Culture

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Chaos and Race Theory

A lot of what passes among protestors today for thought finds its origins in Critical Race Theory. Critical Race theory finds its origins in Marxism. Marxism finds its roots in a pre-Christian understanding of man (old fashioned inclusive masculine) as subject to forces beyond our control.  The whims of Zeus, the anger of Thor, the finger of fate, the claim of destiny have all given way to impersonal imperatives which control history.

For Marx history is not shaped by individuals but by groups driven by economic imperatives. Critical Race theory posits a world where people are driven by a foundational imperative to form groups, based on race, in order to acquire, enjoy and hold on to power.

In this world view individuals will sublimate their will to the will of their group. The group then influences the choices of the individual. Groups in dynamic interrelationship with one another determine individual choices.  There can be no individual free choice. There is only group agency.  Individual agency simply does not exist.  

Critical Race Theory postulates a world where the will to power is so great that it consumes individual free will and individual agency. Yet at the same time some people can rise above this fierce power, awaken to reality and become allies of the oppressed, a vanguard of the future. So which is it? Is the will to power irresistible or not? Is it a foundational imperative or not?

Looking at the people who seem to hold to Critical Race Theory, I have to ask. If a teenaged college student can break free of systemic racism, the imperative to amass power, and group think, how strong can those things be?

If systemic racism is so weak that an adolescent can overcome it, why have people not tackled it before? Oh wait. William Wilberforce, the Civil War, the Civil rights era, the voting rights act, Affirmative Action, the war on Poverty, to name just a few.

My old seminary professors would say that as a theory it is internally and externally incoherent. Internally because the will to power cannot be both so strong as to control the choices of all the people in the world and so weak that it can be so easily fought off. Externally because history and society are filled with examples of individuals, movements and nations fighting against the very racism that the Woke believe has controlled the ages.

Critical Race Theory makes no sense. Not Biblically, not spiritually, not historically, not socially. In order to buy into the movement I would have to abandon free will, logic, history and the evidence of my own eyes.   This is probably why I keep being told that reason, history, logic and critical thinking are racist. I suspect that someone is lying to me about that. I also suspect that incoherent theories of social organization can only be held together by violence. That is what we see today in American cities.

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The Myth of the Egocentric Hero

The myth of the egocentric hero states that a person who has spent their entire life doing things their own way, for their own reasons, can suddenly change, becoming the hero that acts in service to others, even at the risk of their own life.

Let us look the 2012 movie The Avengers for an example. Early in the movie Captain America tells Iron Man “You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you…”.  To over simplify the story: Iron man’s other identity is Tony Stark an egocentric playboy. In the movies when Tony comes into a moment of crisis he somehow transforms into a hero willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of others.   This is the myth of the egocentric hero. The myth has become a keystone myth represents an understanding of self that is integral to our society. Without keystone myths our society’s self-understanding cannot hold together.

Our society cultivates children of the self: people who are servants of the self-regarding imperative. Our lives are centered on self- gratification. Our economics are based on each individual seeking the best possible return for themselves. Our spiritual lives are subject to a consumer mentality that results in the feel good, motivational, therapeutic, non-threatening, church being king. God has been relegated to the position of life coach.

We tend to believe that in order to truly be alive each of us needs to first seek satisfy their own self. Yet somewhere in our psyche remains the pull of another narrative, that of the self-sacrificial hero. We may want to live a selfish life but we are unwilling to admit it. To square the circle we manufactured the myth of the ego centric hero. The myth allows us to pursue lives of self-gratification while still thinking well of ourselves, knowing or believing that when the moment comes we too can be heroes.

We are experiencing a pandemic: Covid 19 .  Have we as individuals risen to the occasion and become heroes? Well, no. People don’t work that way.  Short of divine intervention people do not suddenly drops the habits of a lifetime to become something else. Behavior patterns become ingrained in our personalities for good and often for ill. The person who has spent a life seeking to maximize their own happiness, their own satisfaction and their own self-preservation does not suddenly become a hero, they continue to act in egocentric ways.

Our response has not lived up to our internal concept of the egocentric hero. We are not who we thought we were. We are not as good as we thought we were. What can we do when we realize we fall short of the glory of our self-identity?  We try to avoid the painful truth even to the point of wanting to kill the truth. See what happened to Jesus. After a lifetime of thinking that it was possible to live a live centered on what we want, and still be a hero, it is not possible for us to face the truth.

Our first impulse was good.  We were willing to give up some passing fancies in order to help and protect others. As time passed we began to notice that the most vulnerable among us seem not to have been protected very much at all.  The elderly are isolated in what sometimes became deathly virus incubators.  The non-infected ill are being denied important medical care, sometimes leading to death.   The poorest among us, those who cannot afford to stay at home, are suffering and dying the most.

We have been subject to extraordinary orders to protect others. Yet time’s passing reveals that the orders protect not the poor, the elderly and the needy but the successful and the well to do. Those who have money can stay home, safe. Those who are wealthy can still work, but in safety. The elites are still catered to by a medical system that has been forbidden to treat many others.

As children of the self there are many of us who demand that the shut downs continue. No matter who goes hungry, we demand safety. No matter who does not get the necessary cancer checkup, we seek our own preservation. No matter who sinks into despair, no matter how much domestic violence, occurs, no matter how much child molestation happen, no matter how many people succumb to addiction we prioritize our lives over theirs. No matter the number of children whose educational futures may be damaged forever, we refuse to be discomforted. No matter the pain, suffering and death the lock down is inflicting on others we continue to live egocentric lives.

We are being treated, in real time, to the disconcerting vision of seeing entire segments of our society demand that others suffer in order to remain protected. We see far too many of us refuse to acknowledge the suffering. We sit at home and cower. We tell each other that we are heroes for giving up our wants and desires while demanding that others give up their needs and necessities.  We are not a society of Iron Men. We are not the ones to risk themselves for the sake of others.  We are the children of the self who demand that all the world bend to our needs and desires.

Of course not all of us are life this. There are still some who care, some who serve, some who give of themselves not just give of their money. These people do place themselves in danger. Usually they are people who have a lifetime in the helping and serving professions: first responders and medical personnel for example. It should not be a surprise that many of these individual are following family traditions. The son joining the force like his father before him. The daughter going into medicine, etc. Values are transmitted by families and these families have values of service.

Too many of us to not share those values.  Our culture does not nurture those values. Those people in the serving professions are not the people in positions of prestige and power. We fete them on TV and say nice things about them on social media but we relegate them to minor positions in our society, necessary in a crisis but inconvenient at the board room or dinner table.

Instead our leadership class, like so many of us, are children of the self. Raised in an environment and culture which all too often tempt us to regard ourselves above others. The temptation becomes a fall. A fall becomes a habit. A habit becomes a way of life. Ways of life have consequences. The course of our society and its emphasis on self has brought us to this point.  At one time we would have shamed people for demanding that others risk death for them. Now it is the accepted opinion of far too many.

Will we see? Will we find the will to change course? Perhaps the cultural powers will succeed in convincing us that the impulse to self-protection at all cost was heroic. But the truth is still out there for those with eyes to see.  A nation’s population, grown up on self-regard and self-preservation was unable throw off their behavior patterns.  If a nation wants its people to act heroically in times of need they must structure their society not only to reward heroism but to inculcate it by practice. Unfortunately a society of real heroes is inconsistent with our current one. As long as the people who control our culture and politics are comfortable we cannot expect to see change.

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To Church or not to Church

In our hour of need will the Church of God stand up to the powers of this world, or will they be complicit in defining us as numbers in some “model” to be ordered about without regard to our inherent dignity as image bearers of the Most High?

There is so much going on and it all seems to make so little sense.

Businesses are closed. People out of work. Life routines disrupted. Dreams interrupted. Families disunited. That which makes us human is outlawed. The virus seems to have been overestimated. Our ability to kneel before governments as they take away our liberties seems to have been underestimated. We are forbidden to visit the old and infirm. We are forbidden to be with our loved ones as they struggle for life in hospitals. We are forbidden to hold their hand while they die.

Our governments have forgotten their role as civil servants to enable our human flourishing.  In a rush to avoid death they have forgotten what makes life worth living. They have reduced us to numbers in a mathematical formula. They order us to behave in a certain way in order to achieve a particular outcome without regard to our humanity.  One plus one may equal two, but one person in isolation does not equal living.

We know from experiences with solitary confinement, as in prisons, that the human mind cannot tolerate being truly alone.  Human interaction and human touch are not just important to us, they are necessary to our survival as humans. To live is to live with other people.

Every time a person is denied the ability to visit with their loved ones in hospital, the ill are deprived of one more reason to live, one more motivation to heal, one more reminder that someone cares.  Lost in a medical induces haze the touch of family and friends may be the last tenuous connection to life the person has.

Every time a person is denied the ability to be with a loved one while that person dies, we not only deprive the dying of solace but we wound the living. For the living know that it is part of their imperative to care for those they love. To not be able to care for our dying, hurts our sense of self.

From before all time, and before creation, God has always been three persons in one nature.  That is, God has always been, and always will be, an intimate loving relationship.  Humans, being created in God’s image, are made for intimate loving relationships.   We are not made to be alone. We are not created to be isolated. We are meant to interact with others. To talk with them, to touch them, to know them and be known by them.

We are not numbers. We are human beings. For the government to reduce us to mindless variables in their pandemic models is to treat us as less than human.

We were expecting our churches, the institutionalized visible outward forms of our faith, to guide us through these troubling times, reinforce our faltering faith, and to help us put the virus and physical death into perspective. We have been given; closed churches, online services, a voice on the other end of the phone. We have been deprived of the sacraments and even denied being shriven before dying.

Jesus, once healed a leper with a touch, although touching lepers was forbidden. Jesus walked among us, often in crowds too dense for social distancing. Jesus commanded us to visit the sick. Jesus has been reduced from a real active presence in the church to a feel good motivational story we hear of at a distance.

We seem bereft of the presence of God. We seem reduced to trying to remember God’s words. We are in a drought of God.  The very people who are meant to most remind us, and represent to us the active presence of God in our lives, seem almost complicit with the secular authorities. The same authorities that are so intent of reducing us from human children of God to mere numbers in a mathematical model.

Where is the church? It seems, over the last decades, the church has more and more abandoned the role of mediating the word and presence of God. Instead it seems to have chosen to mediate between the earthly powers that be and their subjects.  In the Church’s rush to be relevant to our current lives it has become more and more irrelevant to our eternal hopes. When our earthly masters tell us to isolate ourselves, to cut off part of our souls and make ourselves less than fully human, our churches do not push back they adapt. When our secular authorities tell us that in order to be “Good” we must stay at home, our spiritual leaders tells us that we no longer have to live out God’s command to visit the sick and those in prison.

I have heard expressions of regret but have not seen significant push back.  A leper came to Jesus and said, “Lord if you will you can heal me”. That is Lord if you want to heal me, even though it is against the law and you will suffer consequences for breaking the law, you can.  Blessed be God, who did not send His son to be incarnated of a Zoom conference, but to walk among us in our flesh and our nature. Blessed be God, that He did break the law and physically touch the untouchable, to bring mercy and healing.

Yet God’s most public followers, the modern church, when faced with its “If you will, you can help” moment chose to step back, close its doors and phone their compassion in.

There is so much going on and it all seems to make so little sense.

No one minister is to blame. No one should judge any particular Bishop, superintendent or senior pastor. This has not shown the world anything new about the weaknesses of any individual.  We all knew that to begin with.  Rather is the spirit of our time. A spirit of materialism which seeps into all of us making us think more of the things of men than the things of God.

The church as a whole must regain it way. Let this time of pandemic remind us all that no matter what our society says, physical life is not forever. Let our awakening awareness that we are dust and to dust we must return be in turn a wake up call. Let the church reclaim, with God’s grace, its role as being the outward symbol of God standing between this limited physical life and the life eternal won for us on the cross.

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Las Vegas Shooting

Just a few weeks ago, a man, opened fire on a group of unsuspecting and unprotected concert goers in Las Vegas Nevada. At least 59 died and hundreds were wounded. The nation is now in the period between the attack and the facts.

How many guns did he have? How many did he use? Did he buy them all? Did someone give them to him? Where did he learn to shoot? How did he get the guns to the room undetected? And Why, Why, Why?

We are in the period between the event and the facts. After the facts come out people will use them, or abuse them to fit their preconceived ideas of how the world works.

The left will blame the right. The right will blame the left. Coastal Elites will blame middle American flat earthers. Folks from the middle will blame the establishment for letting things get out of control. Gun owners will talk self-defense. Gun controllers will talk risk reduction. You will find people on all sides invoking God as their ally.  People’s opinions will harden even more. Self-assured that theirs is the way of salvation they will demonize those who disagree with them.

They will do all this, and more because it allows them to feel safe. Or at least safer. It allows them to put the attack in a box. A box they “know” how to handle. All it takes to be “safe” is more laws, more freedom, less poverty, more tolerance, less open borders, etc.

So in this in-between time, between the event and the facts, before our stories harden, let me speak to our fundamental problem.

Las Vegas happened because evil is real. Las Vegas happened because moral evil is an objective reality.

Las Vegas happened because people, left to their own devices, can’t choose right from wrong. At least we find it ridiculously hard to choose the right thing when we know that choosing the right thing is going to cost us something we value.

We have become masters at avoiding the reality that we are, on any given day, too weak, too selfish, too afraid, to choose to do the right thing. We develop rationalizations. Oh, what I did was not really evil. You have to understand the greater context. I had to do it. It wasn’t my fault. No one ever taught me better. I’m sick. It was the only way to get what I am due. We make moral choices relative. In order to justify our actions we call evil good and good evil.

As a society we have lost our way. Lost our moral compass. Lost sight of what it means to live moral lives. Behaving decently towards each other as we seek to grow in the capacity to live virtuous, godly lives.

This is nothing new. Scripture teaches us over and over again how easy it is for the people of god to rationalize their less than godly behavior. And it teaches us over and over again, how bad behavior creates ground fertile for outbreaks of terrible evil.

Into this darkness of our feeble excuses God speaks. He sees us as lost sheep. He sees us as blind to the truth, leading each other to destruction. He sees us as children in need of a fathers gracious help.

So He does for us, that which we seem incapable of doing for ourselves. He declares to us what is good. He declares to us what is good and invites us to participate in it. In the fullness of time He sent His only Begotten Son to die on the cross so that God Himself might live within us to help us on the way.

Whatever “facts” come out about Las Vegas will not change the singular fact that it was an act of evil.  No excuse, no understanding, no rationalization will ever take away the pain of that day.

Only God can point us to the light and bring us through the dark.

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The importance of neutral ground.

Recently there has been a great deal of angst over the politicization of American life. By that I mean the injection of politics into areas of our lives that it had not been in before. Two examples come to mind are. First, politicians telling their supporters to turn Thanksgiving dinner into an opportunity to challenge family members who did not hold the “correct” views of certain cultural/political issues. Second, the introduction of cultural/political protests at professional football games.

There are many reasons to be disturbed by these events. Perhaps the greatest concern I have is that neutral ground is disappearing. I am going to define neutral ground, in this context, to be areas of our lives that allow us to spend time with people who hold views different from ours, without feeling tension or fighting.

It used to be that committed republicans and committed democrats could come together and watch a football game. Or they could come together to share a holiday meal. Their disagreements, some vehemently held, were put aside for a few minutes or hours. The great benefit of this time on neutral ground was that it allowed friendships and relationships to flourish across the political/cultural divide. The republican could see the democrat as a decent human being who he or she disagreed with on certain matters. That allowed the two sides to engage in civil disagreement.

Now the available areas of neutral ground are disappearing. Everything is being made political. The ability to see, those who disagree with us, as a person worthy of dignity and respect is slipping out our national grasp.

It is understandable that those who wish to win the cultural/political battles of today might be willing to use any means necessary. The unintended consequence of this tactic is the coarsening of public discourse. When we don’t see our rivals as worthy of dignity they easily become our enemies.

The proponents of turning holiday meals and entertainment into conflict, may win the battle only to find that they have destroyed the very civil society they sought to save.

The old saying, not to talk politics or religion at the dinner table had a certain sense to it. By creating and sustaining neutral ground bonds of affections can grow up over and above our disagreements.