Danny Akin Denounces CRT as a Worldview but Ok With Insights

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I haven't watched the video yet that I'm about to watch, so we're both,

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I've done this a few times, we're both hearing this for the first time, but I've had a few people text me this morning and say,

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John, you gotta see this. And at first, I was like, I've seen a lot of Danny Akin stuff, but they said,

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I need to see this one. And this is from about a week ago, I guess. This is more than that, April 28th in Southeastern's chapel service, and it's just a

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Q &A with the president, Danny Akin. I'm a graduate of Southeastern, so I've tracked what they're doing here and there.

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But I feel like I've shown what they're teaching, I've shown how there's a lot of social justice stuff going on there.

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Long story short, there was a video that was from 2018 that the

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ERLC made, but it surfaced more recently where Danny Akin's saying things like ethnic minorities see the world differently than him, which is why he needs to listen and then give up power, and that white people need to do that.

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They need to give up their power to ethnic minorities. Of course, he's still the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, he hasn't stepped down from that.

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Anyway, I think that's sort of maybe the context, that whole controversy, because NotTheB posted that and James Lindsay posted that.

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It kind of went mini -viral based on their posts. And I heard

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Danny Akin on one other interview someone sent to me where he's doubling down and saying, basically,

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I'm not apologizing for anything I said in that. And then there's this. This is the most recent.

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So if you want to, is Southeastern woke, or are they using some kind of quota system or just giving preference to certain ethnic minorities over others, that kind of thing.

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I'm assuming this chapel video answers some of that. So we're going to just watch it, you and me together, kind of at the same time, and I'll just comment it as we go.

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But I've been told that I have to see this. So here we go. You think in your term as president, the

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Southeastern community will see an ethnic minority or a woman on the cabinet? My immediate response would be,

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I hope so. And it is certainly possible. I would be very open to that. I'm not sure what they mean by woman on the cabinet.

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On the cabinet. They have, there's already the board of trustees, I think already has a female person and they already have professors who are female.

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All right. Anyway. What steps do you take to equip these two populations of current professors who have interest to possibilities of serving in that capacity?

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Since neither of these categories are on the present cabinet and have, as they said, ever been,

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I think never been in that group. How do you intentionally seek out those voices as you consider decisions?

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Well, one of the things I do is I listen to the ethnic minority voices on this campus.

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I operate in, all of you should know, I have an open door policy for students, staff and faculty.

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Anyone can come just drop in if I'm there and available. I'll just meet with you right then. You can come by and make an appointment and I'll meet with you when that appointment is arranged.

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And there's no limitations on that. All right. Just for everyone who didn't know what I didn't know a few minutes ago, the president's cabinet is different than there's the board of trustees, there's the

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Southeastern society, there's the president's cabinet, there's the administrative council. There's a whole bunch of different stuff here.

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And then there's the faculty. So the president's cabinet is composed of all men and they're all of European descent.

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So, which is, it should strike you as a little bit humorous, I guess, in a way that they focus so much on kingdom diversity and so much on how ethnically diverse they are.

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And Danny, you can say, and he wants to platform people who are minorities and your cabinet is your people of European descent.

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But so that's, that's, I guess why he was asked this question, which now the significance of it is hitting me.

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So let's keep going here. I'm always open to receiving the wisdom and the counsel of others.

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But as we look at hiring faculty, we certainly are going to seek out the voices of those who are already on our faculty that are ethnic minorities to get their recommendations, to hear their input.

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But again, we're going to do it as a big family and just irregardless of their ethnicity.

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I want the voice of all of my faculty in bringing on people. And I want the voice of my cabinet and my top administrators when we're looking at hiring and bringing people in that, in those areas as well.

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But what I'll say is this, I learned a long time ago, one of the reasons our school was not more ethnically diverse is that even though we said, y 'all come, you've got to be intentional.

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In other words, if you don't work at it, it won't happen by accident. And so that's one of the reasons we started our kingdom diversity initiative so that we would raise our awareness as well as our motivation to build a school here.

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I often say it this way, we should be building churches on earth that look like the church in heaven. All right, that's where, this is where I have a problem in a way, and I think a lot of people that are against the social justice movement and evangelicalism have a problem.

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Building churches on earth that are supposed to look like the church in heaven. The church in heaven is not, the universal church, all tribes, tongue, and nations is not, that's not like an ecclesiastical standard that present churches in this world are supposed to meet.

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And this might be a one kingdom, two kingdom thing, where I'm looking at, you have your present reality and God said, he'll build this church.

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You share the gospel and whatever comes, comes. But, and that may look differently in different communities, but it may not.

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You may attract a certain demographic personality, it plays into that worship style. There's a lot of things that play into that.

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Theology plays into that actually very strongly. There are certain ethnic groups that have certain theology or more, they are, they gravitate more towards certain theologies and emphasis.

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All that to say, this is where I think you create a, an ought out of a descriptive passage.

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So Revelation, when it talks about everyone gathered around the throne from every tribe, tongue, and nation, that's very descriptive.

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It's not prescriptive. It's not telling you what you ought to do in the here and now. And so that's kind of,

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I think where they, where they get this. But anyway, we're going to keep going here.

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Well, since we serve the churches, we should be building a seminary and a college that on earth looks like the church in heaven.

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And so I'm committed to doing that and we'll continue to do that until the Lord calls me somewhere else.

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All right. As an older full -time student here at Southeastern, actually at the college,

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I do not often find myself keeping up with any type of news rumors that are going on about the school.

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I'm here for a gospel -centered education involving a degree that I believe will better prepare me for a life spent living counter -culturally in cultures different than my own.

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And I say, praise God for all of that. Should I concern myself whatsoever with any of the accusations that come up against our school that have nothing to do with my prior stated reason for being at, case

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SEBTS, i .e. our school falling back into a liberal mindset, our school adhering to a narrative of critical race theory, our school becoming some sort of progressive beachhead in the

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Baptist community? I just got to say, this is the first time publicly,

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I think, where I've heard him try to actually address this and represent it.

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I mean, with all those different descriptors, those are things people have said. So I've talked to him on the phone about this, but actually hearing him publicly say this, so it's going to be really important what he says next.

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Let me answer that question in several ways. And by the way, since I'm here, let me also add,

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I've got about four other questions related to critical race theory.

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Please give a proper definition and explanation of the critical race theory as well as your personal thoughts on it as to how it relates to the gospel.

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We continue to wrestle with philosophies of social justice and critical race theory. Many seem to think we are progressing in a helpful way, while others see this as a conservative drift.

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What are some principles to maintain as we wrestle with these issues along the way? And where do you see the church heading in a positive way and in a negative way?

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I got to say, this is really good if they're number one, allowing these questions to come up.

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And number two, I don't know where they got the people to ask these questions.

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I'm assuming these are people that have a connection to Southeastern, maybe the student body. I'm not sure. Maybe it's anyone.

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But it's just really good if it is people within the student body that they're also thinking in these terms.

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These particular issues, and then the seminary presidents, well, I know this is a heavy topic, but it has concerned me as soon as it was published, why the dismissal of critical race theory completely with the president's statement that came out back in November.

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All right, so there's a boatload. There's a statement that came out, for those who don't know, in November, where the presidents of the

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Southern Baptist School said, we don't believe that the critical race theory is in keeping with the

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Baptist faith and message, basically. And Danny Akin later came out on a podcast and said, hey, critical race theory theorists can identify things that we don't always see, where racism embeds itself.

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And so we do teach the good aspects of it, but we basically, we reject the philosophy. This is the same position that so many of the social justice minded evangelicals have.

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Walter Strickland has it. Even someone like Neil Shenvey kind of has that in a sense, where he supported Resolution 9 because he goes after it as a worldview, but hey, the analytical tools, it's okay.

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So let's hear what he has to say to this. Ben, first of all, you should always be concerned about any accusation about our institution.

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They could be true and they could also be false. And the way that you find out is by being a good thinker and investigating the accusations, not playing the fool and listening to what are called discernment blogs.

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I don't think they're discernment blogs. I think they're hit blogs. And they tend to take things out of context.

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They misrepresent people. And in some cases, they flat out lie. And by the way, lest you think

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I haven't dealt with those in the right way, I've contacted the heads of several of those blogs, some in personal conversations, and I've told them, you're lying.

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I had one guy say to me a number of years ago on one of these well -known blogs, well, I understand your school has an affirmative action department.

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No, we don't. He said, well, that's what I heard. And I said, well, I'm telling you as the president, no, we don't.

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Maybe technically they don't. And I wasn't that guy, by the way. He never reached out to me, by the way.

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I reached out to Danny Akin. I called him and we talked for about 45 minutes. And he said that I was misrepresenting and lying.

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And then I read for him direct quotes from his professor, Matt Mullins, on interracial adoption.

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And then he just switched the subject. So he throws that out there. But here's the thing.

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I agree with what he said at the beginning of that. You do have to investigate it for yourself. And you have to investigate what he's saying, too.

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If someone's lying, then you'll be able to catch them in it. If it's something publicly available they're commenting on, like I comment on things, then you'll be able to go back and look at the primary sources and say, oh, he misconstrued this.

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He twisted this to mean the opposite of what it meant or something like that. But if it's actually true, which I strive for, then you need to be concerned.

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And my experience with Dr. Akin in this line has not been good.

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He has flat out denied, he's called me a liar and said basically that I am sharing falsehoods when

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I read for him a quote and he doesn't have anywhere to go on it. And so he just leaves the subjects and he didn't,

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I mean, that's just my experience with him. But as far as affirmative action and the Kingdom Diversity Initiative, I mean,

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I guess it's not technically affirmative action, but the whole point of it is it does give scholarships to people based on their minority status.

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They do function in that way. So I'm not sure, I mean, it's kind of like working off the same principles that affirmative action

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I think would work off of. There's just no, I don't think there's a set quota. But the thing is, they do have goals. I have seen on their website where they have, by this time, we want this percentage of minority people at our school.

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So I'm not sure. It's like, well, let's see if he explains how they're different. Guess what? No, we don't.

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He went on to say, well, I understand you require diversity training. And I said, no, we don't.

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He said, well, that's what I heard. And I said, well, I don't know who you heard it from, but they are either misinformed or they are misrepresenting.

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If they're misinformed, then they're ignorant. If they're misrepresenting, they're liars. So I remember

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I have, someone had sent me, because they were a minority student there who went through the Kingdom University scholarship process.

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And they sent me the questions that you're asked. One of them, and I'm summarizing here,

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I have it in my computer somewhere, was basically though, you know, how have you represented or how have you advocated for minority groups in the past?

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So they're looking for like someone with an activist bent, not just someone who is of a minority status.

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So maybe, I don't know, maybe that's what he's talking about. I don't know really what he's, I don't know the, it'd be helpful if he made a clear distinction of this is what affirmative action is, and this is what we're doing.

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But he's just saying they're liars because they don't technically have, I guess the name affirmative action and they're not, it's not,

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I don't know. I don't know. Well, guess what? He still published on his blog that we had diversity training and that we also had an affirmative action office.

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Well, but the thing is they do have classes in racial justice and stuff.

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So I'm not sure, I don't know what blog he's referring to, but like, I don't know.

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It's not helpful. Like you could say like, okay, this is where he got it wrong. He used the wrong terms. He described it wrong, but this is what we're actually doing.

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Maybe he does do that. Let's see. All I can say to you is you ought to be smarter than the average bear to know what to pay attention to and what not to pay attention to.

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Furthermore, you ought to have the integrity if you have a real concern, you can start wherever you like, but if you want, just go ahead and jump to the head of the line and make an appointment and come see me.

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So let me lay it out for you with crystal clear clarity. We do not advocate at Southeastern Seminary critical race theory or intersectionality.

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Now that's not true. That's not true. Look at Matt Mullen's blog on critical race theory.

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Now they could might say that we don't believe in it as a worldview. We don't believe the philosophical assumptions it rests on or something like that.

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We're not atheists, but they have, they have taken the analytical tools approach.

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And one of the guys that is on the president's cabinet, at least one of them, Keith Whitfield, was on the committee that drafted and put together resolution nine.

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So I'm not, I'm just not sure. It's like, I feel like it's a splitting hair kind of thing, splitting hairs and then calling someone a liar.

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That's what it sounds like. That's like saying like, you know, Danny Akin, you're bald, right? And then

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I'm saying that is a lie. I do have hair on my head. I'm not completely bald. It's like, well, yeah, but you know what we meant kind of thing.

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So if someone says like, oh, you have affirmative action. It's like, you know what he's talking about.

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So this is, and he's very, you can see his face that he's getting very worked up about this. But there's a difference between advocating something and educating you about something.

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And I do believe it is our calling to educate you about many things with which you will,

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I hope, disagree. Do I? Okay. He's done this before. He did this with Walter Strickland where, hey, we're teaching about liberation theology.

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We're not teaching liberation theology, except though you are, and you can go through the archives and I've, you know, just type in Walter Strickland in the search for the videos, type in critical race theory,

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Southeastern, look at the montages. And if you want to go back, look at the sources. I think the last one that came out has all the sources there.

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Go back and look at them. But I just, that's not true. That's not true.

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Maybe there are people who have taught about liberation theology, but there are people there also who are teaching liberation theology.

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And it's come right through the Kingdom University department, a lot of it. And we have the recordings. So I just,

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I don't get this. They're talking about the positive insights they've received from James Cone, how he showed them a new vista, a new space to see the gospel and influenced their understanding of systemic sin.

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It's liberation theology. But I think, for example, that we need to educate you, especially if you're in the counseling program, about Freudian psychology.

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Absolutely. But I'll be heartbroken if you go out of here advocating Freudian psychology.

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Do I think we need to inform you, especially in the college, about Darwinian evolution?

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Absolutely. But I'll be heartbroken if you become a Darwinianist and you begin to buy into a non -theo,

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I don't even think there is, honestly, I think theistic evolution is an oxymoron and a contradiction.

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He has people that teach there who believe in theistic evolution. I know who they are. I don't understand this one.

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I'm just wondering, does he understand what's going on in his own seminary? If you are an - I think, if I'm not mistaken,

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I'm going to get in trouble if I start naming the names here, because someone's going to say, he doesn't believe that exactly.

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But I think if you look into Ken Keithley, at the very least, I think if you look into Hammett a little bit, now,

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Hammett, I don't know that he actually advocates evolution. I think he's just unsure about young earth. So I'm not sure exactly with him.

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But I think with Ken Keithley, I'm pretty sure he has advocated a form of theistic evolution.

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And I know a professor who was there before, as well, who's not there anymore, I'm pretty sure did as well.

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But all that to say, I just wondered, is he aware of this stuff?

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It's almost like, what school are you talking about? Because that doesn't sound like Southeastern to me. It's very difficult to be any type of authentic theist.

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Now, I know there are a few out there that try to bridge that. This is what Biologos is all about.

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And they profess to be evangelicals. I don't question that. They profess to believe in the bodily resurrection, the virgin birth, and all of those type of things.

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But I find them navigating that to be very, very difficult. Nevertheless, am

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I grateful that you're at a school that's going to talk to you and train you to think about and know well young earth creationism, old earth creationism, theistic evolution, atheistic evolution?

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Yes. And if you don't get an education about those things here, then we have failed you.

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All right? So I think, number one, we need to understand there is a major difference between advocating for something and educating about something.

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So do we here at Southeastern in various ways, but not much? I mean, let's just be honest.

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All of you that are here this morning and watching online, if you've encountered in any class, even a discussion of critical race theory, it's been an exception, not the norm.

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Most of the faculty here, just be honest, don't really know much about it, and they don't care. That's not their issue.

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In fact, again... That's probably true that most of the faculty there wouldn't be talking about it.

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There's a handful of people that are, and they're given platforms to do it with or have been, and they tend to be influential people there.

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And it's also who's platformed on Kingdom Diversity podcast. It's also who's speaking in chapel.

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I mean, there's a number of factors here. So the question that I would ask in response to this is, how much error does it take to be compromised as an institution?

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I mean, is it 51 % and then you can say the institution's compromised? Is it one professor who's spouting heretical ideas, false teaching, and then...

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How much is it? And I think once you answer that question, this kind of smokescreen won't work.

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Because the answer is, it doesn't take much. It only takes a little leaven.

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And if it's tolerated, and if it's excused, if it's not dealt with, then it's advocated.

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It's at least given the stamp of the approval in some way. And it opens the door for more error.

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So you're compromised when you have one professor who's teaching these things. People know it.

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It's public. And it's not retracted. It's not dealt with. It's all it takes.

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And brought up critical race theory. Now, this was about five years ago. And I said, I don't really know what you're talking about.

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And I was telling him the truth. I said, I don't really know what you're talking about. I said, I got a PhD from a secular university.

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I know what postmodernism is. I know what deconstructionism is. I know what radical literary criticism is.

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But I'm not really familiar with what you're talking about when you say critical race theory.

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And I'd never heard the word intersectionality before. And he actually accused me of being a liar. He said, well, you know what

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I'm talking about. And I said, no, I don't know what you're talking about. By the way, that's not me either. I'm not sure who he's talking about here. Because those things are not my agenda.

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My agenda is the Great Commission. And that's what I give my time to. That's what I give my attention to.

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That's what my focus is upon. And these other things, I'm not going to get sucked into spending my time over there because I think it's counterproductive.

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Now, having said that, unfortunately, we're at a point in time where we've got to at least be aware of what these things are.

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And we have to engage them in a thoughtful, reflective, and critical way.

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So let me tie it into the seminary president statement, which I still affirm without any hesitation or reservation.

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It's interesting he says this. If you go back, I think I did an episode on it when he was on the B21 podcast with one of the professors there.

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And talking about it, he seemed to kind of regret it. So now he's, okay,

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I'm not sure. We'll see where he's going with this. But now he's saying he doesn't regret it. I believe as an ideology and a framework that critical race theory is incompatible with the

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Baptist Faith and Message 2000. You better believe it. Okay. Did you hear what he said at the beginning there?

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As an ideology and as a framework. They won't come out swinging against the analytical tools.

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They won't come out swinging against critical race theory just by itself and the insights that can be gleaned from it.

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They'll affirm those. Danny Akin has affirmed those. They'll go after it as an ideology or a worldview. That's how they do it.

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Furthermore, I think it is incompatible with Bible evangelical Christianity.

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The worldview, right? The worldview. Its roots, the digger you deep, the worse it gets.

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Furthermore, it has been hijacked today so that not only is it applied,

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I think, very poorly to race issues, it is now being applied to gender issues so that you have a major proponent of critical race theory saying that if you are not supportive of the

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LBGTQ plus agenda, you are a racist. See, here's the thing, though.

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If you understand intersectionality, this is by design. This wasn't hijacked by anyone. It actually is a natural flow.

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It's like James Cone. When you read his Liberation Theology, you read his last book, he said, I wasn't going to tell nobody.

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He basically says, yeah, everything I've said about race can be applied to sexual orientation, basically.

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There's a natural flow. The critical race theorists, I don't think, maybe there's someone that I haven't heard of that does think it was a hijacking, but I think in general, they agree with that.

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I don't even know how to respond to a nonsensical statement like that, but that's where this whole conversation is going.

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Now, having said all of that, I actually agree with a major, major critic of critical race theory and intersectionality,

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Vodie Bauckham, who says, I would hope that our people, by that he means evangelicals, would read critical race theorists, and they would work to understand critical race theory.

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But here's the thing. At Southeastern, it's not just you're reading about it to critique it, which is how you read the

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Book of Mormon or anything else that's false. You're reading about it to gain the insights from it, incorporate them into your faith.

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That's the problem. That's been the problem from the beginning, and if he likes what Vodie Bauckham said about this so much, why did they basically disinvite

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Vodie Bauckham? I know I'm going to get called on the carpet. He didn't technically disinvite him, but why did they say, hey, we're going to have to reschedule.

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We can't do it that day, and then they never rescheduled with him, or what was it? I've had three sources reach out to me and tell me about this, so it's verified in my mind that three sources that are very reliable have told me, two from inside the school and then one

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Vodie Bauckham himself, that basically there was a cancellation. Why not have him come?

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I know he's recovering right now, but I'm sure if Danny Akin agrees with that, then right now would be the time.

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Hey, have Vodie Bauckham to come to Chapel and ask him to speak specifically about the subject of his book. Why not do that?

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I would hope that he does. If he did that, I would be the first to say thank you, so we'll see.

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Because I think they need to be aware of something that is, I think, sweeping not

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Southeastern Seminary or Southern Seminary or the other four seminaries or the

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Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. I don't think it's infecting us at all, but it is certainly infecting the major colleges and universities in America.

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It's not infecting them at all. This is how you know if he really believes that, he's out of touch.

27:52

I don't see how... And yes, it is working its way into politics as well.

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Now, let me just give this as something that I hope will be helpful. I've been personally helped by the writings of Neil Shindy.

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Of course, that would come into this. All right, so critical race theory, he says it's affecting politics, it's offending all the secular places, but it's not affecting us at all.

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Question for you, if it's true that critical race theory is just embedded so much in politics and in secular academia, wouldn't the logical thing to do for a

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Christian seminary to be, we're going to hedge against this. We're going to provide lots of resources. We're going to fight it with everything we have.

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Is Southeastern doing that? And you can go in their YouTube page, you can go wherever you want and try to answer that question.

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I think the answer is no. They're not putting a big hedge about this. You can look at their justice and social ethics program and answer that question.

28:48

Neil has a PhD in some scientific realm, but he is a homeschooling dad along with his wife, and he has decided to be a real student of critical race theory.

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So he has a website. It's called Neil Shindy Apologetics. I pulled up yesterday just to look at, again, his article on critical race theory and Christianity, one of you asked, well, what is critical race theory?

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He gives a very simple definition that comes right out of the writings of critical race theorists. It is an academic discipline that attempts to understand race and racism primarily through the lens of power.

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And then he makes an excellent statement, and I would want you to hear this. In responding to critical race theory,

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Christians can fall into two opposite errors, alarmism on the one hand and denialism on the other.

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Critical race theorist alarmist equates any discussion of race with critical race theory and refuses to recognize, now listen, that refuses to recognize that critical race theory offers any true insights.

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There you have it. It's the insights. It always comes back to that. Well, it's not the worldview we want, but the insights from it are pretty good.

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And I've challenged this many times that if you're taking the insights from it, those insights have something attached to them.

30:18

The worldview assumptions are attached to those insights. And these aren't like the insights from, let's say,

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Pythagoras, who wasn't a Christian, but was using tools fundamental to reality, like math and science, to discover truth about the real world.

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These are insights that only exist in the minds of sociologists because they came up with the theory. And it's based on the fact that the idea that racism is normative, that it's embedded in everything.

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If you're not seeing it, it's because you don't have the right glasses on. You need these certain standpoints, these oppressed standpoints to be able to see it.

30:53

And they're the ones that are able to speak on it. You can't speak on it. It's the idea that there's this invisible white privilege that basically allocates all sorts of good things to you if you're a descendant of Europeans.

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But to those who aren't, they don't get those good things. And it's almost like an original sin, to be honest with you.

31:10

It's like you should feel guilty for it. This should be something that you have to correct in some way. You're just so ignorant of it, but it's happening all around you.

31:19

I mean, what is it? If you start with those assumptions, then what are the tools going to be? It's like someone had said this recently, and I thought it was a good analogy.

31:27

It's like you go into a room and you're a detective, and you want to find out where the crime scene is. So you get the special light out to see where the blood is spilled.

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And with critical race theory, though, it's like a defective lens. It's like there's blood everywhere.

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So you can't actually accurately find out where the racism is because it's just embedded in everything. It's implicit in everything.

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So those are the tools. Those are the tools from critical race theory. And the only thing they can do is deconstruct.

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They're tools of destruction. They're not tools that build up. They're just tools that show where supposedly racism is.

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And then you eradicate it. But the definition of racism is based on the assumptions

32:05

I just gave to you. So there is no way to separate the tools from the worldview. But that's what they keep trying to do. And Danny Akin's doing it now.

32:12

And I think it does. Rarely. But I think critical race theory, number one, raises some good questions.

32:19

And number two, it sometimes makes some good observations. The problem is it has no answers.

32:27

It has absolutely... So as long as you're just asking questions and making observations, then you can use critical race theory.

32:34

That's what he's saying. No answers. And certainly because it rejects a biblical worldview framework.

32:40

Here's the thing, though. Here's the thing about critical race theory. They're not just asking questions, though, with the assumption of an objective reality that other people would share with it.

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We're going to ask a question to see if we can find racism here. And we're operating off the same definition. It's bringing assumptions about what racism is.

32:56

And that's going to affect the observations that are made. It's not going to be able to offer any really good answers.

33:06

He also says, in contrast, critical race... Here's the thing, though. Critical race theory isn't really supposed to be offering a lot of answers.

33:14

That's really more intersectionality, because intersectionality is the tool of construction. So it is a tool of...

33:20

Critical race theory is supposed to produce tools of destruction. Yeah, there's critical race theorists and critical race theory books that are offering solutions that are basically quotas.

33:28

They're basically... A lot of them are like what Kingdom Diversity is doing at Southeastern. So I don't see that it's that much different.

33:36

It's just they're justifying it differently. Danny Akin's saying it's because we want to look like the church in heaven, even though there's no actual...

33:43

There's no command for that. But anyway. Race theorist denialism refuses to recognize that critical race theory includes ideas that are false and dangerous, or that CRT is a growing influence within evangelicalism.

34:00

And so if I were to summarize what I want Southeastern Seminary to do when it comes to the issue of critical race theory,

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I would want us, number one, to be aware, number two, to engage, and number three, critique in light of a biblical worldview.

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You need to be aware of it. You need to engage it critically and intelligently.

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And then you need to be able to show why it will not work and is indeed incompatible as an ideology or a framework with a

34:37

Christian worldview. There you hear it again, as an ideology or a framework. I think... So part of that, critically engaging with it,

34:45

I guess, would be using some of the insights, gleaning, what can we glean from this? And then if you're going to denounce it, denounce it as a worldview or a framework.

34:54

We're just in this middle ground here where it's like, take a side.

35:01

But Danny Akin wants to... He's trying to find this kind of middle ground approach, it sounds like to me.

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And that's what it's been for a while. Reject the worldview, but bring in the tools.

35:12

That's okay. Way of thinking. And so, bottom line, that's where we are.

35:19

We are at the Hegelian turn right now. And I think my faculty would tell you without any dissent that they are in complete agreement with that approach.

35:31

I do not know anyone on this faculty that would say, oh, I'm an advocate of critical race theory.

35:37

I know for a fact we don't have one. Yeah, that would get you in trouble if you actually said that.

35:43

Look at Matt Mullen's blogs. Tell me what you think. Not even a single one. And so, when people raise concerns, what

35:52

I would say is, well, if you have a concern about a particular professor, why don't you call him?

35:58

I don't have a faculty member that will not be glad to engage someone about any question that they might have.

36:04

Secondly, if that's not good enough, my email is dakin at scbts .edu.

36:11

They can email me. They can make an appointment. By the way, my cell phone is 919 -605 -2973.

36:18

They can call me because I... Did y 'all get that? You can send

36:24

Danny Akin, text him some of the montages and some of the different things. He's probably already seen them or knows about them.

36:33

And it is gracious. I have to say, it is gracious to give your cell phone out like that. At the same time, though, in the

36:39

SBC, this is how everything is kind of handled. It's always talk to the person and then in this private conversation about what's publicly been said erroneously.

36:48

And it ends there. You don't go past there. And that's not a bad point to start with if you're confused. But if you're not confused, if you've heard error proclaimed publicly, it's not wrong to go and to refute it publicly.

37:01

In fact, that's a service for people. And that's what Jesus and the apostles did. I'm not hiding anything and I'm not fearful of what this school believes and where it stands.

37:11

When people say that we are drifting into liberalism, number one, they just don't know what we're actually doing here.

37:19

And in many cases, number two, they don't really know what liberalism is. I stared liberalism in the face when

37:25

I did my PhD at the University of Texas at Arlington. Yeah. So if you use the phrase liberalism, sometimes people think they go back to like the liberals and Machen argued against this kind of this modernist liberalism.

37:39

They're not talking about the postmodern stuff we're dealing with today. And so this is again, it's again, we're getting stuck on terms and stuff.

37:49

And we're he never really went address the actual issues people have the concepts. Talk to them about that instead of getting stuck on the terms.

37:57

That's what that's what I would have to say, I guess. And anyway, I came here in 1992 as the dean of.

38:05

I'm going to skip ahead a little bit here. See if you're still talking about it. Well, let me start backwards. My hope and goal is that we'll be faithful till Jesus comes again.

38:13

And say, ultimately, all that matters in life is that you play. OK, I'm pretty sure that that's kind of the end of his section there on that specific topic.

38:23

So, yeah, we found out about it together, talked about it. Takeaways that I'm thinking as I'm looking at this.

38:31

One is I want to say something positive first. I'm glad that he's opening the door and I want you to hear him say that.

38:37

He's given his cell phone number out. He said, contact me, contact the professors. I know many who have. I've talked to him on the phone.

38:45

I didn't really get anywhere. And I think and that's what I've gotten from other people is they don't really actually get anywhere there.

38:51

There usually is some attempt to wine and dine kind of to. But you never really if you if you really are sure that, hey, this person says something erroneously and look,

39:01

I'm concerned about it and it's public. And I, you know, here here's my refutation.

39:07

You're not going to get many places. It's going to be, you know, yeah, well, he didn't really mean that.

39:13

Or he's you know, he's a good guy or I don't like the way you said it. Or, you know, it's style points.

39:18

It's that kind of stuff. But he did give his information out. So the good part is, hey, you can call them.

39:23

There is an open door there. And I would say, go for it. Walk through it if you think that'll do some good.

39:31

Second thing, though, I would say is that this is very dangerous. And he doesn't seem to be in touch with what's actually happening at his school, if he's being honest in this, because critical race theory aspects of it have been advocated.

39:45

And certainly liberation theology has. Third thing I would say is that he kind of gave away the position, though.

39:52

And that's why I kept pointing out, look where he said worldview and ideology. He only refutes critical race theory as a worldview and ideology says its conclusions are bad, but the insights from it are good.

40:01

And the insights are all that matter in critical race theory. Those are the only things that matter. The insights where you can expand the definition of racism to accuse everyone and anyone of it.

40:11

If you sing hymns, that could be racism, right? Because these are Anglo -Christian things. I mean, and Danny Akin wouldn't apply it to that, probably.

40:19

But hey, he would apply it to, I don't know, maybe he'd apply it to someone who flies a

40:25

Confederate battle flag during Confederate Memorial Day or something in their yard to honor soldiers.

40:31

And he would probably say something like, that's racist or that has racial undertones or whatever.

40:36

And he has said these kinds of things. Well, how do you get to there? How does that logic arrive there?

40:43

When someone's heart is that they're just trying to honor their ancestors who fought in qualities like bravery, sacrifice, honor, those kinds of things.

40:54

That's how you get there. You get there in like two or three steps. It doesn't take long. You connect it to slavery, you connect slavery to racism, and you connect it to that person.

41:04

You connect everyone who is fighting under that flag must have thought this. Obviously, I'm picking something that's obvious to most people now that that has happened since 2015, especially.

41:15

But it's working its way into all kinds of other areas. And when Danny Akin in 2018 said that, well, he was just kind of, he was blind to the way that these ethnic minorities thought of life and that he needs their perspective, even to interpret the

41:29

Bible. You get the best interpretation with the most ethnic minorities present kind of thing.

41:36

That's the kind of thing that shows you, no, he's buying into it because he's buying into the observations, which are the insights.

41:46

And that's really, that's all they want you to buy into anyway, buy into their definition. And then it'll be more easy to accept their solutions.

41:53

Um, how do Danny Akin solutions differ significantly in principle from the solutions of, let's say, secularists?

42:01

Because secularists want to de -center whiteness. That's what critical race theory is about. If there is a solution, right, it's to de -center the whiteness.

42:07

You have to locate it first. That's, those are the tools, the insights. So if you're going to de -center it, intersectionality is how you do it.

42:13

Well, how's Danny Akin? I mean, kingdom diversity, that's kind of what they're doing in a sense. That's part of it.

42:19

You know, diversifying your theological library. Those are the kinds of things that, you know, anyway,

42:26

I digress. I was also thinking about, you know, Danny Akin did a few statements against, he signed some statements, at least one,

42:32

I remember in 2017 against like Donald Trump and the alt -right. And, um, it's, you know, that there's racism in the

42:39

Trump's cabinet because Steve Bannon was there. And even though he wasn't there at the time. And so there's, once you start going down this broad kind of definition of racism, it's like fundamentalists who you, back in like the thirties, um, the, uh, what do they call it?

42:57

The like six degrees of separation or whatever. I think that's something else. But where they, they didn't want to associate, associationalism, some of them, they didn't want to associate with someone who was like with Billy Graham, because then, you know, you're marred because you were with Billy Graham and I can't associate with you.

43:11

And that's kind of like what you're doing only on a grander scale. And you can just make all kinds of things racist that aren't racist.

43:17

All right. I've, uh, beaten the dead horse. That's it. Um, hopefully that was helpful for some people who are trying to understand