Phyllis Beveridge Nissila
When words abound, transgression is inevitable…. (Proverbs 10:19, NET Bible)
Critical Race Theory?
According to a speaker I heard recently on Jan Markel’s radio program at Olive Tree Ministries, a concept called Critical Race Theory is very popular not only in academia and far left political circles but also, more recently, in certain seminaries and Bible colleges.
According to Encycolpaedia Britannica online:
Critical race theory (CRT), the view that race, instead of being biologically grounded and natural, is socially constructed and that race, as a socially constructed concept, functions as a means to maintain the interests of the white population that constructed it. According to CRT, racial inequality emerges from the social, economic, and legal differences that white people create between “races” to maintain elite white interest in labour markets and politics and as such create the circumstances that give rise to poverty and criminality in many minority communities. Though the intellectual origins of the movement go back much further, the CRT movement officially organized itself in July 1989.
Despite the relatively recent appearance of CRT in academia, some scholars have found it a valuable perspective on race and racism in America. CRT launched what many race scholars now take as a commonsense view. CRT scholars hold that the laws and policies in the United States are biased against people of colour, and they have focused their scholarship on demonstrating the ways in which the legal institutions support that bias […] critical race theory advanced theoretical understandings of the law, politics, and American sociology that focused on the efforts of white people (Euro-Americans) to maintain their historical advantages over people of colour.continue reading here…
The first vestiges of CRT I remember stem from discussions back in my college undergrad years in the late sixties/early seventies around all those “dead White men” whose works of art and literature were the only ones, tsk, that seemed to make up the cannon of a liberal arts education.
Aaaaannnddd–seeds sown.
Compare that definition with the classic definition of race:
Any group into which humans can be divided according to their shared physical or genetic characteristics. (Cambridge Dictionary online)
A simple comparison of the former, politically-infused definition to the latter, standard definition, reveals that at its core, CRT really stands for Critical Racist Theory, the object of aggression: the White race (all Euro-Americans) against whom all non-Whites must rise up.
Students and activists steeped in such a co-opted definition for the past thirty years and having been properly schooled that it is the only (politically) correct one, will be heavily influenced by only the former.
Over time and through indoctrination they will/have begun to view society, history, and culture more and more through a racist lens.
Having very recently retired from academia, I can attest that curricula, and not just social studies, has long become infected with such New Speak. And due to the persuasion pumped up by the fallacious kind of “argument from authority,” i.e., those who define and promote it have the presumed, right creds (college educations) therefore it must be true, people tend to go along.
(Side note: this is why in the long march to fundamenally transform a nation, academia is one of the key institutions. Persuasion takes time and must involve the young.)
The problem always is, however, unless such racist theorizing is stopped, the results become bloody.
Certainly Germany, in the last century, under the leadership of National Socialist (Nazi) Adolph Hitler is a dramatic and horrific example of what eventually happened to one racial group, the Jews, against whom a systematic and lengthy anti-Jew “racist theory” was perpetrated until it ended in the extermination of millions.
Of course Hitler didn’t stop there.
He rounded up and exerminated Christians, homosexuals, and political dissidents as well.
Add to that the death of millions more–the allied soldiers who fought and defeated Hitler’s regime, local resistance fighters, and many others.
In the United States in the nineteenth century, under the leadership of Republican President Abrahan Lincoln, we successfully waged our own such battle: a civil war to deal with anti-Black racism.
It was also bloody; took the lives of tens of thousands of Blacks and Whites who fought together to right that wrong.
But like the man said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same” (Ronald Reagan).
And here we go again.
On the State of Racism Today
If it takes about forty years for a philosophy to begin to manifest outside of the classroom, we are entering the last critical decade of anti-White race-baiting, and anybody paying attention has noticed, in the past few years, the language has become meaner and the danger more imminent. Here, here, and here, are several pertinent discussions on this new socio-political tragedy.
The third linked article, above, “How Anti-White Rhetoric Is Fueling White Nationalism” brings out several different aspects of anti-White racism including an unintended consequence (suggested in the title) as well as its link to “privilege theory,” another modern construct that emerged about the same time as CRT which suggests that Whites are guilty of enjoying the “privilege” of their (immutable, by the way) skin color.
But not only that, the article touches on how Whites are racist even in ways they are not aware of (so the theorists must explain), for example, by committing “microagressions“*
The most extreme case of alleged microaggression I have noted so far was the recent complaint by Blacks that a White person smiling at them while passing by on the street was evidence of same.
Microaggression, as well as macroagression, used to be called rude, immature, and/or illegal behavior and dealt with accordingly (for an extreme example, our Civil War), before the people with the racist lenses co-opted those two concepts, too, to re-shape them into PC wordfare (a derivative of warfare).
Now, anti-White propaganda, aided and abetted by a supportive political and media milieu, having come to a kind of critical mass, deems everything and anything as oppressive–but as determined only by the oppressed.
Indeed, some anti-White extremists even claim there can be no anti-White racism because only non-Whites are victims of racism because only Whites are racist.
And it has become what is now, you might put it, open season on Whites.
Resentment and rage can now metasticize, it seems, at will.
Safe spaces for the triggered are hammered together on virtually every college campus, identity politics has become the PC cause célèbre (though there is nothing to celebrate by pitting one group against another), and the modern consquences of anti-White racism are increasingly part of the larger, societal conversation.
A contemporaneous example of the depths of evil to which anti-White racism can sink has surfaced from the situation in parts of South Africa that have come into sharper–and horrifying–focus. (Read here for further commentary on the White genocide in SA.)
And so racism has morphed again in its perennial quest to divide and conquer, from, just the last couple of centuries and bleeding into this one, anti-Black, to anti-Jew, and now, to anti-White.
Of course, to the bigger picture of evil: “there (has been, is, and will be) nothing new under the sun” since the advent of avarice, envy, and hatred which was pretty much shortly after the crust cooled and the first humans took a look around.
Back to the situation in America, many wonder: could the worst happen here?
Here is a sampling of the state of anti-White racism in America–three years ago…
Arguably, it has worsened.
It is clear, apparently, to some anti-White activists, primed by all the new words and theories, Whites must have many racist sins to atone for, some of which are merely because of skin color, others due to what caused the Civil War, and everything else in-between–for which, however, laws have already been codified to rectify, wars have been fought to end, and which many families solve early by bringing up their children to respect the law and become responsible and considerate adults.
But in the progression of evil, apologies, compensation, new laws and regs, and reconciliaton will never be enough because of the nature of evil which must gin up more of its own to survive.
And now, the New Think based on the new theory allows for a kind of unprecedented, intellectual and in-the-streets open season on hatred for Whites.
When there are no longer boundaries that are enforced and little left in the way of a decent upbringing and other traditional social constaints designed to curtail the evil and promote unity, a new chapter in the tragedy opens, and, sadly, there will likely be blood on its pages, too.
And here is the bottom line that often gets lost in all the fury and firebombs: the simple, logical, basic, rule of any truly free, equitable, and inclusive society is that not only do Black lives matter, White lives (and all others) matter, too.
(If you felt a little bit uncomfortable with the second half of the above sentence, it’s worth taking a minute to figure out why. Intelligent resistance starts with awareness.)
But besides the state of ani-White politics in the culture at large, this post is also about CRT infecting the American Christian Church specifically, which is a topic discussed in the Olive Tree Ministries radio program link I embedded in the first paragraph.
First Church of the CRT?
Fortunately, the source of truth for believers is the same “yesterday, today, and forever,” and does not require an ever-morphing wiktionary of terms and theories to keep everyone updated on the latest New Think about old religion.
On racism against any color, creed, tribe, or tongue, we have the following simple, clear truths to guide us, keeping in mind that adding to these words is a fool’s errand. As put in Proverbs 30:5-6: Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.
To God’s view–and His plan–of and for all races (emphasis added):
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you [Jesus] to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation… (Revelation 5:9, ESV)
And to [Jesus] was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:14)
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (2 Corinthians 5:10)
This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:3-4, NIV)
As opposed to the First Church of the CRT, if you will, who are buying into the modern world’s definitions and isms (and arguably being co-opted themselves to support same), The First Church of the Redeemed by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Our Redemption is not racist but redeemist.
Nor is the true church discriminatory due to skin color or any other aspect of the human race, but welcoming to all who will choose to place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
In other words, God invites all who so choose to place their faith in His Son Who took all evil, whether in theory or reality, on Himself on the cross that we might be redeemed, delivered, and healed.
To buy into any Politically Correct theory, academic obfuscation, “social justice platform” (arguably ad copy for PC-mongers) and/or clearly anti-Christic viewpoint, is to only perpetrate the evil.
Jesus and His true followers have always labored for justice. True justice. Not that which achieves its aims by dividing to conquer but by multiplying to liberate–all.
And as noted above, the end game of evil, especially that which is left unchecked and unfettered, is only more of same.
Witness the escalation in the world today.
And Jesus, I believe, would have us examine to see if any of it has infected our own hearts and minds, as well.
Carry on, brothers and sisters–of all tribes, tongues, and races.
And welcome, everybody else!
~~~~~
*From a recent issue of American Thinker comes this article detaling even more cause for concern when such PC doctrines as Critical Race Theory remain unfettered and unchecked:
No Safe Spaces: What Happens When Common Sense and Values Disappear
The new documentary No Safe Spaces, starring conservative thinker, radio host, and writer Dennis Prager and liberal, comedian, and podcast host Adam Carolla, is a must-see for anyone concerned with the long-term viability of the First Amendment’s free speech protections. While primarily focusing on the hostility to free speech laying siege to America’s college campuses, vividly illustrated with compelling clips of violent protests and civil unrest by students from Berkeley to Yale, No Safe Spaces powerfully illustrates how the movement to limit speech has moved into mainstream arenas as well.
Prager and Carolla recognize that “common sense and values” are disappearing for the first time since our country’s founding. There are appearances by figures on both sides of the ideological spectrum including liberals Barack Obama, Van Jones, Cornell West, Dave Rubin, and Alan Dershowitz, all of whom recognize the dangers to the country when progressive notions of microaggressions and safe spaces become the new normal. continue reading here.
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First Church of the CRT (Critical Race Theory)?
Phyllis Beveridge Nissila
Critical Race Theory?
According to a speaker I heard recently on Jan Markel’s radio program at Olive Tree Ministries, a concept called Critical Race Theory is very popular not only in academia and far left political circles but also, more recently, in certain seminaries and Bible colleges.
According to Encycolpaedia Britannica online:
The first vestiges of CRT I remember stem from discussions back in my college undergrad years in the late sixties/early seventies around all those “dead White men” whose works of art and literature were the only ones, tsk, that seemed to make up the cannon of a liberal arts education.
Aaaaannnddd–seeds sown.
Compare that definition with the classic definition of race:
A simple comparison of the former, politically-infused definition to the latter, standard definition, reveals that at its core, CRT really stands for Critical Racist Theory, the object of aggression: the White race (all Euro-Americans) against whom all non-Whites must rise up.
Students and activists steeped in such a co-opted definition for the past thirty years and having been properly schooled that it is the only (politically) correct one, will be heavily influenced by only the former.
Over time and through indoctrination they will/have begun to view society, history, and culture more and more through a racist lens.
Having very recently retired from academia, I can attest that curricula, and not just social studies, has long become infected with such New Speak. And due to the persuasion pumped up by the fallacious kind of “argument from authority,” i.e., those who define and promote it have the presumed, right creds (college educations) therefore it must be true, people tend to go along.
(Side note: this is why in the long march to fundamenally transform a nation, academia is one of the key institutions. Persuasion takes time and must involve the young.)
The problem always is, however, unless such racist theorizing is stopped, the results become bloody.
Certainly Germany, in the last century, under the leadership of National Socialist (Nazi) Adolph Hitler is a dramatic and horrific example of what eventually happened to one racial group, the Jews, against whom a systematic and lengthy anti-Jew “racist theory” was perpetrated until it ended in the extermination of millions.
Of course Hitler didn’t stop there.
He rounded up and exerminated Christians, homosexuals, and political dissidents as well.
Add to that the death of millions more–the allied soldiers who fought and defeated Hitler’s regime, local resistance fighters, and many others.
In the United States in the nineteenth century, under the leadership of Republican President Abrahan Lincoln, we successfully waged our own such battle: a civil war to deal with anti-Black racism.
It was also bloody; took the lives of tens of thousands of Blacks and Whites who fought together to right that wrong.
But like the man said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same” (Ronald Reagan).
And here we go again.
On the State of Racism Today
If it takes about forty years for a philosophy to begin to manifest outside of the classroom, we are entering the last critical decade of anti-White race-baiting, and anybody paying attention has noticed, in the past few years, the language has become meaner and the danger more imminent. Here, here, and here, are several pertinent discussions on this new socio-political tragedy.
The third linked article, above, “How Anti-White Rhetoric Is Fueling White Nationalism” brings out several different aspects of anti-White racism including an unintended consequence (suggested in the title) as well as its link to “privilege theory,” another modern construct that emerged about the same time as CRT which suggests that Whites are guilty of enjoying the “privilege” of their (immutable, by the way) skin color.
But not only that, the article touches on how Whites are racist even in ways they are not aware of (so the theorists must explain), for example, by committing “microagressions“*
The most extreme case of alleged microaggression I have noted so far was the recent complaint by Blacks that a White person smiling at them while passing by on the street was evidence of same.
Microaggression, as well as macroagression, used to be called rude, immature, and/or illegal behavior and dealt with accordingly (for an extreme example, our Civil War), before the people with the racist lenses co-opted those two concepts, too, to re-shape them into PC wordfare (a derivative of warfare).
Now, anti-White propaganda, aided and abetted by a supportive political and media milieu, having come to a kind of critical mass, deems everything and anything as oppressive–but as determined only by the oppressed.
Indeed, some anti-White extremists even claim there can be no anti-White racism because only non-Whites are victims of racism because only Whites are racist.
And it has become what is now, you might put it, open season on Whites.
Resentment and rage can now metasticize, it seems, at will.
Safe spaces for the triggered are hammered together on virtually every college campus, identity politics has become the PC cause célèbre (though there is nothing to celebrate by pitting one group against another), and the modern consquences of anti-White racism are increasingly part of the larger, societal conversation.
A contemporaneous example of the depths of evil to which anti-White racism can sink has surfaced from the situation in parts of South Africa that have come into sharper–and horrifying–focus. (Read here for further commentary on the White genocide in SA.)
And so racism has morphed again in its perennial quest to divide and conquer, from, just the last couple of centuries and bleeding into this one, anti-Black, to anti-Jew, and now, to anti-White.
Of course, to the bigger picture of evil: “there (has been, is, and will be) nothing new under the sun” since the advent of avarice, envy, and hatred which was pretty much shortly after the crust cooled and the first humans took a look around.
Back to the situation in America, many wonder: could the worst happen here?
Here is a sampling of the state of anti-White racism in America–three years ago…
Arguably, it has worsened.
It is clear, apparently, to some anti-White activists, primed by all the new words and theories, Whites must have many racist sins to atone for, some of which are merely because of skin color, others due to what caused the Civil War, and everything else in-between–for which, however, laws have already been codified to rectify, wars have been fought to end, and which many families solve early by bringing up their children to respect the law and become responsible and considerate adults.
But in the progression of evil, apologies, compensation, new laws and regs, and reconciliaton will never be enough because of the nature of evil which must gin up more of its own to survive.
And now, the New Think based on the new theory allows for a kind of unprecedented, intellectual and in-the-streets open season on hatred for Whites.
When there are no longer boundaries that are enforced and little left in the way of a decent upbringing and other traditional social constaints designed to curtail the evil and promote unity, a new chapter in the tragedy opens, and, sadly, there will likely be blood on its pages, too.
And here is the bottom line that often gets lost in all the fury and firebombs: the simple, logical, basic, rule of any truly free, equitable, and inclusive society is that not only do Black lives matter, White lives (and all others) matter, too.
(If you felt a little bit uncomfortable with the second half of the above sentence, it’s worth taking a minute to figure out why. Intelligent resistance starts with awareness.)
But besides the state of ani-White politics in the culture at large, this post is also about CRT infecting the American Christian Church specifically, which is a topic discussed in the Olive Tree Ministries radio program link I embedded in the first paragraph.
First Church of the CRT?
Fortunately, the source of truth for believers is the same “yesterday, today, and forever,” and does not require an ever-morphing wiktionary of terms and theories to keep everyone updated on the latest New Think about old religion.
On racism against any color, creed, tribe, or tongue, we have the following simple, clear truths to guide us, keeping in mind that adding to these words is a fool’s errand. As put in Proverbs 30:5-6: Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.
To God’s view–and His plan–of and for all races (emphasis added):
As opposed to the First Church of the CRT, if you will, who are buying into the modern world’s definitions and isms (and arguably being co-opted themselves to support same), The First Church of the Redeemed by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Our Redemption is not racist but redeemist.
Nor is the true church discriminatory due to skin color or any other aspect of the human race, but welcoming to all who will choose to place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
In other words, God invites all who so choose to place their faith in His Son Who took all evil, whether in theory or reality, on Himself on the cross that we might be redeemed, delivered, and healed.
To buy into any Politically Correct theory, academic obfuscation, “social justice platform” (arguably ad copy for PC-mongers) and/or clearly anti-Christic viewpoint, is to only perpetrate the evil.
Jesus and His true followers have always labored for justice. True justice. Not that which achieves its aims by dividing to conquer but by multiplying to liberate–all.
And as noted above, the end game of evil, especially that which is left unchecked and unfettered, is only more of same.
Witness the escalation in the world today.
And Jesus, I believe, would have us examine to see if any of it has infected our own hearts and minds, as well.
Carry on, brothers and sisters–of all tribes, tongues, and races.
And welcome, everybody else!
~~~~~
*From a recent issue of American Thinker comes this article detaling even more cause for concern when such PC doctrines as Critical Race Theory remain unfettered and unchecked:
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