\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hen and why I first started reading author and journalist Fredrik deBoer is beyond me. I wouldn\u2019t have run into him in my usual ideological haunts: He\u2019s an atheist; I\u2019m a Christian. He\u2019s\u2014per his own description\u2014a cradle Communist and a thoroughgoing leftist; I\u2019m a political libertarian and temperamental conservative<\/a>. We overlap on some policy and social critique, and I\u2019ve found him thought-provoking on topics including preserving humanity in our digital age<\/a>, the \u201ctyranny of affirmation<\/a>,\u201d AI<\/a>, and even Christian faith<\/a>. But the gap between us remains wide.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unsurprising, then, that deBoer\u2019s second book, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement<\/em><\/a>, was not written for a reader like me. Still, I found it useful on two levels. One is deBoer\u2019s extension of his longstanding critique of his own political side, which offers insights that right-wing attacks tend to miss. The other is his assessment of what makes for a healthy and effective ideological movement. Though deBoer is interested in honing and advancing the cause of contemporary leftism, his analysis struck me over and over as applicable to a very different movement: American evangelicalism.<\/p>\n The book starts with 2020, which DeBoer calls \u201ca remarkable year\u201d marked by \u201cthe spirit of possibility\u201d for radical political change, even if it produced fairly few lasting policy shifts. \u201cThe term \u2018reckoning\u2019 was invoked again and again, and yet we don\u2019t seem to have reckoned with any of our problems in any meaningful way,\u201d deBoer argues. \u201cWhat happened? This book is an attempt to answer that question.\u201d<\/p>\n To that end, deBoer takes readers through elite dominance of the Black Lives Matter movement; the short-lived, digitally constrained \u201cmeme politics\u201d of #MeToo; and an often-scathing examination of contemporary liberals, particularly of the white, well-educated variety given to virtue-signaling online.<\/p>\n He\u2019s concerned with tactical questions too: What do mass protests accomplish? Does rioting produce positive change? Are activists pursuing material progress for the poor and oppressed or merely policing fellow college grads\u2019 language and manners? What are the downsides of domesticating activism via \u201cthe nonprofit industrial complex\u201d? And what movement dynamics and messaging\u2014especially around class and identity policies\u2014will build the most powerful version of the progressive Left?<\/p>\n Though his political ideals are as lofty as they come, deBoer is stubbornly practical in this strategic realm. \u201cWe have to accept the frustrations and insufficient pace of doing things the old-fashioned way,\u201d he urges. \u201cThat will mean, unfortunately, going slowly when justice demands speed, accepting less than what we want when what we want is reasonable and right, working with people we would prefer to avoid, and accepting that being right and doing good are very different things.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s rare for me to prefer the blog version of an author to the book version\u2014most writers do better work with more time and more editing. But here I\u2019ll make an exception. Book deBoer gives glimpses of the angry, sparkling prose he produces at his best online, but the overall effect is that of a man just slightly uncomfortable in a little-worn suit.<\/p>\n Still, the book\u2019s writing is cogent, and deBoer is willing to \u201ccall nonsense nonsense\u201d in a way many of his peers on the Left are not. And though not without his ideological and contextual blind spots\u2014for instance, his Brooklyn memories of COVID norms are not what a Texan\u2019s would be, and it\u2019s not evident how much he realizes this\u2014deBoer is admirably clear-eyed about political and social realities, including the failings of his allies. The Left is right, in his view, but that does not mean it is doing good.<\/p>\n The core critique deBoer levels is that the modern Left is no longer a worker\u2019s movement that materially improves the average American\u2019s lot in life. Instead, it is disproportionately steered by college-educated elites who inexorably \u201cdrift from the material and the concrete to the immaterial and symbolic.\u201d They are eager to denounce all the Deplorables and their Bad Ideas, eager to display \u201ca benevolent, quietly condescending love for minority identities,\u201d and much less eager to get on with the mundane work of tangible political change.<\/p>\n To put it in different terms he wouldn\u2019t use, deBoer\u2019s charge is that his movement is helmed by people who love to pray \u201con the street corners to be seen by others\u201d (Matt. 6:5), people who \u201cstrain out a gnat but swallow a camel\u201d (Matt. 23:24).<\/p>\n \u201cWe have gone from marches on Washington to demand jobs and demonstrations to support striking Black garbage workers to millions of decent white liberals clutching \u2018anti-racist\u2019 books on the subway, reading about why they\u2019re wicked and should feel bad, ensuring that their next interaction with a Black coworker will be strained and awkward,\u201d he seethes. \u201cMeanwhile, in cold apartments lined with lead paint, hungry Black children hide from the violence that grips their neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n It makes sense, deBoer grants, that a movement under the sway of the laptop class would be so fixated on language choices, interpersonal relations, and mental hygiene to the neglect of pragmatic action. The elites who ate the social justice movement focus on words because many of them\u2014journalists, professors, and so on\u2014work with words.<\/p>\n And after growing up in a \u201cculture where old Protestant values of self-denial and restraint have been replaced by identitarian values of overt support for \u2018the Other,\u2019 today\u2019s progressives embrace a different kind of value-laden signaling. They\u2019re still religious; they\u2019re simply studying a different catechism.\u201d Though deBoer is not the first to make this connection<\/a> between woke activism and the Protestant tradition, the observation lands differently coming from a Marxist.<\/p>\n What about those of us still studying the old catechism? As I mentioned, deBoer himself is an atheist\u2014though I do think of him as something of a virtuous pagan<\/a>, to echo the recognition of<\/a> the early Christian apologist Justin Martyr that we may find deep, if partial, resonance with ideas from people outside our faith. (That is, incidentally, part of my interest in reviewing more secular books for CT. This review will hopefully be the first of many.)<\/p>\n So, of course, deBoer is not writing for Christians, let alone evangelicals. He is wholly materialist in his focus and has no spiritual ends in view. He describes having outgrown utopian fervor and apocalyptic expectations. And yet his ultimate political goals are so sweeping they take on a religious tone.<\/p>\n Ours is a \u201cfallen world,\u201d deBoer believes, but \u201ca better world, a far better world, is possible,\u201d a \u201cworld without poverty; without racism; without sexism; without rule by an autocratic elite; without domination by the wealthy; without environmental devastation; without vast socioeconomic inequality; without hunger or lack of shelter for the poor; without war.\u201d<\/p>\n Without \u201cdeath or mourning or crying or pain,\u201d I want to add, \u201cfor the old order of things has passed away\u201d (Rev. 21:4). Indeed, the concluding chapters\u2019 talk of class solidarity sounds like how Christians talk about unity in the church\u2014a higher purpose bringing us together across demographic divisions (Eph. 2:11\u201322)\u2014and deBoer ends with what amounts to a call to ordinary faithfulness, albeit in a faithless form.<\/p>\n These similarities make deBoer\u2019s scrutiny of his movement fascinating to transpose to ours. For example, he considers who participates in public discourse on the Left and finds the conversation dominated by \u201cthe most well-connected, educated, and rich in cultural capital \u2026 people who face the least material depravation.\u201d This creates a gross mismatch between what prominent movement figures talk about and what\u2019s actually needful for the people they ostensibly champion. Is the same mismatch present among evangelicals?<\/p>\n This gap is particularly acute where the white working class is concerned, deBoer contends, and \u201cleft-leaning disdain for uneducated white workers and voters results in leftist cultural and communicative practices that seem tailor-made to reject the support of that large bloc.\u201d There\u2019s a diploma divide<\/a> in religion as much as politics\u2014on church attendance and similar measures, polling shows more<\/a> educated evangelicals are more religiously engaged. Is that partly because we\u2019re speaking ill of siblings in the faith?<\/p>\n Questions of institutional leadership, structure, and accountability are also in deBoer\u2019s sights. Idealistic activists may eschew a clear hierarchy out of concern over abuse of power. But \u201cperversely,\u201d deBoer warns, \u201cthe superficial denial of leadership can make power dynamics in a given group more unhealthy\u201d by leaving the group without a clear path to remove de facto<\/em> leaders acting against the group\u2019s best interest.<\/p>\n Most churches have a formal leadership structure, but evangelicalism as a movement does not. There\u2019s no evangelical pope. There\u2019s no authority over Christians\u2019 public commentary online, as CT contributor Tish Harrison Warren observed in 2017<\/a>. What do we do when power in the movement amasses to people who don\u2019t wield it well? How do you oust someone with no official role but enormous practical influence?<\/p>\n On church life, deBoer\u2019s analysis is relevant too. He argues that the #MeToo movement was always limited in its potential \u201cbecause #MeToo has always been, before and above everything else, a meme.\u201d It generated a rush of online enthusiasm, but \u201cthere is no such thing as an online social movement. Political projects that extend no further than a web browser will always be subject to faddishness and burnout.\u201d The internet is useful in many ways, but not every way, and you need real-life, offline commitment and community to sustain tangible change. This is a lesson that politicos are learning the hard way. Will we forget it at church?<\/p>\n Finally, deBoer is adamant that his movement must humble itself (Rom. 12:3), stop showing favoritism (James 2:1), and offer grace (Gal. 5:15). He doesn\u2019t use those words or cite those verses, of course, but it\u2019s the thrust of his critique of a movement culture that blithely claims a monopoly on moral clarity, favors academic language \u201cincomprehensible to ordinary Americans,\u201d and encourages self-censorship by threatening \u201cthe wrath of the crowd.\u201d The source of the admonition may be unexpected, but it\u2019s an admonition worth hearing.<\/p>\n Bonnie Kristian is the editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today<\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/div>\nThe spirit of 2020<\/h5>\n
From the concrete to the symbolic<\/h5>\n
Higher purposes<\/h5>\n