Shepherd’s Conference 2019 Q&A: Mohler, Dever, Duncan, MacArthur, Johnson

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00:41

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line on this Thursday afternoon. I was not around yesterday afternoon when the

00:51

Q &A session took place at the Shepherds Conference 2019 over in Southern California.

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I started hearing about it fairly quickly as I got out of an appointment that I had, started seeing these cryptic comments in various feeds that I am a part of, and so when

01:08

I got back, I rather quickly watched the

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Facebook version of the Q &A and realized that in reality we're watching something

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I think that could have historic implications at least for evangelicalism in the United States.

01:27

I do realize, and I apologize for this, though those of you outside the United States seem to recognize that what goes on here ends up getting exported one way or the other, and so maybe you can be prepared for it a little bit better.

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But afterwards I was in contact with various people who were at the

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Q &A, who were at Shepherds Conference, and pretty much everybody said the same thing.

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It's all the buzz, it's what everyone is thinking about, and the normal description was it was very awkward in that room at that time.

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And so I have asked a friend of mine who was there, who like me has some, shall we say, further contacts with this particular subject that hopefully will help us to discuss this a little bit, to join me.

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We'll have to keep it short because he is there, and I am afraid that they will eventually home in on the signal, and that will be the end for him.

02:33

So let's see if we can make contact with our special agent there in California, the troublemaker from Texas himself,

02:45

Tom Buck, Pastor Tom Buck, who I want everybody to know I was the one who was willing to sit next to you at G3 on the panel, so doesn't that mean something, doesn't it?

02:55

Well, it certainly means something. What it means is debatable. Hey, let's not start doing what was done on the panel last night.

03:02

Let's answer our questions directly, shall we? I do want you to notice the halo around my head.

03:07

Oh yes, I did notice that. It's a nice effect, it really is. Anyway, so you were there last evening.

03:15

I was there with bells on. With bells on. So you had sort of known this was coming.

03:21

I had no idea, so I was the last man on the caboose catching up.

03:28

So you sort of had an idea what might be happening when it started unfolding. Describe how people were reacting.

03:37

Well, I mean, as you saw in the video, I think, I wouldn't say there was a gasp in the room.

03:44

I was more, I really didn't see reaction from the room when it began as much as I saw the body language on stage, to be honest with you.

03:53

Now, it's my understanding that some of the individuals, I don't know all of who that would be, but some of the individuals did know that the questions were coming.

04:03

It wasn't a blindside. I almost asked Phil about that, but I decided not to.

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So I did have some communication with Phil afterwards, just via text.

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But um, so as you were observing and listening to the responses, just give me your gut response.

04:26

Well, my gut response is it was a missed opportunity. And we have been hearing since the release of the statement in August a consistent drumbeat that, why did y 'all release this statement?

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If y 'all really wanted to have a conversation, then let's all sit down and have a conversation.

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You all don't want to have a conversation. Those are the kind of things that I've heard repeatedly. As you know,

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James, when we sat down initially to talk about the statement in Dallas in June, many of us had tried to have interaction.

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We'd have tried to have conversation. It was a one -sided conversation. And if you weren't saying a particular narrative, then you weren't, you were muted.

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You were told, not Twitter muted, but just, you know, silenced, not considered to be a part of the discussion and that we really needed to be quiet and let everybody else speak.

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And I'm not saying any of those men on the stage said that, but there were interactions that were trying to take place prior to that.

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I think what we saw last night or yesterday afternoon, sadly, is we see which side just doesn't want to have a conversation about this.

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And it was a perfect opportunity. Phil was gracious in the way he addressed that.

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I don't think I'm being biased in that. In fact, I talked last night with individuals who are on the other side of the issue, who are close friends with some of the men on that stage who hold the other position, or we think hold certain positions.

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And they too said it was a missed opportunity. They agreed. They were frustrated by the non -responses, the non -answers, the unwillingness to have a discussion.

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They said, we had the perfect opportunity to finally have an in -house discussion about this, and it was a refusal to do so from the get -go.

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So this isn't something that fell apart during the middle of it because Phil was asking bad questions.

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He asked open -ended questions. And I think he would have been darned if he didn't, darned if he didn't.

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If he'd asked real specific questions, I think people would have been just as upset. So I don't understand

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Mueller's anger, and I don't understand the non -answers. It, the anger was very clear.

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I'll probably address that a little bit later on. But it certainly seemed to me that divisions even amongst the panel were very clear in the sense that at one point,

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Dr. Mueller refers to some of his compatriots in T4G or TGC, which are on, you know, he was talking about Ligon Duncan.

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He was talking about Mark Dever. And he indicated some differences amongst them at that point.

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It would have been wonderful to hear those things fleshed out. But the common response

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I'm hearing from people is there wasn't any conversation, and it was that the chill was put on it.

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But could this have, given what had happened before the conference, given

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Jordan Hall's attacks on the conference because of having Mueller and Dever and Duncan there, could this have just been kept quiet and there have been no discussion of this?

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Or would that have been a just as loud a statement? You mean for Phil not to have asked any questions?

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I don't think it should have been kept silent. You know, I think Phil did the right thing.

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He didn't blindside them. And the elephants in the room, everybody knows it.

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And I think it was an opportunity to have a healthy discussion about that. And I certainly don't think that opening it up and having discussion publicly would have been harmful at all.

08:27

They could have been, you know, careful and nuanced about their answers, but we got no answers at all.

08:32

I mean, that was the... but maybe there's an answer in that. Yeah, yeah. So I only thought of this a few minutes ago, but I'll be interested in your response.

08:41

What would have happened if someone had stood up in the audience and just yelled out,

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Russell Moore? You mean if I had done that?

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No, no, I wasn't suggesting that, though. You might be the one to do that.

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But if someone had, I mean, wasn't his name echoing through everybody's ears without echoing through everybody's ears?

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Well, it wasn't mine. I'll be honest with you, it wasn't. I was more focused, to be honest with you, on what

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I perceived, even the conflict on the stage, if you don't mind me giving an example.

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I thought when Dr. Moeller talked about intersectionality, when he talked about neomarxism, and he was spot on.

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I mean, there was, I mean, he sounded like what we've been saying. Right. But as he's saying that, you know, we have to remember that some of those that are on the stage while he's talking about that are actually distributing, promoting, writing positive, glowing reviews of Divided by Faith that is steeped in that teaching and that ideology.

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So that's the odd thing to me is maybe that's part of what it is that there's disagreement among them.

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Now, Dever may kind of seem to want to think that it wasn't there when he said, what do you mean, between us or between us and you?

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Right. So that made it sound like that they were in agreement, but they certainly weren't. If we are to take

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Moeller at his word, I do take Moeller at his word, I do believe that what he has said about neomarxism, what he said about cultural marxism, what he has said about intersectionality throughout his entire ministry, and this is what's been shocking to us, is different from than what we've heard coming off of the campus of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which includes

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Kyle J. Howard, which includes Russell Moore. They have all come from that tree, and that doesn't mean that Moeller believes it, but he certainly has been incredibly silent about these individuals who are pushing the very things that he claims, and rightly so, that he's been against his entire ministry.

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He did, I think, at least twice make reference to, if you look at the people that I have platformed at Southern, and it would strike me that Jarvis Williams is platformed at Southern if he's given tenure in New Testament.

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I would think so. He certainly has been a quiet voice lately, wouldn't you think? Jarvis Williams not as much as...

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Yeah, yeah, but you can't erase the past. You certainly can't. You can't erase books you've written, and talks you've given in the past.

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I do believe Jarvis Williams was one that said that health care is a life issue, and things of that nature.

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He certainly has been talking much like the left, and that's not that far ago.

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No, it wasn't. I wasn't there. I catch up with this later on. It wraps up.

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What are the conversations about? Well, there weren't a lot of conversations because it wrapped up so late that it was two minutes before the next worship session was supposed to start.

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So we went right into worship. Now, I will say this, and let me just be totally fair about this.

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Ligon Duncan last night preached one of the best sermons on worship I've ever heard. So I'm thankful for these men.

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I'm thankful for Ligon Duncan. I'm thankful for Al Mohler. I'm thankful for Mark Dever in many, many ways. So it's very frustrating that you have these things that are so wonderful, and then on the other side, this is going on.

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But I think the conversation afterwards was it was just odd. It was uncomfortable. I will say this.

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Some of the things I heard was that people felt on both sides of the aisle that the way that individuals spoke to Phil in that situation on that platform was disrespectful to Dr.

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MacArthur and to Phil in their own house. That is how some people felt. In the room, there was,

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I mean, take it for what it's worth. There was applause for both sides. A smattering though, only a smattering for those on the, you know, if you want to call it the social justice side or those who seem to be into that.

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There was clearly far greater applause on the other side when MacArthur spoke and so forth.

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So I would say if you were to compare 20 people clapping on one side to 100 people clapping on the other, that would be kind of the gist of it.

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But, you know, I did have a couple of thoughts I wanted to share with you if you're interested, but you may not have the time. Sure.

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Well, I just don't know if they've found you yet. So if the door busts open and everything goes blank, we'll just send a rescue team or just They're all in sessions right now.

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That's what they want you to think. Exactly. I wanted to just point this out, and I think this is, you know, it's kind of interesting to me.

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A couple of things. Number one, let's talk about the SBC just a second because I feel like I have some level of expertise on that.

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I don't understand the non -answer that they gave or actually the avoidance and the denial of the thing that Phil asked.

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I spoke with Phil afterwards, and I just shared with him that the way that he worded the question allowed it to be evaded because he said that we have been apologizing every year for racism.

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Well, you know, they capitalized on that, it seems, on the word apologizing, and he

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Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Well, you're talking about the apologies on the part of the

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SBC. It sounded to me like the pushback was that hasn't happened since 1995. Right.

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And here's the problem. Well, they not only said that, Al Mohler said you're confusing that with coming to the floor and people making statements from the microphone.

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Well, that's just, you know, I don't know what other word to use than ridiculous. That's not what's been going on.

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That's not been the issue. In fact, we have very little time at the microphone at all in the business we have. Somebody asked a question, and then one of the entity heads filibusters for 15 minutes till there's no more time for questions.

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I mean, that's what my experience has been. But let's just review the last three years, OK? And unfortunately,

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Phil doesn't know SBC history well enough to have been able to come back and answer that in the moment. But let's go three years ago.

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What was three years ago? It was the condemnation of the Confederate flag. Now, I've been to multiple conventions.

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I haven't seen people dressing, wrapping themselves in the Confederate flag. But they condemned that for racism.

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That was driven solely by the ARLC and Russell Moore. Two years ago, it was the condemnation of the alt -right and white supremacy racism.

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That was two years ago at the convention, both of those resolutions. Three years, and both have been passed.

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In fact, the alt -right was a major issue that hit the news, or excuse me, that resolution from the alt -right, because it was initially didn't come out of committee and everybody went in an uproar.

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And all of the entities of the SBC got together to figure out a way to make this come to floor. We've got to do this because we'll be known as racist if we don't.

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One year ago, the curse of Ham, this justification of racism that was co -authored by Danny Akin, the president of Southeastern Biblical Theological Seminary.

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That's the last three years. So I do not understand. I understand why they said, you're misunderstanding what takes place in SBC life.

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But to divert it to what happens on the floor with people standing up and making comments at the microphone was a dodge, in my opinion.

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Okay. Yeah, that was, there are a number of really awkward pauses in the

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Q &A, and that was one of them, was where, you know, Phil said, well, you know, he was sort of addressing the end game thing.

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I mean, how often do you have to keep doing this? And then the response wasn't, we are doing it all the time. The response was, we haven't done it since 1995, which struck me as a little bit odd.

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Was there something else you wanted to add to that? Well, one other thing, the most interesting conversation, we were asking about conversations that happened afterwards.

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The most interesting conversation that was probably the most, people that were the most disturbed was the comments regarding the driver's license and that situation that Mark Dever gave as a story.

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And I thought that Mark gave some good pastoral advice regarding how we should listen to the stories of our members in our churches.

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But three concerns, one, applying the gospel to their lives and how to rightly think about that suffering in their lives.

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I mean, that has to be a part of it, not just listening stories. I think Mark would agree with that, but I think that should have been said.

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But assuming that blacks think monolithically about these things regarding these stories is, and I'll give you an example.

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There were men who talking afterwards, one of them was a retired black highway patrol officer who's a member of Grace Community Church.

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And he was highly offended by that statement. He felt that he shared with me, he came up to me, he had been at G3 and recognized me, obviously,

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I guess, for my statement that I made. And he was just sharing with me how that made him feel.

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He said, what about me as a police officer? What about my story? Does my story not matter? And he's a black police officer.

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So it's not just the stories of those who've gone through the other side and acting like they're the only stories.

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The final thing I would say about that is they're doing more than just listening to the stories of some in their church.

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They're spreading the narrative of one -sided stories. They're divided by faith, giving that to young pastors and shaping their worldview with that book.

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So I wholeheartedly agree we need to be listening to stories of the members in our church. But that's not just blacks who think one way.

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It's also police officers that may be in our church. And divided by faith is not the only way of thinking about these issues.

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So I was really disturbed by that entire exchange. And so were a lot of people.

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So just a guess. I mean, this is just simply purely hypothetical. But what percentage of people coming to Shepard's Conference do you think we're aware, at least to some meaningful extent, we're aware of what's been going on?

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We're aware of the controversy about Mueller, Endeavor, and Duncan. And each one of them has taken different perspectives and stuff.

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But aware that people are saying, don't go to Shepard's Conference because it's sinful to do so.

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You're partnering with these people, et cetera. What percentage do you think we're at least aware of that reality?

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Well, I mean, I can only go, you know, it's obviously anecdotal. So I can only talk about what I've experienced of talking to people.

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But I would say, based on my interactions with individuals I've talked to, even people that I didn't know before I came here, just met or talked with,

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I would say at least 75 % to 80%. OK. I have overheard some people saying, wow, this is the first time

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I've ever heard about this whole controversy. And they walked away assuming, you know, this is interesting.

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I was listening to one person talking about this, and they were assuming that everybody on the stage is on the same page about all of this, just different ways of expressing it.

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And that was, I don't know how they got that up the panel. But I think that it may have been from some of the things that Dr.

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MacArthur said, that, you know, we all theologically agree and so forth and so on. But it would have been a great opportunity to educate people like that on what the issues are and help us all better understand it of an in -house conversation.

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But it was not profitable at all in that area. So last question, I'll let you go. A lot of comments have used the term stonewalling, unwillingness to provide specific answers.

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When the statement on social justice was brought up, it was just sort of like, well, you know, what section?

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We've got to be specific here and stuff like that. Is that a prevalent attitude as far as what you're able to see amongst a lot of the people who observed it?

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Absolutely. Everybody sees it that way. And I will be quite frank and honest about this. That's what I continually get when

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I have conversations with those that I have friendships with, even some of those that are on the stage. I continue to get that kind of response.

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I think that, you know, they're the ones that said that they couldn't sign it.

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So I don't understand. Makes no sense. If there was something that I couldn't sign that I'd read, I would be able to tell you, at least generally, what my issue was.

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But what we heard is Dr. Moeller saying, don't take my non -signing as something that is as a lack of agreement.

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And I heard this from multiple people. He's on record having disagreed with it.

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He's on record at the seminary, when he was asked questions about it, disagreeing with it.

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So was he being careful more last night or yesterday afternoon? I don't know.

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But these non -answers need to stop. They're not helpful. And it is not helping anything in the cause of the advancement of the

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Kingdom of God and helping us better understand this with what's attacking the Church right now regarding social justice.

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There were more questions I would have loved to have had asked, and I think would have been asked. But the filibustering was clear that, you know, that was going to continue to go on through this.

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So yeah, there's no doubt that everybody noticed non -answers. Yeah, Dr. Moeller's body language and words made it very clear.

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We are not going any farther in this direction. I will not allow it to happen. And the last thing you want to have happening at Shepard's Conference is for Dr.

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Moeller to take his microphone off and stalk off the stage. That would have pretty much been the one thing that would have been most remembered about the entire event.

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You don't want that during the celebration of Dr. MacArthur's 50 years at Grace.

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But you watched it. What did you see happen or ask that could bring a response of, well, we'll see if this is a test of fellowship or not?

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I mean, what was said? Yeah, I'm actually going to be talking about that for an extended period of time here, and I don't need to hold you through all that.

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But I do have some theories. I'm going to try to develop them. Hopefully they're sound or at least useful one way or the other.

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But it was no one's questioning that it was a major overreaction. The question is, what prompted it?

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And how is Dr. Moeller interpreting this? I put, just briefly, I put that together.

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And you know this, we've discussed it. It was back at G3. We're all sitting around a dinner table.

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Pretty much everybody who was involved in writing the statement was sitting around. We're talking about what has developed since then.

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And one of the things that I pointed out was the fact that it's very clear to me that Dr.

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Moeller feels that for the best of the entire reform movement in the

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Southern Baptist Convention and outside, he needs to be at Southern, and that position needs to be protected.

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And he's in an extremely difficult position because of all the forces that want him out, some of which were some of the people that helped get

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Patterson out of Southwestern. And so he feels very much targeted.

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And hence, he needs to determine how he's going to defend his position. And the statement took that out of his hands.

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And he doesn't feel that any of us have the expertise that he would have.

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And so I think it's a number of things coming together. And it's just sort of boiled over,

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I think, probably because of the language in the one question where Phil said, don't you see this?

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And I think in light of one of the answers at one point was

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I talk about it for 25 minutes, five times a day. But then I think that was boiling over in the rest of it, too.

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So that's my theory. Well, let me share one last thing with you, if I may. And that is I appreciate

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Dr. MacArthur's heart. And he said, I'm not going to fight my friends. And I certainly don't think none of us want to fight.

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James, I know you don't want that. I know that none of the other men who are involved in this want to fight. We all love the truth.

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That's what our concern is. But here's the thing. We are going to, if our friends are in error, and if we're concerned that they may be, then the wounds of a friend are faithful.

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The kisses of an enemy are profuse. And we don't need to fight our friends.

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But we certainly may need to wound them in some ways at this point, faithfully, faithful wounds to say, brothers, we can't keep going this direction anymore.

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I'm on the ground working with pastors who are getting sucked into this every day. I had a young man yesterday come up to me with tears in his eyes, who's in the

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OPC, who said it's infecting them as well. And he said, thank you guys for writing this and addressing it.

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His school, and I'm not going to name the school, but his school in the OPC, took them to an event that was all about racial reconciliation.

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And he was told, because he is white, that he is not to speak, but only to listen. I'm telling you, they're guys, young guys.

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And yesterday would have been a good opportunity for this. This is not about Omar. It's not about you or me.

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It's about the truth of Jesus Christ and his church. And there are pastors who are out there floundering because they don't know what to do and how to handle this thing.

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And it's coming like a tsunami. Well, there's no question about it. And it's coming out of the various schools.

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And that's one of the issues. Well, Tom, I'm very thankful that we managed to connect with you.

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Thank you, too. Do you have the wig that we provided and that you can now go back out amongst the living?

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I think I'll be okay. There's enough non -woke people here that I might make it. All right, brother.

27:41

Thanks for giving us your insight. We appreciate it. All right. Bye -bye. All right. God bless. Okay. We could go forever here.

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And I don't have time to go forever. I did find watching it a surreal experience.

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And I've been thinking about so many things that I want to say. I'm not going to remember all of them. And so there's going to be some things I'm going to forget in the process.

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I am going to play most of the conversation. So we may be going for a while today.

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But the general response from people that I got last evening and this morning was it was extremely awkward.

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You are accustomed, especially in going to the Shepherds Conference, for there to be this tremendous unity.

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And everybody's on the same page. But the reality is we're facing a situation where that has changed over the past couple of years.

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And the foundational seedbed changing has been going on for longer than that.

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And many of us on our side just didn't know it. It wasn't so much naivete as it is focused upon other things, things that may be much more worthwhile, to be honest with you.

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But still, we were taken aback by this. Let's just address a couple things.

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The questions were necessary in light of the pre -conference controversy regarding even participating.

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I mean, there were people who were saying it's sinful to go to Shepherds Conference. There were people saying it was sinful to go to G3. And so the questions had to be asked and they needed to be addressed,

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I think, directly. I would love to have had more conversation about how you differentiate between issues.

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You know, this is the key issue of what defines Christian fellowship, what defines the gospel.

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You know, if you say something is a gospel issue, are you saying that it's definitive of the gospel?

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Are you saying that it, if taken to its conclusion, could impact the proclamation of the gospel, the content of the gospel, the implementation of the mandates of the gospel?

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There's just all sorts of issues that go there. And unfortunately, a lot of people do not make proper category distinctions at that point.

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But I think the questions were necessary. I think they were asked appropriately. I think that the only wisdom

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I might be able to share with Phil Johnson was that in asking Al Mohler, using the language, don't you see, doesn't work with Al Mohler.

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Dr. Mohler is a brilliant man. We've all learned from him.

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Phil said he listens to him every morning. Well, it's obviously only Monday through Friday. It doesn't include the holiday break and the

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July month off, but so do I. I could count on one hand, probably, the number of editions of the briefing that I've missed over the past few years.

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And we have to remember that from Dr. Mohler's perspective, that's a huge amount of his life. That's a huge amount of his effort.

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That's a huge amount of his time that has gone into the production of those things. And I can tell you, as someone who puts a huge amount of effort and a huge amount of time into the production of this program, that it's very easy for you to begin to assume that everyone catches every program you do and is extremely appreciative of how much effort you've put in.

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And that may or may not be the case. And they may or may not realize how much effort you've put in, but it's easy for you to start thinking that way and hence to react in particular fashions as well.

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I do not know Ligon Duncan or Mark Dever. We have not met.

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Mark Dever spoke right after I did at G3, but I went straight over to Alvin Mega's table afterwards.

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I did not see him and we did not meet during the G3 conference.

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I do not know him as an individual. I do not know Ligon Duncan as an individual. I have had three or four phone conversations with Dr.

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Mohler over the years. And in fact, as I mentioned on Twitter, I am fairly certain that I am the one that informed him about the statement on social justice.

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He had contacted me and asked me to call him to talk about something else related, but not the same subject exactly.

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And toward the end of the conversation, the statement hadn't come out yet. It was due out, I think, the next week or the week after. I made mention of it and I could tell immediately on the phone that he was troubled by it, that he saw this could be an issue.

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In light of the fact that they were probably finishing up the final drafts of the statement on race and Southern Seminary at that particular point in time,

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I would assume, or at least working on it. In light of what he said during the

33:12

Q &A, not at Shepard's conference, but at the Seminary, that's been one of his biggest problems.

33:18

He is in a very, very difficult position. He is at Southern Seminary. He's got buildings named after slave owners.

33:25

He's got the media after him at all times. He has not only the traditionalists and the people who want to get

33:34

Calvinists out of the Southern Baptist Convention going after him, but now this whole area of movement as well.

33:43

There's all sorts of back stuff. There's all sorts of politics that I don't know. I can only guess at some of it.

33:49

I know what some of it is. I don't know what the vast majority of it is. He's an individual with a lot on his plate juggling a lot of things.

33:57

I get that. I understand that. I think we saw the human side of that coming out when we were surprised at the reaction, the angry reaction to that question that Phil asked.

34:16

Hearing from a thousand people, I'm not going to do it the way you're telling me to do it. Phil wasn't trying to tell him to do it in any way, but that's how he interpreted it.

34:26

I think he interpreted it that way because of all these other pressures that are upon him.

34:33

This is where I would never be able to function in these areas, the politics that are involved here.

34:44

That's why I asked Tom. I said, well, someone stood up and yelled out Russell Moore. Because there's the example.

34:52

Russell Moore is deeply connected to Southern Seminary and to Albert Mueller.

34:59

Whether he wants that or not, that's the reality. What the ERLC is doing, the stances they've taken, and the materials that they are specifically promoting, such as Divided by Faith, which

35:12

Mark Dever is promoting, which Ligon Duncan wrote the foreword to Eric Mason's Woke Church, which is not a sound work of theology, folks.

35:25

Not by any stretch of the imagination. If those names had been brought up, then we could at least have some clear examples of the directions.

35:46

By his questions, he's opening the door to these are the directions that we're seeing within the

35:53

Big Eva, within the Southern Baptist Convention, within large evangelicalism.

36:00

Just take a look at Russell Moore. Take a look at what's going on in T4G and TGC and so on and so forth.

36:08

You see these directions that they're going, and you likewise see the rise in discussion of egalitarianism and ordination of women.

36:21

They can say we're all on the same page on all of that. But again, if you're platforming people that aren't all on the same page, that was the to Shepherd's Conference, that was the objection to G3.

36:39

These are the questions that people are wanting to wrestle with and say, what's definitional?

36:46

What isn't? What are the guidelines? At least there would have been an opportunity at that point to point out that the social justice train is a train.

36:54

It is not individual trucks. You can't let one of the social justice trucks in because it's a train.

37:04

That car is going to be attached to other cars that are coming through the door right afterwards, and trying to re -shut the door after letting one in doesn't work.

37:12

And that's what's going on. That's what we're seeing on the campus of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

37:21

We listened to the fellow giving his story about what's going on there and things like that.

37:28

So anyway, I just want to make it clear, I'm not trying to be an apologist for Albert Mueller.

37:38

I am trying to do what many people on my side won't do and recognize that there is not a single motivation.

37:48

This is a very complex situation within the SBC, the power structures, and there is nothing that the progressives would love more than to take over Southern, to have

38:03

Mueller out and to have a good progressive in there. That would pretty much be it. The conservative resurgence would be done, the last hill would be taken, and the

38:16

SBC would be locked into a firm direction toward ELCA, PCUSA, Episcopalian Church, you name them.

38:31

They'd be locked right back into, you know, having taken a 25 -year hiatus, but right back onto the track into that form of theological liberalism.

38:42

And there are people who want to see that happen. And I think Albert Mueller views himself as standing in the way of that, and I think what he's thinking is, help me with this.

38:53

Okay, I think one of the best ways to help him with that is to give him perspectives outside of his own experience.

39:01

And he may feel like he can do some trade -offs, like a Jarvis Williams having tenure at Southern, like having the dean of Boyce College doing videos about white privilege, and he may feel he can handle that.

39:18

He can exercise his influence to keep that from knocking stuff off the rails.

39:24

There are a lot of the rest of us that go, I don't know, Al, do you really think you can handle that?

39:32

I'm not sure that's really the issues. And so there are questions as to what's going on at Southern, why it's going on.

39:47

I don't know that anybody has all the answers to those things. Dealing with this issue, unfortunately, is demonstrating that many people on both sides have the attitude that if you strongly believe that there is something to be warned about, then you can no longer benefit from somebody, you can't pray for somebody, you have to say only negative things about people, you can't say positive things about people.

40:25

All those things, the assumption is you just have to go nuclear option on both sides, and that just results in a complete end of all conversation.

40:34

And that's where a lot of the disappointment was last night. There was an opportunity, it just didn't happen. And why it didn't happen,

40:40

I think, is different for each one of those men. The perspectives of Ligon Duncan, given his background,

40:50

Jackson, Mississippi, the deep influence of Jamar Tisby in Ligon Duncan's experience.

40:59

I mean, just look at The Color of Compromise and look at what it suggests as the way forward, and look at its open -ended definition of racism, and what amounts to racism, and being influenced by racism, so on and so forth, and ask how much of that has transferred over.

41:24

Would there be a willingness on Ligon Duncan's part to say, love Jamar, but this, this, this, and this.

41:33

No, this is where this is wrong. This is where this is wrong. This is where this is disconnected from a meaningful theology.

41:39

I would love to see that happen. I seem to be one of the few out here going, ah, did you catch this?

41:47

Let's read this paragraph here. Oh, there's a problem. That would be nice. Again, Mark Dever, his church, and Nine Mark stuff,

42:01

Tom mentioned the book, Divided by Faith. It's an older book now. It is not a

42:07

Christian book. It is not sound theologically. It is totally sociological, and it's extremely one -sided, but it is being distributed by everybody in T4G, TGC.

42:17

It's just, there's no attempt at balance or anything with any of that stuff.

42:26

So, what would we wish could have happened? It would have been nice if some of the central issues had been brought up.

42:35

Some of the, maybe the theological issues. It's a theological conference. It would have been nice if there had been a discussion of what true racism is, instead of just simply using the term in a vague sense, not recognizing that both sides are fundamentally using different definitions of this term.

42:54

Why has there been a willingness to embrace a new definition that removes it? That on the one hand, we call it sin, but then you remove it from any meaningful definition of sin, because you don't have to even have a choice to be a racist anymore.

43:10

It's just your privilege. You just got your privilege, and that's racist. Your politics makes you a racist, and where you were born makes you a racist, and your education makes you a racist.

43:22

That would have been a useful thing to say, you know, we need to keep this biblical, if we're going to call racism a sin, that it needs to be limited to biblical categories, and therefore there needs to be animus.

43:31

There needs to be a prejudice. There needs to be hatred in the heart. The old definition of racism, and therefore let's reject this new sociological, ishy -squishy, you -can -hang -it -on -anybody -for -saying -anything -to -anyone definition of racism, that likewise excludes blacks from the sin of racism.

43:54

Why not bring that up? Why not make a distinction, a biblical distinction, between socialist equality on economic grounds, and a biblical understanding of economic justice, which means not that you get rid of the rich by stealing from them and giving it to the poor.

44:13

That's not a biblical system. You're to have just weights. You are to pay a fair wage.

44:20

You are not to oppress the poor. You are to allow them to have the opportunities to benefit themselves and to better themselves through hard work.

44:30

That's the biblical paradigm, not the socialist paradigm.

44:35

And why not address that? Why not challenge these assertions of systemic racism in this area, that area, and especially in the church?

44:46

Why not challenge these things and say, wait a minute, what is the grounds of our unity? How is it that we are to be looking at one another and challenge this constant utilization of the racialist lens?

45:04

At that point, somebody would have had to have looked at Ligon Duncan and said, did you really read Eric Mason's book?

45:10

Did you really think through what it is that he's saying in the woke church? Do you consider yourself woke?

45:17

Where do you draw the lines? Where do you draw the line in between the perspective being expressed by Eric Mason and that being expressed by Jamar Tisby?

45:27

So now you're really pushing the issue there, and it would have been extremely helpful to know how

45:36

J. Ligon Duncan understands those things. But that was shut down very, very quickly in the actual thing.

45:46

So I've gone on too long there. Let me bring it up. Oh, that's the wrong one.

45:55

We don't want to watch that one yet. There we go. So I need to make this full screen so you can see it, right?

46:06

You got it there? All right, I think I'm where we need to be. I'm going to ask some more difficult questions.

46:13

You all have been friends for longer than two decades, and there haven't, in those years, been very many things that you've disagreed on publicly.

46:21

But now there is with the social justice issue. And so I wanted to ask some questions about that.

46:28

And let me start with you, Al, because you've said something that I've thought of often.

46:34

I think it's a really good insight, and that is that sort of the leftward drift, the liberalizing drift that affects not only politics, but theology, happens incrementally.

46:48

But any reformation towards the right happens exponentially. Are you not concerned at all about the liberalizing drift of the social justice movement and all the rhetoric that goes along with that?

47:02

Okay, now, can we go over here? Because I'm looking down here.

47:10

That was a little bit of a hand grenade.

47:19

When you say, are you not concerned even in a little bit? And I think that's what turned the switch with Dr.

47:30

Mueller, and you'll see by his response. I'm sure you are. Yet the only offense

47:35

I take at that is that I talk about this five times a week for 25 minutes.

47:41

Well, let me give you my perspective on that, because you do, don't take offense, but I do listen to you every morning.

47:55

You have opinions on everything in the news. But when it comes to the evangelical movement and the social justice issue particularly,

48:04

I'm not talking about what happens in the world of politics, but I'm talking about what happens among our constituents and the rhetoric that's going on in places like T4G and the

48:17

Gospel Coalition. You have been remarkably silent. It's one of those issues where I've only heard you speak on it in the

48:25

Ask Anything. And as far as I can remember, that's all I've heard too.

48:31

And I listen regularly to the briefing. And other than that Ask Anything section,

48:38

I forget what the date on that was. But I remember what I was driving back from, but I don't remember what it was. But I don't remember anything else being said.

48:46

It's almost always directed toward the United Methodists, the liberal Lutherans, the Anglicans, something along those lines.

48:53

But I get what Phil's asking here. ...sections when people ask you questions like I'm doing right now.

49:00

And yeah, I think the pushback is, I think that's what my whole life is speaking about. I mean, I began,

49:07

I mean, all my public ministry began dealing with these questions. So I do take a bit of offense, not personally, but I mean,

49:14

I just, I am not going to be forced into a Twitter conversation and 140 characters about these issues.

49:22

I have been trying to lay... I'm not sure what that means. I guess

49:29

I understand that these are issues that transcend, and Dr.

49:38

Morel is 280 now, which is a whole lot better. But I understand that they transcend something that can be done very, very briefly or shortly or something along that.

49:50

I get that part. But that doesn't seem to be what Phil is asking in this context.

49:57

...out for 30 plus years an understanding of how evangelicals should engage the culture.

50:05

And I mean, I cut my teeth apologetically confronting cultural Marxism and I mean, the entire network of issues of the left.

50:14

You look at who I invite to my campus, you look at who I cite, you look at who

50:20

I platform, I feel pretty good about the message that I'm sending there.

50:27

Okay, then we just simply have, I've got to ask the question, then Jarvis Williams, the dean of Boyce College, white privilege.

50:41

I'm seeing more and more people coming out of Southern as graduates that seem to be moving this direction.

50:48

And that could just be the culture, I suppose. And it's certainly nothing like Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, but that's just it.

50:58

Here's one of the issues, and I might as well address this here, because it came up on Twitter this morning. One of the major, major pressures that Dr.

51:10

Mohler feels is the 11th commandment. And he lives by it. He absolutely lives by it.

51:16

And I'm, what's the 11th commandment? Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Southern Baptist in public. And so if you, if he as the president of Southern Seminary were to say anything about Danny Akin and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and go like, whoa, you're going left so fast, you're going to be spinning in circles pretty soon.

51:40

If he were to say that, that would be a fundamental violation of what he thinks his responsibility as the president of Southern Seminary is.

51:49

I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but I think I'm right about this.

51:56

I think the reality of the 11th commandment in the leadership of the

52:02

Southern Baptist Convention is being used against the conservatives, because the

52:08

Russell Moores are very careful about how they promote their social justice agenda, how they respond to people.

52:20

And it's much easier to promote that incremental application of liberalism and moving to the left, because to fight against that, you have to be more specific in your proclamation of truth and say, this is an error.

52:40

But that is what they're not allowed to do. And so I think part of Dr.

52:46

Mueller's frustration is people don't understand how seriously he takes the responsibility as a

52:57

Southern Baptist leader not to speak what is considered to be speak evil of, speak against a fellow

53:02

Southern Baptist leader. And I just don't know how long that can be allowed. As you're seeing things going farther and farther and farther, eventually you just have to go, okay, we may be giving the same program, but this needs to stop.

53:19

And here's why it needs to stop. And so on and so forth. Same thing with the

53:24

ERLC. I mean, back when the ERLC co -sponsored the

53:31

MLK50 thing, there were all sorts of people who got phone calls, emails. You need to take that tweet down.

53:38

You're speaking against a Southern Baptist entity. You work for the Southern Baptist Convention. You could sort of find yourself up for review if you don't.

53:47

And that's how things work. I had some of my family and friends, close family friends, attend a conference just last weekend where a well -known

54:01

Southern Baptist professor, a couple well -known Southern Baptist professors spoke. And when this issue came up during the

54:09

Q &A, everybody noticed the same thing. They started doing ballet. Instead of clear, concise, biblical answers, it's pirouettes and gymnastics and everything else.

54:23

And there is one simple, obvious reason. Every single one of them knows the 11th commandment. And they know their job is on the line.

54:31

They know that there are any more. I mean, any more, as long as one of these is in a pocket anywhere, and they're in everybody's pocket, you can be being recorded.

54:42

And so you just have to assume that you are. And so they can't answer these issues because to take certain perspectives is understood as being specifically criticizing the

54:57

ERLC, and hence Russell Moore, and hence a head of an agency, and therefore you're breaking the 11th commandment. So it almost seems to me as if the only way the

55:10

SBC is going to have any chance of fighting off this leftist progression is from people outside the

55:19

SBCs are shouting in, hey, guys, and there'll be all sorts of people, and they're going, we know, we know, keep going, keep going.

55:27

And that's what I'm getting. That's what I'm getting from folks is, boy, I wish I could say what you're saying, but I can't, but keep saying it.

55:35

That's, we're getting, we get that all the time. All the time. So anyway.

55:41

When it comes to concerns about the evangelical left, absolutely,

55:48

I mean, I have been quite vocal, and anyone who knows the conversations amongst evangelical leadership knows exactly where I am on these issues.

55:58

How best to articulate that concern in this particular moment, that's not easy.

56:06

Okay, that's where I think Dr. Moeller really believes that he's the expert on this.

56:13

And that I sense, just me sitting here talking to you guys, just me and Rich, the only two people in the room, you know, just me and Rich sitting around talking.

56:23

And how many others? Yeah, about 900 other folks watching at the same time.

56:33

And I can just see a few people hiding at the Shepherds Conference with a little phone, like, hey.

56:42

It's just us sitting around, but I think that part of Dr. Moeller's frustration is he's like, guys,

56:49

I've thought this through, let me handle this. Let me handle this. And I don't think it's,

56:55

I don't think it's, none of us are big enough to do this on our own. And I don't think there's just one response to be given either.

57:04

I've learned a lot from what Tom Askell has said and what Josh Bice has said, and Tom Buck was willing to go out there on the limb at G3 and say what needs to be said.

57:14

And everybody knows my emphasis has been very much a theological, exegetical one, concerns about fundamental fracturing of the unity of the body of Christ on a theological level, when you start allowing for segregationist churches and black spaces of the

57:33

Lord's Supper and ethnicity to be brought into the very lens by which you look at all of the believers so that there are certain believers that you can, like, chill with and then others have to be held out because of what happened 300 years ago.

57:46

That to me is an absolute denial of the theology, of the unity of the church and of the gospel.

57:52

And so I think we can learn from one another on those things. But, you know, this all goes back to challenging the

58:01

Russell Moores who are platforming these people and are pushing these agendas, and it just needs to be said openly and clearly.

58:09

That's not easy, and I have tried to help to interpret these issues as clearly and biblically and charitably as I can.

58:20

Okay, again, this is what I'm hearing here. What I'm hearing him saying is, I've really thought this through,

58:26

I'm trying to be charitable, and you need to understand there are strictures upon me as to exactly how far

58:32

I can go. And so is he saying, listen carefully and go ahead and make your own applications to the

58:38

Russell Moores of the Southern Baptist Convention, to the people out there, to the

58:43

Beth Moores and the Russell Moores and everybody over there? Is that what's being said?

58:50

Are we supposed to interpret it that way? I'm afraid we're going to lose an enormous number of evangelicals to various kinds of social gospel, because that's a lot easier to find satisfaction in than evangelism.

59:09

And... Now, that's an interesting statement. We're going to lose a lot of people to various forms of social justicism because that's a lot easier than doing evangelism.

59:21

Well, I'm not sure if we lose them, because that raises the whole issue of how many faux professors we have in our ranks in the first place.

59:34

Are we talking about true followers of Christ here? I wasn't exactly sure where that was going.

59:40

So again, I look at what I do on my campus, look at who I platform, look at the issues

59:45

I write about. Knowing exactly how to help younger evangelicals figure these things out, which is actually my job as a seminary president, that's not real easy.

01:00:02

It's not, but the question crosses my mind, and when there are other seminary presidents within your denomination that are taking stands that are clearly...

01:00:16

I mean, honestly, if you... If you talked to all of the pastors that were sitting there yesterday afternoon, evening, yesterday afternoon, when this was going on, and showed them the kind of stuff that you get in the diversity initiative at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the podcasts that were done about James Cone, and all the rest of this stuff, how many of them would not see, oh, this is what we're talking about, right there, okay?

01:00:47

That thing right there that's going on right there, that's, yeah, that's not good.

01:00:53

You need to do something about that. If you've got some kind of denominational commandment system that keeps you from being able to go, all right, there's the issue, and we need to openly deal with this, because, hey, if you've been talking to Danny Akin in the background, great, fine, wonderful, doesn't seem to have accomplished anything yet.

01:01:17

It seems to just be going, getting worse, and worse, and worse, and worse. At what point do you give up on the backroom stuff, and just have to come straight out, and say, here's what's happening?

01:01:27

And I will confess that, but I'm trying to be as clear as I can be on this.

01:01:33

I mean, for years, I mean, this has been the great concern. T4G was largely created out of the concern that there was confusion over what the gospel is.

01:01:41

Right. And confusion, and by the way, I will acknowledge to you that there are clarifications that T4G needs to make, with my partners sitting here.

01:01:54

Now, there is a lot said there. And you can tell by the facial expression, and the language, the words.

01:02:09

He's well aware of what happened at MLK50. He's well aware of what happened to T4G.

01:02:16

He's well aware that we had people standing in front of those audiences, talking about men who are

01:02:24

Black on the outside, and Angloid on the inside, and they were applauded. And people doing spoken word stuff, where they threw

01:02:32

Votie Balcombe under the bus for enunciating a biblical doctrine of justice.

01:02:40

He knows all of that. He's well aware of that. And then, well -known people who presented entire sermons inserting concepts into scripture that just were not derived from the exegesis of scripture at all.

01:02:59

They're just... It's a popular way of talking about stuff. So, yeah,

01:03:06

I agree. And will make. I won't get too personal about that. And I also don't want to just pick on you.

01:03:14

So I'll skip over my next question, which was going to be... I don't mind it.

01:03:20

Yeah. Okay. I just want to respond as honestly as I'm asked.

01:03:27

But you didn't sign the statement on social justice and the gospel, the Dallas statement. None of you did. So let me just ask the three of you, how far apart are we on this?

01:03:36

Now, was that difficult to understand? How far apart are we on this?

01:03:42

Phil signed it. John signed it. I can tell you who pretty much wrote it and who edited it.

01:03:52

And he's saying you three. That seemed fairly clear in his intent.

01:04:02

Are we from you? Are we from each other? Now, maybe Mark just wasn't listening.

01:04:07

I don't know. But we, as the three of you, because you didn't sign it, from those who did.

01:04:17

Because the guy on the far left and the guy on the far right both did. I'm not sure about Sinclair Ferguson.

01:04:26

So I'm not sure what the confusion was there. Sometimes, hey, I've been on a lot of Q &A panels.

01:04:33

And when all of a sudden somebody looks at you, your mind was... You were looking at the crazy haired person, 47 rows back over on that side, and you have no idea what's going on.

01:04:44

So, possibility too. Let's say... Let's not make me the focus.

01:04:50

Let's talk about John MacArthur. Boom. Mic drop moment.

01:04:59

So, let's talk about you, Phil. No, let's talk about John. Yeah, this is

01:05:04

Shepard's Conference. So let's bring the big dog in. Just an issue you think there would be a difference on.

01:05:11

Well, that's what I'm asking. Well, that's what I'm asking you. Right. So, let's take the

01:05:17

Dallas statement. Well, that's a very broad statement. So, I mean, pick an issue that you think is specific.

01:05:25

Yeah, is it broad or is it specific? We get criticized all over the place, but what it said about the centrality of the gospel, definition of what justice is,

01:05:37

I mean, certainly you're not going to bring up the issue of what it said about human sexuality, marriage, stuff like that.

01:05:44

That was... Everyone in this group is going to agree with that. But no, specific would be about one particular issue.

01:05:55

Like one of the points in that statement. Well, or affirmative action. I mean, that's an example that I often use.

01:06:00

I mean, there's a specific issue. Which wasn't addressed. Well, I'm just trying to say, what would be...

01:06:09

What's the difference that you're seeing between John... Yeah, let me jump in and just say this, that I don't think there's any difference theologically with where we all stand.

01:06:22

I mean, we've navigated that together on every possible platform in every situation.

01:06:30

How we respond to the culture around us and the pressures that come on us from the culture, how we navigate those relationships that face us.

01:06:41

I get a lot of... Even with this Shepard's comments coming up, I got a lot of heat from people on the internet who

01:06:51

I don't... Somebody has to show it to me because I don't go there. But that you were going to be here because you may have expressed yourself differently on the issue of social justice or whatever other issue it might have been.

01:07:08

That seems to be the buzz button anyway. And I said, look, these are my friends.

01:07:16

These are men I love. These are men who serve Christ. They've given their life to Him. God has given each of you guys a formidable place in the kingdom and you've all had an impact on my life.

01:07:27

I'll fight error, but I don't fight my friends. Why would I do that? I don't want to become an island.

01:07:34

I mean, my enemies have already eliminated me. If I get rid of my friends, I may have nobody but Phil.

01:07:50

That would be a sad state of affairs. No, no, actually, my question is, because you declined to sign the statement, what in it would you consider to be wrong?

01:08:03

Well, just for me personally, I declined to sign almost every statement. If you've ever seen me sign a statement, there's a story behind that.

01:08:10

I'm just not a big statement signer guy. So I didn't memorize the statement.

01:08:16

I did read the statement. I read an earlier draft of the statement that I had a number of disagreements with.

01:08:24

When the final statement came out, it was much better. I would certainly be in broad sympathy with the statement.

01:08:32

If there are particular sentences there I don't agree with, I don't remember what they are. I remember

01:08:37

Al told me one time, after a statement you did sign, I don't know if you remember this.

01:08:43

I shouldn't have. And I didn't. You said, I will never sign another statement.

01:08:51

Trying to hold fast to that pledge. Phil, you asked,

01:08:57

I want to be very honest. You've known me for a long time, so you know of my concerns. I am having before God to try to address those concerns the way

01:09:07

I think best. As the president of Southern Seminary trying to navigate, again, the statement that Southern Seminary put out about its racist past, about the

01:09:23

Civil War, about slave owners having their names on buildings, that was obviously started long before this.

01:09:31

So that was in the works. That was in its final stages. And so that's behind, you got to keep that in mind, that's behind a lot of what is being said, at least by Dr.

01:09:40

Moeller at this point, is, look, I'm in a position that none of the rest of you are in.

01:09:47

You're not in this position at Grace to You. You're not in this position at Grace Community Church. You're not in this position at Nine Marks.

01:09:55

Ligon Duncan would at least have some closer parallels being from the

01:10:01

Deep South, historically speaking, and stuff like that. I don't know when RTS was founded in the

01:10:07

Deep South, but Southern goes all the way back to that particular time period. And so those are the complexities I'm assuming he's making reference to.

01:10:16

Consistent with 35 years of public ministry. So I was not particularly appreciative of being handed a statement.

01:10:27

Now, catch that. Think about that for a minute. I was not particularly appreciative of being handed a statement.

01:10:38

When I heard that, I'm sort of like, I don't know, it never crossed my mind.

01:10:47

If someone were to write a statement on reaching out to Muslims, and they did not ask me about it, well, then

01:10:59

I'll evaluate it on the basis of who wrote it, what it says. Go from there.

01:11:04

I'm not going to go, well, you should ask me. I'm the expert. Because I don't view myself that way.

01:11:12

And I got the feeling, because like I said, I said earlier in this program,

01:11:18

I'm the one that told him about the statement in the first place. I think I was the first one. I got the feeling then,

01:11:25

I get the feeling here. I got the feeling at the ask anything section. The Dr.

01:11:31

Moeller believes he should be allowed to handle this, and that we were out of turn. The whole group, no matter how many decades of ministry that might represent, because it's a group project, still doesn't come up to what

01:11:47

I think Dr. Moeller thinks is his expertise, in light of his specific experience as the president of Southern Seminary, and having to navigate these difficult waters.

01:11:59

But I just found it strange. I didn't appreciate being handed this statement, as if there was a personal affront intended to Dr.

01:12:10

Moeller. There was no personal affront intended to Dr. Moeller at all.

01:12:17

Some might ask, well, why wasn't he at the meeting? Well, we did not think in light of his role at, together for the gospel,

01:12:31

T4G, TGC, and what was going on at Southern, that he would even accept the invitation to be there.

01:12:40

I was not involved in the invitee list. I was just one of the people invited.

01:12:49

I forget when it started, March, April. The big thing was, when's voting going to be in the

01:12:56

US, and me in the US, and John doesn't go overseas very much, but when can we try to get all these folks in the same place, which is sort of difficult to do.

01:13:09

I've not inquired of the powers that be exactly why, well, why not with Al, but I think we're sort of seeing why.

01:13:19

I don't think that he would have participated and probably would have strongly dissuaded anyone from seeking to produce the group that was produced.

01:13:31

So the first question was about pride. I don't want this to be pride, but I had no opportunity to offer any particular consultation or suggestion.

01:13:43

It's not pride of authorship, but I am just reluctant to sign onto anything that's not creedal and confessional, that doesn't express exactly how

01:13:56

I would want to say something. Not signing should not be interpreted as a rejection of common concern.

01:14:05

I don't think that's fair. I hope people will hear that, because the fact that he and pretty much all

01:14:13

Southern Baptist leaders have not signed the document has been used by the people on the other side as evidence of disagreement with it.

01:14:22

We know that were it not for the 11th commandment and the interpretation of the 11th commandment, that there would be thousands of more signatures on the document from Southern Baptist professors, pastors, and others.

01:14:36

And we know why that is, because they recognize the pressures that could be brought against them within the denominational structure itself.

01:14:48

Don't think, I think you understand that. Of course. Would you agree though, that over the past three, four years, there has been a dramatic acceleration of rhetoric about this issue, social justice, and that historically, it has had a very strong liberalizing tendency.

01:15:11

Right? I think you get a yes and a yes from me on that. So why wouldn't Together for the

01:15:16

Gospel and the Gospel Coalition, two organizations that were founded in the wake of the emerging church, who were using social justice rhetoric themselves to clarify the gospel.

01:15:31

Why wouldn't the stress be to say, look, we're not trying to add to the gospel here or clarify the fact.

01:15:39

Because there are people, some of the most outspoken people on the social justice side, who are saying, look, this is the gospel.

01:15:47

And one famous author said he didn't really understand the gospel until he was woke. Now notice the awkward silence that comes after that.

01:15:59

The awkward silence. And I wondered who that was, because there were a few people that crossed my mind at that point in light of books that I've read, articles

01:16:13

I've read. And so if you think back, you can see within certain books, certain people saying, from a

01:16:25

Black perspective, that when they first started their education, they really didn't know about all this stuff, and then they became woke to all this and started seeing the implications of the gospel.

01:16:34

That's not who's being referred to. There was someone right around the time of MLK50 and the

01:16:41

T4G that came out with a big old article that was trumpeted all over the place. A white, well -known person who talks a lot about family issues and marriage, who put out an article that basically said,

01:16:56

I apologize, and I really did not understand what the gospel was all about until I got woke.

01:17:04

And that's who's being referred to. That was, well,

01:17:10

I don't know what I want to say the name, but I'll leave it to you brothers for a moment.

01:17:16

You're the representative of Big Eva here. I mean, you're on the board. That is the first time

01:17:21

I had ever heard that. Big Eva. If that's a standard terminology, it's a new one on me.

01:17:33

Directors of the Gospel Coalition. Lincoln Duncan's going, thanks a lot, friend.

01:17:46

Phil, my concern, and we talked about this a little bit in the room, my concern in this whole discussion is...

01:17:52

Okay, now that seems to indicate to me that this was nothing new. We talked about some of this in the room.

01:17:59

That communicates to me, the green room before you come out, where Phil undoubtedly went, okay, this is a broad outline of what we're going to be talking about.

01:18:08

That's my interpretation. I've watched over the last, if I can give a quick tour of the last 50 years.

01:18:14

In the late 1960s, I don't think a lot of us realized it, but a

01:18:20

Reformed awakening was beginning in multiple denominational settings, Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Bible Church, and around the world.

01:18:32

This man was a part of that. He's one of the important streams in that worldwide

01:18:38

Reformed awakening. I think that through, I think we began to realize this in the 1980s and 90s.

01:18:47

We realized that the battle for the Bible had been led by people with big

01:18:52

God theology. And we suddenly started finding one another. And it was like, wow, there's somebody else that thinks like me and loves these great biblical truths and wants to herald them to the ends of the earth.

01:19:07

And I think for the first 40 or so years of that awakening, it was that experience over and over again as we saw that awakening spreading into remarkable places like having

01:19:18

Reformed Mennonites. I mean, Minnow Simons is spinning in his grave right now.

01:19:24

There are Calvinistic Mennonites and Quakers and all sorts of things like that.

01:19:32

Then I think beginning somewhere around 2010 in a cultural shift in our own setting, and there are a lot of factors in there.

01:19:43

I think what we started seeing is a fissure, and it's a denomination, it's a generational fissure, especially, in terms of how are we going to interface with a culture, and how are we going to deal with a culture that is increasingly antagonistic to Bible -believing

01:20:02

Christianity. Can I just add something to what Dr. Duncan is saying here?

01:20:08

That fissure is specifically and purposely produced by the promotion of cultural

01:20:18

Marxism, Frankfurt School, all of that, not only within the culture, and it's been extremely effective at doing that, but within the

01:20:27

Church, so that it becomes a mark of spirituality that you now think intersectionally.

01:20:38

An intersectionality causes you to focus not upon commonalities and common goals, but differences, divisions, and problems.

01:20:48

That's the whole essence of intersectional thought. Just look at any university campus today, and you'll see how this functions.

01:20:57

It is consistently divisive, and it's a societal poison, and it's most definitely an ecclesiastical poison, because it cannot unify, it can only divide.

01:21:14

That way of thought, that way of thinking. Instead of seeing what God has done to remove barriers, intersectionality teaches you to focus upon those things.

01:21:22

So it's interesting you say 2010, yeah, it's been this past decade where this insanity has taken deep root in Western culture, as seen in the

01:21:38

United States. It was a decade before that over in Europe, but it takes a little while to get across the pond. We're starting to see generational differences in how to deal with that.

01:21:47

Now, we're all of one part, one side of that generational divide. One of my concerns in this whole range,

01:21:55

I mean, there are all manner of things that everybody on this platform would rule immediately out of hand as legitimate from a biblical standpoint under the broad rubric of social justice.

01:22:07

For instance, LGBTQIA rights and affirmation is conceived broadly as an absolute bedrock commitment of social justice.

01:22:16

Women's roles in the church as well. All of us are in lockstep agreement on that. And in fact...

01:22:22

I'm not 100 % certain about that. I'm seeing fissures in these things.

01:22:28

I'm not the only one who looking casually from the outside goes, you're going to have a female president of the

01:22:35

SBC. There's tremendous pressure being put upon people right now to completely rethink their views of complementarianism, egalitarianism, all this soft complementarianism going around and all this kind of stuff.

01:22:48

And I am concerned there isn't a lockstep at that point as the assumption is being made.

01:23:00

My concern on racial issues is that I do not drive our grandchildren into the arms of the

01:23:07

LGBTQIA issue. Okay, now think about that for just a moment. Don't want to drive our grandchildren into the arms of the

01:23:19

LGBTQIA by doing what on the race issue?

01:23:27

I don't follow this. I'm trying to. I'm trying to hear it. How do you drive your grandchildren into embracing the goodness of fundamental human confusion about sexuality on every level, fundamental human rebellion, by refusing to accept the idea that ethnicity is a superior lens to justification in the unity of the body of Christ?

01:24:09

Because that's what we're being asked to do. If you're saying that it's good to have black spaces, that it's good to have segregation, that it's good for one ethnic group in the church to be constantly putting another ethnic group in the position of penance toward them because of what their ancestors did, if you think that's a good thing, that that's a proper thing, what does that have to do with LGBTQI?

01:24:35

I'm not... I don't see the connection. Where already our younger people don't want to touch that issue.

01:24:44

Why don't they want to touch that issue? Because of a desire to be accepted within the society.

01:24:51

So what's the necessary antidote to that?

01:24:57

To teach our children to be first and foremost concerned about honoring God and what

01:25:02

God thinks of them. Pleasing God by believing what God says about these things.

01:25:08

And teach them the goodness of being a boy, the goodness of being a girl, because God made you that way and that's your calling and you can love him and serve him by being the best that you can be within the callings that he's given to you and that you should cherish these gifts that God has given to you because it's in them that you're going to find your greatest fulfillment and your greatest happiness.

01:25:33

Not by adopting some socially acceptable but utterly unbiblical concept of race and ethnicity in the church.

01:25:46

Because they know that it immediately marginalizes them. So one thing I want to make sure

01:25:51

I do is I want to look hard at my own tradition and my own tradition's failures with regard to the community of the saints, the image of God in man, loving our neighbors, and look hard at where we failed, own up to that so that I don't, you know the argument that's out there.

01:26:14

The church's failure in LGBTQIA area, not to affirm it, is just like its failure in the area of slavery and segregation.

01:26:24

Okay, now this is an apologetic argument, and the apologetic, which we've encountered over and over again. If you admit that the external church in the past has ever erred on any moral issue, therefore it cannot be right on any moral issue at all, what's the only meaningful response to that?

01:26:39

It's not to defend the inerrancy or infallibility of the church. It's to defend the inerrancy and infallibility of the scripture to demonstrate where people in the past have been wrong about these things.

01:26:48

You're hearing there exactly what Bradley Mason I dealt with on the last program, which was, well, look, there have been bad people that quoted

01:26:59

Colossians 3, therefore you're bad too. No, you deal with what the text actually says.

01:27:06

You exegete it properly, put it in its right context so that it can't be, well, any text can be abused and misused if you want to do that, but that it can't be done so in an honest fashion.

01:27:18

You don't do it by adopting some external authority. I want to break that argument apart and I want to say slavery and segregation was a failure of biblical fidelity.

01:27:32

Caving in to LGBTQIA affirmation is also a failure of biblical fidelity.

01:27:40

And where I'm standing, I'm standing there because I'm standing on the Bible and not because I'm trying to curry the favor of the culture, but because I want to tell the church, don't seek the favor of the culture.

01:27:53

And that means you have to say no to the culture where it's wrong and then you can say yes to the culture where it's right, not because the culture said it, because the word said it.

01:28:05

And you're not trying to get cultural affirmation out of it. If anybody in here who wants cultural affirmation, you're going to lose.

01:28:14

I mean, you can't throw enough over the side of the boat to get the culture to love you. You have to throw

01:28:20

God over the side of the boat to get the culture to love you. So please, if anybody in here wants the culture to love you, go ahead and become an atheist now.

01:28:30

That's not going to work. So what I want us to do is look rigorously at these issues from a biblical standpoint.

01:28:38

And I want us to make sure that we make a case for the big God theology that we've been all a part of this movement of for the last 40 years to this next generation, which is already wavering on a whole range of cultural issues.

01:28:51

Wouldn't you agree, though, that that desire to get the culture to love and appreciate us is a pathological cancer on the evangelical movement, on Big Eva?

01:29:01

I mean, that's, I would say, perhaps the defining mark of Big Eva.

01:29:10

I definitely see that there, Phil. Also, as a pastor, when

01:29:17

I see someone drifting in a dangerous direction, I want to use the arguments against them that are the most convincingly piercing as to the actual motivations of their hearts.

01:29:31

And I actually see several distinct motivations in operation if we simply say the only reason this is a discussion is because of currying the favor of the culture.

01:29:40

I think we won't be persuasive because I think there are some people that are genuinely, though mistakenly, motivated that need to be gotten at in a slightly different way.

01:29:52

So I certainly, even in my own backyard, I do look out and I see sometimes, oh, brother, you so want the affirmation of the world.

01:30:01

What do you all think is the future of this discussion? I mean, what is the end game? The Southern Baptists, for example, have,

01:30:08

I think it... Okay, now this got really interesting. This is what Tom and I were talking about earlier. And by the way, obviously, folks, and looking at the clock, yeah, we're not gonna be getting to Steven Anderson this time around.

01:30:18

Sorry, we'll keep it queued up. Got some really cool stuff. Gonna be looking at some text -critical stuff and things like that.

01:30:25

But you gotta meet the need of the moment. Every major convention for the past decade have asked forgiveness for slavery and their stance on it originally.

01:30:36

How long is this going to continue to be an issue that's at the center of our discussion?

01:30:43

Just to be clear, I don't think that's accurate about the Southern Baptists Convention. Really? No, not at all.

01:30:49

When was the first time they... 95. Okay. So for more than 20 years.

01:30:58

There's 150 years before that. There was 150 years before that that weren't so good. No, no, I'm saying, does that have to be renewed?

01:31:08

It hasn't ever been renewed. Okay. I mean, you're mistaking someone speaking from the microphone at the

01:31:15

Southern Baptist Convention for an action at the Southern Baptist Convention. Any messenger can get up and get to a microphone and say anything.

01:31:21

How long will that continue? Well, until Jesus comes or the Southern Baptist Convention turns off all the microphones.

01:31:28

That's it. But I mean, there are issues. So if you take the whole social justice issue and realize the poisoned well that comes from, which is basically the reduction of everything to structural issues.

01:31:45

It's a more traditionally Marxist argument. Which is what you have in Jamar Tisby, which is what you have in the woke church by Eric Mason, which is what you have in all of this.

01:31:58

I agree. But he's sitting next to someone who brought the forward to the woke church, which is what is making people in the pew going, trying to put two and two together here.

01:32:10

And that's where, yeah. Variant forms that aren't so explicitly Marxist, but are based upon the fact that morality is not the central issue, but structural issues are the central issue.

01:32:24

If you take that out and biblically, let's critique social justice, then we've got justice.

01:32:32

And that's where and there are going to be ongoing discussions that are unavoidable about what biblical justice requires of us.

01:32:44

And so when you say, where is this going? I don't think there's any way to avoid a lot of these questions.

01:32:51

And I don't think any of the people who think they're avoiding them are going to avoid them for long. Well, I agree, and yet I also disagree.

01:33:01

I heard Phil's question having within it, what's the end game? Because we've talked about that.

01:33:07

Is there a point in time when one side goes, apology accepted for what happened in the past?

01:33:15

We don't hold you accountable personally, but we recognize you acknowledge what was bad in the past.

01:33:22

Because as far as I can tell, given the nature of Christianized social justice, the assertion is, and it's worse today.

01:33:32

And so if you don't buy into our progressivist solutions, then you're just part of the problem. That's what

01:33:37

Jamar Tisby's saying. So there is no end game. There is no reconciliation.

01:33:44

There is no coming together. It's just constantly divisive, divisive, divisive, divisive. That's the nature of the application of intersectionality in this way.

01:33:52

And there is no end game. That's why I've, maybe someone beat me to it.

01:33:59

Maybe I read it someplace and didn't remember, but there is therefore now much condemnation in the woke church, because there's no redemption that can say, it's done.

01:34:08

It's in the past. We move forward. You can't do that when you're constantly talking about oppressor and oppressed and all the other things like that.

01:34:18

Or another, I mean, our answer to social confusion cannot be, we're not going to talk about this.

01:34:26

And especially on an issue like racism, I mean, I'm confronted with the reality that takes social justice out of it.

01:34:34

I've got simple justice issues, biblical justice issues that are very close to home

01:34:39

I've got to deal with. That obviously, again, is what came out in the

01:34:45

Ask Anything materials. The president of Southern Seminary, the chair, the professorship that I hold was endowed by a slave owner.

01:34:57

And so this is where I am.

01:35:02

Well, that's where he is, but that's not where somebody in England is or in South Africa is or in Australia is.

01:35:10

And that's one of the things that concerns me is, again, we are exporting this stuff to the rest of the world.

01:35:17

And there are certain very, very narrow, there are certain narrow American constructs that we're dealing with that don't transfer out.

01:35:29

Tom mentioned the Black retired cop not being happy about the conversation that took place in regards to, well, you have to have that conversation with your kids that you need to do whatever the cop says, it's life and death.

01:35:45

That's true, but it's true of any minority anywhere in the world.

01:35:50

If you are a minority group anywhere in the world, if you're a white person in Africa, you have to have the same conversation.

01:35:57

It's not a white Black thing. And it just seems that in many instances here in the

01:36:02

United States, we sort of think our experience is normative for everybody else, and it's not.

01:36:09

Sometimes we don't deal with them until they're brought to our attention. So that kind of public airing on various issues is going to continue.

01:36:18

I think if we are not biblical and honest about the reality of simple, straightforward, biblical justice issues, then we're going to be seen as incredibly hypocritical when we do stand for a biblical understanding of sexuality and gender and marriage and, frankly, the exclusivity of the gospel and the ontological trinity and the inerrancy of scripture.

01:36:44

I don't think there's any way to avoid these. And that's where, again, I'm going to go back and say, this is what I've tried to talk about and do in public, thinking out loud in public for 35 years.

01:36:56

And I'll stand on that body. I've been thankful. There are very few things I've had to go back and revise in 35 years.

01:37:04

It's a consistent argument. And by the way, when you talk about the briefing, it's not just about politics. I deal deeply with the life of denominations, including my own, with theological issues, with the entire spectrum of the culture.

01:37:18

So I intend to keep on doing that, but I hope to do so absolutely consistently and absolutely biblically with fidelity, and I invite you and all others to interrogate every aspect of my life and show me where I may come short.

01:37:42

Look, that's a noble expression that we should all make with humility, and almost no one who actually says it wants to experience it.

01:38:01

Let's just be honest. And I fully accept Dr. Moeller's statement there.

01:38:07

His reaction to the next question is going to go against that. It's just... And that's because we're humans and Dr.

01:38:14

Moeller's human and something about... You can't see Phil's eyes when he asks the question.

01:38:20

Maybe there was something there that just lit him up. I don't know. But he didn't take kindly to that happening here in a moment.

01:38:30

And I realize we've been going for an hour and 40 minutes and we'll wrap up. We're not gonna be able to play all of it, but we've played a lot of it.

01:38:39

We're not just picking and choosing. I've been a Christian since the 70s and it seems that there have been major threats to evangelical core convictions that come in waves.

01:38:50

We had the inerrancy battle. There was pragmatism in the seeker -sensitive churches, the emerging church movement and several others that I've kind of skipped over.

01:39:02

What would you see as the looming threats to our shared convictions? Well, I'm trying to say

01:39:08

I agree with you about much of what you see as the looming threat, but I'm 60 almost.

01:39:14

My wife is not happy when I'm saying I'm already 60, but I'm in my 60th year. Men round up, women round down.

01:39:21

Age, I mean, just in terms of how that works. But I have lived long enough to remember that when

01:39:31

I came of age as an evangelical, this was the same discussion and it was being driven by the evangelical left, people like Jim Wallace and Sojourners, the

01:39:41

Sojourners community. They're still there. Yes, but the difference is they have followed the consistent logic of their own position and they have been pulled.

01:39:50

I mean, they're no longer theologically orthodox nor any semblance thereof. And they've been left behind by the culture.

01:39:56

Well, yes, yes, exactly right. They can't get left enough. Well, yeah,

01:40:03

I think you may need to update yourself on where they are. I think they are. In many ways, they're they're unneedful to the left now.

01:40:12

They accept as a political coalition, except as a political coalition to the left. But the reality is the same thing is a danger that I see looming and I'm quite concerned about it.

01:40:25

Trying to address that as best I know how. What about the fact that it seems that many of the expressions of social justice, wokeness that would be absolutely unanimous in the sojourners are now being promoted on the campus of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

01:40:57

Why can't there be a direct and open spotlight put on that and said why?

01:41:04

Let's interact with that. Let's debate that. That, this, I, when you, when you, when you have a horrible disease coming into your body, you need to be able to take an antibiotic.

01:41:18

And it almost seems to me at the 11th commandment says thou shalt not take the antibiotic because the antibiotic might be open rebuke and debate.

01:41:28

But you're not getting that. You can't get that. That says a lot.

01:41:35

The difference is this. And I debated Jim Wallace in person.

01:41:42

The difference is this. Jim and others, Jim will speak as an evangelical. And, but, but they don't want to get very specific in theology.

01:41:53

One distinctive is, which is a part of our challenge right now is that there are people who will agree with every point of our theological system who are not seeing the other issues the same way.

01:42:07

That's requiring a different kind of apologetic argument. Does that make sense? It does.

01:42:13

It does. But I go back to what you said about incremental changes that, that promote that sort of liberalizing tendency and, and realize that just last year at both the

01:42:26

Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel, I was hearing some rhetoric that actually

01:42:32

I first heard from Jim Wallace and Sojourners 20, 30 years ago. And so I think what

01:42:37

I'm asking you is, in fact, what I am asking you is, do you not see that? Okay, there, there was the, do you not see?

01:42:47

I love Phil. Phil knows it. But in hindsight,

01:42:52

I've got, I've got the advantage. I'm sitting over here. This was, that was the, the,

01:43:00

I don't know, the, the pinprick, the, the, the, the phraseology,

01:43:06

I think, that hit the red button. And I don't think Phil saw it coming either.

01:43:12

Because that last, you know, this, for the past number of minutes, it's been fairly cool and fairly quiet.

01:43:19

But do you not see? Yeah. The evangelical movement, even the, even our constituency, the most conservative end of the evangelical movement, is becoming a little more susceptible to that.

01:43:35

But Phil, you've known me for a long time. You know the answer to the question is yes. But I'm not going to be forced into a situation before thousands of people in which

01:43:42

I have to say, I'm going to do it your way. Sorry. Okay. I don't know what is behind all of that.

01:43:53

Um, that was not a, that was not consistent with what he said five minutes ago, or less than five minutes ago during the

01:44:01

Q &A. Um, I don't know what he, how he interpreted

01:44:07

Phil's question. I think what Phil was getting at is it's easy to throw knives, or swords,

01:44:18

I guess, um, blow darts, at the sojourners, because they're, they're not, they're not at SHEPCON.

01:44:26

Okay? And they're not coming. And they don't want to come. Our concern is what's going on right now, right here at Southeastern, or at New Orleans, or at any of the other

01:44:42

Southern Baptist seminaries, or in videos from the

01:44:48

Dean of Boyce College talking about white privilege, and stuff like that, rather than coming from a biblical perspective, um, on these things.

01:44:56

That's, in other words, it's, we're not talking about that stuff out there. We're talking about much closer.

01:45:02

And that's what Phil was trying to ask. And I don't know what that means other than, well, look,

01:45:10

I'm dealing with it in my own way. You don't know what I know. Therefore, leave me alone on this.

01:45:15

And don't try to pin me down in front of all these thousands of people. And this is where the, um, tension level in the room tripled, and has only slowly dissipated since then, uh, basically.

01:45:31

And if that's a test of fellowship amongst us, this will be a - Okay, now, look what's going on here.

01:45:40

Uh, Dever and Duncan are looking over at Moeller, like, what just happened?

01:45:46

Sinclair Ferguson is wondering what time it is. And John's microphone is coming up, because he knows he needs to diffuse what just happened, because everybody else in the audience is staring at this going, what just happened?

01:46:03

What was that? We didn't see that coming. And so John's going to wisely, uh, diffuse that.

01:46:14

And here's the problem. That was the end of the conversation. As far as actually touching on the real issue, because that was the real issue.

01:46:27

The real issue is not, we all know that the leftists control the sojourners.

01:46:35

That's what they are. That's, that's what's definitional. What is taking place that allows the same rhetoric to be being heard from people in conferences being sponsored by the

01:46:50

ERLC and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary? That's the issue.

01:46:55

Or PCA groups, uh, PCA churches, if you want to bring the

01:47:03

Presbyterians in and quit picking on the Southern Baptist for a while, because it's happening there too. The issue is what opened the door?

01:47:13

And we didn't get a discussion of that. And so, yeah, that's where some things, that's where there's reason for disappointment.

01:47:24

Because that was the time to address it. That's the time to go to it. There's few other things that are going to be being discussed that would have more direct relevance right now.

01:47:34

Because you have thousands of the most dedicated Bible -believing pastors in the

01:47:42

United States, in the world. I've got friends there from South Africa, Australia.

01:47:49

And there they are. Here's the opportunity. What do they walk away with? Wow, there's some real issues going on here.

01:47:56

I didn't even know what was going on. But there's, there hasn't been any conclusion to it.

01:48:03

There hasn't been any, any, well, you're not going to, in one Q &A session, get that, you know, you're not gonna be able to go that far.

01:48:12

I realize that. But, so, as we come up, as we have now passed the one hour and 45 minute mark for the program, a few things.

01:48:31

In God's providence, this took place. It is important. I think we may be looking back on something in the future.

01:48:40

And remember what happened to Shepkon? And, you know, I wonder what five or ten years of time is going to mean as far as looking back upon this and seeing what the significance was.

01:48:52

Obviously, my deepest hope and desire is not for further division, but for unity. I don't know what it's going to take to create that.

01:49:03

The direct persecution of the society does tend to, well,

01:49:11

I was going to say, does tend to focus us upon what unites us. But I think that's part of what this is all about, is by infecting the

01:49:21

Church with intersectional thought rather than biblical thought.

01:49:26

And I stand by my assertion. There's some guy out there that was picking on me recently, but I won't go into that right now.

01:49:36

I stand by my assertion that a worldview that is intersectional in its outlook, that is looking upon what divides people rather than beginning with God as the

01:49:49

Creator and hence what unites people as the Imago Dei, that unites us together, that we are the creatures of God, that intersectional poison in our society and in the

01:50:04

Church is fatal. And history tells us that when the

01:50:14

Church experienced persecution, if there was division already in the Church, it caused more.

01:50:23

And this concerns me greatly as to what the future is going to hold. I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet.

01:50:30

I'm not trying to prophesy about what's going to be happening in the future. I'm simply saying that five years from now, when we look back at this, what will have happened?

01:50:41

Will this have been a catalyst for more open conversation and hence the foundational issues coming forth and there being a greater unity?

01:50:54

We can pray toward that end. Or given the general trend that we're seeing in Western culture, might this be a time when fissures were opened that resulted in sort of an index of prohibited subjects that can no longer be asked or talked about, but only, you know, over in the corner over there where you hope no one's going to hear you?

01:51:23

That would be tragic. That would be a very bad thing. So, much to be learned,

01:51:32

I think, from this encounter and from the reactions to it.

01:51:39

It's going to be a developing thing, I think. We're moving into the conference season.

01:51:46

It's normally spring and fall. And one thing

01:51:51

I've noticed is that the other side has got a lot of conferences coming up, and they're sort of, they're no longer even trying to hold a mask of theological orthodoxy.

01:52:07

In looking at some comments from one well -known social justice guy, I'm done with white reformed theology, right?

01:52:15

The white reformed community. I'm just done with it. There's a lot of people just going, hey, we're going to embrace the divisions.

01:52:23

We're going to embrace the segregation. We're not going to, you know, we're going to go that direction.

01:52:28

And will that result in people leaving? Well, if you're leaving because you want to separate into ethnic churches and ethnic minorities and stuff like that, well, nothing you can do about that.

01:52:46

But that might result in a more unified group of people who don't have races and ethnicity as their primary lens,

01:52:54

I suppose. But what will we see? I don't know. I don't know.

01:53:00

But I, as I said on Twitter this morning, have to address this. It would have been the elephant in the room.

01:53:08

Can you imagine if I just decided to do this program on Steven Anderson today? You know, when something like this has just happened, that's what everyone's talking about.

01:53:17

And I think it needs to be discussed. And hopefully we have shed some light on the issue.

01:53:24

I also realize that no matter how carefully I've attempted to speak, it would be very easy to misrepresent, to impugn motives, to say, oh, you were just terrible toward Dr.

01:53:36

Moeller or toward Mark Dever or whoever. And I don't believe that I was.

01:53:41

Anything that I've said that was speculative, tried to base that upon past experience and upon what other people have said, and tried to be fair in understanding the pressures that Dr.

01:53:56

Moeller faces and to a lesser extent Dr. Duncan faces. I don't know as much about him or his situation.

01:54:03

Tried to be as fair as I possibly can be. And it's not an easy road to travel.

01:54:11

There's no two ways about it. There's a lot of exits going both directions off this road into imbalance one way or the other.

01:54:18

And I am sure there's many people who feel that I've either been too harsh or too lenient.

01:54:25

As long as there's about the same number on both sides of that, then we're probably somewhere in the middle and hopefully somewhat balanced.

01:54:33

So, sorry that I thought we would get to the Anderson stuff. I've got it queued up.

01:54:38

We'll get to it. And there is some cool stuff. If you're interested, look at Revelation chapter 2, verse 2.

01:54:46

Compare the TR with the modern text. We'll talk a little bit about that in the future. And Revelation 14 .1.

01:54:51

We'll be getting to both of those in our Steven Anderson review and in our looking at Erasmus and the history of the text and textual traditionalism and all that wonderful fun stuff.

01:55:01

And something tells me something will probably happen between now and the next time we get together that will make it all the more interesting.