September 5, 2018 Show with Dr. Tom Ascol on “The New Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth.

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We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this fifth day of September 2018, and I'm delighted to have back on the program one of my favorite returning guests to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Tom Askell. Many in my audience will recognize that name immediately.

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Tom Askell is not only an author and a popular conference speaker, but he's also the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida, and in addition to that he is the executive director of the

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Founders Ministries, a ministry of the Southern Baptist Convention or within it that is dedicated to spreading and defending and declaring the doctrines of sovereign grace, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Tom Askell. Well, thank you, Chris. It's an honor for me to be back with you today. Yes, and today we are going to be addressing an issue that is very controversial, very sensitive issue, unfortunately and tragically an issue that divides brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, even divides brethren within our own circles of fellowship, namely those who are theologically reformed both from Baptist, Presbyterian, and other denominations and fellowships.

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We are going to be addressing the theme of a new statement, an official statement that came out publicly yesterday, and this is the statement on social justice and the gospel.

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And before we go into that topic, Dr. Askell, please let our listeners know something about Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida.

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Well, we are a church that is committed to the 1689 Confession of Faith.

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We're about 35 years old or so. I'm the second pastor, been there over 32 years, and we try to major on preaching the gospel, the simplicity of the gospel.

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We want to be faithful to Scripture and try to make Christ known throughout our community and around the world.

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Praise God. And now tell us something about Founders Ministries. Well, Founders began back in 1982 in a prayer meeting with seven men who were concerned about not only the inerrancy of Scripture, but also its sufficiency in what it teaches.

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We were all committed to the doctrines of grace, and we realized that many of the people we stood with who defended inerrancy did not see these doctrines the same way we did.

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So we decided to have a conference, did that in 1983, and from that one conference, other conferences developed, and a publishing house developed, and quarterly journal online presence has developed where we have a theological study center where you can take courses and get credit through various theological seminaries today.

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And that's just, God just blessed that ministry significantly over the years. If you want to know more about it, just go to founders .org.

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Founders .org. And if anybody also is either visiting

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Cape Coral, Florida, or if they already live near Cape Coral, Florida, or a family, friends, and loved ones who are either living there or visiting there, the website for Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida is truegraceofgod .org.

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truegraceofgod .org. Well, one more thing that I wanted to address before we go into the primary subject at hand.

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You are going to be speaking at the G3 conference, are you not? I'm scheduled to speak at a pre -conference the day before it officially begins.

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Oh, okay. Well, I am looking forward to the G3 conference and will be mentioning that conference throughout the program, because that is a very primary conference for Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

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It has been a huge blessing to us, not only for the fact that the the fellowship there and just the joy of being there has been an enormous blessing to me, but the impact, the positive impact that the

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G3 conference and its founder, Josh Bice, its speakers, and its audience have had upon Iron Trip and Zion Radio has been quite invaluable to me and to the program.

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So, we'll be hearing more about the G3 conference during the show. Well, this is an issue that I have had quite a number of guests address, that they voluntarily came on to address.

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In fact, I have had probably five or six, at least, guests who specifically asked me, can

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I come on your program to talk about the social justice movement within the church today?

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And it has been quite remarkable, because the programs that I've done on this have never been identical or cookie -cutter to each other, but have provided invaluable information about a very sad situation going on in the body of Christ.

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And it's actually a quite a puzzling situation, because some of the individuals in the forefront, it seems, of this movement, the social justice movement, have also been guests on my program, dating back no more than eight, nine, or ten years ago, who seem to have been saying polar opposite things in regard to the very issues involved under the umbrella of the social justice movement, than they are today.

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And it's quite puzzling, because I have not heard, and I'm not saying that they haven't done this, but I have not heard myself, these specific individuals who

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I've interviewed make any kind of public declaration that they have changed. And it's very clear from my interviews, which are still available on recordings, and anybody who wants them can send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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You can get these recordings of folks who are now in the forefront of the social justice movement, and you will hear that they are very opposed to some of the tactics and some of the ideology being championed by social justice warriors today.

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They were just opposed to it, as Dr. Eskel and myself, and those that are making the most prominent outcry against what is going on, because of the the fear of what it has done to the gospel.

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But, if you could, if you could define for us what is social justice, before we even move on to the document or the statement.

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Well, that's a difficulty, Chris, because there doesn't seem to be one clear definition that is in use, rather it seems to be a rather nebulous concept under which many things are flying.

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And obviously, as Christians who are submissive to God's Word, we're concerned with justice, because God is righteous, and he is just, and he's defined what is right and wrong, or what is just and unjust.

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And so, as his people, we have to be concerned for justice in the world, and that's a legitimate concern for all

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Christians to bear and churches to take up. However, what is happening today under this broadheading of social justice seems to be a call for equality of outcomes or equity in ways that are unrecognizable in the

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Bible. So some of the key components are oppression and being marginalized, or feeling like that people have been somehow abused, and therefore there needs to be something done to make up for all of that.

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So this idea of social justice, it covers ideologies like intersectionality, which basically says that we should identify ourselves and other people in terms of the numbers of levels of oppression that they suffer.

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Let me give you an example. So if you are a black person rather than a white person, you have this one level of marginalization or oppression.

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But if you are a black woman, that gives you two, because blacks are minorities and women are oppressed as well.

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If you are a black woman lesbian, that gives you three, because now you're part of what they call a sexual minority.

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If you're a black woman transgender or some other aspect on the gender fluid spectrum, then that gives you even more.

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And so the greater number of oppressions that you can stack up in your self -identity gives you leverage then to begin to demand for things to be done for you to make up for how you have been mistreated.

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And of course, this goes completely against the Word of God, and it goes completely against the gospel for Christians, because we are called to identify ourselves in and by Jesus Christ, and that is our primary identity.

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And none of these other things should even be compared in a way that gives legitimacy to them, but it would come to a level of thinking about ourselves that would be close to being in Christ.

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So it's hard to define social justice. We acknowledge that in the statement, but what we're trying to do is address various aspects or elements or doctrines or practices that have flown under that banner.

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Now what are those in this social justice movement that we would actually consider our brothers?

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Those that are actually from more conservative, biblically faithful, and confessionally reformed backgrounds, who agree, it seems, on the primary tenets of the

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Christian faith with us, and even on the gospel. What are they saying about the inclusion of those involved in unnatural and sexual practices that the

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Scriptures call an abomination? Why are they included, or those that are involved in that activity, why are they included?

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And what are they saying about those individuals in regard to their standing before Christ as unrepentant individuals in those areas?

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Yeah, that seems to be the most complicated issue in this whole movement, because you do have some who would affirm the legitimacy of an intersectionality way of thinking about identity as it relates to race and gender, who have spoken out against that being applied to the

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LBGTQ plus movement. However, there was a conference held last month in a

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PCA church that was the brainchild of a man who, I don't know if he's still

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Southern Baptist, but he is a former professor, former instructor of New Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that was called a

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Revoice Conference, which was a conference to try to celebrate the sexuality of those who are described as same -sex attractive, recognizing that in heaven there will be queer treasure, along with other treasures that are brought into heaven by God's people.

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And this conference, though there may be good things motivating it or good desires to try to reach those who have these kinds of disordered loves so that they are engaged in same -sex lust, nevertheless, it was disastrous in my mind from what

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I heard of some of the talks that were given and all the promotional materials going up to it. And there was a rather muted response on the part of some sectors of the evangelical world, especially the broader

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Reformed evangelical world, that just watched it go by with very little being said about it.

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In fact, it was hosted by a PCA church whose pastor, when questioned about it, defended it and said that this is a right and good thing to do, is certainly alarming to anyone who understands and believes the gospel according to the

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Reformed and confessional heritage. Well, now let's move on to the statement on social justice and the gospel.

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Who were the architects or framers of the statement? Well, there were 14 men who met back in Dallas on June 19th this year.

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We had never been in a room together, but all of us had signaled through writings and comments on social media and other ways our growing concern about these issues and things that we began to see over the last year or two.

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So Josh Bice actually was instrumental in inviting us to get us all together. He was connected to all of us, though many of us have not been intimately connected to one another.

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Several of us had. I had several friends in the room with me. But out of that meeting, when we shared our concerns and agreed, yes, we're seeing this in the same way, and yes, many of us had already publicly declared that we saw this movement as the greatest threat to the gospel.

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And I put it in terms of, in my lifetime, others put it in terms of the last hundred years, things like that.

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But all of us agreed that this was serious. We decided that one of the things we should do is to try to come up with a statement of affirmations and denials that would help articulate what we see and our concerns to make sure that we are defending the gospel and then shedding light on the movements and ideas that we fear will undermine the gospel if they are successful.

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So I was tasked with the responsibility of getting the ball rolling. So I began to write the document, but it was a collaborative effort, and over the last six weeks or so, we've taken it, edited it, refined it multiple times, and I would guess there was probably, there's input from probably six or seven people all together.

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So the document itself is a collaborative effort of those who met back in Dallas on June 19.

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Could you mention at least some of them, if not all of them, all the men that are involved in the drafting of this?

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Yeah, well let me mention, in the drafting of it, sure, it would be myself and Josh Bice, James White participated in this,

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Phil Johnson also participated in this, Justin Peters participated, Tom Buck, Michael Fallon, and there's probably one or two others that I'm forgetting who had specific input as well.

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Craig Mitchell would be another, and then various people reviewed it, like Bode Bauckham, John MacArthur, and others.

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Yes, John MacArthur has also, I heard recently, make the statement that this is the greatest threat that we have seen as a church in quite a long time against the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Yeah, he did. In fact, in that meeting in June, the first words out of John's mouth were to recount some of the battles he's been involved in, and then he made this statement.

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It's etched into my mind because it was it was such a confirmation to me. He said, but given all those other things and threats that I've been through, controversies

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I've been through, he said, this movement is diabolical, and it has the potential to be the greatest threat to the gospel that I have seen.

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And when he said that, it was, God just used that to encourage me, because I've got friends, good friends, people

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I love who disagree with me on this, and you know, some think

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I've just kind of gone off the rails, and they're wondering what's happened to me.

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And when I heard him say it, and others kind of chimed in, it was just like, okay, praise

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God, you know, they're our brothers who see these things, and maybe I'm not crazy after all.

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Yeah, well, this is certainly something that is going to draw into the light those who are taking positions on either side of this issue that perhaps were not normally seen in the light of day, and we can only pray that the

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Lord doesn't use this statement as a thing that drives a further wedge between brothers who are genuine brothers in Christ, but that it is used to really bring correction and a greater unity than we've had in years, and a greater clarity and understanding.

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And also, I mean, even though it's not comfortable to say, this, I think, statement,

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I'm sure it will, by God's grace, be used to drive out those that are not truly our brothers, or expose, at least, when the rhetoric may get stronger, and when the heat is turned up, people will perhaps reveal their true colors when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Well, tell us about the main elements of this statement, and I know that you begin where you should begin, with the

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Scriptures, and what are the matters that the Scriptures teach that you highlight in this statement?

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Yeah, well, we do start with Scripture. There's 14 articles in the statement, and we start with Scripture to reaffirm its authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency, because we think at bottom of these erroneous ideas that have sprung up has been an assumption of the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture, rather than a careful, continuing commitment to them.

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So we're not accusing anyone. In fact, we don't name anybody. We are going after ideas and doctrines.

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We're not going after people, or institutions, or organizations. But we fear that some of our brothers assume the authority of Scripture, and with that assumption, are in danger of losing it, because they're not going back and carefully evaluating these ideas that are being promoted in the light of inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture.

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And after that, you know, we go into various doctrines, like the Imago Dei. What does it mean to be a creature in the image of God, and are there distinctions between creatures made in the image of God that relate to our equality of standing before Him, or our distinctions in roles and responsibilities?

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So we talk about complementarianism, men and women, issues, marriage, sexuality.

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We deal with ethnicities, and then the whole issue of race, which we affirm, we acknowledge, as our brothers who are in this movement have sounded very loudly, that this is a social construct.

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Race is a social construct, because we are the human race. We all come from one man,

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Adam, and after him, Noah. So we have a common ancestry in terms of a race, but there are different ethnicities.

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So we look at that, we look at racism, and what is involved in the sin of racism, pride, and violence, and prejudice.

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We look at God's law and recognize that God has given a standard of righteousness. God defines what is sin and what is not sin, and no one else has the authority to come in and start adding to what

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God has said, and trying to hold people accountable or guilty because they don't meet certain imposed standards that have nothing to do with God's law.

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I tell our people all the time that, listen, God has given us his commandments, his ten commandments, that summarizes law for us, and so we have plenty to deal with in measuring our lives.

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We have enough real sin, we don't have to go about, go out looking for other sin to manufacture in order to make us feel guilty.

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Let's deal with real sin, and we think that there are some standards being imposed by some of the leaders in this movement that are contrary to what

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God has established to be righteousness and unrighteousness. We deal with the gospel. We try to give a very clear, simple definition of the gospel and salvation, what it means to be right with God, how a person becomes right with God, what's required, what is not, what's provided, what is not.

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We deal with the church and the responsibility to go to the church in the world. We take up the issue of heresy because some have tried to suggest that if we don't see things exactly the way they are telling us we must see them, then we are heretics.

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And there are comments having been made about some of the champions of the faith throughout history who had huge blind spots on issues of race.

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They're being called heretics, they're being written out of the kingdom of God by some in this movement, and so we want to clarify what is heresy and what is it not.

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Those are the main issues that we deal with, and again we have 14 articles that take up these things specifically as we try to clarify what we see the

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Bible teaching and then what we are unwilling to accept that's being offered by this movement.

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Before we go even more into detail about some of the contents of this statement on social justice in the gospel, why did you who are involved in drafting it, the architects behind this, why did you feel it was necessary to be this formal, this official if you will, where you have a document in print that is as of yesterday made public, why is this step a necessary step in your minds?

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And obviously you can't speak for everybody necessarily identically, but as far as your concern? Yeah, well from my perspective,

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I mean this has been an odyssey for me of the last year and a half to two years, and it was really last summer when

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I was formally kind of brought into a way of thinking to start looking at these things.

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It was through an interview with Colin Hanson, who I have great respect for, and I think he thinks clearly on these issues and understands movements as well as anybody that I know.

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I'm looking at the contemporary scene, he's just a great source of wisdom on that, and when

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I asked him about the Young Restless Reform Movement, what he saw coming, he made a comment in the midst of his answer that he said,

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I don't know that it can survive the public theology that will take place over the next year or two.

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And that was a new thought to me, and so I began to put my antennas up and listen and read and try to hear what was being said from within the

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Reformed camp on these public issues. And as I did so, I became increasingly alarmed.

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I became deeply disturbed by comments that were coming out of heretofore respected, trusted evangelical and Reformed sources and places.

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So for me, I'm concerned about our church. We have various ethnicities in our church, and God's given us a great deal of peace and unity, and we don't try to pretend we're not different ethnically, but we have so much more in common in Christ that those things are insignificant to us in our fellowship.

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I've got a friend who pastors in Orlando. His church was devastated, is being devastated by this, the elements of this movement, when some of his minority, well, they're actually not a minority in that church because the church is just so ethnically mixed, but some of the leaders, a couple of the leaders who were very involved in the life of the church, became convinced that because of their racial minority status in the culture, they were mistreated and that their church was white.

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This church has dozens of ethnicities in it. It's just crazy that anyone would consider it a wider dozens of nationalities, at least

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I should say. And so they became concerned. They met with the pastor, just turned on him in a matter of days, because they've been listening to some of the proponents of this social justice movement, and oh, they went and joined an ethnically monolithic church that fit their minority racial profile, and then not long after that, they went into the

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Hebrew Israelites movement and have just been lost in the faith at this point.

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So it's tragic. So I wanted to protect our church, and I felt compelled to, in finding brothers that agreed about this and shared my concerns, to be clear.

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We just want to be clear on what the gospel is and what it's not, what the Bible says, what it doesn't, because we think that some of our brothers are just assuming these things.

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It's not that we think they don't believe we're just thinking that they assume them, and in the assumption there are some dangerous inroads being made into our churches and institutions.

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So I was motivated more by being contacted by professors at colleges and seminaries from around the country, literally from the

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East Coast to the West Coast, who started telling me horror stories of things that were happening to them because of words that they used in classroom lectures, innocently, obliviously, that got them reported to their authorities and reprimanded.

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On one college campus, I was told by the professors there, or people who are involved there, one of the professors from Ernie, that they actually have a walk of shame for their white students, so that they can walk through this and meditate on their white privilege and realize, you know, how much they have that they need to give up and check.

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Wow. Yeah, it is... I mean, my head was spinning, and I was disoriented because so many of the people

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I know and love and trust seem to be, if some of them are driving the train, but many of them are sitting by and watching the train go by on their watch without saying much.

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So I've talked to some friends who see this differently than I do, and I've just not been able to be convinced away from it.

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So issuing a statement, whether anybody signed it or not, I wanted to do it for my own soul's sake, and I wanted to do it for our church's sake, so that we can have clarity and a common commitment to, yes, this is what the

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Bible teaches, and this is not what the Bible teaches. I think that's generally been the motivation of the others as well.

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We are now back with Dr. Tom Askell, the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida, and also the executive director of Founders Ministries.

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We are discussing today the new document that has just come out yesterday publicly, the

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Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. And Dr.

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Askell, before we even get to some more of the content of the document, one thing that I was going to ask you about in regard to the

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Southern Baptist Convention of which you are a part, it is one thing for perhaps individuals that are being wrongly asked or demanded, might be a better word, to publicly confess and repent of sins that they are not personally guilty of.

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You know, you have people who by virtue of our lack of melanin content in our skin, you and I and millions of others who are being demanded to acknowledge that we are in some level racist and guilty of sins that we may not be personally guilty of at all.

39:23

I mean, other than the fact that all humans are sinners, we all have sin, and we all think more highly than we ought on more occasions than any of us would care to admit.

39:37

And that may sometimes mean, even if it means for a moment, looking down on somebody because of their differences from us, even in the superficial levels of the way they look.

39:50

But many of us are not what you would call racist, because these sinful attitudes and mindsets and ideologies do not govern our lives.

40:02

They do not, they're not the primary motivations in our decisions and the way we treat others and so on.

40:09

But is there a difference between an organization like the Southern Baptist Convention, who has in its history, in fact a very key point in their history in the 19th century, a defense of slavery and so on.

40:26

Is there a difference between the way that that denomination needs to make a public statement, in fact

40:34

I know that they have, but if you could just respond to the difference between what individuals are responsible to do before God and what an organization, what the difference would be with an organization.

40:48

Yeah, well I think there is a difference and one of the significant things that the

40:55

Southern Baptist Convention has done is to acknowledge that yes, though there were multiple factors at play, at the heart of all those factors and the origin of the

41:04

SPC was this issue of slavery. Of course the nation was divided over, it fought a civil war 20 years later after the formation of the

41:14

SPC because of slavery. And many of the leaders in the

41:20

Southern Baptist Convention in the 19th century advocated slavery, defended slavery, and mistreated slaves.

41:28

There are several who did that, there's no doubt. There were many who did not, however, but there were some who did.

41:34

And so it's right to acknowledge that and as a convention of churches to say, look this was wrong and those on whose shoulders we stand, though they in many respects were great men, they were just men and they were sinful and we renounce their views on this.

41:51

We declare that they were wrongheaded and blind on this issue. That's a right and good thing to do and I don't have any problem doing that in any respect.

42:01

I'm sure my children will have occasion after my departure to say, you know,

42:08

Dad, I may have seen some things rightly but he missed it on this, and that's okay for them to say.

42:14

But they should not own guilt for my sin. And while we should call sin what it is, everywhere we see it, historically in our own lives and all around us, we should never be afraid to say what

42:28

God says about attitudes and actions that are out of step with his clearly revealed will. We need to recognize that personally

42:36

I will not stand before God and give an account for another man's sin. If you want greater clarity on this,

42:44

John MacArthur has just preached two sermons the last two Lord's Days out of Ezekiel 18 addressing this very issue.

42:53

He makes some wonderful points and brings to light some clear teaching from the Bible about the responsibility we have individually to answer for our sin before God and the way that we need to be saved which we will be saved only individually.

43:11

So I think I would recommend those two sermons for further insight on that. And one of the,

43:20

I've said this a number of times on my show and I think it just continues to bear repeating, one of the things that troubles me the most about what is going on in the name of social justice, and in fact let me say that the reason why

43:39

I'm so upset by what I'm about to say is because I do take the sin of racism very seriously.

43:46

I think it is an abominable evil sin that without the covering of Christ's blood would certainly send a person to hell.

43:57

And this is a sin, especially when it is a dominant feature in somebody's life, something that would call into question, at least on my part, whether this person was a regenerate individual or not.

44:16

If it were, I mean depending upon the level of severity in this person's life, I would very quickly say to this person that they need to repent because I don't believe that they are truly a saved individual.

44:31

Well the reason why I'm saying that I take this sin so seriously is that it troubles me deeply that many who seem to be in the forefront of the social justice warrior movement are using racist ideas in their efforts to fight racism.

44:54

They're fighting racism with racism and it seems as if some of them are oblivious to this or perhaps even are among those that think, and I do not want to broad brush, but some within this group would seem to think that a person who has been a persecuted or oppressed minority or is a member of a persecuted or oppressed minority cannot even be guilty of racism.

45:26

But am I going too far in my reaction to this as viewing this as racism being fought very often with the very sin of racism itself?

45:37

Yeah, no, I don't think so. That is happening and when you take a definition of racism, which

45:45

I have asked for from friends and leveled charges, it's not,

45:50

I've not received helpful definitions, so trying to understand it that this is a sin of partiality, it is a sin of pride, it can be a sin of malice or vainglory, viewing yourself because of your socially constructed race to be superior to others.

46:11

And there are some who said, well, only those races that have power can be guilty of racism, so any minority race that does not have power cannot be guilty of racism.

46:23

Well, not according to a biblical understanding of justice and how we are to treat one another.

46:30

You can't impose those extra biblical terms and try to maintain a biblical standard.

46:37

And yes, there have been some very clear and public advocacies made for, you can call it reverse racism or whatever, to try to overcome the deficits that are perceived that exist because of racism in our nation's history and in the

46:57

Evangelical Christian Church's history as well. I had it recently explained to me by a leader of one of the major organizations that seems to be committed to a way of doing this that I see as unhealthy and somewhat dangerous to the gospel.

47:17

He said that this is a strategy, it's a necessary strategy that has to be employed in order to get where we want to go, which is seeing people of minority races and ethnicities being provided opportunity for leadership, or in his terms, to be platformed in leadership amongst

47:37

Evangelicals. So, for example, at the MLK50 conference that was held in April of this year on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s

47:49

assassination in Memphis, there was a conference held. And in that conference,

47:55

Matt Chandler, who's a wonderful preacher and a man that I loved and admired, prayed for and commended his work widely at times, he made this statement about hiring a pastor.

48:09

They're looking to hire other pastors in their churches to church plants. They're going to spin off from their multi -site approach.

48:18

And he said that there's a search firm that's working for them that came to him and said, okay, if we have an

48:26

Anglo 8 pastor and an African American 7, which do you want?

48:34

And Matt said, give me the African American 7. And then he said, if we have an

48:40

Anglo 8 and an African American 6, which do you want? And Matt said, we've got to take the

48:46

Anglo 8. He said, because the gap is too big. And if we take the 6, it will look and feel like the very tokenism that we're trying to fight against.

48:59

Well, I have an African American elder in our church. And when he heard Matt Chandler say that, he said, oh,

49:06

I get it. He wants to practice tokenism without being regarded as practicing tokenism.

49:13

And I think that's just right in his assessment. But that is legitimized in this view of it's a strategic move.

49:21

We have to do this in order to be able to platform leaders who are in minority races to get them to where they need to be.

49:33

I think that's unbiblical. I think it is unhealthy. I think it is disrespectful, both to the minorities that they are saying they want to help, as well as to the

49:45

King of God. Do we not have standards given to us in God's Word? And should we not be driven by that, regardless of a man's look, or ethnicity, or racial makeup?

49:59

It just seems to me we've deviated from Scripture. That's just one very clear, specific example of how that has worked.

50:06

Yeah, before this erupted in the dominant way that it has existed, this social warrior feud, if you will, going on, there was a lily -white church on Long Island that was without a pastor.

50:31

And they asked for my help to help them find one, to assist in the pastoral search.

50:39

And my immediate thought was to give a call to my friend, who is black,

50:48

Eric Redmond, to candidate for that position. And his race had nothing to do with my decision, although the only partial way that it may have been involved in that, as an afterthought, it wasn't my initial reason, but I thought to myself that this would also perhaps be used of God to bring more people of color into that congregation.

51:16

Because it's always, I think, a good thing when the local church reflects, as much as possible, the body of Christ at large, those who are called out from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and so on.

51:32

Whenever we can have that as a picture to the community around us, as the power of the gospel and how it unites men of all different backgrounds,

51:42

I think that's a good thing. Especially if you're in an area where it is very ethnically and racially diverse.

51:52

But that's an example of, at least in that thought that I had, and I don't think that Eric, I think

52:02

Eric was too busy or something, he didn't actually candidate for them. But the fact that I thought of him by the sheer virtue of his merits, his abilities, his godliness, his outstanding character, the fact that he has blown me away whenever I've heard him preach to such a powerful preacher of the gospel, those were my motivating factors.

52:31

I wasn't thinking about this this racial and ethnicity chart that you were just discussing.

52:38

I don't even remember what those numbers you were you were giving even meant as far as white six and black seven or whatever the,

52:48

I mean, do you even know what that means? He didn't define it, I think he was just saying in terms of qualifications, if we have one that we would register as okay, he's an 8 out of 10, he's a 7 out of 10, he's a 6 out of 10, that's the way that I think it was intended.

53:05

Well we have to go to our midway break right now and keep in mind we are not taking questions today, but please write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more faithfully and more frequently patronize them because we do rely upon our advertisers to exist and the longer they are our advertisers the longer we are likely to remain on the air.

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So don't go away, we're gonna be right back with Dr. Tom Askell after the station break which is a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida 90 .1

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God willing, with more of Dr. Tom Askell and the statement on social justice and the gospel.

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I'm mentioning Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. Before we return to Dr. Tom Askell on our topic today, the statement on social justice and the gospel, just have a few important events that we're having that we need to publicize to you.

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First of all, this weekend, Friday and Saturday, in Jacksonville, Florida, I am going to be orchestrating two events that I hope everybody who can travel to Jacksonville, Florida, will attend.

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and it will be held at the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary's Jacksonville, Florida campus.

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It features my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and his close friend

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Dr. Michael L. Brown of the Line of Fire radio program. They are going to be lecturing at Gordon Conwell on cross -denominational partnerships for the gospel, and if you want more details on that event, go to the website of one of the churches sponsoring this event,

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SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org.

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Then, the following night, Saturday, September 8th at the same time, 6 30 p .m.,

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a debate that I have organized will take place, God willing. Dr.

01:06:31

James R. White and Dr. Michael L. Brown, again, are involved and they are on the same debating team against two advocates of homosexuality.

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The debate theme is, Is Homosexuality Consistent with New Testament Obedience? And these two individuals debating,

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Dr. White and Dr. Brown, are ordained ministers and they are both married to individuals of their own gender.

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If you would like to attend this debate, go to SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org.

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Both of those events are free of charge, by the way. Then, coming up in November, the 9th and the 10th of November, my friends at the

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Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals are having an event and I will be there, manning an Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitors booth,

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God willing. November 9th and the 10th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

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The theme is, The Glory of the Cross, and the speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortlund, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Wynn.

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If you'd like to attend this event, go to AllianceNet .org. AllianceNet .org.

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Click on Events and then scroll down to Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology. And then, the event that we have been discussing and that you've been hearing advertised, the

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G3 Conference is coming up in January from the 17th to the 19th, that's a Thursday through Saturday, 2019.

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The G3 Conference stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory and this year, or should

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I say this January, the theme is on missions, Biblical understanding of missions, and the roster is absolutely incredible at this conference.

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Speakers include Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, John Piper, Vody Balcom, Conrad M.

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If you'd like to register, go to G3Conference .com, G3Conference .com, and I urge you, if you have a business or parachurch ministry, to not only register as an attendee of this event, but register for an exhibitors booth, just like I will be manning,

01:09:02

God willing, for my third year in a row. They are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people at the

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G3 Conference in January, so I look forward to seeing you there, and go to G3Conference .com,

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ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Well, we are now back with Dr. Tom Nettles.

01:12:19

We are talking about the statement on social justice in the gospel, and Dr. Nettles, if you could bring to light some of the things that unfortunately are most likely to bring about some negative reaction to those in the social justice movement, things that you are denying,

01:12:40

I'm assuming, in the document that are of primary concern to you. Well, I would answer that question much more ably if I were

01:12:49

Dr. Nettles, but you're left with... Sorry about that, brother.

01:12:59

Dr. Tom Nettles. To be clear,

01:13:05

Chris, you owe me no apology, but you owe a great apology to Tom Nettles. I just interviewed

01:13:13

Tom on the 20th of August, so I guess that interview is still fresh in my mind. Well, I mean, we think that there will be some who have been advocating positions that we renounce that certainly will take exception with our renunciations.

01:13:31

For example, we deny that Christians should segregate themselves into racial groups or should regard racial identity above or even equal to their identity in Christ, and there are folks today, though, that are advocating what they call this quiet exodus from what they claim to be white evangelicalism or white evangelical churches into black churches.

01:13:57

We also acknowledge that the race is not a biblical category.

01:14:04

It is improper, along with that, it's improper to identify ourselves racially in any way that would compete with or undermine our identity that is in Christ.

01:14:16

We reject any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression, and that is a significant part of what's being said by some today that, no, we are a victimized group that has been oppressed, and therefore there are certain things that need to be done.

01:14:39

Some have even advocated things along the lines of reparations that should take place.

01:14:45

So we're saying, no, this is not at all legitimate. We do make this comment, and I think it's a very important one, that while we are to weep for those who weep, we deny that a person's feelings of offense or oppression necessarily prove that someone else is guilty of sinful behaviors, oppression, and prejudice.

01:15:05

And that is something just in our culture today. When I say I'm offended or you've offended me, in our culture today that immediately gives me the high ground.

01:15:15

And I'm to be believed, and I'm to be accepted as being nothing but a truth -teller, and you are immediately to be suspected.

01:15:25

But the Scripture is clear, you know, the first to bring his case to light seems right till another comes forth and questions him.

01:15:32

And as Christians, we should be interested in trying to discern what is right, what's wrong. And we should want justice.

01:15:39

We should always want justice. And so whenever an accusation is made of injustice, well, we know that an injustice has taken place.

01:15:47

Either the one being accused has committed injustice, or the one doing the accusing is committing injustice.

01:15:55

And so we should want justice either for the one who has been abused and treated unjustly, or for the one who's been falsely accused.

01:16:04

But justice should rule in both of those. So this guilt manipulation that is so rampant in our culture today that has come into the church needs to be renounced.

01:16:16

And just because I say you offend me, and therefore I try to make you repent or apologize or make things right, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're guilty.

01:16:29

I mean, Jesus offended a lot of people. He was not guilty of any sin. So we need to be clear what the

01:16:35

Bible calls sin, what the Bible calls right, what the Bible calls wrong. Now, obviously in individual cases, if someone were to be guilty literally and truthfully of the sin of racism, or looking upon someone as being inferior to him merely by virtue of the color of their skin, or some other really ridiculous and, dare

01:17:03

I say, insane reason. But if that individual had harmed somebody's life financially, physically, or otherwise, where the actual reality of what is being claimed for white people as a whole were to be true,

01:17:24

I'm certain that you would be convinced that in those cases, and who knows how many or few there are, but in those cases on an individual basis, a person who sins in such a way, would you not think that just as Zacchaeus did, that there would be reparation, restitution, and so on, be involved in their repentance?

01:17:51

Oh yeah, there should be restitution, absolutely. And that should be done regardless of race or ethnic background or gender.

01:18:02

I mean, just where there is sin, there needs to be repentance, and fruits of repentance should always accompany genuine repentance.

01:18:12

And I would go so far as to say, as well, where racist attitudes or attitudes of racial superiority exist, they need to be rebuked.

01:18:21

And among the people of God, they should not be tolerated. So we've had to deal with this in our church.

01:18:28

People get saved from all kinds of backgrounds, and they carry all their baggage with them into their new life, that it has to be unpacked and renounced.

01:18:37

And so over the course of sanctification, these types of things crop up. And we've seen people acknowledge, repent, and seek forgiveness from some that they have harbored these attitudes against that have caused them to be standoffish and all, but that's what the

01:18:53

Gospel does. But we've got to be clear that we do this because God's Word tells us that we are not to look upon anyone in just a merely fleshly way or earthly way any longer.

01:19:08

We're to do unto others what we would have done to us by them. So those responsibilities that go with living as a citizen of Christ's kingdom are to be held up, and we are to seek to fulfill them to the best of our ability.

01:19:25

Yeah, so at its root, is this not what we are talking about, at least as a part of the problem with the social justice movement?

01:19:34

Isn't it at its root bearing false witness against your neighbor?

01:19:41

Because people are being accused of being guilty of something that they themselves personally are not guilty of.

01:19:49

And when you're taking the broad -brush approach that you're guilty of something just by virtue of the color of your skin or the lack of color in your skin, that is, as we said before, that is the definition of racism.

01:20:06

Yeah, there is a lot of that going on, and largely it's due to a redefinition of racism or an expanding definition of racism that says this is not just a personal sin or issue, this is also a systemic, institutional sin or issue.

01:20:27

And there is no doubt, you go back in the history of our nation and you see that the whole legalization of slavery and the

01:20:36

Jim Crow laws, yes, those were examples of institutionalized racism, and I agree with that.

01:20:43

They should have been renounced, and they were, should have been overthrown, and they were. But what we're being told is, yes, but today there still is institutionalized racism, there still is systemic racism throughout.

01:20:57

So you, being a racial majority member, can be guilty of participating in systemic racism, even though personally you are not a racist, which of course puts nearly everyone who's not a racial minority in an impossible position.

01:21:20

And the question that I always want to ask is, okay, if I am guilty of sin, what is the sin?

01:21:27

Show me from the Bible, and then what does repentance look like? So how can you repent of systemic racism, which, by the way,

01:21:37

I do not accept as a category. I am unwilling for someone to simply throw down systemic racism on the table and believe that they now have the trump card, because it is an assumption, and what

01:21:51

I want is not an assumption, I want documentation, I want evidence that this is going on today.

01:21:59

Are you telling me that today we have it just as bad in terms of racial inequity and racial policy as we did 75 years ago, or as we did 150 years ago?

01:22:11

I'm unwilling to see that. I've been unable to see that. I'm unwilling for someone to make that accusation without bringing forth the evidence.

01:22:21

I don't know if you're familiar with Shelby Steele. He is... Oh yeah, I am.

01:22:26

I don't know Shelby personally, and I don't know if he is a brother in Christ, but he says some pretty profound things and has written some pretty amazing things.

01:22:35

And it is of Shelby's opinion, and he is a black American conservative and a fellow at the

01:22:45

Hoover Institution, it is his opinion that those crying out for social justice today are protesting over things that there is no longer any need to protest.

01:23:00

That they are inventing something that doesn't exist, and according to him, he believes this is merely a tool of the left.

01:23:08

And of course we wouldn't say that we know that this is consciously the motive, especially of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are doing this, who are part of this movement.

01:23:18

But the tool of the left to constantly perpetuate a terror in white people that they will be viewed as racists, and to perpetuate a notion that liberals are guiltless, they are innocent of this type of thought or behavior, and it gives them a level of superiority in the minds of the public very often, where those that are conservative and those that are white have to constantly apologize and be viewed as a group, a people group, that are guilty of something, and it goes on perpetually without any real conclusion ever occurring to it.

01:24:06

Would you agree with Shelby Steele's assessment of that? Yeah, Shelby Steele has been tremendously helpful to me.

01:24:13

His book, entitled White Guilt, is something that I would recommend to all of your listeners.

01:24:19

I've recommended the book far and wide over the last few months, because in my effort to try to understand and to check myself and to see, man, am

01:24:29

I missing something? I've read books from various persuasions on these issues, but his book,

01:24:35

White Guilt, explains it so clearly, and from his own experience, from his vantage point as a scholar, from his experiences in the academic world and among some of the political elite, he sees it very, very clearly, in my estimation.

01:24:55

Yeah, what he basically says is that with Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, there was a call for the overthrowing of racism.

01:25:07

You know, that racism was a barrier that had to be overcome, and he says that the civil rights movement accomplished that with the passing of the

01:25:16

Civil Rights Act and the changes of laws. Those things were begun. Obviously, everything didn't change overnight, but that movement was successful.

01:25:26

But then what happened in the wake of it was you had different leaders arise who wanted to see racism not as a barrier that now has been overcome, is being overcome, but as a tool to continue to foster these racialized ways of thinking.

01:25:45

And so his thesis is that white guilt is black power, and that to put whites in a position of saying you are guilty for all of the oppressiveness that has been brought to bear upon blacks in this nation, you have to own that guilt.

01:26:05

And when that guilt is owned, there's a loss of moral authority. And without a moral authority or a vacuum of moral authority, this new leadership, post civil rights, black leadership stepped into it and began to make demands and began to make a living off of those demands so that they put institutions and white organizations and white people in a position of having to do whatever was required of them to demonstrate their lack of racism.

01:26:38

And Shelby still gets it. And I commend his work. I wish everyone would read his writings on this, especially his book,

01:26:46

White Guilt. He's got other books, but this book in particular was one that just resonated on this issue. Yeah, I've got to try to get

01:26:53

Shelby here on this program to discuss this. We're going to our final break right now.

01:26:58

It's much more brief than the last one. And so please, once again, write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can patronize them more frequently and more successfully.

01:27:11

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01:34:56

We are now back with our final segment of the statement on social justice in the gospel with our guest

01:35:02

Tom Askell, not Tom Nettles, who happens to be a mutual friend of both of ours.

01:35:09

Tom Askell, who is pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida, and he is also the executive director of Founders Ministries.

01:35:19

If you could, before we run out of time, highlight some of the other areas in the statement that need to be primarily known by our listeners today.

01:35:30

Yeah, well, one thing that we try to clear up is this whole issue of heresy, because the word gets thrown around too easily in this whole dialogue that's turning into a debate, and what we want to make clear is that heresy is the denial of or departure from any doctrine that is essential to the

01:35:50

Christian faith, and so it involves replacement of key essential truths with variant concepts.

01:35:57

And if a person embraces heresy, then he's departed from the faith once given to the saints, and he is on a pathway towards spiritual destruction.

01:36:06

Obviously, heretics can be recovered, but if they continue on their heresy, they have deviated from the faith.

01:36:13

We also, in talking about heresy, issue a pretty strong denial that says that the charge of heresy we deny can be legitimately brought against every failure to achieve perfect conformity to all that is implied in sincere faith in the gospel.

01:36:30

In other words, we are saying we must make room for sanctification.

01:36:36

We must make room for the reality that there are blind spots that we all have.

01:36:42

There's no doubt I have blind spots. I have holes in my theology today.

01:36:47

I just don't know where they are. If I knew where they were, I could see them, then I would retent of them and do better.

01:36:54

Well, that's true for the best of Christians at the best of times, and we need to allow for that and not charge someone with heresy because they have blind spots, even serious blind spots, in their outlook.

01:37:09

So I believe what is connected to what you're saying is that there are those in the social justice movement who would insist that we denounce as false brethren and heretics, and obviously

01:37:24

I can't broad brush with all of them making this claim, but there is a significant number of them saying we must denounce people like Jonathan Edwards and nearly anybody else that you can think of who owns slaves, for instance.

01:37:38

That's exactly right. George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards have been mentioned more than once by some in this movement saying, you know, we can't even be sure these guys were

01:37:48

Christians because they were slave owners. Well, were they wrong in their view of slavery?

01:37:57

We can debate that and say, yeah, they shouldn't have regarded slaves the way they did, especially Whitfield and some of the things he did.

01:38:03

But nevertheless, does that mean they cannot be Christians? Well, let's look at what the gospel is.

01:38:09

Let's look at what a Christian is. Let's look at what the Bible says salvation is, and let's deal with the reality of remaining sin and understand what the

01:38:16

Bible calls heresy. What the Bible says is out of the bounds of being able to lay claim to the title of Christian.

01:38:27

I mean, even when you look at the situation that is a dark stain on the history of this nation, the situation involving slavery, the best of men had serious implications and consequences to consider, even if they wanted to immediately free every slave that they owned in a system they inherited that existed centuries before they were even alive.

01:38:59

That could mean the certain death of all of these people that you are just setting free, depending upon the legal situation, the parameters with which they were set free, the geographical concerns of when and where and so on.

01:39:18

I mean, to keep slaves, if you inherited that system, and treat them as kindly as one could,

01:39:25

I mean, there are other implications involved in that, even the sin of slavery itself. Am I stretching too much here?

01:39:34

Yeah, well, I would agree with most of what you said. Yeah, and some actually wrote about that, in saying that we detest slavery, we don't want to see slavery continued, but to release all slaves right now would be confining them, basically, to a life that they could never get out of or to death.

01:39:58

And some who owned slaves worked diligently to try to educate their slaves and to provide access to greater freedoms and way of life.

01:40:09

So, all of that is true. But one thing, Chris, that is not popular, and this is not part of the statement, but this is something that I've seen as I've studied

01:40:17

Judaism Scripture, is that the Bible does not condemn slavery as slavery.

01:40:24

And some people chafe at that. But when Paul wrote to Philemon about the

01:40:31

Slaveness and this, he commends Philemon with some glowing terms, and he's commending a man who owned another man as a slave.

01:40:41

I'm not equating Roman slavery with American slavery, but there are many similarities, and most fundamentally is the similarity that both involved one creature owning another creature.

01:40:58

And Paul doesn't condemn it and say, oh, this is horrible or, you know, you sin. No, he commends

01:41:04

Philemon as a faithful man of God, even while he appeals to him to no longer treat the returning slave as a slave but as a brother.

01:41:15

And this is the question, it brings the question to the forefront. Are we going to take God at his word and let the

01:41:21

Bible define for us what is right or wrong? Or are we going to say, well, we're more enlightened today than Paul was, and we have greater standards of ethics than he had?

01:41:31

That's one of the fundamental issues that gets highlighted on this particular question. Yeah, and of course, the origins, however, of how the slaves wound up where they were, was a violation of the

01:41:44

Old Testament command not to kidnap and sell a man because that was actually a crime punishable by death.

01:41:53

Yeah, that's right. And it's a New Testament command that's repeated by the Apostle Paul in the pastoral letters.

01:41:59

So absolutely, man stealing is wicked and cynical. And that's how it started.

01:42:05

That's not what every slave owner did personally. Now, the whole institution began that way.

01:42:13

And by the way, that was not simply a European African issue.

01:42:18

There were Africans who sold and traded in slaves and bought slaves. And there were

01:42:24

African Americans in North America who purchased and owned slaves as well.

01:42:30

So that's not strictly a black -white issue, but it is an issue, and it needs to be renounced. In fact, it's an issue that goes on in the

01:42:37

Sudan and other places now. Absolutely. There are Christian ministries who are purchasing children and women out from slavery by black

01:42:50

Muslims and others in Africa, who are profiting from the slave trade, and much of it involves prostitution and so on.

01:43:00

It's a horrific thing. So this is not something that just died away with the

01:43:08

Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery exists globally in certain areas. Yeah, that's right.

01:43:14

Yeah, that's absolutely right. So again, while we're debating these questions and we're looking for standards of righteousness, we cannot assume that we know what the

01:43:25

Bible says. And I've offended many people by saying, you know, the Bible does not condemn slavery as slavery.

01:43:33

And they say, sure it does. No, it doesn't. It does condemn things that have taken place that were inherent in certain aspects of slavery, but the

01:43:42

Bible does not condemn slavery as slavery. Yes, and obviously someone who were to promote a form of slavery today that involves one thinking of themselves more highly than they ought, looking down on another human being because of something as insane as the texture of their hair or the color of their skin, that is wickedness.

01:44:12

And obviously that is something that is clear from the scriptures.

01:44:17

In fact, so much so that the scriptures say that if you hate your brother who you have seen, how can you love

01:44:24

God whom you have not seen? Exactly. Well, absolutely. And as Christians, we have got to take those statements from the scripture as seriously as they are intended and realize how incompatible the ways that many have been treated in the name of Christ are with the teachings of Christ.

01:44:45

Now, have any efforts yet been made, and perhaps there will be some efforts, especially now that the statement is public as of yesterday, the statement on social justice in the gospel.

01:45:00

Do you envision efforts, if they have not already begun, for public or private gatherings between those or among those on both sides of this issue so that a hashing out as brothers in Christ can be at least begun where there is more civil discourse continued and so on?

01:45:25

Do you have anything like this in mind yet? Do you know of anything like this already occurring? No, I don't know of anything definite.

01:45:32

I mean, I have had several conversations, private conversations, with brothers that see these things differently, and I have appreciated them all.

01:45:42

We have not come to a meeting on the minds, and I would hope there would be more opportunities like that as well as some public opportunities as well.

01:45:53

And, well, I would love to facilitate something on this program, and perhaps we will have future discussions about that off the air where I can have perhaps even more than one

01:46:06

Iron Trip and broadcast with those on opposing sides of this issue. Well, before we run out of time, we've only got somewhere in the neighborhood of eight minutes left before we begin signing off.

01:46:20

I want to make sure that what you most want said today, the things that you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners on either side or both sides of this issue are heard by our listeners today, if you could summarize them.

01:46:38

Yeah, I see this debate as an intramural debate among brothers, and I don't question the motives of any of those that would disagree with what this statement says.

01:46:51

I do believe that what they are trying to do is noble and right, and their motivations are wonderful.

01:46:59

I just think that the methods and some of the things that are being advocated have been imported from the world and are dangerous, and I fear that they may well fall under the warning of the

01:47:13

Apostle Paul in Colossians 2 when he says, "...until no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ."

01:47:26

Many of these ideologies and these philosophies have been imported from a godless world, a world system that is godless and brought into the

01:47:38

Church now. We're being told to think in accordance with them and to respond in accordance to their dictates, and we need to keep asking, is it according to Christ?

01:47:50

What does the Word say? So my appeal would be for everyone to go read this statement.

01:47:55

It's available publicly. You can go to statementonsocialjustice .com.

01:48:01

Just spell those words out, statementonsocialjustice .com, and read it for yourself. I don't think there's much there that is controversial.

01:48:09

Most of it is just meat and potatoes. This is what the Word says. We do draw out some implications where reasonable men can debate and see things differently, but we must agree on the essentials.

01:48:23

These are things we've always agreed on in certainly the Reformed evangelical movement.

01:48:29

I would just plead with my brothers and sisters to say, take a go, look at that, and say, yes, okay, this is right, this is good, this is true.

01:48:37

And then where we need to flesh out implications more clearly, let's have the conversation.

01:48:42

And goodness, I've had lots of blind spots in my life, and I don't claim to be free from them now. And if someone can help me to see what

01:48:49

I'm not seeing, or correct what I think I'm seeing but seeing wrongly, they will have served me very well.

01:48:56

Amen. My dear friend who is now with the Lord, Dr.

01:49:02

Robert J. Cameron, I don't know if you ever had the privilege of speaking with him, but he was a black brother.

01:49:12

He started after his ordination in the Reformed Episcopal Church, then became a pastor in the

01:49:19

PCA, and then before departing this earth for a number of years was a pastor in the

01:49:25

OPC, same congregation that went through all those changes, Mount Carmel Church in Somerset, New Jersey.

01:49:35

Brother Bob Cameron, a dear friend of mine and my late wife, he was concerned about the sin of racism, and he was concerned about the sin of racism in both the white church and the black church.

01:49:54

And of course, we hate using these types of terms, but just for the sake of understanding, and especially in regard to this conversation, we have grown accustomed to these terms of where a church is dominated by either white people or black people.

01:50:13

We call them the white church, it, the white church, or the black church, although that is a very sad reality that we have to use these terms.

01:50:20

But he wrote a book that I urged him to write back in the 90s called

01:50:28

The Last Pew on the Left, America's Lost Potential, and one of the most major of the

01:50:37

Christian publishing houses wrote back to him after he submitted a manuscript to them that his manuscript was the finest unsolicited manuscript they had ever seen, but they did not feel comfortable publishing it because he criticized the black church in addition to the white church for the sin of racism.

01:51:02

But he was dismayed by the fact that you still have in existence, after 2 ,000 years, churches that are nearly all black and nearly all white, even if the geography of where those churches are located would not reflect the diversity in those churches.

01:51:27

And he wanted to see mixed -race churches, of course we believe that there's only one race, the human race, but those of all complexions reflecting every tribe and tongue and people and nation, whenever possible.

01:51:41

Obviously if there is a church in an area where there are just no one of a different skin color for very long distances, those things are understandable.

01:51:50

But are you concerned, because I have spoken with Christian brothers and sisters who don't exactly have an identical reaction to this or view of this, but do you think that we should be making more efforts in regard to the population in our church memberships to reflect where we are in terms of skin color and ethnicity?

01:52:20

Obviously there are language barriers that may prevent that on some occasions, but when it comes to skin color,

01:52:26

I'll give you an example. You know my dear friend Mike Adosh, who we mentioned earlier, he was at one time a pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville, and that's

01:52:38

Long Island, New York, and that's where I was saved, and that church was located in a predominantly black area, and the church only had one black family.

01:52:52

And I had shared with Mike, I said, I don't think that we are appropriately or accurately reflecting our surroundings.

01:52:59

There's a sign here to me that makes me uncomfortable that we're not doing enough evangelism and outreach to the people who actually live in our neighborhood.

01:53:10

So we had, at my urging, Bob Cameron preach there. He did a conference there. We publicized this heavily and put posters and flyers everywhere in the neighborhoods, and this was not tokenism because Bob Cameron, we all regarded him as a powerful and faithful minister of the gospel.

01:53:30

And the Lord used it, and there were families that came into that church for that conference that never left, that some of them might still be there, as it is now known as Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island, now located in Merrick.

01:53:44

But is that something of any concern to you, that you think that Christians, both black and white, should be concerned about?

01:53:52

Yeah, we need to be aware of it. We certainly do, and here's the reality that it's easy to live in a cocoon and to not think beyond yourself.

01:54:05

And that's true with race. It's true with your socioeconomic status, your educational status, and any other way of demarcating people that you can think of.

01:54:20

And so we need to make sure that we're not letting those things be the priority. You know,

01:54:25

I'm a Texas Aggie. I graduated from A &M, Texas Aggie football fan, love to watch the

01:54:31

Aggies play football. And I love to hang out with guys who love to watch Aggies play football during the fall.

01:54:38

And it's easy to say, man, let's get together and watch a game. But if that's my primary way of thinking, and I forget that there are a lot of people that don't give a rat's rip about A &M or their football team or anything else.

01:54:49

I could just live in that cocoon, and that would be silly and stupid to do that.

01:54:54

Now that's an almost superficial example, but I use it to kind of highlight the danger that exists across all various barriers.

01:55:05

Our churches should be, and most are, diverse. Many of them, maybe most of them, are not as racially diverse as they could be given their local context.

01:55:17

But we should not let that discount the diversity that does exist. In most churches, there are economic diversities, there are gender diversities, there are age diversities.

01:55:30

And yes, we should welcome having a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds in our churches, and we should not exclude anyone on the basis of that.

01:55:43

We should not limit leadership on the basis of that at all. And I do think that there are appropriate times and ways to make up for neglect where we have just been thinking kind of in our own little bubble.

01:55:58

And that's the value of having brothers and sisters that are not like us in our background. And I've had this brought to me multiple times through my ministry by people who are different from me educationally, different from me in life experiences in terms of family makeup, and different from me ethnically.

01:56:20

When you said this, it sounded like marriage. It's easy for me as a married guy with a bunch of kids to make applications and implications in light of my context and forget we've got widows, we've got widowers, we've got people who've been divorced, we've got people who've never been married out there.

01:56:39

We have people that can't have children. And I need to be sensitive to that in my preaching, my teaching, so that we're not inadvertently putting up filters or barriers that should not be there.

01:56:51

And so, yeah, you look around your community. I live in a city, and I think we have, it's like four or five percent

01:56:58

African American, about 16 percent or so of Hispanic American, and the rest would be

01:57:06

Anglo American if we're going to use those hyphenations. And so, should our church get nervous about the fact that we don't have 50 percent

01:57:15

Hispanic and 40 percent, or 50 percent

01:57:20

Black and Hispanic and 50 percent Anglo? I don't think so. I mean, we should make sure we are not doing anything to put barriers up and welcome all.

01:57:28

And we do. We have various ethnicities in leadership in our church, and it's not because they are of the specific ethnic makeup they are.

01:57:37

It's because they are qualified men that the congregation is recognized. So, yeah, I think there's a right time and way to highlight the fact that this is who we are, and we don't have barriers without falling into the tokenism or the kind of fear of, oh no, we've got to do something about this, or else people will think that we're racist.

01:57:58

I never want to be motivated by that. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the contact information that they need.

01:58:06

First of all, can you repeat at least twice the URL for people to read the

01:58:12

Statement of Faith on Social Justice and the Gospel? Yeah, it's statementonsocialjustice .com.

01:58:20

It's statementonsocialjustice .com. And it's really not a statement of faith.

01:58:25

It's a statement of affirmations and denials that are set forth for consideration.

01:58:30

I encourage everyone to go there and read that. And the website for Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida is truegraceofgod .org,

01:58:42

truegraceofgod .org. And the website for the Founders Ministries, if you could share that as well.

01:58:49

Yeah, that's founders .org, founders .org. Founders .org, great. Well, Dr. Askle, I just am so thankful that you made the time to be on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio today.

01:59:01

I look forward to many future returns from you as my guest. I really value greatly our friendship.

01:59:09

Please send my warmest greetings in Christ to Frank and Carmen Giliberti, who have been long time dear friends of mine, as you know, and my late wife.

01:59:20

And I want to remind our listeners, please pray for the two events in Jacksonville, Florida that I have orchestrated that I will,

01:59:27

God willing, be attending this weekend, Friday, September 7th, and Saturday, September 8th, both at 630 p .m.,

01:59:35

the first at the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Jacksonville, Florida, and the second at Switzerland Community Church in Switzerland, Florida.

01:59:43

And the website for more details is switzerlandcommunitychurch .org, switzerlandcommunitychurch .org.

01:59:49

I hope that you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater