Civil Commotion

When my favorite sarcasm enters common usage, my work is nearly done.

As difficult as it is for me to feel any genuine-article enthusiasm for yet another President Clinton, this speech should settle once for all that The Donald is no more than a noisy buffoon with no business in the White House. Hillary in 2016.

Like most people, I was saddened by the unfortunate events at the Cincinnati zoo, which culminated in the death of an extremely rare gorilla when a child slipped into its exhibit space. As an engineer who has spent countless hours listening to objections to design details from people who can barely say which way water runs¹, I’m not going to second-guess the decision made by the experts; it’s just a terribly sad thing that happened.

BUT! Since theology has no epistemic standards whatever, and is not a branch of actual knowledge, I would like to say a few words about some remarks made by Ken Ham, proprietor of the so-called Creation Museum, about the events in Cincinnati.

• The young boy (unlike the gorilla, which is just an animal) is made in the image of God and is a human being who has a soul that will live forever.

• We cannot impose human emotion/morality on a gorilla—it is not made in the image of God. We should not anthropomorphically assume that the gorilla’s decency would have kept him from harming the boy in the enclosure had the zoo professionals not intervened so quickly.

• Because we live in a fallen world, sin has affected everything, including gorillas and three-year-olds.

So there you go: We are all no damn good, but gorillas are even more no damn good.

Ken Ham came to this area years ago to peddle his ridiculous books and, while here, delivered a sermon at a local Southern Baptist (naturally) church. After a long schtick about wickedness and Original Sin, and a couple of bad poodle jokes, he made what I consider one of the most degrading statements I have ever heard, and I wonder still what goes on in the mind that could author such a remark: “We don’t even deserve to be here.”

I don’t believe in Original Sin, but the idea of it soils whatever it touches.

– – – – –
¹   Downhill.

Pastor Dwight McKissic has submitted a resolution to the annual Southern Baptist Convention meeting which condemns display of the Confederate flag. Nobody who is aware that it was SBC theologians who found Biblical justification for slavery, or who grasps the reality of continuing racial animus in the south, will be surprised to learn that McKissic is getting pushback from Godly southerners.

As a proud son of the South, I agree, there are many, many great values, virtues, and customs embedded and inherent in Southern culture that I too celebrate and appreciate.

For some, the Confederate Flag (CF) is a symbol of Southern culture that affirms and applauds a strong work ethic, personal responsibility, fierce independence, state rights, faith, family, the right to bear arms, hospitality, congeniality, sharing, and a Bible-belt, church-going assumption. However, honesty also demands that Southerners admit that the CF—at least in part—represents “a slave society and a society bent on keeping Blacks living in the Jim Crow style.”

The above quote came from a member of an SBC church who requested that I consider withdrawing or modifying the Resolution that I proposed to the SBC eliminating the CF from public life. (https://dwightmckissic.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/resolution-on-the-elimination-of-the-confederate-flag-from-public-life/). I appreciate the honesty and transparency of those who admit that the CF is complicit with racism, even while parsing out the positive aspects of Southern culture, that they maintain that the CF also represents.

Once upon a time, I suppose, one might have (uneasily) accepted the claim that display of the Confederate flag was the symbol and reminder of a chivalrous heritage, magnolia and honeysuckle, et cetera, et cetera.

Dylann Roof changed that; now, you display the Confederate flag for only one reason: You’re a redneck racist asshole and you want everybody to know it.

Which is fine with me. Why should I object if somebody wants to go around displaying a sign that declares he is an idiot whose company all educated, decent-minded grown-ups should avoid? Saves me the time of figuring it out — right?

My thoughts about public-sector displays of Confederate memorabilia are a bit more complicated. Basically, I think history should be rebuked rather than ignored or whitewashed; keep those Confederate flags and memorials, and add something explicitly renouncing the heritage they symbolize.

I am sure the SBC will pass the resolution, even if the majority of delegates are the grandchildren, children, and actual actors who stood at roadside and threw rocks at black freedom marchers in the ’60s. They need to get its ugly past as far behind it as possible so they can focus their energy on demonizing gays and transgenders.

UPDATE:   A sample comment:

So, we bully one group, so as not to offend another group.
Now that’s Christian.

And on top of that, this resolution has nothing to do with real racism.
But of course, we must be politically correct.

While this resolution has nothing to do with real racism, if it is not presented and passed, the media will condemn the SBC as racist and bigoted, or at least backward.

UPDATE II   Here is a comment I can endorse, from one of SBC Voices’ perennial outsider-underdogs:

In fact, we should be ashamed that society did what we as the church should have done first. Just look at what society has condemned and made laws to prevent while the church sat silent. This is just one of the many human issues that the church either went against or sat silent saying nothing. That is the shame of it all.

Oh, boy. The Baptists are getting revved for Vacation Bible School, because that’s when they do the most baptisms and get their numbers back up (Baptists count baptisms as an index of a preacher’s effectiveness).

It’s a sad indication of how, though Baptists swear up and down that the Bible is inerrant et cetera, et cetera, and drive around with obnoxious bumper stickers, few actually know anything about their beloved religion. After all, objecting to baptism below the age of reason — and grade school age certainly doesn’t meet that test — is one of the great Baptist distinctives.