Brief thread on race—since we're still unclear how it works. It's popular for folks to claim that there's only one human race.

For example, after criticizing @PastorBenMarsh for using non-while folks as trophies, Sam Sey wrote:

https://twitter.com/SlowToWrite/status/1594806452794916864?s=20&t=ltUzLPsEcgHw4RDIL97Vvw

🧵 1/11 The criticism was thoughless and baseless. But that's not my point. My point is that this logic pervades a lot of conservative evangelical thought. It's this same logic that leads the anti-woke crowd to call racially-conscious folks "racist," because they talk about race.

2/11

I’m going to respond to this here, because what @tomascol does here is slippery and problematic.

Tom wrote an article (see original thread) in which he laments the direction of our country, particularly the progressive agenda. And that’s fair. There’s a lot to critique.

/1

https://twitter.com/tomascol/status/1594686089360449537

But then he goes on to criticize Christian leaders for their ostensible complicity. But he doesn’t do this by demonstrating how Christian leaders have actively promoted the progressive problems outlined in this piece.

No, he points to…COVID.

/2

A very, very long 🧵on the SBC, sexual abuse, and institutions.

The other day, @tomascol approvingly tweeted out an article by @megbasham over on the Daily Wire.

1/18 The article, published during the SBC convention this week, questions whether the recent Guidepost report re: sexual abuse paints an accurate picture, suggesting that the media has taken a real problem, and blown it way out of proportion.

2/18

On "faith over fear." A brief thread.

There's an argument in the wild that suggests COVID vaccinations, masking, etc. are manifestations of fear. What we need is faith. So rather than giving into the mainstream narrative, we need to choose "faith over fear."

Is this legit?

1/x No. Here's why.

Biblical faith is always linked up with a specific promise of God or the unchanging nature of God.

In other words, Abraham didn't hop on the Camel Express from Ur to Canaan because he really believed there was a better life for himself out there somewhere.

2/x

Those who leverage others’ anxieties and institutional distrust to win a culture war can only ever win a Pyrrhic victory. The leader or influencer who plays off institutional distrust to gain trust and build a movement is bound to discover one day that he is sabotaged by the very tool he employed.

Well. Here we go. Strachan views the current moment as a kind of Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy redux.

What does God think about abusive and power-hungry leadership?

“Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding themselves!

Shouldn’t the shepherds feed their flock?

You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened animals, but you do not tend the flock. You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bandaged the injured, brought back the strays, or sought the lost.

Instead, you have ruled them with violence and cruelty. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd; they became food for all the wild animals…”

Take note friends. @FoundersMin, @VoddieBaucham, et al., are arguing that sufficiency is the contest, the battleground. This comes into play in Baucham's new book.

In reality, *they* are misrepresenting sufficiency.

1/8

https://twitter.com/bobsmietana/status/1404519709643612161

Properly understood, sufficiency argues that Scripture gives us everything we need for life and godliness. But the doctrine of sufficiency never suggests that the Bible gives us all the information about all of life. It's not a kind of "hitchiker's guide to the galaxy."

2/8

Today we gather to encounter the Word made flesh.

"That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes,
which we looked upon and have touched with our hands,
concerning the word of life—
the life was made manifest,
and we have seen it..." We gather in shared wonder at Christ our life.

"and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life,
which was with the Father
and was made manifest to us—
that which we have seen
and heard we proclaim also to you..."

This is an important observation. While there is certainly wisdom in careful, critical and prophetic engagement with our culture—we absolutely need this—there is a profound difference between critical engagement and fear-mongering to stir up a base.

https://twitter.com/kkdumez/status/1403676617143160835

Fear-mongering argues for a narrative different than what Jesus calls us into. See 1 Peter. Fear-mongering plays on our insecurities, suggesting that suffering and exilic awkwardness is an aberration, an existential threat, rather than the expected norm.

Right now, there’s a gap between what’s permitted, and what is beneficial.

How do we reconcile the two?

This has been one of the biggest challenges for me as a pastor. Because *surprise!* I got no epidemiological training in seminary.

npr.org/2020/12/03/942… I think 1 Cor. 10:23-24 may be useful here. “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.”

The Corinthians were operating from a flawed grasp of freedom.

Thinking further about this. Let’s do a thought experiment, shall we? Let’s say we eradicate CRT from our theoretical lexicon. What then? We would still need an evaluative framework for adequately dealing with race. Why? Let me explain. →

https://twitter.com/bobstevenson/status/1333987118021021697

(1) When folks say things like “we stand together on historic…condemnations of racism in any form,” what they typically *mean* is racism-as-interpersonal-interaction. So bias or prejudice by one person against another class of people or certain individuals, on the basis of race.

There’s a lot to chew on here. I think @JemarTisby offers a helpful critique of the token dismissal of CRT in the recent SBC statement. And it has me thinking.

https://twitter.com/jemartisby/status/1333948860041977862

CRT is often framed as an ideological totality. That is, folks seem to suggest that to use (or even reference aspects of) it as a tool is to open the door to the Trojan horse and let secular worldviews run rampant through the streets of evangelicalism.

Oh, huh. Well splendid.

So…we can move on now?

apnews.com/article/electi… I guess this is what it looks like when justice is done. And perhaps conspiratorial thinking isn’t really super useful in the real world.

Why is it that so many conservatives struggle to see the importance of racial justice? And so many progressives struggle to see the importance of individual transformation and responsibility?

Bonhoeffer provides an interesting possible answer.

A Thread. /1 In his "Ethics," he argues the good isn’t something to pursue as an abstract concept. We must seek “what is good given life as it actually is.” Those who pursue good on the basis of a “static basic formula” are placed in a “vacuum of purely private and purely ideal sphere.” /2

So I’m working out an idea on race from a theological perspective.

I‘d love to interact with some of you on this. Especially if you disagree.

Here we go. I’m beginning to suspect the “just preach the gospel“/anti-CRT crowd has a more optimistic view of fallen human nature than those who argue that racism still needs to be actively addressed.

Here’s why.