Who's Funding the Evangelical Social Justice Movement?

Hello again, and welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm John Harris, and I'm joined today with Judd Saul, who is a director. Hi, Judd. Nice to have you.

Glad to be here.

The Film Project and the Infiltration of Social Justice into Churches

And Judd, why don't you tell us a little bit about the project you're working on right now, Enemies Within the Church. Give us the 30-second synopsis.

Okay, we are working on a film called Enemies Within the Church. And what our focus is, is essentially the infiltration by the left into our churches, seminaries, and parachurch organizations. And the film is going to expose and name the names of those who are advocating for a non-Christian left-wing agenda, but also taking the money to look the other way.

And on top of that, we're also going to take a look at a historical look from the American churches, how we got to this point. Where did we go wrong? Where did we start going wrong? And what are things we can do to correct the error and get us back on the right trajectory?

Well, that sounds excellent. I want to tell our audience a little bit about how God works, how I met you about a month ago at the Social Justice and the Gospel Conference, because a lot of us are still suffering from whiplash over how fast the social justice movement has infiltrated evangelical organizations.

And I put out a video about a month ago on my experience at a prominent Southern Baptist seminary. I had no clue that there was this conference on social justice going on the next week, but I'm on the phone with you that night, never talked to you before.

You're telling me about the movie, and you invited me to come down. And I come down there and because my video had gone viral, I guess, in the evangelical reformed world, if you want to call it that, a lot of the speakers recognized who I was.

And I was able to make some connections for you guys, which I just, I never thought four days before that I would have ever been doing that. I didn't even know any of these guys, but I think the Lord worked that out.

And we've talked since then, you've told me, you've educated me on some things that I just was not aware of. And one of those things I want to talk about today, and that's the funding aspect of this. I know the film is going to be focused on more than just funding.

Yes.

Funding the Social Justice Movement Through Christian Foundations

But in order to understand what's going on, we do need to draw some lines. And just two things I want to say about that before we really get into that. Number one is I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so to speak, and I don't want to give people the impression that we're conspiracy theorists in the sense that we don't have evidence to back up what we're talking about.

And you have more evidence than I do. I just know a little bit. But if there's an actual line that we can draw and we can say, look, George Soros is funding this, or some left-wing group is funding this in a Christian institution, then we should probably let people know about that.

That's not a good thing, obviously. So that's the first thing I wanted to say. And then the second thing I wanted to say is I do think this is a battle of ideas primarily, and that's where we need to keep most of the battle.

But that doesn't mean we should ignore who's funding what, because a lot of the ideas being propagated are being propped up. They're being given a shot in the arm from outside organizations and the money that comes.

From them.

So why don't you tell me, list a few. You don't have to list everything, but give me a few organizations that are funding seminaries, Bible colleges, Christian institutions that we should be aware of.

Well, one of the biggest ones that we've discovered that we can tie direct money and direct results to is a foundation called the Kern Family Foundation. That's K-E-R-N. And what we've discovered is somewhere to the tune of $40 million has been doled out to this movement so far, and we can attribute it directly towards conservative seminaries.

These are not liberal seminaries. These are not typical liberal theology seminaries. These are going after conservative seminaries, such as the Southern Baptist seminaries, the Presbyterian seminaries, and so on.

And what we can find is a direct correlation between grants received and immediately following those grants are social justice programs being implemented in these seminaries.

Yeah.

Can you give an example, maybe a specific example out of the hat of one of those?

A prime example, and I'll just put this out there. The Kern Family Foundation recently gave a large grant to the North Greenville University, which is a very conservative seminary in Greenville, South Carolina.

And what happened shortly thereafter, there was a couple of professors that objected to what was going on and said, no, no, no, no, no, no. We do not want to implement these programs. We don't want the gospel coalition coming in with the social justice stuff.

And they actually raised objections. And the next day, their head of their theology department was fired because he objected to.

These things.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

And is this out there on the online?

It's not. It's not out there online just yet, but this particular professor is going to be coming on camera and talking about his experience. And he has, and it's a pretty decent name that many have probably heard of.

Wow.

Okay.

So we're going to be looking forward to hearing more about this. And I'm assuming when you're saying on camera, this is going to be part of the movie that's.

Going to be part of the movie. He is, he has agreed to do an interview with us and discuss what has happened. And unfortunately, this is the case that we're finding in other universities, like Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, for example.

There are a lot of professors that are not happy with the direction this is going and they either told to shut up or get fired. Their entire careers are ruined if they stand up against the social justice movement.

And a lot of them are afraid to come on camera. And I encourage those of you that are watching, contact me, come out and do this because if you don't fight this now, there's nothing else left to, there won't be nothing left of your career to fight for later on anyway.

Yeah.

We're telling people, come out, be bold and take a stand.

Yeah.

And to put a little pause on, we're going to get into this a lot more, but I failed to mention, you all need a chump of change to put it mildly, to do this film. And we're going to be talking about how the social justice side is very well funded.

In fact, from what I've heard, which we'll talk about, they have essentially an endless stream of money coming in, but those who are opposing it, the few that are willing to risk their careers or to take a stand for righteousness here, they don't have money, not much at least.

And you all could use a chump of change. So if any of the viewers who are watching this want to give towards your effort, where can they go?

They can go to our website, www .EnemiesWithinTheChurch .com. That's EnemiesWithinTheChurch .com. And you can donate online if you're not comfortable doing a donation online. We do have a snail mail option available as well.

You can go on the website and find the address to send a check or that kind of donation. But what we are up against, though, literally is billions of dollars being flooded in to this movement. And, you know, our budget's $300 ,000 to do a film that names the names and exposes all this and hopefully it spurs a movement so people can bat it.

And so you have that angle. We have the Kern Family Foundation on the other end. And what the thing that people have to realize is, is that you have the same talking points, the same memos, the same books, the same language coming out of these organizations that is directly correlating and mimicking exactly what the Open Societies Foundation is saying.

Speaking of Open Societies, that's George Soros funded organization, yes. And they are pouring money into the Gospel Coalition, ERLC.

Okay, so this is how it works. So money changes hands. It doesn't go directly from Soros to this, you know, to these entities. What we're finding out is money changes hands about four to five times before it gets to its end source.

Okay.

And what we're also discovering is that some of these Christian foundations that are pushing and funding social justice have all recently, within the past six years, opened up accounts overseas in the Cayman Islands.

Interesting.

So you have to ask yourself this question. Why would a US-based nonprofit, which is already tax exempt, be opening up offshore bank accounts in the Cayman Islands?

That is a good question.

I mean, they're already tax exempt. People are already getting salaries, but why would you set up accounts overseas? And this is a thing that we are digging into and investing heavily right now.

I do not want to give away anything that you want to save for the movie, but can you give maybe one name of a seminary, Bible school, Christian institution that's opened up an offshore account like this, or do you want to save that?

It's not a seminary that's opened up the accounts, but it's the foundations that have.

Oh, I got you now. Okay, so there's foundations that are changing hands. So the Soros money, you're saying there is Soros money, it's changing hands, and these foundations that are Christian now have opened up.

Can you give one name of a Christian foundation that's doing that? Go for it.

The Kern Family Foundation has opened up accounts, and what you see magically is they started off with, they claim they had assets of $500 million.

Right.

Okay.

After the offshore bank account is open, now they're claiming $750 million.

Wow.

Where did the extra $250 million come from?

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're going, okay, this is kind of fishy, like what's happening here? And the Kern Family Foundation is not just a seminary, but they are funding education programs all over the country.

Yeah.

I want to get into them more. I really do. I want to just, like I said, skip over the surface though first and just give a few names. Koch Foundation. I know I had mentioned that to you a while ago. I had seen that the seminary I went to was taking money, not just from Kern, but also from Koch Foundation.

Is that a bad foundation?

You need to keep an eye on the Koch money, Koch money, Koch Foundation because

Yes, keep an eye on the Koch money as well.

Yes. The Koch brothers are not Christian conservatives, okay? They are libertarian at heart. So what you see a lot of money going towards from Koch Foundations and Koch money is more libertarian leaning, but it's actually anti-Christian conservative, their programs and a lot of things they're advocating for.

Yes, they might fund good things in business here and there and do things over here, but as far as having a moral standard and what they fund, far from it. And actually they do fund LGBTQ activities.

Yeah, I was going to say probably anti-social conservative.

Very anti-social conservative and they fund very liberal, socially liberal things.

Okay.

Well, any other names that you want to put out there as far as foundations go before we jump into current family a little more?

I want to hold off because we're still investigating and we're gathering more evidence. So I'm going to hold off on other foundations, but there are others out there. But I'll give an overall view to kind of help people understand what we are up against.

Money that is going towards these movements is coming from places like the Ford Family Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the Tides Foundation. Every major American institutional foundation that has existed has been hijacked by the left and by liberals, and they are using this money to fund these movements.

How the Funding Shift Accelerated After 2012 and 2016

Now, Judd, this is something that I've known about for a long time as far as just in general culture, like business culture. These foundations, of course, are left-leaning, but it was a little bit of a shock to me when I started finding out that some of this money makes its way into Christian institutions.

How long has that been going on? Do you know?

We have seen, from our research, what we have seen is a major influx since about 2012.

Okay.

And since about 2012 is when they really started pouring money in. But now the money, like every year since then, really kicking off in 2014, they put it on steroids, and after 2016, after the election of Trump, now we're seeing everybody flooding it in and doubling down on social justice and these efforts.

Now, I have to explain something. For those, this movie is not about Trump, it's not about Republican, but you have to understand that the left has blamed the election of Donald Trump on white Christian evangelicals.

And they have, I mean, they have said it with their own words, you can find tons of examples of them saying this in the media, that they blame white Christian males for the election of Donald Trump. So they see this as a necessary political evil to destroy.

And so that's why we are seeing the massive ramping up of social justice, LGBTQ rights in the church, and so on and so on and so on. They're throwing money at this like it's nothing.

Right.

Yeah. And again, to reiterate, this is not the main focus of your film. We're going to deal with ideas, but this is a necessary component to understanding why, for those of us who have whiplash, why did this happen so quickly?

How come there's all of a sudden, overnight, it seems like organizations that weren't there before or entities within organizations that weren't there, departments that are committed to social justice, where did they get the money for that?

And so connecting some of these dots will help explain that. So I want to share a little bit about my experience, but I want to weave it into your expertise so well, because it's more than you've done more research than I have on Kern Family and Oikonomia Network, and I guess mostly those two, because that seems to be in my wheelhouse, at least from my experience at seminary.

That's what I've noticed that is behind some of the things that have gone on. So we'll start with Kern. Kern Family Foundation gave, and it's interesting, you said around what, 2012, but it really started going to that was in 14, some of this money.

So if you just go online and I did a search for Kern Family Foundation and the seminary that I went to, Southern Baptist Seminary, in 2013, apparently they get a bunch of money. Since then, I guess there's been more or less other things that I saw.

There's been money coming in through other means, and I don't know how much because they're not necessarily advertising everything, but they funded an integrating of faith and economic conference at the seminary.

So there's conferences. I've been told by students that there's some funding, I guess, for scholarships for students. I'm not sure what the stipulations are, what the strings attached to that are, but they fund that.

They fund, they give a grant, this was in 2013, there's a $200 ,000 grant to do work and economics in academic classes. And through their Oikonomia Network, so Kern Family is funding this network, they're committed to preparing pastors to describe work and the economy in moral and spiritual terms in order to help people live out Christianity full-time in all they do.

And they came up with some classes on the seminary that I was part of, Theology of Culture was one of them, Theology of Vocation, and then Economics, Poverty, and Wealth was another.

One.

And as they had some of the faculty at the school, as Christian University helped write some of the curriculum, and the curriculum was actually designed, this is a quote from the provost, for lay people in our churches.

So they want pastors to take this information back to churches and disseminate it. They also fund, at the school I went to, a project called the Intersect Project, and I'm gonna give more definition to what these things mean, but this was, it's basically a website, and there's articles and blogs and classes you can take on this website.

And so that's quite a bit right there, just for one foundation to be. Now, I've just given sort of a brief run-through, but it sounds all good, right? They're helping people integrate their Christian faith with economics and social life.

Judd Saul, how can you be against integrating our faith with economics? What's wrong with that?

Oh, exactly. It's, you know, you're a terrible person if you dare ask questions to the talking point of the program, but you have to dig deeper. What does that mean? See, what you find out is, is that these programs don't get in.

If they were actually talking about what they wanted to actually do with their end goal, they wouldn't get anywhere into these seminaries and universities. But if you manipulate and change language, which is what these guys are experts at doing, well, then faith in economics means something completely different to them than it does me.

So, would your critique be that when they are integrating their faith with economics, it's not really necessarily all biblical principles that they're integrating. There's other things that are being, maybe secular ideas that are being peppered in with this.

Is that the act?

Okay. Yes.

100 secular ideas. It's not biblical economics. It's what at the end of the day, what it is, is socialism wrapped up in a completely twisting.

Of words.

It's what this ends up being.

For some people, that may sound shocking when they hear that. How can socialism be funded at a seminary or a Christian institution that never before was involved in that? They were conservative. They were anti-socialist.

So, I want to get into oikonomia because I think that might help answer some of these questions. So, the oikonomia network, the word oikonomia just means economy or stewardship, Greek word, and the network is supposed to do what we just talked about, called curricular integration.

So, they have speeches and articles and things that, and curriculum that they want to disseminate at seminaries and beyond, and it's supposed to integrate faith and culture, which is also the Intersect project, which I had mentioned earlier at the seminary that I was at.

It does sound really good. I went to the Intersect website. There's actually a lot of good stuff there. There's also some really not so good things there. It's kind of a mixed bag, and it's the deeper you go into it, it seems like I was finding more and more of the Russell Moore, the Tabidi, the more social justice evangelicals, the deeper I went.

But there's also some really good stuff, and I want to give credit where credit is due. It's not all bad. But the thing that came to my mind is it seems to, this is Intersect, they seem to sort of muddy the waters.

It's just super vague. I'm finding, I was looking at some of the terms they used, and they seem to want to take this middle ground, and they call that the Christian position, that, well, there's conservatives over here, there's liberals over here, and we're just kind of in this Christian middle ground where we don't accept either side.

And this, one of the ones I looked at was an article on Revoice, which is, in the PCA, there was this homosexual, gay-affirming conference, more or less, and they're having another one this year, and there was an article, and the article actually made some good critiques, but it also, it wasn't very strong at all in the critiques it made.

It kind of said, well, they have a point, but they also went too far over here, and we're going to kind of stay in this middle area. And it's the same thing on a lot of their articles. And so, it seems to just, I don't know, it's like nailing Jell-O to a wall.

I'm like, what do they stand for? I don't really get it. How are we integrating our faith and culture? Maybe some of the articles are good. I haven't read all of them. But anyway, that was my perception of it when I looked at it.

When I got into Oikonomia, which is the parent organization that's funding this stuff, or I guess the money's going through them, their organization Kern Funds, that, I saw some of the same things, the muddying of the water, so to speak, with terms, but it was, there was something more that I could kind of, I could grab.

I could sink my teeth into it. And I have a bunch of quotes that I'm ready to go over to talk about, but I want you first, if you have specifics about Oikonomia, I want you to share those first, because you may have more or better information than I do.

Oikonomia Network, Agenda 21, and the Use of Vague Language

Well, to tie it all together, and it's really hard, because if I go to where I want to go, everyone's going to say, well, that's conspiracy theory. That's, you know, what do you, you know, how you go on there, and I have to let everybody know is that, to explain my background, where I come from, okay, I am a Christian conservative political activist.

Okay?

All right?

I don't just have the Christian over here and leave it there, but I'm a Christian conservative political activist, meaning that I have dedicated and spent most of my life in the political realm since 2009.

I have seen and been in many battles and seen how the sausage is made behind closed doors, which is what led me to really get back into filmmaking and get back into my career. So I have to tell everybody what I'm talking about comes from years of research, and the information's out there, and it's very hard to digest if you haven't done the research and been where I've been to explain this.

But I'll go to Oikonomia, or how do you pronounce it?

You know, on the front of the website, they actually gave two pronunciations they said were acceptable. So I say Oikonomia, Oikonomia, but you can

I call it Oikonomia.

That's fine.

Whatever.

Anyway, you have to look at kind of the overall objective, and I mentioned globalism earlier and what all this means. Oikonomia network and what they are saying is virtually identical to what you get from the United Nations version of sustainable development.

And United Nations agenda for the 21st century.

Agenda 21.

Agenda 21, which is agenda for the 21st century. And so when you look at the language of Oikonomia network, you are actually virtually seeing the same blend of language and words and defining of terms identical to what the UN is putting.

Out.

Just wrapped in a Christian veneer and a bit of a faith-based veneer in a few different words. But at the end, the end goal is the same.

Can you give an example of similarity?

Okay, so agenda 21, they actually have a faith-based initiative with agenda 21. And guess what? It's the same words, faith, economics, work, family, development. And it's saying you can have your faith and have it be part of your community and have it be part of this.

But their definition of faith and our definition of faith is different.

Now, when I see agenda 21, this is all free online. You can go to United Nations, download the PDF, see what they want to do. It seems to me, basically, alleviation of poverty and climate change, trying to stop climate change.

So we need to consume less. Businesses need to get in line with this agenda so that they're producing less. And we need to kind of all tighten our belts. I don't know. There's just a little bit of a communitarian spin on it.

But it reads like a utopian-ish plan of some kind.

A very utopian plan, but it always fails to understand the sinful nature of man.

Right.

And that's where the Bible comes into play, and that's where the gospel comes into play. And the whole thing is that, okay, so you said it yourself. You looked at the terms, and it's like they're always taking a mushy middle in all their positions and what they're saying.

They do not want people to stand and hold their ground on biblical truth.

I want to get into one of the articles.

Because that would disrupt faith economics and the harmony.

Okay.

Now, they would never say that. Right now, we're not talking about agenda 21. We're talking about Okinawa Media Network.

Right.

And this is on a number of seminaries, this network, including a number of Southern Baptist ones. But some of the words... Actually, I'm going to reference this. There's a bunch of curriculum out there.

But one of the ones that I had looked into was called The Theology That Works. Theology That Works, which I don't like that name from the beginning. I'm already... What?

Theology Spirit Works.

It's very pragmatic.

But okay.

Theology That Works, Making Disciples Who Practice Fruitful Work and Economic Wisdom in Modern America by Greg Forster. So this is one of their curriculum that they put out there that's presumably being taught at seminaries, Bible colleges or seminars and so forth.

And one of the things it says is that they're not going to use the term free markets or social justice because of their association with political and non-theological issues. Which begs the question in my head.

I thought this was supposed to be integrating politics, economics with biblical truth. So we're not going to use the term free market because that's too political. I'm like, okay, I thought we were integrating.

But okay.

Right, right.

So they don't use those words. But the interesting thing is the words they do use. So it's very mushy. Like if something is wrong, they'll call it a challenge. I kept coming across that as I was reading through different sections.

Well, this is a challenge. A challenge. I almost caught myself. I was going to say free market. They don't call it free market. They said the enterprise system at one point. So one of the challenges to the enterprise system and what follows next is some critique on maybe capitalism.

If something is right, it is good for human flourishing. The word human flourishing. Oh my goodness. The book, every page seems like it has like five references to human flourishing.

Right.

I'm trying to think when have I ever heard this word before? Again, that's only one word. The word service is used a lot. Stewardship is used a lot. But it doesn't seem to have the same biblical definition of stewardship that I'm used to.

It's not a dominion type stewardship. It seems like it's more, it's got a communitarian flair to it. And I can't quite put my finger on it. But I don't know if there's any other words you can think of.

Well, like I said, so you have to look up, okay, what is human flourishing? And you've got to look up human flourishing. And there's actually different definitions to what human flourishing actually is.

Yeah. Very true.

And so in the word challenge, what does the word challenge mean? So what I'm saying is, who is writing this material and how is this developing? Because guess what? These same talking points are happening on the left.

On the left of side things, the same words, the same terms.

Definitely.

And it's funny. It's no coincidence. J .D. Greer, two weeks ago in his sermon on Romans 1, he used the word human flourishing to talk about how God's problem with homosexuality is that it doesn't make for good human flourishing.

And it caught my ear. And I said, what is he talking about? Where is that in scripture?

It's not, but it's in this material that the Oikonomia Network is putting out.

Yeah, so he's getting it. Now, I think he referenced Tim Keller in his draft or whatever, his transcript he put out there.

Tim Keller, Revoice, and the Language of the Middle Ground

So let's talk about Tim Keller for a second.

Okay.

Tim Keller and Greg Forster co-wrote a book together, the guy Greg Forster, who is head of the Oikonomia Network.

Well, there you go.

And Tim Keller and Greg Forster wrote the blueprint together for the Oikonomia Network.

Interesting.

And so, okay, let me just ask your audience this. Where is Tim Keller on the topic of homosexuality right now?

He might be slightly to the left of J .D. Greer.

Well, he is to the left of J .D. Greer because he joined the Living Out Conference in England. And him and his wife actually signed on to an audit for churches to audit themselves of how welcoming they are to the gay community.

Yeah, fascinating. I did not know that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This happened, what is it, happened about six months ago is when he did that. And it was about the same time Revoice was happening. Here in the United States. So the Living Out was in England.

Revoice happened a couple weeks later. And virtually the same talking points and the same things came out of both conferences.

Wow.

Wow.

And Tim Keller keynoted the Living Out Conference out in England. And so what I am saying is, so Keller is an interesting guy because he is running around with all the left-leaning people in all these circles.

And he is actually helping develop a lot of the talking points and material that is coming out. So Tim Keller has a direct influence with the Oikonomia Network. And Tim Keller, for instance, I am just going to target him for a second, is never there to lend a solid 100 stance, biblical stance on any major social issue.

Yeah.

He never draws a line in the sand of what is right and wrong according to the Bible. But he always dances around the issue. And same thing with Russell Moore. Always dances around the issue on all these things.

And that is what you get from the leadership coming out of the Oikonomia Network and these things, is they are never taking a 100 biblical stand, moral stand on what the Bible says. But they muddy it down with words.

Yeah.

And I think I know what you are talking about. Essentially, they are not going to use biblical language, the language that the Bible actually uses to talk about sins such as homosexuality. They are going to try to get around while holding on to biblical truth somehow, or at least maybe pretending.

I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's say that Tim Keller is trying to hold on to biblical truth, but he is squirming every which way he can to try to also please the culture and what the culture wants.

And so it is interesting. I had read Every Good Endeavor. And when I was reading through this booklet by Forster from the Oikonomia Network, there was a lot of similarities I noticed in the language. Now I thought Keller's book was not great at all.

And I don't want to get into a big discussion of that right now. But I thought this Oikonomia book, Theology That Works, it was worse. It was much worse. Because it was just I'll read you a couple of quotes and get your reaction.

So let's start with this one. This is from this book, Theology That Works. Large salaries and bonuses extracted without a productive contribution to serve the needs of others are an increasingly visible evil.

Evil not because they are large, but because they don't arise from serving others. It is the one who works that is the one who serves his or her neighbor, who is worthy of his wages, Luke 10 .7. Now I didn't see a lot of scripture passages in this book.

But here we have one, Luke 10 .7. And it's essentially critiquing corporations that aren't contributing enough. They're giving bonuses and large salaries to corporate executives. What a horrible thing.

And the first thing that came to my head, they're quoting Luke 10 .7 here. The workman is worthy of wages is a good thing. Well, what does Matthew 20 say in the parable of the vineyard? Who is responsible for determining how much money someone receives for their work?