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The morning after the Clinton Debacle appeared among us, I was walking somewhere in our little town. The sun was shining, and everything was bright and calm. Our little town is divided, but as the primaries here in Idaho showed, it was more of a Sanders/Cruz divide than it was a Clinton/Trump divide. In the run-up to the election, our town had scarcely any Clinton yard signs and the same for Trump signs. Bleh about sums it up.coal-miner

Nevertheless the general election had our attention, as it had the attention of everyone else. So as I was walking the morning after, I went past a shopkeeper who was visiting with someone on the sidewalk outside, and she was worrying out loud about the size of her plate glass windows because of—perhaps you anticipated this—Kristallnacht.

Now it is not irrational to be concerned about possible unrest and rioting after an election, and it is not irrational to be concerned about that kind of thing after this election. What is irrational is to expect it from small town Republicans. There were riots in fact, there were smashed windows, there were cars set on fire, but they were all in progressive monkey houses like California.

And herein lies one of the central lessons of the election, for those willing to read it. Political correctness has been a device for the empowerment of crybullies, a gas-lighting trick that enables persecutors to wear the camo-gear of anointed victims. Given the fact that all public dissent on certain issues is routinely and savagely shut down, and this is done by tarring the dissenter as “racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.” it was not surprising that progressives, having created by means of overreach their very own cultural echo chamber, were then persuaded by it. They clubbed everyone into silence and then pretended to themselves that such silence must indicate agreement.

Now I don’t want to ignore the other issues at play in this election—of course there were other issues, big ones. There was the disaster on stilts that is Obamacare. There was an out-of-control immigration system. There were the EPA enviro-crats using climate lies in order to club baby coal miners. But a player in its own right, as well as a player in all these other issues, was political correctness.

Think of it this way. If you don’t want to shut down the coal mines, you are not someone who is opposed to closing the mines, you are a climate-denier. What is a denier? Why, that rhymes with Holocaust denier. If you point out, however mildly, that Obamacare can’t work Because Math, you hate the uninsured, and you clearly hate the black man who has proposed helping the uninsured. It is plain racism to think that goods and services cannot be delivered at a cost lower than the cost of producing those goods and services. And so on.

When everything is racist, I hope you can now see how nothing is. If racial micro-aggressions are to be treated as the equivalent of overt racism, I trust that you can see how overt racism has just been made the equivalent of acting like everyday folks. If everything is sexist, then nothing is. If simply being male is the equivalent of being a rapist, then I would encourage you to contemplate how you have just made rapists into ordinary, decent people. If you skew the scales of justice, which is precisely what political correctness has done, at some point you will break the scales. We are well past that point now. And when you are the one who busted the scales, don’t come complaining when you have to weigh something important.

During the election, neither Thabiti nor I supported the Donald. After the election, he tweeted, most honorably, “You did not have my vote support, but you now have my prayer support.” He also said, wonderfully, “I commit, with God’s help, to righteously support any godly and oppose any ungodly thing Mr. Trump attempts, w/o disparaging the office.” This is right where I am, and so a thousand amens.

But there is a difference between Thabiti and me on this, a difference born of disparate experiences. (In other words, this is not a criticism.) He said this to the white evangelicals who voted for Trump (and there were a lot of them who did so). “I don’t understand you.” I share Thabiti’s detestation of things Donald Trump has said and done, and the campaign showed me that he was willing to fight pretty dirty in that saloon brawl we call primary politics. That reminds me. One good thing about this election is that Ted Cruz’s father will finally be brought to justice for that JFK thing.

Unlike Thabiti, I think I do understand what was motivating white evangelicals. They are tired of being harangued by self-appointed superiors. Progressivism is like that woman in C.S. Lewis’s jab—“She’s the sort of woman who lives for others—you can tell the others by their hunted expression.” Keep in mind that heartland evangelicals have jobs, and those jobs include things like coal mining, farming, logging, and so on—vocations that their fathers once thought honorable. Usher in the global managerial elites who want to impose their version of free trade, and who follow that devastation up by mocking and abusing the heartland folks who are now a lot poorer than they were a couple decades ago—making fun of their music, religion, guns, politics, loyalties, heritage, and so on. What could go wrong? The shot was that progressives transformed America into a seething cauldron of identity politics, and the chaser was taunting white middle America into behaving like an identity group. Yes, you, you out-of-work coal miner. We want you to go back to your two-bedroom clapboard house and contemplate something edifying, like your white privilege.

And if you were offended by that illustration, or by the picture of the three coal miners above, I want to be the first to congratulate you on your successful campaign for Donald J. Trump.

Political correctness has been a toxin in our political discourse, and this has affected everything because discourse is how we talk about anything we need to talk about. Meanwhile the progressive calls for a “national conversation about ________” and you say “okay,” and so then he says “shut up.”

Not only is all this the case, but the behavior of progressives in the aftermath of this particular electoral slap down reminds me of Tallyrand’s comment about the Bourbons. “They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

In the wreckage of progressive hopes for this election, the law school at the University of Michigan scheduled a therapeutic session where traumatized students could come and work out their post-election anxieties by working with Play-Doh. “And what are you working on, cupcake?” “I am not sure yet, but I am thinking of calling it ‘Trump’s second term.’”

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doug sayers
doug sayers
7 years ago

“The true test of any action lies in its motive.” There is a lot of motive assumption in political and theological debate. Humans have a bad habit of hasty generalizations and assuming that we can read the hearts of others based on partial data. If I had a dollar for every instance where a sinful motive was assigned to an entire group, based on the actions of some in that group, I would owe a staggering amount of taxes. Not everyone who voted for DJT is racist, homophobic…blah blah blah. Not everyone who protested was being paid and I doubt… Read more »

ME
ME
7 years ago

This is well said.

Rather foolishly I keep trying to explain to people why so many voted for Trump. It’s simple really, after a while people get tired of being called names and bullied, so they vote for change. Without fail the response so far has simply been to ratchet up the accusations of being a racist, sexist, rape enabler, and heap on more abuse

These people don’t seem to be big fans of self reflection. Slow learners we call them.

40 ACRES & A KARDASHIAN
40 ACRES & A KARDASHIAN
7 years ago

I do hope that, for the sake of healing, President Trump pardons Ted Cruz’s dad for shooting JFK. Let’s let the dead bury the dead, and all of us come together to Make America Great Again.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago

Not until we all hold hands and sing “Get Together” nine or ten times.

I knew that my hippie days were behind me when I said to myself, “If I have to listen to that song one more time, I’m going to cough up a fur ball.”

Ben
Ben
7 years ago

Do even a little research on your friend Ron (aka Thabiti) and you will find that he is simply a leftist social justice warrior. One of the things about leftists is that they always project their own guilt and tactics on their opposition. Look at the writings of Thabiti and others in the Reformed African American Network and you will see that they constantly berate whites for not “getting it,” for not taking the initiative to understand the black experience. What they’re really doing is projecting their own indifference toward the experience of whites. Thabiti and people like him might… Read more »

Tim Paul
Tim Paul
7 years ago
Reply to  Ben

What law was that in SJW’ s Always Lie? They always project. Remember their Achilles Heel.

Matt Bergin
Matt Bergin
7 years ago

I consider myself a libertarian and a Christian and was planning not to vote for libertarian reasons but I actually stood in line for Trump for 2 hours due to this issue. Imagine if the people described in this article controlled the Supreme Court for a generation apart from the abortion issue. Just look at Canada with their possible new gender pronoun bill.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago

“They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing”?

Wow.

Those libs sound like “bitter clingers”!
????

Ilion
Ilion
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

They do, however, have a god … usually to be found in their groins.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago

“If everything is racist, than nothing is racist.” I think you underestimate human depravity. Do you agree, “If everything is sinful, than nothing is sinful”? I think the following sentence is more accurate: “If micro sins are treated as the equivalent of overt sins, and you can see how people who are overtly sinful are acting as the equivalent of everyday folk.”

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

So…………,
How depraved are you, Prudence?

????

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

………….., just as depraved as everyone else. Just as in need as a Savior as an overt racist, or an overt bully. Also, you may want to read this:
http://babylonbee.com/news/pastor-jims-foray-emojis-not-going-well/

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

“If micro emojis are treated as the equivalent of overt sins, then you can see how people who are overtly hyperbolic are acting as the equivalent of everyday folk!”

???? Smirk face emoji!

Oh! And I did like the bee article! Thanks!????????????

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

It’s a good one :)

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

shoot, and my foray into emoji’s was a fail.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

Welcome to the party!
????????????

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

The difference is that “racism” isn’t a sin.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I’m not sure if you agree with Doug Wilson, but if you do, you may want to read this: https://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/makes-racism-sinful.html

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

I would urge Christians to stop using the phrase “racism is sin,” and instead start saying that “racial vainglory is sin” or “racial animosity is sin.”

I suggest the same.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

So, semantics aside, we ultimately are in agreement, as far as I can tell.
.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

Not really. Malice and vainglory are sin regardless of motivation. Putting an adjective on them don’t make them any worse. Besides, most things under the term “racism” don’t fall in either of those categories — which is the point Pastor Wilson was making here.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

People don’t seem willing to make any distinction between a private belief and what you actually do about it. Private beliefs are important insofar as they may be sinful or may lead you into bad ways. But if someone treats his women employees respectfully and fairly, why should I care whether he has a private belief that women are dumber than men or that they really shouldn’t be in the workplace at all? My dear father talked within the bosom of the family as if he detested every racial, religious, political, and ethnic group known to man. Yet he was… Read more »

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I don’t think naming malice or vainglory “racism” makes racism more sinful. But I do believe naming racism “malice” or “vainglory” definitely highlights how very sinful the acts that fall under a category some would call “racism” are.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

You have it exactly backwards.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

To be malicious, as I understand it, is to do something evil to someone simply for the pleasure of it. To have vainglory is to steal glory from God, which is what Satan did. How am I being backwards?

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I’ll again go to verse 17:9 of Jeremiah: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? The American church in general has been historically behind the eight ball condemning racial prejudice in all it’s ugly forms. Racial prejudice (be it from malice or vainglory) is still rampant in our culture, and in the church. We all have prejudice that we do not recognize. It’s like, for example, if a person has overcome a drug addiction upon salvation, and doesn’t understand that the journey of overcoming sin has just begun. She doesn’t see her pride,… Read more »

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

By the way, you may want to read Jonah if you don’t believe God cares about racial prejudice. He took a lot of time to show Jonah that he cared more about a plant than an entire group of people.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

The reason I am insistent on this point is because most things labelled “racist” are not sinful in the least. To cite a category widely agreed to be racist, but clearly not malicious or vainglorious: preferring to be around people who look, speak, and think similarly to me.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

We all prefer that. To crave comfort is part of the human condition. It’s not sinful for you to be around people like yourself, unless God is calling you elsewhere, and you are outright disobeying him like Jonah. I do think it is hard to see my own sin if I am always surrounded people who are just like me. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God. We will all be rewarded in heaven according to our works. I want to be like the servant with 10 talents, I’m sure you do to. If you are comfortable, it may be… Read more »

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

This seems rather beside the point.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I think it’s the heart of the matter to be honest.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

You started off talking about “micro sins” and now you’re talking about comfort vs growth. Seems like we’re off in the weeds.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

It’s the “micro sins” that we are usually the most comfortable with. Those sins become the ones we battle as we grow more spiritually mature.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

What’s this “micro sins” thing and how is it relevant to the issue Pastor Wilson is discussing?

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Pastor Wilson said, if everything is racism, than nothing is racism. I understand what he is getting at here. But here’s the thing. We are fallen humanity, sinful through and through. We all have sinful prejudice to some degree. Everyone. And to say that everyone has sinful prejudice doesn’t mean that no one has sinful prejudice. Here is why. We do have a glorious perfect standard in our Lord. I can’t say that everyone on earth has “racial” sinful prejudice. But I think we are all equally capable of it, but by God’s grace some may not struggle with that… Read more »

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

Why do you think “prejudice” is sinful?

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I didn’t say prejudice is sinful. I said we all have “sinful prejudice.” Of course we need to discriminate in order to make wise choices. But what I am saying is that we are all guilty of sinfully discriminating against people based on prejudices that are unfair and ungodly. Like the Jonah hating the Ninevites so much that he doens’t want them to repent. Like my WWII vet grandfather calling Japanese people ugly names. Like the man who makes vulgar jokes about women. Like the woman who hates men. Like a person avoiding being around someone who is mentally handicapped,… Read more »

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

James 2:8-10 “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” We are all sinners. We all have blood guilt on are hands. All people are headed toward eternal destruction, but for intervention from our gracious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our pending eternity is always connected to everything in life. We… Read more »

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

No, you miss the point – I am not saying that I “may not be guilty of racial prejudice”. I am saying that you haven’t made the case that it’s a sin, or that it violates the golden rule. Where do we see God laughing? Psalm 2, at the people planning to defy God’s rule over creation. For example, LGBT activists. Why do I spend my time on this? Because the spirit of the age hates white Christians, and many in the American church have been deceived to do so as well. The reason I care especially about white Christians… Read more »

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv wrote:

No, you miss the point – I am not saying that I “may not be guilty of racial prejudice”. I am saying that you haven’t made the case that it’s a sin, or that it violates the golden rule.

I’ve made the case that it is a sin, and I got an “lol” from ashv for my effort.

In any case, it is helpful to see ashv clearly owning his position that racial prejudice is not a sin. That helps everyone to see that we are not misrepresenting him.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

I’ll say it again: “Racial prejudice is not a sin.” Pastor Wilson has said the same in more than one post.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv wrote:

I’ll say it again: “Racial prejudice is not a sin.” Pastor Wilson has said the same in more than one post.

I doubt it. Ashv needs to give a link so we can check the context.

Wilson has said that making distinctions between races is not sinful, of itself, and that malice or vainglory must be present in order for it to be sin. However, I see ashv making no such clarification. He is simply announcing that racial prejudice simply can’t be sinful. It certainly can be, when it involves malice and vainglory.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

The Spirit of the age does hate white Christians, and black Christians, and Muslims, and LGBT activists, and everyone on Earth. God has put enmity between man and Satan, the prince of the power of the air. Our foes are not flesh and blood, my friend. God does laugh in derision, and he will glorify his name as a righteous judge. But he is God. He lives in the heaven and does as he pleases. We are below him and do not have his perfect knowledge. He is perfect. We are lowly sinners and do not have the rights that… Read more »

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

Vainglory is, as the saying goes, “being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple”. I don’t think God loves white people more than anybody else, and I don’t love my own people because they’re superior; I love them because they’re mine. (Nor do I consider all whites “my people.”) I agree that humility, grace, hope, faith, and love are essential. But caring for the needs of your own family before considering the desires of others doesn’t deny that. Your ideas about skin colour are odd. By “white” I just mean “of European ancestry”. Are we not told… Read more »

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv wrote: Vainglory is, as the saying goes, “being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple”. I don’t think God loves white people more than anybody else, and I don’t love my own people because they’re superior; I love them because they’re mine. (Nor do I consider all whites “my people.”) So in the example of immigration that I raised previously, ashv is not welcoming the white immigrant and rejecting the black Christian immigrant because he hates blacks. Oh no. He does it because he loves his children. No racial vainglory or malice there. It’s about love,… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

I think I understand the train of thought. You can believe in the intellectual inferiority of blacks without racial vainglory by the simple expedient of also claiming that God has a special love for fools and small children. I have heard this line of chat. Blacks, being unencumbered by our tradition of western intellectualism, have more of a direct line to God. Their spirituality is simple and pleasing to the Lord, Being white is actually a burden because we carry greater obligations and on and on and on. Simple when you know how.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

It all comes across as far too expedient.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

Oh yes.

PB
PB
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

“As the reasoning goes, when ashv informs us that blacks have a lower IQ than whites, he doesn’t mean to imply that God loves them any less, right? No vainglory here.”

I don’t think that is a necessary implication at all. It is either true or false. If true, there should not be fear or intimidation associated with observing or declaring that truth. The fact that there are general qualities or characteristics that fall out along racial lines and can be observed does not mean that racism exists.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  PB

PB wrote:

I don’t think that is a necessary implication at all. It is either true or false.

I’m not talking about whether it is true or false, though. Remember that gossip is still gossip even if the morsel that someone is sharing around is 100% true. This goes to the heart. We can’t see into ashv’s heart, but the all-too-careful justifications and rationalizations coming from him begin to stink. He has been offered many opportunities to clarify himself and present some bona fides, but he does the coy little “LOL” instead.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

So you can’t see into my heart but you feel free to guess. Cool story.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv wrote:

So you can’t see into my heart but you feel free to guess. Cool story.

No, I can’t see into the heart, but Jesus said that the mouth speaks from the heart. I assume that principle applies to keyboards as well as mouths.

Ashv could do a lot to clarify himself, but instead he says things like racial prejudice is not a sin, and that there is no reason for excluding immigrants that could be sinful. These kinds of comments reveal serious flaws in moral awareness, as defined by Scripture.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

So what’s not clear at this point? You believe in rebuilding the tower of Babel in Jesus’ name, I don’t. Seems pretty clear to me.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Rebuilding the tower of Babel? What does that even mean? Does ashv suppose that Pentecost is an attempt to rebuild the tower of Babel too? Does not the Gospel tear down the walls of separation between tribes, tongues, and ethnoi, and create one new man in Christ?

Ashv is not doing much to present any bona fides here.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

Are husband and wife made one in marriage?

Are husbands and wives distinct, with different characteristics and responsibilities?

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

I have never thought of this before, but couldn’t Pentecost be seen as a reversal of the effects following the building of the tower? Without Christ we must be separated (because of the hardness of our hearts), but in Christ all artificial divisions fall away?

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

jillybean wrote: I have never thought of this before, but couldn’t Pentecost be seen as a reversal of the effects following the building of the tower? I wish I could take credit for that observation, but I think it’s been around for a long time. I’ve heard Wilson mention, and develop, this concept quite a few years ago. It’s a very powerful image, and it points to a new kind of human identity that heals the wall of separation between other identities, such as male/female, master/slave, Israelite/gentile. Unfortunately, we still see professing Christians like ashv and Barnabas that are prioritizing… Read more »

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

I see katecho hasn’t affirmed an orthodox understanding of marriage and the sexes. Let’s speculate about what could possibly motivate this. Will he clarify himself?? THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING! :-O

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv seems to be projecting at this point. Unlike him, I’m happy to clarify my position. Unfortunately, in this case, ashv hasn’t asked a specific question, so all I can do is offer a general response that I affirm an orthodox understanding of marriage and the sexes, including headship of fathers and husbands, and submission of wives to their own husbands.

I will point out that ashv is the one evading, and he continues to do so.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  PB

Even if that were so, there is no reason to assume that any particular black person is less intelligent than the white person standing next to him, any more than we could assume that he is a better tap dancer or basketball player. Even if IQ tests are valid measures of intelligence, the significance of the purported difference is not so great as some people believe. Ashkenazic Jews, according to some tests, have an average IQ that is 13 points above normal defined as 100; would anyone consider this to be a meaningful difference? I know people with IQs three… Read more »

PB
PB
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

The significance of IQ wasn’t my point. I’m saying that if we can in fact observe some differences along racial lines, it doesn’t make us racist to acknowledge them. I agree that those differences don’t necessarily tell us anything about any particular person. I’m not as interested as it applies to IQ, but I am interested in how it has been purposefully excluded in the anti-police movement. The racial component in crime statistics, gun violence, and assaults highlight the racial divide and provide a basis for explaining the police vs black confrontations that have been so effectively and intentionally misrepresented.… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  PB

I agree with your last statement. However, everything you mention seems to me to be more attributable to social pathology, fatherlessness, enforced dependency, excessive use of alcohol, and a failure to value education than to a difference in IQ.

I think that understanding of these factors has to inform policing. I would think that just fatherlessness in itself creates a state of mind that poses real danger to a cop who must act as an unfriendly authority figure. All that deprivation and rage in conjunction with access to weapons is terrifying.

PB
PB
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Yes. I haven’t made any claims about IQ. But the question is why all of those things you mention would be noticeably higher in one race as opposed to another. IQ may be responsible to some degree, I don’t know, but it is at least possible. Identifying characteristics of a particular race may not provide all the answers but it may provide some. My initial comment was directed at the fairness of Katecho’s charge of racial vainglory for recognizing an IQ gap, not making any statements of my own about an IQ gap.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

LOL

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I’m not so sure. I remember clearly reading in one of the Elsie Dinsmore series an occasion on which Elsie comforts a dying slave. “You will be white in heaven,” she promises him.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Ugh, great. I had nearly forgotten about Elsie Dinsmore and you have to bring that stuff back up. It’s going to take me a while to calm back down.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I have no idea why, but when I was an elderly pregnant lady on prolonged bedrest, I had a compulsion to read the entire series. Over and over again. Some pregnant women feel compelled to sniff bleach or eat pickles. I had to read Elsie Dinsmore.

Dunsworth
Dunsworth
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

I read it because it was all the rage in homeschooling circles (not real live people I knew, but catalogs I read and stuff) so I ordered the series for my daughters. I’m SO glad I read those before I passed them on to the offspring. I thought the first book was iffy so I kept reading, and by the end decided it was trash. Quite apart from the racial stuff, the emphasis on “holiness = not sinning and being afraid of being around bad people” was NOT something I wanted my daughters to learn.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Dunsworth

I found the first two books extremely creepy but then the tone seemed to get a lot more healthy after she gets away from Dad and marries Travilla. She even gets a sense of humor–sort of. There were passages between Dad and Elsie that sounded like a Harlequin Romance–“Has that scoundrel touched your lips? I would sooner lose half my fortune than have those lips befouled for they belong to me!” Did you have the originals or the revised? I think the racial attitudes were reasonably enlightened for the time. Findley opposed slavery, believed masters had a duty to teach… Read more »

Ian Miller
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Sniggering in the airport at such an acurate imutation of Elsie. My dad was a fan of the books before I convinced my parents that they are unhealthy and masochistic.

Dunsworth
Dunsworth
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Reasonably enlightened for the time, which is why I don’t think those are the worst aspects of the books. If that’s all there had been, I felt like I could have explained that to my kids and why it was wrong. But the aroma of legalistic and timid sanctity was too overwhelming — I thought the overall message was not healthy. Yes, your comparison of a healthy way to explain cheating is a good example. Children being raised as Christians need to be dealt with as the apostles dealt with the ordinary wayward Christians — look, you don’t want to… Read more »

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv wrote: … I don’t love my own people because they’re superior; I love them because they’re mine. This sounds very noble, but when confronted with a hypothetical case of a black Christian, and a white non-Christian immigrant, ashv has shown in such cases that his people is determined by race before any consideration of faith. This suggests that ashv sees his primary identity as white, and then Christian in some secondary fashion. That’s a problem, because Scripture indicates that our union in Christ is foremost, even above our identity with our own family, and it overcomes the separation based… Read more »

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

LOL wrong.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv wrote: LOL wrong. What is wrong? This is a classic example where ashv has an opportunity to clarify himself, but refuses and remains flippant and coy. He is not modeling masculine virtue by being so evasive and slippery. Is ashv asserting that it is wrong that our union in Christ has priority over our family identity? Jesus said that He came to divide mother and daughter, and that if we do not hate our mother and father we cannot be His disciple. I’m not sure how much more forcefully Jesus could have made the point that identity with Him… Read more »

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

There are lots of false accusations of racism flying around in our PC culture. We don’t need to accept false accusations in order to acknowledge that race-motivated partiality and malice does exist (in both directions).

Unfortunately, ashv has reacted to the false charges by taking the position that race-motivated partiality is not a sin, and he has prioritized his racial identity over his Christian identity in the arguments he has made here on this blog.

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

Doug is not saying if everyone one is racist then no one is racist.

He is saying that if every action is defined as a racist action (that is all things on earth are interpreted through a racist perspective) then nothing is racist. Racism loses any meaning.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Good Morning Bethyada, sorry for the long post! When I read Pastor Wilson’s article, and see him saying that those who oppose Obamacare as being called racist simply because they oppose something Obama did, I think that is extreme. I live in an area that only has one radio station, public radio. I listen to the news on a fairly regular basis while I’m making dinner. I have never heard of such a thing. I definitely hear some extreme liberal views, but not accusations of “everything” people do being racially motivated. I have heard the idea that racial bias is… Read more »

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

Hi Prudence. I generally agree with what most of what you have said. Racism is a sin. But your point is largely tangential. Calling even what is not racism “racism” makes the accusations ineffectual. Many no longer care if they are called racist. How does one address racism when people (reasonably) stop caring about the taunts of false accusers?

Blessings

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

I said “partiality” is sin. I have never been called racist, so I guess I find it hard to understand the idea behind “everything” being considered racist. I can understand the idea of a person’s world view being affected by their partiality, but that is not quite the same thing. I’ve never heard of it such accusations of racism outside of this blog. What it seems to me, is that people are defending their right to be privately partial to their own race, as long as they aren’t overt about it. To me, that is like defending the right to… Read more »

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

It is wise to listen to rebukes, even when delivered in suboptimal ways. If a man is angry and shouts it may predispose me to ignore him; yet he may have a valid complaint. But rhetorically, repeated accusations lose their power. When a man lies about you and your motives continually over time you start to ignore him. This may be the right thing to do. So even though his complaints against you could potentially be correct (occasionally), he is predominantly an accuser who is usually wrong. A reasonable approach is to assume he is incorrect unless proven otherwise. And… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I can go along with that. But how would you classify an excessive identification with race at the expense of other more important identifications? For example, if I see my being white as more important than my being a child of God, is that sinful even if I am neither vainglorious nor malicious?

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

I could believe that was the occasion for certain sin. But I’d want to discuss a specific case rather than trying to generalise based on nothing.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

How about the case of excluding people from lawful immigration based on nothing other than their race and a desire to favor one’s own racial demographic profile, without regard for whether that would-be immigrant is Christian? Is that a racial sin of malice and/or vainglory? If not, why not?

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

No, it is not sinful to have borders and to restrict immigration. Thinking otherwise is a rather new idea and the burden is upon those innovators to explain why everyone else has been wrong all these years.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv wrote:

No, it is not sinful to have borders and to restrict immigration.

That’s not what I said. Maybe ashv will engage with what I actually said, for a change.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

I do not think it’s sinful to exclude people from immigration for any reason whatsoever.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv wrote:

I do not think it’s sinful to exclude people from immigration for any reason whatsoever.

That’s a direct answer. I appreciate that.

Ashv is plainly saying that he does not think it sinful to exclude a fellow Christian from immigration if they are of the wrong race, while he allows immigration of non-Christians who have the right race.

I believe this is another clear indication that ashv is willing to prioritize his racial identity above his Christian identity, and that he cannot see the sinfulness of doing so.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

Ashv is plainly saying that he does not think it sinful to exclude a fellow Christian from immigration if they are of the wrong
race, while he allows immigration of non-Christians who have the right race.

That’s not what I said. Maybe katecho will engage with what I actually said, for a change. (But I doubt it.)

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Ashv can’t have it both ways. Either there are sinful ways to exclude immigrants, or there aren’t. He did not leave himself any outs.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

lol

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Just like 40 ACRES, ashv is reduced to lols when he can’t engage.

Ashv has claimed that excluding immigrants is not sinful for any reason whatsoever, but I presented a particular circumstance that clearly underscores a race-motivated sin of exclusion, and ashv could not engage it. It’s as if his cognitive dissonance causes him to vapor lock.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

I once thought you might be worth having a rational discussion with. The past year indicates to me that you don’t merit it.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

ashv has not indicated anything in the substance of my criticism of him that is not rational. Instead he has resorted to ad hominem as an excuse to not engage the substance. Dismissing me does nothing to salvage his position.

I believe his defense of racial malice and racial partiality has been successfully exposed, once again, and if he wants to just slink away and leave it there uncovered, I can live with that. I would have preferred that he at least try to make his case, if he thought he had one.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

LOL

Ilion
Ilion
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

And you’re intellectually dishonest.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  Ilion

Ilion wrote:

And you’re intellectually dishonest.

These empty assertions from Ilion aren’t helpful. I’m willing to be corrected, but Ilion needs to provide some content behind his criticism if he expects to be persuasive.

Ilion
Ilion
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

Ilion understands that it is impossible to reason with intellectually dishonest persons.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  Ilion

That’s ad hominem dismissal. I was willing to be critiqued, but Ilion provided nothing of substance for me to even defend against, just an empty assertion.

Ilion
Ilion
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

And there is another term that that intellectually dishonest person doesn’t care to use correctly.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I don’t think it is sinful to restrict immigration, nor do I think it is sinful to give priority to immigrants whose skills and education we can benefit from. If the best oncologists come from India, then we should welcome them here regardless of their religion, assuming they have passed the background checks all legal immigrants undergo. The exception I would make is that I believe we, and all civilized nations, are sometimes required to accept refugees in order to protect them from harm. I was admitted as a foreign-born spouse, and would never have qualified on my own as… Read more »

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Sure. Harbouring refugees is a different sort of thing altogether, despite attempts to disguise demographic replacement in Europe under that name. Showing mercy to a neighbour in distress is pretty important.

Ilion
Ilion
7 years ago
Reply to  katecho

No, it’s not sinful.

katecho
katecho
7 years ago
Reply to  Ilion

Ilion wrote:

No, it’s not sinful.

How is this not partiality and a violation of the golden rule? On what basis is race alone ever to be used to exclude fellow Christians? Paul rebuked Peter to his face over this kind of nonsense.

Ilion
Ilion
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

But how would you classify an excessive identification with race at the expense of other more important identifications?

How about — just one more example of leftism/collectivism

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Ilion

Could be, now that I come to think about it. You are very good at helping me to consider another perspective!

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

But not everything is sinful. Dying in place of one’s friend is love, not sin.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

That’s true Bethyada, God has given us grace enough to do good things. But, if I die for my daughter apart from Christ, do I get into heaven?

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

I think it would be hard for you to die for your daughter apart from Christ. Even if you didn’t know Jesus name, such love would reflect knowing and believing what little God had otherwise revealed to you.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Is your daughter a beekeeper?

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

?

No

Am I missing a cultural reference here?

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Your original post had apiary where I think you were intending a word like aware or awareness. Another amusing moment from smartphone technology.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

That’s a hard one. But many, many people have sacrificed their lives for good things. For example, many people have died for their country, died for the freedom of their children, and for the freedom of my children. Lots of people, all throughout history. Does that mean they are all saved? That is not what the Bible teaches. So I guess what it comes down to in our disagreement is what we believe about God and the Bible.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

Prudy, do keep in mind that God makes the final judgement on these things. He as all the information, we do not.
If we are lucky, we have the best advocate!????????????

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

You are right. God makes the final judgement of sinners, and he is gracious an merciful. He is also holy, holy, holy. He is also a God of wrath. John 3:36 “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” According to James 1:21, we need to “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” We cannot “presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you… Read more »

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

Wow!
That was like totally Prudent!
????

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Yes!

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

But that wasn’t my point. It was that making everything something does make it nothing.

Therefore not everything is something. Not everything is racism. Not everything is sin

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

The point I am making is not that everything is sinful, obviously God isn’t sinful. However, in regard to the human heart, that is another story. My point is found in Isaiah 64:4 “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Also, Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” I don’t even know all the sin in my own heart.

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

I agree with how you take Jeremiah. And these issues are more important than Doug’s comment you identified. But they are tangential to your initial comment.

Let’s change the approach slightly. When people absolutise everything, then they do not increase the significance of the small issues, they decrease the importance of the big issues. This is human nature. That is what Doug is saying in the post and that is also what I believe his comment is trying to say.

Prudence
Prudence
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

My concern is not so much with “racism” in the church, but with the evangelical defensiveness of it. Church is made up of sinners. Repenting sinners, albeit. We should confess our sins, not defend them. If a group of unsaved individuals found say, gossip by women the evil of the day, rather than racial malice/ vainglory, my response would be to admit, yes I am guilty at times of gossip. but I must continue to live above reproach by God’s grace, repenting when I fall into this sin as with any sin. If I live according to God’s Word, he… Read more »

Christopher Casey
Christopher Casey
7 years ago
Reply to  Prudence

“If everything is sinful, than nothing is sinful”

It’s not quite a tautology. If everything is “X” than “X” is meaningless.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago

Y?

; – )

Christopher Casey
Christopher Casey
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

B cos Z

Eagle_Eyed
Eagle_Eyed
7 years ago

“The shot was that progressives transformed America into a seething cauldron of identity politics, and the chaser was taunting white middle America into behaving like an identity group.” If one defines “racism” not in the moral sense of sinful racial pride but in the sociological sense–racial conflict among ethnic or cultural groups–then it should surprise no one that racism begets racism. White identity is growing as whites are told daily by triumphalist minorities that their history and their heritage is tarnished and their future is not theirs to decide. The Clinton candidacy was premised on the emergence of “immigrants” and… Read more »

bethyada
7 years ago

This is the problem with comparisons. We want desperately to show people how bad, or painful something is. But we compare the small things to the big things to emphasise it. Those who have experienced the small things but may not have experienced the big things know that the small things are small and their only reference is to what they know. So they think that your big things are not that big but that you are overly sensitive. You probably are oversensitive, but the big things are big, yet you have prevented people from appreciating it by insisting that… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

I really like your last comment, and I think you are right. “My professor told a blonde joke,” Suck it up, I’m sick of hearing about this stuff. “A group of white supremacists burned down my house.” Who cares? Just deal.

That is the inevitable progression. And it is deadly because it has caused otherwise decent people to turn a deaf ear to reports of genuine outrages.

bethyada
7 years ago

I don’t doubt that white males voted for Trump in larger numbers, and black females for Clinton. And although I was prepared to consider that this may have happened significantly in this election, the data are not that clear. The % for Trump is similar to the % for Romney, and Bush twice, and possible Reagan? The absolute numbers voting for Trump may be lower than Romney. What is more obvious is the markedly lower numbers voting for Clinton than Obama. Now this doesn’t address the subtleties in your electoral college. Even so, the attempt to spin a decadal long… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

I think I read, prior to the election, there was already a concern about getting out the vote for HRC. There was an excitement about electing the first black president. This didn’t carry over into voting for the first woman president–certainly this one. I think she struck young people as simply more of the same; she did not inspire idealism and hope.

Capndweeb
Capndweeb
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

I think her identity as female was overshadowed by her persona as Kim Jung Un in a pantsuit.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Capndweeb

Funny! I don’t think the liberal young see her authoritarian streak. But I don’t think they found her likable, and I can see that. Even on a few issues where she and I are in agreement, there is nothing about her that would win my devotion or support. My daughter and her friends were strong Bernie supporters, and they would have campaigned for him. That is because they have not yet discovered that, in Margaret Thatcher’s words, sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.

Capndweeb
Capndweeb
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Right, Jilly. Socialism is like buying a five gallon bucket of ice cream on credit. It sounds like a great idea, until you’ve had a bellyful and the worst headache ever–and someone’s still got to pay for it.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Capndweeb

It sounds like a good idea until you realize they want you to hand over your own ice cream.

My special snowflake would describe herself as left-leaning. She think that you and I and the neighbors should be taxed to help the poor and downtrodden. Would she personally be willing to donate her smart phone to a homeless veteran and pay for the plan? Are you kidding me? You should have seen her face when she saw the deductions on her first paycheck. I don’t remember my generation being as self-centered as the current one.

Arwenb
Arwenb
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

I’m always surprised when payroll deductions don’t turn more people conservative.

Maybe it’s a matter of repeatedly telling yourself “It’s for the greater good.” until you actually start to believe it?

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Capndweeb

Let’s hope the orange pantsuit was prophetic!
????????????????⏳

Eagle_Eyed
Eagle_Eyed
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

White men went to Trump 63-31. Black women went to Clinton 94-4. In other words a white man was 47x more likely to vote for Trump than a black woman was. As a comparison a self-described conservative was only 44x more likely to vote for Trump as a self-described liberal was.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Eagle_Eyed

Were you surprised that the Hispanic vote for Trump was as high as it was? Thirty percent, I have read. I think this should allay some people’s anxiety that Hispanics will invariably tend toward socialism.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

“Hispanic” is a broad category that includes both Conquistador-Americans from Cuba and Indians from Bolivia that speak Quechua instead of Spanish. It’s not surprising that they don’t always vote as a bloc.

Eagle_Eyed
Eagle_Eyed
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

So we’ll lose the vote on percentage but make up for it on margin?

Conservatives still lose if the country gets more hispanic. Time to build the wall and forcibly remove illegals. The ones that assimilate we will welcome into the fold.

Matt
Matt
7 years ago

I think I understand what was motivating white evangelicals: Trump had an R by his name. At this point i’m not sure you need anything else. Romney knocked it out of the park with white evangelicals. So did McCain, and so did Bush. #NeverTrump was always a fringe movement.

I’m not sure what it would take for the Democrats to get any significant number of white evangelicals, but the outcome would almost certainly be a net loss for them.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Matt

Ummm, Matt? The point of the post was that HRC lost,
because she had “PC” by her name.

So, here is the new math:

Dems – PC (might) = more votes!

????????☀️????

Matt
Matt
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

But then it isn’t white evangelicals that we’re talking about.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Matt

What about Russel Moore? ????

ashv
ashv
7 years ago

Time to update your vocabulary: Replace “Judeo-Christian values” with “Judeo-Muslim values”.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/jews-and-muslims-ramp-up-alliances-in-wake-of-trumps-election/

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Nah.

Sounds like a Weiner / Abedin wedding. (unlikely to last)

Let’s just hope there are no “children”.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

This is not the first time Jews and Muslims have worked together against Christians.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

And yet, they are a house divided.

They will not stand.????

Ginny Yeager
Ginny Yeager
7 years ago

A few months ago, we asked one of our friends (not a church-goer) what he thought the appeal of Trump was, and he said “people are sick of political correctness.”