KTF Weekly Newsletter: Ableist Language, Commodifying Missions, Cyber Ninjas
July 15, 2021
Hi everyone!
We’re getting right to it — here are this week’s resources for leaving colonized faith for the Kingdom of God.
Suzie’s recommendations:
This week’s episode of Shake the Dust returns to the topic of disability, and, in particular, the transformative insights of Rev. Dr. Lamar Hardwick. As we reflect on our held beliefs around disability, Harvard Business Review’s recent article on why we need to examine and do away with ableist language provides some helpful and practical insights. Avoiding ableist language is something that we, at KTF Press, strive for, and while it is certainly a work in progress for some of us (myself included), it’s proven to be a meaningful part of the journey in interrogating our own implicit biases and choosing to uplift those who have been historically marginalized.
Part of overcoming the idolatry of Christian nationalism is a willingness to confront the damage that our nation has been responsible for overseas. As US troops pull out of Afghanistan, pundits and politicians have sought to weigh in on, not only the prudence of Biden’s decision, but the legacy of US involvement overall. Human Rights Watch recently featured a particularly incisive postmortem analysis that is both even-handed and gut-wrenching. The goal of the author, Just Security’s Patricia Gossman, is not merely to condemn the United States for its ill-fated intervention, but rather, to learn from past mistakes in order to mitigate the future risk of the same exacerbation of local tensions, loss of innocent life, and severe breach of trust.
Sy’s recommendations:
In some cities around the US, certain kinds of crime have risen over the past year. Predictably, many in the media who comment on this trend parrot the police talking points that the cause is primarily that we have too few police officers and too little respect for the existing officers. Takenya Nixon Brail, A public defender in Chicago, wrote recently from a very different perspective. She argues the police in her neighborhood, labelled one of the more dangerous in the city, do very little to prevent crime and help facilitate the conditions in which crime thrives. The article draws both on the author’s own experience living in low-income, Black neighborhoods and working as a public defender, as well as statistics surrounding the non-existent link between the amount of policing and small changes in crime rates like those happening now.
Suzie has previously highlighted a post from the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary’s blog, and I have another one this week. They recently reposted an updated version of an older article called “The Commodification of Mission in the Muslim World” by Mike Kuhn, one of the authors from our anthology. Speaking from significant experience and wisdom, he highlights some of the strong temptations and dangers that, paradoxically, accompany the drastic increase in funding for missionary work in the Middle East. But he also reminds us that a deep, biblical understanding of God’s love, His image in our neighbors, and the nature of the Kingdom of God can guard against the complications that money introduces into any mission field.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
A recent cover of The Economist showed an elephant stomping cracks into the earth’s crust as it trudged towards a ballot box, apparently to destroy it. Consistent disenfranchisement of the poor, marginalized, and people of color should be a primary concern for followers of Jesus. There are multi-pronged efforts in the United States to undermine democracy being driven by the Republican Party. In my book Twelve Lies that Hold America Captive and the Truth that Sets Us Free, I contend that the United States is not a true democracy because of problems with lobbying and campaign finance, voter turnout, voter suppression, and gerrymandering. And last week’s Supreme Court decision further entrenches some of these problems. On a recent episode of Fareed Zakaria’s show GPS, Jon Meachum and Doris Kearns Goodwin argue that the threat against democracy is from within this country. In an informative article in The Economist about the 2020 Arizona election audit, a longtime Republican and member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors confirmed this reality. The county is undergoing a redundant third vote recount backed by conspiracy theorists and performed by Cyber Ninjas, a company with no experience in election administration. When ruminating on his past experience and commitment to fair elections he remembered his dream of going to Eastern Europe to engage in the fight for democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union. He confessed, “I don’t need to go to Belarus. I got it right here.” (You’ll need to sign up for a free Economist account to read that last article.)
On the other hand, there have actually been instances of voter fraud and manipulation in the United States, but perpetrated by those driving legislation to restrict voting rights now. This American Life’s recent podcast series called “The Improvement Association” gives us a window into how local politics, national narratives, and political polarization work themselves into the daily life, and the democratic process, of a small town in North Carolina.
Shake the Dust preview
We’re doing something a little different this week on the podcast. The three hosts are pausing to share some of the ways that the incredible things we have learned from our guests over the last few months have affected us, made us think, and changed our discipleship. Tomorrow you will get a shorter episode, part one of a two-part conversation. It’s a rich, personal discussion about what changes in our churches, our theology, our sense of freedom, and our thinking about topics as varying as pregnancy and racism when we take seriously the perspective of women and disabled people. Don’t miss it!
Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you next week!
The KTF team