In June 2020, Kennedy Mitchum, a 22-year-old graduate of Drake University, needed a way to call non-racists “racists,” so she emailed Merriam-Webster Dictionary to tell them to change the definition of “racism” in such a way as to enable people to use the Merriam-Webster Dictionary to call non-racists “racists.”

Heretofore, Merriam-Webster had defined “racism” as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” Mitchum griped that because of that definition, whites who don’t believe in racial superiority, who harbor no ill-will toward people with a different skin-color, and who don’t mistreat people with a skin color different from their own would deny they were racists. And she needed a way to prove that non-racist whites are, indeed, racists.

In a radio interview, Mitchum said, “It’s not just disliking someone because of the color of their skin. There are systems in place in health care, in the justice system that are automatically formed to put people of color at the bottom and keep them at the bottom of the barrel.” While providing no evidence, Mitchum asserts that the very reason health care systems and the justice system were formed was to put and keep people of color at the bottom of the barrel.

In her dialogue with Merriam-Webster, Mitchum argues that “Racism is not only prejudice against a certain race due to the color of a person’s skin, as it states in your dictionary. It is both prejudice combined with social and institutional power. It is a system of advantage based on skin color.”

This article of faith is necessary to exempt racists of color from their culpability in propagating actual racism. If racism requires power, and persons of color supposedly have none, then no matter how explicit and ugly their racism is, it’s not—by this Newspeakian redefinition— racism.

This convoluted view of racism is a central tenet of Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Mitchum also said, “the current definition also fails to acknowledge microaggressions.” Once again, leftists manipulate language in order to advance an ideology.

By hook or by dictionary, persons of color will prove that colorless non-racists are racist. And if you deny that, you’re racist. Got it you achromatic, washed-out bigots?

Why didn’t Mitchum go for broke? Why didn’t she ask for this new dictionary entry:

“racist”: n. 1. Having little melanin; being “white.” 2. Being pale-skinned and, by that fact, personally responsible for 400 years of evil.

Critical Race Theory has spread from the academy–where surely Mitchum ingested the poison–into even historically theologically orthodox churches. Tim Keller—well-known and influential author, founder of The Gospel Coalition, and pastor of the Manhattan megachurch, Redeemer Christian Church—has embraced elements of the ugly racist philosophy of collective guilt. On June 3, 2016, Keller said this:

[M]y pastor friend said “studies have … pretty much proven that if you have white skin it’s worth a million dollars over a lifetime, over somebody who doesn’t have white skin.

And that’s because of historical forces that have come about. … if you have that asset of white skin, right now … then you actually have to say “I didn’t deserve this” and also to some degree, “I’m the product of…I’m standing on the shoulders of other people who got that through injustice.”

So, the Bible actually says “yes…you are involved in injustice,” and even if you didn’t actually do it, therefore you have a responsibility—not just to say “well, maybe if I get around to it, maybe we can do something about the poor people out there.” No- you’re part of the problem.

Keller’s strange interpretation of Scripture goes back further still. He expressed the same ideas in a troubling presentation delivered at a Desiring God event in 2012.  In his sermon “Racism and Corporate Evil: A White Guy’s Perspective,” Keller misused Joshua 7, Daniel 9, and Romans 5, overlooking the distinction between the Old Testament and New Testament covenants as well as the distinction between personal sin and the doctrine of original sin.

Jonathan Bradford summarizes and refutes Keller’s CRT-infused views:

Keller argues that when a person is part of a community or ‘system’, they are in part responsible for the actions of that system or community. The only exception to this doctrine seems to be if one is ‘resisting’ the sinful system. If someone is ‘resisting’ then they are not responsible for the sin.

If this doctrine is true, then Christians must always and constantly be resisting the system if they desire to stop being imputed with the sins of their community (because every community always has sin).

Keller didn’t explain how the following verses comport with his woke interpretation of Scripture:

 “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live.  The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. (Ezekiel 18:19-20)

 But he did not put to death the children of the murderers, according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. But each one shall die for his own sin.” (2 Kings 14:6)

What a tragedy that Keller should embrace any part of the anti-biblical ideology of corporate sin and guilt—an ideology rejected by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl who said this in 1985:

[M]y deepest conviction is … that there is no collective guilt! Let alone—if I may so call it—a retroactive collective guilt, in which someone is held responsible for what their parents’ or even grandparents’ generation may once have done.

Guilt can only be personal guilt—guilt for what one has done oneself or even not done, neglected to do. 

In a recently published article titled “A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory,” Keller makes a statement that seems to contradict his embrace of collective guilt:

To see whole races as more sinful and evil than other races leads to things like the Holocaust.

Keller’s earlier statements about whites being “involved in injustice” based on nothing more than their skin color seems to contradict this statement. Keller may be trying to distinguish between a Nazi belief in genetic superiority and his own belief in white culpability for injustice based on membership in a racial group in possession of social advantages due to past racism. If so, his distinction is muddled and unbiblical and, therefore, unhelpful.

In this article, Keller offers a far superior perspective on postmodern Critical Theory (CT), of which Critical Race Theory is a part, by examining some of its contradictions, most notably the idea of the social construction of “truth-claims”:

If all truth-claims and justice-agendas are socially constructed to maintain power, then why aren’t the claims and agendas of the adherents of this view subject to the same critique? Why are the postmodern justice advocates’ claims that “This is oppression” unquestionably, morally right, while all other moral claims are mere social constructs? And if everyone is blinded by class-consciousness and social location, why aren’t they? Intersectionality claims oppressed people see things clearly—but why would they if social forces make us wholly what we are and control how we understand reality? Are they less formed by social forces than others? And if all people with power—who “call the shots” socially, culturally, economically, and control public discourse—inevitably use it for domination, then if any revolutionaries were able to replace the oppressors at the top of the society, why would they not become people that should subsequently be rebelled against and replaced themselves? What would make them different? The Postmodern account of justice has no good answers for these questions. You cannot insist that all morality is culturally constructed and relative and then claim that your moral claims are not. This is not a flaw that only Christians can see, and this may therefore be a fatal flaw for the entire theory.

In contrast to CRT’s and Kennedy Mitchum’s redefinition of racism, here’s pastor and theologian John Piper’s view of racism:

Here’s my definition of racism: attributing to one race intrinsic superiority or valuing it above another and then treating others as undesirable or evil. … It is a history-long problem and a global problem, not just a little black and white problem or a little Asian problem or a little Rwanda problem or a little Jewish problem. It is a massive, global, history-long, devastating, bloody, murderous problem. For example, the Armenian Genocide in Turkey in 1915—a million slaughtered Armenians. Holocaust in Germany: six million. Who knows how many tens of million in the Soviet Gulags under Stalin? The massacres in Rwanda in 1994, the Japanese slaughter of six million Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos and Indo Chinese—a litany of history-long bloodletting all in the name of ethnicity or race. That is because humans are in rebellion against God.

That’s where that comes from—exalting ourselves over against our Maker and, of course, if over against our Maker, over against each other. That’s a given. Anybody that would have the audacity not to submit to the King of kings and Lord of lords would not have any problem putting you down. We find our pleasure and self-exaltation being made much of and if I have to use my ethnicity to do that, thank you very much, I will do it. That sin of racism … grows in the ground of pride and self-exaltation.

Those who do not use race or ethnicity as a source of pride or self-exaltation, those who do not attribute intrinsic superiority to one race above another, those who do not treat others as undesirable or evil based on their race or skin color are not racist. And the sins and concomitant guilt of their forefathers and foremothers should not be imputed to them—at least God doesn’t.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Racist.mp3

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Videos have been circulating of young bestial thugs—whites and blacks, women and men—shrieking in the faces of al fresco diners, commanding them to raise a fist in solidarity with BLM/Antifa totalitarians. To leftists nothing says freedom quite like coerced performative acts. See for yourself the future of the Democratic Party:

Maybe these young bestial thugs never learned about Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard composed of young people that Mao used to intimidate, humiliate, and attack his political enemies. The New York Times described the Red Guard’s efforts:

Students who answered Mao’s call for continuing revolution … targeted political enemies for abuse and public humiliation. … Under a campaign to wipe out the “Four Olds”—ideas, customs, culture, habits—they carried out widespread destruction of historical sites and cultural relics.

Or maybe today’s totalitarian culture-destroyers are inspired by the Red Guard, whose salute they mimic.

Before Chairman Mao thought to use easily indoctrinated youth to advance political oppression, the Nazi Regime had mastered the tactic. Here’s an eerily relevant description of the Nazi Party’s exploitation of German youth to advance the pernicious Nazi cause:

Millions of German young people were won over to Nazism in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. In January 1933, the Hitler Youth had approximately 100,000 members, but by the end of the year this figure had increased to more than 2 million. By 1937 membership in the Hitler Youth increased to 5.4 million before it became mandatory in 1939. The German authorities then prohibited or dissolved competing youth organizations.

Education in the Third Reich served to indoctrinate students with the National Socialist world view. Nazi scholars and educators glorified Nordic and other “Aryan” races, while labeling Jews and other so-called inferior peoples as parasitic “bastard races” incapable of creating culture or civilization.

After 1933, the Nazi regime purged the public school system of teachers deemed to be Jews or to be “politically unreliable.” Most educators, however, remained in their posts and joined the National Socialist Teachers League. 97% of all public school teachers, some 300,000 persons, had joined the League by 1936. In fact, teachers joined the Nazi Party in greater numbers than any other profession.

In the classroom and in the Hitler Youth, instruction aimed to produce race-conscious, obedient, self-sacrificing Germans who would be willing to die for Führer and Fatherland. Devotion to Adolf Hitler was a key component of Hitler Youth training. …

Schools played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas to German youth. While censors removed some books from the classroom, German educators introduced new textbooks that taught students love for Hitler, obedience to state authority, militarism, racism, and antisemitism.

Since some Americans—particularly leftists—struggle with analogical thinking, let’s paraphrase that description to make its relevance easily comprehensible:

Millions of American young people were won over to socialism/Critical Race Theory/“LGBTQ” theory/feminist theory in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. By 2020 membership in or support for what became known as the Intersectionality Regime had increased dramatically. Dominant leftist cultural forces had persecuted youth organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts into reinventing themselves to align with the Intersectionality Regime.

Education in America served to indoctrinate students with the socialist/racialist/feminist/pansexual world view. Race, sexuality, “gender,” and Marxist scholars and educators glorified people of color, homosexuals, opposite-sex impersonators, and Marxists while labeling whites, men, heterosexuals, conservative Christians, and capitalists hateful oppressors and bigots incapable of creating culture or civilization.

The race/“gender”/sexuality/class Intersectionality Regime purged the public school system of teachers deemed to be members of the oppressor classes or to be “politically unreliable.” Most educators, however, remained in their posts and joined the race/“gender”/sexuality/class Intersectionality Regime. In fact, teachers joined the Intersectionality Regime in greater numbers than any other profession.

In the classroom, corporate boardrooms, social media, the arts, the mainstream press, and organizations like BLM™ and Antifa, instruction was aimed to produce race-conscious, class-conscious, man-hating, sexual-deviance-supporting activists who would take the fight to the streets. Devotion to the Intersectionality Regime was a key component of cultural conditioning.

Schools played an important role in spreading Intersectionality ideas to American youth. While censors removed some books from the classroom, educators introduced new textbooks that taught students love for socialism, racism, feminism, homosexuality, the “trans” ideology, and anti-Christianity.

Co-founder of the Toronto chapter of BLM™, Yusra Khogali, once tweeted, “White ppl are recessive genetic defects. this is factual. … black ppl simply through their dominant genes can literally wipe out the white race if we had the power to.” She tweeted, “Please Allah give me the strength to not … kill these … white folks out here today.” In 2015, she tweeted, “whiteness is not humxness. infact, white skin is sub-humxn.”

Kinda, sorta, maybe sounds like a Nazi talking about Jews.

Compulsory performance of the Sieg Heil/Red Guard/Black Panthers/BLM salute is part of the effort to compel freethinkers to pretend to embrace the ideas of slave reparations, systemic racism, and collective guilt, which hold individuals culpable for sins they have never committed.  The notion of collective guilt for the past sins of other individuals is both unbiblical and poisonous.

In a speech delivered in 1988 in Vienna on the 50^th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of his home country of Austria, Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl warned against the dangerous idea of “collective guilt”:

[M]y father … died in Theresienstadt Camp; my brother … did not return from Auschwitz; my mother … was killed in the gas chambers of the same camp; and my first wife[’s] …  young life came to an end in Bergen-Belsen Camp. And yet at the same time I will ask you not to expect to hear from my mouth a single word of hatred. For whom should I hate? I knew only the victims; I do not know the perpetrators—at least, not personally. And I categorically refuse to attribute collective as opposed to personal guilt.

There is no such thing as collective guilt. Believe me, today is not the first occasion on which I have said that. I have been saying it since the day I was liberated from my [fourth and] last concentration camp. It is my conviction that anyone who assigns collective guilt to every Austrian [or German] citizen between the ages of zero and fifty is committing a reprehensible and insane act. Or, to put it in psychiatric terms: it would be reprehensible if it were not insane–and it would be a relapse into the Nazi ideology of collective family guilt [the difficult German word Sippenhaftung here refers to the dangerous Nazi dogma of kin liability, tainted blood(line), or genetic guilt by association]. Let this be said to all those who believe they have the right to expect people to feel guilty or even ashamed of something they did not do or fail to do but something their parents or grandparents had to answer for. …

I’ll tell you I think there are only two ‘races’ of people: those who are decent people, and those who are not. That distinction goes right through every nation, and within nations right through every political party and every other group. Even in the concentration camps here and there we came across more or less decent people who belonged to the SS. And in the same way there were also scoundrels amongst the prisoners.

The decent people are in the minority; they have always been in the minority and, I think, always will be. But the danger lies elsewhere. The danger is to be found in a regime or a system which brings the scoundrels to the top; in other words which puts the reins of power in the hands of the worst representatives of the people. Therein lies the true peril. And no nation … can claim to be immune from such danger. Which is why I presume to say that in principle any country is capable of perpetrating the holocaust.

… In my view there are only two … types of politicians. The first is the politician who believes that the end justifies the means—any means, even terrorist means. The second type is profoundly aware that there are means that can desecrate even the most sacred ends.

[T]he need of the day … is that all men of good will should finally reach their hands out to each other across all the graves and divisions.”

One of my daughters once expressed disappointment that I hadn’t saved any of my clothes from the early 1970’s. I explained that although styles return, they never return in exactly the same form. Same goes for history, which explains why even remembering history doesn’t guarantee we won’t repeat it. Today’s cultural revolution has all the earmarks of past revolutions, and yet too few Americans recognize those earmarks because on the surface this one appears different.

Unless we tear the blinders from our eyes and look clearly at the big picture, the republic as we have known it will be gone in a short time. The children and grandchildren of Millennials will grow up in a world of oppression and depravity the likes of which America has never known but civilizations around the world and throughout history have.

Viktor Frankl points to the solution to evil in our midst:

[P]lease remember one thing: Resistance always requires heroism. And there is only one person of whom anyone has the right to expect heroic acts. And that is oneself.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/BLMs™-Totalitarian-Youth.mp3

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