So - Black Lives Matter and your Religion/Denomination?

[TheAtheist]

Due to a rather bit of an oversight by an overly enthusiastic undergrad, I found myself on campus early early this morning waiting on the results of a 72 hr blood/cell culture experiment started on a Friday…

(Note to any of you budding scientists out there who happen to be on CAF = Do yourself and your primary investigator a favor and don’t start experiments on a Friday!).

Having decided to have lunch outside in the open air, I sat down only to stare out across the quad to see kids chanting:

“You can’t stop the Revolution, Black Power is the Solution.”

The crowd of course, was the local manifestation of the Black Lives Matter movement on campus with associated student organizations.

My innate curiousity go the better of me as I moved a little closer trying to figure out if some faces in the crowd I spied may have been grad students i’ve seen in other institutions.

But in that forming crowd, which seems to have been some sort of organizational meeting for an event later in the week, I did see members of an evangelical all-african american (or is it black? I’m never quite sure what the proper thing to say is as a foreigner) church and possibly a representative of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan’s little group.

That got the gear in my mind turning so to speak. So i’ll toss this question out to all of you folks on the Non-Catholic Religions board.

Has your religious denomination in an official capacity somehow found itself engaged with the Black Lives Matter movement?

Has it been supportive? Critical? Or has it essentially tried to stay as far away as possible and not get entangled in the identity politics of the movement?

 

[GEddie]

The movement doesn’t occur within several hundred miles from here, and we have heard nothing about it, beyond the nationwide media.

ICXC NIKA

 

[TheAtheist]

The movement doesn’t occur within several hundred miles from here, and we have heard nothing about it, beyond the nationwide media.

ICXC NIKA

Ah - i take it this would probably be more a matter for people living on the Coasts or in Chicago.

I did some more poking around in other venues online because I was kind of curious about the topic.

It turns out there is within the African American/Black/Whatever the Correct Phrase i’m Supposed to be Using Protestant/Evangelcial Subset of Christianity a sense of common solidarity with the goals and aims of the movement.

Much of my queries were greeted to rather long discourses about the message of the Gospel, Jesus Christ, and Black oppression throughout the ages by an uncaring Caucasian majority which seeks to lull America with its universalizing politics into a false paradigm of “Post-Racialism” when in fact their community remains at risk for a variety of socio-economic issues not experienced by others in America.

Cue Gospel Quotations (and there were many). Followed of course by what I like to call the “Catch-phrase” phenoenon. You know when you enter into any type of subforum online people generally have that “Go Team” phrase. If you were Muslim for instance Allahu Akbar wouldn’t be too surprising to hear. For them it was kind of a mixture of “Jesus is Christ is lord and Savior… and White Silence is Violence”

The responses I got form the Islamic forums i tend to visit were…intriguing.

Aside from the general disdain a traditional Muslim would have for the Nation of Islam, there was a certain level of support expressed for BLM…

In fact it seems, at least from my unknowledgeable and “tourist” perspective, that the Black Lives Matter movement might be a source of Christian-Muslim dialogue and cooperation at least only within the context of the African-American population participating in the struggle.

One of the Evangelcals was also kind enough to point out that the Unitarians apparently have expressed solid support for BLM in a ways that other larger organized religious groups have not…

I take it from the 183 glances at this post with the 1 response, that Catholics in general tend to steer clear of this phenomenon.

 

[JonNC]

Due to a rather bit of an oversight by an overly enthusiastic undergrad, I found myself on campus early early this morning waiting on the results of a 72 hr blood/cell culture experiment started on a Friday…

(Note to any of you budding scientists out there who happen to be on CAF = Do yourself and your primary investigator a favor and don’t start experiments on a Friday!).

Having decided to have lunch outside in the open air, I sat down only to stare out across the quad to see kids chanting:

“You can’t stop the Revolution, Black Power is the Solution.”

The crowd of course, was the local manifestation of the Black Lives Matter movement on campus with associated student organizations.

My innate curiousity go the better of me as I moved a little closer trying to figure out if some faces in the crowd I spied may have been grad students i’ve seen in other institutions.

But in that forming crowd, which seems to have been some sort of organizational meeting for an event later in the week, I did see members of an evangelical all-african american (or is it black? I’m never quite sure what the proper thing to say is as a foreigner) church and possibly a representative of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan’s little group.

That got the gear in my mind turning so to speak. So i’ll toss this question out to all of you folks on the Non-Catholic Religions board.

Has your religious denomination in an official capacity somehow found itself engaged with the Black Lives Matter movement?

Has it been supportive? Critical? Or has it essentially tried to stay as far away as possible and not get entangled in the identity politics of the movement?

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has always been as hands off politics as it can possibly be. We will stand up for the unborn, and we have stood with others, including the Catholic Church, against the HHS Mandate which limits free exercise of religion.

The ministry of the LCMS includes all people. Concordia College
is a historically black college that is part of the LCMS Concordia system.

Political views, however, are not dictated by the synod. We have no office of political affairs, so to speak. People are encouraged to consider the Gospel in their political beliefs.
This believer finds it difficult to take BLM seriously as long as they continue to appear to ignore the fact the overwhelming number of black lives lost to violence are at the hands of other blacks, and that Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers seem successful in targeting a very large number of soon-to-be-born blacks.

Jon

 

[SuperLuigi]

I can’t see the Vatican making a statement on this. If anything, local priests and bishops will emphasize the usual doctrines of Catholic doctrines of the importance of life & religious liberty for everyone and charity.

Outside of that, I have concerns that like most major progressive groups, it’s corrupted into something that just is an excuse for people to show up and protest, shout and generally just make a mess of things because it’s nominally safe to do so to a certain extent. There’s also speculation it’s being used as a turnout machine for the elections later this year.

I think it also doesn’t live up to its name in the sense that they seem to be ignoring Black-on-Black crime and only care when a white police officer shoots and kills an African-American male.

There has been some solid backlash against the group, with some of the loudest voices being African-American. Most recent poll I saw showed that 69% of African-Americans do not identify with the movement.

 

[jilly4ski]

I think some people from the Catholic worker movement (Not sure of their official status) came down and protested for BLM and got themselves arrested by blocking the light rail train. I would say the local diocese and most Catholic parishes are staying out of the matter.

 

[lax16]

Ah - i take it this would probably be more a matter for people living on the Coasts or in Chicago.

I did some more poking around in other venues online because I was kind of curious about the topic.

It turns out there is within the African American/Black/Whatever the Correct Phrase i’m Supposed to be Using Protestant/Evangelcial Subset of Christianity a sense of common solidarity with the goals and aims of the movement.

Much of my queries were greeted to rather long discourses about the message of the Gospel, Jesus Christ, and Black oppression throughout the ages by an uncaring Caucasian majority which seeks to lull America with its universalizing politics into a false paradigm of “Post-Racialism” when in fact their community remains at risk for a variety of socio-economic issues not experienced by others in America.

Cue Gospel Quotations (and there were many). Followed of course by what I like to call the “Catch-phrase” phenoenon. You know when you enter into any type of subforum online people generally have that “Go Team” phrase. If you were Muslim for instance Allahu Akbar wouldn’t be too surprising to hear. For them it was kind of a mixture of “Jesus is Christ is lord and Savior… and White Silence is Violence”

The responses I got form the Islamic forums i tend to visit were…intriguing.

Aside from the general disdain a traditional Muslim would have for the Nation of Islam, there was a certain level of support expressed for BLM…

In fact it seems, at least from my unknowledgeable and “tourist” perspective, that the Black Lives Matter movement might be a source of Christian-Muslim dialogue and cooperation at least only within the context of the African-American population participating in the struggle.

One of the Evangelcals was also kind enough to point out that the Unitarians apparently have expressed solid support for BLM in a ways that other larger organized religious groups have not…

I take it from the 183 glances at this post with the 1 response, that Catholics in general tend to steer clear of this phenomenon.

Well, since you posted your question in the non-Catholic religion section I assumed you were looking for non-Catholics to respond
However I will answer from my own Catholic viewpoint and say “all lives matter” and that everyone with a legitimate concern should be acknowledged.

 

[badnewsbarrett]

Has your religious denomination in an official capacity somehow found itself engaged with the Black Lives Matter movement?

Has it been supportive? Critical? Or has it essentially tried to stay as far away as possible and not get entangled in the identity politics of the movement?

Well, I’m white Evangelical Protestant from the Chicago area, and I work a couple of jobs in which I mostly interact with black co-workers. I also have more than one black friend that I see outside of work, and I go hang out with people in black neighborhoods anywhere in Chicago on a fairly regular basis. This makes me a bit different from most white Evangelical Protestants.

As far as my denomination goes, our religion is wrapped up pretty tightly with our politics (at least at the specific church I grew up in, and in most of the churches I’ve had close contact with). I haven’t come across any regular churchgoers who are overtly and hurtfully racist, but there are politically-motivated microaggressions that people don’t really think are offensive, there is a tendency to avoid “bad neighborhoods,” and overall, there tends to be practically zero contact with black people in a church setting. For the most part, at least in my experience, white evangelical Protestants in the Chicago area tend to have little direct experience with the Black Lives Matter movement. The extent of the experience is from second and third-hand accounts, from what we see in the news media, and from which videos we choose to look at online and share on social media.

Based on what I’ve been seeing from certain people in their social media feeds, the white Evangelical Protestants that I know tend to repost videos that stick up for law enforcement, while mainly focusing on videos of Black Lives Matter people in which they are being disruptive or obnoxious in some way. This is regular churchgoing people, though. As far as Evangelical pastors go, though- and there are several that I follow on social media- they stay pretty quiet about this. They don’t jump in when other people bring it up, and they’re not inclined to start the conversation themselves. There’s a couple of things happening on their end- on one hand, they have noticed that their congregations are exclusively white, and they would like for that to change. (They have said so, and they volunteer this information on their own). On the other hand, they don’t want to call out and upset their white parishoners and friends who they know very well, especially not in public, and particularly not in such a way as to tell them what political views they ought to hold. For the record- Evangelical pastors are more likely than anyone else in religious leadership to push for a conservative political stance, and white Evangelicals are fine with that, but any hint that they might be pushing for something progressive or liberal is absolutely intolerable. And these pastors know this very well.

For me personally, I think it’s important for Evangelical Protestants to recognize how much of a wedge issue their neo-conservative political views are in the context of a church setting. And while I do acknowledge that BLM activists sometimes take a questionable approach, and sometimes they take out their frustrations in ways that are not fully acceptable, this is what I’m getting from their end. From what I can tell, they feel that they have a good and meaningful set of issues that we need to make some progress on as a society, and in the long term their questionable behavior will be forgiven and/or overlooked in the interest of focusing on the issues that actually matter. My personal assessment is that they’re probably right about this, and white people in general would be well served to try and focus less on what they can find to criticize in their actions while focusing more on what the issues are and where this can/should/will go.

There is one main question that I like to ask just about anybody when this topic comes up, and this is a question that I was asking Chicago police officers the night before Thanksgiving at the tail end of a protest in downtown Chicago. Where do you see this going? The whole thing, with black people and their relationship with the police department, reforms in the criminal justice system, the demands for leadership and policy change, the assessment of the department by Internal Affairs and the steps they have laid out that should be taken, the re-training efforts modeled on the Las Vegas police department that Chicago is in the process of implementing- all of this. Where do you see this going?

When you’re using that question and you’re really getting down to it, I think (and have pretty well observed) that members of law enforcement and BLM activists can reach a lot of common ground. Not on everything, but on a lot of things. And from there, it’s an issue of procedure and how to realistically get things done. By the way, when I was asking Chicago cops about this, there were a couple of guys who weren’t really willing to talk about anything, but there were three other cops that I was able to talk to at some length, and they seemed pleasantly surprised by the nature of that question. There were some other things we talked about, but that was the main one that they seemed happiest to hear and respond to.

If anyone wants to respond to this, allow me to ask you the same question while you’re doing that- where do you see this going?

 

[Dmitri77]

If the day ever comes where they begin to condemn the the murder of millions of black children through abortion I’ll take them seriously. Until then the hypocrisy is simply too much to bear.

 

[badnewsbarrett]

This believer finds it difficult to take BLM seriously as long as they continue to appear to ignore the fact the overwhelming number of black lives lost to violence are at the hands of other blacks, and that Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers seem successful in targeting a very large number of soon-to-be-born blacks.

Jon

I’m going to slide past the abortion portion of your comment since I can’t see any significant connection between that issue (although admittedly important) and police misconduct and/or the justice system in general. Regarding the first thing you pointed out, though…

Black on black crime, and black on black violence, is certainly a massively important issue which should not be overlooked. The thing is though, it’s also a black on black conversation. That conversation is very much happening at all times, but not everything that’s happening is right in front of you.

Allow me to suggest something that you might do one of these Sundays. If you would like to, could you pay a visit to a black church? Aside from talking about God, the main thing they talk about is black on black crime and what they can do about changing the culture in their community as a whole. If you do decide to pay a visit, ask around in order to see just how much this issue comes up on a regular basis. Start some conversations and see where they go.

 

[badnewsbarrett]

However I will answer from my own Catholic viewpoint and say “all lives matter” and that everyone with a legitimate concern should be acknowledged.

All lives do matter, and this is always a true statement. Black lives are part of all lives though, and in point of fact, that- taken together with the factual statement that all lives matter- is one of the main reasons why black lives matter.

Although it’s always true that all lives matter, sometimes there are compelling reasons to focus up on black lives in particular. This is especially true when it comes to any given police force in any major city. The reason? Well, speaking from personal experience, I can tell you the kinds of official statements that the Chicago police force has been putting out there for many many years now, which I used to read about in the Tribune and the Sun-Times back when people actually bought newspapers. Every so often, they will address the code of silence, the lack of progress against organized crime, and the chronic widespread distrust of the police force and they’ll talk about how they will take steps toward building a better relationship with the black community, and toward building a sense of trust with the black community.

If your police force is anything like the Chicago police force, you’ve probably never heard them make any official statements over the past few decades about how they want to gain the trust of all communities, or build a better relationship with all communities in their city. The reason? It’s simple, really.

Most communities in Chicago, and just about anywhere else, have a really good relationship with their police force. The police have their trust already, and they can count on people to call them when it makes sense to. The vast majority of sub-groups and communities of any kind, racial or otherwise, at least have a halfway decent relationship with the police department. There may be room for improvement, but it’s certainly not God-awful.

So basically, Almost all the communities in any major city have a decent, good, or great relationship with the police force. And Nearly every community trusts the police department, at least to some extent.

Can you guess which community it is that doesn’t fall in any of those categories, never has and for the foreseeable future probably won’t for quite awhile? I’ll give you one guess. One guess is all you really need.

When there is an ongoing problem this chronic, this serious, and this racially specific, of course you want to come up with some solutions, and the solutions that are pretty well demanded by the situation are most definitely race-specific. I’m not sure what you plan on accomplishing by addressing such a race-specific situation in the most generalized terms possible, but from a pragmatic standpoint, it’s a relatively useless statement, even if it is factual and true.

Pretty often, when people bring up the phrase “All lives matter,” it comes across as if that person simply refuses to say “Black lives matter.” I’m going to assume that you’re a person of good will though, and like I’ve said a few times already, it is absolutely true that all lives matter. It is always a true statement. For future reference though, you might want to acknowledge the factual accuracy of “Black lives matter” before you jump off into anything else. This isn’t extremely specific to the situation, it’s really just a good practice when it comes to effective communication. Assess the thing that someone else puts in front of you (whether you agree with it or not), then move on to what you have to say.

Please refer back to the first sentence of this reply in order to see me follow my own advice.

 

[JonNC]

I’m going to slide past the abortion portion of your comment since I can’t see any significant connection between that issue (although admittedly important) and police misconduct and/or the justice system in general. Regarding the first thing you pointed out, though…

Black on black crime, and black on black violence, is certainly a massively important issue which should not be overlooked. The thing is though, it’s also a black on black conversation. That conversation is very much happening at all times, but not everything that’s happening is right in front of you.

Allow me to suggest something that you might do one of these Sundays. If you would like to, could you pay a visit to a black church? Aside from talking about God, the main thing they talk about is black on black crime and what they can do about changing the culture in their community as a whole. If you do decide to pay a visit, ask around in order to see just how much this issue comes up on a regular basis. Start some conversations and see where they go.

I have no doubt you are correct. Do you have evidence that those in the churches are the same folks in BLM? My suspicion is that the two are, more often than not, mutually exclusive.
As for abortion, it is clearly black lives involved, and the BLM movement has, by their actions, indicated that the incidents of violence by law enforcement officers is not their only issue.

Jon

 

[Aslan10]

No, to the black lives matters questions. That’s not to say that it wouldn’t affirm the statement “black lives matter.” While political movements can certainly be for the good of the community, churches should mainly stick to the message of the Christ, and not political power grabbing or social gospel tactics. Abortion and SSM have been the only political issues spoken against openly in the ACNA, so far.

 

[lax16]

When there is an ongoing problem this chronic, this serious, and this racially specific, of course you want to come up with some solutions, and the solutions that are pretty well demanded by the situation are most definitely race-specific. **I’m not sure what you plan on accomplishing by addressing such a race-specific situation in the most generalized **terms possible, but from a pragmatic standpoint, it’s a relatively useless statement, even if it is factual and true.

I said everyone with a legitimate concern should be acknowledged.

Pretty often, when people bring up the phrase “All lives matter,” it comes across as if that person simply refuses to say “Black lives matter.” I’m going to assume that you’re a person of good will though, and like I’ve said a few times already, it is absolutely true that all lives matter. It is always a true statement. **For future reference though, you might want to acknowledge the factual accuracy of “Black lives matter” before you jump off into **anything else. This isn’t extremely specific to the situation, it’s really just a good practice when it comes to effective communication. Assess the thing that someone else puts in front of you (whether you agree with it or not), then move on to what you have to say.

Once again, I said all lives matter and anyone with legitimate concerns should be heard. What did I jump off into?

My grandparents were immigrants and extremely poor. I know what it is like to hear about discrimination. My Irish immigrant relatives had to flee their homeland to escape starving to death at the hands of another group of people. My Italian grandparents had to fight for the rights of garment district workers after the great fire that killed many.

I agree the situation in the African American community is very important and must be handled in a timely manner. I believe they are a very misunderstood group of people and have fallen under some poor leadership since the death of MLK.

Please refer back to the first sentence of this reply in order to see me follow my own advice.

btw - as a Catholic, I make it my business to remember that all lives matter. Unborn babies, students with learning disabilities, the homeless, immigrants…They all need attention EVERY DAY!

 

[DCNBILL]

If the day ever comes where they begin to condemn the the murder of millions of black children through abortion I’ll take them seriously. Until then the hypocrisy is simply too much to bear.

Amen.

To be frank this is the first that I have heard of the movement.

 

[GEddie]

Why does every American issue need to be rechanneled into the issue of abortion?

Are not full-length human lives worth as much as fetuses? Or are we zeroing in on human life that we cannot see (hidden inside women’s bodies) to the extent of ignoring human life that we do see (on our country’s streets and in our society)?

Afro-Americans did not make abortion legal. The government of the whole country did that. But the AA sector **does **have a valid beef with law enforcement in many of our cities. And those of us with less melanized skin should be able to admit that.

IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

 

[DCNBILL]

Why does every American issue need to be rechanneled into the issue of abortion?

Are not full-length human lives worth as much as fetuses? Or are we zeroing in on human life that we cannot see (hidden inside women’s bodies) to the extent of ignoring human life that we do see (on our country’s streets and in our society)?

Afro-Americans did not make abortion legal. The government of the whole country did that. But the AA sector **does **have a valid beef with law enforcement in many of our cities. And those of us with less melanized skin should be able to admit that.

IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

Or we could look at the statistic for the leading cause of death in the United States for a young Afro-American male between the age of 12 and 19. In any case the issues of Afro-Americans in our country is not relegated to any single factor. These issues are something that everyone should be concerned about and work to correct.

 

[lax16]

Why does every American issue need to be rechanneled into the issue of abortion?

Are not full-length human lives worth as much as fetuses? Or are we zeroing in on human life that we cannot see (hidden inside women’s bodies) to the extent of ignoring human life that we do see (on our country’s streets and in our society)?

Afro-Americans did not make abortion legal. The government of the whole country did that. But the AA sector **does **have a valid beef with law enforcement in many of our cities. And those of us with less melanized skin should be able to admit that.

IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

I think what the poster was saying is that if the African American community is emphasizing the importance of black lives then don’t forget about the ones they are taking through abortion every day. In record numbers.

 

[GEddie]

If that isn’t happening, it would be because the majority culture (non-AA) has successfully convinced everybody that human life is not involved in abortion.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[JonNC]

Why does every American issue need to be rechanneled into the issue of abortion?

Are not full-length human lives worth as much as fetuses? Or are we zeroing in on human life that we cannot see (hidden inside women’s bodies) to the extent of ignoring human life that we do see (on our country’s streets and in our society)?

Afro-Americans did not make abortion legal. The government of the whole country did that. But the AA sector **does **have a valid beef with law enforcement in many of our cities. And those of us with less melanized skin should be able to admit that.

IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

The important point is that 3/4 of all Planned Parenthood locations are in or near AA or Hispanic communities. It’s not unrelated to the topic at all when an organization founded by someone like Margaret Sanger is imbedded in these communities, and an organization such as BLM has little interest in those black lives.
Secondly, abortion was not the only issue I mentioned. Black on black crime is also something BLM seems uninterested in.

Jon