The Salvation Army Denies ‘Going Woke’ After Getting Slammed for Racism Guide

Those who are just trying cancel those who believe in “cancel culture” don’t realize that they are part of the problem.

Responding to an organization along the lines of “you said some things that resemble a couple of things that CRT people say so I’m not giving you money anymore” is cancel culture at its worst and not a bit better than what we see going on among those who lean (or are far) left.

But I think we can agree that “McCarthyism” as a label is probably as much of an incendiary charge as is being “Woke” or supporting CRT in the hands of others. That aside, I find those that expose directional shifts, misguided bandwagon jumping and flat-out embraces of noxious notions are doing a service I appreciate as I try to stay abreast of this rapidly changing culture.

I read the article you linked above. The best the author could do was point out that TSA’s statements on race used language that resembles CRT on a couple of points. Since CRT isn’t wrong about everything (nothing persuasive ever is), this isn’t saying much. The article is disproportionately critical given the evidence. I wouldn’t call that McCarthyism, but the general reaction on this has been disproportionate, overly suspicious, and not well reasoned. This certainly resembles the red scare, McCarthyism, etc. I want to point out also that my subject line has a question mark in it … “A new McCarthyism?” This is not a charge. It’s more along the lines of raising the possibility of “directional shifts, misguided bandwagon jumping and flat-out embraces of noxious notions.”

Lately, this is regarded as OK when the right is doing it toward the left, but not when the right is doing toward the right (or middle toward right or left toward right). I’m tired of the double standards.

If you’re going to insinuate that Mr. Koukl is “seeing wokeness behind every bush,” and accusing him of having the attitude: “you said some things that resemble a couple of things that CRT people say so I’m not giving you money anymore,” gives one the distinct impression that one never bothered to give the Salvation Army guide even a cursory glance.

It’s clear that he believes CRT is false doctrine and he is taking a stand against it as directed by Paul in Romans 16:17-18. Kinda sounds like Paul was recommending “cancel culture” if that’s how you’re defining it. Should he just shrug false doctrine off? Is that what you do?

Is CRT Biblical? Are people born oppressors merely due to their skin color? Do we have chapter and verse on that?

Is CRT Biblical? Are people born oppressors merely due to their skin color? Do we have chapter and verse on that?

Can you share with me primary sources from CRT authors that CRT teaches that people are born oppressors merely due to their skin color? I’ve read over 50 primary sources and haven’t found any.

[Joel Shaffer]

Is CRT Biblical? Are people born oppressors merely due to their skin color? Do we have chapter and verse on that?

Can you share with me primary sources from CRT authors that CRT teaches that people are born oppressors merely due to their skin color? I’ve read over 50 primary sources and haven’t found any.

That’s fair.

Just like postmodernism doesn’t really teach “everything is relative” and communism isn’t really about killing off the rich and taking their stuff.

So what’s a good term for people who say that “people are born oppressors merely due to their skin color?” Because it’s definitely out there.

“Racism” seems to work well enough, but the “authentic” CRT-pushers won’t let us use that label, since it doesn’t fit their reductionist vision of a world operating exclusively via power-dynamics.

Glad you asked!!!! I call them progressive racializers. And you can find them mainly in college universities and infinity groups, along with some outlying journalists, among peddlers of radical politics and even a few of the DEI trainers. And the racism that they are peddling is the “velveeta-cheese” version of Critical Race Theory, but its not Critical Race Theory. Velveeta cheese in comparison to cheese has very little dairy ingredients but its a pasteurized, processed, full of additive ingredients such as oils, salts, colors and chemicals) imitation product. Velveeta cheese was forced to change their marketing label by the FDA from cheese to “pasteurized prepared cheese product” in 2002 as a result. Velveeta may have been inspired to look like cheese but has very little in common with actual cheese. Actual Critical Race Theory has very little interest in labeling white people as oppressors and racist but rather their interest lies in how systems in society became and are still affected by racism.

The big question is: Why all the confusion about Critical Race Theory? What is driving the misinformation and McCarthyism campaign witch hunt that we are witnessing today, including the Salvation Army? The main two people that are fueling this racial culture war and moral panic are Christopher Rufo and James Lindsay, who happen to be agnostic hyper-individualistic neoliberals without any regards to ethics, and therefore lie, slander, and misrepresent CRT including its history, its main elements and how its permeated society. Both Lindsay and Rufo have done videos for PragerU and thoroughly lie and misrepresent CRT throughout their videos. I have written extensively about Jame Lindsay and his lies and misrepresentations in previous posts and Biblical compromise that Voddie Baucham, the Founders Group, G3, Al Mohler, and other Southern Baptists have succumbed to with their association with him. As for Christopher Rufo, he is primarily a journalist as well as a conservative activist with the Manhattan Institute. He intentionally uses the term CRT wrongly to create guilt by association when it comes to race and what he deems leftist. As he stated to Lindsay on Twitter without remorse, “We have successfully frozen their brand-Critical Race Theory-into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is for the public to read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think “Critical Race Theory.” We have decodified the term and recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

Rufo’s writings influenced Trump to make an executive order banning “CRT“-trainings within all government institutions (which Biden later reversed). Rufo has met with Senators and governors such as Tom Cotton and Desantis and many other legislators who (with conservative media) are fueling an unnecessary moral panic about CRT (falsely equating it to communism) as laws are being passed to stop it being taught in public schools across America. Basically, Rufo, Lindsay, Cotton, Desantis, Fox news, and etc..are violating the 9th commandment of bearing false witness against their neighbor. Lindsay and Rufo and others are living out consequential ethics where what makes something right is the consequence of the action, rather than the action itself, which is unbiblical. That is, It doesn’t really matter if they are lying and misrepresenting something. As long as in the end they turn the term toxic. While there are many areas I feel CRT is not Biblical, we conservative Christians need to be careful not to join in violating the 9th commandment by repeating their lies and misrepresentations about CRT from secular agnostics when their own secular enlightenment idol is being threatened.

By me pointing out the lies of Rufo doesn’t mean that I’m downplaying the progressive racialization that is going on in public schools in America or that parents should not be concerned or attempt to address some of the racial insanity. At the moment, our urban ministry is dealing with this exact issue right now with a public school that we partner with in our community. While the school’s academic performance is among the worst in the State of Michigan and as it attempts to recover from a wasted year of learning because of COVID, there is a new teacher (newly out of college) who is aggressively attempting to bring in her progressive racialization to the DNA of the school. With all of her talk about anti-racism, oppression, intersectionality with the LGBTQ, she is completely missing the point that she herself is actually doing more to oppress these teenagers by being a social activist rather than an educator.

I am blown away how many conservative Christians really don’t step back and give thought to this racial cultural war that’s being waged: that it is a war between secular ideologies of hyper-individualists verses the hyper-collectivists waged primarily by non-Christians, all of whom do not share the same commitment to how Christians see the world (Creation-Fall-Redemption-Restoration), moral truth and deontological ethics or virtue ethics no matter which cultural side of the battle that they land on. Thus, lying, slandering, shaming, and misrepresenting their opponent’s positions is morally justified because it is more about the outcome (winning the culture war) that determines what is right or wrong. The moral actions that lead to the consequence are considered “righteous as long as their side (whichever that is) wins. And winning is everything. As Christians we should be calling “balls and strikes” as umpires or “fouls or penalties” as referees guided by Scripture when it comes to this racial culture war rather than exchanging our zebra referee shirt for a culture war team uniform.

@Joel: much of that resonates with me!

To several others…

I’m not aiming the points below at anyone in particular because I’ve seen it in so many places, especially in social media and the punditry.

One of the fallacies we studied in the logic class I used to teach was a category error we called “lump and dump.” It’s what happens when we lump things into a category based on a similarity or two, but ignore relevant and important (often fundamental) differences.

We end up basically asserting things like “affirming the full humanity of homosexuals = ‘gay rights’ = anti-Christian sexual ethics = anti-family = the ruin of all western civilization.” What gets lost in that sequence is the fact that folks who identify with LGBTQ+ are human beings made in God’s image and do indeed have rights, some of which need protecting and some of which even need expanding (others, not so much, e.g. marriage). We’re seeing a similar phenomenon right now with race issues, where a couple of buzzwords lead to reasoning like “belief in systemic racism = you can be racist and not know it = all white people are racists because they’re white = CRT = the end of Western civilization.”

The worst part of ‘lump and dump’ is that individual ideas don’t get examined on their merits. They get lumped together and rejected by association with other ideas/groups/agendas, etc.

What I’ve been trying to argue—about a lot of things—is that the Christian way isn’t to reject ideas because of their apparent association or connection to other ideas or sources or groups, but to examine ideas on their own merits. Since claims aren’t true or false based on their connections, associations, etc., this is a more truth-loving way to approach them—a more Christian way.

I don’t know if “systemic racism” is real or not. I think it probably is. My gripe with “systemic” anything is that it moves a problem in to the realm of unsolvability. You can’t really fix “the system.” You can change how individuals think and behave and systems arise out of that. So all the “systemic” talk is, to me, not very helpful in solving problems. I don’t see it as an insidious evil. Regardless, it isn’t proved true or false by association with some extremists.

[Aaron Blumer]

What I’ve been trying to argue—about a lot of things—is that the Christian way isn’t to reject ideas because of their apparent association or connection to other ideas or sources or groups, but to examine ideas on their own merits. Since claims aren’t true or false based on their connections, associations, etc., this is a more truth-loving way to approach them—a more Christian way.

Even though we disagree on much in this topic, I agree with this. My thoughts on TSA’s “Let’s Talk About Racism” are based on the document itself (I saved a copy), not on confusing it with CRT or because Fox or Rufo or anyone else told me it’s a problem, even though I first heard about it through regular news feeds. I agree that you go to the source and examine the ideas directly, on their own merits. The document itself says a number of things that are easy for me to disagree with. It’s now been officially withdrawn, so it will be interesting to see it when it’s re-released with whatever edits they are going to make to it.

My real concern in trying to discern the intent of TSA and whether I contribute to them in the future would be whether any new, edited version actually represents what they think, or if they are disingenuously putting out a version they don’t agree with to try and smooth over the controversy the first version caused.