A Defense and A Critique of Josh McDowell
Josh McDowell at Talbot Chapel at Biola University in California on January 21, 2020 (YouTube/Biola University)
This past week the news broke that well-known author and apologist Josh McDowell has decided to temporarily step back from public ministry after coming under fire for comments he made about black people and other minorities in his address at a recent conference. The basic thrust of the comments, which have been deemed offensive by many, was that blacks and others don’t have equal opportunity to whites because they grow up in families that don’t emphasize the value of education and don’t encourage them to be successful. There are any number of things that could be said about a story like this, but my approach here is to offer a few words of defense and a few words of critique, followed by two lessons we can learn from this and similar situations.
In His Defense
First, for anyone unfamiliar, here are McDowell’s comments, made on September 18 at the American Association of Christian Counselors Conference:
"It’s not just equal[ity] of opportunity. . . . Everybody says, ‘Well, blacks, whites, everybody has equal opportunity to make it in America.’ No they don’t, folks.
“I do not believe blacks, African Americans, and many other minorities have equal opportunity. Why? Most of them grew up in families where there is not a big emphasis on education, security, ‘You can do anything you want, ‘You can change the world,’ ‘If you work hard, you will make it!’ So many African Americans don't have those privileges like I was brought up with.
”My folks weren’t very rich. In fact, they were a poor farming family. But the way I was raised, I have advantages in life, ingrained into me: ‘You can do it!’ ‘Get your education!’ ‘Get a job!’ ‘Change the world!’ And that makes it different opportunities.”
These comments have, of course, been denounced as racist. I say “of course” not because they necessarily are racist, but because it’s predictable that they would be denounced as such in the present culture. But let’s consider: are they racist?
When you’re talking about a large demographic category (e.g., “blacks”), the only thing that could be said of every individual belonging to that group is that they belong to that group. Beyond that, whatever else may be said, there will always be exceptions and outliers. (Presumably, only racists would beg to differ with this, since racists are those who pigeonhole individuals on the basis of their “race.”) However, that doesn’t mean it’s racist to speak generally about a particular group when there’s evidence for doing so. For example, a Gallup headline from last year reads, “Black Americans Want Police to Retain Local Presence.” Does that mean every individual black American wants the police to retain a local presence? Of course not. In fact, the first line of the article makes that clear: it is 61% of black Americans who have this preference. When a significant majority of a particular group has a particular perspective in common, it’s perfectly acceptable and normal to say “the group has this perspective.” I say all that to say this: when someone says “blacks do this” or “whites do that,” they don’t necessarily mean (as a racist would) “all blacks” or “all whites.” So, it’s reasonable to give McDowell the benefit of the doubt and consider that his comments about “blacks” didn’t mean “all blacks.” In fact, he made that explicit when he said, “Most of them.” For that reason, the claim that these comments are racist is already on weak grounds.
Now, the next question to ask is whether his comments about the value of education were merely a baseless stereotype, or could really be said of most “blacks, African Americans, and many other minorities.” Well, that may depend on what is meant by “value” and what is meant by “education.” For example, according to a recent survey by left-leaning think tank New America, less blacks and Latinos than whites believe that those who pursue higher education will have more job opportunities than those who do not: 69% of blacks, 74% of Latinos, and 86% of whites. Could someone say on that basis that “minorities value education less than whites”? Yes, depending on how they’re defining their terms. Is it racist to say that? No, unless the implication is that white people are therefore inherently better. That, of course, is what people assume the implication is. But there’s nothing in these words themselves to imply that, just as there is nothing in McDowell’s comments to indicate that he meant to imply that, or that he believes that. But what this survey shows is that there may be evidence for at least one of the statements he made. If it’s merely a statement of fact, it’s not racist—because facts are unbiased, and racism isn’t.
What about McDowell’s assertions that black people aren’t told, “You can do anything you want,” “You can change the world,” “If you work hard, you will make it,” etc.? Well, whether parents among one demographic say those kinds of things less than parents of another could be an interesting thing for another survey to explore. But one thing we can say with certainty: the culture at large tells minorities they can’t succeed as well as white people. According to the culture, this inability to succeed is because of systemic racism. But could it be that sometimes the only thing preventing someone from succeeding is the lack of belief that they can succeed? Yes, and the doctrine of systemic racism does everything it can to convince minorities that they can’t succeed; the deck is stacked against them, so why even try? And another point: isn’t there something to be said about the testimonies of some black people who have said they felt they had to keep their good grades a secret from their friends, lest they be considered less-than-black for being academically talented? What is going on there? That may not be coming from parents, but it’s coming from somewhere.
So, maybe McDowell’s comments were not completely unjustified, although, based on his subsequent statements (more on those later), he apparently couldn’t justify them himself. But even if his comments were completely unjustified—even if it turns out that minorities value education just as much as anyone, and that minorities are told just as much as anyone that they can be successful—that still wouldn’t make McDowell a racist; it could just mean he’s mistaken. Unless his mistake is because of prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism against minorities, it’s not a racist mistake. I think the honest and reasonable among us will agree, his words themselves didn’t indicate any of those motives.
My Critique
So, I have offered something of a defense of McDowell, but I also have some criticism, both of his comments and of his response to those who were offended by them.
In my view, McDowell’s chief errors in his original comments were (1) to equate equality of opportunity with interest in that opportunity, and (2) to speak as though value of education and encouragement are the main or only factors driving disparities between “racial” groups. On the first point, I would argue that equality of opportunity is less about whether people value something and more about whether they have access to that thing, whether they value it or not. For example, if my parents don’t raise me to value fast food but there’s still a burger joint on every corner, then my opportunity to have a burger is still equal to the next guy, though my interest in having one may not be. So even if it’s true that many minorities are not taught to value education, it doesn’t make sense to say, as McDowell did, that minorities have less opportunity because of what they’re not taught to value. If they lack opportunity, it’s for other reasons.
On the second point, as Thomas Sowell shows in the first chapter of his book Discrimination and Disparities (2019), it’s not so easy to determine the reason for disparities between two groups. There can be any number of factors that result in disparities. McDowell singled in on the issue of values and encouragement to explain a disparity. Others often single in on discrimination to explain disparities. Either of those may or may not explain a disparity, in part or in whole, depending on the case. That means you ought to have good reasons for naming this or that as a cause of a disparity. It seems, based on the fact that in subsequent statements McDowell walked back his comments rather than provide support for them, he didn’t have good reasons. He may not have thought about these issues very deeply before, and, like most people, may have simply been parroting things he had heard others say on the topic.
That leads me to my other point of criticism, which is about how he responded when he started taking heat for the comments. First, he released a statement on Twitter saying that inequality of opportunity for minorities isn’t actually due to family values but due to racism. In other words, rather than simply retracting a statement that he had probably just parroted without careful thought, he decided to replace it with another statement that he was likely also just parroting without careful thought. Moreover, this statement strikes me as a rather cowardly capitulation, based on fear and pressure, rather than based on wise consideration about whether he actually did something wrong.
Then, three days later, he released another statement in which he said, “I need to step back from my ministry and speaking engagements to enter a season of listening and addressing the growth areas that I have become aware of through this.” He noted that he would be “meeting with others and learning.” The trained eye knows that “listening” and “meeting” and “learning” are buzzwords for being indoctrinated into wokeness, into the social justice movement, into leftism. Naturally, this is concerning. But even before that, it should be asked whether McDowell’s original words were really so bad as to deserve stepping away from ministry. If he had said something unsavory about non-whites because of their ethnicity, that would certainly be reason to step away—even to step down. But as we have seen, what he said was not inherently unsavory and did not betray a sense of inherent ethnic superiority. It was just not the whole picture, and he apparently spoke before thinking carefully. When a minister gets something wrong about a complicated present day issue, but has no malice in his heart, does he have to step away from his ministry for that? Or is it sufficient to correct the record? Unfortunately, McDowell seems to be under the influence of some bad advice, and lacking either the wherewithal or the courage to oppose the pressure he’s under.
Conclusion
There are two lessons—probably more, but at least two—to learn from situations like this. First, think carefully before you speak. Ask yourself: do you have good reasons (evidence and sound logic) for what you’re going to say? To say something without having support for it is a dangerous enterprise for both the speaker and the listener, first, because it can lead both into error and, second, because it can get the speaker into hot water that could have been avoided.
Second, think carefully before you apologize. As a general rule, apologizing to the masses on Twitter is a bad idea. For one, they’re not looking for an apology; they’re out for blood. They will not forgive you, but instead shout you down all the more (browse some of the comments on McDowell’s tweets to see this phenomenon in full color). Plus, many people who were never truly offended by you will turn up just to see you crash and burn. Of course, offending someone is not necessarily a reason to apologize, anyway; sometimes people take offense when they shouldn’t, when you did nothing wrong. Sometimes, in fact, they deserve to be offended. So an apology is only appropriate if you’ve actually done something wrong. And the likelihood of someone having their feelings hurt by you and then having their feelings restored by an apologetic tweet from you to the masses, is not high. Apologies, when appropriate, are best addressed to the aggrieved party, not to the world. Moreover, apologies are an admission of guilt—so you should never apologize for racism, for example, unless you have actually done something racist. In McDowell’s case, maybe someone convinced him that he really did do something racist, but I—despite my issues with his statements—am not convinced.
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