BLM leader denounces icons of "white Jesus"

[walking.away.123]

I posted these in another thread but check'm out :

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I'm all for enculturation, but I don't like this. It's not historically accurate.

 

[Jesus4Madrid]

Could you link and quote that, because I can't find it. It doesn't matter anyway. Wikipedia isn't a good source for contentious issues. It is not objective.


It's also convenient to magnify it.

I don't like everything that's happening now. Destroying property, even of bad people, is wrong. A lot of angry people with good reasons to be angry are acting out of anger people bad things have been done for a long time. This is all sin begetting sin.
But I do believe in speaking the truth. We can condemn what is evil and support what is good. But if we only condemn what is evil and make that overshadow what is good, we are unbalanced. We are servants of the spirit of the age, whichever side of the cultural/political spectrum we think we're on. Our statements as Orthodox Christians aren't worth much if we everything out of our mouths sounds like a news pundant from one side or the other with enough Orthodoxy mixed in to make us feel justified in supporting or opposing whatever is in the news that month.
I don't expect to change how people talk, but I say what I say because I believe in the truth.

Well, I’m glad you believe in truth and nuance. That’s a good start.

I have two problems with your position, as an Orthodox Christian. First, if one really is concerned about black lives, then it seems that police shootings of unarmed blacks is a really, really minor problem. Why aren't you focused on the really big issues?
- Abortion kills over 300,000 innocent black lives per year in America
- Black on black murder kills over 6000 black lives per year in America.
- Police shootings of unarmed blacks killed 14 people in 2019

You complain about magnifying a problem, but this is precisely what you are doing. I have yet to see you or another BLM supporter condemn the first two points that have way more impact on black lives.

Second, you are trying to distance yourself selectively from a movement that is evil. The core values of Black Lives Matter are un Orthodox, as has been posted many times. The leaders such as Shaun King are espousing values that are clearly contrary to Orthodoxy. As you say, "we can condemn what is evil and support what is good", but if the BLM movement is motivated by values that are antithetical to Christianity, we can no more align ourselves with them than we can with the Unite the Right movement, just because they might want to prevent historic statues from being destroyed. Yes, let's be nuanced, but let's also be wise about whom we throw our support to. One doesn't have to support the Unite the Right in order to protect historic statues and one doesn't have to support BLM in order to fight racism and violence against blacks.

 

[Hermit76]

If it's not for sport, are you contending it was their job to do the sort of things in here? The Cops Are Rioting. Why Can’t They Keep Their Hands to Themselves? https://minnesotareformer.com/2020/06/14/journalist-linda-tirado-shares-photos-taken-moments-before-she-was-blinded-in-one-eye-by-minneapolis-police/

I'm just going to shake my head here and walk away. Just like this article you're going to write the narrative that you want regardless of the evidence otherwise.

 

[Hermit76]

Could you link and quote that, because I can't find it. It doesn't matter anyway. Wikipedia isn't a good source for contentious issues. It is not objective.

Maybe we're talking past one another but I don't think anyone would disagree that there are bad cops out there. I engaged one when I was actually protesting about a year ago alongside some BLM people. But a movement that injures over a thousand people and leaves death and destruction in its path is not an equal reaction. There's another agenda here besides dealing with bad cops.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Well but let me put it like this: one of these things is happening and one is not.

agreed.

 

[walking.away.123]

Well, I’m glad you believe in truth and nuance. That’s a good start.

I have two problems with your position, as an Orthodox Christian. First, if one really is concerned about black lives, then it seems that police shootings of unarmed blacks is a really, really minor problem. Why aren't you focused on the really big issues?
- Abortion kills over 300,000 innocent black lives per year in America
- Black on black murder kills over 6000 black lives per year in America.
- Police shootings of unarmed blacks killed 14 people in 2019

You complain about magnifying a problem, but this is precisely what you are doing. I have yet to see you or another BLM supporter condemn the first two points that have way more impact on black lives.

Second, you are trying to distance yourself selectively from a movement that is evil. The core values of Black Lives Matter are un Orthodox, as has been posted many times. The leaders such as Shaun King are espousing values that are clearly contrary to Orthodoxy. As you say, "we can condemn what is evil and support what is good", but if the BLM movement is motivated by values that are antithetical to Christianity, we can no more align ourselves with them than we can with the Unite the Right movement, just because they might want to prevent historic statues from being destroyed. Yes, let's be nuanced, but let's also be wise about whom we throw our support to. One doesn't have to support the Unite the Right in order to protect historic statues and one doesn't have to support BLM in order to fight racism and violence against blacks.

I'm not a BLM supporter.

I am strongly against abortion and crime.

Edited for pride.

 

[rusmeister]

Could you link and quote that, because I can't find it. It doesn't matter anyway. Wikipedia isn't a good source for contentious issues. It is not objective.


It's also convenient to magnify it.

I don't like everything that's happening now. Destroying property, even of bad people, is wrong. A lot of angry people with good reasons to be angry are acting out of anger people bad things have been done for a long time. This is all sin begetting sin.
But I do believe in speaking the truth. We can condemn what is evil and support what is good. But if we only condemn what is evil and make that overshadow what is good, we are unbalanced. We are servants of the spirit of the age, whichever side of the cultural/political spectrum we think we're on. Our statements as Orthodox Christians aren't worth much if we everything out of our mouths sounds like a news pundant from one side or the other with enough Orthodoxy mixed in to make us feel justified in supporting or opposing whatever is in the news that month.
I don't expect to change how people talk, but I say what I say because I believe in the truth.

Hi, Bill,
I guess the reason your words aren’t convincing for me, despite the greater effort you make at reconciliation relative to others who seem to think as you do, is that you don’t address the good points of the other side, of those you disagree with. Me, I’ll get right on board with you in saying that what Officer Chauvin did was terrible. So will everyone else, I think. It’s that you don’t respond, even refuse to respond to the points of those of us who disagree with you that we, or certainly I, begin to lose interest in your words, because it makes you seem more like an interested person, a partisan, or as you put it, “a news pundit from one side with enough Orthodoxy mixed in to make us feel justified in supporting whatever is in the news that month.”. You don’t really come across as someone without a dog in the fight.
I don’t think anyone is saying you are pro-abortion, but you’ve been around TAW for a while now, and it ought to be clear that there are a few (and only a few) that have taken the side of protests and disorder in the name of fighting racism. If you come in on their side, you’d really better be prepared to make it clear how you distance yourself from them if you don’t support everything they do. Abortion is not a distraction from the issue, it IS the issue for people who have been saying all along that there is an official organization BLM (or more indefensibly, that there isn’t) and then there is a large number of people that are not part of BLM, but just oppose racism. Well, if they (and you) support the official organization, where is their (and your) condemnation of their anti-Christian teaching? If they (and you) DON’T support the organization, and yet think black lives especially in danger in the US, then where is their condemnation of blacks killed by other blacks, or of black police officers by protestors, or black babies at Planned Parenthood. When the supporters of protests against racism insist on being silent about those issues, it screams of their guilt and hypocrisy, either of indifference toward the other cases or active support of the evils (wolves in sheep’s clothing in the Church). So your (plural) attempts to avoid the other issues have just made you look suspect to the rest of us. They’re related, and not mere political talking points. It’s great to be against abstract racism, but it’s the same as, and as useless as, being against sin, and that’s what you have come across as, as an outsider from Taiwan “with no dog in the fight”. We are all in the struggle against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world - and a small number of people in the Church are actively fighting FOR the side that would tear down our Tradition and its teachings, being deluded into thinking THEM evil. And the divisions tend to express themselves in political leanings. The sexual anarchists, and those who support them, are on the Left. Not that the Right is all good, but here, as elsewhere, both BLM and one might say “blm” with small letters, well-intentioned people who think they are doing good by speaking out against whet they believe to be institutional racism, white supremacy, and the rest, lean towards support of or at least tolerance of active practice of sexual anarchy among members of the Church. At the very very least they say or treat the attacks on the family as unimportant, and see “a human right” to do such wrongs. When you step in on one side, you are going to be associated with the evils that that side tends to stand behind unless you very clearly, even forcefully, clarify that you don’t.

 

[walking.away.123]

Edited for pride.

 

[gzt]

Christian artwork is already actually being destroyed. Let's not put our heads in the sand.

And since when is there a rule that you have to choose between things to be concerned about? Maybe we should be concerned about all concerning things.

People can be concerned about whatever they want to be concerned about, I'm just recommending against being concerned about something that isn't happening - incidental vandalism is different from a campaign to target churches, which is what seems to be the concern here. Hope that helps you think through the issues.

 

[gzt]

Maybe we're talking past one another but I don't think anyone would disagree that there are bad cops out there. I engaged one when I was actually protesting about a year ago alongside some BLM people. But a movement that injures over a thousand people and leaves death and destruction in its path is not an equal reaction. There's another agenda here besides dealing with bad cops.

The police are rioting - what proportion of those injuries and that destruction is from that?

 

[Platina]

You assume the multiple attacks on churches and statutes of saints is "incidental." The issue is how seriously we want to think about what's actually going on. Only focusing on what fuels our preferred narrative doesn't do anyone any good.

 

[Platina]

It's actually pretty sad that anyone could think that unhinged violence and destruction is somehow honoring George Floyd. To protest him being treated like dirt in his death by treating his memory like dirt after death isn't even just pathetic, it's evil.

 

[gzt]

It's actually pretty sad that anyone could think that unhinged violence and destruction is somehow honoring George Floyd. To protest him being treated like dirt in his death by treating his memory like dirt after death isn't even just pathetic, it's evil.

I would agree that unhinged violence and destruction does not honor Floyd.

 

[gzt]

You assume the multiple attacks on churches and statutes of saints is "incidental." The issue is how seriously we want to think about what's actually going on. Only focusing on what fuels our preferred narrative doesn't do anyone any good.

Yes, which is why I dont' agree with you.

 

[Platina]

I'm not sure downplaying destruction as "incidental" and side-stepping the fact that prominent voices in the movement are calling for exactly such destruction is really taking all the facts into account.

 

[gzt]

You might want to look up what incidental means.

And you might want to see the universal response to Shaun King on this, which is, roughly, "Um, what? No."

 

[Nick1000]

Well but let me put it like this: one of these things is happening and one is not.

How is that "street fair" in Seattle coming along?

Last I heard, even the lefty mayor was trying to find a way to shut it down because the number of shootings and killing in the zone is getting out of control since the police were forced out.

So much for the Summer of Love.

Also the far left likes to think that this is all just a "blacks versus the police" scenario, conveniently overlooking the fact that black police officers are more than 50% of the force in many of these cities. In Atlanta for example 68% of police officers are black, and the City has a black police chief, a black mayor, and a black district attorney so it is not like whitey is in charge of everything and responsible for everything although that is an inconvenient truth for those hoping for a race war.

 

[Chesterton]

To quote Blue Oyster Cult: this ain't the Summer of Love. And I don't think the unraveling of America is "incidental". The Left now knows for certain what it has the power to do. Things won't ever be the same.

 

[Aldebaran]

The BLM movement is profoundly un Christian and un Orthodox. For Orthodox believers it is entirely untenable to support the movement but disagree with those leading the movement.

I went to the BLM website to quote their goal of abolishing the "nuclear family", but it seems they decided to take that part down, along with all the militaristic stuff they used to endorse.

 

[Chesterton]

I went to the BLM website to quote their goal of abolishing the "nuclear family", but it seems they decided to take that part down, along with all the militaristic stuff they used to endorse.

Last I checked all that stuff was still up on the U.K. BLM site.