Re: ACSI's "Fact Sheet" on Walter Strickland

ACSI, UnifyEd, and Walter Strickland

Hello and welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris.

This is a bit of a weekend edition here. I got my wrinkly shirt on, but it still says Resend Resolution 9. If you wanna get those shirts or the mask right here, Resend Resolution 9, if you're a messenger to the Southern Baptist Convention, the links are in the info section for that.

And you can go there and take a look. And I felt like that was an appropriate plug for the episode that we have here. I know some of you might feel like this is beating a dead horse, so I'm gonna make it quick.

But ACSI, the Association of Christian Schools International has once again responded, this is their second response, to myself, Capstone Report. I know Founders Ministries got involved in this a little bit.

And it all surrounds an organization called UnifyEd, which Walter Strickland directs, that is being brought in to ACSI. And ACSI accredits, from what I understand, about 25 ,000 Christian schools worldwide.

They're bringing in UnifyEd to teach them diversity, inclusion, these kinds of things. And I've gone through all of that before. I think it was about a week and a half ago or so. We did a whole podcast on that.

ACSI responded. And then we did another response to their response. And now we're getting into the weeds more. And this one, though, I think is pretty clear cut, because they've made some claims that cannot be substantiated.

And so what I've done, because there are a lot of other things going on in the world but I do feel like this is important, is I have made a cheat sheet for those who are parents or teachers at ACSI Christian private schools, who can then use this for a webinar that is coming up, I believe they said on this, on Thursday, April 22nd, 2021.

So on April 22nd, they're gonna have a whole webinar. This has become controversial enough in ACSI that they need to do a webinar about it. And if you want the cheat sheet, I'm gonna make it free and accessible to everyone.

You just go to the link in the info section for it. But we're gonna work through it today. I'm gonna explain to you why I put this together, what ACSI is saying about their involvement with UnifyEd, specifically their involvement with Walter Strickland, who, for those who don't know, is a professor at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

And I'm gonna explain to you, if you haven't heard a few of his beliefs, I'm gonna be more brief about it today. But I know we could have talked about James Coates and what's going on in Canada. Please pray for Pastor Coates.

We could have talked about a whole number of things, but I know that this is an area that I know something about, a little bit at least, enough to help. And I think a resource is necessary to stave this off, if possible.

ACSI's Claim That It Is Not Partnering With Another Gospel

So I wanna go through this point by point. And here is, I'm gonna just show you, this is what was put out by ACSI. This is their UnifyEd fact sheet, fact sheet. Well, fortunately, it lacks a bit on the facts.

But they make several claims. The bullet points are, there are reports that ACSI and a partner, the group UnifyEd, led by Walter Strickland, are adopting critical race theory. Is this true? Is ACSI embracing CRT in the current woke social narrative?

What is critical race theory? Where are these allegations coming from? What is Dr. Strickland's position on critical race theory? Why is ACSI partnering with UnifyEd? And so this is what they're seeking, all these questions that are coming up that they're getting, they're seeking to head the horse off at the pass and have answers to them.

And hey, well, just look at this sheet. We've already answered all these questions. Problem is, it's obfuscation. Most of this is just not true. It's not helpful either. Many of the things that are true are just, it's not the full story and it doesn't help the people that are asking some genuine questions.

So I've created the ACSI response cheat sheet. And we're gonna go through some of that now for you. Shouldn't take that long, hopefully, but I want you to be aware for those who are parents in ACSI, hopefully you can participate in this way.

I can't, I'm not part of that, but it's exclusive to ACSI participants, but you can use this cheat sheet to help you. So the first claim that they make is that ACSI is not partnering with anyone who would preach another gospel.

They actually say this in the document. Here's the reality. ACSI is partnering with Walter Strickland. And this is true on multiple levels. Number one, Walter Strickland has written for ACSI's blog on confronting racial brokenness deeply embedded into our personal assumptions in school programs.

That's on their website. Walter Strickland is speaking at an ACSI flourishing schools institute in Dallas, Texas on June 18th through 28th this year, according to their website. Now, maybe that's changed.

I don't know, but on their website, this is what it says right now. ACSI is partnering with Unify Ed, which Walter Strickland directs. And these are all true. And I put the sources at the bottom of the page.

If you scroll down to the bottom, you're gonna see all these sources with links and everything there. Now, here's the reality about Walter Strickland. He has preached another gospel. Now, whether or not he has also preached a true gospel is not the question.

The question is, has he preached another gospel? And let me explain this. Let me flesh this out just a little bit for you. You can get someone, even Mormons, I've had this happen with cults before when I've been engaging in evangelism.

You can actually get Mormons sometimes to say things that are very true. They can actually articulate the gospel in a way that sounds very close to an evangelical articulation of the gospel. There's many cults that can do this.

The issue is, what are they adding to it? And so they can say something over here that is actually very orthodox. And then over here, either contradict it or add something to it that, well, that ultimately would contradict it, that distorts it.

That's actually the word Paul uses in Galatians 1, that there are these Judaizers coming into the church and they were distorting the gospel message. And he calls that another gospel. He doesn't say they're starting from scratch, building their own gospel from scratch.

No, they're actually taking the pure gospel, they're distorting it. So they're using the pure, true gospel, distorting it, and adding works righteousness. And in that day, circumcision was the main controversial element.

Today, it's not circumcision. Today, right now, where we stand with the social justice movement, at least, it's how racially diverse is your church? And are you doing A, B, and C to fight for equity, inclusion, diversity, and against supposedly white supremacy?

But it's a spin, it's a definition of white supremacy that we didn't really even, most of us weren't even aware of until five years ago, perhaps at the earliest, if you're in academia before that. But they're adding their own kind of works righteousness spin.

And Walter Strickland definitely does this. And so it would meet the criterion, according to Paul, at least, of a false gospel. So let me give you the chapter and verse here. Many of you have gone through this before.

Repetition in this is gonna be a little helpful. I've added some things. But if you're fighting this, you're gonna need to know your stuff. Walter Strickland is, like I said, a Southern Baptist professor.

Walter Strickland, Liberation Theology, and a False Gospel

He's heavily influenced by liberation theology. In 2016, he said that James Cone had a beautiful monograph that the interviewer who was interviewing him needed to read and be blessed by, and it was called The Cross and the Lynching Tree.

I've gone over this before. The Cross and the Lynching Tree is heretical. James Cone's understanding of the gospel is not the gospel, and that is obvious. Walter Strickland also described liberation and reconciliation by J. Deatis Roberts, which, by the way, that book condemns the Bible-based gospel and promotes the teachings of Freud and Marx as necessary.

He says that that is his favorite theological book of all time. Now, it may not be for those reasons that I just mentioned. I'm just saying that those are contents in the book, and there's a lot of problematic stuff in that book by J. Deatis Roberts.

It does not have the true gospel. It is over and over articulating what would be considered a false gospel. Walter Strickland likes it, though. It's his favorite theological book, and the reason he endorses these books and these liberation theologians is because J. Deatis Roberts helps him see the universal imperatives of what?

The gospel. By imagining a more relatable Christ who appeared culturally as whoever you are, wherever you are. Well, that's not biblical. James Cone introduced Strickland to the concept of systemic sin and opened his eyes to the idea that Christ is trying to restore brokenness by addressing racial oppression.

In an interview from 2018, this was from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Strickland described James Cone as someone who wanted to see the social vitality of the gospel. Now, watch out for this language, gospel imperative, social vitality of the gospel that needs to be seen.

Watch out for maintenance language when people say, and this is different than sanctification, guys, that in order to maintain your standing before God, you maintain your gospel witness, maintain your gospel orthodoxy, or including as part of the gospel, some kinds of works, watch out for that.

There's always something that humans need to do, and the gospel is the good news about what Christ has done. So let's keep going here. In light of Cone's teaching, it was up to believers to do the work of the social implications or social outworkings of the gospel, which meant understanding the brokenness of creation and fixing it.

So that's what, there's these social implications of the gospel. Believers have to participate in this. And this is in direct contradiction to Jesus' teaching, because Strickland then in the same podcast says that a summary of the gospel is to love God and neighbor.

Well, that's not true, that's the law. So he's conflating law and gospel. That's what happened with the Galatian heresy, guys. This is another gospel. During a panel discussion in 2020, so this is in ancient history.

This is right after George Floyd's death in June, Walter Strickland said that American Christians, in order to justify slavery, constructed and passed down a half gospel, which saved people's souls, but neglected the weighty matters of the law.

Again, law and gospel being merged together there. Instead, he advocated the two-parted reality of the gospel, which included accomplishing justice. So accomplishing justice is now part of the gospel, and Christians participate in this through their works.

Now, I wanna make this point. I haven't said this before, but such language is reminiscent of social gospel advocates like Richard Elie, who founded the Christian Social Union in 1891 and inspired Walter Rauschenbusch by arguing that the church had forgotten the true gospel, which included a passion for social justice, and had come to focus solely on the one-sided half gospel of individual salvation.

Now, this sounds a lot like what Walter Strickland just said. Now, this was, of course, this is back, this isn't even the 20th century yet, and there's someone saying this kind of thing. Now, things like passing good laws and leading crusades against urban living conditions were part of social salvation, according to Elie.

Now, here's the interesting, here's the kicker. Elie was also an early progressive who supported eugenics and believed in racial hierarchy, positions which modern progressives reject. So Walter Strickland would certainly deny that.

In fact, Walter Strickland is saying that that's the antithesis of the gospel, that that's the problem is the gospel didn't address that. But the theology that Walter Strickland is advocating here, that evangelicals have always had this half gospel, he blames it on racism and so forth, or making accommodating slavery.

Elie is saying the same thing over 100 years ago, and he's actually, he's on the other side of that, way over on the other side. I mean, he's in the scientific racist side, saying that actually, part of social justice would be eugenics.

So the theology Walter Strickland's advocating, I mean, it's not correct, it's a false history. That is not anything close to what happened theologically in the United States. He's actually in the same theological, historical tradition as someone like Richard Elie, the social gospel tradition.

And that tradition that Walter Strickland's in actually has its own baggage, if you wanna call it that, but it's got, I mean, everyone's got baggage now, apparently, according to the social justice movement.

Well, the trajectory Walter Strickland's on with the tradition he's advocating stretches back to people who were racist, in the classical sense of the term, scientific racists. And I just wanted to point that out.

I think it's an interesting point, because there's so much rewritten history, and Walter Strickland goes down that road. But the perception by social justice advocates from Elie to Strickland that the gospel preached in most evangelical churches is somehow incomplete without the command to work towards social justice saturates the language of many leaders today.

And in Strickland's mind, he says this, this is not me saying it, Walter Strickland says this, Martin Luther King Jr. was orthodox. And the ideas of liberation theologians like James Cone and J .D .S. Roberts can help evangelicals complete their incomplete gospel.

Now, I cannot believe that Walter Strickland is not aware of the problems with Martin Luther King Jr. He can't, there's no way he can be. I mean, this is the guy who, after the Selma March, was saying, we're gonna usher in a second Great Awakening in the United States.

And he's marching with Jews, he's marching with Catholics. It was ecumenical. He, I mean, his writings in seminary are certainly heretical. His Christology is off. I mean, he even talks about, towards the end of his life, his Christology still seems to be off, at least with some of the terms he uses, like Christ had a glow of the divine, these kinds of things.

And then you have all the moral issues that you would think would be a problem for someone like Strickland, who has no problem saying that evangelicals have a half gospel, but Martin Luther King Jr. apparently doesn't, even though all his womanizing, all his plagiarism, his support for Planned Parenthood, it's just incredible to me that he gets a pass.

He's orthodox. And James Cone and J .D. Church Roberts can somehow help us complete our incomplete gospel. That is someone who does not understand the gospel. That's just what it is. I don't know what else to say.

And so ACSI can try to combat this all they want until they're blue in the face. They have to deal with these facts. Here's the claim ACSI then makes. For the reasons indicated below, the allegations that Dr. Strickland is a proponent of critical race theory is false.

Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Standpoint Epistemology

Well, let me give you some actual facts here. Dr. Strickland preaches key aspects of liberation theology, number one. So this is, I said this in a episode recently, I think it was two episodes ago, I said the question that places like Southeastern wants you to ask is, is critical race theory being taught there?

Because then they can change the definition of critical race theory. They can shift things. They can expand the definition to make it whatever you want. Everyone believes this or it's a common knowledge.

They can do all sorts of things and play games with that. That's not the question. And that's not what I've said. I've said he advocates liberation theology. That's the thing that drives Walter Strickland's theology primarily in his theological work.

What I've listened to, and it's been multiple things I'll show you, has been liberation theology. I haven't said critical race theory, at least I can't remember saying it, but that has never been the emphasis.

ACSI is trying to make that the emphasis because it's easier for them to try to say, well, it's not orthodox critical race theory, or it's, you know, what he's saying isn't, you know, it's not critical race theory in the sense of this secular, this is what Matt Hall does at Southern Seminary.

It's not this secular undergirding that it has, this materialist worldview. Well, of course, no one ever said that. Liberation theologians were against Marxism because of its materialist worldview. They just imported all of its ethics.

That's the issue. So liberation theology is the issue here more than critical race theory, and we need to keep it on that. And I would suggest those going to this meeting, keep it on that. But if it comes up, and if you feel so inclined, let me show you some things.

Dr. Strickland did support the use of critical race theory and intersectionality as analytical tools. Why, how do you know that, John? Well, Walter Strickland was on the committee which drafted a resolution on critical race theory and intersectionality in 2019 at the Southern Baptist Convention.

The document stated these analytical tools can aid in evaluating a variety of human experiences. So he's fine with it being used, and he actually supported it being used because he's the one that helped draft this document.

Number two, Dr. Strickland draws heavily on critical race theorists in his 2017 thesis on liberation and black theological method. For example, he cites Richard Delgado's critical race theory and introduction second edition to claim that black women's needs were not properly met by the civil rights movement because of their intersectionality, and that race is socially constructed.

Both of these things you will find in his dissertation in a positive way. Now, dissertations are mostly written as not prescriptive, but descriptive. But you do find in his dissertation, he does agree with these analyses, and they do come from Richard Delgado's critical race theory.

There's also other authors that I didn't put here that he cites in his dissertation in positive ways who are, he's getting insights from them, who would be considered critical race theorists. But this one's, you shouldn't need any more.

This one is, you know, this is a hole in one right here. So yes, that claim is false. ACSI is lying, or they're just completely ignorant. I'm not sure which it is. Here's another claim. According to the Colson Center, critical race theory descends from European and North American philosophical traditions, particularly Marxism and post-modernism, like these worldviews of its intellectual ancestry.

CRT sees the world in terms of power dynamics. In this way of thinking, social evils, such as poverty, crime, or oppression, result not from universal human frailties, but from European-Americans' intent on securing and increasing their economic and social power.

Based on this metanarrative, equality and justice demand that CRT sees members of the oppressed group as morally right, members of the oppressor group as morally wrong, privileging the stories of those kept out of power.

Now, here's the problem with this definition, guys. It's hard. Sometimes critical race theory can be so broad in some people's conception today that it's hard to, you have like eight or nine points. But here's the thing.

You can boil it down. I've said this before. You can really boil it down to two basic things, the standpoint theory, that's the post-modernism, and then the, well, I wanna say social conflict theory that comes from Marxism, but transfers itself into this idea that there's the hegemony in society is systemically racist.

And here's, this would be my response to this. ACSI's definition fails to mention how interest convergence leads to hidden systemic racism. That's the whole, that's the main thing that's undergirds critical race theory, that there's this, Derek Bell came up with interest convergence, that even the civil rights movement, when whites supposedly, when they were behind it, this was because their interests converged with the interests of the civil rights leaders, and it wasn't, they weren't doing it for anti-racist motives.

They were still maintaining their power and still forwarding racism through new ways. That's what critical race theory teaches. It's just, I mean, it's what Jim Martisby says, right? In his book, Color of Compromise, racism changes forms, but it never goes away.

And that's why ACSI's definition falls flat here. The whole reason, why are they bringing this in? Why are they bringing in Unified Ed? What's the purpose? What did they say in their press release? Well, they're gonna help them navigate the challenges of today regarding diversity and ethnic strife and these kinds of things.

Well, behind that is an assumption that that exists, that it's such a widespread problem, they need to hire someone for their 25 ,000 private schools across the world. The assumption is that there's basically a hidden systemic racism there.

They're not pointing to, well, we got a Klan problem in this school. All these kids are joining it, and they're going and committing crimes against other people. No, that's not what they're talking about.

They couldn't probably point to any examples like that. It's just this assumption without any proof that this is just a problem. Well, why is it just a problem? So there you have the, that's the assumption, and that's what they don't put in this definition.

And I think that might be by design. But standpoint epistemology also plays a very pivotal role in critical race theory. The idea that there are different social locations by which to understand something to be true or interpret it.

And so you need all these other interpretations to make sense of truth and reality. It's anti-realism. That's also part of this. So they don't mention those things, which means their definition is woefully short.

Why the New York Times Is Not the Primary Source

The other claim they make is that the New York Times previously published an article containing several inaccuracies and is the primary source being used to falsely allege that Dr. Strickland is preaching a false gospel, that he supports James Cone, considered the father of black liberation theology, and that he supports critical race theory.

Well, the reality is the New York Times actually has not been the primary source used to describe Strickland's dangerous views. And that's just a fact, guys. I don't even know if I mentioned it when I went over this.

It's not the primary source. And I have never seen, Danny Akin said this too, well, you can't trust the New York Times. Well, what did they report that was wrong? Spell it out for us. They've never been able to do it.

They've never been able to refute what the New York Times reported and quoted Dr. Strickland is saying. So, but ignore the New York Times. New York Times, you can get rid of the New York Times. Who cares?

Here are the sources that you should be looking at. The Walter Strickland, The Balance Scholar, The Life and Work of J. D. Roberts, interview by Lisa Fields, 2016. The link is right there. Walter Strickland, From the Lectern, episode 75.

Remembering James Cone, part two. Then you have Remembering James Cone, part one. Both of them, links are right there. Cultural diversity and hermeneutics panel in 2019 from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He's got a few quotes that he puts on that panel that shows that he agrees with standpoint theory, standpoint epistemology. Walter Strickland, An Honest Conversation on Race and Justice, June 17th, 2020.

Watch that one. That's where he talks about the half gospel. Walter Strickland, an honest, well, I put that in there twice somehow, I guess. I don't know how I ended up with that, but that's a typo. So there's twice you'll have an honest conversation about race and justice.

And then finally, How to Shepherd Your Church Through Racial Injustice, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2019. This is where he talks about kind of like trying to understand people who wanna throw a brick through a window because they're just not being listened to in the inner city.

And sort of, you wouldn't say he's justifying, but he's just really trying to understand and that the church can somehow come in and address these issues that are happening in the violent cities because the government's not addressing them.

That there's this horrible problem that the government's not solving that's causing this violence or at least contributing to it. So last claim, please watch, they say this, ACSI, please watch this sermon by Dr. Strickland, salvation through Christ alone.

It clearly establishes his theological foundation and commitment to the inerrancy of scripture, et cetera. Here's the reality guys. The Galatian heresy consisted of a true gospel with a mechanism for works righteousness added to it.

One can articulate a true gospel and then inconsistently add to it, thus creating what the Apostle Paul called a different gospel. So irrelevant, no one should care how many times Dr. Strickland has articulated the true gospel or the fact that he has.

The question is, has he, and does he have a pattern of articulating a false gospel? And the answer to that question, well, or I'll use the Pauline language here, another gospel. And the answer to that question is yes, he has articulated another gospel.

So this isn't really up for debate. These are just the facts of the situation. And the question for ACSI and Dr. Strickland and Unify Ed is, will they repent of these things? Will they admit, will they retract?

And if they're willing to do that, then you can go ahead to the next step. But if not, then you have no business if you're a Christian institution partnering with someone who doesn't, who is preaching another gospel or has preached another gospel.

And the main root question I think parents and teachers need to be asking is why is this necessary? Why is this a good use of funds? Why bring people in to teach us about diversity and to try to navigate social conflict between ethnic groups and these kinds of things?

Try to get to the root issue. What is it that we need from Unify Ed? And you're gonna find the root assumption there. If the root assumption is, well, because there's just all this racial strife, you say, well, tell me where.

Tell me where it is. And then tell me what's the solution that this great solution that the experts like Dr. Strickland are gonna bring that we don't already have in scripture. What can they bring to the table that's so different?

And if you read Dr. Strickland's blog on the Unify or on the ACSI website, which is linked in that cheat sheet, then you will find some of the reasons for that. This is, I mean, I'll be honest with you guys, I think it's kind of a scam.

And I'm not just saying this, I'm just saying the whole equity, diversity, inclusion training in general that's going on in Christian institutions included, a lot of it's just a scam. It's bringing people in to make the organization feel good or think that they're doing something about this problem.

It gives them an opportunity sometimes to virtue signal. Or if it's not virtue signaling, it's trying to meet some demand that they think is coming on them externally because people expect it, who are on the progressive left.

And they put people through this stuff and it ends up being this kind of implicit bias training. Opening people's eyes, going through a conversion to get woke, understanding supposedly how, well, I didn't realize the kind of music I listen to or the way I dress or the way I talk or the bumper stickers on my car or the Trump flag that I have outside my house or the hymns that I sing at church or the list goes on, how all of these things are just contributing to so many hurt feelings and racism and stuff.

And it's all fake. No, actually those aren't contributing to racism. Racism is, if you want to get back to the more biblical definition, ethnic partiality would be excluding and real exclusion, not just, well, that person didn't feel as included as they should have because you neglected to, I don't know, celebrate the holiday that's important to their family or something like that.

No, I mean like real exclusion, like real preventing someone from making a living, persecuting someone with physical violence because of some external factor, because they're different than you in some way.

And so you're going to commit some kind of violence against them. You're going to express actual hate towards them. Those are the kinds of things that are, were considered racism up until about 10 minutes ago.

And now it's just passively sometimes even benefiting from a system that supposedly allocates privilege to white people, which that's not even true. But that's what it's become. And it's just built on this house of cards, these assumptions.

And I'll tell you this, at the end of the day, what's happening is that a new hierarchy is emerging in which it's not about genetic superiority or inferiority, it's about moral superiority. And the moral superiority belongs to minorities because of their victim status.

That is what critical race theorists and liberation theologians are included in this. God's on the side of the poor, right? But what they mean by that is in their political struggle against the rich, God's gonna take their side.

And it's not about justice as much anymore as it is about actually putting the thumb on the scale to help one particular side in a social conflict. And that's where we're going to. Minorities have a greater access to truth.

They're morally virtuous more so because of this victim status that they have. And that should be disgusting. And that's what's being pumped in in most of these equity diversity inclusion studies. And it all hinges on this idea that there's this hidden racism that's systemic that you're not aware of.

And then you start peeling back the layers and you start putting on the glasses of these socially disenfranchised perspectives supposedly. And you have a born again experience called getting woke. And next thing you know, you're doing the penance and you're buying into a whole system that actually is racist according to the definition that most people used about 10 minutes ago.

So there you have it. There's my very quick take on this. And if you want to get the cheat sheet, I'll edit out that little typo. You can go to the link in the info section. It's on Patreon, but I'm making this one available to everyone.

God bless. Hope that was helpful for you. And if you wanna get your recent resolution nine shirt or your mask, I would encourage you to go to the links in the info section and you can get those things.

All right, God bless.