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Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder spoke out yesterday morning, detailing the troubling racial conflict on the University of Missouri (Mizzou) campus---and exactly why it is happening.
He pulled no punches---straight talk.
He says the events that are now being covered around the world display "the totalitarian mind set that is at work on campus and how far it has gone and how entrenched it's become."
They are searching for answers.
Is there an answer?
Last Sunday, the New York Times reported, "Students at the University of Missouri have been demonstrating for weeks for the ouster of the university president, protesting the school's handling of racial tensions."
The NYT said, "But their movement received a boost over the weekend when dozens of black football players issued a blunt ultimatum: Resign or they won't play."
The coach stood with the players.
The NYT continues, noting several racial incidents including "feces smeared into the shape of a swastika on a wall in a residence hall."
That, incidentally, has been shown to have been a hoax. However, I have no doubt there are incidents of racism in this and most all institutions.
But, as Lt. Gov. Kinder points out, this episode is bringing light to some of the roots of the demonstrations.
Heather McDonald, writing for the City Journal, titles her story, "Racial Hysteria Triumphs on Campus."
She says, "The pathological narcissism of American college students has found a potentially devastating new source of power in the sports-industrial complex."
The main cry of the protest was to get University President Timothy Wolfe to resign.
When football players declared last Sunday they would not play football until he was gone, they put a great deal of pressure on the University.
Tomorrow they play BYU. The take for U of Missouri, according to the NYT, is $1,000,000.
The players who said they would not play in tomorrow's game unless the president resigned, lest we forget, are, by virtue of football scholarships, getting most of their food free, free housing, free tuition and in return are expected to "play football" for the University that is giving them all this stuff.
Clay Davis with Fox Sports said publicly, "You should be ashamed of yourself, Mizzou. This is what happens when today's delicate flower children grow up believing that college should be a place where no one ever says anything to make them sad and those on campus with working brains don't stand up and call them out for being pathetic losers."
I think most of us understand there continues to be racial injustices in America---there are also religious injustices against Christians and others.
But as Dr. Ben Carson has said repeatedly, "America is not fundamentally racist---there are pockets of discrimination, but that is not the tone in America today."
By most accounts, this episode at Mizzou barely rises to the "pocket" category.
However, the president of the university is gone. Forced out.
Lt. Governor Kinder says the irony of all this is that President Timothy Wolfe had spent much of his time and influence criticizing the state's Republican Legislature and "taking the side generally of the Left" to appeal to "this peanut gallery on the Left" and "they devoured him" for his trouble.
He was one of them.
Kinder says, "They simply threw him aside."
I personally remember when California Governor Ronald Reagan faced similar circumstances at Berkeley.
Kinder says of then and now, it is an example of people looking to grasp at "any reed, no matter how thin to support their claim to victimhood status."
At the heart of the matter, they have also thrown something and Someone else aside.
The ideology behind this matter is a destructive one. And it has little to nothing to do with race. In one sense, these students "are" victims---- they are victims of the far left secular progressive ideology that has come to dominate our institutions---particularly education.
An ideology that strikes fear in those administrators who fail to be politically correct, and a false sense of entitlement to those who have been misled from grade one to present.
It's really about 2 competing worldviews--one leads to destruction and confusion, the other to restoration and wholeness---and common sense.
One recognizes God and His eternal Truth, the other embraces the notion that man is god and truth is relative---there are no absolutes.
Institutions become the manifestation of one or the other of these two worldviews.
The late Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship ministries, often told the story of the notorious prison Humaita. He shared it as a guest on my television program. I have never forgotten it.
The Brazilian government had lost control of the institution. It was the most violent and ineffective prison in the country.
Having run out of ideas and options, the government turned the prison over to 2 Christians. They immediately put in place Christian, biblical principles.
With the exception of the 2 full time administrators, all the work in the institution was done by the inmates.
Colson said, "When I visited the Humaita, I found the inmates smiling, particularly the murderer who held the keys, opened the gates and let me in. Wherever I walked I saw men at peace. I saw clean living areas and people working."
He said, "The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs. My guide escorted me to the notorious prison cell once used for torture. Today, he told me, that torture room has only a single inmate. As we reached the end of the long concrete corridor, he put the key in the lock and looked at me and asked, 'Are you sure you want to go in and see this prisoner'?"
Colson said, "Of course, I've been in isolation cells all over the world."
Slowly he swung the massive door open and Colson said he saw the prisoner in the punishment cell---it was a crucifix, beautifully carved by the prisoners---Jesus hanging on the cross.
The guide told Colson, "He's doing time for the rest of us. He gave His life for us. He's changed our lives."
Colson, as most all evangelicals, understood that Jesus is no longer on the cross, and that rather than "doing time," He has done the time---it is finished---died, resurrected and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
But the point is clear. Jesus Christ changes lives, and His Word and principles change institutions---and cultures.
Be Blessed.