is not the church, it was exactly that mentality that led to Hitler’s Germany. If we follow down the path that Evangelicalism has seemed to be on, I doubt we can live actively without becoming another military state in the long line of civic religion nation states that have manifested themselves since the Enlightenment.

As a country, our greatest weakness is our belief in our own innocence, someone once said. If we are to advance in cultural engagement, it is not as Americans, but as Christians first.

I am in full favor of the idea of the manifesto. It’s high time we got ourselves out of our mess and back to being a religion. I will hope to read the document and publish a review once it is signed and published.

Thanks For Reading,

Eli