Tim Keller Vs. Thomas Sowell - RAP BATTLE! (Sort of)

Responding to Tim Keller on Racism and Gangsta Rap

This is the second piece of the Tim Keller speech about racism from 2012 that I wanted to respond to. Like I said in the first thing, this is not a personal attack against Tim Keller or anybody who knows him.

I like the man. In fact, he was integral to my conversion to Christianity, and so I have lots of respect and lots of love for this man. This is a criticism of his ideas, very different than criticizing the man himself.

And so I think Tim Keller is trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, on this topic, I think he's hurting people. I think he's misdiagnosing the problems, and when you misdiagnose the problems, it's very dangerous because your potential solutions could actually end up hurting the very people that you think you're helping.

And so I want to go right to it. I'm going to play the section. I think it's a very short section this time. I want to respond to it. And again, let me just make sure this is clear. Tim Keller is definitely not a Marxist.

The gospel changes your identity so that you are less sucked in to the social system around us, which tends to be racist.

Michelle... Remember, he's talking about systemic racism, and he's saying that the culture, the non-Christian culture tends to be racist, and when you're a Christian, when you get the gospel applied to your soul and to your heart, then you have a different identity.

It's not as easy to get you into that culture of racism.

Gangsta Rap, Identity, and the Blame for Black Subculture

Alexander in her book, The New Jim Crow, points out that gangsta rap culture... This is her view, and she's a sociologist and all that. She's not a psychologist, but I think she's right here. Gangsta rap culture is a way for stigmatized people desperately trying to do something about their low self-image, and they are embracing the identity given to them by the society as criminals.

So they embrace beating up women and violence and are proud of it. And it's a desperate way for people to say, okay, you're going to treat me as a criminal? I'm going to revel in being a criminal. But of course, all it does is it digs them in deeper.

They got to have an identity that even if they do go to prison, keeps them from being sucked into what the culture is telling them about themselves. On the other hand, Bill Stuntz...

Let's pause it right there. What Jim Keller is doing here is saying that gangsta rap and sort of the problems in the black subculture associated with gangsta rap, you know, songs and lifestyles that talk about bitches and hoes and things like that, that is the fault essentially of the white man.

The white man's opinions of black people were so low that basically they just decided, well, we're going to make this a positive. You know, you think that I abuse women? Well, I'm going to abuse women and I'm going to show you.

And to be perfectly honest, I'm not a sociologist. I'm not a psychologist. I don't really know the science behind that. Neither is Tim Keller. He admitted that there. But this is a very weird way to think about things.

All of those problems, that's the white man's fault. What about the agency of black people? Don't black people have the ability? Don't they have the Imago Dei? I mean, again, this is the kind of thing that it's just an unintentionally racist view.

Like basically blacks and Latinos, we're basically at the whims of the white people. And so if the white people have positive opinions of us, then we can have positive results. But if they have negative opinions on us, we're such snowflakes that we can't dig ourselves out of that.

We can't get over that. Instead, we're going to embrace our criminal mindset. That's unintentionally very racist, in my opinion. And I'm going to play you another clip from a black economist who, if you don't know, you need to know.

His name is Thomas Sowell. And I know a lot of Christian social justice warriors read Thomas Sowell. I don't think they have actually responses to him because I've never seen them. So maybe they do, and they're just keeping it under a bushel for some reason.

But I want you to contrast what this white man has said. This very social justice warrior, kind of virtue signaling type of a person, at least in this issue. That's not his personality in general, but in this issue, that's what he's doing here.

And so I want you to contrast this with what this man says about gangster rap.

Thomas Sowell on Black Subculture and IQ Differences

Those children growing up in Germany showed no IQ differences at all. The black kids and the white kids, the same quote, quoting intellectuals and race. Professor Flynn concluded that the reason was that the offspring of black soldiers in Germany and now you're quoting Professor Flynn, grew up in a nation with no black subculture.

Close quote. Which means what? Which means they experienced exactly the same expectations. Is this the thing? No, no, no.

The expectations are external. The culture in which they grew up with was not this culture in which black kids grew up in America today. So there's no gangster rap. There was pervasively available in Germany.

So here's what I'm getting. There is something about black subculture in America today that holds African-Americans themselves back.

Yes. In fact, I went into this in a previous book about black rednecks and white liberals, because that same subculture. Well, let's talk about two of your books. Because that very same subculture held whites in the South back as well.

That in the time of this mental testing in the First World War turned up, among other things, the fact that whites from various four or five southern states scored lower on the mental test than blacks from four or five northern states.

And so it really was a question of the subculture that was there, which was a handicap to both.

The Church's Job Is to Confront Sinful Culture Biblically

All right. And so whose job is it to say wrong subculture, folks? You're harming yourselves.

Well, I would think in an ideal world that intellectuals might take on that task. But the world we live in, I've noticed is not not ideal. All right.

I can answer that question for Thomas Sowell. It's not the intellectuals job. It's the church's job. It's the it's the preacher's job to point to Jesus Christ and say there is a distinctly Christian culture and it has nothing to do with your skin color, has nothing to do with all of your this ethnicity stuff.

No, no. There's a Christian culture that's distinct from any other culture in the world. And it has the the commandments, the morality, the ethics that you need in order to be successful and a successful person.

I don't mean financially successful, although that is a part of it. If you apply the biblical ethics in your finances, you'll do better than if you don't in general. Now, here's the thing about this. Why aren't we doing it?

Why is a major pastor a huge influence in my life? This guy knows the gospel. Tim Keller knows the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why is he blaming problems of one size society and culture on the white man? Why is he doing that?

Why is he unable to identify these things? I'm not sure the answer to that. I don't know why and I don't want to speculate why, but for some reason, this is a blind spot for Pastor Tim Keller and for so many people that I respect.

We need to make sure that we're defining these ideas of justice and love and economics biblically, not according to what sounds good, not according to what makes us sound very loving and compassionate.

It's very tempting to want to sound loving and compassionate and to do it in such a way that the world accepts. Very different to say something that's actually true and actually loving to the black communities that they might not like you for.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless.