Perspectives on Recent Articles
A lot of stories have been running in press about the Diana Singing/Confederate Flag issue. We think the one that ran on Yahoo News is a particularly good one.
Also notable is the fact that a religion reporter from the Tennessean newspaper, which is part of the USA Today network wrote an article also.
A quote made in that article came from Jack Parks, a member of the Board of Directors of the Diana Singing, who said “We’d really like to just forget it.”
We are sure they would. Over a month ago, we privately and three times urged them to take down the images from Facebook, pointing out that they were inconsistent with Christian values, and especially pointing out 1 Corinthians 6 and 8 that if brethren are offended, it is best not to exercise that right. They had ample opportunity to make this go away and “forget the whole thing.” They chose not to do so.
Unfortunately, the Diana Singing Board of Directors still does not get it. Only an apology which states that the Christian thing to do would have been to immediately remove these pictures and video of the Confederate Flag from their Facebook Page will suffice.
We want to make one thing clear. Our continuing objection is NOT to the fact that Confederate flag was displayed. It was. It is not a choice we would have made, but it happened. Our continuing objection is the failure of the Board of Directors of the Diana Singing to acknowledge that the Christian response would have been to take the images and a video off their Facebook page immediately upon receiving notice that brethren were offended.
Finally, we continue to be deeply sorrowful that all this happened. We forgive and love unconditionally, as Christ taught. Christ also confronted wrong when He saw it, especially in places that represent God publicly.
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Our feeling about the publicity
We do want to make a remark about all the publicity that has come out, because we were accused by one person of soliciting publicity. This is NOT the case. First, we tried, three times, to privately resolve the issue. None of this would have happened if the administrators of the Diana Singing Facebook Group had just politely removed the images when they were notified that some Christians were offended. We only went public after notifying the Board of Directors of the Diana Singing that we felt it necessary to do so, since we acknowledged the Diana Singing in our original publication of the Bible Workbook Series. Even then, we gave them time to process this fact. To that extent, the Board of Directors of the Diana Singing bear the full responsibility of any Press incurred.
Second, the reporters contacted us, we did not contact them. Third, these story would have probably have run regardless of any statement issued or reaction to it, which all happened a few hours before the story was written. Fourth, our intention is to spread the Gospel message, not to sell books. If you have any doubts about this at all, please read https://www.bibleworkbook.com/our-story/
I am commenting here deliberately as an individual, not representing the views of the Bible Workbook.
I agree with the previous post completely up until that last part. The only thing I will say is that I personally do not support anthem kneeling at all. I understand the sentiment, but feel that there are other venues in which to make these feelings known. The post game press conferences, television interviews, and a lot more come to mind. I do believe Mr. Kaepernik was correct in choosing the endorsement venue to object to the Betsy Ross flag image. I do agree with that. I personally do not think our national anthem is an appropriate place to express these views.
To a large degree, almost every nation in the world has something evil in its history – anthem kneeling taken to a logical extreme would mean that no athlete (soccer, basketball, football, ice hockey, rugby, etc. etc. etc.) should ever be patriotic, and all would kneel. As Christians, I believe we should even go beyond the “Golden Rule” Christ taught. I agree with Kant’s categorical imperative here: “Act as you would want all other people to act towards all other people. Act according to the maxim that you would wish all other rational people to follow, as if it were a universal law.” Said another way, the anthem kneeling behavior is not “universalizable.”
The word “gospel” in the New Testament is not a religious term but rather, it simply means “good news” in Greek. The confederate flag doesn’t represent “good news” for African-Americans and, neither does the so-called “Betsy Ross” flag, nor does a national anthem that glorifies violence and revolution, endorses human slavery in an oft deleted verse and was penned by a slave owner. Rather, they represent war, violence, revolution, human slavery, torture, racism and extreme oppression.
Contrast the New Testament, which says that Jesus came to “set the captives free” and where Jesus teaches us to be especially kind and helpful to immigrants, the sick and poor, says “this is my command, that you love one another” and says, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
Most historians believe Jesus himself was short, dark, unkempt and pretty much the opposite of how he is pictured in motion pictures and European and American portraits. According to the New Testament, Jesus was of mixed race, including possibly some Ethiopian African heritage. While he was mostly Jewish, Jesus most definitely was not a White Anglo-Saxon European, a capitalist, a conservative or any other kind of Christian or, an American of any color. People born of light skin and privilege in modern-day capitalist America just don’t seem to get it and if they keep following conservative Christianity, they most likely never will.
Perhaps there is a very good reason why many Natives don’t like to be called either “Indians” or “Native Americans” and, why Colin Kaepernick chooses to kneel during the national anthem and refuses to endorse a show emblazoned with the Betsy Ross flag, who can say for sure?