MARXISM, THE OPPRESSORS, WOKE, AND INCOME GUILT

 

One highly esteemed pastor emeritus made a highly racist, but now a highly fashionable statement during an interview:

• A friend of mine recently, who is a pastor, was talking to a Norwegian man who had just moved into his community and went to his church. And at one point he heard the pastor talking about the fact that we’re all complicit in creating this narrative that ‘black people are dangerous’ and etcetera, and so we’re implicit in this. Afterward the white, the Norwegian came up and said “no no no, I’m Norwegian. No, I had nothing to do with it,” and my pastor friend said “studies have shown, that have pretty much proven that if you have white skin it’s worth a million dollars over a lifetime, over somebody who doesn’t have white skin. https://protestia.com/2020/09/18/tim-keller-if-you-have-white-skin-the-bible-says-youre-involved-in-injustice/

This absurd statement raises several questions.

Are all those who make on the average of a million dollars more than the average black guilty of racism, like blacks over six feet six who play for the NBA? Or those who are only black by various degree? Or blacks with white skin? Or whites with dark skin?

Are all whites guilty of the sins of a few whites? Are all blacks guilty of the crimes of a few blacks? Should there be different standards of justice and punishment based upon skin color? The less pigment, the more guilt? Must we calculate pigment before sentencing?

Do more whites than blacks perpetuate the racist narrative that blacks are dangerous? Even if someone believes this way, should this make them guilty? And what about blacks who think that whites are morally inferior? Should our justice system now include thought police? Evidently, this esteemed pastor emeritus would answer yes:

• And that’s because of historical forces that have come about, and at this point you can go at it several ways. One, as I’ve mentioned, if you have that asset of white skin, right now, historical asset, then you actually have to say ‘I didn’t deserve this’ and also to some degree, ‘I’m the product of…I’m standing on the shoulders of other people who got that through injustice.” So the Bible actually says ‘yes you do…you are involved in injustice’, and even if you didn’t actually do it, therefore you have a responsibility. Not just to say “well, maybe if I get around to it, maybe we can do something about the poor people out there.’ No- you’re part of the problem.

Is it unjust to benefit from the hard work of one’s parents? Is there a single Bible verse claims that we are guilty if we have more than our neighbor? Instead, it is biblically legitimate to pass on an inheritance to the children:

• A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous. (Proverbs 13:22)

If the inheritance is I’ll-begotten, then the inheritor has a duty to make reparations to the victims. However, this pastor unbiblically assumes that any disparity in wealth is a sin. But it is assumed that we should save to care, first of all, for our own families, even if this means that we have more wealth accumulated than our neighbor:

• If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows. (1 Timothy 5:16)

The Bible repeatedly claims that it is fitting that those who work should benefit from their labors, while those who refuse to work should bear the consequences:

• For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. (2 Thessalonians 3:10)

Are the productive ones “the problems” as this pastor emeritus charges? While for the Marxist, they are. If you have accumulated wealth, you are automatically in-league with the oppressors and are guilty. However, we need to ask, “Did God make Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Job guilty by giving them great wealth? Of course, they had to share this wealth with those in need, usually in the form of a loan. However, it was understood that giving had to begin with those within their own  circle:

• And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:9-10)

No indication of income redistribution or equating wealth with guilt! Nevertheless, we do have a responsibility for the poor. However, in view of how indiscriminate entitlement programs have destroyed the recipients, their families, and communities, giving must be done wisely and with concern about the impact of the giving.

In regards to helping the under-privileged, Pastor Rick Warren has written in the preface to Theologian Wayne Grudem’s “The Poverty of Nations:

• Having traveled the globe for thirty years and trained leaders in 164 countries, I’ve witnessed firsthand that almost every government and NGO (non-profit) poverty program is actually harmful to the poor, hurting them in the long run rather than helping them. The typical poverty program creates dependency, robs people of dignity, stifles initiative, and can foster a “What have you done for me lately?” sense of entitlement.

GEORGE YANCY: BLACK RAGE AND WHITE GUILT

George Yancy is a professor of philosophy at Emory University and a Black male. In a New York Times essay/letter entitled “Dear White America,” he argues that all White males (whatever they are) are racist and need to get over it.

To make his point, he admits that he is a recovering sexist (and if he can confess his sexism, we should be able to confess our racism):

• This doesn’t mean that I intentionally hate women or that I desire to oppress them. It means that despite my best intentions, I perpetuate sexism every day of my life.

Of what does his sexism consist?

• As a sexist, I have failed women. I have failed to speak out when I should have. I have failed to engage critically and extensively their pain and suffering in my writing. I have failed to transcend the rigidity of gender roles in my own life. I have failed to challenge those poisonous assumptions that women are “inferior” to men or to speak out loudly in the company of male philosophers who believe that feminist philosophy is just a nonphilosophical fad. I have been complicit with, and have allowed myself to be seduced by a country that makes billions of dollars from sexually objectifying women, from pornography, commercials, video games, to Hollywood movies. I am not innocent.

After reading this, it is hard to know which sins are being confessed. Is it sexist to hold doors for women? Is it sexist to think or make any generalizations about them – that they are better with children or that they are less physically strong or even that they are more beautiful than males? However, I would agree that watching porn is a road to sexism – viewing woman as mere sexual objects.

Is Yancy merely confessing that he has sexual thoughts regarding women, and does this make him a sexist? This raises the all-important question – What is sexism and when are we guilty of it? And are women just as guilty of reverse-sexism? Are we therefore all sexists, and if we are, is this category at all useful? Perhaps, instead, we have to be more specific about the destructive forms of sexism in which we partake.

Anyway, how do we apply these questions to the area of racism? Yancy pivots now to his main point:

• If you are white, and you are reading this letter, I ask that you don’t run to seek shelter from your own racism. Don’t hide from your responsibility. Rather, begin, right now, to practice being vulnerable. Being neither a “good” white person nor a liberal white person will get you off the proverbial hook… After all, it is painful to let go of your “white innocence,” to use this letter as a mirror, one that refuses to show you what you want to see, one that demands that you look at the lies that you tell yourself so that you don’t feel the weight of responsibility for those who live under the yoke of whiteness, your whiteness.

I can resonate with a part of what Yancy writes. As a Christian, I believe in the need to confess and to engage in painful self-examination, but it’s something we all need to do. However, for Yancy, it seems that this is only something that Whites need to do. According to him, there is a “yoke of whiteness,” but he doesn’t seem willing to acknowledge a comparable “yoke of blackness”:

• I am asking you to enter into battle with your white self. I’m asking that you open yourself up; to speak to, to admit to, the racist poison that is inside of you.

It seems that only the Whites have “racist poison,” while the Blacks are given a free pass. Is this one-sided critique the way to build a better world? Should we fight racism – something that seems to be growing at an alarming rate – with more racist rhetoric? Besides, is this what our Black brethren need to find healing? I don’t think so. Instead of bringing the races together, this serves to simply separate us further. Besides, White mea-culpa can also serve as a cloak for condescension and paternalism.  What then will elevate us? To treat our brethren from different races as moral equals, each accountable before God for our own moral failures! Therefore, James instructed the Church:

• My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. (James 2:1-7)

When there are specific crimes that Whites continue to commit, then these need to be addressed. However, Yancy feels that it is enough to call Whites “racists” simply because they are part of a society that has favored Whites and seems to systemically favor them today:

• You are part of a system that allows you to walk into stores where you are not followed, where you get to go for a bank loan and your skin does not count against you, where you don’t need to engage in “the talk” that black people and people of color must tell their children when they are confronted by white police officers.

Yes, I do think that we have to face up to certain realities of racial profiling. Honest Black people continue to endure the degradation of suspicion. However, it does not seem likely that this results from any plot or systemic program to degrade Blacks. Instead, Blacks commit crimes at a much higher rate than other racial groups, and I don’t think that Yancy’s victimization rhetoric is helpful here. Instead, it affirms erroneous Black suspicions that Whites still hate them and want to suppress and exclude them. Instead, this is a proven formula to produce more criminality and to increase the division. Therefore, I would hope that Black leadership would be teaching their community:

• Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay [also through the criminal justice system – Romans 13:4], says the Lord”… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:14-21)

And this is also what Whites should be teaching! No double-standards here! However, Yancy is one-sided throughout:

• As you reap comfort from being white, we suffer for being black and people of color.

Although Blacks continue to suffer in terms of employment and poverty, they also have freedoms and benefits that Whites are denied. For example, a White could not dream about publishing a letter in the Times inveighing against Black racism. They could even lose their jobs for doing so. Meanwhile, one Black professor at Union Theological Seminary has received 19 honorary PHDs despite his ubiquitous racist diatribes. And we find this double-standard systemically enforced across “White” America.

Yet Yancy doesn’t show any appreciation of the fact that there are no longer racist laws on the books, apart from those that favor Blacks through “affirmative action.” Instead, in light of all the progress, Yancy refuses to hold his own racial group in any way responsible:

• I assure you that so many black people suffering from poverty and joblessness, which is linked to high levels of crime, are painfully aware of the existential toll that they have had to face because they are black and, as [James] Baldwin adds, “for no other reason.” 

While this was true in Baldwin’s day, it is no longer true today. Nevertheless, Yancy and many Black people sincerely believe that they are suffering for “no other reason” but White racism, and this is understandable. Blacks had experienced sustained and appalling racism and degradation in our nation for 200 years, and they are still suffering. But why? Is it because of a sinister, hidden, and systemic racism, or are there other reasons for this?  

Shelby Steele, a Black professor, thinks that there are. As a panelist at a conference on racism, he was asked what an ideal America would look like. He writes:

• I said that what I wanted most for America was an end to white guilt... the terror of being seen as racist—terror that has caused whites to act guiltily toward minorities even when they feel no actual guilt. My point was that this terror— and the lust it has inspired in whites to show themselves innocent of racism— has spawned a new white paternalism toward minorities since the 1960s that, among other things, has damaged the black family more profoundly than segregation ever did. I also pleaded especially for an end to the condescension of affirmative action... the benevolent paternalism of white guilt, I said, had injured the self- esteem, if not the souls, of minorities in ways that the malevolent paternalism of white racism never had. Post-1960s welfare policies, the proliferation of “identity politics” and group preferences, and all the grandiose social interventions of the War on Poverty and the Great Society— all this was meant to redeem the nation from its bigoted past, but paradoxically, it also invited minorities to make an identity and a politics out of grievance and inferiority... their entitlement and that protest politics was the best way to cash in on that entitlement. (Shame: How America's Past Sins have Polarized the Country)

Steele believes that White guilt is now more destructive to the Black community than White racism. He argues that the very programs intended to help Blacks were not simply ineffective but actually damaged the Black community:

• White guilt was a smothering and distracting kindness that enmeshed minorities more in the struggle for white redemption than in their own struggle to develop as individuals capable of competing with all others.

White guilt expresses itself in many destructive ways. It places all of the guilt for the present-day Black problems on White racism. Consequently, the Blacks are given a free moral pass. But this freedom from blame and conscience is a bondage that perpetuates a blame mentality, dependency, and the resulting criminality. Instead of bringing the races together, it has further polarized them. It also disdains those Whites who understandably want to treat their Black brethren as equals.

According to Steele, White guilt and the “benevolent paternalism” of “affirmative action… has injured the self- esteem, if not the souls, of minorities.”

However, Yancy has embraced the opposite approach – to promote White guilt:

• What I’m asking is that you first accept the racism within yourself, accept all of the truth about what it means for you to be white in a society that was created for you. I’m asking for you to trace the binds that tie you to forms of domination that you would rather not see.

And there are many Whites who condescendingly embrace this message, while most entirely reject it. In either case, alienation is intensified with negative effects for all of us, and this grieves me so!

Instead, the Christian is required to walk in love and unity, each examining themselves, each a sinner who is totally dependent on his Savior. We are to embrace, not racial distinctions, but our common unity and humanity, as our Lord had prayed:

• "That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23) 

Let this also be our prayer! The unity we so desire will not be brought about by using race to heal racial problems but by Christian love.

The Tough Work of Love and Racial Reconciliation

It is difficult to overcome barriers - racial, religious, and ideological. We generally want to be validated – to hear things that support our feelings and worldview. This is even more true when accompanied by deep and enduring hurts.

Recently, I challenged a dear brother who is involved in Jewish evangelism. In his newsletter, he wrote:

• Antisemitism has one cause – Satan.

I responded:

• Understandably, you do not want to blame the victim or give additional ammo to the anti-Semite. Nor do we want to give needless offense to the Jewish community and to further alienate them from the Gospel by suggesting that they have played a role in bringing misfortune upon themselves. Nevertheless, we cannot leave out the fact that the Jews have been in rebellion to their God to this very day, and this rebellion has removed God’s protection and left them vulnerable to Satan.

I argued that we cannot leave this important factor of repentance out. The Prophets of Israel certainly didn’t. To leave out the need for Israel’s repentance is also to leave out God’s plea to the Jewish people to return and be healed. Ultimately, to leave this out is to leave them in a state of alienation from their God.

I don’t think that he appreciated my response. Nor would the Jewish people! No one wants to hear censure. I can even hear my mother saying, “We’ve suffered enough!”

But what does it mean to love? To tell people what they want to hear or what they need to hear? A dear Christian sister, who has devoted herself to the needs of disenfranchised youth, mostly of color, explained how she was able to meaningfully enter into their lives through listening and empathizing, and I commended her for this.

She related a story of her taking her youth group to the white residential area where she had grown up. She was understandably horrified when a white person asked them what they were doing there. The youth also were deeply hurt. At this point, what would love require of her? To affirm their worldview:

1. That African Americans remain victims of a racist exclusionary system built on white privilege, or… 

2. That this nation has made tremendous strides. There are no longer any Jim Crow laws. All are guaranteed equal rights and equal access to the courts, elected office, the vote, and education. However, racial stereotypes remain in the hearts of many on BOTH sides of the divide, for understandable and also sinful reasons. Therefore, we all must examine ourselves, the way we see things, and the things that we might be doing to perpetuate the divide. We must all take responsibility to repent of our own sins and to walk in love. With the help of God, we are not merely victims, but individuals with dignity who can make a difference. 

Which course should the sister have taken? Should she have reinforced the worldview of the youths that they are still victims and are purposely being excluded from American society – a worldview which would inevitably provoke their anger and hostility?  Or should she have challenged this worldview with a more productive and possibly more accurate perspective? Should she have said:

• This has to be painful, but most whites are no longer that way. We should even try to understand the concerns of the ones who do discriminate. Many whites are aware of the hate directed towards them by African Americans. They are also aware that they have become victims of black-on-white-crimes, which far exceed white-on-black crimes. They are also aware of the many white women who have been sexually assaulted by black men. Meanwhile, there are hardly any white men raping black women. 

This is probably not what her youth would have wanted to hear, but it might have been what they needed to hear. Scripture warns us that:

• Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. (James 1:19-21)

What will win respect for the African American? What will bestow dignity upon them? Not hatred, not anger, not unforgiveness, but patience when wronged:

• For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. (1 Peter 2:19-21)

This applies to all of us! It also pertains to the white shopkeeper when African American youth enter his store. For Christ’s sake, he must greet them as fellow human beings, bearing the image of God and not the image of a potential thief. He must treat them with the dignity, for love “is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs… It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:5-7)

  

However, this isn’t even my primary concern. Instead, I am deeply grieved at how the embrace of the first worldview – the victimization narrative – has impacted the Body of Christ with anger, alienation, and a deep distrust for people of other races. Likewise, I am disturbed by any narrative that separates us.

I grieve for the church - its wounds, divisions, mutual suspicions - the walls we build. I too have been hurt and have built my walls! However, it is through unity in this Body that we can tear down the walls and impact the world for Christ, as Jesus prayed:

·       "My prayer is… that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:20-23) 

Love and unity are not options. As His children, we must pursue these! If we are not pursuing love, we are not pursuing our Savior!

I long to see us touching the lives of one another in love for the sake of Christ, even for the sake of this blind world, so that they might know our Savior. But how inadequate we are! Let us pray that the Lord will equip us with His love unto love!