City Council Video, Ekemini Uwan and Wicked Whiteness, Radio Free Geneva on Leighton Flowers

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00:22

Well greens welcome to the dividing line We were out of town over the weekend had a short week last week as far as programs were concerned

00:30

I mentioned on Wednesday when we did the one program that we did That I had something to do that afternoon and some of you

00:40

I fact I walked into my little little spot where I get some Pasta or things like that today and the regular

00:47

Waitress it takes care of me says hey, I I saw you before the Phoenix City Council. I've got the video on my phone

00:54

That's like how'd you see that? The blaze had picked it up and that's how she had run across it.

01:01

So I Am gonna play it if you haven't seen it. It's all three minutes long.

01:06

It is the fastest three minutes of your life You you you know,

01:12

I do have the advantage of having done so many debates because Very often you have one minute or 90 seconds or something to answer

01:22

Questions and things like that, but to try to get something said meaningfully in front of a group of people in all of 200 and Well 180 seconds.

01:35

Sorry 180 seconds. It's not not easily done and So I decided to go a little different direction than what would be expected

01:44

I hoped it would keep the attention of the people on the council a little longer than otherwise and so I'll let you judge whether we managed to pull that off, but Here is now you'll see me put something on the podium.

01:58

That was the microphone for the camera in the back and So people said hey you left something on the podium.

02:07

Yeah, because there were four more speakers From our group. And so I was first one.

02:12

So I put it there and then left it there for The recording of the other guys including

02:19

Jeff Durbin so here is last

02:24

Wednesday at the Phoenix City Council Chambers in downtown Phoenix Good afternoon.

02:34

My name is James White. I am a minister a author and a professor in April of 1945

02:43

American forces were moving into the heart of Germany and they freed a City called

02:49

Weimar. It's a beautiful little city right up on the hill outside of Weimar was a very large camp

02:55

We know it today is the Buchenwald concentration camp What they found there has become the stuff of legend.

03:03

It wasn't as large as Auschwitz. It wasn't as large as Dachau But for example the camp superintendent's wife

03:11

She was fascinated by human skin. She had a lampshade made out of human skin

03:17

She was fascinated by tattoos so she would have people killed and have their tattoos preserved the kind of Horrific things that took place in Buchenwald over years

03:29

So shocked the American leadership that when Dwight D Eisenhower and General Patton toured the camp

03:35

General Patton commanded that the mayor and Magistrates and leading citizens of Weimar be forced to tour the camp

03:44

To see what had been done right under their eyes for many years

03:50

Now most of us would say that that was a moral act on the part of the Americans The question that I have is history looks very

03:59

Much askance at the citizens of Weimar. They did nothing They said

04:04

Verhappen ist gewusst. We didn't know How could they not know what was going on within plain view up there on the hill?

04:12

They knew but they kept their eyes down. They didn't want to see and so history has treated them very very poorly

04:20

The question I have for us today is how will history treat us? Because the reality is within the borders of the city of Phoenix More innocent children have been killed in an equally gruesome ways

04:35

Than were ever killed in the Buchenwald concentration camp in the entire years that it was in operation

04:42

How will history look at us? Will there be a general patent that has to rise from the dead and force us to walk through the abortuaries?

04:52

But I don't think history is the most important thing How will the judge of all history look upon us when we stand before him?

05:00

He knows whether we knew or not and we live in a day where there's no reason not to know what's going on Not to know the humanity of the pre -born child

05:10

Will he look upon the donations that we received from Planned Parenthood? Will he see those things?

05:17

I ask you please make the city of Phoenix a sanctuary city for pre -born

05:24

Children save us from the infamy and the cowardice of Weimar.

05:29

Thank you very much So yeah,

05:35

I didn't have any any notes there because I I Just on a

05:46

Personal level when you see someone reading something and I realize most people that's what they need to do

05:51

Especially actually it was two minutes and 57 53 seconds. I had seven seconds

05:57

There's a there's a timer that you can see up there over to the left I wanted to I Wanted to do it in such a way that I wasn't reading a statement

06:09

That I was telling a story and it's a compelling story now, by the way What has been really

06:16

I don't disgusting is That On the video

06:23

The Holocaust deniers have come crawling out of the little black caves.

06:29

They live in To deny that any of that stuff ever took place. I'm just like Really?

06:35

I mean you hear about people like that, but until they come out of the darkness and Express themselves.

06:45

You're you're like nah, no one could really but no they're they're out there Sad sad thing.

06:52

So anyway for other men spoke including

06:59

Zack Conover and and Jeff Durbin spoke They're all available if you go to end abortion now or apology of studios one of the two you can see all of them

07:10

But you know, you're limited to three minutes. They tried to get rid of us because up until this time

07:18

Public comments were taken before the City Council meeting this time.

07:23

They moved to the end and The idea I think because we fill the place up there had never been that many children

07:33

They're never that many that many children very well -behaved children in a

07:38

City Council meeting before but That makes it a whole lot harder for people to come during the middle of day, but we filled that place up I mean we had people show up that were taking time off of work and the whole nine yards just to be there.

07:52

So anyway, I think last time there had been five women that had Testified and this time is five five ministers that that did that.

08:02

So if you'd seen that the blaze picked it up, and I know that There are some other possibilities of some further discussions in light of that Maybe even tomorrow morning, but I haven't heard the final word on that yet.

08:17

So we'll we'll see but that's what I was doing in a Wednesday and I haven't had an opportunity to comment on that since then because we were down in Actually up in Morgan Hill, California heart of Silicon Valley I made a lot of comments at the conference there about hoping

08:34

I get out of the Soviet Socialist Republic of California and And stuff like that, but I did thankfully

08:42

And had a great time up there by the way Let me just thank both the folks down in Victoria, Texas as well as in Morgan Hill All the folks of the various churches that were involved there made it great.

08:54

It was great to speak with Justin Peters last weekend this weekend Dr. Michael Grisanti from Master Seminary Was there he's an

09:05

Old Testament archaeology type guy. He did a great job very interesting presentations Had some good

09:12

Q &A sessions and my last presentation was on the sufficiency of Scripture in light of tradition and And a lot of people found that very helpful because I started off presenting the

09:23

Roman Catholic argument from 2nd Thessalonians 2 15 and Things like that to you know get their attention and it got their attention and So so there you go

09:37

So anyway had a great time. I really want to thank Fellow by the name of Matt who made my last trip very very enjoyable

09:48

He took me he works at specialized which is really the the premier American cycle cycling

09:55

Company in the US I ride a specialized a very nice specialized bike or will be at least

10:00

I have it I haven't ridden it yet in the July races, but that's what I'll be taking up Mount Evans for example

10:07

And so I got to visit the the world headquarters got to ride with Matt up into the foothills

10:12

Which is some pretty tough climbs up in the foothills There and then we did some more stuff around there was it was a really good time

10:19

I actually came back with the same level of fitness according to Strava anyways as when I left Which is really unusual that makes for a happy speaker when you get to go home and not feel like you're gonna take an entire

10:30

Week just to get back to where you were. I'm only home for as of today ten days before we head off to the

10:37

UK and Netherlands and So I hope to be able to put something on the blog fairly quickly as to where I will be

10:46

I can tell you I can't well he mentioned it. So I guess I can mention it On the 23rd, that doesn't mean you get to hear it on the 23rd, but on the 23rd,

10:55

I'll be recording back -to -back episodes of unbelievable and Justin mentioned at the end of something we'll be talking about later on the program

11:07

That this program was coming up and he named names. So We will be doing a debate on Romans 9 not with Layton flowers, but with someone else who's written an article on the subject another way of Dealing with Romans 9 to try to Not read it in the way that I think it absolutely has to be read.

11:27

But anyways, we'll we'll do a debate That hopefully will be more focused than debates.

11:33

We've done in the past and then we're also gonna be doing An Islam conversation on unbelievable as well

11:39

So we're doing two of those programs on the 23rd like I said that following weekend in the Netherlands with Paul washers guys that are there and Then back to the

11:49

UK For at least one debate in the East London Mosque Subject we've done before but it's a good subject and with someone else.

11:59

I will be doing it with someone else where the Quran Accurately identifies the Trinity and provides a meaningful argumentation against it is

12:07

One of the things we'll be doing there. So once again you make it possible for us to do these things by Donating to the the travel fund and to the ministry as a whole.

12:18

So remind you of that That need as it as it exists as well

12:23

So with that I had specifically mentioned the topic of our program today.

12:29

And once again, I commented to rich that I'm awful glad that he answers the phones after the dividing line because Look if if if we were trying to make friends influence people and have the biggest audience we could

12:50

Oh Yes, by the way, Lauren it already is if you look up Coram Dale 2019 the videos are already there including that presentation.

13:01

I was just mentioning on sufficiency of scripture and tradition and the other presentations on archaeology and and I did a presentation we started the presentations off with a

13:13

I did a presentation on the textual traditionalism and Things like that.

13:19

So yeah, that's Coram Dale 2019 you'll be able to pull those pull those up there from Trinity Bible Church Is where the location was and so you'll be able to find those

13:30

Just so happen. I could just see enough of Twitter above my notes To be able to see that so I'll get that information out

13:37

Anyways, if we are trying to win friends influence people this would not be a subject that we would ever address ever would have addressed

13:45

But Over the weekend a controversy began to swirl in certain circles

13:55

About The Sparrow conference, I'm sorry,

14:00

I don't know anything about the Sparrow conference. It seems to be a women's conference. I think it was in Dallas and Sista theology in Twitter Akamini Uwan Who I can't follow on Twitter because she's blocked me but But you still can it just takes an extra step is all there is to it.

14:21

But anyway She did a half -hour Q &A with Where she was being interviewed?

14:29

She has a master's from Westminster in Philadelphia, she calls herself a

14:35

Anti -racism public theologian Now one of one of the things here one of the things that we'll be talking about is

14:45

The utilization of ambiguous terminology to promote an agenda

14:53

Without actually making it possible to seriously critique it or interact with it

15:00

It is it is a an agenda that is specifically meant to create confusion and division

15:08

Not reconciliation. I Believe that firmly. I think I think that will be borne out as we look at things here and one of the ways you do it is you you redefine the lexicon and Some of these folks are open about they would say that they are

15:27

Decentering whiteness which includes colonialism which includes having one lexicon basically The idea of having a single

15:38

Definition of terms allows for great clarity and it actually allows us to come together and agree on things and and one thing that critical theory which is what the almost everything we're dealing with in The promotion of critical race theory critical gender theory

16:01

Critical sexuality theory as long as it's got critical fill -in -the -blank theory

16:08

Critical theory cannot produce a foundation upon which a society can unite around something

16:16

It can only divide it's it's a little bit like Have you ever taken a?

16:23

You know a pan that you use to make something oily in in cooking and You put some water in it and then you hit it with your

16:34

Dish soap your dawn, you know specific design to get rid of grease Well, what happens you see everything split up on the surface goes all sorts different directions

16:44

Well, that's what critical theory does to people because critical theory emphasizes our differences and creates differences

16:56

All it can do is talk about the oppressor and the oppressed power structures who has it who doesn't majority versus minority and as such

17:07

You can't bring Anybody together? That's why critical theory and Christianity are

17:14

Enemies to one another they they they they can't work. Yes. I've seen people saying well, you can be critical that how

17:20

The Apostles certainly didn't function on that basis. It's not derived from a biblical worldview and for a lot of people today, sadly, we're looking at the

17:32

Long -term result of Something I've talked about for years and and that is if in the ministry of the word we are not constantly challenging the world's ways of thought and and Demonstrating to our people

17:49

How to create a biblically grounded worldview and to derive that from scripture rather than cramming in description

17:56

Everybody says that's what they do, but it's pretty obvious when when you really are doing that it's pretty obvious when you are taking external externally defined things and cramming them into scripture and redefining terms and and coming to conclusions that that Painful, it's painfully obvious No one in the history of the church or at least no one in The writing of the scriptures prophets apostles so on and so forth came to the conclusions you did didn't teach the things you're teaching so What we're seeing and and and what happened was this this

18:31

Q &A section Got pulled. Well, there you go As soon as you pull something now, you're making it famous I mean once you hit post it's there

18:44

You know pulling it down really does not accomplish anything other than making it even more widely watched than it was before through other sources and so they

18:53

Pulled this thing because evidently there were people getting up and walking out Well, why are they getting up and walking out?

19:01

well, because you have two black women up front talking about well, at least one of them was specifically talking about the wickedness of whiteness

19:14

That whiteness is something to repent of Whiteness is wickedness is what miz one said and So after about the third or fourth time of this people started getting up and walking out

19:33

Now do do I think that the people who got up and walked out had a clear understanding of what critical theory means and how

19:44

Whiteness doesn't mean whiteness. No Does that mean it was actually incumbent upon miss one

19:52

To be very clear as to what whiteness actually is. Yes Did what she purposefully not being clear on that no she was using the language of critical theory but the problem is as We will see as we will listen to her

20:09

There are times when white and black means white and black and then there are times when white and black doesn't mean white and black

20:14

And sometimes they're in the same paragraph and that's the problem with this stuff is That once people buy into the victim ology narrative.

20:25

I am a victim I am oppressed. I'm oppressed because I'm this I'm oppressed because I'm that and I'm oppressed because people 300 years ago went through this and they look like me and therefore

20:35

I'm oppressed because of that the idea of Undertaking your own

20:41

Responsibility to be extremely clear with what you're saying ends up going out the window You can use whatever language you want because I'm oppressed and if you're one of the oppressors

20:51

Even if you had nothing to do with it critical theory doesn't care about that critical theory does not care about personal responsibility

20:56

Critical theory cares about power groups and Your individual identity is irrelevant in critical theory

21:05

You're just a part of a group whether you had anything to do with it or not is irrelevant doesn't matter

21:10

You're a part of the group. You're the oppressor oppressed and if you're oppressed there's different levels upon which you're oppressed that's intersectionality and That's how it works that's why it's just so antithetical to Christianity Christianity talks about personal responsibility there's a day of judgment coming and Either you are in Christ or you're outside of Christ and then you're responsible for your sins but the idea that it's just a ethnic group or a oppression group or Your group it is there is a group and you're defined by who you are in relationship with Christ or Adam Romans chapter 5 anyway

21:50

A critical theory has no room for that critical theory has no creator critical theory has no decree critical theory has no

21:55

Providence Critical theory is a mess and when you try to as Miss Miss Awan does meld the two together one is going to fundamentally distort the other and So she says many wonderful things

22:15

When she's quoting Bible verses or utilizing standard Christian terminology and then in the next sentence, you're all all of a sudden getting whiteness is wickedness you need to repent of whiteness and We're going where does the

22:29

Bible teach you to repent of whiteness? I don't even know how to do it and that's when you realize there's there's just a major disconnect going on here a

22:39

Major major disconnection going on here and it leaves all of us just going

22:45

I'm so confused and I'm so tired of this and can't we all just get along? Well, we can't all just get along unfortunately so what

22:56

I'm gonna do is I've I've queued up a Portion, but I I'm just gonna the the briefer portions before I'm just gonna read then we'll get into actually listening but mizuwan was being interviewed by Elizabeth Woodson and And So she's given some of her background she says they always made that connection for me and so in some ways

23:21

I always move through the world understanding that the forces aligned against us as black people

23:26

Not only in America, but also in the global context because white supremacy is a global project now immediately.

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I'm hearing race I'm hearing ethnicity later Whiteness is something to repent of you can't repent of your skin color

23:41

So you have all this conflicting contradictory utilization within one context and If you point it out, you're just being you're mansplaining or You're whitesplaining or whatever

23:58

The oppressed get to use terminology any way they want to and and consistent

24:04

Inconsistency is a good thing in critical theory. The more you get to divide the better And this is what leaves most of us going but isn't the whole reason for opening our mouths to actually communicate and bring about agreement and unity not in critical theory as Long remember the ultimate good in critical theory is to get rid of oppression

24:29

Don't think for a second that oppression has anything to do with what the Bible says oppression is Because it's not oppression is a

24:38

Recognition of Differences in people in Capacities in intelligence in position in economics

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All of that Gets defined as oppression so If you're a minor league baseball player, you're oppressed by the major league baseball player player who makes more money than you do

25:04

If you only have a high school degree you're being oppressed By the person that has a doctorate or a college degree

25:12

If you live up on the hill and have a better view Then you're the oppressor of the people in the valley that don't have that view etc.

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Etc It's it's always divides always divides And so getting rid of oppression isn't the biblical mandate to deal with oppressors

25:29

Who are breaking God's law who are engaging in theft who are oppressing the widow and the orphan?

25:36

No Nothing like that That would be way too simple to understand

25:43

Critical theory just doesn't go there. So anyways, the point is The forces aligned against us as black people not only in America, but also in the global context.

25:54

Why does that? Does that mean in China? because by the way the idea of white supremacy

26:03

Whiteness is almost always actually functioning as simply majority privilege

26:09

If you live in China, the Chinese have majority privilege. So that would be whiteness even though they're not white

26:15

But that would be whiteness because that's majority privilege And so if you're in an African nation nation, it would be black people who have majority privilege, but that would still be whiteness

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So it doesn't matter which color is It's just the majority Which always has to be set over against the minority to create division

26:34

Which is why there's been a lot of pointing out. That's what Marx did that this this division idea well, that's part of it, but not even

26:44

Marx was this nuts as far as see as the Because because critical theory is a destructive epistemology.

26:52

It destroys Categories it destroys anything that can unite us so we can make process progress

26:59

So so that you you bring a society to its knees so you can then remake it

27:04

Now the only way you can be able to remake it is then to throw out critical theory Which is which they'll do because there's no there's no eternal objective truths here to be worried about once you destroy the society you can remake it the way you want to and then critical theory can go out the door because Once you start remaking a society the way you want it critical theory doesn't help you because you can't use it

27:23

You have to unite people around something else. So anyway Do you did it aligned against us as black people not in America also global context because white supremacy is a global project

27:34

And so my parents had to contend with not only the transatlantic slave trade

27:39

But also colonialism. I'm sorry Mizuwan is not old enough for her parents to have been impacted by either of those two things so it's again this

27:52

Always the focus on the back always the focus looking backwards always the focus on Looking for things in the past that will divide you from others oppression oppressed all that kind of stuff so you had those twin evils that Africans on the whole and West Africans particularly had to deal with and so now she's

28:11

Nigerian I guess but but she doesn't even say she even rejects that as a label

28:19

So, I guess I guess Nigeria's colonial history, I guess could have but but The slave trade if it was a transatlantic one, which is again the normal utilization of that term ended long before grandparents even in that in that context, but there was

28:36

And there still is slave trade in Africa going other directions and it's normally black on black, but that wouldn't

28:43

Again, that would just be blacks Serving white supremacy

28:49

This is why us older people just go why just why can't we just use words to mean what they used to mean?

28:56

Because why are we using colors if the colors don't matter? Why are we doing this? Why can't we talk about majority privilege or something like that, you know?

29:07

And so I've always been conscious of that and growing up in California, which is not as progressive as people like to think

29:16

I don't know. I hear a lot of us stuff coming out of Sacramento that would tell me it is Actually, it is quite a racist state and that was something

29:25

I always experienced and so she goes on But I I was always made to feel different when

29:35

I was in predominantly white spaces, okay, there's another white spaces means a

29:43

Place that is not specifically defined by orientation to a particular minority

29:50

That's what a white spaces has nothing to a color Because a white space in China is different than a white space in Japan, which is different than a white space in Indonesia Really when you when you globalize a lot of this stuff

30:07

The silliness of the terminology becomes obvious because it just doesn't transfer outside the United States doesn't have the same kind of communicative power but that's what a white space is is a majority space rather than one specifically oriented to a minority

30:23

So I was very much aware of my blackness I've been black all my life.

30:28

She was laughing when she said that because when you read it, it's sort of like Okay But she was laughing she said that and was raised to be proud to be black

30:39

So it was always something that I was pushing back against. So my parents we read Toni Morrison's the bluest eye

30:44

I read Malcolm X had these books and bookshelves in the house so on and so forth So there you get some of the some of the inputs to the things so Here's where majority group stuff comes in The majority group traverses between different stages if you will of racial identity development

31:03

For example, there is the pre -encounter stage where say as a black person you may not have come into racial awareness

31:11

In other words, you're not woke yet So you have been in majority white spaces and in some ways you've imbibed the sense in which your culture is not as valuable

31:22

In other words, you were getting along with folks The divisions didn't exist

31:30

You were not making your ethnicity an issue of division between yourself and others

31:38

Say you have been It's not valuable that it was not seen as the norm not seen as the default

31:45

So in some ways you denigrate your own culture in order to assimilate So the idea of getting along with others the idea of everybody coming together

31:55

That's called denigration of your culture so as to assimilate You see this in Europe right now

32:04

People's coming in refusing to assimilate destroying the nations that they've come into So there cannot be any cultural cohesion

32:14

Critical theory destroys cultural cohesion It does not have a foundation for cultural cohesion

32:19

Because even if everybody agrees with critical theory all that does is divide us down to the nth degree it's all it does

32:26

So that would be an example of the pre encounter stage and I think

32:34

That is where I then went down a little bit and I have the audio So that it's just not me reading.

32:41

So you ready on that end? Okay. All righty all right, so let's

32:49

Let's let ms. One speak for herself here. So analogically

32:55

Implication of that is when it comes to race We got to face the reality of what it is, and it's very ugly.

33:01

So then when you ask me about Racial identity healthy racial identity development for for white women and for people of color

33:09

Well, it's not the same, you know, we're not on the same place these far up these two think they're not the same

33:15

You know, so when you're talking about healthy Racial development for white women.

33:21

The reality is that we have to understand that race is a social construct that was organized around strife around Difference racial stratification, you know

33:35

So that obviously white people are on top and people of color you're on the bottom blackness being on the very bottom

33:42

You know, so there's levels to this So here's you know, the narrative coming out is that you know, this is this is the narrative

33:50

I I truly believe that these people believe this I Don't believe it's true in our day, especially but They they that's that's the narrative that you must believe and if you dare question it just ask some of my black brothers and sisters that have questioned it and they're the ones that end up being called

34:11

Oreos and Stuff like that by national leading figures unrepentantly even by Christian National leaders, they will use that terminology without repentance

34:26

Because it serves the greater good the greater good of critical theory and critical theory is all all and in all

34:35

You dare question the narrative and There you go. And so we have to understand a race in and of itself

34:43

You know is made up and it's not something that we actually should really seek to redeem

34:49

Really our ethnicity though is something that we do retreat retain and we see that in Revelation 7 9

34:56

So can I keep talking? Revelation 7 9 we see that every tongue tribe and nation gathered around the throne, right?

35:09

So we see that beautiful glimpse of what we're gonna see in the new heavens and a new earth, right?

35:14

And that worship that's happening even now now again, we've we've addressed this I've pointed out the fact that it does seem to be a misuse of Revelation chapter 7 to think that what is actually being emphasized in that text is

35:29

Anything other than the extensiveness of the kingship of Jesus Men from every tribe tongue people in nation means that King Jesus has been given sheep from the whole world the emphasis is not upon a continuing emphasis of ethnic identity into eternity

35:54

I Really struggle with that that that's not well I don't struggle that is not the emphasis of Revelation chapter 7 that is a reading into Revelation chapter 7 or something that isn't there

36:07

Can you affirm that in light of the embodiment of the resurrected body that there would be a

36:17

Some concept of recognition of who we were yes

36:23

Individuality yes but The identity we now have will not be ethnic

36:30

The identity is found completely in Christ So will we even give a second thought to whether your nose is wider?

36:38

Will your nose be wider? I don't know Jesus's body was completely recognizable

36:46

But that doesn't mean that the emphasis will be upon His Jewishness or the tint of his skin or anything else

36:56

But This has become a part of the the meme the narrative To go to Revelation 7 to grab that And so so we retain that so that is good

37:07

But race in and of itself was always meant, you know to actually put differences

37:13

You know between others and it's always meant to subjugate right in this case.

37:19

Obviously, I'm speaking as a black woman Subjugate me or subjugate us, you know as black women

37:25

Well, of course in the history of the world every color every race

37:32

Every ethnicity has been enslaved by every other at some point in time.

37:38

That's not that's not that's not even arguable Not even not even bother to argue with those of you who just are so sold out

37:44

You can't you can't see that but that that is a fact That's the reality So To be to so focus upon the

37:55

American aspect That you can in essence say that the whole reason for race is subjugate you as a black woman

38:05

Does not follow I mean that there's a there's a oppressor oppressed victimization narrative there that is extremely

38:13

Extremely strong in in what's being said and with that So ethnicity, let me explain what that is

38:20

So that's when there's a common group of people that have they share share common heritage cultural heritage common religion common language, right

38:29

And in among other things, but those those are like the core course racial identity, too But but at the core common heritage common language ethnic

38:38

That's why the revelation 79 talks about you know tongues, you know tribes nations

38:43

We hold on to that like, you know, so that means by God's grace when I make it to glory I will remain as I am.

38:51

Well, I'll be I will have a new body. I don't know We don't know what it's gonna be. We don't know what it's gonna look like, but I will be

38:57

Not even just Nigerian right because Nigerian is a colonial tag, right? That was given to us that name was given to us by colonists

39:05

So we probably won't retain that but I will retain the fact that I'm gonna be be a woman that's my tribe that I will be that and I will have kinky hair and I will have a broad nose and I will have dark skin

39:17

In the new heavens in the new earth and we know that because our Savior is embodied Jesus Christ did not raise as a ghost

39:23

Right, you know, he is embodied right now. We live in an embodied faith

39:28

So when I'm talking about race and I talk about racial identity Really what we want to do is we want to hold on to what is actually in the scriptures, right?

39:38

So race is not a category in the Bible who did not exist, you know, because it's something that's not something that's gonna be redeemed

39:45

You know, it was made meant to hold power and hoard power. Um, so then when we talk about why okay so here's here's where we need to focus in Identity then we have to talk about what whiteness is.

39:58

Well The reality is that whiteness is rooted in plunder in theft in Enslavering right enslavement of Africans Genocide of Native Americans.

40:12

We're sitting on stolen land. If you're in America, we're in we're sitting on stolen land

40:18

Everywhere in America. This is the reality of land that was stolen from Native Americans We have to recognize that and acknowledge that.

40:26

Okay, could I mention something about that? From a historical perspective

40:36

Everybody Post -flood I Guess I guess the the only narrative

40:43

I can figure out here. Is that if your tribe

40:49

Was the first people to a particular area Post -flood

40:55

Then bingo. That's it you win now Obviously there were numerous wars

41:02

Between the various indigenous peoples. Well, there's always been numerous wars between various indigenous peoples.

41:07

That's how it's worked from time immemorial and so In most instances therefore we wouldn't know who the actual owners are

41:18

Because by the time somebody else gets there somebody else has already displaced somebody else through war And things like that and so we really wouldn't know who owns any land if you actually follow that back far enough

41:29

To the idea that first -come first -served That doesn't make a whole lot of sense and that would also mean that the

41:38

Jews don't own the promised land God actually gets to define these things.

41:45

Okay, and so Just just a reference to that particular type of thing, but but the point is

41:55

We have to talk about what whiteness is didn't get around to that That's the problem

42:02

That's the problem because say the reality is the reality is that whiteness is rooted in plunder in theft in Slavery and enslavement of Africans genocide of Native Americans.

42:16

So whiteness is bad Well, what is it since there were black slave traders were they

42:26

Involved in the sin of whiteness and if so, why are we even calling it whiteness?

42:33

what is the relationship between the word and the concept that it's supposed to embody and Isn't it obviously massively dangerous to use color terms

42:46

That could be confused with race or ethnicity when that's not what you're actually talking about Why bother with that I mean if you want to talk if you want to Demonize someone and say well what this military expedition did was evil

43:06

Then then talk about conquerors talk about People who utilized military power to subjugate other people.

43:14

Why call that whiteness? It accomplishes nothing except in critical theory where in with critical race theory, it allows you to set people at one another to divide and Really to make it impossible

43:31

For there ever to be any reconciliation so that as a as a society you can move forward

43:39

But why use it I don't know but we've had no definition, but We're about to get the critical theory part because she's about to say it's a power structure.

43:51

That is what whiteness is So the thing for white women to do is you have to divest from whiteness

43:59

Because what happened was that your ancestors actually made a deliberate choice to rid themselves of their ethnic identity and by doing

44:07

So they actually stripped Africans in America of their ethnic identity That's what she's about to say.

44:15

So that is not so so it's a it's a power structure is what whiteness is and so but the

44:22

The thing for white women in this because we women in here to do is that you have to divest from whiteness

44:29

You have to divest from whiteness, because what happened was that your ancestors actually made a deliberate choice to rid themselves of their ethnic identity, and by doing so, they actually stripped

44:44

Africans in America of their ethnic identity. I'm looking through the mirror, and Rich is pretty much as lost as I am on this.

45:02

Yeah, so how do you... So the only thing I can understand, and I'm trying, I'm really trying.

45:09

This is... One of the reasons this is difficult is because this is not biblical language. These are not biblical categories.

45:16

I mean, if... It is so painfully obvious to me that when people try to create biblical categories here, they are just twisting and turning and making a tiny connection here and a tiny connection there, and the slightest push, it just all falls over.

45:35

But I'm trying to understand. So if it is a power structure, that's what whiteness is, then you have to divest from whiteness, which

45:48

I would assume means abandoning your white privilege, whatever that involves.

45:58

I think what we're going to hear either in 2020 or 2022, certainly by 2024, the passage of reparations bills, that's a divestiture of white privilege.

46:13

The things we're hearing about free seminary educations in the

46:19

SBC for POCs would be a divestiture of the power structure.

46:27

But fundamentally, what it all breaks down to is the, again, ridding of oppression, which means the creation of sameness, which

46:41

God hasn't made us the same so that it can never be accomplished. It can never be accomplished.

46:50

But yeah, it's really divest from whiteness because what happened was that your ancestors actually made the deliberate choice to rid themselves of their ethnic identity.

47:03

I'm not sure what that means. I'm not sure how they allegedly did that. I just don't know.

47:09

I don't know. Right? So I can sit here and say, I will be a BBO in the new heavens and new earth, but you,

47:17

Elizabeth, can't yet say that. But in my sanctified imagination, I believe that God will give you, and my sisters, according to the flesh, will be given their ethnic identities in the new heavens and new earth.

47:33

I believe that. Right deep down in my core, I believe that. And I pray to that end. Because we have to understand something, whiteness is wicked.

47:43

It is wicked. It always means it's rooted in violence, it's rooted in theft, it's rooted in plunder, it's rooted in power and privilege, which we just saw two weeks ago with the college scandal.

47:58

So I mean, I have receipts here. So the goal for our white sisters is to rediscover your ethnic heritage.

48:07

So I'm not pulling something away from you without telling you to replace it. So somehow, the white leftist movie stars and rich people that got caught up in the college scandal, that's an example of whiteness because of privilege.

48:31

And you and I, and even the white women in the audience in Dallas, have to divest ourselves of the connection to those people.

48:43

You see how critical theory works? I had nothing to do with any of that. You had nothing to do with any of that.

48:49

Oh, yes, you did. Your color says you did. Your group says you did.

48:56

If you've got privilege, then you did. See how it works? You don't have to have personal responsibility.

49:03

You're just part of the group. And that group keeps getting broken into smaller and smaller groups, intersectionality, by the power structures.

49:11

You getting it? So I don't know how.

49:19

So whiteness is wicked. It is wicked. So we're talking about a public theologian here, whatever that means, and I would love to see

49:31

Thabiti Anyabwili tweeted out to her, stand firm, you go.

49:37

He's supporting this. He's supporting her identification as whiteness and wickedness. So I'd like somebody explain to me biblically, not by contorting something, but by using meaningful exegesis that would be meaningful on any continent in the world.

49:56

Can we put it that way? So in other words, not just in the American South, but they would be just as relevant in Kiev or Samara or Johannesburg or Sydney or Beijing.

50:13

So no more of this, oh, it's all cultural anyways. No, it's not. God's word actually has an objective truth content that can be determined.

50:21

That's how God designed it. Show me exegetically. Where are you getting any of this stuff?

50:27

What is this about? Well, there have been rich who have oppressed the poor.

50:33

Okay. Is that what you're talking about? So black

50:39

Americans who have more money than most people living anywhere in Africa or in many other countries in the world, are they now oppressors?

50:48

Are they now white? Do they have to divest themselves of the sin of whiteness?

50:55

How does any of this work? I mean, it can be very confidently proposed, but how does it work?

51:05

So whiteness is wicked. It's rooted in theft, plunder, power, and privilege.

51:12

Hmm. Okay. So, but what is rediscovering your ethnic heritage have to do with divesting yourself of whiteness?

51:24

How does discovering that you're Italian or Polish or Turkish or whatever, what does that have to do with anything?

51:30

I, I, I cannot, that's what she's about to say. So the goal for you all is to recover what your ancestors deliberately, right, discarded.

51:44

I know some really rich people who have gotten caught up in all sorts of scandals, oppressing other people who are proud to be

51:54

Italian. They didn't discard their ethnicity. They even used their ethnicity. Ever looked at or watched the, uh, who was the, what was that HBO thing about the mobsters for a long time?

52:09

Yeah. As soon as you ask a question like that, yeah. The agendies, it sounds something like that.

52:17

Anyway. Uh, I mean, seriously, I don't, I don't get how all of a sudden going, oh,

52:24

I've rediscovered I'm Italian. I've now divested myself of whiteness, which is no longer Sopranos. Thank you. It took a

52:30

British guy to mention that. Um, well sort of British guy. He's sort of, I don't know. He's weird anyways. Um, yeah, the

52:36

Sopranos, you know, I mean they were Italian, but they were really white as far as evil white goes.

52:43

If that's what it means. I don't know. It's so confusing. Oh, I clicked on something else,

52:50

I guess. Return to whatever that ethnic identity is. Is it, are you Italian? Are you

52:55

Irish? Are you Polish? Are you Turkish? Whatever that, whatever that was, you have to do that work to find out what that is.

53:05

Pull into that, learn what, what that cultural heritage is. Celebrate that.

53:11

It's going to be a lot. It's going to be a work on your part, but that is the work. The work is for you to divest from whiteness and the work is also for people of color to divest from whiteness too.

53:20

Okay. So, so people of color have to divest from whiteness too. But how do they do it?

53:26

They do it differently. Listen. All right. And now we do that by not centering whiteness.

53:33

That means like, like trying to actually begin to imagine a world where, where your whole identity is not bound to oppression, it's not bound to, uh, which, which

53:42

I think is hard to imagine because we live in a white supremacist nation. It takes a lot of work and you have to do a lot of unlearning.

53:49

And I think what is sometimes so revolutionary, uh, well, at least one thing that might be revolutionary about Truth Table is that on Truth Table, Truth Table is the webcast that she does.

53:59

Myself, Michelle and Christina, we do not center whiteness. We do not center whiteness.

54:06

Another phrase that leaves most of us going, what? But you've seen this.

54:13

You've seen the outcome of this. What's centering whiteness? What is Beth Moore been telling us?

54:19

Um, remember the tweets Beth Moore about looking at your library and looking at the, the color of your library and the authors in your library and not having so much white male authors in your library, but having others that's, that's de -centering whiteness.

54:37

There's all sorts of conferences going on now, just scheduled for forever about de -centering whiteness.

54:45

And it's by inviting, you know, this rainbow coalition of stuff.

54:52

So in other words, it's, it's not meritocracy. It's not who could best address the subject. It's diversity.

55:00

And look, everybody in almost any large corporation already knows how that's working, where instead of putting the people in the job that actually can get the job done, you put people in the job to meet quotas of the rainbow coalition or something like that.

55:17

And yeah, that, yeah, it's, it's ugly. You'll never hear an episode about white guilt. Like let's talk about white guilt.

55:24

We're not going to do that. We'll never do an episode on white privilege. We center the concerns and the needs of black women.

55:30

We, we are, we are in some ways trying to dream. Did you catch that? Did you catch that? Here's where, okay, we're talking whiteness is power, whiteness is privilege, but blackness is an ethnicity of women.

55:47

So, but you're addressing white women and, and how white women divest themselves of whiteness is different than how black women divest themselves of whiteness, which is by not centering whiteness, which is basically, basically saying don't allow for anything to unify us in a society going one direction.

56:12

We need to separate out and only focus in our webcast on white women.

56:19

That's why do you had the thing? What was that last, last year, late, late last year, uh, where there is the big brouhaha because they were going to have a get together at some conference for only black women.

56:34

White women were not allowed. Well, from the critical theory perspective, that's perfectly fine.

56:41

Segregation is great as long as you want to be in the segregated group. If it's the majority group that segregates, that's bad.

56:50

If it's a minority group that wants to segregate to get rid of the majority group, that's good.

56:56

That's why you see white church bad, black church good. That's if you're the, in the oppressor group, then you get to indulge in those attitudes and behaviors.

57:10

Another one of the non -christian elements of this, um, because, and that, and that's why you have people who defend the idea of blacks cannot be racist because they don't have the power.

57:20

They're in the oppressor group, the oppressed group, not in the oppressor group. I mean, again, from a biblical perspective, no prophet, no apostle ever even dreamed of thinking this way.

57:29

This is not how the early church achieved unity. This is directly contrary to how you come to the

57:35

Lord's table, the unity of the church, the whole nine yards, but that's, that's what you're dealing with.

57:42

What a black futures might look like, um, apart from oppression, you know, in some ways that's, that's like,

57:48

I think that's a glimpse of like what the new heavens and new earth looks like. It's like, man, what does it mean to live apart, live in a side that's peaceful, to live in a society where we're not subjugated, you know?

57:59

Um, so I think that those are some of the things I'm thinking about, I'm sorry. So subjugation, oppression, you know, obviously there will not be subjugation or oppression in new heavens and the new earth.

58:11

Um, but what's the basis of that? It's not by being divested of whiteness. Um, so just a couple more quotes here and then we're going to shift gears, uh, because this was, this was relevant later on.

58:24

Um, now again, there were people getting up, walking out, and this may have been one of the points where, where that was taking place.

58:31

Of kind of ignoring the conversation or not? Oh, yeah. Oh, well, the danger is that we'll, we will continue to perpetuate, you know, um, the, the oppression, the racism, you know, that's, that's been happening.

58:45

Uh, and we have to not only just come to these conferences, but then apply what, what you're learning and hearing.

58:52

You know, if what I'm saying is making you uncomfortable, you got to ask yourself why, you know? Um, it's, uh, cause race is an idol.

59:01

It really is. Whiteness is an idol. There are... You see, this makes me uncomfortable because it is so blatantly derived from something outside of the worldview of the writers of scripture.

59:16

It's not because, um, my race is an idol or my whiteness is an idol.

59:23

Uh, it's because I recognize very, very, very, very, very plainly the obvious presence of critical theory thinking that is overriding everything else.

59:38

It's picking up biblical terminology, but it's using it in a completely alien context.

59:44

That's what makes me uncomfortable. But in the critical theory way of thinking, this is just, that's just white fragility.

59:51

You're just, that's just white fragility. You're, you're, you can't handle discussion of race, which means if you don't immediately buy the presuppositions and the perspective of the person infected by critical theory, then you're immediately guilty of fragility, racism, oppression.

01:00:08

You know, it's just, it's just a feedback loop. There's, there's, it is, it becomes a non -falsifiable system, which means it's an irrational system.

01:00:16

There you go. Um, there's a problem. Benefits conferred to that, but our idols mean to kill us, which means that whiteness will kill white people too.

01:00:25

We have got to disabuse ourselves of our idols every and anywhere we find them.

01:00:32

We must be determined to kill them, you know, and kill them on God's altar, right?

01:00:38

Lay them down. This is why we can come to the cross. We can leave it there, you know, um, and it can be covered by the blood.

01:00:44

We got to, we got to lay it down because there's real implications for people. You know, this is not a game.

01:00:50

Now, how do you connect covered by the blood with the identification of a power structure called whiteness as an idol?

01:01:07

Jesus died for your political theory? And if you don't think this is a political theory, hold on to your hat.

01:01:15

We have, well, you guys are in Texas right now. We have, there are image bearers,

01:01:21

Latinx image bearers locked up in detention camps, some would say concentration camps, dying, languishing, being sexually abused right now because people chose whiteness, right?

01:01:39

They chose a man to be elected in office who is all about whiteness at any cost, you know, no matter what, doesn't care, just, just, just, okay.

01:01:57

She's talking about Trump. And so if you want to divest yourself of whiteness, vote Democratic in 2020.

01:02:04

That's how you divest yourself of whiteness. It's political. It is deeply political.

01:02:11

Now, obviously, if I want to use that terminology, the worst whiteness is

01:02:18

Planned Parenthood, the culture of death. The worst whiteness is wiping out black babies in Planned Parenthood clinics in Chicago, in New York, in Los Angeles.

01:02:31

That's the whiteness that needs to be divested of. Therefore, who are you going to vote for? The people who are owned by Planned Parenthood?

01:02:39

See, I can play this game too. You want whiteness, LGBTQ, the culture of death, destroys societies, destroys the people that are involved in the lifestyle.

01:02:49

That's whiteness. Divest yourself of it. See how easy that is? Because they're not biblical categories.

01:02:56

So there's no objective grounding to them, so you can attach them to anything you want. And as long as you point and yell loud enough, you'll, you'll convince people one way or the other.

01:03:06

Now, I have no earthly idea. I have no connection with, no earthly idea, um, why the

01:03:15

Sparrow people did what they did. I don't know who complained about what I, nothing, no connections whatsoever.

01:03:23

I do not know, but I guess in the providence of God, this talk has now become considerably better known than it would have been otherwise.

01:03:37

And at least for a moment, we've been able to take a flashlight, my big bright one, and go, why is it that Thabiti Anyabwili and so many others are promoting this talk as truthful when it is so confusing?

01:03:58

It's so much an obvious example of full capitulation to critical theory.

01:04:06

And it's so obviously a situation where critical theory fundamentally overrides and negates biblical categories.

01:04:15

But folks, this is why what's happening in our denominational structures, seminaries, is taking place.

01:04:25

This is it. This is why it's happening. Now, I do not enjoy talking about this stuff.

01:04:34

I really don't. It is, it's one of the most draining. I don't feel any positive, you know, almost anything else

01:04:42

I talk about, there's sort of a positive backside to it where you're increasing someone's faith. This stuff is just like trying to translate gibberish.

01:04:52

But we have to talk about it because it is destroying Christian education.

01:04:58

It is doing exactly what it was designed to do in society and politics and in the church.

01:05:04

Divide, divide, divide, divide, divide, destroy. That's what it's designed to do. I am not for a second saying that Ms.

01:05:12

Uwan is sitting there going, ah, I'm going to divide the church. No. She really, really, really thinks.

01:05:20

She is absolutely sold out to critical theory. And I don't know about you, I've been trying to reason with some folks who are sold out to critical theory.

01:05:28

And I'm coming to the conclusion, it may not be possible, but anything's possible for the

01:05:35

Spirit of God. I guess that's what I've got to always, you know, default back to. And so, there you go.

01:05:45

There is no reason to question Ms. Uwan's sincerity. There is every reason to question her soundness as any kind of theologian, public or otherwise, in the comments that she made.

01:05:59

If we are not allowed, if I am not allowed by my, whatever it is, ethnicity, to challenge a black woman who stands to say that this is sin that needs to be repented of, and I go, you forgot to demonstrate exactly how that is sin from something called scripture.

01:06:18

If I can't do that, without the pushback that I will get, how dare you, who do you think you are, all the people who go rah, rah, rah for sister theology, and not even deal with anything

01:06:31

I've said. You're making our point for us when you behave that way.

01:06:40

Let's see some serious exegesis. I don't think it exists, but hey, you can try.

01:06:46

You can try. Okay, all right. There's that section.

01:06:52

Now I said we would have a surprise section later in the program, and we do.

01:06:58

Are you ready, Mr. Pierce? Do it then. That's because they've chosen to follow

01:07:19

John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them. They're following men instead of the word of God.

01:07:33

And I'm going to be the one standing on top of my hands, standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out, he died for all those who were elected, were selected.

01:07:48

For still our ancient foe, doth seek to work

01:07:54

God's will. His promise is true.

01:08:03

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait. All right. You've got a camera in there.

01:08:10

You explain to the audience why you cannot find the right theme.

01:08:16

I've been playing it for so long. I'm just used to it. Rename the other one to the old or something.

01:08:25

Oh, yeah. I should do that. You should do that. And I should fix it by doing this.

01:08:31

There we go. All right. Try it again. The mighty fortress is our

01:08:37

God. The fallen cannot be. You'll constantly hear people that are

01:08:44

Calvinist harp on this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

01:08:50

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

01:09:00

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

01:09:09

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

01:09:19

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can talk over your head like that.

01:09:25

I know the Hebrew, the Greek, I've done theology. You can tell I know. This Kraft that not our pain, and not with cruel pain.

01:09:35

Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things?

01:09:42

Um, no. Some new

01:09:47

Calvinists, even pastors, very openly smoke pipes and cigars just as they drink beer and wine.

01:10:17

And you need to realize that he's gone from predeterminism, now he's speaking of some kind of middle knowledge that God now has to...

01:10:44

I stand... I deny and categorically deny middle knowledge. Then don't beg the question that would demand me to force you to embrace it.

01:10:57

Leave my book. Bunker deep beneath the faculty cafeteria in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, safe from all those moderate

01:11:14

Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book. We are

01:11:19

Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for his own eternal glory.

01:11:27

Well, we finally got to the right one there, but you all didn't care, because you liked hearing half the other one anyway, so you get more of the, you know, little quotes and stuff like that.

01:11:35

And even though we don't have Ergen standing on his hands, standing on a stump, whatever he was doing, that's because half the people in the audience don't even know who

01:11:44

Ergen Cantor is anymore, so that's the problem. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed that. Anyways, welcome to Radio Free Geneva.

01:11:49

Why in the world would I do that? Well, because some of you know. The most recent unbelievable radio broadcast involved a debate on Calvinism between Chris Date and Leighton Flowers.

01:12:06

Now, there have been many who have said, please do not talk about this, because Chris Date is a heretic.

01:12:15

Well, Chris Date's a conditionalist, and I knew Chris before, well, knew,

01:12:21

I knew of him, I was on his program, before Fudge got him off into all of that kind of stuff.

01:12:28

And you know, he runs Rethinking Hell and all that stuff. There have been a lot of conditionalists, there are a lot of people that, interestingly enough, are recommended regularly who were conditionalists that people don't know they were conditionalists.

01:12:43

It's an important issue, I wish Chris hadn't gone that direction and fallen off the rails on that part, but the fact of the matter is, that's who

01:12:52

Justin had on, and I don't recall anything in particular where that particular subject of conditionalism came up.

01:13:01

The subject was, basically, is there such a thing as a divine decree?

01:13:07

Does God predetermine all actions in time, which, of course, is fundamental to Calvin's view, the

01:13:13

Reformed understanding of God's relationship to time. And we all know what Leighton Flowers' arguments are against that, we've dealt with them for quite some time now.

01:13:22

But what did take place in this debate was,

01:13:28

I thought, an excellent example, once again, of, basically, a seeking to overthrow exegetical argumentation through allegory and analogy.

01:13:45

What I mean by that is, as we have dealt with Leighton Flowers' argumentation in the past, and this included a couple of times in the discussion he had with Andy Stanley, as we have discussed his approach, we have said that what

01:14:02

Leighton Flowers does is he flattens out the biblical teaching about God into a two -dimensional area.

01:14:12

You can't have God doing anything that man doesn't do, and one of the ways he does this is through telling stories.

01:14:21

And so, you know, the one he's going to tell all the time, he's told him, I think, three times in this program, was about the police setting up a sting.

01:14:34

And the police are not responsible, they set up all the parameters, but you still have to choose to do the crime.

01:14:45

And so, this is what God's doing, you see. There was never any meaningfully, certainly no biblically derived, and certainly no consistent, coherent understanding of exactly how

01:14:59

God relates to time from Leighton Flowers. He actually threw out a couple at one point.

01:15:05

Well, it might be Molinism, it might be this, it might be that, you know, it could be this view, it could be that view, he wants to be as diffuse and as non -committal on that, because once you commit to it, you see, he uses the

01:15:22

Reformed theologian's commitment to a specific position, to attack that position.

01:15:28

By not taking a specific position himself, he can dodge stuff. He can shift this way, shift that way, depending on who he's talking to.

01:15:37

It makes for a moving target, basically. And I don't know how that works in the regular preaching ministry in a church or anything like that.

01:15:47

We Calvinists think that what we preach while we're doing debates out in the world should be what we're preaching from the pulpit, too.

01:15:53

And so if you're in the church and you're going, all over the place, and that's not going to work out real well.

01:16:00

But anyway, so what he does is he will tell these stories that reduce

01:16:06

God to the creaturely level and say, well, in the creaturely level, it would work this way, that way, so on and so forth.

01:16:13

And then he makes connection to God. So for example, the sting thing, how many police stings fail?

01:16:21

Probably the majority. Probably the majority of them fail. When it really goes down well, it's like, yay!

01:16:28

But there's many times that police set up a sting, go out and come back empty -handed. Nothing happened, people got scared off, whatever else it might be.

01:16:36

So does that happen with God, too? Did he set things up? Because what

01:16:42

Chris Date did is he presented, we're just going to look at two of them. Each one of them was given three texts.

01:16:49

Today we're only looking at two of them. We might look at the others later. But what Chris Date presented was from Genesis 24, and the story of Abram the servant, we'll look at in a second.

01:17:00

And then, of course, Genesis 50, 20. And in neither case, we're going to listen, in neither case did

01:17:07

Leighton Flowers present anything of a meaningful counter -argumentation from the text of Scripture. It was all, well, you know, it could be like this, or it might be like this.

01:17:16

Or, clearly, Leighton doesn't get this, because Leighton claims to have been a

01:17:22

Calvinist. I have talked with people who worked with Leighton when he claimed to be a Calvinist, and they said, no.

01:17:28

He's never, ever had a full understanding whatsoever, never practiced it in that way. His evangelistic methods were never reformed.

01:17:38

He may make this claim, but the proof's in the pudding. The proof's in the pudding.

01:17:43

Anyway, his response, he doesn't seem to understand that his responses leave us sitting there going, seriously?

01:17:55

How about something exegetical? How about something that's actually derived, not that quotes a verse that says we might understand this way, but is actually forced upon you by the force of the text itself.

01:18:09

There is such a huge difference in having arguments that touch upon a text here and touch upon a text here and touch upon a text there.

01:18:16

We're used to that from a lot of the preaching that you see in the world today. What a refreshing thing it is, and powerful thing it is, when you encounter preaching that just unleashes a text, and it just rolls you over and leaves you in the dirt.

01:18:35

If you don't get that kind of preaching, then maybe you don't understand how that is. That's what is so powerful from the reformed perspective as to sound teaching and preaching.

01:18:48

With that, let me remind you, okay, all right, here we are.

01:19:02

Genesis 24 10, then the servant took 10 camels from the camels of his master and set out with a variety of good things of his master's in his hand, and he rose and went to the

01:19:12

Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor. He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water.

01:19:20

He said, O Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show loving kindness to my master

01:19:27

Abraham. Just, yes, chesed, I love it. Show chesed to my master

01:19:33

Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water.

01:19:38

Now, may it be that the girl to whom I say, please let down your jar so that I may drink, and who answers, drink, and I will water your camels also.

01:19:47

May she be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac, and by this I will know that you have shown chesed to my master.

01:19:55

Loving kindness, covenant faithfulness. Before he had finished speaking, behold,

01:20:03

Rebecca, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor, came out with her jar on her shoulder.

01:20:10

The girl was very beautiful, a virgin, no man had had relations with her, and she went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up.

01:20:17

Then the servant ran to meet her and said, please let me drink a little water from your jar. She said, drink, my lord, and she quickly lowered her jar to her hand and gave him a drink.

01:20:26

Now, when she had finished giving him a drink, she said, I will draw also for your camels until they have finished drinking.

01:20:32

So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran back to the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels. Meanwhile, the man was gazing at her in silence to know whether Yahweh had made his journey successful or not, and you know the rest of the story.

01:20:46

The point is that Mr. Date's argument, I would have begun with Genesis 50, then gone back to Genesis 24.

01:20:57

One of the hard things here was this is an implicit argument. It's not objectively being stated.

01:21:04

It's not like going to Psalm 135 or Psalm 33 or something like that. It is being drawn out from the implicit reality of the situation because just as in the crucifixion, because that was the third one, we probably will do that one later on, that was the third text,

01:21:25

Acts 4. In each one of these texts, you have not just hundreds, but thousands and tens of thousands, maybe in reality hundreds of thousands and millions of, quote -unquote, free will choices by mankind that just so happen to come together,

01:21:49

I guess, from the traditionalist perspective to fulfill the prayer of the servant.

01:21:57

All sorts of things could have happened as the servant was traveling. Maybe there might have been people, there might have been brigands on the road that used their free will choice to attack him and to keep him.

01:22:08

Maybe if they just delayed him the slightest, maybe by one day, maybe

01:22:14

Rebecca would have been betrothed to somebody else. I mean, what about all the people?

01:22:21

I mean, she's a beautiful virgin. Why wasn't she already married off? Had not the right guy come along?

01:22:30

When you think of all of the choices in time that led to this event, the absolute orchestration of them requires a sovereign

01:22:45

God. Now, here's where Leighton and you too,

01:22:51

Justin, miss the point. You don't recognize that what we are saying is that the...

01:23:01

because Leighton likes to use the chessboard analogy where God's just playing both sides. Again, he loves to flatten out, not allow the biblical narrative to be as rich as it is.

01:23:13

The biblical narrative has the servant looking to see whether Yahweh would demonstrate his hesed, his loving kindness to his master,

01:23:25

Abraham. And so, there is a real desire on this man's part, not only to succeed, but to bring the proper woman for Isaac.

01:23:35

There is... this is happening in time, just as the incarnation means that what happens in time is important.

01:23:42

But that does not change for a moment the absolute kingly freedom of God to accomplish his purpose as he sees fit.

01:23:53

And that is what the whole concept of compatibilism is, that God's absolute sovereignty over events is compatible with the kind of freedom that he has granted to his creatures.

01:24:08

It is not an autonomous freedom. It exists within the confines of God's self -glorifying decree.

01:24:17

That decree is so much richer than anything I've ever heard Leighton Flowers even begin to enunciate.

01:24:22

He has never come close to even beginning to show the ability to actually express the depth of what we understand in Reformed theology as to the decree of God.

01:24:39

Not once. Not one time. He always flattens it out.

01:24:45

And all of his objections are basic surface -level objections to the lowest possible concept, never to the fullest concept.

01:24:58

I slipped over a channel. Leighton Flowers is already working on a three -day marathon reply to this dividing line.

01:25:03

Yes, that is absolutely the case. There is no question about that. That is absolutely true. So that was the first presentation,

01:25:13

Genesis 24. We're just going to listen to Leighton Flowers' response and interact with it. Oh, I had

01:25:19

Leighton talking at 1 .6. That probably would not be a good idea. Okay, here we go. Well, I agree with a lot of the vernacular that we heard from Chris, but I recognize that we share some same vocabulary, but a little bit a different dictionary, if you will.

01:25:33

And having had a lot of discussions with Chris and reading his book, he is obviously advocating for theistic determinism as the explanation as to how

01:25:40

God pulls off this narrative, which means that he has concluded that in order for God to pull off this situation with Rebecca, that God has to predetermine everything that takes place in time.

01:25:55

He has to play both sides of the chessboard to make sure it happens exactly, meticulously the way he wants it to.

01:26:01

So if the objection is that there could be other ways of doing it, then suggest how it works.

01:26:13

Molinism isn't going to do it. Simple foreknowledge isn't going to do it. How does this work?

01:26:20

Because I was asking somebody in Twitter this morning. So Paul could have said, no.

01:26:27

Paul could have said, no, I'm not going to. Whoever you are in the bright light,

01:26:33

I'm not going to submit to you. And so now God has to go strike somebody else off their donkey, and now his timing's all set.

01:26:38

Now it's plan B, et cetera, et cetera. Is that what you are saying? And the guy said, yeah, yeah.

01:26:48

So this specific timing, the servant says, I'm going at this place at this time.

01:26:54

There is no plan B. There is no plan B. You have to have an understanding that can allow for all these choices of human beings to be responsible choices that they can be judged by, and yet God can accomplish his purpose.

01:27:15

Not only in this instance, but this is the whole foundation of prophecy, folks. You know the prophecies that demonstrate that Jesus was the

01:27:24

Messiah? You know that stuff? Millions of creaturely choices involved in every one of those prophecies.

01:27:32

You telling me that God was just doing the best he could to try to cobble something back together again after man messes it up over and over and over and over again by his free choices?

01:27:44

See, that's why flowers won't give us a specific. He gives us his, well,

01:27:49

Molandism, and then you got this one over here. That's a target you can't shoot at.

01:27:55

It doesn't mean anything. It's empty. And I think that's a lower view of sovereignty.

01:28:03

And with all due respect to Chris, I think what he advocates for in this narrative seems to be more of a philosophical assumption being read into the text rather than a biblical conclusion drawn from the text itself.

01:28:13

Which, of course, is what we say is everything that Leighton Flowers does. That's exactly what he does all the time.

01:28:20

Both sides are making the same accusation. Which side can prove it is the question. That's a low view of sovereignty.

01:28:30

Let's catch how this is going to work. What you do is you tell an audience that maybe hasn't thought these things through, doesn't realize that what

01:28:37

God is really doing is in his decree. He is creating the conditions of his own self -glorification, and that he's doing so in such a way that he can demonstrate his justice in the just judgment of those who rebel against him and his great grace in the salvation of those who are not deserving of his grace.

01:28:58

He's doing all of that in this world so that there is no purposeless evil.

01:29:04

He's actually accomplishing his purpose in everything that's taking place. And the higher view, which

01:29:11

Leighton thinks he has, is this idea that God basically makes good stuff come out of bad stuff that man creates.

01:29:20

There's all sorts of stuff that he doesn't make good come out of, I guess. So there's all sorts of purposeless evil.

01:29:27

But then in these specific things, it allows him to accomplish salvation in some fashion, or at least make salvation available.

01:29:34

That's the big thing that Leighton's new book is all about, the possibility, the provision of salvation, not the actual accomplishment of salvation.

01:29:47

It's good that it's out there to say these are two different sides. One side says God saves. One side says

01:29:52

God makes salvation possible. That's always been the divide between the Reformation and Rome.

01:29:58

And Leighton has demonstrated he is thoroughly, on this subject, on the subject of man's provision, possibility, accomplishment, will, he is absolutely with Erasmus against Luther.

01:30:13

He is against the Reformation, which means against Reformed theology. So he is a popeless

01:30:19

Catholic when it comes to this issue. And any—see, the more he keeps getting pushed into deeper and deeper synergism and synergism, there's no way to avoid that.

01:30:30

There's no way to avoid that. That's how it works. It's the difference between eisegesis and exegesis. And so exegesis teaches us what is the—

01:30:37

Given our debate, I just—whatever he starts talking about there between eisegesis and exegesis, that's when

01:30:43

I go, glad you've learned that since then. The intention of the author. And I don't think the person giving this narrative—it's not a didactic text, by the way, it's a narrative—I don't think the person telling us this story is trying to teach us

01:30:54

God meticulously, deterministically causes everybody's sinful actions and choices for all time.

01:31:00

I just don't believe that's the intention of the author. No, the author was not attempting to discuss that subject at this point.

01:31:06

No. The whole point of the presentation, however, was that you cannot understand this type of incident, and there are many other incidents like this in the scriptures, especially in the

01:31:18

Old Testament, because it's much more narrative material in the Old Testament. You can't understand any of these texts without the overarching understanding of the meticulous providence of God, that this was the worldview and theology that united all the writers of scripture—the prophets, etc.,

01:31:39

etc. And so I think that's just a philosophical assumption, and I think there are a lot better answers to the way in which this could be brought to pass.

01:31:50

Hmm. Now, so far, have we heard anything biblical? Have we heard him go into the text?

01:31:57

Because he knew what the texts were going to be beforehand. I think that was pretty obvious. I think they exchanged these texts, because I could tell later, when

01:32:06

Leighton gets to present his, that Chris Tate had already knew what they were. So he was reading from a response.

01:32:12

So I think he would have known. So if there was something in the text that he could use to overthrow this, this would be where you'd be hearing it, but we're not hearing anything at all.

01:32:23

If, for example, Justin, I were to tell you that I'm a computer programmer and I created a virtual world online—

01:32:29

See, here we go. Instead of exegesis, what do you get? Let's start, let's,

01:32:34

I'm now going to be God. I'm going to be a computer programmer. And so I'm going to start with the allegories.

01:32:41

I'm going to start with the stories rather than going into the text itself. With all kinds of avatars that look exactly like Abraham's servant and Rebecca and the whole scenario plays out exactly as was just portrayed there in Genesis 24 on my virtual world, would you be very impressed in how

01:32:58

I brought about the answer to Abraham's servant's prayer? Well, of course you would. You would just say, well, that's a script being coded and they did exactly as they were coded to do in that deterministic type of world.

01:33:10

And that's, that takes the supernatural out of it. And now you see, you see where the reality is.

01:33:16

And again, I, I, I despair of Leighton ever accurately representing us here because he is absolutely committed to the flattening out of what we're saying into a two -dimensional area.

01:33:35

There is no room for the reality of, you know, how many times have

01:33:42

I said this now? The incarnation demonstrates the importance and reality of time and events in space.

01:33:49

The son of God was not a robot. The son of God was not a puppet. He did not enter into a

01:33:55

CGI simulation, a chess game, or anything else. He entered into true human existence.

01:34:02

It does not change the fact that the exact second of his self -sacrificial death was determined in the divine decree of God before eternity began.

01:34:14

It doesn't change any of that. You have to believe both. He refuses to believe both. And so he flattens it all out.

01:34:20

And in the process, you have to twist scripture. That's just all there is to it.

01:34:26

He has to flatten it out. He can't deal with what we actually believe. And here you hear it once again.

01:34:34

I just really believe that God's bringing about his purposes despite and sometimes through the libertarianly free choices of creatures.

01:34:42

I don't think he has to determine people's evil desires, thoughts, and actions in a meticulous way in order to bring something like this to pass.

01:34:49

So, Chris, Layton's view... Okay, now, Justin jumps in here to go back to Chris, but I was like, that's all you're going to say?

01:35:02

He does not mind at all if someone listens to something like this and goes, all right, this guy gave

01:35:11

Bible and that guy gave story. Because evidently, he's got enough supporters that would go, and I like story better than Bible.

01:35:20

Because I saw people, a discussion started on Twitter, and I saw people go, oh, that was great. And yeah,

01:35:26

Calvinists just can't answer anything. And I was trying to talk with a guy last night or this morning where it was like, hey, as soon as you say that God has a secret will other than his prescriptive will, that's irrational.

01:35:38

And I pushed on it, and immediately, it just explodes into various forms of heresy.

01:35:43

But those folks are going to be more impressed by story time with Uncle Layton than they are anything else.

01:35:53

So, wow, we've already gone over jumbo time. But I'll try to finish this up. Aren't you getting arthritis in that shoulder by now?

01:36:05

Okay. Anyway, he's good. Never mind. All right, so he's got one other to look at here.

01:36:11

Okay, so then the subject turned to Genesis chapter 50.

01:36:20

And there you had, I get the feeling that the, no,

01:36:27

I guess it didn't. Must be getting warm outside or something because it's certainly, I'm going to crank it down a little bit there.

01:36:34

Genesis chapter 50, obviously, this is one of the key, key texts. Mr. Date went through it rather thoroughly.

01:36:44

You cannot escape the reality that on the grammatical level, on the lexicographical level, there is a direct parallel taught by the text that God intended one thing, the brothers intended one thing, and the one thing is the same thing.

01:37:12

The intention of the brothers was evil. The intention of God was good. And this didn't come up, or at least I didn't hear it come up.

01:37:18

Maybe I missed it. But one of the aspects of Genesis 50 is that to save many people alive to this day.

01:37:27

I don't know how a Layton Flowers deals with Psalm 139. He's written my days in his book.

01:37:35

But my days are determined by hundreds of thousands, millions of personal decisions, not only my own, but of many others.

01:37:50

As I'm riding my bike down the road, the personal decision of a person to be on Twitter while driving will determine the length of my days.

01:38:03

The personal decision of a person who messes up in the cooking of my food in a restaurant can end my days.

01:38:13

I mean, there's so many things. The idea that God's just doing his best to put stuff back together again after all these libertarianly free things demonstrates a really naive and simplistic view of the complexity of events in time.

01:38:33

And you really, you have no way. The open theists, again, are at least consistent. They're at least consistent.

01:38:40

God didn't know you were going to exist. God doesn't know how long you're going to live. He has no idea. So he has no overarching plans like that.

01:38:48

He's got a big framework type thing. He can do monsoons and earthquakes, stuff like that. But an individual has got to be totally free.

01:38:56

At least they're consistent. Molinism isn't. Simple free knowledge, foreknowledge isn't.

01:39:03

And who knows what Flowers' actual position is on this. But anyway, so Genesis 50 has been presented.

01:39:10

It has been demonstrated beyond all shadow of a doubt that there is direct parallel. God intended this.

01:39:18

Man intended this. They have different purposes in intending. But God's purpose is to save many people alive to this day.

01:39:27

So there it is. It's out on the table. Let's hear the response from Leighton Flowers.

01:39:36

Last thing we do on the program today. Well, sure, I'd back up a little bit and look at the context of the text, because the original intent of the brothers was not to sell the brother into slavery.

01:39:45

If you look through the narrative, their original intent was murderous. They wanted to kill him because of pride. They were jealous.

01:39:51

So evidently, God can actually keep people from committing sin. He restrains evil.

01:39:58

Yes. So how are they autonomous? I don't know. Well, where does pride originate?

01:40:04

Where does that come from? First John 2 16 says, The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life comes not from the

01:40:11

Father, but from the world. So whatever we conclude here, we cannot go against what scripture teaches us and conclude that some eternal divine decree is the cause or the origin of these brothers pride.

01:40:23

Now, there's some scripture twisting for you. That's not what John was talking about.

01:40:29

I just happened to have preached on this text on Sunday, actually. And what

01:40:34

John is talking about is he's saying to Christians, Do not love the world nor the things of the world, for the world's passing away.

01:40:40

And all these things that come from the world, the foolish pride of life and all this type of stuff does not come from God.

01:40:47

Does not come from the Father. It's come from the world. The world is passing away, but he who abides doing the will of God, he will abide forever.

01:40:54

That's the text in 1 John chapter 2. So what does that have to do with what we're dealing with here?

01:41:01

The argument is actually saying, Well, since that comes from the world, then it's not a part of God's sovereign decree.

01:41:09

Now, again, this is no knowledgeable, former Calvinist with an honest bone in his body would ever make that argument because he knows it's irrelevant to what we believe.

01:41:20

I mean, I mean, the very fact that Leighton thinks that's an argument again proves the man was clueless when he thought he was a

01:41:27

Calvinist. He had no idea what he was talking. He was not reformed. Whatever he was, self -deceived.

01:41:33

Maybe he read a Banner of Truth article and went, I like that and never thought about it again. I don't know. But he clearly doesn't understand that John's talking about the fact that those earthly lusts don't come from God.

01:41:49

Doesn't mean that God has not determined everything that takes place in time. We, I mean,

01:41:57

John is writing to Christians and saying, look, do the will of God.

01:42:03

Love the Father because there's nothing to be found in the world. And all the foolish pride of life and everything else, that doesn't, that's not part of the love of the

01:42:12

Father. That's something that comes out of your attachment to the world to which we have died.

01:42:20

He's not talking about the reality that God is accomplishing his purposes.

01:42:25

And by the way, flowers again, I'm sorry to have to repeat this over and over again, functions upon the idea that we as Christians can somehow know the content of God's decree.

01:42:36

We don't know the content of God's decree until we look backwards. We can't see it as we look forward.

01:42:43

All we have is the prescriptive will of God where he says, don't love the world. The world's passing away.

01:42:51

The love of the Father is different than this. That's what we live on. We don't live on the basis of some divine decree and we will not be judged on the basis of the divine decree.

01:43:01

We are judged on the basis of what God has revealed. So they basically just simply cannot allow for, and this is why

01:43:10

I find it, this will result in a four -hour edition of his podcast,

01:43:16

Cowardly. I find it cowardly that you will continuously mock.

01:43:24

Well, yeah, I must've been sovereignly decreed to do that when you do not provide anything even close to a meaningful theodicy or doctrine of God's knowledge and relationship to time.

01:43:37

If you can sit there and throw out monism or this, that's cowardice.

01:43:43

That's cowardice. That's all it is. There you go.

01:43:48

Are we up to six hours now? At least, minimally. I don't think he'll sleep tonight. I don't think so.

01:43:54

We have to come to a better conclusion than to impugn, I think, again, unintentionally,

01:43:59

I think Chris's view impugns the character of God in that way. And so what we would say— Now remember, the other side has laid out an exegetical argument.

01:44:12

He's gone into the Hebrew. He's talked about verb forms and terminations, suffixes as direct objects, the whole nine yards.

01:44:21

What are we hearing so far? Are we going to get anything like that? I'll give an analogy. For example, police officers create a sting operation where they know of notorious drug dealers in the area.

01:44:33

They know their intention. They know that they're evil. And they use, they don't cause, but they use the evil intention of criminals in order to bring about—

01:44:42

Now remember, the text says God intended, the brothers intended.

01:44:48

He cannot allow God to intend the same way that man intends. He has to come up with a different way.

01:44:54

Now, again, how many times are stings set up that don't work? How many times did God try this before he got it right?

01:45:02

The selling of drugs at a particular time on Thursday at two o 'clock in the warehouse so as to catch all the drug dealers in one place in the sting operation.

01:45:10

So the police officers meant that selling of drugs, an evil crime, for a good reason, while the criminals meant it for a bad reason.

01:45:20

So the same crime, the same act is being meant by both the police officers and the criminals.

01:45:27

One is being meant for an evil purpose, for selfish gain. The other is being meant for a good purpose.

01:45:32

And in the same way, in this scenario, obviously God meant what the brothers did for a good purpose, for redemption.

01:45:41

God meant it. He meant it, not set up the situation where they might be able to do it.

01:45:49

He intended it to save people alive. And on Layton's position, they might not have acted that way.

01:45:56

They were free not to act that way. Libertarianly free, which means if they hadn't, then

01:46:02

God would not have been able to save people alive, right? See, this is the cowardice in not taking a stand and saying, okay, this is how it works.

01:46:11

This is, it's like, well, I don't know. All I know is yours isn't right. But God's not redeeming his own determinations here.

01:46:17

He's redeeming the brothers' bad determinations. He's bringing a good from the bad. He's not causing the bad so as to just redeem his own determination.

01:46:27

Chris. So notice there, this is another one of his new, not new things, but things he's been doing for a while now.

01:46:33

If there is a sovereign decree, then everything is God's determination. Therefore, he's just redeeming his own determinations.

01:46:39

Again, flatten it out. Get rid of man's role in it. Just as Acts chapter four, you've got

01:46:46

Pilate and Herod and the Romans and the Jews, and they're all acting for different reasons. No, no, flatten it all out.

01:46:53

And God's just redeeming his own determinations. See, that's how he has to do it. He can't deal with reformed theology as it is.

01:47:01

So flatten it out and then hope that the people he's talking to, if they're quote unquote reformed, are malformed in their reformed theology, have never done any reading past basic level stuff, or if they're not reformed, are not going to go and actually read someone and go, hey, wait a minute.

01:47:20

That doesn't quite represent where we're coming from. But exegetically, nada. All you get is the cop story.

01:47:27

And again, I just don't think Layton cares. I just think he thinks, hey, as long as it works, fine and dandy, fine and dandy.

01:47:38

So yeah, we'll probably look at the Acts four one, because I think that's worthwhile to do.

01:47:50

But take a stand, man, defend something, defend something.

01:47:57

So there you go. There's some Radio Free Geneva in the middle of a program.

01:48:02

You didn't expect that, did you? No, you didn't. But I had to make a comment on that.

01:48:09

Just had to. Having heard it, I think, just yesterday, I'm like, blah. All right, let's talk about it.

01:48:15

So, Lord willing, we will be back on Thursday of this week. Our regular two -program -per -week schedule,

01:48:23

I hope. We will see. It's up to the Lord, but we'll do our best. We'll see you next time.