Josh Benner

Tag: blm

  • Research says white Christians have become less motivated to address racial injustice

    Research says white Christians have become less motivated to address racial injustice

    I saw an interesting article from Barna Research a few weeks ago titled “White Christians have become even less motivated to address racial injustice.”

    From the article:
    “One might assume that the events of 2020 have increased awareness of racial injustice in the United States and motivation to address it. But the story isn’t so straightforward, new Barna research (conducted in partnership with Dynata) suggests. Yes, there are signs the past year has clarified how Americans think about racial injustice—but that doesn’t mean they see the issue, or their role within it, with greater urgency. In the Church especially, there is a sense that people are doubling down on divides.”

    The article looks at a couple of data points. They polled different racial groups with the question “do you think our country has a race problem?” Across all respondents, 46% affirmed the statement, slightly higher than 43% of self-professing Christians. When broken down by race, 33% of white professing Christians affirmed that statement (a 7% drop from the same survey a year before).

    In another survey question, Barna asked self-professing Christians “how motivated are you to address racial injustice in our society.” In the survey, the number of white Christians who felt “not at all motivated” to address current issues doubled in the past year from 11% to 22% (compared to 3% of African American responders).

    I distinctly remember earlier in the summer when there were people who refused to call out the rioting and looting. In fact, there were those who justified it. People talked about this as a response to injustice because of all of the hurt and pain. There were people who wanted to compare the protests to the Boston Tea Party. We needed to tear down statues of Abraham Lincoln and Christopher Columbus. We needed to

    But all of this was counterproductive. Violence does not engender public sympathy. It turns people away. That’s why people are less likely to talk about these issues. Because Americans have seen months of looting, fires and destruction in major cities. We’ve seen dramatic increases in crime and murder rates in major cities. We’ve seen story after story of black children being killed in the crossfire of inner city violence without groups like BLM ever protesting those deaths. We’ve seen roughly a billion dollars in property damages this summer.

    Whose lives have all of this violence and destruction helped? Who has this advanced? Who has this empowered?

    We’ve seen a rise in police officers being shot.

    Americans have been lectured all summer from the media, from sports, from Hollywood, from music, from our education systems about how racist we all are.

    So yes, its’ not a shock that some people are less likely to address these issues given the destruction that has come forth from the radical movements who are beating the drums the loudest. And this is a point which many thoughtful people have brought up which is that this summer is creating greater racial divides not helping to heal racial divides.

    I believe the these poll numbers will continue to trend in that direction.

    We’ve seen calls to defund police in democrat controlled cities. Meanwhile, all of these efforts disproportionately harm inner cities and disproportionately harm black communities. All of this works against public support. We see increases in violence and destruction. There have been young black children all over the country who have been killed in the cross-fire of inner city violence, without a word from BLM. And I think a lot of people feel like black communities are being used as political pawns to advance an agenda.

    As far as why many Christians are less likely to discuss these matters, I think there’s also the concern that the movement is ultimately supporting an ideology which is contrary to the world view of Christianity and find it unsavory and difficult to support. Critical race theory, which is the overarching ideology behind much of the current racial discussion in our culture, is popular on the political left. Modern liberalism and socialistic policies are influenced by Marxist thought, while religious people tend to be more conservative (not exclusively, but religious people are more likely to be conservative than liberal). So what we are left with is a discussion that is controlled by the left and where religious peel on the right have several areas of disagreement. All that to say: it’s not at all surprising that white Christians are less likely to talk about racial injustice.

    Is it because we’re all racist or prejudiced? The cultural Marists would say yes. Which feeds into this vicious cycle of diminishing interest in discussing these matters. Interest will continue to wane in the face of radicalism.

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  • Sports leagues postpone games and protest: but are they creating meaningful change?

    Sports leagues postpone games and protest: but are they creating meaningful change?

    In the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting, the NBA postponed all of their games on Wednesday night. Four MLB games were postponed. Several NFL teams called off practice.

    On the homepage of all of these major professional sports leagues, there are stories. nba.com has an article that with the headline “Reports: players decide to resume playoffs.”

    I’ve seen lots of posts on social media.

    And while I think it’s a tragedy whenever someone is involved in a violent altercation, I think it’s absurd that we want to put this event on par with George Floyd or Breonna Taylor. It’s not the same situation at all.

    Athletes can refuse to play if they want, by the way. Teams can cancel practice. But it’s little more than virtue signaling from the privileged of the privileged. Fantastically wealthy athletes who have the luxury of just not doing their jobs as a form of protest.

    We had several nights of rioting and destruction in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting. Is lawlessness and violence going to be the new normal? We want to assume it’s because of racism and because he was black. In USA Today, democratic political strategist Donna Brazile had a piece titled “After Jacob Blake and Kenosha, what good is The Talk? Do words even matter?“

    The article begins with Brazile saying “Every Black parent sits their child down at some point in their adolescence for “The Talk,” about how to behave when you are pulled over by the police. Even if they pull you over for no good reason, or stop you on a corner for a random body search, you must be polite and deferential. No back talk, no attitude and no reaching in your pocket to get something without giving them plenty of warning so that you don’t end up lying dead on the street.”

    I think of how the shooting of Jacob Blake does not at all fit with “the Talk.” He walked away from the police, ignored their lawful orders, and then reached into a car as if to grab something. Police fired.

    I’ve heard people talk about privilege in this case. I think any person, regardless of skin color, runs the risk of a similar outcome for disregarding the police and making movements as if they’re going to grab for something.

    We teach a dangerous lesson to our society where we want to empower criminals to disregard the police. It puts law enforcement officers at risk and it puts more citizens at risk when we treat a person who threatened police as an innocent victim.

    And yet there are still those who call to defund police as if it’ll lead to a greater good. These protests are not leading to positive change. And they never will. They’re leading to more violence and destruction. Cities all across the country have seen increased murder rates.

    And that’s always been my concern with this movement. The change that’s being created is life being made worse.

    Thanks for reading!

  • The virtue signal of all virtue signals: liberals compare themselves to heroes of all past generations

    Last week, legal scholar and philosopher Robert George had a thought-provoking series of Tweets on how people today would have responded to historical events had they lived through them.  

    George says: 

    “I sometimes ask students what their position on slavery would have been had they been white and living in the South before abolition. Guess what? They all would have been abolitionists! They all would have bravely spoken out against slavery, and worked tirelessly against it. Of course, this is nonsense. Only the tiniest fraction of them, or of any of us, would have spoken up against slavery or lifted a finger to free the slaves. Most of them—and us—would have gone along. Many would have supported the slave system and happily benefited from it.”

    It’s easy to look back at history and assume we would have been righteous. There’s a meme I’ve seen on online that says “If you’ve ever wondered what you’d do during slavery, the Holocaust, or civil rights movement, you’re doing it right now.” 

    Here’s a key difference for the social justice warriors of today. The popular culture supports you. There’s no pressure, or risk, or persecution to protest or be a social media activist. The media supports you, Hollywood supports you, athletes support you, academia supports you, and big corporations support you.  

    People want to compare this to the Civil Rights movement. Many of the protests and sit-ins were unpopular in public opinion from that era. The movement came at a cost. Where’s the cost in sharing a meme?

    To quote again from George, he gives a good ethical test for how we would have truly responded in previous eras: 

    I respond by saying that I will credit their claims if they can show evidence of the following: that in leading their lives today they have stood up for the rights of unpopular victims of injustice whose very humanity is denied, and where they have done so knowing: 

    (1) that it would make them unpopular with their peers, (2) that they would be loathed and ridiculed by powerful, influential individuals and institutions in our society; (3) that they would be abandoned by many of their friends, (4) that they would be called nasty names, and (5) that they would risk being denied valuable professional opportunities as a result of their moral witness. In short, my challenge is to show where they have at risk to themselves and their futures stood up for a cause that is unpopular in elite sectors of our culture today.

    This is an important distinction. When we act like we would have been leading the charge in previous eras, when we want to say that we would have been virtuous in previous eras, we need to consider the context of that time and the cost of our beliefs. Because there’s little real cost in the current climate. For instance, when people want to talk about this as being similar to how they would have responded to the Holocaust consider that during the Holocaust and the Third Reich, almost 80,000 Germans were executed for being part of the resistance. People paid the ultimate price to stand up against Hitler. Where’s the cost in a hashtag?  

    People want to compare this to how they would have responded in the Civil War. 360,000 soldiers died for the Union. That was roughly one percent of the entire U.S. population at the time. Men paid the ultimate price to preserve our nation and end slavery. Where’s the cost in telling people a bunch of books they should read or in watching a documentary?  

    People want to compare this to the Civil Rights movement. Many of the protests and sit-ins were unpopular in public opinion from that era. The movement came at a cost. Where’s the cost in sharing a meme?  

    In the civil rights movement, they protested against actual systemic racism. Today social justice warriors fight against inequality which they say is the result of current systematic racism, and there are people who want to compare the two eras as being moral equivalents. 

    When people want to compare their efforts today to past social movements, it’s showing an ignorance of history and it’s also showing delusions of grandeur. Progressives like to believe that everyone is immoral except for them and that they would have been righteous at all times.  

    We judge people form the past because they don’t adhere to our current standards. And when I say current, I mean that literally. Current as in today because the standards of progressivism are an ever-moving target. There weren’t serious efforts to defund, or dismantle, or destroy the police a year ago. There weren’t major popular efforts to tear down monuments five years ago. There was not a major war on our history ten years ago. But progressives continue to shift their values and they fight a culture war where there is no grace or redemption given to past people who did not perfectly adhere to these standards of today while progressives allow themselves to continue changing what matters and what’s right.

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  • Man dies in police custody while begging for his life

    The footage of George Floyd being held to the ground and struggling to breathe, repeatedly telling the police he can’t breathe, begging for his life, and telling the police that he was about to die, is incredibly disturbing.

    It’s murder.

    There will be those who blame the victim. I’ve heard people try to make excuses in these situations before. “Well he shouldn’t have broken the law” (if he even did). “Well he shouldn’t have resisted.”

    It’s murder.

    Neither of those is something that justified a man losing his life. Neither of those are justifications for the absolute inhumanity of the officer who ignored Floyd begging for his life. Of course you’re going to struggle when you literally have your life escaping from you. There’s no justification for any of this.

    On Monday night, police were called for a forgery in progress on the allegation that Floyd had attempted to use a counterfeit $20 bill at a grocery store. A non-violent crime. A couple minutes after Floyd is no longer struggling, no longer conscious, yet the officer still won’t let his knee off of his neck. The officer isn’t in danger (Floyd wasn’t armed). There’s no reason as to why they can’t let him up, let him breathe.

    Several bystanders begged the arresting officer to let the man up. He refused to listen.

    I appreciate law enforcement. I understand that they have a difficult job. I can also acknowledge that I could not do their job. But none of that justifies killing another person. The officer was not in danger. The situation was under control. There is no reason why the arresting officer should have kept his knee in Floyd’s neck. Law enforcement experts say that maneuver is no longer sanctioned in Minnesota.

    The officer should not get special treatment because he’s a police officer. If anyone else did this and it was filmed, they’d be in jail. The offending officer and three others have been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department. The mayor of Minneapolis has spoken out against what happened. There does need to be justice for George Floyd because he lost his life in an unjust manner. And we should always want justice to be served as it is an inherent good.

  • Nike ad says Colin Kaepernick is “sacrificing everything.” We should all agree that that’s absurd

    DmMVEk3WsAACHq1.jpg-large.jpeg“Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything. Just do it.”

    Sacrificing everything?

    This is the slogan on a new Nike ad featuring former Colin Kaerpnick, former NFL quarterback who was the first in the NFL to kneel during the National Anthem as a protest. The ad is on a new marketing campaign from Nike as they celebrate the 30th anniversary of their famed “Just do it” slogan.

    There are varying opinions on football players kneeling. In general, most Americans do not support this and see it as offensive and disrespectful. 63 percent of people responded unfavorably in a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University.

    But I feel like we should all agree that he most certainly did not “sacrifice everything.” People go off to wars and die. But Colin Kaepernick is in an ad for a shoe company that says he “sacrificed everything?” People in other parts of the world stand up to barbaric dictators and pay with their lives (and sometimes the lives of their own families). But Colin Kaepernick not playing football anymore is him sacrificing everything.

    That’s absurd.

    Kaepernick has far more fame and notoriety for his protest than he ever would have had for being an ok NFL quarterback. He made millions playing football.

    He’s going to make millions with Nike. According to the New York Times: “Nike will produce new Kaepernick apparel, including a shoe and a T-shirt, and if the merchandise sells well, the value of the deal will rival those of other top N.F.L. players, according to people close to the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity because Nike had not formally announced it. Nike will also donate money to Kaepernick’s “Know Your Rights” campaign.”

    I think it hurts the cause. Sports writer Jason Whitlock, who’s been critical of Kapernick’s protests commented: “Told y’all from Day One this has always been about the money. All of it. Revolutionaries aren’t sponsored by major corporations. It’s been a hustle from the giddy-up.”

    I agree with Whitlock. Gandhi wasn’t saying, “Be the change you wish to see in the world. Obey your thirst.”

    I think Kaepernick cashing in on his protest (first of all, that totally undermines the idea of sacrifice) hurts his message. He’s trying to address real issues and he’s going to attach his name to an apparel line? Obviously that’s his right too. But it also makes him look like a corporate shill.

    It doesn’t seem to be a very successful means of rallying support to a cause or advancing a public discussion on the issues. A lot of Americans find the display disrespectful and offensive. And that’s fine. You can do something that offends people. But then what’s the end game for actually being an agent of change? If you turn off people whom you’re trying to reach and they don’t want to listen to the message, how do you achieve anything?

    These are complicated matters and there are a number of thoughtful opinions. The issue for me has never been kneeling for the national anthem. My biggest issue is that he’s getting treated like he’s some sort of martyr. Kaepernick has certainly received lots of criticism for his protest but many also celebrate him as a hero, he’s been given a huge platform, and he’s going to profit greatly off of this. This isn’t what it looks like to sacrifice everything.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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