The Color Line.... In The Church?, how are we divided? Options

[PeacefulBe]

Hi PB,

Say hello to my son and daughter-in-law if you see them there this Sabbath! He was born in Nigeria, so some our relatives in Europe were surpriced that this did not make him black! There isn't much we can do to change our color, but we can do a lot to get along and permit divine love to rule among us, and learn to enjoy variations in skin color.

Johann,
I always say hello to your son and daughter-in-law when I see them at church and I always think warmly of you when I do!

Our denomination would come together if we each had hearts filled with Divine love and eyes that see others as Jesus does!

[Johann]

I shall assume this is a joke or you relatives have low I.Qs

Of course it's a joke. But something surpriced me while I was working at this SDA hospital in Nigeria. I noticed that all new born babies had the same skin color at birth. Pigments develop later. It is interesting that the Creator has made us this way - similar at birth. From there we develop in different directions. It makes me almost envious of those who have the ability to develop more colors.

At least it tells me that we should adore the difference we see in others. What a pity some people, through the ages, have made derogative statements of and subdued those who might well be seen as more beautiful than themselves. Is this something which happens in other areas in the world?

[SoulEspresso]

I noticed that all new born babies had the same skin color at birth. Pigments develop later.

There's a sermon in this, right here.

[Clay]

All newborns?

[LeePaDee]

CLAY WROTE:l
All newborns?
------Perhaps in the Nigerian hospitals.... but step into any American hospital.... they do not have the same skin color, contrary to Johann's claim !!

[Johann]

All newborns?

I checked then with the German missionary doctor and she verified that just after birth they were the same color for a few hours. This was about 40 years ago. Perhaps en evolution has taken place since then?

This post has been edited by Johann: May 11 2007, 11:21 AM

[Clay]

I checked then with the German missionary doctor and she verified that just after birth they were the same color for a few hours. This was about 40 years ago. Perhaps en evolution has taken place since then?

newborn black child?

[LeePaDee]

Let's invoke the one-drop rule, here, Clay

[Prisca]

Of course it's a joke. But something surpriced me while I was working at this SDA hospital in Nigeria. I noticed that all new born babies had the same skin color at birth. Pigments develop later. It is interesting that the Creator has made us this way - similar at birth. From there we develop in different directions. It makes me almost envious of those who have the ability to develop more colors.

At least it tells me that we should adore the difference we see in others. What a pity some people, through the ages, have made derogative statements of and subdued those who might well be seen as more beautiful than themselves. Is this something which happens in other areas in the world?

I haven't worked maturnity ward,. however, I must question this statement. I HAVE seen my share of newborns. My own children were born...brown. They could not have been confused with children of any other race, other than Indian because of their newborn hair, but definitely brown. Those that are born with light pigmentation have the telltale ears with a promise of brown on them. With time the skin may and the hair develop. If you'd said they are all born with the same needs. That when you close your eyes and listen to them crying, there is no difference then I would not be surprised.

Priscilla

[PrincessDrRe]

My son has a "light" complexion. When he was born he looked like a little Caucasian baby. My Mamma even said he was "too light"....what was the Dr's reply?

"Grand-moms...the color will come in more so in the next few hours....most babies come out the womb a funky color....I ain't seen one that didn't look a totally different color than the parents yet...but they either darken, lighten or god forbid - stay that funky color."

I remember that......


Maybe the baby in the picture is a few hours-few days old?

[Prisca]

My son has a "light" complexion. When he was born he looked like a little Caucasian baby. My Mamma even said he was "too light"....what was the Dr's reply?

"Grand-moms...the color will come in more so in the next few hours....most babies come out the womb a funky color....I ain't seen one that didn't look a totally different color than the parents yet...but they either darken, lighten or god forbid - stay that funky color."

I remember that......


Maybe the baby in the picture is a few hours-few days old?

I think the problem was with the belief that allll babies are born the same color. That is simply not true. Yes, they are born lighter than they will be later on in life, but that is different from being the same as all the children in the nursery and thus indistinguishable as a race. Notice in the picture that the hands are fairer than the face.

Priscilla

[PeacefulBe]

I helped out with several births when I lived in Masanga, Sierra Leone, West Africa. I had never been present at any birth before this and was quite surprised when the first little guy (really little, only filled my two hands) came out very light in color. The doctor explained that this was normal and the subsequent births that I saw bore that out. As I recall, the babies that I watched being born darkened over about a 3-day period.

[laryfromGary]

Of course the reality is that some africans were already aware of christianity before the missionaries arrived... but that is another story for another time...

Aha, you have been reading the book "Sabbath In Africa?" That is an informative book and I tend to agree with the author. By the way, does anyone know if it is still in print?

[awesumtenor]

This is the very reason why I think Ron Gladden's group will cause a schism; there they provide what some in this church desire and currently have but could lose as soon as the next GC session... the ability to control the money. Historically, because the lion's share of the tithe has come out of the NAD, the NAD has had a great influence over how those monies would be distributed... continuing even past the point where the NAD made up the majority of the church's membership... and there were rumblings at the last GC in St. Louis that there was a faction in the church that was inclined to go that way already beause they felt that was the only way they'd be able to maintain control of the monies they were giving to the church.

When Ron Gladden's group first organized I believe the church could see such a thing on the horizon and they tried to get him to come within the bounds of the church but the issue of not sending all the tithe up the chain was a deal breaker...

In His service,
Mr. J

I came across this in today's Washington Post... the demographic paradigm shift we are seeing in our own church is not restricted to Adventism... the article in question says the following in part:

An epoch-dividing event recently took place in the religion that brought us B.C. and A.D. Too bad hardly anyone noticed.

For years, a dispute has boiled between the American Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion it belongs to, with many in the global south convinced that Episcopalians are following their liberalism into heresy. This month, Archbishop Peter Akinola, shepherd of 18 million fervent Nigerian Anglicans, reached the end of his patience and installed a missionary bishop to America. The installation ceremony included boisterous hymns and Africans dressed in bright robes dancing before the altar -- an Anglican worship style more common in Kampala, Uganda, than in Woodbridge.

The American presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, condemned this poaching of souls on her turf as a violation of the "ancient customs of the church." To which the archbishop replied, in essence: Since when have you American liberals given a fig about the ancient customs of the church?

Such conflicts used to be decided in the Church of England by the king putting someone in the Tower of London. That does not appear to be an option in this case.

The media, as is their habit, reported this story as another front in the American culture war: conservative Anglicans seeking refuge in the arms of like-minded African opponents of homosexual marriage. Those debates on sexuality are real enough -- but this explanation is far too narrow.

The intense, irrepressible Christianity of the global south is becoming -- along with Coca-Cola, radical Islam and Shakira -- one of the most potent forms of globalization. When I visited Martyn Minns, the missionary bishop installed by Akinola, his first reference was not to St. Paul or to St. John but to St. Thomas: Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. "The Church is flat," Minns told me, paraphrasing the title of Friedman's bestselling book. Rigid, outdated church bureaucracies are proving unable to adjust to the shifting market of world Christianity. "People used to pronouncing from on high," he said, are now "gasping for air."

In 1900, about 80 percent of Christians lived in North America and Europe; now, more than 60 percent live on other continents. There are more Presbyterians in Ghana than in Scotland. The largest district of the United Methodist Church is found in Ivory Coast. And many of the enthusiastic converts of Western missions have begun asking why portions of the Western church have abandoned the traditional faith they once shared. Liberal Protestant church officials, headed toward international assemblies, are anxiously counting African votes, because these new voters tend to take their Bible both literally and seriously.

The rest of the article is here

In His service,
Mr. J

[HUGGINS130]

this caught my attention and once again check out the entire article Washington Post

But the religion of the global south has a great virtue: It is undeniably alive. And it needs to be. A mother holding a child weak with AIDS or hot with malaria, or a family struggling to survive in an endless urban slum, does not need religious platitudes. Both need God's ever-present help in time of trouble -- which is exactly what biblical Christianity claims to offer.

Now I must ask, why do we have so much money in the Christian faith, but we are so slow to do this...

Micha: 6:8 He hath showed thee, O man, what [is] good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

This goes back to the thread where Christianity has failed...and we can sit here and deny it, but somewhere along the way, people are going to stop misquoting Christ about the poor being among us, as a reason to not help those who really need it...

This post has been edited by HUGGINS130: May 17 2007, 10:43 AM