Rev. Felicia Howell LaBoy, MBA, MDiv, Ph.D. felicialaboy ... › wordpress › wp...©Felicia LaBoy, Do Not Use/Distribute Without Permission 18. Move Past Guilt and Fragility to Shame

Rev. Felicia Howell LaBoy, MBA, MDiv, Ph.D.

[email protected]

August 19, 2017

©Felicia LaBoy, Do Not Use/Distribute Without Permission

mailto:[email protected]

Workshop Agenda

• Two Guiding Thoughts For The Day

• Critical Definitions to Help Aid Our Discussion

• Getting to the Real Issue in Charlottesville and Our Country

• What Hinders Local Faith Communities in Effectively Dealing with Race/Racism

• Towards A Way Forward


Guiding Thoughts for Today

3-6 The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t

fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never

will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are

for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful

God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected

against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse

into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for

clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into

maturity.

2 Corinthians 10: 3 – 6 (MSG)


Guiding Thoughts for Today

"The tendency to by-pass the other person's facts in a head-on drive to relate is the great besetting sin of those who work for healthy human relations out of detached incentives or out of compulsions inspired by commitments in which the other person is not involved."

Howard Thurman, The Growing Edge


Critical Definitions - Racism

Individual Institutional Cultural Aversive (Racism 2.0)

• Personal acts of racial prejudice and discrimination

• Overt(Violent) and Covert

• Resides in policies,practices and structures

• Masked in words like “efficiency,” “regulation,” “rational”

• Seems normal/ common sense

• We get habituated and educated into them

• Operate via “politics of respectability”

• Focus on “fixing the problem” not adjusting root causes

• Allows individual and institutional racism to flourish

• Worldview of the superiority of one’s cultural heritage over another

• Chosenness (Manifest Destiny), Entitlement and Victory (spin)

• Equates information with expertise

• Measures “success” by individual achievement unaware of other contributing factors

• Nonconscious• Blindspot• Can hold to ideals of

equality, but under certain circumstances, they come out

• Sees individuals as stereotypes of their social group (Dogwhistling)

• Racial Implicit Bias Test: 75% of Americans have a preference for Whiteness (common sense)

Microaggressions occur here.


Critical Definitions – White, Whiteness, White Privilege, White Fragility

White Whiteness White Privilege White Fragility

• Racial/Ethnic/CulturalCategory

• Like all other humans, good and sinful

• Social construct• White culture, norms,

and values are the standard by which all others are measured

• Reinforces all forms of racism, especially ideas around chosennessand entitlement

• Colorblindness is Whiteness 2.0

• Transparent preference for whiteness

• Provides whites with “perks” they didn’t earn and that people of color don’t enjoy

• Provides immunization against lots of challenges especially as they pertain to race.

• Insulated environment of racial protection builds expectations of racial comfort

• White Fragility a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves which function to reinstate white racial equilibrium


Critical Definitions: Internalized Racism and Internalized Oppression

Internalized Racism

• Internalization of racist attitudes towards members of one’s own racial/ethnic group.

• An individual’s conscious and unconscious acceptance of a racial hierarchy in which whites are superior

Internalized Oppression• When a member of an oppressed

group believes and acts out the stereotype created about their group.

• 4 ways Internalized Oppression hurts victims:• Damaged self-respect• Irrational attacks on leaders• Divisiveness in the group• Pessimism• Settle for less than real change


Getting to the Real Issue In Charlottesville and Our Country

V

Chris Newman & Family


What Hinders Local Faith Communities From Dealing With Race

• Infused with USA Culture: Support of Colonialism/Enslavement

• Don’t Want To Deal With It

• Two Fundamental Misunderstandings Regarding Mission/Outreach

• Commitment to Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

• Little to no preaching/teaching/practice on moving persons from justification and sanctification aspects of salvation – Nones Are In The Pews

• No appreciation for Cultural Coherency (converts v. proselytes)


Infused with USA Culture: Support of Colonialism/Enslavement

• Not fully human as identified by standards of whiteness• Genesis 1 (Adam and Eve)• Physical attributes

• Victorian definitions of “whiteness” and “blackness” and Native America/1st National Peoples

• Chosenness/Triumphalism

• False exegesis• Genesis 4 (Marks of Cain)• Genesis 6 (Curse of Ham)• Joshua

• Biblical support of slavery in New Testament

• Evangelism/Mission is about our superiority over “heathens”


How Indebtedness to US Culture Changed Fundamentals of Christianity

• How Fundamentals Change• Creation story adjusted• Evangelism adjusted to appease

slaveholders• Salvation• Sections of the Bible omitted

• Sacraments changed• Marriage vows adjusted

• Why• Slavery/Capitalism• Incentives to whiteness for non-English

immigrants

• Racial-Ethnic “descendants” of American Christianity move to unexamined acceptance of critical practices.


Don’t Want To Deal With It:Church Inclusivity – Illusion V. Reality


Two Fundamental Misunderstandings Regarding Mission/Outreach

Missions As Outreach v. Relationship

• Mission As Outreach• Patron v. Heathen/Client/Project

• Charity without justice

• Our way normative

• Mission As Familial Relationship• Mutually Beneficial (Friend)

• Mutually accountable

• Charity and Justice

Church Growth As HUP• Primary Church Plant and Church Growth

Strategy of last 20 years

• Emphasize practicality over “academic”

• Easier for people to become Christians when they must cross few or no racial, linguistic, or class barriers.

• Ideal pastor shares culture, class and then race.

• Weed out “hard parts” of the Gospel (sin, Spirit, Savior, sacraments)

• “Multicultural Ministry” based on melting pot, salad bowl and “white normativity.”


Commitment to Moralistic Therapeutic Deism – The God HUP Creates

• A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth

• God wants people to be good, nice, fair to each other as taught in bible and most other world religions

• Central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself

• God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.

• Good people go to heaven when they die, especially if they’ve been baptized.

• Church = “spiritual” club v “body”• Feeds into American post-Christian,

individualistic, mass-consumer capitalistic society

15©Felicia LaBoy, Do Not Use/Distribute Without Permission

Little to No Preaching, Teaching or Practice on necessity of movement from Justification to Sanctification

16* Vimeo Video (Seedbed Raison D’Etre (https://vimeo.com/77166888) or George Barna, Maximum Faith: Live Like Jesus (2013)

• 2011 Barna Study – Ten Transformational “Stops” In Faith Formation*• Process of Evangelization to Justification (89%)

• Unaware of sin (1%)• Indifferent of sin (16%)• Worried about sin(37%)• Forgiven from sin (9%)• Forgiven/Active (24%)

• Moving From Justification To Christlikeness (Sanctification) (11%)• Holy Discontent (6%)• Broken By God (3%)• Surrendered/Submitted not contractual obedience (1%)• Profound Love of God (.5%)• Profound Love of Neighbor (.5%)

• Movement between Justification and Sanctification – Sparks Great Revival/Reformation• Wesley contends people called Methodists are raised up to assist with the shift from justification to

sanctification (holiness)

https://vimeo.com/77166888

No Knowledge of/Appreciation for Cultural Coherency of Gospel

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Age Contribution of Contextuality

Jewish Age • Jesus is Messiah• Faith is about who one is/does

Hellenistic-Roman Age • Jesus is Lord• Orthodoxy/Apologetics

Barbarian • Christian nation as “new Israel”

Western Europe • Reformation• Cultural divergence between “north” and “south”• Personal Piety

Expanding Europe and Christian Recession

• Globalization/Colonization• Recession of Christian Faith by Europeans• Cross-cultural Transplantation of Christianity

Cross-Cultural Transmission

• Cultural Transmission from Global South• New Themes and Priorities


Towards A Way Forward

• Recognize That This Issue is As Old As Christianity (Jerusalem – Ends of the Earth)

• Move Past Guilt and Fragility to Shame/Confession/Repentance/Reconciliation and Accountability

• Move Beyond Missions/Evangelism as Outreach to Missions as Ministry-In-Relationship (Mutuality)

• Move from Invitational to Incarnational Faith Commun

• Move Towards Accountability (From Justification to Sanctification)


Move Past Guilt and Fragility to Shame/ Confession/ Repentance/Reconciliation and Accountability

Guilt

• Based on feelings

• Individualistic

• I do bad, I fix it, I feel good

• Repentance is most often about feelings and not change of behavior

Shame/Confession/Repentance/Reconciliation• Shame

– Allows me to embrace weakness and sinful behavior (suffering, lament)

– Acknowledge my complicity in the institutional, structural and aversive sin

• Confession is communal (We have sinned.)• Repentance

– Change of behavior in line with God’s expectation because of brokenness and love of God, not fear

• Reconciliation/Satisfaction/Restorative Justice– Has responsibility to making persons/community whole

• Accountability (Class Meeting)– Recognize that I have blindspots and I need to be in

mutually beneficial/power relationships with someone who can see it.


Issue is As Old As Christianity:Jerusalem to to the Ends of the Earth (Acts)

Jerusalem – JudeaActs 2 – 7

Invitational

1) Includes Hebraic and Grecian Jews

2) Even though culturally diverse, everyone still is “Jewish”

3) Acknowledge an issue: “get like to minister to like”

4) Texts still emphasize male

To Ends of The EarthActs 10

Inclusive/Incarnational

To SamariaActs 8

Inclusive

1) Outreach to others deemed as “less than”

2) Still “Jew” (Proselyte)3) Eunuch’s conversion

important sign, but not significant enough to change structure

Tokenism?

1) Openness has to be cultivated

2) “Giftive Encounter” in context of the other that is open to see operation of Holy Spirit in the other

3) Allows other to maintain culture (Convert)

4) Causes a change at institutional level

5) Still has more to go


© Felicia Howell LaBoy, 2015

Move from Justification to Sanctification: Preaching, Teaching and Practice

• Christlikeness, not success is aim.– Growth in Love of God/Neighbor

• Faith ≠ Information/Assent• Weakness and Triumphantalism

– Pruning– Surrender v. Obedience– Variety of Seasons– Priestly and Prophetic

• Modify the Practices (Wesley)– Preaching– Curriculum– Order of Sunday Service– Music/Liturgy– Accountabiity Groups (Class Meetings/Bands)– Rule of Life (“Friends” With

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Documents

Rev. Felicia Howell LaBoy, MBA, MDiv, Ph.D. felicialaboy ... › wordpress › wp...©Felicia LaBoy, Do Not Use/Distribute Without Permission 18. Move Past Guilt and Fragility to Shame