Juneteenth Follow Up and Four Woke Church Tactics
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- 00:00
- Welcome to the
- 00:13
- Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We're gonna talk about four woke church tactics today, four strategies social justice advocates use to promote politically leftist ideas in the church under the banner of Christianity while precluding conservative political ideas from gaining a foot in the door.
- 00:33
- How do they do it? Well, I'm gonna show you four things I've noticed irrespective of denomination that are used to try to accomplish that end.
- 00:43
- And if you can recognize them, then you can be ready for how to respond to these tactics. Now, before we go there,
- 00:49
- I want to talk just briefly about yesterday's podcast, which was on Juneteenth, and some of my concerns surrounding the way that this has been handled, pushed through, what's associated with, and I spent almost an hour, so you can go watch that whole video.
- 01:06
- There's a lot of stuff that I could have, some people were saying, John, can't you have shorter videos? Well, that's actually, there's a lot of things
- 01:11
- I probably left out that I could have included, and you all really helped me think through things in a more complete fashion as well.
- 01:19
- I'm actually thankful for respectful dialogue. We don't get a lot of it today. It's name calling, et cetera, but some of you disagreed with what
- 01:27
- I said from all kinds of different angles, and I want to highlight some of those, I've tried to summarize some of the points that were made.
- 01:35
- So let me just at least give these to you. Some people just thought, it's simple, celebrate the end of slavery.
- 01:42
- John, you're overthinking this, and I don't think I am. I think that social issues actually move the ball a lot more than fiscal things and changes even to our government structure.
- 01:57
- I mean, these are things that are important, but I think symbols matter. I think it does drive culture in some ways when you are honoring certain things and not honoring other things, and we have to make choices.
- 02:10
- There's only so many things you can honor, right? And so we do have to create priorities and choices, and when you're talking about a big country like the
- 02:17
- United States where human scale is so out of whack because there's so many people being governed by such a centralized authority in Washington, it didn't used to be that way, obviously, during the founding of the country where you had about as many people as just exist probably in the state of,
- 02:33
- I don't know, like probably Georgia or something, or Alabama, something like that. But now we have this huge government, and you have regional things, regional concerns, different ethnic concerns, et cetera, and it's not just,
- 02:48
- I mean, there's all kinds of identities, wanting a seat at the table, wanting their things celebrated, et cetera, and I think there's an identity issue going on.
- 02:55
- I think that's part of it. Who are we as a people? And this has been a crisis for a while, and I don't wanna spend a whole podcast on it, but I don't think it's quite as simple.
- 03:04
- I don't think it's just simple, celebrate the end of slavery, but I appreciate the commenters who said that because I think they're bringing out a point which is important to make.
- 03:14
- This is, as far as tactics are concerned, I mean, who wants to be the one who says, yeah, we shouldn't celebrate the end of slavery?
- 03:21
- No one does, and no one's really saying that, but it can be portrayed that way. Even people can portray what
- 03:28
- I was saying that way because I'm taking some issue with some of what
- 03:33
- I consider to be the historical inaccuracies of the Emancipation Proclamation being the point of celebration for the ending of slavery, and some of the things associated with the ending of slavery being perhaps not worthy of those particular things not being worthy of celebration, to the point that you have to reduce everything down to, we're all really glad that the state of affairs has changed, that the status of people who were slaves has changed to being that of free, and it's hard to celebrate a lot of the things that surrounded that.
- 04:05
- Over all the people who died as a result of being freed into the environment they were freed into, the hardship associated with it, it just, it could have been done so much better,
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- I think, in a gradual, in a way that many other countries did with compensation, in a more natural way, perhaps, but it was done in the aftermath of a war.
- 04:30
- And so I made these points already, you can watch the video, but I think, I appreciate the people who just say, look, it's just, just don't overthink this, just celebrate the end of slavery, however you wanna do it.
- 04:41
- I disagree, I think it needs to be done in a way that's not gonna give the left a hook to reach in and forward the narrative that like, look, all, you know, victims just need the government to step in and end their problems, which is the left is always looking to promote that narrative.
- 04:56
- And I think Juneteenth is no exception to that. I think that's exactly what Biden and the Democrats are thinking they can do to use this to their advantage.
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- Another response, conservatives can define the narrative, white people sacrificing to end slavery. And this is,
- 05:11
- I think, what a lot of political conservatives are thinking when they support this, they say, look, you have a bunch of white people who are from the
- 05:19
- North, who came down South, they fought, they died, you had a war which over half a million people died.
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- And this was all in the name of, you know, freeing the slaves. And so we can then celebrate their sacrifice for a noble cause.
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- And there's something that I appreciate about it because there's not many noble causes left that we can come together nationally and celebrate, which is sad, there should be a lot of them.
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- I mean, even the 4th of July now isn't really something that the left can even really participate in.
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- But the thing is, I think it's a cartoonized version of that particular struggle.
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- I don't think that that's what it was. I don't think it was the primary motivation, we'll put it that way. Were there people certainly fighting for that cause?
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- I think there were, it was not the primary motivation. You can read like for causing comrades, look at what the soldiers thought of it, look at even politically.
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- And I showed you the Emancipation Proclamation last time, what Lincoln was thinking, what the politicians in Washington, what the
- 06:13
- Republican Party was thinking about this. They were not trying to primarily, and you can see this even in Reconstruction policy, they weren't trying to make the situation of black
- 06:26
- Americans, former slaves, et cetera, better. That wasn't really their purpose, that wasn't their cause.
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- And I've gone through this in other videos, I've hinted at it before, maybe we'll do some longer podcasts where I talk about why the
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- Republican Party, I think even Eric Foner, who's kind of a communist, but I think he even wrote a book about this,
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- I can't remember the title, Free Soil, Free Men, something like that. But a lot of the
- 06:51
- Republican Party's goal was to try to prevent black people from spreading.
- 06:57
- Keeping the spread of slavery from happening was about keeping the spread of black people into the Western territories.
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- Of course, they had laws, basically the initial Jim Crow laws, barring slaves from coming in their territory.
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- Most of them wanted to just contain it in the South. And that's what they did. And that war -torn region, it led to a lot of problems.
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- And so I'm just thinking, historically, what happens when the left comes along, and they're starting to do this.
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- This is the effort to even start to remove some Lincoln stuff. They're starting to catch on to this narrative, and they're starting to show, in the historical record, hey, this wasn't this high and noble cause.
- 07:33
- That's not exactly true. And I don't want conservatives to be set up once again for cancellation.
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- I just think what we need to do is probably focus on the things that are admirable.
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- We don't have to use inaccurate things to paint our leaders or heroes of the past in a certain way.
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- Focus on the things that were true and valuable that we can come around today and honor. And I think if we go this way, this very black and white, absolute way of looking at history,
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- I think we're gonna end up setting ourselves up. That's my concern, mostly, with that.
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- Here's another, and by the way, though, these are all good comments worthy of thinking. That's why
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- I'm bringing them up. They're thought -provoking. Here's another comment. We have enough holidays. This is actually a very, this is a good one.
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- We have enough holidays. This will open Pandora's box and devalue the status of national holiday as a category.
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- And I think there's some truth to this. What if now all sorts of other groups want their holiday for whatever reason, whatever date they wanna pick, and I'm gonna give you a hypothetical in a moment.
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- Are we gonna be crowded with a bunch of holidays that are really more about this emancipation narrative, this narrative of how it was really a terrible place, but it's progressively getting better, which is not the most healthy narrative you want.
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- You wanna have some identity and pride in your country, who your country has always been.
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- Of course, countries, people make mistakes. Of course, there's sin. Of course, there's correction. Of course, there's continuing to be sin.
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- I mean, the worst things that have ever happened in our country's history are happening now, and abortion being the top of that list.
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- But anyway, that being said, we could end up with a crowded field here, and I think that is already happening.
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- So we have to make very selective choices of what are the things that are valuable for the purpose of identity, for all
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- Americans in this very huge country with different regional sympathies and values coming together.
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- And I think that slate is getting slimmer. But this is a thought -provoking idea.
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- And then here's another one. Isn't emancipation without compensation wrong? This is probably something you haven't thought about, but someone wanted to make the point that, hold on, aren't you celebrating people freeing slaves, right?
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- Slaves being freed, but there was no compensation to those who held them. And before you say, wait, hold on, isn't that such a horrible idea that anyone would even advocate that?
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- Of course, that's the right thing to do. I remember the individual who made this comment brought up scripture and brought up Philemon, brought up even the 10
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- Commandments, just basic things about stealing and covening, et cetera, and what's listed of the items that are listed there.
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- And this individual, I think, made a point that's at least worthy of consideration.
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- Now, I responded and I said, look, I think the intention is to celebrate the changing of status here.
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- That's at least kind of, this is what conservatives are trying to take Juneteenth to be, this is what it's meant to be.
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- And I think from the beginning, the way it was celebrated in Texas, which there doesn't seem to be a lot of that today.
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- I know some people were commenting, they knew someone who knew someone who celebrated it in Texas, et cetera, but it's certainly not a widespread holiday that seems to be, it's nothing like the 4th of July, we'll put it that way.
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- But that being said, I think the celebration has something to do with just the fact that, hey, we're free now and our status has changed.
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- And I think there's, I think that's the kernel of truth that is driving most of this.
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- And there's some tunnel vision involved in that, I guess. You're ignoring things that are surrounding it, but I think that's the central thing.
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- And if that remains the central thing, I don't see a problem with that. Even if the way that it was done maybe doesn't match up to the way it could have been done.
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- There are a lot of countries that did do compensation, that did have peaceable solutions, that didn't wind up with a quarter of the former slave population dying.
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- So I agree, America dropped the ball on this, and we don't wanna celebrate America dropping the ball on something.
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- That's an oversimplification, by the way. It's not even America, I would say, a small group of people making some centralized decisions at a certain point in history.
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- But I think this is a point worth at least chewing on if you were a Christian, it's a point worth chewing on.
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- Now, here's another one. Black people need their own independence day. This was a comment that I thought was also worth chewing on because the argument is that 4th of July is only for white people.
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- And my take on that is that, no, the 4th of July applied to all the 13 colonies, and it was throwing off the civil relationship that we had with Great Britain.
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- And that applied to everyone. No matter where you lined up in a hierarchy, you could be also a female, you could be a child, not having many of the privileges that men would have had in that time, but yet they would have still joined in this celebration.
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- And so I think, actually, independence day does apply to everyone who is living in those regions. Maybe the best case you can make would be the
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- Native Americans, indigenous people. Some of them sided with the
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- British and it didn't work out so well for them. But other than that, really,
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- I mean, you're talking about people, and also, I should say, I don't wanna get into the complexities of it, but there were many former slaves because of the,
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- I forget the name of the declaration, but now off the top of my head, but because of the fact that the British were emancipating slaves to fight for the
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- British army and making that part of their agenda, there were former slaves who did fight with the
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- British, et cetera. But there were many who did not, and this wouldn't have applied to the majority of them.
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- So this is, traditionally, the way that the celebration has gone on, really from its inception, has been something that's included everyone in those geographic boundaries.
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- And you can't say the same thing for Juneteenth. This is something that even people from Texas are kind of like, well, I think
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- I know someone who might've celebrated that once. And they can't tell you the traditions. They can't tell you what goes along with it, necessarily.
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- This is not something that was ever traditional on a national scale. And I think that's part of the pushback that some conservatives on a popular level are having.
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- They're saying, wait, hold on. You're foisting this on us. This feels like it's being rammed down our throats, in a way, something that we all have to acknowledge.
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- But yet, this isn't something that we acknowledge first. And the sequence probably does matter.
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- Is it the job of the national government to acknowledge something that's already taking place in society, or is it their job to shape society through acknowledging things?
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- And that's a question that I think is gonna determine kind of what you think of the job, at least of the central government in our particular context is.
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- Here's some follow -up thoughts. These are things that I wrote last night as I was chewing on some of this. I just got into it a little bit.
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- I don't usually do this with a podcast, but I started getting into it. Here's some things I wrote. I said, I find some of the conservatives on my recent video on Juneteenth interesting, some of the conversations,
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- I should say, on my recent video interesting, which is why I leave the comments open. I think my point, and the point of other conservatives, such as Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk, is that we wanna celebrate the end of slavery, but we don't want to show up at a celebration hosted by the
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- Democrats, who, by the way, have also poisoned the celebration punch. This is why, for a few years, I've mentioned the idea of a
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- Black Heroes Day as a way, better alternative. Number one, it cannot be weaponized as much by the
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- Democrats because virtues are timeless and everyone can participate in honoring great men. And now, look, I realize the
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- Democrats have a capacity to poison a lot of things. So this isn't foolproof, but I think it's at least, there's a, and I'm not advocating this, by the way, as a national holiday.
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- It's just, I think that if you focus on, well, I made the point in the last video. I'm not gonna regurgitate all of it, but I don't think it presents the
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- Democrats the opportunity as much to say, look, all the victims need is the federal government. They're kind of like passively, they just need us kind of thing.
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- Number two, it also promotes the wonderful and unique things about the descendants of Black Americans who overcame barriers in creative and active ways, as opposed to treating them like passive and helpless victims in need of assistance, which plays right into leftist political policies.
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- Number three, it's also easier and more meaningful to celebrate heroes than it is abstractions.
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- The 4th of July was never about liberty in the abstract so much as it was about the founding fathers and who they were. At least that's what made it special in my neck of the woods, where I lived, grew up, et cetera.
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- According to Joe Biden, who signed the bill making Juneteenth a national holiday, it's not even really about the slaves being freed, which shouldn't come as a shock to anyone who understands the subversive nature of the progressives.
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- It's about a current political agenda. Biden stated, we can't rest until the promise of equality is fulfilled for every one of us in every corner of this nation.
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- That to me is the meaning of Juneteenth. This is Biden saying this, guys. So if this is what Juneteenth is about, it's a perversion of what the original intent behind the celebration was.
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- It's not a way to look back and in gratitude consider what's been accomplished. Rather, it's an opportunity to revolutionize the present according to egalitarian standards.
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- That's the concern. That's a concern we have, guys. That's, I think, the central concern that most conservatives have.
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- And I followed up. I said, by the way, I would not push to make Black Heroes Day a national holiday. If it's something that catches on in an organic way,
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- I think it would be positive. In the same way, there's a St. Patrick's Day and a Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in the
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- United States. I can see all sorts of nationalities having their celebrations that others can also share in.
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- And this could be a regional thing. Black Americans don't have much that celebrates the actual achievements or traditions of themselves uniquely other than politically correct, aren't you so glad you have us progressives to help you stuff?
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- Every culture and subculture needs real heroes and traditions. And I stand by that.
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- Okay, and this is what I said this. I said, okay, and this is a thought experiment I want everyone to think about.
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- Legitimate question here. Think about this. Next year, there's a proposal to make June 4th a national holiday because on that day in 1919, women obtained the right to vote.
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- It will be called Women's National Independence Day. And this is what I think a
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- CNN anchor might say if someone opposed this. They say, you want women to have the right to vote, don't you? Are you against women having the right to vote?
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- So here's the deal. Would you oppose this? And if so, what would your argument be? And you gotta be careful here.
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- And this is going back to the Pandora's box thing. We already have 4th of July as an Independence Day.
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- This is the National Independence Day, right? But Juneteenth was also called National Independence Day in the way that it was adopted as a national holiday.
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- What if there's a Women's National Independence Day? What do you do now? What if Obergefell comes into the equation later on and it's the
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- LGBT, or I guess it would just be the Homosexual Independence Day, National Independence Day. How many
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- Independence Days are we gonna have? And this is the real question. So think about this.
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- Let this be the thing that helps you consider whether or not even maybe
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- Juneteenth is good to celebrate on a national level as an Independence Day, which is the way it is being advocated.
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- The left struggles, smuggles in, and this is the last thing I'll say on this, smuggles in underneath their surface level throwaway symbolic gestures, the machinery by which they change society to conform to their ideological beliefs.
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- The left smuggles in underneath their surface level throwaway symbolic gestures, the machinery by which they change society to conform to their ideological beliefs.
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- So I hope this is helpful for some of you as you're thinking about this. I'm like history a lot and maybe
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- I'm more interested in this than some of you, but we're moving on now. So those who aren't interested in Juneteenth, we're gonna talk about four woke church tactics.
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- Tactic number one, associate causes of the left with the gospel.
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- Associate causes of the left with the gospel. Are we being a true gospel witness to our black and brown brothers and sisters if we don't get behind the
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- Black Lives Matter movement somehow? Are we really ministering the gospel to women if we're not on board with the
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- Me Too movement and rooting out abuse by the way and the way progressives think that it must be done?
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- Are we really about loving the foreigner and the immigrant and the sojourner if we think that there should be a wall on the southern border and people who come into the country illegally should be deported?
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- Is that really something that the gospel would be compatible with?
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- Are we really promoting the gospel or do we need something else? Do we need the great requirement, let's say, to justice and mercy and all these ethical things that we believe apparently the left has a monopoly on?
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- We think those things should be the things that end up being part of the message of the gospel or they accompany the gospel.
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- Or you don't have the full gospel without these things. They're necessary in some way. Or we just can't be a good witness unless we do these things.
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- Or evangelism can't proceed unless you have these elements, equality, diversity, inclusion, et cetera.
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- And how the left defines those things. That's one of the first tactics that I often hear.
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- And when I know someone's bent towards social justice, that's one of the first things that they say is there's some kind of, well, are we really being the kind of witnesses we need to be if we don't?
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- And then it's A, B, or C. There's something that needs to accompany the gospel. There's something that's part of the gospel.
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- And there's something that conservative, political conservatives are missing if they don't have it.
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- And so their orthodoxy is actually called into question in some way because they don't have these social justice concerns, initiatives, causes, whatever as part of their ministry.
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- So this is the way that I think mostly the left smuggles in the progressive political ideas they want the church to then replicate.
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- And it's similar actually to a virus that inserts a DNA into a cell.
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- And then the cell starts replicating that DNA. That's what we're talking about here.
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- That kind of thing. And you have to get past the defenses that the cell has. And that's what progressives have figured out or they work on figuring out how to do.
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- And it perfected it. They've done it for so long. They figured out ways to find parallels in Bible verses and in Christian concepts.
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- And they'll twist, they'll pervert, they'll sneak in something underneath the banner of something else that's legitimate.
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- They'll bring their issues in. And the main thing that Christians are supposed to be about is the Great Commission. That's the main thing.
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- That's what Christ our Lord left us is to spread the news of the gospel, to make disciples of all nations.
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- There's a propagation element within Christianity and the left loves that. They want that.
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- They wanna propagate. How did we do this? And so if you can convince
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- Christians that part of what they're supposed to propagate is social justice concern.
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- And especially if it's just the pinnacle of what Christians are supposed to propagate, the message of the gospel, the good news, then you can effectively promote your, you can exponentially increase the output of your message.
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- And Christians are then forced to do it. They have to, it's part of their duty. They can't raise an objection even if they have a political objection to it.
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- Well, part of my Christian duty. And so that's how you convince Christians who might otherwise be even apolitical to become political in this cause.
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- So that's the first thing, associate causes of the left with the gospel. Second thing is to redefine pro -life to include quality of life issues.
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- This is at a moment in time where there's sort of a fading going on of the religious right.
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- And the religious right, their main issue was abortion and opposing abortion.
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- And the pro -life movement came out of this. And it's bigger than just the religious right, but that's one of the things the religious right really rallied around.
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- So if you're pro -life, it means that you're against murder. And that could be abortion. That's the issue that's at hand now, but it could be other things.
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- It could be euthanasia. Euthanasia was part of that as well, is part of that still. Murdering people, taking their life without cause, not in war, not in some capital punishment or anything, but actually just murdering, taking their life without any justification.
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- Now, legitimate justification. Now, quality of life issues are different than that because the
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- Bible speaks about murder. Thou shalt not murder. However, quality of life issues, such as smoking or the environment or how much exercise you get, how many
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- Big Macs you eat. Now, the issues that are quality of life issues that are popular would be like, like access to healthcare, how good of an education you can get, what kind of economic barriers you face in your neck of the woods.
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- These kinds of things the left uses to somehow promote whatever government plan they have.
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- And so if you can take the pro -life movement, the very clear word God has spoken about, thou shalt not murder, and then smuggle in underneath that banner a bunch of quality of life issues as if there's no essential difference between the two, then you can get
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- Christians to expand their definition of pro -life. So not only is murdering the unborn wrong and evil and sinful, but so is not taking care of illegal migrants.
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- So is not standing up against systemic racism of some kind.
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- So is free healthcare, taking care of people. So is you fill in the blank, opposing smoking.
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- These are things that, and all the examples I picked are ones that I know for sure have been used as pro -life issues.
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- And they're not, they're quality of life issues. Whether or not you smoke, right?
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- This is a personal choice someone makes just like eating a Big Mac or choosing not to exercise or choosing to watch tons of television instead of going out and taking walks or all the unhealthy versus healthy things you can choose may have an impact on your quality of life.
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- It may have an impact on your lifespan. It's not the same as murder though. It's not the same as murder.
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- Murder, the unjustified taking of human life is different than over the years having your health deteriorate because of some barrier that you're putting there or someone else, or just factors outside of your control put there, the circumstances you live under, the
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- Providence God has even placed you in. So here's, that's a big difference.
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- If you can make that distinction, if you can recognize the difference between a life issue and then a quality of life issue, you won't be taken for these rides all the time.
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- And this is how the left, the progressive social justice advocates dupe conservative Christians often into promoting their causes.
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- Say, well, it's just like a pro -life movement, right? No, it's not just like the pro -life movement. Here's the third one.
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- Set maintaining public witness against advocating conservative views.
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- Set maintaining public witness against advocating conservative views. So here's how the left brings in issues from the progressive side of the aisle into Christianity, one and two.
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- Number three, now we're saying, okay, well, how do you make sure that while you're bringing in all these progressive ideas, conservative ideas don't creep in the door?
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- Well, in order to do that, you set maintaining a public witness, a status, a respectability, a winsomeness against advocating conservative views.
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- So you can't maintain your public witness, your reputation with the lost, with the world, with a certain demographic, with elites, really, that's who they're mostly playing to, with the media.
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- You can't maintain your public witness with them if you advocate A, B, or C. If you advocate building a wall in the
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- Southern border, if you advocate deporting illegal migrants, if you advocate these statues that so many of the elites think they associate with racism, if you advocate, you fill in the blank, whatever it is, the sky's the limit pretty much.
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- It's just about every conservative view. Opposing free healthcare and market solutions to things.
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- If you advocate any of this, you are sending a signal to the world that you don't have any compassion.
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- You must be a hater. You must not love people because you're not adopting their solutions and coming under their authority and adopting their presuppositions.
- 30:08
- So you are abandoning your public witness. It's up to you to maintain a good public witness.
- 30:14
- So if you have those thoughts that are conservative, you better keep those to yourself. You don't wanna risk your reputation and then you make us all look bad, right?
- 30:22
- And then you, of course, feel guilty. You don't wanna make everyone else look bad. You want people to think well of your church or your friends or your
- 30:33
- Christians in general. You don't wanna make them look bad. So that's what they use. Now, of course, it doesn't go the other way.
- 30:38
- They never use this kind of guilt manipulation on people who advocate progressive ideas.
- 30:43
- You don't want, you're losing your public witness. Conservatives are gonna think that you don't understand morality.
- 30:50
- They're not gonna wanna become Christians, political conservatives, if they knew that you were advocating
- 30:55
- A, B, or C. It doesn't work that way. It only works when it comes to conservative views and it only is implemented against advocating those.
- 31:08
- So there's a natural way that the, this is how things are kind of pushing left.
- 31:13
- There's just a natural bent to appease those who are the most idealistic, or I mean by affected by ideology, the most, the ones that are perhaps the most publicly passionate, willing to cancel others if they deviate, the most rigid.
- 31:31
- I mean, those are the kinds of people that are being played to right now. Because they're, look, you gotta walk on eggshells.
- 31:37
- They're offended so easily these days. So in order to maintain a public witness, you can't offend them. Whereas conservatives in general, it's harder to offend them.
- 31:45
- So you don't have to worry about that, right? So it's twisting manners, it's twisting decency, public virtue, et cetera.
- 31:52
- It's twisting those things and then weaponizing them against political conservatives in Christianity.
- 31:59
- Number four, here's the other way that you keep conservative ideas outside the gates of Christianity.
- 32:06
- Minimize conservative causes by associating them with earthly motives and goals. So have you ever heard this one?
- 32:13
- And Tim Keller does this all the time. I hear this all the time. It's not just him, it's like everyone. Well, you know, if you wanna win, if you want
- 32:20
- Donald Trump to win, you must be about political power. Is power really worth it? Is it really worth losing your public witness because you want power?
- 32:28
- So the goal here is to try to bludgeon someone's motive by saying, by giving really a false motive generally, by saying, well, they must be after something that's kind of dirty.
- 32:42
- No one wants to touch that. You just don't like minorities. You just don't like women. That's why you're saying what you're saying. Well, I saw something that you posted on social media about,
- 32:51
- I don't know, immigration. And I think that that means you're racist and therefore racism must be motivating everything else you say.
- 32:59
- I mean, that's the critical race theory position, right? Everything is power. Everything is these racial dynamics at play.
- 33:07
- Things just kind of boil down into this one thing. And so you must be about power when you get political like that.
- 33:16
- And so what this does is it pours water, cold water, on any kind of spark that a conservative might have because in Christianity, because they don't wanna be associated with earthly motives or goals.
- 33:31
- As if power is such a bad thing, achieving power would be the worst thing. Well, of course, it should be obvious that you want people with good character and morality and ideas that work.
- 33:43
- And you want those things to be in place. You want people who advocate them to have power for the good of all.
- 33:49
- That should be kind of a no -brainer, but power is a dirty word now. Power is a bad thing.
- 33:56
- And trying to love your own, to promote your own, to promote the interests of your children, even through things like an inheritance or just getting them good educations, those kinds of things are considered kind of bad now.
- 34:14
- You're maintaining a white privilege or something like that. So you don't wanna have those motives.
- 34:20
- So what happens is people who might be politically conservatives will oftentimes bend in all kinds of directions trying to prove that they don't have those motives, that they're being lied about, that they wanna avoid at least being lied about so that they can try to promote a conservative cause, even if it's kind of minimal or a conservative candidate, while at the same time not being seen as just after power or just after promoting one's own interest or something.
- 34:53
- So these are the four things that I see often happening. Associate causes of the left with the gospel, number one.
- 35:03
- Redefine pro -life to include quality of life issues, number two. Set maintaining public witness against advocating conservative views, number three.
- 35:13
- And minimize conservative causes by associating them with earthly motives and goals, number four. These are the four most common woke church tactics
- 35:20
- I see for trying to include ideas from the progressive left that are political and trying to disassociate from ideas from the political right.
- 35:32
- And I think you're gonna start seeing them everywhere now that you heard the list. So I hope that was helpful.
- 35:38
- If you can recognize the tactic, you can point it out. You can say to someone, hey, look, you've accused me of not loving the gospel enough because I'm not working towards this end.
- 35:51
- Well, I've identified that, that is what you're doing. And I reject that kind of logic in toto.
- 36:00
- This is what the gospel is, and this is what you're advocating, and they are two different things. If you can start to do that, then
- 36:07
- I think it's gonna be just very effective in your daily life when you're dealing with people that would try to use some of these tactics on you.
- 36:14
- So there you go. Hope that was helpful. God bless. Got a lot more coming this week. In fact, Rod Martin is gonna join us on Friday.
- 36:21
- For those who are in the Southern Baptist Convention, he's gonna talk about why people he thinks should stay in the
- 36:27
- Southern Baptist Convention, which is very different than the message that I gave last week. But he's from Conservative Baptist Network, and I hope you'll hear what he has to say as well.
- 36:36
- This podcast is meant to bring you views that are gonna help you. And of course,
- 36:42
- I have my own convictions, but there are times I think men that I respect that have similar goals and ideas may have a view that's worth you hearing.
- 36:51
- And so we're gonna do that on Friday. Stay tuned. Lots more coming. God bless.