One of my major concerns at the moment is the almost total blindness of those in British churches to the insidious infiltration of Neo-marxist “Social Justice” theory into society, and by extension into the churches themselves, which are fast becoming its most useful idiots and, too often, true believers.
The Black Lives Matter protests soon became an overt campaign to deconstruct (in true postmodern fashion) the history of this and every other nation, and to deconstruct the very mental structures of ordinary people by implicating them, through cultic reprogramming, in totally unconscious and esoteric racist attitudes which, according to their handbook White Fragility cannot ever be corrected or atoned. The Chaz “experiment” proved beyond doubt that the proposed cure to “social injustice” was far worse than the disease in every way – blacks died at an unprecedented rate, their “security staff” killers were videoed covering evidence so as to be unaccountable, and the fabric of society itself fell apart through incompetence.
And so an increasing number of ordinary people began to back off from the slogans, and to understand that something sinister is going on. And it’s not just the recent BLM riots that have been noticed. I speak to ordinary people who have spotted how the BBC and other channels take every opportunity to promote LGBTQ lifestyles in drama, news, and advertising. The cancel culture is even getting “liberal” movers and shakers into a mild state of questioning – whereas the public at large have long ceased to believe that those so cancelled are even objectionable, let alone being Nazis.
But as far as I can see, the churches (as institutions) are solidly lining up behind the social justice banner like every other establishment institution. As someone has rightly pointed out, if there is “institutional racism” in Britain or America, the obvious question to ask is who owns the institutions? State education, academia, press, broadcasting, arts, civil service, local and national government, police, social media, corporations… and churches. Have I missed anything? And are any of those not falling over themselves to appease the social justice agenda? Social Justice warriors now own all our institutions, so it is they who are accountable for any institutional sins.
Anyway, it occurred to me this morning, being the Lord’s Day, to see what the Baptist Union here had to say, given their willingness to allow a pansexual to stand as one of two presidential candidates last year – which is what started me off on this quest. On their main page a large header of George Floyd flashed up, the image being on of those iconic wall-paintings of his apotheosis into sainthood. Clicking on that led to a dozen or so articles, all of which (as far as I read) were entirely on message with the left social justice agenda, without any reflection whatsoever on possible problems with that agenda for a Christian.
One black Baptist leader described Floyd uncritically as a Christian trying to get his life together, who (he gossiped) was said (by whom?) to have been beaten up in the police car before being dragged out and murdered. An ex-policeman I know told me that there was something clearly wrong with the story circulating, and reminded me that we have only seen a short video, and that proper investigation ought to be made before we pass judgement (and he is not even a Christian). The BU header is not at all afraid to join in being judge and jury on the basis of that same, highly spun, evidence.
Now, Floyd’s postmortem findings of several narcotics, and the recently released transcripts of the entire police encounter (as opposed to the segment of video and BLM rumours that have set the narrative across the world) show that much of this is just untrue. If Floyd was a Christian, he admitted on his arrest to smuggling or imbibing narcotoics that morning before passing off a forged note at a store, leading to his arrest. As far as the law is concerned, a Christian drug smuggler and fraudster is not to be given an easy ride over an atheist one, and God’s law would agree: salvation comes after repentance, and ones life is supposed to change to match. Furthermore the stuff about being beaten up in the car is false – the transcript shows he refused to get into the car, pleading breathlessness and saying he had to lie down. And the officers involved have still not had a chance to state their case.
But Baptist leaders, following the gutter press faithfully, have not hesitated to settle the case out of court.
None of the newer findings is even hinted at at he BU website, the message of national and church racism being hammered with more doubtful anecdotes and unlikely (unsourced) statistics. And nobody sees fit to question BLM’s stated manifesto to overturn society and the family, nor how it has worked out on the ground in violence, looting and murder – and in the sharp dividing of peaceful communities, to which I will return.
Lynn Green, the General Secretary of the Union, wrote something interesting in her short piece calling for “solidarity,” a Christian virtue not actually mentioned in the Bible. She wrote:
Baptists Together hold a common value; that we are a Movement which shares a hunger for God’s coming Kingdom and seeks to confront evil, injustice and hypocrisy and challenges worldly attitudes to power, wealth, status and security both within and beyond our Union.
Now, it seems to me that I’ve been attending a Baptist Church under false pretences for all these years. I had always thought that Baptists were just one part of the Church of Jesus Christ, whose Great Commission for us is to “proclaim the gospel to every nation, baptizing them and teaching them to do all that I have taught you.” We are to save the lost, not condemn the institutions (or castigate the saved, for that matter).
Evil, injustice and hypocrisy is what we are supposed to find in our hearts, and to wash away without remainder in the shed blood of Jesus. Was I wrong there? It seemed to apply to George Floyd, whose ongoing criminality the BU does not hold against him in the way it does invisible “institutional racism” even amongst white believers. There’s actually not a lot in the NT about challenging power structures outside the Church, except that as we practice Kingdom values, we inevitably subvert the world’s ways, and find ourselves hated by the establishments, not endorsing them.
Somehow, the gospel of Jesus doesn’t get a mention in the General Secretary’s mission statement: that “coming Kingdom” might equally, from the wording, refer to a Socialist Utopia as to the transformation of a corrupted cosmos by the supernatural return of Christ. And the latter is the only one I believe.
Contrast these thoroughly “woke establishment” responses to a couple of statements by James Lindsay, one of the most knowledgeable students of Postmodernism, an atheist who actually got a fake social justice paper published in a leading SJ journal by paraphrasing an anti-semitic section of Mein Kampf. He says in a recent interview something that, if true, ought to have the churches on full alert, if indeed they are true churches:
This ideology is a universal solvent and it has matured to the point where it can and will dissolve anything that lets it get in.
His own experience of literally thousands of communications from those marginalised, divorced, cancelled and otherwise harmed by intersectionality is that, once established, it will destroy both the function of organisations and the people within them. Harmonious inter-race relationships always become navel-gazing and suspicion, the best people leave, and the incompetent remainder neglect the task of the organisation for endless struggle sessions. The only answer, he says, is to create a brain drain – to leave , and start up something better.
I’ll end this with another quoote from Lindsay, on the state of play today – which you may apply to your own churches and church denominations as appropriate:
You end up with this monster that is borderline unstoppable. You have communism, in a sense, advancing on the most divisive issues you can imagine; personal identity where there is some kind of injury and grievance attached to it; and with absolutely no obligation to the truth. And that the monster that we are fighting today, which is mainlining and taking over things like our federal government.
Dear Jon, I recommend the latest Damian Thompson Podcasts from The Spectator (Holy Smoke) with talks about exactly the same thing.
Do you remember Stalin’s quote “When we come to hang the Capitalists, it will be the Capitalists fighting each other to sell us the rope”
Complete at your own leisure “When we come from the religious, ……..”
Mattman – looks a good series. It’s good that someone in significant journalism in the UK takes faith seriously enough to do this. One to bookmark for the future, I think.