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PCP 629 Counseling Special Populations

PCP 629 Counseling Special Populations. Biblical Perspectives on Racism, Class Differences, Injustice and the Marginalized. Race and the Bible. Racial tension and class conflict has always been part of the enemy’s strategy: Rwanda: Hutu’s & Tutsi’s (850,000 in 100 days)

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PCP 629 Counseling Special Populations

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  1. PCP 629 Counseling Special Populations Biblical Perspectives on Racism, Class Differences, Injustice and the Marginalized

  2. Race and the Bible Racial tension and class conflict has always been part of the enemy’s strategy: • Rwanda: Hutu’s & Tutsi’s (850,000 in 100 days) • Darfur & Southern Sudan: Moslem Arabs vs. Black Christians (2 million dead in civil war) • Uganda: LRA rebels (demon possessed) vs. Christian country base • Congo: tribal conflicts leave 4 million dead • Nigeria: rich South vs poor North; violence in Jos

  3. “From one man, God made all nations of humanity, to live on the whole face of the earth.” Ethnic diversity is the gift of God in creation and will be preserved in the new creation, when it will be liberated from our fallen divisions and rivalry. Our love for all peoples reflects God’s promise to bless all nations on earth and God’s mission to create for himself a people drawn from every tribe, language, nation and people. We must love all that God has chosen to bless, which includes all cultures. Lausanne III (2010)

  4. Foreigners and the Pentateuch • Races were created to display the diversity of the Kingdom • Deut. 10: 17-19 (ASB) “For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality, nor take a bribe, He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” • Exodus 22:21(MKJV) “You shall neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers (foreigners) in the land of Egypt”

  5. Foreigners and the Pentateuch • Exodus 23:9 (MKJV) “Also you shall not oppress a stranger. For you know the heart of a stranger (foreigners), since you were strangers in the land of Egypt” • Leviticus 19:10 (MKJV) “And you shall not glean your vineyard. And you shall not gather the leavings of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger (foreigner). I am Jehovah your God” • Deut 1:16 (MKJV) “And I commanded your judges at that time saying, Hear the causes between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the stranger with him.”

  6. Injustice and the Prophets Amos • Racial injustices, oppression of the poor, economic exploitation, persecution of the needy, corruption and bribery • Warnings issued to Israel: • Those who exploited the orphan, the widow and the foreigner • The ruling elite who enriched themselves at the expense of the poor • The judges who perverted justice to favor the rich • The businessmen who exploited the poor with “two-tier pricing”

  7. Injustice and the Prophets Amos • 5:21-24 “…let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” • 7:7-8 the plumb line • 7:10-17 prophecy against Amaziah, the priest who tried to cover up the injustices and attack God’s whistleblower Micah 6:8 “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”

  8. Diversity and the Gospels • Jesus began life as an exile in Africa • Luke 4: 18-19 (MKJV) "The Spirit of the Lord is on Me; because of this He has anointed Me to proclaim the Gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim deliverance to the captives, and new sight to the blind, to set at liberty those having been crushed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” • Samaritans and Jesus: the “good” Samaritan; woman at the well • Romans and Jesus • Jews and Jesus

  9. Diversity and the Gospels Matt. 28:19-20 “Therefore go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things, whatever I commanded you. And, behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the world. Amen.”

  10. Diversity and the Early Church • Pentecost was a multi-cultural event instigated by the Holy Spirit • Acts 6: tensions between Greek and Hebrew widows • Philip to Gaza for an Ethiopian encounter • Peter’s divine vision: “break with your cultural programming!” (Gentiles and Romans!) • Paul confronts Peter for his hypocrisy (Gal. 2:14)

  11. Diversity and the Early Church • It took an outsider like Paul to break the mold: Called to the Gentiles • I Corinthians 12:12-13 (“many members, one body” • Galatians 3:26-28 (“neither Jew nor Greek…male nor female…all one in Christ”) • Christ supersedes culture, tribe, language, racism, nationalism and sexism • II Corinthians 5:17-20 (“new creation…ambassadors”)

  12. Diversity and the Early Church • Revelation 5: 9-10 • “kindred” (offshoot, race, clan, tribe) • “tongue” (glossa, language) • “people” (a “people-group”) • “nation” (ethnos, race, tribe, Gentile, heathen) • To become “kings and priests” to reign with Christ A person’s identity before God is more than just his unique, individual personality, it also takes his group identity into account

  13. Poverty and the Bible “I’ve got three advanced degrees. I went to two different seminaries and a Bible school. How did I miss the 2000 verses in the Bible where it talks about the poor?” Rick Warren Readers Digest (March, 2009) Our model: Philippians 2:1-11 (Incarnational, transformational development from the roots up)

  14. Injustice and the Bible • JurgenMoltmann asked MiroslavVolf, “but can you embrace a cetnik?” (Serbs guilty of ethnic cleansing) • Can we move from “justice” to “grace”? • The “highest good” is not to seek justice but to seek their good: can’t be done through thinking, willing or political actions, only supernaturally • Exclusion implies selective superiority • Ultimately justice requires embrace “Exclusion & Embrace” (1996)

  15. Missio Dei Richard Niebuhr, Christ & Culture (1951) • Christ of Culture: celebrate culture • Christ against Culture: “called out!” • Christ above Culture: different to the realm of business and politics • Christ in paradox with Culture: we are unable to escape our sinful nature Our faith should transform Culture! “Let Thy Kingdom come…”

  16. Missio Dei • Biblical holism was eroded in the West by fears of “social gospel” • Biblical holism is BIBLICAL • Throughout history the Church has been the agent of transformational change! • God’s mission is more than saving “souls”: saving families, saving communities, saving people groups, discipling nations

  17. “The Great Reversal: Reconciling Evangelism and Social Concern” David Moberg (1972) Term comes from historian Timothy Smith (“Revivalism and Social Reform”, 1957)

  18. “The late 19th century was a period of time when European religious thought penetrated the church in the United States. What has become known as the "modernist/fundamentalist" debate was waged. Core Christian beliefs like the authority of Scripture, the Virgin Birth, the deity of Christ, vicarious atonement, and the resurrection of Christ were undermined by the influence of European scholarship. As a result of this debate, lines were drawn between those Christians who wanted to focus on winning souls and those who affirmed a social gospel that valued social change and reform as the focus of Christian ministry efforts. A huge breach in American Christianity was forming and the breaking point was personified in the Scopes Monkey Trial that took place in Tennessee in 1925.

  19. The "modernist" position is personified in the defense lawyer Clarence Darrow whose rhetoric and defense of evolution being taught in public schools was clearly presented. The "fundamentalist" position was argued by William Jennings Bryan, the Nebraska populist, whose courtroom presentation sounds much like a Billy Sunday evangelistic meeting. The nation’s attention was riveted on this trial because it personified the nation’s religious allegiances and highlights the evangelism versus social action/gospel bifurcation as a unique American experience. The Scopes Trial solidified the considerable opinion lines within American Christianity, and it wasn’t until 1947 when Carl F.H. Henry wrote The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism that Bible-believing Christians were challenged to reconsider the broadest implications of the gospel” Klaus, 2004

  20. “The Great Reversal” • Move from post-millenialism to pre-millenialism (Scofield Bible tended to de-invest in the world) • Age of optimism gave way to pessimism with WW I and WW II • Suburbanization (upward social mobility) • European theological liberalism (virgin birth, authority of scripture, authenticity of miracles)

  21. “The Great Reversal” • Rise of “social gospel” • Focus on prohibition • Influence of the South: an individualistic focus to the exclusion of a focus on social systems (American philosophical individualism)

  22. “The Great Reversal” • Evangelists like Charles Finney gave up on the city: More success with “camp meetings”

  23. “The Great Reversal” • Revivalists preaching on individual reform (D.L. Moody and Billy Sunday)

  24. “The Great Reversal” • Fundamentalist battle with Darwinian evolution (Scopes Monkey Trial) Clarence Darrow: Scopes Monkey Trial

  25. Response of Churches

  26. Contemporary Issues in Unrighteousness (Injustice) • Exploitation and marginalization of women, children, widows and orphans; sex trafficking • Exploitation of people by corporations or those with influence (“Erin Brokovich”, “Flash of Genius”, “The Appeal” by Grisham) • Politicians who “pay to play” • Judges who bend the law to gain wealth or repay their “political masters” (Russian judicial system) • Wealthy who foment conflict for personal gain (Mark Thatcher and Equatorial Guinea) • Corporations who withhold medical patents while poor die of curable disease

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