Andrews University—On Thursday, February 9, there was an obligatory chapel presentation in the Lincoln Room. The chapel speaker was Dr. Michael Emerson, from the University of Illinois at Chicago. A non-Adventist, Emerson claims to be a race and religion ‘expert.’
Here is a condensed lowlight reel of Emerson's presentation to the Evangelical Covenant Church's Midwinter Conference in January 2022,
In our current culture, race and religion experts tend to be critical race theory zealots and this was definitely the case according to numerous students who attended.
Here are some of the points in Emerson’s PowerPoint presentation:
Religion is racialized and causes deep trauma and damage (slide #2)
Among the laws that God gave the Israelites there were laws that protected foreigners from being treated unjustly (on point this we agree).
We should confess sins committed by our ancestors (#5)
Because some Grecian widows claimed to be overlooked in food distribution in Acts 6, that means we should pursue social justice for aggrieved minority groups today (#6)
America has been oppressive to minorities (survey question on page #10. Actually, America has gone overboard to create and pander to victimhood, due to the politicization of affirmative action. This victimhood infatuation has crippled the consciences of people from Berkeley activists to professional football players to a Duke of Sussex).
White Christians are a problem (#13, 14, 15).
White Christians are bad because they believe that there should be less immigration in America (#17).
White Christians tend to believe that converting people to the religion of Jesus Christ would help solve race problems (#18—this is a bad thing according to the presenter. Of course. People who seek humanistic solutions like social justice, CRT and cultural Marxism downplay the gospel as oppression).
What is the problem? The religion of whiteness. (This means that just being Anglo-Saxon is a false religion. Never heard that one before #25. Whiteness is being vilified in today’s culture similar to the way the Jews were vilified in 1930’s Germany. This is pure critical race theory).
According to Emerson, 66% Of white people are members of this new religion (ironically, Emerson is blind to the reality that wokeness is the dominant religion of choice of college-age people and politically minded liberals everywhere).
Three hallmarks of White Religion are: 1) White Jesus, 2) Blending of Cross and flag and 3) for some, owning guns. (I agree that the cross should stand free as the epitome and reminder of our salvation. I do not agree that owning guns is a sacrament of false religion. If it is, Emerson just condemned a large slice of inner city hoodlumery (my word). This is political social justice and wokeness that traffics in victimhood and innuendo, so typical of leftist academia #29).
Conclusion
Instead of resolving bitterness, envy and victimhood complex’, presentations like this are designed to foster greater divisions between races in order for political gains. A Seventh-day Adventist college has no business indoctrinating our youth with political propaganda like this presentation.
There is a unique sickness that has taken over many college campuses in America; this sickness is Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE). This ideology is now deeply embedded in most colleges and universities around the country (including several of our own), and I make no apologies about drawing a direct parallel between DIE and cancer. DIE’s degradations of the search for truth and the vigorous contestation of ideas are akin to the way that cancer spreads from one part of the body to another and eventually kills it.
On these campuses, faculty members typically have to file “diversity statements” to get promoted, and students must pass “diversity courses” to graduate. Some schools are requiring undergraduate applicants to submit “diversity statements” of the sort already required for many faculty and staff jobs—by requiring students to include in their application a statement on their commitments to racial justice. This is a blatant political litmus test for students.
A University in Oregon tried to ban a professor’s course on conservative political thought on the grounds that it failed to advance DIE goals.
To return to the cancer analogy, DIE is like a particularly aggressive form of cancer that can jump from patient to physician, thus rendering the physician incapable of treating either the disease or himself (sorry, “zirself”).
I am grateful for Adventists from every tribe, nation and language that we have come to know and love. They have made my life richer, just as the Bible says in Revelation 7:9. I would be honored to stand on the Sea of Glass beside them.
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