The rituals at these protests closely resemble what you would see at an Evangelical-style religious service. Collective kneeling or sitting in prayer. Hands raised reverentially to the sky. Liturgical chants. This is a new expression of secular, civic religion pic.twitter.com/XZo021AZgp
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 3, 2020
Showing posts with label intersectionality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intersectionality. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 02, 2020
Non-conformists
Saturday, August 10, 2019
The big squeeze
The Founders trailer has generated a lot of fallout, including:
To an outside observer, it looks like the squeeze was put on board members by power brokers in the SBC. If so, that ironically demonstrates the need for the very documentary at issue.
I'm also puzzled by James White throwing Ascol and his colleagues over the back of the sled (on the DL).
Saturday, July 27, 2019
By what standard?
A trailer by the Founders ministry is getting a lot of buzz:
I'll make a few comments on the trailer, then make some comments on the backlash:
A. I wonder if the title was inspired by the title of an old book by Greg Bahnsen.
B. Some of the critics of the SBC infiltration are currently employed at SBC seminaries, so they are to be saluted for their courage. They are taking a risk by implicitly criticizing the boss.
C. I agree with everything Ascol says in the trailer.
D. Rod Martin misframes the issue by casting it in terms of guilt, regret, and forgiveness. On the one hand the white slave masters, Klansmen and other suchlike died impenitent. On the other hand, the younger generation isn't complicit in that to begin with, so there's nothing to forgive.
E. There's a clip of James Merritt. I believe he's the father of homosexual activist Jonathan Merritt.
F. SBTS prez Al Mohler tweeted that he's "alarmed at how some respected SBC leaders are represented".
Ironically, that reinforces the image of self-important leaders who maintain a system of cronyism.
G. SWBTS prez Adam Greenway's tweet conveys the same blue wall of silence: "I will not…be part of any agenda seeking to divide Southern Baptists unnecessarily".
H. For his part, MBTS prez Jason Allen tweeted: "This trailer is either a click-bait promo piece or it foreshadows a movie that's uncharitable & unhelpful".
The problem is that SBC leaders have been accused of positively facilitating the infiltration of identity politics into the SBC generally and SBC seminaries in particular. They can't be trusted to solve the problem if they actively support it.
There's nothing wrong with a grassroots movement in the SBC to oppose identity politics. The SBC isn't supposed to be the Church of Rome, where the hierarchy makes all the key decisions. It's not insubordinate for SBC laymen or pastors to challenge policies promoted by the SBC Mandarins.
I. SEBTS prez Danny Akin had the most substantive response to date. Among other things, he said:
I sat down with an interview for what I understood to be a discussion about the authority of Scripture for an upcoming documentary…Today I was disappointed to see the trailer for that documentary. What I saw was edited footage that I believe to be misleading, which misrepresents important issues and what leaders in the SBC actually affirm…I have requested that my association with and contribution to this film be removed.
That raises some ethical issues:
1. Was he interviewed under false pretenses? Since Ascol does think it's about the authority of Scripture, it wasn't conducted under false pretenses from his perspective.
2. Perhaps, though, the objection is that he was interviewed under false pretenses in the sense that Akin wasn't apprised of the use to which his statements would be put. In principle that could happen in one of two ways:
i) He was not informed about the use to which his statements would be put.
ii He was misinformed about the use to which his statements would be put.
3. (ii) is ethically more serious than (i). Mind you, there are exceptional situations in which I subterfuge justifiable. Take the sting operation on Planned Parenthood. Undercover investigators interviewed PP employs under false pretenses because that was the only way to make them own up to their activities behind-the-scenes.
4. Regarding (i), an interviewer might not be forthcoming about his agenda because, if he told the prospective interviewee what the purpose of the interview was, the interviewee back out or refuse to give straight answers. Is the interviewer to blame? Or is it blameworthy that the interviewee won't give honest answers about what's going on if the interviewer tips his hand, forcing the interviewer to be vague about his intentions to make the interviewee drop his guard and level with the interviewer? I'd say it reflects poorly on the interviewee if the interviewer must be stealthy to get information which the interviewee shouldn't be hiding from public scrutiny. Is it the interview or the interviewee who ought to be more forthright?
5. Even assuming (ex hypothesi) that the interview was conducted under false pretenses, that doesn't mean the quotes misrepresent the position of the interviewee. I'd add that Russell Moore and Matt Chandler are target rich spokesmen. They could be quoted more fully, and that would be just as damning or more so.
6. Of course the trailer uses edited footage. It's a trailer. By definition, that consists of teasers and excerpts. That by itself doesn't mean the quotes were taken out of context.
7. Is it wrong to put someone's statements to a use they didn't intend or approve of? Not necessarily. Once you said something you lose control of what you said. Now it's out there. You can't turn the clock back. You can't obligate people to act like you never said it. The moment you say it, it's out of your hands. People can now do with it whatever they wish, whether or not their intentions mesh with yours. The fact that the four SBC seminary presidents are so preemptively defensive is revealing.
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Prima Donna
A friend drew my attention to the DL today. White spent a few minutes near the start attempting to refute my "hit piece":
He's reacting to this post:
On the DL, he suggested that I didn't have anything else to post on that day, so I went for the low low road. Unfortunately, his counting leaves something to be desired since there were no fewer than 7 posts that day.
This is a problem with White. He makes snide off-the-cuff comments that come back to bite him.
Let's comment on something he said earlier on Facebook, which he copy/pasted onto my post:
I really have no idea why Steve has to run over to spit at me about every six months or so, but I guess I was due my spittle today. Absurd out-of-context argument. Maybe Steve doesn't understand Twitter? This was the beginning of what is called a thread. There was more---much more. And, of course, I have sort of said a great deal about this topic over the past year, inclusive of hours of material on the Dividing Line, editing the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, and speaking at the G3 PreConference on the topic as well. So, isolating a single tweet, ignoring the rest of the thread it was a part of, and the entire context of what I've said---well, good job, Steve. Really helps polish up the ol' credibility as they say! For those who do not have a regularly scheduled "spit at James White" thing going on, nothing in what I said for a moment is an argument against pursuing righteousness in God's creation. It does, however, argue against a worldview that does not begin with the divine decree---i.e., intersectionality, that random, chaotic thought process that sees us all as victims of impersonal forces that shape us RATHER THAN image bearers who are called to faithfulness no matter what God's providence sends our way. If Steve can't see that, I feel sorry for him. But I think he can. Only problem is, when you keep spitting in the wind, it ends up in your eyes.
1. Notice how emotional White gets over intellectual criticism: "Steve has to run over to spit at me about every six months or so, but I guess I was due my spittle today…For those who do not have a regularly scheduled 'spit at James White' thing going on…Only problem is, when you keep spitting in the wind, it ends up in your eyes."
For the life of me I'll never understand why some grown men act like Prima Donnas. White is reacting like John Loftus, Richard Carrier, and Dave Armstrong. If you're that thin-skinned, you shouldn't be a Christian apologist. Intellectual criticism comes with the territory. And if you're that self-important, you need to take a break and reset your priorities. The more seriously we take ourselves, the less seriously we take the Gospel.
2. It's hypocritical to use Twitter, then whine about people judging what they say on Twitter. And yes, I read the entire Twitter thread before I wrote the post. And no, the rest of the thread didn't "completely change" what I said in the post.
3. I'm very selective about viewing podcasts generally. I dislike the medium. And White's DL marathons are really bad. He rambles incessantly, veers off into chronic digressions, like a random association test. He's ad libbing the whole time. It's a very lazy, inefficient form of analysis. He should rediscover the art of writing. How to express himself in compact, organized fashion.
Moreover, his complaint is an exercise in misdirection because I wasn't evaluating his overall position on social justice and intersectionality. So that's neither here nor there.
4. Let's go back to what he originally said:
Let me put this simply.Intersectionality is utterly incompatible with a belief in the sovereign kingship of God and His divine decree.It is God who makes men to differ, God who makes the lame and the blind and the rich and the poor.
i) To "put it simply" is to summarize his position. That's his position in a nutshell. Needless to say, if you think your position can be succinctly stated in two sentences, then that moots the claim that no one can understand your position unless they listen to hours of your exposition. Conversely, if you think a two-sentence summary is too simple, too liable to misunderstanding, then don't put it simply. What you're not entitled to do is to put it simply, then complain that readers oversimplify your position. Isn't that obvious?
ii) And notice how the two sentence are juxtaposed, so that the second sentence illustrates the principle enunciated in the first sentence. The problem is that his formulation is classically fatalistic. He makes it sound like you can't do anything, and shouldn't try, to change the status quo since God decreed the status quo. If God decreed who is rich and poor, then who are we to try and help the poor out of poverty?
But if that's not what he intended to convey, if belief in the sovereign kingship of God and His divine decree is compatible with improving the status quo for the lame, the blind, and the poor (to take his examples), then where does that leave his original antithesis?
Put another way, if that's not what he intended to convey, then he should be able to reword what he said to avoid the fatalistic formulation. Just rewrite it. Present an alternative formulation that avoids the fatalistic dichotomy which his original statement erected.
Friday, March 08, 2019
Is the status quo frozen in place?
Let me put this simply.— James White (@DrOakley1689) March 6, 2019
Intersectionality is utterly incompatible with a belief in the sovereign kingship of God and His divine decree.
It is God who makes men to differ, God who makes the lame and the blind and the rich and the poor.
There are some really good arguments against intersectionality. This isn't one of them. As stated, that's classic que sera sera fatalism. Don't try to change anything because everything is foreordained. Attempting to change the status quo is spiritually mutinous.
Yes, God makes men to differ. God determines who will be blind and lame, rich and poor. But God predestines changes to the status quo. Presently, Roe v. Wade is the status quo. That doesn't mean the prolife movement is utterly incompatible with a belief in the sovereign kingship of God and His divine decree. Predestination doesn't mean the status quo is frozen in place. God predestines change. In some cases, God predestines social reform. Calvinism isn't Hinduism, with an ironclad caste-system.
We just do what we can, and what we can do mirrors predestination. If we succeed, that was predestined, and if we fail, that was predestined. We don't know in advance what was predestined. We just go about doing whatever we were going to do. Although predestination is prospective, we discover what was predestined in retrospect.
It's very strange to see White peddle a harmful caricature of Calvinism. Surely he knows better. He should simply critique intersectionality on the merits rather than resorting to defective theological formulations. This illustrates the danger of using Twitter to debate complex issues, which encourages intellectual shortcuts. Here's a good example of a superior lineup:
It's very strange to see White peddle a harmful caricature of Calvinism. Surely he knows better. He should simply critique intersectionality on the merits rather than resorting to defective theological formulations. This illustrates the danger of using Twitter to debate complex issues, which encourages intellectual shortcuts. Here's a good example of a superior lineup:
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Defining “Social Justice”
I’ve watched most of the videos from the recent G3 conference, but this one, “Defining Social Justice” by Dr. Voddie Baucham was clearly the best. “I do not think [that phrase, ‘social justice’] means what you think it means”, he says. “The biggest problem with the terminology ‘social justice’ is that it doesn’t mean what we think it means”.
“Those who have decided to go ahead and use the terminology, they want first for the terminology to be understood according to their [own] intentions”.
He unpacks the term in a variety of ways.
“The biggest problem with the term ‘social justice’”, he said, “is that there is a ‘social justice’ ‘movement’ and that ‘movement’ has a ‘mission’.” It is a mission that is not consonant with Biblical Christianity.
He cites this article from Kevin DeYoung: Is Social Justice a Gospel Issue? -- in which DeYoung clearly seems to miss the boat on what he is talking about.
The primary division, according to Dr. Baucham, is whether “justice” is being intended at an individual level (wherein God Himself works for justice for individuals) or for “groups” (and this is where the modifier “justice” comes into play – in the sense that “social” justice requires an arbiter – usually the state – to provide “justice” not for individuals, but for aggrieved “groups” (in the Marxist “oppressor/oppressed” paradigm).
The larger point is, we need to understand what our political opponents are talking about, specifically in the form of the language they use. Because those individuals who ought to be on our side, unwittingly find themselves advocating things that they normally would not advocate, if it were the case that they actually knew that they were using what I’ll call here, pre-loaded terminology.
As an analogy for this kind of confusion, one of the most frequently confused terms, I think, involves the various uses of “begging the question”. In a world that has some intelligent interactions with philosophy, “begging the question” is a technical term that means “petitio principii”, essentially using the premises of an argument to define its conclusion. However, at a more popular level, many people use that phrase in the sense that what has come to mean “raises a question” or “invites a question to be asked”. But for philosophers and those speaking in the philosophical sense, it decidedly does not mean that.
In the case of the term “social justice”, its usage by Christians is problematic, because, first, God demands justice. Injustice is sin. So if ‘social justice’ is truly justice, then disagreement is sin.
But that is not the case at all. As Dr. Baucham points out, the “social justice” movement is not about Biblical, Godly justice.
In short, the mission of the “social justice” movement sees its mission as one to facilitate “state distribution of advantages and resources to disadvantaged groups to satisfy their right to social and economic equality”
So as it is used on the left, the “social justice movement” is about societal (governmental) redistribution of virtually everything in society – not only goods and services, but all kinds of “advantages and resources”, including such things as access to education (through “affirmative action” programs), “reparations” for “slavery”, even such intangibles as prestige, ideology (weighted through “intersectionality” to provide advantages to those who can claim the most “oppression” in terms of the number of “oppressed groups” that they can claim membership in) and on and on.
So for “the political left”, the phrase “social justice” connotes their own use of the term with all the “Critical Theory” espoused by the “Frankfurt School”, otherwise known for its “Cultural Marxism” and the “Intersectionality” that goes along with it.
When Christians ask “is social justice a Gospel issue”, the phrase “social justice” does not imply actual justice. It is a “technical term”, a “code word” or even, say, a “dog whistle” for something far more well-defined and far more insidious.
Neil Shenvi has provided some helpful quotes from leading thinkers on the political left, illustrating how and why this is so.
We must not be afraid to confront our political opponents “on their own terms” and “in their own terms”. But we must also not be afraid to call a thing what it is, to say what it really is.
“Those who have decided to go ahead and use the terminology, they want first for the terminology to be understood according to their [own] intentions”.
He unpacks the term in a variety of ways.
“The biggest problem with the term ‘social justice’”, he said, “is that there is a ‘social justice’ ‘movement’ and that ‘movement’ has a ‘mission’.” It is a mission that is not consonant with Biblical Christianity.
He cites this article from Kevin DeYoung: Is Social Justice a Gospel Issue? -- in which DeYoung clearly seems to miss the boat on what he is talking about.
The primary division, according to Dr. Baucham, is whether “justice” is being intended at an individual level (wherein God Himself works for justice for individuals) or for “groups” (and this is where the modifier “justice” comes into play – in the sense that “social” justice requires an arbiter – usually the state – to provide “justice” not for individuals, but for aggrieved “groups” (in the Marxist “oppressor/oppressed” paradigm).
The larger point is, we need to understand what our political opponents are talking about, specifically in the form of the language they use. Because those individuals who ought to be on our side, unwittingly find themselves advocating things that they normally would not advocate, if it were the case that they actually knew that they were using what I’ll call here, pre-loaded terminology.
As an analogy for this kind of confusion, one of the most frequently confused terms, I think, involves the various uses of “begging the question”. In a world that has some intelligent interactions with philosophy, “begging the question” is a technical term that means “petitio principii”, essentially using the premises of an argument to define its conclusion. However, at a more popular level, many people use that phrase in the sense that what has come to mean “raises a question” or “invites a question to be asked”. But for philosophers and those speaking in the philosophical sense, it decidedly does not mean that.
In the case of the term “social justice”, its usage by Christians is problematic, because, first, God demands justice. Injustice is sin. So if ‘social justice’ is truly justice, then disagreement is sin.
But that is not the case at all. As Dr. Baucham points out, the “social justice” movement is not about Biblical, Godly justice.
In short, the mission of the “social justice” movement sees its mission as one to facilitate “state distribution of advantages and resources to disadvantaged groups to satisfy their right to social and economic equality”
So as it is used on the left, the “social justice movement” is about societal (governmental) redistribution of virtually everything in society – not only goods and services, but all kinds of “advantages and resources”, including such things as access to education (through “affirmative action” programs), “reparations” for “slavery”, even such intangibles as prestige, ideology (weighted through “intersectionality” to provide advantages to those who can claim the most “oppression” in terms of the number of “oppressed groups” that they can claim membership in) and on and on.
So for “the political left”, the phrase “social justice” connotes their own use of the term with all the “Critical Theory” espoused by the “Frankfurt School”, otherwise known for its “Cultural Marxism” and the “Intersectionality” that goes along with it.
When Christians ask “is social justice a Gospel issue”, the phrase “social justice” does not imply actual justice. It is a “technical term”, a “code word” or even, say, a “dog whistle” for something far more well-defined and far more insidious.
Neil Shenvi has provided some helpful quotes from leading thinkers on the political left, illustrating how and why this is so.
We must not be afraid to confront our political opponents “on their own terms” and “in their own terms”. But we must also not be afraid to call a thing what it is, to say what it really is.
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