AD Watches Gospel Coalition Debate on Woke Church!

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Alright, well let's jump into it today. I hope you had a great weekend, a good Lord's Day, a good holiday weekend, and all of that kind of thing.
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I'm going to get into the content very quickly, but if you remember on Friday I posted a kind of an unboxing of a
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Christian fishing tackle company. And I had a chance to try out the lures on Tuesday.
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I found this little brook that looked like a pretty good spot to fish. So I got out of my car, I tied on one of the, they're called
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Miracle Worms. Those are hot pink Miracle Worms. I think the color is technically bubble gum. Anyway, and after a few weeks of not catching a single trout,
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I got this brook trout right here. And this is the Miracle Worm. It was my very first fish on the
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Christian Fishing Tackles company lure. And it is a beauty. Look at this fish.
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Beautiful colors here, kind of like a bronze top and then an orange belly. And if you can see, the fins have this white tip on them.
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Anyway, really cool stuff. So I caught a couple of brook trout on those lures right here.
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And then I went back to this spot later that day, and I saw people catching fish in this other spot, and I wasn't catching anything on the pink one.
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I tied on an orange and chartreuse mice tail, which is a worm, and it has a little ball attached to it.
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And I got my very first rainbow trout. And here's the rainbow trout. I got two yesterday.
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I went back to the spot this morning, and I got five rainbow trout and two brook trout within like 30 minutes.
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It was just like one after another on pink mice tails. And so here's just a few pictures of them.
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Rainbow trout are really cool. These are some nice ones. Here's another brook trout on the mice tail.
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In any case, a lot of good fishing in the last few days. Let's jump into this. So this is one of the good faith debates from the
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Gospel Coalition. Now, I'm going to do the woke church one first, and then I'll do the racial reconciliation, racial injustice, whatever.
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We'll do them both. I'm not sure if we'll do the entire debate, but I do want to experience it with you.
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So I've actually not seen this debate. Looking forward to it. But it actually has a guy that I've crossed swords with before, so to say.
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Sean Demers. Sean Demars? Sean Demers? I don't know. He is the guy from the
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Defendant Confirmed podcast, which in my opinion is Big Evil lite. I remember about a year ago,
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I said that the Defendant Confirmed podcast certainly seems like the Big Evil rebrand, right?
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And nothing has convinced me otherwise. If you remember, these are the guys that did the movie
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American Gospel, which I've heard nothing but good things about. So I'm not criticizing the movie.
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I've never seen it myself, but I've heard a lot of good things about it. A lot of the people they interviewed ended up getting pretty woke, so there's that.
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But that doesn't mean that what they said in that movie was wrong, necessarily. So anyway, I can't recommend it.
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I've never seen it, but I've heard a lot of good things. Anyway, I kind of sent a couple of comments about these guys online on Monday.
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And I got, how dare you, worse than I ever had before. So it certainly seems like this Demars guy is a bit of a sacred cow, so to say.
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So we're going to start with the Woke Church debate here, and I'll explain that. Before we begin, though, let me say this.
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I did make a comment that I do regret. He was saying something about tone and how we've got to watch out with our tone in the
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Woke Church debate or something or other. And I said that this is an example of gay Christianity. Now, you know, yes, the big
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Eva obsession with tone over the substance of the issue, that is definitely gay.
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There's just no question about it. It's like, yeah, sure, the pagans are trying to enshrine
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Moloch worship into our Constitution. But do you got to be mean about it? Like, that's what they focus on.
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You're responding to it, to me. It's not that they're trying to, you know, kill babies as a constitutional right.
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No, that's not that big a deal. It's your tone that's the big deal. That's super gay. But in fairness, the
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Doctrine or the Defend and Confirm podcast guys, at least to my knowledge, they're not obsessed with the tone issue the way big
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Eva is. Even though they're big evil light, obviously not everybody's the same in big Eva. So, you know, that was unfair.
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But also they do push back on some of the Woke stuff. Now, I think, again, I think that they're pretty much in lockstep with most of big
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Eva. So they're not like the pushback that I would prefer. But you do have to give credit where credit is due.
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There is some pushback there. And so it's not as gay as the, hey,
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I don't push back at all on Woke Church. And you can't say anything because your tone is bad. That's super gay.
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Defend and Confirm podcast is not. I do regret saying that. And so I apologize. I hope you forgive me.
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Maybe you didn't even see it. And if you didn't, then there you go. All right. So let's jump into it. I have not seen this.
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Let's experience this together, shall we? You can just tell this is going to be winsome.
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We've got the winsome camera work and we've got the winsome music. There's a woman.
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We empower women. So this is a debate between a guy and a gal. I've said this before.
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I honestly don't. Would I debate a woman? Like, I guess I would, but I just wouldn't feel that comfortable with it.
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Like, it's just she shouldn't be debating. There's just no question about that, especially not a man. It's not the place for a woman.
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I mean, debating is dirty work. And you don't send a woman to do a man's job. It's just that simple.
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But if I had an opportunity to do a major good -faith debate against a woman, would
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I take it? I don't know if I would. I don't know. I just don't know. It just feels weird.
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I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn't. But I wouldn't be happy about it, put it that way. I think
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I'd do it, but I wouldn't be happy about it. Anyway. Is woke church a stepping stone to theological compromise?
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Stop right there. Sean looks like he's about to talk. So I have not heard what Sean says here, but when
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I heard about this topic, I said to myself, oh, that's the wrong question, right?
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Because the issue is that woke church is theological compromise, not that it's a stepping stone.
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So to even participate in this debate is almost a capitulation. It's like, yeah, I know you're woke is a joke.
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Yeah, I know you divide up the fellowship of Christ according to race. I know you are for partiality in your theology and in your practice and in all kinds of things.
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I know you say all kinds of insane things about white people. I understand that. You hate white people, all that.
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But you see, like, you're not compromised yet. This is like a gateway drug.
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This is a stepping stone. No, no, that's not the issue. The issue is woke church is theological compromise.
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It's theological liberalism mixed with race -based partiality and all kinds of stuff.
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It's evil to the core. So even to participate in this debate kind of grants the opposition like legitimacy because it's not a stepping stone.
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It's theological compromise. That should be the debate, whether or not woke church is theological compromise.
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And you should have someone that says it is and someone that says that it isn't. And that would be a lively, good -faith debate.
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This is really just nonsense, in my opinion, but maybe not. Let's see because I've never seen this.
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So allow me to begin by doing what I do best, embarrassing myself. I'm being completely serious when
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I say that I have no idea why I'm here. I've not written extensively on the subject of wokeness.
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I'm not part of any organization fighting on the front lines of the woke wars.
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I'm not in any Twitter spats or Facebook beefs over this stuff because I'm not on Twitter or Facebook.
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Moreover, I'm not a subject matter expert in the field of critical theory, which I'm just going to be using synonymously with wokeness.
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I'm not a subject matter expert in any field related to any kind of critical studies. And to be honest with you,
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I'm not really any kind of expert at all. I don't have a PhD, unlike my interlocutor here who has a
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PhD from Cambridge, which is in England. I don't have a seminary degree.
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I don't have a Bible college degree. I don't have a high school diploma, but I am a pastor. Okay. Why did he start like that?
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Let me start this debate by saying, I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying. I don't have any expertise.
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I have no clue. Why am I even here? Why did I accept this? Man, oh, that's funny. That's funny.
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I think he was trying to be funny there. That's funny. I'll give him that. And the thing is, actually, if I were in this debate,
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I may say something similar. In fact, in my book, I have written, I don't know how extensively, but I have written on the woke church stuff.
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And in my book, I think I say something to the effect of, you don't need to have a PhD to know that it's wrong to divide up the body of Christ according to skin color.
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You don't need to have a PhD or a theological degree or have gone to Cambridge or be
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British. In fact, it'd probably help if you're not British. To know that reparations are against the word of God, you just have to be able to read.
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I mean, the word of God is quite clear on all of these issues. So I might say something like that, but that's why
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I'd be saying it. Because you don't need to have this kind of stuff. But Sean says, and he said he was serious, so I'll take him seriously.
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He says he doesn't know why he's here. Sean, let me fill you in on why you're there. Because you're safe.
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You're totally safe for their agenda. Their agenda is to push wokeness forward. And if not to push wokeness per se, at least to make it okay for a
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Christian to be woke. So they're trying to either push wokeness, which I think is the main goal.
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But if they can't push wokeness, they at least want to neutralize the real opposition.
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Excuse me. They at least want to neutralize the real opposition to wokeness to keep it okay.
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Well, maybe you don't have to be woke, but you have to at least tolerate wokeness. That's why you're there.
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Because, Sean, you are completely safe. And I don't mean that from their—they're not trying to insult you from their perspective.
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You might feel insulted by that. But you're nonthreatening. You're not a threat to their agenda, which is to liberalize the church.
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They want to liberalize the church. And if they can't convince you to be a progressive, they at least want to convince you that it's okay to welcome progressives in the church.
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And it is definitively not okay to welcome progressives in the church if they're not repenting of their progressive paganism.
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So, obviously, you can repent of your progressiveness and your liberal ideas and your partiality and stuff like that and be a part of the church.
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But you can't be promoting evil inside the church. So that's why you're there, Sean, because you're a big evil light.
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You're a big evil light. You don't necessarily agree with the wokeness, and that's good. But your takes are totally safe and nonthreatening to them.
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That's why you're there, Sean. So that might hurt your feelings, but it's the truth. Which means that I've had to reckon with this.
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I've had to think through it. I've had to think about how the gospel applies to this stuff in my local church.
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And to be honest with you, I'm not even sure that I'm capable of giving a satisfactory definition of wokeness.
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To be sure, the term woke does have specific historical and intellectual roots, elevating their critical consciousness and all that.
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Nevertheless, the term has become so politicized that different people mean so many different things when they use the word that it's just hard to nail down a definition.
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So for the question of the hour, is woke church a stepping stone to theological compromise?
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Well, friends, I think it just defines on how you define woke. I mean, obviously, I hate this kind of debate style.
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And look, maybe this is why I don't debate and I'm not interested in debates. I don't watch a lot of debates anymore.
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I used to, but it's just not my thing anymore. Because, like, okay, I understand. Of course it depends on how you define it, though.
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This is such an obvious statement. It's like, yeah, if you define wokeness as total fidelity to scripture, then of course it's not a stepping stone to theological compromise.
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But if you define wokeness as being against the scripture, then of course it is. Yeah, obviously, it depends on how you define it.
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But there's a thrust for woke pastors. It's the Racial Reconciliation Brigade.
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It's the Me Too Brigade. And it's the people that write this book about the queer stuff, you know,
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Side B, whatever the side is that thinks the affections are okay. Like, all of that stuff, that's the woke stuff.
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We know what wokeness is. Like, I hate this kind of style debate. Maybe this is why, you know,
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I don't get invited to this kind of stuff. That's fine. I'm okay with that. Because it's just like, sure, you need to define it.
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Of course you need to define this stuff. But it's just so annoying.
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It's like, we all know what you mean. Woke church, we get it. We know what it is. Eric Mason, that kind of stuff. He wrote the book,
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Woke Church. Like, just that stuff. The people that sound like Eric. The people that are for reparations.
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The people that are all about that kind of stuff. And womb to tomb, all that junk. Let me begin by giving a definition of wokeness.
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But let me begin with a stuffy, technical, academic definition. And then after that, we'll go to a more boots on the ground definition.
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All right. I'm not going to stop it, but I don't care about this academic definition. Wokeness is the product of a bunch of failed
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Marxists trying to bring the Hegelian dialectic back to life by fusing it with all kinds of bad stuff, like Freudian psychology,
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Gramscian philosophy, postmodern epistemology, black feminism, and intersectionality.
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Now, if you are sitting there thinking, Sean, I have no idea what you just said. I don't know what any of those words mean.
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Thank you for acknowledging us. I was one of those people. Sean, I appreciate it.
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Thank you for acknowledging. There are a lot of people that just don't understand. I didn't understand anything he said.
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And don't worry, I'm not sure that I know what those words mean either. Why say it though? What a waste of time.
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Okay, I'm not going to criticize his debate style because I'm not the best debater myself.
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But if nobody understands it, why say it? This is why I wrote my book, because it's full of stuff that's so easy to understand.
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This is turning into a commercial for my book. I don't sell my book anymore. I just give it away. So I guess that's not really a commercial if you're just giving it away.
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But anyway, I wrote it so it could be understood. It doesn't have any of that nonsense, stuffy academic stuff.
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It doesn't quote Hegelian dialectics or anything like that. It's just very straightforward. Anyway, let's hear him out.
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I'm not going to interrupt as long as possible. I make no promises. Let's press in. Let's lean in.
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The aim of wilderness is to tear down the Christian or the Western hegemony. And hegemony just means power structure.
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It's to tear down that hegemony and try to replace it with a perfectly diverse utopia.
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It seeks to do this through an ensconced presence, and that just means deeply rooted, often hidden.
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So an ensconced presence in every major cultural institution in the West, the media, government, education, religion, business, finance, and so on.
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Now, whether one chooses to use the metaphor of a virus or a parasite or a cordyceps mushroom, which you should definitely
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Google later. The idea is the same. Critical theory, wokeness.
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What it tries to do is it tries to glom onto various fields, take them over, and then make them its own so that it can replicate itself.
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So what we see is race studies from a liberal tradition soon becomes critical race studies.
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We see gay and lesbian rights studies turns into queer theory. Education turns into critical pedagogy.
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Now, that's a lot of highfalutin. I'm from Alabama. We talk like that. That's a lot of highfalutin mumbo jumbo from the backwaters of ivory tower academia.
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But here's the deal. Those backwaters trickle down into our everyday lives.
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So friend, you may never hear the term hegemonic power structure or standpoint epistemology.
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You may never sit in on a class where they teach gender bending. But if I had to guess, I'd say you might see a
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TikTok video with a man dressed as a unicorn professing to be a pansexual, dual -gendered vampire.
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And that doesn't come out of nowhere. So one of the things... So that was good, actually.
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I appreciate him saying you're not going to hear this kind of terminology. Although it was a little bit of a bait and switch. He said that he was going to give us the stuffy definition and then the good one.
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But the good one was stuffy too. But I appreciate that he said, you know, you're not going to hear this stuff taught directly or overtly.
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But it all trickles down into your everyday lives. You mentioned this weird TikTok video, which definitely that stuff exists.
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There's no question about it. But actually the dangerous stuff, in my opinion, is much more subtle than that.
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Like not everybody even knows what TikTok is, much less has seen the, you know, transgender, dragon, you know, sexuality, you know, vampire people on Twitter or TikTok.
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Not everybody even has seen that. You know what I mean? Not everyone sees that kind of stuff. That's for certain corners of the internet.
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But like the trans stuff has wormed its way into everyday life.
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Like you can't watch a sporting event without seeing a trans person doing something.
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You know what I mean? Like an eraser commercial or stuff like that. Or even I've been watching the
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Mets a lot more lately. And they've got Pride Night. They're advertising Pride Night.
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It's going to come up, you know, in the next few weeks and stuff like that. So it's in pop culture. It's not just in the insane stuff.
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It's stuff that's presented to you as normal, but it's not normal. And so I appreciate him, you know, kind of talking about that.
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You know, I hope he can get even more, you know, kind of granular in some of the subtleties of this that's super dangerous.
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Because I don't think the vampire kind on TikTok is really a threat for the church. But there are some stuff that is.
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The man making that TikTok has been influenced by a manifestation of wokeness known as queer theory, which says that any attempt to try to define norm in relation to sexuality in terms of binary, such as male or female, masculine or feminine.
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I guess the point is that the danger here is to use the extreme examples and then forget about the stuff that's actually impacting the church, that's actually convincing people in the church, in the conservative, quote unquote, church.
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And that's where the focus, I think, ought to be. Any kind of doing anything like that is an act of oppression.
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Well, let's get some more boots on the ground examples of wokeness. Let's try to define it by exploring it.
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Wokeness sounds like somebody saying my pronoun. This is the best way, in my opinion, to define it.
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You give examples of it, right? Because it's easy for someone to understand. They'll recognize it. Oh, yeah,
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I remember Eric Mason's nonsense sermon about reparations. He was like, oh, hallelujah. Give me some of that drip, hallelujah.
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Like, people remember that. It's not a scientific definition, but it's a helpful one.
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That's how you have to define it. Wokeness says that if you disagree with my opinion, you're trying to erase my identity.
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Wokeness says that silence equals violence. Wokeness looks like self -imposed black segregation on college campuses.
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Wokeness says that data and— Not just college campuses, Sean. And see, this is why you're here and a guy like me is not, besides the fact that you're probably smarter than me, is because it's not just college campuses.
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It's at gospel coalition conferences. See, that's the thing. That's why you're safe and I'm dangerous, because I'll say wokeness is what you did when you had a segregated fellowship event at your women's conference.
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That's why I would never be invited to this, because they know that I remember that stuff. It's not just college campuses. See, that's the danger.
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And, again, maybe he'll get to it. So, Sean, if you do get to this stuff, which
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I highly doubt, because I don't think they'd put that forward on the internet, but if you do,
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I'll take it back and I'll apologize to you. But this is why you're here. It's like if you keep it out there, it's out there in the college campuses, it's out there on TikTok in the
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ZZimZir hashtag, it's like that's safe, because no one's experiencing that in the church.
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And I say no one, although, obviously, I know there are some churches that are bringing that into the church.
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But that's not the real threat. You see, that's the devil that put on clown pants that we can all see is the devil.
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We're talking about the devil that looks like us, talks like us, and knows what to say like us at the
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Gospel Coalition, because they segregated fellowship at their own conference, and they did it, and they doubled down, and they said, you've got the problem if you're against it.
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In fact, you're un -Christ -like if you speak against this. I did a whole video about that.
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I did a few videos about that ridiculous insanity. And so I worry about this style of it.
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It's all out there. No, it's here. It's in here. And we've got to come to terms with that.
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We need to have a good faith debate, but not one that pretends like everything's okay with you when it's obviously not.
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Statistics are nothing more than Western forms of discourse used to maintain elite power structures.
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Wokeness says that landmark civil rights cases like Brown v. Board of Education are really just sophisticated acts of white supremacy because of the doctrine of interest convergence.
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Wokeness looks like replacing Christian clergy functionally with psychiatrists, social workers, historians, sociologists, and activists.
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Wokeness treats all black thought as a monolith and regards any departure from anti -racist ideology as obvious proof of the internalization of white oppression.
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Wokeness says that colorblindness is bad, but race essentialism is good.
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Wokeness looks like the radicalization, and that's their word, not mine. It's in their literature, not my speech.
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Radicalization of the education system from researchers to the administrators to the educators all the way down until what was once a broadly liberal conception of education in America turns into a critical pedagogy used to elevate the critical consciousness of our citizens.
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Wokeness says that discrimination is always the cause of disparity.
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Wokeness will lead us to replace one brand of... That's true. See, that's a big one. And you see, I'm glad he brought it up.
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I would have spent a lot more time there because that's the stuff that people in the church are swallowing hook, line, and sinker.
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I mean, they're swallowing it like this trout swallowed the miracle worm. By the way, you can get that miracle worm at xfactortackle .com.
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I get no benefit from it. It's a great company. Reform, Presbyterian, Theonomic, all that in any case.
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You gotta spend more time there because that's one that's woke as a joke. Oh yeah, there's a disparity?
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Well, that must be racist. You must be a racist. And it's like, that's a big one. Tons of gospel coalition folks believe that exact thing.
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If there's a disparity, that's a problem that needs to be addressed because obviously there's a racial problem and stuff like that.
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And obviously that's not what the scripture teaches and that's why there's a problem. See, again, that's why you're here,
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Sean, and I'm not. Because I would be focused and hammering them home in a very good faith and winsome way the points that are affecting gospel coalition and the church more than the stuff that the nonsense that's out there.
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I don't care about critical pedagogy and all this stuff. Yeah, that's all important. But that's not the stuff that's tricking people in the church.
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I don't want to criticize him so much because it's hard to think quickly on your feet. Obviously this is a prepared statement, so it's a little different.
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But when you're thinking of how to present information, especially when they tell you hey, we're picking you because you're winsome, now you're kind of like if you agree to that debate, it's like you get like it's almost like trying to fight with your hands tied behind your back, almost.
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Because it's like is it winsome if I say if I talk about how the segregated worship is in gospel coalition too, not just out there, and it's in here?
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Is it winsome if I focus on the issues that are affecting people that are probably in this room right now?
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Is that winsome enough? I don't know. Maybe he'll get to there. Again, I don't want to jump out into conclusions.
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We're only seven minutes in here. But again, it's just like if that's the stipulation for a good faith debate, then there's really no debate here.
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This is just a vehicle for normalizing nonsense in the church, which I think is what this really is.
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Sean is not participating in it, at least knowingly, but the people who put this together are trying to normalize insane pagan political ideas in the church and make it okay.
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Oh, it's just a good faith debate. We can agree to disagree. No, we can't. No, we can't. We can't agree to disagree on whether or not we should allow segregated worship in our churches.
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Segregated by race. For goodness sake, how stupid is that? History, like an
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American history textbook from the South that downplays racism and slavery, replacing it with another version of revisionist history, like the 1619 project, which says that all of American history is only and always about racism and slavery.
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Wokeness says that justice must stop being blind to color, class, and sex and must only and always focus on color, class, and sex.
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You gotta hammer this one home because there are so many examples of gospel coalition pastors doing this exact thing.
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This is evil, guys. This is not a small, oh, we agree to disagree. This is evil, wicked, vile stuff.
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We all know how vile it is from the old days when the whites were against the blacks. We all get it.
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We all understand. We talk tough against racism that's from the past, but the stuff that we see today, the partiality that we see today, the anti -white hatred that's just on the lips of so many in the gospel coalition, so many that gospel coalition promotes, the hatred of whites is just palpable, and yet where are the faithful?
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Where are the faithful leaders that'll talk tough on that stuff where it might cost you something today? It might cost you something.
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They might call you a racist today. Where are those guys? No, no, no. They're over there. They're fighting the
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Goliath that was slayed yesterday. He's already dead. They're kicking him. They're big and bad with that stuff.
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That's the point you've got to hammer home. I'm so glad Sean brought that up. You may be thinking,
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Sean, come on. These are just fringe examples from weird liberal arts colleges in Canada or, even worse,
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Vermont. But friends, no. This kind of stuff is becoming more... That's where I'm from.
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When I interviewed with these guys, I was in Vermont. That might be a slight at your boy A .D.
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He's right, though. Vermont's a wackadoodle. ...or mainstream with each passing day.
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In the cinematic masterpiece, The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep reminded us that high fashion may look ridiculous at first.
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But what you see on the runways of Paris and Milan eventually trickles down all the way to the sales rack at the
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Gap. In the same way, the highbrow intellectual theories from the backwaters of academia will trickle...
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Was there a cut there? Just there? Right here? If anyone knows a lot about video...
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There was obviously a cut there, but did they cut any of his speech out there? Because that would have been an opportune time to start talking about how it's affecting people in the conservative church.
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And he didn't do it, which might be because he's trying to be winsome, or it might be they cut it out. But you see, again, he's like, it's becoming mainstream.
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That's what he says. And he's right. It is becoming mainstream. But it's not just mainstream amongst the pagans.
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It's here. It's in the church. And a lot of those things that he said was fringe. He said, come on,
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Sean, that's fringe. After all the things he just said, a lot of those things are in the church. They're fringe, but they're in the church, and gospel coalitions normalizing it.
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This is interesting stuff. I wonder if there was a cut there. If anyone knows about audio and stuff and can let me know if there was something cut there, that would be helpful.
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...down into our everyday lives. Men and women being pumped full of high -octane wokeness in college classrooms, they don't leave that behind in the classrooms when they go out into the real world.
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They take it with them into the newsrooms and into the boardrooms and into the situation rooms and into the classrooms.
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Into the Sunday schoolrooms. That's what I'm saying. So you may not identify with or accept the most explicit and egregious examples of wokeness, but that doesn't mean that you haven't perhaps already been influenced unwittingly.
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It's entirely possible that the way that you've come to think about race, for example, has already been influenced for the worst by people you've never heard of, writing books and papers that you'll probably never read, talking about subjects and using words that you're unfamiliar with, but their ideas have been simplified, distilled, popularized, repackaged and distributed to the masses, like you and me, laymen.
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The same thing, of course, can be said of the way that you've come to think about gender, sexuality, identity, climate change, health, math, science, philosophy, education, communications.
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Climate, he's right. Climate change. He's right about that. Even the gospel. So, will woke church lead to theological compromise?
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Well, friends, my fear is that it already has, in ways that many of us can't see and won't see until the damage has already been done.
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My fear is that many in the church have already been taken captive by what Scripture calls philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world.
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I think this is why it's winsome, and this is good stuff, so I'm just going to give a little comment here, but I'm not trying to criticize
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Sean, but I think this is why it's winsome, because Sean says, my fear is this, right?
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Ever notice the guys that get promoted as winsome examples? They often use the word fear.
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I fear, I worry. They're worried, they're fearful, they're concerned.
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These kinds of emotions. Gavin Ortlin is famous for this.
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I've got deep concern about abortion. It's like, really?
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You've got concern? I fear that the church is doing...
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It's like, really? It's like these major issues, and they're worried, they're fearful, they're concerned.
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So I think, and again, I'm not trying to criticize Sean here, because this is good stuff, what he's saying, so sorry for interrupting it.
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If this is the standard of winsomeness, this is, in my opinion, this is what's wrong.
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This is what's wrong with our ideas of what winsomeness is, because the minute I say, no, no, wokeness is in the church, it's infecting it like a cancer, and Gospel Coalition is promoting a lot of this stuff, and pretending it's a gospel issue, it's love your neighbor as yourself, it's a matter of the law of God, and dividing the church if you don't go along with it.
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Like, I know those things, I don't fear it, I know it's happening, I don't worry about it, I know it's there, and I fight against it.
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I'm not concerned, I'm not deeply troubled, that's another one, I'm troubled about what I'm seeing, no, no, no,
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I'm not troubled, I'm fighting against it, I'm against what they're doing, I know it's happening,
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I'm not crazy, you're not crazy, but I guess it's not winsome to, it's not winsome to know something, it's not winsome to be confident about something, and by the way, confident, that just means with faith, right?
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It's not winsome to have either conviction or zeal, and see, that's the problem, like, there are, there are times to worry, times to be concerned, and there's times to be zealous for the truth, but no, no, no, they don't want that part of Christ, they don't want the zeal of Christ, they don't want the confidence of Paul, they want the, oh,
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I'm concerned, I'm weeping, I'm, that's part of it, guys, that's all part of it, and I've done that myself, but the minute you start having confidence, the minute you have conviction, the minute you have zeal, that's when they're like, whoa, whoa, can't you be more winsome?
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And it's like, man, I just, I hate that mentality, man, I hate that, it's just like, it's ridiculous, it's ridiculous, it leaves the church in this very passive, sort of constantly worried, kind of like in a, it's just really, it's effeminate, is what it is,
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I'm just gonna come out and say that, it's effeminate, that's not how men operate all the time, again, there's times for that, there's times for worry, fear, concern, and all of those things, and then there's times to steal yourself and have some conviction.
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By the way, this is one of those times, the demons are out there, and they're proud and celebrating and all of this stuff, this is the time to steal yourself, because the
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Lord's on your side. Let's let Sean finish, because he's on a roll here, again, I'm not criticizing
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Sean, but this is why he's here, because he fears things, he doesn't have strong conviction that Gospel Coalition is doing this, or Eric Mason was doing that, or anything like that, that's the other thing, he can't name names, obviously, that's a given, that's a given.
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...and not according to Christ. My fear is that wokeness has not already corrupted our theology proper, but also our homardiology, our soteriology, sociology, anthropology, and eschatology, oh my.
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Wokeness, properly defined, friends, is a totalizing worldview, ...and any careful student of Scripture knows that Christians have constantly got to be on guard against syncretism with false religions.
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The walls of the church have always been porous, which means that God's people have always been in danger of false ideologies, and worldly philosophies permeating the walls of the church through osmosis.
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From the worship of Baal in the Old Testament to Gnosticism in the New Testament, from New Thought and the
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Prosperity Gospel to wokeness, critical theory, and social justice activism, God's people are always susceptible to Gospel compromise in one form or another.
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As I survey the changing landscape of American evangelicalism and see Christians saying things like, we must dive deeper into an intersectional exploration that examines both
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God's blackness and femaleness on the cross. Or, we need more womanist, black liberation, and queer theology.
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Or as I talk to ... See, again, this is the danger. Again, he's really only talking about the radical side of this.
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Like, it's not as radical in the church as it is out there, but the examples he's choosing in the church are on the extremer end of the conservative conversation.
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See, this is the problem. You make it seem like it's an issue out there.
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It's not with here. It's not in Gospel Coalition. And it is. It's way more common than that. Churches say that they can't go to a white church where they sing white songs because it feels like a dangerous place.
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These are all legitimate. This happens. Kyle Howard's one of these trauma queens.
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Oh, the white church is traumatizing! I can't sing a white song! He's a trauma queen.
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And it's like, everything I don't like, it's trauma. There's real trauma out there, but not everything you don't like is trauma.
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But the point is, again, he's almost otherizing. That's out there. It's not here. No, no. It's here.
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It's in this room, Sean. Don't you see that? It's dangerous to pretend like it's just those ...
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It's only the Kyle Howards that we have to worry about. No! It's not only the Kyle Howards we have to worry about.
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It's the Tim Kellers. It's the Tim Kellers. It's the Matt Chandlers. It's the David Platts. That's who we have to worry about.
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They're the ones who are compromising the most. And they're the sneakiest about it. Kyle Howard looks like a clown.
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He is a clown. People listen to David Platt. People listen to Tim Keller.
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And they're just as woke. Maybe not just as woke. That's not fair. I just can't help but conclude that significant compromise has already taken place.
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And the consequences of this compromise are being felt as we speak. I don't have to prove that to you.
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You know it. You feel it. You're experiencing it. Your relationships are breaking down. Race relations in American churches have been set back 50 years.
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Well said. You don't have to define it like a psycho -academic. He's exactly right. You know this is affecting you.
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You know that you've been disowned by friends you used to have because you didn't say that so -and -so killing was the worst example of racism fast enough.
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You didn't say it fast enough and so now you're the problem. Now you're racist. You know this is good stuff,
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Sean, because you don't have to define it. That's a tactic. Oh, we've got to define wokeness. Is wokeness even a thing?
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No. You know. There is a general atmosphere of suspicion rather than loving charity.
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Entire churches, denominations, and parachurch organizations are crumbling around questions of sex and gender and identities.
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There is a breakdown in gospel unity. There is an uptick in anger, shame, confusion, enmity, strife, jealousy, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, factions, and envy.
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Don't even get me started on the way that some of my conservative brothers and sisters have failed to appropriately,
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Christianly, respond to this threat and have only made it worse. And this is why you're here,
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Sean, because you're there to be like, okay, if you're not going to be woke, you at least have to tolerate it.
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You at least have to be winsome. You at least have to be fearful without conviction, without zeal, without going to war over this, because this is the thing.
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He's right. The church has been susceptible to attacks from the outside from its entire history, but you know what?
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We don't have to sit back and do nothing about it. We can actually get to work. We don't have to let them in the gates and then fight them when they're in the gates.
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See, that's the thing. That's why you're here, Sean. That's why you're here. You said you honestly don't know. Here's why.
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It's because you're part of the project of moving the church leftward, and you're going to allow it and you're going to fight against the people that are on the front lines fighting this attack.
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Even though you're on their team, Sean, I believe you. I believe you that you're not woke. I believe you that you don't like some of the more extreme stuff here.
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But you see, the thing is, a lot of guys, and it's not just me, there's a lot of us now. I mean, there's way more than there's ever been.
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But we're fighting the enemy in the front and then we got you shooting us in the back as well, and we're getting sick of it.
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It's just so frustrating. We'll do it. I mean, look, this is the lot we have. We have that lot.
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That's fine. We're totally okay with it. But this is why you're here, because you agree with their general thesis that, hey, it's really yeah, wokeness in the extreme forms is pretty bad, but we're all
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Christians here, right? I mean, after all, that all serves the purpose that they have. It's either you're going to go woke or you're going to tolerate wokeness.
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Those are the two options, and you are playing right into their hands right here, Sean. And it's a shame because you've said a lot of good things.
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You obviously know your stuff, and there's just no question about it. You don't have to be friends with me. You don't have to support me.
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And you don't have to support some of these other guys, you know, John Harris and O 'Fallon and James White, Doug Wilson, all these kind of guys, right?
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You don't have to do it. The conservative guys, the Conservative Baptist Network, all that kind of stuff.
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You don't have to support us, but could you just please stop shooting us in the back? That would be helpful,
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I think. But I don't think you're going to do that, so I retract my request. You can keep doing it.
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In closing, Antonio Gramsci once remarked that socialism, and by socialism, he meant cultural
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Marxism. He says that socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm
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Christianity. I think if Mr. Gramsci were to be here today, he would be pretty pleased with the progress that has been made in the
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West in general and in the American church in particular. And yet, in the end, friends,
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Gramsci will roll over in his grave. Because he will see that the church will not be overwhelmed.
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Christianity will not suffocate under the blanket of cultural Marxism. Not only will
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Mr. Gramsci roll over in his grave, but he will also rise up out of it where he will meet Jesus face to face, and he will be judged.
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Just like you, just like me, just like everyone. The church of Jesus Christ will not be overwhelmed.
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Not by Marx, Marcuse, or Mao. Not by Derrida, Foucault, or Leotard. Not by Crenshaw, Delgado, or Matsuda.
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Not by reactionaries, revolutionaries, or rebels. Because we know that the gates of hell will not prevail.
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We know how the story ends. Satan loses. Death will die. And the church will reign victorious.
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Even over wokeness. Alright. So we're going to end there.
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This has gone on about 40 minutes or so. Very interesting start to this. I didn't know that the theme of this was going to be, this is why you're here,
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Sean. But that's the theme of this video. It's like, you don't know why you're here? Let me tell you why.
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Because you were used. And I don't think you were necessarily part of the plan here. You were unwittingly used, but you were used.
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Because they knew they could count on you to deliver a completely safe to their project message.
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And you did exactly that. You did exactly that. You nibbled on the fringes of some of this stuff. And there was some good stuff in there, right?
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But you didn't go in for the game winner.
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You know what I mean? The kill shot. And I mean that figuratively, obviously. Because you made it seem like it's a problem out there, for the wackadoodles.
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No, no, no. It's a problem right in here. Right in this room. And there's so many examples that could have helped people, that if you would have just given them, people would understand what you were saying.
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Instead, you nibbled around the edges, and they knew they could count on you for that. They knew they could count on you to be fearful instead of zealous,
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I guess is what you could say. And so that's why you're here, Sean. That's why you're here. Looking forward to Rebecca McLaughlin's part of this.
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I don't know what she's going to say, but I'm assuming she's pretty woke. We'll see. But we'll see that next time on the 80