2nd Worst Part of Matt Chandler's ERLC #MLK50 Speech

Well, I made the mistake of listening to the rest of Matt Chandler's speech at the ERLC MLK50 conference, and oh boy. I was expecting it to be bad. I had heard that it was getting, it got worse as it went.

I heard that the second half was way worse than the first half, and I didn't even get through half of the first half. So I was expecting it to be really bad, but what I heard was absolutely shocking. It was beyond anything I could have imagined.

He manages to slander every race. He slanders white people, definitely, there's no question about that. He slanders white pastors. He slanders white parishioners. He slanders black people. He slanders Latinos.

He slanders black pastors. Basically everybody gets a little bit of slander in this speech, and I want to respond to some of the key parts of it. You know, there were a lot, not 30 seconds goes by where there's not something to absolutely reject wholesale from what he says, but there are some pretty bad parts.

And today I want to review the second worst part of Matt Chandler's speech. He's talking about the process that his church is going through in order to find pastors for his megachurch. And so he needs a few new pastors for his megachurch, and so he's going through a process to find them.

Let's talk, let's dive right into this and see what his process looks like.

Matt Chandler’s Search for Campus Pastors

The process of rolling off our multi-site campuses to be autonomous churches, another talk for another day, but we feel this has been wrought by the Spirit of God through a lot of prayer and seeking the face of God.

It's not a slight on that ecclesiology, it's just we feel like the Lord's wanting to do something different with us. And we have struggled to find men who can be a campus pastor for a season and lead into being the pastor of an autonomous church down in Dallas and out in Fort Worth.

And so we've been looking and having conversations, and I have called every African-American man I know and went, who you got? I need, here's what I need, how do I, help me. Right.

I'm like, I'm got a lot of. Well, I'm not black, but I am a Latino. And you know, one of the things that's funny about this whole thing is if I wanted to adopt their methodology to understand what is white supremacy and what is racism and stuff like that, I could easily say to Matt Chan, you know, you're only talking about black people here.

You're not mentioning Latinos. Why are you disproportionately misrepresenting us? Why are you such a racist against Latinos? I don't do that. I don't buy this, these whole categories. But you could just see how foolish the argument is.

If I were to say, Matt Chan, this, this speech proves Matt Chandler is against Latinos. Obviously it doesn't. But there is a misrepresentation here is not proportional, not proportional time being talked about here.

Anyway, listen, listen to his strategy. This is how he's feeling. He's trying to fill the pastor position that he has open. Well, yes, I think he has a few. He calls up his black friends. Hey, black friends, who do you got?

I mean, what, what kind of pastors? Here's what, here's what I need. I got these qualifications and I'm like, who do you got now? He doesn't say what his qualifications are. I hope that they're mostly biblical, but there's definitely one that is not because I've read all of Paul's letters.

I've read all of his pastorals and none of them say, you know what, Timothy, what you need to do is find the minority. That's that's that's that's not proportionally represented in the church. And that is the qualification.

That's the deciding factor of who becomes your pastor. It's not even considered. It's not in there at all. Um, I can't even imagine. I mean, I'm not black, so I wouldn't get an interview with Matt Chan.

There's no question about that. Um, but if I did get an interview and I heard in the interview process that he was looking for a Latino or a black person to fill this job, I would end the interview right there.

Sorry, Matt, not interested, not interested in your crusade to sort of, you know, help me out. I don't need your help. It's funny because earlier in the speech, he talks about how black people don't need white people's help.

And I agree with that. They don't. Not at least not any more than other whites do, you know what I mean? But here he is in a paternalistic, like I can help you way, here's my campus, here's my megachurch, you can have it.

A lot of white friends, a lot of, but what I would love to just say, here's here's 2000 people in an $11 million building. Go lead them.

And so, yeah, because we all know not a single black or Latino can, can, uh, can become a pastor of a church on fair footing, right? Because, you know, he's about to say in a minute, well, why don't we just listen?

This is, this is where it gets spicy.

Partiality and Tokenism in Hiring

One of the firms that's helping us find men said, let me ask you a question, pastor Matt, if, if we find an Anglo eight and an African American seven, which one do you want? I said, I want the African American seven.

Matt Chandler is, is here openly, proudly, smugly saying, yeah, I want to, I want to, I want to practice some partiality here. That's what this is. Let's not, let's not, let's not mince words here. This is the sin of partiality openly expressed by a pastor and will not be rebuked for it.

I'll rebuke him. He'll never see this video and that's fine. This needs to be a rebuke. This is the definition of showing partiality. He's saying, look, if I've got a highly qualified white, he's up here at an eight, right?

I only want to hire an eight pastor, but if they've got black skin, a seven is okay as well. That's who I want. I want the, I want the less qualified, less experience. I want the person with the right skin color is what he's saying.

That's partiality. That's what that is. That's partiality and it's not helpful and he knows it's not helpful. Let's, let's, let's continue.

And he said, what if we find an Anglo eight and an African American six? And then I said, then give me the Anglo eight because,.

Hold on a second, Matt Chandler. Why? You got the African American, this is all arbitrary nonsense. Anyway, you won't find any of this in the Bible. This makes absolutely no sense. No, there's no, there's no ranking system in the Bible, but you know, if you want to have a ranking system, okay, cool.

No problem. But this whole criteria of sevens and eights, and I'll have the, I'll take the black seven, but not the black six. Like this is all made up, completely nonsensical and all arbitrary too, and all subjective as well.

Um, but yeah, you shouldn't take the African American six over the white eight. Uh, obviously that doesn't, you know, you want to find the most qualified person to lead your flock, at least I would assume so, um, that you can.

But you shouldn't do it with the seven either, because this is the very definition of partiality. You're being partial to someone because of, of their skin color. That's, I mean, most people would call that racist.

I'm going to call it partiality because that's what the Bible calls it. But, but that's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. And you shouldn't do it even pragmatically because it doesn't help Latinos. It doesn't help blacks at all to lower the bar for them.

So in other words, if you want to help, you know, black people and Latinos get more opportunities and things like that, the way to do it is to educate them. The way to do it is to make sure they have access to this stuff.

That's the way to do it, not to lower the bar, because when you lower the bar for Latinos to get ahead, all you're doing is lowering the quality that's required and all you're doing is making Latinos and blacks understand that they don't need to work as hard.

They don't need to try as hard. Look, you know, good, good parents, good Latino and black parents will tell you, look, there are some prejudiced people out there, so you should work twice as hard. You should be twice as good.

You should earn it twice as much and you shouldn't have to. But yeah, there are some prejudice out there, but so, so do it. Work hard. Matt Chandler says, yeah, you know what? Don't worry about working so hard.

We'll take you as a seven. Even if the qualifications call for an eight, it doesn't help us, man. It doesn't help. It's counterproductive. This kind of stuff will never, will never fly. And, and, and, and again, I can't, I can't imagine looking at myself in the mirror thinking, wow, I wonder if I was not qualified for this, but he took me because of my skin color.

I could not stay in a job like that. I'd have to quit. I'd have to too much self-respect for that. Here's Matt Chandler's reason for not taking the African-American six.

The African-American six will look and feel to our people like the kind of tokenism that I'm preaching against.

The African-American six will look and feel like the token is that I'm preaching against, but as long as it doesn't look and feel like that, the tokenism is totally fine. Oh, I'm laughing because if I didn't laugh, I would cry.

Matt Chandler's preaching against tokenism. Look, that's a side point. Well, let's just not even worry about the soundness of preaching against tokenism for a second, but his concern is that it looks and feels like tokenism.

Not that it is tokenism because hiring an African-American seven over a white eight is tokenism, okay? It's, it's, it's partiality and it's tokenism. That is what the definition is. But he's saying, as long as it doesn't look like tokenism, if he's close enough, that it won't look like tokenism and, and, and I won't be a hypocrite.

No, Matt Chandler, you are a hypocrite in this area. You preach against tokenism and you engage in it. You preach it against the idea that blacks need whites, and then you engage it in a very paternalistic way.

There are some absolutely astounding statements in this video, in this speech that just, you can see how he considers himself almost like a parent for these black and Latino brothers and sisters in Christ, and he preaches against that too.

This is, this is, this is why I know this is not biblical because there's just such a mishmash of inconsistencies. There's such a mishmash of hypocritical thinking in this whole thing. I just don't understand.

But as long as it doesn't look like tokenism, then it's okay. I can still, I can still do it. It's not how it goes, man. That's not how it goes. I think that's the end, but let me just make sure there's nothing else we need to respond to here.

Rejecting Paternalism and Partiality

Another opportunity for us to find and give power away in a way that's not paternalistic, but man, we see in you the capacity to lead and love and shape. And we want you.

He says it's not paternalistic, but Oh boy, it is brothers. This, this, this, this stuff is poison. It's absolutely poison. It's a recipe for never ending conflict. As long as you're willing to show partiality.

And that's what this video is proclaiming. It's Matt Chandler proclaiming loudly and proudly. I am partial. I am partial. And I will continue to be partial and he'll ride that partiality to glory. It ought not to be this way.

It ought not to be this way. There is nothing wrong for you to say, look, I look, I want a new assistant pastor, I want to find a pastor and I've got qualifications and their biblical qualifications, and I do not consider anything outside of what the Bible says I ought to consider.

There's nothing wrong with that. And so if you end up hiring another Anglo, Oh God forbid, that's okay. That's okay. If you end up hiring a black man, that's okay. If you end up hiring a Latino, a Pacific Islander, a Chinese person, a Japanese person, a Korean, it doesn't make a lick of difference.

At least it not, it ought not to make a difference. It really shouldn't. Anyway, those are my thoughts on that. Stay tuned for the absolute worst part of this video.