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I appreciated this article in Christianity Today:

Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and Biblical Ethics

I’ve tried to apply the biblical principle of being “slow to speak” (James 1:19), but I’ve been convicted recently about joining a particular thread of the (inter)national conversation taking place among those who share my faith in Jesus Christ and want to support truth and justice without compromising on principles peculiar and integral to our faith—principles that they are afraid might be stealthily replaced by rhetoric from other, incompatible frameworks of thinking.

What gives me an unusual perspective in my field, however, is the fact that my primary research interest—and the topic of my doctoral dissertation—is twentieth-century Russian literature. My studies have convinced me that the sufferings and deaths of millions are not only correlated with but largely caused by the Marxist-Leninist agenda, and I am therefore deeply opposed to Marxism as a framework.

I hope that, knowing this, those patient enough to read these notes will acquit me of being a closet Marxist covering a secular agenda with a veneer of Bible verses. That said, I do believe that some reactions to the protests following the death of George Floyd in particular and the Black Lives Matter movement in general are based on a failure to recognize important nuances in the conversation.

I agree with most of this article. As one of a few people on MN who has actually been in several Communist countries before the Wall fell and lived in East Berlin before unification, I am opposed to Marxism and Communism. I agree that we must not compromise on biblical principles.

Here's one I have heard repeatedly on MN:

Argument #3: The Black Lives Matter movement is Marxist and supportive of the LGBTQ community’s attempts to criminalize traditional, biblical views of sexuality.

Response: The official Black Lives Matter movement, started by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, is indeed built on a Marxist foundation and deeply involved with LGBTQ agendas. I took an entire doctoral-level cultural studies course on the Black Lives Matter movement, so I’m very aware of these connections.

However, as the course in question also involved a study of Twitter campaigns and hashtags (yes, people study Twitter in academia these days), I became just as aware that most people who use the #blacklivesmatter hashtag have no connection to the movement proper.

The hashtag itself speaks a truth, and people who hold up a sign at a protest proclaiming that truth are not necessarily involved with or even aware of the tenets of the movement proper. Conversations surrounding the Black Lives Matter protests should not assume that the slogan is owned by the movement (nor should the movement itself try to “own” all those who use the hashtag or the slogan).

I also believe that if Christians fail to become involved in promoting the truth behind the slogan, we are lending credence to the Marxist claim that Christianity exists merely to perpetuate the injustices it (Marxism) seeks to correct.

I think many of my fellow believers would be surprised how many people in my field are disgusted by our faith not because they believe we hold outdated ideas about God (though that’s a common belief as well) but because we’ve failed, so many times throughout history, to stand up for the oppressed.

My response to that disgust is that they’re not wrong about Christians having done the wrong thing at many times throughout history but that, when Christians have done the wrong thing, we’ve been acting in a way inconsistent with the tenets of our own faith. Because I believe that even Christians struggle with sin, I’m not surprised when I study history and read about my brothers and sisters having massive blind spots and acting accordingly (it makes me wonder what my own massive blind spots are).

I also believe that if Christians fail to become involved in promoting the truth behind the slogan, we are lending credence to the Marxist claim that Christianity exists merely to perpetuate the injustices it (Marxism) seeks to correct.

I believe black lives matter, white lives matter, yellow lives matter, brown lives matter, red lives matter - I BELIEVE ALL LIVES MATTER and for "Christians" to continue to call other Christians who are not supporting reactionism(the opposite of non-resistance) and who say ALL LIVES MATTER as racist or perpetuating injustice is complete INJUSTICE in itself. And when people that keep saying Black Lives Matters keep contradicting themselves and condemning others because they are not jumping on the reactionary bandwagon you all can have it. If this is what Christianity means for you all today I want nothing of Christianity as you view and see it.

Wade wrote:

I also believe that if Christians fail to become involved in promoting the truth behind the slogan, we are lending credence to the Marxist claim that Christianity exists merely to perpetuate the injustices it (Marxism) seeks to correct.

I believe black lives matter, white lives matter, yellow lives matter, brown lives matter, red lives matter - I BELIEVE ALL LIVES MATTER and for "Christians" to continue to call other Christians who are not supporting reactionism(the opposite of non-resistance) and who say ALL LIVES MATTER as racist or perpetuating injustice is complete INJUSTICE in itself. And when people that keep saying Black Lives Matters keep contradicting themselves and condemning others because they are not jumping on the reactionary bandwagon you all can have it. If this is what Christianity means for you all today I want nothing of Christianity as you view and see it.

I want the Christianity of Jesus and the Bible, and I'm not sure that political talking points will get us there. Or mutual recrimination. That's not a Christianity I want any part of. Please show me your commitment to the Bible and to the heart of Jesus by paying careful attention to them and reasoning out from them.

Are you disagreeing with her basic point, that political systems have often used religious pretext to prop up injustice? Or that there might actually be a need to say that black lives matter today? Do you believe that injustice against black people is not a problem in modern America?

Bootstrap wrote:

Wade wrote:

I also believe that if Christians fail to become involved in promoting the truth behind the slogan, we are lending credence to the Marxist claim that Christianity exists merely to perpetuate the injustices it (Marxism) seeks to correct.

I believe black lives matter, white lives matter, yellow lives matter, brown lives matter, red lives matter - I BELIEVE ALL LIVES MATTER and for "Christians" to continue to call other Christians who are not supporting reactionism(the opposite of non-resistance) and who say ALL LIVES MATTER as racist or perpetuating injustice is complete INJUSTICE in itself. And when people that keep saying Black Lives Matters keep contradicting themselves and condemning others because they are not jumping on the reactionary bandwagon you all can have it. If this is what Christianity means for you all today I want nothing of Christianity as you view and see it.

I want the Christianity of Jesus and the Bible, and I'm not sure that political talking points will get us there. Or mutual recrimination. That's not a Christianity I want any part of. Please show me your commitment to the Bible and to the heart of Jesus by paying careful attention to them and reasoning out from them.

Are you disagreeing with her basic point, that political systems have often used religious pretext to prop up injustice?

I agree with that.

Bootstrap wrote:Or that there might actually be a need to say that black lives matter today?

Of course black lives matter but to say that if someone doesn't say that that they are supporting Marxism or whatever is a false accusation in itself.

Bootstrap wrote:Do you believe that injustice against black people is not a problem in modern America?

Yes, I believe injustice abounds everywhere in the world and their is injustice against black people in modern America. But as it implies with your first question magnifying injustice is a political tool. Christs tools are things like justice, love, mercy, compassion, and etc.. Weeping with those that weep is NOT demanding justice to society.
To demand justice from anyone but God is utter foolishness - how can any system, person, government or whoever that one protesting to bring only what God can give?!
Should not we be doing anything less than petitioning at the alter of the only ONE who can bring justice rather than petitioning to others through protesting and etc.?! Protesting is very close to idolatry if you ask me.
Would not magnifying Him who is justice be more Christ-like and biblical than magnifying injustice?!

I actually went and read the entire Christianity Today article and the looked up the author who, as it turns out, is a young newly-minted PhD and assistant professor in literary criticism at Liberty University: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-hamren-08288684/

In my opinion, it is mostly nonsense. She throws out assertions like: "Critical Race Theory is indeed deeply informed by Marxism" for which she provides no support and is largely wrong. Since that seems to be the biggest bugaboo here I will try to explain.

Whole libraries have been filled with with the writings of so-called "Marxist" writers on every topic from cooking to literature to medicine. That's what happens when half the world is governed by socialist or communist states for the better part of a century. And it is largely irrelevant to the question at hand. A "Marxist" interpretation of say William Shakespeare's King Leer might be of interest to a few scholars of Elizabethan literature, but is otherwise irrelevant. So tossing around the label "Marxist" is about as meaningful as tossing around the label "White" or "Christian".

When it comes to politics and governments, there are really only two elements of Marxism that are relevant. The first is Marx's analysis of the PROBLEM with 19th Century societies in which he identified economic roots to poverty and despair. Namely that Capitalism and and the Capitalist class (Bourgeoise) are exploiting the working classes (proletariat). That's Marxist economic theory in a nutshell. The second part of Marxism is the SOLUTION, which he saw as revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat (communism).

Critical race theory is actually the opposite of Marxism in that it identifies race and racism as the organizing forces of oppression in society rather than class. You may or may not agree with this perspective, but it is fundamentally different from Marxism which looks to class rather than race.

The 2020 Democratic Primary campaign is actually a perfect example of this contrast. Bernie Sanders spent a great deal of time rattling on about the One Percent being the root of all evil in American society. It was about the only thing he actually had in his stump speech other than Medicare for All. Bernie Sanders also self-identifies as a "Democratic Socialist". In other words, he is the classic Marxist who sees class warfare as the root of all evil in this country and the solution. Bernie Sanders over the past 20 years has also said very little of relevance about race and seems to think that if we solve the class problem in this country then racism will just wither away. In other words, black people are oppressed because they are poor, not because they are black. When he speaks about race it is often awkward and silly. He talks about marching with MLK 50 years ago which makes most young black folks roll their eyes. Bernie Sanders also got very little support from the Black community, especially across the south, which is why they lost.

Black folks didn't buy Sanders Marxist interpretation of America that class (and the One Percent) are the problem because it doesn't sit with their lived experience of racism. The racist cops who pull them over and stop and frisk them, the racist teachers who suspend their kids more frequently then white kids, the racist factory foreman who makes their lives miserable and promotes his less qualified white buddies. None of that has anything to do with the One Percent. Those are all more ordinary examples of racism that are coming from their co-workers and neighbors and police and so forth, not Capitalism or the One Percent.

This past summer the whole BLM movement after George Floyd has caught fire in a way that Sander's "Our Revolution" never did because it rejected Sanders' Marxist class-based interpretation of the problem and suggested that the real problem is systemic racism in society. The cops who strangled George Floyd were not part of the One Percent, they were working class cops. I am actually rather surprised and shocked at how fast America's premier leftist (Marxist) politician (as of February 2020 when he was riding high in the early primaries) has been rendered into a completely irrelevant and forgotten has-been in just four months. At it's core, that is a rejection of traditional class-based Marxism in favor of seeing racism as the larger problem in society.

Quibble all you want about BLM and some of the more lefty positions they are taking on things like LGBT rights. But it is not inherently Marxist. Critical Race Theory is an alternative to class-conscious Marxism. And yes, you can find all manner of esoteric academic writings about race and class and colonialism that blend it all together in creative esoteric ways. But literature professors publishing critical theory analyses in obscure academic journals is not what is informing or driving the movements you see in the streets today. That stuff is largely unreadable and unread. Much like a lot of the stuff that gets published by fringe corners of Christianity. http://clearvisionbiblestudies.com/gosey/save33.html

So again I ask. What Marxist horrors do you folks see arising out of the BLM movement? Be specific. I understand there is probably plenty of lefty stuff that makes conservative Mennos uncomfortable such as the support for LGBT rights. But that's just ordinary lefty stuff and not Marxist. Because tossing around the "Marxist" label is just a tired old trope that has been used for decades. Much of Roosevelt's New Deal was labeled as Marxist from the Works Progress Administration to farm programs to Social Security. The Civil Rights act and school desegregation was labeled as "Marxist" And to leave you, here is Ronald Reagan in 1961 claiming that the passage of Medicare will result in a complete Marxist takeover of all medical services by the government and lead shortly thereafter to socialist dictatorship in the US. A ridiculous and shrill of a claim in 1961 as suggesting that BLM will lead to the same thing today.

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The main philosopher I see influencing these modern movements is Foucault (which I said earlier).

The problem is someone like Foucault is completely opposed to Christian values, yet the influence of the academic left of the 1980s and 1990s is so strong that folks like Ken and Josh G. simply accept it as fact, and then take it upon themselves to “educate” the rest of us into this utterly worldly worldview.

Resistance from people like myself is treated just like some kind of hidden racist agenda and the solution is more re-education. Which does harken back to Marxist societies, where people who disagreed with the prescribed Marxist dogma got sent off to re-education camps into they spouted the right propaganda.

Wade wrote:

Bootstrap wrote:Are you disagreeing with her basic point, that political systems have often used religious pretext to prop up injustice?

I agree with that.

Bootstrap wrote:Or that there might actually be a need to say that black lives matter today?

Of course black lives matter but to say that if someone doesn't say that that they are supporting Marxism or whatever is a false accusation in itself.

Bootstrap wrote:Do you believe that injustice against black people is not a problem in modern America?

Yes, I believe injustice abounds everywhere in the world and their is injustice against black people in modern America. But as it implies with your first question magnifying injustice is a political tool. Christ's tools are things like justice, love, mercy, compassion, and etc.. Weeping with those that weep is NOT demanding justice to society.

First off, I will certainly join you in hungering and thirsting for righteousness and in mourning as important ways to pray on behalf of others. And I have not been in any protests since the 1970s, they were pro-life and anti-pornography protests.

To me, the main issues behind the George Floyd protests are the first three in the poll below, and they seem valid.

Wade wrote:To demand justice from anyone but God is utter foolishness - how can any system, person, government or whoever that one protesting to bring only what God can give?!
Should not we be doing anything less than petitioning at the alter of the only ONE who can bring justice rather than petitioning to others through protesting and etc.?! Protesting is very close to idolatry if you ask me.
Would not magnifying Him who is justice be more Christ-like and biblical than magnifying injustice?!

I'm trying to follow the biblical argument here.

In the Old Testament, prophets frequently sought justice on behalf of other people. Think of Nathan confronting King David. A lot of the prophets confronted kings on behalf of the poor. Of course, that didn't always work out well for the prophet, kings have a lot of power, but confronting authorities on behalf of the poor and the oppressed was a significant part of what Old Testament prophets did. The other two major themes were whoring after other gods and general sinfulness. Together, those three themes define much of what Old Testament prophets talked about.

Jesus protected the woman caught in adultery from being stoned and intervened on behalf of various people who were looked down on in their society. Paul boldly confronted Peter on behalf of the Gentiles. In the New Testament, when apostles stood up to authorities, it was generally on behalf of the Gospel. Paul also used his status as a Roman citizen to avoid being mistreated by Roman authorities, the apostles ignored commands to not preach the Gospel. But I don't see a prohibition of doing that kind of thing on behalf of someone who is oppressed or a victim of injustice. I also don't see any indication that this was something they did much.

I see real danger of being distracted from the Gospel itself when we get involved in political causes, and I think it is also important to consider how we get involved. But I think that same danger is present on either side of these issues. If your main point was that you don't want to get involved on either side of worldly politics or that you want to avoid unintentionally supporting ugly factions on any side of this issue, I would understand that. To me, it can sometimes feel like some people want to strongly denounce people who are standing up for the rights of others and implying that they have nothing to be upset about. Or even denouncing black people in America with ugly stereotypes. That's just as politically involved.

I know people who think of Christians as haters. A lot of that comes from politically entangled, emotional denunciations that imply some people have no value or should be silenced. And I have heard that from Christians too. I certainly understand Christians who simply want to refrain from all worldly politics, not getting involved in these issues at all. Personally, I am trying to understand whether and how I should be involved. I suspect there may be a way. I don't know what it is. So far, it's leading a Bible study that is very close to the text.

Josh wrote:The main philosopher I see influencing these modern movements is Foucault (which I said earlier).

The problem is someone like Foucault is completely opposed to Christian values, yet the influence of the academic left of the 1980s and 1990s is so strong that folks like Ken and Josh G. simply accept it as fact, and then take it upon themselves to “educate” the rest of us into this utterly worldly worldview.

Resistance from people like myself is treated just like some kind of hidden racist agenda and the solution is more re-education. Which does harken back to Marxist societies, where people who disagreed with the prescribed Marxist dogma got sent off to re-education camps into they spouted the right propaganda.

Josh. I’ve never accused you or anyone else here as being racist.

As for whether you are in need of re-education? Not gonna go there!

Ken wrote:I actually went and read the entire Christianity Today article and the looked up the author who, as it turns out, is a young newly-minted PhD and assistant professor in literary criticism at Liberty University: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-hamren-08288684/

In my opinion, it is mostly nonsense. She throws out assertions like: "Critical Race Theory is indeed deeply informed by Marxism" for which she provides no support and is largely wrong. Since that seems to be the biggest bugaboo here I will try to explain.

Whole libraries have been filled with with the writings of so-called "Marxist" writers on every topic from cooking to literature to medicine. That's what happens when half the world is governed by socialist or communist states for the better part of a century. And it is largely irrelevant to the question at hand. A "Marxist" interpretation of say William Shakespeare's King Leer might be of interest to a few scholars of Elizabethan literature, but is otherwise irrelevant. So tossing around the label "Marxist" is about as meaningful as tossing around the label "White" or "Christian".

I disagree. Are you familiar with Critical Theory?

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy wrote:Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. “Critical Theory” in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. According to these theorists, a “critical” theory may be distinguished from a “traditional” theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human “emancipation from slavery”, acts as a “liberating … influence”, and works “to create a world which satisfies the needs and powers” of human beings (Horkheimer 1972, 246). Because such theories aim to explain and transform all the circumstances that enslave human beings, many “critical theories” in the broader sense have been developed. They have emerged in connection with the many social movements that identify varied dimensions of the domination of human beings in modern societies. In both the broad and the narrow senses, however, a critical theory provides the descriptive and normative bases for social inquiry aimed at decreasing domination and increasing freedom in all their forms.

I think that does have Marxist roots. And I think that "Critical Race Theory" is a flavor of "Critical Theory".

Ken wrote:And yes, you can find all manner of esoteric academic writings about race and class and colonialism that blend it all together in creative esoteric ways.

Exactly.

The people who most loudly invoke Marx or Adam Smith have probably never read either. They don't motivate many movements today, not even the movements that claim them.

Ken wrote:This past summer the whole BLM movement after George Floyd has caught fire in a way that Sander's "Our Revolution" never did because it rejected Sanders' Marxist class-based interpretation of the problem and suggested that the real problem is systemic racism in society. The cops who strangled George Floyd were not part of the One Percent, they were working-class cops. I am actually rather surprised and shocked at how fast America's premier leftist (Marxist) politician (as of February 2020 when he was riding high in the early primaries) has been rendered into a completely irrelevant and forgotten has-been in just four months. At it's core, that is a rejection of traditional class-based Marxism in favor of seeing racism as the larger problem in society.

Or at least that one of the real problems is systemic racism.

Ken wrote:What Marxist horrors do you folks see arising out of the BLM movement?

The BLM movement is not Marxist. The BLM Foundation is, in a loopy kind of incoherent way. If you look at the people who say they support Black Lives Matter and consider their party affiliation, it's clear that many of them would be opposed to Marxism.



But what does all this mean for us as biblical Christians? What guidance do we find in Deuteronomy, the Old Testament prophets, Jesus, and Paul?