The Need to Belong<\/strong><\/p>\n My wife and I have two daughters – Layken (15) and Jaymee (11). Our favourite picture of the two of them was taken inside Zizzy\u2019s Restaurant near the Tower of London some six years ago.<\/p>\n But I have a second picture that is significant. It is Jaymee and me \u2013 just one year ago. The picture was taken shortly after we began the process to get Jaymee assessed for Asperger\u2019s Syndrome. This started us on a difficult journey.<\/p>\n I share this with you because the most important point the book is trying to make to parents or significant other adults in such a child\u2019s life, is how important it is for children to feel like they belong.<\/p>\n Belonging is a fundamental human need. Feeling part of something, believing you are a piece of a greater whole, brings satisfaction and security. Belonging can give you a sense of purpose, and the experience of solidarity when belonging to a group creates a meaningful community of relationships. <\/p>\n Working alongside people who might be serving an important cause, or being on a championship team, or aligning with others who are working to change things makes a person feel important and useful. Belonging and identifying with your group members, whether it be political, cultural, religious or social can be one of the most fulfilling aspects in life.<\/p>\n Belonging and toxicity<\/strong><\/p>\n However, there is a potentially negative side to belonging. Solidarity itself can become toxic. <\/p>\n Solidarity in its beauty can help us experience shared identity as we bond over similarities. Yet solidarity when left unchecked can and often does turn toxic by creating an \u201cus versus them\u201d ideology. It can create a situation where you view someone who is not of your team, or your group as the enemy.<\/p>\n There is no human sense of belonging that is not free from the possibility of degenerating into such self-centred solidarity. We need to recognise the \u201cus versus them\u201d inside ourselves. There is no group or culture in which we can belong that, in this fallen world, is not susceptible to creating a sense of self-centred belonging at the expense of others \u2013 in other words a belonging by excluding.<\/p>\n Belonging and the Kingdom of God<\/strong><\/p>\n Please don\u2019t misunderstand me! I\u2019m not advocating self-imposed solitude for fear of group prejudice. That is not a healthy alternative. Connection and human relationship is core to God\u2019s creativity and His image in which we have been created. I\u2019m simply trying to say that the only group where belonging without excluding others is possible, is in the Kingdom of God. <\/p>\n This is the very kingdom Jesus inaugurated at his birth and the very principles of inclusion, equity and justice that led to his crucifixion. And although that future eternal kingdom of God, in which just and diverse inclusive belonging will fully exist, is still to come, Jesus inaugurated it and provides us with the righteous example of how we ought to live, as much as possible making that a reality in the here and now.<\/p>\n Belonging, in all its beauty, is part of the reason why the transforming message of God\u2019s love through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, multiplied so rapidly in the early centuries of Christianity. <\/p>\n But there is also an ugly side to belonging. If left unchecked, it brings about toxic and inhuman ideologies. We see this clearly throughout the Bible. A particular miraculous experience in the ministry of Jesus reveals the ugly side of a belonging that separates.<\/p>\n Read the story of the man born blind in John 9:8-34 \u2013 and think what it means in terms of belonging:<\/p>\n His neighbours and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, \u201cIsn\u2019t this the same man who used to sit and beg?\u201d Some claimed that he was. Others said, \u201cNo, he only looks like him.\u201d But he himself insisted, \u201cI am the man.\u201d \u201cHow then were your eyes opened?\u201d they asked. He replied, \u201cThe man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere is this man?\u201d they asked him. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man\u2019s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. \u201cHe put mud on my eyes,\u201d the man replied, \u201cand I washed, and now I see.\u201d Some of the Pharisees said, \u201cThis man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.\u201d But others asked, \u201cHow can a sinner perform such signs?\u201d So they were divided. Then they turned again to the blind man, \u201cWhat have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.\u201d The man replied, \u201cHe is a prophet.\u201d<\/p>\n They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man\u2019s parents. \u201cIs this your son?\u201d they asked. \u201cIs this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?\u201d \u201cWe know he is our son,\u201d the parents answered, \u201cand we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don\u2019t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.\u201d His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, \u201cHe is of age; ask him.\u201d<\/p>\n A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. \u201cGive glory to God by telling the truth,\u201d they said. \u201cWe know this man is a sinner.\u201d He replied, \u201cWhether he is a sinner or not, I don\u2019t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!\u201d Then they asked him, \u201cWhat did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?\u201d He answered, \u201cI have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?\u201d Then they hurled insults at him and said, \u201cYou are this fellow\u2019s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don\u2019t even know where he comes from.\u201d The man answered, \u201cNow that is remarkable! You don\u2019t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.\u201d To this they replied, \u201cYou were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!\u201d And they threw him out. [John 9:8-34 NKJV]<\/p>\n There is much in this passage that I wish we had time to consider, but pause for a moment at John\u2019s comment in verse 22 and 23: \u201cHis parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, \u2018He is of age; ask him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Why did John feel it necessary for us to know why the parents did this? It seems that he felt is essential for his readers to know that instead of affirming<\/strong> their child\u2019s miraculous experience and exploring with him the prevailing worldview and religious-cultural norms that Jesus was upending, they decided to acquiesce<\/strong>, thereby allowing the prevailing dominant group\u2019s religious-cultural solidarity to go unchallenged.<\/p>\n John reveals the folly of the power of this feeling of self-centred solidarity in the very real consequences the parents believe that they will experience in breaking with the religious-cultural solidarity of the Jewish leaders. And it is the fear of this very real consequence, of the threat of censure, the threat of being excluded from the group that causes the parents to acquiesce and maintain the unjust status quo. <\/p>\n John reveals the folly of the power of self-centred solidarity by the juxta positioning the parent\u2019s ignorant and cowardly thinking with the repetitive questioning of the blind man that reveals the victorious nature of God\u2019s Kingdom. The blind man can now see more clearly than those who could see before him.<\/p>\n Power and belonging today<\/strong><\/p>\n I believe that this miracle story is symbolic of what is playing itself out on a macro level right now in human history. <\/p>\n Christine E. Sleeter in her book, Multicultural Education as Social Activism<\/a><\/em>, refers to the experience of solidarity among white people, as a race, as social bonding. She says that when we as white people interact, we affirm, \u201ca common stance on race-related issues, legitimating particular interpretations of groups of colour, and drawing conspiratorial we-they boundaries.\u201d2<\/sup> <\/p>\n Picking up on Sleeter\u2019s observation, Robin DiAngelo shares from her own experience and years of research, in her book White Fragility (p. 57-58), that \u201cWhite solidarity requires both silence about anything that exposes the advantages of the white position and tacit agreement to remain racially united in the protection of white supremacy. To break white solidarity is to break rank.\u201d3 <\/sup><\/p>\n My journey<\/strong><\/p>\n I have experienced and lived this. During my school years in South Africa racially offensive and derogatory comments and actions as well as racist jokes were common. I have shamefully been on the side that shared these and repeated them for a laugh during my own childhood and even during my adult life. It also horrifies me to affirm that I still experience it today and shamefully I know that I have participated in this kind solidarity. I\u2019ve also found myself, like the parents of the blind man, staying quiet and dismissing the severity of the sin, because I did not want be seen as a spoilsport, but even more pressing I did this because I was afraid of jeopardising my right to be in the group.<\/p>\n That\u2019s white solidarity! Such self-centred, racially or religious superior solidarity at the expense or exclusion of others went against the principles of God\u2019s Kingdom in Jesus\u2019 time and it is still wrong in our time. This is the very sin at the heart of God\u2019s commandment, \u201cYou shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.\u201d <\/p>\n The sin this commandment addresses is the very act or the absence of the act that causes me to exalt myself at my neighbours\u2019 expense, that delegitimises my neighbours\u2019 value in order to make me feel better. <\/p>\n The witness I bear, the testimony I give that causes me to exalt my gender at the expense of women, that exalts my group at the exclusion of another, that makes fun of \u2018the different\u2019, that is false testimony. The very real consequence of maintaining white solidarity and thus endorsing white racial supremacy is committing the sin of false testimony.<\/p>\n I recognise that in my own life I have all too often, in an effort to avoid conflict and wanting to be liked, chosen to remain silent. Equally, my daughter, Jaymee, has in her short 11 years of life on several occasions been left stranded by friends who would stop playing with her and stay silent when the mocking starts, for fear of losing access to the \u2018in group\u2019.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the problem. When I, like the parents of the man born blind in John 9, kept quiet in the face of injustice and racism, I was rewarded with social capital. I learned what all the white children today learn by the time they leave primary school, and that is that we are rewarded for not interrupting racial injustice and racism and we are punished by the group, in a range of ways, when we do.<\/p>\n In John 9 the parents justified themselves by relationally disconnecting themselves from their child, even in the face of blatant religious bigotry. In a similar way, my silence as a white person in today\u2019s world is not benign, because it protects and maintains the racial hierarchy and my place within it and perpetuates the sin of racism.<\/p>\n Robin Diangelo writes, \u201cPeople of colour certainly experience white solidarity as a form of racism, wherein we fail to hold each other accountable, to challenge racism when we see it, or to support people of colour in the struggle for racial justice.\u201d4<\/sup> <\/p>\n There is a positive way forward<\/strong><\/p>\n This past Monday our daughter Jaymee\u2019s teacher sent us the following email:<\/p>\n I hope you\u2019re all well\u2026Jaymee wanted to tell the class today about ASD and about a book she had read that explains her experiences. She explained it all so clearly and I was really impressed and proud of her, it was a very brave thing to do.<\/p>\n She explained things so clearly and it was really enlightening and valuable to the children. They reacted very positively, lots of nods and smiles to show support. They clapped her afterwards as they knew it wasn’t easy to get up and explain. She explained to them how she sometimes might react to things in a different way and how she thought it was good for them to know. We spoke afterwards about how everyone’s different and the children agreed that this is what makes humans so special, that none of us are the same.<\/p>\n I am also grateful and proud of black and other ethnic minority friends who are speaking up in a Christlike manner at this juncture in human history. However, it is not right that we place this burden on them. It\u2019s time for me to disrupt the silent playground of systemic racism and injustice with God\u2019s megaphone of love. And if you have the same skin colour as me \u2013 I would invite you to join me in that challenge!<\/p>\n Jesus\u2019 very act of healing the blind man without the blind man asking, and Jesus\u2019 very act of dying on the cross for you and me, without us having asked him to do so, is a call for us to take up our cross in the same way and proactively seek to upend systemic racism. <\/p>\n To upend injustice because God\u2019s love cannot and will not acquiesce in the face of injustice and inequality. I want to challenge you today to help me to show the world what God\u2019s love really looks like. <\/p>\n #LoveNotHate.<\/strong><\/p>\n ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, editor; Deana Stojkovi\u0107, associate editor 13 July 2020 | Watford, UK [Jacques Venter] <\/p>\n Jacques Venter is a white South African who grew up during the apartheid era. He confesses that he has had much to learn as well as to unlearn, both from his time in South Africa, and since then as a pastor working in the United Kingdom. Pastor Venter currently serves as British Union Conference Associate Executive Secretary. This article is based on a BUC morning worship<\/a> that he shared via live-stream on Friday, 10 July, 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1577,1588],"tags":[681,682,680,679],"class_list":["post-5762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-organisational-updates","category-united-kingdom-ireland","tag-aspergers","tag-belong","tag-racism","tag-solidarity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Layken](\"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/images_news-2020_Layken_and_Jaymee_Venter.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"J](\"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/images_news-2020_J__J_Venter-1600.jpg\")
<\/a>
One of our friends told us to get her the book, I Am An Aspie Girl<\/a><\/em>,1<\/sup> by Danuta Bulhak-Paterson. It tells the story of Lizzie who has Asperger\u2019s. It explains how she feels after a full day at school. How worried she gets when she makes mistakes. How it hurts her when school friends and family misunderstand her and make fun of her view of things.<\/p>\n![\"Aspie](\"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/images_news-2020_Aspie_Girl.jpg\")
<\/a>So, one evening my wife sat with Jaymee as they read the book together. As they finished reading Jaymee suddenly burst into tears. After calming her down she eventually shared that she was crying because all the things Lizzie explains in the book is what she experiences almost every day.<\/p>\n![\"Jaymee](\"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/images_news-2020_J_Venter_2020_02_05.jpg\")
<\/a>It breaks my heart to know that this will not be the last time Jaymee will have to speak up for herself. On this occasion it took place in a safe and caring environment. We know as parents that secondary school and society at large will not always be that kind to her. However, I am proud of my daughter.<\/p>\n
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E-mail: tednews@ted.adventist.org<\/a>
Website: www.ted.adventist.org
ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division. Readers are free to republish or share this article with appropriate credit including an active hyperlink to the original article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"