Your trope is what I say it is

…and it means what I say it means.

At times, it appears that Baptist News Global would have us believe that they stand for religion and rise above politics. However, the latter certainly is not true – they just oppose a popular political trend of evangelical Christian politics.[i] With the article, Why is there a boom in enrollment at private Christian schools? Here’s one critical theory: Race., there comes a far-left professor (referencing a New York Times article) to trash the popularity – that is, the supposed reason for the popularity – of private Christian schools. [Humorously, were it not a serious issue, this “Baptist” site chides CBMW for mentioning mentioning a specific small church with a gender inclusive statement, but does not blink an eye when this author mentions specific small evangelical schools to illustrate his point. What’s up with that? All’s fair in war, I suppose, when it is your war and you make the rules. Consistency might be a jewel were it not for the swine’s snout.]

The author, Rodney W. Kennedy, is an interim pastor of Emmanuel Freidens Federated Church and an instructor at Palmer Theological Seminary. He self-describes as a “Catholic Baptist” (whatever that means) and is one who despises evangelical Christian influence in American politics and education. He is author of The Immaculate Mistake: How Evangelicals Gave Birth to Donald Trump.

On the general subject of parental involvement in public education, Kennedy quickly quotes a professor with a PhD who says that he is not qualified to tell schools how to teach his own kids. That may be true of him, but that does not mean the average parent should think he or she is not qualified. Parent are guardians, mentors, educators, spiritual guides, and many other things to their children. God made it so. (e.g. Deut. 6:6-8; Deut. 11:18-20; Prov. 22:6; Eph. 6:4; 1 Tim. 5:14) Let us not settle for less.

Kennedy creates a narrative that identifies conservative evangelicalism with American populism – which he denominates racist – and he then marches forward painting the Christian school boom with the same tainted brush. He looks in the heart (where you may have previously assumed only God could look), and finds that evangelicals at heart have a race problem. It cannot be otherwise, for regardless of what anyone says, he knows what he hears. They cannot mean anything else, for he has already determined what they mean.

Though his thesis is that racism is the engine driving the Christian school boom, and Critical Race Theory the fuel, Kennedy throws the terminology around while carefully avoiding defining it. To be fair, Critical Race Theory is a moving target that can take pages upon pages to define and discuss.[ii] It is something that means different things to different people. Yet he takes advantage of this defect, trotting out the words for effect.

Bottom line from what I read – and I’ll take Kennedy’s tactic, that what he says means what I say he says – white people are racists. All of them. Without exception. If they are doing something – including private Christian schooling – then that something is racist. Of course, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, lest we find that some African-Americans also attend private Christian schools. Evangelical ones at that. Or myriad other issues that belie his premise. Maybe it would be better to have an honest discussion in which each listen to the other.

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[i] In One Faith No Longer, George Yancey and Ashlee Quosigk suggest that this is because progressives believe they can bring about social change through political action more than through religious commitment.
[ii] The core of Critical Race Theory is that racism is inherent in everything American – law, society, education, religion, etc. Ultimately, all these must be overthrown to correct the course, at least according to this theory. This helps explain why they can believe that just teaching math and grammar can be racist. In turn, many deny the allegations that this is being taught! For just one example, the White House and the National School Boards Association interacted before the NSBA sent a letter to the Biden administration likening concerned parents to domestic terrorists – a letter from which the White House and Attorney General, after backlash, tried to extricate themselves. See also Yes, Virginia, critical race theory is in K-12 schools. Here are 20 examples.