The death of George Floyd has kindled anger and protest in all 50 American states and more than 50 countries around the globe, inflaming deep frustrations and deepening political divisions. In an era when image is everything, its inescapably evocative symbolism – a white police officer kneeling on the neck of a black man – was destined to become politically iconic.
The facts of Floyd’s death and the rights and wrongs of the demonstrations which have resulted, I will leave largely to one side for now. What I want to focus on is the potential for the Black Lives Matter protest movement as a whole to play into the hands of those who want to see Western civilisation (and everything it ever stood for) completely destroyed.
These include not just street-level anarchists happy to contribute to a breakdown in law and order by looting shops and graffitiing statues, but more powerful lobbies whose stated aim is to dismantle the world’s economic and political systems and start afresh.
In this sense, as Charles Gardner has noted elsewhere in this week’s edition of Prophecy Today UK, the Black Lives Matter protests align with others such as the Extinction Rebellion demos and the Women’s Marches – all chorusing that Western civilisation is so riddled with corruption and injustice that what is needed is a wholesale revolution.
Reform or Rebellion?
Nobody is disputing that many black communities in the US are gripped by poverty and deprivation, suffering high levels of fatherlessness, family breakdown, crime, violence and drug abuse. But there are problems with reacting to this deplorable situation by rushing to demonise all white people and Western civilisation as a whole.1
One is that it victimises black people, reinforcing a communal sense of inferiority and stoking racial hatred, rather than promoting true reconciliation.2
Another is that it encourages the nodding through of a general breakdown in the rule of law as regrettable, but understandable given the circumstances. While police departments face being dismantled, individuals and mobs engaged in rioting and indiscriminate violence are excused or even encouraged. It is worth watching this emotional plea from a New York police union chief and reading this confession from an ordinary officer, as examples of how things look from the perspective of law enforcers.
A related, larger problem is that totalising claims about race bolster radical left-wing groups, already enjoying a substantial influence within campaigns like Black Lives Matter (and the Movement for Black Lives, Stand Up to Racism and others), who use identity politics to argue that democracy is futile in the face of what they perceive to be systemic injustice.
Such activists usually favour some kind of neo-Marxist revolution and hold that the Judeo-Christian values which have historically underpinned Western culture and politics are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Totalising claims about race bolster radical left-wing groups who use identity politics to argue that democracy is futile in the face of what they perceive to be systemic injustice.
It is unsurprising, then, that Black Lives Matter openly stand against the biblical family (e.g. leaning heavily on their LGBTQ+-affirming credentials and claiming “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement”3) and actively align themselves against Israel.4
In Britain, demonstrations have also taken a distinctly anti-civilisational turn. Protests have not only involved the removal of a Bristol statue of a slave trader (not by democratic means, but by force) and physical attacks on police, but the desecration of war memorials, Government buildings and statues of Winston Churchill and Queen Victoria, as well as the attempted burning of a Union Jack.5
The trend, it seems, is to renounce our history as uniformly, endemically evil and efface from the public square any trace of cultural memory which at all transgresses today’s politically correct standards.
Dangerous Claims
Now, we know that Western civilisation is weighed down by all kinds of sin (past and present) and yet still bears the good fruit of centuries of Judeo-Christian influence (e.g. in allowing freedom of speech and assembly). Its history encompasses the awful realities of slavery and yet also the blessings of Gospel faithfulness. It is not easily packageable into one grand narrative, with a solution that is just as simple (tear it all down and start again). Doing so is highly dangerous.
Yet, this is what is being attempted today – in a movement being propelled forward not just by radical anarchists and political opportunists, but well-meaning citizens genuinely seeking a better world.
Meanwhile, powerful individuals like the UN Secretary-General and Prince Charles openly state their aim to use the present global upheaval as an opportunity to ‘reset’ the entire world in order to build a fairer, more sustainable society.
However, history bears witness to the fact that any attempt to redesign the world without God, no matter how well-intentioned, will not only fail, but lead to despotism and violence on an unthinkable scale. As journalist and author Peter Hitchens has commented, “Utopia can only be approached across a sea of blood, and you never arrive.”6
Any attempt to redesign the world without God, no matter how well-intentioned, will not only fail, but lead to despotism and violence on an unthinkable scale.
The Right Side of History
Most of us want to be ‘on the right side of history’, overcoming evil with good. Humans feel injustice keenly, because we are made in the image of the God of justice. But when the Bible is no longer an authoritative influence in the public square, it is impossible for any large-scale protest movement to reap a truly righteous harvest, no matter how good the intentions of those taking part.
The Bible predicts a day when a global government will arise, promising peace but ushering in the worst reign of evil the world has ever seen. Surely, present events hasten that future, though its precise timings remain utterly in the Lord’s hands (Ps 2). With the utmost respect to my friends who have chosen to align themselves with Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion and other such movements, it is worth remembering that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
We need a reality check, because sin (including racism) is present in every nation and culture and will stain fallen humanity for as long as this world exists (2 Pet 3:13). Only the Gospel can transform the condition of the heart and resolve the genuine injustices in our society. Only the Gospel holds out the hope of the return of the Lord, who alone will set all wrongs to right.
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
References
1 For coverage of precisely how this is occurring, useful commentators include Douglas Murray, Candace Owens, PragerU, Melanie Phillips and Spiked.
2 Blacks who support Trump are dubbed (by no less than presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden) ‘not black’. See coverage at CBS News.
3 What We Believe. Black Lives Matter website.
4 E.g. see coverage at JNS, Ha’aretz and Times of Israel.
5 The Metro, 8 June 2020. Activists in Minnesota toppled a statue of Christopher Columbus earlier this week and took turns kicking its head.
6 Twitter, 5 April 2018.
