The New "Practitioners"
No.66: July 23, 2021
Dear Friends,
First off, I apologize for not sending a newsletter last Friday. I feel bad when I do that without warning. This is only the second missed week in the past 68, so my track record isn’t too bad and you should probably give me a mulligan. Anyway, I was very busy gearing up for a two-week trip to the east coast and time just got away from me.
I am writing this week from Pennsylvania, where I’m doing some things for my alma mater, Westminster Theological Seminary. So far it has been interesting. The other day I walked back to my little cottage guest house in the full heat and blazing sun. Fifteen minutes later a nasty lightning, wind, rain, and hail storm just swept up out of the clear blue sky and clobbered Glenside. Quarter-size hail just came down in sheets. The power went out at 3:30 in the afternoon and (this being Philly, ahem) wasn’t restored for around 24 hours. I don’t think where I come from I’ve ever been without power for more than an hour or so. I’m a bit concerned about the apparent fragility of the electrical grid in this part of the country.
So I had to husband my battery charges on all my devices and hunker down. As the evening approached I realized that my apartment was getting very, very dark. Soon I would be blind. Oh, trust my phone flashlight, you say? I can’t recharge my phone, so that’s not a solution. So I ransacked the guest house, taking an inventory of everything I had. Not much. No flashlights, candles, lanterns, or anything of the sort. So I MacGyvered it. I took my small Bell canning jar (heretofore used for pipe tobacco) and punched a hole in the top with a corkscrew. Then I took scissors and cut a length off of the drawstring on my hoodie. Now I had a container and a wick. I then filled the jar with rubbing alcohol and sealed the jar up tight.
It worked. I had a functioning alcohol lamp. I was giddy with excitement. I was a survivalist, a resilient man standing athwart and defying the elements of nature with sheer ingenuity.
Two minutes later it burned out. Sigh.
The problem was, I have learned, that to make a functioning alcohol lamp the rubbing alcohol needs to be 90% alcohol, and all I happened to have on hand was 70% alcohol. MacGyver’s guest house would’ve stocked the right stuff, I bet. It all turned out fine because the wonderful faculty support staff came to my rescue and dropped off some candles. Which, by the way, get pretty hot in a room in eastern Pennsylvania in the middle of summer when your air conditioning is out. But I’m a survivor, after all.
The New “Practitioners”
The most notable thing to cross my path this week was a very important article by two pastors, Greg Thompson and Duke Kwon. Both are or have been associated with the Presbyterian Church in America (Thompson has reportedly left the denomination, Kwon remains), and together they wrote a book called Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance & Repair. The title speaks for itself. They believe it a Christian duty to support efforts to pay financial restitution to the descendants of African slaves, due to the economic disparities that linger largely, in their view, from America’s past legacy of slavery.
Pastor Kevin DeYoung wrote a thorough and well-received review of the book, and he raised a variety of very thoughtful questions about their proposal. And here is where it all gets very interesting.
Thompson and Kwon have published a lengthy response to Kevin DeYoung. And I must be honest: it left me speechless. I cannot believe they thought it was good idea in the first place; in the second place I cannot begin to understand why and how they are so pleased with themselves—I mean, their condescension is just palpable; but most of all, I am thrilled that they did it. Sometimes when the Great and Powerful Oz unwittingly opens the stage-left curtains to reveal what is really going on, we should just be thankful and take “yes” for an answer.
Do you remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned how to spot a charlatan? They play a game of “Heads, I win; Tails, you lose.” Right on cue, these gentlemen have presented to the world a master class on how this works. Really, it should be required reading in any class dealing with critical thinking, rhetoric, logic, or polemics.
They do not have answers to DeYoung’s probing questions. But this is an asset, not a liability, you see. They studiously maintain that somehow, someday, they will eventually at some point develop answers to these questions, but this can only be done in “conversations” with “practitioners” (notably, they offer no reason whatsoever why anybody should think that is the required methodology). That is a strange term of art, practitioner. Practitioner of what? There are medical practitioners. Legal practitioners. Counseling practitioners, and so forth. Who are these “practitioners” who will help us figure out what is owed the black community by the white? I will tell you what I think it means, as best as I can make out: “practitioners” of Critical Theory. Or maybe they just mean the run-of-the-mill race huckster and serial tax-evader Al Sharpton will just tally up the bill. Who knows?
What I do know is that Eric Voegelin insightfully called the leaders of the mass delusions of the 20th century (e.g., Nazism, Fascism, Communism) “Gnostic practitioners,” and you might recall I have more than once called Critical Theory a new form of Gnosticism. They have the secret insight, the vision, and the techniques to tear down the order of reality and bring into existence the parousia, the arrival, of a new utopian paradise. Gnosis, or knowledge, is the key to achieving this, and it is no accident that these “practitioners” run around calling themselves “Woke.” They have taken the red pill, they can interpret the Matrix to which you are captive; they are Neo, and they can overcome the “system” and liberate you.
Their answer to DeYoung is that, no, they don’t really have any answers to many of his key questions, but the really important thing to understand is the only reason Kevin DeYoung resists their book and their arguments and the reason he makes the counter-arguments he does is because he doesn’t know he’s still in the Matrix. Well, I’ll let them speak for themselves:
Though we believe that he neither sees it nor intends it, Reverend DeYoung, in his review, methodologically centers whiteness at every turn. Like King’s opponents in 1963, he consistently privileges white theological voices, minimizes white supremacy’s tragic impact on the lives of “non-white” persons, and prioritizes the comfort of white people. And in this respect, while he does not argue for white supremacy, he nevertheless performs its most basic impulses. In so doing, he not only tacitly commends some of the most egregious blindspots and tendencies in our theological tradition, he also inadvertently lends his learned and powerful voice to the tragic work of sanctifying the cultural status quo. Viewed in this light, DeYoung’s review does much more than simply reject our book. It actually perpetuates the very social conditions that our book was written to address.
Got that? His arguments are illegitimate because he cannot help aiding and abetting “White Supremacy.” He is utterly captive to subtle cultural modes of thinking and has yet to be liberated; that’s why his every word just perpetuates the very problem. This, my friends, is “Heads, I win; Tails, you lose.”
“You are a racist.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Only a racist would say that.”
This is sandbox-in-the-second-grade level stuff, dressed up in an intimidating cornucopia of flowery postmodern language about “centering,” “privileging,” “relativizing,” “confining,” and so forth. Oh, they go on to chide him for not citing any of their preferred people of color, and if you believe for a moment they’d somehow be satisfied with DeYoung quoting Glenn Loury or John McWhorter or Thomas Sowell or Voddie Baucham (they don’t qualify as “practitioners,” apparently) then I’ve got oceanfront property in Montana to sell you. This “argument” is so pathetic that—like I said—I cannot believe they proffered it. My initial response was simply this:
This fellow concisely summarizes their argument:
There will be many essays written on this pristine artifact of 21st century postmodern polemics, and for now my purpose is not to write an essay on it beyond these initial reactions. Neil Shenvi already wrote one that’s worth reading, and truthfully I’m hoping Kevin DeYoung writes his own—he’s more than capable. But trust me, this is just the beginning. It is just profoundly sad that this came from the keyboards of ordained gospel ministers. The PCA just got done dealing with issues surrounding sex; I guess we know what’s on the docket next.
Miscellany
I know we’re not supposed to talk about the diminishing capacities of our President, but I’m seeing more of this kind of thing and I think it is quite alarming. Click the top of the box and I think it takes you to where you can watch the video.
Remember when I told you about the feral hog problem gathering on Montana’s northern border? As if we needed another reason to shoot as many of them as we can, they pollute the climate more than one million cars do each year.
Build your own emergency alcohol lamp.
Earlier I noted one of the major mass delusions of the 20th century: communism. Sadly, it is not just a 20th century phenomenon, but continues on today. I highly encourage you to watch this YouTube video—make sure the subtitles are on!—of a grown Cuban man visiting his first American grocery store. It is powerful, not because he is jumping up and down at the bounty, but because—well, you have to watch it. Communism is a human rights abuse of the first order.
Recently someone sent me a video comparing a bunch of different versions of the classic song, “Unchained Melody.” None of them really compared to the gold standard, in my opinion: the Righteous Brothers are unmatched. Just listen to that voice! So smooth.
That is the best version ever. But I’ll leave you this week with the most unique cover of the song, a version I simply love and adore. U2 just makes it all their own:
This is gold. Your summaries save me so much time. Very grateful.