QUARANTINE BLOG # 561

October 12, 2021

Celebrating "National Brotherhood Week",” satirist Tom Lehrer sang, “Oh the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Protestants hate the Catholics.  And the Hindus hate the Moslems.  And everybody hates the Jews.”

Prejudice, as Mr. Lehrer so powerfully satirizes, is about more than religion. Let’s not forget good old-fashioned racial hatred.  Sing it Tom!  “Oh, the white folks hate the black folks, and the black folks hate the white folks.  To hate all but the right folks, is an old established rule.”

Well, what got me started on this path was an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, which headlined: “Jon Gruden Used Racial Trope to Describe NFLPA Chief DeMaurice Smith in 2011 Email.”  The subtitle declared, “The NFL has been examining more than 650,000 emails, including the one sent by the Las Vegas Raiders coach, as part of a recent investigation.  Gruden apologized for the comment.”

I won’t go into all of the details (a trope is a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression) because you can pick up a copy of the WSJ and read it for yourself, but you need to know – as if you haven’t already guessed – the NFL is reviewing Gruden’s status with the Raiders for potential discipline.

In an interview, Gruden said he can’t specifically recall writing the email but apologized for using that language.  “I’m really sorry,” he said.  

That’s the gist of the piece, culled from a 1,200 word article.  Now, my comments.

First of all, racial prejudice is wrong.  Period.  Centuries of repression, denigration, and outright murder have sprung from racial prejudice.  Let me repeat: racial prejudice is wrong.  Period.

Second, Gruden made the statement 10 years ago.  It was wrong then.  It is wrong today.  But how long should a person be held accountable for one word.  The article said the NFL examined more 650,000 emails “during the course of the investigation into workplace misconduct.”  They looked at 650,000 emails!  Wouldn’t you also find  emails similar in one of the other 649,999 if this is how Jon Gruden looks at the world?

Third, “The email from Jon Gruden denigrating DeMaurice Smith is appalling, abhorrent and wholly contrary to the NFL’s values,” the NFL said.  “We condemn the statement and regret any harm that its publication may inflict on Mr. Smith or anyone else.”  They condemn the statement and regret the harm its publication may cause, but they publish it anyway.  That smacks of outright hypocrisy to me.

Allow me to repeat: racial prejudice is wrong.  A Jew tried to teach us to stop – “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’  The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  No other commandment is greater than these” – but we nailed him to a tree.  That Crucified Man is still our only hope.  But once we claim his name, we must begin to live his name.

👉  Now is a good time for The New Seekers, and “I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony).”

👉  And while we are being gentle, some more “Sayings by Mac.”

Amy was keeping Matt and Carey’s newborn, Mayleigh, and Mac wanted to be able to feed her with a bottle.  It came out this way:

“Mama you can feed Mayleigh but can I milk her?  I’ve never gotten to milk her.”

While playing youth league soccer Amy had to take Mac to a portapotty and told him about Granny having an outside toilet.  He said, “Man that’s cool.  Can Daddy build me one?”

One more involving Granny:

“When I have kids I will name two Luke and Jack, because the more people need Lukes and Jacks.  And I will name two Amy and Bonnie.  That way Granny can have a little girl just like her.”

👉  This one is from our “Stranger Things Have Happened Department.”

👉  The next 5 state license plates

👉  And some “Blackouts.”

👉  Today’s close is from The New Daily Study Bible, by William Barclay.

“Strip off the old self with all its activities. Put on the new self, which is ever freshly renewed until it reaches fullness of knowledge, in the likeness of its creator. In it there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free man, but Christ is all in all. So then, as the chosen of God, dedicated and beloved, clothe yourself with a heart of pity, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Bear with one another, and, if anyone has a ground of complaint against someone else, forgive each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must forgive each other” (Colossians 3:9-13).

When people become Christians, there ought to be a complete change in their personalities. They leave the old self and put on a new self, just as the candidates for baptism removed their old clothes and put on the new white robes. We very often evade the truth on which the New Testament insists, that a Christianity which does not change people must be regarded as imperfect. Further, this change is progressive. This new creation is a continual renewal. It makes people grow continually in grace and knowledge until they reach what they were meant to be – full humanity in the image of God.

One of the great effects of Christianity is that it destroys the barriers. In it there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free. The ancient world was full of barriers. The Greeks looked down on the barbarians; and to the Greeks anyone who did not speak Greek was a barbarian. The Greeks were the aristocrats of the ancient world, and they knew it. The Jews looked down on every other nation. They belonged to God’s chosen people, and the other nations were fit only to be fuel for the fires of hell. The Scythians were notorious as the lowest of the barbarians; more barbarian than the barbarians, the Greeks called them; Scythians were little short of wild animals. The Jewish historian Josephus speaks of them as being proverbially savages, who terrorized the civilized world with their bestial atrocities. Slaves were not even classified in ancient law as human beings; they were merely living tools, with no rights of their own. Their masters could thrash or brand or maim or even kill them at a whim; they did not even have the right of marriage. There could be no fellowship in the ancient world between slaves and those who were free.

In his commentary, T. K. Abbott points out how this passage offers a summary of the barriers which Christianity destroyed.

(1) It destroyed the barriers which came from birth and nationality. Different nations, who either despised or hated each other, were drawn into the one family of the Christian Church. People of different nationalities, who would have leaped at each other’s throats, sat in peace beside each other at the table of the Lord.

(2) It destroyed the barriers which came from ceremonial and ritual. Circumcised and uncircumcised were drawn together in the one fellowship. To the Jews, people of any other nation were unclean; when men and women became Christians, every man or woman of every nation became a brother or sister.

(3) It destroyed the barriers between the cultured and the uncultured. The Scythians were the ignorant barbarians of the ancient world; the Greeks were the aristocrats of learning. The uncultured and the cultured came together in the Christian Church. The greatest scholar in the world and the humblest labored can sit in perfect fellowship in the Church of Christ.

(4) It destroyed the barrier between class and class. Both slaves and free came together in the Church. More than that, in the early Church it could, and did, happen that a slave was the leader of the church, and the master was the humble church member. In the presence of God, the social distinctions of the world become irrelevant.

-30-