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

[Chris]

Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and Biblical Ethics is written by a Kelly Hamden who is a Christian knowledgable of Marxist-Leninist ideology. She presents her creds in the article. My interest is in the connection between Marxism and notion of systemic racism.

...Argument #1: Like all sin, racism originates in the human heart. Therefore, the solution to racism is for people’s hearts to change. “Systemic racism,” on the other hand, is a Marxist idea.

...If you believe in original sin (Genesis 3, Romans 5), you have to admit that any sin originates in the human heart. Sin might be aggravated by circumstances, but circumstances don’t cause sin. However, the conclusion that the solution to racism is for people’s hearts to change is true but incomplete.

If people are born in sin and people build a society, that society will be structured in ways that reinforce whatever sins dominate the hearts of those who build it. Therefore, even if many people’s hearts change a few generations later, those structures might still perpetuate the problems associated with that society’s “original sins.”

...Here is how the above arguments are distinct from Marxism:

Marxism posits that socio-economic forces create the problem, not that they perpetuate the problem. A true Marxist does not believe that individuals have essential selves apart from the historical contexts in which they develop.

As an atheistic philosophy, Marxism does not allow for belief in a soul, and therefore, people are merely the products of the world they live in (referred to as a “superstructure” of social norms, historical forces, religious ideas, etc.).

The way to change people is to change society, and, for those who follow the most progressive version of Marxism, to dismantle society and recreate it from the ground up (this is what Lenin tried to do in Russia and Mao Tsetung tried to do in China). I know people who hold to the most extreme version of this philosophy.

If you believe (as I do) that sin, such as racism, originates in the human heart and merely manifests itself in society, you can recognize the above project as fundamentally utopian. It won’t work because whatever society you build from scratch will still have problems (perhaps new ones, perhaps the same ones) because you won’t have fixed the source of the problems (the human heart)...

[midcan5]

Ah come on Chris, that is not worthy of the simplest consideration. How'd Marxism get in there? Oh I know, in the this writer's mind there must be a foe and counterpoint that stands in opposition to the real truth which this person presumes to hold. You must notice she never really gets into racism? Calling it a sin explains nothing.

Racism is about how you judge another person based on appearance and it is part of the tribalism that is the cause of much trouble in this world. We are good you are bad. You can place just about anything on either side of that dichotomy. For some that is the depth of their thought.

And Original sin has nothing to do with racism, although it is an interesting excuse. BLM is about black lives matter. It is to say we matter too. Seems kinda simple really. This author creates her own meaning and of course we are back to Marxism. An easy foe but meaningless. Of course LGBTQ enter too for we must mention them.

Systematic racism exists and the evidence is obvious to those who look. In the end her piece is, say it ain't so and we white Christians are really really good, don't look at history, don't look at discrimination, actually don't look.... Just make up shat.

A tough afterthought, when Nazi history is looked at closely consider that Christians were part of it.

Some links for thought.

'White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots In U.S. Christianity'

"Why didn't white Christians show up?" he recalled wondering. To his dismay, Cross learned that many of the people in the white mob were regular churchgoers. In the years that followed, he made it part of his ministry to educate his fellow Christians about the attack and prompt them to reflect on its meaning."

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/88311...s-christianity

'To be black and conscious of anti-black racism is to stare into the mirror of your own extinction.'

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...htmare/612457/

"White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded--about themselves and the world they live in. White people have managed to get through their entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac." James Baldwin

[midcan5]

This is what America has become under Trump and these so-called Christians. What this administration and Trump has done to these children is evil.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/...cy-87132741541

'Separated: Inside An American Tragedy'

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49604006-separated

[Chris]

Ah come on Chris, that is not worthy of the simplest consideration. How'd Marxism get in there? Oh I know, in the this writer's mind there must be a foe and counterpoint that stands in opposition to the real truth which this person presumes to hold. You must notice she never really gets into racism? Calling it a sin explains nothing.

Racism is about how you judge another person based on appearance and it is part of the tribalism that is the cause of much trouble in this world. We are good you are bad. You can place just about anything on either side of that dichotomy. For some that is the depth of their thought.

And Original sin has nothing to do with racism, although it is an interesting excuse. BLM is about black lives matter. It is to say we matter too. Seems kinda simple really. This author creates her own meaning and of course we are back to Marxism. An easy foe but meaningless. Of course LGBTQ enter too for we must mention them.

Systematic racism exists and the evidence is obvious to those who look. In the end her piece is, say it ain't so and we white Christians are really really good, don't look at history, don't look at discrimination, actually don't look.... Just make up shat.

A tough afterthought, when Nazi history is looked at closely consider that Christians were part of it.

Some links for thought.

'White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots In U.S. Christianity'

"Why didn't white Christians show up?" he recalled wondering. To his dismay, Cross learned that many of the people in the white mob were regular churchgoers. In the years that followed, he made it part of his ministry to educate his fellow Christians about the attack and prompt them to reflect on its meaning."

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/88311...s-christianity

'To be black and conscious of anti-black racism is to stare into the mirror of your own extinction.'

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...htmare/612457/

"White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded--about themselves and the world they live in. White people have managed to get through their entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac." James Baldwin

that is not worthy of the simplest consideration

And yet here you are.

How'd Marxism get in there?

The article explains that. You might read it.


Rest of your BS ignored.