Is the Bible Project Woke?

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:11

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We have somewhat of a listener -generated episode today.

00:18

I've had the question asked to me, is the Bible Project woke? Now, for those who don't know, the

00:25

Bible Project is an animated series. It's like a digital animations coupled with a narration that explains different aspects of the

00:34

Bible, teachings, themes, chapters, books, testaments.

00:41

I have not been intimately familiar with it. I used to go to a college career group years ago on a campus that would use some of their stuff.

00:50

I never saw anything that jumped out at me as bad. It wasn't bad. Some of it actually probably was pretty good.

00:57

It wasn't my thing. I've never used any of their material, and it's been years since I've watched any of their stuff. But it is popular.

01:05

It's very popular. Someone asked me this question, and then I had two people, unrelated, send me.

01:13

I think one was sent to me and one I saw, but one was one of the Bible Project leaders talking about a liberation theologian, and the other one was a psalm that the

01:24

Bible Project went over. Well, I'll play it for you so you can hear it, but I don't mean to ruin everything.

01:30

I just got to say this, because I think some people think, John, the only thing we'll have is John MacArthur sermons, and then we can maybe listen to or watch some old school

01:45

R .C. Sproul lectures. I don't want you to feel that way. There's other stuff. I'll figure out what the other stuff is soon.

01:53

I'll think. It is sad. I don't know what else to say. It seems like one thing after the next is like, oh, man,

02:01

VeggieTales, oh, okay. And then it's like, oh, Bible Project, oh, man, really?

02:07

I get it. But, hey, it's better to know the truth and know kind of where they're coming from.

02:13

Even if you're going to use the Bible Project, you should know where those behind it are coming from.

02:19

I think after you know that, you're not going to want to use it anyway, but yeah, hopefully this is helpful, even though it's hard, and I get it, and I just want to relate to you so you understand.

02:28

I understand it, too. It is difficult when things that could be so good, and you want to be so good, can sometimes not be the best.

02:35

So, hopefully that motivates some people out there to do their own similar animated series or something.

02:40

I mean, we need people who are solid and orthodox to do this kind of stuff, so. Let's go through this.

02:48

I'm going to blow this up so you can see it. This first clip I'm about to show you is from Psalm Chapter 8.

02:55

It's from the Bible Project, and just listen. Both David and the afflicted ones are really powerless and weak.

03:27

It begins by saying, So, Yahweh is the

03:36

King of Creation, and you can see his royal power on display everywhere. Now, that first line is repeated again at the end of Psalm 8.

03:45

Right, that's called an inclusio. It's a signal to the reader of what the poem is all about.

03:50

God's majestic power that fills all of creation. But David and the afflicted ones aren't experiencing

03:57

God's power at the moment. Right, this is what the rest of the poem is all about.

04:02

There are two parallel sections, and in the first we're introduced to a weak little creature, a bunch of babbling babies.

04:10

From the mouth of infants and nursing babies, you have established a stronghold because of your adversaries to stop the enemy and the avenger.

04:19

Now, the Hebrew word for stronghold is oz, which can mean strength, or also a strong place, like a fortress or a refuge.

04:28

God's going to build a fortress out of baby babble to stop violent enemies? Yeah, it's like a riddle that is going to be unpacked by the next matching part of the poem.

04:38

When I consider your skies, the moon and the stars which you have established, what is human that you remember him, and the son of humanity that you attend to him?

04:48

So the poet's here reflecting on the creation narrative of Genesis chapter 1, where there's this contrast.

04:55

God installs the heavenly lights above in all their splendor, and then below he forms the humans out of dirt.

05:02

Yeah, I get this, looking up at the night sky feeling so small and insignificant. Why are humans so important to God?

05:09

And so the poet continues. You made humanity a little lesser than spiritual beings, yet you crowned them with glory and majesty.

05:18

In Genesis, God elevates the weak little dirt creatures for this majestic task, to be his image who will rule over all creation.

05:27

The poet can hardly believe it. You made them rulers over the work of your hands. You put everything under their feet.

05:33

So both parts of this poem are about how God loves to elevate the powerless, so he can rule the world through them.

05:40

Whether babbling babies or lowly humans, God loves to choose the weak. Yes, just like David, and like the poor and afflicted ones.

05:49

And all together, they set the pattern for that ultimate human, the Messiah of Psalms 1 and 2.

05:56

And he will rule over all the land. Now, these ideas in Psalm 8 lead us forward to the story of Jesus.

06:04

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21, Jesus rides into Jerusalem as a king to confront

06:09

Israel's powerful leaders. But he's on a donkey, not a war horse.

06:15

And the people hailing him as their king are the poor and children. So Israel's leaders mock

06:21

Jesus and then have him executed. But then God raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him as the cosmic king, the true image of God.

06:31

Then Jesus invited his followers to share in his power and mission, but it's a different kind of power.

06:38

Yeah, it's like how Jesus said that to be his follower is to become like a child. Yes, when

06:44

God's people serve others from a place of humility and powerlessness, that's when

06:50

God's kingdom and power are most on display. O Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the land.

07:00

Okay, so my first thought after watching this is way to put the focus of Psalm 8 back on man.

07:09

Because if you read Psalm 8, the focus isn't on man. The focus is on God.

07:16

Let me read it for you. They read it, I know, but let me just... It says, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

07:23

Who have displayed your splendor above the heavens? From the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have established strength.

07:31

Which, maybe there are translations that say power, I don't know. But the amount of times they use the word power, it almost sounds like Tim Keller or Foucault.

07:43

They're really obsessed with that. But you don't find that in the text, at least. The concern doesn't seem to be power.

07:49

The focus is all on God. God is the one who has splendor in the heavens.

07:58

So big picture down to something small. Something more seemingly insignificant.

08:04

An infant or a nursing babe, he's established strength there too. That's the point. It's not just big picture or little picture.

08:12

Everything is God's. God is showing himself and his attributes through all creation.

08:18

That's the point of Psalm 8. Because of your adversaries to make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

08:26

He'll conquer his enemies, right? He'll display his strength even through that. When I consider your heavens and the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you take thought of him?

08:37

The psalmist is, and have you ever done this? Like the psalmist, you look at the stars and you think, man, we're small.

08:43

Wow, why does God even take notice of us? It should make you awe -filled, right?

08:49

Make you want to worship. But they're making it out like in the

08:54

Bible project, like the communication here is somehow that we should be lowly and not be powerful.

09:01

Power is a bad thing. You shouldn't have power so that then you can somehow make God much more of God.

09:07

Well, there's nothing in here. It's talking about mankind in general. It's not talking about a certain class of people who have humbled themselves.

09:15

It's talking about everyone. It's talking about mankind in general. Why is man as a class, as a category significant?

09:25

And it says, you have crowned him with glory and majesty. You make him to rule over the works of your hands.

09:34

That's man's job from Genesis, right? You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and ox and all the beasts of the field, the birds, the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

09:44

Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth? It starts and it ends with giving them the glory to God.

09:51

How majestic is your name in all the earth? This is something God's accomplishing. And somehow the Bible project managed to take this psalm and make it all about whether or not man should be,

10:02

I guess, humbling themselves or not. And how power is a bad thing. God's glory is most on display when it's people that have given up their power and are just very humble and lowly.

10:17

Maybe, but you're not getting that from this text. Like, this is just, God's gonna get glory no matter what.

10:24

He's gonna get it through everything he's made. The creation is his. That's the point of Psalm 8.

10:31

So yeah, there's kind of a man -centered element in that, but it definitely sounds, I will say, kind of liberation theology.

10:38

You even hear it when he talks about becoming like a child. The whole point, like Luke 18, 17 says, truly

10:45

I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all. And if you read, there's various texts in a few of the gospels.

10:56

Mark has it, Matthew has it, that talk about coming to Christ with the faith of a little one.

11:01

That's the point, is it's the faith that children have, the trusting. It's not because, well, they're just more holy or special or something because they're kids.

11:13

It's, they're glorifying God more, and that's what Psalm 8's trying to communicate too. No, it's talking about the faith that a child has, it's a childlike faith.

11:23

And that's, it's not like, I don't know.

11:29

It's just, they're bringing categories into these passages that just don't belong there. And they're doing it in a way that would be consistent with liberation theology, with the idea that Christ came to kind of, to be an example, to show kind of the world what it looks like to be powerless and to suffer, to identify with everyone else by suffering from the oppressive system, just like the poor are oppressed and suffer that way.

11:57

I mean, you can almost sort of get that hint from the video that we just watched. That's what liberation theology teaches.

12:04

So it wasn't surprising when I saw this. I'm going to show you a video now of the kind of the mastermind behind the

12:17

Bible project. This is Tim Mackey, and this is what he says about Gustavo Gutierrez, who was a liberation theologian.

12:24

If I honor the Bible as a source of divine wisdom, I have to reckon with the fact that this extraordinary emphasis on the poor living conditions of people in poverty were people of the vulnerable.

12:42

People were vulnerable. And that their problems need to become the problems of those with influence and resources and voice.

12:51

And that that's the definition of a just community. That just is the case.

12:59

We've got a lot more to go here in a few minutes, but I'm just thinking as I listen to this, that's the definition of a just community.

13:09

The just community should have nothing to do with whether someone's poor or rich. It's giving someone their due. It's faithfully applying the law equally, whether someone is rich or poor, privileged, unprivileged, whatever.

13:24

So he's defining the just community as a community where the rich are somehow tuned into the voice of the poor.

13:32

I mean, he has to say more than that.

13:38

If he wants justice, he needs more than that. Biblically speaking, at least. And I can choose to say,

13:44

I hear that that's what the Bible's saying. I'm not sure I agree with that. I think there's a different way. So that's fine.

13:50

But I think at least we're not doing anybody any favors by saying, well, that's not actually what the

13:56

Bible's saying. You're saying that the Bible is saying that justice is actually identifying the people who are marginalized and vulnerable and making sure that there are systems in place that give them a leg up.

14:18

Like that's the biblical... That's not justice, guys. That's not justice. Justice isn't adjusting systems to benefit those who are marginalized or oppressed.

14:31

I mean, ultimately, if that's the case, right, eventually you'll just have, hopefully, a system that there's no oppression.

14:37

I mean, that's what communists want, ultimately, the utopia where there's no oppression whatsoever.

14:43

And we know that's impossible. But the idea, though, that you are creating systems or changing systems or setting systems up to help, on a broad scale, the people who are marginalized, et cetera, that's actually...

14:59

Justice would be treating everyone equally. If we're talking about civil justice, which is what they're talking about here, that's what that would be.

15:08

Now, it could be charity. It could be... There could be... It could be justice in another sense, in the sense of righteousness to help someone in a charitable way.

15:20

But that's not what they're talking about. They're talking about systems. They're talking about creating...

15:25

When you hear system, think about... You have everyone...

15:32

Every man for himself, right? Kind of as the blank slate, everything stripped down as every man for himself, and there's no mediating institution of any kind.

15:41

So you put a system in there that will make sure that the poor and marginalized, et cetera, have a leg up, that things are compensated for for them.

15:51

And ultimately, things should be... There should be systems in place that punish evil and crime, sin, the things that God identifies as public sins that need to be punished, but not as an end in and of itself, just because someone's marginalized.

16:08

I mean, look, prisoners, you could say they're marginalized, right? Should we just... Well, just let them out of prison, right? That would be a way... No, that's not...

16:13

That principle doesn't work there, right? So anyway, this is liberation theology.

16:19

There's no doubt in my mind that's what this is. Yeah. A view of justice. Yeah. I mean, if we want to say we're trying to be faithful to the

16:28

Bible and its wisdom about justice, I don't know. It just becomes very clear.

16:34

Yeah, it's just... You just read it. Well, it can be easily misunderstood. Here's a good example.

16:40

In the 1960s and 70s, there was a really influential theologian from Peru. He was

16:45

Peruvian. He was a Catholic priest, and his name was Gustavo Gutierrez, and he just started writing like a madman because he grew up in poor slum in Peru, but he was able to find his way forward through education and then in ministry in the

17:03

Catholic Church, and so he just started writing. His most famous book was called The Theology of Liberation, and he ended up sparking a movement, a theological movement, of authors, writers.

17:12

Liberation theology. Liberation theology, and it was encapsulated by this phrase that he coined called, if you look at the

17:19

God of the Bible who reveals himself as the God of the Exodus, and he calls it the

17:25

God has a preferential option for the poor, which doesn't mean that you disregard fairness in favor of the poor.

17:34

He's often misunderstood on that point. His point is simply this, that if you look at all of the hundreds of occurrences of mishpat in the

17:42

Bible, there is nine out of ten of them are uniquely focused and aware of the difficult situations of the vulnerable, and if they are left behind in my vision of the future of my community,

17:57

I cannot claim to be a just community. Okay, mishpat, word for justice, why are just, why is that used so often and it's not, by the way, it's not always used to designate preference for the poor, right?

18:12

It's actually, there are situations where it's actually used to say you shall not show partiality to the poor, but why so often is it coupled with showing favor to the poor, making sure the poor are taken care of, et cetera, they're getting justice.

18:32

The reason for that is because oftentimes the poor and those who are, sometimes this is the foreigner, the sojourner as well, the reason that they are often singled out as you need to be just to them is because they are at a disadvantage often, they don't have the social, you think of the widow, right, or the orphan as well being coupled in that, they don't have, like a widow doesn't have a husband, an orphan doesn't have parents to look out for them, so it's easy for people to take advantage of them, to break the law, take advantage of them, but they don't have much of a recourse because they don't have a husband or they don't have parents or they're low on the totem pole and not respected by other people in society, they're not believable perhaps, they're as much, that kind of thing, the reason is because they're easily taken advantage of, that's the reason you should be take extra special attention to be just to them, and it's one of the things

19:33

I think actually in our country, it's funny how this gets so often twisted, side note, that the

19:39

Republican Party or conservatives in general, they're the problem, they're the ones that don't show justice to the poor or something, when in reality,

19:45

I think it's the other way around, actually, it's the Democrat Party, it's progressive policies that specifically actually keep the poor poor and incentivize other people to become poor and to become, living off the system and just robs them of their self -dignity and all kinds of things, it's actually not a just thing, that's not a right thing, it's taking from one person who's productive, giving it to someone who's unproductive and both of them actually, neither of them benefit from that, but the person who's poor actually

20:27

I think benefits, even has less of a benefit, it makes the situation even worse for them, ultimately speaking, it's not a just thing, justice would be when someone robs from the poor and you're gonna punish that villain, even though it doesn't do anything for you, if you're a judge and a rich man is robbed and you help that rich man out, there's actually a benefit probably in the community for you, that hey, this could be covered in the paper, maybe they were a celebrity, maybe they'll look favorably upon you and help you get elected next time, there's all sorts of benefits with that, someone who's poor that can't pay you, there's no benefit to you for helping them, that's why you have to pay special attention to helping the poor, it's not because the poor are special in some way just because they're poor, they have some kind of a moral superiority because they're poor,

21:21

God cares about them more just because they're poor, no, he doesn't care about them more just because of that status, the reality is they require more care in some ways because of their vulnerable status and there's a huge difference there and I hope people see that.

21:40

That just is the case and it's through from the Torah to the prophets and as we'll talk about right on into the

21:47

New Testament as well, it's just, so how that translates into specific policies and legislation?

21:54

You said it could go too far, what were you about to say? I mean, well, this is what people debate about so I think there's lots of room for debate, you just have to be an expert

22:07

I think on the policy of whatever matter it is at hand, education or healthcare. You have to be an expert, it's like so, this whole thing is geared, despite, did it ever occur to you that liberation theologians or people that are into that,

22:21

Tim Keller is one of those guys, like, they're, you know, we're just about the oppressed, we're just about the little guy, right?

22:29

Well, what would you do? Oh, you have to be an expert, it's like, it's just right into elitism somehow, like, I mean,

22:35

I don't know, I think you can actually read the Bible, understand it, understand principles of justice, it's good to study, it's good to be aware, you don't have to be an expert to understand those things though, so.

22:47

I think at least we should be clear, if I'm claiming to be a religious person who bases my view of the world on the

22:54

Bible, my vision of the just society has to be informed by this, so this is what

23:00

I'm hoping the contribution of the video can make, is to at least say, this is what the

23:06

Bible means, front to back, about justice, and, and my hunch is that on like a healthcare debate,

23:14

I mean, I don't, I actually don't understand the details, I try to, but it's really complicated, but my hunch is there are probably religious people on both sides of that debate, who have read their

23:26

Bibles, and they really believe what they're doing is, is faithful, even though they come to different points of view, and I don't,

23:34

I don't know what to do with that, but it's an exercise everybody has to go through,

23:39

I think, if you find yourself called into these kinds of roles. So what good is it?

23:46

I mean, he doesn't have any answers, what good is it to, to buy into liberation theology, and stuff,

23:55

I mean, it's like, I mean, I know most people that would, are going to be for some kind of a free healthcare, some kind of a socialized medicine, right, if they're into liberation theology, and stuff,

24:06

Tim Mackey is saying he doesn't know, but it's like, if that's the case, if this is so important, then you should know, right, you should probably, at least have a rudimentary basic understanding of kind of the principles that play in this, it's just, it's sad to me, but these are the guys who,

24:23

Tim Mackey, I guess, is one of the guys behind the Bible Project, I think he's the main narrator, here's,

24:29

I want to show you Gustavo Gutierrez, because he put him up as someone who's to be emulated, and stuff, this is from,

24:37

I'm writing another book, I'm supposed to be, and this is from chapter two of that book, where I talk about liberation theology, and I do a little profile on Gustavo Gutierrez, so I'm going to read it for you, perhaps the most famous liberation theologian was

24:50

Gustavo Gutierrez, a Dominican priest who learned about Marxism while studying at the Faculty of Theology in Lyons, France, in his popular 1971 book,

24:58

A Theology of Liberation, Gutierrez commended Marx's critique of capitalistic society for pointing the way towards an era in history when man can live humanly,

25:07

Gutierrez believed the biblical command to love neighbor was a call to transform social structures which benefited the few while exploiting certain classes, peoples, and races, ultimately,

25:16

Gutierrez wanted a radical change in the foundation of society which challenged the private ownership of the means of production, this would be accomplished in a

25:24

Christian framework, Jesus' vision was to achieve a different society where God's love dispelled all injustice, privilege, oppression, or narrow nationalism, the gospel included political liberation and solved the problem of social injustice caused by sin, the marginalized, their moral purity, set the template for this societal salvation as others, whether Christians or not, were converted through working to liberate the poor and oppressed, liberation theology distorted the reason for Christ's first coming, modified the mission of the church, denied the universality of sin, destroyed traditional

25:55

Christian teaching on social order and added to the gospel, it was a version of Christianity conformed to Marxism or perhaps liberation theology can best be summarized as a

26:04

Marxist faith built on a Christian foundation, that's what I've found with Gutierrez and liberation theology, and it's just not

26:12

Christianity, at the end of the day, it's a way to try to market Marxism to Christians.

26:18

So I hope that was helpful and I don't mean to disappoint people, like I said at the beginning, maybe there's some good stuff from the

26:25

Bible Project you can use, but I would be careful with just a blank kind of endorsement of the Bible Project because obviously

26:32

Tim Mackey is somehow influenced by liberation theology and it is going to come out like it came out slightly in Psalm 8, so there you go, there's my answer on the