Social Justice Exposed - Comments on the ShepCon Q&A

The Stakes of the Social Justice Debate

Eventually, I'm going to stop doing this, but I'm just going to ask you to excuse my passion in all of this. You know, I'm going to say some hard things in this video. And look, the reality is that there are people's lives are at stake here.

It's just, it's just that simple. We cannot overstate the importance of this issue. Because the reality is if people do not repent of their covetousness, if people do not repent of their partiality, and they want to hold on to that and try to be a Christian while holding on to their sin, that is going to lead to the road to destruction.

It's just that simple. It's just that simple. And so yes, I am going to be forceful about this. I am. I hope it helps. I hope it's helpful anyway. But just wanted to say that anyway, God bless. The good folks over at For the New Christian Intellectual were able to secure and post the video from yesterday's Shepard Conference Q &A session.

The panel included Phil Johnson, John MacArthur, Dever, Duncan, and Al Mohler. And it is chock full of interesting tidbits. A lot of people are going to be commenting on this. I think I agree with most everyone that I've seen that that is going to be commenting on that on this is that this moment, this panel discussion is a historic event.

I think that this is a turning point one way or the other in the social justice conversation. I mean, if you haven't watched it, I recommend that you watch it. You will see some fascinating, fascinating materials.

And I said on Twitter earlier that this actually energizes me and encourages me and it makes me smell blood in the water, so to speak, you know, like like that shark Bruce in Finding Nemo. Anyway, so I wanted to I'm going to explain myself a little bit more about why I find this so encouraging.

Honestly, in the short term, I find it very discouraging and very sad. But in the long term, and I'm a long game kind of guy, at least I try to be. I think in the long term, it's a very good thing for the Christian church.

But but anyway, I'll explain myself more on that later. I wanted to talk about Ligon Duncan. You know, I intended to review Ligon Duncan's entire speech at the T4G conference about a year ago, and I never got around to doing it.

I think, excuse me, I think I only put one video about what Ligon Duncan had to say. If you remember, that was the sort of the part in the speech where he like fake cries. I mean, let's just be honest.

I'm not I'm not I'm not trying to mince words here. He was fake crying during that thing. It was really pathetic. But anyway, but I like Ligon Duncan in general, Ligon Duncan has a lot of really good things to say.

Unfortunately, he finds himself on the wrong side of this issue. And that's fine. But I want you to hear what he has to say here. And then I'm going to tell you why I think this is such an important point in this entire Q &A.

It's not the only important point, but it's one of the most important points at in this entire Q &A. It's very revealing. Let me let me play what what it has to say here.

Ligon Duncan on Culture, Social Justice, and the LGBTQIA Issue

With a culture and how are we going to deal with a culture that is increasingly antagonistic to Bible believing Christianity? And we started to see generational differences in how to deal with that. Now, we're all of one part, one side of that generational divide.

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

For instance, LGBTQIA rights and affirmation is is conceived broadly as an absolute bedrock commitment of social justice. Women's roles in the church as well. All of us are in lockstep agreement on that.

And in fact, my concern on racial issues is that I do not drive our grandchildren into the arms of the LGBTQIA issue.

Stop right there. That is a fascinating statement, and I think it's very revealing of the exact problem with guys like Ligon Duncan's perspectives here, because and let me just I laughed in the middle of that because he says we're in lockstep about women's roles and and and and what was the other one?

LGBTQ? No, we're not. First of all, no, we're not. I mean, maybe maybe most of maybe for the most part, you know, 90 percent there. But the reality is, no, we are not on the same page there. There are people on that stage right now that think that some any kind of of gender reparative therapy or whatever it is, the counseling to to no longer be gay.

There are people on this panel that do not do not approve of that. They say it's wrong. And then there are others that do. I mean, we're not in lockstep. So let's let's just get that straight. He also wants to present this as he is one of the conservatives in the there's a there's a divide, a generational divide, and he's on the on one side of that.

And again, I'd have to say that's changed. Unfortunately, that has changed. You know what I mean? And so I don't want to get too far in the weeds over there, but but that's not actually accurate. I know he wants to present that as as his as he's he's a conservative stalwart.

No, you're not anymore, unfortunately. OK, and that's just the reality. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I want to talk about is did you hear what he said? Let's let me let me go back a second.

Step agreement on that. And in fact, my concern on this is that I do not drive our grandchildren into the arms of the LGBTQIA issue.

His his motivator, his driver here is that he doesn't want his grandchildren to be pushed into the arms of the LGBTQIA agenda, their movement. And that's why he's that's why he's motivated to make stands on these racial racial issues rather.

With respect, Dr. Ligon Duncan, that ain't good enough. That's not a proper motivation. It has to be. I tweeted this morning and got a little bit of trouble for saying this, that so often that you hear these deconversion stories and Ligon Duncan's is no different.

You hear not a lot of scripture driving things, but other kind of emotional things driving things. And Ligon Duncan has given us a gift here because he's telling us his motivation is he doesn't want his grandchildren, you know, just to be just to be candid about it.

He doesn't want his grandchildren getting all the way woke. And so this is kind of an attractional church model thing for him. He wants to say things about race so that his grandchildren don't hear the church not saying things about race and then go to the people who are saying things about race, the LGBTQIA, and then they fall for it all.

So in other words, he wants to get a little bit woke so that they don't go all the way woke in two generations. That's not the correct motivator. And it actually matters because here's the thing. I do not deny that Ligon Duncan thinks he has biblical warrant for, for saying the things that he says about race and doing the things that he does about race.

I'm not saying that he doesn't think he has, he doesn't have biblical reasons why he thinks that it's, it's a go. Okay. I'm not saying he's abandoned the Bible, but the Bible's not driving the bus here.

The Bible is not driving the bus here. He just admitted it. And that's true for even people who don't admit it. And you know how I know it? It's because you say, start to say stupid, unbiblical things when the Bible's not driving the bus.

Here's what I mean. Ready? Everyone agrees that the Bible is against racism, showing partiality based on skin color or ethnicity. Everybody in the conversation agrees with that because it's biblical. It's very clear that the Bible again and again says God doesn't show partiality, so you don't show partiality.

So everyone's there, right? Everyone's there. So if Ligon Duncan was just saying that nobody would have a problem because you could easily see how that's derived from the scripture. But the problem is the scripture is not driving the bus for Ligon Duncan here.

The scripture is not driving the bus for Ligon Duncan here. His fear of his grandchildren joining the LGBTQ plus crusade in, in, in, in the next two generations, that's what's driving the bus. And so he's willing to say stupid sounding things about race and ethnicity.

You see when, when, when denominations start considering, Oh, we need to, we need to start getting more black leaders in, into, into, into leadership. And so we need to do some affirmative action type things.

We need to start giving blacks and Latinos access to schools, free school and tuition. We need to start considering skin color in our hiring practices and things like that. I'm not putting this on Ligon Duncan.

I'm just saying that this is, these are, these are the kinds of ideas that are being promoted by the social justice movement. I don't know if Ligon Duncan is for that. And I don't really care. It's not really about him in particular.

This is about the movement. And so when you hear stupid ideas like that, you know that scripture is not driving the bus because scripture, as much as it's against partiality and it's a message is against as much as it's for lifting up the oppressed and things like that.

It specifically says you can't show partiality to the rich or the poor. So it doesn't matter if you're the oppressor or the oppressed, it doesn't matter if you're the whites or the blacks, you cannot show partiality to them.

And so your stupid idea to fix partiality by showing partiality is just that it's stupid and unbiblical. And it proves to me that scripture is not driving the bus here. Something else is driving the bus.

In Ligon's case, it's this fear that his grandchildren will be driven to the LGBTQIA plus community. You see what I mean? Scripture is not driving the bus. That's why you get these ideas that are unbiblical where all of a sudden, you know, we've, we've merged justice and mercy and now charity.

Everyone has to have parity. Everyone has to have equity and things like that. Otherwise it's the oppressor and the oppressed. You see, that doesn't come from the scripture. The Bible doesn't talk about the fact that there's an income inequality means that there's an injustice.

The Bible doesn't talk about that, but plenty of the social justice warriors are why? Because something else is driving the bus, not scripture. Lincoln Duncan gave us a little bit of a window into his thought about what's driving the bus.

It's not scripture. It's not scripture. Because if it was scripture, we could agree. Partiality is wrong. All partiality. And so partiality to black people is just as wrong as partiality to white people.

He'll never say that because, because that's not part of what keeps in his, in his pragmatic thinking mind. That's not what's going to keep his grandchildren away from the LGBTQ plus community. But the reality is this, no amount of seeker sensitive nonsense when it's not scriptural is going to save anybody from apostasy.

None. That's, I mean, that's, we're all Calvinists here, right? No, they need scripture. They need to be thoroughly biblical. And when the, when the Bible says you dare not show partiality to the rich and you dare not show partiality to the poor, you need to give them that message.

And if it drives them to the socialists, so be it. So be it. Because you know what? You never compromise on what God's word says sin is because you're scared it's going to drive them to, you know, whatever religion it is.

Because if they come to our religion, if they come to Christ, but are not willing to give up their covetousness and their partiality and their sin, what good is it? What good is it? And so I have no problem with Paul, with, with quoting Paul.

If you don't work, you don't eat. I have no problem being against progressive tax rates on the basis of the scripture, talking about partiality. I have no problem saying that we should not consider skin color when we're hiring someone.

Even if we really want to hire a black guy in our, in our, in our church, we dare not add to the qualifications for elder skin color. Like Matt Chandler did. We dare not, if it drives people to, to, to, to the, to the party of socialists, if it drives people to unbelief, I can't, I can't change the message of scripture.

I just can't. So be it. That's why I can't bend on, on, on, on, on abortion. That's why I can't allow someone to call, claim the name of Christ, but, but support the abortion party. If it drives them away from Christianity, the fact that I'm saying, I mean, shock of all shocks, I'm saying you cannot support a party that is, that is executing currently a massacre in our country every single day and promoting it and trying to increase it a Holocaust every single day.

You cannot claim the name of Christ and support that party. If that drives them away from Christ, that's not me. That's not me driving them away from Christ. That's the fact that they hate God's image.

They hate God's law and they cannot stand anyone dare remind them of the fact that they are under that law and they must obey. Anyway, I hope that was helpful. God bless.