Category: Culture

I have read extensive presentations and critiques of critical race theory. At 73 years old, my brain is such that oversimplifications are helpful but also do sometimes preserve the essence of the issues.  

As I see it critical race theory teaches that white people are collectively guilty for white privilege and racism.  That collective guilt is passed to every individual, so every white person is guilty.  Therefore, all whites need to be taught how to compensate for this guilt, undergo reeducation in critical race-based programs, and thereby overcome white supremacy and bring society closer to justice for nonwhite minorities.  One article stated that this is now being taught in public schools, the Buffalo, New York schools were given as an example.  Fifth graders were being taught this white guilt view.  I read the list of the sins of the heart in whites, and amazingly they were similar to what the Bible teachers are the sins in the hearts of all people.  Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida recently spoke against critical race teaching and said it would not be allowed in Florida schools though it is spreading in many schools.  There is an anti-American bent to the theory.  Indeed in America, there is glory and shame, much to be thankful for and much to repent from. 

The idea of the “white race” is a social construct that cannot be defended or even well defined.  Yes, white supremacists have acted as if whiteness gives a person deserved status as a superior being to the person who possesses it.  This is a demonic theory.  Critical racism is really the mirror of white supremacy, its opposite.  Whites thus bear an almost genetic inferiority.  The idea that all whites bear a corporate responsibility is on the face of it absurd.  For one thing, whites are made of many ethnicities as are blacks and others with different skin shades.  Eastern European Jews are placed in the white category and guilty though the Jews as an ethnic group have suffered more continued racism than any other group in history.  Poles and Russians who came to the United States last year are guilty.  Jews who escaped the Soviet Union and were persecuted are guilty.  Of course, Jews include Sephardic Jews who are less white and Ethiopian Jews who are black though we consider ourselves as one people.   The Bible emphasizes ethnic groups and not external characteristics like color.  Black is also not an ethnic group.  If you travel in Africa, and I have, the different physical characteristics of different tribes and ethnic groups is amazing.  

It is true that in the Bible, nations, or ethnic groups under a specific government are corporately judged.  God judges the corporate nation or people as well as the individual.  Ezekiel 18 emphasizes the individual, but the prophets often declare God’s judgment on sinful nations.  On this basis, it would not be whites that are judged as if they were a corporate group, but the United States as a whole for its discrimination, and if that was on the basis of skin color, the nation is judged, but not all whites per se and not whites that never acted so as to perpetuate the sin.  A nation usually follows the direction of its governing elite and culture formation elite. 

It is difficult to decide who is to be so judged.  Asians do very well in the United States but face discrimination in college entry because they are doing too well as a group and would take too many positions.   Hispanics are treated as if they are one group, but it is difficult to think of them as one group except for language.  They have very different traditions in different countries.  Plus, some Hispanics are very white and some very dark, and some in between.  Should Spanish-speaking whites from South America be guilty of being white?  Will the descendants of Hispanics who have white skin be put in the category of the white guilty. 

The Biblical doctrine is that all of sinned. Most people unduly favor their own ethnic group and have to work to overcome prejudice to see equal justice in the society. The Bible norm for the courts notes the importance of protecting the stranger!  This is not a particularly white matter.  The Bible doctrine calls all to repentance, forgiveness, and commitment to the common good for all people who are in the image of God.  This is a doctrine that has been hard to implement due to human sin.  We must all work for the poor, the marginalized, and for those who are subject to discrimination.  We must work for equal justice under the Law.  However, if we separate people in the way of critical theory, we will delay the very progress of the people who face discrimination.  It will produce depths of mistrust and a seeking of groveling from the other that will in return produce resentment.  Corporations that are using this in training will indeed produce great resentment.  Yes, they should teach people to overcome stereotypes, offensive language and to treat all with respect.  In critical race, both sides will resent and will not forgive.  This is why the Gospel is the key to healing and not critical race-based activity. 

Critical race theory is an anti-Biblical demonic doctrine that will really hinder real racial and ethnic progress and reconciliation.  It states that people are guilty of the color of their skin. Yes, as Martin Luther King said, the key to progress is centering on the content of the character of the people.  But of course, King was influenced by the Bible. Character needs to be transformed by the power of the Gospel.  Solutions without the Biblical worldview are bound to fail terribly. 

Not long ago, I reviewed the A Young Peoples History of the United States.  This was the short simpler version.  Now I have finished reading the long and very tedious full history.  My reason for reading this was that my daughter told me that his young people’s edition was being widely used in high schools.  This would explain the anti-American slant of many young adults today.  Zinn’s book is largely a Marxist version of history.  It is astonishing to think that a Marxist-oriented text is widely used in the United States.  I would like to know how school boards embraced his book as a text. 

The larger more comprehensive book is so slanted that it is hard to believe.  Yes, it documents tons of injustice in the history of the United States, and how the powerful and wealthy have oppressed the lower economic classes.  Some of this is not new, and with regard to African Americans and Native Americans, the injustices were quite well exposed in our history classes even in my days in high school over 55 years ago.  

What was alarming was what I would call the totalism of the book.  All political and business leaders of significant importance come out bad or evil in this book.  Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, were all bad and in it for the preservation of their own wealth and power.  Lincoln was quite mixed and a lot of bad.  Teddy Roosevelt was bad, Franklin Roosevelt somewhat bad but with some good, Eisenhower somewhat good and bad, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, bad. Reagan, really bad, Bush bad, and Clinton very bad.  Most of these historical figures are given a one-dimensional interpretation.  They all sought to preserve the wealth and privilege of the elites and only did something for the needy as necessary for their self-preservation.  

Now there is some truth to this history, but the imbalance is amazing. Yes, greed in American history is quite amazing but it is common to all fallen human beings.  If one would read the writings of many of these historical figures, of their goals and what they were trying to accomplish, one would find that some really wanted to see the ordinary people lifted and prosper. Adams really did want to lift the blacks.  His writings and efforts show this.  His son John Quincy was a consistent fighter against slavery.  Washington did want to see the people lifted as a whole in a process of progress over time.  Lincoln grew and probably was converted to Christian belief. He really came to believe in a more just society for all.   His speeches show this, and Dr. Ronald Reitveld’s work on Lincoln shows this growth. However, such nuance is not present in Zinn.  John Adams fought against slavery, but this is not mentioned, only his support for the Alien and Sedition Act.  One has to read the writings of leaders to find out where they were coming from and not just Zinn’s interpretive and dogmatic assumptions; sometimes he is right and sometimes wrong. On Native Americans and Blacks until the 1960s, he is very right.  There is nothing of the revivals and the Christian Evangelicals who led the way in seeking emancipation, fair labor laws, anti-child labor laws and so much more. These folks do not exist in Zinn’s history. 

Then there is the sympathetic Marxist socialist evaluation.  Yes, Zinn thinks Marx is credible.  He thinks socialism really can work, but that the communist states abandoned it for a type of tyranny.  His presentation is devoid of an understanding of economics which overwhelmingly concludes that without the motive of free enterprise one does not expand the wealth pie but brings unending poverty for most.  Every movement of class rebellion is good in Zinn.  Indeed, some were just, but in his view, if you have a movement that strikes, rebels, marches, etc. it is good.  It is totalism again.  Those who were Marxists and socialists are extolled.  While there were reasons for protest indeed against terrible worker exploitation, the solutions offered by the Marxists and socialists would have been a disaster.  Union leaders who embraced free enterprise but with more wealth distribution are slammed as well. I write this as one who does not believe in the concentration of the wealth in a few, but also as one who does not believe in equal distribution, but adequate distribution.  Again, the book is again one-dimensional totalism.  

The wars of the United States, in almost all cases, were fought for the sake of enriching the military-industrial complex.  World War II squeaks as just, but Zinn is very critical of the way it was fought. Yes, there were indeed too many civilians killed in bombings.  He has an absolute dogmatic conclusion on the nuclear bombing of Japan and argues that they were ready to surrender.  Other historians say that he is wrong, and the evidence is that it saved many lives on both sides. He declares the spies for Russia, the communist Rosenbergs who were executed, to have been innocent.  Now, the Russian archives opened after the fall of communism proved they were really guilty.

Zinn has to grudgingly admit that for the majority of Americans the system has produced a decent life, but the significant minority is still the issue for Zinn.  And indeed, it is for me as well, but socialism is not the answer.  The conclusion for Zinn is that the issue is the poor minority and the answer is socialism.  

The history of America is not as good as we learned in Junior High, but we had more nuance in High School.  But among nations, America produced great good.  However, America is a great idea, that “All men (persons) are created equal” and therefore share fundamental rights. “Out of many one.”  It is not a nation defined by ethnicity but is defined by joining in the republic in this great idea.  However, the structure of government provides the way of correcting injustice. It is a long hard struggle.  However, Zinn’s history will produce those who despise America. Now I see why so many young adults despise America. They were raised on Zinn’s history and this continued into College.  Their solution will not be to raise up the poor minorities but to bring about a crushing governmental tyranny.

For my American Friends, a departure from my usual topics

Though it is hard to believe, there are some Jesus/believers who outright trash Fox News and alternative conservative media. Can it be only because they do not watch it much?  I remember when CNN and majority media stations did panels reflecting different viewpoints.  Conservatives and liberals both presented.  However, I watched as majority media became more and more partisan and fewer and fewer conservatives were heard.  I became very alarmed at the imbalance.  Then Fox was born with its motto, “fair and balanced,” and restored the panels with both sides. I was very glad. However, over the years as majority media became more and more partisan Fox also became more partisan though its commentary had always slanted right. However, Fox still maintains more balance and more shows presenting Democrats and liberals.  When my anti-Fox friends speak about Fox, I believe it is due to what they hear on majority media and the echo chamber in their social media choices.  When they think of Fox, they think of Sean Hannity who is strident and often not balanced.  Though I like Tucker and Laura Ingraham, when I think of Fox I think of Bret Baier.  His, in my view, is the most objective news program and has those panels. But more I think of great conservative thinkers drawn from the conservative think tanks like Heritage, American Enterprise, Hoover, and Manhattan, think tanks and organs like the Federalist and the American Spectator.  I think of folks like Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street journal whose books are important.  I think of Robert Woodson, the great black leader who was the partner to Martin Luther King, Victor David Hanson of Hoover, Larry Elder, the great black thinker, and radio host.  They reflect the views of the great Dr. Thomas Sowell. Then I think of moderates who have been closed out of majority media like Alan Dershowitz, and Bari Weiss and Alex Berenson, both formerly of the New York Times, the amazing Cheryl Atkinson, Laura Logan, and John Solomon, investigative reporter formerly of the Washington Post who now runs Just the News.  

Then there is social conservativism.  Are supporters of traditional standards on abortion and marriage and family standards given a place on majority media?  The danger of the LGBTQ agenda?  Are any allowed to present this on the majority media?  Even on biological men in women’s sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms?  No, only on conservative alternatives.  Or the danger of critical race theory in our schools?  No.  

This is quite a list, and the people I mentioned have no voice without conservative news sites.  I am sorry but I still think majority media is way too partisan and even more than Fox.  However, it is not that I am in full accord with the thrust.  I think what these folks miss when they claim that the danger today is socialism on the left, they do not see that the much greater danger is of a fascism that is part socialist and the thought control that is coming from the concentration of power in a few who have too much money and power.  Capitalism has to be much more regulated re: such concentrations of wealth and power is dangerous, and I wish people would see that.  Both liberals and conservatives do not nearly address this. 

David Weinberg, the Vice President of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, writes some very good columns most weeks in the Jerusalem Post.  This week’s column entitled Is Banning the Bible Next? The Terror of “woke” Cancel Culture that Knows no Bounds, is an excellent column.  In it, Weinberg notes the power of the easily offended, who are also forming a contingent of cultural warriors out to destroy all that that does not fit with their sensibilities.  He notes the new western fear society, the cancelation or the attempt to cancel Babar the Elephant, Curious George, Peter Pan, Dumbo, Dr. Seuss (at least in part), Swiss Family Robinson, Mr. Potato Head, the Muppets, Sesame Street (with warnings), and of course, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and of course, Gone with the Wind.  Sometimes we are amazed that there is a group of people who spend their lives combing cultural and literary works to seek to have them canceled.  Who are the people engaging in this?  We would like to name the leaders.   We would like to see them canceled and know-how can they possibly have such influence.  So much of what they seek to cancel hardly offensive.  One has to really be stretching to find some of these things offensive. 

My high school years were from 1962-1965.  There was already a strong and good attempt to counter bias through the teaching of a contingent of very good teachers.  I wonder how such teachers would compare with today’s teachers.  Whether reading Mark Twain or Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice and its stereotype of Jews), our teachers were able to explain the great literature as well as to show the cultural limits of the writers.  In Twain’s case, we were able to note his anti-racist life positions and not misunderstand his portrayal of blacks and poor whites in his novels.  Culture changes and how a culture perceives people and issues will vary.  If the people of each new cultural trend then cancels and tries to eliminate books, literature, and more of the past, the cultural treasures that inform us, though interpreted and evaluated by where we are in history, will be lost.  It is almost as if the radical cancel culture folks want to eradicate history and literature and start with a blank slate and begin writing from their own present biased orientations.  This is very sick and yet they get away with it. 

We have to evaluate historical figures on the basis of their time and ask what progress they made toward a more enlightened way of thought and endeavor.  The Bible gives us the norming norm for this evaluation, and nothing less will do as the norm.  Ethical norms without a Biblical orientation will break down.  The equal worth of every human being will break down into a tyranny of equality of results in income or equal outcomes that will lead to central control and tyranny. 

Then there is Weinberg’s question about the Bible.  The Bible is really offensive unlike some of the literature that the woke culture warriors seek to cancel. What he misses is that the attempt to cancel the Bible is already gaining ground in some countries.  Reading Romans 1 with its moral pronouncements is considered hate and forbidden.  There is much to be offended at in the Bible.  That one people would be elect and distinct from other ethnicities is very offensive to today’s woke contingent.  How about the idea that if one does not accept Yeshua one can die in sin and go to Hell?  How offensive is that?  How offensive that there is one true religion?  The Bible also justifies eliminating the tribes of Canaan.  The Psalmists prays for the crushing of the enemies of Israel including destroying the children of the conquerors.    

In Seminary we learned about progressive revelation.  Not all that the Psalmists pray is the heart of God for us to pray.  We are now guided by the Sermon on the mount and the love of our enemies.  We are not commanded to eliminate any people but to love them, pray and work for their salvation.  What God permitted in the progress of history in the pre-New Covenant period now has to be applied under the standards of the New Covenant and the pictures in the prophets that foreshadowed the broadness of God’s heart for all people.  

However, cancel culture people will not be patient or tolerate such explanations.  In addition, there is no way out of the narrow way that leads to salvation; that Biblical faith is the true way of salvation and superior and unlike all other religions.  Its rigid moral standards for sexuality and monogamous marriage will certainly be considered hate speech.  Weinberg anticipates the attempt to cancel the Bible.  It will certainly happen.  The new tyrants in social media will see to this. However, what will we do?  We cannot stand up to this with a milk toast kind of faith.  No, it will require us to enter into a place of God’s presence and power that is far greater than in Western Christianity.  It will require levels of revival and revival living that we can hardly imagine.  We can receive such love and power and must!

I wrote the book Social Justice to address the meaning of social justice from a Biblical Worldview perspective.  The book both deals with the general teaching of the Bible, beginning with the Torah and then the rest of the Bible on the issue of social justice, and then goes on from there to address specific hot issues today.  

Hundreds of years before Yeshua, Plato wrote the dialogue Euthyphro.  The dialogue is usually considered to actually reflect the approach of Socrates.  Socrates questions a young man who is going off to war.  He asks why he is going.  He responds that he is going to fight for justice.  Socrates questions him about the nature of justice.  Euthyphro finds that every definition and defense he gives for fighting is undermined through the incisive questioning of Socrates.  He simply did not know what justice was.  He decided to go home instead of going to war.  I think that we will find that many social justice warriors would end with the same confusion as Euthyphro if they were carefully questioned. 

How many in our own day are social justice warriors but have no definitions or framework to engage the justice issues of our day?  My book provides the definitions and framework, both by giving a biblical description of what constitutes a just society and secondly by defining love, the motivation for seeking justice.  Woe to us if our directions are not based on the Bible. 

The reader may be surprised that not all that is generally pushed by conservatives is in accord with biblical norms of justice.  The same goes for liberal solutions.  Those who have endorsed this book found it to be an absorbing read and accurate to the Bible.  This includes the famous former President of Gordon Conwell Seminary, Dr. Walter Kaiser, and Dr. Jerry Dirman, one of the key national leaders in the United States in the Foursquare Church of God.  

The reader will find that rightly preached, the Gospel of the Kingdom is the greatest possible social justice message with the power to change people and society.  Establishing discipling communities that live out love and justice is God’s key foundation for the pursuit of love and justice.  

This book was especially written for young adults, parents, and pastors who are finding a rift over the issues of social justice.  It can help bring us back together into unity. Do sign up for our newsletter as well when you order this book. 

Those who are following the American situation in regard to Christianity, politics, the Trump administration, and the election of Joe Biden recognize the upheaval, controversy, the prophetic questions and disappointments and so much more.  I have addressed some of this in the past and always noted that progress for righteousness in the society and through politics can only be lasting in a context of a revived and growing Body of Believers in a nation that is producing quality discipling communities that change the culture of the nation.  Revival is the center of my hope whether or not we enter into a period of respite and restoration in the United States or whether the revival prepares us for the soon-coming great tribulation. 

I have argued theologically, along with a stream of Bible interpreters, from Puritans, Lutheran Pietists, to the revivalists in the 17^th to 20^th centuries, that there will be massive world revival that will enable the completion of world evangelism on this side of the Millennium.  That revival will be in Israel as well and a key to Israel’s salvation.  Acts 2, in this view, was a great installment of Joel 2, but the ultimate fulfillment is just before the return of the Lord and includes the final signs described there.  I have a good historical consensus and scholarly support for this view.  However, there have been revivals in the interim.  

In 1968, J. Edwin Orr, of Fuller Theological Seminary, the historian of revival spoke at Wheaton College.  He presented the case that great progress for the Gospel was an outworking of outpourings of the Spirit.  His writings give great detail on this.  Richard Lovelace of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, in his Dynamics of Spiritual Renewal argued similarly.  

In my own limited experience, I saw how an outpouring at Wheaton college in my wife’s junior year transformed the campus in 1969 and again in the 1990s.  Beth Messiah, my congregation, touched and influenced by the revivals and renewals in Pensacola, Florida, and Toronto, Canada.  We had many visiting leaders connected to the outpourings of those days.  The effect was that a large contingent gave themselves radically to Gospel ministry.  We sent dozens into full-time ministry.  It was amazing. 

But again, is there anything we can do to foster revival, an outpouring even if it is not the final and great one for which we pray and hope?  Charles Finney, the great evangelist of the mid 19^th century, argued in his Lectures on Revival, that if the conditions are met, there will be revival. Lovelace, a more Calvinist historian, did argue that concerts of prayer were keys to revival but the sovereignty of God was much more in view, and people cannot make a revival happen.  O. K., but can we make it more likely. 

Here are my gleanings from my studies on revival and from my experiences.  

1. Revival is much more likely when a people are prepared to long for revival.  How does this happen?  By preaching that centers on revival, first the biblical texts and then the stories of revivals and what happened and can happen again.  Fostering this longing in a growing group of prayer partners and in congregations often precedes the revival. 
2. Revival preachers are keys to revival.  They are able to call people to repentance and dedication.  This does happen as a product of revival, but there is also a pre-revival preparation. I think that having revival and ministers that moved in the power of the Spirit was a key to what was produced in the 1990s in our midst.  We encouraged people to visit where such outpourings were taking place and also sought to bring it to our community.  We would not make our desire for Jewish indigeneity and identity be a barrier to this.  We also embraced manifestations that some would question as really normal historically.  We did not shut down what made us uncomfortable.  We prepared out people for this.  (See psychiatrist John White, When the Spirit Falls in Power. 
3. Then, we have to know and prepare for revival so the fruits of revival will not be lost. I think many think they would like to see a revival but are not aware that the revival will upend their lives if they submit to what God wants to do during such times.  Evenings will be taken up in power evangelism with signs and wonders and gatherings in meetings together.  Some people will be so touched by the Lord that they will spend hours in his presence, sometimes on the floor and not able to move.  Signs and wonders will be part of the meetings. We see this in the ministries of Jonathan Edwards, Ludwig Von Zinzendorf and the Moravians, the John Wesley and the Methodist revivals, Peter Cartwright, Evan Roberts and the Welsh revival, Azuza Street and the Pentecostal revival and movement, the Latter Rain movement from Canada, and so on.  Randy Clark in his book, There is More, gives a good summary. The parallels in all these revivals are quite amazing. 
4. I think God is more likely to send such a revival when there is preparation for stewarding it.  This includes the fact that we will have to teach large groups of new believers.  Teaching them the Bible and how to walk as believers can take place in larger meetings, but will also be in small groups like the Methodist Bands.  This was the Acts 2:42 model. Maybe God does not send the revival because He knows that people will not pay the price that receiving the Glory will entail. 

Yes, the greatest revivals did produce social transformation. More than that, however, they ended making great gains for the spread of the Gospel and the multiplication of congregations. 

 

I participated in a recent phone call of apostolic leaders.   The discussion concerned accountability for prophets and all other five-fold ministry leaders.   This was in the context of what seemed some serious prophetic failures.  The discussion turned to the issue of what is the structure of eldership accountability for such prophets, accountability to a five-fold level of senior leaders who share the responsibility with the prophet.  We certainly hope that prophets who miss it on a serious large level will repent and seek God with their accountability authority to find out what went wrong and be re-positioned for greater quality and accuracy. 

As were discussing this, Mike Bickle, the leader of the International House of Prayer recommended my book Due Process, a Plea for Biblical Justice among God’s People.  Then John Kelly who leads the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders said it was a very important book.  Sadly, there is not another like it, and there should be.  A publisher on the call said that he wanted to have it re-printed and re-presented.  Why is this book so important?  It is because it deals with a crucially missing ingredient in many congregations and streams.  That is how to maintain basic standards of righteousness in a community.  That requires that we form discipling communities that are able to bring correction to those who err.  It also requires fairness to both those who are corrected and those who bring the correction.  Some of the key passages on these matters are not often taught or even rightly understood. 

The book deals with the important biblical passages that speak about this.  It also presents the role of the elders as first shepherds in love, but also for the sake of the flock as a judicial team that is charged to establish standards and to act when necessary to see that those who will not repent of serious sin are not able to continue in the community, and also that wolves in sheep’s clothing are not given opportunity to devour the sheep.  The importance of Matthew 18 and the process of bringing correction is fully dealt with as well as the way of restoration for those who do repent.  It also shows the way of settling disputes among brothers and sisters.  

We are charged with building lasting covenant discipleship community.  Without the standards of the Bible for Due Process, our attempts could fail.   I hope you all do get his book.  

My daughter Rebecca is very smart.  Recently she alerted me to what schools are teaching as American history.  The text by Howard Zinn is alarming.  I read the book and sent her this review.  She gave me permission to post this. 

I read the Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the United States, a book for young people/students and am reading the other lengthy one  I wanted to read the youth one first because the text for young people is more important in influence and in shaping young minds. 

It was very disturbing.  It is not that much of what he says is untrue. Much is true.  And you would be surprised how much of this we learned in U. S. history in our Junior year of High School in1963, 1964.  The terrible issues of slavery were clear as the terrible treatment of native Americans.

One could say Zinn could be titled “A Radical Leftist Interpretation of the History of the United States.”

So what is the problem of Zinn?  It is mostly what he does not say and what he leaves out.

1.  First, World history shows that the issue of the powerful and wealthy dominating and oppressing the rest of the population is universal. This is so in India, China and Africa.  This is not a uniquely American problem. He soft- peddles the oppression and genocide in Africa among tribes.  In addition, he soft pedals human sacrifice in Africa and Central American cultures.  Stunning!  In China and India wars (I read extensive history) the genocide of other tribes was common. The lack of a World history context is a terrible disservice.

2.  He does not understand the basic issue of Western History for 1900 years.  What is it?   It has been the struggle between three groups.  1. Those true to the Gospel and Biblical values who stand for the poor and oppressed and serve them.  2. Those who co-op Christianity and make it a state religion or make it a cultural religion cut off from the commandments Yeshua. The loss of focus on the oppressed and poor as the center of Gospel outreach has been very sad. 3. Those who are not in any way Christians but seek to dominate, and oppress for their own ends.

3. In following #2 he leaves out the history of those Christians who were valiant and key to fighting the oppression.   He names John Newton the former slave trader who was anti-slavery and does not note that he wrote Amazing Grace. His conversion made him an anti-slavery fighter who encouraged the deeply Christian William Wilberforce who was the leader in seeing slavery eliminated in the British Empire. He leaves out the revivalists like Jonathan Edwards’ son in law David Brainard who gave himself to the native Americans and was a champion for the native Americans.  He leaves out the real power of the Christian underground railroad.  The revivalist Charles Fiinney and the founder of Wheaton, Jonathan Blanchard were examples.  Without the revivals the force of the anti-slavery movement never would have succeeded. Who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin?  Harriet Beecher Stowe, from the Beecher family. Her father and brother were famous anti slave evangelicals.  He only sees leftist redials as standing for human rights.  But the leader for women’s rights was an evangelical, Susan B. Antony, and she was anti-abortion.  Who led the child labor reforms? Evangelicals.  He leaves out Quaker William Penn who was anti-slavery and pro native American  Also though Roger Williams is mentioned, little is said, but his importance is enormous.  He founded Rhode Island whose law was a key to the religious liberty clause of the Constitution a century plus later. Rhode Island was the first free state in the World on these matters.  Tom Holland, the British Atheist historian says that all our human rights ideas among secularists would not exist but for Christian Bible roots. No culture in history has stood for the equal value of human beings without biblical roots. So also I note the great sociologiest Rodney Stark and his writings on Christianity and its influence.  He also leave sout the Catholic monastics that served the needy, native Americans, blacks and more.  The Catholic workers movement with Dorathy Day was important. Left out!

4. Because of this lack he downplays the importance of the Declaration of Independence, “That all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Without biblical roots, this would never have been written.  Yes, holding slaves as Jefferson did, was inconsistent to it, and Jefferson really knew it was. But in the economy of those days slavery seemed necessary to Southern economics. Wrong and sad!  But when Jefferson penned this, he set in motion the influence to eliminate slavery and foster the greatest influence for liberation that the world had ever seen on the political level.  The founders that were anti-slavery are not quoted. What they said and wrote was ignored. Read the great John Adam’s biography by David McCullough.  Not even referenced.

The U S was designed to be a Republic with the vote as only one part of checking power. The whole issue was to prevent the centralization of power since human beings can not be trusted with too much power.  Yes, the vote was to be for the educated who were land owners in those days. However, many hoped that others would attain prosperity under the new constitution.  It is wrong to see them all as only in it for themselves, but there was hope for a growing prosperity for ordinary people as well.  And yes, for many it was about self-interest.  But not for the many Christians that were supportive of the new system.

5. It is true that Lincoln was at first more about seeing the country not break into and not for freeing the slaves.  But was it only for special interests of the North only.  Did Lincoln not have higher motives eventually. Lincoln seems to have had a kind of conversion to Christianity during the war.  His words on the judgement of God on all of America and the Civil war as exacting that judgement on both north and south due to slavery are not even mentioned.  Yes, he doubted that the “Negros” could fully integrate, and thought of them going back to Africa to be in their own culture, but that was a culture judgment and wrong. Many fought against slavery with deep conviction.  The Secretary of State Seward was total anti-Slavery and ran against Lincoln for the nomination in 1860.  Slaves from the underground railway were given refuge at his home in Auburn, New York. Carl Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln and Professor Ronald Rietveld of Wheaton were important (your Mom’s professor and an expert on Lincoln). Even Lincoln is being caceled by some today.

6.  For Zinn there are two groups of people in the U. S.  The oppressed and the oppressors. But it is not so. It is also the story of millions of immigrants like my Norwegian and Jewish ancestors who came poor and moved up.  The story of upward mobility in the U. S. is left out. The U. S. does not only have inherited wealth, but wealth has changed hands.  Today it is worse than in recent years due to the accumulation to obscene levels with the likes of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zukerberg and Bil Gatesrg and Bill Gates.  But note how many who came poor did well, as our family, both the Jewish and Norwegian sides.  My Jewish ancestors began in the ghetto. The blacks until recently did not share in this upward mobility, but there is now more upward mobility for them.  But Norwegians, Jews, Poles, and Italians have became decently prosperous. The composition of the town I grew up in was made up of such folks, not very rich, but middle class and living well.  There seems no prosperous middle class in Zinn.

7.  He seems to grudgingly admit that people were oppressed under communism. But his sympathy is for the American communists. The fact that communism leads to poverty and terrible death and oppression is just not there a theme his writing  Yes, the U. S. fought wars for the self-interest of the establishment and its wealth but there were mixed motives and other reasons as well.  To prevent communism and its terrible record of death and destruction is noble. Yes, capitalism has to be reformed and is a long story. But capitalism produces the entrepreneurship that expands the economic pie like nothing else in history and has lifted more out of poverty than any other system.  The wealth expansion has the potential to lift peoples like no other system.  Crony capitalism is its worst negative that has to be faced and has to be prevented. But when rightly directed, it lifts people out of poverty in large numbers. Zinn seems totally unaware.  It is why India and Israel changed to free enterprise; so also now much of Africa. Even China is now fascist capitalism

8.  He does not credit the great gains in the ideas of freedom and liberty that came to the world from America.

9. When he speaks of the spies Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, the Russian communist spies and traitors who were executed, he leave out the fact that when communism fell the records were made known and their guilt was absolutely confirmed.  Others may not have been wrongly convicted for treason over the years, and there were sometimes sad miscarriages of justice. 

10  He idealizes Native American and Black Africans and does not credit other writers.  He selectively picks some writers to idealize those cultures with free love, equal life for men and women etc.

11. He talks about the Israel occupation of the Palestinian land and does not note that for the Arabs, all Israel, including Tel Aviv, is occupied territory. They walked away form a two-state solution twice.

12. Yes though labor unions are now corrupt, the labor movement was a just movement for fair wages, working conditions and more.  However, today those gains are being lost to China.  Why is that?  An interesting story of greed and corruption driven by the elite today.

His view is that redemption will come from the left, but if you study the results of the left in history you will see that redemption only comes from the Biblical faith.

So that is my evaluation.