 “In my experience, it’s too simplistic (and unfair) to blame one group of people for our collective failure to evangelize,” said Pastor J.D. Greear, who last month was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Yet that’s exactly what he and the other race-hustlers do: blame white Christians and their “inertia” and “privilege” for the plummeting numbers within Southern Baptist churches. “In the Christian obsessed with ‘social justice,’ it isn’t easy to discern whether charity is flourishing or faith is expiring.” — Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Colombian writer I referenced much of the SBC’s heterodoxy in a previous blog. But the “white people got work to do” slogan is a guilt-inducing, group-think bludgeon and has become an idol in much of mainline American Christianity. The “people of color are perpetual victims” mantra is a near sacrament that must be bowed down to, or else. Just ask James Edwards, host of The Political Cesspool. He’s long been warring rhetorically on social media and on his radio show with prominent Southern Baptist pastor Dwight McKissic and other SBC bigwigs. The self-described paleo-conservative has become a lightning rod for interviewing controversial personalities, and defending such unpopular notions as private-property rights, secession, political decentralization, and military non-interventionism. Gasp! But what was Edwards’ unforgivable “sin?” He believes in white pride, advocates for the white family, and is unapologetically pro-Southern. You know, cultural Kryptonite in these enlightened times. Now, some or all of that might not be your cup of tea, but are any legitimate reasons to “disfellowship” Edwards and his entire congregation “without even so much as a phone call to my pastor or anyone else in our church,” he wrote? The political purge was carried out covertly, without discussion, deliberation, or even an SBC vote, which is further explained by the hateful and divisive Southern Poverty Law Center  Edwards is not nor has he ever been a member of the Klan, as some assert. But with plenty of establishment Christian leaders, such as McKissic, joining with and promoting the Leninist-Marxist Black Lives Matter movement, would these Evangelicals even have a leg to stand on if Edwards was a Klansman? I think not. After all, BLM’s “Blacktivism” is geared toward “freedom and justice for Black people” and seeks empowerment for the “global Black family,” yet curiously aims to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family.” Huh, double-standard much? For a people who incessantly talk of their quest for Christian “authenticity,” evangeleftists sure do like to pray at the altar of forced “diversity.” What can be any more artificial than racial (and gender) quotas, like the ones McKissic and Greear have endorsed for the SBC? Belarus’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said it well when criticizing Britain for raising a rainbow flag over its embassy: “The essence of fake is always the same — the devaluation of truth.”  It’s counterfeit virtue, and it seems abundantly clear that in-group preference is okay for everyone, except white folks. It’s like Jim Crow, although not in a legal sense. Rather, this caste system creates supra-rights for aggrieved minorities and special untouchable classes as defined by the pulpit. Some must follow the man-made laws, while others get a pass. The feel-good words used by the churched inquisition may sound nice, but here’s their true meaning. • “inclusion” = excluding certain points of view • “diversity” = anti-whiteness and infantilizing “people of color” • “racial reconciliation” = pushing white guilt and self-hatred • “social justice” = covetousness and cultural Marxism • “unity” = submit or be deemed unworthy of salvation But what is racism? Here’s what Merriam-Webster says.  Other dictionaries echo the same refrain: racism must require a sense of superiority of one race over another. It doesn’t mention pride, preference, stereotyping, or even power, as the leftists say it must have in order to be legit. According to the true definition, one must lack personal humility and possess utter disdain for specific others in a broad-brush way for racism to exist. “Liberals are skilled at using orthodox language to mean something else.” — Professor Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Yet, some Christians do mental gymnastics to remake the word in their own progressive image. The cultural-Marxist zealots with Reclaiming Jesus – which includes Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry (known for his pedestrian royal-wedding sermon) and Jesus-was-a-socialist guru Tony Campolo of Red Letter Christians – talk out of both sides of their mouth, just like Greear and McKissic. They say “no oppression based on race” can be inline with Christianity and that “any doctrines or political strategies that use racist resentments, fears, or language must be named as public sin.” But that’s exactly what they foment with their “racial reconciliation” ideology. They continue, “We reject white supremacy and commit ourselves to help dismantle the systems and structures that perpetuate white preference and advantage … one that goes back to the foundation of our nation and lingers on.” Oh yeah, and “silence is complicity.” Spiritual extortion, nice touch. To them, “Racial justice and healing are biblical and theological issues.” Of course this means all penance for sinful whites, all absolution for sinless blacks. No appreciation for white Christians, except for those “allies” who hate their own whiteness, and no level of pandering to blacks is off limits. “We give thanks for the prophetic role of the historic black churches in America when they have called for a more faithful gospel.” So black Christians are by default prophets and better Christians than those white evil-doers? Allegedly “pro-black” policies are seemingly “central to the mission of the body of Christ in the world,” but dissenting white brothers and sisters – and black conservative Christians, like pastors Voddie Baucham, Jr., and Darrell Harrison – are apostates. Sounds more like Black Liberation Theology to me. This double-speak is what gives evangeleftists cover in pushing the political stunt known as MLK50, a virtual veneration by a slew of pastors and opinion-makers who call Martin Luther King, Jr. “the greatest American ever to have lived.” This past spring, the event raised money for minority-student college scholarships, while they preached of white guilt, institutional racism, and King’s faith and civil-rights works.  “Racial unity is a Gospel issue,” the conference website claimed in fashionable form. Oh, the bravery. Oh, the leadership. Oh, the irony. Gag. But no mention that King denied some extremely important Christian essentials: the Virgin birth, that Christ was the Son of God, the physical resurrection of Christ, and the inerrancy of Holy Scriptures. Check out his own words if you don’t believe me. Somehow those aren’t anti-Gospel issues. Um-kay. Theologian Robert Gagnon called the Christian hypocrisy at MLK50 “propaganda” and a “perfunctory whitewash.” His critique of the “foreordained” message of King’s near sainthood and his insistence that King never repented earned Gagnon some Baptist heat. Thankfully, he refused to bend the truth, despite the bullies’ best efforts. Even Orthodoxy is not immune, although I do think people with varying views can (and often do) get along much more fluidly within the ancient faith. Liturgy, apostolic traditions, and church history help in keeping some of that animosity in check. There is true unity in the chalice. Orthodoxy is “diverse” in that universal sense, but some over-“educated” Western Christians still do try their best to homogenize some of the non-dogmatic faith issues. “Orthodoxy rejects the teaching that churches or countries should be divided along racial lines,” wrote Father Peter Jon Gillquist in reference to his kicking Matthew Heimbach out of communion with the Antiochian Orthodox Church Archdiocese of North America. “He must submit to period of formal penance in order to be received back into the Orthodox communion.” See, Heimbach is co-founder of the now-defunct Traditionalist Youth Network, a ethno-nationalist movement. He’s a proponent of right-socialism, of which I’m no fan. Then again, there are plenty of left-socialists and nation-statists who are members in good standing within the Orthodox Church, yet no one seems to care two whits about their politics. Liberals of all stripes are never banished from the Church; the example is only made of “neo-Nazis.” Of course, today that job-killing, church-expelling, friend-losing designation includes Heimbach, perhaps rightly so. But tomorrow it could include me, or you, or any conservative because it is the left who creates and then sticks individuals in these ever-broadening categories. In defending Father Gillquist, Father Ernesto Obregon basically made analogous Heimbach’s unpopular activism with the horrific sin of pedophilia. Could you imagine any priest doing that with a black nationalist, a feminist, or a gay man? The inconsistencies and contradictions among American Christians abound. For instance, Heimbach is said to support a “separationist ideology,” but BLM isn’t? C’mon. Is it simply that the marginalization of non-leftist white folks is kosher? Could there actually be something that I like to call “Marxist privilege” within the Church, which pushes double-standards depending not upon soteriology and ecclesiology, but rather upon political correctness? “He must formally reject violence, hate speech, and the heresy of Phyletism,” Gillquist continued. Media darlings BLM and Antifa are built upon brutality and fear, and encourage people to “punch a Nazi,” meaning anyone with whom they disagree. Feminism advocates for women to kill their children. All are inherently violent groups, yet plenty of Christians support these ideological movements with seemingly no repercussions. And “hate speech” is a post-modern invention. The offense and acceptable parameters of discourse are always defined by the person making the allegation, and the assertion is never targeted at people of color or leftists high on the caste. The Christian clamor about being “intentional” and “finding connection” is constant. Those noble works can be showered upon gang members, heroine dealers, parents who give their kids hormone-blockers, illegal immigrants, corrupt lawyers, lying reporters, thieving politicians, pro-abortion activists, or pretty much any fallen soul – other than deplorables. Nope, no “children of God” mercies for them. And then there’s “phyletism.” Now I’m a newly chrismated Orthodox, but from what I know, this controversy had to do with Bulgarians wanting Bulgarian-only parishes in Constantinople. In fact, the word, which was coined by the Great pan-Orthodox Synod that met in Constantinople in 1872, was synonymous with “ecclesiastical racism.” “We renounce, censure and condemn racism, that is racial discrimination, ethnic feuds, hatreds and dissensions within the Church of Christ,” wrote the Synod. Yet, it’s not deemed heretical to have national or cultural loyalty outside the Church. There is a Greek Orthodox Church after all. After Charlottesville, even the Assembly of Canonical Bishops of the USA went so far as to equate phyletism with “all forms of xenophobia and chauvinism” (whatever that means in modern newspeak), but clarified that the “promotion of racial or national supremacy and ethnic bias or dissension in the Church of Christ is to be censured as contrary to the sacred teachings.” Yet, they went on to to appeal to the “leaders of our great nation.” Odd. My patron saint, Ilia the Righteous (mentioned in my last blog), sought national independence for Georgians from the Russians and autocephaly of the Georgian Church. He worked to out those who dishonored the Georgian nation, and its language, faith, and culture. So, was Ilia a xenophobe because he vociferously dissented against Russian invasion? Was he a chauvinist because he had Georgian pride? Was he ethnically biased because he championed for a specific people-group? And what the heck codifies “dissension in the Church?” Well, what’s certain is that it’s always one-sided and never, ever broaches the poison of progressivism. I’m just not convinced that the newfangled Americanized definition of racism is dogma or is even a Gospel issue. The political correctness and presentism weighing down the once simple-to-understand concept make it superficial, convoluted, and subjective. You can say that the Gospel can heal true racism and, thus, promote more unity among folks as a result of Jesus’ love and grace. But heresy? Eh, not so sure. If a puritanical progressive “blames himself for what is wrong, he thereby stakes out a claim to be the one who must rectify it. A guilt trip is an ego trip.” — Historian Forrest McDonald What I am convinced of is that there’s a double-dealing deception going down. Some sincere people may have consumed so much leftist Kool-Aid flowing forth from the pulpit that their seemingly good intentions have blinded them. Some may even understand the hypocrisy and its dangerous ramifications, but are too scared to speak up or resist. Others are just trying to navigate the PC landscape as best they can, and are willing to bend principle and throw people under the bus for political expediency. It’s waaaaaaaay easier to be an “ally” than it is to be dissident. But there are some who aim to co-opt something good (in this case, Jesus Christ) and destroy the institution (the Church) from within. The people orchestrating this madness veiled as Christian spirituality don’t simply have selective outrage. Rather, they fully grasp the agenda and are using scapegoating to gain power, curry favor with the mob, and propel the scheme to its nihilistic ends. Hey white Christians. I know you’re already beaten up for just being white and having mythical “privilege.” For being a “white supremacist” simply by virtue of not being black, or for voting for Trump (although the stats really do betray the latter deceitful media narrative). Or for not being sensitive of your role in “colonial oppression” or your complicity in “systemic racism.” For not spitting on your ancestors' graves hard enough or for never doing enough to further “racial reconciliation.” Your sin is worse and your judgement greater than all else. To the periphery, crackers! Don’t the people being played know they’ll never be given mercy by the power-hungry race pimps or naive men of the cloth? It’s too risky. There is no grace for whitey, if he upsets the conformist apple cart, either real or imagined, voluntarily or involuntarily. The social-justice establishment is using the weakness, contriteness, charity, selfishness, and/or ignorance of the altruistic white masses to pull a fast one. I mean, if you can’t stop falling in line with the dictates of leftism – the very ideology which threatens the salvation of individual souls at the behest of the cultural-Marxist collective and seeks to annihilate faith and family – you should feel guilty as hell. Wake up and stop being such brainwashed automatons, y’all. Liked it? Take a second to support Dissident Mama on Patreon! Original blog posted at Dissident Mama. Comments are closed.
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