This episode provides the grand Biblical narrative of mankind's problem: mankind was originally called to rule on God's behalf based on the image of God in man, but because of the fall, has exchanged the truth of God for a lie, being consumed by idolatrous worship of himself and his own desires. Identity politics' exaltation of secondary characteristics into primary ones (race, class, sex, etc.) is a natural bi-product of the Great Exchange, in which unregenerate man exchanges the truth of God for a lie, an image in the form of corruptible man. The Biblical solution to mankind's problem centers on the remaking of mankind into the image of Christ.
Identity Politics: Making the Secondary Primary
This episodes addresses how identity politics exalts secondary characteristics of identity, like race, class and sex--into fundamental markers of identity. Racial profiling is an obvious application of such an unjust approach. White privilege and white guilt amount to racial profiling applied to whites. Both are unjust and miss the standard of Biblical justice.
Identity Politics motivated by grievance
Identity politics is actually an easy scapegoat for anyone not finding their identity in Christ, particularly those who haven't gained God's perspective on their grievances. I give my testimony how worldly wealth categories led to grievance in my own life and my embrace of classism, a category of identity politics.
Identity Politics and the Bible: addressing symptoms vs. universal sin
This episode tackles the deficient view of sin in identity politics, where the depravity of human nature is not addressed. Identity politics focuses on symptoms of oppression without dealing with the sinful root of universal human depravity .
To oppress or not to oppress: the superficial “sin” lens of identity politics
This episode draws the stark contrast between oppression and sin, the respective lenses of identity politics and the Bible respectively. "Sin" in identity politics is largely defined by participation, willing or not, in oppressor/oppressee groups. God is not really in view. This worldview contrasts sharply with the Biblical assessment of man's problem: sin is universal, and oppression/victim status among groups is part of the much larger universal problem of sin.
Identity politics: redefining sin based on group identity
This episode continues the history of major themes in identity politics, highlighting the role of "intersectionality," the compounding of oppression based on participation in multiple oppressed groups. A brief contrast between Identity politics and the Biblical worldview regarding oppression is provided towards the end.
Primer on Identity Politics
This initial episode provides a brief history of identity politics beginning in the 1970's and highlights the distinctive focus of identity politics as opposed to conventional or traditional politics. The principle theme is perceived oppression based on one's own race, class, sex, nationality, etc. Those who embrace identity politics typically focus on combatting oppression based on the group in which they participate.
Naturalism vs. Creationism..so what?
Naturalism is one of the primary stumbling blocks to receiving the Christian faith, and believers should avail themselves of the data of science which supports creationism. And residual naturalism in believers is corrosive of faith and distorts one's view of the sovereignty of God. I give my testimony how God delivered me from the naturalistic compromise of theistic evolution.
Natural Selection and Irreducible Complexity
The irreducible complexity of organs precludes the possibility of natural selection's ability to produce and preserve any beneficial advantage in evolving new species. The eye is a notable case in point, Darwin himself admitting its staggering complexity.
The fingerprint of God in the cell
The simplistic view of a cell in Darwin's time allowed for the possibility of natural selection working on random variations as a viable mechanism for evolution. Francis Crick's sequence hypothesis in 1957, where the order of bases in the DNA acts as a language in ultimately constructing proteins, has since made natural selection an insufficient mechanism for evolution. Randomness working on the language of genes almost always corrupts, and convinced Crick that life could not have evolved here on earth.. Crick's discovery didn't make him a theist. He kicked the can down the road, claiming aliens seeded the earth with life.