ABP Op-Ed: Was Jesus A Racist?

[Stephen Fox]

Will Speak at Furman March 19.
If the economic crisis doesn't tsunami me between now and then--could happen anyday-- I will make it a point to ask him a question framed in this discussion.
Will give you a report then, if I make it there.
Made it up last year and got notice

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archi ... an_faculty

[William Thornton]

ABP uses a sermon by Jim Somerville, FBC Richmond in reaction to this: Opinion: Jesus’ vacation and the Canaanite woman

Somerville:

Today I've been doing something that might be called Christodicy -- I've been trying to get Jesus off the hook. I've been trying to convince you that even though he first ignores this woman, and then tells her it's not his problem, and then calls her a Canaanite dog, he is still loving and compassionate. "He was just worn out," I've been saying. "He needed a break.

Surely you can sympathize. We have all said or done things we have regretted, and often we have said them or done them when we were tired, when we just weren’t ourselves. That’s the excuse I’ve been trying to make for Jesus today: he was tired; he wasn’t himself.

[Haruo]

Good thing for all of us he got a good night's sleep on Wednesday... or Gethsemane could have been a wash...

[Jonathan]

I'm not all that interested in Jesus as a regular guy. I can't be saved by a regular guy.

Pastor Bonney: A shining light in the ABC. Well done, Timothy.

[Jim]

De la Torres’ piece was written primarily as a condemnation of this country accruing to his opinion regarding its lack of concern for illegal immigrants, and he backed that condemnation by using scripture, presumably affirming that Christ did not innately recognize racism in himself, the inference to be drawn simply that racism was/is sin, though it is not defined as sin in the dictionary. De la Torres defined it as sin, or at least implied that it is. Whether or not it is sin is a judgment anyone can make. Believing that one person or race is superior/inferior to another is not in itself sinful, just a circumstance that one can, on his own, give validity, or not. Sin may occur as a result of that belief, i.e., mistreatment, but the belief itself is not sinful.

But De la Torres actually could not accuse Christ of racism because he could not know the mind of Christ, or that of anyone else, since in the mind is where racism exists. He accused Christ of willful sin in ignoring the importuning of the woman and gave as the reason that Christ was racist, but had an epiphany in the episode, realizing his racism and, presumably, mended his ways. De la Torres actually accused Christ not of racism but of sin, and even he might balk at that accusation.

All the efforts to drag Christ down and make him “just like us” with respect to either racism or sin, such as determining whether or not he had ever done anything good for Gentiles prior to the episode used in Matthew 15, is silly. The gospel-writers, whether or not on-scene like Matthew and John, lived at the same time, regardless of when they wrote, so that for them the chronology was as they experienced it. This means that Matthew, unless he purposely decided to inject into his reasonably chronological account an event that occurred before Christ had done anything (for reasons of his own?), tried to tell it like it was.

This leaves the believer the task of actually ferreting out the meaning of the Matthew 15 event. That’s harder than just accusing Christ of “being one of the boys” or having an epiphany.

[Haruo]

De la Torres’ piece was written primarily as a condemnation of this country accruing to his opinion regarding its lack of concern for illegal immigrants, and he backed that condemnation by using scripture, presumably affirming that Christ did not innately recognize racism in himself, the inference to be drawn simply that racism was/is sin, though it is not defined as sin in the dictionary. De la Torres defined it as sin, or at least implied that it is. Whether or not it is sin is a judgment anyone can make. Believing that one person or race is superior/inferior to another is not in itself sinful, just a circumstance that one can, on his own, give validity, or not. Sin may occur as a result of that belief, i.e., mistreatment, but the belief itself is not sinful.

But De la Torres actually could not accuse Christ of racism because he could not know the mind of Christ, or that of anyone else, since in the mind is where racism exists.

But you, Jim, have just claimed to know the mind of De la Torre. And 1 Cor 2:16 may suggest that we are to know Christ's mind, if having it implies such, and if you, I and/or Miguel are among the "we".

[William Thornton]

I'm not all that interested in Jesus as a regular guy. I can't be saved by a regular guy.

Pastor Bonney: A shining light in the ABC. Well done, Timothy.

Thanks Jonathan. Not often you and I are on the same page. I know I'm a bit fired up about this. But, if Jesus is just a nice guy with some good moral teachings and not the sinless Son of God then we are all just wasting our time.

You are my hero du jour for the comment above, bro. Keep it up.

[Jim]

De la Torres’ piece was written primarily as a condemnation of this country accruing to his opinion regarding its lack of concern for illegal immigrants, and he backed that condemnation by using scripture, presumably affirming that Christ did not innately recognize racism in himself, the inference to be drawn simply that racism was/is sin, though it is not defined as sin in the dictionary. De la Torres defined it as sin, or at least implied that it is. Whether or not it is sin is a judgment anyone can make. Believing that one person or race is superior/inferior to another is not in itself sinful, just a circumstance that one can, on his own, give validity, or not. Sin may occur as a result of that belief, i.e., mistreatment, but the belief itself is not sinful.

But De la Torres actually could not accuse Christ of racism because he could not know the mind of Christ, or that of anyone else, since in the mind is where racism exists.

But you, Jim, have just claimed to know the mind of De la Torre. And 1 Cor 2:16 may suggest that we are to know Christ's mind, if having it implies such, and if you, I and/or Miguel are among the "we".

I’ve made no claim to know the mind of De la Torres, only to deduce from what he wrote what he either did or did not mean...in my opinion. Quite a difference! I Cor. 2:16 makes my point all the more in that we don’t know the mind of the Lord and therefore may not instruct him, though we may take his pronouncements and use them any way we like. Having the mind of Christ is certainly not the same as knowing Christ’s mind. One way to look at the statement is that in belief we have exchanged the mind of the unbeliever for the mind of Christ as we understand it, such change hopefully to eventuate in a change of behavior. It’s the difference between what’s in the mind and what the mind is and has to do with belief/attitude, not substance. I can easily believe that God doesn’t know what’s in my mind until something appears there (if ever), but that he knows my mind, i.e., whether he can claim it or I’m stuck with it, on the basis of what he sees there as it appears, something we can never do with respect to either Christ or other people. If he can claim it, then I have his mind.

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=13827

Wondering if any of yall would want to help me understand what you think De La Torre is gettin at here with his reference to the Euro Centric Canon.

And if any of you learned bright lights would wade into a speculation about what you think NT Wright would make of De La Torre's assertions here.

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=13827

[Jim]

De la Torre: My intelligence is challenged by students (as well as by some faculty and administrators) when I allow the spirituality of marginalized communities to inform and impact my scholarship.

J: The entire article bespeaks a chip the size of the Empire State Building on this guy’s shoulder. In the statement above, he has things backward. His scholarship should inform and impact the spirituality of marginalized communities, not the other way around. It’s no wonder his intelligence is challenged. If he thinks his way is better, then why bother with scholarship at all…just go with the flow? One thing’s for sure…he doesn’t like Europeans and Americans.

[Haruo]

In a general way, and not having read any of his books, just a few online articles, I would take his use of "the Eurocentric canon" to refer basically to the assumption in academic circles that academic excellence, rigor, seriousness, etc., are to be defined and measured only, or at least primarily, in ways devised in Europe and in Euro-American institutions, with its corollaries, the devaluing of the academic excellence, rigor, seriousness, etc., that has been devised from non-Eurocentric positions. I'm going to get the Baptists and Racism DVD, looks like it should be worth the money. Hopefully somebody in Evergreen has one I can borrow, though.

I have no idea what NT Wright (or Jeremiah Wright, for that matter) would make of it.

Those really interested in this subject may also get something out of the lengthy thread (211 posts at this point) in the Mudcat Café that came out of the AG's "nation of cowards" remark: BS: Americans, Racial Cowards? ("BS:", at the Mudcat, just means the topic is not about music, no reflection on the quality of the discourse.

As for Jim's take, I pretty much entirely disagree. There is no reason why he should let Jim dictate the direction of flow and impact of spirituality in the interplay between marginalized communities and his scholarship. He didn't say he thought his way was better. He said he thought it was his way. He doesn't dislike (as far as I can tell) Europeans and Americans per se (he is, after all, American himself), but he's fed up to here with being expected to be European (or act as if) in order to be taken seriously as a scholar and/or as a Christian.

[Haruo]

Incidentally, does anyone know where De la Torre is from? As in, where he was born, and (if he was born outside the US) when he came here. I'm guessing he's either Puertorriqueño or Cubano, but I don't really have any basis for that except that his academic career (from his Iliff Faculty webpage and his CV) appears to have started in Florida, and the fact that there was a colonial governor of Puerto Rico in the 1820s named Miguel de la Torre... I told Jim he was an American himself, but I really don't know in what sense. (For all I know, he could be from Iberia, could be maintaining his Spanish citizenship.) The online bio materials don't speak to the point that I can see.

[Jim]

As for Jim's take, I pretty much entirely disagree. There is no reason why he should let Jim dictate the direction of flow and impact of spirituality in the interplay between marginalized communities and his scholarship. He didn't say he thought his way was better. He said he thought it was his way. He doesn't dislike (as far as I can tell) Europeans and Americans per se (he is, after all, American himself), but he's fed up to here with being expected to be European (or act as if) in order to be taken seriously as a scholar and/or as a Christian.

Are you kidding? I would no sooner try to dictate anything to him than accede to his dictating anything to me. He obviously thinks his way is better, else he wouldn't do his way. His rejection of the take the Euros and Americans have concerning him is no worse than his concerning them, whether he likes the EuroAmericans or not. He obviously considers his colleagues as seminarily [sic] snobbish, while at the same time being the same way toward them…turn-about=fair-play.

[Stephen Fox]

Thread into an erstwhile catchall for miscellaneous topics now that Haruo has linked us to the Mudcat Cafe.

For any takers out there I offer

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archi ... l_muslims/

and

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22470

Haruo; would be delighted if you introduce the Metronatural America topic at Mudcat Cafe and offer us a translation and analysis of How it plays there.
I want badly to see the movie, but haven't gotten my hands on it yet; same for Frozen River.

[Haruo]

Thanks Fox but I have enough on my hands taking potshots at the threads others start.