To be outright anti-deconstruction is to reject the Biblical understanding of sanctification; it is refusal to "be transformed by the renewal of your mind" (Rom 12:2), to "take every thought captive" (2 Cor 10:5), and to "plow up your fallow ground" (Hos 10:12). 1/
2/ Do we not know, as Christians, that sin has far-reaching effects? Not only has sin brought about spiritual and physical death, but sin has broken man’s community with God (Gen. 3:24-25), broken his community with neighbor (Gen. 3:16; 4:1-8; Gal. 5:14-15), corrupted his
3/ economic activity (Gen. 3:17; Isa. 3:5; Mic. 2:2), corrupted his habitation and environment (Rom. 8:19-21), and has even distorted his very mind and reason (Matt. 15:19; Rom. 1:28; Eph. 2:1-3; 4:18).
4/ How can we not understand that to accept systems, structures, ideologies, and even "doctrines" that we have received, simply by being born in our historical context, without severe critique is to downplay sin and reject Spirit led sanctification? And not just for us as
5/ individuals, but as the Church itself in history.
Do you not tell us that, for example, "Christian" enslavers were just captive to the systems and ideologies of their times?
Should we accept that we also will simply be people of "our times," demurring at the hard,
6/ dangerous, and self-critical work of sanctification?
God forbid.
Here's your opportunity to demonstrate some "Christic Manhood" (I use with all due sarcasm), or do you fear exposing the weakness of your social philosophies masquerading as "Biblical" truth?
7/ And what word/phrase could be used in place of "deconstruction" that will not be demonized in a week by those defending the status quo? I submit there isn't one. It's the substance they hate. Just look at the books they're critiquing?
I'm not married to the word - I've never
8/ used it of myself. But it should be clear by now that they will problematize any linguistic turn to marginalize potent ideas that contradict their received social philosophies.
Clearly "deconstruction" is only a part of sanctification, not the whole.
9/ It's also clearly not an end in itself and does not alone entail reconstruction (on another topic, that is why CRTers departed from CLSers). But, as defined below, it is certainly a necessary component, no matter what you call it.
10/10 We must take up the cross, friends, even in our ideologies, unexamined social philosophies, assumptions, and the many buried implications of our most cherished concepts and conceptual schemes.
I think it's clear why many social justice oriented Christians appear tepid in the eyes of the Right in their anti-abortionism: they simply don't understand the legal question as easily disentangled from the social conditions that overwhelmingly lead to abortion. 1/
2/ By far, the strongest statistical correlate to abortion is poverty. I mean, hands down. (There is an interesting spike when considering the uber-wealthy, but that's a small group.) And when you see one party championing illegality yet likewise championing libertarian style
3/ social policies, even blaming the poor for their own poverty and condemning the morals of single mothers rather than changing the conditions that make single motherhood so overwhelmingly difficult for many, it makes it truly hard to take their anti-abortionism to be more than
1. See a great evil that the Bible condemns being practiced by "Christians," now or in the past.
2. Wonder, "how could 'Christians' engage in and defend such evils?"
3. Begin to examine their justifications, historical or contemporary.
4. See that their justifications include specific doctrines and interpretations of the Scripture.
5. Learn that these doctrines and interpretations have a contingent history and connect well with contingent a-Biblical social doctrines and worldy ideologies.
6. Realize that you yourself have received and believed many of these doctrines from your own socialization (society, family, church).
7. Come to find there are other possible doctrines, interpretations, and traditions employed both currently and historically.
If I'm reading this correctly, Shenvi cannot show that they are incorrect, but is arguing that the method used to arrive at the truths they explicate is dangerous? A "universal acid"?
2/ Critique and rejection of some ideas and interpretations, based on analysis of their contingent historical provenance, NECESSARILY leads to critique and rejection of everything Shenvi believes to be born of untainted theology?
3/ And if this is so, isn't his own critique substituting something like 20th century "worldview" analysis for theology? Something that quite easily could be used as a "universal acid" as well?
I mean, showing that power dynamics have much to do with the historical development
Here's how the non-CRT sociologist Joe Feagin, who coined (or at least popularized) the phrase "systemic racism" defined it:
"Systemic racism includes the complex array of antiblack practices, the unjustly gained political-economic power of whites, the continuing economic 1/
2/ "and other resource inequalities along racial lines, and the white racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power. Systemic here means that the core racist realities are manifested in each of society’s major parts. If you break a
3/ "three dimensional hologram into separate parts and shine a laser through any one part, you can project the whole three-dimensional image again from within that part. Like a hologram, each major part of U.S. society—the economy, politics, education, religion, the family—
"I don’t know what most white people in this country feel, I can only conclude what they feel from the state of their institutions. I don’t know if white Christians hate negros or not; but I know we have a Christian church which is white and Christian church which is black. 1/
2/ "I know, as Malcom X once put it, the most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday. That says a great deal to me about a Christian nation. It means I cannot afford to trust most white Christians, and I certainly cannot trust the Christian Church.
3/ "I don’t know whether the labor unions and their bosses really hate me—that doesn’t matter, but I’m not in their unions. I don’t know if the real estate lobby has anything against black people, but I know the real estate lobbies keep me in the ghetto.