• Book Reviews,  Social Justice

    Is social justice unjust?

    I want to post a brief note about Noah Rothman’s new book on social justice titled Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America (Regnery, 2019). I just finished it a couple days ago and found much that is helpful in it. Rothman outlines a brief history of social justice movements and argues that its current incarnation has collapsed into identity politics. In short, social justice is not about notions of individual liberty and justice but about righting historical wrongs committed against various identity groups. Rothman is not denying that certain groups have experienced injustice. On the contrary, he argues that certain classes of people have in fact experienced historic…

  • Social Justice,  Theology/Bible

    David French lecture on Intersectionality

    Yesterday, David French lectured on intersectionality on the campus of Boyce College and Southern Seminary. It was a pleasure to have David on campus, and his lectures were really stimulating. The first lecture is already posted on SBTS’s YouTube channel (see above). I expect the other two lectures to be posted very soon. David explains that the basic foundation of intersectionality is the commonsense observation that people have traits that can make them members of more than one marginalized or oppressed class of people. He argues that this particular observation about the complex way that people experience discrimination or oppression is fundamentally true. David also argues that if that was…

  • Boyce,  News,  Social Justice

    David French to lecture at Boyce College and SBTS

    David French is coming to Boyce College and Southern Seminary next week to deliver a series of lectures titled, “What Is Intersectionality? Understanding How Intersectionality and Identity Theory are Shaping College Campuses and the Nation.” Here is the where and the when of the event: Date: February 13, 2019 Time: 10am – Session 1 11am – Session 2 1:30pm – Session 3 Place: Heritage Hall (on SBTS campus) I cannot tell you how eager I am to have David on campus. He has long been one of my favorite writers and thinkers, and it is a real privilege to have him as our guest. I had the opportunity to hear…

  • Christianity,  Social Justice,  Theology/Bible

    Albert Mohler answers questions about social justice

    Albert Mohler had an open Q&A session with students at Southern Seminary and Boyce College today in which he answered a question about social justice. At 24:14 in the video above, a student asks, “How do you define social justice, and how do you define our gospel call in how you define social justice.” Dr. Mohler gives an extensive statement in response, and at 38:35 offers a specific explanation of why he didn’t sign the recent Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. Later in the day, Dr. Mohler answered more questions along these lines on his podcast “Ask Anything Live.” In the video below, you can hear the questions…

  • Christianity,  Culture,  Social Justice

    Intersectionality as Religion… It’s infecting evangelicals too.

    David French argues that Intersectionality is not merely an ideology but a religion. I think he is right about this. French writes: It was foolish for anyone to believe that a less Christian America would be a less religious America. As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, God “put eternity in man’s heart.” Traditional Christianity and Judaism aren’t just being removed from American life; they’re being replaced. The more passive person often fills his heart with the saccharine sweetness of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. The angry activist often stokes the burning fires of intersectionality. And when commitment collides with confusion, commitment tends to win. [emphasis mine] If you are not familiar with intersectionality,…

  • Politics,  Social Justice

    Jonathan Haidt: “Intersectionality aims for… an inflaming of tribal suspicions and hatreds”

    Jonathan Haidt has a fascinating essay dealing with two kinds of identity politics—the good kind and the bad kind. The good kind is that espoused by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “I Have a Dream Speech.” The bad kind is intersectionality. Unfortunately, it’s the bad kind that dominates university campuses today. Haidt explains: King’s speech is among the most famous in American history precisely because it framed our greatest moral failing as an opportunity for centripetal redemption. This is what I’m calling the good kind of identity politics. Let us contrast King’s identity politics with the version taught in universities today. There is a new variant that has swept…

  • Christianity,  Culture,  Social Justice

    Two ways in which intersectionality is at odds with the gospel

    Elizabeth Corey’s recent article in First Things may be the best short intro to intersectionality that I have yet come across. I highly recommend that you read it if you have not already. I would like to highlight a couple items from Corey’s observations that relate to my growing concerns with this philosophy of human identity—indeed, two areas where this ideology seems to be at odds with the Christian gospel. Before doing that, I should stipulate that every recognizes that some aspects of the theory include true observations about they way discrimination works. Even a broken clock is right at least twice a day. As Joe Carter has pointed out,…

  • Christianity,  Culture,  Social Justice

    The intersectional case for teenage sodomy

    I am so proud of all of the medically accurate and thoughtful information I publish for @TeenVogue, and I’m even prouder of my writers. — Vera Papisova (@VeraPapisova) July 14, 2017 Vera Papisova is the editor of the wellness section of Teen Vogue–the section that published a recent article teaching teenage girls how to enjoy being sexually brutalized by their boyfriends. A few days ago Papisova posted a tweetstorm defending herself. If you want to read her remarks on Twitter, click on the link above. I’ve compiled the tweets in the paragraphs below. She writes: I am so proud of all of the medically accurate and thoughtful information I publish…

  • Social Justice,  Theology/Bible

    Scholar says intersectional feminism is a cult

    Christina Hoff Sommers studies the politics of gender and feminism as resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and she is the host of the “Factual Feminist” video series. Yesterday, Ben Domenech interviewed her for The Federalist Radio Hour (download here or listen below). Sommers defines her own feminist views over and against “intersectional feminism,”1 which she says dominates college campuses today. She says that intersectional feminism is like a “cult” which allows no dissent and silences all contrary views. It is heavily invested in identity politics, promoting a kind of “oppression olympics” in which there is a competition among students to prove who is the most aggrieved by perceived…

  • Christianity,  Culture,  Social Justice

    Check Your Privilege

    I mentioned a few weeks ago, that I’ve been doing some reading on intersectionality and identity politics. One item that I have observed in this reading is the tendency among some to assign moral guilt based not on moral action but based on identity. The thinking goes like this. If a person possesses a privileged identity (e.g., straight, male, abled, etc.), that person benefits from an unjust system of social privilege. Therefore, the person benefitting is morally guilty of injustice just by virtue of possessing the so-called privileged identity. A few weeks ago, I came across a column in the Harvard Crimson that illustrates the point. In this column, Nian…