The Favored and the Disfavored

Why is there evil in the world? From a Christian perspective, the answer begins with sin, a transgression against the law of God. Sin alienates the sinner from God and requires redemption in Christ.

As a consequence of Adam and Eve sinning by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, evil has always plagued mankind. Christ offers redemption from sin, and evil is a reality we will continue to face daily in our earthly lives.

But according to Dr. David Azerrad in our online course on “Civil Rights in American History,” the ideology of today’s elite gives a far simpler explanation to the question of why there is evil in the world: “Identity politics provides a clear and unambiguous answer: because of straight white men.” 

In the traditional Christian understanding of original sin, there’s an inherent equality. “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” We are all at once guilty of sin, and we are all called to reject sin and turn to a life in Christ. 

But identity politics—which privileges and elevates certain identity groups based on race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender—redefines sin:

Today in America, there really is only one unforgivable sin, and that is to deviate from the accepted script when speaking of protected identity groups.

And further,

Identity politics takes and modifies the Christian teaching on sin, which now no longer applies to everyone, but only to the oppressor groups. But here’s the more important modification: it offers no hope of salvation or redemption from sin.

The result is radical inequality. Oppressed identity groups are elevated above all others as sinless. In their view, members of oppressor groups ought to be discriminated against because they are sinful by nature of their identity. A far cry from the Founders’ commitment to equal rights under equal laws, identity politics divides Americans into favored and disfavored groups under the guise of trying to fix the problems of inequality.