400 Years of African Slavery in America

[Josh]

You remind me of people who think that love is limited. Only in your case, care is limited.

There is plenty to occupy our minds with things going on today, including real injustices today.

Trying to unravel every injustice seven generations ago is a fool’s errand. Exactly how does doing so build the kingdom of heaven?

I suspect many people expect to get to heaven and then hope to sit and watch their enemies get judged.

Remind me why you're on a forum labeled "History"?

Discussing history is one thing. The 1619 project alleges that slavery is an ongoing ill in America and demands some kind of reparations based on the skin colour of the people involved for real or imagined ills in the distant past.

The thread title “400 years of slavery” is telling - it betrays the belief that somehow slavery, or its effects, is still going on today. (It is, but not race based chattels slavery.)

A lot of people need to move on from seeing everything through obsolete, out of data paradigms like seeing everything through a race lens. And the same goes for seeing everything through a 19th century America lens.

[Ken]

A lot of people need to move on from seeing everything through obsolete, out of data paradigms like seeing everything through a race lens. And the same goes for seeing everything through a 19th century America lens.

Speaking of seeing the world through a 19th Century lens. This is the Hymnal currently used by the Holdeman Church: https://hymnary.org/hymnal/CHCH1959

Out of the 657 songs in this hymnal, how many were written after 1900? And how many were written by non-white or female composers?

Who is it again that you think is living in the past?

[Josh]

A lot of people need to move on from seeing everything through obsolete, out of data paradigms like seeing everything through a race lens. And the same goes for seeing everything through a 19th century America lens.

Speaking of seeing the world through a 19th Century lens. This is the Hymnal currently used by the Holdeman Church: https://hymnary.org/hymnal/CHCH1959

Out of the 657 songs in this hymnal, how many were written after 1900? And how many were written by non-white or female composers?

Who is it again that you think is living in the past?

As I keep repeating, I don’t think anyone should sit around being resentful or angry about things that people did in the past who are dead now.

Is someone somewhere angry or resentful about old hymnals?

[Ken]

A lot of people need to move on from seeing everything through obsolete, out of data paradigms like seeing everything through a race lens. And the same goes for seeing everything through a 19th century America lens.

Speaking of seeing the world through a 19th Century lens. This is the Hymnal currently used by the Holdeman Church: https://hymnary.org/hymnal/CHCH1959

Out of the 657 songs in this hymnal, how many were written after 1900? And how many were written by non-white or female composers?

Who is it again that you think is living in the past?

As I keep repeating, I don’t think anyone should sit around being resentful or angry about things that people did in the past who are dead now.

Is someone somewhere angry or resentful about old hymnals?

Once again. History isn't about being angry or resentful about the past. It's about understanding the past. The only ones who are angry and resentful about things like the 1619 project are all the conservatives who are throwing a conniption fit about having their treasured myths questioned.

And yes, I expect you'd have a lot of angry and resentful old folks in your church if you took away their hymnals and told them to stop living in the past

[Haystack]

Out of the 657 songs in this hymnal, how many were written after 1900? And how many were written by non-white or female composers?

Would you enjoy the hymnals even more if they were written by non-white or female composers?

[justme]

let me see if i have this right.
as i understand josh, injustices that happened 5-7 generations ago need to be forgiven and forgotten. they are no longer relevant to the present. is this statement correct?

if the same injustice happened today to you, would it still need to be forgiven and forgotten before any justice was obtained? or if it happened to your parents, which is one generation?

when does it become relevant?

Sitting around being angry about events hundreds of years ago is foolish and is also decidedly un-Christian, and leads nowhere except to wars, conflicts, and violence.

For those concerned about slavery, they should perhaps focus on modern day slavery, which is happening in far greater numbers than during America’s heyday of slavery in the 19th century. It seems especially foolish to be litigating the past whilst ignoring the atrocities of the present.

That does not answer the questions that i asked.

I do agree w the first sentence of your 2nd paragraph.

[Ken]

Out of the 657 songs in this hymnal, how many were written after 1900? And how many were written by non-white or female composers?

Would you enjoy the hymnals even more if they were written by non-white or female composers?

I enjoy a wide variety of music. I'm not interested limiting my musical listening and singing to a narrow batch of dusty 18th and 19th Century white male composers simply because those were the only songs included in a 60-year old hymnal.

My wider point is that we all live in the past in one way or the other. It is rather arrogant to pick and choose for others which aspects of the past should be honored and which should be discarded. Personally I find ancient Roman history to be fascinating. Some of it provides lessons for the present. Some doesn't. Nonetheless I find it fascinating. By contrast my wife thinks it is unbearably dry and boring.

I do find it curious and somewhat amusing that this 1619 project has set off such a moral panic among a lot of conservatives. Sacred oxen being gored I guess.

[ohio jones]

Out of the 657 songs in this hymnal, how many were written after 1900?

Somewhere between 46 and 233 (often the author's dates of birth and death are listed, rather than the date the song was written). Is this enough? Should people stop singing hymns written in the 19th century, just because?

And how many were written by non-white or female composers?

At least 150 or so were written by women. Is this enough?
At least one (#577) was written by a Black, though sometimes it's hard to tell from the name. Why is this not enough?

How many of the songs in Voices Together were written after 2000? Why is this not enough? How many were written by white male composers? Why is this too many?

It is rather arrogant to pick and choose for others which aspects of the past should be honored and which should be discarded.

QFT.

[Ken]

Out of the 657 songs in this hymnal, how many were written after 1900?

Somewhere between 46 and 233 (often the author's dates of birth and death are listed, rather than the date the song was written). Is this enough? Should people stop singing hymns written in the 19th century, just because?

And how many were written by non-white or female composers?

At least 150 or so were written by women. Is this enough?
At least one (#577) was written by a Black, though sometimes it's hard to tell from the name. Why is this not enough?

How many of the songs in Voices Together were written after 2000? Why is this not enough? How many were written by white male composers? Why is this too many?

It is rather arrogant to pick and choose for others which aspects of the past should be honored and which should be discarded.

QFT.

I don't presume to tell Josh or anyone else which aspects of history to honor and which to discard. Or which music to sing or listen to. I was merely making the point that his own church lives partly in the 19th Century when it comes to things like music and dress and probably a lot of other customs as well. I'm actually something of a history buff and most of it valuable and fascinating. I'm merely pushing back on the notion that we should disregard the past or that it is no longer relevant. It seems that Josh is the only one here really making those claims.

[Bootstrap]

let me see if i have this right.
as i understand josh, injustices that happened 5-7 generations ago need to be forgiven and forgotten. they are no longer relevant to the present. is this statement correct?

if the same injustice happened today to you, would it still need to be forgiven and forgotten before any justice was obtained? or if it happened to your parents, which is one generation?

when does it become relevant?

I have both The Martyr's Mirror and Fox's Book of Martyrs, which seem more relevant to this topic than hymnals. I have quite a few books about the Holocaust. I have read extensively about authoritarian regimes in Nazi Germany and in Communist Eastern Europe and Russia My Bible talks about the martyrdom of Stephen, slavery in Egypt, Cain and Abel, captivity in Babylon. These have shaped my faith and my understanding of who I am.

I do not read them because I am bitter, I do not read them because I want to attack Catholics or Germans or Egyptians or Babylonians. When I read them, I am not plotting a Marxist revolution. Nobody accuses me of these things when I read them. Why should it be different for black people in America?