Lux Lucet

White nationalists and protestors clash in Charlottesville, Virginia – ABC News.

You never know what’s next. That’s both the joy and the danger of writing political commentary. When events occur tha call out for commentary, sometimes you’re well prepared, and at other times not so much. The uproar over the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia? For this author it falls under the category of not so much.

When discussing an emotional issue such as race, it is always tempting to fall into the error of thinking one must pick sides. One is either on the side of Black Lives matter or the White Nationalists. We’re either for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) or with Richard Spencer and the National Policy Institute. Forgotten many times is a third possibility: both sides may be wrong.

For example, in the 1930s the great political conflict in Europe was between the Marxist on the one hand, and the fascists on the other. One was either a Marxist or a fascist. If one was right the other was wrong. But looking back on that period through the intervening 8 decades, many people today likely would say both sides were in error. And, of course, they would be right to do so.

In like fashion, looking at today’s conflict between the SJW left and the Alt-right, the proper stance of the Christian is to reject both points of view as unbiblical. Why do I say this?

First, there is no room in Christianity for racism. This is one of the implications of Paul’s statement to the Athenians that “He [God] has made from one blood every nation of men.” This one statement overthrows all notions of racial superiority and inferiority. There is one man and one man only who can claim metaphysical superiority to all others, and that the is the Lord Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, Alt-righters tend to be Darwinists, taking an evolutionary view of man’s development. This has frightening implications for race relations. Because Darwinism is about the survival of the fittest, pushed to its logical conclusion it is logically compatible with genocide, in which a supposedly superior race exterminates so-called untermenchen. This is not to say that all or even most self-described Alt-right adherents would be comfortable with genocide, only that their Darwinism is consistent with it.

But, of course, Darwin is not the property of the Alt-right only. Ironically, it is one idea held in common both by Alt-righters and those on the secular left. It may very well be that none of the individuals present at the Unite the Right rally, whether participants or protesters, had a sound, biblical view of the origin of mankind.

Second, there is the issue of identity politics for me but not for thee. The past several decades have seen the rise of identity politics in the US. There are political pressure groups that advocate for blacks, Hispanics, Jews, women, various members of the LGBT community etc. These groups go about their work, and not only do they not receive criticism for advancing their in-group preferences, but actually are given hearty approval by the cultural gatekeepers. But let white nationalists advocate on behalf of white people, and the whole world stops spinning on its axis.

It is illogical, inconsistent and unfair to, on the one hand, permit identity politics for some groups while at the same time denying it to others. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Either identity politics is wrong for all or it is permitted for all. If it’s right and good and just for Black Lives Matter to foment riots in pursuit of its black identitarian goals, the mainstream press has no sound reason to condemn the Unite the Right rally. Their disdain for the Alt-right is not a matter of principle, but of preference.

But Christians are not called to identitarian politics. We are called to seek justice for all- and by justice I do not mean the so-called “social justice” popular in secular left and Roman Catholic circles, which is not justice at all, but rather another name for collectivism and another excuse for intrusive big government – by which is meant equality before the law.

Third, it is the view of this author that both the Alt-right and the Antifa / Black Lives matter groups infuse Confederate symbolism with meanings that are drawn more from their own political ambitions than from actual history. In his commentary on Philemon, John Robbins noted that racists claiming to be Christian made heroes of “John C. Calhoun, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Robert L. Dabney, Cornelius Van Til, and Rousas Rushdoony – not one of whom, despite their many errors, expressed the racial hatred that consumes the racists on the web” (Christianity & Slavery, 12).

And just as some racists have made Charlottesville’s statue of Robert E. Lee a rallying point, so too have the cultural Marxist made its removal a moral imperative. But to what end? It appears to this observer that their efforts are about memory holing everything they don’t like for the purpose, not only of rewriting history, but of controlling the future. For the cultural Marxists who seek to destroy America and rebuild it according to their own image, it is impossible to allow Robert E. Lee to be honored in any way. The man must be viewed as literally Hitler, and anyone who speaks well of him as a Hitler apologist. If the left is able to convince everyone that the whole history of the United States is totally racist, then it makes destroying what’s left of our Christian heritage, limited government, and economic freedom, all which are associated with that “totally racist” history, easy pickings.

Statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In a recent column, Walter Williams raised question of where this all ends. He wrote,

Removing statues of Confederates and renaming buildings are just a small part of the true agenda of America’s leftists. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and there’s a monument that bears his name – the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. George Washington also owned slaves, and there’s a monument to him, as well – the Washington Monument in Washington. Will the people who call for the removal of statues in New Orleans and Richmond also call for the removal of the Washington, D.C., monuments honoring slaveholders Jefferson and Washington? …

The Job of tyrants and busybodies is never done. When they accomplish one goal, they move their agenda to something else. If we Americans give them an inch, they’ll take a yard. So I say, don’t give them an inch in the first place. The hate-America types use every tool at their disposal to achieve their agenda of discrediting and demeaning our history. Our history of slavery is simply a convenient tool to further their cause.

There is nothing new about this technique either.  The Bible tells us about King Jeroboam of Israel, who, being concerned that his people would go to Jerusalem to worship at the temple and shift their loyalty from him to the King of Judah, commanded that two golden calves be set up in the north and said to the people, “Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!” By lying to the people about their past, Jeroboam hoped to control the future. But his lie eventually brought ruin upon both his dynasty and his nation

So what should be done with Charlottesville’s statue of Lee? Leave it stand. It’s beautiful monument in a beautiful park. That much is evident even from the photographs. Certainly, it is far superior to the vile garbage that passes for art these days, the sort of twisted propaganda our cult Marx kommissars foist on us every chance they get. They must not be allowed to obliterate our past, for then they will control our future also.