Academic Group Think, Social Justice in the 70s, What God Says About Wealth, and Fan Questions

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to Conversations That Matter Podcast. My name is John Harris, and today I want to talk about a question

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I have. Why are American leftists so united? I mean, really, why is it if you're a

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Democrat, and you say something insane and lose an election, and all the moderates hate you because of what you said, you are protected, the wagons are circled, and you may even be advanced in the party structure.

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Whereas if you're a Republican, and you say something even slightly off, or maybe the New York Times misrepresented something you've said, you're thrown overboard immediately.

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And if you lose, well, goodbye. I think there's a microcosm of that going on within the social justice debate, because on one side you have a very, very loose coalition of different ministries, and they have different issues with social justice.

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It might be mission drift, or it's heresy, or it's just bad ethics, and they disagree with one another sometimes over theological differences within this loose coalition, or maybe strategy, and so they don't work together as much.

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There's no big conspiracy. On the other side, however, you have a very firm coalition coming from academia on the social justice side.

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And conferences, and institutions, and academic organizations, and seminaries, and Bible schools, publication houses, so forth and so on, they're all united.

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And the reason I know this is because, I mean, just think with me for a moment. I know some insider information, but you don't even need that.

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Just think about how many professors have signed the Dallas Statement in the Southern Baptist Convention. Hardly any.

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I think there's one. And think about all the crazy things that have been said against biblical justice, or I should say for social justice, that have caused a stir on social media, or maybe it's a professor speaking at a seminary.

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I mean, there's countless examples of this. They are not thrown overboard at all. But yet, there's almost like an unwritten rule that you shouldn't sign the

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Dallas Statement, because I know a lot of professors who agree with it and would sign it. Now, why is that?

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Why does that condition exist in academia? And why is it so similar to what we see in the

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American left, in Hollywood, in academia, in the Democratic Party? Well, I want to explain that as best as I can, but in order to do that,

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I wanted to show you this clip. And if you're a parent, don't worry. There's no violence. There's no profanity in this clip.

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I watched this movie. It's called The Untouchables with Kevin Costner years and years ago.

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He plays Elliot Ness. Robert De Niro plays Al Capone. It's a crime drama. And I'm sure there's probably some objectionable stuff.

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So this was a long time ago. I do not recommend watching this at all. But there's a little clip, nothing objectionable in the clip, that reminded me about what

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I'm talking about right now. So I'm going to show you that particular clip, and then we will talk about it in regards to the social justice movement.

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So here we go. What am I? What draws my admiration?

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What is that which gives me joy? Music. Baseball. A man.

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A man stands alone at a plate. This is the time for what?

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For individual achievement. There he stands alone.

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But in the field, what? Part of a team.

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Looks, throws, catches, hustles. Part of one big team.

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Bats himself to live long day. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and so on. His team don't field.

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What is he? You follow me? No one.

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Sunny day, stands are full of fans. What does he have to say? I'm going out there for myself.

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But I get nowhere unless the team wins.

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Team. Team. Okay, that's probably a really good place to end that particular clip.

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So you can tell that the person who was not having some teamwork ended up getting the short end of the stick there.

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Now, am I suggesting that the academic establishment is a mob? No, I'm not saying that.

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But I do think there are some parallels, and I want to explain this as kind of an insider. I've been in a lot of academic institutions.

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I'm friends with a lot of professors. And in order to be someone who advances in the academic system, you are required essentially to not just have a degree and to not just have good research.

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You need to be able to obtain money for research. You need grants.

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You are going to need to, it's kind of like the Pharisees with the chief seats, but you're going to need a chair.

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Eventually, if you want to really get yourself out there, there's going to be positions that you're going to want.

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You're going to need to be published in different journals. You're going to need to attend conferences and rub shoulders with other people in academia.

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Endowments. I mean, these are all social capital tools that will elevate your respectability in a field.

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Research is important, but these things are also very important that you obtain them.

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So there is a hierarchy. There is a chain of command. There are unspoken rules of how to gain, get to the next level in that chain.

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And that's why it's funny when some of these guys, you know, say something against traditional values, especially when it comes to complementarianism and men and women.

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They're not against hierarchy because they live in a hierarchy. It's not, it's an artificial hierarchy. But, but they do live in one and there is a chain of command and there is a way to progress.

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You do not progress in this chain of command by blasting other people in your discipline.

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Generally, it just doesn't work. I mean, sometimes you can get to the point where you can kind of blast someone who's beneath you, but you never do that by blasting someone on your level or someone above you.

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Just about. I mean, there might be some exceptions here or there, but that's really how the system works. And a lot of the times professors are people, and I want to say this nicely,

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I'm friends with a lot of wonderful professors who are socially with it and just amazing people that I respect.

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But there, there are professors, if you spend two seconds in academia, you know this to be true that, well, they're nerds.

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If they were, if the narrow field of interest that they have was not something that could employ them, so if their job was taken away and they weren't able to work in academia, they would drown.

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There's nowhere for them to go. And I do have a suspicion that a lot of these guys ended up growing up not being popular in high school.

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They weren't the jocks. They weren't in the band. And now in the words of an academic who told me this, who would know, it's revenge of the nerds.

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It really is. It's a way in which they can gain approval that they've always wanted in an area that they actually are fascinated with and enjoy.

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And education wasn't always like this. This wasn't academia for the founding generation.

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I mean, you went there to become a changed person, not to become a specialist in a narrow field and contribute necessarily, although that could happen.

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That was a side effect, but you actually came to change as an individual and you were someone who could go back to the farm and be successful or to the business world or wherever you were.

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We didn't have lifetime politicians or people that were just staying within academia because they wanted to stay within academia.

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That was viewed as very secondary. And so now we progress to the point since the industrial revolution and specialization and everything where you get a very, very narrow field and you're supposed to be the expert in that field and becoming the expert in this really little window is how you become known by everyone else and honored and you get accolades that you want.

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And so that's the system. And so those who don't play within that system and who might poke an eye into that system think that the term that's often used is the dark web, the intellectual dark web.

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They are a threat. They are a competing institution now, in a way, even though they're not institutional.

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They don't like institutions. They are now competing with an institution. And that's why you see a lot of these outspoken conservative guys end up getting talk shows or forming their own platform online where they can teach because if they were going to say the truth or something that they believe that's not politically correct, they would never be able to do it in the academy because there are unspoken rules in the academy.

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And you have to abide by those. You can't contradict certain narratives and still have a job and still get the accolades that you want.

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And so it's very much geared towards the approval of man. And that's why I say if you're going to enter the academy, if you want to do that, then

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I really suggest, first of all, working a few years. This is my two cents. Getting a trade, having that to fall back on, being with real people.

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And once you get in this artificial academic environment, be open to jumping to another field if you ever need to.

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Don't be chained to an institution. And that's your only source of livelihood.

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And if you lose it, you're done. I think that's a dangerous place to be. And the Lord will take care of you if you stand up for truth, even if that is the case and that's all you have.

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I believe he will. And I know there are stories out there of professors who did do that.

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They bucked the system and they learned how to drive a truck or something. And man, I respect those guys. It's not a sign that they weren't intelligent.

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It's a sign that they probably actually were intelligent. They were more independent thinkers. And they went outside the system.

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And so it is similar to the scribes and Pharisees. There is a unification and it is similar to that clip

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I just showed you about Capone in a way. It's unwritten rules, but there are rules.

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Now, I'm going to be presenting at the Stand Against Marxism conference, which is coming up in October.

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It's on October 18th and 19th in Des Moines, Iowa. And if you want to go to that, you can go to StandAgainstMarxism .com.

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I don't know all the speakers there, but I will be speaking. I do know a few of them that I'm actually pretty good friends with.

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And I'm looking forward to it. It's kind of, like I said before, this very loose coalition.

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So people coming from all kinds of different backgrounds to try.

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It's an attempt to join together and say, you know what, we need to be a little more united against this political movement that is inside Christendom.

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And so one of the things that I'm going to give you a little teaser if you come, that I'm going to be sharing on is the academic culture that we have arrived to in 2019.

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Kind of like, how did we get here? And one of the things that I want to start out with is kind of like the

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Scopes trial, maybe even a little before that. The modernist controversy. There was a perception that evangelicals, and at the time really fundamentalists, that they were dumb, they were hazy, they didn't know what they were talking about.

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And evangelicals kind of wanted to be less separatistic than the fundamentalists. They wanted to still have more of an influence in the world, and broader culture

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I should say. And so the evangelicals in an interesting way end up, some of them at least, and there's prominent

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Southern Baptists that were behind some of this, they end up forming a social justice movement in the 60s and the 70s.

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I mean Robert Bella gets going, and you want to understand the word human flourishing and how that got into the evangelical circles.

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Robert Bella influenced Tim Keller, and Robert Bella is the one that likes that term, human flourishing. But anyways, Robert Bella got going in the 60s.

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And this wasn't like out of a vacuum somewhere that all this stuff popped up. He talked about the idolatrous worship of the state, and the link between biblical and political rightism.

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In 1967, this was before the moral majority, guys, that he was talking about this.

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In 1973 you have the Chicago Statement, and I'm actually going to read this for you, some of it, because it is absolutely fascinating.

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This could have been written last year. But what it says is we acknowledge that God requires justice.

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We haven't demonstrated that in this unjust American society because of social and economic rights of the poor and the oppressed have been taken away.

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We're silent. Church has been involved in racism. And look, institutional structures that have divided the body of Christ along color lines.

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It talks about economic exploitation. It talks about complementarianism being wrong, essentially.

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It just says men had prideful domination of women, and women were supposed to be passive and this mutual submission is what we want to advocate.

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And so there's this whole thing, and it reads like something that could have been signed yesterday by the gospel coalition or something.

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But this is 1973, guys. So this wasn't yesterday.

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And what I've found as I've been studying some of this is that there actually was a social justice movement that predated the one we're looking at now.

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Jim Wallace was actually considered an evangelical at first in 1975. We know he's not, but that's when he started

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Sojourners. 1978, Ron Snyder writes, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Now what put a stop to that?

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Why do we don't remember that? We don't perceive this movement as having a history, but it does.

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I think the reason is because the 70s showed a change in evangelical political engagement.

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Evangelicals, for the most part, were individuals who voted, but they weren't a voting bloc. That wasn't something church has really addressed.

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Think about this for a moment. You're coming out of a context in which the nation in general is

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Christian, quote -unquote. Their Christian values are just kind of the accepted norms.

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And so if you're a Christian and going to church, it's not like your pastor necessarily has to give you a lot of instructions on biblical principles for voting.

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That's kind of already baked into you. And that was not the case in the 70s.

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It really wasn't the case even before that, but I don't think Christians realized it until the 70s that, wait a minute, people are not using biblical principles to approach the scripture with, or the politics with.

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They're not using the scriptural principles to approach politics. I think this comes out a lot in 1980. Jimmy Carter actually hosted a breakfast,

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I believe, with a bunch of evangelical leaders, and they're asking him these questions about him applying his personal faith, which is the reason he got elected by evangelicals, because he was personally a

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Southern Baptist who was very faithful. But they ask him, where are you applying this? And Carter basically doesn't have good answers.

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And they vow afterward, on the way back to their hotels, something's wrong and we need to fight this.

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And so you have in the late 70s and the 80s a sense of we need to get the

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America back that we had before. They're killing babies out there. I mean, think about this. Jerry Falwell. It took him two years.

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It's 1975 when he started speaking out against abortion. So everyone who wants to say, well, they were on the sidelines during the

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Civil Rights Movement. Well, evangelicals, these were tangential issues in their minds that they just, yeah, they vote on a national level perhaps, but they just weren't really that engaged as a voting bloc until the most horrible thing happens.

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And even then it takes a few years for them to really get organized to say, we're going to fight this.

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Killing babies is wrong. And so you have the moral majority. You have the religious right.

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And the thing about the religious right is it's a populist movement. You have Francis Schaeffer writing some more academically minded, but they're really popular books.

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He's more of an academic, but he's writing popular books. And that is inspiring some of these Christian leaders like Tim LaHaye and Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

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But the evangelical social justice movement, which had formed in the 60s and 70s, it never went away.

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You know where it went? It went to academia. And thoughtful academics, as one author has put it, were surviving in academic institutions throughout the 80s.

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And when I think about that, I'm thinking of people like George Mardsden, Nathan Hatch, Mark Knoll.

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These guys are well read at today's seminaries. I've had to read, and not all their books are bad. Their books actually, a lot of them are very good historical research.

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But I noticed some of that influence from more of a social justice direction kind of subtly coming into some of their works.

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George Mardsden, actually, I'll just go on a little tangent. He kind of, I think, a neo -Kuyperian guy.

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Very much a principal pluralist, which is the buzzword today. When I was at Southeastern, this is like Bruce Ashford's thing.

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He's the provost there. Principal pluralism. And you hear that all over the place.

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Tim Keller is very influenced by this as well. And it's this idea that we shouldn't really be trying to take back

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America, so to speak, but we should be trying to live in this multicultural America as Christians.

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And it's not going to work, by the way, because every system has a god of the system and secular humanism is a religion. But that's kind of the direction that George Mardsden has been going.

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I mean, there is still a political element to that. And Nathan Hatch and Martin Old, same thing. But these guys trained up guys like Tom Kidd and John Fee, I think would be kind of someone who learned from these guys.

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And a lot of the modern pastors I don't think you'd have a neo -reformed Calvinist movement without these guys.

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They are kind of like a new Kuyperian and I'm talking about Abraham Kuyper, theologian. It doesn't matter if you don't know what that is, who he is,

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I should say. But they're very they're more like One Kingdom guys in many respects.

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Again, you don't have to know all the theology I'm throwing out there but there's something that unites them, is my point.

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And social justice is part of that, in a way. And I think we're reaping that today.

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We're looking at these thoughtful evangelicals who, from academia, oppose the populist religious right, which was a conservative move trying to reverse the clock and go back to a time when there was more religious freedom when you could pray in school, when babies weren't murdered, etc.

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And those guys who thought that the religious right was out of bounds and was too

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American and it was too patriotic and so forth and so on, they have influenced the current crop of pastors a lot.

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And I'm not here to take I'd be more in line with, probably, politically at least, the moral majority but I recognize there were some problems there and like everything in humanity, there's always a problem somewhere.

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There's no perfection and so I can, as someone who recognizes that, it doesn't bother me but there is a thread that we can trace, historically.

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And I'm going to be sharing some of that, explaining how we got to where we are and I think that will be beneficial because it will give us context for understanding it and I think help us know how better to fight this.

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And so I'm going to leave that there. One of the things that I wanted to talk about briefly too, in regards to this, because this has been brought up by a few people, but Jud Saul, who's the director of Enemies Within the

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Church, he had told me a story a few months ago. He was talking to a room full of Roman Catholics about this issue and if you know anything about the

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Roman Catholic Church they were torn up by the social justice movement before evangelicals were.

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They didn't really, I mean, there were some Roman Catholic co -belligerents during the religious right, but not as much.

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In fact, well, I'm not going to go there, but so Jud's in this room and these

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Roman Catholics are sitting there, these laymen, and they're like, okay our church, our institution, is corrupted by social justice.

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Now we can say, I would say, there's been a lot of corruption before that and the gospel's been essentially lost in Roman Catholic doctrine, but they're concerned with the social justice aspect.

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And Jud, at the end of his presentation, basically gets up in front of all of them and he points to an evangelical

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Protestant pastor in the room and says, you want to go to a church that does not follow the social justice movement, this is the man to talk to and share the gospel with them.

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And this is I think the heart of Jud. And I just wanted to throw that out there because a few people have said, you know, how can you have a

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Roman Catholic at your conference to Jud? And how can you have such a big kind of tent?

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Well, you gotta understand, this is a political conference. It's a political movement inside Christendom.

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So the Protestants and Catholics, and I don't know about Eastern Orthodox, I don't think there's anyone like that coming, and I don't know enough about whether that's made inroads into that tradition yet or not.

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If it hasn't, it will. But, you know, Jud is very, he is a gospel -centered guy.

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And he knows what he has on his hands is a political movement. Conservative, engaged political guys are starting to wake up and see what's happening to the evangelical vote and the

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Roman Catholic vote, and they're concerned. And I think Jud sees this as a gospel opportunity.

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He wants to go in and share, yeah, this is a false gospel that you guys are concerned about. And you know what?

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Some of you don't even have the true gospel, so let's talk about that. And I know the gospel's gonna be provided.

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So I wanted to just let you know that. This is not, I know Jud, I know

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Kerry, and they're not ecumenical in the sense that they think, you know, Roman Catholics are brothers in Christ, or, you know, they're not inviting cults to come or anything like that.

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They are concerned for the gospel, but they realize what they have on their hands is a political movement.

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And so, not saying I would have planned everything the way they've planned it, and I'm not the one planning it.

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I was invited to speak. But I wanted to throw that out there, because that really helped me be able to say yes to coming and speaking and sharing what

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I'm gonna be sharing. Last thing, well, second to last thing for this particular podcast,

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I wanted to share with you guys, this is, I think, probably the most helpful thing in this podcast for you as a layman, if you're a layman listening.

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There's been a lot of talk, I'm not gonna give examples, there's so many of them, about wealth and material riches being bad, the demonization of those things, and it goes right along with the social justice stuff.

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I wanted to share with you a few verses. And just talk through these with you.

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Let's start with Job. Job chapter 42, the Lord blessed the later days of Job more than his beginning.

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And he had 14 ,000 sheep, and it goes on and says what he had. The Lord blessed Job with material goods. Material goods are not bad.

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Material blessing is not bad. Privilege is not bad, necessarily.

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It's actually something to be thankful for to God, because he's the one that gives those things. So the demonization of the rich is disgusting.

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Before God. It's disgusting, guys. Proverbs 3, 9 -10. Honor the Lord from your wealth.

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What are you supposed to do with wealth, rich guys? Honor the Lord from your wealth. And from the first of all your produce.

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So that your barns may be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine. Is this health, wealth, prosperity?

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No, I mean, I don't believe in the health and wealth and prosperity gospel. But this is what Proverbs 3 says.

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You practice godly principles. You honor the Lord with your wealth. You know what? You're going to be blessed. That's a general truth. And does it happen in every circumstance?

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No. It doesn't. And you're not promised that it will in every circumstance. But in general, proverbial sayings are general truths.

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That's how it works. And that's a good thing. So to desire nice things, like wine is a comfort, and it's a symbol, the

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Old Testament of richness and so forth. Enjoy the things that God has given you.

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Let's go to Proverbs 30. It's the words of Augur. And he says,

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One of them is found in verse 8.

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He says, Well, why does he say that?

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Why is he saying I don't want to be poor and I don't want to be rich? He says, My God.

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Now, this is something that I relate to. I don't think I can handle being rich. Because I probably would idolize my riches.

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And Augur is wise enough to see his own limitations. But that doesn't mean there's not people who can handle that.

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And that's the point I want to make. It's dangerous because you tend to rely on your riches instead of God. But you know what?

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It's not wrong to have them. And I don't think Augur's saying that here. Because he'd also be saying it's wrong to be poor.

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And we know that's not wrong. So this is more, again, it's in Proverbs. This is wisdom.

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Matthew chapter 19. Jesus is talking to the rich young ruler here.

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He comes, he says, What must I do to enter the kingdom of heaven and gain eternal life? And Jesus says, Keep the commandments.

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He says, I've already done that. Jesus says, Go sell all you have. Give to the poor. And he's sad. He walks away.

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And Jesus says to his disciples, I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And they're astonished.

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And he says that with people, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible. And so I want to point out that, yeah, the rich young ruler, his problem was idolatry.

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He wasn't willing to give it up. And that's the question you need to ask yourself. If you're a rich person, are you willing to give it up?

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You should not necessarily feel guilty for wanting riches. It's not a bad thing to want that, to bless others with, to bless the

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Lord with. And yes, have pleasure for yourself so you can enjoy the blessings of God. Not wrong. At all.

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But if you can't give it up, yeah, it's an idol. And that's the rich young ruler's problem. He couldn't give it up.

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So rather than demonizing riches or the rich, how about we demonize what Scripture demonizes? Scripture demonizes the unwillingness to give up riches.

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The idolatry of riches. Matthew chapter, I believe this is 27.

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This is when Jesus is buried. It just says that there's a rich man from Arimathea named

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Joseph. And of course he took care of Christ's body. This is one of Christ's disciples. He's a rich man.

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He's a rich man. And we don't see an example of Christ beating him over the head for it. Here's a passage.

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This is Paul instructing Timothy. He talks about false teachers coming in. And he says that basically a lot of them are in it for riches and so forth.

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And he's teaching Timothy. He says, So we cannot take anything out of it either.

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So you shouldn't need riches to be content, guys. That's another aspect of this. If you need them to be content, that's wrong.

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Doesn't mean you can't enjoy them or pursue them or be blessed by them. But you shouldn't need them.

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And he says, So does that contradict what

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I just said? Well, no, because there's a context here. Those who want to get rich as an end in and of itself.

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If that's their main pursuit. If they're pursuing riches for the sake of contentment. That's what he's talking about.

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That's the context. And then he says this. And pierce themselves with many griefs.

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Money's not wrong, guys. It's not even wrong to make money. Pursue getting money, obtaining it.

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What's wrong is loving it. Sacrificing yourself for it. Making it a god.

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Now, if you scroll down, this is in the same chapter. He says in verse 17, But on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.

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Instruct them to do good and to be rich in good works. To be generous and ready to share. Storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future.

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So that they may take hold of that which is life indeed. Here's the deal. If you're rich, you should be pursuing the kingdom of God.

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There are two kingdoms. Pursue the eternal reality. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

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As Jesus said, where moth and rust do not destroy. But it doesn't mean you can't have riches on earth.

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Those who have gained riches, instruct them this way. Just don't fix your hope on it.

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Because it can be taken away from you any day and you need to be willing to lose it. Now, why do

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I say all this? Because there is a tendency today to demonize those who have riches.

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It's a class warfare thing. But to demonize the systems that allocate riches.

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So capitalism, which helps everyone really. Because these rich people invest their money. They're not just keeping it in a lockbox somewhere.

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They're helping invest it in things that help middle class and poor people. They pay taxes as well.

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Most people don't think through that. But this is a problem among people that are my age and a little younger.

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And maybe some that are older. But in the millennial generation, there's an issue here. They tend to look at a yacht and think that is bad.

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But they are willing to spend tons of money on experiences. Like vacations, traveling, food.

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I mean, these are the kind of things they spend their money on. They have a different value system. There's the minimalist thing. And they look at the white picket fence and the boat and a nice car as bad things.

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And so I wanted to just address this. And say, that's wrong.

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That is just so wrong. The demonization of wealth and of riches. These are God's blessings.

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And we should be demonizing what scripture demonizes. We should be talking against that.

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The things that scripture says are sinful. And warning against that. Not against riches in and of themselves.

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And this is one of the aspects of the social justice movement. There is just a knee jerk reaction some of these guys have.

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To pointing the finger at someone who's against, let's say, reparations. Or really unjust tax levels.

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And they will point the finger and say, you just care about your riches. And you're idolatrous and this and that. And it's like, no.

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We don't. And I'm saying this as a guy who probably would, I mean, at best,

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I'm lower middle class. At best. I'm an impoverished student, really, is what I am. But I do not think it is right to demonize wealth.

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I think that's dangerous, actually. We want to live in a country where that is possible. Where the blessings of God are there for those who want to work hard.

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And you're rewarded for working hard. And the Lord rewards you, like it says in Proverbs, for practicing wise business practice.

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So these aren't bad things. And I just want to take you through those verses.

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Hopefully that will help if you notice that objection ever in the future. Last but not least,

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I wanted to address a few questions that I got. I had asked for some of my Patreon supporters.

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And if you are not a Patreon supporter, you can go to the link below in my sidebar there. And you can become a supporter.

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And I'll send you a shirt, if you want it, in your size. But you also have more access to me. And one of the things that gives you more access to me, there's a couple things that you get.

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If I ever make a slideshow, I will give you that. I put my material on Patreon for those who are there to download it.

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But if you want to just ask me questions, you can do that. So I have two Patreon supporters who have asked me some questions.

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I was going to do an episode just about these, but instead, because there's so many other things coming up, and there's only two people that have asked me these questions,

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I decided to just kind of tag it at the end of this. But the first one is from one of my supporters.

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And she asks, she says, And she's got enemies in quotation marks.

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If someone is a believer and caught up in social justice theology, are they enemies or are we warring against ideas?

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There are levels of wolves in the church, it seems. Some people are honestly just wanting to be kind to other races and have no idea of the theology heresy they are getting into.

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This is what makes it so difficult to discuss. Some, on the other hand, are more nefarious and wanting to fundamentally change seminary's doctrine.

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And I completely understand, and I actually, I have a first, I can't talk about it right now, but I have an example of an evangelical institution that is unofficially changing a doctrinal stance.

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That is a core belief. And enemies within the church hopefully will be revealing this at some point.

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But yeah, there's a problem there, and I think this individual is spot on.

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There are those who are just innocently, that's probably the majority of people, not the leaders advancing this, but those who are just kind of following, they just really care about people's well -being.

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And they have been duped into thinking that these liberal cures for sometimes diseases that don't even exist and other times actual problems, that these are legitimate and they're part of being nice.

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And so one of the dangers is, I think, it's sort of an antinomian thing, anti -law, is if you don't know the law of God well, if you're not well -versed in scripture, especially your

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Old Testament, it is very easy to get taken in by these broad principles of niceness, love, being kind.

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And you can kind of fill in the blank. Justice is one of those catch -all words now, that we're just going to put every social program into this umbrella of justice and call it that and say it's biblical because it's justice.

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And I think guys who just, they're doing their best to provide for their families and they just want to see justice happen and people to live together well, they're going to be taken in by that.

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That vagueness is going to be a cover for getting them to adopt socialistic ideas. And I recognize that.

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That's why I want to create clear distinctions. I tend to, and I'm not the only one,

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A .D. Robles does this too, we tend to talk about those who are leading the movement and generally those are false teachers or they are covering for false teachers.

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And we don't always focus on those who are duped. And there's a lot who are.

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So I don't know. I'm agreeing with the statement that was made. The question was discuss the term enemies within the church.

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Who are the enemies? Here's the thing about enemies within the church. Judd made a movie called

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The Enemies Within and it was about Marxists in Congress. And this is a sequel to that.

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So it's about Marxists. And those who are advocating for Neo -Marxism in the church would be under that umbrella of enemy.

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It's not necessarily, I don't think they ever meant it to mean heretics, though there is an overlap there.

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But I think they meant Marxists. And so I'm just going to let them define their term there for themselves.

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But yeah, if someone's going along with a movement, let's say and they are not ideologically understanding that movement are they an enemy in just the general definition of enemy?

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Yes and no. In one sense, yes, because they're supporting something that is absolutely destructive.

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In one sense, no, because they haven't ideologically bought into it necessarily.

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And so there might be an opportunity to show them the inconsistency in what they're doing.

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I don't have time to discuss more, I guess. It's a hard discussion to have if there's some nuance there.

39:02

How do you address the common objection that you are opposing critical race theory ideas simply because of white fragility?

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Yeah, this is just a pejorative people send your way.

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And it is a self -authenticating pejorative. If everything

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I'm saying is white fragility and it fits under that umbrella, then even me trying to say that I'm not fragile is a sign of white fragility.

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No matter what I say, they're going to say, well, that's white fragility. So they've already labeled you. So once that happens to you,

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I think probably the best thing to do is just to point out the hypocrisy of it. To say, well, why can't you just be forwarding the social justice movement because you hate white people or because you're a bully and everything you do fits under this paradigm of being a bully?

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And they probably react against that and say, well, look, it's the same thing. You're just saying it's white fragility. How about you? Why don't we look at these ideas on their merits instead of their motivations?

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That's not my motivation. You can't see into my heart. But they see the thing is they think they can. So that's why

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I say, put the shoe on the other foot. See into their hearts. Say, well, you're just doing this because you're motivated by being a bully or something.

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And then if they respond or reject that, say, okay, look, I'm rejecting that. This is the same thing.

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Let's not talk motivations. Let's talk the actual ideas.

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And I don't know. I tend to online. I tend to just ignore that stuff, to be honest with you, because I'm like, yeah, this person's not interested in actually reasoning.

40:40

They're just name calling. But if you're going to get into an argument like that, that's the way that I would approach it,

40:45

I guess. Asking why is a really good question, too. Why? Why do you think that?

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And then keep asking it. And people usually reveal their cards and you give them enough rope to hang themselves. Another question.

40:58

What concerns do you have about social media censorship? Do you have a solution to this? I don't have a solution for it.

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I mean, I'm on Minds and Gab where I post things as well. And those are supposed to be outside of the

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Facebook and YouTube and all of the big tech companies. But I am concerned about it because I think we're being manipulated if we're spending too much time on social media.

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And that's one thing to say, I guess, don't spend too much time on social media. And recognize that, yeah, the algorithms are set to manipulate you, probably.

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So you've got to use it wisely if you're going to use it. If you have a following like I do and you can use it, then praise

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God. Honestly, I probably wouldn't be using social media that much if it weren't for the fact that I do have an audience and I'm putting these things out there.

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So it's become a good tool for communication, but I really am hoping some alternatives pop up quick that aren't big tech alternatives.

41:59

Are there any seminaries not caught up in intersectionality and critical race theory? Yes, there are.

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This is something that I've been asking for institutions from various people that are in the know, and I'm still waiting on some answers.

42:14

I will say this. Shepherds, not Shepherds, sorry. That's one I'm actually waiting on.

42:21

Expositor Seminary, from what I understand, is pretty good. And I'm hopefully going to have someone who's the head of one of the expositors branches.

42:29

They're mostly, I think, in the southeast. I think there's some in the northeast, but they're on the east coast more. But one of them

42:36

I'm going to try to get for an interview, so we'll see how that goes. But from what I understand, no, they are not following the social justice stuff.

42:43

Where is your favorite... Okay, this is a personal question. Where is your favorite place to hike or camp? That's a hard one, man.

42:49

Out West, honestly. I live more in the east and I grew up more in the east, but I was born out in the west and I love traveling back there.

43:01

I'd say, you know what, Zion National Park. I'd say of all the parks that I've been at, the national parks out there,

43:06

I really enjoy Zion the most and have some really good memories there. So if I'm going to hike or camp,

43:12

I think I'd want to be there. Or the High Sierras, that would be a second. Another...

43:20

I think these are like three or four questions here. Another person from my Patreon asked, I'd like to know more about your experience getting into making

43:27

YouTube videos. I see you have videos going back a long time. What prompted you to start? What motivated you to continue? How has your concept of your videos changed over time?

43:35

Yeah, you know, I did start to make some videos maybe like 11 years ago or more. Probably more than that.

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It was honestly just a pragmatic thing. It was shorter than a blog because I didn't have to type everything out.

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I could just talk. So that's what prompted me, I think. What motivated me to continue?

43:55

For years, I don't really have anything out there. And then I probably would get a bee up my bonnet.

44:01

Something that would just inspire me. I gotta say something about this because I don't agree usually.

44:07

And then I would make a video and then it would be maybe even a couple years before I made another one. So I was really sporadic.

44:13

But then in January, when I made the video about Southeastern, all of a sudden I had all this attention and so I had an audience.

44:20

So I've... Since I have an audience, I've worked to put out videos more regularly. My concept of my videos hasn't really changed that much.

44:29

It's the same thing from the beginning. I just care about the truth and especially areas in which

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I don't think there's truth being communicated or there's just not a lot of options. I want to fill those gaps in and I want to give a commentary that I'm hoping will help laymen.

44:45

That's always been my heart. Do you have a favorite Bible verse or passage? What makes it stand out to you?

44:52

Man, I like so many. That's a hard... I'll answer this a different way.

44:58

This is a weird thing. People don't know this about me. My favorite book of the Bible is probably Ecclesiastes. And I don't know of anyone else who said that, but I've always liked it.

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And I love the end of Ecclesiastes where Solomon says this is the end of the matter.

45:15

We've gone through this whole process of philosophy and thinking through the meaning of life and we get to the end and say this is the end.

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Honor God and keep His commandments for God will bring every act into judgment whether good or evil.

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And that has just always hit me. He says this applies to every man because God will bring every act into judgment whether good or evil.

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And so I like that. I think as someone who's been in school for so long, I'm getting a second master's now.

45:53

Man, there's an end to the books, an end to learning. And at the end of the day, it's not actually that complicated.

45:59

It's quite simple. Just follow God and keep His commandments. So there you go. Do you have a morning routine and would you share insights about that and how you stay on top of tasks and stay motivated?

46:16

No. I don't have a good morning routine. Every morning is different. I used to have more of a routine when

46:22

I was working a 9 -5 kind of schedule. And so I knew every day this is when

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I have to be at work. And so I did have more of a routine. Now, every day is different.

46:35

I have class times and I run a side business and I have different times I'm meeting with customers for that.

46:41

And because of my variable schedule, if I showed you my week, it would just be all over the map.

46:48

I don't really have the luxury of having much of a routine. And honestly,

46:54

I probably could make more of an effort. I always say that to go to bed earlier. I tend to be more of a night owl.

47:02

But I don't know. So the question is probably behind this is when do you do a quiet time?

47:10

It's sporadic for me throughout the day. And actually, it's funny. I had a professor at seminary who had this same kind of approach.

47:19

They would read their Bible at a certain time and then pray at a certain time thanking the

47:24

Lord. And then another time of the day, they might praise the Lord. But it was taking breaks from the other things during the day to get away and be with God.

47:34

And that's how I've approached it, I think, for the last two or more years. Like this morning,

47:40

I read the scripture and I prayed for maybe two minutes.

47:45

Oh, just two minutes? Well, yeah. But I'm planning later on, I'm praying for a longer period of time. And it's going to be in a location that I feel more close to God in nature.

47:58

So yeah, I don't know. I probably should have more of a schedule there. And I don't recommend that, honestly.

48:05

I think it probably is good to have a schedule. But there are people who know how to do it and I've just been functioning that way where everything's kind of variable.

48:14

So how do I stay on top of tasks and stay motivated? I don't know. It's like Nike. I just do it. I just get up and I have deadlines.

48:22

When you have deadlines, you have to stay on top of things. What is next for you in 2020?

48:28

I have no clue. I really don't. I'm going to be graduating in next spring from this master's program

48:36

I'm in. And I could go on to PhD work. I could get into ministry. And I do know that ministry is where I want to go, ultimately.

48:46

This is more of a tent -making thing for me. I'd like to be able to teach as an adjunct. But I have other opportunities that have been thrown my way.

48:54

And I've actually said no to some things just because of where I am and I want to continue this degree. But in the spring, we'll see.

49:01

I don't know. Of course, having children, if that ends up happening, that could change things. So it's all up in the air.

49:08

But I appreciate prayer. If you're a fan of this podcast, pray for me because I could really use it.

49:16

I've seen what God has. So I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you so much.

49:22

I don't say it enough, but thank you for those who watch these, who listen, especially those who support me on Patreon and pray for me.

49:30

It really does mean a lot. It does help with things. There's a lot more coming.

49:36

There's a reason to be encouraged, honestly. A little brief story.

49:41

This is a long podcast, but I found that a lot of my fans like the long form podcasts, so I don't mind telling it.

49:48

I was at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D .C. yesterday.

49:55

And, of course, it is a tearjerker. You go through this and it's just horrifying.

50:01

How does someone go through that without Christ? I don't know. But one of the things that I was thinking while I was there was, you know,

50:12

I deserve this kind of treatment. And I think the world would immediately say, how dare you say that?

50:17

How dare you say that you deserve the Holocaust happening to you? Torture and starvation.

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And the thing is, God is so holy that to Him, things that we think are acceptable are absolutely horrific.

50:34

And, I mean, this is just, I'm talking theology for a second. I have a point to this, believe me. And so, when

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I look at the Holocaust, I see the depravity of man, and I see that if it weren't for Christ, I could be just like that.

50:48

I mean, think about our, we have no room to stand when it comes to criticizing Germans in the 1940s.

50:55

Because of all the abortions that have happened in this country, I mean, the number of those who died in the

51:01

Holocaust pales in comparison to that number. And I think it's going to be like Sodom and Gomorrah in the

51:09

Day of Judgment, standing up against where Jesus had been doing ministry.

51:17

Because Sodom and Gomorrah were bad, but they didn't have the light. And we have so much light, and yet we still, in this country, and I'm saying we,

51:25

I haven't participated, but through tax dollars and just the lack of opposition to the abortion industry is concerning.

51:40

And we won't have any room to stand on. I mean, you could make a museum, like the Holocaust Museum, for aborted abortion.

51:48

And for eugenics and some of the things that have happened in this country. So anyway, I don't look at them as these horrible ogres and wonder how did they come into being?

51:58

How did they do this? Why did this happen? I look at that and I say, why doesn't this happen every day?

52:05

And it does. But why isn't it more prevalent? Why isn't this what I'm doing?

52:10

Oh yeah, because Jesus Christ has changed my heart. And his common grace has kept others from doing it who don't have

52:21

Christ. Anyway, at the end of this Holocaust trip to the museum, we met with, they actually have a theologian on staff there, and the group

52:34

I was part of, we met with her. And I asked the question, where do you get hope when you're meeting with people?

52:42

How do you give them hope? She had no answer. Just repeated the same thing over and over. Well, we think the grieving process is important.

52:48

We think it's important to have time for yourself. That was it. There was nothing. You should talk about it.

52:54

Yeah, but there's no hope at the end of the day. And Christians have hope. And that's what I come back to with everything.

53:00

There is a hope because there is an eternity. And as Ecclesiastes says, God will bring every act into judgment, whether good or evil.

53:07

And those who have Christ will not suffer that judgment. That's the gospel. That repenting and trusting in Christ means you will not suffer that judgment.

53:17

That makes it possible for someone as evil as a

53:22

Nazi to be able to be saved. And you know why that's a good thing? Because that means God can save you too.

53:29

Obviously, you have to repent of your sins. You can't keep being a Nazi. You can't keep doing whatever evil you're involved with.

53:35

But there is a hope at the end of the day. And God has a purpose.

53:40

There's no purposeless evil out there. God has a purpose. So anyway, I thought I would just share that because I've been thinking about it.

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And I thought it would be an encouragement to you. But thank you for your support. And thank you for all those out there who send me messages of encouragement.

53:55

means a lot. God bless. I hope that some of you will be able to make it out to Iowa. And we can meet in October.