Be the Bridge: Bringing Critical Race Theory & White Supremacy to the Church
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Exposing how Latasha Morrison's ministry, Be the Bridge, trains people to imbibe the Critical Race Theory world view and become anti-racists.
Part 1, where we look at Be the Bridge and CRT's teaching on White Supremacy and White Privilege.
Resources used for this episode:
Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison
General Commission on Religion and Race of the UMC YT Channel video titled "Deconstructing White Privilege w/Rodin DiAngelo"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwIx3KQer54&t=2s
Voddie Baucham discusses systemic racism in America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-78uxfwwsy4
RightNow Media Be the Bridge Session 1 video
https://app.rightnowmedia.org/en/content/details/770972
Be the Bridge Podcast- Ep.103 White Awake: An Honest Look at What it Means to be White w/Daniel Hill
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7l54bWoy6lLOkLHybM1wyz
Grace to You John MacArthur -Social Justice and the Gospel 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOLdwfvJVEs
Video made with Clipchamp
- 00:07
- So Elizabeth is on here, and I wanted just to, I know she has a question for you.
- 00:13
- She's done a lot of work with our whiteness 101 and dealing with white culture, white fragility.
- 00:22
- What are some other ways within church communities particularly that you see white fragility play out and the way you see it affect people?
- 00:33
- We're just quoting Dr. Robin D 'Angelo, right? She's on the point about white fragility. We'll have to read her new book when it comes out this summer.
- 00:39
- Robin D 'Angelo, and my work focuses on the question of what does it mean to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless yet is profoundly separated by race?
- 00:49
- I was socialized to see race as individual acts of discrimination and prejudice, individual acts that anybody could do to anybody else.
- 00:59
- And if you did those acts, you were a bad person. White Christians do is actually the same thing that white secular folks do.
- 01:06
- They define racism too narrowly. They say racism is when an individual person does something really cruel to a person of color, right?
- 01:13
- Or maybe says something politically incorrect on a softer end. Today I understand that I move through the world always and most particularly as a white person.
- 01:23
- I have a white frame of reference and I have a white experience. And part of being white is to have that be invisible to us and to be able to live our lives without ever acknowledging that.
- 01:37
- I think it's the prayer that gets repeated by so many different people in the New Testament, by the blind folks who say, Lord, help me to see. I think we have to see how it's impacted us personally, how we can understand ourselves, the narrative of racial difference and the ideology of white supremacy.
- 01:49
- I think we have to keep doing interrogation on how it's affected the way we see other people. And then the graduate level work,
- 01:56
- I think, is learning how to see how this narrative has shaped social systems. I now understand racism as a system, as a deeply embedded system, a system that our country was founded on and that all our institutions were created out of.
- 02:12
- And every institution reinforces this system. And it's a system of unequal power.
- 02:19
- But I wanna speak to, I wanna help white people see the everyday racism that's embedded and that we participate in.
- 02:27
- And I wanna take us deeper. I wanna take us inside this skin. My psychosocial development was inculcated in the water of white supremacy.
- 02:38
- That is what I call this system. I don't mean the KKK. I mean a system in which whiteness and white people are central and seen as inherently superior to people of color.
- 02:51
- I think when it comes to thinking about race, white Christians have a very pharisaical kind of approach to it.
- 02:57
- Until white Christians understand that racism is primarily disease more than it is an action point of what
- 03:03
- I'm doing or not doing. I'm saying you and I both breathe this slick air that's been part of the foundation of our country that in its very atmosphere says whiteness is more valuable, blackness is least valuable.
- 03:16
- Everybody else has to find their human worth somewhere within that spectrum. That's poisonous, it's ugly, it's demonic.
- 03:23
- My personality was formed in that water. My worldview was formed in that water. I didn't choose it, it isn't my fault.
- 03:31
- I'm not racked with guilt about it, but I am responsible for changing it because the default of our society is the reproduction of racism.
- 03:40
- It's built into every system and every institution. And if we just live our lives and carry on in the most comfortable ways for us, we will necessarily reproduce it.
- 03:51
- There is no neutral space. Inaction is a form of action. Do you see, is there some kind of issue with white pastors staying silent because they don't feel like that's their issue, it's their thing?
- 04:05
- Right, I think we dodged around theologically to justify colonialism and justify slavery and we're still paying the price for that.
- 04:11
- So I would say it's an absolute gospel issue. I claim that the sinfulness of the system of race is an absolute gospel thing.
- 04:16
- I don't think, I don't know how you can seek first the kingdom of God and not deal with race in this day and age.
- 04:23
- It's just, I don't think, it's literally not possible to seek God's kingdom. All my white Christians want a revival.
- 04:28
- They just don't understand what it means. They have to repent to white supremacy before the revival's gonna happen, right? Here's a great question.
- 04:36
- From your perspective, is racism in America systemic? And if so, okay.
- 04:44
- Next question. The category, the category, before you even go past that, the category of systemic racism is a category of CRT.
- 04:52
- Systemic racism, the concept of systemic racism is based on the assumptions of the
- 04:59
- Marxist oppressor oppressed categories. It's based on the assumptions of the establishment of hegemonic power and it's based on the assumptions of equity versus equality, okay?
- 05:14
- So categorically, I reject systemic racism. Categorically, okay?
- 05:24
- Even if you wanna talk about it from the standpoint of systemic, institutional, whatever. Even if you wanna look at that from a historic perspective and you can say that there used to be laws and we knew what those laws were, right?
- 05:41
- That's why you get the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. By the way, that's why you get the 13th Amendment, the 14th
- 05:46
- Amendment, right? We got those because we recognized that there were these structures and these laws, right?
- 05:54
- But the people who are arguing for systemic racism today, they're not pointing to laws.
- 06:01
- They're not saying, hey, there's a law that prohibits black people from dot, dot, dot because there are none.
- 06:10
- They don't exist. So when people say that today, what they mean is there are inequities and the way you explain inequity is racism.
- 06:24
- At the group level. At the group level. Right. And that's CRT. Welcome to Thoroughly Equipped, podcast for women where we compare the popular women's ministry teachings, books, conferences,
- 06:37
- Bible studies, et cetera, to scripture. Our focus is 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17, that all scripture is
- 06:45
- God -bred and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so the man or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
- 06:57
- I'm your host, Malbitos. May this episode bless you and bring glory to God.
- 07:03
- Hey, ladies, and welcome back to another episode of Thoroughly Equipped.
- 07:13
- I am so glad that you could join in to this episode, whether you are a listener to the podcast, the audio of this, or you have joined me by connecting to the
- 07:30
- Thoroughly Equipped YouTube channel where you can see this through video.
- 07:37
- Basically, welcome to this channel. It is for women where we look at women's ministry and the teaching within the evangelical whole and address and critique some of the teaching that is being promoted.
- 07:53
- In this past year, if you are not familiar and new to this channel, this past year, pretty much a year and a half almost,
- 08:02
- I have been critiquing the If Gathering, and that's because there's a lot here that's worth critique.
- 08:14
- So in the past, if you are new and haven't listened to the podcast, you can go to pretty much any of the podcasting platforms and listen to Thoroughly Equipped where I start from the beginning.
- 08:27
- I kind of looked at the teachers that are promoted there or the speakers that are promoted there.
- 08:33
- I looked at the 2020 conference, looking at what they taught about Romans 8 specifically, how they handled scripture.
- 08:45
- And then we kind of moved on to this next part of my critique which is the additional philosophies or ideas that Jenny Allen has promoted and included in her studies and in her presentations.
- 09:13
- So if you don't know, If Gathering or the If Ministry is a parachurch ministry started by Jenny Allen, which kind of produced its first conference back in 2014.
- 09:27
- It's not just the If Gathering conference. You have If Equip studies, which are basically
- 09:37
- Bible studies, group studies that women can do aside from their church or integrate into their church in which there are book readings and videos and stuff like that.
- 09:50
- Then you have the If Lead conference where those who want to be more involved in If Gathering can become a leader and go to these leader conferences.
- 10:02
- And basically the doorway in to this parachurch ministry is through the
- 10:10
- If Gathering. And a lot of churches who have women's ministry use this parachurch ministry to supplement their women's ministry.
- 10:23
- So there's a lot to look into and that's kind of what I've been doing is looking at not just the
- 10:31
- If Gathering itself, but the Bible studies or the
- 10:37
- If Equip studies and even some of what's been promoted at the If Lead. So I've made an effort to present to you the tools that Jenny Allen incorporates in her ministry to disciple
- 10:57
- Christian women. And so we've seen such tools as the Enneagram being promoted to bring about spiritual formation.
- 11:05
- Christian mysticism is promoted in her If Equip studies, looking at psychology and the ministry by Kurt Thompson on the soul and being known.
- 11:28
- So there's a psychological tool being used there to bring about discipleship or to grow a woman spiritually.
- 11:37
- And now we're getting into, I think, one of the most dangerous tools that is being promoted and has been promoted from the very beginning, the very beginning of If, which
- 11:55
- I will expose in another episode, the connections of If and this ministry.
- 12:00
- And this ministry is under the guise of racial reconciliation, the goal of bringing racial unity or diversity into the church.
- 12:12
- And that ministry is LaTosha Morrison's Be the Bridge. This, I believe, as I have studied, is an incredibly dangerous, dangerous ministry.
- 12:28
- And that's because of the presuppositions that LaTosha Morrison promotes is rooted in critical race theory.
- 12:44
- So Be the Bridge assumes and teaches that there are certain presuppositions, these presuppositions that are rooted in critical race theory.
- 12:56
- They assume and teach that these are true. What I wanna look at is what are the tenets of Be the
- 13:05
- Bridge? Because these tenets are going to come out of, of course, the presuppositions of critical race theory.
- 13:15
- Basically, what I'm saying is Be the Bridge's instructions to us on how to racially reconcile start with a critical race theory worldview.
- 13:31
- And that's what I wanna expose and connect so that you can see this and be very, very wary of it and actually fight it and avoid it.
- 13:43
- So let's look, we're gonna look at kind of two presuppositions that come from critical race theory and are implemented and promoted in Be the
- 13:54
- Bridge in this episode. And those two presuppositions are going to be white supremacy and intersectionality or a universalized standpoint epistemology.
- 14:11
- And I will describe what these are as we go on. All right, so the first presupposition that is fundamental to critical race theory is that white supremacy is not only an individual belief that one is superior to other races because their skin is white, but is a system that grants powers and privileges to white people.
- 14:38
- White supremacy is racism that is socially constructed and utilized by white people to perpetuate white superiority and privileges for white people.
- 14:51
- Basically, the majority culture in America is meant to help white people and keeps people of color down.
- 15:00
- To make these connections, I'm gonna present to you some of her teachings from her books and you will see some of the teachings from the
- 15:11
- Be the Bridge sessions, as well as some comments made in particular podcasts.
- 15:20
- In part one of the Be the Bridge book titled The Bridge to Lament, titled
- 15:27
- The Bridge to Lament, Be the Bridge invites those within the white majority to lament over America's racist heritage and admit to, confess, and repent of having white superiority regardless whether or not a white person's ancestors actually participated in slavery, promoted laws that were racist or partial against people of color, or lived under laws that granted rights and privileges that were partial to whites.
- 16:06
- I grew up pretty much surrounded by white people. I didn't really realize it at the time, but I never really considered how my environment was shaped very much by that.
- 16:18
- Think back now of how I was doing things that fed into the idea of white superiority, not because I was a terrible person, but just because that's the way that the world led me to think.
- 16:30
- What critical race theory proponents are calling racist are the majority norms or in Be the
- 16:38
- Bridge terms, the majority culture, basically the hegemony, free market, white, cis, male,
- 16:48
- Christian, patriarchal, basically all this and culture that makes up the majority of North America and Western civilization.
- 17:00
- Reducing all of these down to having racist foundations, Be the
- 17:05
- Bridge's goal is to bring whites and people of color together to discuss racial injustices.
- 17:14
- Because racism is a system we white people are born in, it is a disease brought about by our culture that we breathe.
- 17:23
- White people are unaware of this disease and must be educated in it by those who do not have this disease because they're not white.
- 17:33
- Be the Bridge takes on this belief and instructs those reading the book to start with a posture of humility.
- 17:41
- Be the Bridge specifies what that humility looks like for certain people.
- 17:47
- One, that whites are to be silent and to humbly listen while people of color are to humble themselves in prayer.
- 17:57
- Quote, if you're white, if you come from the majority culture, you'll need to bend low in a posture of humility.
- 18:06
- You may need to talk less and listen more, opening your heart to the voices of your non -white brothers and sisters.
- 18:14
- You'll need to open your mind and study the hard truths of history without trying to explain them away.
- 18:20
- You'll need to examine your own life and the lives of your ancestors so you can see whether you've participated in, perpetuated or benefited from systems of racism.
- 18:34
- Be the Bridge, page seven to eight. Now there are two presuppositions behind this.
- 18:43
- One, that people of color have a certain type of knowledge that white people are blind to and two, that white people have had their say in churches and other institutions and need to incorporate safe spaces to exercise what
- 18:59
- I would call speech equity, the centering of people of color to voice how they have experienced or perceived racism to educate whites in their bias, inherent racism and complicity in white supremacy.
- 19:18
- First, let's look at how white people are complicit in white supremacy.
- 19:23
- According to Be the Bridge and Critical Race Theory, white people are complicit because they are related to those who built
- 19:32
- America on slavery and or because white people in the past perpetuated the system by partaking in it and not speaking out against it.
- 19:45
- It is also the same for today. A white person is complicit in racism by inaction.
- 19:51
- What we saw in the opening clip. And that is the belief behind Be the
- 19:57
- Bridge. It gives multiple examples of white people lamenting and coming to acknowledge their complicity in white supremacy.
- 20:07
- So here's just one example. Quote, in a brief interview, bridge builder
- 20:15
- Elizabeth Behrens told me how she came to terms with the guilt and shame of her systematic privilege.
- 20:25
- Through engaging with the Be the Bridge curriculum, reading further about the history of racism in the
- 20:31
- United States and coming to terms with her own family's participation in racism, she came to see that Americans, herself included, swim in a sea of white centeredness.
- 20:45
- She shared how no matter how hard we might fight against it, some of that water soaks into us as though we're a sponge.
- 20:54
- It's impossible to grow up in the sea of white supremacy without absorbing some of it, she said.
- 21:02
- Whether that's implicit bias or prejudiced beliefs or discriminatory actions that we don't realize we're engaging in or that we've convinced ourselves are okay.
- 21:13
- She explains how coming to see that water for what it is, how recognizing the ways she's benefited from white privilege brought the weight of real guilt and shame.
- 21:26
- Elizabeth has come to see that none of us are disconnected from the sins of our culture's past.
- 21:33
- Though she never lynched anyone, though she never owned a slave, she recognized how she'd been afforded better educational opportunities, increased access to services, and increased earning power.
- 21:48
- She says, my current reality isn't untethered from my family's past and from everyone benefiting from systems of injustice, and so it's okay to feel connected to the sins of the past.
- 22:02
- Elizabeth shared how she couldn't move into proper confession and repentance until she reckoned with the ghosts of her family's past, and without feeling that guilt and shame, without moving into confession and repentance, she'd never experience the true freedom that comes with being a bridge builder.
- 22:27
- Be the bridge, page 78 to 79. So notice the presupposition of Elizabeth's guilt in having privileges.
- 22:37
- Assume that they were given to her because she is white. But one, having privileges is not a sin.
- 22:48
- Neither is having certain advantages. Yes, there are some privileges that are given because one is part of the majority culture.
- 22:57
- For example, an American who moves to Japan will not have certain privileges or advantages that come with the majority culture.
- 23:07
- There are certain disadvantages that the American will have unless they assimilate with that culture, such as speaking, reading, or writing the majority language, adhering to certain customs, such as clothing, mannerisms, and even some beliefs.
- 23:27
- In the same way, some privileges are gained by assimilating into certain beliefs of American culture.
- 23:35
- Hard work is an example of this. The American dream is a belief that if you work hard, you can prosper.
- 23:41
- So certain privileges come from having a good worth ethic.
- 23:47
- Really underneath this idea that whites have privileges because the system is partial to white people causes people of color to always look at the privileges of whites and cause them to look at what they don't have.
- 24:02
- Now, here is where there is actual sin. There is the lack of faith in God's sovereignty who, one, made you, whichever color you are, and gave to each person their lot in life.
- 24:18
- He prepared the good works that each of his children would do. He gives advantages and disadvantages to whomever he chooses.
- 24:27
- He causes the sun to rise and fall on all. He directs people's steps and grants wealth to some and poverty to some.
- 24:36
- He works in providence to use privilege, advantages, disadvantages, persecutions, trials, and tribulations to accomplish his will.
- 24:48
- To focus on systems as the means that keep certain people down is a humanistic way of looking at trials and tribulations and reject
- 24:58
- God's hand in his creation today. The other sin involved in this is coveting, coveting at heart.
- 25:06
- It puts people in victim status, keeping them focused on what they do not have instead of calling,
- 25:14
- Christians especially, to always do things with a thankful heart. How can one do all things to the glory of God when they are always looking at how they are victims of systematic racism and disadvantaged by it?
- 25:31
- Notice also that Be the Bridge promotes this idea that whites are complicit in oppression by relation to white ancestry.
- 25:40
- In fact, even Morrison assumes that because one is white, they had ancestors that took part in atrocities.
- 25:47
- In the telling of our visit to the white plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, Morrison notes the tour guide as, quote, a white millennial woman exposing things her ancestor had done, talking openly about how they had contributed to the enslavement of African people, end quote.
- 26:09
- Page 74, Be the Bridge. How does Morrison know that this woman was at all related to those who owned and operated the
- 26:18
- Whitney Plantation? She assumes, and this is the assumption, that is at one of the foundations of critical race theory in Be the
- 26:29
- Bridge. Be the Bridge's goal is to reeducate people on America's systematic racism, point to whites' complicity in it by teaching them of the truth of history and hope to set them free from their whiteness by working towards reconciliation and reparations in pursuit of racial justice.
- 26:53
- Be the Bridge assumes that white people are blind to their white privilege and complicit in taking advantage of the system.
- 27:02
- It urges the white majority to listen to the minority, to open their eyes to their racism or disease and inform them that this is not open to debate.
- 27:13
- Quote, the truth, historical, sociological, psychological, and spiritual should not be up for debate, especially among Christian people.
- 27:25
- In Ephesians, Paul wrote, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist.
- 27:31
- The gospel of John records Jesus's prayer. Sanctify them by the truth.
- 27:37
- Your word is truth. Truth, unvarnished and unfiltered, is essential to the work of sanctification, freedom, and reconciliation.
- 27:48
- So what is the truth in the context of racial reconciliation? End quote,
- 27:54
- Be the Bridge, page 21 to 22. Contrasted to scripture, which proclaims that God's word is truth,
- 28:02
- Morrison equates certain sciences to truth. Not all historical, sociological, psychological, and spiritual findings are necessarily true.
- 28:15
- Presuppositions and worldviews can skew the interpretations of these so -called truths.
- 28:23
- Historical, sociological, psychological, and spiritual findings can produce certain philosophies that are just plain unbiblical.
- 28:34
- Critical theories being several that produce philosophies about the way to see the world are all produced within an anti -God humanistic worldview.
- 28:46
- And we are warned of the philosophies of men in Colossians 2, six to 10. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
- 29:02
- What Morrison does here is misinterpret the word truth or twist or add to the word truth, basically.
- 29:13
- To expand scripture's use of that word to include what man may decide to be true into it.
- 29:20
- To imply that what Jesus and Paul meant by truth includes the truth of America's racist historical past.
- 29:29
- And then claim that knowing it will set us free. This freedom is not freedom from sin, such as racism, as scripture is talking about freedom and truth, but freedom from unawareness of systematic racism so one can move on to become woke and work to divest themselves from white ignorance and superiority and urge them to become anti -racist.
- 30:03
- The road to anti -racism, which we will look at in the next episode, is built brick by brick in Christian circles through the teaching on racial reconciliation within the church.
- 30:16
- And the second tenet of Be the Bridge is to become educated in America's historical roots in slavery because, quote, forgiveness and healing cannot begin until we become aware of the historical roots of the problem and acknowledge the harm caused, end quote,
- 30:36
- Be the Bridge, page 28. The problem here is where does forgiveness apply to people who didn't commit the atrocities but are related to these sinners?
- 30:52
- We did not do the lynching, nor may it be that we supported or helped institute laws that oppressed people.
- 31:01
- And the other question is who is to forgive? To make the claim that the ancestors of people who committed such atrocities need to seek forgiveness and reconciliation with people who are of the same color or nationality of the victims is to completely reject what
- 31:22
- God clearly states in his word, that the sins of the father are upon his own head and not the son's or any ancestor's head and do not belong to the sons or any ancestors that come after him.
- 31:39
- Justice is the idea that certain groups of people due to their race or gender or sexual preference or economic status or personal ideology have been and still are abused by others in our society.
- 31:55
- They're treated injustly because of their ethnicity or because of their gender or because of their sexual preference, economic status, personal ideology, or whatever.
- 32:03
- Social justice says this is not right and we have to stop this and we have to demonstrate fairness and equity and justice to these victims.
- 32:13
- They are the weak by their definition. They are the abused, they are the oppressed, and they have been abused and oppressed by power structures or people in power.
- 32:24
- They are victims. They are victims of societal injustice. Again, I don't deny injustice in the world.
- 32:31
- There's plenty of it. And I don't deny that there are people who are victims of injustice in the world.
- 32:38
- But the victim class has never been as defined and exalted and elevated as it is today.
- 32:48
- And victim classes are growing and growing. Everybody needs to be a victim.
- 32:54
- If you're not a victim of something, you have no moral authority. If you're not a victim of something or someone, you're not a part of the dialogue.
- 33:01
- You have nothing to say. Keep your mouth shut if you're not a victim. So we have new classes of victims, those who have had a microaggression against them because somebody said a word they didn't like, or somebody gave them a look they didn't like, or somebody did some action that offended them.
- 33:20
- Offensive speech is now hate speech. So what dominates sinners, what is constantly on their minds is the fact that they don't want to be guilty.
- 33:31
- They naturally will blame others, other generations, other influences. I'm basically a good person, but I've been affected by bad people.
- 33:39
- This is what sinners do. Someone has messed up my life. And ultimately, it has to be
- 33:45
- God. It has to be God. So I'm not only a victim of all the people who have abused me, but I'm a victim of the
- 33:51
- God who's supposed to be in control of everything and let me be abused like this. And then you tell that person that they should go to that same
- 33:57
- God and find salvation. So when the church decides we're going to embrace their victimhood, this is a disaster.
- 34:06
- If we agree with the sinner's assessment of himself, that he's really good and he's a victim of somebody else's being bad, you have just cut them off from the very initial reality that brings them to the gospel, and that is an overwhelming sense of their own utter sinfulness and full responsibility for their guilt.
- 34:25
- Ezekiel's message is critical to our understanding of this issue. The foundation of his message was the fact of individual responsibility, personal sin, personal guilt, personal punishment by God.
- 34:38
- No one will ever be judged by God for the sin of Adam, or for the sin of our grandparents, or for the sins of the people in our past culture or present culture.
- 34:49
- And since that is critical to the gospel, we need to stop letting people think they're victims of someone else's sins when the fact is they're going to go to hell forever based purely on their own transgressions.
- 35:00
- We cannot let sinners make excuses. We are here as preachers and as Christian believers to warn sinners.
- 35:07
- All sinners deserve death. All right, now let's look at chapter 18. Here we see
- 35:14
- Ezekiel, with a message from the Lord, confronting proud sinners. Rather than look at their own sins as the reason for their judgment, rather than look at their own sins as the reason for everything that's troubling in their lives, they blamed the generations before them, and they blamed
- 35:31
- God. Verses one to four. The word of the Lord came to me saying, what do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, the fathers eat the sour grapes but the children's teeth are set on edge.
- 35:40
- As I live, declares the Lord God, you are surely not going to use this proverb in Israel anymore. Behold, all souls are mine, or every soul is mine.
- 35:48
- The soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine. The soul who sins will die. That's the thesis.
- 35:53
- And the Lord says in verse two, what do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel?
- 36:02
- God saw this proverb, which was reflective of what they believed, as an attack on Him, on His righteousness, on His justice.
- 36:11
- Now this is a proverb. Here's the proverb. The fathers eat the sour grapes, but the children's teeth are set on edge.
- 36:18
- It's how they explain their suffering. When somebody said, how did you all get in this mess you're in here in Babylon? Wasn't what we did, it was what our fathers did.
- 36:25
- Ezekiel unleashes this powerful divinely inspired warning that God judges every single person individually on the basis of his or her own sin.
- 36:34
- No one will ever be punished for the sins of anyone else. And the biggest issue in anyone's life is not the conditions that other people may have brought on them, but the condition of their own heart before God.
- 36:45
- So we have a major problem here. Be the Bridge wants whites to accept guilt and shame in our supposed forefathers' participation in America's racist history.
- 37:00
- So we can confess and repent of our own complicity in systematic racism and be moved to action.
- 37:11
- They teach white people to take on the guilt of our forefathers while teaching people of color to identify any hardships with racism or any acts of white people as rooted in white superiority.
- 37:29
- So how are we Christian women to take all of this? What is the danger to Christian women who take on the presupposition that white supremacy exists and that one has been complicit in the oppression of people of color by the mere color of one's skin?
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- And what about Christians of color? What effect might it have on them to take on this belief that Western culture is racist and was founded on and perpetuates white supremacy?
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- Well, one, it hurts white women. They are weighed down with sins that they did not commit.
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- It puts focus on these sins and rejects and ignores God's laws, the standard for sin.
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- Do Christians who take on this belief believe that the
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- Holy Spirit is working through people such as Robin D 'Angelo? Is the
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- Holy Spirit now convicting us through unbelievers? Is the
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- Holy Spirit now informing people that there is an immoral water or disease that only applies to certain ethnicities?
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- Convicting only a certain color of people of their sin? And is he choosing to work only through people of color to inform us of what that sin looks like?
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- Is God partial in that way? Incorporating sociologists' teachings such as Robin D 'Angelo to inform us of sin and immorality is to yoke ourselves with unbelievers.
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- And it's completely contrary to the Holy Spirit's instructions in 2 Corinthians 6, 14 to not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership has righteousness and lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness.
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- John Calvin in this verse, or talking about this verse, states, many are of the opinion that he speaks of marriage but the context clearly shows that they are mistaken.
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- The word that Paul makes use of means to be connected together and drawing the same yoke.
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- It's a metaphor taken from oxen or horses which require to walk at the same pace and to act together in the same work when fastened under one yoke.
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- When, therefore, he prohibits us from having partnership with unbelievers and drawing the same yoke, he means simply this, that we should have no fellowship with them in their pollutions.
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- For one sun shines upon us. We eat of the same bread. We breathe the same air.
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- We cannot altogether refrain from intercourse with them. But Paul speaks of the yoke of impiety.
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- That is, of participation in works in which Christians cannot lawfully have fellowship.
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- So the work that people such as Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi are a yoke of impiety as they reject
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- God's law as a standard of righteousness informing us of what is moral and what is immoral in regards to racial reconciliation and racial justice and is to be the standard by which we execute justice.
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- Be the Bridge yokes their ministry with these teachers and takes our eyes off of God's law.
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- It puts our eyes on man's philosophies and draws our attention to group identity and their standard of what is right and wrong, how each group wants to be treated instead of how
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- God actually wants us to treat others. This is to place man before God to undermine the truth that to love
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- God's law and act on it is truly to love our neighbor. When it comes to ideas, they have consequences.
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- If a Christian woman or person of any color imbibes this belief, they start with a false problem and end up chasing solutions that cause division instead of resolutions.
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- Critical race theory and Be the Bridge teach people to look at privileges as sin, that white people's real problem is the sin of white supremacy as a sin that they are blind to and are complicit in perpetuating and inaction in leveraging white privilege to people of color through work of equity of speech and other works in anti -racism as we will see in the coming episodes.
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- All of this is evil, ultimately immoral. Christ and his sacrifice are wholly separated from this sin or the gospel would have a say and not only have a say but be the solution to bring reconciliation.
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- For if my white privilege was paid for by Christ and his sacrifice was perfect in reconciling me to God, who are you, oh man, to request
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- I perpetually lament, repent, and work to reconcile with people
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- I have never actually sinned against? So I hope you can see that there are some very important issues and problems that arise from taking on this idea that there's systematic racism as taught in critical race theory.
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- There is so much more, but I think for this episode, I'm gonna have to stop here and we'll get into the second tenet of Be the
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- Bridge. That's where Morrison implements the next foundational tenet of critical race theory which is intersectionality.
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- Be the Bridge doesn't exercise all of what entails with intersectionality but it does take the main presupposition that is believed to support and promote intersectionality and that is universalized standpoint epistemology.
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- So next time I have to show you how they presuppose racial standpoints and then universalize them.
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- But until then, ladies, I pray that this episode has brought a bit more understanding on how to identify this type of teaching not only in Be the
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- Bridge but in any women's ministry discussions or Bible study lesson or even possible teaching that may come from the pulpit.
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- And if you might be listening to this and have been involved in discussions about white supremacy and privilege, maybe you are beginning to question this teaching itself or hopefully
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- I've given you some thoughts to consider. Whatever it is, I pray that you are diving into scripture and looking to root your knowledge of American history, racism, impartiality, and justice on Christ, on his accomplished work and his teaching.
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- So until then, ladies, I pray you are in his word. Ladies, if you are interested in the transcript for this episode, you can go to ttew .org.
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- You can find other great resources, articles, blogs, and videos that may bless you in your Christian walk as well as links to follow me on social media.
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- If you wish to contact me, you can email me at thoroughlyequipped316 at gmail .com.
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- Again, the website address is ttew .org. Thoroughly Equipped is part of Striving for Eternity's Christian podcast community.
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- Striving for Eternity is a Christ -centered ministry focused on equipping people for eternity by assisting
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- Christians to have an eternal perspective on life. They strive to bring evangelism, discipleship, apologetics, and Christian living together for the purpose of eternal preparation by exalting
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- God, edifying and equipping the saints, and evangelizing the lost. They provide speakers, online articles, online courses, books, podcasts, and other theological resources all centered on God's word.
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- To find out more, go to strivingforeternity .org. And to listen to other podcasts, go to podcast .strivingforeternity
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- .org. I pray that their resources bless you as they have blessed me as we live our lives day by day praising and glorifying