Abuse of History + Economic/Theological Ignorance = Jemar Tisby

Trigger warning. Tell me if you can relate to this.

You're talking to somebody about social justice and you're asking them to show you why they believe what they believe.

Why are they a social justice warrior? You're probably asking in a much nicer way than that. You want to understand them.

I've talked to many people that have reached out to their pastors or reached out to their friends and family that are social justice advocates, and they want to understand more.

You'll get one of two different responses in general. There's other responses, obviously, but these are the two ones that you'll get the most.

Sometimes what you'll get is they'll refer you to scripture, which is a good thing. That's where they should refer you. This one doesn't happen as much, but oftentimes they will refer to certain passages, but it'll be passages that requires you to really, at the outset, assume a lot of things.

It'll be a passage like the Amos passage, let justice roll down like waters. It'll be a passage that says something like, do justice or something like that.

You'll say, see? See? Social justice. You look at that and you're like, well, if you're going to put into the text a whole range of meaning that's not actually there, then

I guess, but I'm not going to do that. It's like when an Arminian tells you that John 3 .16 proves

Arminianism. Well, I mean, only if you assume certain meanings of words, does it do that.

Again, I know that there are some Arminians that wouldn't say something like that, but if you're an Arminian that says

John 3 .16 proves it, sorry, it just doesn't, unless you adopt your presuppositions and your assumptions of what words mean, and I don't think we should do that.

I think we should look to the whole of scripture to define what things mean. But anyway, so that's one response, but more often than not, tell me if you can relate to this.

You ask a social justice advocate, why do you believe the things that you believe? And then they'll tell you, you got to read this book.

You got to read this book. And it's usually a book about history. It's about racism of the past and different things that happened to black people and Latinos and how the church was involved in the racism of the past.

And this is something that's been going on for a long time, and there's just a history. That's why

I am what I am. That's why I believe the things I believe. And this happens to me all the time, all the time.

People want to talk about history. If you ever go to a presentation, a social justice presentation or speech or sermon, it always will talk about history.

And the idea that they're presenting is, look, the Christian church has been racist in the past, and people were compromising on racism in the past, and it is today also.

And so don't be like those compromisers of the past. And they never prove it. They just assume that racism is just rampant in the church in the past and still today.

That's kind of the assumption. It's not proven, but what they'll do is they'll prove it in the past. It's easy enough to do that, to demonstrate that there have been racist

Christians in the past, and then they'll say, and there's still racist Christians today. And that's kind of the sleight of hand that is used.

And here's the thing, though. Here's the thing. History is important, right?

History has value. I don't think anyone in this argument would disagree with that. But history has a limitation as well.

And so here's the thing. So God records history in his scripture. God thinks history is so important that in his word, his word to his people, he records things that happened in history.

And not only does he do that, but then also in scripture, he tells his people to remember certain things in the history.

And there's two reasons why he does this. If you look at the Bible, it records history. And then often when

God tells his people to remember, there's really two primary reasons he wants his people to remember. The first reason is he wants people to remember all of the times that God showed himself faithful to his people.

So he wants you to remember the history of God time after time after time, keeping his promise.

He wants you to remember those covenant promises. And then he wants you to remember all of the times that he kept his end of the bargain.

And the point of that is not to prove anything to us. He doesn't have to prove anything to us. But he wants us to have faith in him in the future as well.

Look, if God kept his promises always in the past, of course, he's going to keep them now and in the future.

And so in many ways, our confidence in God, you know, we can work on developing that by learning our history, looking to the past and seeing all of the faithfulness of God time and time and time again.

And so we can have more confidence in God in the future. We should have ultimate confidence in God anyway.

But, you know, we're fallible, we're warring against the flesh. And so we need those reminders from our history of God's covenant faithfulness, consistent covenant faithfulness.

That's one reason. The second reason God tells people to remember is he wants people to avoid mistakes that were made in the past.

He'll say, remember this guy. And this guy, you know, was unfaithful in some way or did something wrong or had wrong motivations or things like that.

And he's like, don't be like this guy. So there's two reasons why God is consistently bringing up history and records history.

It's one to show us his covenant faithfulness over time to his people. And two, to be like, don't be like this guy, right?

And you might think that that's how social justice warriors are using history primarily. They don't want you to be like the church of the past.

That's how they're primarily using it. And so it's legitimate. But that's not actually it though. That's actually not what they're using history for in general.

In a way they are, but they're actually trying to make history do a lot more than that.

It's more than just remember the past so you can avoid the problems of the past. And it's not, they don't really talk about God's covenant faithfulness in the past.

And if anything, they talk about how the church has failed and the Holy Spirit empowered church has been a church of compromise.

In fact, here's an interview with Jamar Tisby. And, you know, you might think I'm picking on Jamar, but Jamar is the champion of the social justice crowd.

He is the blue check mark. He is the conference speaker of choice. This is the celebrity of the social justice movement.

And so I think it's totally fair to focus on his perspective. Now, listen to this. This is the first sentence of his interview on faithfullymagazine .com.

He says, the more you study history, the more you see that when it comes to race and Christianity, it's a story of compromise rather than courage.

It's a story of compromise rather than courage. So you see, so Jamar is looking at history and he's saying, look, there's a lot of compromise in history.

And what he wants to do is he wants to say, and that continues to today, because here's the thing.

One of his primary points is that racism never goes away. It just changes. It just changes.

And it continues into today. It's rampant today. He never proves that, of course. He never proves that it continues to today.

And I think it is obviously not continuing in the same way as it was in the past because racism is so unacceptable in our culture today that I think you have to really be naive to think that racism is rampant today.

I mean, you can get fired for saying a word that sounds like a racial slur, even completely out of context.

We find it so unacceptable that even if you trip over your words and say the wrong thing and you didn't mean it and it wasn't out of context, it was just a matter of two words being mashed together, you can lose your job for that.

That's how unacceptable racism is in our culture. So it's preposterous that racism is still rampant today.

But here's the thing. He goes on here and he says, look, there were some faithful Christians that were against racism,

Wilberforce, things like that. And he says, but the reality is that Christians who have been against racism were the vast minority.

Okay. That might be true, but obviously they were very successful because racism is the most unacceptable thing that you can be in our culture.

I mean, it's better for you to be someone who thinks it's cool to kill babies than it is to be a racist in our culture.

So however many people were against racism in the past, they were obviously very successful because racism is the ultimate sin in our culture today.

It's just that simple. And so what Jamar wants to do is he wants to use history as a way to diagnose today, and that's not a really good way to do it.

I mean, obviously the past has an impact on what happens today, but today is not the past. So because there was a lot of compromise in the church on racism in the past has no bearing on today.

You need more data, different data. You need to prove that. You know what I mean? And unfortunately, he never proves that.

Now, I've heard debates on whether or not Jamar is a good historian. I don't have any opinion on that because I am not at that level.

I can't evaluate. I don't have the skills to evaluate how good of a historian he is.

I do know that he tends to be... He tends to make generalizations.

He tends to focus on negatives when it comes to certain skin colors, and he tends to focus on positives when he comes to other skin colors.

So I do know he shows partiality. I do know that his theology is quite poor in very many areas, but I don't know about his history.

So you might think he's a good historian or a bad historian. I don't know, and I don't have any reason to disregard the historical claims that he makes.

I just, you know, I'm not... That's above my pay grade. You know, other people might be better at that. I'm not really there.

But what I can do is evaluate his theology, and I can evaluate other things that he does, especially economics.

He's very bad at economics. Jamar Tisby is an economic sinner. Okay? Also, he teaches a wrong view of justice.

He's a Pharisee in that way. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Here's something that he says at the end. This is the quote that they pulled out.

You can see it right here on the screen, and this is the quote that actually got me interested to read this article. Here's what

Jamar says. Listen to the economic ignorance here. Listen to the economic and theological ignorance of this statement.

This has nothing to do with his historical method. It has nothing to do with his history claims. I am not going to evaluate those.

I can't. I don't know how. But listen to this. This is Jamar. A lot of people call slavery

America's original sin. I think it's America's original symptom, and the original sin is greed.

So, first of all, he's blending, you know, theological categories here. But we can brush that off as rhetoric, right?

He's talking rhetorically. He doesn't say that this is actually the original sin for Americans, because obviously the original sin is something very specific in theological conversations.

You know, it was in the garden, right? So, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He's talking rhetorically here.

He's not trying to replace original sin from a theological perspective with this. Now, that might be giving him too much credit, but let's just give it to him.

Okay. So, he says America's original sin is greed. And get ready. Buckle your seatbelts, because Jamar Tisby is a socialist.

And socialists are economic sinners. Okay? Here's how he defines greed. Ready? Because what helped to construct a system of race -based chattel slavery was the pursuit of profit, getting the most amount of money with the least amount of expense.

That's the end of the quote that they decided to sell this article with. Jamar Tisby is saying that greed is

America's original sin. And what greed is, what is it? It's the pursuit of profit. It's the pursuit to get the most amount of money with the least amount of expenses.

That's economic ignorance. That's not only economic ignorance, but that's theological ignorance.

That's something that, that's a sin to say something like that. Greed is not the same thing as the pursuit of profit.

Because God, in his word, says that the pursuit of profit, the pursuit of competence, the pursuit of success in business is a good thing.

Jamar's calling it greed. Okay? Jamar Tisby is calling that greed. And that's just not true at all.

Biblically, definition -wise, that's just not the case.

You see, Jamar's a socialist, and so competence, wealth, profit motive, these kinds of things are the enemy for Jamar, because Jamar has an ideology that's not biblical.

Jamar has an economic system that's unbiblical. Profit motive is a good thing. God invented profit motive.

You see, God invented this system. It's, it's, it's, it's amazing when you really think about it, where whether or not you're, you're, you're greedy or not, you can have a motive to make money.

And the way that you do it, in God's system, the way that you make money in a just way is to help your fellow man.

So, so when you have an idea that actually people are interested in, that people want to exchange value for, that actually can make you rich.

And so the, the, the desire to, to make profits actually is a desire, when you boil everything down, it's a desire to help your fellow man, even if you're doing it for a selfish way.

So even greedy people that have a profit motive still end up helping their fellow man.

Now, here's the thing though, there is a difference between a godly profit motive and a greedy profit motive, even though the greedy one does end up helping your fellow man as well, because no one will buy your product if it doesn't, they don't see value in it.

So even greedy people, even greedy people with a, with a healthy profit motive, and they go overboard, because here's the thing, the difference between greedy profit motive and a good profit motive is a greedy profit motive seeks to cut corners, seeks to break the law of God in order to get an edge, get an advantage.

So a greedy person will maybe break contracts, a greedy person might buy people who have been stolen, people who have been kidnapped, like in slavery, that was a, that was definitely greed, he's right about that, that was definitely greed because it breaks the law of God to accomplish those ends, right?

But even that, even when you do that kind of stuff, if you don't end up with a product that people want, that people see value in, if you're not helping people do something, you don't make any money, you know what

I mean? So God invented this system that's absolutely genius,

I mean, if this doesn't make you worship God, I don't know what will, but he invented the system that even people's greed, even people's sin,

God can use that to help people. It's just amazing, economics is an amazing thing.

But profit motive and trying to get the most amount of money with the least amount of expenses, that's just business, right?

That's just economics, that's the economic world that God created. And I love it.

And I think every Christian should have a healthy profit motive. I think every Christian should try to get the most amount of money for the least amount of expense.

Those are good things, those are commended in the scripture, okay? Those are commended in the scripture, that's not the same thing as greed.

How do you know if you're being greedy? Well, that's if you start cutting corners, if you start breaking God's law in order to get what you want, that's how you know.

So when we look at the slave system, we don't say, well, they had a profit motive, therefore they were greedy.

Well, they wanted to reduce their labor costs, therefore they were greedy. No, that's not what we do. What we do is we compare it to the law of God, and we say, well, they were breaking the law of God in order to accomplish this business or economic goal, therefore that was a sin, therefore that is greed.

That's an example of greed. That's how you do it, you compare it to the law of God to see what's what, right?

And so here's the thing, by this definition, Jamar is greedy, got that?

Jamar is greedy, because Jamar, as well as others, lots of people say this, say that a form of reparations, a form of restitution for slavery could be giving to his ministry.

He's on record as saying that. A form of reparations could be giving him money for his ministry.

Remember in my cross -politic episode, I said this social justice thing's about money, it's a hustle?

Well, it is. You know, you see, if you wanna make reparations for slavery, give to Jamar Tisby's ministry.

That's greed, because the scripture says nothing about making restitution to someone who you did not do anything to, nor did your ancestors, because Jamar is generations removed from this, you don't owe

Jamar Tisby anything. But he wants to somehow manipulate you emotionally and use biblical language, because reparations, restitution, these are biblical categories, but they're very specific, and he's doing it in an inappropriate, pharisaical way, where somehow you end up owing

Jamar Tisby something. Many of you don't even know who Jamar Tisby is. Many of you have never talked to him.

You've definitely not done anything wrong to him, but he's gonna use a biblical category to try to manipulate you into giving him money?

That is greed. It's a different degree than the greed that the slaveholders had back in slavery, but it's greed none the same.

He wants to get the most amount of money for the least amount of expense, and he doesn't think that providing the value and providing something that people want is enough.

No, he's gonna tell you that if you wanna make restitution, for you're white, and you wanna make restitution for slavery, give him cash.

That's greed. That's breaking the law of God to accomplish an economic end. It's a hustle.

Jamar Tisby is a hustle, hustler, I should say, and what he hustles is racial grievances.

That's what he hustles, and it's disgusting. It's absolutely disgusting. So we don't use history to determine what justice is and what it isn't.

We use God's law to do that. God's law is the standard. God's law is what tells us what's moral and what's not, and what

Jamar Tisby is doing here by hinting at and implying that you should make restitution by giving him cash is evil, according to God's law.

It's greedy, and it's evil. You see, here's what I do, because I do take donations for my stuff, right?

But what I say is, if I'm providing you value, consider supporting me.

I don't say, well, I'm 20 % African, 20 % Latino, therefore, you owe me.

How entitled could you? It's really disgusting, and it really is. So again, history is valuable, but we don't look at history to determine what we should do today.

If you have wronged Jamar Tisby financially, give him some restitution. That's what a Christian needs to do.

It's required. But the fact of history, the historical fact of slavery in the

United States, you don't, doesn't mean you owe Jamar Tisby one red cent.