Response to Lig Duncan's Marxist Groove! T4G Speech

Response to Ligon Duncan’s Critique of the Spirituality of the Church

I saw a number of people posting Dr. Ligon Duncan's speech, well actually just a clip of his speech at T4G conference, and a lot of people have posted it very approvingly of what he said, and actually my response to this is not all bad, he actually does have a lot of really good things to say, but unfortunately Dr. Duncan, what he decides to do is kind of, in a very vague and sort of hard to pin down kind of way, throw his support with sort of this social justice SJW Christian movement, and so I want to play the video and I have a few different comments about it, and again this is not intended to throw any shade Dr. Duncan's way, I have someone very close to me who is in the PCA who holds Mr. Duncan, rather I'm sorry Dr. Duncan, in high regard, in high esteem, so this is not to sort of say anything this man says is suspect, that is not the case at all, but I do want to respond to this, and so let me play the video and we'll kind of respond as we go.

The Second Commandment and Racial Tensions

I believe that if the reform community in America in the 19th and 20th century had simply applied the second commandment, we would be in a very different place than we are today in terms of racial tensions, but my community figured out how the second commandment didn't apply to that, and let me just tell you how it happened, in the early 19th century, leading up to 1837, both Baptists and Presbyterians decided that slavery and slaveholding was dividing the church, it was a divisive issue, and they decided that it was harmful to unity, and therefore they decided it was a thing that shouldn't be talked about in the church in order to keep unity, and then they said this, if you talk about stuff like that in the church, you're getting into politics and social life, and sometimes they gave fancy names to that, like the spirituality of the church.

Okay, so this part is exactly right, he's talking about the history of the Presbyterian church in America, and also just the church in general, and he's talking about this idea of the spirituality of the church, and that is sort of this idea that the church and its influence is here in this spiritual realm, and it does not, we should not try to apply that to the civil realm and to the social realm, and that is exactly the wrong thing, the gospel absolutely applies to the social and civil realm as well, Christ is Lord of the church, yes, but Christ is also Lord of Lords, he's King of Kings, he's the King of all the kings, and so the civil magistrate and social society needs to bend the knee to Jesus Christ, they need to obey him in every area, and so he's exactly right, this is what they did, they sort of made this superficial, unbiblical sort of disconnect between social life and civil life and spiritual life, and that's completely inappropriate, as a, I would consider myself a Presbyterian, I do not go to a Presbyterian church, but I do hold to the Westminster Confession, that is exactly wrong, that is not the way to go, and so he's right to identify that as a problem, what his problem is going to be is when he tries to apply this, let's continue.

Vague Confession Without a Biblical Definition of Justice

And all the while, they were saying the second commandment doesn't apply here, and so if you get all antsy when somebody starts applying the second commandment here, it's because they taught you. Well, they taught me.

Well, it has taken more than three decades for God to bring this blindness off of my heart, forgive me brothers.

Okay, I've got a couple comments about this section, and the first thing is, I'm glad that the blindness regarding the idea of the spirituality of the church and how it does not, you know, apply to social or civil realms, I'm glad that that is no longer part of Ligon Duncan's theology, because it's horrible, it's absolutely horrible, but the problem is going to be his application, because there is no way that what Ligon Duncan is talking about here is now going to the Bible, going to the Old Testament law and saying, okay, what is justice and how do we apply it in a New Testament context?

That's not what he's talking about. That's not what he's talking about. And so the problem is, how are you going to define justice? He's here weeping, and he's talking about how it's taken three decades for this to come, the scales to drop from his eyes, and he's saying, forgive me brothers, forgive me.

Okay, great, I forgive you, no problem. Now, what is the solution? Because justice is not defined by the secular culture, justice is not defined by whatever you decide it is. Justice is defined by the civil code.

Justice is defined by the civil code in the Old Testament, and so we need to make sure that we're defining these things biblically. The other thing he might be apologizing for is, I don't know, some kind of discrimination in his heart, some kind of racism in his heart.

I don't know, because he's very vague about what he's applying, apologizing for, and that's one of the problems that I have with this presentation. What exactly is he apologizing for? Maybe he says in the rest of the presentation, I'm not really sure, but if it's not the fact that there's this spirituality of the church, and now he's going to go to this Old Testament code to find out what justice is, then what exactly is he apologizing about, and what should we apologize for?

That's the question, because I don't believe in the spirituality of the church. I don't believe that there's this separate realm where the gospel only applies to this separate realm. I believe it applies everywhere, but the problem is how you apply it, and it's not just on your whims, right?

That's my problem with Matt Chandler, and that's my problem with all of this social justice stuff. It's because justice is not defined by the Bible. Justice is not defined by biblical categories. It's defined by Marxist categories.

He's going to talk about that in a second.

Defining Love and Justice Biblically

Friends, this isn't about some social gospel. Well, I think you can worry about it in life. Don't ever worry that Ligdunken really grooves on cultural Marxism, okay?

Well, Dr. Duncan, we do worry about that because you aren't really being very clear here, okay? You're being very vague. You're being very ambiguous, because if you're not going to go with the social justice warrior Marxism, which everybody has been going for this week, so when you hear this in the context of this past couple of weeks, what we know is that people are defining these terms by social justice standards, by Marxist standards.

So, Dr. Duncan, it would be very helpful if you could be clear here, because I'm pretty sure you're not becoming a theonomist. You should, but you're not doing that. And so, how are you defining justice?

You don't groove on Marxism. Okay, well, I believe that you don't think you groove on Marxism, but what are the categories that you're using? It'd be helpful to know.

This is the dadgum second commandment.

The dadgum second commandment. It sounds pretty good, right? And I think he's talking about the second greatest commandment. So, what Jesus is talking about the greatest commandment, love the Lord your God, and then the second commandment, love your neighbor as yourself.

So don't get confused. He's not talking about the second commandment in the 10 commandments, but he's talking about love your neighbor as yourself. Okay, great. I agree. We need to apply that commandment to this issue, but how do you do it, right?

How do you define how it is to love your neighbor? What does God say loving your neighbor is? Okay? That's the question. And the answer to that question is you look at the Old Testament code, because it's much more specific than saying love your neighbor as yourself.

Because here's the problem. I've seen this presentation before, this two minute sort of emotional appeal. I've seen this before with other topics. And we as Christians have to make a decision. What are we going to, how are we going to define our terms?

How are we going to define ideas like justice and love? Because I've heard this presentation. Tell me if you've heard it. You know, brothers, we have to apply the second command. We have to love our neighbors as ourselves.

And we have to do it consistently to everybody. Christ says to love your, even your enemies. And so we have to love our brothers and sisters in Christ who are LGBT, and we have to love them the way that we would love ourselves.

And you can get real emotional about this too. I've seen it. I've seen it. Is it loving to deny an LGBT brother of love, of companionship? Is it loving? Well, the answer to that question depends on how you define love.

A guy like Matthew Vines defines it in a very secular way. I define it biblically. And so what the Bible says is loving. That's how I define what is loving. And likewise, what the Bible says is justice.

That's how I define justice. And so you need to be more specific here, Dr. Duncan, and maybe you did add specifics later in your talk. I don't know. I don't know even where this section of the speech goes in your talk.

But I did see this specific section posted everywhere. And unfortunately, this doesn't give me enough information to know how to even approach what you're even saying. Are you apologizing because you've been a racist for 30 years?

I don't think so. So then what's all the emotion? I don't really get it. And by the way, if you are apologizing for being a racist for 30 years, I think you need to take a step back for a second. When somebody reveals a major sin like that, they usually take some time off of ministry.

I don't know if that's what you were apologizing for. I don't really know what you were apologizing for because this snippet is just too vague. And so my brothers and sisters in Christ who are posting this snippet and saying, this is amazing, this is fire, this is such truth, I don't know if it is or not because it's just not very specific.

And unfortunately, this is a hallmark of social justice warriors. They tend to be very squishy with their definitions so you can never pin them down on anything. But at the end of the day, it always ends up being Marxism.

Now Luke Duncan says he doesn't groove on Marxism. I believe him, but I'll need to see more specifics here. Hope this is helpful. God bless.