Preaching Unity by Downplaying Disagreements over Social Justice and Covid Shots Won’t Work

Hey everyone, I'm not back in any regular organized Studio where I can control my environment a little better.

I'm still traveling. I am actually in, California now I haven't seen my extended family for About a year and a half over a year and a half now,

I guess two years and the kovat stuff really prevented us from coming out and I have a

One grandfather who will be turning 99 next month and I knew

I really needed to get to see him. So We're enjoying that and my wife is actually on the beach right now.

I'm pulled over at the side of the road we decided to take one day one afternoon and Drive down to the beach.

And so we're at The beach outside of Los Angeles were for people who want to know the geography of the area we're at Point Dume area

So just a it's a beautiful day right now. It's kind of cloudy this morning now, it's it's kind of nice and I have a whole list of topics to talk about on the podcast

And I don't know how many I'll get to this week just because of the travel conditions My grandparents also who

I'm staying with do not have any internet. So It's kind of a hit or miss when I can upload anything

But one of the things and this didn't require a slideshow or anything So it was easy for me to just whip out my phone and record myself talking about it a little bit was something

I realized on Sunday and I think this is a trend and I think a lot of you are experiencing it's probably in your churches

And so I wanted to just briefly give you some Thoughts off the top of my head about it because I thought about it as it was happening we went to a church not too long ago and The service was good.

It wasn't a bad sermon or anything like that But there was there seemed to be a motivation behind it, which

I've seen Many other places now and I think it is a trend in more conservative evangelical churches dealing with both

The vaccine and kovat responses So this would include the lockdowns and the masks and all of that But the vaccine being probably the big one now,

I shouldn't even probably call it a vaccine the shot it's not really technically a vaccine and and then the

Black Lives Matter and social justice stuff and one of the things

I've noticed is that There's a tendency in churches where There's disagreements over this and they're generally more conservative evangelical churches to downplay

Disagree those differences to downplay disagreements over the vaccine to downplay disagreements over Black Lives Matter and social justice and In this particular sermon and just the whole service itself.

There was an announcement in the service as well about Kovat and all that. I just got that sense very strongly that there's a fear that's plaguing a lot of pastors across the country right now and It seems to inspire sermons on these topics if they are addressed at all when they are addressed the sermons tend to be focused on unity that there needs to be unity in the gospel and Anything that would disrupt that unity meaning a disagreement over vaccines disagreement over Black Lives Matter that should be

Kind of you should just be able to agree to disagree. So there's kind of a downplaying of those issues and I think this is a very common strategy now if you don't think so You can feel free to write in the comments but if you if you've seen this maybe at your church or other churches feel free to write in the comments and just let me know because I sense that this is the way that a lot of conservative evangelical churches are trying to navigate this and I'm gonna give you just off the top of my head a few reasons why

I don't think this is the best way to approach this One is Generally speaking and this sermon was no exception

You're going to have to Kind of cram a square peg into a round hole to find a text to help you with this

You're generally it's going to be focused on something to do with the disagreements that abounded in the early church the

Judaizer heresy issue Jerusalem Council the gospel going to the

Gentiles this kind of these kinds of things and And then trying to focus on the unity that everyone has in the gospel and that you can have ethnically diverse or even culturally diverse churches and All those cultural

Disagreements or or just habits that are different cultural norms that are different those things

Can be sacrificed for the sake of the gospel so it sort of gets put in the Adi offer category

It's like the meat sacrifice titles issue And I see a lot of when this happens.

I see a lot of categorical issues because you have direct threats to the gospel like the

Judaizer heresy, but then you know, you'll be talking about meat sacrifice titles and And issues that are more secondary

Whether or not someone can partake and eat meat that sacrifice to an idol or not and so one of the things is there's there seems to be a lack of clarity and a lack of directness about What we're actually facing

And this is more related to the social justice stuff like are we actually facing a threat to the gospel?

Is this actually what I believe it is what I argue in the book that's coming out soon I actually just submitted the final corrected draft draft last

Saturday. It's called Christianity and Social justice religions in conflict and I make the case very strongly

I think that social justice is ultimately an alternative religion. It undermines objectivity

You can't really have revelation without that It has a different ethic.

It's an egalitarian equality that it pushes not equality before the law. It's Also has a very narrow way of looking at the world and it doesn't give the full spectrum of the

It doesn't show the full spectrum of the world that God created That we can detect with our senses that we can see around us

It just kind of reduces everything to a power relationship or something like that There's very firm designations given to oppressor and oppressed categories.

And of course it tampers with the the very concepts of sin and Forgiveness and reconciliation and repentance and Ultimately when it's fused with Christianity, it gives you a different gospel a gospel

That's very similar to the gospel of the Galatian heresy And nine times out of ten when I see social justice advocates in the church try to push social justice

They they end up fusing it somehow in some way with the gospel and combining it with works somehow so It's it's a deadly deadly threat

I would say and I it's not just because I focus on this more I don't think I think

I would just say this whether I had a podcast or not It is a more direct threat right now in real time than the prosperity gospel is

At this current moment not saying the prosperity gospel is deadly and dangerous, but I at this current moment is more deceptive

There's more clarity lacking more people are being swept away and confused by the social justice gospel

Than they are the prosperity gospel in my opinion from just my own observations so if you think it's all that if you think that you know, this is a real problem and This is happening in real time then you're going to put the social gospel or the social justice gospel more in the prosperity gospel category and You're going to probably if you're a pastor preach sermons that are directed against social justice

With a full understanding of exactly what it is and how it corrupts Christian teaching But like I said instead what

I'm often seeing are sermons that are just focused on unity and so they have to if you if you want unity between people who push social justice and people who don't and Are against it then the the only thing you can try to do is to downplay the controversy to make it out like Well, this is really just like the meat sacrifice to idols issue or this is really just Like a cultural difference between Jews and Gentiles or something.

This isn't really a Direct threat to the gospel. It's it's it's it's um, it's more

It's it's more safe in a way it's it's more of a secondary issue more of a tertiary issue and And so this concerns me obviously because I disagree

I think that ultimately this is a false religion and I think there are people deceived who are pushing certain aspects of it

Who just you know, don't really understand they're ignorant that kind of thing I get that that happens with every false teaching just about But you have to attack the false teaching directly and those who are

Prominent and who should know better who have been corrected who are promoting it It's the same way that people approach the prosperity gospel.

I don't think you really I don't think there's a we need to reinvent the wheel people in evangelicalism and conservative evangelicalism

Go after the prosperity gospel all the time. They name names. They talk about it. They don't want it in their church

You know, I think this deserves the same treatment. I mean you could say all day. Well, hey, there's people who

Believe in certain aspects of the prosperity gospel and they're not heretics or they're you know, they're just ignorant.

They're confused Okay. All right, but you know, that's beside the point That's that it doesn't help the sheep who are being ravaged by this

To just keep giving the benefit of the doubt like everyone's ignorant who's pushing it because we know they're simply not they're false teachers

And the same goes for the social justice movement so So I think that's an error

I think it's a categorical problem when when people try to do that, and I think the result ultimately is you're kicking the can down the road

You're gonna have people leave your church Even you know, even if you lament man,

I wish they didn't leave it's it's a foregone conclusion if they don't feel like the leadership is taking a side and they believe this is a

Very important issue. This is fundamental to certain, you know core doctrines and things like that They're not going to stick around if someone's just saying well unity unity unity in the gospel

But we're not going to talk about how social justice actually does undermine the gospel and undermine doctrines that are fundamental the other thing

I wanted to Just briefly mention is I hear a lot that the unity is in the gospel and I get that and I think there

It's accurate depending on how you how you mean it But I think the better thing probably to say and I think that what you find more in the

New Testament at least is I find Unity is expressed in Christ by the nature of being in Christ.

And so the gospel obviously believing the gospel Is is the is the reason that we're in Christ, so I understand if that's what people mean.

I just think our language probably could be a little better if we just say that because there are things that Unify us that are not not directly

Related or I should say how do I say this accurately? There are things that unite us that are not the gospel

Directly, there are core doctrines that are not the gospel now. They may be necessary for the gospel the gospel may not make sense without them, but we have to have a right understanding of the character and nature of God and And the nature of sin and what it is and there's there's a lot of things that we have to understand in order to even understand the gospel, so The gospel has been so reduced.

I think so often that or it's been so It's been simplified and it is simple.

It is a simple message, right believe in Jesus and his atoning work that what he did is

Able to impart righteousness the righteousness of God to those who deserve God's wrath and They can be in a right relationship with him not through their own works, but through the works of Jesus I mean there is a simplicity to this but every all the words

I even just use, you know, Jesus. Okay, who's that right works? what work of Jesus what sin what sin you're right, so There are things that ingredients that you need to understand to understand the gospel that are not the gospel themselves and So I'm being in Christ being in him being a child of God Being protected from the wrath of God because of the fact that we're in Christ and we're brothers and sisters

We're part of the same family. We're part of the same body. That's where the unity comes from. We have the same spirit within us and And so I think it's it just it's more broad.

It seems more broad that kind of a unity and it's more meaningful When it stated that way again,

I'm not trying to get on anyone's case. I understand Yes, we have unity in the gospel. Absolutely.

I just think that because so often the gospel is so simplified and so misunderstood and I just I Don't all the time know what people mean when they say that and I guess it just is more clear to me if you just say

We have unity in Christ So if you are in a church and there's disagreements over social justice and you said yeah

We can have those disagreements as long as we're unified in the gospel Then I think it just spreads more confusion

Because people are now wondering well, what do you mean by what gospel are we talking about because social justice, you know?

Does introduce categories of works often into the gospel? It does undermine the very way we know about the gospel the nature of Revelation it does change the very nature of sin and justice and reconciliation all these things you need to sort of understand and know the gospel so It it just creates a lot of confusion and I think there's some well -meaning people trying to Keep their churches from splitting and I don't

I just don't know that it's gonna work too well, you're gonna end up having people leaving if they haven't left already and If you're trying to hedge against more people leaving the best thing to do is probably to just come to a firm conviction

What is this social justice threat? What what does it mean? I mean, that's why I wrote the book I did to try to help explain this to people

But what exactly is it and once you can answer that question and you can bring some biblical thinking into it

And and to bear on it then I think it'll be a lot more it'll be helpful rather than trying to sit on the fence and hope that this storm will soon pass and The social justice people won't leave or the anti social justice people won't leave

It's just it's better to just take a side The other thing is a lot of people a lot of sheep have questions about this

And if you sidestep it and downplay it then they're probably gonna feel like they can't actually have their questions answered

You know, why would they go to their pastor and ask about something? That's just really not that important Are they disrupting the unity of the body by asking that question?

I mean, that's the kind of those are the kinds of things I think People in the congregations that receive sermons like this are thinking

Other thing vaccine thing because that's another Thing that I think pastors are trying to kind of as much as they can straddle the fence so that they can keep their congregation intact

This this is a little different. I realized that the government's using both to kind of get us to arrive

I think at the same destination, but the question of the whether you should take a vaccine or a shot because it's not really a vaccine is

Is a medical question, but it does have there are moral components to it as well and one thing that I think pastors probably need to grapple with at some point if they haven't is the the aborted fetus

Lines that are used in some of this research and in other vaccines You'll at least have to think through that ethically.

I've talked about it before I don't feel comfortable With the vaccine and that's one of the reasons But I think this is something that pastors do at least have to acknowledge there are people in your congregation

Some of them working in the medical field and now other fields who are going to be applying for religious exemptions they're going to be coming to the pastors of the church to try to get those exemptions and the main argument that will probably be used to get them is that there are fetal lines that Are that are immoral from certain?

from a certain perspective in a certain Christian perspective and so I'm just Preparing there's probably something

I should have said a while ago I probably did and I just don't remember but this is probably something if you haven't faced it yet You will face it if you're a pastor and it's something that you want to think about at this point

Other concerns If you look at the anti Shot people and then the pro shot people and that the you want to call it the extreme ends of both one side who's against it believes that Some believe that this is going to kill everyone in three to five years

If you take the boosters and everything, it'll weaken your immune system. You'll get a virus that is different than the mRNA

Vaccine and it'll kill you others think this just makes you dependent on the government and you're gonna be

Relying on boosters the rest of your life. Of course, there's concerns about blood clotting. There's concerns about Infertility and so I've said my opinion before and I'll probably talk more about it in the future

I I wouldn't take it and you couldn't pay me to take it You'd have to hold me down.

I mean and and force me I I would not From I would not choose to take this this shot.

And again, I'm a younger male Starting out in life. I the infertility thing, especially

Bothers me, of course, I have concerns about the Cell the the fetal lines they use

I have a lot of concerns about it One of the bigger ones though is that it's just on it's untested.

This is something that has not gone through No matter which one you're talking about. It hasn't gone through the traditional

Even the one was it fit sir was just approved by the FDA, which is pretty shocking But I I would wait

I would wait a while. I would wait I'm talking years at least Before even knowing kind of what what this is gonna do and it seems like From a number of things that I've looked at and read that There's already a lot of negative effects that people are noticing.

I know personally people who have gotten blood clots right after getting the vaccine and So I I but that's my personal thing.

I stay away from it. I don't think It is a wise decision yet at the same time.

There are people who on the other end this is the extreme other end you think that if you don't take it that you're not loving your neighbor that this is something that is necessary for reducing the spread of kovat and this and in the new

Delta variant and that you're just not being considerate and They would even force it on the whole population.

And so you have these two extremes now the question in all this is Does the

Bible weigh in on any of that? And of course, I think it I think there are biblical principles we can draw on to say yeah, you know aborted fetal lines isn't good

That's wrong. I think we can draw on biblical principles to say that That the responsibility for personal decisions about your body

That belongs in a more of a personal jurisdiction and If you're not committing a crime

This is not something that the government should be getting involved with at least to the point of forcing I think most people agree on that.

It shouldn't be forced In churches, but the question of loving your neighbor and using a biblical principle like that to push the vaccine

I think that that is something pastors have to deal with directly. It's someone being unloving to their neighbor.

Are they Are they somehow disobeying the law of God because that is a serious charge if they take the vaccine conversely if if they

Don't take the vaccine. Are they being more responsible? Are they Trying to hedge against totalitarian government overreach and the kind of overreach that would take away all our civil liberties including our liberty to worship

God freely and and so these are These are diametrically opposed positions guys

And that's really what I want to get across is you can't really straddle the fence on this very easily

If people actually believe that it's not really about a vaccine It is more and some some do believe it's just you know, they're not thinking through it too deeply.

But those who are really Motivated to engage this on both sides and are really passionate about it

I mean on one side you have those who think this is going to be the end of Civilization and and the other side thinks it's also going to be the end of civilization and for completely different reasons and And they're coming to completely different conclusions so I just don't think that it's something that you can just kind of sidestep and and try to In fact, if you do try to address it, you will probably more likely cause more more curiosity and more attention will be drawn to that topic and It'll probably cause more division in the long run because you'll be trying to get people not to talk about it to view it as a

Secondary issue and it'll just it'll be you know, you're bringing it up more so I do have my own thoughts about this and what

I think the right thing to do is but the main point I wanted to get across is Trying to Navigate the issue without taking a stand either way without taking any kind of position is

Probably not gonna work. I just don't I don't think it is working in most churches I see pastors trying to do this and I think the fear a lot of the time is they just don't want their congregation being split apart by something that's secondary but the concerns involved with this many of them are not secondary and so that's why they do need to be addressed at least the moral components the

Components that scripture does have principles that can be drawn from to talk about and to address I think that's that's something pastors.

Do you need to probably focus on? And you're gonna be getting those questions personally either way

But you know, why not just be honest deal with it from the pulpit and if someone disagrees with you, okay You know, they disagree if they want to leave

Okay, but at least you've had an honest conversation and you're not trying to have a pretended unity when there really isn't any unity there.

So Those are just some off the top of my head thoughts on that motivated by a sermon that I heard recently

That I felt like tried to sidestep all of these things That particular church will probably be talking about the same issues six months from now because you kick the can down the road

But the churches who have taken firm stands they are seeing A different sometimes a different makeup of their congregation.

They're seeing different kinds of people come and I do think pastors should not just be and I realize you know pastors not a doctor a pastor is not a

Sociologist right there. No, they don't work for the government But a pastor does have to apply the Bible and if if you're applying scripture

You do have to understand something about the things you're trying to apply it to So I do think it is appropriate for church leaders to at least familiarize themselves with The potential risks that a vaccine like this has and the moral components that underlie them and and even to some extent

What hey, what is the World Health Organization trying to do? Is there a deeper plan here? You know, is this even a necessary thing?

And if not, why is it being pushed so hard? These are things that I think pastors probably do need to at least be somewhat aware of so they can have educated

Conversations with members of their churches who have questions. I mean, I've gotten a number of questions

Myself and I and I know part of it is because they're not getting answers from their pastors Private messages from people in the medical field.

They're gonna require the vaccine. What do I do those kinds of things and You know, they're gonna be coming to you for if you're a pastor for religious exemptions probably if they don't want to take it so That that's just my thought you could read the

Warrington Declaration, I know I had one of the Authors of that on the on this podcast a few weeks ago to talk about Vaccines and lockdowns and kovat and all of that and I would be generally in sympathy

I think with that statement for the most part and that's kind of where I come down on it But either way you got to think through it.

So that's just my my reminder to church leaders and pastors and even fathers and And mothers and just family members.

It's something that you're probably gonna want to educate yourself on Well, I have been going now 25 over 25 minutes and I'm starting to starting to get hot in this car you can probably see on my face, so I'm gonna end the podcast there and Appreciate everyone out there all your support and more coming later this week as I can post and next week

I think we'll get back to a little bit more of a regular schedule I've gotten a lot of requests to talk about certain things and I have a whole list made up if you've emailed me if you've

If you've gone to the website worldview conversation calm and signed up on the top right hand corner for Requesting a speaking engagement.

I know a number of people have done that requesting me to come to their church to speak on social justice I will get back to you.