How 2 Of MLK's Statements Can Solve Most Of Our Problems

Our demise as people, either on a small or large scale, will be due to our refusal to share power and wealth with  each other.

Think about that. Our refusal to share power and weath involves the refusal of viewing others being fully human and thus equal to ourselves. And all of that comes from either a sense of entitlement or naked ambition. While the former assumes that we are superior to others in some way, shape or form, the latter seeks to prove ourselves to be superior. Either way, we are refusing to count others as our equals. And so while the former starts with assumptions about ourselves, the latter sees that sense of entitlement as something to be achieved.

Our refusal to share power and wealth becomes our own demise in a number of ways. The first way that it causes our own destruction is that that search for power and wealth eventually causes us to dehumanize ourselves as reflected in how we inhumanely treat others  The second way in which we cause ourselves to fall is seen in destruction we visit on others when competing for power and weath. Certainly war is the largest scale on which that competition occurs. And regarding war, we would be wise to continually point our what the Russell-Einstein Manifesto says; that, because of the present or future avaiability of WMDs, humankind has a choice between survival or war. And so the longer we rely on resolving our differences through war, the more inevitable the use of those WMDs becomes. But even if our competition for being superior to others is on a smaller scale than that, the destruction that such a competition involves reduces the victimizer to being that of a temporary king-of-the-hill and the victim to being counted as untermenschen. Here we should remember that no one is king of the hill forever.

The above state is what all mankind faces today. And the quotes of Martin Luther King Jr. listed below not only strikes at and reveals the heart of those who refuse to share power and wealth, it implies an escape from a doomed future (click here for the source):

Quote #1:

'The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just'

Quote #2: 

'I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered'

We will look at the first quote, we should consider the ramifications if we were to replace the word 'Western' with a fill-in-the-blank. For when we make that substitution, we find that the scope of the claim increases tremendously so that we can experience how that statement can apply not just to any ism or group, but to individuals, even ourselves, as well. 

What that first quote targets is the emotional base for entitlement involving ruling over others: arrogance. Arrogance allows us to look down on others. And in that first quote arrogance promotes the idea that our own ism, group, or self are superior to others. That sense of superiority sees others as having nothing to contribute to ourselves, our groups, and our ideologies. Also, that sense of superiority gives us  permission, if not a mandate,  to rule over others and/or take their resources at their expense.

The striving of our favorite sports teams  promotes the idea that we should strive to be superior to others. Only unlike in sports where superiority only pertains to a game, superiority in life leads us to visit injustices on others as we rule over and/or take what is theirs. Arrogance not only makes us feel significant, it drives us to hurt and exploit others.

What should also be noted in the first quote is the all-or-nothing thinking involved. One side has EVERYTHING to teach while the other side can only learn. This all-or-nothing thinking feeds on one's arrogance that persuades us to feel entitled to do what we want to others. And that kind of thinking serves as the cognitive foundation for authoritarianism.

When King spoke of this feeling and all-or-nothing thinking, he was focusing on his own nation and government. He did so not just because of war in Vietnam, but also because of our past foreign policies that saw the U.S. suppress the aspirations of multitudes of people for either the financial gain of its businesses and corporations, and/or for strategic reasons too. And so the U.S. sometimes used proxy leaders to control how some other nations behaved and where their resources were directed. That was true in Iran (1953) and Guatamala (1954) as well as in Vietnam.

Now whereas the first quote dealt with controlling others, the second quote addresses our priorities as a nation and as individuals. It isn't that gadgets, profit margins, and property rights are not important. It is that people should be considered more important than those three items. The more that gadgets, profit margins, and property rights have precedence over the welfare of people, the more transactional both our nation's policies and our own affairs become. King's complaint about how investors would invest in other nations only to squeeze out all of the profits that they could was evidence of a thing-oriented society. To that, we could add the triplets of racism, materialism (which was replaced  by 'economic exploitation' in other messages), and militarism could never be eliminated. And we should note that King saw those 3 traits as being unseparable.

Just think that if we lived in a person-oriented society. the maximization of profits would not be the prevailing code followed by most of our publicly owned businesses and industries. And without that maximization of profits ethic, those in the business and financial communities generally exercise a significant amount of self-restraint resulting in smaller differences in the income and wealth disparities both between the classes and the races. We would also move closer to a more environmentally friendly and sustainable future.

That our society is becoming an even more thing-oriented society than before possibly shows one of the biggest failure of our education system especially in the secondary education and high education systems. There we are often taught how to tweak a thing-oriented financial practice or economic system that encourages us to maximize profits. The maximization of profits is a cannibalizing ethic meaning that in order to pursue the highest profits for oneself, one deliberately ignores all other principles and ethics to operate. In addition, such an ethic reduces those who could initially be counted as stakeholders to shareholders. The maximization of profits ethic tells us to ignore how others fare in the system regardless of their plight. And so we are taught to prioritize what is not human over people. We are taught that the only moral principle we are required to follow is that of serving oneself. If we wish to be kind or compassionate, that is an individual choice that many will applaud as long as they are not compelled to join.

The problem is not that we try to tweak a financial practice or economic system, the problem is that we do not include, in many of our economic institutions, how to objectively look at our economy from outside the system. And thus we uncritically continue with the maxmization of profits without realizing that our focus on such an approach encourages us to be selfish and to pursue extreme individualism in an interdependent economic system and world. As a result, those of us who are at least financially comfortable will often look down on those who are in the lower economic classes with disdain and as obstacles to one's own continual pursuit of their own personal profits. Is it any wonder that we have many elected officials who are so vulnerable to the influence of money? And is it any wonder why we have chosen the wrong people to represent or lead us?

In too many instances, our educational institutions have failed us in providing us, and those who are work in the business world, a full education on our economic system. But it is not just those in the business world who have been educationally shortchanged, it also includes almost all of the rest of us.

 

What Kind Of Wall Should Separate Church And State?

In examining the role of religion in politics, we need to acknowledge not just the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, we should also look at conversation between the Danbury Church and Thomas Jefferson, The Constitution, and a line from Jefferson's 1801 inaugural speech. We will look at the conversation first. In 2nd paragraph of its letter to Thomas Jefferson after he became President, the letter from the Danbury Church said the following (click here for the source):

'Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter, together with the laws made coincident therewith, were adapted as the basis of our government at the time of our revolution. And such has been our laws and usages, and such still are, [so] that Religion is considered as the first object of Legislation, and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights. And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgments, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore, if those who seek after power and gain, under the pretense of government and Religion, should reproach their fellow men, [or] should reproach their Chief Magistrate, as an enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dares not, assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ.'

The 2nd paragraph of Jefferson's response is most pertinent here (the link to the this source is the same as the above link):

'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.'

The Establishment clause from the 1st Amendment is displayed below (click here to see the source)

'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'

Before discussing the issue, we should note that the very end of the Danbury letter seems to be at least a little prophetic to what has been happening in America today. 

We should note that the Danbury letter expressed a concern that the  then current legislation seemed, to them, that one's ability to practice a  religion was relegated to be a 'favor' rather than an 'inalienable right.' This provides the context for Jefferson's response. 

Similar to what was expressed in the letter,  Jefferson acknowledged that the government can only target 'actions' and not 'opinions.' So we see that with both the Danbury letter and Jefferson's response government could address actions. But the question becomes what, or perhaps whose, criteria is the government using to determine when to intervene in human affairs. That is the question on which our government's past response to slavery and Jim Crow laws and practices was responding to. It is also the question on which government's duty to respond to abortion revolves around. And what or whose criteria is the question that the debate over Christian Nationalism is concerned with. 

At this point, enter the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and his SCLC. in the 1950s and 1960s. They spoke of and worked for equality for all people. And they did so from their religious beliefs. But it wasn't just political equality that they promoted; it was an equality in outcomes. That latter point was made by King in his 1967 interview with Xander Vanocur (click here to see that interview).

Now when we look back at those days, how many people complained about the Church influencing the government? The answer to that question is complicated because the American Church has always been divided about racial equality and was on both sides of the racial divide. But we should note that because King and the SCLC spoke and worked for equality rather than a privileged place for themselves and their religion, their work was not seen as a violation of the separation between Chuch and State

We should note that the mission of King and the SCLC is supported by Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. Thus, equality, that is 'equal protection of the laws,' became the measuring stick that the government could use to intervene or be prevented from acting was equality. So we should not just note, but emphasize too, that King and the SCLC were working for the welfare themselves and some other marginalized groups.

That brings us to today and the desire of many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians to be the sole provider of rules that determine when the government can either intervene or be prevented from doing so. Many of those Christians are called Christian Nationalists. But there are also some Christians who are not Christian Nationalists who, to a lesser degree, want to provide rules to determine government intervention.

Christian Nationalists tend to argue that because they hold to the same faith that many of the founders had of America, they deserve a greater voice in determining what laws the government should pass. They also say that America was founded to be a Christian nation.  And so, again, they should have a greater, or perhaps the only, voice in determining the laws of the nation. And that brings up the question of whom the government should be representing. Should the government represent only Christians or Christians more than unbelievers or should the government represent all of its citizens?

The problem with the Christian Nationalist views is that citizenship in America is not defined by one's beliefs but by federal laws and The Constitution. Citizenship is determined by the location of one's birth, the citizenship of one's parents, or meeting requirements for becoming citizens. The Constitution gives no leeway for ranking American citizens except that only those born in the U.S. can become President.

Yes, Christians influenced the culture of America greatly during its early days. And many states, as stipulated in their state constitutions, favored Christian leadership over their states. But The Constitution did not do so. In fact, as can be ascertained from the Constitutional debates, religion played little to no role in the Constitutional definition of America. In fact, a deliberate distancing of the Federal government from religion was a feature both in The Constitution and in the debates that helped determine its contents.

But something else should be noted about America's early days that was heavily influenced by Christianity. That influence was determined by demographics. Because Christendom existed throughout America's early until around half of the 20th century, many people who saw themselves as being Christians though lifestyles or beliefs may not have confirmed that conviction. And so the biggest factor that determined America's past direction was demographics. Thus we have to ask why should Christians have the dominant voice over our government today when the demographics have changed. Should past demographics mean that those who  meet the legal definition of citizenship are not real citizens because they hold to different values and beliefs than our founders had?

Those who hold to Christian Nationalism would answer that last question with a firm 'yes.' And that is because, with their definition of what it means to be an American, the definition of America is fixed throughout time regardless of any changes in the values and beliefs of the people. And so those who do not hold to what Americans from the past hold to are not American enough to matter in terms of influencing the government.

What we have with the Christian Nationalist viewpoint is the tyranny of past demographics. According to them, it isn't what our founding documents said that defines us and determines our path, it is compliance with dominant religious views from the past.

We also need to pay attention to those non Christian Nationalists who use terms like 'moral law' or 'natural law' to obligate those in government to pass laws that are based on a unique Christian view. In particular, laws that would marginalize those from the LGBT community should be  based on the moral and natural laws. We should note here is that there are multiple versions of natural law. And so, to a lesser degree, we see the Church having undue influence on government's making of laws. And their justification for pursuing this undue influence is the view of the role of government officials that was held to in the past during Christendom.

And so we've seen two kinds of Christian influences on our government. One kind saw a Christian influence that advocated for the marginalized, others, as well as themselves. It attempted to lift up themselves and others to an equal place in society. The other kind of sees a Christian influence that is self-promoting while arguing for hierarchy. They want to lift themselves up above all others in society. And that brings us to our final quote. In his 1801 Inaugural Address, Thomas Jefferson said the following (click here for the source):

'All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression'

And so the one kind of Christian influence, which consists of Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC, was working for justice and the other kind while the current kind, of Christian influence, which consists of Christian Nationalists and some other authoritarian Christisns, is working for Jefferson's view of oppression. This latter influence is telling us that the State cannot properly function unless it is in control. Is it any wonder then that, today, many are arguing for a separation of Church and State in response to the latter kind's influence?

A Partial Return Of The Blog

I had to shutdown the blog for health concerns. I spent part of that time trying to get in the best shape for surgery, and now I am spending time recovering from surgery with which there were complications.

Last year, I spent quite a bit of time talking about the threat of the other pandemic: authoritarianism. That time was spent on this blog as well as in my comments on other blogs. The threat of authoritarianism around the world is real and growing. In the U.S., it is politically most pronounced in today's Republican Party, especially in its leaders like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. It is also exhibited in groups like Moms For Liberty and results in many of the state laws passed regarding voting and gender transitioning. Religiously, it is most pronounced in those fellow religiously conservative Christians who are Christian Nationalists. Those working for such a nation are being driven by authoritarian sentiments more than by biblical concerns as seen in the sources they use to prove their claims.

In discussing authoritarianism, we can further define it by its alternative: democracy. For with authoritarianism comes hierarchy while with democracy comes equality. The hierarchy that comes with authoritarianism can manifest itself in terms of the power of a single leader, the power of a small group of elites, or the power of an ethnicity and/or an economic class. With the last classification comes the notion of a shadow nation. A shadow nation is where a given nation is seen as belonging more to one ethnicity and/or economic class than it belongs to the rest of its citizens. Evidence of a shadow nation can be seen in the laws passed by a nation's government. Do they favor a specific economic class more than the other economic classes? If so, and they do so here in America (click here and there), then we could classify a nation as a classocracy. If the laws passed by a nation give a privileged position to a given ethnicity in a multi-ethnic nation so that there is a diminishing of the equal rights of other ethnic groups, there is an ethnocracy. Totalitarian regimes can also be ethnocracies and/or classocracies. There are at least two ethnic groups vying to establish an ethnocracy in America or parts of it: whites and every form of Christian Nationalism. And what makes every form of Christian Nationalism a Biblical problem is that it puts all of us Christians in the inevitable position of 'lording it over others.' And it puts all of us Christians in the inevitable position having privilege and supremacy over the group to which we are to preach the Gospel. Is it unreasonable to suppose that many to whom we preach the Gospel will have already stopped listening because they first noticed the inferior position in society they have to us?

Starting this year, I will try to focus on the Martin Luther King Jr. quote below even with a partial return of the blog. It is partial because I will be posting at the most one article per week except for the first week. On the first week I will also post one article showing comments that were blocked on conservative blogs that same week. I will provide other posts like the one on blocked comments on a regular basis when I am able to.The King quote is below (click here for the source):

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. 

If we were to apply King's statement, we find that it speaks to us as individuals, to our institutions, to our businesses, financial institutions, and corporations, and to the nation as a whole. As consumers, we are so easily sold on the latest technological gadgets. We are also hyper aware of what our expenses, including taxes, are compared to our income. We are even more conscious of what others get, especially from the government, in comparison to what we receive. But we are not a monolith.

Some know all of the above from the perspective of deprivation. Others know it from a treading water status. While others know all of the above as the results of having done well  and some of them have succeeded by exploiting others. It is natural and right for those from the first two categories to speak out because they are doing so for survival. 

But what about those who done well? What about those including both individuals and businesses of all kinds who are wealthy? Do they have the right to complain when their taxes pay to assist those who are from the first two categories? Do they have the right to complain about paying taxes that would benefit the education of the children whose parents are from those first two categories? Do they have a right to complain when some fellow citizens work to change our economic structure so that there are fewer people who are either living in deprivation or are just treading water?

And for those who have done well, do they really think that their own charitable giving is enough? If they do, then they should read the next two quotes.

The first quote is from King. It is a continuation of the quote given above. King said (click here for the source):

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Now below is a quote from Vlad Lenin. Generally, I don't like Lenin. He acted as a prototype to Stalin and the structure of his government, as Rosa Luxemburg noted, was based on a bourgeoisie dictatorship model rather than a socialist one. But the following quote from Lenin coincides significantly with was just quoted from King (click here for the quote):

Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation...But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze,   in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

Another way of saying what Lenin said is that, for many of the wealthy, charity can become an indulgence that removes the guilt that comes from either directly exploiting others or a system in which people are economically exploited. Again, charity is a bandaid used to cover the wounds of a the disease of economic exploitation. And so for the wealthy who would believe that giving charity is all that is morally required, they must realize that they need to go farther. They need to remove the structures and policies by which their abundance of wealth is due to taking advantage of others. 

And isn't that what King is saying too? It isn't enough to give charity and to help individuals or even groups. We need to change the structure of our economy so that there are fewer and fewer victims and beggars on the road on which we all travel in life. 

We should note that our current form of Capitalism, is not the form of Capitalism that was employed in America and around the world after WW II. That form was called the Bretton-Woods System. The Bretton-Woods System was a form of economics that, while employing a significant measure of Capitalism, gave national governments more control over their economies. And in a democracy, that translates giving the people, who elected those leaders, more control of their own economy.

Our current form of Capitalism, which was introduced to some nations through manufactured crises, is called Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism eliminated many of the powers that were reserved for the government. As a result, private investors, sometimes even those who are from other nations, gained more power in determining a given nation's economy. And many of those private investors religiously followed the maximize profit ethic, which is a cannibalizing ethic that devours all of its peers. And as a result, disparities in wealth and income, both between the economic classes and the races, have continued to increase for the past few decades. Can we now see how the economic road on which we all travel needs to be changed so that there are fewer people in need? 

BTW, we also need to see that Neoliberalism has both a domestic side and a foreign side. That distinction was made in the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. While Clinton favored trade agreements that would give more control of our economy to foreign investors, Trump favored tax and regulation cuts that gave American corporations and financial institutions more control over our economy. Only Trump successfully obscured the fact that he was still promoting a Neoliberal capitalism.

Not all in our society have preferred to be part of a thing-oriented society rather than a person-oriented society. And not all who have preferred to be part of a thing-oriented society do so to the same degree.  Certainly the Democratic Party is a mixed bag in terms of caring more about people than it does about profits and property rights. Some third parties and individuals try to promote a person-oriented society to varying degrees.

In contrast to those who are working to advance a person-oriented society, there is Wall Street. Clearly, Wall Street favors profit motives and property rights over people as do many from corporate America. And here we should note that the "wokism" promoted by many in corporate America does not imply that a corporation is promoting a person-oriented society over a thing-oriented society. That is because many in corporate America can favor certain woke causes that do not interfere with the economic policies they lobby for that make profits and property rights more important than people's need to be able to earn livable wages, the needs that people have for government assistance, and/or regulations that protect people and the need to protect the environment.

The Republican Party under Trump has cared and continues to care much more about profits and property rights than it does about people. That was shown by the policies of Trump that decreased the financial and social responsibilities of corporations and financial institutions in order to increase their immediate profits. And their increase in profits also contributed to a spike in the deficit.

Today's Republican Party under Trump has become the political home for Cain when he rhetorically asked God, 'am I my brother's keeper'?Of course, one could retort that at least that such a question is Biblical, but it is Biblical in the same way of how Pharaoh treated the Hebrews who were being led by Moses. Despite that, today's Evangelical support for the Republican Party under Trump is continuing a conservative Church tradition over the past few centuries of siding with wealth and power. Such was done in France, Russia, and Spain before their respective revolutions. 

We should note that the Church paid dearly both during and after those revolutions. And the reputation of the Gospel has been harmed because of the oppression and abuses that were logical consequences of Christendom. Both Critical Theory and Post Modernism have accurately pointed out the failures that came with Christendom and other sources. That oppression from and brutal treatment by those who claim to have an exclusive knowledge of the truth is part of the history that Critical Theory and Post Modernism is directing our attention too. Sadly, neither Critical Theory nor Post Modernism have provided viable solutions to what Christendom wrought. And worse, those who want to bring back Christendom, with the promise that they can do domination right, are speaking louder and louder and are stirring up a growing audience because the Christians in that audience are in fear from anticipating the coming of a real persecution as secularism becomes more pervasive.

The New Testament tells us that 'the love of money is a root for all sorts of evil' (click I Timothy 6:10 for the source). That is true not just for the individual Christian, it is true for everyone. And it is true not just for individual people, it is true for businesses, corporations, financial institutions, society, and the nation. It's not that profits and property rights are not important, they are necessary for economic survival. It is that when gadgets, profit motives, and property rights are more important than people to our institutions, businesses, society, and nation, we are all forced to merge onto a highway leading to self-destruction.

At the same time, it is not enough to point out the failures of others. James 3 tells us that 'we all stumble in many ways.' Paul tells us in Romans 3:9 that both the person who denies the existence of God and the religious person are equal in sin and are thus in the same boat. And so to the best of our ability we need to point out those failures in the same way that we want others to point out our own failures. We need to point out those failures as fellow sinners. We need to point out those failures not as those who are morally superior to sinners or as a way of tearing others down, but as a way of offering an alternative way to live. We need to point out those failures not as authoritarians who are virtue-signaling by seeking to punish others. Instead, we need to point out those failures as peers in sin who want people to change for their own benefit so that they can be better than ourselves. I have not mastered that way of pointing out the faults of others. In fact I am still trying to begin to learn how to do that. At the same time, some things must be immediately pointed out.

So, hopefully, the importance of not just distinguishing a person-oriented society from a thing-oriented society will be the focus of this blog during this year, but the importance of promoting the former society over the latter one will also be emphasized.

Another Attack On CRT

 Unless you're a religiously conservative Christian, disagreement or a lack of conformity is not considered an attack. But when the disagreement goes beyond a difference of opinion into attempts to silence someone or some group, then we have an attack. And that is what we have a review of CRT by a group called Independent Women's Voice. (click here for their page on CRT).

Their review of CRT follows in the same vein that religiously conservative Christians practice when reviewing secular theories and ideologies that they find offensive. That kind of review paints a picture of their target, in this case CRT, in black-white terms suggesting, if not implying that their target has either no redeemable qualities or qualities that are better learned from religiously conservative Christian sources. 

The Independent Women's Voice gives a completely negative review of CRT. We could compare that kind of review with the kind of review that Martin Luther King Jr. gave to Marxism/Soviet Union Communism in his book Stride Toward Freedom (click here for the chapter of the book on Pilgrimage to Nonviolence). There, on page 92-95, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of Marxism/Soviet Union Communism, King, unfortunately he seemed to have conflated the two, described it as evil and listed a few key disagreements he had with it. At the same time, he followed William Temple's, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, assessment that Marxism/Soviet Union Communism was a Christian heresy. They called it that because Marxism/Soviet Union Communism both contained some essential Christian concerns for justice with views that were antithetical to Christianity. King concluded that what we need is a hybrid approach to our political and economic system that incorporates both Marxism/Soviet Union Communism with Capitalism. 

The point being here is that while King saw some good in what he considered to be evil, the Independent Women's Voice review saw CRT in almost complete negative terms and as having nothing to contribute to our nation's struggle with racism. And thus, CRT should not be a part of any school program. This black-white view of things which many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians are employing is also part and parcel to authoritarian approaches

The Independent Women's Voice group gave several reasons for why CRT is totally wrong enough to be excluded from schools. The initial reasons given include that CRT is divisive, unpatriotic because it teaches that America was founded on white supremacy, causes unnecessary despair, and runs counter to our nation's motto of 'out of one, many.' But what is missing in those objections is the most important issue about CRT. That most important issue is the degree of accuracy by which CRT describes how many Blacks experience racism in our nation. If that its degree of accuracy is high, then these objections fall to the wayside. And so what we are seeing here is a conservative implementation of Post Modernism's outcome-based truth system. That system dictates that if the outcome is undesirable, then the premise(s) associated, whether by accident or not, with that outcome are deemed to be false.

Here we should note that CRT is emerged from Critical Legal Studies (CLS). Though it has some carry over from CLS, it is significantly different from CLS. And CRT is decades old and comes from serious studies in both law and other areas of life such as police enforcement, the judicial system, voting, employment and economics, the environment, political system, and so on. The basic thrust of CRT's message is that how Blacks have experienced racism in this nation is so unique to them that the term racism has been redefined to include personal racial prejudice, racism practiced by our nation's institutions, and in society in general. Thus racism in the U.S. is personal prejudice + both institutional and social power.

The Independent Women's Voice webpage emphasizes how CRT ventures off the beaten path of the Civil Rights Movement from the past and especially from what Martin Luther King Jr taught. What does this webpage review of CRT say about what the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr. stood for? The Independent Women's Voice webpage said the following:

1. The movement was based on equal opportunity and equal treatment regardless of race
2. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that America was born out of liberty, not racism, and that the time had come that our nation start to fulfill its promises. Also that America was not an inherently racist nation.
3. The Civil Rights Movement was Patriotic by following through with what the Declaration of Independence said that 'all men are created equal.' And so CRT is not the continuation of the Civil Rights Movement.

So at the heart of the issue here is our history and what role racism played and is still playing because of the past. What is also important is what the Civil Rights Movement stood for.

We should note here the distinction between theory and practice. Yes, we have the words of the Declaration of Independence and Amendments from The Constitution. But how close was our practice to those proclaimed principles? For the greater the difference between our practice and our  principles, then it seems to follow that we should judge ourselves by our practices more than our stated principles.

Here we should note that initially the American definition of citizen follows closer to what Aristotle wrote than any other model of thought (click here for the source).  According to Aristotle, participatory citizenship was meant only for men who were not resident aliens or slaves. Aristotle also believed that certain people were slaves by nature.

Compare that with naturalization laws of 1790 and 1795 where citizenship was reserved for only free white people who lived in the jurisdiction of the U.S. for a certain period of time, showed good character and swore allegiance to The Constitution. However, women could not not vote and were not independent citizens until the 1920s. Thus, neither Blacks nor Native Americans could become citizens when this nation was founded. It wasn't until the 14th Amendment when Blacks could become citizens and it wasn't until 1924 that Native Americans could become citizens.

And so when we consider whether this nation was founded on white supremacy or whether our nation was founded on liberty and equality, what does our past say? We should add to the laws regulating citizenship our history of slavery, and Jim Crow laws and culture to answer the question. And we should also ask if it is unpatriotic or simply historical to answer the question by saying that America was founded on white supremacy.

We should note that the patriotism of America's Civil Rights Movement should be qualified if not questioned. Why? For one thing, the American Civil Rights Movement was not a monolithic group defined by Martin Luther King Jr and the SCLC. It included groups like the Black Panthers, groups that called for Black Nationalism, some who called for violence, as well as those groups that peacefully worked for civil rights.

In addition, we could also question whether the patriotism of Martin Luther King Jr. matches the patriotism expressed by this webpage. For  King said the following

1. The U.S. government was 'the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today' (click here for the source). We should note the other criticisms that King had of U.S. policies there.
2. Martin Luther King Jr. said that Blacks have had a tougher time struggling for equality than other immigrant groups because of how, from the very beginning, they were objectified, brought here under inhuman conditions,  used as slaves and stigmatized because of their color. That no other ethnic group was used as slaves in in the U.S. (click here for the source, advance to the answer to the question at around 13:48 of the interview). We should note the other things said by King in that interview including his supportive comments about those young black activists of his time who were rejecting the bourgeois values of White America.
3. We could also add King's criticisms of Capitalism and partial agreement with Marxism/Communism found in King's Stride Toward Freedom, which was previously cited.

Yes, progress has been made and this has been admitted to by CRT teachers and promoters, but we still have systemic racism  in the nation. At least that is what CRT teachers and promoters are saying. And they base than on the racism practiced in the areas of life already mentioned before.

In addition, we should add another point about the Independent Women's Voice webpage that challenges the connections between CRT and the work of King and the Civil Rights Movement. In his interview that was previously cited, King states that his earlier work, which consisted of working for desegregation and the Voting and Civil Rights Acts, were struggles for dignity. He was then, in May of 1967, turning his attention toward achieving 'genuine equality' in the U.S. And by that he was referring to outcomes including economic ones. The measuring the presence of racism by the lack in the equality of outcomes was referred to by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her article on race the valid use of anti-discrimination laws (click here for the article). Or we could go to the writings of Anthony Cook on Martin Luther King Jr. 

Will stop here rather than go through the whole webpage. Hopefully I fairly represented the gist of what the webpage was about. Also, I hopefully showed where the webpage seems to be out of touch with the history and character of the U.S., CRT, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement. But that is for you to decide should you venture to read through or listen to the resources provided.

For Martin Luther King Jr Day

 Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And perhaps there is no better way to celebrate the MLK than to listen to or read him. And that is the plan for this post. Instead of giving my thoughts on whatever subject, I am providing a link to one of the greatest works by Martin Luther King Jr.: his speech on the Vietnam War. Below is a link to the text of that speech.

Click here for MLK's speech on the Vietnam War.

Would King Favor CRT Or Racial Color Blindness In Promoting Civil Rights

The color-blind approach to civil rights says that the race of a person should not be considered at all in viewing people. So, for example, when reporting a story about a police shooting of an apparently innocent victim, the race of neither the police officers involved nor that of the victim should be mentioned, let alone considered.

This color-blind approach, as far as I know, is a conservative ideological approach to civil rights. It is based on the claim that racial equality was achieved by the work of the Civil Rights Movement with the passing of laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That is because with the passing of Civil Rights legislation, we have equal treatment under the law And in answering their critics, promoters of the color-blind approach say that equal treatment under the law does not guarantee any specific outcomes.

Finally, because of his 'I Have A Dream Speech,'  those who promote the color-blind approach believe that it is consistent with Martin Luther King's Jr. approach to civil rights by virtue of his dream that society would become color-blind. And that belief is the concern of this article.

In contrast to the color-blind approach, we have Critical Race Theory (CRT). And CRT teaches that racism is more than just individual racial prejudice, it also involves racial oppression from our nation's institutions and the manifestation of social power. And because of that, and what we see in society, say advocates of CRT, shows that we have yet to achieve racial equality. CRT relies on multiple influences including Marx and, as it claims, the work and words of Martin Luther King Jr. and others. CRT is an outgrowth of Critical Legal Studies (CLS).

The question here is which approach to civil rights is most consistent with King's approach to civil rights. Rather than me trying to answer that question, below is a link to an interview with King which occurred 11 months before he was assassinated. In other words, these are the views of King late in his career of activism and leadership. This interview came around 2 to 3 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Here we get to hear how King viewed civil rights and what is needed to combat racism and achieve equality. So here the listener to the interview gets to, in a more informed way, determine for themselves whether it is the color-blind approach or the CRT approach to viewing and achieving civil rights that is most consistent with King's approach to civil rights. The link to the interview is below:

Click here for the interview with Martin Luther King Jr.

Too Team Oriented To See The Big Picture

 America is currently sharply divided so much that there seems to be no common ground between the sides. In the conservative corner, we have a tag team of Republicans and Trumpublicans. And there is a growing division between the two since the latter group is looked on as being a personality cult according to arch conservative George Will.

In the non-conservative corner, there are liberals, progressives, and leftists. And there is a division between leftists and the other 2 non-conservative groups.

But the sharpest division is between Trumpublicans and the coalition of those Republicans and non-conservatives who oppose Trump. And the division so great that some of those from the coalition have compromised their political standards to vote Trump out of office.

Nothing has illustrated the division between the two main groups more than the post-election actions. Many who support Trump sincerely believe that the election was stolen from their hero. Then again, for months before the Presidential elections in both 2016 and 2020, Trump claimed that the only way he could lose was if the elections were rigged against him. And Trump's claims were enough for many of his followers to employ the basic motto that says: Trump said it, I believe it, That settles it. Then again, conspiracy theories about the Democrats have also been circulating around conservative websites for a while before those elections which has furthered our nation's great divide.

Thus, it is in the spirit of that division, that blog writer Gene Veith (click here for a short bio) has recently written a recent article on how he expects minorities to come around and support the conservative cause. Citing an article by Musa al-Ghabri, a sociologist from Columbia, Veith makes the claim that because most people from minority groups are religious while the Democratic Party seems to be fleeing from religion, that that political party will lose its support from minority members. That movements like Identity Politics, Critical Race Theory, and other non-conservative social stands violate the conservative religious values of many who belong to minority groups in America. Thus, eventually these people will find their way to the conservative corner--Veith does not distinguish between Republicans and Trumpublicans (click here for the article).

Veith would be more than happy if these claims become true because Veith wants to advance the conservative cause. And having more minority members jump the Democratic Party ship to join the conservative cause would give that cause more political power.

Now we could analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the claims made by Veith and al-Gabri, but in the light of the polarization of America, that seems to be a less important issue. What is important here is how diametrically opposed that the sides mentioned are. We have the conservative cause, the Democratic Party, Identity Politics, and Critical Race Theory. And it seems that Veith and al-Gharbi believe that followers of the conservative cause and those who are into Identity Politics and Critical Race Theory are disjoint groups of people. Such a division, as well as how Veith and al-Ghabri write about these movements, is the problem in an America that is suffering greatly from polarization.

So while Veith and al Ghabri write as if the rise of the conservative cause and the, what is hopefully for them, the demise of Identity Politics and Critical Race Theory are good things. In essence, at least Veith is writing as a team player for the conservative cause and looks at what is happening solely in terms of what will help his team, the conservative cause, become stronger.

But it is Veith's team and competitive approach that makes it difficult for him to see the problems that his partisanship is causing. Such a team approach and partisanship further divides America. But not only that, a team approach and strong partisanship can blind us from seeing what each  movement can contribute. And if we were to look at these movements as being mixtures of good and bad, perhaps we would not become so partisan because we would recognize the strengths each movement possesses. 

While Veith is not only a political conservative, but a religiously conservative Christian as well, it might help here if we looked at the example set by another very religious leader: Martin Luther King Jr.

When King compared what he saw as Communism-Marxism and Capitalism, he failed to exhibit the team approach and partisanship that Veith has for conservative cause. Rather, King looked at the strengths and weaknesses of both  ideologies/groups in order to create a hybrid between them. While King believes that Communism forgets that life is individual and Capitalism forgets that life is social, he also looks to combine the strengths of each movement despite the fact that he shared the opinion of William Temple, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, on Communism. For Temple described Communism as being a 'Christian heresy' in that it combined both real Christian concerns with beliefs that were totally against Christianity (click here for a writing by King on this and start with pg 92). 

The point being here that instead of looking to advance one's own team or favorite ideology over and against the other teams and ideologies, perhaps we need to take King's approach. Perhaps we need to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the conservative cause, Identity Politics, and Critical Race Theory and seek to create our own hybrids of these different ways of thinking. For if we did that, rather than viewing people's political views and ideologies with whom we disagree as having nothing positive to contribute, perhaps, just perhaps, we can regain a sense of real unity while having sincere disagreements. At least, one could hope that that would happen.

 

 

What Is The New False Gospel

After some delays, we finally get to finish reviewing a 3 part series by Thabiti Anyabwile on Social Justice (click here for the article). And unfortunately, this last article serves as a bit of a disappointment because of its lack of depth.

In the article being reviewed, Anyabwile reviews the claims of Tom Ascol as he sounds a red alert alarm on what he sees the new threat/new gospel to be for the Church (click here to here his presentation). Ascol emphatically states that the new threat to and the new gospel for the church is social justice especially as it is taught in cultural Marxism. Ascol makes it sound like this threat is both wide if not deep. He makes it sound like social justice is invading most of our neighborhood churches.

To be specific, Ascol says that the influence of social justice and cultural Marxism is introducing godless ideologies that are dictating to us how we should view reality. From Marxism comes the notion that we divide the world into the oppressor groups and oppressed groups. Cultural Marxism redefines these groups from economic classes to marginalized groups of people. Thus, this new teaching is telling us to discard the old ways of ordering society. And it is teaching us to see the oppressor, straight white males who are cisgendered as the enemy who, along with his view of reality and authority structures, must be overthrown. And all of that is done in the name of equality according to social justice teachings
 
And though Anyabwile's response is accurate, it is shallow. Anyabwile answers Ascol's concerns by saying that there is a larger and more organized anti-social justice movement in the conservative churches than a social justice movement. In fact, Anyabwile states that there is no social justice movement in the conservative churches.  There might be some individuals who are involved, but there is certainly no organized movement in the conservative churches toward social justice. And from my experiences and observations, he right.

Thus, Ascol is crying wolf on whether the conservative churches are being threatened with social justice especially as it is approached from the cultural Marxist perspective. But such a response does little to review the claims made and perspective held by Ascol. That is what makes Anyabwile's response shallow.

What would be a better response to Ascol's alarm? First, we should look at what Ascol seems to be so scared of. His complaint is not just that there is some secular invasion of ideas into the Church, but how we look at reality from a Western Civilization point of view is being challenged. That means old ways of ordering societies, old authority structures, the place of white men as being oppressors, and Judeo-Christian values must be recognized and changed. The last item seems to be out of place because Judaism rejects the most basic of Christian values: the status of Jesus as being both God and man who came to save His people from their sins. So what Ascol must mean by Judeo-Christian values is God's law and how society must be ruled by that.

Second, what we see in Ascol's perspective is a canonization of the old status quo in which he grew up and a demonization of a possibly emerging status quo. Canonizing the way one grew up and demonizing the new that challenges much of what one grew up with is as old as the hills. But that itself does not really say what needs to be said about Ascol's views here. For what Ascol does is to approach both the old status quo and the new challenge from social justice from a cultural Marxist perspective in all-or-nothing way of thinking. That is what produces Ascol's canonization of the old status quo with its regard for Western Civilization and his demonization of challenges of the old status quo by social justice from a cultural Marxism perspective.

Thus, it is Ascol's all-or-nothing approach to both the old status quo and the new social justice view that is the problem. And if we compare Ascol's approach to the old status quo and to cultural Marxism with Martin Luther King Jr.'s approach to Marxism, we easily see why Anyabwile's review of Ascol is shallow and why Ascol overstates his case.

When King compared Marxism with the then status quo, he said the following: 'Historically capitalism failed to see the truth in collective enterprise and Marxism failed to see truth in individual enterprise.'  In other words, King does not take a black-white approach to either the then status quo or the challenge of Marxism. And citing William Temple, a former archbishop of Canterbury, King repeated his observation that Marxism is a 'Christian Heresy.' By that he meant that Marx had combined some essential truths of Christianity with beliefs that must be rejected by every Christian. But again, King is avoiding this all-or-nothing approach to either the then status quo or the Marxism of his day as exemplified in the communism of the Soviet Union (click here for the source).

Another way of approaching Ascol's point of view is to modify a statement King said while opposing the Vietnam War (click here for the source):

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

If we replace the word 'Western' with a fill-in-the-black, can we not see the fault of Ascol's line of thought here. Certainly social justice and cultural Marxism has much to learn from Christianity. But are we daring to deny that that we religiously conservative Christians have things to learn from social justice and cultural Marxism? Or are we assuming, despite Church history and the problems that were so much a part of Western Civilization, that our knowledge of the Bible as well as our embracing of Western Civilization means that we have nothing to learn from social justice and cultural Marxism? Again, that question challenges us to not approach either the old status quo and cultural Marxism in an all-or-nothing manner.

Generally I like what Anyabwile writes. But his response to Ascol lacked depth and dependence on how others have responded to similar challenges. And just because Ascol has well overstated his case, that doesn't mean that we should ignore all of his warnings. But what we should challenge him to do is to look out for competing and threatening ideologies that come not from the new, but from the old status quo in which he grew up.



 

Apathy's The Real Enemy

I spent the weekend in D.C. to participate in an action run by Campaign Nonviolence (click here for their website). They had actions that protested for peace elsewhere, but one of my friends wanted to go to the events in D.C. and asked me to go with.

The planned events had their ups and downs. But what is telling is the number of people who didn't attend-- there were many. And that is the problem for those of us who want change. Most people, as indicated by their actions, do not.

The main event started Saturday morning at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. We gathered there at mid morning to hear some speakers and then go on a silent march through some memorials to the White House. There, a few from our group who were predetermined to get arrested for protesting on park property without a permit. The park police surprised them with noncompliance. Thus, everyone went home on time. But again, there were only a few of us.

And though some of the speakers for Campaign Nonviolence made superficial use of quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr., at least they are quoting him and trying to follow and promote his example and teaching on nonviolence. Thus those in Campaign Nonviolence refrain from both outward violence and verbal violence while demonstrating. And this is breath of fresh air from many of my fellow Leftists who ignore King's teachings in order to feel free to vent against those whom they demonize. If more from the Left would study and incorporate King's teachings, they would find a wider audience. But currently, venting is preferred over protesters exercising reflection and self-criticism.  And perhaps if more from the Left would find their voice by starting with King's messages, our problem with apathy would still be significant, but would be less.

But for those of us who walked with Campaign Nonviolence, we must remember that calling on people to abstain from violence is not enough to promote peace. We must also address the driving motivations for the use of violence: pride and greed--King described greed as being thing-oriented rather than person-oriented. Pride tells us that we promote or defend our supremacy. Greed tells us that self-love is the greatest love. And since we only go around once, we need to get as much for ourselves as we can. And it isn't just those who do not protest with Campaign Nonviolence who are vulnerable to those traits, all of us are. Thus, when we who follow King's teachings protest, we need to protest as fellow sinners of those we protest rather than protesting as judges who are all too eager to pass sentence on an insidious criminal. 

But perhaps, the reason why we are met with a wall of apathy is because we were not appealing to pride and greed.  But if we have to appeal to pride and greed to weaken the grip apathy has on most Americans, it shows that some things never change and we have no hope for the future.

The Poor Epitomy Of Conservative Christianity's Approach To Social Justice

The reaction to social justice movements from religiously conservative Christians, those from the Reformed Tradition to be exact, has been quite predictable. It is one of discreditation. And that discreditation takes a peculiar form: it seeks to show, in an all-or-nothing manner, the flaws in the theological approach of those pursuing social justice to conclude that their pursuit of social justice is wrong with little or no redeeming contributions. Take the following quote from R. Scott Clark's article from his blog called Heidelblog:

For Luther and for Calvin, the idea that there could be a social movement that would bring about heaven on earth was a theology of glory. It conflated heaven and earth. It failed to recognize the depth of human depravity and the consequences of the fall and sin.

See, because no social movements can bring perfect social justice to earth at the present time, social justice movements have nothing to contribute seems to be Clark's message here.

We should note another overused, conservative Christian characteristic in Clark's rebuttal of social justice movements: authoritarianism. Note who Clark is primarily referring to here. Is he primarily referring to one of the prophets from the Old Testament? Or is he primarily referring to one of the Apostles from the New Testament? BTW, he will refer to the Apostles later but in a supporting role.  Or is even referring to Jesus? Again, he will refer to Jesus later but in a supporting role. The answer to all three questions is a resounding NO! He is referring to two heroes of Clark's highly revered Reformation: Luther and Calvin. And this preference for reformed heroes over Biblical examples should remind us of how Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for their preference for their traditions rather than the Word of God (click here).

So what we have here in Clark's article on social justice and on Calvin (click here for the article) is a typical conservative approach to social justice from a religiously American conservative Christian perspective. And it matters not that not all religiously conservative Christians in America substantially adhere to the tenets taught by Reformed Theology, Clark (click here for a short bio) still presents a typical American conservative Christian response to social justice. 

The typical response is to approach the subject deductively in an all-or-nothing manner after using one's theology, a theology that has been defined solely from the past, to adequately identify all of the issues involved. There is no need for these religiously American conservative Christians to listen to current facts on the ground to compel them to act. There is no need for them to change from supporting the status quo. And that, unfortunately, is part of a rich tradition of conservative Christianity in the last few centuries. It is one where the predominant branch of the Church, in given countries, has supported the status quo--or those with wealth and power to be more precise. Why? Because they are riding on its coattails.

So let's get to Clark's article and his misplaced focus on Calvin. And unless one is use to listening or reading those who have given way to some authoritarian personality type, his article strangely begins about Calvin and on whether he was a tyrant during his reign in Geneva. After all, we have to first dispel the allegations against Calvin before using him as an authority figure whose words and example should be followed without much questioning. Oddly enough, there is no attempt to mitigate Luther's anti-Semitism.

Then Clark goes on to support the quote given above. He describes 3 forms of eschatology where one of the forms does not belong to the others. In other words, 2 of those eschatological forms are defomred while the Reformed one is not perfect but is correct enough. Suffice it to say, if one is working from a deformed eschatological perspective, one's work in social justice will be described as being antagonistic to the Gospel. Please note what Clark says below:

There is a case to be made that Calvin was implicitly Amillennial in his eschatology. Was decidedly critical of “the chiliasts” (historic premillennialists) but however one comes out on that question he was committed to Luther’s distinction between the theology of glory and the theology of the cross, which he laid out at the Heidelberg Disputation in 1518. In short, a theology of glory is a theology that 1) seeks to present one’s self to God on the basis of works; 2) that elevates human reason above divine revelation. The theology of the cross looks to Christ and his righteousness imputed, received through faith alone, resting in Christ alone, according to the Scripture alone.

And just as, in the Gospels when the question was asked if anyone good can come from Nazareth, the question Clark implies is whether anything good can come from a deformed eschatology. And again, without examining any facts on the ground, Clark is determined to deductively dismiss all social justice movements.

It is at this point that Clark then appeals to biblical characters to support the stands taken by his heroes from the Reformation. Clark notes that Jesus said that his kingdom is not of this world and that means that it is not found in activism. In addition, the examples of the Christians in the book of Acts do not show activism to be a tool to be used.

The argument of a lack of examples provided by New Testament Christians to discredit social justice activism assumes the following: that today's Christians have never faced any circumstances or situations that were significantly different from what those 1st century Christians faced and thus their examples are adequate in guiding all of our behavior. What logically follows Clark here, which he would criticize in another article, is biblicism (click here for that article and click there for a definition of biblicism).

Clark finishes by returning to Calvin and how he was faithful because he  remained steadfast in employing the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, and the use of church discipline. Thus, there is nothing else that we would need to consider, implies Clark. All of our questions have been answered by selectively, and solely, looking to the past to adequately interpret and guide us in how we react to the present. There is no need to look at today's facts on the ground to determine whether we should join efforts to provide social justice.

There are many practical and biblical flaws in Clark's reasoning. Again, he shows the typical religiously American conservative Christian's reaction to social justice movements. He approaches them from deductive approach only using only his theology from the past to determine what they are about. He, in an authoritarian manner, primarily appeals to heroes such as Calvin and Luther to provide examples of how we should live in today's world. And finally, his use of selective statements from Jesus and the examples of the Christians from the book of Acts is an implementation of biblicism as well as an example of only looking to the past to understand the present. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that Calvin and Luther were people from the Bible, his appeals to their examples would also be a form of biblicism.

Since too much time and space has already been taken to explain Clark's views on social justice, an abbreviated response is required. And one such response would be to point to the work of Martin Luther King Jr. Now, I agree with Clark's preferred school of eschatology and with the fact that we can't bring God's kingdom to earth. And that would put me at odds with the eschatology of Martin Luther King, Jr. However, I find it impossible to dismiss most of King's words about and works for social justice. Rather, King's words and efforts are far more biblical regarding social justice than Clark's conclusions. All we need to do is to compare what King said and did with what the Old Testament prophets said and did or to compare King with what James wrote such as what he wrote about the rich in James 5.

Why do I side with King here despite his deformed eschatology? It is because we have to apply God's Word to today's facts on the ground rather to the facts on the ground of past Christians. It's not that we cannot learn from them, we must. But we live in significantly different worlds and thus we must go beyond what their word and actions. And despite his problematic eschatological views, that is what King did that Clark failed to do despite his theologically correct eschatology.

 

Which Kingdom Is Which?

In the beginning of Mark 7, Jesus confronts the Pharisees of His day about substituting their traditions for God's Word (click here for the biblical account). Why bring that up here? It is because D.G. Hart (click here for a bio) has, in one of his blogs, written about the danger of "baptizing" (Hart's term) the politics of any politician or religious person who is advancing a cause or crusade. That "baptizing" may be done by either the person behind the crusade or some admiring supporter. And Hart takes this baptizing of causes and crusades to task from what is called a Reformed 2 Kingdom Theology (2KT) approach (click here for his article).

The above reference to the beginning passage of Mark 7 was made because Hart's approach to the subject comes strictly from his Reformed 2KT model of thought (click here and there for quick reads on Reformed 2KT). And he is using that model of thought to interpret situations and determine how Christians should respond. Here we should note that developing models of thought by which we interpret the world around us and our obligations to God and others is almost a fetish for conservative theologians. The upside of that is that sometimes those models of though give us a better, though still partial, picture of what the Scriptures say about things. But even on a good day, because our models of though give us partial pictures of reality, we need to be careful not to substitute our model of thought for the Scriptures lest we become like the pharisees whom Jesus rebuked in Mark 7.

 The essence of 2KT is found in its name. All Christians belong to 2 distinct kingdoms: a given kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. And followers of 2KT promote varying degrees of separation between the two kingdoms. As noted by one of the cited references above, Hart teaches that the two kingdoms are so different that they are separate. And by separate, that means that neither the Church nor the State can claim any legitimacy in correcting the other. And what logically follows the teaching that the Church cannot not correct the State is that the State cannot do anything that can be considered sin. The State can be wrong in terms of violating its own laws or perhaps international laws--can't remember Hart's position on that last set of laws.  But outside of that, the State can't be charged with practicing any sin regardless of how it treats others. We should also note that Hart's own political views seem to be a conservative libertarian and, if memory serves, seems to follow one of his heroes, J. Gresham Machen,  in terms of political views.

What Hart wants to state in this particular article is that we need to use 2KT to prevent the alignment of the Gospel with political and social causes. And that applies for both liberals and conservatives. Thus, he states that if one cannot associate Trump's policies with God's Kingdom, then the same applies to Martin Luther King Jr.'s agenda. He states this because some were saying that those Christians who support Trump, also support what seems to be his unbiblical political pursuits. And the only way Christians can do that is to employ 2KT. Likewise, some say the same of those Christians who support the Democratic Party and its agenda. And 2KT, especially Hart's version, comes into play because it is saying that the State cannot sin unless it violates its own or possibly international laws. And even then, those violations are not technically sins according to Hart.

Thus, Hart's point is that Reformed 2KT, though not condemning the Republicans, the Democrats, or the work of Martin Luther King Jr., prohibits any kind of association of the Gospel with these agendas.

Now according to Hart's version of 2KT, since it can be consistently stated that nothing that the Republicans, the Democrats, nor King and his followers promote can be associated with the Gospel, the question is is whether that is also true according to the Scriptures. In other words, are all political policies and laws equal in terms of their moral standing or are some political policies and laws more moral, according to the Scriptures, than other policies and laws? According to  Hart's 2KT, Trump's policies and King's agenda rest on the same moral plane.

Before addressing that point, we should note that, according to 2KT, the standards that determine who can be in good standing in society are not identical to those that determine who can be in good standing in the Church. Likewise a given state and the Church are not given an identical set of standards and responsibilities. But not having the exact same standards and moral obligations doesn't imply having no standards and moral obligations in common.

Thus, in comparing the present agenda of Donald Trump and the past agenda of Martin Luther King Jr., can we say that these two agendas are on the same moral plane? And if we cannot say that, are we automatically "baptizing" one person's or group's agenda over the other's?

We should note here that the problem with Hart's 2KT rests with historical counterexamples. Did the Nazi state sin when it invaded other nations or conducted the Holocaust? Was the Nazi state guilty of violating the commandments prohibiting murder and theft?

But it's not just the Nazi government that must be required to account for any violations of the commandments prohibiting murder and theft as if it set the minimal standard of evil, it is all governments and states that must be held accountable for practicing murder and theft. Using a counterexample like the Nazis' reign of terror points to the Achilles' heal of Hart's 2KT.

And yet Hart has a valid point even when we cannot say that Trump's policies are as moral as King's agenda. Even though King's agenda is more moral than Trump's, we still must resist any urge to equate the agenda of those working to advance social justice with the Scriptures. So though, we can't "baptize" King's agenda over Trump's, it is wrong to deny the sinfulness that King saw and personally experienced from any state or government. In fact, if we use Hart's 2KT to deny that states can sin, we are substituting traditions for the Word of God as illustrated in the above Scripture passage. Thus, though Hart has some valid points to make in his article, they remain biblically problematic when applying them to real life.





 

ONIM For April 9, 2018

10 Best Fact Checking Sites Found Here.

If you are not sure about the validity of a news story linked to below, you can use  mediabiasfactcheck.com to check out the credibility of the source of most of the stories linked to here.

Christian News

• Honor The Real King -- Witness: A Black Christian Collective
• Honoring Martin Luther King Jr., Evangelicals Weigh Their Response To Racism -- Yahoo News
• Remembering King's Last Sermon With Renewed Hope -- Religion News Service
• Have Christians Lost Their Moral Voice? -- The Chorus In The Chaos
• Why I Am Not Ashamed Of The Evangelical Label -- Dr. Laurel Shaler
• Virginia Revival To Protest 'Toxic' Christianity -- USA Today
• It's Friday--But Sunday's Comin' -- Acton

World News

• Unfiltered: 'I've Never Seen That Many Injured Patients By High Velocity Weapons All At Once' -- Yahoo News
• Where's The Immigration Crisis? U.S. Border Patrol Reports Illegal Border Crossings At Record Low -- Forbes
• The New Israel Anti-Boycott Act Is Still Unconstitutional -- ACLU
• Michigan OKs Nestlé Water Extraction Despite 80K+ Public Comments Against It -- NPR 
• Could The Cold War Return With A Vengeance? -- Truthdig
• How Unarmed Civilians Saved Lives During Anti-Muslim Attacks In Sri Lanka -- Waging Nonviolence
• Xi Jinping's Village -- First Things
• The Oligarchs' 'Guaranteed Basic Income Scam' -- Truthdig
• Melting Permafrost Raises New Fears Among Scientists -- Truthdig
• New York Braces For Viral Anti-Muslim Violence Campaign -- Newsweek
• Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin: Teachers On Strike Are Like 'Teenagers Who Want A Better Car' -- Newsweek
• Ex-U.S. Army Soldiers Worked As Hitmen For International Crime Boss, Say Prosecutors -- Newsweek
• March For Our Guns Rally Planned By Virginia Teenager Because 'Not Every Youth' Wants Gun Control -- Newsweek
• U.S. Expects Talks With China As Trade Fight Escalates -- Reuters
• As China Fires Back In Trade War, Here Are The Winners And Losers -- Bloomberg
• Russia Madness On The Eve Of Destruction: Hegemony Trumps Survival -- Truthdig
• Jamie Dimon: Immigration Reform Is 'Tearing Apart' U.S. Society And Holding Back The Economy -- Yahoo News
• Recovering Daughter Of Ex-Spy Poisoned In UK Makes First Comment After Attack -- Reuters
• Sexual Harassment At Work In The Era Of #MeToo -- Pew Research Center
• Despite Talk Of 'Trade War' With China, Highest U.S. Tariffs Are On Imports From Other Asian Countries -- Pew Research Center
• A Record 64 Million Americans Live In Multigenerational Households -- Pew Research Center
• At Least 23 Ethical Issues Are Dogging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt -- Huffington Post
• Settlement Will Prevent Illegal NYPD Surveillance Of Muslims -- Religion News Service
• US Takes Aim At Putin's Allies In Russia With New Sanctions -- Townhall
• Stocks Dive As US Proposes New China Tariffs; Dow Falls 572 -- US News And World Report
• Durham City Council Rejects 'Militarization Of Our Police Force.' Chief Says No To Israeli Training -- Herald-Sun
• There Is 'No Evidence' That Lula Is Corrupt -- BBC
• AP Sources: EPA Chief Spent Millions On Security And Travel -- AP News  

Israel-Palestine News

• Tel Aviv Gaza Has No Future And That Should Scare Us All -- Newsweek
• Israel Kills Palestinians And Western Liberals Shrug -- Intercept
• Israeli Military Defends Tactics As Video Appears To Show Unarmed Gaza Protesters Shot By Snipers -- Telegraph
• Dying On The Fence Of The Gaza Prison -- YNet News
• Gaza Screams For Life -- New York Times
• NY Times' Covers Up Israel's Killing Of Nonviolent Protesters Along The Gaza Border -- Mondoweiss
•  Group Asks Israeli Soldiers To Refuse To Shoot -- ABC News
• Gaza Protests Driven By Desperation, Hamas Organization -- AP News
• 7 Things You Need To Know About Israel's Latest Attack On Gaza -- ZNet 
• Israel Is Prepared To Kill More Unarmed Protesters In Gaza -- Intercept
• Yes, What Israel Is Doing To Palestinians Is Actually Genocide -- Benjamin L. Corey
•  On Passover, Netanyahu Does A Trump -- Religion News Service
• Israel In Deal To Resettle African Migrants, Then Backtracks -- Truthdig
• Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Scaps UN Deal To Resettle African Asylum Seekers -- Boston Globe
• Saudi King Reiterates Support for Palestinians After Israel Comments -- Reuters
• Black Parkland Students Want Peers To 'Share The Mic' -- Huffington Post
• Palestinian Journalist in Vest Marked 'PRESS' Shot Dead Under Israeli Fire In Gaza -- Chicago Tribune  

Donald Trump News

• Trump Administration Moves On Two Fronts To Challenge California Environmental Protections -- Los Angeles Times
• Recycling War Criminals -- Truthdig
• Russian Rockets Force Latvia To Close Airspace After Trump Promised To Sell The Country Military Equipment -- Newsweek
• Tired of Winning Yet? You're Not Alone -- Yahoo News
• Trump Overturns Bill On Coal Mining Debris -- Fox News
• How Mueller Is Strong-Arming Russia's Oligarchs To Get To Trump -- Vanity Fair
• Mueller Has Evidence That Trump Supporter's Meeting With Putin Ally May Not Have Been A Chance Encounter: Sources -- ABC News
• The 'Day After' Problem: What's Next If Trump Tears Up Iran Deal -- Yahoo News
• Will We Stop Trump Before It's Too Late -- New York Times

Pick(s) Of The Litter

• Inside A Private Prison: Blood, Suicide And Poorly Paid Guards -- New York Times
  
• Nestlé Makes Billions Bottling Water It Pays Nearly Nothing For -- Bloomberg
• Yemeni Artists Show The World Why They Need Peace Now -- Oxfam
• Justice System Failed These 23 Black Victims -- Huffington Post
• Martin Luther King Jr Was A Radical. We Must Not Sterilize His Legacy -- Guardian 
• Martin Luther King's Critique Of Capitalism Is More Relevant Than Ever -- Waging Nonviolence
• Memphis Honors Martin Luther King 50 Years After He Was Assassinated -- Fox News
• Remembering Martin Luther King, The Radical For Peace -- ZNet
• Martin Luther King's Unfinished Legacy Is Visible In Desperately Poor Selma -- Yahoo News 
• New York Police Fatally Shoot Unarmed Black Man On Brooklyn Street -- Huffington Post
• America's Dirty Little Secret: 42 Million People Are Suffering From Hunger -- CNBC
• The Weak Lead Us To Reality -- First Things
• Baltimore Police Keep 94 Percent Of Seized Cash, Report Says -- Fox News
• Kentucky Lawmakers Limit Black Lung Claims Reviews Despite Epidemic -- NPR
• How The Loss Of U.S. Psychiatric Hospitals Led To A Mental Health Crisis -- NPR
• Surviving Ghouta -- ZNet
• Michigan To Close Flint's Free Bottled Water Sites -- ABC News

Just For Fun 

• Mexico Agrees To Pay For Trump's Psychiatric Care -- Borowitz Report
• Fired Trump Staffers Hold Reunion -- Borowitz Report
• Scott Walker Dismayed That Wisconsin Apparently Smarter Despite Cuts In Education -- Borowitz Report
• PGA Officials Break Up Crowd Of Rowdy Fans Committing Commodities Fraud In Augusta National Parking Lot -- Onion
• Millions Of Marshmallow Peeps Begin Annual Migration Back To Isle Of Disgusting Candies -- Babylon Bee