A Reasonable Latino Stays Calm With Tim Keller's Social Justice Nonsense

Alright, so some of you might know that I'm a big Star Wars fan.

Actually, before I get into that, I'm wearing the glasses, I'm not doing Smooth AD, so don't get all excited.

I know a lot of people don't like Smooth AD. That's fine. I'm wearing the glasses because these are actually official Gospel Coalition sunglasses and I'm talking about the godfather of Gospel Coalition himself,

Dr. Timothy Keller. Is he a doctor? I never remember that. Anyway, so there's a character in Star Wars that everybody really likes and I like him too because I'm a

Star Wars fan, so I like pretty much all the characters and what they bring to the story and their unique qualities and their strengths, their weaknesses and all of that.

I just like the whole universe. I like the whole story and all that kind of thing, but I've got a bone to pick with this particular character.

A lot of people really like him. I think he's supremely overrated and that's the character of Yoda.

Yoda's so overrated when you really think about it. I mean, he's like a trainer, a teacher. He teaches people the ways of the force, but he's overrated.

Everything he says is confusing. It doesn't really make any sense. It's like Confucius. It's supposed to sound deep and wise, but really it's just nonsense and it's very annoying.

And then when you think about Yoda as a character, he was sort of in charge of the Jedi Council, but they couldn't see the

Emperor rising to power. They didn't even know it was him. And then when he fights the Emperor, he basically loses the fight.

So the Emperor was more powerful than Yoda too. And then he goes into hiding. He goes into exile and he hides for decades.

And it's like, well, this guy's not that great and what's the big deal with Yoda? I don't really understand. He's not that great.

And then it's even worse because later in the new trilogy, Rey is learning the ways of the force.

She's a better Jedi than Luke and doesn't even have any training. So what's even the purpose of the trainer?

So to me, it certainly seems to me that Yoda is a very overrated character in the universe of Star Wars.

He's just not that great. And the reality is that Tim Keller shares a lot in common with Yoda because his teaching at times, it's helpful.

I've been helped by some of his gospel presentations and I've been helped by some of his writing, especially there were some basic level apologetic stuff that he did in one of his books,

I think The Reason for God. And I thought that was pretty helpful at the time. I haven't read it since I've been a

Christian for a while, but when I was a new believer, I thought it was pretty helpful. But his stuff on justice, his book,

Generous Justice, I did reviews on that book and this article here, A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory.

It's like reading Yoda. It's supposed to sound deep and wise, but it doesn't clear anything up.

In fact, it just further muddies the waters in my opinion. And I think what's trying to happen here, what he's trying to do is he's trying to make it like either biblical justice is either like a third way, not liberal or conservative, not any of these things that he calls secular views of justice, but it's not really separate from them either.

The biblical view incorporates some of those secular views. Each secular view that he examines in this article, it's getting some things right, but some things wrong.

And the idea that he's putting forward is that means it's okay to support one of these or the other, even though you can't go all the way because you've got to be biblical about things.

It's almost like he's promoting this third way, this different way, which I agree, the biblical model is a different way.

But the way he presents it really just kind of confuses you. Okay, so what do I do,

Tim Keller? Do I vote for Biden or Trump? That's pretty much what people want him to say. And he's never going to say anything like that, of course.

Some people would argue he shouldn't say something like that. Fine. But I think you'll see what I mean in a minute, because I'm going to use one example here that I'll show you the approach

I'm going to take with it. He talks about justice, and I'm going to try to give you an example of this confusion that I think he's spreading here.

And I think he's doing it intentionally, because I think what Tim Keller is essentially trying to do is to make you feel comfortable this election for voting for Joe Biden, even though there are some things about him and about his policies that you can't even think about as a

Christian, if you're going to be consistent. He's trying to make it seem like, well, you know, everyone has its problems.

That's what I think is happening in this article. Every political theory has its problems, and you just got to go with one that matches your values the best or something like that.

I'll tell you what I mean here. And the approach I'm going to take is I'm going to believe everything that he says about justice. Like, there's so much wrong with this article that you could approach this from a variety of different ways.

And there's just so much wrong. If I pick this apart, this video would be three hours long.

So what I'm going to do instead is I'm going to just believe everything he says and then see if his conclusion in this one paragraph about community, because this is the one

I found most interesting. Now, every one of these has its problems, but this is the one I found interesting. Let's just believe it all.

Let's just take the approach that we're going to believe what he says about justice here and see if the conclusion of this paragraph follows if you believe everything he says.

That's a very helpful way to do this, because if his arguments in article doesn't even hold water within itself, then you can be sure that this whole thing is confusing and muddies the waters and not true.

So this is a section called the brief outline of biblical justice. So he's trying to describe what biblical justice is.

And the first thing he goes into is a section called community. He says, others have a claim on my wealth.

So I must give voluntarily. I must give voluntarily.

Now, again, I know that people are going to have a problem even with that heading. I get it. It's so weird.

It's a weird sentence. This is why I say it's like Yoda give voluntarily. I must like, what does that mean?

You must do something voluntarily. I don't know. But let's just go with it. All right. We're just going to go with it.

And I'll think you'll I think you'll see why I just want you to believe everything that he's saying here. And then we'll talk about the conclusion where he ends up.

Tim Keller says this. He says, the Bible depicts the human world as a profoundly interrelated community.

So the godly must live in such a way that the community is strengthened.

Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke puts all the teachings on the righteous in the book of Proverbs into a concise and practical principle.

The righteous are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community.

The wicked are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves.

The gleaning laws of the Old Testament are a case in point.

Deuteronomy 24, 17 through 22. Land owners were commanded to not maximize profits by harvesting all sheaves or picking all the olives or grapes.

Instead, the owner was to leave produce in the field for the workers and the poor to take through their labor, not through charity.

When you text, when the text reads that the sheaves, when the text reads that the sheaves and olives and grapes, quote, shall be for the poor, end quote, it uses a

Hebrew phrase that indicates ownership to treat all of your profits and assets as individualistically yours is mistaken.

Because God owns all your wealth. You are just a steward of it. The community has some claim on it.

Nevertheless, it is not to be confiscated. You are to acknowledge the claim and voluntarily be radically generous.

This view of property does not fit well with either a capitalist or a socialist economy.

Okay, so the idea here is because he says, and again, we're just believing this.

We're not going to quibble with this. We're just going to accept it. Okay. That's the strategy that I'm using here. He says, because the poor has a claim to some of what you own, you are to be voluntarily radically generous.

And then he says that this view does not fit well with capitalism or socialism.

Now, let's take the socialist one first, the socialist economy first. He says, it's not to be confiscated.

Your wealth is not to be confiscated. Rather, it's supposed to be voluntarily, radically given, right?

That's what he says. And so, yes, he's right. If you believe that the poor has some claim on your wealth, but it's not to be confiscated.

Rather, it's supposed to be voluntarily given. Socialism is off the table because socialism would confiscate that.

That would, the state would take it and then the state would distribute it. So off the table completely.

So he's right to say that this view of property does not fit well with socialism. But what about capitalism?

Does this view of property fit with capitalism? If the poor has a claim before God on your wealth, but it's not in such a way that the state can confiscate it, or even that the poor can confiscate it.

Like the poor or the state can't confiscate your wealth according to what he's saying here.

Does that, but you are supposed to give. You're supposed to give generally. In fact, he says radically generous, which again, we're just believing all of this, right?

Because I'm just going to go with it. If you're supposed to be generous with what you own, because you recognize that God says that he owns all of this and you're just a steward, that's the argument that's being presented here.

Does that view of property fit with capitalism? It does. See, this is the thing.

Like, it actually does fit with capitalism because capitalism isn't saying that there's no

God and God doesn't have, and you're just a steward and God gives you property rights and he expects you to be generous with that money.

Capitalist doesn't say anything about that. Rather, capitalism just says that the state ought to protect private property rights.

And there's nothing in this little paragraph here where he talks about radical generosity and he talks about the gleaning laws and anything like that, or the quote, claim that the poor have on your stuff.

There's nothing about that that would negate the state still having to protect your private property rights.

And so you see that he's claiming here that it doesn't fit with capitalism or socialism.

It definitely doesn't fit with socialism. But to say that it doesn't fit with capitalism, we actually need more information here because I'm not entirely sure what he's saying.

Because unless he's thinking of a weird form of capitalism where the capitalist never gives generously to the poor, like he's not,

I guess in this form of capitalism, maybe he's not allowed to give to the poor or something like that, or he's just greedy. He just wants it all for himself.

If that's what he's talking about, I would argue that's a caricature of capitalism. That's actually not what capitalism is.

Capitalism is essentially about private property rights, which again, nothing in this little confusing

Yoda paragraph contradicts that private property rights should be protected. Yes, the state, regardless of what

God says about, you know, your field and leaving some of it for the poor, the state should still protect your private property rights.

In other words, let's just say there was a wicked landowner, right?

Let's just imagine in our heads a wicked landowner. And what I mean by wicked is that this landowner, he had a grape field.

He had a grape field and he had a bunch of grapes, right? And he decided, you know what?

I don't care what God says. I'm going to just harvest all my grapes, forget the poor,

I don't like the poor. And he just decided to harvest all his grapes, right? Let's just say that there's a, let's just say, imagine, imagine that, that there would be a landowner like that.

Okay? Okay. So he's obviously disobeying God. I think that that's a very stupid decision.

You should do what God says that like, that's, I'm not saying that that's a good thing. I think that's wicked. I think that's evil.

You should do what God says if you're a landowner, right? You should give to the poor in other words. Then let's say that the poor get together and they say, look at this wicked landowner.

He's not even leaving us any of the grapes. God said he should leave us some of the grapes. So I've got an idea.

What we're going to do is we're going to get together and we're going to grab our pitchforks. I don't know how we afford pitchforks because we're poor, but we're going to do it.

Probably George Soros funded them. We're going to get some torches. We're going to get some pitchforks and we're going to go to this guy's land and we're going to take those grapes.

We're going to take those grapes because God says I have a claim on them. He said that he was supposed to leave the edges of the field and he didn't.

So he's evil. He's wicked. And we're going to go take what's rightfully ours. Is there anything about this scenario that would not require the state to step in and when they steal from this landowner to capture them, right?

And to force them to pay restitution for what they stole. Those wicked poor people that decided to band together and take from the wicked landowner who wasn't leaving the edges of his field according to God.

Now you might say that landowner deserved it. And according to God's standard, you might be right. Maybe God was judging that landowner by having this insurrection come and he was using an evil insurrection to pay back the landowner.

Maybe that was happening. But, see the state has to protect private property rights. And so there would be nothing inconsistent with a godly state saying, okay, you band of evil poor people who decided to grab your pitchforks and torches to go steal from this landowner.

Now you must make restitution. And if you can't make restitution, you must be an indentured servant to that man to pay him back what you owe.

There's nothing at all contradictory about protecting private property rights, the foundation of capitalism, and being generous with what

God has given you. And so you see he's trying, Yoda here is trying to make some kind of a deep sounding important Jedi point.

And he's trying to say, well, it's not really capitalism and it's not really socialism. And so what he's trying to do is confuse you.

And so now all of a sudden, maybe I can vote for a socialist because all my life I've been voting for capitalists and that's not really biblical.

And see what I'm saying? There's a point to this, right? This view of property actually does fit very well with capitalism.

In fact, I would argue that capitalism is supremely biblical, so long as it's a capitalism under the

Lordship of Christ. But even if someone's a capitalist and not under the Lordship of Christ, their private property rights, because they're made in the image of God, still must be protected.

And so whether they decide to give generously to the poor or to hoard it all for themselves, that might be a sin against God, but that has nothing to do with protecting that person, that miser's private property rights.

And so do you see what I'm saying here about the intentional kind of obfuscation here?

He's trying to propose, well, there's this other way, there's this third way, and because we don't have any candidates that are promoting this third way, whatever it is, because the third way, if you read this article, you'll come away and you won't even know what he's talking about, this third way.

Well, okay, so what do we do, Tim Keller? That's the question. That's what I often want to ask Yoda.

He speaks in riddles, and if I was Luke, I'd be like, okay, Yoda, but what do I do? You know what I mean? I understand, blah, blah, blah, you're speaking in riddles.

What do I do? And you could ask Tim Keller the same question, because this article is just, it's a mess.

This article is a freaking mess. Everything that we just read there,

I could quibble with almost everything he just said there. And it's like, why is that? Why is he writing in such a way that it's like, there's error everywhere, you know what

I mean? And so even if you accept it, it still doesn't follow. I'm not quibbling with the errors here that he made in this paragraph, but the end result of, this doesn't fit well with capitalism.

That's not even true. It's not even true. And so the question is, why is that? Why is Tim Keller writing in this way?

I don't know for sure, but I think he's trying to make, he's trying to soothe your conscience for voting for Joe Biden.

Because after all, I mean, biblical justice doesn't fit well with capitalism, just like it doesn't fit well with socialism.

So really what's the difference? I mean, it's one's not really worse than the other. They're just wrong in different ways.

You see what I'm saying? It's like, that's not true though. That's not true. We could do this with all of his brief outline of biblical justice.

I just chose the first one because I happened to find it the most interesting. But man, like, listen, you might not like me for saying

Yoda's overrated, but let's just face it. He is definitely overrated. And Tim Keller's wisdom in the area of biblical justice is likewise overrated.

It's like, it's not helpful. I mean, he wouldn't beat the emperor in a fight.

And then there's going to be someone that rises up that can teach themselves all this stuff by looking at the biblical law by saying, yeah,

I see the biblical law you're referring to here, but it doesn't seem to indicate what you claim that it indicates.

Someone's going to be able to teach themselves this the way Ray Skywalker did. And it's like, well, what good is

Yoda anyway? Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful.