Nov 9
To R. Scott Clark and his citation of an article where a Christian businessman and minister could lose his realtor license because while collaborating with a local food bank in distributing, he ordered his church to opt out of distributing the lunches. As a result, ethics charges were brought against him and he could lose his realtor's license. This appeared in Heidelblog.
The cited article can be found at the link below:
https://debrajsaunders.substack.com/p/are-realtors-even-allowed-to-be-pastors
The real issue here is whether Christians can understand their obligations in the public sector. That the Church can discriminate where society cannot, and thus the Church needs to be careful when working with those in the public sector.
That being said, this case is a bit different than other discrimination cases brought against Christian business people. What we have to realize is this, when long standing social injustices are being corrected, all-or-nothing thinking is employed by many who are seeking to correct those injustices. With that kind of thinking comes an inability or perhaps even a fear to make distinctions between what contributes to a given injustice and what doesn't. We shouldn't take this as persecution for our faith as much as a working out of what it means to correct centuries of marginalization of the LGBT community in society. And much of the blame for that marginalization lies at the feet of the Church.
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To R. Scott Clark and his article that criticizes the 1619 Project to the extent of saying that it is totally flawed. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
The debate about the 1619 Project isn't one about the facts as much as it is about the interpretation of the facts. For example, one of the most contested points about what the 1619 Project claims is that a major reason for the Revolutionary War was to protect slavery. At this point, we need to ask, what are the facts that either support or challenge that contention?
We do know that the Somerset Case, with its judge's public pronouncement, played a major role in the interpretation that says protecting slavery was a main reason for fighting the Revolutionary War. And in dealing with the Somerset case, what one must consider is not just what the judge said, but how it was reported and interpreted by the general public in America as well as in England.
Now suppose slavery was not a major reason for why the Revolutionary War was fought. Does that mean that slavery wasn't a reason at all for the the war?
Another point of contention how to see The Constitution in the light of slavery and racism. Here, Wilentz disagreed with the degree to which the 1619 Project saw document. The reason why Wilentz had a more moderate view of The Constitution's take on slavery was not from what was actually written in the document, it had to do with the discomfort with slavery that The Constitution's contributors had themselves. So he wasn't in total disagreement with the Project on that issue.
Another claim by the Project questioned by Wilentz is whether racism is part of our nation's DNA. Here we should note it's not just the past that answers that question, it is the present and how one experiences the present. At this point, Wilentz is at a disadvantage compared to some of the writers of the 1619 Project in understanding history in light of the present.
Clark makes simple error when talking about history. He disagreed with the notion that history is not fixed. Here Clark makes a distinction between history and the study of history with the former being fixed and the latter being unfixed. But here we are probably talking about a double use of the word 'history.' While Clark uses that word to mean the actual events, history itself is a a study about the past. And if history is a study about the past, then it is not fixed.
But one thing can be said for sure, that despite its flaws, at least some of the professors who have criticized the 1619 Project have not claimed that it is fatally flawed as Clark does. In fact, in The Atlantic magazine, Wilentz wrote a list of corrections to be made to save the project from being discredited by its critics. Wilentz supports. the overall idea of the project.
In addition, Clark's singling out of Marxist attributes of the project begs the question of his own criticisms of the project since he implies, without giving reasons, that those Marxist attributes are bad.
Truth be told, and this is an interpretation, Clark here demonstrates an authoritarian approach to the 1619 Project. His cynicism of the project, his declaration of guilt by association when mentioning Marxist thought, and his distinction between real and amateur historians shows an all-or-nothing thinking approach to the project. He goes beyond the criticisms of the some of the historians he cites in critiquing the Project. He fails to mention the measured support for the project by some of its critics whom he cites.
We should note that authoritarian approaches are often born out of fear and aim to totally discredit a given source. The fear here is that if the Project is not totally denounced, it will gain some credibility and that could be devastating to those who see a different America than what the Project describes. Then again, we should note that America can be experienced differently based on one's circumstances, such as one's own race. Perhaps that is the real fear. That America itself is not a monolith of overall good. That America can be a far different nation to some groups based on race and/or economic class than to other groups.
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Nov 11
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost about how CRT is being taught in our nation's schools. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Terms like 'progressive,' 'Critical Race Theory,' and 'Marxists' are being used like the words 'lions' and 'tigers' and 'bears' in the journey along the Yellow Brick Wall. So what is the actual fear here?
First, we are not dealing with Critical Race Theory (CRT) as much as how some of the ideas in CRT might apply education. After all, CRT is about how many, not all, Blacks have experienced and are still force to contend with racism in this nation. Is having students learn about racism in this nation what some are afraid of here? We need to distinguish between what is CRT from how some apply CRT to different areas like education.
Second, criticisms must be specific without the use of labels as pejoratives. I looked at the general description of how Math was to be taught in Seattle. The big difference in how it is to be taught there from other places is not the subtraction of Math concepts, but the addition of the history of Math and how Mathematics have been used as a context learning Math concepts. What is wrong with mixing Math history with teaching Math itself?
What would be a legitimate criticism that Clark could level at what so offends him here? One legitimate criticism could be how the one class was being taught Angela Davis. They were being told to celebrate communism and chant 'jail Trump,' There is nothing wrong with teaching the kids about Angela Davis or the reasons why we should celebrate her. But the class that does that should also be encouraged to examine, disagree with, and find faults in what she did. So it wasn't the subject of Black Communism or Angela Davis as a person that was wrong, it was about part of how that subject was being taught that was wrong. Such would be a specific criticism.
Let's face it, all of the complaints about progressives, Marxism, and CRT amount to a hill of beans compared to the racism that many Blacks have been suffering through in America even to this day. And yet, some efforts that are overly corrective is what draws the attention here. What is ignored are conservative efforts to censor the history and current status of racism in this nation.
Third, there is a certain fear-mongering being practiced by Clark. For there is no evidenced based discussion as to the pervasiveness and extent to which CRT and other conservative boogeymen ideas are taught in the schools. Rather, there are just a few anecdotes cited from a highly conservative and antagonistic, to CRT, source. Clark certainly didn't engage in a systematic study of how CRT is in the education of our nation's schools. Instead, Clark uses a sources that uses innuendos about how much influence CRT is exerting in our nation's education.
In addition, there is no discussion as to why teaching CRT is only negative, which is Clark's view. Rather, Clark's article here takes the same approach as the class that was taught to celebrate Black Communism. All of this points to is an irrational fear of, or even perhaps a phobic reaction to, CRT or other Black perceptions of racism which is being pushed on people, especially conservatives, by political conservatives like Clark.
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