I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, death no longer having power over him. His death broke death, and there is nothing in this world that can overcome life no matter how much the schemes and systems of this world might try. There is *nothing* in this world that overcomes Jesus and that overcomes the power of his works and the power of his words.
And so I believe that speaking the truth about our sins and our brokenness is more powerful than any schemes of men who would suppress truth and oppress the people who speak it. God is behind truth and God supports truth. We are told to speak truth because it is the “weapon” that God uses to break the power of world systems.
Speaking out about our nation’s founding using our own historical documents and records is, on face value, a simple matter of saying “Here is what has happened in the past. These are the actual events and decisions, and here are the actual results. We might not know what these men were thinking, but we can read what they wrote themselves about their actions and decisions, and we can also read what their friends and family wrote about them. We have contemporary accounts that add context and flavor. We have much more such documentary evidence about what was happening at the time to form a crisp narrative about what they did, why they did it, what the results were of their words and actions, and how those words and decisions affect us all still today.”
That seems to be something unassailable in both process and product. Like what we call the hard sciences such as physics, the study of history is the attempt to look at what we have of the records to form a proposition that can be defended.
Anyone speaking about what America is as the result of what America was and what America did is doing their best to speak the truth. Like a scientific proposition, history can be examined, a proposition presented, and then we who read history can form our ideas about what happened. We might not get every detail right, but we can, I believe, form a good idea of the truth.
History isn’t “bad.” History doesn’t “defame” America. Doesn’t defame *us*. History is *what happened*, with some ideas about *why*.
We can look at history, perhaps not with complete objectivity because that doesn’t exist, but we can get, I believe, the gist of what happened. And we can look at how the events of history can speak to us today about how we got caught up in our systems.
And then, the most important thing, we can *make better decisions* and *call what happened in history as acts of sinful men seeking to oppress others in their pursuits of sinful results*.
A believer in Jesus should, theoretically, *want* to examine history and examine ourselves in the light of truth, in the light of good, in the light of the revelation of God in Christ reconciling the world to himself. We shouldn’t feel “shame” for what our dead ancestors did. We can feel revulsion or horror if not sadness and grief for the actions of our ancestors. But we don’t own their actions. They do.
*We own our own reactions*. We are not, in any way, held to the past and the decisions of the past in the decisions that we ourselves make in the light of truth and in the power of freedom. Nothing about our past requires us to hide the past or deny the actions of our ancestors. We can just . . . do better.
Doing better might destabilize some who are tightly bound to our past and more tightly bound to the excusatory history of that past that elevates men far above their actions and their own principles and intentions. (Yeah, Tho. Jeff. This is a subtext.)
But if we as humans with the freedom to let go of our unnecessary binding—when we *as followers of Jesus* with the power of the Holy Spirit to live resurrected lives—instead reject our freedom and insist upon wrapping our chains ever tighter, why do we *want* to call Jesus “Lord” and *want* to walk in the ways of Jesus?
I’m naive, I guess. I think that followers of Jesus who call Him “Truth” would value truth. I would think that our pastors and leaders and teachers who present to us Jesus and his very real & incorporeal person would be insisting that we tell the truth about our past. I would think that we would not want to shrink from our past because we value truth so much . . .
Well, maybe I’m not naive. Maybe I just believe in Jesus, and I have hope that the Holy Spirit of both fire and power, of strength and of wisdom, will work His ways in our hearts and the hearts of those of follow Jesus.
The power of Jesus is displayed in our lives of redemption and resurrection. Speaking the truth is how God in His wisdom has decided to bring His power to the lives of those who are caught up in falsity and bound up in fear.
I cannot ask you to put yourself again in danger by speaking the truth. I know that it is a hard journey to tell the truth in the face of opposition.
I am simply grateful for you, brother Jemar. You have done such work to present these truths from history and to let the Holy Spirit speak to us and regenerate us. My ask of you—and of God in His good intentions—is that you would still desire to speak truth and give us hope of change. And I hope I am impelled by that message and by our Lord to reject the chains of the past and work the works of God to bring freedom to myself, my neighbors, and my community.
Many blessings to you and to all who revere the Name of Jesus.
CRT is a cudgel. Anyone who cares about racial justice knows enough to know it's not being taught to children in the first place. Do your own research. Jemar is 100% right! Shame on GCC for such shabby, uncalled-for treatment. In the fight with you, brother Jemar...
Sadly, I know you will dismiss (or attack, ridicule) me as a troll just because I dare to disagree with you and oppose CRT. I will tell you this as a brother of Christ. What I find disingenuous is that you label people you disagree with as a mean to avoid conversation. Jemar, to be anti-CRT does not mean that someone is a racist or is against justice. It means that we believe that CRT is destructive of the very justice you and I seek. I just wish you would put the same passion you have for justice to listen to what we have to say and what we are against CRT instead of disregarding us, or worst, labeling us as someone who should be hated. Listen to minds like Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele. I would love to see you debate them. That said, I do not expect you to give me the grace to respond to this.
And at the foot of the cross the men that reviled Him and that had demanded that He be persecuted unto death could not have heard Him say: Father forgive them. Jemar, you are being reviled and you and the faithful are being persecuted. I am saddened. - Jack Ensminger
Thank you for responding to GCC's report. I am from W. PA and am very familiar with the area however, I do not have any direct affiliation or connection with GCC. Thank you for speaking truth against power. This was necessary for such a time as this! Thank you for inspiring me to do the same. May the Lord continue to encourage you and provide for all your needs. Remember - He is faithful!
I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, death no longer having power over him. His death broke death, and there is nothing in this world that can overcome life no matter how much the schemes and systems of this world might try. There is *nothing* in this world that overcomes Jesus and that overcomes the power of his works and the power of his words.
And so I believe that speaking the truth about our sins and our brokenness is more powerful than any schemes of men who would suppress truth and oppress the people who speak it. God is behind truth and God supports truth. We are told to speak truth because it is the “weapon” that God uses to break the power of world systems.
Speaking out about our nation’s founding using our own historical documents and records is, on face value, a simple matter of saying “Here is what has happened in the past. These are the actual events and decisions, and here are the actual results. We might not know what these men were thinking, but we can read what they wrote themselves about their actions and decisions, and we can also read what their friends and family wrote about them. We have contemporary accounts that add context and flavor. We have much more such documentary evidence about what was happening at the time to form a crisp narrative about what they did, why they did it, what the results were of their words and actions, and how those words and decisions affect us all still today.”
That seems to be something unassailable in both process and product. Like what we call the hard sciences such as physics, the study of history is the attempt to look at what we have of the records to form a proposition that can be defended.
Anyone speaking about what America is as the result of what America was and what America did is doing their best to speak the truth. Like a scientific proposition, history can be examined, a proposition presented, and then we who read history can form our ideas about what happened. We might not get every detail right, but we can, I believe, form a good idea of the truth.
History isn’t “bad.” History doesn’t “defame” America. Doesn’t defame *us*. History is *what happened*, with some ideas about *why*.
We can look at history, perhaps not with complete objectivity because that doesn’t exist, but we can get, I believe, the gist of what happened. And we can look at how the events of history can speak to us today about how we got caught up in our systems.
And then, the most important thing, we can *make better decisions* and *call what happened in history as acts of sinful men seeking to oppress others in their pursuits of sinful results*.
A believer in Jesus should, theoretically, *want* to examine history and examine ourselves in the light of truth, in the light of good, in the light of the revelation of God in Christ reconciling the world to himself. We shouldn’t feel “shame” for what our dead ancestors did. We can feel revulsion or horror if not sadness and grief for the actions of our ancestors. But we don’t own their actions. They do.
*We own our own reactions*. We are not, in any way, held to the past and the decisions of the past in the decisions that we ourselves make in the light of truth and in the power of freedom. Nothing about our past requires us to hide the past or deny the actions of our ancestors. We can just . . . do better.
Doing better might destabilize some who are tightly bound to our past and more tightly bound to the excusatory history of that past that elevates men far above their actions and their own principles and intentions. (Yeah, Tho. Jeff. This is a subtext.)
But if we as humans with the freedom to let go of our unnecessary binding—when we *as followers of Jesus* with the power of the Holy Spirit to live resurrected lives—instead reject our freedom and insist upon wrapping our chains ever tighter, why do we *want* to call Jesus “Lord” and *want* to walk in the ways of Jesus?
I’m naive, I guess. I think that followers of Jesus who call Him “Truth” would value truth. I would think that our pastors and leaders and teachers who present to us Jesus and his very real & incorporeal person would be insisting that we tell the truth about our past. I would think that we would not want to shrink from our past because we value truth so much . . .
Well, maybe I’m not naive. Maybe I just believe in Jesus, and I have hope that the Holy Spirit of both fire and power, of strength and of wisdom, will work His ways in our hearts and the hearts of those of follow Jesus.
The power of Jesus is displayed in our lives of redemption and resurrection. Speaking the truth is how God in His wisdom has decided to bring His power to the lives of those who are caught up in falsity and bound up in fear.
I cannot ask you to put yourself again in danger by speaking the truth. I know that it is a hard journey to tell the truth in the face of opposition.
I am simply grateful for you, brother Jemar. You have done such work to present these truths from history and to let the Holy Spirit speak to us and regenerate us. My ask of you—and of God in His good intentions—is that you would still desire to speak truth and give us hope of change. And I hope I am impelled by that message and by our Lord to reject the chains of the past and work the works of God to bring freedom to myself, my neighbors, and my community.
Many blessings to you and to all who revere the Name of Jesus.
CRT is a cudgel. Anyone who cares about racial justice knows enough to know it's not being taught to children in the first place. Do your own research. Jemar is 100% right! Shame on GCC for such shabby, uncalled-for treatment. In the fight with you, brother Jemar...
Sadly, I know you will dismiss (or attack, ridicule) me as a troll just because I dare to disagree with you and oppose CRT. I will tell you this as a brother of Christ. What I find disingenuous is that you label people you disagree with as a mean to avoid conversation. Jemar, to be anti-CRT does not mean that someone is a racist or is against justice. It means that we believe that CRT is destructive of the very justice you and I seek. I just wish you would put the same passion you have for justice to listen to what we have to say and what we are against CRT instead of disregarding us, or worst, labeling us as someone who should be hated. Listen to minds like Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele. I would love to see you debate them. That said, I do not expect you to give me the grace to respond to this.
And at the foot of the cross the men that reviled Him and that had demanded that He be persecuted unto death could not have heard Him say: Father forgive them. Jemar, you are being reviled and you and the faithful are being persecuted. I am saddened. - Jack Ensminger
Keep up the good fight man! Truth wins!
Thank you for responding to GCC's report. I am from W. PA and am very familiar with the area however, I do not have any direct affiliation or connection with GCC. Thank you for speaking truth against power. This was necessary for such a time as this! Thank you for inspiring me to do the same. May the Lord continue to encourage you and provide for all your needs. Remember - He is faithful!