Christian author Josh McDowell steps away from ministry after comments about minority families

It strikes me that what Joel & Michael are describing is that the worst cases are a lack of parenting….and then the obvious question is “if I were to minister in this context, how do I fulfill the role of the parent without totally ticking off the people I’m trying to help because I really don’t quite have the authority of a dad?” And that applies to both the 18.8% of blacks who are poor, and the 11.4% of whites (or whatever) that are poor as well.

Joel, Michael, am I even halfway close? Seeing that I’m still trying to persuade my own kids, over whom I do have Biblical authority, about things like “don’t leave food in your room unless you like mice and rats”, I’ll confess to having no easy solutions here.

In my view, it’s precisely the people we *don’t* completely agree with that sharpen us the most (within reason, of course).

YES! Just last week I had to eat crow after someone pointed out how I had misinterpreted some data that I shared on SI (it was an unintentional mistake, but a mistake nonetheless). What I love is that these forums give us a sounding board that also holds us accountable and helps us to refine and correct our ideas. It was great that the info I shared was able to be quickly corrected. It broke my heart to then read on another thread that the moderator had shut down commentary so that no one could comment on his commentary. Thankfully he reversed that decision and participants were able to continue to refine their ideas. Isn’t that what SI is all about?

What if we ask the question a different way perhaps?

Are there minorities who do not have equal access because they were raised in a home and culture that did not value hard work and education?

How would you answer that question?

Are there minorities who do not have equal access because they were raised in a home and culture that did not value hard work and education?

I think that is a fair question to ask about both minorities and non minorities. I have been reading a book written by a homosexual non Christian (yes we can learn from those we disagree with) called the Madness of Crowds. He is suggesting that we are missing out on finding solutions to inequity because we are unwilling to ask blunt questions and are inclined to tiptoe around issues too much. I think there needs to be a balance between trying to be as gracious as possible with our questions and being willing to ask those questions. We also should show grace when someone is not as gracious with their statements as they should have been and then recognizes that and repents. For that reason I am willing to extend a lot of grace to McDowell.

I’m a parent to 5. We homeschool. Just some observations comparing the homeschooling thing to Christian/private/public education; and instruction in a church context.

1. Instruction directed at groups seems to work fine when the audience has the capacity to receive it and make something of it themselves.
2. The moment you hit issues, whether simple misunderstandings or learning blocks, or background difficulties, or whatever, the supposed efficiency of working in groups goes nowhere. At some point, individual work become necessary. Teaching my daughter who gets math easily was much easier than teaching the one who doesn’t.
3. Any instruction or discipleship hits a point where there’s no way around some inefficiency / raw time investment, mostly when it comes time to make applications of general principles, or preparing the person to be the kind of person who can see the significance of what the general instruction is trying to convey. Even something as intense as daily family Bible time isn’t enough when there are sin patterns; a fortiori, yes, the weekly preaching of the Word can transform lives, but practically, it seems like more personal involvement is required for those already struggling.
4. Being as discreet as I can…and not saying that I’m doing great with these discipleship issues…it seems like my approach has constantly to be tailored to the actual needs in a given family.

the supposed efficiency of working in groups goes nowhere. At some point, individual work become necessary.

I wonder if we have lost the day of being able to make general statements that are true because there are specific instances or even groups to whom a statement does not apply. I think that is to our loss.

What if we ask the question a different way perhaps?

Are there minorities who do not have equal access because they were raised in a home and culture that did not value hard work and education?

How would you answer that question?

Yes there are. Some will even say they value hard work and education, but do very little to demonstrate it. Just like there are white folks who were raised in a home and a subculture that did not value hard work and education. It crosses cultures, it even crosses a class line. Sometimes I’m a substitute teacher at the Christian school that we send our kids to and about 50% of the students come from wealthy families. I’ve even seen a few extremely wealthy students who are just going through the motions at school because their parents are filthy rich. The teachers get frustrated at their parents because they don’t push their kids to work hard and value education at school. They have their multi-millions to fall back on.

It’s really interesting to me how much mileage you’re getting out of a comment by JM which was about 5 sentences long. You apparently agree with his first one, and you object to 1 word in his second sentence from what I can tell. Not exactly sure how you feel about his last one, but I infer from what you’ve said that you feel it is accurate, too.

I’m not just responding to those 5 sentences. I’m also responding to what he said both before and after which gives context to what he said. Just before this quote, JM spends time talking about racism as only being individual and not systemic/institutional (which is only half true). Right after the quote, he fleshes out how he was brought up differently even though he came from a poor farming family. That he was raised to value hard work and education and told he could grow up to be whatever he wanted to be. In context, JM acknowledges that racial inequalities exist, but they exist because black families/minorities don’t emphasize those things either because there is an inability or unwillingness within their cultural context. Therefore, racial inequalities are black people’s fault because the families didn’t equip them the same way he was equipped to approach life. This is racial ignorance, which is a form of racism.

Christian leaders who are racially ignorant about racial and cultural issues shouldn’t have a platform to talk about racial and cultural issues. Truth actually matters. If CRU permanently banned JM from speaking and if it was done to shame him then I would agree with you that it is cancel culture. But instead, he is being given a season to listen and address the growth areas in the areas of race and justice. A season is temporary, whereas cancel culture attempts to shame people permanently.

I wonder if we have lost the day of being able to make general statements that are true because there are specific instances or even groups to whom a statement does not apply. I think that is to our loss.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean, Larry. On the level of math: some people get math easily, and some don’t, and when they don’t get it easily, more individual work is required. I somehow doubt that’s a new phenomenon.

As to preaching to a large crowd, it sure helps when everyone believes (1) the Bible is God’s Word, and whatever it says, I’ll do (or at least, should do); (2) the Bible is about God reconciling the world to Himself, and my biggest problem is my relationship with God, and the gospel is for that first; the sermon that I’m hearing is not merely one tool in my self-therapy toolbox.

Obviously when many in the audience listen to the sermon with asterisks in their head, “If I don’t like it, well, the Bible includes the words of man, and this must be one of those spots where it’s just the word of man.” Or, “I need to get my life together; this church thing seems to help.”

In my context, preaching to the choir isn’t particularly helpful; the above sorts of foundational ideas need to be made explicit; and the above asterisks need to be confronted directly. Even when you do confront them directly, it’s amazing how many still listen to the sermon not even realizing that you’re confronting their asterisks.

Yes there are. Some will even say they value hard work and education, but do very little to demonstrate it. Just like there are white folks who were raised in a home and a subculture that did not value hard work and education.

Three summers ago my children started a lawn mowing business in the neighborhood. It’s been a great learning experience. It’s one thing to dream about having your own business, to think about the money coming in, the sense of being grown up. But when a Saturday morning rolls around and their are 6 lawns to mow, I found myself having to remind some of them, “There is no way around getting up, getting out the equipment, and getting through it.” But there has been real growth. After 3 years, were they to say that hard work is worth it, they actually know what they’re talking about, experientially. There are fewer squabbles about scheduling; they have several customers that have been with them all 3 years; their bank accounts are starting to look pretty nice; they generally know that just hopping to it is the best way to go. But along the way, my wife and I did have to coach and admonish occasionally. It’s only a thought experiment of where they’d be if we weren’t there to coach. But I do expect there’d be a larger gap between saying they value hard work and actually valuing it.

Yes there are.

Yes, which means that the objection was not to the fundamental principle of the statement per se, but to the number of people (“most” instead of “many” or “some) implicated in it. But my guess is that he had said “many” or “some” it would have received the same response because people don’t care about that. Racism has become a quick and easy charge that rarely has to be actually demonstrated. It is enough to say it.

Therefore, racial inequalities are black people’s fault because the families didn’t equip them the same way he was equipped to approach life. This is racial ignorance, which is a form of racism.

It may be racial ignorance, but I wonder if that is a form of racism in any meaningful sense. I think calling this “racism” detracts from the real issues and minimizes actual problems. Here again, I think you make the same type generalization he did without using a numerical or size-of-group type designator. The question here would be this: Are there any black people whose families did not equip them for life in the same way that JM’s family did? If the answer is yes, then isn’t that, at least to some degree, the family’s fault? Of course it is. It isn’t racial ignorance to say so.

My experience of almost 20 years in a minority community is that lot of minority kids are not being raised equipped for life. It is seen in truancy rates, in education systems where families don’t work with kids. I coached these kids and played ball with them in the street. I talked to them and played with them. I knew their families. My church was across the street from a bottom 5% school in Michigan. Do you know how low you have to be to be a bottom 5% school? You probably do, Joel. We can say that there are a lot of systemic issues, and there are. But at the end of the day, for a variety of reasons, many of those children will not have the same opportunities my children do because of the home and the family. My children all learned to read before they went to kindergarten because we, mostly my wife, read to them and read with them and taught them. By contrast, many of the kids in that neighborhood and that school never had a mom or a dad or grandma or grandpa that would sit down and read with them. They didn’t make sure they did their homework. Many would eat three meals a day at school. And they make it all the way through school that way without reading and math and basic educational skills. So it is not ignorant to say that many black young people are not equipped by their families to face life. It’s not the same as saying “most.” But I think we are kidding ourselves if we say that none of the gap is due to family and culture. It’s not racist to point that out because it isn’t about their skin tones. White kids were the same way. Interestingly, in my experience, hispanic families were typically different. Again, typically; not absolutely.

I think part of the problem is trying to make broad statements and then interpreting those broad statements as if they apply to every single person.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean, Larry.

I just mean that I fear we are getting to a place where we can’t make broad statements about groupings of ideas or people because of the fear of getting hammered because it isn’t absolutely true. I think we lose a valuable tool of communication and evaluation if we have to individualize everything and if we become afraid of speaking in categories.

[Larry]

I’m not entirely sure what you mean, Larry.

I just mean that I fear we are getting to a place where we can’t make broad statements about groupings of ideas or people because of the fear of getting hammered because it isn’t absolutely true. I think we lose a valuable tool of communication and evaluation if we have to individualize everything and if we become afraid of speaking in categories.

Instead, I’d suggest that we learn what our ancestors who learned formal and informal logic knew instinctively; that there is a difference between “some” and “all”, and if we say “most” when we really don’t know the proportion, we’re engaging in what’s known as a “hasty generalization.”

Put into the statistical terms that are so popular today, a lot of people make a big mistake this way by measuring the mean of an entire population, when what’s really at stake is something affecting a sub-population. A look at the histogram or Pareto will tell you that you’ve really got something of a multimodal distribution.

Stated differently, I just don’t know that we gain that much by using generalizations. Rather, what we end up doing is ticking people off by misrepresenting them.

I had at first read you to mean something more like, “There are so many individual exceptions now, it’s virtually impossible to make an accurate generalization” (or convey messages / make ministry decisions based on generalizations).

But your concern is that even a sufficiently qualified, yet objectively accurate generalization, is going to get ignored or rejected.

I do find generalizations helpful when sufficiently qualified and accurate. In this particular thread, I doubt McDowell’s statement is sufficiently qualified and more importantly I just don’t think it’s accurate, when comparing it to my own experience pool with people in hard times. The generalization that I would make pertains more to the husband/father who is or isn’t in the picture. The more squalid the situation, the more despicable a man I find somewhere in the background. Like the lady we assisted several years ago who was living in an abandoned house purportedly owned by her ex-boyfriend, no utilities turned on in the cold, dog feces on the floor. The boyfriend had moved on to some other woman. But the lady we helped said to me, “He still loves me and that’s why he lets me stay in this house.” Shocked, I told her, “If he really loved you, he’d have married you.” There was no lack of positive talk; there was a complete disconnect between the talk and the reality.

It may be racial ignorance, but I wonder if that is a form of racism in any meaningful sense. I think calling this “racism” detracts from the real issues and minimizes actual problems.

I must admit I have been bothered by how quickly the term “racism” is thrown around. Yes, racism is a problem, but too often misunderstanding is labeled as racism. That does not mean that misunderstanding is okay and that it should not be a serious concern. What I am saying is that by being too quick to use the term “racism”, we can end up putting yet another barrier in the way of getting past the misunderstandings.

McDowell’s statements were evidence of how easy it is to alienate others in this conversation. There are those here on SI that have so much to offer in this discussion. I have learned much from the insights shared here and I have so much more to learn. With that in mind, I am convinced that others have a lot to learn as well. It is a good thing if we continue to learn. We can learn as others communicate in a way that does does not place unnecessary barriers to the discussion.

As I alluded to above, I read these threads with much interest because I am not from the city and have seldom even been in a large city. Joel, Michael, and Larry seem to have had different experiences with minority communities. All of them live in different places. Although I agree that we should be concerned about racial issues, how much of the “problems” have more to do with different locations and the “cultures” of those locations, than with actual race?