Russell Moore, Templeton Foundation, N.T. Wright on Abortion, & J.D. Greear's Diversity Push

Intro and the Week’s Main Topics

We are live now on the conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host John Harris. There's a lot of material out there to talk about and I'm not sure if we'll get to all of it. But I do want to talk about some things that I've had Bookmarked on my phone for the last few days some of them now, I suppose over a week.

Russell Moore put out an article at Christianity today about slander which many are speculating is In response to Megan's book, which would be true to form for him because When he's received criticism in the past.

He does not tend to acknowledge such criticism with naming names and Addressing it directly. He tends to do a very general approach where you don't know specifically who he's talking about but you can read between the lines and guess or you know who fits the description and I think there's a strategic reason probably he does this.

He's not the only one There's a lot of people in evangelicalism who do this. I don't know how many times I have heard someone with a platform in evangelicalism Start talking about some pushback. They've gotten and the description they give Sounds a lot like something I've said.

There's been times actually I'm the only one I know of who's said what they're talking about but they'll they're not gonna name me and and I think I don't want to speculate too much, but I think there's a reason for that and I'll just leave it at that.

But Russell Moore Maybe responding to Megan Basham with this piece and we'll talk about that a little bit. There's also a podcast that he did recently with Latasha Morrison, who's the author of be the bridge.

I'd done a whole thing on that. It's critical race theory Harmonized with Christianity or an attempt to harmonize you can't really do that, but She attempts to do that and in that book this became sort of a minor issue in the primary for the Governorship of Virginia because Glenn Youngkin who is now the current governor of Virginia Had been I believe it was leading these studies at his church.

So when I said that Glenn Youngkin was influenced by or Had didn't have a problem with critical race theory and he's the one that the Republicans are electing to deal with it it was big because of this in part, so That is how far back I have to go though.

I think that was what? 2021 2020 trying to remember now when he was first elected when that the race was the primaries were going on maybe 2021 but anyway. That's how some of you who listen to the podcast may know of Latasha Morrison but she so she did write that book and that's what she's known for and there's these be the bridge groups at various churches that Are supposed to promote racial reconciliation and I've had People from churches that have done that tell me it's split up the church.

It's I've never heard of good fruit coming from it. But she was with Russell Moore too. And so I want to talk about that podcast a little bit and then we will talk about NT right a little clip of him comparing gun rights to abortion.

I have not listened to it that it's gonna be kind of a cold listen where I'm gonna be listening to it in real time as you're listening to it and responding and What else do we have? We have some funding.

I'm gonna talk about some funding of a certain foundation called the Templeton Foundation and Probably not the full extent of what they've done but a little bit about what they've been up to and.

Really?

Reinforcing the point that Megan Bastian made in her book a point that enemies within the church has made a point I've made over the years is that there are Funnels of money going to Bad actors can we put it that way.

People who are subverting the church and I don't think this is necessarily All coordinated like everyone's in a backroom with cigars. I think this is just the way things are set up. There's a chart. I don't have it in front of me, but there is a chart.

I know I've seen many times that show right wing verse left wing donations so it was really donations to Democrats first Republicans and the different industries people come from who donate and.

It's.

Startling when you see it. I mean it's mostly blue. It's mostly Democrat donors in many of the influential fields. And so they just have a lot more money and they got there over time. This wasn't something overnight, but they have a lot more expendable income to put towards their political projects and if an Evangelical is far left enough to use that money whether or not it's subverting Evangelicals or it's just to push the needle forward on leftist objectives and other areas.

They might get that. And there's more available to them. I'm not saying there aren't foundations and grants coming from more conservative think-tanks and organizations, but there are much more coming from left-wing organizations.

And so it doesn't mean all you're seeing in your church or your denomination or your Christian organization is the result of leftist funding. I think that's kind of a cop-out. I think that there's a lot of ideological reasons for what's happening, but in Certain areas.

Yes, they're there the scales are somewhat tipped in ways that you might not be aware of. We're gonna talk about that a little bit today as well. If we have time and we should have time for that and then we're gonna do kind of a blast from the past I'm gonna go back to a JD Greer sermon from 10 years ago.

I think it was on diversity, I'm not gonna play it, but I'm gonna I have a transcript and The reason I want to go back to it in part was because I thought it was a new sermon I thought it was from the end of July and it turns out Summit Church.

Just I guess re-released it online, so They're still backing this narrative up. They're still Okay with this message being put out there and I want to talk about it though. Because when I was looking at it, I thought wow, you know.

It's it's just interesting to see the fruit of this so this was 10 years ago JD Greer preached this particular sermon and to see what has happened since then and What I would say is the negative fruit the division that's come with it and So often these guys blame everyone who critiques them for the division, but I think the division comes from their message.

So That's a preview. And if anyone has any questions, I know I've certainly been active on X the last few days on this whole post-war consensus stuff and Was Churchill good or bad and and then a little bit on IVF too and Some I actually found some interesting things about IVF.

I did not know that I don't know if it's just because it was updated. But I like one of the things I saw was that.

The.

Embryonic well law should I really get into this? Maybe I should maybe I should stop myself from getting into this because this is the third episode I talk about this topic, but I get pushback for it, right?

So I it forces me to to look at things a little deeper and yeah, I mean I There's so much to say there's so much like it's such a big topic and there's so many moving parts. But the some of the overly simplistic responses, I'm just more and more convinced.

They're not helpful and we really need to Target directly the ethical issues and the moral Violations horrible moral violations that often accompany the practice instead of doing a very simplistic pro or con thing and then oftentimes with bad information about What's actually going on or what it actually is?

But there was what was it? I looked up a study. Oh here it is. Okay. So this is on my ex. So apparently I didn't know this but You're gonna hear this a lot with With people I think very oftentimes well-meaning but people in the anti-abortion camp who understandably have a problem with IVF because of so many of the moral issues that often accompany it and you'll hear it thrown out that that you know with IVF there are Anywhere, they'll say from 85 to 99.

I've seen numbers all in the middle there but like very high numbers for Eggs that are well fertilized so the embryos that are discarded or lost in some way and This is often bandied about though, unfortunately in Ignorant ways sometimes careless ways where you're not sure like because you could be talking about Selective selectively getting rid of these Embryos because you don't want them you have too many of them, right?

You could be talking about that they weren't they didn't meet a certain standard or they were Genetically, there was a they had down syndrome or something, right? And so getting rid of them for that reason you could also be talking about a natural process Really that occurs in healthy pregnancies, or I shouldn't say in healthy pregnancies that occurs though in In natural in a natural state where you may have a healthy pregnancy, but there are other Embryos that end up dying this actually happens with twins quite a bit around 10 to 20 of the time apparently when there's twins one of the twins doesn't make it and the pregnancy is lost and the other twin does so estimates are that you know, this is Somewhere up.

This is like 70 of embryos are actually lost in the womb and nothing to do with IVF right, but I found out that in in IVF Situations they have a clinical pregnancy rate of over 60 The actual live birth rate is still below 50 though.

Which I thought was interesting because that's actually I thought they were I I looked up stuff This was must have been a few years ago now, but but they were equivalent and I guess they're not anymore IVF situations actually there is According to some studies less of a Percentage of embryonic loss, so I I don't Quite understand all the ins and outs of everything related to this, but I did read Enough of the study to understand what they the point they were trying to make and Yeah regarding specifically What you would call natural reduction or spontaneous reduction IVF apparently has up to or a rate of over 60 and then actual live birth of Just below 50

Whereas it's just weird to me. It's just odd. I don't know and you know, I thought about it I was like what would explain this and I think some of this it may be the fact that in that process the people who are candidates for it are They have hormones.

They've all they're taking a lot of progesterone and that kind of thing and this they want the womb to be an environment that is as Receptive to an embryo as possible and they're monitoring it and maybe that's what makes sense of that.

But Very interesting to me so so anyway, we can talk about that if people have questions about that, but I do see people coming into live chat and People are I don't know why people can't believe this Made it to another live stream T.

James Boone says Jimmy starfish says I can't believe I made it to a live stream. Believe it you're here. You are here. I dreamer. How are you doing? So Let's talk about Russell Moore stuff first shall we do that?

Let's talk about the be the bridge not be the bridge. Sorry his interview with Latasha Morrison the author of be the bridge. Some of the things she says and then some of the things he says, I think it's very fascinating.

Acts 6 and the Limits of the “Be the Bridge” Reading

So.

Let's start with this. I'm just gonna play you little segments here because I listened to it.

For the distribution of food and so I think that's something that we have to see that there was an adjustment made and in Scripture goes on to say in that and the Word of God spread and so at that point there was a hindrance coming because there was a lack of unity and we see that the Word of God spread and we see that with Peter and you know just the eating of food and what was going to be required of the Gentiles and what wasn't going to be Required of the Gentile Gentiles, we see that what Paul and you know, and we see this through Scripture.

But I think sometimes we need help really fully seeing What was underneath and what was at play there? We we completely missed that because when we read the Bible a lot of times we think of ourselves we put ourselves as the marginalized, you know.

When we read the book of Esther we see ourselves as as Esther, you know. Being persecuted rather than no, we're like, hey, man, how does a pastor?

Some of you will notice that seems very heavily edited I don't know why I don't know what was said and what they were cutting out but very heavily edited. So The point she's making I'm just gonna go to the passage.

It's Acts chapter 6. This is the passage. She's talking about. Acts 6 verse 1 says now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number a complaint arose on the part of Hellenistic Jews Against the native Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.

Now I'm gonna stop there. John Calvin says about this. He's he actually says well, it doesn't mean they were being overlooked. It just means that someone was complaining about it. The Hellenistic Jews thought they were being overlooked.

So I Guess there's a question about that. But it says so the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said look it's not desirable for us to neglect The Word of God in order to serve tables.

Therefore brethren select from among you seven men of good reputation full of the Spirit and of wisdom. Whom we may put in charge of this task and then of course they? Put in charge Stephen is one of them Philip Prochorus Nicanor if I'm saying the written names, right.

Timon Parmenas Nicholas and. Yeah, so those guys all have Greek names and a lot has made about this. I've seen this. Every guy so I would consider somewhat woke everyone from Carl Ellis to Eric Mason to like they all it seems like to use this example of people who are disenfranchised these Greek widows because of some racism of some kind and.

Then that inspires the office of Deacon that inspires the Apostles to specifically pick these Greek people to go minister to them and The implications if that's true, they're reading of it.

Yeah.

You might want to think about those implications a little bit because that would mean that I guess like you could extrapolate from that. That I guess if black people are the marginalized in the scenario which is often the parallel made that white people should just go I guess hire black people to help them or something like they.

Because it's not something that they should Get involved with which is kind of the opposite of what they're trying to say. But I don't know if that read I don't I should say I do know I do know that's it's not the correct reading Of the passage and it's a novel reading I think.

What you really have in that passage is people who speak one language and people who speak another language and people who speak Greek are thinking that they have been looked over and they want Some attention.

So so this is what happens and. Sorry, I'm distracted by something right now. All right, we're good. So this is what happens and.

And.

Anyway, I I think that The point that LaTosha Morrison is trying to make here essentially is she wants to. She wants to ensure that people do kind of a redistribution thing and That's not what you see in the passage.

It's not that one group is marginalized and Neglected and it's because of some we don't know that that it's because of some racism or some Innate Hatred they have for Greek speaking peoples or something like that.

It's just It's an really that moral of it is there is an issue that the Apostles could not address. It took too much bandwidth and away from more important things. And so they assign people of good character who were able to bridge that language barrier and take care of it.

That's what you get from the passage. So Anyway, let's let's keep going. There's a few other things in here. Let's go to this part of the conversation.

Let's overshadow the other and I think we have to think about that even today and what's happening in our climate. What what do we want history to say about us? Yeah, where do we stand in that where? Where people are having this conversation is not to defend themselves.

Because there were choices that they made in light of the gospel. Yeah, there are choices that we are making in light of the gospel. And so what what does the Word of God say? What does Jesus say? about justice.

What does Jesus say about feeding the poor? What does Jesus say about the least of these?

I had a a white. I'm trying to remember why I wanted to play that clip. I don't I. I put in my notes defending white supremacists because they did good things. I don't know why I wrote that down. I think she must be talking about.

Maybe if I go a little earlier than the. Let's see if I go a little earlier if it makes sense. Genuine.

Insight from people from the past while also recognizing this is horrific sin and injustice.

Yeah, I think we tell the truth and we've gotten so far away from the truth. And it's the truth that really makes us free where I can say there's this duality where I can say. Those people make some really bad decisions and choices and I can talk about that.

But I could also say but these are some good things that they did. That's the full truth. Like, you know, okay.

I guess I remember now more why I wanted to play that so This is the thing though that people like myself have been saying for a while that people are flawed and there are oftentimes good things that you can find in someone and also bad things and the woke side has typically framed things as if founding fathers founding generation people are Irredeemable in some way because of complicity and something that was beyond the pale and And so there's really no There's no hope for her ever.

We should take down their statues. We should treat them as villains in history in this kind of thing and I've tried to make the point that Going back that far. There's gonna be a lot of assumptions that don't comport with egalitarian ideas we have today, but There's obviously there is a place of Profound strength morally in a lot of these people sacrifice duty Character traits that are actually in short supply today chivalry and it would do us well to go back to some of these things and That's a point though people even the neoconservatives, right?

Who tend to buy into these critiques more strongly than I would tend to make this point? And it's interesting to hear someone also make that point. So I just wanted to point that out that I don't know if there's a shift going on that.

I don't know I don't know what that means. But it's a This could be used to defend people like Robert E Lee if they wanted right? This could be used to defend a lot of people that they consider horrible beyond the pale people from history Going on that logic.

So yeah, the full truth Edwin Ramirez says the full truth the full truth in quotes. Yeah, that's I think what we've been after I think is my point like she's trying to claim the mantle of the full truth but that is the very thing that we've been trying to Like say there's there's a lot of it's complicated.

There's people are complicated and having a one-size-fits-all paradigm for someone is oftentimes a Oversimplification All right. I only have I think three or four more little areas that I wanted to play here.

So let's move forward here. Oh George Floyd. I was gonna just I'm not even gonna play this I'm just gonna mention no, actually, I'm gonna play this because actually he's Russell Boer I think is the one who says something here.

That's kind of Lot has happened. Yes, but if you think about so just to put it in context, they're talking about George Floyd's.

Death here. Let me go go back a little more. And the things that we preach and teach, you know. Do we believe in redemption?

Yeah, it's only been Four-years since the murder of George Floyd. A lot has happened. So yes, but if you think about those those months Immediately after it seemed like something had really changed. Yes, as though people who who maybe previously didn't want to even think about these things.

Did yeah that has that has not been sustained. Yeah, at least in in my view you might disagree with that. But yeah, I think we're certainly not in the same place. We've heard that right. What did we do wrong in the George Floyd era?

Yeah, I think it was performative. I think people were doing stuff and making changes not out of conviction, but out of Being called out. So it was real performative. I think it was a start and I think if there would have been different leadership at that time I think people would have leaned into it a little bit more but there was a double down and a ratio and a change in.

Of narrative and the the fringe some of the fringe things that happened unfortunately from the church of CRT that took the life out of it, you know that were things that weren't even true. So anything to do with history became CRT.

Anything to do with black history became CRT. We started banning things and conversations of people who were still leaving living and breathing. I mean Ruby Brick.

All right. Let's just stop there for a moment.

I.

Hope you see the overall point. This is something I've seen over and over with leftists. Like there are things that happen where you make some progress and then it's overshadowed or it's like this happens in history, right?

But it is Characteristic of leftists to win and win a political victory of some kind their guys in office. They're controlling politics. They get all this DEI stuff passed and approved and corporate corporations.

They remove hundreds of monuments. They make everyone hyper aware of race and scare people into complicity they win a sweeping victory on the issue and Then not long afterward they they lament about it like well, we didn't achieve what we wanted.

We didn't go far enough we didn't reach the goal we were looking for and Who's always to blame? It's some it's these fringy Racist sexist homophobic, whatever these bigots that are hiding somewhere just waiting to trap them and and ruin everything and Russell Moore, I mean he frames it as a murder first of all, so I hope you caught that.

He frames it as the murder of George Floyd, which we know from the autopsy. Now, that's not true but he says it's a murder and So he's buying into the narrative and then you know, where did we go wrong?

It's. It's it's like everything's been reversed and this is one of the engine. This is this is the engine I think this is one of the things that keeps the left doing what they're doing because they're perpetually in this spot of thinking that there's more powerful forces that are holding them back and Christians even though if the evangelical elites almost entirely belong to them or are neutralized by them.

It doesn't really matter. They focus on the what they call the fringe voices who? Disagree with them and then blame them for why things aren't the way they want them to be and I would submit to you that Things will never be the way they want them to be.

No matter what they do. They are bucking against creation most of the time they're trying to change social institutions to Arrive at some kind of a utopian state a DEI paradise that doesn't actually exist that won't exist and Really what conservatives I think would say is that you have to take into account the populations that you're dealing with and the Barriers and well the constraints that you have and then come up with the best policies for how to meet those.

The left is much more ideological generally, and they Want whatever their ideal is on paper. Abstractly speaking to be the state of affairs and when it doesn't reach that. Then they have to come up with a scapegoat of some kind.

And so you just see it again here. All right. Let's talk about Wokeness to the term woke which was seen as a very positive term Is not now and here's how they deal with it. It's just funny. They're very sensitive now to being even called Something like woke which I just thought was really rich.

So here's a little clip on that buddy, but we don't understand systemic racism, you know, that is a good point that Ruby bridges seems to. I think a lot of people to be way back in history like a Harriet Tubman.

She's she's not.

She's my parents are older. My mom is older than Ruby bridges. My mom is 72 so many. So you're talking to someone where you're trying to deny a history that. That not just I have lived but my parents have lived and the impact of that.

You know my grandfather who was 91 years old just passed in September.

I'm wondering if I got the right wrong time stamp here. Let me go back a little more.

Just levels of depravity. You know that I can't even imagine. That you know, we are a people that understand depravity, but we don't understand systemic racism.

You know, that is a good so I'm not sure where the quote was. I put maybe I put down the wrong time stamp. Maybe maybe it's on 30 instead of 20. All right, let me try one more thing. And if I I'll just skip it if I can't find the correct time stamp to do.

What's in their power.

And what they're doing is helping sustain some of the brown people and some of the allies and Accomplices that they have. Okay, I can't find it.

So there was a point I can't find exactly where it was for some reason I must have written down the wrong time stamp where they do. They're sensitive to being called woke and that this is some kind of Name call this is some kind of way to You legitimize what they're saying and I just thought this was the funniest thing to me because It's not like conservatives came up with the term woke.

Christian Conservatives didn't say, you know, we're gonna do we're gonna name call them woke. It was a term that they used of themselves not that long ago even and all of a sudden, you know It was turned against them as because we know what that is.

Now. We saw what happened in 2020. We say oh, that's what woke is. Well, we're against that that's associated with all kinds of terrible things and now they don't want to be called that in general and so.

Now if a conservative uses it about them, they're so sensitive to it and it's just it's funny. It's rich. It's like you can't make it up. All right. Let's okay. I just have one more thing. I want to play from this so this is Russell Moore at the end and It reinforces a little bit of what I was talking about earlier how they can gain all these victories and yet.

They still feel like perpetual losers. When LaTosha Morrison brought it up is because I think we tend to Have this wrong-headed Assumption that time itself will solve all of these problems. And I think if we've seen anything in the past couple of years we have seen the ways that things can go backward and things can go off course in churches and countries and Cultures when it comes to these questions of racial justice and reconciliation.

And I I Can think about in my own life being in the fourth grade When our school was integrated not legally integrated that had happened long before but actually Integrated with a group of african-american students.

I was.

Not.

Terribly terribly long ago in the sweep of history and we still have. We still have a lot left to confront. But what I liked about this conversation Among many other things but is that there really was a sense of hope that she That she has and I think there are a lot of people who are Maybe the most effective right now who are realistic about Where things are.

We don't just wish this away. We can look at what's happened over the past several years and say this is.

Awful.

But Who aren't at the point of cynicism that just says what can you do? This is just the way that it is. She did she didn't yield either of those things and I think that is hope giving. Okay, we're gonna stop there.

The.

Would you think this guy has.

His.

The people he wants in office the policies he'd like. The ideology that he subscribes to you. Would you think it's in a winning position from listening to that and look what he's holding on to Ruby Bridges?

Who is the subject of there's a Norman Rockwell? Photo of Ruby Bridges going into Integrate a school. I think it was in Louisiana or somewhere. He's holding on to something for I don't know how many years ago that was but the schools are integrated.

So He's he's saying well, it was I guess it wasn't that long ago and it just makes him sad like okay, but it like where's the it's just interesting to be these guys who left us who They're getting the policies they want for the most part and Yet, they're they're still not satisfied.

They're just not happy with it I think He is a really nasty person. Yeah, that's what Trump said about him. I'll take some more questions. Not Ruby Ridge. No, not Ruby Ridge. Ruby Bridges. You can look her up.

Hannah Harris says hey, what are some of your favorite resources for accurate history particularly of US history? If you're looking for curriculum, I'm not my child is not that old yet. So I haven't had to do this myself, but Brian McClanahan has McClanahan Academy Tom Woods has Liberty classroom and both of those things.

I think they're for probably high schoolers more but they have material and curriculum apparently for Helping at least assisting if not being an entire curriculum. I've been told that The Tuttle Twins the Tuttle Twins have good stuff I've never looked at it, but I've been told they have good stuff, which is also associated with Tom Woods for younger children.

I've also been told I think the Ron Paul curriculum isn't that bad. I don't know. I've been told that There is a book I think it might be out of print I'm not sure if you can find a PDF called the war between the states, which is a it's a Civil War Textbook and Someone I know who teaches said it's the best they've ever seen the most comprehensive Civil War textbook.

I Don't know other than that unfortunately as far as you general comprehensive surveys of history. I actually taught American History or at least proctored. I don't know if you call that when you're teaching online They call it teaching but sometimes it doesn't feel that way.

But I did at least Proctor grade papers, you know administer lessons and so forth for American history survey and The way that textbooks are going now in college. This was on an undergrad level are they're not really textbooks.

They're like you read a little bit you do a game or you do a test or quiz and you read a little bit. They're very interactive watch a video.

It's.

There.

They're not like what I was used to growing up where you just have a Tangible like pages of information, right? So, I don't know what's out there. I think there's a lot of resources out there now and it's hard to sift through them because most of them probably are not.

That great, but those are a few places you can at least start to look and hopefully that helps. My kids learn stuff from watching shows. Watching or watching the shows. Oh the Tuttle Twins, I think. Okay the Tuttle Twins a show.

Okay, maybe maybe that's what they are. I didn't know that Question have some Christians been too close for too long to Democrats that are now they are compromised. I think it's just the Democrats have power and the Christians who want to be well loved or well liked and they want to Remain employed and they don't want to be cancelled and they operate at a higher level.

They're going to cater that kind of thing and in their circle of friends, they're probably gonna be more Democrats. Okay, let's move on here and talk about. What are we gonna talk about Russell Moore's article, yeah when to respond to slander.

When to Answer Slander and When to Ignore It

This is kind of a basic article, I think. So I don't it's pretty short. But he says that there was a woman who came to him about a conflict and wasn't sure what to do. And he said she said that you seem to mostly ignore it when people lie about you.

Is that because it would be wrong for me to defend myself? Should I just ignore what they say about me? And more says that part of the problem is that we often think wrongly about what it means to ignore ignoring something sounds.

Passive and.

Yet ignorance rightly defined is active. In order to ignore well, we have to know well, so in other words you purposely are not and there are times to do this, but he says Proverbs 2 26 for answer not a fool according to his folly lest he you'd be like him the very Verse next verse answer full according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes.

There are times when responding is the right thing to do. But then he talks about the example of Christ. He says.

You.

Know I guess is a prudential matter when it comes to slander about himself. Jesus sometimes directly contradicted untruth. Sometimes he responded not with defense. He told stories quite often. He ignored one time.

He ridiculed the slander. Jesus modeled what it means to avoid the warning of Proverbs that is to avoid sinning in response to sins against us. Let me see if there's anything actually substantive in this.

Knowing your vulnerabilities. So he said he usually ignores untrue things about himself. Or this woman did I guess. And he agrees if you have a tendency for quarrelsomeness or of an oversensitivity. You might be best served not not just by ignoring slander, but to try to avoid it.

This actually I don't think this is actually all that bad advice to be honest with you. I know I'm saying that about Russell Moore. I don't think it's all that bad advice. This is an interesting example he gives and so he talks about Jodie Foster responding to John Hinckley shooting a president to get her attention and.

Why does he bring that up, let's see. There's sometimes quite different principles involved in defending others from slander than in defending oneself. Joseph. Forgiving his brothers for their injustice is commendable if he had waved away their mistreatment of others.