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

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.

To respond to your thoughts, I think we need to define what the term “Racism” is. Sadly, in American culture, racism has become an unpardonable sin, especially as it is defined today. Part of the reason for this is due to how both political conservatives and progressives define racism and its solution. Conservatives define racism narrowly that seems to only include hostile individual thoughts or acts towards someone of another color/race/ethnicity. Therefore, only KKK-type folks fit the description of racism and they are considered moral monsters. When racism is defined this narrowly, then racism is more of a relic from the Jim Crow South past, rather than something in the present. Political progressives not only view racism with a moral monster lens but will define racism more broadly (e.g. Prejudice + Power which can be either good-MLK connected power as part of racism (read his last book that he wrote in 1967-Where Do We Go From Here ) or bad-there is a trend among progressives who don’t believe blacks are capable of being racists because they don’t have overall power in America as a minority in the dominant white culture) and their solutions to ending racism is so intertwined with public shaming. There is no forgiveness, grace or mercy. Only “bad Karma” (you deserve to be shamed because of your prejudice thoughts or actions, even for “sins” such as voting for a candidate with wrong political party).

JD, if we strip away the ideas that racism is only hostility, or only individualistic, along with the unpardonable sin and shaming baggage to the term “racism,” then IMHO, ignorance or lack of understanding connected to racism shouldn’t present the barriers that you are talking about.

I would say more about the definition of racism, but my next two days are really busy for me. Maybe later this weekend.

Joel wrote”

JD, if we strip away the ideas that racism is only hostility, or only individualistic, along with the unpardonable sin and shaming baggage to the term “racism,” then IMHO, ignorance or lack of understanding connected to racism shouldn’t present the barriers that you are talking about.

I agree with that statement. The challenge is that the baggage and barriers are there. That is why it is so important that we keep talking and and finding ways to avoid putting wedges between groups. I believe that there are people on both sides of the political spectrum that want the same things, but we have been conditioned to think the worst of each other. Thus too many times people talk past each other and misunderstand.

Joeb, Remember that most evangelicals voted for someone else when they had the chance. Don’t keep repeating falsehoods.

Well, for starters, the economic status of African-Americans improved under Trump, which is more than I can say for the past seven months under Biden. To make things worse, apparently Biden has nominated an unrepentant Leninist to be “Comptroller of the Currency”—in short, to regulate banks. We are talking some serious hurt that will be put on the economy if Ms Omarova is confirmed to the position.

Trump wrote mean tweets and said many stupid things, but I remember warning this that Biden’s deeds, and the lack of character that led him to get sweetheart deals for his coke addict stripper-chasing son, were going to be disastrous.

And that illustrates something that comes to mind for this discussion. Sometimes we need to consider the outcome, not just the mean tweets. When one considers the results of liberal governance on poorer, minority areas, you really ought to at least wonder whether those running the show actually hate minorities, and just do a good job hiding it. I believe Walter Williams liked to point out that the Great Society had achieved what three centuries of slavery and Jim Crow had not; to destroy black families.

Note; the Soviet regime did the same thing to Russian families and those of ethnic minorities in the USSR. Biden is starting to do the most hateful, abominable thing he can to the country, if the Senate lets him get away with it.

The sort of things that Joeb just posted are what put up the barriers that we need to overcome.

And that illustrates something that comes to mind for this discussion. Sometimes we need to consider the outcome, not just the mean tweets. When one considers the results of liberal governance on poorer, minority areas, you really ought to at least wonder whether those running the show actually hate minorities, and just do a good job hiding it. I believe Walter Williams liked to point out that the Great Society had achieved what three centuries of slavery and Jim Crow had not; to destroy black families.

When it comes to the different factors that destroyed the black family, Walter Williams’ explanation is incomplete. We need to remember, he is an economist, not a sociologist. He is speaking outside of his expertise. But I believe he is partly right, that there were certain Great Society programs such as the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) that were not only very expensive to maintain, but also very ineffective and very destructive. I wholeheartedly agree with John Perkins’ critique of AFDC, It “assumed that there was no family in place and so failed to include the basic elements that would affirm and rebuild the family. It did not allow the extended family to become part of the support system. There was no incentive for enterprising individuals from that system. Therefore the system perpetuated itself…Settling for this so-called benefit…allowed single parent families to become the norm rather than the exception. Eventually young males growing up without the positive discipline of a father become angry and violent because of the humiliation of living off their mothers.” Thankfully Welfare Reform took place in 1996 and AFDC was replaced by TANF, which provides certain incentives to move on from welfare dependency.

While many (not all) of the great society programs were failing in the late 60s through the early 90s, there was also a large migration of middle-class blacks out of the inner-city ghettos. Because of the success of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, many middle-class blacks were able to move out of inner-city neighborhoods to the white suburbs. When that happened it left a leadership vacuum within inner-city communities. Bob Lupton wrote, “It’s not hard to create a ghetto. Just remove the capable neighbors. To produce a substandard school system, withdraw the students of achieving parents. To create a chronically dependant people, merely extract the upwardly mobile role-models from the community.” So when the exodus of black professionals, the black school teachers and professors, the black business owners and etc…took place in the 1970s and 80’s, black neighborhoods lost the stabilizing glue that held the communities together. Previous role models for single-parent families and their fatherless kids were no longer nearby but lived an hour away. Without the networks of black leaders in close proximity, inner-city communities like mine lost one of its most valuable assets… their social capital. Helping rebuild Social Capital is by far the most undervalued (but I believe one of the most effective) ways to dismantle current systemic racial injustices and/or address the lingering effects of past systemic racial injustices. I could mention that local housing NIMBY regulations for low-income people prevented the black urban poor from following the black middle class and upper classes into the suburbs. There were lots of lands to build low-income housing, but layers of government regulation, driven by the fears of white homeowners and politicians, were created to keep segments of the population out of their communities.

I could also mention how declining job opportunities (steel mill and auto ) during the 70s and ’80s contributed to the destruction of the black family. I could also mention the War on Drugs, especially from the 1980s until about 2010 has contributed as well. I’ve lost count of how many students I had who had a father that was incarcerated between 5-25 years when they should’ve received sentences between 6 months to 2 years. Instead, they were fatherless growing up. Anyway, it’s much more complicated than the overly simplistic answers economists Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell (neither of whom are sociologists) like to give to their politically biased conservative audiences who often turn a blind eye towards other significant sociological factors.

Bert, I hope you don’t take offense to this. I am not saying that you have necessarily fallen into this trap. From our online conversations, I’m sure that we agree on about 85% on political and policy issues. But right now neither political party has a consistent positive record of actually creating an effective comprehensive solution in addressing poverty, racism, fatherlessness, and etc…that ails impoverished, violent, and racialized urban communities in America. The progressives think throwing money and creating government programs solves everything. The conservatives think that the nuclear family and pursuing rugged individualism and self-reliance solve everything. Both are woefully inadequate. What I am writing is not new. Urban sociologist William Julius Wilson wrote about most of these same sociological factors among black communities (including the failure of the great society programs) in the late 1980s and 1990s.

[Bert Perry]

And that illustrates something that comes to mind for this discussion. Sometimes we need to consider the outcome, not just the mean tweets.

Bingo! This has been explained over and over by many of us who voted for Trump instead of Clinton or Biden, but rather than acknowledge or understand that, the never-Trumpers have decided to not listen and cast all sorts of accusations and aspersions instead. Frankly, I’ve just stopped listening, since it’s clearly an article of faith with them that there were absolutely no circumstances under which Trump would have been better than the opposition.

Joel, no doubt it’s more complicated—I’ve noted myself that the drop in marriage rates among African-Americans started about 1950, which is way too early for the Great Society. Having grown up near Gary, I also remember the catastrophe of the collapse in steel mill employment vividly.

That noted, telling a generation of young poor women (disproportionately black) that they could have their own apartment away from parents, free medical care, and a check each month on the condition they had a child and didn’t marry the father….left a mark.

[Joel Shaffer]

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.

Fair enough. Your previous comment does not mention any of his other statements, only the one I shared from one of the articles in the OP. Thank you for clarifying.

[Joel Shaffer]

This is the “controversial” comment:

“I do not believe Blacks, African Americans, and many other minorities have equal opportunity. Why? Most of them grew up in families where there is not a big emphasis on education, security — you can do anything you want. You can change the world. If you work hard, you will make it. So many African Americans don’t have those privileges like I was brought up with.”

JM’s comment here goes against every study that I’ve seen https://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2016/02/24/hispanic-black-parents-see-college-degree-as-key-for-childrens-success/ including this one, and my 32 years of doing full-time mission work among the urban poor. The fatherless urban youth (mostly African-American) that we disciple may come from broken families, but their single moms are working 50+ hours a week to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. The overwhelming majority of these moms are pushing their kids hard to get an education. Valuing hard work and education are part of the DNA that almost all of our students have.

My frustration is that how he twists privilege into blaming blacks as if they have this common cultural deficiency and it’s really a racial stereotype. So much for not “judging a person by their skin but by the content of their character!” I’ve even seen drug dealers and gang members on several occasions beat up their younger siblings because they had a younger brother who started skipping school, dropping out of school, or quitting a job because they were trying to keep them away from the street life.

My own childhood included a father who worked hard, including closing hours that started early so he could be gone early and have time with us and a mother who did not work. I knew of no one who had a mindset of choosing unemployment. I had no siblings who, while pushing me to study, deliberately choose the path of crime. I expect that those older drug dealers/gang members while saying, “Don’t do what I’m doing,” serve as a living example of the benefits of their lifestyle (respect, money, etc) in a way that often outshines their message to study. When you’re 14, faced with the drudgery of homework, and your older brother’s boss drives a fancy car and has two hot girlfriends, how is that going to feel in comparison to your mom’s hard work and penny pinching?

To clarify: I am not saying my mom is “better” than a single mom who is by herself trying to raise kids who values work and education. And JMcD’s use of “most of them” is clumsy but I see his statement as consistent with the reality Joel describes in this post.

And to clarify: I don’t think it’s best to frame this in racial terms (as JMcD did). I recently worked with a young doctor in training. He is African-American and grew up in south Chicago. I was interested in how he came out of that community and got into and through medical school. As we talked, we found that his childhood was in many ways very similar to mine. His father taught engineering at a local college and we both grew up doing physics experiments, learning applied math, and struggling to understand the radios he built from scratch with his father. And on the other hand I know a single mom (white) who works very hard, has her son in Christian school, but struggles to have time to spend with him on homework. And he suffers for this. That’s not about “blaming” her, either, as Joel said - it’s just reality.

The reality is that many things in one’s environment form his eventual thoughts about work, education, and all the other options that are out there. Skin color actually is not one of those things, but it is correlated with them and since it’s visible, we all tend to see it.

Dan’s comments have me continuing to think that perhaps location and the values of those locations have more to due with poverty than race does. Where I grew up trailer parks were filled with people who looked just like me (white) and many still are. In our area there are some of the same prejudices toward trailer parks as there are toward inner cities and it has nothing to do with race. The drug dealer in the trailer park however does not have the respect in the broader community though. I do not know how much respect they actually have in the city. For a country boy like me, too much of the perspective of the inner city ends up coming from TV shows and movies rather than reality, so I like to listen to people who are actually there.

It does not matter what color you are or ethnic or religious background. Every group has its good and bad and people in poverty.

The bigotry that assumes that Trump voters would disagree with that statement is part of what keeps putting up the barriers.

The following is from Definitions from Oxford Languages:

big·ot·ry

noun

obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction; in particular, prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.

Bigotry against races, political affiliation, or locations, can put up unreasonable barriers.

I expect that those older drug dealers/gang members while saying, “Don’t do what I’m doing,” serve as a living example of the benefits of their lifestyle (respect, money, etc) in a way that often outshines their message to study. When you’re 14, faced with the drudgery of homework, and your older brother’s boss drives a fancy car and has two hot girlfriends, how is that going to feel in comparison to your mom’s hard work and penny pinching?

I find it interesting how influential Hollywood is in shaping our ideas of drug dealers, the inner-city, people of color, and etc… I’ve been ministering to drug dealers and gang members since the early to mid 1990’s most of which were low to mid level drug dealers. The image of fancy cars and hot girlfriends aren’t reality. One of our staff members was a drug-dealer and one of the leaders of a gang in our neighborhood for several years before Jesus got a hold of his life. While he did have a girlfriend (who he had two children with) and a few “side-chicks,” No one except his very closest friends knew about them. He didn’t have a fancy car because he was trying not to draw attention to himself. Those who flash their money, or publicly have multiple girlfriends create fast drama for themselves, end up incarcerated or end up dead. Most drug dealers don’t want to be selling, but are caught in a survival hamster wheel that they think its the only way to make enough money to survive. The majority of dealers that I know work a job where most of their money went to child support and then sell drugs to pay rent and put food on the table.

The younger siblings that try to force themselves into “the game” are much more influenced by Hollywood and commercial Hip-Hop than by their older siblings who are selling. Movies and rap music that glorify and sensationalize sex, violence, gang-banging, etc… in the inner-city, especially black neighborhoods, has made multi billions and billions of dollars over the past 30 or so years. What people don’t realize is that there is a wealth of evidence that crime-, drug- and prison-glorifying commercial hip-hop outsells other more conscience, message-driven hip-hop because it receives so much more exposure and financial backing. Black-owned record labels and artists become pawns of investors of mass media complex. Check out this video from about 10 years ago from Dee-1 who breaks down what I’m talking about. He goes after artists such as 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, and Jay-Z (the top artists 10 years ago) for negatively poisoning black culture while going after the corporate mass media and music complex that selectively give platforms to only the black hip-hop artists that rap and sensationalize the violence and gangter/drug life of the ‘hood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1IGfv8zSgw

Here’s the lyrics if you’re not into Hip-Hop, but I’d still encourage you to watch it. Its artistry genius.https://genius.com/Dee-1-jay-50-and-weezy-lyrics

Joel, thank you for showing the contrast between Hollywood’s portrayal of the inner city and reality. This does not surprise me when I look at how Christians and farmers are often misrepresented in Hollywood- let us not forget how Republicans are misrepresented as well. What a reminder that we should not get our biases from the TV screen.

Most drug dealers … are caught in a survival hamster wheel that they think its the only way to make enough money to survive. The majority of dealers that I know work a job where most of their money went to child support and then sell drugs to pay rent and put food on the table.

Exaclty the point. People will do what they think will help them survive and, if possible, prosper. That might be a meager existence or it might be lavish for the few who can get there. Regardless, my point is that, “Don’t do what I’m doing simply doesn’t work as advice to kids.”