Are You a "Bad Guy?"

Do you ever feel like you are the bad guy?  No, you don't wear a black hat.  No, you do not threaten your children.  In fact, you treat your children with love and are an encouragement to them.  You pay your taxes - not always without grumbling, but you pay them nonetheless.  You respect your neighbor's property.  You respect those in authority over you.  Yet, somehow you get the feeling that you are the bad guy? 


Well, according to some "experts" if you are a white, Anglo-Saxon, heterosexual male, then you are the bad guy.  I had one of the men in my Wednesday morning Leadership-Discipleship Group share the following article with me.  It was titled, "Ohio State course reprimands while heterosexual masculinity."  The article was written by Amanda Tidwell.  It was published by "The College Fix."  Allow me to share some excerpts from the article:


"A class taught this spring at Ohio State University will review a parade of reasons why white heterosexual masculinity is allegedly problematic, tackling the topic from the constructs of racial issues, bullying, pop culture, societal expectations and much more, according to its syllabus. 


"The course, 'Be a Man!  Masculinities, Race and Nation,' includes a variety of readings to that end, including its required textbook, "Dude, You're a Fag!" by C.J. Pascoe, which analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process, but sexual one."  (Other books were cited as being used, but I am embarrassed to even list those titles). 


"The course is ultimately presented as a study in 'feminist masculinity' that seeks to explain how ideas about masculinity 'simultaneously harm yet privilege' men, the syllabus states.  It also aims to explain how 'beliefs regarding masculinity serve to justify certain kinds of violence by men against others, and violence against particular groups of men.' 


"The course was created and is taught by Jonathan Branfman.  Branfman is a doctoral candidate in Ohio State's Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and a recent recipient of a 2017-18 Presidential Fellowship, the most prestigious award given to students by the OSU Graduate School, according to the department's website. 


"Branfman is also author of the new children's book 'You Be You!" intended for 7- to 12-year-olds that gives parents a 'simple and accessible way' to introduce children to gender and sexual identity 'in hopes of decreasing stigmas associated with the LGBTQ community,' the Lantern campus newspaper reports."


Okay, at least according to one professor at Ohio State University, I am a "bad guy" because I am a white heterosexual male.  That "badness" has nothing to do with who I am as a person.  It has nothing to do with what I believe about anything.  If I take this course will I be enabled to get over my "badness?" 


Allow me to share a second article, written by Todd Starnes this past January 10.  It can be found at www.townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2018/01/10/universitys-white-racism-course-sounds-like-blame-the-white-guy-101.  "Students at Florida Gulf Coast University can take all sorts of enriching classes - from gender studies to social justice.  But a class on white racism is causing all sorts of campus chaos and charges of reverse racism.  The university calls it 'White Racism.'  But I call it, 'Blame the White Man 101.'


The class, taught  by Professor Ted Thornhill, 'will interrogate the concept of race; examine the racist ideologies, laws, policies, and practices that have operated for hundreds of years to maintain white racial domination over those racialized as non-white.'  The New York Daily News reports students will also have the opportunity 'to discuss ways to challenge white racism and white supremacy toward promoting an anti-racist society where whiteness is not tied to greater life chances.'"


It seems to me that the premise behind this class is that it is "bad" to be white.  I read of another university professor who challenges her students to imagine that they were not white - what would they be thinking?  But, I have to admit that it is hard for me to do that because I am white.  I am a male.  I am a heterosexual male.  And, to make the problem even more intense, I am a conservative, Bible-believing Christian.  According to many, I am the classic example of the "perfect bad guy." 


Friends, it seems to be that we are bordered on the edges of insanity these days.  You see, whether a person is good or bad is not dependent upon his skin color.  It is not dependent upon a person's gender.  According to the Bible a person's ultimate goodness or badness is totally dependent upon that person's relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  The prophet Isaiah says that all our good deeds are as filthy rags before the holiness of God (Isaiah 64:6).  The Apostle Paul says that our salvation is not dependent upon our good works (Ephesians 2:8-9). 


I wonder how Ohio State University and Florida Gulf Coast University would react if someone were to ask them about a class on "The Final Solution to Man's Ultimate Problem - Sin."  I am guessing there would not be any takers.