There's a Hidden Message Here

And then when you stand up against that, I don't know, maybe have a statement on social justice in the gospel, hypothetically, you get attacked by some of the same people who were claiming that their desire was to recover the gospel.

Formerly Respected Pastors and the Shift Toward Social Justice

David Platt, Matt Chandler, John Piper, Mark Dever, and Tim Keller are all pastors that I used to follow and promote because they boldly stood up for unpopular biblical truths that people needed to hear.

However, in recent years, these pastors have caved in various degrees to unbiblical social justice ideas that judge people according to the group they belong to. In 2018, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and the Gospel Coalition hosted the MLK50 conference, where David Platt defined racism in this way.

And for this reason, we must look at the reality of racism. When I use that term, I'm not just referring to the extremes that we often think of. Extremes that help us, particularly those of us who are white, distance ourselves from racism.

When I'm using that term, I'm referring to, so here's the definition I'm using, a system, could be individual, could be institutional, could be society, societal, a system in which race, and specifically as we're talking tonight, black or white skin color, profoundly affects people's economic, political, and social experiences.

A system in which race is significant enough to be regularly acknowledged and mentioned. A system of thought, practice, that is ever subtly present among us.

In his best-selling book, Fault Lines, Vodie Bauckham responded to Platt's definition of racism, writing, this is unmistakably taken from the anti-racist lexicon. But lest you think it lets individuals off the hook, Jarvis Williams claims that race and racial reconciliation are soteriological issues.

Thus, not only are white Christians who fail to adopt anti-racist theology and repent of racism, in jeopardy of being alienated from God, but those who fail to elevate the preaching of the anti-racist message to the same level as the preaching of the gospel, are apparently preaching another gospel, which, according to Williams, is no gospel at all.

Ironically, it is the anti-racists who have abandoned the gospel since. In their view, there is no good news of grace. There is only law. In 2020, Platt preached a sermon where he again caved to woke talking points concerning the problem of being white.

And I know as a white pastor, I have blind spots. So I am part of the problem. I need friends and fellow pastors around me from different ethnicities who help me see those blind spots.

Bauckham points out what is implied by what Platt said. If black people know racism, and white people cannot know racism, and are racist by default as a result of their white privilege, then the only acceptable response is for white people to sit down, shut up, and listen to what black people have to say on the matter.

Prior to the 2020 election, Platt wrote a book titled, Before You Vote, in which he writes,. Yes, abortion is abhorrent. That's clear in the Bible. But is that the only issue at stake in an election? What about the scores of Christians, including overwhelming percentages of African-American Christians who consistently vote for Democrats because of the party's record on other issues that they also deem biblically important?

Bauckham comments that Platt does not enumerate these issues, and that there is simply no excuse for the positions of the Democratic Party platform, which are overwhelmingly antithetical to what the Bible teaches.

White Privilege, White Guilt, and Matt Chandler's Claims

Matt Chandler taught this concerning white privilege.

I have grown up with this invisible kind of bag of privilege, this kind of invisible toolkit that I can reach in there at any given moment and have this type of privilege that a lot of other brothers and sisters don't have, don't possess.

And so what happens when you have my upbringing, and even my current reality, is that you're forced to, if you're not careful, if you don't let the gospel kind of purify your heart, if you don't lean on the Word of God to shape your understandings, you begin to judge harshly those who can't quite get to where you are, and you will begin to see that getting people to where you are is what's normative.

And so if I could just kind of lay it all out there. What I'm talking about right now is white privilege. And so, listen, I know some of you are already reaching to kind of click out. Nothing makes Anglos more angry than the idea of white privilege.

Regarding the concept of white privilege, Bauckham writes,. In anti-racist theology, white privilege is a ubiquitous term popularized in 1989 after the publication of Peggy McIntosh's now famous paper, White Privilege, unpacking the invisible knapsack.

The paper is a classical example of grievance studies in that it was based entirely on assumptions, anecdotes, and personal observations, and completely devoid of scholarly research. Concerning Chandler, Bauckham writes,.

Chandler is clearly sympathetic to CRT's version of white privilege, nor is he unique in this. Volumes could be filled with examples of mainstream evangelicals echoing this concept. And like Platt, Chandler spoke at the MLK50 conference, echoing similar woke talking points.

White pastors, I need to chat with you. You have got to say something. Let me help. I've learned some things. I don't think your first sermon should be a sermon on white privilege. I mean, if you want to go out in a blaze of glory, you can just preach that, but I would pre-pack.

And Chandler has said additional concerning things concerning similar issues.

And then critiquing this movement as being evil and dark when we have given up our inheritance. You cannot point out all the flaws in this current movement while you have abandoned the place that we were meant to play.

You cannot point out all the, well, this means this, and this believes this, and that's this, and that's this, and ignore the sorrow and lament of 12 to 13 million image bearers in our country. You can't do that.

The Black Lives Matter movement is very anti-church. It's very anti-Christian. It's a Marxist organization that was started explicitly as a Marxist organization that had openly anti-family and openly anti-Christian sentiments.

Those sentiments had to be removed from their website because people found out about them. So if you ask me about faith and Black Lives Matter, I would say that the two are mutually exclusive, especially from a Christian perspective.

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John Piper, Tim Keller, and the 2020 Election

Like Platt, John Piper published an article prior to the 2020 election concerning how Christians should vote in an article titled Policies, Persons, and Paths to Ruin, Pondering the Implications of the 2020 Election.

Piper wrote, are viewed as deadly. Piper said that Trump's danger lies in. Bauckham responds by asking,. Elsewhere, Bauckham compares the Democratic platform with the Republican platform, pointing out that they represent wildly contrasting worldviews.

Mark Dever, Crime Statistics, and Election Arguments

Mark Dever has also echoed numerous problematic talking points related to racism in America.

The mom was explaining to me that when they got their driver's license, they had a very serious conversation. They sat them down in their living room and explained, son, this license could get you killed.

And they didn't mean because of driving fast and the kids didn't drink. It's because you could be shot if you don't do exactly what you're told.

The problem with what Dever said here is that there is simply no evidence that police in America shoot and kill innocent black people in disproportionate numbers. This is a talking point on the left that is simply untrue.

Bauckham writes, has been clear, as were the findings of Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. in a forthcoming study. On the most extreme use of force, FOIS, he writes, Fryer was actually surprised by his findings.

Also, Dever made similar comments as Platt and Piper concerning the 2020 election.

I think a lot of our African-American brothers and sisters realized like a long time ago that, well, there are going to be a bunch of different issues that are going to be affecting us. I think white Christians think this is the only moral way to approach voting.

I think they've never thought of any other thing, generally. Bauckham responds, writing,.

And these voters are more than narrow-minded fundamentalists being led around by the nose for the sake of a single issue. Moreover, this line of argumentation makes light of the vast chasm between the platforms of the two parties on major moral issues, while extolling the virtues of sophisticated black voters who carefully weigh important, yet unnamed, issues that white voters apparently do not comprehend.

Tim Keller, Liberty of Conscience, and White Privilege

In response to the statement on social justice and the gospel that Bauckham was a part of, Keller said,. Instead of affirming what was true, Keller implicitly criticized the document with extremely vague conjectures.

Keller also chimed in concerning the 2020 election in a similar manner as Platt, Deaver, and Piper with a series of tweets. Most of which, as just noted, the Bible does not speak to directly. This means when it comes to taking political positions, voting, determining alliances and political involvement, the Christian has liberty of conscience.

Christians cannot say to other Christians, No Christian can vote for... or every Christian must vote for... unless you can find a biblical command to that effect. Again, Bauckham responds, Keller has also said this concerning white privilege.

And my pastor friend said, Studies have shown, have pretty much proven, that if you have white skin, it's worth a million dollars over a lifetime over somebody who doesn't have white skin. And that's because of historical forces that have come about.

And at this point, you know, you could go out of several ways. One, as I mentioned, if you have that asset of white skin right now, historical asset, then you actually have to say, I didn't deserve this.

And also, I'm to some degree, I'm the product of, I'm standing on the shoulders of other people who got that through injustice. So, the Bible actually says, Yes, you do, you do, you are involved in injustice.

And even if you didn't actually do it, therefore, you have a responsibility, not just to say, well, you know, maybe if I get around to it, maybe we could do something about the poor people out there. No, you're part of the problem.

If you do actually let your understanding of responsibility be shaped by the Bible instead of American individualism.

Bauckham comments that Keller did not say, unless you can find a biblical command to that effect, but,.

Then you actually have to say,.

Which contradicts what he argued in his tweet concerning the 2020 election. Bauckham continues, to sum up, abortion is a complex web of political potpourri that requires nuance and wisdom, but white privilege, generational white guilt, and the need to repent of it, is so clear that Keller can use words like, you have to, and you must.

It is disappointing that these five pastors have given in to these unbiblical social justice concepts. I still have a lot of respect for what they have done and continue to do, but I pray that they would see the problems with the unbiblical ideologies they are promoting.