A new dictionary to help you understand social justice jargon

If you need a dictionary to keep up with all the language changes and inventions of the (mostly) leftist social justice warriors, try https://newdiscourses.com/translations-from-the-wokish/ James Lindsay who also has a podcast provides citations and quotes from the original sources, which is also what any good dictionary does. For instance, a "birthing person" is a mother who does not see herself as a woman, but on an ideological plane its use is to weaken the core pillar of the family and religion (I've condensed about 3 paragraphs). Not all terms are linked, I suppose because he's still working on it and knows the word being used.

Why are our churches talking justice and racial reconciliation now—it’s trendy and they are woke?

2020 wasn't about George Floyd. BLM was launched in 2014 by three lesbian feminists steeped in Marxism.

"Homicide is the leading cause of death for young black men in the U.S., and around 90 percent of the perpetrators are also black. Yet for months [2014] we’ve had protesters nationwide pretending that our morgues are full of young black men because cops are shooting them. Around 98 percent of black shooting deaths do not involve police. In fact, a cop is six times more likely to be shot by someone black than the opposite. The protestors are pushing a false anti-cop narrative, and everyone from the president [Obama] on down has played along.” . . . Jason Riley https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/race-relations-and-law.../

• When did we pray for the millions of babies aborted?
• When did we hear sermons on bitter divorces and the need for understanding and acceptance? In fact, when did we ever even hear a sermon about marriage?
• When did we pray for all the families who’d lost loved ones from cancer or heart disease as we do for Covid19?
• When did we as a congregation ask for justice for the trafficked child or abused woman?
• When the Columbus police were told to stand down during the summer riots, did our church collect money for the damaged or destroyed businesses?

Yes, we need reconciliation, but it’s between members, not races.

Social Justice

What is storytelling?

Lately I’ve been hearing/reading the expression “telling the story” or “story telling to fight injustice,” “the narrative,” . . . as in  “young people can bring about social justice by simply telling the stories of who they are and what they have experienced.”  https://pj.news.chass.ncsu.edu/2016/06/06/making-change-by-changing-the-story/

Really?  That’s all it takes? When I watched Christiane Amanpour interview the British woman last night, the Brit used the expression about “telling our story” several times.  I have no idea what that means other than entertainment value like the “moth porch stories” we’ve begun at Lakeside, or listening to learn more about family.

“The goal [of a non-profit for young people] is to creating programming that allows for young people to tell the story of “what it is to grow up economically poor, Black and brown in this country, to be educated in poor schools, to be in communities that are inundated with drugs and violence, but to overcome that.” That ability to take back the narrative of who they are develops a strong sense of empowerment within young people that allows them to “form a moral and ethical code – who they are as young people – helps them become leaders and social change makers” in a cycle that continues to fight poverty decade after decade. These youth then end up seeking out roles in their communities and abroad, continuing the narrative that young people can bring about social justice by simply telling the stories of who they are and what they have experienced."

Twenty five years ago I had prepared a family story and cook book for a Corbett reunion, and was chatting with my Aunt Lois who died two weeks ago at 92.  Different members had brought along old photographs to share, and there was one of her in the late 1930s, heighth of the Great Depression. She looked fabulous.   I made a comment about the family being poor, and she laughed (she had the greatest laugh in the whole family) and said—“We had no idea we were poor.  In the Depression everyone was poor.”

So I’m wondering how encouraging children to look at their homes, schools and neighborhoods as being victims of a cruel society helps them achieve, get good jobs, find the right life partner, and raise a family.

John Rawls vs. Martin Luther King, Jr.

John Rawls, not Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), is the theorist/philosopher/author who most defines liberalism in the U.S. today.  President Clinton, just a decade after King's death, awarded Rawls (1921-2002) the National Humanities Medal saying he had been the most dominant figure in 40 years in shaping American thought.  In doing so, he moved us forever from King's vision of a community of love based on reconciliation, forgiveness, repentance and friendship to a "justice is fairness," but fairness as defined by Rawls, an atheist, and his followers without considering King's Bible based justice. Rawls believed that if we have consensus, and we can agree to disagree about life’s most fundamental questions, then hatred, bigotry, violence, persecution, and intolerance will be eliminated. As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that working out for you?" We've been at war the entire eight years of the Obama administration and most of the younger Bush administration. We've got riots, burning down cities, lack of participation in the labor force, ballooning student debt, regulations holding back job growth,  massive protests, laws about using bathrooms and locker rooms, and laws that put bakers and florists out of business for their religious beliefs. Tolerance, fairness, consensus and principles are just dictionary words to be learned so we can read an old history book.

"Today, Rawls’s theory—which defends the principles of egalitarianism, toleration, consensus politics, and societal fairness—informs much of contemporary liberalism’s aspirations, constitutional interpretations, domestic policies, and public rhetoric. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the principles behind such laws as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, are most thoroughly argued by John Rawls. Much the same can be said of the Supreme Court’s reference to the “evolving understanding of the meaning of equality” in the 2013 same-sex marriage case, U.S. v. Windsor. Rawls’s silent influence has been immense.

Rawls believes that by rethinking America’s first principles we can make our world better. The difficulty, as he sees it, is that American society is filled with many competing notions of the good life and therefore different views of justice. This, in turn, leads to conflict. Rawls’s resolution is to define a theory of justice upon which everyone could agree without having to give up their personal convictions about the good life."http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/08/john-rawls-theorist-of-modern-liberalism

So a man you've probably never heard of is influencing everything you think and do and the air you breath every day, and one you've learned about in school or watched on TV when he was alive has been all but forgotten.

Dear Liberal Christian,

Your heart may be in the right place, but your hand is in my purse.  All studies show that marriage of the parents of children is the #1 way to reduce poverty in the U.S.A. With married parents, a child has only about 8% chance of being raised in poverty. A better house, or a better education doesn't do it. Lunch programs from USDA distributed by church volunteers doesn't make a dent. Social justice workshops and summits for sure don't either, except maybe to tamp down a little liberal guilt if the Bible falls open to Matthew 25.

 

Salvation Army is pro-life except when it isn’t

Makes exceptions for disability (over 90% of Down Syndrome babies are aborted); health of the mother; rape or incest. We pulled our check out of the pile today and tore it up.

The position from their website:

The Salvation Army believes all people are created in the image of God and therefore have unique and intrinsic value. Human life is sacred and all people should be treated with dignity and respect. The Salvation Army accepts the moment of fertilisation as the start of human life. We believe that society has a responsibility to care for others, and especially to protect and promote the welfare of vulnerable people, including unborn children.

The Salvation Army believes that life is a gift from God and we are answerable to God for the taking of life. As such, The Salvation Army is concerned about the growing ready acceptance of abortion, which reflects insufficient concern for vulnerable persons including the unborn. We do not believe that genetic abnormalities that are identified in an unborn child who is likely to live longer than a brief period after birth are sufficient to warrant a termination of pregnancy.

The Salvation Army recognizes tragic and perplexing circumstances that require difficult decisions regarding a pregnancy. Decisions should be made only after prayerful and thoughtful consideration, acknowledging the tremendous pressures that occur during an unexpected pregnancy. There is a responsibility on all involved to give the parents of the unborn child, particularly the woman, appropriate pastoral, medical and other counsel. The Salvation Army believes that termination can occur only when

• Carrying the pregnancy further seriously threatens the life of the mother; or

• Reliable diagnostic procedures have identified a foetal abnormality considered incompatible with survival for more than a very brief post natal period.

In addition, rape and incest are brutal acts of dominance violating women physically and emotionally. This situation represents a special case for the consideration of termination as the violation may be compounded by the continuation of the pregnancy.

The Salvation Army affirms and supports professional people engaged in the care of pregnant women who feel on religious, moral or ethical grounds, that they cannot be involved in any way with the procuring or undertaking of an abortion.

The lying and stealing commandments as practiced by ABCNews

This account of Glenn Beck cautioning his listeners about the "social justice" scams in the name of the Gospel is pretty much a lie about stealing, but that's what happens when you don't listen to Glenn Beck--you just read the filters.

Anyone who's ever read the Old or New Testaments knows there's not a smidgen of advice, commandment or admonition about taking money from the rich through government which got it through taxes or take-overs to "help" your fellow man. But many churches and their non-profit para-church arms regularly take government grants in a Faustian contract not to mention their religious beliefs, then preach diversity, sustainability, justice and whatever from the pulpit. Now, during the Bush administration, the liberal churches were all over President Bush for his conservative Methodist beliefs. Believe that sex should be reserved for marriage? Abstinance programs? Yikes. Marriage of a man and woman? That's just horrible!! That's obviously a violation of separation of church and state (which isn't in the constitution) because sexual purity is a religious, worthless, impossible to achieve concept. Sanctity of life? That's violating women's bodies in the name of religion, since everyone knows a fetus is a parasite without rights. Dr. Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Desmund Tutu are brought up as examples of "social justice" by Jim Wallis in this story. But I don't recall them taking government money, do you? In fact, the U.S. government kept a pretty close eye on Dr. King and Democrats tried to destroy him. Glenn would be in perfect agreement that theirs was a life style all religious people should seek, using their own resources, own time, and own beliefs.

Will she find a wise Latina doctor

Rush asked today in commenting on the unfortunate accident of Judge Sotomayor

The White House says Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has broken her ankle after an airport stumble in New York City.

Sotomayor fractured her right ankle Monday morning at New York's LaGuardia Airport before boarding a shuttle to Washington for an afternoon of meetings with senators.

He was being snarky, but health is all about disparities and minorities being included in the medical system. In fact, if you read American Journal of Public Health (recent issues only contain table of contents, but older ones have full articles) the only problems the minorities and poor in the U.S. have are caused by discrimination and evil capitalists. Diseases, except for race based HIV, seem to be a thing of the past, as is personal responsibility.

Obama and The PAJAMA Christians

No, I'm not referring to Christian bloggers, of which there are thousands, maybe millions. Or Christians who secretly are watching porn, listening to phone sex or gambling in their home offices at night on the internet. Or baggie pants Christians eschewing or setting current fashion trends chasing hip-hop idols. I'm talking about Peace-and-Justice-and-More-Aid ChristiansThe Christian reformers of the 15th-16th century had two problems with God's Word. First, they had to get it into the language of the people through direct translation and paraphrase from Greek and Hebrew into German, or English or French in a way that people could understand the simple, clear meaning of the Gospel. Second they needed to liberate scripture from the encrusted allegories that spiritualized or created retellings of Greek and Roman myths covering up the clear word of the Gospel, particularly in the Old Testament.

Over the years, scripture again became entangled in a variety of "correct" translations (with some American Christians believing only the KJV is acceptable, which is tough on speakers of French, Russian, Navajo, etc.) and fascination with prophecy with cherry picking of verses for seven dispensations and times of The Rapture, to extreme pietism that requires women to dress or fix their hair in a certain way or men not to use technological advancements (no TV but computers are OK), or scholarly treatises so dull and obscure with multiple editors and authors of various books of the Bible, they send the parishioner fleeing the pew into the waiting arms of the atheists, humanists or government program that promises to save the world.

The gospel preached from Jeremiah Wright's pulpit may have shocked some, but a quieter version of liberation theology has been recycled through American churches for years--actually predates Black Liberation Theology. PAJAMA Christians turn Christ into Moses, and he's not just leading them in some exodus from evil, Satanic capitalism. He's got a long list of rules to create a just kingdom on earth. However, instead of personal belief, behavior or sacrifice, they want the government to bring in the kingdom through our ever more bloated programs supported by taxes. (From my pocket to Washington, to a government employee, back to Ohio, to a government employee, then to a trust fund for the poor, to the pocket of a government employee with a few bucks left over for the poor.)

The Gospel isn't difficult, but you would think so, as seldom as it is preached, taught or sung either by conservatives or liberals. Luther writes in "A brief instruction on what to look for and expect in the Gospels":

For at its briefest, the gospel is a discourse about Christ, that he is the Son of God and became man for us, that he died and was raised, that he has been established as a Lord over all things. . . . Just as there is no more than one Christ, so there is and may be no more than one gospel. . . .Thus when Isaiah in chapter 53 says how Christ should die for us and bear our sins, he has written the pure gospel. And I assure you, if a person fails to grasp this understanding of the gospel, he will never be able to be illuminated in the Scripture nor will he receive the right foundation. . .

You should grasp Christ, his words, works and sufferings in a twofold manner. First as an example that is presented to you which you should follow and imitate. . . However this is the smallest part of the gospel, on the basis of which it cannot yet even be called gospel. For on this level Christ is of no more help to you than some other saint. . . before you take Christ as an example, you accept and recognize him as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own. . . .when you have Christ as the foundation and chief blessing of your salvation, then the other part follows: that you take him as your example, giving yourself in service to your neighbor just as you see that Christ has given himself for you."

Obama has promised to undo the "faith based initiatives" the federal and state governments now use to rebuild and change society by requiring "nondiscriminatory" hiring. This in fact means for Christians, their organizations would become non-Christian. Christian non-profits have become so dependent on the government for funding, using their own funds to build bigger campuses, I suspect most would rather give up the Gospel than give up their own idea of what the gospel is--i.e., helping people through government grants, most of which go to pay their staff, keep their buildings open, and provide an outlet for volunteerism and service for their members to feel more holy.

Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings edited by Timothy F. Lull is google scanned.

Asia's new threat

Is it an increase in cancer, or is it the social justice crowd looking for a cause. This looks a bit odd to me.

"Asia is on the cusp of a cancer epidemic of unprecedented proportions. Projections suggest that the number of new cases of cancer in Asia will increase from 4·5 million in 2002 to 7·1 million by 2020 if existing prevention and management strategies remain unchanged." Lancet Asia Medical Forum 2007 [may require registration]

Is there really more cancer, or is there just better screening, diagnosis, and treatment, like the breast cancer scare tactics (the increase is really better screening which finds lumps earlier)? OK, here it is. We knew this was coming, despite the unproven connection between industrialization and cancers (unless you count factory-made cigarettes, commercially prepared, high calorie foods, and plants which produce alcoholic beverages).

"The rapid rate of economic development in some Asian countries, along with the accompanying industrialisation and urbanisation, are contributing to an ever-increasing risk of common cancers."

Does this sound like a reason for rich western environmentalists to discourage development in Third World countries? God forbid that any country would ever aspire to the standard of living of a Norway or Germany.

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Liberal Christians who speak in tongues

The editorial last week in our SNP (neighborhood) papers by Lyndsey Teter was titled "Can Columbus churches unite to end poverty?" made me think of Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth (ca. 53 A.D.). Corinth was a wealthy city with a global commerce and a flourishing art center. I don't think the tiny Christian church necessarily participated in or built that wealth, but the Christians were exposed to it and suffered under its pagan influence, much like Christians today suffer and scatter under the influences of our hyper-sexualized, hyper-materialistic culture. It's hard to always know what local problems he was addressing since we don't have their letter to him, but we know this--pride in certain types of gifts and behavior when they gathered for worship was one of them, and Paul addresses this in Chapter 14.

Ms. Teeter first tells us that Columbus churches of various traditions will join for a revival on April 16 and set their faces to fight poverty in a "justice revival." It is being led by Jim Wallis of Sojourners, who "has come to represent the Christian left, a counter to right-wing pastors such as Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church. . ." [if there is a pastor representing liberal churches who are silent on the Gospel, she doesn't provide a name]. After 3 days of praise and worship, the Christians will fan out to do service projects. So far, I'm underwhelmed because every Christian I know, liberal and conservative, mentors, or visits the sick and elderly, or works with Habitat, or Big Brothers, or Kairos Prison Ministry, etc.

Then she continues: ". . .getting left-leaning and right-leaning Christians united under one banner may be its larger accomplishment. . . half in the pews believe fearlessly protecting the unborn and the sanctity of marriage are tops on the agenda, while the tree-hugging hippy Christians like myself think leaders have alienated potential church-goers by pushing those two issues to the surface. Improving the social conditions of people in this world ought to be far more important, we say."

This is a well-meaning liberal Christian "speaking in tongues," code for all the social justice language and meaningless programming we've come to expect from guilt ridden Christians who struggle with having more when some have less. Read her words carefully (and she's far more accurate than most journalists). Her error is this: Conservative churches are the ones growing; studies show conservative Christians are the ones that give sacrificially. Not only do they give to their own churches to support staff and programs, but they also are more motivated to give to non-religious, helping organizations like United Way and Red Cross. As individuals, they have left the seeker status and have moved on to response mode.

What I remember most from my years in the liberal church is that everyone was always looking for the TRUTH and never hearing it from the pulpit or in Sunday School or small social groups. So they would join Vaud-Villities or run for breast cancer or jingle a pail for Charity Newsies and hope that counted for something. They were like starving little chicks, peeping and pecking away at the rocks of government programs, pebbles of good works and gravel of mystical seances, while the beckoning plump mother hen with the Gospel clucked and called from nearby.

What makes her think that Christians of all stripes are not speaking to each other unless an outsider from DC brings us together? I regularly meet with other Christians who are pro-choice and believe in evolution. Their beliefs do not represent mine, nor mine theirs. I get e-mails about end-times and the rapture, and special healing and herbal recipes, also from well-meaning Christians.

Yet Lyndsey Teter says potential church-goers are being pushed away by stances [of conservatives] on gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia. Where? Membership and growth figures prove her wrong. Why not point out the potential church-goers who are put off by what they hear and find in liberal churches? It's terribly hard for a church to grow if it has no message except commissioning a task force to end hunger or hymns to a clean environment and a Mother-Father primal parent [God]. Potential members can join a non-profit or NGO and keep Sunday open for leisure and sports if that's the extent of the message.

In their zeal to "get along" or "make a difference," conservative churches often wander away from their core truth, the message of God's redemption plan for mankind, believing and preaching it as a good starting point instead of the whole point. I hope this event is not a sign that this is happening in Columbus to some of our larger, more dynamic evangelical churches.

Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. . . Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church."

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Wanted: a full time trouble maker?

Why does Columbus, OH need a full time "Mexico Solidarity Network – Activist?" Hmmm. Solidarity. Where have we heard that term before (definition)? I was just browsing the OSU publication Que pasa (translation: wha's happening bro?) and saw this job opening for a position that reports to the "Executive Director," and "Maintains regular communication between the Commission and the vast array of Hispanic/Latino-serving community based organizations (CBO’s) statewide." I'm not sure which "commission" is referred to, but there is a link to Amnesty International for the application materials.

"The Mexico Solidarity Network struggles [oh yeah] for democracy, economic justice and human rights on both sides of the US-Mexico border [you need to try a little harder in Mexico]. Civil society must take the leading role in fomenting [we hear ya] social change by developing democratic spaces [i.e. the southwestern USA then north to Ohio] and empowered communities that are outside of party/establishment structures, but always interacting with those structures. The Mexico Solidarity Network is a grassroots-based organization [I'll bet!] dedicated to profound social change [you mean like in Russia and China in the 20th century?] that challenges existing power relationships [US government] and builds alternatives."

This isn't the only job opening with Marxist red flags (no pun intended) listed in Que Pasa, but you can check it out for yourself.