Embedded Files
( - previous issue - / - next issue - )
AR 26:32 - Brace yourself for the take-no-prisoners "Woke Cold War"
In this issue:
CULTURE - opening hostilities in the new "Democracy" of intersectional imperialism vs. "Autocrats and their Populist allies"
PHILOSOPHY - a high-stakes call for sound judgment
Apologia Report 26:32 (1,537)
August 11, 2021
CULTURE
"Intersectional Imperialism and the Woke Cold War" by N.S. Lyons is a review of current global culture. (See AR 26:26 <www.bit.ly/3y5T4FX> for more about Lyons.)
"U.S. President Joe Biden has explicitly characterized his foreign policy as waging 'a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies....'" And in this battle, Lyons notes, "gender-conceptual frameworks, analyses and mainstreaming [are each used] as a tool for achieving social justice through public policy."
Lyons warns that "it is precisely the ignorance or flippant disregard for the transformative long-term power of norms that has so far lost conservatives every culture-war battle they have fought."
Thus, it now allows for the embrace of this kind of "norm-setting mechanism for remaking the world in its new and ideologically improved image."
The Biden plan will adopt "Practices of Exclusion" which involve "the progressive interpretation of human-rights standards."
All of this advances "a legitimate 'Democracy,' [which] has to hold the correct progressive values. That is, it has to be Woke. Otherwise it is not a real Democracy....
"Exacerbating this sense of fear and division is the fact that a Democracy can't just hold some of the correct values – it has to hold all of them, in toto. This is after all the prime conclusion of intersectional analysis: all injustice is interlinked, forming interlocking systems of oppression; therefore injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Intersectionality thus demands liberation in totality; there can be no pluralism – no one can simply be left alone or granted the slightest leniency, because no injustice in any place or of any degree can be suffered to exist, lest it pollute and threaten the entire system.
"The conclusion is inevitable: the New Faith must be a missionary, evangelical [he apparently means "evangelistic"] faith."
Lyons says the result will be a "Woke Cold War. ...
"If the West makes ideological conformity an integral requirement for joining, receiving aid from, or even working with its Democracy bloc (as [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken has implied), then many of these countries are liable to flee into the arms of China and other genuinely authoritarian but ideologically non-missionary states, despite the security concerns they may have. ...
"Prior to its passage in 1965, the United Nations saw fierce debate over Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which mandates that, in the name of universal human rights, countries: 'Shall declare an offense punishable by law all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred ...'
"At this time it was the Soviet bloc, including communist controlled Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia, who argued that freedom from discrimination should take precedence over the rights of freedom of expression and assembly." (Take a wild guess as to what the objective might be. Hint: Publish your conclusion far and wide - while you still can.)
"The 'fundamental right of free speech' was, argued U.K. representative Lady Gaitskell, 'the foundation-stone on which many of the other human rights were built,' and it was the U.K.'s position that, despite abhorring racism, 'in an advanced democracy the expression of such views was a risk that had to be taken.' Hungary shot back that free speech and tolerance was pointless if 'fascists' were tolerated anywhere." (Sound familiar yet?)
"Times have changed. As the European Union prepares to consider writing 'hate speech' into the official list of EU crimes, tweeting 'gender-critical' thoughts is already an arrestable offense in the United Kingdom, and the United States looks to enlighten the world about the dangers of oppressive microaggressions, one wonders if there is any country remaining, the world over, still willing to genuinely represent liberal values in these terms today.
"Instead only the crusaders of the New Faith remain to march into battle against the Autocrats and their Populist allies, and you are either with them or against them. Welcome to the Woke Cold War." <www.tinyurl.com/t9ndd77s>
A note regarding our use of tinyurl, above. With the advance of ever more info tech companies becoming "woke," the URL shortener we typically use, bit.ly, would not allow readers to open a link for Lyons' essay. Hence, the employment of tinyurl.
With this in mind, we anticipate that Mailchimp, the email service we use for Apologia Report, might eventually fail us for similar reasons. Please pray this never happens. (If it does, you may see a future issue of AR arrive by way of an app named MailerLite.)
---
PHILOSOPHY
Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair, by Duke L. Kwon and Gregory Thompson [1], is a book "calling for Christians to repent and to enact reparations for Black Americans." It was published in April by Brazos, a Baker Publishing imprint and accompanied by rave endorsements (including those by Thabiti Anyabwile. and Scott Sauls).
Theoretical chemist/apologist Neil Shenvi <www.bit.ly/2VLNYAM> explains that he hasn't yet read Reparations. However, he is interested in the authors' response to a review <www.bit.ly/3zJADHY> of their book by Kevin DeYoung for The Gospel Coalition (Apr 22 '21).
Says Shenvi: "I'd like to examine Thompson and Kwon's response piece, because it <www.bit.ly/3l5qn90> is instructive and troubling."
He complains that the authors of Reparations "aren't prepared to elaborate on ... basic considerations," and asks, "what are they prepared to elaborate on? ...
"It also concerns me that Thompson and Kwon criticize DeYoung for being inappropriately focused on theology. ... Before we can act rightly on our beliefs, we must have the right beliefs. ... Imagine dismissing the question of whether it is theologically appropriate to worship idols on the grounds that we have good sociological reasons to worship idols!
"However, the most troubling element of Thompson and Kwon's [response] is their claim that DeYoung's errors are a consequence of his 'centering white theology.' ...
"DeYoung's subtitle indicates that he believes his review to be an expression of a theological project, [but] we believe his review actually to be expressive of a cultural project that seeks perennially to justify itself on theological grounds. ...
"I can only wonder how evangelicals think we'll be able to engage in an 'honest conversation about race' while this kind of commentary is accepted and even applauded in some circles. ... (As someone who is familiar with the Critical Whiteness Studies literature, I'd also like to go on record as saying that I anticipate being dismissed as 'white adjacent' or 'performing whiteness')."
Shenvi says that "at no point" do Thompson and Kwon "explain why DeYoung's statements are false or unbiblical. Rather, these criticisms focus on how DeYoung's statements supposedly function.... In other words, Thompson and Kwon engage in Bulverism, a very popular, but very pernicious, logical fallacy."
After explaining Bulverism and its connection to C.S. Lewis, Shenvi dramatically exhorts us: "Brothers and sisters, this whole approach to reasoning is deadly, and our rejection of it should have nothing to do with our feelings towards reparations. ...
"Do you think that homosexuality is immoral? That's because you're protecting the cisheteropatriarchy. Do you think that Christians are justified by grace alone through faith alone? That's because you're embracing the Eurocentric creeds of the Reformation. Do you believe that Jesus is the only way to God? That's because you're terrified of losing your Christian privilege.
"By embracing this line of reasoning, we're stripping the church of its theological immune system and unmooring it from Scripture. ...
"Believers may come to different conclusions about these issues. But they will have to be settled by appeals to reason, to evidence, and to Scripture.
"When we care passionately about an issue, it can be tempting to take a short cut. Don't. You will cut yourself off from all correction, exhortation, and admonition from your brothers and sisters in Christ. And you won't like where you end up." <www.bit.ly/2VjEmNw>
-------
SOURCES: Monographs
Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair, by Duke L. Kwon and Gregory Thompson (Brazos, 2021, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.bit.ly/377m1G7>
------
( - previous issue - / - next issue - )
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse