Woke Level 11 -Watch Your Mouths When You Talk About the Bride

Forgiveness, Turning the Other Cheek, and the Hard Work of Reconciliation

Hello, my name is Adam Robles, and today I wanted to cover a couple of articles that I saw posted from The Witness, which is a blog that used to be the Reformed African American Network. And they put out some great articles from time to time.

I do like a lot of their stuff, but sometimes their articles, man, they make me really sad, they do. And I just worry about the direction that some people will take their articles. I wonder sometimes, whatever happened to forgiveness?

Whatever happened to turning the other cheek and absorbing an insult? Why wouldn't we rather be defrauded than to have division or something against our brothers in Christ? I wonder about that sometimes, man, because forgiving somebody is really hard.

It's really hard. So I'm not denying that it's difficult to forgive someone, especially when something that they've done, it makes you feel really slighted, right? It makes you feel like they don't value you.

That's hard, man. But it's even harder, especially as a minority, right? As a Puerto Rican, black people, it can be very difficult for us to forgive perceived insults, perceived injustices from our white brothers and sisters.

Especially when we see so many people encouraging us to hold on to that bitterness, saying that it's valid. That is impossible, man. That's the worst possible situation we could be in. And so I worry when I see people posting these articles and being encouraged by them or being hopeful because I don't see that, man.

I'm sad. They make me sad. They make me worried. Let me show you what I mean. So we got here The Witness, an article about Lecrae. Same rebel, new level. I guess that means he's level 10 wokeness or something like that.

But this talks about his departure from evangelicalism. And like, you know, a few months ago or a few weeks ago, rather, you know, he announced publicly that he was distancing himself from the white church, right?

He was divorcing, is the word he used, divorcing white evangelicalism. And according to this article, he's just actually departing from evangelicalism as a whole. Which, you know, if you want to do that, that's okay.

I mean, I don't even really know what evangelical means anymore. There's so many people that would call themselves evangelicals that don't believe any of the things that I think are required for a Christian, you know.

And so who knows what evangelicalism even means? I'm not zealous for that term. If you don't want to call yourself an evangelical, that's up to you, right? But this article, man, I just worry about it.

I do. You know, it starts off, it talks about how Lecrae was, he was no stranger to the evangelical world. He considered himself an evangelical, I guess. You know, lots of people respected him and liked his art, you know, things like that.

And then, you know, it talks about how evangelicalism really is a white person's thing. 76 of white people identify as evangelicals. Only 6 of blacks, only 11 of Latinos do the same thing. Okay, you know, that's fine.

That's the statistics. You know, that is what it is, right? So if you don't want to call yourself an evangelical, that's fine. I'm okay with that. But then it talks about the reasoning behind why he's divorcing the white church.

And he talks about the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the acquittal of Darren Wilson, the officer who shot him, right? And this is where it starts. This is where the article starts. He says that, you know, he started saying, oh man, that was unjustified.

But then all these white people were saying, no, it is justified. You know, just preach the gospel. Stop talking about politics. And that's stupid, by the way. That's a stupid, you know, response to something like this, right?

Because if you disagree that that was unjustified, that's completely up to you. But, you know, you can't say he's not preaching the gospel just because he thinks it was an unjustified killing, right? But this is the divide, right?

So basically, his departure from white evangelical, his divorce from the white church, is because of this disagreement on whether or not, you know, Michael Brown and others like him, those shootings were justified or not.

And I'm like, man, that's all it takes? That's all it takes? Because it's not like white people are saying, yeah, you know, Michael Brown, you know, he didn't do nothing wrong. He didn't do anything to sort of cause that officer to engage with him and to shoot him.

Nah, he didn't do anything, but he deserved to be shot anyway. Nobody's saying that except the crazies, right? Like, except the Nazis and the KKK. Like, is that who he's talking about? That's who he's divorcing?

I don't think so. He's talking about the run-of-the-mill white person who says, yeah, you know, Michael Brown just got done committing a robbery and the officer said that he reached for his gun, and, you know, the officer has a right to self-defense.

Like, that's what the typical run-of-the-mill white person is saying, and you're making it seem like they're like, ah, yeah, I just don't care about injustice. That's a lie, man. That's bearing false witness to present it like that because nobody knows what happened to Michael Brown except the police officer.

Nobody knows. You don't know, Lecrae. You don't know anybody, whoever's listening to this. You don't know what happened. So, man, how about a little humility, right? Whether it was justified or not, you know, let's not present the other side as just being off the wall.

So, you know, if that's your reason, that's not a good enough reason. A little disagreement like that? Come on. Come on, man. You know, the rest of this article talks about, you know, how the hope is that, you know, the injustice and things like that, that the church, you know, is going to figure that out, and, you know, Lecrae is bold and unashamed of being a black man.

Good, I'm glad he's not ashamed of being a black man. That's great. But let's not pretend your white brothers and sisters are, like, against blacks or something like that. That's just ridiculous. Not a good reason to divorce the church.

In fact, there is no reason to divorce brothers and sisters in Christ. Here's another article. I'm tired. I, too, am tired. The race conversation in 2017. I've heard this so many times. I'm tired of talking about it.

I'm tired of making my arguments. Here's the thing. This person says, look, you know, how many times can I give the answer to the same question or argue in the comments section? Well, I'll tell you what, this sister, that depends on how much you love them, right?

How many times you will answer the same question depends on how much you love them, right? She says she's tired of giving defense for her righteous outcries against injustice. Okay, I mean, I don't doubt that she's tired.

And here's the thing. Nobody has to engage in this topic, right? Nobody is saying you have to answer every question, no matter how disingenuous, no matter how ridiculous. Nobody is saying you have to.

But let's not present the opposition as they're all like this. I don't understand that. She says, I want to pick my battles. Great, pick your battles. That's okay. You want to pick the people you engage with?

That's fine. Pick the people you engage with. But I'll tell you what, when it comes to spreading the gospel, when it comes to saying, hey, here's an example of injustice and you need the gospel, you don't get to pick your people.

That goes out to everybody, right? So all this, that's fine. She doesn't want to engage, all that kind of stuff. She eventually gets around to saying that, listen, if she doesn't engage with this, if she just lets her emotional state of being too tired affect how she responds to people, then that's selfish.

And I agree. I'm glad she gets around to that because that's what I would say too. You know what I mean? Just imagine if after Barack Obama's inauguration, I was like, yeah, I'm just out. I'm mentally checking out.

I'm so sick of talking about the injustice of Democrats and liberals. I'm just so sick of it, I'm not even going to talk about it. I'd have to get over that attitude. And I'm glad she's saying that she also has to get over that attitude.

That's great. But here's the thing, like, she starts talking about, listen to this, this paragraph right here. The past few years, the witness has done a lot of pleading with the impenetrable slabs of rock.

She says, I realized that we were calling people to be reconciled to one another when many haven't even been reconciled to God. Wow. That's quite an accusation. And I'm not saying that every person who calls himself a Christian is a Christian.

I'm not saying that. But you better treat them like one. You better treat them like one because you don't have the right not to. You don't have the right not to. She says that there are various reasons why scriptural arguments asserting the Imago Dei and black people do not sway some folks.

One reason is because there are people who do not care what God says, but still call themselves Christians. You know what? If that's all that you're talking about here, if that's all Lecrae is talking about, the people that don't care what God says, that they say, yeah, you know, I know God says black people have the Imago Dei, but eh, whatever.

Come on, man. Nobody's saying that anymore. That's what they used to say, right? I'm not saying they didn't used to say it. But give me one example of a Christian, a public Christian who says, yeah, you know, I know that this is unjustified and I know that the Bible says that justice is important, but I don't care about justice.

Come on, man. Why present your opposition like this? I don't understand that. And here's the thing. I'm sorry this has come across a little more aggressive than my typical video, but you've got to forgive, man.

You have to. This is required for a Christian. So you don't have the right to divorce the white church. You do not have the right to say, you know what? I'm afoot. Don't need that hand. I'm out. You don't have the right to do that.

And that's a theological problem, right? This is a theological thing. This is an important thing. Because Christ is not divorcing those brothers and sisters who don't think that the shooting of Michael Brown was unjustified.

So just because someone doesn't agree with you on that does not mean Christ has even thought for an instant about divorcing them. And so you shouldn't either. Because it doesn't work that way. If you're in the body of Christ, you have no right to divorce the other members of the body of Christ.

That's not how it works. And that's a theological problem, man. So when the Christ says he's divorcing the white church, he's distancing himself from white evangelicals, and they would like to say, oh yeah, he's just divorcing the system.

He's just divorcing the institution. We don't get to do that either. Because God established the institution. So just because you think that some white brothers are twisting the institution a little bit, demonstrate how they're doing that.

That's another thing. I've never seen the evidence that they're actually doing that anymore. Demonstrate that they haven't and call them out on it. But you still can't divorce them. You still can't divorce them.

Because I disagree with how Baptists do church, right? That doesn't give me the right to divorce Baptists and say, you know what, I'm distancing myself from those Baptists over there. God's not. God's not.

And so I can't. So forgive, man. Those are your brothers and sisters. You have a covenantal relationship with those white folks who don't agree with you about Michael Brown. You have a covenantal relationship with those white folks who disagree with you about XYZ.

Right? And so you have to watch your mouth when you're talking about them. Because you can disagree with them. That's okay. But let's not talk about them as if they're on the outside. As if they're impenetrable slabs of rock.

Because you know what you're saying when you say that. I think you do know what you're saying. And you shouldn't be saying it. And by the way, that's the same with white folks too. You gotta watch your mouth how you talk about your black brothers and sisters.

Because just because they disagree and they see this systemic institutional racism in the America and you don't see it. Just because they think that doesn't mean that they're troublemakers. Doesn't mean that they're not preaching the gospel.

Doesn't mean that they want to divide the body of Christ. Right? They don't think that they're doing that. I think that a lot of times that some of the things they say do do that, but they don't think that they're doing that.

So give them the benefit of the doubt, man. You gotta love them. You don't have the right to distance yourself from them. You don't have the right to divorce them. Just because you disagree. And this applies to everything, man.

This applies to people who are Democrats versus Republicans. This applies to people who support Trump or people who support Obama. You can't divorce someone just because they supported Trump. I would never vote for Trump, man.

I would never vote for Barack Obama. That's the last person on the planet I would vote for. Maybe except for Trump. I would never vote for these guys. But you know what? Millions and millions and millions of my brothers and sisters did.

And I don't have a right to say you're outside of Christ. There are very few things that put you outside of Christ from a belief perspective. Very few things. And if you can't find it in scripture, then you don't have the right to say it.

Because that's what the Pharisees did. That's what the Pharisees did. They said, yeah, we've got all these other laws. We've got the Corbin Law, right? We've got the Corbin Law. And if you don't follow the Corbin Law, well, hey, you know.

Yeah, yeah. We've got the Sabbath Law where you can't walk a certain amount of steps. If you don't follow that, then hey. Some of them probably cared about things more than others. Everyone tries to do this, right?

Like, oh, if you don't care about if you don't have the same strategy against abortion than I do, then I guess you're outside of the body. Right? Or if you don't understand God's sovereignty the way I do, you're outside of the body.

Man, everyone tries to do this. We've got to stop it, man. We've just got to stop it. Because if it's not in the Bible, you can't do it. Right? So just because somebody disagrees with you on institutional racism, whether it's on the other side or on your side, you don't have the right to divorce them.

Look, Craig, you do not have the right to divorce the white evangelical church. You just don't have it. So you can say what you want and bluster all day long about the white church. You don't have the right to divorce them.

You're in that relationship, man. You're in it. Whether you like it or not, you're in it. So you better learn to love those brothers. And again, white folks, same thing, man. Just because you think someone's a Marxist, liberal, whatever, look, stand against it.

Because I do, too. I stand against this social Marxism nonsense. I stand against it. Man, you better love those brothers who buy into it. You better love those brothers. You better never even consider saying you're outside of the body because of these beliefs.

Do they deny Christ? No. Do they think that they're saved by their Marxism? No. So that's all I have to say today, man. And I know this came across a little more aggressive, but this bothers me, man. Again, it applies to so many different things, but this is about the race issue and whatnot.

And we've got to get over this, man. We've got to get over this. You have to love people who disagree with you on so many things.