Things I Think…
Based on my way too much experience with these matters, this is pretty much unnecessary as they (as well as his organization) were probably well aware of the late apologists proclivities and peccadillos. I’m at a loss to remember one case I’ve investigated where the inner circle wasn’t well aware that the celebrity they managed was a scoundrel. Money and power cover a multitude of sins…
2. Why investigate a dead man? Because his victims still live with the consequences of his sin…and they each are as important to God as as he was…
3. There is no reason any church or parachurch organization should have employees sign non disclosure agreements. We have nothing to hide, remember?
4. What churches and parachurch orgs dealing with a scandal know is that if you wait out the news cycle, the critics will go away and most of the supporters won’t care about the character (or lack thereof) of the celebrity in question. “He’s such a good teacher”…
5. Let me make this point clear…whether it was Ravi Zacharias or Bob Coy or a dozen others I could name, the insiders knew. They were simply not going to butcher the cash cow they were riding…
6. Everything we politicize instantly has all the joy sucked right out of it…
7. There are few things stranger to me than people who think we can set a date for the end of a pandemic…
8. I want all the Covid19 mitigations to no longer be necessary too…I’ll bet Europe got tired of the plague, as well…
9. Few things are more pointless in the church than raving against “critical race theory” and other fad ideologies that most have never heard of and fewer understand. Teach the kingdom of God every week and fads won’t matter…
10. In the midst of a pandemic and an election…
“Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” (James 5:7–11 ESV)
#10
The conclusions I have drawn.
-Older forms of Christianity, as displayed during the post Roman centuries, through the Medieval era and into the Renaissance, where resilient to earthly catastrophe.
-Modern Evangelicalsim is completely incapable of sustaining it’s core structure in the face of even mild earthly catastrophe.
If the thought of staring straight into an actual factual facemask, or God forbid, a county prohibition on indoor services, causes religious convulsions, how then could Evangelicals face a Thirty Years War, sacking of Rome or Justinians’s Plague?
If you have run with facemasks (on) and it has wearied thee, how shall ye contend with horses?
Nathan,
That was gold.
Exactly.
These verses from Proverbs 24 really spoke to my heart about all the weirdness with the pandemic and the church and all..thought I’d share… “If you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength! Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?” In the words of a mutual friend…make your own application.
Well done, Mike…
Love ya, Michael. Joy will come in the morning. ❤️
#6 I’m afraid to to do or say many things because I don’t know how I will be interpreted. Will I offend? Will I please? Will I confuse? It’s easier to talk about the weather, except…global warming (which I actually believe in). The third of rail of “aren’t we having nice weather today.”
#9–just evangelicals trying to appear “WOKE” 😉
I thought one milked a cash cow, but riding seems more fun. 🙂
May I share one more verse from Proverbs 24? “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them.”
Proverbs 24:17-18
Mike E, some good words….
I think my aha moment came when the reality of hell really sunk in… WHY Jesus submitted to crucifixion…..
God is not willing that any should perish, but He has a responsibility to His holy character – responsibility to His Universe, if you will
Linn,
A lot of us are feeling the same way…
Good point, NP, with regards to the current mess. Yet the post Roman Empire Christianity was awash in blood and wars.
If critical race theory prevails the Bill of Rights will be vanquished especially the 1st and 14th amendments. Capitalism will be once again laid aside in favor of redistribution. Equality under the law will give way to equity by fiat. Justice for all will be replaced by social justice (they are not the same). You will be judged by the color of your skin and other ‘immutable’ characteristics rather than the content of your character. The systems that currently oversee our civilization will be destroyed and replaced by totalitarian powers rooted in this ideology. Equality of outcome will supplant equality of opportunity. This FAD will create hell on earth.
I think I will preach the kingdom of God and help people understand this very dangerous worldview.
Many ideologies have come, ravaged humanity and gone after much suffering — many remain deeply entrenched.
Preaching the kingdom suffers violence usually because you decry the kingdoms of the world.
I’m open to discussing #9 but the either/or is a false set up of the issue.
Everywhere I go and lay out a basic understanding of CRT or it’s progenitor CT I have mother’s come to me in tears telling the story of their children who have been alienated from the family by indoctrination in these things in their universities. They weep with hope that understanding it can help them recover their adult children’s sanity. They get this cultic screed also from therapists who wreck marriages and families by advocating they distance themselves from ‘toxic’ unwoke people.
This is a great moment because the exact nature of this beast is laid bare. Like Paul we struggle with beasts at our own Ephesus. Paul and the apostles always dealt with both the disputers of their day like Judaizers and Gnostics and the epicurean and stoic worldviews. Yes preach the kingdom and wake the hell up before you get swallowed.
Your first paragraph has a lot of BS. Like most issues, critical race theory, once you dive into it, has its good points and its bad points. Your painting it all in all-or-nothing terms does absolutely nothing to move the dialogue forward. Alas, I’m afraid you don’t really want to dialogue — just make apocalyptic pronoucements.
Honestly, many folks are tired of all the apocalyptic manner that everything’s being framed with, especially after 4 years with President Apocalypse/Dumpster Fire.
If you really give a damn about really understanding critical race theory and not just talking to hear your head roar, you could start by checking out this website run by a Christian professor of history. Otherwise you’re just spouting typical hard right talking points.
https://thewayofimprovement.com/2020/09/21/whos-afraid-of-critical-race-theory/
Anon
Don’t believe I mentioned the apocalypse. I did mention grieving mothers.
Your prof is pretty obviously an advocate. Many smart believers advocate deadly poisons.
Trump’s executive order thrilled me. I was pursuing the matter prior to his order by about 3 years.
CRT is not a friendly critic with a few common threads to Christian theology. Almost all world views are some form of salvation narrative with Christian imagery. I fully agree that it is a very
Passionate religion.
Storytelling is how you seduce naive empathetic souls into the cult.
Your prof is one of those “mostly peaceful protestor” dumpster fires. I’ll bear your abuse with zero regret.
H. G. Wells never met a man “more fair candid and honest” than Stalin.
Chamberlain urged Britons to sleep quietly “in your beds” while Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.
Your profs vanilla summary is perfectly shaped to let us sleep soundly. I don’t think he is as harmlessly naive as he poses.
BD,
I would hardly call John Fea an advocate of CRT.
I would not call John Stackhouse one either and he gives real insight into these matters in a series he did on Facebook.
This is on CRT…the rest are brilliant as well.
https://contextbeyondtheheadlines.com/postmodernity-critical-race-theory-cultural-marxism-and-you-part-4/
An excerpt:
“So convinced are critical theorists of these various sorts of their rightness, in fact, that in the name of liberalism—of freedom, of human rights, and so on—they can become fiercely illiberal. The other side is patently, venomously wrong: Why should we tolerate a single word out of their lying mouths? Why give them a platform to advance their dangerous deceits?
Meanwhile, most of the rest of us have been exposed to the radiation of postmodernity that has burned away our confidence in any One Truth, in any trustworthy authority. Modernity undermined traditional authorities, and postmodernity took care of all the rest. There is nowhere we can turn for certain knowledge.
But no one can live in a state of perpetual doubt. So we don’t.
Instead, many of us have opted for all we’ve got left—namely, our individual sense of what’s true and good and beautiful, our own intuitions. Bereft of any external source of authority, we now trust ourselves. Boy, do we.
What seems obvious to me is what I’m going with. And since I can find lots of people who agree with me (the internet is a big place) and reinforce my sense of rightness, I’m sticking with my opinion—on everything from politics to medicine, from religion to diet.
I’m entitled to my own opinion, right? Who are you to say different? No one’s going to tell me what to think or do. That’s just your opinion. I have my own truth. You have your reality and I have mine (and mine is actually real and you are sadly mistaken). And so on and so on, go the ferocious stabbings of social media.
Instead of a postmodern fog in which we all mind our business and get along as best we can, unable to be sure of anything, we have emerged into the light of . . . our own little candles, which we are treating as the Light of the World.
Thus we have the New Moralism: I’m right, you’re wrong, go to hell. And we do send people to the contemporary equivalents of hell: unfriend, block, censor, deplatform. This is the mentality of another form of “cancel culture” nowadays.
Two generations ago, in the full (modern) assurance of the correctness of their cause, communist-hunters on the right were canceling anyone they suspected of leftist sympathies: in government service, in the armed forces, in the universities, even in Hollywood. Postmodernity blew in as such confidence crumbled in the broader society, the Sixties prompted a leftwing tilt in the academy (yes, I realize that’s a pretty big generalization—explication will have to await another column…or book!), and now we have progressives on campus excoriating and deplatforming the conservatives they despise.
They might be part of the (modern) critical theorists. Or they might be post-postmodern New Moralists who just know they’re correct.
Alas, we see the equivalent on the American political and cultural right nowadays with Trump and Co. simply writing off what their critics and opponents say as “fake news.” That sort of refusal to engage, to make an actual argument, and instead attempt to simply silence the other as just obviously wrong is equally anti-democratic, and equally a manifestation of the New Moralism, as anything on the left.”
BD,
You have named the demons you think are going to swallow the church and country from the outside.
I contend that it is the demons we give succor to inside that will take us down.
No one took our power and moral authority from us…we gave it away while harping about about outside threats with enough volume to distract people from harping about ours.
Michael
“No one took our power and moral authority from us…we gave it away while harping about about outside threats with enough volume to distract people from harping about ours.”
That’s simply truth. Making me wish there was an “amen corner” in my church…
No one has taken away or given away the power or moral authority of the church.
People have a faulty memory and think that the American church was ever powerful or dictators of moral authority.
Just not true.
What is true is that we are not a homogeneous culture as we were and that no institution is held in high regard today.
This is an effort at shadow boxing.
Keep up the good work, Dread. Thank you.
Some people are getting it…
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/october-web-only/evangelicalism-politics-witness-repentance-renewal.html
Oh, I get it now – you guys are talking politics. I thought we were speaking of the influence the church has in a community – which I see as unchanged.
Here is a quote from John Fea’s article
“It is also difficult to study American history and not see continuity between the past and present. The legacies of slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, lynching, and white supremacy are still with us just like the founding fathers’ ideas of liberty, freedom, and individual rights are still with us. Indeed, racism is “ordinary” and “common” in American life. It is not some kind of aberration practiced by a few “bad apples” who make occasional appearances in the narratives we teach about the past.”
Therefore?
He’ll roll over for remedies that address both the Founding Fathers and racism.
Critical Race Theory is committed to the destruction of our system of government. It has judged our inheritance to be stained with irredeemable blood. It is devoted to this task.
Fea does a decent job of outlining CRT – I would even use his article to teach the theory – but his article basically says you can sleep safely with this snake in your bed. It only wants to be near your warm body.
I looked at the article in CT and the statement linked from the NAE. z
Critical Race Theory considers that actual statement to be white supremacist and racist. The language of that statement is not the language of anti-racism.
If we are being completely honest, the really scary part of the the new boogeyman CRT is that it challenges the status quo. If CRT is correct, or if it wins the day, my way of life may have to change,
I’ll search the red letters for where Jesus commanded me to preserve my 21st century American way of life.
BD,
We sleep with a lot of snakes…some we consider pets.
You believe you have found the one that will kill us…I say that we are already full of venom from invited strikes.
We will succumb to them before this one grows fangs large enough to hurt.
You are correct about storytelling, however…you and many others now believe the narrative that an arcane ideology is the great threat.
When my church gathers this week I’ll not mention this ideology…I will teach Jesus from the Gospels because we already have identified the real enemy and Christ has overcome him.
What would I have to change, exactly? I live in a largely black town in a largely black community. We moved here 45 years ago because it was the best we could afford. After my husband’s career progressed, we could have chosen to move to a white Monterey neighborhood but we chose not to- we like the folks we live among. I just cast my ballot yesterday (early voting) for our black mayor, who, even though he’s a Democrat, is a great guy and has done a lot to improve our town. I can’t think of one thing I need to change. I come from a long line of people with racist tendencies (North Carolina) but I, and my sister, who still lives in NC, are not like our ancestors.
I will repent of sins I have actually committed.
I will grant BD this…he is the only one speaking to this issue who will actually own our past and current sins.
I think CRT is both helpful and insane …as are most things without nuance…
Xenia – Crt speaks more to systemic issues than personal sins, but as much as we admire you, I’m sure we could find some needed improvements if we tried hard enough.
Walking with the spirit is change everyday. Continually laying down my life, my desires, my flesh.
I do not study or care very much about CRT. Not in BD’s case…but in most cases, the accuser has no idea what CRT is. It’s just an insult that means “liberal heretic”.
To most decriers of the theory, acknowledging that slavery, reconstruction, and Jim Crow have effects on modern black culture is CRT. Sometimes the insult is coupled with “woke”, “SJW”, or “Cultural Marxist”.
It’s a distraction to avoid dealing with the actual problem…which is racism.
Interestingly enough, the OT in particular speaks a lot about corporate sin and how it can affect both nations and individuals within a nation when they are all under divine judgment.
God heals a nation when His people repent of their sins…not the sins of those outside the camp they’re pointing at…
Josh…I’m right there with you at 9:28…
Well, I have noticed some inequalities that bother me.
Our town’s high school is nothing fancy, to put it mildly. Drab buildings, etc.
Nearby Carmel’s high school is magnificent, if you like that kind of opulence.
I don’t think the students at these two schools are getting the same quality education.
Our town’s school is adequate. A student could study hard, go to the local community college and wind up at a university. It’s not inner city. But it’s drab, and I could see how a local kid could look at the glorious Carmel edifice and get resentful. The differences in schools is based on income: Carmel is rich, Seaside is working class.
It’s good to see you, Josh.
Right, and while those are not necessarily race related, those are systemic justice issues. You see it playing out right in your own neighborhood, as we all do if we pay attention.
You too Xenia! I’m terribly depressed and just needed to talk to some old friends about…well, anything 🙂
You have a big heart, Josh, and those with big hearts feel things deeply and are sorrowful.
Hey this is a blog where we can can and should discuss things that are actually creating death cultures …When I preach I too will preach the Bible and the Gospel of the one who has overcome the world. But when the culture is determined to preach our identity according to immutable characteristics I will preach the union of all people ‘in Christ’ and the creation of a new humanity via the cross and the Spirit.
When I teach about struggling not agains flesh and blood but principalities and powers I will tell them how these powers manifest. I will describe the ‘domination system’ as Walter Wink described the world. I will urge them to look for these ideologies that are empowered in the darkness. I will urge them to take the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith to deal with these fiery darts.
I lived through Jim Crow segregationism and was part of a system that actually harmed people. What I hear being advocated is that we stay in our lane rather than address the ‘bogeyman’ of the day. CRT and the Gospel both address racism so I will address it via the Gospel and expose CRT for the antichrist it is.
We cast out the demon of slavery only to embrace the seven fold demon of Jim Crow, KKK, and white supremacy… CRT says we have not advanced. I say CRT is demon 7 times as evil as the malady it wants to cast out.
I cannot understand what is happening on a blog that so courageously addresses evil in the church but wants me to go silent when I see a greater evil making its way into the church. Frankly much of the church is already possessed by this spirit. The mainline churches have the welcome mat rolled out.
This ideology is antichrist to the core and it will not make peace with reconciliation statements. It will only accept surrender. It plainly has as its goal hegemonic power. It is no different that the Chinese Communist rewrite of the scriptures.
It clearly is not the only unbound devil but it is one of surprising scope and permeation.
Josh,
These are very depressing times.
I struggle to keep my head above dark water a lot these days and today is pretty dark.
I’m glad you’re here too…
“I lived through Jim Crow segregationism and was part of a system that actually harmed people.”
RIght! And those harmed people had families that were affected, and there children and grand children…and we can point out many reason why we are in the situation that we are in. But when we point this out, it’s CRT! Again, that is not to say CRT is good or that it has the right answers. But it has part of the conversation right, and if we throw out the baby with the bathwater, we lose regardless.
BD,
I’ll be blunt.
It doesn’t take a lick of courage to address CRT in evangelical circles…it is a guaranteed applause meter mover.
It’s no more than another way of pitting liberals vs. conservatives, left vs. right on a topic that barely ten percent of the congregation could explain.
My contention is that even if you’re right…that this is the Trojan Horse bringing destruction to all we hold dear…my contention is the Trojan Horse is already in the camp and so full of our own evils that there is barely room for another.
Courage is addressing those things that in doing so you bring risk to yourself…I’m tired of doing so, so maybe I’ll join your bandwagon.
Thanks Michael. You’ve been a dependable friend to many for a long time (12 years in my case). Hang in there. And that’s all I’m trying to do. Right now, just survive. I’m getting help, and thankful to my SBC brethren for footing that bill.
“destruction to all we hold dear”
And that’s the thing. What is it that we are afraid of losing? Because our way of life hasn’t been so great for many of our brothers and sisters.
Josh,
Thank God you’re strong enough to get help.
I’m not going to get too mushy, but you have a beautiful family and mean a lot to us here and I’m sure where you minister, as well.
I am not in a conversation with CRT. There is where I join Michael in the Bible club. The two cannot speak with only to each other. CRT is a way of using language that makes “conversation” impossible. CRT says that anyone who has benefited from the system that currently exists is a white supremacist by definition and can only offer silence to the conversation. Well, that is not quite true you can renounce your whiteness, white privilege and right to speak. Then be silent.
“This ideology is antichrist to the core and it will not make peace with reconciliation statements. It will only accept surrender. It plainly has as its goal hegemonic power. It is no different that the Chinese Communist rewrite of the scriptures.”
We are seeing this in some LCMS circles in the Midwest – they are attacking through the Lutheran high schools – having teachers sign statements or be fired.
They know only one thing – hold America hostage.
BD,
Let me backtrack.
I hear you.
The way we have allowed freedom of speech and freedom of expression to be warped by those who carry this to the extreme is galling…and dangerous.
I have no problem renouncing much of it as long as we face our sins head up.
Thanks Michael. Nothing strong about it. I’m just broke and needed help. Looking forward to some healing so that every day isn’t such a freaking battle. Hope that when its over I haven’t pushed everyone away, or that there is still something left of me to love.
But enough about me…appreciate you, and BD and Xenia. Good seeing you all today.
Josh,
Good to see you. Glad you are moving forward.
Michael,
Thank you
MLD
Yes, taking over schools, businesses, HR departments, government agencies and demanding lockstep submission via confessions of faith… It is a cult
I see the points, and the extremes are troubling. I will tell you though, that I live and serve with black people. Everyday. They don’t see these issues the same way that you do. They are faithful, conservative, bible-believing Christians. I think we have to give them a listen.
I will agree that there is a sort of cultural brainwashing that goes on in our country., particularly in our schools. I don’t see CRT as nearly the most dangerous ideology in that phenomenon.
Just as an observation, “conversation” requires listening, and listening requires silence. Every pastor here knows that you don’t tell a trauma victim that “I know just how you feel”. I don’t know the everyday trauma of my brothers and sisters of another race. Perhaps by being silent and listening I can learn something. I don’t have to agree with all that is said – silence is not assent – but I can listen.
Well…..
My morning reading was Amos chapter four and then i sit here reading Pastor Dread’s words…. All i can say is, “LISTEN TO THE MAN!” I apologize for yelling. 🙆
God keep and maybe read Amos 4… ?
On a lighter note…
My daughter and our neighbor saddled up her horses and went for a trail ride yesterday. Gracie was determined that she wasn’t going up that trail – kept backing up, so….
My daughter turned her around and rode her up the trail backwards….
Is that how God has to manage some of us? LOL
I often try to visit a black church in town when there’s serious racial problems in the news. I do this so I can listen. All they ever want to do is talk about Jesus, can you believe it?
Jesus?!?! In church? Those social-marxists! 🙂
Hi josh! I know we don’t interact much, but glad to see you here and read your comments.
Hey man! Good to see you!
Josh,
“I will tell you though, that I live and serve with black people. Everyday. They don’t see these issues the same way that you do. They are faithful, conservative, bible-believing Christians. I think we have to give them a listen.”
For clarity, CRT has very little to do with most black people or most black believers. BLM’s values do not reflect the black people that I know. Please do not confuse my rejection of CRT and concern about it with any attitude whatsoever about black people. CRT and BLM as I see them play out are mostly white liberals who are trained to be guilt ridden over colonialism, the expansion of europeans into the native lands, slavery, and all of the iterations of failed responses to blacks in America.
CRT is an ideology not a race, CT has many iterations.
Actual historic liberals are as much the target of critical theory as conservatives, christians and whites. CT groups people into evil oppressor groups and victim groups.
Josh the blacks you reference are not considered to be racial blacks, their internalization of oppression makes them problematic but definitely makes them the object of activists evangelistic efforts. A black with internalized oppression can become appropriately Black. A white cannot repent sufficiently. All a white can do is renounce and surrender their voice.
If anyone reads rejection of CRT as racially motivated they are far off. And once more just for emphasis all whites are white supremacists by birth and all are racists. Some can become anti-racists and allies to blacks.
CRT may not be the most dangerous but they are the most likely to gain hegemony in the realms of cultural and political hegemony.
I listen to far more classically liberal voices on this than christian. In fact I would not have known about this phenomenon without people like Jonathan Haidt, Jordan Peterson, Brett Weinstein, James Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, Helen Pluckrose and people with podcasts like Dave Rubin.
Do not couple liberals with CRT… the latter is a progressive viewpoint and it is just as devoted to destroying the enlightenment as the Reformation and the historic church.
Evangelicalism is the whipping boy of all groups. Destroying it is not the core goal.
I am encouraged by potential linkage of liberals and conservatives in a united front that will realign the body politic.
And still we preach the kingdom … the kingdom comes by tumult, rancor, upheaval, and divine judgments of all kinds. Preaching the Gospel of the kingdom creates this violent shaking. Thunder, lightening earthquakes and great clouds of darkness… even so LORD come
Here’s an example of the current racial bias of the President. Everyone knows he is campaigning for white votes by claiming that BLM and Antifa are dangerous domestic terrorists and/or anarchists. He ignores or disagrees with his own FBI that has testified that it actually is right wing groups that pose the greatest domestic threat. Now today we learn of 12 white men charged with a domestic terrorist plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
Due to the fact that the defendants are white and the governor is a Democrat, will Trump publicly repudiate and condemn not only the plot itself but also all right wing militias and others who insight, perpetrate and glorify violence and intimidation? He’s all over the groups who don’t support him personally; will he condemn the groups who support him?
BD – I don’t think it’s worth your time or energy. Spend more time with black people and your view will change some. That is not to say you are racist or spend no time with black people, only to say when we interact face to face, the ideas are often not as scary.
Forget skin shades! Good and evil are not skin color dependent – period.
Trump in March: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”
Now today we learn of 12 white men charged with a domestic terrorist plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
It’s deeper than that. They were planning to start a civil war. Domestic terrorism at its finest.
I hope they enjoy their time in the clink.
There are many Black Trump supporters who think BLM and Antifa are domestic terror organizations – Herschel Walker, Ben Carson, Candace Owens, the founder of the BET network just to name a few.
So in spite of some here thinking these are Uncle Toms, this should negate the above claim that Trump calls them out for racist reasons.
Jean,
I know you’ll dismiss this out of hand, but here…
“…I do not tolerate ANY extreme violence. Defending ALL Americans, even those who oppose and attack me, is what I will always do as your President! Governor Whitmer—open up your state, open up your schools, and open up your churches!”
Jean,
Check out the videos here of one of the nutjobs arrested. Not a Trumper. He’s an anarchist (but they don’t exist).
https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck
Jean,
And this is my last statement… I don’t know why I returned…
Your hatred for the right is so blinding that you’ll blame the right for everything and anything. It’s not Antifa that’s causing the problems and starting riots, overtaking any peaceful protest they join, it’s got to be those pesky right wingers.
“Wray sought to make clear the scope of the threats the country faces while resisting lawmakers’ attempts to steer him into politically charged statements. When asked whether extremists on the left or the right posed the bigger threat, he pivoted instead to an answer about how solo actors, or so-called “lone wolves,” with easy access to weapons were a primary concern.
“We don’t really think of threats in terms of left, right, at the FBI. We’re focused on the violence, not the ideology,” he said later.
The FBI director said racially motivated violent extremists, such as white supremacists, have been responsible for the most lethal attacks in the U.S. in recent years. But this year the most lethal violence has come from anti-government activists, such as anarchists and militia-types, Wray said.” https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-race-and-ethnicity-archive-bdd3b6078e9efadcfcd0be4b65f2362e
8 Reasons CRT is terrible for dealing with Racism.
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/reasons-critical-race-theory-terrible-dealing-racism/
“Courage is addressing those things that in doing so you bring risk to yourself.”
I think this was the exhortation of the day
Couldn’t get this off my mind so I came back to it.
“There is much truth in CRT, and all truth is God’s truth. We have nothing to fear.” John Fea finished his article entitled “Who’s Afraid of Critical Race Theory” with those words. I don’t care much for that sentence as it can be taken directly into Genesis 3 and the narrative of the fall which might easily have been said to have contained “much truth” after all the day they ate, death came.
Fea’s benign article lays out Critical Theory well enough but lays it out in a fashion that beckons us to eat. He does not deal much with outcomes. It is hardly doubtful that he favors them in the name of equity, fairness, diversity and inclusivity.
He knew what he was doing when entitled his article exactly after the title of an article by the father of Critical Race Theory, Derrick Bell. Bell was Obama’s teacher at Harvard. I always wondered why Obama did not use his soaring rhetoric to step into the shoes of Martin Luther King at the seminal moment in Ferguson. Instead he used virtue signaled language to tacitly endorse the violence. It was the moment that will be seen as having sparked the current revolution in our streets. Had Obama clothed himself in King’s ethos we would not have seen the mass spectacle of “hands up don’t shoot!” mimicking the event that never happened. We might have seen a nonviolent revival. Instead…
Bell’s article who’s title was grabbed by Fea begins with the words “As I see critical race theory recognizes that revolutionizing a culture begins with a radical assessment of it.” CRT’s radical assessment is gently lying (intentional word) in Fea’s article. Many people are biting the fruit and having their eyes open.
We will see if life or death results.
*whose
#5 came clear to me when Swaggart fell and did not accept the discipline. He was the head of an economic structure that depended upon his success. His charisms put the bread on many plates. That connection carries over in many worlds. In the world of free market religion there must be those whose charisms can be routinized for greater gain. In denominational churches these things are somewhat lessened by the long line of those waiting for succession. Of course in Swaggart’s case the jobs left anyway though strangely I hear he is prospering again, at least to some degree.
Equating CRT with the Fall is in every way preposterous but full of your usual hype and hyperbole.
But I’m glad you read Fea’s piece.
🙂
Analogies do not require equivalencies bob1. Hype? There’s no hype about burning cities while officials lie about it and damn those who would stop it. There’a plenty of hype however in a worldview that plants into the mind of black children that they’re being hunted by police when the real danger is from their own. There’s hype in college students whining for safe spaces on college campuses when they lose an election. Sleep on.
This worldview is deadly and it’s already manifesting in a thousand ways.
Mock me all you want.
Here is what I think.
The burning in the cities was done by a small bunch of opportunistic losers who are without real ideology except rage and who will end up as social fodder as they age.
I do not equate them with a political party anymore than the radical right wing that is aching for civil war.
The vast majority of us are in the middle and would be much more rational and happy if we turned off the tv and stopped listening to equally lying metanarratives about the evils of the other side.
If one perceives the philosophical river that has flowed from the last century to this, overstating the case is nearly impossible. Marxism has shape-shifted to accommodate our time, but it will likely be as deadly now as then. BD’s voice resonates not as a political partisan, but as a Kingdom loyalist. Please keep sharing your thoughts BD.
BD,
Yes, the media lies about it…very few cities had violence.
I agree that it was handled poorly and irresponsibly by the officials in those towns.
It will fall from the weight of its failures…
Dread,
I don’t believe I was mocking you.
If you’re this defensive about CRT, then never mind.
bob1
Well that’s one way out – I think this matters a great deal. I have demonstrated that I am willing to talk about it, to read the information and to respond.
I will bow up when told I am being preposterous and full of hype and hyperbole… But it was hardly an over reaction.
We would all be nicer face to face… we would all like each other better in that forum as well…
Your Dr Fea is cozy with what I see as a very dangerous ideology. I won’t easily be cowed.
Michael
If riots are violence the list is something like this: Boston, NYC, LA, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Kenosha, Minneapolis St Paul, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Phoenix, Richmond, Wash DC, St. Louis, if that is not enough we go down a tier of cities and start picking up Albuquerque where it wasn’t bad by comparison but over 30 fires burned in the city in one night set by rioters.
I hope you are right about it falling from the weight of its own failure… I don’t think those riots failed. I think they entrenched people with their viewpoints in power and will do more so through the intimidation Cities will make peace with Satan to have order.
I realize that I am very amped over this issue. I don’t think moderate response to evil has been the ethos of this blog. If I were yelling wolf there might actually be a response. In this case we continue wait for the pack of wolves before we wake up.
This force has been at work in the ‘powers’ for a very long time at least 40 years. That it has just caught attention is the horror.