Applying Principles from the PCA’s Report of the Ad Interim Committee on Human Sexuality to Our Discourse On Race
Both sides of the Christian divide over the extent of the truth of the dominant racial narrative in our culture could greatly benefit by applying the principles in the Report of the Ad Interim Committee on Human Sexuality from the PCA.
I’m going to pass over a lot of the principles that people might be interested in transferring from a discussion of homosexuality to a discussion of race. To mention, in passing, some specifics that I have in mind:
The discussion of the Christian’s identity on page 28, lines 20–22: “We are best served in our sanctification by looking forward to our new creation selves, which will be fully purified from sinful desire, rather than by looking backwards to our Adamic, fallen selves.” How might this inform the way we interact with the dominant cultural narrative in which, as Jonah Goldberg has said, the sins of the past never get smaller in the rearview mirror?
The discussion on terminology on pages 29–31. The authors exemplify a lot of wisdom in being aware of how language can have a range of cultural baggage, some good or neutral and some harmful. And they exemplify grace in acknowledging that “language itself is a secondary issue relative to the doctrine it expresses…There is a way to make being gay central to personhood, while still using circumspect or ‘acceptable language. Similarly, there is a way to make being gay far less central to one’s ethos and identity, even while using potentially less helpful language.” They advise us to keep in mind the “twin dangers of misunderstanding and syncretism” that can come with adopting language that has deep roots in secular culture. But those who avoid certain terms should be aware of how they might misunderstand a fellow Christian using such terms: “we ought not start from the assumption that they are being unfaithful or living in active rebellion against God. … ask questions and seek to understand… we would do well to seek understanding before imparting advice” (p. 30). How might this inform our use or avoidance of terminology like BLM or anti-racism or whiteness?
As of now, I don’t have plans to explore these or other principles further. What I want to focus on is one of the first principles mentioned in the report and how it relates to the sort of Christian tribalism on social media that I’ve been discussing recently in other posts. “[W]e must not apply the truth so harshly as to be callously alienating or so indirectly that the truth is never clearly grasped” (emphasis original, pp. 4–5).
One might be tempted to think each side of the divide owns one side of the problem. The skeptics, who tend to get labeled as “discernment” or far-right types, are callously alienating and the affirmers, who tend to get labeled as “woke,” aren’t forceful enough in the truth.
But the “woke” crowd has its own callously alienating attitude that often gets a pass or, worse, receives encouragement from fellow members of the tribe. Granted, this crowd is better at being passive aggressive or indirect with their intolerance to those who see things differently. Often it is exemplified in straw-man arguments or nut-picking.
Here’s some examples of what I have in mind. First, a prominent evangelical on social media, who holds a teaching position and is followed by lots of other evangelical in positions of influence, shares a comment by another person which mocks people who are talking about the unclear data on racial disparities of police violence. There is an irony in this insofar as the tweet was meant to mock those who were talking about such data as being callous to those who are hurting. But who is hurting in the relevant sense?
The idea that people who are hurting often need a hug more than an argument is fine at an individual level. But to pretend like the entire public square has to hit the pause button as people far removed from the immediate catalyst get to vent their own anger at their own side of the narrative is not only false, it’s alienating insofar as it serves to further polarize those who aren’t already fully convinced of the narrative. The reason these studies are being talked about and shared is because they are relevant to the public discussion which is currently in progress and about which people are currently protesting and rioting.
Second, when it was recently revealed that the McMichaels had used racial slurs, a couple of prominent evangelicals tweeted or retweeted comments to the effects of “Now watch as those who doubted that this was a racist incident start to make excuses for how it’s still not a racist incident!”
That shows a complete lack of Christian charity towards those who, based on only seeing a 30 second clip, didn’t think there was sufficient evidence that the McMichaels were motivated by racism. Instead of waiting to see how those who were agnostic would react, instead of “hoping all things” — namely, that we could now unify over this incident — it was prophesied by prominent members of the tribe that we foresee the agnostics digging in their heels and resisting the further evidence. It’s hard not to see how there isn’t a further assumption implicit in this prophecy of an extremely deformed moral character, if not a racist character, of those who didn’t immediately conclude “racism!” after seeing a 30 second clip of Arbery being murdered.
No doubt, we can go on Twitter and find people who still resist the racial explanation of the McMichaels. But this is nutpicking. I can also nutpick people from the opposite side of that narrative. Here’s an example of someone who was agnostic and then changed their mind, while another person, on the “woke” side, rejected the sincerity of the mind-change:
This is the problem with social media in general. It’s too easy to nut-pick and, in the process, radicalize and entrench our own positions. The result is that we start becoming more nutty ourselves.
When we become callously alienating, we make it harder for ourselves to clearly grasp the truth because we build an echochamber.
I’v already mentioned, in a previous post on evangelical tribalism, that the faults of the “hard tribe” in regard to this float on the surface for all to see. The irony, as I see it, is that both tribes have the same problem insofar as they are more guilty of callous, alienating rhetoric towards the other side than either is guilty of being overly indirect and losing the truth. But both for different reasons. The hard tribe has stumbled into callous alienation by an excessively outward focus. The soft tribe has stumbled into callous alienation by an excessive insularity.
Perhaps the problem of indirectness arises in a different sense than what the PCA report intends. That is, it is not that either side is necessarily guilty of being too shy about sharing their convictions on race, but that both sides are guilty of primarily spending too much time on social media talking about those who disagree instead of trying to talk to those who disagree.
