- 00:03
- All right. All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed the early morning upload today, and I wanted to revisit sort of the end of yesterday's or this morning's video rather, because that last part where he talks about how, you know, the government's paid reparations before to Asians and to Native Americans and, you know, all that kind of thing, but for some reason, and he gets all animated like that, for some reason, whenever blacks want it, it's controversial.
- 00:32
- And I just I just there was so much there that I just wanted to just take you through this again, because I think that there are probably people in your life that are very impacted by something like this, a very impassioned plea where it's like, well, it's just blacks are the problem here.
- 00:49
- You're the ones that hate black people because you gave reparations to the Indians.
- 00:54
- You gave it to the Asians, but you won't give it to blacks. What kind of racist country do we live in?
- 01:00
- And there's a lot wrong with this. And so let's just take you through it again. I think this is important. Hold on one moment.
- 01:08
- All right. Got my headphones in. Here we go. Wrong done to the Asians and paid out one point six billion dollars to the
- 01:16
- Asian community in reparations. OK, so this is the whole thing where he talks about the
- 01:22
- Japanese internment camps and he says that they realize the country realized that they were wrong.
- 01:28
- And so they gave one point whatever billion dollars to the Asian community. Notice that in this twisted worldview,
- 01:35
- Brian Lawrence has a very twisted, ungodly, sinful worldview. Everything is reducible to skin color to him.
- 01:43
- So he claimed that they gave money to the Asian community. That's not true. They gave money to Japanese people.
- 01:51
- And it wasn't just any Japanese people. It was Japanese people that were actually interned in internment camps.
- 01:59
- And so it's like this is very what happened with the Japanese is similar to what happened with the in the
- 02:06
- Exodus, the situation he brought up from the Old Testament. It's similar to what happened in Zacchaeus, the situation he brought up in the
- 02:13
- New Testament, because the actual people who had done the wrong. But the people that were wronged were involved in this situation.
- 02:23
- It wasn't just their ancestors down the line. It wasn't just people that had Asian looking features or anything like that or a certain skin color.
- 02:31
- It was the actual specific Japanese people that were interned in internment camps. That's who was given the money.
- 02:37
- And it was given money by the generation, the generation that actually stood by and let it happen.
- 02:43
- So it was that was very appropriate considering the situation. So, again, like he twists it all up.
- 02:51
- He's like, well, there's Asians got money. No, they didn't. The people that were wronged got money. So that's the first thing.
- 02:56
- But but there's more here. Let's continue. In 1946, our government established the
- 03:02
- Indian Claims Commission to hear grievances from Native Americans over lost territories seized by our government.
- 03:10
- Ultimately, the government paid out one point three million dollars to tribes and bands.
- 03:17
- Yet for some reason, when blacks talk about reparations, it's all of a sudden controversial.
- 03:23
- So this is the part that really kind of kind of stung me because I was like, I don't I don't know a ton about the
- 03:29
- Japanese internment situation, for example. And I did know already that it wasn't just Japanese people or Asians or people with Asian features that got money.
- 03:40
- I knew that much, but I didn't know the details of what had happened. But I thought that this was a wild claim.
- 03:46
- He's trying to make the claim that basically when it's blacks that are going to get the stuff, then it's controversial.
- 03:55
- But when it's someone else that's going to get the stuff like Asians, then it's not controversial. That didn't strike me as realistic.
- 04:01
- And I didn't know the history, but I was like, that's a pretty wild claim. I bet you there was a lot of controversy about giving
- 04:09
- Japanese people stuff. Right. I bet you that that was not something that just happened and everyone was like,
- 04:16
- OK with it. And as a matter of fact, I looked it up and I found this article on NPR. The reason why
- 04:21
- I want to bring up this article is because it's a very it highlights a very interesting phenomenon. Not only does it say here's what it says.
- 04:28
- It says that fight came with significant resistance, significant resistance.
- 04:34
- But listen to this. This is what blew my mind. Not just from the American public at large, but from the
- 04:41
- Japanese American community itself. And so the idea here is that there was a younger generation of Japanese people, the generation that was least impacted, by the way, from the internment.
- 04:54
- They wanted the stuff right. They wanted the reparations. But the older generation of Japanese people were like, no, we don't want that.
- 05:02
- And they actually fought against getting the reparations, the older generations of Japanese people, because the older generation had these traditional values.
- 05:11
- One of them, I'm not pronouncing this right, but it says Gaman, which means to endure with, to endure or persevere with dignity.
- 05:19
- And then another one, Shikakataganai, it can't be undone.
- 05:26
- It can't be helped. So it's like this idea is like, no, we don't want you to just leave us alone now. That's what the older people, the people that were actually most affected by the internment, they were like,
- 05:35
- I don't want your money. Just leave me alone. The younger generation, the generation that grew up with the civil rights movement was like, no,
- 05:41
- I owe this. I'm owed this. And it's like eventually they won out. But the thing is, again, these were the people that were actually wrong.
- 05:50
- Again, the kids were the least wrong out of all of them because they didn't lose their income kind of thing.
- 05:55
- The older generation did. But it's interesting that he tries to paint this picture. It's like, well, the only time it's controversial is when it's black.
- 06:04
- Why is Brian Loritz lying to you? That's an outright lie.
- 06:09
- Like you would think that if he's going to make a claim like that to make it seem like Americans are just racist against black people and he's going to say, yeah, well, you know, give the
- 06:19
- American Indian stuff no problem, Asian American stuff, no problem. But when it comes to blacks, you all of a sudden it's controversial.
- 06:24
- You would think that he would want to check to make sure that that was true, because on the face of it, when I heard that, that seemed like a wild claim to me.
- 06:32
- But I didn't know. So I looked it up. But he's just comfortable saying it. And he didn't even bother to look it up.
- 06:38
- So let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He didn't even bother to look it up. Right. So let's just say he's not lying.
- 06:44
- He just didn't bother to look it up. What does that tell you about Brian Loritz default position?
- 06:50
- Well, what it tells you is that he thinks he's a victim and he wants to play that victim card.
- 06:57
- And there's nothing that can change his mind. Like it's so obvious that he's a victim. He doesn't even have to look up the insanity that he says, because, again,
- 07:06
- I thought it was insane to think that it was only controversial with blacks. It wasn't controversial with Asians.
- 07:12
- And by the way, it's not Asians. It's Japanese. So he's wrong about that as well. But Brian didn't even look it up.
- 07:19
- Why? Well, because to him, it's just it's just as true as the sky is blue that Americans hate black people.
- 07:27
- And see, the thing is, like, we can't just say stuff like that. That paints the wrong picture. It gives the wrong impression.
- 07:33
- And so if you're influenced by a presentation like this, first of all, this isn't reparations the way that it's talked about now.
- 07:39
- The Japanese were the people that were wrong. The Native Americans, the people that were wrong. Blacks in general weren't wronged.
- 07:47
- There were specific Africans that were brought over in the slave trade that were wrong. People, some of my ancestors were some of these people that were brought over the slave.
- 07:55
- They were wrong. Brian Lawrence was never enslaved. Like he wants your money, but you never did anything to him.
- 08:02
- In fact, nobody ever did anything to him. The government didn't enslave him. But he wants your money.
- 08:08
- And he says, if you don't give him your money, then you're like barely a Christian. You're probably not even a Christian because you don't know the first thing about the gospel and how you're supposed to give and all this stuff.
- 08:18
- And it's just so crazy as he sits here with his nice clothes, obvious people fawning over his words.
- 08:25
- And he's sitting here telling you how much of a victim he is. Now we can't even pursue happiness anymore. It's pretty twisted, man.
- 08:32
- Let's continue. It shouldn't be for many reasons. The primary one being our government actually began the process of reparations with African -Americans.
- 08:43
- As the Civil War was ending, Union generals were having a conversation with the African -American community in Savannah.
- 08:50
- Coming out of that discussion, it was decided to take the over 400 ,000 acres of land seized from the
- 08:57
- Confederates and give it out in 40 acre allotments. This became known as 40 acres and a mule.
- 09:04
- This was a stunning act way ahead of its time. Sadly, not long after this order,
- 09:10
- President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor, overturned the order. And returned the land back to its original treasonous owners, the very ones who declared war on their own country.
- 09:22
- Yeah, so he really wants you to feel like he loves the country. And anyone who would declare war on the country is a treason.
- 09:28
- That's obviously fake. But here's the thing though, guys. If that would have happened, the 40 acres and a mule, and that would have been a program that went across the board and they just did it,
- 09:39
- I would have been okay with that looking back in history. You know what I mean? Okay, so you give reparations back.
- 09:46
- You pay the people that were wronged back in land. That's a form of capital. So you pay them back in land for the land that they worked for free because they were enslaved and mistreated and all this stuff.
- 09:58
- I would have been fine with that, okay? It wouldn't have been perfect biblical justice, but it would have been fine.
- 10:03
- I wouldn't have had so much to say about it. But the thing is, we're way beyond that. So the opportunity was missed, and now
- 10:11
- Brian wants you to give him money even though you or him weren't involved in any of this stuff.
- 10:16
- You see, this is the trick, right? He gets you, and I talk about this in my book, they get you to start agreeing with him about history and stuff like that.
- 10:23
- Even though his history, as you've seen, he plays fast and loose with the details to his advantage as often as he can.
- 10:30
- Either he's lying outright or he just didn't bother to look it up because whatever, whatever serves his purposes, he'll say.
- 10:36
- I mean, James Cone talked about that kind of stuff. He doesn't have to really worry about morality or ethics because God's always for black people, according to James Cone, so whatever.
- 10:45
- So it's one or the other with Brian. Either he's sloppy, he doesn't care, or he's just straight up lying.
- 10:51
- But the thing is, this is their game. They get you to agree with them in history. Yeah, I can agree that black people were oppressed in history, totally.
- 10:59
- And then he's like, yeah, today's the same thing, now give me money! It's like, well, no, that doesn't work that way.
- 11:04
- You know what I mean? It doesn't work that way. I shouldn't give you money. Why should I give you money? If I'm giving you money, then
- 11:10
- I'm a double victim because my ancestors were enslaved too. So now my ancestors were enslaved, I'm a victim because of that, supposedly, in your weird worldview.
- 11:18
- And then now, because I'm a productive member of society, I'm also giving you money even though I did nothing to you, even though nothing was done to you.
- 11:27
- So it's like, again, this is why these presentations are always flawed, because they never actually make the connection from now to then.
- 11:37
- And they never actually prove any kind of injustice now, they just kind of assume it. But the thing is, they got you to go along with them by talking about history in a certain way, and people are very impacted by that.
- 11:49
- Don't be fooled by that kind of stuff. That's not a way to be fooled. The Bible says that you shall not hate an
- 11:55
- Egyptian. He's talking to the Israelites. You shall not hate an Egyptian because you were a sojourner in their land.
- 12:01
- So God knew that people have a tendency to look at history to say, oh, look at all that injustice over there, now give me money.
- 12:07
- Hey, I don't like you because of what happened to my ancestors. He knows that people have a tendency to do that, and he specifically disallows his people to do that.
- 12:16
- Brian is specifically disallowed from doing this, and yet here he is on stage, in a church, and everyone's fawning over his words, doing exactly that.
- 12:28
- Just think about the power and healing that could have come had we stuck to this reparations plan.
- 12:36
- So how are we as Christians to respond to this? What does it mean to think and behave
- 12:41
- Christianly when it comes to reparations? As a Christian, you should reject it completely because reparations, we said this last time, the way it's talked about right now would not solve injustices.
- 12:55
- All it would do is create a new class of victims, which will perpetuate the cycle of distrust, the cycle of—what's the opposite of reconciliation?
- 13:06
- I don't know. It would just perpetuate this cycle, and people would just be all upset over again and all of that.
- 13:12
- So Christians should reject it because Christians ought to be willing to absorb injustices that they perceive or real sometimes we should.
- 13:21
- How much rather, the Bible says, should you prefer to be defrauded than drag the name of Christ through the mud?
- 13:28
- I probably butchered—yeah, I did. Paul's talking about lawsuits, and he says, you know, why have a lawsuit amongst unbelievers?
- 13:35
- If you do that, you're already defeated. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong and all this kind of stuff.
- 13:44
- And so Paul talked about this kind of stuff. We should rather be wronged than have these squabbles in front of the pagans and go to the pagans and elect pagans in order to get our stuff, like God forbid that we would elect pagans so that we can get our stuff.
- 13:58
- My goodness gracious, this is a complete defeat for the Church. So we should reject it, and everyone should reject it—blacks, whites,
- 14:06
- Asians, you know. Everyone should reject this scheme because it's a scheme. It won't cause any kind of reconciliation.
- 14:12
- All it will do is create more friction. Controversy. And it doesn't take a prophet to know that.
- 14:20
- As an African -American follower of Jesus, the gospel would say that I should not depend on reparations for me to forgive you.
- 14:27
- Absolutely. This is the best part of the video. Absolutely. Like, there are people out there that, you know, racial reconciliation depends on getting the reparations.
- 14:37
- Jamar Tisbee's one of these guys. He's like, economics has to be part of this deal. It has to be. Because he doesn't know the first thing about forgiveness.
- 14:44
- He doesn't know the first thing about grace—anything. So even if I had wronged Jamar Tisbee, which I have not, even if the
- 14:50
- Americans had wronged Jamar Tisbee, which I can only assume they have not because I would have heard that shouted from the rooftops if it really had happened, he still can't take the posture that he's in and claim the name of Christ.
- 15:02
- So Brian's on the right track here. If God says in the law that sons are not to pay for the sins of their father, then
- 15:10
- I should not let what your ancestors did to my people to hinder me from coming to the table in true reconciliation with you.
- 15:18
- Amen. This is where the video gets good. 100%. And what's interesting about this section is he's admitting that God specifically disallows what he is promoting.
- 15:34
- He specifically disallows the government because that law is about the government. And the way that they punish crime.
- 15:43
- So Brian is—this is so fascinating to me. He admits the Bible specifically disallows the government to make the sons pay for the sins of the fathers.
- 15:52
- Yet he's saying, and he's rightly saying here, I'm not going to depend on breaking that law to forgive you.
- 16:00
- Good. That's the good part. But the bad part is he's still promoting a complete denial of God's law in the civil governing authority.
- 16:07
- That's amazing to me. He would vote for reparations today if you gave him the option.
- 16:13
- So what he would be voting for is specifically disallowed in the scripture. Sorry, I'm spitting here.
- 16:19
- But it's just so fascinating to me. Like, on the one hand, he's right. He can't withhold forgiveness. On the other hand, he's promoting an injustice.
- 16:27
- And he's admitting it here. It's amazing that this man is able to do this from a Christian pulpit and doesn't get run out of town.
- 16:38
- But, on the other side of the table, the gospel should push you in different ways.
- 16:46
- It should push you to say, whatever it takes to right the wrongs, then I'm up for it.
- 16:53
- See, that's true in a weird way. Any wrong that I've done, whatever
- 16:58
- I can do to make it right, I'll pursue it, right? But the thing is,
- 17:03
- I haven't done any wrong. You know what I mean? So he's trying to put this burden over you, this gospel imperative, that I right other people's wrongs.
- 17:13
- That doesn't end anywhere. That can't end if you are constantly insisting.
- 17:19
- This is the thing, Brian. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's like, I'm going to forgive you, but you should still give me the cash.
- 17:25
- Once you forgive somebody, you can't actually insist on them giving the cash, pretending like they don't really have to, but if they want to be a
- 17:33
- Christian, they do. That's a burden, though. That's a burden that you're adding on top of believers, trying to make them feel guilty for something they didn't do.
- 17:44
- This whole video is very interesting, because what he gives with one hand, he always takes with the other.
- 17:49
- He gets it, but then he doesn't get it. He understands the Bible disallows this, but he still wants it.
- 17:55
- This is a man who's sitting here preaching before you, or maybe he's not preaching. Maybe he's just giving a speech.
- 18:00
- I don't really know. But the thing is, this is a man speaking before you, and you can see the struggle of the flesh and the spirit here.
- 18:08
- I think you can. He knows what's right, and he still wants that stuff. He's still letting the flesh control him before you, before your very eyes.
- 18:17
- This is the kind of thing that happens to Christians oftentimes in private. You know what I mean? Where the flesh is weak, the spirit is willing, but this is happening publicly on video.
- 18:30
- It's very interesting to see it. What does this mean? Two examples.
- 18:37
- I have a white Jesus -loving friend of mine who has done really well in business. He began to look around at all the racial turmoil and then at himself, and felt as if white privilege had caused him to advance as far as he had in our society.
- 18:50
- Moved by this and the plight of African Americans, he decided to set up a reparations fund where he has donated a lot of money and in inviting his white friends to contribute to that fund as well.
- 19:02
- This isn't forced. It's simply if you want to give. Yeah, if you want to give money to black people, okay.
- 19:10
- I mean, nobody's going to stop you. I won't be doing that because of reparations.
- 19:16
- I'll give money to black people the way I give money to all people. So, again, Jesus' commands are so simple here.
- 19:23
- They're so simple. If you have food, share it with someone who doesn't.
- 19:31
- If you have clothing, share it with someone who doesn't. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that.
- 19:37
- It doesn't need to be more complicated. It doesn't need to be, you know, the white privilege got me here!
- 19:42
- Oh, woe is me! It doesn't need to be like that. You know what I mean? So I'm not going to participate in this scheme.
- 19:49
- But if you guys want to, you know, divest of your funds and give it to black people because you're guilty for your white privilege, knock yourself out like the kids used to say.
- 19:58
- Go ahead and knock yourself out. That's on you. But don't try to make it seem like this is the thing.
- 20:04
- I'm okay with that. He'll give me that, but then he takes it away by saying, well, if you really want to understand the gospel, you've got to do it.
- 20:11
- See, that's the sneaky part because he's putting a burden, low key, he's putting a burden on the believers kind of while pretending like he's not, which
- 20:18
- I really don't appreciate that, Brian. The fund is made up of many causes that will directly benefit the
- 20:24
- African -American community, one of which being the United Negro College Fund. He's asked me and other black pastors to help him think through this fund.
- 20:33
- What would Jesus say to him? I think he would say, today salvation has come to your house. Do you see this?
- 20:39
- This is so – I'm trying to stay somewhat level -headed here because I do like this video way more than I like the
- 20:51
- Eric Mason video, but it's actually more dangerous because what he just said here is – see, my white
- 20:58
- Christian friend who's been a Christian all his life, he set up this reparations fund, and Jesus would say, today salvation has come to your house.
- 21:06
- And he's trying to combine that – sorry, compare that to Zacchaeus.
- 21:12
- Zacchaeus, the man who had robbed people. Zacchaeus, the man who had defrauded people, giving restitution back to the people that he defrauded.
- 21:20
- And then he's saying the same thing is happening with this guy who set up this slush fund for black communities, and I get to be a part of it.
- 21:27
- Maybe it gets a commission from that too. Who knows? I'm not making any accusations. I don't know. But anyway, also, don't forget a tax write -off as well.
- 21:36
- And then it's like – so he does that, and that's the same thing that happens in Zacchaeus.
- 21:42
- And it's like, so if you don't do that, has salvation come to this house? You see what
- 21:49
- I mean? Like, he's not saying that, but he is saying that. And that is so twisted, so manipulative, so sneaky, that I just –
- 21:59
- I can't even believe that this guy has the audacity, the balls, the cojones to do this publicly.
- 22:08
- It's just so – it's the definition of legalism. This is a social justice pharisee of the highest order,
- 22:16
- Brian Lawrence. He's skilled. He's very skilled. I have another wealthy white friend of mine.
- 22:21
- I promise you all my white friends aren't wealthy. Whose grandfather started a very well -known hotel chain.
- 22:28
- Playing golf together one day, he said he was troubled that for years, in the early days of the business, blacks could not stay at these hotels.
- 22:35
- Now he's living off of his grandfather's money while trying to push the business forward. What is he to do?
- 22:43
- He has decided to focus much of his real estate efforts in impoverished communities, helping poor
- 22:49
- African -American women to get affordable housing, along with developing businesses, which would benefit them directly without gentrifying those communities.
- 22:58
- You know how much money is made from these low -income housing projects that the government does?
- 23:04
- These projects, you look at the finances of them. I'm not saying this specific one because he didn't even name this person, but you look at some of these projects and the finances of them, and the housing that they produce ends up costing double, triple what it should, and you look into the books, and it leads to banks in the
- 23:20
- Cayman Islands, and stuff like that. People are making a killing off of this social justice scheme. They're making a killing off of this.
- 23:28
- And it's like, this is why we don't do slush funds. This is why the government doesn't control this kind of stuff. Because even if the government wasn't in on it, which often they are, they'd have no capability or no motivation to stop this kind of thing.
- 23:40
- This is why Jesus' commands are simple. If you have food, share it with someone who doesn't.
- 23:49
- It doesn't say share it with someone with the right skin color who doesn't. It doesn't say share it with someone who has the right ancestry that doesn't.
- 23:55
- It doesn't say any of that. It just says share it with someone who doesn't. If you have shelter,
- 24:01
- I'm sorry, clothing, share it with someone who doesn't. Brian wants to make this super complicated.
- 24:07
- Brian wants to make this benefit himself and his community and his friends. But Jesus says that if you have food, share it with someone who doesn't.
- 24:18
- It's simple. His burdens are easy. His yoke is light. Anyone who's putting burdens like this on you, that person doesn't have your best interests in mind.
- 24:28
- This is Pharisaism of the highest order. He is a skilled Pharisee. He doesn't appear like a jerk.
- 24:35
- And that's the thing. People often think that the Pharisees in Jesus' time were hated by everybody. That's not the case.
- 24:42
- The Pharisees were loved by everybody. They probably sounded a lot like Brian where it's like very impassioned and easy to like.
- 24:49
- The Bible, when it talks about false teachers, it talks about being smooth talkers. It doesn't talk that they were jerks and hated by all.
- 24:57
- No, no. They were smooth talkers. People loved them. That's all
- 25:03
- I'll say about that. What would Jesus say to him? Today salvation has come to your house.
- 25:12
- So that's it, man. That's it. And that got a little heated towards the end. But, you know, this is way better than Eric Mason's stuff.
- 25:21
- But you got to watch out for this. Because this man is laying burdens upon burdens upon burdens upon the church of Christ.
- 25:29
- And this must be rejected. And the way he does it is the way that the
- 25:34
- Pharisees used to do it. They twist scripture. That's what he does with the Zacchaeus passage. And they twist scripture.
- 25:42
- They kind of tell half -truths. They give you one thing. They take it away with the other. Yeah, I'm going to honor my parents.
- 25:48
- But, you know, it's Corbin as well. You know what I mean? Like that kind of stuff. They twist the law. They play fast and loose with the details.
- 25:57
- Like he did with the Japanese internment and all that kind of stuff. And it's just the victim mentality, though, is all over this stuff.
- 26:03
- So that way it's hard to come against it. People are kind of scared to come against someone like Brian speaking in this way.
- 26:10
- But you can't. You have to hear what he's saying. Even as he's pretending to play the victim, what's often happening with presentations like this is that they're punching you in the face and then crying out, as if you punched them in the face.
- 26:26
- That's how this game is played. So you got to watch out for that kind of stuff. I hope you found this series helpful. I hope you found this video in particular helpful.
- 26:33
- God bless. This has been a production of WGBH.