“What does obedience look like when you find yourself born into privilege? Go back to nonexistence and ask God for a do over?”
The Snickers Bar Regimen
“Bigotry, prejudice, animosity, and malice would be the sins proper—spiritual diabetes—and basking thoughtlessly in your privileged status would be like being pre-diabetic. You aren’t being bad yet, but you are in the danger zone. There is something to this, but the problem is that the spiritual precautions we take are usually in the wrong direction entirely—treating our pre-diabetes with Snickers bars. We tend to fortify ourselves with guilt over that privilege when we ought to be overflowing with gratitude.”
Part of My Explanation
“I am of Scots and Scots-Irish descent . . . For sheer cussedness, there is no finer group anywhere. The gods they worshipped, and then the God they came to worship, along with many centuries of hardscrabble living, created a certain ethos that had specific and great strengths and some pretty crazy weaknesses.”
Worship Drives Culture
“Crimes motivated by racist animosity (in any direction) reveal a pathetic culture, the end result of worshipping pathetic gods.”
Not That Hard Actually
“I take it as a given that any conservative Christian who addresses cultural issues at all is not worth his salt if he does not get himself accused of racism . . . It is therefore important to incur the charge of racism. It is equally important that the charge be a slander and a falsehood.”
And Makes Them Sad
“Liars hate being caught. It throws them off their rhythm.”
True in Both Directions
“Flannery O’Connor wrote that everything that rises must converge, but this must also be said of everything that is circling the drain.”
The Demonization Gun
“What I am rejecting is demonization. And to simply go along with what they are currently demanding is to help establish their authority to demonize. I don’t want to accede control of that process to them. I don’t want them to have the demonization gun—I know where they are going to point it next.”
An Editorial Team Coup
“They have been running this play enough times that we really ought to recognize it by now. The play is this—they must be put in charge of all definitions. And my response to that is, let me think about it, no.”
The Men of Old Charleston Will Rise Up and Condemn . . .
“If you were going to be conceived as the child of black parents in North America, would you prefer Charleston in 1850 or Chicago in 2015? I know which one involves a certified nurse counting up all your pieces so that they can make sure they throw all of you away. Be honest. Be brutally honest, and in the light of that honesty I would then invite you to rethink everything you thought you knew about racial reconciliation.”