Should Christians Support #BlackLivesMatter? | iApologia

A number of years have passed since I first heard my black friend talk about it. He was upset. Now, I need to be clear, he was not upset at me or even other whites. I also need to be clear that he has faced despicably racially discrimination in the past. Even so, he was really upset at the organization named “Black Lives Matter Global Network” (BLMGN).

Now, to be clear, he was not upset about the idea that black lives matter. In fact, no upstanding person would oppose such an objectively true statement as the statement that people with darker skin tones matter. Nor would a morally upright person think that the tone of one’s skin, whether black, white, tan, yellow or red, defines one’s worth. We all agree with Dr. Martin Luther King’s (MLK) dream that people should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin (it seems that some people must have not gotten the memo and Critical Theoriest Robin DiAngelo criticizes MLKs character vs. color remark).

Just because an organization picks an obviously true name doesn’t make the ideas of the organization true and good. Hitler could have called the Nazi party the “Do-Gooders Club,” but that does not make the Nazis do-gooders. Just because an organization started because of real concerns, such as possible racism, doesn’t make the ideas of the organization true and good. Hitler was concerned for the German ethnic group being oppressed by others. How does that validate his evil and horrendous actions? It doesn’t. The outrage from the deaths of people like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown Jr. and George Floyd has helped start and has propelled not only the ubiquitous social media hashtag #BlackLivesMatter to the forefront, but also the “Black Lives Matter Global Network” (BLMGN) organization. However, just because this group has such a name and just because it was initiated to address a concern, doesn’t make the group as a whole true and good.

Entry Into The BLMGN Worldview

After a quick online search for “Black Lives Matter,” the first hit is the BLMGN homepage. Surfing their site uncovers a number of eye-popping positions and ideas, positions and ideas that come from the minds of three “successful” and well-positioned women.  We need to be clear, these women are not oppressed, opposed to their oppression-based worldview. Founders Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi each have been in places of power and privilege, places where most “old, white hetrosexual men” will never make it.

One of the biggest concerning ideas from their site is their promotion of one of Christianity’s biggest nemesis worldviews: Critical Theory. Some may refer to aspects of Critical Theory with terms like identity socialism, cultural socialism, cultural Marxism and social justice. While I don’t have space now to address critical theory in depth, let me give a brief overview.

Critical theory is an anti-Christian religious-political cult born out of Marxism, postmodernism and Neo-feminism. They have a twisted focus on physical characteristics and group “identity.” I’m not talking about authentic identity politics during the fight against slavery and segregation. Rather, they have reduced all social problems to a simple framework where morality is categorized in terms of power and privilege. Everyone is divided into categories like race, gender, age, class and disability. Each group is assigned moral merit based upon their privilege level. Privilege groups become bad and victim groups become good.

Nice words and phrases are often used by these people, but they are also addicted to word redefinition: words like racism, freedom, oppression and justice all gain twisted definitions. For example, “liberation” becomes liberation from Christian morals. “Oppressed” are a class of people, not individuals. And those from those “oppressed” groups strangely have a Gnostic or special access to truth that the “oppressors” don’t have. Privilege groups can only do wrong and victim groups can only do right.

Anyone who is biblical literate will know that Critical Theory doesn’t align with Christianity. Critical Theory, however, is not the only concerning item with this group. Here are some of these differences.

BLM is Opposed to MLK’s Dream

G.K. Chesterton once said “The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.” With the religion of anti-racism on the rise (here, here and here), all other virtues have been dwarfed, like truthfulness in communication. The workings of postmodernism and post-truth have come to haunt us. And with the death of truth, we see the death of the meanings of the words “racism” and “anti-racism.”

The “woke” definition of “anti-racism” has defenestrated MLK’s dream of a world where people would not be judged by their skin tone rather their character. As MLK’s dream pulls into the train station, our society screams “NO!” The anti-racism train then jumps the tracks and recklessly slides over the precipice, through politics and public schools. Racism has gone haywire and has been redefined; racism is now called anti-racism and anti-racism is called racism.

One question I had was why would one overuse the word “black” and constantly capitalize it? For example, on the BLMGM site there were phrases like, “Black communities,” “anti-Blackness,” “Black person,” “anti-Black racism,” “anti-Black politicians,” “Black lives,” “Blackness,” and “Black people.” They go on. “We are unapologetically Black in our positioning” (all quotes from their site come from their “What We Believe” page https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ unless otherwise noted).

Really, are they talking about skin color or are they using it as a descriptor of “more moral?” If skin tone, let’s agree that ethnic distinctions and heritages really are good and do matter while making the world a more interesting place. But really, why the need for capitalization? What if some page popped up named “White Lives Matter” and the word white was not only obsessively used, but it was constantly capitalized? That would really sound strange and maybe even racist, right? It seems that if someone is so focused on the physical dark skin instead of the character, it seems close to black supremacy or a “black identity extremists.”

But, in the Critical Theory framework, blackness means oppression, victim-hood and morally good. White means the bad privileged and oppressor. Racism? It sure sounds that way.

BLMGN’s Marxist Overtones?

It also seems that they are so focused on “power.” Why? They want to “build local power” and “social, economic, and political power.” What is that about? Then they speak a number of times about “state-sanctioned violence,” and “the rampant and deliberate violence inflicted on us by the state.” What are they talking about? What state and what policies are violent? They go on and want to abolish prisons and the police. Are they promoters of lawlessness or is their goal for power takeover? They also say that they have “become a political home for many” and they speak about the “global Black family” and use words like “comrades.” Red flags are popping like prairie dogs; it strikes me as it’s pointing to something akin to Marxism.

This religious-political cult also promotes Marxist ideology. For example, they promote wealth redistribution by demanding reparations. “We demand reparations…” and “We deserve and thus we demand policies that recognize we exist as both individuals who need opportunities and members of beloved communities who need reparations.” Frankly, it strikes me that the demand for reparations should be directed at the party that enslaved blacks, that championed racism, birthed the KKK, instituted Jim Crow, and steamed rolled discrimination and segregation, right? Also, where is the cry for reparations from those in Africa whose ancestors were the slave traders?

In all seriousness, however, besides the Marxist overtones, how could reparations even be done? Would every past slave-owing ethnic group have to pay reparations to every other historical enslaved group (Egyptians would have to pay the Jews, as documented in the Bible, and the Africans would have to pay the Europeans? Would those of mixed ethnic backgrounds have to pay themselves? Would black progeny of white slave owners have to pay? Would black progeny of black slave owners have to pay other blacks? Would the progeny of slave-owning American Indians have to pay blacks other indigenous people? It just doesn’t make sense.

Besides being quite impossible to do, such reparations strike me as being both immoral and unjust. It would be immoral because it would judge and punish people based upon their skin tone. This is racism. It would be unjust because the innocent would pay for the crimes of the guilty. Punishing people for crimes they were never involved in would be unjust. Not only is there no one living today in the states who has owned black slaves, no black was enslaved on a slave plantation. In addition, many, many past whites (and blacks) paid the ultimate price for the slave demolition: their lives!

In addition, BLM protesters involved in rioting, looting, defacing, destruction of property, defacing of landmarks, building burning, terrorizing and general thuggery are all indicative of Marxist “comrades.”

Now, if you think I’m straining at the above points that they are promoting Marxism, their website says that they are anti-Capitalists – especially, what they call “White capitalism” (that line also seems racist to me). In addition, they come right out and claim they are Marxist. Cofounder Patrisse Cullors said “We actually do have an ideological frame. Myself [sic] and Alicia [Garza] in particular, we’re trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super versed on ideological theories.”

Much of the anti-Capitalism seen today comes from the claim that capitalism was born out of the American slave trade, as Matthew Desmonds does in his now infamous and partially discredited New York Times 1619 project article. He claims that hierarchical business structure, holding employees accountable, mortgaging, meticulous organization, product tracking, detailed record keeping and analyzes, and double-entry record-keeping all came out of the slave owners’ “capitalistic” business model. Historians Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman say “American slavery is necessarily imprinted on the DNA of American capitalism.” Not only, however, is this false, but even if true, it would be logical genetic fallacy. Capitalism was born out of a Christian worldview centuries before the American slave trade (here, and here).

Biblical Morality and BLMGN

As we continue to read, we keep encountering ideas that continue to scream anti-Christian Critical Theory. For example, “We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.” They go on, “We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.” Wait, what? Not only are they promoting transexuality, but they also want to “dismantle cisgender privilege,” are they taking a swipe at being a heterosexual? They also say, “We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).” Why are they promoting sexual immorality?

Not only are they using critical theory buzz words like “queer-affirming” and “heteronormative” (people who assume that heterosexuality is normal) but they go on and use another critical theory buzz word too: “ageism.” Ageism is discrimination based upon one’s age. “We cultivate an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with the capacity to lead and learn.” An anti-ageist person, it would seem, would be vehemently opposed to the ultimate ageist act of all, the oppressive and discriminatory practice of killing innocent unborn human babies, right?

Well, actually no. They actually promote killing innocent unborn babies (including black babies…I thought black lives matter?). Not only do they partner with groups that promote “reproductive justice” (abortion), but they also promote abortion! In one post, besides calling Trump a “fascist,” they say this about abortion: “We deserve and thus we demand reproductive justice that gives us autonomy over our bodies and our identities…” So goes the promotion of the preservation of black lives and being anti-ageist! Sounds like hypocrisy and a double standard to me!

Then they start becoming sexist, “We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments…” and at this point you are like, okay, go on “…in which men are centered.” Wait, what? How does one dismantle sexism by being sexist? Critical Theory anyone? As a side note, if men are so privileged and our society promotes men, why are over 90% of prisoners male?

Then we read something that sounds quite innocuous: “We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children.” Okay, but then they go on and things take a really strange twist: “We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.” So they are in the pursuit of dismantling “the patriarchal practice…” or in other words, families with dads who are working and protecting the family.

We, unsurprisingly, also read this: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.” Where’s the good old Dr. MLK when you need him? He said this, “The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind.” The nuclear family is really essential in civilized society. Researchers Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck say this, “It is no exaggeration to say that a stable, two-parent family is an American child’s best protection against poverty.” Isabel Sawhill from Brookings Institution “The proliferation of single-parent households accounts for virtually all of the increase in child poverty since the early 1970s.” Also, children who grow up in a fatherless home will be “5 times more likely to live in poverty, 9 times more likely to drop out of school, [and] 20 times more likely to end up in prison. According to Brookings Institution Researcher Ron Haskins, to avoid poverty in the US, one has to do the following things: 1) At least finish high school, 2) Get a full-time job, and 3) Marry before having children and marry after the age of 21. By doing just those things, one only has about a 2 percent chance of living in poverty and nearly 75 percent chance of joining the middle class!

Check out  my YouTube Video on Black Lives Matter, Straight from their site!

It’s not just that they promotes sexual immorality, abortion and the destruction of the family, but they unsurprising are monetarily connected to the Democratic money-making machine. Their donation page links to their donation manager: ActBlue. ActBlue is the Democratic donation wing for leftest progressive money-raising organizations for pro-Democratice groups and Democratic political campaigns. In addition, they seem to have some sketchy money management issues.

In addition to these other anti-Christian views, they also seem to promote the pagan practice of calling on the spirits of the dead to receive power.

The Positive Christian Response.

BLMGN is opposed to Christianity at almost every level. BLMGN promotes anti-Christian Critical Theory and social justice. Christianity teaches we must follow true justice, truth, righteousness and goodness. BLMGN promotes racist ethnic prejudice and ethnic gnostism. Christianity teaches that we all are of one blood, we are all made in God’s image, we all are sinful and we all need redemption.

BLMGN promotes the destruction of the nuclear family. Christianity teaches the importance of the family, and it teaches marriage between one man and one woman for life. BLMGN promotes sexism against men. Christianity teaches that our worth is found in Jesus, not our sexual identity. BLMGN promotes sexual immorality like LGBTQ practice. Christianity teaches us to overcome our immoral sexual desires and actions.

BLMGN promotes lawlessness. Christianity promotes the rule of law. BLMGN promotes the destruction of civilization for power gain. Christianity promotes civilization, nonviolence, humility, forgiveness, meekness and loving one’s neighbor. BLMGN promotes Marxism and opposes Capitalism. Christianity condemns theft and promotes honesty, hard work and giving. BLMGN promotes unjust and immoral reparations. Christianity promotes morality and justice. BLMGN promotes killing innocent unborn human babies. Christianity commands us to abstain from murder and to defend the defenseless.

It comes down to the fact that BLMGN is one of Christianity’s arch-nemesis. They both give different answers to life and teach totally different worldviews. Those of the Christian worldview are called to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God, not social justice, immorality and physical power.

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