Thread by @mcjulie

It's really started to get up my nose to see white Christians rhetorically contrasting themselves with "the world" in a majority Christian country where white Christians hold most of the power.

https://twitter.com/timkellernyc/status/1446492816243372032

I grew up with that language, of course, but even as a trusting baby evangelical I could see it was ridiculous. In what way were Christians not "worldly"? They bought property, they went to the mall and Disneyland, they watched television --

Hell, Christians were ON television & making themselves filthy rich there, does it get more worldly than that?

I've started to see "in the world but not of it" as a little rhetorical trick Christians use mostly in order to avoid taking responsibility for the world they made.

Like, as Americans, do we live in a racist world? Obviously we do. Was it Christians who made it racist? Obviously they did. Slave owners, segregationist politicians, KKK members, neo-Confederates -- Christians all, or at least, mostly.

As a Christian, either you're either okay with the racism, or you're working to change it, but don't act like Christians had nothing to do with the situation as it is.

And then, the irony! Keller's whole thread is supposedly about how Christians aren't just picking the "middle" between two symmetrically balanced extremes, then he says this:

https://twitter.com/timkellernyc/status/1446492831590322182?s=20

What is he doing there, if not reinforcing that artificial "balanced" view of left and right?

And notice how he's reinforcing the right wing's messaging, even while he claims "I'm not one of them, I'm something else."

"On the right people make idols of individual freedom & of the market-& demonize government."

It's true that on the right they do this, but unless you were in a coma for the past five years, how did you miss racism as a driving factor behind those views?

Plus, his view of the political right seems flatteringly mild, in a world where the political right are *actively trying to subvert democracy* at the same time they're also fighting anti-Covid measures, literally killing people.

He's flattering the political right by presenting their views the way THEY would present them -- not as racist and anti-democratic, but being about "individual freedom & markets"

But note how he presents the other side:
"On the left people make idols of sexual expression, racial identity, & the State & demonize religion & love of country"

The notion that people on the left "make idols" of the state and hate both religion and patriotism is 100% a RIGHT WING view of the left.

Of course, his accusation that the left makes "an idol of sexual expression" is very typical of him. I would counter it's HIS view that makes an idol of sexual expression, given the way he makes opposing it a central pillar of Christian faith.

Is "being a Christian" about anything other than being the world's most tedious anti-sex scold? Well, if it is, you'd never know it by listening to Keller.

But he also slips something else in there, something that gives the whole game away, really.
"On the left people make idols of [..] racial identity"
Gosh, what do you think he means by that?

So you have his view of the political right, which elides their racism, and his view of the political left, which makes a nod to anti-racism but calls it an "idol of racial identity"

It's racist, but sneaky -- presenting social activism & fighting for justice as something outside of the natural concern of Christians, "in the world but not of it"

Even though Christians made this world.