A Lament: How TGC is Destroying Justice and the Church

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. This is an important episode, important because we are watching at breakneck speed the disintegration of the unity which used to exist in many churches in the

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United States and in other parts of the Western world over social justice and the latest flare up, the

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Black Lives Matter movement. I'm getting messages from people in this country, but also from people in other countries telling me that they had to leave their church because of compromise within it.

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They're trying to start a church even if they don't have a seminary education, they're meeting at home because they can't find another option in their area.

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This is happening in places that would even be considered Bible belts. We are watching something very transformative take place right now in this country.

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And just because you're not seeing studies or news articles on it yet doesn't mean it's not happening.

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I just read something that last year, the Southern Baptist Convention had a record number of churches leave the convention.

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And the article, I don't think it didn't speculate as far as what that might be attributed to.

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But I think those of us who have been paying attention to what's happening in the convention itself, we know what's going on.

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We know why churches would want to leave and not support critical race theory and social justice theory and intersectionality and feminism and the list goes on at this point.

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So we're watching a lot happen and it's hard to keep track of all of it at once.

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And so I wanna focus on what I think is more important than even the political situation. And of course the two do intersect quite a bit.

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But I wanna talk about the situation within churches in this country. I'm gonna share a little bit about my own experience and I wanna give you some pointers, some helpful pointers.

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That's why this episode I believe will be important for you to navigate discussions at your own church or at least to be able to understand what might be going on at your church.

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And it's going on all over the place. I've been trying to keep track of it as best I can, but I've been seeing this slowly take place over the course of years.

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And now I'm just seeing it at breakneck speed. It's happening everywhere at an unbelievable rate.

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And so we're gonna do a little review. We're gonna actually do some mini Bible study stuff.

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We're gonna talk about what justice is according to scripture briefly. And we're gonna talk about the nature of the church.

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But we're gonna focus a lot of our intention on some clips that I have queued up for you from a recent lament session two days ago that the

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Gospel Coalition streamed on their YouTube channel. And I think it's instructive because a lot of the strategy that I'm gonna be presenting to you that I think is taking place in churches, a lot of that is exemplified quite nicely in this

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Gospel Coalition presentation. And if you really take the time to listen to what members of the

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Gospel Coalition are saying, it is scary stuff. It's emotionally manipulative, and it is subversive to concepts which are integral for our understanding of the gospel like justice and reconciliation.

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And it dovetails nicely with the new religion. This is a chart that I showed a few weeks ago on how social justice is a new religion.

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And I'm gonna go through it really quickly because many of you who are regular subscribers, you've heard me wax long about this.

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But I think we need to review, we need to understand what's going on. So white male straight privilege is original sin.

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Political correctness is the law. Being woke is like being born again. Liberal politics are the sacraments.

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The woke leaders are the new priests. There's new books we have to read for our canon. So sociological books are the biblical alternatives.

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They give a perspective that's not the Holy Spirit, but it's minority perspectives, which are needed to understand the world that we live in.

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Equity or equality in this world is the new heaven. It's a utopian scheme.

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The victims are saints. Even if they have a long arrest record, it doesn't matter. They're saints to the cause.

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And then of course, this new religion contradicts the gospel in key areas because it focuses on external behaviors instead of heart condition.

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The oppressor classes are the groups that we look at instead of individuals when we're talking about sinful habits and actions.

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Justification comes after sanctification. You have to do something. So it's a works righteousness of some kind.

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And then it's perpetual in the pursuit of salvation ultimately, because you have to repent constantly to receive justification.

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And so these are just some ways that it contradicts. And of course, Christianity comes in and those who are social justice advocates that also identify as Christians, they try to take what

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I'm showing you right now and they try to merge it with biblical Christianity. And the two cannot merge.

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You can't serve two masters. And we are seeing examples. And the

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Gospel Coalition is one example of an organization trying to do this where they want to take social justice, this new religion, and they wanna fuse it with Christianity.

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And I'm gonna show that as we progress in this. I showed steps a few weeks ago of how this religion acts.

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When, and you're seeing this probably with a lot of your friends who have gotten into this, but first they get woke, they have a salvation experience.

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They come to an understanding of systemic oppression. They realize that they're complicit in a system that results in their own privilege somehow.

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And then they repent of their privilege. They stop supporting whiteness or straightness or heterosexuality.

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And they participate in lamenting and raising awareness. So these are new ordinances, things that you have to do.

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They find forgiveness from oppressed people. Those are the new priests. And then their evangelism is shaming others, promoting oppressed perspectives, like the new holy books, sociological books, and they make ultimatums.

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And that's the new catechism. They make ultimatums to those who don't wanna go along and basically say, if you're not with us, you're against us.

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And they'll shame and they can become very nasty people. And there are many people that are sucked into this.

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I think probably the majority, I don't have a study telling me, but I'm just assuming here, who are probably well -meaning.

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They just are emotionally attached to a story they've seen or they have compassion.

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And this is immediately from every place they turn, every authority figure, every company they've ever subscribed to, everywhere they turn, the solutions that they're being given for remedying the problem that they're emotionally attached to are all social justice solutions.

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And so well -meaning people, without thinking about it, can certainly be sucked into this.

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And that's probably what you're seeing a lot of right now. And so I wanna help you as best I can navigate some of this.

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I've been navigating some of this with people I know, and I don't have the expectation, especially when you're dealing with someone who's getting pulled into another religion or is in another religion or is just under some false teaching,

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I don't have the assumption that I'll always be able to convince them. And you shouldn't have that assumption either. Your responsibility is to proclaim the truth.

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And if someone's interested in the truth, if God is working there, then they will see it. And if not, if they're not interested in the truth, there may not be much you can do.

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But I have, I'll say this, I have seen good results from some of the discussions that I've had, and I get flooded with messages all the time of people thanking me.

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Even people, I had one just this morning, someone who told me, John, you were right.

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You were right when you were warning about this a while back and I'm seeing it now. And I just say, praise

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God for that. And it's not me that's doing that necessarily. That hopefully is the Holy Spirit working on that person, or it's just they've been given more evidence that they hadn't seen, and now they were on the fence perhaps, and now they're getting off the fence and they're realizing, no, the social justice stuff is bad.

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And so I'm gonna help you guys as best I can, those who are watching, to understand this and then respond to it.

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So here's the strategy that I'm seeing inside the church. I'm seeing many instances of this.

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Gospel Coalition, I think is at least the first in the lament session

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I watched. I did watch every minute, so you don't have to. I think they're at least doing about half of these.

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And it sounds like from the clips I'm gonna show you that they're planning on going all the way soon.

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But there's an emotional hook. Usually that's where it starts. There's an emotional hook of some kind. And so you see the video of what happened with Ahmaud Arbery, or you see the

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George Floyd video or something else, and there's a hook there. Or you watch, I mean, look, here's something

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I need to say. You watch Netflix or Amazon Prime or just whatever streaming service you have, or movies, if you're still watching movies on television, this stuff is being promoted all over the place, millions of dollars.

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This is a multi -million dollar, probably billion dollar industry to market these stories of marginalized people, quote unquote, and some of them are, some of them aren't.

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Some of the stories are fictional or they're embellished, but some of them very much are marginalized people, but to the detriment of other marginalized people.

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So it's specifically one narrative, and that's being pushed in your face constantly. I remember a few days ago,

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I logged onto Amazon Prime, and the front of Amazon Prime was just all

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Black Lives Matter. So you could go watch all these different movies. And so there's people that have been feeding on this stuff.

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That's what they've been seeing, not just what happened with George Floyd on the news, but they're seeing movies and documentaries and the moral of every story pretty much is this is the way it is in America.

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This is, it's systemic. This is such a problem, and it has implications for today because the injustice hasn't ceased.

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It's still around. It's just taken on a different form, which is, by the way, critical race theory. So an aspect of it,

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I should say. So a lot of the people that are being pulled into this, I mean, it's an emotional pull, and churches, unfortunately right now, many of them are no exceptions to this.

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They're also telling these stories and using emotional hooks to try to pull people in, to elicit an emotional reaction.

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And sometimes you don't even have to, they don't even have to use a hook because people are already just hearing this from every other institution in society.

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So by the time they get to church, they're already feeling either guilty for their white privilege or thinking that something must be done to address systemic abuse for minorities.

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And this whole scheme that I'm showing you right here that I'm gonna walk through, this is gonna be used in about two seconds, guys.

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Make no mistake, it's gonna happen way faster than you think. This whole entire template will be used to promote lamenting straight privilege.

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And it may not be, they may not say straight privilege. I don't know what term would be used, but this whole template is going to be used for quote -unquote sexual minorities and their liberation, quote -unquote.

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Just watch, I'm telling you, it is coming. There is no difference. In fact, on YouTube, I got an email the other day and they were already pushing this narrative.

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They were saying Black Lives Matter. And right after that, Happy Pride Month. And it was all about Stonewall and the struggle, the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ plus people to somehow overcome the barriers that still exist and so it's the same thing.

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I mean, look, the world sees it that way. They know, those who are pushing this stuff, they know exactly where this is leading.

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And I'm afraid that there's a lot of folks in the church who they don't. So be prepared for the marginalized stories coming of homosexuals or transgender people, people that are somehow victims of oppression that goes back years in Western culture and now it's still present in some form and you're gonna see the same kind of thing.

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So just be prepared for that, that emotional hook. And then of course, there's an emotional reaction once the hook, once you see that, you're angry, you can't believe you've been part of this in some way or benefiting from some kind of privilege or living in a country where these horrible things are happening.

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Bode Bauckham said not too long ago, he said that the United States is the best place on the planet for opportunity for black people.

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It was Bode Bauckham saying this, not me. Bode Bauckham said it. And of course, he's in Africa, I believe he's in Zambia and he's saying, but the perception across the world and where he is, is that in America, it's horrible for black people.

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They can't get ahead, there's so many barriers, the police are just out pursuing them, hunting them down because of what the media portrays about this country.

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He says, it's not true, it's not true. And so people in their own country now though, are starting to adopt the same narrative and they're feeling bad for it, they're feeling guilty for it.

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And once you have someone who's guilty, who thinks it's their fault that something bad has happened, you can manipulate that guilt.

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This happens on a smaller level all the time. This is, I mean, a classic abuser kind of move, right?

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When we're talking about emotional abuse in counseling situations, I mean, all the problems that can happen in a household, sometimes like an abusive husband can blame on the wife, make it sound like it's all her fault, even if it's not.

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And then, or maybe there's some truth to some of it, maybe she is nagging or something and the husband just plays that up and this wife gets manipulated.

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I mean, this kind of thing happens. So be aware of that, that just because you're emotional about something, just because you're angry about something, what's the telos?

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In other words, what's the purpose of those who would want to promote that kind of thing to you?

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What are they trying to get you to do in a reaction? You gotta ask that question. In the case of an abusive husband, many times he wants something.

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He wants the wife to remain perhaps in the marriage and to do things for him and he wants benefits of some kind.

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So what are the benefits? So the next step is to pervert biblical concepts.

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This is within the church. So you have someone who's emotionally already distraught about what they're seeing, what's being presented to them.

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So they're conditioned into feeling guilty. And then all the while this is happening, start throwing out familiar words like justice, like love of neighbor, reconciliation, et cetera.

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Use these terms, but use them in ways that are different from the ways the Bible uses them or the ways the person who is a

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Christian has grown up using them. Define them according to new left understandings of equity, inclusion, diversity, tolerance, et cetera.

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So justice, and I'm gonna show you something about this. Justice is no longer the application of the law, the faithful application of it.

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Justice is no longer blind. Justice is doing something that honestly makes you, that appeases the guilt that you're feeling.

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So if you think that white people are guilty for benefiting from systemic oppression of some kind, then we're gonna punish the white people.

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We're gonna do something extra for people who aren't white, right? So it makes you feel good about it, but that's not actually justice.

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Let me show you what justice is according to scripture and we'll come back to that. And this is really short, but the word, it's about 90 % of the time in the

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Old Testament, the word translated justice is mishpat. And here's just a few examples for you.

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Exodus 23 .6, you shall not pervert the justice due to your needy brother and his dispute.

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Deuteronomy 16 .19, you shall not distort justice. You shall not be partial. You shall not take a bribe for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous.

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This is where we get this concept of Lady Justice being blind. She doesn't see external things. She doesn't see gender and she doesn't see ethnic characteristics.

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She sees, did you violate the law? That's what she sees. She's blind, whether the person's your friend and you grew up with them, doesn't matter.

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The law must be applied. First Samuel 8 .3, his sons, however, did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain.

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And what did they do? They took bribes and perverted justice. So in each of these cases, someone is subverting the law and they're not meeting out the proper punishment, giving the proper recompense, because they're selfishly looking for a benefit for themselves.

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So this has everything to do with meeting out punishment. It's not about trying to find an equality of outcome to make sure that there's no disparities, nothing to do with that.

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Proverbs 28 .5, evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand all things.

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Evil men, Black Lives Matter, the organization is run by evil men, evil men.

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They don't believe in God's template for family at all. They wanna destroy what they call the

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Western family. It's the nuclear family. They're into all the perversions that God says are evil.

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They're evil men. They don't understand justice. Why would Christians ever think that joining hands, and I'm speaking to David Platt, Thabiti Enabuile, and Ed Stetzer, why would they go join and march with Black Lives Matter?

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They don't understand justice. And then they tell conservatives in the church that, no, you're the ones that don't understand justice.

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No, it's absolutely evil, guys. What fellowship has light with darkness? So here's another verse for you.

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Isaiah 1 .17, learn to do good. Seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

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You know why it says that? Because so often the orphan and the widow are powerless.

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Yeah, there really is real powerlessness. So it doesn't mean that all widows are like that, or all orphans are like that, necessarily.

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But especially in that culture, if you weren't part of a family, if you didn't have those blood connections,

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I mean, you were in trouble. And widows and orphans could be easily taken advantage of by someone else for their own selfish gain.

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And so justice would be the faithful application of the law. In doing what?

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Reproving the ruthless, those who would take advantage of them. Defend those people that are the victims, the true victims, the real victims, right?

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By going after those who are evil. That's justice according to scripture. And when you look at longer passages, it becomes even more clear.

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Let me read for you the number one most used passage by social justice advocates trying to push this narrative in the church.

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It's Amos 5, and usually it's verse 24, which is quoted without any context.

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Verse 24 says, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. And you've probably heard sermons by folks, even

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David Platt, where they just wax long and eloquent about disparities and how bad it is for certain minorities. Well, it has nothing to do with Amos 5.

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Read it, read verse 21. Let's get some context. I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do

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I delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer up to me burn offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them.

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I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. Take away from me the noise of your songs. I will not even listen to the sound of your harps, but let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

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Did you present me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for 40 years, O house of Israel? You also carried along Sikoth your king and Kion, your images, the star of your gods, which you made for yourselves.

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Therefore, I will not make you go into exile beyond, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus, says the

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Lord, whose name is the God of hosts. Was the problem here that Israel was marginalizing people and there was some disparity that existed that was invisible.

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We couldn't find the law, but it's systemic. No, no, the issue was they disobeyed God's law by breaking the national covenant.

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They made idols, they worshiped the idols and they withheld worship from God. And so God is going to mete out true justice.

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You want justice to flow down like water, then faithful application of the law should be the discussion you wanna have.

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What does the law say and how do we apply it correctly? And those who would advocate or quote verses from Amos chapter five and other places in the

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Old Testament are usually very squirmish about wanting to have conversations about the law in the

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Old Testament. In fact, oftentimes, and I've seen this, people who aren't even theonomists in the Christian reconstruction sense, but they'll accuse you of being a theonomist.

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If you wanna have a conversation about the principles, moral principles that should apply to government in the

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Old Testament, case laws and what those might look like according to the general equity, they get upset about that oftentimes.

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And they'll start mocking. Well, you don't wanna go back to those days of barbarism, you know, but then they'll readily take a passage like this.

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They cherry pick and they do it all the time. They're not after instituting the law of God as best they can in the current context.

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They're after something else. They have a separate moral system and they're trying to weasel it into scripture.

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And they use verses like this, take them out of context. And it's evil, it's wrong, but it's happening at the highest levels of denominations and organizations claiming to be evangelical.

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Here's another passage I wanna show you. Exodus 23, I think this gets to the heart of justice.

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You shall not bear a false report. Starting in verse one. You do not join your hand with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

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You shall not follow the masses in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice.

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So what we're seeing right now in some ways, isn't it? Nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his dispute.

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Wow, that's interesting. Don't be partial to a poor man. Wow. If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him.

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If you do see, if you see the donkey of one who hates you, lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him.

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You shall surely release it with him. Again, justice is blind. Verse six, here's the word, here's

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Mishpat. You shall not pervert the justice due to your needy brother in his dispute. So just because your brother's needy, doesn't mean you should withhold justice.

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You should pervert it. You should favor someone instead of rightly applying the law.

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Keep far from a false charge and do not kill the innocent or the righteous, or I will not acquit the guilty, for I will not acquit the guilty.

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You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear sighted and subverts the cause of the just.

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You shall not oppress a stranger since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.

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What is the theme of Exodus 23? The theme of Exodus 23, is the faithful application of the law of God without looking at external characteristics, without considering things like your relationship to the person, or whether that person's your enemy, or whether that person's a stranger, or whether that person's poor and you have empathy and sympathy for them.

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No, if they're poor and they broke the law, yeah, you can have empathy and sympathy, but you need to apply the law, the law of God.

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That's justice, that's mishpat, that's real justice. Not this social justice stuff that looks at disparities and tries to bring about some kind of equity, some equal outcome of some kind.

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So let's go back to the bullet points that I made on how social justice is making its way into the church.

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First, emotional hook. You see something, you're emotionally captivated by it, you cry perhaps, and then there's this reaction that produces guilt.

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Man, what can I do? I'm complicit perhaps in this and I'm uncaring.

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And then you pervert biblical concepts. We can talk about other ones, but the concept of justice is the one

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I use today. So instead of justice being the equality of before the law and being blind so that you don't take into account categories like a stranger or a friend or the poor person, you just judge them based on the law as individuals, not based on the category they're part of.

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Well, now social justice does the exact opposite. You are a member of a socioeconomic group or a ethnic group of some kind, and you will be judged based on that.

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And the goal is eliminating disparities, not faithfully applying the law of God and meeting out true justice.

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And so it's actually the opposite of justice. And it's a little bitty grammatical switch. Just instead of equality before the law, it's equity.

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Equity is the new goal, which is a quality of outcome, essentially. Taking into account all the barriers that have set someone back historically or currently, and then adjusting for that, that's equity.

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Well, that is foreign to the biblical concept of justice. That's not mishpat, it's nothing to do with it, but it's monumental change conceptually, and it's sold to Christians.

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Now you have a lot of Christians believing that that's what the Bible's talking about when it mentions justice, and it has nothing to do with it.

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And the next step, I'm gonna share a story about this, is presenting a false dichotomy. So here's how this works.

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There's two versions of injustice, and usually party politics is where this comes out. So you have your Republicans and your

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Democrats, usually, or your conservatives, liberals, red state, blue state, whatever the case may be. And they're both wrong, essentially.

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They both have weaknesses about them. And so I was in a church recently where I heard the pastor say that there's those on this one side who they're concerned about looting and vandalism, but they're not concerned with the black lives.

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And then on the other side, you have those that are really concerned with black lives that are dying because of police violence, and they're concerned about historical oppression, but they don't care about the looting.

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And Christians need to be different than those two. Now, that's a straw man, number one. I don't know of any

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Republicans, conservatives, red state people who are saying that they're not concerned if someone is killed by police.

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I think everyone, after the George Floyd incident, everyone that I know of, pretty much, just about was saying, yeah, this doesn't look good.

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This is bad. But I mean, the conservatives were outraged at what they thought was police brutality.

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I mean, I posted, I think, within an hour of seeing that and just said, this is shocking, this is horrible. This is either extreme negligence or this is evil.

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And brutality is the word I used. And so, it's a straw man to say that there's

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Republicans or conservatives who just don't care about that kind of thing. The issue for Republicans and conservatives is, is this actually even taking place systemically?

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Or is this just an isolated incident? And I'll get to that in a minute, but to broad brush a whole group of people and say something like Trump supporters or conservatives, or they just don't care about systemic injustice.

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Well, wait a minute. Maybe they actually challenge the assumption behind that statement.

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It's not a lack of care, but that's the dichotomy that I've seen set up. And I've seen this for years.

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I've seen J .D. Greer and Tim Keller and Mark Devere do this kind of thing, where they set up these two dichotomies and they say, well,

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Christians transcend that. So, the implication is that you can't be a Christian and a Republican, really, not on this issue.

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You have to kind of go through the buffet of party politics and choose based on your issue.

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Democrats are right on racial disparity issues and Republicans are right on abortion, perhaps.

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You can't be a faithful member of the Republican Party and agree with their platform.

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And so, that's, I think, what's actually taking place. And then I've done some videos. I think I did a video. You can search for it, where I talk about Evangelical Incorporated's Third Way.

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But I saw this happen recently. And the flow of the sermon was according to the bullet points that I'm setting up here.

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People who had seen something, who had been emotional about it, and then this false dichotomy gets presented.

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No one wants to be on the wrong side. So, of course, they're gonna choose the church. Well, what is the church?

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Well, the church has a solution in that it transcends ethnic categories.

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But in this particular sermon, and this is something that I've seen for years now, it's not just a unity that takes place when you are in Christ, which is really how the

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Bible presents unity. As soon as you're in Christ and you're a Christian, no matter what your ethnic background, you're in Christ.

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You have something in common. There is unity. Just believe it. It's there. The unity that I've seen is a unity that is conditional.

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So, you need to do something. So, in Christ, we are all one, but there's an important stipulation here that you need to do, especially if you're a member of majority culture.

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You're one in Christ with your brothers, but you need to lament, or you need to show that you care, or you need to X, Y, and Z.

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And so, there becomes a list, a law list, conditions that must be met in order to be one in Christ.

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Now, I'm gonna say this. This is a perversion of the gospel, okay? If you're trying to say this is a gospel issue, which

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I've heard many times, and you're saying you gotta do something in order to achieve this unity, you're on dangerous territory at that point, okay?

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The gospel isn't law, but here's some of the third -way solutions, right?

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So, this is transcending. It's not Republican. It's not Democrat. This is just the church. You need to push for multi -ethnicity, and that's exactly what the pastor that I'm referring to did a few weeks ago.

30:44

In a country church, mind you, he told people in his country church, predominantly people that were descended of Europeans, and it's because of the area.

30:53

It just reflected the area they lived in. He told them that they needed to somehow not just make friends and witness and minister to those who they went fishing with or those who they had something in common with, but they needed to go out of their way to find people who they didn't have anything in common with, especially ethnically, in order to minister to them and to get them to come to the church.

31:17

So, building a multi -ethnic church. This was in the middle of the country. It was in an area where there weren't a whole lot of options unless you wanted to travel at least 25 minutes to then find a demographic to then walk up to and minister to, and look, there's nothing wrong with that.

31:34

That's absolutely good. I did, I've done a lot of ministry in places that were far away from the church.

31:40

I was at college ministry. I've even gone down to New York City and done some ministry there, and it's needed.

31:48

We need to go to areas where the gospel is not being presented in the same way, and it's dry, and we need to share the gospel.

31:57

Absolutely, but the motive is because people don't know Jesus. The motive isn't because they look different.

32:03

That's foolish. We're standing on the other side of eternity.

32:11

There's a big cliff in front of us, and there's people that are going to die without Christ, without repenting of their sin and putting their trust in him for salvation, and they're not gonna go to heaven.

32:22

They're gonna go to hell. That's what the scriptures say, and instead, you're going to then make your decision about who to minister to based on whether they're ethnically different from you.

32:35

That seems very foolish to me. Go to a place, that's what the missionaries did. The great missionaries who all looked up to you, they went to a place, and they learned a culture because they wanted the gospel to go there, because they were human beings made in God's image who were going to die one day, and they're gonna have to face a creator who will judge justly, and some of them would be facing him without Christ, and so missionaries went to preach the gospel, the good news that Jesus has taken the penalty for our sin, red, yellow, black, and white.

33:09

They didn't go there because they felt guilty that, wow, I'm a European, and there's churches everywhere, and wow,

33:17

I have so much privilege. I need to lament this privilege, and what can I do to make up for this disparity?

33:23

I must go to another place. No, they didn't think that way. That's not biblical thinking. So the multi -ethnic church has become such a, it's the promoted example of what ought to take place within evangelicalism now, and this is so horrible for those who are living in areas where it's like they don't have the option of having a multi -ethnic church because it's all one demographic ethnically, but there's age, there's other differences that people have, and of course, we don't focus on those.

33:57

Right now, it's just ethnicity. It's so terrible. What are some of the other solutions?

34:02

Quotas, so making sure your theological library has minority voices. I know of a seminary, there was a podcast that I was watching where the guy on the podcast, it was at Southeastern, was saying he was teaching through Romans and he needed a female voice, so he's not looking at the accuracy of the commentaries anymore.

34:21

He's looking at, well, are other minority voices represented? Well, you've just destroyed truth if you're doing that, but that's one of the third -way solutions, supposedly.

34:33

So favoritism, someone wants to come into leadership. Matt Chandler will say that he would rather, all other things being equal, he's gonna hire the black person instead of the white person.

34:43

Well, that's showing favoritism. That is showing partiality. Redistribution, so reparations, somehow taking money from one group and giving it to another.

34:54

This is happening on all kinds of levels. A reparations bill, I don't know how far it's gotten yet, but I know it's making its way through California's state government right now.

35:04

And then, of course, a national refounding. It's part of this solution to the injustices, quote -unquote, around us.

35:12

So that's taking down all the historical things, and I've lost count. I actually, I started to try to keep count of this, and it's overwhelming.

35:20

This morning, it was, I think it was the History Museum in New York, if I'm not mistaken, but they wanted to take down the statue of Theodore Roosevelt.

35:28

It's all coming down, and I may do an episode at some point because conservatives have made a fatal tactical error on this issue.

35:37

They're making the same fatal error they made on the same -sex marriage issue, and they're only making it on this issue.

35:43

And they have opened themselves up to all of our history pretty much coming down, just about, in the

35:51

United States of America. And so, stay tuned for that. But that's part of this third way.

35:57

So these are actually all liberal, Democrat solutions, pretty much.

36:03

They come from that thinking. It's from a critical race theory understanding, but they're presented as, this is just what

36:08

Christians ought to do. It is so sneaky. It is so sneaky, because as people, we are naturally, we are attracted to the moderation, to the middle.

36:20

We all wanna be reasonable, moderate people. We don't wanna be on the extremes. And of course, you just stand still and wait five years, and you're gonna be on the extreme.

36:28

If you're liberal today, you'll be raging. Look at Joe Biden's comments from even 20 years ago.

36:33

Joe Biden's saying, sons of Confederate veterans were good people. He's touting these police reforms and saying how tough they're gonna be on crime.

36:42

He's making comments that seem racist or sexist to modern audiences, but they weren't at the time.

36:50

He's saying that same -sex marriage, he's against that. And marriage is between a man and a woman. He's saying all these things.

36:57

And he was a liberal Democrat at the times he was saying them. All he had to do was wait.

37:04

And now if a conservative said those things, they would be tarred and feathered.

37:09

That's how much things are changing, guys. Do you see it? So this third way nonsense is an attempt to appeal to your reasonable side.

37:20

It's a fashion thing. You wanna appear to people like you're a rational person.

37:26

You're not on the extremes. And so you'll separate yourself a little bit from the

37:32

Republicans, the straw man they've built about them. And then you're open to accepting really what are left -leaning proposals, but they're not looting.

37:42

They're not vandalizing. They're not eliminating police departments. So somehow that's now more moderate.

37:49

No, look, this is the book we should be going to for solutions. If you wanna know what the law says, you should be going to the law giver.

37:56

And he's given us revelation. Second to this, you should be looking at the

38:01

Constitution of the United States, the state constitutions, the laws of our land, and how do we faithfully apply those laws?

38:08

That should be the discussion. It's not the discussion, though. Not anymore. So here's the next step.

38:14

Mandate action. Mandate action. Take all these third way solutions and then try to implement them and attack those who would dissent for lacking

38:27

Christian virtue. And so lamenting, posting on social media, that's just step one.

38:35

And then you get to these other steps. And that's part of the action that people must take. And this is all fusing the new religion with Christianity.

38:45

That's exactly what it is. That's the attempt being made. With that being said, let's look at what the

38:53

Gospel Coalition did with their night of lament two days ago. Why do the powerful kill the powerless?

39:01

What, how long will you allow the protectors to abuse their authority?

39:08

Places where people are over -policed and underserved. For the countless men and women who have been unjustly killed by state actors where no camera phone or witness.

39:17

Our idolatry, the ways that we have harmed and caused pain to our black brothers and sisters, to our

39:24

African -American neighbors, to the ways in which we have participated in laying burdens that are unjust.

39:34

So these are some clips showing the problems members of the Gospel Coalition are trying to address in their lament.

39:40

And it's very hard to criticize this because you feel like a jerk because they're praying. But they're weaponized prayers.

39:47

They're prayers that are assuming something that's not true. They're assuming that there's a situation in the United States which isn't actually happening.

39:56

There isn't systemic racism in police departments over, you know, looking at it from a broad perspective.

40:03

At least the numbers that we have, that we can test to find that out, aren't showing that.

40:09

Now, I say this every time I bring this up, but I don't like the way that we're thinking about this.

40:14

We shouldn't be thinking about this along ethnic lines. We should be taking into consideration other factors like geography.

40:20

I don't think it's fair for black people who live in the suburbs to be in the same group as those in crime -ridden areas in the ghetto.

40:28

Neither do I think it's fair to look at disparities between white people in the suburbs and white people in really impoverished areas and just say, well, here's white, here's black.

40:37

And, you know, no, because there's all sorts of other complicated factors that are gonna make up someone's level of success, whether or not they're involved in crime, whether they can get the proper healthcare that they should have, all those kinds of things.

40:51

So I hate the way that this is broken up. I think that once you start breaking up things this way, you've already kind of, you're on a wrong foot.

41:00

You're just, you're not gonna be able to address real problems usually. But we've been in this for a while now, since identity politics really started up and this is the world we live in.

41:11

And so I do need to show you, though, the actual numbers here, because what they're forwarding is just wrong.

41:19

They have four steps of lament, turning to God, complaining, asking for the alleviation of the situation, and then trusting

41:25

God. I don't have a problem with that, but it needs to be based on truth. And so what is the truth?

41:31

Well, here's homicides and violent crime statistics. I showed these in the last episode. I'm gonna show a few more pieces of information with you.

41:40

But homicides, 2005 to 2015 International Business Times, black on white, much higher than white on black.

41:46

So much more, many more black people are killing white people than white people killing black people.

41:52

I did not create these. These are actual statistics. You can look up the links. I put them in the info section for you.

41:59

Interracial violent crime incidences, 2018. This is from the Bureau of Justice. So this would include not just homicides, but other crimes.

42:06

Black on white, much higher than white on black. Not even, you can look at those charts.

42:12

It's hundreds of thousands more incidences. Here's unarmed police shootings.

42:20

So police shooting people who are unarmed is according to the Washington Post. Many more white people killed than black people at the hands of police.

42:28

Now you may say, wow, their population's bigger. Well, that's really not the way to look at it if you're trying to look at this fairly.

42:35

You're gonna look at the percentage of violent crime arrests. And for the black population, which is a little over 14%, they have 38 % of the violent crime arrests, essentially.

42:49

And so they're not, if anything, they're underrepresented, that demographic, in prisons as far as inmates goes.

42:55

And if anything, there's many more violent crimes being committed by this segment of the population.

43:02

And so you would expect there, going back to this chart, to be more unarmed police shootings of black people than white people, given those statistics.

43:14

But that's not what you see. So here's some more information.

43:20

This is a study that I was unaware of until just recently, but this was put out in 2019.

43:27

Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer -involved shootings put out by the National Academy of Sciences.

43:33

Here's a quote from the findings. We find no evidence of anti -black or anti -Hispanic disparities across shootings, and white officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non -white officers.

43:45

You can find the link to this study in the info section. Here's, I think, where probably we should be.

43:52

If we care about black lives, which I do, which we all do, I care about all lives, but if you really do care about black lives, then this is where you should be probably paying more attention.

44:03

Violent incidences against black people, 2018. This is from the Bureau of Justice. If you're looking at the pie chart, over 70 % of the violent incidences against other blacks were at the hands of black people.

44:14

So black -on -black crime, gang violence in inner cities, these are the kinds of things that are actually killing people who are black at very high rates.

44:23

36 % of abortions are of black babies. That's way over the 14 % that they represent in the population.

44:32

Here's unwed birth rates, and these could be maybe some pieces of information that would make sense of these things.

44:41

Unwed birth rates vary strongly by race in the United States. It's from the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control.

44:49

Black, non -Hispanic, 72 .3 % of births that are out of wedlock in their communities, higher than any other demographic.

45:00

72 .3%, that's shocking. Here's even pornography,

45:06

I think, factors into this as well. I mean, we're talking about family breakdown now and what might contribute to crime, what might contribute to things like getting involved in that kind of behavior.

45:18

1973 to 2016, General Social Survey, and you can find this link again in the info section.

45:25

Analyses revealed that black Americans in general were more likely to view pornography than whites, and they were increasing in their pornography viewership at a higher rate than whites.

45:33

Moreover, black men were more likely to consume pornography than all other race, gender combinations.

45:40

Last piece of info here, Canada Test Study. I got this information from Samuel Say's blog,

45:46

Slow to Write, he's got everything there, so I'll put the link to his blog, but you can go look up the actual studies if you'd like.

45:53

I'm gonna quote him, in America, black men earn 30 % less than white men. In Canada, second generation black men earn 28 % less than white men, it's about the same.

46:03

In America, though black students are only 24 % of students in southern states, they represent 50 % of expelled students.

46:08

In Canada, though black students are only 12 % of students in Toronto, they represent 48 % of expelled students, about the same again.

46:16

Canada and the American South, that's interesting. In America, though black people are only 13 % of the population, they represent 23 % of people killed by police officers, and they represent 33 % of prison inmates.

46:27

In Canada, though black people make up only about 9 % of the population of Toronto, they make up 70 % of the people killed by police officers in the city, and though black

46:36

Canadians are only 3 % of the Canadian population, they represent 9 % of the nation's prison inmates. Here's the conclusion.

46:44

Samuel Say, he's a black guy, he wrote this. In other words, disparities between black

46:49

Canadians and white Canadians are identical, and in some specific cases worse than disparities between black

46:56

Americans and white Americans. What's the significance of that? Canada doesn't have the same legacy that gets talked about in the

47:06

United States of slavery and segregation. Canada doesn't have that, yet they still have the same problems, and in some cases at higher rates, and the narrative that you're being force -fed right now from just about everyone, including members of organizations that claim to be

47:28

Christian, is that what we're seeing before us is the result of white people discriminating.

47:35

That's the whole problem. Doesn't work. When you actually start thinking in a scientific way, and you start actually trying to compare situations, and you start looking up numbers, it doesn't work.

47:47

Where, if you really care about black lives, where should you be expending your time? If you really know the facts, if you know what's going on currently, where should you be ministering?

47:58

I think you should be ministering to black families. You should go to the inner city, and you should try to obviously share the gospel, but then teach people what

48:07

Christ has commanded. What has Christ commanded? Christ has commanded fathers to raise their children, and husbands to love their wives.

48:18

There's a big problem right now with that not happening. But that's not talked about in this lament video that the

48:26

Gospel Coalition put out. You know what else is not talked about in this lament video? This.

48:33

This happened over the weekend. This happened while this lament video was taking place.

48:39

While Gospel Coalition was lamenting police brutality, 104 people shot, 14 fatally, over Father's Day weekend in Chicago.

48:48

What color do you think those people were ethnically? Hmm. How about this from about a week ago?

48:55

At least 81 killed in Boko Haram attack in Nigeria. Civilians shot, bodies run over. Muslim terrorist organization.

49:03

81 killed. What color do you think those people were in Nigeria who got killed? Do black lives matter to you,

49:10

Gospel Coalition? Have you at the Gospel Coalition ever done a lament session like you just did on abortion?

49:23

I think it stands to reason that you're not judging with equal measurements.

49:29

And the Lord abhors not using equal weights and measures. Gospel Coalition thinks they're doing something difficult.

49:40

Though lament is incredibly difficult, isn't this exactly what we need right now?

49:45

They think they're being counter -cultural. When keeping with TGC's theological vision for ministry, especially our commitments to counter -cultural community and doing justice and mercy.

49:56

Yet as usual, there's really nothing counter -cultural in what they're saying. In fact, they are attempting to woo the world into liking them.

50:04

The church of Jesus Christ, will she not shine brightly? Will she not be an apology for bias and discrimination?

50:17

We need a miracle, Father, so that the world will be stunned at the love and the unity of the church purchased by your son.

50:26

It is not a biblical understanding that black people are part of a monolithic group with a monolithic experience.

50:33

In fact, that is coming straight from the world. It's from a critical race theory understanding of power dynamics.

50:39

We want to weep with those who weep. We want to join in the sorrows and pains of our black brothers and sisters.

50:45

Lord, we lament with our black brothers and sisters. It's certainly not brave or counter -cultural to rag on the country that you're part of while everyone else is rushing to do the same thing.

50:57

And it's not Christian to do so inaccurately. I've been grieved in recent weeks by the ongoing effects of racial injustice in our nation.

51:04

Injustice against people, groups of people, including black lives, not just in the history of our country, centuries ago, but in recent weeks today.

51:19

Lord, you were able, better than we are God, to make the connection between the marginalization, the injustices that we see today, and that which has been with us in this nation for centuries.

51:32

Vindicate those who are burdened by generations of systemic injustice.

51:39

And including the quote unquote church universally in the same narrative is even worse.

51:46

Oh Lord, will you rise up and arrest injustice in our systems and structures, in our land, in our church?

51:56

The church is struggling to know what to feel, what to think, and what to do.

52:04

As we turn to the household of faith, we would expect that we would have an oasis from the strife that we see in the world, but Lord, in recent days, amongst your people, the people who are called by your name, we've seen division.

52:19

We've seen lines being drawn in the sand. We've seen the refusal to mourn with those who mourn.

52:27

We've seen the refusal to bear one another's burdens. We've seen unforgiveness.

52:32

We've seen bitterness. We've seen self -righteousness. We've seen mean -spiritedness and a critical spirit.

52:40

How long, oh Lord, will you even allow your church to be divided on these issues,

52:47

Lord, content to contend for reconciliation without justice? So many followers of Christ have been throughout history and even we are today to conduct religion in your name in a way that masks, ignores, or promotes injustice.

53:05

To renounce every form of racism and bigotry and favoritism and division.

53:12

We ask that you would give us faith and courage to renounce these things, especially as they take root in our local churches and our own hearts.

53:23

Let me ask you a question. Do you think the quote -unquote world likes to hear that kind of language being used about the quote -unquote church?

53:31

Do you think it leads them to want to visit a local church or read their Bible or receive the gospel of Jesus Christ?

53:39

Or does it make them think that maybe this stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be because apparently the church has this problem and the way that the folks at the

53:48

Gospel Coalition are talking about it, it's even worse in the church than it is in the rest of the country, it sounds like. That's the way that they're portraying this.

53:56

What does scripture say about the church, universal? I wanna read for you a few verses.

54:01

This is biblical language, okay? Biblical language about the church universal. Ephesians 1, 20 through 23.

54:08

And he put all things in subjection under his feet, meaning Christ's feet, and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

54:17

Church belongs to Christ, it's the bride of Christ. Christ says the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Ephesians 5, 25 through 27, husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church.

54:28

How did Christ love the church? Well, he gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word that he might present to himself the church and all our glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be made holy and blameless.

54:41

Again, who's doing it? Who's doing it? Is it our efforts? Is it our ability to lament? Is it, no,

54:47

Christ is doing this. For by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, whether we were all made a drink of one spirit.

54:57

1 Corinthians 12, 13. I got good news. If you're part of the body of Christ, you are connected.

55:03

In a very profound way that transcends social categories with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

55:10

Doesn't matter what ethnic background or any other factor they came from. If they're in Christ with you, you are connected to them.

55:17

There's no animosity there. This is not the kind of church that's being promoted by the gospel coalition.

55:25

It's just not. They are promoting a vision for the church and they, in a sloppy way, just refer to the church and they present it as this horrible entity.

55:38

Why would I wanna be part of that? It looks like it's got so much work to do. They're farther behind than the

55:44

United States of America, it sounds like. If I was a young kid growing up in a

55:50

Christian home and I kept hearing this all the time, you think I'd stay in the church or want to stay in the church?

55:57

Would it compel me? I mean, this is the same crowd that wants to compel the world so badly to come into the church and this isn't the way to do it.

56:08

By making the church look all crummy? No. Yet this is what they think they need to do.

56:15

The courts are working in regards to these police shootings. There are no quote -unquote racist laws anyone's shown to me that need to be overturned somehow and yet a transformation needs to happen in the country and in the church on this issue.

56:31

They're not talking about abortion. They're not talking about black -on -black crime. They're not talking about even what's happening internationally where black people are dying.

56:40

No, it's about this issue and they are praying for a change of some kind and it's chocked filled with the language of critical race theory.

56:52

Lord, help us to be a people willing to confess our sins of pride and apathy and indifference when it comes to the topic of racism and racial injustice.

57:02

And Lord, might you even do more, Lord? I'm gonna ask that you would bring justice in the way of repair and restoration in the places where the black community is still facing the harm from generations of suffering and injustice.

57:17

Might you help there even? Father, for those of us who are majority culture

57:22

Christians in the United States, we ask that you would give us the humility and the wisdom to renounce any temptation to clutch onto that earthly privilege or social advantage that we might be afforded in a way that would demean or damage or belittle our brothers and sisters of color in Christ.

57:47

Father, would you give we majority Christians, us majority Christians and local churches especially that are comprised of mostly majority

57:57

Christians, would you humble us? Would you help us renounce any sort of spirit of arrogance or renounce any temptation to neglect the weightier matters of the law?

58:12

Bring equity where black and brown bodies are treated as disposable, though made in your image.

58:19

Bring justice, oh God. Lord, tonight we turn to you with the hope that somehow our lamenting together can create unity and a deep commitment for change.

58:29

Please help us by raising up bold leaders within the church who will wisely lead the church into repentance and reconciliation.

58:38

There's a purpose behind all of this. You heard language that sounded like reparation kind of language in there for historic injustices.

58:46

You heard the majority minority dynamic and lamenting white privilege.

58:53

A lot of this is kind of vague, but you're starting to see, okay, there's a direction here.

58:59

There's something they want us to do as people watching who are fans of the

59:06

Gospel Coalition, I guess. But here's the thing. The situation is never rectified.

59:12

It's perpetual. We always have a long way to go no matter what happens, no matter how many apologies, no matter how many years of apologies, we're never quite there.

59:22

We still have a long way to go to help heal the historic scars of racism and the ongoing lack of reconciliation along ethnic lines.

59:31

But reconciliation in the church has already taken place by nature of being in Christ.

59:37

That's the biblical theology that is missing from this. There's no hope in any of this.

59:45

It's just lament. And you would think the gospel would really factor prominently into this.

59:55

Well, the word gospel was used a few times. Here's two of the more quote -unquote clear times that the word gospel was used.

01:00:04

I want you to listen carefully. As you remember the gospel, the good news that Jesus is Lord over all.

01:00:10

To develop perhaps new Christ -centered initiatives and institutions that shine the bright light of Christ's gospel of reconciliation.

01:00:20

And then it proceeds to whatever the gospel coalition has coming next.

01:00:26

Over the next few weeks and months, please be on the lookout for resources to move us from lament to learning, listening, and then leveraging what we learn to seek racial justice.

01:00:39

And that material, whenever it's available, will most likely have what

01:00:45

I showed you in the beginning of this whole entire slideshow, probably more of it. It's gonna have the solutions, quotas, redistribution, a national refounding.

01:01:00

It's gonna be the same things Democrats in Congress are promoting. I would venture to say the gospel coalition will probably be promoting because they're already starting to promote some of it.

01:01:15

This is bigger than a political battle. This is a religious battle. And Christianity has been, at least

01:01:24

Christian assumptions about reality, Christian metaphysics, have been the dominant religious force in America since its founding, really.

01:01:36

Even if the majority of the people weren't always Christian, they had Christian understandings of things. That is changing now.

01:01:42

We are living in a very important time in the history of this country. And I don't know if it's allowed to continue if we will have a country that resembles anything like the country that existed before.

01:01:55

And so I call upon all of you who are Christians to have discernment, to don't trust it just because someone that you've trusted they're preaching for a long time said it, compare everything to this.

01:02:09

Don't trust it just because I said it, compare it to the word. And I would encourage you,

01:02:14

I'm hoping to have more resources soon on this and maybe do some more interviews with people that have done this.

01:02:19

But if you can't find a church in your area, consider starting one. We've gotten to the point where I don't know that some of these social justice types are able to have a conversation with us.

01:02:33

If they do, it's gonna be a conversation with another religion, because we're not on the same page.

01:02:40

At the same time, there are many right now, and this is why I made this video, there are many out there who are being deceived and they have good intentions.

01:02:49

They wanna do the right thing, but they're being deceived. And if apostles like Peter can be deceived, then so can we.

01:02:57

And so I just encourage discernment. Try to see if you can tell the difference with someone, make sure that if there's someone who's being deceived, you're gentle, but you come across in a way that is very direct about this.

01:03:15

It is a heresy. It is wrong. It is a different religion, really. And if it's someone who's a promoter of this false gospel, then you need to identify them as such.

01:03:25

And some people have really been identifying themselves lately. The masks are coming off. And so hopefully we'll talk about some of that in some future episodes.

01:03:36

But thank you once again for listening. For those who support my work, I am thankful for it.