Some Thanks
Thanks for what you do sir. It’s helped me tremendously. Especially during last year’s craziness. Please continue telling everyone that it’s either Christ or Chaos. I first found you because of man rampant. Then I went down the rabbit hole. I even bought the app! Lol.
Shaun
Shaun, you have responded correctly.
Consumer Choice
Thank you for all the work you’re doing, we really appreciate it even in southern California. My question was in regards to how Christians should do business or if we are being righteous by choosing on who to do business with. I have a guy I used to get my haircut with for a couple years , he does a great job and I always enjoyed the service but over the last two haircuts I started to notice he was “transitioning,” as they call it. I always thought he was just a punk in the way he dressed, but now he is full on dressing like a woman, with makeup and the whole thing, and the receptionist referred to him as a she during my last haircut. Am I justified on looking for a new barber or is it unchristian like to do so? Thank you
Eric
Eric, this is completely your choice. It is not unchristian at all to avoid those who are flaunting their sin, and so you have complete liberty to go elsewhere. But if you had the sort of relationship with him where you thought you could share the gospel with him, in such a way that would not end in a major lawsuit or something, then feel free to do that.
The Heads of the Beast
Thank you for everything you are doing to further the kingdom of God. I’m a bi-vocational youth pastor in rural Alabama, and I have personally found your work to be helpful and edifying in my walk with Christ. I have recently been studying eschatology, and have watched several videos on YouTube of RC Sproul and yourself discussing a preterist or post-mil view. When I read the Bible, it seems that this view makes the most sense. I was raised dispensational pre-mil, and for a long time I shied away from studying eschatology because it seemed too far-fetched for me to wrap my head around. As I have grown, the preterist post-mil view seems to flow naturally with Scripture and line up with what Christ himself had to say on the subject of last things. I just have one mental block that I can’t seem to shake concerning Nero’s involvement in the whole thing.
My question is how can Nero be the Beast when the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was carried out by Vespasian?
Thank you for your time.
God bless.
Will
Will, thanks. Nero was not the beast, but rather one of the seven heads of the beast. The beast is the Roman Empire, and the beast had seven heads. The seven heads were seven hills (upon which Rome sat), and they were also seven kings. Five were (Julius, Augustus, et al), one is (Nero), and one is to come.
In a recent Blog & Mablog podcast the narrator mentions that he is a preterist. I am curious if there is any podcast where he expands on those views . . . and maybe he can give his opinion on Mike Winger’s recent podcasts discussing preterism. Thank you for your time,
Martin
Martin, the two books I have written that would expand on my preterism would be Heaven Misplaced and When the Man Comes Around. I am sorry I am not familiar with Mike Winger’s treatment of it.
Baptism and Covenant
I had a question about covenantal theology. I’m presently a Baptist, though I’ve become convinced of covenantal theology and am now trying to put the pieces the together as far as paedobaptism is concerned. I reached out to a theologian friend who leans covenantal but is still credo-baptist and asked him about the New Covenant. His reply was interesting and I was curious what you would say in reply.
He says he generally endorses Covenant Theology as a system, but is concerned when the collective is put before the individual rather than vice versa. He says that if the newness of the new covenant is first and foremost God’s act to write it on the heart (Jer. 31), then covenant membership should flow from that. So he agrees that both circumcision and baptism are signs of the covenant but the nature of the symbols differs quite a bit and we have to imagine the New Covenant sign to be ordered toward what makes the New Covenant new: the writing of the law on people’s hearts.
Hopefully I understood his reply thoroughly enough to give it justice. Would love you thoughts.
Thank you for your ministry!
Mike
Mike, thanks. There are many ways to respond to this, but let me choose just one. God not only promises to write His law in our hearts, He promises to do it from “the least to the greatest.” Who are the least? Do a study on that phrase throughout the book of Jeremiah, and it will be increasingly difficult to exclude infants, who are certainly among the least.
Okay to be White
Re: It Really is Okay to be White and Black and Tan
I was listening to Black & Tan on the wonderful Canon Press app. You wrote something to the effect that Western European culture was in better shape than some others because the gospel had had more opportunity to work in it. I agree
Yet I have often wondered how come Greek culture, for instance, was far more advanced than, say, North American culture about the time Christ was born. The gospel hadn’t been worked there and this was only 2600 years or so after the Flood and even less after the Tower of Babel. How could the cultures of the world have been so disparate in such a short period of time after the entire human culture had been one? Another way of asking the question is how could some cultures have lost so much of the technology and advancement that was present at Babel?
Bill
Bill, I think the answer is simply sin. How can former aerospace engineers end up on skid row? I believe that human civilization prior to the Flood was wicked, but extremely sophisticated. Those memories and abilities were carried over after the Flood (including in America: Aztecs, Incas, Mayans). But other groups veered off and became much more primitive. So I don’t believe “savages” represent an earlier stage of evolution. Rather they represent devolution, a consequence of sin.
Re “It Really is Okay to be White,” your explication of the heart of the matter is excellent—thank you! I find the terms “ethnic vainglory” and “ethnic animosity” to be very helpful, accurate, and relevant. But I think there may be at least one other category of sin that often appears in ethnic controversies, though I’m struggling to give it a name that I’m as satisfied with as I am with your terms above.
So I would be very interested in your comments, and perhaps you can come up with an equally accurate bit of terminology for sin typified by the young woman in this story.
It seems she claimed to be a victim of racism (ethnic animosity) on extremely flimsy/nonexistent grounds, but I don’t believe the story supports a theory of her motivation or sin being envy, exactly.
“All I did was be Black,” Ms. Kanoute wrote. “It’s outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College, and my existence overall as a woman of color.”
Being a student at Smith college places her within an (arguably enviable) elite minority among persons of all ethnicities, and I think I recall reading somewhere that she comes from a wealthy family in Mali.
In any case, it’s at least conceivable that an exceptionally privileged member of a typically less fortunate ethnic minority might claim to be a victim of ethnically motivated animosity when, in truth, the animosity is based on something else—or doesn’t exist at all.
Actually, this might be an even better example, in which the former First Lady cites racism as the motive for a woman who cut in front of her in line at an ice cream shop when she “had told the Secret Service to stand back because we were trying to be normal, trying to go in . . . and once again, when I’m just a Black(sic) woman, I notice that white (also sic) people don’t even see me. They’re not even looking at me.”
Now I’m thinking that, despite being a white male, I’m basically a normal person (what she claimed she was trying to be), and people don’t really look at me when I go to an ice cream shop, either. They look at the menu—or perhaps the ice cream itself—but, you know, they didn’t come to see me. And sometimes, focused as they are on other things, people have cut in front of me too. That’s just the kind of stuff that happens to normal people.
Then Mrs. O. goes on to explain “What white folks don’t understand” about racism.
So what do we call this sin? Again, I don’t believe it’s envy. I’m pretty sure being white hardly affords the average white person a more privileged status than the First Lady. Why then does she, like the woman in the first story, immediately assume that her ethnicity is the basis for what were really in both cases just pretty ordinary human interactions? What is their motive for making such serious allegations against those “lower status” individuals?
I agree with your premise that there’s no such thing as racism, and what we’re really talking about is sin. Thank you for the clarification, and I’m very interested in your thoughts along the same lines on what I’ve put forth here. I apologize for the wordiness; I hope I’ve been reasonably clear. Blessings to you.
Michael
Michael, thanks. When I talk about ethnic vainglory, I am usually talking about the vainglory of the ethnic group that has the upper hand—but it can work both ways. In a time when being a victim is prized, and people inflate their experiences in order to be able to claim that status, it is a reverse form of ethnic vainglory. That would be my understanding at least.
This letter is interacting with “It Really is ok to be White” I think your distinction between sinful and non-sinful ethnic prejudice is helpful, and I agree that we have to have a category of prejudice that is not sinful. Prejudice is often wise and prudent for finite beings in a complex world, but it seems to me that prejudice can be harmful/sinful even if the pre-judger would theoretically be open to evidence to the contrary because of the possibility of a feedback loop. Going back to your Italian example, that stereotype might be helpful for travelers to secure their wallets but it could quickly lead to the criminal justice system being quicker to charge and convict Italians which then would provide further evidence to back up the stereotype and now you’ve got yourself a nasty cycle. Could you elaborate on where exactly you think the line should be drawn?
Another distinction that I don’t see very often in Evangelical circles is between empirical observations a Marxist makes, and Marxism/Critical Theory as a framework and/or ideology. Yoram Hazony and other conservatives have often quipped that Marxists are great at identifying problems in society, but they misdiagnose the root cause and thus are terrible at coming up with solutions, but statements like this require the ability distinguish a philosophical framework from empirical observations made by people holding that framework. I’m thinking that one reason why Critical Theory has gotten such a hold on the Evangelical world is that Christians fail to make this distinction so if they become convinced that a specific empirical observation is true, then they end up adopting the whole framework/ideology of the people making that observation. Do you think this distinction is valid or helpful at all?
Mason
Mason, on your second point, I agree completely. If you come to trust a doctor’s diagnoses, it is much easier to trust his remedies. But they are not the same thing at all. On your first point, I agree with that also. An individual has the liberty to stay out of bad neighborhoods, and no blood, no foul. But the cops don’t have that liberty, and neither does the justice system. So what I would advocate is a rigorous system of training in what constitutes justice before anyone is trusted with coercive power.
Re: It Really is Okay to be White: Ok, I can’t tell.. did we ever come out of No Quarter November? I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhogs Day, but in the best possible way.
Thank you for Blog and Mablog, and for the rest of the ministries that come out of Moscow. They are really helping to stir up a growing number of men and women here in Iowa to stand upon God’s word, and recognize Jesus as King for all of life.
God bless,
P.S. – I’m not sure how many more apologies I can afford to my wife. The Canon App has so much great content, I struggle to put it down.
Tyler
Tyler, thanks for the kind words.
“It really is ok to be white”
Pastor Wilson,
You have an amazing way at saying what many of us know but can’t say well. It’s a very neat gift. Thank you for speaking for us. I felt freed up at the end of this one. BTW, what brand and type of new truck did you get? Do you enjoy it?
In Him,
Sam
Sam, I now have an F150 Lariat. I am very grateful for it.
Ploductivity
I am working through Ploductivity (which has been extremely helpful) and your comments on imitation stood out to me. As a preacher, I recognize the value of imitation but I always feel a quandary when I am gleaning insights from good Christian authors, podcasts, sermons, etc. My quandary is that I don’t want to just preach to my flock the latest book that I am reading, but I want to preach the Bible.
Am I off base in having that conflict or is this something to watch out for? One thing I have tried to make a habit of is not to rely too much on anything I have read RECENTLY. I like to let things simmer in my mind and if it is valuable and worth sharing I have a suspicion that it will stay there.
Thanks for all you do,
Johnathan
Johnathan, you are not off base at all, and your strategy seems to me to be a very good one. The one exception I would make would be if you learned something recently, and yet a slam dunk exegetical case can be made for it.
A Joint Statement?
I’m very grateful for your writing and speaking on a number of topics: from fetal tissue vaccines (you changed the mind of a friend of mine) to statism, Romans 13 and masks etc.—I’ve been hunting for your 21 false assumptions about Romans 13 sermon but could not find (it was referenced in a Rebel Alliance podcast).
I particularly like your spoken succinctly and biblical summaries and catchy phrases/No-Quarter statements. Makes it memorable!
Now, please forgive me for a shameless plea: have you ever dreamt of a theological Great Barrington Declaration, around which Christians of many colors and stripes (or stars and bars if you prefer) can unite?
You and a few other excellent brothers share roughly the same robust biblical mind on love, statism, masks, shelter@home etc. — can I beg you in Christ to work together with such brethren to produce something outstanding and globally applicable that all believers (who share your essential perspective) can align themselves behind?!
It’d be something like, but no doubt much better than: christnotcaesar.org (which is my prototype) — here is a simple Vision Statement.
I’m doing my best with God’s favour to interest some of the authors on this page:
There are about 8 on board with the vision statement excluding me, with varying amounts of time available, covering Australia, Canada, America, South Africa and the UK—and crossing multiple denominations.
Once again apologies for the intrusion, and with much gratitude for your writings and clarity, especially at this time.
In Jesus,
Thomas
Thomas, it is a great idea in principle. Some of the difficulty would be the “hours in the day” problem, some of it would be discomfort on one end of the bell curve with whoever is on the other end of it, and some of it (unfortunately) would be rivalry and turf concerns.
Working On It
I wanna know where we can buy those Soviet Moscow stickers!
Megan
Megan, great idea.
High-Tech Agrarians
Plodcast ???: High Tech Agrarians:
Pastor Wilson, I have walked a tightrope for many years on this matter, striving not to fall into Niagara Falls on either the right side or the left. On one end of my balancing pole I have a smart phone, laptop, desktop, bluetooth syncing car, and a handy-dandy wiretap courtesy of Google, which I have named Alexa. On the other end of my pole I have leather bound hardback books, board games, a wood burning fireplace, a garden, 9 chickens, 2 dogs, and I generally keep Alexa unplugged from the wall.
I am inclined to throw all the techno-gee-wizardry into the burn barrel out back, douse it with gasoline, and roast some weenies. But I wouldn’t be able to listen to your Plodcast if I did that, so I continue to walk along the quavering rope, mindful that Niagara is constantly dousing it with overspray. The way forward is probably a bit slippery.
Thank you for providing a calm and reasoned reminder that technology is not evil. I knew that about guns, but sometimes when I see the death of an entire culture swirling the drain of Apple’s latest piece of nonsense, I really do want to blame the microchip. While self-driving corn harvesters might not have been welcomed by the thinkers in the Old Antebellum South (a land I dearly love), God has granted us that today. GPS isn’t evil and Rand McNally wasn’t a saint.
Our hearts are evil and we get lost in our cell phones because we lack a vital fruit of the Spirit called self-control. We also lack manners, morals, common decency, and any sense of propriety. But the iPad didn’t create that, it merely exposed it.
Malachi
Malachi, yes, you are right. We have to walk a tightrope, and the balancing pole is a long one.
The Pence Rule
Hello Pastor Doug, A few weeks ago you wrote something about how pastors (and men in general) should seek to be careful when interacting with women as a safeguard to avoiding sexual immorality. I would like your views on this article (by the Gospel Coalition) which says that men endeavouring to be careful can make women feel they are dangerous. Thoughts?
Kip
Kip, I haven’t had time to go through the article, but I can say this much. Women should feel like they are dangerous. Of course they are dangerous. And the most dangerous are those who don’t understand what the danger is.
Pietism and Heaven?
My wife Elizabeth and I have translated “Paula, the Waldensian” into Dutch. In the preface I presume that the author’s strong emphasis on going to Heaven after we die is due to the influence of late romantic dualism (the earth is bad, heaven is good) of the 19th century. I did not do any interpretative historical research on this (which I admit in this preface), but I remember N.T. Wright saying during a Fuller conference that equating the Gospel with “going to haven after we die” was based on 19th century dualism. Is there any way I can verify my statement?
Yours in Christ,
Hugo & Elizabeth
Hugo and Elizabeth, the Bible does provide plenty of encouragement for the individual believer along these lines (absent from the body/present with the Lord), and individuals have always been naturally concerned with the question. The problem of dualism arises, not when we look forward to being with the Lord in Paradise, but rather when we confuse that intermediate state with our final and eternal state, after the resurrection of the body.
A Sound Reductio
Re: Collapse of Secular Man
Just speaking as a white male oppressor here, I keep wondering when my co-oppressors will join me in asking the aggrieved classes what exactly is wrong about my oppressing them. Gnome sane? They just keep assuming oppression is bad, but everything they tell me is wrong with it sounds like something good for me and my oppressor classmates. What could be better than abundant slave labor and women you can actually buy and own? Because if we’re going all the way with the relativism thing, oppression sounds like a relatively good gig—for me —and as for you, relativism gives me no reason to care whether you like it or not. Your misery is just “your truth,” all bottled up inside your head. And me getting rich off you is “my truth,” which is nice for me.
Steve
Steve, you have grasped the implications nicely.
Book Recommendations?
I wanted to write to you and see if you can recommend a few of what you consider to be the best Christian philosophy books, or just the best philosophy books in general . . . I am currently reading He is There and He is not Silent by Francis Schaeffer, and want to dig more deeply into the subject.
Thanks.
Logan
Logan, on the assumption that you mean worldview engagement and cultural implications, I think the best place to start would be Idols for Destruction.
Hi Michael, I too would like to find a useful term for what you describe. Though I’m hoping it’s just a phase with my teenagers! I found this from Scientific American: Rahav Gabay and her colleagues define this tendency for interpersonal victimhood as “an ongoing feeling that the self is a victim, which is generalized across many kinds of relationships. As a result, victimization becomes a central part of the individual’s identity.” Those who have a perpetual victimhood mindset tend to have an “external locus of control”; they believe that one’s life is entirely under the control of forces outside… Read more »
The useful term you’re looking for is narcissism.
RE: Michael / whiteness My very outgoing sister once told me that friends are a numbers game. Out of every 100 people, a certain percent will love you straight off the bat, a large percent will be indifferent to you and a certain percent will dislike you. If someone treats me as though I were invisible or is rude to me, etc, I generally think they have been having a bad day, or they are just jerks, or that maybe I rubbed them the wrong way. I think a lot of minorities are being conditioned to interpret every negative encounter… Read more »
This partially explains it, but we also have to take into account that for many non-whites, Western civilization is never really going to feel like “home.” The discomfort that blacks in America experience, for instance, is partly due to the fact that so many of our national heroes enslaved their ancestors, but another part of it is simply innate differences between whites and blacks in terms of psychology and intellectual capacity. Africans never could have built America, or even conceptualized of it, as that involves a level of abstract thinking that is not natural to them.
I do not believe that IQ differences are innate. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” I believe that God increases the knowledge and wisdom of a people generation over generation as they serve Him with their whole hearts (Is 28:9-10,26). We are seeing a scorge of intelligence regression among our people that is a judgement from God (Is29:14). Talent in all forms is a blessing from God (Is 3:1-5). Successive generations that serve God will be rewarded with increasing talents. Europe and America have been long an outpost of Christendom; as other lands serve God, the… Read more »
The fact that IQ differences are innate to a significant degree is an empirical fact, and not particularly controversial in the academic world. We’ve tried for generations to give blacks and other non-whites educational advantages and it’s done nothing to close the intelligence gap. Moreover, if intelligence (not the same thing as wisdom) is a reflection of obedience to God, why do east Asians have higher average IQ’s than whites? Have they done more to promote Christendom than whites have?
Maybe I chose the wrong word. Intelligence is not immutable; it is an inheritance from God. Also, I think IQ test results are flawed because A. asians cheat like crazy on all tests, which is something you would be well acquainted with if you have ever gone to university in a stem field in a high % asian school; they also prep for IQ tests which goes against anglo ethos; B. asian iq is not tightly linked to greater contributions in their fields -they are often known to fabricate their work (medical studies) or steal it (engineering).
How is it even possible to cheat on an IQ test?? (I admit I’m not very familiar with them, not having taken one since I was 8.)
IQ tests set out to measure your ability to solve unfamiliar problems, to make connections between seemingly unrelated things/ideas, and to detect patterns. To score well, you need to be able to do these tasks quickly. If you have previous exposure to the kinds of questions asked on IQ tests–if you’ve done timed practice tests, for example–your score might be measuring your memory and your acquired knowledge. For an IQ score to be high on validity, you should not have seen or taken that test before. When their seven-year-old children are facing high-stakes IQ testing to qualify for a school… Read more »
Armin,
Let’s say IQ differences between races are innate and immutable. I’m not entirely convinced that is entirely true even apart from race, but let’s say. In that case, how does the fact that “African-Americans” are genetically partly – often mostly – European by ancestry, figure into it? . I don’t know if you have thought about it, or if you have what you think. It does seem to me it makes it harder to say anything accurate about the genetically determined traits of what we call black Americans.
On average they’re about 25% European, which may partly explain why their average IQ is about 85 versus 70 in Africa. I imagine that a lot of people who are, say, 50% black and 50% white are included in the black calculation, as these people will identify as either black or neither.
I believe the data shows Asian Americans performing higher on IQ tests than white Americans, which is an entirely different thing than saying that Asians have higher IQs than whites. It seems fairly obvious to me that the reason for the higher intelligence of Asian Americans is that they’re either among that cream-of-the-crop among their countrymen who were able to immigrate here based on their academic achievements or they’re the progeny of that exceptionally intelligent subset of Asians and the inheritors of those high-intelligence genes. That, in addition to the high priority this group places on fostering intelligence, makes it… Read more »
Asians in Asian countries also score higher than whites.
I’m not sure what to make of the data, but after you responded, I looked up the average IQ by country and the data did confirm East Asian countries scoring in the top. I also saw that Italians have a higher average IQ than any other country of primarily white Europeans including countries such as Finland which I mention because it’s a predominantly homogeneous country. I don’t know what your racial categorization makes of the idea that Italians are necessarily smarter than Finns, but I’m deeply skeptical.. I know that East Asian countries focus their education systems primarily on math… Read more »
Even after normalizing for things like education and socio-economic status, racial IQ disparities still exist. The goal of such tests is to measure raw intelligence, thus filtering out to the extent possible the need for prior knowledge. No system is perfect, but can education, or any other factor or combination of factors, explain the difference between say, Japan and Haiti? At some point we just have to accept that if there are numerous substantial physical differences among the races, then there’s no reason that couldn’t include differences in the brain. The burden of proof is on the person who claims… Read more »
Ok, I’ll ask the question…How does being a self proclaimed “race realist” like yourself cause you to approach your community and the world at large? Do you think “neither dunce nor genius” is implied in Galatians 3:28? Does poor in knowledge or mental capacity fit within the use of the word poor in Luke 4:18-19 or James 2:5-6.
There are certainly differences between groups along a number of axes. Some of these non-controversial: height, melanin, eye color, eye-lid shape, dentition, lactose tolerance, malaria resistance, etc. But when the idea of difference in personality or cognition are brought up we recoil. Partly that is due to a pretty ugly history, and partly it is because we so value intelligence in today’s world that it becomes a stand in for a person’s worth. I think there are clearly mean differences in cognition between groups, but I am far less convinced that they are stable. I also think cross country comparisons… Read more »
Sensitive indeed. It’s a sad reflection that, among the parents of my Snowflake’s classmates, “she’s not academically gifted but she’ll succeed because she works so hard” would have been heard as “if you’re lucky, she can grow up to be a manicurist at the mall. I guess something went wrong during your pregnancy.” Asian parents aren’t like that. They would be more appalled by “your kid is smart but lazy.”
There is little doubt that some intelligence differences are innate, but *measurable* intelligence differences are a function of an ongoing process of learning specific kinds of information. Measurable intelligence may, therefore change over time. IQ is a measurement of intelligence that takes into account two things. One is a language and body of knowledge common to a specific population, and the other is the age of the one whose intelligence is being measured. A person with an IQ of 100 is someone whose score is the average across the population of people their age. IQ on either side of 100… Read more »
Thank you. That’s a very detailed and specific explanation for things I only had vague thoughts about. I don’t believe there’s any test that can produce some kind of objective measurement of the capacity of any individual’s or group of individuals brains.
Doug, I agree with you that the racial grievance industry exists. However, it is only able to exist because actual racism also exists. The worst grievance-mongers you can name owe their existence to the fact that sometimes racist police officers really do beat or kill minorities for sport, and zip code redlining by lenders really does happen, and middle class blacks really are mistaken for maids and gardeners when they are seen in well to do neighborhoods, and white people really do assume that the black person sharing an elevator with them is really a mugger. If Derek Chauvin didn’t… Read more »
No, it exists for the same reason any other industry exists, because someone finds it profitable, and other people are willing to buy their product no matter who gets hurt by it.
Gentlemen, is it really productive to engage in discussion of theology or social policy with women?
Ashv, if the woman knows more about something than you do then yes, you might find it profitable. Stick around, you might learn something.
Is this a serious comment or just a joke?
Was Paul joking when he wrote 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35?
I hold that both men and women are equally made in the image of God, women are not second class citizens in the kingdom but are fully ‘sons’, and may exercise all gifts and ministries that men do according to calling or inclination. Except where specifically forbidden. And as you quote, this is set out in 1 Cor 14 and 1 Tim 2. The restriction in the latter is in effect to pastor/elder office, and is very specific. Everything else is allowed, spoken and dynamic gifts of the Spirit. For all the ink spilled on this, I don’t think 1… Read more »
Yes, actual racism exists, and most of it is black-on-white (and increasingly black-on-Asian) as the violent crime stats show. And of course there’s affirmative action, which has cost many of us 6 figures+ in missed promotions. As for “racist police officers,” there’s zero evidence that Chauvin or his non-white accomplices were being racist. It could’ve been based on a personal dispute since Chauvin and Floyd worked together previously. Chauvin’s wife wasn’t even white, so he’s hardly a poster boy for the Aryan Nations. It’s worth noting that for every riot-causing, media-sensationalized “racist” police incident, there are nearly identical (often worse)… Read more »
JohnM and JP, thank you for proving my point. You are Exhibit A and Exhibit B for exactly what I was talking about.
Doubling down on inanity doesn’t make it any less inane.
Then why do you keep doing it? You have made a what-aboutist argument. The problem with what aboutism is that it ultimately lets everyone off the hook, since you can always find someone else who is also behaving badly. Hitler gets a free pass because what about Stalin, and Stalin gets a free pass because what about Hitler. So it’s a moral blank check. You are correct that some blacks are racists too, but why you think that lets white racists off the hook is beyond me. Further, since whites continue to have most of the wealth and power in… Read more »
There’s no “what aboutism” there. That’s just the only fallacy leftists apparently know–and they try reading it into everything. There’s no “cumulative effect” of white racism due to “wealth and power” that I or any other whites benefit from–that’s garbage straight out of CRT and 1619. I’ve been on the wrong side of affirmative action and similar programs my entire life. Yes, there’s a very small, truly elite class of globalists, but the white race in general doesn’t participate in their gains. The bottom line is you’re easily triggered by watching a Floyd video (that was intentionally played thousands of… Read more »
I’m not entirely sold on affirmative action, but it is the Biblical principle of the sins of the fathers being visited on the children. You personally may never have owned slaves or participated in Jim Crow, but blacks were held back economically and AA is essentially an opportunity for them to make up lost ground that was stolen from them. There are multiple biblical examples of certain generations of Israelites suffering for what previous generations had done. Unfortunately, that’s the way things sometimes work. Do you deny that whites cumulatively do hold far more wealth and power than blacks cumulatively… Read more »
” it is the Biblical principle of the sins of the fathers being visited on the children.” That is a description of things that do happen, not a prescription for how things should work. And even that has a generational limit. “To the third and fourth generation” not “forever and ever amen” We are well past the generational limit for anyone having the consequences of their ancestor’s slaving visited upon then. We are even past the generational limit for anyone to have the consequences of Progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s racist resegregation of the federal government. Now, if you want to… Read more »
“Lyndon Johnson’s racist policies” – right, the people trying to fix racism are the real racists. Go peddle that pish posh somewhere else. That aside, the cold hard reality is that consequences frequently reach far beyond two or three generations. The racial problems we now face are directly attributable to the slave trade that happened centuries ago. The Russians are still paying the consequences of the Russian Revolution of over a century ago. The Arab Israeli conflict is the direct result of the sins of Abraham and Sarah several millennia ago. Unfortunately there is no statute of limitations for when… Read more »
How does it fix racial problems to incentivize bastardy and disincentivize marriage? LBJ’s policies did both, and now we have several generations of fatherless feral youths running wild.
And by LBJ’s own words, he wasn’t trying to fix anything.
He was trying to gain a reliable voting bloc (and thereby more power) for the Democrat party, by separating the blacks from the Republican party that had worked to get them their full rights as citizens, and the means to protect themselves from the Democrats that burned crosses on their lawns.
As for “cumulative” wealth, I think you mean per capita. Sure, they hold more wealth, but so do Asians whose parents came to the U.S. penniless off boats in the 1970s. Trying to explain the difference away based on slavery and Jim Crow is far too easy–especially after billions in wealth transfers and affirmative action to supposedly right the wrongs. Look at fatherless homes and the massive breakdown in black families and you’ll see a much more clear relationship. Of course, this requires adopting a Biblical view and not one championed by the culture. Invoking white victims? I pointed this… Read more »
Wait, am I A, or B?
I prove what, that racism exists (which point I do not dispute) because I don’t accept your explanation for why the racial grievance industry exists? To have any credibility you have to set the bar of evidence higher than “Your disagreement proves my point”.
Define “racism.”
The idea that people should be treated differently because of their race, or, alternatively, that some races are superior to others.
Superior in what sense?
In any sense. Race means nothing more than a description of how much relative melanin someone has in their skin.
That’s not what the medical field believes. They take your race into account when determining your likelihood for certain diseases. There are numerous physical differences such as bone density, facial structure, brain size (likely related to IQ differences), testosterone levels, limb length, etc.
On what basis do you arrive at your definition? Also, if Asians have higher IQ’s than whites and blacks, does that not make them intellectually superior? Does saying so make me a “racist” on behalf of Asians?
It means you don’t understand the limitations of IQ tests. A high IQ test means you’re better at solving logic puzzles and playing scrabble; it does not mean that you are of good moral character, have a work ethic, or the necessary social skills to do well in life. I am reliably informed that at the last Mensa convention, the most in-demand seminar that everybody wanted to attend was on the subject of why do smart people do stupid things. Here’s the bottom line: There is no limit to the ways in which we can classify people. We can classify… Read more »
So is it racist against Asians to point out that blacks are better than Asians at basketball?
Suppose you are a basketball coach. Suppose an individual Asian comes along who absolutely shines at basketball. For example: https://fadeawayworld.com/2018/02/22/top-10-best-players-from-asia-who-played-in-the-nba/ Are you going to deny him a spot on your team because blacks in general play better basketball? If so, you’re an idiot. And that’s the bottom line problem with racism: Even if its premises are true, which I doubt, it is largely irrelevant. Even if, in general, Race X tends toward Trait Y, when an individual comes along who doesn’t fit the stereotype, that person is entitled to be treated as an individual. So even if I accept the… Read more »
But is it “racist” to notice that Race X tends to excel in Trait Y?
It’s probably racist to assume without evidence that race is the reason. There is data that child sexual abuse is more likely in conservative religious homes. That’s a data point that, standing alone, tells us little. Conservative religion may be the reason, or it may not. Correlation is not causation and you can’t really draw any conclusions from a single data point. One thing that is certain: anyone using that single data point to suggest that religious conservatives should lose custody of their children is an anti-religious bigot looking for an excuse to harass Christians. Now, apply that same principle… Read more »
I don’t think it’s necessarily “racist” to make generalizations based on personal observation. But it never seems to end there, does it? It’s never just idly noticing that very few Samoans seem to excel at ice hockey. Before you know it, the generalizations have become a theory of entrenched racial characteristics explaining why some races excel at ice hockey and others don’t. Alternative explanations–the fact that few Samoans are rink rats who grew up on skates–don’t seem as convincing to people who are preoccupied with race. The “race realism” of which your question is typical generally goes hand in hand… Read more »
Hi Armin…your responses ring of verisimilitude.
How does what you say honor that Jesus is the Truth, the Way, and the Life…rather than seem to lead to 1st Timothy 1:4 type disputes?
I’ll grant that you put a LOT MORE weight on IQ than every other reader here. The only benefit to using them seems to be for special education purposes.
Where was the lie in what I said?
I think they are used only for special ed purposes these days and even there I doubt their utility. It is not difficult for an experienced teacher to notice who is brilliant and who is struggling!
Kathleen, race means much more than how much melanin someone has in their skin. That is more of a Darwinism idea than a scriptural one. Racism is not because of skin color but because of sin color. The current American self abuse concerning racism is a direct branch from Darwin’s faulty thinking. Instead of using current ideas of how to combat racism, Americans should be thinking of how to disciple the cities and towns of our country. Christians should be working to destroy the tools used to promote racism; tools such as Affirmitive Action, minimum wage, government based welfare and… Read more »
Dave, racism existed long before affirmative action, minimum wage, and the other things on your list. If those things all disappeared tomorrow racism would still be with us. Maybe you could explain why you think government health care promotes racism.
I cringe when I see conservative Christianity unthinkingly linked with conservative politics. Some well-intended policies do sometimes end up having the opposite effect as wanted (dependency culture), but others can be a real help to those who have been left behind through no fault of their own. It has been a hard lesson to learn that the poor are not always poor because they are feckless and lazy. Minimum wage does not destroy the market, it helps prevent pure exploitation by the better off. ‘Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you …… Read more »
I cringe when I see scared little men across the pond peddle their COVID hysteria and love of all things big government as “Christianity.” I’m glad my ancestors had more sense and didn’t fear getting on a boat,
Who is being hysterical about Covid?
Who is advocating big government?
Kathleen, you missed my major point. Racism is directly from sin color and not skin color. Failure to honor God along with His commandments and guidelines is the problem rather than anything else. LBJ’s Great Society was racist in origin and in implementation. The basics of the welfare program are to destroy the family. That is obvious when girls are paid by the government based on how many kids they have and the rules stipulate that the father may not live with them in a family environment. We knew and pointed out that fact as the Great Society was unfolded.… Read more »
Dave, to keep this short, let’s just use one of your examples: Welfare for single mothers. I agree with you that the root of the problem is the sinful behavior of children being born out of wedlock, and that the real solution is for every child to have married parents. However, once the sin has been committed, the question is what to do about the consequences, and there is no easy answer. You are right that welfare subsidizes bad behavior, but the alternative is for the mother and child to go hungry, because a lot of the time the father… Read more »
“Which is worse; subsidizing bastardy, or allowing innocent children to suffer?” Kathleen, both are harsh, sinful actions brought upon the children by their parents who are not following God’s commandments. It is not the government’s responsibility to take care of those children. Forcing anyone to pay for the upbringing and care of someone else’s children is a modern thought that has rotted American thinking using tearful pleading and cries of unjustice. That idea is not found in scripture at all. The Great Society did not fill a need that was not serviced by the church. It filled a need that… Read more »
Hi Kathleen, I want to engage because you see things differently. Can you give an instance of beating/killing for sport? I mean, from the decision of a judge or jury and not a media opinion or perhaps just your own? Since you brought up Officer Chauvin…I’ve watched the video multiple times, and my opinion (which is worth what you paid for it) is that he lengthened the time holding down George Floyd BECAUSE he was being engaged with by onlookers and being filmed. They actually delayed the performance of his duties. They should bear some responsibility. Now that probably seems… Read more »
JF, I’m a civil litigation attorney who has represented police departments and officers who were being sued for civil rights violations. Based on my 40 years in the field, I would not say that all police officers are racists, but neither is it uncommon. I actually had a police officer client, on trial for shooting an unarmed black teenager, tell me that he’d done society a favor by killing the kid before he had a chance to grow up to be a criminal. I told him he should not say that on the witness stand. And if you are right… Read more »
Thanks for your sharing your experience. That is way more than I have. I was a Coast Guard boarding officer…and sadly, I can say there were times that the more upset a boater was about my presence, the longer I would take. Finding drugs always ratchets up the intensity level. As for Chauvin’s delay…being challenged and interrupted in the performance of a duty (you likely know where that starts and stops legally better than I) seems a mitigating factor to me. When you watch all of Floyd’s behavior…I’d like to know what the “gold standard” police interaction would look like.… Read more »
JF, when you delayed because someone was upset by your presence, the person who suffered what the person who was upset by your presence. Chauvin, in contrast, caused damage to a third party, who had nothing to do with what the crowd was doing. Do you honestly not see that difference? If Chauvin wanted to take action against the crowd, that would be one thing, but don’t punish Floyd for it. I am willing to give Chauvin the benefit of the doubt that Floyd may have needed to be initially restrained, but there was zero reason to keep the knee… Read more »
Yes, I see the difference. Did not communicate it clearly. I was drawing the only similarity to my experience that I had. It seems there is some doubt surrounding Floyd’s death, but very little in Chauvin’s treatment of him. Hate crimes and such have stiffer penalties because of the motivation of the crime…I am curious to see if hate/racism can be proved. I hear Pastor Wilson saying that racism is wrong…but clearly to a differing degree than you do. Where I particularly think Christian Principles come to bear is the means used to combat societal difficulties – personally, I try… Read more »
“I think the message that needs to be preached is that racism is wrong, period, full stop.”
And there’s still zero proof that Chauvin’s actions were motivated by racism. Maybe he had a personal dispute with Floyd. Maybe it was over a woman. Maybe he was just like the cops who did the same thing to Timpa. You pretend to have cosmic powers that detect motives….or simply go along with the media lie that “anything wrong done by a white to a black is racist” which never seems to apply if you reverse races.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Whataboutism is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.[4][5][6] When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Soviet response would often be “What about …” followed by instancing of an event or situation in the Western world.[7][8][9] According to Russian writer, chess grandmaster and political activist Garry Kasparov, it is a word that was coined to describe the frequent use of a rhetorical diversion by Soviet apologists and dictators, who would counter charges of their oppression, “massacres, gulags, and forced deportations” by invoking American slavery, racism, lynchings, etc.[10] Whataboutism has been used by other… Read more »
Ron, your example disproves your point. Try reading more carefully.
Kathleen, I’d cite Daniel Shaver’s hotel video, John Crawford III’s Walmart Video, Breonna Taylor, Walter DeLeon, Dillon Taylor, Daniel Harless, Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nichols… Any of these cases are where people didn’t deserve to die in a police interaction. The WHATABOUTISM is the race card you are all to eager to throw. If you’d like to discuss justice, patriotism, constitutional militias vs police brutality (Waco or Bundy Ranch Standoff, anyone?) we can…but where does racism need to factor into the equation? I suggest you hear Edwin Vieira https://tinyurl.com/4vvd8hyb And if you’re really interested in the wealth disparity, Mike Maloney:… Read more »
Kathleen, two things: – First, how do you know Chauvin killed Floyd? Perhaps you can explain the mechanics of how a knee to the side of the neck causes death, given that: the evidence indicates Floyd had enough illicit drugs in his system to kill a bull elephant and died of a heart attack; that Floyd complained of not being able to breathe several times while standing up; neck restraints have been used by Minneapolis police at least 237 times since 2015 in other arrests without resulting in death; there’s video of Isaiah Jackson performing this very same restraint on… Read more »
I don’t know to a 100 percent certainty but I’m inclined to go with the obvious. Floyd had a knee to his neck for several minutes during which he repeatedly complained that he couldn’t breathe. Several of your so called facts are proven fabrications. And if Floyd was high on drugs, then Chauvin had an even greater duty to use care since drugs increased the likelihood of Floyd having a heart attack. The bottom line is that Chauvin kept his knee there far longer than necessary and so is responsible for the results.
You didn’t answer my question. How does a knee to the side of the neck cause death? Floyd repeatedly complained that he couldn’t breathe before the knee to the neck. Didn’t you watch the bodycam video of the arrest before Chauvin arrived on the scene? If not, why not? Which of my facts are proven fabrications? And finally, you failed to address my question about racial motivation. Where’s the evidence? Floyd dies in police custody, and all of a sudden the left and the bloodthirsty media (but I repeat myself) decides to start screaming again at the top of their… Read more »
I haven’t studied the evidence as I would if I were preparing the case for trial. But for purposes of commenting on a blog, here’s how it looks. Floyd said he couldn’t breathe before he was kneed in the neck. You absolutely positively do not do anything to his neck if he is already having breathing problems. As a trained police officer, Chauvin would have known this and also that being on drugs made him more prone to having a heart attack. So, to recap, Chauvin interfered with the breathing of a man who is (a) already having breathing problems… Read more »
” So, to recap, Chauvin interfered with the breathing of a man” Have you ever practiced martial arts? There are only two ways to choke someone out: cut off the blood supply or cut off the oxygen. Chauvin did neither. If Floyd’s health was severely compromised for other reasons, maybe it could cause complications, but “knee in the back” isn’t a way to stop someone from breathing. ” if there were no cops like Chauvin there wouldn’t be BLM either.” Another non sequitur. Ever heard of Tawana Brawley? The Duke lacrosse team hoax? Justin Smollet? Bubba Wallace? There are plenty… Read more »
I think that hoaxers should be criminally prosecuted. What they do is abhorrent.
That said, hoaxes are only possible because racism exists. Tawana Brawley’s story was entirely plausible, at least until someone took a good look at it and debunked it, which is why it was initially given credence. Perhaps you should ask why it was plausible. Because racism really does exist, that’s why.
Why then does racism exist? What makes racist assumptions possible? Let’s be consistent in our reasoning.
But let’s not lean too close to excusing the abhorrent by being understanding about it.
Racist assumptions exist because it’s an excuse for the strong to dominate the weak.
Only if we think only the strong can hold racist assumptions. I do not think that and neither should you. We are talking about beliefs and attitudes here, not what people can or cannot get away with. Racist assumptions might serve as a bad excuse for bad behavior, but that doesn’t tell us why those assumptions were held in the first place. If our reasoning is that something false is made plausible by the fact that something really is the case…what makes racist assumptions plausible? Or we could just say the hoaxes we are talking about are lies, malicious, false… Read more »
John, yes, the weak can be racist too, though a lot of their racism stems from having been on the receiving end of racism by the strong. I suspect there would be far fewer blacks who hate whites if they hadn’t been brought here as slaves and then subjected to Jim Crow. And respectfully, there’s an issue you’re overlooking. The strong do have a greater responsibility than the week. It’s the same rationale for why an older child is more likely to get in trouble for leading his younger siblings into mischief, or responding to provocation by hitting them, then… Read more »
Kathleen, I would gently and respectfully suggest the notion that white people have a greater moral responsibility than black people is: 1. Condescending toward black people 2. Overgeneralizing about the condition of people based on their race 3. Just incorrect; we all have an equal moral responsibility to not act dishonestly or maliciously; race or status make no difference to that Remember Susan Smith, South Carolina? Given what we know about crime rates by race It wasn’t a huge leap of faith to believe what she claimed could have happened. However the real problem with the Susan Smith story is… Read more »
John, thanks for engaging, and I should have been more clear. I do not believe that whites have greater moral responsibility than blacks in general, but I do think they have a greater responsibility specifically to fix racism since the lion’s share of the racial injustice over the past five centuries in North America was perpetrated by whites. Regarding Susan Smith, yes and no. Of course it was a malicious lie, and thankfully she was held to account for it. And of course it *could* have happened; black men do sometimes commit carjackings. And if this conversation were about violent… Read more »
Kathleen,
” The war on drugs as devastated the black inner city; alcohol prohibition didn’t work either.”
Sorry, this is something of a pet peeve of mine! Prohibition definitely “worked.” The consumption of alcohol fell precipitously during prohibition and the number of deaths from alcohol related illness fell and stayed down for decades. Of course, it caused other problems – but it was quite effective at accomplishing the major stated goal.
I am a prohibition opponent, but not because it didn’t keep people from drinking!
Whole ‘nother subject of course – but why *are* you a prohibition opponent?
John, There are two (main) reasons: 1. I think alcohol is a positive good given bonus by God to be enjoyed. Like many of the best blessings (think sex, or wealth) it can be badly and destructively abused, but that shouldnt lead to its abolishment. “Wine that gladdens the hearts of men.” 2. I think there are/were destructive unintended consequences. the primary one is making people who are going about their business and doing what they and their forefathers had done for generations, into criminals. Sometime a society has to course correct, and a Burkean conservatism isn’t always the right… Read more »
You do remember close to correctly. I don’t necessarily hold drinking alcohol to be illicit, but do hold any drunkenness at all to be illicit. I consider drinking alcohol to be unnecessary, and imprudent for all people some of the time and some people all of the time. I understand there is an appeal and I understand how there could be an innocent appeal even if there is none at all for me; acquired taste and I never acquired it. I also understand there is, for more people than want to admit it, the same kind of appeal any drug… Read more »
Kathleen: “…I do think they [whites] have a greater responsibility specifically to fix racism since the lion’s share of the racial injustice over the past five centuries in North America was perpetrated by whites.”
Let’s try a thought experiment: Do you think blacks have a greater responsibility specifically to fix criminality since the lion’s share of violent crime in America is perpetrated by blacks?
If not, why not?
And if not, then “because racism” is automatically disqualified, given the fact that the vast majority of violent crimes blacks commit are against other blacks.
Practically any crime is “plausible.” That doesn’t mean it’s commonplace. I’d argue any plausibility is due much more to perception than reality. Since at least the 80s, racial themes and racial violence have been common subjects in movies and TV shows. And according to public school history curricula, 98% of atrocities were committed by the Nazis, KKK and early American settlers. Never mind that communists killed well over 10X as many people. Forget the violence committed by practically every indigenous group and 3rd-world dictators–and the fact genocide and slavery took place on every continent. White racism–real or imagined–is what gets… Read more »
Kathleen: “That said, hoaxes are only possible because racism exists.”
No, hoaxes are happening because the demand for racism far exceeds the supply.
In other words, whites aren’t supplying enough racial incidents, so the acronym people resort to manufacturing them.
Kathleen, I agree with you that racism exists. And I think the title/label is fine, we all knew what it meant a few years ago before it got Kendified into meaning that you aren’t sufficiently, proactively, and publicly purging yourself of your Western formation and demonstrating proficiency using a bunch of absurd neologisms. However, the racial grevience industry is largely propped up by lies, both implicit and explicit. Recent polling from the Skeptic Research Center shows that the majority of people of all political affiliations overestimate the number of unarmed black men killed by police, and liberals and very liberals… Read more »
Demo, I would never have guessed 1,000 but I would have guessed much higher than 13. I wonder if gross overestimates from liberals are partly the result of so many liberals living in large cities with historically problematic police departments. Cell phones, clip on camcorders, and federal consent decrees have resulted in a kinder, gentler LAPD but I doubt there is anyone within city limits who hasn’t at some point stood by uneasily while cops rough up an apparently unarmed black or Hispanic. Between them, officers from LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department kill, on average, one civilian a week. Eighty… Read more »
A person of color, Jill? The use of the phrase I mean.
I was struggling to find a parallel construction. I had “member of a minority group other than Asian”, but it seemed too wordy! I expect that P of C will itself be banned a year or two from now, and I will have to plead old age as my defense.
Well, I don’t blame you for the invention, but if “colored people” is an outrage it makes no sense that “people of color” is cool. But then, if making a thing of race is racist it make no sense that not making a thing of race is racist. So, there is some kind of consistency. I guess. I generally read P of C as “those good kind of people who are owed something by and should always be preferred over the bad kind, aka white, people”. By the way, I’v heard the police in California can be overbearing, but if… Read more »
Jilly, I have already showed my cards that I think it is mostly due to a constant stream of media narratives and images that reinforce the impression that racist cops murder black people at alarming rates. We have a Chinese bank robber problem where a few bad incidents are magnified to an absurd degree by the press because they fit a dominant narrative about who we are, they have legitimate shock value, and therefore they generate clicks. And even those cases that are identified and amplified are often found to be far more nuanced than the narrative initially allows (though… Read more »
Malachi, I am reading through Ellul’s book on Technology. He states that the medieval Christians did not advance technologically because their primary concern was whether or not the technology was righteous. This is one thing the plain anabaptists do regularly: how is this technology going to effect our community and is that effect a healthy one? One must evaluate tech and not blindly accept it without erecting boundaries that it can righteously operate within. Incidentally, most big tech bosses say they ban their kids from using social media because they don’t want their dopamine levels to be manipulated and the… Read more »
I can second the recommendation of _Idols For Destruction_. Understanding Christ as the judge of nations makes it much easier to apply the lessons of the narrative of Scripture to our current social context. For a companion discussion of the actual mechanics of how this plays out, I recommend Bertrand de Jouvenel’s _On Power_.
The real thing regarding the men women relationship issue that is not discussed is when your job requires long interaction with women either as colleagues or supervisors. Saying find another job is not always an option.