In my previous blog, The Unholy Union of the Social Justice Movement and the Church, I described a similar situation that was transpiring in Colosse. Paul warned the Colosse church not to be taken captive by philosophy.
In this blog, what you will discover is the Social Justice Movement (SJM) is guided by a deceptive philosophy that is empowered by half-truths crafted by the corporate news media, and is attached to socialism.
My Eyes Being Open
I must confess that I’m late to the game when it comes to our current crisis. Over the past several years, I didn’t give much attention to the overall agenda that has now become full blown. When the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray, occurred I thought they were sad events. However, I honestly did not concern myself with the details of the cases. Nor did I think about all the things we were not being told.
From my recollection, the Church was not invested then (2012-13) as it is now in the Social Justice Movement. Of course, there were sermons that preached of racial reconciliation. However, racial reconciliation and social justice are two different concepts. Much of our talk about racial reconciliation has morphed into guilt tripping another person to accept the social justice point of view. This is not reconciliation, this is manipulation. In short, this has become a bullying tactic of leftist politics.
For example, if you are on the front line fighting for “social justice” then you are “virtuous, pro-black/anti-racist, and respected.” If you disavow and denounce the movement, you are a racist and/or a coon that needs to be shunned. With that being said, how can this movement be compatible with the Church?
What is Social Justice?
I have observed very influential leaders from within American evangelicalism come to support “social justice”. Some advertise on there websites there advocacy for social justice, others openly preach about it, while others seem to be openly activists.
What is social justice? According to dictionary.com it defines social justice, “As fair treatment of all people in a society, including respect for the rights of minorities and equitable distribution of resources among members of a community.” Lets dive into this definition.
- Fair treatment of all people in a society. I totally agree with this statement. Every human being should be treated fairly.
- Including respect for the rights of minorities. This is where things begin to go south. The assumption within this statement is that minorities, particularly blacks (although there is an attempt to merge the LGBT community with the black community), rights are not respected. The launching pad for this assumption stems from the narrative that says blacks are being killed by whites due to there race. More specifically, white law enforcement disproportionately murders blacks due to there skin color; therefore, social justice should be a priority for all.
There are major problems with this narrative that do not add up. Currently, much of the rage in the nation stems from the deaths/shootings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Jacob Blake. Although the events concerning the above individuals were tragic, does this mean these events were racially motivated? It seems as these events unfolded, it was automatically assumed that the reason why the victim was killed or shot is because the accused was “racist”. And if a court of law does not convict the perpetrator with a hard sentence, the system is “racist”.
What we do not hear through the media, nor by prominent church leaders is that blacks are not the only ones being shot and killed unarmed by law enforcement. There are actually more whites being shot unarmed by the police than blacks. However, blacks are twice as more to be shot by police than whites. This seems to be due to blacks contributing to 52% of all violent crime while only being 13% of the population. In addition, statistics show that blacks kill more whites than whites kill blacks by more than 40% over the last 40 years. Why doesn’t the Social Justice Movement bring up this information? Why doesn’t prominent leaders within the Church that support the Social Justice Movement bring this up?
The Inequality of Information Distribution
Another anomaly that contributes to this false pursuit of equality, is the inequality of information distribution. What do I mean? All of the major news networks have a penchant to report black unarmed killings by white police officers (and even air the trials), while “mysteriously” ignoring whites being killed by white/black officers. Obviously, our corporate news media are not equally distributing news. Would you agree it is a bit difficult to achieve national equality when the media continues to distribute content that will fan the flames of “inequality”?
A couple of examples.
- George Floyd, a black man, was killed by police while being in custody. The video showed a police officer with his knee being applied to Mr. Floyd’s neck. The video was horrific. However, a very similar case occurred with Tony Timpa, a white man, who was in police custody in 2017. A police officer who was kneeling on the back of Mr. Timpa while he was faced down in the grass, died while pleading for help. By the way, the police officers were never convicted of a crime and there was not much of any national news coverage.
- Breonna Taylor, a black woman, was caught in the crossfire after her boyfriend fired on police during a narcotics raid. This story got national attention and the lie that was sold was Breonna was in her bed sleep when police shot and killed her. Ironically enough, around the same time of Breonna Taylor being killed, a white man by the name of Duncan Lemp, was killed while sleeping in his bed according to eyewitnesses. The bodycam of the officers involved has never been released and this story got minimal national coverage.
- Jacob Blake, a black man, was shot by police after he had a police contact due to a warrant and domestic dispute. He was resisting arrest, failed to obey the commands of police, and reached in his vehicle for a weapon. He was shot seven times in the back while reaching for the weapon. Of course, this story got national coverage. However, a similar case involving Ariel Roman, a white man and black police officers, were involved in an altercation in which he was resisting arrest and while he was not posing a threat to the officers, he was shot twice. Once in the abdomen and once in the buttocks while running away. This story did not receive national coverage.
I can list many other stories such as Dillion Taylor, Jeremy Mardis, Gil Collar, Zachary Hammond, Dylan Noble, etc all which whom were white and unarmed but were killed by police. The point is the news distribution is inequitable which contributes to the inequality narrative.
A good portion of American culture is driven by what national news reports. The purpose of the press is suppose to be an objective watchdog when it comes to government and society. However, what happens when the corporate news media poses as being “objective” but in reality has its own agenda due to being controlled by global elites? Objectivity is thrown out the window and is replaced with radical bias. Therefore, attempting to achieve equality when this institution has unbalanced scales and measures, makes the task for equality nearly impossible. They know at any given time, they can drum up fear, anger, and consternation in the black community by cherry picking stories that give the perception of a tragic racist encounter. As a result of this institution’s controlling the levers of emotion and perception, the pursuit of equality, is a chasing after the wind.
If I can observe these truths, cannot any of our prominent church leaders? And if they did, would they have the courage to stand against this false narrative?
The Invasion of Socialism
Lets return back to the final half of the definition of social justice.
- Equitable distribution of resources among members of a community. Essentially, this speaks of the political ideology of socialism. A definition of socialism, “A theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.” In short, socialism largely is a system that advocates for higher taxes and the redistribution of wealth. Some of the prominent leaders within the Church that support SJM, also support the notion of reparations for blacks. This is largely because the narrative depicts blacks as being mistreated which dates back to slavery.
One prominent evangelical pastor preached a sermon recently stating that black Americans deserve compensation on a massive scale for slavery and racial injustice. He states,
“Reparations has to be comprehensive because the offenses were everything from emotional to economic… HBCUs funded for the next 200 years. Next 200 years…. Descendants of slaves not paying for college for 200 years. Nobody. And canceling every black person’s student loan debt. And repaying blacks who paid for student loans.”
He also stated that blacks need psychological reparations because slavery still effects blacks.
This, in a nutshell, encompasses the SJM. 1. Blacks have been mistreated. 2. It’s systemic that goes back to the founding of this nation. 3. The “system” needs to be overthrown to make it more fair. Indeed, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza stated, “It’s not possible for black lives to matter under capitalism. It’s not possible to abolish capitalism without a struggle against national oppression and gender oppression.” Patricia Cullors another co-founder of Black Lives Matter stated, “Myself and Alicia are trained Marxists.”
One can look at North Korea, China, USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, etc and view how socialism fails and drifts into full-fledged communism, which is truly “oppressive”, especially for Christians. Why would any Christian leader want to attach her/himself to the SJM? There are others that attempt to tow the line. They will not overtly come out and say they support the movement. However, they will NOT denounce the movement AND the rhetoric they employ seems to suggest they are accepting to it.
In saying all this, this is the “philosophy” that has invaded the church and taken many captive in our day. The political philosophy of our day is a bit different on the surface from the philosophy that Paul dealt with in Colosse. However, as you will see in my next blog, the roots to the “philosophy” are practically the same.
Sources
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/
- https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/
- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls
- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls
- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls
- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2015.xls
- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2014.xls
- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls
- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2012.xls
- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6
- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl06.xls
- DOJ 1980-2008 Homicide, Page 13, 20a displays the homicide of white on black and black on white.https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf
- https://www.dailywire.com/news/7-statistics-you-need-know-about-black-black-crime-aaron-bandler
- https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investigations/2019/07/31/you-re-gonna-kill-me-dallas-police-body-cam-footage-reveals-the-final-minutes-of-tony-timpa-s-life/?fbclid=IwAR3B4R1l7iAdxmszoarpkOdIiT6dm7nE2UNyDQYhw6ulIdeBbW4u2Rz4QNQ
- https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR0T8UcvRx_ATRTlA-mBgm2aA1JK_WxCAkcB5FUGkW4kiooKWh2JxmyY79w&feature=youtu.be&v=_c-E_i8Q5G0
- https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/63943132/breonna-taylor-summary-redacted1
- https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawyer-man-asleep-police-fired-house-killing-69587748
- https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawyer-man-asleep-police-fired-house-killing-69587748
- https://newsone.com/3906412/black-cop-shoots-unarmed-white-man-viral-video/?fbclid=IwAR0OsMgh-TSONjdrNdWosFpO_V7yoNRAncw_DWpjeFpcEfqdbQym0dyJeRw
- https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12489810/pastor-demands-reparations-200-years-free-college/
- https://www.facebook.com/19420215926/posts/10157404150255927/?vh=e&extid=0
- https://youtu.be/HgEUbSzOTZ8
