David French Didn't Hang The Moon

One thing about @DavidAFrench: He makes you think. Or ASKS you to think. This, many people can't stand, of course. To think, or think anew, can be tremendously discomforting. In any case, an outstanding column, of head and heart. https://t.co/W5x12oxMbq

— Jay Nordlinger (@jaynordlinger) July 25, 2021

Or reinvent intelligent discourse, but this is kinda interesting.

He mentions this in his article:

David Platt is a bestselling author, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, and the pastor of McLean Bible Church (MBC), a huge and influential church located outside Washington, D.C. Platt is facing a revolt from self-described “conservative” congregants, a revolt that culminated in a lawsuit filed against the church by a group of its own members, demanding that a Virginia state court intervene in the church’s elder selection process to, among other things, preserve their alleged right to vote in those elections and to mandate a secret ballot.

I’m not going to address the church’s procedural disputes. (Though I will note that it is contrary to basic principles of religious liberty to ask an arm of the state—a judge—to intervene in matters of church governance.) I am going to deal head-on with the prime underlying complaint that has triggered outrage and national media coverage of a struggle for control in one of America’s largest and most influential churches. The charge against Platt and his team can be summed up in one word: wokeness.

(Never heard of Platt, to be honest.  I don't find "bestselling authors" to be necessarily authoritative, either; but good on 'em; whatever.)  French includes links to documents supporting the complaints of some church members of MBC, including this one.  It's an interesting read because it's a "guilt by association" argument.  Apparently certain pastors on certain podcasts (and elsewhere) have made remarks about racism in America that these church members deem to be either examples of CRT, or CRT adjacent (no definition of "CRT" is offered, as if none is needed).  And the connection to their pastor, the Rev. Platt?  Platt has spoken publicly in "CRT-inspired terms."  Yeah, this is just "Fear of a Brown Planet" stuff.*  I could be more pastoral about it, but I don't have to be.  Anyone trying to go to court to demand church rules be re-written by a judge to please them, doesn't deserve my pastoral consideration.  I don't know them anyway; but they're idiots, wasting their money and the court's time.  If this case hasn't been thrown out yet, it's only because it was filed too recently and the judges have more important matters to attend to. Trust me, this case is headed for the trash bin as soon as a judge can put a hearing for it on her/his docket.

David French has an interesting argument out of this.  He notes the critics of the Rev. Platt complain that the Bible alone answers and addresses all problems.  So he turns to the Bible to address this problem, the problem of race in America:

To understand the flaw in their argument, let’s first turn to biblical text. A pastor friend of mine recently reminded me of an intriguing and sobering story from 2 Samuel 21. During the reign of King David, Israel was afflicted with three years of famine. When David “sought the face of the Lord” regarding the crisis, God said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house.” (Saul had conducted a violent campaign against the Gibeonites, in violation of a covenant made with the Israelites many centuries before.)

Saul was king before David, and God was punishing Israel years after Saul’s regime because of Saul’s sin. It was the next king, David’s, responsibility to make things right. And so David turned to the remaining Gibeonites and said, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?” 

The Gibeonites’ request was harsh—to hand over seven of Saul’s descendants for execution. David fulfilled their request, and “God responded to the plea for the land.” 

Note the underlying conception of justice here: Israel remained responsible for its former leader's sins, and they were required to make amends. This is a consistent theme throughout scripture. I’ve referred to it before. In the book of 2 Kings, Josiah “tore his clothes” and “wept” when the high priest found the Book of the Law neglected in the temple. Why? Josiah said, “because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book.”

Josiah was far from alone. Daniel confessed the sins of Israel’s fathers. In the book of Nehemiah, the Israelites confessed the “sins and iniquities” of their fathers. In the book of Leviticus, God commanded the Israelites to “confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers.” 

That't not a bad argument.  It's also not one you want to make from a pulpit, unless you have your packed bag behind the pulpit with you.  Especially because he draws this point from it:

The reason for this obligation of repentance and atonement is obvious. The death of the offending party does not remove the consequences of their sin. Those who’ve been victimized still suffer loss, and if the loss isn’t ameliorated in their lifetimes, that loss can linger for generations.

Yeah, you'd have to leave that in an envelope on your desk at the church, to be opened after you've left town never to return.

And then he gets to a pretty decent example of how critical race theory identifies structural racism in America today:

While the passing of the Civil Rights Act meant that black Americans had the right to live elsewhere, they often lacked the resources to purchase homes or rent apartments in wealthier neighborhoods with better schools. Indeed, to this day, the median net worth of a black family ($17,150) is roughly one-tenth the median net worth of a white family ($171,000). That means less money for down payments, less money for security deposits, and overall fewer resources that enable social mobility.

One of the solutions to this problem is permitting more multi-family housing in wealthier communities. But that’s exactly when NIMBYism rears its head. Even if every member of a local zoning and planning commission isn’t racist, there are multiple non-racist reasons for them to resist greater population density. There’s traffic congestion. There’s school overcrowding. There’s the potential consequence to property values. There are environmental objections. There are a host of related infrastructure concerns.

These non-racist reasons to block multi-family development are a reason why even the most deep-blue, race-conscious progressive neighborhoods so often bitterly resist new development, school zoning changes, and other concrete reforms that would grant individuals in historically segregated neighborhoods greater access to the educational and economic opportunities of historically white communities. 

Time and again, there are non-racist reasons for wanting to maintain the structures racists created. Thus, you can begin to understand the cultural and political divide. A person who harbors absolutely no racial animus gets angry when they’re told they’re perpetuating systemic racism, or that racism can exist without malign intent. To be told you’re perpetuating racism when, in your heart of hearts, you know you’re making choices based on road safety, your child’s education, or the beauty of your environment can feel deeply offensive.

Yes, it can feel offensive.  But Jesus is the offense, says Paul.  And the prophets told Israel during and after the Exile that they had offended God; when all the people of Israel wanted to know was:  "What did we do wrong?"

I'm not saying I loves me some David French, or even that he forces me to think.  Consider this passage, out of context but the context isn't important to my analysis:

A conservative like me is suspicious of the effectiveness of central planning to ameliorate systemic injustice. I’m less likely to want to pour money into vast, centralized public school bureaucracies and more likely to empower school choice to grant families options in the short term and to provide competitive incentives for public schools to improve over the long term.

Nice framing if you can get it.  He's just mentioned that "progressive-dominated institutions" (and where are these places?) haven't worked.  So those are the ones "pour[ing] money into centralized school bureaucracies."  I will tell you as an observer of school administration up close for the last 20 years, those bureaucracies are created by states mandating standardized tests (as stupid a requirement as ever came along) as much or more than by federal government grants through the Department of Education (and those tests began  with Ross Perot, hardly a progressive firebrand). (And “pouring money”? That must be in imaginary America run by “progressive dominated institutions”. IRL those “centralized school bureaucracies” have been laying people off for at least a decade due to shrinking funding.)  And Texas, with nary a progressive dominated institution even legally allowed to be within its borders, controls almost every aspect of curriculum from pre-kindergarten through community colleges.  And it's not "progressives" who are demanding CRT and certain aspects of American history (or Texas history) NOT be taught in public schools.  Empowering school choice is a sure and certain way to send money to worthless private schools (which will pop up like mushrooms).  Texas tried that, too, sparing them the oversight and "bureaucracy" of public schools (partly for "freedumb," partly because Texas didn't want to pay for the extra bureaucracy.)  They were such shameless scams (the worst of them had a vending machine for a "cafeteria," no desks, and no textbooks.  They just took the money and ran.) that even Texas was forced to abandon the whole boondoggle of an experiment.  Moving money out of public schools into private hands does not create "competition."  It's a recipe for disaster.  Again, there is not now and never has been a "progressive-dominated institution," at least one supported by government, in the state of Texas.  And yet we know better than this crap.  Public schools no more "compete" with private than the state university I attended competed with Harvard (or with UT Austin, for that matter).  The insult that public schools don't put the best interests of their students first, that teachers don't work as hard as they can to educate their students, without the "goad" of competition with private schools for funding, is an insult borne out of the deepest, darkest ignorance. The whole idea is ludicrous and the product of minds unencumbered by knowledge about how public schools and education work. (Ironically, it isn’t too much to say criticism of public schools stems from the forced integration of the schools. That’s about the time public schools suddenly became “problematic.” Gotta watch that beam in your eye.)

So no, I'm not a fan of David French.

But he's not wrong to defend Rev. Platt, or to point out we must examine our responsibilities as a nation that benefitted from 400 years of racism.

Regardless of my ideology, the objective is justice. It’s not “conservative” justice or “progressive” justice. It’s simply justice. So if my ideology leads me astray, and the solutions I propose are inadequate to the enormity of the task, it’s my moral obligation to rethink my philosophical frame. 

He's quite right about that.  He's also right about this, though he doesn't seem to know he's touched on a central issue of Christianity and original sin:

But even in the midst of all this complexity, some things are still clearly true. We still live with the legacy of the discriminatory structures our forefathers created. Our obligation to seek justice does not depend on a finding of personal fault. Christians must be open to truth from any source. And there is nothing—absolutely nothing—“conservative” about denying the reality of the consequences of centuries of intentional, racist harm. 

No, it doesn't; nor, for that matter, does CRT.  But it is worthwhile to ask your church members why they think this is all about them.  That is the central teaching of the man from Nazareth:  humility.  Humility is not about you:  it is about your brother and sister.  And who is your brother and sister?  The answer is:  who isn't?

*The Rev. Platt is also accused of teaching a "pro-CRT" Sunday school class, because the "sole book" for the summer course was Divided by Faith: Evangelical Faith and the Problem of Race In America.  I have a copy of that book.  I've had it since seminary, from which I graduated almost 25 years ago.  The book is nothing more than a study of the observation of Dr. King that Sunday morning in America is the most segregated hour of the week.  It still is.  Ironically, they are proving that again.  Guilty dog barks loudest.