Giving Tuesday, Cru Staff Speaks Out, & Matthew Hall on CRT

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to Conversations That Matter Podcast, my name is John Harris. Coming your way today is a mega edition of the podcast, not only because the world has lost its mind since Thanksgiving, I don't know if it's the turkey, football, and stuffing or what, but because there's a backlog of information.

00:17

I didn't make a podcast last week because I was traveling due to the holiday and getting some final papers done for classes and so the news cycle does not settle down and so there's just a lot of stuff to talk about.

00:28

Sometimes I think during the holidays, maybe it's going to be smooth sailing one week and I can talk about maybe a book review or a historical figure or an aspect of theology

00:37

I'd love to talk about and yeah, it just doesn't happen. Last week was nuts and this week is even crazier and today there's some really big breaking news.

00:46

It may even be the biggest breaking news in the Southern Baptist Convention all year. Resolution 9 is big, but this is, we'll see what you think.

00:57

This has the potential to develop, but it is Giving Tuesday, so welcome to this episode on Giving Tuesday and I'm going to start off talking about Giving Tuesday and providing some alternative organizations to donate to because a lot of people tell me,

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I've been giving to this denomination, this organization, this evangelistic group, and now I find out they're going in a social justice direction.

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I don't believe that. What's an alternative? And it's been difficult for some people and I understand that.

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Believe me, nothing is more frustrating than thinking that you are supporting a noble cause that you agree with only to find out they're actually doing sometimes the exact opposite of what you paid them to do, right?

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And so I'm going to give you some organizations that I can personally vouch for because most of them,

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I know the people inside the organization and they have either taken public stands, I believe in every case they have, or they are certainly not going the way of social justice.

01:54

Most of them have taken public stands against it. So I'm going to show you that. We're going to move on from there to talk about this big breaking news that I just mentioned that's coming from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and then

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I want to show you an interview that I just did, it's all queued up and ready to go, from the first ever whistleblower who is currently employed on staff in CRU and I don't know, he may not even like the term whistleblower.

02:20

I mean, some people would probably call him that though because he's telling his story from the bottom up.

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I mean, he shouldn't really be a whistleblower but because it's so rare for someone inside CRU or any of these organizations to come out and say this is what's happening publicly, he ends up, he's kind of going to get that rap,

02:41

I'm just saying. But anyway, a brave young man who is currently on staff with CRU has decided to talk with me and we did about a 40 minute interview where he's going to share his story and tell you exactly what's going on in that organization, at least how he sees it and he has some really good things to say about that.

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And so after that, we're going to move on though to some comments that Matthew Hall has made. Matthew Hall is the provost at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He's all set to take over for Al Mohler when

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Al Mohler retires and put out a blog last week on critical race theory, opposing it.

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And this has gotten some, well, it's been noticed. There's been some commentary on it and some of the commentary's been pretty decent, been good.

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I mean, some of it's been kind of people who are just looking at his article, reading it and at first glance commenting on it.

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And I've done a little more research on this. I've really, I've spent some time analyzing this article and I want to tell you what

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I think is going on and I think it is important. So anyway, that's the preview.

03:53

That's where we're going today and let's get started. Let's talk a little bit about Giving Tuesday, shall we? So yeah, there's the headline.

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We'll come back to that. Let's start with Giving Tuesday. So here are some organizations and you can find all the links for these organizations in the info section on this video.

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And they are all 501c3, so tax exempt status. And I know a lot of you are looking at places to give your money at the end of the year.

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And these are organizations and all of them, in some capacity, whether it's their leaders or the organization itself, have taken very public stands against the social justice movement going on within Christendom.

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So International Society of Christian Apologetics, they are putting on a conference next year to tackle this issue.

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Founders Ministries, as many of you know, Tom Askell is the head of that, effectively.

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And they have a movie that they are putting out this December called

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By What Standard, which is challenging the social justice movement and the Southern Baptist Convention. The Gospel of God Ministries.

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Now, I know some guys in this, and I just gotta tell you, I am really a supportive person of street preachers.

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The ones who do it right. I'm not saying every street preacher out there. But those who do it right, who do it the way, or at least try to do it the way that Jesus and the

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Apostles did it. And Gospel of God Ministries goes on college campuses. I think they're mostly in North Carolina.

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But they are growing and they preach the gospel and they just do a good job.

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I've gone out with some of the guys there and I've just been really impressed. And so, the next one is

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HeartCry Missionary Society, that's Paul Washer's group. And Paul Washer has signed the

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Dallas Statement on Social Justice. And the HeartCry Missionary Society, I've supported them for years.

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Alpha and Omega Ministries, that's James White's ministry. I believe, now you know what, all of these are 501c3, and I know

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I said that, and I'm pretty sure Alpha and Omega Ministries is as well. I don't believe they are a for -profit.

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But I'm second -guessing that right now for some reason. But anyway, you can check that out if you want. Alpha and Omega Ministries supports

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James White and he does a lot of ministry to Muslims and Catholics and Mormons. But he talks about the social justice movement quite a bit as well.

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And then of course, Enemies Within the Church. Now, Enemies Within the Church is a film and it's supposed to come out next spring.

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By the way, thank you for those who donated. I'm working with them next week, flying down to Naples to do some interviews.

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And thank you for those who donated to that cause. We're expecting to put a really good quality video together of what's happening at First Baptist Naples.

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So that's another organization that you can donate to. They are under the umbrella of a church,

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Cornerstone World Outreach in Iowa. Because this church is helping produce this movie, it is a tax -exempt donation if you go to their website.

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And then, okay, so I've got to explain this one. Last but not least. Grace Bible Church in Wampanoag Falls, New York.

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This is, people are going to say, John, isn't that your church? And yes, in a sense it is. I don't actually currently go there.

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It's not my church at this moment as I'm taking classes. But it is what

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I would, it's a church I would consider my home church. I grew up there. My father's a pastor there, so yeah, of course there's nepotism.

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I am shamelessly telling people to go and donate to Grace Bible Church in Wampanoag Falls, New York.

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I know the people there, and man, there is not an ounce of any social justice thinking whatsoever there.

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They're a smaller church, I'd say 120, 130, 140 people on a

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Sunday. But a very vibrant ministry, especially to the Culinary Institute of America. There's a guy there who is actually pretty connected with Way the

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Master, who's a professor at the culinary, and he does a lot of good work with the students there.

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And so, yeah, just funding for food and tracks, and just the expenses that they have right now.

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They're doing some site plan work, and there's thousands of dollars they're paying. And I know I was talking to my dad over Thanksgiving, and he was saying financially, it's getting stretched a little thin right now.

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So anyway, if you are in a church, and I know there's many in this situation that started to go the social justice direction, and you've left, and you're looking for churches, and you don't have a place, you're in a unique situation, to give your money, please consider

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Grace Bible Church in Wampanoag Falls, New York. They are in a sea of progressivism and secularism up there in New York, but doing a good work,

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I'd say. And so, anyway, that is that.

08:53

Forgiving Tuesday. I just wanted to make that announcement. Now, what's going on at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary?

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I'm going to be brief with this, and the reason I'm going to be brief is because Robert Rostro Lopez, who is the center of this story, is actually booked to come on with me in the next podcast.

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So we're going to be hearing a lot more about this, but long story short, this is a story from Capstone Report today, shock,

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Baptist Seminary fires conservative Latino over belief Jesus changed sinners, professor told not to discuss sex abuse or homosexuality,

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Southwestern told Lopez that the URLC, that's Russell Moore's group, was unhappy with his teachings. Now, let me just kind of cut through all that.

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Robert Rostro Lopez was on my program, you can look it up, a couple months ago, and he shared his testimony. He was raised with two lesbian moms,

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I believe it was 10 years, he was in a homosexual lifestyle, and God delivered him from it, not just from damnation and hell,

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God delivered him from his lifestyle. He has a wife, he has kids, he does not believe there is a gay orientation, and I've talked about this before, this idea that's being pushed by the

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URLC, revoice, living out, it's that there's this fixed, innate gay orientation that people have, and God may not deliver you from it when you become a

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Christian, you shouldn't expect that, you should just live in your singleness for the Lord, and don't look for that. Well, Robert Rostro Lopez didn't buy into that, he did look for that, and in his mind, it's kind of absurd, it's like taking any other sin, like let's say, take racism and say, well, you're a racist, but now you're saved, and don't expect

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God to deliver you from that, that's just your orientation. Robert Rostro Lopez says, well, where is that in Scripture? That's not a biblical idea, that's not biblical doctrine of man, you are who

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God designed you to be. And so, this is the message that he puts forward, and this is not the message that evangelicalism is putting forward in general now, which is a huge switch, like in the last five years, and it certainly correlates with all the states who are banning reparative therapy.

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So if this is true, guys, if Robert Rostro Lopez was literally just fired for upholding what

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Christians have believed for thousands of years, I mean, they'd never conceived of this orientation business, that this was like a fixed thing, they never saw that in Scripture, certainly.

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And Robert Rostro Lopez is fired, it doesn't matter if the idea that homosexuality is this fixed innate orientation, if that's not in your doctrinal statement, it is now, even if it's unwritten, because you're functioning that way.

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And I've said this, that the social justice movement is a danger because it does threaten our doctrinal statements, not because right away it's going to rewrite them, but because actions speak louder than words, and there is a new orthodoxy, like you can disagree a lot of these places on almost anything, eschatology, soteriology even, like the

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Calvinist -Arminian debate, there's all sorts of things, you can disagree in many cases on social justice, look how many professors signed the

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Dallas Statement, like one, in the Southern Baptist Convention, you just don't do it. So all that to say, if this is true, and we're going to find out more when,

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Lord willing, when Robert Rostro Lopez is on the next podcast doing an interview with me, this is big news.

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This has the potential to really develop, and boy, we're in deep trouble if this is true.

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So now, while we're waiting for that to develop, though, let's talk a little bit about Crew.

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I'm going to share my interview with Jesse, who is a staff worker at Crew.

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Jesse, thank you so much for joining me on this program. Yeah, no problem.

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So I want to start, Jesse, with at the beginning, let's just go sequentially through kind of your experience at Crew.

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I know you told me you were saved at 18, why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Going into college,

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I became a, went in as a philosophy major to answer all the questions that I had.

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I didn't want to wind up in some desk job hating my life after college, and so I went to liberal arts.

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Now I kind of wish I had some sort of sciences. But anyway, so probably the second week of school,

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I'm in my friend's dorm room playing Halo 2, that dates me there, and these two guys knocked on the door, and they were looking for that guy's roommate who had filled out one of the contact cards for Crew.

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And they said, hey, we're from Crew. We started talking. They said, what's your major? I said philosophy.

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They said, oh, who's your favorite philosopher? I'm like, I don't know, man. Like, I just got here. It's my second week of school. I don't know too much.

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And after that conversation, they said, well, we're from Campus Crusade for Christ. That's what it was called back then.

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I said, oh my gosh, you guys are Christians? If I had known that, I wouldn't have let you in the room. And yeah, that was my posture toward Christianity at the time.

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And a few months went by. I wasn't really finding my answers, even though it was only, you know,

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Philosophy 101 or a couple other classes. I finally read Mere Christianity by C .S. Lewis.

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And as I'm finishing the last page, one of those guys comes back, knocks on my door, and we started talking about that.

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He shared the gospel with me, and probably within a week, I gave my life to the Lord. So yeah,

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I love, obviously, it's had a huge impact on me. Those guys discipled me, taught me about getting plugged into a church, because I pretty much came to Christ, like, in my dorm room, explained, you know, what it means to do that.

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Met my wife at one of the summer missions, and now we have a daughter. And I owe a lot to the crew and the guys who invested in me.

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That's absolutely wonderful. I love hearing that story. And that's one of the reasons I love campus ministry, is, you know, people like yourself who are trying to figure out what life's about, you being a philosophy major at that point, trying to answer those ultimate questions.

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And that's such a great time to just share the message of Christ into that environment where people are already looking for answers.

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So what happened then? Over the next couple years, you know, you somehow became on staff with crew, you're working for them.

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And I know you saw my video, the montage, at least, of what happened at the summer conference with crew.

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And you started having some reservations about some of the things you were hearing. Can you tell us about some of that? Yeah. So when

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I graduated in 2011, I worked for a transportation company for a few years.

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My wife and I, we always knew we wanted to join staff, and so we finally saved up a ton of money to join staff.

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And then, so the first conference that we went to was in 2015.

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And I remember they had made kind of their own in -house Twitter application, but you could change your name and your photo at any time.

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And this was probably, for me, my first experience into,

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I guess, what you could call the social justice movement in crew.

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And I remember I made an innocent comment. I was up in the rafters during the conference, and I heard a flute.

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And so on this fake Twitter, I tweeted out something about like, hey, you think she could play

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Lord of the Rings? And it turned out that it was from like, it was a song from some culture.

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And I just started getting blasted about how insensitive I was being and I was like, what's going on here?

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I didn't even know that this was like a ancient, you know, like a cultural thing that I was being offensive toward, you know?

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And so that was the first time that I started hearing about those things and then getting implemented into like the ground.

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And so there's kind of a difference between what is what happens like your day to day on staff with crew isn't, you know, you're not super tied or connected to what's going on corporately, like at the top of the corporation, you know?

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And so the conferences are where they sort of try to set direction and cast vision. But yeah, my day to day,

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I'm working with my friends, my co -workers, and we're out there on campus sharing the gospel.

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So there's this disconnect, you know, between those two things. But at that point is when probably about two years ago,

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I started to feel it a little bit more with some books that were being encouraged. I just want to be clear, the comments you made on Twitter about the flute, what year was that?

18:17

2015. And what was this at a conference then? Yeah, it was at the National Conference, it was crew 15.

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So to be, yeah, and it was like they had created their kind of own social app.

18:33

OK, so it wasn't like, so this was crew staff, other crew staff kind of going after you for that comment.

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OK. And and then after, so that makes sense. 2015.

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And then after that, you've seen more. You said books were the books. How are the books coming in? Were they just advertised on crew's website?

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Or how did you hear about these questionable books? We heard from some speakers that said, hey,

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I think that this is a good book that you could read as a team. The particular book was

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Why Are All the Black Kids Eating in the Cafeteria?

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Together, I think that's the name, it's kind of long. But I remember even like before the book even started in the preface, it talked about changing the definition of racism.

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So where you give the example of how where sexism is mostly males being sexist toward females.

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We ought to view sexism as like males being sexist towards females and understand that definition as that.

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And so so in a sense, you're saying you can't it doesn't go the other way. And then she tied that this author tied it into same thing with racism because racism is mostly the majority white culture being racist toward minorities.

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We then need to understand that racism can essentially only be white people.

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And when I read that, I was like, what is going on here? And I brought it up to my team and they're like, yeah, that when you kind of it's word is very like flowery, you know, in a way that is almost palatable.

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But then when you really unpack it, you're like, this is what you're saying. There's only white people can be racist. It's it was kind of it's kind of difficult.

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You, though, sounds like correct me if I'm wrong. You recognized maybe where this is going, partially perhaps because of your background.

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I don't know. And it sounds like others in the group were just kind of nodding along or at least willing to accept this idea, which

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I mean, to accept the idea that only certain groups can be racist. That contradicts the idea that sin is the problem of every man.

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Right. So, I mean, you're tinkering now with the DNA of what sin is. But anyway, you saw this.

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And what was the reaction? I mean, do you think I'm right in my assumption there?

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What were the other people just kind of willing to accept that or is there pushback from others in the group?

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I could probably tell you that ninety nine out of one hundred staff members last said, what's

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Marxism? Or like add whatever, you know, that sort of thing that they don't know you're talking about.

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They just say, I don't know. And so what happens is it's like sheep being led to slaughter where they see everyone else going along with it.

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They're not really sure what is going on. And in some ways, I feel like that sheep that's looking out and saying, hey, if we if we're accepting some of these ideologies, this is leading down a bad path.

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But it's difficult to communicate that because and yeah,

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I hesitate now thinking that someone might watch this like they're really smart.

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It's just the background. Right. And so in a lot of ways, I think that they're unaware of what's going on.

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And in a lot of ways, I was unaware and had to do tons and tons of research to understand and like what's going on.

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So now it is trying to figure out. One of the one of the things is, how are you like subtly or unconsciously racist?

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And there's this one of the tests going around the unconscious bias test, which

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I haven't heard of this from now. OK. Yeah. Look it up. Jordan Peterson has a good comment on.

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It's basically a test. My wife had to take this recently. It's basically a test that tries to show, tries to reveal.

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To you how you are unconsciously biased or. Certain sexes, races, cultures, religions, things like that, but.

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And then what some companies are even doing is they'll take your test results and depending on your score, you might have to go to a sensitivity training.

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Is this happening in crew? Well, my wife had to say she was asked to take the test recently as a part of this leadership training.

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And and so here's one of the things I think that. And again, this is kind of going back to I think

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Christians are easily manipulated into some of these things because we're told that and it's true, we're wicked.

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We're sinners. Our hearts are not. We're not made whole, although we are made righteous, we're still being sanctified.

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And part of our repentance is being humble, admitting those things and repenting.

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Right. And so I think and even the people administering it are like, oh, this is a way that we can practice repentance.

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But they're not understanding where did that come from? Again, it's coming out of like far left liberal universities.

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This test was created. I forget exactly who. But then even the like the retestability on it is not good.

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It's it's essentially by psychologist pandas. This is not a good test. What does this look like then in crew?

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Like if your wife didn't score well, does she have to go to like the lenses Institute or is it kind of not developed quite yet?

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They're just using the test because it's the cool thing to do. I think it is a ladder. I think it's like, oh, this is something that's really interesting and will open your eyes to ways that you are biased against people.

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But again, it's not even like your conscious bias. It's your unconscious bias.

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What have you seen other than the test and this book, sociology book?

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Have you seen other speakers come through your particular area and push some of these ideas over the summer?

25:22

I had I was tasked with taking. It was called biblical interpretation, and it was paired with another class that was biblical communication, and we took one verse and we kind of worked with that for the four weeks and we were in class for two and a half hours.

25:41

Some of them were it was like first half lecture and then the second half. It was a large group lecture, and then you broke off second half into smaller groups, about 10 people, and you had a

25:53

TA or a coach. And I don't think that this was necessarily a reflection of everyone because I had other people that said, hey, my coach is great, facilitated conversations really well.

26:08

But my particular coach, I feel like he just had.

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I mean, I want to say it felt like a very open bias toward white people, and it was kind of difficult.

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That's that's hard for me to say. But it came out in one particular moment where.

26:39

So the class is supposed to be about interpreting and communicating, so we're pulling things from Brian Chappell's book,

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Christ -Centered Preaching and learning about the fallen condition and Christ's redemptive solution.

26:55

And we were we listened to this one sermon that was given by a black preacher and it was it was right after a student against a black person.

27:12

And so it was a very emotionally charged sermon. And I don't think anyone can watch it without feeling that, you know, just feeling emotional toward it.

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But at the same time, and like I said, going back to my philosophy background, I thought we were then going to essentially see if he was true or intellectually honest with the passage.

27:39

But it didn't go there. We had about 15 minutes left in the class once it was done.

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And. And I think appropriately so, if you're like it was such so strong in terms of its impact that a lot of people.

27:55

And especially white people in the room were talking about how they felt really sorry and one girl was crying and she said, like, what can we do to fix these injustices?

28:10

And my coach's response was. This is a paraphrase, but this is the almost essentially what she said was that is a very

28:28

Western response is how do I fix it? So right now, you like the best thing you can do is to just lament and essentially sit in it and be listeners.

28:40

And that's that was something that was going back all the way to the 2015 conference where I remember my wife was like, what?

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So what are we going to do? Where's where are we going? And I was like, maybe we'll find out the next one. But each year, it is more and more of this just not trying to say this is what we're going to do.

29:01

But like, we're just listening and we're lamenting. And so afterward, there were about one minute left in class.

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The coach. Stands up. And says. I want to thank you all.

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She said, as a person of color. As the only person of color in the room,

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I want to thank you all who shared. I want you to know that those of you who didn't.

29:32

Your silence says more than your words. And that was like it.

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And then the class ended. So you have sociological ideas coming in and dividing people up into these different groups and making certain groups feel guilty.

29:49

And I mean, it sounds to me like, you know, no one no one was probably even aware or tried to challenge some of the narrative.

29:58

It was more just like, what can we do? And that's not even good enough to ask that question. I mean, look, if I was sitting there,

30:04

I would probably want to say, look, it was a horrible thing that happened. I don't know what shooting, you know, was being referred to in the sermon you all had to watch.

30:13

But I feel like, OK, you know, the statistics that there's been a number of studies on this and, you know, the disparity is more often assumed than actually proven.

30:25

Usually, I remember I was reading. I think it was in The Washington Post maybe two or three years ago.

30:30

There was one. I think it was an Ivy League school did a study on this and they found out, you know what?

30:36

It was pretty, pretty even per capita, but it actually was a little more slanted towards white people.

30:42

White people were killed. Unarmed white people more often than police officers. And then

30:48

I see I'm catching myself. I'm going to say person of color. I was going to say the black demographic.

30:55

I mean, say, yeah, I mean, I don't know what I mean. I'm not abiding by those.

31:01

Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't even know what person of color necessarily means. Is it, you know, does it expand to include

31:07

Asian -Americans and I don't know. Anyway. But anyway, all that to say, like, they're not advancing this argument based on like actual studies or statistics to say,

31:21

OK, here's a problem in this country. And then, you know, giving rock hard proof to trace it back, trace it back to this is a bias within this police department.

31:30

You know, look, this this police officer said he wanted to go and murder minorities or like they had nothing like that.

31:35

It's just kind of an assumed idea that the police are they're out to get minorities and and and then heaping guilt upon majority culture people that they are somehow they're guilty for this.

31:53

They're helping, you know, perpetuate attitudes that cause this. And and this is just what you're describing is just so different than the gospel.

32:04

And that's the I think the issue that you have and that I have is that there's no hope in this.

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You know, what can we do? We can go preach the gospel. Right. No matter which way the disparities are or who's sinning against whom, we can go and we can preach the gospel.

32:21

That's changing hearts is the way that we change the culture. And I just don't hear that as much anymore.

32:29

And and so what you're sharing about what you're noticing in your local crew staff is it's indicative of I think of what's happening in Christianity in general is, you know, the gospel is the cure here for any of the ailments that we have.

32:47

And this idea that you just got to sit in guilt. I want to share one more thing that happens.

32:55

And. And it's evidence of how. Like some of the mentality and the mindset that are being influenced by some unethical ideologies creeping in and it's practical like application or like or experienced whatever, like what can happen?

33:18

And here's one thing that happened was there's this guy. I said there was lectures at the beginning of the class and he's probably like 50 in his late 50s, a white

33:30

American staff member. And he gave he was trying to talk about biblical interpretation or communication at this point.

33:38

And it didn't work. But he tried to use this analogy of like bringing things over from Canada.

33:45

And the idea was that some things culturally back in, you know, first century

33:52

Christianity or even, you know, further back than that, they they won't like cross the bridge into our culture today.

34:03

Right. And. And that makes sense, you know, that's why we have hermeneutics, because we're trying to understand like,

34:10

OK, what do they mean by this? And that's what he's trying to say. Right. He used analogy of bringing food over from Canada and how some things can't come over.

34:20

And he went on for like 10 minutes about us. And it was like an analogy that wasn't working. I felt bad for him. But then at one point, so he said bananas.

34:27

And at one point he said that there was a student and he gave an actual like when he tried to go to Canada, there were two students he brought.

34:35

But one of the students only had like working or student.

34:41

Um. What is it when you come to work at Visa? Yeah.

34:46

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Card. Yeah. But he couldn't leave the

34:51

United States. And so he was saying so he couldn't cross the bridge. And then the next day,

34:59

I don't even know how this happened. The next day he gets someone says, hey, we want to address what happened yesterday.

35:07

And I'm like, what happened yesterday? And so this guy, he's going to come up and speak. So he gets up and for about 20 minutes gives an apology for talking about how one of his students couldn't cross the border from Canada to America because it would evoke emotions of like people's families not being able to get into America or something and how it was culturally or it was just insensitive.

35:41

And then what he said was, I'm sorry that this had offended some people because apparently some people had spoken up.

35:51

So then my teacher, the coach, when we broke off, she was like,

35:56

I just want to talk about how you guys experienced that. And I was surprised to see that people were like, yeah, you know,

36:07

I think it's really good that he apologized. And again, going back to Christian culture, when you confess, it's like a good thing.

36:15

But I said. My response was I said when he talked about that,

36:21

I actually thought it was good because it reminded me of how hard it was for my family to come into the country and some of the things that you had to work through to get like,

36:30

I have relatives who they had to wait 12 years to be able to come into the country.

36:36

Then once they got into the country, they had to work for five years and then they could apply for their citizenship.

36:43

So it brought up to mind those things. And I talked about that. And I don't think she liked that because it wasn't, you know, basically bashing this guy.

36:53

And and so she said that she thought was wrong because he it seemed like he was comparing people, this ethnic minority to food and items.

37:06

So it was like objectifying. This is this is what she felt was that he was objectifying an ethnic minority.

37:13

And then said, because this guy was like, I think he was a Chinese. He said that he talked about bringing bananas over and banana and a derogatory term for an

37:29

Asian -American who is yellow on the outside, her words and but like acts white and is white middle and said that she doesn't think his apology was good enough because he didn't apologize for what he said.

37:46

He apologized for offending people and that his apology was essentially not strong enough.

37:53

Is this someone in your staff that's saying this? No, no. So this is this is like, you know, this is part of we have.

38:03

Partnerships with like Reform Theological Seminary, Dallas Theological Seminary. Right.

38:09

But but who has its own theological development that we partner and can get real seminary credits.

38:18

So it's like a legitimate seminary, essentially. And she was part of the theological development team.

38:27

Yeah, I think that. The like I said, these certain ideologies are kind of coming in or negatively impacting the way that we interact with one another.

38:41

So tell me about the conversation you had with another staff member. I thought you had a really good insight. Oh, yeah.

38:46

I totally forgot about that. I'm so sorry. You had me going on a rant there. That's all right. So so after all that, my buddy and I, we were talking about this.

38:56

And here's what we piece together is that. It seems as if. There is.

39:05

OK, you are guilty by association if you're white and you live in America for anything that has been done to an ethnic minority group.

39:18

And one of the ways. Right. And we saw that at the conference. There was a woman who stood up at crew 19.

39:25

She said she was white. She was talking to this to African -American speakers.

39:34

And she said, I trace my ancestry. Like my you know, we had no part in slavery or in that systemic racism.

39:48

Like what I feel really bad, but like, what can

39:53

I do or, you know, how am I responsible for this? And she said, well, you benefit from any sort of systematic race racism and that therefore you are guilty by association.

40:09

And that idea of you are guilty just because of your color, because somehow you would have had a benefit.

40:19

Now you need to absolve that. Right. And so you. If you do the work of lamenting, listening, doing whatever you can to reach out and have this racial reconciliation.

40:36

Then. Then you can absolve your sin, essentially.

40:42

So it's coming from a point of like you are guilty and you need to repent, but you're guilty corporately by association.

40:50

My buddy said this is what we came down to is.

40:56

We want racial reconciliation. It's a good thing. We want. To learn how to communicate persuasively and effectively the gospel to people of different cultures.

41:09

A lot of the conclusions we completely agree with, but it's how they're getting there.

41:16

And this, I think, is part of the means is making a lot of people feel guilty and then making them change from their guilt.

41:25

And that we know is not the gospel, right?

41:30

Like Paul says, do you not know that it's because of God's love and kindness that leads you to repentance?

41:38

And so he said, what if we went from the motivation of love and compassion rather than guilt?

41:47

And so, yes, it's good to learn about what has happened to different people, groups and different cultures and races.

41:55

Learn about them. Understand, have love and compassion. But we don't need to do it out of guilt, because if we do it out of love, then it doesn't end once we've absolved our sin.

42:08

All right. It doesn't end when we've done our penance, not infinitely. And here's the last thing.

42:15

And in my response to him was even Jesus. He was guiltless, he was sinless, yet he had love and compassion and he entered in and that is creating a kingdom that's going to be eternal.

42:31

And that's what I hope will happen. I appreciate you doing what you're doing to bring it to my mind.

42:39

And I hope that other people will recognize this and say, hey, it's wrong to like some of these things.

42:47

That we're bringing into our culture are wrong. And we need to come at it from a motivation of love and compassion.

42:56

So I want to end on just giving some hope and also, I mean, which you have already done, but also talking to those who support crew currently and kind of what they can do, because it sounds like what the situation you're in is you have a pretty good staff.

43:14

You're in a position where you feel comfortable even talking to me about this. But the vast majority, I mean, everyone else who's talked to me says,

43:21

I can't really say anything. And the direction of the national organization is they're going full throttle ahead into all these progressive sociological ideas.

43:30

And that really just they got the gospel. And so you're seeing some of that, you know, kind of trickle in to where you are.

43:40

But I think most most people who support crew financially would say, man, I want to support. I support what

43:45

Jesse's doing. I want to support because it sounds like you're preaching the gospel. You understand the air of some of these ideas that are coming in.

43:55

And and there are pockets out there like the situation that you're in.

44:02

What would you say to someone who's who's donating? You know, I'll just say briefly what

44:07

I've said. I said, look, I don't think the national organization is something you want to be a part of. If you want to give to individuals, I know the national organization takes a cut, but at least, you know, you're supporting individuals who are sharing the gospel.

44:18

I mean, is that kind of where do you land on that? What advice would you have for donors? It depends on how like how you're giving every donor,

44:29

I think, is it has their their own personal motivations and where and how.

44:36

So just to break it down. Like so for me, probably about ninety five percent of the reason

44:49

I can spend the best hours of my day on campus is because of individuals who donate to our ministry account.

44:58

And so that's a lot like most people are giving individually. And so I'd say like, you know, you want to know that person if if you're giving to an individual staff member.

45:12

But then you can also give in other ways. Corporately, you can give to specific causes or things like, hey,

45:20

I want to scholarship this student to go on a mission. You can just kind of give generally.

45:27

I would say whatever it is, whatever you're doing with your money, like be prayerful and like it's it's his money.

45:38

And especially as a supported missionary, like I consistently have to keep that posture of just recognizing like it is is people's generosity that keeps me there, that keeps me on campus.

45:52

And and it's a tremendous blessing and humility to experience that.

45:58

So, yeah, just be prayerful. Well, Jesse, I am glad that you are in crew and that you're facing some of these challenges and meeting them.

46:08

And, you know, I'm not going to expect you to say this at all. But I I really hope that the national organization does it because they're going to have to reverse the ship.

46:19

I mean, I don't know when things are scheduled exactly. They may have had Jamar Tisby booked for a year in advance to speak at the winter conference.

46:27

I don't know. But if I'm looking at the winter conference speakers, it looks like they haven't really addressed the issues that were present at summer staff conference.

46:36

So hopefully next year, though, you know, if there is some correction going on,

46:41

I would love to see it. And and without someone like myself or enemies within the church or Reformation Charlotte or any of these other websites pointing at it and saying this is a problem,

46:52

I would hope just the staff themselves, folks like yourself who has been speaking up in your local context,

46:59

I hope more people like you start speaking up and saying, all right, this is no good. We can't have this speaker or we can't have this message again.

47:05

Or we need to say something to contradict what was said, you know, that that's I know what

47:11

I'm going to be looking for. And I think people who are more conservative, especially theologically and maybe even politically are going to be looking at moving forward.

47:20

They're going to be saying, OK, you know, is there evidence that this organization is right in the ship? And and this is a good first step to just have you on.

47:27

And as someone who's paid staff at Crew talking about these issues and saying, yeah, you know what,

47:32

I don't agree. I'm not going that direction. And I'm thankful for you. So, yeah,

47:37

I appreciate any final thoughts before I let you go. Yeah, I think that for anyone who is is concerned with anything or thinks that the culture of Crew is going in a direction that is harmful or not helpful or has.

48:02

Meaning, you know, any sort of like. Far left leanings in terms of the ideology like.

48:12

John, you actually encouraged me in one of your podcasts to say we're not going against the statement of faith if people can or we're allowed to publicly.

48:22

On social media, say we think about specific things, you know, from I can't think of any not not to name names, but if if anybody can go on Twitter and blast what they think, like, that's fine.

48:37

You know, I'm not going against the statement of faith. And I, you know, I didn't name names for reason.

48:43

I have no ill will towards my coach. I talk about her, but I don't have any ill will toward her.

48:49

I my wife and I prayed for her and I hope that, you know, she will come to changing that that mindset.

48:59

I don't know her well enough or interact with her enough to invest in that. But but you want to be honorable with your speeches and then just be like.

49:10

Calm. And learn. About what.

49:17

Is bothering you, right, if something like rubs you the wrong way, you got to figure out why is this? And I'm trying to really learn to understand.

49:25

And. But I'm finally confident enough at this point to say to pinpoint where some of some of these things, these ideas are coming from.

49:37

And hopefully me coming on here. Will prompt people to to step up and to say something.

49:46

I hope so. I really do. And I understand there's people in situations they think they'll get fired or have repercussions.

49:51

That's the majority of crew staff I've talked to. But I'm hoping that more and more will say, you know what, this doesn't go against a statement of faith.

49:59

I am going to talk about this. I am going to not just, you know, I know you had done this go through the channels of my organization to to to tell them that I have an issue with this.

50:10

But also, you know, I don't mind going out in public and saying if the national organization isn't going to contradict what was just said at our staff meeting,

50:20

I will. You know, this this isn't what I do as a crew missionary. And so. So, yeah.

50:26

Hey, you're you're making history here being the first one to to come out publicly and say you don't agree with all of that, which

50:33

I appreciate. So, Jesse, it's been a blessing talking with you. How can people be praying for you as you're ministering?

50:43

We haven't told anyone where but where you are on a college campus. We have a baby on the way, so you can pray for that.

50:53

And then it is it has been extraordinarily difficult to navigate through a lot of these things.

51:00

Like I said, it doesn't come up a day to day. But, yeah,

51:07

I I need the Lord to really be with me in learning, understanding and trying to communicate why

51:20

I think some of these things, some of the ideas that are being promoted in our theological development and being spoken from why

51:30

I don't think that they're good. A lot of help in doing that. And I'd say protection as well.

51:36

I haven't really thought about all the negative things that might happen to me by coming on here.

51:42

So probably more socially than anything. But, yeah, I hope that there aren't any repercussions.

51:49

But keep me posted. Yeah, I've prayed. And and at the end of the day, like the

51:55

Lord is my provider. So I'm doing what

52:03

I think I ought to. And, yeah, I really appreciate you and what you do.

52:11

I appreciate your graciousness. Your even keeled tone and while also, you know, parsing out what is error, what is not.

52:18

And so anyway, God bless you and and your wife in the new year. I hope you get better from your cold and, you know, hit the new year running.

52:29

So we'll talk to you later. All right. For sure. Awesome. Merry Christmas. All right. Merry Christmas. Bye now. Well, Jesse certainly is brave.

52:37

If you think about it, please pray for him. If you want to support him financially, you can contact me.

52:42

And I'll be sure to pass your information on to him. I want to talk last but not least about Matthew Hall, because, you know, this is actually kind of a big deal.

52:53

And part of the reason is, I think, because of how close Matthew Hall is to Albert Moeller. I am very soon going to be having a special guest on the podcast to talk about Albert Moeller, and that is

53:07

Dr. E .S. Williams. And you'll understand why in a moment. But some some things took place in the last,

53:14

I want to say, week and a half, two weeks regarding Matt Hall. The first thing is this. There was a video that surfaced and, you know, it had been out there since January 17th of 2019.

53:27

But it had, I think last time I checked, had like 40 plays and then today at 232. So some people have found it since then.

53:33

But there was a little montage on on Facebook of Matthew Hall saying some, well, let's just say things in keeping with critical race theory.

53:43

I'm going to give you a sample. Here we go. You cannot escape this American story, an identity crisis over the issue of race in America.

53:54

When it comes to racism in American Christianity, the problem is far worse than you realize.

54:00

Racism continues to be a real and powerful force in American life and in the church.

54:06

Racism is far more pervasive and powerful when it's masked and it's subtle and it's complex.

54:15

It's not just your individual biases and prejudices or mine that prompt one group to elevate themselves above another.

54:24

There are, and we can talk about this in the Q &A if you like, but the category of systemic injustice.

54:29

We need to let the ghosts of our history haunt us a little bit. At some point, we got to get to the spot where we are able to look in the mirror and be like, yeah,

54:37

I'm probably a racist. I'm telling you, like, I'm a racist because I have a heartbeat. And until I receive my glorified, completely sanctified body, soul and mind,

54:48

I'm going to be doing battle with sin. And guess what? Racism is sin. Well, there's

54:53

Matthew Hall saying things consistent with Matthew Hall for the last few years and Curtis Woods and Jarvis Williams, other professors at Southern.

55:01

And people have asked, where's Al Mohler in all this? I mean, this is an ancient history. This is recent that Matthew Hall said these things and he's been pretty consistent.

55:09

So did Mohler not know? Where do we put him? And we have to think about it. He's running for president of the SBC now.

55:16

And someone who, well, is important, I would say, put, well, they raised,

55:24

I think, even more questions in the last two weeks about Al Mohler by putting out this particular video.

55:30

This is put out by the New Calvinist channel on YouTube and it's called Stain of Mohler 3. I don't know what the 3 is there for, but it says it's published on November 25th.

55:40

You're going to find out that's significant in a minute. And the person who put it out is Dr. E .S.

55:45

Williams. And Dr. E .S. Williams may not, you may not know who that is, but apparently this has been told to me and I went on the website.

55:54

He's a pastor at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. That's where Charles Spurgeon was a pastor.

56:01

So there's a historically significant tie to this church that Dr.

56:08

Well, Dr. E .S. Williams has. And I assume he's preached from that pulpit if he's a pastor there. But Dr.

56:14

Williams is going to be on the Conversations That Matter podcast soon, if not in the next episode, the one after.

56:20

We already have an interview scheduled. And we're going to be talking about this because he essentially argues that Albert Mohler is responsible in large part for the leftward turn of the

56:29

Southern Baptist Convention. And he bases it on Al Mohler's consistent rhetoric over the years on this stain of racism in the

56:35

SBC that never goes away. It doesn't matter how many times you apologize, what kind of resolutions you passed. We're always just racist.

56:42

And there's some video footage of Albert Mohler. Well, he's encouraging, to say the least, the other three,

56:51

Jarvis Williams, Curtis Woods and Matthew Hall. And he even did a book project with them about the stain of racism in the

56:58

SBC. And so I would encourage you go watch this video.

57:04

I mean, it's interesting to say the least. I'll try to remember to put it in the info section there if you want to go click on that link.

57:12

But the date I said is also significant. Because we're going to leave Mohler for a minute and we're going to come back to Matthew Hall, which is the subject of the video.

57:22

Because the next day, Albert Mohler put this out on November 26th.

57:28

He said there's an important and timely word from Matthew Hall and it's on racial reconciliation, specifically critical race theory.

57:37

Now, people are wondering when was this published because there was no date on it. And so a lot of people don't realize you can actually just go into the info on the actual web page and find out.

57:47

So I did. And it was published the very next day after Dr. E .S. Williams video on the 26th.

57:55

So Dr. E .S. Williams video is the 25th. This comes out the 26th. And I want to go through this article because essentially

58:02

Matthew Hall is saying, yeah, critical race theory is wrong. I don't believe it. And I think a lot of people rejoice to say, yeah, this is great.

58:07

And and I would count myself in some ways among them. And I was happy. I'm like, this is this is good. But no,

58:13

I started reading it and I realized there are some holes in this and we need to talk about it because I we're so desperate, especially as conservatives, to find some silver linings that sometimes

58:25

I think we will grab looks really good. And and in some ways it may be. But but there's some deficiencies here,

58:33

I believe. And so I'm going to try to give you the good and the questionable or at least the vague is how

58:41

I'm phrasing it. So before we do that, we need a basic understanding. I just want to review here critical race theory.

58:47

And I got this while I was reading Richard Delgado's book, Critical Race Theory. These are the four major ways in which critical race theory contradicts the biblical narrative.

58:58

Legal cases should be decided according to group identity instead of equality before the law. OK, that's directly counter to biblical justice.

59:05

Biblical hierarchy is oppressive. They don't like hierarchy. Children should pay for the sins of their parents.

59:13

Yeah, that's not biblical. It is morally imperative to de -center majority cultures. And and of course, even in the

59:21

Old Testament, when you had the immigrant, the sojourner, right, we hear about that a lot. You know, they had to abide by the laws of Israel.

59:28

There wasn't this de -centering of majority culture. So all that to say, critical race theory, as we know, if you watch this podcast long enough, you know that it ain't biblical.

59:37

Right. And I just felt like we needed to to go over that real quick before I jump into Matthew Hall's article, because look for the ways in which critical race theory and biblical

59:48

Christianity smash against each other. They're diametrically opposed. And see if Matthew Hall addresses those things.

59:55

Not only that, but does he address the questions about him? The things you saw in that montage I just played are the questions we have.

01:00:03

Are you a racist, Matthew Hall? Really? You're a white supremacist. That's who you are. Is that addressed?

01:00:09

You know, are we left being relieved after reading his article that, oh,

01:00:15

OK, he's not. And I encourage you to go read it. I'm not so relieved. And I'm going to show you why.

01:00:20

I've gone through and I've I've organized some of the information in it.

01:00:27

I want to start with the good. Matthew Hall has the right definition of racism. He says racism in any form finds its poisonous roots in the sin of partiality, which is absolutely true.

01:00:36

It's a heart condition. It's not something you can just become a racist because, well, you benefit from structural injustice.

01:00:43

You know, it's a hard issue. And so this would seem to contradict Matthew Hall's earlier statements about him being a white supremacist unknowingly.

01:00:52

There's a rejection of critical race theory and liberation theology, says Christian witness must reject CRT because it assumes basic materialism.

01:00:59

It has a deficient teleology. This is why liberation theologies are irreconcilable with the biblical gospel.

01:01:05

It cannot adequately diagnose the fundamental problem inherent in racism, nor can it adequately prescribe a true solution.

01:01:14

Now, pay attention to that word adequately. He doesn't say it can never diagnose. He just says adequately. So so keep that in mind.

01:01:21

Scriptural sufficiency, he says, Bible's the inerrant inspired word. It's the standard. We must assess all other knowledge by it.

01:01:28

That's great. And then at the end, he says that. We must speak the truth and we must do so in love, but we must also do so with clarity and precision.

01:01:36

And that's where I agree with him. But I think something happens there that, you know,

01:01:44

I don't know if you remember. Barack Obama used to always say, let me be clear. And then everything else that followed that sentence would be some of the most unclear dribble anyone had ever heard.

01:01:56

And you're like, what is he talking about? And Matthew Hall has a lot of vague things to say in this article.

01:02:03

It's the problem with the article is that it's not clear. There's a few things, there's a few fundamental things that he's clear on.

01:02:09

But those are actually the same fundamental things that Resolution nine is pretty clear on. If you nine didn't just endorse critical race theory, it said that it's an analytical tool and it's subservient to scripture.

01:02:21

And I've pointed out how that's impossible. But it affirmed a lot of the things

01:02:27

Matthew Hall is affirming here. All right. Let's just be honest about that. So just because he says some good things, we rejoice at that.

01:02:34

But but we need to examine the whole the whole entire piece. And so I have organized some of the information that made me uncomfortable here.

01:02:42

And I've just titled it The Vague because I'm not sure exactly what he means. You could use any of the things he says here to justify previous statements that have been controversial, like the ones

01:02:52

I played for you earlier. There's enough vagueness to drive a truck through it and to smuggle in all sorts of critical race theory assumptions.

01:02:58

So let's start with the first one. He assumes that racism is always present. It's a sin. Sin is never far from us.

01:03:04

Now, let's think about that. Is it true that sin is never far from us? Yeah, I suppose so.

01:03:09

We have a human heart that's corrupted. So, yeah. Now, what is racism?

01:03:15

Racism is, hey, it's a it's a stream running off the sin of partiality.

01:03:21

Which is a sin. So does that mean that every single manifestation of a sin is never far from us?

01:03:29

Is homosexuality never far from us? I mean, there's people that are going to go their whole lives and never struggle with that, never be tempted in that way.

01:03:39

Is, you know, something that you don't have, let's say, the opportunity to to commit.

01:03:44

Let's let's take abortion for once. Is abortion a sin? It is a manifestation of murder. Right. So, yes.

01:03:52

Are there going to be people, specifically men, who will, you know, are they ever going to have the opportunity to commit abortion?

01:04:00

I mean, not really, not in the normal course of life. So it's not something that is, you know, it's never far from them.

01:04:06

No, of course not. It's always far from them. And so so this statement is very interesting because this is not,

01:04:12

I don't think, a Christian assumption to think that every manifestation of sin is because it's sin is far is close to you.

01:04:19

Critical race theory, though, does assume that it assumes that racism is a fundamental power structure that makes the world go around.

01:04:31

And it's not that is never far from any of us. It's just, you know, it's in the pudding. So so it's interesting.

01:04:38

Matthew Hall says this. You know, I got to ask you, where does he get that idea from? He leaves the door open to critical race theory definitions.

01:04:45

And here's a few quotes that show that. He says racism and all manifestations of racial injustice are not merely the result of historical forces, economic interests or lacking education.

01:04:54

Now, notice I highlighted all manifestations, not merely the result. He's leaving the door open for something here.

01:05:01

He could have just said it's not the result. He could have said racism, racism, you know.

01:05:06

But why is he broadening it out? All manifestations, economic, historical, lacking education.

01:05:13

He says, like all sin, this can take a variety of forms and deeply shape an entire culture or society.

01:05:20

Okay. What forms are those? That would be my question. And where do you, where do they manifest today? Right. It does so in complex ways.

01:05:27

Not only does sin bring about guilt or culpability or individual sinners, but it also brings corruption on whole societies or cultures.

01:05:38

Now I'm in theory, I'm like, okay with that. And I think if a lot, if most other Christians wrote that, if they hadn't said the things

01:05:44

Matthew Hall has said, I probably wouldn't even really notice. But because of what Matthew Hall has said,

01:05:51

I'm, I am paying attention to this. I mean, this is meant. Um, so I'm told at least from others who would know more than me to be a response to, uh, the, the pushback against Matthew Hall.

01:06:05

So, so they know what the issues are. Matthew Hall should know. Uh, and he's not addressing the, what he said about himself being a racist because he benefits from structures of oppression.

01:06:17

Um, he's actually giving cover for it potentially in those statements. Uh, let, let me show you a few more, uh, statements that, that I find a little bit concerning.

01:06:28

Uh, he supports the multi -ethnic church model. Um, he says, would it be easier for churches? The United States remain divided, even segregated on the basis of race.

01:06:35

You bet. But that is not the way of the cross. Okay. It depends what you mean by segregated on the basis of race.

01:06:43

If it's on, look, if it's on, in theory, I agree with that. If it's on the basis of race that a church is segregated, literally there are some white supremacists to say, we don't want anyone who's not like us in one church, and there's some

01:06:54

Asian supremacists say we don't want anyone who's not Asian, we like, yeah, that's a problem, right? But there's other reasons, culturally speaking, that churches tend to attract demographics, uh, that, um, are, you know, have,

01:07:07

I'll give you an example. Um, some, uh, there are certain ethnic groups that tend towards certain denominations.

01:07:16

Um, for instance, uh, Hispanics in general, this is not, obviously not across the board, but in general, uh, they tend to favor, uh, when it comes to Protestantism, more of a charismatic or Pentecostal version of Protestantism.

01:07:34

Um, they're going to end up probably at a church like that. Um, now is, is that necessarily wrong?

01:07:40

Uh, I don't think so. Um, I mean, I'm not a Pentecostal and I would argue against the theology of Pentecostalism, but it's not wrong because of racism.

01:07:48

Racism didn't cause that, right? It wasn't on the basis of racism. Um, so, so anyway,

01:07:54

I, I'm belaboring the point a little bit here, but I just want to make this statement. Uh, there are reasons that churches are segregated sometimes, and I don't always assume it's because racism is happening.

01:08:08

It could look that way on the outside and not necessarily be a racially caused, like bigotry that's causing it.

01:08:16

Um, he says, I believe it is Southern Baptist's heart to see a denomination that looks more and more like heaven.

01:08:23

And this is in the context of, you know, a diverse denomination. And, and this has said all the time to support the multi -ethnic church model.

01:08:30

And you gotta understand, uh, in revelation chapter six and seven that you, you know, we're talking about a heavenly reality.

01:08:37

We're talking about something that happens at the end. And, um, and Matthew Hall, I know has acknowledged this in the past, but if you're out in Iowa, you're, you're not going to have a church that looks like that, right?

01:08:49

Um, you should have a church. Hopefully that reflects the community around you because as God calls people and he calls people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, he may be working in different groups at different times.

01:08:59

Uh, but as, as he calls people, uh, they're going to be attracted to the gospel. And so, and that's a wonderful thing. I grew up in a,

01:09:05

I would say, um, now at least looking at the church, uh, grace Bible church in New York, very multi -ethnic church, but no one tried to make it that way.

01:09:13

No one was saying we got to make it look like heaven. It was just preach the gospel and people came and, uh, and you wound up with some of the best potlucks cause you had the world cuisine there.

01:09:22

I mean, it's great. Um, but, uh, to, to make that the standard that we, our church needs to look like it's going to look in heaven.

01:09:30

No, it doesn't. It needs to, it needs to look like, uh, you're doing the, the work of the great commission in your specific community.

01:09:40

And don't worry about what your church looks like. Right? Don't, don't stress about that.

01:09:45

Just do the work. And, um, and so anyways, there's, there's this, uh, obsession that Southern Baptists have with this multi -ethnic church model.

01:09:53

And, uh, at the very least, I think Matthew Hall tips a hat to that. Um, and it is consistent with, um, you know, a critical race.

01:10:04

It can be, I should say it this way. It can be consistent with critical race theory. It doesn't necessarily have to be, but these things have come in around the same time.

01:10:13

And so where there's smoke, there's usually fire. Um, the idea that, uh, you know, cause it's usually aimed at white people, uh, specifically, uh, sometimes

01:10:23

Anglos is the term used. They need to be the ones that are welcoming to minorities. It's never, it's not the other way.

01:10:30

Usually I've, I've, I don't think I've ever heard it preached the other way. And I've heard it many times used to slam white people for their racism.

01:10:38

Um, but what about other minority groups? I mean, in some, in some areas that I've lived, uh, you know,

01:10:44

I, I'm near, uh, a section that actually, uh, white is not the majority.

01:10:51

They're the minority. Uh, and, um, and, and they're not necessarily accepted in, in the region.

01:10:58

And so anyway, all that to say, um, there's the danger of critical race theory, slipping into that multi -ethnic church model, uh, the decentering of, uh, of whiteness, right.

01:11:09

The majority culture needs to be decenter. And that's the telos of this thing. No, like that's not the telos of the church.

01:11:15

The church has a very clear goal and it was given, uh, in the great commission. Uh, racial reconciliation uses that term.

01:11:22

I don't care for the term. I know it's been around a while. It doesn't necessarily have to be critical race theory, but again, the, this term came around the same time.

01:11:29

Critical race theory is being pushed where there's smoke, there's fire. Uh, Matthew Hall says our vision for racial reconciliation must be profoundly ecclesiological.

01:11:37

Paul's ministry was devoted to proclaiming the reconciling power of the gospel to Gentiles. And I have to ask, reconciling power in what sense, uh, the wall of separation,

01:11:48

Ephesians chapter two. I mean, yeah. Uh, the Jews and Gentiles getting along. Yeah. What was the wall of separation?

01:11:54

It wasn't at the commandments contained in ordinances. It wasn't like racial bigotry. Well, it was not, you know, this is imported into a modern

01:12:03

American context. And it's, it's not right. Cause it's not talking about the same thing.

01:12:10

Um, uh, in races, you know, the reason I don't like the term races don't reconcile, people reconcile with one another.

01:12:17

Uh, and the reconciliation is vertical, right? It's it's, they're both reconciled to God, which means they're reconciled to one another.

01:12:25

Um, you know, if you can do it in a secular sense, if you can have races reconcile, uh, without God, then, you know, which is racial reconciliation is used more often in a social context, uh, in the, in the, the world, not necessarily in the church, um, you know, then that's not a

01:12:41

Christian concept. Necessarily. Uh, you know, this is a cultural thing or a sociological thing we're talking about.

01:12:48

It says in Ephesians two, Paul directly connects the good news of salvation by grace alone to the unity that all believers share in Christ within the body of Christ.

01:12:55

This is why the term racial reconciliation is so vital. It's so vital. Um, so yeah, this is not what

01:13:01

Paul is talking about. Paul isn't talking about racial reconciliation in Ephesians two. And, and this is where, um, if you adopt the categories of critical race theory, you start misreading scripture.

01:13:13

You start putting things in the context of scripture that don't actually belong there. And so where is

01:13:20

Matthew Hall at? I don't really know. I'm hoping that he's moving in the right direction. I'm very hopeful. And I had tweeted out when this happened,

01:13:26

I was, I was like, I'm very thankful. And I tagged them. I'm really thankful for this. Uh, there's some really good things here.

01:13:32

However, I still have some questions. And if, if Matthew Hall could clear these questions up, man,

01:13:37

I'd be the first one to, to rejoice. Um, and my criticism isn't that Matthew Hall is supporting critical race theory in this article.

01:13:46

My, my criticism is that he allows for a lot of key aspects of critical race theory to come in. Um, if you remember, you know, the, where critical race theory contradicts scripture,

01:13:56

I just gave you that chart. Um, he doesn't really address any of these things.

01:14:02

I mean, the vagueness that he gives all of these concepts could sneak in.

01:14:09

So, um, anyways, uh, that's, that's my take on it.

01:14:14

Now, here are the questions that I have from Matthew Hall, and this is what would help if he answers them.

01:14:19

Uh, do you still consider yourself to be a racist? Do you believe there is structural racism in the

01:14:24

United States? And if so, where. Do you believe there is, um, if you believe there is, uh, who is guilty of structural oppression?

01:14:34

Do you believe multi -ethnicity should be a pursuit of the church? If so, why do you believe race ought to be taken into consideration when hiring church workers?

01:14:43

He said this before. He said that, uh, that should be, uh, taken into consideration, uh, to make sure that you have minorities on your staff.

01:14:51

Do you reject resolution nine? Do you reject your previous statement in favor of critical race theory?

01:14:57

Can you define whiteness? This is another thing he's talked about whiteness a lot. So define it, you know, what do you mean by that?

01:15:05

Uh, do you believe critical race theory can be used if subordinate to the gospel? And, uh, and then

01:15:11

I said, again, I very much appreciate your statement. I just know that resolution nine also add good things to say about the authority of scripture. I'd really like some clarification as many others as would many others.

01:15:19

Thank you. And so that's my response to, uh, what, what Matthew Hall has put out there.

01:15:25

And, um, you know, I'm, I'm hopeful. Uh, like I said, I, I really want to see, um,

01:15:31

Matthew Hall go in a good direction and Al Mohler as well. Uh, but there's still the same unanswered questions, uh, that were unanswered before Matthew Hall's article.

01:15:41

Uh, he reinforced a lot of good things that some of the things that resolution nine also, um, you know, tried to articulate, but there needs to be some specific clarity, like he says in the article, there needs to be clarity.

01:15:56

Uh, and so I'm hoping that more articles will come and we will get that clarity. But until then, the concern is still there on my part.

01:16:04

Uh, so, um, giving Tuesday, please check out those links, uh, below, uh, check out, um, uh, check, check out, by the way, if you,

01:16:13

I gotta say this. If you are a Chick -fil -A customer or were, and now you're concerned with the direction of Chick -fil -A, uh, today, as I was traveling, um,

01:16:23

I happened to stop at a great chicken place that has a chicken sandwich. It does. They do exist at other places.

01:16:30

And, and I ate it along with fries and a really good glass of sweet tea. And it was called

01:16:36

Bojangles. Uh, and I think they're only in the South. So if you live in the South, which is where most of the Chick -fil -A's are, there is another place.

01:16:42

Now it's a little spicier. Um, so if you like the spicy chicken sandwich at Chick -fil -A, uh, you can go get that, but anyway,

01:16:48

I figured I, I mean, they're not sponsoring this at all, but I figured I'd give a plug for Bojangles and please stay tuned because, um, in the next, uh, two episodes, uh,

01:16:58

I'm going to be having some very important conversations with Robert Oscar Lopez, um, down at Southwestern and the situation going on there and Dr.

01:17:05

E .S. Williams on Al Moller. And I know people are trying to figure out how to think about Al Moller. So hopefully we can get the ball rolling with that.