Broken People Leading a Broken Conference: The Results

My husband and I enjoy watching the television show “Numb3rs” on Friday nights. It is a detective show but includes among its characters several math professors who help solve problems. Often right in the middle of a scene they stop the action and use all kinds of diagrams to explain how they can obtain information to help solve a crime. Thinking that direction I want to stop the presses and explain at least three concepts before writing about a secular conference entitled “The 9th Annual White Privilege Conference (WPC9).”

(1)Abusive Social Groups: The first has to do with abusive social groups, some religious and some not. Throughout the sixties into the seventies various Christian ministries and even some secular groups participated in what was called “cult ministry” or sometimes for the secular groups “cult watch.” In one very secular anthropology class I took in college we studied “cults,” including, as a prototype, the rise of Nazism in Germany.

Definitions and ministries move on and with some wisdom I think. Secular groups rarely use the term cult and Christian ministries refer to “New Religions” alongside World Religions. However, one Christian sociologist who writes about Christian churches on the fringe, those who manipulate and attempt to control their members, refers to them as “churches that abuse.” On the other hand there are groups which are not religious in the classical sense of that word yet they operate as a tight social group and are also abusive.

(2)Pluralism & Christianity: There is a huge debate going on in both the Church and secular society about pluralism and Christianity. Most people who are non-religious and living in our pluralistic society cannot comprehend why Christians should insist on saying that Jesus Christ is the only way to know God or the Divine.

Seeking to be tolerant in society seems to mean being intolerant of Christianity. Or to put it another way, if one wants to appear tolerant in post-modern Western society it seems important to insist that an exclusive Christianity is intolerant.

(3)Racial Ethnic Relationships: Since the latter half of the civil rights movement, among Christians, other faiths and even secular movements, a split has occurred concerning the way various groups and people look at race relations. The split has even occurred within the African American community.

On the outer fringe of both white and black society are those who insist on separatism, each race looking at the other with disparaging thoughts, words and actions; albeit, African Americans with somewhat more reason and integrity.

Still, the center, those who seek integration, while at the same time respecting the other’s culture, is certainly the biblical viewpoint.

But, as racial and religious ideas move on in this society new words and different definitions of old words are developing. The new terms and definitions enter into our debates and lead to conversations where we are all talking past each other without understanding what the other person is actually saying. Thus even the name “white privilege,” as the conference I am writing about is called, may mean different things to different people.

The 9th Annual White Privilege Conference:
This year’s conference is titled “Critical Liberation Praxis: Creating Transformation for Social Justice.” Although held in Springfield, Massachusetts it is linked to a site at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and is sponsored by the UCCS Matrix Center. Several Church and academic groups are recommending this conference. A promotional piece at the Massachusetts’ Bay District of Unitarian Universalist Churches calls the conference the "White Privilege, White Supremacy and Oppression: Critical Liberation Praxis."

The Conference, about racism, seems truly important. It is a subject we all need more information on and more help dealing with or overcoming. But there are also many problems with both the workshops and some of the groups in this conference.

An abusive social group: First, is the intrusion into this conference of people who are involved in Re-evaluation Counseling, sometimes going by the name "United to End Racism," an organization which promotes a kind of counseling that is not validated by psychiatric organizations. At least five workshops are run by those involved in “Re-evaluation Counseling.”(1)

The founder of Re-evaluation Counseling, Harvey Jackins, was interested in collectivism and saw all societies as oppressive.(2) (See their article on Human Societies.) He was also at one time deeply involved in Scientology (3) before beginning his own counseling organization. (See the article on Distress/Hurts.)

Some of Jackins’ methods and concepts uncannily follow his earlier interests. For instance, members of his organization generally belong to communities which are in some ways controlled by his therapeutic ideas. At the same time mental health organizations are seen as oppressive. And his view of what causes problems in people as well as society has to do with past hurts (“distresses”) and experiences seen as real entities lodged in the brain which need to be “discharged” through one on one counseling. In their documents they write:

"Very early in life the first time, and repeatedly after that, we meet experiences of distress. When we meet one-whether the distress is physical (pain, illness, unconsciousness, anaesthesia, (sic) sedation, acute discomfort, etc.) or whether it is emotional distress (loss, fright, frustration, ridicule, boredom, etc.)-a particular effect takes place.

While hurting, physically or emotionally, our flexible human intelligence stops functioning.

The ability that is the essence of our humanness, our ability to see things as they are exactly and to contrive new exact responses to all new situations, is slowed down or becomes inoperative.

This is a simple, profound and important statement. It is a long-unfaced key to much that has been confusing about a human being's activities. You will find that it sheds light into many dark puzzles about ourselves." (Italics the authors)

The Re-evaluation text goes on to explain that information that comes into the brain at this time clogs up a part of the brain and effects humans in all kinds of ways including their intelligence and the way they treat other people.

Other aspects of this organization are very troubling including allegations of improper sexual relations with young people by the founder, Jackins.4

White Privilege, Christianity & Pluralism: Under the new term “white privilege,” several subjects are included. Sexual orientation and Christianity are two of them. That is, considering Christianity the true faith and homosexual acts sinful is thought to be arrogant and therefore a part of white privilege. For instance, in the multitude of workshops are two which cover Christianity. One entitled “The Everyday Impact of Christian Hegemony,” and led by Paul Kival, is described this way:

"This interactive workshop facilitates an examination and discussion of Christian Hegemony, the institutionalized system of Christian dominance in U.S. society which interconnects with sexism, racism, heterosexism, able-bodism, and anti-Arab and anti-Jewish oppression. . . . . The premise of this workshop is that one cannot accurately understand racism, sexism or other systems of oppression without coming to grips with the ways seventeen hundred years of Christian hegemony undergirds, shapes, supports, and obfuscates how power and violence really work in our society."

The other workshop is entitled, “Religious Pluralism and Christian Privilege,” and led by Jamie Washington. It is described this way:

"… Since 9/11/01, the issues of religious diversity and pluralism have been on our screen. However, seldom do we engage issues of religious diversity through the same lens we do other issues. Christian privilege is one of those taboo topics on most campuses. This session will create a space for us to begin to examine the dynamics of spiritual and religious diversity in the context of Christian privilege."

Racism and the Redefinition of Words: Aside from these troubling jabs at Christianity are disturbing political and social ideas. One of the most disturbing is a new use of the term “white supremacy.” Most people think of skinheads or the fringe “Identity” groups or even David Duke and the KKK when someone uses the term white supremacy, but now if you are white and disagree with some of the more radical political and social ideas of these presentations you are ranked with the above named fringe groups.

And in fact, like some other movements in our postmodern society, new word definitions have been totally absorbed into their ideology. For instance at this conference and other such ventures, race is not defined by skin pigment but along political and religious lines. Black is equated with inclusiveness, socialism (good), and community. White is equated with homophobia, exclusivism, capitalism (bad), patriarchy and individualism.

The 9th Annual White Privilege Conference and its workshops are a hodgepodge of well meaning and misguided efforts to produce a model society. The kind of movements, which create such conferences generally end up on the heap of all past movements attempting to create a Utopian society. Hopefully they won’t create disasters before they finish spinning out the details.

In the midst of so much confusion, mis-understanding and even hatefulness the Church can only stand beneath the cross.



1 See http://www.rc.org/theory/index.html.
2 See http://www.rc.org/theory/index.html.
3 See http://www.rc.org/theory/index.html, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-evaluation_Counseling.
4 There are many places on the web which focus on the troubling aspects of Re-evaluation Counseling. A helpful one is Re-evaluation Counseling Resources Site.