ࡱ> 9  !"#$%&'()*+,-./012345678Root Entry( Jr0N^MatOST N^'N^MMMN0HhND ( JrMicrosoft Works MSWorksWPDoc9qSZZTy\Hhe..e@nenenene=/dnew\tfneeT Page   CCD Position Paper No. One THE VALUES CRISIS: The American Trinity versus The Kingdom of God by Lowell Noble Conservative Christians are partly right when they assert that flawed values lie at the heart of our massive social problems. They urge us to restore traditional family values, to oppose homosexuality because such acts are sinful, to oppose abortion because it is a frontal attack on the fundamental value of life. What many conservative Christians fail to recognize is that they, along with most other Americans, have bought into another set of flawed values which, in part, underlie the very problems they are so deeply concerned about. America may be the most individualistic nation in the history of the world though the Corinthians of Bible times may run a close second. We built individual rights into our founding documents to protect against domination by kings. Conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger, in a speech given at Ripon College in May, 1967, stated that through laws and court decisions we have greatly expanded these individual rights from the years 1933 to 1966. In 1977 Burger stated that this process was continuing and was threatening the welfare of our nation. Burger stated regarding this excessive emphasis on individual rights: It is a truism of political philosophy rooted in history that nations often perish from an excess of their own basic principles. Today we emphasize freedom/liberty far more than we do justice. In modern America precious individual rights have degenerated into individualism --- an excessive emphasis on rights not properly balanced by social responsibility. Individualism underlies the demand for abortion; it underlies the proliferation of handguns and our high murder rate. Conservative Christians decry the corrupt values of secular humanism, not realizing that they share some of those same values. Conservative Christians have organized extensively, politically and through the media, to try and change things with limited success. Until they honestly confront their own values crisis and repent of their overidentification with some aspects of American culture, they will not succeed. Many American Christians of all stripes are too identified with the American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism (racism). They cover their individualism with an appeal to individual rights; they cover their materialism with more innocent sounding words such as prosperity or a rising standard of living; they cover their ethnocentrism/racism with an appeal to our superior Judeo-Christian heritage. Covering our sins of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism with self-righteousness will not solve our social problems. Our founding fathers began the process of mixing Christian principles with the American trinity. The Puritans, claiming that they were establishing a Christian nation, stole land from Native Americans, paid money for scalps and murdered whole villages, men, women and children. They narrowly defined the kingdom of God as applying only to themselves, to their kind (ethnos). Their ethnocentrism led to oppression; they set and legitimated a pattern which was repeated time and time again in our nations history. The American trinity undermines, tears apart, our social fabric, and opens the door for massive social problems to develop. America is a great nation with many strengths and serious weakness: Positive Negative 1. Freedom --- democracy 1. High divorce rate 2. Strong economy 2. High crime rate 3. Abundant natural resources 3. High alcoholism rate 4. Quality private and public 4. When compared with 19 colleges and universities industrialized countries, the US 5. Highly churched when compared ranks first (worst) in 21 social to Europe problem categories 6. Unparalleled set of Bible schools, Christian liberal arts colleges and seminaries 7. A host of parachurch organizations designed to meet specific needs This set of US strengths is unparalleled in the history of the world, especially the Christian strengths. Our Christian schools graduates thousands and thousands of well trained leaders in the areas of business, teaching, social work, ministry, etc., each year. These Christian leaders should be a massive salt and light influence in society; as a result we should have comparatively few social problems. Yet the reality is quite different; when compared with other educated, civilized, industrialized countries, we have the worst social problems record. Strangely, most of the countries with a low rate of social problems have comparatively few church members; we have high church attendance and a high rate of social problems. Is American Christianity flawed? Is Americanized Christianity a part of the problem? Marcus Borg thinks so: The church to a large extent participates in our cultures conventional wisdom, indeed often legitimating it. Much of contemporary American Christianity is enculturated religion, radically adapted to culture and domesticated within it. We live in a Babylon often declared to be Zion. The only explanation that I can come up with is that American Christians have overly privatized and individualized biblical Christianity. At its worst American Christianity is spiritual self-indulgence. Derek Prince, a charismatic, said that the Holy Spirit used this phrase in speaking to him about a Pentecostalism overly concerned about personal spiritual blessings and not concerned enough about the social welfare of the nation. Americans have wedded the American trinity (our brand of idolatry) with Christianity thereby gutting the social dimension of biblical Christianity. This brand of Americanized Christianity puts self above others rendering us weak in solving social problems. We legitimate many of the forces tearing society apart so in spite of our charity the American church often does more harm than good. There are exceptions to the above generalization, but the generalization still stands. I would argue that today (1999) individualism and materialism are doing more damage to poor and ethnic communities than ethnocentrism is. Though declining, ethnocentrism is not dead and still does its fair share of damage. But now all of American society including poor and ethnic communities are being ravaged by individualism and materialism. Achieving the American Dream by climbing out of poverty and becoming middle class may be a hollow victory if it means that poor people are seduced by individualism and materialism in the process. The only possible way to defeat the powerful American trinity that I know of would be to create a set of biblical concepts to help us better understand and address both social evil and social righteousness/justice. Out of these biblical concepts we could create a theology of society grounded in the kingdom of God. Without biblical concepts to guide our thinking we will think American; all of us are more corrupted in our thinking than we realize. The following is a set of crucial biblical concepts that I think form the building blocks of a theology of society. The American trinity is so deadly, destructive and pervasive that only a biblically based theology of society can uproot it. Social Evil Social Justice Satan God/Jesus Christ Principalities and Powers Holy Spirit Cosmos Kingdom of God Ethnocentrism Reconciliation Oppression Justice/Shalom Damaged Individuals Liberated Individuals Satan Satan, the adversary, is a person, a fallen angel, whom God has permitted partial and temporary control of this earth. He is identified as a prince of this world, ruler of the cosmos (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Eph. 2:2; Luke 4:5-7). Satan is in opposition to God, but he is not the opposite of God because he is not Gods equal. Satan is not omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (everywhere present), and omnipotent (all-powerful). Satan is a formidable foe, but we must not overexaggerate his importance. If we unintentionally make him the opposite equal to God, we give him more power in our lives than he deserves. Our unwarranted excessive fear of him will expand his power over us. He is only a fallen angel who wanted to be God. Dont make him into a god. Principalities and Powers Created by God, the principalities and powers were originally good and designed to maintain order in the universe. Sin invaded the universe and, rather than maintaining order, they took on the status of god and began to regulate human existence and destiny. According to Walter Wink these Powers are both heavenly and earthly, divine and human, spiritual and political, invisible and structural. Stephen Mott asserts that the principalities and powers are fallen angelic beings whose primary mode of operation is through political and social institutions. The powers and authorities are evil spiritual forces incarnated in human cultural values and social institutions. Cosmos In its good sense, the cosmos is the world, the universe, created by God. Sin invaded the cosmos and thus in the NT cosmos is often used in a negative sense. Cosmos is now evil social order, Satans kingdom on earth (Luke 4:5-6). The cosmos includes negative cultural values (ethnocentrism) and oppressive social institutions. Individual persons, male and female, and natural resources were created by God. Because of sin these creation values became the negative cultural values of individualism, sexism and materialism. Also through further development of creation and human creativity, race and ethnicity became important social factors. Sin distorted these factors into racism and ethnocentrism. Social institutions whose original purpose was to provide order and structure to human existence have become instruments of evil. Evil individuals and groups gain control of social institutions and incarnate negative social values for selfish advantage. Ethnocentrism Ethnocentrism is the belief that ones ethnos (people, culture or nation) is superior and by implication that other ethnic groups are inferior. Ethnocentrism turns other ethnic groups into second class citizens; they are dehumanized. Once this happens the superior people can oppress the inferior people without their social conscience bothering them, and they may rationalize that this action is doing Gods will. Ethnicity (ethnic heritage, ethnic group) is positive and contributes to ones social identity. Ethnocentrism is a sinful sense of cultural, religious or national superiority. Oppression Oppression occurs when persons in power and authority, usually through social institutions, misuse their power and authority in a cruel and unjust manner to crush, humiliate, animalize, impoverish, enslave and/or kill persons created in the image of God. Oppression is a combination of personal sin and social evil. Oppression is the opposite of shalom and the absence of justice. Damaged Individuals The above system of Satan, powers and authorities, cosmos, ethnocentrism and oppression combines to damage individuals or groups. For example, women are oppressed by men, Samaritans are oppressed by Jews, the poor are oppressed by the rich. God/Jesus Christ Final authority in the universe and in human society rests in the hands of a sovereign God. Through his grace and love personal and social righteousness are possible in human society. Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit is the person, power and wisdom of God incarnated in individual Christians and the church. As individuals are sometimes demon possessed, so also cultural values and social institutions can be possessed by the powers and authorities. The only power strong enough to break the bondage of cultural values and social institutions to the Powers is the person and power of the Holy Spirit. Kingdom of God To replace the cosmos, the evil social order, Jesus introduced the kingdom of God, the reign and rule of God over all of life. Just as social evil has infiltrated all of life, so the kingdom of God must be equally pervasive. Spiritually, one enters the kingdom by being born again. Socially, one lives kingdom principles in all relationships in human society. Individualism, materialism and sexism must be replaced by individuality-in-community, the sharing of material resources, and respect and equality between the sexes. Racism and ethnocentrism must be replaced by respect, harmony and equality between different ethnic groups. Rather than evil social institutions dominating and oppressing individuals, social institutions must be restored to their rightful function of service and structured existence to provide order and stability to social life. Justice should characterize the functioning of political, economic and religious institutions. Reconciliation Through Gods grace humans who were once enemies of God can be reconciled to him. Through Gods grace persons who once hated their enemies can be reconciled to them and learn to love them. Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, rich and poor should respect and love each other. Justice In the OT we are exhorted to do justice (Micah 6:8) or execute justice (Jer. 7:5). Community leaders such as judges, kings and priests are called to make fair and just judgments in behalf of the oppressed poor, widows, fatherless and strangers. The act of justice stops oppression and creates the conditions for shalom. Justice/righteousness is both personal and social (Job 29:7-17). Shalom Shalom is completeness, wholeness, harmony in a community of people living in righteousness/justice. In such a community individuals experience physical, economic, social and spiritual well-being. Shalom includes spiritual or inner peace, but shalom is much more than personal peace. Liberated Individuals Oppressed individuals (the sinned-against ones) can be liberated by the good news of the gospel. Luke 4:18-19 is a mission statement about the Kingdom of God. It includes a Jubilee type of justice for the poor and oppressed. It combines personal righteousness and social justice; both are necessary for complete liberation. In summary, The kingdom of God is . . . justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Rom. 14:17, Noble paraphrase) Now let us revisit the American trinity in American history in greater detail in order to understand in greater depth the nature of our values crisis and how desperately we need a kingdom of God theology of society to enlighten and liberate us. The American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism is not a recent development; it, unfortunately, has been part and parcel of American history beginning soon after the colonies were established. By the time of the founding fathers the American trinity was deeply ingrained in American culture. American history is a tragic mixture of high ideals, some of them Christian principles, and evil values and practice - the worst kind of ethnocentrism and oppression. The best documentation of this syncretistic history is found in Ronald Takakis A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, 1993. . Even before British settlers landed at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, the British were practicing their ethnocentrism and oppression on the Irish. They used an ethnocentric vocabulary which dehumanized the Irish as savages, beasts, uncivilized, and then the British proceeded to burn, brutalize and slaughter the Irish. Some Irish were relocated on reservations; then the British took over their land. This pattern of ethnocentrism and oppression was repeated by the godly New England Puritans and the Virginia settlers. The Puritans demonized the Native Americans and then proceeded to brutalize them and take their land. The Puritans believed that this action was necessary because the evil Canaanites had to be eliminated before a Christian nation could be established. Takaki comments: Once the process of cultural construction [legitimating ethnocentrism and oppression] was under way, it set a course for the making of a national identity in America for centuries to come. In a somewhat more gentlemanly fashion, Thomas Jefferson agreed with the Puritans; Indians were to be civilized or exterminated or relocated west of the Mississippi River. Early on Virginia settlers began growing tobacco, a lucrative cash crop. Growing tobacco is labor intensive; cheap, abundant labor is crucial to making a profit. So by 1660 Virginia law had institutionalized slavery. Takaki comments: The very abundance of land and the profitability of tobacco production, however, unleashed a land boom and speculation. Colonists with financial advantage quickly scrambled to possess the best lands along the navigable rivers. Representing a landed elite, they dominated the Virginia assembly, and began to enact legislation to advance and protect their class interests. Jefferson was part of this landed elite who owned slaves. Jefferson, well-educated and a person of high ideals, many of which found their way into the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, was deeply torn. He was part of a system which was flawed by racial and class division. Such divisions, he recognized, were a dangerous threat to the social order --- a social time bomb in his eyes. Ethically Jefferson knew that slavery should be abolished, but economically he could not bring himself to free his slaves. His own place of wealth and status had been built upon the backs of his slaves. Jefferson expressed the dilemma in these words: As it is we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. (Emphasis added) Jefferson knew what justice demanded, but he chose not to do justice. Jefferson, the man of high ideals, chose self-preservation. For the future of the nation, choosing self-preservation over justice had a high price. In 1860 a Civil War tore the nation apart; multiplied thousands were killed. The social disorder Jefferson feared had come to pass. The founding fathers sowed ethnocentrism and oppression; the nation reaped disaster and barely survived. Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who wrote with such great insight about America in the early 1800s, was both impressed and troubled by what he saw. He noted an inordinate love of material gratification. Takaki called it a frenetic pursuit for individual materialistic success. What the tobacco planters of Virginia had started in the 1600s was running rampant in the early 1800s. The American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism had taken over. Hugh cracks in the soil of American culture were created by the cultural schizophrenia of the syncretistic combination of the American trinity and the Christian trinity. Jefferson concluded that the removal of both Afro Americans and Native Americans was necessary to preserve the social order --- in order for American civilization to develop. President Andrew Jackson implemented this policy with a vengeance. Tocqueville saw the removal of the Choctaw Indians from Mississippi with his own eyes. He wrote about this brutality and death and how the dominant whites rationalized and legitimated their behavior; President Jackson called it just! Takaki states: What struck Tocqueville was how whites were able to deprive Indians of their rights and exterminate them with singular felicity, tranquilly, legally, philanthropically, . . .without violating a single great principle of morality in the eyes of the world. Indeed, he wryly remarked, it was impossible to destroy men with more respect for the laws of humanity. When Americans sanctify the American trinity with the Christian trinity, Americans can do great evil and still claim that they are doing the will of God in establishing a Christian nation. In CCD Position Paper Number Two I will discuss the present and social dimensions of the kingdom of God as an answer to the evil of the American trinity. P.S. Clarence Shuler, Afro-American author of Winning the Race to Unity (Moody Press, 1998) writes from 30 years of interracial or crosscultural ministry. A solid evangelical, Shuler graduated from Moody, Covenant and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He writes: Many white conservative evangelicals revere the Founding Fathers and hold them up as godly men whose example all should follow. . . . But blacks know that most of the Founding Fathers were not only Deists [not theists], . . . but promoted slavery. Slavery was even described as Christian. . . . When the Founding Fathers said, All men are created equal, they were not refering to nonwhites. Not only did African Americans not count, women were second class; the poor did not count, Indians did not count. The only ones who counted were white propertied males who were an ethnocentric elite who ran society. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were not equally available to all. It is difficult to believe that the Founding Fathers could be so passionate about their own freedom, for which they would eventually go to war, yet be so insensitive to blacks desire for freedom. . . . Shuler adds: George Washington owned over three hundred slaves. . . Notables who owned slaves include such venerables as Jonathan Edwards . . the Reverends Cotton Mather, Peter Fontaine, and Bishop Joseph Butler. It troubles Shuler when conservative evangelicals treat this problem lightly and say only that the Founding Fathers made a mistake and then move quickly on. Blacks question how anyone can be called good who was involved in something as terrible as slavery. . . . Blacks and whites know how brutual slavery was. This mistakeof slavery included kidnapping, rape, promotion of sexual immorality for profit, destruction of the family, . . . dehumanizing of a race, torture, and murder --- many times in the name of God P.S. Lowell Nobles email address is: llnoble1831@aol.com. or jmpfoffice@aol.com Summer address: 404 Woodland Ave., Riceville, IA 50466-7502 Ph. 641.985.2255 Mississippi address: 1831 Robinson St., Jackson, MS 39209-6432. Ph. 601.354.3993 or 354.1563. 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