The Goal of the Equality Act or The Bitter Fruits of White Christian Commitment to Segregation

 At one time, Bob Jones University believed in segregation. Interracial dating was forbidden. A university spokesman defended segregation as Biblical. Since then, the University has changed its position on segregation and allows interracial dating. While the reason for its change of stance appears to have been the unfavorable press it got after George W. Bush spoke at the college, one cannot deny that the move removes a threat to the college's ability to receive federal funding (although, in light of the looming Equality Act, that could quickly change).  A jaded observer might be tempted to assume that BJU and other schools changed their policies for convenience and money, and that similar pressures might work again, this time on the issues of same-sex marriage/sexual relationships and sex/gender transition.  

It surprises me that people are trying to force this issue. It almost seems a dog in the manger mentality, like complaining about not getting meat at a vegetarian restaurant. If you want meat, go someplace else. The schools in question are Christian schools, private schools, probably more expensive than state schools. Surely people have other options than going to such schools. There are two main reasons I can think of for why people don't just roll their eyes and leave these institutions alone: 1) Students who"come out" (to themselves, maybe to close friends) while in college (despite the conservatism of my alma mater, such a thing is possible even there, and would have probably been easier before LGBT issues became so big), 2)People want to change conservative Christians' beliefs on sexual ethics. I think the latter item is a major driver of the problem. 

Before delving into the second reason, I will make a few remarks about the first one. I understand there has been an effort to strip accreditation from Christian colleges that hold to a conservative view on sexuality. Such a move would hurt students who "come out" in college. Because I do not think we will change our views on sexuality, I believe schools like Covenant will continue with their policies even if it means losing accreditation. In such a scenario, a student whose views and ideas change while in college would be unable to transfer out of the college in which he/she started getting educated. 

Now for the second reason. Many Christians and denominations that formerly objected to interracial marriage and supported segregation have changed their minds on these issues, and that without rejecting the Bible's inerrancy. As a member of the Presbyterian Church in America, a conservative Christian denomination, I can say that I haven't heard a sound Biblical defense of segregation or condemnation of racial intermarriage. I've never heard a pastor preach against integration or against racial minorities' voting, for instance. The old support for Jim Crow is gone,  but the movement that drove it away came in my parents' lifetime. Further, I suspect that conservative Christian support of racist ideas and policies has damaged our credibility on social issues, and particularly on this issue. 

Considering the change, and the fact that it happened in so short a time, it is surprising to look back and see how adamantly some Christians, or people who called themselves Christians, declared that the Bible supported, even demanded racial segregation and condemned racial intermarriage. In this case, conservative Christians were in the wrong, and many of those who were in the right were liberal Christians. The idea that conservative Christians could be dangerously in the wrong and could use the Bible to support wrong ideas is, at least, an idea with precedent. The change in people's views may not have occurred without the political pressure and cultural shift that occurred in the wake of the Civil Rights revolution. I think some supporters of the Equality Act believe they can effect a similar change by enacting pro-LGBT laws. 

Let us do a thought experiment. Let us suppose that conservative Christian sexual ethics (no sex outside marriage between a man and a woman) are mistaken, not taught in Scripture, or, at least, wrong and dangerous somehow. Imagine that those who hold such views really are in sin the way supporters of segregation were. What motive would we expect to underlie the support of such ideas as conservative sexual ethics? We would expect such motives as pride, hatred, fear, resistance to change, perhaps an unwillingness to repent of past sins. Some people would add desire for power to the list. What result would we expect laws such as the Equality Act to have? Resisting such a law would require one to be willing to endure hardship, face criticism, possibly face misunderstanding. Schools like Covenant would have to rearrange their finances, cut costs. Students desiring to attend such schools would need to either be rich or would need to crowdfund their expenses. The school might need to require students to work for free to help with cleaning etc. Faculty and staff would have to take lower salaries. Keeping the college open without federal funds would require dedication to the college's mission, greater dedication than before. Choosing Covenant would require one to be committed to its mission. Would such motives as pride, the desire for power, hatred, pride, fear, and resistance to change be enough to keep the college going? I'd like to think not. If these motives were the motives that underlay Jim Crow, they weren't enough, at least not for most Christians. Thus, from the point of view supporters of the Equality Act are probably taking, the law they propose will probably work to change people's minds. 

So, what will happen? Because I believe conservative Christian sexual ethics are based on the Bible, I doubt supporters of the Equality Act will achieve the success they anticipate. It may be that some colleges will stop holding their staff and students to Christian sexual ethics. Such a move makes sense at those colleges that don't require staff and students to be Christians. Some colleges will refuse federal funding and keep their policies the way they are (and some may wonder why they didn't kick federal dollars sooner!). What I don't expect is that our denominations will change their doctrines for money. I expect Christians will be willing to put up with a good deal, more, even, than the Equality Act would dish out. I hope Christian persistence will prove a testimony to others and a vindication of our motives. 

A response to Thabiti Anyabwile

This is a response to Thabiti Anyabwile’s article, "The Myth of Impeccable Individualism." Although he makes good points and uses Scripture, his interpretation raises questions. 

To whom is God speaking in Isaiah 1?  

Thabiti Anyabwile quotes Isaiah 1:11-17 to back up his contention that God deals with us not just as individuals, but as societies. This verse, like many often quoted in questions of social justice, is from the Old Testament. What has changed since then, and how do New Testament believers apply these verses? While such questions may seem unnecessary, they are important in light of the fact that these verses were not addressed to any old nation, but to Israel as the people of God. In our day and age, Israel is not the people of God in the way it was in the Old Testament. So, to whom is God speaking in this verse? Can this verse be applied to whole societies consisting of professing Christians along with those who do not call themselves believers? I would say no, for several reasons. First, no nation today is really the people of God the way Israel was. Israel was to be a theocracy. For them, theocracy was no violation of human rights but God’s will. The kings had the right and duty to do the following: persecute people for their religious beliefs and practices, punish sexual encounters between consenting adults, and finance religious behavior. In ancient Israel, such things were right and good because Israel was the people of God. Unless we, as a nation, wish to hold the whole nation to the standard of God’s word through legal force, we cannot equate our nation with Israel. Such a view does not cause us to fall back on the notion of individualism. We, as Christians, are part of a community, the community of faith, the visible church, consisting of both the truly regenerate and those who profess Christianity but are deceived. I believe this community corresponds to Israel because those who rule over it may hold those in it to the standards of God’s Word. Religious diversity could not be tolerated in Israel, as it cannot be tolerated among church members. You cannot be a member of a proper, Bible-believing church and be a Hindu, for instance. 

For this reason, I see corporate responsibility as definitely existing within the church, particularly within each denomination, and especially within congregations, where people are more likely to know one another’s business. If church members fail to confront one another about sin, they are failing their duties. If church leaders fail to exercise church discipline, they are culpable for their failure to take a stand against evil. And there come times when the church must come to an official position on questions of evil. In this way, the Church has failed to confront evil, and corporate repentance may be fitting, assuming those who take up that responsibility really do speak for the church, and act out of true contrition, not merely a fit of teenage rebellion. (See C. S. Lewis, "On the Dangers of National Repentance")

Unlike Israel, the Church lacks the wide variety of institutions and responsibilities which a sovereign nation has. Instead, believers participate in the broader economy, national government, and cultural life. As long as this world continues in its fallen state, these institutions will be marred by sin. Our duty to confront sin in these areas of society is the dicy question. 

 

How to replace a bodyboard cover

Today, I'll show you how to go from this:





















To this:

So, you decided to get one of those cheap bodyboards, a piece of styrofoam with a cloth sleeve around it, not very sturdy. Maybe you didn't have much money to spend, or maybe you were pretty sure you wouldn't use the thing enough to warrant spending big money. Perhaps now you used it more than you expected, or perhaps you got into some pretty serious waves, but now the cloth cover is torn and coming off, and you aren't in a position to buy another one. Have no fear! Making your own new cover is totally doable and, depending on the cloth you buy, can be WAYY cheaper than buying a new board, particularly if you don't live in a place that sells boards at every grocery store.

Materials: 

1. Cloth: Enough to cover your board. Depending on the size of your board and the width of the cloth you buy, as little as a yard may be enough. Measure before you buy.
2. Needles, pins, and thread
3. Chalk, pencil, or something else to draw on the cloth

Directions:

1. If your board has a leash attached, you will probably need to remove it before you put the new cloth on. You may need to remove your leash to get the old cloth off. Turn your board over onto the back. The back of the leash apparatus may have a notch on it like a large screw. If so, you can probably unscrew the leash from the board. 

   

   This is the back of my board's leash attachment. You can see the notch in it. The attachment is in two pieces which screw together and come apart when unscrewed. 

2. Figure out how much cloth you need to cover your bodyboard. Measure the widest part of its width, making sure to account for its thickness (it may help to measure around the board and divide the number in half) and measure its length. You will need to cut out two pieces of cloth slightly larger than this board. It is easiest to round the amount of cloth you need to the nearest yard or meter, depending on which system your country uses for cloth sales. (If you're used to one system and are shopping in the other, remember that a meter is significantly larger than a yard). It also helps to consider the usual width of  cloth, which is typically about 60 inches (152.4 cm), although some bolts are narrower. Always check the width of a bolt of cloth before buying. This means that a yard of cloth purchased from a 60 inch wide bolt would be a piece one yard (36 inches) wide by more than a yard and a half long. Say, for example, that your board is 26 1/2 inches (67.3 cm)long and 18 inches (45.7 cm) wide. Assuming these measurements, you need a piece a little more than a yard long (or about a meter long) and a little less than a yard wide (less than a meter). A yard of cloth 60 inches wide is enough to cover this board. However, if your cloth is one yard wide, buying a yard gives you one square yard, which would probably be a bit too narrow for the width while being plenty for the length. A piece a meter wide and long would be just enough. 
3. Buy your cloth. I used a type of nylon, a tough cloth, which is just right for this project. You want something strong. 
4. Make your pieces: If you have a reasonably intact piece of cloth from your board (I had the whole top piece) you can use that as a pattern. Otherwise, you will need to make some more measurements of your board. Trace around your board, adding about an inch to accommodate its thickness and use your measurements as reference points to help you. Cut the cloth, leaving a GENEROUS seam allowance (I left more than an inch in some places) so you can correct any pattern errors. 

   

   The colorful cloth is my old cover which I used as a pattern for the new one. Note the green cloth around the bright cloth cover and notice the white line around the colorful piece. The white line is what I used to guide my sewing. 

5. Pin the pieces together. You will not sew all the way around the cover. You must leave the wide end un-sewn so you can fit the board into it.  You will sew the rest up by hand. 

   

   If you look closely, you can see the pins around the piece of cloth. Note that none of the pins are on the top of the piece. That is the widest part, and that is where I won't be sewing with the machine. 

6. Try your cover on for size and see if you need to make any adjustments. You may want to try it on inside out so you can baste (make large stitches to hold together cloth that will later be sewn by machine) wherever you see something that needs to be taken in. 
7. Once you have your board cover the way you like it, it is time to sew the board into its cover. Start where your seam ends, fold the raw edges inside, and sew using a whip-stitch (over and over stitch). 
   
8. Now it's time to put that leash back on. Feel for where the hole is where the leash was attached. You will make your hole with a knitting needle or something similar. A pencil might work. If you have more than one kind of knitting needle around, start with a small knitting needle. Push the needle through the fabric, into the hole, and out the fabric on the other side. Be patient. Be prepared to put the thing in and take it out several times. You are tearing the fabric a bit, but you are also pushing the threads apart.
   
   Once your hole is big enough, push the larger end of the leash attachment into place. The fabric will probably tear a bit, but that is all right. Seal the hole from fraying with clear nail polish or fray check. Screw in the other end. 
   
9. Now go catch some waves!

Cherry Oatmeal

This weekend, my parents and I were in the country. As the sour cherries are just coming out, I decided to make oatmeal with cherries in it. As I have already made oatmeal with apples and dried fruit in it, I thought I would try the process with seasonal fruit, knowing that sour cherries taste very good cooked. The result was quite scrumptious, if a bit sour.
Here's the recipe. Apologies in advance that it isn't very specific on amounts. You won't get such a result as we had with just one or two cherries. Half a cup or more per serving should be good.

Cherry Oatmeal
Serves: 1 (multiply the recipe for more people)
Ingredients:
1 cup water
1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
a generous handful of sour cherries, pitted
black currants (optional)
salt to taste
sugar to taste
cracked walnuts (optional)

Directions: 

1.  Measure out the water and put it on to boil. Add salt. While the water is boiling, pit the cherries and measure out the oats. 
2. As soon as the water is at a rolling boil, add the oats, cherries, and currants, if you are using them. Boil for about five minutes, or until the oats are as cooked as you want them to be. 
3. Serve the oatmeal with sugar and, if you want, butter and cracked walnuts. 

When the peaches come out, I just may make this recipe again and report how it turns out!

The Dangers of Relativism

           So what is our problem today? The rejection of absolute truth is the main danger in our day. When we reject the outside reality of truth, we reject the outside reality of falsehood. How long before the alt-Left wises up to the terrible weapon they have taken up? How long before, instead of using relativism as a sort of short-cut weapon to defend against oppression bolstered by lies that cannot be easily refuted or against truths cruel people misuse, greedy people start using it merely for power? How long before the phrase “Women and People of Color” becomes nothing but a stock phrase to twist people’s consciences into acquiescing to whatever the person who said it demands, whether or not the thing demanded benefits anybody? How long before historians start churning out blatant lies and calling them history? How long before scientific studies come out that were never conducted at all, merely concocted as expressions of The Narrative? How long before juries turn a blind eye to the facts and condemn the white innocent with a cleaner conscience (and greater awareness of the role of race in their choice) than when they condemn the Black innocent? If there is no objective truth, there is no objective falsehood! There is only the Narrative. 

           One problem is that those who wield this weapon, be they on the right or left, have man’s better nature on their side. Nobody wants to be racist. Nobody wants to be sexist. Most people honestly wish everybody well and prospering. The scholarship bashing the West has taken so many steps that few white people of goodwill can resist the call to self-abasement. Who want  be considered selfish? So what if we don’t like the world the Left wants to bring about? We are privileged. Surely we can afford to give a little. The world we thought was so good and lovely was actually very bad, and it must be abandoned for the good of The Oppressed. So what if we don't like it. The very fact that we don't like it is what is wrong with us. We must trust those who aren't poisoned by Toxic Whiteness to build a new world for us, instead of combining perspectives and designing things with all races together. Don't you see that this kind of talk dismisses white people's perspective, making us out to be blind and deaf? Must we go, without any gradation, from having all the say to having no say? Is there really no other alternative? Now, I have heard that to counteract one extreme, the other extreme may be needed, but I fear the balance may be tipping. 

              The perspective I am talking about is perhaps best summarized in the little saying, “When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” I have trouble even beginning to go through the problems with this saying. For one, it is a kind of dogmatic assertion. While this saying can be used to attempt to palliate people who make fake oppression claims to delay or deter the cause of justice, it could also be used to mask the truth. Try saying that to the victims of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Many of them were privileged. Instead of an inditement of the excesses of that movement, might not their suffering have been, rather, a proof that equality had been achieved? Can we be sure that this saying won’t be misused? Yet perhaps the most important thing about this statement is the fact that, by and large, it isn’t true. Most white people won’t feel oppressed if fewer unarmed Black men are shot. Most won’t feel oppressed if fewer Black people go to jail. Most white people won’t feel oppressed if more Black people do well in school. 

Covenant to purchase ghost for Andreas Hall

Due to the newness of Andreas, and to the building’s boring reputation among non-athletic  students, Covenant College has decided to purchase a ghost for its youngest residence hall. Unfortunately, President Halverson declined to comment on the purchase, and seemed genuinely surprised at the news. However, a young employee of the college who wishes to remain anonymous agreed to speak to our reporter. This employee is involved in the details of the recent transaction. “We just put an add in the paper,” she explained. “We actually got more offers than we could follow up on, but the prices were dirt cheap. One guy out near Stone Mountain actually offered to pay us! We’ve been scoping out our options, and I think we’ve narrowed it down to four options.” When asked if the ghost from Stone Mountain were under consideration, our informant answered, “Oh, no! We looked into that one pretty early on. The ghost had a habit of tracking in blood. Some of us thought that would be a plus, greater dramatic value, but the Facilities department wouldn’t have it, too messy, and Health Services said it’d be a health hazard. There was another ghost that caused flooding. We had to reject that one, too. We have enough trouble with that in our other buildings. The ghosts we’re looking at now specialize in the noise department. There’s even one that plays the bagpipes. I personally thing we’re going to go with that one.” So, a Scottish ghost for a Scottish school!

Why I Don't Like the Emphasis on White Privilege

Any system of social change that focuses on demonizing what the haves have instead of lamenting what the have-nots lack risks contenting itself with the equitable distribution of oppression and misery, rather than with actually amending the social ills it deplores. For this reason, I am disturbed at the focus on white privilege. Such a focus makes the benefits whites enjoy the problem, rather than the oppression from which nonwhites suffer. If white privilege is ended, and whites are also subjected to being gunned down by the police, being overlooked for hiring and promotions, having to attend substandard schools, and being unjustly and inaccurately stereotyped, the job will be far from over. Such a state of affairs will be no better than the current one, and I doubt it is anyone’s goal. Yet I fear that popular philosophies will lead to such a conclusion. Demonizing other people’s benefits provokes envy and resentment, sentiments that are more apt to cause destruction of others’ benefits than construction of one’s own freedom and happiness. 

Take the story of Solomon and the two prostitutes arguing over a baby. While we usually focus on the affection which prompts the mother of the live baby to be willing to give up her child rather than see him killed, there is another streak in this story. Note the other woman’s reaction to the suggestion that the baby be cut in half. She consents readily, greedily. Her baby is dead, and it is enough for her that they both have dead babies, although the killing of the live baby does not make hers any less dead. 

Consider also this Ukrainian joke. An angel came to this one man and said to him, “I will grant you one wish, but, whatever I give you, I will give twice over to your neighbor.” The man thought a bit, then said, “Take out my eye.” The joke ends here, but you can guess the rest, and the moral. The man saw gain to himself in having more than his neighbor, even if that meant losing something. This is not to say that we should not desire equality in society, but an equality achieved by taking away the benefits of one group without changing the circumstances of the oppressed helps nobody. It is not enough to make everybody equally miserable. The problem in our society is not that whites enjoy certain freedoms. It is that these freedoms are not given to all.