May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will leave the world a little better for your having been here. -- Ronald Reagan

Saturday, April 11, 2015

My Church First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Endorsing Idea of White Cops Gunning Down Unarmed Blacks. Don't Like It.


I had recently posted a blog here about how my church at the national level jumped on the Leftist/Democrat/Secularist bandwagon about Indiana and the hyped up and lied about the Indiana religious restoration act. It was all propaganda and media hype. Now the leadership has come out with a letter supporting the Leftist/Democrat/Media hype about white cops gunning down unarmed black men. I’ve understood from when I’ve joined First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) that the national leadership was Leftist. Churches are independent for the most part, and I can deal with it. With this letter, supporting the lie of structural police racism and the murder of Blacks, they’ve entered that world putting politics before God, and using Jesus Christ as the tool.

This is like so many essays, blogs, social media posts, and articles that invoke Christ’s name to support Welfare, “Social Justice”, extremist environmentalism,  and other Leftist causes. Leftist Christians call into question the Christianity of Conservatives or, to my mind, those that don’t apply the life and teachings of Christ to the sociopolitical narrative of the day.

The names of Blacks assaulted or murdered by police are in the letter to members of the church and are listed as examples. From the letter, “Most recently the struggle around racial reconciliation has been centered upon justice or the lack thereof mediated around police shootings and the deaths of unarmed African American young men. The aggregates of protesters—mostly young adults in Ferguson, MO, New York, NY and other urban cites across America—are waging a fight for justice regarding excessive force resulting in the deaths of…” and they list some names.There are no crime statics anywhere to show there is excessive force resulting in the deaths of unarmed Black men, young or old.

The first they list is Travon Martin. He wasn’t assaulted by, or shot by police. It was an incident between two private citizens.  Eric Garner is the man in NYC that resisted arrest. The anti-cop Left, including the media, keep reporting that the choke hold killed him. After the investigation, including the vid of the incident show no choke hold was used. Garner died because of his health related issues. Walter Scott was also brought up, and apparently he was shot by a white cop who is guilty of murderous police racism, even though the investigation is only a few days old. 

Some details about NYC policing. The use of force in arrests means the officer touched the suspect, and the first half of 2014 had that reported in 0.6% of arrests. Reading the NY Times and others, one would think that loose cigarette sales arrests (what Garner was being arrested for) was a huge deal, and use of force was a regular thing. In that same time period, 2014, there were no, zero, use of force arrests for loose cigarette sales.

Threat assessment? Bad guys in NYC were involved in 1,103 shootings, with 1,299 victims in 2013. NYPD shot 17 people in 2013, dispatched 80,000 times to weapons involved incidents, and had 30,000 of those ending in arrests. So where’s the threat coming from? The racist part? Whites were 5% of suspects shot by police; they committed 2% of weapons crimes. Blacks were 75% of criminal shooters and 79% of police shootings. NYPD have brought down NYC homicide rate 80% in the last 15 to 20 years.

Have shootings and crime gone up or down under Mayor De Blasio? Measured against the previous year, NYC shootings were up 82% the week of Jan 5 through 11 of 2015 (over same week previous year). The month before shootings were up 12% over the previous year.

Who are the victims of shootings? Mostly minorities. De Blasio stopped all the policing programs that had driven down violent crime. He said those policing procedures were racist. So now violent crime has skyrocketed in NYC.

The city of Ferguson is the other lie of racist white cops gunning down unarmed innocent Blacks. The ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ narrative is a bald face lie. It never happened, and even the media had to report it didn’t happen after testimony, and vids, showed up of the event. In both the Garner case and the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, both men were resisting arrest.

In both the Garner and Brown cases, no indictment of the officers was handed down. Does the DOC leadership think both grand juries were rigged by white racists?

That our church, First Christina Church (Disciples of Christ) runs with the idea that white police are inherently racist, that there is rampant gunning down of unarmed Blacks by them, is a lie and absurd.

Because of this, in the letter, the national leadership wants some programs initiated. A couple at the regional level: “…to form Anti-Racism teams to develop strategies and training for pro-reconciling action, consulting with the Disciples’ Reconciliation Ministry, and to review the goals of each ministry to confirm that pro-reconciling objectives are implemented and realized”. At the ministry level of individual churches one of the things is to “work in partnership with your regional church as pro-reconciling strategies are developed, and with your general church by interpreting and supporting our Reconciliation Ministry in the local church”. Which is to endorse this idea that white cops are gunning down unarmed Blacks. Underlying that is the idea that there is so much violence in Black communities because of White Racism.

These issues are getting worse because this nation has turned its back to God. This letter is part of that, and not based on God or the teachings of Jesus Christ, despite the DOC leadership saying it is.

Here’s some of what is being instructed that individuals need to do:
  • to pray for the leading of the Holy Spirit in moving the Church beyond the normal comfort zones to build up all of God’s people;
  • to advocate for public policies that respect and empower all people;
  • to pray for and support Disciples Reconciliation Ministry financially and to participate in Anti-Racism/Pro-Reconciliation training when offered in your region; and
  • to speak up when you see or hear something that demeans people through racist individual comments or institutional practice.

This letter has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, but everything to do with racist/secular policies and politics. As to advocating for public policies, do that in the political arena. Don't use position as DOC leadership to advocate political causes. When conservative Christians advocate for something in the public sphere, we are told to shut up, religion has no place in politics or the public square. This member rejects the idea of financially supporting or praying for the Reconciliation Ministry, and certainly not volunteering my time to attend a reeducation camp for racism when I’m not a racist, nor do I think anyone in the church I attend is a racist. As to that last statement, I am speaking up because I’m seeing and hearing something that demeans people. It’s coming from the national DOC leadership advancing the lies of the secularist elite.   

“We, the College of Regional Minsters of the Christian Church (DOC), believe that ‘Black lives matter’. Regional ministers, cops lives matter. They are being assassinated. All lives matter. That these nasty race lies are support by the DOC leadership, as are the anti-Christian lies about Indiana’s Religious Freedom legislation, yet claiming these are done through the teaching of Jesus Christ is vile. This DOC leadership needs to enter back into prayer. This is pure politics and has nothing to do with our work as Disciples or Jesus Christ. 


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