It's Okay to Have Privilege | Evangelical Populism: The Galli Report

It’s Okay to Have Privilege | Evangelical Populism | [View online]( [Give Now]( Advertisement [The Galli Report]( [Home]( [Podcast]( [Subscribe]( Friday, March 23, 2018 It’s Okay to Have Privilege That is one personal takeaway from [“The Privilege Predicament”](20-%20.WrFU42rwZeM) in The American Scholar. In conversations about the topic, some are accused, or accuse themselves, of one sort of privilege or another—white privilege, male privilege, and so forth—as if this is something to apologize for or to feel badly about. In fact, nearly everyone in a country like America has privilege of one sort or another in respect to another group. For some, that privilege is ridiculously and unjustly small; for others, it is ridiculously and unjustly large. But in either case, the privilege won’t go away by us regretting it. I am the recipient of so many privileges, it’s hard to count and separate them neatly into justly and unjustly gained. There is the conquering of Native Americans, enslavement of African Americans, and the prejudices of male supremacy, but also the courage of my ancestors who made the perilous journey to America with a work ethic that characterizes our family to this day. I also have to acknowledge lucky swings in the stock market as well as the roll of the dice that gave me genes that have given me higher than average intelligence. And on it goes. How to sort all this out is beyond human comprehension. Perhaps Jesus’ response is the one way forward: To whom much is given, much will be required (Luke 12:48). This essay by Robert Boyers, English professor at Skidmore, is more nuanced and insightful than this rather obvious point, but I find that the obvious is what I often forget amidst the many controversies that swirl about us. Evangelical Populism Part of what interests me about the recent anxieties besetting evangelical Christianity—about which I posted a number of links last week—is the class divisions that have become evident in the movement. This essay[—“Populism: A Defence”—]( the division between elite and populist culture, reveals the habit of many cultural elites toward “the rest of the country”: This promiscuous diagnosis of populism is a classic example of what Jean-Paul Sartre called bad faith. It is a form of self-deception. It allows the elite to displace its anxiety about its lack of legitimacy, its isolation from the public, and transform it into the public’s problem: the problem of populism. What’s more, labelling movements populist is a way of suggesting that they are morally inferior to, well, the unpopular elite. Populism, then, has been redefined as the pathology of the simple-minded masses, those who are apparently predisposed towards authoritarian, xenophobic and anti-democratic sentiments. Similar dynamics are evident among the evangelical cultural elite, especially those who lead our establishment institutions, like (among many others) InterVarsity Press, World Vision, National Association of Evangelicals, and yes, Christianity Today! Our temptation (and I mean “our,” for this certainly applies to me) is that of the secular cultural elite, to simply dismiss our brothers and sisters as suffering from one pathology or simple-mindedness. I suppose the first thing is for leaders to acknowledge our privilege (!) and more earnestly listen to those who have different social and political views than us. Easier said than done for someone like me. On a Related Note… I like to use the old joke: “I made one mistake last year—when I thought I had made a mistake but hadn’t.” In this case, I have: I reported in last week’s Galli Report that Shane Claiborne, who is one of the contributors to a book on evangelicalism I mentioned, has become Roman Catholic. Not true. Why I made that assumption and thought I had confirmation—well, it was sloppy journalism. No excuses. And my apologies, especially to Claiborne. If you know nothing about Claiborne, you should, and one place to start is this [thoughtful essay by one of my increasingly favorite writers, D. L. Mayfield](. Celebrities Evangelicals Trust—and Not Apparently, they trust Bernie Sanders more than Jerry Falwell Jr. But they generally don’t trust Sanders. They also trust Oprah more than either. Guess who comes in as the least trustworthy? The poll is a strange and contradictory pastiche—sort of like the populist movement itself. Grace and peace, [Mark Galli] [Mark Galli] [Mark Galli](mailto:GalliReport@christianitytoday.com) Editor-in-Chief, Christianity Today Advertisement More from Christianity Today [We Need an Independent Investigation of Sovereign Grace Ministries]( Where We Stand [We Need an Independent Investigation of Sovereign Grace Ministries]( Allegations of child sexual abuse and staff cover-up continue to swirl. Let’s set an example for all churches to follow, bringing healing to victims and churches alike. Mark Galli [Read More]( [Why Russian Protestants Voted for President Putin]( [News]( [Why Russian Protestants Voted for President Putin]( Though evangelicals’ freedom has worsened, Putin remains their best, or only, option. 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