Lutheran Professor Locked out of Classroom for Opposing Social Justice?

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast once again. We have a very special presentation today, or interview,

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I should say. We are blessed to have with us Professor Gregory Schulz, who has been a pastor for 40 years, but also is a professor of philosophy at Concordia University, which is a

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Lutheran school in the Missouri Synod. So we're going to talk about Lutheran stuff today. We don't normally do that, I know.

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But it's important to talk about all the different denominations that are facing this social justice threat, and Lutheranism certainly is not exempt from that.

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Professor Schulz also served in the Civil Air Patrol for 22 years, including missions like search and rescue missions.

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And he's the author of a book on the problem of suffering, and you can find out more about him at lutheranphilosopher .com.

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It's lutheranphilosopher .com. Thank you so much for joining me, Professor Schulz. Thank you,

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John. The privilege is mine. So I want to start at the beginning,

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I guess, that you sent me an article. I'd actually already seen it from The Federalist by Joy Pullman on March 7th.

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And it starts off with you being locked out of your classes and your email account at Concordia University.

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And it is related to your pushback against the social justice movement. So I'd like to start off with a pretty basic question for you.

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Were you expecting that when you started pushing back? Well, thanks for asking.

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I think in retrospect, I should have been expecting it. I suppose, you know, even in our prayers and so forth, if we're aware of it, and we're asking the

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Lord for guidance, the sort of thing doesn't really sink in until it actually does happen.

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So the rough outline was that back on Valentine's Day, actually, a high church festival for us, back on Valentine's Day, I had published an article in Christian News, which is a national, somewhat international paper for rank and file members, especially in the

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Lutheran Church. The title of the article is Woke Dysphoria at Concordia.

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So dysphoria, as you know, is just a kind of a fancier term for restlessness.

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Now, what I noted in the article is what I had been seeing with my students and my university in Mequon, Wisconsin, that there was a growing unrest or a disquiet, which

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I would say was due to, I'm calling it wokeism for short, but I think you were right to introduce some of the synonyms for that.

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We'd be talking about liberation theology. Also, this could be called cultural communism and social justice movement.

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But under that umbrella of wokeism, which we can talk about some more, I noted that my students were being,

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I guess I'm going to say troubled in their consciences over some things that were being promoted by the university, some things that were being taught in isolated classes.

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And I issued this publication, Woke Dysphoria at Concordia, as a combination of one professor's reflection on how very bad this was, but also being a pastor,

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I'd like to think that it was a writing done with good intellectual content, but also a pastor's heart.

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And I think to summarize things, the dysphoria or restlessness is a sure indication that the gospel of Christ is diminishing among us.

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So we probably have some shared enthusiasm for Augustine. And in Confessions, it's the first paragraph,

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Augustine wrote what is probably one of the most important sentences in Western thought outside Holy Scripture itself, when he says, made us for yourself,

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Lord, and we are not at rest until we find our rest in you. So my analysis is that the push for wokeness at my university has been the cause of troubling the consciences and lives of my students.

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There's a particular, I suppose, a particular emphasis though, and that is we had and still have underway right now at my university, the search for a new president.

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In the setup for our Concordias, which are, it's the usual name for all of the

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Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, universities, colleges, and seminaries, they all have

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Concordia in the name. The purpose of the president is set out as being, first of all, the spiritual leader of the campus community.

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So here's what I noted in the published requirements for the new president showing up from our board of regents being posted online.

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They said that they were looking for several particular criteria in the new president.

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There are three of them that really stood out. One is, this is a quote, somebody who was supportive of diversity in all its myriad forms.

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Another quote was that they were looking for the next president to be someone who believed in and had demonstrated commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity, if you put the whole list together.

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Now, as we know, those are, I'm going to call them mantras. These are slogans that are spoken over and over and over again by people who intend to treat universities, including church universities, as social experiments.

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This signals the bringing in an incursion, if you will, of an alien politics in place of Christ.

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The final overall piece is this. In the Lutheran Church, something that we love to share with our fellow

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Christians whenever we have the chance for conversation, and in my case, when I get to write books and articles and do lectures and things, we like to point out that Christianity fundamentally relies on what we call the means of grace.

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So I know that we'd have agreement over the Lutheran and evangelical divide that the means of grace certainly includes

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Holy Scripture itself. Scripture is the way by which God comes to us. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the

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Word of God. We note in our confessional Lutheran approach to Scripture that God also speaks in a similar way about holy baptism and about the

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Lord's Supper. So for us, the written text of the Bible that is the

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Word of God in all its particular forms, verbatim, that is a means of grace along with baptism and Lord's Supper.

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And that means of grace is plainly what is being shoved aside in purpose of the woke agenda.

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So the woke agenda seems to do whatever it's doing, which I think is only harm, nothing good.

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But whatever it's doing is actually supplanting the authoritative Word of Christ for people's salvation and well -being in this life, this side of heaven too.

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Probably a person that you have talked about with your listeners in some of your podcasts is, for instance,

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Ibrahim Kendi. Now, Ibrahim Kendi is a fairly outspoken liberation theology person.

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Your folks listening to us right now can look him up on YouTube or online after a while.

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I think with the name Kendi, that will probably come up pretty easily, K -E -N -D -I,

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I think, Ibrahim Kendi. And he is outspoken in saying that it's not only a bad idea, but it's wrong for the church to teach what he calls

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Savior theology, to be looking to reach sinners with the salvation that comes only through Christ for this life and for the next.

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And he insists that that's evil. What must be done instead, he says, is that you have to teach liberation, or he calls it sometimes

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Black liberation theology, in which we take the power of this world, political power, and seek to address all sorts of privilege or all sorts of oppression with worldly means.

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Ibrahim Kendi, alas, has been promoted and taught in a new institution, relatively new institution at my university called the

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Black Student Union, the only student union set up on the basis of a racial divide.

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And Kendi's work has been promoted there. This is just beyond the pale. So the combination of very questionable, even wrong things being taught by some professors here and there to my students, the drive for a woke president by the executive board, or at least the majority of our board of regents, and then

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I think what is kind of obviously a woke reaction to my pointing this out pastorally and intellectually by my interim administration to cancel me, that's the main thing.

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So the theological issue is the centerpiece. It just so happens I've been caught in the backwash of some of this too with my suspension.

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So we can talk about the suspension if you want. I'm a little bit more interested, well, a lot more interested in talking about the theological problems, but whichever direction you'd like to lead,

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John, I'm glad to follow. Yeah, we can, I would like to spend more time on the theological problems. I think though what a lot of Lutherans who might be listening are, what's going to attract them to listening, what's going to gain the hearing is the situation itself and that, because that is evidence for a shift that's going on.

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So how, if you don't mind, how did you get from you wrote an article to you're now locked out of your classroom?

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Right. Well, I guess in our woke society nobody's going to be surprised to hear the rough outline of this, but so the article

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I just outlined and explained a bit was published on Tuesday. Then on,

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I think, Friday of that week, it turned out that the interim president for the university was sending emails to me during my afternoon classes.

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Now, along with everybody else at my university right now, kind of COVID and post -COVID, we in theology and philosophy have a pretty heavy teaching load.

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So I'm not looking for any pity here. I love the teaching. I happen to be teaching three classes Friday afternoon, and the president started apparently emailing me during the first of the three classes

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I had, telling me I had to meet with him soon. When I was in between classes,

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I was actually looking for a student that didn't show up on the Zoom link for a class.

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I thought something bad may have happened to her, just wanted to follow up. I saw an email from the president that asked for this meeting.

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It looked kind of urgent, and I basically replied that I just couldn't attend because I was teaching all afternoon.

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I had office hours for one of my periods, and then I usually have students asking for time after class, of course.

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So what I suggested to him in a real quick email of my own was that we could meet first thing Monday. I'd clear out my schedule in the morning when

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I didn't teach. That would be the next school day. And I also noticed that he had mentioned what sounded like there were going to be other people present for this meeting also, and I said

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I'd also surmise it has to do with the article that was just published. So I would also respectfully ask but also insist that at least my department chair and faculty chair would be there with me in that Monday meeting.

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So I was back to work after that, a couple more classes and student advising. And then ultimately, when

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I did a quick check of things as I was ready to leave at 430, I think there was an email there that indicated there was no excuse for not attending the meeting and so forth.

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Well, that was the end of the day. So Saturday morning, before heading off for some of the youth sports with the grandkids,

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I wanted to check in just to see how a few students were doing and found out that I was completely locked out of the university system.

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The email and Panopto, you know, and everything, the whole works.

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It took until later in the day till I finally managed to get a hold of my department chair.

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We're also friends, so it wasn't hard to call him. But he told me he didn't know anything either, except that he had been told

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Friday afternoon that I was suspended and that he would have to fill all of my classes indefinitely.

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Over the weekend then, I'd like to think I'm not terribly naive, but over the weekend then, realizing that things were afoot,

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I applied to, we have a group here in Wisconsin, a rather fine group of lawyers called the

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Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. I knew that they had defended a

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Marquette professor from being fired by that, at the Catholic University for free speech issues.

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And so I applied online and heard back almost right away that they were considering taking up my case.

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Quick fast forward here. It took until, I think it was Monday or Tuesday of that following week before my lawyer now, the

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Will, took on my case pro bono, for which I'm very grateful. They took this on and it was only because my lawyer requested the memorandum or the documentation of why

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I had been suspended that I even saw that. So I think it took until late Monday or Tuesday to get that.

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And I've been on suspension since. Wow. So your schedule's more clear,

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I'm assuming, silver linings. Thank you for being so detailed with that.

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That was, that's kind of shocking that you can publish something on Tuesday and by Friday without any discussion, you're locked out of your classes.

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What's the status now? I mean, is there any movement towards a rectification of this at all?

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Yeah, well, thanks for asking. So I think that, again, the very short version here, and feel free to ask more if you're interested, but because I'm a pastor and because this is a church -owned university, that meant that a district president and then ultimately more of the leadership of the church body became involved.

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There was an effort to do something that's called the reconciliation process. May I just say this was ill -founded from the start.

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This reconciliation thing, it's probably going on at other churches and denominations too, I'm thinking, assumes that two parties in some sort of dispute are both at fault.

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This is not the sort of thing that you should be using to address an accusation of doctrinal malpractice, which is in effect what

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I'm alleging about the university. So let's talk in terms of scripture passages for that.

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And I think this will be clear to your listeners. So in the normal hubbub of living our lives according to Christ, we know that when somebody sins against somebody else, we should think about Matthew 18, right?

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We should think about talking with your brother. If you win him back, that's a good thing. If not, take a long two or three and so forth.

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But when you have the case, as St. Paul says when he's writing to Timothy, of an elder who sins publicly, and I would take that to be that's what's going on with the administration, and that's what's going on with at least the majority of our board of regents.

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This, I call it educational heresy of wokeism, is a very serious doctrinal matter.

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I mean, it's about as serious as it gets, I think. The pertinent passage then would be from 1

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Timothy 5, if an elder sins publicly, he should be rebuked publicly.

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And so it's a little hard to find humor in all of this, but here's a bit.

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So in the memorandum explaining why I've been suspended and threatened with termination if I don't do what

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I'm told, that memorandum actually says that I need to, quote, recant, end quote, of the article that I published about woke dysphoria at Concordia.

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Now, I'm thinking that this is a little bit more pan -Christian, right? But certainly I can report that for a

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Lutheran pastor. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. So this is making it sound like the diet it warms, which

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I think it may be. I think it may be. So, you know,

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Luther said, unless I'm shown on the basis of clear scripture, I cannot and will not recant.

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And that's, of course, my response. I've submitted this publicly so that other pastors and theologians, of which there aren't any in the administration, really, that they're welcome to correct me according to scripture.

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And I've put the article out there. I've put myself out there in various interviews like this, and I remain willing to talk.

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But I don't think that's going to be forthcoming because I don't think I'm wrong. I don't think I'm being unscriptural at all.

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I think this woke -ism is an attack on Christ and the gospel. So just one more mention.

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You almost want to hold up a crucifix when you say it. But one more reference to Kendi. If your listeners do look him up online, it's quite likely they'll find the three -minute

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YouTube video where Kendi is standing, or sitting, rather, in the front of a church.

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It appears to be a church, though there's no altar or anything there. And on the wall are the words of Matthew 28.

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Engraved on the wall, it appears, where Jesus is saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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And Kendi, all the while, is saying, we do not want to have a theology that teaches about a savior.

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We want to have a liberation theology, you see. Yeah, the irony.

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It's interesting. This is happening in every denomination, it seems.

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And Kendi's book was actually promoted from the stage of one of the guys running for presidency of the

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Southern Baptist Convention this year, Willie Rice. So when you said that, I immediately thought, well, yeah, that's the same ideology that is infiltrating just about everywhere.

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And not just him, but so many others. And so I want to ask you, you made a serious charge here.

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This is against Christ. It's against the gospel. I want you to flesh that out. But I also want to ask you first about the reason you're going on podcasts like myself.

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And I mean, I invited you, but you accepted. And that's really rare.

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I can think of, I can count it on one hand, right? The amount of the professors

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I know from evangelical and Christian institutions that have had the guts to actually talk about what's actually going on.

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In my experience, it's been a lot of professors who are upset about the changes.

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They complain about it in private, but they're never going to challenge their administration. And it's been,

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I'll be just quite honest with you, on a personal level, it's been very frustrating for me seeing men that I respect sometimes even, but then they fall in line when the administration wants to go in sometimes horrific directions.

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Why did you decide you're going to be different and you're going to have the bravery to talk about this?

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What are you hoping to accomplish by that? Well, let's see,

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John. First, I'm not sure about the notion of bravery or of deciding to be brave.

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So I'm a professor. And then the question is, if you're a professor, what exactly do you profess?

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Now, I do have qualifications in theology. I teach theology stuff regularly at one of our seminaries for their

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PhD program, but I'm teaching mostly philosophy. And I don't see how

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I can teach what I do and not profess the truth of Christ as clearly and as frequently as possible.

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So let me just jump back to a pagan example, surprise for a second, and then come back into our

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Lord's Church, right? So the pagan example is Socrates. One of my friends with whom

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I have a, this is Brian Wolfe Miller down from Austin, Texas. One of my friends that, where he and I have been doing a number of podcasts together to get the word out about some of the other work that I'm doing, we were just talking and we were taking the chance to, you know, share prayers for each other.

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And I said, Brian, you'll never guess what I was teaching when I was yanked out of the classroom. And he said, oh, well,

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I don't know. I was teaching Socrates trial. So, you know, so we had spent,

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I think it was three valuable class days in this core course on Western thought and worldview.

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And I had, we had just gone pretty much verbatim through the accusations against Socrates. And we admired

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Socrates' integrity in saying that the city would have to kill him because he was not going to stop teaching the young people to pursue the truth, right?

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And then I had talked about a couple examples of outspoken Christians from the 20th century.

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I think very highly, not of his theology, may I say, but of his civic leadership.

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When I look at Dr. Martin Luther King's writings on natural law and civil disobedience.

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So I use him as an example for natural law. May I say again, not for his Christology or anything, but I do admire

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer a great deal from the horror of the Nazis during World War II, a

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Lutheran pastor who paid with his life for looking after his Jewish neighbors and not stopping preaching

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Christ. So I had just talked about them in class and then the next day I'm not there.

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Wow. Yeah. So it's, I want to say it's just what we do.

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I also am, I hope not putting on airs, but straightforwardly.

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So I'm not a, not a young professor. My wife and I are in, you know, in our, we banned the term in our household, but our mature years, we weren't going to use that M word anymore.

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You know, the kids are well on their way and the grandkids are well on their way. And we're, you know, in that situation.

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I've also been in the ministry just about 40 years. My 40th anniversary is coming up this summer. So I want to say, this is just what

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I was trained for. I think the people in the seminaries and the church bodies that gave me the background that I'm blessed to have would be right to expect me to stand up.

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And most of all, most of all, you and I know what, what our

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Lord has done for us. And we remember along with all of that, that grace alone, gift of salvation.

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We remember how he has said all of the, all of the terrible things that ought to happen to anybody who causes one of these little ones who believe in him to stumble.

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This is, this is the line. You can talk, as far as I'm concerned, you can talk until you're blue in the face about this stuff at some upper tier university.

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You can write papers about it if you want to. But if you're going to be teaching the next generation, this sort of nonsense and be deleting

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Christ in order to do that, this cannot continue. So when you were talking about things in the seminary that you're familiar with, or when

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I'm thinking about the presidential search at my place, I say, Lord, have mercy. And then

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I say, Lord, what do you want me to do to forestall this? What's my place on the line?

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And we all feel that way, don't we? I'd like to think that more people are going to take their place at the line.

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This really, I've characterized it this way in print too. This is Thermopylae for my university.

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And my university happens to be the major university for our entire

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Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. If we're not willing to stand the line against this social injustice and woke nonsense and champion

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Christ and his word among us, I suppose we don't deserve to continue. But I still would say, what about the young people?

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What about my students? And by the way, have you noticed this among your friends?

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I have a lot of former students and friends, and by the way, family who have gone to homeschooling because they know they can't trust their kids to Caesar in the classroom.

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And what about these folks who are counting on us at least to hold the line in our

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Christian colleges and universities so that their sons and daughters, whom they've kept safe and brought up in the nurture and admonition of the

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Lord, will have a place of higher education to go to where their faith will be cultivated, not squelched.

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That is a worthy cause and well stated. What about this issue, the theological issues, which

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I know you've been wanting to get to? Yeah. You call this an attack on Christ and the gospel.

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That's a strong charge. So would you just flesh that out? What do you mean by that? Well, sure.

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So this may be the last time I do this. I know we were talking about being sure that this was a conversation that folks in the pew, rank and file people could feel a part of.

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So I'm just going to mention that Kendi business once more. Most of us sitting in church on Sunday would not like to think that this sort of stuff is going on, or we'd like to say it's pretty fringe stuff.

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Maybe it happens at Harvard or Yale, but not at our Christian institutions.

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But this is exactly what's going on. So when Kendi is saying we promote liberation theology and we call evil

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Savior theology, that is the supplanting of Christ. It's certainly also the case then that at a university that supports the teaching of somebody like Kendi, bad things are going on.

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And if you add to that, that we're in this transition to a new president and the majority, the executive committee, whatever of the board of regents is pushing for a woke president, this is counter the gospel.

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This is not just mission drift. This is an abandoning of the mission at the particular time when, now

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I talked about my students and I talked about students coming up from the church, but we've got obligations to our larger culture as well, don't we, with our

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Christian institutions. We are to be offering the alternative, which is actually

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Christ and the creator on whom, let's not miss this, on whom the founding proposition of the

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United States of America rests. We hold these truths to be self -evident that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

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And we notice, we notice that equity is a supplantation of God in that article of the declaration.

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So we are letting people down right and left inside the church and outside the church by this kind of move.

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But it's just untenable. How can you have a

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Lutheran institution, I would say, or how can you have a Christian institution that does not put

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Christ and his authority and his word first and foremost in everything they're teaching and every student group that they have, and for goodness sakes, better be first and foremost in the heart and mind of the institutional leadership as well.

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Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. This is a book I wrote not too long ago about Christianity and social justice, which is riffing off of Jay Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism.

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And my whole argument is that this is a religion. This isn't a political movement alone. And it does subvert

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Christian understanding of revelation with standpoint epistemology and the metaphysics, flatten everything into oppressor or oppressed.

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And of course, there's the overturning of Christian ethics, the supplantation of the with this gospel of equity, inclusion, diversity.

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The thing I wanted to ask you, though, and so Kendi's an obvious, right? Kendi, we can look at and be like,

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OK, this guy's obvious. What about people who are more well -meaning, let's say, and they know how to speak the language of Lutherans?

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And perhaps it could even be a pastor in a Lutheran church or a Sunday school teacher or someone like that.

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And they're not going to go as far as what Kendi said, but they are going to use language like equity, inclusion, diversity.

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They are going to have a quota in mind that would be true justice for a theological library or an elder board.

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I'm not sure exactly how it works in Lutheranism, but leadership there. Or they just think because of historical discrimination, we need to do something now to rectify situations or make up for things that have happened in the past.

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And it sounds so good, I think, to people in the pew at first. It seems very innocent. What would you say?

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And maybe you have examples in your mind. I don't know. But to someone who wouldn't go as far as what Kendi said, but they're trending that direction.

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Sure. Well, I have a couple of things to say. The first is that I think

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I'd like to offer a word to the parish pastors and the folks in the congregations out there. I am surely not the only one, but I guess

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I'll pull rank a little bit. I think I know what I'm talking about. I've got degrees to indicate that I've looked at things pretty carefully and decades of teaching.

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You can check with my students and everybody. You are not fooling any of us,

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I'd like to say to those people out there who are doing this. We are fully aware that the only reason that you're getting away with this or feel you can get away with it is because you don't think that the rest of us are looking.

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We are looking. We are reading our Bibles. I realize that this whole business is catching the church,

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I think, by and large, in a period of illiteracy. I think many places that I go,

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I find that people who know they should be reading their Bibles have not been reading their Bibles faithfully for quite a while.

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I'm also aware that there are a lot of pastors who are not reading their Bibles except to check out necessary proof passages and so forth.

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And I teach about that. But here's the thing, I think your folks, regardless of denominations, can look at that paper that I wrote.

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It's posted on Christian News still. And see for yourself, just compare the passages with what

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I'm noting about what's going on with the die business, the diversity, the inclusion, and the equity stuff, and just begin to see for yourself.

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The second thing is, let's talk some very definite scripture, shall we? So, Colossians.

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Colossians happens to be the book that we made kind of our official book for teaching that course

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I mentioned before. So, our philosophy department owns this core course on Western thought and worldview.

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And we insist that our students read the entire book of Paul's letter to the Colossians a few times during the semester.

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There's a major essay on it. Colossians 2 verses 8 and 9, right?

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See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy that depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ, for in Christ dwells all the fullness of the deity and bodily form.

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Now, I would just hand that to every one of your listeners to use that as the litmus test for what a pastor or a board of elders or somebody next to you in the pew is trying to pull.

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Now, what St. Paul is doing there is he's quite plainly saying there is good philosophy and there is bad philosophy.

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The bad philosophy, which takes people captive, is hollow and deceptive. And you can tell it because it's based on human tradition, only what people are coming up with, and the stoikia, that's his

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Greek word, the ABCs of this world. That's what we're seeing in wokeism.

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There's nothing good about it, nothing noble about it, nothing intelligible about it, but it certainly is a merely human invention.

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And it's just based on stuff that anybody should, well, worldly stuff, not on Christ, not on Christ, who is

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God and man in one person. Now, here's one other thing. The word philosophy, even though our philosophy department is using that book for our introductory classes, philosophy in ancient as in medieval times does not mean just a department at a university.

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It means all learning. Right? So philosophy has the original meaning there, which we would call today higher learning,

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I suppose, but we would also call education generally. So any education that is not based on Christ, who is

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God in the flesh, as a matter of fact, is hollow and deceptive, and it does not deserve our time or our support.

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It should not be brought inside the church because it's anti -church, and it has no place,

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I would say, at any university, but certainly no place at a university dedicated to Christ.

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Now, that's what's important. Yeah, and that's great to bring scripture into it and a good scripture for us to memorize on this.

36:29

One of the objections I've heard to this, and I just want to prepare the listeners out there who might hear this, is that critical race theory or any of these iterations of social justice, they're very much like the

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Pythagorean theorem or some mathematical or you were teaching on platonic thought.

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So it's like bringing platonic thought in. I mean, there's some truth we can glean from this. All truth is God's truth.

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We can plunder the Egyptians and bring in their stuff if it's valuable.

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What would you say to that objection? Yeah, I don't see any truth in CRT at all.

37:13

So I teach philosophy, so you would have a right to expect me being able to track through the genesis of ideas and then explain what's going on.

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So I know you didn't sign on for a philosophy class this afternoon, so we won't do that, but I'll just make a quick allusion here.

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So critical race theory is based on mythology.

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It's not actually based on anything historical or anything true, anything scientifically verifiable.

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It's based on mythology. This traces back in Western thought about two centuries to the time of Hegel.

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Now, during the European Enlightenment, Kant's time, about a little bit before 1800, we know that the

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Enlightenment project, this is the European Enlightenment, was to get God out of everything. After Kant, Hegel comes on the scene, and Hegel's monumentally complex and ambitious philosophy turns out to be based, as J.

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Glenn Gray, a very important commentator on him, says, based on mythology. So Hegel, as a matter of fact, picks up familiar biblical terminology, words like spirit and holy ghost and so forth, and he refashions those to talk about merely human stuff.

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Hegel is the prime example in modernity of somebody who does things according to human tradition and the

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ABCs of this world only. He hands that on, and Marx, if there's anything original in Marx except for his violence, it's the way he relabels

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Hegel to have not a clash of ideas or worldviews, but to have the clash of classes in society.

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Now consider this. In wokeism or social justice, there is a very careful leaving out of two ways to approach human beings.

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The individual is utterly ignored, and humanity as the human race is utterly discounted.

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But in between the groups that are set against each other, just like Marx did it with the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, you know, the workers and the owners, what's set in the middle there are fictional groups, racial groups, sexual identity groups, groups that have nothing to do with the infinite worth of the individual as established by Jesus in his death on the cross for all or his incarnation.

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And speaking of his incarnation, that's the main race identifier, isn't it? God did not take on a spirit to save the angels.

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He did not take on attributes of any of his other creation. He took on human flesh and blood and soul to save us.

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It's very noteworthy that the categories of Scripture, the individual and the race, right, the human race, those are utterly ignored by Harvard and everybody else toying around with this.

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And in between is a bunch of mythology made up little groups. It's happening today in the news, isn't it, as we're doing this interview.

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The president of the United States is expressing his support for therapy and for surgical alteration of underage children who don't think they are the sex that they are biologically.

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This is mythology, to put it mildly. People are describing it as madness, but I think it's about time we used the right term.

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It's demonic. This is exactly the rage that you would expect from Satan against God's good and redeemed creation.

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That's what's going on here. And as I say, it's not based on history, it's based on Marxist mythology.

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So at the bottom of this whole movement is an assumption that, or a foundation that is, it only exists within the minds of the architects of it, then.

41:40

It doesn't actually correspond to the real world. Is that what I hear you saying?

41:46

Well, yeah. Now, so if you haven't figured this out from my talking so far, John, I am a little bit of a contrarian by training.

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My wife thinks it's by personality, but I don't like to give ground, and I'm not going to do it on this issue.

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I don't think there is any foundation for woke -ism or social justice. There is an appetite for anarchy, but there is no foundation.

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There's no rational foundation. There's no emotional foundation. There's nothing but manipulation and chaos.

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And that's why I say it's of demonic character. The opposition to God's good creation and to God himself as the creator would be chaos, right?

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It's eternal revolution. That would describe Satan, right? For all the fact that he's utterly defeated by Calvary already, he still does not give up.

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And I read a definition of demonic a while ago. I think it was in a

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January First Things article where the author, I'm sorry, I can't remember his or her name, where the author said, well, if you can see something that bears all the marks of the work of Satan, but you can't identify what it's based on or where it's coming from, that's when you need to use the word demonic.

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So I think that's exactly what we're looking at. How can anybody, anybody of goodwill or human compassion deny that with that declaration of the

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White House today, that we are not living under the influence of demonic world views and demonic engines?

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This is just appalling, but we are not defenseless. We have

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Christ and his word. So my objection is to the substituting of this alien demonic worldview and anti -theology, the substitution of that for the clear, saving, loving, healing word of God.

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This must not happen. It must not be allowed to take place, certainly in the church.

44:00

Amen. That was well stated. And that's, and I will concede your lack of concession.

44:09

And then that, excuse me, that also, that also follows that I didn't say it directly, but there can be no compromise.

44:16

What does light have in common with darkness? Right. And an interesting spot that your viewers might find to read is actually to look at Dietrich Bonhoeffer's unfinished book,

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Ethics. Unfinished because he was too busy living out his love and obedience to Christ, and he was martyred by the

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Nazis. So he couldn't finish this book. But he actually says in there that when

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Jesus says, whoever is not with me is against me, that the

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Lord is speaking, especially to Christians during time of persecution and societal or cultural collapse.

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If we will not speak for Christ in these times, it is quite plain that we are not for Christ.

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Now, as long as we have breath and the word of God is available to us, that's a call for repentance. But if you will not have

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Christ, get out of the way, I say. You have no business being in a pulpit or a

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Christian classroom or a university like mine. We want you to repent, but if you won't, it's quite late.

45:22

Get out of the way. We have a gospel to bring. We have comfort. We have the rest himself in the person of Jesus to bring to suffering souls in the whole world.

45:34

We've got work to do. Stop distracting. I'd like to hear just only a few moments.

45:41

We don't have to spend a lot on it, but just your assessment in general for Lutherans who might be listening or watching on the

45:47

Missouri Synod, and I'm very unfamiliar with this. We did talk to David Ramirez a little bit about this a few weeks ago, but you're in classrooms.

45:59

You're seeing what's happening on that level, especially in the young people who are coming in. Are they affected by this?

46:05

Do you see changes as a result of the social justice movement? Well, thanks.

46:12

So in a sense, the jury is out on our situation right now church -wise.

46:17

So in something that I know David and I and quite a few of my brother pastors are very happy about, the president of our church body actually determined to visit

46:30

Concordia University, Wisconsin with an investigation team to interview and to check out everything you and I have been talking about here, and they were on campus for three days last week.

46:45

So they have also, I understand, either are visiting or have decided to visit

46:51

Concordia University in Ann Arbor, which is tightly affiliated with my university in Mequon, Wisconsin, where similar things are going on.

47:02

And I understand too that they also are planning to visit

47:08

Concordia in Austin, Texas, whose board has recently determined that they're going to try to cut ties with the

47:16

Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. So our leadership, bless them. Our leadership, it remains to be seen what they're going to be done.

47:23

Of course, we're praying mightily for them, and we're not putting all our eggs in their basket. This is a, I'm going to say this is a populist movement too, as you may have gathered from online.

47:34

But I think it is a great thing. And we wish President Harrison and those folks Godspeed in that work.

47:41

So they're doing something about it. Our Concordia University system, which has oversight of all the

47:47

Concordias, has provided leaders for that visiting team as well.

47:53

And I understand that they are just as concerned and as involved as can possibly be right now.

47:59

So that's a good thing. So that's just a kind of a quick temperature check of our church right now,

48:06

I think. What can people in the pews do if they're concerned about this? What do you suggest? Yeah, thanks.

48:13

So it's a little hard to say something like contact the administration at my university.

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I know that I can see that. I know that thousands of people have.

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I've been copied on and there's information for this, but it is the character of woke leadership, which probably shouldn't be called leadership in my view, but let's go ahead anyhow.

48:42

It's the characteristic of woke leadership not to enter into conversation. There are not actually very many replies to those of us who raise these issues that are ever made.

48:56

I spent the better part of six months trying to talk with our board of regents offering to take people out for a working lunch or common debate and not even an acknowledgement to my various open letters.

49:10

So that's difficult. Let's not neglect prayer, but I also think it's a time for us in our

49:19

Lutheran congregations to talk with our pastors and our leaders of various groups. So for instance,

49:25

I've been encouraging our homeschool parents. I think it's especially the homeschool moms, but I don't want to leave the dads out.

49:34

For reasons I mentioned before, I think they should deluge the university with their expectation that this is going to get cleaned up or they're never going to see their kids.

49:45

And then we've got alumni who are putting their names on the line, being willing to explain what they've seen going on too.

49:54

But people in the congregations have to take an interest in this. And I suggested before, it's actually not just an in -house matter, though it is that, but we have responsibilities in our civilization such as it is right now.

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And if we Lutherans who have seen ourselves as mostly responsible for education since the

50:19

Reformation, that's a big thing for us. If we are not going to step up to the plate right here and now, or to mix my metaphors, if we're not going to take our place on the line at Thermopylae against this woke foolishness and harm,

50:36

I think we'll have to account to the Lord for that. Yeah, well, these have been sobering words and important words, and I want people to continue to follow you.

50:47

And you were mentioning before, this isn't even the topic you're the most passionate about or most of your work has been on the problem of suffering.

50:57

But if people want to find out more about your work, they can go to LutheranPhilosopher .com,

51:04

LutheranPhilosopher .com. And I'll put some of these links in the info section if you're listening. Is there a way to contact you there at all?

51:12

Thanks, John. Well, I don't know how much I can manage this faithfully by myself, but I think

51:20

Lutheran Philosopher .com may be the best place to check. And also, if folks want to do just a little bit of searching, if you don't mind my mentioning another podcaster,

51:31

Brian Wolfmiller, that's Pastor Brian Wolfmiller, has a YouTube channel. He and I have had regular conversations about the need to teach people how to suffer and die in Christ with his word, his

51:43

Psalms of Lament. You can kind of catch up to me there. And Issues Etc.

51:50

is a fairly official voice for our church body. I've been up on there, and you can get in contact with me through them, too.

51:58

So maybe that'll help. Excellent. All right. We'll go to the info section if you want more on Professor Scholz and what he's been up to and to get updates and all of that.

52:10

Let's pray. Let's pray for Professor Scholz. Pray for the Missouri Synod and then just for the church at large and not neglect that.

52:18

And I think what you said earlier about knowing our Bibles is 100 % true. I've been thinking about this quite a bit myself, especially in reading through scripture.

52:27

I had the thought none of this would ever take root if people just were in the word.

52:34

It's such a different understanding of reality you have when you read the word of God as opposed to the social justice movement.

52:41

So anyway, I appreciate you coming on and talking to us about this, taking some of your valuable time and giving it to us.

52:48

God bless you. And thank you once again. Oh, well, John, it's been a blessing to me, too. Thanks so much for the interest.

52:55

And may our Lord be with all of us. And taking that word very seriously is mission critical right now.

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So let's all be praying that our Lord's name be hallowed and his kingdom come among us. All right.