Celebrating Black Authors?

Wayne & Rebecca Birch
Wayne & Rebecca Birch Member Posts: 25
edited November 21 in English Forum

I am a bit surprised at this, The Bible teaches not to make a distinction, moreover we aren't supposed to cave into the issues of the world. The Bible seeks to unite all believers regardless of skin colour or creed. We are united into the Body of Christ. There is no Jew or Greek, circumcised or uncircumcised writes Paul.

Has Logos gone woke that we are now elevating one group above others? I find no Biblical support for this. I mean it ok to celebrate an author individually be he black, white or Portugese, but to go off and say this in light of Gal 3:28, where it specifically that we, no matter our background are decendants of Abraham's faith because of the faith he showed. 

Do we have to make divisions like this? Aren't we supposed to be like Christ and not like the world?

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Comments

  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,480

    Welcome to the forums! [:)]

    Has Logos gone woke

    The forums are not a place for theological or political rants, but there is nothing political by FL promoting black authors during black history month. 

    macOS, iOS & iPadOS | Logs |  Install

  • SineNomine
    SineNomine Member Posts: 7,043

    Phil Gons (Faithlife)">

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  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 3,087

    I am a bit surprised at this ...

    Where's 'this'? Black authors would be great! Especially those toiling hard in Africa ... also I'd like more from Haiti too.

  • Kiyah
    Kiyah Member Posts: 2,804 ✭✭✭✭

    I am a bit surprised at this ...

    Where's 'this'? Black authors would be great! Especially those toiling hard in Africa ... also I'd like more from Haiti too.

    It's the author spotlight for the month (The Kerusso Collective): https://www.logos.com/monthly-sale/author-spotlight

    There was also a Logos livestream a couple of days ago for those interested in learning more about the Kerusso Collective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BnysQVbb30

    There was also a blog post: https://blog.logos.com/black-history-is-family-history/

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 3,087

    Thank you, Kiyah.

    I picked up the NT commentary (have wanted something like that). And the pulpit power one (am always amazed; how do they do it?).

    In my Fredriksen reading, she pointed out the odd 'ethiopian' official in Acts ... why specify, and its obviousness, especially the Holy Spirit's direct involvement. Ok, back to the corner.

  • David Wanat
    David Wanat Member Posts: 1,827 ✭✭✭

    I don't have a problem with this. Regardless of what one might think of the current racial tensions in the United States and what to do about them, it certainly helps to learn where people from other groups are coming from to avoid mutual mistrust and misunderstanding.

    If we do have issues with any of the books in the sale (and I don't), we're free to not buy them. Faithlife isn't forcing anything into our libraries.

    WIN 11 i7 9750H, RTX 2060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD | iPad Air 3
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  • Greg Dement
    Greg Dement Member Posts: 133

    Although some of the statements you use are technically correct and there are situations where discouraging division is the correct thing to do, perhaps add your heart and love to your logic for this particular situation to entertain the possibility that acknowledging or celebrating differences don’t always = division. I suggest you reread your “very 1st post ever” also adding heart and love to your logic and see if it comes across how you may have meant it? Perhaps you can find some space to see there is a possibility this Celebration is not about division or ”wokeness”?

  • Kiyah
    Kiyah Member Posts: 2,804 ✭✭✭✭

    I picked up the NT commentary (have wanted something like that). And the pulpit power one (am always amazed; how do they do it?).

    We probably got the same NT commentary, True to Our Native Land. That's been on my wishlist forever. I got the Power in the Pulpit one when it was in pre-pub.

    I only wish they had included more items in the sale. There are more items considered a part of the Kerusso Collective project.

    If Faithlife is listening, I would love to see Frank A. Thomas' books included in the sale, especially his Introduction to the Practice of African American Preaching.

  • Kiyah
    Kiyah Member Posts: 2,804 ✭✭✭✭

    In my Fredriksen reading, she pointed out the odd 'ethiopian' official in Acts

    What Fredriksen reading?

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 3,087

    We probably got the same NT commentary, True to Our Native Land. That's been on my wishlist forever. I got the Power in the Pulpit one when it was in pre-pub.

    I only wish they had included more items in the sale. There are more items considered a part of the Kerusso Collective project.

    If Faithlife is listening, I would love to see Frank A. Thomas' books included in the sale, especially his Introduction to the Practice of African American Preaching.

    Yep on True-Native-Land. I already checked to see if the commentator would bite, on the Ethiopian. He did! Your other suggestions for the sale, sound good.

    Regarding Paula Fredriksen, I'm on Paul, the Pagan's Apostle. It's realy quite 'upside down', looking at everything as jewish.

  • Kathleen Marie
    Kathleen Marie Member Posts: 812

    I have been working very hard to make my library as reflective of the entire church as possible, to make sure that my searches produce results that allow me to gain the wisdom of as many members of the church as possible.

    My library is still lopsided. I have yet to gain access to the sales that will help me fill in some gaping holes. I don't know what I don't know, so I don't know what I will learn when those holes begin to fill. I don't like being left out of the the majority of the world's conversations.

    I have 5,000+ resources and my purchase history is so odd-looking that I got a phone-call from Logos asking if everything was okay. LOL. When I explained my current paper topic, the representative laughed and said that made sense. I was gifted a feminist set of commentaries that I love. I have diversity of denominations after carefully picking through the legacy library sales to research this topic, but I do not have diversity of continents. The church is worldwide. I am not trying to be anything more than selfish. I am the one losing by not having a library with resources from more continents.

    I don't care what the sales and collections are called. I just want to be included in more discussions with my brothers and sisters in different time zones.

  • I have read the replies. Thank you for those. I got a bit of criticism for failing to be loving. Writing is a medium that only has a portion of communication (leaves out body language and tone of voice). I would suggest refraining from judging a person's heart before you know that person or their intentions.Unfortunately for a lot of people the way I type and the language I use, tends to convey a coldness. I typically write short because should I write long treatises, people don't tend to read them.

    Regarding forums not being a place to debate theology...I find that, I am sorry, but it has to to be said - rather silly. We are Christians aren't we? What is more important or more relevant to this software or to the very way we live our lives than seeking Gods Truth in the Scriptures. Not our own individual truths. There is no scriptural basis for your own individual truth. Christ said I am the Way the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father but by me. There isn't a Catholic heaven, a Baptist heaven, or any other heaven. There is only Christ and Him crucified, revealed to us through his Word.

    What I highlighted I think was fair, that it contradicts the Bible and what it says on unity. That we are children of God no matter what. Genetically the difference in skin colour or eye colours are only a few alleles, other than that we are all human. There are no races, just the human race, and to break that up by any other division, is exactly what Satan wants. I have seen many advertisements, and I haven't seen one for "Celebrating White Authors" or "Asian Authors", or "Blue Eyed Authors". In the wake of the political movements that have recently gripped the world in the woke movements antichristian to the core, and what I find in the advertisments is a capitulation to that. As a Christian, using Christian software, that studies the Bible, assuming most of the users read said Bible, then many should find this surprising as I do, considering the teaching contained therin. There should be no division, we go past that. Our root and commonality is in our Faith in our only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You are either saved by His blood or you are unsaved. That is the main distinction in the Bible between humans.

    It's fine, as I said to advertise an author to sell that person's works, but to use flawed human distinctions and cause division is bad. Can we at least agree on that? I am not against any ethnicity at all, because that doesn't matter to me nor should it to anyone else. 

  • Kathleen Marie
    Kathleen Marie Member Posts: 812

    I would suggest refraining from judging a person's heart before you know that person or their intentions. ...

    There isn't a Catholic heaven, a Baptist heaven, or any other heaven. There is only Christ and Him crucified, revealed to us through his Word. ....

    I have seen many advertisements, and I haven't seen one for "Celebrating White Authors" or "Asian Authors", or "Blue Eyed Authors". ... There should be no division, we go past that. Our root and commonality is in our Faith in our only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You are either saved by His blood or you are unsaved. That is the main distinction in the Bible between humans. ...

    It's fine, as I said to advertise an author to sell that person's works, but to use flawed human distinctions and cause division is bad.

    Forgive all the snipping!

    I hope I did not make you feel judged. I made some "I" statements about my current library and purchasing history. I buy from all the libraries that go on sale, and I agree that it is sad that the church is divided. But it is the church that created the divisions, not Logos. Logos has gradually expanded their library to include more and more of the worldwide church, often using the labels that are familiar to its customers. They didn't create the divisions or the labels.

    When a group feels underrepresented, they request that more of their favorite books gets added. When customers that read and study widely cannot find the books in Logos that they read elsewhere, they request that they be added. There have been lots of recent requests for a wide variety of resources that are from groups that are not in the media right now.

    The labeling and divisions in the CHURCH are sad. I'm not sure how much influence a software company has on the worldwide church. Maybe they do have some. Maybe those of us that care about breaking down the barriers in the church can come together to try and break those barriers down. Maybe Logos can be a part of that discussion. It is too heavy a burden for Logos to carry alone.

    I think for Logos, the best start is to just carry more books from more of the church. I don't care how they do it, as long as we get more books at prices that I can afford. I am a vision-impaired student. My income is disproportionately spent on my education. I hope we can get some packages priced as economically as the legacy libraries that include more of the worldwide church.

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 3,087

    Regarding forums not being a place to debate theology...I find that, I am sorry, but it has to to be said - rather silly.

    .....

    Can we at least agree on that? I am not against any ethnicity at all, because that doesn't matter to me nor should it to anyone else. 

    No, 'we' can't agree. The owner has graciously made the forum available at a significant expense but asked you to observe some behaviors. You see yourself as special, and your opinions even more special. Others observe the guidance even though they too would  like to pontificate. Who doesn't? We all like to display our obvious righteousness, no?

  • SineNomine
    SineNomine Member Posts: 7,043

    Regarding forums not being a place to debate theology...I find that, I am sorry, but it has to to be said - rather silly. We are Christians aren't we?

    You are welcome to set up your own forums to debate theology on. These forums are not yours. Or mine. They belong to Faithlife, which set them up, pays for them, moderates them, maintains them, etc. Since these forums belong to Faithlife, Faithlife has the right to decide what they are to be used for. And Faithlife has.

    As an aside, these forums are open to non-Christians. You don't have to have any particular theological/religious views in order to be allowed by Faithlife to buy stuff from them, and not everything they sell is Christian, by any definition, e.g., the Qu'ran, the Babylonian Talmud, and Voltaire's Candide. As such, since these forums are essentially for actual and potential customers of Faithlife, not everyone who makes use of them is necessarily Christian.

    “The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara

  • Regarding forums not being a place to debate theology...I find that, I am sorry, but it has to to be said - rather silly. We are Christians aren't we?

    Years ago, Faithlife Corporation created ChristianDiscourse (CD) as a place for theological discussions.

    Thread => Faithlife: Need for Help at ChristianDiscourse includes comments about CD along with Faihthlife's CD not being usable four years ago. Forum participant Jan Krohn created ChristianDiscourse.Net that has Who Is A "Christian"? and longish Jesus ? "Not God" ? Savior ? discussion included "Christian" definition (plus much more in 536 comments). Caveat: recently CD has had many discussions started by a participant who links to jw.org

    Keep Smiling [:)]

  • Mike Binks
    Mike Binks MVP Posts: 7,431

    Can we at least agree on that?

    I am afraid that 'we' cannot.

    I am happy to frequent this forum offering occasionally offering help, occasionally a bit of double checking, often complete misunderstanding.

    I do so with the assurance that because the discussions are about the software, the resources (rather than what is in the resources) and the customer service rather than 'whose I am and whom I serve' I can do so without judgement on that criterion.

    If that ever changes I will be away.

    tootle pip

    Mike

    How to get logs and post them.(now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs) Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS

  • Bernhard
    Bernhard Member Posts: 640 ✭✭

    Some food for thought in this context: When in Acts 6 the Greek Jewish believers complained that their widows were neglected, the church chose a group of people to care for the widows. Each one of the people chosen had a Greek name!

  • David Thomas
    David Thomas Member Posts: 3,246 ✭✭✭

    Do we have to make divisions like this?

    By doing a Logos Bible Text search for "less honored" The Fuzzy Bible Search pointed me to 1 Cor 12:23, By clicking on that reference, my favorite Bible opened and I was able to read the context.  I then used Copy Bible Verses to paste into this reply.

    1 Corinthians 12:20–23 (ESV:2016) —20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor...

    Making Disciples! Logos Ecosystem = LogosMax on Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (Win11), Android app on tablet, FSB on iPhone & iPad mini, Proclaim (Proclaim Remote on Fire Tablet).

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,105

    Regarding forums not being a place to debate theology...I find that, I am sorry, but it has to to be said - rather silly. We are Christians aren't we? What is more important or more relevant to this software or to the very way we live our lives than seeking Gods Truth in the Scriptures.

    There are very good reasons why Faithlife, which owns the forums, chose to make them a place to discuss Faithlife resources and products. They provided the guidelines quoted in a post above. Seek God's truth in terms of discussing theology is useful but is to be done elsewhere. In these forums, we follow the guidelines of our host.

    Note to the two forum members who posted theological responses --please set a better example for those who are new to the forums.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • I have always admired Pastor Henderson's teachings. He is the founder of https://www.keionhenderson.com/christian-authors , CEO, and Senior Pastor of The Lighthouse Church & Ministries. He inspired many people of all genres and backgrounds to face life’s challenging stages including me. I hope you add him to your list of black christian authors.