May 27, 2021 Show with Darrell Harrison & Virgil Walker on “The Wokeness Movement’s Rejection of Diversity Among Black People”

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May 28, 2021

May 27, 2021 DARRELL BERNARD HARRISON, Dean of Social Media @ the Bible-teaching Ministry of Dr. John MacArthur, “Grace To You”, & VIRGIL WALKER, Executive Director of Operations @ G3 Ministries, who together cohost the “Just Thinking” Podcast discuss “The WOKENESS Movement’s REJECTION of DIVERSITY Among BLACK People”

00:04: Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
00:10: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,
00:23: Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:31: Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:38: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.
00:50: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,
01:00: Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
01:11: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
01:16: Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.
01:22: This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 27th day of May, 2021, and I'm so thrilled to have back on the program two guests whom
01:37: I absolutely love interviewing, Darrell Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker.
01:43: They are both co -hosts of the Just Thinking podcast, and Darrell Bernard Harrison is now
01:51: Dean of Social Media at the Bible Teaching Ministry of the world -renowned
01:57: Bible teacher Dr. John MacArthur, grace to you, and Virgil Walker is now
02:04: Executive Director of Operations at G3 Ministries, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Darrell Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker.
02:17: Chris Arnzen, how are you, brother? I'm doing great, and we are... It's exciting to be with you, man.
02:24: Yeah, it's exciting to have you guys back on the show together, and the theme that we are addressing today is the
02:31: Wokeness Movement's rejection of diversity among black people. We're also going to be discussing two upcoming events that our guests are involved in.
02:43: First of all, the Wokeness and the Gospel Conference, which is coming up right around the corner in a matter of days,
02:50: June 11th and 12th in Denton, Texas, where my friend Darrell Bernard Harrison is on the speaking roster, and also the
02:59: G3 Conference coming up in September 30th through October 2nd at the
03:08: Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, where both of these men... I'm sorry. The latter was being held in Atlanta, Georgia.
03:17: I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The G3 Conference is being held in Atlanta, Georgia, featuring both of my guests, both
03:25: Darrell Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker, and that is on the theme of Christ is supreme above all.
03:34: I love the way someone on Facebook, in response to our promotion for today's interview on the
03:44: Wokeness Movement's rejection of diversity among black people, somebody responded, �The boys in the metal man are taking no prisoners today.�
04:00: I like that myself. I think that's the first time I am aware that I've been called the metal man because of Iron Sherpa and Iron.
04:09: But, well, first of all, Darrell, if you could let our listeners know about this upcoming conference,
04:18: Wokeness and the Gospel. Yeah, thanks, Chris. I'll be glad to.
04:23: So, the conference, as you have said and alluded to earlier, is titled Wokeness and the
04:28: Gospel, so that's the theme. Wokeness Up Against the Gospel is the more accurate way to look at that, and the conference is being held at Denton Bible Church, Denton, Texas, on June 11th and 12th.
04:42: As you mentioned, Chris, I'm going to be one of the featured speakers there, along with Dr. Owen Strand, Pastor Tommy Nelson, Pastor Tom Buck, Pastor Rodney C.
04:52: Brown, Jr., and then Pastor Charles Salfos, as well. So, this is a two -day conference that will consist of plenary speaking messages from the gentleman that I just mentioned, as well as breakout sessions.
05:07: Each of these individuals will also be doing at least one breakout session. I believe Dr. Strand may be doing two breakout sessions, but it's going to be a theologically packed weekend where individuals are going to open the
05:25: Word of God and exposit why wokeness, this multi -tentacled, this multi -layered, multi -faceted worldview that many people are referring to as wokeness, is so dangerous to the
05:42: Church, to the Gospel, not a threat to the
05:48: Gospel. I want to make this clear. We know that nothing, ultimately, of this world is a threat to the
05:53: Gospel at all, but Christians need to be aware, educated, informed about the various layers of this movement so that they can be equipped to offer a biblically
06:05: Orthodox apologetic against the various ideologies that make up this whole wokeness worldview.
06:15: And just so you folks can find out more information about this and even register, which is what we hope you do, go to wokenessandgospel .org,
06:27: wokenessandgospel .org. I'm so excited to be manning an exhibitor's booth there.
06:33: This is my first visit to Texas. The only time I've ever been in Texas before was on layover in the airport.
06:42: I never left the airport on that occasion, but this is going to be a great first -time experience for me, especially since my oldest brother,
06:53: John, who is 76, lives in Justin, Texas, which is, I think, less than a half hour from where this conference is.
07:01: And I'd appreciate all of you praying for my visits with John. He is an unbeliever.
07:06: He has cancer. He has critical stage emphysema, and he has an inoperable aneurysm.
07:14: So please pray that the Lord places upon my lips the right things to say to deliver the gospel once again to my brother, and please pray that the
07:29: Lord gives him a new heart so that he receives the gospel. And I can know that whatever his will is regarding my brother's life,
07:38: I'll know that either scenario of living through these ailments or passing into eternity will be good news either way if he comes to Christ.
07:50: So please pray for that. And Virgil, this will be my fourth,
07:56: God willing, G3 conference where I am manning an exhibitor's booth. It is always such a phenomenal experience for me, and it always benefits me greatly, not only personally, but benefits my program in quite a number of ways, manning an exhibitor's booth there.
08:16: So I understand that this is predicted, due to evidence, of course, to be the largest
08:26: G3 conference ever, but you expect well over 6 ,000 people this year.
08:33: Absolutely, absolutely. We're extremely excited, I mean, given the nature of what we've experienced over the course of the past year with regard to conferences closing and shutting down due to the pandemic.
08:45: What we're seeing, I think, as we kind of pass through that timeframe as governments and governors begin to open the doors for us to meet, is that folks are hungry to meet, evidenced by what's happening at the
09:01: Woke Men's in the Gospel conference, and definitely evidenced by what we're seeing at the
09:06: G3 conference. We anticipate well over 6 ,000 folks. It will be the largest
09:12: G3 ever, and I'd argue one of the largest of the more sound anti -Woke conferences that are out there.
09:23: Of course, the theme is going to be about Christ and His supremacy, and we're going to analyze biblical
09:29: Christology, and it really goes back, as you were talking about your brother and your hope for him to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
09:38: I'm reminded of the importance of Christ being preached. We have a tendency in our culture to react to issues and challenges, and we are to be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks us for the hope that we have.
09:53: But the very beginning of that verse in 1 Peter 3, 15 and 16, begins by saying, "...honor
09:58: Christ the Lord as holy." And then it says, "...always to be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks for the hope that we have."
10:06: So our goal as a conference, G3 Ministries, is to honor
10:11: Christ the Lord as holy, and to amplify our going into kind of that fall season, as people begin to get back to school and think about the holidays, is really to honor
10:22: Christ and to exalt Him, Christ being supreme, reigning supreme, and we're excited.
10:29: We have an incredible lineup of speakers, from Steve Lawson to Conrad and Bayway to Paul Washer, of course,
10:36: Dr. John MacArthur, Dr. Josh Byte, Anthony Messina, a whole host of incredible speakers,
10:43: Joel Beakey, Justin Peters. One of the things that I've loved over the course of the last, you mentioned four years, four to five years, that I've been around in attendance with the
10:54: G3 Conference, is that there's no other place that you can go and have the variety of speakers all in one location, as you can with regard to G3.
11:05: To get in front of, to get the opportunity to hear this many speakers, you'd have to attend two or three conferences around the country, and it's all right here at G3 in Atlanta, September 30th through October 2nd.
11:19: We can't wait. Amen. And for more details on that conference and to register, go to g3conference .com,
11:26: g3conference .com. Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away.
11:32: If they have questions on wokeness, and specifically our title today is
11:37: The Wokeness Movement's Rejection of Diversity Among Black People, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
11:45: chrisarnson at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.
11:51: As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the
11:58: USA. This is a very amazing, a mind -boggling phenomenon, this whole culture here in the
12:10: United States, the leftist culture, that is enthusiastic about this wokeness movement.
12:18: And by the way, it is interesting to see more and more people on the left coming out against some of the various elements of this, because it's basically a cannibalistic movement.
12:30: You wonder how many will be left standing in about five years, because the list of people who are on their hit list is growing to include some of the left's own heroes.
12:45: So it's kind of interesting to see how this is developing and devolving.
12:52: But the title that I have given today's program about the wokeness movement's rejection of diversity among black people, this is really a large evidence, a large bit of evidence, that these leftists are treating skin color as if it is a religion.
13:17: Obviously, we who are Christians, we who are Bible -believing
13:23: Christians, although we recognize there is diversity within the body of Christ, there is good diversity, there is unfortunate diversity that comes from division over doctrine, because we recognize that we who are
13:41: Christians are still sinners, we are fallible, we make errors every day, we sin every day, and so there is not a perfect unity on this planet when it comes to the
13:58: Christian faith. But we do not promote that there should be great diversity amongst
14:07: Christianity as far as different gospels, different ideas of the
14:12: Godhead, different ideas on the nature of who
14:17: God is, of who Christ is. So it's understandable when a religion is reluctant to have or permit too much diversity.
14:27: But when it comes to somebody's skin color, when it comes to citizens of a country like the
14:36: United States, it seems as if the Wokeness Movement is just as if they are putting their fingers in their ears and shutting their eyes tightly when a black conservative is speaking, and they do not even recognize this as a fellow member of the black community.
14:59: In fact, it's kind of interesting that the only time those who are the movers and shakers of the woke movement seem to be colorblind is when a black police officer shoots a black citizen, and they treat that police officer as if he is a white racist.
15:23: But if you could, let's start with Darrell. Do you think
15:28: I'm making sense here? Am I overstating the case? Yeah, number one,
15:34: Chris, I think you're making perfect sense. You're not overstating the case at all. One thing I will add, though, to what you've so articulately and accurately stated is that this idea of the absence of diversity among especially black, woke, leftist, towards non -leftist black people is not new to Wokeness.
16:02: I mean, this is a reality that's going on now almost seven decades. There has never been ideological unity within the, quote, unquote, black community.
16:16: And I've actually written against this whole idea of, quote, black community, unquote, because it doesn't exist.
16:24: It's a myth. You've given a couple of examples there, but the example that's less obvious, the example that's less conspicuous is the lack of ideological diversity within black
16:43: America, especially within black political thought. It is nonexistent, and I'm not exaggerating that.
16:50: If you are black and you don't side ideologically with black social justice advocates, with black liberation theology activists, if you don't side with the black woke, you are ostracized immediately, notwithstanding the fact that you may share a similar shade of melanin with that person.
17:20: If you don't think like they do, that's what it all boils down to. If you don't think as they do about society, culture, either contemporarily or historically, then you're out.
17:35: You're not black. You're not black even though you're black. See, there's black and then there's blackness.
17:43: So someone like myself doesn't qualify under the canopy of blackness, even though I'm ethnically black.
17:51: I am, from a melanin standpoint, black. I don't identify, as far as they're concerned, as being ethnically black because I don't see society and culture through this woke lens that they do.
18:06: So, as I said earlier, this whole idea of wokeness is an entire worldview.
18:12: It's not just compartmentalized to just one thing. It is an entire worldview that is applicable to all facets of life.
18:22: And I wish I could say that this was only a reality outside the church, but it's also a reality within the church.
18:30: And that's sad to have to admit, but it is a reality. Yeah, and tragically, not only in the church, but some of the wokeness movement's leaders, most outspoken figures, theologians, scholars, are men who agreed with us theologically and may still agree with us on many points of theology.
19:00: But as few as nine years ago, I've had some of the core people that are now leading the woke movement on my radio program, and we were not at odds on anything.
19:14: And in fact, these men were denouncing, and even with laughter in their voices, mocking some of the very things that they are standing for right now.
19:27: It is quite bizarre, and it is quite perplexing and frightening, to be honest, to see that men who seem to have such a solid grasp on the deeper things of the
19:42: Scriptures in agreement with historic Reformational Christianity, Biblical Christianity, to develop these horrific and heretical ideas.
19:54: And Virgil, what would you have to add to this conversation that we're having right now? No, I completely agree.
20:01: I think two things are unique at this time. I completely agree with Daryl. This is not new.
20:07: I think Daryl pointed back to a stretch about 70 years or so ago that we recognize that there's been this political movement in a particular direction where ideologically, blacks have particularly aligned.
20:22: You see that in voting blocs with regard to the Democratic Party. You see that socially speaking with regard to policy.
20:32: And for the most part, you're beginning to see that theologically now in circles that before you never really saw that happening.
20:42: To the point that you made, Chris, just five years ago, you had men on your show who were articulating all the kinds of theologically sound, orthodox ideas that we all agree and believe.
20:56: But at the same time, what we're seeing is this capitulation when it comes to social issues, when it comes to social justice in particular.
21:07: And it's difficult to... I think the natural inclination when you see this is to try to identify what motivated this.
21:14: Where did this motivation come from? Where, five years ago, they would get with you on this program and vilify anyone who had an idea about treating them as victims or assigning a particular tribalistic point of view or perspective to them on the basis of ethnicity.
21:36: But now, some of those same men are actually doing those same things, advocating those same things, and looking at guys like Daryl and I as sellouts.
21:46: As if we sold out to something. When actually the real benefit has been capitulating to the social justice movement.
21:54: There's been more benefit for men who've said, I'll bow the knee to social justice.
22:00: There's been financial benefit, there's been social acclaim, there's been platforms actually built by capitulating.
22:08: If anyone's selling out, I'd argue that the men who sold out were the ones who are now bowing the knee to social justice because of the advantage that it has in culture.
22:17: What Daryl and I do is we stand on almost an island, on our side of thinking, we're the ones who are now vilified by the vast majority of those who hold a different perspective.
22:30: Now, Daryl, before you were saying that this is not something new, but isn't there something new about the popularity of this approach as a leftist ideology?
22:47: For instance, let me give you an example. I was born in 1962.
22:54: I was raised in obviously the 60s and 70s as a very young person, graduating high school in 1980.
23:02: But all of my life until recently, until the wokeness movement began to raise its ugly head in a more demonstrative way, saturating the media, the approach to racial relationships, and I hate to use that word because you men and I both agree there's only one race, it's the human race, and the melanin content in our skin is of zero importance to who we are as human beings.
23:40: But to use the vocabulary, the vernacular of the world, racial relationships were typically viewed, unless you were on the side of the
23:59: Nation of Islam or a racist of a white persuasion, you viewed the world basically through the lenses of Dr.
24:15: Martin Luther King Jr.'s understanding of race relationships. And I always have to be careful.
24:22: I think that there are many reasons to view Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as an
24:28: American hero, but I do not view him as a Christian hero.
24:34: I do not have much confidence that he was a regenerate person, and even
24:40: I don't have any real clear evidence that he ever repented of his denial of some of the key pillars of the faith, like the virgin birth of Christ, the deity of Christ, his substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, things like that.
25:00: Although there are some who think that he quietly repented of the heresies of his higher education.
25:09: I don't think that you could really quietly repent of those things if you hold them to be the nearest and dearest things in your heart, who
25:18: Christ was and what he has accomplished. But having said that, I just want to make sure that people don't think that I am lifting up Dr.
25:27: King as a hero in all respects. But there basically has been a general acceptance of people who are not bigots, whether you are from a left -wing persuasion or a right -wing persuasion, that we are to judge people not according to the color of their skin, but according to the content of their character.
25:57: And that seems to be no longer the ideology of the left.
26:03: In fact, they would view that in and of itself as racist, which is, to me, utterly mind -boggling.
26:11: And I'm going to have you both pick up on that when we return from our first break, because we have to go to our first commercial break right now.
26:17: If anybody would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
26:24: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the
26:32: USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Don't go away.
26:38: We will be right back after these messages with more of Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker.
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35:24: My friend Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio and I are headed down to Atlanta, Georgia once again for the
35:30: G3 Conference. This year's G3 will be held Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd on the theme
35:38: Christ is Supreme Over All. I'll be joined by over 20 other speakers and musicians to lead in the worship of God through preaching, teaching and singing including
35:47: John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Conrad M. Bayway Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker.
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36:00: September 30th through October 2nd at G321. This is James White reminding you that Christ is
36:06: Supreme Over All. The Wokeness in the
36:15: Gospel Conference is coming to Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas June 11th and 12th.
36:21: Register now by going online to Wokenessandgospel .org featuring speakers such as Dr.
36:26: Owen Strand If you just buy this ideology, the world's going to be made right. No, it's not.
36:33: Only Jesus Christ makes the world right. Daryl Harrison of the Just Thinking Podcast Sinners like you and me can be reconciled first and foremost to God and consequently to one another.
36:45: Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas Like Satan in the Garden, woke hermeneutics undermines the very authority of the
36:52: Word of God. I don't say that lightly. Also hear from Tommy Nelson, Charles Stolfus and Rodney Brown confronting the lies being impressed upon the culture today threatening even to divide the church and answering with the
37:04: Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Wokeness in the Gospel Conference coming to Denton Bible Church June 11th and 12th.
37:10: Register online at Wokenessandgospel .org Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen.
37:16: If you just tuned us in, our guests today are Daryl Bernard Harrison Dean of Social Media at the
37:24: Bible Teaching Ministry of John MacArthur Grace to you and Virgil Walker, the
37:29: Executive Director of Operations at G3 Ministries They are both co -hosts of the Just Thinking Podcast We are discussing the
37:37: Wokeness Movement's rejection of diversity among black people and we are promoting the
37:42: Wokeness in the Gospel Conference and the G3 Conference coming up one in June and the latter in September and early
37:53: October Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the
38:03: USA Daryl, you may remember before the break that I was mentioning that there seems to be by the left an amazing denial of things that liberals have always been in the forefront of promoting as well as conservatives who were not bigoted the promotion of the fact that we are to judge people not according to the color of their skin but upon the content of their character that seems to be actually viewed as racist now by the
38:44: Wokeness Movement so wouldn't that be a change as far as a popular leftist idea and worldview?
38:56: Yeah, I think it could be argued Chris that one reason it may seem to be more popular is because now we have avenues and mediums and mechanisms available to us that weren't available back in the 60's when the
39:13: Civil Rights Movement was at its height there were no cell phones there was no social media there wasn't necessarily instant access or instant capacity to spread, communicate advance one particular ideology as immediately as we're able to right now so it may seem based on technological advances that allow us opportunities to communicate our various perspectives on what's going on in the world but I don't know that it's actually more popular in the sense that more people are advocating it even on the left
40:00: I think there's something ironic about going back to Dr.
40:05: Martin Luther King's probably most noted passage from his
40:11: I Have a Dream speech back in the 1960's where as you alluded to Chris he said that he looked forward to a day when his children could be recognized by the content of their character and not the color of their skin and I think as professing
40:31: Christians as theologians, as apologists for the gospel I think the first question ironically is why did
40:37: King even have to say that? that's a rhetorical question if you know your
40:44: Bible well enough why did King even have to say what he said?
40:49: well he had to say that because human beings, humanity does not inherently have the capacity to recognize one another based on who they are demonstrably in terms of their character, whether it be good or bad, we have to be reminded of things like that because we're innately sinners, you know you look at Romans 5 .12
41:12: that through one man sinned and to the world did death do sin? because all have sinned,
41:18: Romans 3 .23 all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and I think to whatever extent the left wants to leverage the moralism the moralistic model or the ethical model of Dr.
41:33: Martin Luther King, I think it demonstrates where Dr. King's moralism falls short and I say that because what's needed here is heart transformation what's needed in this whole conversation around racial reconciliation is what
41:51: I've said countless times in my blog writings and on the podcast that races don't reconcile, hearts do hearts reconcile, reconciliation happens at the heart level and we have today in society, people on the left and the right evangelicals and unbelievers alike trying to achieve through human efforts a moralistic transformation of society where we all just get along with one another but at a total disregard and ignoring of the reality that that has to happen from the inside out that doesn't happen from the outside in so I think it's ironic that people who want to leverage
42:38: Dr. Martin Luther King's moralism I don't think they realize how far short that falls,
42:47: I mean it falls completely short because apart from the heart transforming power of the
42:53: Holy Spirit working through the preaching of the gospel, that's not going to happen you and I Chris will never get to a point where we get along with one another apart from our hearts being changed by the gospel and we have to remember that society is seeking a solution that it in and of itself is incapable of bringing to fruition
43:20: Chris, if you'll allow me if you will, I want to punctuate what my brother
43:28: Daryl just said. One, my hope is that everyone who heard it understand the magnitude of it but what he is positing can be examined and tested based upon the evidence when you think about Dr.
43:43: King and the height of the civil rights movement it indeed was moralism, it was treat people well, treat people fair I'm not diminishing the need to treat people respectfully.
43:57: I think that all of us who are Christians hold to the Imago Dei in each one of us the fact that we're all image bearers of a sovereign
44:05: God. We recognize the need for us to treat one another with dignity and respect regardless of the color of one's skin but the pinnacle of the civil rights movement actually brought us the
44:19: Civil Rights Act of 1964 so we have the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ends segregation in public places it bans employment and discrimination based upon race color, religion, sex and nationality it is the crown jewel of the civil rights movement it actually did what it was designed to do
44:40: King actually won. The victory that he won was legislation that said you can no longer now discriminate against someone on the basis of ethnicity.
44:49: Even at the height of the civil rights movement what we still have 50 some odd years later are issues regarding the lack of a heart transformation in individuals.
45:02: We're still seeing issues of ethnic hatred, we're seeing issues of division within our culture.
45:09: Why? Because everything that the moralistic therapeutic theism that was promoted or advanced through the civil rights movement, it was insufficient to actually see true heart transformation so that individuals will love one another and care for one another not on the basis of laws but on the basis of God's transformative power on the heart of the individual
45:35: Yes, and how is it, I mean you guys are obviously in the forefront of this movement how are those men that have agreed with us for decades on theology those that were for lack of a better term conservative they believed in biblical inerrancy, they believed in the doctrines of sovereign grace, reformed theology some of them confessional how are they responding to the correct criticism of men like you that this is actually an eclipse of the gospel, this is dividing men over issues that God does not divide men this is really become, and I'm agreeing with many of my guests who discuss this issue, that this has become one of the greatest, if not the greatest assaults on the gospel in the 21st century and especially an assault on the gospel coming from very often within the reformed faith how are they responding to these critiques the movers and shakers of the woke movement that once shared nearly identically our theology and practice and world view
47:11: I think there's some terms you use in posing your question there that I think we sort of need to parse out these may be individuals who very well may be reformed they may very well subscribe to the doctrines of grace they may very well hold to certain theological positions that Virgil and I hold, but at the bottom line fundamentally this is all going to boil down to an issue of sufficiency of scripture is scripture sufficient you see, what
47:53: I see happening and I see this as the case whether or not we're talking about how reformed leaders who have large platforms it doesn't really matter how they feel about Virgil and I that's secondary to the fundamental issue of the sufficiency of scripture what we have going on right now is we have folks out here positing the gospel as something that it's not we have people out here repositioning the gospel as this sort of magic pill that will bring about societal healing for everyone in every situation and the gospel has never been about that the gospel has never been about that the gospel is not only a message of salvation it is
49:04: THE message of salvation it is a message of salvation for every sinner, and that's every human being who has ever lived to be made right with the
49:15: Holy God that's what the gospel is, the gospel does not promise material equality, it does not promise unity between the world and the church, it promises none of that but we have people out here today, evangelical leaders who have large platforms, they are embracing elements of this whole wokeness worldview under the guise of precepts and principles that scripture never espouses
49:49: Jesus himself, when you look at his ministry, he came into the world within a milieu where the
49:58: Roman government was in power Jesus was fully aware of the abuses the injustices the partiality that was rampant through that system and yet he made it clear that his kingdom is not of this world he did not come to judge the world
50:22: Jesus himself said this I did not come to judge the world, I did not come to make things right in the world, in this physical present world
50:32: Jesus came as the Son of God incarnate in human flesh to point unbelievers to God that's what the gospel was, that's what the gospel is that's what the gospel always will be but in this whole wokeness movement we have people who are who have repositioned the gospel in some sort of moralistic way for everyone to just get along with one another and that's not what the gospel is we're looking at a distortion of the gospel to the degree that I've never seen it distorted before it's just unbelievable how the gospel has morphed from under this milieu of wokeness it's morphed from a message of spiritual transformation to a message of self -centered man -induced, man -concocted moralism whereby we all just sort of get together and sing kumbaya around a campfire but that's never what the gospel's been about and we have to now enter into our midway break if you could please be patient with us folks because the midway break is a little bit longer than the other breaks on the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1
51:49: FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the
51:56: FCC requires of them the localizing the geographical localizing of their programming to Lake City, Florida that includes
52:08: Iron Trip and Zion and they do that by airing their own public service announcements and other local things while we simultaneously air our own globally heard commercials so please use this time wisely write down as much of the information as you possibly can for as many of our advertisers as you possibly can so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize our advertisers and when you can't purchase their products use their services, visit their churches support their parachurch organizations which we hope you will do whenever you can when you can't do those things please at least respond to our advertisers by thanking them for supporting this program financially through their advertising campaigns we cannot exist without our advertisers folks we just cannot exist financially the donations that we receive do not meet the financial requirement that we have to exist so please at least thank our advertisers and also send in questions for Daryl Bernard Harrison Ann Virgil Walker Chris Arnzen at gmail .com
53:23: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence and your country of residence we'll be right back after these messages hello dear ones, my name is
53:42: Justin Peters and my friend Chris Arnzen host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are frequently blessed to share great times of fellowship with one another at conferences all over the
53:53: United States we'll both be enjoying more fellowship together at the G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd on the theme
54:05: Christ is supreme over all I'll be speaking there along with over 20 other speakers including
54:12: John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Votie Balcom Joel Beakey and James White for details visit g3conference .com
54:22: that's g3conference .com please join
54:27: Chris Arnzen and me September 30th through October 2nd at G3 2021 this is
54:34: Justin Peters reminding you that Christ is supreme over all fellowshipping with the family when
54:54: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005 the publishers of the
55:00: New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors it gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the
55:08: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the
55:13: NASB I'm Dr. Joseph Piper president and professor of systematic and homiletical theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina and the
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55:57: NASB is my Bible of choice I'm Pastor Rodney Brown of Metro Bible Church in South Lake, Texas and the
56:06: NASB is my Bible of choice I'm Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mayapac Falls, New York and the
56:14: NASB is my Bible of choice Here's a great way for your church to help keep
56:19: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?
56:25: Consider restocking your pews with the NASB and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Go to nasbible .com
56:37: That's nasbible .com to place your order The Wokeness in the
56:45: Gospel Conference is coming to Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, June 11th and 12th
56:50: Register now by going online to Wokenessandgospel .org Featuring speakers such as Dr.
56:56: Owen Strand If you just buy this ideology, the world's going to be made right No it's not.
57:02: Only Jesus Christ makes the world right Daryl Harrison of the Just Thinking Podcast Sinners like you and me can be reconciled first and foremost to God and consequently to one another
57:14: Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas Like Satan in the Garden, woke hermeneutics undermines the very authority of the
57:22: Word of God. I don't say that lightly Also here from Tommy Nelson, Charles Stolfus and Rodney Brown.
57:27: Confronting the lies being impressed upon the culture today, threatening even to divide the church and answering with the
57:33: Gospel of Jesus Christ The Wokeness in the Gospel Conference coming to Denton Bible Church June 11th and 12th.
57:40: Register online at Wokenessandgospel .org Getting a driver's license, running a cash register flipping burgers, passing 6th grade
57:50: Do you know what they all have in common? They all require training, assessments and certifications
57:55: But do you know what requires no training at all? Becoming a parent. My name is
58:01: A .M. Brewster. I'm the president of Truth. Love. Parent and host of its award winning podcast. I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s and what
58:10: I've discovered is that the majority of Christian parents have never been biblically equipped to do the work of the ministry in their homes
58:16: That's why Truth. Love. Parent exists We serve God by equipping dads and moms to be the ambassador parents
58:23: God called and created them to be. We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of dads and moms can use the scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness
58:34: Please visit us at TruthLoveParent .com Hi, this is
58:41: John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the
58:49: Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the
59:01: Christian faith I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.
59:09: I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised
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59:47: where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com Linbrook Baptist Church on 225
59:54: Earl Avenue in Linbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century Our church is far more than a
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01:00:14: We're a diverse family of all ages Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play and together.
01:00:20: Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman and I invite you to come and join us here at Linbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.
01:00:27: Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402 That's 516 -599 -9402
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01:04:42: Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.
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01:07:24: from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before we return to our guests today,
01:07:31: Darrell Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker, the co -hosts of the Just Thinking podcast, we just have some important announcements to make.
01:07:39: First of all, you've been hearing on this program every day advertisements for the
01:07:44: G3 Conference, and on some of those ads, we feature on the roster,
01:07:52: Votie Balcom. Well, there is now a question mark next to Votie's name, because he, if you do not know this already, he had quadruple bypass surgery, and it is not 100 % certain whether he will have the health and vitality and stamina and energy to continue as one of the speakers at the
01:08:16: G3 Conference this year. We are hoping that his health improves so dramatically that he is replaced on that roster.
01:08:27: In fact, let me ask Virgil Walker. Virgil, do you have any updates for us on the health of Votie Balcom and whether or not he'll be returning to the roster at G3?
01:08:36: Yeah, we don't anticipate his returning at this point. Our thoughts and prayers are definitely with him and his family, and him and his family, and we get periodic updates on his health.
01:08:49: But yeah, I'll leave that for him to share with specificity, but at this time we don't anticipate him attending the
01:08:56: G3. Okay, well, please pray for Votie Balcom. We sure would love to see him at G3, but we obviously, even more importantly, want to see him on this planet for many more years because he has been such a gift to the body of Christ, and I'm sure his wife and many children will echo that even more heartily and loudly than I am stating it.
01:09:19: They obviously want their husband and dad around for many more years. As much as heaven is always an improvement over what we experience here, we want those that are important to us to stick around as long as possible, and that includes
01:09:36: Votie Balcom. So continue to pray for him, and hopefully he'll be returning to this program again for another interview.
01:09:43: We had one scheduled right before his health setback, so I forgot to see if I could reestablish that.
01:09:50: Also, folks, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to www .IronTroubleDesignRadio .com,
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01:12:31: www .IronTroubleDesignRadio .com Last but not least, if you are not a member of a
01:12:38: Bible -believing church, no matter where on the planet earth you live, I have lists, extensive lists of biblically faithful churches all over the globe and I've helped many people in our audience in all parts of the world find theologically sound, biblically faithful churches, sometimes even within minutes from their own homes that they didn't even know existed or they didn't know that the churches that they passed by every day were theologically sound.
01:13:01: So if you are in that category of being in the need of a church where you can call home or if you're going on vacation somewhere or you want to refer a church to someone that you love that's in a different state or country, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com
01:13:17: and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker.
01:13:27: They are the co -hosts of the Just Thinking podcast and if you have a question on the
01:13:33: Wokeness Movement or specifically the Wokeness Movement's rejection of diversity among black people, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com
01:13:41: chrisarnson at gmail .com First name at least, city and state of residence, and country of residence if you live outside of the
01:13:49: USA. And we do have some listener questions already here. We have, in fact,
01:13:56: I usually don't give the full names of listeners when they write in, but since this individual is going to be an advertiser on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I've already been a customer of his,
01:14:08: I wanted to give a shout out to Sterling Vanderwerker. And believe it or not, a guy named
01:14:14: Sterling is actually a jeweler and that's what he'll be advertising on this show. He is the owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, and that's in North Carolina, although he provides his services for people all over the
01:14:34: United States and all over the world. He custom designs jewelry and has jewelry already in stock if you are interested or in need of some jewelry for whether it be an anniversary or an engagement or something.
01:14:51: But the website, I want to give him a shout out to Sterling. The website is royaldiadem .com,
01:14:58: royaldiadem .com. And Sterling's question is, if you two had the power to wind the proverbial clock back two years, how would you warn the church of the poison of woke culture and critical race theory?
01:15:20: I don't know if he gave a long enough period of time. Maybe you have been doing this for two years, but if you had in hindsight, if you knew before you started alarming the public about this stuff, and Darrell, we'll start with you.
01:15:37: Is there anything specifically in regard to your approach back then, as our guest
01:15:45: Sterling, our listener Sterling has asked, about warning the culture about this? Yeah, Chris.
01:15:52: First of all, I want to thank Sterling for that question. I've been writing on this issue on my blog for almost ten years.
01:16:00: Wow. I first saw it rear its ugly head back around 2012, the latter part of 2011 into 2012.
01:16:11: And I don't know so much that I would warn the church if I could go back because I don't know that there's anything that I can add to what
01:16:21: Scripture already warns us about. Scripture already warns us that there are going to be worldly ideologies, there are going to be false gospels, there are going to be false teachers, there are going to be worldly impersonations of godly wisdom coming at the church.
01:16:39: Scripture already warns us about that. And so if I could go back in time, I would just perhaps reiterate to the church, especially at the local level in some of these urban areas where a lot of these trigger incidents for wokeness, that wokeness takes advantage of, have been occurring, to remind them.
01:17:01: And this is what the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, that I say this by way of reminder of what the gospel already says.
01:17:10: The gospel already warns you that this is going to be happening. And that's all the more reason that we need to be spending serious time studying the
01:17:20: Word. I've often said, Chris, that those of us who profess to be believers, who profess to be followers of Christ, we're not just Christians who are saved for after we die and we go to heaven.
01:17:37: Peter says in 1 Peter that in Christ we have all that we need for life and godliness.
01:17:43: So there's an aspect of being a Christian that applies to the here and now.
01:17:50: We're not just saved to sit around and collect dust. If you're a Christian, you're a theologian.
01:17:56: You're a theologian and you're an apologist. The only question that remains is how good or bad a theologian or apologist are you?
01:18:05: That's the only question that remains. So I would just follow the Apostle Paul's example.
01:18:11: If I could go back two, five, ten years, and by way of reminder, let the churches know, let these pastors know, that there's going to be a demonic wave of ideology and worldviews that are coming at the church like you've never seen.
01:18:31: I've never seen anything like this wokeness movement, particularly as it relates to the specific aspect of critical race theory.
01:18:40: Critical race theory is a monster. It is an absolute monster that is coming for every facet of your way of life.
01:18:51: As you know it. And I am not exaggerating when I say that. So I would just remind the church of what the Scripture already says and encourage and exhort and admonish believers to get passionate about studying the
01:19:04: Word of God so that when you are confronted by these ideologies and worldviews, you will know how to respond in a biblically sound, with a biblically sound apologetic with what the
01:19:18: Word of God says. So that's what I would do. If I could go back in a period of time, I would do that.
01:19:24: How about you, Virgil? Yeah, well, listen. I would, I mean, I think Darrell said it incredibly well.
01:19:30: Like, you know, three to five years ago, three years ago, we were both talking about this on Just Thinking. Five years ago, no different.
01:19:37: I mean, we were both in separate spaces and places, but had some of the same thought processes, and those ideas are informed by the
01:19:45: Word of God. I mean, 2 Corinthians, we know that we take every thought captive. We destroy and demolish arguments that raise its head up against the knowledge of Christ.
01:19:54: And so this is no different. And I think Darrell put it well, that that's the role of the believer.
01:20:00: That's the role that we have. That's what we should be doing on a consistent basis. And that should permeate every aspect of what we do as believers.
01:20:11: Praise God. And thank you, Sterling. And continue listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and spreading the word about the program in Greensboro, North Carolina, and beyond.
01:20:23: And I should probably ship you some flyers for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to put on your counter at Royal Diadem Jewelers there.
01:20:31: And I hope to see you at some point in the near future, you and your lovely bride, Bronnie. Send her my greetings.
01:20:38: We have Grady, another North Carolinian. Grady from Asheboro, North Carolina, who has been a very faithful, loyal supporter of this program for years and also a faithful financial supporter.
01:20:53: Grady says, Greetings, brothers. How are we as Christians to react when confronted by someone that claims our skin color makes us a racist?
01:21:04: So far, I have quoted from Acts 17 -26 and then taken them to Genesis 2 and 9 so they can see there's one race.
01:21:15: We're all created by the true and living God, and He looks at our heart. Is this a proper response?
01:21:25: And Virgil, go ahead, either one of you. Yeah, I would just start by saying anyone who's making decisions or assessments of other individuals on the basis of skin color alone, that's the basic definition of racism.
01:21:42: So we have to kind of start there and unpack what's happening, what the presupposition is that's causing someone to look at another, examine their skin color, and determine the motive of their heart.
01:21:58: So we can start there. All of the biblical, scriptural references are solid, but you've got to assess who you're dealing with and whether or not they're coming to you in good faith, meaning that there's a real desire for understanding and not simply a presupposition about skin color and racism that's embedded in things like CRT.
01:22:29: Yeah, Chris, if I could just add to what Virgil said in response to the brother's question,
01:22:35: I really appreciate the question and how it was worded because it gives us an opportunity to say to this brother, as well as anyone else who was listening, that the question that that brother was confronted with, that's one of those trick questions.
01:22:50: That's one of those hop -on questions that you just don't see until you fall into it. And that's the question where we have to push back with another question.
01:22:59: And it's okay to do that. I think as believers we need to understand that it's okay to push back.
01:23:05: When you're asked a question, push back with another question. That question has inherently, intrinsically, within it terms that aren't biblical, for instance, terms like race, racist.
01:23:18: We need to understand as Christians that we need to, when we're presented with a worldly proposition, a question that uses worldly vernacular, that we need to be able to sort of dissect that question and then respond using biblical terms.
01:23:34: So the first response to that question is, well, there's no such thing as race. In the context that the questioner is using that term, there's no such thing as race.
01:23:44: And when someone says, well, you're a racist by virtue of the color of your skin, the suffix
01:23:52: I -S -T, when someone says racist, they add I -S -T to the word race.
01:23:57: What they are projecting, they're projecting a behavioral attitude or a mental attitude that a person possesses.
01:24:05: And we know from Mark chapter 7 that Jesus himself said, all such sinful attitudes derive from the heart.
01:24:13: They come from within. They don't come from without. Your melanin is static. Your melanin is not dynamic.
01:24:18: Your melanin doesn't think. It doesn't love. It doesn't hate. It doesn't judge. It doesn't make decisions. It doesn't come to conclusions.
01:24:25: All that happens in your heart. So we need to be able to sort of vet these questions, if you will, and then push back on them a little bit, reframe these questions in terms of what the nomenclature of Scripture is, and then respond biblically on biblical grounds that way.
01:24:49: Well, thank you so much, Grady, and continue to listen to the program and spread the word about it in Asheboro, North Carolina, and beyond.
01:25:00: One of the things that I have said, and I know that some of my listeners hear me say this a lot if they listen every day, so they may get a little weary of me saying it again, but I think it's important when we are discussing this topic.
01:25:15: I think one of the clearest, most obvious, palpable evidences that the woke movement is totally off -base, totally anti -biblical, heretical, dangerous, is we see this in the
01:25:35: Apostle Paul's rebuke of the Judaizers, and even the
01:25:40: Apostle Peter, his rebuke against Peter, or to Peter, for being duped by this anti -Gentile mindset that existed amongst early
01:25:54: Christians who were, at that time, predominantly Jewish. The reason why
01:26:00: I'm making this parallel is because the Gentile nations had brutalized and massacred and enslaved and abused the
01:26:17: Jews for centuries, and yet, even though that was true, the
01:26:25: Jewish Christians were forbidden from viewing the Gentile Christians in any different way.
01:26:32: They were not to hold them accountable for past occurrences, especially occurrences that they personally had nothing to do with it, whether it be their ancestors from centuries ago or more recent history, or whatever the case may be.
01:26:53: When you are in Christ, love keeps no record of wrongs.
01:26:59: We're not supposed to be viewing our brothers and sisters in Christ in any different way because of the way they look, because of their nation of origin, because of their ethnicity, because of their financial status.
01:27:16: Am I making sense here that this is so clear that any Bible -believing Christian who knows that whole account of the
01:27:26: Judaizers, even being condemned by Paul so strongly that he said that they had no gospel at all, that they are to be accursed?
01:27:37: Is this a correct parallel? Yeah, that's an accurate parallel,
01:27:43: Chris. And the thing I want to add, here's the danger about wokeness. The danger of wokeness is that it accuses you of wrongs you haven't even committed.
01:27:53: Right. You talk about, Chris, there, you know, yes, Christ, being in Christ, right, being in Christ keeps no record of wrongs.
01:28:02: We keep zero record of wrongs, okay? But wokeness totally dismantles that idea.
01:28:10: Inherit to wokeness, especially as it relates to critical race theory. It has an element of vengeance within it.
01:28:18: It has an element of revenge. It has a vindictiveness to that particular element of wokeness where forgiveness is not even on the table.
01:28:30: And they're encouraging, they're urging people to repent of sins they haven't even committed.
01:28:38: It's what I call sin by proxy. And sin by proxy is the idea that, as you alluded to earlier,
01:28:44: Chris, sin by proxy is where guilt is imparted to an entire group of people.
01:28:49: In this term, in this example, and in this milieu that we're in right now, that group would be white people.
01:28:56: Sin by proxy is imparting guilt to white people. So the woke will impart guilt to white people solely on the basis that they're white.
01:29:05: You're guilty. Your number one sin is being white. So you're guilty by merely existing.
01:29:12: Your mere existence is an offense against me if I'm black. So you must repent.
01:29:18: You've heard this phrase before. Repent of your whiteness. Repent not only of your being ethnically white or that you're known as white, but you must repent of the inherent privilege that you have access to and have enjoyed by virtue of being white.
01:29:35: That's one of the dangers of wokeness. It imparts an unbiblical standard of sin and guilt and confession and repentance that even if you have not actually sinned, and we know from passages like Ezekiel 18 where sin by proxy is nonsensical.
01:29:58: It's unbiblical, and then it's nonsensical. Sin exists where a sin has actually been committed.
01:30:04: Forgiveness exists where an offense has actually been committed against someone, but wokeness only shreds that idea and shreds that concept that says no, you're guilty by virtue of your very existence whether you've actually done an act of sin against me or not.
01:30:24: Yes, and number one, obviously, no one can repent of their whiteness or their blackness or their
01:30:32: Asianness. A leopard cannot change its spots. But having said that, it's interesting that the white leftists who are either really supporting the woke movement or they're just giving lip service to it out of fear of some repercussions, losing their status in society, whatever the case may be.
01:31:00: I don't know of any of these prominent white leftists in the political realm or in the realm of Hollywood or anywhere else who are giving up their wealth or their positions in society and giving them to blacks or transgendered people.
01:31:25: Am I making sense here? I mean, Joe Biden hasn't said, you know, ladies and gentlemen, I'm stepping down as president because Kamala Harris really should be the president as a woman and a woman of color.
01:31:37: So I am actually stepping down so that she will become the president of the United States. You know, that's not happening.
01:31:44: Does that make sense, anything that I'm saying? None of these people actually believe what they're saying with regard to that.
01:31:55: They don't. This is a massive virtue signal.
01:32:01: This is a bad virtue signal, basically, is what this is. And at the end of the day, no one's willing to really give up any power.
01:32:09: You've got FTC presidents who are saying we need to listen to black voices. We need to sit back and give power at the table.
01:32:19: But none of them are advocating their roles as presidents of seminaries. Not a one of them.
01:32:26: Amen. We're going to be going to our final break. It's going to be a lot shorter than the other breaks. So please, if you have a question that you intend to ask, send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.
01:32:38: Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:32:44: As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the
01:32:51: USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
01:32:58: Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors with more of Darrell Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker, co -hosts of the
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01:34:06: Hi, I'm Phil Johnson, host and executive director of Grace to You, the media ministry of John MacArthur.
01:34:16: I hope you plan to join me and Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, for the
01:34:23: G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd.
01:34:29: The theme this year is Christ is supreme over all. My friend Chris Arnzen and I will be joined by several of our other friends, including
01:34:37: Votie Balcom, Justin Peters, Darrell Bernard Harrison, Virgil Walker, and James White.
01:34:44: More than 20 other speakers will be joining us, and the lineup this year includes my pastor,
01:34:49: John MacArthur. For details, visit g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com.
01:34:57: Chris Arnzen and I hope to see you September 30th through October 2nd at G3 2021.
01:35:04: This is Phil Johnson reminding you that Christ is supreme over all. The Wokeness in the
01:35:14: Gospel conference is coming to Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas on September 11th and 12th.
01:35:19: Register now by going online to wokenessandgospel .org. Featuring speakers such as Dr.
01:35:25: Owen Strand. If you just buy this ideology, the world's going to be made right. No, it's not.
01:35:32: Only Jesus Christ makes the world right. Darrell Harrison of the Just Thinking Podcast. Sinners like you and me can be reconciled first and foremost to God, and consequently to one another.
01:35:44: Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas. Like Satan in the Garden, woke hermeneutics undermines the very authority of the
01:35:51: Word of God. I don't say that lightly. Also hear from Tommy Nelson, Charles Stolfus, and Rodney Brown.
01:35:57: Confronting the lies being impressed upon the culture today, threatening even to divide the church, and answering with the
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01:40:46: Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. And my question now to our guests,
01:40:53: Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker. Perhaps, Virgil, you could start with your own answer before Daryl Bernard Harrison this time.
01:41:03: Do you notice or have you become aware of anyone from the woke movement that may have initially been hanging in there with them and echoing their nonsense, their heresy, who has either come around to the truth, repented of these heresies and has abandoned the movement, or even if they are sticking around in some degree in the periphery, they're still giving words of caution to some of what is being said?
01:41:44: I even remember how, you know, throughout the abortion industry and its existence as one of the worst plights of American history, one of the darkest blights on the reputation and existence of this nation.
01:42:11: You had people who were liberal in many ways, like the late
01:42:17: Dick Gregory, black comedian, who was pro -life. He was very much opposed to abortion.
01:42:24: He knew that abortion was being used by so -called leftist whites who were really racist and they wanted to lower the numbers and, in fact, eventually eliminate the numbers of blacks being born into this country entirely.
01:42:46: Even the Black Panthers had that as a part of their ideology. So sometimes you have these voices that arise amongst liberals that are not 100 % according to the status quo.
01:43:00: Do you see anything like that happening amongst the woke movement, folks? I really don't.
01:43:06: And again, I think part of it is just the newness of where we are currently in the culture. You know,
01:43:12: I always want to give the benefit of the doubt with the hope that folks will open their eyes to see what's wrongheaded about their particular ideology, but I've not yet seen that.
01:43:21: You mentioned others who kind of held the idea that maybe pro -life was the way to go.
01:43:30: Reverend Jesse Jackson is another one that, until he began his presidential run, understood the pro -life message.
01:43:38: And so you've got pockets of that. You hold out hope. You continue to pray in the meantime.
01:43:43: You preach the gospel. You preach what's true, and you let the chips fall where they may.
01:43:49: And so that's kind of been my response to it all. Dal? Yeah, I have to concur with Virgil there.
01:43:57: You know, I'm sorry to say this, but I have not seen any evidence of any of that to any degree.
01:44:03: It's as if, you know, once a person has been convinced of the benefit, for lack of a better word, of this whole ideology and worldview, they latch onto it with such a tight grip mentally, spiritually, even emotionally, that it's difficult to draw them away from it.
01:44:30: As I said earlier, this is something that I've never witnessed before in my life.
01:44:38: It's a totally different animal from what I've used to seeing. Now, we have mentioned during this discussion the opposition of the woke movement to any diversity on political ideology amongst the black population from their rule book, as it were.
01:45:02: If you are not right along and lockstep with them, you're not even considered a black person.
01:45:09: It's always interesting, as I mentioned earlier, how if a black cop shoots a black individual, whether legitimately if they are a criminal endangering the life of a policeman or endangering someone else's life, if that individual is black that is shot, and especially if they are killed by a black police officer, the way that the liberals and the leftists in the news cover that story, it's as if they are acting as if that policeman is white.
01:45:49: So, obviously, you lose your status as a black person in their minds.
01:46:02: Are they really still a monolith, the woke movement, as it were?
01:46:07: Is it really a monolith or is there any disagreement amongst those that are considered leaders among this group?
01:46:19: It's a monolith. Just to give you a simple, immediate answer to that question,
01:46:24: Chris, it is monolithic. There is no diversity of opinion, thought, perspective whatsoever.
01:46:35: With the woke, you're either 100 % in or you're not in at all. There is no deviating from the fundamental tenets and precepts and principles of wokeness.
01:46:48: It is totally monolithic in its beliefs, in its goals, in what it aspires to accomplish, and it is totally intolerable of any varying from that, either from within or any criticism or attack from without.
01:47:11: This is a total sellout to a worldly ideology that is man -centered and that has little, if anything, to do with the true
01:47:23: Orthodox gospel of Jesus Christ. I would only add to what
01:47:28: Darrell said by saying, once you've bought in, the unfortunate aspect of the ideology is you can't be woke enough.
01:47:38: Every day there's a brand new victimhood status. Every day there's a new oppressor.
01:47:47: Every day there's some aspect of oppression that heretofore was not thought about. You've got to keep up with wokeism.
01:47:58: You've got to keep up with how oppressed you are, how victimized you've been.
01:48:03: Darrell has said it on numerous occasions. I want to say it's a quote from one of our previous episodes.
01:48:09: You can't satiate the woke. There will be nothing you can do to cause them to feel as if you've checked the box, you've made the mark, you've done what's necessary to do the right thing.
01:48:30: There's no way that you can repent long enough, hard enough. There's no level of penance that is sufficient enough for you to satiate the woke.
01:48:40: Now it's interesting how you really can never repent of being white.
01:48:50: It seems that those in the woke movement believe it is a worse crime to be white than it is to be a criminal in a prison.
01:49:05: Because they seem to be very much open to setting the most dangerous of criminals, even murderers, free.
01:49:14: I'm assuming if they're black. And we are to forgive them.
01:49:20: We are to give them a new start. We are not to hold their crimes of the past against them.
01:49:28: But that is not the same way that white people are being viewed. Does that make sense?
01:49:35: Yeah, you're absolutely right there, Chris. And what you're talking about really, you're actually describing what was a fundamental and what is, what still is, a fundamental pillar of Black Lives Matter.
01:49:47: One of the goals of Black Lives Matter is to have all black prisoners freed from prison and then they want all prisons done away with.
01:49:58: Black Lives Matter wants the entire, what they would call the industrial prison complex, they want all prisons done away with.
01:50:07: They view black, especially black men that are in prison, they view this as a systemic, organized, concentrated effort to do away with black people altogether.
01:50:25: So that's a Black Lives Matter avenue that you're going down right there with respect to how wokeness views whiteness in contrast to criminals who are actually guilty of crimes that have landed them in prison.
01:50:46: There's a woman by the name of Cheryl I. Harris. If any of your listeners are really interested in digging deeper, and I mean extremely deep, into this whole idea of whiteness, go on the internet and do a search for a white paper titled
01:51:01: Whiteness as Property. Whiteness as Property. This paper was written by Cheryl I.
01:51:08: Harris and it was published in the June 1993 issue of the Harvard Law Review.
01:51:13: This is woke -less before it was known as woke. This is critical race theory before we even heard of the term.
01:51:22: But again, the paper is titled Whiteness as Property. Go online, you can find that as a
01:51:27: PDF document and read through that. It will give you a thorough, deep understanding and context of what whiteness is and why white people are viewed in such criminal terms as if they were deserving of prison just for being white.
01:51:49: Now, what place, what role in the Christian life should be occupied by the enjoyment and celebration of one's skin color?
01:52:09: This is probably going to get me in trouble somehow, but I think that, number one, we should stop saying that we're proud of being white or black or what have you.
01:52:21: I think it is very legitimate to say I'm unashamed, and I thank
01:52:26: God for my white or black ancestors, etc.,
01:52:33: etc., to be involved in one's ethnic traditions and celebrations and so on.
01:52:42: But when does that become, when does it reach a level where you both believe that would be an area of sin that must be repented of?
01:52:55: Yeah, Chris, I'll go ahead and start. You know, as I listened to you pose that question, Chris, my mind immediately went to 2
01:53:03: Corinthians 5, verse 16, where the Apostle Paul says, Therefore, from now on, we recognize no one according to the flesh.
01:53:13: So, if you're in the Church, if you're a believer in Christ, if you profess to follow Christ, a person's physical attributes and characteristics have no value whatsoever.
01:53:25: They draw no attention. There is no cause to glory in, be proud of, take sinful pride in any aspect of your physical personhood or someone else's, because the nonsensical reality is it's foolish to think that we would take pride in any aspect of our personhood.
01:53:55: We had nothing to do with it. We have absolutely nothing to do with any of the attributes that we possess as image bearers of God.
01:54:05: That was all God. We know that from Acts chapter 17, verses 26, where in one verse you have
01:54:13: God being sovereign not only over the fact that you were born, but also when and where.
01:54:22: We all, you said this earlier, Chris, we're all one human race, one human genus that is comprised of various ethnicities.
01:54:34: So, the fact that we have nothing to do in and of ourselves with our even existing should remove from us any element of pride, boasting in who we are, and it also should remove any motivation or impetus to denigrate someone else for who they are, because the same
01:54:58: God who created you in His image created that other person to bear His image as well.
01:55:04: So again, but speaking specifically to the Church, we should heed
01:55:09: Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 16, therefore, we recognize no one according to the flesh.
01:55:20: Now, Virgil, the same question, but more specifically, isn't it though completely legitimate to embrace and celebrate things that might be unique in a dominant way to somebody's culture, whatever skin color or ethnicity they may have?
01:55:37: It may involve cooking and music. Not that everybody in that group, whether based on skin color or ethnicity, thinks alike, like the woke movement is trying to brainwash us into believing, but there are things that may dominate a certain group of people, a certain culture.
01:55:57: Isn't it okay, as long as nothing that is being believed or celebrated or done is an offense to God, isn't it okay to enjoy that element of your own existence and ancestry?
01:56:12: Sure, I mean, you know, Chris, I go back to what
01:56:17: Daryl said from a Biblical standpoint with regard to that which is of the flesh, eyes of no benefit.
01:56:23: However, those experiences that we have that are cultural in nature, cultural foods, for example, the beauty that is ethnicity, the absolute beauty and levels of melanin in one's skin are wonderful, but not in and of themselves.
01:56:41: They are wonderful because the God who created them is wonderful. They are beautiful because the
01:56:47: God who created them is indeed all beautiful, all wonderful.
01:56:52: All of that which we celebrate should redound back to the glory and majesty and beauty that is
01:57:00: God's. Diversity on a human plane, in and of itself, is not virtuous.
01:57:07: Diversity anchored in the true nature of the beauty of who
01:57:12: God is, is something to be marveled. Amen. And it's ironic, isn't it, that I'm supposed to repent of my whiteness, and yet how could
01:57:24: I do that unless I culturally appropriated something about blackness, and that's supposed to be a crime and a sin in the woke movement to culturally appropriate anyone else's appearance or behavior.
01:57:38: Am I right? No, you're absolutely right. And just for the sake of context here,
01:57:43: I'm just going to give your listeners, Chris, a very simple definition of what whiteness is. Whiteness is anything that's not blackness.
01:57:53: Okay? Whiteness is anything that's not blackness. We did an episode of our podcast, the
01:57:59: Just Thinking Podcast, we titled it simply Whiteness, if you want to hear it, go to JustThinking .me,
01:58:05: and then search for the episode titled Whiteness. We give the definition of whiteness in that episode, but just succinctly put, simply put, whiteness is anything culturally, traditionally, historically, that is not blackness.
01:58:22: That's the simple definition. Well, I want to thank you both for being such superb guests.
01:58:29: I want to let our listeners know who saw the photographs of my guests on Facebook as we promoted this event,
01:58:38: I want you to relax and rest assured that they have not converted to the
01:58:43: Nation of Islam, even though they were wearing bow ties, so you don't have to worry about that. Yes.
01:58:51: Don't make that mistake. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater