While the postbellum promise of "40 acres and a mule" is typically credited to Union General William Sherman, the idea itself was derived from the words and advocacy of Reverend Garrison Frazier, pastor of First Bryan Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga. #BlackReparationsHistory On January 12, 1865, Gen Sherman and Sec of War Edwin Stanton met with a group of twenty black ministers from Savannah discuss what they wanted for their newly freed people. The highly respected Rev. Frazier, aged 67 at the time, was chosen to speak on behalf of the group.

"Jan 6 Had Nothing To Do With Christianity" : A Photo Essay 🧵

https://twitter.com/glnelsoniii/status/1479195980402774020

"Nothing" 🤷🏻‍♂️ (📷: flic.kr/p/2kro7Tv)

Can't shake from my mind just how unlikely this #McMichaelBryanTrial #AhmaudArbery verdict was:

• Original DA shielded the suspects from arrest (showing them "affection and favor") and obstructed police. She has been indicted for the coverup. • Case was handed over to a second DA, who 1) wrote a letter to police arguing that there was insufficient probable cause to arrest suspects, 2) then recused himself, 3) but only after Arbery's mom highlighted a conflict of interest involving his son.

1. Although we are not the major characters in this plot, I want to offer some brief thoughts in response to @JonathanLeeman's recent article, which cites my/Greg's work as a noteworthy example ("to a T") of the so-called deconstruction project's discursive script. 2. Notably, we are set in close proximity to deconstructionist "wolves," or wolves-in-denial who "never think they are wolves," or prospective wolves who "soon discover their sitting on the very [confessional] branch the project is trying to saw through." Well, alright then.

1. The “third way of the gospel” has been used as a rubric for public life. Its main point is to stress that Christ's kingdom (upper register) reveals a politics “from above” (Jn 18:36). The gospel transcends human political categories (and false binaries)—and critiques them all. 2. However, this “third way” is often presented with a rhetorical “balance” (e.g., “the gospel is neither...nor...”) that implies that kingdom faithfulness necessarily entails political-cultural centrism and an equitable critique of each side.

To all who repeatedly cite Ezekiel 18:20 as if it were the scriptural deathblow to all things reparations:

Stop it. 😉

A Christian account of reparations isn't grounded in the imputation of a predecessor's personal guilt to an innocent party. Rather, it is grounded, in part, in an old Christian ethical tradition that reads Numbers 5:8 as requiring stolen goods to be returned to descendants of the originally injured party, i.e., heirs whose rightful possession those good would have been had they not been stolen.

1/ I’d like to offer a some responses to several of the questions raised by Rev. DeYoung in his review. Some critics are suggesting that we focused on methodological concerns in our essay b/c we—intimidated by his arguments—had no substantive response. We predicted this reaction: 2/ Again, this is false. As explained, we regularly engage these questions & study them; they warrant sustained reflection. But we also believe DeYoung's methodology shapes/distorts many of his questions. This is why we sought to expose and critique his method first and foremost.

This essay is intended to be more than a response to one review. It’s also not just an essay about reparations. It is also an attempt to address one important reason why the Reformed and evangelical tradition(s) has repeatedly, across centuries, thefrontporch.org/2021/07/sancti… found itself in collusion with the worst embodiments of white supremacy in America even while presuming its orthodoxy at each juncture. The answer, we believe, is found in its methodology—its culturally captive mode of theological reasoning/application— thefrontporch.org/2021/07/sancti…

Deep basketball thoughts:

• Booker is very good at basketball

• Giannis is not good at free throws

• The Suns like playing at home

• The Bucks need to score more points, and stop the Suns from scoring so much, if they want to win • When your team starts a game making all of their shots, eventually they will regress to the mean

1. You have heard it said that restitution is required only if *specific* victims of theft can be identified. But I say to you, this is simply not true according to historical Protestant (and especially Reformed) ethical thought. 2. Baxter, for example, explains that "public oppressors, who injure whole nations, countries or communities" are bound to make restitution (CD). He cites as examples unjust judges, oppressing landlords, and deceitful tradesmen, who repeatedly steal from nameless multitudes.

The response of local White clergymen to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: Rev. C. W. Kerr, First Presbyterian Church:

Appreciate @pmatzko's analysis of the "neo-fundamentalist view of America" re: racial justice. Indeed, the extent to which even avowed "apolitical" evangelical leaders go out of their way to defend the sanctity of America and its history is ... notable. s/1398744012836769793?s=20 But there is no way forward without a sober recognition of the complexity of American history and American church history — their virtues and vices, faithfulness and failures, what Mark Noll calls its mind-boggling "co-mingling of contradictions, antinomies, and paradoxes."

8 lessons about the Unity of the Spirit from Ephesians 4:1-16:

1. Unity is a Christian priority. It is an essential expression of our call to Christ (v. 1). Christ himself prioritized our oneness in his prayers (Jn 17:11). Unity is not optional for followers of Christ. 2. Unity is a human impossibility. It is "of the Spirit" (v. 3)—supernaturally produced and given by the Holy Spirit. As such it is not based on natural affinity—common interests, culture, politics, personality. The church is an assembly of recovering "natural enemies" (Carson).

1/ I agree with @SeanMLucas (albeit as a not-historian) that this is among the most important contributions of @kkdumez's book. 2/ One of evangelicalism's most "significant cultural blind-spots" is found in its refusal to see itself as a culture, its stubborn insistence that it just *is* its theological commitments, unmediated and distinct from any institutional, cultural, or political embodiments.

Gratitude isn’t easy. If it were, God wouldn’t need to command it, and we wouldn’t need the Holy Spirit to do it. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thess 5:18) 1/x But gratitude is especially scarce in trying circumstances. The evidence pushes us in the opposite direction—toward grumbling, toward cynicism, toward despair. Giving thanks in a pandemic is hard. 2/x

1/ Some interesting data on race/religion from the 2020 IASC Survey of American Political Culture (iasculture.org/research/publi…) — 2/ “Our founding fathers were part of a racist/sexist culture that gave important roles to White men while harming minorities/women.”

AGREE:

90% African Americans
59% White Non-Evangelicals
23% White Evangelicals

1. One poisonous byproduct of the rising outcry against Critical Race Theory/Marxism is the false, malicious, public labeling of individuals and institutions as heterodox enemies of the church. Another word for this is Slander. It is a grave sin, and it must cease. 2. Slander is a violation of the 8th commandment (the theft of one's good name, "a much dearer possession" [Aquinas] than even physical property) and the 9th commandment (bearing false witness against neighbor).

1. In the pursuit of public justice, one challenge we typically face is an imbalance of gifts/personalities that shape the public conversation and the crucial work of transformation. 2. We are rarely short on “prophets”—those who speak truth, name the problem, call for repentance and righteousness. They serve a crucial role, but by themselves they cannot effect change. Prophets are, of course, best rewarded in our present moment.

1. Galatians 3:23–4:7 as an instance of gender-inclusive translation unwittingly neutering the radically gender-inclusive nature of the gospel: 2. Four times Paul refers to those belonging to Christ by faith as "son/s" (υἱός); in three of those instances (we'll get to the fourth), the NIV, for example, translates the word "child/ren" (3:26; 4:7).

1. What is #Juneteenth? Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. On JUNE nineTEENTH, 1865, Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas. 2. They brought news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free—two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Today it remains as the most popular annual celebration of emancipation in the African American community.

1. A few quick observations from Acts 6:1-7. Some leaders might have assessed the Hellenistic Jewish complaint as a problem of food, poverty, and unfortunate circumstances alone. "Let's not make everything about race." 2. But the Apostles/disciples saw that this was a cultural problem, not just a food problem; and an institutional problem, not just a situational problem; a power (authority) problem, not just a poverty problem.