Tag: intersectionality

When Freemasonry is a False Religion and Critical Race Theory is “A Problem”

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

I was surprised to see the Gospel Coalition come out so forcefully against Free Masons, not that I’m a fan, just that the Allies are not known for being mean the way Orthodox Presbyterians are. But Joe Carter did write the following:

Christians involved in Freemasonry may justify their involvement by claiming that it’s a matter of conscience. While they may be correct, a naked appeal to conscience is insufficient to resolve the question. As we’ve repeatedly seen over the past decade, appealing to one’s conscience has become the primary way Christians in America justify their engagement in unbiblical behavior and alignment with anti-Christian associations. A better test would be for Christians who are Masons to ask themselves, Is my participation in Freemasonry bringing glory to God?

To answer that question in the affirmative would require, at a minimum, addressing the multitude of concerns that Christians have raised for centuries about Freemasonry.

Christians involved in Freemasonry should also ask why their rituals and practices are considered sacrosanct. Protestants have long maintained a position of Ecclesia semper reformanda est (Latin for “the church must always be reformed”)—that in order to maintain its purity, the church must always be willing to reconsider its belief and practice. Yet it’s rare to find a Christians in Masonic Lodges who forcefully advocate the jettisoning of any teachings and rituals of Freemasonry that are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. They may claim, for example, that the “bloody oaths” they take are non-binding and shouldn’t be taken literally—and yet they will reject recommendations that such oaths be done away with.

This is a baffling inconsistency that hints at idolatry. If the pagan and occultic elements are not essential to Freemasonry, then Freemasons who follow Jesus should be advocating for their removal as a condition of their continued participation. But if those elements are essential—even if only as venerated tradition—then Christians should explain how they can, in good conscience, participate in such a system of religious practices and beliefs (1 Cor. 10:7).

When it comes to Critical Race Theory or Cultural Marxism or intersectionality, Carter is not so direct although even non-Christians argue intersectionality and CRT have religion-like qualities. Could Carter’s reluctance have to do with a prominent Gospel Allie being outspoken about systemic racism and social justice in ways Cultural Marxism Adjacent? If so, then this way of raising questions about critical theory makes sense:

The problem with intersectionality arises when it ceases to be an insight and becomes an ideology. As with many useful concepts, intersectionality can be used to promote the flourishing of the human community or can be used to create new forms of systematic sin. And over the past decade, the concept has frequently, as Sullivan noted, been used as a tool for building division not only between the “oppressors” (i.e., white males) and the oppressed (i.e., almost everyone else), but separation between groups deemed to be victims. . . .

As an analytic framework for identifying the effects of systemic sin, intersection theory may be of some use to Christians. But when it is used to justify the creation of ever more narrow and increasingly divisive identity groups, it becomes another secular worldview that Christians must reject.

While characteristics such as race and gender are not erased when a person becomes a member of God’s kingdom, our identity as Christians is rebuilt around Jesus. As the apostle Peter says, “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).

The lesson appears to be that political ideology is not as bad as false religion. Good to know that w-w doesn’t include ideology.

Fun With Numbers

Published on by D. G. HartLeave a comment

Would it surprise readers to learn that Tim Keller and I, according to the intersectionality meter, enjoy more privilege than 96 percent of the rest of Americans? Would it also surprise anyone that Tim Keller and I have more privilege than Donald Trump? Because if you move the slider on Christianity from Christian to Not Christian (sorry Donald), your oppression footprint decreases, from a 5 to a 14, which means Trump has more privilege than 88 percent other Americans. Throw in income, with differences for religion, and here his how the picture changes: Trump (rich) 11, me (moderate) 5, Keller (more than me), 4. So in the intersectionality sweepstakes, Tim Keller has more privilege than Donald Trump and I. (And since Keller and I are Christians, that may make both of us Christian nationalists.)

This fits what Keller himself has even admitted.

Keller acknowledged white privilege and ways he’s benefited from it, but with his characteristic wit he added, “I’m not going to feel sorry for myself because that is a very white thing to do.”

Or:

John [Piper] and I are both old enough to remember the complicity of evangelical churches and institutions with the systemic racism in the US before the civil rights movement. I took my first church in a small town in the South in the early 1970s. The courts had recently ruled that the whites-only public swimming pool, operated by the town with taxpayers’ money, had to be integrated. So what did the town do? It shut the pool down completely, and the white people of the town opened a new private swimming pool and club, which of course, did not have to admit racial minorities. Because I was a young pastor, our family was often invited to swim there, and swim we did, not really cognizant of what the pool represented.

Here’s some more fun with numbers. What does minority and majority populations mean without nationalism? The world’s total population is 7.7 billion. The United States’ population is roughly 330 million. That means Americans (third in total behind China and India) are 4 percent of the world’s population. In majority/minority statistics, that looks decidedly like a minority.

But I get it with power and wealth Americans look a lot bigger and wealthier than the rest of the world’s peoples. Doesn’t some of that size and power extend to minorities within the United States, such that Amish or Armenian-Americans in the United States have more power and wealth than people living in Nigeria or Guiana?

And what about minority groups not based on race or ethnicity but on religion? Are members of the Presbyterian Church in America — roughly 350,000 — a minority compared to Japanese-Americans at 1.4 million, or Korean-Americans, or Chinese-Americans at almost 5 million? Can ethnicity and wealth simply turn those numbers around so that a denomination that is 7 percent the size of Chinese-Americans has the same sort of privilege as — well — Tim Keller?

And don’t even get me started on how flawed Asian-American is as a category?

However you slice it, the numbers only make sense if you start with the United States and its population, which makes you some kind of nationalist.

White People, Butch Up

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

That is the not so subtle message from Brandi Miller:

When situations arise where race and privilege are questioned and criticized, often times white people free fall into fear, anger, silence, denial or guilt. These emotions, while understandable and not bad in their own right, typically derail and recenter race conversations around the feelings of the privileged white person instead of on the lived oppressive reality of people of color.

White Evangelical Christians are particularly fragile, with whiteness being normalized and pandered to in society and theologized in the church. Evangelicalism at large cannot even identify with its inherent Christian privilege, let alone with the sexism or racism within the church. It is wholly unsurprising that if Evangelicals can claim to be persecuted even as 83 percent of Americans identify as Christian, they will almost certainly interpret the suggestion that their whiteness has negative meaning as an attack on the very core of who they are.

A white evangelical could possibly take this as a compliment. At a time when we award participation trophies to child athletes and issue trigger warnings for sensitive college students (for starters), the idea that some sectors of the population should be tough enough to take criticism is a welcome one, and may indicate a backhanded compliment. The people against whom Ms. Miller thunders are those who don’t need safe spaces.