Why do we think we have achieved everything by our own merits, but minorities haven’t?

On to the next hot-button issue: race!

I recently read two interesting articles, in two very different venues, and you should, too!:

Jeffrey Toobin, in the New Yorker, about Sonia Sotomayor.

Chuck Warnock, on the Soj blog, about evangelicals and diversity.

The thing that both articles made me think about is the fact that so much of debates about “identity” politics centers around a fundamentally-absurd assumption: that white Americans (or, in debates about international aid and development, Americans in general) have achieved any/every position in their lives through their own hard work, ability, intelligence, and dedication. Aside from the fact that, logically/statistically/proportionally this is impossible, it is also historically ridiculous. Obviously, when one group structurally and systematically bars another group(s) of people for hundreds of years, the former group is going to have an advantage that does not disappear in the 50 years or so since the Civil Rights movement. One reason for this is that for this is that white families who benefited from others not being allowed onto the playing field consolidate these benefits and pass them on to the next generation. The same is true of money. And when prestige is added to this equation, or name recognition, you get the 100 or so oldest, wealthiest families in America. Thus, we are immediately born advantaged or disadvantaged, and we certainly didn’t choose what womb we were going to come out of. Furthermore, when you disenfranchise people for years, they are more likely to be economically disenfranchised, to develop alternative economies which generate violence, etc. Due to socioeconomic and systematic limitations, minorities have often been ghettoized or concentrated into less desirable areas; even born to the hardest-working, highest-functioning parents, the womb still decides whether you are born in Beacon Hill or Dorchester (MA reference); Magnolia or Rainier Beach (WA reference). Certainly, my parents  worked hard to reach where they are, and certainly they faced obstacles (a woman in law school; the first in my dad’s family attend college), but they still had, in many ways, the advantage of the womb. My position can be summed up as follows: self-made-man, my ass.

Some clarifications.

I have a few thoughts before I get to my actual post for today: 1. I don’t want to have my page to become a venue for the endless gender debates on comment strings and blogs throughout the evangelical world, for two reasons: a. I want non-Christian friends and family to read this blog without running screaming for the hills and b. I’m not sure that there are any new arguments to be made. When I wrote yesterday, I was not writing about the exegesis of particular passages. I went to Gordon College; I’m in seminary at Regent; I’ve attended two seriously evangelical churches for the bulk of my time as a Christian–I know the arguments, I’m aware of the issues. I know it’s complicated. I also know some people think it’s clear cut, one way or the other. I also am pretty familiar with the Redeemer view, as I used to devour TK’s sermons, and wish I still could, but am finally realizing that you can’t just spend money whenever you feel like it, and I can’t go dropping $30 on a sermon series anymore, no matter how much I want to. However, before I learned to be more fiscally responsible, and while I was getting ready to get married, I DID listen to the marriage sermon. And I’ll say this: it’s the closest I’ve come to accepting the complementarian position. If anyone could have done it, it was Kathy Keller in her talk. But, for me, even though this might sound heretical, as I’m not following this statement with a Bible verse–I just can’t do it. It goes so deeply against my own sense of who I am, the priority of equality, etc. It goes against the argument of my heart, my clear sense of call, and the implications and practical ramifications of carrying these policies out in marriage, church, and societies, that will feel demeaning, whether intended as such or not.

BUT, that’s not what I wanted to write about yesterday at all–what I wanted to write about was the incongruity between cosmopolitan outreach and image and the actuality of adherence to traditional gender roles. It seemed that Keller was so attuned to the relevance of the city–of the opportunities, the diversity, the draw–and yet not attuned to the way it might strike a woman in this kind of context to be able to wield great influence outside of church, and have that affirmed by Redeemer, but then be constrained in church. I am aware that the sacrificial leadership/gracious submission model is not supposed to be domineering, sexist, or unequal, but there is no way around the fact that it is still hierarchical and disenfranchising. Anyway, just wanted to tease out that one particular issue of the PCA city model–in Chicago, New York, Vancouver–that ostensibly reaches out to high-achieving women, and then establishes this inside church/outside church dichotomy. This strikes me as somehow dishonest. I almost give more credibility to Mohler, Duncan, et al who embrace the traditional roles whole-hog (is that an expression?), rather than parsing out the exact arenas where women can or cannot do certain things.

Post Script: I am going to be very careful about approving comments, as I don’t want my comments thread to become an endless argument, and I don’t want to alienate all of the non-Christians in my life.