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In the book of Jeremiah, we hear God saying

34 I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate.

And again in Isaiah 24

The new wine fails, the vine languishes,
All the merry-hearted sigh.
8 The mirth of the tambourine ceases,
The noise of the jubilant ends,
The joy of the harp ceases.
9 They shall not drink wine with a song;
Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
10 The city of confusion is broken down;
Every house is shut up, so that none may go in.
11 There is a cry for wine in the streets,
All joy is darkened,
The mirth of the land is gone.

In both cases, there is a correlation between God’s judgment and the ceasing of merriment, of gladness, and of feasting. For the past year now our joy has been under siege by the attack on the places of our merriment and feasting. With the scamdemic restaurants that are characterized by fellowship and laughter among friends and family have been locked down, churches, where we are specifically called to assemble with the purpose of feasting on Word and Sacrament, have been shuttered, weddings constrained as attendance is often a matter of Zoom, and even the comfort that is found in the gathering of people to sustain one another as found in the funeral service has been checkmated.

The means of expressing joy and merriment has been blanketed by the demands of clothing our smiles and dimples. The constant barrage of news reporting death rates and screaming danger has sucked the normal merriment from the body politic. Further, awareness of the planned evils as hatched by the elite has threatened to suck a resolved merriment and joy leaving in its place the broken spirit that the writer of the Proverbs writes about.

A merry heart does good, like medicine,
But a broken spirit dries the bones.

A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance,
But by sorrow of the heart, the spirit is broken.

We should say at the outset here that the broken spirit that is spoken of by Solomon is not the same as being poor in spirit in the sense spoken by Christ in the Beatitudes and called blessed. If we were to make careful distinctions we might say that there is an evangelical brokenness of spirit that is characterized by a heaviness that God’s truth is cast aside. What the writer here speaks of is the brokenness of spirit that bespeaks a brooding spirit of despondency which seems to believe that God has abandoned the believer.

Charles Bridges writes here,

“Too often does a mischievous gloom worm itself into the vitals of a child of God. The melancholy victim drags on a weary, heavy laden existence, clouding a distinct feature of his character and one of the most attractive ornaments of his confession.”

The Christian is told that a broken spirit drieth the bones and obviously the writer of the Proverbs is warning against the absence of merriment and the presence of dry bones. This proverb is given that the reader might resolve not to be characterized as one with dry bones and a broken spirit.

So, the Christian has to find a way to rise above all that which would suck out of us merriment and joy and find the ability to have merriment despite the presence of genuine joy sucking times as littered with professional joy suckers.

Of course, one option to resolution is to bury our heads in the sand and ignore reality as if ignorance is the path to merriment and joy. It is not for no reason that we have a maxim that teaches, “Ignorance is bliss.” But of course who could ever agree that the foundation for our merriment and joy should be set upon ignorance as a virtue?

So how should we avoid the broken spirit and dry bones? Where do we find merriment and joy in troubled times?

One way to do so is to remind ourselves that God’s judgment has already fallen on us in Christ. Those OT passages we read at the outset were indeed about God’s promised judgment upon His unfaithful people yet we need to remind ourselves that these merriment sucking times are not God’s judgment upon His Church and at worse are His discipline. We need not fear God’s judgment for it has passed in Christ and we ought to find merriment in the fact that God disciplines those He loves. God has not abandoned us. We have His favor.

Because we know that we know that we have the Father’s favor for the sake of Christ we can begin to find merriment and joy in times when it otherwise might be difficult to find merriment.

Luther occasionally fell into these kinds of fits. As a rule, he was a cheerful man, but he had terrible fits of depression. He was at one time so depressed that his friends recommended him to go away for a change of air, to see if he could get relief. He went away, but he came home as miserable as ever; and when he went into the sitting-room, his wise wife Katey, was sitting there, dressed in black, and her children round about her, all in black.

“Oh, oh!” said Luther, “who is dead?” “Why,” said she, “doctor, have not you heard that God is dead? My husband, Martin Luther, would never be in such a state of mind if he had a living God to trust to.”

Then he burst into a hearty laugh, and said, “Kate, thou art a wise woman. I have been acting as if God were dead, and I will do so no more. Go and take off thy black.”

If God be alive, why are we discouraged? If we have a God to look to, why are we cast down? Let us rejoice and be glad together and rediscover a merry heart.

Come come, my friends … if Paul and Silas as unjustly chained in stinking rat strewn and disease-ridden ancient prisons (Acts 16:16f) could find merriment and joy so that they were singing we ought to be able to find the same ability to avoid dry bones and broken spirits in times that are comparatively far less trying. I suggest the beginning of that lightness of heart is found in knowing that the favor of the sovereign of the Universe is set upon us for the sake of Christ.

Is this not, in part, what the table proclaims? It reminds us that the reasons for God’s opposition have been sunk in the finished work of Jesus Christ in our stead. The Eucharist while a time for sobriety is also a time for merriment and even laughter. As we smell and taste forgiveness and eternal life in the sacramental bread and the wine ought not our broken spirits be revived with swelling waves of mirth driven by knowing that the Father favors us?

We should be saying with the Psalmist,

Psalm 43:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.

Another solution to our lack of merriment and the brokenness of our spirits is found in losing our grasp on the promise that God’s enemies will be defeated. Ought not there to be merriment found in the prospect of God’s enemies most certainly being vanquished?

This is a point that modern nice Christians have been convinced is not polite. And yet the Scripture is awash with merriment that comes with the destruction of God’s enemies,

Proverbs in 11:10

When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; they shout for joy when the wicked die.

Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has pronounced judgment against her on your behalf! Rev. 18:20

In Deuteronomy 32:43 we hear this clarion call to corporately rejoice:

Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people.

And I haven’t mentioned some of the Psalms which get quite explicit on this score.

So our hearts ought to find some merriment in contemplating the end of the wicked. The end of baby murderers, mass murdering Magistrates, those who have sought to destroy God’s design for the family by the legislating of all kinds of perversion, for teachers and professors of Cultural Marxism who have poisoned the minds of our children. Yes, we pray for their conversion first and foremost but if they will not repent, if they will continue to seek to overturn the Kingdom of God why should we not find merriment and the ability to rejoice in the prospect of their utter and final defeat?

This prospect of comfort and so joy found in the coming defeat of the enemy is held out by St. Paul to the Thessalonians.

 it is a righteous thing with God to repay with [c]tribulation those who trouble you, 7 and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

So yes… we can find merriment and joy … a delivery from despondency by talking to ourselves reminding ourselves that God is not mocked and so those who sewed the wind will one day reap the whirlwind.

Conclusion

So let us feast and make merry. Let us laugh and rejoice without ceasing. Let merriment characterize our fellowship. As the Psalmist says, Let the high praises of God be in our mouths, and a double edged sword be in our hands. Let us ignore the storms gathered around us being confident that the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us keep before us the truth that these light and momentary afflictions are nothing as to be compared with the weight of glory that is set before us. Let us fix our eyes upon Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy set before him despised the cross, enduring the shame. Remember the eternal joy promised us, and again I say rejoice.

Keep in mind saints that the gloom of the servants reflects poorly upon the Master as if He was a hard man. Set aside the broken spirit that can be the result of fretting and worrying over what might be and sing with Paul and Silas despite being surrounded by trouble. By faith fix your mind on Beulah land where your anticipated joy will be never ending reality.

Hab 3:17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

Hab 3:18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Hab 3:19 The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.

There is a need to understand Critical Race Theory as a Worldview and so a Religion since numerous of our fellow citizens and fellow Christians ahve embraced Critical Race theory as an epistemology that provides the means of knowing what it is we say we know.

Because of this, it is incumbent upon us as epistemologically self-conscious Biblical Christians to understand what is going on with Critical Race theory in order to understand the chief contestant in the West right now to Biblical Christianity.

A second reason it is important for us to have some grasp of Critical Race Theory is that it is coming into the conservative Church elbows over knees. The Southern Baptist Convention – the largest Protestant denomination in America – has sanctioned Critical Race Theory as a tool by which we can understand cultures. Further, Critical Race theory accounts for the growing feminism in the OPC and the growing celibate sodomite movement in the PCA.

Note, that Critical Race theory is a major tool of Cultural Marxism. If we were to speak more broadly we would understand that what we are fighting as a worldview is Cultural Marxism with Critical Race theory as one of its major tools.

I.) Critical Race Theory Epistemology – CRT teaches that all truth is subjective.

CRT provides a poisonous heaping of Nietzschean relativism. This means that language does not correspond to objective reality, but is the mere instrument of power dynamics. This is why CRT folks will talk about “language games.” At this point, CRT is indebted to Jaques Derrida’s philosophical school of deconstructionism. 

By the way …. if all truth is subjective what do we know about the statement “all truth is subjective?”

Christianity, contrary to CRT,  insists that we truth is objective and that God has revealed truth in His Word. There is a transcendent reality to which language points to and coincides with.

II.) Critical Race Theory Anthropology – Gender, Race, and ethnicity are socially constructed

We see this coming into the Church by the numerous clergy who now insist that Race does not exist. This is a statement that no one in the West would have made prior to the rise and influence of Franz Boas. The Church has met the CRT insistence that race is socially constructed by saying that race does not exist.

In terms of Anthropology, Critical Race Theory posits the value of one’s human-ness according to what identity group they belong to.

To the contrary Biblical Christianity posits the value of one’s human-ness in the fact that man is God’s image-bearer regardless of what groups one does and does not belong to.

Also in the way of Anthropology Critical Race theory demands equality for men that is different than the equality that Christianity upholds. Christianity insists that we are all equally God’s image-bearers, all fallen in Adam, and all equal before the demands of God’s law and all equally commanded to repent. Critical race theory denies all that in favor of the concept of equity which we will reference later.

And so we see that in terms of Anthropology we have two different competing religions.

III.) Critical Race Theory Hamartiology

Oppressors against victim races and classes (Oppressed). Sin is found in power and privilege. Christianity to the contrary holds that sin is any transgression of or lack of conformity to God’s Law. Christianity does not teach that sin automatically connects to power or privilege. If Christianity did teach that God would be the chief of all sinners since no one has more and privilege than God.

We should note here that the Cultural Marxist division of people into oppressors vs. oppressed classes is nothing but a mutation of the old Classical Marxist category of the Bourgeoisie (Capitalist class) vs. the Proletariat (worker class) into racial, pervert, and/or feminist categories. In the hamartiology of CRT we see the remaining grin of the disappearing classical Marxist Cheshire cat.

IV.) Critical Race Theory Axiology

The highest value for the CRT crowd is Diversity. Diversity here is NOT diversity of ideas but the diversity of race, ethnicity and sexual identity

The axiology of CRT has moved from equality to equity. The new goal is equity which means the arrival at Equality of Outcome. This is a step beyond the previous goal of Equality of opportunity which was itself a chimera. Equity will be arrived at via the Harrison Beregon treatment.

The axiology of CRT also demands Inclusiveness. Inclusiveness is defined as Identity-based quotas pursued to reach the previously stated goal of equity.  This will mean the continued practice of hiring or placement based not on merit or accomplishment but rather on affirmative action statistics.

The axiology for the Biblical Christian to the contrary of the above is the glory of God as revealed in Scripture. Christians have as their highest goal to live to God’s glory.

V.) Critical race theory doctrine of sinners vs. saints

In Christianity, sinners are those who refuse to look to and trust Jesus Christ as their only relief from the just anger of God. Saints, to the contrary, have trusted Christ and so have peace with God.

For Critical Race theory, all those who have power and privilege are sinners while all those who don’t have power and privilege and so are marginalized are saints.

The list of the saints in Critical Race Theory who don’t have power plus privilege are

Disaffected (Cultural Marxist) minorities
The Sexual Pervert Class
Feminists
Non-Christian Religions

VI.) Rabbit Trail — Intersectionality

This brings us to the slight detour of “Intersectionality.” Intersectionality seeks to measure ones “Oppression Quotient.” One can be more or less oppressed depending on how many of the identity groups they are members of fall under the umbrella oppression.

The degrees to which you are oppressed determines your level of moral authority. The more groups you fall into which are oppressed the more moral authority you have.

So… for example, a Black man definitely oppressed because of his “blackness” but he loses some points because he is a member of the oppressing male class. Therefore an Hispanic female has more moral authority than a black male because she languishes from being in two oppressed class – minoirty and female. However, a Hispanic female who is disabled would have more moral authority than a straight Black female because in not being disabled she is part of the oppressing class. Now add categories like gender and sexuality and you have a host of possible permutations in this Intersectionality. Needless to say that Straight White non-disabled Christians have no moral authority whatsoever.

Of course for Biblical Christians, any moral authority they have corresponds to how much they are standing on God’s Law. The more they stand on God’s Law-Word the more moral authority they have.

Now there is a corollary here. Remember we said in Intersectionality that to the degree one is oppressed determines one’s level of moral authority. The corollary here is that in Intersectionality the more oppressed one is the less moral responsibility they have. So, if one falls into several oppression categories one is given more latitude for their behavior. This explains why BLM could burn America down this past summer with very little consequence while young men like Kyle Rittenhouse are having the book thrown at them. The rioters, because the organization taking credit is so oppressed they do not have the same level of responsibility as a straight white male. Not even close.

VII.) Critical Race Theory – Soteriology (Doctrine of Salvation)

In Critical Race theory, one is saved by political activism that pursues social liberation by the throwing off of the Oppressors. In order to be saved straight, White, Christians, and Christianity must be eliminated in order for social-order salvation to be attained.

In Christianity, one is saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ appropriated by faith and repentance as clothed in Baptism.

VIII.) Critical Race Theory Teleology

The goal or destination of Critical race theory is the egalitarian Kingdom of man. I would insist that the Critical Race theorist, like all non-Christian worldviews is seeking to build a Utopia. Blood always flows where the pursuit of Utopia is taken seriously.

For the Biblical Christian, the goal or destination of man is the Kingdom of God. Biblical Christians are postmillennialists seeking to put feet to the prayer Jesus taught us, “Thy Kingdom come, the will be done on earth as in heaven.”

Further sundry observations;

In critical race theory, the individual no longer exists. One no longer has individuality but simply is considered as a member of a group whether race, gender, or sexual preference. We need to keep in mind here that inasmuch as individuality is lost then people are innocent or guilty of being oppressed or oppressors simply by their belonging to a particular group.

This means if you are a white heterosexual you belong to the oppressing class no matter what and will only be tolerated if you surrender your place to the oppressed class and constantly denounce your people as oppressors and victimizers. According to one New York Principle as following a chart created by a chap named Hesse,

By Barnor Hesse

There is a regime of whiteness, and there are action-oriented white identities. People who identify with whiteness are one of these. It’s about time we build an ethnography of whiteness, since white people have been the ones writing about and governing Others.

1. White Supremacist

Clearly marked white society that preserves, names, and values white superiority

2. White Voyeurism

Wouldn’t challenge a white supremacist; desires non-whiteness because it’s interesting, pleasurable; seeks to

control the consumption and appropriation of non-whiteness; fascination with culture (ex: consuming Black culture without the burden of Blackness)

3. White Privilege

May critique supremacy, but a deep investment in questions of fairness/equality under the normalization of whiteness and the white rule; sworn goal of ‘diversity’

4. White Benefit

   
   Sympathetic to a set of issues but only privately: won’t speak/act in solidarity publicly because benefitting through whiteness in public (some POC are in this category as well)

5. White Confessional

Some exposure of whiteness takes place, but as a way of being accountable to POC after: seek validation from POC

6. White Critical

Take on board critiques of whiteness and invest in exposing/marking the white regime; refuses to be complicit with the regime; whiteness speaking back to whiteness

7. White Traitor

Actively refuses complicity; names what’s going on; intention is to subvert white authority and tell the truth at whatever

cost; need them to dismantle institutions

8. White Abolitionist

Changing institutions, dismantling whiteness, and not allowing whiteness to reassert itself

One way that Critical Race Theory has insinuated itself into the Christian church is by linking how Critical Race theory opposes oppression with how God opposes oppression.

A few thoughts on that….

1.) God does not oppose oppression of the oppressed who are in rebellion to Christ. Indeed the Heidelberg Catechism teaches speaking of those outside of Christ,

God is terribly displeased with our inborn as well as our actual sins, and will punish them in just judgment in time and eternity

So, we see here that the Wokies make a category mistake when they say that God opposes oppression. God only opposes the oppression of His people. God is punishing the oppressed for their sins in rebelling against Christ.

2.) It is true that both Critical Race Theory and God oppose oppression. It is also true that the word oppression as existing in a Critical Race Theory Worldview (paradigm) has a different meaning than the word oppression in a Christian Worldview.

For the Critical Race Theorist oppression is defined as “any people who have been subjected to Biblical Christianity or subjected to those influenced by Biblical Christian categories.” For the Biblical Christian oppression is defined as God’s people being ruled by injustice as defined by God’s Law Word.

As you can see that is two completely different classes of people and so while we have linguistic agreement with the Critical Race theorist that Christianity and Critical theory both oppose oppression we have zero substantive agreement with the Critical Race theorist at this point.

CRT has invoked whole new categories of thought.

A.) Systemic Racism

This is the idea that a whole social order is geared to favor straight white Christians even if not a single white Christian were themselves “racist.” Because of Systemic Racism the whole fabric of Western social order must be dismantled.

B.) White Privilege

This is the idea that merely on the basis of being white all white people are privileged. No distinctions are made between the white children of Appalachia coal miners and the born-to-the-manor children of Barack Obama or Colin Powell. The children of Indiana red clay dirt farmers have the special blessing of white privilege whereas the children of Ilhan Omar or Rashid Talib remain forever behind the eight ball.

C.) White fragility

White fragility is the label given any protest from white people at how utterly jejune and torpid this whole system is. Critical Race theory is by definition unfalsifiable because any argument against it is easily dismissed by invoking Critical Race Theory and so labeling all objections to Critical Race Theory as “just so many expressions of ‘white fragility.'”

This appeal to “white fragility” proves that CRT is a closed system that is impervious to any criticism coming from outside CRT.

The CRT Wokies have implemented programs that find public schools forcing first-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then ranking themselves according to their “power and privilege”? On the other end of the spectrum, universities (Rutgers) influence by CRT Wokies is now reducing the expectations for the Queen’s English because of the racist bias found in the demand to use exacting English.

The Rutgers English Department’s new approach to grammar is racism at its most dangerous. | Rooney

The Wokies have supported a curriculum that teaches that “all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism.” The Wokies have supported telling white teachers that they are guilty of “spirit murdering” black children? The Wokies have supported telling white parents that they must become “white traitors” and advocate for “white abolition”? The Wokies are now implementing in Oregon ethnomathematics in order to curb the problem that “Math is racist.” The Smithsonian Museum put on a full display of the evils of whiteness until it was pressured to remove it.  These are all real-world examples unearthed by media reports over the past several months, all of which the left-wing critics have deliberately ignored in their rebuttals.