Al Mohler's Uncertain CRT Bugle

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

We have institutions taking this stuff on very quickly. I'm hearing more and more from people that it's backfiring where they've taken it on, and now they want to find their way out.

00:08

It's like, well, buddy, you made a deal with the devil. He's going to collect. And that's the end of this, is that it will infiltrate as many institutions as it can, which may go as high as our federal government.

00:20

It's not impossible. It could happen here, as they say. And every institution that it infects will lose all credibility and collapse.

00:28

Wow is the only word. Wow. Welcome to the

00:39

Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. You can see if you're watching that I have been using my time wisely by fooling around with graphics.

00:48

I don't know what I'm doing. But yes, for half an hour last night, about that long, I guess, I fooled around online and came up with this little cool intro.

00:57

And it is not finalized yet. But I thought, you know, so many podcasters have really cool intros, and I don't have one.

01:03

I just have this flat screen that tells you where you can find my website. And if you want to support me where you can go to do that on Patreon, that's all

01:10

I have. But now you can see there's some cool, sort of cool, I guess it's getting there.

01:17

I'm phasing myself into the world of podcasters. I've been doing this for what a year and a half and I still haven't arrived, but I'm getting there slowly, but surely.

01:26

But yeah, so that was fun. Actually, last night, I was wiped out. I was out all day and doing some work.

01:34

And so I got home and there was a documentary that I had read a little article that recommended this documentary.

01:43

And so I thought, I'll watch it. It was called, I think, General Order No. 9, if I'm not mistaken.

01:49

I think that was the title of it. But it's unusual. It's a very unusual documentary. It's a little over an hour.

01:55

But it's more of a poem set to kind of, I don't know, ethereal music.

02:02

There's kind of some classical music at the end, some religious sounding, almost Catholic sounding chants,

02:08

I think. But throughout most of it, it's kind of ethereal. But actually, it was outside of the box, but it was really interesting.

02:18

And so sometimes I will put something on if I have something more mindless to do.

02:25

And so I was mindlessly fooling around with different things, among them graphics, and had my television on.

02:32

And you can find it on Amazon Prime. Anyway, General Order No. 9. Tim Keller would hate this documentary.

02:38

Let me just tell you, this would be like the worst documentary, I think, for Tim Keller. Because it was actually fascinating.

02:46

It's all about this guy, I guess. I don't know if he grew up in Georgia or what, but he kind of focuses on Georgia and the development from wilderness to Native Americans coming to the

03:00

English coming. And he looks at the map of Georgia and it's got the formation of counties.

03:07

And at the center of every county is a town. And at the center of every town is the courthouse.

03:14

And on top of the courthouse is the weathervane. And so the weathervane is the center of all. Which is actually, in a sense, that's actually very

03:22

Southern. It's kind of that agrarian, the old school

03:27

Southern, agrarian mindset, keeping time not with the clock but with the sun.

03:33

So weather is very important. We kind of live by the weather and that's what makes our crops either fail or succeed.

03:41

And very interesting. So he goes into all that and that's supposed to be, I guess, that's good.

03:46

That's a positive. That's life. That's a place where you live. And then modernity comes in and the interstate comes in and it bypasses the towns.

03:56

And you have this city and all these images of the city which are kind of dystopian almost.

04:02

And how mechanistic it is. And it's not a place, it's a machine. So Tim Keller would hate it.

04:08

Tim Keller would be like, wait a minute. Because in his eschatology, the city is so important.

04:14

Because it starts in Genesis with a garden. It ends in Revelation with a city. And so cities are more advanced.

04:22

That's part of God's plan. He wants cities. And so this was, this documentary though, was more looking at cities, kind of more in the

04:30

Tower of Babel kind of mindset. Not too keen on cities. But it was interesting. I have to say, it was just, it was out of the box.

04:38

So if you're looking for something out of the box to do while you mindlessly play with graphics or whatever you have to do on your computer, then

04:46

General Order 9. There you go. I wasn't expecting to open with that. What I was expecting to do today, which

04:51

I'm not going to do today, was talk about evangelicals. I want to call them,

04:59

I have called them before, broken conscience voters. So evangelicals who are supporting Democrats.

05:05

Or they call themselves at least evangelicals. They have some kind of platform in evangelicalism somewhere.

05:11

And they are signaling their support for the Democratic Party. I was going to bring you some of those screenshots. I was going to show you where they're coming from, who they are, what arguments they're making, and why they're in error for thinking that we can support the party.

05:26

At the very least, that murders the unborn. Now there's more things we could talk about. I don't know that there's a plank in the

05:32

Democratic Party that we can agree on. That's compatible with Christian understanding of life.

05:39

They seem to think that there is a whole lot there to agree with. So I was just going to go through that.

05:45

And we're still going to do that. We are going to do that. That's important. But something happened this morning. Some of you might know what it is.

05:51

Something happened that I wasn't expecting. And I wasn't even thinking about commenting on it.

05:56

But I figured, you know, I'll start watching this. I'll see what it was, what it's really like. And as I watched it, I thought, oh, no,

06:01

I do have to comment on this because I've talked about this many times before.

06:07

And it's just a continuation of the same theme. But we're going to take a walk down memory row.

06:15

We're not going to sample everything, but we're going to talk about Al Mohler and social justice, specifically critical race theory.

06:23

And the reason is, is because the video I'm referring to is Al Mohler. He had on one of his podcasts,

06:30

James Lindsay, who wrote the book, I think I have it here somewhere, Cynical Theories, which, by the way,

06:36

I've been working my way through this book. One of the ways I have several ways I work through books.

06:41

I have audio books. I have, you know, Kindle. Sometimes I'll have Kindle read things to me.

06:47

I'll have books that I try to read in, you know, short periods of time while I'm at home.

06:53

But then I have a book that I take to the gym with me. And so this has been this has ended up being my gym book,

06:59

Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay. And it's very interesting. You can definitely tell that not writing from a

07:06

Christian perspective, but he definitely understands critical theory. And and so this has been an interesting read.

07:13

Anyway, I'm reading this and then I find out, hey, the author, James Lindsay, was on Al Mohler's podcast.

07:20

I thought, well, that's interesting because I've talked a lot about how critical race theory, some aspects of it at least, have found a home at the campus of the

07:29

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary right under Albert Mohler's nose. We've talked about we did a whole video.

07:35

In fact, maybe you should watch that video first if you're new, called Albert Mohler or Al Mohler and Social Justice.

07:41

I'll link to it in the info section. But I talk about what Al Mohler's done, what he hasn't done.

07:47

And if you watch Al Mohler's moves over time, what you'll see is anyone who wants to bring accountability in the

07:54

SBC and makes waves doing it, Al Mohler runs interference. Tom Askle, Russell Fuller, even outside the

08:04

SBC, guys like John MacArthur telling Beth Moore to go home. I mean, Albert Mohler should be doing that in the SBC.

08:09

But instead, John MacArthur is the one that does it and Al Mohler's silent on that. But he tends to support people.

08:17

He tends to defend people like Adam Greenway when Bobby Lopez came out and said, this is what's going on at Southwestern.

08:23

Well, Al Mohler then defends Greenway. When Tom Askle went after Danny Akin because of the hiring of Karen Swallow Pryor, Al Mohler defends

08:31

Danny Akin. Al Mohler consistently has done this. He defended Matt Hall. He defends Jarvis Williams and Curtis Woods.

08:38

And his public presence has been that. But when conservatives are being attacked, his friends even like John MacArthur or Tom Askle or Russell Fuller, he doesn't lift a finger to help them.

08:50

In fact, sometimes he'll even join in. And so I pointed that out in another video. I went through the two areas,

08:57

I think, where Al Mohler has shown that he's got a bit of a liberal vibe. Area number one, we're going to go over some of this, but he thinks that there's a stain of racism in the

09:08

Southern Baptist Convention. And it's the kind of stain that just keeps perpetuating. There's no way you can really,

09:14

I guess, end it. I mean, stains have to be washed. You have to get rid of a stain. But Al Mohler seems to think that the stain is just perpetual.

09:20

It just keeps going. For example, check out this clip. I can't avoid understanding the reality of race and the deadly, deadly reality of claims of racial supremacy and in particular, white racial supremacy.

09:35

That's not a theory. That's a reality. There are ongoing manifestations of this same racism, which is the great stain against the

09:47

American nation and the great stain against much of American Christianity. That is

09:53

Al Mohler, perhaps the most influential Southern Baptist, I would venture to say, perhaps even more than J .D.

09:58

Greer, as far as respect goes. He's running for presidency, the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention.

10:04

He is the president of the flagship seminary for Southern Baptist Convention, which is Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

10:11

And he's talking about why he did not sign the Dallas Statement on Social Justice. He's saying, well, because there's a stain of racism.

10:16

And he talks about it as if it's this perpetual thing. It just keeps going. And he doesn't want to seem weak on that.

10:22

He doesn't want to seem like he doesn't care about that, even though the Dallas Statement has a whole section on what the Bible says about racism.

10:29

And it's good. But that's why he declined to sign, according to him. Now, he's used this language many times.

10:35

There's a number of clips, but here's another one just to kind of give you one more example, where Albert Mohler is promoting a book that he contributed to, along with other, unfortunately, abusers in the

10:48

Southern Baptist Convention of orthodoxy. They've signed these statements that are orthodox statements, but yet they promote ideas consistent with critical race theory, and unapologetically so, some of them.

10:58

I'll show you some examples briefly. But he signs, or he contributes to this book, and he's promoting it.

11:04

And here's what he says in promoting the book, Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention.

11:10

In 1995, I think what Southern Baptists wanted to say was that we were born in a racist past.

11:19

We've been complicit with racism through segregation and Jim Crow all the way to the very recent present.

11:24

We're drawing a line in 1995 and saying that was then, this is now. I think that was honest.

11:31

I think it was wrong, but I think it was honest. I didn't feel that it was wrong in 1995, but the weight of history indicates that was wrong.

11:40

What was wrong is that that was then is not over, and you can't just say we're drawing a line in 1995, as honestly as you might try to say it, and say the past is merely the past, now we're moving forward.

11:52

The sermon I preached, to which you make reference, was occasioned by my feeling of grief and recognizing the theological complicity of my own denomination in racism.

12:07

And so it was an exercise in biblical exposition and biblical theology in an often neglected text to scripture from Genesis 11, demonstrating that it's going to take everything we've got in the gospel and in the scriptures to escape the trap of history.

12:26

But we can't just draw a line. We're going to have to deal it. We're going to have to confront it. We're going to have to recognize the word stain is exactly the right word.

12:35

It's a stain that we're going to carry as a denomination forever till Jesus comes.

12:41

So for those who aren't Southern Baptists, let me interpret real quick. In 1995, Al Mohler was pardoned of an effort to pass a resolution, which passed, to apologize for any complicity with American slavery.

12:53

And this passed, this happened, and then since then we've had a number of other resolutions about racism and other related to racism things, the alt -right, confederate flag, etc.,

13:06

etc. And so it never goes away. It seems like every Southern Baptist convention, there's another resolution that tries to somehow address, lament, apologize for something that has to do with racism.

13:20

And so they're constantly on this hamster wheel of feeling guilty for this. And so there's just a lot of white guilt in the

13:26

Southern Baptist convention. And so Al Mohler is saying that it was wrong for us to do that in 1995 because, you know, essentially what we were communicating was we've drawn a line and that's it for racism, which if you read the resolution, that's not really what it's saying.

13:39

But anyway, that's what he thinks, I guess, it was communicating. And he's basically saying that that's not possible.

13:48

And listen to the last line. If you listen to what he says, he says, the stain of racism, it will be with us perpetually until heaven.

13:56

Until heaven. That means it's always with us. That means if you're a Southern Baptist, now

14:01

I'm saying us, I used to be Southern Baptist, but if you're a Southern Baptist, I guess you always have that stain on you.

14:07

I mean, who would want to join a denomination that stain like that, like can never get the stain off.

14:13

It's like putting on a shirt with a stain. Why would you want to walk around with that when you don't have to, but that's the way that they're treating their denomination that it's just, it's always there.

14:22

It can never, I mean, would you take any other actual sin that the Bible identifies as a sin and just say, well, you know, we just,

14:30

I guess we got hate with us. We got greed with us. We got pick any sin you want. You know, it's just this stain stain.

14:37

It's always going to be with us. And that's part of our identity somehow, I guess. So, so there's an attempt to wash this stain with the recognition that you never will talk about a discouraging statement and the book, removing the stain of racism from the

14:53

Southern Baptist convention is just that it's an attempt to essentially get rid of this stain. So what is the book attempting to do?

15:02

And I'm read you a few clips from it. Here's a picture of the front cover, removing the stain of racism from the

15:08

Southern Baptist convention. It says diverse African -American and white perspectives.

15:13

So you already have the standpoint epistemology jumping right out at you. These perspectives are shaped somehow by culture or race in this case,

15:21

African -American and white perspectives. Why, why is it just out of curiosity side tangent here, but why, why is it that white is just so bland?

15:31

You know, how diverse Europe is, you know, how, I mean, I, I married a girl who is half

15:37

German, right. And, uh, we, we are both, I guess, would fit under the white category, but I've joked with people.

15:44

I said, we're in an interracial marriage, uh, because ethnically we're different culturally, we grew up around, you know, similar areas.

15:51

So we have a lot of shared similarities, but our, we still have cultural differences. Uh, my family from California, uh, her family,

16:00

New York, uh, there's a difference there. And, um, and so anyway, I just, I just think it's bland.

16:06

I don't know the white thing. It's just white. And then even saying African -American, you know, how diverse

16:12

Africa is, but I do digress, um, as if those are the two perspectives represented in this book.

16:18

Uh, I applaud the many white Southern Baptist. I'm reading for you a quote here. This is from the book.

16:24

I just want, this is one quote. I could have pulled a lot of quotes. I want you to just listen to this. It's kind of long, but listen,

16:30

I applaud the many white Southern Baptist who respond without cries for justice after the controversial deaths of black men at the hands of predominantly white police officers in Ferguson, Staten Island, Baltimore, and elsewhere.

16:42

Various pastors in the SBC and beyond have courageously risked their own ministries because of the race issue by engaging in discussions about race after controversy surrounding the aforementioned deaths, uh, erupted.

16:53

Sounds familiar, right? Sounds like what we're going through now. I further commend all Southern Baptists who speak intelligently and thoughtfully about matters pertaining to race, the gospel, justice, and racial reconciliation.

17:04

I am especially thankful for white pastors who have partnered with black and Brown pastors in the urban context, sacrificing their own ministries and white privileged status within the

17:14

SBC. As a result there, you have that word white privilege, you're already seeing critical race theory emerge. Well, let's keep reading.

17:21

Therefore in the rest of this chapter, I offer Southern Baptists and anyone else who has years to hear 15 concluding exhortations relating, uh, related to the removing of the stain of racism from the

17:31

SBC. So you want to know how to remove the stain? Well, here's how we're going to have to do it. Step one, Southern Baptists should be quick to listen and slow to speak on race.

17:39

When they do not understand the issues, white supremacy and racism are complicated issues. So here, here, here's where we're already, um, where we're going to introduce critical race stuff.

17:49

When you start to talk about the complexity and how these things are, they're invisible in society, you don't recognize them.

17:55

That's where we're going. I continue. These issues relate to concepts such as racialization, critical race theory, mass incarceration, economic inequality, educational inequality, and other forms of systemic injustice.

18:09

So we already have disparities means injustice. Speaking ignorantly about these issues is inappropriate.

18:15

Southern Baptist, especially white Southern Baptist with privilege. There you go again. And without personal experience, their experience, remember experience and truth standpoint, epistemology, fundamental to critical race theory, personal experience of the challenges associated with being a black or Brown person in the

18:31

United States should spend more time listening to their black and Brown brothers and sisters. Instead of trying to speak to at about or for them,

18:39

Jarvis Williams wrote that on page 99. Here's another section from Jarvis Williams. The stain of racism remains in the, in many

18:46

Southern Baptist pulpits and churches, although they have made much progress. Jesus, our

18:52

Jewish savior has purchased some from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Southern Baptist need to partner a partnership of all churches committed to our

19:01

Jewish savior to fulfill the great commission task of gospel centered racial reconciliation, removing the stain of racism from our churches might seem like an impossible task in light of our troubled history.

19:12

But if red and yellow, black and white, rich and poor Southern Baptist work together in unity to kill racism within the power of the gospel.

19:18

And if churches plant gospel center, multi -ethnic churches in the U S the stain of racism will become less apparent in the

19:25

SBC until the day Jesus returns to redeem Southern Baptists and all Christians once and for all from our troubled past and create a perfectly reconciled future in the new heavens and new earth.

19:36

Until that day, many Southern Baptist churches in every generation make daily efforts to erase the stain of racism from the

19:41

SBC. And there you have it again, Jarvis Williams, page 105, the stains never going to be erased. It's with us till heaven.

19:47

You just gotta, just gotta fight this thing all the time. It's always going to be there as part of who we are. Somehow we got to do more.

19:53

We have to have the multi -ethnic church model, which you don't find that anywhere in scripture. You find that that's something God produces as you preach the gospel.

20:00

It's not an end you're supposed to be pursuing. Or it's not, it's, it's, it's just, it's something that organically happens if you're faithful.

20:09

And, and so it's changing the mission of the church. It's, it, this is what's going on in this book.

20:15

So you don't want to get rid of the stain. Everyone wants to get rid of the stain. Well, this is one of the things you have to do, but even if you do it, you won't quite get rid of it.

20:21

It's still going to be there a little hints of it, but you're making progress. Curtis Wood says in the same book on page 170, he goes,

20:27

Williams chapter incorporates history, sociology, critical race theory, and new Testament scholarship into a canon conversation about the myth of modern racial reasoning.

20:37

Now, if you haven't heard of this, the reason is, is probably because hardly anyone on the conservative side has probably read it.

20:44

There's a lot in this and Al Mohler contributed a chapter to this about specifically, it's the first chapter about removing the stain.

20:54

That's, this is what Al Mohler believes is what he has believed for, there's, there's a number of quotations from the past couple of years.

21:03

Up until pretty recently, I mean, this, I think this video that I just played for you was from 2018. I think the one before was 2019.

21:09

It's, this is an ancient history that I'm playing for you. So, so where do we go from here?

21:16

Let me review for you just a few things, a few things. It's not everything that Al Mohler has done or said, signaled his support in whichever direction we're going to talk about it.

21:27

And then let's talk about this interview with James Lindsay, because it's going to be fascinating to see this. And, and I want you to have to,

21:34

I want you to try to make sense of this. And if you're in the Southern Baptist Convention, especially if you're someone who's tried to defend

21:39

Al Mohler through all the controversies that have happened, it's, this is why I'm doing this. Just so you know, this is, it's not just a beat up on Al Mohler.

21:46

This is the last thing I want to do. This guy was, I've explained it before. I should probably say it again. This guy was a hero to me. The reason

21:51

I went to the Southern, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, I wanted to be in the SBC. I liked

21:57

Al Mohler so much. I used to listen to his program. I mean, it's a, it grieves me. It grieves me.

22:02

It really does. And it still does. Even though I've been tracking this shift for a while, it still makes me irritated and upset that, you know, this man that I look to as a hero can be so spineless to say the least, and at worst, a liberal operative.

22:20

How can you say that, John? Well, what are the options that you have? Either he's someone who is incapable of fighting the liberalization in his own denomination.

22:30

He can't do it. Or he's, he fights it everywhere else, but he can't fight it in the very area that he actually has control and influence.

22:39

Or he agrees with it on some level. It's one or the other. You can't have both. I have my ideas on what it is at this point.

22:45

I really do. But, but that's, that's the struggle you got. You have to wrestle with as you're looking at him.

22:51

And it's important we do look at him because if you're a Southern Baptist, you're going to be voting on this guy next year. You're gonna have to make an intelligent, informed decision.

22:58

So, so what are his positions? Let's look at a few things. This is what he said after the

23:04

Founder's Ministry video trailer dropped. It's a little over a year ago now. Yes, folks,

23:09

I have now seen the Founder's Ministry video trailer, and I'm alarmed at how some respected SBC leaders are represented. Southern Baptists expect and deserve respectful and honest exchange of ideas.

23:17

I'm convinced we are capable of this. So when Tom Askill and Founder's Ministries puts out a trailer for what they're going to be doing in the

23:26

By What Standard film, Al Mohler says something negative about it publicly. He says that he's alarmed, in fact, and insinuates that this, it wasn't respectful.

23:36

It wasn't honest. There's lying going on. And, and we need a, we need a better dialogue.

23:42

So, so he comes out against that. Now, what else has he defended?

23:51

He's defended Matthew Hall. There's a picture of him. This is right at the time Matthew Hall was in trouble because of the videos.

23:58

There's three of them that were floating around where he said that I'm a racist or I'm a white supremacist. And it's because I benefit from a system that allocates privileges to white people.

24:07

And so Matt Hall's saying, I'm a racist. I'm a white supremacist. Well, there's Al Mohler. And Al Mohler is, you know, saying, hey, he's signing the abstract and principles here.

24:16

He's signing our confession of faith. He's Orthodox. That's what he's trying to show you. He doesn't just put out pictures of him with professors signing, you know, the abstract and principles, but he did it in this case.

24:27

It was a defense move in the context in which he put it out there. Breaking. Southern Baptist convention leaders released statement on the death of George Floyd.

24:36

I was glad to join in this statement. I talked about this on the show when it came out earlier this year assumes all the wrong things.

24:42

And of course, now we really know that it was assuming the wrong things. This wasn't motivated by race, racism.

24:48

This was an altercation gone bad. And and now that we're seeing the autopsy, now that we're seeing more information come out, especially there is there is no cause for the statement that they made and linking this to America's past and racism, etc.

25:05

Here's another one. The real network of Southern Baptists is called the or the Southern Baptist Convention.

25:11

It's going to meet June 9th through 10th in Orlando. I'm looking forward to joining you there. He said this in February before the covid stuff hit.

25:18

And this was in reaction. It was, I think, the next day after the conservative

25:24

Baptist network formed specifically to challenge ideas like critical race theory in the Southern Baptist Convention.

25:30

Al Mueller comes out against it, so to speak. I mean, I don't know how else you interpret that. They're not the real convention.

25:37

The real one is the Southern Baptist Convention. And as if you can't have, you know, other groups within the

25:44

Southern Baptist Convention, there's many entities, there's many associations and groups supposed to believe in church autonomy.

25:50

Here's another one. This is from 2018. Just realized that today is Dr. Moore. That means

25:56

Russell Moore, head of the ERLC, the biggest the branch of the Southern Baptist Convention, most responsible for pushing politically liberal ideas.

26:05

He realized it's Dr. Moore's fifth anniversary as the president of the ERLC. Congratulations on a historic half -decade of leadership and prayers for many more.

26:14

Prayers for many more. He likes what Russell Moore's doing on some level because he wants many more.

26:20

So what else has he done? Well, he defended or supported in some way Jarvis Williams and Curtis Woods.

26:26

I mean, Curtis Woods used, specifically used critical race theory for his dissertation from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

26:33

Jarvis Williams is the one I was just reading you quotes from. Curtis Woods says, Jarvis Williams is using critical race theory.

26:39

And it's evident that he was. And here's Albert Mueller saying, hey, you know, this article that they wrote on August of 2019, so about a year ago, called

26:49

The Right Way to Confront Racism is Biblical and Theological and centered, it was what he says, The Right Way to Confront Racism is Biblical and Theological and centered on the gospel of Christ.

26:56

Timely word from these two guys who have, in their own words, been promoting critical race theory.

27:03

In their own words. Jarvis Williams said every Christian needs to read Richard Delgado's critical race theory. Not to critique it, not to learn apologetics, but because it would enrich them in some way.

27:13

Here's a quote from the article. From where we sit as African American Christians, racism and white supremacy are opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and they pose a threat to all diverse image bearers in our churches.

27:24

Brown immigrants and people of color, families like Jarvis's with a Hispanic wife and a mixed African American and Hispanic son and Curtis's with an

27:30

African American wife and children are genuinely afraid that white supremacists may murder us and our kids because of the color of our skin.

27:38

These fears are present in many of our churches. I mean, these guys are conditioned.

27:45

I mean, really, where do you live? That this is such a something you're so afraid of.

27:51

But yet this is real to them and it's from where they sit as African American Christians. Notice which comes first.

27:58

The African American comes first, then the Christian. This is standpoint epistemology.

28:03

This is from where we sit with the lens of our social group. Albert Mueller saying, yeah, this is the right way to confront racism.

28:11

It's biblical. It's theological. That's where he's been. Now, remember how he condemned

28:17

Tom Askell, right? Tom Askell's, well, not him personally, but the founder's documentary when the trailer was released.

28:23

Well, here's what he says about the resolutions committee, which gave us resolution nine, right?

28:30

Endorsing critical race theory intersectionality as analytical tools is what he said. Southern Baptists are up to the challenge of talking to one another about difficult questions.

28:38

I appreciate Baptist Press and members of the 2019 resolutions committee talking here about resolution nine.

28:44

This is the right tone. I am sure it is released in good faith. So they released their statement about resolution nine in good faith, but founder's documentary, that wasn't good faith.

28:59

That was lying. Do you see the angle that Al Mueller's playing here?

29:05

If you want to just say he's political, go for it. Say he's political. Don't say he's conservative and he's fighting for conservative principles.

29:13

He's political at the best. At worst, he's liberal, right?

29:19

Knowing what we know, and there's more we could have gone over. Go watch the video I did on Al Mueller and social justice.

29:25

Now, this is James Lindsay. We're going to go over what

29:31

James Lindsay has said about the Southern Baptist convention, okay? And then I'm going to play you the clips of the interview today with James Lindsay and Al Mueller.

29:39

Here's some of the things that James Lindsay has confronted. James Lindsay confronted Danny Akin publicly online, the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where I went.

29:50

I'm not going to read you the whole thing, but essentially he takes Danny Akin to task for promoting standpoint epistemology.

29:57

And the thread's right there. You can pause the screen and read it if you want. James Lindsay has gone after J .D.

30:03

Greer and Jarvis Williams. J .D. Greer, he says, this is from the president of the

30:09

Southern Baptist convention. Check your privilege, y 'all. Amen. And it's

30:15

J .D. Greer's blog from August 5th, 2019, a year ago. Three ways to lay down your privilege.

30:21

Here's James Lindsay going after Jarvis Williams. Someone asked, does it always end in a binary choice?

30:28

I found this person's Twitter helpful as another perspective on standpoint epistemology. Still reading. Are there no social constructs ever that disadvantage subgroups within a given culture?

30:38

Here's what James Lindsay says. By the way, I've seen Jarvis Williams pull this about race explicitly using the language of intersectionality.

30:49

That's standpoint epistemology. Unless you want to say God made the races functionally different.

30:55

If so, that's on your heads. We're kind of entering mid conversation here, but he's saying Jarvis Williams, yeah, he teaches intersectionality.

31:02

He teaches standpoint epistemology. Professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary right now,

31:08

Jarvis Williams. And here's James Lindsay, who is now pretty much the world expert on critical theory saying, yep, Jarvis Williams.

31:14

Yep. Standpoint epistemology. Intersectionality. J .D. Greer. Yep. Talking about white privilege.

31:19

Problematic. Here's Beth Moore. Here's all the different times. James, actually, this might even be one thread.

31:26

I think it is one thread. All the different times. He goes after Beth Moore 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times in the same thread.

31:32

Uh, he's saying this is woke conservative Christianity. Um, he's, yeah, he's just going after her for postmodernism.

31:41

Uh, he said the Southern Baptist Convention is about to split into woke and non -woke. This is in 2019. Uh, postmodern mythology.

31:49

I mean, he's really taken her to task. Has Al Mohler ever done this? James Lindsay is not part of the

31:54

Southern Baptist Convention. James Lindsay claims to be, I believe, an atheist. He's a secularist, but he is an expert on critical theory and he's against critical theory.

32:03

He can recognize it in the Southern Baptist Convention, but the people with the power to do something about it can't seem to do that.

32:10

He goes after the SBC quite a bit. Uh, a couple screenshots here for you.

32:16

Um, I'm just going to read you a few of them. He says, um, uh, let's see for another thing.

32:22

It's probably worth recognizing that SJW -ism, social justice warrior -ism is currently infecting evangelical

32:28

Christianity, even in conservative bastions like the Southern Baptist Convention. He says that, uh, let's see, says

32:38

Christianity might teach us to put our faith in God. Critical social justice cannot, and thus says we have to be activists.

32:44

Christians petition God through prayer. Critical social justice tries to change society. This happens even within faith traditions like the

32:52

Southern Baptist Convention, which is taking on some elements of critical social justice. He's accusing them of taking those on.

32:59

Inequities are part of man's world, thus reflect on how far it has fallen from God's world. But it's up to activists to correct that.

33:06

This is amazing. This is amazing that James Lindsay is able to understand Christian theology well enough to apply it as an atheist when people that have the reins of power in the convention can't seem to do anything about it when they say they're against it.

33:17

It's amazing to me. Uh, and there's more. You can look at that. He actually puts

33:24

Evergreen State College in the Southern Baptist Convention with Resolution 9 in the same sentence. Here's James Lindsay going after Southern Baptist Convention and Southern Baptist Convention seminaries, and he specifically singles out

33:34

Southeastern and links to their catalog. He says, here's a social justice major offered at the

33:39

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and I know about the disputes happening there. James Lindsay saying this.

33:47

I mean, this is amazing. He says, uh, the Southern Baptist Convention and other conservative organizations trying to pick up critical race theory and intersectionality is like men taking from Sauron's rings of power, the nine that will eventually turn them into ringwraiths.

34:04

Here's James Lindsay going after Resolution 9, the Southern Baptist Convention. They're currently blowing up over what is called

34:12

Resolution 9. What is a call to insert critical race theory and intersectionality into their official doctrine as an eisegetical tool?

34:19

He knows what eisegesis is. He knows what this will do. It's amazing to me that he understands this when so many in the convention itself don't, uh, and he goes on.

34:31

I mean, he really takes Resolution 9 to task. Just read these, these screenshots from his Twitter account.

34:37

So, so that's, uh, James Lindsay on, on his opinion of the

34:42

Southern Baptist Convention. Now, you know what

34:49

Al Mohler has been doing, either playing a political game or covering for liberals, pushing liberalism.

34:54

It's one of those two or a combination of it, right? You know what James Lindsay has been doing?

35:00

He's been going after critical theory wherever he finds it, including if it is found in the

35:05

Southern Baptist Convention, he'll go after it there. These two people now talk and their conversation is fascinating to me.

35:17

Listen to this clip. Uh, critical race theory came out of critical legal studies. We, we mentioned that a

35:22

Kimberly Crenshaw took on postmodern tools and it took on a very explicitly identity first approach.

35:30

Uh, Kimberly Crenshaw, very famously in mapping the margins. This is her 1991 paper where she says that intersectionality, she doesn't introduce intersectionality here, but she defines it the most clearly.

35:40

Um, she laid it out a few years earlier in another paper, but in this paper, she says that intersectionality is a provisional concept that's used to link contemporary politics to postmodern theory.

35:51

And what she means by contemporary politics, she says at the beginning of the paper is the liberationist radical, uh, in other words, neo -Marxist, uh, critical theory paradigm.

36:01

And she says that we're now going to recognize that a statement I am black is more important and more valuable than a statement like,

36:10

I'm a person who happens to be black because the second of these forwards universal humanity first.

36:15

And as you talked about with the, um, pessimism here, the liberalism had failed, that approach had failed, colorblindness had failed.

36:24

So now we have to focus on race all the time in everything in order to try to remove the stain of racism, if you will.

36:31

So it's like this, they have this idea like that, that the fabric of society itself in every dimension is stained with, with racism.

36:38

And the only way this is an indelible stain, you read Derrick Bell, he says it has a permanence to it. You read any of the core critical race theory texts, and they start off by saying that racism is the ordinary state of affairs in society.

36:52

You read Robin DiAngelo's, um, distillation of this from 2013. And she says, the question is no longer did racism take place, but how did racism manifest in the situation for it's to be assumed that it's in every situation.

37:04

And the analysis is to find it, which is again, a very cynical way to read human interactions, phenomena, or organizations.

37:11

And so this is a very, um, kind of cynical way to approach the idea of race, but it's also a very divisive way that forwards the ideas that, um, race has to be made relevant, more relevant and more relevant and more relevant in order to overcome the problem of racism, which they see as kind of a permanent stain on the fabric of society.

37:33

And they see no way to remove this stain. So the fabric itself has to be unmade and remade in a critical fashion in order not to have it.

37:40

So this is a pretty nasty way to approach this. I don't know about you, but that was a confrontation.

37:48

That's what that was. He, he used the terminology to remove the stain of racism.

37:54

I think, do you think James Lindsay knows what Al Moeller has been up to? It sounds like it possibly, if not, that was amazing that he used the same terminology that Albert Moeller has been using, that Jarvis Williams has been using.

38:07

He, um, he had described exactly what's happening in the Southern Baptist convention to Al Moeller, who's running for the presidency of that convention and has defended people that are pushing those ideas, literally explaining them to Albert Moeller.

38:24

Uh, he also says this. We have institutions taking this stuff on very quickly.

38:29

I'm hearing more and more from people that it's backfiring where they've taken it on and now they want to find their way out.

38:35

It's like, well, you buddy, you made a deal with the devil. He's going to collect. And that's the end of this is that it will infiltrate as many institutions as it can, which may go as high as our federal government.

38:47

It's not impossible. It could happen here. And every institution that it infects will lose all credibility and collapse.

38:54

Wow is the only word. Wow. He's talking about institutions like the

39:00

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

39:07

And then he also says this. Meanwhile, because it's, it can find oppression in anything.

39:13

Remember, it's not, the question is not, did racism take place, but how did racism manifest in this situation?

39:19

Because it can read into it any, any way that it wants and it's anti -intellectual and it's now postmodern and that it can, can, it's all about subjective truth and not objective reality.

39:31

It can attach to anything. It can attach to Christian faith. It can attach to education. It can attach to national governments.

39:38

It can attach to our nuclear labs. Apparently it can attach literally to anything and make a critical theory of anything, anything, including

39:48

Christianity, including the Southern Baptist Convention. Now Moeller's nodding along.

39:55

He agrees. One of the things you get the impression of when you watch this interview, if you watch it and the entire thing,

40:02

Albert Moeller understands critical race theory. He understands the Frankfurt school. He understands critical theory in general, and he has an understanding of some of the sources that James Lindsay brings up, which means he's not ignorant, which means that for the last couple of years, the things happening under his nose, things he had control over, things he contributed to, things he defended, people he defended, people he went after because they were attacking the people pushing these ideas that he defended.

40:28

All of that means that he was not doing any of it ignorantly. That's something you need to consider. If you're a

40:33

Southern Baptist, I don't know who he's running against, but if he's running next year, you need to consider that. Is this a principled man?

40:40

If this is something he just now all of a sudden realized, then it would contradict his story in the interview itself because he talks about having rudimentary understandings of these things at the very least since he was in college.

40:56

He knows what this stuff is. He knew about it before it took place and took root at the level of the convention that he wants to preside over and the seminary which he does preside over.

41:07

So what do you do with that as someone who potentially would vote for him or not vote for him?

41:13

Well, that's up to you. But the answer you come to to try to reconcile these things is not a flattering one.

41:19

The possibilities are not good ones. It means that there's some kind of an understanding of this while either allowing it and providing a safe haven for it to continue.

41:32

Now, I want to show you this clip. This is the last clip of the interview.

41:38

It's actually right after the interview. Albert Mueller talks about what happened and what he thinks. In the interview, he says that he agrees with most of what

41:46

James Lindsay talks about in this book. Then he says this at the end of the whole thing.

41:52

As I said to James Lindsay, I am shocked, frankly, at this point in my life that the incursions of critical theory and the reified form of post -modernism—and by now you know what we're talking about there—that these have made such headway in American culture, not just in the academy where, quite honestly, these forms of thought have basically been dominant for the better part of the last several decades, but also in popular culture.

42:21

Okay, but what about the seminary that you preside over? What about there? Does it surprise you what happened there?

42:29

Do you remember how Russell Fuller was treated when he came out and he started talking about this? I mean, this is the story he shared about Albert Mueller when he brought it up in a meeting.

42:39

When I gave the speech against Matt Hall—and again, you can read the speech that I gave. You go to Enemies Within the

42:45

Church. We have the document there. You've made it available, yeah. I read that, and one of the other professors told me, said when

42:51

I was reading, I was watching Dr. Mueller, and I could tell he was getting angrier and angrier as you kept reading.

42:59

And then once everybody finished speaking their mind about Matt Hall, Dr.

43:06

Mueller spoke, and he looked at me, and he said, Russell, you're an idiot screaming this at me.

43:14

And then he says, you shouldn't say anything about anything. You don't know anything you're about. Then he started saying things like, do you believe in systemic racism?

43:25

And I was trying to say, I kept saying to him, how do you define it? But he just, no.

43:32

Do you believe in systemic racism? And I go, see, it was a loaded question. However I answered that, he was going to attack me.

43:40

And what I wanted to say is, how do you define it? Because in critical race theory, you can have systemic racism without any racist.

43:49

And to me, that's as foolish as saying you can have a sinful society without sinners. That's just, that's impossible, you see.

43:56

That's not possible. And so finally I said, well, yeah, but I had to,

44:01

I mean, because he was sitting there just constantly haranguing me on this, you see. In front of everyone. Oh, in front of everyone.

44:07

All your peers, all the people that work with you. Absolutely, about 35 people. You have 35 people in a room that can confirm the story that was just told.

44:17

And in all the grumbling about Russell Fuller and all the attacks against him, no one refuted that or contradicted that story, or really any of his stories.

44:28

They were just a lot of name calls without any substance. And it's interesting to me to find,

44:36

I saw actually on Twitter, one of the chief uh, attackers on Twitter, who was a professor at the

44:43

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the guys who was attacking him the fiercest when he came out, being a professor over 20 years at the institution, he decided to whistleblow after he was fired.

44:54

One of the ones attacking him the most, comparing him even to the devil at one point, has also endorsed

45:01

James Lindsay. Why is that? Why are there Southern Baptists now who want to endorse

45:07

James Lindsay? Who think James Lindsay's great, even though James Lindsay's saying the same things Russell Fuller's saying.

45:14

Why does Russell Fuller get the boot, and Tom Askell get the boot, and James Lindsay is accepted? Could it have to do with something else?

45:20

Could it have to do with the fact that James Lindsay is bigger than the Southern Baptist Convention, and he's popular and has a huge platform, and people are following him?

45:30

Could it have to do with popularity of some kind? It's worth considering. It is worth considering.

45:38

This has been a hard thing for many people who respect Al Mohler and buy the whole conservative image that he exudes, and the image that he's wanted to be known for.

45:50

It was a little hard for me at first, too. If you watch the video I did, Al Mohler and social justice, I talk about it.

45:56

I don't understand why he's adopting categories of same -sex orientation, attracted orientation, etc.

46:02

I don't understand why he's saying there's a stain that's never going to be removed until heaven. I mean, where do these ideas come from?

46:09

They're not biblical, and it did take me some time to figure out, okay, he's not on the same side of this debate as I'm on, and I think the word of God's on.

46:19

He's doing something else, and whether that means he's unprincipled or whether that means that he's got some liberal tendencies,

46:28

I'll let you decide that, but if you're a Southern Baptist, you're going to have to start thinking about this as we get closer to the election next year.

46:36

For the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention, I think Al Mohler's smarter than me.

46:42

There's still, I guess, maybe a... I was going to say there's still some respect left.

46:48

I don't know if there is. I mean, if it's hanging by a thread, and it's because of things he did years and years ago.

46:55

I mean, I used to read Al Mohler. I used to listen to Al Mohler, but I can't respect the guy anymore, seeing that he's been so unprincipled on this, in my opinion.

47:07

You want a principled man leading your denomination. You need someone with the conviction to lead, to borrow a phrase from his book.

47:15

You need someone who's ready for the storm that's about to come. I mean, he writes about these things, but you don't see the reality in the things in his life and the things that he has actual responsibility over, and so you're going to have to make sense of that if you're a

47:28

Southern Baptist. I'm not. I don't have a dog in this fight, in the sense that if he gets elected president of the

47:36

Southern Baptist Convention, it doesn't affect me that much, but I know it does affect people who... A lot of my

47:42

Southern Baptist supporters, listeners who are in that denomination, and they're tracking what

47:50

I'm saying about social justice and evangelicalism. You're going to have to make that decision if you're in that denomination, and I will continue to cover things as they come up.

47:59

I really don't want to talk about Al Mohler again. I'll be honest with you. It just grieves my heart. He's a guy I used to really just look up to in some ways, even defend when this stuff started, and so it pains me, if anything.

48:13

I don't enjoy doing this at all, but I think it is necessary for some of you to bring you down the garden path, to show you some things, to get the gears in your mind to work.

48:25

That's all I want to do, and you don't have to come down on the same side I come down on. That's fine, but as long as you're taking all the facts into account and trying to come up with a paradigm that makes sense of them all, and not just casting overboard the ones that don't fit the narrative you want to believe.

48:40

We're past that now. We're in a revolution right now in this country, and we need to identify the men that have spines, and those are the men to follow, and if it means getting out of the convention because it's going to be spineless after the next election, then it means getting out of that convention.

48:57

But you need to make sure that you're putting yourself under the men who are going to be the most rock -ribbed in this new world that we're entering, especially if Biden wins this coming

49:09

November. We're going to need men of steel, men who are willing to sacrifice and go to jail and aren't putting their thumb up and trying to figure out which way the winds are blowing to see what opinion they're going to come out with that day.

49:23

We need men who have their opinions set no matter which way the winds are blowing. And so that's my encouragement to you.

49:30

Some verses I want you to think about. These are some verses that just came to my head as I was going through this whole thing, and just some scriptures on double -mindedness.

49:42

2 Kings 17 and 33, they feared the Lord and served their own gods according to the customs of the nations from among whom they had been carried away into exile.

49:51

Feared the Lord and served their gods. Feared the

49:57

Lord and served their own gods. We don't want to be in organizations or following men who say they fear the

50:04

Lord and you can see, okay, here's where they fear the Lord. Here's what they did. Okay, good. But they also served their own gods.

50:10

It's one or the other. Psalm 119, 113, I hate those who are double -minded, but I love your law.

50:17

Strong language there, hating those who are double -minded. Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long will you hesitate between two opinions?

50:26

If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him. But the people did not answer him a word. 1 Kings 18, 21.

50:32

That's what I'm saying to you right now. Is it the Lord? Is it his law?

50:38

Is it his precepts? Or is it secular ideologies that are competitors with the

50:46

Lord that find good and evil within man, that instead of an evil or a good moral law that has been laid down in a transcendent

50:59

God who is with us, who built this place, who sent his son,

51:04

Jesus Christ. But no, no, no. Ideologies that instead say that good and evil are just, they're just, if they exist at all, it's within human psyches.

51:18

It's about the object and the subject and postmodern understandings of the other and comparing yourself to the other and using the

51:26

Hegelian dialectic to rise above and self -actualize. And I mean, these are the kinds of things critical race stuff is based on.

51:34

The identity factor in critical race theory. Is it going to be worshiping the

51:42

God of scripture? Or is it going to be worshiping the sociologists? Because they have the true

51:47

God -like understanding of the world. Is it going to be the metanarrative of the Bible and what it says about the condition of man?

51:54

Or is it going to be the postmodern metanarrative? And I could go on. We could, we've done it.

51:59

We've done the episodes where we show all the parallels between the gospel and the law and the religion of Christianity and critical theories.

52:10

Postmodernism mixed with Marxism. You got to choose one this day. Which one will it be?

52:16

And if Al Mohler chooses right and says, you know what? I apologize for covering for these horrible ideas.

52:27

I apologize for even adopting some of these ideas. I'll be the first to say, we forgive you.

52:33

Thank you. I mean, he didn't say it to me. I'm not a Southern Baptist anymore. I was though. I was going to a school.

52:39

I was paying a lot of money to the school that I went to and the church that I went to.

52:45

So if he wants to say, I'm so sorry for letting this in the convention and your money, your cooperative program money going for this stuff, then look,

52:54

I'll be the first to say, thank you so much. But if we don't see that, if there's just no recognition of any of these errors and it's just, well, let's move on.

53:03

Now we agree with what James Lindsay sang. It's going to have to be some action to back that up.

53:10

So is Jarvis Williams being let go too? Is Matt Hall being let go? Are they apologizing for their teachings or is it just cover up at this point?

53:17

We're not going to talk about that. That lets you know whether Al Mohler has integrity. That's going to be the thing.

53:24

That's the determining factor in my mind. And if and when he does apologize for some of these things, then he's going to have to show over time, he's going to have to build trust and he shouldn't be running for the presidency of the

53:36

Southern Baptist Convention. It takes time to build trust. So that's my opinion on it. But you're going to have to make up your own mind if you're

53:43

Southern Baptist. So I appreciate you listening. Hopefully next time we will talk about the

53:49

Democratic Party, unless something crazier happens that we need to address. But I hope you enjoyed that.