The Social Justice Gospel

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. This may very well be the most important podcast that I have ever recorded.

00:11

And I don't say that often. I had this sense once earlier this year, after the

00:17

Black Lives Matter inspired looting and burning of cities was underway, and I assumed you were probably being blindsided by your pastors and your bosses with social justice language.

00:29

I did a podcast on social justice as a religion, and I compared the core teachings of social justice to the core teachings of Christianity, and I showed how they have their own salvation experience, their own way of testing truth, their own saints, holy books, their own priests, the sociologists, and the list goes on.

00:53

And I know this helped a lot of you who are hearing social justice type language, and I think this is going to have the same effect.

01:02

Because what we are witnessing before our eyes is not simply secular social justice being imported into Christianity while Christianity is being cast aside.

01:14

We have actually a fusion. So people who want to keep Christianity and import social justice and marry them.

01:21

And the theological word for this is syncretism. This is what the children of Israel did, worshipping

01:27

Yahweh and worshipping the gods of the nations around them. And this has been a problem for as long as humans have been around.

01:36

And for 2 ,000 years of church history, we've seen false teachers and those misled by them, and those are two different categories.

01:46

And they've come into the church, and oftentimes they add to the gospel. And they don't tell you they're false teachers.

01:53

They don't even probably think of themselves as false teachers intentionally. But what they're promoting are lies.

01:59

And they destroy the core teachings of Christianity, including the gospel. And so what has happened to me in the last,

02:10

I guess, 48 hours is a lot of ideas have been swirling in my head. And I've had a moment, almost a eureka moment, where I realized that I've been talking,

02:22

I've been using jargon, terms, and words that I have not always defined. And I think the reason for that is whenever you start to get specialized in a field, you just assume that the people that you're talking with understand those distinctions.

02:37

If you're talking to someone, let's say, that likes baseball, and you like baseball, and you start using baseball terminology, it's fine.

02:43

But if it's someone who just knows soccer, then they're going to be confused, especially if there are similar concepts with different terms or similar terms with different concepts.

02:58

And so what I've thought is that I want to take the bird's eye view with all of you.

03:05

And I want to help you understand how the fusion is going on, the coming together of secular social justice and Christianity.

03:14

Because we're in a situation now where we have people who have signed orthodox statements of faith, and they say orthodox things.

03:23

We believe in justification by grace through faith. That's the gospel, that's part of it. But usually what will happen is they add to it somewhere.

03:31

And they say orthodox things over here, but then over here they say things that contradict that orthodoxy or are not in keeping with that orthodoxy.

03:41

And this confuses a lot of people. And this is where I think many Christians who are trying to fight this in their churches are called slanderers or liars or something of that nature.

03:53

Because people will run back to orthodox statements that are made and say, well, look, they said the right things here.

03:59

Well, that's not the point. Whenever you're dealing with something that's a syncretistic religion, a fusion of two things, then you're going to have a mixture of truth and error.

04:10

And isn't every heresy a mixture of truth and error, every heretic? And the word heretic just means schism, by the way.

04:16

I know the Roman Catholic Church has, I think, poisoned that word a little bit because they burned heretics, et cetera.

04:23

Heretic just means schism. It's something different. And Paul talks about a different gospel in Galatians 1.

04:32

And so what I want to do is I want to do a Bible study. I want to bring scripture to bear on this topic, scripture that I think

04:39

I've assumed we all kind of know and we just get, but we don't always know and get it.

04:45

And there's a lot of things, look, I don't know and get. There's a lot of fields that I have no clue about. I have much to learn. But in this particular case, we must understand what the

04:55

New Testament teaching is on false gospels. And then we must understand how liberation theology and the

05:02

Marxist derivatives that we're seeing around us, how those contradict that gospel.

05:08

We're in a situation now, let me give you an example, where Christian categories are being used against us.

05:16

So to give you a very common example, someone who tells you you must listen to an oppressed perspective because it's

05:24

Christian to listen, that's loving your neighbor. And you say, well, yeah, I want to be sympathetic. That's Christian. Okay. Well, that's a

05:30

Christian ethical quality. Sure. But there's also a Christian metaphysic that says there's an objective reality that God has created and we can all approach the scripture and glean truth from it.

05:41

Well, if we have an understanding that contradicts that, meaning someone based on their level of power or oppression, according to the sociologist has greater access to truth and knows things we don't know, then we're actually importing something that contradicts fundamental

05:57

Christianity, Christian metaphysics, Christian belief about reality, while doing it in the name of Christian ethics.

06:06

That's what we're having. And it's so confusing for so many of you. And I get it. I understand it. You're probably having conversations with people that are going in circles because the definitions haven't been brought out and those things aren't being exposed.

06:22

So what I want to do is I want to take a very bird's eye view of this whole thing as much as I can.

06:30

And we're just going to, I'm going to pack this episode full of information for you. And there are, just so you know, as we're going through the errors of social justice and critical theory, et cetera, there are more errors that I could talk about.

06:44

There are many more errors, but I want you to get the basic ones, the basic ones that contradict the gospel.

06:50

I think we must, we have to, in our day and age, understand these things. It would be like living in a majority

06:57

Muslim country, but you don't know much about Islam and you don't know how it contradicts the gospel. And when they say God is, you know, there's loving things

07:03

God does, and you say that, it sounds the same. Well, of course it does. But there's a whole lot of errors, obviously, in Islam.

07:10

And so we're in the same place. We have a secular critical theory religion around us, and we need to understand a few things about it and how it contradicts and corrupts.

07:19

So here are the two things you're going to need to encourage you, if that seems overwhelming. One, a basic knowledge of the gospel.

07:27

If you want to fight this movement happening in your church, you need a basic knowledge of what the gospel is. Number two, a basic knowledge of the errors of liberation theology and Marxist derivatives.

07:37

So that would be the post -colonial theory and, you know, all the critical theories, the list goes on.

07:43

So you don't have to be an expert on all those things. You don't even have to know all those terms. All you have to know is where does this social justice panoply, this whole entire movement, how does it contradict the gospel, so that you can catch it when someone tries to merge the two.

07:58

We're going to do a Bible study. Let's go to Galatians chapter 1. Let's read verses 6 through 9. It says, I am amazed.

08:04

This is the Apostle Paul speaking. I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another.

08:12

Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed.

08:25

As we have said before, so I say now again, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed.

08:33

So here are some words that Paul uses that will really help us understand what he's saying, because I think this is so important.

08:39

He uses the word heteros. Think like heterosexuality, right? Different. So there's another gospel, a different gospel that is being promoted.

08:47

And that means like the verses that I have here that show other places in the New Testament where it's used, it's different in the sense of a different kind.

08:57

So you have another of the disciples, another king, another slave. A different one is what he's saying.

09:04

He then says in some translations interpret this verse, translate this verse as another as well.

09:10

He then says in verse seven, which is really not another, right? That word another is the word alas.

09:18

And it means actually similar. It means of the same kind. So I put some passages there, the other

09:24

Mary, the other hand, the other boats. What he's saying is there aren't, you can have two

09:30

Marys, you can have two boats, you can have two hands, but you can't have two gospels. That's why I think the ESV gets it right when it translates it.

09:37

Not that there is another one. There isn't another gospel. There's only one gospel. So the people who are promoting the false gospel are actually being disingenuous because what they're doing is they're saying we have the gospel and they're adding works to it as we'll see in a minute.

09:51

And this is the gospel. But it doesn't even qualify for being a different way to God.

09:58

It doesn't get you there at all. It's not the gospel. It's something completely different. Well, what is it then? Because they're part of the church.

10:04

He's writing to a church, right? As far as they're attending and they look like Christians, they could probably say some very orthodox things.

10:11

So what's going on? Well, here's what's going on. Verse 7.

10:19

The people who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. Distort. Word is metastropho.

10:29

And it means to change, alter, or distort. And it's used in Acts 2 .20.

10:35

I think it's the only other place in the New Testament it's used. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood. So the moon's different.

10:45

The sun is different. It's changed is the point. Changing into something that it wasn't.

10:51

The sun, it's ridiculous. The sun, darkness? How could that be, right? It's the sun. By definition, it's light.

10:57

Well, now it's darkness. So the gospel itself is actually being distorted.

11:03

This is subversive, guys. What Paul's talking about here is subversive. And you didn't have,

11:09

I'm sure you did at the time, but you didn't have Paul at least saying that, well, you know, we just gotta give people the benefit of the doubt when they say these heretical things because over here they say true things.

11:23

Well, no. It must be confronted. Paul, in the very next chapter, confronts Peter even. And we're going to look at that.

11:30

So what's this false gospel? Galatians 2, 3 through 5. But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a

11:36

Greek, was compelled to be circumcised, but it was because of the false brethren secretly brought in who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage.

11:46

But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. Now, what's going on here?

11:52

Well, Paul's saying we didn't bend to the requirement that false brethren were trying to put on us to bring us into bondage to have

12:01

Titus circumcised. We didn't bend to it for even an hour. Why? Because we wanted to make sure the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

12:08

So this threatened the gospel. The false brethren are the pseudodelphos. They are, according to Dr.

12:14

Bob Utley, traitors. The term was commonly used to designate traitors within a city who allowed the enemy to sneak into the city and survey its defenses.

12:23

So these are people that have snuck in to Christianity and they're helping the enemy.

12:31

That's the sense of it. And Paul's saying there's false brethren that are doing this. Now, in Acts 16, interestingly,

12:40

Paul had Timothy circumcised so as not to offend the Jews, but in Galatians 2, he refuses to do it.

12:49

Now, what's the difference? Why in Acts 16 is he saying, yeah, I will circumcise Timothy, and then in Galatians 2, well,

12:56

I'm not going to have Titus circumcised. Because to put it in modern vernacular, in Titus' case, circumcision was compelled as a gospel issue.

13:06

That's why he wouldn't do it. Now, interestingly, next,

13:15

Paul talks about Peter, an apostle, someone who saved, right? And Peter got caught up in this.

13:22

So you got the false brethren, right? But then you got Peter. Now, what do you do with this? When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.

13:32

And the word here is he stood guilty, kataganosko.

13:38

He stood guilty, all right? The word in chapter 1, verse 8 said, those who preaching a false gospel are to be anathema.

13:45

That's cursed, right? Different words. So Peter's in a different category here.

13:50

He's guilty. He's not cursed. He's not anathema. He's guilty though. What's he guilty of? For prior to coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the

14:00

Gentiles. But when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof. Here's the key word, fearing the party of the circumcision.

14:07

The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy with the result that even

14:12

Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel,

14:18

I said to Cephas in the presence of all, if you being a Jew live like the Gentiles and not like the

14:24

Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? Why are you compelling things that are not commanded?

14:33

And the gospel's related to this. Why are you compelling things for the purpose of being right with God when

14:43

Christ has already made us right with God? Do you hear that? Do you see that? Theological difference between someone who is temporarily inconsistent and someone whose life pattern affirms error related to the gospel are two separate things.

15:03

Peter was opposed and Peter repented. Philippians 3 .18,

15:11

for many walk of whom I often told you and now tell you even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.

15:18

There are people who continue, they're corrected. It's not just fear and hypocrisy.

15:24

The corrections happen and they do not do what Peter did. They do not turn.

15:31

They do not oppose the false teaching that they had presented. So what is the gospel?

15:37

This is the key question, guys. We get this right, we get a whole lot more right. What is the gospel?

15:44

Galatians 2 .16, nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law.

15:56

Since by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified. Romans 1 .16,

16:03

I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

16:09

Jews first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.

16:19

That's the power of the gospel. It's not in works. It's what God has done.

16:24

He's the one working, not us. It's through faith in the finished work of Christ.

16:31

It's the power of God. 1 Corinthians 15 .1 -4, Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which

16:38

I preached to you, which also you received and which you also stand, by which you also are saved if you hold fast the word which

16:45

I preached to you, unless you believed in vain, for I delivered to you as of first importance what

16:50

I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

16:58

It's the gospel. It's what Christ has done. And what's our part in this?

17:04

Believe. Have faith. That's it. So what does it look like then today to mix law and grace in the current situation, the social justice battle?

17:20

Because that was the problem with the Galatian heresy, adding circumcision to the gospel. And Paul opposed

17:28

Peter to his face just because he wasn't clear about it. It was his lack of clarity. Sending mixed signals.

17:36

And Paul would have been a bigot today, huh? They would have gotten rid of him. Mixing law and grace.

17:45

Here's an example of someone who has done this. And I'll tell you who it is in a minute.

17:51

You might figure it out. Here's some quotes. Be willing to die for racial reconciliation as you would for penal substitution.

18:00

What's racial reconciliation? According to Paul, racial reconciliation is not an implication of the gospel and certainly not a social issue instead of a gospel issue, but it is a gospel issue.

18:16

So apparently this racial reconciliation thing is fundamental to the gospel. Certain Southern Baptists view racial reconciliation as a social issue instead of a gospel issue because of an incomplete understanding of both the gospel and race.

18:29

So you're saying there's Southern Baptists who don't understand the gospel because they simply view racial reconciliation as a social issue?

18:42

It's really fundamental to the gospel, isn't it? You're saying that they don't even understand the gospel. I want to argue that the category of gospel should not be narrowly defined as entry language, i .e.

18:54

justification by faith, but should be broadly defined to include maintenance language, i .e. walking in the spirit.

19:02

Maintenance language? Well, other than faith and belief, you could say soteriology has aspects of sanctification because God is doing a work in us, but the gospel, the good news, where is that in scripture?

19:19

The gospel's maintenance language tells us how to live in the power of the spirit, the reality of what God has done for him in Christ.

19:27

And there are some passages given, Galatians 5 and Ephesians 2 through 6. Here are the passages.

19:34

The only three passages are from Ephesians in that section, in those sections, that reference gospel.

19:41

Let me read them to you. Ephesians 3, 6. To be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

19:53

That's what the gospel is accomplished. Ephesians 6, 15. And having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

20:00

Ephesians 6, 19. And pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with the boldness, the mystery of the gospel.

20:09

You don't find any maintenance language in any of that. It's not talking about any kind of works or things that we do.

20:19

This unification of all things in Christ includes our receiving the blessings of all of the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ, which at least includes election, predestination, adoption into God's family, hearing and believing the gospel and racial reconciliation.

20:37

You see how, which does not belong in this? I offer a few biblical reasons.

20:43

Southern Baptists from every racial stripe should continue to work towards removing the stain of racism from their churches, from their homes and from every aspect of SBC life.

20:54

Now, let me ask you a question. If the unification of all things in Christ includes racial reconciliation, then why do

21:03

Southern Baptists need to continue to work towards removing the stain of racism from their churches?

21:09

In a book, in a chapter about racial reconciliation, if Christ accomplished it on the cross, then why are we working towards it?

21:25

All sinners experience justification before God by faith in Jesus Christ, apart from the works of the law, but without personal holiness, we will not experience final justification because our works will prove whether we trust in Jesus and our works will either vindicate us or condemn us in the judgment.

21:45

So there's justification and then there's final justification. Do you remember how

21:51

I just read for you how Paul confronted Peter simply because he was not clear about the gospel.

21:58

He was not straightforward in the translation I read. Is this straightforward language?

22:04

This is internally contradictory language we see here. And it's scary language because what do you mean by racial reconciliation?

22:13

If that's works, we have heresy and heresy in the sense that false teaching that subverts the gospel has entered, very similar to what

22:24

Paul talked about in Galatians. The man who said those things is named Jarvis Williams and he's currently teaching at the

22:31

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, the flagship seminary for the Southern Baptist Convention.

22:37

And sure enough, racial reconciliation includes works. And let me share a few of those with you. There are do's and don'ts.

22:44

Do get rid of certain art features. He says, Southern Baptist churches need to erase, take down or paint over all images of a white

22:52

Jesus, white disciples and all white children learning at the feet of Jesus. These images perpetuate white supremacy and suggest the kingdom of God revolves around whiteness.

23:00

Now look, I can think of some reasons to get rid of paintings, but because they advocate white supremacy is an assumption and not a very good one.

23:12

And to make this part of the gospel, because again, penal substitution, same level as racial reconciliation.

23:18

And to say, well, getting rid of these things, that's part of racial reconciliation. You are adding works to the gospel now.

23:24

Here's another one. Don't be colorblind. Southern Baptist should not claim they view all people in a colorblind fashion.

23:31

Here's another one. Do diversify your church. Southern Baptist need to enlarge their ethnic circles to include more black and brown believers.

23:37

Is that a biblical command guys? Does it say that? If Southern Baptist live mono -ethnic lives, they will have a limited mono -ethnic perspective of the complexity of the

23:46

Southern Baptist life. So they will have incomplete information about their church if they don't get an ethnic perspective of some kind from a black or a brown person.

23:57

Is that biblical? Or does the Bible tell us how to view the church? Do support other multi -ethnic churches.

24:06

Southern Baptist must pray for and support multi -ethnic church plants. It says must. In their cities and communities, if their churches are not going to pursue racial reconciliation.

24:18

So this almost seems like the Catholic church and they say, well, you can do Hail Mary's or you can do this.

24:25

You have different options of what kinds of penance you wanna do to alleviate the sin that you have or the duty you're supposed to fulfill.

24:35

Do listen to experiences. White Southern Baptist with privilege and without personal experience of the challenges associated with being black or brown person in the

24:42

US should spend more time listening to their black and brown brothers and sisters instead of trying to speak to, at, about, or for them.

24:51

Is this a biblical command guys? And even if it is, what's it doing in the gospel?

24:59

Do implement quotas. If the stain of racism is going to become less apparent within the SBC, white leaders responsible for organizing conferences must, there's that word again, intentionally include black and brown people at the center of their conferences.

25:13

And the SBC needs to have conferences that are predominantly led by black and brown individuals. Question, did

25:20

Christ's death really accomplish racial reconciliation, Mr. Williams? Because you said before that it did, that we should fight for it like we would fight for a penal substitution the unification of all things in Christ includes this, but now we're in the maintenance language, aren't we?

25:40

And this maintenance language isn't even biblical ethics. It's coming from critical race theory.

25:45

And I can show you all the quotes where Jarvis Williams talks about how much critical race theory has influenced him and even influenced his reading of scripture.

25:54

How did this happen? I want to give a little bit of a historical talk because I think people are wondering where did this come from?

26:02

And I'm going to go back with you to 1972. And what I want to do is present a few things that I've included in my book,

26:10

Social Justice Goes to Church, which I will have a trailer for at the end of this podcast. So it's a little sneak peek,

26:15

I guess, but it's I think vital information if you really want to understand the origin of the movement and how syncretism has formed in Christianity.

26:25

It's been happening for a while. It's just popular now. 1972, David Moberg observed, and he was a social critic and had some, well, he was a sociologist who had some neo -Marxist leanings towards the beginning of his life.

26:43

He observed that evangelicals were awakening to their inconsistencies and returning to the totality of the

26:49

Christian gospel. So this is what he's saying. He's looking at evangelical Christianity saying, hey, this is interesting that this is happening.

26:55

Moberg expressed this total gospel as blending evangelism and social concern.

27:02

He states, old dichotomies between salvation and service, changing lives and changing society, proclaiming and demonstrating man's vertical and horizontal relationships, personal piety and social service, faith and works, and believing and loving, all of which can be summed up in relationship to the contrast between evangelism and social concern are breaking down.

27:20

David Moberg is saying that there's a fusion going on and he's noticing it in the 70s.

27:25

He's saying there's an awakening. Oh, it sounds like almost like getting woke, doesn't it? And it's a return to the totality of the

27:35

Christian gospel. So there was only part of the Christian gospel. Now we have the total Christian gospel. Well, who are some of these people he's talking about?

27:42

Tom Skinner at Urbana, this is InterVarsity's 70 conference, claimed that the gospel did not speak to the issue of enslavement and justice or inequality, a gospel that doesn't speak to those issues, was not the gospel.

27:56

Instead, he fused the incomplete gospels of both fundamentalists and liberals into a salvation, which delivered from both personal and systemic evil.

28:03

Jesus had come to change the system and Christians were to preach liberation to oppressed people.

28:11

This is a fusion of law and gospel, and it's not even the biblical law. It's a law inspired by social justice.

28:19

Inequality, injustice, enslavement. Well, what would address these things? It would be the ethics of the law of God, would it not?

28:26

Not the gospel, not the good news. Gospel is good news, a victory, what

28:32

Christ has accomplished for us. Here's another one,

28:38

John Perkins. 1976, from the pages of Sojourners, he said, because evangelicals surrendered their leadership in the civil rights movement, he believed that they had not gone on to preach what?

28:50

The whole gospel. So if you weren't leading the civil rights movement, you weren't taking part in, was that a work or is that the gospel?

28:58

Work or grace? Civil rights movement. In his book,

29:05

Let Justice Roll Down, 1978, he says the purpose of the gospel was to burn through all racial, cultural, and economic barriers, challenge all economic and social orders, call people to fellowship and make a new family.

29:15

That's the purpose of the gospel, really? To burn through economic barriers?

29:21

Hmm, sounds like, now if you mean in the sense that Christ brings all people to himself and they're all forgiven, but that doesn't sound like what he's saying there, does it?

29:34

Now I want you to know something. John Perkins has influenced Russell Moore quite a bit and a number of evangelicals.

29:41

I go through it in the book. Tom Skinner, who I just quoted you from, influenced Tim Keller tremendously.

29:48

Tim Keller listened to the speech that I just quoted from you over and over in 1970. Here's another person that influenced

29:54

Tim Keller quite a bit and others. And I'm gonna read some quotes for you and then

29:59

I'm gonna give you some categories. A full gospel concerned with the whole man meant that Christ's atoning work offered liberation for people in their cultural endeavors, including political institutions and the making of public policy.

30:13

His atonement specifically offered liberation in cultural endeavors?

30:20

In 1974, now that was from 2016, because he's big in evangelicalism. Just look up Richard Mao.

30:27

I mean, he's influenced a lot of people. Sojourners, 1974, he said this, the payment that Christ made through his shed blood was a larger payment than many fundamentalists have seemed to think.

30:39

Oh, really? For even when they have sung the words with their zeal, they have not seemed to acknowledge in their social political lives that Jesus did indeed pay it all.

30:49

He died to remove the stain of political corruption and of all forms of human manipulation and exploitation.

30:54

And he calls us to witness to and to enjoy the first fruits of that full redemption.

31:00

A full redemption? What is this? His shed blood was a payment for political issues, political, to remove the stain, listen to the language, stain of political corruption.

31:17

And now we're trying to get the stain of racism away? This was in 1974. Here's the problem.

31:23

The atonement applies to non -cognitive entities. He's applying the atonement of Christ, his shed blood, to things that aren't human beings, human souls that are sinful.

31:33

He's applying qualities like sin to political institutions and saying there was

31:38

Christ's redemption. This is a neokyperion. Now it's very similar to liberation theology.

31:45

There are some differences. They're not as for our conversation, it doesn't matter for me to bring up the differences because they're not significant enough.

31:52

But this is a neokyperion way of approaching the gospel. And Richard Mao's in his reading of Kuiper, this is what he's coming up with.

32:01

Now there's another way that the gospel gets subverted. So we saw the neokyperion way, right? Here's an

32:08

Anabaptist way, the progressive Anabaptists. And I'm using Ron Sider and John Howard Yoder as examples.

32:14

Now Ron Sider has influenced Russell Moore and David Platt and the list just goes on and on.

32:20

I mean, he's influenced a lot of people. Here's what he said in 1975, coming to Jesus necessarily involved repentance of and conversion from the sin of involvement in structural evils, such as economic injustice and institutional racism.

32:33

So coming to Jesus, that's what it involves. You gotta repent of and be converted from the sin of involvement in structural evils.

32:44

What's the structural evil? What does that mean? And I'll show you what he means later. He means basically, if you just benefit from a system of privilege, you're in sin.

32:54

John Howard Yoder, 1972, justification by faith alone and through grace alone, apart from any correlation with works of any kind, undercut any radical ethical and social concern.

33:06

You need works. Now what they're doing is they're merging justification and sanctification and they're calling it discipleship.

33:13

They're saying, well, and John Howard Yoder, there's another quote where he more blatantly says this, but justification and sanctification now are merged.

33:22

Sanctification meaning becoming more like Christ. It's a work God does within you in which you follow his law more, you look more like Christ.

33:31

He's changing you into being more into the image of Jesus Christ progressively, right? Progressive sanctification it's called.

33:38

And this is justification is the foundation for this. Justification starts that process, but justification is a once for all you are saved.

33:51

And these guys don't make that distinction. And so they can easily import their neo -Marxist ideas, their new left ideas, and say that that's part of the law of God.

34:02

And because the law of God must be followed in sanctification and it just becomes all one thing, justification and sanctification.

34:10

This is another way it's done. And there's a third way. And this is the way we're gonna talk about the most because this is actually also has the same root, a common ancestor with critical race theory.

34:22

And the similarities between them are basically the same problems that Christians should have a critical race theory they should have with liberation theology.

34:32

Jim Wallace, so someone kind of friendly to liberation theology, I'll show you his critique of it, but he defines liberation theology as a movement born out of the experience.

34:40

Experience is a key word of oppression, especially in Latin America in which the Marxist analysis and praxis is central.

34:47

He believed liberation from all the spiritual, structural and ideological shackles, which bind and oppress was the promise of God's salvation in history.

34:56

So this is liberation theology. Jesus came to identify with the oppressed and to rescue people from the physical structural problems that are oppressing them.

35:11

And he came to change the system. That's what Jesus did. And so we gotta have a revolution, right? This dovetails with Marxism.

35:19

And here are the root problems, right? And there's more problems, but here's the roots, the three that I want you to remember.

35:25

It's a different gospel. It's a gospel of social revolution. Okay, completely different.

35:30

When James Cone talks about the gospel, he's not talking about the gospel that we just talked about. So there's a lot of equivocation that happens when you discuss this with people and they say, well, what are you talking about?

35:41

You know, he might be a heretic, but look, he's talking about the gospel. Yeah, not the same gospel though. He has a different ethic.

35:47

It's Marxism, which has a reductionistic anthropology. So everything boils down to these power relationships and an egalitarian objective.

35:58

So the goal is to rip down all these hierarchies. Hierarchies are not sinful in and of themselves.

36:05

Some could be. But there's a standard in scripture that we're given. In fact, scripture establishes some hierarchies and it regulates others.

36:16

And the third element is subjective truth. There's a postmodern approach to truth in liberation theology. It's a contextual approach to interpreting scripture, sometimes called the horizons method, sometimes called the hermeneutical spiral.

36:29

But the basic idea is that you have your experience and your social location. And then the

36:35

Bible has, there's the experience of the author and who the author was writing to. And so what you're doing when you try to interpret, this is like what

36:44

Gadamer said, is you're gonna go to the text and you're gonna bring your experience and you're gonna ask questions.

36:51

The thing about liberation theology generally is, and this was what Harvey Kahn believed this, and this is what

36:57

Tim Keller learned from Harvey Kahn in Tim Keller's contextual approach. When you approach the text of scripture, you're gonna ask questions of scripture.

37:08

And the application and the interpretation are the same thing. So someone who follows a literal hermeneutic or a grammatical historical hermeneutic, meaning they just wanna know what did the author mean?

37:19

What was his original audience? What did they think it meant? What was the historical context, right? That would be who

37:25

I am, right? I wanna read the scripture in a common sense fashion. We would separate the two.

37:31

We'd say there's interpretation. What did it mean? And then there's application. What does it mean for me in particular? What does it mean in my life? Liberation theologians merge the two, okay?

37:38

And they'll say, well, we just need to ask different questions of the text depending on the social location that we're in.

37:44

And based on those questions, we're gonna find these new interpretations or a new spin on an interpretation, and sometimes they'll just say new application, right?

37:56

A new application. Well, of course there's new applications, but it's because their experience is interacting with the experience of the text.

38:04

So someone with a different experience is gonna come along and they're gonna have a different interaction. And so it's the fusion of those two things that creates the truth.

38:13

That is postmodern, all right? Definitionally so. Because you don't have an objective standard that anyone can come and they can find out what the truth of this is.

38:27

So, and I can say a lot more about that, but in general, these are the three problems with liberation theology.

38:33

Different gospel, different ethic, and subjective truth. Okay? And the subjective truth part does mirror,

38:41

I think, the Gnostic heresy. The different gospel does mirror the Galatian heresy. So we have, we certainly are on firm footing to critique these things.

38:53

Now, the critique evangelicals who are on the progressive side have given of this is completely inadequate.

38:59

And I'm gonna show you that because here's, this is very key, guys. You're gonna hear people tell you, if you bring up like a

39:06

Walter Strickland, which I'm gonna talk about in a moment, you're gonna have people tell you, well, hold on.

39:13

They critique liberation theology. This is what they say over here. Well, yeah, evangelicals have been doing that for a very long time, but their critique is not a significant one because the core elements of liberation theology that we have a problem with in Christianity that I just mentioned, those three, different gospel, different ethic, post -modernism, those three are not critiqued.

39:36

It's other things. It's peripheral issues. It's usually, well, you know, it comes from Marxism and Marxism comes from materialism and Christians can't believe in materialism.

39:44

Well, yeah, that's true. That's a good start. Here's the critique though, that evangelicals gave in the 1970s that wanted to adopt categories of liberation theology, but they wanted to merge it with their evangelicalism.

39:58

This is the syncretism going on. They said, and this is Jim Wallace, the distinctive and decisive witness to the word of God could be easily lost in conformity to a

40:07

Marxist system. That sounds good, right? Because we don't wanna lose the distinctive and decisive witness to the word of God.

40:13

In other words, we gotta bring the Bible into this somewhere. Clark Pinnock said this, the nonviolent servanthood, its appetite, liberation theology's appetite for violence overshadowed the nonviolent servanthood of Jesus in the gospel.

40:26

So what he's saying is that the problem with liberation theology is violent. They're getting these Marxist revolutions.

40:32

And again, we'd say, yeah, that's true, but it's still not enough, guys. West Granberg Michelson, he worked for sojourners.

40:42

He's corrupted the Dutch Reformed Church quite a bit. Was friends, ironically, I read his biography. He was friends with Hillary Clinton when he was young and there's so much

40:49

I could say about him, but it's in my book, so you can go get it. He was concerned that while it could be, could help evangelicals avoid captivity by capitalism, it could also make them fall into another form of ideological captivity by Marxism.

41:01

So West Granberg Michelson is saying, yeah, you know, liberation theology is helpful, but we don't wanna be in ideological captivity to Marxism.

41:09

I agree, but that's not enough. It's an inadequate critique. So here's what's happened.

41:15

There's a picture of West Granberg Michelson there. Adopting the categories of liberation theology as analytical tools.

41:22

This is what happened. This is how the fusion came, guys. And you're gonna think about resolution nine and then think about this quote

41:30

I'm gonna read to you. Resolution nine, adopted critical race theory intersectionality as analytical tools, right? Seems decent enough.

41:36

Seems, you know, long as it's subservient to the word of God, no problem there. Well, here's what

41:42

Thomas Finger said in Sojourners in 1977. Now Sojourners is Jim Wallace's organization.

41:48

Look them up now. Just see if they're orthodox. They are not. Here's Tom Finger. Marxism has much to offer a set of scientific tools for social analysis and projection of strategy.

42:00

Here many liberation theologians distinguish between Marxism as a scientific analysis and its own autonomy and objectivity as a metaphysical system.

42:09

Christians may accept the first aspect as a functional tool while objecting to the second insofar as capitalism is found on selfish individualism and monetary motives.

42:17

Marxist critiques can help flesh out in economic and social terms, biblical indignation against these things.

42:25

This was a Marxist analysis understood in the light of scripture and Christian praxis.

42:30

So he's saying, let's take the tool. Let's take the Marxist tool, but we're going to make sure that it's subservient to the word of God, right?

42:39

Here's some more quotes. Kark Pinnock proposed an evangelical theology of liberation, which sought to proclaim the biblical gospel in the context of world suffering and justice and inequality.

42:49

He thought it incumbent on evangelicals to enter into the same struggle as liberation theologians by hearing the word of God in a world of poverty and dire distress.

42:58

Well, that changed the word of God. If you hear it in that, this is like Sandra Benopsola crew last year.

43:03

Well, I studied Amos for 10 years. I learned Hebrew, but I didn't understand it till I studied it with prisoners. This is the postmodernism.

43:11

He's importing the postmodernism right there. Tom Finger from Sojourners is importing the ethics right there.

43:17

Wes Granberg -Michelson thought liberation theology to be the most accurate and persuasive in its analysis of hope for the world's poor, resting in liberation from structures of injustice.

43:28

And of course, you know what we have there? Not just a different ethic that gets you there.

43:35

That's a different gospel. This is what the purpose of liberation theology, the telos, it's liberation from structures of injustice.

43:46

Let me read you some quotes from some prominent evangelicals. You look up these names.

43:51

So for instance, this first name Samuel Escobar, you'll find them in gospel coalition writing for them.

43:57

Simple liberation from human masters is not the freedom of which the gospel speaks since freedom in Christian terms meant subjection to Jesus Christ as Lord.

44:05

Yet this freedom could not be indifferent to the human longing for deliverance from economic, political, or social oppression.

44:13

The whole gospel addressed the poor, brokenhearted, captive, blind, and bruised in their search for freedom, justice, and fulfillment.

44:18

He said that at the Lausanne Conference in 1974, speaking alongside people like Billy Graham and John Stott. He helped craft the

44:25

Lausanne Covenant, and he's advocating a whole gospel. It's more than just freedom.

44:32

The gospel itself, he's saying, is more than just freedom in Christian terms, the subjugation to Jesus Christ as Lord.

44:41

It can't be indifferent to the human longings for deliverance from economic oppression. This is adding works to the gospel.

44:49

This is adding law to grace. Tim Keller. Tim Keller agreed with liberation theologian

44:56

James Cone that slaves, because of their experience of oppression, were able to see things in the Bible like a God who comes down from heaven and becomes poor human being, which many of their masters were blind to.

45:07

This difference in experience was so great it nurtured a real Christianity as opposed to the oppressive master's religion.

45:14

Now this is significant, guys. What he's saying is that he's read James Cone, and now he's saying, well, you know what? There's two different religions.

45:20

There's two different Christianities. You got the slave's religion, which he favors, and James Cone favors, and then you got the master's religion.

45:27

Well, let me ask you a question. Can you be a Christian like a Jonathan Edwards or a

45:32

Robert E. Lee and own slaves? Own slave labor, I should say. Can you be that?

45:39

Can you be, what about the book of Philemon? What about all those in the Old Testament who had slaves? What about Jesus' parables on slavery?

45:44

I mean, the list goes on. So is that a different religion just because you're not the oppressed?

45:51

You're the oppressor in the mind of sociologists? What if you treat them according to God's law? Does that mean you still have a different religion?

45:59

This is dangerous. So the gospel, being a true

46:06

Christian requires some kind of experience. Hmm. Dr.

46:12

Cone opened my eyes to the idea that Christ is trying to restore brokenness. See if you can figure out who this is.

46:18

You know, and he really had a focus on that brokenness, manifesting as oppression, racially speaking. He showed me that you know

46:25

God is after redeeming the brokenness in society through the work of Christ. So as Dr. Cone almost sees the implications of the gospel as the totality of the gospel.

46:37

Implications of the gospel, totality of the gospel. What are we doing here? We're merging. Merging law and grace.

46:44

It would seem at times I sort of am looking at, you know, this big umbrella of God's redemption and seeing it both as individual and social.

46:54

So God's redeeming something social, some non -cognitive entity. What's that? How's he doing that?

47:00

How does redemption redeem something that is non -cognitive, that doesn't have sin innately?

47:07

Here he says, because Christ said it himself to his disciples that a summary of the gospel is not to bifurcate loving

47:13

God and loving neighbor, but is to love God and neighbor. Dr. Cone allowed me to see a new vista, a new space, a new avenue to allow the gospel to be made manifest.

47:23

So I sort of look at what the gospel is doing as a more broad reality now, now that I've switched the spiritual for the physical or the social for both.

47:34

Do you hear what he did? He quoted the law. Loving God and loving your neighbor is not the gospel. It's the law. And he says, it's the gospel.

47:41

That's a summary of the gospel. My friends, that is false teaching. And the person who taught it is

47:49

Walter Strickland, who was teaching at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He said this also, and I'm gonna give you, this is his critique of liberation theology.

47:59

And I just showed you, people can critique it and then import its heretical categories. He says,

48:06

I referenced in the New York Times interview using Cone's ideas without mentioning him in order to walk around linguistic landmines.

48:12

My point was not that I hide unorthodox ideas in my teaching, rather that I don't mention his name in order to eliminate stumbling blocks.

48:21

Is that a critique of liberation theology? No. Is that a critique of James Cone? He's saying there's some unorthodox ideas.

48:28

Which ones, Walter Strickland? Because you just gave one of them. While his questions and critiques are at times helpful, scripture is a sufficient guide to answering

48:38

Cone's concerns. Okay, that's nice that you can articulate scriptural sufficiency.

48:44

That's the same exact thing Jim Wallace did. Big deal.

48:51

Question is, not that you say the words, scripture is sufficient, but that how does that align with Cone and his teaching?

49:06

Here's Walter Strickland. We fast and we pray, and that's fantastic, but that person needs to hear the voice of Dr. Cone, beckoning us to the fact that that person is the one who is best suited to do the work of the social implications, the social outworkings of the gospel, and understands the brokenness of creation from scripture and go about fixing it under the kingdom that's to come.

49:29

Hmm. So you can be a good Christian, do in your spiritual disciplines, and you gotta be awakened by Dr.

49:34

Cone to the social outworkings of the gospel. What are the social outworkings of the gospel? What does that mean?

49:44

Well, here's another quote from Walter Strickland.

49:50

Oftentimes what happens is that people get wind of Cone primarily because he is considered the godfather of black liberation theology.

49:55

He's prolific. He's written monograph after monograph, hitting you every year, especially the beginnings of the movement. And then also most recently, he came out with what

50:03

I think is the most beautiful monograph, the cross and the lynching tree. If you have not gotten that, you need to read that.

50:09

You may agree with more or less of what he says, but either way, you'll be blessed by that. And so people who have sort of latched onto Cone because he's more of a lightning rod, he's intentionally trying to wed the

50:19

Christian faith of Martin Luther King, who was not a Christian, by the way, with the black power of Malcolm X, who was also not a

50:24

Christian, by the way, hence his book, Martin and Malcolm in America, a dream or nightmare. And so because of that, he's this sort of seminal, powerful figure, almost like a wrecking ball, right?

50:34

He is sort of, here's the key phrase. He is sort of deconstruct and blow up this sort of a stranglehold that white men have had on academic theology in America.

50:46

Deconstruction, the stranglehold, that's the liberation part, all right?

50:52

He's talking about the liberation theology. Now, what does Cone say in this book?

50:57

What kinds of things does he argue? Well, you have the different gospel, you have the different ethic and you have subjective truth.

51:03

And I'll give you just a few quotes. There's a lot of them. The gospel is found wherever poor people struggle for justice. Oh, really?

51:10

Wherever a poor person struggles for justice, there's the gospel. That is complete heresy. The gospel of Jesus is not a rational concept to be explained in theory of salvation, but a story about God's presence in Jesus' solidarity with the oppressed, which led to his death on the cross.

51:24

Hmm, that's heresy. Different ethic. Salvation is broken spirits being healed, the voiceless people speaking out and black people empowered to love their own blackness.

51:36

So that's somehow, I don't even know what to say about that. I could have put that under the category of different gospel as well, but this is what it's supposed to accomplish.

51:47

Subjective truth, the cross and the lynching tree interpret each other. Really? The lynching tree interprets the cross of Christ?

51:54

This is the social location thing. The lynched black victim experienced the same fate as the crucified

51:59

Christ and thus became the most potent symbol for understanding the true meaning of the salvation achieved through God on the cross.

52:06

That is absolute heresy. Here's another one. This is just as concerning. J. Diotis Roberts comes along in 1971,

52:14

Strickland says, and publishes Liberation and Reconciliation, which is my favorite theological book of all time. Oh, really? Favorite of all time.

52:22

So other than the Bible, this is it. This is the pinnacle. And why is that? You need to pick up Liberation and Reconciliation. If there's anybody who has done the work of being a theologian, of understanding universal imperatives of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but also articulating it so clearly and so profoundly in any of the contexts,

52:36

I think J. Diotis Roberts is it. Well, what does Liberation and Reconciliation say?

52:43

Same thing, different gospel, different ethic, subjective truth. There were black nationalists.

52:49

Some were religious and sought liberation through the separation of races. Liberation was to be by whatever means necessary.

52:55

This included violence as a means to liberation. On the other hand, there were persons who among us who were willing to be reconciled with whites based upon their understanding of the gospel as a gospel of love only.

53:04

Excuse me, there's a gospel of, there's more than just the gospel of love. They were willing to allow whites to teach them what to believe.

53:12

The often Bible -based gospel knew nothing of justice in the here and now.

53:18

It was often an individualistic and otherworldly gospel. The attempt was made to present both Liberation and Reconciliation as a balance within the gospel message.

53:27

I could go on and on. I've provided more quotes. If you're a patron, you're gonna have access to this slideshow.

53:34

And they're all heretical and they're all frightening. For the sake of time, let me just be brief. I'm gonna read you excerpts from these other sections for a different ethic, right?

53:43

Liberation and Reconciliation, Walter Strickland's favorite book says, Black theology and its attempt to understand the depths of the blight of racism upon blacks and whites will need to be informed not only by Christian faith, but by the explorations into the unconscious by Freud and his associates, as well as the analysis of social, economic, and political ills by Marx and other social philosophers.

54:04

That's the analytical tool language. So I could go on. He talks about even, he talks about the white colonizers who ease their conscience by trying to help black people in the ghetto or the inner city in poor areas and that black people must be plagues on the house of white racists.

54:26

And it's just, he says, our quest for a theological ethic must provide the ethical imperatives that will lead the church, black and white, to be the church, a liberating and reconciling church.

54:35

And he's hating people that are even trying to help. This is not

54:41

Christian. And the subjective truth is part of it. The black Christ participates in the black experience. He goes on and on of talking about how the black

54:49

Messiah is also the universal Christ and points him beyond the mere symbolism is rooted in his experience.

54:56

In other words, universal Christ is particularized for the black Christian in the black experience of the black Messiah. The black

55:01

Messiah is at the same time universalized in the Christ of the gospels who meets all men in their situation. That's the situation.

55:08

That's the contextualization. The black Messiah liberates the black man. The universal Christ reconciles the black man with the rest of mankind.

55:14

Yeah, so there's, he's like splitting Christ in two for his subjective truth.

55:19

This is Walter Strickland's favorite theological book. Does anyone see a problem with this? And there's many other examples, but I just wanna read for you a verse here.

55:29

2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for refruit, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

55:38

As long as they're oppressed, right? Does it say that? No, the man of God can use scripture rightly.

55:47

There's many other people out there denying objective truth. I have a quote here from Samuel Escobar. Again, you can look him up.

55:53

You can see where he's spoken. It's who's who of evangelical institutions.

56:00

He's a guy who cheered when Fidel Castro came into Cuba. I mean, he's got a Marxist bone, but he denies

56:06

Marxism. He says, this Marxist pressure helped forge a contextual understanding though, that the apprehension of truth was to a very large extent, a matter of perspective, a uniquely

56:14

Latin American interpretation of scripture in which the biblical text and historical situation were mutually engaged.

56:20

That is classic horizons approach to scripture. And Samuel Escobar denies that he's a liberation theologian.

56:26

He denies that he's a Marxist. And this is what you get. He's taking from those categories and he's not taking their good things.

56:32

He's taking their trash. Tim Keller, the same thing.

56:39

Problem with the world is the way we use truth for the purpose of getting power over people. He quotes Foucault. It says basically a truth is just a power play.

56:47

He even quotes Jesus as stating truth claims in general are power plays. This is acid.

56:54

This is absolute acid. And it creates a different gospel.

57:00

Here's some quotes. Harvey Kahn, this is the guy who mentored Tim Keller at Westminster. Church is needed to engage in holistic evangelism, which included working to eliminate war and poverty and injustice with a full gospel which address social questions.

57:14

Tim Keller, the whole purpose of salvation is to cleanse and purify this material world. J .D.

57:19

Greer, Southern Baptist. We need to say it clearly as a gospel issue, black lives matter. Of course, black lives matter.

57:26

Our black brothers and sisters are made in God, the image of God. Listen, as a gospel issue, is this an ethical issue?

57:35

Is this a metaphysical issue? Is this a gospel? Is this good news? And I'm specifically referring to the good news that Christ has put us into a right relationship with God because of faith in him, because of his finished work.

57:54

Remember, Paul went after, or yeah, Paul went after Peter because of a lack of clarity.

58:01

This almost seems beyond that. At the very least, lack of clarity. Here's some more quotes on a different ethic, and I wanna read for you

58:10

Matthew 15. This was Jesus' problem with the Pharisees. They invalidated the word of God for the sake of their tradition.

58:16

You hypocrites, he says, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.

58:28

Samuel Escobar believed that Marxism gave the answer to the problem of wealth and poverty. Wasn't adequate because you needed

58:35

Christianity too, but it did give an answer. Christianity needed to be supplemented by the

58:40

Marxist critique. J .D. Greer, again, he hoped, he said this on Twitter, hoping that we are entering a new era where we in the complementarian world take all the word of God seriously, not just the parts about distinction of roles, but also the tearing down of all hierarchy and his gracious distribution of gifts to all his children.

59:00

Hmm, where in the Bible does it say to do that? To rip down all hierarchies. Ron Sider, 1977.

59:08

If one is involved in unjust social structures, which included realities as seemingly inescapable as benefiting from international trade patterns and does not do anything to try to change them, then one is personally guilty in the same way that one is guilty if one commits an act of adultery or tells a lie.

59:24

That is a different ethic. There is a direct relationship between a person's grasp and experience of God's grace and his or her heart for justice and the poor.

59:34

Tim Keller. And what does that mean, justice for the poor?

59:39

Well, in Tim Keller's experience, we owe it to the poor. Redeemer Presbyterian Church has this mission to help build a great city for all people through a movement of the gospel that does what?

59:49

That brings personal conversion, community formation, social justice, and cultural renewal to New York City and throughout the world.

59:58

And what does this social justice look like? Two things. Tim Keller says the substitutionary atonement involved

01:00:03

Jesus losing his power, which in turn inspired Christians to be radical agents for social change by giving up theirs. He also said that it's biblical that we owe the poor as much of our money as we can possibly give away.

01:00:12

Is that biblical, guys? Are there Bible verses to support these things? No, there's not.

01:00:20

Let me read you. This is from Jarvis Williams, and this is very recent. This is this year. I believe it was in July or August.

01:00:28

What can I do as a white person to help the cause of racial reconciliation? You want to get rid of the white saviorism mentality and not view yourself as the savior who's going to help these poor people, but rather take the posture of the learner.

01:00:41

Put yourself in spaces where there are people of different ethnic groups, but also learn that person's narrative because quite often

01:00:47

I think that certain people in a majority group reject white privilege, affirm that there's colorblindness because their narrative is not the same as the counter narrative of the marginalized group.

01:00:56

When you have a meal with somebody, you hear their narrative. That gets inside of your soul, and you realize that this person is someone who doesn't share your narrative, but it doesn't make his narrative less real or true.

01:01:08

Less real or true. Subjectivity. This is recent, guys.

01:01:15

This is after correction has been brought. Still advocating the same thing. Standpoint epistemology. And I've already gone over this before in previous videos, but social justice is a new religion itself.

01:01:31

You can't just import these things and expect they're not going to somehow have an effect on transforming the

01:01:38

Christian religion that you believe in. The gospel included in that has its own conversion steps, and I've gone over those before.

01:01:48

I won't for the sake of time today. So here's the review, guys. Merging law with grace creates a different gospel.

01:01:56

Liberation theology and critical race theory include a different gospel, a false gospel, a different ethic,

01:02:02

Pharisaic. It's a Pharisaism, right? Subverting the law of God and replacing it with the traditions of men.

01:02:10

And a belief in subjective truth. That's the Gnostic heresy. You have all of these elements and very similar things.

01:02:19

Gnostic heresy, Pharisaism, and a false gospel, the Galatian heresy, all in scripture.

01:02:25

And liberation theology is bringing you all three of these, at least the core elements that are heretical in these, all in one package.

01:02:35

Evangelicals who adopt aspects of liberation theology adopt one or more of these categories, guys. And the secular social justice movement is a false religion.

01:02:44

Scripture warns and teaches against false teachers and teachings. So what do we need to do?

01:02:52

We need to warn. Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.

01:02:59

They're sheep, guys. They look like they're one of us, and they're not. Grapes are not gathered from the thorn bushes or figs from thistles.

01:03:06

Are they? So every good tree that bears good fruit, but the bad trees bear bad fruit. Is the social justice movement bearing good fruit or is it splitting churches?

01:03:15

Is it dividing people or is it bringing them together under the banner of Christ? You tell me.

01:03:21

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the law for they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject a factious man after a first and second warning.

01:03:30

Knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self -condemned. Guys, I've been called this, but this is what

01:03:37

Paul did. Paul confronted false teaching. And if we see people that are factious, it's not the people bringing the truth.

01:03:47

It's the people bringing the error. Those are the factious people. They are the ones that are splitting the church and they need to be avoided.

01:03:55

And I'll ask you, have some of these men that I mentioned, have they been warned one or two times? And they need to be rejected if it's more than one or two times.

01:04:05

Are social justice influenced teachers causing divisions? The answer is yes. Brothers and sisters, we need to test the spirits.

01:04:14

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone into the world. 1

01:04:19

John 4, 1. Are you testing what you listen to by the standard of scripture itself? Paul told the

01:04:26

Bereans, he was an apostle and he said, you tested me. Congratulations.

01:04:31

He affirmed what they did. He said that was the right thing to do. Test me, test my teaching against the word of God.

01:04:38

Are you doing it? Are you instructing in the truth? As I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines.

01:04:51

Are you teaching against false doctrine? Brothers and sisters, I know that's a lot to take in and I want to just encourage you at the end of this,

01:05:07

I had not thought through the basics of really boiling it down to those three elements, false gospel, false ethic, false view of truth.

01:05:19

I had not just boiled it down to that for an easy to digest kernel of truth that you can take with you, but I just think this is powerful.

01:05:28

I think this is an apologetic and you need to take that with you in your church, wherever you go.

01:05:34

You need to compare to scripture. You need to ask questions. Even if people think you're being divisive and questioning the pastor, even if you don't want to be a jerk about it, obviously, but even if people think that's what you're doing and they say you're someone who's dividing, you say, what false doctrine am

01:05:51

I bringing that's dividing? Make them prove to you that you have the false doctrine.

01:05:58

All this language about, I've heard this so many times, I didn't really know the full gospel until I got woke.

01:06:05

How many people have said that? Paul Tripp said that. Phil Johnson brought it up in that Q &A from two years ago with Mark Dever and Al Mohler.

01:06:15

He said to those guys, he mentioned, he didn't say

01:06:20

Paul Tripp's name, but he mentioned a guy, I knew who it was. He said he didn't even know the gospel, all the books he's written and he didn't know the gospel till now.

01:06:29

If you remember, Phil Johnson also brought up, he said, why am I hearing things that sound similar to sojourners from the 70s?

01:06:36

Look at where sojourners gone and you have a glimpse into where the evangelical industrial complex as a whole is going.

01:06:43

We must hold the line for orthodoxy, for scripture. We cannot add works to the law, even if they're motivated by critical race theory, even if they're things that are good, we cannot add works to the gospel, cannot add law to grace.

01:07:01

Well, I hope that encouraged you. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to do this today and I don't ask for people to do this ever.

01:07:11

I don't know if I ever have, but share this video, share this video, show people, other Christians, show them how, what they're involved with may contradict, at least raise the question in their mind that maybe what they're involved with may contradict the gospel.

01:07:25

Now to end things here, I had an announcement I wanted to make, two announcements.

01:07:32

One is I have a book coming out in October, October 6th is when it actually comes out and it's called

01:07:42

Social Justice Goes to Church and there's a lot more information about the history of the social justice movement.

01:07:48

And so I think it's very important. There's another book though, and I'm actually going to my social media right now because I know

01:07:54

I promoted it and I just want to get all the information right and make sure that I'm representing it accurately.

01:08:00

It's called Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice. It is by Scott David Allen.

01:08:06

I endorse the book and it is a tool that can help you. And so I just wanted to commend that to you.

01:08:12

God bless all of you. Stay strong, no matter how strong the winds of the world are, even if they're hurricane force, do what

01:08:23

Paul did. Not even for an hour did you bend to them. So that's my encouragement. Stay strong.

01:08:29

The God of scripture who sees everything knows where you are and he sees you.

01:08:34

And if you're faithful, he will be faithful to you. God bless, bye now. If you're like most

01:08:39

Christians in 2020, you were living a normal life, going to church, and all of a sudden, terms like critical race theory, intersectionality, social justice, white privilege, white fragility, things you had never heard before became part of the vocabulary you heard at your church or your missions organization or your denomination.

01:09:01

I've heard these words for a few years now in seminary and then in Christian institutions. And I wanted to know how in the world did the social justice movement, a neo -Marxist movement with a different gospel, it's a gospel of grievance, not a gospel of grace.

01:09:16

How did this get in to the evangelical church? So I started doing some research and what

01:09:22

I found was quite interesting. Evangelical social justice warriors from the 1970s like Richard Mao and Ron Sider and Jim Wallace and others were raised in conservative evangelical homes and ended up picking up ideas in high school and college that were social justice driven.

01:09:43

At that time, the term used was the new left. They picked up new left ideas, neo -Marxist ideas, and they brought them back into their churches.

01:09:52

And they made a lot of headway, especially with the Chicago Declaration of 1973 and the Lausanne Covenant in 1974 and then something happened.

01:10:01

Jimmy Carter became president and because of the failure of Jimmy Carter's presidency with evangelicals especially, a populist movement called the

01:10:09

Religious Right rose in American society and the media covered it and they made great political gains.

01:10:15

And you never heard about the evangelical left, but they were still working. They were still working behind the scenes in academic circles in places that you may not have been familiar with in your normal everyday life.

01:10:29

Well, we are familiar now because this movement is affecting our normal everyday life.

01:10:34

We hear the terminology. We hear it coming out of the mouths of even pastors that we once respected. And people like Ron Sider and Richard Mao and Jim Wallace have influenced a new generation of evangelicals.

01:10:48

People like Tim Keller and David Platt and Russell Moore and others have picked up these ideas, but they didn't just pick up these ideas from neo -Marxists in the secular world.

01:11:00

They also picked them up from the original progressive evangelicals. And so for me, this has been a very beneficial study and I think it will be a beneficial study for you in trying to understand why in the world did neo -Marxism come into the church?

01:11:17

What kind of logic was used to justify this false social justice gospel? I explain it.

01:11:23

I show you the history of it. The book comes out October 6th. It's called Social Justice Goes to Church, The New Left in Modern American Evangelicalism.

01:11:32

And I hope it blesses you as much as researching and writing it has blessed me.

01:11:37

You can go to Amazon .com. You can order it there or pre -order now. God bless. Thank you for watching.