Willy Rice Nominated for SBC President

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter Podcast. My name is John Harris. We are gonna do two episodes on the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Today, we're gonna talk about a recent nominee for president of the convention, because Ed Litton, the current president, is not seeking re -election.

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So we're gonna talk about Willie Wright, the new, one of the nominated people from really the more progressive side, and I'll show you that, to be the new president of the denomination.

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And then tomorrow, we're gonna talk about Al Mohler a little bit. He's kind of in a bind. Some of the things he's said in the past are starting to catch up with him, and I'm gonna show you the bind he's in and how he's being used, or the pressure that's being applied to him.

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And then we're also gonna talk about the Racial Reconciliation Sunday kerfuffle that happened,

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I think that was last Sunday, if I'm not mistaken. So let's start, though, in this episode and just talk about the current nominee for president.

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I do wanna say that I do this podcast, some of you are probably wondering why

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I talk about the SBC. John, we know how you feel about it, and there's really two reasons. There are people that are conservative in their theology, they're traditional in the way that they've interpreted scripture, they wanna do it the way that it's been interpreted, they're orthodox, and they wanna really take the denomination back from those who are progressive political operatives, false teachers, political animals who just seem to be very intent on making the

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SBC acceptable to the world, and I wanna do this for them in some ways,

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I wanna help them, I wanna give them information that could assist them. And then on the flip side, there's also people who are either ignorant or they know a little bit about this, maybe they know a lot, but they are waiting for the right moment to possibly leave the

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SBC, and I want to give them information that will help them make an informed choice on that, so what's best for them and their church.

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So that's why I do this. So let's start here and talk about the, well, it's not coming up.

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All right. I am going to pull up the window. This is what

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Ed Litton, the current president, just recently said. Hello, this is Ed Litton. Over the last eight months, it has been a tremendous honor to serve as the president of our

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Great Commission Baptist family. During this time, I have seen Southern Baptists at our best.

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I've seen Send Relief and state conventions coordinating disaster relief teams to respond to fires in Colorado, flooding and hurricanes in New Orleans, and tornadoes in Kentucky and Tennessee.

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I've also been to our southern border and seen firsthand the mission work sponsored by one local association and a lot of churches, providing six meals a week for people who are in desperate need and sharing the love of Jesus Christ with them in a hope that only

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Jesus can bring. I have visited churches and seminaries and spoken at conferences and events where I have met so many

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Southern Baptists who share with me about the countless ways God is moving in their lives, in their churches and in their communities.

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Our family of churches is animated about one sacred effort, a desperation to see the

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Great Commission fulfilled by getting the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations. This is the reason we cooperate together and it is the heartbeat of our convention.

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It is what makes me proud to be Southern Baptist. And I want to share something else that makes me excited about our convention.

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Roughly eight years ago, God began doing something very special in my own life.

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After the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, leaders in my own city, Mobile, Alabama, which is the heart of the

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Deep South, realized that the Christians in our community had not taken nearly enough action to bridge the racial divide that is in our city and has existed for many years.

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So a group of us began meeting together. We did this twice a month, having lunch at a local car dealership, conference room, pastors, business owners, community leaders, some black and some white, some

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Latino. And through it all, God birthed something very amazing.

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Not only has our group continued to meet together and add it to our number, but we've begun to take the gospel -centered message of reconciliation into our community.

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We've had the opportunity to speak with one voice when tragedy has struck Mobile. And we've continued our efforts to shrink the racial divide that exists in our community.

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Being involved in this work has been an immense blessing to me. And I can honestly say it has changed my life.

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And so I'm very excited to share with you as Southern Baptists that I believe the

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Lord has opened the door for our larger family of churches to embrace a very simple strategy to pursue this kind of work that will bridge the racial divides throughout our communities, throughout

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North America, and bring about a gospel -centered racial reconciliation. This is not a top -down program.

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It is grassroots, locally based, very strategic to help our churches work together and take a stand for Christ in our communities.

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God has brought alongside incredible partners to support this effort. And I'm excited to present this to you at our meeting in June in Anaheim.

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But for me, this is bittersweet news. The truth is that I believe this work is something

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God is calling me to do and to devote myself to for the next five to 10 years of my life.

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But I also believe that at this important moment in the life of our convention, it is best for me to do so as a pastor and not from the office of president of the

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Southern Baptists Convention. It's no secret that this has been a difficult year. As we fought to emerge from two years of pandemic, many of our pastors and churches are struggling.

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We've also navigated some painful conflicts and intense discussions right now. And I wanna speak as plainly as I can.

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As I have previously stated, I take responsibility for my own failures and shortcomings, for mistakes

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I've made in the preparation and delivery of particular sermons. But we are at a critical moment, and I believe that nothing should distract us from what lies ahead.

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In Anaheim, we will receive a report from the Sexual Abuse Task Force that I appointed, and the messengers from our churches must be prepared to act upon the recommendations they bring forth.

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We are also in a time of increased division and polarization and I earnestly believe we must be united in our pursuit of that one sacred effort to reach the nations for Christ.

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And we must keep working to eradicate the stains of sexual abuse and racism from our convention.

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We must not fail to reckon with our past mistakes, but we must commit to seeking for a better future.

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Where racism and prejudices are relics of the past, and our churches are safe places for survivors and welcoming and wanting people of all ethnicities.

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There is still much to be done before the annual meeting. In the coming weeks, I'll be appointing new committees,

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I'll be providing more details about this gospel -based racial reconciliation initiative, and sharing other exciting details about our time together in California.

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Thank you for the honor of serving as your president. And I look forward to continuing to serve with you in the days and years ahead.

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I look forward to seeing you in Anaheim. So those are Ed Litton's reasons for withdrawing as stated from seeking re -election as president, which most presidents,

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I guess, do seek re -election after their first term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. So it's to seek this racial reconciliation initiative.

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And you heard just a little bit he said about the docent research issue and plagiarizing from J .D.

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Greer and from Tim Keller. He mentions it in passing, but still no actual real apology about this, no admission.

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They've all been, every time he talks about it in any negative sense, it's always been very general, couching it in language of mistake.

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There's never been like, I sinned. There's never been a real admission of this is what I did. It was premeditated, nothing.

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So you would think if that really was the issue, which some are saying it is, and maybe he's a weaker leader.

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Maybe that's what they figured out is Ed Litton is defeatable and this docent research thing is making that possible.

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But this is what the man said. This is what he said. So you can take from that what you will.

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Let's talk about the new guy though, that is being promoted by, let's be honest, it's the same group that promoted

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Litton for the most part. Florida about Pastor Willie Rice to be nominated for SBC president.

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This is the story. And he's pastor at Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida.

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And there's an endorsement here. Let's see here.

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So he served as president of the SBC's Pastors Conference in 2015, shared the 2010

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SBC Committee on Committees and chaired the 2016 SBC Committee on Nominations. He also delivered the convention sermon at the 2021

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SBC annual meeting. He was also president of the Florida Baptist Convention from 2006 to 2008.

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So he's been very active. He's definitely part of that machine. And I use that word on purpose after years of studying kind of how the

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SBC works and the political operation, at least that exists in it. So he's very known, very part of that, not an outsider.

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And so this is his church. This is who he is.

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Here's a picture of him and his wife. And he was also, and I don't think I mentioned this in the previous, he's one of the

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NAM elected, let's see, trust, no. Willie Rice elected first vice chairman of the

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North American Mission Board. So there you go. Willie Rice is also there. There he is with Kevin Ezel.

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And we've talked about this before, but Kevin Ezel is probably more powerful than Al Mohler in some ways in the

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SBC at this point. Now, immediately there's some folks started doing some research on him.

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Who's this guy who wanted to find out if he was anything like Ed Litton and on the social justice bandwagon, all of that.

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And one of the guys who did this, the Evangelical Dark Web, they put out something on the ties that he may possibly have to docent research, which is one of the issues that was really caused

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Ed Litton to have a lot of problems, right? And so here's what they're basing this on.

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You can go back in the web archive. I'll try to remember to put these links in the info section.

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And a guy named Grayson Pope who worked, I guess, with docent has at the bottom of his, this is all the kind of like a portfolio of everything

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I guess he's done for probably job interviews and that kind of thing. But at the bottom, he says, he developed this document called

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More Than Words. He said, I wrote this study for Calvary Church through docent research group. So, hmm.

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And so the Wayback Machine has archived it, More Than Words, an eight -lesson study, Calvary Church, and now here it is.

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So I don't know how big the ties are, but I guarantee you once this is, it might already be happening, once it comes out more, there's gonna be stuff scrubbed and other stuff might surface.

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So that's one person who just thought that they found a connection here, perhaps.

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And then, so I'll just, I'll stop there for a second and just say, to remind everyone, since some people might not remember, the whole issue with docent research was that there were big pastors,

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J .D. Greer, Tim Keller, I think Mark Driscoll, I wanna say Matt Chandler, if I'm not mistaken,

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I believe him as well, were all using this research group to help them essentially write their sermons.

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Now, some of them tried to, no, they're not writing my sermon, they're just giving me research for my sermon, they're helping me come up with illustrations for my sermon, that kind of thing.

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But the pastor was outsourcing. This made a lot of people uncomfortable. Is my pastor outsourcing some of his work at preparing sermons to a research group?

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It's just disconcerting. It just feels fake, artificial. You're cultivating an image. This isn't real. And rightly so,

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I think. And to what extent are they actually involved in the writing process of your sermon? And then we looked into it, a team of us, actually, to like, who are these people?

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And you start finding out, there's a connection with Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, not officially, just a lot of grads from there.

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There's a lot of people that we would consider definitely on the left and definitely on the woke side who seem to work for docent research.

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And so it was like, oh, are these the guys, are they helping contribute to the current zeitgeist a bit?

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And what pastors, and a lot of pastors, copy from other pastors. So how far are these sermons that are influenced by docent research getting, right?

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So that was the whole issue. And that was, I wanna say, about a year ago, if that, last summer, I think. And so that's been out there.

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And Ed Litton kinda got caught up in that because it was either his church, now I'm trying to remember because so many facts have been pumped in my mind since then, but either his church had a connection to docent research, or he was just using sermons that J .D.

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Greer had written or co -written with docent research folks.

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So that's how docent kinda got pulled into this. Now, if there is a connection here, and if docent research is doing stuff for Calvary Church, and I guarantee you, it's probably more than just this document.

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They're providing more services, and just the way that it's worked with the other pastors, it would likely be that they're probably helping with sermon preparation.

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So we don't know that for sure. I gotta make that very clear. There's no evidence that I've seen that they were doing that with Rice, but the general trend here, and it would be a safe assumption to think that that's very possible.

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So that's something for further research, perhaps. And then there was this.

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I'm gonna do this, and then we're gonna do a video that I painstakingly went through yesterday that really shows kind of where Willie Rice is at.

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But there's this blog he wrote this January 15th, 2021, so a year ago, and it's right after the

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January 6th issue and the contested election and all that. So he says, what a mess.

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And I'm just gonna read this for you and maybe comment along the way. It is a little longer than I want.

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I might skip around a little, but I wanna give you the full, as much as I can, in the time we have, impression of where he stands on the political stuff.

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So he says, what a mess. The surreal events of last week effectively ended the presidency of Donald Trump, not just his legal challenge to the legitimacy of the election, but also to the very movement that could be called

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Trumpism. Now that, I mean, first sentence, second sentence, it's the end of Trumpism.

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This is the same stuff that we were hearing from the left, the same exact narrative. Well, it's the end of Trumpism. It's the end of America first.

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It's the end to make America great again. And all of us knew that those people didn't go away.

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Like those voters are still there. So it can't be the end of it. And Trump is still the most powerful person.

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Like CPAC just did this, their straw poll. And CPAC is, in my mind, not conservative hardly at all, even though they're called the conservative political action committee.

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They've departed from that. And even they overwhelmingly want Trump. So good luck with that.

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But this is the narrative that was out there. I mean, you can't tell, like, you know, a week after the event that, oh, it's the end of Trumpism.

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There's just, this is just showing kind of where the influence is coming from. It's from the left.

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I don't know what he's watching or listening or reading, but he said, the image of the bare -chested tattooed man wearing a Viking helmet, bellowing from the dyes of the

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United States Senate, the image of a bare -chested tattooed man wearing a

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Viking helmet, bellowing from the days of the United States Senate that President Trump had in fact been reelected may well be the lasting image of the movement.

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I mean, the left wishes that was. Like so many other misplaced passions, this one rendered a man presumably sane into a raving madman.

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Idolatry will do that. Okay, so this is all idolatry. That man was idolatrous.

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This is what happened. This is the Trump movement idolatry, right? And this is the same thing we hear from Tim Keller and Russell Moore and the whole list.

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Those guys, they take the actual Romans 1 platform of the Democratic Party and make that equivalent to the

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Republican Party, which has a seat at the table for Christians and say they're morally equivalent because, well, idolatry. Everything that isn't explicitly sinful is just idolatry.

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Loving your nation too much, idolatry. Make America great again, idolatry. Trump, idolatry. It's all idolatry.

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So you can see him tapping into that. Sadly, there are many people who believe it has rendered our movement, the evangelical church in America, similarly unrecognizable.

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So that's the concern here. Like, what's this gonna say about you? We know Trump's gone. Trumpism's gone. We know they're crazy and idolatrous, but what's this gonna do to the church?

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So he says, bearing a catastrophic occurrence, Joe Biden will be inaugurated next week as the 46th president of the

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United States. We will pray for him and for all leaders who serve in the important role of governance. But what about our movement as followers of Jesus?

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What have we learned about the commingling of church and politics? And will the impact be on our reputation and the culture and our enduring mission?

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Now, I gotta say something here. Willie Rice has no problem with the commingling of church and politics. I'm gonna show you a whole panel discussion he did that shows he has no problem with that, as long as it's a gospel issue.

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If you can corral it into all the ideas on the left, let's corral them into, not all of them, but the ones that we can kind of find some cobelligerency on.

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Let's corral them into being gospel issues. Well, that's what we'll categorize them as. And then we'll categorize the right and their political issues as being idolatrous.

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So on one end, you have the gospel. One end, you have idolatry. The right tends to be more idolatrous. The left tends to be more gospel issue focused.

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Now, of course, they'll say often, well, I'm not saying Republican or Democrat. They both have idolatry. They both have issues.

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But practically speaking, so often you find that there is a tendency to categorize things in that way.

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When it comes to things like the border, when it comes to BLM, when it comes to Me Too, even when it comes to this soft peddling of LGBT sometimes, it's like, well, we gotta think of the gospel here.

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And Christian ethics, they don't usually say ethics, but our witness, our public witness. And then on the right, it's, well, loving your country too much.

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I mean, wanting to make America great again, wanting elections to be fair.

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I mean, it becomes this idolatry. What about our reputation?

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What about it? I mean, look, we wanna do good works.

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So men will see our good works, glorify our Father in heaven. We also, though, don't want to bend to the approval of man over the approval of God, okay?

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So it shouldn't concern us what the world thinks of us in the same way that it should concern us about what

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God thinks of us and the biblical fidelity we're supposed to have. And one of the issues that the people on the evangelical left seem to have is they are so concerned with what the world thinks, meaning the media.

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It's the media. So he says, I do not write to engage in more political speculation, analysis, or punditry.

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We've had enough of that. Nor do I write to condemn those who have supported or voted for President Trump. There are extremes, and I'm not condemning those who voted for President Trump.

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By the way, this is the end of your movement. That's idolatry. This is what idolatry does, okay? And there are extremes in every movement, and there are toxic ideologies in both sides of the political spectrum.

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Here we go. And anyone who can point fingers outward and engage in whataboutism, hmm. What about whataboutism?

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I don't have to choose between Antifa or the Proud Boys. No, I mean, you don't have to join either one.

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That's very true. But we would be super ignorant if we thought that the

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Proud Boys was morally equivalent to Antifa. Would we not? I don't have to choose between socialism or waving a

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Confederate flag. Yeah, what do these have to do with each other?

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Well, they're a media narrative. They're the opposite sides of the political spectrum. You have on one end, in the minds of media elites, the racists who want to oppress people, and on the other end, you have those who wanna redistribute wealth to end racism.

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And so we don't need to choose either one of those. That's what he's really trying to say. But, I mean, it's kind of ridiculous, to be honest with you.

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This is silly. It's just silly. Yeah, you can do what you want. You don't have to do any of this stuff.

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But he's setting up what he would consider, what people would consider to be these dichotomies of extremism that, well, if we're reasonable people, and we wanna be liked and accepted, we're not gonna be with any of these groups or with these symbols, or we're in the middle somewhere.

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So there's sort of like a mass appeal, I think he's trying to cultivate in this, perhaps.

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And the average Joe out there isn't going up and down the street waving Confederate flags, and isn't supporting socialism, and isn't down with Antifa or the

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Proud Boys. And that's kind of how it is today. And so, Jesus warned about the danger of both the

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Pharisees and Sadducees, two warring factions of his day. So that's Jesus trying to be,

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Tim Keller uses the same line. Jesus was, he was between those extremes because you had the Pharisees and you had the Sadducees.

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But here's the problem with that. Jesus actually did agree with the Pharisees on the existence of supernatural things.

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And the Sadducees were more, the progressives, well, not progressives, that wouldn't be a word

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I'd wanna impose upon the past. They were definitely theologically more skeptical of miracles, and they really only believed the law of Moses.

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That's what they had confidence in. And the Pharisees believed in angels, and they believed in the prophets.

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And so, here's where your problem comes in. And Jesus, on that issue, he sided with the

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Pharisees. But he wasn't part of either group because the Pharisees had some big problems, obviously. So, in my mind, this whole thing just unravels.

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It's the principle that he's trying to invoke here is we should be in the middle somewhere between two extremes.

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And that's just not the case. Sometimes you're gonna be the extremist, and we gotta prepare for that. Christians are the extremists. I'm telling you, as this

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Russia thing gets going and Putin keeps getting characterized as a Christian nationalist and the elections are coming up, the

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Christians are gonna be the Christian nationalists. And they're going to be the extreme. What then? Well, the evangelical left is gonna be like, well, we're not that.

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They're gonna separate themselves. But in the minds of those in the world, it's gonna become, if you just believe in a

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Christian ethic, you're a Christian nationalist. If you think that that should be applied anywhere in the government, that you're a Christian nationalist, so you are the extremist.

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Some point, you gotta say that, no, the truth is what's important, not moderation. Moderation's not what's important.

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It's the truth. And look, if socialism is the truth, then go with it.

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No, it's not. It's contrary to human nature. But look, if you're a, and I can, obviously,

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I relate to this to some extent because I have a family connection to Mississippi, but if you have a family that's connected to the

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Civil War and they were on the side of the Confederacy and you want to honor them and decorate a grave with a

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Confederate flag, and there's nothing wrong with it, and the truth is that they were defending themselves and you're trying to honor your father and mother in the sense of honoring your ancestors, then you know what, do it.

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You shouldn't be doing this political calculation of, oh my goodness, I wanna be between socialism and that. I mean, this is insane in my mind if we take this logic to its conclusion, but most people feel comfortable in the middle.

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Man, I don't wanna be on either side. And I'm telling you, the conservatives even are swayed by this often, this logic of like, oh man, it's really, it's dangerous here on the edge.

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I really wanna be in the middle. All right, so he says, there are a great many people who choose to vote for President Trump for very good reasons.

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Faced with a binary choice between two imperfect options, there was an intelligent and balanced case to be made for those who supported the president.

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I reject those who unfairly generalize and condemn more than 70 million people who wanted him to continue as president.

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I do not condemn those who made this choice, but I am concerned. My concern is pastoral, and arguably white evangelicals overwhelmingly support the president, both fueling his rise to power and enthusiastically wanting his administration to continue.

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There are defensible reasons for that position, but there are grave concerns about what unhealthy political passions in this recent season have revealed about the state of the church in America.

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There has been an unhealthy and dangerous co -mingling of religion and politics, which again, he doesn't care about when it's

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BLM as much, but I digress. I believe religious people can and should be engaged in the political process.

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Religious motives are as good a motivation as any and better than most, but people must always understand that the distinction between secular political public policy pursuits and their religious convictions,

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I agree. So BLM and Christianity do not intersect.

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They do not... What has one to do with the other? What commonality do they share?

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One's a completely different social justice religion. When you mix religion and politics together, you get politics every single time.

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Beware of idolatry, even religious idolatry, especially religious idolatry. Is there any other kind? Idols often do not appear to us as idols until we find ourselves bowing down before them and sacrificing our time, talent, and treasure that consume and never give.

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We then find ourselves protesting when someone challenges them or tries to take them away. I mean, he could be describing the 1500th statement a

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Southern Baptist entity or group has made on how they're against racism. I mean, is that idolatry?

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Is that just taking up time? So anyway, our political allegiances can become idols when we invest persons and parties with powers they do not deserve, when we believe our candidates can do no wrong and our side is completely right and the other side is completely wrong, you have fallen into idolatry.

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Does that describe the crowd that was there? There might be a few, I don't know, but I was there.

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I was there. I wasn't inside the Capitol, but I was there for the rally. I'm just telling you,

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I don't think these people would have said, oh, President Trump never does anything wrong. It would have been in the face of reprehensible evil and corruption, this man, we side with this man because he is against that stuff.

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That's how they would have felt about it. So this is a straw man that's being built here. In this current divide, if you believe that your side is not part of the problem, then you are part of the problem.

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I'm sorry if that stings, but if it does, it proves the point. How about apply that to yourself? Come on. When professing

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Christians begin to look to human political leaders to rescue them, to restore, create, and imagine a social utopia or to usher in God's kingdom on earth, we have treated the real

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Messiah for a false one. So who's doing that? This is the straw man, it keeps getting built. Who's doing that? This is

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God's kingdom on earth that we're building. How about we just want a fair election? The way he is, he is in danger here of gossip, of lying, slandering on a broad mass scale after saying, nothing against the 70 million who voted, but then he does this.

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Sadly, I've heard many Christians speak of President Trump in terms that are highly inappropriate. Many have vested in him a calling and anointing to somehow save us from secular forces that were against biblical truth.

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Do you think, do you realize what's happening out there?

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Do you realize how close we are to hate crimes legislation that would totally derail ministries like the

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Southern Baptist Convention? Like, yeah, this guy's not a Christian in the orthodox sense, but he's saying no to that kind of stuff.

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So, I mean, come on, man, like you give some understanding to this. I realize there's some, especially more word faith type folks who have maybe unfairly and wrongly put

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President Trump on a pedestal. I understand that, but you have got to understand what the vast majority of Christians see him as, and it's not that.

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It's that he is what stands between them and the cancellation attempts of the secular

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LGBT lobby, the left, socialists, all of that against Christianity. Many Christian leaders fawned over him in ways that should have made us queasy.

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We welcomed his support, but overlooked his shortcomings. We became partisan connivers instead of biblical prophets.

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Would you describe, connivers? Yeah, that is what's happening. In the face of a couple of days after this whole issue of election integrity, that those are the connivers.

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The bride of Christ is not meant to serve as a concubine, he says, for any partisan cause or political leader. Engagement is one thing, but idolatry is another.

30:53

And you know what? He keeps getting going on about this. We're swept up in emotions. I mean, it's just one -sided accusations.

31:00

We don't need Donald Trump. King Cyrus was like that.

31:06

We just need Jesus. So false dichotomy here. Like, you don't need Donald Trump, you need Jesus. Well, you don't need a dad, you just need

31:13

Jesus. You don't need a pastor. You don't need a president of the Southern Baptist Convention. You just need Jesus. I mean, all this talk about Willie Rice and how he'd make a great president of the

31:21

Southern Baptist Convention. I mean, this is just idolatrous. This is pride. I think it's an emotional thing, honestly.

31:26

And we just need Jesus. I mean, come on. He wouldn't apply this in other areas, but he'll apply it here. Why would he apply it here?

31:32

That's what you have to ask yourself. He said, God never called us to make America great again.

31:38

Yeah. He called us to apply a biblical ethic and the ethics of Proverbs will make any country great.

31:48

Those who, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And America's not there.

31:54

And Trump can't make America there. And Trump's not, but he's preventing us from trying to put a stop gap from us going deeper and deeper into this abyss.

32:05

So this is just, the words

32:10

I'm coming to my mind, I don't wanna say because they're a little strong, but yeah, it's stupid. It's stupid.

32:16

We'll use that word. So the sentiment behind this slogan is just political messaging.

32:23

America has never been perfect. America has done bad stuff in the past. And we need to separate that from the mission of the church.

32:30

Our mission is to speak of a king who said, my kingdom is not of this world. Yes, we realize there's a temporal world and there is an eternal world.

32:37

We can walk and chew gum at the same time. That is possible. We don't have to just pick one.

32:43

Realize that there's an integration between the two and that the ultimately, yes, it's a eternal realm that we are concerned with, but we know that real things that matter happen in the temporal realm.

32:58

And that includes politics, okay? So he keeps going. He says, even when the focus narrows from God's global mission to a legitimate prayer for spiritual awakening and revival in America, the source of that awakening will not come from politics.

33:07

I don't think, I think many of us know this, I think. The current crisis of mission is a product of a toxic mix.

33:14

Satan's using this in too many ways. There are American Christians who have embarrassed themselves with conspiracies.

33:21

Yes. For those who went too far down this road, there's a simple way back. Just practice saying,

33:26

I was wrong. I am sorry. And I really wish SBC pastors would do this, that have platforms.

33:31

I really wish the SBC elites would practice this. I was wrong. I am sorry. He says,

33:37

I'm not asking you to change your political convictions. I haven't changed mine. Remember our identity. This is a time when grace and kindness are needed.

33:44

Okay, so this is the one -sided, lopsided. And let's just see.

33:49

Let's go to the blog here. Let's just see. Maybe he did write a whole thing about the fraudulent issues with that election and the narratives that caused us to get to that point with COVID and all that.

34:06

Let's just check. You have December here. Nope. Let's see. You go before that, you have

34:12

November here, right? This is the time of the election. He says, pray and vote. That's it.

34:20

Nope, nothing there. In fact, if you go to all of these, what you're gonna find is it's general, general stuff.

34:27

And it's mostly like, here's where we're meeting. This is what's happening at church. Logistical stuff.

34:32

Wednesday night. He departed from that. Here's a

34:38

COVID update. He departed from this and decided to give solely a whole lecture about his concerns.

34:50

And those are his concerns. So that's, I just want you to be aware.

34:56

This is the guy that they want in the SBC presidency. How many of you think of those in the

35:02

SBC supported Donald Trump for president over Joe Biden? How many of those probably think that there was funny business going on with the election?

35:10

How many of those probably are concerned with the moral direction of our country? And how many of those probably feel after reading something like this that they were just hit in the face by someone who straw manned them?

35:21

Yeah. And I think what he would say probably, or what really not even him, but most people who say this, because I've read this whole same article in so many different forums, because they march in lockstep a lot of these guys and they have the same talking points they say.

35:38

And usually what it is, is like, no, we're just talking about the extreme elements. But they say it in such broad terms.

35:44

And it's so lopsided towards one side. And it's so extreme in their rhetoric.

35:50

It's idolatry. I mean, they're accusing people of some really serious stuff here. And in showing how much they buy into the media narrative, it is way over on one political side, the analysis of this.

36:03

And the concern behind all this is what I've asked you to think about is why write this? And I think it's given away here.

36:09

It's given away here when he says, what about the reputation of the evangelical church?

36:17

What about the reputation of the evangelical church? It'll impact our reputation in the culture in our enduring mission.

36:23

That's what he's afraid of. He gives it away. So do you want like someone like that at the helm of the

36:29

SBC when you're gonna have real pressure, political pressure applied? Someone who's trying to kowtow to it in some ways or find some kind of a middle ground where let's be reasonable with them.

36:44

Let's not be too extreme. You want someone playing the Hegelian dialectic in the office of presidency for the

36:50

SBC. Now here's the real thing that we need to talk about. This is a, and by the way, the views have gone up by like 600 since yesterday when

37:02

I was looking at this. Help me understand an authentic conversation on race, social justice, and the gospel. And yes,

37:07

I did put the dislike here. I don't like it. I didn't like it. It's an hour and 22 minutes.

37:16

I have condensed it to an hour, or I'm sorry, not an hour. I've condensed it to like 14, 15, 16 minutes,

37:24

I think. And I would just encourage you, go watch the whole thing. If you really want the context and you wanna go watch the whole thing, but we don't always have that time.

37:33

And I think I've been fair as much as I can in my condensing it to the important things that were said during this panel discussion.

37:40

Willie Rice is the one that is hosting it. And I want you to hear what he has to say. I am not gonna comment on it, but there is a link in the info section if you want this particular montage.

37:50

If you want it, if you wanna see it, you can go find it. There, if you wanna see the original video, you can go find it.

37:57

I'm not gonna comment. I'll just say this first before I play roll the tape.

38:04

I want you to look out for a few things as you're watching this. I want you to first look out for the standpoint epistemology. This idea that you need this unique oppressed perspective to understand things.

38:13

You're gonna hear on this panel, which is composed of black pastors and then two white people on pastoral staff.

38:22

The white people in this particular situation are reinforcing the need to listen to the black pastors.

38:29

And that's mostly the purpose that they serve to be on this panel. And of course, it's white people who have both,

38:34

I guess, adopted children from other places like Africa. They have black children,

38:40

I guess. So that's mostly what's going on there. And so the black pastors are giving their lived experience.

38:49

They're talking about police altercations and the way that they feel when they see George Floyd and all that kind of thing that we're used to at this point.

38:59

So this happened in 2020. And so watch out for that.

39:04

Watch out for, you must believe my story and that this is a problem systemically because I have a story, because I'm oppressed, because, and the constant drumbeat is you, we need to listen to other perspectives.

39:15

And if we're white, we're comfortable and we don't know those other perspectives. That's postmodernism. And that eats away at the authority of scripture.

39:23

It eats away at the very basis of revelation itself. Word of God is not understandable.

39:29

It's not about being faithful to the word of God and being an approved workman. It becomes about trying to find these oppressed perspectives.

39:34

And I would suggest to you an event like this already shows that they bought into it just by the fact that they're looking for the truth in all these people's lived experience instead of just opening their

39:45

Bibles up. Okay. Now, people will say who sometimes they'll bring up this, the objection, and I've reviewed,

39:54

I have to review this because it comes up. I've said it, I know, I don't know how many times and I have a chapter in my book about it, but people will bring up, well, you know, it doesn't experience help you understand things.

40:03

And that is true. Experience is a, something that teaches you. And, you know, if I wanted to figure out how to fix my plumbing, wouldn't

40:10

I talk to a plumber about it? Cause they have the experience. And yes, you would. That's not the issue here.

40:16

The issue is, the question is, whether or not being part of a certain social location grants you the authority, the moral authority to speak on certain issues when we have already a revelation from God on the matter.

40:39

So, the plumber does not have special knowledge that is innate in them.

40:48

It's not cause of a social location that you're born a plumber, okay? It's not like, well, I was endowed with this secret knowledge that others need to come to me for.

40:57

It's actually in the hard work and in the experience has been putting in the time to understand plumbing.

41:05

And guess what? You can do that too. You can go as a homeowner and figure out plumbing.

41:10

In fact, you can become a plumber. So, it's totally legitimate to ask someone who has more experience in that particular issue.

41:18

But this isn't like it's something veiled to you because, well, I'm from a social location that's not a plumber.

41:23

My dad wasn't one and I'll never be one. And that information isn't understandable or accessible to me. That's the issue.

41:29

Are there barriers in the way of understanding issues based on these innate fundamental things that we have?

41:37

These external qualities that we have. And so, that's the issue. And I often bring up the example of brain surgery, right?

41:44

You wouldn't want someone who's experienced a brain surgery to give you brain surgery because they underwent the experience.

41:49

Experience doesn't always mean that you have the knowledge on something. You would want someone who understands the principles, the objective principles of how biology works and how medicine works.

42:02

And you want them to be the ones. And experience will be helpful that they've already applied these principles in other areas, but that's what you're looking for.

42:10

Someone who understands those things. And anyone can understand them, right? If they put in the work and get the education and all of that, all right?

42:17

So, hopefully everyone understands that, but I feel it's good for me to explain it again. Look for that when you're watching this.

42:23

Also, look for, your ear should perk up when you hear the word gospel, okay?

42:29

And look how gospel and discipleship are kind of in a sloppy way, kind of wedded together.

42:36

That discipleship is all these things we have to do. We have to change our worship services around.

42:42

We have to make things really more acceptable to the woke. And that's part of the gospel somehow, or being a gospel witness or the message of the gospel.

42:52

Look at where the emphasis is on the works that men do. It's not on what

42:57

Christ does. There is, at the end, there's kind of a, almost a safety net where one of them does talk about what

43:04

Christ can do to change an individual so that they can then go out and do good works, which is the correct way to view this.

43:10

But it's sloppy throughout most of this entire panel discussion. The gospel is just kind of, it becomes, it's never really, at the end, there's a simple articulation of it, kind of, but it's not very clearly articulated throughout most of this.

43:27

And it's, and I wouldn't even say at the end, it's that clear what the gospel actually is.

43:34

So there's an issue there with a lack of clarity on that particular topic.

43:41

It shouldn't have been the gospel. It should have been more the ethic, what we think of as Christian ethics, discipleship, how

43:50

Christians ought to behave. And some people think I'm being a stickler about that stuff, but I think

43:55

Paul was in Galatians. He was a stickler about that, okay? And it was important. So I think it's very important.

44:01

So listen for that. Also just listen for the way that the whole thing's being framed politically.

44:10

In the context of what we just read from Willie Rice about how commingling church and politics is this, is not, you know, danger, danger, danger.

44:18

Listen to what they do in this panel discussion. Is this not the commingling of a political narrative with Christianity?

44:24

Blatantly so. Is Willie Rice not guilty of the very thing he accuses others of? So, and listen from what side is believed on this political narrative, how things are just accepted from the left -wing perspective.

44:39

And listen for also this idea of systemic racism, that America is fundamentally racist.

44:47

That's just part of its DNA, its identity. And we can never really escape it.

44:53

We're just trapped in this thing where we, America is, that's what America is. And it's systemically that way.

44:59

And it's just everywhere. And you need these special glasses from the minority perspective or oppressed perspective to understand where it is.

45:05

You're gonna hear that a lot. So you get the post -modernism, you get the Marxism, that narrative, that there's all these oppressors who are just carrying on the momentum from previous laws that might've been on the books, but they are now, they could not be racist personally, but they're part of these racist systems.

45:24

And so there's some kind of a guilt and they have a responsibility to stand up to it. And so they're still guilty of racism, right?

45:32

Even though they're not possibly racists. So this kind of Marxism narrative, Marxist narrative and post -modern narrative are very much present in this.

45:40

And I'll ask you this, do you want a guy like this being the president of the Southern Baptist Convention? And how would this be different than Ed Litton?

45:45

How would it be different? So let me roll the tape for you. We've invited some leaders from Calvary, as well as some other local pastoral leaders in our area, just to join me in a panel conversation.

45:58

And we're calling this, and I love the title of this, Help Me Understand. That's the title,

46:04

Help Me Understand. And the subtitle is an authentic conversation about race, social justice, and the gospel.

46:13

From the very founding of our nation, this has been a problem.

46:20

That bitter root was planted in the ground from the beginning, and we're still struggling with it.

46:26

We're still battling the fruit of that. Derek, I love your background. You might even share, you share what you're comfortable with because you kind of have a background that transcends a lot of normal racial boundaries.

46:40

And your perspective on what racism is, prejudice is, help us, if somebody says, define those terms for me, help us understand what those terms are, what they mean.

46:53

If you were to ask these men on this stage here who are men of color, tell me the story of where you were in a store and you were followed or you were approached.

47:07

I bet each one of them could tell you at least one story. It is more than just what's in a book that can be proven, documented statistics or research.

47:19

It's a personal experience. I think sometimes, you know, growing up in a comfortable white setting, there is the tendency maybe for some, not all, but some to say, isn't racism, isn't that a past?

47:33

We read about that. We read about that. And now, hey, you know, LeBron James has plenty of money.

47:39

We had a black president. Isn't everything fine now? Does that really still exist?

47:46

And what I'm hearing from so many of my black brothers is more than you know.

47:51

I've asked him to share this story. That was this white guy that walks up, you know, has a nice, seemingly friendly smile and says, wow, that's a lot of stuff you got there.

48:02

Where'd you get that from? I get home and I'm watching on the cable news the mother of this young lady in Louisville that had been shot eight times getting up out of her sleep.

48:16

And just listening to that mother speak, it reminded me of so many mothers that have talked about what has happened to their black children.

48:28

And I'm feeling the pain because I can so, not just empathize, sympathize with her because I've lost a relative to police brutality myself.

48:39

Anyway, the phone rings. And the gentleman says, are you John Matthews?

48:45

Do you have anyone that can verify, anyone that can give us the chain of custody for those items as to how you got them?

48:55

Because I'm black, I was born suspicious. And after 63 years,

49:01

I'm still suspicious. And until I die, unless something radically changed in America, I will be suspicious.

49:08

If you'd been carrying that in your truck, you and I aren't gonna get stopped. We're not getting stopped.

49:14

That idea of privilege started to come and this white privilege, that's one of the questions

49:19

I have for my black friends on the stage right now is how do we do better?

49:24

Help me understand and how can I convey that to my white friends who say, no, that doesn't exist?

49:32

Shane, you've talked a lot. You and I have talked about some of those definitions, those terms, and again, how people use the same words, but they're not meaning the same thing, race, prejudice, discrimination.

49:43

Talk a little bit about what those words mean to you. It is in the very fabric of how America was created.

49:50

It's woven into it. It's in the foundation that was laid. And as we start to pull on that thread of trying to remove racism or we start to pull out the rocks of racism, we are going to start to unravel what people know as America and that's going to scare the crap out of people.

50:06

That is where we've been called as the church to step in. These different things that have been structurally set up, whether it's gerrymandering, whether it's redlining, whether it's the incarceration, minimum sentencing, all of those different things, they might have been pulled out of law and no longer codified, but the structure has set up a culture that continues to perpetuate itself when people don't speak up about it.

50:32

When people hear the word racist, they always feel like, well, I don't say those things, I don't do those things, so I'm not racist.

50:38

We're not talking about that. I know that the majority of people, especially those who claim faith, don't do that.

50:45

The issue is when you see all these things, when you hear his story, if we were to share the different things that have happened while driving while black, there are structures in there that are designed to subjugate one race for the benefit of another.

50:59

And I hear you saying that can be happening then unconsciously. In other words, people who are better than that and want to be better than that, nevertheless, we're in a world in which that very real pronounced brokenness manifests itself.

51:15

Zelvis, you speak into that just from your experience. Again, for those who say, is this real?

51:20

Is this a real thing? And helping, because I've heard many, many in the white community say over the last several days, help me, title of our panel, help me understand, is this a real thing?

51:34

It is a very real thing. And let me say this, if you go back to the image of Officer Chauvin with his knee on the neck of George Floyd, it's one of the most grotesque things you'll ever see outside of Emmett Till.

51:49

But when you look at that image, all you have to do is look at it as a black person in America. And what you hear is all that needs to be said from that image.

51:59

What that image says to me when I see that, and many of my black brothers and sisters agree with me on this, is that this is the condition that we pulled you out of West Africa from.

52:10

This is the condition that you were in when you arrived on the shores of America. This is the condition that you've been in, that your ancestors were in, in slavery.

52:20

This is what y 'all were in in Jim Crow. This is what y 'all were in even after the

52:26

Civil Rights, and this is where you will continue to be under my knee. Here's a sad reality, is there racism?

52:33

Yes, and it's all over America, but here's the sad reality. It's in the church.

52:40

And I believe that's why you want this dialogue tonight. Jason, you're another leader here.

52:45

Like Jeff, you have a black son that you've adopted, your family's raising, and a beautiful family.

52:52

You have to think about this as you raise your son. Jeff said, hey, I didn't think about these issues until, is that kind of your story?

52:59

How do you think about it? No, I've spent the last two weeks talking to colleagues, as many people as I know and can respect that have a different experience and perspective than I do.

53:10

Kevin, what do white people need to know in a different culture that they sometimes don't know?

53:19

And there's blind spots on this whole idea of race that as a black man, you say,

53:25

I wish you understood this. I got pulled over, literally just driving down the street. I had a doctor with me.

53:32

We just got done doing a talk and driving the speed limit. And then I got pulled over and it's the white doctor.

53:37

Then I get pulled over. I'm like, why'd you pull me over? And he said, well, because I couldn't read your tag. I'm like, why would you read my tag?

53:43

You were on the side of the road. I was driving by the speed limit. Well, you know, I just, my system couldn't pull it up.

53:49

I'm like, okay. And then the doctor broke his iPad. He's like, sir, what happened to your iPad? He's like, I dropped it.

53:55

He's like, okay, is everything okay? Yes. Okay, you can go now. If this was Jeff in the car, you think he would have pulled him over?

54:01

No, it just looks strange. There's a black male and a white male together. Something must be going on there. Every thinking, compassionate, moral person was bothered by that.

54:13

Bothered is not even a strong enough word. You know, outraged by it. But it doesn't impact everyone exactly the same way because it, so what do you, you know, and Shane, you can speak to this.

54:26

What, when people who are in the white community are seeing the anger being expressed and they think that's inappropriate, why are you so angry?

54:37

How do you help them understand that anger? Yeah, so we talked about this prior to going live, but Robin DiAngelo has written a book called

54:50

White Fragility. And basically what it means is there's this natural tension that happens in the dialogue between black people and white people when it concerns racism.

55:01

And what it says is that it's such a sensitive topic that can be offensive, that there is a fragile nature to the white culture when they get in dialogue with this.

55:14

And even as I'm listening, I've heard it a couple of times where I don't mean to be offensive.

55:20

Well, to me, it's like preaching the gospel. If I preach the gospel, it's going to offend you because it's gonna tell you, you are sinful, there's nothing good in you.

55:32

And the only way you can get right with God is through faith in Jesus Christ, through his death, burial, and resurrection.

55:38

So the gospel is extremely offensive because it tells me I'm no good. I think it was Charlie Dates, the pastor, who said, we don't have an anthropology problem, we have a theology problem.

55:49

And that's what Shane was getting at. At the heart of this is a failure of theology, is a failure to believe what

55:57

God has said in his word about the importance of every single person because in response to that story, the question was, well, who is my neighbor?

56:06

And the story was the Good Samaritan, which is a profoundly racial story.

56:11

It's a constant transforming work. It is being crucified. It is daily giving up my comfort, daily giving up my privilege, daily giving up my pleasures, daily giving up my culture that calls me to be like them.

56:30

I'm called to be someone that is totally different. I'm called to be like Jesus Christ. And that is radical.

56:37

I think it's important, because like we all said, the church should be the leadership of this situation.

56:44

It shouldn't be the people we see on TV just going crazy. It should be the church who's stepping out in front and saying, this is something we need to stop now.

56:53

And I think that's the problem is the church is the one that nobody's looking at, right? In fact, the world is looking at the church right now and go, they ain't doing nothing.

57:02

Why do I want to be a part of that? That is what the world is seeing. Jeff, I want to pitch it to you, maybe get you to bounce.

57:08

And this may be the hardest question the whole time, because what Kevin said is so powerful. The church ought to lead the way.

57:15

We are the new community in a broken world. Pentecost is the answer to Babel.

57:20

Babel divided mankind. Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came and made one body in Christ. But it hasn't always been that way.

57:27

And in our culture, in our world, the church hasn't, as someone has said, we have been as impacted and sometimes perpetuated racism.

57:38

How, why? How, why have we failed so bad at times? That's a great question.

57:45

Thanks for pitching that to me. I think in part, obviously it's because we're sinful.

57:50

I mean, we all know that actually it's the whole, but if you look, you know, the history books that I read about our nation's history are not entirely the truth.

58:00

And so when you talk about systemic, when you talk about structural, and these are things I didn't understand, I never thought about. I grew up in a community that was 95 % white.

58:06

We just didn't think about it. And I didn't, I wasn't prejudiced. I wasn't racist. My parents raised me right. I understood the intrinsic worth and dignity of all people.

58:14

I got that from an early age from my parents, but I didn't realize this implicit bias that I had and this privilege that I had.

58:20

And that comes from, in part, the systemic things. And so you look at the church, you look at our nation, and I know you are a great patriot,

58:28

Jason, and yet our nation was founded on, essentially, we stole the land of people who were here, and then we took free labor from East Africa to make ourselves rich.

58:40

That's not stuff you see in our history textbooks. And unfortunately, many

58:45

Christians use the Bible to justify their actions. And so when that's the reality that we're talking about, that's a hard thing for me to face as a white man.

58:55

It's gospel men who love one another. None of us have all the answers. None of us are perfect. We're struggling through this.

59:01

We all have prejudice. That is, we all have blind spots. We all have assumptions that have to be challenged. We all have pride that needs to be knocked down.

59:10

But we have the answer in Christ, don't we? I mean, the answer is, I don't know of anything other than the gospel that says, you and you are brothers, and that says, we who are different come, and we are one in Christ.

59:27

Nothing other than the gospel. Nationality can't do that. Nationalism really can't do that. The gospel does that.

59:33

So how do we help us move forward in our churches? What does that look like?

59:39

Does it look like talking more? Does it look like forgiving more, serving more? Shane, take a stab at that, or anybody.

59:45

Jump in there. Help us see a way forward. We need to get out of the things that make us comfortable, the things that are convenient for us, and move to a place where we're saying,

59:55

I want to know the other. Help me understand. So in our worship service, we have different music.

01:00:02

When people are preaching, they preach in a different style. We bring other people in because, and that's one thing

01:00:08

I loved about the Brethren Church. There was no head pastor. There was a group of elders, but even within that, there were itinerant speakers who would come around.

01:00:16

So you got a different flavor, different way of people interpreting the same scripture that someone just read.

01:00:23

Someone just preached on last Sunday. Someone else came and preached on it again, but they did it in a different way. You saw the breadth of who God is, and you realize there's another perspective to this because if you've only seen it one way, what you see is your reality, perception's reality.

01:00:38

Kingdom of God is much bigger. We're talking about the hope of the gospel. You're a pastor, newer church, so you've got dreams of what that church ought to be.

01:00:45

How can our churches live out that gospel unity, and how can we make a difference in the world?

01:00:51

We've got to be honest and say, this is going to take some time. It's not going to be solved overnight, and we might not even see it in our lifetimes, but our kids may see it.

01:00:59

It's worth developing disciples, and that's what ministries are about. Pastors are called to equip the saints for the work of ministry, so that's a process of discipleship, and so we have got to start this conversation in our homes, in our pulpits.

01:01:14

We've got to encourage our fellow co -laborers in the ministry to also have this honest dialogue.

01:01:19

You cannot legislate hate. You just can't do it. Now, are there some policy reforms that need to happen?

01:01:25

Should we be having some national discussions in our senate, in our house, and the president? Yes, absolutely.

01:01:30

Those things should be happening, but hate can't be legislated, and so again, back to what you're saying, the gospel discipleship and being intentional in modeling to the world.

01:01:42

The Bible says this. The world will know that you belong to me by the way you love one another, and so if we can demonstrate this love that transcends color, transcends socioeconomic status, all of that stuff and junk that makes no sense in the body of Christ, if we can transcend that, then the world will begin to wonder, how can the church love each other like that?

01:02:05

I wonder what's the power behind that. I'm glad you asked that question. It's the gospel, because the gospel is still the power of God unto salvation for those who believe it.

01:02:14

That's the solution. This is not an end, it's just a beginning. You have conversations. It may be a lunch, it may be a coffee, it may be with the neighbors

01:02:21

Kevin spoke about. Let this be an encouragement to you to do what you can do, where you can do it.

01:02:28

Okay, so I hope that was helpful for you in understanding the new nominated possible president,

01:02:35

Willie Rice, of the Southern Baptist Convention. Don't take my word for it. If you want, go check out the links.

01:02:41

I'm gonna try to put them in the info section so you can go check it out yourself. This is what's going on. This is what's going on in the SBC. And I think people ought to know about it.

01:02:49

So hopefully that was informative to you. And tomorrow we will talk about some other SBC related stuff.