Who speaks for the black community?

[Wade]

Where are the people loving their enemies? Where are the people doing good to those that curse them? NONE of them are protesting. Protesting is at the core so much of the opposite of the heart of Christ - Wake up!

I don't think you are loving JBG by falsely branding him a Marxist. I don't think you would feel loved if someone falsely branded you something equally emotional. That's political faction-building, not love. Wake up!

We need to stop invoking the heart of Christ or the Bible if we are mostly going to use political talking points to whack each other on the head. Perhaps we should start another thread to actually explore the Bible, the heart of Christ, racism, and a Christian response?

JBG originally said that he supports BLM - to me he directly branded himself as one - I didn't. Then people went onto to say it is self professing Marxist group. He never said anything that I read to clarify that he doesn't support BLM until I had to confront him over it. If you want to judge me as not being loving than God have mercy on you.

[Ken]

Thanks for asking for further clarification. I would honk for signs that say black lives matter. I dont support the formal organization. Most people with black lives matter signs have no connection to the group. My neighbor, a black lady, had a sign up in her yard. I suppoer that sentiment. It has nothing to do with the formal group.

If the poll referred specifically to the formal group and all its positions, I simply misunderstood the poll. However the vast majority of protests are not organized or directly connected to the formal group. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clear that up for you. No....I am not confused about it.

Honestly I don't even know who the 'formal Black Lives Matter' group is or if they even exist within 500 miles of me. All I see are what looks like local HS and college kids holding up signs at our local small BLM marches that past several weeks. They are just doing their own thing and not being orchestrated from afar.

Too much media is the cause of the desensitization to the recognize the orchestration from afar and unknowingly supporting Marxism. It's like Szdfan said before if people just paid attention they could have seen how honestly evil Hitler was.

Can you list the specific objectives of the Black Lives Matter movement that you believe are "Marxist" and explain why you think they are beyond the pale?

I've gone and looked at their web sites and have read a lot about what BLM activists are protesting for. A lot of it is "woke" lefty pro-LGBT type stuff that I expect some conservative Mennos would be uncomfortable with. But none of it looks particularly "Marxist" much less authoritarian communist which is the form of Marxism that most people would object to. After all, both social security and medicare were labeled as "Marxist" in their time as was the Civil Rights Movement and school desegregation.

A lot of social protest on both the left and right is just pushing the Overton Window in one direction or the other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window White right-wing gun rights activists are doing exactly the same thing when they march around in fatigues carrying military-style weapons. But I don't see 1% of the concern expressed about them here on Mennonnet than I do about unarmed BLM protesters.

[Bootstrap]

I don't think you are loving JBG by falsely branding him a Marxist. I don't think you would feel loved if someone falsely branded you something equally emotional. That's political faction-building, not love. Wake up!

We need to stop invoking the heart of Christ or the Bible if we are mostly going to use political talking points to whack each other on the head. Perhaps we should start another thread to actually explore the Bible, the heart of Christ, racism, and a Christian response?

JBG originally said that he supports BLM - to me he directly branded himself as one - I didn't. Then people went onto to say it is self professing Marxist group. He never said anything that I read to clarify that he doesn't support BLM until I had to confront him over it. If you want to judge me as not being loving than God have mercy on you.

Wow.

I don't think you are reading what JBG writes very accurately. I don't think we are having a conversation about the Bible or Jesus here. And I don't think you are being loving or fair to JBG. How many times does he have to tell you he does not support the BLM Foundation or Marxism or LGBTQ? How many times will you respond by saying yes he does, and you are the authority on what he believes? That's not what love looks like.

How would you feel if we did that to you?

May God have mercy on all of us. We need to do better than this if we want to look like Jesus to the world around us.

[Wade]

I don't think you are loving JBG by falsely branding him a Marxist. I don't think you would feel loved if someone falsely branded you something equally emotional. That's political faction-building, not love. Wake up!

We need to stop invoking the heart of Christ or the Bible if we are mostly going to use political talking points to whack each other on the head. Perhaps we should start another thread to actually explore the Bible, the heart of Christ, racism, and a Christian response?

JBG originally said that he supports BLM - to me he directly branded himself as one - I didn't. Then people went onto to say it is self professing Marxist group. He never said anything that I read to clarify that he doesn't support BLM until I had to confront him over it. If you want to judge me as not being loving than God have mercy on you.

Wow.

I don't think you are reading what JBG writes very accurately. I don't think we are having a conversation about the Bible or Jesus here. And I don't think you are being loving or fair to JBG. How many times does he have to tell you he does not support the BLM Foundation or Marxism or LGBTQ? How many times will you respond by saying yes he does, and you are the authority on what he believes? That's not what love looks like.

How would you feel if we did that to you?

May God have mercy on all of us. We need to do better than this if we want to look like Jesus to the world around us.

He told me once that he misunderstood the poll question about whether he supports BLM. I accept that.
I'm not sure where you are getting the ideas from that I am telling JBG I am the authority of what he believes and telling him he believes those things?
So you are doing that to me Boot.

[RZehr]

Really, this ugly name-calling just needs to stop. JBG is no Marxist. He is not supporting Marxism. And neither are most black people who protest against police brutality and racism. Or the white people who are protesting with them.

1. I don’t recall you carrying too much about the Plain church being called racist by JBG. If not explicitly, I think it fair to compare it with him being called Marxist. Both are being implied.
2. What in particular is evil about being called a Marxist?

[joshuabgood]

Really, this ugly name-calling just needs to stop. JBG is no Marxist. He is not supporting Marxism. And neither are most black people who protest against police brutality and racism. Or the white people who are protesting with them.

1. I don’t recall you carrying too much about the Plain church being called racist by JBG. If not explicitly, I think it fair to compare it with him being called Marxist. Both are being implied.
2. What in particular is evil about being called a Marxist?

I don't know that I expressly said the plain church is racist, though I did indicate that the fact that it is 90% white ethnic enclaves is problematic, so perhaps that is a reasonable inference at some level, in a systemic way. And I don't really disagree.

Regarding Marx, it is mostly inaccurate I think. Marx believed fundamentally in violent revolution. I reject that categorically. Marx advocated for atheism, I reject that. The only portion that dovetails is...I am somewhat sympathetic to how Marx described worldly power and how it relates to social problems. So his critique has some validity but I reject in toto his solutions.

[RZehr]

I don’t know anything about Marx except the he was important in communism. I assumed, as with most people, he had some good ideas, ideas that are not in conflict with Bible teaching and those were the ideas you espoused.

[GaryK]

Regarding Marx, it is mostly inaccurate I think. Marx believed fundamentally in violent revolution. I reject that categorically. Marx advocated for atheism, I reject that. The only portion that dovetails is...I am somewhat sympathetic to how Marx described worldly power and how it relates to social problems. So his critique has some validity but I reject in toto his solutions.

Maybe a little bit like Candace Owen's critiques of worldly power and how it relates to social problems?

[Neto]

... the plain church ... is 90% white ethnic enclaves is problematic ....

As a person with "pioneer missionary" experience, I am somewhat trouble by this statement. Certainly in the case of any group or congregation that is seeking to reach out-group persons, I can identify with this idea, but since people tend to gravitate to their own culture group for modes of religious expression, one might expect a rather monolithic culture (such as that which I have at any rate witnessed in the Swiss Brethren - Beachy-background congregation to which we belong here in Holmes County, Ohio) to be gaining new members all most entirely from their own culture group. To what extent is the "plain church" a part of the dominant culture in their particular geographical settings? Here in Holmes County the Amish - Mennonite-of-Amish-Heritage culture is in some sense the dominant culture. In many places of business here you could achieve all of your shopping needs without speaking a single word of "normal English". (It is, however, becoming less so. I know some Amish families whose children speak English as a first language, and according to the parents, do not speak "P German" well.)

But I was thinking primarily in terms of our experiences with the Banawa people in Brazil. 'Outsiders' from the near-by (up to several hours or more in a canoe and then on a trail, depending on the season) sometimes visited the village, and then the services were adapted somewhat to their presence, partly in Portuguese, but still predominantly in Banawa. The church there is 100% Banawa. I know many tribal villages that are like this. I have also been involved in Indian Training Workshops where half a dozen or more languages were represented, and then of course the language was Portuguese, everyone's second (or third, etc) language. A larger tribe near the Banawa (about 10 days travel by canoe) (as well as the Banawa themselves) have a keen interest in an uncontacted tribe (which is in the same language family), to take the Gospel to them. But none of these Christians would expect new Christians of this other tribe to be integrated into their own congregations.

So I'm not really disagreeing, it's just a hesitation in thinking that way (that it is a 'problem' that the 'plain church' tends to be culturally monolithic). Maybe the Apostle Paul is simply a poor example, but even while he sought to "be all things to all people", he remained a Jew, with Jewish practices and cultural behaviors. But regardless of his cultural & linguistic blunders, he had this thing right - he emphasized the training and choosing of men of each cultural group where he & his team traveled with the Gospel - men to take leadership in those places, in their own cultural settings. To some degree, I see the desire to 'absorb' people of other cultural groups into our own congregations as itself problematic, IF in the process these persons are then discouraged from finding their own cultural expression of faith & worship. (I'm not talking necessarily about a purposeful intent to do this, but does the process force THEM to adapt to some sort of half-way, meet-in-the-middle Christian experience, instead of a full-out in-group expression of their faith?)

[Wade]

Maybe my view is tainted because of my experience:
So far every single person whether Christian or non who is pro Black Lives Matters or black lives do matter quickly throws accusations (typically racist) at anyone who doesn't completely agree.
And most people I have interacted with including a bunch of atheists are quoting people under attack who have said things like, "We are all one race under God!"
So really I am excited that so many of my atheist friends are turning from media influences to considering Christ - I just hope that none of them come in contact with any "Christians" that would rather magnify skin colour than magnify that with God we are one race.