How Edwin Ramirez Went from Woke to Awake

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00:12
Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast, I'm John Harris, and with me is Edwin Ramirez, the
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Proverbial Life podcast host, and Edwin, I've been on your show before, so I'm sorry it took me so long to have you on mine.
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I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure, I just can't give you a reason, honestly, but you're here now, so thank you.
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Because I'm a person of color. Oh my goodness, right into it, you're already accusing me. Yeah, no,
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I wanted to get you on to talk about your testimony, but I don't know what happened.
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So we're doing it now, which I'm thankful for, and the Lord's timing is the perfect timing, and so, you know, a lot of things have happened, so many things have changed within the last year, so many things have happened.
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This morning as I got up, I saw, did you see this story, there was George Floyd mural got struck by lightning.
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Yes. There's people now saying God isn't happy with BLM, and I just thought, man, that is, that, it's just, that's interesting.
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You know, if more BLM murals get struck by lightning, we will have a whole podcast about it, probably, like what's going on, but we don't need the lightning strike to know that God is not happy with BLM.
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God's not happy with BLM because they are against his law, his gospel, and really those two things are enough, but they're also against objective truth.
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They are about redefining families and completely just deconstructing the society that we live in that is not perfect, but does have a lot of Judeo -Christian assumptions kind of behind it.
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So we're going to talk about that some today, and I'm just going to let you give your testimony because you came from kind of being,
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I don't know if this was during BLM, but you were kind of at least social justice influenced.
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You believed in that stuff, and you did a 180, and you're pastoring now in upstate New York, and you're firmly against the social justice movement.
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And so I just want to hear how that happened and maybe give some hope to people who have friends who are caught up in BLM. You know, don't give up on them.
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Don't think that they're just lost in this. No. Edwin can tell you his story.
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Everyone comes from a different place. And just like I needed salvation, just like you needed salvation, and even some people who are saved who are just confused, who are caught up in some of this thinking, the
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Lord provides resources and the Holy Spirit and the word of God and godly men and women. And so I want to hear your story, brother, and thank you for being willing to share it.
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Yeah, man. Thank you for having me on, brother. And I consider you a good friend, man, a friend that I haven't met in person yet.
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So Lord willing, and his God and his providence, I pray that I do meet you and some other brothers, men, that I am deeply appreciative of your work and just share your labor in the
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Lord. So thank you for what you do, brother. Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure. Well, likewise, and why don't we start with just kind of tell me where you were at, like,
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I don't know if this. So maybe pre Christian and then Christian kind of social justice influence to today, like where did
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I don't know where you want to start the story, but but let's start kind of where you were at the farthest away from where you are now.
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Yeah, that's great, brother. Yep. So I became a Christian about 21 years of age, wasn't raised in a
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Christian home, you know, raised with wrong, right, you know, you know, kind of kind of moral, but again, it wasn't a religious home wasn't a
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Christian home, at least outright Christian, but they weren't opposed to Christianity. So let me fast forward.
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So so I get saved to 21. I'm a Christian, I get saved from Pentecostal Church and just start, you know, start serving the
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Lord and start preaching and start to really see what my gifts are and all those sorts of things. And so and then and then
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I'm kind of growing in the Lord, I come into contact with reformed theology, I eventually leave my
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Pentecostal bent and abandoned some of those theological frameworks that I held at one time.
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And start a go to a kind of non denominational church, cut my teeth there and just really just growing in the
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Lord, right, being sanctified, you know, starting to see fruit in my life.
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And then then I become a youth pastor serving there for two years and get married me, my wife get married, and then we go away to college.
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So I go away to college in Florida, for years, get my bachelor's there in that time,
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I'm pastoring as well. So as I'm finishing up my BA, I'm pastoring. And then after I graduate,
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I'm continuing to pastor, we started church plan in Florida. And now this is, this is 2000.
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So this is 2013 2000. I graduated 2014. So this is 2013 1415 this area.
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2016 we move from Florida to New York. Now this is this is kind of when
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BLM came around 2015 1315 around that area. Simply shootings all this taking place.
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And and I and I and I rejected you know, this, you know, the narrative I'm not
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I'm not receiving it because I'm holding on firm to my theology God is sovereign. Yes, men are wicked and they're doing things that are opposed to God and this is what but I'm not buying into the oppressor oppressed kind of categories.
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Then I come across people like Jamar Tisby truth table and kind of that that sphere that group of individuals and then 2000 was it 2018
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Trump gets elected I believe I was still the first election when yeah, okay, yep.
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So 16. I'm for Trump, right? I'm not anti Trump. I'm for Trump, but not like gonna hold
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Trump. And so so I haven't believed the narrative. Now I remember when Jamar Tisby came out and said that that that the reason why
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Trump is in office is because white evangelicals, you know, voted for him and you know, kind of started to create this us versus them narrative.
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And initially, I didn't receive that then I started seeing these. I started seeing my people getting massacred in the streets and I'll kind of can explain what
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I mean by my people. I had this these are my people mentality, right? I was raised in an urban context.
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And so when I see when I see blacks and Hispanics getting beat down in the street. Those are my people.
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And I and then I saw the shift take place in my mind. It wasn't just those are my people because they're identified in Christ, it was they're my people because of their ethnic identity.
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And so I was actually reverting back to the mindset I had prior to being a
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Christian, when I would say I was originally quote unquote woke, right? Because in the urban context that I was living in, everyone was woke.
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Cops are pigs, white people are the devil, like that was my upbringing, right?
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And so so I get I become a Christian, I abandon that that's, that's, that's the world's thinking.
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Now, as a Christian, there's this form where I can embrace
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Christ and the doctrines of grace and all that comes with sound theology, right? And there's a group of believers that are saying the same things
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I believed prior to being a Christian, but it's wrapped in Christianity now. So now they're talking about oppression, and oppressed, and I'm oppressed because I'm a person of color.
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You're the oppressor because you're white, and so on and so forth. So I really got wrapped into this movement, man, but not not based on objective truth, but based on emotions, right?
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Because of what my optics saw, I believed in narrative, and because I was in a vulnerable situation in my own personal life.
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So I'll stop there. If you have any questions, you can kind of chime in. Well, I was just gonna ask. So you're, you're
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Hispanic, primarily, what not? I don't usually ask these questions. But I feel like it's pertinent to the story a little bit.
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So you grew up, you said in an urban area? Are you? Are you Hispanic? Yep. And I guess Hey, john,
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Latino is the right phraseology. I'm sorry. Well, I'm asking questions. I know answer to as well.
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But because I know your last name, but so it Puerto Rican is what's your?
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Yeah, Puerto Rican. You and at Robla should get together then? Yeah, we do. Yeah. Have you met? Have you met in person yet?
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No, not yet. Okay. So as someone who is okay, Puerto Rican ethnically, and who came over then from Puerto Rico?
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What's the is it your parents, grandparents, my grandparents? Okay. You're proud to be a Puerto Rican, right?
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Yeah, I'm proud to be a Puerto Rican. But there's nothing wrong with that. That's a great, beautiful thing. Yeah, but but you know what, john, with that, man,
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I, and this is just me, man, when I grew up, I didn't identify as a Puerto Rican. I because I grew up in a black context.
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I considered myself black. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So So see, and I and I grew up, man,
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I loved African American culture, history, like black history.
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I loved it. You know, um, yeah, I loved a lot. I studied it.
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I thanked God for it. The good right. And then there were the evils that had taken place.
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And so I didn't, you know, obviously, I'm Puerto Rican, but I never identified myself with those are my people.
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It was these are my people. Okay, so it was a wide net. It was kind of it was a net.
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Okay. So, um, so there's beauty, because I believe there's beauty in culture, God creates culture, I think, if you're, it actually grieves me a little if I see someone who's ashamed, when it doesn't really matter what color they are, or, and color doesn't always mean culture either.
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I mean, it's, it's more complex than that. But someone who's just ashamed of kind of the way that God made them or who their ancestors were, or what their traditions and habits or cuisine or whatever, like all these things are, so they're what make the world interesting and diverse, the real diversity where people are just different because of traditions that have developed over time.
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And I don't know, I like learning about those things. And I'm sure you do too. But when you saw these examples,
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I'm thinking Trayvon Martin, probably and these kinds of situations.
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It wasn't like, it wasn't just, I love my culture so much.
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I love my people so much where I came from who they are. It was there was something attached to it, which is also
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I hate those people. Am I reading that? Right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
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And it was it was more so white see in an urban context. And again, I have to speak from my own context where I was at where I grew up.
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But but this is the consensus of thinking that the white man can't be trusted. Right.
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The white man is the enemy. And and and it may be a black officer that's involved in this occasion, but he's in a white system.
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Right. So so so so that's that's key, man. So the it was always us against them kind of mentality growing up.
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Right. So so so I didn't hate white people. I just didn't trust them, you know, but but I didn't have any hatred toward them.
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But that sort of started to come out later, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. Yep. And that's not so I hear a lot of social justice advocates who especially if they have a connection to people of color in some way or they they take it very personally when something like like a
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Trayvon Martin situation happens or George Floyd and and if they're on that social justice train, it's often connected to some kind of a hate for, like you just said, like a white system, white people, the police, which that see that's not that's that's not loving your culture.
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That's going in extra. That's that's that's actually hating another culture as well. And that's what and that often
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I think it's missed or just overlooked. And sometimes it's almost wrapped up in, well, if you love this culture or these people, you have to hate these people, which is just not true.
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And that's, I think, as Christians, especially what we have to reject. We should love the way God made us, but we doesn't mean we hate other people.
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In fact, that should inspire us to love them even more. And so so you got caught up a little bit in this kind of bitterness.
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It sounds like for other people that you ascribe, you know, they're the ones maybe because of the fact that they're white.
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They don't understand. They're don't have any problem murdering your people in the street. How long did you last in that in that bitterness?
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This was 2016 to 2018, primarily, and I would say 2018.
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And I got progressively worse. What's interesting, John, is that I this is really interesting, man.
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I got worse. The more I listen to Christians that I thought I could trust that were in biting this ideology.
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Right. So my diet was the truth table. My diet was Jamar Tisby and those guys.
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That was my diet. So you think about in taking this stuff and then I started to be introduced.
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I got introduced to Peggy McIntosh and Robin DiAngelo through Jamar Tisby in their podcast.
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Right. So so now so now new definitions, my definitions of racism and, you know, all these other words are being redefined by Christians that I should be able to trust.
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Wow. So that was your gate into critical race theory. Yes. Through Christians.
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Yes. Claiming to be Christian. Right. Claiming to be Christian. That's right. So and that's it's a sad thing to me.
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And I know you're not the only one. A lot of people have gone through this. And I know even when I was in seminary during that same period of time,
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I could see it in the student body, students who were affected by this. What?
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So so you remained in that for a little bit. What what happened? What pulled you out of it? Yeah, it was a lot, man.
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So God is God is very gracious, man. And he's patient. I say this whenever I tell this story is that, you know,
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I was a believer during this season. I was. And that's the thing in this process of sanctification, the believer, it says in Psalms, like the righteous fall seven times, but get back up.
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See, so there was this season from 16, 2016, 2018. I fell and I was and I was in the worst state of my my soul, my life.
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It was affecting my relationships to my friends online, in person and my wife.
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And it was affecting my relationship to the local church. But and so I fell. But God was gracious and I didn't fall away.
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And so I want to say that up front to encourage people who are maybe like yourself or people who are trying to advocate for or minister to a friend who's wrapped up in this, that the
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Lord will keep his own. Right. And he will bring them out of deception if they listen to the truth.
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Right. And that's what God did. He used people to speak the truth to my to my soul, to my life.
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So the very thing that God used to save me was the same thing he used to bring me back to where I was supposed to be.
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And that's the truth of his word. And he did that through individuals online like A .D.
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Robles, for example. He did that to people online who were speaking to me behind the scenes.
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He used Michael Foster, for example, another brother named Jerry. They were kind of talking to me behind the scenes on Messenger.
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My wife, he used my wife was very gracious. She did not write, say you're believing lies, but she would ask me questions.
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And I would think to myself, she doesn't get it because she's white. You know, she just doesn't get it.
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And so he used a bunch of different people. But ultimately, man, it was the truth of his word that he used to really bring me back into where I was supposed to be.
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Well, that's an encouraging thing, because as much as I think history is important, studying things, understanding things, ultimately, that's not what brought you out of this kind of funk you are in.
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It was the power of the Holy Spirit through working through the word of God and the people of God and bringing that truth to you.
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These problems are ultimately theological. Would you agree with us? Yes, absolutely, brother. Yep. And when when they use a martis be, for example, you know, is a historian claims to be he's an activist, but he that's kind of a cover that's used oftentimes with a lot of these social justice advocates.
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I'm a historian. I'm a sociologist. I'm a I don't even know what other whatever other field.
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I'm a journalist. And and that kind of becomes like that's my expertise. So, you know, you just don't understand about this field.
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And that's why, you know, you're ignorant or you don't know. And and of course, today, it's so social justice advocates have taken over all these disciplines, social justice, you're getting a degree in social justice in most programs, if you're going to get to a social studies program.
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So it's religion, you're dealing with you're not just you're not dealing with the history in the sense that most of us think of history, telling stories about people from the past.
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It's there's a slant to it. There's an edge to it. There's assumptions behind it. And they're very anti Christian assumptions.
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And so what got you out of it was that it was the truth. It wasn't you needed a concern.
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You needed Thomas Sowell to come and praise God for him. But you needed to get, I guess, kicked upside the head a little bit with here's here's what the word of God says about other people.
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Here's what the word of God says about sin. And why don't you just bring us through that a little bit? What was it?
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What was the truth that really just like got your attention that you're like, man, I'm wrong?
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Yeah, yeah. So so man, I used to read Thomas Sowell stuff and just be like, ah, this guy's a coon, you know, he doesn't get it.
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That was that was, unfortunately, the mindset I had when I heard people like a Thomas Sowell, like you, if you were if you were black, and you didn't say the narrative that should have been said, then you've been duped.
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You've been deceived, right? It's just it's twisted, man. That was my mindset. But yeah, so so again,
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I remember one day specifically, I was I was ironing my clothes for the week.
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And as I'm as I'm ironing my clothes, I come across at Robles, right. And and I prior to listening to him,
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I would listen to a bunch of individuals who would kind of give the narrative of the woke movement and just listen to them for hours, right?
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As I'm ironing my clothes. I come across at Robles, I'm listening to a stuff while I'm ironing and I'm thinking to myself, whoa, this guy is saying something different than than than what
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I've been feasting on for the past three years. And and he's Latino, like, my mind was blown.
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I'm like, well, this isn't right, you know, like, and it really it really just ministered to me, man, at that in that season.
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Right. Because this was this was like early A .D. like this wasn't the A .D. we have now.
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And praise the Lord for the A .D. we have now. And I remember. But but the early A .D. like I heard that and I was like, wow, man,
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I'm I remember calling my wife in the room and saying, baby, listen to this guy. And and that day, brother, when
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I told my wife, listen to this guy, she left the room and she said, Edwin, she said, baby, the day you told me that you were listening to A .D.,
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I was praising God inside, she said, because I knew that you were off and I didn't know how to talk to you about it because I wanted to be respectful.
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But I've been praying for this. And now when you are listening to him, she's like, praise
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God, you know. So so, man, it was it was the truth about who Christ is. Right.
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What did Christ accomplish on the cross? Right. What did Ephesians to like the the wall of partition has been broken down.
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And now now we're united in Christ. Now we can come to Christ.
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Now we can have fellowship with God through Christ and just those foundational truths, man, that we learn when we receive
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Christ in the gospel are the very things that God used to awaken me again to the reality of my union with him.
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And if I'm united to Christ, then what does that mean for every other relationship that I have with brothers and sisters?
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Right. Like like if the barrier between God and I has been removed through Christ, then any other barrier between myself and any other person with whatever background they have or don't have, if they're in Christ, then we're brothers and sisters in the
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Lord. And so those truths, man, really helped me and reminded me of Christ.
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That's amazing. That's amazing. I am very encouraged to hear that because so often people wonder if there's if there's hope when someone gets caught up in this.
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It is very much like almost like another religion, like getting almost a conversion experience sometimes, depending on how far you go into it.
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But you that that hatred was just taken out of your heart because of what
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Christ has done. And that's the way it should be. And God used 80 Robles, which I see. I haven't heard this in detail.
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So this is this is new to me. I didn't realize he had used 80 Robles that much in a video of his.
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So that just shows you what you can do for people listening. You may think that your social media doesn't mean anything.
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You may think that your voice isn't listened to. And it probably is listened to a lot more than you you might think.
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And I just want to encourage people, don't give up. Keep proclaiming the truth. Stand by the truth, no matter what names you're called.
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And and that's what you did. So so you had that experience. You kept listening to A .D. You had these other brothers like Michael Foster reaching out and you were discovering things.
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And now you're to the point, though, you have your own podcast and you're kind of you're combating some of the social justice stuff, at least in some of your episodes.
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So how's that been? How have I mean, did you have friends before that were kind of woke that now they're like, man, what happened to Edwin?
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And now you got to kind of like navigate your relationship with them. What's that look like? Yeah. Yeah, man.
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Now, man, I just want to communicate the truth, bro. And and so so my channel isn't completely devoted to the woke stuff, but a good portion is right, because I know that there are a lot of people.
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What I'm finding, man, is there are a lot of people who who have family members or friends who are believing this and they don't know how to minister to them.
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And so what makes what makes my story unique is that I'm someone who came out of the movement and who was really wrapped into it.
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And I know the language of the movement. And so so and it's crazy, man, like it isn't just so like you can you can know it theoretically and that's good and that's important.
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And we need to do that so that we can give answers to that. But but I knew it. I knew it emotionally.
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And a lot of this is tied to the emotion. And and that and that's what's crazy, man.
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So so once once my heart was changed by virtue of the truth, my emotions changed.
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And now my perspective on brothers and sisters in the faith changed.
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Right. And so so now, man, with people who there are people who give me pushback all the time.
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And it means absolutely zero to me, bro, because I know
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I know without a shadow of a doubt where I was and I knew I know without a shadow of a doubt the anger and resentment and the bitterness that I felt in my heart.
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I know how it affected my marriage. I know how it affected. Bro, there was one time I'll share this. There was one time
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I was going to a church. I was asked to lead a Sunday school lesson. Right. And and we kind of use like a video presentation at this church that we were attending.
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And the video presentation was on Romans 13. And they were using and looking back,
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I probably wouldn't have done it anyway. But looking back, it was on they were talking about police officers and how we should submit to the authorities and all this and that.
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And I told the pastor, I can't I cannot. It was my week. I cannot say anything positive about the police.
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I will not do this. And this was at the height of like my social justice kind of warrior stance.
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And I said, I will not do this because I have nothing positive to say about white people and nothing positive to say about law enforcement.
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So I'm not going to do it. And so I was just so warped, bro, that it affected my
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I was bitter in the church. I was bitter outside the church. I was bitter in the home. It was this bitterness that followed me everywhere.
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So so now, bro, I just want to speak the truth, you know, and whenever I have conversations with people online or in person about these things, you know, you can always qualify something to death.
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Right. And it's like, look, man, this is where I was. This is what the word of God teaches. This is what you're saying that doesn't fall in alignment with it.
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And so you got to deal with that, man, because you may not be where I was. But if you continue down the path that you're on, this is the end result.
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If you're going to be consistent with what you're believing. Yeah. Well, it's no different than the rankest white supremacist, that stereotype of someone who thinks that all minorities or all black people or all whatever are evil or wicked just because of that external identification they have.
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They must be that and goes around with a chip on their shoulder and thinks that, you know, it's just no way to live.
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And that's not the truth. That's people are people. And are there different qualities that different cultures have?
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Are there different tendencies, I should say, that different cultures? Sure. Are there are there evil people in every culture?
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Absolutely. But every culture and every person has the same problem. Primarily, that's sin.
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And the same remedy, which is Jesus Christ. And I think that once you just realize that no matter what else you believe about anything, it cuts through that social justice stuff.
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It has to go and worship and stand next to a brother and sing praises to God and pray and take communion together and worship at the same church and have these horrible, hateful feelings and thoughts about them because of who they are.
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And so, you know, I'm just I'm thankful for you, brother. I'm thankful for the fact that God has brought you out of this and you can see it and and for your ministry and people can go away.
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What's your website, by the way? The proverbial life dot com dot com. That's easy enough.
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The proverbial dot com. And and you put out a number of episodes. I've watched some of them on YouTube and you can go check that out.
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And, you know, anything else you want to plug or final thoughts that you have? Yeah, man,
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I think we got to remember that our our sole focus, man, as followers of Christ is the glory of God.
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Right. We want to bring honor to God by the way we live our lives, by by the way we think so that we can honor him and represent him correctly in this world.
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And I think, man, I there was a season when I wasn't doing that. I thought I was. I look back and I think of it as Saul on the road to Damascus.
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Right. He thinks he's doing God's work, but he's not. And that's where I was. And the
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Lord in his kindness awakened me. He used brothers. He used means to bring me to repentance.
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And that's exactly what I did, man. Once I once I came to the realization that I was wrong in the way
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I was thinking, I really I really sought to make it right with everyone that I wronged as best
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I could. And I lost some friends in that process, unfortunately. But but I gained many more.
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And I was restored with my wife. I mean, we didn't go through a time of separation or anything, but there was restoration there.
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I repented. There was restoration there. And her and I did a podcast kind of explaining my story from her perspective.
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And it was it's really insightful, man, to see, you know, that ideas have consequences.
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They affect the people around you. And if you have the wrong ideas about God, then then then they don't bring
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God glory. And that's where I was. And so now, man, I just want to I just want to speak the truth and be used by God with the personality
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I have, with the means I have available before me, and just proclaim the glory of Christ, man.
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And then just, John, in closing, bro, I'm gonna say this in closing, is that, man, we need to fix our eyes on the person of Jesus Christ, bro.
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When he said it is finished on the cross, he meant it. It is finished. So now we can be reconciled to God through Christ.
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And we can call people to reconciliation. And that's the message, man, as ambassadors.
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And I think what one of the things that Satan wants to do, bro, is distract us from what God has called us to do.
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We're called to have fellowship with him and enjoy him. And that's a sweet that's a sweet fellowship that we have with him in Christ.
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And then we're called to proclaim him and to make him known. And Satan despises
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Christ and he wants to bring distractions. And that's exactly what we see taking place in our day with all this social justice movement stuff.
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Yeah, yeah. Amen. Your reformer beard matches your spirit there.
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So I appreciate you sharing this. And this is a wake up call to everyone listening. You know,
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I'll be transparent myself that that's my goal, what you just described.
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But you know, there's days I get off that in my mind. I'm caught up in the here and now, the cause and effect, the material world, what's in front of me.
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And it's so important to remind for me to remind myself and for everyone out there listening, when you first get up, you know, the reason that you woke up is
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Jesus Christ. The reason that you're able to take another breath and live is Jesus Christ and his mercy.
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And he has a good works that he's created for us to do. And he wants us to be in fellowship with him and with others.
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And that's, that's really where the best fellowship comes. If you're in a good relationship with him and someone else's, then you're in a good relationship with them, or at least you should be.
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So, Edwin, I appreciate you. I appreciate you sharing this. And God bless you, brother.