How Anti-Racism Entered the Church Through Women's Ministry
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When asked, after the release of her book Shepherds for Sale, what Megan Basham would have included if she could add to it, she responds that she would have dedicated a whole chapter or more to how anti-racism and other leftist ideologies are entering the church through women's ministries. She is correct.
On today's episode, I reveal how one of the most popular women's ministry has intentionally help create and promote an anti-racist, DEI training program from the very beginning.
May this episode expose the false teaching entering the church and bring glory to God.
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- By then, it was 2019, and some church staffers invited James to join a racial reconciliation study group titled
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- Be the Bridge. We are desperately in need of a resource that teaches us how to confront our hearts, expose our thoughts, and re -evaluate everything that we've ever thought about race.
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- To truly bridge the divide, Be the Bridge is that resource. Once there, he was told that new white members weren't allowed to speak for the first six months.
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- They were only to do the work of listening and completing a Whiteness 101 reading list.
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- What they're saying, what they're doing is they're taking the idea of whiteness, which at one time was just the structures that continue to hold black people down, and they've moved that into overlapping with the
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- Judeo -Christian worldview. So now what you're going to soon see is that whiteness is going to be removed and the
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- Judeo -Christian worldview is going to be put in that place. So now, instead of people saying whiteness is wicked, they're going to say the
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- Judeo -Christian framework is wicked. James abided by those rules for a few weeks, keeping notes on his now glaring concerns.
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- Even more than the division this particular curriculum seemed sure to stoke, he was alarmed at how the instructors were applying it to broader areas of life.
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- I started noticing that a lot of the discussion centered not just on racial justice, but on quite a lot of leftist causes.
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- Also right now, because it is 2024, and politics feels a little bit like it's on fire right now, myself and a longtime volunteer with Be the
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- Bridge Corrigan Brown are co -teaching a politics as bridge builders class to help people figure out how in the world do we begin to navigate having bridge building style conversations, and how do we approach voting as bridge builders.
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- The woman who led the group would frequently talk about oppressed -oppressor dynamics.
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- We are going to be talking about the trauma of white supremacy and white bodies and BIPOC bodies and then how do we really embody being a bridge builder?
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- How do we embody anti -oppressive practices? You know, depending on the day, you know,
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- I could feel like I'm having a really great day trying to be, work for those anti -oppressive practices, and then other days
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- I am just going along with the tide of white supremacy. At one point, they told us we needed to read more books from queer authors, because they were an oppressed group too.
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- And that's when it really started to click for me that this was a slippery slope to all sorts of dynamics.
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- The book's been out a couple months in, you know, as you've had time to kind of process and be away from the writing process.
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- Is there anything you wish you had included in the book or if you could do it over, you would have added?
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- Yeah, definitely. The big one is that I did not really spend time on women's ministries.
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- You know, I touch on it a little bit here and there, but I think it deserved a long chapter on its own just to talk about how so much of this tends to come in through popular women
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- Bible teachers and these women's conferences and the books and curriculum that are coming in through women's ministries.
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- I wanted to talk to a few people that were there from the beginning. So I have
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- Miss Jenny Allen, the founder and visionary of If Gathering.
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- It feels like we've been doing this forever, If Gathering and Be the Bridge. By just getting a picture of how you all connected with Be the
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- Bridge. What did that beginning portion of the story look like? Sure. In 2016,
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- LaTosha spoke at If Gathering and we were in attendance and it stirred me.
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- Those of you who are new to this upcoming conversation, we wanted to just take a minute to tell you that at If Gathering, we are passionate about championing you to engage in conversations and activities towards racial reconciliation and healing in your spaces, in your community, in your church, and in your city.
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- I think that's a huge problem and man, if I had it to do over again, I would have done at least one chapter that focused exclusively on that.
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- Welcome to the Thoroughly Equipped podcast, where we compare the teachings from popular women's ministry, books, conferences,
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- Bible studies, etc. to Scripture. Our focus is 2 Timothy 3, 16 -17, that all
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- Scripture is God -breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so the man or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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- I'm your host, Melba Toast. May this episode bless you and bring glory to God.
- 06:30
- Ladies, welcome to Thoroughly Equipped. If you are new, I'm so glad you can join me. Today is going to be an interesting one.
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- Actually, the next couple episodes are going to be very, very interesting. So let me give you a little background about why
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- I'm doing these next couple episodes. So last year,
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- I came across Sea of Gathering. Actually, scratch that. Two years ago,
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- I came across Sea of Gathering. I can't believe it's been two years now. Anyway, two years ago, I came across Sea of Gathering and a promotion on my
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- Facebook feed. And I was very interested because in my podcast the year before,
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- I had critiqued Jenny Allen's book, Get Out of Your Head. And I found her teaching, which the book was supposed to be a teaching on Philippines.
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- And I found it to be a little bit unsettling. And if you're interested in what
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- I have to say, I basically go through her book, even in the discussion guide, because I dived deep into this book specifically because I actually attended a small group study at a church, a
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- Calvary Chapel to be exact. And did the whole study with them. Anyway, so I saw some red flags with the way
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- Jenny Allen handled scripture through that book that I then became interested in knowing, well, what is this if ministry?
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- What does it entail? And I, right off the bat, started to see some red signs, red flags.
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- Anyway, so I did a deep dive into the if ministry as a whole.
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- Remember how in my discernment series, if you guys don't know and you're new, I did recently a discernment series on how to discern female teachers.
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- But with presenting four questions, basically, to assess whether she is a teacher worth putting yourself under.
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- And those questions were, does she submit to the authority of scripture? Does she believe in sola scriptura?
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- Basically, how does she handle scripture? Does she add things to scripture? Does she twist scripture?
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- And then the other question is, does she proclaim Christ and am crucified? Or does she believe that she needs her own testimony?
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- Does she need to make her presentations flowery and all about her testimony or her experiences?
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- Does she teach about you and who you are in Christ and your identity?
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- Or does she mainly focus on Christ and him crucified? And then the final question is to assess her discernment.
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- One, does she give good doctrine? Does she call out false doctrine and sin? And then does she yoke herself with false teachers, known false teachers?
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- So, I take those and basically did it all last year or a year and a half in diving into the if ministry.
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- So, I asked or presented in that podcast, do the teachers at if, well, what first was, what was their purpose?
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- What was if gatherings purpose? Then I looked at the popular teachers and do they submit to the authority of scripture by not preaching and teaching to men in the church?
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- And you'll find that a lot of them do. Then we looked at the way they handled scripture.
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- I took the 2020 conference and I basically took each presentation there by the popular speakers.
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- And we did a review and compared what they said about Romans chapter 8.
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- Because that's what they were going to go through in that year's 2020 conference and compared it to scripture.
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- And then I presented to you what the certain tools that they promoted, such tools as the
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- Enneagram, which was promoted at the IFLEAD 2019 conference. We looked at the theology within the
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- Enneagram. I also presented to you Dr. Kurt Thompson, who's been a repeated speaker at if gathering.
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- I presented to you his teaching. He has a ministry. He's a psychotherapist who's been very influential on Ginny Ellen and presented one of his books, which was on the soul.
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- And showed to you how he is a false teacher. Then the final one was connecting
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- LaTosha Morrison's teaching on racial reconciliation and how Be the
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- Bridge has been associated with the IF gathering. And so what I'm doing today, what made me decide to just scratch what
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- I had planned for this coming season, is to do those, that critique, that whole season critique that I did on my podcast and produce it for YouTube.
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- And it's because of the clip that I presented to you in the intro that I saw about Megan Basham.
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- And I had read her book, Shepherds for Sale, and I understand that there's a lot of controversy that that book brought on.
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- But regardless of those critiques, this part here that she says that it's entering through women's ministry,
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- I want to show you how it is very true. The firsthand knowledge that I have in studying the
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- IF ministry and the Be the Bridge ministry and how they're connected and how they're infiltrating the church, this is probably the main connection.
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- This is the main way that it is entering in the churches, I believe. And I want to expose that and help,
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- I guess, solidify what Megan Basham said in the preface of her book, in the intro, about how it's entering through Be the
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- Bridge and then how Be the Bridge is connected with the IF gathering. And, of course, how then
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- IF gathering has become one of the most popular women's ministries, women's conference and ministry out there.
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- So that's what I'm going to expose. And I am just gonna basically be doing a lot of reproduction, which is fine.
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- But I want to, this podcast has always been about looking at women's ministry and being able to discern what's coming into it.
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- And this is directly connected to my podcast. And so I would just want to be a blessing to you guys so that if this has entered your church or if you're starting to see warning signs of this, this way you have a resource to go to that will look at it biblically.
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- We are going to compare all of it, what is taught at the Be the Bridge ministry and what is taught at IF gathering, especially through IF -Equip and some other studies.
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- And I will show you and expose to you how, first of all, Be the
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- Bridge is entirely set to promote critical race theory and to convert people to a social justice gospel.
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- And then how IF -Gathering is what
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- I would call the seeds of social justice gospel or the social gospel, how it plants those seeds.
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- And then will lead you, because of the lack of discernment, to some very false teachings and adds to the gospel.
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- And so I believe that IF -Gathering is a dangerous conference.
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- It's a dangerous ministry and they're only going to grow now with what is coming with the IF -Gathering next year.
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- Anyway, so let's just dive right in. These next couple episodes are going to be deep.
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- They're going to be thorough and they're not only going to be presenting to you what they teach, but I want to equip you with scripture to be able to combat it and to see that it's unbiblical.
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- So let's start with first the IF -Gathering and let's start with Jenny Allen and what is the
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- IF -Ministry. So according to Jenny Allen, she got the idea or she didn't get the idea.
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- She got the vision for IF -Ministry and specifically the
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- IF -Gathering from A Voice from Heaven. I want to just for one second give you a little bit behind the scenes of where this all came from.
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- About seven years ago, A Voice from the Sky doesn't often speak to me, but that day there was this whisper.
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- It was the middle of the night actually and it was gather and equip your generation.
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- And this was ridiculous because honestly, I was a stay -at -home mom. I didn't know anybody that could help me with that job.
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- And it was a completely ridiculous statement, so ridiculous that I just for two days my bones hurt and I didn't know what to do with it.
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- So after being told to equip a generation,
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- Jenny Allen began to gather women together and start the
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- IF -Gathering with the question that if God is real, then what?
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- So IF -Gathering started back in 2014 and on their website, their own purpose statement says that it's dedicated to discipling
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- Christian women so that they can disciple other women with the ultimate goal of changing the world.
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- IF -Gathering starts with a conference, but it's not your typical conference.
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- It's typically held in one location to which attendees purchase tickets or may fly out of state to attend the conference and then fly back home.
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- Now they have their typical physical conference usually in Dallas, Texas, but where they're set apart is their use of technology.
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- They give on -demand online access of a conference to any church, college, small group, or personal house, you know, on -demand viewing for a fee.
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- These are called IF -Locals. And what typically happens is women will invite other women to these small groups or the church might post on Facebook their connection with the
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- IF -Gathering that they're going to host an IF -Local. And so social media is a big thing used by the
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- IF -Ministry on its way to grow and promote the
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- IF -Gathering. And so these women who are invited will register at their church, they will attend, and I'm sure, you know, the church puts on a big hoopla, decorations, all that stuff.
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- And then attending the IF -Local, they can watch the conference online.
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- What happens then after the conference? Because it's not just a conference. Many women, as women's conferences tend to do, you know, incite the desire to serve their community, call them to get involved, and so many women do.
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- They will probably appeal to their churches if they've done it at another local, or the church will find that this is very useful and want to take advantage of the ministry, the
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- IF -Ministry, as a parachurch ministry for their women's ministry. And so what they'll do is you'll find women who are gung -ho about IF -Gathering, and so the churches, or on their own price tag, will attend an
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- IF -Lead or participate in an IF -Lead in which they can become leaders within the church, or just want to learn how to disciple other women on their own, they can attend the
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- IF -Lead conference. It's very, very hard to find an online
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- IF -Lead conference. They don't really post those for the wider community or whatever, the online sphere.
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- They basically have it, that is just more physical, where you buy a ticket and attend the
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- IF -Lead conference. But at the IF -Lead conference, they get a more streamlined conference meant to encourage them and help them in leadership.
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- And these leaders can then utilize the IF -Parachurch ministry to disciple their
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- Christian women through Jenny Allen's books and the IF -Ministry's resources, such as their
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- Bible studies titled IF -Equip, or their small group conversation starters called
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- IF -Table. Now what has been the impact of the
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- IF -Gathering over the last 10 years? Let's look at that. So this is from the
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- IF -Gathering themselves. This is their 10 -year impact report that they recently released this year.
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- And on it, they give testimonials. But what I want to show mostly here is over the last 10 years, this has been the effect that IF -Gathering has had on local churches and basically just women,
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- Christian women in general. So it's gathered 1 ,000 ,000 plus women gathered via live and virtual events.
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- There have been 28 ,238 IF -Locals hosted.
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- And again, IF -Locals are, it can be a bunch of women gathered at a church.
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- And usually what they'll do is they'll promote it at the church and you can gather friends and it's like a, well, it's a women's conference that they will probably put on.
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- They use IF -Gathering as their curriculum for a women's conference, in essence, posting the, or watching it online.
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- And so that could be an independent church. It can be hosted at a home.
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- So say my church wasn't necessarily going to do this, I could myself choose to host a small women's group at home.
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- You'll see pictures. If you have attended these online, they'll post during the conference, the live conference, they'll post pictures from Facebook of small groups, pictures of church, larger church women's gatherings.
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- And, or an IF -Local. And then also this is college and they really, really push in college so much so that they make it free to host a local.
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- And so that's another way that they've really grown is by giving very easy access to young college students.
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- It says, back to the report, it says 1 .6 million plus participated in one of 10 gatherings in over 179 countries.
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- So overall, okay, so 1 million plus women have gathered.
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- And I think what this means, I'm not entirely too, but that's now what they've hit.
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- So 10 years later, they now have about 1 million plus women who joined the live and virtual events.
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- But over time, all across time, you've had 1 .6
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- million participate in one of the 10 gatherings. So that's over across the 10 years.
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- That's how many women they have basically influenced in some way.
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- So yeah, now we kind of have an assessment of who Jenny Allen is, what her ministry is, what is the
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- IF gathering and their impact, who is LaTosha Morrison, and what is Beat Bridge. So here's
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- LaTosha Morrison's own bio on her website,
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- LaToshaMorrison .com. And it says, LaTosha Morrison is a bridge builder, reconciler, and a compelling voice in the fight for racial justice.
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- In 2016, she founded Be the Bridge, a nonprofit organization equipping more than 1 ,000 subgroups across five countries to serve as ambassadors of racial reconciliation.
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- Numerous organizations have recognized her as a leading social justice advocate, including
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- Facebook's Community Leadership Program, Forbes, and Ebony magazine.
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- A native of North Carolina, Tasha earned degrees in human development and business leadership.
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- Her first book, Be the Bridge, will be released in October 19. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia.
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- Now, I have done a critique of this book, Be the Bridge, and I will be reproducing that on here on the
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- YouTube channel as well to help you guys see some, well, to help you guys see the critical race theory that is, some of the presuppositions that are in Be the
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- Bridge are critical race theory presuppositions. And I want to help expose that so that you can identify it.
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- Her extended bio here says, LaTosha Morrison is a bridge builder, reconciler, and a compelling voice in the fight for racial justice.
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- When she speaks, she expresses a passion for social justice issues across the globe.
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- She has taken her message. Now, hold on, let me go back here. Social justice.
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- This is a big issue, and I don't know how many people, especially women, understand that there is a difference between social justice and biblical justice.
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- And I will be producing more episodes revolving and teaching the difference in the coming episodes within all of what
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- I'm going to be doing here in looking at Be the Bridge in the next couple episodes. So, if you're interested in knowing what's the difference between social justice and biblical justice, stay tuned for the episodes to come.
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- So, she has taken her message to audiences across the country at events that include IfGathering, Justice Conference, Youth Specialties, Catalyst, Barna's State of Pastors Conference, Orange Conference, and, yes, ladies,
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- Mops International. So, I did a little digging into the Mops.
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- She has spoken at Mops International. She's even written an article for Mops, which is very, very interesting.
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- A native of North Carolina, Tasha earned degrees in human development and business leadership.
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- After excelling in corporate positions, she began working on staff at churches in Georgia and Texas.
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- At the heart of this incredible woman is encouraging racial reconciliation among all ethnicities to promote racial unity in America and to develop others to do the same.
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- To this end, in 2016, Latasha founded Be the Bridge to inspire and equip ambassadors of racial reconciliation.
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- So, what motivated Latasha Morrison to start
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- Be the Bridge? She says in her own website, latashamorrison .com,
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- under her main page there, it describes or tells the story that in 2012,
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- Latasha Morrison felt discontent. As she drove through the heart of Austin, Texas, she asked
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- God, why am I here? Why did you leave me so far from my family and my community on the
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- East Coast? And here she says, God replied, speaking to her personally,
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- I brought you here to be a bridge. So, she began to gather with a diverse group of friends to talk about what this might mean, and together they began to form a vision.
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- And eventually, Latasha Morrison writes her book, Be the Bridge, which becomes the
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- New York Times bestseller. It becomes the ECPA bestseller, which is the
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- Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. So, not only was it a bestseller among the broader population,
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- I mean, Oprah even did an article from her website about Latasha Morrison's involvement in her book,
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- Be the Bridge. But it's a bestseller among the Evangelical Christian population.
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- The book also won the Christian Book Award from Christianity Today. Latasha has been interviewed or has given presentations by channels such as 100HutleyStreet, with over 500 ,000 subscribers.
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- Think Media, with 13 ,000 subscribers. The Barna Group channel, she also was part of the
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- Thrive Conference in 2020, though I think she's been involved in Thrive Conference a couple times.
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- But as Latasha Morrison is the creator and visible face of the Be the Bridge ministry, what a lot of people don't know is that Be the
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- Bridge is actually a DEI training program. Bringing diversity, equity, and inclusion training to many businesses, schools, churches, and ministries.
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- And this is where the IF ministry is connected. Maybe even, like I showed you guys before, she's spoken at MOPS International.
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- What does Be the Bridge report itself on its growth and impact? Here is the 2022
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- Be the Bridge impact report. So I do expect that there was a lot more information in the last two years that is missing.
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- And I can't find, you know, some of the more current impact reports. But I appreciate this one.
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- It gives us a slight idea or a more closer idea of the impact that Be the Bridge has had.
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- And I really appreciate it because it goes from the very beginning over the last couple years. From 2015 to 2021.
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- Looking at the growth and how they were funded and what they used that money for when they received grants from, you know, such like Facebook.
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- Receiving the Facebook Community Leadership Program grant. Also, they release certain training programs.
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- How those are developed. And there are conferences or things like that.
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- They have a podcast. And, of course, you know,
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- Latasha Morrison has been interviewed by all over the place.
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- Just all over the place. So how they produced, they reproduced or revamped their
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- Whiteness Intensive Program. The director of developments and certain portions within their ministry is growing.
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- This is just a very informative impact report here. But here's where I want to show you their impact on, you know, individuals with people getting involved with this.
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- So I believe this would be the 2021 assessment.
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- So in 2021, from 2015, the beginning, they now have or at 2021, they had 20 ,228 total donors.
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- They put on 22 ,000 webinar views, which they have certain classes that you can attend online.
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- So once somebody goes to sign up to be or they don't technically sign up, but they first joined the
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- Facebook group where they're told for three months, they are not to post any comments, but they're to do the necessary reading, especially if you're a white person, you're to do the
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- Whiteness 101 training program and then read the books that they suggest you read.
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- So you'll come in that way in three months. You're not allowed to speak. And from what
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- I've heard from other testimonials, if you go in person, you're also not allowed to speak.
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- And it looks like some have even been told for six months. So you go in as a white person.
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- You're not allowed to speak. You can ask questions, I'm sure, but you're not to actually challenge it.
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- You have to read the stuff before you can technically, I guess, ask questions. Anyway, just as a white person to humble yourself and listen.
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- And so from there, they have after the Whiteness 101 and the readings that you do, they have other higher training programs.
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- If you want to get to know more about whiteness and how to divest yourself of it, they have the
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- Whiteness Intensive Program. And from there on, they have these webinar classes that are presented online through their academy.
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- So they have also 24 ,000 discussion guide downloads.
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- And that means that 24 ,000 of these discussion guides, probably in churches or small groups, they're downloaded and used in the small group studies revolving around racial reconciliation.
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- There have been 2 ,000 Be the Bridge groups across all 50 states and in 15 countries.
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- That's a lot to me. Even one is too much.
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- But so, yeah, that's a lot of these
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- Be the Bridge groups. And I believe individuals can hold groups.
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- It takes the same sort of practice that IfGathering has produced in discipling other people.
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- It puts resources in the hands of individuals who want to join. And they pay for the trainings.
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- And then basically, well, it's all grassroots.
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- And that's how it spreads so easily. Our Facebook group has grown from 70 members in 2015 to 74 ,000.
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- Now that is up to 81 ,000. Let me do a quick check here for the Facebook group.
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- It says Be the Bridge has now 80 ,000 followers.
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- And their programs, which this fascinated me. Besides listening to the podcast and being informed through the podcast, that is how
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- I came to learn that they are a DEI program. You think going in, and I think a lot of people here at Be the
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- Bridge, they probably even know about the book and they know about racial reconciliation. But they don't know about Be the
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- Bridge, the DEI program. And that is what it is. It's a DEI program. They come in and are hired by churches or other institutions or even businesses or even schools.
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- And here's where I even got incredibly blown away that they have a training program for those under adoption who are going through biracial or into biracial adoption.
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- Transracial adoption, sorry. And are training people how to divest themselves, especially if you're a white person adopting a
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- BIPOC child, then your job is to divest yourself of whiteness.
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- So that you can better raise that child.
- 38:03
- But anyway, so their training goes into not just community groups or the
- 38:09
- Facebook groups. They go into colleges. They go into high schools with their
- 38:15
- Be the Bridge youth. The Be the Bridge University goes into the college.
- 38:22
- They have a separate course always, a separate training for white people and a separate training for the
- 38:30
- BIPOC community. Already you have two totally different trainings. Then they have, like I said, their transracial adoption.
- 38:39
- Their normal Be the Bridge training for churches and organizations and other communities that have trained staff on cultural intelligence, anti -racism, and implicit bias.
- 38:56
- And their Be the Bridge ministry program tools and resources for pastors and church leaders.
- 39:07
- So they have gone into all sorts of spheres.
- 39:13
- They're affecting all sorts of spheres. Anyway, on this, if you want to check it out yourself, the link is in the show notes.
- 39:26
- Talking about their impact and how the webinars and guides have affected the community either the white people, the
- 39:36
- BIPOC, the transracial adoption, people involved in that, the university.
- 39:44
- Yeah, so when I say that Megan Basham's correct, this is how you can see, thanks to IfGathering, this is one of the ways, through women's ministry, how it is entering the church.
- 40:02
- Okay, anyway,
- 40:09
- I don't know if there's much on here. You can see who's the organizations who have partnered with them.
- 40:19
- Of course, you see IfGathering here, Legacy Collective, IJM, Salesforce, Asian American Christian Collaborative.
- 40:32
- Let's see who else was, Orange, MerchAid, SheReadsTruth, ladies.
- 40:46
- Okay, the Gospel Study Book, SheReadsTruth, a worldwide community of women who read
- 40:54
- God's word together every day, donated 100 % of proceeds from there. This is the
- 41:00
- Gospel Study Book to be the bridge in 2020, totaling $11 ,506.
- 41:09
- So I'm very wary or very saddened to see that SheReadsTruth has donated and played a part in this.
- 41:19
- They have raised $2 .7 million since 2016. And remember, this is a 2022 impact report.
- 41:28
- And they had 5 ,000 financial partners. Now, they go into what they're going to be doing ahead in the next couple years.
- 41:36
- They've already gotten this out. And that is the, do they get to it here? Oh, no.
- 41:43
- Okay, but that was the university, which is now. The university is basically an on -demand, individual on -demand can go deeper into critical race theory.
- 41:58
- Basically, the presuppositional idea or belief or ideology, it's pretty much an ideology.
- 42:06
- The ideology under critical theory itself is the fundamental belief that the world is made up of oppressors and those that are oppressed.
- 42:23
- Right? And so the whites are the oppressors, the hegemony within Western culture.
- 42:31
- That is that male, patriarchal, Christian, heterosexual kind of hegemony, the normality or the teachings, especially the biblical teachings that help kind of help the
- 42:53
- Western culture grow. That is the oppressor.
- 43:01
- Okay? And I'll show this through the next coming episodes.
- 43:07
- And the oppressed are those who, you know, are everybody else, basically.
- 43:13
- And so when it comes to divesting yourself of whiteness, you're not divesting yourself of your white color.
- 43:21
- You're divesting yourself of these ideas. That there is authority, which they would identify as patriarchy.
- 43:32
- That there is individualism. That there is Christian ideals.
- 43:41
- That there is a moral standard. Things like this.
- 43:47
- That there is male and female only. So there's these ideas that they eventually challenge within the teaching of divesting yourself of whiteness.
- 44:01
- And as you saw in the trailer, you see that that is direct.
- 44:07
- When they say the active work of divesting yourself or challenging whiteness and how that applies to theology.
- 44:15
- And you'll see in the coming episodes, I'll prove to you, that that means this white savior complex.
- 44:24
- And they will associate that with our typical, well, with true theology. That Jesus saves.
- 44:31
- And that he saves individuals. Because what they're going to do is change it, especially the gospel, to be about worldly salvation.
- 44:44
- The salvation of the world. And that we can't do that if we don't allow every culture to display their image of God.
- 44:55
- Or every ethnic group to display their image of God through their cultural beliefs.
- 45:03
- So instead of a standard of cultural beliefs being challenged by the
- 45:09
- Bible. Or being looked at through the lens of the Bible. It's, okay, each ethnic culture.
- 45:17
- Or each ethnicity has a culture in which they need. Which the image of God is somehow displayed in that.
- 45:24
- And they need to be able to display it. And that then challenges the theology.
- 45:30
- The white theology. And you're going to find that white theology is the typical, for generations, theology.
- 45:43
- What has been historical, typical, Christ -centered, gospel -centered,
- 45:52
- Trinitarian -centered, Jesus is the only way, theology, basically.
- 45:59
- Anyway, so like I said, their most recent launch is their now online training program called
- 46:05
- Be the Bridge Academy. Giving individuals the resources to start their own groups.
- 46:12
- This makes it a more grassroots movement. This is a very important thing we need to take notice of.
- 46:19
- Be the Bridge has taken these cues from the F -Gathering. The vast growth of reaching over 1 million women through the use of internet and technology at the
- 46:37
- F -Gathering, Be the Bridge is doing the same thing. So its impact is going to be a lot wider and broader and quicker than we typically think.
- 46:50
- Just like the Jenny Allen's ministry, which moved the women's ministry to an online platform, making it completely accessible to any woman for any church.
- 47:03
- Be the Bridge has moved in the same direction, except it's not limited to women. Though I think it's mostly women who become involved in this type of social justice work.
- 47:13
- And now they have expanded with training online, just like any congregant can attend the F -Gathering online.
- 47:19
- You can have congregants from any church joining a training group. And if they are white, they will be doing the 101 guide for white people.
- 47:27
- And then going into the whiteness intensive program to re -educate them on this new idea of racism.
- 47:36
- To re -educate them on the oppressor, oppressed, oppressed dynamic.
- 47:43
- Basically informing the white people that they have always been complicit in racism and that they are racist.
- 47:50
- And not to make use of their white fragility. But we're going to dive into all of this in the coming episodes.
- 48:00
- This, I believe, was inevitable as a whole. Be the Bridge training program was, of course, influenced by Jenny Allen and promoted at the
- 48:09
- F -Gathering conference. And has been continually promoted ever since. Be the
- 48:15
- Bridge and Jenny Allen, or LaTosha Morrison and Jenny Allen. F -Gathering and Be the Bridge have been tied together from the beginning.
- 48:24
- I wanted to talk to a few people that were there from the beginning. So I have
- 48:29
- Miss Jenny Allen. Something new that's added to her bio, and I just got to read this to you guys.
- 48:38
- Jenny Allen is the New York Times bestseller of Get Out of Your Head. The founder and visionary of F -Gathering.
- 48:46
- She is a passionate leader following God's calling on her life to catalyze a generation of women to live what they believe.
- 48:53
- Jenny has a Master's in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary and lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband,
- 48:59
- Zach, and their four children. Thank you, Jenny, for joining us. Oh, girl, this is so fun.
- 49:05
- Congratulations, Tasha. And I cannot believe it's been four years. It's been four years. I cannot believe that.
- 49:10
- I know. Does it seem longer or shorter? It seems way shorter. But at the same time, so much has happened.
- 49:16
- So in that regard, it feels like we've been doing this forever, F -Gathering and Be the Bridge. But gosh,
- 49:22
- I mean, it also feels like yesterday we were in our first little gathering of our little circle.
- 49:28
- I know. Yeah, and it's funny how you hesitate on that because it had no name. There was no name.
- 49:34
- There was no name. What did we call it? We just called it the circle. Yeah, and then there's been so many names since, so I'm like, what's the current name?
- 49:40
- But anyway, it was. It was just our little circle, and it was totally organic, and man, did God use it. And then from there, once I formed an organization, then we started calling it
- 49:50
- Be the Bridge groups. But our group originally, there was no such thing as Be the Bridge, and so our group originally was just the circle.
- 49:57
- Yep. I know. And I mean, time flies. And we started meeting back in 2014.
- 50:07
- Okay. 2014. Yeah, which is crazy because that's the year that F -Gathering started.
- 50:13
- Okay, so you can see there that from the very beginning, Latosha Morrison and Jenny Allen have been associated at least from the first year of F -Gathering.
- 50:23
- Now, they'll go back, or they'll go on throughout the podcast to talk about how they met, how the first group, which they called the circle, would meet, that it was power women, or power house women is what
- 50:42
- Jenny Allen called these women that were meeting, and the circle for discussing racial reconciliation amongst them.
- 50:52
- These were women who had already a platform and were probably well -known women who worked in women's ministry.
- 51:04
- Okay, so they're meeting. And then they go on to talk about the first time
- 51:09
- Latosha Morrison presents at Be the Bridge at the 2015 F -Gathering conference.
- 51:19
- Another thing they go into in the rest of the podcast is Jenny Allen's influence on Latosha Morrison, encouraging her to create a guidebook, which eventually becomes the
- 51:35
- Be the Bridge 101 guide, which is also the Whiteness 101 guide.
- 51:44
- Okay, so Jenny Allen, at least from this podcast, I hear her saying that she has influence on Latosha Morrison to create that guide and then display it somehow on the
- 52:02
- F -Gathering to display how they would discuss racial issues at the actual conference.
- 52:11
- Now, unfortunately, because it's a 2015 conference, they don't even keep records, they don't have any audio or visual videos of these conferences.
- 52:24
- And so I can't show you guys what was produced at that conference, how that conversation went, or how that was presented.
- 52:36
- But it was a very enlightening podcast, that episode, and wasn't really a surprise to me after doing a little digging and research.
- 52:45
- But I want to show you another clip here, in which
- 52:50
- Latosha Morrison then asked Jenny Allen what it means to her, what reparative justice means to Jenny Allen.
- 53:01
- And I want to show you the way she draws and connects reparative justice to being a discipleship issue, and how she felt it was necessary for F -Gathering to not only be a diverse ministry that imbibed what
- 53:22
- Latosha Morrison was teaching her, but to also spread it.
- 53:28
- And it's always under this idea that racial reconciliation and racial justice is a discipleship issue.
- 53:39
- And this will play out in another clip that I'm going to show you from Be the
- 53:45
- Bridge podcasts, where they look at how Be the Bridge has impacted local churches, and the way they're doing it.
- 53:55
- But I want to especially hone into the why. And the why is always going to be connected with it being, with racial issues, and racism, and anti -racism, especially being a discipleship issue.
- 54:12
- So listen to this clip. What does restorative justice look like to you?
- 54:18
- What does this look like to you? I think it's really grown for me.
- 54:23
- I'm someone who feels very called to preach the gospel. And that's my calling.
- 54:29
- And that's my lane. I've been trained to do it. DTS, this is my lane. That's what F -Gathering exists for. However, I've always felt like this was such an issue.
- 54:37
- I don't pick a lot of issues, right? I'm not very issue -based. I kind of stick to my lane. But this, for me, was always an issue that bumped so hard and tragically up against the gospel that it had to be handled and dealt with from our stage.
- 54:49
- Good. Now, I was a poly -sci minor and a broadcast journalism major. I saw my life as someone who thought problems could be solved politically, right?
- 54:58
- Like, that was up until the point of being about 25. I wanted to go into political storytelling.
- 55:04
- Oh! You know, I've never even talked about this. Because I really believed that was where the hope was.
- 55:09
- Now, as I grew up in the faith, I realized, no, the hope is through the church, and how can we reform there?
- 55:16
- Now, it's not to say that there's not a place for political reparations and all that. That is where my, I guess, imbalance has come back into my life, where I really am watching and hopeful for—I mean,
- 55:26
- I look at Jess Mercy and what Bryan Stevenson is doing, and I'm like, how do I help? You know, how do I give? How do I help? I believe there's things we can do with reparations in a way that, politically, that matter.
- 55:35
- But the way I really feel called is through the church, because we've got to be leading this. And you and I have seen the power the church has.
- 55:41
- And so, that's not to negate the other. It's just to say, for me, personally, my calling really shifted from politics to local church and to discipleship, and where I think we can help the churches to be engaged in the work, number one, relationally, to not ignore the work, to see the problem, and to name the problem as racism, and to do the work of repairing.
- 56:01
- And that begins, I've seen it best, happen through relationships. That's how it's happened in my life, and that's how
- 56:07
- I think the church is best poised for it to happen in theirs. And that's why I believe in Be The Bridge so deeply, is because it's not just, kumbaya, let's get together and let's talk about our problems.
- 56:15
- It's contagious hope. It is, let's spread this possibility that maybe we have been naive here.
- 56:24
- You know? Right. White women and white men. You know, we have not participated in what
- 56:31
- Jesus cares about in the way that he cares about it. And how do we realign our lives? And you've taught me.
- 56:36
- Like, it's using my voice. It's leveraging my relationships and my platform. So you hear
- 56:42
- Jenny Allen basically make the claim that white men and white women within the church were not discipled correctly to bring restorative justice, reparations, and just somehow the white church is lacking in racial righteousness and racial reconciliation.
- 57:12
- So, I thought that clip was very interesting because this is going to be the teaching, the presupposition that comes in through all of this is if you tell people, especially white people, that they, the church has done a bad job of discipling you on racial righteousness.
- 57:34
- You're going to hear that term a lot from Be the Bridge. That there's this racial righteousness that white people are lacking.
- 57:42
- And they don't have. And so, they're inferior in that way. And so, because of that, there needs to be a submission to the
- 57:53
- BIPOC community. To especially BIPOC community by placing them in authority.
- 58:00
- So, this is the claim that Jenny Allen is basically saying here.
- 58:05
- This is what she's implying. Once we understand that this is the problem that Be the
- 58:14
- Bridge wants to set and make people believe. And Jenny Allen has imbibed that belief.
- 58:25
- Therefore, you can understand why she makes this statement. That white people, white men and women within the church are lacking and haven't been discipled properly.
- 58:36
- And so, yeah, that's a huge red flag here.
- 58:42
- Ladies, this is one of the ways critical race theory and anti -racist teaching has infiltrated the laity of the church.
- 58:52
- This is why Megan Basham's book is so controversial. Because there is a truth to it.
- 59:00
- Okay? That's why I say, regardless of the citations, firsthand knowledge is that I have seen.
- 59:09
- And by diving into this ministry, these two ministries. And their vast influence on especially seeker -sensitive churches and non -denominational churches.
- 59:22
- And the Baptist convention. Baptist churches that are connected with the
- 59:27
- Baptist convention. That is how this has infiltrated the church.
- 59:33
- I'm going to expose the teachings produced by Morrison's books and ministry in the next couple of episodes to come.
- 59:42
- And then we're going to dive into the F ministry and their seeds of social justice that they present.
- 59:48
- Yes, critical race theory most definitely was taught to the laity through shepherds who stand behind the pulpit.
- 59:56
- Who write articles for popular Christian magazines and podcasters and YouTubers.
- 01:00:02
- Who bring critical race theory presuppositions under the guise of racial reconciliation. But how has it entered into simple local churches?
- 01:00:11
- Women's ministry. This has been what I believe the main way it's getting in. Get laity and women especially to be convinced that this is part of their salvation, sanctification, and purpose.
- 01:00:24
- And you got yourself a grassroots movement. A movement that can and does bypass the pastor and will blindside a faithful one.
- 01:00:37
- In fact, Be the Bridge did an episode on how they are entering the church. I took some important clips from this episode because it was a perfect example to present to you.
- 01:00:46
- Celebrating our six year anniversary. And what better way than to get some real life story of transformation and participation on the ground.
- 01:00:55
- And this incredible work of bridge building. And so we are talking to some incredible women from Hope Church.
- 01:01:02
- And we would love to open this up by just getting a picture of how you all connected with Be the
- 01:01:08
- Bridge. What did that beginning portion of the story look like? Sure. In 2016,
- 01:01:15
- LaTosha spoke at If Gathering. And we were in attendance. And it stirred me.
- 01:01:23
- For the previous year, I had been struggling with lots of feelings and thoughts.
- 01:01:29
- I grew up in Ferguson, Missouri. And so when Michael Brown was murdered in August of 2014, things stirred inside me.
- 01:01:37
- I didn't understand. I doubted it. This isn't where I grew up.
- 01:01:43
- I kept repeating that. I know I even put it on Facebook. This isn't true. This is not where I grew up.
- 01:01:50
- And I rebelled like that for quite a while. And then God kept whispering to me.
- 01:01:56
- And I finally heard him. And it said, hey, maybe that's the point, Lisa. Maybe that isn't where you grew up.
- 01:02:03
- And so that really confused me more. And I kind of pushed that out of my mind for a while. And then when
- 01:02:09
- I heard LaTosha speak in March of 2016, it opened it up and it made me understand that I needed to understand that.
- 01:02:17
- I needed to understand why that was different for me growing up in Ferguson than my peers of color that were not in the same spaces as me.
- 01:02:27
- And so it really stirred me. And so I ran out of that session, right, and talked to Beth and said, hey, we need to do something.
- 01:02:34
- We've been talking, how do we build our outreach and our community? I said, we need to start somewhere else.
- 01:02:40
- We need to start digging in first. And so that's kind of how we got that brought to HOPE is through that If Gathering Speaking engagement.
- 01:02:49
- So we got that initial connection, and then we now hear of Beth and HOPE Church.
- 01:02:54
- And how did this incredible work, this desire, this passion to see God's kingdom and racial justice and racial reconciliation work happen?
- 01:03:04
- How did that start to bleed into HOPE and the life of the church? Yeah, so Beth is I think at the time
- 01:03:10
- Beth was the connections pastor at HOPE. And so that was her job, right, connecting people with the places and things.
- 01:03:15
- So that's why I went to her. And then she kind of took it from there. Okay, so you see from that testimony how women's ministry, now women who attend the
- 01:03:26
- If Gathering, have received the information about Be the Bridge, feel passionate to bring it back to their church.
- 01:03:35
- And then in this case, she talks to their connections pastor to bring
- 01:03:42
- Be the Bridge in. And make use of their small groups at that time.
- 01:03:52
- So and then from here, the host is going to interview a woman named
- 01:03:59
- Rickisha. And I debated whether to have this on the podcast or not. But I actually think it's very important because not only in this episode did
- 01:04:08
- I want to show you how it's entering in, but why it's entering in. And I think Rickisha gives a testimony on why she feels, one, she lays out why she was disappointed in the white church.
- 01:04:24
- So this kind of lays out a mentality for some people within the church to help us understand where people, where they're believing the church is lacking.
- 01:04:42
- Which I will eventually try to show to you. It's not,
- 01:04:47
- I don't believe the church is lacking in this. I believe the problem is part of Christianity.
- 01:04:55
- If you come in believing the social gospel, you come in believing that the gospel's got to change social structures.
- 01:05:01
- And make America, or even the Western society, or any society in general, that Christianity should come in because it's going to change the world.
- 01:05:14
- So this clip is important, I feel, because Rickisha lays out her disappointment, like I said, with white, the white church.
- 01:05:22
- Because of their lack of desire to disciple
- 01:05:29
- Christians into anti -racism. So listen to this clip.
- 01:05:36
- I would love to hear Rickisha, just how that conversation with Beth, how you navigated that, how did you all connect?
- 01:05:44
- And then had you had any prior connection to be the bridge before this conversation happened? Yes, it was awkward.
- 01:05:53
- It was awkward, but also beautiful. I had spent some time stepping away from the church that I was a part of after 2016.
- 01:06:04
- And, you know, it's really easy to think that a lot of that was my reaction to the 2016 election.
- 01:06:11
- And I think because I've spent a lot of time in politics, a lot of people think that my disengagement and disappointment and brokenheartedness over conversations on race and injustice in that time had to do with politics.
- 01:06:26
- To be very honest with you, I was brokenhearted over what I saw was a lack of Christlike character in white evangelical spaces that refused to disciple on anti -racism.
- 01:06:41
- So I stepped away from that space for quite a while. And I was introduced to be the bridge from another local church.
- 01:06:50
- I didn't go to the church, but Central Baptist was doing be the bridge and they wanted to invite me in to be a part of that discussion.
- 01:06:58
- And I said yes, because I desperately needed to have the conversation and I needed it to happen with my brothers and sisters that were white.
- 01:07:07
- So I participated in that. I learned a lot. I grew a lot. I got real honest about what it's like to grow up in all white evangelical spaces, to be kind of have issues of race covered up with language of brotherhood and sisterhood, only to find that my pastors and mentors in those spaces could not pastor me through the particular pain that racism and disenfranchisement causes.
- 01:07:36
- So I got to pause here for a second, because what is stated here by Rakesh is probably a foundational issue for why
- 01:07:44
- DEI training is rapidly growing within the evangelical church. Rakesh has just expressed here disappointment in the quote white evangelical church for their lack of discipleship on anti -racism.
- 01:07:59
- Now, if we're old school, we would take what she said and interpret what she said as a disappointment in the church to disciple its white congregants to not show partiality and hatred against people of particular ethnicities or to exalt those of Caucasian ethnicities as better in some way.
- 01:08:21
- Someone receiving that statement with that sort of lens might be inclined to agree with Rakesh if they don't actually understand what the term anti -racism means.
- 01:08:31
- And it means something totally different. And this will be part of the episodes to come to expose what
- 01:08:37
- Be the Bridge means by anti -racism. But according to Be the
- 01:08:43
- Bridge, racism is no longer defined as hatred or partiality against a certain ethnicity and skin color.
- 01:08:51
- Racism is a system of advantage based on race involving cultural messages, misuse of power, and institutional bias.
- 01:09:02
- And I will add under cultural messages, theology, which we're going to see moving forward.
- 01:09:11
- In addition to the racist beliefs and acts of individuals. Here's a clip from Be the
- 01:09:17
- Bridge's own teaching on this. White racial equilibrium. Our country was founded on a white supremacy ideology, which was enshrined in the founding documents.
- 01:09:30
- From the top officials in our political system to the top leaders in most industries, it feels normal for whiteness to have power.
- 01:09:37
- And even though you and I did not create the ideology, we were born into it, raised in it, and we absorb the value of whiteness.
- 01:09:44
- And this is a product of socialization. So white supremacy ideology has created systems that are founded in racism.
- 01:09:50
- A good definition of racism is economic, political, social, and cultural structures, actions, and beliefs that perpetuate an unequal distribution of privileges, resources, and power.
- 01:10:02
- While individual acts of racism exist in this definition, it's so much bigger. So according to Be the
- 01:10:09
- Bridge, racism is not merely the mistreatment of an individual because of the color of their skin, but is now the systems of advantages or privileges and power that are claimed or assumed to be given to people of white skin color by these systems.
- 01:10:26
- And white people perpetuate or keep the system of power and advantages and privileges.
- 01:10:32
- They keep it going. And so to become anti -racism is to challenge or dismantle the systems of power, to dismantle our own privileges, and to rid ourselves of these advantages and privileges and grant them over to the
- 01:10:53
- BIPOC community. And so to be anti -racist is to be actively against power structures that are presumed to be built on whiteness.
- 01:11:04
- White people then are to dismantle their whiteness by removing themselves of their white ideas.
- 01:11:13
- And in the case of the church, remove themselves or decenter themselves from white theology.
- 01:11:20
- And this is the main problem. It's going to connect white theology with biblical standards and really twist scripture and especially twist the gospel.
- 01:11:37
- Remember, there's no neutrality when it comes to anti -racism. So that's one of the things that we have to understand.
- 01:11:45
- It's not just a personal choice to, I'm not going to show partiality to anybody, regardless of their race, gender, their class, status, all that, their age.
- 01:11:57
- To just not show partiality, you must go beyond that. Either you're anti -racist or you are racist.
- 01:12:05
- So even if you take on the biblical teaching that you are not to show partiality, that's not enough.
- 01:12:17
- To be biblical, to be gospel -centered, they're going to say, you have to be anti -racist.
- 01:12:26
- Within anti -racist teaching is the idea that you must become not just an advocate, but you must become an ally.
- 01:12:34
- And allies and advocates do different things. An advocate goes, yes, and is in agreement with anti -racist teachings.
- 01:12:45
- They're advocates, but allies will actually go out there and do something and make a change and literally dismantle the authoritative structures.
- 01:12:55
- And when it comes to a church, it'll dismantle the authoritative structure within the church. And you'll see that too.
- 01:13:01
- There's just so much. You're going to be so educated on these next couple episodes.
- 01:13:08
- One of the things is to say that you are an active anti -racist means you are actively submitting yourself as a white person to people of color.
- 01:13:18
- That you as a white person submit must, and if you're not, you're not anti -racist.
- 01:13:26
- You must submit yourself to a person of color. Which is why, you'll understand now why
- 01:13:32
- Latasha Morrison and Be The Bridge, they come into churches in their DEI program.
- 01:13:38
- Their program is set to train the people on their implicit bias.
- 01:13:45
- And then not only that, but come in and instruct the elders within the church and show them, instruct them on how to become more diverse.
- 01:13:56
- And that will be the requirement of training, either in -house training of the
- 01:14:05
- BIPOC community to bring them up into leadership or to hire people from the
- 01:14:10
- BIPOC community. And, again, the very dangerous thing is it's not just limited to the color of their skin.
- 01:14:21
- To be a diverse, they will say, they have to bring in people with other theology.
- 01:14:27
- Other theologies, okay? And for people in the
- 01:14:34
- BIPOC community, these people, to raise them up, it's not just that you just hire a
- 01:14:43
- BIPOC person, a Black or Indigenous or, you know, somebody of another ethnic, other ethnicity.
- 01:14:53
- You're not just hiring them who has the same ideas as you. They must be a person of the
- 01:15:02
- BIPOC community that is culturally intelligent, racially intelligent, and probably have a different, or I would not say probably, they have to have had, adopted the critical theory, foundational view that there are oppressor and oppressed enough so that they can come in and have that lens, have that worldview, and then help keep the elders in check.
- 01:15:37
- Do you see what I'm saying here? So it's not a matter of just hiring somebody who has the same theology, believes that scripture is enough, or adheres to the same creeds as you.
- 01:15:55
- They have to be people of the BIPOC community who take on the critical race theory worldview to be able to keep you in check.
- 01:16:08
- Otherwise, right? It's not anti -racism. Now, back to Rakeisha's claim here.
- 01:16:15
- When Rakeisha and others like her claim that anti -racist action is a discipleship issue, they are basically claiming that Christians are not following Christ's commands.
- 01:16:25
- Christians know that to be a discipleship of Christ, we learn from our Lord and obey His commands.
- 01:16:31
- Anti -racism is really anti -white activism. Social justice and activism become the gauge of identifying a disciple of Christ with this kind of idea that anti -racism is a discipleship issue.
- 01:16:50
- This is a belief that Christian discipleship is not really about the study of scripture, faith in Christ's work, or the individual's sanctification into holiness, but the belief that discipleship is centered on fighting for equal distribution of power, privilege, and positions of those of the
- 01:17:07
- BIPOC community, who promote the social justice and oppressor worldview, like I said.
- 01:17:13
- I want to point this out because this is becoming a common theme or claim in the evangelical sphere that anti -racism and social justice is a discipleship issue.
- 01:17:27
- We need to understand that we need to structure discipleship around scripture. So when someone makes this claim, we need to ask, is that true?
- 01:17:36
- Does scripture call us to be anti -racist? Is anti -white activism what Jesus was instructing
- 01:17:42
- His disciples to fight for and is becoming an anti -racist part of our sanctification? Lord willing,
- 01:17:48
- I will address this claim in more detail in future episodes, but for now,
- 01:17:54
- I want to point out what's being said and what is claimed in this clip.
- 01:18:00
- So back to it. I was angry, but also hungry for connection and conversation around this.
- 01:18:07
- So I went to the first Be the Bridge group, and then I connected with Beth, and she introduced me to Lisa, who has been my partner at Hope Church.
- 01:18:17
- And every time I hear Lisa talk about growing up in Ferguson and that reality check that the
- 01:18:25
- Holy Spirit brought to her, I just want to cry because at that same time, I was pretty convinced that white evangelicals couldn't hear
- 01:18:34
- God, but she could. So you notice that, what she said there, how she connected.
- 01:18:44
- She was pretty convinced that white people were not hearing from God because they refused to disciple on anti -racism or refused to be discipled into anti -racism.
- 01:18:58
- Yeah, that is a red, red flag. That saddens my heart because it exposes that she does not understand the gospel or what discipleship is or who
- 01:19:15
- Christ is. Because discipleship is about being Christ -like, and she thinks being Christ -like is being anti -racist.
- 01:19:22
- Anyway, so right there, it just blown me away. It was an extremely racist statement that just simply because one person is white, they were refusing to hear from God.
- 01:19:38
- But these two ladies, Lisa and I don't remember the other lady's name, but they, because they wanted to bring in Be the
- 01:19:47
- Bridge and talk about racial reconciliation and reparations and restorative justice and be discipled into anti -racism and divest themselves of their whiteness.
- 01:20:03
- They are actually hearing from God. That's a huge, huge red flag.
- 01:20:09
- Hope Church opened a space for this conversation that I think is so important, not just for people of color and white people who are geared toward justice, but I think the work of anti -racism and Be the
- 01:20:22
- Bridge is part of discipleship, and it's part of how we mirror Christ -like behavior to the world.
- 01:20:29
- So I'm grateful. So the word discipleship is thrown around quite a bit on the Be the
- 01:20:34
- Bridge podcast, as well as in interviews with Miss Morrison. The term racial discipleship pops up a lot.
- 01:20:41
- When you hear this term, I think it's another big red flag. So scripture says that the calling of the church is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we attain, till we all attain, to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the
- 01:21:02
- Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
- 01:21:08
- Ephesians 4 .12 Be the Bridge desires something very different.
- 01:21:13
- A unity of the faith and the knowledge of anti -racism, to disciple men and women in cultural and racial intelligence, so they reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of LaTosha Morrison, or at least
- 01:21:29
- LaTosha Morrison's idea of who Jesus is. In the
- 01:21:35
- Be the Bridge book trailer, Morrison claimed that the Be the Bridge book is the resource to help build the bridge between the races.
- 01:21:42
- It is the resource to bring racial reconciliation. It's the resource, like she said, that will address our hearts.
- 01:21:51
- If she truly believed what she stated, then she believes that scripture is not sufficient, that the gospel is not powerful enough to sanctify us and correct our partiality and hatred, and that Christ's commands are not enough, but that we need more.
- 01:22:10
- We need what LaTosha knows. We need Be the Bridge, and we need a
- 01:22:16
- DEI program to come in and train us up on cultural intelligence and our implicit bias and how we have privileges that others don't have.
- 01:22:27
- LaTosha is now the master teacher on racial righteousness and cultural intelligence, and she will lead the church into a healthy racial discipleship.
- 01:22:39
- As our institutions become more and more infiltrated with the oppressor -oppressed cultural
- 01:22:45
- Marxist worldview, and as our nation holds on to Christian standards and morals less and less,
- 01:22:51
- I believe Be the Bridge will become even more successful in the business and social sphere, and in the
- 01:22:58
- Christian cultural sphere, evangelical cultural sphere as well. But I pray heavily for these churches.
- 01:23:09
- Every denomination is being influenced by this, has been influenced by this, and Be the Bridge is having an effective hand in it through the
- 01:23:17
- IF gathering, through women's ministry. The visible church is dividing over it.
- 01:23:23
- In His grace, in God's grace, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, through those who speak against it and those who personally wrestle through it as it enters their congregation,
- 01:23:37
- God will call out His people, though. God is in control. And if your church has been affected by critical race theory or ministry such as Be the
- 01:23:46
- Bridge, and by God's providence, He's brought you to this podcast and then to watch the ones coming forth, knowing that I know that I am praying for you.
- 01:23:58
- I'm more than willing to answer any questions, especially regarding IF gathering and Be the
- 01:24:03
- Bridge, should you want to reach out to me. My email is melbatos at ttew .org.
- 01:24:09
- Stay strong. Share this coming series and this episode with others.
- 01:24:15
- Test the spirits. Be Bereans, ladies. Cling tight to the gospel. Hold fast to the perfect life of Christ as your righteousness.
- 01:24:25
- No need for racial righteousness. You have a perfect righteousness in Christ, ladies.
- 01:24:31
- And the penal substitution of His death for your sins. And like I always say,
- 01:24:37
- I pray you are in His word. Ladies, thanks for listening or watching this episode of Thoroughly Equipped.
- 01:24:45
- If this episode blessed you, would you give it a rating or a thumbs up? And if you think Thoroughly Equipped is a much needed ministry, consider subscribing.
- 01:24:53
- It helps spread the word. If you are interested to know more about Thoroughly Equipped, check out the blog. Or just find some other great
- 01:25:00
- Christian resources, you can go to my website at ttew .org.
- 01:25:05
- You can connect with me on Facebook and Instagram. Links in the description below. Or email me at melbatos at ttew .org.
- 01:25:14
- Thoroughly Equipped is part of Striving for Eternity's Christian Podcast Community. A one -stop resource for solid podcasts that can assist you in your
- 01:25:21
- Christian walk. Check that out at christianpodcastcommunity .org. I pray the God of all grace grants you more and more knowledge and understanding of Jesus Christ as the
- 01:25:31
- Holy Spirit thoroughly equips you through His written word for every good work. I pray you are in His word.