Taking Ed Stetzer's "Cable News" Accusation Outside

The Setup: Moving, the Garden, and the Topic for Today

Hey everyone, welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I'm staying at my parents' house right now. Some of you know I'm in between, I'm in the middle of a move I should say.

And behind me, I thought I'd show you all, is the garden. It's a fairly large garden and I spent many of my years growing up picking up rocks in this garden, weeding, killing potato bugs, rototilling, all that kind of stuff.

So you can see there's corn and squash and beans and there's actually a pretty large raspberry bush back there as well. And so we'll probably be working on that later in the year. But what I wanted to talk to you about is something that has been on the list for a little while.

Ed Stetzer's Cable News Accusation Against Conservative Southern Baptists

And it goes back to something Ed Stetzer said on numerous occasions and he's probably still saying it. I'm going to show you the clip first, the first time I saw Ed Stetzer say this. Basically what he does is he says the reason that conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention are upset about critical race theory is because they're just listening to too much secular cable news.

So here's the first clip. Ed Litton, who has championed racial reconciliation, narrowly defeated Mike Stone, the favored candidate of a far-right faction of the group. To assess what this all means, we are joined now by Ed Stetzer.

He is part of the Southern Baptist Convention and he's executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College in Illinois. Ed Stetzer, welcome very much to you, to the NewsHour. Tell us, what does this election result say about the Southern Baptist Convention?

I think the election was a fork in the road.

It was a decision that time that had to be made. We had one candidate, you mentioned Ed Litton, who prevailed in the presidency, who was calling for racial reconciliation, who was encouraging people to just listen to the lived experience of African American leaders.

The other candidate who came in second was actually concerned about the influence of critical race theory, intersectionality, and more. And I think Southern Baptist messengers came together, 10 ,000 plus, 70 ,000, and they had to make a decision and they chose to continue to move forward in a path of racial reconciliation and continue to hold the values that such conservative evangelical denominations have, but to do so in a way that I think echoed a new awareness of race.

Well, what does that mean exactly? What is going to change under the new leadership of Ed Litton?

Well, I think it's more of a continuation of the leadership of the prior president, J .D. Greer. But the prior president, who had been engaged, for example, in protests after the murder of George Floyd and others, had become a controversial figure and he became a controversial figure because people are watching cable news many, many hours a week and they're being discipled by their cable news.

And for many evangelicals, they tend to be more conservative and they would like to see what they see on their cable news every night of the week, maybe be reflected in their church and their denomination.

Why the Cable News Explanation Misses the Real Source of Concern

So Ed Setzer goes on PBS, this is right after the Southern Baptist convention happened in June, and he basically attributes the reason for Mike Stone's popularity, whatever that was, and the people who voted for him, to folks listening to too much cable news.

In fact, not only that, they're being discipled by cable news. They're getting their spiritual direction from cable news and they expect to hear cable news coming from the pulpit, coming from their convention.

That's what they want. And this is, of course, a huge questioning of motivations. It's used to discredit that they're really not concerned so much about the word of God, about the bylaws of the Southern Baptist convention.

They're not concerned about corruption in the denomination. They're not concerned about the threat critical race theory is to things like objective truth, to biblical justice, to the communion table and the unity that we have there.

No matter where you come from, if you're in Christ, there is a unity. So he just basically dismisses all that. He doesn't have to talk about any of that. All he has to do is say, well, you know, it's Tucker Carlson's fault.

It's Sean Hannity's fault. It's cable news. And we know that he's talking about Fox News. I mean, what other cable news channel could he be talking about? I guess maybe there's some new ones out there that are popping up.

But as far as market share, yeah, Fox News is popular. But why couldn't he say that the majority of news stations, not just cable, but also internet, also the mainstream networks that are overwhelmingly slanted left, why couldn't he say that those who supported Ed Litton were just listening to their sources and their secular sources?

And that's where they got their information from. Why is it only the conservatives? And in fact, I do think that Ed Stetzer has this the other way. He should have this the other way around more so. If he's going to be honest and consistent and look at the situation, there have been people, I can name a bunch, Bode Backham, right, is one of them.

But Sovereign Nations was very early on this. You had Pulpit and Pen, you had Reformation Charlotte, Capstone Report, you have even this podcast, you have A .D. Robles, the, I don't know, the list just keeps going.

There's so many different outlets who've been talking about critical race theory, the threat it poses, for years before Fox News ever mentioned it. Fox News didn't mention it really until 2020 in a news article.

And it was it was rarely ever mentioned until it became an issue at the end, towards the end of 2020, when Donald Trump went after it. And we started finding out about what was happening in the military, how they're learning from white privilege.

I'm trying to remember the name of the lady who wrote that. Anyway, they're they're getting these implicit bias trainings. And and so Donald Trump wanted to hedge against that, didn't want it being taught in the schools.

I mean, this is towards the later part of 2020 when cable news even starts talking about this stuff. And so you'd have to assume that Southern Baptists all of a sudden, out of the blue, just wanted to parrot what the cable news channels are saying and go after critical race theory because they heard Tucker Carlson talking about it or something like that.

When meanwhile, if you're going to look at organically within the denomination or even outside those who are trying to help the conservatives in the denomination, what they've been talking about for years has been critical race theory long before cable news.

The Seminary Pipeline and the Progressives' Real Information Sources

The other thing I wanted to say is that the the progressives in the Southern Baptist Convention, those who were in favor of Ed Litton, they have been receiving a if in fact they are watching cable news that is more to their their opinions on these things or reading newspapers, that's probably more likely that would like The Washington Post, New York Times, the places Russell Moore makes his appearances and Tim Keller.

These organizations, these outlets have been pushing the critical race theory narrative for years and years. And why why not say that that's that's what motivates them? In fact, if you look at the trajectory of the pro critical race theory or pro they call it now racial reconciliation, but it's critical race theory by another name most of the time when you hear that, if you look at the trajectory, it started in the seminaries, it started in these academic settings, it came into the church, it didn't start in the church, it didn't start with people in the pews, it started with people in the seminaries, it started with pastors being trained and then going out into the churches.

And this is I noticed this years and years ago at Southeastern. A lot of the times it's those who they're very narrow in their field. They come to teach and they've been indoctrinated at what other secular institution generally they were at into critical race theory assumptions.

Matthew Hall is a good example of this. Someone who who learned these things at a secular university and then brings them in with him to a Christian university and he checks all the boxes. He has a relationship with the Lord.

He checks that box. He can sign the statement of faith. He can check that box. He what they're having him teach. It doesn't seem to be a conflict there. But meanwhile, there's all these things that he grabbed from secular university and he admits this in his own his own interviews on it that are that that blew his mind, that shaped the way he thought, that made made him think differently about the in their minds, they'll say the issue of race.

But it made him think differently about these definite definite categories of oppressed and oppressor. And so so so that's where this has all come from. I mean, you look at Jarvis Williams, even what, 2015, he's tweeting all over the place how beneficial critical race theory writings are.

And now, of course, he's writing these books on racial reconciliation. This is where this is the trajectory. It came from secular academia. It came into seminaries and now it's filtering into churches and parachurches.

That's that's generally I mean, there's other things you could probably point to, but that's generally the flow. And that would be a more honest rendering of what's happened is that these people who have been shaped by this wanted Ed Litton and there's a reaction against it for people who don't want that and never did want that.

It's not some new out of the blue cable news. Cable news is causing this. No, not not one bit. So I wanted to show you this is another clip from Ed Litton, but woke preacher clips put this together and it just shows that not Ed Litton.

I'm sorry, Ed Stetzer. They're both Ed's. This is another clip from Ed Stetzer. And here's some other forums and venues, platforms where he is saying the same exact thing. Here we go. Now people are being discipled by Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

Cable news, all those things. Cable news. Rick Warren said he sees evangelical churches kind of shifting into, you know, two groups, some of those that are going to be, you know, more nationalist, more maybe anti-immigrant, more tied into what they see on cable news.

People are being discipled by their cable news choices. People who've been listening to cable news 30 hours a week and listen to their pastor an hour a week and want what they hear on Sunday to align with what they hear on Monday through Friday on cable news.

Oftentimes now they want their church and their pastor and their denomination to align what they're seeing on cable news. Cable news. They're very concerned about critical race theory because it's been mentioned every day on their cable news.

Cable news is having a great impact on the Southern Baptist Convention right now. Many people brought a false report that somehow critical race theory had infiltrated, taken over the Southern Baptist Convention or been significantly influential to the Mass Convention.

All kinds of people have heard this, this, this, this, this. And then someone said, oh, it's taking place in Southern Baptist leaders too. Let's let's. And it's not. It's a false report. Critical race theory really is a thing, but it's not impacting conservative adult denominations like Southern Baptist.

But that's what they're seeing on cable news. Cable news. Cable news. Tucker Carlson says, if you see someone wearing a mask outside, tell, get that mask off them. If they've got kids in there, you call child abuse.

Right. All of a sudden phone lines light up at church. Well, why are we still doing mask mandates? I heard so-and-so on the news. You're going to have to say sometimes I recognize that some of you have seen on cable news.

I wouldn't say it this way, but on the deep, dark web where there's cable, where the news channels are now propagating that are so far to the right, they can't, they're not even on cable distributors.

You can say, I know that you're seeing that, but you're going to have to elevate your ecclesiology and you're going to have to empower your elders. People are going to see your elders as shepherding and holding spiritual responsibility and also saying, this is what we believe as a church.

We don't believe everything you read on the Internet. We don't believe everything you read on cable TV. And you're going to have to disciple people through that.

Projection, Ecclesiology, and the Real Direction of Influence

So, this is Ed Stetzer's shtick now. This is how he kind of tries to discredit those on the right, those who are more conservative theologically and politically in the Southern Baptist Convention and across evangelicalism, I would imagine, by just saying that, well, they're the ones that are the secularists, right?

And he's not saying that, but he's saying that they're getting their information from these secular sources. They're not reading their Bibles and coming to the conclusion that critical race theory is a challenge to them or the COVID overregulations and government trying to use this as an opportunity to take freedoms, etc.

They're just getting that from the cable news. This can't be coming from their own tradition somehow. That's the move he's making. And it's projection, I think. That's the best explanation, at least I'd have.

If you have another one, please leave it in the comments. But this is exactly what they're doing. They're the ones that are. I mean, look, conservatives aren't going, by and large, they're not going on these cable news channels much.

Mike Stone isn't getting all the interviews that all these progressives are getting on a lot of cable news channels to talk about this. It's the progressives that are going on the news channels. They're playing to the Washington Post, to the establishment.

And that's because they're like them. They're allies with them. And that's where their talking points, if you want to call them that, would be coming from from there. A critical race theory started in the secular world and it's come into the church.

Opposition to it is a reaction from faithful Christians in the church, by and large, not Christians who overnight listen to Fox News and all of a sudden have a problem. So you can probably hear in the background as I'm recording this outside, my dad has put, I didn't realize this, I had to move, my dad has put out a little like a microphone or some, not a microphone, a speaker, I guess, somewhere out there that is making noises of predator birds to keep birds away from his garden.

So now that that's going, I'm going to end the podcast there. But I hope that was, I just wanted to point out that trick. I hope that you understand. You understand it when you see it and you know how to respond to it and say, hold on a minute.

Do you have any evidence for that? Why are you saying this? Why are you besmirching the motivations of who you call your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? However, I do have evidence that this critical race theory threat has come from outside the church and is coming inside the church.

And that's how I would handle it. But hope that was helpful to you. More coming later this week. God bless.