Dr. Jason Arday is Dead

A couple of days ago, I wrote to the Rev. Dr. Albert Mohler, of the podcast The Briefing, about his comments regarding the Trump decoy flight out of Turkey last month and the story that broke this week of the resignation of Dr. Jason Arday, professor at Cambridge University in England. Arday resigned due to investigations into alleged serious plagiarism, academic qualifications, and honorary appointments. There were also serious questions about the truth of things he had said about his youth.

Mohler said this about Arday (copied from the transcript):

“He was celebrated as the youngest black professor in history and there are all kinds of overtones here just in terms of representation, identity politics and all the rest. But it's also interesting that he largely was hired on the basis of his story…

That's a huge morality tale. And it also has to do in this case with a situation that's in the larger context. The worldview issues here are massive…

One of those larger contexts is identity politics. And it is very interesting that in the pressure on Cambridge University, before the hiring of Jason Arday, students in the education programs there, 152 current and former students in the Faculty of Education called upon, they demanded that Cambridge make basically reparations to decolonize. This goes back to the British Empire and the claim that, you know, there's enormous prejudice and enormous oppression that came by means of the colonization.

And thus, this is a part of the woke culture in which the claim was that this university, the elite university like Cambridge, it was overwhelmingly committed to white privilege…

I guess one other observation as we look at this is that eventually the truth will out. Eventually, in most cases, it does.

It certainly did in the case of Jason Arday”

Today it is reported that Dr. Arday is dead.

Click here for the NYT article.

The NYT does not say specifically what the cause of death was, but his death is not considered suspicious (in the sense that he was a victim of a crime), so suicide is a logical surmise. That will become clear soon, I’m sure.

It is well-known that Dr. Mohler and most/many conservative white evangelicals are not fans of what is called “wokeism”. You can check that out for yourself.

There is no question that some aspects of “wokeism” have gone crazy and ridiculous. That is also true of some aspects of conservative Christianity.

What I miss coming from “my people” is a serious attempt to understand what is behind wokeism in terms of the history and stories of individuals and communities who have been oppressed, marginalized, and underprivileged for centuries.

Dr. Arday was a man with a history and context. He was most likely a troubled man, as most of us are. He deserved a hearing. He deserved to have an empathetic arm around his shoulder as he told his story. He deserved to have the community that took part in the oppression of his people take him seriously. To take him seriously would also mean that his false stories, projections, and theories about life would be challenged.

Too often the credentials, stories, and worldview of a marginalized person or community are challenged without an attempt to understand, take seriously, engage deeply, and treat with dignity. The person or community can, as a result (or in biblical terms, as a fruit), experience existential loneliness, which can lead to despair.

When that despair becomes unbearable, the lure of finally stepping away can become irresistible.

This is not to say that Dr. Mohler, or the white (evangelical) community, in their war against wokeism, are directly responsible for Arday’s choice.

I think it is fair to say that no one who came in contact with Jesus ended up in existential loneliness.