Today's thought is from George Lane
The answer to Critical Theory may sound shocking to some, but the answer is simply, ‘get over it’! You have to get over it. I have to get over it. We all have to get over it. Let it go and you will grow! No one moves forward until they forgive and move on.
I’ve said this for years. Every victim, and we have all been victimized by someone in some way, all victims have to at some point decide they will pick up the pieces and move on with their life, choosing to grow and rise above and in every instance it only truly happens when they choose forgiveness. You must move on. Otherwise, you’re a slave to your pain, your anger, your suffering.
Unfortunately, in the eyes of the critical theory movement, the only satisfactory solution to social injustice and inequality is an exchange of power. The oppressor must become the oppressed in order to satisfy their debt. And this is contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus teaches that greater are the least. Blessed are the meek, blessed are the oppressed, but these critical theorists have no interest in being blessed; they want power.
It doesn’t matter who is oppressed or powerful, we are all sinners. We all fall short of God’s glory. We all need Christ’s blood to wash us clean. However, the fact that I am a white male speaking deafens the ears of some. They can not hear the truth of the Gospel unless I first give credit for my ability to be heard to white privilege and inequality, but that then would give those credits supremacy over the Gospel negate the message.
We, the church, have to stop this foolishness. Y’all want to be equal? I’ll tell you how we are equal: we are all sinners. Just like race does not affect the Gospel, no sin is lesser than another. We have to stop identifying each other by our sins. While it is important to know that ministering to people of different backgrounds, experiences, and positions require varying approaches, just as healing requires varying treatment programs, our cultural need to label and segregate each other cannot be allowed to define us.
Society dictates that people find their identity in their sin and be proud and celebrate their brokenness. But just like it doesn’t matter what race you are, regardless of your sin you need the blood of Christ. It doesn’t matter if you identify as gay or straight, agnostic or atheist, indulgent or frugal, we all need Christ. All of these labels or measurements of sin and the corresponding judgements on the level of sin are mere distractions from the reality of our total depravity without the Salvation in Christ.
Concerning labels such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and more, all identities aside from one’s identity in Christ is death.
Even within the church these labels are meaningless. There’s no gay Christian, there’s no black Christian, there’s no adulterer Christian, there’s no feminist Christian, no conservative Christian. There are only saved and dead. Forgiven and damned. Period. Our identity is Christ or nothing. We are set free in Christ or we are defined by and held captive to our sin. We cannot appropriate today’s culture of critical theory into the Church. It is not the Gospel.
