Redeeming Babel: Another Political Trojan Horse for Evangelicals?

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:11

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a wonderful Lord's Day.

00:18

I know I did. I was able to go to Camp of the Woods, which some of you know about because that was where we held our men's retreat last fall.

00:25

And I went with my wife and I was able to present on spiritual warfare for the Culinary Christian Fellowship, which is a ministry

00:33

I'm somewhat involved with. They are associated with my church and it's to the Culinary Institute of America.

00:39

And so it was a good time and hopefully that made a difference in the lives of some of the students.

00:45

But if not, it made a difference in my life to look at Ephesians 6, the armor of God and the strategies that Satan has.

00:52

And I think just being reminded of that definitely changes the way we live, knowing that there's a spiritual war going on and we're not just neutral, we are enlisted.

01:01

And when we became Christians, we were enlisted. And so anyway, welcome to the podcast. This is a podcast today for Christians who are concerned about the leftward drift of evangelicalism.

01:13

And we've done a lot of episodes on this. We've talked about some of the organizations I'm gonna talk about today, but I wanna do some more talking about it because there are new organizations popping up all over the place.

01:24

And there's one called Redeeming Babel that I specifically wanna talk about. And this was a breaking story,

01:30

I guess, if you wanna call it that on Twitter mostly on I think Friday and Saturday and Facebook as well.

01:37

People were posting about this. And of course I was involved with the ministry stuff and couldn't get to it, but I wanna get to it now because I have some things to share with you about it.

01:47

But before we get there, before we get there, there is a deadline. There is a window of opportunity closing.

01:54

And I just referenced, I said our men's retreat last year, last fall was at Camp of the

02:00

Woods. And in fact, the next men's retreat is going to be at Camp of the Woods. I already have the dates,

02:05

I already have everything set. I just, after this week, I will probably maybe next week give you more information on that.

02:12

But this week, there's another men's thing. That's the men's game dinner, the men's game dinner. And this is for those who are in the area.

02:21

If you are in New York or Connecticut or Pennsylvania or New Jersey, I don't know if you wanna drive down from Vermont or New Hampshire, that gets a little far.

02:30

But if you are in the area and you are wanting to fellowship with other men, and here's some really good teaching.

02:38

Zach Garris, who we've had on the podcast a few times, author of Masculine Christianity, which

02:44

I believe is one of the best books I've ever read on the subject of biblical roles. I mean, he doesn't pull punches and it's the kind of thing that gets you blacklisted because he's just like, let's be biblical.

02:54

And he's not calculating what people wanna hear, he's just saying what the truth is. And it's a great book, it's a great time.

03:02

I think we're gonna have on March 24th, Friday, 6 .30 p .m. at Grace Bible Church. You can sign up on Facebook, the link is in the info section.

03:10

I believe that you don't even need an account on Facebook to sign up on Facebook. So I already have a number of people from the church who have signed up, but either email me or sign up on Facebook and we'll save you a seat.

03:22

And I should say that it is culinary people. It's culinary students and a culinary chef who's gonna be making the venison and the roast beef.

03:31

And you're just gonna wanna come out for that. So 6 .30 p .m. Friday, March 24th at Grace Bible Church.

03:37

But by tomorrow evening is when I need to give, it's Tuesday, that's the 21st. That evening is when

03:42

I'm giving the final count. So you're gonna wanna sign up fast. Okay, let's get into some of the stuff

03:50

I wanna get into today. And I've debated how to approach this. I think what

03:56

I wanna do is this. I wanna tie it into something else briefly. So some of you saw my video interview with, or listened to the interview that I did with David Engelsma on Abraham Kuyper and Common Grace.

04:14

And some of you disagreed. In fact, one person I know of, I won't say who yet, but they're gonna release, I guess, a response on YouTube.

04:21

And they agree in principle, they just don't think Kuyper's the one responsible for some of the issues that David Engelsma talks about.

04:28

But I wanna put that on the shelf for a moment, whether it's Kuyper or not.

04:34

Because to me, it doesn't really matter a lot. I mean, we don't wanna hold Kuyper responsible for things he wasn't responsible for.

04:41

So in that sense, it matters. And that's why I'm gonna circle back to it at some point and show you some of the quotes I think that Engelsma is referring to that make him think that, and this is the issue, that there are

04:54

Christians today, people claiming to be reformed as well, who see their role not just as ambassadors for Christ, who share the gospel of Jesus Christ with sinners, but who partner with the world in redeeming society.

05:11

All right, that's the issue. Can you partner with the world in redeeming society? Is there any fellowship there? Light with darkness.

05:18

Now, the common grace is where you say, well, in the way they use it, I'm not saying providence here,

05:23

I'm saying common grace in the way it's often justified by people who have that thinking is that, well, it's not really that dark. Darkness isn't that dark.

05:30

You can partner with the world. I mean, look, we partner with people all the time. So why not have a partnership that redeems the world, that extends the atonement of Christ, that extends the grace of Christ?

05:43

That's where the problem comes in. You can certainly be salt and light as a Christian in your political involvement, your social involvement.

05:51

Can you not? Of course you can. You can be a salt and light in a bad system, right? Roman slaveholders could be salt and light in a system that was not very biblical.

06:01

We'll put it that way. I think today's welfare workers can do the same thing. You can be salt and light. Now, the question is, is that activity and the activity that you partner with, let's say, in a good social endeavor, so we're not talking about something that's negative, but actually something that, we'll take one of the most righteous things in the minds of conservative

06:23

Christians, a pro -life cause. Can you partner with someone who's not a believer in trying to stop abortions?

06:29

I think you should, perhaps. I mean, voting itself is a partnership, is it not? To some extent, there's co -belligerency there, at least.

06:37

Different people are making their voice heard, and that cumulative effect, hopefully, it used to, hopefully it still does, results, in some places, with the election of those who reflect those interests, and if those interests are to protect the life of the unborn, then, of course, you have a good partnership, to some extent.

06:57

But it's not, the nature of that partnership is not one in which you both are under the illusion, hopefully, that what you're doing is redeeming society, or extending the atonement of Christ, or saving society, which you may be saving in a temporal sense, in the sense that there's earthly good that has been produced here, because God has written his law in the conscience of men, and men know right and wrong, and you could have people with bad motivations that were affording right things.

07:25

So, for them, it's not a redemptive thing, there's no redemption, actually, going on, at all. It's gonna be used to condemn them, actually, on the day of judgment, because their motives weren't right, and they weren't doing it for God's glory, and even their righteous deeds are filthy rags.

07:40

This is just biblical theology, I'm not telling you anything the Bible doesn't teach, okay? Okay, I think the issue comes in when people start trying to partner with the world in ways that are, in their minds, and the way they present it, uniquely, or not uniquely, but that are fundamentally

08:04

Christian. We're forwarding Christian ethics here for the purpose of redemption, just like we would individual redemption of people who need to know the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to be saved.

08:18

We're now extending that to structures, and systems, and broadly speaking, and that action is now part of either whatever phrase they use, common grace, extending the atonement, that's an older way to view it, but engaging culture for the purpose of redeeming now, redeeming

08:44

Babel, right? So this is one of the organizations I'm gonna talk about is Redeeming Babel. So this is the thing that I see happening out there, and it's primarily, it's left -leaning, politically -driven evangelicals, quote -unquote, who are driving this kind of logic.

09:03

So you need to know the logic that's being presented, and this is the logic that's being used. Primarily, there's other logic being used, but this is the logic primarily being used to soft -pedal things to evangelicals, to try to get evangelicals to soften on homosexuality, and to broaden the tent when it comes to pro -life, so even things that aren't technically murder are now cataloged as pro -life.

09:26

Quality of life issues, the death penalty. The attempt here is to try to get evangelicals to accept illegal migration as a pro -life issue, and amnesty, and these kinds of things.

09:39

We've talked about this many times. So this is the foundation I wanna lay, the understanding I wanna lay, and now we'll get into the specifics.

09:46

Where is this happening, John? Well, it's happening in a lot of places. That's what Enemies Within the Church was about, that's what I've written about in some of my books, but there are new places popping up, and it's interesting to me, the almost unlimited amount of resources, it seems, that the left has, even in evangelical circles.

10:04

And I know because I am on the other side trying to scrape together funds and resources, and I'm not a victim in any of this,

10:13

I'm just saying it's very challenging to get the funds and resources to do anything positive.

10:19

You rely on volunteer work, it's very difficult. In fact, right now, even today, I've been talking about, we're almost there with this

10:27

TGC alternative, but the guy who's designing the website is volunteer. The person who's gonna form the 501c3 and help administer the website is doing this on a faith that there's gonna be donations that'll come in that'll help offset the time that he's putting into it.

10:45

And I'm not frustrated, and hopefully no one takes my tone that way. I'm not frustrated with any of you in this audience.

10:51

Many of you give, and your first responsibility is your local church, right? And maybe that's part of the dynamic here, that Christians technically should be giving to their local church, and that's what they do, and maybe, and I don't wanna question people's motives,

11:04

I guess, here, but maybe there's either left -leaning interests from the secular left that are seeing an opportunity here, and they're pouring resources in, or you have people who are left -leaning in evangelical circles who see this as a way to manage their tithe well, and maybe in addition to, or in replacement of their local church, or it could just be that there's more of a commitment.

11:29

That is possible. I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of options out there, but whatever the options are, the situation is that there is a lot of resources going to pushing the needle left with evangelicals.

11:40

Solid voting bloc for the Republican Party in years past, and it's a problem, especially since Donald Trump, people who don't like Donald Trump don't want evangelicals doing this, and how do you change their voting patterns is the question.

11:53

I think there's a politically -driven motivation. How do you do it?

12:01

Well, let's talk about that a little bit today, and I'm gonna give you a little bit of review. I'm not going extensively through every organization that does this because I couldn't possibly give you every organization that does this, but let me give you a few.

12:14

Let's start here with an organization that I've talked about, that actually I've never talked about, Neighborly Faith. Organization, it says you can be gospel -centered and a terrific neighbor, which,

12:24

I mean, who doesn't? Is any Christian in disagreement, I guess? Gospel -centered, we won't talk about that, but this is

12:32

Neighborly Faith, and they say research and events introducing Christians to neighbors of every faith, right? So seeing people, and specifically

12:39

Muslims on this website, in a way that is neighborly, treating them like a neighbor, right?

12:45

And I don't think anyone disagrees with that on the surface. That's why these things are so, I think, tempting, because it sounds so good, it sounds so positive, it sounds not mean, and we don't wanna be mean.

12:58

And then, when you look at their resources, though, it's stuff like, there's a lot of political stuff here.

13:04

Can we resist our tribes? And there's a donkey and an elephant. Evangelical politics, there's a number of things here.

13:10

And you can read these resources. I haven't read all of them, but here's one thing I did look at today. New Neighborly Faith data, who is influencing young evangelicals on politics?

13:20

And you look it up, you go to the study, and it takes you through this whole thing.

13:26

And you go to the end, and you can even see some of the assumptions here. For instance, in Demographic Insights, it tells you, a higher proportion of non -straight evangelicals said they are very or extremely happy with the direction of the

13:36

Republican Party than straight evangelicals. So why even, what's that category mean, right?

13:42

You can see assumptions already there. Non -straight evangelicals, why not the evangelicals who have a lying tendency?

13:48

Can you study that, can you, right? This is already a compromise to frame it this way.

13:54

But when you get to their major takeaways, let me read for you the first one. Many organizations with an eye for improving society recognize the importance of teaming up with evangelicals.

14:03

Okay, so there's two groups here. There's organizations who want to improve society, and then there's evangelicals. They're not the same group, they're two distinct groups.

14:11

And those organizations see the importance of teaming up with evangelicals, even if they are not sure how.

14:17

Our study confirms that young evangelicals can make valuable partners. So they're saying, we don't know how to do this.

14:22

And then in comes neighborly faith, say, well, our study says that young evangelicals can make valuable partners in achieving social goods and civic aims.

14:29

They're more enthusiastic about civic activities than their peers, making them valuable to organizations working at America's grassroots levels.

14:35

This is about activism, guys. This is about activism. This is what's going on in a lot of the seminaries. You're not getting pastors as much coming out, you're getting community organizers, you're getting activists.

14:44

Now, I think years ago, there was the danger of you're getting therapists and psychologists coming out of seminary instead of pastors.

14:51

Now, it's not that as much, it's activists. You're getting politically minded people that are using the church as an engine for political change.

14:59

And these organizations, you almost hear them begging between the lines here, for these organizations, these secular organizations that want to improve society to take a second look at evangelicals to see, look, we're not the bad meanies that you hear about.

15:13

We're not terrible people, we're not bigots, we're not racist, we're not homophobic, we're not sexist, we're not misogynistic, we're not any of the things that you hear about us.

15:23

No, the young ones, especially, those are the old ones. The young ones, though, our research says, you can partner with them.

15:30

For what? For what's the common goal here to partner with? And somehow this fits into being neighborly, and somehow this fits into our faith.

15:39

Do you see the connection? Do you see the funnel that you fall into when you go to these websites?

15:44

Or not websites, but when you partner with these organizations? And this one happens to be active on a number of campuses. You start with this veneer of, it's

15:52

Christian, it's Jesus, it's faith, and sooner or later, you're being funneled into activism, politics.

16:00

And the thing is, John, shouldn't conservatives be involved in politics?

16:06

The thing is, you should be involved in applying biblical principles to politics.

16:12

There's no doubt about that. That's just being a good citizen, and it's part of being a Christian in this world.

16:17

It's part of exercising the civic responsibility, and it's a unique one that we have in our republic that God has given us.

16:26

But I don't think the religious right, or the moral majority, or any of these organizations were being, they weren't hiding their message.

16:37

They weren't, it was on the front, they weren't on their sleeve what they were doing, right?

16:43

This is about politics. Make no mistake about it, this is about politics, and it's Christians mobilizing to support their views.

16:50

It didn't start off with this veneer of, it's just about being a neighbor. It's not really, this isn't about politics.

16:56

In fact, politics, politics partisanship, not good. That stuff, not good.

17:02

No, being a Christian, good. And then being a Christian means, and the further you get into it, you'll find out, generally, it's left -leaning stuff.

17:13

It's social justice, activism. That's what being a Christian is. So there are different routes to get there, but you have, somehow, funding and resources coming to organizations like this,

17:26

Neighborly Faith. Here's another organization. Actually, before I leave that, I'll just mention Kevin Singer, whose name is on that study, who seems to be the most public face of Neighborly Faith has written for Sojourners.

17:39

I don't know much about him. It says that he's a co -director of Neighborly Faith and PhD student in higher education in North Carolina State. But here he is, writing for Sojourners magazine,

17:47

Jim Wallace's organization. For anyone who knows anything about Jim Wallace, he's a heretic. And the worst kind of heretic on the left,

17:54

I would say, as far as, it really is left -leaning politics that drives his heterodoxy.

18:01

All right, so that's Neighborly Faith. Now, what other organizations? Let me just briefly mention this organization to you.

18:07

This is the American Solidarity Party, and they're gonna be probably active, more so in the next election cycle, which is starting.

18:16

They have their candidates for president, and you have people like Karen Swallow Pryor from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

18:22

You have people like Susanna Black from Muir Orthodoxy as part of this organization. And if you look at their, who we are, let's see if I can go to the front page here.

18:32

It will, well, I was on the page, and now I lost it. Oh, platform, here we go. If you go to their platform,

18:39

Sanctity of Life, which apparently includes opposing the death penalty, social justice, efforts to address systemic and historic injustices, including longstanding racial injustices and disparities, et cetera.

18:51

It doesn't say, it says inequalities, there you go. Community -oriented societies, centrality to family, economic security, care for the environment.

19:00

You have peace and international solidarity. And all this stuff, there's all sorts of buzzwords in all this, but here's the thing.

19:07

The assumption here is that we don't have good parties. And maybe we, on a national level, we don't. We really don't.

19:13

But this is a grassroots, that's what they're saying, activist, new party, and I'm not besmirching anyone who would think we need a new party.

19:22

But they're saying that this is the better option for specifically Christians. And I have my own reasons for bristling at this idea that we should even have a

19:30

Christian political party, in the sense that, in the sense that, I gotta qualify this, that it's, it cannot be, oh man,

19:42

I'm trying to even think how to phrase this, a party that is built for believers in Jesus Christ specifically, and others, if they are involved in it, are bystanders, or they're second class, they're not really part of the mission.

19:58

I think if you're gonna, if this is earthly good that we're pursuing, ethical good, right, from God, but if this is earthly good, then it needs to be something that is more in your community with people who share similar goals.

20:11

And these are gonna be earthly goals. This is, we're going back to the whole debate of a Nigerian woman who's a

20:17

Christian, or your neighbor who's not a Christian. Who do you have more in common with, right? Well, in one sense, the Nigerian woman in eternity, but in another sense,

20:24

I got a lot more in common with the person who speaks my language next door. And we have commonly shared interests. And we're gonna probably be able to govern a society better together, participate in life together, because of all those earthly things that we have in common.

20:36

And so I see politics as in that category. But a lot of these organizations that I'm sharing with you, they start off with it on a different foot.

20:47

They start off with, this is the Christian thing. The American Solidarity Party is based on the tradition of Christian democracy.

20:53

So we acknowledge the state should be pluralistic while upholding a vision for the common good of all and each individual informed by Christian tradition and acknowledging the primacy of religion in each person's life.

21:04

So, I don't know, there's so many things I wanna say about this, but that's not the focus of this episode.

21:09

I just wanna let you know that there are efforts like this out there. And I don't see a lot of this from the right. You see, I'd like the

21:15

Constitution Party, which has been around for years, I suppose, but it's not uniquely like a Christian thing. And that's my point, is it's not, where you're getting these unique Christian targeting evangelical messages that are pushing the needle left, that are pushing the needle in a political direction are from the left.

21:31

Here's another one, the AND campaign. You got Esau McCauley, who just, I think, got tenure, if I'm not mistaken, recently.

21:38

I would say he's a heretic. We went over his book, Reading the Bible While Black, and there's definitely heresy in that as far as liberation theology.

21:46

Edward Copeland, we've talked about him before. D .A. Horton, another Southeastern guy. Alan Noble, Lisa Fields, John O.,

21:53

Charlie Dates. You have Justin Giboney is the guy who helped start this along with Michael Ware, but Michael Ware's not on the website anymore.

22:01

Tim Keller was on the advisory panel, or board at one point, an AND campaign website said so.

22:07

He's not there now, I guess. But the AND campaign, it used to say on the front, it was, I think it said

22:12

Christianity and social justice. It definitely said and social justice. Now, you don't see that. It talks about truth and love, redemptive justice, and values -based policies, uses and in these other ways.

22:23

But the AND campaign, definitely pushing the needle way left. Michael Ware's a Democrat strategist, worked in the

22:29

Obama administration, and he was a faith advisor. And Michael Ware's the one who kick -started this thing.

22:36

In fact, you'll start realizing these guys make a lot of, they make the rounds, because Michael Ware has also been interviewed by the organization we're gonna talk about now,

22:45

Redeeming Babel. Redeeming Babel's been around for a few years, but they have a new project that got a lot of attention last week.

22:51

And even in the name, Redeeming Babel, how do we redeem Babel? Is it the gospel or is it this political thing?

22:57

Is it this social thing? Well, here's what it says. The problem, evangelicals, which constitute 22 .5

23:03

% of the American population, comprise a key group in the political landscape. Unfortunately, for many evangelicals, the role of forming their political identity has been seized by partisan forces, not by biblical truth.

23:16

Uh -oh. As a result, their politics have become deformed into hatred of political opponents, susceptibility to lies, and other practices that threaten the common good.

23:25

So we're all under threat. Look at the words being used here. Seize, threat, violent words, extreme.

23:31

Our church leaders seek to counter, church leaders, there you go, so pastors, right? Seeking to counter this dangerous trend need help.

23:38

If pastors preach about politics from the pulpit, they risk blowback from the most vocal and extreme voices within their congregations.

23:44

And it's home for a lot of pastors after 2020, right? Many local leaders feel like they lack the resources to deal with the political complexities of the day.

23:53

Political tensions have already fractured many churches, and 2024 is right around the corner with a new wave of pressure.

24:01

Our answer. So before I get to our answer, let me just point out a few things here. Number one, whoever's creating this must transcend partisan politics, right?

24:10

Because partisan politics is the problem, and we've been seized, and it's not biblical. I mean, this is a big issue, if that's true.

24:16

We're not being biblical? And partisan politics, these secular forces have caused us to not be biblical.

24:22

And so, and it doesn't really go into what ways, susceptibility to lie, we're believing lies somehow.

24:29

We're threatening the common good. I mean, this is actually playing into the media's narrative. Christians are threatening the common good, but it's not their fault, it's not their fault.

24:38

It's the fault of these political forces. So don't blame Christians, blame politicians, blame politics for this, right?

24:46

That's what's going on here. Let's get Christians off the hook. I mean, you see the same thing with that neighborly faith.

24:52

It's like, it's not the young evangelicals, they're not doing it, they're activists. They wanna push the needle left with you.

24:59

They wanna partner to make the world a better place with you secular organizations. It's just those old ones, just wait for them. They'll go, these young ones, partner with them.

25:07

You see the same thing here. There's an awareness that pressure is on the church, and that awareness is driving these evangelical strategists to try to make a way, to forge a path where they can still maintain some kind of respectability and usefulness to a world that no longer sees a useful place for the church.

25:26

And the way they're doing it is all wrong. The way they're doing it is all wrong, because the way they're doing it is to say that, hey, you have noble plans, world.

25:33

You have great ideas and things that need to happen, and we can be your foot soldiers. We can help with that.

25:40

And being biblical is somehow part of helping with that. And it's just, it's these other things that have gotten us off track and made the church so compromised.

25:50

So it's coming back to that pure faith. I mean, I wrote about this in Social Justice Goes to Church. It's the same play being used over and over and over.

25:57

So here we go. What's the answer? Well, here's what they say. The after party does the heavy lifting to support local leaders by presenting national trusted evangelical voices.

26:07

Okay, so trusted, so according to who? Francis Collins? Is he trusted?

26:13

So David French is, apparently. Russell Moore is, and Curtis Chang is. They're trusted. There's a lot of evangelicals who don't trust them, by the way.

26:20

But that's just because, under this logic, they've been subverted by political forces, right? I know,

26:26

I have theological problems with them. So that's my issue with David French and Russell Moore. When David French last year goes out to support the

26:33

Equality Act, no, I have a theological problem with you, David French. No, I don't have a partisan issue with you that you're in the wrong political party and you're not on my team and I'm the red team and you're the blue team or something.

26:45

No, my issue with you is the disdain you have for God's law.

26:51

You don't think you have it, but you do. I mean, I'm getting personal here, but it's true. I'm just so angry, righteously so, that people like David French are out there promoting things like transgender library hour is just part of the blessings of liberty.

27:07

Christians stand down and let it happen. Really, David French, really? Things that the

27:13

Lord calls an abomination? All right, I'm getting ahead of myself, but it says, the after party does the heavy lifting to support the local leaders.

27:19

So the local pastors, hey, you don't have to do the homework anymore. It's like docent, docent research. You don't have to write the sermon.

27:25

And then when people are mad, they can be mad at us, not you. By presenting national trusted evangelical voices, local leaders do not have to take all the fire by themselves.

27:33

Wow, wow. It's really tempting for a pastor who doesn't want the disgruntled members who heard the sermon and didn't like it.

27:40

They only need to sponsor this curriculum into their small group communities and let us make the case. We directly engage people through our video base and highly interactive video format.

27:49

The curriculum does the complex, but necessary, absolutely necessary theological work of reframing

27:55

Christian political identity from today's division, I mean,

28:01

I'm botching this sentence. Let me start again. The curriculum does the complex, but absolutely necessary theological work of reframing

28:08

Christian political identity from today's divisive partisan options. Whereas the partisan identity defines political engagement in the what of ideologies, policies, parties, and politicians, the after party redefines

28:22

Christian politics around a biblical emphasis on how, of virtues like mercy, humility, and justice.

28:28

In today's political environment, faithfulness to this biblical how of political engagement will shine as a radical alternative to both the right and left.

28:34

So yeah, the right and left are both doing it wrong. And we got a radical, they're a popular term today. We got a radical alternative.

28:40

So what have they done in the past? If you want to test to see what does this radical alternative look like?

28:46

Well, redeeming Babylon before this after party thing founded and spearheaded Christians and the vaccine.

28:52

The leading national effort to persuade vaccinated, to persuade evangelicals to get the vaccine for COVID.

28:58

Our efforts address the anxiety felt by millions stemming from the distrust in institutions encounter the toxic politicalization of public health solutions.

29:06

So they're exempting themselves. They transcend, they are not a part of the group that's in, is politicized.

29:13

They've given themselves a pass. They are the ones now, the prophets on high to share with us who are captivated by these political forces, how and somehow being very divisive in that, how to be peaceful and to not be divisive and to, in this case, to take the vaccine.

29:32

So let's get a little more deeper into it. There's two videos. One, so this one,

29:38

I actually listened to the whole entire thing to my, it's 37 minutes, but I was like, oh, let me listen to this.

29:44

This is an interview with Curtis Chang who represented the

29:49

Redeeming Babel. And it was on this issue of the vaccine. And in this particular video,

29:58

I'm just gonna briefly summarize. You find out Curtis Chang is a pastor. He had his church at the time of this.

30:04

This was, it says a year ago was the date, April 6th, 2021. His church was still closed.

30:11

So we've been closed for a year. His church was still closed. And he says that the pathway to getting open again is the vaccine to getting back to church and that we should trust doctors.

30:23

And there's a web of trust that we've trusted in for our whole lives. We should continue to trust doctors who promote the vaccine.

30:30

And if we don't, here's the problem. We're not leaving God, we're not believing God's channels if we're not listening to, and he specifically says

30:39

Francis Collins. So we're in danger of not believing God really, not hearing

30:44

God actually is what he says. We're not in danger of not hearing God if we're not listening to what Francis Collins has to say because God's provided Francis Collins.

30:50

Now we've talked about Francis Collins. Oh man, the ethical issues with Francis Collins, the corruption issues with Francis Collins, but here we go.

30:59

Trust Francis Collins, he's an evangelical. Now, this is another video that was put out there.

31:09

This is Curtis Chang. And this is the video that I want to play you about five minute clip from, if I may, and then we're gonna talk about it.

31:19

My name is Curtis Chang and welcome to Redeeming Babel where our mission is to provide biblical thinking in a confusing world.

31:27

Pro -lifers fear that the vaccine is connected to abortion. And indeed there is a distant connection, but the consensus of leading

31:38

Christian bioethicists is that this distant connection should not discourage pro -life

31:44

Christians from taking the vaccine. Pro -lifers like me, in fact, have strong reasons to be pro -vaccine.

31:54

Most goods that we Californians import today from the rest of the country come to us on railroad lines that were originally laid down in the building of the first transcontinental railroad.

32:06

That origin story, it's filled with racist treatment of the first Chinese Americans, my ancestors.

32:13

They were discriminated against horribly given the most dangerous jobs and were periodically even lynched by mobs like in the horrible

32:21

Rock Spring Massacre. Today's transportation lines into California are like the fetal cell lines that developed the

32:30

COVID vaccine. They are not evil in their current state and usage, but they do run on tracks that follow lines first laid down by previous institutional sin.

32:43

And none of us can avoid being impacted by those lines. The Vatican, which has studied this issue extensively, has encouraged

32:52

Catholics to take the vaccine. The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has similarly encouraged

33:00

Southern Baptists. Other top conservative bioethicists, like those associated with pro -life foundations such as the

33:09

Heritage Foundation, have joined in this encouragement. I agree with this chorus of thinkers.

33:17

I believe that every pro -life Christian should take the COVID vaccine.

33:23

Indeed, I propose that the COVID vaccine can serve as an image of God's redemption.

33:31

Redemption is God's ultimate answer to the problem of original sin. Redemption is taking something that originated in a wrongful state and reworking that thing into something good.

33:43

The Bible tells us that in his death and resurrection, Jesus redeemed human sin, the very human line.

33:53

First Corinthians 15 .22 puts it this way. For as all die in Adam, so also all shall be made alive in Christ.

34:02

In other words, Adam's original sin had an impact on us all. We are descendants of his spiritual line and we are impacted by his original sin.

34:12

But the sinful origin is not the final verdict. The spiritual line of Adam has been reworked by Jesus so that what began as a story of sin and death has been reworked into a story of forgiveness and life.

34:28

That is what it means to be made alive in Christ. That is redemption.

34:34

Now, this idea that what began in death could be reworked into life, well, it's hard for the human mind to grasp.

34:42

This is why we need images of redemption in the world. We need examples that can serve as metaphors of what

34:48

Jesus accomplished that show us Jesus' redemption, well, it's kind of like that.

34:55

I propose that the COVID vaccine is an image of redemption. Yes, the vaccine may have a distant origin story in abortion, but that past has been reworked and redeemed into something that saves life.

35:09

We can point to the vaccine and say, Jesus' redemption is kind of like that. And indeed, the production of a vaccine in less than a year, it's really a miracle.

35:20

Something like this has never happened this quickly. I personally believe God's redemptive power was present in the process.

35:30

So my invitation to pro -life Christians who may distrust the COVID vaccine currently is this, please remember that the

35:39

Christian story is the story of redemption. Every one of us has an origin story in sin.

35:46

None of us can avoid this. Yet each of us has had our story reworked by Jesus into new life.

35:55

That's what it ultimately means to be pro -life. To be pro -life is to be pro -redemption.

36:02

And to be pro -redemption, in my view, means being pro -vaccine.

36:08

The vaccine is ultimately a redemption story. Let's be part of that story.

36:16

That was so cringy. So it's hard to know even where to start with that.

36:23

We had to think through this when the vaccine was being debated. This abortion connection, that there were cell lines used in the development of the vaccine in some cases, or testing of the vaccine that came from an abortion in the 70s.

36:38

What do you do with that? Some said, well, what you just heard, that this is, they didn't maybe go as far to say redemption, but there were some weird things, though.

36:49

Wasn't it Duke Quan who said the vaccine was, waiting for the vaccine was an example of the already and the not yet?

36:55

There was some weird stuff people were saying. But I don't know that anything was quite as weird as what we just heard.

37:02

People were using the logic that something bad happened, and now something good is coming from it, though.

37:09

Something that we can participate in. And many of you, even in this audience, I think, to some extent, agree with that.

37:16

I did not. I was one of the ones who was trying to think through this to the best of my ability, and I saw that most of the evangelical bigwigs were saying the same thing, which was what you just heard.

37:29

Not the redemption connection, but at least the using something that was intended for evil for good.

37:36

And there's a difference in my mind, and this is where I came down on it, between something like Joseph, where he said being sold into slavery,

37:46

God used it for good, and in the sovereign plans of God, something can be used for good. And then benefiting from the evil thing directly.

37:56

That's where I have an issue. And I tried to make it a little closer to home by saying, what if it was your friend or someone you knew, and they died, and then it's like, let's harvest their organs, or let's use their cell lines, in this case, without their permission, and they've been murdered, and that's the result, is that people are taking things from them, biological material that doesn't really belong to them, and then using it for good purposes.

38:24

You say, well, we can cure cancer, let's say, with this. Would you be in support of it? And I think that makes it a little more difficult for us to think through, and we realize there's actually a layer here of responsibility that we would probably attribute to those who are benefiting from, or using that material that they should not have access to.

38:44

And so the point remains that we shouldn't be using these cell lines. We should get something better. Let's get something else, if we're gonna be testing, so forth.

38:52

And I know this is, for those in the medical community, this is so common, from what

38:58

I've heard, what I understand, that I've probably, without even knowing it, have participated.

39:03

And the thing is, we get our feet dirty in this world, as Christians, without knowing it.

39:08

That's one of the reasons I confess even things, Lord, I confess the things I'm not even aware of, that I've participated in.

39:16

So I don't think you should get hung up about those things, and I don't think you should spend all your time researching, where are all these fetal lines, unless you want to, used in various products, necessarily?

39:25

But, and I'm not, I'm even trying to be careful to not say that you're necessarily in sin, if you're convicted, you are.

39:32

But I do want to at least say, there is a moral component to this, that is being ignored,

39:38

I think. And social justice advocates would never, would never apply this to other things, like the reparations they want from slavery.

39:46

I mean, that was hundreds of years ago. I guess there's an expiration date, we shouldn't have, and I have my own issues with my own arguments against the reparations thing, but I'm just bringing it up to point out, that there's an exception made, in their minds, for some reason, for the vaccine.

40:01

You know, Curtis Chain is definitely on the social justice bandwagon, and you see it in his interviews, you see it though, I just got one representative tweet here from 2022.

40:08

The GOP, so Republicans, have fed, justified, and exploited

40:13

Christians' defensiveness in service to an aggressive reactionary politics, deadly mask -slash -vaccine resistance, discrediting fair elections, grooming accusations, silencing the history of racism, and patently false beliefs about conspiracies.

40:29

There you go, there's Curtis Chain. There, it tells you where he's coming from politically, here. My main concern is, when we start using cell lines like this,

40:36

I think it incentivizes, or it cheapens, really, that's the better way to put it, it cheapens the respect for life that we have, and that's more my concern.

40:45

It's a broad, overall, general thing, but to compare it to the train tracks, coming into the rail lines that come into California, that using those is, we can use those without being complicit in whatever racism was present when they were being constructed, to take that as a parallel to, and we can use, continue to use the cell lines from a murder,

41:13

I think is two different things, and that's my reason for thinking that, but put that on the shelf, because that's minor compared to the other point that was made here, and this is a bigger point,

41:23

I think, to explore, that this is somehow an example of what

41:29

Jesus does, this is redemption of some kind, taking a murder and then using that murder for a good purpose, that's what

41:38

Jesus does. I mean, it's one thing to use parables to explain heavenly realities using earthly language.

41:47

It's another thing to draw a moral equivalency between Jesus sacrificially giving his life to atone for the sins of his people, and a murder that happened, that now scientists are using cell lines from in the past.

42:06

I don't know what else to say about the ridiculous point he made about redemption, but when it comes to the vaccine, we have information that casts a lot of doubt on the narrative that you just heard from Curtis Chang, and it doesn't seem like he would say much different now.

42:31

I mean, that tweet that you just saw was from 20, was it 2022, yeah, it was from September 1st, 2022.

42:39

So, but we now know that there are a number of concerns and problems, here's one of them.

42:46

This is a study, the risk of COVID -19 also varied by the number of COVID -19 vaccine doses previously received.

42:55

The higher the number of vaccines previously received, the higher the risk of contracting COVID. So the more boosters you get, the more likely you are going to get

43:03

COVID, right? Shouldn't it be the opposite of that? This is effectiveness of the coronavirus disease 2019, and you can find this on medRxiv .org,

43:18

and you have Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, BMJ, Yale.

43:24

This is a peer -reviewed research going on right here. You have

43:30

CDC and FDA identify preliminary COVID -19 vaccine safety signals for persons aged 65 years and older.

43:38

This is fairly recently, January of this year, and they still recommend taking the vaccine, but say that we have to investigate specifically strokes that have been reported as a result of COVID -19 vaccine.

43:52

You have here Professor Balouk, who is, he has credentials, director of UGI at UCL, which is, he's an epidemiologist, but that is the

44:06

Genetics Institute, so it's research, and this is what he says, update on the 2020

44:12

Cochrane, I think that's how you pronounce it, review on the effective physical interventions of influenza

44:17

SARS -CoV -2 transmission. The results do not suggest medical surgical mass reduce viral spread, and he says

44:24

Cochrane reviews are the gold standard in evidence -based medicine. So you have a study that came out that said, look, the mass didn't actually stop, inhibit the spread.

44:36

This is all coming out now, and I mean, many, there were many, and I was one of them, who was trying to platform people who were saying some of these kinds of things, who were saying the same kinds of things years ago, but now a lot of this stuff is being vindicated.

44:49

The Defender, which is a childrenshealthdefense .org,

44:55

The Defender, so it gets a news outlet. But finally, The Lancet acknowledges natural immunity superior to mRNA

45:02

COVID vaccines, The Lancet being another peer -reviewed journal, and they've acknowledged now that natural immunity is better.

45:11

So if you have natural immunity, if you had COVID, you already have a better defense than the vaccine would give you.

45:18

So this is all, and there's much more, but this is all happening in real time out there, and this would be a good opportunity for Curtis Chain to come along and say, we were wrong about that, on multiple levels, and boy, was

45:31

I wrong to compare the COVID vaccine to the redemption work that Christ does, and the death that he gave to an abortion that took place.

45:43

This would be a really good opportunity. Now, is he gonna do it? I don't think so, I doubt it. I rarely see that in these circles when things are called out, and this has already happened.

45:54

It's not me, this happened, I think, Friday, Saturday. There was a lot of attention drawn to this.

46:02

So I'm just bringing this to everyone's attention so you're aware of the ways in which, and the logic being used to try to influence your vote.

46:14

And the challenge that I have for you all out there in the listener audience, because what can you practically do about this?

46:20

The challenge I have is not just to talk to your friends, and not just to, which is good, I think you should, and not just to be salt and light in your churches and your communities, which

46:29

I think you ought to do and you need to do. Those are just givens, right? But specifically, the challenge

46:35

I have for you is examine your life and take into account where specifically you can be used of God to prevent the church from being compromised.

46:49

And it doesn't have to be in the exact ways that I'm focusing on compromise here. But think to yourself, where is the devil attacking?

46:58

And where can you get involved to prevent those attacks from being, from taking hold, from being effective?

47:06

How can you, and if what I'm saying rings true with you, how can you use the resources you have to promote organizations that are truly gonna be biblical, that are truly going to promote

47:19

Christian ethics in the political realm, that aren't going to use salvation -redemption language for things that aren't salvation and redemption, right?

47:31

That are going to value truth above the commitment to authority, earthly authority, and party politics, because that's actually what's going on here.

47:41

They get the very people who tell you that you're the one influenced by party politics are projecting they're influenced by party politics.

47:48

They're obsessed with it. That's what they think about it all the time. And they, I mean, in no uncertain terms.

47:54

The GOP was terrible, according to Chang, right? All the reasons the GOP's terrible. Does that sound like someone who's influenced by party politics at all?

48:04

Yeah, it kind of does. And they form their own guild or party, or it maybe doesn't have to be an official party.

48:13

The American Solidarity Party is an official party. And make that the gold standard, that that's what

48:18

Christians need to be involved with. And I personally think that wisdom dictates, in most places, you can still have a seat at the table as a

48:30

Christian in the Republican Party. Maybe not in all places. And maybe in those places, you do need to think about how do you organize?

48:36

How do you form something different? But in most places, especially at the local level, there's even some places at the local level in the

48:42

South where you can be a Democrat. There's very few, but there are a few. And you can still reject their party platform and try to be, but the parties aren't the issue here.

48:54

The issue is the platform that you're advocating. And in the cases that I've presented to you today, you have people that are advocating social justice platforms.

49:06

That's what's going on. And they're pretty open about what they're doing. They want to get into your church. They don't want politics kept outside.

49:14

They want it inside your church. And they want to be the ones that are driving the narrative.

49:21

Do you want David French and Russell Moore to be doing that? So what can you do? Maybe look at your resources.

49:28

What organizations are doing good work in this field? I know I will have an opportunity very soon for you to help out with, hopefully, a alternative to the

49:37

Gospel Coalition. We're looking at, we're still, this is one of the things that's taking forever, but trying to find a good name for it.

49:44

And I thought I found one, and then yesterday, I was sitting down with my wife and a friend, and they're like, you can't use that name.

49:50

It's so antiquated, no one's gonna want to come. So I'm back to the drawing board. But it's happening.

49:57

It's coming along. Maybe that's an opportunity you can take. And the money's not gonna go to me.

50:02

It's gonna go to the project. Those who are patrons, who finance what

50:09

I'm doing here on the podcast, I mean, this is the kind of thing that I'm doing behind the scenes. I'm putting in work to try to see where can we invest resources to combat some of this stuff?

50:20

Because we can't just have, we need what I'm doing now, but we can't just have negative critiques.

50:26

We need to build positive foundations, and that includes organizations. So think about it.

50:33

Join with me, or join with someone else where you can, to be part of that effort, to do something constructive, and to help

50:40

Christians, to disciple, really, to disciple Christians into understanding ethics well. And that includes public theology.

50:46

All right, well, I've gone over time. That's over the time I wanted. That's all I have to say. Please, if you are in the area, sign up for the

50:53

Masculine Christianity Men's Dinner this particular Friday at Grace Bible Church in Waffengers.