Session 11: Q&A with Darrell Harrison and Virgil Walker by Jim Osman - 2022 Equipping Conference

Camera action. Yep yep yep. All right we're gonna get started with our final session so please come on in and find your seat. So this this last bit here is got to be some rapid-fire Q &A. Okay. So I'm gonna direct questions to whichever guy I think is best gonna be more dealing with this based upon what you guys presented how you split up the conference subject matter so if you need to defer you can just say hey I'll pass to my brother Howard you want to work that out.

Morgan Freeman says the way to stop racism is to stop talking about racism. Wrong. Is this okay there we go. That was I mean that was rapid-fire. Rapid-fire yeah it was get a little less rapid-fire.

Is this even is this even possible? Is that rapid-fire enough for you? Yeah is this even possible? It is a biblical concept to say that and how why is that wrong? It's wrong because it's a.

Moralistic approach to it. So the second question if it's even possible is a is a non-starter because in the beginning it's a moralistic approach to solving the issue. What Morgan Freeman's approach doesn't recognize is to corrupt human nature.

We've been talking about this now for two days so he doesn't factor in the biblical anthropology of what's in the human heart. So stop talking about it doesn't mean you stop thinking about it and you stop that the that the desire that that the hateful desires of the heart aren't there.

I mean Martin Luther tried the same thing when he went through all sort of methods of asceticism when he was a Catholic before the Lord opened his eyes to the truth of the scripture. He tried to he you know he used a cat and nine tails against himself he tried to you know put himself off into a monastery and hide away from the real world but he realized that his he couldn't run from his sinful nature.

He realized that that was impossible to do. So to take a moralistic approach to racism is a non-starter because it doesn't deal with the root cause of it in the beginning. So they're not talking about.

It accomplishes absolutely nothing. So if we were to be more biblical or accurate to say if we stopped inventing racial grievances out of whole cloth and stopped re-problematizing everything for the sake of a narrative that much of the conflict that we deal with in our day-to-day America would cease to exist?

No it wouldn't because here's the thing I have to sort of exegete your question a little bit Jim because again what I talked about earlier today when I tried to walk you through what the Bible says in terms of love hate love hate love hate versus isms phobias and the terms that the culture uses a born-again believer as we made clear as I was walking you through some of those passages in 1st John a born-again believer isn't going to desire to re-problematize these issues to begin with.

So you have to separate your question into two groups how do believers handle these issues and then how do unbelievers handle them. So a believer is going to handle the issue biblically they're not going to desire to re-problematize the issue they're going to take you to the scriptures.

Number one as Virgil pointed out as we've said often on our podcast that the Bible is both a mirror and a window. A believer is going to hold that mirror up to themselves first of all before they hold that flip it around and turn it to a window to see everybody else but a believer is not going to go that route and I think it's ironic in that the culture will say yeah we want to solve these issues we want to resolve these issues so they see them as issues but that's the problem they see them as issues they don't see them as sins.

So until you see these issues as sins you're going to you're going to. It's like we quote it from J .C. Rowell you're going to be content with wrong and imperfect remedies and this is what Morgan Freeman doesn't understand he with all due respect dude's got a crazy voice one of the best narrators that ever lived but he doesn't understand he's he's falling into that trap that J .C. Rowell talked about he's he's applying an insufficient imperfect moralistic remedy to what's a spiritual problem and as Virgil made clear today only the gospel is the.

Solution to that. All right. Since you went too long I'm gonna give this one to you and let you speak on his behalf. All right. This is an excerpt from October 2020 article written by John MacArthur. Quote today the evangelical swamp is chock-full of charlatans heretic socialist Marxist and race hustlers.

Yes please yes. There is nothing truly and biblical evangelical about it. Should we abandon the term evangelical in favor of a more accurate term. You didn't know that was where that was going. No. Okay so let me back up a twist like.

Okay so the evangelical movement the evangelical swamp is chock-full of charlatans heretic socialist and Marxist and race hustlers. Is the answer then to abandon the term evangelical or to reveal the charlatans heretic socialist Marxist.

And racist I mean one of the things that I love about MacArthur's mystery which is why I was overjoyed was he's willing to say that. The first step is to be able to identify to say and admit that there are you know sharks and evil people who are lurking about designed to devour the flock of God.

That was kind of what I shared it in the last part of my message. We've got to be willing to say that to begin with and and then to examine what evangelicalism is or has become as a result. I understand looking at evangelicalism seeing what's taking place and wanting to move away from the idea.

That's exactly what what what praise mill did. Regarding the SPC we saw the swamp that it is and we made a decision. We were going to remove ourselves because it wasn't worth spending the time and energy.

We weren't commissioned for the purpose of saving the SPC right. We're commissioned to go and share the gospel so we removed ourselves from that. I don't see anything pragmatically wrong with doing that.

But I wouldn't I wouldn't do one or the other. I would do a both. And if I were to move away from that term in favor of a different term I would although along the way tell you who the sharks were who the who what the swamp was made up of and who was actually in it.

So I'd have I wouldn't have a problem if we're.

Doing both and all right. What ripples affinity to CRT. Black lives matter.

Except or have outside the United States. Darryl that's a good question. I think one of the things you need to understand about black lives matters is and you heard this if you listen to our episode first of the two episodes that we did on black lives matter title black lives matter with a question mark their roots seem to be primarily national meaning they're pretty much rooted here in the United States.

But even as far as that goes the black lives matters at a national level they are not. And I think this is interesting for us to point out on the episode. They are not a nonprofit organization they are not officially a 501c3 organization under the IRS and I think it's interesting how they structured themselves in that.

What they've done is that they've got this this big umbrella of a national organization. But what they've done is that they've taken an advantage of an IRS loophole that allows them to align themselves with sub organizations that are 501c3 yes so that the donations that they take are funneled through these sub organizations not to them.

So you really find it difficult to track where the money comes from and where the money's going. I don't know what type of footprint black lives matters has internationally to whatever footprint that may have existed outside the United States.

I think that footprint is now crumbling based on recent news that's come out about how especially Patrice Colors who's the the former leader. Now she's resigned from black lives matters they are losing leaders at the national and local level left and right now that these revelations have come to the fore about how they've actually been spending the tens of millions of dollars that they've been compiling over the years.

But we haven't really I'll say this for you I don't know about UV. I won't speak for you but I haven't really studied black lives matter outside of the United States because the impact that they've been having have been primarily domestically in urban cities around the country.

So my attention has been here as it relates to BLM as opposed to.

Somewhere else nothing to add to that. I'm trying to be rapid fire. Okay good.

So we had somebody ask about why evangelical leaders have adopted CRT and been permissive on this. Let's drop some bombs for a second. Let's name some names. This is a stage where a lot of names get named because well we have a cripple guy gets up here doesn't like names people's names all the time.

So let's name some names drop some bombs. Don't be reserved. Tell us who the charlatans the hucksters the race hustlers are within the evangelical movement. It seems like we have evangelical leaders who wake up on Sunday morning with their David French under ruse and they sip their free trade coffee with soy milk in it and they wait for the latest David French call him to drop and then to see what Tim Keller says about it.

And they're just fanboying all the wrong people. Yes. What's going on in evangelicalism with the gospel coalition. With the together for the gospel. Who are the people who are leading the woke push in these once reliable evangelical institutions.

Yeah I think I think. But this is for both of you. Yeah I'll start.

Out by saying that the seminaries primarily are where we're seeing the biggest push in the problem. At SBC seminary presidents have have all jumped on the woke train. I think that Al Mohler is probably one of the one of the last that has at least lately remained silent on the issue I think I think he's picked places to say things that make sense to those who are conservative.

He's he's conservative enough so he's not making big waves about the issue but he's not taking clear stands naming specific names. Getting the people who are who are in his seminary who are promoting these ideas out of the seminary by recognizing that they're doing great damage to the body of Christ.

You mentioned the Tim Keller's of the world have been compromised the the the Devers who have been unmentioned Matt Chandler and and his ideas are around these issues. All of those men have involved themselves to some degree in a push around social justice believing that it is the right thing for us to embrace that these are the kinds of ideas that that are important.

I think when you mentioned the gospel coalition I mentioned yesterday that that's a whole rebranding. They're rebranding themselves in such a way as to appear to be the nice middle of the road. T4G is no more that's over.

So all the push is toward the gospel coalition and what they offer but they're again a compromised organization on this issue. I could go back whether whether it was the promotion of men like the BD on we lay whether it was the articles that that are written on there on their social media pages and they had a massive massive audience.

All of those things are problematic and people don't understand that they're drinking down poison when they engage in in some of the content from those sites and so those are the people I think to be to watch out for TTCG is recognizing that when when soccer moms show up at you know at school board meetings to talk about CRT there's a recognition that something's wrong and it didn't take a guy like like Daryl or me who's studied this stuff.

They just know that they don't want their kids listening to it. So if an organization is going to embrace it to the thing that Daryl has been saying for quite some time you can't walk in and say hey I'm I'm I'm CRT.

You've got a we've got a restructure so what they've done now is it's been it's been it's been shrouded under the umbrella of of niceness. Well we've got people on this side who are good people and people on that side who are good people and what we need to do is figure out a way to talk nicely about this and.

So that's the rebranding of it all. Is the dissolution together for the gospel due to becoming woke. Is it a go woke go broke type of a thing are they losing.

Followers. For that reason I would argue yes but if you notice the last their last meeting together they tried to they tried to stand like they you know like they like they stood where we are standing now.

Like at the end of it you know you had people making statements and making proclamations and claims they were really ready to to unpack and examine you know social justice and the social gospel. But it was it was it was it was too little too late after the fact and so that's kind of where things land.

So a lot of those men that you've.

Named our mother for instance Mark Dever. They would like to end. They were known up until a couple of years ago as keynote speakers at Shepherds Conference. I was there a couple years ago when the whole Q &A broke broke up.

These guys were platformed by some of our trusted evangelical leaders for years and it seems as if they wanted to be known as standing with you guys on this issue with MacArthur on this issue they wanted to be seen as being included in that camp.

And yet would it be fair to say that men like Albert Muller did not spend the political capital that they had in order to fight back against it. They wanted to position themselves as yes I agree with the conservative base on this.

They weren't willing to stand up and go to bat against it at a time when the church needed those men to stand up and to draw those lines. And if those lines had been drawn prior to 2019 you wouldn't have had a resolution in the SBC on that issue of critical race theory.

You wouldn't have had people in the SBC pushing that instead. You would have had those lines being drawn and people falling out on both sides of that and this healthy division which should come as a result of this would have already happened.

And it could have had an opportunity to push the wolves out before they got ahold of this the.

Throat of the sheep. I think this is an example of what I just discussed regarding a shepherd protecting the sheep. What you just stated is exactly what needed to be done what needed to be said and has been said by all the people that that aren't you know that aren't on the other side of that.

I think that the book fault lines did a fantastic job of laying out who was on which side of the ideological lines regarding these issues. All the things that you said are right true and correct. Had these men rather than being comfortable sharing pulpits and platforms for the purpose of politics and their own and their own platform growth they would have stood on the issue saying the hard things when they were hard to say.

Now they're willing to say some of the hard things because it's easy to say it's obvious to everyone where these issues are and what where they should stand. So they're doing so again from a pragmatic position.

Hey it's smart to say the right thing now. So I'll step up and say those kinds of things. I'll take a step further and say this in the days to come what you'll end up seeing because of the silence from these men some of them that we've named what you'll begin to see over the course of time is groups organizations platforms being being rebranded to bring them back into the fold.

You're gonna see the our motors be brought back dusted off and pushed out as hey these these guys. We need to bring these men in and they were with us all the time. Yeah they've been with us all the time.

They had to they had to navigate their own cultural environment in specific ways. They had to navigate their issues in a contextual way. And now it's time for us to bring them back in and understand that they've been with us all along.

When my stance on that on that position would simply be they made they made public proclamations about these issues. And they need to make. They need to be publicly repenting with regard to those.

Issues as well. Yeah we're gonna be gas lit into thinking that these men were taking new ones absolutely in the moment and really they were with us. Even though we didn't it didn't seem like or look like they were with us.

We get some criticism sometimes that we are. We admire John MacArthur way too much in our church. People say oh you guys are just too hungry. The second grace to you employee that we've had here in a row.

One of the things that I've admired about John MacArthur and this is not just a fanboy out about John MacArthur is that when we have needed him to an evangelicalism has needed him to. He has taken the public stand the right stand at the right time and has been on bending on it in the moment at the at the vanguard at the front of when that is needed.

And at times as Justin has pointed out in recent interview that he did with John these stands that he has taken has cost him friendships of some of these men that you have named. And yet John has stood unwavering on those issues.

And he has done so sometimes to the detriment of his own reputation in the larger evangelical community. And yet he's been right every time that's on every fight that we've needed him to fight he's been there been the man fighting it in the moment.

Absolutely. And sometimes looking behind him. And when people say I'm behind you all the way and you look in the way behind you not even not even close. I define race. You said race is a myth. Right. Ethnicity is real.

But I've always thought the two are synonyms. No how are they different.

They're different as you heard me explain this morning and yesterday as well. They're different in that. Race is a social construct it's a movable it's a moving target it's a moving goalpost. Race is nothing really when you look at it race is nothing because anything any term that can mean anything means nothing.

If a term can mean anything it doesn't mean anything. So when we speak.

Of ethnicity you're. When you say ethnicity you're talking about skin.

Color. No no no it's just the opposite. When the when the culture uses the word race they're talking about skin color primarily. Think about this. Think about this for a second when you want to go to you see a ancestry .com or 23andme commercial on television.

So yeah I'm gonna go get a I want to get a trace on my ancestry and find out what's going on. They don't ask you to send in a snippet of your skin. Do they. They don't do that today. No. You have to either give a sample of your blood or a sample of your saliva.

That which lines up with what we know from Leviticus where it says the life is in the blood. Don't you don't go take a graft of your skin and send it in to ancestry .com. They put under a microscope and say hmm.

Yeah your ethnicity is. Well it's zero. Because your ethnicity has nothing to do with your skin color. That's how great. That's how the culture defines race though primarily in terms of the color of your skin.

Now that's where it starts. But as you heard me talk this afternoon and also yesterday race in the culture can mean anything. Now anything. Okay. Whereas according to Acts 17 26 and then Genesis 11 as well biblically your ethnicity is who you are.

In your blood in your blood. That's who you are. Matter of fact. We just found out. I'm gonna embarrass Melissa I'm gonna put on a spot right here. We just found out what was it last week. Just last week Melissa got her results back from ancestry .com DNA genealogy assessment.

And you know what. She is. 81 African. This is a stereotypical view of race and says wait a minute. Her skin is not dark enough to be a 81 African. Are you kidding. Yeah 81 Nigeria. Let's see if you look at the cultures construct of race you say absolutely not her.

Your skin's too light. You can't be. Your ancestors can't be from Nigeria. Well it's 81 So again this is why you have to reject that term that vernacular in the context of which the culture uses it.

Because it doesn't mean anything. Not only is it wrong as you heard me quote from Dr. Gloria Lance Billings this afternoon even she acknowledged that race has no scientific basis. So it's nothing. Ethnicity is what we are.

We are one human race. And by the way the word race in scripture is translated to mean a type a genus is the Latin word genus a type. We are one type of creation that God has created in his image. So when you see the word race in scripture that's the context of that that has nothing to do with how the culture uses that word.

Today as CRT via force from the government continue to put pressure on the traditional Christian family do you think that abortion agencies will now not only have to fight on faith issues but also restrict child placement based on skin color regardless of the needs or merits or the fit for the children.

That's I mean there's a lot there. Help me. That's a yes-or-no question. Oh I was.

Doing it was a yes-or-no question. I was going yeah yeah that's a yes. Be okay.

There was a lot there and I was trying to parse it out as you went and I'm.

Going what. Okay. So you think that that's that's gonna continue to be a thing. CRT is gonna work its way into adoption agency. Oh absolutely yes it will.

Everywhere. Absolutely there's no doubt about that. And you think that adoption.

Agencies are gonna want of course diversity. They're gonna want black children being raised by white homes white children being raised by black.

Homes. No no not that kind of diversity. Not that kind of diversity. No can you.

Clarify how SEL in schools is bringing CRT Marxism into the schools and discuss how a Christian teacher can address these issues with students. Yes.

So SEL as it relates to Marxism again number one just a reminder that if you see SEL either abbreviated or social emotional learning spelled out you need to have your antenna up. You to have your antenna up because what it's doing is number one.

It has nothing to do that. The term social emotional learning has nothing to do with social emotions or learning has nothing to do with that. What it is is a covert effort to indoctrinate your children to hate America to hate as I said yesterday to hate you as their parents and to embrace anti-authoritarianism.

Starting with rejecting your parental authority rejecting your Christian built biblical worldview that you're trying to bring your children up in rejecting the Western Judeo-Christian value. Rejecting as I said earlier today all kind of even rudimentary tenants such as universal principles of math universal principles of how to speak proper grammar it's all of this thing.

It's all of sort of a Marxian dialectic to get your children indoctrinated into a hate filled worldview where everything that exists around them today they hate it they hate it. It has nothing to do with social emotional or learning it has nothing to do with any of that.

So as far as a Christian who is a teacher was a Christian teacher a Christian teacher in school Christian teacher in public schools you you how do you address it with children. The children. Yeah. How do you address it with the children in the school.

Yeah. Yeah that's that's tough. That's tough because the thing with SEL is that you're so restricted in what you can say to the children you can only follow whatever the lesson plan is that that the public school system has developed for you to teach.

So what I my counsel would be this because even in a broader sense Christians in any work environment right now you're gonna face decisions that you're gonna have to make. That are very tough because the goal is to ultimately remove any Christian influence from any of these institutions.

That's ultimately the goal. But how a Christian teacher might respond to that is number one. Stand strong on your Christian beliefs. Do not waver further talk about this earlier about how you're gonna suffer.

You're gonna suffer. But how you address it with children. That's a very fine line. You have to walk because in the classroom they're your students. You do not want to usurp the parental authority of the parents of those children who are your students.

So what I would do I would try to network with the parents of those children outside the classroom meet them at a restaurant for breakfast lunch or dinner get a network going on get them all together on a zoom call or something like that so that you can educate those parents on what you're being required to teach their students so as to keep them abreast of what that content is.

Obviously I would attend church regularly and dialogue with those parents. There's a lot you can do outside the classroom to to fight against that indoctrination. But I would say as it relates to your Christian witness you don't want to be an obnoxious sort of purposely defiant person and making trouble on the on the on the school property.

But I think there's many things you can do outside of that classroom. But that's all. That's not to say that the Lord may convict you. I say may I don't know that this is gonna be the case for you. But the Lord may convict you that what you're being required to do is so in violation of your biblical principles that you may end up having to leave.

You may end up having to leave that occupation. And many teachers are having to do that today. My.

Answer was gonna be much shorter I was just gonna say get out that's what.

People have been saying about the SBC for a long time. This dude. Right here man. Virgil this one's for you. Okay. You change up your message or approach when you speak to a mostly black community. No you'd say the same thing in the same way.

We're probably we're probably even more amped up if we're in front of a black.

Audience I would say the same words. There may be a little more passion about it then and otherwise but yeah I wouldn't change anything that I've said. In fact Darrell and I would would love more opportunities to be in front of predominantly black audiences.

If they would have us. I'm not partial. They won't have us. That's the problem. And I'm not. I told you last night. Neither of us are trying to build platforms for ourselves that we're asking to be on.

You know on someone's platform we're available to whoever asked us to come. But yeah I mean I would I would probably I would probably be probably more passionate about it. Because I because because I recognize that that there's so many who who don't get the kinds of things that we are sharing.

Most of them many of them are in environments where they're they're. They're exposed primarily to some form of black liberation theology. Whether they recognize it's called that or not most churches predominantly black churches not and again don't hear me say that there are no good black churches.

I'm simply saying that the predominance of churches are either teaching some form of a prosperity gospel that's attached to it. It's some form of a social justice. I'll give you a quick example and and and and get back to the rapid-fire when when Justice Katonji Brown Jackson was always was being examined.

Right. When she was going through her process of examination and I was being asked by the Senate the different questions. The question that she was asked was had everything to do with what a woman was or or honest questions about about her judicial philosophy.

Black churches on Sunday were actually preaching about Katonji Brown Jackson and telling their congregants that what she was facing was simply white systemic oppression and racism. That was their Sunday morning service.

Over and over and over again we saw video after video after video of this is the diet the spiritual diet that is being fed to predominantly black churches. In many instances. Not all not all not all but in many indeed if those.

Of you who follow me on Twitter were following me and during the course of those examinations of Katonji Brown Jackson I told you two weeks in advance what was going to happen. I wrote you two weeks in advance and once she once she gets once she's done with her confirmation watch these black church pulpits sermonize those those hearings and make it all about her and how her hearings are symbolic of the struggle that black Americans have had in this.

Country for 300 years. We were at an airport on a on a trip back when we heard the news that she was nominated and but and I was sitting with Darrell as we had this very conversation about how all of the charges.

If you asked her a question it was going to be identified as racist anyway. All right if the CRT.

Movement proceeded unhindered. How would it ultimately end now spiritually which was in in hell but in the physical world. What does this physical world look like. What's the end result. What's the goal of CRT.

Yeah there's no end result the.

Result for CRT is to not end it the end result of CRT. People ask us this question all the time. What's the payout for CRT. Well there's no payout it's to.

Constantly get paid payout it's to reproblematize the next problem. It's to it's to find the next victim class on the next it's identify the next problem for this to constantly go right on and on and on.

It's a perpetual cycle to nothingness to utopia a nowhere place that is the whole point and purpose of it. So it's designed for that purposes to deconstruct the Judeo-Christian worldview that built the United States of America for the purpose of their own financial benefit and which they there won't be enough of.

It'll be a constant monster. This was I mean this was happening with the with the first civil rights leaders after after King right Jesse Jackson and Sharpton and the like. Well did that stop. No it morphed into what we're seeing now which is worse than they were.

Like the folks who are doing what they're doing now. The others had nothing to do. I mean there's no comparison there. Hundreds of millions of dollars have poured into the to the coffers of Black Lives.

Matter it that that the what what Jackson and others had were pennies compared to what's.

Taking place now and you'll recall that when in my last message I quoted from dr. Elizabeth last Quinn from her book race experts where she made the point that coming out of the civil rights era in the 60s into the 60s going into the 70s one of the reasons we that we got here is because you had woke critical race Marxist legal scholars who filled a void that was left after this after the 70s passed with the critical legal studies movement.

So what's going to happen is once this current generation of critical race theorists is gone there's gonna be another wave will look in to fill that void so it's gonna be sickle. Well it's not going to end.

If it ever gets into a foothold into American culture they're gonna do whatever it takes to retain that foothold. So whatever is required right now to get rid of white people because that's the goal is to get rid of white people get rid of their influence in such a game in every way to subjugate whatever way shape or form they can.

That's the goal and the goal is to keep it like that. So there is no end critical race theory. So.

In CRT theology if you want to call it that there really is no room for actual forgiveness no room for actual atonement. No it's a perpetual grievance state and it's a perpetual pursuing this thing that is a it's a it's a mist it's a cloud it's all right grass.

That's why I said it's a stealth ideology it's like.

What I quoted from Booker T. Washington yesterday in his book my larger education he says a group of race hustlers this is exactly what these are. Race problem solvers is what he called them. They're race problem solvers that reprobably reproblematize.

So when they get what they want from one reproblematized issue they find another one to bring into the contemporary culture to get what they want from that. Then they find another one to bring that in.

And this is what you're happening. You're seeing happening right now with DEI where most of those positions are going to black females. You're seeing it happen with ethnic studies where in a public school system one public school system after another you're seeing black teachers and administrators being able to teach that America's racist that white people are racist that even your parents are racist.

Your parents don't want the best for you. Your parents are liars. So they're getting everything they want and after they get one thing they reproblematize something else to get something else. With regard to CRT the.

Original sin is whiteness. There's no there's no repentance there's penance that you can pay the works-based righteousness that that that that people are to engage in the anti-racism that people are to engage in it's never for the for the purpose of making that that person righteous or seeing them come into the fold.

They only have to continue to to pay that penalty in an effort to maintain their their status as an anti-racist not as a as a person who's now in the fold of those who are woke. But no but but but the person who needs to continue anti-racist works in an effort to maintain some form of really servitude.

That's the intent. It's never to bring one in so that so while they.

Talk about racial reconciliation. Really. There's there's they're not aiming for racial reconciliation. Racial reconciliation can never actually happen.

No that's to make that. Those words are used to pull the strings of white guilt for the purpose of fueling the next thing that they want to push forward.