Can Christians and Marxists agree on something? The Tower of Babel Argument

This past week I was sitting in Rhetoric Class, [Rhetoric is the study of persuasion and public speaking] chewing on a difficult text from Barbara Biesecker. It was our first foray into Deconstructionism, and we were struggling hard to comprehend what it is; the Queer Theorists had burned out, and the Conservatives had declared it all Sophistic non-sense. And don’t even get me started on last week: we looked at Rhetorical Epistemology [how do we know what we know] that class was even more confounding.

Deconstructionism is not a new word for me. As a Christian, I’ve encountered the topic from Preachers apologists, and prominent philosophical theologians: John McArthur, Justin Peters, Chris Rosebrough, Steve Kosar, Bezlt3, and Todd Friel have all maligned and disdained the term and its Marxist origins. They phrase it as an anathema to Truth and God. That it is the complete dissolution of objective definition and meaning. As a Christian from a theological context, they are not completely wrong, but a theological context is not the only context, and it is at this distinction that they have all either missed the point being made by the Deconstructionists, or they are grossly misrepresenting it.

The Rhetorical Setup: Objectivism vs. Subjectivism

What follows is going to be a gross summation of very complicated terms, they will be somewhat accurate, but not comprehensive. The argument about Objectivity and Truth goes back to Socrates and Plato. Socrates and Plato were chiefly concerned with a group of teachers and orators known as the Sophists, who would famously train their pupils to argue both sides of an argument finding the pro’s and con’s in everything. This was an afront to Socrates’ idealism, and he worried about the ethics of trying to find the positives in something one knows to be false. So he and his pupil Plato drew lines in the sand that there was something like objective, absolute, measurable, empirical, knowable, Truth. They proposed a counter schema to the Rhetoric of the Sophists, known as Dialecticism — whose philosophical imperative was to investigate Truth. Where Rhetoric makes arguments in favor of, Dialectics investigates. With these battle lines drawn Rhetoric largely fell out of favor for most of the history of Western Philosophy, the need to argue in favor of something still existed, thus Rhetoric was taught but its value or ability to contribute was ancillary to Western thinking.

That is until Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, and their offspring: Post-Colonialism, Critical Race Theory, Feminism, Queer Theory, Deconstructionism, and Post-Modernists murdered Objectivity with the rusty dull shank of Subjectivity. In Rhetorical Philosophy the coffin nail that sealed Objectivity’s fate could be summed up as this: If reality is finite, measurable, knowable, definitive… in other words Objective Fact, then why are we still arguing about it? Why haven’t Objective Facts and empirical evidence settled any of the big debates afflicting Western Culture? Think about that for a moment. From a Christian perspective humanity has not achieved massive consensus where everyone agreed on something, since the Tower of Babel. From a secular point of view it can be argued that we have never achieved mass consensus. Flat earth and Holocaust deniers are still a thing.

Understanding Subjectivity in terms of Black and White.

Beisecker’s article Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation from within the thematic of Différance, brings up an interesting article when she references Derrida’s Différance, in short: we define objects not by what they are, but what they are not. As an example, what is the color White? “The absence of Black” one might say, well, what is the color Black? “The absence of White?” On it’s surface this is a very binary understanding, but according to Beisecker, and Derrida therein lies a Paradox: Black and White may be distinct from each other, but the distinction of one frames the other, so they are related and therefore non-binary. We can’t understand what White is if we delete Black, and vice versa, our understanding of each becomes impaired and watered down without the contrast of the other.

On it’s surface Black and White are very objective and measurable, but what if they are not? Painting is a medium that adheres to a subtractive color theory, meaning the canvas by default is white, no paint is needed to achieve white. But when we mix pigments, specifically equal parts red, yellow, and blue, we get black. But this is not absolute, in print, it’s still subtractive, creating black requires a mix of different colors: magenta, cyan, and yellow. The end result is the same, black is still black, but the way we got there changed. In Film the method is still subtractive, but the color combination for black is now equal parts red, green, and blue.

When we hop mediums to video the color theory inverts to an additive model. Now the canvas is by default black, and white is made by mixing equal parts red, green, and blue wavelengths of light. In an additive model, if I mix green and red together, I get a brighter orange/yellow color. If I did that in paint, I would get a darker brown.

The concept of white gets even more subjective when we start to think about how our eyes, digital sensors, and film process the visible wave lengths of light. All perceivable light has a color cast to it. Campfires are very orange, in comparison to daylight it is a far more bluish color at high noon. Our eyes neutralize blue daylight by saturating orange colors to neutralize the imbalance. Man-made Light can also have a green/magenta impurity to it’s tint that our eyes need to correct for. Your eyes are so efficient at this, they do neutralize the color imbalance of the available light in whatever space you inhabit every nanosecond of every day, and we don’t even notice. So our concept of what is white is highly subjective depending on what lighting conditions we are in. Our eyes first neutralize the color cast of the dominant light sources in a space, then we evaluate whether or not the colors on a given medium be it, canvas, print, film, video or other accurately represent white correctly. To Paint a picture under tungsten lights, will alter my perception of color if I painted under daylight.

So the point of this deconstruction experiment of what is White, or what is Black is this. At no point have we ever lost our understanding of what White or Black looks like. White is still white, in additive, or subtractive methods, in daylight or by a campfire. Our understanding of color theory and the processes of the eye, has not destroyed our understanding of what white is. But if we want to recreate it in a work of art? Then we need to know what medium we are working in and understand what lighting conditions our audience will be viewing our work in, so we can replicate those conditions if we want to make an accurate representation for our audience. But my understanding of White is still white, and Black is still black that never changed.

Fixing the Misrepresentation

Out of all the Theologians and Apologists, I like Todd Friel’s arguments the least, but understanding his rhetoric is evocative to the rest of the field in some form or another. Friel usually likes to claim about Post-Modernism and any theory or movement that falls under it as generally, being too manifold or complicated to understand. If meaning is meaningless, and everyone’s meaning is unique and subjective then there can be no absolute Truth. Reading into Friel’s words it appears his aim or intention is to steer his viewers away from even looking at it. Don’t even try to understand it, it's to complicated, just avoid it altogether. Most Apologists, pastors, and theologians usually advocate for this sort of stance. It’s too dangerous to the faith, stay away from the forbidden fruit. After all, Marx hated God, and anything that traces its thinking from Marxism will have that anti-God bias baked into it.

As a Christian the way we reconcile Marxist/Post-Modernist/Deconstructionism is by adopting a Bible based pluralism about the world. The Bible claims to be perfect, absolute Truth, not written by man, but inspired by the Creator. As self-identified Christians, [most of the time] we accept this, absolute truth exists in the Bible. But where Christians and Marxist can agree is that mankind is sinful. If all have fallen short, then critical thinking becomes imperative to rooting sin, and false teaching out. Karl Marx’s defining legacy is not communism or his economic theories, it’s the idea that power absolutely corrupts those who have it! And those who have power/money deserve more scrutiny about how they use it to keep themselves in power and gain more. In a Constitutional Representational Democracy, this is not rebellion, it’s our civic duty, its why the 4th estate the news media exists.

Could Jesus and Marx have common ground? Maybe.

In the New Testament both Jesus and the Apostle Paul back up this idea of a limited Christian pluralism when existing in a fallen world. Jesus’s most significant contribution to the topic can be found in Mark 12:17 “Give unto Caesar that which is his.” This phrase comes when Jesus was asked by the Pharisees what he thought about paying Roman taxes that go to the Roman Emperor who had declared himself to be a God. Jesus’s response was to acknowledge that the money used to pay the tax was Roman with Caesar’s face on it, in a sense, it was already defiled, giving money to a mortal man, who has long since died was no threat to God’s deity. Likewise, when talking with Pontius Pilot when asked if Jesus was a King, Jesus’s response was that his kingdom was “not of this world.” (John 18:36) In this sense, we can understand that God understands there are matters of the Spirit/Kingdom, and matters of the World. And that we as Christians have to navigate very tricky waters, and for that, we have the blessed assurance of Grace, to catch us when we stumble and need to repent.

The Apostle Paul’s epistles further reinforce, distinguish, and clarify the distinctions of Jesus, when it comes to matters of Christendom and the world. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 gives us a distinction between God’s laws and man’s law. Paul makes it clear that God’s law is stricter, and supersedes man’s laws if you are a Christian. If a person is not identified as a Christian, then Christians have no business holding them accountable to God’s laws. So the way Christians can reconcile Christianity with Marxism is this. When it comes to God, and the Bible, they are absolute, objective, perfect, and get the benefit of the doubt. When it comes to issues of Humanity: how we or others interpret the word, how we gain and use power, how we treat each other: we need to adopt a more critical stance over our own actions first and then that of others.

Subjectivity increases the importance of meaning

The thing Apologists get wrong about Post-Modern Deconstructionism is that subjectivity does not destroy meaning. It is not an anathema to the truth in the sense that truth does not exist. It’s the sense that all [human] truths are equal. Reality in Post-Modernism could be summed up as what forms our being through our personal experiences. And what I have experienced as a straight white male, has been vastly different than the overt sexism my wife has encountered, versus the racism encountered by my neighbors. The acknowledgment that human reality [the experiences that make up our being] is subjective is not anti-truth or anti-meaning. Far from it.

Meaning and truth become far more important when it is subjective. If my use of a word means something to me, but something else to another person. Then I can’t make normative assumptions or take the meaning for granted. if their view is just as valid as mine, then I need to understand what it means to them. It’s not a war on truth, it's a call to empathy for people who disagree with you. A need to respect the experiences and choices of those who identify as “other” to me. It can still be sin, but at the heart of the matter is that if a person chooses to live in it, then in a secular civil society we need to respect civil choices even if they are Biblically speaking sinful. With the caveat that they are not breaking laws, or harming others. Creating laws that outlawing sin, does not stop sin from happening. It just makes Christians the oppressors and damages our witness. Baking a gay wedding cake does not harm my standing with God. I live in a fallen world, and I need to coexist with the world if I want to be an effective witness to God’s love. The Christian mandate is not to fight, it is to stand firm in our own faith, and give an honest account of it. There is no other adjective to affix to Christianity. We are to love God first, then others more than myself. According to Paul “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” (1 Cor, 13:1) We don’t need to worry or keep records of what non-Christians are doing, or expect them to conform to us. In secular matters, we need to accommodate them, yet be firm and true to our own faith.

Culture War misses the point

The reality of Christians being under attack in western culture misses the point on numerous fronts. When pastors, theologians, and especially politicians highlight this it is usually baked into and around a call to action. There will always be persecution in the world, when it happens to our neighbors, we support our brothers and sisters emotionally, and spiritually as best as we can. We should not take the fight to the non-Christians, to do so hurts our witness. We are sheep, not warriors. The Shepard fights for us, not the other way around. The second issue is that if we live in a secular society, anyone who holds a government office or gets paid by the government can attest to this. We have to treat all people fairly and impartially, in law, medicine, education, and customer service. If we don’t then society won’t be civil or has no reason to be. What this means is that we can’t take for granted that everyone we encounter is also a Christian or even a branch of Christianity that we agree with.

In most cases where Christians say they are being persecuted if we look closer, there is a power dynamic at play, a teacher who gets fired for preaching the gospel in the classroom may claim persecution, but their students may be equally able to claim oppression. Did they all want to hear it? Could they object? If they did object could they be punished? Sharing the gospel only works when all parties are equal, they should have the right to walk away free of any secular consequence. Any time the evangelizer has a power position that is above the evangelizee be it: doctor/patient, teacher/student, boss/worker, owner/client, jailor/prisoner, banker/bankee, or something other, the message gets tainted because rejection of the message may harm the person’s grades/medical service/pay/job prospects/ customer service/ or chances of getting a loan. A captive audience is a resentful audience.

Reconciling relationships is painful

The challenge of American Christians is that as America shifts further towards secularism, [in truth we always were secular because we are capitolists] is we need to take a look at the mistakes we have made first, and the hurt that we have inflicted on others. And we have made many. Christians ran the slave trade from Africa under the justification that “we” can teach the slaves about Jesus yet was also ripped passages and chapters out of “slave” Bibles, so the Bible wouldn’t teach them about freedom. Christians have arrogantly assumed that we were the best culture and have imprisoned people from other cultures in zoos as examples of sub-human species. Christians created and brutally enforced Jim Crow laws and murdered African Americans on Sundays immediately after a fiery sermon at church riled them up. We’ve brutally disenfranchised women, neutered their education to keep them submissive and dependent upon men, took away their votes and their rights to choose or own property, and gaslighted them when they tried to assert themselves. We bombed abortion clinics, and hurt gay people, disenfranchised non-Christians, all in the name of Jesus and for the kingdom. It’s an unfortunate reality that Christians stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th to overthrow a democratic election in the face of a reality where we are no longer the dominant faction. If you don’t believe me go watch the New Yorker video 8 minutes in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=270F8s5TEKY

One of the nice things about Christianity is that we are often encouraged to take our pains in prayer and give them to God. In the sense that he can take it. He’s not insecure, and won’t be offended by us asking why he set things up this way. In much, the same Christians ought to model this to the world. Relationships are messy and painful. It’s not easy or comfortable to listen to someone passionately express how you’ve hurt them. When they ask, why did you do this to me? Don’t you realize how much this hurts me? It makes me profoundly mad! I want to scream back, that “your wrong” and “it was not my intent,” and start defending myself. If Christians or really anyone who wants a successful relationship with another person, we need to stop defending ourselves and acknowledge we [and other Christians] have messed up, we’ve hurt the other person, no if’s, and’s, or’s, but’s. Don’t defend; listen, acknowledge the hurt, and apologize. That is how we model the love of the Creator to other people. Turn the other cheek if they need more room or time to vent and petition their hurts. That’s how we reconcile relationships.

The first shall be last

One of the defining characteristics of first-century Christianity was their willingness to help people whom Roman society found to be worthless, orphans, and widows. In modern times, Christians are all too willing to help orphans, widows, and puppies. But we are not in ancient Rome. In a modern context comes a need to revaluate who are the “least of these” in this day and age. And if we want to be even more specific we as Christians need to explore who are the “least of these” to Christian culture: the Non-Believer, single moms with kids born out of wedlock, Transgendered people, drug addicts, ex-convicts? How well do we as Christians support people who need help but we don’t agree with? “But they are sinners, it’s justice” Is that what Christians ought to do? Dispense Justice?

One of the big perversions of Christianity is when the Evangelicals got into bed with Politics. The topic that animates evangelicals to fervent action faster than anything else is the need to dispense justice in the world. In truth, it's fun to do so when you have the biggest stick on the block. You feel powerful and justified. The people you punish deserve it, and you are making a difference. But what we don’t see is what happens to us when we do it. We become entitled; we earn salvation or an advanced status on the other side of life, the heretical jewels in the crown. We who need Grace deserve no crowns. At that point, because we do things for the kingdom, prosperity becomes the litmus test of God’s approval. Breaking a few eggs along the way is justifiable to keeping the sinners in line. Nevermind on the other side of the line, we project contempt, hate, disdain, and in some cases bloodlust for those we punish. Scripture is clear Romans 12:19 vengeance belongs to the Lord alone.

Framing things in terms of offense or even defense puts Christians in an errant justice mindset not a Biblical mindset of Grace. Can I be a good prison guard who has to operate off of fear to subjugate the prisoners and a good Christian? Can I be a good Christian and a business owner, when I pay my workers the lowest wage I can get away with, and I actively try to put my competitors out of business? Dispensing justice is addictive, but detrimental to the soul because we forget that we are harming other humans. Poverty and disenfranchisement in this context is actually a blessing from God. It protects your soul from the sins of privilege, entitlement, and the abuses of power one must do to sustain that power. If you consider yourself to be rich or powerful, ask yourself am I also a good representation of Christianity? The answer according to Jesus is most likely no, Matthew Chapter 19 is a sobering wakeup call to the contrary.

Robert L. Scott: On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic wrote that “As a matter of fact if one can be certain, tolerating deviations from the demands of certainty may itself be deemed evil.” On its face, it may seem like a call to the Christian who believes in the objective certainty of the Bible to operate with impunity. Christians need to be certain about God, but in terms of communicating with each other, the lack of certainty according to Scott breeds toleration. We can be intolerant and judgmental of our own, that is other people who profess to be a Christian, but misbehave contrary to the word, or misuse and misrepresent scripture. But to the “others” apart from Christianity, we need a different stance. If power corrupts, then Post-Modernism and Deconstructionism help the Christians because it’s aim is to expose the systems and abuses of that power structure. Accountability is not fun. And I’ve only ever heard “snitches get stitches” from my fellow Christians. But this is exactly why it’s imperative that we listen to our critics. If the source is of criticism comes from an Atheist, that means their critique of God is wrong, however, it does mean their critique of me can and probably is accurate. Post-Modernism elevates all positions Christian and others to equal status in society. That means I need to listen to them about where I went wrong, they are the experts of my sins, and I can use them to keep me accountable and humble before them and God. This is the profound challenge of Marxism to Pastors, Theologians, and Apologists. They all have power, platforms, money, and influence, as a religious leader. Scrutinizing them is a threat to their power, and thus they steer their followers away from schemas that expose that power for what could the most basic human shortcomings, manipulation and abuse.

The worst thing that ever happened to Christianity in my personal opinion was when Emperor Constantine the first, declared Christianity to be the state religion. In that moment reality flipped, Christianity went from a stubbornly resilient fringe cult to the powerful normative majority, and with it came corruption and domination. Jesus was clear when he said in Matthew Chapter 19, that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” This is probably the most pro-Marxist statement in the Bible. Any time power, money, influence, and or affluence mix with Christianity we become corrupted, and the gospel gets polluted with a very noxious sewage. From this context can there be a Christian billionaire, or a Christian Business? Capitalism is about accumulating wealth through dominance and crushing/disrupting the competition. This is profoundly and utterly anti-Christian. Those with power will abuse that power eventually, its inevitable, all have fallen short, all are susceptible to this, Christian and non-Christian. We are not any better, if anything we should be honest and humble enough to admit that we are in fact worse than the non-Christians when it comes to abusing power, to not admit this, to say Western Society, Capitalism, and or even Christian Culture is superior to all others, is to be prideful and deny our need for a Savior and Grace. We are not any better, we need Jesus. The best thing that ever could happen to American Christianity is for us to not be profitable, dominant, or mainstream. When that happens, all the people who choose it because it’s profitable, or convenient will show their true colors and move on to the next empowering political fad. Allowing those of us who remain to be able to have a genuine conversation about what it means to be like sheep in need of the Shepard.