Cru Shows Josh McDowell the Door

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:13

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I wanted to quickly announce before we get into the

00:19

Josh McDowell stuff that you can apparently get Christianity and social justice religions in conflict either today or tomorrow.

00:29

It's gonna pop up on Amazon. And one of the reasons that it's happening this way is because I wanted to get the information to you as quickly as I possibly could.

00:36

Most of the time when someone launches a book, they have a launch date, they wait, they have pre -orders, they line everything up, they wanna try to get the farthest ahead and the rankings on Amazon and all of that.

00:48

And of course, I wouldn't mind those things, but my main goal was to get for those who listen and those who support what

00:56

I'm doing here, I wanted to get the book in your hands as quickly as possible because I realize so many of you are in situations where you could really use the material that's in this book.

01:05

I'm gonna talk more about it next week and there will be opportunities eventually. I'm not sure when.

01:11

I think in the next probably two weeks, there'll be opportunities to get an autographed author's copy if you want that, but I'd encourage you, get two copies, get three, give some away.

01:21

Get one on Amazon, if you shop on Amazon, some of you don't and I understand that and that's fine. I think you can get at Barnes and Noble, but Amazon I think is the main place people probably buy books and the rankings

01:34

I guess do matter and the ratings matter. And so I've been told that at least by publishers.

01:41

And so if you do get the book, please write a nice review, put it out there and that would just help me and I think help get more eyeballs on it.

01:52

We do want this information getting in the hands of as many people as possible. So Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict.

01:58

If it's not up there yet, it's about to be posted. I think it's just going through Amazon's approval process right now and that's it, as soon as it's done with that, it's out there, it's public and you can order it.

02:09

So without further ado though, let's talk about Josh McDowell because this is something that I got a lot of messages about.

02:16

People wanted to know if I had seen this, what I thought about it. So I'm gonna give you a little bit, because I think there's a lesson to be learned with this whole situation.

02:25

I feel bad somewhat for what Josh McDowell's going through. I mean, this is, it's hard to be going through this and I'll tell you what it is for those who don't know, but the way that this is being handled by both crew and by Josh McDowell is kind of curious.

02:43

And I think it's a lesson in what not to do actually in many ways. And so maybe we can learn this lesson.

02:50

And so I've been reading, I just started in my devotional reading, the

02:55

Book of Joshua. And it's interesting in the first two chapters, you keep reading through the encouragement to be brave, to be,

03:08

I mean, they obviously have a mission. Josh was going into the promised land, right? So there's, God has given them a directive, but bravery is a virtue that is in short supply today, to be strong, to be courageous, right?

03:24

These kinds of things are just, they're foreign to, I don't know what happened exactly.

03:29

I mean, I have my ideas and I've certainly talked to thinkers who've thought deeply, more deeply about this than I have, but something happens where men, they don't have spines like they used to.

03:42

I mean, it's just, I think it's obvious to most people today that something's changed. And this seems to be, to me, an example of this to some extent, that there's just not, there's not a fighting spirit here.

03:55

There's not any kind of, I don't know, in the name of maybe humility or, well, we'll get into it, we'll get into it.

04:01

So let's set this up. My title for this is Crew Shows Josh McDowell the

04:07

Door. I thought about saying Crew Cancels Josh McDowell, but I'm not sure this is, I wanna try to preserve the term cancellation if we can.

04:15

It doesn't just mean being fired. And I mean, maybe this is a partial cancellation, but cancellation generally has an intent to destroy someone from the public sphere altogether.

04:24

I'm not sure if that's Crew's intent, but this does have the effect of that. Once you're labeled with the big R, right, that scarlet letter

04:30

R for racist, you are, I mean, you can never recover.

04:37

I mean, it is just like, it is just like the scarlet letter. I mean, it's just, we could use the term almost like neo -Puritans.

04:44

I know some of you are bristling at that. You're saying, wait, hold on. I like some of the theology from the Puritans, but I'm just saying that stereotype and to some extent,

04:52

I mean, look, they threw Roger Williams out and Ann Hutchinson, and maybe you could argue that that was justified in some ways, but they were known kind of to be a little bit of a more intolerant group of those who deviated from what they consider to be the common good and their city on the hill.

05:09

And today we have kind of a similar thing going on with the left, right? They label people with their own scarlet letters and racist is the biggest one right now.

05:18

It'll be different probably in a year, but that's one of their main ones. They'll always probably love that one.

05:25

And once you get that term put on you, as Josh McDowell has, you're a leper. You are a pariah.

05:31

No one wants to touch you. No one wants to associate with you, at least those in high positions. And if you cower,

05:37

I'm gonna be honest with you. I think that makes it worse. I've had cancellation attempts on me. I've had a few. I've had mainstream media go after me before.

05:45

I've had, I mean, and that's not the worst of it. Honestly, the worst is when it's people that you have some kind of a connection with and don't expect it from, right?

05:54

But I've had this from within Christianity. That's where it's a little surprising sometimes and I've learned a lot.

06:01

And I did not, I look back and I realize I probably should have even been more direct and more unapologetic in some ways.

06:10

And I didn't ever apologize, but I should have been, and so unapologetic's not the right word, but I should have been more firm and have more resolve perhaps.

06:18

Because I didn't want to distract from the work I was trying to do when people came at me for being racist.

06:27

And if you look at my comments on iTunes even, I noticed, this was months ago,

06:32

I just happened to see that. People were calling me a sexist and that I'm a part of the patriarchy and all this. And so the thing is,

06:40

I do defend myself and I did defend myself. And I reasoned through everything and why are people calling me this and here's why they're wrong and here's why they're being bullies.

06:49

They're a bunch of bullies. That's who they are. They're irrational, they're wild eyed and we should not listen to them at all or take them seriously.

07:01

Petulant children. I mean, that's really the kind of attitude that we have right now. And I think that helped.

07:07

I think that helped a whole lot. I've always seen my audience grow whenever there's been an attempt to cancel me. And I think people kind of realize that now, especially within Christianity, they realize, okay, if we go after this guy, he has a podcast, he can just get on there and he can talk for an hour and he can just show us all, he can show people all the areas in which he thinks we're wrong.

07:28

And I mean, it doesn't do us any good as audience grows. And so I'm not saying that won't stop, but I think it helps.

07:35

And I think I should do more of that. That's one of the things that I've learned. And it's viewed in some ways as arrogant to do something like that, but it's not.

07:44

It's if you do it the right heart, if you do it with the right motivation in mind, that you really want to, you really think that there's an evil attempt out there.

07:53

This is not a well -meaning kind of thing. These are evil people. These are bullies. And I'm not doing it for myself.

08:00

I'm doing it for my audience. I'm doing it for those who rely on me. I'm doing it for my family. Then there's something called honor we don't talk about much anymore either.

08:08

Doing it for the name that I have. I defend that. I defend the things that I care about and I love.

08:14

And also for the next guy, I'm always thinking about the next guy. All right, so if I cave on this, they're gonna go to the next guy and do the same kind of tactic.

08:24

I need to let them know the buck stops here. Your tactic's not gonna work with me. At least I'm not gonna, not on my watch, not on my dime.

08:34

So that's just off the top of my head, some of the things that I consider when a similar attempt has been made on me.

08:42

It's not exactly the same. Josh McDowell's running in higher circles, more elitist circles, all of that.

08:49

But Josh McDowell could have done himself, I think, more of a favor by not accepting this.

08:58

And so I'm gonna go through it. Let's go through it. That'll make a little more sense to everyone.

09:04

Some of you know, and I'm doing the podcast as if you do, and I really need to give you the facts first.

09:09

So let's start here. I think it's Mark Gauthier, if I'm pronouncing that right. Maybe I'm not.

09:15

Maybe it's Gaithier. I think it's Gauthier. But he is the national director of CREW. And so this was issued.

09:23

I wanna just give you brief history real quick leading up to this whole thing with Josh McDowell.

09:30

Brief history. CREW's been woke for years, okay? A lot of people are gonna disagree with me in CREW.

09:35

Hey, look, where I am in CREW isn't like that. Okay, gotcha. There's some places in CREW where it hasn't affected you as much.

09:42

Some places it's saturated, other places it's not. But if you look at the national staff conferences, they've been woke -fests since like 2015.

09:50

And 2017 was the year that it just was overwhelmingly, no, 2019 actually, was the year overwhelmingly woke and it got some play.

10:00

It got some publicity. And from that exposure, there was formed a group, a concern group of people in the organization who wanted to reform the organization.

10:13

They didn't want it going down this direction anymore. And so they created a document that was very long itemizing kind of where this stuff is, why it's wrong, social justice, critical race theory, all of that.

10:25

And then someone from the left somehow got ahold of it and leaked it, someone I think in England. And then this caused all sorts of anger on the left in Christianity that, and they acted like, they always tend to somehow maneuver themselves to a position of being oppressed.

10:43

They acted like, oh, there's this group in CREW and this is just who CREW is. CREW is filled with these people that hate social justice and they're bullying us, even though it's actually the opposite.

10:54

It's an exercise in projection. They're the ones, the social justice advocates are the ones bullying this group, which is actually the more marginalized group because they don't really have institutional power in CREW.

11:04

They're just a group of concerned people that came together and said, we wanna work with leadership because they aren't leadership.

11:11

They wanna work with leadership to highlight some of these problems. Okay, that kind of, that didn't go so well.

11:20

And maybe some of them think they made some headway, but not really. I mean, I actually just found out that there's now another attempt to make another document itemizing some of the issues with CREW.

11:34

Like how many documents are you gonna make? I mean, it's like, I think this group, I think what's happened is the can's being kicked down the road and leadership has been playing this game the whole time that they want to keep pushing things in a leftward direction, but kind of appease both sides.

11:48

They don't wanna lose any donors. They lost donors. It stung when CREW19 was exposed. They don't wanna lose donors.

11:54

And so I see that as the prime motivation. They don't wanna lose donors and they don't wanna cause controversy.

12:00

They wanna keep doing what they're doing and they want both sides to be happy. The problem is that's impossible. Both sides won't be happy. You have to pick a side.

12:06

And of course the orthodox side, the right side, and I've argued is you gotta kick the social justice advocacy out of the group.

12:14

You can't have that in CREW. That's not part of the mission. That's not part of what CREW is about. If you don't do that, then you have a real problem on your hands.

12:22

And that's what they're finding out. And for some reason it seems like national leadership still thinks they can somehow manage this.

12:29

And so many organizations and institutions are doing the same thing. You can't, you can't manage this. You have a revolution on your hands.

12:36

Either CREW will be dismantled from within if you let the revolutionaries have power or they're gonna be screaming at the gates.

12:45

And if you do let them in, then the people that were the faithful good workers in CREW are gonna end up leaving.

12:52

And so you have to choose, which group are you going to allow to control the organization?

13:00

Now, Mark, and I'll say Gothier, I think that's how you pronounce it, his name. By the way, someone can write in the comments, if I'm not doing, if I'm not pronouncing his name correctly, please let me know.

13:10

But this is what he's written. This is the national director and this is why it's relevant. This is the national director of CREW.

13:17

Lenz's Institute basically ended up saying, we're gonna shut down our United States branch because of concerns over, they acted like they were, again, being persecuted, but I think it seemed like it was a political move because they didn't shut down Lenz's.

13:32

It was just their US branch they were gonna shut down. And so then Mark Gothier issues this.

13:39

Hi everyone, I want to bring you up to date, share my thoughts on Lenz's Institute. On July 29th, the leadership team of Lenz's issued an announcement on a workplace and other social media platforms that they were closing down Lenz's because of a climate that has become cautious, unclear, and in some places, even toxic.

13:55

Toxic. Yeah, it's toxic for us to be in CREW. We're pushing social justice and critical race theory.

14:02

And because some people disagree with us, right? I mean, they don't have any real like evidence here of like actual like persecution.

14:10

But they use the word, they use these extreme words. Anyway, this news caused sadness for many staff who felt that CREW is taking a significant step backward in our goal of being a unified, welcoming, and compelling missionary home for followers of Jesus from every ethnicity.

14:25

It has landed especially heavily on our BIPOC staff.

14:31

I guess that's people of color. I'm not, what's the BI? Biracial people,

14:37

I don't know. And others who feel that CREW has not supported Lenz's in their leadership well. Over the course of the last couple of weeks, by the way, before I even continue, he's buying into the categorization here.

14:47

He's buying into all their gripes, their issues where we're persecuted, the big old meanies are after us because they don't agree with our theology.

14:58

Like there's some actual real disagreements here and they don't agree with our postmodernism.

15:03

So Mark Gauthier just buys into their complaint. He adopts their categories, our

15:12

BIPOC staff. Where he's buying into the idea.

15:19

He's accepting the premise that CREW is not united. It's not unified and it's because of ethnicity. They're divided over ethnicity.

15:25

That again, you've lost, you've already lost. Once you do that, you're done. No, the division is over social justice.

15:31

The division is over critical race theory, over neo -Marxism, over liberation theology, over postmodernism, over feminism.

15:40

You pick what you wanna use. If you wanted to say social justice, say social justice. But that's the issue. It's not, race is not the issue.

15:48

And they, I can't stand how they play this game and how people buy into it. I don't understand why people do that, but they do.

15:55

So he bought into the categorization already. He assumes CREW's got a problem. It's divided. Their complaints are somewhat legitimate.

16:02

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I and others, he says, have been in discussions with various leaders seeking to understand the depth of the issues.

16:08

It has been sobering. The conversations have underscored the hurt, confusion, and fatigue that so many have experienced.

16:16

Following these conversations, I want you to know that Mark Householder, representing AIA, and I concur with the

16:22

Lenz's leadership that we close the institute. My heart is heavy today. Lenz has brought great value to so many of our lives over the last 10 years.

16:30

Really, all that intersectionality and CRT. Okay, since the day

16:35

I was commissioned by AIA, I'm not sure what that, what is AIA? All right.

16:41

To build cross -cultural competency, to increase mission effectiveness, and to facilitate understanding and empathy among our staff, it has made a difference in a variety of ways we've been encouraged to look not only to our own interests, but also the interests of others.

16:54

Unless you're an Orthodox biblical Christian who's concerned about intersectionality.

16:59

He didn't, I'm adding that. And to seek the oneness for which Jesus prayed. For many hundreds of our staff, it was life -giving.

17:06

God used it significantly to change lives. As I've tried to listen to the Lord during the last couple of weeks, he's reminded me of a few things that are important to consider the season we're in.

17:15

First, we must acknowledge and address the relational division that exists within parts of crew. I don't mean to convey that as 6 ,000 plus staff, we are all divided, but there is ample evidence within the organization that the quality of our relationships with one another is under siege.

17:28

So again, he's framing this like it's an assault from the outside. It's not within crew.

17:34

The problem isn't located. It's not the people pushing post -modernism and liberation theology and all that.

17:39

Those aren't the people that are causing the issue. It's from outside. So he's getting them off the hook here.

17:45

If we don't feel it directly, then we do indirectly. The lens of communication described a climate of suspicion, mischaracterization, and in some cases, direct intimidation that was personally felt.

17:54

Of course, I have not, I've yet to see one example, one concrete example of any of this, but they can make these accusations.

18:01

Additionally, many staff feel that they have been misrepresented, misunderstood, maligned, and left unsupported by our leadership.

18:07

Other staff have described their experiences of feeling shamed and then feeling dismissed as they've expressed their viewpoints and concerns.

18:14

This is, by the way, a standard tactic. It's playing that kind of emotional card here.

18:20

And it's not, look, it's not wrong to say that you feel a certain way, but you need to provide examples. And you can't use it to bully other people, which is what this is doing.

18:32

It's very vague. But it's, who's to blame for this? External forces.

18:38

It's so vague. It's crew itself. It's the organization. There's no actual bad guy here.

18:43

But as we'll see, Josh McDowell gets to bear a lot of the blame here. We'll find out in a second.

18:49

He gets to be the heifer that gets some of the guilt put on him.

18:57

Device in this has been used by the enemy to undermine the work of the kingdom for thousands of years.

19:04

What? Well, yeah, I guess. But divisiveness, division over what?

19:09

Division over the right things is not the enemy. If it's division for the sake of truth, and that goes back to the

19:18

New Testament, then you divide over it. This shouldn't be hard.

19:24

I mean, would you say that about Jesus and the Pharisees? Well, you know, division. The question for us today is how will we navigate the choppy waters of division and the hurt it produces while clinging to our commitments to love one another?

19:35

That's not the right question, sorry. Right question is how do we come back to biblical orthodoxy?

19:41

How do we effectively fulfill the great commission that God has given us? How do we love

19:46

Christ? It's so focused on hurt feelings and crew. It is not focused on God.

19:53

And that's what jumps out at me with this. It is not focused on, if there's a real problem, locate the problem, find it out, get to the bottom of it.

20:01

Don't endlessly listen to hurt feelings and never come to a conclusion. Get to the bottom of it, find out what it is, and then apply biblical principles.

20:10

Is this in line with scripture? Is it not? The accusation is that Lenz's Institute was pushing things that aren't in line with scripture.

20:16

It's either true or it's not. How will we take on legitimate differences in perspective with open arms instead of pointing fingers?

20:23

Biblical unity and healthy relationships are foundational for us as we move. I'm gonna just skim some of this because it's kind of the same stuff repeated.

20:30

It says we're committed to address this issue. We must continue to pursue missionary competency in cross cultures.

20:40

We need to pursue our calling of evangelism and discipleship. We will continue a clear and singular voice for oneness and diversity within the organization.

20:50

These are difficult days emotionally and relationally. Don't lose hope. As I've tried to listen to the

20:55

Lord over the past couple of weeks, I've also asked that he would grant us the ability to lean in and move towards oneness. So this is all a big, basically it's a big call for please be unified.

21:07

Please, no matter which side of this you're on, you know, I'm in your corner, but you can't do that.

21:13

This is automatically a slap in the face to anyone who would have, this is basically a slap in the face to people who seriously had an issue with what

21:22

Lenz's Institute was doing and crew more broadly speaking at their staff conferences and through even some of their local chapters.

21:29

Pushing intersectionality, social justice, all of that, it was itemized, it was listed. The biblical responses were listed and it's not taken seriously.

21:37

That's what I get from this is, you know, we're just gonna try to sing kumbaya. Can we just please sing kumbaya?

21:44

No, there's fundamental diametrically opposed positions here, fundamental differences. Now, what does this have to do with Joshua McDowell?

21:52

I'm setting the stage. This is the environment and this gives you a little bit of a window into Mark Gothier.

21:59

He is trying to be a middleman and play both sides. He is, this is what

22:06

I'm seeing in a lot of institutions and a lot of pastors are doing this. They don't want to offend either side. They're so concerned about it, bending over backwards to say all this stuff, but it's mostly fluff.

22:17

There's really not much in this, just a lot of words, but it doesn't, what does it communicate?

22:22

It communicates that it legitimizes Lenses Institute, basically, even as they're shutting it down and I guess,

22:31

I don't know if they're shutting it down completely or just in the United States or what, but it's legitimizing the people who worked at Lenses and what they pushed and all of that.

22:42

So this brings us to Josh McDowell. Mark Gothier, again, US National Director.

22:48

And this is, so the first thing I read was from a month ago. This is from this week. Many of you have heard about the remarks of Josh McDowell made last weekend at the

22:56

American Association of Christian Counselors Conference and I'll show you that in a minute. Since we became aware of what occurred,

23:02

I, along with others have engaged with Josh and as we have heard from Josh, it's clear that he is owning, sorry, owning, there we go, the pain and hurt his comments have caused.

23:12

He shared his deepest regrets for those comments and understands they were wrong and hurtful. As of this morning, we, along with Josh, have decided it is best for him to step away from public ministry for a season.

23:22

During this time, he will focus on listening and learning for his own personal growth as a way to care for others in the body of Christ.

23:29

I wanted to provide for you a statement directly from Josh. And by the way, this is not unique to Christianity. This is happening in every industry.

23:36

There was a country music artist just recently. What's his name? Man, East Tennessee. I forget his name now, but he had the same exact thing.

23:44

He, you know, I guess he was drunk. He said the N word, someone caught it. And it was the same kind of, and Josh McDowell didn't do that, but this artist, you know, it's all,

23:54

I gotta take this time off. I gotta take such a long time off for just working on myself.

24:00

It is like, it is the penance that you have to do. It is the, there's no apology in moving on.

24:10

It is, you must be punished somehow. You must go into the corner for a while. And you must admit, take this stance of that you are, you are less than, you are, you don't understand the world.

24:27

You need to get a minority viewpoint or something like that to be able to understand, because you just, you're so damaged.

24:34

You're so, you're just so ignorant that you can't even function in your job or in society.

24:42

You're just, I mean, it really blows things way out of proportion. When you start doing this, it makes something such a big deal, such a cardinal sin, that this person is like, they're stained forever in a way.

24:57

And their attempt at trying to avoid the stain is to try to do as much penance as they possibly can.

25:04

So Josh McDowell is going to the corner right now. And this is a statement from Josh. I mean, and by the way, this is the kind of thing you would just think of like, if someone's gonna take this break from ministry, like there was something very serious, like a major death in the family, something like that.

25:19

But it's for, you're gonna, maybe you won't be surprised, but I think you're gonna be surprised when I play you the clip.

25:26

So here's what Josh McDowell says. At a recent conference, I made comments about race, the black family and minorities that were wrong and hurt many people.

25:31

It breaks my heart to know what deep pain I have caused. It has become clear to me along with crew leadership that I need to step back from my ministry and speaking engagements to enter a new season of listening and addressing the growth areas that I have become aware of through this.

25:45

During this time of meeting with others and learning, I hope to personally grow and better understand how I can help contribute to the reconciliation and unity that God desires for all of us.

25:52

So what he's communicating is he took away from reconciliation and from unity. Somehow two sides weren't reconciled and he made it worse.

26:03

He brought about disunity from the statements he made. So he's taking the blame for this.

26:10

During this season, Mark Gothier continues, Josh McDowell's ministry will continue its mission with CEO Dwayne Zook leading all daily efforts.

26:19

We love Josh and are grateful for his significant contribution to the Great Commission. We also, along with Josh, affirm that his remarks at the

26:25

AACC conference about race, the black family and minorities were wrong, hurtful, and do not reflect the views of crew. All right, so they're covering themselves here.

26:31

Let's see. I'm grateful that he chose the growth process and the humility required of a learner.

26:38

In times like this, I'm reminded how much each of us are utterly dependent on God's grace. Okay, so here's the thing. This is crew is running from Josh.

26:46

They're covering themselves. Josh is even stepping down from his ministry, from his own ministry.

26:53

Now I'm gonna play for you the clip, but I just wanna say, I think Josh McDowell even doesn't have a movie made about him if I'm not mistaken.

27:01

Or maybe that's Lee Strobel I'm thinking of. Maybe it's Lee Strobel. Josh McDowell, though, evidence that demands a verdict. Big name in Christianity, Christian apologetics for years.

27:10

He's an older man. There is no, that I've seen, there's been no deference given to him.

27:17

There's been no respect paid to him. There's been no, I mean, age is just not even a thing anymore to respect.

27:24

There's been no attempt to understand him, and he even is like just,

27:31

I mean, it makes it harder when he just kind of folds like tinfoil and just accepts all the things that are being said about him.

27:42

This is, and I think people are deceived into thinking like this is the way to weather a cancellation. This is the way to weather when people are, when the woke mob goes after you, you can weather it by appeasing them.

27:51

No, you can't. Nope, nope, doesn't work. You won't be able to do it. In fact, you'll just lose respect among the people who would have supported you if you stood up.

28:01

And I don't wanna get delved too deeply into the hearts of Mark Gothier or Josh McDowell.

28:08

All I know is what they've written. I will say this about Josh McDowell. I do know Josh McDowell, he did put out something, a document that was critical.

28:17

I remember I saw it maybe a year ago, critical of critical race theory, and I skimmed through it, and it was kind of an inadequate critique in my mind.

28:29

It was kind of a third way kind of deal. And I do know from people who've told me who know

28:36

Josh McDowell have told me that basically he's kind of on the fence on this.

28:41

He's kind of, he'll say things against it, but then he'll say things that make you think he's kind of for it. And so this is what

28:50

I'm seeing from a lot of Christian leaders who don't know what to do. They kind of, they have to be officially against critical race theory, but then they don't want the critical race theorists mad at them.

28:59

And they kind of try to do this, like I'm against critical race theory, but, and then they'll say like, I think racism is systemic, and it's still going on, and there's white privilege.

29:08

And they kind of adopt all the concepts of it. I mean, you saw this with the Tony Evans kingdom race theology.

29:14

It's like, what is this? It's like, it's critical race theory, except we're not using the same terms. And we're going to say that critical race theory is incorrect because Christianity has, it's all, it's smoke and mirrors.

29:26

It's, you know, don't look at this hand while I'm doing something with this hand. And I think

29:31

Josh McDowell, to some extent, is like many, is kind of caught up in this, he doesn't want to take a firm side.

29:40

And all it takes is one slight misstep with the woke mob, and you're done. And that's what happened.

29:46

He made some comments, and I'll show you, here's the comments. I'll show you what he said.

29:53

All right, here it is. It's not just the equal of opportunity, and I don't believe, everybody says, well, blacks, whites, everyone have the equal opportunity to make it in America.

30:07

No, they don't, folks. I do not believe blacks,

30:13

African Americans, and many of the minorities have equal opportunity. Why?

30:24

Most of them grow up in families where there's not a big emphasis on education. Security.

30:31

You can do anything you want. You can change the world. If you work hard, you will make it.

30:42

So many African Americans don't have those privileges like I was brought up with. My folks were very rich.

30:48

In fact, they were a poor farming family. But the way I was raised,

30:54

I have advantages in life. Ingrained into me, you can do it. Get your education.

31:00

Get a job. Change the world. And that makes it different opportunities.

31:12

That was, that's the controversial comment. That's what he said that was controversial.

31:18

So why? Why was that controversial? Well, what he did was he essentially, he mixed two things in a way.

31:27

And I don't know that he intentionally was trying to do this. I'm not sure. But you can hear in what he says at first, you're probably listening and you're thinking like, well, he sounds like he's saying that there's some kind of a white privilege.

31:41

And systemic racism is still around. And people don't have the same opportunities if they're minorities because of white privilege or something like that.

31:52

But then he kind of switches it on you. Says, yeah, he goes along with the social justice narrative. They don't have the same opportunities.

31:59

They can't do the same things. But it's not because society is against them. It's because, well, their culture, their families, where they didn't encourage the hard work and the things that are necessary.

32:12

Well, that is, here's the thing, that is forbidden to say today for the social justice mob, because that basically defeats the idea of victimhood.

32:23

It places the blame on a culture. So what he's essentially saying is there is a culture that does not value hard work as much as the culture he was raised in.

32:34

He was raised, he was poor, they didn't have money, but at least he was encouraged to work.

32:44

And he's saying, well, there's a whole bunch of people out there and he's playing with a broad brush.

32:49

He's saying minorities, but black people in particular, they don't have that opportunity because in their culture, they're not encouraged to do those things.

32:58

Now, that was the comment that got him kicked to the curb by crew, taken out of his ministry.

33:09

He has to go now reflect and learn and just go to the reeducation camp basically because of that.

33:19

Now, could he have qualified this? Maybe he did. That's the only clip I have, but could he have qualified it?

33:25

Could he have said many in urban settings or many in certain cultures are not encouraged because of family breakdown or just other cultural elements for some reason, they're just not encouraged to work hard and get ahead like people in the culture

33:45

I was raised in. If he would have said it like that and didn't paint with such a broad brush, would he have still been in trouble?

33:52

I think he would have. I think he would have. But I don't think it would have been quite as much because he didn't qualify it, because he just said, he went with the stereotype there in a way, that's it.

34:08

And I think, I lean towards thinking at least that he probably was trying to combine.

34:14

He was probably trying to, I'm gonna appease kind of the social justice crowd here or I'm gonna kind of go in their corner.

34:19

Look, yeah, it's not good for, if you're a minority in the United States, you can't get ahead. But then

34:25

I'm gonna also be like, hey, conservatives, hard work, all that kind of stuff. So that's what's going on.

34:33

That's what's going on. And I think given everything that's happened, you would have thought that he must have done something really bad.

34:46

And then you find out that's what it was. So here's his statement. And I think

34:53

I read part of this already. And then some of the reaction, I'm not going through all of it, but the woke mob is just still after him.

35:02

Kyle J. Howard, I mean, basically his statement wasn't good enough. Basically, Josh McDowell isn't owning up to his racism.

35:11

Alan Cross, Josh McDowell said this, it's full -blown racism. There's no way you can say that about an entire race of people and it's not racism.

35:20

Unless, by the way, I'll say this, unless you're a Thebedian of Wheelay, and you're broad brushing all white people, because the social justice side does this all the time.

35:30

And what did he try to use when Paul said all Cretans are liars? So he said, look, Paul basically agreed with a

35:40

Cretan thinker that all Cretans are liars. So we can say that about white people. We can say that they're all a certain way.

35:47

But you can't do that. You can't stereotype. You can't broad brush.

35:53

You can't notice the generality and say something that, well, in general, it's this way.

35:59

If it's a minority or a protected class, you just can't say it. And that's all that Josh McDowell did, from what

36:06

I understand. Now, at least that's the clip that has people all up in arms. Now, as I understand it,

36:13

I think later in the talk, he said something about there's, biblically, there's individual sin, there's not systemic sin.

36:18

And that's actually true. All the examples that they try to give about systemic sin, it's, yeah, all the individuals were participating in a bad sin.

36:29

It wasn't like, well, they didn't even know, but they were complicit because they were part of it. No, they were, there was an active element of sinning.

36:38

Or if there was any, if it was passive at all, it was an active passivity.

36:45

It was with knowledge. It was purposely breaking God's law. So anyway, those are the comments that Josh McDowell made.

36:55

That's what this is all about, all of it. And what would you have done, John? What do you think?

37:01

I think that, honestly, Josh McDowell should have stood by his statements and said, you know, maybe if you thought he should qualify them, you know,

37:09

I should have qualified. I should have said some or many, or a lot of people in these certain cultures they don't have the same ethic because of broken families or something like that.

37:22

He, or they don't have positive role models. They're living, you know, in urban areas and there's a lot of gang violence.

37:30

Or he could have gone into that a little more and said, you know, I wish I would have qualified that. But I would have said, that's it.

37:37

Stick by the statement. Don't let them, and then fight. Fight if you really think you're right.

37:43

But Josh, but he cowered. And when you cower like this, it's over.

37:49

It's over. You have this around your neck forever. Now, he may think that, hey,

37:54

I'm gonna be in trouble. Or maybe he genuinely actually thinks that he was wrong. Maybe, you know, that possibility does exist.

38:03

But even if he did genuinely think he was wrong, you still gotta take it to the other side and say, look, you're not offering forgiveness for this.

38:12

You are attempting to impugn my character. I mean, how many years have I been in Christian ministry?

38:18

How many years have I been doing apologetics? There is no respect for any of this. There is no grace for a guy, even if he did misstep a little bit.

38:28

I mean, this is, it is so out of proportion. There's no forgiveness. There's great, talk about being judgmental.

38:35

I mean, this is just insane. But here we are. Here we are, the slightest misstep in your whole entire ministry of however long

38:44

Josh McDowell's been doing apologetics ministry. It's gone in the minds of many. It's just gone.

38:50

It really amazes me because it's like, you know, what happened with Ravi Zacharias was very sad.

38:59

But it's, but Ravi, you know, there's some evidence. He did some stuff. With Josh McDowell, you know, it's this.

39:07

And the sad part is it could have the same effect with a lot of people. It's like the same thing. It's cardinal sin.

39:13

It's amazing. This is what ideology does. It's an obsession that people have. It's an obsession.

39:19

It doesn't, and the lives of real people in the real world don't even matter. It is, it's all about whether or not you broke the little rule and then you get the scarlet letter of R.

39:29

And unfortunately, Josh McDowell has that scarlet R around his neck hanging there and in the minds of many.

39:36

But he's decided to go this direction to allow himself to kind of be pushed out the door by Crew.

39:44

And Crew is showing its true colors. This is national leadership. And this is the other thing I really wanted to get across to everyone.

39:50

And that's why I showed the previous email from the national director. Crew is not in a good place.

39:55

It is in a very bad place. And they don't like me saying that. I know that. In fact, there is a comment, apparently, actually

40:02

I'll pull it up. It's from someone named Matthew Melendez, Melendrez. Matthew Melendrez, who's on staff with Crew and apparently had posted in one of their staff forums that do not leak things to John Harris.

40:16

Obviously someone leaked that to me. But they do not like it when they are exposed for their attempt at fence sitting.

40:25

And it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work with the donors. If you're giving to Crew as an,

40:31

I'm not saying specific Crew missionaries. I would talk to them. I would encourage them to find an alternative if there's a way to find an alternative.

40:38

But if you're giving to Crew itself, I would just consider it. I know some staff get upset at me for this, but I wouldn't give to an organization like this.

40:47

I just wouldn't do it. I just don't think it's being a faithful steward of God's money. When it's not even the woke contingent that are running things that I'm concerned about.

40:56

It's that the national director doesn't seem to have, wanna take a side on any of this.

41:02

If he does take a side, he leans towards the social justice side. And we're seeing what just happened with Josh McDowell.

41:08

It's prime evidence for this. Who has the momentum in Crew? Who has the upper hand?

41:15

Who's actually the one controlling Crew? Which side is actually controlling Crew? The one that can get Josh McDowell fired.

41:21

I'm pretty sure that's, or at least temporarily having a leave of absence.

41:26

I think that's the side that's got the institutional power. It's all reverse of what the social justice advocates say.

41:35

Racism is power and there's abuse and we're the marginalized ones.

41:40

They're not. They're the ones that are able to get people like Josh McDowell as high profile as he is fired, potentially.

41:47

So wanted to just go over that for everyone. That's what's going on in Crew and with Josh McDowell.

41:52

Let's pray for him. I do feel bad. I understand the fence sitting is what gets people sometimes to this point and the slight missteps and then the caving to the mob and all that.

42:07

But here's the thing, Josh McDowell is an older guy. And this is one of the things that I just, I feel bad about is for some of the older folks who don't quite understand what's happening with the young people, right?

42:18

Why they're so revolutionary. They still think this is about racism or something.

42:24

And it's not. It has nothing to do with actual racism. It's everything to do with basically a

42:32

Marxist revolution. These people don't care. They're not caring about minorities or people that are disadvantaged.

42:40

Josh McDowell didn't hurt anyone who was disadvantaged. Even if his message was wrong, what do you gather from that message?

42:46

Man, I need to tell people to work hard, to try to get ahead economically.

42:52

Really, what's wrong with that message? How is that gonna effectively hurt anyone? But these people don't care about that.

43:00

They care about making themselves feel good and putting others down and canceling people.

43:07

And that's what they're doing to Josh McDowell. Especially a guy of his profile, it makes him feel real good. I mean, how much better, how much more righteous are they?

43:14

Just like the Pharisees. If someone even like Josh McDowell is beneath us. So, I wouldn't give crew a dime.

43:24

That's what I'm leading up to. More coming later this week. Don't forget, Christianity and Social Justice, Religions in Conflict.

43:30

Go to Amazon, check it out. See if it's there yet. I think it probably is. Pick up a copy, pick up 10 copies.

43:36

I don't know. But leave a review if you do. And I do appreciate it. More coming out on that later next week.

43:44

And I'm looking forward to it. I'm also gonna be working on a workbook to go alongside it for small groups to work on.

43:51

I've been working though like 10 hours a day at my house trying to get ready for me to move into. So, it's been kind of difficult, but we are making progress.