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.

HOW CAN WE DEAL WITH FEELINGS OF SHAME, GUILT, AND INADEQUACY?

         

Many have found that the strict moral teachings of the Bible have set them up to experience shame, inadequacy, and guilt (SIG). We fail continually as we try to follow them. Take Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount:

·       “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48 ESV)

Jesus’ call for moral perfection is echoed throughout the Bible (Matthew 5:20; 1 Peter 1:15-16; Leviticus 11:44). The Bible never gives us an opportunity or excuse to slack-off. We can never say, “Well, I do good 98% of the time. Therefore, I am now entitled to some time-off.”

People have found many ways to cope with these all too human feelings of SIG. People are able to mitigate them to some degree by believing that the moral standards don’t even exist. They are just human inventions. Consequently, we can simply dismiss these feelings. However, it seems that these standards are not so easy to escape, since they are wired into us.

An atheist friend took it one step further. He learned that he could diminish his feelings of guilt by simply believing that he couldn’t have acted otherwise. He denied that freewill even existed. Fortunately, his inner wiring would not entirely let go of him. Its bridle remained secure in his unwilling mouth.

Some preachers have rejected the Biblical teachings about eternal punishment and have adopted universalism, the belief that all would be saved. One successful preacher has denounced what he calls “sin consciousness,” the depressing, guilt-producing preoccupation with our moral failures:

·       Sin consciousness, something Jesus never taught or encouraged, both prohibits and prevents self-love, something we must learn and re-learn to do, especially when we're brought up in a kind of "hate yourself" religious climate as many were and continue to be, whether, Christian, Jewish or Islamic.

It is true that many of us have reacted against the demanding legal and moral teachings of the Bible as promoting a "hate yourself religious climate.” I certainly had reacted that way. Although I didn’t reject the Bible, I did avoid many condemning passages and the “Do better; try harder” sermons, which would inevitably bring me down, sending me out into the world weighed down with guilt and a powerful sense of spiritual inadequacy.

Today, there are many churches that are sensitive to this “problem.” Therefore, they preach a comfortable and unbalanced God-loves-you message, where it’s all about grace and little about the requirements to respond to grace.

Fortunately, I did eventually become grounded in the many Biblical teachings about the grace for us undeserving sinners. It was these teachings that gave me the peace and confidence to eventually acknowledge that I am a sinner, undeserving of anything from God apart from His wrath (Romans 6:23). The teachings about God’s grace and His Cross gave me the freedom to honestly face myself and to be transparent with the rest of the world.

However, it was these teachings that also allowed me to embrace the law and God’s moral requirements. I began to see the wisdom and the beauty of Jesus’ teaching that I “must be perfect, as [my] heavenly Father is perfect.” Just consider this – What if your wife complains that you had hurt her by pushing her. Would you respond:

·       I will not be burdened by this “sin consciousness” that you are trying to place upon me. I have been good to you 98% of the time. So you have no right to complain that I pushed you down. Besides, God is forgiveness and mercy?

While it is true that God forgives, we must first confess our sins, humbling ourselves to admit that we have done wrong. Even if we have done right for the past month, this is never an excuse for any sin. Jesus taught that we are eligible for eternal condemnation by merely wrongly and maliciously calling someone a “fool” (Matthew 5:22). We have to take responsibility for all of our behaviors. Any transgression of the law would place us under a curse:

·       “‘Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’” (Deuteronomy 27:26)

But doesn’t this suggest that God has set us all up for failure and the feelings of SIG? After all, how can any of us be perfect? Instead, He has set us up to seek out His mercy, which has always been abundantly available. It is the law and its moral requirements that continue to teach us this lesson so that God’s grace and mercy would always remain part of our consciousness. In this way, the law had led us to Jesus the Messiah:

·       But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:22-24)

Even now, the law remains a reminder of the love and mercy of our Savior and the blood He has shed for us. The law and its moral requirements continue to humble me. They show me that I cannot stand before my Savior on my own on the basis of my righteousness. I can have no confidence in self-righteousness:

·       Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:19-20)

The law shows me who I am and points to my only Hope – Jesus. I need this sin-consciousness. Without sin-consciousness, there can be no grace-consciousness. No wonder He has taught us that we must regard ourselves as unworthy of any of God’s blessings, the very thing that SIG has been communicating to us:

·       “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17:10)

It took me years to learn this simple lesson. Early on, I had learned to counteract my SIG feelings with positive affirmations – self-talk that I wasn’t the sinner that my feelings were telling me. Instead, I was actually a superior person. However, this deadly drug became an addiction, a monster that could never be satisfied.

I had fed myself on a diet of such grandiose self-talk, that I could no longer endure criticism or rejection – anything that might contradict the phony walls I had erected for my “protection.” Even my relationships had been poisoned by it. Never having learned self-acceptance, I was unable to accept the faults of others.

How are we to manage our SIG feelings? It was only the growing assurance of the love of Jesus that enabled me to face myself. If He accepted me that way I was, I could begin to accept and to humble myself by acknowledging my unworthiness before God so that He would lift me up:

·       “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)

Through seeing my hopeless situation, I have learned gratefulness. I have also learned that to acknowledge my sin and unworthiness requires nothing more than the truth. This is a truth that I had hid from myself for decades, and now, by following Jesus, I can see (John 8:31-32).

I need the uncompromising truths of the Bible’s moral requirements to remind me of the surpassing value of God’s grace. Without this reminder, I tend to become complacent, self-satisfied, and jaded. Even worse, I tend to take God for granted.

I can now accept the fact that I am “spiritually inadequate.” In fact, we weren’t designed to be spiritually adequate. Our adequacy is to be found only in the Lord:

·       Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God. (2 Corinthians 3:4-5)

We have been taught to believe in ourselves, but this is something I cannot and will not do. I much prefer to find my adequacy, self-acceptance, and hope through an all-embracing relationship with my Savior, who loves me despite myself.

THE TOWER OF BABEL REVISITED

The nations had been united by one language. However, with their unity, they were becoming more and more jaded and corrupt. Therefore, God deprived them of their common language, and they dispersed across the earth.

We too are being deprived of our common language and are becoming increasingly alienated from one another.

There is little left of our common glue. Just take the concept of justice. We cannot agree about things that had formerly been so uncontroversial – guilt and innocence. We used to agree that a murderer was guilty of his crime and deserved punishment. No so anymore! For example, a friend reasoned that he could not even hold ISIS accountable for their horrible acts:

·       If we were born in a their environment, we would probably do the same things. It’s just the throw of the dice. I agree that ISIS must be stopped, but not because they deserve to be stopped, but because their acts are destructive.

I cite this example, because it reflects what so many people now believe, especially the highly educated. According to them, we are merely the product of our nurture and nature – our genome and our social influences. Some will add an extra twist – that we do not even have freewill, and, therefore, we couldn’t have acted otherwise.

If this is so, then punishment is unjust. Why? Because none of us deserve it! However, we must punish. We must stop ISIS if we are concerned about justice and the welfare of humanity. However, we have rejected the only rationale for justice.

What had made the Christian West excel in justice? Well, we believed in justice. Why? We had derived our wisdom from the Bible, which held us all to account for our sin. Well, aren’t we just a product of our environment?

While the environment plays a powerful role in our development, we still know better. How so? Because the moral law has been written on our hearts:

·       For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16; ESV)

We are a walking legal code. Therefore, when we violate our imprinted legal code, our conscience assaults us, as it should. This means that the jihadist’s conscience is also telling him that he deserves God’s condemnation, unless he repents.

The West is on a suicidal course. If it no longer has an adequate rationale to stand against injustice, it won’t.

GOD’S WARNINGS, OMNIPOTENCE, AND THE GUILT OF HUMANITY

Job was not the first or the last to indict God, charging Him with “injustice.” In fact, such indictments are ubiquitous in Western society today, where any form of punishment is disparaged as “insensitive” and “mindless.” Even now, students at OSU are mourning the death of a terrorist who had knifed and plowed down a number of students with his car. In another case, a woman refused to bring charges against a migrant who had raped her because she felt that he had been driven to commit the rape.

In our moral and intellectual climate, it should not be surprising that God is scorned as a vengeful, medieval deity. “Christian” evolutionist, Karl Giberson, affirmatively quoted atheist Richard Dawkins in this regard:

·       [God is a] “tyrannical anthropomorphic deity” and “commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages.” But who believes in this [OT] deity any more, besides those same fundamentalists who think the earth is 10,000 years old? Modern theology has moved past this view of God.” http://biologos.org/blog/exposing-the-straw-men-of-new-atheism-part-five/

The late and renowned atheist, Bertrand Russell had been asked, “What if you meet God after you die and he asks, ‘Why didn’t you believe in me?’ How will you answer him?” Russell answered:

·       God, there was simply not enough evidence, just not enough evidence.

Is this true? Does God punish without sufficient warning? Scripture gives us a resounding “No.” Why then do people claim that there is no evidence? According to Scripture, humanity suppresses this evidence (Romans 1:18-20) and prefers the darkness to the light of truth (John 3:19-20).

Scripture gives us many accounts that substantiate this claim. For example, Pharaoh continued to harden his heart, even after the horrific 10 plagues. His chariots even pursed the fleeing Israelites into the sea with waters walled up on either side – an unmistakable testimony to the fact that Israel’s omnipotent God was with them.

How can we account for such willful blindness and foolishness? Only in this way: that humanity’s hatred of God is so great that it overrides every other consideration.

The Book of Revelation provides another stunning portrait of the sin-hardened. Even after the plagues that had accompanied the opening of the seven seals and the six trumpets, we read:

·       The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. (Revelation 9:20-21; ESV)

Can we indict God because of our stubbornness? Even after this, God provided many other signs that He meant business. He sent two supernatural prophets to prophesy against the nations for 1,260 days. When they had succeeded in killing the two, humanity gloated over their death and refused to allow them to be buried. However, this worked against them. After several days, God raised them and brought a terrible earthquake upon the land (Rev. 11).

Did they repent? No! Was God finished with His warnings to repent? Certainly not:

·       The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish  and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds. (Revelation 16:8-11)

Instead of repenting and confessing their sin to their Creator and Provider, they “cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores.” Did they not know what they were facing? They must have, but they had hardened their hearts like Pharaoh. They were no longer amenable to reason.

At this point, we tend to raise another objection:

·       God, you are omnipotent. You can do all things. If you have the power to change the hearts of men, why didn’t you change all their hearts so that they would come to you? To know to do good and to not do it is to sin.

This objection represents a misunderstanding of God’s omnipotence. While He can accomplish all the things He wants to accomplish, He cannot accomplish them through any means. He cannot sin; He cannot violate His Word. Besides, He is also constrained by His very character. Jesus had prayed that the Father would spare Him from going to the Cross:

·       And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

Evidently, there was no other way. God’s character constrains Him. His holy nature demands that there had to be a sufficient payment for sin. There was no other way.

I don’t understand why there must be eternal punishment, at least, not completely. However, I am resigned to the fact that I only see in part (Deut. 29:29) and that there is much about my Savior that I still do not understand. However, I am willing to wait and to abide with the understanding that He has offered to us.