Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For July 8, 2020

July 3

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that critiques the iconoclasm that is part of today’s protest movement. This appeared in Heidelblog.

First, Marx, with all of his faults and sins, isn't responsible for the deaths that came with either the Bolshevik or Mao's revolutions. It is clear from reading Marx that neither Lenin, and those who followed, nor Mao were really following what Marx said.

Second, one of the most pronounced flaws of conservative Christian leaders and teachers is that they look too much to the past to understand and deal the present. And that produces a certain blindness and deafness to what we must learn from the present. Just because Marx was utopian, it does not imply that all who lean toward his teachings are. In any case citing a faulty eschatology model for Marx serves more as a distraction than an analytical tool in addressing social injustice problems of the day.

Also citing Paul's letter to Philemon as providing the only way to deal with social injustices shows the weakness of conservative Christian leaders and teachers previously mentioned.. Doing so assumes that there are no contextual differences, either historical or situational, between today and the issue with Philemon which  require a different response than Paul's. Clark's use of Paul's letter to Philemon would declare as  being totally wrong the actions and approach taken by Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s.

Finally, while Clark complains that the tearing down of statues of icons, like Columbus and past Confederate war heroes, ignores the feelings of those who honor them, he shows how out of touch he is with others as well as the present. Columbus showed himself to be a monster to the natives in Hispaniola. So what kind of pride is being promoted by paying tribute to him with statues and holidays? As for Confederate war heroes, do all Southerners look at those statues as celebrating nobility?

Certainly today's protest movement has its faults in both actions and perspectives. But some of the iconoclasm, or tipping of sacred cows, that we see today is long overdue. In fact, we might want to ask why our government didn't tear down these statues earlier in our history.

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July 4

To Josh Buice and his blogpost that features a video of him speaking against the social justice movement because he views it as promoting Marxism and victimology. This appeared in the deliveredbygrace.com blog.
I see 3 problems with the presentation.

First, we must ask  when was America great? Was it when America was ethnically cleansing Native Americans from the land and when people could be treated as property and enslaved simply because of their race? Or was America great after slavery when Blacks in the South were terrorized by  groups like the KKK and there was Jim Crow in the South and segregation in the North? Was America great when it invaded Vietnam or replaced democracies with dictators in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Greece (1967), and Chile (1973) to name some of the interventions? Didn't we have strong churches from 1620 to the 1960s? And if so, then was America great with all of those atrocities? Here we should remember the words of Jesus as he commanded us to love our enemies because even the heathen love their own.

Second, movements and ideas are  denounced not by logical arguments that address individual tenets and points, but by labeling. Buice's use of labels, such as Marxist and victimology, begs the question of their validity. His use of labels assumes that every practice and belief associated with those labels is wrong without having to go point by point to show why those practices and beliefs are completely wrong. Such is logically lazy and avoids using the Scriptures to examine those beliefs and practices.

Third, Buice seems to conflate American conservatism with Christianity. And what is American conservatism? Part of it holds to what are considered to be traditional American values that came from a time when white supremacy in America was more pronounced than it is now. So we might ask if American conservatism with its emphasis on traditional values  is related in any significant degree to racism.

But regardless of the possible racism tie, American conservatism does promote American nationalism. And we should note that because of the pedestal that nationalism puts one's nation, that American nationalism is a competitor and, perhaps for some Christians, co-opter of American Christianity.
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July 5

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that cites a portion of an article that deals with   the narcissism involved in some offshoots of the social justice movement. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Reading through the article cited one discovers that, unlike what the title here implies, what is discussed pertains to a small group of people involved in social justice. But at least they are involved in social justice. Where is the Church when it comes to working for social justice?

In the Reformed churches, we have the transformationalists, such as the people at the Gospel Coalition, and the 2Kers, Clark is an example of a 2Ker as is D.G. Hart (his blog is oldlife.org). While transformationalists, with all of their faults, speak out on social justice, 2Kers are for the most part silent--that is unless they want to criticize the social justice movement. One more point about 2Kers is that with their denial of corporate sin, they reduce all social justice issues to that of the individual's choice of actions and attitudes. And that is right where they want people because they chant the age-old that only the Gospel can change people's hearts. And they chant that regardless of how that denies the effects of Common Grace.

And that leads us to Narcissism. How many times have 2Kers complained about the narcissism that is encouraged  by the belief in American Exceptionalism? How many times do 2Kers acknowledge that the over reliance on traditions and a selected past to analyze and even solve current problems is at least similar to narcissism? Or what about the belief that America's conservative way of doing things is how God wants society to operate? And for those who are authoritarian, how many times do they acknowledge that narcissism and authoritarianism share several traits?

Yes, transformationalists have their faults, but at least they, like the people mentioned in the article, are in the game unlike many 2Kers who sit on the sidelines talking like Monday morning quarterbacks.