One African-American woman's musings against RAAN types

Over on her blog, Alicia posted some of her thoughts on RAAN and their unhelpful attacks on race relations. As a black woman, her musings show us a perspective that RAAN would rather not others read about.

Last thoughts on the Kong Hee case post-appeal

As I have mentioned months earlier, I do believe that City Harvest "pastor" Kong Hee is indeed guilty in regards to his church's finances, but Christians especially should not be rejoicing in his conviction, and we should differentiate clearly between what is immoral and what is illegal.

In light of the reduced sentence verdict arrived at by the Singapore Court, there has been a lot of outrage from Singaporeans. Now, whether the sentences are fair or unfair is a matter for judges to decide. But what is indeed revealing in many of these comments is the utter lack of distinction between morality and legality. Something can be immoral, yet legal, and vice versa. Adultery is immoral, but the law does not penalize adulterers. Abortion is immoral, but in many countries including Singapore, it is legal. Conversely, in France, telling the truth about abortion is illegal, while it is actually moral to tell the truth about abortion. In other words, there is no necessary correlation between morality and legality. That there ought to be such a relation is an assertion worth arguing about, but even if there should be a relation does not imply that there IS currently such a relation.

It is on this matter that much of the online outrage concerning Kong Hee is disturbing. Is it immoral for a pastor to live like a king? Yes, I think it is. But is it illegal? No! Is it immoral for a pastor to fleece people of their money for his own enrichment? Yes. But if the followers willingly give up their money for their pastor to live such a lifestyle, of their own free will and knowing that is how he uses the money, then how is it illegal for the pastor to use his followers' money in such a way? Is it immoral for Kong Hee to run the church like a corporate dictatorship? Yes, and contrary to the Scriptures too. But if the church members agree that this is how their church should be run, and such is not contrary to their own constitution, then it seems there is nothing illegal here either.

That is why, no matter how reprehensible I think Kong Hee's actions may be, I do not think he should be charged with anything beyond basic criminal breech of trust. The civil laws of a nation can and should only judge what is illegal, not necessarily what is immoral (unless what is immoral is also illegal). Lex Rex! The Law is King. That is what is meant for any country to be ruled by the law. If people think that any of these immoral actions taken by Kong Hee should be punished, then go ahead and try to introduce legislation to criminalize such actions. But unless and until such is done, there is absolutely no basis for anyone to clamor for greater sentencing of Kong Hee and company.

Social Darwinism the prevalent doctrine of race relations in the early 20th century

Darwinists' views about race existed not only in Nazi Germany but also in America, as it apparents from surveys of textbooks published from 1880 to around 1950. For example, Princeton biologist Edwin Conklin stated in his college text that comparison

of any modern race with the Neanderthal or Heidelberg types show... Negroid races more closely resemble the original stock than the white or yellow races. Every consideration should lead those who believe in the superiority of the white race to strive to preserve its purity and to establish and maintain the segregation of the races.³²

German eugnicists relied heavily on work completed in Britain and America, especially that research related to sterilization policies. ...

[Jerry Bergman, Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview: How the Nazi Eugenic Crusade for a Superior Race Caused the Greatest Holocaust in World History (Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Joshua Press, 2012, 2014), 83]

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32 Edwin G. Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution (New York: Scribner's, 1921), 34, 53

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Conversely, German eugenicists repeatedly acknowledged their debt to the American and British researchers and periodically honoured eugenicists from British and American universities with various awards. Furthermore, many of the American eugenicists argued that the Nazis were outdoing them and were able to convince American courts (including the Supreme Court) of the validity of even some of the most outrageous eugenic claims. Some of these eugenic-based ideas became part of American law and practice until after World War II when the full horror of the German eugenics programmes became widely known

[Bergman, 85]

What was the prevalent understanding of race relations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Western countries? Was it color-blindness? If one were to read the revisionist history put up by RAAN writers such as Jarvis Williams, you would think most Westerners in the late 19th century and early 20th century held to the theory of color-blindness. But such is absolutely false. While Christians of that era hopefully should have been promoters of color-blindness, and they did when their better angels prevailed, the predominant theory concerning race relations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was Social Darwinism. It was in Nazi Germany that Social Darwinism was applied in practice in the Holocaust, but that does not mean that only Nazi Germany held to the theory of Social Darwinism, just that they were willing to actually put it into practice regardless of how inhumane it would become.

Social Darwinism is the application of Darwinian evolutionary theory to real life. In Darwinian evolutionary theory, organizations and species evolve towards being fitter, and only the fittest survive (survival of the fittest), while the less fit slowly lose out and become extinct. Humans are also placed on the evolutionary scale as being an evolution from ancient apes, and thus are fitter and stronger than the apes. But even in a species, since everyone is struggling on the evolutionary process, the fitter specimens should survive while the weaker ones die off. Placed into the human context where latent racism was already present, some "races" were seen to be more evolved (e.g. the "Aryans") while other "races" less so and are deemed to be more "ape-like." Social Darwinism aims to apply the Darwinian process to humans and thus eliminate the "less fit" specimens. Thus, individuals and "races" deemed to be less fit are to be eliminated while fitter individuals should procreate and produce many children, leading to the evolution of humanity to become better and fitter. Of course, what does this world "elimination" mean except killing actual humans and groups of humans off, that is, genocide! Nazi Germany followed Social Darwinism to its logical conclusion, conveniently identify their enemies with the "less fit" and sought to eradicate all non-Aryans, starting with the Jews and the Slavs.

Outside of Nazi Germany, the implications of Social Darwinism was not worked out into extermination but rather sterilization, such that the "less fit" would not be able to reproduce and thus decrease the supposed "vitality" of the population gene pool. Of course, in America, it was the blacks who would bore the brunt of the label of being less fit, and I wouldn't be surprised if moves such as segregation came about because of an embrace of some form of Social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism is therefore the prevalent doctrine concerning race relations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, not color-blindness. If one desires to deplore racism, then one should attack Social Darwinism and its parents, the theory of human evolution itself. Otherwise, attacking color-blindness is to attack the cure and cause more racism instead of less, a problem that RAAN might actually instigate.

RAAN is promoting racism

I have stopped going over to The Aquila Report for quite some time, ever since they have shown themselves to be extremely biased and not conveying the truth when it comes to the ESS fiasco. That said, when I had cause to look at them again, I was dismayed that they had gone even further away from orthodoxy.

Meet RAAN, the Reformed African American Network, which is all about being a particular strain of "African-American," and not so much about being Reformed. The Aquila Report re-posted one such article originally published on RAAN, here, entitled The Cruelty of the Color-Blind Theory of Race in Evangelical Churches, written by one Jarvis Williams. In it, Williams took issue with color-blindness as reinforcing racism and especially white supremacy. This is of course astonishing given that at the core of color-blindness is the denial of racism. But what arguments and evidences does William produce for such a counter-intuitive accusation against color-blindness in favor of the neo-Marxist theory of Critical Race Theory?

Let us look at what color-blindness means when it is actually applied. It means that we are to treat everyone equally regardless of ethnicity and even culture. It means that I, as someone normally typed under "yellow skin," treat blacks and whites equally, and such color-blindness ought to be reciprocated. When I interact with an African-American, or interact with a Caucasian, or with an Indian, or another Chinese, I ought to treat them all equally as people all made in the image of God. I am not to discriminate against anyone because of his or her skin color! So, if in the event that someone discriminates against another based upon the person's skin color, that person is not practicing color-blindness! And here we see the problem with Williams' case against color-blindness. According to him, cases of racism (let's assume for the sake of argument they are indeed true cases of racism) invalidates color-blindness. But, if those people are not practicing color-blindness at all, why blame a theory when it is not practiced by racists?

It gets even weirder. Williams made the astonishing assertion: "The very racist social construct of race in 18-19th century Europe and America based on illusory biological traits and rooted in racial hierarchy and biological fiction proves that the color-blind theory is a myth." But are we to assume that color-blindness was held to as truth in the 18th and 19th centuries? Of course not! Color-blindness is a traditional [social] liberal theory, not one linked to the anciens regime in any shape or form! So why blame a theory for what it did not produce? Why blame a theory for the behavior of its non-practitioners?

As a "yellow" person, I find this attack upon color-blindness to be absolutely stupid. If color-blindness is rejected, why must we assume Liberation Theology and Neo-Marxist ideas of affirming the so-called victim races? If color-blindness is rejected, why should anyone not instead decided to embrace White Supremacy, or Chinese Supremacy, or any form of racism in response? Williams, and the Neo-Marxists who come before him, cannot produce a real answer here, because they have none. Liberation theology is assumed, not argued for, because this house of cards cannot be truly challenged otherwise the snowflakes will experience many meltdowns.

In practice, what should we do if we meet those who racially discriminate while claiming to be color-blind? Is the solution to reject color-blindness, or rather, that we ought to call them to live more consistently with their professed belief in color-blindness? The solution to giving lip-service to color-blindness is not less color-blindness, but more color-blindness. Ironically, it is Williams' approach that causes more racism if consistently followed. So, while I have no doubt the good intentions of RAAN, the sad but true fact is that RAAN is promoting racism and racial enmity, in the name of racial equality.

Book review: The Bible Among the Myths

The issue of historicity concerning Old Testament narrative, especially the first 11 chapters of Genesis, continue to remain a problem for many people. In his book The Bible Among the Myths, John N. Oswalt attempted to answer the questions concerning the Old Testament narratives and the questions of myth and history concerning them, and I have read and reviewed it accordingly, here. An excerpt:

The Bible claims to be a book that depicts historical events, all the way back to the beginning of time, or at least most Christians have always believed that from their reading of the Scriptures starting from the book of Genesis. Liberal “Christianity” since the 19th century has however cast doubt on the historicity of major events narrated both in the Old and the New Testaments, especially the first eleven chapters of Genesis 1. According to liberal scholarship, the first eleven chapters are “primeval history” which is made up of myths and legends no different from the various ancient myths and legends found among the pagan peoples of that time. The “Flood myth” in Genesis 6-9 for example is stated to be borrowed from the Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic. But if the events in the Bible are not truly history despite the fact that they claim to be history, can we trust the Bible at all?

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