#SeminaryWhileBlack 's Racial Hysteria Versus Reformed Theology

AD Robles

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Then really the idea behind Seminary While Black is that Fuller prides itself on being, is the flagship institution of evangelicalism.

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It's the flagship seminary of evangelicalism. I know, right? And it prides itself on having a progressive attitude.

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It doesn't? But while it's had this progressive attitude, and so they think that they're progressive, but really they're doing the bare minimum, and the bare minimum is better than the people who are doing nothing at all.

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But while they're doing this, they're marginalizing a lot of black students. So while they think that they're progressive, it's actually not.

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And so we want to bring attention to this and then realize that if it is happening at Fuller, it's happening everywhere else.

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I saw on Twitter, a hashtag trending. I don't know if it was actually officially trending, but I saw it in my circles a lot.

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And it was hashtag Seminary While Black. And what it led me to was a kind of a live stream thing where there's kind of like a space for people that had gone to seminary and had issues of racism or some kind of prejudice that they faced while they were there.

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And so I started watching it and I did not finish it. I finished probably about 10 minutes or so, something like that.

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I do plan to finish it eventually. But one of the things that just kind of occurred to me while I was watching it is just sort of the willingness people have to sort of just slander people without any evidence.

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There was a couple of ladies who had said that, well, one in particular that said that Fuller Theological Seminary is committed to white supremacy.

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Ekemeny, would you like to go share your experience in relationship to the hashtag?

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Yeah, well, I mean, I went to Westminster Theological Seminary two years ago now already. But yeah, a lot of what she's saying, you know, rings true for me.

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I think the reality is there's so many different factors here. But I think I think we have to keep in mind is that whether you're progressives, whether you're on the far left, far right, whether it be progressive institution or conservative institution, these institutions are wholly invested in whiteness, period.

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That's the bottom line. They're wholly invested in white supremacy because it confers benefits. Like current Fuller liberal progressive central is committed to white supremacy.

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And the evidence that they had was sort of that they only had like 10, you know, black staff or something like that.

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And then that some people had left and they'd never replaced them or something like that. And that's that, of course, is proof that they're committed to white supremacy.

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And also as a result of that culture, then there's a lack of African -American faculty and staff recruitment.

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Anyway, one of the other things that they had said was that one thing that they said was a really just everyone was like, oh, man,

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I can't believe how racist that is. They had some professors and they actually did name these people, although they didn't provide any evidence.

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They said they had some professors that said that that racism, I'm sorry, that slavery was not that bad and that colonization was actually good for some people.

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And everyone was like, oh, I can't believe it. That's just so racist. The administration has mishandled or ignored some of these instances of racial impropriety.

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So we have where a black student has complained about a professor who used the

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N -word as part of a lecture. And in that case, the faculty actually did.

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They brought the faculty in, they talked to him and then he had to have diversity training. But there was no really formal disciplinary process that that went on from that, from what

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I understand. But there have been professors who have said who have praised colonization as a way to spread the gospel.

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There was a professor that had his students actually do an exercise where they had to think of ways that colonization was good.

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I heard, you know, just atrocious things. I mean, just just absolutely horrendous white supremacist ideology like, oh, you know, slavery wasn't that bad and that, you know, slavery happened all around the world.

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And so trying to somehow neutralize or negate chattel slavery, which was wholly different from all types of forms of slavery that actually are currently happening right now.

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Right. I'd hear that, of course, there were benevolent slave holders, slave masters.

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I heard that in my church history class. And I'm just thinking, you know, without seeing the quote,

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I'm not saying they didn't say anything out of order, but without seeing the quote, without seeing the context, without seeing exactly what was said,

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I could understand that in a very charitable way. You know, for example, here's a story that if you're reformed, you probably know very well, you know,

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Joseph being sold into slavery. His brothers all turned against him. They hated him and they beat him up.

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They put him in a pit and then they decided instead of killing him, they would sell him into slavery. Now, the question is, was that a good thing?

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Was that not that bad? The answer, of course, if you're reformed, you know, is nuanced.

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I mean, because on the one hand, it's definitely not good to beat somebody. Definitely not good to leave them for dead and then definitely not good to sell them into slavery, especially if it's your own brother.

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And so all of those things break the law of God. And so they are not good. No question about that. But God intended all of those evil acts, all of those evil things

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God intended for good. In fact, the scripture says what you meant for evil, God meant for good.

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It uses the same verb there. And what it means is that the intent of the brother's heart was evil. Yes. But the intent of God in ordaining that to happen, because God ordained that his brothers would beat him to a pulp, leave him for dead and then sell him into slavery.

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God ordained all of those things. God's intention was good because it ended up saving all of his people from starvation because Joseph rose to power in Egypt and he was able to save his family from starvation, from the famine.

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And so in that in that regard, I can understand why someone might say colonization or the slave trade was good.

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It wasn't a good thing in the sense that it broke God's law, of course, and people suffered and things like that.

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But it was a good thing in the sense that God's kingdom spread to people through that and God flipped the script.

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God always does that. God always flips the script of evil human intentions and does his good intentions with that.

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And so in my case, I'm very glad for the slave trade in my personal family's regard.

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In other words, my family was brought over from the Nigeria area to Latin America in the slave trade and they suffered horribly.

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And that's not a good thing. And I'm not glad that they suffered. However, now that I'm here in the present time,

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I'm grateful for the fact that they did because if I was born in Nigeria, there's a good chance that my family and maybe even me would have been a

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Muslim or would be a Muslim right now. And God decided in his sovereignty, in his holy, perfect, righteous will to ordain that my family would be brought over in the slave trade and that we would mostly be

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Christians. I mean, I have God to thank that my grandparents, they're all believers, my family members, all believers.

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It's just an amazing work that God did for us. Had he left us in Nigeria, there's a good chance that we would be worshipping

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Allah. You know what I mean? There's a good chance of that. And so, yeah, is the slave trade a horrible, evil stain on humanity?

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Absolutely. But in the same, in a different sense, God meant the slave trade for the good of his people, including the black people that he brought over here.

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It was for his people's good. And so we have to understand this nuanced thing. So without any evidence, you can't just slander people and say, oh, well, he's a white supremacist.

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You might say, oh, well, oh, Adam said that that the slave trade was good. Therefore, he's an evil, bigoted white supremacist.

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No, no, I don't think it's good in the sense that you're talking about, but in the sense of God's sovereign plan and his sovereign decree.

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Absolutely. Now, it's possible that some of these people were not reformed, that were on this hashtag Seminary While Black thing.

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And in that case, obviously, your theology is going to make a difference. But I know there's at least some that were reformed.

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And so they can understand the sense that I'm talking about, that the slave trade and that colonization was a good thing.

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God uses these types of evil human acts to accomplish his holy and good purposes.

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Hope this is helpful. God bless. Whether you're progressives, whether you're on the far left, far right, whether it be progressive institution or conservative institution, these institutions are wholly invested in whiteness, period.