CMP-

This is funky. Do you note that post 52 above, from Steve in Toronto to Phil doesn’t belong here under the cartoon discussion?

On the rest of the post– I found a book that might discuss more of the issues I’ve been trying to raise in my various posts that no one seems to want to address here. Of course Dan is right we should “hurt with those who hurt”—but this is not a one time event like a death in the family. This is an issue that recurs in our broader society and often still separates our churches. And what is “hurting”? Is it sympathy, empathy, total identification as in the incarnation?

Anyhow, has anyone read the book by Paul Metzger

“Consuming Jesus: Beyond race and class divisions in a consumer church”?

In no way am I an evangelical, and, in addition to spelling my name wrong, you exactly made my point, too.

Niggardly means, “miserly,” and is in every meaningful way distinct from the word you think I used. Nonetheless, the old guard of the black community, convinced they heard racism when an aide to the Washington, D.C. mayor used it in the mid-90s, forced the ouster of that aide.

It’s the ignorance of the reactionary that causes so much more trouble than what set them off in the first place. Congress writes laws, and it is that body of old, white, male lawyers depicted as monkeys in the cartoon, not Obama.

Re: Phil
Regarding my spelling and grammar, I am dyslexic and I am writing one handed with a baby over my arm. I make no claims to inerrancy. Regarding the long list of commentaries listed. It’s wonderful that evangelical write so much about the bible and the evangelical’s layman buy their books. One the ways north American Christians express there faith is by buying stuff ( in this respect I am among the chef of sinners) but remember that if an evangelical scholar wants to keep his job at a Christian collage or get a position in most pulpits knows he better tow the inerrancy line (however creatively he defines it). I know a lot of evanjelical Anglicans who were educated in England and Duch Reformed types that did there advanced degrees at the Free University of Amsterdam and very few of them want to defend inerrancy (yes I know J.I. Packer does). Remember it was the board of Westminster who gave Peter Ennis the boot he had the support of the faculty. A lot of people are afraid for their jobs. An evangelical bible scholar who has express his doubts about inerrancy has about the same lifespan as a creation scientist in a secular biology department (less since tenure is a largely mythic concept in the world of Christian higher education). A lot of commenter’s have made the point that once inerrancy goes a lot of core doctrines might go with it. Maybe there right. One of the main Roman Catholic critiques of the Reformation was that without magisteral authority the inevitable result was schism and heresy. It’s hard to argue they were not correct but I am still grateful to the Reformers. They stood for truth regardless of where it leads them. I hope that future generations of evangelical scholars follow their example.

There we go. I knew the word n-word would come out–Good Job Benjamin Baxtor, Thanks for showing your true colors!

Baxtor made my point why white evangelicals don’t take race matters seriously. It’s a joke to them. Why can’t white evangelicals stand against it is beyond me?

And that’s (failing to take a stand against racism) is why White and Black evangelicals will always be divided.

Conservative or not, The cartoon was racist.

This cartoon is in no way racist. Let’s all learn to be a little more niggardly with that word, eh?

I’m thinkin’ the “I will accept no bull from your house.” version might work pretty well here!

(P.S. Thanks for saving me from that survey)

Friends, it seems that one issue that is being discussed here is of a hermeneutical nature: those who were not offended at the cartoon were not offended because they realize that the president did not author the bill, while those who were offended recognize that many people will read the text as heavily involving President Obama from day one.

On one level, how we interpret something should involve authorial intent. That’s how we are to approach the Bible, as well as any other document. What did the author mean by this statement? On another level, an author is responsible to share his communication with a community; he is responsible to understand, as much as he can, how a community would understand what he wrote. We see this in Paul’s letters. At times, he was not understood, so he made a correction by explaining in a later letter what he meant (e.g., 1 Cor 5.9-10). But the question is, Would Paul write in such a way that he knew would be offensive to some when the way in which he worded his argument could have been done differently? Or to put this more broadly, Is it good communication style to write in such a way that one knows would be offensive to a good portion of the readers when such an offense was not intended?

We struggled with a similar issue in translating the NET Bible. Because of connotations in English today, especially of a sexual nature, we had to be very careful about several passages. For example, in Ps 50.9 we could not translate the Hebrew as the RSV had done it: “I will accept no bull from your house”! Or, in Matt 8.20, we went with “foxes have dens.” Now, we could argue that, in context, both passages clearly referred to actual animals, and thus no slang/sexual connotations should be inferred. True enough, but we still knew that some people would interpret the words in the wrong way. In the least, there would be fodder for junior high students if we weren’t sensitive to these issues.

How much more is the NYP cartoon liable to misinterpretation? And did the editors really think that no one would be offended? In other words, whether the cartoon meant to speak of the president is not the issue so much as whether the editors knew that many people would assume that it did so. Whether Susan’s guess of a 90% offense rate is accurate is not the issue; the fact that a large portion of the American public was deeply offended by the cartoon is the issue. And several of you were not offended, but it seems that one thing you’re not recognizing is that many were offended and that, as Christians, we are called to hurt with those who hurt.

That’s good ‘E’. I asked my mother a couple of days ago what she thought of the cartoon. She is a sharp-thinking, wise and intelligent woman in her 70′s (who’s white, and conservative). She said that she definitely thought that the cartoon was offensive. I didn’t ask her if she thought the ape represented Obama.

It seems odd to me to disassociate Obama from the bill. It would make him a fool of a president if he wasn’t well aware of, and approving of the bill. As Dan put it: “His (Obama’s) fingerprints are all over it”.

Susan:

The bill originated in the House. It doesn’t matter whether a Mr. Obey (or a Mr. Obi-Wan Kenobi!) wrote it. The perception/reaction that the chimp referred to Obama was a wrong perception/reaction because the Executive Branch did not write the bill. I personally did not think it represented Obama when I first saw it for two reasons: 1. No widely-known editorial cartoonist for a widely-read conservative publication would be so stupid as to portray a Black man as an ape, and 2. I instantly associated the chimp with Congress, because I knew the bill came from the House, and I thought of the saying, “A camel is a horse designed by a committee.”

Mr. “E”, I don’t know if my friend thought that the ape represented Obama or not. As I stated before, I believe that most people would think that the ape DID represent Obama, because the stimulus bill was called “Obama’s Stimulus Bill” from day-one (by the media). I cannot bring myself to believe that either the artist of the cartoon, or the editors of the Post, had “no clue” that most people would assume that the ape represented Obama. I’m sure that very few people know that the bill was penned by Representative David Obey.

I liked reading George Bush’s Thanksgiving Declaration (which was posted on the White House website) on Thanksgiving day. I thought: “Wow, that’s awesome! What a strong Christian statement which gives thanks to God…” Later, I was talking with a friend who knows the woman who actually wrote that declaration. Call me stupid, but I had initially thought Bush was involved in the writing process, as I thought Obama was involved in the writing process of the stimulus bill.
Needless to say, in both cases the presidents would read and sign such items.