No to the Politics of “Whiteness”
Written by Christopher F. Rufo |
Thursday, September 7, 2023
The vision of racialists, whether on the left or right, is pessimistic: the first is driven by a spirit of vengeance, the second by a sense of inferiority. They are two sides of the same coin. Despite real tensions and disparities, Americans are, on the whole, a tolerant, cooperative people who aspire to a colorblind standard, derived from the natural rights tradition, that remains the best guidepost for the country’s future.
In recent years, I have devoted considerable time to exposing the radical Left’s politics of “whiteness,” which posits that white identity, culture, and power are irredeemably oppressive and must be “abolished” in favor of alternative modes of being. “Whiteness” represents the metaphysical essence of left-wing race politics: an irreducible force of evil, a master synonym for racism, oppression, inequality, and suffocating bourgeois norms; anything saturated with its properties can be automatically categorized and condemned. In practice, the politics of whiteness has translated into the demonization of European-Americans in primary school curricula, the performance of elaborate “white privilege” rituals in the workplace, and outright segregation in many public institutions. All of it is done to solve “the problem of whiteness.”
Some pushback has resulted. In the years following the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, conservatives have exposed the poisonous politics of left-wing racialism, shutting down some of the bureaucracies that push it and proposing a reaffirmation of the ideal of colorblind equality. Unfortunately, some on the right would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, preferring instead to adopt the basic framework of identity politics and simply reverse its polarity. Dismayingly, a sentiment is rising in some corners of conservative politics that the answer to left-wing identity politics is right-wing identity politics.
The main argument for this position is that colorblind equality is unattainable. Left-wing racialism has been embedded in our institutions, laws, and policies to such an extent that it cannot be rolled back using conventional means. All politics is friend-enemy politics, this faction argues, and given the demographic decline of European Americans, whites will eventually need to activate “white racial consciousness” to secure their basic interests. European Americans once had robust ethnic identities, but after generations of assimilation and intermarriage, those distinctions have lost their salience and consolidated into a homogenous, generalized “white identity.” If there is to be a racial spoils system, then each group must get its share—including whites.
How should we evaluate this argument? First, as an empirical matter, some basic facts should be acknowledged. Yes, left-wing racialism is indeed now deeply embedded in America’s institutions, and the demographic balance of the country has shifted in recent decades. And yes, the basic racial classification system in the United States broadly delineates continental origin—Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia—in a way that is not arbitrary or meaningless. Terms such as “white,” “black,” “Latino,” and “Asian,” while often obscuring important variations within such groupings, have become the lingua franca and are useful shorthand descriptors for many purposes.
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Archbishop Viganò’s Startling Warning to the American People
We all know how much the mainstream media has contributed to supporting the insane pandemic narrative, the interests that are at stake, and the goals of these groups of power: reducing the world population, making those who survive chronically ill, and imposing forms of control that violate the fundamental rights and natural liberties of citizens. And yet, two years after this grotesque farce started, which has claimed more victims than a war and destroyed the social fabric, national economies, and the very foundations of the rule of law, nothing has changed in the policies of Nations and their response to the so-called pandemic.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is a noteworthy maverick within the Catholic Church hierarchy. He retired as papal nuncio to the United States in 2016 and has exposed what he sees as great scandals within his Church. This lengthy Wikipedia entry provides background.
The archbishop has issued a Christmas letter to the United States that is unusually blunt about what he sees as a conspiracy underlying the handling of COVID. Archbishop Vigano first shared this message with John Wells on Ark Midnight’s The Fortnight Intelligence Briefing. The letter was then published in Gateway Pundit but is presented here for readers’ convenience.
DEAR AMERICAN PEOPLE, DEAR FRIENDS, for two years now, a global coup has been carried out all over the world, planned for some time by an elite group of conspirators enslaved to the interests of international high finance. This coup was made possible by an emergency pandemic that is based on the premise of a virus that has a mortality rate almost analogous to that of any other seasonal flu virus, on the delegitimization and prohibition of effective treatments, and on the distribution of an experimental gene serum which is obviously ineffective, and which also clearly carries with it the danger of serious and even lethal side effects. We all know how much the mainstream media has contributed to supporting the insane pandemic narrative, the interests that are at stake, and the goals of these groups of power: reducing the world population, making those who survive chronically ill, and imposing forms of control that violate the fundamental rights and natural liberties of citizens. And yet, two years after this grotesque farce started, which has claimed more victims than a war and destroyed the social fabric, national economies, and the very foundations of the rule of law, nothing has changed in the policies of Nations and their response to the so-called pandemic.
Last year, when many still had not yet understood the gravity of the looming threat, I was among the first to denounce this coup, and I was promptly singled out as a conspiracy theorist. Today more and more people are opening their eyes and beginning to understand that the emergency pandemic and the”ecological emergency” are part of a criminal plan hatched by the World Economic Forum, the UN, the WHO, and a galaxy of organizations and foundations that are ideologically characterized as clearly anti-human and — this needs to be said clearly — anti-Christian.
One of the elements that unequivocally confirms the criminal nature of the Great Reset is the perfect synchrony with which all the different Nations are acting, demonstrating the existence of a single script under a single direction. And it is disconcerting to see how the lack of treatment, the deliberately wrong treatments that have been given in order to cause more deaths, the decision to impose lock downs and masks, the conspiratorial silence about the adverse effects of the so-called “vaccines” that are in fact gene serums, and the continuous repetition of culpable errors have all been possible thanks to the complicity of those who govern and the institutions. Political and religious leaders, representatives of the people, scientists and doctors, journalists and those who work in the media have literally betrayed their people, their laws, their Constitutions, and the most basic ethical principles.The electoral fraud of the 2020 presidential election against President Trump has shown itself to be organic to this global operation, because in order to impose illegitimate restrictions in violation of the principles of law it was necessary to be able to make use of an American President who would support the psycho-pandemic and support its narrative. The Democratic Party, part of the deep state, is carrying out its task as an accomplice of the system, just as the deep church finds in Bergoglio its own propagandist. The recent rulings of the Supreme Court and the autonomous action of some American states — where the vaccination obligation has been declared unconstitutional — give us hope that this criminal plan can collapseand that those responsible will be identified and tried: both in America as well as in the whole world.
How was it possible to arrive at such a betrayal? How have we come to be considered enemies by those who govern us, not in support of the common good, but rather to feed a hellish machine of death and slavery?
The answer is now clear: throughout the world, in the name of a perverted concept of freedom, we have progressively erased God from society and laws.We have denied that there is an eternal and transcendent principle, valid for all men of all times, to which the laws of States must conform. We have replaced this absolute principle with the arbitrariness of individuals, with the principle that everyone is his own legislator. -
Involving Ourselves in Every Controversy?
Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
We can easily become outraged over the sins of others–as David did when Nathan the prophet told him the story of the poor man’s stolen ewe lamb–while harboring sin that is every bit as egregious as that which we denounce. This is the very reason why our Lord used the figure of the speck and the log (Matt. 7:3-5). It’s quite difficult to want to involve ourselves in every controversy or to seek to correct every error when we remember the indwelling sin with which we are personally engaged in warfare every single day or our lives until Christ comes again.Part of the pernicious underbelly of the internet is that many allow themselves to be drawn into controversies about which they have no need to involve themselves. For many years, I too wanted juicy details about whatever controversy was swirling around in evangelical and Reformed circles. To my shame, I have either initiated or been on the receiving end of innumerable conversations that began with the statement, “Did you hear what just happened to so and so. . .?” So much of this belong to the realm of gossip rather than to the sphere of sanctified concern or justified probing. As Jerry Bridges has rightly noted, “Behind all of our gossip, slander, critical speech, insults, and sarcasm is our sinful heart. The tongue is only the instrument that reveals what’s in our hearts.” So what are we to do if we are to live informed lives without allowing ourselves to be drawn into foolish controversies in which we have no responsibility from God to involve ourselves? Here are a few helps:
1. Remember the Sphere of Your Calling from God
When the Lord drew me to himself in saving grace, He implanted in me a burning desire to preach the gospel. I believe that my conversion and my call to ministry occurred simultaneously. That being said, I was not called to pastor the universe. I was called by God to pastor specific local churches as specific times in my ministry. This means that my priority must be for the care of the needs of the people whom God has entrusted to me in the local church I serve. Just as Augustine referred to spheres of moral proximity, when answering the questions about caring for the welfare of those in need, so there is a moral proximity for pastors and people to care first and foremost for the spiritual needs of the people in the same body.
Of course, this does not mean that the sphere of responsibility stops at the local church. I happen to be a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. This means that it is my responsibility to concern myself with the spiritual condition of the churches in our denomination. However, within the PCA, we have regional Presbyteries that take precedent to the national court. If I neglect my responsibility to serve on committees and to care to the best of my ability for the spiritual health and wellbeing of the churches and ministers in our Presbytery because I want to give the better part of my time and energy to denominational controversies, then I am failing to fulfill the role to which God has called me. After giving ourselves to the care of the local church, we are to give ourselves first and foremost to the wider regional expression of our denominational affiliations.
This is not to say that ministers are not called to care for the wider church. It is right and good for ministers in the PCA to serve on denominational committees and agencies. It is important for pastors to labor for the peace and purity of the denomination at large. However, even within this sphere, great caution is needed. Many thrive on controversy.
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Good News for the Reformed Churches: Small is in Again
Written by R. Scott Clark |
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Smallish confessional Reformed congregations should not necessarily feel guilty about being small and socially insignificant. That has been the lot of most of the church for most of its history. The Roman empire, whose approval so many craved in the 4th and 5th centuries, no longer exists. The church continues. The Enlightenment did its best to destroy the church and, outwardly, in Europe and in the American mainline churches, it succeeded but the church still exists in Europe, the UK, and North America. It is flourishing in Africa, South Korea, and in many other parts of the globe.Cornerstone is part of the fastest-growing group of congregations in America: the minichurch. According to the recently released Faith Communities Today study, half of the congregations in the United States have 65 people or fewer, while two-thirds of congregations have fewer than 100.
That’s a marked change from two decades earlier, when the 2000 Faith Communities Today survey found the median congregation had 137 people and fewer than half of congregations had fewer than 100 people.So reports Bob Smietana for the Religious News Service. A recent study (the National Congregations Study) found “shrinking attendance figures” and a “median rate of change between 2015 and 2020 was a negative 7%.” Half of all congregations decreased by 7%. The average congregation in America is small but “the majority of churchgoers are worshipping in a congregation of about 400 people.” American churches are “being sorted into two kinds of churches—megachurches, and minichurches…”.
Now, it may be that “minichurches” are not ideal. As one who was a layman in the Reformed churches for a number of years and then a pastor in the Reformed churches (since 1987) I have seen and pastored my share of Reformed churches. The building pictured to the left was the renovated Standard gas station at the intersection of I-29 and I-35 in Kansas City, Missouri where my congregation met while I was there. We could hold perhaps 70 people. Most of the time we were about 40 or so. It was an intimate setting. The good news is that I knew everyone in the congregation fairly well. I have been gone since 1993 and I can still picture each face, where they sat. I remember well those who came and left and those who thought about coming but never did. I was in the homes of our members. I attended Kiwanis with some, high school football games with others. We developed a bond. There was a sense of community but it was a challenge for newcomers to become integrated into the life of the community. We all knew each other so well that anyone who visited was significantly behind the relational curve. How should the congregation relate to guests? If we paid too much attention we were in danger of smothering them but too little and we were in danger of being “cold.”
Then there was the little matter of surviving. If I told you our annual budget you would not believe me. The people gave sacrificially but we were really small. 20% of our tiny budget went toward the mortgage payment on the building. 65% of the budget went toward my salary (with no benefits). Were it not for the kindness of Richard Barr, who gave us a quarter of beef most years, and my in-laws who gave us cars and cash, life would have been very different. As it was, in the kind providence of God, we got by.
Most confessional Reformed congregations are small and many of them feel bad about it. Perhaps some of them should feel a bit guilty? Some of them are small and they like it that way and they do not much care if newcomers find and join them. Our congregation was anxious that the gospel should go out, that people might come to faith and join us. We wanted to grow but it was very hard to do that. Thankfully, the congregation has relocated, renamed itself (Northland Reformed Church, pictured left) and has grown.
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