Common English Women's Bible

I am so excited that the publishers of the Common English Women's contacted RevGalBlogPals and asked several of us if we would review this new offering. I am even more excited that I know some of the women who wrote and edited this Bible: the Rev Dr Jaime Clark-Soles, the Rev Sharon Alexander, and Dr Jodie Lyon were all part of my formation and education in some way at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University.

I have been using this version for the last three weeks as I do my daily prayers and devotions, and also for sermon preparation. I was already familiar with the Common English Bible format and language. I am truly appreciating what biographical information can be gleaned about all of the different women in the Bible. I appreciate the frank non-judgmental discussions included about sex and sexual norms I have been reading. Even when my daily studies have not led me to a woman's story, the women's stories are easily identified by the formatting and I find myself wandering a bit further afield in the text daily than I would ordinarily wander. The discussion starters have already provided at least one sermon point over these last weeks.

This Common English Women's Bible has already become a staple for me in the tetris-like stack of Bibles I use to contrast and compare ideas and words. I know I will continue to enjoy the perspectives of the women who contributed and edited as I use it in my own daily devotional reading and study. It is so refreshing to "hear" these discussion starters and biographies from a woman's point of view.

Here are the specifics on the CEB Women's Bible:

• All 80 contributors are women
• Each book of the Bible has its own introduction.
• Reflections—writings that can be used in personal devotions or as conversation starters—accompany nearly every chapter of the Bible.
• Sidebar articles explore more than two hundred themes of particular relevance to women’s experiences in relationship with scripture.
• Character sketches of more than one hundred named and unnamed women in the Bible are scattered throughout the text.
• Every woman in the Bible—named and unnamed—is indexed.

Stand Your Ground - Black Bodies and the Justice of God - Chapter 5 - Jesus and Trayvon: The Justice of God

The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas continues to relay the story of Trayvon Martin to us through the words and interviews with his parents. She uses their own words to illustrate their faith in God and then pulls the lens back to also use those same words to illustrate the historic faith of Black Christians in the United States. In this fifth chapter, Dr Douglas draws sharp parallels between the death of Trayvon and the death of Jesus Christ, in that they were both innocent men who were executed by the powers that be of their individual time periods.

Dr Douglas utilizes the story of the Samaritan woman at the well to show how a male Jewish Jesus uses his privilege to balance out the demonization of the female Samaritan woman. In balancing out the power by giving up his privilege, Jesus places himself in solidarity with those who did not have the social power to move freely in his society. In this movement of Jesus, from the place of privilege equalizing the place of subordinate, we find an example to follow to move from our places of sacred white space to places in solidarity with those in the cross hairs of Stand Your Ground culture today.

Dr Douglas uses the interviews with Trayvon's parents to show how they continually try to turn the conversation toward resurrection by speaking of their beloved Trayvon with pride and love. They refuse to allow Trayvon's character and life to be further crucified. According to Dr Douglas, this is in harmony with their Black Christian faith which places more weight in the resurrection than teh crucifixion. I have to say that I have never been a big fan of Matt Lauer, but Dr Douglas' reporting of his interviews with the parents make me never want to watch him again.

At the end of this chapter, Dr Douglas names Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism as America's original sin - from which most all other sins originate. It has been there since our inception as a country (chapter one) and Stand Your Ground Culture is merely the newest manifestation.

Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God - Chapter 4 - A Father's Faith: The Freedom of God

The Reverend Dr Kelly Brown Douglas helps us all examine Black Faith in God in chapter four. Using the Exodus Story as the primary lens, she explains that Black Faith is essentially grounded in the belief that God is completely free and therefore seeks freedom for all people. The people in the Exodus story were oppressed and that oppression led to them being God's Chosen People.

I am very appreciative of the information Dr Douglas writes about the function of music in Black Faith. "Music allowed the captured and enslaved Africans to speak to one another across the barriers of their indigenous language and dialects that their enslavers did not respect" (pg 141). The music allowed for the transfer of information, the learning of language, and the expression of hopes and fears. It also allowed the enslaved to sing about the God they already knew from their homeland, a God that was free and demanded the freedom of everyone. This was not the same God that was preached to them as enslaved people by white preachers. The God of Home was a God who called them into being the fulness of who they were created to be (pg153). Home was a free and safe space to fully be who God created them to be.

The discussion of the people who already inhabited the Promised Land is deft and challenging. It allows for the God of Freedom to call the oppressed Home, while leaving space open to say that Home might already be occupied. Dr Douglas does not condone the acts of violence that might be attributed to God that clear out Home for others. She specifically names Native Americans again and their losses to the Manifest Destiny war.

Black Faith, as explained by Dr Douglas, does not blame God for injustice, but rather assumes that God prefers and gives strength to everyone who opposes the injustice and protests for justice.

Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God - Chapter Three: Manifest Destiny War

I am finally on the other side of beginning the new Sunday School season. One Sunday was Homecoming Sunday, the next started Sunday School, and then the next was Ministry Fair Sunday. It has been a busy month and I did not get back to this as quick as I thought I would. Here we all are, a few weeks later, ready to discuss Chapter Three: Manifest Destiny War in Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God by the Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas.

Dr. Douglas begins the chapter by giving us a history of the term, Manifest Destiny: the combination of Anglo-Saxon as the epitome of humanity finding their place in a whole new world and setting up a societal paradise known as the United States of America. According to Manifest Destiny, the USA was a blank slate ready for the experiments of democracy as imagined by Anglo-Saxon ways and culture. God had declared Anglo-Saxons as superior and all other races were to assimilate as quickly as possible. Assuming that whiteness is superior is troublesome enough, but then requiring assimilation from every other race is a “declaration of war” (pg 107) against non-white bodies. Because God had ordained the Anglo-Saxons as superior, then the war declared against the non-whites was a religious & just war. People indigenous to the USA were killed or segregated using the ideology of Manifest Destiny. All immigrants and non-whites were expected to assimilate as fully and quickly as possible. White Space was to be defended at all costs.

Dr. Douglas then neatly traces the ideas of Manifest Destiny straight into the beginning of the Stand Your Ground Laws. If White Space is the most valuable space, then defending White Space is paramount to fulfilling Manifest Destiny and Stand Your Ground laws allow for the use of deadly violence in that protection of White Space.

The rest of the chapter explains the intersection of Stand Your Ground and White Backlash. Even before Stand Your Ground laws were enacted, non-whites could be killed with impunity simply for being in White Space. If a white person felt threatened in any way by a non-white person, and especially by a black male, that “threatening” presence could be killed or otherwise removed with no further thought. Lynchings, imprisonments, and now police shootings are the direct result of the backlash against black people for simply being in a white space. Militarized police officers and departments continue to fight the war of Manifest destiny every day.

Dr. Douglas ends the chapter by pointing out that having a Black President of the United States has triggered a whole new level of White Backlash. She ponders the idea that the only place her Black son is safe is in her own home.

I am so glad I started this book. Now that I have been introduced to these ideas of White Space and Manifest Destiny and Anglo-Saxon Superiority I cannot un-see it unfolding all around me. I admire Dr. Douglas’ methodical, logical outline of the foundations of the United States and how we got to this place that so many of us find appalling. In some ways, I wonder how we can unravel racism from the fabric of our culture, when it has been woven in so tight and methodically from the very beginning.  

Chapter Four will begin Part Two of the book, which also has three chapters. We are halfway finished reading at this point. Where are your thoughts?

Stand Your Ground - Chapter Two - The Black Body: A Guilty Body

This chapter begins with another intriguing question: "Why are black murder victims put on trial?" (pg 48). Lower on that same page, Dr. Douglas writes, "Black victims of fatal violence are presumed guilty of bringing their deaths upon themselves. Their white killers are given the benefit of the doubt. It is readily assumed that the white killer acted as a reasonable person would who is in fear for his life."

In helping us to understand how this has historically developed,  Dr. Douglas revisits the Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism and how it lead to the belief that black people could be excluded from consideration as being human (pg 52). She then tracks the concept of "Black Body as Chattel" (pgs 52-56). She shows how the church and state affirmed that not only were black people not equal to white people, but that "equality with white people - and certainly not to speak of superiority over them - is immoral" (pg 57).

I found it hard to read the "Hypersexualized Black Body" section (pgs 64-68). It makes logical sense that in this terrible way of perceiving black bodies, the charge of rape would be unfathomable; I had never allowed my thoughts to wander that far. The sexual abuse of slaves was another way to de-humanize them, force a higher birth rate, and set them apart as "other," specifically the blacks males as threats to white women.

"The Dangerous Black Body" was illustrative for me for what seems to be happening over and over again in the killings of black bodies by police officers right now in America (pgs 68-76). "When black people step into [white/public] social space, they do so as intruders, and thus they have created a dangerous situation because white people are compelled , by divine law nonetheless, to protect their space from intruders" (pg 69). A lot of the calls to the police in the instances of the killings that have necessitated the Black Lives Matter movement, incorrectly identify black bodies as threatening in some way: carrying a weapon. threatening property, threatening suicide, etc. The police then respond with preconceived notions of danger and act without truly assessing the situation.

The dangerous black body then becomes the "Criminal Black Body" for the rest of chapter two (pgs 77-89). If you have not yet read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, it should be the very next book on your White Person's Reading List on Racial Reconciliation. It is a dense read, and as well-researched and well-written as Stand Your Ground, in my opinion.

As Dr. Douglas traces how the anti-vagrancy laws came to reinforce a new type of forced labor for the males (pgs 77-82), she also shows how black women are dismissed as "criminally immoral" or "mean and angry" (pg 83). In the week or so since I read this section, I have noticed the stereotype of "Angry Black Woman" (pg 85) more then I ever have before in my lifetime.

So then, if black men are criminal, and black women are so angry as to be irrational and then become criminal, then Dr. Douglas' last stories in chapter two show how "free black bodies have to be guilty of something" (pg 86). Therefore all black murder victims are ultimately put on trial for their own murder. The story Dr. Douglas tells of her toddler son's interaction with an elementary-age white boy at a playground is heart-wrenching (pgs 86-87).

**Aside for Chapter Three: I may not be able to post again next week, so there may be a two-week lapse until the next post. There are some program-year tasks I need to get accomplished to get the Sunday School year started well at Trinity.**

Stand Your Ground - Chapter One - America's Exceptionalism

Dr Douglas begins this chapter with the question, "If Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?" (pg3). In the next 44 pages, she presents a well-researched position that traces writings concerning Anglo-Saxon superiority to 98 CE (pg4). Those writings are quoted in the founding documents of our country, and are used to strengthen and legitimize white "as Cherished Property" (pg 23). Thus, white as supreme: skin color, cultural norms, etc. The very foundations of culture and religion are built on white supremacy.

The rights of white supremacy include the rights to exclude, the rights of property ownership and the rights of personal space. These are only some of the privileges I have been historically able to hold as a white person. While those first two may be lessening, it is the third one that I see causing the clashes more and more in our society today. It seems like the calls to law enforcement go something like this, "There is a Black person outside with a gun." Law enforcement shows up, assumes the truth of the call and a Black person is detained, arrested, or killed = a Black person in a white space is seen as the problem. Public streets, even in Black neighborhoods, are seen as white space.

Dr Douglas has opened my eyes to how I travel trough daily life. I do not feel safe everywhere, but I certainly expect that my body and my rights will be protected everywhere, as a white person. I now see how our forefathers could write about the rights of all, yet truly mean only those of white heritage. This is a suspicion I held before this, and I am thankful to have such a tightly-researched chapter to trace the lineage of influence.

What are your thoughts as you digest chapter one and ponder what exceptionalism means? Where are you and your family history weaved in and out of this story? How have you noticed your privilege differently since reading this chapter?

Book Club - Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God

It started with a Facebook post anchored in the frustration that I did not know which of my friends might be starting to educate themselves on racial issues. I had begun stumbling down that path, with half of my life already behind me, and I felt isolated in my ignorance and tardiness. I want companions for this journey. I have been blessed with many Facebook and Twitter "friends" who graciously allow me to peek into their serious and on-going conversations on race and inequality. I have been even more blessed by my colleagues and friends in real life who are gentle, yet strident that this is my work to do. That is truth.

This is the beginning of my work in community with those who will gather here to clarify our learning, check our assumptions and prejudices, and un-learn what needs to be challenged. My prayer is that our blinders will be removed, and we will be led to right actions as we learn how to be allies in the work of racial justice, and specifically the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas

The first book I have proposed that we read together is Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God by the Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas. I have read and marked up the prologue, introduction, and first two chapters so far.

I will keep posting as I continue to read, and I truly and humbly invite your comments. I will comment after writing the summaries of the chapters. I will create new posts as I progress, so the labels will be important for finding your place in the conversation as we go along. All will be labeled "Race Issues" and then "SYG" followed by the chapter, although this one is labeled "SYG Intro." I hope that will help with navigation. I have added a search bar under my photo to assist us.

If you are reading ahead of me and would like to create the post for a chapter, please feel free. My email is AmyPHaynie at gmail dot com - I would love for this to be a group effort. I will also monitor and delete any comments that are uncivil, just in case anyone tries to derail our conversation.

In another post below, I have linked to a news interview with Dr. Douglas concerning the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, MD. In the interview, she calls for a national conversation. I do not imagine this as the national conversation she envisions, but I do hope we can advance our own knowledge with shared experiences and conversation.

Dr. Douglas uses the prologue and introduction to orient us to her social relationship to the Stand Your Ground laws. As the mom of a black young man, as a professor of religion at Goucher College well-versed in racial history, and as a black woman in US society, she asks "Why is it becoming increasingly acceptable to kill unarmed black children...Why are they so easily perceived as a threat?" (pg ix).

In the introduction, Dr Douglas states that "this book will explore the socio-cultural narratives that have given birth to our stand-your-ground culture and the religious canopies that have legitimized it. This stand-your-ground culture has produced and sustained slavery, Black Codes, Jim Crow, lynchings, and other forms of racialized violence against black bodies" (pg xiii).

In the comments of this section, I invite us to introduce ourselves and explore why we are interested in this work at this time. What do you hope for or want from this conversation? I hope we will be able to keep this space safe by checking our own white fragility and using "I" language as we do this important work.

The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas on expanding narrative on race

Notes on the Meeting with Senator Cornyn's Staff Members

Suzi, Nolen, Karen, Me, Shelly

Meeting with Collin and Khamal, staff members of Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)

July 15, 2016

These are the bills we were told Senator Cornyn had sponsored or co-sponsored, some were co-sponsored with Democrats as they said:

• ·      Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016

• ·      Funding for National Human Trafficking Hotline (with Democrat)

• ·      Mental Health and Safe Communities Act of 2015

• ·      A bill to amend the Controlled Substances Act to add certain synthetic substances to schedule I, and for other purposes

There may have been some others also, but these were the ones I could find on the website.

The staff assured us that Senator Cornyn is committed to maintaining relationships with colleagues from both parties.

We were told that the Assault Weapons Ban did not deter shootings. I have not checked that yet, but it does not seem true – we have certainly had record-setting mass shootings since the Assault Weapons Ban expired.** Senator Cornyn is not interested in any gun control measures.

We passed along our concerns about gun transactions held at gun shows, pawn shops, private sales, etc without any background checks. We objected to assault weapons being sold to whomever wanted to buy them and their high capacity clips.

We also expressed knowledge and concerns about the lack of residential mental health facilities for youth and young adults. There was discussion about mental health issues and the pressure placed on police and correctional facilities housing those who are mentally ill.

We spoke about the children coming into Texas as immigrants from Guatemala. The staff members reported that Senator Cornyn visited Guatemala to assess the conditions there, and he does not support returning them. He also does not support the rhetoric of Trump concerning immigrants and building a wall.

**Statistically, it is true that the Assault Weapons Ban did not deter shootings. 

Stages of Discipleship

This is the outline I preached from at St Stephen's in Hurst. Audio is on the right sidebar in the PodBean Player. 

Stages of Discipleship

Sermon Easter 2C

Movement in the Readings – LOTS

Locked Room – Praise Psalm – Writing Letters to Others to tell what God has done – Teaching and Getting into Trouble for it

Fear – Adoration – Excitement – Responsibility of making more Disciples

How do we move from one to another?

Collect: How do we show forth in our lives what we profess in our faith?

Lenten Discipline?

Where are you?

Where is St Stephen’s?

Jesus blesses US today – did you hear it? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe – that’s US. Take that blessing – be emboldened to move to the next stage.

Alleluia. Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

You will Always have the Poor among You

Today we find ourselves back in the house of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. We’ve been here before when Martha was mad at Mary for not helping serve dinner, when Mary and Martha were grieving the death of Lazarus – and then celebrating his resurrection. These three siblings are very dear to Jesus – there is a great mutual love shared in this house. I think that of all the places that Jesus teaches and all the dinners he attends, THIS is where I would’ve liked to have sat and listened to our Lord interact with his closest friends and disciples. I can picture the scene as intimate and lively, full of love, mutually shared among all these great friends.

It is in his tribe of good friends and disciples that Jesus makes a curious statement, "For you always have the poor with you, but you don't always have me" (v. 8).  To my Gen-X ears, this sounds like a callous statement of fact – Jesus knows that in 2016 we have not yet solved the puzzle of poverty – and maybe he doesn’t think we ever will. However, Jesus is referring to the Torah, and the complete verse reads, "For the poor will never cease out of the land: therefore I command you, saying, "You shall surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land" (Deuteronomy 15:11). 

In 2016, we have not solved the puzzle of poverty – so as cynical as it sounds, Jesus is exactly right. We are his body gathered together here this morning and we have not come to a solution, as Christians. Judas may believe the anointing in the story to be the most scandalous part, but I am inclined to think that knowing our children and elders are going to bed hungry is much more scandalous. How do we open our hands to the poor? The Gospel today points us to the worries we still face.

In Wichita Falls, we partnered with a couple of my seminary classmates and their churches to feed the homeless one night a month. ECWF provided food for about 80 people one night a quarter. It was a lot of work: some provided ingredients, some helped serve, some cooked, some donated money, and some did any combination of those things. For a church with an average Sunday attendance of about 25 while I was there, it was quite the undertaking.  We served the meal at a church across the street from the homeless shelter – where the people would later spend the night and would have eaten anyway. So why do it? Others might rightly say, like Judas, that we would have been smarter to donate the money to the shelter and let those good people there provide for the needs of the poor and homeless.  It’s quite the quandary, right?

Here’s where Mary’s anointing and Jesus’ defense of her comes into all of this for me. There is something valuable – something necessary – something essential – in serving face-to-face.  Martha served Jesus dinner, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Mary anoints Jesus on the day before he will be arrested by the Sanhedrin – this is all Incarnational ministry – in the flesh – face-to-face serving each other. Because there is something about looking another of God’s Beloveds in the eye and serving them. Yes, sometimes it might be smarter to serve from a distance, with money or supplies or legislative work or letter writing or whatever. But there is something about standing in front of another of God’s Beloved, realizing that in serving them, you also are being blessed. It’s a mystery, and it is true. We are called as Christians into service that is intimate and messy, as we stand open-handed with the least, the lost and last.

You all are a fairly new Tribe of Christians in Wise County. I live one county over, so I do not know the specifics in Decatur and the surrounding area. All I know is what I have observed in the last 30+ years of driving through here. When I used to drive from Archer City to Denton to visit friends at North Texas State University, Decatur was a place to stop for a Dr. Pepper and stretch my legs, either at the McDonalds, the Dairy Queen, or if I went though town, at the convenience store where I made the turn to get to 380. It has changed now and rightly so. It feels to me now as though Decatur is joining the outer band of suburbs of Ft Worth. When I go on through Decatur from my dad’s place in Joy to my FM 407 Exit, I can see Decatur reaching further and further south toward the metroplex. I wonder who all is being displaced by the demographic shifts here? I wonder who is making out like a bandit by selling land to developers and whose land is being claimed by imminent domain? And we are right back to that quandary that Judas knowingly pointed out: I am sure some are profiting while securing the future of their children and grandchildren, and I am sure some are being displaced from family homesteads. How can this Tribe of Christians known as Episcopalians in Wise County stand up as the body of Christ in the midst of it all? I know I only hear a fraction of the shenanigans in Denton County, but the actions of some of the developers are shocking over there: backing one candidate and getting special rules put into place that are not in the best interest of all – I’m sure some of that happens here too, or will soon. How are you all called to serve the voiceless and the uninformed? Who will interrupt the corruption that sometimes occurs in these transitional times?

As we ponder the puzzle of how best to stand with and serve the poor right here, right now, let us remember Paul’s inspiration this day, “but this one thing I do: …I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” Amen.

As always, what is written and what was preached actually varies. The audio version is on the Podbean Player on the right sidebar.