Firstly, I am a white evangelical, charismatic, protestant Christian, who holds disdain for leftism, godless socialism, and the alt-right. I speak in tongues, diurnally study my Bible, oppose the killing of unborn babies, and the metastases of government into every area of our lives.
But I do not support the #alllivesmatter hashtag, and I’m going to tell you why.
There is a black internet personality named Jesse Lee Peterson, who has a weekly show called “The Fallen State,” a Sunday Church service, and a daily talk show on You Tube. He mainly interviews woke leftists and liberal African-american social and civil leaders and tightens the screws on them on race, evil, and other topics. He exposes their hypocrisies on these matters by suggesting them to be exactly what they believe others to be, whether racist or intolerant or privileged.
One of his favored lines of questioning is to ask liberal black civil rights leaders if they love white people. Their response, show after show, is always the same: “I love ALL people,” they will say.
Jesse will ask them again, and they will repeat their original answer.
He will then ask them again, but often they will not submit or break under this interrogation. “Yes,” almost never comes out of their mouths, unless it is followed up by an inevitable “all” or “everybody.”
They will often say that they love latino people, or black people, but they are not able to force “I love white people” out of their mouths.
The hypocrisy has been clarified, and their own racial feelings exposed and outed. It is compelling theater, and addicting to watch, because even black gospel preachers and evangelists regularly falter under this line of questioning.
That said, aren’t white people now being interrogated in exactly the same manner?
They are, and they are failing to respond in a Christian manner.
They will say that white lives matter, jewish lives matter, christian lives matter, unborn babies lives matter, but under pressure, they will not get “black lives matter” out of their mouths.
Now I can hear you already, saying that Black Lives Matters is a socialist organization with a suspect past, that they are against the nuclear family by mission statement, and so on.
Yes. The organization itself, like any other social collective, is going to be stock full of wayward, broken and sinful members. Our churches are quite the same, if we are going to be honest with ourselves.
However, it is ridiculous to assume that everybody who voices the affirmation that Black Lives Matter is a member of that organization, or is promoting its creeds.
So don’t respond with #alllivesmatter.
Don’t act like you can’t get the statement out of your mouth.
Maybe you mean it. Maybe you honestly believe that all lives matter, and you see that there is no difference between Jew and Greek, but nobody is asking for your moral opinion on all lives, but a particular racial subset.
They are not asking for your general perspective on race and color, but are asking for compassion, they are asking for an affirmative statement, such as an amen!
When you respond with #ALM, you have suddenly become elusive. You are sidestepping the question proposed to you, suddenly mealy-mouthed, responding to a particular question with a general answer.
You are no different from the leaders of these organizations who cannot squeeze out the statement: I love white people.
Black lives matter, regardless of whether or not white privilege is real or a fiction. Black lives matter, whether or not the BLM organization wishes to destroy the nuclear family arrangement.
This isn’t about offending others, but whether or not your outward behavior is an offense to your own character.
You don’t always have to take the high road, answering out of your own sense of pride and self-righteous virtue.
Yes. We know. You don’t see color. Jesus doesn’t see color, and the Holy Spirit doesn’t see color.
The problem, as I see it, is that #ALM seeks to offend. It is the highest form of virtue-signaling. Right or wrong, as Christians, we are supposed to take the high road, but not shout from the rooftops that we are taking the high road.
If we were talking about Christian persecution and stated that “Christian Lives Matter,” and a Muslim brother responded with, “no, All Religious lives matter,” we might be offended at this, because we are not talking about anything but Christian persecution, and this brother is waving it off in order to score a religious rhetorical point. It is a cheap shot.
Instead of fighting hatred with love, we are fighting hatred with proud words. It just doesn’t work. It actually serves to make us look privileged, in fact, as if we can afford this blind egalitarian worldview that nobody else can.
It almost seems to stand somewhere between right and wrong, and when in doubt, maybe it best to assume that such a thing is wrong, rather than right. We must remember that we all naturally lean toward sin and moral error.
It is the purest example I’ve ever seen of following the letter of the law, but forgetting the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law is freedom, and sometimes that means the freedom to just keep your mouth shut.
Don’t get caught up in the letter of the law, brothers, lest we forget the heart and spirit of the law, which is the freedom to declare that Black Lives Matter.
Something Happened to Men
A Thought on White Privilege
Why All Racists are Right