Social Justice Christians Are So Creative! :)

The Sluggard and Creative Excuses to Avoid Work

You know, nothing gets the creative juices flowing better than when you need to, when you're trying to avoid something that you know you should be doing. When you're trying to avoid it, you can get really creative with the excuses as to why you can't do it.

One of my favorite Proverbs, this is a hilarious Proverbs. You know, the Bible, have you ever noticed the Bible has a lot of funny things to say? I've noticed that. The Bible can be very funny at times.

And this is one of my favorite Proverbs. It talks about a lazy person and they call it the sluggard, right? The slothful man. And the slothful man wants to avoid work at all costs. That's his goal in life.

He knows he should be doing some work, but he doesn't want to. And so he has to get real creative about his excuses. And this is the best one. He says, this is the scripture. It says, the sluggard says there's a lion outside.

I'll be killed in the street. That is quite a yarn. There's a lion outside. I cannot work because I will die. This is a matter of life and death. This is a gospel issue. You don't want me to die, do you?

This is a pro-life, I can't work. But anyway, the reason I bring this up is because social justice Christians are extremely creative. They're creative at avoiding discussion. And I made an earlier copy of this video and I was kind of making a few accusations as to why people are avoiding the discussion.

And the reality is I have a few ideas about why people are avoiding this discussion. And I think it's different for different people. I think some people have no courage at all. I think some people don't really believe that the Bible teaches what they're saying.

I think some people are just, they just have too much pride to be cross-examined on anything. They don't want to be challenged and things like that. But there's a variety of different reasons, but I don't know which is which, you know what I mean?

But the reality is you're gonna have to find your courage eventually if we're going to push this conversation forward. That's the reality. Social justice warriors, listen up. Enough with the excuses. Don't be like the sluggard who says there's a lion outside, I can't go out there.

ShepCon, Political Tactics, and Avoiding the Conversation

But I wanted to just kind of give you a little bit of a walkthrough, the different excuses that I hear on a daily basis. And actually yesterday, I heard a lot of these all in one day. And I think that a lot of people, their eyes were open when they saw that panel discussion at ShepCon because it was very clear that Ligon Duncan and Al Mohler did not want to talk about this.

And they use a variety of tactics to avoid talking about this. One of the things that I noticed is that, I mean, maybe you noticed this too, they actually looked more like politicians in debates. You know how politicians, they'll get asked a question that they don't want to answer.

They don't say, hey, I don't want to answer that. Instead, they answer a different question. Instead, they get angry. Instead, they do different tactics to avoid it. And that's what we saw at that ShepConference thing.

And a lot of people have reached out to me and said, you know, Adam, I've been sort of tracking with this social justice stuff, but now that I've seen this panel discussion, I realize I need to take this more seriously.

This is a serious issue. I've never seen Al Mohler like that before. I've never seen Ligon Duncan like that before. I've never seen Sinclair Ferguson so quiet. I mean, honestly, I forgot he was even on the stage at some points because he just didn't say anything.

So I don't know why he didn't say anything, but it's very clear that this issue has got people all twisted up and all worked up. But anyway, let me go to some of these excuses. So honestly, I've many times talked about how I want to have a conversation and I want to talk to people.

And I have had a couple. To be honest, I've had two conversations publicly that are both on YouTube and you can see them. I mean, people say that I'm this mean guy and they don't trust me. But if you look at those conversations, I conducted myself very well.

I mean, there's no anger, there's no snark. I'm not trying to trap people or anything like that. It's just a very straight up conversation. I think both of those went very well for me. I don't think they went quite as well on the social justice side, but that's probably one of the reasons why people won't talk to me.

But anyway, so anyway, so I posted a thread that really, really irked people. Basically, I made the argument that really what's driving the bus for social justice warriors is mostly emotions. And I do believe that.

And I'm not saying that they don't use scripture, but the beliefs aren't coming from scripture. They're not being derived from scripture. Instead, what's going on is they're being derived from somewhere else and then they go hunting for scriptures that seem to potentially support it.

They really don't. But anyway, this guy, Marty Duren, he's a blue check mark, like an official Christian, an official Christian responded. He said, let me introduce you to Marty who hasn't read any sociology books, studied intersectionality, doesn't think gay marriage is biblical and couldn't pick up Karl Marx out of a lineup with you.

I came to see the social implications of pursuing justice. Excuse me, sorry about that. After studying the Bible seriously. And the funny part about this is like, look, you actually don't have to have studied socialism, for example, to have socialist ideas.

That's not how it works. There are plenty of people that have socialist ideas that have never studied socialism. In fact, they don't even know their socialist ideas. They don't even know who Karl Marx is, but they still have so, this argument is crazy.

But anyway, I was excited though. I didn't wanna challenge him on that here. I just wanted to talk to him. So I said, hey, let's looking forward again to know you. Let's schedule a call. I'll give you my number.

And he asked me, what do you wanna talk about? I tell him what I wanna talk about. And he says, thanks for the offer, but I've got a decline for now, maybe in a couple months. This is his creative excuse.

Oh, you know, I'm too busy right now, but I could take the time to tweet you and grandstand, but I can't talk to you over the phone because I'm just too busy, maybe in a few months. Yeah, if I had a dollar for every time I heard maybe in a few months, I'd probably have.

20 bucks probably. Anyway, but actually, so what happened here actually is more interesting than that because I'm actually blocked by Kyle J. Howard, which by the way, I was thinking of getting a, you know, one of those signs at a manufacturing plant that say, it's been this many days since our last accident.

Right, like, you know those signs? I was thinking about getting one that said, it's been this many days since I've talked about Kyle Howard. Anyway, what happened here, I'm blocked by him. So I didn't see this, but actually somebody sent this to me.

Kyle warned Marty against talking to me. He says, he's one of the many dudes that's just looking to build a platform. Don't help him out. And this is again, a very creative excuse to not have a conversation that you really want to avoid.

You're just platform building. I don't wanna help you. As if number one, he's not doing the exact same thing. Of course he is platform building because you know, look, when you have a message that you think is true and think would be helpful, of course you're trying to build your platform.

And there's nothing wrong with that. So this is very creative. Platform building is not only not what I'm doing, but it's wrong. Very creative. Thanks, Kyle, for your assistance in stopping the great Marty Duren from talking to me.

That was very helpful. Here's another creative one. This guy responds like this. This is one of my favorites. He says, loving justice is a biblical command. Loving our neighbors is one of the two commands that Jesus says sums up the whole law.

The heavenly church is multi-ethnic. This is a bad take, bro. And it's just so funny because he's attributed three things that I completely agree with. And all of my online ministry talks about how I agree that justice is an imperative of the Bible.

Loving our neighbors is a summary of the law, which is an imperative of the Bible. And that the heavenly church is multi-ethnic. I believe all of these things, but he's pretending like this is a way to shut down a conversation.

So like, duh, you idiot. These things are actually biblical. Hello. Like, this is so creative. I gotta give him credit. I gotta give him credit. You know, you can't respond to what I'm actually saying.

So make up what I'm saying and respond to that. It's kind of like Don Quixote. You know, he couldn't really kill giants because giants didn't exist. So he made up his own giants. Just look at that windmill over there.

That's actually a giant. I'm gonna go get it. Very creative, AGF. Thank you. But I gotta give him some excuse. I gotta excuse this because he is in from Germany or at least lives in Germany. And Germany is like 10 years ahead of the United States when it comes to Socrates, you know what I mean?

Social justice is 10 years advanced in Germany than it is in the United States. So I give him a little bit of credit. This is a very creative one. This is a very creative one. And again, so remember, my comment said, it's not that they don't use scripture.

It's that the beliefs themselves aren't derived from scripture. That's what my comment was. And here's his response. A picture of all his books. A picture of all his books. And it says, nope, never from studying scripture and theological works.

It's pure emotion. I noticed too here, he puts in political polytheism by Gary North. He puts in a Thomas Sowell book. And I know this is a strategic picture, man. This is creative. I give him credit for this because it's like, well, see, I've read everybody.

And I know that social justice is biblical. But what's funny about this is that, okay, you've read Gary North. You've read Thomas Sowell. Can you respond to them? Can you respond to them? Or are you just saying you've read them?

Because people say this all the time. I've read Thomas Sowell, and I still believe in socialism. Well, okay. Do you have a response? I mean, that's my point. Like, if you've read the scriptures, then how are you coming to the place where showing partiality in hiring practices is actually good?

You know what I mean? That's my whole point. But anyway, this is very creative too. I like this. Using a picture to sort of prove how smart you are and how much you've read and things like that. This is a very good tactic.

I like it. Thank you for avoiding the conversation yet again. This one is great. This one is absolutely great. So this is something that I do from time to time, but this is done very often on the social justice side as well.

Instead of responding to what you say, they retweet it and tell all their followers how funny and clever they are. And here's what he says. He says, it's so amazing to me to see your critiques because you consistently accuse others of the very things you do yourself.

It's so funny to me. So apparently I am a lot too, which maybe that's true. I'll give him credit for that. And I just responded because this is a guy that I've interacted with before and he's one of the guys that said, oh, maybe I'll have a conversation with you later.

Very creative, Kofi Meng. But anyway, I just responded, hey, I'm still waiting for you to muster enough courage to talk to me. And here's his response. This is extremely creative. Once again, you're projecting LOL.

It's not because I lack courage. It's more that I don't trust you. Okay, so first of all, I don't trust a lot of people that I'd be willing to talk to. So I had an interview with the New York Times the other day.

I don't trust that woman that I spoke with, but I had enough courage to talk to her. Maybe you might say that's stupid, but I had the courage to do it. This is about courage, Kofi Meng. Let's just be honest.

You don't have the spine to talk to me. But let's just break this down for a minute because this is a very creative response. I say, I'm waiting for you to have enough courage to talk to me on yours or my channel.

And he says, you're projecting LOL. Now, maybe he doesn't understand what projecting is. Maybe he does, and I don't, maybe this is just a very creative way to respond. But projecting is when you do the very thing that you're accusing people of doing.

And I'm accusing you, Kofi Meng, of being too cowardly to talk to me. And then I'm offering to talk to you. So I can't be projecting because if I was projecting, then I would also be being too cowardly to talk to you.

That's how projecting works. So in other words, I would be projecting if I accused you of being a coward, and then you said, okay, I'll talk to you. And then I said, I don't want to talk to you. That's how I'd be projecting.

But this is very creative because people aren't gonna really, you know, no one, wow, maybe people did realize that because no one liked this post. That's pretty interesting. What's funny about this is Kofi Meng's one of these guys that's trying to build a platform.

He's got a bunch of videos with monologues on it. And you know, honestly, I would never do a video of a monologue ever again if someone was willing to talk to me. But anyway, this was funny. You're projecting as he's projecting.

Creative. One more. Here's one more. He says to me, the funniest part about all this to me is that people think there's a monolithic group called the social justice movement, and we have secret group handshakes and chats.

Now, what's creative about this one is that this is very common. I'll say something about the social justice movement or I'll say something about social justice leaders and people will say, who are you talking about?

Who is this nebulous group? I don't know who the social justice warriors are. And it's very creative because it's like what you're saying is so vague that how could it even have any value? That's the response, right?

Yeah, what are you even talking about? I don't know what you're talking about. Meanwhile, everybody knows what I'm talking about. Everybody knows. When I say social justice leaders in the Christian church, they know, they could probably name off the top of their head 10 of them, including Brian, because when I call them about this and I say, hey, you're just acting like you don't know who I'm talking about because I saw this tactic for what it was.

It's a tactic to shut down conversation. He doesn't wanna have a conversation, so he wants to pretend like he doesn't know even know what I'm saying. When I call him on it, he instantly admits it. And I gotta give you credit, Brian.

He says, I know what you mean. It's just funny the way people talk about it. So you do know what I'm saying. Very creative, Brian. I gotta give you credit. I know you don't wanna have the conversation, but this was a very creative way to avoid it.

Very creative way to avoid it. And so anyway, but I do appreciate you being honest instantly. Most people wouldn't do that. Most people would just try to double down and stuff like that. So anyway, but this video, it's a funny video, and I hope we had a little fun with it today.

Why Christians Should Talk, Compare Beliefs to Scripture, and Avoid Force

Look, you gotta laugh about this stuff sometimes, because for all the talk of wanting to have a conversation, I mean, nobody really does on the other side. So many people are like Phil Johnson and John MacArthur on that panel where they're asking the serious questions.

They realize how dangerous this is, and they wanna talk about it, because that's how Christians should do this. When you disagree with someone about a secondary issue here, you wanna have a conversation about it.

You wanna compare it to the word of God. You wanna see that, because the word of God is the objective standard, so it should be very easy to show how your ideas are biblical and how my ideas aren't consistent with the scripture or consistent with themselves or something like that.

That's how we have to do this. We have to be rational about this. And so I appreciate, people were criticizing Phil Johnson and John MacArthur for their tactics. And I gotta be honest, okay, I would probably have handled it a little bit differently than John MacArthur too.

But at the end of the day, I don't have the relationships that he does. I don't have the background that he does. And so I appreciate any pushback, whether it's not the way I would do it, or if it is the way I would do it, or if it's worse or better, I appreciate any pushback.

So on that stage was so important, because you saw what we've been seeing for over a year. One side wants to have a conversation, the other side simply does not. And they'll be very creative about avoiding it.

And here's the problem. Here's the problem. So it's gonna take a serious turn. There's only two ways to have a conversation. There's only two ways to solve a disagreement. One way is rational discussion, comparing what you believe to the objective standard of reality, the objective standard of the word of God.

Because the word of God is a description of reality. It's objective. We can point to it and say, this explains what we see. This explains our experience. The scripture explains it. So we can talk about that and we can point to the scripture and see who's more consistent, whose beliefs match up better.

That's what we need to do. But if we don't do that, there's another way to solve disagreements too. Violence and force. So there's only two ways. You can either have a rational discussion or you can be violent and use force.

Now, I don't think that there'll be too much violence in the church over this. There might be some, because look, there is violence in the church's past. Over disagreements, theological disagreements.

Let's just get, let's not get, let's not mistake that. There has been violence in the past. But I don't think, I don't get the impression that this is gonna lead to violence, but it is going to, and actually already has led to people using force to get their way, to force you to submit.

We see people that have their jobs threatened over this issue. If they talk about it, if they dare talk about it, their jobs are threatened. Their livelihoods are threatened. That's violence actually.

Their families are threatened. And that's unacceptable. And guys, you social justice warriors out there that are too spineless to talk about this, for whatever your reasons are, you don't have the courage to have a real conversation with one of us, all you're doing is increasing the chance that people are gonna start to use force over this.

It's already happening. People are getting fired on both sides. People are getting silenced and de-platformed and all kinds of things on both sides. Their livelihoods are at stake. All you're doing by avoiding the rational discussion for whatever your reasons are, whatever you think you're accomplishing by avoiding this discussion, all you're doing is increasing the use of force and the chance for violence in our culture.

I mean, it's just that simple. This is happening in the culture as well. It's not just the church. Conservatives get de-platformed on social media, things like that. All that does is increase the chance that there will be civil conflict.

And I don't wanna see that happen in the church because a Christian should be willing to talk to a brother about where they disagree and should be willing to talk about the scriptures and get cross-examined, submit themselves to cross-examination.

But as long as you social justice warriors out there are not willing to actually warrior for your cause and instead hide behind a keyboard, all you're doing is increasing the chance that this is actually gonna lead to some really bad stuff.

And so I implore you, find your courage where people are going to get hurt.