Black Theology & Black Power

It's that it's fascinating to me how easily someone in one religion can find the fallacies and biases in another religion. I think that what's fascinating your raise your razor-sharp on your your your criticism of Islam here.

Yeah, and but what I find fascinating Jeff is that you recognize that with other religions. But you don't do it with your own because I that may be the case.

And there's that confirmation bias coming up again.

Opening the Show and Introducing the Topic of Black Liberation Theology

Apologetics large to answer your questions your host of striving for eternity.

We are Live apologetics live coming to you over the internet answering your questions challenges or whatever else you may Throw our way. We're glad to have you here encourage you guys to come on in ask any questions that you have.

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He hopefully will be in in a bit, but he's had a rather rough day today. Actually, just as I say that he's just sent me a text and said stuck on the phone so Matt's on the phone I I think I think I just got a word.

I got a word and it says Matt's stuck on the phone. For any of you who are in charismatic movement, you know what it means when someone says they have a word. All right, and so with that Until Matt comes in the I'm gonna be I'm gonna deal with well Interesting topic I think and we'll see what you guys think.

But I want to I'm gonna try to see if I could get that so I should I should let you guys know that We do this every Thursday night. We try to answer any questions that you have any challenges. My recommendation is to come in early I Think last week week before we had someone that had some questions.

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So I'm gonna what I want to do is Go over some things and Then what I'd like to do until some folks come in is I would like to go over an issue called black liberation theology. Which is essential to understand when people talk about social justice and talk about critical race theory things like that and so You you have to understand the background for some of this stuff.

It's not easy for everyone to understand. So that is my plan to cover that if you have questions on social justice black liberation theology critical race theory I'm gonna be addressing some of that, but it is an open Q &A.

So any questions that you may have. Whatever they may be Maybe I can answer them. Maybe I can't but whatever it is I will try to answer them and that's what we're gonna do here. So I do want to give you guys an announcement Coming on the 15th of December.

We're gonna be having a contest with all the podcasters in the Christian podcast community. Let's see if I could bring up Dude, you would have been good if I had this up already, but I didn't plan on that.

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So that's something we just want to give you there so I encourage you to check that out and in nine days and That way you can you can see that so Just trying to read the comments. Someone's saying I'll look on watch on an Apple TV.

Okay. But if you want to join us and ask any questions and challenges, I recommend that you go to Apologetics live .com. That's where you get in. There's a link to join in and ask questions. And so Until we have some folks.

There's usually folks don't come in right away. Whichever again recommend you get in right away. That's when you can get your questions answered so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to torture many of you and because some of you will find this to be torturous and Others may not maybe some of you are going to be agreeing with critical race theory and black liberation theology.

Someone's asking when the contest dates start again. So the the dates of the contest are December 15th, but I guess what I didn't say is when does it end. It ends the end of February. So we're gonna have all of You're gonna have half of December, but you know Christmas time.

You're gonna be focused on family. So some those of you who really want this are gonna make sure you're sharing it over the holidays. While the other people are gonna wait until January to kick in but you'll have all of January all of February.

We're gonna do this. It's a leap year folks. So we're gonna do it on February 30th. Some of you figured out there is no February 30th would so we'll draw we will do the drawing on the 29th of February, so maybe some of you have heard of the idea of black liberation theology or critical race theory social justice.

Intersectionality. These are all terms. You're hearing more and more and These are terms that are not going to go away. In fact, if you are watching the Democrat National Committee's debates you're hearing these things come up.

It is kind of funny if you watch those debates, they just figured out that Elizabeth Warren is white. Because the only black woman is out of the race now and they're saying that the Democrats are there.

They're basically attacking their own now they're basically going after the Democrats and saying that they're not black enough because I Think all of the black all the African Americans have now dropped out.

Maybe the only one that may still be in this African American is Unfortunately, the senator senator of my state. Yeah, so we we have I don't know if Cory Booker still in the race or not, but So that may be the only one Don't know but they're the argument that they're even going after is they're saying that there's not enough African Americans who are running that somehow that is showing that the Democrat Party may be racist then this is a thinking maybe you you've heard around where somehow there has to be a Enough African Americans or enough, you know, if you listen to glad glad had a I forget what it stands for but it's like gay lesbian I forget but it's like some action committee to promote homosexuality and so what the you end up seeing is that they are saying there's not enough homosexuals in the In the movie industry and therefore there they should do something about that that Somehow they're there.

They got to correct that problem which I don't not sure it's exactly a problem, but They they were arguing that there's only 20 representation of people who practice homosexuality inside of Hollywood movies now think about that 20 of the movies are played by people that practice homosexuality or they're representing homosexuality in Presenting it in the movie and yet when you look in America We had a recent census that came out and basically reveals that those who are in Homosexual relationships are basically point.

I think it was point zero three or point three I forget but let's go with point three. That's higher point three percent of America. So point three percent of America and yet they have 20 representation in Hollywood and They argue that you you'll hear this argument that somehow if you don't have enough females or African Americans or homosexuals or whichever the victimized group that they're arguing for if you don't have enough of them being represented somehow you're racist you're Sexist you're whatever and this is where critical thinking or critical race theory comes in.

Where you start to see this? You know you see this playing out and so We we end up seeing a lot of the what's called Black liberation theology it comes from a man James Cone and what I want to do is give you some of what he writes so that you can see where this comes from and See a little bit about why this isn't gonna go away and there's no end to it.

There's no end game. So this is I'm gonna read the some quotes here today from James Cone's book black theology black power and so what he's arguing for is he's arguing for a Basically for this black power that he says that we need to have and Some of the things that you see he's gonna talk about things.

Maybe you've heard people talk about white supremacy and The the thing that you're you have to understand with this when you read his writings and you read what they have what they say. Their arguments are really stuck.

I would argue in a century old arguments They're arguing that African-americans or blacks because it's black power that the reason for black power is because blacks are not treated as Human they are subhuman in America and because of that That's gonna be an issue.

They're also not equally represented in their Voting which I you know, if you think about those two issues. Yes, that was Centuries ago an issue where blacks were treated as if they were not human beings almost.

No, actually exactly. Shall we say like children in the womb today where children in the womb are told they're not really human. They're subhuman by the way African-americans in at least in America are aborted at the largest number of any group.

So if if African Americans really were believing that then what we should see is We should see them being against abortion in killing off so many of their own. So There's a whole bunch of quotes here that we could get into and I'm trying to not take the really long ones because That could take too long to read so so some things you end up seeing here is.

Here's a quote that you have Black power. What is black power mean according to James Cone quote black power means black freedom. Black self-determination wherein black people no longer view themselves as without human dignity, but as men human beings.

With an ability to carve out their own destiny. Unquote. No, let's break that quote down and examine. He's saying that black power is freedom black freedom. How is he defining black freedom as by self determination?

Well, who's determining things for these blacks right now, in fact. It's not to think about if you look at this. You have many African Americans that what they end up doing is they will will be conservative.

And what do we hear when you have African Americans that are conservative? They're an uncle Tom. They're an Oreo black on the outside white on the inside because they're not voting the proper way. Well, then is this really about Self-determination or is this about a political agenda?

Because what you end up seeing here is that they're arguing for in a sense and someone in the chat is is Even saying and and look at how they treat. How they attack black American candidates own and that's a great example.

So Matt's Matt's in here saying that he he texted me. When I take a breath, he'll come in. Well, I sent Matt the the URL he's got to check his texts all right, so What you end up seeing is how do they treat Candace Owen and?

And anyone anyone that wants to to join just go to apologetics live comm the link is there. When we get some folks in Andrews in here right now, but when we get he always lets me know when he's got questions.

But oh here comes Matt. There we go, and so if anyone wants to join and ask questions. We can we can discuss those things. So so let me let me and and we'll see what Matt thinks about this quote Matt.

Did you get a chance to hear the quote that I read or now? Okay, so so here's the thing you end up seeing with this black power when you hear that folks talk about this. You Have to ask the question of are they being treated or viewing themselves as not having human dignity if if that's case.

Where's that coming from? Where is it coming from that? African-americans are not Not being treated with dignity. Now the issue here that you see is this becomes a ever-moving target. Because when you say that someone doesn't view themselves as having a certain amount of dignity.

Well, they can just change once they get to one level of dignity change it and say well I still don't feel like I have enough dignity because I need something else. The the argue. That this is something that can realistically never be achieved.

Why James Cone will say. And if I could find the quote, I'll quote him, but he's gonna argue that. That it that there were never in America will there be whites who will ever see African-americans or blacks as being human and.

So what he argues he'll say this about black power. Black power is quote black power. Then is a humanizing force because it is the black man's attempt to affirm his being unquote. But but who's who is it?

That's dehumanizing them. It's not the whites. It's it's themselves. When they're saying that they don't have this dignity that they expect. But you know Matt you you have shared this many times you grew up with a last name slick moving around from home to home to home because your dad was in military and so that caused you to.

Let's put this way did everybody always show dignity to you.

The ratio what. I didn't miss me. Oh heck. No Right. I was treated so badly so much that I know it's also skinny buck-tooth and. Because I moved, you know 26 times before I was 12 12 different elementary schools I was treated so badly by so many people that I didn't stop having nightmares of being murdered.

Till I was 35.

So, yeah, so so and you're not black right so so.

No, I was white. It was. Yeah, it was the white people that gave me the worst trouble.

See me. Yeah, and this becomes a thing. Is that who gave you? The the main problem with this whole thinking is how do you get around the fact that who gets to Define what dignity is so. So, you know when you have people arguing like this Matt What becomes the main problem with this way that they define dignity.

Well, it's subjective and you know, the thing is if you define dignity like I'd listen to what you're saying with this guy. You know, I would sit down to say well. What definition do you have? When would the criteria be met?

Why is the definition the right one? These are serious questions. And plus there's a lot of black people who don't think whites are human. Some of the BHI people. They don't think that whites are human.

To some of them. Some people think that whites are devils. I mean it happens all over the place. Nobody's exempt from being prejudice.

When people start using the prejudice to start saying well I'm of a victim status and therefore I need to get treated better or I need extra privileges. Because because I think the thing here is that the people are not looking for equal rights.

They're looking for extra rights, right?

Well, I was treated badly left and right upside down backwards forwards. For years and years and years. That was just me being friends with you. Yeah. So, you know, it just took me a long time and it just realized no one's gonna help me.

I'm gonna help myself. I got a I got a you know. You know, I wish people would stop whining. The white trash the black trash the brown trash the yellow trash. Whatever you want to say, you know, I'll just stop whining.

Do what you got to do to? You know to help yourself. Who else is gonna help you. You want to handouts because this idea of. You know this in this case with this this black guy, but what does he want? He wants the culture to change to help them.

So he's saying wait a minute. What dignity. So the is he saying so that we can have everybody else change everything so that we're elevated. But that's not dignity. That's a that's just you know, a helping hand.

Doesn't help yourself. Dignity in that. I didn't like to have to do that when I had to have. When I was in seminary and I had to have food stamps kind of stuff to survive, you know I'm trying to provide my family.

I didn't like that, but you gotta do what you got to do but. Anyway, I'm rambling that kind of stuff really just annoys me.

Stop whining, but see where this where I see. This is really being dangerous is you're starting to see some of this creep into the church. Now I'll actually now it's not even creeping in but you you have so much of the same victimizing mentality coming out.

We're now it's like I was dealing with this on Twitter. Where you know people are saying that if I if I have the nerve Matt to say that God has ordained different roles between men and women in the church that I'm.

Somehow I'm an abuser of women. I'm abusing women. How am I abusing women just because that view? Suppresses them and I had I had this lady that told me this and and I said well. She said when you say that a woman had to submit to a man, that's abuse.

I said so. Are you saying when in Ephesians Paul says in Ephesians 521 there were to submit to one another that we're all abusing one another. She's like well know that that has the idea of that. We we would show preference to one another.

And I said, okay. So then what does it mean in a couple verses later? She's like that means he's got a wife hats to obey. He forces her to obey and I'm like, that's not what we like. We now established you understand that.

That what submit means that it's to that you you put yourself under another person and yet when you when it comes to husband and wife you're saying it's that the husband who's doing the forcing when the.

The reference in the text is the wife does the wife is the actor so she knows the differences in the terms. But purposely uses that because it creates this emotional response. And and this is what we're seeing a lot of to try to force churches to accept female pastors.

Oh.

Yeah, I was on the wise late getting in here dealing with an issue about somebody with a pastor a woman pastor thing but yeah, it's you know people don't realize submission is voluntary and. If submission is bad, then and it's an abusive thing.

Then it was Jesus under a system of abuse when he submitted to the will of the Father.

Well That's exactly that that was exactly the thing that I had said I pointed out to her was the fact that Christ submits to the Father is that abuse is God the Father an abuser now after I put that out there.

She stopped responding right. Because they ran I challenged them. I said come on in to hear One of the guys it was very interesting. And I'll be curious what your thought is on this Matt. So how would you have handled this situation?

So I'm talking with a guy He's arguing for women's being equal in in authority in the church. They could be pastors and preachers and He just he rejects what Paul says. I said, well, that's what God wrote and he said no he didn't so now he doesn't even He doesn't even believe it's God's Word.

He doesn't believe. He says that the Bible contains Discrepancies. So here's his two discrepancies ready one. One was that the Bible teaches that the earth is around a flat disk. Okay. Now this is the irony.

He told me I'm not scholarly. I'm not but he is because what he gave me was a picture of a comment like a study Bible with notes and so the notes were you know, I think was Isaiah where it says the earth is round and The notes explain it's a flat disk.

I'm like, that's not the Bible. That's commentary. Like he doesn't understand those that difference his other argument of a discrepancy. Is that with Noah's Ark you have Animals coming on two by two, but some it says there's two by they all go on two by two.

But there's certain animals that you have pairs and certain animals you male female certain animals. We have seven of them and so seven is an odd number. You can't have them go on two by two. So, how how would you handle that those two discrepancies that he claims of discrepancies?

Take your right hand put it in front of your face. Look to your left and slap yourself side the head. Yeah, you did it right. I mean come on. It's just those are not discrepancies those are those are just facts.

He's just looking for something to complain about. That's all he's got an agenda over Scripture. And that's what needs to be focused on. Is that I think is that you just you just have a desire To war against God's Word.

You have a desire to call God a liar. You have a desire to say God's not capable of of Keeping his word intact and secure and true. So you're the one who's under judgment from God for your heresy and your lies against him and.

You know that's I said of people because that's I think you need a blast between the eyes sometimes.

Black Power, Self-Determination, and the Problem of Subjective Dignity

So Let me give let me give you some quotes from James Cone, and I'll let you respond with some of these things. And again folks if you want to come in and ask any questions. It's we're doing an open Q &A tonight.

You just go to apologetics live calm. You can watch there you can Join the link to join using stream yard is there. So. So here's um, I'm just gonna try to look for some good quotes to give you so. Here's here's one.

He says black power. So like to say it's in quotes, right quote black power in short is an attitude an inward affirmation of essential of the essential worth of blackness. It means that the black man will not be poisoned by the Stereotypes that others have of him.

Unquote. Was a racist. Okay, now we get into the what now that presents a problem when you talk with black liberation theology and critical race theory because They will argue that blacks cannot be racist.

It's impossible. I just say I'm sorry, but you're a racist so When they say that Matt and you're saying they're racist. They're saying they can't be. What is for folks who may be struggling with this?

What becomes the issue? How? How can you be so absolute like what is it that you're doing to say? They're racist and yet they're saying they're not because there's there's a clear thing. That's break.

That's being broken down there.

What they're doing is just simply saying that because they're black. That that's why they should have. Blah blah blah blah blah that's bait that's racist. That's what racism is saying because of a person's race skin color, which I don't agree.

There's there's races. There's only one race a human race. That's my position. But for this context, we're using the term race in that sense so he's fomenting and Furthering racism is all he's doing in his ill logic and his stupidity and he needs to repent and that would just call him straight Out.

So you're a racist. You say well, I can't be racist. You can't and denying it doesn't make it go away. You're a racist because you're trying to say people because of their skin color. That's what racism is.

You're a racist.

Okay. So first off humble clay says. Matt's a hundred percent, correct. So there you go.

It's only correct if humble clay is a black person then. Because logic is dependent upon your race.

Apparently also, well, okay. So you what you just did there was you gave a definition for racism and it's a Would be the historical definition for racism. You know. Because your your race racism was defined.

On skin color being of stereotyping people and.

Restricting them on things because of the color of their skin or say one race is superior to another race. Yes, that's. And that's what they would say. White supremacy is right? Well white supremacy is racism.

Mm-hmm.

It should be abolished. But then how. How logically if white. And this is the thing white supremacy is supposedly racist. But then isn't black power. Because is that not saying that the black man needs to be superior?

Yeah, that's racism too. What if we said white power? That's racist black power. That's not racist. White people should be given certain percentages of jobs. That's racism. Black should be given certain percentages of jobs.

That's not racism. That's equality. You know the double standard that kind of thing. So I would you end up seeing is They're playing with a different definition than you. Yeah, they're not being logical or you have an agenda.

So there's a difference between logic and agenda. People have agendas they want something to be promoted and logic truth facts scripture are often trampled underfoot at the Necessity of an of their agenda.

And so what's their agenda? It's a racist agenda to promote black people. They say to the equality of white. Well What does that mean? I mean What does that mean? You know, I should go to the my martial arts.

There's a black guy we'd work out with. I insulted him like I did anybody else in there. He took shots at me like anybody else. There's no racism there. We were equal. He'd come over he would go do things with my white daughter.

I didn't care. You know, I'd watch them my white daughter would take take martial arts with us and see he and she Wrestle on the ground, you know in martial arts you do that kind of a thing as you're learning lessons.

I don't care. You know, what's equality an attitude? Is it a forced attitude? What's equality? What do they mean? What do you mean? You know, these terms have to be Have to be examined. I just get so tired of the mamby-pamby illogic that comes from so many people who think that they're being great and social justice idiocy and and.

And Pictures, it's just like I wish he'd stop, you know.

The Logic of Equality Versus the Agenda of Victimhood

Well, I I think one of the things that you know that I see with this this quote that they they have here Right here you they're saying black power is it's an attitude.

Okay, and wait, wait, wait, what's the attitude? What's the attitude? It's well.

You just say it's an attitude and inward affirmation of the essential worth of blackness. But how do you define blackness?

Then it's an attitude for that I like blackness. My daughters think that black guys are really attractive. Okay. So they must. What was it? That's that's being black. Was it. What's the term? He was saying it was black power.

Then they affirm black power.

Well, and that's the thing that for for whites to affirm black power, they they would have to say that they Could. Part of this is that black power is also as we saw earlier it's saying that whites don't accept their blacks as being human and.

Yet they do see you're not human. Who says blacks aren't human.

Well this is the whole argument for black power that James Cone makes is that that Blacks in America are not seen as being human beings and and not who says that which.

Would show me some people who say blacks aren't humans. I mean, I like I see that.

Well, I actually may have that soon because I I was talking to a guy last Sunday about some of the stuff I'm reading in James Cone and You know what you ended up seeing is he said oh well blacks aren't aren't human.

Blacks aren't treated as being human.

Like are treated as being human considering. Being human is different. That that's interpretation and there's a difference there.

Yeah, so what you end up seeing though is that and they're the way they end up viewing things is to say that. They're they're thinking says that whites don't treat them as humans, but it also says that whites will never treat them as being humans and.

That becomes the dilemma you it becomes on that you can never get out of but the other part of this definition. That's interesting. It says that black power. It means that the black man will not be poisoned by stereotypes of what others have.

Now, here's the question. Is this not a stereotype. Yeah. Right. I mean so here you have some. Logically, this becomes a self-defeating argument, right? It crumbles on its own because the the argument that where they're not supposed to have stereotypes of blacks.

But blacks can have the stereotypes of whites or of blacks as well.

And this is oh god. No, I'm with you. Double standard.

So so so far we've seen that this thinking Matt you you've shown that it it requires to a Subjective standard not an objective one. Therefore it can mean anything to anyone. We See that it's it ends up breaking logical things because it they're arguing for Not having stereotypes as they stereotype so that becomes a In a logical argument.

So if they have a subjective standard this is something that never ends it you'd never come to a point where you can conclude this because if They're saying racism has nothing to do with skin color anymore now, it's starting to do with How you think politically?

How much money you make. It reminds me of.

The novel 1984. There's a Little phrase new speak. New speak. Thank you. I'd want to say think speak, but it's new speak. Yeah, what they would do in 1984 everybody should read that novel everybody should.

Seriously, it's not because it's cool. No, you should read it. It's it's it's brilliantly done. But Yeah new speak. Yeah, they would just make it two plus two equals five. They would work until you believed it by propaganda illogical.

They would have that have the propaganda machine and the main character works in the in the field where he has to come up with Replace the news so they would they would change a word. So let's put it in the in the way we're using this now you have the word racism which used to mean that you Stereotype people and treat them different because of some you know, either color skin facial whatever and that's they would that's what racism is, but now racism is an economic thing and so what they would new speak would be is where everybody just changes the definition and Now everyone just starts accepting it and you know people Matt I gotta tell you when I read in 1984 I was like, this is ridiculous.

Okay back then. Yeah TVs that would be able to you know Cuz they had these devices at a TV that actually had cameras and microphones in it to listen in on people. Oh wait, that's Martin first mention anymore.

Yes smart TVs and. And part of the thing is I said, there's no way you can convince people to just change their their the meanings of words that quickly and It can happen it is happening. Look at look at the whole issue with with the genders now I mean, this is brand new.

It's never seen this in history where all of a sudden people are saying well, I'm born male, but I Identify as female now you had people that dressed as the opposite gender. But they're actually saying they biologically are a different gender.

They're redefining what it means to be male or female.

That reminds me because I just realized recently that I identify as a lesbian who is actually Part black part Asian and a little Hispanic mixture and I'm stuck in a white man's body. So now what do I do?