Another Worthless Video From Dr. Russell Moore

Well, I wanted to do a video. A Twitter follower and a friend online sent me this video from the For the Church blog, which is sort of like a blog resource. It's for a Midwestern seminary, which is a Southern Baptist seminary, more of a Calvinistic seminary.

And I've not really talked about this website very often. Actually, fun fact about me, I used to write a few articles for this website, probably like four articles, maybe nothing, nothing too complex.

It wasn't like a major contributor or anything. But I wrote an article about Mormon evangelistic encounter. I wrote an article about immigration, which is actually was probably more on the social justice side of the issue.

So that was there before. But if you go there, you won't find any of them because I've been blacklisted and scrubbed from the whole website. Everything has gone down the memory hole. It's like I never even existed.

Social Justice Without a Social Gospel

But anyway, so I wanted to do just a quick response to this video. Russell Moore conversations with Russell. This is about social justice without a social gospel. Now, I have only watched a few seconds of this.

And when I when I heard it, I knew I had to do a response to it. It's only three minutes. So let's go ahead and dive right in. There's that serious music. You know, this is going to be good. I seriously got a sometimes Christians.

Say, well, how can we be concerned about justice issues? Because isn't it the case that we will fall into a slippery slope of of being social gospel sorts of people? Okay, sometimes.

Christians say what we fall to the slippery slope of being social gospel people if we care about justice issues. Now, I would love love to see an example of someone who asks this question. I don't believe this is a real legitimate question.

How do we care about justice without being social gospel people? Because here's the reality. We've been doing this for literally decades and decades and decades in evangelicalism in the United States.

Now, we haven't done it perfectly. Obviously, there's the church has not been perfect on issues of justice. So don't hear me saying that. But we've done this for decades. This is not something that people are confused about.

For example, I've heard john MacArthur sermons, where he talks about abortion. And he's not a social gospel proponent. He understands that there's issues of justice that Christians should care about that Christians should work against or work towards rather.

And that and they can do it in a way that doesn't confuse the gospel. It doesn't confuse mercy and justice. There's ways to do that. People have been doing this for decades. Now, again, it hasn't been perfect.

And it hasn't always been consistent. People were very upset with me yesterday for sharing a Joel McDermott article that I thought was pretty good. Now I don't agree with every single word in the article.

But here's the thing, though. So like, he puts his finger and he paints with a very large breath. I've got a little tiny brush here for my miniatures. But he paints with a very large brush. And he says, Well, there's a conservative side.

And they all say this. And he doesn't really say that. But but but you know what I mean? So so so I liked the the dichotomy he put because there's an error on both sides of this is I agree with him on that.

And so it hasn't always been consistent. You know, lots of people care about abortion, but don't care about other justice issues as much as abortion. I understand that abortion is very obvious. I think that it's okay to to really say, Well, I care about abortion, because it's like one of the most it's the easiest moral question of all, should we kill babies?

No. Okay. Why do we kill babies in this country? Like it's just an easy one. But there are other ones that aren't quite as black and white to some people. And so I understand it to a certain degree. But again, it hasn't always been consistent.

But this is not a question that people ask people know how to have a real legitimate gospel that's actually just the gospel and still care about justice. But anyway, so he started with a with a question that I don't think anyone's asking.

But let's see how he answers his question that nobody's asking.

And I mean, typically, those people, first of all, don't understand what the social gospel was or.

Is. Oh, okay. So it's so the people. So here's what people ask this question, because they don't know anything. I know, because I'm an expert in ethics and religious liberties. I know. So just listen up, buckle up, sit at my feet, and I'll teach you.

Yeah, that's right. So so all these people who are asking this question, they don't even first of all, they don't exist as far as I'm concerned. But they also they're just stupid. I love that one. I love when people's answers always start with you.

Well, you don't know what you're talking about. This kind of kind of reminds me of the Carl Truman article. Well, if you're if you're asking why Tim Keller who quotes Marxist favorably who has Marx Marxist influence positions who says we should follow Marxist theories on pay and things like that.

If you think that he if you're asking if he's a Marxist, well, you're just an ignorant troll. You gotta love it, man. You gotta love that kind of a defense, which is a gospel that says.

That personal new birth and personal regeneration aren't aren't necessary, the simply transforming.

Structures of society are. The other part of it is, yeah, so this is a thing. So that he's right about that. That is what the social gospel says. But but here's the thing, though. This is again, this reminds me of the Truman article, right?

So he's like, well, Tim Keller can't be a Marxist because he doesn't agree with everything Marx says. People say this about Calvinist a lot to like especially reformed Baptist Calvinists. They'll be like, well, you're not a Calvinist because you don't agree with infant baptism.

And it's like. Are we that is that the level we're at kindergarten level argumentation that how it works? Because here's the thing. You can be a social gospel proponent and still agree that you need to have regeneration.

Christ came to save sinners from their sin. You can also. So you can have that belief, but also agree with everything else the social gospel says and still be a social gospel proponent like you don't have to agree with every single tenet of everything to be on the spectrum of social gospel.

It's just this is just so childish, this kind of argument. You got to agree with everything. Otherwise, you're not a social gospel proponent. How could Tim Keller be a Marxist? He believes in the Imago Dei like people.

Many people have criticized that part of the Truman Carl Truman article, and that's understandably so. I heard I heard J .D. Hall do it. I heard Robert Truelove do it. The person who wrote that reform libertarian article did the same thing.

It's easy to criticize because it's one of the dumbest statements I've ever heard with respect. That is a ridiculous statement. Absolutely ridiculous. It's just as stupid as saying, well, you're not a real Democrat, even though you vote Democrat, favorably quote Democrats because you don't agree with everything that Democrats say.

That's not how this works.

We actually already know how to do this because we do it all the time when it comes to personal righteousness and personal holiness. If we acted that way about personal righteousness, then we would say, well, we're not ever going to talk to people about how to live the Christian life because that would cause them to think that they can maintain their own righteousness before God through moralism.

You would respond in two completely different ways if someone came to you and said, well, I'm a Christian, so how then do I live my life in terms of my sexual morality? That's a perfectly appropriate good question.

That's a different question.

This is a very important thing to understand. This is the argument for them because I did a video response to Russell Moore's podcast where he said essentially the same thing, where he criticized the social gospel people of being anti-lordship, which was ridiculous, which is a lie.

Dr. Russell Moore lied in his podcast and he has not repented of it. Here he is making the same argument. Now, this is important because what he's saying is we know how to do this in personal morality, but none of us know how to do this in public civil morality.

That's not true. I've already said we've been doing this for decades. The question is, the debate is, and this is if you're honest, Dr. Russell Moore and people who like this perspective, if you're honest, you have to understand where the debate really lies.

It's not if the Bible informs your politics, it's how the Bible informs your politics. Because what we're hearing from this side is that we need to have social programs. We need to have more welfare. We need to have reparations, whatever it is.

We need to have affirmative action laws. We need to have things that take from the rich and give to the poor in order to be Christian. That's what we're hearing from your side. We're matching that up with the Bible and we're saying it doesn't jive, man.

It just doesn't jive. Now, the Bible does inform our politics. It does inform what good civil policies are. This is the general equity of the law. We look at the law, we apply the general equity of the law, and we see what's just and what is not.

When we do that, we see that abortion is unjust. Obviously, it's the easiest moral question anyone's ever been asked. Should you kill babies? No. Again, we've been doing this for decades and there's a disagreement on how to do it and where and when.

That's where the disagreement lies. This is a disagreement over God's law. It's not a disagreement of whether or not it applies to the area of the civil realm. It's also a disagreement of emphasis as well.

Because when you're preaching the gospel, if you're preaching it in such a way that says, well, here's the thing. We need to transform culture and this and that. That's fine, as long as you're keeping the emphasis on the main thing.

We transform culture by regeneration, not by law, by regeneration. How you transform culture is you preach the gospel to sinners, sinners repent, and then you show them how to live. That's what the Great Commission is.

They get baptized, they repent, and then they're taught to do everything that Christ commands. If you get that wrong, if you twist that. Anyway, all that to say, yes, we'll watch the rest of this. But so far, this video is a great example of making points where there's no argument.

Justice, Mercy, and Personal Holiness

...question than someone who says, I'm sexually immoral, therefore, Jesus has to receive me into heaven on the basis of that. No, you would respond to those in two completely different ways. But if the person who's a moralist, you're so worried about moralism that you say, we're going to not talk about issues of personal ethics and obedience, then you're tearing apart what God has put together.

And the Bible says that we're able to operate as individuals, we're able to operate as churches, we're able to operate together as tribes, villages, and communities, and we have responsibilities in all of those things.

And it's all defined by God's law. Israel had responsibilities to show mercy to people through almsgiving, through the gleaning laws, not through taking from the rich and giving to the poor like we do now.

So we can't break God's laws in order to keep God's laws. It doesn't work that way. God's laws aren't ridiculous. God's laws aren't self-refuting. So when God says, give to the poor, we can't then steal to do it.

That's the, that's, this is where the argument lies. This is where the argument lies. It's not, should we give to the poor? It's not, should we treat people with respect? It's how do we do it? And luckily, well, not luckily, because God doesn't rely on luck.

Intelligently, amazingly, wisely, God gives us how to do that. He shows us how to do that. We apply the general equity of the law today. We figure out what are.

The principles we can apply today. And then we do that. So we can't say, well, because Joseph and his brothers were acting together in selling their brother into slavery, that it isn't a moral issue. It is.

And so when we're talking about issues...

What kind of an argument is this? Oh my goodness gracious.

John the Baptist and Civil Ethics

Justice. We're talking about how God has commanded us to care for the people around us, including the vulnerable around us. But also we're talking about the criteria by which God is going to judge us in terms of whether or not we have a life that is conformed to Jesus Christ.

And that means being people who are faithful in every aspect of our lives. See that with John the Baptist, when he's preaching and he's dealing with soldiers and with tax collectors, and they come to him and say, well, how do we live now?

And what he did was he applied the law of God to their situations and he saw where they were weak. He saw what they were doing. He saw where they were breaking the law of God and he applied it. That's what we do today.

And so I would say, Dr. Russell Moore, that you're breaking the law of God by being for all of these social programs. That's breaking the law of God because God says that the government has a right to a certain amount of money and the right to do certain things and social programs don't fit into that.

Social programs don't fit in that. So that's where you're breaking the law of God. And that's where this argument lies. You would probably disagree and that's where the debate has to happen. It can't just be this nonsense where you say, well, you know, you guys are just anti-lordship like he did in the last podcast.

That was ridiculous. That was a lie. That was something that needs to be repented of. That's another area where you're breaking the law of God and you can't just say, well, you know, we know how to do this in moral life, in our personal moral life, but not in the civil.

No, we've been doing this for decades, as I said in the beginning. So this is a debate over how to apply God's law. Now you say you're not a theonomist, but you definitely are. You're a very poor theonomist because you apply God's law incorrectly, which is weird for a supposed expert in ethics.

As tax collectors and as soldiers, John doesn't say, well, I can't talk about that.

He turns around. Neither does anybody. Neither does anybody on the social justice gospel statement, the statement on social justice. No one says, oh, I can't talk about that. This is a misrepresentation.

This is a lie, Dr. Russell Moore. You're lying again.

Says don't extort from people. Don't, don't, don't, don't rob people. Don't mistreat people. That's the exact same kind of word that comes to us in terms of all of the ways that we live with people around us.

There's that serious movement. Here it is.

If you're not taking it seriously yet, you're going to take it seriously now. Yeah. So, you know, again, this is, this is, this is the thing. Dr. Russell Moore is an expert at the bait and switch. It's also called the Motte and Bailey fallacy.

It's where you defend something that's very easy to defend and pretend it's an argument for something that's very hard to defend. And so he's defending lordship here. He's defending that Christ should be our Lord and we should do what he says.

That's very easy to defend from the Bible. And so easy to defend that everyone in this debate agrees with it. Everyone, everyone in the debate, all the people who signed the statement on social justice, everyone agrees with that.

But then he's pretending it's an actual argument for all of the nonsense that he promotes, all of the evil things that he promotes. And they are evil because they're against God's law. And he says, well, see, if you agree with me here, you got to agree with me.

That's the bait and switch. No, the argument is not any of the things you talked about in this video. This is a worthless video because the debate is not about this. It isn't about this. This is a worthless video.

The debate is what does the law of God say and how do we apply it today? That's where the argument lies. John the Baptist was doing that. He was looking at the law of God and applying it to each person's situation.

That's what a good minister needs to do. Look at the law of God and apply it to each situation. Now there's a very big divide right now in reformed evangelicalism on how to apply that law. What does that law say and how to apply it?

That's the kind of videos you need to start making, Dr. Russell Moore. That's the kind of debates you need to start having, conversations you need to have. How do we apply this law? How do we know that the law of God supports the things that you support?

Until we have those debates, you're going to continue to be obfuscating. You're going to continue to be producing worthless videos. And you know what? People on my side are ready to have these conversations, ready to debate.

Where you at? Anyway, I hope this is helpful. God bless.