Carl F. Ellis Jr.'s Blog
November 10, 2023
From The Tap or From The Bottle: A Wisdom Paradigm
The other day at Costco I was picking up some bulk items, including bottled water. As I approached the stacks of 40 bottle cases, an unusually large crowd was swarming around — adding cases to their shopping carts. As I hefted my two cases to my cart, it dawned on me that a few years ago this scene would have been bizarre in the absence of a serious water emergency.
I questioned some fellow shoppers about why bottled water was their choice. The universal answer was, “I no longer trust tap water.” When asking “why,” the dominant response was, “tap water is not as pure as it used to be.”
This resonated with a deep African American identity issue that had troubled me for years.
Anxiety
Since the dawn of the modern Black Consciousness Movement, I have been a strong advocate for African American advancement on all fronts. Over these many decades, “Black is beautiful” has been my mantra — not because I say so, but because it IS. The basis of this truth is that all humanity bears the image of God — even in our current flawed state. For me, being African American is a great honor and privilege. In fact, if I had to do it all over again, I would not change a thing about my ethnicity.
Over the last few years, however, I found myself disagreeing with most well-known African Americans, including leaders, celebrities, militants and politicians, etc.. At times I have even strongly opposed them. This gave me anxiety. This unease increased relentlessly — even bordering on dysphoria. I even had doubts about my own state of mind. “What is happening to me?” “Am I becoming a sell-out?” “...A “‘bougie’ Negro?” “...An “Oreo?”* “What’s gone wrong?....”
Out-of-SyncTo shed light on this dilemma, I looked to history. I vividly remember the late 1960s, the early years of modern Black Consciousness. The general consensus affirmed our dignity, identity and significance. The movement revolved around historical achievements of African Americans as encouragements to continue this great legacy in our time — all this, while maintaining moral clarity. For reasons like these I enthusiastically embraced Black identity. Of course, there were some among us who were counter-examples to the achiever consensus, but their influence was marginal at best.
Things began to change when the concept of Blackness was expected to carry the fullness of our humanity. Yes Black is beautiful, but there is much more to being human than just being African American. As beautiful as it is, Blackness is not big enough to be ultimate. Only God is Ultimate. This idea of ultimate Blackness soon began to collapse under its own weight as our human flaws became visible in new ways. Concurrently, the achiever consensus also began to lose its influence.
Eventually, the influence of the counter-achievers gained dominance. With the decline of achiever influence came an ambivalence concerning moral clarity. This left the concept of “Blackness” open to manipulation by others with an African American veneer — whose goals and objectives were out-of-sync with the historic African American cause. This contaminated the Black Movement.
“No Salvation”
Currently, the cause of African Americans has often been reduced to political “group think,” dictated by ‘far left’ Democrats — reinforced by “academic thought police.” Unwise policies enacted by ‘far left’ politicians over the years have done a lot of damage. On the other hand, Republicans have too often conceded the African American vote to Democrats without bothering to understand the root issues beneath the “group think.” Malcolm X, the father of Modern Black consciousness, often warned us about the dangers of our political naivetė. He demanded that we refuse to be taken for granted by Democrats or written off by Republicans. Brother Malcolm served to remind us that there is no salvation in mere politics, especially in a country committing political suicide.
In other cases, the African American cause is being used as cannon fodder for self-sabotaging ideologies that would have horrified the pioneers of Black Consciousness — ideologies such as nihilism — a rejection of truth, ethics, and value — a belief that all life is meaningless. We have seen nihilists in recent years hijack legitimate protests in order to vandalize, loot and torch local businesses — even those owned by African Americans.
Still, in other cases the cause of African Americans has been polluted with Critical Race Theory and today’s Intersectionality. Critical Race Theory deliberately aggravates racism because it depends on racial conflict to function. It blinds its adherents to other contributing factors that work against us. Intersectionality creates unstable hierarchies of power determined by the quality of one’s victomology. One’s authenticity depends on how many dimensions of “oppression,” real or imagined, they can claim. Neither ideology offers an acceptable outcome. Critical Race Theory has a polarizing effect while Intersectionality has a splintering effect.
The present state of affairs paved the way for the rise of organizations like Black Lives Matter — driven by Marxism and rooted in spiritism (communing with the dead). It was easy for BLM to bamboozle us by its name. However, much of what BLM has done shouts, “BLACK LIVES DON’T MATTER.” For example, what do they have to show for the $90,000,000.00 added to their coffers through guilt manipulation? What benefit has come to African Americans through their ideological noise?
Compounding all this has been the attempt to conflate African American affirmation with promoting non-heterosexuality, as if the two are equivalent.
Subtle Folly
Using a window screen as a water filter can block macro contaminates out, but it cannot block micro contaminates. Only a multi-stage filter can block the smallest of micro contaminates. This is why bottled water is the wisest choice for drinking.
The development of Historic Black Consciousness (HBC) was significant. it was an improvement over “Negro” Consciousness. However, this “improvement” was not far-reaching enough to be complete. Like all human systems it is subject to flaws in human nature. Fidelity to the standards set by HBC is like a window screen water filter. It can be effective in blocking gross error, but it cannot block subtle folly. Such a task requires the Wisdom of God as a multi-stage filter — Wisdom God has made available in his Word.
After passing through the “screen” filter, micro “subtle folly” will grow into macro “gross error.” Things like dishonesty, hypocrisy and criminality, etc., will subvert, sabotage and destroy any movement — however noble its aspirations are.
For these reasons, I appeal to God’s Wisdom only, as the basis of my African American identity. What I experienced at Costco provided the key to understand my identity dilemma. What was troubling me was not the concept of Blackness per se, but what much of Blackness has become, namely, a co-opted contaminated confusion.
Activist at Peace
Just as I do not trust tap water, I do not agree with ‘tap Blackness’ — polluted with counterproductive concepts and malevolent motivations. Just as I choose bottled water, I only affirm ‘bottled Blackness’powered by God’s Wisdom and free from ideological contamination. This has resolved my identity dilemma.
Today I am an activist at peace. Why? Because ‘bottled Blackness’ enables me to empower my people to greatness through God’s Wisdom. Therefore:
I proudly protest our current cultural crisis
I refuse to lift a finger to offer up the aspirations of my people as cannon fodder for our own destruction.
I oppose all efforts to reduce our cause to a wedge for introducing malevolent ideologies.
I wage war against all attempts to co-opt African American identity for nefarious purposes.
Special Concern
My involvement is not limited to African Americans alone because those who seek God’s Wisdom also have a worldwide significance. We are part of a global movement of like-minded people, “from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9). The Apostle Paul himself had a special concern for his ethnic people (Romans 9:1-4), yet he was an Apostle to the nations. Similarly, as we seek God’s Wisdom it is good to have a special concern for our cultural people. Yet, our effect should also be global.
* An "Oreo" is an African American who wants to be White and does all he can so to assimilate into White culture.
-----------------------------
For more insight into God’s wisdom and human folly, pick up my wife’s devotional, WISDOM’S CALL, 100 Meditations for a Life in Christ.
June 21, 2021
Justice: Yes — “Whack-a-Mole:” No
Behind much of the radicalism and turmoil today is a yearning and cry for justice — cosmic justice. Biblically speaking, when God created the universe, He described it as “good” and when He had created humans “in His own image,” the description was “very good” (Genesis 1:1-31). If we understand biblical wisdom we would know that God is perfect in righteousness, wisdom, knowledge, etc. So, for Him to say that His creation was “very good” it meant “VERY GOOD.” Disqualified
Any observer of the current condition of reality knows that, while there are glimpses of the original goodness of the creation, its present condition is not good (whether due to pollution, climate change, floods, deadly earthquakes, tsunamis, destructive volcanos, supernovas, gamma ray bursts, etc.). Truly, something has gone wrong in the cosmos.
The present condition of mankind is deplorable in many ways: totalitarianism, crony capitalism, crony socialism, anarchy, war, ethnic conflict, etc. Other manifestations of our atrocious condition are seen in various types of “us-isms,” where “us” becomes the standard of judgment for “them” — rendering “them” as inferior — not being able to be “us” as well as we can be “us.” This is seen in tribalism, racism, classism, culture-ism, and the caste system — to name a few.
When we make ourselves the standard of judgment, we reduce evil to aspects we perceive do not condemn us and we get into trouble. When we exclude ourselves from the full scope of sinfulness, we make ourselves the standard for a twisted piety.
Individually, this is “me-ism,” collectively, another form of “us-ism.” In the resulting self-righteousness our evil runs rampant under the illusion of non-evil. Truly, something has gone wrong with humanity.The only solution to this unfortunate situation is to execute cosmic judgment and to implement cosmic justice — cosmic judgment to avenge every evil and cosmic justice to correct every wrong. In order to make everything right, one must know all there is to know about the wrongness of everything. That takes infinite (unlimited) knowledge and our knowledge is finite (limited) at best. Only God is infinite.
Humans can never know “all things” in either direction. We are not omniscient. We are:
Ontologically disqualified — limited in being, knowledge and power,Morally disqualified — flawed in character and ethics, and,Temporally disqualified — not able to live long enough to understand and deal with all that is wrong.When finite beings try to usurp the authority of the Infinite Personal Creator, the finite beings will be crushed by the weight of the task. This is what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Humans rejected God’s character as the standard for determining good and evil and tried to replace it with human opinion. This was nothing short of “cosmic treason,” deserving cosmic judgment. By this treason humans and the whole cosmos were plunged into abnormality. We all repeat this treasonous behavior constantly. Determining good and evil can only be done by God who is perfect in righteousness and infinite in knowledge.
It is not sinful to want to see evil avenged. This is because, in spite of our deplorable condition, we are still in the image of God and God is a God of vengeance — one of His many attributes. However, trying to take revenge into our own hands is counter-productive. By taking our own revenge on others for their wrongs against us, we provoke others to take revenge on us for our wrongs against them — provoking another round of revenge and counter revenge and so on.... This cycle of finite revenge will eventually engulf mankind into a never-ending conflagration of escalating violence and destruction. God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” (Deuteronomy 32:35). Clearly, God will not let wrongdoing go un-avenged. God’s vengeance is an application of cosmic judgment.
From the perspective of the wrongdoing of others, the “not yet-ness” of God’s cosmic judgment may seem to indicate God’s slowness in fulfilling His promise. But, from the perspective of our own wrongdoing, the “not yet-ness” of God’s cosmic judgment indicates His patience with us (II Peter 3:9).
Metastasize
I sympathize with today’s radicals and activists who yearn for true “social justice” — who want to see all evildoing avenged and all wrongs made right. However, because of the abnormal condition of the current reality and our finite limitations, if we neutralize one evil, another will take its place. The replacement evil will often be as bad or worse than the one it replaced.
Evil is a cancer. If left untreated it will metastasize — spreading to the whole body causing a painful death. If only part of the cancerous tissue is removed, the remaining cancer will recover and eventually metastasize with fatal results. To stop cancer in the body it must be totally eliminated. Likewise, if all evil is not eliminated, it will continue to metastasize — ultimately nullifying all human attempts to implement true social justice.
In the present context, evil is never eliminated. It not only adapts to survive, it morphs into other forms of evil. For any particular evil to be avenged and eliminated, all evil must be avenged and eliminated to prevent it from surviving by adapting, morphing and metastasizing. Avenging and eliminating all evil is beyond human capability.
In order to know all that is wrong, one must know all that is right. This requires a personal being who is infinite in wisdom and knowledge. Humans are personal beings, but humans are finite in wisdom and knowledge. This also requires someone who is perfect and humans are imperfect, sinful and flawed.
Exhausted
To accomplish the true “social justice” so many yearn for requires the application of cosmic justice. However, the best humans can do is temporal justice. This shortcoming leaves us with two vexing choices. First, apart from cosmic justice, our attempts to stamp out the evils we hate such as racism and injustice will fail because these evils will adapt, morph and survive in other forms and iterations. This will condemn us to the futility of never-ending temporal social justice "Whack-a-Mole" because evildoing will never be eradicated. Second, with cosmic justice, cosmic judgment will be our demise as divine vengeance will be inflicted on all of us because we are all guilty of wrongdoing — even “wrongdoing” according to our own limited version of it.
God alone is infinite and perfect. He alone is able to implement cosmic justice, and He has promised that He will. When we grow weary of temporal social justice "Whack-a-Mole," remember, cosmic justice is coming. If we yearn for cosmic justice, our yearning will be fulfilled. But the tragedy is, we will experience the horror of divine revenge because we all have failed to live up to our own humanity (Romans 3:23). God has shown us patience but it is dangerous to take it for granted.
The only way we will experience the permanent benefits of cosmic justice is for cosmic judgment to be satisfied in our cases. And this has been accomplished through the atonement furnished by Christ.
He lived His life in perfect righteousness, yet in His death He exhausted all the revenge of God’s cosmic judgment (II Corinthians 5:21). In His resurrection He has established His Kingdom marked by cosmic justice. This is available to all who are in Him and with His wisdom we will be able to distinguish between true social justice and false social justice in our present reality.
There is no other offer in the world that comes close to matching this one.
Rest
By taking God up on His generous offer, we can have the freedom to recognize evil in all its manifestations — various forms of [“us”] supremacy, marginalization, oppression, etc. We can pursue true social justice without the heavy burden of self-righteousness. Only God is righteous.
By taking God up on His generous offer, we will know that our efforts at temporal justice will not be in vain. In our present reality, we can only approximate equality, equity, liberation, etc. Yet if cosmic justice has been satisfied for us, these efforts for temporal justice will point to their fulfillment under cosmic justice. God Himself has promised cosmic justice.
By taking God up on His generous offer, we will be transformed and eventually made perfect. Until that day, God will relate to us as if we are already perfect because He will give us credit for the perfect righteousness of Christ and credit for Christ having exhausted the cosmic judgment we deserve (Romans 8:1-4).
In today’s unjust reality, remember that in the economy of God, every wrong will be made right, every injustice will be avenged, every inequality will be eliminated, every inequity will be obviated and all oppressed will be truly liberated. And we will live to see this. God has guaranteed it.
Meanwhile, for all who are fatigued by the arduous battle for justice, refreshment and wisdom from God are available for the asking. Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
Justice: Yes ��� ���Whack-a-Mole:��� ��� No
Behind much of the radicalism and turmoil today is a yearning and cry for justice ��� cosmic justice. Biblically speaking, when God created the universe, He described it as ���good��� and when He had created humans ���in His own image,��� the description was ���very good��� (Genesis 1:1-31). If we understand biblical wisdom we would know that God is perfect in righteousness, wisdom, knowledge, etc. So, for Him to say that His creation was ���very good��� it meant ���VERY GOOD.��� Disqualified
Any observer of the current condition of reality knows that, while there are glimpses of the original goodness of the creation, its present condition is not good (whether due to pollution, climate change, floods, deadly earthquakes, tsunamis, destructive volcanos, supernovas, gamma ray bursts, etc.). Truly, something has gone wrong in the cosmos.
The present condition of mankind is deplorable in many ways: totalitarianism, crony capitalism, crony socialism, anarchy, war, ethnic conflict, etc. Other manifestations of our atrocious condition are seen in various types of ���us-isms,��� where ���us��� becomes the standard of judgment for ���them��� ��� rendering ���them��� as inferior ��� not being able to be ���us��� as well as we can be ���us.��� This is seen in tribalism, racism, classism, culture-ism, and the caste system ��� to name a few.
When we make ourselves the standard of judgment, we reduce evil to aspects we perceive do not condemn us and we get into trouble. When we exclude ourselves from the full scope of sinfulness, we make ourselves the standard for a twisted piety.
Individually, this is ���me-ism,��� collectively, another form of ���us-ism.��� In the resulting self-righteousness our evil runs rampant under the illusion of non-evil. Truly, something has gone wrong with humanity.
The only solution to this unfortunate situation is to execute cosmic judgment and to implement cosmic justice ��� cosmic judgment to avenge every evil and cosmic justice to correct every wrong. In order to make everything right, one must know all there is to know about the wrongness of everything. That takes infinite (unlimited) knowledge and our knowledge is finite (limited) at best. Only God is infinite.
Humans can never know ���all things��� in either direction. We are not omniscient. We are:
Ontologically disqualified ��� limited in being, knowledge and power,Morally disqualified ��� flawed in character and ethics, and,Temporally disqualified ��� not able to live long enough to understand and deal with all that is wrong.When finite beings try to usurp the authority of the Infinite Personal Creator, the finite beings will be crushed by the weight of the task. This is what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Humans rejected God���s character as the standard for determining good and evil and tried to replace it with human opinion. This was nothing short of ���cosmic treason,��� deserving cosmic judgment. By this treason humans and the whole cosmos were plunged into abnormality. We all repeat this treasonous behavior constantly. Determining good and evil can only be done by God who is perfect in righteousness and infinite in knowledge.
It is not sinful to want to see evil avenged. This is because, in spite of our deplorable condition, we are still in the image of God and God is a God of vengeance ��� one of His many attributes. However, trying to take revenge into our own hands is counter-productive. By taking our own revenge on others for their wrongs against us, we provoke others to take revenge on us for our wrongs against them ��� provoking another round of revenge and counter revenge and so on.... This cycle of finite revenge will eventually engulf mankind into a never-ending conflagration of escalating violence and destruction. God says, ���Vengeance is mine, I will repay��� (Deuteronomy 32:35). Clearly, God will not let wrongdoing go un-avenged. God���s vengeance is an application of cosmic judgment.
From the perspective of the wrongdoing of others, the ���not yet-ness��� of God���s cosmic judgment may seem to indicate God���s slowness in fulfilling His promise. But, from the perspective of our own wrongdoing, the ���not yet-ness��� of God���s cosmic judgment indicates His patience with us (II Peter 3:9).
Metastasize
I sympathize with today���s radicals and activists who yearn for true ���social justice��� ��� who want to see all evildoing avenged and all wrongs made right. However, because of the abnormal condition of the current reality and our finite limitations, if we neutralize one evil, another will take its place. The replacement evil will often be as bad or worse than the one it replaced.
Evil is a cancer. If left untreated it will metastasize ��� spreading to the whole body causing a painful death. If only part of the cancerous tissue is removed, the remaining cancer will recover and eventually metastasize with fatal results. To stop cancer in the body it must be totally eliminated. Likewise, if all evil is not eliminated, it will continue to metastasize ��� ultimately nullifying all human attempts to implement true social justice.
In the present context, evil is never eliminated. It not only adapts to survive, it morphs into other forms of evil. For any particular evil to be avenged and eliminated, all evil must be avenged and eliminated to prevent it from surviving by adapting, morphing and metastasizing. Avenging and eliminating all evil is beyond human capability.
In order to know all that is wrong, one must know all that is right. This requires a personal being who is infinite in wisdom and knowledge. Humans are personal beings, but humans are finite in wisdom and knowledge. This also requires someone who is perfect and humans are imperfect, sinful and flawed.
Exhausted
To accomplish the true ���social justice��� so many yearn for requires the application of cosmic justice. However, the best humans can do is temporal justice. This shortcoming leaves us with two vexing choices. First, apart from cosmic justice, our attempts to stamp out the evils we hate such as racism and injustice will fail because these evils will adapt, morph and survive in other forms and iterations. This will condemn us to the futility of never-ending temporal social justice "Whack-a-Mole" because evildoing will never be eradicated. Second, with cosmic justice, cosmic judgment will be our demise as divine vengeance will be inflicted on all of us because we are all guilty of wrongdoing ��� even ���wrongdoing��� according to our own limited version of it.
God alone is infinite and perfect. He alone is able to implement cosmic justice, and He has promised that He will. When we grow weary of temporal social justice "Whack-a-Mole," remember, cosmic justice is coming. If we yearn for cosmic justice, our yearning will be fulfilled. But the tragedy is, we will experience the horror of divine revenge because we all have failed to live up to our own humanity (Romans 3:23). God has shown us patience but it is dangerous to take it for granted.
The only way we will experience the permanent benefits of cosmic justice is for cosmic judgment to be satisfied in our cases. And this has been accomplished through the atonement furnished by Christ.
He lived His life in perfect righteousness, yet in His death He exhausted all the revenge of God���s cosmic judgment (II Corinthians 5:21). In His resurrection He has established His Kingdom marked by cosmic justice. This is available to all who are in Him and with His wisdom we will be able to distinguish between true social justice and false social justice in our present reality.
There is no other offer in the world that comes close to matching this one.
Rest
By taking God up on His generous offer, we can have the freedom to recognize evil in all its manifestations ��� various forms of [���us���] supremacy, marginalization, oppression, etc. We can pursue true social justice without the heavy burden of self-righteousness. Only God is righteous.
By taking God up on His generous offer, we will know that our efforts at temporal justice will not be in vain. In our present reality, we can only approximate equality, equity, liberation, etc. Yet if cosmic justice has been satisfied for us, these efforts for temporal justice will point to their fulfillment under cosmic justice. God Himself has promised cosmic justice.
By taking God up on His generous offer, we will be transformed and eventually made perfect. Until that day, God will relate to us as if we are already perfect because He will give us credit for the perfect righteousness of Christ and credit for Christ having exhausted the cosmic judgment we deserve (Romans 8:1-4).
In today���s unjust reality, remember that in the economy of God, every wrong will be made right, every injustice will be avenged, every inequality will be eliminated, every inequity will be obviated and all oppressed will be truly liberated. And we will live to see this. God has guaranteed it.
Meanwhile, for all who are fatigued by the arduous battle for justice, refreshment and wisdom from God are available for the asking. Jesus said: ���Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light��� (Matthew 11:28-30).
Justice: Yes — “Whack-a-Mole:” — No
Behind much of the radicalism and turmoil today is a yearning and cry for justice — cosmic justice. Biblically speaking, when God created the universe, He described it as “good” and when He had created humans “in His own image,” the description was “very good” (Genesis 1:1-31). If we understand biblical wisdom we would know that God is perfect in righteousness, wisdom, knowledge, etc. So, for Him to say that His creation was “very good” it meant “VERY GOOD.” Disqualified
Any observer of the current condition of reality knows that, while there are glimpses of the original goodness of the creation, its present condition is not good (whether due to pollution, climate change, floods, deadly earthquakes, tsunamis, destructive volcanos, supernovas, gamma ray bursts, etc.). Truly, something has gone wrong in the cosmos.
The present condition of mankind is deplorable in many ways: totalitarianism, crony capitalism, crony socialism, anarchy, war, ethnic conflict, etc. Other manifestations of our atrocious condition are seen in various types of “us-isms,” where “us” becomes the standard of judgment for “them” — rendering “them” as inferior — not being able to be “us” as well as we can be “us.” This is seen in tribalism, racism, classism, culture-ism, and the caste system — to name a few.
When we make ourselves the standard of judgment, we reduce evil to aspects we perceive do not condemn us and we get into trouble. When we exclude ourselves from the full scope of sinfulness, we make ourselves the standard for a twisted piety.
Individually, this is “me-ism,” collectively, another form of “us-ism.” In the resulting self-righteousness our evil runs rampant under the illusion of non-evil. Truly, something has gone wrong with humanity.
The only solution to this unfortunate situation is to execute cosmic judgment and to implement cosmic justice — cosmic judgment to avenge every evil and cosmic justice to correct every wrong. In order to make everything right, one must know all there is to know about the wrongness of everything. That takes infinite (unlimited) knowledge and our knowledge is finite (limited) at best. Only God is infinite.
Humans can never know “all things” in either direction. We are not omniscient. We are:
Ontologically disqualified — limited in being, knowledge and power,Morally disqualified — flawed in character and ethics, and,Temporally disqualified — not able to live long enough to understand and deal with all that is wrong.When finite beings try to usurp the authority of the Infinite Personal Creator, the finite beings will be crushed by the weight of the task. This is what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Humans rejected God’s character as the standard for determining good and evil and tried to replace it with human opinion. This was nothing short of “cosmic treason,” deserving cosmic judgment. By this treason humans and the whole cosmos were plunged into abnormality. We all repeat this treasonous behavior constantly. Determining good and evil can only be done by God who is perfect in righteousness and infinite in knowledge.
It is not sinful to want to see evil avenged. This is because, in spite of our deplorable condition, we are still in the image of God and God is a God of vengeance — one of His many attributes. However, trying to take revenge into our own hands is counter-productive. By taking our own revenge on others for their wrongs against us, we provoke others to take revenge on us for our wrongs against them — provoking another round of revenge and counter revenge and so on.... This cycle of finite revenge will eventually engulf mankind into a never-ending conflagration of escalating violence and destruction. God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” (Deuteronomy 32:35). Clearly, God will not let wrongdoing go un-avenged. God’s vengeance is an application of cosmic judgment.
From the perspective of the wrongdoing of others, the “not yet-ness” of God’s cosmic judgment may seem to indicate God’s slowness in fulfilling His promise. But, from the perspective of our own wrongdoing, the “not yet-ness” of God’s cosmic judgment indicates His patience with us (II Peter 3:9).
Metastasize
I sympathize with today’s radicals and activists who yearn for true “social justice” — who want to see all evildoing avenged and all wrongs made right. However, because of the abnormal condition of the current reality and our finite limitations, if we neutralize one evil, another will take its place. The replacement evil will often be as bad or worse than the one it replaced.
Evil is a cancer. If left untreated it will metastasize — spreading to the whole body causing a painful death. If only part of the cancerous tissue is removed, the remaining cancer will recover and eventually metastasize with fatal results. To stop cancer in the body it must be totally eliminated. Likewise, if all evil is not eliminated, it will continue to metastasize — ultimately nullifying all human attempts to implement true social justice.
In the present context, evil is never eliminated. It not only adapts to survive, it morphs into other forms of evil. For any particular evil to be avenged and eliminated, all evil must be avenged and eliminated to prevent it from surviving by adapting, morphing and metastasizing. Avenging and eliminating all evil is beyond human capability.
In order to know all that is wrong, one must know all that is right. This requires a personal being who is infinite in wisdom and knowledge. Humans are personal beings, but humans are finite in wisdom and knowledge. This also requires someone who is perfect and humans are imperfect, sinful and flawed.
Exhausted
To accomplish the true “social justice” so many yearn for requires the application of cosmic justice. However, the best humans can do is temporal justice. This shortcoming leaves us with two vexing choices. First, apart from cosmic justice, our attempts to stamp out the evils we hate such as racism and injustice will fail because these evils will adapt, morph and survive in other forms and iterations. This will condemn us to the futility of never-ending temporal social justice "Whack-a-Mole" because evildoing will never be eradicated. Second, with cosmic justice, cosmic judgment will be our demise as divine vengeance will be inflicted on all of us because we are all guilty of wrongdoing — even “wrongdoing” according to our own limited version of it.
God alone is infinite and perfect. He alone is able to implement cosmic justice, and He has promised that He will. When we grow weary of temporal social justice "Whack-a-Mole," remember, cosmic justice is coming. If we yearn for cosmic justice, our yearning will be fulfilled. But the tragedy is, we will experience the horror of divine revenge because we all have failed to live up to our own humanity (Romans 3:23). God has shown us patience but it is dangerous to take it for granted.
The only way we will experience the permanent benefits of cosmic justice is for cosmic judgment to be satisfied in our cases. And this has been accomplished through the atonement furnished by Christ.
He lived His life in perfect righteousness, yet in His death He exhausted all the revenge of God’s cosmic judgment (II Corinthians 5:21). In His resurrection He has established His Kingdom marked by cosmic justice. This is available to all who are in Him and with His wisdom we will be able to distinguish between true social justice and false social justice in our present reality.
There is no other offer in the world that comes close to matching this one.
Rest
By taking God up on His generous offer, we can have the freedom to recognize evil in all its manifestations — various forms of [“us”] supremacy, marginalization, oppression, etc. We can pursue true social justice without the heavy burden of self-righteousness. Only God is righteous.
By taking God up on His generous offer, we will know that our efforts at temporal justice will not be in vain. In our present reality, we can only approximate equality, equity, liberation, etc. Yet if cosmic justice has been satisfied for us, these efforts for temporal justice will point to their fulfillment under cosmic justice. God Himself has promised cosmic justice.
By taking God up on His generous offer, we will be transformed and eventually made perfect. Until that day, God will relate to us as if we are already perfect because He will give us credit for the perfect righteousness of Christ and credit for Christ having exhausted the cosmic judgment we deserve (Romans 8:1-4).
In today’s unjust reality, remember that in the economy of God, every wrong will be made right, every injustice will be avenged, every inequality will be eliminated, every inequity will be obviated and all oppressed will be truly liberated. And we will live to see this. God has guaranteed it.
Meanwhile, for all who are fatigued by the arduous battle for justice, refreshment and wisdom from God are available for the asking. Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
Justice: Yes — “Whack-a-Mole:” — NoBehind much of the ra...
Behind much of the radicalism and turmoil today is a yearning and cry for justice — cosmic justice. Biblically speaking, when God created the universe, He described it as “good” and when He had created humans “in His own image,” the description was “very good” (Genesis 1:1-31). If we understand biblical wisdom we would know that God is perfect in righteousness, wisdom, knowledge, etc. So, for Him to say that His creation was “very good” it meant “VERY GOOD.”
DisqualifiedAny observer of the current condition of reality knows that, while there are glimpses of the original goodness of the creation, its present condition is not good (whether due to pollution, climate change, floods, deadly earthquakes, tsunamis, destructive volcanos, supernovas, gamma ray bursts, etc.). Truly, something has gone wrong in the cosmos.
The present condition of mankind is deplorable in many ways: totalitarianism, crony capitalism, crony socialism, anarchy, war, ethnic conflict, etc. Other manifestations of our atrocious condition are seen in various types of “us-isms,” where “us” becomes the standard of judgment for “them” — rendering “them” as inferior — not being able to be “us” as well as we can be “us.” This is seen in tribalism, racism, classism, culture-ism, and the caste system — to name a few.
When we make ourselves the standard of judgment, we reduce evil to aspects we perceive do not condemn us and we get into trouble. When we exclude ourselves from the full scope of sinfulness, we make ourselves the standard for a twisted piety.
Individually, this is “me-ism,” collectively, another form of “us-ism.” In the resulting self-righteousness our evil runs rampant under the illusion of non-evil. Truly, something has gone wrong with humanity.
The only solution to this unfortunate situation is to execute cosmic judgment and to implement cosmic justice — cosmic judgment to avenge every evil and cosmic justice to correct every wrong. In order to make everything right, one must know all there is to know about the wrongness of everything. That takes infinite (unlimited) knowledge and our knowledge is finite (limited) at best. Only God is infinite.
Humans can never know “all things” in either direction. We are not omniscient. We are ontologically disqualified — limited in our being, morally disqualified — flawed in character and ethics and temporally disqualified — not able to live long enough to deal with all that is wrong.
When finite beings try to usurp the authority of the Infinite Personal Creator, the finite beings will be crushed by the weight of the task. This is what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Humans rejected God’s character as the standard for determining good and evil and tried to replace it with human opinion. This was nothing short of “cosmic treason,” deserving cosmic judgment. By this treason humans and the whole cosmos were plunged into abnormality. We all repeat this treasonous behavior constantly. Determining good and evil can only be done by God who is perfect in righteousness and infinite in knowledge.
It is not sinful to want to see evil avenged. This is because, in spite of our deplorable condition, we are still in the image of God and God is a God of vengeance — one of His many attributes. However, trying to take revenge into our own hands is counter-productive. By taking our own revenge on others for their wrongs against us, we provoke others to take revenge on us for our wrongs against them — provoking another round of revenge and counter revenge and so on.... This cycle of finite revenge will eventually engulf mankind into a never-ending conflagration of escalating violence and destruction. God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” (Deuteronomy 32:35). Clearly, God will not let wrongdoing go un-avenged. God’s vengeance is an application of cosmic judgment.
From the perspective of the wrongdoing of others, the “not yet-ness” of God’s cosmic judgment may seem to indicate God’s slowness in fulfilling His promise. But, from the perspective of our own wrongdoing, the “not yet-ness” of God’s cosmic judgment indicates His patience with us (II Peter 3:9).
Metastasize
I sympathize with today’s radicals and activists who yearn for true “social justice” — who want to see all evildoing avenged and all wrongs made right. However, because of the abnormal condition of the current reality and our finite limitations, if we neutralize one evil, another will take its place. The replacement evil will often be as bad or worse than the one it replaced.
Evil is a cancer. If left untreated it will metastasize — spreading to the whole body causing a painful death. If only part of the cancerous tissue is removed, the remaining cancer will recover and eventually metastasize with fatal results. To stop cancer in the body it must be totally eliminated. Likewise, if all evil is not eliminated, it will continue to metastasize — ultimately nullifying all human attempts to implement true social justice.
In the present context, evil is never eliminated. It not only adapts to survive, it morphs into other forms of evil. For any particular evil to be avenged and eliminated, all evil must be avenged and eliminated to prevent it from surviving by adapting, morphing and metastasizing. Avenging and eliminating all evil is beyond human capability.
In order to know all that is wrong, one must know all that is right. This requires a personal being who is infinite in wisdom and knowledge. Humans are personal beings, but humans are finite in wisdom and knowledge. This also requires someone who is perfect and humans are imperfect, sinful and flawed.
Exhausted
To accomplish the true “social justice” so many yearn for requires the application of cosmic justice. However, the best humans can do is temporal justice. This shortcoming leaves us with two vexing choices. First, apart from cosmic justice, our attempts to stamp out the evils we hate such as racism and injustice will fail because these evils will adapt, morph and survive in other forms and iterations. This will condemn us to the futility of never-ending temporal social justice "Whack-a-Mole" because evildoing will never be eradicated. Second, with cosmic justice, cosmic judgment will be our demise as divine vengeance will be inflicted on all of us because we are all guilty of wrongdoing — even “wrongdoing” according to our own limited version of it.
God alone is infinite and perfect. He alone is able to implement cosmic justice, and He has promised that He will. When we grow weary of temporal social justice "Whack-a-Mole," remember, cosmic justice is coming. If we yearn for cosmic justice, our yearning will be fulfilled. But the tragedy is, we will experience the horror of divine revenge because we all have failed to live up to our own humanity (Romans 3:23). God has shown us patience but it is dangerous to take it for granted.
The only way we will experience the permanent benefits of cosmic justice is for cosmic judgment to be satisfied in our cases. And this has been accomplished through the atonement furnished by Christ.
He lived His life in perfect righteousness, yet in His death He exhausted all the revenge of God’s cosmic judgment. In His resurrection He has established His Kingdom marked by cosmic justice. This is available to all who are in Him and with His wisdom we will be able to distinguish between true social justice and false social justice in our present reality.
There is no other offer in the world that comes close to matching this one.
Rest
By taking God up on His generous offer, we can have the freedom to recognize evil in all its manifestations — various forms of [“us”] supremacy, marginalization, oppression, etc. We can pursue true social justice without the heavy burden of self-righteousness. Only God is righteous.
By taking God up on His generous offer, we will know that our efforts at temporal justice will not be in vain. In our present reality, we can only approximate equality, equity, liberation, etc. Yet if cosmic justice has been satisfied for us, these efforts for temporal justice will point to their fulfillment under cosmic justice. God Himself has promised cosmic justice.
By taking God up on His generous offer, we will be transformed and eventually made perfect. Until that day, God will relate to us as if we are already perfect because He will give us credit for the perfect righteousness of Christ and credit for Christ having exhausted the cosmic judgment we deserve.
In today’s unjust reality, remember that in the economy of God, every wrong will be made right, every injustice will be avenged, every inequality will be eliminated, every inequity will be obviated and all oppressed will be truly liberated. And we will live to see this. God has guaranteed it.
Meanwhile, for all who are fatigued by the arduous battle for justice, refreshment and wisdom from God are available for the asking. Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
June 4, 2020
Protest and Anarchy in Black and Blue
Everyone knows that food left out in the right conditions will draw roaches — pests that carry disease, destruction and death. In the last weeks, we’ve watched once-peaceful, constitutionally protected marches draw parasitical ideologies that commandeered the demonstrations for their warped intentions and destructive aims. Moving beyond whether we agree with the reasons for a person’s peaceful protest, the destructive elements who’ve attached themselves to these current demonstrations should cause all living in a democracy to ask: in what other ways can we express our convictions when the infestation begins? In what ways can one safeguard against an infestation altogether?
If you’ve ever dealt with a parasite in your home, you know they have numerous ways of infiltrating, and then adapting to just about everything you throw at them. Homeowners and apartment dwellers alike know this to be true...parasites have to be admired for their smarts and constant adaptability, if for nothing else. They adapt to all your tactics in order to gain or maintain their advantage. Protest is one of the oldest and favored tools of social change. However, in this pause in the protest we must reconsider the cost and effectiveness of the protest. Some will now hail protest as a continued success — or at least as making progress — considering the charges filed for all four police involved in the George Floyd incident. However, it would be extremely unwise and dangerous to move on to the next cultural moment without first assessing the high cost of the infiltration of destructive forces who care nothing for the cause, or for its outcome.
If organizers of every stripe don’t stop to count this cost and consider how to mitigate the abuse of innocents caught up in unintended destruction, they will yet again leave opportunistic ‘food’ lying around for another ideological infestation. And indeed, the people under the influence of this parasitic anarchist ideology seem to have altogether disappeared, their exploitative destruction done, our institutions devastated, and their point made. They have left the rest of us to pick up shards of broken glass, trust, bodies, and lives by morning light.
The time for analysis is overdue — anarchists have appeared at peaceful protests over the last few years, but we underestimated the scope of destruction they wished to inflict. This time, dark forces rode in unawares, mingling with each peaceful tribe that assembled on the streets. Some nefarious insurgents tactically organized and prepared in tribes of their own, yet no one saw these anarchists coming.
Now that we know we have a deeply destructive and (it seems) tactically organized ideology of chaos unleashed in our midst, what can we do on the ground about this “roach?”
The Larger Problem
In the last few years we have had a laser-like focus on racism, and rightfully so, since it is a cancer in our society. It’s a manifestation of human depravity, which is in itself the fatal disease of all mankind. We have even begun to finally ask hard questions about classism, a more modern and more inclusive manifestation of the same fatal disease.
Now, we have seen a devastating evil appear that makes racism, as evil as it is, look harmless by comparison. That evil is anarchy . Don’t misunderstand: I reject the evils of racism, classism, and any form of dehumanization in all its iterations — they are all antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in which I believe, and are taught as an offense to God throughout the Scripture I hold dear. But after seeing the surprisingly powerful and manipulative destruction that anarchy has left behind, I believe that before anybody executes another massive march for social change — whether it’s the March for Life or a demonstration for religious freedom or liberty, or what have you, choose your cause — we must examine how anarchy is lying in wait to feed on our constitutional rights, and on our naiveté about our own vulnerability.
Anarchy is the “absence or denial of any authority or established order.” More formally, according to Merriam Webster, it is “a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority.”
I’m sure some anarchists have a utopian dream of a society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government. But they, along with many others who care about justice and equality, are being used as cannon fodder by those who are bent on the destruction of all social order — a nihilistic situation where brute force wielded by flawed humanity rules, unrestrained and unchecked. The most brutal social situation is one where “might makes right.” That’s the inevitable outcome of anarchy. On the contrary, we should always strive toward a society where “right makes might.” We may disagree on what that “right” is. We may debate or even fight about it. Even if we do agree about rightness and wrongness, we will probably fall short of its full implementation. Even so, this flawed social order would be far more tolerable than the anarchist alternative.
Muddy Waters
In an earlier blog I emphasized the importance of moral clarity for an effective protest. The case of George Floyd dripped with moral clarity — so much so that 78% of the country agreed that Derek Chauvin, who kneeled of Mr. Floyd’s neck till he died, should have been arrested immediately. However, such a national consensus and borderline unity was intolerable for the anarchists. It was necessary for them to muddy the moral waters to accomplish their objectives. And so they began to divide us.
Appealing to “the cause,” in this case the memory of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, had no effect on the anarchists because they don’t give a damn. They don’t give a damn about justice or equality either. They just want to destroy governmental authority and the existing social order, and they don’t care who gets hurt in the process.
There is no love for humanity in the anarchist ideology; it is a nihilist’s dream, manipulating the inclinations of non-anarchic nihilists like looters, and exploiting the rest of humanity merely as objects to be used, tossed aside, or crushed if they stand in the way.
The anarchists understand flawed human nature well enough to know that all they have to do is break a few storefront windows and toss a few incendiary devices while passions about “the cause” are running high. They know that things will snowball from that point as criminals, who similarly don’t care about “the cause,” will take it from there — looting and burning — followed by the opportunists (Black, White and other) for whom access to instant merchandise will override “the cause.” From there they hope things will go viral.
Anarchists understand human depravity, even as they practice it.
The anarchists know they can get away ‘scott-free’ because the news media and others will lump all this under the heading of “the demonstrators.” Isn’t it incredible how many under the influence of the anarchist ideology were seen doing their destructive work, yet how few were actually caught? They also count on well-meaning but naive protest leaders and sympathizers who will attribute all this merely to the “anger and pent up frustration of the community.” Yes, there is anger and frustration, but who initiated the destruction?
The anarchists, who exist on both the far-left and far-right, have absolutely no vested interest in the affected community. It doesn’t matter to them that the destruction they cause wipes out decades of economic progress. They don’t care if the targeted communities may take a generation to recover or may never recover at all.
Missing Data
It is time to rethink what is the greatest threat. According to the Washington Post, police shootings killed twice as many Whites than African Americans. On the other hand, when we see this in terms of police shooting deaths per million, African Americans are three times more likely to be shot to death by police. And of course, the missing data in this last statistic is the race of the cop doing the shooting.
I would agree that without the racism factor, the number of police shootings of African Americans would be fewer, but this does not mean that racism is the only factor, or even the major factor. For example, in 2015 many attributed the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, MD to racism. However, three of the six police involved in his death were African American. I suppose that one could argue that an African American can be racist toward African Americans. On the face of it, this is absurd at best. Even if this was true for one Black cop, it is ludicrous to think it could have been true for all three. While I do not deny racism as a factor in this incident, I have difficulty seeing racism as the only factor. An unhealthy culture of police silence matters as well, and that often overrides race. Seeing the hostility between Freddie Gray and the police officers involved through the lens of a clash of cultures better explains this incident.
To be sure, racism is alive and well in our society and it must be addressed. But something else has gone wrong — something more complex than mere racism, more complex than problematic police cultures. A major contributing factor to the current urban conflagrations has been a clash of cultures — a clash between what I call “achievers,” “non-achievers” and “anti-achievers.” What marks the difference between these is the value system they live by, not necessarily their characters. We must remember that we all have serious character flaws.
“Achievers” live by values that generally lead to success in this social/cultural system — not always economic success by American standards, but a sense of flourishing and stability, at least. “Non-achievers” live by values that generally do not lead to success in this social/cultural system. And “anti-achievers” live by nihilistic values, which in many cases end in desperation and criminal behavior. Of course, very few if any of us fit these profiles perfectly, and it is not a matter of income — we have seen in the last decade well-heeled Hollywood and Wall Street nihilists! Because we are flawed, everyone has all three of these characteristics in some form. What marks the difference between us is the preponderance of these tendencies, and that these divisions run through all people groups in the so-called ‘developed world’ — White, Black, Latino, Asian, etc.
Capacious and Toxic
For the last 50 years, there has been a civil cold war simmering between these groups within the African American community. Many “achievers,” across socio-economic lines, have seen dramatic improvements in quality of life because of the gains in civil rights. They tend to have a stronger sense of responsibility for their actions and for their communities. However, many non- and anti- achievers have not. This has led to disdain, resentment and alienation between these groups. The achievers tend to retain a sense of “the cause of Black advancement.” After all they have been the main beneficiaries. Not so with the non- and anti- achievers.
At times this cold war flares up into open conflict. Such was the case between looters of all stripes and business owners — Black, White and Asian — in the evenings following the recent peaceful protests. Once the anarchists set the bait for destruction, from an anti-achiever perspective it made no difference if the business being looted and destroyed was Black owned or not. So it was also with other opportunists who followed suit. Like the anarchists, they carried out this destruction under the cover of hijacked protest marches.
“The cause?....” “What cause?”
Nightfall saw countless buildings tagged with “F-” this and “F-” that. The malevolent actions of the anarchists screamed:
“F- Black lives!”
“F- Blue lives!”
Their overall message was crystal clear … “F- everybody!!!
This puts all of us in the same boat: African Americans (including achievers, non-achievers, anti-achievers) and honest police. Together, we share space on the bull’s eye of the destructive aims of the anarchists. Yes, we have serious issues between us that must be addressed, but now we face a capacious and toxic common enemy. From an African American perspective, among other things, anarchy is backhanded racism disguised as anti-racism — the most virulent expression of racism today.
In other words, we’ve all been played.
The anarchists mounted an all-out tactical assault from within the ranks of peaceful protestors; activists must wake up to this infiltration, and be aware of inadvertently embracing, or completely ignoring this anarchistic infestation.
White Hot
I am not naive about the serious issue of rogue cops. I have personally experienced police brutality, from White cops. Yet I affirm that the vast majority of police are dedicated to “protect and serve.” I have also seen police brutality against young African American men perpetrated by White and Black Cops alike. But that does not necessarily mean that there is a general police conspiracy to kill African American men merely because they are African American men. All groups of professionals have rogue elements. While this is no excuse for bad behavior, it points out the reality of our shared flawed human nature. I share these experiences and make these observations to bring us to a larger point: This same flaw in human nature will burn white hot for everyone under the chaos ushered in by anarchism.
The police force is the face of law enforcement and the law is what orders the society. Therefore, the first target on the anarchist hit list is the police. Certainly, there is much room for reform in the way policing is done. “De-funding the police” to fund community programs may sound appealing in the heat of the present conflict. However, I’m concerned that criminals will quickly fill the resulting power vacuum and overpower the good intentions of these “community programs.” Criminals, by the way, who are responsible for about twice the shooting deaths of African Americans than the police.
The anarchists are surreptitiously exploiting the civil cold war among African Americans to their advantage. Once the police force is eliminated from our communities, the next target will be stabilizing institutions and the government structure itself. Then after that, the Constitution — without which there will be no legal basis for restraint. Nihilism will be the order of the day where racism, sexism, age-ism, and other forms of dehumanization, etc. will be unconstrained — all will be brutalized by an unstable system of ever-shifting codes rather than laws, and there will be no remedy.
Protest and the Long Game
We can — and should — critically analyze our leaders’ responses to the anarchists at the highest levels of government. But regardless of whose administration is in office, I doubt that anarchists among us will disappear anytime soon. So then, it’s imperative that we analyze our responses to this ideology on the ground, in light of our responsibilities to our own communities. How can we inoculate ourselves against being so painfully manipulated on the ground again?
New legislation, criminal justice and police culture reform, reviews of judicial misconduct, and judicial review of the "qualified immunity doctrine”* will be key elements for better policing and national healing. Meanwhile, the civil cold war between achievers, non-achievers and anti-achievers can be quelled as achievers take the initiative to mentor young men and young women away from non- and anti-achieverism.
Most importantly, those of us who follow Christ must assure that “long-game discipleship” — beyond temporary protest strategies — is our prime directive. Not a discipleship into institutional, rote, shallow Christianity, but a discipleship into deep and practical biblical wisdom that affects every area of life — personal, cultural and social.
Today’s growing Black hostility toward the police is partly inflamed by the narrative of a coordinated conspiracy against Black men, which is playing into the hands of the anarchist agenda. Maybe we need to call a temporary truce at the community level — to suspend hostilities for now, magnify the glimpses of peace-making seen in the protest streets, resist writing such efforts off as mere propaganda or failed efforts, fan those efforts into more flames of good-will, and recognize the greater threat that anarchism poses to us all.
I’m not a professional sociologist; I’m just a theological anthropologist. I’m grateful for those who’ve waded into the conversations regarding reforms in education, economic development, policing, criminal justice, et. al. And I pray that balanced, thoughtful, humanizing and wise ideas will prevail.
But in light of this most recent explosion of conflict on the ground that caused so much unjust and unnecessary devastation to innocents ‘caught in the middle,’ I do believe that as we build goodwill on the community level, we lay a foundation to defeat the looming threat of anarchism and its destructive effects on our communities and their life-blood. I am not ready to give up on this possibility and am hoping to unite others who are still so inclined.
We have an ideological roach in the kitchen. It has scurried under the cold stove, only to reappear when the stove gets hot again.
And when it does, may the poor souls who are caught under its anarchic spell meet a unified effort against it.
*https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/congressional-action-is-the-best-way-to-fix-qualified-immunity/
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/500673-how-qualified-immunity-promotes-the-unreasonable-use-of-force-by
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2020/06/03/new-bill-would-abolish-qualified-immunity-make-it-easier-to-sue-cops-who-violate-civil-rights/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/opinion/breonna-taylor-police.html
February 5, 2020
SEVEN POINTS OF CLARIFICATION
I have a decades long history of helping the Body of Christ navigate the particular concerns of minorities. Most of my ministry has been done through publishing, speaking, teaching, and one-on-one discipleship of young men.
Because I serve a minority population, much of my work has involved addressing the unique challenges that such communities face. One such example is defending the Christian faith against the accusation that “Christianity is a ‘tool of oppression.’”
This defense has involved engaging people who have looked for answers in counterfeit teachings, often disguised in theological language – teaching on the bankruptcy of these ideologies when compared to the biblical Gospel of Jesus Christ. The genuine Gospel that answers these ideologies is the robust and transformative message found in the Scripture along with all its implications, not the anemic or privatized version that emanates from some quarters of contemporary American Christianity. This was the basis for a book I wrote decades ago, Free at Last?. In my ministry career, I have used non-traditional terminology to reach those unfamiliar with traditional theological and biblical terms. I have used these words according to their classic dictionary definitions. At other times, I strove to clearly define the words I used in biblical terms.
Unfortunately, language is fluid and co-optable. Some of these terms I once relied on have become associated with modern aberrant ‘theologies’ and secular ideologies.
Lest these linguistic shifts cause confusion about my worldview or my intended framework, let me state clearly and unequivocally where I stand on several contemporary issues.
I. Beliefs
Regarding my beliefs, I firmly stand with the Bible as the Word of God. I believe and teach that it is infallible and inerrant (in its original manuscripts).
Second, my worldview is solely derived from the Scriptures. I therefore reject Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory (CRT), today’s Intersectionality, Totalitarianism, Ethnocentrism, Secularism, as well as Marxism and all its applications, as antithetical to a biblical worldview and to the Gospel of Christ.
By common grace, these ideologies may give us slight insights on issues we face today, but the ultimate remedies they propose reflect a profound ignorance about sinful human nature at best. They focus on mere symptoms while ignoring the disease, prescribing a remedy that history proves is just as destructive as the disease itself.
Third, I believe that only the Word of God and the transformative Gospel of Jesus Christ gets to the root of the problem by addressing the disease itself – mankind’s core corruption.
Finally, I am unapologetically a follower of Christ. I am also, in God’s sovereignty, an African American man who has lived the majority of life in the 20th Century. I believe according to Acts 17:26 that this is the culture, time and place God has given me to do His Kingdom work, and thus I see it as a gift from Him imbued with purpose. That purpose has been to explore His work in the world from a particular non-dominant cultural point of view.
II. Social Religions
The ideologies I discuss in this post are historically known to bring destruction. We have seen their effects on societies during the 20th Century, and into the 21st.
Even today, we can see these “social religions” doing what they do historically – curve in on themselves with increasingly narrow performative ‘orthodoxies.’ They create ever smaller circles of those considered ‘authentic’ – adherents who represent the truest version of their secular piety. They belittle those who do not perform the corresponding rites properly, and damn those who reject the ideology altogether.
Since 2015, my wife and I have spoken against these dogmas when we see them manifest in our own circles. We have seen some wander down paths that, consciously or unconsciously, justified the use of ideologies like Critical Theory, or uncritically glorified and affirmed writers who did the same such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, James Cone and others.
As the impact of these ideologies on Christianity became deeper and wider ranging, we revamped our courses to speak out directly against them. As an academic, I do believe that these ideologies should be studied critically. But as a pastor in the seminary setting, I believe they should be studied against a proper biblical Christology and anthropology, with a full understanding of their deficiencies in producing anything close to a Kingdom agenda.
III. The Academy
Those who know our teaching well know of our disagreements with movements founded on CRT. Perhaps one of the clearest witnesses to the destructive potential of such ideologies is found in the "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Movement.“ The adverse experiences over the last ten years of secular-progressive professors who did not affirm the movement’s social orthodoxies serve as cautionary tales not only for the academy, but for the larger society as well.
I’ve seen the lines blur increasingly between disciplines and ideologies. Therefore, I’ve refined and qualified much of my language from my younger days, and have developed lectures that explain the principles and deficiencies of Marxism, CRT and today’s Intersectionality, as well as their effects throughout history and in American society.
Some students come to graduate programs from secular institutions having already, either knowingly or unknowingly, internalized the so-called “Equity and Inclusion Movement,” CRT, or having accepted so-called “Liberation Theologies” based on Marxist principles.
Many are surprised to find how impotent they are when, over the course of a semester, the biblical Gospel is held up against these ideologies.
Because of this, I am hopeful. I also believe we are experiencing an interesting turn. A New York Times article discussed the "Quiet Exodus" of Black Christians from predominantly White Evangelical churches, in search of cultural affirmation in solid, Bible-believing African American churches. Many of these exiting saints have found cultural affirmation and solid teaching, but have also learned that even culturally affirming churches are still flawed in some way. Such is the nature of our ongoing sanctification.
However, I now see another ‘quiet exodus’ from the first one mentioned in the article. Some who fled Evangelicalism for the principles of CRT and Intersectionality found the waters bitter and self-contradicting. I’m now observing a handful of Christians from all ethnicities who have become disaffected with CRT and Intersectionality. While these saints still admit that there are social problems that only the Gospel can heal, they now realize the ‘solutions’ that Critical Theory propose are bankrupt; they cannot bring life. They want biblical approaches to local and global social ills that employ the Gospel, its affirmation of life, and the transformation that it alone can accomplish. I find this greatly encouraging.
IV. Our Fallen World
There must be a way to discuss mankind’s propensity to dominate their fellow humans, and to discuss repeating historical patterns. Marxism, Communism, Islamism, et al, themselves produce deleterious social effects as they dehumanize and destroy lives around the world to this day.
Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Kim Il Sung, Fidel Castro, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and many others all have left clear evidence that once a balanced understanding of human depravity is removed from a worldview, violence against body and soul cannot be far behind.
People are broken sinners. Broken people make broken families. Broken families make broken communities. Broken communities make broken societies. Broken societies make broken systems. And broken systems keep people in bondage – physical, social, and spiritual. This is the reality of our fallen world. Furthermore, this reality is exacerbated by malevolent spiritual forces that surreptitiously manipulate these social ills (Ephesians 6:12).
Yet the genuine people of God have had life-giving responses displaying God’s intent for humanity based on His principles in order to indict the surrounding culture. God leaves such a witness through His people so that those in the surrounding community might “taste and see that the Lord is good.”
The true church, often in small numbers, has historically had some sort of Biblical response to dehumanizing totalitarian regimes, and she continues to respond today. The answer to these ills is, and always has been, the local Body of Christ and her continual transformation into Christ’s likeness through the biblical Gospel, applying the marks of the true Church. Sometimes her effects have been small scale and the redemption of a single life; other times the impact has been great on societies, and other times the effects have contributed to the downfall of entire totalitarian regimes.
Each social ill opens an opportunity for a response from the Body of Christ. Each age gives us actors and thinkers, great and small, to help articulate those responses and put them into practice – Corrie Ten Boom, John Newton, Alonzo and Althea Edmiston, Granville Sharpe, Maggie Walker, Alexander Solzhenytsin, Francis J. Grimké, and many others in history.
And certainly, I am the least among these, a vapor in man’s record. Indeed, history will eventually forget 99% of us living, publishing, and commenting today. But I trust that my God will not.
V. Language Usage
All language is contextual. As I discuss how the Gospel speaks to social dynamics, the language sometimes crosses over with other ideologies. Despite the fluidity of language, God’s truths remain.
For example, mankind was given dominion over God’s creation but was never granted total domination over other humans. That it happens in societies on grand scales is clear and further evidence of the Fall. Biblical expressions capturing these realities like “oppression” and “justice” have been co-opted from God’s Word and redefined by Marx; Marx did not create these terms; he merely offered fruitless, man-centered machinations to address them. In reality, jockeying for power and position in order to subjugate others is condemned in the Bible, both in the spiritual and physical sense.
By way of another example, categories of dominance and sub-dominance are used by sociologists who are not Marxists. Language usage is not evidence of ideological affirmation.
But of course, sociology is not enough to change or analyze societies. Neither are public policy solutions enough, without changing the way cultures view and value life. Sociology and government policies cannot accomplish what the transformative Gospel can when it’s brought to bear on broken people and harmful societies. They cannot do what the Spirit can accomplish through the genuine local Body of Christ through Word, sacrament, discipline, discipleship, godly compassion, and redemptive suffering for the sake of Christ.
Indeed, sociology and policy alone are deeply insufficient; only Christ can change hearts.
What drove many of the abolitionists of old, and what drives the pro-life and anti-trafficking Christians today, if it is not hope in the transformative Gospel of Jesus Christ for both the victim and victimizer? What caused our spiritual ancestors to house orphans and create charitable hospitals? What caused several to seek a seat at the drafting table for our founding documents and public policies that support religious freedom and human flourishing, if it were not with hopes to limit social ills? What drove others to bring the transformative Gospel to bear on the inhumanity created by mankind’s inherent sin nature?
Certainly, it was the biblical understanding that mankind was designed to live in wholeness and flourishing, as defined by the God Who created us.
Each of the ideologies this personal statement disavows has severely impacted social circumstances and contributed to lives lost, wherever they were found; both for Christians and non-Christians alike. The honorable among us do what we can in the moment; strive for biblical fidelity, maintaining the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace as we press forward.
VI. Differentiating Disciplines
It is increasingly common to pass off mere sociology, psychology, historical analysis, and other disciplines as theology proper. I believe this is errant and dangerous. I take the approach that “theology is the application of God’s Word by persons in every area of life” (Dr. John Frame). I still believe that theology is the ‘Queen of the Sciences.’
Yet many of our young people can’t tell the difference today between these disciplines.
The lines between theology, sociology, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, Intersectionality, etc., have been increasingly blurred in the last twenty years and become more common in Christian thinking than they were when I was a younger man writing in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
The language of today’s intersectionality began to solidify with Kimberly Crenshaw’s work in the late 1980s, almost ten years after I wrote “Beyond Liberation” (the forerunner to “Free At Last?”), which outlines my thoughts regarding parasitical ideas that latched onto the Black Consciousness Movement.
Even back then, it was clear that many of these ideas were incompatible with the Gospel just as they are now. I have watched history repeat as young men and women once grounded in the Word of God are swept up into ideologies disguised in theological terminology. I know from the first time around that these ideologies will not deliver what they promise.
In hindsight, during the closing years of the 20th Century it was much safer than it is today to use theological-anthropological terms when writing about social issues. Due to the infiltration of CRT and today’s Intersectionality into the academy, the risk of my ideas being misappropriated and misapplied by both supporters and detractors is far greater today than it was back then.
VII. Looking Ahead
Today, I’m grateful to serve in an institution known for its biblical fidelity. With the years I have left, I hope to produce a handful of solid practical theologians who will carry the Kingdom ball forward to the next generation. I’m grateful at my institution to work alongside concerned faithful Bible teachers who wish to see the same.
Sometimes I am saddened at the state of much of the Church today. Rigid, pseudo-religious secular orthodoxies have given rise to sub-groups within the church who are now falling into "purity spirals" of their own. In our genuine concern for the church, we are often biting and devouring each other (Galatians 5:15).
At the same time however, I am encouraged by the young people I see awakening to the historic and consistent ways of living their Christianity. The genuine Church in America is in a much different day than fifty years ago. In this day, our God who transforms, calls us to prioritize our Union in Christ and abandon all other loyalties that demand preeminence, be they external commitments to political allegiances, particular ethnicities or tribes, to group loyalties based on distorted perceptions of gender or sexuality, or what have you.
What matters most at this point in my life is loyalty to Christ.
By God’s grace, I will continue to refine my own feeble efforts to discover and uncover ways to express the reality of destructive social systems and to present the remedy that’s found only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Some will no doubt parse and critique the life out of this statement against all ideologies that set themselves up in opposition to the Gospel. So be it. That is the nature and cost of a public witness.
As for me, I want to see Christ’s Body strengthened. I want to see His wisdom and witness made manifest to the lost and dying.
I want to contribute positively to His genuine church expressed at home and around the world, as she applies the Word faithfully, rightly administers the sacraments, practices discipline, and carries out the discipleship mandate (Matthew 28:18-20).
I want to hasten the day when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).
By God’s grace, may I finish my race well.
CFE
Additional Resources:
Our Perspective on Justice can be found here.
Neil Shenvi Apologetics
I particularly appreciate appreciate Lisa Spencer's civil, thoughtful engagement on these issues; she builds up rather than tears down. Find her at theothoughts.com or listen to her on Family Discussion, a podcast of Reformed Margins which she cohosts with colleague Marcos Ortega.
September 12, 2017
Fine Dining or Dumpster Diving: A Paradigm for Activist Theology
swasti.verma@gmail.com, 10 June 2012
As the cultural ground shifts under our feet, the church often gets caught up in these tectonic quakes — unnecessarily so. Much of our stress is due to an inadequate theology. Not that our theology is wrong as far as it goes. It’s just that it has further to go. Most Christians I talk to define theology as, “The study of God.” While I affirm this definition, it leaves out the cultural and historical context in which we study God. A broader, more comprehensive definition is, “The application of God’s Word by persons in every area of life.” (Dr. John Frame) This includes the study of God.
By Khalid Aziz In our Western context, several valuable methods of doing theology have developed such as Exegetical theology and Systematic theology. However too often I have seen a tendency to think that all theology that canbe done has been done. This is a short step from relying on theology more than on the Word of God itself. The scope of the Bible covers all of reality while the scope of theology is limited. If the Bible can be compared to a movie, our theology would be one frame from it. Theology can be approached from at least two perspectives. In terms of epistemology — what we should know about God, and in terms of ethics— how we should obey God. Theology can also be done on both sides of human intelligence. The cognitive side — involving conceptual knowledge and the intuitive side — involving perceptualknowledge. If the epistemological approach is ‘Side A,’ then the ethical approach is ‘Side B.’ Similarly, the cognitive would be ‘Side A’ and the intuitive, ‘Side B.’ Historical Examples
Western theology developed under the challenge of unbelieving philosophy and science. To defend and communicate the faith, it had to be translated from its concrete apostolic language into a “technical idiom.” It was mostly concerned with epistemologicalissues involving cognitive knowledge — an example of ‘Side A’ theology.
African American theology developed under the challenge of oppression (slavery, Jim Crow, racism, etc.). The over-arching challenge for African Americans was the injustice and dehumanization they experienced. They identified with the Old Testament people of God in similar situations. In the antebellum South, it was Israel in Egypt and in the antebellum North, Israel in the Exile. African American theology was mostly concerned with ethical issues. In the South, it was more intuitive than cognitive because Blacks had no access to formal education. In the North, more cognitive than intuitive because Blacks had access to formal education. One great legacy of African American preaching is Narrative theology — the application of the basic patterns of biblical life situations. These were examples of ‘Side B’ theology.
Cultural Captivity
When Christianity functions properly in culture, the church will clearly communicate a transcendent scriptural message. By God’s grace the culture will already embody some beliefs and practices that agree with Scripture. I call this the “interface.” However, aspects of culture at variance with scriptural wisdom compose “cultural sin.”
The more Christianity falls short, the more it becomes dysfunctional. It becomes confined to the “interface.” Its transcendent scriptural message becomes muted and “cultural sin” sets the agenda. The result is a failure to fully address both manifestations of sin — “people sin” where individuals consciously do wrong (‘Side A’) and “cultural sin” imbedded in time honored conventions, protocols and customs (‘Side B’). This is where Christianity falls into cultural captivity.
Any Christianity in cultural captivity is un-Christian. From the perspective of those impacted by cultural sin, Christianity in cultural captivity comes across as anti-Christian. This partly explains the hostile response to Christianity from many young men in the ‘hood.
Mistakes of the Past
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, some in American Christianity made the mistake of conflating biblical hermeneutics (the art or science of interpretation) with the Bible itself — a hermeneutic that was strong on ‘Side A’ and weak on ‘Side B.’ When they were confronted with ‘Side B’ issues their hermeneutic could not address, they assumed that these issues were beyond the reach of Scripture. As a result, they looked to secular theories and ideologies for answers.
Eventually, they abandoned the Bible as the Word of God — the basis for solid theology. They ended up with a pretend theology based on biblical connotation words emptied of their meaning. While focusing on “cultural sin” they lost ability to recognize “people sin.” Such “theology” was subject to the whims of secular political and social fads. In this situation, the Christian voice merely parroted the secular voice — a voice that became superfluous. This is cultural captivity.
Evangelicals in the 20thCentury reduced orthodoxy to ‘Side A.’ They had “people sin” in their cross-hairs but they tended to ignore “cultural sin” (‘Side B’). As a result, their ability to address “people sin” was weakened as “cultural sin” grew unchecked.
Eventually “cultural sin” gave cover to most “people sin.” The only sin they addressed fell outside the cultural realm. In essence, they trivialized sin to things like individual “drinking,” “smoking” and “chewing.” Hence, they became subject to “cultural sin.” In the end, they lost their prophetic voice, their integrity and their credibility. This is also cultural captivity.
The Current Context
Today there is much debate among Christians, who are theologically trained at leading Bible-believing institutions, about how to address serious social issues such as racism and marginalization — issues that cannot be fully addressed without ‘B’ sided theology. Unfortunately, their theological training, as robust as it is, was derived from a contemporary Western tradition where the ‘B’ side is weak or nonexistent. The result of this was a theological imbalance. To achieve balance, the ‘B’ side needs to be developed. If done right, ‘Side A’ and ‘Side B’ will seamlessly coalesce into one consummate theology.
Many well-meaning Christians oppose the idea of ‘Side B’ theology. They fear the introduction of humanistic heresies (dubbed by some as “liberalism”) that infected American Christianity in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Certainly, refuting all heresies should be a major concern for all of us who follow Christ.
The “social-concern-leads-to-‘liberalism’” narrative, however, does not apply in every case. The African American church has wrestled with ‘Side B’ theological issues for centuries, yet humanistic heresies did not emerge in this context. It is true that some Black church leaders recently have imbibed these heresies, but the origin of these heresies lay outside of the indigenous African American theological context.
Those who resist ‘Side B’ theology often do so, believing naively that existing ‘Side A’ Christianity is sufficient — a captive Christianity that peacefully co-existed with Jim Crow in the South and institutional racism in the North. Obviously, this approach is a non-starter, especially for the advocates of the ‘B’ side.
Those who seek to develop the ‘B’ side do so because they see the insufficiency of American Christianity in its present state. Generally, two approaches have been followed, 1) to synthesize(splice together) ‘Side B’ from secular theories and ideologies or 2) to theologize ‘Side B’ through a fresh application of biblical wisdom.
The synthesizing approach appears to resemble the approach of non-Evangelicals of the late 19thand early 20th Centuries. However, instead of conflating the Bible with a bad hermeneutic, they tend to view “theology proper” (with a strong view of Scripture) in ‘Side A’ terms. Accordingly, it does not appear that they have any plans to abandon the Bible as the Word of God. On the contrary, they seek to be biblical by uncritically co-opting language and terminology from today’s theories and ideologies.
I have learned the dangers of this approach through observation and from bitter experience. These dangers are two-fold, 1) to the general public, this language and terminology does not necessarily have the “Christian” meaning assigned to it when it is co-opted, and 2) the concepts expressed are often originally intended to articulate anti-biblical presuppositions and to drive thinking in that direction. This needlessly muddies the waters within the body of Christ, contributing to confusion about our legitimate social concerns.
For the committed Christian, the synthesizingapproach often has unwanted consequences. For example, it can lead to our own form of cultural captivity where the transcendent biblical message is suppressed or subsumed under non-biblical agendas as we descend into an abyss of theological vs. ideological schizophrenia.
The theologizing approach (applying God’s Word....) is more challenging than the synthesizing approach because it requires ‘thinking outside the box’ in the Western sense. However, this approach is much more stable and consistent. It requires letting the Bible itself criticize our theology and reorder our categories rather than the other way around. It requires taking our cultural and historical contexts seriously — letting it drive us to ask God honest questions, looking to the Bible to correct and answer them. It requires seeing the whole biblical narrative as revelation and not just the data it contains. In the spirit of the Black preaching legacy, the application of basic patterns of biblical life situations is essential.
While this theologizing approach might seem to be more demanding, there is a clear advantage to it. We often forget that most of the Bible came to us as narrative, in concrete language with great concern for the ethical side of theology. Likewise, the propositional portions of Scripture are also in concrete language with a strong emphasis on ethics. In other words, the Scriptures in their natural state are mostly ‘B’ sided.
Not Radical Enough
Today’s secular theories and ideologies are woefully inadequate to address today’s issues — cultural, social, economic, etc. Yet by common grace they can and do give us useful insights. It is not necessarily wrong to borrow terms from these sources, but it is unwise to use them without clearly spelling out what we mean and what we don’t mean when using them.
Critical Race Theory (CRT), for example, has helped us see the key role race plays in human conflict. However, CRT attributes the root cause of human conflict to race. The Bible, on the other hand, has a more radical analysis. It reveals where racism itself comes from. It is the result of judging other races by the standard of one race. Other examples include sexism — judging the other gender by the standard of one gender, culture-ism — judging other cultures by the standard of one culture, etc. These are all derived from creature-ism, judging everything (including The Creator Himself) by the standard of the creature. This all began when the first humans rebelled against God by attempting to distinguish good and evil, not by God’s Word which reveals His character, but by human opinion.
Another example of secular ideology is today’s “Intersectionality.” The concept of true Intersectionality originated in the Word of God. Biblically speaking, there are two expressions of intersectionality, generaland covenantal.
General intersectionality is the interconnection of all people regardless of race, class, gender, etc., rooted in their shared image of God as the basis for resisting and overcoming obstructions to human flourishing.
Covenantal intersectionality is the preeminent interconnection of all people regardless of race, class, gender, etc., rooted in their shared union with Christ as the basis for demonstrating redeemed humanity to the glory of God.
Today’s “Intersectionality” is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as: “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.” This concept is problematic because it does not have a realistic view of fallen human nature, for example:
1. It focuses on obstructions to human flourishing rather than humanity itself. The essence of “humanity” is left up to human opinion, but human opinion is subject to the flaws in human nature.
2. It fails to provide a sufficient lens to distinguish between what affirms humanity and what negates humanity. Because of this, the “intersectional” community becomes unstable. It forces all in it to affirm all ways of life, including counter-productive beliefs, lifestyles, behaviors, etc.
3. Surely, there are real discriminations and disadvantages that must be resisted and overcome. But today’s “intersectionality” tends to reduce real disadvantages and discriminations to perceived ones. This may seem harmless at first but eventually there will be no basis to distinguish between real disadvantage and imaginary disadvantage.
4. As “perceived disadvantages” are overcome, the “intersectional” community falls apart. For this “community” to remain viable, perceived disadvantages must be maintained, increased, or exaggerated.
The ideologies and theories of today are not radical enough to carry the freight of contemporary issues, but the Bible is more than adequate for the task. After all, it is “God-breathed,” therefore it “is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (II Timothy 3:16). The knowledge derived from secular ideology will always look foolish when compared to the wisdom derived from Scripture.
“Food” for Thought
The task before us can be compared to where we eat on the path of prepared food in a five-star restaurant. The food begins its journey from the kitchen of the master chef to the table of the dine-in guest. After the meal, the leftovers are thrown into the dumpster.
The theologizing approach to ‘Side B’ — fully applying God’s Word in every area of life and culture is like dining on a sumptuous meal specially prepared by the Master Chef. A nutritious, delicious dining experience indeed.
The synthesizing approach to ‘Side B’ — uncritically splicing together co-opted language and terminology from secular theories and ideologies is like piecing together a meal from the dumpster. Yes, it is possible to survive by eating out of a dumpster, but there is a great danger of food poisoning.
For decades, I have been passionate in my fight against racism, marginalization and other surrounding cultural sin. I also appreciate and admire all who seek to speak out prophetically against these evils. However, I must ask, ‘How will we continue to carry out this noble task, through fine dining or dumpster diving?’
July 21, 2016
Some Things I���ve Learned Along the Way
Soon I���ll be seventy yearsold. It���s hard to fathom this, since Istill feel twenty-five. When I was young, I livedfor moments. Today, I���m living for time.Langston Hughes has a poem that included the line, ���life is short, but God islong.��� That���s how I feel these days.
My decades as a Christianactivist have taught me valuable lessons. I���ve had to learn a lot of these things thehard way, but I boiled a handful of ���lessons��� down to twelve common sense andoverlapping principles of protest, some of which are adapted from my book Free At Last? ��� all of which are based on familiar biblical truths.
They���ve served me well atdifferent levels of cultural engagement, so I offer them as a reminder of ourtrue focus, the gracious God who has ���shown us what is good.��� I hope they can help us avoid the ���syncretistic subculture��� discussed in my lastblog, and save us unnecessary tears and wasted years as we seek to ���do what theLord requires of us ��� namely ���to act justly and to love mercy and to walkhumbly with...God��� (Micah 6:8).
Many of you in the field willalready be familiar with these concepts, but there are also some men and womenI���ve spoken with who are just wading into the waters of protest and prayer,even at this stage. If you don���t findthese principles helpful today, I hope they will be useful in the years to come. If there���s one thing I���ve learned, therewill always be something in our immediate surroundings that will fall short ofGod���s plan for a just society.
Guiding Principles of Protest
1) Our prime directive is The Great Commission ��� Habakkuk 2:14. Everything we doshould hasten the day when ���the earth will be filled with the knowledge of theglory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.��� Therefore as we go, whether across the seasor across the tracks; whether to teach or to preach; whether to pray or toprotest; etc., we should be making ���disciples���(Matthew 28:18-22) ��� those who are learning toobey ���all things that Christ commands.��� A disciple can be an individual or a culture, however a disciple is notnecessarily a convert. Yet the more Christ���scommands are applied, the better the quality of life.
I saw most fruit inthe field when the young Christian activist was engaged in propheticdiscipleship ��� both to those we protest against, and to the protestorsthemselves. These efforts will besuccessful if, at the end of the protest, people on both sides of thecontroversy have a greater consciousness of the glory of God. It makes no difference whether this���consciousness��� is embraced or suppressed. The real issue will be exposed to the light of truth. I would go so far as to say the positiveeffect of prophetic discipleship will even go beyond the remedy of thegrievance. This is transformativeprotest.
In his speech thatset the tone of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56), Dr. Martin Luther Kingpointed out that the significance of this protest had the potential to set apositive precedence for years to come.
If you will protestcourageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history booksare written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say,���There lived a great people ��� a [Black] people ��� who injected new meaning anddignity in the veins of civilization. This is our challenge and ouroverwhelming responsibility.��� *
Protest withoutprophetic discipleship is non-transformative and empty. It may change the status quo, but if theproblems of flawed human nature are not diminished through transformation, theywill come back and bite us ��� often nullifying what the protest is trying toaccomplish. Perhaps we are where we aretoday because hearts in my generation were merely legislated, yet nottransformed.
2) There is power in our transcendent reference point.
When the protestgoals are secondary to our prime directive of discipleship, we will make moreprogress than when the protest goals are primary. A transcendent reference point multiplies theeffectiveness of the protest exponentially. To use an analogy, my love for my wife is second to my love for God;because my love for God is first, she gets much more love from me than if shewas first. Such is the quality andnature of God���s love that I receive.
In my early days, I learnedthat it was difficult to fully exercise the prime directive under theleadership of those who leave out the most important purpose of the protest ���the glory of God.
Our transcendent reference point is the basis of our wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). It is our redemptive God-given contribution to the cause for which weprotest. Without this uniquecontribution, our voice merely becomes another run-of-the-mill addition to thecacophony, contributing to today���s cultural confusion.
We can be���co-belligerents��� with groups with a non-transcendent reference point, but it���sdifficult to be allies. Non-transcendentideologies are simply not radical enough for the Christian activist. The Christian activist is looking fortransformation of society, its systems, and individual hearts. For us, there���s nothing more radical thantransformation.
3) Seek the moral high ground.
Jesus demonstratedthis and we should follow suit. He didnot ���judge by what he saw with his eyes, or decide by what he heard with hisears��� he judged ���with righteousness...��� (Isaiah 11:3b-4a). In other words, hear-say or first appearanceare not reliable sources of information on which to base a protest.
The Christianactivist, if he or she is consistent, will take the time to ascertain and sortout the facts. The Christian voice maynot be the first heard, but will be the strongest voice heard ��� a propheticvoice.
We live in a universe created and lorded over by the infinite personal Creator whose moral principles will always be fulfilled. Thus, the more we align with His moral principles, the more power we will have in addressing the wrongs against which we protest.
Without moral clarity, the point of the protest becomes bogged down, clouded and confused.
4) Seek Kingdom righteousness in your protest.
The more righteousthe protest, the more powerful theprotest. The only basis for judgingbetween good and evil is the character of God. That which conforms to God���s character is right, and that which goesagainst his character is wrong. Important aspects of right and wrong are righteousness andunrighteousness.
Righteousness is arelational term. It simply means ���doingright by the other party in the relationship.��� Two expressions of righteousness are a) piety,doing right by God in a narrow sense ��� involving devotion and ceremony,and b) justice, doing right by fellow humanbeings.
For the victims ofinjustice or oppression, justice has two basic applications a) liberation fromoppression, and b) empowerment to do the right thing. For the perpetrators of injustice andoppression, justice involves the swift and compassionate application of thelegal consequences of their actions and omissions.
For the Christian activist, justice for the oppressed must be pursued and visualized through the lens of righteousness.
5) Avoid ad-hominem arguments.
Intoday���s emotionally charged cultural context, ad-hominem attacks are common. They are aimed at destroying the person whoholds the views we oppose, rather than dismantling the views themselves. This is violence. Ad-hominem attacks distract us from the realissues, and lay the groundwork for our protest to be interpreted by others withcounter intentions. In the end, we mayend up with a new tyranny as bad or worse than the injustice we protestagainst.
Weall want to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect. It was all too easy back in ���the day��� to seethe provocateurs of the protest as a dehumanized enemy. In the heat of many tense moments, we had toconstantly remind ourselves, not only do our opponents bear God���s image justlike us, but they are sinners in need of grace ��� just like us. By failing to act on this truth, or byengaging in ad-hominem violence, or by not calling it sin when we see it occuraround us, we forfeit the moral high ground.
Yes,be angry if you must. But focus thatanger primarily on the grievance itself, not necessarily on the people behindthe grievance.
6) Avoid being provocative beyond the offence of the grievance itself.
Let the grievance dothe speaking for you. When we embellishthe grievance with unnecessary provocation, it clouds the issue and iscounterproductive. The cause of justicedoes not need the help of evils such as hatred and falsehood. Anger? Yes, but anger without sin (Ephesians 4:26). The less anger is accompanied by evil, themore efficacious will be the anger. Themore anger is accompanied by love, the more efficacious will be the anger.
So, speak thetruth in love, demonstrate the truth in love, dramatize the truthin love, chant the truth in love, SHOUT the truth in love,etc. In other words, be forceful, but doit in love ��� a powerful weapon indeed.
7) Let the Word of God do the heavy lifting.
The Word of God canbe spoken without giving its chapter and verse, yet it has the same powereither way. The Word is still the Wordwhether it is quoted directly, paraphrased, dramatized, expressed in narratives,articulated in ���spoken word,��� rhymed in ���hip hop,��� chanted in slogans,etc. Too many times the Christiancommunity has been so uncreative with the Word that we fail to communicate it ���often giving the impression that the Word is a set of tired and powerless clich��s.
We have yet to tapinto the wisdom and power available to us in the Word. The Word of God is the power that createdthis universe (John 1:1-3) ��� a reality so vastthat we don���t know where it ends. Thesame ���Word��� also sustains the universe (Hebrews 1:3). That being the case, it should not surpriseus that the ���Word��� will ���accomplish what it desires and achieve the purpose forwhich it was sent.��� ���It will not return...empty��� (Isaiah 55:11).
When the Word isrightly and creatively applied to the art of protest, its effect will be tangible. 8) Justice does not equal revenge.
Many cite an ���eye foran eye��� and a ���tooth for tooth��� (Deuteronomy 19:21)as a justification for revenge. On thecontrary, this is a ���lex talionis��� ��� a law of limitation. In other words, ���no more than an eye for aneye, no more than a tooth for tooth.���
The wise Christianactivist helps his or her co-belligerents take a stand of ���non-vengeance��� ���leaving the vengeance to God because he or she knows that God can and will do afar better job of revenge than we can imagine.
On the other hand, manycite Jesus words to ���turn the other cheek��� (Matthew 5:39) as a call to be punks. This twisted interpretation has contributed to the toxic perceptions ofChristianity among our urban youth. Onthe contrary, ���turn the other cheek��� is a statement of ���non-vengeance.��� It is also a call to respond to an enemy in away he least expects. Therefore, if yourenemy expects you to be mean, then be kind. On the other hand, if your enemy expects you to be a punk, then beaggressive.
Never let the oneagainst whom you are protesting put you in a box; when he tries, bust itopen. As Christ���s ambassadors, we arecalled to be diplomats ��� not door-mats.
9) Words have different meanings to different communities.
When we define thepoints of agreement with our co-belligerents, we must make sure that our sharedwords have the same meaning. When thatis impossible, we must make sure that we understand what they mean and theyunderstand what we mean. On that basis,we can make intelligent decisions whether or not, or how to cooperate.
The more ourco-belligerents understand how our words and concepts fit into our worldview,the more they will understand our transcendent perspective. This will contribute to our discipleshipagenda.
On the other hand,for the protest to have its desired effect, we must learn the language of ouropponents. Communication is a key toprotest, not just words. In our slogans,chants, rally cries, etc., it is wise to choose words that our opponentsunderstand that will confront them with the truth ��� leaving them without theoption of ignoring the issue at hand and the Ultimate Source of the truth wecommunicate. This too will contribute toour discipleship agenda.
10) Let the true narrative of the grievance be self-evident.
Integrity is key forthe Christian activist, so there���s no need to ���juke��� (manipulate) a narrativeto make our point. Manipulating thenarratives might seem to give the protest a short term advantage but it willultimately undercut it, causing it to lose its power. As a protest loses moral power, the easier itis for the opponent to explain it away as mere agitation or dismiss it as anuisance.
Because our opponentsbear God���s image and live in God���s world, they have a God-given sense of goodand evil, and justice and injustice (Romans 2:14-16). No matter how hard they try, they will neversucceed in ���suppressing��� this truth (Romans 1:18-20). The power is in the truth, not indeception.; admit and affirm truth, even when it���s hard.
11) Tranquility does not equal peace.
Ihave observed that many in the dominant culture confuse these two. However, an unjust tranquility is an unstableand volatile sham that needs to be disrupted and demolished. This is why we protest.
Truepeace is more than tranquility; it is a state of being that leads to God���soriginal plan for human flourishing. Thisis what we point to as the goal of our protest.
12) Our involvement in protest must have a redemptive and transformative role.
Since the role of theChristian activist is to speak prophetically to all sides in the controversy, importantquestions need to be answered. How isthe controversy framed? What is the aimof the protest? Is it advocating asolution or is it fomenting unrest for other purposes?
As a young activist, I had to learn the hard way that what counts isthe net prophetic message ��� prophetic credits (resulting from the wisethings we do) minus prophetic debits(resulting from the foolish things we do). Our prophetic messages will never match thecaliber of biblical messages. After all,the Bible is ���God breathed.��� This is revelation. The key for Christian activists is to bebiblical by maximizing our prophetic credits, and minimizing propheticdebits. The net message will be illumination.
Distinctions must bemade when we invoke a rally cry framed by unbiblical parameters. On the other hand, if a protest organization hasa valid rally cry but is inconsistent in applying it, we must lovingly critiquethis inconsistency. If we fail to do sowe release more unwanted prophetic debits, and blunt the impact of the protest.
In summary, implementingthese principles will amplify the power of protest to change the unjust statusquo and maximize the quality of the resulting change. However, there is no guarantee that our opponentsor our non-Christian co-belligerents will receive our transcendent message;that���s up to God. However, we will havefulfilled our prime directive, society will be better off, and God will beglorified.
Final Observations
I recognize that just likethe great creeds and confessions were not first drafts, we can���t expect to getour theological formulations and practices perfect on first blush. We need to find our way together. This is a process that will take time, sweat,love and patience. I���m open to talkingabout these principles, and having them adjusted for today���s application. Even as I approach seventy, I���m stilllearning.
If we continue to pursuethis together, the entire church ��� both in the dominant culture and thesubdominant culture ��� will benefit from a theology of protest we can apply toany and all issues, not just those of today.
If you can think offurther biblical lessons beyond these twelve, feel free to add them in thecomment section.
There���s more that I wantto share with you. Look for it soon.
Notes
*Martin Luther King Jr., StrideToward Freedom (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 61-63.
Some Things I’ve Learned Along the Way
Soon I’ll be seventy years old. It’s hard to fathom this, since I still feel twenty-five. When I was young, I lived for moments. Today, I’m living for time. Langston Hughes has a poem that included the line, “life is short, but God is long.” That’s how I feel these days.
My decades as a Christian activist have taught me valuable lessons. I’ve had to learn a lot of these things the hard way, but I boiled a handful of “lessons” down to twelve common sense and overlapping principles of protest, some of which are adapted from my book Free At Last? — all of which are based on familiar biblical truths.
They’ve served me well at different levels of cultural engagement, so I offer them as a reminder of our true focus, the gracious God who has ‘shown us what is good.’ I hope they can help us avoid the “syncretistic subculture” discussed in my last blog, and save us unnecessary tears and wasted years as we seek to ‘do what the Lord requires of us — namely “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with...God” (Micah 6:8).
Many of you in the field will already be familiar with these concepts, but there are also some men and women I’ve spoken with who are just wading into the waters of protest and prayer, even at this stage. If you don’t find these principles helpful today, I hope they will be useful in the years to come. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, there will always be something in our immediate surroundings that will fall short of God’s plan for a just society.
1) Our prime directive is The Great Commission — Habakkuk 2:14. Everything we do should hasten the day when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Therefore as we go, whether across the seas or across the tracks; whether to teach or to preach; whether to pray or to protest; etc., we should be making “disciples”(Matthew 28:18-22) – those who are learning to obey ‘all things that Christ commands.’ A disciple can be an individual or a culture, however a disciple is not necessarily a convert. Yet the more Christ’s commands are applied, the better the quality of life.
I saw most fruit in the field when the young Christian activist was engaged in prophetic discipleship — both to those we protest against, and to the protestors themselves. These efforts will be successful if, at the end of the protest, people on both sides of the controversy have a greater consciousness of the glory of God. It makes no difference whether this “consciousness” is embraced or suppressed. The real issue will be exposed to the light of truth. I would go so far as to say the positive effect of prophetic discipleship will even go beyond the remedy of the grievance. This is transformative protest.
In his speech that set the tone of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56), Dr. Martin Luther King pointed out that the significance of this protest had the potential to set a positive precedence for years to come.
If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, “There lived a great people — a [Black] people — who injected new meaning and dignity in the veins of civilization. This is our challenge and our overwhelming responsibility.” *
Protest without prophetic discipleship is non-transformative and empty. It may change the status quo, but if the problems of flawed human nature are not diminished through transformation, they will come back and bite us — often nullifying what the protest is trying to accomplish. Perhaps we are where we are today because hearts in my generation were merely legislated, yet not transformed.
2) There is power in our transcendent reference point.
When the protest goals are secondary to our prime directive of discipleship, we will make more progress than when the protest goals are primary. A transcendent reference point multiplies the effectiveness of the protest exponentially. To use an analogy, my love for my wife is second to my love for God; because my love for God is first, she gets much more love from me than if she was first. Such is the quality and nature of God’s love that I receive.
In my early days, I learned that it was difficult to fully exercise the prime directive under the leadership of those who leave out the most important purpose of the protest – the glory of God.
Our transcendent reference point is the basis of our wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). It is our redemptive God-given contribution to the cause for which we protest. Without this unique contribution, our voice merely becomes another run-of-the-mill addition to the cacophony, contributing to today’s cultural confusion.
We can be “co-belligerents” with groups with a non-transcendent reference point, but it’s difficult to be allies. Non-transcendent ideologies are simply not radical enough for the Christian activist. The Christian activist is looking for transformation of society, its systems, and individual hearts. For us, there’s nothing more radical than transformation.
3) Seek the moral high ground.
Jesus demonstrated this and we should follow suit. He did not ‘judge by what he saw with his eyes, or decide by what he heard with his ears’ he judged “with righteousness...” (Isaiah 11:3b-4a). In other words, hear-say or first appearance are not reliable sources of information on which to base a protest.
The Christian activist, if he or she is consistent, will take the time to ascertain and sort out the facts. The Christian voice may not be the first heard, but will be the strongest voice heard — a prophetic voice.
We live in a universe created and lorded over by the infinite personal Creator whose moral principles will always be fulfilled. Thus, the more we align with His moral principles, the more power we will have in addressing the wrongs against which we protest.
Without moral clarity, the point of the protest becomes bogged down, clouded and confused.
4) Seek Kingdom righteousness in your protest.
The more righteous the protest, the more powerful the protest. The only basis for judging between good and evil is the character of God. That which conforms to God’s character is right, and that which goes against his character is wrong. Important aspects of right and wrong are righteousness and unrighteousness.
Righteousness is a relational term. It simply means “doing right by the other party in the relationship.” Two expressions of righteousness are a) piety, doing right by God in a narrow sense — involving devotion and ceremony, and b) justice, doing right by fellow human beings.
For the victims of injustice or oppression, justice has two basic applications a) liberation from oppression, and b) empowerment to do the right thing. For the perpetrators of injustice and oppression, justice involves the swift and compassionate application of the legal consequences of their actions and omissions.
For the Christian activist, justice for the oppressed must be pursued and visualized through the lens of righteousness.
5) Avoid ad-hominem arguments.
In today’s emotionally charged cultural context, ad-hominem attacks are common. They are aimed at destroying the person who holds the views we oppose, rather than dismantling the views themselves. This is violence. Ad-hominem attacks distract us from the real issues, and lay the groundwork for our protest to be interpreted by others with counter intentions. In the end, we may end up with a new tyranny as bad or worse than the injustice we protest against.
We all want to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect. It was all too easy back in ‘the day’ to see the provocateurs of the protest as a dehumanized enemy. In the heat of many tense moments, we had to constantly remind ourselves, not only do our opponents bear God’s image just like us, but they are sinners in need of grace — just like us. By failing to act on this truth, or by engaging in ad-hominem violence, or by not calling it sin when we see it occur around us, we forfeit the moral high ground.
Yes, be angry if you must. But focus that anger primarily on the grievance itself, not necessarily on the people behind the grievance.
6) Avoid being provocative beyond the offence of the grievance itself.
Let the grievance do the speaking for you. When we embellish the grievance with unnecessary provocation, it clouds the issue and is counterproductive. The cause of justice does not need the help of evils such as hatred and falsehood. Anger? Yes, but anger without sin (Ephesians 4:26). The less anger is accompanied by evil, the more efficacious will be the anger. The more anger is accompanied by love, the more efficacious will be the anger.
So, speak the truth in love, demonstrate the truth in love, dramatize the truth in love, chant the truth in love, SHOUT the truth in love, etc. In other words, be forceful, but do it in love — a powerful weapon indeed.
7) Let the Word of God do the heavy lifting.
The Word of God can be spoken without giving its chapter and verse, yet it has the same power either way. The Word is still the Word whether it is quoted directly, paraphrased, dramatized, expressed in narratives, articulated in ‘spoken word,’ rhymed in ‘hip hop,’ chanted in slogans, etc. Too many times the Christian community has been so uncreative with the Word that we fail to communicate it — often giving the impression that the Word is a set of tired and powerless clichés.
We have yet to tap into the wisdom and power available to us in the Word. The Word of God is the power that created this universe (John 1:1-3) — a reality so vast that we don’t know where it ends. The same “Word” also sustains the universe (Hebrews 1:3). That being the case, it should not surprise us that the “Word” will ‘accomplish what it desires and achieve the purpose for which it was sent.’ “It will not return...empty” (Isaiah 55:11).
When the Word is rightly and creatively applied to the art of protest, its effect will be tangible. 8) Justice does not equal revenge.
Many cite an “eye for an eye” and a “tooth for tooth” (Deuteronomy 19:21) as a justification for revenge. On the contrary, this is a “lex talionis” — a law of limitation. In other words, “no more than an eye for an eye, no more than a tooth for tooth.”
The wise Christian activist helps his or her co-belligerents take a stand of ‘non-vengeance’ — leaving the vengeance to God because he or she knows that God can and will do a far better job of revenge than we can imagine.
On the other hand, many cite Jesus words to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39) as a call to be punks. This twisted interpretation has contributed to the toxic perceptions of Christianity among our urban youth. On the contrary, “turn the other cheek” is a statement of ‘non-vengeance.” It is also a call to respond to an enemy in a way he least expects. Therefore, if your enemy expects you to be mean, then be kind. On the other hand, if your enemy expects you to be a punk, then be aggressive.
Never let the one against whom you are protesting put you in a box; when he tries, bust it open. As Christ’s ambassadors, we are called to be diplomats — not door-mats.
9) Words have different meanings to different communities.
When we define the points of agreement with our co-belligerents, we must make sure that our shared words have the same meaning. When that is impossible, we must make sure that we understand what they mean and they understand what we mean. On that basis, we can make intelligent decisions whether or not, or how to cooperate.
The more our co-belligerents understand how our words and concepts fit into our worldview, the more they will understand our transcendent perspective. This will contribute to our discipleship agenda.
On the other hand, for the protest to have its desired effect, we must learn the language of our opponents. Communication is a key to protest, not just words. In our slogans, chants, rally cries, etc., it is wise to choose words that our opponents understand that will confront them with the truth — leaving them without the option of ignoring the issue at hand and the Ultimate Source of the truth we communicate. This too will contribute to our discipleship agenda.
10) Let the true narrative of the grievance be self-evident.
Integrity is key for the Christian activist, so there’s no need to “juke” (manipulate) a narrative to make our point. Manipulating the narratives might seem to give the protest a short term advantage but it will ultimately undercut it, causing it to lose its power. As a protest loses moral power, the easier it is for the opponent to explain it away as mere agitation or dismiss it as a nuisance.
Because our opponents bear God’s image and live in God’s world, they have a God-given sense of good and evil, and justice and injustice (Romans 2:14-16). No matter how hard they try, they will never succeed in ‘suppressing’ this truth (Romans 1:18-20). The power is in the truth, not in deception.; admit and affirm truth, even when it’s hard.
11) Tranquility does not equal peace.
I have observed that many in the dominant culture confuse these two. However, an unjust tranquility is an unstable and volatile sham that needs to be disrupted and demolished. This is why we protest.
True peace is more than tranquility; it is a state of being that leads to God’s original plan for human flourishing. This is what we point to as the goal of our protest.
12) Our involvement in protest must have a redemptive and transformative role.
Since the role of the Christian activist is to speak prophetically to all sides in the controversy, important questions need to be answered. How is the controversy framed? What is the aim of the protest? Is it advocating a solution or is it fomenting unrest for other purposes?
As a young activist, I had to learn the hard way that what counts is the net prophetic message — prophetic credits (resulting from the wise things we do) minus prophetic debits(resulting from the foolish things we do). Our prophetic messages will never match the caliber of biblical messages. After all, the Bible is “God breathed.” This is revelation. The key for Christian activists is to be biblical by maximizing our prophetic credits, and minimizing prophetic debits. The net message will be illumination.
Distinctions must be made when we invoke a rally cry framed by unbiblical parameters. On the other hand, if a protest organization has a valid rally cry but is inconsistent in applying it, we must lovingly critique this inconsistency. If we fail to do so we release more unwanted prophetic debits, and blunt the impact of the protest.
In summary, implementing these principles will amplify the power of protest to change the unjust status quo and maximize the quality of the resulting change. However, there is no guarantee that our opponents or our non-Christian co-belligerents will receive our transcendent message; that’s up to God. However, we will have fulfilled our prime directive, society will be better off, and God will be glorified.
Final Observations
I recognize that just like the great creeds and confessions were not first drafts, we can’t expect to get our theological formulations and practices perfect on first blush. We need to find our way together. This is a process that will take time, sweat, love and patience. I’m open to talking about these principles, and having them adjusted for today’s application. Even as I approach seventy, I’m still learning.
If we continue to pursue this together, the entire church — both in the dominant culture and the subdominant culture — will benefit from a theology of protest we can apply to any and all issues, not just those of today.
If you can think of further biblical lessons beyond these twelve, feel free to add them in the comment section.
There’s more that I want to share with you. Look for it soon.
Notes
*Martin Luther King Jr., StrideToward Freedom (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 61-63.
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