Tag: life

culture, politics, race matters, Uncategorized

Transcending Race and Delusional Conservatives

The candidacy of Barak Obama has inspired a great deal of talk, some of it self-inflicted by Sen. Obama, about the idea of transcending race. However, as the campaign as worn on, it has become apparent that “transcend race” is one of those phrases which means different things to different people. It seems to be a Rorschach test of wishful thinking in which people see it as meaning what they want it to mean.

I want to address how this issue plays out on the conservative side. The conservative perspective is the one which is closer to what I identify with and I think we have suffered as a nation because of conservatives’ refusal to look at and think reasonably about issues of race.

In regards to transcending race, on the conservative side, I have heard a fair amount of talk which indicates a wish for “transcending race” to mean eliminating race as an issue to which we need to pay attention to or offer consideration for. Because of this, conservatives have often reacted to things like the fact that Obama attends an Afrocentric church as a betrayal of his claim to be someone who can help us move past race. However, this perspective is based on a host of completely erroneous ideas.

The first problem with this perspective is that it presumes that in order to “get past race”, we must embrace a sort of “color-blind” nirvana and assiduously pretend that we have already reached such a place. In large part, this seems to mean that we ought to reject anything which conflicts with the idea that we are and should be completely unaware of race. Continue reading “Transcending Race and Delusional Conservatives”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter5 Comments
culture, religion

Two Lists

Brian McLaren spoke recently at a conference taking place at Willow Creek Community Church and shared something which I find fascinating. Back in the 1970s, McLaren volunteered as a youth minister. He asked the kids in the group to make a list of what the pressing issues at their churches were. They came up with things like contemporary worship music and speaking in tongues. Then he asked them to make a list of what the pressing issues facing the world were. Their list included typical 1970s concerns like nuclear war, communism and famine. McLaren points out that there was no overlap between the two lists. The problem as he saw it was that as he was leading young people to Christ, they would get drawn into the first list of concerns and become less and less involved in the issues of the wider world.

I think that a lot has changed since the 1970s and churches are starting to do a better job of creating overlap between McLaren’s two lists. In fact, much ink has been spilled observing the rise of a new generation of evangelical leaders who are as interested in social justice and global warming as they are in gay marriage. However, I wonder how much overlap is going on at ground level in churches across the nation between church concerns and world concerns. If you walked into your church’s youth group today and asked the kids for their two lists, would there be overlap? Continue reading “Two Lists”

Unknown's avatarRebecca TrotterLeave a comment
culture, family

It is family that will change the world

It has been my observation for some time that we have a very bizarre disconnect in our culture between the way we treat our children and the adults they become. On one hand, when we run across an adult with emotional, mental or substance abuse problems and they share the traumas of their childhood, we are sympathetic. We can see the line between neglect, humiliation, abuse, a failure to protect, etc and the problems which this person has as an adult.

On the other hand, we somehow seem to think that children will survive all manner of things from being dumped in a crowded daycare for 12 hours a day at 6 weeks, to watching violent and sexual entertainment, to being bullied at school without any serious damage being done. It’s as if we as a society seem to think that as long as our children are not subject to permanent bodily harm and have adequate exposure to education and enrichment activities, we’ve done our job. There’s no serious consideration given to the sort of people we are raising and the effect that masses of people raised without adequate attention, nurturing, values and compassion will have on our society. Even when we claim to be advocating for kids, we have a hard time connecting the children of today with the adults they will become. We speak of children as the future, as if they were magical beings who can set things right by virtue of compelling the adults around them to behave well so as not to upset the children’s cuteness, not out of concern for the sort of adults they will one day be.

We have compassion for damaged people on the back end while refusing to do anything to stop the activities which cause this damage to begin with. Adults rule, the kids will be alright and families are whatever the adults want them to be. Continue reading “It is family that will change the world”

Unknown's avatarRebecca TrotterLeave a comment
culture, race matters

Black-White Conversations We’re Afraid To Have

Northwestern University just put out a study which found that white people avoid dealing with black people or discussions of race out of fear of doing something which will cause them to be accused of bigotry. This is probably one of those “We need researchers to tell us this?” things.

As many of my readers know, I am married to an African American man, so we’ve had many of those conversations which most white people avoid like the plague. I’ll just say that it’s been interesting.

Over time, I’ve come to see the relationship between white Americans and black Americans as being like a bad marriage. Neither side trusts the other, each attributes the worst possible motivations to anything the other side does, neither is willing to listen to the other but continually demands that their concerns be taken seriously, etc., etc. The solution to a bad marriage generally requires the two parties to stop being so self defensive, listen to each other, avoid responding negatively at all costs, be willing to do the right things for the relationship irregardless of what the other person may or may not do, etc. I believe that it will take the same sorts of actions between white and black Americans to actually move past the distrust and hostility which we generally deal with each other with.

I think that one of the biggest problems with the black-white relationship is that we fail to understand or appreciate how things look from the other’s perspective and then insist on assigning the worst possible motivations to what the other group does (or does not do). I believe that if we are willing to start making a real effort to understand the other group’s perspective (not necessarily agree with – just understand that POV as sincere and real), it would allow us to stop being so defensive and hostile with each other.

I bring this and this study up because my husband recently shared an idea he has about just the sort of “white persons inadvertently messes up, black people go ballistic” interaction which seems to have made white people so nervous that they avoid race at all costs. Continue reading “Black-White Conversations We’re Afraid To Have”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments
religion

Women’s Roles in the Bible

wives_submitI have two rules which guide me in my study of scriptures:

1. If the bible is unchanging, then it can not have been intended to communicate one thing to the people to whom it was originally given and something entirely different today.  If our modern common sense reading of scripture is in conflict with how the ancients would have understood the same verses, then our modern understanding is wrong, no matter how obvious, universally held or apparent it is.

2. Where the bible appears to be in conflict with its self or with the real world around us, this should be seen as a red marker pointing to something which needs to be explored further.  Too often we try to explain away these contradictions or make the unacceptable seem more reasonable when what we really need to do is pray, study and dig deeper.  In my experience I have frequently found that these “red markers” point to areas where there is a problem with translation or our modern assumptions are interfering with our understanding and on occassion, I have even come to see that some aspect of our understanding about God or life is entirely off base and needs to be adjusted.

These two rules have served me well, although what I learn from applying them frequently leaves me well outside of mainstream Christian opinion on some issues.  I haven’t quite decided yet if that is a good thing or bad thing and what I’m supposed to do with all that, but time will tell.

At any rate, one of the most vexing problems of scriptures for us moderns is the bible and women.  My first revelation that there might be something wrong with our modern approach to what the bible says about women came years ago when my husband and I were newly married.  We were having a really hard time and I went into a Christian bookstore looking for some sort of answer which would rid us our misery.  While browsing through books, I came across one which claimed to explain the biblical injunction for wives to submit to their husbands in such a way that a woman could be at peace with her role.  The key, this author claimed, was that women had the easier part; while women were called to submit, men actually had to LOVE their wives.  You see, the oft quoted verses first tell women to submit to their husbands and for husbands to love their lives.  Since only husbands are instructed to love their wives, this author reasoned, women were free to despise, hate or just be indifferent to their husbands so long as they were submissive towards them. Continue reading “Women’s Roles in the Bible”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter19 Comments
education, kids

This is fantastic!

I have become convinced over the last couple of years that we are facing a crisis of bad parenting in this country.  By which I don’t necessarily mean the usual complaints of overly indulgent parents or abusive parents, although these can certainly be a problem.  What I find particularly problematic is a lack of knowledge about normal human development and appropriate interaction with children.  It’s … Continue reading This is fantastic!

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
life

Ain’t that the truth?

I was reading an excellent column by Clarence Page today about Robert F. Kennedy’s speech in Indianapolis on the day that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. In his speech RFK quotes the ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus: He who learns must suffer, and, even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against … Continue reading Ain’t that the truth?

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