“Never let a good
tragedy go to waste.”
- Rahm Emmanuel
By now, everyone has heard of the Orlando attack,
where Omar Mateen murdered 49 people in a gay nightclub before he himself was
killed. The aftermath of this terror attack has been something of an
interesting Rorschach Test, where everybody who has some kind of strong opinion
on a given social/political issue has projected their own concerns onto the
incident, and are using it to call for the implementation of this or that
social agenda or to demonize this or that social group. Witness the flurry of
articles, social media posts and debates that focus in on (depending on one’s
concerns) the state of LGBT rights in North America, the importance of gun
control/gun rights in preventing further deaths, and/or the role of Islamic
radicalism in terror attacks against the West.
What has been disappointing—though not the least bit surprising—about
the recent events has been the willingness of many of those commenting on them
to completely ignore the facts about what actually happened in order to further
a specific narrative about society. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than
among the various internet-based “social justice warriors” that pounce upon
this tragedy. Before anyone even knew exactly why the shooter did what he did,
they were already blaming the attacks on perceived bigotry and homophobia that
is being spread by conservative Christians. This is exemplified by one
particular Facebook post that has been making its rounds throughout social
media, which states:
You weren't the gunman, but you didn't want to see gay
people kissing in public. You weren't the gunman, but you don't like gay
characters on TV. You weren't the gunman, but you think gay people are sinful
and need saving.
You weren't the gunman, but you were upset when gay
people gained the right to marry. You weren't the gunman, but you use slurs for
gay people. You weren't the gunman, but you would vote against legal
protections for gay people.
You weren't the gunman, but you're the culture that
built him. You're the bullets in his gun.
The problem with this statement is the fact that at no
point does it at all touch base with reality. There are many facts that
militate against this interpretation of the event, of which I will name the two
most important ones:
Fact #1: Omar Mateen was neither a Christian nor a conservative. The shooter
was a Muslim man of Afghan descent. Furthermore, he was not even a particularly
religious Muslim. Various investigations into his life indicate that he himself was gay, and had frequented the very
nightclub he shot up in the past. But then, he made a 180 degree turn and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State just shortly
before the shooting.
How does one reconcile these two apparently contradictory sets of facts with
one another? There are many theories that one could posit. Perhaps he didn’t
really mean his last minute pledge of allegiance and did it out of spite
against those who’ve rejected him. Or perhaps he was sincere, and we have a
case of what some social commentators have dubbed “Sudden Jihad Sydrome.” Either way, it is not at all clear that Christian
opposition of homosexuality had anything to do with his motives.
Fact #2: The response of the Christian community has been overwhelmingly one
of compassion. Sure, one can always point to a Steven Anderson as an example of how some radical Christians are
praising the shooter. But why point to the exceptions rather than the rule? Why
not mention the fact that Chik-Fil-A opened on a Sunday for the first time in
its history to make chicken sandwiches to donate to blood donors helping the
victims? How about
mentioning Russell Moore’s plea for mutual understanding and
sharing of grief between the Christian and LGBT communities? This is the critical element that is missing in the
“Social Justice” narrative: The actual words and actions of the very Christians
they seek to lay the blame on for this terror attack.
It can be extremely frustrating for Christians to be
blamed for what happened in the face of all the facts. But then again, we live
in a society where Cultural Marxism (as opposed to Biblical
Christianity) determines how to properly interpret all facts and events. As Dr.
Scott Masson has pointed out in his lecture “Repressive Tolerance and Cultural Marxism,” this ideology sees Christianity as the root of all
social injustice in the world, and must therefore be stigmatised and
marginalized in the name of “tolerance.” Its main dogma—its theory of
“privileged classes”—artificially sorts everyone into various gradations of
either privilege or oppression/victimhood. Warren J. Blumenfeld (one of the
promoters of this ideology in academia), has written about how various
religious groups can be classified under hierarchies of privilege. Protestants
are more privileged than Catholics, and both are more privileged than non-Christian
groups such as Jews, Muslims, and people of no religion. Furthermore, since
race also factors into this theory of privilege, predominantly white Protestant
denominations are more privileged than predominantly non-white denominations.[1] And
of course, in recent years, sexual orientation has figured prominently in this
theory of privilege, with heterosexuals being vastly more privileged than LGBT
people of all stripes.
Because all facts are filtered through this filter of
“privilege,” narratives must always be structured in a way that those with the
most privilege are the chief oppressors. Thus, even though both Christianity
and Islam declare homosexuality to be a sin, Cultural Marxists will almost
always focus on Christian homophobia to the exclusion of Muslim homophobia (the
exceptions to this rule are usually liberal Muslims or ex-Muslims, who are
generally more attuned to the problems occurring within Muslim societies). The
aftermath of the Orlando attack is perhaps one of the most extreme examples of
this cognitive dissonance to date. Here, social justice warriors operating
according to the rubric of “privileged/oppressed classes” take what is,
according to all facts and evidence, an act of Islamic homophobia, and
attributing it to Christians!
This brings us back to one of the most important
insights of the late Reformed Christian philosopher Cornelius Van Til. Van Til
pointed out that despite our pretensions to the contrary, none of us ever
approaches facts and evidence with an unbiased mind. In other words, neutrality
is a myth. All of us operate according to a worldview, which we use
to arrange the evidence into one coherent narrative. The problem with this is
that only one worldview can be universally true (and we who are Christians do
believe that this one true universal worldview is the Biblical one), and every other
worldview must of necessity ignore certain facts about reality or twist them
beyond any reasonable interpretation of them. Cultural Marxism is one such
worldview, and the Orlando terror attack proves that this worldview is
incapable of explaining reality as it really is. Saint Paul said it best about
such false worldviews when he said, “claiming to be wise, they became fools”
(Romans 1:22, ESV).
Having said this, I would like to briefly touch upon
the question of what the proper Christian response to the Orlando massacre
should be. Perhaps the best response to date has been that of Michael L. Brown,
entitled “A Christian Message to LGBT Americans in the Wake of
the Orlando Shooting.”
I encourage everyone to read this article and mirror its words to everyone they
know who is LGBT or an “ally” of that movement. I will conclude with his words:
Jesus said, “Come to
me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt.
11:28-30). He said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not
hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). And he
said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the
sheep” (John 10:11).
But he also said, “I am
the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
me” (John 14:6). And “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark
8:34-35).
It is Jesus that you
need.
[1] Warren J. Blumenfield, “Christian
Privilege and the Promotion of ‘Secular’ and not-so ‘Secular’ Mainline
Christianity in Public Schooling and in the Larger Society," Equity and
Excellence in Education 39 (3): 195–210.
