Tag Archives: social justice

Is Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Philosophy Christian? (Part Five)

Cynical Strategies and Kneejerk Answers

Is diversity-equity-inclusion philosophy Christian? Of course, not everyone is interested in this question. The answer matters only to those for whom Christianity’s endorsement or lack thereof counts as evidence for or against DEI philosophy’s ethical force. Sincere Christians are interested because they want to know that their actions and the causes they champion are at least consistent with their Christian faith. Nominal Christians and cynical politicians (right or left) often assert or deny the Christian status of DEI philosophy because they wish to persuade sincere Christians to join their causes. I am not writing to them. Seeking only to win supporters, they have neither the desire nor the patience to investigate the question seriously. I am writing to help sincere Christians to think through this issue thoroughly, critically, and Christianly and to arm them against cynical actors who wish to recruit them for their causes by convincing them that DEI is (or is not) consistent with their Christian faith.

Unfortunately, when asked the question, “Is diversity-equity-inclusion philosophy Christian?” many people answer affirmatively or negatively with a kneejerk opinion based on a vague impression formed by little more than the resonance of the words with their experiences. In ordinary communication, precision of language is not necessary. The context supplies the clarity that overcomes the ambiguity in the words. But in theological, philosophical, and ethical discussions—especially controversial ones—precision and clarity are necessary. Such discussions require patience, discipline, and thoughtfulness. So, if you are interested in the question and are willing to follow a methodical and (hopefully) thoughtful line of reasoning, please continue reading.

Clarity First

Let’s clarify the grammatical and logical form of the question before we rush to give an answer. What are we asking when we inquire, “Is X Christian?” If we turn the question into an assertion (“X is Christian”) we can see that the word “Christian” is being used as a predicate adjective, that is, as an essential or accidental property attributed to a subject X. The word “Christian” can also be used as noun, designating a person who adheres to the Christian faith, so that we can ask, “Is X a Christian?” or we can assert that “X is a Christian.” Answering either of these questions or sustaining these assertions requires that we understand the essential nature of Christianity. Clearly, then, to answer the question, “Is the DEI philosophy Christian” we must possess a clear and precise understanding both of the DEI philosophy* and of Christianity.

What, then, is Christianity? As I said in Part Four of this series, we learn the answer to this question only from the New Testament. No system of beliefs, practices, and experiences that contradicts the New Testament answer qualifies as Christianity. And if you disagree here, there is nothing further to discuss until we settle that question. According to the New Testament, Christianity is a faith, a hope, a way of living, and a people. Christianity is faith in Jesus Christ crucified and risen bodily from the dead as universal King, Lord, and Savior. The people who embrace this faith look forward to the resurrection of the dead and eternal life in the presence of God. In the present time this people, the church, lives as disciples and imitators of Jesus and through the power of the Spirit are being transformed into his image. Who then is a Christian? Only those who believe in Jesus Christ and are baptized into him. Who is living as a Christian? Only those who hold to this faith and live as followers of Jesus as instructed by the apostolic teaching of the New Testament and are being transformed into his image.

The Decisive Issue

In view of this clarification, to ask “Is X Christian?” is to ask, “Is adherence to X an essential component of Christianity or an implication of the essential nature of Christianity as described in the New Testament?” It does not ask whether X is compatible with Christianity. Many beliefs and activities are compatible with Christianity but are neither essential components nor implications thereof. Christianity is compatible with your belief or disbelief of the proposition that Subarus are better cars than Hondas or that life in other galaxies is possible. Whether you enjoy playing tennis or prefer hiking makes no difference to your faith in Jesus. These beliefs and activities are not addressed by Christianity but are left to reason, free choice, and preference. There are, however, many beliefs and activities that are incompatible with Christianity because they negate or subvert or are in other ways exclude one another.

The Judgment to be Made

When people argue that the diversity-equity-inclusion philosophy is Christian, they are asking us to accept adherence to it as an essential component or a clear implication of the Christian ethics described in the New Testament. If they are correct, Christians are obligated to support DEI. If embracing DEI is not an essential component or a clear implication of Christian ethics, Christians have no such obligation. However, if DEI philosophy negates or subverts Christianity and Christian ethics as described in the New Testament, Christians have an obligation to reject it.

I shall argue in future essays not only that sincere Christians are not obligated to accept the DEI philosophy and support its agenda but that they are obligated to reject and resist it.

*See the previous four essays for my understanding of the DEI philosophy.

Conflicting Visions Diversity and Equity

Two Meanings of Diversity

Apart from that conflict, the idea of gathering a workforce with a diversity of perspectives and a variety of experiences would be considered an important strategy for achieving the goals of academic or business endeavors: discovery, innovation, and efficiency. Everyone knows that “two heads are better than one.” But it is not just a matter of numbers. Different voices challenge and balance each other to produce a better product…as long as diversity serves as a means to fulfilling the mission of the institution. The mission is the principle of unity, the end toward which all the activity aims. Harmony is dynamic, cooperative movement produced by a creative combination of unity and diversity.

However when diversity becomes an end in itself, the original mission is eclipsed or even aborted. Chaos reigns. Social conflict arises when against all common sense diversity is proclaimed to be an absolute value. Since diversity cannot possibly fulfill this role—it would produce total chaos—people begin to wonder what the real agenda is. Diversity must be contained and regulated. If the type and amount of diversity is not regulated by faithful execution of the mission of the institution, who will regulate it and to what end? We begin to suspect that it will be regulated arbitrarily in service of the private interests of now pervasive diversity officers.

Two Meanings of Equity

Apart from our situation of conflict, the word equity would strike a chord in most people similar to that evoked by the words “fairness” or “justice.” Equity pictures a state of affairs in which society’s rewards and punishments are allotted according to what one deserves because of one’s inherent dignity, character, achievements, and abilities—not on the basis of factors that have nothing to do with merit. Perhaps equity would also connote a subtle sense that fairness and justice have to be achieved by resisting the universal human tendency toward selfishness, unfairness, and injustice.*

However, apart from our polarized situation I do not think most people would think that the ideal of equity should be applied to identity groups as collectives because the measures of what one deserves, of what is fair and just—that is, dignity, character, achievements, and abilities—apply only to individual persons and their unique situations. While in the Western world all members of identity groups are believed to possess inherent dignity, individuals within groups differ greatly with respect to character, achievements, and abilities. Ironically, pursuing equity among identity groups creates inequities at the individual level. Social goods are no longer distributed fairly and justly, that is, according to an individual’s deserts as determined by dignity, character, achievements, and abilities.

Rewards and punishments would be distributed proportionately according to group identity. Implicit in this change in how rewards and punishments are distributed is also a shift in the location of the decision making process and enforcement authority. Decisions can no longer be made within the institution on the basis of individual merit and solely in service the mission of the institution, which make sense according to common sense intuitions of fairness and institutional logic. The institutional mission and common sense notions of fairness have been suborned to the external logic of identity group equity backed by government authority.

In the name of equity, fairness and justice—understood as receiving what one is due as measured by dignity, character, achievements, and ability—would be cast aside. Rewards and punishments would be distributed according to an alien principle having nothing to do with individual deserts. The same word “equity” used in different contexts means completely opposite things. One person’s good is another’s evil. What for one person is just is for another unjust. Fairness in one context is unfairness in another. No wonder there is controversy and confusion!

*Note: I am describing something similar but not identical to the concept of equity found in common law, which appeals to the ordinary person’s sense of fairness in situations where the legal system seems to be unfair.

To be continued….

The Christian View of Oppression and Freedom

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In my last series in which I reviewed Pluckrose and Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity and Why This Harms Everybody, I promised a follow up essay in which I contrast the view of freedom that animates both Liberal Political Theory and Social Justice Theory with the Christian understanding of freedom. Here is how I ended that series and set up this essay:

For all their differences, classical liberalism and Social Justice Theory are animated by the same definition of freedom: freedom in its pure form is the state wherein there are no restrictions on doing what you wish to do. In practice, both viewpoints restrict the freedom of some people so that others can enjoy a freedom of their own. Liberalism restricts government power so that everyone can enjoy equal civil rights and equal economic freedom. Theory wishes to use the power of government and woke social institutions to restrict the freedom of white people, men, and heterosexuals—which, taken together constitute the oppressor group in society—to do and become whatever they wish in the name of greater freedom for people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and all other marginalized groups to do and become whatever they wish.
Hence both classical liberalism and Social Justice Theory adhere to a nihilistic, anti-Christian, anti-nature, and anti-human vision of freedom. The logical implication of their view of freedom is the dissolution of everything human, natural, divine, good, and right in the name of the arbitrary will of the self-defining self to become and do whatever it wishes. Social Justice Theory is just one more step in the progressive movement wherein a false view of freedom works itself out toward its logical end, that is, self-conscious nihilism and anarchy.
https://ifaqtheology.wordpress.com/2021/01/17/social-justice-theory-versus-classical-liberalism-a-logical-analysis-and-a-christian-reflection/

Freedom from External Oppression

All views of freedom have negative and positive aspects. They envision an enslaving power, a self that is enslaved, a liberating power, and a state into which the self is liberated. Theories of freedom differ by viewing each of these four aspects differently. Liberalism’s and Social Justice Theory’s discussions of political and personal freedom focus on liberation of the self from oppressive forces external to the self. Social Justice Theory defines the self primarily in intersectional terms, that is, in terms of membership in an oppressed race, gender, or other group. Liberalism defines the self as an individual, happiness-seeking human being. But in both philosophies it is the fulfillment of the will, wishes, or desires—whatever term you prefer—of the self that are being inhibited by something outside the self. The liberated state, then, is envisioned as the power to do as one wishes. Likewise, Liberalism and Social Justice Theory differ in the external forces they consider oppressive. Liberalism wishes to liberate individuals from inequality in law or government enforcement of law. Social Justice Theory also recognizes these oppressors but extends the list to include many more ways the self’s fulfillment is restricted—by racial stereotypes, presumed norms governing gender and identity, systemic racism, and an ever-expanding list of others. Both Liberalism and Social Justice Theory, as all political theories do, rely on coercive power—soft or harsh—to liberate the victim self from external oppression.

Christian Freedom

Christianity also wishes to liberate people from oppression. There are, indeed, places where Christianity’s program of liberation overlaps with those of Liberalism and Social Justice Theory. However in the Christian understanding, the root cause of all external injustice is self’s internal bondage and corruption. For Christianity, the goal is not to liberate the self from some external power so that it can become and do whatever it desires. This action would only enable the self to externalize its internal bondage and corruption more readily. Christianity advocates liberation of the self from its own perverted will, that is, its inability to love God with all its heart, mind, soul, and strength and its idolatrous love of itself. In case you need reminding that what I am saying is the unambiguous teaching of the New Testament, read these statements from Paul:

¹⁷But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. ¹⁸You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. (Rom 6:17–18)
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ²in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. (Eph 2:1–5)

In this respect Christianity relativizes the worldly distinction between oppressors and victims. Everyone is a victim of sin and everyone oppresses their neighbors by not loving them as God loves them. There are no innocents.

Christian freedom is the state of possessing the inner power to love God and your neighbor. It is not leeway to sin as you like. It is the power to will and do the good. Christian freedom does not embrace or entail nihilism and anarchy. It embraces Jesus Christ as the model for divine and human identity. Christian freedom does not advance through coercion, harsh or soft. It advances in a way consistent with its nature as free, that is, by inner illumination, empowerment, and transformation through the Word and Spirit of God.

The Bottom Line

Liberalism and Social Justice Theory view

the oppressive power from which we need liberating as external restriction,
the self as the totality of the desires of the individual,
the liberating power as political coercion,
and the state of freedom as the power to do as one pleases.

Christianity views

the oppressive power from which we need liberating as sin,
the self as God’s created image made to image God,
the liberating power as the grace of the Holy Spirit,
and the state of freedom as the power to image God in all our actions and loves.

Social Justice Theory versus Classical Liberalism—A Logical Analysis and A Christian Reflection

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This essay is my third post interacting with Pluckrose and Lindsey, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity and Why This Harms Everybody. I advise taking a look at the first two parts before you read this one.

Today I want to address this question: Is reasserting classical liberalism the best way to the challenge the activist, reified postmodernism of contemporary race-gender-identity theories? Lindsey and Pluckrose, Cynical Theories, think so. And in part I agree with them.

Social Justice Theory versus Classical Liberalism

As previous posts documented, Social Justice Theory values marginalized identity, experience of oppression, and equity. In contrast, classical liberalism, as articulated by John Locke, the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, and John Stuart Mill, values reason, truth, freedom of expression, civil liberty, common humanity, debate, and evidence-based knowledge. Lindsey and Pluckrose juxtapose them in the following ways:

Knowledge—liberalism asserts that knowledge of objective reality is to some extent attainable. Theory asserts that knowledge claims are merely constructions designed to justify privilege and power.
Identity—liberalism values unique individual identity. Theory prizes group/intersectional identity.
Universal Values—liberalism measures human behavior against universal human values. Theory denies universals and replaces them with the interests of marginalized groups.
Debate and Truth Seeking—liberalism encourages debate, evidence-based argument, and submission of private and group interest to truth. Theory rejects the notion of truth as an illusion designed to support the status quo; it asserts that language is a means by which we construct “our” truth, that is, a narrative or ideology that supports our interests.
Progress—liberalism is self-correcting because it believes in objective reality, truth, and knowledge but admits that human beings can never achieve perfect knowledge. Theory does not accept criticism because it rejects the idea of objective reality, truth, and knowledge. Hence it treats every criticism as a power play to which it responds not with self-examination but with suspicion and outrage. It does not accept the obligation to listen to its critics.

Liberalism’s Rhetorical Advantage

When the positions of these two approaches are placed side by side most people in the Western world—even most university professors, including me!—will choose liberalism over postmodernism as the best available political philosophy for creating and maintaining a just society. And I think this popular preference may be the ground of Pluckrose’s and Lindsey’s hope that exposure of Theory’s irrationalism, intolerance, censorship, and potential for violent suppression of its opponents to the light of day, will encourage those who have been intimidated into silence by Theory to speak out. If nothing else, you can say, “No, that’s your ideological belief, and I don’t have to go along with it” (p. 266). Even though there are some places—university faculty meetings and classrooms, for example—where advocating liberal values in opposition to Social Justice Theory will get you shouted down, in most public spaces you will have the rhetorical advantage.

Two Twists on Freedom

Pluckrose and Lindsey consider classical liberalism and Social Justice Theory “almost directly at odds with one another” at every point (p. 237). And as documented in the list above there is much truth to this assertion. However I think they share a common view of freedom that animates their political activities. Liberalism and Theory both view freedom as removal of external limits that keep people from becoming and doing what they want. This view of freedom is the core value that has animated Western liberation movements from the seventeenth century until today. This understanding of freedom possesses a negative and a positive side. On the negative side, freedom negates every boundary and limit outside the self as a potential oppressor. On the positive side, the self—its desires and will—is the force that determines itself and its world and is the sole animating principle of its activity.

Clearly, this type of freedom can never be fully realized in its pure form. It is extremely individualistic and it views the self as a self-creating god. It is nihilistic in that it negates all values and structures outside the self—other people, moral law, nature, and God—to clear space for the realization of its own will. The debate in liberal politics, however, centers not on the nature of freedom in itself but on how and to what extent it must be restricted to keep it from destroying the community and itself. In this way, classical liberalism contains within itself an unrealizable ideal as its animating principle, which it must always compromise in practice. Theoretical idealism combined with practical realism is an unstable mixture that will produce wave after wave of radical movements intent on rejecting compromise and realizing the ideal no matter what the cost.

Social Justice Theory is the latest wave of idealists who, dissatisfied with the compromises made by liberal politics, think putting into practice their theories will create a better world. Don’t let the word “justice” distract you from Theory’s the quest for freedom. In the lexical world of Theory “justice” is indexed to liberation. In fact, the traditional meaning of justice can have no place in Theory, because “justice” means conformity to the way things ought to be, and in Theory, there is no objective way things ought to be. Theory’s use of the word “justice” is a cynical rhetorical ploy. In both classical liberalism and Social Justice Theory the world is divided into the oppressed and their oppressors, and liberation from oppression, that is, removing restrictions on liberty so that one can to do as one wishes, is the goal in both. The difference between the two theories lies in the differing lists of oppressive forces and victims of oppression and the places where liberty must be restricted in favor of the victims.

Classical liberalism views centralized government power as the greatest threat to liberty and it works to enshrine equality of civil rights into law. And over the last two and a half centuries it has viewed progress as the advance of individual liberty and the retreat of government sanctioned inequality. Liberal politics attempted to ameliorate the worst negative effects of unfettered economic freedom—that is, concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few families and corporations—by instituting inheritance taxes, graduated income tax rates, regulations of all sorts, and creating a quasi-welfare state. Theory’s list of threats to freedom includes religion, moral law, objective truth, biological nature, and God. Its list of oppressors includes white people, men, and heterosexuals. It flips its prized intersectionality of marginalized groups on its head by making white, heterosexual men into the evil twin of the intersectional victim. It works to free people from restrictive notions of gender and identity and liberate people of color from the systemic racism of contemporary American society.

Summary

For all their differences, classical liberalism and Social Justice Theory are animated by the same definition of freedom: freedom in its pure form is the state wherein there are no restrictions on doing what you wish to do. In practice, both viewpoints restrict the freedom of some people so that others can enjoy a freedom of their own. Liberalism restricts government power so that everyone can enjoy equal civil rights and equal economic freedom. Theory wishes to use the power of government and woke social institutions to restrict the freedom of white people, men, and heterosexuals—which, taken together constitute the oppressor group in society—to do and become whatever they wish in the name of greater freedom for people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and all other marginalized groups to do and become whatever they wish.

Hence both classical liberalism and Social Justice Theory adhere to a nihilistic, anti-Christian, anti-nature, and anti-human vision of freedom. The logical implication of their view of freedom is the dissolution of everything human, natural, divine, good, and right in the name of the arbitrary will of the self-defining self to become and do whatever it wishes. Social Justice Theory is just one more step in the progressive movement wherein a false view of freedom works itself out toward its logical end, that is, self-conscious nihilism and anarchy.

Next Time: What is freedom understood in a Christian way?

An Open Letter to a Forgetful Church

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Dear Church:

I’d like to remind you of something. I have no authority to made demands, and I offer no new revelation from on high. I cannot read minds or infallibly discern hearts. My message is more an expression of longing than of prophetic denunciation: I want you to live up to your better self. I want you to remember who you are and why you are in this world. I want you to be free, fearless, and determined. I want you to be clear and confident.

You are God’s People

You are not like other people. You are different. You were chosen by God, assigned a mission, and empowered for a task. You know something other people do not know. Your sense of identity stretches backward before the world began and forward into eternity. The meaning of what you do daily is determined not merely by its immediate causes and effects but by its relationship to God.

When you think of yourself you must not think first of your national, social, or ethnic identity. You are not first male or female, black or white, rich or poor, or educated or uneducated. Like Paul, we must consider all these marks of identity and distinction “garbage” compared to knowing Jesus Christ (Phil 3:8). We are the person God chose us to be in Christ.

Church, please rise above these distinctions. Do not fall into the pattern of contemporary society and politics by giving these distinctions the importance nonbelievers give them and allowing them to cause divisions within God’s people. Nonbelievers, of course, have their identity in the world. That is all they know. But we know of another homeland and another family. I am not speaking here of mere politeness while you are at a church assembly. I am talking about what goes on in the deep recesses of your hearts. Know with the clarity and in depth of your soul that you are a child of God. Let that knowledge free you from the bonds of other identifiers.

Bear Witness to Jesus

Why did God choose, call, and empower you? You have one task, that is, to bear witness to the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. You are obligated to point people to him as Lord and Savior. You are supposed to manifest to everyone the power and quality of life that Jesus lived. Jesus must live in your entire life, in every dimension, in every relationship, for every moment, and into and throughout your soul. Paul again speaks the word we need to hear:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

Bear witness to Jesus in the way you speak. Bless and never curse. It must begin in your heart. Turn away from anger and offense. Do not retaliate for evil done or insults given. Don’t do it on social media, in your car on the freeway, or in your heart of hearts. When nothing good can be said or done, keep silent. Bear witness to Jesus in how you act toward others. Never act unlovingly or unjustly toward anyone. Help those in need. Be faithful, loyal, and truthful. And when someone asks you why you live as you do, tell them how Jesus changed you.

Church, I am worried about you. Please keep your divinely given mission close to your heart: your charge is to witness to Jesus by living as he lived. Do not import worldly agendas into your life. Oh, how tempting it is to adopt contemporary social causes as if they were divine obligations. After all, these causes seem to be working for good ends. Should not the church stand against, injustice, poverty, oppression, abuse of the environment, inequity, and racism? Should not the church call out immorality, irresponsible behavior, and envy? Many contemporary believers find this an unanswerable argument. For the church also considers these things to be sinful and would happily see them removed. Indeed, it would. But not by the world’s methods.

Church, you must never let a part of your moral vision be disengaged from the complete vision of life in Christ and from the call to repent and believe in Jesus. That is what politicians and social activists want you to do. They want to channel the energy of the church into secular political causes, but they care nothing for the gospel and the life of discipleship to Jesus. Don’t be fooled. Do not join their causes—right, left, or center—no matter what evil it fights or what good it proposes. Their solutions to evil are intimidation, law, violence, rudeness, slander, obscenity, persecution, protest, coercion, and police action. Such activities cause strife and division among believers and between believers and nonbelievers. You must follow a different path. You must preach the gospel, do good works in the name of Jesus, and set an example of a comprehensively good life, individually and communally.

With affection and concern,

Ron Highfield

An Open Letter to the World

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Dear World:

Everyone agrees that you are messed up and need to change, but this is where the agreement ends. Is the problem the disparity between rich and poor? Do we need freer markets or more regulation? Do we need higher taxes and greater government expenditures or lower taxes and a smaller government? Are racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and other prejudices the source of your ills? Or, is the problem moral laxity and cultural decadence? Is the greatest problem faced by humanity climate change? War? Corporate greed? Police brutality? Systemic racism? White privilege? Capitalism? Marxism? Socialism?

I have a message for you. But it’s not from me. I received it, and I simply pass it on to you. It’s the message Jesus Christ proclaimed and that his apostles continued to teach. It’s the only message that the Christian church has been given authority to proclaim to you. Apart from this message, I have no advice to give: You are indeed messed up, and need to change. But the diagnoses and solutions listed above do not get at your most fundamental problem. The root problem is not economic, social, or political. No solution to the real problem will be found from these quarters. Your problem is theological. You have forgotten that the most important issue is how you stand with God, “the Judge of all the earth” (Gen 18:25). Compared to this question everything else fades into insignificance. And as long as you think that the most important challenges you face are economic, social, and political, you demonstrate that you are not right with God. Indeed you show that whereas the Thessalonians “turned to God from idols” (1 Thess 1:9) you have turned from God to serve idols. For you look to worldly powers and goods rather than to God for your well-being and salvation.

I have a message for you. It’s not a message about how to gain wealth or political power or freedom to do as you please. It’s not a formula for world peace or social justice or psychological health or long life. These things matter only as long as you are alive. And today or tomorrow, sooner or later, you will die. Your nation will die. Your planet will die. Then what? In the end, how you stand with God is all that matters. And if this will be true in the end, it is true now. Your most urgent task is to seek God and make sure you align your life with his will and character.

I have a message for you. It did not originate with me. I received it and embraced it. Now my task is to pass it on to you unchanged: Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:5). If you want to see God and learn how to get right with him, you must look to Jesus. Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1-4). If you want to hear the voice of God, “listen to him” (Mark 9:7). The “rulers of this age” crucified him (1 Cor 2:6), but God raised Jesus from the dead. In the resurrection, God declared Jesus to be lord and Messiah (Rom 1:4; Acts 2:36). You own him your allegiance, and you will give it sooner or later (Phil 2:10-11). Jesus Christ is the only Savior (Acts 4:12). Trust him and you will set yourself on the path to salvation and eternal life. Reject him and you will continue on the path to destruction of both body and soul. Whatever honor, glory, wealth, and power you gain in this life, unless you gain God’s approval, death, obliquity, obscurity, and nothingness await you.

I have a message for you. I have no authority to command you, but I am under authority to warn you. Stop cursing, hating, worrying, fighting, fretting, shouting, and despairing about the state of the world. Do not blame the stars, fate, chance, your ancestors, or the system. Stop talking about the sins of others, and look in the mirror. You are wholly responsible for that person, and you will answer for their sins and theirs alone. So, the message I have for you is the same as Paul and the other apostles had for the world of their day: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20).

Sincerely,

Ron Highfield

Next Time: an open letter the the church.

In Search of Rationality—A Lament for Reason (R.I.P.)

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In the kingdom of humanity, reason was born to rule. Reason is the power by which we see what is, what can be, what should be, and what may be. It is the power by which we bring under control and direct all the irrational elements and impulses in the world and in our lower nature toward higher ends. Reason is light in darkness, order in chaos, stillness in the storm. Apart from it, such chaotic passions as anger, hatred, lust, greed, jealousy, and envy struggle with each other for control. War breaks out within the soul, floods over into the community, and engulfs the whole world. When passion rules, reason becomes an instrument of evil. Human beings are reduced to clever animals—dangerous ones too!

I am and always have been a champion of reason and rationality. I find my Christian faith in God illuminated by reason and my reason awakened by faith. Reason is the created light by which we see the uncreated light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4:6). Reason is to invisible light what eyes are to visible light. It is to spiritual reality what hands are to physical reality. To suborn reason to passion is to suborn God to creation. Passion seeks its good in temporal things alone. Reason drives us upward toward the eternal. To depose reason from the throne of the soul is to depose God from the throne of the world. For God rules the world by setting truth and goodness before the eye of reason.

There never was an age of reason. It has always been the age of passion. It has always been what Jesus called “the world,” that is, the order that is ordered by disorder (John 15). It is temporary, evanescent, unreliable, and we are not supposed to love it in the least (1 John 2:15-17). We are supposed to love the Father. Everything depends on getting things in the right order. For good things wrongly ordered is evil. And this is why evil is so deceptive. It deceives us into doing evil in pursuit of a good cause.

A distinguishing mark of the age of passion is confusion in the order of goods. Passion is by definition chaotic. It creates an array of ever-shifting of mutually exclusive trends, fads, styles, causes, images, movements, perceptions, memes, and so on. Each has its day, and for that day seems to carry the weight of heaven on its shoulders. Our passion-driven culture justifies these changing values not with reason subservient to truth but with confused ideologies constructed of ideas, maxims, tropes, symbols, and assertions taken from different spheres, mixed together, and directed by a practical goal.

The book of Proverbs laments the scarcity of faithful people (20:6) and people of “noble character” (31:10). Sometimes I ask in the same spirit of despair, “A rational person, who can find?” If you find a friend whose soul is ruled by reason, you are blessed indeed.

The Logic of Social Suicide

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Cultural observers are saying that we live in a time of increased division and social strife. Political discourse has degenerated into name calling, distorted quotes, misrepresentation, deep fakes, down right lies, betrayal, opportunism, insincere and impossible promises, and catchy sound bites. Some people blame the current president and others the former one. Still others blame the Electoral College, the corrupt media, the schools and universities, the coastal elites or the common folk of fly-over country, the churches, or social media. However I’d like to propose a different diagnosis: modern society is built a foundation of sand. Within its genetic makeup there is a principle of dissolution that will enviably work its own destruction.

The Killer Gene

In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas argued that, in order to be just, human laws must be based on the moral law, which in turn is based on the eternal law of God’s being and will. Moral law is vastly more expansive and radical than human law. But human law should conform to the moral law in so far as it is possible to enforce without doing more harm than good. And some aspects of the moral law are not humanly enforceable. Hence there will never be a human society that is governed wholly by the moral or eternal law.

Modern political thinkers in the 1600s shifted the legitimating basis of human law from moral and eternal law to a human agreement or contract made for mutual benefit. The fundamental principle in this theory is individual liberty, which can be limited only by the liberty of others. In 1860, John Stuart Mill put it this way: laws should allow maximum liberty and exclude only behaviors that cause harm to others. Or in the language of popular culture, “You should be able to do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.” Hence modern society recognizes no moral principle above human desire. An individual’s desires can be legitimately limited in law only by the desires of other individuals. Laws function to harmonize the conflict of desires.

Contemporary society accepts and builds on the modern understanding of the function of law, but it moves two steps further. (1) It transforms the legal principle of maximum liberty in pursuing desire into a moral principle. Originally, the principle of maximizing liberty was proposed as a rule for making laws. It was not proposed as a moral principle to bind and guide the conscience; for it had no advice about what is good and right. It was not concerned with virtue and vice but with harmful behaviors. But contemporary society views pursuing one’s desires and approving of others’ pursuit their desires as a moral duty or even a sacred duty. It is good and right to pursue whatever one desires as long as you celebrate as good and right whatever other people want to pursue. And if you disapprove of others’ choices you are violating your moral duty and have become a bad person deserving of condemnation. Unlike legislated law, which is limited to legal judgments about enforceable rules, morality is all-encompassing. Negative judgments can be made about the character and the otherwise legal behavior of others. One can show one’s moral disapproval in words and behaviors that are not illegal and do not have the force of law: protest, shunning, boycotts, and various forms of verbal “calling out.”

(2) The second step contemporary society takes beyond the original maximum liberty principle is this: after expanding the maximum liberty principle from the legal to moral sphere, contemporary society begins the process of reverse transferal. It is so outraged by the legal but “immoral” behavior of those who do not conform to its new morality that it demands that its morality be legislated into law. The quest for individual liberty circled around to become suppression of individual liberty. The very ones who protested so loudly against imposing morality on others now demand that their morality be imposed on everyone. What began as an effort to reduce the sphere covered by laws and increase private liberty has become the cry for more laws and less liberty. The protest against moralist and judgmental attitudes has become moralistic and judgmental. The limited legal sphere became the unlimited moral sphere, which returned as the unlimited legal sphere!

Conclusion

When a society founds itself on individual desire as its sacred principle and basic moral good, it has already set its trajectory toward failure. Human desire is unprincipled, omni-directional, and chaotic. Human beings in their curiosity can desire anything! Human desires conflict with each other and with the desires of others. It should not be surprising, then, that contemporary people cannot engage in civil discussion about important topics, because, according to contemporary theory, all speech arises from and aims at fulfillment of individual desires. Where there is no truth and reason is not honored, alliances are possible but agreements are not.

Social Justice and The Great-Cause Fallacy

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It seems that everyone who’s anyone these days has attached themselves to some great cause. In introducing yourself to another person you give your name, where you work, and the cause that drives you into the streets. You’re nobody if you’ve not founded a nonprofit organization or haven’t been arrested for chaining yourself to the White House fence or at least have “Activist” printed on your business card. You’ve gotta fight for something—for social justice for the oppressed, for the homeless, for the poor, for the trees, for open spaces, for endangered species, for the climate, for gun rights, for gun control, for children’s rights, parents’ rights, for women’s rights…for somebody’s rights! It’s “Up with…” or “Down with…” or “Out with… or “In with….”

No one presents their cause as evil. No one protests, “Down with justice, up with injustice!” Have you ever seen anyone carrying a sign that says, “Tax the Poor!”? No group occupies the halls of state capitols chanting, “Trash the environment!” No. We adopt causes we think are good, noble, and great; or at least causes we can present as good, noble, and great. Perhaps it should not escape our notice that by adopting a good and just cause I demonstrate to myself and others that I am a good and just person. I present myself as a defender of the defenseless and a champion of the oppressed. I set myself in opposition to the oppressors and polluters, the privileged, the greedy, and the selfish. I manifest my love for the beneficiaries of my zeal for whom I sacrifice an evening a week and a weekend a month. And I am righteously outraged at the evil doers who exploit those I love so much, and I am disgusted by those who turn a blind eye to such injustice. If such a self-presentation were a prayer it would go like this:

“God, I thank thee that I am not like other people—greedy, racist, unpatriotic, or lazy! I am a vegetarian, I recycle, I drive a Prius. I stand for the National Anthem and pay my dues to the NRA” (See Luke 18:9-12).

Am I being judgmental? Then let me bring in a witness. What about the great-cause activists’ claim to love those for whom they fight? The letter we know as 1 John has much to say about loving others and loving God:

“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (1 John 4:20).

Many great-cause activists resonate with John’s critique of the religious hypocrite who claims to love God but doesn’t love other human beings. But the reverse principle is just as true. If you claim to love people but do not love God, you are a liar. If you claim to love some people but do not love all, you are a liar. If you claim to love some of the time but do not love always, you are a liar. 1 Corinthians 13 lists many great causes one could adopt and noble actions one could perform without loving God or human beings:

13 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.³And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-3; NASB).

Identifying with a great and good cause for which one is willing to give up everything is no sure sign that one loves, that one is a good and just person. In his profoundly insightful book, Søren Kierkegaard reminds us of something we should keep in mind always:

Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: man-God-man, that is, that God is the middle term…For to love God is to love oneself in truth; to help another human being to love God is to love another man; to be helped by another to love God is to be loved (Kierkegaard, Works of Love, pp. 112-113).

In our relationship with other human beings, with God’s creation, and with ourselves, God is the “middle term,” that is, we must never try to love anything other than God directly. Nothing can be loved in the right way unless it is loved within the act of loving God and because we love God. If you think you are loving people by championing their rights and fighting against their oppressors but are not helping them to love God, you are self-deceived. You do not love them at all. Indeed you may be making them seven times worse off. If you think you can love yourself by asserting your rights and your dignity directly apart from loving God, you are dressing pride in clothing of justice. The greatest cause is learning to love God. The greatest act of love you can do for others is to help them love God, and the most loving thing anyone will ever do for you is to help you love God.

So, you are looking for a great cause? Be sure that your desire to serve a great cause is not secretly a desire to become great by associating with a great cause. We might begin by learning to pray the prayer of tax collector instead of that of the Pharisee:

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ (Luke 18:13).

Social Justice and the American Prophet

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The issue of social justice remains the hottest topic I’ve ever written about on this blog. My essay, “On the Difference between Seeking Justice and Doing Justice,” written two years ago, still receives more hits per week than any other essay. So, I’m going to address the topic again from a new perspective.

American Christianity has a long tradition of producing social reformers, social ethicists, and public theologians. These individuals are often seen as carrying on the tradition of such Old Testament prophets as Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. They speak to the general population and their leaders, that is, to the whole nation, as if America had inherited the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai. They demand justice for the poor, for minorities, for women, for gay people, for transgender people, and for every other oppressed group. And they often root their demands in the biblical vision of justice and community. And this prophetic persona is not limited to left-leaning personalities. Others, right-leaning prophets, take up the mantle of Moses, Elijah, and Elisha and call for repentance from immorality and idolatry. This phenomenon is not limited to high profile preachers, professors, and nonprofit CEOs. With the advent of social media, every Tom, Dick, and Susan can become a prophet to the nation. Of course no one listens to Facebook prophets; no one cares and no one changes.

As venerable and as American as this “prophetic” tradition is, it is based on a false premise. There are no American prophets, and there never have been. And the reason is simple. God has not made a covenant with America or any other nation or nation-state to be his people. The Old Testament prophets were sent by God to challenge God’s covenant people to repent of their unfaithfulness to the covenant. The prophetic ministry presupposes a divine covenant and its binding responsibilities. Apart from a covenant, a prophet is without authority; she or he is just another political advocate. The covenant nation was a failure. The only divine covenant in force today is the New Covenant Jesus sealed with his blood. The new covenant people is not composed of one ethnic group, or of the people living within the borders of one nation state, or even of all humankind. You cannot enter it through birth or the social contract. You enter by faith and baptism into Jesus Christ and in so doing you place yourself under the sole Lordship of Jesus. Prophets have authority only as they speak on the basis of the New Covenant to the New Covenant people, the church. The death and resurrection of Jesus marked the end of divine covenants with nations. There are no state churches or church states! And there are no national prophets!

Does Christianity have a message for the people of America or for the world? Yes. But it must be spoken by a different persona, the evangelist! The message to those outside of God’s covenant people is “Repent and believe the Gospel.” To speak prophetically to people outside the new covenant deceives them into thinking that as long as they believe in whatever social reform is being advocated, they don’t need to repent of idolatry and immorality and become Jesus’ disciples. They are deceived into thinking that political power can accomplish as much good as the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; that they don’t need to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:2), that they don’t need to “live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6), that they don’t need the gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:38), that they don’t need to worry that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4), and that they don’t need divine mercy and forgiveness.

If you find yourself wanting to be a prophet to America (or Canada or Germany or any other nation), if the state of things outrages you, be careful lest you substitute a political message for the gospel and a superficial call for social change for radical conversion to Jesus. Don’t mistake anger and personal offence for passion for justice. Don’t mistake insults, judgments, and self-righteousness for prophetic inspiration. Don’t take Amos or Elijah as your model. Their day has come and gone. Don’t be ashamed of the gospel of the crucified and resurrected Jesus. Live it and preach it. If you aim to live as a disciple of Jesus your life will have an inadvertent prophet effect. The light will shine in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.

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