Poverty is the Default State

Adherents to Marxist ideology and proponents of socialist government systems contest that "capitalism creates poverty". An effective invalidation of this argument is the true statement that poverty is actually the starting point for individuals, phrased often as "poverty is the default state". This argument is immediately understandable and difficult to contest. This argument does not prove capitalism is good or bad, but rather that it simply cannot create poverty as poverty is the default, and all systems can either perpetuate poverty or create prosperity. Still, it is often argued against in a very roundabout way that attempts to redefine words or - perhaps intentionally - misunderstand the statement.

Let's clarify "poverty as the default state". This is not an economic argument, but a philosophical one. A default state is the bare basic starting point. It is entirely unaugmented, which is to say, when nothing is done to change it to a different state, it remains. If actions are taken but are then ceased, then things will revert back to this. It is a "resting state" so to speak. Poverty as the default state does not refer to an individual in society within society as it is now, but it refers to all of humanity and human society as a whole. Without actions by any given person or group of people, poverty follows for individuals. Poverty can be averted for one by the actions of others, but this necessitates that action is taken. Thus, inaction reverting to a default state of poverty is not felt just on individual levels, but society as a whole.

An applicable understanding of this is that a child born into a family not living in poverty is not impoverished, despite no actions taken by the individual. The child can descend into a state of poverty by actions outside of his control, and with few resources, skills, or innovative action may remain there. However, even then, yet other people can, by their actions, cause this child to be pulled out of poverty without action by the child. While it's unlikely that a child could pull himself out of poverty on his own, even that is a potential action. An individual who takes no action, possesses no resources, and/or is not given resources, will always be impoverished.

Arguments against poverty as the default state ignore this understanding and attempt to apply it differently. This is why it's always very important to define your words and arguments. The follow examples are arguments I've seen against "poverty as the default state".

"Poverty doesn't have to be the default state"

This argument fundamentally misunderstands the concept of a default state. This argument attempts to define the default state as the starting point for each individual within society contingent on factors present in that society. To understand this argument in practice, it refers to the default state in reference to individuals, with the idea that when others take actions to elevate an individual above poverty, it changes their default state. This argument's fallacy rests squarely on the fact that default states cannot change.

If, as a society, we all shared resources and wealth to a point where no one was in poverty, it does not change poverty as a default state. If the actions are stopped - the ones doing the work to provide resources to the ones who are not working - the default state returns. Thus the argument that posits "something else could be the default state" is fundamentally flawed. Nothing else can become the default state without the very rules of our universe changing. We must eat, thus we must work - or at least, someone must work. This means action of some kind must always be taken, by someone, somewhere, to leave the default state of "not having enough resources to survive", which is what poverty is.

"What really is poverty? [attempts to redefine poverty]"

This argument is similar to the previous argument, but instead of trying to redefine what a "default state" is, it attempts to redefine poverty itself. This argument is effective if unchallenged, as a nebulous, subjective concept cannot be a default state, as a default state demands consistency in any and every environment. I mentioned earlier that defining your terms is important, and I did, if you noticed, define poverty as "not having enough resources to survive". If this is not the definition of poverty, its position as the default state could be challenged. So, let's be more clear about what poverty really means.

The opposition tends most often to make the claim that poverty is relative, and it sure seems that way. In the United States, the federal poverty level is $12,000/year. By contrast, $12,000/year in some of the poorest countries is 3x their national GDP. Whether you think GDP is a valuable measure or not, its undeniable that what this shows is that the national poverty level in the USA is way higher compared to whatever one would be considered as being impoverished in these poor countries. This brings a strong argument against poverty as a default state if even a rich man in Uganda is impoverished according to the United States national poverty level.

The problem with the United States national poverty level being used to bring doubt upon poverty's ability to remain objective is that what has happened is merely a definition out of necessity. In the United States, we have socialist welfare programs that redistribute tax money taken from "well off" people and gives it to the poor. To do this requires a level considered "poor" within the standards of living in the United States. It would be worthless to base this number off of the world at large, as not only is the wealth disparity across nations very wide, but the resources of other countries does little to help us have resources in our country. What has happened here is that we take the real definition of poverty, "not having enough resources to survive", and narrow down resources to one particular resource - currency. The national definition of poverty, then, is the one that is wrong.

Let's apply this concept. Say an individual living in the United States on his own makes just $12,000 per year, but has family, many friends, and several other support systems providing resources to him. This accumulation of resources from sources other than his reported income on his W2 provides him enough to live comfortably. Is he impoverished? If you are tempted to argue that he is, you are being intellectually insincere. We already established that a child living with a well off family is not living in poverty, despite not producing any wealth himself. The only difference here is that the man is physically living "on his own" - but he is truly not living on his own. This voluntary redistribution of wealth by actors other than the government provide a way for this man to be lifted from the default state of poverty into a situation where he is not left wanting for anything. It does not matter who does the lifting - a large number of individuals, the individual himself, or the government - the result is the same. The default state has been left behind for the elevated state where enough resources for survival are present.

Thus someone can live simultaneously below any given "national poverty line" while still not "living in poverty" due to the actions of others, as previously established. Not only that, but someone could earn below what is considered impoverished while still having enough resources to survive due to possession of or access to resources that simply aren't taxable income. This means that measurements of poverty in any of the various nations cannot be the true definition of poverty. We understand poverty in this argument as an objective and consistent concept that can be applied without alteration to any person living anywhere in the world.

A less common argument in the attempts to redefine poverty challenges the concept of poverty as a lack of currency, which as we have already discussed, is valid. It, however, does nothing to challenge the argument of poverty as the default state, as should be clear from my apartment dwelling man example. Rebutting this argument is as simple as clarifying that the opposition is correct, lack of government issued currency is not by definition poverty, and then properly defining poverty. Remember, this is not an economic argument, but a philosophical one.

"The default state is having enough resources for everyone to live comfortably"

This argument attempts to redefine the default state. This is different from the "Poverty doesn't have to be the default state" argument, which posits the default state could change. This argument posits that the default state simply is not poverty.

This argument is that, if people did not claim private property, everyone would simply have enough resources to live comfortably. This person does not believe anyone can make claims to resources, whether it be wild blueberries, or electricity or oil to run machines that produce resources. This argument hinges on several ideals that are fundamentally flawed and is obviously based in the idea of "ideal communism" - that is, what the theory of communism would be if it ever worked (people willingly sharing resources to the benefit of everyone), and not what it always devolves into (a violent State that seizes and controls all resources).

Now, we could argue about the functional application of communism in rebuttal of this argument until we're blue in the face, but it would be to no avail as it doesn't actually refute the argument. The argument here is saying that, without people making claim of resources, there would simply be enough resources for everyone. However this ignores that the resources would not pop themselves up out of the ground and walk themselves into factories and homes. Work still must be done. The proper application of this idealistic communist operation - unclaimed resources going to everyone as they needed them without anyone hoarding them or charging others for them - still means that someone is doing work. This means that this argument can simply not be a "default state". Actions are being taken to elevate individuals above the default state.

This means, yes, a successful application of idealistic communist utopia would result in a lack of poverty. But that doesn't mean it's the default state. The idealistic communist utopia still requires application. Work must still be done. The argument that the default state is "plentiful resources for everyone" is flawed because it's a misclassification. "Plentiful resources for everyone" could be true, but it doesn't, by itself, remove poverty as the default state.

If you lived in a small village and there were enough wild resources around to feed everyone easily, then there are plentiful resources for everyone. But actions need to be taken to turn those resources into food and to bring them to each person. The village could still live in poverty if those resources are not distributed properly by workers. Half the village may work on gathering and refining resources into food and other valuable commodities while the other half does not, the former half still sharing those collected resources without charging for them, but this does not mean that the default state has changed. If the former half that gathered the resources stopped taking this action, the default state comes back unless counter-action is taken. Plentiful resources and poverty can exist simultaneously, thus, to argue that the default state is "plentiful resources" ignores the necessity of work, or action.

This argument, in fact, is a failed attempt to argue against a completely different premise. The argument in full was actually, "The default state is having enough resources for everyone to live comfortably, capitalism is the violent seizure of these resources". They were rebutting the concept of capitalism as the means of creation of prosperity, but managed to challenge the concept of the default state, perhaps merely due to naivety.

The statement of poverty as the default state rests hand in hand with the presentation of the important question, "what creates prosperity?" The presumed argument in full is thus, "Poverty is the default state, thus capitalism does not create poverty, as poverty by its very nature is not "created". What, then, creates prosperity?" The person speaking may vouch for it being capitalism, while the person who claims this argument I have refuted is vouching for communism. Thus, this is an all around failure to make a coherent argument. They do not actually need to argue against poverty as the default state, but are in fact arguing for communism as the answer to the question of what creates prosperity, or "having enough or more than enough resources to survive".

What I have argued here is not if capitalism creates prosperity or not, but that poverty is in fact the default state. The communist does not need to refute the true statement of poverty as the default state as it does not hurt his arguments. He should - if he were smart - embrace it, then move onto the explanation of how he believes communism most effectively elevates people above that default state.

A simplified answer to "what creates wealth," is, in fact, "work". The details of how this work is to be performed and by whom and under what regulations is thus the real debate to be had. Arguing against poverty as the default state does not help the communist promote his ideals, it simply makes it clear that he lacks the intellectual capacity to comprehend such concepts.

Critical Race Theory is Incompatible with Christianity

Note 1: While I've defined Critical Race Theory (moving forward within the article it will be referred to as CRT) previously, I will strive to do so in each post I write so that people who do not read multiple posts are given the full story each time.

Note 2: This post is written for people who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It does not make a case for whether or not Christianity is true, it assumes that it is. If you desire posts making a case for the truth of Christianity, you may want to browse other posts.

Throughout churches today, within the spotlight of the "black lives matter"-led protests and mainstream attention, many church leaders from establishments both big and small are - whether they realize it or not - taking a strong stance on whether they believe wholly and unwaveringly in the word of the Lord our God or if they believe God's commandments could use a little augmentation from "worldly wisdom".

The concept of CRT is the cause of the highly racialized atmosphere we are experiencing today, where white people are innately racists despite any actions they take or do not take. It is the assertion that the suffering of all minorities and all the ills of the world at large are explicitly due to white people. The buzzwords of "white privilege", "white fragility", "white supremacy", and so forth are born from the ideology of CRT.

To define it more specifically, the parent ideology Critical Theory is about viewing the entire world and all its history and events through a lens of oppressors and the oppressed. Critical Race Theory takes that concept fully, but adds an additional lens to it that focuses on race. Thus CRT is the focus of viewing the world and everything within it with focus on "who is the oppressor and who is oppressed, and what color are they".

CRT is not taught this way in school, it is not taught as a lesson plan titled "Critical Race Theory" where students learn about it and consider it as one of many options for how they desire to view the world. CRT has merely been fully adopted as the backdrop for most primary and formal education in our country, and thus every subject the student learns and every fact they learn is underscored by ensuring that they have taken note of whether anyone was oppressed and by whom, and what color they were. Subjects are not taught objectively - this is who this was, this is where they were, this is what they did, etc. Subjects are taught and then students are directly instructed to view this new information through a racialized lens - "why did this person oppress minorities when they did this?", "in what way do minorities still suffer today for the actions of this person?", "explain in detail why this person was a white supremacist", and so on.

To put this into terms that may be more easily understood, this would be analogous to back in the day when school was taught to children within a frame of Christianity. Human biology taught and explained within the understanding of the existence of a Creator who intentionally made us a certain way, historical figures explained with a focus on the presence or absence of their spiritual strength, perhaps a brief tangent in math class on how the existence of a measurable and quantifiable universe is evidence of an intentionally created existence reflecting God's infinite wisdom and knowledge. While there are surely "race studies" classes that focus explicitly on the gospel and tenants of racial awareness, they are not presented as being simply one of many possible beliefs, but rather the truth of the world.

In contrast, if you were to take a Christian religious studies class at a secular college, they do not teach you about Christianity as it is - the truth of the world, the fact that the spiritual world is real, that our universe was in fact, truly created. They teach instead that it is merely one way of viewing the world, they discuss our worlds' truths through Jesus prefaced by "Christians believe...", and they present alternative beliefs - even so far as intentionally having students describe counter arguments to Christian thought, ensuring as carefully as possible that they view Christian truth itself as something that can be argued against, something that could be falsified.

CRT is not treated this way - it is taught as the truth. They very idea that they would present counter arguments to it would be a case of secular heresy. They do not preface their statements as "Critical Race Theory argues that...". As Christians, we should know that the word of God within the Bible is the actual truth, the bare basic actual reality of the world, and not merely a fanciful way of viewing it. Thus, when CRT and Biblical concepts contradict, one must be right and one must be wrong, as there is a definitive objective truth that exists on this planet. Two contradictory things cannot be true at once. While it is possible that many Christians have simply been hoodwinked by the similar-enough-to-biblical sounding gospel of CRT, it doesn't excuse the fact that they will eventually be faced with an issue where the gospels of these two worldviews contradict. Many of them have already - any one of them who has gone so far as to write an article or blog post about "white privilege" has already contradicted God's word, and it is devastating each and every time to read through it. The devil is picking away at your armor of God, finding weaknesses you have left uncovered.

This is the problem and this is why CRT cannot be adopted by churches, because it is antithetical to the Christian truth. Churches who adopt and preach within the lens of CRT will find themselves contradicting God in small but insidious ways. This would be as harmful as a pastor declaring that the Quran is actually also fully true alongside the Bible - they contain contradictory information. One says Jesus is the only way to heaven and the other says Jesus is a guaranteed route to eternal damnation. They both attempt to describe God, and each one gives Him different characteristics that explicitly conflict with one another. Two contradictory statements cannot both be true at once - one of them must be wrong.

There are many similar-enough sentiments within CRT that first begin to lead Christians astray. Surely it is good and right to love others, think of others, help others. The broad concept of an innate badness exists in both. A broad concept of actively working toward being a better person exists in both. The problem is in the details, and this is perhaps one of the easiest ways that the heretical positions within CRT sneak past our Christian radar. I could not possibly hope to identify and explain every conflict CRT has with Christianity, and frankly I should not need to. The following three are, at least in my opinion, the most volatile and dangerous conflicts.

1. Attributing Blessings to Privilege

The issue I have noticed the most often lately is from white Christians who want to show their solidarity by "recognizing their white privilege". They write long articles about the general timeline of how things occurred in their lives, and then they attribute each "good thing" and each "bad thing that could have/almost happened, but didn't" to their whiteness. This is so painful to see each and every time, and I see it as nothing short of spiteful toward our God. The blessings and mercies we receive are from God and God alone. (James 1:17; John 1:16) Absolutely nothing good happens in this world without God. Without an ounce of exaggeration, every good thing we have is because of God. This world is broken, evil, terrible, and seemingly always out to get us. It's terrible here. Every time we evade suffering, it is the mercy of God alone. A realm absent of God would be endless misery without relief of any kind - which is why hell is so terrible, as it is a realm without God. As long as God is present there is mercy and grace. Every time we make it to another day, it is the grace of God alone. When we succeed, when we gain, when we are fruitful and joyful, it is because of God's love and kindness alone.

To attribute these things - good things happening, bad things not happening - to the happenstance of the color of our skin is so antithetical to Christian thought it should be an obvious warning sign. Without God we are nothing, all of us, each person of every race and nationality equally subject to the maximum amount of endless torture. We are equally and infinitely loved by our God, and thus all mercies come from Him. (Psalms 145:9) All blessings are from above. God has worked all things for our good, and to turn around and declare your avoidance of jail, or significant raise at work as happenstance due to your color should be a clear and obvious affront to the truth our Lord has told us.

To further complicate things, the unanswered question from the assertion that all of our blessings and mercies are due to our skin color remains - from where comes the blessings and mercies experienced by people of color? What about all of our sufferings? Biblical truth answers these questions consistently and without issue. Deeper questioning into CRT reveals holes and errors. To attribute all of our blessings and mercies to white skin would insist that dark skin does not experience blessings and mercies at all - and yet they do. Clearly there must be another source for blessings and mercies if people of color experience them. We should be aware that source is God - so how is the source of blessings and mercies for people of color God, while the source of blessings and mercies for white people is whiteness?

The problem occurs most clearly when people attempt to simply meld these two things together without realizing they are antithetical. "God is real and our blessings and mercies are from Him, but white people simply still benefit disproportionately within the world due to being white, because of how the world works," and then declare that this is consistent. It is not - it still directly conflicts with the truth that all our blessings and mercies come from the Lord. They cannot come both from the Lord and from being white. What happens when you do this is you are essentially claiming that God blessed you because you are white. This cannot be true, because God does not work that way. He does not favor any of His children over another due to their physical appearance. (Acts 10:34-35)

By attempting to allow these statements to work at the same time, you don't simply misattribute the source of your blessings, you make a declarative statement about the way in which God chooses to bless people that goes directly against the truth of His character. This is blasphemous and absolutely dangerous. This is something an actual racist would believe. Remember, please, that this current culture's racialized ideology is not "the truth of the world", but part of the theory of CRT. The idea that we are benefiting disproportionately due to being white is not a statement that must be true, you do not need to attempt to reconcile it with Christianity. It can simply be discarded wholesale. It is an ideology, a worldview like any other, like people who believe their day to day lives are directly influenced by the alignment of the stars and planets, and like astrology it can be (and is) wrong. It is wrong because all blessings and mercies are from God.

2. White People Burdened Unequally with "Original Sin"

While I do not see this discussed as much by white Christian virtue signalers, and I can only imagine why not, this is a very prevalent tenant of CRT. White people are innately racist and white people are unavoidably guilty of perpetuating white supremacy, even if it is not intentional. The CRT tenant that white people benefit disproportionately from being white is paired with this tenant, that due to the idea that white people are benefiting disproportionately, they are therefore disproportionately guilty. The burden of white guilt flows explicitly from the thought process behind white privilege.

While it is not discussed very openly on church-sponsered blog posts and articles from Christian leaders who have yet to become fully radicalized into CRT, let me assure you this is part of CRT and it's part of the current hyper-racialized cultural focus. If you are willing to embrace the concept of "white privilege", you will be pressed by CRT ideologues to accept this belief as well. It appears on the surface to meld well with the Christian belief in original sin, but again, it is contradictory. The concept that white people are more guilty than other people is a bastardization of the core belief in original sin. We are all equally guilty and we are all equally in desperate need of a savior. (Romans 3:10-12)

The CRT belief in excess white guilt further strays from God's truth in that simultaneously, people of color are actually not guilty of anything. The idea that white people could be "more guilty" downplays the inherent sin in others, and that sin is just as deadly as any other. This particular CRT tenant is actually particularly harmful to people of color - if led to believe they are not guilty they may not see their need for salvation through Jesus. People of color, however, can become guilty if they decide to "perpetrate white supremacy" themselves via support of beliefs that oppose CRT or flat out rejection of CRT. (Remember, Critical Race Theory is an ideology presented as factual. It is possible for it to simply be wrong.) This is in direct opposition to original sin, wherein every last one of us inherit original sin from Adam and Eve and never "gain", or even lose, it. We are, however, redeemed by Jesus' sacrifice. (1 John 1:8-9)

CRT's concept of original sin is in no way congruent with Christian original sin. Each and every aspect of it creates a contradictory belief. CRT posits that we inherited our excess white guilt from our white ancestors who benefited from the oppression of minorities, and that sin alone makes us more guilty than people of color. It disregards that at all sin, even if it does not involve the oppression of other people, is deadly. It ignores that there are other bad things that cause harm, guilt, and shame for humanity. CRT's concept of white guilt ignores that guilt can come from things other than race-based enslavement and oppression. Christianity posits that no person is less guilty than any other person, and to suggest otherwise is thus contradictory.

To hyper focus on white people's guilt due to oppression of people of color is unhelpful. Please note that I don't think it's wrong to mention or acknowledge - slavery, Jim Crow, et. al. were sinful and harmful. Modern day racism is sinful and harmful. The issue lies in losing the bigger picture and zeroing in on this one fraction of the problem of sin as if it is the number one issue of our time. As murder rates skyrocket and cities are on fire, to lecture about microaggressions is blatantly insulting. As a whole, humanity has an unfathomable lack of respect for human life, of all races and nationalities, and we march in with the audacity to preach about how to avoid ever offending anyone ever again? The "soft racism" we are taught is just as damaging and wretched as true hatred does nothing but skirt around the actual issue at hand.

The truth, of course, is that we are all equally guilty "due to our ancestors", but what causes that guilt is not that we oppressed one another, but rather that we directly disobeyed God, from the very beginning. This direct disobedience to God is actually what caused our poor treatment of one another to begin with. Once cast from the garden, one of the first terrible consequences of our disobedience to God was that a man murdered his own flesh and blood brother. (Genesis 4:8) There was no racism then, as there were only a handful of total people in all of existence, and I'd presume they all looked pretty similar. Attempting to fix the sins against our brothers and sisters without acknowledging that they are but a symptom will produce nothing. You cannot treat a symptom, you must cure the disease. The disease suffered by people of all races is a propensity toward a disobedience to God - due to the mistakes of our ancestors, the original first two humans, the ancestors we all share.

The third and final contradiction I will go into ties directly into this second one, as where there is a doctrine of original sin, there is, in Christianity, redemption. But first, I would like to take the time to explain why CRT's white guilt claim and Christianity's original sin doctrine do not even separately exist - and attempting to make them exist simultaneously requires a logical failure. You may try to say, "we all have original sin, but white people just also have white guilt," but the concept of white guilt as it ties to the actions of our ancestors becomes superfluous in this context. The "sins of our ancestors" are the same sins as everyone else's ancestors, and all our sins are all bad sins. No sins are more sin than other sins - they are all sin. Sin is disobedience to God, sin creates a rift between us and God, and it all leads to the same destination. To attempt to make any distinction at all that we have this unique, collective white guilt for the specific sins of the "ancestors" that are all the same color of us is already encompassed by the Christian doctrine of original sin, but unnecessarily racialized - easily a sin in its own right. Surely you must acknowledge sin (Jeremiah 14:20) but this does not apply uniquely to white people and attempts to make it so downplays other, just as deadly sin.

The fact of the matter is that we are all equally condemned for the sins of our ancestors. We suffer individually for the various sins of our fathers, and all of humanity surely suffers in unique and terrible ways for the sins of all of our ancestors. To put a hyper focus on white people's historical sins specifically is little more than a strange obsession, the gospel of a foreign religion that rests in firm opposition to Christianity's teachings. It is fine and good to acknowledge and seek to right race-related sin, but this hyper-focus does not merely acknowledge and seek to right, but creates a vast network of insidious tendrils, slipping into each and every aspect of our lives to tear focus away from anything else and lead us away from the truth. We will see the true danger of all of this in the next topic.

3. No White Redemption is Possible

The final issue I will address is CRT's lack of redemption for and dehumanization of the people it declares guilty. According to CRT, white people are to atone for the sins of their ancestors, but there is no redemption waiting for them. They are simply always racist, they always perpetuate white supremacy, and they are to simply give up their presence and voices entirely to people of color. CRT insists nothing short of the idea that things would be much better if white people simply did not exist - and many adherents will not be shy to admit this. White people are to use all their talents and resources to the benefit of people of color, to toil endlessly toward a goal they are told is in all actuality not even possible. It specifically aims to take the humanity away from white people in hopes that all they will feel is guilt and shame forever for actions outside of their control. CRT demands white people dedicate their entire lives toward making everything less about themselves, and more about people of color.

The wording of that last sentence was intentional - this is yet another bastardization of a Christian truth. John 3:30 states, "He must increase, but I must decrease." CRT yet again exhibits trace amounts of reality, but skews them in a nasty way. We are surely to make an effort to improve as a person. We are to make things less about ourselves, to deny ourselves, and to take up a greater cause. That greater cause is Jesus. To adhere to the tenants put forth by CRT means that you hear God's commandments, but have decided to listen to the worldly voices of a secular movement that operates absent of the acknowledgement of God's love, and dedicate yourself to their cause instead of to God's cause.

To make matters worse, the biblical reality of our Christian life doesn't demand a life of endless toil and sacrifice just for us to be yet cast into hell. It does not strip you of everything and leave you to die in guilt and shame. We are redeemed through Christ, entirely made new. (2 Corinthians 5:17) We are "born again". Our old selves literally die. There are some people who have turned to Jesus whose previous lives are absolutely devastating - let's cut to the chase, here. You can be a straight up serial murderer and be redeemed through Jesus. CRT insists that all white people are perpetually guilty because of slave owning ancestors regardless of their own personal sins. There is no "born again". There is no death of the old self because the ancestral slave ownership induced white-specific guilt is affixed permanently. We are to suffer unabated shame for the sins of our ancestors.

This is such a wildly disfigured doctrine of atonement, that it even insists that despite the inability for us to ever shake our guilt, we should work endlessly to atone for it regardless. Who would ever sacrifice themselves to such a degree to simply be eternally damned anyway? Christian truth doesn't posit anything anywhere near this unreasonable. We are redeemed through Christ alone, but we show and prove our love and fellowship with God by following His commandments. We willingly become less while He becomes more because He loved us first, and because we feel His love, we desire willingly to share His love with others. (1 John 4:19) When we follow Jesus through love, we are saved and we are allowed to be in the very presence of God, the Creator of all things, our Lord God who loves us. If God demanded we follow his commandments, but that we would be cast into hell regardless, what motivation would we have to turn away from the sins of the flesh? Why stop your lust and gluttony if the final destination is unchanged? Not even God Himself asks us to do something so absurd, for broken, sinful humans to demand such a thing of us is bold indeed.

What CRT pretends to be full of, but what this makes abundantly clear it lacks, is actually love. It's full of demands, coercion, and eternal damnation with no escape. We love God because He loved us first, but we are demanded to love people of color and quite blatantly expect no love in return - even to expect to still be fully hated. While it's not biblical to expect people to love us when we love them, God always loves us. This is of course absent from CRT, as CRT is not a biblical ideology. White people are fully demanded to atone endlessly, give up everything about themselves, and feel eternal shame - for nothing. Christians tie God's love into this racial doctrine to attempt to feel better about what is truly being demanded of them by CRT, but we must recognize that the ideology behind CRT does not coincide with Christianity. White racial atonement is absent of love when viewed as it is described by its adherents, absent of the flailing attempts to rationalize it through a Christian lens.

You may try to say, "We all have original sin, but white people just also are responsible for atoning for the unfair advantages they have today due to their ancestors", but you are mandating that while we are redeemed through Christ and we should focus our hearts and our minds on becoming more like Him, we just also need to focus on racial justice as prescribed by secular ideologues. You attempt to follow two masters. You are saying that despite being born again in Jesus, (1 John 1:9 again) we should remain guilty for our ancestors' sins. You believe we need to atone for our sins and born again in Jesus, but never be forgiven for this particular sin. You believe we should be focusing 100% on becoming more like Jesus, but also focus on this other, secular "self-improvement".

Jesus tells us "If you love me you will follow my commandments". (John 14:15) If you feel led to love your neighbor by improving minority neighborhoods, that's great, but you should focus on what God's calling is for you and not be worried about what the world thinks you should do. God will surely call many to right racially-influenced inequities in our societies, but there are still widows and orphans in need as well - and they might be white (you'll note the absence of a racial identity of the widows and orphans mentioned in James 1:27). Furthermore, if you believe we are born again through Jesus, you cannot in good conscious espouse the idea that we are perpetually guilty for our ancestors' transgressions. The idea that we should atone for the sins of our ancestral fathers while also being white and being aware that our ancestors were white is not explicitly unbiblical, but within these terms, it becomes so, due to the reasons stated.

The terms as outlined by CRT insist that we benefit due to whiteness, we are innately and specifically responsible for the suffering of people of color due to our whiteness, and we must dedicate ourselves fully to whatever are the whims and desires of people of color because of our whiteness. As I have made abundantly clear, these are ideological claims that do not coincide with biblical truth, and thus, they are simply not true. Attempting to adhere to them while also believing in a biblical reality will expose cracks in your armor and open you up to corruption.

If you are racist, then surely it is good and right to repent for this sin and change your ways, which may take time and effort. It is also not wrong to work toward fixing true inequities and disadvantages faced by minorities that undoubtedly stem from the sin of racism in society's past and present. But if your position is that you are naturally and unalterably racist due to your skin color, you could never hope to "repent" for this, as you are seeking atonement for being born the way God stitched you together in your mother's womb (Psalm 139:13) - yet another affront to God. If we were not to have different physical appearances, God would not have given them to us. I could not even begin to hypothesize on His purpose for it, but clearly here we are, different colors. It's been made abundantly clear that we are to love one another regardless of our ancestry, which actually includes that people of color are to love their white neighbors as well - something CRT insists against explicitly. This is yet another of the many, many ways that CRT conflicts openly with Christian truth, but I won't be going in depth into anymore examples.

If you choose to believe CRT, you will be forced to choose between God's good and holy word and the claims of a secular and broken world's ideology. If you attempt to allow yourself to believe they are both true at once, you are explicitly harming yourself by blaspheming against God's truths in ways that may not be readily apparent. I cannot stress enough that this is dangerous. Cling tightly to Jesus and Jesus alone. The world is not your friend and you will not be spared from the wrath of secular ideologues by compromising on biblical truths. (John 15:17-18)

Homeschooling is Racist (Critical Race Theory)

Homeschooling has had a bad rap in the public eye for a long time, despite the fact that homeschooling parents come from an incredibly diverse number of backgrounds. There is a prevalent stereotype that all homeschooling parents are religious extremists or somewhere within that general concept scope, but this is simply untrue and has been for quite awhile. In fact, a large number of wealthy, left leaning parents "homeschool" their kids. You may not be able to imagine a dual income six figure earning parent sitting down with their kids at the dining room table to instruct them, but that's because the umbrella of homeschooling is much wider than that. Turns out any parent who hires a private tutor to instruct their child in their home is "homeschooling" them. Many states allow parents to group together with other parents and take turns "being the teacher" to instruct a larger group of children together. When you look past the stereotypical framing, homeschooling is incredibly popular and widespread among people from all walks of life.

Homeschooling is looked down upon by the mass of government school families due to a large number of both misunderstandings and misinformation. A well known situation happened a few months back where a Harvard paper released an article from an anti-homeschooling woman who claimed, with no evidence and in fact much evidence to the contrary, that homeschooling parents by and large used homeschooling as a way to mask the domestic abuse of their children. This claim was "justified" with nothing more than wild posturing, a mad idea within this woman's head that, clearly, no family would choose to homeschool their child unless they were hiding something. An unsubstantiated and dangerous claim with no merit peddled with no clear purpose other than a holier-than-thou academic attempting to pile more government meddling, regulations, and constraints onto parents who would choose to spend their own resources to educate their own children.

It was during the circulation of this mad woman's astonishing hubris that any one person could take a quick glance at any given comments section and find a wide variety of parents from all walks of life disgusted at the accusation that their decision to spend more time, more money, and more effort into the raising and nurturing of their children was somehow because of some insidious shadowy desire to abuse them. There were people who were homeschooled, proudly proclaiming the progressive nature of their parents' instruction, article after article about how liberal parents also homeschool, a perhaps surprising number of statistics showing much fewer than half of homeschooling homes include religious instruction - all in all a drastic number of left-leaning parents desperate to ensure that no one thought they were nasty "conservatives" because they homeschooled their children.

Anyone who would choose to actually look at the statistics would find that homeschooling children are well adjusted and more intelligent, let alone the fact that they have far more free time and creative license in their lives to grow more independently and confidently into adults. With the amount of bullying, social ostracization, fear mongering, abuse and just plain wasted time in public schools, the fact that anyone thinks homeschooling is somehow less nurturing is astonishing. You don't have to have active shooter drills in your homeschooling schedule, nor do you have any need to "fill the time" in a strictly scheduled 90 minute class period.

And yet, with the current coronavirus situation bubbling away, a number of people have taken the opportunity to declare homeschooling is racist. But where's the connection?

Many parents who view the coronavirus as truly dangerous are discussing now the changes they would have to make in their lives now to permanently homeschool their children, simply due to the danger they feel their children would be in to return to a crowded government school. They find no issue with government schooling itself, merely the viral contagion danger it poses. As quickly as the editorials and articles came out talking about homeschooling as a viable and perhaps necessary option for the education of our children in the "new normal", counter-articles came out declaring this move to be "from a place of privilege" and - you guessed it - white supremacy. Because, of course, only rich white people have the resources to homeschool their kids.

While concerned parents are simply trying to "do their part to stop the spread," as they've been beaten over the head with for the last four months, they are now what they've been delicately trying to avoid for much longer - racists. Absolutely depraved white supremacists directly responsible for slavery - by taking their kids out of public schools, they "help no one but themselves," leaving the poor kids (who are all minorities - their words, not mine) to suffer in public schools with less funding. I could not have come up with a more woke reason to take on the enormous responsibility of being directly responsible for your kids' education than militantly following the nonstop bullhorn of "stopping the spread", and yet as quickly as the demands to cancel government school forever started, it's suddenly nazi-level bad to actually do anything substantial toward that goal. The calls to keep schools closed for the next two years, met with nothing short of full support and decisive action, is suddenly white supremacy.

To ensure we are all on the same page, the reason homeschooling is now racist is because

1. having the resources to do so is white privilege
2. pulling your kids from school does absolutely nothing to help anyone except your own kids (this is of course directly contrary to the idea that we will "stop the spread" by quarantining and social distancing as long as possible)
3. white people pulling their kids from school is white flight (which is bad)
4. not needing government assistance to survive is also white privilege

Now, people who are "uneducated" and thus unfamiliar with the Critical Theory taught in college undoubtedly read this and think it is absolutely bonkers. That's because it is absolutely bonkers, but let me try to explain how this falls into Critical Theory concepts and how it therefore "makes sense" to the people who are saying it, and how homeschooling went from "a totally viable option that plenty of progressive and liberal parents choose" to "irredeemably racist".

To us regular folks this looks like nothing more than people seeing a phenomenon - mostly white moms trying to homeschool their kids due to the issues at hand - and deciding it must be racist because the moms are mostly white. That is, actually, what's happening, but the reason it's happening is due to Critical Theory (more specifically Critical Race Theory, which I will henceforth refer to as CRT). The very merit of it being mostly white moms spontaneously forming homeschooling pods for their kids due to the looming absence and perceived danger of government school DOES make this racist. Regardless of the fact that this is happening organically and entirely uninfluenced by racial factors, CRT posits that it is in fact racist for mostly white moms to form homeschooling pods amidst this virus crisis, because they are white.

Please note that even if there are some black moms involved, those black moms suffer from white association and should be choosing to abstain from attempting to homeschool their child without government assistance to avoid white supremacy compliance. This isn't some wild strawman I'm making or "quip" I'm attempting to make. Applying CRT to this phenomenon vilifies any black moms choosing to homeschool, whether they do so in companionship with the mostly white moms or not, as compliant in a "white supremacist movement". These finer points tend to be avoided since they are even less accepted than the first premise, but if you manage to talk a CRT-adherent into this corner, they will be forced to betray their CRT teachings or admit that the black moms are actually racist, too. This is because the very merit of the mostly white moms behind the movement actually make the entire movement racist, because it does, because that's what CRT is.

Let's back up. Critical Theory is a means of viewing the world through a lens of oppressors and the oppressed - thus, Critical Race Theory is a subset of this thought, viewing the world through a lens of the oppressors and the oppressed, and also what color they are. Despite the theory itself being obviously and self evidently a theory, one of many "thought experiments" on how the world works, it is widely embraced as the truth and subsequently taught to college students as if it were fact. While it is called CRT, it is not referred to by this name when taught - all instruction is simply taught with CRT as the backdrop, as if it were reality, without mentioning that it's actually a category of thought. It is simply taught without being named, so that it cannot be categorized and filed away as theory, but allows it to be embedded into everything else that is taught.

Many breakdowns of CRT fail to mention this part - it's presented as if students are exposed to it during a "CRT lesson" and then quizzed on it as its own subject within a curriculum. This is not the case - while CRT has a name and all of its concepts could be taught as an individual lesson plan, the reality is that this concept is simply peppered into everything else and left unnamed. To better comprehend this phenomenon, it is comparable to teaching things "through a Christian lens", the overarching backdrop of God as an everpresent reality in every aspect of every subject taught. CRT teaches everything with a backdrop of oppression, but unlike a Christian who may desire intentionally to learn through a Christian lens - and understands that there are "other lenses" and thus understands why there are differences in opinions on "reality", careful attention is paid to not actually clarify that CRT is the lens through which everything is being taught. Any alternative "lens" is written off as being simply false, rather than what it is, "through a different lens". The overarching backdrop of CRT woven into everything is not identified as CRT, but is left to be understood as simply being reality. Perhaps another way of comprehending this phenomenon is to call each concept a different color of "tinted glasses", just as we often refer to a rosy view of the past as "looking through rose colored glasses", viewing the entire world through a pair of "CRT tinted glasses" is forced upon students without consent or explanation.

My stress of the idea that CRT is left unnamed is very important - not naming it as it is allows it to exist as a more nebulous concept. When something is difficult to pinpoint as its own standalone concept, it's harder to question - it's harder to even think about whether or not it needs questioning. It becomes second nature, a simply "obvious" aspect of life, the same as any raised hand being a threat of physical harm to a dog that's been beaten its whole life. They cannot fathom seeing the world any differently from the way they've been indoctrinated to view it. This homeschooling problem illustrates that very clearly. As people who were not instructed via CRT-laced college education, we see this phenomenon for what it truly is - unwarranted willy-nilly accusations of white supremacy tacked onto something wholly unrelated to racial variables just because people involved are mostly white.

But for people whose 2-4+ year college instruction involved having CRT concepts constantly applied quietly to their every thought, the very fact that the involved people are white is what makes it racist, as they are taught explicitly to view the world through this lens of oppressors and oppressed. The fact alone that the moms are white is what drew them to this conclusion in the first place. Again, as this concept is insidiously woven into their every thought and concern, the conclusion that this is racist does not appear as the monotonous nonsense that it truly is. They were not taught "CRT is a way we can analyze and understand the world", they were taught "here is the world, and here is how the world is". Whites are the oppressors and everyone else is the oppressed. Anyone who aligns with the whites are race traitors and have taken the role of oppressors, which is why all black people with dissenting opinions are so easily and readily disregarded. It's about race, but it's also not - it's moreso about oppressors/oppressed, and race just happens to fall in line with it somewhat predictably. When race does not fall in line predictably, the failsafe of "oppressors/oppressed" is applied, thus classifying all dissenting blacks as "essentially white".

This is why homeschooling is racist. Because when white people do something, it is racist, because it just is (via CRT). This seems absurd (because it is), but when you understand CRT it makes it a little less agonizingly frustrating. Unbeknownst to the majority, they have been taught everything they know by religious zealots championing unquestioning loyalty to the concept that reality is shaped by the existence of oppressors and the oppressed. This is not the only way to view the world, but it's been taught that it is, which is why it's so culturally prevalent. Understanding this is a small step toward sanity for most of us lucky enough not to have suffered through it, and naming this beast is the first step toward ridding ourselves of it. Once it's been named, it can be confronted and questioned.

The "Conspiracy Theory" Label is Intentional Gaslighting

There are some very wild conspiracy theories, and certainly not all of them are true. Before I even continue, I need to clarify a very important point.

While it's unlikely in any particular case that "everyone is in on it," it's very easy for people to be manipulated. For example, every individual journalist doesn't need to be directly involved with a group trying to cover up a particular scandal to be coerced or otherwise manipulated into going along with a pushed narrative. They don't even need to be aggressively manipulated or blackmailed, but simply influenced by higher ups while seeking promotions and recognition, or cultural status in general. These are typically referred to as "useful idiots," whether or not they are truly unintelligent people, this phrase reflects their relationship to the "ones in charge." They are tricked one way or another into simply doing the gruntwork of the ones "pulling the strings."

(I'd like to take a quick segue and point out that "the ones pulling the strings" are not necessarily, in this case or any other case, some kind of diabolical supergroup that secretly controls every aspect of society worldwide. No, think smaller - a group of people doesn't have to be supervillainly bent on world domination to have useful idiot minions. This can occur in very small groups - say, a church, that starts down a path of becoming cult-like, lead by simply one or several "people pulling the strings" who wind up influencing enough people to lead the whole of the church into cultality (new word, copyright pending). The influence of the string-pullers is wide enough that anyone who still fights against it leaves or is pushed away one way or another, while only the "true believers" remain, until everyone involved - from the higher ups to the door greeters - are "drinking the Kool-Aid" of the new cult-order, many of them simply believing in it innocently and without malicious intent. Thank you, moving on then.)

It should not be difficult to believe this "trickle down influence" effect, as it happens on both sides, and it happens everywhere. It's observable real time. To disbelieve this is more crazy than believing it - it's already been researched and found valid that people will often change their views to align with their ingroup, rather than allow their beliefs to influence who they associate with as their ingroup. It is why so many people of every ideological persuasion tend to have at least a few contradictory beliefs, or beliefs they have trouble justifying if put on the spot suddenly. They have simply adopted them as part of their belief system due to association with the ingroup without thinking about it. Some choose to double down and perform some mental gymnastics when their hypocrisy is exposed, while others may actually take some time to rethink their position. Some may simply resign to holding onto their contradictory beliefs because they do not want to lose their status, wealth, or power they have gained within their ingroup. Yet others may simply flash a thumbs up and keep quiet when they know something is wrong, hoping they will just be left alone to live their lives.

Following this understanding of how group think mentality can easily overtake an entire organization (a church, or a news station), it should not be difficult to concede that, by all accounts, it appears most long standing news organizations have adopted quite a bias toward an ingroup mentality that primarily leans toward the left. These things trickle down - it doesn't matter if it's political bias, or the manner in which a company is being run, if the people in charge desire the people below them to kowtow, they will find a way. Allow me to regale you with an example from my own life.

I worked at a fast food restaurant where a grossly incompetent person became the general manager due to a variety of circumstances that worked in their favor. This person had connections to organizations that are tied to fast food service, and nepotism is quite real. It became a "conspiracy theory" in my work to believe that this person had obtained and retained their position due to their connections and also due to the unwillingness of the person who put them there to admit that they made a mistake. When employees complained about this manager, they were accused of exaggerating and of simply "having a grudge," because they had been there for many years and "just didn't like" the new way this person managed. I was told frequently that "no one likes their boss." I liked my many of my bosses, oddly enough. All of the lower management was great, and my previous general managers were wonderful. This was textbook gaslighting.

Of course, it was very true that this person was incompetent and had retained their position due to several factors unrelated to their ability to manage. The store tanked and people quit left and right. New hires were made to replace these people, and they were indoctrinated into believing that the store was just fine, and any stories from the few employees "from the old days" who tried to tell them that the store used to be much better off were squelched as "disgruntled employees" and our justified anger was slandered as anything you can imagine - jealousy, narcissism, romantic attachment to previous managers - literally anything they could get away with to erase the former history of our store as a shining beacon of cohesive leadership and superb performance. On one occasion we somehow managed to hire a girl who had worked under this same manager at a different fast food restaurant (her interview was with the assistant manager, on a day when the general manager was not in). She confirmed that this person had always been miserable at managing, and entirely unsurprisingly, this girl had quit that job due to this manager. She quit at my restaurant within two weeks.

It was evidently provable that the store had become worse under this person's management. There were receipts to show how well off the store used to be, and how bad it was now. We would get raises every year based on how much our overall sales and profit increased from the previous years - for four years, we always got raises. We stopped getting raises under this new manager who tanked the store. Anyone who was "in a management position" got quarterly bonuses based on our individual store's profits, compared to other stores in our district. We stopped getting those. Our delivery and catering sales plummeted and we lost many long time contracts. Even our in store sales went down, and long time customers stopped coming, their long history of good service with us not able to withstand the new, terrible experiences. The evidence was plain as day to anyone who wanted to pay attention.

The higher ups, the ones "pulling the strings", simply denied all these things were even happening, or if they could not deny them, they blamed it on other factors and continued to turn a blind eye to the obvious rot on the system - the new general manager.

It does not have to be political. I was accused of being a "conspiracy theorist" in a fast food restaurant for refusing to back down on the self-evident truth that our new general manager was abusive and incompetent. Our district management engaged actively in attempting to gaslight their employees into believing the problems were anything other than the new general manager who screamed at us constantly and just so happened to be the child of a person who was in charge of a very significant organization utilized by nearly every fast food company in the USA. Outrageous, they said, for us to believe they would keep a poor manager due to an unfathomably important connection to an influential company that directly affected our ability to stay open.

This happens everywhere. To believe it does not happen in something as high stakes as political parties - who fight for levels of wealth, power, influence, and status unfathomable to us common peasants - is intentional ignorance. It was impossible to continue to bear the stress of the madness at my fast food job, and I quit without a backup job lined up. We cannot simply "quit" our country so easily, so we have to continue day in and day out enduring active gaslighting by "the ones pulling the strings" that the problems we see in our country as simply due to a vast number of other, unrelated issues.

The average person wants very hard to believe that this simply isn't true, because it is not easy to accept and digest the truth that people with the power to bulldoze our lives are operating under malicious intent and we are simply unfortunate pawns in their way on a mad quest for power. This is why these things get labeled "conspiracy theories," as a way to allow the common rube to feel a little less anxious, to calm down a bit, to believe at least someone is "on their side," and that they are not simply foam in the waves of the sea, subject to the violent whims of the ocean to crush them against the rocks at their discretion.

Backing up to my previous claim that it's self-evident that many news organizations have adopted a politically left leaning bias - this is very important in the grand scheme of the title of this article, which if you don't feel like looking up, is "The "Conspiracy Theory" Label is Intentional Gaslighting". Since the media and the "pop culture" of the nation leans left, it's very important to do two things - label everything that doesn't lean left a conspiracy theory, and then call all conspiracy theories "right wing" or "extreme right" theories.

There are conspiracy theories that are absolutely wild. Frankly, I don't disbelieve entirely that there isn't some truth to many of them, but the issue at hand that causes some conspiracy theories to truly delve into the impossible is a lack of nuanced thinking. Some people believe that Donald Trump is going to oust all the pedophiles, which are inexplicably all Democrats, and save all the children. That theory has a lot going for it, most importantly because it has a happy ending. It would surely be great if it were true that we were going to permanently end the vile practice of trafficking children, who would want it to NOT be true? I suppose someone complicit, a trafficker or a pedophile. And thus, anyone who says it's not true is, by the conspiracy theorist adherents, a likely pedophile. It's very easy to get sucked into a thought process that lacks nuance, and it's happening to a large number of people.

But what happens is conspiracy theories like this, or that the earth is flat, are all "conspiracy theories," and thus very likely true "conspiracy theories" are lumped into the same bin as "the entire news media conglomerate in the entire world is acting in cohesive malicious intent to subvert the entire world into a New World Order" and then subsequently disregarded as obtuse and unbelievable.

Here's where nuance comes into play. Here's an example: there doesn't NEED to be one singular large cohesive group of evil people all in charge and working together for a "New World Order" to come into play. As it happens, very dramatic changes in governance can occur due to a variety of powers all working AGAINST one another. The "NWO" conspiracy theory becomes far more believable if you posit that, due to a large amount of conflict between a large amount of nations who all disagree vehemently with one another, a shift in power could easily occur wherein the typical operation of the way the world works today could be altered dramatically.

But such nuance isn't allowed in the "conspiracy theory" label camp. Many useful idiots continue to believe in a supervillain level cohort of mastermind evil geniuses who have infiltrated and run every aspect of all world governments, and whenever anyone says "hey this much more nuanced possible view that creates the same outcome is actually pretty believable," they are labeled an extreme right wing conspiracy theorist. Gaslit in real time into believing that their observations and opinions on the trajectory of things is "just wild nonsense". They double down and truly do become "conspiracy theory nutjobs", they stop believing it altogether out of fear of the conspiracy theorist label, or they hopefully maintain a nuanced, level-headed thought process about the whole thing.

Now, importantly, this isn't about "all the democrats and progressives are working together to gaslight conservatives!" It's not about me pushing my aforementioned more nuanced and more possible "conspiracy theory" as definitely true. It's about the fact that regular people, unaffiliated with any large shadowy cabal of unfathomably rich and powerful people, can cover for the true scandals of those rich and powerful, due to phenomenons as simple and easily manipulable as culture, group think, and ingroup status. I'm not even saying that what I have stated is THE true scandal - the important thing to grasp from understanding the possibility of a more nuanced view of the corruption everpresent in the elite canopy of society, is that ANY questioning of the veil of benevolence and well-meaning operation of the elite class is slandered and torn apart by the very people who should be outraged along with us.

It doesn't matter so much what is the "truth" behind the obvious questionable behavior of politicians and elites. If it's a satanic pedophile cult or simply a bunch of monkeys fighting for more power than their political peers and stepping on a bunch of us on their way up, the fact of the matter is that our earnest attempts to join together against the corruption are intentionally scattered under gaslight tactics such as "conspiracy theory" and "extreme right wing groups" labels.

Even your typical conservative does not want to be thought of as "extreme right wing," especially since we are constantly gaslit to believe being "extremely right wing" is synonymous with genocide etc., and thus they break up even the cohesion between people of their own ingroup. There are more or less political "schisms" breaking up the already flawed and subversive "liberal vs. conservative" mindset into ever smaller and smaller ingroups (yes, on the left, too), who spend their time fighting each other instead of finding ways for the peon-class to join together and recognize that - one way or another, something is not right.

In the end, it's not important so much that the media and culture is "left leaning" as it is that they have taught us to despise one another as "too different to get along," thus labeling things they don't want their ingroup to believe in as "right wing". If the media and culture were right leaning, the same thing would be happening, but with a different ingroup of peasants believing that the benevolent political powers - the ones in control of wealth and power inconceivable to the common person - are oh-so-honorably fighting for THEM.

Which is, of course, a lie.

The Effectiveness of the "Black Lives Matter" Terminology

Black Lives Matter was an organization originally created several years ago in response to police brutality against black people. Per their own words, it "began as a call to action in response to state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism." Original criticisms against the organization, as I remember the history personally, focused mostly on their failure to address other important areas of disadvantage for black people - high crime rates within their own communities, disproportionate abortion rates for black babies, cultural issues of fatherlessness and so on and so forth. These criticisms were lobbied based on the actual name of the organization - "Black Lives Matter." The argument is as such: "if black lives truly matter, why don't you focus on [xyz] issue in the black community?"

It sounds like a good argument, but it is actually not. Let me be clear - it really does SOUND like a good argument, on the surface, because the organization is called "Black Lives Matter". This is an "it's in the name" argument, which is a fallacy. But it's not a good argument, because we don't judge things based on their names, we judge them based on their actions. All people, for or against Black Lives Matter, should judge the organization based on its actions, not its name. The organization was created to fight what the creators saw as unfair treatment of black people by their own government and police force, so that's what the organization does. Arguing that they must do other things because they are called "Black Lives Matter" is the same argument used against "pro-life" organizations, since they only focus on stopping abortion, and not things like feeding the poor.

This is entirely consistent. Names are effective as the way in which we refer to things, so we can call a pro-life organization "a pro-life organization" and know exactly what that organization does, because "pro-life" is the name we have all agreed on as the colloquial term to describe someone who is against abortion. "Black Lives Matter" is the name of the organization we have understood to be against police mistreatment of black people. They do not have to focus on fatherlessness in black communities anymore than pro-life organizations do not need to feed homeless veterans.

The problem is that, while this is fair and consistent, the organization itself still - intentionally misleadingly - uses the monkier of "Black Lives Matter" to insist that anyone who is against the organization "Black Lives Matter" actually doesn't care about black people's lives. Let me clarify where we are so far, here:

1. Black Lives Matter is the name of the organization that fights against what they believe is systemic police brutality against black people.
2. Black Lives Matter does not have to do anything else, because organizations are designed to fit specific purposes and have no obligation to "branch out" into any and all related causes simply because their opposition says they must. (New organizations can simply be created to advance these other, related causes.)
3. Black Lives Matter knows this and is consistent in this regard.
4. Black Lives Matter intentionally breaches this consistency to apply the incorrect argument stated above, onto the people who oppose their organization.

What is happening is that Black Lives Matter takes advantage of the consistent and right view that they do not have to focus on every single issue in black society while turning around and enforcing that view on their opposition. If someone is against Black Lives Matter because they do not believe there is unfair treatment of black people by police, or any other reason (like their many, unrelated political issues they focus on, which can be found on their own website), then the opposition is labeled as not caring about black people in relation to all other issues, and indeed accused of believing that black lives in fact do not matter.

Despite the fact that we all understand the concept of the term "Black Lives Matter" being used as the name of the organization that has specific beliefs and goals, any opposition to the organization is seen as opposition to the actual phrase "black lives matter", absent of its context as a name of a group, and not the organization at hand. This is done intentionally to dissuade opposition to the "Black Lives Matter" organization by accusing all opposition of opposing the statement "black lives matter", using the very name of the organization "out of context" as it were.

This is intentional, a classic an easily identifiable double standard. If Black Lives Matter as an organization truly focused on all issues that black society faces, then it could be arguable that being against the organization (assuming they did not have a bunch of ulterior motives, which they do) would in fact be objectively morally wrong. The truth to the actual phrase "black lives matter" out of context of the organization is objectively true. All people are created equal in front of an all-loving God who finds every human life precious. Black lives truly do matter. "Black Lives Matter," though, is an organization with specific goals. Being against these goals is a valid stance, as there is more of them than "police killing black people is wrong." The organization, being several years old, has adopted other goals and a more defined identity, some facets of which people could find disagreeable. They are stated plainly on their website, so this should not a secret to anyone.

It would be somewhat silly for the organization to simply be a group of people who were all united against black people being killed, and yet this is what they act like they are when their opposition says that the organization is bad and does bad things. If truly the only thing the organization did was "agree that black people being murdered is wrong," how could you be against it? Only legitimately true racists would believe it was good for black people to be murdered, and thus it is so easy to turn the opposition to the organization's goals on its head and make Black Lives Matter detractors seem like they are in fact legitimately racists who want black people to be murdered by invoking the "it's in the name" argument, which is false. While there are in fact legitimately racist people who want black people to be murdered, the percentage of these people within the opposition to the organization Black Lives Matter is very small. They are used intentionally to discredit the reasonable opposition to the organization Black Lives Matter that exists because of the actions and other beliefs of the organization.

Black Lives Matter adheres to many communistic ideals and outrightly sacrilegious beliefs. They have tricked many Christians into supporting an organization that seeks to dismantle Jesus Himself by hiding behind the "it's in the name" argument. This is blatantly a trick of Satan, who often uses half-truths to manipulate people into sin. It's his number one tactic and the first one he ever used. It's proven very effective for all of history, why would he ever stop using it? It is true that black lives matter, and every true Jesus-seeking Christian would agree. But "Black Lives Matter" the organization focuses on many other things that are objectively against Christ and His commandments.

People are tricked into supporting a pagan ideology that rests firmly against Jesus by convincingly labeling all opposition as "actual monsters who want black people to be murdered." Afraid of being mislabeled as actual black hating racists, Christians opt to support an organization that seeks to destroy Jesus, because they are afraid of how the world will see them if they detract.

The Problem with Secular Self-Help

I could write this post very quickly with one sentence, and of course, predictably, the problem with secular self-help is that it ignores our sovereign and ever-present Lord, God Almighty. The point of continuing at all is to clarify in which ways specifically this problem manifests itself.

Secular self-help focuses on ways to attempt force yourself to manage to handle all of life's problems, by yourself, as if it were ever truly possible for us to "win" at life without support, when those who deny the Son of God are going to lose at the end anyway. They play the game on hardmode, and then at the end, they only have one possible ending - regardless of any accolades, currency, or completionist goals they met along the way.

I read these secular self-help articles out of nothing more than morbid curiosity. Of course, certain advice is useful, but the possibility of actual success in either application or positive results is muted heavily by the lack of focus on the fact that God has your life in His hands. For all the advice that is actually good, and (somewhat hilariously) rooted deeply in an obvious truth of our world that is found within the Word of God (but just manages to not mention that fact), there is just as much advice that is actually poison, and the ability to discern between these is also easily found within the Word of God.

I've read some secular self-help articles that read exactly like a Christian devotional, just minus the Bible quotes. "Helping others actually makes us more joyful," "learn to be content with what you have," "be honest about your faults," and so on. The problem with speaking Biblical truths without the mention of the Bible is that there is no foundation upon which to establish the application of these truths.

You'd think "well, as long as some of the advice has Biblical backing, it's not bad that people would follow it!" If only that were true. Imagine someone giving quite generously to charity because it makes them feel good - because it does, as would be obvious to anyone who has realized the Truth of creation - but they shout it loudly from the rooftops and tell everyone they meet how much of a philanthropist they are. Without the foundations found within the Bible, this obvious truth that we should donate time and money to the least of our society, we quite easily perform them in a poisoned way that ends up not helping us. Big oof.

This is to say nothing of advice poisoned from the get go, advice that tends to read in any other words as "you're your own god and have complete control over your life" (spoiler: you aren't, and you don't). I don't feel like I need to explain this any further. Advice that insists to you that you could somehow manage to stay in control of your life ignores not just Biblical truth, but very obvious lived experiences of the vast majority of human beings.

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.^"

People who manage to ignore this truth are destined for failure. And even when secular self-help advice falls in line with the painfully obvious reality that we have very little control over what happens to us, it inexplicably fails to comfort anyone in any real way. They will say things like, "accept that things will happen out of your control," with no substantial advice on how to actually do this. We are to simply wake up each day and somehow relax about the fact that any number of cataclysmic things could occur to us or our loved ones today, that we may then fall into oblivion or perish without anyone paying us a single thought, destined to nothing and with no hope for us, or anyone, all of human civilization drifting aimlessly, suffering without purpose, to no end.

There is no answer to this other than leaning on the support of the Lord our God, knowing that whatever calamity does fall upon us, we have a Creator who loves us and that His will and His plans are greater than ours, whether or not we can comprehend these things at any given time.

Perhaps I tend to bring things to their ultimate conclusion too quickly when putting things into perspective, but it is truly foolish to even attempt to contextualize your existence without a Creator. Regardless of what you do or how you live your life, you will die one day and nothing you've ever done will matter. "But what if I cure cancer or make the world a better place!" you shout. Excellent, I suppose - for now. Our world, too will end. "What if we make it to other planets, spread human civilization throughout the galaxy!" you insist. That, too, will pass away - in fact, our galaxy, and all of the universe, and all of existence, will one day face oblivion - whether you believe in a religiously-inspired worldview or not. If you're an adherent to science, you would have to face the reality that every single outlet, every worldview in existence, declares that all of existence will end. Scientific evidence points extensively to the fact that the universe will eventually expand beyond the capacity of its own power and cease - everything will end.

Nothing you do will ultimately matter. And yet I have said this to people, only to have them say "well, that's not for a long time." This is a shallow and infantile outlook. They do not deny it, but simply disallow themselves to reconcile with the fact that nothing we do matters. Whether we are rich or poor, whether we help or harm others, we will pass away, they will pass away, and any impact - good or bad - that we've made on this planet or any other planets will pass away. It is all - ultimately - meaningless. There is no point in a worldview that does anything other than focus on making your short, dust in the wind life enjoyable if that worldview lacks a foundation higher than our basic, physical human existence.

And that is the failure of secular self-help - at the end of the day, it's blind to the final conclusions of its logical thought process. Why even improve your life when it's so meaningless and temporary? Secular self help is a poor band-aid over the secularist's lack of deeper understanding for the world and all the implications therein.