Category: Culture

Good morning. My name is Uriesou Brito, I am 6’1, characterized and defined as a “he;” in fact, always as a “he.” I am of Latin origin, currently wearing a clerical shirt and brown shoes, my hairstyle is a combination of a fundamentalist preacher and an aging man, and I am typing a Microsoft Word document. I don’t know if this description is sufficient, but it’s crucial for you to grasp my race and pronoun so that my humanity is clearly identified and that you may make all sorts of cultural and political assumptions about what I believe and whatever privileges you think I possess that I must rid.

For those of you keeping up with these unsavory and strange times, Microsoft has re-invented the greeting wheel by encouraging employees to introduce themselves by an inordinate amount of self-descriptions that puzzled together may defy gravity. Of course, the attempt–they say– is to help vision-impaired people, but the whole thing sounds too sinister to be that naive, especially when the woke buzzwords are flowing from their mouths. Never underestimate the power of subtle messaging. Call me a skeptic, but I will double your concerns for my skepticism. I am old enough to know that technology has a distinct role in changing values for the sake of “Love Thy Neighbor.”My argument is that in times of insanity, Christians need to reorient themselves and navigate through the intricate attempts to reimagine reality by techy idiots. In fact, all attempts to oppose Christendom are attempts to re-imagine Jesus and his way of being, saying, and thinking. We should fight like we mean our “Good Mornings” more than they think we do.

Even if this entire thing is a prank on sanity, it is still worth considering the travesty of the whole endeavor. Look in the comment section and watch that devastatingly insidious video and consider the whole thing from Christian lenses and mock them profusely on Gab. For the sake of letting you know, ’cause that’s what people expect of me, my account is https://gab.com/uriesoubrito

The thesis of these greeting tyrants is that by re-imagining how we greet each other through race, ethnicity, and hairstyle, we are thereby finding ways to greet one another with respect and dignity. and making necessary adjustments to our discourse with/towards them. In a mechanical fashion, we can know who people are by merely knowing what they are outwardly.

“Hey, Nick. Now that I know you are white with a beard, we can now formulate your identity and happily offer you ways to change it according to our victimized status.”

It may seem to be overly pedantic to stress, but secularists love to attack the entire infrastructure of the faith, and attacking our very way of greeting one another removes the physicality of the church greeting and takes away the liturgical function of introductions. This practice delves deeply into the world of “tech absence” which posits that physical touch is unnecessary and that the 6′ feet distance should be a continued pattern in the future (More of this in another post).

If Microsoft employees can have a role in removing the tried and tested models of greeting–perhaps the most repeated elements of human interaction–and if they can replace them with ethnicity, they have therefore conquered the greetings of the Church. These guys are playing the long game and so should we.

What I propose is the Ruth strategy of greeting in Church life. “Greetings” always played a crucial role in the Hebrew culture of the Bible and it certainly plays a role in Pauline theology. The New Testament alone speaks of greetings over 30 times, and there are even imperatives on how to greet one another. But my suggestion borrows from the ancient ritual of Boaz in Ruth 2:4. When Boaz–who is a clear picture of Christ–goes out to greet his harvesters–pictures the Church– he greets them in a particular way. I would argue he greets them as Christ greets us each morning. He said to them, “The Lord be with you,” and they responded, “The Lord bless you.” Now, I have opined in the past that Christians should greet each other like this often, but I think we need to increase our greeting quota to challenge these moronic microsofters with a real greeting that challenges the very core of their working principles.

If you come from more developed liturgical traditions, this will take place a lot easier, but even if you don’t, using biblical language should be an easy fix. You should try it with your kids at home:

Dad: “Ezekiel, the Lord be with you.”

Son: “The Lord bless you” or some variation of this.

Every time the world attempts to change our dispositions, postures, or greetings, we should be ready with an answer (I Peter 3:15) for the hope that is within us. And so, with that, the Lord be with you.

The victimization culture has become an overwhelming feature in our modern discourse, and I would also like to state that this culture (VC) is almost always antagonistic toward the cause of the conservative Christian faith. VC looks around its environment for micro-aggressions eager to act as the moral arbiter. Indeed, this culture is an attempt to form a new morality that despises merit and hard discourse–the kind that has defined Western Civilization–in favor of the virtues of being. The argument is quite simple: You are, therefore you deserve. This new religious class lumps entire cultures into neat associations that help categorize them into antagonists or champions of human rights. If you support their cause, a Nobel Peace Prize is nearby.

What we have is a new generation of youth pre-cooked for victimization. Their entire demeanor is pre-disposed to being offended by the smallest acts or rituals. Ironically, what these disgruntled/confused men and women want is nothing more than dominion. They want to impose their morality on others, which for their cause means to legislate a no-tolerance agenda towards “fanatics” who believe in the authority of holy writ.

In order to provide a fruitful dialogue in the VC, you need to speak carefully with every nuance, avoid all the pitfalls of potential hurt, navigate carefully the waters of gender ideology, and speak from a position of deference to the greater good of such culture. Essentially, this VC has provided a space where the conversation is necessarily evil if you begin from a position of authority, especially the One from on High.

A prime example of the above comes in the after-shock of Robert Long’s murderous journey through three massage parlors in Atlanta killing eight Asian women. Despite the fact that a faithful biblical interpretation would apply Deuteronomy 21 speedily and apply the normal cultural adjustment and put this young destroyer to death, the culture of the LEFT– held on tightly by liberals– of all varieties and an assortment of evangelical celebrities jumped on such opportunity and made the decisive connection between Long and his Baptist association. Immediately, evangelical leaders with a commitment to tear the SBC Reformed camp jumped into the conversation asserting that Southern Baptist preaching on complementarian causes and views on headship led to this act. “If only they had preached more on racial reconciliation, if only they had spoken more clearly on the role of women in the church, then they would not have produced such massacres.” The logic being that if one person from one of the most saturated Baptist cities in the world commits a heinous act, therefore, Trump-voters, Bible-believing Christians, or those who refuse to fall into CTR, or Mother Woke ideologies are to blame. It’s a lose-lose unless you buy into their program wholesale.

The entire proposal from Victimization Culture stems from a “guilty” before proven innocent philosophy. And this is what is coming down the pipe for “radicals” like us who treasure biblical inerrancy and who have little tolerance for mind-games played by the Left in this country. No matter how much you assert that the walls of partition are broken down in the name of Messiah Jesus, no matter how often you preach Jesus Christ crucified for sinners, you are still guilty of not performing the act of submission towards the cause of victimization.

I am led to the simple conclusion that we cannot allow our children to be trained under such infidels to the Triune Mission. Faithful worship and faithful cultivation of habits of grace in the church and household is the solution to the confusion of the day. One can be a genuine victim of evil whose life will require community care and love and truth. We pray churches will embrace such people and lead them to green pastures of comfort and shalom. Or, one can attempt to live out a metaphorical victimization in the name of some movement to entice others to see their cause as more significant, their hurt as the true hurt, even if it means forcing others to that point.

As an observer of this entire modern phenomenon, I stand humbled and grateful for a true Victim who suffered at the hands of murderers and unjust men for our cause. He suffered, but yet did not seek to force others to pay him homage, but rather transformed others to love his suffering. True victims are beholden to the cause of a true Sufferer– stricken, smitten, and afflicted for our victory to the eternal praise of his glorious grace

We are all presuppositionalists now! Taking the Bill Craig approach to apologetics is to answer the wrong questions of culture. People are not looking for more scientific evidence for the existence of God, they are looking for scientific evidence that their lives share some ingredient of significance. The problem with so-called arguments for God’s existence–however noble and good–is that often if it succeeds it only brings humanity a mile or two from Calvary. But as Dr. Seuss’ racist uncle would say, “even an inch from Calvary is not enough.”

The goal here is not to criticize apologetic methodology, but to go directly to the heart of the Dr. Seuss’ scandal of 2021. The problem with “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!,” and “The Cat’s Quizzer” is that it assumes too much that should no longer be assumed by the populace. It assumes that the habits of Asian people with a comical hat are too insensitive to the Asian culture. Stereotypes are dangerous. Or, to remember that racist, St. Paul, who said, “All Cretans are liars!” What a scoundrel.

At the heart of the issue is that I, as a Brazilian, am guilty of loving futebol too much and churrasco. But don’t you dare assess my humanity on the basis of my love for Ronaldinho or garlic steak cooked rare. I am more than that. All Brazilians are birthed through dancing rituals! All Mexicans eat pozole! Racist! Green eggs and ham assume too much about the color of the egg. Racist!

That philosophy, my dear friends, does not stem from a lack of grasp of the cosmological argument for God’s existence; it stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of reality which has been trampled harder than the rice I ate at the Vietnamese restaurant. You cannot go against the “grain” of the “field” unless you see the tamales for what they are: too dry. The culture of the leftists is going after Dr. Seuss because any attempt to undermine nature–which is inherently self-validated by habits and customs–is to assume that things have inherent meaning. But for “cancel culture” nothing has inherent meaning. Everything is up for grabs. Re-invention of what is permanent is the name of the game. Therefore, if your little kid reads a book about fictional characters that convey ideas that are too normal, they will react and say that “We are the ones that define fiction, and for us, fiction is reality.” Seuss, for them, is an attempt to interfere with their ethics navigation system.

My lesson from this little discourse is that racism is bad, but you know what’s worse, acting as if reality does not exist and inventing acts of racism like that Chinese Buffet invented that weird dish. What these moronic despots are trying to achieve with their cancelation of everything is the cancelation of their own ability to see and know the truth. And that being the case, there is no amount of evidence for the skull of John the Baptist that will make them content or convince them otherwise. What we need is for someone with greater maturity than these Philistines, let’s say my three-year-old, to tell these “reality-deniers” that your cancelation campaign is destined to cancel itself. Be sure your presuppositions will find you out. You have nowhere to go but to the delights of green eggs and ham, which I hear is a delicacy in some cultures.

The prophet Jeremiah warned Jerusalem of judgment. Some attempted to offer temporary relief from judgment by dressing the wounds of the people half-heartedly. They constructed their own stage and offered God a production of B-rated actors and said, “You see, look how Oscar worthy we are!” And God, who happened to write the whole script for the movie entitled, “History of Civilization: A Memoir” wasn’t impressed with their attempts.

In their minds, they couldn’t take judgment seriously and acted as protagonists of their fate. Again, Yahweh was not very impressed…at all! They even went so far as to make a declaration that there was peace all around, but there was no peace (Jer. 6:14). Their self-deception was not timid; in fact, the prophet said they didn’t even know how to blush (Jer. 6:15).

What does it take a for a society to abandon every sense of shame? What does it take a culture to act as if they can only place temporary bandages when if the infection doesn’t desist, the leg will be amputated? What makes an ideology believe there is peace when really what they want is distance from God and ethical chaos to reign supreme?

I have been pondering this question recently and a maxim descended to me from heaven, as if in a dream–a really bad dream. I exaggerate; in actuality, it showed up in a CNN by-line covering the protests of some ignorant anarchists. It was right there! It said: “Fiery but mostly peaceful protest!” It was that eureka moment novelists have at three in the morning, except mine didn’t spring out of anything reliable, it was just CNN. I realized at that moment that even the most obtuse can forget their real narrative and enter that strange world of reality.

It was almost a repeat of Jeremiah’s day when they said, “Peace, peace, but there is no peace!” In any real world scenario the concept of fire and peace does not harmonize unless you see it as refining something. In this case, these social scoundrels were burning their own neighborhoods and CNN couldn’t help but live in this contradictory worldview. You can’t hide from reality, because reality bites you back and you end up feeling this burning sensation.

Any human being in their most unproductive day understands that you don’t burn your house to protest high taxes. But sanity, logic and those classical virtues are so far for these humans that they believe they have a right to live in a fantasy world while protesting what they believe to be objective injustices in society. I honestly have no way of reading into their next maxim. From the direction they’re heading, they might even go so far as to claim that a man can be a woman. But I don’t want to be too much of a pessimist!

Let’s assume for a moment that there is a genuine debate over confederate statues and their purpose adorning well-traveled spots in American cities. Now, it also seems reasonable that a civil debate emerges where reasonable people reasonably come together to condemn slavery and the practices of slave owners as hideous in the sight of God; come, let us reason together, saith the Lord.

Fair enough. But take a quick look around our repository of reasonableness in our day. Go ahead. I will wait.

…still waiting.

Correct. Reasonableness has run its course. The mobs of infidels cannot think straight about the role of due consideration over historical artifacts because history has nothing to do with it in the first place.

As a starter, removing monuments is nothing new. The Inca Empire and post-Soviet Russian government both took down statutes to convey their prowess. One can be easily persuaded that these despotic institutions had more historical rationality than our present mobs. Consider that these same anti-confederate apologists are also defacing monuments to Abraham Lincoln, American hero celebrated by almost all sides, and in England–that bastion of rationality–mobs are eagerly defacing the laudable Winston Churchill, World War II hero and patron saint of cigars.

But you see, my friends, reasonableness does not make it to the top ten list of check-marks in the “Thou Shalt Take Down Monuments” agenda.

History is not a friend of forgetfulness. It bites back with rage. Destroying icons of our history is “taking a page out of the playbook of mobs across the centuries.” (Lawrence Kuznar). To do so is to act as if we are controllers of history choosing which historical facts we wish to see erased and which ones we wish to preserve; it assumes societal harmony and historical sobriety. Of course, to each his own, which means we shouldn’t be frustrated when our historical heroes get toppled down head first by the guy wearing a Che Guevara t- shirt.

There is a fundamental principle for understanding a war, and that is to ask, “who” is proposing what and how? I wish to focus only on the conveyor of the message on this post. The “who” is to receive attention before the “what” and “how.” We can be easily deceived into accepting ideologies on the basis of emotional connection to particular causes. We are, after all, humans. But it is essential, nay, necessary, nay, crucial and essential and necessary put together, that we grasp what the underlying agenda of the “who” is. Of course, I am not suggesting we outright reject all ideas coming from the unbelieving mind. It is also true that anytime a celebrated “who” of our culture proposes only two options to solve gigantic matters, we ought to be looking for third.

Abraham Kuyper proposed a solution based on the Gospels called “common grace” which offers a dose of reality to unbelievers on a sunny day and occasionally on a rainy one. Sometimes unbelievers get electrified with common grace from their daily dispensary. I will be that guy in the corner cheering him on when his compatriots turn against him.

But we are poor interpreters of culture when we assume that some sexy Instagram star with 5 trillion followers who daily exposes her body to the virtual vultures is not trying to use her platform to propagate an agenda of dishonesty and disrepute. I am no longer amused by God-haters in Hollywood or in the woods of social media. As far as I can tell, they are all lost looking for meaning in nihilism and trying to find hope where hope is never to be found.

Again, there is truth to be found in all places, but it is fairly clear that even if a little ounce of truth is found in these simpatico characters from my favorite TV shows, by the time I get done with my analysis there will be little meat left in that ideological bone.

In more ways than one, we are imbibers of cultural norms. “We don’t want to be in the world,” we declare; but the first great cause propagated by our beloved “artista” seems good when it first meets the eye. So, we pour our wholehearted congratulations and kudos into their bucket, thus legitimizing their claim and clause. But, it’s the “who” that matters. The guy who says he loves life can also be the same guy who says you can kill a baby right to the point before he enters the world. The “who” matters, and we better be very confident that before we engage the “what” and “how” we consider from whence comes the “who.”

This is an interesting list that resonates with me because I grew up with these types of simplistic responses.  Here are the five responses that Christians should avoid.

“That’s Really Just a First World Problem.”

“I’ll Be Praying For You.”

“Are You Saved?”

 “I Have an Unspoken Prayer Request.”

“Don’t Worry, God Has a Plan.”

Read more for elaboration on these points.

Please leave your comments and questions.

Let me begin with a confession: I have seen the equivalent of 30 minutes of Duck Dynasty. This makes me uncommitted to the show. I have no intention of watching any more of it. At least, until Phil Robertson goes out and hits a home-run. A&E exercising their free speech called it a foul ball, and beyond that treated Phil as unprofessional. Rumors are that Phil has been looking for a reason to leave and he just found himself one.

Governor Bobby Jindal summarized the situation when he wrote:

It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.

There are a couple of assumptions that need to be discussed from the outset. These assumptions shape the way we react to such news. First, what did Phil Robertson say? He said bluntly:

“It seems like, to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man’s anus,” Robertson says in the January issue of the men’s magazine. “That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”

Let’s leave the anatomy details aside. Part of the argument is that sin is not logical. It’s non-sensical. Or as I have said elsewhere, sin is stupid. Phil Robertson’s world is a logical one. Don’t be distracted by his hunting gear, the man is truly a savvy biblical theologian.

The first assumption Christian must make in any discussion on public/social cultural matters is that sin is non-sensical. And we live in a world where sin is treated as fashion.

Secondly, this goes directly to Piers Morgan’s latest tweet:

Phil Robertson is not a ‘victim of political correctness’. He’s a victim of his own repulsively racist, homophobic bigotry.

Let’s be honest. Political correctness is one aspect here of how the liberal media treated our redneck hero. But the other assumption we must make is that what passes for “repulsively racist, homophobic bigotry” is just simply biblical religion. Now, of course, I’d argue that the Bible is just and right and holy. And the Gospel of grace, which puts up no walls of partition, is the farthest thing from racist and repulsive, but again, this is how they will see biblical Christianity expressed. So, assumption number two is that the message of the Bible is repulsive to those who deny its authority; or better, to quote St. Paul, “it is foolishness to the world.”

When Myley Cyrus exalted the god of promiscuity she was exalting the god of the liberal media. Myley Cyrus is the world’s wisdom.

Finally, some more sophisticated Christian thinkers may say that the way Phil used his words were drawing attention only to one element of the conversation, namely, that of body parts. The argument then is, female body parts–for men– are more attractive than male body parts. The argument does not need to stop there, but it should include it. Yes, the body is God’s design for pleasure, and to deny it is to affirm a form of gnostic god of your own. The marriage bed is undefiled, but it is defiled when it is populated by members of the same sex and members of the opposite sex who should be far away from that bed. Phil is assuming an undefiled marriage bed. So, the final assumption is that however sophisticated our argument, we need to express the sacredness of that bed, and the defilement of that bed when it is populated by un-godly partners.

Still, to the fancy conservative Christians out there expecting a more Augustinian anthropology to be announced from the mouth of a simple man who loves God and guns is to expect too much, and thus fails to be an adequate critique. Yes, there is much more that can be said about the matter, but sometimes a simple affirmation of what’s right and wrong should be sufficient.

And still one more note. Though Phil Robertson’s arguments may not have been helpful in a pastoral counseling room, it was precisely what the media needed to hear. As a result, the marriage issue is a front story. And we need to keep marriage as a front story again and again.