The cult of antiracism also has a priesthood. Like Israel’s priesthood in the Old Testament, this one requires belonging to the proper tribe. In this case, however, the notion is flipped on its head. Instead of being required to be a Levite (read: white), this cult accepts priests based on their not being Levites. Hence, all oppressed minorities (people of color, women, LGBTQIA+,1 non-citizens, the disabled, the obese, the poor, non-Christians, and anyone else with an accepted oppressed status) qualify for the priesthood in the cult of antiracism.
“Ethnic Gnosticism” is a term I coined several years ago to explain what I see as a dangerous and growing phenomenon in the culture that is creeping into the church. Gnosticism is derived from the Greek word gnosis (knowledge) and is based on the idea that truth can be accessed through special, mystical knowledge. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia calls it “a heresy far more subtle and dangerous than any that had appeared during the early years of the church.”2 Ethnic Gnosticism, then, is the idea that people have special knowledge based solely on their ethnicity. This is a hallmark of both Critical Race Theory and its predecessor, Critical Theory. “CRT recognizes that the experiential knowledge of People of Color is legitimate, appropriate, and critical to understanding, analyzing and teaching about racial subordination,” wrote University of California scholar Tara J. Yosso in Race Ethnicity and Education.3 “Of course, the knowledge yielded by the standpoint of the proletariat stands on a higher scientific plane objectively,” wrote Georg Lukács of the Frankfurt School. “It does after all apply a method that makes possible the solution of problems which the greatest thinkers of the bourgeois era have vainly struggled to find.”4
It would be more accurate, though, in light of the broader assumptions of the Critical Social Justice movement to use the term “minority gnosticism,” since the same argument is applied to all “oppressed minorities.” In fact, it is their “oppressed” status that, according to CSJ, gives these groups their special knowledge. This is a central tenet of Critical Race Theory. “The voice-of-color thesis,” writes Richard Delgado, “holds that because of their different histories and experiences with oppression, black, American Indian, Asian, and Latino writers and thinkers may be able to communicate to their white counterparts matters that the whites are unlikely to know.” Thus, according to CRT, “Minority status… brings with it a presumed competence to speak about race and racism.”5 This makes sense, since “Critical Race Theory builds on the insights of two previous movements, critical legal studies and radical feminism, to both of which it owes a large debt.” Specifically, the debt CRT owes to radical feminism is the towering influence of standpoint epistemology, the hallmark of Ethnic Gnosticism.
“Each oppressed group,” writes Sandra Harding in The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader, “can learn to identify its distinctive opportunities to turn an oppressive feature of the group’s conditions into a source of critical insight about how the dominant society thinks and is structured.” Thus, she concludes, “standpoint theories map how a social and political disadvantage can be turned into an epistemological, scientific, and political advantage.”6 And, CRT would add, a political advantage. Standpoint theory posits that “there is a cognitive asymmetry between the standpoint of the oppressed and the standpoint of the privileged that gives an advantage to the former over the latter.”7
Not a difference, mind you—an advantage. This advantage is based on Critical Theory, which was established by the late Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, the one-time leader of the Communist Party of Italy. This Marxist thread runs through all the grievance studies, such as radical feminism, queer studies, whiteness studies, etc. Delgado confirms this when he writes that CRT “also draws from certain European philosophers and theorists, such as Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, as well as… the Black Power and Chicano movements of the sixties and early seventies.”8
Ethnic Gnosticism has three basic manifestations. First, it assumes there is a black perspective all black people share (unless they are broken). Of course, no one will admit this since it is obviously racist. However, this is exactly what Ethnic Gnosticism advocates.
Second, it argues that white people’s only access to this perspective comes from elevating and heeding black voices. Finally, it essentially argues that narrative is an alternative, and ultimately superior, truth. Again, most Christians will find this idea offensive, as well they should. Nevertheless, this is undeniably the perspective from which CRT and thus CSJ operate, and thus why they represent a fault line. Christians simply must reject this worldview.
Let’s examine each of these assertions in turn.
In an article published in The Atlantic in July 2020, Emma Green offers a poignant example of this:
In 2018, a group of pastors led by John MacArthur, an influential white megachurch pastor in California, signed a statement decrying “social justice” and arguing against “postmodern ideologies derived from intersectionality, radical feminism, and critical race theory.” It condemned “political or social activism” as not being “integral components of the gospel or primary to the mission of the church.” This kind of sentiment is common among white evangelical leaders, several Black leaders who work in these spaces told me: White pastors aggressively enforce the boundaries of acceptable conversations on racism, weaponizing any position that bears even a whiff of progressive politics and slapping labels such as “social justice” and “cultural Marxism” on arguments about systemic injustice. Black leaders at predominately white organizations are careful to emphasize that caring about racism is a gospel issue.9
Several black leaders, including me, attended that conference. Notice how Green mentions none of us? For her, the statement repudiating social justice in the Church cannot be associated with black voices because it does not fit her narrative. The idea that white pastors “aggressively enforce” boundaries of conversations on racism and “weaponize” any they dislike by labeling them “social justice” and “cultural Marxism” is a convenient way to frame the discussion in an “us versus them” false dichotomy. That only works if disparate black “voices” are dismissed.
Perhaps the clearest and most widely publicized example of this aspect of Ethnic Gnosticism is what happened when Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced in September 2020 the findings of the grand jury investigating the Breonna Taylor shooting. As I watched the press conference, I was struck by two things: 1) the providential reality that at that particular moment in time, God would have a black man serving as the highest ranking legal officer in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and 2) the knowledge that Cameron’s ethnicity would matter only if he announced murder charges against the officers in question. Otherwise, his blackness would be negated and dismissed as irrelevant, and he would be deemed “broken.”
Cameron framed his words carefully and appropriately, striking a balance between his job as a prosecutor and his humanity:
I want to once again publicly express my condolences. Every day, this family wakes up to the realization that someone they loved is no longer with them. There’s nothing I can offer today to take away the grief and heartache this family is experiencing as a result of losing a child, a niece, a sister, and a friend. What I can provide today are the facts, which my office has worked long and hard to uncover, analyze, and scrutinize since accepting this case in mid-May. I urge everyone listening today to not lose sight of the fact that a life has been lost, a tragedy under any circumstances. The decision before my office as the special prosecutor in this case was not to decide if the loss of Ms. Taylor’s life was a tragedy. The answer to that question is unequivocally yes. There is no doubt that this is a gut-wrenching emotional case, and the pain that many people are feeling is understandable. I deeply care about the value and sanctity of human life. It deserves protection. And in this case, a human life was lost. We cannot forget that.
Cameron went on to dispel several myths about the Breonna Taylor case that are crucial not only because they matter to the case, but also because many Christian leaders have borne false witness in this matter and their sin was exposed in this press conference. (Lord willing, they will repent.) Here are some of those myths and the facts that dispelled them:
After Cameron delivered his remarks, several reporters asked telling questions: One inquired about the racial makeup of Cameron’s investigative team. Another wanted to know the racial makeup of the grand jury. Why? Ethnic Gnosticism! The implication was that the officers weren’t indicted because the grand jury lacked “the black perspective.”
But what about the black attorney general standing at the podium who oversaw the whole thing? According to the press, he “turned his back on Black America”12; was “no different than the sell-out Negroes that sold our people into slavery”13; and “skinfolk but not… kinfolk.… He does not speak for all of us.”14 This is straight out of the Ethnic Gnosticism handbook.
Cameron’s presentation of the facts did nothing to dispel the narrative journalists and other social justice warriors want to tell about the Breonna Taylor case. MSNBC host Joy Reid, who is black, combined the first and third elements of Ethnic Gnosticism when she said, “According to the theory of the law that was voiced today by Attorney General Cameron, police have the perfect right to bust into your home in the middle of the night if you have any association that police are looking for, even if they’ve already found them. And they can shoot and kill you in your bed and walk away with no legal repercussions”15 (italics mine). Note that Reid repeated two of the aforementioned dispelled myths as if they were facts, just moments after the AG presented evidence to the contrary. In a similar move, the Arizona Republic repeated two debunked myths, saying that Cameron’s words did not excuse “the unconscionably light charges in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was asleep in her home when police burst in looking for drugs, starting a firefight that killed her”16 (italics mine).
A Slate article goes to the heart of Ethnic Gnosticism’s need to depict blacks who fail to hold to the singular black perspective as “broken”: those who fail to toe the ethnic line are pandering to white Republicans. “Cameron’s words, meant to justify the unsatisfying charges,” the article states, “actually did more to explain his meteoric rise through the ranks of Republican politics.”17 In other words, we all know what happened, so anything that contradicts our gnosis is already wrong. Moreover, any black person who does not agree with our gnosis is broken, so our job is not to examine the evidence of the case, but the evidence of his life—since that is the only possible explanation.
All the while, white reporters interviewed these people without an ounce of pushback about the facts of the Taylor case that Cameron presented. Why? Not only because it wasn’t politically expedient, but because they are good antiracists who know that they (according to CRT) are operating from an inferior and incomplete perspective.
Ethnic Gnosticism argues that white people’s only access to the singular black perspective comes from elevating and listening to black voices. This is why I refer to it as “the new priesthood.” Of course, as the previous discussion shows, this only includes black voices that speak “the singular black truth” rooted in “the experience of black oppression.”
Evangelicalism is echoing the same sentiment. Everywhere you turn, another prominent voice is calling for the recognition and elevation of black voices, sometimes even in ways that clearly advocate the principles of Ethnic Gnosticism. “Whiteness. Has. Caused. Blind. Ness. Of. Heart. Whiteness. Has. Caused. Blind. Ness. Of. HEART!”18 chanted Woke Church author Eric Mason (citing Ephesians 4:18). “The Bible can’t tell us what its like to be black in America, or how to address systemic discrimination in housing or education,” tweeted Veggie Tales creator Phil Vischer. “We need to listen to voices who study the issues and have had the experience.”19
Note two things about Vischer’s tweet. First, he uses the phrase “listen to voices.” Not to people or experts, but “voices.” Second, we need to listen to “voices” who 1) study and 2) have had the experience. This is connected to the first principle of Ethnic Gnosticism. For example, Vischer doesn’t recommend listening to, say, Thomas Sowell’s “voice” or John McWhorter’s “voice,” since they do not have the experience. How do I know? Because Vischer, who made a viral video on systemic racism, specifically refers here to addressing “systemic discrimination.” Hence, he has already couched the discussion in CT/CRT terms.
There is a great deal of theoretical and philosophical support for this sentiment. Sensoy and DiAngelo, for example, deal extensively with this idea in Is Everyone Really Equal? After questioning whether true objectivity is “desirable, or even possible,”20 they explain:
The term used to describe this way of thinking about knowledge is that knowledge is socially constructed. When we refer to knowledge as socially constructed, we mean that knowledge is reflective of the values and interests of those who produce it. This term captures the understanding that all content and all means of knowing are connected to a social context.21
This is why critical theorists believe that 1) the quest for objectivity is tantamount to a quest for white supremacy, and 2) we must value voices from “social contexts” outside of the racial hegemony to experience what critical theorists refer to as “other ways of knowing.” This is crucial to CSJ since “[critical] scholars argue that a key element of social injustice involves the claim that particular knowledge is objective and universal.”22
Not to belabor the point, but it is important for me to make this connection. People accuse those of us who oppose CSJ of calling those with whom we disagree names or using broad generalizations to demonize them. I do not deny that that has happened. However, as bad as that is, there is something worse, and that is promoting ideologies that are antithetical to the Gospel. Ethnic Gnosticism is dangerous, at least in part because it is rooted in neo-Marxism and Critical Theory. In a book poetically titled Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire, Kehinde Andrews makes the connection even clearer when he writes, “The neglect of Black knowledge by society is no accident but a direct result of racism.” Read carefully as Andrews unpacks what he means by “Black knowledge”: “Black Studies redresses this marginalisation by focusing on those knowledges produced at the margins and aims to create knowledge that can have a liberatory impact.”23 Having introduced the idea of other “knowledges,” he then ties the idea back to CT/CRT/I with all its trimmings:
As Malcolm X argued, “truth is on the side of the oppressed,” and the standpoint of Blackness provides a unique understanding of society. Black Studies is part of the wider movement to decolonise knowledge and to debunk the racist assumptions of the taken-for-granted Eurocentric truth regimes. This has never been a battle that was just academic—knowledge shapes the world. Eurocentric knowledge created the racist social order we experience.24
This reads like Andrews opened up a CRT thesaurus and went to town! He made all the connections, and in doing so, perfectly illustrates my point. These ideas are rooted in a worldview. And that worldview has crept into the Church.
In his book Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Jarvis Williams urges white Christians to “be quick to listen and slow to speak on race when they do not understand,”25 because in his view, “white supremacy and racism are complicated issues.” He goes on to explain what the proper “understanding” of these issues requires:
These issues relate to concepts such as racialization, critical race theory, mass incarceration, economic inequality, educational inequality, and other forms of systemic injustice. Speaking ignorantly about these issues is inappropriate. Southern Baptists, especially white Southern Baptists with privilege and without personal experience of the challenges associated with being a black or brown person in the U.S., should spend more time listening to their black and brown brothers and sisters instead of trying to speak to, at, about, or for them.26
Note how Williams shifts from the idea that these are “complicated issues” to appealing to the “personal experience of the challenges associated with being a black or brown person.” This is classic Ethnic Ggnosticism. White people don’t understand because of their “privilege” (read: hegemony, oppression, etc.), and black people do understand because of their personal experience (with hegemony, oppression, etc.). In a May 2020 sermon, pastor and former International Mission Board President David Platt bowed to these forces when he said, “I want to sacrifice more of my preferences as a white pastor… I need to grow… I do not want to speak from the Bible on issues that are popular among white followers of Christ.… And I know, as a white pastor, I have blind spots, so I am part of the problem.”27
If black people know racism, and white people cannot know racism (and are racist by default as a result of their white privilege), then the only acceptable response is for white people to sit down, shut up, and listen to what black people have to say on the matter.
That is exactly what the Be the Bridge curriculum and Facebook group—one of the most recommended resources on race among contemporary evangelicals—is about. Thabiti Anyabwile, arguably the leading CSJ voice in the broader evangelical sphere, has endorsed, recommended, and promoted Be the Bridge many times. Here is a picture of what it looks like when the Church accepts the premises of Ethnic Gnosticism (from the rules for white members of the Be the Bridge Facebook group):
Don’t “whitesplain.” Do not explain racism to a POC. Do not explain how the microaggression they just experienced was actually just someone being nice. Do not explain how a particular injustice is more about class than race. It’s an easy trap to fall into, but you can avoid it by maintaining a posture of active listening.
Don’t equate impact with intent. Yes, we all know your heart was in the right place and you meant well. But your words or behavior had a negative impact on those around you, and that’s what matters. Apologize and do better next time.
Don’t demand proof of a POC’s lived experience or try to counter their narrative with the experience of another POC. The experiences and opinions of POC are as diverse as its people. We can believe their stories. But keep in mind: just because one POC doesn’t feel oppressed, that doesn’t mean systemic, institutional racism isn’t real.
Do not chastise POCs (or dismiss their message) because they express their grief, fear, or anger in ways you deem “inappropriate.” Understand that historically, we white people have silenced voices of dissent and lament with our cultural idol of “niceness.” Provide space for POCs to wail, cuss, or even yell at you. Jesus didn’t hold back when he saw hypocrisy and oppression; POCs shouldn’t have to either.
Don’t get defensive when you are called out for any of the above. When a POC tells you that your words/tone/behavior are racist/oppressive/triggering, you stop. Don’t try to explain yourself (see #6.) Don’t become passive-aggressive or sarcastic. Don’t leave in a huff. (It may be helpful, however, to inconspicuously step outside/go to the restroom and take a deep breath.) Remain cognizant of the dynamics of white fragility, and take note of how it usually shows up in you.
Allow me to give one final example of this kind of thinking within the Church. In a recent tweet, Anthony Bradley, a well-known conservative Reformed evangelical scholar, makes a poignant practical application of the foundation Williams previously laid out for Southern Baptists:
[B]lack people in America have relied on God’s word to help them survive white people. When you’re white & in the dominant culture, you’ve never needed the Old Testament covenant-keeping Redemptive God. Yours became a Christianity of moralism.… Evangelicals will be confused by the black church because they’ve never needed the God who acts through miracles to redeem them from something that’s not their fault. So of course they will eventually question the reliability & veracity of text. Life’s been pretty easy. One of the privileges of being white in America is never needing God to stop a society from trying to destroy you & your family. So the Bible is a book for evangelicalism, disciple-making, & teaching morals. Not a book for personal AND social, cosmic survival.… As such, Great Commission Christianity doesn’t know what to do with [the] Old Testament. They have to make Jesus (& Paul) appear in the OT in order for the text to have meaning. The traditional black church is far more Trinitarian about the whole counsel of God than evangelicals (italics mine).28
Note the separation he makes between evangelicals/Great Commission Christianity and black people/the traditional black church. Also note the clear connection between those categories and the ability to know and experience God rightly. Finally, note how all of this is rooted in experience and narrative.
The third and final plank in the Ethnic Gnosticism platform is the idea that narrative is an alternative and ultimately superior truth. One of CRT’s hallmarks is storytelling—particularly, as its architects define it, legal storytelling and counterstorytelling. Legal storytelling is “using stories, parables, and first-person accounts to understand and analyze racial issues,”29 while counterstorytelling is “writing that aims to cast doubt on the validity of accepted premises or myths, especially ones held by the majority.”30 The practice “has enjoyed considerable vogue, and has spread to other disciplines.”31
Essentially, CRT uses storytelling as an alternative truth. As the old legal adage goes, “If the law is on your side, pound the law; if the facts are on your side, pound the facts; if neither is on your side, pound the table.” CRT would change the last part of that to “if neither is on your side, 1) assume it is because of racism, and 2) tell a story or counterstory.”
Perhaps the biggest problem with storytelling and counterstorytelling is that those stories so often are proven wrong—or worse, just plain false. We have all heard stories about racist police stops. I have even told one or two myself. There is no doubt that many black Americans have had run-ins with cops who are on power trips, having a bad day, or really were racist. I have described my own such run-ins elsewhere. But what about when they’re not? What about when the officer was professional, courteous, even lenient, but the storyteller gives a different account? Shouldn’t this give us pause? Three examples help demonstrate my point.
In April 2018, Reverend Jerrod Moultrie, the president of a South Carolina chapter of the NAACP, was pulled over by police. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Moultrie wrote, “Tonight I was racially profiled by Timmonsville Officer [Chris Miles] cause I was driving a Mercedes Benz and going home in a nice neighborhood.”32
Moultrie then took things a step further.
Timmonsville Police Chief Billy Brown said Moultrie contacted him the next morning to accuse Miles of racial profiling and mistreating him during the stop. According to Moultrie’s statement to the chief, the officer not only accused him of having drugs in his car, but did so in front of Moultrie’s wife and grandchild.33 The chief’s documents state that the officer “asked [Moultrie’s wife and grandchild] not to move because the officer looked as if he might shoot them or something. He also made mention that the officer continued to ask him about his neighborhood. Why was he in that neighborhood? And (threatened) to put him in jail in reference to something dealing with the registration to the vehicle.”34
When the chief investigated, Miles’s body camera footage told a different tale: Moultrie failed to signal a turn and had the wrong tags on his new Mercedes-Benz. The body cam footage shows that Miles was courteous, professional, and extremely helpful, telling Moultrie where to go to get the proper tags. (After his lie was revealed, Moultrie removed the Facebook post.)
In February 2015, actress Taraji P. Henson accused police in Glendale, California, of racially profiling her son during a visit to the University of Southern California. Henson was so upset by the incident that she vowed to send her son across the country to Howard University rather than allow him to stay in Southern California. “I’m not paying $50K so I can’t sleep at night wondering is this the night my son is getting racially profiled on campus,” she told Uptown Magazine.
Then the Glendale Police Department released the body cam footage showing the stop was initiated when Henson’s son drove through a yellow light while a pedestrian was crossing the street.35 He also handed the officer an expired insurance card, to which the officer responded, “That’s alright,” and then, “OK, good job,” when the young man produced the proper document. The officer smelled marijuana, which Henson admitted having in his possession without a permit, along with Ritalin that wasn’t prescribed to him. In an act that can only be described as extremely lenient, the officer said, “I’m going to give you a citation for the marijuana. I’m not going to give you a citation for running that yellow because that will actually put a moving violation on your license.” He barely even mentioned the Ritalin—a highly addictive drug in the same class as OxyContin, opium, and fentanyl—other than to say, “If you have Ritalin on you and you’re not supposed to, don’t do it. That’s a big violation, and I wouldn’t want to do it.”
To her credit, Henson recanted after the video was released. “A mother’s job is not easy and neither is a police officer’s,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “Sometimes as humans we overreact without gathering all of the facts.… As a mother in this case I overreacted and for that I apologize. Thank you to that officer for being kind to my son.”36
On April 27, 2018, Dawn Hilton-Williams was driving through Brunswick County, Virginia, on her way home to South Carolina after watching her daughter play in a tennis tournament. She was pulled over by a Brunswick County Sheriff’s deputy for going seventy miles per hour in a zone where the speed limit was fifty-five. Afterward, she made an emotional cell phone video that she later posted to Facebook, describing what she called “a racist police stop.”37 Hilton-Williams talked about being afraid because she was “in a rural little town.” She panned the camera around, showing the long stretch of rural highway, and said, “This is where we got lynched.” The video was filled with angst, tears, and passion.
After receiving numerous calls from people who had seen the Facebook video, Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Roberts decided to review the body-cam footage. It shows a by-the-book traffic stop, with the deputy even saying, “please,” “thank you,” and “ma’am.” However, when the officer presents the ticket, Hilton-Williams tells him, “I’m not going to sign that ticket. I don’t have to sign that.” The officer reiterates that her signature is not an admission of guilt, but acknowledgment of her understanding that she must either pay a fine or appear in court. He then tells her that if she doesn’t sign, he will be forced to arrest her, impound her vehicle, and take her before the magistrate. It is textbook de-escalation with a motorist, and Hilton-Williams agrees to sign.
But after the body-cam footage was released, instead of admitting that she had completely misrepresented the stop, Hilton-Williams maintained her assertion that it was racism, even claiming the cop ticketed her “for going 5 miles over the speed limit.” (She was fifteen over.) Her assertion was not based on the facts of the case (she had those wrong), what the officer did or said, or even how he said it (which she misrepresented). Instead, it is based solely on black people suffering racism and trauma throughout history. In Hilton-Williams’s mind, she was victimized, and in a classic case of Ethnic Gnosticism, she believes all black people understand that. “Why do only African Americans and people of color know what I’m going through right now?” she asks in her video. She then claims, “Everybody I know who is African American has been through this at least one time.” She went on to name several victims of recent police shootings and suggested that her fear arose from the very real possibility of joining them—even though that possibility was improbable under the circumstances.
How many of the pastors who put BLM blackouts on their social media profiles, wrote heartfelt apologies for their “Silence is Violence” missteps, or pledged to “elevate black voices” did so after “listening to the countless stories of our African American brothers and sisters” that told of being pulled over in a racist stop?
I am weary of hearing testimony after testimony of white pastors who threw reason and Scripture out the window because of narratives. How many of those narratives were like the three mentioned above? How many were lies? How many were exaggerations? And how many were the genuine expression of fear and trauma that, though sincere, directly contradicted the facts? The answer is, we don’t know.
The rate of police killings of black Americans has fallen by 70 percent over the course of my lifetime.38 Yet every time I turn around, it seems there is a headline about police hunting and killing unarmed black men and motorists testifying of profiling, threats of violence, and intense fear of police brutality.
The fear, as in the case of this woman who was pulled over for speeding on a rural highway, is real. When the officer responded firmly to Hilton-Williams’s refusal to sign her ticket, I believe she really was afraid. She really did think about police shootings that had taken place over the previous years. She also thought about countless stories she had heard about police racism and brutality.
But what she thought wasn’t based on reality.
In a recent man-on-the-street interview conducted by Prager University, three young black men were asked how many unarmed black men the police killed in 2019. “About a thousand,” said one. “At least a thousand,” said the second. The third estimated, “Fourteen hundred.” When asked how many unarmed white men were killed by police that same year, their answers ranged from four to fourteen. The young men were astonished to learn that only nineteen white men and nine black men had been killed by police in 2019, according to the Washington Post database, the most reliable and up-to-date source available. When asked what they thought about the data, they responded, “Cap.”39
These young men are not unique. I have seen several similar videos where people of all ages and ethnicities estimate police shootings of unarmed black men range from several hundred to a thousand or more.
But why are those numbers so out of touch with reality? As we are about to explore, it’s because those ideas contain a kernel of truth.
As Christians, we are called to “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). And again in Job, we read, “Did not I weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy” (Job 30:25)? We are also told to “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:3). May the Lord grant us grace to take such admonitions seriously.
But the Bible also admonishes us to do things that fly in the face of Ethnic Gnosticism and its assumptions. The very idea of dividing people up by ethnicity, then declaring some of them wicked oppressors and others the oppressed, is inconsistent with the biblical doctrine of universal guilt:
What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:9–18)
This is not the state of white men; it is the state of all men. As such, the idea that there is special knowledge or revelation available to some and hidden from others by virtue of their race or position in the oppressor/oppressed scheme is unthinkable—and unbiblical.
If it doesn’t come from the Bible, where is it coming from?
1. LGBTQIA+ stands for the usual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Allies. The plus serves in much the same way as “to an unknown God” covered the spiritual bases and avoided offense in Paul’s day by acknowledging that of which one is currently unaware.
2. A.M. Renwick, “Gnosticism,” edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979–1988), 484.
3. Tara J. Yosso, “Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth,” Race Ethnicity and Education 8, no. 1 (August 23, 2006): 69–91, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1361332052000341006.
4. Georg Lukács, History, Class, and Consciousness, Marxists.org, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/hcc07_1.htm.
5. Richard Delgado, Critical Race Theory (Third Edition) (New York, New York: NYU Press, Kindle Edition, 2017), 11.
6. Sandra Harding, The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies (New York, New York: Routledge, 2004), 7–8.
7. José Medina, The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and the Social Imagination (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2013), 197.
8. Delgado, Critical Race Theory, 5.
9. Emma Green, “The Unofficial Racism Consultants to the White Evangelical World,” The Atlantic, July 5, 2020, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-unofficial-racism-consultants-to-the-white-evangelical-world/ar-BB16m2y9.
10. According to leaked documents, the warrant for Breonna Taylor’s apartment was granted based on, among other things, 1) her possible involvement in a homicide after the body of an associate was found in a car Taylor rented in 2016, 2) the fact that a known drug dealer listed Taylor’s address on his Chase Bank account, 3) the fact that Taylor twice bailed the dealer out of jail, 4) the fact that during recorded jailhouse phone calls between Taylor and the dealer, she collected drug money for him, 5) the dealer had packages delivered to Taylor’s apartment, and 6) surveillance video and photos showed Taylor at the “trap house” with the dealer. “Breonna Taylor,” Tatumreport.com, https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/63943132/breonna-taylor-summary-redacted1.
11. Marquise Francis, “ ‘Sleeping While Black’: Family Seeks Justice for Breonna Taylor, Killed in Her Bedroom by Police,” Yahoo News, May 13, 2020, https://news.yahoo.com/asleep-while-black-family-seeks-justice-for-breonna-taylor-killed-in-her-bedroom-by-police-210858395.html; Elie Mystal, “Breonna Taylor Was Murdered for Sleeping While Black,” The Nation, May 15, 2020, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/breonna-taylor-was-murdered-for-sleeping-while-black; Amina Elahi, “ ‘Sleeping While Black’: Louisville Police Kill Unarmed Black Woman,” NPR, May 13, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/05/13/855705278/sleeping-while-black-louisville-police-kill-unarmed-black-woman; Bridget Read, “What We Know about the Killing of Breonna Taylor,” The Cut, September 29, 2020, https://www.thecut.com/2020/09/breonna-taylor-louisville-shooting-police-what-we-know.html.
12. Greg Moore, “Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron Turned His Back on America. Here’s How to Fight Back,” Arizona Republic, September 24, 2020, https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/greg-moore/2020/09/24/daniel-cameron-turned-his-back-on-black-america/3515688001.
13. Louis Casiano, “Women’s March Co-Founder Tamika Mallory Says Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron No Different Than ‘Sell-Out Negroes,’ ” Fox News, September 25, 2020, https://www.foxnews.com/us/tamika-mallory-kentucky-negroes.
14. Thomas Catanacci, “He Is Not Kinfolk’: MSNBC Guest Says Black Kentucky Attorney General Doesn’t Represent Black People,” The Daily Caller, September 23, 2020, https://dailycaller.com/2020/09/23/skinfolk-kinfolk-msnbc-guest-kentucky-attorney-general-daniel-cameron-doesnt-represent-black-people.
15. Joy Reid, The ReidOut, MSNBC, September 23, 2020, https://archive.org/details/MSNBCW_20200923_230000_The_ReidOut.
16. Moore, “Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron Turned His Back on America. Here’s How to Fight Back.”
17. Joel Anderson, “The Usefulness of Daniel Cameron,” Slate, September 25, 2020, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/daniel-cameron-breonna-taylor-kentucky-attorney-general.html.
18. Woke Preacher Clips, “Eric Mason: ‘Whiteness Has Caused Blindness of Heart!’,” YouTube, September 23, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-O6Ufo3GH8.
19. Phil Vischer (@philvischer), Twitter, June 9, 2020, https://twitter.com/philvischer/status/1270468029093216257?s=20.
20. Robin DiAngelo and Özlem Sensoy, Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education (Multicultural Education Series) (New York, New York: Teacher’s College Press, 2012), 7.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Kehinde Andrews in Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire (London, United Kingdom: Zed Books, Kindle Edition, 2018).
24. Ibid.
25. Jarvis J. Williams and Kevin Jones, Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention (Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2017), 99.
26. Ibid.
27. McLean Bible Church, “Praying and Working for Justice: Racialization,” YouTube, May 27, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUs5mQ0WBP8.
28. Anthony Bradley (@drantbradley), “This is simple: black people in America have relied on God’s word to help them survive white people. When you’re white & in the dominant culture, you’ve never needed the Old Testament covenant-keeping Redemptive God. Yours became a Christianity of moralism & your kids walked,” Twitter, February 4, 2019, 9:46 a.m., https://twitter.com/drantbradley/status/1092434184130490369.
29. Delgado, Critical Race Theory, 178.
30. Ibid., 171.
31. Ibid., 53.
32. Camila Molina, “SC NAACP Leader Says He Was Racially Profiled. Body Cam Footage Tells a Different Story,” News & Observer, May 15, 2018, https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article211166024.html#storylink=cpy.
33. Larry Elder, “Who’s Doing the ‘Racial Profiling’?,” The Tribune-Democrat, June 11, 2018, https://www.tribdem.com/news/editorials/larry-elder-who-s-doing-the-racial-profiling/article_ad3915b0-6b3a-11e8-ab22-8bc873585ac7.html.
34. Elder, “Who’s Doing the ‘Racial Profiling’?.”
35. “Police Release Video of Actress Taraji P. Henson’s Son Marcell Being Stopped in Glendale,” Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2015, https://www.latimes.com/83163502-132.html.
36. Taraji P. Henson (@tarajiphenson), Instagram, March 27, 2015, https://www.instagram.com/p/0v0KjQOuFM/?taken-by=tarajiphenson.
37. Planetvance, “Dawn Hilton-Williams Traffic Stop in Virginia on 4/27/2018,” YouTube, May 10, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbrWFpLLLxk.
38. Kameron J. Sheats et al., “Violence-Related Disparities Experienced by Black Youth and Young Adults: Opportunities for Prevention,” American Journal of Preventative Medicine 55, no. 4 (October 2018): 462–69, doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2018.05.017.
39. Prager U, “Are the Police Targeting Unarmed Blacks?” YouTube, July 15, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYUQ8_Sf6Kc.