4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.
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Life can be so frustrating, can't it? Perhaps during 2020, especially, you have thrown up your hands, not in worship, but in woe. Christians have the resources of the Scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit to help us navigate challenging times, but we may find ourselves exasperated. We need direction and we certainly need to know God's peace. The next two days, I want to spend time in this passage of Scripture, which speaks so powerfully to the times in which we live. From Isaiah 9:
6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
In this translation, the New King James, we find a comma between the words "Wonderful" and "Counselor," so you could certainly separate these, but other translations do not contain the comma - yes, indeed, we have a Counselor who is "Wonderful!" It's Day 16 of the 25-day Christmas Advent-ure on Faith Radio, as we concentrate on our Wonderful Counselor.
Today, I want to address how we can function in the body of Christ, in the face of tools and techniques that the enemy would use to divide us. We know that he is actively trying to keep Christians apart based on race and culture. Thankfully, we have the Word of God and His love for each other that can bring us together.
The teachings of Scripture show us that racism is evil, it is not of God, it is - sin, and should be repented of. Unfortunately, today, there is a robust debate about the technique of dealing with it. One of those techniques, which is highly secular and contradictory to Scripture is "critical race theory."
A resolution that described this philosophy was brought to the convention floor and passed at the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention in Birmingham. It described CRT, as well as intersectionality, another form of identity politics, as "analytical tools" that should be used in subservience to Scripture. Opponents claimed that these philosophies are totally contradictory to Scripture, and should not be used. Baptist Press reported recently that, in observing the 20th anniversary of the latest version of the guiding principles known as the Baptist Faith and Message...
...the Council of Seminary Presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention has reaffirmed “with eagerness” the BFM’s status “as the doctrinal statement that unites and defines Southern Baptist cooperation and establishes the confessional unity of our Convention.”
In a statement adopted in the council’s annual session, the seminary presidents assert that as “confessional institutions,” the SBC’s six seminaries stand “together in this classic statement of biblical truth.” Additionally, the statement declares that while condemning “racism in any form,” the seminaries agree that “affirmation of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality and any version of Critical Theory is incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.”
My summary: don't deal with racism with more racism. However, some of these presidents have been chastised because it's contended they have professors on their staffs who are teaching CRT. And, there has certainly been pushback on this statement, according to Baptist Press.
The Conservative Baptist Network, which was formed, in part to counter the infiltration of CRT and Intersectionality, applauded the statement, with encouragement to take action, saying:
Furthermore, we look forward expectantly to the presidents’ cooperation with us in rescinding Resolution 9 and to their taking concrete actions toward the elimination of these unbiblical doctrines and others like them, such as Black Liberation Theology, from our SBC seminaries.
The Daily Caller recently published an article on a Heritage Foundation report regarding CRT. The article states:
The movement has its roots in the Frankfurt School, where a manifesto was created in 1937 that drew influence from Friedrich Nietzche, Georg Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx. One of the core tenets of the school of thought was to tear down Western institutions, and it claimed that “traditional theory fetishized knowledge, seeing truth as empirical and universal.”
One of the ways critical race theory seeks to achieve these ends is through identity politics, the report said. By developing identity categories, each group has its own specific claims to victimhood, which “commands attention, respect, and entitlements, seen as compensatory justice.”
According to report co-author Mike Gonzalez, “It’s an unremitting attack, all out ceaseless criticism of the traditions and norms of the west in order to create a new social reality.”
Regarding the concept of "intersectionality," in the report, the authors state: "CRT writers Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge explain that with intersectionality, 'people’s lives and the organization of power in a given society are better understood as being shaped not by a single axis of social division, be it race or gender or class, but by many axes that work together and influence each other...' In this way, write Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, CRT results in people looking for 'power imbalances, bigotry, and biases that it assumes must be present,' which reduces everything to prejudice, 'as understood under the power dynamics asserted by Theory.'It has found its way into k-12 schools, with some schools holding mandatory “white privilege” training sessions and “equity” audits to root out racism among faculty. The Trump administration drew national attention to it by issuing a directive banning it in federal agencies after news broke that white men in Sandia National Laboratories, which assesses the United States’ nuclear weapons, were being forced to attend race re-education classes.
Jeff Johnston of Focus on the Family, a guest on the program yesterday, wrote a piece at The Daily Citizen website that quotes from the Heritage report. And, there's information about the detrimental effects of CRT in the new parents' guide called, Back to School - for Parents, available through Focus and the Family Policy Alliance. Jeff writes:
According to a new report, “Critical Race Theory, the New Intolerance, and Its Grip on America,” from Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez at The Heritage Foundation, CRT “makes race the prism through which its proponents analyze all aspects of American life.”
Johnston adds:
Of course America has racism and bigotry in its past – and even today – as all countries and cultures do. But it’s not the only issue of importance in our history and society. Those who espouse CRT are dismissive of every aspect of American life and history – including the Constitution and civil rights, like those embodied in the First Amendment. They believe “that the gauge by which to judge America is equality of outcome [and] that speech and other rights must be suppressed in order to protect the marginalized.”
There are those that say that people are more concerned with criticizing CRT than eliminating racism. I believe this is patently false - simply put, you don't deal with racism by creating a presumed antidote that is steeped in it. In the Church, when you see life through the prism of race and presume your fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord are racist because of the color of their skin, to me, that doesn't seem to contribute to the Biblical unity that Christ brings. Racism is evil, it is sinful, and we must repent of its presence in our own hearts and see others the way that God sees them.
We have to learn to turn aside from worldly philosophies in order to try to deal with problems in human relationships. We must rely on our Wonderful Counselor to show us how we can love each other as Christ has loved us, so that we can function as a cohesive body of Christ, appreciating each other for who God has made us to be.
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