God is not Henry Ford
by Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack, A Grain of Sand:
Progressive Christians, intent on enforcing equality in the church, instead sow division. In their desire for absolute equality they remake God as a cosmic Henry Ford who famously told his customers that they could have any colour of Model T ‘as long as it’s black’. But God does not go in for mass production: He is a craftsman and each one of us is unique.
Injustice based on skin colour, sex, age or any of the other discriminations common in our day should be opposed, especially when it appears in the church. But Christians should also be clear on the grounds on which they oppose injustice.
Subordinating Theology
In attempting to undo what they see as injustice, progressive Christians abandon theology and adopt secular woke hermeneutics, particularly Critical Race Theory (CRT). This is the route chosen by the Church of England, teaching it in their schools and preaching it from their pulpits. So entrenched is CRT that a social justice unit being set up in the diocese of Birmingham announced that it would be hiring a ‘deconstructing whiteness’ officer. In attempting to create equality, they end up emphasising difference.
Recently the Ven Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, Archdeacon of Liverpool, called for ‘anti-whiteness’ in the church; she also wants Christians to ‘smash the patriarchy’. Giving the reason for her views, Dr Threlfall-Holmes did not say they were the result of intensive study and reflection on Scripture; instead she said she had attended a one-day conference on racial justice organised by the charity Reconciliation Initiatives. This resulted in her waking up to the harmful whiteness of the Anglican church.
Far from helping Christians to grasp the value of loving our neighbours, a command Jesus considered of greatest importance, progressive Christianity begins by emphasising divisions between Christians on the basis of skin colour. It encourages the majority of Christians in the UK to view themselves morally flawed due to their inherited skin colour.