What's Wrong with the Gospel Coalition?

Apologia Studios

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Here's a little pernicious thing. So here you have groups that essentially don't believe in biblical social justice.

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They're essentially, let's use the language, a retreatist, a pietist. The view we're talking about is sort of the evangelical aloofness, right?

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Yeah, that's a good word. So they've often said, no, we're not interested in social justice. That's getting away from biblical emphases.

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That's wrong, but that's what they say. We need to get back to just preaching the gospel, though they don't really understand the fullness of the gospel, but that's their view.

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Yet we're seeing something very ironic happen today. And even groups with which we would tend to agree on a number of issues, at least before, like the

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Gospel Coalition. So all of these people who held this privatistic view, this truncated view of the gospel, now it's just amazing.

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We turn around and we see that they've become infiltrated by people who say, no, that's not right. We do believe in the gospel and in social justice, but of course, it's a leftist version of it.

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So we learn an important lesson here. Quote, social justice will somewhere and always get its revenge.

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If we don't stand up for biblical social justice, this sort of privatized view of the faith will not long survive.

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And eventually we've been infiltrated by people who at least recognize that the faith, even if it's a perverted version of the faith, must apply in society.

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And that's what we're seeing today, I think, in groups like the Gospel Coalition. Often, actually, also the PCA, though many find folks in there, and sort of the racial tensions in the

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PCA and so on, same kind of thing is happening. Because they have retreated, there's a vacuum.

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We hear the expression, you know, that nature pours a vacuum. Well, I've come to say grace also pours a vacuum.

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If you don't believe in the grace of God applied and the justice of God applied in all of life, eventually a wrong form, a twisted form of social justice will enter.

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That's what I think we see happening. That's right. Okay, so last thing, and I know you've got to get going here,

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Dr. Sandlins. I appreciate so much your coming on today and spending this time with us. So there was a recent statement put out.

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It was the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. And you guys can all read that at statementonsocialjustice .com,

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statementonsocialjustice .com. Dr. Sandlin, you signed the statement, and I want to just talk to you in terms of just quickly addressing this.

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There are sort of two directions people go as they've looked at the statement and they've criticized or made comments on the statement.

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On the one hand, you have people, ultimately, I think, that are falling into a lot of this cultural Marxism and things like that, and they have sort of a wrong way of looking at justice or social righteousness.

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Their complaint, looking at the statement, is you guys don't care about justice at all.

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You don't care about these issues. You're not willing to address them. You're putting them, you know, you're just trying to tuck them under the rug.

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You know, you're not really listening. And so that's the one complaint. On the other hand, this is the interesting thing.

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There are Christians that hold to a more, I think, biblical, historic view of culture and society and the kingdom of God.

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You have people that would call themselves post -millennialists that are actually complaining, saying, well,

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I don't think that—I can't sign this statement because I don't believe it goes far enough. I mean, it minimizes the language that I would want to see take place in saying things like, you know,

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Christians should have some effect on the culture. But Dr. Sandlin, you and we here at Apologia Studios believe it's ultimately through the kingdom of God, the preaching of the gospel, regeneration, new hearts and all that.

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It's not going to be some effect on the culture. We believe, 1 Corinthians 15, that Jesus is putting every enemy under his feet.

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And after every enemy is under his feet, then death will be put under his feet. But that's after everything's put into subjection to him.

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So Jesus wins, not just at the end of the world and the resurrection, but in history through his conquering kingdom and gospel.

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So there are people that hold our perspective that would say, hey, I don't think this statement goes far enough. What would you say to that? Yeah, no, good point.

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In fact, one of our scholars didn't sign it, but Dustin Messer wrote a fine article. I'm particularly sympathetic to that second objection.

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I don't, in substance, disagree with it. The reason I signed that statement is because it was a powerful declaration against, quote, modern social justice, modern egalitarian social justice, and cultural

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Marxism. Yes. I think the statement is much stronger in its denials than in its affirmations.

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Okay. So I agree entirely it did not go far enough. It doesn't have a full -orbed understanding of the gospel.

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It was put out by John MacArthur, who I think in many ways is a good man, but I think he himself has a rather narrow, and has had.

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His dad was a fundamentalist, good, faithful. On the fundamentals of the faith, Australia is narrow.

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But on some of these other issues that are close to the fundamentals, like the fullness of the gospel,

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I think there's something wanting. So I think that statement is wanting. So I wouldn't fault anybody who didn't sign it.

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I certainly would fault those leftist social justice warriors who opposed it because they saw who it was attacking, of course.

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But I certainly wouldn't fault those who don't sign it because it didn't go far enough. I signed it because I think it was a good, in a basic sense, a good, sound repudiation of the social justice and cultural

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Marxism that is infecting the Church. But I agree, it does not have a full -orbed view of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And I guess from their perspective, it wasn't intended to do that. No, that's right. And so that's the point.

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The main issues that you are concerned with, and many, many men and women are, is these fundamentally necessary responses to the social justice warriors, the cultural

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Marxists, and all that's infecting the Church. That needs to be upheld and heralded. Those things are very, very important, and critically important today.

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And you mentioned it, Dr. Sandlin, and I know we didn't plan on talking about this, but I'll at least highlight this. There has been some very troubling things coming out of major organizations that were historically solid, things like the

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Gospel Coalition. You have things being said by them that are honestly terrifying to me.

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Yeah, very Marxist. Terrifying. Yeah, absolutely Marxist. And I've written on that online.

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I think under the guise of opposing racism, and all of us oppose racism, it is a terrible sin.

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I hope I don't have to spend five minutes. Of course that's true. But under the guise of opposing racism, it actually becomes a form of racism or racialism, which cultural

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Marxists love to do. See, I didn't mention this. Cultural Marxists, like all Marxists, believe progress comes only by conflict.

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And that's their dialectical materialism, which I won't get into. But essentially that's why they're constantly stirring up conflict.

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Well, the best way to solve, quote, the problem of racial reconciliation in the Church is be the

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Church. I mean, Paul says it in the Book of Ephesians. He's broken down the middle wall between Jew and Gentile.

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So the only color that's important in the Church is red, the red blood of Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters loving one another and caring for one another.

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In the wider society, what's important is equality under the law. I talked about that. Equality of processes.

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And that's fair whether you're white or black, Asian, Hispanic, or whatever. These other issues to try to manufacture, to try to produce a sort of respect and talk about white privilege and all of that is really to undermine the rule of law, which is basically treat everyone fairly under the rule of law.

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That's in society. And in the Church, of course, you have the blood of Jesus Christ, which brings us all together.

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So I think that the – it's sad because I've appreciated much of the Gospel Coalition in the past, and some of the – not all, but some of the folks in the

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PCA with the Revive – was it not Revive, but Revoice?

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Something like that conference. I think that's at its roots, at its roots, all of this is culturally

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Marxist. And to me, I tend to have more respect for the just secular cultural

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Marxists like Marcuse and those that follow him. At least you know where they stand.

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But to take cultural Marxism and to put a nice little Christian bow on it, that really is reprehensible.

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It is reprehensible. Very, very. Well, Dr. Sandlin, as always, it's a privilege, an honor to have you on.

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Hey, where can people go to get your stuff? I want them to start listening to you and to start downloading all your material.

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You've written some excellent, excellent books, but I want people to get connected to you and to really start digesting some of your very helpful teachings.

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So where is the best place? Yeah, thanks so much, Jeff, for giving me that platform. So the website for Center for Cultural Leadership is easy.

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Christian Culture. Written all, actually, solidly is one word. ChristianCulture .com. And then my blog is

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DocSandlin, written solidly, dot com. ChristianCulture .com, DocSandlin .com. You can get all the article, you know, web articles and books and booklets and audio and all that stuff.

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So quick question, to help people with this discussion, we want this platform to be something that's a blessing to the people of God, you guys who are all watching live right now.

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We don't want this to be a one -shot deal. We want you to be able to get more and digest and think through these things. And then to have a

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Christian, Gospel -centered influence in all these areas. So, Dr. Sandlin, what would be a good book that you would recommend that really engages this issue in a very helpful way?

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Yeah, you know, I would think, you mean on cultural Marxism? Is that right? Yeah, just in general.

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What would you say? Or maybe recommend two or three books to get a full context. What would you say? Yeah, I would say on cultural

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Marxism, a wonderful book by the British conservative Christian Roger Scruton, S -C -R -U -T -O -N, called, let's see if I get this right,

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Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands. I know it's kind of a mouthful. But again, if you just Google his name, go into Amazon or whatever,

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S -C -R -U -T -O -N, that would be good on the issue of cultural Marxism. On the

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Gospel itself, you know, just off the top of my head, because I was reading a new book of his, I would get the little book series by Joe Booth you mentioned on,

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I think, Gospel Truth and Gospel Culture, and I think he's got one or two more, B -O -O -T, because those are little short sort of bite -sized views of the

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Gospel. So, I mean, those are two of the ones. If you want to really get, I would say that the meaning of the

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Gospel, as far as biblical words, you can't do any better than a book by Leon Morris called The Apostolic Preaching of the

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Cross, or the popular version is simply called The Atonement. It's meaning and significance. Those books are just great.