Oct 13
To R. Scott Clark and David Vandrunen for Clark's blogpost citation of a Vandrunen article on racism from a Christian perspective. This appeared in the Heidelblog
Vandrunen's full article can be found at
https://www.opc.org/os.html?article_id=874
Most of the points made by Vandrunen in his article, and not just the part that was quoted above, need some degree of correction and/or modification.
Take his first point, 'Race does not exist, although racism does.' The premise is not true when one considers the dictionary definition of race: 'any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry' (see https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race ).
I was recently reminded of race during lunch with friends. One was African American and the other was literally from Africa. My friends had obvious differences between each and with me and those physical differences go back to ancestry. Now does that existence of race imply that we have no common ancestor? No. But a lot of "funny" things happened to different races on the way here from the Garden of Eden.
The recognition of race has often been accompanied by assumptions of superiority and inferiority, and thus entitlement, which accompany the recognition of racial differences.
Thus the call for deracialization must be modified. It must be modified for two reasons: First, there are physical differences that exist between people due to common ancestries; and Second, we can't assume that racism will no longer exists if we were fully implement deracialization.
One of the excellent points made by CRT is what it calls racism, which is the oppression of people based on race, is experienced by many Blacks in more ways than just personal racial prejudice. Racism is experienced by many Blacks by institutional and social powers. Racism is still experienced in encounters with law enforcement and the criminal justice system, in terms of voting and voting rights, and in several ways in the economy. In addition, many Blacks still experience the after effects of past racism.
We might also want to consider that deracialization forgets the different ways people are perceived because of their race. Because Blacks have been viewed not just as inferior, but they were treated as property for much of US history. Thus, we need to pay special attention to the accomplishments of people of color. These accomplishments help point out our equality and debunk assumptions of inferiority.
What we must be careful of in critically thinking about racism is to use our theology and our subcultural biases to limit our understanding of how racism could be experienced by Blacks and other minorities. Because the charge of racism is itself stigmatizing and indicting, we need to admit that we have an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to acknowledging the full impact of both yesteryear's and today's racism as well as whether we are racist. It's easy for us to see the systemic racism that existed during slavery and Jim Crow. But when many Blacks talk about experiencing systemic racism today, we tend to balk. Such balking is not a biblical reaction but a subcultural one.
We cannot afford to use our theology, our ideology, or the image we prefer to have of our nation today or ourselves to deduce that systemic racism no longer pervasively exists today. In fact, many of criteria that today's CRT proponents use to detect racism were used by Martin Luther King Jr. In particular, we are talking about the equality of results criteria (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8 ). If we are going adequately understand what CRT is saying, then we must actively study it to see the continuities it has with the Civil Rights Movement as well as how it distinguishes itself from Critical Legal Studies and its criticisms of the politically conservative color-blind movement promoted by the Reagan Administration and scholars such as Thomas Sowell. For here we need to remember that many Blacks who agree with CRT are speaking from their experiences. And if we attempt to deduce that what they say they are experiencing is not true, we then show ourselves to be deliberately deaf to their complaints. And such deafness stands as a tremendous stumbling block for many might otherwise listen to the Gospel.
Finally, the Church has no choice but to be political in today's world. But that option for the Church is not to be political as the world is where one chooses to advance one own side's agenda at the expense of honesty and the truth. Rather, the Church must speak prophetically to the individual and corporate sins that each person and political and ideological side promotes and/or commits without commenting on any proposed ideological solution.
Why is that our only option? It is because politics contain both ambiguous and non ambiguous moral choices. When a particular party advocates actions that suppress freedoms for a given group, the Church needs to speak prophetically to that suppression and the partisanship in which that is taking place. And while the religiously conservative American Christians have no problems with pointing out where they believe that their own rights are being infringed on, they have great difficulty in perceiving and acknowledging when they themselves are infringing on the rights of others. But why do we need to do that? It is for the reputation of the Gospel. That is that once a person or group identifies itself with Christ, everything it does and doesn't do, says and doesn't say is associated with the Gospel and acts to either hurt or enhance the reputation of the Gospel. That truth should give us all, as individuals, reason for pause because of our own sinfulness. But it should also give the Church abundant reasons for speaking prophetically against injustices in the world. That is because most, if not all injustices, violate either literally or in principle the commandments that prohibit murder and/or stealing. And for the past few centuries, through both advocacy and silence, the predominant branches of the Church in many areas in the world has aligned itself with wealth and power. In other words, we have a a lot of damage control and damage repentance to make up for.
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Oct 15
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that calls the pandemic a 'religious event' and a lot of trust in the science of the vaccines a religion. This appeared in Heidelblog.
According to the logic used in the above article, the following statements must be true:
So the existence of polio and smallpox were religious events and those who flocked to the vaccines were making science their new religion.
We should not trust that the sun is the center of our universe and that gravity exists because Science does not trust, it doubts and tests. Of course, if science is always doubting and testing, then it never arrives at any firm answers.
Do we see the problem with the above logic yet? When religious leaders call solutions to crises a religion, what they are really doing is announcing the existence of a competitor in explaining the world. Calling science a religion because people are using what was learned from science as a help shows more than just a stretching of the word 'religion,' it's a defensive reaction to seeing another source of influence as a competitor to explaining the world around us.
Who has a better position to to explain the different realities that we see around us? For example, who is in the best position to tell us whether climate change is at least partially but significantly caused by human activity? Are theologians in the best position or are climate scientists in the best position? Who is in the best position to tell us how effective vaccines and mandates are in curbing the current pandemic? Is it theologians or scientists who specialize in the areas of study that are concerned with viruses and how the body reacts to viruses?
Back when Heliocentrism was being floated as an explanation for a part of reality, both Calvin and Luther firmly rejected what Copernicus proposed. They too saw Copernicus's theory as a stepping on their turf. Because the Bible had already told them, however indirectly, the relationship between the sun and the earth, they felt comfortable in not just rejecting heliocentrism, they went on to ridicule anyone who proposed such a theory. Protestants followed Calvin and Luther's lead and the Roman Church then followed their lead. How dare a person use mathematics to contradict what was understood back then what God had to say.
Protestants and those from the Roman Church eventually got it right and the consequences were minimal. Today, not doing something about climate change because there are 'reasonable grounds' to question whether human activity is significantly contributing to it or to resist vaccine mandates because of one doubts the science behind it can have, and in some cases are having, disastrous, harmful effects on people. Never mind the percentage of climate change scientists who are convinced by the evidence. And, btw, no one is telling dissenters that they cannot question what is being claimed, if all crises become religious events and the proposed solutions become religions themselves, then who can present themselves as being in the best position to people through those events but theologians. And that is what happens when we allow some to so easily expand the definition of religion.
The above article seems to be in denial of what logically follows calling the current pandemic a 'religious event' and the trusting of medical science's response as a religion even though no one is saying that what the medical scientists claim should not be questioned. But the vaccines those scientists have provided have proven to be helpful and even lifesaving. And if more people had followed their lead, we possibly could have avoided the overwhelming of our healthcare resources and prevented many deaths.
The above article seems to be nothing more than an attempt to defend one's turf not realizing that just as we should let vaccines be vaccines and science be science, we should let theologians be theologians and nothing more.
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Oct 17
To Bradley Birzer and his blog article on how great the American Republic was and how we can make it great again. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
All too often, probably most of the time, our study of history and our learning religion share a common trait. That trait is that what should be a quest for truth has morphed into a search for personal significance. And that significance isn't found in realistic portrayals of our faults and sins, our significance is found in delusions of goodness and honor that we are fond to have dancing in our heads.
In particular, in terms of history we find those delusions when we magnify how we treated those who were like us while we minimize how we treated those who were different. In religion, we focus on how we think that we have been loving of God and people while we overlook our worship of idols and our coldness toward those who are different or toward those whose need would cost us more than we want to part with.
Such is my summary of the above article. The above article follows the road most often traveled.
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Oct 20
To R. Scott Clark and Carl Trueman for Clark's blogpost article that consists of quoting the part of Carl Trueman's article that tells us Christians not to imitate the world in how we react to the changing of the moral guard of society where Christianity has been replaced by movements like Post Modernism even though such a change threatens to marginalize us Christians in society. This appears in Heidelblog.
Trueman's article can be found at
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/11/the-failure-of-evangelical-elites
A few comments are in order regarding the cited part of Trueman's article.
First, when Trueman talks about Christianity's place in society coming under threat, what was that place? Was it not one of supremacy over other beliefs, views, and practices so that it exercised various levels of supremacy over society? Should we lament over that lost privileged status?
Second, when Trueman talks about Christianity being pushed to the margins, we might ask who was pushed to the margins when Christianity had its its day in the sun here? We do know that throughout US history, when Christianity had its privileged place, people of color, women, and the LGBT community were all marginalized to varying degrees.
Trueman is complaining about how, with Post Modernism, unbelievers are turning the tables by imposing their moral values and thus marginalizing us Christians. At the same time, Trueman rightfully warns us not to conform to the 'spirit of the age.' And yet, with unbelievers turning the tables by imposing their moral standards on us, aren't they the ones who should be warned not to conform to the spirit that Christianity, as represented by many Christians, has been displaying rather than warning us believers not to conform to the spirit of this age?
We need to escape this black-white worldview where we Christians believe that either we must rule over others to some degree or be ruled over by them. We should seek to coexist with other views rather than trying to gain a privileged place over them in society so as to push our moral agenda, in particular our sexual moral agenda, on them. It is this belief that either we rule over them or they will rule over us that creating stumbling blocks to people who would otherwise listen to the Gospel.
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Oct 29
Tor R. Scott Clark and his blog article that says that if we only sung what was in God's Word, we could avoid singing songs about the climate change like the one he showed in his article. This appeared in Heidelblog.
The question we have to ask is whether the above hymn is better than the sound of climate change silence from the pulpit.
BTW, I am not a fan singing the above hymn in Church and its words are more focused on God than some worship songs I heard.
Also, if we only sung from God's Word, then we would miss out on some wonderful hymns. The changing world demands that we stewardship of the world needs to change. So are we afraid to admit that the world is changing because then we must change with it to be good stewards of the world?
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Sometime in late October
To Bradley Birzer and his blog article on what is the essence of Freedom. This appears in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.
The essence of Freedom in society is not necessarily, it is equality. For equality is the first limit on our freedoms and distinguishes what we call freedom from what would rightfully be called privilege. Here we should note that Freedom - equality = privilege. And privilege is all too often the result of refusing to share power and/or wealth.
When we insist on our freedom at the expense of another person's freedom, we are insisting on being privileged over that other person. Yes, we have duties that puts limits on our freedoms. But the first consideration of what determines what our duties are in society is equality It is equality. So equality is the essence of Freedom in society.
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Oct 30
To W. Robert Godfrey and his audio presentation about why America is changing in terms of race, sex, and so forth. This appeared on the Abounding Grace Radio website (click here for Abounding Grace Radio's website).
One key question is what constitutes a rejection of the Gospel? Is it a rejection of Jesus as God and how through faith God saves us from God's deserved wrath for our sins or is it a rejection of a Christianity's past privileged place in society expressed in law and culture?
Another important question is how should we try to change things in our nation in the light of the 1st Amendment? Does seeking a privileged place for Christianity in the state and society lead to violating that Amendment?
Another important question is whether those in privileged groups can recognize problems and hardships that other experience. After all, being privileged can blinds one from seeing the sufferings of those who are not privileged especially those whose suffering is caused by the privileged place one's own group has in society. This is most evident in the wholesale rejection of BLM and CRT. It is most evident in the reaction against the Obergefell decision as well as the recent court decision that applies Civil Rights laws to discrimination against the LGBT community. It is most evident in our ignorance of the plight of Native-Americans. It is most evident in any opposition to increasing the minimum wage or to giving more workplace power to workers.
So it will be interesting to see if Godfrey addresses the above issues in answering the questions he posed in his presentation
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