{"id":12998,"date":"2017-05-26T08:35:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T15:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=12998"},"modified":"2017-05-26T08:35:57","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T15:35:57","slug":"the-process-and-the-prophet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-process-and-the-prophet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Process and the Prophet"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a student of history and of people.\u00a0 I am fascinated in studying how people think about any particular event or action.\u00a0 Recently, I have discovered a documentary on Netflix entitled The Seven-Five.\u00a0 <\/em>It is a gritty tale of how cops, those sworn to serve and protect, ended up running drugs for Columbian drug lords.\u00a0 The interesting highlight in the documentary is seeing the evolution of those involved.\u00a0 Cops did not go from good to bad overnight.\u00a0 It was a process.\u00a0 Now, the process occurred quicker for some than others, but it was no doubt a process.<\/p>\n

We even see this process when it comes to Nazis Germany prior to World War 2.\u00a0 There was a slow process in indoctrinating the German people.\u00a0 Goebbels\u2019s propaganda worked tirelessly on the German people.\u00a0 His effort was to dehumanize the Jewish population.\u00a0 After all if they are dehumanized as vermin, then it is easier to deal viciously with them.\u00a0 It was a process, and sadly it worked.<\/p>\n

In David Welsh\u2019s complex work, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, <\/em>he looks at the build up to the ugly policy which led to a horrible discriminatory policy of the minority which affected the Afrikan majority in South Africa.\u00a0 For Welsh, the policy came about through a series of events that ended in massive discrimination.\u00a0 Apartheid was a process that did not happen overnight, but it was a drama that unfolded possibly fifty years prior to its incarnation.<\/p>\n

REFLECTION<\/p>\n

As I look at the ugliness of Apartheid, I am gripped with the realities in which we live today.\u00a0 It is quite simplistic to cast off ideas such as the Apartheid or the Holocaust as outliers.\u00a0 \u00a0Most people would emphatically state that such things could never happen here in the West.\u00a0 Yet, I feel somehow that the West, Europe and America, is in the middle of a drama that has yet to have been completed.\u00a0 There is so much vitriolic language and open hatred within the atmosphere.\u00a0 The west is like a flooded lake pushing against its dam.\u00a0 I am somewhat concerned that the dam will break and we will be flooded before we know it.<\/p>\n

Evil comes about through a process.\u00a0 It comes about when we demonize another side so much that they no longer are human and without a soul.\u00a0 We see it everywhere.\u00a0 Liberals demonize conservatives and their values.\u00a0 Conservatives demonize liberals.\u00a0 We vilify illegals, muslims, gays, the police, the African American population and probably many more.<\/p>\n

Now, this may sound preachy, but I think at the heart (at least in America) some of these things are happening because the church has lost its prophetic voice in the land.\u00a0 We have given the reigns over to the media, the politician, and we hope that we will somehow be saved from having to speak up in this hostile environment.<\/p>\n

Apartheid, holocausts, racism, and slavery all rule the day when the church refuses to be a prophetic voice and speak when injustice is done.\u00a0 In Luke 4, Jesus states:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/sup><\/strong>The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me\u00a0to proclaim good news\u00a0to the poor. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners\u00a0and recovery of sight for the blind, to set \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the oppressed free,\u00a0to proclaim the year of the Lord\u2019s favor.\u201d\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it \u00a0 back to the attendant and sat down.\u00a0The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 him.21\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>He began by saying to them,\u00a0\u201cToday this scripture is fulfilled\u00a0in your hearing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Jesus came to right the wrongs done in the world.\u00a0 It first started with redeeming us from the curse of sin, but in his earthly ministry, he also helped to right the wrongs done in an oppressed society.\u00a0 The church needs speak up to right the wrongs as well.\u00a0 We must speak up when people are oppressed, when injustice runs rampant and when pain is on the march despite the color of skin, hijab, gender, or sexual orientation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a student of history and of people.\u00a0 I am fascinated in studying how people think about any particular event or action.\u00a0 Recently, I have discovered a documentary on Netflix entitled The Seven-Five.\u00a0 It is a gritty tale of how cops, those sworn to serve and protect, ended up running drugs for Columbian drug […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[974],"class_list":["post-12998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-welsh","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12999,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12998\/revisions\/12999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}