Q&A Panel on Theology and Apologetics

My last panel. First I'm going to let these brothers introduce themselves.

My name is Delano Rowe. I'm a member of Grace Bible Church in Conway, and a member of the seminary there, Grace Bible Theological Seminary.

My name is Evan Knies, and I'm one of the elders at North Hills Church in West River, Louisiana.

My name is Henry Lucas. I serve as Youth and College Pastor at New Generation Church in Conway, Arkansas.

My name is Jeremiah Nortier. I serve as a pastor at Twelve Five Church with Nathan Hargrave in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

My name is Josue Aguilar. Most people know me by Josh. I serve as Elder at Fellowship Español.

What Is Apologetics and Where It Appears in Scripture

We had a couple people that came in a little bit late after lunch. The ladies done an awesome job in explaining what is apologetics. Let me get a couple of you guys to take that again. What is apologetics, and where can we find it in the scriptures?

Generally speaking, you can think of apologetics as the defense of the Christian worldview, but it's also offense. Christians shouldn't just have this posture that we're on the defense of people that want to tear apart Christianity.

It's also the offense against a worldview that is irrational, essentially. So every unbelieving worldview is irrational, and because of that, Christians can attack, and not attack people, but attack the worldview.

So apologetics also means going on the offense.

I was pulling up 1 Peter 3. I think one of our sisters read that today. 1 Peter 3 .15, but in your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord is holy. Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

Jude 1 .3 says, Dear friends, although I was eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all.

So basically apologetics, we believers, we love Jesus, we defend him while we do, and why they should.

I think those verses are really good, kind of illustrating that as Christians, we follow what God has revealed to us in his words. So that's both defensive and offensive. And so 1 Peter 3 .15, at the very beginning, we see that it says, sanctify the Lord in your hearts.

So a lot of times in apologetics, we're thinking about these cookie cutter methods of what I say when they say this, that, and the other. We need to understand that we're loving Christ every step of the way.

So that needs to guard our focus. We need to build our entire worldview on the word of Christ, all the scripture, right, scripture alone. So towards the end of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, he tells us that if we don't build, if we don't stand on his word, then we're going to crumble down.

So we need to have our hearts and our minds renewed with the word of God to be able to defend that faith, but also contend for it, like Jude tells us as well.

Evidential and Presuppositional Approaches to Apologetics

I think the only thing I would add to this conversation and the women that the women had earlier was the different types of apologetics, evidentiary apologetics, where that's the kind of group of people that just, if they provide enough evidence, someone will believe.

And then there's presuppositionalists, where it doesn't matter how much evidence you provide, unless the Lord does the work in their hearts, they're not going to believe. So there's two different types of apologetics.

Man, I say, use whatever you can to share the gospel with anybody. And if they believe, praise the Lord, you know.

Urban Apologetics and the Challenge of Hebrew Israelites

Today, our conference was urban apologetics. I mentioned it earlier. We have seen so many books written on apologetics dealing with defending the faith with Mormonism and the Nation of Islam or Islam.

Why is it taking so long to see more apologetics expanded to the issues that are happening in the city? It's not enough literature out there right now. We have plenty of literature on, like I say, defending against Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism.

But what about what's happening in the city? What's taking so long to get more work done to be able to deal with these issues in the city?

I think, you know, I can speak about Hebrew Israelites. It's so hard to pin down what they actually believe that a systematic response to them is extremely difficult. The best apologists to Hebrew Israelites are people that were Hebrew Israelites.

And so they don't have any literature. They just have YouTube videos or they're standing on the street corner. And how do you, you know, systematically form a critique for something like that? It's so hard to gather information.

Not only that, but the issue on the surface, it seems like, you know, Hebrew Israelites and racism and that is an issue. But even behind it, you have fatherless homes. You have people dealing with serious family issues, relationship problems.

And so it's like it's two sides of this just, you know, bad coin where it's just a confusion of doctrine and then a bad family situation in the background. And responding to that is really difficult. It takes time.

You have apologists doing it now that, okay, I'm at home. I heard pretty recently that there's an announcement that a new book is going to be coming up pretty soon on that. And so people are starting to focus on this now.

But it takes time to kind of build that up.

So follow up, is that the same for other groups in urban areas? Like, for example, the Nation of Islam. Could they be characterized as well? Is this you can't systematize it because you have heard. What's the leader name?

Lewis Farrakhan. He has mentioned Jesus all the time. He would say that he believed in Jesus. But we know that Jesus that he's referring to is a different from Orthodox Christianity. So is that similar to almost all beliefs that's coming out of urban inner city area?

It's hard to systematize those groups on the police.

Woke, CRT, and the Meaning of Race in the Church

Yeah, I think so. You know, I remember before it was called because now they're calling it being woke. But I remember even before that it was called being conscious. So you call it the conscious movement.

And so you had, I don't know, you know, people don't know about this one, but they were called the wild beans. So that's a different conscious movement. Nation of Islam, five percenters. All these guys were on street corners making videos, talking crazy stuff.

And so, in my opinion, you know, someone else could have a different perspective. But even for me, just understanding what these guys believed was so, so difficult. Nation of Islam has been around for a while.

Farrakhan has some material. Farrakhan is pretty mainstream now. People know about Farrakhan. But these other guys, the Hebrew Israelites, five percenters, the wild beans, a lot of people don't know about them.

And they don't have written resources that explain their beliefs. They don't have statements of faith. They don't have confessions. And so it's hard to respond to someone that's so nebulous. I don't know what you're even trying to say.

Well, I got a question on that, too. Do you think that's intentional? While they don't do that, they don't write a confession or things like that intentionally?

I don't know. It depends on who you ask. For the camp that I was a part of, I don't think it was intentional. I just think each camp has their own brand of doctrine based on the personality of the leader.

And so whatever the leader is teaching, that's what the camp teaches. And every leader has a slightly different personality. So every camp is slightly different. And so that's why I think you have just various branches of a bunch of people saying that they're teaching the same thing, but they're not.

You mentioned about being woke. I really want to ask a question about that, but I don't know how much time we have. People have taken that word differently. I remember five, ten years ago when the guy came out with the documentary Hidden Colors.

Tariq Nasheed.

Tariq Nasheed.

Tariq Nasheed came out with Hidden Colors. So we know what you'll be watching now. But Tariq Nasheed came out with mostly trying to bring in awareness of conscience of, you know, it was ancient black millionaires.

It was guys that was rich. And so conscience and saying being woke, we're dealing with conscious awaking. And now we've seen woke have went over to now people have explained it to be dealing with something now subjected to Christianity.

And so we have seen a develop of how people have used the word over time. Not only just what the word woke, we have people have took that word now. They have made it mean something else or they have put another definition on it.

But also we see something similar with the word CRT. CRT is critical race theory. We are seeing some forward in the Christian circle, some against it. So my first question would be, before we go into why was it proposed and things of that nature?

My first question would be, what is the historical definition of CRT?

I'll let someone else have the microphone.

Yeah, I'll defer that to somebody else too. I will say, though, that regarding apologetics, regarding CRT, it is best practice for all of us to ask to someone define CRT. Define what you mean when you say CRT.

Define what you mean by racism, whatever it is.

So I don't have the best historical definition either. But when we start asking questions about critical race and how we are to reform society and interact with people, we really need to start asking the question, what is the truth?

How ought we to engage with people? And what is race? Well, the Bible clearly speaks to these issues. So fundamentally, we need to let God reveal truth to us from his word. In a lot of these apologetic encounters, I like what you were saying about we do need to try to be well studied to demonstrate those systematic internal critiques.

But I think if we study the truth well enough, we'll be able to find out the counterfeit, if you will. So that's just a fundamental principle.

I think we'd all agree. None of us who are CRT professionals live here.

No, I won't.

But CRT is not a monolith. In other words, you can't define it because it's just like Christianity. When I say we're all Christians, and I say, well, which Presbyterian church do you go to? Well, probably none of us are Presbyterian.

I think there's one here somewhere. But there's a few. So it's not a monolith. You can't describe it. There's different forms, and it impacts across all disciplines. But when it started, supposedly, when it started, CRT is historically original and proper sense as a legal movement aimed at understanding, resisting, and remediating how U .S. law and legal institutions such as law schools have fostered and perpetuated racism and white supremacy.

So that's when it started. So now it's kind of grown across all disciplines besides law now. And I think there's an aspect of it where CRT is a worldview, and there's an aspect of it still where CRT is in the legal realm.

When you get to the worldview realm, that's where you enter into issues. When you enter it, when we use it as analytical tools on how do we see how racism was affected, has affected a community, I think you could use it in that aspect.

But once you get into the realm of worldview, I think that's where we get into trouble.

I would see CRT as kind of like an offshoot of a mixture of cultural Marxism and post-Martinism. And so CRT at least appears from what I understand is that CRTers see society as a dichotomy of the oppressed and the oppressors.

And so the oppressed is obviously people of color. It's more than that now if you add intersectionality to the conversation. And the oppressors are white people. And so to go even further than that, CRT proponents would see Western society generally as irredeemably racist.

And so all of the structures of Western society are designed to oppress people of color and to give white people a privilege in its purest form. So that's how I would see it. Any follow up? All right.

Why Resolution 9 and Race Reconciliation Were Proposed

One of the things, I guess the follow up question would be is, okay, we mentioned CRT, critical race theory. My thing is, and regardless of being SBC, not being SBC, why was it proposed? What was happening for people to actually propose this?

Even though none of us are CRT, we're not representing CRT. But why did they propose CRT? Or I'm not sure if you guys know anything about the Resolution 9, things of that nature. But what are some thoughts?

I just want to hear you guys' thoughts. Why would someone want to propose CRT?

Yeah, I think it starts at we have seen division in the South regarding race in our churches. Luther King said the most divided hour is Sunday morning. And I think that's at the heart of it. From some of the people that proposed Resolution 9, we all may have various issues with that resolution.

But I think that's part of the reason why it was proposed. But we all know it's the gospel that is going to heal our divide. It's going to heal our churches. And it's through gospel preaching that's going to be uniting ethnicities, races in the South.

It's not man-made fixes, but it's the gospel. And so that's where our focus needs to be, too.

Well, I've been Southern Baptist for three to four years. There's been conferences, race reconciliation. A lot of things people have been talking about, they say just preach the gospel. From my point of view, preach the gospel, yes, we've got to preach the gospel.

But if we're going to preach the gospel, things are not changing. Racism is still happening. Even in Southern Baptist, in my breakout session, Southern Baptist Convention started because Southern pastors wanted to own slaves.

So I think the conversation, yes, preach the gospel way. I think CRT was proposed because, as believers, I don't think we're doing a good job talking about racism to the world, to each other. So, I mean, maybe it's not a good worldview to have, but it's the only way that we're really talking about race.

And something that we need to acknowledge is that there's sin in the world. Like, there's mistreatment. And in that gospel proclamation is that we love other people the way that Christ first loved us.

So, yeah, all Christians need to be obedient to the gospel that we are preaching. In this conversation, the things that are troubling to me is when a worldview begins to form that says, well, in order for you to really understand the gospel, you need to put yourself in their shoes.

And I'm like, well, that's not a hermeneutical principle, right? We get truth from God revealing it to us. So it's exegesis, it's consistency, letting scripture interpret scripture. That's going to give us truth.

That's going to give us the true worldview on how we ought to love other people the way that God told us to do. So I think at the root of it, it's sin, right? It's Christians being disobedient to the message that we're preaching.

And praise God for the Christians that are fighting the good fight, loving on other people, because we do need both. We do need to preach the gospel, and we do need to love our neighbors, right?

I think at the heart of Resolution 9 is what Henry was saying, that racism that was going on, still going on in SBC churches. They wanted to know how to address that, and they were using the analytical tools of CRT to figure out what was going on.

And that's kind of where Resolution 9 started. It was never on the worldview level. It was like, what can we see using these tools of how racism is affecting our churches? Of course, we all know the firestorm that happened after that.

Unfortunately, the problem is still happening, like Henry said. I mean, you can just drive down Pine Bluff, and there's very little. There's probably maybe one church that is white and black mixed in Pine Bluff, and that should not be.

We should have a community of people that the gospel is affecting, and you should walk into every church in Pine Bluff and see mixed races worshiping the Lord.

But you don't see that.

Why?

I think Resolution 9 was searching to answer that question. Why do we not see that? So that's kind of what I have to say about that.

Leadership, Diversity, and the Sin of Partiality

One of the books that was printed, I think the President of Southern Seminary, our mother, a couple of guys were part of it. It was removing the standard of racism from the SBC. Jarvis Williams, a couple of people was in it, and it was talking about the faculty you have within the Southern Baptist.

I think you only have, like, one or two, a person of minority that's teaching a certain, like, biblical theology or the New Testament within all the seminaries. And some people might ask, well, nobody's qualified.

But you have gotten guys that got PhDs with minority background. And I'm not saying that someone should get the job because they're a minority. They should be able to get the job because they're qualified.

But we're still not seeing the graduation rate of minorities graduating and still getting those particular jobs. So I thought that brought about a lot of the conversations. And so it seemed like we have gotten drownded in CRT, that we still haven't really cared for those that are carrying that burden.

And so how can we still carry that burden? That's where the conversation needs to be, carrying that burden for one another instead of just back and forth, like, hey, you shouldn't use this, you shouldn't use that.

Which we should have those conversations. But I still think that people are still hurting, and we need to do a better job in caring for them in the midst of it.

To piggyback on that leadership talk, you know, it's sad to say, but we probably all know churches that they have two candidates, both qualified. But they hire the white candidate because of how it will affect their church.

Here in Pine Bluff, you know, where the population of the city is predominantly African-American, and most of our SPC churches don't have African-American staff members. You have to ask why. You have to ask why.

And I'm not trying to cause controversy, but you have to ask the question. You know, there are qualified African-American people out there. Now, whether they want to come and be a part of that, that's up to them.

But are those churches pursuing that? Because it's hard to go and evangelize to an African-American community and say, be a part of our church. But none of the leadership reflects the community. So how can you invite them to be a part of your church when none of the leadership reflects their community?

And that's something that Pine Bluff needs to address. You know, I'm not saying that me as a Hispanic cannot minister to an African-American person. But what I am saying is if there's qualified people out there, why wouldn't we pursue them?

I just wanted to make a quick comment just from my own personal experience and context. In Jonesboro, there is a lot of diversity. And my heart in this is I want to love on everybody that God puts in my life.

I want to share the gospel with them. And a lot of this, I'm just trusting God in it all. I think there should be a reflection of the community in our leadership. Sometimes that's hard, especially in a church plant context.

And I think about the diversity that will be in heaven one day, right? And so we're all a part of the human race. And I really think if we go back to the fundamentals, that if we really do love our neighbor as ourself the way that Christ first loved us, that will fix a lot of it.

But the reality is we live in a fallen world. So it's a tough situation.

I may add to what they said. I think part of this discussion we've had over the last few years regarding CRT Resolution 9 is we've seen it modeled on social media and it's not been healthy. We've seen dialogue among some of our theological heroes.

It's not been healthy either. And what we should do is if someone is claiming to be a follower of Jesus, we need to go have conversations with them, work it out, talk through it rather than throw stones on social media because that does nothing but hurt the bride.

Yeah, I would just add that I think scripture is sufficient to address all of these issues. There are issues and they are valid issues. But I think sometimes it can be misguided to use secular ideologies to address issues within the church.

I think that the gospel that we possess is the solution. We just need to apply it. And so even in my church, there is one of my pastors. He used to be a white evangelist and I used to be a black evangelist and he is my pastor.

And because of the gospel, we are unified in Jesus Christ. And so the solution is the gospel and not CRT. So I just want to, you know, just say that and say that we have a treasure in scripture that we're struggling to apply.

It's not that it's not enough. We're just struggling to apply it.

Defending the Faith When Christianity Has Been Misused

We're almost getting close to out of time, but a couple of things here. Similar to what Henry, his breakout. How do we defend the faith when people bring up cases of how Christianity has been misused in the past?

Again, how do we defend the faith when people bring up cases of how Christianity has been misused in the past?

One quick way is I think we listen first. We are slow to speak and have a conversation. And we listen and hear the person out.

I think we acknowledge those mistakes. Let them know, hey, that really did happen. But I think we express that that wasn't God's heart. And those people, we shouldn't let them represent God because God is perfect.

God is holy and God is good.

So in the question, people that have misrepresented Christianity, I mean, we want to show them that, like you're saying. We also acknowledge the hurt and the pain and the sin that goes along inside of this fallen world.

So I think all of this, especially dealing with theology and apologetics, which, by the way, I think theology should be the heartbeat of our apologetics, how we interact with people. But we drive everything back to that Christian worldview because that truly is where the power is at.

I think Henry mainly, when acknowledging the sin, you just got to acknowledge, man, they messed up. But also realizing that we're not the only ones dealing with nominal Christianity. They were dealing with it back then.

And that's how you that's what may have happened when these crazy things happened in the history. You know, that might be claiming a form of Christianity. But were they really Christians? We can't say that.

Only God can say that. But I think you acknowledge the sin and then go from there and then you listen. You know, that's the important part. Just listening. You know, it might be just a crutch to get out of the conversation or that might be struggling through it.

You know, so I think you can discern what's what if they're struggling or if it's just a crutch to get out of the conversation.

Public Witness, Protest Signs, and the Gospel

Another question is, are we defending the faith properly when holding up posters during the Capitol insurrection and the border saying Jesus saves?

I mean, don't see them on TV.

Yeah, I personally don't think that is the most effective method. Now, I do know that I do know that you have, for example, you have people that take their signs and they go to abortion clinics and stuff like that.

And I'm not faulting that. I think that that's OK. But I do want to stress that we should be more about the ministry of the word and not sloganeering. We're not about catchy little phrases and signs that have like one word on it.

You know, we're about preaching the gospel. And I think that's better accomplished through relationships and not through a sign and me yelling at someone.

Yeah, I completely agree with what my brother said. We preach Christ and we preach a gospel that is going cross cultural. It's not just rooted in D .C. And so Jesus saves people from all backgrounds, all walks of life.

And it's all to the praise of his glorious grace.

I think it does more harm than good because Jesus wasn't about that. If Jesus was, he would have became a politician. He would have overthrew the Roman government. He would have been a king. I think, you know, we really got to love people.

You're at the border saying Jesus saved me. Don't love them people. They need help. You don't have to show me your politics. You don't have to show me like you love this guy. Hey, just show me you love Jesus with your actions.

You know, I think it goes to a faulty worldview. You know, and the culture of the 80s was, you know, taking back America, you know, politics, bringing God back. And that's kind of where I think those signs come out when you do the Capitol insurrection.

You know, the only way the gospel is going to transform society is through the church and the preaching of God's word. So, man, if they're out there preaching God's word, you know, to the people out there at the Capitol insurrection, then more power to them.

But America is not going to transform by who's going to be the next president. You know, America is going to transform by the gospel reaching to communities in our country. Until we believe that, until we actually do the work of that, you know, then we're just going to continue the road we're on.

Whether Hating a Brother Reveals a False Profession

A couple people waved at me in the back. I guess they pointed to Riz. I don't know if Riz heard or something. But we got a few moments for a couple questions. Any questions? Yes, sir.

It's about the church. My thing is like, do you consider those who hate, claim to be Christians or whatever, but hate their brother, do you consider them as Christians? Or immature Christians? Or they're actually doing enough for the Holy Body?

The reason why I say that is because it's critical. Can I read it?

You should.

I'll read it another way. Because, I mean, I think it's sad that we have this in both groups. Watch your back, man. Or you have all the Spanish churches or all the Asian churches that don't have lexicon.

I just think it's sad. But I'm going to read this because, man, it's just something I want to hear about. They say, but the one who hates his brother is in the darkness. He walks in darkness. He does not know where he's going because he's in the dark.

Because the darkness has blinded his eyes. So my thing is like, if it's a scripture that's saying that, I mean, is that person true to their own Christ? I mean, what they did is God's love. And so the offer of love is, you know, it's been hateful.

Somebody want to jump in with that question?

So I think a good thing of what you're bringing out is this is a hard issue, right? To hate your brother is you are looking at them based on how they look like. You make conclusions about them before you're even getting to know them.

And that's sinful, and, I mean, you're not in Christ, right? If you possess that hatred for a brother or sister or against another human being for those reasons. What's unfortunate, because we've been talking about churches that are all white with no black people.

What hurts my heart is I'm a part of a church that's all white, but I don't want it to be that way. I've invited so many people of different skin color to come to church, and it's just a hard process.

And some people come and stay for a little bit, and once again, that's a little bit of a church plant. You know what I mean? So it's just really hard. I think everything, everything that we're talking about goes back to the heart issue, right?

So some of these things will never be resolved on this side of glory.

I think in 1 John, this is one of the passages, if you don't know anything about 1 John, he kind of circle backs to all the topics he covers in chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3. So chapter 2, I believe, is where he talks about hating your brother.

I think in the next chapter, chapter 4, he talks about what it means, what it looks like to hate your brother. I say, you see your brother in need, and you don't help him? That's what he's talking about.

So I think none of us up here can say, yeah, he's saved. He's not saved. He's saved. He's not saved. Only God can do that. But if you live a life that resembles hating your brother, I mean, it's kind of hard to say, yes, you're a follower, right?

I think we could all agree that. It's hard to say that. But only God knows, you know? Only God knows. I've met some people in church where I've heard them talk, and they sound like a racist. But, man, when I needed something, they were there for me.

So I'm like, I don't understand. It's kind of a conflict, because you don't know what to say. Because the scripture's pretty clear. If you hate your brother, man, the light is not in you. So I think those are the questions you kind of leave up to the Lord.

Like, only God can answer that question. Because you see some fruit, but at the same time, you see the issue with hatred, you know?

So...

Partiality, Diversity, and Reasonable Expectations in Church Leadership

Yeah, go ahead. Say it.

Yeah, I'll start off.

I think it depends on the case. If there is explicit proof that there is a lack of... There are qualified men of color in the church that has white people. And those men are being prevented from serving as an elder, then yes, that would be a danger.

That's an issue. However, I think it's something else if we're talking about artificially promoting men to the ministry for the sake of diversity. Now, I think that's something entirely different. And so I don't think necessarily if a church lacks diversity, that that's racism.

I don't think so. There needs to be... You know, as Christians, we have to judge things by evidence. We have to be righteous in our judgment. And so I can't throw up racism just because someone that looks like me is not in the church or is not leading a church.

However, it can be. That is a possibility. That is a possibility. I just think it depends on the case.

I think you answered that very well, too.

I know we've been talking about using the word racism. I really don't like the term racism. The Bible is clear about what that sin is. It's partiality. So we should really talk about it in biblical terms.

It's a sin of partiality. But no, I don't necessarily like his church. If he's inviting people and they're not coming, it's not his fault. So I don't necessarily think it's a sin. I don't automatically go there.

But like Delano said, if there's qualified men that are Hispanic or African-American or Chinese or different ethnicity, if they're qualified to become an elder or to become a deacon or serve at the church and they're not, then I think you have to ask the question, why?

I went here, went to Watson Chapel for a long time. I served as a deacon at Watson Chapel Baptist Church. It's not that there wasn't anybody there. As soon as there was a qualified minority, they said, hey, come serve with us.

So it's just hard. It is hard. And it's hard for several reasons. Historically, because of SBC, what Henry said, it started because they wanted to own slaves. So when you go invite your African-American neighbor to your church, I mean, there's a lot of emotions that go on within that African-American person.

And for them to step foot into that church and become a part of that community, it takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of courage because you're stepping into that community knowing that there's possibly people in there that don't want you to be part of it.

So it does take a lot of courage for those people to step into those communities and to be a part of that church. But I don't automatically go to, you know, the sin of partiality when you walk into a church.

I mean, the church I go to now is predominantly white. So, I mean, I go to the Hispanic Fellowship Espanol, but it's predominantly white church.

And it is really hard because, yeah, somebody could walk into the church, see that, and make the assumption something's wrong. But in our context, we're just getting things going. I hope in 10 years it looks really diverse.

It's all different kinds of people, backgrounds, walks of life. What some people may not see is the leadership coming to a conference where there's a bunch of different kinds of people. So you just never know.

It's one of those things. It's a hard issue.

Something else really quick, too. I do think that sometimes we have to be reasonable in our expectations. So, for example, in Pine Bluff, I don't think Creston is expecting to bring on five elders that are white.