Human lives matter

After having discussed the recent events in the heat of social networks, I wanted to lay down my point of view completely and clearly. I know it will be a long post, but, hopefully, it’ll be worth it.

Of course, this relates to the recent events in the USA, and the movement that calls themselves Black Lives Matter, amongst others.

This is a matter that is doomed to be polarising, so it is not surprising that I myself I have got into trouble with some friends and brothers in Christ already. It’s sad that some people should even begin to think that for some reason I am denying well established history about the exploitation of Africans over the centuries. I’d be a fool if I did that.

Anyhow, I am getting ahead of myself. I need to break this down properly. So, let’s start with the foundation.

The Biblical worldview

Obviously, we are going to talk about a matter with moral implications. Now, you can only talk about morality if you’re willing to accept that morality is absolute. Moral relativism is a self-refuting worldview, so if you hold to that, there is the door🚪.

Established that, it must repeated that there’s only one worldview on the planet that is able to account for absolute morality, and that is the biblical worldview. (For a peek into the kind of arguments that support this, feel free to go through this).

Thus, if we want to judge the events of the past weeks, from the incident with George Floyd, to the madness that is storming through the States, we have no choice but doing it within this worldview. If something is right or wrong, must be right or wrong according to God; else, you must accept that it’s neither.

This is important, because, as we’ll see later in this post, Black Lives Matter is a Marxist movement, whose ideology is wholly incompatible with the biblical view of justice and morality.

Your Bible supports slavery

I can’t progress without addressing this. There are people that will read this and think, «What a hypocrite, the Bible condones, in fact, promotes slavery».

No, it doesn’t. Sorry to break it to you, but you have been indoctrinated by people who hold a fierce anti-biblical (especially anti-Christian) worldview. Not only does the Bible not condone nor promote chattel slavery (i.e. what the average westerner thinks of when they hear the word “slavery”), but it condemns it (Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 23:15). After all, the entire Bible revolves around one thing: the Divine Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who, from before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20), was to come and set man free from the ultimate slavery (John 8:34–36).

That said, I won’t cover the types of servitude regulated by the civil laws of ancient Israel, as it is off topic. Again, you find something in this old post of mine, and you may want to listen to this great lecture.

Racism is biblically unjustifiable

Though racism can be biblically explained, because it is essentially a sin, a form of hatred towards your fellow human being (1 John 3:15; Leviticus 19:17), it cannot be biblically justified.

He made from one man every nation of mankind (Acts 17:26) — The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man (Genesis 2:22) … Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living (Genesis 3:20)

The Bible, from the very beginning affirms that every human on earth belongs to the same race. Full stop. In contrast, we need to wait for the 1990s to see modern scientific affirmation that are no different biological races of humans. Not to mention how the Darwinian theory of evolution fuelled racism (see Stephen J. Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Belknap-Harvard Press, p. 127, 1977).

Have people used the Bible to justify racism and slavery? Oh, yeah. But can they actually provide sound arguments for that? No, they can’t. These evil people were just clever enough to understand that in a society that upheld the Bible as Holy, they could twist it to justify their actions in the eyes of the multitudes who didn’t have a shred of biblical literacy. And the same has been done about several other unbiblical things.

Fast forward to George Floyd

I will keep this one short: what the cop, Derek Chauvin, did was wrong. Full stop. That’s even before we begin to discuss whether his motives were rooted in racism, or even whether the whole US police has a problem with “systemic racism”, as it’s been called. Can we at least agree on that? That this was wrong whatever the victim would’ve been? The motives are a different matter.

Hell breaks loose

Another thing we must agree on, is that there is nothing just or righteous in setting a precinct on fire, burning down businesses of your neighbourhood, murdering more people, subverting the state legal system, trying to replace the police with vigilantes, setting up autonomous zones (which implement the very things these people say they hate the state doing, such as policing, ID checks, borders, etc.), erasing history, banning films, attacking cartoons and children toys, all the while raping, looting, and robbing. All this looks suspiciously like nazi-fascist behaviour. Even thought control is a classic feature of socialist regimes.

There’s tons more links I could put here, but you get the gist of it. Though there’s one more I must share: the attack on a Christian preacher within the autonomous zone of Seattle. I single this out because it becomes particularly disturbing when you consider that not only Christianity is despised by socialist ideologies, but there is a growing popularity, amongst young black people, of the old mantra “Christianity is the White Man Religion”.

An excuse for a Marxist coup

The absurdity that is now storming the United States has nothing to do with Floyd. And this is where I start becoming unpopular. But what’s happening out there is only hiding under the guise of protests for black lives; moreover, there is nothing spontaneous about these protests. There is, instead, a work of systematic disruption across the United States going on. Which is now spilling over to other nations, including Latin American ones, and the UK.

I say systematic because movements like Black Lives Matter are just but a piece in the large puzzle of a Marxist coup (piece itself of a larger Red-Green Axis alliance). When you look at the events out there, it is incredible how much they seem to be following the blueprint laid out by the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, called Burn Down The American Plantation. This is a movement that argues something near-fictional: slavery was never truly abolished in the USA.

What’s intriguing is that this manifesto seems to originate with Bill Ayers, who is essentially a terrorist. After all, Marxists ideas are terroristic ideas, that is why Antifa look exactly like the nazi-fascists, and that is why BLM have the same MO as these.

Whether on the left or on the right of the political spectrum, the socialist ideologies remain a threat to human liberties and dignities, and the best recipe to create inhumane regimes. Look at Nazi Germany, look at former Soviet Union, look at present day China or North Korea, look at Venezuela. Just to name a few. A collection of colossal disasters and abuse on human lives.

Only a problem in western democracies?

Notice how these ideas are only being promoted when a way to blame it on white privilege in the West can be found. All these movements and protests are nowhere to be seen for problems that affect poor black communities (as they do other disadvantaged communities) on a day-to-day- basis: fatherless homes, abortion, high murder rate amongst the members of that community.

When there is no event like Floyd’s murder to exploit, these movements (and the media that back them up) are silent, and all the work is left in the hands of tiny charities that struggle, whilst our societies keep pushing forward any policy that can harm the God-ordained unit of family.

Why are these movements absent? Because they have a different agenda, which has nothing to do with caring about black lives, or any human lives for that matter. Their agenda is to bring down western civilisations as we know it, because, ultimately, the West has its morality and laws rooted in a biblical worldview, which is a hurdle that these globalist movements must overcome, somehow.

That is why 1400 years of enslavement at hands of Muslims is no news for anybody. Even if it continues today. But they don’t care. You do not see these people protesting the still ongoing slave markets in Islamic countries. Quite the opposite, ultra-leftist institutions like the BBC always run to the rescue of Islam.

It is no surprise, then, that even if fundamentally at odds with leftist ideologies, Islam has essentially teamed up with them, creating the “Red-Green Axis”.

It is also no surprise, therefore, that Western Muslims who wish to expand the influence of Islam on the West through indigenous politics, always choose political parties on the left side of the spectrum to do so.

Also not a surprise that leaders of such parties, like Jeremy Corbyn, may be supporters of Islamic terrorism, and share with Islam a deep hatred for Israel, which is “lucky” enough to be both the only democracy of the Middle East and and the centrepiece of biblical eschatology.

In the eyes of a man with such ideologies, these people are not terrorist, but social justice warriors. Hamas or BLM, they all share the same ultimate motive of an alleged liberation of an alleged oppressed minority (too bad the Muslim “minority” dominates the whole North Africa and Middle East, though — anyway, I digress).

A false justice

Marxist “social justice” is not justice at all. It is defined and administered according to a worldview that clashes with the biblical one, and therefore, by definition, it cannot be just at all.

The main feature of such an ideology is a hideous double standard. Usually a marxist system will identify an enemy guilty of some alleged crimes, then they will declare themselves immune to those same crimes as long as they are perpatrated against that enemy. This achieves a dehumanisation of selected groups of humans, which is often the very thing they claim they’re victim of, or are protecting minorities from. As all unbiblical worldviews, it is utterly self-refuting.

Other characteristics of such ideologies are:

Gratuitous violence;
Personal vengeance;
Total lack of forgiveness;
Continual search for unrest instead of search for peace;
Tear down instead of build up
Antichristian and antibiblical agenda
Subversion of Western society

What does the Bible say?

Well, the Bible says “an eye for an eye”, some may object. You know what? It does. But we must understand who it says that too. In Matthew 5:38-42, Jesus teaches against the misconceptions of his day. Whenever you read Jesus saying “You’ve heard that…” in the Synoptic Gospels, He is referring to the teachings of the religious leaders of His day, which often times were a mistaken application and/or understanding of Scriptures. (In contrast, when Jesus refers to the actual Law, instead, He always says “It is written”). Thus, teachers of the time taught that “eye for an eye” was for anyone to apply. It wasn’t. It was a civil law of the nation of Israel, and as such, it was the duty of someone who acted officially as judge (e.g. a Levitical priest) to apply that law.

Jesus’ point is clear: from the beginning, we were never supposed to apply the Law individually, to execute justice on our own. “Vengeance is mine” says the Lord (Deuteronomy 32:35; cited also in Romans and Hebrews). God has always wanted an orderly system on earth through which He can exercise justice Himself, till the day He will bring about perfection for good. In old times, He exercised His justice through the theocracy of Israel, and today we know that God can operate justice through national governments. The Bible says that God established the nations (Acts 17:26), but more important, it says:

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.
Romans 13:1-7

Now, contrast that with BLM, Antifa, or the Revolutionary Abolition Movement. It’s the opposite. God created nations, and His plan is to administer them orderly via governments. These Marxist movements are globalist, desire the dismantlement of nation states (necessary to bring about the One World Government of the Antichrist), and the fall of governments, in order for them to take that power in their own hands, and administer an unrighteous form of justice, made of violent oppression, suppression of liberties, dehumanisation of certain “tribes”, and so on and so forth.

Not a surprise that the Revolutionary Abolition Movement quotes the Italian anarchist Alfredo Maria Bonanno, who said «The life of someone who oppresses others and prevents them from living is not worth a cent». Quite a contrast with the words of Jesus, who said: «God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life» (John 3:16).

If the Son of God died for all, then all lives are worth something in the eyes of God.

What if you’re a slave?

We have established already that the Bible does not condone slavery, but in fact it condemns it. Yet, let’s read Paul’s words:

Were you called while a slave? Do not worry about it; but if you are able also to become free, rather do that. For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. Brethren, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.
1 Corinthians 7:21-24

Now, in the Roman Empire there were a plethora of different forms of slaveries, but chattel slavery was definitely one of them. So, if the Bible condemns slavery, why does Paul say, essentially, “if you can emancipate yourself, then do it, but if you can’t, don’t make it a big deal”. Because “it doesn’t matter if you are in Christ”, says Paul, essentially. Paul recognises that it is wrong for a human being to be enslaved, but it also knows that the recognition of all wrongdoing will come, and if things can’t be put right now in a just way, it’s best to leave everything as it is, and in the hands of God.

This is in line with what both Paul and Jesus say elsewhere. Paul says to be content in all kinds of situations (Philippians 4:11-13), and, most importantly

Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.
Romans 12:17-18

And let us not forget Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, part of which says:

Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:5,6,9

What’s your point, then?

You might have noticed I haven’t yet touched on whether America has a systemic problem with racism, etc. etc. Why? Because it is of foremost importance to establish the true nature and the true motives of the ideologies making the accusation, first. If these “protestors” cannot be deemed righteous according to the biblical worldview, then whatever they are protesting against becomes of secondary importance in this discussion. That is, to extrapolate from the biblical teachings of Jesus, one should take the plank out of their own eye, before removing the speck from another’s eye.

The issues of slavery and racism have already been taken on in the past, by different kinds of people. The abolitionists were largely Christian. Martin Luther King was a Christian minister, who spoke in line with the words of Paul and Jesus. Then you also have Malcom X, that far from being a Christian, spoke in a manner that is more compatible with Marxism and Revolutionary theories (Red-Green Axis again).

My point being that you can tackle this matter the right way, or the wrong way. And BLM, Antifa, and other anarcho-socialist movements are the wrong way. Why? Because I say it? No, because God condemns them.

These movements are evil ideologies designed to subvert order and peace; they lie, they steal, they foment anger and violence, they rape, they oppress, and they foster chaos. They, like cults, feed on fear. On the anger and frustration of the people they claim to stand for: they do no want these people to feel that things are changing or have changed. They need people to make these social issues what they identify with. And they will lie through their teeth to keep these people slave to their ideologies. Who’s the slave master, now?

If you’re a Christian

So, if you’re a Christian, and you’ve bought into supporting these movements, you’re trying to serve two masters, which the Bible says it’s impossible, and the result is always the same: of the two, you’ll eventually favour one. Which one are you favouring?

Unfortunately, these ideologies have made it into the Church, too. The “social gospel” is now a huge problem, where churches are more concerned with various forms of social justice and marxist politics, than they are with being passioned about setting people free from the slavery to sin and death.

And what’s sad is that history is witness to the fact that when people focus on the biblical gospel, society as a whole benefits from it. The status of women is one example. Thus, as much as it is not God’s primary goal to realise a just society on the fallen Earth, the biblical gospel does have that repercussion.

The social gospel does not. It only creates more sin, more rebellion, more chaos.

Is America racist?

Defending or accusing America seems like a superfluous task at this stage. Focussing on the Biblical gospel and its outworking in the lives of all should be the thing to do, regardless of where we live, and what society looks like.

There would be also no real reason to single the US out, since other countries used to have the same kind of slavery; but it happens for obvious reasons: marxists movements target prominent capitalistic countries, and the US is the most prominent of these.

Nonetheless, truth is always of value. The problem here is that you can tackle this in at least in a couple of ways, and both ways can likewise be dismissed when you deal with groups that have replaced facts with emotions. This renders their ideology unfalsifiable, thus any argument becomes never-ending, and basically pointless.

One easy way for me to comment on this would be to virtually reposition myself in my home country, Italy, and simply dismiss the accusation of systemic racism in the US. People who haven’t grown up in Italy can’t possibly imagine how ridiculous it sounds to me to call America racist, when in Italy the majority of African immigrants are illegal immigrants doing illegal, underpaid jobs in inhumane conditions. The next noticeable group is the footballers, who have a different status altogether, but to this day, they have to put up with the virulent racism typical of the football stadiums (what do you expect of a country that, to this day, allows unpunished the anti-Neapolitan choruses and banners that from decades say always the same thing: “Vesuvius, wash them with fire”). Then there’s a microscopic pocket of immigrants (of all backgrounds) who conduct a regular life, in the background mostly. Last, in 2018, a miracle occurred: Italy got their first MP of African origins. And guess what happened? She suffered vile racist abuse.

Contrast that with America. I have several friends in America, from all sorts of backgrounds, immigrants or American-born, white, black or otherwise. They have all told me the same thing: “this country is the least racist country I have ever experienced”. Anyone that is willing to be a law-abiding citizen and to work hard, can achieve anything, and will most of the time (of course, racists haven’t just disappeared) not be discriminated against.

Nobody here is trying to make America look like the perfect country. But the American dream is real; it has been for many. And Larry Elder reminds us that no one really objects that the Millennial Success Sequence applies to every American. People of all kind of backgrounds have achieved various degree of success. There are people of Southern-Italian descent (who used to be lynched in the States) that have become famous actors, film directors, or city mayors. There are many successful African-American that have done the same, and that cover positions or do jobs that in other western countries are unthinkable.

America (as other countries) does have a regrettable past, where slavery and racism were central. But that is not the point. Is America today the same? I am sorry, it just isn’t, in my opinion. Are there cops both in the US and elsewhere they might abuse (from just suspecting them to more) a black dude in a situation where they wouldn’t have done it with a white folk? Yes. Can you derive anything systemic from it? I don’t think so.

And this is where I could go down the second way: analysing numbers. Martyn Iles, lawyer, political activist and the Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby, has done it, though reluctantly. And the numbers simply do not support the idea of systemic racism in America.

13th

What about the Netflix documentary, 13th? This friend and brother in Christ sent it to me. As you would expect from such a documentary, it is made to be impactful and thought-provoking. Not an easy watch.

It hinges on an undeniable issue: America’s over-criminalisation of non violent offences. What the documentary does differently to other reports of this same problem, is to put the whole thing through the lenses of racial issues. The documentary essentially argues what’s known as “the New Jim Crow thesis”.

Of course, the over-criminalisation problem is a well-known American issue. But is it really a covert protocol to essentially continue to run slavery (especially black slavery) “unofficially” even after its abolition?

This is not the first time I come across this kind of narrative: based on data, but projected through very specific lenses, so to make the data say what you want to say (I have been accused of the very same thing when I shared this article). In the years preceding my conversion to Christianity I was deep into Italian and European history, and this technique came up over and over again.

Thus, after some digging, I came across Anthony Bradley, who wrote a book on the over-criminalisation issue. His profile caught my attention because he takes interest in the intersection of theological ethics and criminal justice reform.

He states that

American elites have routinely used the criminal justice system as a social means of controlling the lower classes of all races, including Native Americans, blacks, and whites (referring to them as “white trash”).

He cites recent scholarship that deems the “New Jim Crow” thesis to be without historical and factual foundations.

He also says:

The data tell us that the prison explosion of the 1970s that led to today’s 2.5 million inmates resulted from government overcriminalizing non-violent offenses, the kind we used to address using moral, social, and civil society institutions. Sadly, 13th obscures the fact that America’s prison explosion resulted from a surge in violent and property crime, increases in incarcerating lower class blacks and whites, the proliferation of rogue prosecutors, a rise in misdemeanors becoming felonies, and the stigmatyping juvenile misbehavior as criminal.

And concludes that

overcriminalization is greater than race and certainly much greater than reducing arguments about our current incarceration crisis to the 13th Amendment, slavery, and the War on Drugs.

What, then?

Human lives matter; racism is evil; slavery is evil; BLM are evil; Antifa are evil; “Burn down the American plantation” is an evil document. Socialism (thus Marxism) is evil, as it is “the politics of the sin of coveting (illicit desire), out of which other sins (stealing, murder, etc) flow”, as my brother David reminded in me in a recent conversation.

The fifth [in the second list, which equals the tenth in the full listing] is that which cuts off desire, the fountain of all iniquity, from which flow all the most unlawful actions, whether of individuals or of states, whether important or trivial, whether sacred or profane, whether they relate to one’s life and soul, or to what are called external things; for, as I have said before, nothing ever escapes desire, but, like a fire in a wood, it proceeds onward,consuming and destroying everything.
Philo, On the Ten Commandments (De Decalogo XXXII, 1.173-174; Yonge trans.)

Therefore,

Love your neighbour, whatever shade of brown their skin happens to be. But do it in a Christ-like manner. If it is in your power to leverage the legal system to correct iniquities, do it. Christians in politics have done lots of good things. If you can protest peacefully, like Christians do outside of abortion clinics, do it.

Above all, share the Good News: eternal life is available to all who believe in Christ. A life to be spent in a new creation, never to be tainted by sin again.

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