Wokeism & Identity in the Spotlight | Christ-Centered Approach to Racial Harmony | YBT010 CWP053

Ready to talk about Race and Eastern Orthodoxy?

Can we truly embrace a colorblind society while recognizing the diverse tapestry of racial identities? It's a hot-button issue that's sparked intense debate, and we're wading into the fray with our Orthodox Christian guest hosts Jeremy, Nick, John, Joshua, Dom, and Robert. We're dissecting the cultural pivot from a paradigm where an individual's character reigned supreme to today's era, where 'wokeism' and assertions of racial identity are shaping political landscapes. Our conversation unpacks the longing for a bygone era of character-based value, scrutinizes the parallels between today's identity politics and historical segregation, and probes the collapse of the American melting pot narrative. Listen in for a compelling discussion on the weaponization of colorblind ideals and the deep-seated desire for a resurgence of moderate liberalism.

This episode isn't just an exploration of ideals; it's a journey through the methodologies of achieving racial and ethnic equality. We question the transition from equal opportunity to the controversial pursuit of equal outcomes, and the ramifications this holds for a society wrestling with identity politics and tribal divisions. Integrating a Christian perspective, we ponder whether finding one's identity in Christ could be the key to transcending our differences and fostering unity. As our guests draw from a vast range of ideologies, from liberalism to Marxism, we strive for a discourse that might just hint at Christianity's potential to offer redemption and a form of transcendent equality of opportunity. Tune in as we explore the possibilities of unity in Christ and the promise of a community that looks beyond our earthly differences to our common humanity.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

A colorblind society, that the goal is to not see race at all anywhere for any reason. That's not what the woke believe. God of the Sun at all, the Supreme being.

Speaker 2: 0:12

I am not an atheist.

Speaker 3: 0:13

I've never been an atheist, I've never been People are too afraid to believe that they have control over their own actions. Hi, I'm Jeremy. Hey, I'm Nick.

Speaker 4: 0:25

Hello.

Speaker 6: 0:25

I'm John, Hi I'm Joshua. Hi, I'm Dom.

Speaker 3: 0:28

Hello, this is Robert and this is Cloud of Witnesses Radio.

Speaker 5: 0:32

On. Yes, but our new series.

Speaker 3: 0:35

Excellent. We hope you guys are enjoying these. We're going to jump right in to this video. We got a great group of commentators to join us. Are you, gentlemen, ready today?

Speaker 5: 0:46

Let's do it All right, here we go.

Speaker 3: 0:47

Let's do it.

Speaker 5: 0:48

We're ripping something down. Yes, I'm ready to react.

Speaker 3: 0:52

You guys. I'm sensing a lot of toxic masculinity.

Speaker 4: 0:56

Maximalism.

Speaker 2: 0:58

I think they look at you like a guy who they're worried about because you don't toe the line they should be. You're like a 90s liberal. You're like liberals back when they were more reasonable before they became leftists. And now every liberal kind of has to be a leftist. It's not. If you want to be on the team, you've got to subscribe to the most fringe ideas that the team is promoting.

Speaker 1: 1:25

I have always believed as liberals do, for example, in a colorblind society that the goal is to not see race at all anywhere for any reason. That's not what the woke believe. They believe race is first and foremost, the thing you should always see everywhere, which I find interesting because that used to be the position of the Ku Klux Klan.

Speaker 3: 1:45

So it is interesting because I can say that I remember the idea of a quote unquote colorblind society. That's how kind of I was raised, which is it doesn't matter the color of anyone's skin. What matters is the content of their heart, right, their character, and that's how I was raised. That's what I believe to this day. But I feel like we live in a world where, as he said, we have to or not, we have to, we're told or we're taught to look at race constantly. Everything's about race.

Speaker 5: 2:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, my, my gut reaction, which is increasingly interesting, with both Joe Rogan and whenever I see Bill Maher, which is, wow, I really agree with these guys so much Like society has become so strange and so fringe as he says that we can agree with someone like Bill Maher, right, or even Joe Rogan, and God bless them. You know like it's crazy and they believe in these things so much and they're not willing to to, you know, to follow other people's fringe ideas with their beliefs, and for that I commend someone like Bill Maher.

Speaker 4: 2:52

And I agree with him on how everything has to be on the fringes. Everything always has to be radical or extreme because it grabs people's attention and also because people today want to have that, their quick fix of dopamine and something that will fascinate and enter into the world, fascinate and entertain to an extent and a lot of young people who are jumping on any any particular political bandwagon. They just go go immediately to the far left or the far right. So of course, in our context, in our society, the far left, fringe mentality is more popular. Some parts of Europe, unfortunately, even in the Middle East, I mean a lot of far left paraphernalia, you know that's on the rise and it seems like when it comes to the best possible solution, people are always looking to kind of clean, sweep everything and completely deconstruct and destroy as an immediate knee jerk reaction, because it seems like civilization has become governed by their baser instincts, their lower will.

Speaker 7: 3:57

Yeah. So my initial reaction is something like well, why? What is the deeper thing they're trying to get at by not seeing color? And what I would say is like the culture that is common enough that people share. So I think, on the level, culturally, these, these men are about ideas and even America, so we're not hitting on a very, on a very deep level. It has to do with commerce, it has to do with, like, developing the nation and you know. So there's there's still this implicit materialism.

Speaker 6: 4:30

It's interesting that this whole like race topic, at least in America, because at least for me, what I see that's happened over the last century is kind of like a pendulum, a pendulum swing. 100 years ago I think people were pretty observant of each other's races and they were pretty like explicit that people were pretty tribal. And then we had a period because of the melting pot phenomenon and then you know the pushing of the American dream and all these other things where people, regardless of their ethnic background, were kind of meant to like fit into this American mold. You know that America is an idea and wherever you're from, you can, you can imbibe it. But now I would say, like the past 30 years, those projects have failed.

Speaker 6: 5:19

Those things are, those ideas are hinge off of the core ideas of the enlightenment and so I think those, this social experience that's been happening in America in general has has failed and I think a lot of people, especially the younger crowds, I think they're because of the like postmodern time, nihilistic time that we're living in. I think for a lot of people they don't have those, that meaning or that sense of community. They're looking for things right to make a pun right that are just only like skin deep right to form a form, an identity around right, because it's not just the left that does that. But there's, there's certain parts of the right to who make you know, like the white nationalist movements or in general, I think more people are becoming more aware again of okay, who am I, where do I fit in?

Speaker 8: 6:15

Yeah, I'm very, very upset really, because I feel like the our goal of a colorblind society has been co-opted by this notion that everything is a power play, everything is a struggle. So if you're white, well you know what you are actually a racist just because you're white, and I just find that deeply offensive and I just you know, we cannot have a colorblind society if we hold on to this notion that just because you're white or this or that, you're automatically racist or you're, you know, grabbing some power from other people just because because what color your skin is. I'm not saying that there are no biases, I'm not saying that there are no racist things that need to be, you know, corrected. I'm not naive, but I think that you know that this notion that everything is a power struggle, I just, I just very upsetting to me.

Speaker 5: 7:17

Yeah, it's a form of racial Marxism. Right, it's the ideas of Marxism applied to race, as opposed to ruling class versus the working class.

Speaker 7: 7:27

And so what it lays bare is the human tendency, you know, in our fallen nature, to just seek vengeance. Let's be honest, that's what a lot of wokeism is.

Speaker 3: 7:41

Just can't help but be reminded of that concept that you know revolution eats itself. I'm not sure, yeah, but the idea that you know the revolutionaries of today are what is it? They're the establishment of the future of tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. And so then they're the ones being attacked. Yeah, and we see it happening right before our eyes. I mean, it's shocking to me, and it that's why it's not the answer, right, because no, you can never be woke enough.

Speaker 3: 8:10

Yeah, you can never be an ally enough. The revolution will come after you eventually, anyways, exactly.

Speaker 7: 8:19

It's going to change, it's never ending, and that's why Christianity is not a revolutionary religion in that sense People use the word revolutionary very loosely. Just for something to be new in some sense doesn't mean that it's revolutionary. I mean, revolution has a fairly specific definition in the fact that it's the bottom reaching up and taking power for itself. But Christ was God, so it was the top, coming down and filling up everything and raising up the bottom with himself right In his resurrection, and so it's more a story of the top humbling rather than a revolution.

Speaker 5: 9:04

Revolution and the patterns that bear themselves out are inherently not truly, you know Christian patterns, and even like I said, I agree with a lot of what they were saying, but I would say that the butt part right is that ultimately to be, as you would say, like you know, a Bill Maher style liberal is that ultimately, that ground, that political ground, right is ultimately giving birth to the woke ism.

Speaker 1: 9:34

Right.

Speaker 5: 9:34

And I would say, even though I really do agree, and I commend Bill Maher for having the Christian just to, you know, to criticize you know, quote unquote people in his own party. The thing that I always see, though, is that he's not going deep enough.

Speaker 4: 9:50

He, he's still subscribing to the worldview that would allow and that would nurture such woke ism, and that's the part where I'd say but Bill Maher, yeah, the butt part would be that, as an atheist and as a classical liberal, he doesn't have any objective grounding or objective basis to oppose what's going on. He doesn't have any real reason to say that any of what's going on, pushing further to the left and even further than where we are now All he has ultimately, it's just I don't like it, I don't feel good about it. It's all subjectivism and pathology. It just doesn't sit right with him, and so there's really no objective reason for anyone to listen to him.

Speaker 4: 10:38

Even for those on the far left, when they listen to these sorts of arguments, they're not convinced because they're like well, yeah, but you, we're both on the same footing, we're both relatives, we're both athiasts, practically. So what? Who are you to preach to us? I mean, who are you to tell us that we're going too far? How far is too far when you have no standard for that? Tells us how far is too far. You know, father Sarah from Rose quoted Michael Bakunin as the ultimate revolutionary, who said you know, the revolution is not about tearing down the old guard and the old system and building a new one, it's just I just want to tear down everything for the sake of tearing it down until everything is scrapped into a black hole, to its very last atom that's all I want.

Speaker 8: 11:16

Do you guys think this is a quibble about methodology? That this is, that we're basically, we're all in agreement, whether you're on the woke side or left or middle or right or far right, that we're all. Well, maybe the far right bone agree that we're all created equal and that we're all. You know, we're really all the all the races are all the ethnic variations of the human race are equal, but we disagree about how to establish this equality within our society. Is that? Is that? Is that what you guys are thinking? Is this method is a pure question of method?

Speaker 7: 11:55

A lot of that has to do with believing a lot of the devil's lies that allow us to think that we're a victim, that we deserve something better, that we deserve a certain amount of economic stability just because we exist. And again, this is completely anti Christian to think that we are owed anything, because every good thing that comes to us is God's grace and we have no claim that we actually deserve it.

Speaker 8: 12:24

I see, I see like this shift from a a guaranteeing opportunity, equal opportunity for all to a we have to guarantee equal all accounts. Yeah. I'll come yeah so now we have to actually, just, you know, we have to force this equality Even to even the idea that we can guarantee inequality of opportunity is a phantom.

Speaker 7: 12:50

It's a phantom because there's just too many factors to control so and until you're God, you can't do that. You know, it's like I'm a straight white male. Well, guess what? I was born to a single mom with nothing and I'm poor. I Mean, I do okay now, but it's taken me until my 40s to kind of build up to an okay place.

Speaker 5: 13:11

The question of is it methodology? I think that's the problem. People get caught in the exterior. They want to find a method, a working engine that can create this Equality right and I think, because they're stuck on the exteriors, they want equality of outcome and I think the problem is they need, we need to move from methodology and go into the question of identity Right, and we find that identity ultimately in Christ. We're all made in the image of God and if we don't see these things, if we don't, if we don't participate in this, it's so easy for us to fall into any form of tribalism, whether it be of race, whether it be of sexual identity, right, any of these things.

Speaker 8: 13:54

We're just devolving into a varying tribes that are warring with each other, you know what I find so paradoxical is that you know we're going from, instead of going to a more universal Embrace of everyone, which you would think people would be interested in. You know, when now we're actually fragmenting. You know, okay, you're, you know you're a lesbian, female, handicapped, whatever. You know it's like we're all these segments of these things.

Speaker 4: 14:23

You know you're, you're wide and this is your gender, and yeah, the focus on exteriors really ultimately do lead up to not just the intersectionality and the crazy divisions we see, it also leads to a focus on race. Yes, it leads to Something that is proper, to a more evolutionary, darwinist presupposition where everything is pulled down to Biology. So that's where the racialism comes in, that's where all the racial divides come, come in, and that's where racism Starts to crop up and become popular, whether it's the far left racism with a far right racism. It's a situation where one side wants to overpower the other. So, yeah, it becomes survival of the strongest, survival of those who have the most amount of power and influence, in order to just completely stamp out the other side.

Speaker 6: 15:13

I think this whole situation with races, because everyone in America's at least, viewing this from like a human is Just a human, is a liberal view. And what I mean by great and I don't mean liberal, by by the Left-sided inspection, I mean, like liberalism, the ideology here in America, you know, we've been pet thinking that we can build this utopia regardless of people's nationality or ethnic background or all this stuff, and never the right. Liberalism goes into, like Marx's dynamics, right and and who, whichever group, can overpower the other right and the rules to switch right. So maybe people can argue back back in the face of the 60s, like that, with white people who had the power, you know, oppressing minorities. Now the opposite's happened, but right that the back and forth between two groups is not going to be solved by using the same method, methodology as we've been talking about, because the worldview is wrong and and how it understands people, how it understands hierarchy.

Speaker 5: 16:13

So as Last thought for myself. You know, if we want the quality of opportunity, the real equality of opportunity Is Christ and the opportunity that we are given to be redeemed and to inherit eternal life, of which this life is a mere Shadow, a dark, a dark shadow of that.

Speaker 8: 16:33

Yeah. So my last thought on this is that I actually take some guilty pleasure in seeing Bill Mars quorum, it's, it's, it's. It's kind of fun seeing him and kind of in the hot seat, if you will. But no, I, I, you know, I think he's got a legitimate Concern here and he's obviously a very smart person and and thoughtful. So I think he brings up a very good point and for me it's mostly agreement with him on this and I just hope that that we can, we can, we can be constructive going forward.

Speaker 3: 17:11

I, I think of you, know Paul's words. You know, in Christ we are neither slave nor free, male nor female. You know June or Greek, and the idea there is that we ought to be colorblind, and obviously it extends even beyond that, because in Christ we are, we are united, and before God we are all fallen short of the glory of God. We must all have that humility right to approach these things. Yes, thank you so much for this conversation, as always. Thank you for watching this long in the video. Please leave us a like, a comment. It really helps this channel grow. Let us know your thoughts. Where will we write and where we're on? Nick, take us out.

Speaker 5: 17:58

All right, see ya.