Tag Archives: Christianity and Critical Theory

Is God Always on the Side of the Oppressed?

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In my previous essay I recounted my failed search for the Social-Justice Jesus. In reading through the Gospel of Matthew, I did not find a social revolutionary protesting systemic injustices or an advocate of the economic interests of one class in preference to another. Jesus was not a royalist, democrat, republican, anarchist, or a libertarian. In fact, I did not find Jesus preaching a worldly sociopolitical order at all. What I found was Jesus’s indictment of the greed, envy, lust, pride, and idolatry that corrupt every world order. And these vices find their home in every human heart.

Superficial Plausibility

Before I subject the assertion that “God is always on the side of the oppressed” to criticism, let’s consider its superficial plausibility. Interpreted in the most generous way I can imagine, the statement could be saying that God judges justly between the victims of injustice and their persecutors. God always rules in favor of the victim and against the perpetrator. Or, just as in a natural disaster, first responders help the worst injured before attending to the walking wounded and unscathed, God attends to those with the greatest need before he turns to those who need less. The former act embodies the principle of equal justice and the latter the principle of just proportionality or equity.

Liberation Theology

Unfortunately, those who assert that “God is always on the side of the oppressed” cannot be interpreted as merely asserting God’s justice and equity. That God favors the oppressed was a central claim of Latin American Liberation Theology, a creative fusion of Christianity and Marxism that became popular in North America in the 1970s. In the form I see it most often today, it replaces the economic categories of Karl Marx with those of race and gender.

“God [is]”

In the assertion that “God is always on the side of the oppressed,” we find at least four significant components that need to be clarified: (1) “God,” (2) “always,” (3) “on the side of,” and (4) “the oppressed.” Let’s assume that the “God” spoken of here is the God of the Bible, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must not, then, derive our picture of God from our own subjective ideals or a cultural image of a liberating power. We must, instead, examine the narratives and teaching of the Old and New Testaments. I do not have space here to construct a complete picture of the God of the Bible. But I think such a study would conclude that God is faithful, just, knowing, and merciful. God judges justly between the victim and the perpetrator of injustice. But there is more to consider.

“Always”

To say that God is always on the side of the oppressed is a bold claim, and I think it goes too far. Does “always” mean under all conditions, thoroughly, and in every respect? Even if an individual is treated unjustly in one respect might they not in other respects be guilty of sin, of injustice, greed, hatred, envy, lust, etc.? Is God a mere partisan who overlooks the sins of his friends because they are mistreated in some respects by individuals whom he does not favor? This “always” obscures the perfect unity of God’s judgment and mercy. Perhaps in human courts we must distinguish starkly between innocent and guilty parties, pure victims and pure perpetrators. But God judges the human heart, and no one is purely innocent.

“On the side of”

What does it mean to say that God is “on the side of” the oppressed? In the preceding paragraph I raised the possibility that this assertion makes God a mere partisan, motivated not by justice but by favoritism. What does the assertion say about the speaker? It sounds high-minded at first, but then you realize that implicit in the statement is a claim about the speaker: “I too am on the side of the oppressed. God and I are on the same side!” This claim does not place you in good company. During the American Civil War both the North and the South claimed that God was on their side as they slaughtered their brothers, sisters, and cousins. The present Russian Patriarch claims that God is on Putin’s side in “liberating” Ukraine. Iran, ISIS, Hezbollah, and Hamas cry “God is great!” as they slit the throats of pregnant Jewish women. For some, God is white. For others, God is black, or gay, or lesbian.

Sadly, history shows that when people claim that God is on their side, they often do so to justify using extralegal and immoral means to achieve their ends: violence, theft, genocide, betrayal, murder, rape, lying, and deception. In the Bible, God is the judge of all the earth; it is spiritually safer, then, to assume that God is not on anyone’s side! Perhaps we should focus on striving to be on God’s side, without, however, presuming that we actually are!

“The Oppressed”

Who are the “oppressed”? What does it mean to be oppressed or to be an oppressor? Each of the other terms in the sentence, “God is always on the side of the oppressed,” opens the door to mischief. But the concept of “the oppressed’ blows a hole in the wall. In contemporary progressive culture, the official list of the oppressed grows longer every day. It seems that everyone wants to be oppressed. People of color, black women, black lesbians, white lesbians, gay people of all colors, trans and bi, questioning, nonbinary, fat people, short people, indigenous people, differently abled…God is on your side always! In the case of these groups, what does oppression mean? Are they legally proscribed or stripped of civil rights? Have they had their goods confiscated unjustly? Are they prohibited from pursuing the professions or attending university? What makes a black, lesbian professor of law at Harvard or a gay Secretary of Transportation one of the world’s oppressed?

Again, what does it mean to be oppressed? What do all these people and groups listed above have in common that makes them oppressed? Of course, you can find instances, past and present, wherein members of these groups have been treated unfairly. But you can also find among these “oppressed” people rich, famous, powerful, and glamorous individuals. It seems that what they all have in common is that they are not white, straight, and male. Perhaps I am oversimplifying matters, but it seems to me that the ideology that determines who gets recognized as oppressed has been designed with one purpose in mind; to dethrone the group it views as having at the beginning of Western civilization illegitimately acquired hegemonic power to which it still clings.

What does it mean to be an oppressor in contemporary social theory? It does not mean that you cheat widows out of their houses and orphans out of their inheritances. Nor does it mean that you enslave people on the official list of oppressed groups. In fact, you may be a benefactor to widows, orphans, the homeless, and the poor. Or, indeed, you may be among the poor yourself. Nonetheless, if you are white, male, and straight you are an oppressor. And if God is on the side of the oppressed, God is not on your side. The only option for you is to engage in perpetual confession and continual penance for being born into privilege. And one of those penitential exercises is to repeat the assertion, “God is always on the side of the oppressed.”

Tear Down this Wall (Ephesians 2:14)

The New Testament envisions a community of brothers and sisters under Jesus Christ, indwelt, transformed, and made one by the Holy Spirit, forgiven, reconciled, and directed to the Father from whom all good things flow.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:1-5).

Judged by this standard, the assertion “God is always on the side of the oppressed,” as it is used by contemporary liberationist theologians is profoundly heretical; for dividing the church into oppressors and the oppressed is a grave sin against the unity of the body of Christ.

Identity Politics and the People of God (Part One)

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Today I want to reflect critically on a thesis argued by some (mostly progressive) Christians that the basic principles of identity politics (DEI, CRT, SEED, etc.) embody the teaching of Jesus. Such a thesis is not altogether implausible, for certain of Jesus’s teachings seem to support it:

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16)

20 Looking at his disciples, he said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
    for you will be satisfied…

24 “But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now,
    for you will go hungry (Luke 6:20-25).

Of relevance also are the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16) and the Book of James’s severe rebukes of rich oppressors (2:5-6 and 5:1-6). I believe, however, that the resemblance between the moral principles taught by Jesus and his apostles and identity politics is superficial. At a deeper level they are profoundly at odds. Perhaps at a later time I will examine these passages in their contexts, but in this short series I will limit myself to contrasting the vision of identity politics with that of 1 Peter 2:9-10.

Identity Politics and Intersectionality

In my recent review of Christopher Rufo, America’s Cultural Revolution, Chapter 7, we learned a bit about the background of what are now called “identity politics” and “intersectional identity.” In the early 1970s, Angela Davis asserted that oppressed groups possess greater insight into the true nature of freedom than oppressor groups do. At the bottom rung of the ladder of oppression is the black woman who is doubly marginalized by being both black and female. In 1977, drawing on Davis’s theory of privileged knowledges, a group of black lesbian activists composed the Combahee River Collective Statement. The Statement coined the term “identity politics” and laid out the logic of what came later to be called “intersectional identity.” “This focusing upon our own oppression,” explains the Statement, “is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially radical politics come directly out of our own identity.”

Identity politics asserts that the knowledge possessed by the marginalized—black, female, LGBTQ+, etc.—should serve as the standard by which to criticize and reconstruct the current social order. In the light of this alternative knowledge, the dominant social order appears as racist, colonialist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. Guided by the privileged knowledges of the marginalized, the social order should be reconstructed by turning the identity/oppression ladder on its head and reordering society according to the oppressed groups’ views of justice, equity, freedom, and fairness. The last will be first and the first will be last.

Analytical Observations

Division, Hostility, and Shame

Identity politics divides society into oppressors and oppressed and further sub-divides them into other identity groups ranked hierarchically from most privileged to the least. Those at the top of the oppression ladder are the enemies of everyone below them, and their only acceptable response is shame and confession of their undeserved privilege. Those at the bottom are the bearers of truth unalloyed with the blindness of even the slightest privilege. They alone have nothing of which to be ashamed and no sins to confess.

The identity of those in the top group is “pure oppressor,” and that of the bottom group is “purely oppressed.” Everyone in between is both oppressor and oppressed and experiences hostility from below and harbors hostility to those above. Division and infighting are the constant challenges to the collective identity of those on the oppression ladder; for there can be no solidarity between the oppressed and the oppressors. Only when all levels of the oppression hierarchy direct their common hostility to the most privileged (i.e., white, straight males) can their identity as “oppressed” be felt as a common consciousness. That is to say, the feeling of solidarity among the “oppressed” is forged by common hostility toward the group viewed as the most privileged.

Moreover, in the upside-down world of identity politics the most oppressed is treated as the most privileged; consequently, there will always be competition and conflict among “the oppressed” over where one stands in the hierarchy. Because identity politics defines identity solely within the oppressor/oppressed dialectic, it can never produce a society wherein the hostility between the two is overcome in a higher solidarity. Without an oppressor the oppressed cease to exist.

The New Hierarchy

Supposedly, the goal of identity politics is exposing and correcting systems of oppression. It cries out against the order of domination and subordination, privilege and marginalization. One might think that the answer to such systemic inequality and alienation would be equality and reconciliation. However, this is not the agenda of identity politics. It is rather to flip the order upside down so that the top becomes the bottom and the bottom becomes the top. Identity politics replaces objective truth with ideology in service of power and common humanity with group identities. It replaces white/male/straight privilege with Black/woman/lesbian privilege. But the oppressor/oppressed privileged/marginalized structure of society remains in place. Even if they are called by other names—social justice, respect, inclusion, reparations, truth, and equity—power, wealth, privilege, and honor are the chief ambitions that drive this community. These are of course the same ambitions that drive the society it seeks to replace. Not surprisingly, the two societies share the same vices: greed, envy, resentment, pride, and jealousy. And both societies hide their true ambitions and vices under clever euphemisms.

Next Time we will see just how great is the opposition between the social vision of Jesus and his apostles and that of identity politics.