Restorative Faith - Race Conversations Virtual Event

[joshuabgood]

Tomorrow evening, at 7:00 PM on FB live a conversation around race relations and race reconciliation from a conservative Anabaptist perspective is taking place. You will not want to miss it...even if you are one of the one's on the "other side" of our recent race conversations, I urge you to tune in. It can be followed at the public FB page linked below. (I am not speaking, but was privileged to be part of the organizing conversation - I was asked to sing a song, "We shall Overcome" to close it out=). The goal and speakers are as follows:



Goals & Purpose:

A group of Anabaptist believers seeking
1. Unity in the Body of Christ: To provide a safe space to support those dealing with varying race perspectives and relationships in Anabaptist churches
2. Awareness of our perspectives while in search of Biblical responses: To provide educational resources for Biblical responses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Virtual Event meeting - Thursday, July 2 @ 7 - 9:30 pm EST
Hosted via Zoom and FB Live - more details to follow

Moderator - Damian Allert - (Followers of Jesus Mennonite Church NYC - good friend of mine)
Social Justice & Theology Context - Lowell (Followers of Jesus Mennonite Church NYC - good friend of mine - life long community organizer and social worker)
Historical Context - Harlan Barnhart (Our very own MN Barnhart - also a good friend of mind)
Personal Context/Experiences - Eric Miller, Bernalda (Lily) Allert, Jason McFarlane (Folks or color from the CA sphere)
What’s Lacking in our Local Church Body? - Keeshon Washington, Asher Witmer (Keeshon activist of color in the CA world, and Asher Witmer, influencer, and part of church planting for years in Los Angeles)
What’s Needed to Awaken the Church? - Jon Kulp, Daniel & June Pollard (Pastors from NYC - great mentors to me for years both of them)
Q&A time - Damian Allert
Potential next steps & Resources - Malinda Eberly, Annlyn Kulp (Anabaptist social activists/social workers)
Song & Prayer - Josh Good (yours truly)

https://www.facebook.com/events/2336100183349530/

[HondurasKeiser]

Thanks for the invite JBG. Is there any chance it will be aired on a different medium as well? I don’t have FB and am not sure if I’ll be able to see it.

[joshuabgood]

Thanks for the invite JBG. Is there any chance it will be aired on a different medium as well? I don’t have FB and am not sure if I’ll be able to see it.

The link is a public page...so I don't think you will need any FB account...just a link click. (I can also perhaps get you the Zoom link...we have some capacity for that - and I may see if I can air it on my youtube live also).

Josh

[HondurasKeiser]

Thanks for the invite JBG. Is there any chance it will be aired on a different medium as well? I don’t have FB and am not sure if I’ll be able to see it.

The link is a public page...so I don't think you will need any FB account...just a link click. (I can also perhaps get you the Zoom link...we have some capacity for that - and I may see if I can air it on my youtube live also).

Josh

Thank you!

[Dan Z]

This was really a good and challenging event Joshua. I especially appreciated the breadth of perspectives represented. I suspect that among the more valuable benefits of the even was the chance for participants to hear the personal stories of the people of color in our midst...their pain and their resilience and their grace was moving.

Bridge-building is Kingdom endeavor.

Thanks for the invite.

[joshuabgood]

This was really a good and challenging event Joshua. I especially appreciated the breadth of perspectives represented. I suspect that among the more valuable benefits of the even was the chance for participants to hear the personal stories of the people of color in our midst...their pain and their resilience and their grace was moving.

Bridge-building is Kingdom endeavor.

Thanks for the invite.

A personal testimony is indeed a powerful witness. I was encouraged and challenged also.

I would urge us all, as Daniel Pollard mentioned last night, reach out to the black people who you know. Ask them these questions regarding how/if they experience systemic racism/white supremacy, what they think racial reconciliation/restitution entails, etc. That is bridge building. The frustration Daniel has felt when he sees people going to Candace Owens et al, for answer regarding the black community, when he has been right there the whole time if folks wanted to find out, was poignant. And his and June's call for the CA church to wake up. Also the point about rejecting colorblindness, that Eric Miller mentioned, was compelling. The fact that only the majority color can really afford to be color blind. It sounds good and sensible, if you are white. And Harlan's points about the history of white supremacy and white privilege in this country. And Keeshon's testimony about missions and challenging us to scriptural hospitality was convicting to me. And Jason M's reminder of valuing cultural background etc. Not to mention the scriptural backing for social justice presented by Lowell.

[queserasera_2]

I watched and shared. Excellent discussion. I would like to hear one on the topic of transracial adoption in the anabaptist world. There are a lot of conversations going on about it in the world at large but few of the voices are Christian.

[appleman2006]

I was privileged to have been able to listen to at least the last part of the live broadcast but before I get into a few comments about it I do have an apology to make in regards to something I said in another thread a number of days back. I have not got on here since hence why it took so long.

I had commented on a thread, I forget which one because they all start to blur together, that I do not think the whole intermarriage thing is a big deal in this generation among at least moderate conservative Anabaptists and I gave a few anecdotes related to my own close personal experiences. Well, not more than a few days after that on my FB thread I came across two people who made it quite clear they felt interracial marriages were not only unwise but wrong.
I do not know these men. I do not know for sure even if they are or ever were conservative Anabaptists although their last names make them at least suspect. They were both from the US. I still think it is not a big deal in the circles I move in and that most people would be shocked at such attitudes as much as I was. But obviously it is still a problem in your country.

One of the quotes that really stuck with me was from the older brother from New York who said that he often gets the feeling that people are quite willing to accept him as a brother but not as a brother-in-law.

Well put me down as someone who feels that is very very wrong and chalk me up at the front of the line to speak out against stuff like that.

But here are my first impressions of what I heard. Unfortunately due to the fact that my wife had prepared an amazing chicken dinner I missed the first part. I still hope to go back and listen to it when I have a chance. I broke in just at the beginning of Ashur going into a long dialogue which got a bit boring for me because I probably had missed the context. I will admit that it kind of got me off on the wrong foot as I have been told by people such as Ashur that we need to do more listening to people of colour and here I had come on to do that and now was being kept from it. But be that as it may.

But it did get better. However the more I listened the more I decided that the problems that need addressing in the conservative Anabaptist church are not racial in nature nearly as much as they are cultural across the board. As i listened to the various people speak and give examples and stories from their lives it sounded very very much like the stories I have heard over and over again from first generation Mennonites here on MN and MD. The fact that we have turned the church into a cultural haven where we all have experienced the same things more or less, we look the same. we have the same last names, we have the same interests and work ethic, the same expectations of each other is IMO a failure of huge proportions.

It is not surprising. I think the human beings natural tendency is to feel most comfortable with those that look and sound the most like we do but it certainly is not what Christ called the church to be. And until we get that past out thick skulls no amount of good intentions will ever change anything.
I am not saying that to a person of colour it will not seem like they are not being fully accepted because of their race but from what I heard I am guessing that a blond Scotsman might on average find just as many things that would keep them from feeling at home in too many of our groups. In summary I really believe that our primary problem is less racial in nature than it is simply a horrible fear of change and being very comfortable in our long accepted sameness. We have made a doctrine out of uniformity that does anything but unite in the way Christ would have us be united.

Josh I know you are going to see me as a stubborn old guy but it is partly because of the above that I hold fast to the idea that ultimately if we are ever going to be the Church that Christ envisions we need to become colour blind. All of us, as hard as that may be for some. But please let me explain. Colour blindness does not mean we do not listen to the individual experience. Not at all. Rather it means we do listen to each individual experience without preconceived ideas that someone has automatically experienced such and such or thinks such and such a way because he might be brown skinned. Until all of us learn to first and foremost see each other as expressions of the image of God there will never be any understanding. I am as firm in that as I ever was. That does not mean I will not celebrate your heritage with you if you want me too. It does not mean that I am not interested in your unique set of experiences. It simply means I will treat you no better or no worse that any other brother, Period.

May God help all of us on this continued journey.

[RZehr]

Very good Appleman.
One thing you mentioned that has been getting stuck in my craw a bit, is the color blind thing. It wasn’t that long ago that the political left preached that color blindness was where everyone needed to attain. That only them could we fix racism. And it was the conservative right that resisted that because they felt it was honest to see color, it just was evil to treat or think of others as less because of skin color. Over time, as the country moved to the left, it quieted down, and the political right tended to become colorblind as they moved left into the void once inhabited by the political left, as the left moved on into further left, greener, pastures. Of course this steady, slow, shift happens on most all social issues over time.
What is special about this particular issue of color blindness, is that instead of moving into new, further left territory, the left kept turning left, and ends up back at the starting line.

You’d think this was NASCAR. To much more of this, and the left will be NASCAR fans and rainbow and BLM flags will be at the Indy 500, and the people on the right will be talking about the bigotry of NASCAR fans.

[joshuabgood]

Very good Appleman.
One thing you mentioned that has been getting stuck in my craw a bit, is the color blind thing. It wasn’t that long ago that the political left preached that color blindness was where everyone needed to attain. That only them could we fix racism. And it was the conservative right that resisted that because they felt it was honest to see color, it just was evil to treat or think of others as less because of skin color. Over time, as the country moved to the left, it quieted down, and the political right tended to become colorblind as they moved left into the void once inhabited by the political left, as the left moved on into further left, greener, pastures. Of course this steady, slow, shift happens on most all social issues over time.
What is special about this particular issue of color blindness, is that instead of moving into new, further left territory, the left kept turning left, and ends up back at the starting line.

You’d think this was NASCAR. To much more of this, and the left will be NASCAR fans and rainbow and BLM flags will be at the Indy 500, and the people on the right will be talking about the bigotry of NASCAR fans.

Did you watch the video? If not I would recommend listening to Eric Miller's testimony regarding the problem with color blindness. If you did listen to it, do you mind what portion of his points you disagreed with?