Dr. Russell Moore's Clinic on How NOT to do it. (Part 2)

All right, last time we did this, it ended on a very long story about somebody who didn't want to obey God. Uh, I didn't really understand the purpose of how long that story was. But anyway, hopefully it's a little more spicy today.

We are going to start this podcast from the signpost podcast with Dr. Russell Moore. Uh, and this is the Gospel and Social Injustice Part One, starting right around minute nine. So hopefully this will go a little bit, uh, be more interesting than last time around.

Anyway, let's get this thing right started right away.

The Charge of a False Dilemma Between the Gospel and Social Justice

The irony here is that sometimes the very people or groups who claim to be the most hostile to no lordship salvation and to market-driven Christianity can sometimes fall right into the exact same thing.

And what's really at root? Well, whether it is the person who is saying, Hey, uh, I don't want to talk about, or I want to redefine Romans one and first Corinthians six and seven, uh, because I, I don't want the gospel to interrogate my sexual behavior.

So that's a distraction. Let's not talk about our sexual behavior. Let's talk about the gospel, who we are in Jesus. Well, you'll also have people say, let's not talk about racism and bigotry and, uh, and, and the way that we can prop that up in our churches or in our activities in society.

Let's that's a distraction.

I don't want to talk about that. Yeah. That's a lie though. Dr. Russell Moore, because, uh, nobody, and this is the thing, let's just be honest. This is a response most likely to the statement on social justice.

Most likely he doesn't say that directly, but I mean, let's not be stupid. But the point is though, that, that that's actually not true. That's a lie. There are probably very few people out there that are saying, let's not talk about racism.

Let's not talk about, um, in injustices. Let's not talk about those stuff. Those are a distraction. I would admit there probably some people out there like that, but it's very few. Most people, including the signers of the still, the framers of the statement on social justice would agree that living justly is an important thing for a Christian.

In fact, it's required for a Christian. We would agree that racism is evil and it's something that we should preach against and we should stand against and we should act against. Uh, that is absolutely true injustice in the same way.

If there's an injustice that happens, for example, abortion, uh, we should stand against it. We should act actively stand against it. We should pray. We should preach against it. All of those things. What we disagree though, and this is the theme of the last, the last, uh, the last video as well.

What we disagree is your definition of injustice. So in other words, um, just because it's a fact that white families earn more on average than Puerto Rican families, does it mean that I'm being oppressed?

Does, I mean, is that, is that perfectly clear? Because Dr. Russell Moore, what you'd have to do is show me in the scripture where it says that, uh, if there's an inequality, if there's a disparity between wealth or income, uh, between two ethnic groups, that is a sin that must be overturned.

If you can show me that I would believe it and I'd start playing the victim just like everybody else, but I'm not going to do that because I know it's not in the scripture. I have no right to anybody's money.

I have no right to anyone's income. I have no right to a job. I have no right to anything except the fruits of my own labor. So someone can't steal for me. That's very true, but I don't have the right to somebody else's income.

Minimum wage laws are completely evil. That is a social justice issue, but you're on the wrong side of it. You see what I'm saying? So, um, this is, this is, this is the thing that's, that's an incorrect statement that he made.

He is absolutely lying about the opposition here. Nobody's saying racism isn't an evil that the church must speak against and actively work against. We all agree with that. What we disagree with is your definition because it's not racism just because there's a church that has a majority white people in it.

That's not necessarily racist. There could be racism at play. Absolutely. But you have to prove it. And according to the scripture, according to biblical justice, which is what we're all talking about, right?

You can't just make the accusation and expect people to believe it. You actually have to have witnesses. You have to actually have proof. That's the godly standard. That's a biblical justice standard.

The Gospel, Regeneration, and Discipleship

And the same people who will say, well, if you just preach the gospel, then the way that people conduct themselves sexually will just naturally work itself out. Well, if it does, then the New Testament spends a lot of time speaking to Christians about what it means to live obediently to Christ.

And if we just see that people are saved, then we all would agree, though, Dr. Russell.

Moore, that all of the preaching won't do anything unless you're regenerated, unless you've believed the gospel, unless you're following Christ. So in other words, yes, the Bible does spend a lot of time talking to Christians on how to live under the assumption that they've already been regenerated because people ain't going to listen to you.

You know what I mean? If they haven't been regenerated, they hate Christ. They're not going to listen to your dating tips. Do you see what I'm saying? So, yeah, I mean, it is a little bit, in a sense, reductionistic to just say just preach the gospel.

Yeah, I understand that there needs to be exhortation. There needs to be other kinds of preaching. There's no question about that. But the gospel is foundational. You can't reform society from the top down.

You can't change the law to change the hearts. You have to change the heart, and then the law will change. And that's not to say you only preach the gospel and you don't preach ever anything else. You only ever preach from 1 Corinthians 15.

That's not what anybody is saying. John MacArthur is not saying that. And nobody is saying that. We all agree in exhortation. John MacArthur agrees in exhortation. We all agree in discipleship. Everybody agrees in discipleship.

So, again, this is just an absolute lie.

Biblical Justice, the Prophets, and James

Dr. Russell Moore, I mean, Red Hearts are just going to naturally move toward justice. Again, if that's the case, then I don't know what the Bible is doing in the prophets or in James speaking to the people of God about what it means to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God.

And again, I'll tell you what he's doing.

What he's doing is actually expounding on the law of God, getting the foundational principles from the law of God and teaching them to the people. That's what everyone agrees we need to do. What we don't agree on is that it says anywhere in the law of God that these income inequalities, racial disparities have anything to do with the scripture.

Almost every time. And one of the most discouraging things that I've ever seen. This is discouraging.

I mean, because Dr. Russell Moore is a smart man. I'm not smarter than Dr. Russell Moore. But this kind of argumentation is just absolute. It's cheap. First of all, it's low blows. And it has nothing.

This guy's burning straw men left and right. Nobody believes this stuff. Let me take that back. Back the truck up. Some people believe this stuff, but not the major critics of you.

Slavery, Jim Crow, and Rhetorical Guilt by Association

In now 25 years of ministry is the way that when you come to the question of what is our responsibility as the people of God to be a reconciled body that bears with us the hurts of black and brown brothers and sisters in Christ, the response to that often is exactly the same thing that we have seen over and over and over again.

The arguments don't change. So the arguments that were given in the 1850s to say, well, we don't want to talk about social issues like human slavery. Let's instead focus on the gospel or in the.

So this is a very common tactic. And this is, you know, this is hopefully the meat of this video will be about this. This is a non argument argument. What he's going to say is this, and I haven't actually listened to this.

So I'm just going to predict this, but it sounds like what he's going to say is, well, they made the same arguments back in slave times and back in Jim Crow times, and they're making the same arguments today.

Therefore, they're all in the same evil mindset. You know what I mean? What he wants to do is he wants to take people like me and put them and in your mind, make me seem like one of the Jim Crow guys or make me seem like a slaveholder.

He's not making that argument. He won't actually say that, but that's the impression he's leaving. This is a, this is a way that people argue by impressions. They don't actually say what they're trying to do, but rhetorically, he wants you to connect the three.

So what I'm saying is the same thing. The slaveholders are saying, therefore, I'm just as evil as the slaveholders. And the reality is that back in slave times, we can look back and we can say, well, here's how their argument was wrong.

We can go back and put it, hold it up to the light of scripture. And it's very easy to see how it was wrong. So in other words, the Bible condemns man stealing. If somebody kidnaps somebody to sell them into slavery or for whatever reason, and they're caught doing it, they deserve the death penalty.

So I can hold up what the slaveholders or the slave trade people were doing back in the days of slavery. And I could say, you know what? Those people deserve the death penalty. According to scripture, not according to my opinion, according to scripture, we can go back to Jim Crow and we can say, churches were okay with segregation.

And I can show you in the scripture where that's not okay. I can take you to where Paul confronts Peter. I can take you to the many commands against showing partiality. I can show you all of those things.

And I can say, look at what their arguments were saying. They were wrong. According to scripture, I can show you that. What you can't do is now then say, because I stand against this idea that income inequalities or wealth inequalities are sin.

If you can show me in the scripture, how I'm wrong about that, I would join your team right now and I'll, and I promise you, I will be a tremendous warrior for your team. However, you can't do that. You don't even ever try to do that.

And I know you can't do it because I've read the Bible too. And it doesn't say that because Puerto Rican families on average earn less than white families, that means I'm oppressed. That means I have been a victim of an injustice.

That means that, uh, that, that God is, um, displeased with white people because they're not sharing their money with me. Um, so it's a non-argument. It's just because it's, we use the same, uh, rhetoric or let's go to the same verses.

Doesn't mean we're applying it the same way. Do you see what I'm saying? He wants you to think that we're applying it the same way. We're, we're, we're essentially equivalent to the slave holders. We're equivalent to the Jim Crow people.

That's what he wants you to think, but he'll never actually demonstrate it. It's just an assertion. He just wants to leave you with that impression. And this is an extremely dishonest way to argue. And I might seem a little bit fired up right now.

And the reason I am is because he knows better than this. He knows this is empty rhetoric. This is leftist rhetoric. Leftists use this all the time. Leftists use this all the time. They don't actually make arguments.

Instead, they just leave you with impressions that those evil Republicans, they're just so mean and they're so evil, but they don't ever actually make the, uh, the accusation. It's like, it's like comparing someone to Hitler.

I don't use that because it's, it's not, it's a, it's a non-argument. It's a, it's an argument to try to make you guilty just because it's like similar. They can draw similarities between the Nazis and your party.

Um, you know, I know some people use that kind of stuff. I don't use that kind of stuff anymore. I used to, I used to, um, because it's a non-argument argument. We have to actually go to the scripture and show how wealth inequalities, income disparities, racial disparities, these are all, uh, issues of biblical justice, according to God's law.

If you can do that, Dr. Russell Moore, please do it in part two. And I will join you. I will join your cause.

Poverty, Oppression, and the Law of God

1920s. Let's, let's not get political and talk about lynching. Let's instead talk about lynching. Hmm.

Was, uh, was vigilante, uh, murders, uh, was that a biblical issue? Yeah, of course. The Bible directly addresses murder. What it doesn't directly address is this income inequality garbage.

The gospel, the 1960s, that's a talk about, this is just social experimentation to talk about Jim Crow and, uh, the, the segregated South. We need to not be distracted upon, uh, over that. And instead focus on preaching the gospel.

And a lot of the people who are for integration and racial justice are communists. Therefore, if you are involved with this, you are somehow imbibing Marxism.

Well, the thing is though, that, that not necessarily, it's not, we can't do that guilt by association thing, but the reality is a lot of the foundational foundational, uh, fundamental principles are exactly the same.

This idea of oppressor and oppressed that doesn't come from the Bible. That doesn't come from the Bible that comes from Marxism. So it's not that, that, that it sounds similar to Marxism. It's that the, the, the ideas are Marxist.

Yeah. You see what I'm saying? I think people, there's a disconnect there. There's no, I'm not saying it's guilt by association because you sound Marxist. It's because the ideas themselves are Marxist.

Humans, they stay exactly the same. And you would think that we would be able to look back and say, wait a minute, where is this coming from? But ultimately it really comes down to two questions and two questions that the scripture speaks to repeatedly in the old and new testaments.

And those questions are, who is my neighbor? What is the gospel? So if you think of, for instance, Jesus in his interaction with the lawyer, the one trained in the old Testament scriptures in Luke chapter 10, that question of who is my neighbor comes up.

And why does it come up? It comes up because the lawyer is trying to protect his conscience. He wants to be able, the scripture says, to justify himself. Now that's something that really the lawyer ought to be able to see where Jesus is going with this if he has an awareness of the old Testament scriptures.

So you think of, for instance, the account of Elijah interacting with Ahab over the vineyard of Naboth in the book of first Kings. If you don't remember who Naboth was, he had a vineyard and Ahab wanted to take that and to sort of with eminent domain increases his palace in order to build.

Is, uh, is, uh, Russell Moore against eminent domain? That's surprising. That's surprising because it seems to me that Russell Moore is very in favor of the state. Um, that's interesting. If he's against eminent domain, I, I applaud that bro.

Vegetable garden there.

That's not unusual. Nobody at the time would have been surprised that a ruler would be taking property from someone who was a peasant, someone who was of no account in terms of, of power, uh, in the day.

And if, if anything, Ahab seems to be doing something that is kind of generous because he's going to pay him for the vineyard. But Naboth says, I'm not going to give away the inheritance.

Like Russell Moore turned into a libertarian. Good on him.

My father's. So the, the system of power is there. The King matters. The peasant doesn't. Okay. Well, that's exactly what Jesus is doing. When he talks about the priest and the Levite walking by to the other side of the road, when they pass the man who's beaten on the side of the road.

Exactly what Jesus is talking about when he talks about the rich man who is ignoring Lazarus, who is there outside of his palace being, being licked by dogs. It's exactly the same thing that the scripture is talking about when it talks about in the Proverbs, don't move a landmark of your neighbor or what the old Testament is talking about when it says to make sure that you do not oppress the widows and the fatherless.

This is the thing. Like, is he becoming a theonomist now? Because if he's going to become a theonomist, we can talk about the law of God. But he's said many times that we don't live in a theocracy. In fact, he says that theocracy is automatically blasphemous.

So this is the essence of cherry picking the Bible. I'll go to the law when it supports my social justice stuff, but I won't go to the law when it supports actual biblical justice. You see what I'm saying?

Um, he doesn't understand these laws because yes, you help the sojourner, you help the widow, you help the orphan, but you cannot do it by breaking other laws of God. That's the thing. So like a lot of people say, well, you have to be for welfare because we have to help the widow and the orphan.

And I say, no, you cannot help the widow and the orphan by stealing. You understand? Like you can help the widow and the orphan use your own money, just like the good Samaritan did. And you know, and that's how you're supposed to do it.

That's not optional for a Christian. A Christian has to do that kind of stuff before God. But the reality is the good Samaritan didn't go to the governor and say, hey, take from all my neighbors so that we can support this Samaritan, uh, this, this, this, this, this beaten traveler.

He didn't do that because you know what? Jesus would never have used that example because that actually breaks the other laws of God. And so this idea that, um, that this supports all of this social engineering stuff, he's not actually making that argument here, but a lot of people do.

In fact, I'm pretty sure he does elsewhere. Um, that's an, that's, that's unjustified. We can't do it by breaking the law of God. In other words, uh, which is because black people and Hispanic, let's just say they are oppressed.

Let's say we agree that they're oppressed. That doesn't mean that we can then go and put in place these affirmative action things in our churches because that breaks the other, that breaks another law of God, a law against partiality.

So like, again, these are all great, but you can't do it when you're, when you're treating the Bible like a buffet where you take some and leave the others, then you'll create all kinds of evil.

That's the problem. Why? Because their redeemer is strong. He hears them. Yeah. God pays attention to those who are seen to be simply invisible.

Their concerns are not my concerns. And remember he did it all without setting up a welfare state, right? God did. God was concerned with the poor in the old covenant times, right? And he still did not set up a welfare state.

Um, so why should we do it today? They're not my people. They're not, and again, I'm not saying he's making that argument here, but a lot of people do use these verses to make that argument.

I tribe, I don't have to worry about them. That's why James comes in and says to the churches of the dispersion in James chapter five, you are not paying adequately the hired people who are working in your fields and God hears them.

And James talks about in real. Did you catch that?

Did you catch that one? You are not paying adequately the workers of your field. That's not what James says. That's not what James says. Let's check out what James actually says. That is a very interesting addition.

James, let's see. What would I search? A back by fraud. Here's what James chapter five says. We're going to end on this. James chapter five says this, your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire.

You have hoarded treasure in the last days. Look at the wages you withheld from workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. English translation, behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud are crying out against you.

He's not talking about adequate pay. See, this is the thing. That's a slippery one right there. That's a slippery one. Because what James is saying is you didn't pay them and you did it by fraud. You said you would pay them, you know, $10 an hour to mow your field and you either paid them nothing to mow your field or you gave them $2 an hour and said, what are you going to do about it?

You're poor. I'm rich. What are you going to do about it? That's fraud. That's, that's stealing. That's against the law of God. But do you see that slipperiness that he just put in there? Oh, you didn't pay them adequately.

Makes it almost sound like, again, this is a non-argument argument. Makes it almost sound like, well, that person really deserves $10 an hour, but you guys agreed to five and therefore you're in sin.

No, if you agreed to five, then that's what he's worth. Do you understand me? Because if somebody says, I need a job and you've got the money, I don't have the right to your money. If I need a job and you've got the money and you want to pay me to do a job, I don't have the right to any of your money.

So whatever we agreed to, that is fair. That's biblical justice, by the way. God is completely on board with that. Jesus himself, from the lips of Jesus, he says that you do not have the right to somebody else's stuff.

You see what I'm saying? So, so that was slippery right there. It's another non-argument argument. So he can always wiggle out. That's not what I meant. But that's what he's, the impression he's leaving there.

Wow.

This, this is, this is disappointing. The really strong terms about that. Well, that goes on and on and on throughout the entire.

Closing Thoughts on the Clip and the End of Part Two

Yeah, that's what we'll end. So we're ending off at minute 1545, roughly. Hey, that was, that was good. That was interesting. And I hope this was helpful. God bless.