Everybody is for diversity, until they aren’t. Everyone is for equity, until they aren’t. Everyone is for inclusivity, until they aren’t. Suppose, for example, that famed racist David Duke wants to speak on your campus about the racial superiority of white people. There are some who would cheer such an event on, but not many. Were Maya Angelou to come on campus to speak she would be warmly welcomed. But she comes from a privileged position. Her perspectives tend to match those of the ruling regime. She has standing, accolades, access that poor David Duke never had. It hardly seems equitable when David Duke draws a half dozen fans and a dozen protestors while Maya draws thousands of adoring acolytes. Nor would Mr. Duke feel terribly included.
One of the great things about a free market is that it doesn’t care about this folly. Maya Angelou has a broad audience, David Duke a tiny one. There’s no use grumbling about the size of one’s audience, as such is rather unlikely to grow it.
The real problems come when the free market is nowhere to be found. Take, for instance, the local library or the local government school. Both institutions are financed by tax dollars. The tax collector, now there’s a believer in inclusivity. He doesn’t care what you think about race or gender or global warming. He just wants your money. When, however, the government he collects for begins to hand the money out that he has taken from all of us, to whom does the government give it? Does David Duke get an equitable share? Will the local library host a family friendly cross burning, complete with kiddie klan kostumes? Will the little darlings be able to check out copies of the children’s version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? If not, will Barnes and Noble carry it for their “Banned Books! Spectacular Sale?”
What happens when both the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and the Little Sisters of the Poor ask for a school wide assembly? What if PETA and the National Cattlemen’s Association want a chance to talk to the kiddies? Now it’s not just a question of which organization can drum up an audience, but which organization has the political clout to make all sides be the audience? Education is discipleship. For decades this country has sought to water down its faith into a gruel thin enough to not offend but not thick enough to feed its soul. We are starving our children.
We do not have a sufficient consensus to continue with the foolish notion that an education can be morally uplifting while being morally neutral on the issues of the day. Children right now are being told they are wicked if they believe men are men and women women. Across the country, in your neighborhood. And on your dime. The benign “virtues” they have left have already been distorted beyond all recognition. Respect now means disrespect for those who hold to Scripture. Kindness means hatred for those who hold to Scripture. Integrity means standing firm against the forces of darkness, that is, those who hold to Scripture.
This country is not what it once was. Its schools are not what they once were. Consensus died a long time ago and the stench all around us is its rotting corpse.
Lee Duigon in his June 21, 2023 blog, ‘Vanquish the Left’ (Deroy Murdock), had the column written by Deroy Murdock, who wrote a similar piece, as you have written in this well-stated post. It is worth your time to read it.
Yes, a good piece. Thanks for the heads up.
It is serendipitous that I read RC 2’s happy proclamation after learning this week of the murder of Michael Servetus way back in 1553, bringing down any esteem I had for your father, who proclaimed the nasty doctrine of Calvin with such charming authority and twisted reasoning. I most certainly can’t throw stones at the plain old sinner, but the sinner who finds a way to justify sin through Calvinism–and make money on its violent back: ugh, just ugh.
You offer no evidence of the nastiness of Calvinism, of my father’s twisted reasoning, anyone justifying sin, or making money. All you have is Michael Servetus. If you’d like to make a case for any of your accusations, feel free. Otherwise, please drop the stones you say you can’t throw at me, my father or John Calvin, all plain old sinners.
I am referring, of course, not to the post of June 23 comparing not apples and oranges, but apples and worms, but to RC2’s announcement just yesterday, June 28, of his expungement.
I am referring, rather, to yesterday’s post, in which RC2 is elated over his expungement, as I too would be, 70 times 7 and all that. But I think it was this post which in some weird way compares Maya Angelou with David Duke (apples and worms, not even apples and oranges), along with my new found awareness of Calvin’s true nature which got me hoppin’. Like all “good” Christians, for decades I have not questioned or been sufficiently outraged by the long history of church hate and violence over doctrine. I intoned the usual: Christ is not responsible for his followers folly. But this time, knowing that I was taught smooth Calvinism, and nothing of the conniving words and deeds of the man, makes me question all the surviving creeds. It seems obvious now that the doctrines of the most aggressive and murderous men–I might even say, the “anti-Christs,” for there is no love thy enemy in them–these remain, and the “heresies,” with perhaps as much claim to interpretive value, were burned and buried along with their earnest proponents. Had they not been sincere, they might well have recanted as the flames licked their ankles.
Thank you for very much for responding, for this is very much on my mind. I did not see your post when I wrote my second, so I appreciate your patience in giving me another go around. I think a questioning Christian has a lot more than Michael Servetus to put forward in terms of church violence, but I will recant that I maligned your late father’s intellect, for I’ve met him twice and used to listen ardently to Renewing of the Mind, and shouldn’t have said that without more specific research and consideration. But my earlier infatuation with your father’s teachings makes me all the more sad, duped even, when I read how Calvin mocked Servetus to another friend, threatening that he would not let Servetus leave Geneva alive, should he visit. This after having engaged Servetus in lengthy correspondence (using rather dainty pseudonyms), sending that correspondence as evidence of heresy, then claiming he was innocent of his murder, well I call that nasty. Not “plain old.” And RC Sproul was the leading and most able proponent of this man! I am committed to more research so that I might read exactly those correspondences (if they still exist), and not mere quotes and also to reengage your father’s reasoning–mad as I am at him, so I can be specific and genuine. However I hope you can admit that the minute that the self righteous man breaks away from one doctrine to appeal to another interpretation, theirs becomes the indisputable truth and all others heretical. Then they go out to bend others to their will. I am not buying that any more.
Nevertheless, peace brother, I will drop my pebbles, and arm myself rather with more sturdy facts for my case.