Year of the Tiger (again)

Today is New Year’s Eve in the Western world, but I am posting this after the new year has already begun in East Asia. So, in true Japanese fashion I am wishing you each one a Happy New Year! 明けまして、おめでとう御座います。(If you don’t have Japanese fonts loaded on your computer, you may not be able to see the Japanese words in the previous sentence.)

The Year of the Tiger

According to the zodiac of East Asia, today is the beginning of the Year of the Tiger. This year the “Chinese New Year” begins on February 1, but for a long time now, Japan has celebrated January 1 as New Year’s Day, while retaining many of the ancient traditions.

This is “my” year, for I was born in the Year of the Tiger. In East Asia there is a sign for each of twelve years, not twelve signs in one year as in the West, and each repeat in a twelve-year cycle.

It is fairly easy to guess what year a person was born in if you know their sign, so in Japan it was not unusual to ask for a person’s zodiac sign rather than asking how old they were. So, since this is the year of my zodiac sign, you can probably guess I will turn 84—but if you guessed 72, that’s all right!

Is Time Circular or Linear?

While not hesitating to celebrate the new year, whether in the West or in the East, I do have a bit of a problem with emphasizing a circular way of thinking rather than a linear one.

Years ago, a Japanese friend pointed out that from Christianity’s linear viewpoint there is no qualitative difference between January 1 and any other day of the year. The Christian (as well as the Jewish and Muslim) worldview is based on history rather than nature.

Thus, it is more significant that today is the beginning of the year 2022 than it is January 1. We are a part of history moving from the past to the future more than in a cycle of nature as the earth revolves around the sun.

The latter view is sometimes linked to “the myth of eternal return” (Eliade), which I see as being at odds with the Judeo-Christian worldview. For that reason, I have some problem with the “church year” emphasis, which to some extent is based on the concept of circularity rather than linearity.

To remember the momentous events in the life of Christ each year is good, of course. But do we really need to wait all during Advent to celebrate the coming of Christ if we know he was born over 2,000 years ago?

And do we need to be sorrowful all through Lent if we know that Jesus has already been resurrected and we are living in the joy of new life?

Forward Like a Tiger

According to one website, “People who were born in a Tiger year share personality traits with tigers. They are most active and full of valor and vigor. They usually act decisively but cautiously. In the face of setbacks, resistance, or failure, they make prompt decisions.”

Further, “Male tigers are energetic and ambitious. They are also very aggressive and dominating. They like to challenge themselves . . . to achieve all the goals they set. They keep their promises and do what they have promised.”

Well, I can’t deny that I recognize myself in those descriptions—although as I approach my 84^th birthday this year, I certainly don’t have the vigor or energy that I had most of my life.

Whether you were born in the Year of the Tiger or not, I pray that as we all move forward through the New Year like a tiger and be blessed with health and happiness.

And may we find strength for the journey and joy in the struggle for peace and justice in each of the days in 2022.

_____

** My Jan. 1, 2010, post was titled “Year of the Tiger,” so that is why “(again)” is in the title of this article. This post is similar to (but not the same) as that article posted 12 years ago. And in spite of some of the negative comments received then, I am repeating the questioned ideas.

The Christmas Rebellion (aka Baptist War) of 1831

“The Battle for Christmas” was the title of my Dec. 20 blog post. This article is about the battle that began on Christmas 1831 in the British Crown Colony of Jamaica. It is known as the Christmas Rebellion or as the Baptist War. 

Slavery in Jamaica

My initial impetus for writing this blog post came a year ago when I read Baylor University Professor Philip Jenkins’s article “Jamaica’s Baptist War” in the Dec. 16, 2020, issue of Christian Century.

According to Jenkins, from the 1520s through the 1870s, some 400,000 slaves were imported into what became and then was the United States. During that same period, Jamaica brought in almost a million enslaved Africans.

Slavery in Jamaica was largely due to Englishmen seeking to make a fortune from growing sugar cane in that island colony. England gained control of Jamaica in 1655, and soon some enterprising men were lured into creating sugar plantations there—and slaves were needed to work in the cane fields.

In 1662, Englishman Peter Beckford emigrated to the island, taking with him two or three enslaved Africans. By the time of his death in 1710, Beckford’s wealth included 20 Jamaican estates, 1,500 slaves, and a huge amount of bank stock.

“The Beckfords, Slavery In Jamaica” is an hour-long documentary produced by BBC and available to see here on YouTube. It graphically depicts the opulence of the Beckford family and the cruel treatment of the slaves who were forced to toil on their sugar plantations.

Baptist Slaves in Jamaica

The first Black missionary to Jamaica was George Lisle (sometimes spelled Liele), a Georgia slave who was freed by his “owner,” Henry Sharp, in 1778. While still a slave, he was the first African American to be ordained, and in 1783 he became the first Baptist to go to another land as a missionary.

By 1814, there were around 8,000 Jamaican slaves who had become Baptist Christians. Missionary Lisle, who died in Jamaica in 1828, didn’t openly challenge the system of slavery, but he prepared the way for those who did.

Samuel Sharpe was born into slavery in 1801. While he was still a young man, his fellow Baptists nicknamed him “Daddy” because he was literate, intelligent, and exhibited leadership qualities.

According to this 2020 article in The Gazette, UK’s “official public record” since 1665,

Sharpe led a plan for a peaceful general strike to start on Christmas Day in 1831, with the slaves demanding more freedom and a working wage and refusing to work unless their demands were met by the state owners and managers.

However, the peaceful strike morphed into the largest slave rebellion in the West Indies with as many as 60,000 of Jamaica’s 300,000 slaves arming themselves and seizing property across the island. But in just a few days the British forces and the Jamaican government quelled the rebellion.

Fourteen planters and 2-300 slaves were killed during the battles, and later over 300 more were executed. Just before Sharpe was hanged in May 1832, he declared, 

That slave rebellion, though, pushed Great Britain to pass the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Full emancipation throughout all Britain’s colonies was implemented in 1838. Quite an accomplishment for the Baptist (and other) slaves in Jamaica!

Baptist Deacons in Jamaica

Sam Sharpe, who led that Christmas Rebellion of 1831 was a Baptist deacon (and lay preacher)—and because so many of those who participated in the battles were Baptists, it is often called the Baptist War.

Another Baptist deacon, Paul Bogle, led a significant antipoverty uprising in 1865. According to Wikipedia, Bogle (b. 1822–24) “was a Jamaican Baptist deacon and activist” who led a march “for justice and fair treatment for all the people in Jamaica.” He was hanged by the government in Oct. 1865.

In 1968, though, the Jamaican government established The Order of National Hero, and seven Jamaicans have been inducted into that Order. Two of those seven are Deacon Sharpe and Deacon Bogle.

Also, Deacon Sharpe’s image is on the Jamaican $50 bill even now. 

Thank God for Sam Sharpe and Paul Bogle, Baptist deacons who led in the struggle for freedom and justice!

The Battle for Christmas

In recent years there has been considerable talk about the war on Christmas. But conflict at Christmastime is nothing new. “The Battle for Christmas” was the title of my Christmas sermon for Dec. 21, 1997. The title was taken from historian Stephen Nissenbaum’s 1997 book by that name. 

The First Battle of Christmas

My 12/21/97 sermon, which I just happened to run across a printed copy of recently, was based on Matthew 2:1~18, the Bible passage that ends with the terrible “massacre of the innocents.” Since the first part of my blog post a year ago was about that tragic event, I’ll not say more about that now.

The Puritans’ Battle against Christmas

Much of the book by Nissenbaum (b. 1941) is about the history of how Christmas was celebrated in what became the United States. He explains that among the Puritans for a long time there was considerable opposition to the celebrating of Christmas.

In fact, in 1659 the Massachusetts General Court declared the celebration of Christmas to be a criminal offense. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that Christmas became a legal holiday in New England—or in most of the other states.

Early winter was most likely not the time of Jesus’ birth, so that was one reason Christmas was opposed. It was not until the fourth century that the Church decided to observe Christmas on December 25—and that date was chosen because of the long-standing celebration of the winter solstice.

So, as Nissenbaum says, the Puritans were correct when they pointed out that to a large degree “Christmas was nothing but a pagan festival covered with a Christian veneer” (p. 4).

But the Puritans had another reason for suppressing Christmas: it

involved behavior that most of us would find offensive and even shocking today—rowdy public displays of excessive eating and drinking, the mockery of established authority, aggressive begging (often involving the threat of doing harm), and even the invasion of wealthy homes (p. 5).

Nissenbaum also states, “There were always people for whom Christmas was a time of pious devotion rather than carnival but such people were always in the minority. It may not be going too far to say that Christmas has always been an extremely difficult holiday to Christianize” (p. 8).

The Contemporary Battle for Christmas

In the 2010s, “the war on Christmas” became a widely-used phrase to criticize those who wanted to recognize the plurality of the people who live in the U.S.

Acknowledging that a sizeable portion of the populace were not Christians, those who wished to be “politically correct” encouraged saying “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” rather than “Merry Christmas.”

Many conservative evangelical Christians were incensed and verbally attacked the “liberals” for being atheists, or Communists, or whatever. Thankfully, that “war” seems to have largely, but not completely, subsided.

I was surprised to see the initial results of a 12/15 Washington Times poll on “How concerned are you about a ‘War on Christmas?’” By this morning (12/20) 72% had responded, “Very, it’s a genuine problem.”

(The Washington Times is the conservative newspaper founded by Sun Myung Moon in 1982. It is mostly read by people who think that D.C.’s major newspaper should be called “The Washington Compost,” as, for example, rightwing talk radio host Mark Levin has regularly referred to it.)

But the contemporary battle for Christmas is a real one, and it has been active during my whole lifetime. After all these years, I remember the sermon I heard at the First Baptist Church in Bolivar, Missouri, when I was a freshman in college.

Referring to that first battle of Christmas as recorded in Matthew 2, Pastor Clayton Baker talked about the three “Herods” that are still trying to kill the Christ of Christmas. He called them the “Herod of Hurried Hours,” the “Herod of Hollow Hallelujahs,” and the “Herod of Hurtful Hypocrisies.”

If you reflect on those three points of Rev. Baker’s sermon, you can grasp some of the problem, that is, keeping Jesus Christ as the focal point of Christmas.

The following meme expresses well a large part of what winning the battle for Christmas really means. 

Determinedly Defending Democracy

You probably have heard/read about last week’s “Summit for Democracy,” convened by President Biden via Zoom on Dec. 9-10. In spite of criticism from totalitarian governments (especially from China) and some domestic opponents, the President sought determinedly to defend democracy.

(Here is the link to the President’s closing remarks on Dec. 10.)

The Decline of Democracy

Freedom House is a non-profit, non-governmental organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Here is part of their report for 2021: 

Accordingly, President Biden warned world leaders at the Summit for Democracy on Dec. 9 of a “backward slide” in democracy around the globe and urged them to champion the form of government that needs concerted work to be sustained through an “inflection point in history.” (See here.)

The editors of the Dec. 15 issue of The Christian Century wrote of “Democracy’s death spiral” in the U.S., declaring that right now democracy “is under open attack.” (You can read that powerful editorial on p. 7 here).

And even Pope Francis has recently lamented that democracy has deteriorated dangerously as discontented people are lured by the “siren songs” of populist politicians who promise easy but unrealistic solutions. (The Pope expressed that sentiment on Dec. 4 as reported by Reuters.)

The Threat to Democracy

The biggest domestic threat to U.S. democracy in everyone’s lifetime was the attempted coup by Donald Trump and his fanatical supporters on January 6 of this year. But according to Barton Gellman, January 6 was practice for what is coming. 

Gellman (b. 1960) was on the staff of The Washington Post for 21 years, but now is a staff writer at The Atlantic. His cover story for the Jan./Feb. 2022 issue of that venerable magazine (founded in 1857) is “Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun.”

It is becoming increasingly clear from the indefatigable work of the January 6 Committee that the events on that volatile day at the Capitol were not due to outside rabble-rousers. It clearly was an inside job, that is, plotted from inside the White House.

An opinion piece in the Dec. 14 issue of The Washington Post is titled “Trump’s PowerPoint coup plotters were crackpots. We may not be so lucky next time.”

In that article, columnist Dana Milbank quips that then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, now being held in contempt of Congress (for his refusal to testify), “would more properly be held in contempt of competence.”

Milbank concludes by saying that on 1/6/21 “democracy was saved only by the bumbling of the coup plotters.” Next time, though, “we may not be so lucky.”

The Defense of Democracy

To a large extent, the defense of U.S. democracy is up to the Congress—and up to us voters who elect the 535 voting members of Congress. That is why next year’s election is so important. All 435 members of the House will be elected, of course, and 34 Senate seats will be decided.

But now the changes in election procedures in numerous states jeopardizes a truly democratic election next year.

The President was determinedly defending democracy at the Summit for Democracy last week. Now he must do everything necessary to defend U.S. democracy in 2022 and beyond.

Addendum: What about Democracy in the Church?

This article has been about the form of government employed, or rejected, by nation states. But what about churches, either as denominations or as local congregations? As a baptist (lower case intended), I am a strong advocate of democracy in church government.

I wonder, though, about the contradiction in the thinking of people who are advocates of democracy in the national government but have no qualms about accepting a hierarchical, non-democratic form of government for churches.

For example, is the completely hierarchical (authoritarian?) structure of the Roman Catholic Church, for example, in direct contradiction to the Pope’s good word about political democracy?

Leaving Lottie: My Sad Journey Away from the LMCO

This month I have been feeling nostalgic for the early Decembers fondly remembered in past years.

Those were times when I was privileged to preach/speak in Southern Baptist churches about world missions, which I always did with gladness—and with appreciation for the support received from those churches as an SB missionary. But, sadly, things have changed.

An Enthusiastic Supporter of the LMCO

Except for active Southern Baptists, past and/or present, few know (or care) what LMCO stands for. It means the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, which has been a lifeline for missionaries deployed by the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention. 

An IMB webpage explains that the LMCO “is an annual offering collected by Southern Baptists to support international missions. The offering was officially named in 1918 by Woman’s Missionary Union in honor of the missionary to China who urged churches to start it and give sacrificially.”

(For information about the SB missionary Lottie Moon, see my 12/26/12 blog article about her and the LMCO.)

The same IMB webpage reports, “Through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, Southern Baptists have given over $5 billion to international missions.” That’s a lot of money!

My family and I were on missionary “furlough,” now called “stateside assignment,” in 1971, ’76, ’81, ’86, and ’91. Each of those years provided opportunities to visit churches, especially in early December, to promote giving to/through the LMCO—and to thank Southern Baptists for their support.

A Reluctant Supporter of the LMCO

Since 1980, the Southern Baptist Convention steadily became more and more conservative/fundamentalist. In that same period, my own faith had grown in the opposite direction. In the 1990s I increasingly became only a rather reluctant supporter of the LMCO.

After 2000, it became even more difficult for me to promote the LMCO enthusiastically, as I had done for decades. The problem was the adoption of a revised Baptist Faith and Message document that, among other things, mitigated against women serving as pastors.

After being forced to retire as an SBC missionary in 2004, my support for the LMCO virtually ended in 2005. Reflecting back, I grieve over that sad separation from a long and meaningful relationship.

A Non-Supporter of the LMCO

As the SBC grew more and more conservative, being a Southern Baptist meant not only opposing women in ministry but also being stanchly opposed to pro-choice (=anti-abortion) and pro-LGBTQ (=anti-gay) positions.

Naturally, the change in the SBC meant that newly appointed missionaries, and those older missionaries who chose to remain with the SBC, were mainly those who agreed with SBC’s theological and ethical positions.

It was not too surprising, then, that an overwhelming majority of Southern Baptists voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. And it seems that Baptists in other countries have been influenced in the same direction by SB missionaries.

Brazil is one of the countries to which Southern Baptists have sent the most missionaries for the longest time. As a boy, I grew up hearing about the Bagbys of Brazil. Buck and Anne Bagby arrived in Brazil as SB missionaries in 1881. Five of their nine children later became missionaries to Brazil.

But just as Baptists in the U.S. have been, and still are, big supporters of Trump, in recent years Brazilian Baptists (and other evangelicals) have been strong supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro (b. 1955) has reportedly remained a Catholic. But in 2016 he was baptized (immersed) in the Jordan River by an evangelical pastor, and he attends the Baptist church where his wife is a member.

Mrs. Bolsonaro’s church is the Attitude Baptist Church (interesting name!), which was organized in 2000 mainly through the work of an SB missionary.

“Bolsonaro’s faith-based enablers” is a Dec. 1 Christian Century article that describes how Bolsonaro and his evangelical support in Brazil mirror Trump and his evangelical support in the U.S.

As an outspoken critic of Christian fundamentalism for the past two decades, I am sadly no longer able to affirm a mission board and the long-esteemed LMCO which now mainly supports conservative evangelical missionaries who nourish similar believers in other nations, such as Brazil.

From the C.S.A. to the R.S.A.?

As you know, C.S.A. stands for the Confederate States of America, which was formed 160 years ago. Here I am raising the question of whether now in the 2020s the U.S.A. may be headed toward becoming the R.S.A., the Republican States of America.

The Forming of the C.S.A.

In February 1861, seven U.S. states formed a new “nation,” calling it the Confederate States of America. Those states were Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Four more states (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia) joined the C.S.A. later.

Back in 2004, Kansas University professor Kevin Willmott was the director and writer of the movie C.S.A. It was a “mockumentary” that portrayed an alternate history wherein the Confederacy won the Civil War and the Union became the Confederate States of America. 

Although it is certainly not depicted in the same way as in Willmott’s movie, American historian Heather Cox Richardson has authored a book titled How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America (2020).

I have been on the waiting list for a library copy of Richardson’s book, so I have not read any of it yet—but I read her daily “Letters from an American,” which can be accessed here, and have learned much about U.S. history from her. (I highly recommend her daily “letter.”)

As depicted both in the creative movie and the historical book mentioned above, it is clear that the influence of the C.S.A. certainly did not end with its defeat at the end of the Civil War.

The Forming of the R.S.A.?

The influence of the C.S.A. seems to be “alive and well” in much of the Republican Party today. All the C.S.A. states of the 1860s voted for Trump in 2016 and all except Georgia did the same in 2020—although to this day Trump and a majority of Republicans believe the election there was “stolen.”

This article is not a condemnation of the Republican Party as such. The country needs a strong two-party system, with moderate Republicans who are willing to work with Democrats for the good of all who live in the nation—as well as for the good of the people of the world.

Oligarchy is “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes” (Merriam-Webster). Sadly, this seems to be the direction the Republican Party has been moving, especially since 2016.

Thus, I am writing this in opposition to the Republican politicians who seem to be greedy for power and willing to do anything necessary to achieve or maintain political power, even if it means largely destroying democracy.

Even though I think they are mistaken, we have to acknowledge that on the other side there are many supporters of the Republican Party who sincerely believe that the Democrats are “enemies,” and that drastic means may be necessary to save the country from tyranny and/or from “socialism.”

The power-hungry Republicans, beginning with Donald J. Trump and Mitch McConnell, seem to have done a good job in selling their skewed views to the Republican base, with the considerable help they have received from Fox News and their “opinion-makers” such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

Through voter suppression, gerrymandering, and voting results controlled by state legislatures, Republicans may well gain the majority in Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024. Those victories may be semi-permanent, leading to the forming of a de facto R.S.A., even if that name is not used.**

So, What Can Be Done?

If we want the USA to survive and not become the RSA, what can we do? Here are three succinct suggestions:

1) Keep advocating truth-telling, civilly opposing falsehoods and misleading statements, always championing peace and justice.

2) Keep voting for political leaders most concerned for the welfare of the populace, especially of those most oppressed by social or economic discrimination.

3) Keep being hopeful, firm in your belief that, in time, “The Wrong shall fail, / The Right prevail,” as expressed in Longfellow’s Christmas carol.

_____

** I hadn’t seen Republican States of America used anywhere until after I had finished writing this article, but here is what I then found in a 5/7/21 Washington Post piece: “Trump has emerged from his West Palm Beach hibernation — refashioning himself as the president of the Republican States of America.”