Cody Cook's Blog, page 11
June 26, 2022
PODCAST: Called to Be Separate? – a conversation with Hannah about Christianity, Homeschooling, and Agorism
One idea I’ve been flirting with is the idea of separation. Christians are told to be holy, which means separate, throughout the Bible. They’re also told to “come out” of Babylon–a codename for the world system of empire and idolatry–in the book of Revelation. Agorism is also a philosophy rooted in separation. It’s an idea related to anarchism wherein people pull out of–as much as possible–the economic system and engage in voluntary trade with each other. It’s no surprise then that many Christians and many agorists also support homeschooling–a method of teaching children apart from an educational system that prepares kids to participate in society as the state wants it to be.
Hannah was my guest to talk about these forms of separation–both why they can be good and what the downsides can be.
Hannah is a Christian, and agorist, and a homeschool mom. She can be found on Twitter @DualityofHan
Audio:
https://cantus-firmus.com/Audio/2022-06-26-CalledToBeSeparateWithHannah.mp3
Music:
F E E F I F O by Failed Kingdoms. Available here: https://soundcloud.com/failedk
June 12, 2022
PODCAST: Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes – a conversation with author E. Randolph Richards
E. Randolph Richards was my guest to discuss how understanding collectivist cultures helps us to understand key ideas and important stories in the Bible. We also talked about my own uncomfortability as an individualist with collectivist approaches to living. This was a great conversation that will certainly inspire and challenge you.
In addition to Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes and Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, Richards is the author of a number of books. He’s also the provost and professor of biblical studies in the School of Ministry at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Early on in their ministry he and his wife Stacia were appointed as missionaries to east Indonesia, where he taught for eight years at an Indonesian seminary. Missions remain on the hearts of Randy and Stacia. Randy leads mission trips and conducts missionary training workshops and regularly leads tours of the Holy Land, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. He has served as interim pastor of numerous churches and is currently a teaching pastor.
Audio:
https://cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20220612-ERandolphRichards.mp3
Music:
F E E F I F O by Failed Kingdoms. Available here: https://soundcloud.com/failedk
June 9, 2022
Political Neutrality on Abortion is Welcoming to Pro-life Libertarians (LCI)
May 18, 2022
The Mad Ones – Enemy Love
I joined my friend John Dangelo (The Anti War War Vet) on The Mad Ones podcast to talk about enemy love, political polarization, and Christian non-violence.
May 7, 2022
Complicating the Simple Stories We Tell Ourselves About Race: a look at Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
Barracoon is a revealing book.
Some of what it tells us we already know. Many of us have read first-hand accounts of slavery and racial injustice, such as the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Zora Neale Hurston’s interview with Cudjo Lewis–a man born in Africa, captured and shipped across the ocean like cargo, made to work as a slave, who then spent the rest of his life as a free man in a country that saw him as a second class citizen because of his skin color–only has one surprise for us about his actual experience of living as a slave. That surprise is that in light of other painful events and the relative kindness of the man claiming to be his owner, working as a slave does not seem to have been Cudjo Lewis’ most traumatic experience.
Cudjo’s most traumatic experience is one of many Africans that were sold into slavery that disproves a popular narrative of the transatlantic slave trade found in books like Alex Haley’s Roots and presented visually in the TV miniseries that followed–this is the narrative that Africans were peaceful people untouched by sin but beset upon by white slavers who arrived on the African shore, marched inland, overpowered the native inhabitants, and forced them onto their ships. Instead, Africans were largely taken against their will and sold by other Africans to white middlemen who could not have long survived inland on a strange new continent, particularly one where they were hostile and outnumbered. It was Lewis’ memories of slaughter from a neighboring tribe, of seeing his fellows decapitated and their heads burned to preserve them, that he could barely recount when Hurston asked him about his life–not his ignoble and unjust experience of slavery.
This forgotten history reveals a neglected but universal truth about human nature: all of us, regardless of skin color, are capable of great cruelty and evil. Decades after Hurston’s interview of Cudjo Lewis, James Baldwin would remark on our shared humanity, “one of the things the white world does not know, but I think I know, is that black people are just like everybody else. We are also mercenaries, dictators, murderers, liars. We are human, too.” (cited rom a transcript in The New York Times’ March 7, 1965 article “The American Dream and the American Negro.”)
This is a truth that many, once they have learned it, desire to repress. In fact, Hurston’s incredible book was not published when she originally wrote it in 1931 because, “there was concern among ‘black intellectuals and political leaders’ that the book laid uncomfortably bare Africans’ involvement in the slave trade. ‘Who would want to know, via a blow-by-blow account, how African chiefs deliberately set out to capture Africans from neighboring tribes, to provoke wars of conquest in order to capture for the slave trade?'” asked Alice Walker in her foreword to the 2018 release of Barracoon.
Of course, accounts of human cruelty are never pleasant to read. But this account is particularly unpleasant for many who tell a story of collective black innocence and collective white guilt. One of the many ugly things that racism has birthed in America is an aversion to acknowledging our shared humanity lest white people (all white people, regardless of when they lived and what they did) be “let off the hook.” This aversion is partly what led to Barracoon‘s failure to be published when it was written despite the fact that it plainly deserved to be.
In this aversion to truth-telling which for some has practically become a religion, black people must be portrayed as either so good and so innocent that they are no longer human persons or so powerless and naive that they forfeit personal responsibility. Any evidence to the contrary which presents people of color as being complex, as truly human, must be ignored. This mentality was demonstrated not only in the rejection of Barracoon among some in the black elite when it was initially written, but also in reactions to its recent release.
For instance, the introduction to the book, written by a woman of color, detailed the strong case that Hurston’s earlier article on Cudjo Lewis was partly plagiarized from other written reports of his life without proper attribution (a shortcoming not seen in her later works). This revelation was summarily treated by one Audible reviewer as “whitesplaining” that “attacked Hurston.” As such, “this book is not written for black people” and “black people should not buy this.” Note that telling the truth is not “for black people” according to the mentality that reality must be altered to fit into pre-constructed boxes of “black good” and “white bad.” Another Amazon reviewer was shocked that the book implied “that [Lewis’] master treated him with the utmost respect” and that this “editor’s version [was] written to appease” someone before turning to the “biased accusations” of plagiarism. Of course, the account of Lewis’ life in slavery is from his own mouth and the accusations of plagiarism are well-supported in the introduction.
None of these complex realities undo America’s history of slavery and racism, any more than America’s history of slavery and racism justify half truths about all Africans as “kings and queens” (to quote the rapper Nas) and all Europeans as devils. But they do remind us of something that we desperately need to remember if we’re going to build a healthy multi-ethnic society moving forward: to adapt a line from Solzhenitsyn, the line separating good and evil (or king and devil) cuts through the heart of every human being. Barracoon reminds us of this unsavory but essential truth.
Complicating the Simple Stories We Tell Ourselves: a look at Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
Barracoon is a revealing book.
Some of what it tells us we already know. Many of us have read first-hand accounts of slavery and racial injustice, such as the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Zora Neale Hurston’s interview with Cudjo Lewis–a man born in Africa, captured and shipped across the ocean like cargo, made to work as a slave, who then spent the rest of his life as a free man in a country that saw him as a second class citizen because of his skin color–only has one surprise for us about his actual experience of living as a slave. That surprise is that in light of other painful events and the relative kindness of the man claiming to be his owner, working as a slave does not seem to have been Cudjo Lewis’ most traumatic experience.
Cudjo’s most traumatic experience is one of many Africans that were sold into slavery that disproves a popular narrative of the transatlantic slave trade found in books like Alex Haley’s Roots and presented visually in the TV miniseries that followed–this is the narrative that Africans were peaceful people untouched by sin but beset upon by white slavers who arrived on the African shore, marched inland, overpowered the native inhabitants, and forced them onto their ships. Instead, Africans were largely taken against their will and sold by other Africans to white middlemen who could not have long survived inland on a strange new continent, particularly one where they were hostile and outnumbered. It was Lewis’ memories of slaughter from a neighboring tribe, of seeing his fellows decapitated and their heads burned to preserve them, that he could barely recount when Hurston asked him about his life–not his ignoble and unjust experience of slavery.
This forgotten history reveals a neglected but universal truth about human nature: all of us, regardless of skin color, are capable of great cruelty and evil. Decades after Hurston’s interview of Cudjo Lewis, James Baldwin would remark on our shared humanity, “one of the things the white world does not know, but I think I know, is that black people are just like everybody else. We are also mercenaries, dictators, murderers, liars. We are human, too.” (cited rom a transcript in The New York Times’ March 7, 1965 article “The American Dream and the American Negro.”)
This is a truth that many, once they have learned it, desire to repress. In fact, Hurston’s incredible book was not published when she originally wrote it in 1931 because, “there was concern among ‘black intellectuals and political leaders’ that the book laid uncomfortably bare Africans’ involvement in the slave trade. ‘Who would want to know, via a blow-by-blow account, how African chiefs deliberately set out to capture Africans from neighboring tribes, to provoke wars of conquest in order to capture for the slave trade?'” asked Alice Walker in her foreword to the 2018 release of Barracoon.
Of course, accounts of human cruelty are never pleasant to read. But this account is particularly unpleasant for many who tell a story of collective black innocence and collective white guilt. One of the many ugly things that racism has birthed in America is an aversion to acknowledging our shared humanity lest white people (all white people, regardless of when they lived and what they did) be “let off the hook.” This aversion is partly what led to Barracoon‘s failure to be published when it was written despite the fact that it plainly deserved to be.
In this aversion to truth-telling which for some has practically become a religion, black people must be portrayed as either so good and so innocent that they are no longer human persons or so powerless and naive that they forfeit personal responsibility. Any evidence to the contrary which presents people of color as being complex, as truly human, must be ignored. This mentality was demonstrated not only in the rejection of Barracoon among some in the black elite when it was initially written, but also in reactions to its recent release.
For instance, the introduction to the book, written by a woman of color, detailed the strong case that Hurston’s earlier article on Cudjo Lewis was partly plagiarized from other written reports of his life without proper attribution (a shortcoming not seen in her later works). This revelation was summarily treated by one Audible reviewer as “whitesplaining” that “attacked Hurston.” As such, “this book is not written for black people” and “black people should not buy this.” Note that telling the truth is not “for black people” according to the mentality that reality must be altered to fit into pre-constructed boxes of “black good” and “white bad.” Another Amazon reviewer was shocked that the book implied “that [Lewis’] master treated him with the utmost respect” and that this “editor’s version [was] written to appease” someone before turning to the “biased accusations” of plagiarism. Of course, the account of Lewis’ life in slavery is from his own mouth and the accusations of plagiarism are well-supported in the introduction.
None of these complex realities undo America’s history of slavery and racism, any more than America’s history of slavery and racism justify half truths about all Africans as “kings and queens” (to quote the rapper Nas) and all Europeans as devils. But they do remind us of something that we desperately need to remember if we’re going to build a healthy multi-ethnic society moving forward: to adapt a line from Solzhenitsyn, the line separating good and evil (or king and devil) cuts through the heart of every human being. Barracoon reminds us of this unsavory but essential truth.
April 29, 2022
PODCAST: Should Christian parents cancel their Disney+ subscription? – an interview with Amber Carroll of EQUIP
Amber Carroll was my guest to discuss how Christian parents should respond to increased LGBTQ+ content in children’s programming. Should we cancel our Disney+ subscriptions and run for the hills, start our own entertainment companies, or use this as an opportunity for a teachable moment? But how can we communicate a more traditional sexual ethic to our kids without shaming gay people–which could include our own children? We also talked about whether “reparative therapy” works, how poor of a job the church does in making space for same sex attracted people, how we’ve made marriage an idol, and how we can do better.
Amber is the Parent Content Specialist & Director of Operations at EQUIP, an organization which helps the church to better love sexual minorities. She writes content for parents of young kids, including EQUIP’s 10-hour Parent Course titled “Christian Parenting in a Sex-Obsessed Culture.” Enter the code CantusFirmus15 to get 15% off the price of the Parent Course for the remainder of 2022!
This work matters to Amber because her ex-husband is gay, and she’s seen firsthand some of the ways the Church didn’t offer the things he needed to thrive in his faith. Amber also has two young kids, and if one of them happens to be gay, she wants them to grow up hearing from the Church that God loves gay people and has good things for them. Learn more about Amber’s story here.
Other resources:
“Should Christian Parents Cancel JoJo?”
“Mom, Can Two Boys Get Married?”
Parent Conversation Starter: Coming Out & Gay Pride
Parent Conversation Starter: Preventing Homophobia
Parent Conversation Starter: Sexual Ethics
Audio:
https://cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20220428-AmberCarroll.mp3
Music:
F E E F I F O by Failed Kingdoms. Available here: https://soundcloud.com/failedk
April 22, 2022
PODCAST: Anarchy in the L.D.S. – an interview with Connor Boyack about the Mormon case for liberty
Connor is president of Libertas Institute, a free market think tank, and has published over 30 books and sold over 3 million copies. He is best known for The Tuttle Twins books, a children’s series introducing young readers to economic, political, and civic principles. His Twitter handle is @cboyack.
Audio:
https://cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20220421-ConnorBoyack.mp3
Music:
F E E F I F O by Failed Kingdoms. Available here: https://soundcloud.com/failedk
April 9, 2022
The Mad Ones: What is the Gospel?
I was recently on the podcast The Mad Ones to answer the question “what is the Gospel?” If you grew up hearing the answer is “Jesus died for your sins,” you’ll be surprised to learn how much bigger the Bible’s answer is.
Link to download MP3:
https://wearethemadones.com/audio/tmo_0136.mp3
March 22, 2022
Thinking about homeschooling? Start here!
I’ve noticed a lot more parents who are curious about homeschooling. I had my daughter Ava join me to talk about different approaches to homeschooling, reasons for homeschooling, and the methods and resources we’ve found most helpful. If you’ve been considering homeschooling, this is a great place to start!
Audio:
https://cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20220322-Homeschooling.mp3
Music:
F E E F I F O by Failed Kingdoms. Available here: https://soundcloud.com/failedk
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Books and audiobooks:
Dumbing Us Down – John Taylor Gatto: https://amzn.to/3qs7zmb
The Montessori Method – Maria Montessori: https://amzn.to/3qrL7tc
Passion Driven Education – Connor Boyack: https://amzn.to/3tyQqJD
The Lost Tools of Learning – Dorothy Sayers: https://amzn.to/3iuXUqI
Home Learning Year by Year – Rebecca Rupp: https://amzn.to/3N6Xepz
The Tuttle Twins – Connor Boyack: https://amzn.to/3qnDRif
Breaking Stalin’s Nose – Eugene Yelchin: https://amzn.to/3L9Dcci
Spectrum Workbooks: https://amzn.to/36ea5FT
Learn Math Fast System: https://amzn.to/3JAyi7J
Little House in the Big Woods – Laura Ingalls Wilder: https://amzn.to/3qrA03N
The Story of Civilization – Phillip Campbell: https://amzn.to/3JCfd4Q
The Story of the World – Susan Wise Bauer: https://amzn.to/3qtIg31
The Story of Jesus for Kids: https://amzn.to/3uk90nP
Video Resources:
SciShow Kids: https://www.youtube.com/c/scishowkids
Operation Ouch: https://www.youtube.com/c/OperationOuch
Jay Prehistoric Pets: https://www.youtube.com/c/JayPrehistoricPetsTV
The Bible Project: https://www.youtube.com/c/bibleproject
Multiplication songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_suP-jEBH9o
Mr. Phil TV: https://mrphil.tv
Little Passports Science Experiment Subscriptions: https://www.littlepassports.com/subscription/science-junior
