Rosemary on Race

["Doug Jones" <credenda@moscow.com>]

Visionaries, 

I don't see how the death penalty or the race card discussion fits into
the Vision 2020 focus, but here's my one post for today, since Rosemary
Huskey has urged us to read Credenda/Agenda. 

Rosemary Huskey wrote: 
 
> This thinking is as limited in scope and understanding as it is
morally
> repugnant.  Vision 20/20 readers who are interested in Doug's
glorification
> of the "old South" (or those who are morbidly curious) should visit
> http://www.credenda.org/issues/9-1thema.php

> Please, Doug, spare us any future lectures on race or the "race card."
If I
> feel the urge to listen to defenders of the Old South, I'd just as
soon turn
> to Jesse Helms, David Duke, or better yet, "Gone with the Wind."  The
latter,
> at least, has entertainment value.

The psychology behind this sort of charge fascinates me, and I think it
explains some of the interchanges on this list and the sort of conflicts
the Moscow community will face over the next decade. 

It might be nice if the world were as simple and binary as Rosemary
suggests, but it's not. Reality is much more complicated and
trinitarian. For example, in the very same issue that Rosemary finds
"morally repugnant" you'll find also find at least three articles
refuting neo-Nazi/Aryan hideousness. Conclusions she would normally
praise. For some reason, her paradigm won't allow those articles to
stand as legitimate. We're not directed to read those. They have to be
ignored or explained. Why is that?

When someone has a paradigm, especially a paradigm that divinizes
Equality as an absolute, then brute simplicity tends to reign. Equality
is about denying differences and distinctions, and devotees of Equality
have a terrible time harmonizing anything that isn't explained by their
yes-no absolute. If folks are going to try and interpret something
outside their paradigm, then you have to step out from behind your
glasses a bit. Try to understand why things harmonize within the other
perspective first. 

How, for example, does Rosemary harmonize what she finds "morally
repugnant" and morally praiseworthy in the same magazine and authors? If
she can't do that, then why should I trust her interpretations of
anything outside her worldview? Here's a hint: political power. As Tom
H. says, connect the dots.


Here are the links to those other articles:

"An Interracial Cross"
http://www.credenda.org/issues/9-1stauron.php

"Debunking Racial Rights" 
http://www.credenda.org/issues/9-1nonest.php

"Pre-Adamite Yearnings"
http://www.credenda.org/issues/9-1exegetica.php


Elsewhere:
"The Biblical Offense of Racism"
http://www.reformed.org/webfiles/antithesis/v1n1/ant_v1n1_racism.html

This latter is also a Canon Press booklet, available right here in
little ol' Moscow. 


Doug Jones
Senior editor, Credenda/Agenda