TGC implicitly supports BLM Narrative, Fears Right Wing Algorithms & John Jasper: Black Hero

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris, and it is the news roundup today.

We have a number of stories to get to, and I don't think we're going to get to all of them. There's just far too many. It may take two or three days to just talk about all the things that I'd like to talk about, and oh my goodness, there's so much going on.

Student loan forgiveness. Oh my goodness, right? Apparently, that's what Christians believe.

That's our doctrine. That's what we think Jesus did was forgive our debts, so we should forgive student loans.

I kid you not, that logic is floating around out there on the internet. So that's one of the big national stories that's going on right now, but there's just so many other things.

From local church matters and local political fights, in fact, I have a message sitting in my inbox right now from someone in a local community where the church, it's not

Planned Parenthood, the church apparently is preventing some pro life things from happening in their particular community, and I'm just, and supposedly an evangelical church.

There's all kinds of stories from the large to the small that we, I think, should talk about, and I always put it through the grid of what would be helpful for you to hear.

This show has been always more of a supplement. It's not a multivitamin.

I expect that you're getting, you're nurturing in the Word of God, other places generally.

Not that you can't get that here necessarily, but I'm not preaching at you. I'm not giving you exegetical commentary on Scripture most of the time.

This is a show that I'm giving you a lot of news. I'm giving you a lot of hopefully useful information about ministries and individuals, and we can be, you know, kind of, some call it discerning, some call it critical.

I just call it wise. We can be wise about the voices and influences that are out there, and that's really the goal of this show.

It has been for quite some time, is to try to bring to you information that will help you in navigating the evangelical landscape out there, and there's so many pitfalls.

There's so many landmines, and you know, I just praise God that He is the one that directs history.

It's not me, and sometimes I worry about all the different voices out there that are lying, that are saying things that just are not helpful, that are misdirecting people, that are putting people into compromising situations.

I mean, it covers the evangelical quote -unquote landscape, whatever evangelical means now, and I just have to remember that God's ultimately in control.

We've gone through stages of history that are much worse than this one in some ways. I was reading this morning in 1

Samuel, and David's fleeing for his life, and just, can you imagine living like David lived, and thinking the good guys that are controlling

Israel, the Israeli elites, right? They're all bad. They're following the direction of Saul, who's arrogant, he's coming after me, he's a murderer, or at least that's what he's attempting to do, and so, you know, we're living in Philistia for some time, but you know, we're not really with them either.

They don't accept us, and it's just, man, I just put myself in his predicament and think, man, I'm blessed, and yet David was a man after God's own heart, who was blessed in his own right, and was privileged to be part of the line of the

Messiah. So, you open your Bible, you open just even history itself, and you look at what the church has gone through in the past, and we do live in some unique times.

I'm not gonna lie about that. I'm not gonna say it's always been this way with the global communication capabilities and the technological advances that have made totalitarianism more possible, but things have been bad before in other ways, and in some ways, far worse.

God flooded this world. I mean, it's been worse before, so I just wanted to remind everyone, I'm reminding myself, and I'm reminding everyone else along with that, and so don't worry too much about what's going on there in the evangelical world, or in the greater world, the political world.

I would say think as much as you can about what you can do, how you can take the gifts that God's given you, steward them well, take the talents

He's given you, invest them well, and that's the way that I think you ensure that your little slice of the world, your little town, or your church, or your family even—I mean, it can go down to just a few people, your friends—that's how you can ensure that there's some stability there, that there's some wisdom there, that it's going to be an island of protection from the rest of the nonsense that's going on out there.

There's so much of it, and we see it more and more escalating. You know, the conservatives on talk radio sometimes will say—they get hopeful and gleeful almost about how the left is overplaying their hand.

It's getting so crazy. People are going to wake up. They're going to realize how bad it is out there, and I've been waiting for that.

It doesn't seem to be happening, and I don't think actually it will, to be honest, because we know, as Christians we know, that things can get so much worse as far as the depravity of man, the nonsense that man's able to justify in his mind for the purpose of doing sin.

You don't really find an end point, and sure, some people are waking up to some extent. I saw this video not long ago of an

LGBT activist from the 90s who was saying, look, I wouldn't have been involved if I knew we would be doing transgender library hour with children.

You look at that, and you think, well, it's a little late, but thanks, and then you think to yourself—I wondered this in my head—for every person like that, how many people though are going the opposite direction, who are saying, you know, transgender library hour is actually tolerant?

Are those numbers growing? Are those numbers diminishing? I think it's still a minority of people, but like all the leftist innovations, it always starts with a little minority, and they keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, and they take advantage of the tolerance that is out there from people on the right, and they tend to be more totalitarians.

They're gatekeepers. They want to gatekeep everything. Once they infiltrate an organization, they lock the door behind them.

They don't let anyone else in who doesn't share their ideology, whereas people on the right tend to be very accepting of people, whether their ideas are in line with theirs or not, and so that's just the nature of the beast.

In fact, I was watching or listening—what was I doing? I was listening to a podcast.

I was listening to one of the few podcasts I listened to, Brian McClanahan's podcast, The Brian McClanahan Show, and I realized that's more of a history podcast,

American history, and some people will call me a nerd. That's fine, but he was talking about something that was very relevant, and he does this often.

He'll take history, and he'll talk about a modern political situation, and he'll apply history to it.

He was talking about Martin Van Buren in relationship to the modern Democratic Party and just making parallels.

It was interesting, but what he was saying the other day that caught my attention was how some of the candidates, the

Republican candidates in Georgia, in Pennsylvania, you have Dr. Oz running. I forget who's running in Georgia.

It's a football star, and I think he had another example, but there's a lot of celebrities that are running that aren't great candidates at all, but they have some name recognition, and the

Republican Party tends to now gravitate towards that, I guess, the popularity contest candidates.

He didn't say this, but I thought of this. How much of that is being successful in one area in which you can still or could still be successful while being somewhat conservative politically?

You could, I think, also say sharing Christian moral virtues, values. How much of this is being able to build a platform in an unrelated field?

It's not political, necessarily. It's politicized, but you can get around. You can survive without having to tell everyone that you're a pro -abortion,

LGBT -affirming, whatever. You don't have to believe those things. You're just a good football player, or you're just good at—you're a good doctor on television.

Then, making the switch, so trying to jump from the platform you've built in those arenas to a different arena, to the political arena.

I'm wondering whether that's actually what we're going to see more and more of because it's very difficult to build for yourself a name without it getting tarnished in 2 .5

seconds. It's hard for you to build a name in the media, in Hollywood, entertainment, in education, or in politics.

In politics, you can kind of do it, but it's difficult. These more, quote -unquote, neutral—and everything's becoming political, but the few things that are still, quote -unquote, neutral, where you can have conservative ideas, you can believe those things, and still be successful, and get name recognition, and then jump into a more politicized role.

I'm wondering if that's going to happen more and more and more because you just don't have the name recognition.

It's hard to get off the ground. You can't—the gatekeepers have closed the gates. Unless you, at a very early stage, dot all the

I's, cross all the T's, kiss the ring, and say, I am a leftist, you don't get into those organizations.

Look at what's happened with Chris Pratt and how he barely says anything political.

He barely says anything even Christian, I would say. It's very generic stuff here and there, and it's rare, and yet, he is hated.

I mean, there's attempts to get him canceled from his roles in Guardians of the Galaxy, and then this is a guy that you'd think of, man, he's not even that hardcore at all, and yet, the intolerance is just on level 10.

I don't know. That's something I've been thinking about is prediction, I guess. Are we going to be seeing more and more of that?

You can be, I think—it's better to be influential on a local level. If we had 50

Ron DeSantis, and I'm not saying he's the epitome of every, whatever, the perfect governor or anything, but he certainly is showing more courage than most of the

Republican governors out there. If even just all the red states had someone like him at the helm, it wouldn't—I don't think it wouldn't matter as much.

It still would matter, but it wouldn't matter as much who was in the White House, and that's my point, is if you had towns across this country and counties across this country and down to the very household that had strong leadership, had people who are unwilling to bend to the nonsense, then people can—the corral of celebrities that's out there for the

Democrat party and for the American left, they can platform as much as they want.

It's not going to get anywhere if people don't accept it. It'll be astroturf.

It won't be organic. That's what I believe. That's what I have strived to encourage you to take action on, and it could be—we have limited time.

It could just be getting involved in your church. It could be just getting involved in becoming a town councilman. It could be on a school board.

It could be even smaller than that. It could be, well, I don't have much time, but I can coach kids, and I can get involved in their lives, and I can imply or impart to them biblical values, and so there's so many things you can do.

It starts with discipleship at the bottom organic level, but I think that all hands need to be on deck at this point in our country's history.

We are in peril. We are in peril, and it's easy to look at that like Peter looking at the waves, but just remember that God is still in control.

We have gone through in some ways worst times in history, and we could have a revival right around the corner.

That is possible. Do I anticipate it? Not really, but I'm open to it, and if it does happen, it'll be kindled initially.

At least this is how historically revivals have happened in the hearts and the minds of people like you and me.

It's going to be the Holy Spirit doing our work in our churches, and we're going to see it. Anyway, that's my spiel to open up with.

I have so many things to talk about, and I just spent over 12 minutes talking about that, but hopefully that was encouraging to some of you out there, and maybe you're thinking through practically what can

I do, and I think that would be the goal. Man, there's a number of other things I want to say, other things to get to, but what we'll do,

I think we'll start out here. I just want to make a few announcements, and then I'm just going to go through a few news stories, and we're going to end on this.

I want to share with you a book that I just read. It's called John Jasper, if you can see it.

Man, the light's so bright. The Unmatched Black Philosopher and Preacher. John Jasper, The Unmatched Black Philosopher and Preacher.

I've read a number of books that I want to talk about, but this one I finished yesterday, and so it's a little fresh in my mind. I thought it was pretty interesting, and someone that I respect greatly in some ways, a role model.

I think a candidate for being a role model, and you probably never heard of him, so we will talk a little bit about John Jasper.

Let's start, though, the podcast here, if we may. I want to let you know about Bradford Christian College, if you haven't heard about Bradford Christian College before.

I've talked about it, but you can go to bradfordchristiancollege .com, and it's a biblical principle approach to college.

They call their way of approaching education a biblical principle approach. They subscribe to the

Westminster Standards. They're orthodox. They're against social justice, and they provide mentorship.

They provide a person who's going to meet with the student, whoever that is, and I have mentioned before,

I think this is good for homeschoolers to consider, but hey, maybe you're someone who's, you're older, and you're considering continuing education, and this might be a good option for you.

Check them out. I mean, you can email them. Their email address is right on the website, and bradfordchristiancollege .com.

Again, they have a few degrees. They have two right now, Bachelor's of Arts in Theological Studies, Bachelor's of Arts in Christian Education, and it's not like a,

I've done this with actually a number of institutions, where you have an online school, right, and you do some tests.

You do some multiple choice quizzes. You write a few papers. You don't even know who your proctor is, and I've been that proctor.

I've actually taught some of these college courses, and the human scale is just so much.

I can't get to know every student. Sometimes, I get to know some more than others, but it's just, it's all through text. You're not usually talking to them.

I have had conversations, but it's rare. Bradford Christian College is intentional, though, and I love this.

They are going to meet with you regularly. Every week, you're going to be talking to your mentor, and they're going to be looking at your progress, seeing how they could help, tailoring things to you.

That's what you need in education, to be honest with you. That is a much better approach than this mass factory system that we have going, which hardly, it's been around for two seconds.

I mean, the education approach that we're using today is so new, and I think it's much better to go back to more of a classical approach, more mentorship, more application, and Bradford Christian College intends to do that.

They intend to give you the kind of education the founding fathers would have had. That's at least their goal, and I would just suggest check them out if you're looking into this kind of thing.

They are accredited, so you can get your Bachelor's of Arts in Christian Education and then go on to a Master's, and I think that's what a lot of homeschoolers do.

That's kind of what I did. I started when I was 16 at community college, and then

I ended up going and getting a Master's earlier.

I started my Master's work at least earlier than most students would start it at my age, and I already had the

Bachelor's under my belt, and it was much cheaper. I was able to live at home, which is I think the way that we did it in my house at least made a lot of sense, and if we had something like this, we might have utilized this, and so check it out, maybe even earlier than 16.

I don't know. It depends what the laws are in your state or your region, but this is an online school, so you should be able to, when a student is ready, start taking these courses, but ask them what they suggest at bradfordchristiancollege .com.

Okay, one last final announcement. You've heard me talk about it, and now I think I've lost it.

Let's see. Oh, here it is. The Adirondack Men's Retreat with Dr. Russell Fuller, October 28th through 30th.

Please sign up. Please come if you're a man. I'm just getting great feedback already. People are excited about this, and I was expecting this to be something for my church, for some local men, and maybe a few podcast folks, but a lot of podcast folks are coming out now, and please email me, and I only give you my email just for coordinating rides, so that's what this is for, but you can email me at jonathanharris, my full name jonathanharris1989 at gmail .com.

Just email me there. If you're coming and you don't have a ride, if you're coming from the Midwest, from the

South, you're flying into Albany, you're flying into New York, whatever it is, and we'll coordinate. We'll find rides for you as much as we possibly can.

I know people are coming from all those areas, so that would be great if you can come.

It's $176. That's a good price. Now, the way that we have it right now is we're trying to get three people per room if possible.

There may be some options. I think as we get closer, there actually will be options. I know one person already asked me, hey, could

I have my own room, and I said, I think that should be fine. Once we get to that point in October, I'll know better what room is available and what room isn't, but yes, we can work with that stuff, but to bring the cost down as much as possible, it's kind of you're bunking with other guys, so bring your protection if they're snoring.

This is where you get to know people. This is the kind of men's retreats I actually like. For an introvert, it can be kind of challenging at first.

You wonder, oh, man, I'm going to have to meet all these people. I'll have to be in close proximity to them. Yeah, that's how you want it, actually.

That's how you want a men's retreat because you're going to get to know people. These might be even lifelong lasting friendships.

These are people that share a lot of the same concerns with you, a lot of the same values. They're listening to this podcast, many of them.

They want to hear what Russell Fuller has to say. That alone, he's a man of courage. He's a rare gem in today's evangelical landscape.

To have an opportunity to be with him on such an intimate level, which is what this is, that is worth its weight in gold.

I would take this way over, and nothing against these conferences, but I would go, and I've been to the Shepherds Conference many years.

I would go to this way over going to the Shepherds Conference, just because it's guy stuff. We get to be outside by the fire, hiking, whatever, outdoor activities, and learn about Jeremiah in a smaller setting.

It's not just getting in line to hopefully get the autograph of the person. I've seen these lines at a conference.

You'll be able to talk to Russell Fuller. You'll be able to connect with him. You'll be able to eat a meal with him, possibly. He's going to be accessible.

It's not going to be like there's a lot of people there. I would just encourage you, if you want to tack on another day or two in the

Adirondacks, they're a beautiful area, especially that time of year. It's probably just going to be past peak, although we haven't had a lot of rain, and it's been kind of warm.

I'm wondering if it might be peak. We'll see what the fall looks like, but we may hit it right.

We'll see. October 28th through 30th, four men, and look forward to seeing you there.

It's old school. You send in your check, but go to the link in the info section to sign up, and then you just send in your check to the mailing address there,

Grace Bible Church, for the $176. If money's an issue, email me. I want everyone to be able to come.

That's my heart in all this. Let's do news stories. How does that sound? Let's do news stories. Where are we going to start?

Let's see. Man, I got Liberty University. I got Southeastern. I got Southern Seminary, and I got so many things here.

I got so many things. Let's start. Oh, man.

Let's start here, actually. How about the Gospel Coalition? Can we start with the Gospel Coalition? Let's start with the

Gospel Coalition. I was on a podcast with A .D. Robles yesterday, or two days ago,

August 25th, so two days ago. The podcast was about the Gospel Coalition and some of the worst articles.

I said, A .D., in the middle of the podcast, I said, let me just go to the Gospel Coalition website right now, right now. I did. Immediately, the main article that was being put out there was by a guy named

Chris Watkin. It said, CRT, Critical Race Theory versus Classical Liberalism versus Christianity.

One of the things I told A .D., I think I said it before I even saw this, I said, look, one of the things the Gospel Coalition does is they present two options to you.

They try to, and sometimes they're diametrically opposed, sometimes, but they're the two basic options, and then they'll try to present

Christianity as this third way, this transcending option that it rejects, equally rejects, that's important, equally rejects these other two options.

It's the dialectic, right? It takes the best of both worlds or rejects both equally, and it serves as what

Christians, it's like the option that no one saw that every

Christian, though, is required to or should believe in. The option no one saw that every Christian should believe in.

That's Gospel Coalition in a nutshell. So, anyway, I looked over this article while I was on this podcast with A .D.,

and I was like, look at this, and I went to this particular, let's see,

I jumped to this particular section right here, and I just want to read this to you. All right, so here it keeps comparing what critical race theory says to what liberalism says, and the liberalism not in the sense you're probably thinking of it, liberalism in the classical liberalism sense, so it's the liberal order, this order of democracy and tolerance and reason, and anyway, so it compares

CRT with liberalism, and then here's what the Bible says. I want to just read for you one of these, all right? CRT, racism will remain endemic.

Society cannot be reformed without first tearing it down. There's no prospect of racial justice short of this radical unmaking of society.

I'd say that's accurate. Liberalism, radical change to address questions of justice is rejected in favor of incremental and consensual progress.

I would say, well, liberalism's a little harder because it's so broad, but okay, let's grant it.

That's what liberalism says. It's more in favor of incrementalism because of law and order, and it takes governments sometimes time to work, and by the way, that's by design.

Our constitution itself with the checks and balances, it's by design that when things get done, and if there's overwhelming favor, then you can get things done fairly quickly if you want, but most things are going to have pushback, and the goal is to protect minority rights as much as possible against the majority mob rule.

The goal is to try to make sure that, and that's with things like you need two -thirds of a majority for this or three -quarters of a majority for this, or you can't just 51 % and you rule the day on certain issues, so it's designed to have breaks.

That's the whole, and I think that's a good, wise thing, but anyway, here's what the

Bible says in contrast to both these things. The Bible avoids critical race theory's tragedy, a perpetual conflict, as well as liberalism's incrementalism.

Really? That's in the Bible? The Bible? The Bible's against incrementalism. Well, on some things,

I suppose. Thou shalt not murder. Nothing incremental about that. Stop murdering, right? But it doesn't,

I don't know if that's a blank check for every form of, you know, like, so, okay, welfare state, right?

The Bible, I would say, is against the welfare state. Is the Bible, though, in favor of end it right now, and all the people that are relying on welfare, well, they can starve?

I would be shocked if anyone actually believed that, because we don't have that specifically in the Bible, so I guess by this particular author's assessment, liberalism would be in favor of a gradual change, right?

And I would be in favor of that, too. I don't think you end it right away. There's some things you can, like abortion, end it now, right?

You're killing people. Something like that, you gotta do a cost -benefit, and you gotta think through, okay, this is gonna do a lot of damage.

How do we, kind of, as quickly as possible, but without, with minimizing damage that could be caused, ease off this thing?

You know, ease off the speeding, or the gas pedal, and ease onto the brakes.

Some things, some issues, I think, are like that. And so, anyway, sometimes there's a time period you want to give for people to prepare to ease off of something, or to do something new, you know?

I was just even reading this morning in 1 Samuel, you know, how David, where was he? He was, maybe it was yesterday.

I forget the name. I can't keep all the names of these, like Amalekite, and Philistine kings, and stuff, straight.

But anyways, David is staying with a Philistine king, essentially, who basically says,

David, you need to go, and, you know, give you until tomorrow morning to go. There's a time period that was given. It was short, but there's a time period, and a lot of things are like that, where you give people time to prepare.

So, anyway, that's gradualism. That's incrementalism. I think a lot of issues are gonna be incremental, and we need wisdom to figure out which ones are incremental, which ones are immediate.

So, let's talk about what the Bible says here. According to Gospel Coalition, the

Bible avoids CRT's tragedy of perpetual conflict, as well as liberals' incrementalism. Instead, it has an eschatological vision of radical transformative reconciliation, in which members of every tongue, tribe, and nation will sing praise to God with one voice.

Now, I gotta say, I don't think CRT actually wants perpetual conflict. And I'm thinking

Marxism here, broadly speaking, CRT being an iteration of this, Marxism does think there's going to be a point in which you reach the state of communism.

And so, it's not—that's an inaccurate portrayal, in my mind. And then you have liberalism's incrementalism, and it's just—this is not just a weak argument on the point of the author here, that the

Bible is somehow always against incrementalism or something. It doesn't specify what he's really—what issue—what issue are we talking about here?

On abortion, sure. But it invokes—the article invokes

Revelation 7. Every tribe, tribe, tongue, nation is going to be gathered around the throne, and all injustice will be held to account.

Okay, agreed. In the consummation of all things, that will happen. This grand vision motivates practical efforts in the here and now.

So, where have you heard this? That you need to make your church look more diverse, you need to implement a program of racial reconciliation?

Well, it's generally from people pushing the CRT narrative, or some iteration of it. Well, now, the

Gospel Coalition, in this article, comes out and says, look, you've got to work towards this grand vision, though. Like, now. This grand vision of eliminating all injustice, and every—this diversified church around God's throne, you've got to work towards that now.

Okay, well, what does that look like? I would—I mean, I would say this is something Christ accomplishes, as we just obey his commands.

This isn't some—I'm not self -consciously like, well, man, I'm gonna—do I witness to the white guy or the

Asian guy? Oh, man, I gotta think through this. I guess, how many—let's run the numbers. How many white people versus Asians in heaven?

Okay, I guess, maybe I'll—maybe I'll witness to the Asian guy, you know? Like, what?

What is that, right? That's what we've been getting, is like, if—unless your church is diverse, unless you're specifically targeting—crafting the lure you have for certain demographics, then you are somehow against the command of Revelation 7, except Revelation 7 isn't a command.

It's a description. It's a description of the final state, and this is gonna happen inevitably, because this is what

God does, and he just wants you to be faithful in your community. I was at a church in Virginia when, during the whole lockdowns and all,

I was looking for a church that was open, and I went to this church, and I thought, this might be a good option, until the pastor starts talking about how—and it's in the country.

It's in the country. The pastor starts saying—chiding his congregation for not having enough black friends, and spending way too much time with people that share their hobbies, and not going and sharing time with people who don't share their hobbies, and how it's more important for them to be with people that aren't like them, who don't share their hobbies, for the purpose of evangelism, and I thought right away, wait a minute.

Actually, God's equipped you. If you're—if you like fishing, then you're gonna probably want to take someone fishing, and that would make more sense.

Someone who's into fishing, you can reach them better, because guess what? You have a commonality. Trust—there's a certain level of trust that's already been built there.

Someone who lives in your region, someone who looks like you, someone—all these things, don't tell me they don't.

They do, in sometimes small ways, but they do—the more proximity, the more similarity, they do factor into the mission field that's going to be around you, because you build a sense of trust with people that are like you in various ways.

Now, I mean, obviously, okay, so there's—let's say there's a black guy across the street, and we both share a love for fishing, and then there's a white guy who doesn't speak my language from Europe, who we share more genetics with, but I can't even understand him.

Obviously, I share more in common with the black guy, right? And that's gonna be—I'm in more proximity to him, all right?

So I'm not—because people freak out sometimes when I go down this path, and they think that I'm, you know, oh, no, you're making race so determinative.

No, I'm not. I'm just saying it's proximity, and that can be complicated, but what the pastor was getting at was you're missing the mark, which means you're kind of in sin,

I guess, if you are not stepping outside of your quote -unquote comfort zone and putting yourself in inconvenient places in order to evangelize.

Fine for people who want to do that. I have no problem with it, but generally, though, we're going to be witnessing to people that are like us, because that's the mission field that God's put in front of us.

It's like the Good Samaritan. You're walking along the road. This is the person God's put in front of you to help, right? It's the person that has a need.

You're able to fulfill it, and they're right there, and you can do it. And so this—I know this is a very short section, which means

I have like 50 articles I'm probably not going to get to, but this is very short, but I think it just goes to show you that how confused the gospel coalition is, how they're still trying to do this third way thing, and they can't even seem to represent the

Bible accurately here. They're creating a command out of something that is just a description.

And look at the verse that they use here. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the

Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15, 58. Well, the sentence that accompanies this is this.

This grand vision motivates practical efforts in the here and now. So to make your church more diverse or bring about the state of affairs of Revelation 7, 9 through 10, you need to do work now.

And this is the verse they use to support it. How does that even relate, right? And that's supposed to be the contrast between liberalism and CRT, and it's not even—it's such a simplified, reductionistic reading of liberalism, especially.

I can't take this seriously. I can't take that this is a helpful thing. And we're not going to go through the rest of this, but it's not helpful.

It's not practical. At the end of the day, though, what is it trying to get you to do?

It's communicating to you, critical race theory is a lie, classical liberalism is a lie, Christianity is true, and guess what

Christianity is? Boom, it's our version. And guess what our version is? Well, we got to work towards this

Revelation 7, 9 through 10. Well, that's not what Christianity teaches. That's a mischaracterization.

Let's read the last paragraph here. It says, The Bible holds out a vision for working towards societies that benefit everyone, not just liberalism's associates in which no one is to blame, or CRT's perpetual struggles of one group against another.

Okay, that's just a strawman. Liberalism's associations in which no one is to blame for anything. No one can ever be to blame for racism or any problem that might exist out there.

That's just a mischaracterization. Christians engage with issues of racial justice, neither to justify themselves nor only to bewail their sin, but in hope that the best aspirations of both critical race theory and classical liberalism will be transformatively, subversively fulfilled by the

God in whose name the nations put their hope. This is so classic TGC. And that's what

TGC wants to be. We're subversive. We're not out there fighting culture wars blatantly.

We're subversive. We fly under the radar, and they don't even realize we're infiltrating them, and they're going to all be

Christians because they're going to see, wait a minute, I'm a critical race theorist, but guess what makes more sense? I can still have the good aspects of my

CRT, and guess what? It's in Christianity. Christianity parallels those aspects, and I'm going to be a classical liberal and like Christianity because, look,

Christianity parallels the aspects I like, and we can be transformative.

We can transform this way. We can take the best of CRT, the best of CRT. What's the best of CRT? I can tell you what the best of liberal societies are, and I can probably tell you some weaknesses for liberalism.

Liberalism is going, it's an unstable element in my mind. That's where we live right now.

We live in an unstable element, and I think George Washington, who is it? Was it George Washington? I think no. Man, now

I'm blanking. I should not be blanking on this. I want to say

George Washington, but I don't think it was. I think it was John Adams who talked about the Constitution being made for religious people.

Now, George Washington said things similar to that, so I'll just say George Washington as well, but most of the founders knew that we had to have virtue, and virtue depended on religion, and once you lost religion, you would lose virtue, and once you lost virtue, you would lose the liberal order that they were drawing upon, and I think

Mark David Hall has actually a really good book that gives you a lot of primary, it's a secondary source obviously, but it gives you a lot of primary sources in the book, and I think it's

Was America Founded as a Christian Nation, something like that, but Mark David Hall, good book on that. Anyway, I can tell you liberalism is unstable.

There is no form of government that is this side of heaven that's going to be stable.

The most stable form of government is a monarchy, and King Jesus is the king, and if you have a good king, even a ruler who's not

Jesus, but you have a decent king, you can have relative stability. The problem is you get a bad king eventually, and then it becomes, it's terrible, and so the whole goal of the order in which we live right now, and it's a result, it's a liberalism of kinds, of protecting natural rights, of trying to have checks and balances, and a republican form, the whole point is to try to inspire gridlock when people, when tyrants arise.

The problem is when you have a good guy arise, there also could be gridlock, so there's pros and cons. Anyway, that's different than CRT.

CRT, and there's some assumptions the liberal order is based upon. Yes, some of those assumptions,

I think, at least taken too far and taken to their logical conclusions by some,

I think have been bad. They've been, when someone believes, when they come up with a humanism of kinds, because liberalism can mean everything from like kind of a

Rousseauian -ish kind of world. The reason for democracy is because we're, if you just get out the vote, get as many people to vote as possible, and the wisdom of all these people, you know, we're going to have the best option available, but it's everything from that to, you know,

Edmund Burke gets kind of categorized into that. It's so broad. It's so broad. CRT, though, it's more narrow.

CRT has a, it's more like a religion. I've made this point. You could say liberalism, the liberal order is built upon,

I could let it pass if someone said it's built on humanistic notions and there's a religious element.

I could say, sure, I can see that. I can see what you're talking about there, but I think there have been Christians, though, who have been able to, without compromising their

Christianity at all, have been able to engage in the liberal order that exists. It's not so with CRT.

CRT is very blatant about who the oppressed are, who the oppressors are, what repentance or forgiveness or lamenting or all that, what that looks like.

And, you know, they have their own inspired books, their

CRT perspectives, their minority oppressed perspectives that cannot be questioned. It's their

Bible, right? They have their own saints, the victims of police shootings, doesn't matter how much bad they did.

There's just so much there that you could, if you honestly take a look at it, it's a religion, like blatantly so.

And once you subscribe to it, you're getting sucked into a religion. So I don't think it's even a fair comparison here, like you have this over here, you have this over here, and in the middle is

Christianity and it's reasonable. But the whole goal of this is to take from CRT, to take from classical liberalism and to take their good elements.

I can tell you in classical liberalism some good elements. I just talked about them. With CRT, I just, what?

What am I going to find that's so good in CRT? That's what I would ask Chris Watkin at the Gospel Coalition. What's so good about CRT?

Tell me those analytical useful tools that it has that are just so helpful to us, right?

The only thing I've ever heard a Christian say is, well, you can spot racism better. Really?

Because it confuses, it breaks whatever barometer or metric we have to find quote unquote racism, because everything gets, becomes racist.

It's a, by three steps or less, you can attach anything to racism. CRT is a cancer. It just, it's, it gets into everything.

It actually breaks your capacity for that. So what is it? What is it that's so positive? That's what I would want. So Gospel Coalition, again, recently endorsing on some level

CRT. That's what this is. So, all right, let's talk about another Gospel Coalition article.

This is Benjamin Watson. Benjamin Watson is the article. And look, he has a lot of stuff at Gospel Coalition.

Oh, I pulled this up because I just wanted to find out more about Benjamin Watson. And he was, he used to be a tight end for the

New England Patriots football player. But look, he's got a bunch of stuff and it's woke. It's a lot of it's just woke.

Even from 2014, Benjamin Watson on Ferguson. I've read some of this stuff. Now, I want to go though, to something that he posted this morning.

And what he posted, someone sent this to me and asked me about it. And the article is, you can't define woke, so I will.

Benjamin Watson, you can't define woke, so I will. And so he, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but he makes a point that woke is now a four letter word.

It's terrible. People, politicians use it. There's a, there's one of those politicians, Governor Ron DeSantis using the term woke and scoring political points.

And his whole point is that, well, these people don't know what woke actually means. What does woke actually mean? Well, look, there's a song from 1938, written about nine, it's called

Scottsboro Boys, written about nine black teenagers, falsely accused of raping two white women. And one of the lines in it is,

I made this little song about down there. So I advise everyone, be a little careful when they go along through there, best stay woke, keep their eyes open.

So he's saying, look, this is rooted in the black community, that staying woke is to be careful, to be careful.

And in this case, being careful about the potential to be falsely accused, assuming because you're a black guy.

And then he talks about W .E .B. Du Bois. And he says, and remember, W .E .B. Du Bois, W .E

.B. Du Bois is a communist, okay? And he says this, in the Souls of Black Folk, the Negro is a sort of seventh son born with a veil and gifted with a second sight in this

American world, a world which yields him no true self -consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.

It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.

One ever feels this two -ness on an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals, and one dark body whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

And then the article goes on and it says this, in essence, being woke is understanding this double consciousness and all its implications.

I would agree. That is exactly what it is. So, because what you're hearing is a rudimentary form of standpoint in epistemology here.

Du Bois, and it's not a surprise here. I mean, critical race theory draws on a number of traditions. It's not just Marxism.

Marxism though, and Boyd would have been, I guess, a Marxist, but it draws on the

American radical tradition as well. And that's really more where Du Bois fits. And you see these elements coming out of a number of these things.

You see the Marxism with the idea of class consciousness. You see it here though, with this idea that if you're a minority, if you're a ethnic minority, then you have a perspective that others do not have because you have to inhabit two different worlds.

You have to inhabit the world of the American, he says here, and you have to inhabit your own culture's world.

Now you could say this about any immigrant group. I feel this way about my own country now in some ways, right?

I feel like I'm an alien to the country that, I mean, my ancestors on both sides would have been some of the original pioneers and I'm related to presidents and explorers.

And now I feel like alien in the country that my people helped build.

And so I could claim this, well, the Christian conservative has to have a double consciousness. I mean, really anyone can do this to some extent if they feel like they're on the out group, because they have to understand the in group and then they have to understand their own groups, whatever that is, perspective on things.

And these two are unreconciled. And so being woke is understanding this double consciousness, it says.

It is maintaining dignity, strength, and pride while grappling with visitation rights in the land of your birth. Blackness is beautiful, but realizing you are a member of the other, when you hear the other,

I always think Foucault, brings both pride and precaution as one contemplates the perception white

America, the majority culture may have of your ilk. And it goes on with things we've already all heard before.

You have access to knowledge, you have access to experience, you have a perspective that others don't have, and therefore you are able to see things.

You're woke, you're aware, you see things others cannot see, and therefore there's more of a truth value put on your perspective.

People should listen to you more. He goes on, he talks about Eric Mason, Eric Mason summarizes concept in his book,

Woke Church. And it's, we've gone over Woke Church, you can go back in the podcast, we did a whole review of Woke Church.

It's, there's heresy in it. I'll just put it that way. It's false teaching. There's false teaching in Woke Church. And so he goes on and on about how

Woke became popular during BLM, and it kind of became synonymous with BLM and with CRT.

And that's probably how most of us know about it. I didn't know about the word Woke till what 2000, I don't know, 16, 17, at least, might have been 18.

I, it was, it was probably Ferguson, maybe when I first heard it. And I, and at first you just think like, what?

Because, because it's not just coming out of the mouths of, it's not black people who are saying this, or people

I should say, even from urban contexts who are using a certain vernacular and using that term.

It's not a Eubonics usage. It was like, it was white people who grew up in Michigan who are all of a sudden saying, you know,

I'm Woke now or something. I mean, Eric Mason calls Matt Chandler. He said, that's a Woke brother. And Matt Chandler is talking about how he's

Woke. And, oh, who was it? Who was it? Oh man, there was Ray, yeah,

Ray Ortland. Ray Ortland had said that about being Woke. He said, it's such a compliment when people call me

Woke. And all these pasty white people all of a sudden using this term. And you're like, what? Like, it was funny at first.

It was like, why would, why are you using this term? And proudly so. And, and this is what

I think people miss about that term is that this was, this was shoved down so many people's throats.

This was foisted upon us as if you had morally superior high ground, if you were Woke. If you were

Woke, you had morally superior high ground. You were better. You were understanding more. You had more knowledge. You were, you were just superior in every way.

And, and so, uh, the backlash against it is, is probably well deserved because it was honestly, it was made to order.

It's not, obviously it's not the King's English. So there's had a perception of being bad grammar because it

Woke sounds past tense, but you're using it as a present tense. So anyway, the tenses were kind of messed up.

And so, um, it's people, I think, found it unusual to hear that, especially coming out of the mouth of, like I said, pasty people from the

Midwest or, or New England or something. And, uh, and then it was pushed on us so hard.

The backlash has been like making fun of it. Like, oh, oh, you're Woke now, you're Woke. Oh, wow.

Oh, good. So great to be Woke, uh, like in a sarcastic way. Um, and, and now attributing all kinds of negative things that were never even, like,

I think correct. This is one of the things that I think is probably correct about this article actually, uh, from Benjamin Watson is that the term

Woke, um, was originally specifically about racial, um, uh, perceptions of racial injustice, uh, disparities that existed between certain groups of people on a ethnic on ethnic lines, but it did get applied pretty quickly.

And by the left, by the way, uh, into feminism and to other things and other quote unquote, marginalized groups.

And so now, I mean, the right, when they've used the term, I mean, I've heard even like, you know, Hey, they, they still have masks in that restaurant.

Oh, they're Woke. And I, I'm like, wait, what is that? What? Well, because now it's being applied to anything where someone it's a smear actually, well, it's a, it's making fun of is what it is.

It's a, it's making fun of people that think they're better than you. All right. And so if someone has a mask and they think, well,

I know about the virus and you don't or something, then to call them Woke is kind of like, it's, it's saying like,

Oh, you're that false kind of like, you think you're smart. You think you're in the know, but you're really not.

You know, you think that there's this systemic abuse with police, but there really isn't. You think that there's a wage gap between men and women.

There really isn't. That's how you woke is being used. Now it's being used by the right. It's weaponized by the right, but it was after it was weaponized by the left.

He doesn't really get into this. And you know, he, he's just, his point in this article is with, he says this with such a wide swath of issues, strategically placed in the woke bucket.

There are several that I am patently against as well, but their purpose is to poison the well and block progress. Those ancillary issues have little to do with woke.

So he's upset now he's mad that the conservatives have hijacked their term and are now appropriating it to make fun of the left.

And he's, he's upset about it. And it's like, well, if the left hadn't shoved it down our throats for years,

I don't think this would be a problem, but that's part of the story is kind of skipped over.

So he let's, let's go to the end here. He concludes the whole thing with this.

He says in some ways, woke hasn't changed though. Woke reminded the marginalized to remain vigilant and prepared to defend their livelihood in the new bastardized forms.

It serves the same purpose, reminding us that our concern and even our days of remembrance are inconvenient and unimportant to far too many.

So he's accusing, this is funny. This is funny to me. Okay. Think about this. Think about it. Grammatical rules using the term woke as a present tense reality is not grammatically correct.

Okay. You would learn that in English class. At least you used to, I don't know if now you would, but it's not the King's English, right?

So you could have people bristle about it. Oh my goodness. They're using this term woke and they're using it wrongly.

It's, it's supposed to be in the, in the past tense and they're using it to the present tense, right? And you need a

British accent to speak the Queen's English. And uh, now though, the, the, it says, so that would be one of the critiques and then the conservatives now have used it to apply it to everything because they think it's funny.

Now you have someone from the left, more politically Christian, right? Christian. Uh, Benjamin Watson is a, um, celebrity in the

Christian world. He's coming out and he's bristling in the same way. Think about it. He's saying, you've hijacked our word.

You've taken it and now you're using it for your own purposes. You've bastardized the term.

You've corrupted what was once so pure. That's what he's saying. The term woke was so pure and you've corrupted it.

You conservatives, you horrible people that conflate categories and you use this word to jam conversations.

It's like, yeah, preach guys, preach to yourselves. We didn't come up with the word.

You all did. And then you used it to claim moral high ground and to jam conversations as if we're woke and you're not as if the whole point of the word was you're missing out, that you're blind, that you can't see that you're less than that was the whole point.

And now you're bristling about the word's been taken from us. Well, it's like, talk about a failure to, um, to see one's own hypocrisy here.

You know, they've hijacked the word that was already a, they bastardized a term that was originally a bastardized term.

And that word, by the way, some who think I'm using vulgarity, I'm using the word he's using here, but it's, it actually is in, in literature that is a correct, you can use that word and you're using it about something that has been corrupted or tainted or something like that.

I don't use the word, but since he's using the word, and it is, I don't view this usage of the term as necessarily the crass usage that is often used that Shakespeare used the term.

Uh, I, I just wanted to put a disclaimer out there for parents. I apologize if that, if you're now having to explain to your kids what this word means, but there is,

I think a legitimate use for it. Maybe you can explain that, uh, possibly, but anyway, the term that he's using here is about a term that originally was that that's the whole point.

So he says this, a recent misappropriation misappropriation proves the enduring necessity, necessity, necessity,

I can speak of being woke because the residue of anti -blackness still resides in the underpinnings of American society.

That's right. The underpinnings of American society, right up below the surface, the anti -blackness, the potentially hurt feelings of the majority still remain a stumbling block to justice.

To be woke is to desire justice, America promised, and to keenly understand where it has miserably fallen short and valiantly overcome some people who would rather all of us stay quietly asleep.

I'd rather stay woke. So still claiming the moral high ground, still using the term and saying it's, it's, uh, applies to me and I'm truly woke.

And these people that are using the term and weaponizing it, they don't even understand what it means. Okay. Uh, I hope that Benjamin Watson's day gets better, but, uh, there you have the, uh, the pearl clutching of the modern evangelical, knowing what things to fight on the modern evangelical elite, knowing the priorities, then this is certainly,

I would say a big priority, right? Uh, those people who are using the term woke and they're using it in a mocking way.

Um, that is, uh, that is Benjamin Watson right there. And I think that it deserves mockery guys.

And I, I try to be, I take an academic approach to a lot of things and, but this, this kind of, it's so hypocritical there.

There is a mockery that is well -deserved. I think when someone goes down this path. All right. Uh, let's talk about, man, there are so many things

I have on my list here. Uh, let's, can we do a few more gospel coalition articles and then we will stop.

We're going to start. Um, Ooh, I haven't listened to this yet. Let's listen together.

Let me put my headphones on and, uh, let's see how long it is. Okay. This just got released

August 27, 2022. That is today. Fresh off the press of the gospel coalition.

Rebecca McLaughlin is anti -racism biblical. Just like the word woke, the word anti -racism can mean different things to different people.

Some Christians will use that term to mean being actively against racism.

They'll use it to acknowledge the history of racial oppression. Okay.

So the, the, the music in the background reminds me of an, a commercial, uh, for sheltering, uh, for animals, animal shelter, commercial support your local animal shelter.

Look at all these puppies that don't have a home. I don't know why they're using that. Uh, I guess it's to evoke sympathy in us, but she starts off with saying that, uh, the woke can, it means different things to different people.

But didn't we just find out in the last article that we just read from a prominent gospel coalition author that actually woke has a fixed meaning and it where that, that conservatives are misappropriating it.

They're, uh, using the term incorrectly and it's so horrible. But now we find out from Rebecca McLaughlin, also prominent at the gospel coalition that actually woke has, has different meanings to different people.

So, so which is it anyway? And the importance of Christians, not just stepping aside from actively oppressing folks of other racial backgrounds, especially our black brothers and sisters, there'll be others who will use the term.

I love how she says this step aside. So you're actively oppressing other brothers and sisters.

So just step aside. Just, is that a, that sounds like a liberal gradual approach to me step aside.

So, and maybe that is the, uh, the winsomeness, the, of the British, uh, truly they, uh, they can say things and it's, you know,

I, I grew up in upstate New York most of my life and a lot of Italian friends when they talk to you, it is, you know, arms are moving, the voice is elevated and all they're saying is like, can you go feed the dog, take out the trash or, well, you know, they're trying to get their point across about something inconsequential.

And, and the British can be talking about nuclear Holocaust. And it's like, Oh, look at the flame of this. Maybe that's what it is.

Maybe, maybe, but it's just, it seems to me like it's just very, um, the, the tone of this whole thing, the music, the it's calming.

It's, it's like a go to sleep, relax, step aside. But she's talking about something that in her mind is so terrible.

It's literally like racial violence and is what she's talking about. But that's, it's an odd tone. It's a mixed message.

Why is that? Maybe you can put in the comments. I don't get this. I don't quite understand this mixed message.

Racism and bundle in with it, all sorts of beliefs that Christians cannot and must not affirm.

In particular, anti -racism is sometimes tethered in people's minds with affirming gay and lesbian identities for Christians.

So if I were invited to participate in an anti -racism training in, in a secular workplace,

I would need to be very discerning about what I took away from that training. There may well be some things that I would learn along the way that could be helpful to me as a

Christian, as I think about how to actively love those who are from other racial backgrounds, but there would likely also be things that as a

Christian, I would not want to affirm or embrace. And as in any other workplace situation, we'll need to be discerning in the situation that we're in.

Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Think of calm things. Think of the ocean against the coast.

Okay. So, uh, this is Rebecca McLaughlin's short video on the phrase anti -racism.

And that was anything but helpful. Uh, we didn't, honestly, the article we just read was a little more helpful because it was like,

Hey, woke has a fixed meaning. And this one is, is just, it's so esoteric.

It's just the, the music is, and she's, um, basically what

I'm getting from this, this minute and a half video is that woke can be bad if it's applied to unbiblical things, such as LGBT affirmations that we can't hold to.

And we know Rebecca McLaughlin is pretty to the left in an evangelical, uh, metric, at least she's far, she's to the left.

She, cause she thinks like you can have these same sex attractions and that's not a sin. And, uh, and, and so she, but she would say like being engaging in those things would be wrong.

So that's where woke or anti -racism become problems. But when it comes to the actual, uh,

BLM narrative, she doesn't actually confront it. She doesn't really affirm it. She kind of does though, because she, so she, she doesn't, yeah,

I guess she, I would say she does kind of affirm it implicitly, but it's not a direct affirmation. It's so vague.

You don't really know what she's talking about other than we should step aside from doing racial harm. And then Christians are somehow doing this somehow.

And that the only unbiblical thing about being woke would be the LGBT stuff. And so that would imply that the other stuff is correct, that there is systemic racism, that it can be found in the places, which everyone knows the

BLM narrative is pushing. It's, it's in the police departments. It's in, it's in the history, the way it's taught.

It's, it's in everything. And so, uh, so I would say this is again, the Gospel Coalition, once again, in the span of two days, affirming implicitly

CRT again, somehow, but it's, it's so implicit. It's so subversive. It's so sneaky. And you want to go to sleep listening to it because it sounds like it's a go to sleep video or save the puppies.

Uh, all right, let's talk about, can we do one more Gospel Coalition or two, two more? Let's see.

Uh, oh, I wanted to say something nice. We're going to say something nice about Gospel Coalition. All right. One more

Gospel Coalition article. I lost my mom to Facebook. How to shepherd a flock being formed by algorithms.

Now this is some, an article that someone asked me to comment on. So I haven't read it. So this will be a cold reading.

Uh, let's start here at the beginning. Sherry began to cry. Her husband put an arm around her, pulled her close and said, it'll be okay.

It was a kind sentiment, but it was wrong. She lost her mother, not to death, to Facebook.

Over a period of three years, her elderly mom went from Facebook, illiterate to Facebook junkie.

From a great grandma, liking photos of her great grandkids to a full blown QAnon conspiracy theorist.

Posting wild articles, Sherry watched her mom transformed from a godly woman who quoted the Sermon on the

Mount and told her to respond to bullies by killing them with kindness to an anxiety filled propagandist, warning

Sherry the end was coming. Sherry tried to intervene, but failed multiple times. Now she was crying in my office.

I lost my mom to Facebook. I told her, I know it's hard, but you're not alone. Your mom. Isn't the first person

I've seen transformed by social media. There are many, even here in our church, the new pastoral reality, like every other pastor in America, I'm wrestling with a new challenge, artificial intelligence using neural networks and sophisticated machine learning algorithms is shepherding my church into the valley of the shadow of death.

The algorithm to misquote Psalm 139 has searched them and known their hearts. It tests them and measures their anxious thoughts.

It has woven digital models of them in its silicone web, womb, sorry. So it can sell their everlasting data to the highest bidder and keep them addicted to the online platform it serves.

Pastor need to be aware that every week of the day of the week, their church members are being instructed.

And most likely their mentor is an algorithm. Is it any surprise that the human shepherds are losing to the digital ones?

Of course, algorithms aren't the only problem. A recent piece in MIT showed that foreign troll farms are exploiting the algorithms to target

Christians and their efforts to destabilize American democracy. 19 of the top 20 Christian Facebook pages are run by these anonymous nefarious agencies.

If you visit one of these Christian troll pages, it seems innocuous at first cheesy posts, cursive Bible verses over Colorado landscapes.

But then you see it, a headline saying something verifiably false, a partisan hot take that borders on conspiracy theory.

All right, let me stop here and just make a comment. The threats from online algorithms, the threats from information out there, the pastor, whoever's writing this, they're uniquely focused on what would be more right adjacent threats.

So it's the QAnon stuff, it's conspiracy theories from the right, it's Russian troll farms, and it's not what the actual big tech companies are pushing.

For example, QAnon stuff, you can't post that on Facebook. You can't just post that stuff and it's going to wind up being part of your algorithm.

Maybe there was a time, but it's not now. That stuff is censored pretty heavily on mainstream social media, unless you're like on Gab or I guess, well,

I mean, there's maybe some other free speech type platforms. You're not going to be interacting with this stuff.

It's pretty banned. And guess the stuff they're pushing at you, what that is. If leftist propaganda, that's what's going to be bombarding you more than anything else.

It doesn't mean that you can't, there aren't algorithms that are going to advertise things from the right, or people that are friends of yours that post things and you like them, so it'll keep putting more of that in your feed.

It doesn't mean that can't happen. It just means the people actually controlling these big tech companies who have the levers of power, who can adjust the algorithms, who can ban things from the algorithms, they are on the raging far left.

So at least you would think there should be like typical gospel coalition does is say, hey, there's like threats from the right, threats from the left, right?

And Christianity somewhere transcending or in the middle or whatever. But in this one, it's starting off, the threats are literally just from the right.

This is the same thing you would find with left -wingers and their complaints about social media, because the technocracy, they don't have a problem with the technocracy as long as Mark Zuckerberg is controlling it.

And in fact, I read, is it, see if I can find it. Mark Zuckerberg, right here.

Mark Zuckerberg says, Facebook censored the Hunter Biden laptop story after the FBI asked them to restrict misinformation.

This is a story from August 25th. Mark Zuckerberg alleged Thursday on the Joe Rogan experience that the

FBI warned Facebook of a Russian propaganda dump just before the Hunter Biden laptop story broke. The exchange began when

Rogan asked how Facebook handled the Hunter Biden story. Let's see. And this is what Zuckerberg said. The FBI basically came to us and some folks on our team and said, hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert.

We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. And there's going to basically about to be a dump.

So be vigilant. Zuckerberg said he can't recall whether the FBI specifically mentioned the Hunter laptop story, but said it fit the pattern.

So it fit a pattern that the FBI told him to look for. And he said it basically, the ranking in newsfeeds was a little bit less.

Fewer people saw it than would have otherwise. So it definitely would have, as Zuckerberg said before. Rogan interjected and asked by what percentage.

Zuckerberg said he didn't know, but that it was a meaningful percentage. A lot of people were still able to share it, but we weren't as black and white about it as Twitter, he added.

Zuckerberg admitted that when Hunter Biden laptop turned out to be legitimate, he regretted that it was suppressed and thought he said that the process was pretty reasonable based on what

Facebook knew at the time. So let me just say the algorithms that are being talked about right here in this

Gospel Coalition article are being controlled by who? By Mark Zuckerberg, by Twitter, by and Facebook is the one they're going after here.

So we literally just read how Mark Zuckerberg literally kept information from disseminating widely about Hunter Biden's laptop, which could have actually had a big influence on the election.

And the concern here is QAnon. The concern here is Russian troll farms. And that's my point is you can be concerned about that stuff if you want, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the concern that you should have for these tech overlords working in conjunction with the deep state or the,

I don't know what you want to call them, but the administrative state and what they're doing to influence what you see on social media.

That's not even mentioned here. Maybe they'll mention it. Let's keep going. Let's see. According to an internal report from Facebook, our algorithms exploit the human brain's attraction.

Okay. So we know about this. How to shepherd your flock in the social media era. Pastors should do this.

And here's the suggestions. Pray. Pray. So that's obvious.

Pastors, let's see, only get one hour a week, but God gets every hour. Trust Him. Labor in prayer for your people. Preach about social media.

Okay. I don't have a problem with that. I mean, use it as an illustration, obviously, in some of your sermons. Read Chris Martin's excellent book,

Terms of Service. Seek to understand how smartphones, global internet access, big tech, and machines, la la la.

Okay. Set healthy limits. I think that's all wise. Teach on media literacy. Media literacy is the ability to accurately analyze and interpret a piece of media.

How can you tell if a news source is biased? Now, I just have to say, for Gospel Coalition to say this, aren't you dipping your toe now into the realm of,

I mean, outside the pastoral realm, and now you're in politics, you're in culture, you're in, well, they want to engage culture, so that's probably okay.

But what if someone on the right wanted to do this? Say, I don't know, maybe that guy,

I forget his name, outside of Memphis, who's preaching all the time about politics and wanting to apply the word of God and biblical

Christian principles, and he may be out there, but there are people who want to do that, and they want to do it towards the right, right?

They actually think the Bible gives you biblical morality that parallels conservative, paleo -conservative thought, and if they start to go out there and say, thus saith the

Lord, in the public arena, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, right? That's usually like, hey, not so fast, you know, but teach on media literacy.

So I'm just saying, what is that going to look like? I don't know, but he doesn't define it, so it's just, you got to do it.

Develop a theology of the news. A theology of the news. So now your pastor's going to be curating your news, what's in your newspapers, what kinds of newspapers and websites you read.

Interesting. Create digital antibodies. If the digital bloodstream is infected, we just can't ignore it.

We need to pump antibodies into the system. Okay, what's that mean? Because it'll create alternative content.

Well, that's what Gospel Coalition's trying to do. Create a short midweek podcast where your congregation can dig deeper. Create short email devotional.

Let's see. Start a blog. Create a weekly daily podcast for devotionals. Create a weekly email newsletter.

Create a cultural commentary podcast. This is going to stress pastors out. Now you got to do all these things, or else your people are going to be taken in by Q.

I have a point, but I'll make it at the end. Model the fruit of the Spirit online. So stay away from hatred and discord and jealousy and all the things

Galatians 5 talks about. Be winsome, it says. How to argue winsomely. There it is.

Make the case for the beauty of IRL fellowship. Champion the embodied fellowship of believers as a more rewarding and satisfying experience than highly online life.

Let's see. What's IRL? I don't see IRL here. IRL. All right, let's click on Grammarly.

What does IRL mean? Am I the last person to know? What does IRL mean? In real life.

Okay. I guess I should have known that. Make the case for the beauty of in real life fellowship. All right. I agree with a lot of this stuff.

It's not like I'm against it, but I guess this is what

I'd say. The threat is exclusively coming from the right in this particular article.

And what I'd say is that the challenge of the online world, it is a challenge, but the challenge of it is no different.

The things that are common to man have been common for quite some time. We've had problems with addictions.

I mean, pastors who deal with drug addiction, sex addiction, you know, and let's just call it biblically what it is, sin, right?

Pastors who deal with sin. Pastors who deal with just even media addiction, like television. I mean, when radio came out, television came out, when these kinds of things were out there,

I mean, it also captivated people. Now, there's more of an accessibility you have with your phone, but I mean, you also have accessibility with the

TV and the remote there. And I think our intention spans are getting shorter. So people aren't willing to watch long shows or movies as much.

But these, my point is that these challenges aren't new. These, the actual principles to be employed aren't new.

And so to then go out of your way to form all these podcasts and articles and curate everyone's news and see it as this major threat,

I think you just keep preaching what you've always preached. And then you use this as an illustration of, hey, this is also another way that you can become addicted to something.

And Paul said, he wouldn't be mastered by anything. Don't be mastered by your social media. Don't be addicted to it. If you can't live without it, then it looks like it's an idol and don't, and, you know, manage this, control this.

We'll help you. We'll, you know, keep you accountable, but it's the same thing you would do if someone was addicted to other forms of entertainment.

So, they're particularly concerned about this. And I think this is what

I've seen before from Gospel Coalition Christianity Today, just Big Eve in general.

I've seen this kind of thing. You see this with the conspiracy stuff. You see this with, you know, Joe Carter with, who's the guy at the

Billy Graham Center or was at the Billy? I think he still is. Oh, what's his name?

Anyway, I'm going to find it. He used to have that big beard, that kind of like Fu Manchu type beard that was starting there.

It's on the tip of my tongue and I should know it. I don't know why I'm forgetting so many things in this particular podcast. I'm going to look it up.

Anyway, this narrative, though, that's out there that the outside of the levers of power, the ability to police and manage are these nefarious algorithms and cable news shows and all kinds of influences that people are getting that aren't their pastor, that aren't the

Gospel Coalition website, that aren't mainstream media. And therefore, it's like red alert when that happens.

Ed Stetzer, that's Ed Stetzer, would talk about this. We're being discipled by Tucker Carlson and that's so wrong and so bad.

And so I would just say that I think their sense of proportion, the threats that they're concerned about aren't necessarily, not that some of them aren't threats, but it's not the threats they should be concerned about.

And their sense of proportion about it is like level 10 when it's like, yeah, but over here, you have all these other threats.

Even on this particular story, the threat coming from the left when it comes to social media is so much greater and yet it's not even mentioned.

And so anyway, that's what I want to say about that. And it goes without saying, and I don't want to spend much time on this.

There's been so many things said about it, but it should go without saying, but there's an article here from,

I'll just pull it up from Religion News Service. We're not going to read the article just for the sake of time. But the title is, on social media, the

Bible verses are flying in a debate over student loan forgiveness. And there's a tweet here from John Pavlovitz that says, conservative

Christians are fully enraged at student loan forgiveness, missing the irony that their entire professed religion is based on the idea of a canceled debt, way to lose the plot kids.

And I'm going to compliment Gospel Coalition in a moment. I said I would, but this would,

I'm not going to go into this article. This is the guy, I think, who went after Votie Bauckham for his kids.

Yeah, Mark Wingfield. We're not going to read this. I just happened to see, this is where I found the tweet.

So the narrative is from some on the left that, look, there's the Bible. Bible is about forgiveness.

And so we should be about student loan forgiveness. Well, there was a payment made by Jesus. So Jesus actually paid the price of our sins.

He didn't redistribute the price of people's sins to everyone else who wasn't guilty of those sins.

He paid them himself. He became accursed for us, though we were accursed. And that's the beauty of the gospel.

The student loan forgiveness thing is different in that they're punishing people who don't have student loans, who didn't go to college, possibly, or did go and were responsible.

Like myself, I never took out a loan once. And I have two masters. I have a bachelor's degree. I was able to do it.

And now I'm going to be paying for people who were irresponsible. That's the whole point.

If I had voluntarily chosen to do that and to take on these debts, that's one thing. That's what Jesus did. But I'm not voluntarily choosing to do this.

I am being taken from. They're taking from me and, frankly, my descendants after me, and taking their money, taking their ability to purchase, and then they're giving it to people who are irresponsible.

So they're subsidizing your responsibility. And it's going to have a horrible effect. Because once you know your loans are forgiven, you can charge any price for college.

Tuition's already skyrocketing. It'll keep going up once the government gets involved in these things. Same thing happened in medical care.

And people are just going to be careless. They think that they are accustomed to thinking they should be bailed out.

And Trump didn't help with this, by the way, because those checks that everyone got during the COVID situation,

I think, made people think, oh, I don't have to actually work. And we're suffering the consequences of that right now in our economy.

Let's talk about this. Last but not least, this is an article from Gospel Coalition.

I want to end on this note. And then we're talking about John Jasper a little. Should the government forgive student loans by Mark Kelly? This is from 2021.

I just want to give you the last paragraph. Two paragraphs. As in all things, as you plan your education, set your heart to honor

God. It says, seen in this light, it's a great honor to pay for the education that equips us for the

Lord, Lord's work. And before we were born, we must also be diligent, though avoiding unnecessary debt to not let that honor become a burden and hindrance to our work.

That wasn't exactly what I was looking for. There was another place in here. I think maybe it was towards the beginning.

It talks about the crushing debt that the United States has right now. And it says, as Christians, we see the biblical instructions for individuals to pay out debt, for individuals.

We want to be careful with that because we know that the borrower is a slave to the lender. And it says, even national debt should be approached with a caution and a responsible plan for repayment.

And then it talks about fairness in paying debts. Long story short, it says the fairest and most efficient system is still one in which the primary burden for financing college falls on students and their families.

Gospel Coalition, now they might reverse this, but to their credit, at one time they did come out against, it might not be hard hitting, but I'd say it's direct enough against government funded loan forgiveness, student loan forgiveness.

So I just want to give credit where credit's due that that is a good take from the

Gospel Coalition on that particular issue. Now let's talk about John Jasper. You can see here, actually,

I'll pull it up, my Goodreads profile. Or can you? Maybe I got rid of it. I'll put actually the link in the info section for those who are on Goodreads and you're wondering, hey, how can

I see what John's reading? I do try at least to post everything that I'm reading on my

Goodreads. And so here, here it is.

This is what it looks like. And you can see my books right here.

And these are the books that I finished recently. So I just finished the book that made your world, how the Bible created the soul of Western civilization.

Some good things in that book, by the way, but it's a lot of the book was like how the

Christian, it's the Bible that actually created the welfare state that landed slavery, that created democracy.

And it's a lot of things that I think secular leftists will be like, oh, that's the Bible. Well, I guess

I should become a Christian. And I just, I thought it was a little incomplete. So I'm not, I wasn't too big on it, but it did have some good things.

I thought the best section was a very small section where the author who's from India talks about the

Bible's impact on India. That was interesting. But anyway, some other, I read, I read a Faulkner novel, the first Faulkner novel

I've read, The Sound and the Fury. And I don't know if I'll be reading a lot of Faulkner. I, I, I made this video for the

Abbeville Institute on William Faulkner and they wanted this done. Okay. You know, and my brother's a literature major and I I've heard, you know, good things about Faulkner.

And so I decided, well, you know, Sound and the Fury, that's kind of his big one, right? So I read it. I'm like, man, this is dark.

So, and, and very complicated. But yeah, I mean, there's, I read the Lord of the

Rings. You can see, these are all the recent things I've read. And that was good. I really enjoyed actually

Lord of the Rings much more than I enjoyed Faulkner. Even though there's probably some, some literature person's going to come out and tell me

Faulkner is so far superior possibly, but Lord of the Rings, man, I just thought it's, it's riveting.

It's, it's just, it keeps your attention for the most part. It's it's interesting and it's a fantasy and I don't typically read fantasies, but the one

I read recently John Jasper, the unmatched black philosopher and preacher I have up here,

I gave it four stars. I almost gave it five, but I gave it four stars. It is, I would say a really good book.

I want to read for you a section from the book. To start off with this, John Jasper lived during the times before and after the civil war.

He was born into slavery, but he was educated in slavery as well. And one of the things

I liked about this book, which is why I recommend you get it is because this book is, it's certainly, today it would probably,

I haven't seen anyone do this, but it's very possible that it might meet with, it might get the disdain of the academics who would cause it lost cause mythology or something like that, because it's written by a journalist from Richmond who actually didn't believe his eyes were lying to him.

That's really the bottom line. And lived through some of the things he talks about. And he says things like, yes, there was, there was a law in Virginia that you weren't supposed to be educating your slaves.

And the reason for that, I've said this before in the podcast, historically was there was a fear of slave insurrections because you had places like Haiti where there were these insurrections that happened.

There were attempts and violent attempts. Not, not as many, but there were enough that the idea was that if slaves were able to read, they would read abolitionist literature.

And it's not just abolitionist literature, like you're thinking of where it's like, oh, well, you know, slavery is wrong.

It's more like throw off the shackles that you have overturned your master. Don't do work for them, kill them if necessary.

Like that's the kind of stuff that they were afraid that that'll get into the slave's hands. And they're, they may end up doing that.

John Brown's attempt is obviously the famous attempt. Nat Turner's rebellion is another famous one in Virginia's history.

And, and so there was this, this rule in Virginia that you weren't supposed to teach slaves to read because, you know, during the postal crisis, they had thousands.

I mean, thousands and thousands. I've even read somewhere, I think that it was more than that, like millions, but there's a lot of literature flooding the

South that was encouraging all kinds of things, including insurrections. And they were just afraid.

I don't want, I don't want the people coming down that are agitating. I want the slaves to be able to read their stuff.

And that was a big part of it. Well, I think that was wrong. I think all of us would today say, how can you, you can't read the scripture, right?

How are you going to know God? Well, the point, the fact is during this time in Virginia's history, before the civil war, this book talks about how actually most churches, it was very common that churches were very integrated.

Actually you did have, now that doesn't mean that there wasn't a social kind of stratification, but there was a lot of attention paid to Christianizing slaves.

And most of it wasn't, it wasn't, it was like 10 or 15%. I remember another source I was reading on this that was focused on obedience to masters and stuff.

If that, I mean, it was, it was primarily focused on knowing Christ. And there was a great concern.

This was a missionary effort. All these people came from Africa, their descendants, they're having kids here now, and we get to minister to them.

And in this book, this book, John Jasper, the unmatched philosopher and black preacher talks about all these things. You're not supposed to talk about that now, because if you have any providential view of any of that, even if you say the whole thing was wrong, it should have never happened.

But look at, you know, at the evil that God, the good that came from the evil because of God's hand, that's, you can't have that opinion now.

That, so anyway, you have stuff like that in there. You have, you know, he talks about how that was ignored, that rule, you know, so often it was like, yeah, we have this rule that you're being, of course, one of the most famous examples of this.

He taught a black Sunday school. Many of them became preachers and, you know, totally disregarding the law.

And John Jasper had somewhat of an education. Now he was, he would be considered, I think, uneducated by today's standards.

He could read though. He was able to actually speak in a more sophisticated vernacular, if you will.

He loved white people. He loved his master, right? These are things you're not supposed to read about these things.

And that's not the primary reason I say to get this book, but that is one reason, because it's going to give you a window into a world that is often mischaracterized today.

It's oversimplified. It's become a cartoon. And reality is just more complicated than that. John Jasper is one of the figures you don't hear about much.

And I don't think BLM would ever care about John Jasper. I don't think Black History Month's ever going to focus on John Jasper. I don't think you're, but yet John Jasper was a celebrity of the highest order in Virginia.

I mean, he was popular. He was probably the most popular preacher in Richmond at towards the end of his life.

I mean, he was, he was a rock star in today's vernacular. Let me read for you a section from this.

Here's a whole paragraph is the reporter talking, he said, in the company with a friend, I went very often Sunday afternoons to hear

Jasper. The fact was rooted about quite extensively and somewhat to the chagrin of some of my church members, two of them, a professor in Richmond College, so educated, and a lawyer well known in the city took me to task about it.

So he went, he's saying, I'm going to see John Jasper preach and I'm being taken to task for it. They told me in somewhat decided tones that my action was advertising a man to his injury and other things of a similar sort.

So if you're there, they're saying like, you know, that you're advertising him to his injury, meaning you're promoting him when he's not capable of bearing the weight you're putting on him.

He's, he's not capable of preaching in the way you think he's not educated. And, and one of his, we're going to find out in a minute, one of his most famous sermons was about how the sun doth move.

He, he was, yes, he was speaking of gospel coalition conspiracy theories.

He believed according to the Bible, that actually the sun rotated around the earth and not the other way.

And he preached this sermon. And so anyway we'll talk about that in a moment, but a professor in Richmond college and a lawyer took me to task.

He said, they told me in somewhat decided tones that my action was advertising man to his injury and other things of a similar sort. I cared, but little for their criticism, but told them that if they would go to hear him when he was at his best, and if afterwards they felt about him as they then felt,

I would consider their complaints. They went the next Sunday. Okay. So these skeptical, educated white people in Richmond go to see

John Jasper. The house was overflowing and Jasper walked the mountaintops that day.

His theme was the raising of Lazarus and the steps. Majestic. He took us along until he began to describe the act of raising

Lazarus from the den. It happened that the good professor was accompanied by his son, a sprightly lad of about 10, who was sitting between his father and myself.

Suddenly the boy evidently agitated, turned to me and begged that we go home at once.

I sought to soothe him, but in vain, for as he proceeded, the boy urgently renewed his request to go home.

His father observed his disquietude and putting an arm around him, restored him to calmness.

After the service ended and we had reached the street, I said to him, look here boy, what puts you in such a fidget to quit the church before the end of the service?

Oh doctor, I thought he had a dead man under the pulpit and was going to take him out. He said, my lawyer brother heard the sermon and with profound feelings said, hear that and let me say to you that in a lifetime

I have heard nothing like it and you ought to hear that man whenever you can.

Okay, this is one sample of what people thought of John Jasper. One sample. This guy held,

I mean, it was popular for the white preachers of the town, the white preachers to go on Sunday afternoon and listen to his sermons.

Visitors who came from other places to go visit him and yet he is uniquely a son of Virginia.

There was a section in there where it talked about, I'm just saying, he could have had more fame, but he was a local legend.

He went to Philadelphia, I think it was, and he tried to preach up there and half the congregation left in the middle of it.

There was jeering, there was, he fell out of place. He wasn't, he didn't particularly take to Yankees.

He just, he was comfortable in Virginia and that's, those are the people that loved him and it's an interesting story because it shows you how skilled this guy was and I think a lot of times in, especially the way that black history is taught today in America, they are passive.

They're so passive. They are the victims of all these other forces and yet the reality is there are some black people that accomplished some great things.

John Jasper is one of them. John Jasper was a phenomenal preacher and yes, he had some quirky ideas.

He had an idea about the sun, obviously, that was popular and it was popular because it was so wrong, but he was very sincere in his belief and science was not his forte.

Maybe even interpretation of scripture wasn't his forte in some ways, but delivery was and he was very good at what he did.

He was a very good deliverer to the point that people came from everywhere. So do, am I, because I think

John Jasper is a great guy, endorsing his view, his antiquated view about geocentricity?

No, obviously not, but he's a man of his time and he had limitations and I don't hold it against him that he was wrong on some things.

I'm probably wrong on some things myself. He had an amazing ability though and his story and his testimony,

I think, are credits to African American or black history.

I think people like John Jasper need to be uncovered more. They need to be talked about more.

There's so much in this book just giving you a window into just the race relations and reconstruction and just the, it's not about the situation of the time, it's about John Jasper, but there's so much in it.

I'll give you a few examples. He gets saved, he works at a factory of some kind anyway, but he gets saved and his boss tells him, and this is when he's,

I think he's in his late or mid to late 20s, I think he's freed at that point, and his boss basically tells him, basically take the day off work and go tell everyone you know that you got saved.

Can you imagine any boss today saying that? I mean, he's weeping, he's telling everyone, he's just,

I mean, we'll talk about a more Christian society and this is just said in the book.

It's not a unique thing to them. The fact that a lot of, you know who took a prominent stand against him with his sermons on geocentricity, it was the black preachers.

It was the other local black preachers. They had a whole meeting like, we got to stop this John Jasper guy. I mean, he is, he's, you know, getting too big for his, you know, he's so popular, he's going to embarrass all of us.

I mean, it's interesting to see that dynamic too because it talks about in here that some after the war that, you know, some black people had a resentment that they cultivated and was nurtured for them to some extent.

And John Jasper though, and there was people like him that didn't have that at all. And John Jasper actually, it says on like two or three times how much he actually liked white people, how he didn't carry this bitterness about him.

He was friends with them. He cared about their souls. He preached to them. I mean, it was an integrated church.

He had, there was white and black people both there listening to him. And this is a black preacher. That's what the

Gospel Coalition wants, they want every tribe, tongue, nation, right? Sitting at the same church. Well, here's an example of it.

Here's a place that it happened. And guess what? It was right after slavery.

It was during reconstruction time. Yeah, it did happen. And so it's a unique story that needs to be told.

I think it talks about at one point, it says that, and I know I've read this other places that it was exceptionally rare for slave families to be divided, but it did happen.

So it was in a lot of the Northern, or I shouldn't say Northern, but a lot of the kind of radical abolitionist literature, it was often portrayed that that was the condition of slavery.

That was just constantly, this was happening. It wasn't a constant thing at all, but it did happen. And guess who was one of the people that had a family division?

John Jasper was. And it was his actually, he was basically, I don't know the details.

I don't know that the reporter knows the details. And I think he's picking, he's trying to figure it out after the fact, but his first wife, he got married and then there was a separation during,

I guess it was during slavery that took place. And I'm assuming this was before Jasper was a Christian. And Jasper, even having been wronged, he didn't harbor bitterness.

And it's an amazing thing. That's actually character I think we want in our kids. And so I would just suggest looking into this guy, passionate man, very, it has excerpts from his sermons in here.

One of the sermons is there in its completion and a lot of it's been lost, but this is someone that should be written about.

This is someone who was, like I said, very popular, a Virginia legend, a Richmond legend. And I had never heard about him until very recently.

And I don't think that's right. I think people like him, if we're going to talk about black history, which has been talked about a lot,

I think we should talk about people like John Jasper too, and not just leave them out because they weren't, they don't fit the mold for who ends up getting platformed during Black History Month, which tends to be people who were revolutionary in some way.

And that wasn't John Jasper. He was just a really good faithful preacher. So anyway, that's my recommendation.