{"id":38428,"date":"2024-11-04T11:00:18","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T19:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=38428"},"modified":"2024-11-04T08:13:57","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T16:13:57","slug":"the-shore-of-my-ignorance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-shore-of-my-ignorance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shore of My Ignorance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  1. \n

    What is a summary of your most deeply held convictions before the readings?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    To answer this question, I need to quote myself from a recent blog post:<\/a><\/p>\n

    “I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. By small, I mean less than 1500 people. We were an hour from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I mention that because my “exposure” to people of color was rare, we would “go into the cities” to shop for school clothes or something special. In other words, not often. I had almost zero engagement with people of color. Zero. Until I was 17 and moved to Los Angeles to attend Bible College. Seriously. When I was in middle school, our small Foursquare church had a volunteer youth leader. He was a hippie throwback to the Jesus People days…I remember only one thing about this youth leader besides his long blonde hair, and that was when he taught a message at youth group about the “Curse of Ham.” He wasn’t our youth pastor the following week, and I never really understood why he was “fired.” In that message, he taught us, as my mind recalls it, “weird things about black people from the Bible.” Those weird things didn’t shape my theology or interaction with people of color…I don’t think.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Jim Wallis, in his most recent book, The False White Gospel<\/em>, says, “Christian proponents of slavery claimed that Africans were the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham, who was condemned to slavery when he saw his father, Noah, drunk and naked and failed to cover him. They reasoned that the Hebrew name of the cursed Ham meant “dark, black, or heat,” a translation that has since been discredited by many biblical scholars. Iveson Lewis Brookes (1785-1868), a teacher and Baptist minister, summed up the position of proslavery preachers when he declared, ‘Negro slavery is an institution of heaven and intended for the mutual benefit of master and slave, as proved by the Bible… God himself authorized Noah to doom the posterity of Ham’ (Wallis, 21).<\/p>\n

    To be clear, I absolutely do NOT believe this interpretation of the Scripture to be accurate. It is deplorable. It’s absolute trash. I wholeheartedly believe slavery and racism are America’s original sins. I also think that human hierarchy based on skin color still lingers. Many white people (even those in my own church) don’t want to talk about it. They think slavery is in the past and that the Civil Rights Movement fixed it all. They want to stop talking about racism, white supremacy, and the sin of slavery.<\/p>\n

    I, however, agree with Jim Wallis and Bryan Stevenson, who contend that racism has continued to evolve. Wallis, in The False White Gospel<\/em>, says, “Jim Crow is now wearing a suit, instead of a sheet, and is once again making a comeback to prevent a united democratic future” (Wallis, 10).<\/p>\n

    I think we are still seeing an old ideology of racism and the seeds of slavery in modern America, and it is rearing its ugly head in a new form: Christian Nationalism. It expresses itself in racism disguised as immigration reform to keep out those who are “eating our pets.” It expresses itself in racism disguised as fact-checking President Obama’s (the first black president) birth records and country of origin. It expresses itself in racism disguised as questions regarding Kamala Harris’ ethnicity. It expresses itself in the prevailing “us vs. them” mentality, bluntly: white Americans vs. those from “shithole countries.”<\/p>\n

    So, there are my deeply held convictions regarding slavery, racism, and the like. As far as colonialism is concerned, I gotta be super honest: \u00a0I have no clue. I am a learner in this category. I simply have no knowledge base regarding this issue, so I am committing myself to more than an inspectional reading of Nigel Biggar’s\u00a0Colonialism.\u00a0<\/em>I really want to dig into it because I am keenly aware of the “growing shores of my ignorance.”<\/p>\n

    \u201cAs our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.\u201d<\/em> John Wheeler<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

     <\/p>\n

    From an inspectional reading of Colonialism, I surmise that it controversially challenges the dominant narrative that portrays colonialism solely as an oppressive and exploitative system. He proposes positive contributions, including legal frameworks, infrastructure, and education. He contends for a more nuanced view, considering both the benefits and harms. Hmmm. OK, I’m interested in digging in deeper!<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    2) How have your beliefs been affirmed or challenged by the readings?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    The following two points are where my beliefs have been affirmed:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Slavery\u2019s Legacy: <\/b>Jeremy Black affirms that slavery is deeply embedded in our global history and that its effects, especially racial hierarchies, have persisted into modern times and continue to manifest into modern expressions.<\/li>\n
    2. Religious Justifications: <\/b>Black affirms how slavery has been justified through various frameworks: cultural, economic, and, especially pertinent to my post, religious.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

      The remaining points are where my beliefs have been challenged:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Focus Beyond America<\/b>: My perspective focuses primarily on American slavery and its legacy, whereas Black\u2019s global approach challenges my U.S.-centric view by broadening the discussion to slavery in various forms across continents, such as in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. I need to reflect further on how slavery and racism are\/have been expressed within a larger global context.<\/li>\n
      2. Colonialism<\/b>: I have already acknowledged that I do not understand nor have knowledge regarding colonialism; therefore, Black\u2019s global history gave helpful insights into how colonial powers institutionalized slavery. This is valuable as I dig deeper into Nigel Biggar’s Colonialism.<\/em><\/li>\n
      3. Economic vs. Racial Motives<\/b>: A gap in my knowledge involves the financial motivations behind slavery, especially in America. I think I intuitively knew the economics of it all, yet my primary focus has been on religion.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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

        What is a summary of your most deeply held convictions before the readings? To answer this question, I need to quote myself from a recent blog post: “I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. By small, I mean less than 1500 people. We were an hour from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I mention that because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[2310],"tags":[3120,2012,1300,3279],"class_list":["post-38428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-biggar","tag-black","tag-colonialism","tag-slavery","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38428","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\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38428"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39290,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38428\/revisions\/39290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}