As if we needed more proof that indeed nothing is sacred these days, Newsweek reported that The Salvation Army (SA) is “incorporating Critical Race Theory (CRT)” and using an “anti-racist lens” throughout its organization in order to “analyze and combat racism.” That’s right, the 156-year-old Christian charity known worldwide for its Holiday Red Kettle campaign has gone “woke.”
Recently, the SA launched The International Social Justice Commission to serve as “The Salvation Army’s strategic voice to advocate for human dignity and social justice with the world’s poor and oppressed.” So, what exactly does that mean? That means that even the simple traditional act of charitable holiday giving has been appropriated by the social justice leftists as an opportunity to club white people over the head with racial wokeness.
According to another report, the Commission is “part of a push by the Christian charitable organization to embrace the ideas of Black Lives Matter, an activist group working to, among other things, ‘dismantle white privilege’ and ‘disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.'”
Most concerning is the SA’s Let’s Talk About Racism “resource” that was “developed to guide The Salvation Army family in gracious discussions about overcoming the damage racism has inflicted upon our world.” Included in the resource are social justice “definitions of institutional and systemic racism.” Actual differences in life outcomes or “inequities” are attributed to racism and discrimination “not to individual effort and other circumstances.” Other topics covered in this resource are “police brutality, health care, and black unemployment,” which are linked to so-called “racial inequity.” In other words, the SA has adopted the leftist CRT racial social justice agenda, which holds that all white people are racists whether they admit it or not and all people of color (POCs) are victims of the racism of whites.
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Another SA “resource” within the Commission is a “Study Guide on Racism” which says “the subtle nature of racism is such that people who are not consciously racist easily function with the privileges, empowerment, and benefits of the dominant ethnicity, thus unintentionally perpetuating injustice.” SA see racism as being so entrenched in society’s institutions and culture “that people can unintentionally and unwittingly perpetuate racial division.” For example, “a well-intentioned Sunday school curriculum that only uses white photography and imagery” is clearly racist, “systemic, and cruel.”
It’s ironic then that The Salvation Army Mission Statement is still:
The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God.
Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.
Where in the Bible does it say we should fight racism by turning racist hate against white people in some kind of cosmic quest for justice? It seems to me that the meaning of meeting human needs “without discrimination” has been twisted by the woke social-justice warriors forcing all white people “to assess their present circumstances and work towards just and equal communities” as the leftist think they should be and if that means discriminating against white people, so be it. How is any of that preaching or following the gospel?
On Saturday, Fox News reported the Salvation Army tried to distance itself from the Commission in a statement:
“The Salvation Army is not asking donors to apologize for their skin color, and we do not endorse any philosophy or ideology. Such claims are simply false and injure our ability to fulfill our mission, which is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.”
It’s interesting that SA is now trying to distance itself from the Commission, however, on the Commission’s website it clearly states: “We are part of The Salvation Army’s International Headquarters and our office is based in New York City.” That seems like an endorsement of the Commission’s mission to me.
We should all remember this and stay aware of the agendas of the organizations we give our money to not just during the holidays, but every day as well. Even the oldest most established organizations may now be corrupted by the woke leftist agenda and we may end up supporting the very agendas we fight against every day. One way to ensure the fight continues is to become a member by subscribing to PJM VIP and using the promo code CM30 for 30% off today only.
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