Category Archives: politics

Culture, Economics, Law, politics

“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” Isn’t

Today the CalPers board considered the widely implemented Diversity & Inclusion Report and Framework. CalPers is a massive agency for California employees, retirees and their families and manages the largest pension fund in the United States. I was asked by one of the CalPers members to address the board on this pressing issue.

Here are my prepared remarks:

My name is P. Andrew Sandlin, and I am founder and president of the Center for Cultural Leadership in Coulterville, California. I hold degrees in English, history, political science, and systematic and historical theology. 

I hope you won’t mind a contrarian viewpoint. 

I’ve written about 25 books, and have specialized in an investigation of both Classical and Cultural Marxism, Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, and systemic racism.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and the Diversity & Inclusion Report and Framework (statement linked above) incorporate widely attested Critical Race Theory whose root is Cultural (Western) Marxism. All of us deplore racism, for example, but Critical Race Theory instigates hostility between races at a time when we should be working toward racial harmony and understanding. The same is true of sexual preferentialism and its affirmative action.

Moreover, this program will alienate many hard-working Americans among your constituents, Christians, and others who believe in equality under the law, fair play, free speech, and equal rights. The attempt to create special preferences for special groups is a revitalization of the old classically Marxist idea of class consciousness, today known as identity politics.

CalPERS should recognize the equality of all members and not attempt to privilege some and (unintentionally) deprivilege others.

DEI will undermine the ideals of fairness, objectivity, and fair play and could alienate a sizable portion of your constituency. 

We live in a time when new and dangerous ideologies are overtaking the elite reaches of our society and as they filter down, they are bringing great harm to our common, hard-working citizens and their families. DEI is a prime example of this ideological poison.

Bias is always a danger, but coercive preferentialism is perhaps the worst bias of all. 

I urge you to bypass this proposal and, instead, work toward a truly fair approach toward all. 

We need fresh, innovative thinking, not a rehash of old, discredited Marxism. 

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Eschatology, politics, Theology

Realized Religion : Victory Already, Before the “Not Yet”

“One of the most prominent errors in the history of the church is postponing massive blessings of creation and the gospel to the eternal state. If the liberal churches wish to re-situate all the blessings in the ‘already’ (since they have no actual eternal hope, and often turn to revolutionary politics for salvation), conservative churches tend to push most of the blessings off into the ‘not yet.’

“They are both wrong.”

Get the e-book here.

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Culture, politics, Uncategorized

The Creed of Leftism

1. There are no absolute, transcendent standards for this world and, therefore, humanity must create them.

2. The central standard humanity must create is the widest possible human autonomy. There must be no impediment to individual human choice as long as no one else is harmed.

3. The chief social goal is to create the just society, meaning the most extensive equality of results. A person should be entitled to the same benefits as everyone else, irrespective of birth, spiritual condition, family, work, and ethics.

4. Though individuals should be autonomous, they cannot be trusted to contribute willingly to the just society, so it is necessary for especially virtuous and gifted individuals, the elite, to employ political coercion to create that society.

5. Human life is valuable only to the extent that it reflects certain material qualities, and if specific lives like the unborn and the elderly cannot enjoy those qualities, those lives need not be preserved.

6. Human sexuality is a special form of autonomy, and political and cultural barriers to all adult consensual sex should be removed.

7. Linear history is the measure of ethical development, and ethical standards of the past should be continually superseded as society moves toward greater justice.

8. Individuals who do not support this general Leftist vision are morally retrograde and a drag on society and should be marginalized, stigmatized, and penalized.

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Culture, Law, politics, Theology

The Degeneration into Political Soteriology

“This insurrection is sometimes called ‘conservative counter-revolution,’ but it never is. It claims to be restoring the moral order overturned by Leftists, but it is actually an attempt to reverse the new Leftist (dis)order after assimilating the revolutionary gains — and strategies — of Leftism. It is a variant of revolution whose eyes are hidden to this fact by its opposition to other specific tenets of Leftism. But its orientation to society is revolutionary; it adopts, usually unknowingly, the guiding tenet of Leftism.”

Read the rest of the article here.

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politics

The Human Types that Make Statism Necessary

Three kinds of individuals are particularly attracted to statism, the ideology that that there is no social problem for which increased political control isn’t the best solution. It is impossible to imagine statism surviving apart from these types of people:

Imperious Statists

First, there are individuals mesmerized by the exercise of power, especially power over other people, and in modern democracies, power to “do good.” They derive meaning in life from controlling others, and they can justify this control by convincing themselves that they intend to exert power to help others, not harm them. They gravitate toward the state as the institution that owns the only valid monopoly on coercive violence because such unparalleled power is necessary to accomplish such massively virtuous social goals as they entertain. If they were in Third World countries, they’d lead or participate in a coup and install a military junta, but since that’s impossible in democracies, they opt for peaceful political power grabs. These are the imperious statists. 

Slacker Statists

Second, consider unmotivated, irresponsible, and lazy citizens that can’t count on enough people to voluntarily subsidize their laxity, so they support a state that will coerce other people to capitalize their aimlessness, irresponsibility, and laziness. You’ll often hear them castigating rich (or middle class) people or business owners as “greedy.” This is code for: “A strong-arm Robin Hood should take some of their money and give it to me.” This type is the human oil that greases the engine of socialism and other interventionist economies. These are the slacker statists. 

Patronizing Statists

Finally, note that class of citizens that envision The Good Society, and support creating a political system that will enforce it. Most citizens are too obtuse or timid to know or act for their own good, so they need strong, gifted, altruistic people to show them the way. Or, rather, force them to take the way. These are the folks who in school were often tattle-tales, enlisting the teacher to enforce rules they couldn’t persuade others voluntarily to follow. In the Covid world, they’re derided as Karens — but males can be just as guilty. These are the patronizing statists.

When these three human types come to predominate a society, it inevitably marches toward statism, and without them, it is simply inconceivable.  Changing them is not a political problem, but a cultural problem.

This means that you can’t get rid of statism by using the state to do it.

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Culture, politics

We’re All Progressives Now

“One of the leading 20th century Christian philosophers to have outlined the development of progressivism is Augusto Del Noce. He declares that progressivism can be identified by the ‘today it is no longer possible’ mentality.

“‘Today it is no longer possible’ to bind humanity to external moral standards. Or: to argue that homosexuality and abortion are morally wrong. Or: to intelligently believe that the universe did not evolve from nothingness and chance but rather was created by an infinite personal Triune God. It is not so much that these ideas are wrong as that they are simply unthinkable to thinking people, which is to say progressive people.”

Read the rest of the article here.

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Culture, politics

The Arc of Providence Bends Toward Victory

“No, the objection is much more profound: politicians who believe it’s their responsibility to protect citizens from ordinary, adult decisions; who believe that adults shouldn’t be permitted to govern themselves; who believe that only the wise, the educated, the virtuous, and, of course, the humble — politicians like themselves, in other words — should alone be trusted to navigate an epidemic for society.”

Read the article here.

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Culture, Law, politics, Theology

CCL November 7 Symposium

2020 Vision for a Blurry Year

Topics:

  • The upsides of a downside year
  • Presidential election as chaos
  • The political ideology of the COVID-19 drama
  • Cultural Marxists in the streets
  • The Supreme Court battle and the assault on Amy Coney Barrett
  • Social justice goes to church — unmasked
  • The wokeness of sports

No screaming insults, no sophomoric one-liners, no cancel culture, no rude interruptions — just reasoned, respectful discussion, warm rapport, and delectable food.

Get full information here.

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Culture, politics, Uncategorized

The Actual Culture War, October, 2020

Today’s progressives are in line with Marx’s vision….

They support radical egalitarianism in family and church and the wider society, because God’s order is based on benevolent hierarchies. They start right in Genesis 1:1 with the Creator-creature distinction; God himself is the highest, absolute hierarch. The egalitarians’ goal is to fashion the perfect society without God.

The war on hierarchies is actually a war on God; it’s God they’re really after.

Read the rest here.

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Culture, politics

Liberals and Conservatives Against the Free World

In 2020, the Free World isn’t simply competing with Islam and other authoritarian regimes. It’s plagued by its own cultural civil war. The Free World is under attack from within, not from Soviet or Chinese spies, or even Islamic terrorists, but by the newest New Left (Cultural Marxism), as well, surprisingly, by the revival of postliberal forces on the Right.

The rest is here.

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Church, politics

John MacArthur on the Abiding Authority of Biblical Law for Modern Nations

In what must be the boldest, most fearless, most biblically drenched sermon by a megachurch pastor in 2020, John MacArthur today declared that: (1) nations must recognize the true God; (2) political rulers must operate according to “biblical law”; (3) biblical law is designed for all nations, not just the Jews; (4) there are no truly secular governments (all are religious, whether good or evil); (5) our culture has transitioned from postmodernism to paganism; (6) “research justice” (the new notion that all research by white heterosexual males is worthless) is a return to jungle tribalism; (7) that unless Gov. Gavin Newsome repents, God will rain down His wrath on him; and (8) God will judge nations that turn from Him and biblical law.

This is John MacArthur, 2020.

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Culture, politics

The Cultural Tail Wags the Political Dog

“Politics is downstream from culture.” To my knowledge, this truism originated over 20 years ago with conservative social commentator Don Eberly, but most political conservatives, including many Christians, seem not to be convinced.

The idea that culture shapes politics, and not the other way around, they might possibly acknowledge, but this acknowledgment apparently doesn’t dictate their strategy of social engagement. They act as though they believe political victories will ordinarily translate into cultural victories. This notion is so documentably false that one would have to ignore the lessons of 1960–2020 to affirm it.

Read the rest here.

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politics

America’s Exceptional Greatness

In hearing the increasingly pervasive and sometimes hysterical and violent criticism of the United States, it might be helpful to consider the other side of the ledger.

No nation or country in the history of civilization has:

Gotten the gospel of Jesus Christ to more people;

Preserved and perpetuated so much religious liberty;

Devised such a balanced, freedom-protecting, virtue-expecting political system;

Created more prosperity;

Lifted more people out of poverty;

Defended more widely the cause of global freedom;

Spilled more of its own blood in abolishing the evil of slavery;

Fostered more technological, scientific, medical, and health breakthroughs;

Given more inspiration and hope to more liberty-loving people living within tyrannical regimes;

And been more vilified, envied, subverted, and hated by more nations, and by many within its own borders

… than the United States of America.

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