Monumental Decisions (2)

The title of this blog article includes (2) because in August 2017 I posted an article using the same two words (see here). I ended that post with this statement, “Maybe the time has come just to make decisions that will rid our nation of monuments honoring the racism of the past.” Now I think that is definitely the case.

Necessary Decisions

From the U.S. Congress down through state and city legislatures, decisions must be made now about what to do with monuments, statues, and names honoring people intimately connected with the racist past of this country.

Earlier this month, Speaker of the House Pelosi called for the removal of 11 sculptures in the Capitol, for they all have definite Confederate ties. (Here is the list of those sculptures.) This seems to be the right place to start in making decisions to rid the nation of the commemoration of its persistent racism.  

Lee statue in Richmond, Va.

On state levels, monumental decisions also need to be made, as was done in Virginia with regards to the imposing statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond. Here is the link to an informative article about taking down that and other monuments in what was once the capital of the Confederate States of America. 

On the city level, there are also important decisions to be made. In Kansas City, the central issue is not of a monument but of a fountain. The J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain stands in a prominent place near the Country Club Plaza.

Today (June 30) the KC Parks and Recreation Board of Commissioners will be deciding whether to recommend the removal of the current name, for J.C. Nichols was not only a brilliant businessman and developer of Kansas City—and Johnson County, Kansas—but also the instigator of redlining and a clear malefactor of African Americans in the city.

Wrongheaded Decisions

In my “Celebrating Juneteenth” blog post, I averred that racist monuments should be removed in a legal and orderly manner, not by “lynching.” (I used that highly fraught word metaphorically with the broad meaning of “premeditated extrajudicial killing by a group.”)

So, yes, the rash decisions of anti-racists to unlawfully deface or destroy monuments are wrongheaded, most likely hurting their cause far more than helping it.

But is it not also wrongheaded for DJT to seemingly be more interested in punishing the anti-racists (“10 year prison sentences!) than in dealing in constructive ways with the racism that has spurred the defacing or toppling of statues?

Further, the decisions of legislators to do little, if anything, now are also wrongheaded.

For example, Sen. McConnell recently rejected efforts to remove Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol building, calling House Speaker Pelosi’s efforts to remove the 11 sculptures with Confederate ties “nonsense” and an effort to “airbrush the Capitol and scrub out everybody from years ago who had any connection to slavery.”

Missouri Senator Roy Blunt also opposed the efforts of House Democrats to remove those offensive statues—and was denounced by a sharp 6/22 op-ed piece in The Kansas City Star. 

Desired Decisions

Removing offending monuments, statues, or names does not erase history. Those acts, whether done by legislative decisions or rash, wrongheaded decisions of angry protesters, are simply removing the honor and prestige given to those men of the past who advocated or perpetuated an unjust social system.

There is good reason, and ample opportunity, to learn about those men of the past (and note that there seem to be no objectionable monuments/statues of women) in history books and in museums.

So, let’s support and actively advocate for the swift removal of monuments and other public acclaim of historical figures who were promoters of white supremacy to the great detriment of people of color in this country.

Those are the decisions strongly desired by those who have suffered, and are suffering, from the bitter poison of racism and by those of us who seek to be their allies.

*****

For those who are interested in my 8/17 blog article about the monument in Brandenburg, Kentucky, here is an update from activities there this month as reported by Newsweek. Sixty years ago (!) I was the pastor of a nearby church; I wonder what I would say and do if I were the pastor there today.

The Limits of Liberal Views of the Bible

Over the last four months, I have posted four foundational articles related to my book The Limits of Liberalism (2010), which I am updating and slightly revising this year. This post is based on Chapter Five, the first specific issue discussed with an entire chapter—and the only one dealing with the same issue as my book on fundamentalism.  

Positive Aspects in Liberal Views

Before elucidating some problem areas in liberal views of the Bible, several positions must first be noted as being commendable.

First, the rejection of biblical inerrancy is an important emphasis of liberalism.

In his 2003 book The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg strikingly states that in the last half-century “more Christians have left the church because of the Bible than for any other single reason” (p. 43)—and that is largely because of the conservative evangelical emphasis on inerrancy. Thus, the liberals’ rejection of that is praiseworthy.

Also, as I write in Chapter Five, “As opposed to fundamentalism’s approach to the Bible, in the liberal paradigm there is freedom to revise interpretations and to reject previous views which are obviously no longer valid.” That, too, is commendable.

So, there are clearly some positive aspects in liberal views of the Bible. However, . . .

Negative Aspects in Liberal Views

The starting point of liberalism is one of the main problems, for it begins with reason, not God’s revelation as recorded in the Bible.

Traditional “orthodox” (Protestant) theologians thought we should start with the Bible and form our Christian beliefs and base our actions on it. But liberals tend to think that we should start with reason and accept only what we can rationally understand and accept of the Bible.

That problem was highlighted by Martin Luther in his disputation with the scholar Erasmus. Luther reportedly said, “The difference between you and me, Erasmus, is that you sit above Scripture and judge it, while I sit under Scripture and let it judge me!”

Further, one does not have to be a conservative evangelical to see that there are potential problems with the liberals’ “softness” in speaking clearly about the unique inspiration of the Bible or the authority of the Bible, which were strong traditional Christian emphases long before the rise of fundamentalism.

Questions about Liberal Views

In Chapter Five, I discuss five questions. The first two are, “human or divine?” and “factual or metaphorical?” In contrast to most conservatives’ emphasis on the Bible as divine and mostly factual, most liberals tend to see the Bible primarily as a human book and mostly metaphorical.

Both questions are probably answered best with a both/and position rather than an either/or one. The latter is easier to explain, but the truth is much more likely to be found in the both/and explanation.

The final question of the chapter is this: should Christians speak of the “Holy Bible” or of multiple “sacred scriptures”?

There is a proclivity in liberal theology toward the latter, which means relativizing the Bible. Thus, rather than holding to the Christian Bible as unique, as implied by the words “Holy Bible,” the sacred writings of other faith traditions are seen as more or less of equal value or validity.

In contrast to the contentious past in which Christians tended to vilify other religions and to denigrate their scriptures, liberals are prone to accept the scriptures of all major religions as being more or less of equal value.

Certainly, that irenic attitude of the liberals in this regard is preferable to the belligerent attitudes and actions of many Christians of the past. But it is not necessary to go from one extreme to the other.

Asserting one’s belief in and acceptance of the “Holy Bible” does not keep us from affirming the right of the adherents of other religions to believe in and accept the sacredness of their scriptures.

But affirmation of religious freedom does not mean relativism. It is simply a matter of respect for others with different traditions. Or, we might say, it is a matter of loving others as we are commanded to do by the Holy Bible.

*****

“The Bible Is Like a Rorschach Test” was the title of my 9/20/17 blog post, and it has received more than 350 pageviews; if you would like to read it (again), click here.

In Fond Memory of Max Garrott

Last month I wrote (here) about my father-in-law, who was born 110 years ago in May. This post is about Max Garrott, an esteemed friend and missionary colleague, who was born on June 20, 1910.

Previously, I have made blog posts about two good missionary friends and colleagues at Seinan Gakuin University, Calvin Parker (1926~2010) and Bob Culpepper (1924~2012). This article is about the man I always called Dr. Garrott, a man I respected greatly from the time I first met him until his death less than nine years later. 

Meeting Max

June and I had the privilege of attending the Eleventh Baptist World Congress, which met in Miami Beach, Florida, in June 1965, just a year before we were appointed missionaries to Japan. Dr. Garrott, his wife Dorothy, and his youngest son Jack were there, back from Japan for a missionary furlough, as it was called then.

I was impressed with Dr. Garrott at that first meeting. Then we saw him and Dorothy again in 1967, the year after we arrived in Japan. On our way from Tokyo, where we were in language school, to Fukuoka, where we were planning to move the following year, we spent a night with the Garrotts in their home in Kokura.

Contact with Dr. Garrott was then quite limited until he became the Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin in April 1973, where I had been a university faculty member since September 1968.

Max’s Brief Bio

William Maxfield Garrott was born in northeast Arkansas, the son of a Baptist minister. A precocious child, he graduated from high school at the age of 14 and Hendrix College in 1929 when he was 19. Five years later he had finished his undergraduate and doctoral studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Dr. Garrott arrived in Japan as a missionary on 9/9/9. The year was Showa 9 according to the Japanese calendar, the ninth year of Emperor Showa, known in the West as Hirohito. It was 1934 by the Western calendar. Before long he began his work as an educational missionary, mainly teaching New Testament and Greek.

Just before Christmas 1938, Max and Dorothy Carver, who had served as a Southern Baptist missionary to Japan since 1935, were married.

After April 1941, Dr. Garrott was the only SB missionary remaining in Japan, and soon after the Pacific War began he was interned until he was able to leave Japan in June 1942. In October 1947, Max and Dorothy arrived back in Japan with their three children at that time.

Seinan Gakuin, founded in Fukuoka City by Southern Baptist missionaries as a boys’ school in 1916, elected Dr. Garrott as the sixth Chancellor in 1948. Seinan Gakuin University was established the following year, and Dr. Garrott was chosen to be the first president. He held both offices until 1952.

Then after ten years as Chancellor of Seinan Jo Gakuin (1962~72), the girls’ school started in Kokura by Southern Baptist missionaries in 1922, Dr. Garrott was elected in 1973 as the 11^th Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin. He served in that position until his untimely death in June 1974, just a few days after his 64^th birthday.

My Fondness for Max

Since Dr. Garrott was 28 years older than I, and five years older than my father, I thought he was a rather old man in 1973~74 when I was 35. I remember saying that year that when I got to be an old man in my 60s, I hoped I would be like Dr. Garrott.

I admired him in many ways: he was a devout disciple of Jesus Christ; he was a scholar; he had a sharp and inquisitive mind; and he was deeply interested in the physical as well as the spiritual needs of individual people and of society as a whole.

Indeed, I hope that to some degree I did become, and am, the sort of “old man” such as I thought Dr. Garrott was. At any rate, even though it has been 46 years since his death, I remember him with great fondness today on the 110^th anniversary of his birth.

Celebrating Juneteenth

June 19 is a special day that, unfortunately, is overlooked and/or disregarded widely by the dominant culture in the U.S. But Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19 each year, is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the U.S.  

The Beginning of Juneteenth

The Civil War officially ended on June 2, 1865. But, much earlier, the Emancipation Proclamation became official on January 1, 1863, so the slaves in Texas were technically freed on that date.

It was not until June 19, 1865, however, that Major General Gordon Granger and his Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas, and announced that the Civil War had ended and that all enslaved persons were free.

Granger read “General Order Number 3” to his audience in Galveston. It began,

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

That was the beginning of Juneteenth.

Large celebrations on June 19 began in 1866 and continued regularly into the early 20^th century. Throughout much of the 20^th century, though, there was a decline in the celebration of Juneteenth.

But then in 1980, Juneteenth became a legal state holiday in Texas. By 2000, only three other states had followed Texas’ example. But now Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in 47 of the 50 states and in D.C.

The Celebration of Juneteenth

One of the most meaningful events I attended last year was the local Juneteenth banquet, which I mentioned in this blog post. Unfortunately, because of the covid-19 pandemic, there will not be a local in-person gathering this year and few nationwide.

But I am wondering if the strong opposition to, and removal of, Confederate statues and other memorials cannot be seen as this year’s Juneteenth celebration.

Juneteenth is sometimes called Black Independence Day. Certainly, for the enslaved people in the U.S. before 1865, July 4 had little significance, for as Frederick Douglass asked in his famous July 5, 1852, speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

It goes without saying that after the Revolutionary War there were no monuments or statues to King George III of the UK or any British monarch or military man in the U.S. There was no honoring of the opponents of freedom.

Since Juneteenth is the celebration of freedom for the formerly enslaved people of the U.S. and their descendants, why should statues and monuments honoring the military men who fought in opposition to their freedom be allowed on public property?

Ideally, those monuments should be removed in a legal and orderly manner, not by “lynching.” But they should be removed—and, yes, that is a way that Juneteenth can be meaningfully celebrated this year.

The Antithetical Celebration of Juneteenth

As the mainstream news media widely reported last week, DJT was scheduled to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a political rally on June 19.

Plans for a racist President, who a WaPo columnist recently said “might go down in history as the last president of the Confederacy,” to hold a rally on Juneteenth in a city marking the 99^th anniversary of terrible white-on-black violence raised the hackles of many.

Consequently, late last Friday night DJT tweeted that the MAGA rally would be postponed a day and be held on June 20. Yet, that also happens to be the day of many Juneteenth celebrations since it is a Saturday—and even downtown Tulsa (see here) is planning its Juneteenth celebration from 11 a.m. on the 19^th to midnight on the 20^th.

No, holding a political rally in Tulsa on June 19 or 20 is NOT a proper way to celebrate Juneteenth.

But, seeking/supporting the removal of statues and/or monuments that honor those who fought against the freedom, equality, and dignity of enslaved people—or the removal of names of blatant racists on public facilities—is one excellent way to celebrate Juneteenth this year.

Between Two Monsters: The Scylla of the Pandemic and the Charybdis of Poverty

In my May 25 blog post, I referred to Scylla and Charybdis, two sea monsters found in ancient Greek mythology. In this article, I am again using that story to highlight the exceedingly difficult problem of dealing effectively with the covid-19 pandemic without consigning millions to poverty—and to death because of starvation. 

The Two Monsters in the U.S.

As was widely noted at the end of May, the number of deaths in the U.S. from covid-19 topped 100,000 people—and now that number is already nearing 115,000. It has also been noted, although not so widely, that the number of deaths is disproportionately higher among non-white and financially poor people.

According to a 5/28 article in The Guardian, “Figures compiled by APM Research Lab from 40 states show that African Americans are being killed at almost three times the rate of white people.

“Black Kansans are seven times more likely to die from the virus than white Kansans. In Missouri, Wisconsin and Washington DC the ratio is six times.”

That same article goes on to quote William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign (whom I first wrote about in this 9/15/16 blog post).

Barber emphasizes that covid-19 is a disease of the poor. “People are being forced to work, putting profit over protection,” he says. “This pandemic will highlight how poverty—and our willingness to let people remain in it—presents a clear and present danger for all of us.”

The wealthy can practice social distancing, work from home, etc. But what if you have only an over-crowded—or no—home to go to, and no paying work at all if you stay home?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly half of U.S. workers earn less than $15 an hour and nearly 70% have less than $1,000 in savings. Most of these people must show up for work if they are going to be paid.

Caught between the monsters of the pandemic and poverty, many must go back to work in unsafe conditions and take their chances of not getting sick.

The Two Monsters in the LICs

Worldwide, when the number of deaths reached 100,000 in the U.S., there were more than 350,000 deaths from covid-19. But more than 64% of those deaths were in just five of the wealthier countries: the U.S., the UK, France, Spain, and Italy.

But just this month, as the number of deaths worldwide topped 410,000, Brazil became the country with the third most deaths—and the surge has just started in the LICs (low-income countries) of sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia.

Most of the attention of us citizens in the USA has been on the domestic crisis—and that is especially true of DJT. As the headline in a June 3 WaPo editorial expresses it, “Trump irresponsibly abandons the WHO while the pandemic surges in less developed nations.”

A week earlier, a Boston U. epidemiologist wrote an op-ed piece titled “The coronavirus pandemic will turn into a poverty pandemic unless we act now.” The author contends that “the long-term health costs of an economic depression could ultimately far eclipse what covid-19 has wrought.”

That is especially true for the LICs. According to that article, a regional director of the WHO for Africa said last week that the coronavirus pandemic will move about 27 million Africans to extreme poverty.

Earlier, a May 28 article in a newspaper of India said, “The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could push as many as 86 million more children into poverty by the end of 2020.” (The image above accompanied that article.)

A report issued by Gospel for Asia the day before World Hunger Day on May 28 declared, “It’s estimated that nine million people will die in a coronavirus-worsened ‘scandal of starvation’ this year.”

The U.S. and countries around the world have made great efforts to avoid/control the monster of the covid-19 pandemic. Isn’t it time we also make a more concerted effort to avoid/control the monster of poverty? 

The Admirable Bryan Stevenson, Esq.

Who would you put on a list of your most admired living people in the U.S.? I haven’t given much thought to making such a list, but if I did, at this point I think I would have to include Bryan Stevenson.

Who is Bryan Stevenson?

Some of you might know quite well who Stevenson is, but I didn’t know anything about him until this year. I have become highly impressed with him, however, from what I have learned from his book Just Mercy (2014) and the 2019 film (with the same name) based on that book. 

Bryan was born in 1959 in a small town in southern Delaware, and he experienced various segregation indignities during his boyhood years. But he was a straight-A high school student and won a scholarship to Eastern University, where one of his professors was Tony Campolo.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1985, Bryan moved to Atlanta and joined the Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR).

According to their website, the SCHR “was founded in 1976 by ministers and activists concerned about criminal justice issues in response to the Supreme Court’s reinstatement of the death penalty that year and to the horrendous conditions in Southern prisons and jails.”

In 1989, Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama, and has been its executive director until the present.

Led by Stevenson, the EJI established the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial, which opened in 2018, and The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, which opened the same day.

Stevenson and the EJI speak out about current events also. On May 27, EJI posted “Tragic Death of George Floyd Reveals Continuing Problem of Police Violence” on their website.

A staff writer at The New Yorker recently interviewed Stevenson and the resulting article was published on June 1 under the title, “Bryan Stevenson on the Frustration Behind the George Floyd Protests.”

Why is Bryan Stevenson Admirable?

The subtitle of Just Mercy is A Story of Justice and Redemption. It is touted, correctly I think, as “A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time.”

By the time I had finished reading the book about two months ago, I had come to admire Stevenson greatly for his unflinching dedication to helping other people, especially men on death row.

I was then eager to see the movie, which was to be released on DVD within days. I put it at #1 on our Netflix queue—but it was so popular that it was the end of May before we were able to get it.

After June and I watched the movie last Sunday evening, I was even more impressed with Stevenson—and also impressed by the way he was portrayed by the actor who played him. And even though I was disappointed not to see it sooner, it was even more meaningful to watch it during this time of protest because of the killing of George Floyd.

(This month you can rent "Just Mercy" for free through a variety of digital movie services in the US, including Apple TV, Google Play, Amazon Prime Video, Microsoft, and YouTube, among others.)

As a Christian, I admire the way Bryan has lived out the Gospel message he learned as a boy attending an African Methodist Episcopal Church. In most of his public talks he shares one thing he learned at church as a boy: “I believe each person in our society is more than the worst thing they’ve ever done.”

The only other nationally-known lawyer that I admire as much as Bryan Stevenson, Esq., is the late William Stringfellow (see the first half of this blog post)—with maybe Pres. Obama third.

*****

At the close of his review of the film “Just Mercy,” Shane Claiborne, another graduate of Eastern University who studied under Campolo wrote,

Please watch “Just Mercy” . . . . Don’t just munch your popcorn and go home talking about what a hero Bryan is. Doing so dismisses what Bryan is really about because it lets you off the hook. Walk away from “Just Mercy” dreaming and scheming about the hero you want to be.