Okay, let's do this summary again since there seems to be a collective amnesia relating to Christian Abolitionism in America.

Here again is a summary of the Christian Abolitionists’ arguments against enslavers’ appeals to the Scripture: Thread

I’m contemplating leaving @twitter. The platform has proven to be instrumental in harming people with marginalized identities, which normally I wouldn’t blame a media platform for except that @jack has demonstrated negative interest in doing anything about it.

in the past when I’ve thought about this I’ve thought about it from the perspective of my own safety/comfort. And I’m good on that front; I can handle it. But now I’m thinking about it differently: thinking about the people who tell me they join or stay on twitter because of me.

Every time someone in the press refers to me as a “twitter celebrity” (actual phrase that I don’t fully understand or subscribe to but this is what people say) it means that my presence and voice are adding social cachet to a company that I find to be quite terrible.

People tell me that they learn a lot from what I have to say here, and sometimes that it’s their first or only exposure to certain ideas, histories, perspectives, etc. and I have to weigh that too. But I could post that stuff elsewhere.

We’ll see. I’m just thinking aloud for now but I’m watching closely to see what @twitter and @jack do in the coming days and how they respond to what we now know about Cesar Sayoc (beyond one really stupid tweet). Because we know it’s not just him. Big changes need to happen.

I have been working on pandemic outbreaks for 15 years.

There is a misunderstanding of the difference between the response in much of the West, versus successful countries (including New Zealand and Australia).

Summarizing:

1.Reactive versus proactive and goal oriented.

1/-

2.Mitigation (slowing transmission) versus elimination (stopping transmission)

3.Gradually responding to increasing levels of infection by imposing greater restrictions which enables the infection rate to grow (red zone strategy), …

2/

versus starting with high restrictions to arrest transmission and relaxing restrictions only when the number of new cases is so low that contact tracing or localized short term action can stop community transmission (green zone strategy, including localized "fire fighting").

3/

4.Trying to keep economic activity and travel as open as possible but perpetuating the economic harm and imposing yoyo restrictions, versus making an initial sacrifice of economic activity and travel in order to benefit from the rapid restoration of normal economic activity.

4/

5.Focusing attention on few individuals resistant to social action because of shortsightedness or selfishness, versus recognizing the vast majority do the right thing if given clear guidance and support, which is what matters for success, as elimination is a robust strategy.

5/

My wonderful @jainfamilyinst colleagues @laura_bmw & @Edi_Nilaj have released their new report "Student Debt and Young America," which pretty comprehensively demolishes many of the myths about who does and doesn't have student debt.
https://t.co/y02KFosRQ3
Highlights to follow
/1

@laura_bmw @Edi_Nilaj First of all, look at this one chart that tells you why the student debt crisis is happening: rising debt; stagnant income, and the gap has opened widest for minority borrowers.
/2

You look at that chart and you see the total failure of the human capital model to explain labor market outcomes, insofar as it even is a falsifiable social science hypothesis.
/3

Second, while it's true that total loan balances are increasing in income, student debt has increased most over time among the lowest-income groups. This tells you that student debt is becoming a marker of the disadvantaged rather than the advantaged.
/4

Third, balances on outstanding loans are rising over time, not declining. As I said in my last report, the student debt crisis is a crisis of non-repayment. This is why it's foolish to think the student debt is ever going to be paid back, whether it's cancelled now or not.
/5

LOL at the uptick in followers.

Fair Warning: I believe that Cultural American Patriotic Churchianity (CAPC for short - aka White Evangelicalism/Christian Nationalism) has caused more damage to the body of Christ and the credibility of the church than CRT ever has or will.

It's been a systemic problem since the founding of the country (indeed, before the founding of the country) and has contributed to the church being complicit in chattel slavery, Jim Crow, cointelpro, redlining and a host of other things the Bible condemns as sin.

The conflation of Christianity with Americanism since the founding of the country has left too many actual believers confusing love of country and culture with biblical Christianity (thus, in their minds, to fight against conservative political culture is also to fight against

what they think is biblical Christianity). It's part of what makes it okay to minimize the sins of men like Dabney while extolling his ability as a theologian in other areas, or minimizing it as him being 'a man of his time'. It also allows you to have an atheist speak at your

Christian conference while condemning your brother who holds different political views than you, but professes the same faith you do.

On the other side of the issue, the phrase 'black lives matter' is true because of the Imago Dei. Debate your momma about it if you disagree.