The Paradoxical Progressive Playbook from an Outsider's Perspective

A week after the 2016 presidential election, news networks and liberals are still scratching their heads wondering what went wrong.  There has been no shortage of op-ed pieces written on this matter, so instead of offering up more opinions as to why Hillary Clinton lost, perhaps it would help to present an outsider's perspective of the progressive liberal agenda as a mirror to help progressives see what outsiders' see.

From a pragmatic perspective, the progressive narrative dominating modern American culture does not seem compassionate, logical, or hopeful.  Instead of presenting a dream for a better future, progressive ideals place America on a destructive trajectory. The progressive playbook looks more like a toxic pile of insulting labels and paradoxical talking points than any reasonable or helpful plan for positive change, so those outside of progressive herds refused to support such dismal plans with their votes. An outsider's observations of the progressives' rule book for playing the social change game, with all its many contradictions, are listed below.

The Paradoxical Progressive Playbook

An Outsider's Perspective

• Truth is relative and tolerance is encouraged, except with regard to progressive platforms.  To join the progressive club, you must hold all views in common with the progressive elites. Comments, questions, or suggestions that oppose the progressive talking points will not be tolerated under any circumstance.  The marketplace of ideas now only has room for our ideas. Progressives value diversity as long as everyone thinks like we do. Freedom of speech is applauded during progressive protest events, but any speech that differs in content from ours must be silenced immediately. Use force when necessary.

• Even though wealthy Americans and business owners create jobs, build the economy, support their communities, and give generously to charity, they are a menace to society and must be punished.  Exceptions exist for wealthy businessmen who financially support our cause and collude with progressive minded politicians like Michael Froman, a former Citibank executive, did when he purchased the right to appoint Obama’s cabinet members. As for the others who do not advance our new social order, we don’t need the jobs they create anyway since we can choose to not work and live off entitlements or to work for the government or globalist billionaires as community organizers, protestors, lobbyists, and politicians.

• Facts never matter to us. We are ruled by our feelings, even when our feelings lie to us.  No matter how well people support their arguments with facts, if what they say makes us feel uncomfortable or compromises the validity of our worldview, they are wrong. Remember that there is no right or wrong, but we are always right, and they are always wrong.

• Progressives are free spirits. We think outside-of-the-box. We will not let conservatives tell us what to do with our bodies! We support socialized health care because the government can make better decisions about our healthcare and our bodies than we can, except with regard to abortion.  We just need to make sure progressive elites maintain control of our national healthcare syste because they are so interested in fanticide and euthanasia, they will tell us to abort anyway, especially if we're poor, black, or some other "weed". (Also note Alan Guttmacher's work regarding Planned Parenthood, abortion, and euthanasia.)

"It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extirpation of defective stocks — those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization." - Margaret Sanger,  8 April 1923 New York Times article

• To manage conflict, shut-down all conversations involving opposing worldviews. Preferred progressive methods for ending uncomfortable conversations include:  

1. Make broad sweeping statements to categorize and insult entire groups of people even if the person holding the opposing viewpoint does not characterize that group as a whole.
2. Use elementary school style bullying as needed.
3. Complain that your feelings art hurt and start the water works.
4. Protest, riot, and commit acts of violence that will attract the media and provide free press for the progressive platform.
5. Apply labels liberally.  Popular progress labels include "sexist", "bigot" "racist", "intolerant", "xenophobic", "intolerant", "supremacist", and "nationalist".

• People do not kill people.  The NRA and guns kill people, so support all efforts to ban guns and bankrupt the NRA. Allowed exceptions include arming terrorists  and running guns to drug cartels because the progressive government leaders who made those decisions know far better than we do what is best. If we ban guns and set up more gun-free zones, then we will be safe because terrorists and criminals do not break our laws.We can trust the Democrats in federal government (who let our men die in Benghazi despite repeated pleas for help not just from Ambassador Stephens and even from the Pentagon who had reinforcements ready and waiting to defend them) to protect us, so why would we ever need to protect ourselves?

• Progressives support the interests of the LGBTQ community except when terrorists want to shoot them all in a bar in Orlando. In that case, the FBI stopped all investigations surrounding suspected terrorist Omar Matten due to FBI limitations.  We would not consider tightening the borders or keeping out the terrorists who have a deeper level of hatred for gays as as long as the nations that fund terror also fund our cause with many millions of dollars. 

• Even though America was founded on Christian principles which even Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (both of whom were not Christians) insisted were vital for democracy’s survival (we're writing all that out of the revised history books), even though Christians continue to be the most generous people on earth with their time and their money, even though faith based ministries provide more effective world relief and humanitarian aid than secular or government programs, and even though Biblical truth and strong Christian faith were what drove William Wilberforce, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Abraham Lincoln, and U.S. Republicans to take great risks to free the oppressed, Christianity must be suppressed because it hinders our ultimate goal of suppressing all mankind.

•  Since so many people have suffered and died in the name of religion, and since Catholics and evangelical Christians oppose our revolutionary ideas, both groups should be punished. To ensure that their influence dies, we will infiltrate their churches with wolves in sheep's clothing who will pretend to be like them but lead them all astray. (Reference "Catholic Spring" in the Podesta emails at WikiLeaks.)  Note how many have died under evangelical dictators in the chart below compared to atheists. Oops, evangelicals are note even listed in the top 10, but we do see 15 million killed under a Catholic dictator who was far more corrupt than he was Catholic.  Just don't look at how many people were killed by atheists, as our globalist minded financial backers are atheists, and we don't want to portray them as mass murderers. This chart only shows dictators, but while evangelicals and Catholics oppose dictatorships, progressives aren't for dictatorships either...well, not yet anyway, but that is where our agenda ultimately leads. It will be fine, though.  While ultimate power ultimately corrupts, these wealthy men who are vying for dictator status are on our side....at least for now. Oh never mind!

Source

• So evangelicals are not mass murderers, but they oppose our "Constitutionally protected" right to kill out own children which overrules the child's God given right to life (in our minds anyway), and that’s a problem. Imagine what the world would be like if the 58 million Americans* aborted since 1973 had been allowed to live, love, laugh, learn and give back. We are not like the tyrants in the chart above because we only mass murder innocent people whom Planned Parenthood operatives convince us will make our lives inconvenient. 

*53 million from 1973 through 2011 plus approximately 1 million per year since in the U.S. alone 

• Evangelical beliefs are far more radical than ours, especially in the way they treat women and children. Evangelicals actually teach that children are not an inconvenience but rather, a blessing and a gift from the Lord. They think separation of church and state means the government cannot dictate how they practice their faith, but we will make sure they are forced by law to pay for our abortions. Evangelical and Catholics are barbaric in the way they describe the partial birth procedure. Their medical accuracy and pictures make us feel guilty. (Remember again that anyone who makes you feel uncomfortable is wrong!).  The partial birth procedure is nothing more than turning the baby into a breech position (which is harmful for the mother, but losing sleep because of a baby's cries is no picnic either), and delivering the healthy, full-term baby backward, all except the head, and then while the body hangs out of the mother's body, the doctor simply pokes his scissors into the skull and then sucks the brains out.  It hurts like the dickens, but the full term healthy and vibrant fetal mass does not suffer forever. 

• Progressives are so much more humane and loving than gun toters. They hunt for food or for sport and call it conservationism.  We would not kill a flee on our pets, much less kill a large animal, and we protest like crazy when a gorilla is killed at the Cincinnati zoo to save a boy’s life.

• Thanks to the federal government’s progressive move to underwrite college education (which drove tuition prices sky high, but we don't care because unsustainable federal debt will bring down America and that is our end goal), progressive academia, college students, and millennials are now the most indoctrinated educated members of society. They are so indoctrinated educated that they can recite an entire diversity training manual from memory.  Some are so versed in social justice warrior skills that they can earn a PhD for a dissertation that labels STEM curricula as sexist on the premise that women cannot think objectively!  Post- doctoral research has become so advanced that one astute professor conducted a study that proved that pumpkins are racist!  While these educated progressives have no comprehension of basic economics, finance, history, civics, logic, or rhetoric, and cannot recite a single line from the U.S. Constitution, they know that Roe V. Wade gave them the freedom to abort babies.  They have no concept of communism or its ill effects. Nearly two-thirds of millennials surveyed agree with Marxist philosophy and 46% think socialism is good while 58% view capitalism unfavorably (view full survey results here), but that's good for our cause because socialism is a prerequisite for world domination, and capitalism works against us since it tends to restore failing economies.  They have no concept of the value of human liberty or of the ultimate price paid by countless American patriots to preserve it, so they would gladly trade their freedom, which has infinite worth, for free stuff the government buys with hard working taxpayers' money. They have no concept of limited resources or the implications of oppressive debt loads, but they have lots of ideas for ways to spend other people’s hard earned money. Progressive college students do not know how to handle disappointment as illustrated by the recent rioting, and they cannot deal with real life outside of their safe spaces, but they are expert protestors and have mastered the art of political correctness.  They will suit our  agenda perfectly.

• Even though slavery existed in every ancient civilization and continued through the Babylonian, Greek, and Roman empires, all through the Middle Ages, around the Mediterranean region, throughout Arabia and Africa, and grew during the 10th century German expansion during which so many Slavs were taken as slaves that we derived our generic term “slave” from them), and even though slavery spread to Russia and the entire Baltic sea region and on to Portugal, Europe, Britain, the West Indies, and the U.S. colonies, white Americans are the only ones to blame for slavery**, even if white Americans have no genetic connection to slave owners and even if they are descendants of abolitionists. White Anglo-Saxons did not start slavery, but they did lead the efforts to abolish it. Even so, we will punish all whites forever no matter how much they stand up against racial injustice now.

**Please note that conservative Christians hold to a Biblical, benevolent patriotism.  We seek to manage our resources wisely, grow our economy, and honor God so that as He pours blessings upon us, we may be a blessing to other nations.  Our patriotism must never be a selfish, racist, or imperialistic nationalism. It's not about more for us, but about providing more benefits to the entire world through wise stewardship of the resources God has given us. 

• Even though slavery still exists in America for people of all colors and nationalities here in the U.S. and abroad through human trafficking and radical Islam, and even though conservative Christians of all races strive to set them free out of human compassion and in memory of all who have suffered in slavery before them,  progressives tend to ignore such injustice going on right now all around us because we are so consumed with injustices of the past.  Besides, we rae more likely to stir up the racial division and the violent street drama George Soros wants by rehashing past injustices, making everyone feel guilty, and punishing the majority.  Instead of fighting against current slavery and gross injustice in a way that could save and heal countless lives, families, marriages, and cultures, we will accept financial donations from nations who encourage and support human trafficking. We will preserve and expand pornography and lewd entertainment both in pop music culture and in darker corners of the internet, child pornography, and pedophilia in the name of free speech, free love, and free sexual expression, no matter how violent or inhumane, to increase the demand for trafficked victims. Those who fund us profit most when we support sexual slavery, and those of us who choose to indulge in the lusts of the flesh enjoy the easy access, so it’s a win/win.

• America is not great and never has been great.  Thus, America must be punished, weakened, marginalized and depressed so that the U.S. can no longer bring freedom, hope, healing, and charity to suffering people around the world.  The weaker America becomes, the more our wealthy, corrupt sugar daddies can radically transform America into vassal nation with no foundation of morality, no respect for the traditional family or the stability it brings to a nation, no rule of law, no respect for others, and no order at all.  In such a helpless estate, America will be poised and ready to become slaves to a corrupt, unaccountable, powerful, tyrannical global government. 

We ordinary outsiders whom progressives failed to consider during the 2016 election, are ruled by truth and common sense instead of progressive indoctrination and feelings, so we see the progressive agenda differently than they do.  It is an extremely clever strategy, especially as it has infiltrated schools, churches, and the media to totally transform how and what people think, but we wonder if the individuals who buy into this movement are being duped by their masters, or if they are deliberately allowing themselves to be used as pawns to dismantle America and to further the globalists' dream of uniting the entire world under their authority.  Such a notion may seem like a radical right wing conspiracy theory, but after 30 years of observing compounding evidence and perusing recent WikiLeaks and FBI reports, it is almost impossible to refute.  This 15 minute video provides a quick summary of all those years of evidence and outlines the globalists' strategy.

The Bible provides God's opinion on globalism in the book of Genesis. God initially created the earth to be one global community under His perfectly loving, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent reign, but the fall of man corrupted that perfect design.  The Tower of Babel account in Genesis 11: 1-11 shows man's attempt to unite as one global community, filled with pride and lust for power.  In His mercy, God disrupted their plans and spread the people out into unique nations with different languages to prevent them from become slaves to all- powerful, unaccountable, corrupt, global rulers.  When Christ returns to judge the earth, He will establish a unified kingdom, but peace, unity, and goodness are only possible under His reign, for only He is completely righteous, all knowing, and perfect in love and grace. Only God Himself can rightly manage that much power in truth and justice. Until he returns, antichrists will come and go. They will deny the truth, reject God, and seek to rule over people as gods.  But believers must be discerning and reject false teaching.  It should come as no surprise that George Soros and his posse of globalists, coming together under Soros' Open Society Foundation (aka Open Borders Society), are secular humanists who despise God and deceive and destroy that which God created for good.

⁷ I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. ⁸ Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. ⁹ Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. ¹⁰ If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. ¹¹ Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work. (2 John 2: 7-11)

Pride, Prejudice, and Privilege: The One Privilege Available to All Who Choose It

As racism has increasingly become a heated issue again in America, I've been trying to better understand what it means to have white privilege.  As I have listened to personal stories and read documentaries, I hope I am now more aware of the verbal slights, false assumptions, and undervaluing that still takes place.  I am asking the Lord to make me more aware and to guide me in defending and honoring those who are still being treated unfairly based on race.  The sordid crimes committed against black Americans in our nation's history are deplorable, and I am so sorry to learn how much racism is still rooted in the hearts of more than a few Americans. May we each ask the Lord to search our hearts and expose those areas that are still full of pride and prejudice. (Psalm 139:23-24)

I want to be very careful not to minimize what the black community has suffered, for to do so would be unloving indeed. As we search for evidences of white privilege (as defined in contrast to the negative experiences unique to black Americans), however, let us not forget to consider other privileges we experience that others are denied.  As with white privilege, some of our other privileges are the direct or indirect result of the oppression of others. 

Colonial Oppression of Native Americans
Let us consider the oppression of indigenous Americans during the time of early European colonization up until and after The Indian Removal Act of 1830.  They were forced to leave the land they had rightly claimed and toiled so diligently to tame, settle, and make fruitful.  Then they had to make the treacherous journey along the Trail of Tears to be displaced in a wild, unsettled environment better suited for different crops, animals, and modes of survival.  The colonists reaped the benefits of all the natives' labors while the natives had to learn a new way of life in a foreign territory.  The white settlers enjoyed colonial privilege while Native Americans paid the price. 

(Hardworking taxpayers experience a small sliver of this injustice when they take great risks, make huge sacrifices, and labor tirelessly to provide for their families and local communities only to have over half of their income taken through layers of taxation to pay for wasteful government spending and to provide not only for those in legitimate need, but also for those who refuse to work.)

As illustrated in the legendary artwork of Willard Stone's Trail of Tears Trilogy (pictured below), Native Americans have commemorated and preserved the memory of  all they have suffered. Interestingly, they do not merely consider their own sufferings but the sufferings of others as well. Instead of holding onto bitterness, they planted renewed hope as they built new lives for themselves. With fortified faith and unwavering determination, they worked together to heal, renew, rebuild and restore what had been taken from them. Through forgiveness, gratitude to God, wise stewardship, and diligent labor, they prospered once again and became some of the most patriotic citizens in America, with many serving valiantly in the armed forces.  They have grown the economy, created and filled jobs, invested in their communities, and contributed large percentages of their hard earned income through taxes to the same government structure that once so severely mistreated them. 

The Trail of Tears Trilogy

The first trilogy masterpiece Exodus, was commissioned in 1967 by the Cherokee Historical Society.  It is a large walnut sculpture composed of two teardrops, one balancing the other on a base representing the contour of the earth, honoring the Cherokee experience during the tribe's forced removal by the U.S. government from their traditional homelands in the East.  In describing the piece, Stone said, "I have tried to capture the tragedy and heavy load of sorrow and heartache being overcome by the Cherokee's courage and determination.  I have tried to boil down and bring into focus the heavy load of life the whole mankind carries and put it into an individual mother and child."

The Exodus (walnut)

The 1967, the Cherokee Heritage Society commissioned the second part of the trilogy.  Transplant depicts a Cherokee mother and child after the ordeal of the removal.  Stone described this piece as showing that "By faith, enough survived the Trail of Tears to seed the new land. By faith, they will sprout and make it better. For this they give thanks." 

Transplant

The final part of the trilogy, Uprooted, was completed in 1980.  In Stone's words, this culture represents the Cherokees "pulling away from the ground they had been living on from the time they were born." It also represents "any people who are forced from their land because of the greed or lust of some more powerful race." It is carved in the stump of a red cedar.

Uprooted (one side)

Uprooted (other side)

During The Great Depression, some Native Americans considered themselves to be the privileged ones because they could survive and thrive by simply living off of the land.  Stone's self-portrait in pencil below shows the happy contentment he experienced as an early teenager while stressed-out,  big city dwellers in the East were, as Stone commented, "jumping out of windows or going insane".  Growing up in rural Oklahoma after the Indian Removal Act, he enjoyed farming, hunting, fishing, swimming, roping goats, roasting peanuts, playing games and having house parties.  His people were less affected by the financial crisis because they were self-sufficient. While the colonists enjoyed unfair privileges through the oppression of Native Americans, the Cherokee people let the trials make them stronger which gave them the well-deserved privilege of resilience.  When Stone's work gained national attention, he had to travel to Manhattan for art related events.  He once wrote after spending a few weeks in New York for art exhibits that he wouldn't trade one acre of rural Oklahoma for all of Manhattan. Despite the oppression of the Native American people, they found joy, peace and contentment through forgiveness and resilience.

Willard Stone's Pre-Teen Self Portrait

(Note:  I could have referenced various forms of racial tensions following World War II instead, but since I have more personal experience with Native American people, I used them as my primary example.)

Other Privileges

While both African Americans and Native Americans have suffered oppression under the hand of white men, privilege comes in many other forms as well.

• If you can read, you have literacy privilege unlike 13.9% of the world's population.

• If you are living off more than $10 a day, you have more to spend than 80% of the global population, which gives you significant wealth privilege.

• If you are NOT currently enslaved for labor or for sex, you have a degree of freedom privilege that 29.8 million people around the world do not.

• Every child that is born instead of being aborted in the U.S. has been given what should be the most fundamental human right, life, but since life is now the mother's choice and not the child's, to be allowed to be born and live is now considered a privilege in America.  At least 730,322 children (18%) did not get to experience that privilege last year (down from 22.6% in 2006) because they were murdered in the womb.  The abortion rate was 52% in Russia during 2006, so being born in America statistically increases your birth privilege rate by 289%. (These figures do not include the significant number of lives terminated by the morning after pill.)

• If you had the freedom to choose your field of study and vocation, you have career privilege not commonly available in communist countries.

• If you have the freedom to fully pursue life, liberty, happiness, and prosperity on your own volition, then you have opportunity privileges not generally available in socialist and communist nations.

• If you are pregnant, have minority status and/or identify as LGBTQ while employed in the U.S., you have more job security privilege than white males.  Business attorneys consider you to be untouchable.  The odds that your job will be eliminated during a business reorganization are much lower than non-protected classes because EEO laws are biased in your favor.  While white males are easily let go simply because the management found someone they like better, those with protected classes could be overtly negligent, devalue the company, and fail to meet basic expectations without ever seeing a pink slip.  (This is not to say that EEO laws are not necessary or that they do not have their rightful place in giving certain classes the equal opportunities they deserve.  It only shows that the outcomes of such legal manipulation are biased.)

• If you were not raised in the south or have somehow managed to avoid developing a Southern accent, then you have linguistic privilege.  Southerners must work harder to earn respect and prove their intellect when conversing with non-southerners because of false assumptions and prejudice against their accent and/or dialect.

• If you have not risked your life to protect Americans and the U.S. Constitution through military or law enforcement service, then you have the privilege of being excluded from negative assumptions and accusations.  Far too many people assume veterans have impaired mental faculties and are unfit to carry a gun or to receive proper medical care. Others, including the NAACP, accuse the majority of full-time law enforcement employees (over 1.13 million), of being racist, even if they are black (the NAACP calls them "blue, not black"), and make them targets.

• The persecution of Christians is increasingly prevalent on university campuses. The ratio of Christians hired or promoted within universities has been falling in all fields of study but most dramatically in the humanities, while Christian students are ridiculed by professors and given lower grades if they do not adopt (or pretend to adopt) their professors' secular worldview (as I know all too well through personal experience). Even elite Ivy League universities where the prized marketplace of ideas once flourished are now censoring speech and prohibiting class discussion that contradicts the progressive secular worldview.  This anti-Christian bias in academia has created secular privilege for non-Christians. This bias has been growing for many decades. C.S. Lewis was possibly the most well-read, most gifted teacher on the planet during his lifetime with unmatched intelligence and communication skills, yet he was ostracized and denied promotion at Oxford University after his apologetic works were first published in the 1940s. The documentary, Expelled, uncovered evidence for this widespread bullying practices that prejudice against people of faith in academia 8 to 10 years ago  The oppression is still increasing today as described here.  

The Special Needs Community
If you have no physical or mental disabilities and no neurological or cognitive impairments that limit your ability to integrate independently into traditional daily life settings without accommodation, then the prejudices of this postmodern culture against the special needs community give you perceived ability privilege.  Far too many people assume that disabilities limit one's value or contribution to society.  After only a brief amount of time spent interacting with the special needs community, however, decent people should quickly realize that in many ways, these people have much more to teach us and to contribute than they ever realized. They have taught me better than anyone else how to enjoy life fully without the shackles of self-awareness, how to innovate and grow stronger through trials, the power of a smile to light up a room filled with gloomy people, and the sacred value of loving without limits. While the culture may prejudice against them, they have the privilege of displaying the glory of God. 

^"Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him." (John 9:3)

Joni Eareckson Tada was paralyzed as a teenager during a diving accident and fervently prayed for healing.  But when she visited locations in Jerusalem where Jesus had healed people, she found herself thanking God for not healing her because "that 'no' answer has left her depending more on God’s grace, has given her greater compassion for others, has reduced complaining, has increased her faith, has given her greater hope of heaven, and has caused her to love the Lord so much more." (Tim Challis) Tada came to see her paralysis as a privilege or a gift.
  
I could go on and on, for all of us likely have some form of privilege directly or indirectly because someone else is being treated differently.  Those I have mentioned as being privileged could just as easily point to another person who has a privilege they do not.

How Should We Address Injustice?
There are a lot of different movements and specific methods prescribed by social justice warriors to address these many social injustices. University of North Texas sociologist George Yancey describes the four primary secular models used to address racial issues in his book, Beyond Racial Gridlock.  These methods include:

1. Colorblindness
2. Anglo-Conformity
3. Multi-Culturalism
4. White Responsibility

Each model has advantages and disadvantages which are summarized succinctly in this post by Bruce Ashford, but not one has brought about the unity and racial reconciliation we desire or need for a number of different reasons both Yancey and Ashford describe.  I am convinced the primary reason these methods have failed is because secular models will NEVER solve spiritual problems.

Prejudice is a symptom of pride, and pride is the root of all evil. Pride is spiritual, not natural.

"As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you....
....The other, and less bad, vices come from the devil working on us through our animal nature. But this [pride] does not come from through our animal nature at all. It comes direct from Hell. It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly.....For Pride is a spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment or even common sense."  (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 8)

Comparison is what makes us proud.  When one person compares his plight to another and takes pleasure in having more or appearing superior to the other, then pride manifests itself as prejudice.  If one man finds the other has more than he does or if he is being victimized by the prejudice of another, then pride brews angry competitiveness, enmity, and a relentless pursuit to overcome the one who is superior in whatever attribute or possession is being compared. 

None of us is perfectly righteous or without some form of prejudice (Romans 3:23).  In fact, we each carry so much guilt that we could not possibly carry the blame or the guilt for what we have each done or failed to do individually, much less pay back the guilt for all the wrongs done by our society collectively.  Yet, that is what many keep asking us to do.  Are we to wallow in guilt for the rest of our lives, enslaved to debts we cannot possibly repay without ever finding the chance to accomplish something worthwhile in life?
  
Yancey's proposed better alternative is an attempt to combine the best aspects of each of the four primary secular models under a Biblical framework such that both individual and collective responsibility are acknowledged and owned.

"That model will recognize that God’s original creational design includes and invites unity-in-diversity, just as his plan for the new heavens and earth involves a resplendent ethnic and cultural unity-in-diversity. It will refuse to assign blame entirely on minority or majority group members, but instead will call both to repentance and entrust both with responsibility."  (Bruce Ashford)

While Native Americans may have diverse spiritual beliefs, their careful observation and respect for nature have long drawn them into worship, and we can see how they have modeled much of Yancey's proposed reconciliation model  Their willingness to throw off their grudges, forgive their oppressors, accept their new circumstances, express gratitude, and build new lives for themselves is commendable, but such a selfless response defies ordinary human nature, so it must come from God.

"Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you" (Ephesians 4:32)

Native Americans still preserve their cultural heritage while also seeking unity-in-diversity.  We own a bronze of Stone's Boots and Feathers walnut relief sculpture pictured below and display it our home as a symbol of both my husband's heritage and mine (which are quite different) intertwined to create our sacred family and as a reminder of the struggle for unity and the beauty found within a society that values and upholds unity-in-diversity.  Boots and Feathers depicts the artist's Native American daughter wearing a native headdress while trying on cowboy boots to illustrate their struggle to maintain their own cultural identity while adapting to the very different culture surrounding them.

 

 
Knowledge of the truth, which includes God's absolute truth and the facts of both our past history and our response to current events, should compel us to confess our sin.  Truth MUST then lead to repentance on every side.  We cannot undo the sins of the past, but we can confess and repent.  Repentance, by definition, requires us to leave our selfish pride and prejudice and to seek God's will, not our own. The first and biggest step toward humility and away from pride is to acknowledge and confess our pride. 

"If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed."  (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 8)

Repentance should then lead to change.  God's work in our hearts will compel us through love and conviction to defend the oppressed and marginalized, to resist pride, and to continually surrender our will to His. 

The Perfect Privilege that Provides Perspective
Let me back up for a moment and emphasize that confession, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation are not possible by human effort alone.  No matter how many times we apologize, no matter what social justice movements we lead, and no matter what reparations we make, we will never fully atone for it all or appease everyone who has ever been treated unjustly.  Only someone with perfect wisdom, perfect righteousness and infinite love could avoid all these sins and love completely, fully, and unconditionally. And only that perfect One can bear the weight of all our sins past, present, and future and pay our debts in full. Only the promised Messiah could suffer to such an extent for those who hated and despised him and then extend forgiveness.

But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.(Luke 23:34)

Christ never committed a single sin, yet He was tempted more than any of us.  He deserves all our praise, yet He suffered more than anyone on our behalf. 

If you've been abused, beaten unmercifully, despised, rejected, tortured, or oppressed, He understands, for He endured all those things too.

If you've been mistreated, disrespected, robbed, ridiculed, slandered, spat upon, or scorned unjustly, then you are sharing in His sufferings, and He can comfort you like no other.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Corinthians 1: 3-4)

If people flee from you, mistrust you, accuse you, or act repulsed by you because of your race, ethnicity, or heritage, He knows how you feel. He's been there and done that.  If your family abandoned you, your friends betrayed you, or your closest friends denied you, be comforted in knowing He suffered the same for you.  After the sin debt was paid in full, He rose again, and He will come back to raise up all who have accepted His free gift and welcomed Him in as Lord of their lives.

After two thousand years of experiencing divine encounters, watching prophecies fulfilled exactly, witnessing transformed lives, and receiving matchless grace, inspired teaching, and access to the perfect wisdom, everlasting hope, and life direction found through His inspired word, multitudes around the world still reject Him. Yet His loving compassion never fails.  (Lamentations 3:22)  He still stands ready to extend forgiveness, personal relationship, everlasting life, and a vast inheritance to all who believe, repent, and follow Him.

Any privileges (white or otherwise) we experience in this earthly life, whether freely given or unjustly taken, are worth nothing compared to the privilege we are all called to share as partakers of His grace.

 "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ," (Philippians 3: 7-8)

Note the stark difference between the privilege we have in Christ compared to the other privileges listed above.  That difference hinges on choice.  In the examples listed above, the victim does not choose to be oppressed or disadvantaged. Their suffering is placed upon them by someone else or by circumstances outside of their control.  Similarly, the privilege we define as not having to suffer under the same conditions are abuses as someone else, is also not something we choose for ourselves.  We can't choose our race, birthplace, gender, DNA, heritage, etc.  We can only choose how to respond to oppression or privilege.

The inverse is true with Christ.  He chose humility and the life of a suffering servant. He chose to bear all our sins on the cross while remaining perfectly sinless Himself. Love compelled Him to suffer and die to save His oppressors from a debt they could never repay. 

Who can comprehend the depths and heights of such love?  We are privileged beyond measure in Christ! Instead of telling us to check our privilege at the door like Harvard students were instructed to do at orientation, Christ instructs us to wear the privilege He won for us on the cross.  That privilege is the only way we can pass through the door from this life to eternal life with our God and King who is Lord of all righteousness, mercy and love.

²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.  (Ephesians 4:22-24)

Overcome Evil with Good

Killing innocent, sacred human life is grievous indeed, regardless of stage, age, race, religion, etc. But responding with hatred, violence, and criminal activity certainly does not help, especially when the facts of the case haven't even been released yet. No politician or riot will fix the problem of racism in our country because the root of racism is sin.

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:21)

As we have seen, however, misinformation is the fuel that keeps the flames of racism on every side growing larger and hotter. The facts presented at this link, "Keith Scott Shooting:  5 Facts - What you Know Maybe Wrong",  may be eye-opening for some, especially for those who did not realize that the police officer who shot Keith Scott was black or that he was holding a gun placing the police officers in a position of self defense, or it may seem irrelevant to others based on their real and deeply felt personal experiences.  Can we at least find a more productive way to address these issues based on truth and love instead of senseless violence? Let's ask hard questions and listen to each others' stories such as we see in this post where an African American woman respectfully shares her personal experiences to illustrate and define white privilege for a white friend who sincerely and lovingly seeks to understand.

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  (Matthew 5:43-45, NASB)