In response to this newletter posting: America’s Systemic Racism Conspiracy
Mr. Erickson,
I really appreciate your thoughts on the subject and for pointing me to the followup on the story of the disappearance of Franck’s article. I also think you are right in many of your prescriptions for what the church should do. However, I’m concerned that the phenomenon that we see on the left of “Trump derangement syndrome” is also occurring on the right of “SJW derangement syndrome.”
I’m referencing here your paragraph,
Therefore, churches are left to do what exactly?
Work with those on the left who reject Christianity to enact public policy solutions that are devoid of Jesus, implemented by sinners who do not recognize systemic racism as a sin, and fueled by a moment that sees everything as an allocation of power?
Good luck with that.
Dismissing the possibility of the church working at all with leftists to bridge the racial divide only cuts off an avenue of potential unity, cobeligerancy, and solidarity. While we won’t be able to affirm everything that “antiracists” believe, I think that we should be able to find common ground on the idea of racism as “sin”, even though we will disagree on the theological implications of that. The doctrine of common grace should lead us to recognize that public policy solutions that lead to prosperity, flourishing, and justice for all (or at least more than currently can access it) is never divorced from God’s mercy on his creation, which finds its full expression in the person and work of Jesus. And while believers should never see the allocation of power as a totalizing lens, it should certainly be an aspect of how we view the world, because the corrupt wielding of power over one other is one of the corruptions of the fall that we should both lament and rebuke.
The reason I am taking time to submit this to you is that I believe that the loss of any sort of common ground between orthodox Christians and left-leaning Americans will annihilate the witness of the church to this population. The church must be a distinct witness separate from rightward politics, and the issue of race is one where I see the attitudes of many on the right to contract the Biblical narrative and teaching much more sharply than those held by many on the left. To me, this is an opening to build bridges.
Thank you.