The Ground Is Shifting

Here are eleven quotes from Fault Lines.

~~~~~~~~~~ quote 1 ~~~~~~~~~~

Those belonging to the social-justice crowd present themselves as the only ones pursuing justice, to the exclusion of all who disagree with their assessments—who, by that definition, are pursuing injustice.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the current struggle is that it mischaracterizes Christians that way too. On one side are “compassionate” Christians who are “concerned about justice.” On the other are “insensitive” Christians who are “not concerned about justice.” This is wrong.

I have pursued justice my entire Christian life. Yet I am about as “anti–social justice” as they come—not because I have abandoned my obligation to “strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14), but because I believe the current concept of social justice is incompatible with biblical Christianity.

This is the main fault line at the root of the current debate—the epicenter of the Big One that, when it finally shifts with all its force, threatens to split evangelicalism right down the middle. Our problem is a lack of clarity and charity in our debate over the place, priority, practice, and definition of justice (page 5).

~~~~~~~~~~ quote 2 ~~~~~~~~~~

There are two competing worldviews in this current cultural moment. One is the Critical Social Justice view—which assumes that the world is divided between the oppressors and the oppressed (white, heterosexual males are generally viewed as “the oppressor”). The other is what I will refer to in these pages as the biblical justice view in order to avoid what I accuse the social-justice crowd of doing, which is immediately casting its opponents as being opposed to justice. (In evangelical circles, that paints us as opposed to God Himself, since every effort has been made to demonstrate that “social justice is a Gospel issue.”) There are plenty of sincere, though perhaps naive Christians who, if they knew the ideology behind it, would run away from the term “social justice” like rats from a burning ship (page 6).

~~~~~~~~~~ quote 3 ~~~~~~~~~~

The current moment is akin to two people standing on either side of a major fault line just before it shifts. When the shift comes, the ground will open up, a divide that was once invisible will become visible, and the two will find themselves on opposite sides of it. That is what is happening in our day.…

No, I am not writing this book to stop the divide. I am writing to clearly identify the two sides of the fault line and to urge the reader to choose wisely (pages 6,7).

~~~~~~~~~~ quote 4 ~~~~~~~~~~

I grew up poor, without a father, and surrounded by drugs, gangs, violence, and disfunction in one of the toughest urban environments imaginable. Yet through all of that, I didn’t just survive; I thrived! Not because of government programs or white people “doing the work of anti-racism”; I thrived in large part because, by God’s grace, my mother protected me, sacrificed for me, advocated for me, and disciplined me.

Black people often take offense when they hear me speak about the importance of family and personal responsibility.…There are those to whom any response to the plight of black people in America that emphasizes something other than systemic racism, white supremacy, or white privilege is seen as “blaming the victim.”

Advocates of this victim mentality think the only thing that can cause a man like me to focus on the centrality of family and personal responsibility is internalized racism, a lack of sensitivity, catering to white folk, being out of touch with blackness and/or the black experience, or all of the above. Well, those people don’t know me. They don’t know my story. And, in fact, until you hear everything else I have to say, you don’t know my story either. It took more than a strong mother and a bus ride to South Carolina to save me (pages 19-20).

~~~~~~~~~~ quote 5 ~~~~~~~~~~

On the morning of October 5, 2016, a female officer in Chicago was nearly beaten to death because she was afraid to use her weapon. “She thought she was going to die,” her superintendent told reporters the next day. “She knew that she should shoot this guy, but she chose not to, because she didn’t want her family or the department to have to go through the scrutiny the next day on national news.”

This is just one example of how false narratives cost our society. There is one statistic underlying most of those narratives.

“The police are two and a half times more likely to shoot and kill a black man than a white man.” If you are like me, you have heard this number cited in sermons, read it in articles and blogs, and seen it in headlines everywhere you looked. And at first blush, it seems to make sense. More white people are killed by police (armed or unarmed), but black people make up only 13 percent of the population, so the ratio matters. Right?

Maybe.

I am not a mathematician. However, I did take and pass statistics in college. (It almost killed me, but I got through.) And one thing I took away from that experience is the maxim “correlation is not causation.” I have been reminded of this almost daily in recent years as I have been bombarded with statistics, but particularly with the oft-repeated 2.5-to-1. The implication is that this stat “proves” sys- temic racism. Whenever you hear this mantra, I hope you remember Proverbs 18:17: “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” And this “one who states his case” must be examined in light of 1) the nature of the claim itself, 2) the individual cases that are frequently cited as evidence of the claim’s veracity, and 3) the inconvenient truth about interracial vio- lence in America. When we examine the 2.5-to-1 stat in these ways, we discover it does not hold up (pages 47-48).

The best research on the topic of fatal officer-involved shootings (FOIS) has been clear, as were the findings of Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. in a forthcoming study. “On the most extreme use of force, FOIS,” he writes, “we find no racial difference in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account.” Fryer was actually surprised by his findings.

Meanwhile, a National Academy of Sciences study ignited contro- versy when its authors proclaimed, “We find no evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities across shootings, and White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.” More fundamentally, the researchers noted that “using population as a bench- mark makes the strong assumption that White and Black civilians have equal exposure to situations that result in FOIS,” which is the only way the 2.5-to-1 ratio could be viewed as prima facie evidence of police bias. Instead, they noted that contrary to the accepted narrative, “If there are racial differences in exposure to these situations, calculations of racial disparity based on population benchmarks will be misleading.” In other words, the 2.5-to-1 ratio, taken at face value, is actually misleading (pages 48-49).

~~~~~~~~~~ quote 6 ~~~~~~~~~~

Antiracism [is a new religion—or more accurately, a new cult—in America that] offers no salvation—only perpetual penance in an effort to battle an incurable disease (p. 67).

~~~~~~~~~~ quote 7 ~~~~~~~~~~

At the heart of the “woke” movement lies the idea that the sin of racism is no longer to be understood as an individual sin. Instead, the term now incorporates the idea of “institutional/structural racism” and its implications. Hence, America has sinned, and certain Americans have inherited that sin whether they know it or not. “Hurling the damning label ‘racist’ at people and systems that don’t deserve it in order to incite revolutionary outrage is exactly the kind of subversive linguistic manip- ulation prescribed in [the grievance studies] playbook,” writes Aaron Preston.36 And leading evangelicals are following along (page 84).

~~~~~~~~~~ quote 8 ~~~~~~~~~~

Systemic racism is the cause of disparities. If you doubt that, it is because you are a racist who wants to protect your power and keep those disparities in place. This has to be true because, if you were not racist, you would know that the cause of disparities is … racism. The news is replete with examples of people who have lost their jobs over this madness.

Kurt Beathard was the offensive coordinator for the Illinois State University football team. That is, until he found a BLM flyer on his office door and replaced it with a flyer of his own stating, “All Lives Matter to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Beathard was fired within weeks.8 Professor Stephen Hsu was forced to resign from his position as vice president of research and innovation at Michigan State University over alleged “scientific racism.” His actual crime? Interviewing an expert on police shootings who debunked the CRT myths surrounding them. (Apparently, merely associating with someone who questions the narra- tive is tantamount to “scientific racism.”)9 Portland State University professor Bruce Gilley was subjected to international scrutiny and scorn after starting a “Critiques of BLM” reading group. And the list goes on!

The CSJ view is considered both unfalsifiable and unassailable. Facing off with a true believer is a reminder that “a brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle” (Proverbs 18:19). If you do find someone willing to engage on the topic, you will eventually get to the question-begging spiral. I have had many of these conversations, and they all lead in the same direction: at the heart of every malady is an historic wrong.

Take an imaginary discussion about a young man in trouble with the law who was eventually expelled from school:

Could his history of drug use be a contributing factor?

Not his fault … Racist policies flooded the inner city with drugs.

How about his record of poor academic performance and absence from school?

Inequities created inferior schools that minorities are unmotivated to attend.

Could the lack of a father in his home have anything to do with it?

That is a byproduct of slavery and an excuse used to blame the victim.

In the end, the answer to everything is racism. Not only is this kind of reasoning logically flawed, but it also flies in the face of a substantial body of sociological research and the historic preaching and understanding of the black church (pages 155-156).

~~~~~~~~~~ quote 9 ~~~~~~~~~~

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Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe, (Salem Books: Washington, DC, 2021).

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This video is presented by Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.