What you focus on?

 

1. You focus on what has been done to you.

Slide 1 of 6

Focusing on what has been done to us keeps the experiences alive in our mind, stirring up emotions, reviving hurt, fanning anger and hunger for revenge, as well as making us see ourselves as “a victim.” Thus, we label ourselves as a casualty, a person duped or tricked, a loser and fool, quarry for sacrifice, a scapegoat for another’s sins. Putting on those identity markers is crushing to a spirit, and can keep people from taking the first frightening step toward recovery. If we see ourselves as “survivors”—people who suffered greatly, but came through with body and soul alive, heroes who found the strength to cope and rise above the sins done to us—we can move ahead.

2. You focus on what you've done.

Slide 2 of 6

Focusing on what we've done often fills us with shame and guilt. I know this was the case with me when I spent years looking back at my abortion and the circumstances around it. Though not yet a Christian, I knew and smothered the truth in my heart that I was doing wrong. The "solution to a problem" brought shame and guilt which grew even stronger when I married and became pregnant. My husband and I were excited from the moment we knew I carried a child. When I suffered a miscarriage, we grieved. It struck me then that the baby I aborted was as much a child like the one I wanted. Celebrated from conception or not, a human life is a human life.

How did I overcome the devastating feelings of shame and guilt? 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I confessed I grieved, and I attended a nine-week postabortion class through a local pregnancy counseling center with other women suffering the same feelings I was. We came out the other side healed. I can testify that God keeps His Word or I would have carried the heavy, heart-crushing secret to my grave.

3. You rely on conditioned coping mechanisms.

Slide 3 of 6

Relying on conditioned coping mechanisms is yet another way we hold ourselves back. I have loved ones who are recovering or active alcoholics. I learned unhealthy ways to cope, alternately mothering, manipulating, managing, and playing the martyr. I knew what was wrong with the alcoholic. He drank a substance that altered his personality. It took time to realize I had a problem every bit as destructive: trying to play God over another person’s life.

What was the answer? I acknowledged I was powerless. I needed to stop trying to fix things and allow God to take over. Continuing to love the person, I learned not to take responsibility for another person’s life. This lesson applies to many situations in life. God is God and I am not. Jesus calls me to self-examination, not to the condemnation of others. I am responsible for my thoughts and actions, no one else’s. My work is to realign my life to His will. We all have the sin nature we inherited from Adam and Eve, the desire to control our lives—as well as others. Trusting and relying on God is essential to experiencing life abundant out of what life throws at us.

4. You try to overcome and heal in your own strength.

Slide 4 of 6

Trying to overcome and heal in our own strength is one of the more common ways we hold ourselves back. We set our minds on forgetting and moving ahead, sure we can be or do better and make all things right in our own strength. When we find ourselves right back in a similar situation or relationship, we are surprised and demoralized.

A journey through 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles in the Bible shows how a nation repeats history. The same is true of individuals. We are not at fault for what has been done to us, but if we fail to examine the past honestly and follow God’s instructions on how to be healed and live a whole and fruitful life, we are complicit in repeating (practicing) the sinful behavior. Holding on to the past often skews everything in our lives, from our relationships with other people to our relationship with God. We are all ultimately responsible for the choices we make.

5. You set up idols.

Slide 5 of 6

Setting up idols can be an unconscious or conscious way of replacing God. Idols used to be carved of wood or stone. Now, we idolize celebrities, sports figures, our body image, sex, money, technology. Wherever we spend most of our time and money is our idol. Inevitably, idols crumble. Celebrities and sports figures change with the season. Our bodies grow weak and wrinkled. Economies shift. Money evaporates. Possessions can be stolen or lost in a fire. That new iPhone or entertainment system is obsolete within months of buying it.

Idols offer empty promises. When tragedy or some catastrophic event comes, most people know instinctively to cry out to God. Only He is faithful. The question is: Will we stand firm and abide in Jesus or waver and fall with the first breeze? If we stand firm and seek Him, He will make sure we find Him. And when we do, we will experience the fulfillment of what we long for: real, life-changing, eternal-lasting love.

Only the Lord has the power to free your heart, mind, and soul.

Slide 6 of 6

The past is part of who we are. We need to pray for open eyes and hearts as we examine honestly what happened and what unhealthy patterns or coping mechanisms came out of it. It helps to talk with a wise and faith-grounded mentor.

We all live through the trouble and painful experiences, some far worse than others. If we dwell on those things, we make ourselves captives. When we make excuses, defend ourselves, trust in our own strength and ability to outwit or outrun the enemy of our souls, we lose. The truth is only the Lord has the power to free one’s heart, mind, and soul. Only He can be trusted to bring beauty from ashes, light from darkness, and open our eyes to see our past as a part of who we are while setting us free to live the beautiful, abundant life He planned for us.

When we give our lives fully to Jesus Christ, we begin the journey to becoming the person He created us to be. We are God’s masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus for good works which He has already prepared for us. He is our true Father and our real home is with Him, now and forever.

Unfounded Loyalty - book review

 

Unfounded Loyalty: An In-Depth Look Into The Love Affair Between Blacks And Democrats

by 

Wayne Perryman

 4.05  ·   Rating details ·  21 ratings  ·  4 reviews

Unfounded Loyalty offers a profound look at the influences that have shaped the cultural development of modern Black America. The book re-examines historic assumptions about the role of Christianity and the Democratic Party as supporters of civil-rights and black voters. In an investigative style, Perryman reveals shocking events and deceptions which are part of America's untold history. Unfounded Loyalty is a compelling, well researched and documented historical study.

Warning, this is a subject of interest to me so this is going to be a very, very long review.

In contrast to most books that challenge the Democrats on their civil rights history, this one is authored by a left-leaning moderate rather than a conservative.

Despite the title, the first chapter isn't about Democrats (or Republicans) and civil rights, but about the long-standing Christian history of African Americans. This emphasis on the church and faith in God as the true solution to the problems plaguing African Americans is a theme that runs throughout the book.

In the second chapter, Rev. Perryman posits that during the period of integration (desegregation) African American culture became eroded through "assimilation" with mainstream American culture, particularly the new culture of the '60s that rejected traditional values.

This is an intellectual viewpoint that contrasts with those of conservative African American intellectuals such as Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams who suggest it is exactly the tendency of young blacks to reject such things as academic excellence as "acting white" to be the root of inequality in modern America (see Sowell's Inside American Education for a more detailed breakdown of this argument). Rev. Perryman inadvertently touches on this issue on page 30 when he describes how some blacks abandoned Christianity because they did not want to worship "a white man's God."

Rev. Perryman then uses the very odd example of American Jews to describe the "struggle with assimilation." He quotes Rabbi Halevy Donin's lament of the degree to which Jews allowed themselves to be assimilated by American culture. I say oddly because, as Thomas Sowell points out in several of his books, Jewish immigrants who arrived destitute in America and assimilated quickly climbed the economic and social ladder. An identical pattern has been observed in European immigrants in the past and the Asian immigrants of today. Both groups are so successful in socioeconomic terms that they are no longer included in the debate about American racial inequality.

What both Rev. Perryman and the conservatives agree on though, is that the entertainment industry has had a part in the degradation of African American culture, especially in the encouragement of self-degrading language (bitch, ho, the N-word, etc).

Regardless, Rev. Perryman returns to the theme of the first chapter, faith. He says that it is it is specifically the erosion of religious values that assimilation is to be blamed for, both for the blacks and the Jews. He also talks about how the role of faith in God held by civil rights figures has been erased from the history books (I would add textbooks and public school curriculum). He ends the chapter by listing off a host of ways in which African Americans are worse off now than they were before integration (desegregation), all of which are true. What is still confusing is that he attributes these problems to assimilation eroding religion, once again citing both blacks and Jews, when Jews are not suffering from the problems he lists as having befallen blacks. He does not address this discrepancy.

Rev. Perryman starts the third chapter with three lists. The first is a list of over a dozen government programs that were set up to correct discrimination over the last forty years. The second list is of a small number of minor improvements that have come about over the last forty years (some of which are rather dubious). The third list is of over two dozen major social disasters which have befallen blacks over the last four decades. The message is that relying on government instead of the church has made things worse. This is another area in which Rev. Perryman finds common ground with the conservatives, though they differ in the logic behind this conclusion. For a detailed explanation of why the government programs have done more harm than good, check out Williams' The State Against Blacks. A book that details how social welfare programs have caused the same problems in England for whites is Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass by Theodore Dalrymple. For a detailed explanation of why faith-based programs are working, read Robert L. Woodson's The Triumphs of Joseph.

Starting with chapter four, Rev. Perryman finally addresses the issue at hand, the historic antagonism the Democratic party has had towards blacks, in acts both legal (i.e. Jim Crow laws in Southern Democratic states) and illegal (i.e. KKK terrorism). He lists a long and extensive (though by no means exhaustive) list of offenses, and summed his point up thusly, "The Southern Democrats did everything in their power, using both lethal and legislative tactics to make African Americans second-class citizens or to completely deny them their rights as a citizen."

For some reason, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, a racist retrograde who brought Jim Crow into the Federal bureaucracy, escapes mention in this history lesson. Rev. Perryman does touch on the first African American experiment with the Democratic party when major black-run newspapers endorsed FDR for President because "Republicans took their vote for granted." Unfortunately for them, FDR not only refused to desegregate the Federal government or the military, refused to endorse a federal anti-lynch law, and refused to establish a permanent Civil Rights Commission, but in fact banned from the military the very same black newspapers that endorsed him. For some reason, Rev. Perryman does not mention that FDR appointed former KKK lawyer, U.S. Senator Hugo Black, to the Supreme Court.

Rev. Perryman also notes that blacks have the Republicans to thank for: the abolitionist movement and emancipation from slavery, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act 1866, Civil Rights Act of 1875, Civil Rights Act of 1957, and Civil Rights Act of 1960. In chapter seven he points out that it was the Democrats that strongly opposed all of these things.

Rev. Perryman concluded the chapter by saying that when the Africa American community chose to support the Democrats again in the '60s, they were inadvertently forced to support the social agendas of the radical Democrats who came to power (i.e. the sexual revolution), thereby compromising their traditional Christian values.

Chapter five can be summed up as: African Americans have been supporting Democrats for four decades and have nothing to show for it, and the Clinton administration was no exception.

Chapter six asks the reader to confront the lack of progress made by black political leaders on African American issues. Rev. Perryman makes the case that leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP, and the Congressional Black Caucus abandoned black interests to provide support for liberal crusades such as gay rights. More to the point, and of particular concern to Rev. Perryman was the refusal of the aforementioned parties, and the Clinton Administration, to support black longshoremen when they launched a discrimination lawsuit against the Pacific Maritime Association and their unions back in 1995. Rev. Perryman also challenges the common misconception that the Democrats own the Affirmative Action issue. He points out that not only did a Republican administration create Affirmative Action, but that there is a great deal of support, as well as opposition, to Affirmative Action within the modern Republican Party, and that the Democratic Party has shown through their actions, or lack thereof, that Democrat support for Affirmative Action cannot be counted on.

Chapter seven can basically be boiled down to the following quote from that chapter:
1. Despite the Republicans' insensitivity on the racial issues of today, they, as a party, have never sponsored or launched a program, passed laws, or engaged in practices that resulted in the deaths of millions of African Americans.

2. According to leading historians (both black and white), the horrific atrocities committed against African Americans during slavery and Reconstruction were racist activities that were financed, sponsored, and promoted by the Democratic Party and their Klan supporters.
Rev. Perryman returns to the theme of faith-based uplift with chapter eight. It it, he highlights some of the spectacular accomplishments of faith-based Christian movements, of which he considers the Abolition Movement to be the greatest example. He also spends most of the chapter detailing the efforts of abolitionists and Republicans to improve the lives of blacks after emancipation through education programs in general, and black colleges in particular.

Chapter nine represents another point of consensus between Rev. Perryman and his conservative analogs. He points out that it is almost entirely through the efforts of the black community, rather than the government, that African Americans have achieved the level of prosperity they now enjoy (currently about a trillion dollars in buying power) in the time since emancipation. If blacks had waited for the government to provide this prosperity, they would still be waiting. The situation today is no different.

In the tenth chapter Rev. Perryman once again returns to his original theme, the need for African Americans to turn back to God. He stresses that the government (no matter which party is in power) has demonstrated that it lacks the capacity to achieve real change for blacks, that it is only through a unified African American community that real change can happen, and that without Christianity, there can be no unified black community.

While I personally feel the book suffers from a lack of understanding vis-a-vis economics in general and behavioral economics in particular, the author gets much more right than wrong. In terms of structure, the book suffers somewhat due to Rev. Perryman's habit of jumping back and forth between themes, but not to any extent that it obscures his message. His emphasis on the church as the basis for social stability and a unifying force might turn off some readers, but even as an agnostic, I can see the merit in his argument. Overall a worthwhile read.