Response to The Urban Perspective on Dr. James White (part 3)

Hello, I wanted to continue my response to the Urban Perspectives response to Dr. James White.

I'm going to skip a little bit of the content here, right about minute 23 through minute

33.

There's a really good section that you should definitely listen to where Pastor James White talks about sort of the

reform tendency to sort of downplay the church's role

in our stories, churches that we wouldn't want to consider as theologically sound

as reformed churches are.

I think he makes some really good points.

I think Pastor James White wants to attribute some of that to race, I think, but

I'm not sure that it really could be explained by that.

I think it's just sort of a reform tendency in general to kind of think any other tradition doesn't really have the

gospel, it doesn't really present the gospel.

So I think you should listen to it.

But there's a mix of some good points there and some bad points, but I'm going to skip that and start right about

minute 33.

And this is where they start to talk about Black Lives Matter and the issue of police brutality.

So I'm going to switch over to that right now and we'll give it a listen.

He talked about lamenting, you know, black and brown unarmed people being shot by police.

And what astonished me was James White read that quote, but then just said, this

sounds like Black Lives Matter.

We want spaces to lament when the next unarmed black person is killed by law enforcement.

This sounds to me like Black Lives Matter things, not biblical

things.

Now, yeah, it does.

I think they're going to raise a point that I think is fair.

And they're going to say that it's not fair for Dr. James White to sort of

instantly sort of want to connect Jamar Tisby's perspective and Black Lives Matter's

perspective.

And I think that's a fair point.

You don't want to do that necessarily.

And really, you know, another good point that they make is that this isn't really a refutation of anything.

This is just sort of kind of almost like a distraction, like, oh, yeah, that sounds like Black Lives Matter.

And we all know that that's crazy.

So yeah, there's some good points here.

But it's also fair to say that it does sound like Black Lives Matter stuff.

Jamar's point, especially if you know a little bit about Jamar, not just from this article, but from other articles, he

has a lot of similar points to what the Black Lives Matter movement would make.

And so it's a fair comparison, I think.

But it doesn't really advance the conversation.

So there's a fair criticism there as well.

If I lived in Chicago, then there would be a need in the local church in

Chicago to be making sure that everybody, everybody, it doesn't matter what Latino,

Asian, doesn't matter, that everybody in my fellowship was kept safe.

Because of the war going on, they're primarily gang related.

It's gang related.

And unfortunately, in many cities in the world, it doesn't matter what color the skin is, as long as there's gangs, drugs, sex

trafficking, in other words, sin, there's death.

There's death.

But bringing in this, oh, also now law enforcement's the bad thing.

He did not address the point of unarmed black and brown people being murdered.

And they are murdered by people in positions of power.

So he miscategorizes and puts Jamar on par with Black Lives Matter.

But then he begins to sound like Sean Hannity.

He gives Fox News talking points.

He's not providing scripture or biblical emphasis for that specific point.

He does mention scripture, but not on this point.

I have a hard time not laughing when I see that because it's just so interesting.

You know, the pastor there gives a great point, you know, Dr. James White kind of unfairly puts

Jamar Tisby on par with Black Lives Matter because of how he sounds.

And I think, again, it's a fair point.

He does sound like Black Lives Matter a lot of the time.

But it's fair to not want to just say they're equivalents because they really aren't.

There's many areas I'm sure that Jamar would disagree with Black Lives Matter, the official movement.

So he recognizes that that's unfair for Dr. James White to do, and then he turns around and does the exact same thing in the

same breath.

It's amazing.

You know, Dr. James White, he says, Dr. James White turns around and starts talking like Sean Hannity.

I agree, because his point did kind of sound like something Sean Hannity would say.

But don't you see how unfair that is?

You just said it's wrong to do that, and then you turn around and do the exact same thing in opposite.

So it's either wrong or it isn't, right?

I mean, I don't think either comparison is incorrect.

Jamar certainly sounds like Black Lives Matter a lot, and Dr. James White certainly sounded like Sean Hannity there.

I don't think it's unfair.

But if you're going to make the argument that it is unfair, don't, in the next sentence, do the exact same thing

that you're accusing Dr. James White of doing.

But anyway, let's continue.

Can you talk to that?

Why is the idea, the reality of police brutality, the fact that these

things are happening?

Why are so many white evangelicals opposed to talking about this

head on?

I don't see any evidence that they are.

So a couple of things about that, the way he's even presented that question, right?

He says that it's the reality that this police brutality

is happening.

And then he asks, why are so many white evangelicals opposed to talking about it head on?

And there's a lot of assumptions there, right?

So the way he's posed that question, you can't even begin the conversation, because here's the reality.

There's a lot of white evangelicals who are willing to engage this question head on, but they want to start one step back,

right?

They don't want to just take your word for it, that police brutality is a rampant issue, right?

And that white cops are going around beating black and brown people like crazy.

They want to start there.

They want to say, okay, let's talk about that.

Is that true?

Because we see it in the news a lot, but the news can absolutely twist

reality, right?

And so the question is, is this really happening?

So I don't think it's fair to say that white evangelicals as a whole are

kind of not wanting to talk about this head on, just because we want to challenge every

single time we see this in the news, people who say, okay, is this a real problem or not?

We want to challenge that whole idea in the first place.

That's not the same as not wanting to confront it head on, right?

You know, I think, I don't think we realize the

psychological impact of how we have journeyed as

believers for hundreds of years, the psychological impact that it has on us.

And this is where, and this is where conversations like this, when we go to defense mode, this

is where I feel like we miss some of the power of who Jesus is, that one of the things that should make us different.

I think Pastor James White, you know, with all due respect, the reason why so many people kind of come across as they're

being in defense mode and why Dr. James White might come across as being in defense mode is because, and he's

put in that mode when there are accusations of sort of this rampant white supremacy,

I've seen lots of people called Dr. James White just outright racist because of some of these responses.

And so when you're called a name, when you're called something that you're not, yeah, you

tend to be in defense mode.

And so I totally understand it.

And if you remember the context of this whole video is James White was

bristling at the idea that white Christians needed to take an anti -racism training, whether or not they were racist.

It's that's why, that might be why he's in defense mode.

Just wanted to point that out.

As believers, and Andy Crouch does a wonderful job talking about this in his latest book

of strength, I think it's strength and weakness, but he does this concept of authority and vulnerability.

And for some reason, one of the things that's difficult, the reason why we go to Fox News, the reason why

we'll go to Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh or other talking heads is because we don't want to lose

authority.

And I, again, I don't

understand where this comes from.

Right.

So the first pastor says, you know, he sounds like Sean Hannity.

And then Pastor James White says he appeals to Sean Hannity and he appeals to Rush Limbaugh and these other

talking heads.

Dr. James White didn't do that.

He didn't appeal to anybody.

So I'm not really quite sure where this is coming from.

If they're responding to James White here, it's confusing that they would bring this up, this appeal to authority

and they don't want to lose authority.

That wasn't a part of Dr. James White's response.

He didn't do any of that.

So you might say he sounded like Sean Hannity.

And I think I would agree with that.

He did.

But he didn't appeal to him.

He didn't he didn't say this is my authority.

This is why I know I'm right.

He didn't do any of that.

So I'm just, you know, kind of confused as to where that comes.

From.

And that gospel -centered people as well.

We've always gotten in trouble when we think that authority rules the day.

What makes gospel -centered people different is we see authority, but we serve a savior who

says authority with vulnerability.

Yeah.

And rather than us understanding that when there's conversations that come into play,

then maybe this is time for us to be vulnerable.

And so I got to vulnerably enter into this conversation about police and rather than coming

to the defense and blaming the group of people who are vulnerable, you know, who are being,

again, murdered rather than humanizing, whether it's Eric Garner and his family, whether it's

Trayvon Martin being a teenager, whether it's Mike Brown being a teenager.

OK, so this is the real meat of it.

So, again, this is all built on the starting point of,

you know, appealing to authority.

Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, that didn't happen.

So this whole argument, I'm not sure what it has to do with the video, but

it's interesting, right?

You say he says, you know, we need to kind of come at this conversation from a perspective of vulnerability or humility.

And I agree.

We want to do that.

We want to make sure that, you know, when we talk about these kinds of issues, that we don't come at it from a perspective

of I can't possibly be wrong about my perspective.

Right.

We want to hear people out.

We want to we want to look at the details of each situation and say, OK, was there some racism at play here?

Was there some kind of discrimination or bias at play here?

And so, yeah, we do want to do that, but we need to do that from both perspectives.

Right.

And so, yeah, we certainly don't want to just start off from the perspective of I'm going to go ahead

and blame the victims of a possible discrimination.

We won't want to do that.

But we also don't want to assume discrimination either.

Right.

We know we need to come at it as as a Hispanic person or as a black person.

We want to come at it from a perspective of, OK, it seems like there might be some discrimination or racism at play here.

Let's find out if there really is or if that's just my perspective.

Perception rather.

And so, again, it's one of those situations where what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Here's the thing I found so interesting about this.

Right.

He brings up three specific situations.

He says Eric Garner, he says Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

And so this is the danger, I think, because I from if we're coming at this from from a place of

humility, right, a place of vulnerability.

Can we be wrong about this perception here that these three situations are all examples of

rampant police discrimination?

Right.

And we need to be nuanced because the details of each of these cases were different.

Right.

So when one case with Eric Garner, this is the this is the man who was choked out and

end up dying by a cop.

And his crime was that he was selling loose cigarettes.

Right.

So not a morally bad thing to do.

And that situation was ridiculous.

Right.

I mean, there's no reason that there should have even been a police interaction there.

That's not an immoral thing to do.

It might be a crime, but it shouldn't be a crime to sell loose cigarettes.

So that interaction shouldn't have happened in the first place.

And then that somebody lost their life over it makes it even more tragic.

So that's that's a horrible situation shouldn't have happened.

Then he talks about Trayvon Martin.

Different case.

Right.

Different case with different details.

He talks about Michael Brown.

Again, very different case.

Michael Brown was just, you know, coming off of a strong arm robbery.

Right.

This wasn't, you know, a very nice young man.

Right.

And so when the cop says that this is what happened, he, you know, he reached for my gun or he threatened me or whatever

it is.

I don't know if that actually happened.

Right.

But the point is, neither does anybody.

Right.

And so to say that that's equivalent to Eric Garner, it's just unfair.

It's not it's playing fast and loose with the details.

And so we don't want to do that.

And so, again, I think when you when you kind of want to reduce everything to racism without

proving it, I understand why people push back against that.

I push back against that.

And I don't have any qualms doing it, because if you're going to want to say, OK, we need to

talk about this rampant racism, this fact of police brutality that's going on.

OK, let's talk about the fact and let's first of all, find out if it is a fact.

I don't think in any of those three cases that you can demonstrate that what happened there was was an example of racism

or police bias.

Each one was different.

You know, some of them might have been justified.

I think Michael Brown was probably a justified police interaction.

Eric Garner certainly wasn't.

But you see, we got it.

We have to have room for nuance.

Rather than us vulnerably entering in and vulnerably entering in, because we are a people that understands

the value of life.

Absolutely.

We understand the sanctity of life again because we believe people are created in the

image of God.

Rather than doing that, we immediately get afraid as white Christians and we

move to the place of dealing with authority.

Because we we rather than dealing with the vulnerable and knowing that if you deal with the vulnerable, it

doesn't mean that you are against the authority.

But the authority and vulnerability have to enter in together.

So here's what I mean by that.

What I mean by that is, is that when I understand vulnerability, then I understand biblically that, of course,

a policeman can shoot someone because of their bias.

Right.

Of course, being a policeman, being a white policeman in a predominantly black neighborhood, in

light of all the visual mental images, in light of Madison Avenue, in light of the Hollywood

that we as believers hadn't really helped change, in light of all of the things that you see, the

messages that you see, absolutely white policemen may be quick to shoot someone.

But not because it's the right thing, but because, man, there's a vulnerability that maybe they haven't dealt

with.

So that's where I'm going to stop.

And so, again, I completely understand why Dr. James White

said, this sounds like Black Lives Matter, because it does, right?

Because here's the thing, Pastor James White is saying, absolutely, a white cop

who works at a predominantly black neighborhood, absolutely, he might shoot someone quickly

because of his biases, right?

And he kind of lists off a few reasons why he might have these biases, you know, movies and Madison Avenue,

things like that.

And he says, absolutely, this might have played an impact.

Nobody denies that, right?

So nobody, not even Dr. James White would deny that a police officer might have a

racial bias, might have a racial prejudice.

But you can't go from might have to saying that that proves it, right?

So nobody's denying that authority figures could show partiality like

this.

This is not up for debate.

What people do deny is that we have evidence that they do.

Because statistically speaking, if you look at the statistics of this issue, it doesn't look

like there is one that comes to play very often.

Larry Elder, he's a black libertarian commentator.

He likes to make this point.

He says, you know, you're just as likely as a black person in America to

be struck by lightning and killed than you are to be killed by a police officer.

Okay, and that's not to say that it's amoral, right?

Because obviously, if you're killed unjustifiably by a police officer, that's morally wrong.

I mean, lightning can't be morally wrong.

He's not saying it's an equivalent, but what he's saying is it's rare.

It's very rare.

And so it's irrational to be worried about being killed by a police officer if it happens so

rarely.

Nobody goes outside worrying that they're going to be struck by lightning in a given day.

And that's a completely reasonable way to go, because it's very unlikely that it's going to happen.

And it's just as unlikely that you're going to be shot and killed by a cop.

So even though every time it happens, if it happens in an unjustified way, it's wrong and we

need to stand against that.

We should also make sure that we're spending the right amount of resources talking about it because

it's so rare, right?

And I'll put a link in the description of the statistics that I'm mentioning here.

They're interesting statistics.

You should take a look at them because the differences between contacts, you're actually less likely to have a

contact with a police officer if you're black, which is interesting.

So this is the thing.

We need to be humble enough on both sides to talk about this issue in a fair way and

not just say, okay, unless you accept what I'm saying about racism first, you're not having a

conversation with me.

No, we need to talk about it, but we need to have it on even footing here, right?

So I don't accept the idea that there's just a rampant problem of

racist cops out there hurting Hispanics and blacks.

I don't accept that until I see evidence of it, right?

So I'm not saying it's out of the question.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but I need to see evidence of it in order to believe it.

And so that's why James White was saying it sounds like Black Lives Matter because he even

mentions the issues of murders in Chicago, right?

And he's saying, okay, well, if Black Lives Matter was concerned with black lives, then maybe they would dedicate a

little bit of their time and money to dealing with the issue of cops killing blacks because it does happen

sometimes, but by far, the majority of their resources should go to where black lives

really are in danger.

And it's not with cops.

That's the reality.

That's why he brings up Chicago.

That's why you say he sounded like Sean Hannity.

Okay, but does that prove anything?

Maybe Sean Hannity has a point, right?

And he's not the only one saying it, right?

There's lots of people say it, white people that say this, black people that say this.

I saw this great video of a bunch of black rappers that were talking about this very thing.

It's hypocritical to spend all this money, all this energy and effort to try to stop

something that statistically is so rare and spend almost no

resources, no time, no energy talking about something that statistically is much more common,

which is being killed in the city, being killed by people of your own race.

I mean, black people are most likely to be killed by another black person.

White people are more likely to be killed by another white person.

This is something that happens all the time, right?

So if the Black Lives Matter group was really about black lives, you'd spend time worrying about that.

You'd spend time worrying about abortion, which you never see.

And so, yeah, we need to have this conversation from a position of humility.

We need to have this conversation from a position of vulnerability, but we need to, both sides of this issue

need to do that because we need to establish the facts of the situation first and then we can talk about what to

do about it.

And I think that honors the gospel, that honors Christ because Christ didn't just go around, you know,

telling stories and expecting people to respond and believe, you know, every

accusation that comes their way.

No, he said he established a principle.

I mean, you need evidence to prove that something happened before you can go and then

execute justice.

That's Christ's standard.

That's not my standard.

So I want to continue with this and probably do one or two more parts to this,

but thanks for watching.