Anti Asian Racism and Book of Malachi

All right, social distancing, stay -at -home order, self -quarantine,

April, what day is it? April 17th here in New Hampshire. I looked it up on the

CDC website and I gotta be honest, I am a little bit worried. I have all the symptoms of asymptomatic

COVID -19. All right then, let's do this.

Sorry, I did not put a podcast on the Fight Life Feast Network yesterday again. I just, oh my goodness, lost track of time.

I've got a lot going on here. Trying to get my house set up. I'm trying to raise these chickens. I'm trying to build a chicken coop.

I'm trying to do all kinds of stuff and it's just hard to stay consistent. I'm sorry about that, but I will put this video on my podcast.

If you prefer to listen to this audio, you'll be able to get it on the Fight Life Feast website, but also the application, which

I think has been banned or something like that. I don't know. Anyway, I wanted to start today with this,

Asian American Christian Collaborative. People continue, people in the social justice movement,

I should say, continue to make a fool out of Thabiti Anyabwili. Do you remember when Thabiti Anyabwili said that there is no social justice movement?

You remember that one? That was a good one. That one, I laughed about that one probably, I don't know, probably for a half an hour straight.

He tried to convince us there's no social justice movement, which is like trying to convince someone that the sky is not blue.

Obviously there's a social justice movement, but one of the evidences that he said that there was no movement was that there have been no statements about social justice.

And we all know that if you have a movement, you have to have a statement that people can sign. And the reason

Thabiti did this is two -pronged attack. It's a stupid attack, but it was a two -pronged attack.

One, it was to pretend like there was no social justice movement. And two, to pretend like there was an anti -social justice movement because, you know, remember the statement on social justice that all those guys put forward and all that kind of thing.

So it was like a two -pronged assault. I mean, it was a really stupid, very unconvincing two -pronged assault.

It was like trying to fight, I don't know, a tank with a bunch of rocks. But anyway, that's what he did.

And what was so funny about that was at the time it was already false.

There were social justice statements that already existed when Thabiti said that there were none.

But since then, there have been many, many other statements that have been released by various entities, various parts of the movement, various blogs, and just groups of people that want to promote social justice in a variety of different ways.

And so even though it was a lie at the time, Thabiti lied. I mean, Thabiti lies a lot online.

Let's just be honest about that. Even though it was a lie at the time, it's become more of a lie every single day, and it's just hilarious.

So here is one of the latest social justice statements put out by the Asian American Christian Collaborative.

Now, we've got a lot of important things on our mind right now. The economy shut down. People are wondering, how am

I going to make money this month? We've got the coronavirus that's going around killing everybody in sight.

Obviously, it's a very serious situation. But in the midst of this, what we have here is a website that's been created because of all of the anti -Asian racism in the time of COVID -19.

So let's go ahead and read this statement, and we'll decide whether or not to sign it after we read it.

Here we go. Anti -Asian racism statement. I like the graphic.

One thing that's good about social justice warriors is they tend to have very good graphic design skills, much better than our skills.

Looks like it's available in a variety of different Asian languages, which is very important. This is really long.

I can't read this whole thing. Let's just get the gist of it. It says, We, Asian American Christians and community leaders, to denounce the current rise in overt anti -Asian racism throughout our country, we call for an immediate end to the xenophobic rhetoric, hate crimes, and violence against our peoples and communities.

We invite all Americans to join us in combating these contagions and work with us for the welfare of all.

Are they calling... Hold on, hold on, hold on. Are they calling the xenophobic rhetoric, hate crimes, and violence contagions?

That's an interesting little bit of rhetoric right there. Contagion. We must fight the xenophobic rhetoric contagions.

How much do you want to bet it's things like calling the Wuhan virus the Wuhan virus?

I don't know. In the last two weeks of March 2020, Asians have reported over 1 ,000 incidents of racism, and without mitigation, we expect that number to rise in the weeks ahead.

Many of these were violent attacks against life and human dignity, and many more incidents have gone unreported.

Furthermore, despite international consensus, public outcry, and increasing racism against Asian Americans, some of our nation's leaders are intentionally...

Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm not laughing at violent crimes and racism, real racism, but I knew where this was going before it even went there.

Of course, they are not going to name Trump most likely, but some of our nation's leaders are intentionally choosing nomenclature for the novel coronavirus, such as the

Chinese virus, and this is endangering the lives of more than 20 million Americans. This is so stupid.

This is absolutely stupid. We often will use nomenclature like this, and it has nothing to do with hating a certain group.

It has to do with where the virus came from. The virus definitively came from China.

It doesn't matter if you think it was a random mutation, an accident of nature, or if it was created in a lab, or if it was just accidentally released from a lab, regardless of the theory that you believe regarding the virus and where it came from, it came from China.

China. I mean, it's just that simple. It is a Chinese virus. It is the

Chinese virus because it came from China. China. Specifically, Wuhan.

That's where it came from, and so that's why people are calling it the Chinese virus. This is typical social justice worrying.

They make something out of nothing. There's no racism involved in calling it the Chinese virus.

None at all. It came from China. The virus originated in China, and here's the reality.

Viruses originate from a variety of different countries, but sometimes they originate from China, and when they originate from China, you can call it the

Chinese virus, and when they originate from China and it's spread from China because that's where it originated in China, you can actually shut down travel to China, for example, to protect your people from immigrants coming over from China.

If that's where it's being spread from China, you can actually do that and not be a racist.

See, that's what's interesting. One of the things that was so amazing about Trump's response is that very early on, he shut down a lot of travel from China because it was a

Chinese virus that originated in China, and he took a lot of heat for that. He took a lot of this kind of rhetoric.

Oh, xenophobia. He's xenophobic. He's so hateful and racist. Can you believe that he stopped travel from China?

And it's like, well, that move was a good move, obviously. You have a virus from a certain part of the world.

It makes sense to maybe quarantine that part of the world so that it doesn't spread around the world. There's nothing racist about it and all that kind of stuff.

Rather, it just makes sense. This is something that I've thought a lot about. I mean, it is a prejudice.

I mean, you're pre -judging that it would be more risky to have travel from China because the virus originated in China than it would be to have travel from,

I don't know, say, Ethiopia. Or maybe not Ethiopia. That's not a good example because there's a lot of Chinese people in Ethiopia, if you can believe it.

But anyway, that's not racism. It's just that it is a prejudice, but it's a prejudice that makes sense.

I mean, there's nothing more to say about that. I mean, there are certain situations where prejudice is actually something that's very helpful.

I've used this example many times. If you're walking down an alleyway, a dark alleyway, and you see an old lady with a nice, you know,

I don't know, old lady clothes on and she's kind of frail looking and she comes towards you, you're probably going to walk right by her and not think twice.

But if you're walking down the alley and you see a thug, you know what a thug looks like, a thug coming towards you, dressed like a thug, looks like a thug, maybe he's wearing gang colors and stuff like that, you might be on your guard a little bit more.

And that kind of a prejudice serves you well many times. Sometimes it doesn't serve you well, but it's not something that we can even help.

And it's something that is critical to survival. We should pre -judge things in certain situations.

Now, we shouldn't treat people differently. But again, with my example with the old lady in the alleyway, we don't necessarily need our guard up immediately when we see an old lady.

But if we see a thug, it would be very helpful to make sure that you have your guard up.

Then maybe you keep your eyes open. Doesn't mean you treat them poorly. It doesn't mean you treat them with disdain.

Doesn't mean you call them a slur or something like that. No, it just means that you're ready in case something happens.

Because people that are dressed like thugs are more likely to be a thug than someone who doesn't dress like a thug.

It's just that simple. So this is so stupid. I'm not going to read the rest of it because I knew exactly where they were going to go with it right away.

And I'm pretty sure I know exactly where they're going to go with it now. This is really dumb. Xenophobic rhetoric by calling it the

Chinese virus. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. Anyway, so we're going to go ahead and cancel this.

One of the other things I saw on this website is submit an incident report.

This is a place where you can snitch on people for being anti -racist. So I'm going to snitch on someone.

I'm going to snitch on someone because I saw a few weeks ago, I saw

Micah Edmondson, newly acquired PCA pastor

Micah Edmondson. A few weeks ago, he was posting pictures of himself.

He had a selfie with him and maybe his wife or maybe a child. I don't know. Um, and they were in front of a

Chinese restaurant and they were very proud to be able to, to not be racist because in the middle, in the middle of the

Chinese virus pandemic, they were going to eat some Chinese food, which by the way, Chinese food is so good.

Why is Chinese food so good? I don't know. Anyway. So he took a selfie next to the

Chinese restaurant. That was a few weeks ago, but now, now that the curve is, is, is higher and people are more scared about this.

I haven't seen a picture of him, um, at a Chinese restaurant. And I think this is a textbook example of anti -Asian racism.

Micah Edmondson is an anti -Asian racist because a few weeks ago, when it was, when everyone, when, when it was popular to show yourself at a

Chinese restaurant, he was taking selfies, but now that it's popular to be racist against Asians, you don't see any selfies from him anymore.

Don't you textbook example of black on Asian racism, which does exist by the way, black on Asian racism does exist.

So I'm going to go ahead and submit an incident report. Let's see here.

First name, last name, email address. This is, this is long too. This is long too.

Let's check it out. All right. So first name, I don't want to put my real name in here, but let's put

AD, AD. You know what? I'll fill this one out later.

I want to get to something else that was important. Yesterday, if you watched Reform Jellicle, we had

Tom Buck on and it was a fantastic episode. Tom Buck was dropping bombs left and right.

He was spitting hot fire. He was, he was, I don't know what else he was doing, but it was great.

It was really good. He said a lot of interesting things about the SBC and a lot of very interesting things about Dr. Russell Moore, my favorite person on the planet.

And he also addressed the situation of the rampant anti -complementarianism in the

SBC, including in the ERLC where a complementarianism is the official position of the

SBC. So it's very weird to see a lot of people that are just very anti complementarian.

And he mentioned that patriarchy, biblical patriarchy, which

Russell Moore is a patriarchy guy, or at least he used to be in 2006. And he mentioned that nobody would argue that patriarchy has not been abused.

Like people who have called themselves patriarchy folks have been abusive in the past.

Nobody argues that that's the case. That's true of everything. By the way, there are abusers in every category.

There are feminist abusers. There are me too abusers. There are all kinds of abusers out there.

And so we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater in most circumstances. It doesn't mean that it's just because someone calls themselves a

Republican, that they're acting completely consistent with Republican ideology.

Same thing with Democrats. We don't do that. We don't do that. We see, are you acting consistently with your ideology?

And that's how we know if the ideology is rotten or not. So anyway, he mentioned that people that have called themselves patriarchy people have been abused in the past.

And he got really animated and he said, and this shouldn't be surprising because God told us in Genesis 3 that this would happen.

And that's true. In Genesis 3, he talks about the dynamics of male -female relationships and the role of the father being broken in the fall.

And he specifically calls that out, which is very interesting. Genesis 3 predicts that. And God's not really a prediction.

It's just God's, it's a curse from God, essentially. What that got me thinking about, and this is very interesting and important, got me thinking about the last words in the

Old Testament before Christ comes. The last words in the Old Testament before Christ comes.

The book of Malachi is the last book in the Bible and the last chapter of Malachi is chapter 4.

And he talks about him sending Christ. He talks about him sending

John the Baptist. And he talks about what's going to happen when God sends the

Lord, the Lord Jesus. And so here's what he says. He says this.

This is the last two sentences of the Old Testament. He says, behold, I will send you

Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

That's interesting. The very last part of the Old Testament talks about how he's going to send the prophet before the great and awesome day of the

Lord comes. That's talking about the time of Christ. And he says what the result of him sending this prophet is that he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.

That means a lot of different things. You look at commentaries about that, you'll get a lot of different takes on what that exactly means.

But it certainly seems to mean that part and parcel of the gospel, the kingdom of God coming, is fixing some of those broken relationships where, again, turning the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the sons to the fathers.

That relationship, any kind of abuse or any kind of twisting of that relationship is going to be fixed.

And so that's amazing. If we hate the idea of biblical patriarchy, if we hate the idea of complementarianism and we just rebel against it, and you can just tell sometimes when people just hate that idea.

They hate it. What needs to happen there is the gospel needs to be applied to that because those relationships and those power dynamics, you'll often hear that kind of a rhetoric.

The Lord Jesus Christ fixes that stuff. That's something that's intentionally being fixed and being recreated and made new every single day.

So those are some of the last words in the Old Testament. And then if you look at the book of Luke, he actually references that again.

The angel of the Lord coming to Zechariah and predicting the birth of John the

Baptist. This is so interesting. This is so interesting here. He says this, he says,

Zechariah was troubled when he saw him and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, do not be afraid,

Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you shall call his name

John. And you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great before the

Lord. Then it goes on to say this, he says, he will turn many of the children of Israel to the

Lord their God and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the

Lord a people prepared. He referenced, he directly references that passage from Malachi.

And this is part and parcel of what we get in the New Testament. We get to see how this is going to be accomplished.

And so if you're one of these that hates the idea of male headship, you hate the idea of the husband being the head of the wife and all of that kind of stuff, you hate the idea that pastors and preachers have to be men, right?

You hate the power dynamic that God has set up. You hate it. And there are people out there that hate that.

If that's you, the gospel needs to be applied there because God is going to fix the excesses, the abuses, the twisting of the relationships that have led to a lot of problems.

Well, the gospel being applied there will fix that stuff. God's going to fix it. One of the other things that I was thinking about when

Tom Buck said this is we're seeing a lot of reports of an increase, an uptick in child abuse because everyone's locked in together.

They're having to take care of their kids. They're having to teach their kids rather than sending them to school for someone else to teach them.

And we're seeing a lot of problems kind of bubbling to the surface. And this is a time right now, if you find yourself in that situation, you're stressed out about having to take care of your kids more than you used to and stuff like that.

What we need here is we need humility, we need repentance, and we need discipleship on how the gospel turns the fathers to the children, the hearts of the children to the fathers.

Like, if you're in that situation, you need to go to your pastor and say, I need help here. I need help here.

I need to learn how to discipline and disciple my children better, because I clearly haven't learned that.

You know what I mean? That's something that I would suggest if you find yourself in that kind of a very stressful situation, taking care of your kids more than you used to, having your kids home for lessons and stuff like that.

Because that's part and parcel of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's part and parcel of the kingdom coming in power.

That's part and parcel of loving the Lord your God with all your heart. And abiding in the love of Christ is loving your kids and teaching your kids and training your kids in the way they should go.