Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Edgar Poe and King Have Me All-In On The Beijing Boycott

"The Poor People's Campaign has faded from historical memory. It remains the most overlooked part of King's legacy, Wilkins said. "It remains in the shadows because King rewrote the traditional civil rights script. As long as he fed Americans images of bigoted Southern sheriffs clubbing demonstrators, people could remain comfortable. But the Poor People's Campaign gave Americans a new cast of villains: themselves. Americans didn't want to look at the face of poverty, but King was going to force them."


Click here for more of the best article you've read in weeks.

Amazing, that the more the man marched towards the gospel, the more his closest friends began to desert him and even question his sanity.

Or maybe, that's exactly what happens when we lay hands on what this gospel really means.

I've been told before that I hate America. I sure hope this isn't true. Hate is an infectious disease. Who wants that in their system? Not me. But King hits on two things here that are vital to understanding why the American Mindset and the Kingdom will always be at odds with one another:

1. The "Make-Your-Own-Way" American Spirit looks a hell of a lot like what Christ called fundamentally, sin.

2. America sees absolutely NO NEED for forgiveness of any kind for the things, as a nation we've done. (See: Christopher Columbus, Native Americans, African Americans, Manifest Destiny, Women, the Spanish-American War, and most recently, the Beijing Games. (Buy one!)

Here's my point: The majority of Americans who profess to be believers hang their hat on their personal need for forgiveness. They hear it in sermons. They read it in books. They print it on T-shirts. They put it in songs. They train teenagers to go tell Mexicans about it. They see it as essential. And (hoorah!) they are correct!! They know, full well, that the bury-it-under- the-floorboards technique is deadly, that you cannot hide from the coming judgement:

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! - tear up the planks! here, here! - It
is the beating of his hideous heart!"

And yet, (AND YET!!!), these same folks, the very same who seem to grasp the fundamental importance of forgiveness, the very same who seem to see the futility of slapping shinola on shit, will defend, defend, and defend this nation's innocense as if it were a newborn child:

"I smiled, - for what had I to fear? I bade them search - search well. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim."

What they claim to understand for personal salvation they deny as a nation and thus they doom it. That's just insanity.

And not the good kind:





















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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

i am so excited to be angry again that i refuse to read this at work. so i will save it for the school library. a big "fuck you" fists rings best in the crowded halls of an academic institution. who knows, i might start a revolution on the heel of your launching revolutionary steps. here's to being pissed off! here's to being pissed off about more than hunter s. thompson!

P_J said...

The "Make-Your-Own-Way" American Spirit looks a hell of a lot like what Christ called fundamentally, sin.

Can you expand on what you mean here? I mean, the Bible clearly condemns greed, the rich oppressing the poor, and injustice, and calls on us to give to help those less fortunate. The Bible also clearly teaches that people should work to provide for themselves and their families, and condemns sloth and covetousness.

What is it that you're condemning?

zenner's said...

Again, speaking nationally rather than individually, it is the exaltation of independence that I take issue with and believe perpetuates poverty (more-so than laziness), oppression and much of our bloody history. Putting little worth in what other have to offer eventually leads to the mindset of 'what's mine is mine because I've earned it'. This runs wholly counter to the gospel which seems to always put the emphasis on sacrifice, service and the fact that dependence is at our core as the created.

How many times have we heard "The Spirit of Independence" as a chiefly American ideal? That smacks as demonic.

And your right, the bible does teach about the WIDSOM of hard work and the FOOLISHNESS of being lazy. I take absolutely no issue with this. But let’s not be naive. Jesus made pretty clear that our work is to be for the SERVICE and benefit of others, whether family or community. It’s that ideal that I don't see in the fabric of our nation. It's that idea that refuses to let me be ok with our inexcusable relations with China.

P_J said...

I'm definitely not down with China. I think we've been way too friendly with a brutally repressive regime. I'd be glad to boycott the Games -- but I think China's selection has more to do with the IOC than the USA, doesn't it?

As far as greed, materialism and selfishness, I basically agree with you, but I also think that's about what you'd expect from a non-Christian culture -- it's a reflection of our inherent Adamic sinfulness. But I think you may be a little hard on Americans. For all our many sins, we practice a lot of formal and informal generosity and have a pretty strong culture of volunteerism and civic-mindedness (although perhaps less than in previous generations). And our addressing poverty is complicated by our governmental assitance programs which help meet genuine needs, but also discourage healthy self-reliance and have destroyed poor urban families and communities.

Putting little worth in what other have to offer eventually leads to the mindset of 'what's mine is mine because I've earned it'.

This is the part I'm not understanding. If your concern is poverty, I'd suggest that the solution is providing people opportunity to study, work, and invest in their own futures to produce something of economic value to others. How else are people to earn an income, except by manufacture, service, or trade?

There are poeple who won't work, people who can't work, and people who try to keep others from working in order to hoard wealth for themselves.

I think our call as Christians is to speak up for the oppressed poor, to work for justice and equality of opporunity, and give to help meet others' needs. We rebuke those who won't work, help those who can't, resist those who put roadblocks in others' ways, and watch out for our own temptation towards greed.

Anonymous said...

honestly, and there will be nothing clever or witty in my comment - so i'm breaking all the major bloggerian rules with this - the whole beijing-boycott talk is a difficult one for me.

i know the issues here. i've seen, first hand, a great deal of these violations. one time we watched a truck load of prisoners being sent away to execution. there were sirens on the truck and a megaphone blasting the prisoners' names and crimes. my students told me what was happening. they would be shot in a field outside of town after they finished parading them through the streets. the shame was worse than death.

once a week, we shielded chinese christians in little homechurch meetings two doors down from my apartment. they sang their worship songs in whispers so they would not be heard.

a professor asked me to his house once, said he needed several shots of brandy before he could ask me the questions he wanted to ask. finally, he said, "i want to know about Jesus. all the chinese religious people denounce their religions before the communist party in our school meetings. the buddhists denounce buddha. the taoist denounce their meditations. but the christians, they will walk away from their jobs immediately. i have seen them lose their families for Jesus. explain this to me."

and i had a fellow chinese teacher tell me over beers that he was looking to leave the country, to escape if possible, because his wife wanted to die. she had just been forced into an abortion and the operation had injured her vagina.

i saw these things, i listened to these stories, and i stood on the beach there and experienced many things. this is a hard discussion for me. perhaps i too readily avoid it. and the fears that rise up in me when i look at those t-shirts, and the ease with which idealistic americans who have never sat in these people's homes and ridden their buses and baptized their heads in secret bathtubs - it is all a little too much for me. i feel quite lost in this whole thing. praying for china feels like asking God to dry up the ocean.

i know the issues here, but when i hear these messages about boycott-beijing something in me says that if we make it that simple we boycott the people. that sounds silly, and i am not a politically minded person, but our little american protest slogans erase so many beautiful things so easily.

and now, this will really sound uncool. i was in a church in south china. an open, registered church. and there was a small group of americans and british travelers meeting with a few chinese families. and i saw the chinese families ministering and praying over the americans and the british travelers. and they prayed for me in chinese, and i felt it in my gut. and when i turned to walk out there was this mural on the wall at the back of the church that sat me back down in the pews and that too entered my gut. there was the great wall, and it was covered with chinese people. some of the people had on military uniforms. some were field peasants. some were business people. and they were all looking up with their hands raised. and Jesus was descending on them. that picture is still in my gut.

yeah, i don't know what to do with all this. i guess i'm glad people are talking. and i trust you, jesse. and i'm glad you are talking. this was a good post. difficult for me in some places, but good. thanks for getting us talking.

travis said...

i think that many who defend the nation's innocense are just uninformed about the a) biblical need to justice and forgiveness for national sins, and b) what those national sins are that still lie waiting to be dealt with (the most notable example being the "native american" mess that's been swept under the rug.
i'm only willing to boycott the olympics if america gets a little christian persecution in our land for trade.

travis said...

please excuse the errors in my post.

Steph said...

J & C,
I loved getting to see you and your gorgeous son the other day!
J,
I heard you talking about some of the things you and Hampster have on your mind and am interested in it.
Hampster, we've never met but we have several mutual friends and I feel like your comments on this post gave me a little glimpse into your heart. I've never been to China, so all I can say is "I feel that too" when I read your reactions to what you experienced and when I read VOM reports and the personal experiences of Christians in China.
I look forward to hearing what the Lord leads you guys to do. I'll be praying.

Mr. Douglass said...

i'm telling all you people right now:

LEARN MANDARIN

like your life depends on it.

travis said...

Jesse-
I had a dream about you the other night and all I remember about it was that you were very skinny.
Travis

Anonymous said...

travis - that was me, dude. you were dreaming about me. naturally.

travis said...

he was almost your size.

Anonymous said...

What good will boycotting the Olympics do? If the Olympics are about peace, acceptance, and world unity, isn't China a great place to have it, in an attempt to spread those ideas to the Chinese? Turning our back on China will only encourage more people to extinguish the Olympic torch...which to me is just a sign of hate and anger...what kind of message does that send? I tell my 5th graders that the circle of hatred continues unless someone breaks it (not unless we react...I know I'm a Rage fan, but not because I agree with them all the time) Idealistically the olympians will go to China, spread feelings of peace and acceptance to the people, and maybe be an incredible outreach to a confused country. However, they will probably just go over there, hopped up on HGH trying to win some meaningless metals.
--Jeremy

Anonymous said...

i think i will start reading more books about baby food. whether it's baby food for super babies or for regular babies; either way, baby food reading could be almost as tasty as pureed turkey and jiblets. and i F-bombing love pureed turkey and jiblets.

(can't say real F-words when chatting up baby food. that's an adult sized abomination.)

zenner's said...

Usually the purposes of a boycott are to make an economic impact. The bus boycott that introduced the world to MLK worked because the city of Montgomery couldn't take the financial hit of African Americans not riding the buses. THe US boycott of Cuba (though also a huge pride issue) was meant to hurt Cuba economically. And has. The UN boycott of Iraq following the first PG War was in essence a move to make Hussein agree to humanitarian demands.

China was awarded the games by the IOC for one reason. They're ability to turn a profit. Not to further peace or human rights. The IOC knew full well what was going on in China and Darfur when they were awarded the games. To say the IOC did this in an effort to promote peace IS naive. Read the charter of the Olympic Games. It could not sound more like the antithesis of China's human rights policy's. The IOC even gave China a list of demands to meet regarding these atrocities before 2008. NONE of these demands have been met. Guess what the IOC has done about it...

Nothing. Politically, the world continues to do NOTHING when it comes to China, solely because of their economic productivity.

If a nation can't understand why forced abortions and genocide are cruel, maybe they can understand several billion in the red.

Look, the majority of the torch protests looked nothing like Gandhi or MLK's non-violent approach and were just plain dumb. And a boycott may not be the best approach, it would be certainly be hypocritical for the US. And my family and I refusing to watch...what would that change?

But just letting the games go as is and hoping for some kind of olympic spirit to change anything won't work. Remember, China has also done everything in their power to muzzle both their athletes and the media from saying anything political.

Go Mavs.

Shane said...

jesse, i want to talk to you - email me your phone number - michael.s.miller@fmr.com

thanks - shane