Tag: Christian Ethics

The Dangers of Absolute Truth

  • I am increasingly convinced that the Christian belief in absolute truth poses a serious dilemma for conservative Christians.

One of the messier lessons to be learned – or to be reminded of – by the rise of Trumpism in America is the powerful allure of authoritarianism to conservative Christians.

American evangelicals are especially susceptible to falling in love with authoritarian leaders such as Donald Trump. It’s true that this tendency hasn’t been limited to the Christian church. In fact, the majority of registered Republicans, whether religious or not, remain loyal to Trump and still believe that he won the November election.

This rigidly predictable overlap between conservative politics and conservative religion (I am hesitant to call it theology) has long been the crippling, besetting sin of the evangelical wing in the American church. We have always had great difficulty in separating our social, economic, cultural preferences – dare I call them prejudices? – from our conceptions of God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, and the gospel of God’s kingdom.

We should never underestimate the preemptive power of human socialization to squelch the development of a distinctly Christian conscience. Believers beware…

Sadly, there is nothing surprising about this coincidence of secular and religious allegiances, for there is really nothing coincidental about any of it. This alliance in outlooks is no accident. As the linguist and cognitive scientist, George Lakoff (at UC Berkeley), explains in his several books on neuroscience and political decision-making, conservative personalities tend to view the world through a binary framework: there is right and wrong, good and bad, black and white, with little if any room for the grayish hues of nuance, ambiguity, or uncertainty.

The conservative view of human relationships also places an authoritative father-figure at the top of this binary framework. Thus, authority figures are always to be obeyed, whether that figure is the father in the home, the police officer pulling you over, or the president in the White House. These authority figures are the ones who get to decide what is right and what is wrong.

Sure, the authority figure will insist that he/she is merely the human face of some ultimate law or code that stands above everyone regulating all of our behavior. But it takes very little life experience to learn that these “codes” rarely apply to authority figures in the same way that they apply to regular folks.

There is a good reason that Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Floyd was hailed as an all-too-rare victory in the fight against the excessive use of force, especially against people of color, by American police officers.

One would hope that the Christian’s habitation by the Holy Spirit would provide abundant testimony to a Christian counter-culture winding its way throughout secular society, infiltrating, subverting, weakening, overturning, even strangling secular ways of thinking and behaving among God’s people and the rest of society.

It does happen, but not nearly enough.

I do believe the Holy Spirit is alive and that he transforms disciples of Jesus into counter-cultural people. But not everyone who calls him/herself a Christian is a disciple. As Jesus predicted, those numbers are small and only “a few” walk the path of discipleship faithfully.

Furthermore, as if the challenge of brain chemistry were not enough of a problem, I am increasingly convinced that the Christian belief in absolute truth poses a unique complication for conservative, religious personalities (which, remember, seems to describe the majority of evangelicals).

When I believe in absolute truth, I will become an absolutist, at least in those areas of life that I believe are touched upon by that truth.

Don’t misunderstand.

There is nothing inherently wrong with absolutism. If only Nazi Germany had contained more humane, Christian absolutists willing publicly to decry Nazi crimes against humanity, standing firm to the point of death in defending all their fellow citizens. Being absolutely committed to following Jesus is the Christian ideal. So, no, religious absolutism per se is not the problem defacing American evangelicalism.

Rather, our problem appears in the fusion of our belief in absolute truth with our innate tendency to seek out and identify with authority figures who will enforce those absolutes (as we perceive them) in this world. After all, we all want the world to work for us.

Many habits of the Christian church are easily exploited by both (a) those who are eager to exercise authority over others as well as (b) those happy to remain subject to another’s authority. Thus, preachers who elevate themselves as God’s singular mouthpiece may often discourage (or never encourage) small group Bible studies throughout the congregation where others can learn from God’s word for themselves, without the pastor’s immediate input.

The popular confusion of church with society – a lingering ghost of western Christendom that continues to haunt US evangelicalism – leads conservative Christians to support leaders, whether Christian or not, who would make selected points of conventional, Christian morality equally authoritative for everyone else in the world, regardless of their attitude towards Jesus.

We want the world to be convenient for us.

The more authoritatively a public figure insists on universal conformity to his/her view of ethics, the more popular that authoritarian will become in evangelical circles.

When I was a teenager, one of the poster children for fundamentalist authoritarianism was Bill Gothard whose Institute for Basic Life Principles filled sporting arenas to overflowing with Christian devotees searching for someone to tell them how to live their lives. Holding Gothard’s thick IBLP binder open on their laps, the ultimate religious father-figure would direct them through the tiniest details of what a proper Christian life should look like.

I suspect that Jordan Peterson’s rapid rise to fame in evangelical circles provides a more contemporary example of the same conservative urge to seek out and surrender to an authority figure.

Frankly, every public figure I have ever listened to representing the Religious Right has struck me as an authoritarian personality. I am thinking particularly of people like Tony Perkins, Gary Baur, James Dobson, and Ralph Reed, to name only a few — all avid Trump supporters, by the way.

The allure of Donald Trump was like a pan of beer laid out for a garden full of slugs. Irresistible to evangelicals.

Never mind that he told the graduating class at Liberty University that they ought to throw out Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. His commencement advice was “to get even” with very sharp elbows. Stab your competitors in the back. That’s what Trump advised an auditorium of right-wing, Christian graduates. But it was all ok. After all, Trump is a strong authoritarian who implied that he meant to impose conservative Christian values onto the rest of society, whether they liked it or not.

Fortunately, brain chemistry is not destiny, although far too many conservative Christians appear unaware of that fact. The work of the Holy Spirit, combined with the life and teaching of Jesus, mediated to us through the New Testament (and especially the four gospels) can mold a Spirit directed life, as opposed to an authoritarian directed life.

Lovers of authoritarianism who remain enamored with enforcing Absolute Truth forget that the Christian’s absolute truth is not a law or a code. It is not contained in a manual or a binder.

For the one and only Absolute Truth in this universe is our Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Our Absolute Truth is a Person – or a Trinity of equally divine Persons.

We don’t learn about absolute truth by memorizing the minutiae of a legal code.

We don’t honor absolute truth by riding herd over society’s degenerate, wayward cattle.

We only know Absolute Truth by surrendering ourselves to Jesus Christ. For he alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And Jesus never manipulates, coerces, bullies, or publicly shames anyone, especially not for his own advantage.

The Absolute Truth of Jesus Christ, the Suffering Servant; the one who “came to serve, not to be served;” the one who gave his life and was crucified as the final sacrifice for the forgiveness of my sins; this is the only Absolute Truth for real disciples.

Jesus has little patience, I suspect, for evangelical authoritarians.

Christian Nationalism and Political Conformity

Condemning Christian nationalism has become all the rage among certain members of the evangelical punditry. Even a few evangelical Republicans felt uncomfortable at the sight of Jesus flags and Christian paraphernalia on prominent display among the rioters who stormed Congress on January 6th.

In the immediate aftermath of those events, I saw a number of editorial condemnations on television and in print chastising any Christian’s involvement in violence or sedition. Each of them raised the same questions in my mind, for they all were morally tepid and intellectually shallow, ignoring the role those very media outlets had played in promoting president Trump’s “Big Lie” about a stolen election.

I wholeheartedly agree with the reminder that Christians should not commit acts of violence, especially when those actions lead to others being

FILE – In this Jan. 6, 2021 file photo, Trump supporters participate in a rally in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

killed and injured. However, I also found it very strange for right-wing, Christian, patriotic pundits, people who swear allegiance to a nation founded upon revolution, violence, and bloodshed, to suddenly clutch their pearls and faint at the sight of modern “patriots” doing what they believed needed to be done in order to save their nation and democracy.

I won’t even begin to address the hypocrisy on display when Religious-Right folks self-righteously condemn insurrection at home while heartily endorsing America’s many military coups and wars of aggression around the world! Apparently, Christians are only supposed to shun violence when the their fellow Americans become the enemy. Black and brown-skinned people around the world are always fair game.

All of this is very strange indeed unless we understand two crucial points:

First, these suddenly pacifistic, evangelical commentators were demonstrating how deeply embedded they are in the American, corporate establishment.

For all of their complaints about suffering as marginalized, Christian outsiders, none of them were willing to follow the logic of their messianic Trump-devotion to its logical conclusion. Why? Because they all had network executives telling them to toe a more establishment line or they would need to empty their desks and head for the unemployment line.

None of them were condemning police violence when BLM protesters were being assaulted by lines of militarized patrolmen wielding plexiglass shields and billy clubs.

Second, their exclusive focus on an anti-violence message exposed the consistent lack of self-awareness and intellectual rigor that characterizes so much of American evangelicalism today.

Of course, superficial critiques may be better than no critique at all, but if we only ever scratch the surface of a problem, then the underlying disease is allowed to deepen and spread. (On a side note, this was also my response to Mark Galli’s tepid critique of president Trump in his editorial at Christianity Today.” Only fellow evangelicals would interpret his words as shocking.)

Linking the errors of Christian nationalism to the dangers of patriotic violence (at home, mind you; violence abroad is always permissible for Christian America) is only the tip of the iceberg.

I recently began reading a book by the US historian, John W. Compton, entitled, The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors (Oxford, 2020). Compton first tells the story of how white Protestantism once led the way in condemning, addressing, and working to transform the many social, cultural, and political evils in this country.

Child labor laws, worker safety regulations, the 6-day work week, the 8-hour work day, a living wage, plus much more were policies all implemented in response to massive Christian political pressure during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

But all of that changed in late 1970s-early 1980s with Ronald Reagan’s presidency and the rise of his neo-liberal economic agenda. Nowadays, Christians concerned with things like social justice are regularly condemned for compromising the gospel. What happened?

I won’t answer that question here, but I will share a few thoughts from Compton’s introductory chapter where he begins to lay out his argument about the transformation that led to the wholesale conformity of American Christianity to the social/political/cultural status quo.

Concerning Christian political involvement:

Religious believers are on average much like similarly situated secular citizens when it comes to their behavior in the political realm. Like their secular neighbors, believers routinely base their political decisions on self-interest or ingrained prejudice rather than careful and disinterested study of sacred texts or deliberation about the will of a higher power. (4-5)

On the Christian vision for the church’s role in transforming society:

…from the mid-nineteenth century through the 1960s, most non-Southern Protestants not only professed to believe that Christian principles, properly understood, favored government efforts to aid the downtrodden; they were also embedded in religious networks that were capable…of focusing attention on specific social problems and incentivizing the faithful to take responsibility for correcting them.

On the current state of American evangelicalism:

In the new age of personal autonomy, the leaders of the Religious Right flourished by reshaping the Christian message to comport with the prejudices and material self-interest of their target demographic.

I will probably review this book here when I have finished digesting all that it has to say.

But in short, nowadays the average Christian doesn’t work at thinking, and thus acting, differently in the light of God’s word. We conform to the ways of those around us, ignore the illuminating study of the holy scriptures, and are afraid to stand alone on behalf of those less fortunate than ourselves.

For now, I will only note a deeper description of the dangers that accompany Christian nationalism. The heart of that danger is cooption, conformity to the national status quo — which explains a lot about American evangelicalism and the Religious-Right in this country.

Once Christians begin to imagine that their country is God’s country; that its national history is a story written by and for Christians like themselves, then it is a very tiny step to confuse national interests with Christian interests. National norms become Christian norms (think of laisse faire capitalism) and Christian norms become national norms (think of the fight over equal rights for gay citizens).

Granted, this confusion may require a reimagined past that describes our current state of affairs as a gross deviation from historic norms (think of  David Barton and Wallbuilders promoting a fictitious story of our “Christian” founding fathers and the Constitution’s adherence to the Bible). But modern diversions into sin cannot change America’s basic orientation as a “Christian nation” – at least, to the minds of Christian nationalists.

The identity between the one and the other is very simple for Christian nationalism and it goes far beyond a problem with violence. Christian values become America’s true, historic values. Thus, American true values are Christian values. This is where Christian nationalism becomes heretical.

Yet, this false identity between nation and church is ignored by pundits on the Religious-Right who now chastise Christian insurrectionists for colluding with violence.

The genuine danger for the church in this country is not that it would collude with violence but that it would continue to collude with American exceptionalism.

The greatest political danger facing evangelicalism today is our willingness to roll over and accept the economic and political status quo, embracing corporate, crony capitalism, labor exploitation, systemic racism, militarized policing, social Darwinism, and American exceptionalism as God’s preferred methods of directing a nation.

Where is the Christian voice of dissent to all these sins?

Where are the people who will not conform to their political surroundings and vote and think and act like their neighbors?

Where are the Christian activists willing to break away from the way things today are in order to pursue God’s vision of the way things ought to be tomorrow?

What the Church Can Learn from Eugene Debs

Eugene Debs (1855-1926) was an American politician who became an important early leader in the labor union movement. He condemned

Labor activist Eugene V. Debs speaks at the Hippodrome in New York City in 1910

corporate greed, was a vocal proponent on behalf of American workers, helped to lead numerous strikes, and fought for genuine democracy in the workplace.

Naturally, figures like Debs are a thorn in the side of entrenched, establishment power, so he made many enemies in high places. President Woodrow Wilson had him imprisoned for speaking out against the US entry into World War I. [No, folks, “cancel culture” is hardly new!]

In my view, Debs is a true American hero who has been largely forgotten by mainstream America.

Ed Quish has an interesting article about Deb’s life and legacy at Jacobin magazine. It’s entitled “The Cold War is Over. It’s Time to Appreciate that Eugene Debs Was a Marxist.”

Whenever a learn something new about a figure like Eugene Debs (or a man like Henry Wallace, another person I admire for similar reasons) I can’t help but ask myself, “Where were his Christian counterparts?”

Though he didn’t claim to be a Christian (to my knowledge) in the

Eugene Debs

evangelical sense, his politics, ideology, and actions demonstrate a more profound appreciation for the nature of the kingdom of God and the demands that kingdom makes upon its citizens than is shown by the evangelical church today.

Below is an excerpt:

Throughout his life, Eugene Debs was smeared as an enemy of the American nation. During the 1894 Pullman strike, Harper’s Weekly attacked Debs’s leadership of the uprising as equivalent to Southern secession, claiming that in “suppressing such a blackmailing conspiracy as the boycott of Pullman cars by the American Railway Union, the nation is fighting for its own existence.” Thirty years later, when Debs was imprisoned for speaking against World War I, President Woodrow Wilson denied requests to pardon him, refusing to show mercy to “a traitor to his country.”

Debs’s sympathizers have often defended him against allegations of treason by highlighting his authentic Americanism. Rather than a traitor, they claim, Debs was a true patriot who stood up for nationally shared ideals like freedom and democracy while imbuing them with socialist values. Historian Nick Salvatore, for instance, argues in his landmark 1982 biography that Debs’s life “was a profound refutation of the belief that critical dissent is somehow un-American or unpatriotic.” Inspired by Debs’s example, socialists today might occupy the left flank of a progressive patriotism, pushing the United States to make good on its democratic promise in a way that liberals and centrists cannot do on their own.

Despite some intuitive appeal, this nationalist strategy is a dead end. . . At a basic level, democratic nationalism presents the nation as bound by a shared identity and shared interests, uniting different classes behind a common project domestically and internationally. In the United States, this project has only ever been a variant of capitalist empire that, even when grafted to the cause of democracy. . . 

In his own time, Debs rejected that kind of nationalist project, making his politics more than the radical edge of common sense “Americanism.” When Debs called out the absurdity of the wartime view that patriotism means dying overseas for capitalist profits while treason consists in defending workers everywhere, he showed us the proper response to nationalist ideology: not to try to hijack it for progressive ends, but to liberate us from its obfuscations.

Click here to read the complete article.

Pastor Raymond Chang on Why the Church Needs “Race-Conscious Discipleship”

This morning we learned about a mass shooting in Atlanta, GA. Eight people, most of them Asian women, were shot dead by a 21 year Southern Baptist man.

Raymond Chang is a campus pastor at the evangelical Christian school, Wheaton College and a leader in the Asian American Christian Collaborative organization. His article at the Religion News Service is entitled “The Atlanta massacre is yet another reminder we desperately need race-conscious discipleship.”

Below is an excerpt. All emphases are mine:

. . . Just like we address sin by targeting it in specific ways, we can’t lean on the mantra of “just preach the gospel” as though that hasn’t produced Christians who are also deeply racist. What we are learning about the Atlanta massacre suspect is that he was raised in a white evangelical, Southern Baptist Church and had described himself as “loving guns and God.” When you see these things together, you can often conclude white Christian nationalism is close by. 

Don’t hear me saying that we shouldn’t preach the gospel. Yes, preach the gospel in and out of season, but make sure you also shepherd people out of the patterns of the world (especially the patterns that perpetuate the racial hierarchies we see). You cannot treat every illness by giving it a chemotherapy treatment. In the same way, “just preaching the gospel” will not address the specific illnesses sin has caused. We also need to disciple people through and out of certain things.

In light of what we are seeing with the massacre in Atlanta, mourn with Asian Americans (and those from other communities), grieve with us, lament with us, pray with us and pray for us. For those who have their ears to the ground, these events weigh heavily on us. I am grateful for friends who have reached out as soon as they saw what happened. It was particularly special when they came from outside the Asian American community.

Preach to hearts and minds that need to get out of thinking that leaves them complacent when tragedies impact those they might not be proximate to. Call out racism whenever it rears its ugly head. Support churches and organizations doing holistic, race-conscious discipleship. Offer classes to help people learn about how the sin of racism uniquely manifests across different racial lines. Stand with us whenever you see injustice.

Racialization and racism impact different racial groups in different ways. Along the Black-white binary, racism against Asians and Latinos does not often register. It doesn’t register because we (Asians and Latinos) are racialized differently from white and Black people. If we want to address the sin of racism, however, we have to understand how it works. We have to understand that it often manifests differently for different communities.

In the ways we address specific sins with the gospel by discipling people through those sins, we need to do the same with racism. As long as the racial hierarchy of the world is unchecked in the church, we will see the same issues of the world in the church and lose our moral credibility as ambassadors for the eternal king, Jesus.

Book Review: Decolonizing Christianity: Becoming Badass Believers, by Miguel A. De La Torre (Eerdmans, 2020)

While writing my latest book about the Jewish-supremacist state of Israel, its ongoing decimation of the Palestinian people, and the role played by

Professor Miguel de la Torre

American, conservative Christianity (i.e., Christian Zionism) in perpetuating this Middle Eastern tragedy, I became convinced that two perspectives were crucial to understanding the Zionist-Palestinian conflict.

The first perspective requires grasping that the creation of Israel was the last venture of Western colonialism, launched – quite ironically – at the dawn of a purportedly post-colonial awakening in the West. (Actually, it was the beginning of a neo-colonialist era, but that’s a subject for another post). Israel is and always has been a settler-colonial state. This insight is key to understanding everything that happens there.

The second perspective developed as I explored the close affinity that Americans have long harbored for Israel – an affinity rooted in the colonial history, a white colonial history, that Israel and America hold in common. The power structures of both nations maintain and applaud this white, colonial heritage. Consequently, large swaths of their citizenry continue to maintain a white, colonial mindset that perverts their view of themselves and the rest of the world. The deadly results appear in the domineering policies directed by national commitments to American and Israeli exceptionalism.

Thinking about these matters made me eager to read Dr. Miguel A. de la Torre’s new book, Decolonizing Christianity: Becoming Badass Believers (yes, I object to the subtitle, too, for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here). Dr. de la Torre is the author of over thirty books and a professor of social ethics and Latinx studies at Iliff School of Theology. He is also an activist and a major voice crying out for justice on behalf of the Hispanic/Latinx/Immigrant community in the United States.

A more apt title for the book would be something along the lines of Ending White Christianity’s Addiction to Colonialism. As it is, the book’s title implies (intentionally or unintentionally) not that Christianity is inclined towards colonialism, but that Christianity itself has been colonized by some foreign, oppressive power. Perhaps that is the title’s intent, though it is unclear to me. If it is, then the title (remembering that author’s rarely get to select their own book titles) introduces a book that aptly and insightfully indicts white Christianity for allowing itself to become colonized by a demonic belief in white superiority and privilege.

Professor de la Torre argues (correctly in my view) that the Body of Christ has been infested with anti-Christian beliefs that have made white Christianity an eager agent of white supremacy throughout world history. One obvious consequence has been “missionary Christianity’s” collaboration with Western colonialism (including Jewish, political Zionism in Israel, curiously enough, but you’ll have to buy my book to learn about that); another is the contemporary power dynamics that entrench structural racism into American life.

Decolonizing Christianity offers a rigorous dissection of the crass immorality endorsed by white evangelicalism during the Trump presidency, exposing the many, pernicious ways in which “The Donald” brought the ugly reality of American race-consciousness to light for all to see. Nope, the Obama presidency did not prove that America had finally become a color-blind nation. Quite the opposite. Professor de la Torre rightly insists that Trump was not an aberration. He was/is the age-old, proverbial pig of historic, American white supremacy with all the fashionable make-up and lipstick wiped off its pasty mug.

More than that, de la Torre aptly excoriates white evangelicalism for abandoning Jesus Christ our Savior in exchange for Donald Trump our president. His lengthy exposé on the many ways church leaders compromised the gospel by extolling Trump as Christian America’s savior figure (supported with example after example) makes for shameful reading – even for an anti-Trump person like me. Professor de la Torre rightly argues that in making this exchange so fervently, white evangelicalism revealed its true nature: it is an apostate church body eager to embrace the latest anti-christ, primarily because it never understood Jesus and his gospel in the first place.

From this perspective, professor de la Torres offers a much-needed prophetic critique of American Christianity and the role it plays in normalizing some of our society’s worst characteristics. However, even though I deeply appreciate his prophetic message, I have several problems with the route he takes to arrive at his criticisms (that is, his methodology). Since my area of expertise is New Testament studies, I will focus my criticisms through engaging his troublesome use of scripture. (A related set of differences are foreshadowed in my recent survey of Critical Race Theory here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

Professor de la Torre roots his theology of social transformation in a long-standing (albeit totally mistaken) interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31-46). By his reading of Matthew 25, caring for the poor, the naked, the hungry, and the imprisoned is the sole measure for determining who is and who is not embraced by the Lord Jesus on Judgment Day. It is hard to avoid the impression that, according to professor de la Torres, radical social transformation, prioritizing the marginalized and afflicted, is the Christian church’s #1 mission in this world.

Of course, de la Torres is not the first to make this particular reading of Matthew 25 central to his understanding of the church and the Christian life. Mother Teresa was also convinced of its centrality to her mission and never hesitated to say so. However, regardless of its ancient roots, this interpretation of Matthew 25 has always been wrong. Unfortunately, its errors have shaped the false starts in professor de la Torres’ analysis, marring an otherwise excellent dissection of the American church. I will explain what I mean by this in an additional post (coming soon — it is now here) that will focus on the proper way of reading Jesus’ parable within its Matthean context and the radically different view of the church which results. Stay tuned.

But here I can more fully explore a briefer example of how professor de la Torres misinterprets scripture by looking at his use of Matthew 15:21-28, Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman (69-78). Here Jesus initially refuses a woman’s request for help, and even likens her to a dog(!). De la Torres explains Jesus’ reaction by claiming that she was rejected because she came from a “mongrel race of inferior people” (69), just like modern-day immigrants at the southern border. Here de la Torres gives us an example of Biblical interpretation from the margins, as they say nowadays; that is through the eyes of the marginalized.

De la Torres argues that this uncomfortable encounter was pivotal in teaching Jesus to outgrow his parochial, Jewish chauvinism (77-78). He was being forced “to mature” in his humanity. The Canaanite woman taught him to become more inclusive and to reject his upbringing in Jewish, racial privilege. When Jesus suggests that the woman is like a dog begging for food (de la Torres prefers the word bitch) de la Torres draws from his own experience to make a connection with Latinx immigrants in this country who regularly are treated as dogs. For de la Torres, the Canaanite woman is a prototypical Latinx immigrant while Jesus exemplifies what the white Christian church ought to be doing – growing up and leaving its racial privilege behind.

Unfortunately, the professor does not recognize (or has deliberately rejected the idea) that Jesus initially rejects this woman because she is a Gentile, not because Canaanites were especially “mongrelized.”  This is an important theme throughout Matthew’s gospel. There is a tension, an unfolding development, between the initial exclusivism of Jesus’ early mission (recall that he sends out the Twelve only to the people of Israel, explicitly instructing them not to visit any Gentiles or Samaritans; see Matt. 10:1-6), on the one hand, and the emerging universalism that arises after Jesus is rejected by Israel’s leadership, on the other.

Regardless of what we modern-folk think about it, Jesus arrived as the Jewish messiah for the Jewish people first, just as the apostle Paul regularly went “first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.” In rejecting the Canaanite woman, Jesus was not rejecting mongrelized Latinx farm workers or other marginalized groups, as de la Torre suggests.  He was rejecting all Gentiles at that point in his ministry as a feature of salvation-history. Gentiles needed to wait their turn, and their turn would come. Remember that the woman’s persistent faith quickly overcame Jesus’ reticence to help her. (Space limits prevent me from exploring this issue further here).

De la Torre’s twisting of Matthew 15 to his own political/social application illustrates several problems endemic to the current trend of racializing biblical interpretation. De la Torre regularly indicts what he perceives as the endemic racism of white Christianity as the inevitable result of “white, Eurocentric” philosophy and theology. Though he never fleshes out the specific intellectual connections he sees between white academic theology and the inevitability of white Christian racism, the clear implication is to highlight the importance of Latinx, Black, and Native American theology and interpretation. The fact that most academic theology has been written by white, Eurocentric men is (in de la Torre’s view) the prime facie reason to lay all responsibility for the racism of white Christianity at the door of Eurocentric white theology.

However, I suggest that more substantive evidence is required to demonstrate such cause and effect in this case. Perhaps the professor has fleshed this out more fully in his earlier writings. If he has, he does not refer to it here.

As an interpretive method, this racialization of theology and Bible reading is really no different than the subjective, impressionistic, reader-response approach to Bible reading so common in the average neighborhood Bible study. Failing to understand the difference between a text’s meaning (understanding it accurately within its original contexts) and its significance (making a contemporary, practical application) everyone proceeds to share their personal impressions of the biblical text and “what it means to me” (which is actually a misstatement referring to what its significance is to me). After an evening of communal, subjective impressionism, everyone then goes home marveling at the Bible’s magical ability “to mean” so many different things to different people. Thus, Dr. de la Torre’s misuse of scripture illustrates how the current emphasis on “reading from the margins” is actually no different than evangelicalism’s habit of “reading from the white suburbs.” The only difference is the change in neighborhoods.

Though I am not familiar with the full body of professor de la Torre’s writings, Decolonizing Christianity certainly demonstrates that his voice needs to be received and taken seriously by everyone in the white church in this country.

I must differ, however, in diagnosing the root cause of the American church’s crippling illness. In my opinion, the most basic problem of white Christianity and its scandalous love affair with Donald Trump is not that it is the product of white, Eurocentric theology, whatever that may be, but that it is not the product of sincere, sacrificial allegiance to the crucified Palestinian Jew, Jesus of Nazareth.

And that is an unavoidable, lifelong challenge for everyone who calls him/herself a Christian.

More Advice to Churches Divided by Trumpism, QAnon, Stolen Elections, and Other Myths, Part 2

[This is my second post addressing the problems of political divisions in American churches. You can read the previous post here.]

In the New Testament passages that I cited in the last post, Paul warns his young friend Timothy about the dangers created by church members who believe in mythology, promote mythology, and stir up divisive controversies and squabbles as they spread their favorite mythologies.

Paul’s advice to Timothy is simple: Don’t tolerate any of these things.

In 2 Timothy 2 he says, Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels . . . Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

Let’s notice several issues in these letters.

First, what are the “myths” Timothy must combat? We can sidestep the debate over the specific content of the myths confusing Timothy’s churches. For our purposes, it is enough to understand what a myth was and how it functioned for those who believed it.

A myth was an invented story that explained why things are the way they are for those who believed it. Myths ordered a believer’s view of the world, bringing a sense of meaning and purpose to the devout.

For Christians, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom on earth, is to accomplish all of these same things. But, of course, Christians believe that the Gospel is not a “myth,” in the common sense of that word, because we believe that the Gospel message is historical fact.

Second, we see that the contest between fact and fiction in religious debate is an ancient one. It is particularly dangerous to organize one’s view of the world around fancifully invented stories. As a Christian, I’d say that this is the problem with non-Christian religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mormonism, to name only a few.

Third, anyone hoping to share the Gospel effectively with people devoted to mythology would do well to know the myths themselves and have some ability to point out their errors. Share the Gospel and knowledgeably point out the falsehoods of the myth. In other words, from a Christian perspective, replace fiction with facts. Then call for confession, repentance, and conversion.

Allowing a lie to shape the course of one’s life never pleases God.

Fourth, recognize the fact that not everyone will be willing to repent and change. Some people will prefer their mythology to the Truth of Jesus Christ. Here the leader/teacher must have wisdom. Recall, that Timothy was dealing with “church members” who claimed to be Christians.

They probably claimed to have a “new insight” that somehow enhanced or added to their Christian life. It would be tempting for a leader to think, “well they have some odd ideas, but they still confess Christ, so I’ll leave well enough alone.”

Bad idea.

People who cling to mythologies while continuing to profess faith in Christ are usually eager to share with others how much their mythical beliefs had added to their lives. Faith in Jesus is supplemented, and eventually usurped, by the mythology as the all-important elements of faith.

No faithful church leader can tolerate such compromise. No falsehood is EVER compatible with the truth of the Gospel. Controversy is inevitable. Paul judges it all very harshly. He concludes that such people have fallen into the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

Division in the Body of Christ, foolish quarreling, replacing the centrality of worship and service to Jesus Christ with other competing priorities, causes, leaders, or belief systems is all the devil’s work. He loves to see it happen. Wise, godly leaders will respond accordingly.

Fifth, the Christian church is not intended to include anyone and everyone. It is, after all, the Body of CHRIST. The church must reach out to everyone, hoping to persuade everyone, but will finally recognize that the Family of God only includes those who surrender their hearts, minds, and wills to the Lord Jesus.

And this family never entertains mythology and lies.

So, when people choose to reject the burdens and responsibilities of Christian discipleship; when they cling to their mythologies and continue to spread contentious lies inside the church; when they decide that pastoral correction infringes upon their freedom to believe what they want, and they eventually decide to leave, the church has not been split. The wheat has been sifted from the chaff.

Remember that Paul also says:

As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. (Titus 3:10-11)

If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. (2 Thess. 3:14)

The apostle John says about those who leave the church (rather than correct their false teaching) that “they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” (1 John 2:19)

In fact, in 1 Corinthians 11:19 Paul even goes so far as to say, “No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.”

To show which of you have God’s approval…

You may have noticed by now that “church splits” are not what concern me most at this point in America’s post-Trump history.

The greater problem, I believe, is the way in which Trump’s presidency exposed the infantile “spirituality” of American evangelicalism, the widespread failure of evangelical leadership, the lack of deep, meaningful kingdom discipleship among so many who call themselves Christians.

The evangelical wing of American Christianity must take our recent political history as a wake-up call.

Unthoughtful cries for “church unity” are NOT what is most needed in this moment.

Instead, the more necessary cry is It’s Time for the Church to Grow Up?! Evangelicalism’s wholesale devotion to Donald Trump; the continuation of “Stop the Steal” rhetoric within the church (and much more) all demonstrate the failure of meaningful discipleship development inside our churches.

We don’t understand the Lordship of Christ.

We don’t understand the nature and meaning of the kingdom of God.

We don’t understand what Jesus meant when he said, “Seek God’s kingdom first.”

We don’t understand what it means to live as a citizen of God’s kingdom.

We don’t grasp the all-encompassing upside-down, inside-out nature of Jesus’ ethical teaching.

Don’t be distracted by the superficial calls of distress, wailing superciliously about the dreaded dangers of division.

Focus instead on meeting the needs of the hour: It’s Time for the Church to Grow Up!

[In the next post on this subject, I will finally get to the article that initially prompted my thoughts. Thanks for reading.]

Texas Robber Barons Hit the “Jackpot” While Poor Texans Freeze in Bed

Cristian Pineda died of hypothermia, shivering to death inside his Texas

Cristian Pavon Pineda

home curled into a ball beneath layers of blankets. He was 11 years old.

Meanwhile, Jerry Jones, billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, declares that his Texas drilling company has “hit the jackpot” as natural gas prices shoot through the roof in Texas.

Jones is only the latest poster child for the evils of crony capitalism.

The rich get richer while the poor suffer, die, and get hit with sky-high price gouging. It’s the American way.

Camila Domonoske

Below is an article by Camila Domonoske at NPR.org. She fills in the details:

The winter storms gripping much of the United States have devastated many families and businesses, with frigid temperatures and power outages causing particularly dire conditions in Texas.

But for oil and gas producers that have managed to keep production going, this is proving to be a big payday. Jerry Jones, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, appears to be one of the beneficiaries.

Comstock Resources Inc., a shale driller that operates in Texas and Louisiana,

ARLINGTON, TEXAS – NOVEMBER 08: Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys watches action prior to a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at AT&T Stadium on November 08, 2020 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

told investors on an earnings call this week that the surge in natural gas prices was providing it with a major — albeit almost certainly temporary — financial boost. The company is publicly traded but Jones holds a majority of the shares.

“Obviously, this week is like hitting the jackpot,” President and Chief Financial Officer Roland Burns said Wednesday.

The storm has reduced natural gas output at the same time that demand — for both home heating and power generation — has skyrocketed.

That’s resulted in catastrophic shortages, as well as some truly eye-popping prices for natural gas in the affected regions.

Many in the oil and gas industry have taken a blow because wells and pipelines have stopped working in the unexpected cold.

But Comstock was already ramping up production in anticipation that natural gas prices would increase, and now finds itself benefiting from what it described as “super-premium prices” of “anywhere from” $15 per thousand cubic feet to as much as $179 per thousand cubic feet.

For comparison, the company had sold the same gas last quarter for an average of $2.40 per thousand cubic feet.

An Apostle’s Advice to Churches Divided by Trumpism, QAnon, Stolen Elections, and Other Myths

John Fea recently posted his thoughts about an opinion piece written by

Francis Wilkinson

Francis Wilkinson at Chicago Business.com. Wilkinson’s editorial is entitled “America’s Churches Are Now Polarized Too.”

His article is interesting, and I will return to it in a future post. As I read this piece, I found myself reflecting on my recent readings in the New Testament letters of 1 and 2 Timothy.

Timothy was a close assistant to the apostle Paul. 2 Timothy was Paul’s final letter to his young co-worker, written shortly before Paul’s brutal execution in Rome.

Both letters overflow with advice on what it takes to be a faithful pastor in an agitated Christian community threatened by internal divisions.

In other words, Paul is coaching Timothy in how to deal with the 21st century American church. For the more things change, the more they stay the same.

In this post I will print what I judge to be the most relevant sections of Paul’s advice to Timothy. It’s also very good advice for anyone calling him/herself a follower of Jesus Christ today.

I will deal more specifically with the relevance of Paul’s advice to the contemporary evangelical church in an upcoming post. For now, I will only draw your attention to Paul’s insistence on the importance of combating myths that challenge the truth of the Gospel.

One of the major problems confronting conservative churches today is the open circulation of destructive myths – political myths about Trump, elections, political parties, government agencies, and secular savior figures.

God’s people are called to remain fearlessly faithful to Truth. Truth is always the enemy of myths, whatever form they take.

1 Timothy 4:1ff

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. . .

 If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. 

1 Timothy 6:3ff

If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth. . .

2 Timothy 2:16ff

Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene. . .

 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

 2 Timothy 4:3f

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

May we all ponder, pray, and act accordingly.

Amen.

What is Intersectionality?

Scientific researchers still discover new, previously unknown species of animals as they explore our world. Believe it or not, hundreds a new species were discovered in 2020 alone.

Each new discovery requires study, weighing, measuring, and analysis in order to figure out where to locate this new creature within the current taxonomy of known animal life.

The biological description required is not inventing anything truly new, but is merely describing a creature that has always existed. The animal is only “new” to us.

No sensible person would read a scientific report describing a newly discovered creature and say, “I don’t believe this! I have never seen such a creature before; therefore, it cannot be real. The sphere of my current understanding encircles all that can be truly known. And my understanding does not include this!”

We would call that person a Luddite, an anti-intellectual, an obscurantist. Certainly, such a person has no business running or making decisions for educational institutions like Christian seminaries!

But, alas, certain qualities of “conservativism” never change. That’s why they are conservative.

Knee-jerk reactions against new ideas – especially if those ideas are developed by the dreaded “non-Christian secularists” – have always characterized conservatism, whether politically or religiously.

As I continue my series discussing Critical Race Theory (see the previous post here), you may recall that I have defined this Theory according to three analytical grids: White Privilege, Systemic Racism, and Intersectionality.

This post will briefly discuss Intersectionality. (For more explanation of Intersectionality, I suggest looking here and here for starters.)

The principle of Intersectionality recognizes that each person represents the intersection of different individual characteristics. In western society, the most pertinent characteristics are gender (male/female; I am not discussing transgenderism in this post), race/ethnicity (white, black, Asian, Arab, etc.), and class (rich, middle-class, poor, educated, uneducated).

Each individual instantiates, or incarnates, a different combination of these various characteristics. These distinctions are important to recognize because each of them, in their many combinations, can bring a different range of social and economic status to the individual.

For example, for several summers during college my wife worked in Alaska salmon canneries. When I recently explained Intersectionality to her, she immediately recognized it from the working conditions and payment schedule in Alaskan canneries.

She described a very rigid hierarchy of power and privilege, with white men at the top (with the most authority and highest wages) and Eskimo women at the bottom (with the least authority and lowest wages). Ranked in between (I don’t recall the exact order) were Japanese men, white women, and Eskimo men.

It’s not hard to see how the intersection of race and gender (and perhaps class) determined very different treatment for different people who were all doing basically the same work.

So, Intersectionality merely recognizes the obvious: that in many respects African-American women have had a much harder row to hoe than white women, and both have faced many more difficulties than white men.

It recognizes that white applicants from wealthy families of alumni have a far easier time getting into Ivy League schools than white (or black) applicants from lower-class families who are first generation college applicants. (That’s the reason for affirmative action, by the way.)

(I am reminded of the book The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein, which explains how the leaders of Ivy League universities insisted that the residential neighborhoods surrounding their campuses must all be segregated to exclude black residents.)

I could continue with more examples, but I think you get the point.

The principle of Intersectionality, as a tool in Critical Race Theory, simply describes the obvious. The theory does not create anything new. It only points out reality and tries to describe discriminatory processes more accurately. In this respect, Intersectionality helps to shed light on the complexity of Systemic Racism.

At the descriptive, analytical level I suggest that Christians ought to be thankful for the insights of Critical Race Theory and its application of Intersectionality to our social norms and relationships.

Every Christian organization and denomination ought to be applying these analytical tools to itself and learning from its own history, as we all work at understanding and correcting race/class/gender relations within the Body of Christ.

However, as with my previous posts on this subject, I also think that Intersectionality can be misused (Joe Carter provides a good analysis of such misuse in his article, “What Christians Should Know About Intersectionality. I think he gets it right when he writes, “The problem with intersectionality arises when it ceases to be an insight and becomes an ideology.”)

Intersectionality focuses on “power relationships” — who has power, who lacks power, who is the oppressor, and who is oppressed.

Evangelicals dislike this discussion of power relationships, and it becomes a major reason for their wholesale rejection of Critical Race Theory. Why? Because Karl Marx was the first social, cultural critic to describe human

Karl Marx

relationships in terms of power dynamics.

Conservatives criticize the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement for the same reason. Thus, both Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory are dismissed with a facile flick of the wrist as dangerous harbingers of “Cultural Marxism,” the latest, bogus boogie-man propped up by pseudo-intellectual, culture critics.

However, Marx was absolutely correct in his analysis. The problem today is not the fact that Intersectionality draws insights from Marx, but that certain advocates of Intersectionality see all human relationships as nothing but power contests between the exploiter and the exploited.

I encountered this often during my years as a university professor, especially when a feminist colleague explained some policy or curricular disagreement between two people (or groups) who happened to be (represented by) a man and a woman.

Invariably, the disagreement was reduced to a power contest where the man was trying to impose his authority over the female. Often, the actual content of the debate would be set aside.

I would hear the advocate of Intersectionality insist that the rational arguments involved merely provided cover for the imposition of white, male power over the woman “opponent.”

Of course, power and control may have been key issues in those debates. After all, such power contests are a perennial feature of human behavior.  But making that judgment first requires familiarity with the details of the debate. It cannot simply be assumed and imposed as THE explanation for all such disagreements.

When a critical, analytical tool is ossified in this way, reified into an ideological template that is universally imposed upon all human interactions, we have entered into dangerous territory. This transition from analysis to ideology is often reductionistic, and that’s a problem.

When this happens we have entered an anti-intellectual realm where evidence must always yield to the current theory; it becomes a totalitarian territory where understanding is governed by the conformist power of an immutable idea.

So, here is the challenge: thoughtful Christians must always walk a line between teachableness and cooption.

Unfortunately, too many Christian leaders (who ought to know better) fail to understand this difference.

On the one hand, Critical Race Theory together with Intersectionality provide important insights into the reality of human relationships. Wise Christians will take these insights seriously and respond accordingly, while always remembering that all people are created as the Image of God. Jesus Christ loves all people equally; he gave his life for all equally.

Critical Race Theory can help us all understanding the continuing challenges we face in dismantling discriminatory practices that run against the grain of Christ’s gospel message.

On the other hand, the Image of God is much, much, MUCH more than the sum total of each individual’s intersecting, distinguishing characteristics. The Image of God is essential, definitive for humanity.

As we acknowledge the negative, unjust situations often created for a person in response to her intersecting, distinguishing traits, we can never reduce that person to the theoretical social outcomes of those traits in today’s society.

Yes, life is filled with power games. But life is also much more than the combined outcome of intersecting power dynamics imposed upon me by others.

Yes, there is a great deal I cannot change or influence. But as The Original confronting my reflected Image, God holds me accountable for how I served others; how I worked to empower the disempowered; how I sacrificed my privilege so that the underprivileged might get ahead; how I lifted up those who had fallen; how I embraced the excluded; how I denied myself to serve others as Jesus has served us all.

What is Systemic Racism?

(This post is a continuation of my series on Critical Race Theory. The previous post appears here.)

Recently, I have been working my way through the book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (W. W. Norton, 2017), by Richard Rothstein.

Rothstein provides an exhaustive (and exhausting) account of racist housing policies in American history, up to the present time.

If you have ever wondered how and why dilapidated, inner-city ghettos got started in the major metropolitan areas of this country, then Rothstein has the answers you are looking for.

He describes both the historical developments and the many legal arrangements that have enshrined racial discrimination, by way of legalized

Richard Rothstein

segregation and violent enforcement, into the fabric of American society.

He also documents the continuation of such policies into the late 20th and early 21st centuries, long after the laws had been struck from the books.

These things have happened at every level of government, federal, state, and local. It appears in housing regulations, real estate boards, zoning laws, banking practices, tax valuations (which affects local school budgets), unequal wages, you name it. The list goes on.

As he writes in the book’s Preface:

We have created a caste system in this country, with African Americans kept exploited and geographically separate by racially explicit government policies. Although most of these policies are now off the books, they have never been remedied and their effects endure. (xvii)

In unearthing this story as extensively as he does, Mr. Rothstein has produced a definitive history of only one component of Systemic Racism in America.

Earlier I explained that Critical Race Theory offers three specific principles to the modern discussion of race relations: White Privilege, Systemic Racism, and Intersectionality. I briefly discussed White Privilege here.

Systemic Racism and White Privilege are mutually reinforcing.

White Privilege supplies both the ideology (whether overt or hidden, conscious or unconscious) and the motivation (both individual and communal) for maintaining white superiority and dominance over people of color.

That domination is sustained through Systemic Racism, which appears in the social, cultural, and legal structures created, typically by white folks, in order to maintain White Privilege.

Systemic Racism is a fact of life in this country. It is impossible to deny, even though many still try.

Christians who deny the reality of Systemic Racism typically base their criticisms on the personal, individual quality of human sinfulness.

To put things very simply – since people are sinners, people are individually responsible for their personal sins. People are not “systems” or structures, so systems, as such, cannot be held accountable for the racist sins of individual people.

Thus, ideas like Systemic Racism are damaging because they shift the responsibility for evil away from guilty individuals, who need to confess and repent, onto impersonal structures/systems.

These Critical Theories  may also impute guilt to all members of “the system” regardless of their personal attitudes or behavior. And that is unjust.

These critics go on to say that rather than condemning impersonal structures, Christian people within those structures should be living Godly lives in order to make a personal difference for others. (At least, this is what I gather from the Christian critics I have read.)

That is how systems change, by changing the individuals involved first.

Finally, for these critics, Critical Race Theory is wrong because it is not biblical. It is guilty of “allowing secular thinking to overtake a biblical worldview.” (I will save my criticisms of “biblical worldviews” for another day.)

Unfortunately, the vagueness of the Southern Baptist statement quoted above is typical of this conversation. Here are my thoughts:

One: A few weeks ago, my pastor and I were talking about the human tendency to trap ourselves into binary thinking – stop/go, left/right, up/down, good/bad, secular/biblical . . . you get the picture.

In human relations, binary thinking is the favorite blunt instrument used for carving out tribal boundaries. “My way is good; your way is bad” – that’s just about all the Baptist “secular/biblical” binary has to offer to us, unfortunately.

Two: Every disagreement cannot be reduced to an either/or, binary answer.

There is often a third alternative, or the solution may require a both/and answer. So, I insist that the sin and guilt for American racism appears in both individuals and social systems. Both must be held accountable and both must be altered, as necessary.

It is the convergence of these two sources of America’s social ills that makes racism so powerful and long-lasting.

Three: This criticism is stereotypically Western in its analytical devotion to individualism, first and foremost. I am reminded of the absurd remark made by the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. When asked about the nature of society, she famously replied, “There is no such thing as society. Only individuals.”

Thatcher’s comment represents binary reductionism in the extreme.

Four: We cannot forget that human beings are created as the Image of God. That Image remains in all human beings. It was not eliminated by the Fall in Genesis 3.

This means that human beings, including those who do not believe in God, can still possess valuable insights into solving life’s difficult problems.

I insist that the insights of Critical Race Theory are evidence of the continuing benefits of that Divine Image which characterizes all human beings. I can learn from any number of “irreligious” thinkers in this world. Thus, the Baptist binary distinction between secular/biblical thinking is actually counter–productive to this discussion. (It’s also anti-intellectual, but that too must wait for another post.)

Five: When sinful people get together to do sinful things, especially sinful tribal things intended to protect one tribe’s interests against another’s, oppressive social norms and systematic evils are the result.

Societies are built by people. Sinful people build broken, flawed societies that exhibit their brokenness through rigged systems that produce creepy-crawly things like Systemic Racism (among other social ills).

It’s not hard to figure out.

Frankly, I am shocked at the blinding power of Southern Baptist ideology (and they are not alone in this) causing their denominational leaders to ignore such simple observations.

They offer a good example of how “secular thinking” can sometimes be more in line with truth and reality than the supposedly “biblical thinking” of avowed Christians.

Finally, I am convinced that the Christian church must share in the responsibility of undoing the horrendous damage done by centuries of Systemic Racism.

It is not enough — in fact, it is down right unacceptable — for white Christians to insist that personally rejecting racism and not discriminating individually is a sufficient Christian response.

As Mr. Rothstein concludes in his book, Undoing the effects of de jure [legalized] segregation will be incomparably difficult. To make a start, we will first have to contemplate what we have collectively done and, on behalf of our government, accept responsibility (217).

The Old Testament prophets believed in collective responsibility. They condemned wicked rulers for the systemic evils they inflicted upon their people.

When Christians refuse to take the systemic dimensions of human evil seriously, they close their eyes to important biblical truths and excuse themselves from the important task of social/cultural transformation.

They also blatantly suggest that they are more interested in protecting their current creature comforts than they are in performing the hard introspective, anti-establishment work required of those who “seek to maintain justice and do what is right” (Isaiah 56:1).

No, benefiting from the rigged structures constructed and maintained for the survival of Systemic Racism does not necessarily make every white person a racist. On that score, I disagree with the more extreme proponents of Critical Race Theory.

But it does demand that we recognize the issues at stake; acknowledge the unmerited advantages we have and do receive as Caucasians; and commit ourselves to undoing the lasting damage confronting us today.