Month: May 2022

Book Plunge: Hate Crime Hoax

What do I think of Wilfred Reilly’s book published by Blackstone Publishing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I read a number of political books and normally, I don’t review them, but this one is an exception. I listened to it on Audible and decided the material was too important to not share. The author, Reilly, is himself a person of color, as he says, and yet wants to share this to show how in his mind the left is selling a fake race war based on hate crime hoaxes.

Now if you consider yourself someone on the left, please don’t shut down at this point or just close this blog page. Hear me out. If anything, the information in the book should strike you as good news.

By the way, before going further, I also want to say that there hate crime hoaxes done by conservatives and done by white conservatives especially that Reilly talks about. While a majority are on the other side, my own conservative party is not without its hoaxers.

Many of us know about such hoaxes when we think about the Jussie Smollett case, which happened just a month before the book was published so you won’t see it in here. We saw the outrage when Jussie said he was attacked and then before too long, everything changed. It became clear pretty quickly that no such attack had ever happened.

Unfortunately, too many hoaxes do not have the same response. The usual pattern is some “hate crime hoax” happens and then there is outrage and everyone gets up and does some virtue signaling and then, something happens and it’s found to be a hoax and people say “Well there’s still an issue here that needs to be dealt with” and any retraction is put offhandedly in a tiny paragraph on page 26 of the New York Times.

However, the good news is that so many of these crimes are hoaxes. Sadly, many times, anti-black crimes are committed by someone who is black and anti-gay crimes committed by someone who is gay and on and on. Some sad cases even end in real deaths and real injuries. The burning down of a gay club was actually done by the owner. A black church has been burnt down by a black member who made it look like a hate crime. One black minister even staged a hate crime at his home where he was going to go to bed and die in a blaze he had started. If his oldest son hadn’t been woken up by the sound and reacted, everyone would have died.

The story is told of two black children who encountered white men with shoe polish who told them “You’ll be white today” putting it on them. Fortunately, this never happened. Unfortunately, there was at least one white man who was beat up by three black men in response to this crime.

While these may be done to draw attention supposedly to racism, if anything, they make racism more and more of a problem. Each of these hoaxes gets people to take sides more and more. This is one reason I do not take accusations of racism very seriously anymore. I need to see highly convincing evidence.

I also don’t think it helps to take people who disagree and tell them that they are phobic of whatever it is that they disagree with. Throwing out terms like sexist and racist and bigot do not help understand a position and if you assume the motive at the start is something like racism in your opponent, then you won’t listen a bit. This is not to say that there are no racists out there among us, but we need to be very careful with the term.

One story I remember hearing about when it first happened was the pastor of a gay church who asked to get a Love Wins cake from the Whole Foods store. He claimed that there was an anti-homosexual slur that was written on the cake. Whole Foods faced a backlash and the baker of the cake got fired. I do not know if they got their job back or not, but I do know that it was found to be a hoax thanks to security footage.

One step that needs to be done to stop these is to have much harsher penalties for hoaxers. If someone commits a hate crime hoax on a campus, don’t celebrate it by having an event to raise awareness or building a building. Instead, expel the offender immediately and cancel any events or plans that were going to be set in motion by the hoax. Giving attention and fame to one hoaxer just empowers the next one.

Why should this be good news if you are on the left? If most of these hate crimes are hoaxes, then that means society is not as bad in this area as you think it is. In an economic way of putting it, the supply does not match the demand. Any time we deal with fake racism, we are kept from dealing with real racism. It should be kept in mind that crimes the police and FBI investigate that are hoaxes are also drainers of time they could be spending on real crimes.

I urge everyone out there to go and read this. Really consider what is being said and be careful the next time you hear of a hate crime. Don’t go and get your pitchforks ready to deal with the other side and don’t immediately start concluding that society is completely hopeless on this issue. Wait and see. Odds are, it will likely be a hoax.

Not the best news of all if it is, but still far better than the alternative.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

On Tracts And Evangelism

What do I think when I see tracts? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

On my Facebook over the weekend, i shared about what it’s like when I see tracts that people leave behind or I am given. I do appreciate that people want to do evangelism, but honestly, when I get one I keep thinking “I would have preferred you just talk to me.” I also go through and look and see just how bad some of them are with their presentation.

One big problem I have with tracts is “It’s all about me.” The goal of Christianity in so many tracts is “Here’s how you can go to Heaven.” When our predecessors in the first century were doing evangelism, they weren’t talking about how you can go to Heaven. Go through the epistles of Paul and you will rarely find mention of Heaven and Hell. Paul is doing evangelism, but his focus is also on how we are living right now and the Kingdom right now.  When he looks to the future, he talks instead about resurrection.

That’s interesting considering I found a tract yesterday that said Jesus rose from the dead proving that there is life after death. Unfortunately, while it was emphasized Jesus was raised, there was nothing about our resurrection. The point of Christianity is not that there is life after death as even some pagans could accept that. The point is resurrection in that death itself will be undone and God will be King over all the Earth.

I get that some people do come to salvation through this method, and that’s wonderful. I wonder how many though are turned off of salvation? There are two that I think are quite good at this. The first is chick tracts, which I always remove as soon as I can. The second is those tracts that look like a $20 bill. I’m sure nothing will get people excited about Jesus more than thinking they had money to finding out they got tricked.

I also shared about one tract that had a list of problems like anxiety and depression and Bible verses to read if you felt this. I’m not saying the Bible is not helpful for these problems, but at the same time, it is treating the Bible like a medicine cabinet. When I was anxious and depressed in the worst part of my divorce, I would have been insulted if I had been told “Just read this Bible verse.” There are some times that just reading a verse will not deal with a deep issue, but a good Christian therapist can help immensely.

Not only that, but often it’s not just reading, but really understanding. That can require serious meditation and study of a verse or passage. Go with a superficial reading and you will get a superficial result.

Besides that, there are many people who are not primarily emotionally wired. For many of us, the goal of getting us to feel something just will not do it and too often, it can be damaging to say that this is what you should feel in response to something.

I also remember ringing up two separate customers who stayed together and one guy was doing evangelism and spent more time defending his church than talking about Jesus. Meanwhile, I was standing there and wondering “Either of you two want to say something to me?” Naturally, no one did.

So what can you do? Learn something about your faith and really talk to people. Instead of just a tract, go out and invest and get a good book. I know many people who have been helped by a copy of The Case for Christ being given to them or left behind by someone.

Also, everyone should be doing evangelism. There are many different forms of it. I am one who is not going to go up to someone who is a total stranger and evangelize them, but I can excel greatly doing something behind a keyboard, which is okay. After all, if we want to know what Paul thought, what do we do most but go to his letters? We have some statements in Acts, but the bulk is in the epistles. It would be fascinating to see how many videos, blogs, and podcasts Paul would do if he was here today.

Doing evangelism more personally today might require we, brace yourself, actually equip our churches to have people understand their faith. I’m not saying everyone should be a skilled apologist, but everyone should have a basic apologetic at least beyond just their testimony. Everyone should have some basic understanding to some basic questions. Everyone is an apologist for their worldview whether they like it or not. It’s just a question of if you will be a good one or a bad one.

That also means discipleship has to be a priority. I personally wince every time I hear it treated as if the goal of Christianity is to get people to go to Heaven. This is not because of opposition to Heaven, but because the focus is really on Jesus and resurrection and the kingdom of God.

I have said that this depends on the church, but not just our leaders. There are many people out there that are studying beyond what their churches are teaching them because it matters to them. Many people complain about the weather but never do anything about it, and many people talk about evangelism and never do it.

Do it and do it well.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)