At the height of the collective (and largely warranted) backlash following the murder of George Floyd, I asked my team to compile a resource list that could be made available on our church website. The resources were intended to express our value for people of color, a strong rejection of racism, and ways we could better love and serve those that have been, and continue to be, marginalized.<\/p>\n
However, we didn’t know where to start. There were so many resources to choose from, therefore we asked a Black, inner-city pastoral colleague if he could recommend a curated list, of which he did so. We posted the recommended books, websites, video series, and articles, in an effort to be helpful, informative, and discipling of our congregants.<\/p>\n
Within a few days I received one singular, yet very loud, complaint regarding a recommended book entitled White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about<\/em> Racism <\/em>by Robin DiAngelo. Personally, I had not, nor have I since, read the book, so I was unable to speak to its quality nor content. I trusted my team, and I trusted the individual (again, a person of color) that gave the recommendation. Yet, in order to keep the peace, I had that particular title removed from the resource list, without a firm grasp on WHY, even to this day.<\/p>\n Until now, that is.<\/strong><\/p>\n Having just worked through Evangelization and Ideology <\/em>by Matthew R. Petrusek, I now know WHY that particular individual had such a strong reaction with the content of DiAngelo’s book, and the ideology it espouses. DiAngelo, I now know from Petrusek, gives white people two options: “either unquestionably accept everything that I [DiAngelo and progressivism] am saying about you and thereby admit that you are in fact racist OR critically question what I am saying (that is, ‘become defensive’) and thereby demonstrate that you are in fact<\/strong> racist” (Petrusek, 332).<\/p>\n Petrusek calls this “logic” the Catch-22 Solution, and is one of the marks he identifies of contemporary progressive\/woke ideology. There are a number of ideologies pinned down in Evangelization and Ideology,\u00a0<\/em>many of which I was only slightly familiar with previously. A perusal of the Index reveals, but is not limited to the following:\u00a0Post-modernism, Cartesianism, Libertarianism, Utilitarianism, Progressivism, Wokeism, Conservatism, Transgenderism, Racism, \u00a0Consequentialism, Post-colonialism, Relativism, Empiricism,\u00a0Marxism, Socialism, Catholicism, Evangelicalism, Feminism, Nihilism, Identitarianism, Monotheism, Nazism, Pyrrhonism, Scholasticism, Scientism, Totalitarianism, Transcendentalism, and Humanism.<\/p>\n You and I better mind our ISMs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Each of the above “ISM Ideologies” (and the many more that currently exist, or will, mark my words, exist soon) are evidence of what Petrusek, in an online lecture*, calls “the worship of self-definition.” Humanity, especially in recognition of its fallen, sinful condition, has a propensity to self-define, and in doing so, attribute inherent (and often oversized) value to each self-defined ideology, and thereby demonize any and all that do not align (ie: must approve and must not oppose) with that “lived experience.”<\/p>\n The rotten fruit that is yielded (often, not always) is but another ISM; another ideology focused on the acquiring, maintaining, and expanding of power. And in the middle of all the ISM rhetoric and progressive ideology are real people<\/strong>. Real people with real hurts and pains. People that have been marginalized and demoralized. People that need more than a broken hyper-political culture with its virtual signaling, social media posturing, and cheap slogans (ie: “I’m just speaking my truth,” and “Color blindness IS racism.”).<\/p>\n You and I need something better than ISMs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Even evangelicalism<\/em><\/strong>, as we have discovered in so many of our readings, has been weighed and found wanting. It too has been, sadly, co-opted by a broken hyper-political culture motivated by acquiring, maintaining and expanding power. In the wake of a bastardized (yes, I chose that word intentionally) evangelicalism (oh, how I despise adding the “ism” to evangelical), there are real human being that are hurting. Yes, we ought to be sympathetic and understanding of how people have been oppressed. Yes, we ought to strive to be more compassionate and inclusive towards marginalized people, including people of color, and the LGBTQIA+ community. I just don’t think it’s going to happen under a progressivism ideological agenda<\/span>.<\/p>\n And, in my opinion, that is what most (if not all) ISM<\/strong>s are: \u00a0agendas<\/em>.<\/p>\n I think agendas are a problem. I think the contemporary progressive, woke ideology is a problem. I think the collective “they” believes that agendas, ideologies and ISMs are helping the cause, but unfortunately, in my opinion, they are not. There are those that are struggling with their sexual orientation, and an agenda\/ideology may seem like the answer, but, again, in my opinion, it is not.<\/p>\n Now, I fully recognize that even the phraseology I just used of “struggling<\/em> with their sexual orientation” may be found “triggering” and perhaps I’ll be labeled transphobia or a bigot, but I am not<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Oh, snap, according to DiAngelo, I just shot myself in the proverbial foot by denying my transphobia and bigotry, thereby reinforcing that I am indeed a transphobic bigot!<\/p>\n Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott in The Canceling of the American<\/em> Mind put it this way, “If you can be accused of any kind of “ism,” be it racism of sexism, or having any kind of ‘phobia,’ like transphobia or Islamophobia, then your point doesn’t matter. Whether or not you’re actually guilty of being ‘phobic’ is beside the point” (Lukianoff and Schlott, 124).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oh well. Thank goodness I have thick skin.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n * From the video lecture series, https:\/\/www.wordonfire.org\/videos\/idolatry-of-identity\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the height of the collective (and largely warranted) backlash following the murder of George Floyd, I asked my team to compile a resource list that could be made available on our church website. 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