Allow Me To Grab You With My Intersectionals - An Urgent Message for the American Church

The Meaning of Intersectionality and Personal Ethnic Background

Allow me to grab you with my intersectionals. You don't know what an intersectional is. Intersectionals are basically the different identities that people have that when they're combined, they actually mean that you're more disadvantaged or maybe you have a harder time in life and things like that.

So like, if you're a woman, in some people's minds, if you're a woman, you're disadvantaged a lot of times in our culture compared to men. You may have heard feminists talk about that. But if you're a woman and you're also Puerto Rican, you actually are more disadvantaged than a typical woman.

And so you've got the female gender, which is according to some people puts you at a disadvantage. And you've also got the fact that you're an ethnic minority. Now, if you're a woman and an ethnic minority, but you're straight, you're actually not as disadvantaged as a woman who's an ethnic minority, who might be transgendered or something like that.

So that's what an intersectional is. And so in some people's minds that has a lot of validity based on who you talk to, who you listen to. So a lot of people would say, you need to listen to your black brothers and sisters in Christ.

And what they're doing when they say that is they're saying, well, this person in certain topics has more validity than say a white person or something like that. That's their intersectionals. Now, my intersectionals are, I've talked about many times, I'm a Puerto Rican myself.

And if you don't know the history of Puerto Rican and their ethnicity, most Puerto Ricans have DNA and a blood mix, just like I do. What that looks like is about 60 European, about 20 African, usually from the Nigeria or Mali area.

And then another 20 of your DNA is from a native American type source. It's actually the Taino Indians who lived on Puerto Rico a long time ago. Now, if you know the history, then you know that the African in me, that's a slave ancestor.

I've got ancestors who were brought over into slave trade. And the European in me, that's actually the slave owners, the people who brought the Africans over in the slave trade. And if you further know the history, the Taino Indian in me, that's the people whose land was taken by the colonizers.

So those are my intersectionals. And so listen up because I wanna talk about social justice. I've got slave ancestors. I've got people whose land was taken and I've got European ancestors as well. Those are my intersectionals.

Justice According to God's Standards, Not Human Partiality

And here's the thing, Christians, I know that you care about racial justice and these kinds of issues. And I'm not even gonna bother defining that. It doesn't matter really how you define that for the purposes of this conversation.

Because here's the reality of the situation. I know you want to do the right thing according to ethnicity and things like that. I know that's what you desire. But we have to be very careful how we do this kind of stuff.

Listen, if you're white and you're a Christian and you're listening to this, I'm glad that you care about the sin of partiality. I'm glad that you care about the oppressed. I'm glad that you care about justice.

But the reality is that the thing that Puerto Ricans and all ethnic minorities need more than anything, more than anything is justice according to God's standards. Well, first we need to be converted.

So you need to be sharing the gospel with every person that you meet, whether they're white, whether they're black, whether they're Puerto Rican, all of these things. In fact, many blacks and Puerto Ricans are already Christians.

But what we need is justice according to God's standard because anything besides that is actually gonna do more harm than good. One of the examples that I use in one of my videos, this is one of my most popular videos, is the Gospel Coalition.

They decided to have a fellowship group, a fellowship event at their women's conference where it was no white people allowed. We wanted to create a space for blacks and Christians of color to fellowship without having white people around to sort of dominate the conversation.

And on the one hand, if you just look at that, a lot of people said, well, that's not a big deal because they just wanna hang out and everyone has the right to free association and things like that. And the answer to that is that's very true.

Everyone has that right to associate with who they want to associate with. There's nothing wrong with that. But the reality is Christian fellowship is a very specific thing. It's a very sacred thing in the scripture.

And God determines the terms of that Christian fellowship. And God in his infinite wisdom and his goodness has determined that there shall be no partiality in his fellowship. That is a command. That is a command that he didn't invent that in the New Testament.

That's a command that he had for his people all the way in the Old Testament. And God is a genius because God, it almost seems blasphemous to say that God is a genius. He's so beyond genius. But God knows the heart of man and how desperately wicked it is and how twisted it can be because not only do rich people show partiality towards other rich people, but poor people can do the same thing.

Not only can people who are in the majority do this, but people in the minority can do the same thing. And the reality is if you have a fellowship of men intending to do good for people of color in the church, but it shows partiality against white people in the church, that is sinful in God's eyes.

He hates that. He hates that. He's been commanding us not to do that from the very beginning. In fact, the law of God says in Exodus and Leviticus as well, you shall judge rightly, you shall not show partiality to the rich or the poor.

You can't do it no matter what the intersectionals say. And so I use my intersectionals to get your attention in this video, but really that's not something that really matters. My intersectionals do not have anything to do with the validity of my voice in this conversation.

We need to put our intersectionals aside. In fact, the scripture says, Christ says that you need to love Jesus. You need to love the Lord and hate your family. And what that means, how I interpret that is that means that your ethnicity, your blood is not as important as your identity and your unity in Christ.

And so here's what matters. My ethnicity, it doesn't matter. Compared to what, compared to Christ and his law and his commands and how he defines love, nothing about my blood makes any difference. And so what we need to do in this conversation, I beg you, white Christians, if you're, and all Christians who are in the social justice debate, we need to be very focused on the scriptures because the reality is that gospel coalition event wasn't just a misunderstanding and just kind of like a, oh, well, I guess we didn't quite hit the mark.

No, that was evil. And the women that attended that conference, that, sorry, that fellowship event where white people weren't allowed, they were in sin. And everyone who encouraged that is in sin. And everyone who led that is in sin and they are doing damage to the very people they claim to help.

You cannot encourage people in showing partiality and then walk away without being damaged. It's easy to see that from my perspective. And here's the reality. This is true in every area. You think you might be doing the right thing because you're, you know, you'll, like Matt Chandler said, he was looking for a new pastor.

So he was gonna potentially be open to hiring a less qualified pastor because of their skin color. If they were black, he only needed a black six or seven, but if they were white, he wanted to have an eight out of 10.

And the reality is people are gonna be damaged by that. Not only his flock will be damaged by that, but the person that he's hiring into that role will be damaged by that. Because the reality is people like me, Puerto Ricans who have the intersectionals of slave ancestors and native American ancestors, what we don't need, what we don't need is for someone to lower the bar for us.

No, we need to have the same high standard that God sets for all people. The same, we have the same abilities. Let me talk about this for a second because this is kind of racist. What Matt Chandler said is that, you know, white, a black six, you know, he'd hire someone at that rate, but he needs a white eight.

The hidden assumption there is that, you know, black people need our help. They need us to be able to sort of lower that bar for them. And the reality is that's racist, that's patronizing. And I, if I ever found out that a company hired me in part because of my skin color, I would absolutely quit that day.

And that wouldn't, that's not what, look, Puerto Ricans are capable of absolutely every single thing that white people are capable of. That's a fact. And the reality is if you decide that you're gonna lower that bar for us, you're actually doing us a disservice.

God says to not show partiality. And so if you're gonna show partiality based on skin color for any reason, even if it's a good reason in your opinion, God hates that and God will not allow that to succeed.

God will not bless that. That's the reality. Another thing I want you to consider is when you talk about needing to hear black and brown voices in the church and things like that. And please consider this.

Rejecting Black, Brown, and Latino Theology

Again, grabbing you with my intersectionals. From one Puerto Rican to whoever's listening, right? Don't do that. Don't do that. Because that's the most basic kind of differentiator, the most childish kind of differentiator that I can imagine.

Look, all Puerto Ricans don't think the same. Everyone who has my particular shade of skin does not think the same. That's a stupid way to divide people up. In fact, it's a racist way to divide people up.

Children think that way. And I don't mean to insult you. I really don't. But I wanna encourage you to stop thinking like a child. You see, a child sees somebody different and thinks, well, if they look different, then they must be different.

They must think differently. They must be suspicious or something like that. That's how children think. And we, and Christians, we teach them not to judge by outside appearances, not to judge according to the flesh.

That's what we teach as Christians. We teach our children. But then we turn around and in the name of diversity inclusion, we do the same thing. We judge according to appearances. We judge according to flesh.

There is no black perspective that needs to be respected in the church. No, there's a biblical perspective that blacks, Latinos, Asians, and whites need to adhere to. In fact, everyone's perspective on the scriptures ought to be the same because God wrote the scripture and he's the one who defines the world and the correct worldview.

And we acquiesce to what he says. And so the fact that you think there's a black theology and a white theology, all that shows is the deficiency of human beings on not understanding the scripture the way they ought to, because there is one theology.

That's biblical godly theology. And we can debate about what that looks like. That's fine. But to pretend like if you don't have, you know, a Latino's perspective, then you don't have a correct theology, that assumes something about Latinos that I think is unbiblical and I think is quite racist.

And again, it does us a disservice. It does us a disservice because here's the thing. It's very tempting for someone who's being encouraged in this idea of Latino theology, black theology to say, yeah, you know what?

Yeah, Latinos. Yeah, we need that perspective because you know what? They're right in these areas. And look, I don't think Latinos are gonna be doing this all day long, but it's tempting if you're teaching them, that's okay to judge by according to skin, to start all of a sudden having teams and now having, we got the black church, we got the Latino church and their perspectives are more valid because of their intersectionals.

That is wrong. If you're encouraging people in doing that, I urge you to reconsider because that is going to harm the very people you claim to help. This is the thing, like we can all see this. It happens all the time.

I mean, you got some churches that, you know, not that they won't let you in because of your ethnicity, but you know, your ethnicity is important. Like there are certain churches, entire churches that are set up according to certain ethnicities.

And that's, you know, it's not the gospel, man. That's not the gospel. Anyway, look, I just want you to, here's what I, here's the whole point here. I want you to really think about this because I believe with all my heart, a lot of you have your hearts in the right places, but the things that you're doing are going to hurt the very people you claim to help.

I want you to really look at the scripture and say, am I doing things that just look good in our culture? Like affirmative action, hiring, like diversity inclusion, like people of color fellowship events where white people aren't allowed.

Those things look good in our culture, but are they scriptural? Are they actually good? Because a lot of times what looks good and what's actually good are very different. So I urge you to reconsider.

I'm not making any accusations. I'm not doing any of that right now. Listen, if you want to hear more of my perspective, please subscribe to this YouTube channel. And I actually, I'll answer any question that you have.

So go ahead and reach out to me on YouTube or on Twitter or whatever. But seriously, church, we need to talk about what's actually true about justice, what's actually true about skin color, according to Christ and things like that.

So anyway, I hope this is helpful. God bless. And one more thing about the whole idea of Latino theology and black theology and things like that. Look, the reality is we don't need any of that stuff. A lot of people will tell you, we need to hear these voices in theology.

They might say, well, being Latino might give you a different perspective on the scriptures. And I always kind of find that really silly. Again, this is the stupidest differentiator of all time. Skin color can't give you a perspective on the scripture.

The only person who can give you a perspective on the scripture is the Holy Spirit. Now, might he reveal himself in certain areas for people who have had certain kinds of experiences? Yeah, I mean, that's not a problem at all.

But the call that we're getting is that we need to not only hear Latino and black voices, but also in a lot of ways, sort of look at them in a less critical eye, where it's like, I know he said all these heretical sounding things, but he's still very valuable because of his experience here.

That's not what the scripture says we do with heretics. With actual heretics who deny the incarnation, who deny these kinds of things, there are plenty of scholars that are being talked about as if they're like the greatest thing since sliced bread and social justice, who are actual heretics.

The Bible says have nothing more to do with them. The Bible says refute them with the scripture. I mean, look, I read Doug Wilson, right? I showed this in my other video. He's a white guy and his whiteness has nothing to do with how valid I think his opinions are.

We compare it to the scripture. And so to say that, well, you have a deficient theology if you don't listen or read certain kinds of white theology or black theology or whatever it is, is I think it's an affront to God, first of all, but also it's just, there's no evidence for that.

It's just kind of said. And again, I think to kind of encourage Latinos or blacks to be a little more lenient with some of the heretics that have been in their specific ethnicities, and don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of white heretics as well.

But to say, well, we need to hear the voices of Cone and Martin Luther King on theology and things like that. Look, that's just not the way we do this. That's not the way we do this. The Bible has certain words for people like Cone.

You understand what I'm saying? Again, a lot of these solutions end up putting the people that they claim to want to help in even more danger, both spiritual and economic or anything, more danger than they were in the beginning.

So that's why we need to be very careful and make sure we're focused on the scripture, what the scripture says the solution to these problems are. Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless.