Josh wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:25 am
In this society it wasn't until 1919 or so, the year my grandmother was born, that women were thought "capable" of discerning who to vote for.
Hmm. As a plain Anabaptist, I don’t think Christians should vote. Worrying about women voting is analogous to if joshuabgood were gravely concerned that women aren’t subject to the military draft.
Josh, as a proponent of “suffering love”, do you think Christian woman should exercise their vote to right for and against candidates?
Lastly, in fact, I do advocate for safe spaces for people who deal with gender identify questions or homosexual predispositions. And yes, they are in our midst but usually don't feel safe to express what they are dealing with. And yes, in a school of near 400 students, over the course of 7 years, we have had students that fit that description, as well as parents. They are real people with names. They matter. They are image bearers.
… so you believe as a Christian you should create safe spaces where being openly homosexual or transsexual is tolerated, affirmed, and celebrated?
That’s what safe spaces are about and what they do. The reason I know is because I once too had a rainbow placquard pinned to my cubicle, advertising my domain as a “safe space”.
Right, the 'opening of a space' for marginalized voices is a praxis that comes out of the critical line of inquiry first explored by the Frankfurt School and that now abounds in the academy in the various 'critical theories'. The point of such a space is not simply to make one feel welcome or free to express themselves or even safe in the sense that, one might feel safe from violence there. That is a traditional (not critical) understanding of a place or institution that is open, liberal, tolerant or even a refuge. That is what JBG seems to be describing when he tells us the type of institution he's trying to build at EMS which I think by-and-large, is laudable. The critical use of 'Safe Space' however, trades on the traditional understanding of the idea as described above but smuggles in some, I think, rather terrible ideas that do nothing to draw people together in love and mutual discourse. This I think, is what made Admiral Achbon so uncomfortable back on page 1 of this thread. A 'Safe Space', as is commonly found on college campuses, must intentionally decenter or 'marginalize' heretofore centered or unmarginalized voices i.e. white, male, cis-gendered, heterosexual, able-ist, Christian, wealthy voices. Often these spaces are reserved exclusively for marginalized folk such that people from the 'oppressor' classes are forbidden to enter or hounded out if they do e.g. multicultural centers closed to white people, black and gay only graduations and gay/trans only events. The reason for both of theses moves (decentering dominate voices and marginal-only spaces) is because a space cannot be truly safe if there is a voice that questions the assumptions that a marginalized voice puts forth. Indeed, there can be no true dialogue between a member of an oppressed class and someone from the oppressor classes because there is no common-ground of Truth. The most that an oppressor-class person can do is take a learning/listening posture (
read: keep quiet) and engage in self-reflection about their own inherited and unmerited privilege e.g. McIntosh's Knapsack Inventory, privilege walks, 'doing the work', engaging in ally-ship, etc. The more progressive spaces deny entrance to members of the oppressor classes lest their very presence make marginalized folk feel unsafe. Oft-times oppressor-class individuals can literally buy their way into these 'safe spaces' and we've seen this at work in the CHOP zone of Seattle and what are starting to become common, concerts and venues that charge more or only charge entrance fees for: white people, men, cis-folk, etc. Fundamentally a space that isn't celebratory, affirming, unquestioning and decentered is deemed 'unsafe' from a critical line of analysis and thus a place (say a non-welcoming/affirming church...or church school) that asks homosexuals to engage with biblical texts that are not supportive (to say the least) of homoerotic sex, or conforms to traditional notions of gender and pronoun use, or inquires about individual agency in black communities or declares abortion to be a moral horror, is doing literal violence to gay, trans, black and female (potential-pregnant-people?) bodies. There can be no room for mutual dialogue, mutual discernment of Truth and true, cross-group community because an oppressor-class person,
speaking as he
must from a cis-het-white-male-abled-Christian perspective, can only either stop speaking or continue to instantiate the various and interlocking systems of oppression that marginalized folk are trying to liberate themselves from. My perspective, my very identity is unsafe, is violence for and towards the marginalized of this world.
This then JBG is why, Josh, the Admiral and myself have offered such pushback against your doubling-down on the use of 'safe space' to describe the program you're enacting at EMS. Not because we disagree with your methods, broadly speaking, but because the term itself comes loaded with added layers of meaning that you, well-read and intelligent person that you are, are aware of and are either choosing to elide or ignore.