New Book: Burying White Privilege
In this book preview from Eerdmans, we see an example of what happens when you impose external categories to redefine the Christian faith: “Although those who claim adherence to the Gospel message of love can be a soothing balm to a nation broken by hatred, white Christianity instead embraces its satanic history of death and oppression.”
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Maybe I’m being hopelessly naive, but I thought I remembered a time when Eerdmans would either outright reject someone’s manuscript because the author was at Iliff, or would at least require an incredibly strong reason to bother. Iliff has a well-earned bad reputation for theological nonsense among believers in the Front Range and elsewhere, and Eerdmans appears to be working hard to absorb that bad reputation for themselves.
And this book isn’t even the worst one coming out from them; that might be this, by the same author. OK, Eerdmans needs books on voodoo precisely….why? Are they putting pins and needles in a Zondervan doll or something?
Regarding the content itself as described by the article, the summary “shut up, he explained” comes to mind. It appears to be a polemic where the author takes the hard-left line on various issues and doesn’t precisely get around to admitting that there might be a reason some people do not take that stance. DeLaTorre and Eerdmans are more or less counting on the notion that Christians will pay good money to be abused. Count me out.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I had never heard of DeLaTorre until I began doing some research on him. He is a self-proclaimed, “LatinX” (Gender Nuetral Latino) liberation theologian. He claims that his theology comes from the margins of society, yet much of it has its roots in theological liberalism from 100-150 years ago. What’s crazy is his Biblical justifications for Gay marriage. He twists and deconstructs the historical and Biblical roots of marriage and attempts to legitimize it using the relationship between David and Jonathan, yet ignores any of Paul’s teaching in the NT. http://drmigueldelatorre.com/2015/why-same-gender-marriages-are-as-bibl…
John MacArthur, Pyromaniacs Blog, and signers of the SJS: Here is an actual example of a “Christian” Social Justice Warrior that must be opposed, and a threat to the gospel of Christ. Contrary to those who spoke at the MLK 50 conference, DeLaTorre readily admits that he mixes socialism with his theology, that he embraces critical race theory, along with intersectionalism. And from this white privilege article, he creates strawman caricatures out of white Christians. By the way, many within the evangelical left, including what was left of the emergent church, love him.
I thought this was a good example of two things:
- Why on earth would Eerdmans publish such a thing? Do they have no theological guidelines?
- This is an example of who the Statement on Social Justice is really aiming at. There are plenty of ill-informed people swimming between (1) those with careful nuance, and (2) people like this man. This man’s work is the logical result of a commitment to external categories to inform the Christian faith.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
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