Category: Culture

I have written several articles on the dangers of Critical Race Theory and that its orientation is contrary to the Bible’s solution to racial disparities.  I won’t repeat any of that here.  

I wonder how many of my readers have concluded that the CRT movement and the continued disparities in outcomes among races is due to a failure of the Church and its disobedience to make the priority of the Church the Gospel to the poor, needy and marginalized.  Yeshua makes this most clear in Luke 4 when He says that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him to bring Good News to the Poor, to the imprisoned, to the blind and their recovering sight.  The ministry of Yeshua demonstrates that two groups have the first right of refusal, the Jews (Rom. 1:16) and the poor and marginalized.  

The reconciliation of races and ethnicities in the Gospel, in a context where the emphasis of the ministry of the churches would bring great transformation.  It would lead to stable families, spiritually healthy children, mutual sharing of resources.  Though persecution would be possible, it would bring an economic lift to the poor and marginalized who would find the provision of Yeshua and their brothers and sisters.  They would see themselves as new creatures in the Messiah and would have the power of God to succeed.  In the Gospel our separate ethnic identities can be appreciated for the good things in cultures, but the value of those different cultures has to become second to our overall identity together in Yeshua and our love for one another. Serving the poor well may be a key to revival and also a reason why we have lost so many young adults. 

Sometimes I want to concentrate on Biblical theology, Messianic Jewish themes and the Church.  However, I have a background in apologetics.  This goes back to the cultural apologetics of Francis Schaeffer who spoke at Wheaton College in the fall of 1967.  It is part of my text, The Biblical Worldview, An Apologetic.  Cultural apologetics analyzes the culture(s) around us from a biblical perspective.  It shows the dead ends in those cultures and the destructive aspects that lead us on to biblical faith as the only basis for lasting human fulfillment.  This is my personal background and why I sometimes address cultural issues, including political issues. 

I have written before on the important topic of critical race theory.   I have been reading more.  There are good books and articles evaluating this from a biblical faith position, but I wanted to read more in the original, just as I did for critical theory in general.  Readers may remember my review of Herbert Marcuse.  Critical race theory understands race as a social construct (it is, much more than ethnicity and culture) which because of its use by white skinned people created oppressive structures to maintain power and privilege.  This in my view was indeed historically true.  However, the CRT people believe that these power structures still exist and systematically produce inequity or disparities in outcomes for race representation and prosperity that are obscene.  The term racism is re-defined from the belief that some races are inherently or essentially inferior to the new definition of systems and policies that are in place that bring about the disparities among races, in this case, primarily Blacks and Hispanics.  Somehow it does not affect Asians!   I did find that different proponents of CRT have very different views on white guilt.  Some CRT folks have an essentialism that contradicts their relativistic epistemology and see whites an in inherently defective race such as in the black Nation of Islam.   Others do not teach race essentialism. Some teach an inherent with guilt, and some do not on other bases.  For Ibrahim Kendi, systemic racism is not based for many in the belief of blacks being inferior but is just a matter of self-interest to maintain position and many are actually oblivious to how their orientation fosters systemic racism.  The key for Kendi is anti-racist policies not getting whites to naval gaze in guilt as others do.  The anti-racist fosters effective policies that change the game.  For some CRT proponents only those in power can be racists.  Blacks thus cannot be racists. For Kendi, blacks indeed can be racists if they embrace the inferiority of whites as a race.   CRT is a complex movement, and it is better to say what particular writers say beyond the basic assertions where all agree on the issue of power and institutional racist structures. 

It is very interesting that Kendi’s parents were at one time Evangelicals.  They were at the Intervarsity Urbana Missions Conference in 1970 at the University of Illinois.  His mother was a student at Nyack Missionary College of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination.  However, after those years they were affected by liberation theology which was very liberal in theological views (not just political and social).  The next generation sometimes is even more radical as is the case with their son Kendi.  Kendi’s book is both biographical and a presentation of his basic views.  I note that relativism in the theory of knowledge (epistemology) has been devastating in academia, is irrational, and leads to much lower standards of scholarship. It is destructive to scholarship and makes scholarship a tool for the power assertions of preferred narratives.  We will see this constantly in Kendi. 

My empathy is with African Americans who are frustrated that 60 years after civil rights there are still such disparities in outcomes in attainment, income, health and so much more. Why?  The right analysis is crucial.

Ibrahim Kendi is now probably the most popular CRT proponent.  His books are widely promoted on campuses across America.  It is assigned reading in our military!   I started this essay and then on the same night, Tucker Carlson had a whole segment on it, some of which was right and some unfair and out of context.  

Here are some points for understanding and evaluation.  First the good points.  

1. Kendi points out that the idea of integration as the solution was not effective.  He rather says the solution is resourcing the black community.  While I do not believe in race based affirmative action (how much black blood percentages or white blood or between is discussed by him), I believe in affirmative action for the poor and marginalized.  This then will effect the ethnic groups that are most in need. The issue however is that resourcing has to go to what is proven effective and not just flushing the money down the drain.  However, a black school can be effective and there are examples. I support one very effective black school.  Quality is more important than integration. 
2. Kendi wants to preserve black spaces so blacks can be themselves in their own cultural contexts.  However, he does not want segregation but only times of separation.  He is in favor of black and white interaction and points of integration.  
3. He wants to emphasize that white European cultures are not the norm for evaluating other cultures.  I strongly agree with that.  Somethings are great in these cultures historically and some are not; so also with African cultures. 
4. Kendi sees the center of racism not as ideological prejudice but self-centeredness. Self-centeredness is behind the creation of the racists ideas that can use and oppress others for self.  I think this is indeed very true.  There are those who historically could not grasp cultures and their positive values when they were not white Europeans, and they were only drawing conclusions out of their own ethnocentrism and did not use others for themselves. But others took these evaluations of inferiority to aggrandize themselves.    
5. Kendi does seek a more just world where advancement and prosperity is more well distributed and benefits more.  This is a biblical ideal which I will explain toward the end of this article. He does not realize that his ideals of equality are partly Bible based and in the long run will not be sustained without the Bible.  
6. Kendi understands that race is a social construction and that there are many ethnicities and many shades of skin color. However, because of racism, we have to deal with race as a category to overcome the oppression of the past.   

Here are the most problematic and troubling views

1. Relativistic Theory of Knowledge.  (Relativistic Epistemology).  The idea of objective truth is rejected.  Readers who have not studied his area of philosophy may not realize what this means, but it is central.  All students of the theory of how we come to know something is true and really the way things are (objective) know that the quest is hard.  Yet there must be no giving up of the quest.  The quest for objective knowledge is not just a western idea or something that is part of white culture and white supremacy as asserted.  Many cultures have developed the basic laws of logic.  Yeshua appeals to logic and shows the contradictions of the Pharisees.  When one rejects logic and objective truth one loses the ability of evaluation.  It leads to irrationality and incoherence.  Narratives are created.  Arguing for a view is a power assertion for how one wants to things to be, but with no basis of reality.  Kendi asserts this relativism and undercuts his whole argument.  
2. Cultural relativism.  Kendi asserts that all cultures are equal and none superior to others.  Yes, it is wrong to make western European and American culture the norm to judge cultures.  Indeed, this was done historically in glaring ways.  But Kendi is profoundly incoherent.  Kendi seeks a culture of equity meaning that different races and ethnicities attain broad equality in prosperity and representation in societal roles.  However, most cultures never sought or practiced such, not India, China, Japan, or even much of Africa.  Certainly, it is not found in Islamic nations where women are not given equality. There must be a norm to evaluate cultures.  For us that norm is the Bible, but since Kendi has rejected the Bible and its law as the norm, he is left simply asserting his desires.  It reminds me of the story of a guest at a Passover Seder in our home years ago. She asserted that all cultures were equal and we were not to judge.  I asked about cultures of head hunters where eating people was a religious act.  She at first reacted as if the truth was getting through, but then said, “If that is their religion, who am I do judge.”  The cultural relativism of Kendi is profoundly wrong and self-defeating even for his own goals. 
3. Equality or Equity is largely defined as equal resourcing and outcomes.  Assuring equal outcomes in income and social roles moves us to redistribution.  As soon as we use race as a basis for income transfer, the get into the unsolvable problems as to who receives the help.  How black does a person have to be?  What if one is ¼ black and looks like a white?   The idea of equity of outcome is impossible to attain.  See #5 below.  
4. The emphasis on micro-agressions is so subjective that it will not produce solutions but only tie up people in knots and walking on eggshells.  Such an overemphasis will lead to whites avoiding blacks since they will not be able to pass the test of not violating micro-aggressions which is always changing.  Some employers, not of the big corporations but smaller businesses, avoid hiring blacks so as to avoid the never ending magnifying glass of micro aggression accusations.  They perceive that this will bring strife into their business.   The overemphasis on race is bad for race relationships. 
5. While he admits race is a construct (cultures are more real) he then wants to have race based solutions.  Since discrimination was the sin of the past the solution is reverse discrimination in race based affirmative action.  Sadly, this will produce resentment and tribalism.   
6. One what basis do you favor a race?  Are Nigerian immigrants included since they are doing very well in the country?  How about the Chinese, Japanese or dark sinned Indians from India?  All are doing very well. The Indians are at the top in learning and income.  Do we give special support to rich African Americans?  All attempts to give support based on race will lead to failure.  When the support is need based, it will go more to the race that needs it.  Though not based on race, it will help the poor blacks the most since they are the ones most in need.  As soon as one goes to race based, one again is dealing with percent of blood, colorism (how black is the person) etc.   
7. Kendi criticizes ablism.  That is a term that referred to those who had disabilities.  People with disabilities should be able to qualify for positions that that are not made impossible by their disability.  However, ableism, and merit-based promotion is rejected as from white supremacy for a new kind of system where there are more equal results even in math etc.  This has led to school systems claiming math as discriminatory and changing the math programs to eliminate advanced math courses so all can be more equal.  It also leads to eliminating testing.  Yes, tests need to be examined for objective quality and not cultural discrimination, but objective norms are crucial.  How can you have engineers who build buildings that do not collapse and bridges that are safe without objective standards.  Imagine brain surgeons being given certification due to their racial categorization rather than rigorous standards?  The gains of medicine, technology and health come from people who pass highly exacting standards. Dumbing down math will not improve the Black situation with the claim that testing is white. 
8. Kendi as many others joins the gay and the whole LGBTQ agenda as intersecting.  Hence the most important aggrieved person is the black transgender women, since she/he intersects with three oppressed categories, transgender, women and black.  This person is l the acid test of policy.   
9. So much is incoherent.  Systemic racism in this book is systemically incoherent
10. Kendi does not explicitly assert radical socialism as the solution to disparate outcomes in race -equality.  However, he again and again asserts his anti-capitalism.  There is much to criticize in contemporary capitalism, its crony capitalism, the control of the society by the super-rich whose wealth gives them too much power.  However, nothing has been more proven than that socialism leads to poverty for the many.  Reforming capitalism is always needed, but socialism as a system will produce no gains for the black people.  The key to capitalism is requiring investment that expands opportunity for all and limiting the political power of the superrich and maybe even having a limit to personal wealth.  However, only capitalism increases wealth and potentially for all. 
11. Kendi uses strange language and speaks constantly about black people as black bodies.  Is this emphasis on physicality part of a materialistic atheism?  It is just strange with amazing Incoherence in the confluence of ideas and  intersectionality.
12. Here is an amazing incoherence.  Kendi asserts a radical equality of all cultures in his cultural relativism, but also asserts the superiority of a culture or political situation in which all races and ethnicities as equal and successful (equity).  The idea of equality in the west is rooted in the Bible.  All are created in the image of God and as Paul says, God has made every ethnicity on the earth from one original human couple.  Hence all are to be offered eternal life and are important to God.  Removing this idea and replacing it with atheistic Marxist notions of equality will certainly lead to failure since the roots for this understanding will cause the tree to wither.  Eventually sinful man will use power assertion to oppress other categories of people.  
13. Kendi does not perceive that there are cultural patterns that do lead to greater poverty.  He seems to give no credit to a stable family with a father and mother as a key predictor of overcoming poverty.  This has been proven again and again. 
14. Kendi constantly affirms the nostrums of the left, and it undercuts his credibility.  For example, Judge Kavanaugh appointed to the Supreme Court is still said to be a women abuser (despite no proven evidence) and conservatives on the court further white supremacy. There is prejudice after prejudice in Kendi on these kinds of things.   Justice Thomas, a black conservative, furthers white supremacy and is part of that contingent of blacks that do so.  So, a true black anti-racist must support socialistic, affirmative action discrimination and more or is an Uncle Tom.  He must be a leftist. 

Kendi provides very little in policy solutions.  His view is that systemic racism is a matter of bad policy.  I agree that racial disparities is partly based in bad policy, but which policies is a issue.  It is hard to say what he really thinks will work.  Socialism?  Quotas for race disparities? Reparations or payments based on race?   Really, I don’t think he presents real workable solutions to the systemic racial disparities of income and attainment in our society.  The fuzziness on policy is quite notable.  Bigger government and its controls seem to be what he is indicating. 

One other thing of is important.   If a nation is to have unity, it must emphasize its common values.  While ethnic distinctions may be valued, they have to give way to the larger framework of the unity in values or we will produce warring tribalism forever fighting over fair distribution for the tribe.  The perception of unfairness will become rooted in every grouping with its consequent resentment and anger.  Blacks, Hispanics, darker blacks vs. lighter blacks, whiter Hispanics verses dark Hispanics, India Indians, Native Americans, European descendants, Chinese, Japanese, darker Philippine people, and more will all be aggrieved. Rather, the emphasis on our common humanity and helping those in need equally has to be the norm, need based not race or ethic based. 

Biblical Anti-Racism 

Biblical anti-racism addresses ethnic pride and assertions of dominance.  Two foundational biblical teachings are key. The first is that all human beings are created in the image of God.  Therefore, the basic equality of worth in the image of God is firmly established.  As such the Bible can assert, ‘From one He made every nation of men to live on the face of the earth.”  

The second truth is that “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. This is asserted again and again.  All need the Gospel and its transforming power.  Kendi gets closer to the Bible view when he asserts that racism is rooted in self-interest!   Yes, the Bible says that sinful self-interest seeks to use others, to dominate them.  It seeks to put ourselves, our families and our tribes into the position of dominance, use them and then to demean others.  It defends the superiority of those who are like us and of us.  This is not,, contrary to Kendi, only a western colonial problem.   The Chinese leaders today see themselves as superior and having a right to dominate.  The Japanese did.  The warring Indian tribes of India did.  The genocide in Rwanda has such roots of sin.  

In the Bible only one nation is chosen and they are chosen to bring blessing to the other nations or ethnic peoples.  Their election was not based in their superiority.  God warns them again and again, especially in Deut.8-10, that they are not a superior people but sinful, stubborn and unworthy people who are only elect due to his gracious calling.  

Ethnic pride and the assertion of the superiority of one’s culture has to die at the cross. Now in Yeshua all people who embrace the Gospel also become elect or chosen.  The calling to overcome ethnic division is at the heart of discipleship.  The valuing of one’s own ethnic identity has to decrease and become secondary to the reality of our common identity as God’s elect people in Yeshua.  Love must overcome temptation to self.  One can value the good things in one’s culture or the culture of others but there is an overarching Kingdom culture from the Sermon on the Mount and the Bible as the norming norm.  Cultures are only better or worse to the extent that they live by biblical norms and values. 

Kendi’s embrace of sexual aberrations as intersectional in deprivation with racism will bring destruction to those who embrace such aberrant lifestyles.  Kingdom values bring all cultures into criticism.  We can all it the biblical critical school!  Only that which passes in agreement with biblical moral teaching can be embraced.  As such, Kendi’s cultural relativism is profoundly anti biblical.  It produces terrible incoherence.  On the values side he seeks equality and equity, but cannot criticize Islamic nations or others that are not western due to intersectionality since all that is non-western has to be embraced as representing peoples who were exploited.  Oppression in other societies is given a bye.  However, in the Bible, all cultures that oppress are brought into judgement by God (see Amos1-3).  Only biblical norms can redeem cultures. Without biblical transformation, today’s atheist and secular quest for equity will end with new oppression.   The self-root cannot be overcome in a humanistic way. Opposing one race to another and fostering a secular white guilt will fail. Real guilt can be atoned for only at the cross.  One must not see all whites as guilty for being white so that recent immigrants are as guilty as descendants of slave owners.  

So where do we begin?

1. First, Critical Race Theory and secular anti-racism challenge the Church for its failure.  The most profound failure of the Church is to miss the priority of offering the Gospel and works of compassion.  Luke 4 brings this out where Yeshua says his Gospel is to the poor, the captive, and the prisoner. The Gospel is for all, but the first right of refusal is always to the most needy.  As such every church, every denomination and association should have been making serving the poor and needy the center of their ministry.  Most of the wrong nostrums for dealing with race in our society can be traced to the abysmal failure of the Church to live according to the Biblical emphasis from the Torah, to the prophets to the New Testament. 
2. The way to biblical prosperity or success in the Bible is to become a disciple of Yeshua, to enter the Kingdom and then experience the great reversal of conditions from his power.  The poor are blessed because poverty does not define a follower of Yeshua. (Matt. 5).  The Kingdom has come.  Lasting success and prosperity cannot be attained apart from Biblical moral norms and this includes biblical norms for sexuality, marriage and the family.  When the society fosters lifestyles contrary to these norms it fosters poverty and ultimate destruction. 
3. Many big government policies to lift the poor and the African American community have at least partly failed.  Kendi is right about wrong policies, but he misses just where policies are wrong and will prescribe, in part, the same solutions that have failed.  For example, some public schools in poor communities are underfunded. This would be his emphasis.  But two such school systems in black cities are some of the highest funded in America, and most students from poor black communities are not learning to read.  The schools graduating a majority as illiterates.  Imagine if Blacks and all poor people were given vouchers to choose the schools they desire, but only schools showing good outcomes would be qualified for the choice.  What a revolution that would be!  Yes, the public teachers unions are part of the reason for systemic racial disparities! Does Kendi see this?   No, but many black parents do!  They want vouchers and charters!

Here is a list of policies that could help, but remember that only so much progress will be made without the Gospel. 

1. Education vouchers and true education choice for all; equal funding for such vouchers. 
2. Change welfare to incentivize fathers to stay in the home and subsidize income rather than penalizing those families that lose support and have less due to a working father. 
3. Connect welfare to workfare and job training. 
4. Incentives for enterprise zones in poor communities and police protection for such businesses so riots and criminals will not make businesses unfeasible. Walgreens leaving San Francisco neighborhoods is not helpful to poor communities!
5. Bring a well-trained and massive police presence in poor neighborhoods to end gun violence, gangs, and drug dealing is key.  
6. Encourage business to hire the poor who can do the job and not go for hiring the overqualified. 
7. End prison for non-violent crimes and have community work and restoration programs.  

Yes, we do agree that the outcomes for different races and ethnicities should not be so unequal.  But we cannot just snap our fingers and pass laws making outcomes equal. The answer is not to dumb down education, math etc. and end the basic norms of meritocracy.  Rather it is to work to qualify more.  One cannot have bridge builder engineers and brain surgeons who do not qualify just to fill a quota.  One has to be able to do the job well.  The key is programs to qualify more.  Again and again, we see that an intact family is a key matter in all this again and again.  Socialism is not the answer, but we should limit the obscene levels of individual wealth that brings controlling power over the whole society.  Creating more wealth for all requires a regulated free enterprise.  Only the dynamic of people in free enterprise, some making more, some less, but all with adequate provision, can expand wealth. Socialism brings poverty for all but for those in charge of the system.   We should indeed have incentives to hire the poor, but not base it on race but poverty.  The overemphasis on race, micro aggressions and more will produce more resentment and division.  Some CRT theorists are anti white racists, but thankfully not Kendi.  

This is my answer to Kendi.  

A few days ago in my devotions, I was reading II Cor. 6.  The verses were highlighted to me by the Holy Spirit.  

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.  For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness.  Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?  What harmony does Messiah have with Belial?  What agreement does God’s Temple have with idols?  For we are the Temple of the living God—just as God said. . . “Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says ADONAI.” v. 14-17

I gave some time for reflection.  We often see these verses as precluding a marriage between a follower of Yeshua and a non-follower.  The verses certainly so apply.  The verse is also often applied to unequal business relationships.  However, it is much broader than that.  The text speaks in general terms and challenges us to reflect on what constitutes an unequal yoke.  I think it best applies to yoking that will tend to bring a person or persons who claim to follow Yeshua into influences that will undercut the soundness of their faith walk with God.  Such a yoke will end up producing weakness in commitment to the biblical worldview and confidence in its teaching.  As a young person, I chose an Evangelical College (The King’s College and Wheaton) because I wanted to learn in a context that would bolster my faith/walk.  I did want to be fair and study other views with as much objectivity as possible, but not to be thrown into an ocean to sink or swim without the guidance of godly professors.   

When our oldest children, now 46 and 44, were entering kindergarten, my wife Patty asked if we were going to send our children to the public school.  Seeing where things were going, we had real reservations and started a school that lasted 30 years and whose last principal continues to lead a successor school today.  Our motto was “Raising children who are mighty in Spirit.” 

The issue of how to draw the line of being in the world but not of the world is a constant challenge.  The Amish and Chabad Chasidic Jews lose very few of their young people.  They are growing inter-generationally.  Rabbi Schneerson’s teaching on where to draw the line is challenging and has lessons for us.  The way of these communities is to create alternative societies where the influence of the larger world is very limited and mediated.   I did not conclude that we had to go that far. I will give an example. 

Growing up in the 1950s was such a contrast to today.  The public schools considered it to be their responsibility to never undercut the teachings of the families and churches of their students.  Most were in churches.  Indeed, schools reinforced the moral teachings.  However, though most of my classmates were in churches and synagogues (I was not) by high school there was a great shift.  Most of my classmates dropped out of church in high school.  I attributed it to the teaching of naturalistic evolution in the science classes, especially 9^th and 10^th grades.  The end of Bible reading and prayer before class (1962) was another loss.  Now the school systems explicitly teach contrary to God’s word.  At that time health classes for teen boys told them to take a cold shower, today they teach how to use a condom.  Socialism, critical race theory which contradicts God’s teaching on sin and reconciliation, gender fluidity, the LGBT movement’s teachings and so much more are intensively part of indoctrination.  Sex education is immoral, even in elementary school.   So how can parents in America today place their children and young people under teachers who are sometimes themselves influenced by the demonic for six or more hours every day, then send them to secular colleges and expect their faith to survive?  The statistics say their faith is not surviving.   So, what is an unequal yoke? It is at least a yoke that is likely over time to destroy faith.  I was pondering all this when a pop-up on my computer led to an article from Dennis Prager, one of my favorite Jewish writers.  Here is what he said.  I think quoting him is well worth it.  Perhaps my school in the 1950s was not an unequal yoke. 

“The single best thing Americans can do to counter the left-wing attack on America—against its freedoms, its schools, its families, its children, its governmental institutions, its sports, its news and entertainment media, its medical establishment, the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, and the military—is to take their children out of America’s schools.

Other than in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), the vast majority of America’s elementary schools, high schools, colleges, and universities teach your child or grandchild almost nothing important; prematurely sexualize them, thereby robbing them of their innocence; and harm them intellectually and morally. They rarely teach them, for example, art or music because they are too busy teaching them race-centered hatred of whites, of America, and of America’s values. Sending your child(ren) to most American schools is playing Russian roulette with their values—but unlike the gun in Russian roulette, which has a bullet in only one of its six chambers, the schools’ guns hold four or five bullets.

In many elementary schools, your child is taught that gender is chosen and that there is no difference between boys and girls (in a growing number of schools, the teachers are told not to call their students “boys and girls”); they are taught about masturbation; and many children from first grade on attending “Drag Queen Story Hour,” wherein an obvious man wearing women’s clothing, garish makeup, and a wig entertains them.

Why do parents send their children to these schools? One reason is they are in denial. Many parents do not want to know what their children are being taught and the consequent damage done to them. They don’t really believe school(s) will ruin their child, let alone their child’s relationship with them.

These parents should speak to any of the millions—yes, millions—of Americans whose children have contempt for America, for free speech, and for their parents as a result of attending an American college or even high school. I meet such people at every speech I give, and I speak to them regularly on my radio show. Ask these parents, if they could redo their lives, whether they would keep their child in school.”

Prager is speaking about values that are largely biblical, but my concern is directly biblical faith.  We are losing the battle and need a mighty move of God for repentance and reformation. 

Recently I read a great book that describes building a truly loving community.   The authors call it a “hesed” community using the Hebrew word that has been translated covenant love, steadfast love, loving kindness and more.  The book is The Other Half of the Church by Michal Hendricks and Jim Wilder.  They call their vision full brained Christianity and claim that Christianity in the West is too left brained; rational, logical and information heavy.  The left brain is important, but the intuitive and the quality of immediate response habits are built in the right brain, from depth of relationships and love.  This is foundational to discipleship. I am not a materialist so I would rather call this the other side of the soul or mind that is connected to these spheres of the brain. The relationship of the mind/soul to the braine is a deep philosophical issue that I cannot unpack here.  Building upon the great books by Dallas Willard on discipleship, they argue that only loving community with mutual correction, humility and openness can disciple most people.  It must be modeled by the leaders of the community. Their case is very strong.  They put into new language something I have believed and taught now for more than 40 years.  

One of the more salient parts of the book is their development of the concept of shame.  They distinguish between toxic shame and healthy shame.  All sin carries a degree of shame, but God and healthy brothers and sisters meet us with restorative correction.  They come along side, not with an accusative you, but identification, showing the person that their behavior is not in line with the “we” of the community and the example and teaching of Yeshua.  In this way the person who sins does not slink away in isolation but repents in the context of restorative love.  In such community restoration and growth takes place.  Shame is temporary in a context of love; deliverance takes place in repentance and forgiveness.  Such a community requires loving, humble and vulnerable leaders.  

The authors contrast a healthy community to congregations led by dominant leaders who use toxic shame to cow others into submission and to remove themselves from correction, questioning or challenge.  Toxic shame leaders have a narcissistic part to their personality, not in the full psychiatric sense, but in a broader sense of meaning whereby self-centeredness and ego is too much a part of their personality and style of leadership.  Such leaders can build large congregations or gatherings, but not quality community.  These leaders, who do not live an open life, sometimes fall into serious sins.  People are shocked, but if we would look at the narcissist aspect of such leaders, we would be less surprised.

The issue of toxic shame is not only relevant for the Body of the Messiah, but to life in the sphere of politics, education, corporate life and family life.  In the book Good to Great, Collins et. el, describe a healthy corporation and its leadership.  It is one where the employees want to work.  It is a corporate community whose leaders do not operate though toxic shame.  However, there are corporations where leaders keep order and obedience while fostering resentment though the use of toxic shame, calling out others in a terrible way.  This is now so prominent in our present social culture.  Cancel culture is an explicitly enjoined method (see the writings of Herbert Marcuse) to use shame to shut down debate and assert power to gain the ends of the people who cancel.  It is an amazing power tool.  Shaming vocabulary is unmistakable.  Those who are not racists are called racists, others are called homophobes and others called transphobes.  This shuts down reasoning and good debate.  It is not possible, and people, in fear of being canceled and shamed back down.  Questions about global warming? You are shamed as a science denier.  Questions about naturalistic evolution? You are a fundamentalist flat earth devotee.  Question critical race theory?  You are a racist. 

In the political sphere today toxic shaming in rampant.  Chuck Schumer regularly says of his Republican opponents, they should be ashamed.  Usually it is really just cancel move, a power assertion to preclude policy disagreements.  Our former President, for all the good policies his administration implemented, engaged in toxic shaming at a terrible level.  This has been a continues pattern.  Think of his shaming of Carlie Fiorina, Mark O’Rubio and others in the primaries.  The name calling was very disturbing.  It continued with shaming those who formerly worked for him like James Mattis, or other colleagues, Paul Ryan, John McCain and many others.  Yet is it so common in politics on both sides.  

Toxic shaming is way for a person to remove himself or herself from vulnerability and correction. It is a way of self-protection and a blunt instrument of power assertion and domination.  We see it as the left seeks to shame the police in general or diners who will not stand up and shout Black Lives Matter. 

Most people do not even understand what is happening when this goes on.  They may see a strong leader or say it is just politics or being New Yorkish.  However, it is very destructive. 

I believe that we would do wall to raise consciousness on this issue, name it as a gross and unacceptable sin, and push back against people who engage in it; at schools, businesses, in politics, family and in all spheres where toxic shaming is used.  Can you imagine how our politics would change if toxic shaming was called out eliminated?  Can you imagine social debates without such toxic shaming?  I have actually had to defriend Facebook friends for engaging in this.  Social media is rife with it.  But I will push back and hard from now on.  Toxic shaming should have no part in our behavior as followers of Yeshua.  We may severely disagree with the sinful life of others, but will speak in redemptive love. 

When some looked at the catalog of sins against Black Americans from the first arrival of the slaves in 1619, through the Civil War, and then Jim Crow, a wrong conclusion was reached.  That conclusion was that there was something inherently wrong with white-skinned people. In spite of postmodern teaching that there is no essential human nature, that sexual all roles are socially constructed, which includes the embrace of gender fluidity, an LGBTQ, etc. orientation to sexual identities, yet in one place an essentialism is asserted.  That essentialism is that there is an inherent evil in white people, an original sin, something that is part of their nature, for which they must always walk in humiliation and sorrow.  This is their explanation of the white exploitation of other races, and especially the black peoples.  This essentialism of white evil, an original sin nature, is foundationally contradictory to the teaching of the bible on the equal worth of all human beings and the equal level of original sin in all people. It is an antichrist doctrine. 

Some misunderstand those of us who push back against Critical Race Theory as not facing the terrible evil of racism and the effects of that racism to this day, including continuing racism and discrimination that still takes place.  We do not misunderstand this though we think it is much less than in the past and progress has been made.  We accept the fact of the problem of racism, however, and want to fight for the black underclass.  In our view, and that includes some of the greatest black leaders who argue against Critical Race Theory, this theory and the prescriptions that follow from it will foster hatred, division, and a continuation of poverty.  It is an anti-Christian view and as such will certainly bring great pain and failure.  Critical Race Theory is a formulation from atheists and is an extension of the Critical School of Thought, a Marxist movement going back to the University of Frankfurt in Germany in the late 1920s.  It came to its great practical application in the movements of the New Left and the philosophy of Herbert Marcuse, the philosopher of the New Left in the late 1960s. His writings on revolution seem almost like a playbook for those supporting Critical Race Theory, including cancel culture, the manipulation of language (in almost Orwellian terms), and the power of intimidation to gain control in society.  These tactics are shared by the LGBTQ movements as well.  Fostering CRT in our public schools is corrupting our children and building division in corporations, the workplace, and government. White children are being made to feel bad that they are white.  The goal of many is the end of free enterprise and replacing it with the more just system of socialism.  It is about revolution.  

Here are some keys for understanding Critical Race Theory, from now on just noted as CRT, and why we know it is an anti-Christ system.  The CRT begins with the inherent sin of whites versus the biblical declaration that all have sinned. Whites as a race are to engage in a kind of secular Maoist self-criticism and repentance.  Yet biblically, repentance can only be enjoined for real ethnic groupings, governmental entities (nations), and individuals.   Being white is not an ethnicity that can repent.  Nations, ethnicities, and individuals can repent in the bible, but repentance is never a matter of a skin color grouping.  One great thing in all of this is not admitted.  That is that the great majority of whites today do not believe in black racial inferiority and desire that blacks attain parity equal to whites in the society. This is amazing. 

Every ethnic group, family, and tribe has a natural tendency to identify their people as the superior ones and are suspicious of all the outsiders who are different as also lesser.  One can see the same behavior in the historically warring African tribes, the genocide practiced in India and China, and the oppression from Japan toward Korea and other Asians.  This is part of the sin nature of all people and blacks carry as much of this sin nature as whites.  The issue of prejudice is not a white issue and the enslavement of others is a world-historical issue in most cultures. 

The analysis of why blacks are not succeeding is wrong.   CRT points to white privilege as the primary reason for black’s being held back.  Yes, there is a degree of such privilege, but not so much that a black cannot break through the barriers.  Nigerian black immigrants do not experience this at significant levels and are very successful. Indians from India, a non-white people, are the most successful income per capita group in the United States and Asians in general now outpace whites in success.  Teaching blacks that their situation is to be blamed on whites and that they are victims will produce a terrible defeatism.  Somehow the idea of CRT people that shaming whites for their privilege and dumbing down the curricula will help is amazingly wrong-headed. It will perpetuate more failure.  So, the idea that math and precision is racist, etc. is a recipe for failure.  Of course, imagine the disaster of applying this to brain surgeons like Dr. Ben Carson, or to bridge builders.  Reality is not so forgiving to errant engineers.  

CRT fosters the idea of systemic racism, that the system created by whites is biased against non-whites.  But this is not true for Nigerians and Asians. Why so?  The CRT sees the marginalization of the black underclass as stemming from subtle language issues that were developed by whites that are microaggressions.  A whole new way of language has to be developed that is not from white culture from the west.  Precision itself is a white value. So is a meritocracy.  Again, this will lead only to more failure.  One of their key issues is police prejudice. That is not a primary reason for black marginalization.  

No amount of change in language signals or the demonization of whites will produce success in the black underclass community.  That success can only come from gaining ability and marketable skills.  Nor is police prejudice in treating blacks unfairly a key to seeing black success. The percent of danger in an unarmed blacks being killed by police is minuscule though that is the big issue today for defunding the police and in Black Lives Matter (BLM).  Fostering anger at whites for past racism will have no effect in making blacks more successful.  Pouring money into failed public schools will have no effect.  Getting whites to feel ashamed for being white and for white privilege will have no significant effect lifting the poor black community.  Without the blood of Jesus, such repentance will lead nowhere. The CRT is wrong in identifying the roots of the sin problem and is wrong about the very vague solutions they offer.  Black Lives Matter partners with CRT to overthrow the existing social order for socialism.  This also will fail since socialism simply fosters a more equal poverty for all. This has been demonstrated again and again.  So, what is the answer?  There is systematic racial disparity in outcomes, but it is not based on systems that are identified by CRT.  The systemic problems are clear in what I list as solutions. 

1. The Gospel is the greatest means of change.  Any person who is in the Messiah is a new creation and is delivered from failure and sin.  A black person who really knows Jesus the power of forgiveness for his oppressors and an ability to succeed through the power of God that cannot be defeated.  This the key systemic issue. 
2. The Gospel also brings reconciliation. Real reconciliation is power.  We know that all have sinned.  Those who were prejudiced and those who were uncaring repent and are forgiven and those who were angered and hated due to their mistreatment are thereby also delivered from the self-defeating power of bitterness.  Power in real-reconciliation and the forgiveness of real sin before God enables cooperation between ethnic groups for mutual success. Both can enter into mutual appreciation knowing that God created ethnic varieties for mutual enrichment. This is the solution to a systemic problem. 
3. The repentance of the churches for their lack of engagement and focusing their ministry as Jesus taught in Luke 18 to the poor, marginalized and imprisoned, is key. The whole Church needs to redirect its priorities of ministry focus. 
4. The restoration of the black family is a foundational issue.  Blacks were making significant progress before Civil Rights Legislation, were gaining in real income and education.  The black family was mostly intact.  Something happened.  What? Two things.  The design of poverty programs incentivized fatherless families, and the teaching of the new morality (really the old immorality) had its greatest negative effect on the black community.  Many black pastors were ill-prepared to deal with the breakdown, offered forgiveness through the Gospel but not the power to reverse the trend.  Welfare needs to be reformed to incentivize marriage and family restoration.  This is another systemic problem.
5. The reformation of education is crucial.  I am one that believes that choice is crucial and that through voucher and charter schools blacks must have a choice and be given a way out of the bondage of failing public schools.  How can this be paid for?  There should not be discrimination according to skin color in government programs (another error of BLM and CRT).  Rather the poor should receive per-pupil education equal to wealthy school districts.   Since the blacks still have a disproportionate number of the poor, they will get the lion’s share of funding.  Government and private foundations should pour in money to see the poorly educated. Contrary to CRT and BLM, reparations are unjust since they counsel making payment by skin color, not economic need. This is discrimination and pernicious.  It requires recent immigrants to pay for reparations that are said to be rooted in slave owners, but most Americans today had no connection to slave-owning. Rather, help for the poor is the way forward. All education institutions, public, private and charter must prove success or lose funding.  This means breaking the pernicious power of teachers’ unions.  Education is another systemic problem but again the solution is opposite of CRT and BLM>
6. A massive police presence is needed in poor communities.  This police should have a large representation of black officers.  They must be well trained. The gangs must be defeated, and their guns were taken.  The drugs and their dealers need to be off the streets. This will cost a lot, but one can make the areas where the poor live safe.  This is a systemic problem, but the very opposite of the BLM and CRT solutions. 
7. Enterprise zones, job training and more must come from corporations and tax incentives.  Also, vocational and technical schools are important.  Placing black at Harvard and dumbing down Harvard will not help.  Attainment will take time.  The systemic lack of opportunity is clear and has to be overcome.  
8. Mentoring programs are crucial, and the Church should invest people and funds in such mentoring. 

These prescriptions, which are argued for as well by black leaders such as Robert Woodson are far from what CRT and BLM are fostering.  We do not deny the horror of slavery or racism but pouring fuel on the fire of mistrust and anger between black and white by CRT will lead to great failure and pain.  

As the culture goes crazy right now with transgenderism, defending promiscuity and going for socialism, I fear that good solutions will not be attempted but that the country is moving into a national dystopia.  May we give ourselves to prayer for revival and healing of the divides. Luke 4:18 is the key text, that the Spirit would be upon us to preach good news to the poor and deliverance for the captives.  

A little Essay for a Friend on Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project

Two great interpretations of America from the radical left culture formation influencers are constantly in the news, one is The 1619 Project and the other is Critical Race Theory.  The two are logically distinct but work together and have overlapping content.  

The first, The 1619 Project argues that America was born and built on slavery.  This project is not about the treatment of Native Americans in American history which is a scandal for which only total repentance and restitution can somewhat mitigate the terrible injustice, but nothing can ever be enough for the sin.  Healing can be found in the Gospel. The 1619 Project says that American history began with slavery and then, amazingly, that the Revolutionary War was fought to maintain slavery.  This is a strange claim since the British were not opposing slavery at that time, but many from the Northern Colonies like John Adams were very anti-slavery.  It could be said that an independent America would be more a danger to the slave owners. However, the Constitution enshrined states’ rights at a level where slavery was secure for the states that wanted to practice it, south of what was known as the Mason Dixon Line.  Because some northern people owned slaves, it is claimed that the whole society was built on slavery.  This is not true, but the North was in part built by indentured servants who gained passage from the United Kingdom through indentured servitude, and they were very abused.  The problem with The 1619 Project is that it evaluates America totally through the lens of slavery for which America paid a huge price in the Civil war.  In my view, the project is bad history since it oversimplifies a very complex battle between rapacious greed (the Kingdom of darkness) and the Kingdom of God. This has always been the struggle in the United States.  One can read Howard Zinn’s Neo-Marxist People’s History of the United States and compare it with the Patriots History of the United States, which opposes Zinn, to get a good idea of two different approaches.  The second does not sugarcoat the great sin of slavery.  

I think no one has written an adequate history from Biblical norms though there is a Christian history in print that was used in conservative Christian schools and homeschooling.  A true Bible-based history would look at how the Kingdom of God influenced and intersected in the history of the United States along with the kingdom of darkness and its greed and evil. Also, the key figures of influence Christians in bettering life in the United States needs to be part of this. This is mostly ignored by secular historians.  Some who were Post-millennialists like Jonathan Blanchard, the founder of Wheaton College, who was a great abolitionist and supported the underground railway for escaped slaves, and the great revivalist Charles Finney, believed that the government and laws of the United States could be brought into conformity to the Law of God and demonstrate a Kingdom of God civil order.  This was a common view from the Puritans in the 17^th century and prevailed until the beginning of the 20^th century.  Not all were Post-millennialists, but it was a common view that Christians were to work to bring the nation into conformity to the will of God as expressed in his Law.  

When I speak about Kingdom influence, I speak about those who fostered Kingdom values even if they were not committed Christians due to the influence of the Bible in the Western World and upon their values.  

The clash of Kingdoms can be seen even in one person.   One can read great biographies, like Flexner’s of George Washington, or McCollough’s of John Adams to gain more insight. For example, Washington was a man of incredible character and worked hard to develop his Christian character.  Yet he did not free his slaves during his lifetime though he was conflicted about it.  When Washington had the power and popularity to become the King he instead retired after two terms for the good of the nation.  On the other hand, Washington sought to gain great land possessions and wealth at the expense of the Native Americans and the lower white classes who were closed out of farm ownership. The Pilgrims and Puritans sought a new order of civil government based on Biblical norms as they fought for their right to Christian liberty.  Yet, Puritans did not allow for decenters but required conformity to their doctrine and polity.  After a few decades, they also mistreated Native Americans.  They built a great society but then ended in the great injustice and hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials.  It would be left to Roger Williams, a Baptist, to create freedom of conscience in religious matters in Rhode Island.   With regard to native Americans, one finds those who treated them well and genuinely cared, such as David Brainard, the son-in-law of the great Jonathan Edwards.  However, in general, those who cared about the Native Americans were the minority and did not prevail. 

While the Pilgrims and Puritans came to the Colonies to practice a more pure Christianity, the Virginia settlers and those after in the South were motived by financial opportunity. Slavery greatly increased their ability to gain wealth.  Again we see the influence of the Kingdom of Darkness. 

The Revolutionary War was fought over unjust government and the unnaturalness of being ruled from across the sea.  Was it justified?  It can be debated. One can read the founders’ own words about their motives and what they wanted to build.  Preserving slavery was not the motive of most.  Yet, the South that was building an economy based on slavery, did have motives to see that the profits from slavery would not be compromised by the British government rule.  When the Constitution was written, the issue of slavery was a hot one.  One cannot see the Constitution as a document fostering slavery.  The compromise on representation in the House of Representatives was that the Negro would count as 3/5 in the population count for apportioning representation.  The North would not let them count for more southern representatives if they could not vote and did not have full citizenship and liberty.  The south wanted to count them so they would have more power but would not give them representation.   The 3/5 rule was to mitigate the power of the South due to its slavery system. It was not saying that the Negro was 3/5 of a man as some have falsely argued. This battle for and against slavery continued throughout the years before the Civil War, with those like John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, fighting against slavery and others like Senator Calhoun fighting for it.  Compromises were made so the nation would not break apart.  To see the United States as just based on slavery, is really such a simplistic slander.  Rather it was a nation in strife over this institution, with many Evangelicals in the forefront seeking its abolition. 

So, one finds a nation always in conflict but with a greater Kingdom of God influence on it than perhaps any other nation on Earth.  Maybe this was also true of Britain in revivals.  In the Declaration of Independence, we read that “All man (human beings) are created equal” and are endowed with rights from the Creator.  This statement is only possible from the Biblical influence of the doctrine that all people are created in the Image of God.  The Declaration and Constitution require the consent of the governed.  There is great antipathy to the concentration of power in a King or a few.  Checks and balances and decentralization of power through both the separation of powers, legislative, judicial, and executive, plus the power of state governments was to prevent tyranny.  This is again an orientation in accord with Kingdom values which notes well the danger of unbridled political power.  The separation of the Church government from the civil government was not intended to say that the civil government was not accountable to God and his law.  Most state constitutions acknowledged that accountability.  Yet despite all this decentralization, the nation developed in ways that empowered its own oligarchy who found ways to gain wealth and political control at the expense of the ordinary citizens.   When labor was exploited, it was not only Communists that fought for labor rights but Christians who fought against child labor and for fair wages for the workers.  The development of unions mitigated labor exploitation, preventing a tyranny of power in a Communist dictatorship.  The United States developed an extraordinary ability to absorb immigrants and to see upward mobility toward prosperity never before seen in any other nation.  My ancestors from Romania and Norway were examples of such ability to succeed.  Never has a nation produced such prosperity for so many.  Yet, a poor and exploited underclass was a continuing problem.  The Church was called to identify with the poor but often failed and ministered instead to the more successful.  

Though a Civil War was fought, slavery abolished, and new Congressmen and Senators were elected from the Black citizens of the South, within a generation the Federal government caved to political pressures, and Jim Crow segregation was accepted for the next 80 years.  

Never was a country formed on higher principles that were consistent with biblical values.  It was a nation to be based on common values, not on ethnicity, tribe, or old European national identities. All men were created equal and on the basis of the new vision, it was “Out of Many One.”  There was unprecedented freedom to spread the Gospel.  Only the United States allowed hard money to be shipped overseas to support missions without limit.  The idea was that the state had no business regulating the Church which was a divine sphere.  Hence the greatest missions movement in history spread from the United States to the nations. Was this freedom for the Gospel one of the reasons for the prosperity of the nation?

Yet again the forces of greed gained in the rapacious monopolists who exploited their workers as near slave levels, but then were reigned in by Theodore Roosevelt, the great fighter against monopolies.   The United States spread the vision of freedom to the world, checks, and balances, and constitutional government at the same time its corporations exploited less-developed nations.  

Today as the Church is in decline through compromise and worldliness, the United States is the greatest exporter of pornography.  Criminals exploit women with prostitution, human trafficking, and almost insane ideas that have gained currency like gender fluidity, trans-genderism, and homosexual marriage. Part of the Church is tempted to compromise and get behind the cultural trends. Can there be a revival or will the United States head for judgment?

We should close this article on one more battle.  It is the issue of the condition of the black underclass. Since the civil rights movement, many blacks have made great gains, but others remain in poverty in much higher numbers than their proportion as citizens. Crime and murder in the inner cities, inadequate policing in number and quality is endemic. From the promise of civil rights came the disappointment of continued failure.  Racism still exists, but liberal programs have produced dependency and added to the destruction of the black family and more poverty.  Public unionized schools, some with great per pupil funding, totally fail the students and graduate those who cannot even read.  The response is to claim that “abelism” is racism.  Hence their failure is not really failure.  

Today there is a dangerous concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Such obscene wealth concentration contradicts the idea of the decentralization of power since this wealth brings frightening power for the control of others.  Witness social media for an example.  This is a great danger since with such power speech is controlled in media and there is an ability as well to enforce their view on the population, a kind of social engineering.  The new direction is a type of oligarchic corporate socialism. 

The question is, will revival bring gain?  There have always been three approaches to the relationship of Christians to government and social formation.  Great Christians have argued for all three positions.  One is the quietist approach of the Peace Churches (Mennonites, Amish, Peace Brethren) that have no hope for any attainment of godliness outside of the Church in this life.  They produce a counter-culture and do not engage the larger culture.  The Dispensationalist Fundamentalists also were part of this first response.  For them, since this earth is a sinking ship, the goal is to get people into the lifeboat so they can go to heaven or be taken out (raptured) before the Great Tribulation.  

The second view is that of the zealous Post-millennialists who believed that Christians were to take over the whole world and rule it before the return of Jesus.  Charles Finney and Jonathan Blanchard were great examples of this fervent faith.  Their colleges, Oberlin and Wheaton were founded for this goal.  It became the dominant post-Civil War Evangelical view.  It died out with World War I. 

Then finally is the third, the classic Reformed view. Influencing society toward greater justice and righteousness in all spheres was part of Christian witness. We are to “occupy until he comes” and to care about all the spheres of human life, making a better world for our generation even if in the future the Antichrist will come to power.  I fit into this category, but when the culture is too far gone, I recognize the Mennonite option.  Indeed, even in this third option, we are to know that good and evil will continue to battle until He returns.  Those in this view know we cannot idolize any nation, but patriotism and loyalty must be secondary by far to the Kingdom of God.  The best of nations will show good but also great evil. 

My purpose in this essay is to steer clear of both the idolization of America as if it is the chosen and righteous nation and the other view, to see America as only the nation of exploitation and evil as in The 1619 Project and mostly in Zinn’s history text.  They can write history as a catalog of the sins of the nation and that catalog is based on real evils. The proper understanding of the history of the United States is a great saga of the battle of the Kingdom of Light and Darkness.  And both are present in great degree.   Demonizing the United States will bring division and not progress and healing.  Idolatry will also have the same negative effect.  Loyalty to America is based on fostering Kingdom values.  A Christian should reject both the demonization and the idolization and be salt and light, a balanced patriot fostering Kingdom values in the nation.  

Part two will continue with Critical Race Theory

Many years ago, Bob Wright, an apostle leading a network with which we were close in the 1980s, gave some profound insights into training people for congregational leadership.  Previous to this time, I did come to the conclusion that I Timothy 3 and Titus 1 standards for elders required them to have a good marriage and family life.  If I did not have any candidates that fit that criteria, I would then have to embrace a discipleship mentoring involvement to see a good and happy marriage established.  Only from that would we see a healthy family established.  Bob added one more dimension.  When he was working with a couple, he and his wife Mary Jane would ask the wife if she was really happy in her marriage.  Bob found that husbands are less in touch and would oftentimes say the marriage was good when the wife was very dissatisfied.  They would sometimes have to probe to find the dissatisfaction.  Then they would have work to do in mentoring the couple.  I say charge husbands to act and invest themselves to make their wife feel that she is the delight of their eyes and the most wonderful person on earth.  Leaders should be mutually accountable and keep short accounts on marriage check-ups to see that the marriages of leaders remain joyful and growing. 

This was 40 years ago.  This was before divorce became repent among Evangelical believers of all stripes.  However, the most troubling thing is the divorce, immorality, and pornography among leaders.  Bob taught that you reproduce what you are.  Leaders with strong and happy marriages, covenant loyal marriages, can reproduce such marriages if they give themselves to couples and mentor them.  Then when there is an eldership of happily married people, they lead home groups and reproduce the same in their small groups.  Shamashim, Deacons, also then are mentored.  The standard for marriage and family in our noted texts is the same for them.  Following this pattern has been amazing.  My closest partners of 40 years are all delighted in their spouses and so joyful that they are married.  They learned to practice mutual deference, forgiveness, servanthood, and humility.  Around them is a network of pastors of some 40 congregations who are as a rule, to my knowledge, joyful in their marriages.  No pastors in Tikkun or in my Chicago leadership before that, have ever been divorced.  Somehow this has led to memberships with very rare divorces. 

However, for this to happen, it is crucial that we get back to discipleship and make marriage and family life a center of that discipleship.  It is not how big or small the congregations are, or the charisma of the preacher.   God’s evaluation will be, “Did you make disciples?”  Then I say as a rule that two people in a marriage that grow more and more into the image of Yeshua will love each other more and more.  

The abuse of the Black underclass is rampant today. Before the civil rights movement, the black family was mostly intact. Despite the terrible segregation laws, Blacks were making educational and economic gains, though not enough. Then we had great hope when Civil Rights Laws were passed. We were stirred by the speeches of Martin Luther King who was a classmate of one of my theology professors at Wheaton, Morris Inch, who was a great fan of King. So here we are almost 60 years later. What is the picture? A proportion of blacks have made great gains, from holding high political offices, to corporate leadership, and as leading surgeons and more. However, too many are in an underclass that is self perpetuating. I won’t repeat the analysis of why this happened and keeps happening. Leading blacks like civil rights leader Robert Woodson explain it well. Part of it was the government incentives that destroyed the black family. Part was the failure of unionized schools, some having great financial support (some not so supported) but still graduating illiterates. Part is the whole cycle of black crime, gangs and drugs. Part is that the Gospel preached has been only about going to heaven and not about personal transformation and a whole different mentality where one can not be in Jesus and still a victim since in Him we are more than conquerers. Choosing victim status is incompatible with the Gospel. 

Today there is an attempt to explain this as systemic racism. The solution is to be found in white guilt and repentance for hard to pin down crimes of whiteness and privilege. Critical race theory argues that white privilege sets up structures to keep blacks back. Yet, I know of know of no whites personally who do not want blacks to achieve and prosper. Yet the thought is that deep examination and the reeducation of whites will find these little indications, clues and ways of thinking that are racist. Critical race theory and systemic racism as theories are like the old example given about an unfalsifiable theory in philosophy. “The universe is shrinking at a uniform rate.” There is no way to prove it or falsify it. CRT is propaganda and can not be proven but seems to be falsified. If something explains everything it probably explains nothing. 

The thrust of the left from Herbert Marcuse is to use the blacks as pawns for the socialist revolution. Corporate socialists go along to cement their own power. Yet the prescriptions from the left will not lift the black community but will perpetuate the problem. Getting groups of whites in corporations or the government institutions to self flagellate will do nothing to lift the black community. Telling schools to lower standards because standards are the manifestation of racism through “ableism” will result in blacks not achieving and being kept down. Most of the directions from the left in my opinion will perpetuate poverty. We see the disconnect in regard to policing. The community of underclass blacks does not want to defund the police. They want more and better policing due to crime, drugs and killing. The media tells us that blacks are generally in fear for their lives over being killed by the police. This is a media driven fear. Some .00x number of unarmed blacks are killed by police. The absolute number of whites so killed is larger, 24 compared to 18 for blacks last year. The chances of so dying are minuscule, though tragic and bad cops need to be punished. The real danger is black on black crime that does not just kill 18 but thousands. But facing this does not lead to the revolution. So it is largely ignored by the left media. The socialist revolutionaries do not care about black lives per se but want a revolution for what they think will be a more utopian order. They were willing to foment racial division toward this end and the media fans the flames. Again, the program of division, the redefining of words (phobia as a primary case in point), and the media and the elite going along all fits the playbook. Cancel culture fits right in as well. 

So who will ultimately be more hurt? It will be everyone, but primarily the black underclass. The super rich will do just fine. The black underclass needs family restoration and government programs with incentives for that, real educational choice, policing that stops the carnage of crime, and more than anything else a transforming Gospel with signs and wonders, real power. Camila Harris argued that George Floyd was a sacrifice for racial justice. He was a sacrifice, but not in the way she is thinking. He is a symbol of the black underclass, all of which is being sold out or sacrificed for the woke leftist revolutionary agenda. They are all being sacrificed for the ridiculousness of critical race theory and a claim of systemic racism. This last term is one I reject. Rather I speak of systemic racial disparities. That systemic problem can be laid at the feet of secular liberalism and more so today at leftism that will perpetuate the problem. The liberal structures are the systemic problem. There are ways out of the problem as I noted, but the left solutions are non-solutions and perpetuate and lead to more despair, anger and hate. We should all know for sure that these theories are from the devil, satanic inspirations. Why? Because they pit races against one another and reject the primary truth of the Bible on humanity, that all people, all races and ethnicities, are created in the image of God and are to be loved and valued as God’s image bearers. White racial guilt ideas are contrary to the Bible at the most profound level and keep the black underclass down. All are to be reconciled in love through the Gospel of reconciliation.