{"id":1425,"date":"2013-05-17T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/05\/white-men-cant-jump-out-of-the-frying-pan-that-easily.html"},"modified":"2013-05-17T20:22:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T20:22:00","slug":"white-men-cant-jump-out-of-the-frying-pan-that-easily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/05\/white-men-cant-jump-out-of-the-frying-pan-that-easily.html","title":{"rendered":"White Men Can’t Jump Out of the Frying Pan That Easily"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

by Crystal St. Marie Lewis<\/a><\/span>
R3 Contributor<\/span><\/p>\n

First posted at Crystal St. Marie Lewis<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
If you don\u2019t know who Tony Jones is, you should\u00a0Google\u00a0him. He\u2019s a well-known, highly respected, and often sought-after voice in Emergent Christianity on topics related to theology. He\u2019s also a seminary professor, successful author and an occasional source for controversy in churchier circles.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Today, he stepped in it a little (okay a lot) when he wrote that he\u2019s \u201ctired of being called a racist\u201d by African American women who find his opinions exclusive and short-sighted. (Please read the\u00a0complete post here<\/a>\u00a0for full context.) I read his words and was immediately struck by three things.<\/span><\/div>\n
First, I was reminded of the inherent privilege associated with being a Christian in the West. For those of you who aren\u2019t aware of what religious privilege is, I invite you to read my blog post titled\u00a0What I Mean When I Call Christianity A Privileged Class<\/a>. In it, I explain that Christians in America enjoy religious privilege, just as Whites enjoy racial privilege. A symptom of privilege is one\u2019s lack of acknowledgement that the \u201cprivilege\u201d phenomenon exists. Another symptom is what could easily be termed Superman Syndrome\u2026 It\u2019s the erroneous belief held by those with privilege that they either\u00a0can<\/i>\u00a0orshould<\/i>\u00a0\u201cfix\u201d the \u201cproblems\u201d experienced by non-privileged groups. The \u201cfix\u201d usually involves somehow changing the non-privileged group into something more like the privileged class. (One example is the overwhelming desire among some Christians to convert the entire world. \u201cEvangelism\u201d can unfortunately be what happens whenprivilege<\/i>\u00a0meets\u00a0perceived divine mandate<\/i>.)<\/span><\/div>\n
Second, Jones expressed a sentiment about the quality of his own beliefs. It\u2019s a sentiment that I hear far too often in both liberal and conservative theological circles. In his post, he reintroduced an opinion of his which was originally shared two years ago. Back then, he felt that \u201cthe nascent Pentecostalism<\/a> practiced in much of the Global South would benefit from being in dialogue with the older, more developed theologies of the West.\u201d Later in the post, he shared that his more progressive understanding of the Gospel is, in his opinion, better than\u00a0 \u201cone particular version of American Christianity\u2026 dominated by men and exclusionary of women.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
He seems to write about his understanding of the gospel as if it\u2019s objectively better, rather than experientially better. We should all remember that whether we like it or not, religious experience is\u00a0subjective<\/b>. The quality or value of a doctrine or belief is determined by one\u2019s own context and experience. I think it\u2019s okay to say that an interpretation of the Bible is more culturally palatable, more accurate (as is conceivably possible when translating from one language to another), or even more useful in one\u2019s own context\u2026 But Jones\u2019 progressive interpretation of the Bible is only \u201cbetter\u201d in the sense that we live in a society which is becoming more progressive. Certainly, what the world needs is far fewer folks yelling, \u201cMy interpretation is better than yours!\u201d Personally, I do find his understanding of scripture more palatable than others in many respects, but I understand that the concept known as \u201cbetter\u201d is relative. Those who read scripture from positions of privilege would do better to accept this as well.
<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
Finally (and it breaks my heart to say this because I have found his work quite helpful in the past)\u2026 I found it utterly infuriating that Tony Jones did not respond more humbly and graciously to the women who detected hints of racism in his comments. When a member of a minority group says, \u201cI feel marginalized by your comments,\u201d the proper response is to 1.) Stop what you\u2019re doing, 2.) Reflect on your behavior, and 3.) Consider the possibility that you may well have caused some offense. The proper response is NOT to tell the member of said minority group that he or she is wrong because you say so. For Pete\u2019s sake, Tony, what in the world were you thinking? Please apologize.<\/span><\/div>\n
So, I guess that\u2019s where I come down on all of this. What a crazy day in social media this has been.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Crystal St. Marie LewisR3 Contributor First posted at Crystal St. Marie Lewis If you don\u2019t know who Tony Jones is, you should\u00a0Google\u00a0him. He\u2019s a well-known, highly respected, and often sought-after voice in Emergent Christianity on topics related to theology. He\u2019s also a seminary professor, successful author and an occasional source for controversy in churchier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhite Men Can't Jump Out of the Frying Pan That Easily<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"by Crystal St. Marie LewisR3 ContributorFirst posted at Crystal St. Marie LewisIf you don\u2019t know who Tony Jones is, you should Google him. 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