The Conservative Gets Some Respect - Time to Blast Giboney (Part 5)

Alright, let's do this. I'm going to crack open another Guava Sao Paulo. I'm thinking about what I'm going to have for lunch today. I'm thinking I might maybe make some baked beans. I love baked beans.

They're so good. I don't know. But I want to get this done. Let's get into it because yesterday I got all excited because it looks like we were going to come to start fighting finally. There was going to be finally a debate.

Yeah, I was sympathizing with Jackie Childs. I mean, I can't believe it. I seriously still can't believe that Gospel Coalition got me to sympathize with Jackie Childs. Although, you know, that's probably what the point of this whole good faith debate is.

Just really to showcase the amazing, well-spoken, eloquent man in a suit who's telling you to give him money. Reparations. In any case, I think it's about to get good. I don't know. It sounded like there were some people were getting a little testy.

So let's jump right in and hopefully this is a good one.

Justice, Righteousness, and the Church's Responsibility

I don't think I've done that. I think the command is do what is just and do what is right. Do justice and righteousness. So we have to start there. Do justice and righteousness. If somebody in your church doesn't agree with historical facts, that's problematic.

I'm not saying you kick them out of the church, but that's not necessarily the question we're addressing. How does the church move forward on racial justice? We don't move forward on racial justice by just ignoring it.

When I bring up the curriculum, I'm not saying you have to do the curriculum or you're not a Christian. It's a suggestion of how to do justice and righteousness through recognizing the truth. Because as you go out into different Christian spaces, people don't know the truth about racial justice.

We have books in Christian schools that don't even recite the history of racial justice correctly. Those are things we can do. We should be doing something. So I think you can say we should be doing something.

You may not be interested in race, but for you to say I don't care and put your hands up, I think that is problematic. We should be doing something. What we do, I can give you suggestions, but to sit and maintain the status quo and say, well, we can't really force people to do this.

That's the same thing that would have maintained slavery. It would have maintained Jim Crow. It'll maintain the same things that we're going through today because there is an imperative there to do justice and righteousness.

I haven't heard how that imperative actually is applied. Let me ask a question.

Yeah, so he is kind of mad. You can see it in his body language and in the way he's talking. He's almost engaging a little bit of mockery as well there. Not in the kind of way that old lady Robles does, but yeah, he's upset, and he's making a good point.

You know what I mean? Now, I think that his, again, his perspective is not correct, so I can't obviously agree with him all the way. But yeah, the Bible does say that we need to do justice, right? But also, so he kind of does, he sells it short.

He says, well, here's some ideas of what you can do. Well, the Bible actually tells us how to do it too. It gives us the command to do justice and righteousness. We get that. And it also tells us what that is and what to do about it, right?

It doesn't give us explicit details in every instance, in every example, but it gives us a lot. And so there's a lot to go on there. We can teach that from the Bible, and that's the thing. So you don't just say, oh, do justice, and then you get to fill in the blanks of what justice even means.

No, no, that's not how it is. That's what the pagans think, but that's not how it is. He's making a good point here, and I saw this guy, he wanted to jump in, and we'll see what he has to say, but the moderator cut him off, because I think the moderator senses that there's a little bit of hostility here, and he wants to nip that in the bud, because everybody knows that Christians can't raise their voices to each other.

Everybody knows that. That is in second Ecclesiastes, I think. Christians never raise their voice to each other. It's on that note. So I've heard people say any theology of justice that would not have ended slavery is not a theology of justice from the Bible.

Sure. Do you agree or disagree with that? Okay. Okay. So that was a weird interjection. Yeah, you can see he's kind of, the moderator just wanted to pump the brakes on, because again, we were in danger of violating second Ecclesiastes, I guess.

That's a joke, by the way. There is no second Ecclesiastes. But that was weird. The question didn't really match what was being said, and it was just kind of a strange, I don't know, I guess he's trying to get them back on the same page.

I don't know,.

But I thought this was a debate, though. I don't hear anybody saying we don't have to care about it. So I think that's a mischaracterization of maybe what's being communicated at that particular point, I think.

So I'm not caring about it.

This is the thing with these gospel coalition types. Why does he have to talk in this circular, roundabout way? You can look at him in the eye and say, dude, you mischaracterized me, what I'm saying. He's like, well, maybe, I think that's a mischaracterization of what certain people may have been saying.

It's like, dude, he's talking to you. You're talking to a person. Why can't we just be people here? We're having a conversation. We're having a debate. We're disagreeing. You can say, hey, you're mischaracterizing me.

I didn't say that. But I kind of think you did say that, so I don't know.

The Church, the State, and General Equity in the Old Testament

So when we say what justice is, and we keep attaching it to this specific thing that we're passionate about, let's back up and say, first of all, one of the most fundamental things we do as just believers with people who are different than us is we actually welcome them in the Lord Jesus.

So, and one of the reasons people kind of keep jumping back into the Old Testament is because the New Testament carries for the idea very differently than the Old Testament did, and there's a lot of reasons for that.

You're talking about a national state, which is very, very different than what the local church is. So when we're using kind of...

This guy is confused. I wonder if he really is confused or if he's trying to be nice and trying to play the good faith debater, and he's really not doing it that well. Because what in the world is he talking about?

So many people message me about this guy. He says so many words, but he doesn't say anything. And the things he does say are just insane. Like earlier, this is something that I noticed at the end of the video yesterday.

He says that he presents this idea that God's domain is in the church, and the way he presents it is as if God's domain kind of ends at the church. And he seems to be kind of dancing around that area right now, where he's like, see, the church is different than the nation.

Yes, the church is different than the state, but we still have states, and we still have the church. Right? So we understand, and this is something that the Westminster Confession says, you know, the body politik of Israel no longer exists, but there's a general equity of the law that God gave to Israel that we can use today, and we ought to use today.

And so of course, we're going back to the Old Testament, because that's where a lot of the detail is, right? And it doesn't apply in a one-to-one kind of a way, it applies in a general equity kind of a way.

But it's like, yeah, the church is different than the state. What's your point? We get that. But we're citizens, and we're in the church. Right? Like, we're part of a nation, and we're in the church. Like, I just don't understand.

We'll let him finish.

Old Testament prophet calls for justice, and we're not pushing it through the cross of Christ. We're not showing how it's actually realized in the people of God, where we actually don't regard each other according to any ethnic distinctions or any worldly distinctions, but we regard each other entirely based on the merit of the finished work of Christ, what He's purchased for us, and where we're seated.

That is actually profoundly, I think, expressive of the righteousness... Look at Justin. Justin's getting mad. ...that God is actually calling for, when we actually love each other according to that, and when we invite anybody else into that, regardless of who they are, regardless of what they've done.

So... So he wants to give you... Like,.

He gives you this idea of justice and righteousness and love without any content to it. Right? And a lot of Christians do this, where they're like, you know, you need to love your neighbor as yourself, but they don't really give you content.

Or even speaking the truth in love, what does that mean? What is love? What is the definition of love? You see, the Bible doesn't just give us the words justice and righteousness and love and do justice.

It actually gives content. It gives us the details as well. And so we ought to use the details in every area of our lives. So we should be doing justice at home, in the family context. We should be doing justice, you know, in the church, in the church context.

And then, of course, there still is a state, and as Christians, we should be promoting justice in the state as well. These are all different spheres of authority, spheres of influence, but they all have to kneel before God.

That's the point. They all have to do justice according to God. Right? The state is there to punish evildoers and to promote what is good according to God, not just what their own ideas are. The state might think it's good to take money from some people and give to the others, but that's not what God's ideas are.

That's not what God's definition of justice is. And so the state is wrong about that. The state is duty-bound before God as a servant of God. The Bible calls the state a deacon of God. The state is duty-bound to do justice to the evildoer and to promote what is good, and God gets to define those things.

You see, a servant doesn't get to decide, you know, what they're gonna do and how they're gonna do it and stuff. No, the servant does what the master tells them to, and God is the king. Jesus Christ is the king of kings and the lord of lords.

He's the king of the kings and the lord of the lords. The government rests on his shoulder. There's so much information in the Bible that tells us that the state ought to be doing justice according to Christian biblical standards, according to what God has said.

There are so many verses, proof texts, you know, things that kind of things that say it in explicit, excruciating detail. There's just so much. And this guy's like, yeah, just do justice because it's fulfilling the church, but we don't really know what it means.

No, we do know what it means. This answer is going to be... I think Justin's going to be angry here.

Let's see. The reason I am trying to maintain the difference between what's happening in the world and what's happening in this church, similar to 1 Corinthians 5, I think Paul does. I think Jesus does.

I think there's a different ethic that his people are to have within themselves, and that doesn't always translate to what we're able to even produce out in the world. We still labor for those things, but there's a unique way we realize those realities within the life of the local church.

And so, yeah, I don't hear anybody saying that that's not important. Let's not talk about it ever. I don't think anybody's saying that. But what I am saying is just pastorally, and we're probably approaching this conversation even very differently.

I'm approaching it as a pastor. Well, I want people to think rightly about... Justin is like, oh, man. Listen, I don't.

Like Justin Gibbony. If that's not crystal clear, I don't like him. But I'm sympathizing with him because he's like... I can tell... I have a feeling that Justin and I are kind of similar people, and he can't hide his body language.

He can't hide his frustration. He's gripping the chair with all his might. He's pursing his lips like this. He wants to say something, but he knows he probably shouldn't interrupt, but he wants to. Justin can't believe...

Because here's... I think I know what's going on in Justin's mind. Justin can't believe that this man can talk so much and say nothing. He can't believe it. This is... It's unreal. I'm a pastor. That's why I don't make any sense because I'm a pastor.

I'm approaching this from a pastoral perspective. That's why I say things like, well, the church and the world are different. The church and the world are different, Justin. Didn't you know that? The church and the world, they're totally different and...

What is he talking about? What are you talking about, Brian? This doesn't make any sense. I'm at a loss. I think Justin is too. I sympathize with you, man.

Everything. I'm going to be careful to what I use pastoral authority with to make sure that is.

Clear. If you're not going to use pastoral authority to teach what the Bible says about justice and how to do justice and the specifics of that, the content behind it, right? Not just the word justice, not just the word righteousness, not just the word love, but the content behind it, how to do it, practical steps.

If you're not going to do that because you're too worried, you're too worried that you're going to say the wrong thing or something like that, you probably shouldn't be a pastor, to be perfectly honest.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani. Connected in God's word. I just think limiting it that way kind of takes away from...

He stopped him. See, this is the thing. I think Justin wanted to jump in so many times there, and he finally interrupted him. He said, you got to shut up. He didn't say it that way. He didn't say it that way.

But yeah, let's see what Justin has to say, because I have a feeling I'm going to sympathize with this as well. I mean, the way he started, I'm probably going to agree with him.

Reparations, Restitution, and the Limits of Historical Claims

Conversation. But let me say this. So we can talk about the Old Testament. I don't have to use the Old Testament. We can go to Luke 19. We can go to Luke 4, 18. The command doesn't change for us to do justice and righteousness, right?

And so if we're in a conversation as we are today about what does it mean to do justice, to say, well, we're in the church, it's almost how can.

We avoid it? Well, let me drill down. You specifically talked about reparation. Trying to save the day. And you're not even talking about Congress here. You're talking about the church. You reference Princeton and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Flesh out a little bit more what you think reparations could and should look like among Christians and specifically the two institutions you named.

Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I think obviously reparations have become an ideological buzzword. And so people here and they just jump back. I'm not, I'm not, I don't even think we have to go there. We can go straight to the Bible and have some of those conversations about what that's, what that looks like.

And I think it's about repairing a community. It's objective fact. And I don't think people should be able to deny that things have been stolen from African-Americans and other minorities.

I can deny it. I can deny it, Justin, because this is where all of you shysters, all of you shysters do this. We black people got stolen from no specific black people got stolen from. Nobody took nothing from you.

Nobody took anything from you. Oh, we black people. Them white people stole from us. And no, they didn't specific. There's no entity, white people. And then another entity, black people. That's not how it works.

That's not how it works. So I can deny it because of how you've presented it. It's not African-Americans. No, it's certain African-Americans we're stolen from. And we have a specific word in the law about how to make restitution.

We know specifically how to make restitution. We've got it from the old Testament law that Eric Mason quoted, where I specifically showed him how that doesn't apply to the situation we have today. And then we have new Testament examples like Zacchaeus and things like that, which also show specifically how it works.

And it's not that black people got stolen from. White people need to go pay them. It's like, no, it's not how it works. Those who stole need to pay back to the one they stole from. That's how that's how it works.

And if they and if they are long dead, which they pretty much all are, then that's it. That's the end of it. They get justice in the next life. They get either they get either condemned eternally because they're not covered by Christ or Christ paid that debt for them.

That's the gospel. And so these white Christians that you are alleging stole certain things, whatever. OK, fine, fine. That happened in the past. So they either had their sins covered and Jesus Christ paid the price or they're going to be eternally condemned.

And that's how justice is done eternally. But we have a specific word from the Lord that the sons do not pay for the sins of the fathers. You can't get around that. And so what you're going to do is pretend like that verse isn't even there.

You're not going to address it. You're not going to talk about it because it's devastating to your shyster case. So I will deny it. I will deny it. Certain African-Americans got stolen from. Nobody stole anything from Brian Davis and from you, Justin.

Nobody. The fact I think we have to deal with.

That, I think we run away from that. That's problematic. So how do you how do you restore that? This should never for Christians. This should never be about being forced to do that. So I'm not saying we got to force every church to do this.

And that's like, what are we compelled to do through the gospel? Now, the other thing that I would say is I've provided data. Right. The data from Barna says people are saying oppression isn't a big thing.

Right. Today,.

It's not a big thing. That doesn't happen today as much. There is racism today, but it's not a big problem. That's 100 percent correct. And so that's if that's what Barna says. Good. That's because people have their heads on straight.

The onus is on you now to say how you have specifically been stolen from and from who and from who. And then we have a word from the Lord on how to deal with that. The person who stole gives back to what the person that they stole from with interest, with with with a penalty attached to it.

That's how restitution works biblically. And that's what we need to be considering as Christian, because we're all Christians here. Right. That's what we should be considering as Christians. And by the way, I like how he's trying to tries to distance himself from like the forced reparations of the state.

I'm pretty sure that Justin's also for that, but he's trying to pretend like, no, I'm not even talking about that. Well, maybe you're not talking about it here, but I'm pretty sure you're for it anyway.

And you'd be supporting it if it was on the docket.

More over 50 percent of white Christians are saying, actually, this never actually happened,.

Which was shocking to me. I believe you. That shocked me. I mean, that's where we're at. That's where we're at and has nothing to do with what justice is in that instance. So the fact that people deny that that blacks were ever oppressed ever in history, it's I mean, I'm I'm pretty sure that's probably not how the question was posed.

I'm pretty sure that he's probably playing a little fast and loose with the details of how what the question was posed and all that kind of stuff. But let's just assume that he's not. Let's just say that 50 percent of white Americans don't think that blacks have ever been oppressed in the United States.

And that's a really true fact. Guess what? That denial has nothing to do with the fact that they owe you anything. So they've denied it, but they still don't owe you anything. They're pretending that the past didn't happen, but they still don't owe you anything because they haven't taken anything from you and you hadn't had nothing taken from you.

So so that that that fact doesn't do the.

Work you think it's doing, Justin. So for those of us who are willing to reckon with that history, how do we restore it? How do we go about moving through through? You know, you have you have Exodus twenty one and twenty two.

Right. And you say, OK, if something's been taken from somebody, you restore that. Now, this is Old Testament. And the way it may be restored, maybe a little bit different is maybe what you're getting at.

But the principle remains. Right. That's the exact.

Verse. If anyone has stolen, he will give back to the one he's stolen. There is no black person entity and white person as an entity that doesn't exist. You've made that up. That's a presupposition that you brought from the pagans.

See, this is the thing. The church hasn't met the pagan standards, but the pagans have these weird ideas about the white entity and the black entity owing people money and things like that. And they've got a foreign justice.

And you've embraced that, Justin. You've embraced pagan justice. That's a problem. That's a problem. If things.

Have been taken as community, if we have churches, denominations, other Christian institutions that have benefited from that and people who have been in those institutions that have benefited from that, there may be something they should give back, not because they're forced to, but because they're compelled to through the gospel, because you can't have an ordered society if people have something taken from them and then you don't have to return it.

And also as a pastor, if you have institutions, you're connected with institutions within the church or your church has done some of those things and had some of those benefits, I do think that you have a real push to do something about that and not just say, hey, we're just going to pray about it.

That's been the philosophy that the American church has had for too long. And it's the same reason, again, that the world, this terrible world had to force many in the church with its laws to treat their brothers and sisters with dignity.

It's that type of philosophy. I wouldn't even call it the theology. I think it's that type of philosophy that's really hurt the church and kept us with the.

Status quo that we had. Oh, I'm sorry. So he's going to jump in. He's going to jump in. I bet you he's going to, basically he's going to be a mea culpa. You're right, bro. This is a gift to the church.

This is just so ridiculous, man. You got to jump all over that. You got to jump on that, man. If you apologize, Brian, if you do anything to kind of walk back what you've been saying, it's because Justin's angry about it.

Man, I got to say, I don't really have a whole lot of respect for what I've seen on this screen. And you might say I'm at rock bottom, but man, it'll go deeper. It'll go deeper. Man, you got to jump on him.

He's just twisted the scripture. Jump on him. Jump on him. He's not afraid of throwing punches. Why don't you throw a few back?

Can I get the, I just want to say one thing about the SBC. Y 'all can cut this out just because we threw them under the bus. I just know the SBC, flaws and all, they have done tremendous things so as to do a version of reparative justice that I don't want us to overlook.

There's many church plants that they have funded that are minority led. They have many degrees, many scholarships, they've done a lot of work that I think he would be very encouraged by, at least maybe in a lane, it may not be as much as could be done, but they've definitely taken some significant strides towards seeking to be more just with what they have that I think is commendable.

And I don't want them to, I don't want them to hear this and think that that was not known or seen. I've.

Appreciated their labors in that. So the doctrine of reparative justice. He's not going to fight them. He's not going to fight them. Man, should I continue? I don't know. I'm getting kind of hungry. I want to get those baked beans.

Yeah, I'm going to do that. You know what, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, the moderator wants him to respond to this, this idea of reparations, reparative justice. Let's see what he has to say. Let's, let's hear him out.

Biblical Restitution and the Case for Institutional Repair

How would you apply that today? Again, not nationally within the church and our institutions.

What I appreciate about what our brother's saying is there ought to be a longing if there's someone we've wronged that we're able to rectify the situation, that it is, it is good and it is godly to do that.

So I agree with that. We say the, the kind of doctrinal category of reparations, not something I particularly adhere to. I think it has some pretty significant.

Tell me what the flaws are, please. Please give me some, give me some meat. Give me something I.

Can use. But I guess maybe even coming down at a different level. I mean, and part of me is just, I'm thankful to the Lord, just as he's describing, maybe some of the stuff he's seen. I just have a completely different testimony as a Christian.

I've been in wonderful churches. I've been in wonderful multi-ethnic churches. I've been in predominantly white churches. I've been in predominantly black churches. And I've seen all the saints care about justice.

They haven't always agreed on particular social actions or even particular social events. But the kind, like, at least the, what I've, I've seen this theology lived out and it does not produce a, a slave holders kind of theology like at all.

It's, I've seen people provide for people's schooling entirely. I've seen people send people to college that couldn't afford it. I've seen people adopt children that were not their kids because they love them and they remove the compassion.

I've seen people get people out of situations they themselves got themselves in. I've seen people protest. I've seen people go to, so to me, the, I've actually seen it produce a very manifold, rich display of good works, which is what I think the call for justice and righteousness blossoms out into, in the, in the New Testament church.

And so, and I've never, again, I just personally, I agree with him about the SBC. I think that's the only one I know about that. There's, I think there's some things they can do, but I just don't know.

I don't know believers who have wronged people who have not been desirous to make it right. This has been my limited interaction with the churches I've been in. And so some of it feels a little foreign in that I just haven't seen a Christian argue for that.

I have heard it been defended in the reparations category, because I think that's different. There's, there's a different of distance, heritage, like what makes somebody a people, you know, I'm mixed.

So I'm like, which side is, which side of, you know, like there's, there's, there's all these kinds of things that go into it that I appreciate where Christians disagree on that. I don't think that's a one-to-one.

It's different if I go by steal somebody's car, then I get saved. I'm like, I didn't go give him the car back. So some of it feels overly forceful application to something I think is, there's more space to disagree and it, and Christians still love justice.

But yeah, reparations is one of those where it's like, I just have not been persuaded that it's a, there's, there's situations that I think it's a biblical application, but generally in the way that I hear it regularly used, I'm not convinced.

Yeah, I would just say, I mean... Okay, okay. So let me, we're going to stop it there. You probably saw my face, my reaction. I was shocked at first. I was so disappointed that he wasn't actually going to talk about the question.

And then he started talking, but then he, but then he kind of redeemed himself because he is, he's getting the churches back. And I appreciate that. So Brian Davis, you know, I've been hard on you, and I probably will continue to be hard on you as this, as this debate wraps up, but I appreciate you getting the churches back because it's so easy right now for people to just rip the church.

Everybody's doing it. Everybody is doing it. The church is the worst thing since sliced bread. Oh, you know, the church, they just, you know, Joe Martisby loves ripping the church. They're just evil. Everything, everything evil is the church's fault.

A lot of these, these charlatans, these shysters, they sound like village atheists when, when they talk about the church. And so, and it's, and it's lies. That's the thing. It's so often lies. The church is not perfect, but the church is, is, is a force for good.

This is the side of the angels, man. This is, there's so many people that just give so much. They give, they give money, they give time, they give effort, they pray. And, and, and this is the thing, well, we're just going to pray about it.

This would, Jackie Childs is, is, is one of these guys that, you know, he kind of sounds like the village atheist sometimes where he's like, we're just going to pray about it. Them Christians, all they do is pray.

I don't need your prayers. I'm gonna give me some money. It's like, dude, like, no, like that's, that's the caricature. That's what atheists say about the church. That's not what really happens. There's adoptions.

It was just, people are so selfless. I have a friend, friends that, that adopted a special needs kid, you know, knowing that this was going to be a very challenging kind of situation, brought them into the home.

And it's just, and are just, it's just, that's, these are the good works that the church is, is, is supposed to do and does do. Yes, of course we could always do better, but, but the church, thank you, Brian, for getting the churches back.

And then he kind of like nibbles around the problems with reparations. He doesn't really go for the jugular. I guess it's just not in his nature, which is probably why he's in this debate. But he starts to say, yeah, there's a problem with distance and how do you define who's and who gets what and stuff like that.

And, and, and so yeah, restitution, he calls it reparations, but restitution in the Bible, that's biblical, right? But, but does it really apply to this situation? That's where I, you know, he has a problem.

And of course he uses, makes copious use of words like hesitate and my feelings. And I'm not, I don't hear like just all the soft words that, that don't make it seem like you have conviction on it. So we'll have to stop there.

I'm going to go get some baked beans. I'm just, I'm just, for some reason I woke up and I wanted some baked beans. So I'm going to do that. And we will see you on the next one. Hopefully we'll finish it.

I hope you found this video helpful.