My Short Review of Voddie Baucham's "Fault Lines"

Introduction and the Promise of a Short Podcast

Welcome to Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. Today's gonna be a short one, I promise you. I know no one believes me, I know. Yesterday I said it would probably be short and an hour later, but today it really is gonna be short.

I'm just gonna give you some thoughts I have on Bodhi Bakkam's book, some positive thoughts. It's coming out I think in April, but I've had an advanced copy for a little while and so I just wanna share with you some of the positive things I think that are in that, some of the advantages to getting this book and hopefully it'll help him in some way.

I mean, more people buying it. I know he's got a lot of medical expenses. I mean, hasn't it been really cool to watch during this whole time when he's got this heart condition and he's at the Mayo Clinic and the medical bills are gonna be so much to see.

The body of Christ raised over a million dollars for him. I just think that's incredible. But anyways, I just, yeah, I hope this will help out in any little way it possibly can. So I'm gonna share a little bit about him.

NeNe's Deli Documentary and Last Stand Studios Updates

Real quick, before I get to that, I just wanted to show you the, I know I had mentioned on the podcast yesterday that the NeNe's Deli documentary is gonna be coming out soon in the next few weeks, et cetera.

If you want updates on that, you can go to the info section and find the social media links and it's gonna be an incredible documentary. It's about a business owner. I've actually interviewed Juan Riesco who essentially stood up to the social justice mob and was canceled and he preached the gospel to them as he's being canceled.

And there's so much more to that story, but it's gonna be about 50 minutes long and it's good, guys. It's really gonna be good. Here's where we are right now on social media, Last Stand Studios on Twitter.

You go to at Studio Last Stand, that's at Studio Last Stand, and you can go and you can watch the little teaser we have. It's Little Night Guy. I like this guy. This is the symbol for Last Stand Studios.

It's a guy, it's a night making a last stand, right? Then we have on YouTube, there's already 180 subscribers there. You're gonna wanna subscribe to the YouTube channel for Last Stand Studios. There's gonna be a lot of bonus features and stuff, extended interviews and that kind of thing.

So you're definitely gonna wanna get notified when those things drop because I don't think they're all gonna drop at once. And then, of course, on Gab, you go to at Last Stand Studios, at Last Stand Studios, and it's there.

And then you can go to Studio, at Studio Last Stand on Facebook for Last Stand Studios. And then the final place is Studio Last Stand on Instagram. So there you go. Those are some of the places you can go on social media if you want to connect to Last Stand Studios.

Figured I'd mention that because I didn't really go over it clearly yesterday and I wanted people to be able to subscribe to that. So the links are in the info section for that. Well, that's not what we're talking about now, though.

Why Fault Lines Is About Theological Division

We're gonna talk about Vody Bakum's book. It is called Fault Lines. And Vody is from, or he grew up, I guess, and a lot of his growing up was in Southern California. Originally, I was actually born there in Southern California.

And so earthquakes are not something that people from Southern California are, they don't have a concept of. They know a lot about earthquakes because they happen a lot more frequently. And so he writes each chapter, I think just about every one of them, kind of starts with some summary of something related to an earthquake and aftershocks.

And he relates that to what's happening now. And it really is, even the title in the caption here, I think reveals exactly what is going on. It is, it's a fault line. And we've been saying this for years, some of us who have been talking about this, that there's no way to avoid a separation.

Social justice is going to be a dividing line. And it's a dividing line because of the theological implications it brings. It's because it destroys our understanding of revelation. It destroys biblical justice, which gets into the gospel itself, because justice is part of that.

It destroys the idea of original sin and forgiveness and really things that are very core to the gospel. It has foreign concepts that it imports that do not comport with Orthodox Christian doctrine. And so Votie Bauckham, I think does a great job, especially talking about some of those theological things.

What I Appreciate About the Book

But here, I made a little list. I'm sure there's more I could put here, but here's my little list, things I like. And this is the last slide, guys. That's why I said it's gonna be a short podcast. This is the last slide I have.

Things I like about Votie's book. And you can go to the info section. You'll see the link to purchase the book if you want it. He's not paying me to do this or anything. I'm just saying there's some good things in this book.

I'm writing a book now, by the way, too, about the same topic, and I'm coming at it from a bit of a different angle. I think they're gonna actually compliment each other very well, his book and what I'm trying to put together.

But here are the things about his book I love. First of all, a willingness to name names. He names, and here's just some of the names listed there, Jarvis Williams, Walter Strickland, Matthew Hall, Curtis Woods, Jamar Tispy, Daniel Hill, Letitia Morrison, all people who profess to be Christians.

I think Kendi also professes, so he's in there. And he names them. And he doesn't go after as much, or he doesn't, at least by name, go after Al Mohler or, I think, actually, if I'm not mistaken, he does say something.

I should have looked this up. I think he does say something about Lincoln Duncan, if I'm not mistaken, in relationship to Jamar Tispy. If I'm not, I'm trying to, I could be wrong about that. Now my mind's getting a little fuzzy.

In one of the chapters, I think I was reading it, he mentioned something. But anyway, he doesn't go after those guys as much. He does mention, I will say this, he does mention Nine Marks Ministries quite a bit.

Does mention the Gospel Coalition quite a bit. So there you go. I mean, this hasn't really been done from someone who's a votee's status, from someone who's been platformed before at the Gospel Coalition, which votee has, who's spoken at those conferences.

This is kind of, this is new. The other thing is it's easy to understand. It's written on a layman level, but it's intellectually astute. So votee takes these complicated or highfalutin sounding, for all of y 'all, there you go, for all of y 'all who are driving in the truck right now listening to me, he takes those highfalutin concepts, and he really does break them down into manageable, just normal conversational, a way that people would talk about them in normal conversation.

They're just understandable. So I appreciate that, about that, because so often academic writing, which I come from that world a little bit, is it's just not accessible sometimes to the layman. And it's not because the concepts are usually so high and mighty.

It's because there's a lot of terms that are used that hardly anyone uses. So votee avoids a lot of that, but it's still, I'd say intellectually, it's there. It's relatable, incorporates a lot of his personal experience, talks about his growing up, his childhood, kind of his, how he came to understand things the way he understands them now.

And he really did come from, I mean, he was a guy, the kid that would have been ripe for the social justice stuff, and yet he chose a different direction. And then he directly refutes the systemic racist narrative with well-researched examples.

And this might be a little bit of the history nerd in me, but I really appreciate this part because he goes through a lot of the police shootings and those kinds of things. And he shows not only examples of people who are descended from Europeans going through the same thing in the United States or worse, and then not getting any media play, but he also debunks a lot of those and shows that, okay, this wasn't racism, here's what happened.

And then fifth, he acknowledges the theologically divisive nature of the movement, which is really important in my mind, that this is a religion that we're dealing with. This isn't just a political thing.

So it's not just Thomas Sowell talking about this. This is Woody Bauckham talking about this as a Christian. So I encourage you, go ahead, go pre-order this, pick it up, I think it'll help him out. It'll help you out as well.

So that's my little plug. And I wanted to end with this. So this is a conference that happened last year, or no, sorry, not a conference, it was a podcast that was recorded last year. And this is just kind of a little hope for you.

But I also, Vody plugged my book. I've heard that he's been doing this here and there, but I didn't have an example until someone sent me this. And so I was happy about it. I'm gonna be shameless about it.

I was happy that he said something about it. He plugged the book, but he also gave us some hope that, hey, there's some more things coming out. There's more people that are gonna be writing on this that he's aware of.

And so we're looking forward to that. We're looking forward to that because it's been a few years now. And I've kind of wondered, I'm like, where are, especially the seminary guys, where are the guys within the seminaries?

Because I know some of them have some great arguments against this, but so often they're muzzled, or I'm hoping that we're gonna turn a corner here. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it's a little, it seems a little late in some ways, but the people who would be writing these books, like Vody, are really busy.

They have a lot on their plate. And it's hard stuff to be, I can testify from personal experience, it's not the kind of thing you want to write about. It's just, it's not enriching to your soul to read all this social justice stuff.

Vody went through some of that though, and he did some of it for those who want to understand it better. And I appreciate that. So I'm gonna end with that clip.

Hey, God bless. Thank you for listening. And this will be one of my shortest podcasts. Vody, why do you think there's such a deficit of you? Because, and by that, I mean. I mean, I'm being 100 sincere.

I've told Todd before, I'm like, man, if ever there was a time we don't need Vody Bacchum in Africa, it's right now. And yet, because again, there's mutual friends and church leaders that you and I would have that are different shades of melanin, and nobody's talking like you.

And I think what you're saying is so.

You know, there are, man, there are. There are thousands of prophets who haven't bowed the knee to Baal. They're being drowned out right now. But you know, for one thing, there's a series of books coming out on this issue.

You know, I'm expecting mine to be out, Lord willing, in April. But there's a number of books that are coming out and that have come out. A guy named John Harris just wrote a book, Social Justice Goes to Church.

You know, I'm thinking about, oh man. Anyway, just completely drew a blank. But Founders, I was just part of a book that Founders, you know, put out by What Standard. And a number of other pieces, you know, that have come out and that are coming out right now from this other perspective.