"Dear AD" - Some Advice For Dealing with the Woke - AD on FLF Network Podcast

Hello there, this is AD Robles, and you're listening to AD on the Fight Laugh Feast network. Well, today I wanted to just chat with you a little bit. I've been getting asked many, many, many times about, you know, AD, what should I do in this situation or that situation?

Or what should I just do in general? And I'm going to respond to as many of those as I possibly can. If I've missed you, I'm so sorry. I'm just getting inundated with emails the last few weeks. And so, and I'm happy about it.

It's just going to take me a while to get through it all. But, but the reality is that I understand why you're asking. I don't think it's a bad question. We all need to be thinking about exactly this question.

What do I do? I sent out a tweet yesterday that said, it's not too late pastors and fathers, you can still get out in front of some of this woke church stuff, but take your stand now though, the window is closing, but it's not too late.

And it's not too late. It's not too late. I mean, it's clear that there's been a shift here. It's clear that the tsunami of apostasy to the woke church ideologies and the woke church cult is upon us. And we see it looming in the distance and it is here and we're already feeling the effects of it right now.

I've read numerous emails from people who are just, you know, a little bit shook right now. They just, they just don't really even know what to do about it. You know, their pastor is all of a sudden using straight up critical theory, not only words and vocabulary, but also ideas.

Their pastors and their friends and their, and their leaders are recommending insane books. And when I say insane books, I'm not being hyperbolic like that white fragility book by Robyn D 'Angelo is her name.

If your pastor recommends that you read that, you know, frankly, what, you know, if you want to know what to do, I would run for the freaking hills. That book is insane. I mean, you should, you should look into that book a little bit before you waste your money on it.

It's absolute garbage anyway. But the thing is like, there's all kinds of stuff like this happening. And, and, you know, the reason why it's so hard to answer some of these questions that you have for me is because each situation is different depending on the details.

You know, it's going to depend on exactly what is happening. It's going to depend on who's, who it's happening to, what your relationship is like with them and stuff like that. And, you know, you deal with people as individuals.

That's one of the big problems with critical theory is that it treats everybody the same, you know, with this, with this coronavirus thing, one of the biggest gripes that I had and a lot of people had was that the guidelines were very blanket, you know, they were spread on like peanut butter.

Like it didn't matter, like if you lived in a rural area or a major city, like the guidelines were very, pretty much the same. I mean, there's no reason for New Hampshire where I live to have been locked down.

Not only is it a very rural area, but there never really was any kind of spike whatsoever when it comes to this coronavirus. And yet, when I go take my kids to the park and we swing on the swings, I'm technically breaking the law when I do that.

And that kind of thing. And it's just, it's just insane. Like, why would you treat every population the same when there are so many key differences in each population? It's the same thing with churches.

You know, why would you treat every member of your church the same if there are some people that are young and, you know, if they got coronavirus, it would be no big deal. Yeah, of course, there are some people that are older, and it would be a bigger deal if they got coronavirus.

But, but we don't treat everyone the same. Like it's, it's, that's a really stupid way to live. And it's the same thing with, with, with, with woke people treating all white people the same. That's a really stupid way to see the world.

I can't think of anything more caveman than that. I have asthma. Anyway, so, so, and I think that, you know, when you read the Bible, and it talks to you about how to deal with people that are in sin, or people that are dabbling in sin and stuff like that.

It, it actually does a really, I mean, obviously, it's the scripture, right? God wrote it, and God is smart. But it tells you that, you know, you, you, you deal with people differently. And if you look even at the examples of Jesus, you know, Jesus didn't talk to everybody the same.

You know, I know that Gospel Coalition has told you that you need to be gentle, mild, even keeled, you don't get too uppity, you don't get too upset. And that's just not the Jesus that we see in the scripture.

You know, we do see that. I mean, one of the famous examples of seeing how Jesus interacts with people is the woman at the well. And there's a lot of pathos there, you know, there's no question about it.

He's tender with her. But we see lots of other aspects of how Jesus deals with people. I mean, Jesus, when he deals with the Pharisees, you know, he will probably get called the discernment blogger these days, as if that was an insult.

You know, and so we need to understand that there are differences. And there are actually patterns with how Jesus dealt with what kind of person, you know, when Peter, when Peter was tempting him, and he says to Peter, get behind me, Satan.

I don't think, I mean, listen, I'm not in Jesus's mind, but having read enough about what Jesus says, and what he does, and what he commands, I don't think he would have ever said that to the woman at the well, get behind me, Satan.

I just don't think he would have done it. I think that there was a specific dynamic to that relationship with Peter, and the kind of guy Peter was, and the kind of stuff that Peter was doing, that he was comfortable saying that, and why he talked to the Pharisees the way he did.

Why did he call them whitewashed tombs? Why did he call them a brood of vipers? And why didn't he call the masses that, the people that were being led astray by the Pharisees? You know, they were sinning too, right?

Like, it's not like you're not culpable for your sin just because somebody else led you astray. No, you're still responsible for yourself. But he dealt with the sins of the masses in a much different way than he dealt with the sins of the Pharisees, and so we can look into that, and I think that this is one of the best benefits of reading your Bible, because when somebody tells you to read Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility book, I mean, if you want to, go for it, but actually, that's not what you need to do if you want to be a force for reconciliation amongst people.

In fact, what you do need to do is read the Scriptures, because the Scripture gives us, equips us for every problem that we could see right now, and this is one of the, this is part and parcel of the woke church cult that the Bible isn't enough, because if the Bible was enough, then there would never have been slavery and all kinds of unbelief like that.

The woke church promotes unbelief in many areas, and the actual area of social justice is one of them. It's a call to unbelief. Don't accept it, but the Bible actually is completely adequate to do all of this stuff when it comes to reconciliation between people, when it comes to breaking down ethnic barriers.

The Bible specifically talks about that kind of thing, and what it says is very simple and easy to follow, but it also tells you how to deal with people, and so hopefully this will be helpful for those of you who are asking me, what do I do?

Jude on Scoffers, Divisions, and Mercy for Different Kinds of People

This is a passage from the book of Jude. It's a very easy book to read. It's only like 25 verses, and here's what it says, and starting in verse 17, he says this. He says, but you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

They said to you that in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions. Worldly people devoid of this spirit, but you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life, and so I'm going to stop there for a second.

Jude is saying that, look, you know, there's going to be scoffers, and there's going to be people that follow their own passions, and they're going to cause divisions. These are worldly people. They don't have the spirit of God.

These are unbelievers, and brothers, hear me. I don't think Jude was talking about obvious unbelievers like Muslims and pagans and stuff like that. No, he's talking about people who probably name the name of Christ, but they don't have the spirit because obviously Muslims don't have the spirit.

They don't have the spirit, obviously. Obviously, pagans don't have the spirit. He's talking about people who would consider themselves Christians here, but you can see that they're following ungodly passion and causing divisions.

The woke church is doing this. They're embodying the spirit of this passage in Jude, verse 17. They're following worldly passions. This is so obvious to so many of us, but we need to understand how to demonstrate that.

When you tell me that the way to atone for whiteness is, first, I got to admit that I'm white, and here's a good way to do it. Read Robin D 'Angelo's book, White Fragility. Well, that's pagan nonsense.

That's an ungodly passion that obviously will cause division, and we're seeing the fruit of it right now. The division has been widened, and the chasm is widening, and there are certain leaders in the Christian church that are stoking racial hatred right now, and they're doing it intentionally, and they seek to divide you.

We had Jamar Tisby talking about how liberal Christianity is still Christianity. Just because we don't believe in the inerrancy of the scripture, you can't just deny that we're Christian. Yes, we can.

Yes, we can. You've divided from the pack. You don't think that the inerrancy is really that big of a deal. You have all this other law that you want to bring to the table. You want all these new ordinances, all this stuff.

No, no. You're causing division amongst people. You're devoid of the spirit. We have to be okay identifying people for what they are. So that's what Jude is talking about here. So if you want to know how to deal with social justice advocates in the church, Jude is talking about those people right here, and I wanted you to hear his advice because I think it's really helpful, right?

It's really helpful. He says this about those people, about people just like the woke church. He says, have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire, and to others, show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

You see that he's given you different advice for different kinds of people. He's saying, for those who are doubting, I think these are the people that are kind of like dabbling, right? And they're just like, man, like, yes, you know, I hear Matt Chandler.

I love Matt Chandler. I mean, he's been so great with the gospel stuff and gospel centered stuff. And now he's saying this, and it doesn't really quite sound right, but you know, I want to hear him out.

I'm going to go to his night of lament. I'm going to, I'm going to hear him out. I'm going to read some of the books he recommends and stuff like that. Like those people, those are the people we need to have lots of mercy and patience for because I get it, man.

And I think, I think Jude is understanding it here. Like people do struggle with, against doubt. Doubt is not a good thing. Like I know some people wear their doubt like a badge of honor. It's not a good thing.

I mean, you should just believe what God says. And so it shouldn't be a very complicated discussion with yourself when you're saying, yeah, I heard Matt Chandler say something about, you know, reparations the other day.

But I see in the Bible that it says you can't punish the sons for the sins of the father. Like that shouldn't be complicated to figure that one out. It should be instant. I'm going to go with God regardless of who says the otherwise.

I'm going to go with what God says. That shouldn't be a difficult discussion to have with yourself. But the is we know ourselves. We know the deceitfulness of our own souls. We can rationalize things all day long and believe it guys believe it.

I'm privy to some private Facebook groups. You guys think you guys think we don't see what you guys talk about in behind the scenes. We do. We have spies everywhere and I see what's going on. You guys are desperately trying to make this stick.

You're trying to somehow make corporate guilt an actual thing when it comes to, you know, social justice and civil justice, right? You're trying to make that a thing. It's not a thing you see in God's in God's system.

Yes. He can hold nations accountable. We're talking from God's perspective, right? He, cause he knows everything. He knows how to do that. You see, we don't, right? So like if my, if my father were to commit a horrible crime, God forbid, I'm not guilty of it.

Right? That's how God's system works when it comes to civil law. But yes, absolutely. God holds generations accountable in his, from his perspective, but that's very different than civil justice. Right?

But I see you're trying to make it stick. I get it. You're, you're trying to work this out desperate to make your pagan ideologies fit. And you can sound very convincing at times. And so there are some people that, you know, they put a lot of stock into some of these leaders, Matt Chandler, Gospel Coalition, ERLC, and they're starting to see that they're just, it's a little off, but they're just doubting men.

And those are the people that we need to have mercy for. Those are the people that I would say, you know, take a look and study the compassion that Jesus had on, on, on the crowds, right? Well, how did he talk to the woman at the well who would so obviously been deceived?

She was still a sinner. You know, he doesn't back down from saying she's responsible for what she does, but there is compassion there. There is mercy there. There's patience there. And that's how I think we should be dealing with most people that are kind of doubting and they're kind of dabbling in the woke church stuff.

So guys, like if somebody just for the very first time, you know, posted a hashtag run with a mod, right. Or Black Lives Matter for the very first time in the last few weeks, please know that they're, they're confused.

They're dabbling. They're doubting. And the book of Jude says here, the way that you deal with someone who's doubting someone, you wouldn't have expected some, some all of a sudden came out and said this very social justice thing.

The way you deal with them is that you have mercy on them. Mercy on those who doubt. The next verse says, save others by snatching them out of the fire. And this, there's a little more force to this one.

Right. And, and this is, this is, this is when somebody goes a little bit beyond, you know what I mean? This is when someone's a little bit beyond, you know, dabbling in social justice. Like, like this is, I keep thinking of this image, like what would I do if this was, if this happened?

Right. And I'm not black, but you know, I'm, I'm definitely ethnic. Like, what would I do if a white person, you know, came up to me or maybe one of my friends came up to me and bowed before me, right.

And tears streaming down their face and saying, you know, I'm just so sorry for the way your life is and, you know, stuff, stuff like that. Cause we've seen that scene many times. I think of what would I do?

And I'm, I'm pretty sure, I don't mean, I obviously, I don't know what I would do, but, but I'm pretty sure I've decided that if anyone were to ever do that to me, I would physically pick them up. There is no way you're going to be bowing to me.

Absolutely not. And I like, it's amazing to me that, that, that, that we haven't seen more of that, like get up. I'm just a person. You know what I mean? I can't believe that we haven't seen more of that.

Maybe it's happening. I don't know, but there's some force to that. Right. And so if you see that, that, that some people that they're going beyond dabbling, they're going beyond doubt. They're starting to engage in some of these sacraments.

They're starting to, to exchange the pagan law of black lives matter for God's law and stuff like that, that you need to have a little more force there. And sometimes it's going to have to say, you know, I'm really worried about you.

You're walking away from the faith, get out of the fire. We're going to need to have some hard conversations with people like that. And I think sometimes, you know, you don't have to, this is not a hard and fast rule, but I feel like this, this one here is more for people that, you know, people that, you know, very well, you know, that they're in that fire, right?

They're not like all the way pagan, you know, they're not dancing in the street around the campfire, like an Indian or something like that. But there, but you, you, you know, them, you know, what they're up to and stuff like that.

And you snatched them out of the fire, right? Because if they keep going the way they're going, some of these people, and you know, in your life, there are people like this, keep going the way they're going, they're going to end up walking away from the faith.

And we need to snatch them out of the fire, there's more force, there's a little more violent. And that's what Jude says for people like that. And then this is the last group, right? I think this is so interesting.

To others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. So you see, it's not it's never a situation where you don't have mercy, right? Like mercy is always required in this situation.

But, but, but, but here, there's a, this is a lot more serious, right? You also have to fear and I think you should fear God. That's what the point is here, like mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by flesh.

This is where it comes down to, you know, I've warned you once, I've warned you twice. And now I have nothing more to do with you. Because even the garment, even the clothing that's stained with this pagan, sinful ideology and stuff like that, we must hate this with all of our being, we must hate the woke church cult, their doctrine, their ideology, the things that they say, we should find them revolting.

When somebody says that whiteness is wicked, we should find that revolting. When somebody says that, that whiteness is a system and we need to hate whiteness and stuff like that. And you're racist, even if you don't know, you just got to find out how you're racist.

And that, and that white supremacy is the original sin, like we should be revolted by that kind of stuff, because it's revolting, it turns biblical doctrine and law on its head, right? When somebody abuses a passage of the scripture and says, let justice roll down like waters, therefore, I need to make as much money as you, we should be disgusted by that, we should hate that with all of our being.

And when somebody comes into the church, and is insisting on dividing the church, you know, I'm scared to worship with white people, because you voted for a Republican, white people are violent, you know, all this kind of stuff, right?

Like, like, we warned them a couple times, yes. But then, then after that, after someone continues to do that kind of stuff, and continues to act and talk like a pagan, and continues to push pagan ideologies on the church, right?

After we've warned them twice, the Bible says the most merciful thing that we can do, and the way that we show that we fear the Lord is to have nothing more to do with them. And yes, we can hope that maybe if they're excommunicated, maybe if we enough of us shun this person that they'll come to their senses, yeah, hopefully that happens.

But maybe it won't. But you have responsibilities before God, you have responsibilities for God before God to even to hate even the garment stained by the flesh. Right? And so, you know, if you've, if you've, if you've had mercy on someone who's, who's, who's clearly in, you know, in the Black Lives Matter cult at this point, and it's starting to buy into what they say about everything, and all of that kind of stuff, and you're and you find yourself justifying abortion ish, you know, we shouldn't maybe make it illegal.

I mean, that that would be a little bit much. And they started justifying some of the sexual perversion. And they start justifying things that you would never have thought that they would justify like a rioting.

Oh, yeah, you know, rioting is wrong. But we can certainly understand like, when you hear stuff like that, warn them once, warn them twice, and then you have to demonstrate that you fear the Lord. And you have to hate even the garment stained by the flesh.

So you see different people have different things. I want you to be aware of something. I want you to be aware of something you treat people differently, based on what they say and what they do. I want you to be aware of something I'm going to read in a letter that I got yesterday.

And I think this is strategically where pretty much every church is at this point. This person starts off he says, Hey, I love your vids. And I love your jovial nature about a lot of these heavy topics.

I would like to preface this with with that I agree with just about everything you are about on your channel. I don't agree with the SJWs and the woke narratives being pushed in culture in the church this day.

However, I'm going to move forward in this email acting as if there is something actually to be concerned about, as defined by the social justice warriors. By the way, let me step out of the email for a second.

This is actually a really good tactic. So the person who wrote this article, you're on the right track, like, like when you're evaluating an opponent's arguments, right? And their viewpoints, the best thing to do is just to take everything they say, take their word for it.

Let's just say it's 100 true. Let's see if it holds water even consistently in itself, right? That's a very good tactic to do. That's what I do. And I read articles that I don't think I'm going to agree with them.

I just say, Okay, I'm gonna agree with everything and see what comes out. Here's what he says. He says, I attend a large SBC church, and we've had a lot of this talk of listening, understanding and bearing POC brothers and sisters burdens.

Even recently, they said, quote, let's not be quick to mention solutions in lieu of empathizing and gaining trust from our brothers and sisters of color. We have been working on diversity and reconciliation in our church for six to eight years now.

What I mean by that is that leadership has made it a point to make these topics talking points in our church, and an initiative in our church. We even have a division of our church solely dedicated to this.

My question is, why hasn't there been any actions taken as far as ministry opportunities? All I've seen is conferences, roundtables, blogs, articles, things of that nature. We're a large church, and we do a lot of outreach and resources.

I understand the need for our resources to go into existing ministries. And I don't want to take away from these. However, I'm curious as to why some ministries have not been open in responses to Black Lives Matter or the scourge of white privilege.

This is just one example I thought about. Let's say there's an epidemic of police brutality and systemic racism in America. Why doesn't the church respond with ministry? Why is there not a ministry of lawyers and police officers that are dedicated to police brutality, a charitable ministry that works with individuals financially that can't afford a bunch of lawyers, a group that takes cases of racism and police brutality and fights them in the court system, weeds them out one bad cop at a time since Christians aren't called to overthrow a government?

What other entity besides the church has influence and money to fight government besides the church? What if the SBC got involved? They made their own division. It wasn't just individual churches. Imagine the impact that would have not only on government, but on culture.

Seeing the church fight the battle against police brutality and just in a just manner that is within God's law, non-partial and provides justice for anyone who's a victim of police brutality. Is it possible that they know this wouldn't be a fruitful ministry because there aren't that many cases of police brutality and that it would take the air out of their narrative?

Are they worried about where they'd have to take resources from other ministries? I'm 28 years old, a layman, and I've not been in the fight against oppression that long, but I just don't understand how this hasn't been brought up yet.

This is just some of the things I've been thinking about lately and I would love to know if you have any insight or thoughts on this. It just seems like there's not a whole lot of action for the church, which is disappointing for me.

I'm tired of empathizing and leaning in. Thanks for listening. So this is a really interesting email, in my opinion, because he puts his finger on something that I think is very, very apparent. It's that there's a whole lot of talk about these issues and these problems, and there almost seems to be a doctrine, if you will, in the woke church of not actually doing anything.

Have you noticed that there's a doctrine almost of not actually doing anything? Now they'll say they want you to do something, but they'll always be very vague about what that thing is. They'll always be very vague about what that thing is.

What they'll say instead is, lean in, listen, bear my burdens. And it's like, okay, fine. So let's just accept that we have to do all that stuff. I don't necessarily accept that because your burdens so often are based on lies, but fine.

We're accepting it for this experiment. So what do we do? What do you want? What are your demands? And you never really get answers to that. And I think there's a couple of reasons for this. So this is for the emailer, but I think this will be helpful for what do you do in general kind of thing.

There are two reasons for this. One, I don't think they want to put demands or things like solutions and stuff like that on paper because it would be so obvious that they're unbiblical. The demands would definitely be unbiblical.

There's no question about it. Because if there were Bible verses for the stuff that they wanted you to do, you best believe they would have brought them out, right? Like I brought out Jude, right? There was three things in Jude that I wanted to talk about.

So I talked about them. And I talked about how I think they applied. If they had something like that in the woke cult, they would be beating you over the head with it. But instead, they beat you over the head with all this vague stuff that has actually nothing to do with what they're talking about.

They talk about let justice roll down like waters, and then they'll talk about income inequalities, which has nothing to do with let justice roll down like waters, right? I'll talk about the word equity and stuff like that.

But in the Bible, that doesn't mean what they say it means. You see what I'm saying? So that's the first thing. I don't think they want to give you solutions because it would be so obviously unbiblical the way that they would approach it.

So you're not going to find action in that way because they would know that it would be unbiblical. They wouldn't want to do police brutality ministry, just blanket. That wouldn't make anyone happy. No, they want to do partial policies.

They want to do partial scholarships, and they want to give money to black people and take it away from white people because that's how you get the attaboys from the culture. And that's the second point.

That's the second point. This is a pagan ideology that's infiltrated the church. And these people, these leaders are desperate, are deadly afraid of crossing these people, this pagan ideology. And the reality is it's constantly shifting.

And so if you start going beyond the listen and lean in and just don't say anything, don't give me solutions right now. I know they'll say don't be quick to mention solutions, but they actually, what they mean is don't ever come up with a solution because the minute you do that, if the pagans don't approve, you are now in there, you are now about to get canceled and they desperately don't want to get canceled.

They're trying to please capricious pagan idols and gods. And so the only way to do that is to just always be ready to shift and adjust. And it would just be too obvious if they put things out there, possible solutions out there, got crossed by the social justice woke mob, and then changed it to match what the social justice woke mob is saying.

It would be too obvious. That's why you don't get a lot of that. That's why you just get listen, lean in, understanding, bear my burdens, because that stuff is so vague as to what it means that it could mean anything.

So it's just basically, just don't bring the Bible into this because that's the thing. That's why this whole episode is about, is about bringing the Bible into this as much as possible. You want to know what to do, read your Bible and the Bible will tell you what to do.

You have a problem with your pastor, read your Bible, your Bible will tell you what to do. You have a problem with another person, read your Bible, your Bible will tell you what to do. The Bible makes clear commands.

They're easy to follow. They're easy to follow. And so what we need to do is really, you know, have a study. That's the, that's the big thing that's missing from all of this, right? How many times have you seen a conference or a blog and they might mention some Bible verses, but there is no give and take.

There is no Bible study. What I'd like to do with the woke church, right? When I'm trying to save my brothers from the fire, when I'm trying to have mercy on those who doubt, when I'm trying to have, to show mercy mixed with fear, because you know, I want to hate even the garment stained by the flesh.

The entire time I have my Bible open, that's my weapon. That's my main weapon. You, we have to have a Bible study about this, you know, and the reality is that if your Christian leaders are telling you not to have a Bible study about this, let's not be quick to mention solutions that come from that word.

Then you have your answer on which of the three categories and which of the three groups that these people fall in. The Bible is completely adequate to solve all of our problems. We just have to use it.

And so that's my, that's my advice in general, just for people, what do I do? Let's have a Bible study about this and figure out what you should do. And obviously there's going to be nuances to each person's situation, but the Bible tells you how to deal with conflict and the Bible makes requirements on you for people that continue to sow division, even after you follow the steps to solve that conflict.

And so we need to start being faithful to that. If your pastor is causing division in your church intentionally and unbiblically, go to him and talk it out, warn him once, warn him twice, and then you've got requirements on you.

You need to fear God more than you fear anything else. Anyway, I hope you found that podcast helpful. It's a little bit different style than I normally do. It's a little bit more of a serious topic, but I hope you found that helpful.

God bless. Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for AD on the Fight Laugh Feast.