A Protestant Heresy

Joshua Mitchell argues that identity politics is a species of heresy:
The categories of transgression and innocence, purity and stain, have now effectively migrated from the mainline churches into the universities and from thence into the Democratic Party, which is now the political wing of the universities. To say the same thing in a different manner, the universities are now the theological wing of the Democratic Party. Together, they disseminate the political theology of identity politics....

Christian realism, however, is not enough. Identity politics understands the original sin of the white heterosexual male to implicate all that he has touched, not least of which is the nation, which is taken to be a construction of his that is responsible for the great wars of the twentieth century; colonialism in Africa, the Middle East, South America, and South Asia; and slavery in America....

Identity politics recognizes irredeemable sin, but seeks an immanent resolution to the problem, namely, purging all that the white heterosexual male has constructed—including the nation. Not by the sacrifice of Jesus do we achieve redemption, but rather through the renunciation of the nation and its irredeemable stain. That is why citizens in Europe and in America are clamoring for the EU or for global governance. In the world identity politics constructs, there is no other way for their stain to be removed.

Christian realism has nothing to say about this now ascendant frame of mind.... God’s salvific plan of the world of nations is his to disclose, in a providential history that man cannot grasp in advance. Identity politics finds this to be a filthy delusion. The Christian God, the nations he authorizes, and his so-called providential history are the invention of the white heterosexual male who himself and all that he has invented must be purged so that the world may be made pure.
He has some theological recommendations. Perhaps it is right to say that only God can forgive such sins, and thus that eliminating a God who can forgive also eliminates the possibility of forgiveness. Then what? Romans 12:19 (like Deut. 32) assigned vengeance to the Lord God alone. Without the God to own it, vengeance flies free; and without the God to forgive and to instruct us to forgive each other, vengeance is all that's left.

3 comments:

Dad29 said...

Less theologically, a very good case can be made that the discipline of 'marketing' created identity politics. The good marketer sells a product by identifying the target market (people). That target population is an 'identity'--and the product pitch, advertising, and often features, are directed to that 'identity.'

That's not to argue that the theological part doesn't exist, or doesn't make much difference.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Very interesting, and going down roads I don't often travel. Niebuhr is mostly just a name to me, and post-Niebuhr currently eludes my thinking. I will have to work at this one, but i liked a lot of its thinking.

ymarsakar said...

It's old news. Been talking about Leftists being a religion for awhile now. It's past old to me.

The article has the interesting task of down rotating the higher level concept of religious control systems by filtering it into an American political world view that makes sense to the average reader. Good luck with that, I was never all that compatible with talking down to people. Perhaps because I had to talk down to Mensa people who should have been able to do better but they did not.