Session 4: The Anti-Christ of Black Liberation Theology with Virgil Walker

This next session is titled The Antichrist of Black Liberation Theology. So if you thought that they were gonna do anything to pull punches or be unclear in any way, that just the title of that should be enough to satisfy your curiosity and show that that is not what is gonna happen.

So with that, Virgil, you are up next.

Session Overview and the Purpose of the Talk

All right, we're moving right along and you all are hanging in there and so I'm proud of you for that. What I wanna do in this session, I wanna give you a little bit of background for the topic and what we're gonna do in our time together.

I do hope that you are taking notes and I'm just trying to make sure I have everything that I need up here with me and I do. I wanted to start out, again, I wanna first give you kind of a little bit of background, what the title is, why we titled it this way and what we did with it.

Daryl and I, as we got to thinking about the G3 event that we were doing, it was G3, I think 2021, at the National Conference. The conference was on Christ and every speaker kind of laid out a case for who Christ is in a different way.

Daryl and I got tasked to do kind of a session and while I'm always humbled by the opportunity to present, it was incredibly humbling for me to get a main session. One of the things that Dr. Bice did with our time was he, I loved how he started out.

He started out by saying that what Daryl and I do is not for the purpose of entertainment per se. It is for the purpose of education. It is for the purpose of equipping and as a result, as we looked at the different issues that were in our culture regarding black theology, you've heard us talk a lot about that regarding BLM, regarding all of the issues surrounding social justice, we thought it was important to really unmask the Christ, the antichrist of black liberation theology.

If you've never been exposed to what black liberation theology is, you're gonna hear about it today. What Daryl did is a fantastic job of laying out a historic framework for, he started with CT, with critical theory and how that kind of morphed into, I believe it was CLS, right, critical legal studies and how out of that we get CRT.

He told you what that framework was, how that worked, where it stemmed from, its origins, its Marxist origins. In between that trajectory, that's more of the secular framework for the ideology. The question then becomes how did this thing go from a secular, anti-God, anti-biblical framework to rearing its head into evangelicalism?

How did it go from something outside there to inside here? What took place, and so there's a thread, if you will, there's a branch, if you will, of what came along, and we're gonna talk about, you're gonna hear a lot about James Cone and his black liberation theology, the origins of that.

I'm gonna pause, I'm gonna read a lot of quotations to you, and again, Daryl and I make no bones about wanting to share original source material with you. Why, because it's not our opinion that we're delivering.

It's not an idea that we had and we think somebody said something some way, somehow, and as a result, here's what we came up with. No, you're gonna hear Cone and others in their own words, with their own writing, and really, I'll leave it up to you to make the assessment of whether it's right or wrong, whether it's good or bad.

Truth be told, I think Cone will be very clear, he'll be crystal clear about what he means when he says what he does. So that's kind of what you're in for in this session. It is power packed, a lot of information, a lot of content.

I'll do my best to slow down at points so that you can gather kind of what's being said. I'll also take some time to mention names that you'll need to write down, or perhaps books that you'll wanna have in a library if you'd like to do any deeper study.

With that said, let's dive in. Daryl, again, did a fantastic job of walking you through origins. And with those who are unfamiliar with, let me ask by show of hands, we haven't done this, how many of y 'all are familiar with the Just Thinking Podcast, raise your hands.

That's almost everybody in the room. If you've never heard of the Just Thinking Podcast, raise your hand. Now what's wrong with you people? What you need to do is grab your phone and go to apps, not apps, go to wherever you would do your podcasts, wherever you get podcasts, and download Just Thinking, the Just Thinking Podcast, JT Podcast.

You will want that. And the reason why I mention it at this point is because we spend six hours talking about BLM. There's another, gosh, I'd say six hours of additional content on CRT alone where we do deep dives into things.

And so if you heard something here, it probably would be great for you to have in your hip pocket as a part of a library that you can go back to and reference. And you don't have to read the content, you can just hear us kind of walk back through it.

So I'm hoping that that's helpful. Let me jump into my content. As believers, there's an important distinction for us of being in the world and not of the world. As believers in Christ, we're called out of the world and into the beautiful light of Christ.

As Darrell and I have watched church culture over the past few years, it's absolutely been puzzling to us to see so many in evangelicalism, professed believers in Christ, actually adopt the ideologies of the world, particularly as it pertains to the partial or full embrace of what's known as critical race theory.

We see this in far too many of our nation's pulpits. It was the Apostle Paul and his admonition to the church at Ephesus where he explained that the purpose of the pastor teacher is to equip the saints for works of ministry.

And he encouraged that to be done so that they would no longer be tossed to and fro like children by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. That's Ephesians 4, 14. Sadly, in our estimation, as we survey the landscape of culture, one of the things that we're seeing and noting is that many pastors and teachers are derelict in their duty.

They're either embracing this ideology or they're too afraid to say anything about it. Darrell mentioned this earlier and again, not in an effort to embarrass Pastor Jim, but it takes courage to open up your space and talk about these things in a very open way.

Why?

Because you risk other parts of culture, even church culture, other pastors thinking, oh, you guys are that church. Oh, you guys are those kind of people. Yeah, you know, the racist kind. And that's very real.

There are places and spaces where, you know, there's an elder who will send an email or an inbox message. I'm sure Darrell has seen this too. And we would love to have you, but we're just, we're not there yet.

What do you mean? You're not where the scripture is on these issues? What do you mean you're not there yet? Like scripture's clear, so let's talk about. Well, you know, it's just, you know, it's, and that's what we're seeing.

Five Reasons Critical Race Theory Is Unbiblical

During our time together, I wanna walk through several ideas that expose how we got from critical theory to critical race theory within evangelicalism. Before I do that, I wanna remind you of two important things that, one is one that Darrell mentioned, the other is a resource that I think would be helpful for you.

First, what Darrell shared regarding the unbiblical nature of critical race theory. He provided you at the end of his talk with five reasons that CRT is unbiblical. Five reasons why CRT is unbiblical.

I'm gonna walk you back through those. Because I think it's critical that you leave here with ammo, right? With being equipped. This is the Equipped Conference. So I want you to be equipped with the conversations you need to have with people you love and care about over the kitchen table, because that's where these kinds of issues take place.

It's not in debate sessions where people's minds are changed or conversations are happening. What happens is you have family over, it's Sunday afternoon, everybody's there, and maybe some issue from last week comes up and then you're talking about it, right?

And then a family member's kind of leaning in a direction where you're thinking, wait a minute, what are you talking about? And then you wanna have something to say, but you don't. I want you to have something to say from a biblical standpoint.

Let me give you those five reasons again. He said that critical race theory is unbiblical for at least the following five reasons. The first one was that it categorizes image bearers into groups, categorizes image bearers into groups for the purpose of causing division.

It categorizes image bearers into groups for the purpose of causing division and antagonistic class struggle. If you don't know how to spell antagonistic, don't worry, neither do I. It categorizes image bearers of God into groups to cause division and class struggle.

You can leave it there. Let me give you some verses of scripture. The image bearer component, of course, is Genesis 1 .27. We talked about that earlier. Genesis 1 .27, there's your image bearers. Genesis 5 .12, the categorizing into groups, Titus 3 .10 through 11.

So Genesis 1 .27, Genesis 5 .2, Titus 3 .10 and 11. Number two, it imparts sinful motives. It imparts sinful motives to certain image bearers. That's important. It imparts sinful motives to certain image bearers solely based on the color of their skin.

It imparts sinful motives to certain image bearers solely based upon the color of their skin. Why is that wrong? Well, we talked about it earlier today, Acts 17 .27. We're all one, right? We're all one.

It is God who made man from one man, right? God creates one man and creates all the nations, the ethnos. All the different ethnicities come from one man. We're one human race made up of multiple ethnicities, right?

So that's why that's wrong because it imparts sinful motives to certain image bearers of God solely on the basis of the color of their skin. Number three, it transfers guilt. CRT transfers the guilt of presumed sins.

It transfers the guilt of presumed sins. The presumed sins of past generations. It transfers guilt of the presumed sins of past generations to those of present generations. And that's Daryl Coyne, the phrase sin by proxy, right?

That was the idea that I read earlier. If you remember in my talk, I talked, I gave you the quote from Thabiti Onwubile where he had mentioned that though you weren't directly responsible for killing Martin Luther King, you should at least admit that your grandparents were responsible in some way that your parents or grandparents were directly responsible for the death.

You were culpable in some way, shape or form, whether you knew it or not. And if you didn't feel that sense of guilt, the least that you should do, Onwubile said, is to work in the same way, in the giving of your life in the same way that Martin Luther King did.

So he's encouraging you to participate in this works-based righteousness on the basis of a sin that he's presumed you're guilty of simply on the basis of what he believes your ancestors were responsible for.

We could unpack that and demolish it for the foolishness that it is because that same truth won't apply to him and his ancestors. Daryl, I know what he's gonna talk about in the next talk, but he's gonna tell you a little bit about his background and his upbringing.

I won't steal his thunder, but make note of what he'll share with you about his background regarding sins of past generations. The text of scripture there is Ezekiel 18, 20. Ezekiel 18, 20. Number four, it is rooted in the sin of ethnic partiality.

CRT is rooted in the sin of ethnic partiality. And there he quoted James 2, 9. James 2, 9. And lastly, lastly, CRT promotes materialistic covetousness. Covetousness. You want somebody's stuff as a result, right?

It promotes materialistic covetousness and envy under the guise of justice and equality. It promotes materialistic covetousness. You want other people's stuff and envy under the guise of justice and equality.

Let me give you some verses of scripture there. Exodus 20, 17. Ezekiel 18, 20. So Exodus 20, 17. Ezekiel 18, 20. You have John 6, 27. And then 1 John 2, 9 through 11. I'll give you those one more time.

Exodus 20, 17. Ezekiel 18, 20. John 6, 27. 1 John 2, 9 through 11. I slowed down for the purpose of you having this equipping. I want you to have a sheet of paper that you can go and begin thinking through these ideas so that when you do have the kitchen table conversation, you have something substantive rather than an emotional response.

These kinds of conversations, if you're not really armed and equipped with a lot of information, it's very easy to get into an emotional, an emotionally charged battle with someone. And if you feel yourself getting that way, the other default will be you'll say nothing at all.

I don't want you to do either of those things. I don't want you to be emotionally wound up, and I don't want you to say nothing at all. I want you to be armed and equipped with the word of God so that you can deal with what you are encountering.

The Social Gospel, Liberation Theology, and Black Liberation Theology

The second thing that I wanted to make you aware of, I wanna point you to is a document that is incredibly helpful for your study. It was in 2018 that a number of great men that you would know and respect, the statement I think ended up being called the John MacArthur Statement, right?

It's the statement on social justice and the gospel. And I wanna encourage you to read that document. You can go to www .statementonsocialjustice .com. Again, www .statementonsocialjustice .com. If you go there, what you're going to see is just, again, some great men, including John MacArthur.

I know Tom Askell was involved. I know my brother Darrell was involved in some of the writing. Just some great men of God that got together and just really dealt with this early, early in 2018. You can go there and sign your name to the statement if you want to, just to say, I too affirm these things.

But in my estimation, I personally think that the statement should be not taken off of the website, but used as curriculum. And I may go back and talk to Scott Annual, our Executive Vice President and Editor-in-Chief at G3, that we need to take that document and push it into a curriculum that people can think about and use so that they can have a biblical anthropology.

But I'm hoping that you'll find that helpful. My goal in our time together, I wanna accomplish two things. One, I want you to understand the interconnection of the social gospel, liberation theology, and black liberation theology to CRT.

I know that's a mouthful. And I think I got two hours to work with, so I'm gonna make that work. I want you to understand the interconnectedness of the social gospel, liberation theology, black liberation theology to CRT.

So you had a social gospel, and the reason why I'm pulling the social gospel is because what it does to critical theory, I told you this, critical theory, critical legal studies, all of these are godless ideologies that are out there.

They're Marxian in nature. Well, it would be the social gospel that would tap into it and pull kind of a thread, a cord, if you will, into the evangelical structure. Right, and I'm using that term very loosely, evangelical.

I'm simply, I think that's a term you'll understand, into Christian culture, right? So you'll have Walter Rauschenbusch who will go into the stream of critical theory and pull a strand in his direction to have impact in the area of where he was in New York.

I'll walk you through those pieces. And then what you'll have, again, with black liberation theology, they'll go back out into the stream of critical theory and pull into their stream black liberation theology.

So you'll see these cords, these strands that help set the framework for what is happening in evangelicalism regarding CRT and critical race theory. I know that was alphabet soup, and I'm hoping you're following me.

But if not, let's just walk through this information. My first goal, understand the interconnectedness of the social gospel, black liberation theology, and CRT. Number two, I wanna contrast and compare the civil rights movement with the modern day social justice movement.

I wanna contrast and compare the civil rights movement, which had its genesis in the so-called black church, with today's social justice movement. First goal, understand the interconnectedness of the social gospel, black liberation theology, and CRT.

The question that must be asked and answered is how have these foreign ideas made their way into evangelical circles? For many, this is a bit of a mystery, but as Daryl explains, much of what we face today is the result of cultural Marxism.

This is the same cultural Marxism instituted by men like Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist who gave us the Frankfurt School. He applied critical theory on a larger scale, and Daryl explained how this influence would become evident in every facet of culture.

But now, as vital as it is to trace the origins of CT, it's equally important to understand how the worldview entered our theological framework. You see, when you combine the godless ideologies of Marxism and critical theory with the religious fervor of men like Walter Rauschenbusch and his social gospel of the early 1900s, you begin to see what takes place.

From there, you have the liberation theology that would take place in South America in the 60s, 50s, and 60s, along with the 70s and later on with men like James Cone and black liberation theology. You have what we currently see in our current climate with critical race theory.

So let me back up and give you some context for these people. Known as the father of the social gospel, he was known as the father of the social gospel, this is Walter Rauschenbusch. Let me spell the name if you haven't had a chance to write it down.

R-A-U-S-C-H-E-N-B-U-S-C-H. Walter Rauschenbusch, R-A-U-S-C-H-E-N-B-U-S-C-H. He was a Baptist pastor and theologian in the early 1900s. He would bring us the social gospel. And if you remember this period in time in America, this was a period of massive immigration and influx of people that were coming upon the shores there in New York, immigrants from all walks of life.

Well, he, Rauschenbusch began his pastorate in the Second German Baptist Church in Hell's Kitchen, New York. Again, Rauschenbusch is known as the father of the social gospel and his view of Christianity in short, was that its purpose was not simply for the salvation of sinners.

So his thought process about Christianity was, well, this is not for the salvation simply of sinners. Instead, Christianity is the savior for society. That was his idea. Now, if there's anything you've ever heard Darrell or me say on the podcast, I think Darrell coined it.

I probably stole it from him and didn't give him credit wherever I said it. I'm sure I did. He said that Jesus did not come to save society. Jesus came to save sinners. Known again as the father of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutierrez, Gustavo Gutierrez.

He's known as the father of liberation theology. He was a Catholic priest and he was practicing Marxian liberation theology in South America, whereby groups were identified as oppressed, who were the poor, and the oppressors, who were the wealthy.

Now, Gutierrez called for the liberation of these groups. His ideological beginnings were initially about just simply better working conditions. That's really what he was after. He thought, man, all these poor people are here.

We should probably get them better working condition. However, these would eventually extend theologically into a space where he identified the oppressed and the oppressor. And his thought was, his idea was that Jesus only identified with the oppressed.

And he came to liberate the oppressed, not from their sin, but from their oppressors. That was the idea, in short, of Gustavo Gutierrez. What Gutierrez and other liberation theologians were doing in the mid to late 1960s actually caught the attention of one James Cone.

So James Cone is looking at the landscape of culture, seeing where it's having impact, especially in South America, seeing how Jesus is identified with the oppressed and how they're having some gains, even to the degree that the Catholic Church at the time actually wanted to kick Gustavo Gutierrez out of their midst.

He was bad for business. He was upsetting the apple cart, if you will, in South America. And so when Cone saw this, he thought, oh, there might be something useful there. James Cone, he was known as a theologian, and I would use that term in air quotes.

If you ever get a chance, and I would encourage you, given that we've done this weekend with you, I would now, after that, encourage you to read the works of James Cone. I'm gonna quote copiously from him just momentarily, and you'll understand what I mean by that.

But I think it would be good for you to read James Cone, because what you realize quickly is that he was no theologian at all. His theology was rather weak. He was the Judith Moyers Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Now, if you remembered anything that Darrell talked about earlier, I think it was during the Q &A, where he said anything from Union Theological Seminary, they should just take the word seminary off of it.

These are the people, if you're paying attention to what's happening in the news, these are the people who are, when everyone was bending the knee to the nearest black person that they could find during the Black Lives Matter things going on, these people were bending their knee to trees, asking for the forgiveness of trees.

And this is what was happening in their quote-unquote seminaries at that time. Many people consider James Cone the father of black liberation theology. And as you trace critical race theory within modern evangelicalism, it's crucial to note James Cone for his influence.

Why, the works of Cone are now actually being celebrated within some of the most conservative theological seminaries of our day. If I thought about it, I could've pulled a Justin Peters and had a video up and shown you a lot of these professors from quote-unquote conservative seminaries who are proclaiming the great work of James Cone.

I want you to listen to James Cone today in our time together, and for you to assess in your own mind whether or not his work is of tremendous value. As we always do on Just Thinking, I wanna begin by defining black liberation theology in the terms of what the public would've heard it on July 31st, 1966.

So I'm gonna treat you as the public would've been treated to black liberation theology, July 31st, 1966, when the National Committee of Black Churchmen were responsible for exposing the public rather than black theology.

This was a committee of black churchmen. They would comprise approximately, eventually approximately 300 men from various ecumenical and ecclesiastical backgrounds. Here's a statement in part. Here's how it reads.

Quote, this is a definition, a defining of black theology, and you're hearing this definition from about 300 black churchmen who agreed to this definition. These are not my words. This is not somebody who hates what they're doing, who's trying to tell you what they meant to say.

These are these men in their own words. Quote, for us, black theology is a theology of black liberation. It seeks to plumb the black condition in light of God's revelation in Jesus Christ so that the black community can see that the gospel is commensurate with the achievement of black humanity.

I don't even know what that is. Black theology is a theology of blackness. It is the affirmation of black humanity that emancipates black people from white racism. So Jesus no longer comes to pay for, as a propitiation for the sin debt that you owe a holy God, a thrice holy God.

Jesus Christ now comes for the purpose of emancipating you from white racism, thus providing authentic freedom both for white and black people, end quote. Once a critic of social justice, now an advocate for social justice.

I'm gonna quote to you from Dr. Anthony Bradley. Let me say that again. Once a critic, Bradley was once a critic of social justice, now an avid, rabid advocate of social justice. But at the time, he wrote a book criticizing social justice.

And I thought, when I read the book, I thought it was worth, the critique was a solid, sound critique. He has since changed directions and positions on many of these issues. His book was called Liberating Black Theology.

Now I had a problem with the title because it's a play on words, Liberation Black Theology. But there was a thought process that should have been picked up when I read the book that Bradley was holding out hope to some degree, that black liberation theology or black theology could somehow be used in a positive light.

So while he offers a solid critique of the work, he also at the end of the book holds out, you know what, there may be some way to use this. I wanna be clear, I absolutely reject that premise and idea.

But if you do happen to go get the book, I want you to be aware of what you're going to find in there. I do want a quote from it because he writes this. He talks about James Cone's hermeneutic. And he says this, quote, Cone and his writings remain critical of an orthodox evangelical theology that maintains the infallibility and inerrancy of the scriptures and the creature-creator distinction and holds the scriptures as final authority over all matters of faith.

Those positions fail to uncover issues important to the wretchedness of the earth. Let me stop there. What Bradley is stating here is that Cone's theology, he rejects anything orthodox and evangelical.

And he does so on the basis of the fact that he does not hold to the infallibility of the text of scripture. He does not hold to inerrancy of scripture. He holds to the idea that scripture can only be used in matters where I can be seen as the victim.

If I can use scripture to identify myself with being oppressed or being a victim, I will use scripture. Where scripture doesn't help my personal cause, I will abandon it or negate it or not use it. And you'll see that in his own words.

Cone's own words from his book, A Black Theology of Liberation. He states this, quote,. To the contrary, he says, as many conservatives would say, that the Bible is not a blueprint on matters of faith.

It is a valuable symbol for pointing to God's revelation in Jesus, but it is not self-interpreting.

Do you see what he's doing?

He's saying, you know, you can't look at it like I can look at it. He's about to insert his own ideas into the text. The only way that you could understand it in the way that I do is if you had black skin.

And the reason you don't read the text of scripture in the same way that I do is because you're not like me. What Cone, and by extension, black liberation theology is advocating, is that you throw away your Bible, unless he and other black theologians can abuse the text of scripture to promote a Marxist form of social justice.

If anyone thinks I'm exaggerating about the Marxian framework for black liberation theology, Cone tells us so in his book, entitled For My People, Black Theology and the Black Church. On page 186, he says this, quote, the Christian faith does not possess, listen closely, the Christian faith does not possess in its nature the means for analyzing the structure of capitalism.

If you think about the talk that you just heard Daryl give, what is the main issue with the idea around capitalism? The main thought is, well, capitalism is endemic or connected to white supremacy. So in order to get rid of white supremacy, we have to get rid of capitalism.

That's the idea and pervading thought behind what is taught. Cone says the Christian faith does not possess in its nature the means for analyzing the structure of capitalism. He says Marxism, however, as a tool for social analysis can disclose the gap between appearance and reality and thereby help Christians to see how things really are.

So the lens that you need to use, the economic lens that you need to use to really understand things is a Marxian lens. And again, that's from his book, For My People, Black Theology and the Black Church, page 186.

So Marxism is the tool that is suggested by Cone and his form of orthodoxy is actually heterodoxy. In case there's any misunderstanding about what Cone is believing and saying, I used to, when I initially gave this talk, I would sit audiences down and play a game of who said it first.

And in the game, what I would do is I would take quotes from James Cone and I would lay them side by side with quotes from the Ku Klux Klan. I would use their theology, their ideas and theology and put them side by side.

I would take out the words white and or black from each of the quotes that were given and I would ask the audience, who said it first? Was it Cone or the KKK? Now, we don't have time to play that game here, though it would be entertaining to see how you responded.

It's incredible how aligned their viewpoints, their worldviews actually are. In an article titled Christianity and Black Power, Cone writes this, quote,. So, Jesus's death on the cross represented God's boundless solidarity with victims, even unto death.

Jesus's resurrection is good news that there is new life for the poor that is not determined by their poverty, but overcomes it. What is he appealing to here? He's appealing to a social justice Jesus who looks out for the poor and identifies who they are and helps them out of that temporal poverty.

The poverty is never the weightiness of their sin. It's simply their temporal or perceived oppression by other men who don't look like them. James Cone would write this in his book, Black Theology and Black Power.

He says this, quote, For white people, God's reconciliation in Jesus Christ means that God has made black people a beautiful people. And if they, white people, are going to be in relationship with God, listen closely, they must enter utilizing their black brothers who are a manifestation of God's presence on the earth.

This is ethnic deism.

Do you see it?

This is ethnic deism. Your road to salvation is now not through Jesus Christ.

And him crucified,.

But through the nearest black brother that you can find because that black brother or sister is a manifestation of God's presence on the earth. Again, if you think about what is being said here and you mirror it against what is said by organizations like the Klan, these kinds of things align themselves completely.

Black Theology and Black Power, again, initially published in 1969, James Cone writes this, quote,. If the gospel is a gospel of liberation for the oppressed, then Jesus is where the oppressed are and continues his work of liberation there.

Jesus is not safely confined in the first century. He's our contemporary, proclaiming release to the captives and rebelling against all who silently accept the structures of injustice. If he, Jesus, is not in the ghetto, listen closely, if he is not where the men are living at the brink of existence, but is rather in the easy life of the suburbs, then the gospel is a lie.

Is this not why God became a man in Jesus Christ so that man might become as he is? This is an ethnic little God's doctrine, right? This is the idea that if I'm the right ethnicity, I can be a God. I can have the same, isn't that why Christ came to make me deity?

He says this, he goes on in that same quote, he says, as long as man is a slave to another power, he is not free to serve God with mature responsibility, and he's not free to become what he is, which is human.

I wish I could take this quote and frame it for you because in the next talk that my brother, Darrell, is going to deliver, you're gonna hear about a slave who absolutely would repudiate this statement in and of itself.

I won't steal my brother's thunder by any stretch, but I just want you to remember what Cone said. He says that if he's a slave to another power, he is not free to serve God with mature responsibility.

He's not free to become what he really is, human. I want you to remember that, again, in light of what you'll hear when Darrell returns. What Cone is arguing is the same thing that men before him argued.

Men like Gutierrez and Rauschenbusch, they desired a Jesus who came to save society instead of one that came to save sinners. They were looking for a quick-fix Jesus to deliver them from temporal outcomes, and the reality is that is not the goal of Christ.

What Cone and Gutierrez and Rauschenbusch believe is that Christ came to do exactly the opposite of what he prayed for and talked about. If Jesus came to save societies, then the Jews and even the disciples would have been right in believing that the overthrow of the Roman government was the right thing to do in establishing the kingdom.

However, Jesus would instruct that his kingdom would not be a kingdom that he would establish through change from the outside, but rather that the kingdom would be a part of the heart transformation necessitating the complete change from the inside out.

What we're witnessing are men who desire to see this transformation, this utopia, if you will, take place from the outside in. They're trying to use their own powers of persuasion, their own ideological framework, their own economic empowerment, their own political strategy in an effort to change society into what they believe it needs to be.

Well, the gospel of the kingdom works absolutely the reverse way. What happened in the first century after Jesus ascends? Those men whose hearts were transformed began to have a massive impact on the culture, but they did so not by trying to change the government structure.

They did so because of the heart transformation that was on the inside of them, and they began to proclaim that gospel message person to person, house to house, and the society and the culture transformed as a result.

So that by the time we read about Paul and the church in Ephesus and Acts 17 and 18, and you've unpacked what Paul is doing, there's a riot that breaks out.

Why?

Because the silversmith there is upset because everybody in the world seems to be turning over their hearts and giving them to Christ. And it's having a large economic impact on Ephesus. He's saying, we're gonna get out of, if all of these folks become believers, we're gonna be out of business soon.