Dr. Voddie Baucham on “Ethnic Gnosticism”

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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February 2, 2012

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00:09: Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
00:15: The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
00:24: Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
00:30: This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll -free across the
00:39: United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is
00:46: James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to the Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon.
00:53: It all started out, of course, well, with the following exchange.
00:58: Let's listen once again to, well, what we've been talking about now for a couple of days and people continue talking about on the
01:07: Internet. Let's listen. God fully described an infinite God. No, no, I can't.
01:13: I have it perfectly figured out. I understand God so well. I have it. I have it all now. Perfectly.
01:19: I mean, doesn't the concept even insult you? Well, we also would agree in the nature of God, there is mystery.
01:26: And it's like a dimmer switch. How much certainty? How much mystery? Thank you. But within that,
01:32: Bishop Jakes, for you, the issue between Trinitarianism and Modalism at its essence is one
01:38: God manifesting himself successively in three ways, or one God, three persons, simultaneously existing eternally.
01:49: So your best understanding now, and I understand there is some mystery for sure, would you say it's one
01:55: God manifesting himself in three ways, or one God in three persons? I believe that neither one of them is totally good for me, but I think the latter one is where I stand today.
02:08: What about three persons? Well, one God, three persons. One God, three persons. And here is why
02:14: I am there. I'm not crazy about the word person, but this is, most people who know me know that that is really, my doctrinal statement is no different from yours, except for the intention of manifesting a person, which you describe as Modalist, and I describe as Pauline.
02:31: When I read, let me show you what I'm saying. When I read 1 Timothy 3, 16,
02:37: I didn't create this Modalist in. And without controversy, because I think we have bickered about something that is what
02:45: Paul describes as a mystery, and I don't think we should do that. And without controversy, great is the mystery of Godliness.
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manifesting, manifesting, manifesting, manifesting, manifesting, manifesting the quietest voices in this situation, and those the loudest voices, in other words the biggest platforms, did not show themselves to be overly insightful as to not only what modalism is and how modalists speak, but making direct application to the
35:39: Christian life, the gospel, the reasons, the importance of why modalism totally undercuts the sacrificial work of Christ and the worship of the church and all the rest of these things, there just doesn't seem to have been to be almost anybody who has a really big platform that has brought that kind of thing to the fore.
36:00: Now you had mentioned specifically though, a lot of people have mentioned to me, let's put it this way, a lot of people mentioned to me that they interpreted some of the things that were said in the interview, especially the first part of the interview, as being directed at pretty well -known individuals.
36:17: That's not really the case, is it? No, I don't think it was. I've actually talked to Brian Luritz about this.
36:27: We talked personally about it and of course he had no way of even knowing about what
36:32: I said because I hadn't said it yet. I hadn't gone public with my part of it so that it definitely wasn't directed toward me.
36:45: His statements weren't really directed towards anyone in particular and he just talked about how he felt about sort of what went on and what was happening.
36:58: He has to speak for himself with that and I'm not here to talk about it. I don't know his motives.
37:03: I can't get there from here. But what
37:08: I am here to address, what I do think is absolutely crucial, is that the body is being divided over this issue and the body is being divided over a man who is one of the most poisonous influences in the church today.
37:28: Now you've been speaking about this for a long time. Help our listeners to understand. Why would you say something like that?
37:34: Because so many people look at him and they see success. They see he's been on the cover of Time magazine for crying out loud.
37:43: Is Time still being published? It might be. I don't know. Who really knows anymore? But here's the very picture of success and prominence and all the rest of this stuff.
37:57: And yet here you're talking about a poisonous influence. Why would that be?
38:05: Two things. One, the issue of the doctrine of the trinity. And I don't mean by that that he's influencing people because he's out there teaching publicly on the trinity.
38:17: There are clips of him teaching on the trinity, but those things are few and far between. He's smart enough to not build his empire on that issue.
38:27: I mean, he knows that. He's smart enough not to do that. You got to go and search for those things he's taught on the trinity.
38:34: But his absolute perversion of the gospel, the word of faith movement, the prosperity gospel, is a poison.
38:42: It is a cancer. It is destroying people. It is absolutely destroying lives.
38:49: It is another gospel. It is to be condemned, and it was not even addressed in this whole process.
38:57: And he is the chief purveyor. I mean, he is the godfather. Again, you know, there's been this sort of meteoric rise of, you know,
39:07: Smile and Joel here in Houston, but T .D. Jakes is the godfather as it relates to, you know, word faith teachers and so on and so forth.
39:18: And it just breaks my heart that this is being allowed and that he has been basically given entree into a whole other layer of evangelicalism.
39:32: Besides that, you know, my wife is from Dallas. I made this point in my blog piece. My wife is from Dallas.
39:38: I have friends in Dallas. I preach in Dallas a lot. No pastors in Dallas, churches in Dallas.
39:45: I have seen firsthand the influence that T .D. Jakes has had over the last decade since he came to Dallas.
39:53: He has not made evangelicalism in Dallas more thoughtful, more theological, more biblical, more gospel -centered.
40:01: That has not been his impact. His impact has been quite the opposite, in fact.
40:08: And yet that was not raised... There really wasn't much of an explanation as to why, but still, even with that, looking at the interview that James McDonald did afterwards, none of these pastors would be pastoring churches that would be friendly toward that type of perspective, would they?
40:33: No. No, I wouldn't say so. Yeah. Again, I don't know these men.
40:40: I know about these men. I know, you know, friends of friends were connected in various ways, but I don't know these men.
40:49: But no, these are not word -of -faith guys. These are not at all.
40:54: But I think, you know, one of the things that we saw, especially in the second video, this emphasis of relationship over truth, of love over truth, again, as though those two can be set against one another.
41:10: You know, 1 Corinthians 13 says, you know, love rejoices in the truth. Without truth, you can't define love.
41:16: You can't define grace without truth. You know, grace doesn't have any meaning without truth. We have to pursue truth.
41:22: We live and die on truth. But that was one thing. But then we saw the fruit of that kind of thinking, which is people who are ignorant about sexist modalism, ignorant or just, you know, don't care about the word -of -faith gospel, who are just celebrating the fact that people were able to sit down together like that is a monumental accomplishment.
41:47: Look, it takes a lot more to refuse to sit down with somebody than it does to sit down with them.
41:54: Yeah, you can pay for that in many, many different ways. Help me to understand if you can, and if it's just beyond where we want to go, just let me know.
42:05: But help me understand, if you can, why we have seen some from the black community listen to what
42:17: Phil Johnson is saying. OK, Phil Johnson is a white middle -aged reformed guy and James White and people like us.
42:28: And they hear us and yet they hear us in a racial sense.
42:34: When it's not anywhere in anything that we said. I mean, you couldn't find anything in what
42:40: I said last Friday about Elephant Room 2 that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be connected to anything racial at all.
42:52: It never once crossed my mind. And yet people are hearing it. What do we do about it?
42:58: What can I do about that if there's anything at all? Listen, I'm tired of this.
43:05: I mean, you and I talked yesterday. I'm tired of this. I do not want to talk about this. I don't want to deal with this.
43:12: I wrote my piece about this. This is not a joy to me. But one of the things now that has come up is there's been a manifestation of what
43:23: I like to call ethnic gnosticism. And ethnic gnosticism basically has one tenet and the tenet is this.
43:32: I'm black and I have a black experience. You're not black and therefore you cannot understand my black experience.
43:40: Now, I can understand your experience because I live in your world. And so, you know,
43:45: I can understand your experience and my experience, but you can't understand my experience. And actually, it's racist if you try to act like you can understand my experience.
43:55: It's gnosticism, OK? It's gnosticism, pure and simple. And so what happens is when we start talking about issues with people of color, it is very easy.
44:10: And again, that's often what we call, you know, playing the race card. It's very easy for me to go back to my blackness, my experience, my upbringing, so on and so forth, as though white people don't have backgrounds and upbringings.
44:27: White modalists are modalists because, you know, they intellectualize their way to it. Black modalists are modalists because it's part of their background and upbringing.
44:35: It amazes me. People are sitting there stunned. It's amazing to hear that Cenk's actually came to this because of his background and his upbringing.
44:44: What else brings people to heresy? But anyway, but it's that kind of ethnic gnosticism.
44:52: And so that's why you have to bring black guys in to have the black guys speak to the issue, to give you cover.
44:59: Because if you buy into ethnic gnosticism, then you admit that you can't speak to these issues because you're not part of the community.
45:11: And I think that does violence to the gospel. Well, not it does violence to the gospel here.
45:17: We're talking about the very nature of God. And again, it's not something that each ethnic group gets to define, though I have to disagree with you about one thing.
45:26: You said you can understand my experience, but I can guarantee you, you've never worn a kilt.
45:38: You know what's really funny about that? You have? I have. Oh, man,
45:44: I had a feeling. I had a feeling. Yeah.
45:49: But you didn't get it in Scotland. And that's the whole irony.
45:57: I think you hit the nail right on the head, because people get away with it. Again, remember those three layers that we talked about earlier, the broader culture and then the issues with black church, white church.
46:09: And again, not my terms, but the terms that we use. And then the division within black church circles of people who are more on the separatist event and other people who are more on the assimilation event.
46:24: When you get to that sense of ethnic gnosticism, it's almost like you're negating the fact that other people have backgrounds.
46:37: And that's a huge problem. And the other thing, of course, is that you reduce the black experience like there's a black culture.
46:46: I mean, I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, California. Drug infested, gang infested, South Central LA, raised by a single teenage
46:54: Buddhist mother. Never heard the gospel to my freshman year in college. My experience was way different than a guy who grew up in Tennessee in a black community, black church, and a guy who grew up in Brooklyn, so on and so forth.
47:14: So there's no such thing as a black experience. But the other side of it is there's no such thing as a white experience.
47:22: But then there's a third truth. The gospel transcends all of that.
47:27: And so our goal ought to be to get to Galatians 328 Christianity.
47:33: That ought to be our goal. That ought to be what we fight for. And I'm talking to you today because unfortunately, you know, this whole ethnic gnosticism puts people in knots.
47:46: And unless there are black people who are speaking to this issue, unfortunately, because of the inroads that this ethnic gnosticism has made, there are people who will be afraid and who won't say anything.
48:00: Okay, if I honestly am colorblind in the church, if that's where I am,
48:08: I am convinced, I'm convicted by the Word of God, I'm convicted by Galatians 328, that's the way it needs to be.
48:13: We're all one, the body of Christ, the same Holy Spirit indwells you that indwells me.
48:19: We read the same scriptures. If that's where I really am, then how can
48:28: I talk to someone? Because you've used this term a couple times, and it, again, is so far outside of my experience.
48:35: But you talk about those who aren't really for assimilation or something. It's almost like, let's stay in our own group.
48:43: And I go, but our group is the church. It's not based upon the color.
48:49: It's not based upon the melanin counts. I mean, really, the guy who died for you and I both wasn't the color of either one of us.
48:59: He was a Palestinian Jew. So what am I supposed to say to someone who looks at me and they say, you shouldn't say anything about T .D.
49:11: Jakes because you're Scottish. And you don't, therefore, you are showing yourself racist if you engage in this.
49:23: Isn't that, is that not sin in the sense of an improper division of the body? I think it is an improper division of the body.
49:30: I mean, you got to go back to Galatians 2 and Ephesians 2. It is absolutely an improper division of the body.
49:37: But let me quickly add a caution here. I am not saying, nor do
49:43: I believe that you are saying, that there's absolutely no merit to the idea that there are different communities within the
49:52: United States, within the diversity of the United States, and that we don't need to be purposeful in the way that we plant churches and reach people within those different contexts.
50:04: And I know you well enough to know that that's the case. But I just want to say that because that's where a lot of people go when you have this discussion.
50:11: Right. But I mean, I'm sure you'd agree with me. I also don't think, I mean, a church in an area that has a primary particular primary ethnic makeup is going to lean toward that for obvious reasons.
50:25: But my concern is specifically creating a church based upon ethnicity.
50:32: I mean, if the Lord brings in people from all over the place and gives you just complete mixed soup, that's great.
50:39: But, you know, I understand that a church in a certain area is going to reflect the ethnicity of the people that are close enough to get to it.
50:46: That makes perfect sense. But what I'm hearing is people saying, no, we don't mind creating an ethnic group whereby we sort of see ourselves.
50:56: It reminds me of Galatians 2 and it reminds me of, you know, Peter going over and sitting with the
51:03: Jews at the table and, well, you know, this is the way we do things. And Paul said, no way, you're not walking straight in accordance with the truth of the gospel.
51:11: Absolutely. And again, that's what I meant in my post about these things being dragged out into the light because they have to, we have to drag these things out into the light.
51:22: And I believe that's incredibly important. And I think part of the difficulty of what we've seen in recent days is a direct result of these things not having been dragged out into the light and a direct result of these things being ignored.
51:41: Because here's one of the things that happens, and this is the great irony. It's almost cult -like.
51:48: On the one hand, you can say to a person, you can't say that because you don't understand the
51:54: Black community and the Black experience. Well, then somebody like myself or Anthony Carter or Khabibianne Willey or Reddit Andrews, you know, somebody like us comes out, you know, and says, oh, actually,
52:06: I agree that there are these problems with T .D. Jacks. Then the immediate response is, well, you're just a sellout.
52:12: You're just Rumble Tom. You're just trying to curry favor with white people. And the bottom line is you're not really
52:18: Black. And so that's what the cults do. If you can't answer my question, it's because you're ignorant.
52:28: If you can answer my question, then I'll find another way around. And that's why
52:34: I say it's ethnic Gnosticism. So what do what do
52:40: I do? You put yourself in my in my shoes. You've already said, look, you've got to do what you're doing.
52:48: You've got to address the issue. But do I have to? I need to be aware of how my words are going to be heard.
52:57: There are only so many filters I can install, though. And so isn't isn't there a need to call anyone who is a fellow conservative
53:10: Christian who happens to be Black? Isn't there a need to be able to say to someone like that?
53:17: You know what? We are all one in the body of Christ. This has nothing to do with my experience or your experience.
53:23: This has to do with our common confession of faith in who Jesus is, what the doctrine of the
53:28: Trinity is, how all this relates to the gospel. Can we set all of that stuff aside? Do I have to make that special effort each time or or do
53:39: I only do that once I start getting a pushback and realize that I'm encountering it?
53:44: Do I just assume the best or do I assume the worst? Which do I do? I think as Christians, we're obligated to assume the best.
53:53: And I think one of the problems when we start trying to have all of these filters and be so incredibly careful is you run into things like we experienced here in Houston on a couple of occasions.
54:05: There was an incident here in our city where during the
54:13: Million Man March when Louis Farrakhan came to town and he was promoting the
54:19: Million Man March, there were a number of Black pastors who hosted him, who stood shoulder to shoulder with him, and again, we're not just talking about modalism here.
54:30: I mean, we're talking about flat out cults. We're talking about somebody that the Muslims think is a cult.
54:36: I mean, you can't get more cultic than that. Exactly. And these guys stood arm in arm.
54:42: And, you know, I'm a Southern Baptist and in a local association at a state convention, nobody called these men out.
54:51: And they didn't call these men out because of all those filters that you're talking about.
54:58: And so associating with a cultic heretic wasn't bad enough for these men to be called out.
55:05: I'll go you one better. One of these men ended up being found out as a homosexual.
55:14: He's still in his church and has never been publicly condemned by the powers that be in white evangelicalism in his circles.
55:27: And another one got arrested for having sex with a minor. And again, the response didn't come.
55:35: So open sin being tolerated in the name of this ethnic gnosticism.
55:45: The filters. It's got to be dragged out into the light. And if people do things that are racist, they need to be called on it because it's sin.
55:56: But if people do things that are, you know, other areas of sin, they need to be called out on that as well.
56:03: And we can't say that because of our fear of being accused of the sin of racism, when that's not our motivation, we'll refuse to call out other things.
56:15: That's just wrong. It's just wrong. And the idea that, you know, the relationship has to be in a certain place before you can call that out.
56:24: That's just not Bible. And it's not loving the brother. If you love someone, you have to confront them in their sin.
56:33: You have to confront them in their error. That's the height of love. We've got about a minute left on the program today.
56:42: What can we do? I mean, as far as I can tell, a vast majority of pulpits are wide open to you.
56:53: I mean, you're much beloved, and it doesn't have anything to do with your ethnicity or anything like that.
57:00: And so clearly, people have seen you hand in hand with well -known, um, especially
57:08: Reformed leaders and things like that. Is it continued cooperation that makes the inroads?
57:15: How can we chip away at this, uh, this ethnic gnosticism? Oh, boy.
57:22: You know what? In 35 seconds. Yeah, exactly. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it is the power of God and the salvation to all those who believe, the
57:34: Jew first and also to the Greek. It is the gospel. The gospel has to be the place where we land.
57:42: That has to be what we fight for. And the one who is my brother is the one who is fighting alongside with me for the cause of Christ and for the cause of the gospel.
57:51: And that has to be more important to me and more significant to me than anything else.
57:57: And I gave up a long time ago being afraid of people, you know, calling me names.
58:03: That's that's par for the course for me. But I love the gospel enough and I love
58:08: Christ enough. And I think when brothers lock arms over that, you don't you don't have to play games of ethnic gnosticism.
58:18: So what you're doing is inviting me to come down and you and I are going to do a joint debate against somebody else.
58:24: Is that what I just understood you to say? I think that'd be great. I think
58:30: I think a two on two debate. We just need to find somebody on the other side would be an awesome way of maybe taking our own swing at the edifice of ethnic gnosticism.
58:41: Dr. Votie Baucom, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope it has been edifying to the people of God, and I hope it will help to close that gap and to promote the gospel around the world.
58:53: I really appreciate you spending time with us today. Hey, man, it's been a joy, man. Thank you. I look forward to getting together with you.
58:59: Thanks a lot, everybody, for listening to The Dividing Line today. We'll be back on Tuesday. We'll see you then.
59:05: God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads.
59:20: Let this wrong innocent flow away. We must contend for the faith above us fought for.
59:27: We need a new reformation day. It's a sign of the times.
59:34: The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm. Won't you lift up your voice?
59:41: Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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