Kick it Root Down!

"I kick it root down, I put my root down, I kick it root down, I put my foot down!" Sometimes, I gotta' kick it old school with some classic Beastie's. I love that song, because if you YouTube it, click on link to watch it, you will see New York (specifically Brooklyn) back in the late 1970's, early 1980's which was directly responsible for the foundation of break dancing. In a documentary entitled, The Freshest Kids, it details how the South Bronx and Brooklyn contributed to this new form of dance (break dancing) based upon "Dancing at breaks in the music, performed by DJ's spinning records." The DJ's would spin records which caused the music to break, over and over again, contributing to a beat which enabled people to dance in a more rhythmic form. Only New Yorker's could do something like that! JK of course. Kind of. The greatest part about the DJ's spinning records was that they used old time rhythm and blues artists. Mo-Town, James Brown, Disco...etc. There always needs to be the integration of the old, coupled with the new--feeling the classics, but keepin' up with the cultural milieu.

I, of course related this to the way that each generation in the United States thinks that it has been the first to develop a new concept. We would deny that our culture does this, but how many conversations do we have between the World War II generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and now Generation Y? I know that there are some organizations and churches which have bonded the generations together, but for the most part, at least the people that I associate with have found that they are doing everything for themselves. Maybe this has to do with America's "rugged individualism", which is one of the core tenet's in the foundation of our country. Maybe it has to do too much with the modern quest to know the "true self." This is a funny identification, because the true self is whoever we actually are. We have heard the statement before, "Well, they were not really like that!" I am the first to say that blame is never completely on the shoulders of any one human being, even for their own choices, and the beginning of owning decisions starts with the premise that it is never one person's fault. But our true selves are sculpted by our history, our culture, other peoples judgments about us, societies labels of us, our associations, etc...the list could go on.

This leads to a radical restructuring of the centrality of discipleship. What does it truly mean to be "In Christ"? Is being In Christ integrally tied to being connected with my heritage and my roots? I started this blog by quoting from the song, "Root Down", because maybe something in us longs to truly know our roots, our heritage, our seeds. This is the reason that I truly identified with Black Liberation Theology, because its central message is the African-American experience, which believes in the incarnation of Jesus into the midst of our communities. This theological supposition does not need post-modernism to tell it that we should be living in community. It has been a part of the experience of Africans and African Americans for centuries. For the most part, my history has been color blind, but has our color blind-ness, really been a blindness to the depth's of the human story?

To truly know and be known is at the core of humanity and as Miroslav Volf has said in Exclusion and Embrace, post-modernity has a fascination with the self and deeply desires a "Liberated self", but in the process of liberation, have we lost our roots? I want to once again, "Kick it Root Down!" Peace!

Sacrifice of the gods?

Over the past week I have discovered a new vice, which is entitled Yahoo Answers.  (Click on the link and it will bring you to my Q & A section) It encapsulates a question and answer forum where people ask some poignant, but sometimes very random questions about life, spirituality, and  various non-sensical stuff. (I am not placing spirituality with non-sense) I usually frequent either the sociology section about "Culture and Groups" to write responses to peoples ignorance concerning the construction of race in the U.S., or the section concerning "religion and spirituality".  It is fascinating to read what Americans think about Christianity and to simply understand how Christians are perceived in the U.S. I realize that debate almost never changes people's minds, but I attempt to explain the reasons for certain "Christian" behavior from the perspective of religious traditions, mainly the Reformed ones. Although many people who ask questions are not familiar with Christianity there are some very angry questions directed towards Christianity and I have to think, "Is this fair?"

Many claim to be atheists, but it seems that there is a deep seated hatred for someone or something which has contributed to their overall bitterness.  Hey, I will be the first to attest to being from the Anger Tradition and projecting my anger onto an object, which I perceived to be lesser.  For many of the atheists, they perceive Christianity to be a blatantly ignorant tradition; caught in myths, spiritual story telling, ghouls, and ghosts, all surrounded by zombie like followers of a dead god.  Sounds interesting, eh?  I think though if one listened long enough to what they are saying it would be that, "Christianity is meant to be loving, it is meant to care for our needs, it is meant to display compassion, why does it not, why, why??"  The people want a loving God, they want a God who accepts their flaws, accepts their questions, accepts their weakness, but most of all accepts that THEY will not accept everything which Christianity is laying down.  Oh, wait, I was with you until that last part.

It seems as though God's grace has its limitations with people.  God will not accept people who doubt, people who question him, or Christians don't accept people who question God. I don't know why but this drew me to start thinking about the story of Abraham and his son Isaac, when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son.  If you know me, I am not one to usually relate something to a biblical story, so maybe this meant something. Abraham in the story seemed fairly ready and able to sacrifice his child at least from the perspective of the writer. From what we know about Mesopotamian culture, they had a fairly broad knowledge of the gods and this would not be a far stretch for a god to request a child sacrifice.  Abraham willingly went, but it seems as though we have always read this story from the vantage point of Abraham, because it is easier for us to identify with a "father and son".  If anyone else figured this out a long time ago, I apologize for my slowness, since I am just figuring this out, but the story is really about the unveiling of Yhwh to humanity.  It is about the unveiling of a god who is beginning the process of transforming how humans treated other humans.  Unveiling that Yhwh does not need the sacrifice to know the heart.  The unveiling that the earth belongs to Yhwh and he has concern about children, it is the start of the transformative way which humanity sees its God. Maybe I started to think about this because people in the Yahoo section see the god of the Old Testament as so angry, because we have not portrayed this god to be the god who unveils his compassion, kindness, and love, over against the gods who demand the sacrifice of humans.  It starts to make sense why the Lord would say, "Choose this day whom you will serve?" (My paraphrase)  There were actually many choices in that day.  How about in our day? Which god do we serve?

Which god do we serve?  The god of civil religion who demands our sacrifice to war? The god of consumerism who demands our money and allegiance?  The god of my anger?  (That is meant for me)  Without an inward critique of my own allegiance, I can not speak of any other allegiances.  I will end this by saying be blessed, God loves us.