The Jig is Up in the SBC

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We're gonna do an SBC deep dive today on some recent developments.

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So this episode is especially made for all you Southern Baptists out there. And gonna do a few updates first, but here's the gist of it.

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So you guys get the preview of where we're going. There were some statements put out, one by the Resolution Committee last year's for the

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Southern Baptist Convention, the one that gave us Resolution 9. You remember that? It affirmed critical race theory and intersectionality as analytical tools

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Christians could use. Well, now they're trying to backtrack yet again and sort of, but you read what they wrote and they're not backtracking.

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It's just a repetition of what they already believed, but we'll talk about it. The other statement is a statement by the seminary president head saying they affirm the

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Baptist faith and message and don't agree with critical race theory. Interestingly though, the lines have been drawn in ways that are so clear, more clear than they have ever been in my opinion.

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And I wanna show you those lines. I did a deep dive to show you kind of where people are lining up. And the main takeaway is that the jig is up.

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The ruse is not going to continue. People see through it now. A lot of people, there's people who don't, but more and more people are seeing through the hypocrisy, the attempts to play both sides to, if you're in a big church or a denomination or a ministry or seminary, try to say, well, we can have political conservatives, political liberals, because these aren't really political things.

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I mean, when we're talking about social justice, we're talking about a political religion, but I think in the minds of the elites in these denominations, they think it's just political.

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So there's an attempt to, well, let's have unity. We can have both. We can make our churches big, our seminaries big by having both political conservatives and liberals there.

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And in order to do that, we have to do all sorts of gymnastics and we have to talk out of both sides of our mouth and it's not working.

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Both sides are realizing it now. So we're gonna talk about that. First, an update though.

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I was traveling last week. I was in New York for Thanksgiving and I went hiking with my brother.

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I wanted to show you guys this. So we parked by this trail and there was a bunch of rocks there and this is what they had on them.

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Red spray painted hammer and sickle symbols. And I thought, yeah, this is

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New York. I'm gonna talk about it in the episode I'm thinking through how to approach this, but on COVID and masks and all that.

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I went to a Planet Fitness in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. Completely different, just the people are so different.

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Different situations, different experiences. So this was interesting though. I thought, yep, that's

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New York. We got hammers and sickles on the rocks. So be great. If you live in Alabama, just be grateful or, you know,

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Oklahoma or North Dakota or something. Just be grateful you don't live in a place where they're spray painting communist symbols on things.

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This is something, I wanted to bring this up just because it sets the context for what we're about to discuss in the SBC, but check this out.

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The NASDAQ to advance diversity through new proposed listing requirements. If approved, the new listing would require all companies on the

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NASDAQ exchange to disclose transparent diversity statistics regarding their board of directors.

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The rules would require most companies to explain why they do not have at least two diverse directors, including female or LGBT plus people.

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Foreign companies get flexible standards when it comes to this. The goal is to provide stakeholders with a better understanding of the company's current board compositions.

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This is garbage, and I'll tell you why. It's no longer about business, success in business, efficiency, good investment.

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It's about now moral posturing, and the moral posturing is on the ethic that more diversity is somehow better, which that doesn't necessarily mean,

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I mean, you have diversity of skill sets, it could be good, but diversity does not equal these kinds of diversities.

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We're talking about gender and orientations and ethnicity.

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These things don't make your company better. It's the skill sets that you bring to a company. So this is just a further indicator that we are going down the road of quality control going out the window.

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Quality control is not as important. Success is not as important as just making sure that you're diverse, whatever that means.

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So that's, and by the way, they use the word stakeholder, which by the way, if you hear that word, that your antenna should go up.

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Stakeholder, the way I've seen this used is it insinuates that you're not really an owner.

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You are someone who just is, you're invested in it, but not as an owner. And I've saw this from the World Economic Forum a few weeks ago, and I'm just suspicious of it because they are not friends of capitalism.

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And when I say capitalism, I mean free market capitalism, the free market system, if you wanna call it that, or just freedom, as we know, as we call it, private property, those kinds of things.

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World Economic Forum, ain't a big fan of that. They don't want people to be able to own anything. And now they're talking about stakeholder capitalism.

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So just be aware of that. But that's what's going on in business world. And I don't think it's an accident that what's happening in Christianity is happening.

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It's a reflection of what's happening all around us in other venues. So here's some strategy.

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Here's some things to keep in mind. Progressives engage in projection often, very often.

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In fact, I was listening to NPR yesterday. I don't usually do that, but I was driving and I was in kind of a backwoods area and I couldn't get that many stations.

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And that was one of them. And they're talking about voter fraud from Republicans. I kid you not.

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They're talking about how Republicans engage in voter fraud. They had no examples. It was just an assumption. But that's an example to you guys of this is exactly how progressives tend to work.

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They deflect, they deny, they disguise. They will call you all the things that they do.

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So you're a liar, you're a racist, you're a bully, you're these things. And meanwhile, that's what they're doing.

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And it's a good rule of thumb. If you wanna know kind of where progressives are heading, they'll usually accuse you of what they're about to do or have done.

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So I want to advertise this. It is in the info section. This is before I had a lot of subscribers.

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But a year ago, I had a video I put out, deflect, deny, disguise, three bad responses to the evangelical dark web.

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You may wanna check that out because I give many examples of this. And this situation that we're about to talk about is no exception.

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It's the same stuff. I mean, I've been flagged in the last few weeks.

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Southeastern wanna get rid of videos where I just show like little clips of things that their professors have said.

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I mean, come on. If you wanna stand by that stuff, then why in the world would you have a problem with someone showing what your seminary is doing?

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So that's a problem. You have the shielding. Oh, look, Matt Hall signed a statement of faith.

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So did Walter Strickland. That means they must be orthodox. Well, that assumes they're honest and they're not ignorant. And then circling the wagons.

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Well, I'm gonna get all my buddies who have platforms to say nice things about me, and that means that I'm okay. So these are the ways that I see this happening and playing out.

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And this is no exception, this latest situation. So before we get to the situation, let me just explain critical race theory in a nutshell.

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I've done this many times and I've gone through it in more detail, but let me give you the two -minute version.

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The theory's basic teaching is that racism is systemically embedded within the fabric of society and can only be addressed by first interpreting the world through the lens of a minority experience.

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So you have two things. And pretty much what I'm about to show you, the different aspects of critical race theory rest on these two assumptions.

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There are these two teachings. One is that there's all these institutions, structures, et cetera, that are, they're bad.

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They're oppressive. They need to be fundamentally re -examined and changed, or they need to be destroyed and new institutions must be brought up.

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But this is like the police, the prison system, the electoral college, anything that the left wants taken care of, they'll call it racist.

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And that's just supposed to make everyone, like rats on a ship, jump off and then the tower topples. And this is how they get what they want.

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It's a bully tactic, it's dishonest, and hardly anyone wants to stand up to them once they use that word.

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But that's an assumption of critical race theory, something that you don't even realize. You can have a whole system, no one's a racist in it, but the system itself is racist because they said so.

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Or years ago, something happened. Or look at this one example that, you know, the classic is the cop shooting, where you don't even know what the cop thought, meant, said, and it was one cop, but this situation means that police departments are systemically racist, right?

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So that's the Marxist angle. Then there's the postmodern part of this, and that is that there's no objective truth to appeal to to adjudicate these issues.

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You must go, and if you are a conservative, because that's the white perspective, the Western perspective, the Christian perspective, that's just whiteness is what that is.

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And so you, if you have that perspective, you don't have a right to talk. You must sit down, shut up, listen to someone who has a quote -unquote oppressed perspective, according to the sociologists.

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So they become the oligarchs, the sociologists and the experts. They're the Dr. Fauci's of, you know, of sociology, and they get to tell us what to do.

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That's critical race theory. Now, here's some of the tenets of it. Yeah, racism is normative. White privilege maintains white dominance.

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Voices of color are needed to help whites understand minority oppression. Whites will promote racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self -interest.

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History should be interpreted through minority experience. Race is socially constructed for the purpose of racism.

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Colorblindness subordinates minorities. And you can go to pretty much any primer on critical race theory. You're gonna find all of these or most of them.

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I think you can find all of these in Delgado's primer on it. So I'm gonna talk about, let's talk about these two statements.

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Let's start with the first one here. Because, and it's about critical race theory, so that's why I wanted you to get that framework in your mind.

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Keith Whitfield, he is the provost at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where I went. I think I've met him, if I'm not mistaken, when

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I was there years ago. And he was also on the resolutions committee last year that gave us Resolution 9, Affirming Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality as Analytical Tools.

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Now here's what he says. Recently, in light of recent statements by Christian leaders regarding CRT, so if I say

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CRT, that means critical race theory, and intersectionality, members of the resolution committee have drafted the following statement.

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And here's the statement. That they say, last spring, we participated in this interview.

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We expressed our regret of the confusion. They said, okay, there was confusion, questions and concerns.

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We made it clear that we do not affirm CRT as a worldview. That's key, as a worldview.

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So they're saying, not saying they don't affirm it at all, they're just saying we don't affirm it as a worldview. Because of such, we believe that they conflict with core

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Christian teachings. Well, you know, this is no different than Resolution 9. Resolution 9 didn't affirm it as a worldview.

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I keep going though here. A number of times over the last 18 months, we publicly and privately supported the desires and intentions of people to provide clarity and additional precision.

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So this is, the whole thing is, this statement is meant to provide precision and clarity. Okay, so they have one paragraph to all, in a nutshell, let me just explain this to you.

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For those who aren't aware, most of you probably are. But for those, you're new to this.

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This statement, go look up Resolution 9 Southern Baptist Convention 2019. The statement affirmed these things, critical race theory and intersectionality.

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Intersectionality is kind of this idea that there are different, on its power dynamic scale, there are different levels of oppression.

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Depending on your identity, you may fit into different categories and that makes your level. So if you're different, so if you're single and you're a white female, you might line up here, but if you're, you know, and they don't say left -handed, but theoretically, it could be like a left -handed, introverted, gluten -free, black female, and you would be, you know, down here.

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So that's intersectionality. So anyway, in this resolution, they said, we affirm these things, or Christians can affirm them essentially as analytical tools, not as a worldview, as an analytical tool subordinated to scripture.

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That's Resolution 9. The pushback has been, hold on a minute, you let that foot in the door.

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It rests on assumptions that are actually anti -Christian, that are Marxist. The people who came up with these ideas were doing so from a worldview that was very materialistic, that was postmodern, didn't, there was no objective truth.

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You would not have the tools without the bedrock assumptions that come with them, that basically man is good on a certain level.

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It's the environment that's the problem. It's these external things that are evil. I mean, these things, if you really think through all the things that play into this, it completely contradicts

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Christianity, but most people don't think about those things. They're only seeing the surface. So that was the pushback. So they want to provide clarity.

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Well, good. Well, here's the clarity though. It's just a repetition of Resolution 9. So here's what they say.

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We have been encouraged with the statements from Dr. Tony Evans. He preached a sermon and he made clear, he affirmed the sufficiency and authority of scripture over all ideologies.

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They say that's what the Baptist faith and message says, and that's pretty much it. That's their providing clarity.

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Well, that provides no clarity. That they haven't said anything Resolution 9 didn't say. They're just repeating it.

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So why even do this? I mean, this is a PR move, but it's a bad one.

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And I'll show you why. Dr. Tony Evans, here's what this up.

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It would be funny, except it is funny. It is kind of funny, but it's sad. Dr. Tony Evans says, here's my statement and sermon.

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And he issues a statement. Members of the Resolutions Committee, without my awareness or permission, use my name in their recent affirmation of recent statements from Christian leaders on CRT.

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I need to state that their use of my name and what I said in a sermon titled Race and Reconciliation needs clarification of what

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I fully said. They have referenced a portion without giving it the context of my sermon. I have a great deal of respect for them.

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But here's the nugget here that we want to pull out. He says, I affirm the

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Bible. Must be the basis for analyzing any and all social, racial, and political theories. But I did not say, listen up,

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I did not say nor imply that CRT or other ideologies lack beneficial aspects.

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So, this backfired. So this is actually more a cause for concern now.

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Because now you have a guy that's saying, no, critical race theory is beneficial. And the

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Resolutions Committee listened to that sermon and they're saying, we agree with that. Yikes!

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This completely blew up in their face. And check this out. So this is, I want to put the needle back a little bit.

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Let's go back to 2019, right after Resolution 9 was passed. This is Keith Whitfield, this is the same guy.

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Here's what he thought about what the Resolutions Committee did. And Resolution 9 being part of that. Here's Malcolm Yarnell, he's a professor,

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I think he's at the one in Texas, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He says, that the

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Resolutions Committee displayed the wisdom of Solomon in addressing some of the most difficult issues facing the church and society.

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Keith Whitfield, thank you, Dr. Yarnell. He doesn't try to clarify, he doesn't say, wait, we made a mistake on that Resolution 9.

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No, he just says, thank you. Missy Branch, Keith Whitfield retweets this.

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She says, reflecting on SBC 2019, I would like to thank the young man from Washington, DC who stood at the mic to support

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Resolution 9. She was deeply impacted. Keith Whitfield retweets it.

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It was good that someone was supporting Resolution 9. And I'm not gonna go through all of these guys. There's more.

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Keith Whitfield endorsed Resolution 9. And he was on the committee that came up with it, but after the fact.

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He was proud of that work. He wasn't distancing himself from that. This is all publicly things that he liked or retweeted or comments he made on Twitter.

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And it's all there for the public record, guys. And now he's trying to say, no, you know, it was confusing for some.

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That's the problem. It's confusing for some people. And we regret how we contributed. Not, you know, we were wrong, not...

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It's the most unclear statement they could have made. And it became more unclear when Tony Evans came out and just said, hold on a minute.

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You know, what are you trying to say? You're trying to say I don't agree with CRT because I think it might have some beneficial aspects.

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It's just... So this is what happened with the Resolution 9 Committee and Keith Whitfield.

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Now, here's the main... This is the main stage here. The seminary heads and what they did.

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I'm gonna read for you aspects, parts of this, portions of this article from Baptist Press.

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Albert Mueller, I think he was one of the first ones to tweet this out. New story, seminary presidents reaffirm Eastern Baptist faith message, declare critical race theory incompatible.

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So Dr. Aiken, Danny Aiken at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary says, we felt that because our brothers and sisters in various state conventions have concern about this issue, they would also want to know what their seminaries actually think and what we are teaching and not teaching.

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That we're actually there. So there's videos of professors, you know, for instance, like Matt Mullins, I'll give you one example at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary saying, if you're a white family, you shouldn't adopt a black kid.

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And, or yeah, I think he said black. You shouldn't do it because you wouldn't be able to give them the kind of life they need, right?

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So I played this clip and Southeastern says, oh, you can't do that.

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They slap, they try to slap this channel with a copyright violation, which it's not, it's under fair use, but they wanna hide that.

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So, but now Danny Aiken saying, well, you know, there's all these clips out there and there's a lot of other clips like that. We want everyone to know though, what we actually teach.

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So that's implying someone's lying. Well, who is it? Is it your professors? He also noted, this is not a statement for fringe groups.

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Hmm, this is for regular faithful Baptist who love us and who love us. I don't, guys,

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I'm sorry. I try to, I try to be kind of serious here, but the fringe groups, those who don't love us, this is for the regular.

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So if you have a concern about critical race theory being taught at these seminaries, you're a fringe group probably and you don't love them.

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You know, I went to Southeastern. That's where I chose to go to get my degree. I didn't take a dime from the SBC, paid for it with my own money.

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I love the school and because I love the school, I came out and said, this is what's going on. I tried to talk to professors there.

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I tried to go through the proper channels, as they call them and didn't get anywhere. And I went public and I thought the

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Pew sitters should know what they were funding, but it was out of love. And guys, it really, you can accuse me of lying if you want, but that's the truth.

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I don't wanna see this kind of stuff. I mean, it hurts. This is a place I went to see what's happened there.

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Well, Dr. Aitken, in my opinion, is accusing people like me of being fringe because we don't love their institutions and make it possible to do what they do.

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I have made it possible. I've spent thousands and thousands of dollars to Southeastern, making it possible for them to do what they do.

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Anyway, SBC president, J .D. Greer, affirmed the statement as well. Greer, pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh -Durham, decried outlandish claims, out of context sermons or teaching clips, along with outright lies, which have been used to attack people and undermine the great commission work of our convention entity, state convention churches.

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Notice how, whenever this statement is made, and it's made a lot, never any specifics. Who said it, what they said, and when they said it.

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It never happens. It's always, it's shrouded in mystery. It's the fringe groups.

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It's those who are taking things out of context. Really, where? I've always said this. Show me where. I'm certainly willing to, if I miss something,

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I think something out of context, I don't wanna do that. I've never once had anyone been able to explain to me, not once, where I was taking something out of context.

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If anything, it's someone who's trying to do gymnastics. If they ever do bring up a specific, they do gymnastics to try to make someone say what they're not saying.

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But if you just have a common sense hermeneutic, grammatical, historical, and you apply that same hermeneutic that you use to study the

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Bible to the seminary professors that are saying outlandish things, then you're not gonna come to the conclusion that, oh, they're not teaching critical theories, because some of them are.

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Here's what J .D. Greer went on to say. "'As this statement demonstrates, "'our convention leaders affirm without reservation "'not only our historic

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Baptist theological confessions, "'but also a biblical view of justice, "'which I also affirm and applaud.

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"'While we lament the painful legacy "'that racism and discrimination have left in our country, "'and listen to this, and remain committed,' "'oh, in our country, sorry, "'and remain committed to fighting in every form, "'we also declare the ideological framework, "'like critical race theory, "'as incompatible with the

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Baptist faith and message.'" The gospel gives a better answer. Okay, so here's what he's saying. He's saying that there's a painful legacy that racism has left in our country.

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Now, what does he mean by this? Because I've heard a lot of other things J .D. Greer said, and when he says things like this, it sounds like he's assuming that this legacy is just, it's with us.

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I mean, it's like every time there's a shooting, J .D. Greer seems to come out and affirm somehow that this was racially motivated, when there's not evidence for it.

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J .D. Greer does this all the time. Well, that's a critical theory assumption. You don't have evidence that it's racially motivated, but you're gonna assume it.

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That's the idea that it's systemically embedded in structures, so it's just there. You don't have to argue for it, it's there.

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J .D. Greer has gone along with that many times. But now he's saying, well, we're against critical race theory, but he's still gonna say that legacy of racism, it's still with us.

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Well, where, J .D. Greer? Point to it, show us. If there's a law, we'll stop it. If there's a person, and it's within our power to try to persuade that person, or if that person's hurting people, to shut down that person,

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I'll be the first one in line. Hey, I'll come with you. You've got a guy abusing people that look different, or minorities, hey, let's go take care of this.

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Doesn't happen, though. So, I think this is an, let's have our cake and eat it, too.

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And you're gonna see more of that as we get into this. So, here's the statement itself. And this is, in my opinion, this is the deny part.

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Remember, deny, deflect, disguise. This is the deny part. In light of current conversations in the SBC, we stand on historic

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SBC condemnations of racism in any form. As we declare, the affirmation of CRT, intersectionality, and any critical theory is incompatible with the

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Baptist faith and message. In this statement, the six seminary presidents stand together to commemorate.

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By the way, I should mention, this is what Al Mohler said. Every seminary president said something. This is what Al Mohler said. We stand together to affirm the

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Baptist faith and message. And the denomination has unquestioned theological conviction.

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Unquestioned, you can't question it. This anniversary offers an opportunity. And the opportunity is to rededicate themselves.

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Critical race theory and intersectionality have arisen within the last two years as issues of controversy. And we stand together in stating that we believe that advocating those things is incompatible with the

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Baptist faith and message, and that advocacy has no rightful place within the SBC seminary.

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And he says, I think it speaks loudly for Southern Baptists that we take this stand together. We also honor and affirm the clear and historic condemnations of racism in any form, and the convention's acknowledgement of our own history and moral responsibility we bear.

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We bear current? We bear, what do you bear? You, what's the, is there a guilt?

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And what do you mean racism in any form? You mean like structural racism, invisible racism, that you, you know, that that's what critical race theory plays off of is this idea that there's a systemic racism.

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You can't point to the law or the person or the people, but you can say the system's got this problem. So what does he mean?

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This is vague. This is not clear. But here, but here he says, literally, he says, we must be clear.

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That racism has no rightful place in the SBC, our churches or entities clearly much work, much work remains.

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Clearly, he says much work remains. Really, is that, is it really that clear? I mean, do we all live like, you know, under a log somewhere where there's, there's like Klansmen running around these churches and we just don't see it?

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What is he talking about? And of course the specifics aren't given. And when they are, it's things like FBC Naples, which was a hoax.

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So, so clearly much work remains. We are thankful for our African -American brothers and sisters whose voice, voices are needed and must be honored.

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Needed why? Needed to get the right biblical interpretation. Needed, needed in what way?

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It's, this is not clear. This is not clear. And, and why, why is it just African -Americans?

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Why, why are they the only ones brought up in this? Can, is racism just, is it a white thing? Are there other ethnicities that also can be capable of showing ethnic partiality?

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You can almost see the, it's not even almost, you can, you can see the critical race theory assumptions in this statement from Al Mohler.

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He says, I believe that Southern Baptists are up to this task. We addressed the statement to the entire SBC. We have confidence in the

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SBC as a movement. All right, this is a PR thing, guys. This is a PR thing. This is a safe phase. This is, we had,

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I'm telling you my opinion here, okay? I don't have anyone stating this is a PR thing. I'm just telling you, if you look at the sequence of events here, you have

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Tom Rush come out and say that, as a trustee, and say that Mohler's been promoting

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CRT. That, you know, he's, that he had a professor come to him and say that, look, we weren't, we were basically forbidden.

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It was strongly suggested we should not sign the Dallas Statement on Social Justice. You have Russell Fuller who came out earlier this year.

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You have, it basically corroborated everything Tom Rush said. Tom Rush corroborated everything Russell Fuller said just about, or most of the things regarding this issue.

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And then you have the FBC Naples thing that Enemies Within the Church put out last week. And Enemies Within the

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Church, by the way, was also, they were the ones that filmed the Tom Rush thing as well. So you have Enemies Within the Church putting out the

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Tom Rush thing, or Tom Rush putting it out, but them helping him with it. You have Enemies Within the Church putting out the

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FBC Naples documentary. And at the end of that, there's a guy who's, he's just a member of this church, called a racist when he wasn't.

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And he said, look, I've read this book, Removing the Stand of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention that Al Mohler promoted, that Al Mohler wrote a chapter in, that was promoted from seminary professors at Al Mohler Seminary, that Danny Akin, I believe, wrote a chapter in as well.

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And he's saying, look, I think Mohler's fingerprints are on this thing. So what happened at the local church level to what happened at the institutional level at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has

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Al Mohler's fingerprints written all over it. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, let me give you, here's a very small, and I mean very small, very small sample.

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This is just Matt Hall and Al Mohler over the last few years, up until even this year. Matt Hall and Al Mohler.

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Matt Hall's the provost of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Al Mohler is the president. Here's what they've been saying.

28:08

Point of reason why I love Dr. Hall is because he's well -versed in critical race theory and history.

28:16

But he's using terms like whiteness. Some people hear that and it creates a little angst. What do you mean when you say whiteness, right?

28:22

Everything that you thought was true about your tradition, your denomination, your own family, there's a whole,

28:30

I'm gonna pull the veil back and what looked like this beautiful narrative of faithfulness and orthodoxy and truth and righteousness and justice,

28:39

I'm gonna peel that back and I'm gonna show you the rotting corpse of white supremacy that's underneath that surface.

28:46

At some point, we gotta get to the spot where we're able to look in the mirror and be like, yeah, I'm probably a racist. I'm telling you,

28:52

I'm a racist because I have a heartbeat. And until I receive my glorified, completely sanctified body, soul, and mind,

29:01

I'm gonna be doing battle with sin. It's gonna take everything we've got in the gospel and in the scriptures to escape the trap of history.

29:14

But we can't just draw a line. We're gonna have to deal it. We're gonna have to confront it. We're gonna have to recognize the word stain is exactly the right word.

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It's a stain that we're gonna carry as a denomination forever till Jesus comes.

29:30

I can't associate with any assertion that we do not have a massive problem in the society and in the church with claims of racial superiority and with historic patterns of claims of white racial superiority.

29:50

I love the people, respect the people who brought the resolution. I would not have brought the resolution if it were me.

29:58

And there's just some language in it that some of it's so good, but some of it is so easily taken.

30:08

Well, it's just confusing. So I just, I'll try to say that. But behind it, behind the resolution,

30:17

I'm convinced was an effort to try to speak to the real problem of the sin of racism in the

30:25

United States and in every structure in the United States. Let's go back to our bullet points on the elements of critical race theory now that we've listened to that.

30:33

The first one is racism is normative. I mean, it's the default setting. It's just, it's what the case is to assume that it's not there means you have to overcome an overwhelming burden of proof.

30:44

Actually, you can't overcome it because it's there. And this white privilege maintains white dominance.

30:53

So if you're white and you just benefit from this system that allocates privilege to you, there's, you're a racist because you're part of this white domination.

31:05

There's so many other things I could have played for you, but just listening to those clips that it's normative.

31:11

It's never going to go away. The stain's there till heaven. It's going to be with you. You're, he didn't want to sign,

31:19

Al Mohler didn't want to sign a statement on social justice in the gospel, because apparently, you know, they're not going to sign that statement, which that's, isn't that the weird thing to you guys?

31:29

It's not to me anymore, because I think I get it, but that was the weird thing for a long time for a lot of people. Why wouldn't you just sign the statement

31:36

John MacArthur signed on social justice in the gospel? What's wrong with it? Well, you heard what

31:41

Al Mohler said. And it basically comes down to that racism, he doesn't want to sign a statement that he thinks assumes that racism is not prevalent.

31:50

And it is, it's just, it's everywhere. It's like, I guess you look under your bed, you're going to find some racism somewhere. And again, not giving specifics.

31:58

It's a philosophical assumption. It's not something that's argued for, given an in -depth, responsible evaluation of data.

32:13

So, you know, Christians, I guess, even the church, you know, you heard him say it. I'm not going to repeat everything he said, but you know, racism is normative.

32:20

It's in the church today with us. It's just something to assume. So, let's see here.

32:28

Let's go back to the chart or to the place in the slideshow we were at. This statement was put out there to kind of, because people are watching clips like that one and many others.

32:42

And if you read even, you know, removing the stain of racism from the Southern Baptist Convention, which Al Mohler contributed to, the word critical race theory comes up twice in that book.

32:52

And I'll just leave it there. Go look it up. Go read it. Headlines that came out of this so far,

33:00

Religion News Service, Southern Baptist Seminary, President Nix, critical race theory. Baptist News Global says,

33:05

SBC Seminary President denounces critical race theory. Christian Post, Southern Baptist Seminary Presidents release statement denouncing critical race theory.

33:13

Washington Times, Baptist Seminary President rejects critical race theory. Daily Wire, read,

33:19

Southern Baptist issues strong statement against critical race theory intersectionality. Statement also denounces racism. This is the intended effect.

33:26

This is what they want to do. This is why they made the statement they did. It's specifically to get the media, to get anyone who's gonna listen, but especially media groups to hear what they're saying and that the message on a cursory kind of surface level evaluation of all this stuff, they're gonna say, oh, well, they're against critical race theory because they said it.

33:47

So we're going to report on that. And then you get enough people to repeat it, it makes it sound true.

33:55

The problem is there's a lot of organizations and people specifically who have been paying attention a lot longer than some of these organizations, these news organizations.

34:06

And I'm gonna give you some of the reactions on both sides. We're gonna start with the progressives. And this is why I say the ruse cannot continue.

34:12

The jig is up. Here's Jamar Tisby. Jamar Tisby, author of Color of Compromise, if you've heard of that book, really, really left leaning guy.

34:24

He says, critical race theory is the theological and ecclesiastical equivalent of the red scare. Slap anyone with the label critical race theory and they automatically become enemies of the church.

34:34

So Jamar Tisby's upset at this. He's saying, why, you know, stop it. You know, you guys, you're saying that critical race theory is an enemy.

34:41

Why do that? Zach Hunt, who I think wrote a book. I don't,

34:47

I think that's his claim to fame, but it got some traction on Twitter. So I'm including it. He's a blue check mark guy. If affirmation of critical race theory, intersectionality, and any version of critical theory is incompatible with your faith, your faith is incompatible with Christianity and your gospel is just Fox News talking points.

35:03

So I guess to be a Christian, according to Zach, you have to be a critical race theorist. And also

35:10

Paul and Jesus must have been critical race theorists, according to Zach Hunt.

35:15

Michael S. Graham, who I believe is a pastor in Florida, but he got a lot of traction. There are plenty of things worth critiquing regarding critical race theory, but this statement primarily aims at critique while lacking needed clarity on comprehension and commendation.

35:28

In other words, they should have said some nice things about critical theory. And this statement is not good because they didn't say nice things about critical theory.

35:36

Nate Collins. Nate Collins, the Revoice Conference, he taught, I believe he taught as an adjunct,

35:41

I think for a little while, at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Russell Fuller said he'd introduced himself as, hi,

35:47

I'm Nate Collins, I'm a gay Christian. You know, that kind of thing. It was well known on campus. But he taught there for a little bit.

35:53

He said, it's official. SBC seminaries demonstrate that their administrations are unable to model basic critical thinking about complicated matters related to race, whiteness, and injustice.

36:02

Let's pray that their faculty show us a better way. And that's very telling. That's very telling.

36:07

He's saying the presidents don't know what's up, but the faculty, he knows. Nate Collins knows. He went to Southern.

36:12

He taught there. He knows. Let's hope the faculty teach us another way. He's saying the faculty are to the left of this statement.

36:19

They don't buy this statement. So that's his hope. Alan Cross.

36:26

Seminary presidents reaffirm Baptist faith and message, declare CRT incompatible. He says, I don't affirm

36:31

CRT, but here's the problem. Those being appeased here say almost all claims of racial injustice are actually

36:37

CRT intersectionality. They say all systemic injustice is passed. So this is, and maybe some people are gonna get upset at me for including

36:45

Alan Cross in this progressive reaction, if you will. And I don't know where Alan Cross lines up on the political or theological issues in detail.

36:54

I just know that he is one of the voices that was getting some traction off of this online.

37:02

And so I felt like I should include it. And that's kind of where, when I was categorizing things, that was where he best fit.

37:11

So, but the problem that he has is that he's saying, well, the sort of category for critical race theory is so wide because of people like me,

37:25

I guess, I don't know, that if you just say that you're against racism, that people are accusing you of critical race theory, which is not happening, which is ridiculous.

37:33

I mean, look, I just showed you. I gave you definitional bullet points at the beginning of this for understanding what it is.

37:40

But Alan Cross, he doesn't like the statement. So these are the progressive perspectives, in my opinion, that say they don't like the statement because they're coming at it from a leftward perspective.

37:51

And so they're not accepting it. And this is why I think the ruse can't continue because the progressives, and there's many more

37:58

I could have probably included, but they're just not, they don't buy it, they're not accepting it. That's not making them happy.

38:04

Here's the one that I wanted to show you the most. This is Beth Moore. Beth Moore says, I've repeatedly asked this question in good faith, direct messages to SBC leaders, and have yet to receive a clear, concise, consistent answer.

38:16

Now this is something, this is totally ironic, but this is an area that Beth Moore and I can agree. This is funny to me, in a way, because Beth Moore is saying, you guys aren't being clear, and you're concise and consistent.

38:28

And I've said the same thing. So have the conservatives. So you have the liberals now, if you will, and the conservatives, if you wanna use those labels, or progressives and traditionalists, or whatever.

38:39

You have these two sides that are coming down differently on this statement, but they have some of the same basic problems.

38:47

Like I could have written what Beth, the first sentence here, I could have just said, or actually both of them, please, for those of us seeking to understand, define

38:53

CRT in, say, four sentences. Is preaching against racism any version of it? Yes, I would wanna hear them answer that.

38:59

That's funny that Beth Moore and myself would agree completely on this. You guys aren't being clear.

39:06

This statement is not clear. What are you guys talking about? Tell us. And Beth Moore says, it seems to me that any version of it is troublingly subjective.

39:15

And again, I'm asking this in good faith. How on earth will longstanding racism ever be rooted out of the SBC when anyone who speaks boldly of our history can be accused and perhaps dismissed for a version of CRT?

39:27

And please do not send me a link to another article. I don't want another article. I'm asking for definition from the

39:33

SBC. So let's see. I wanna understand what CRT is and the great danger it poses than the one before us with systemic injustice.

39:43

Help me. I'm not sure exactly what. I want to understand what

39:48

CRT is and the great danger it poses than the one before us. Oh, she's saying systemic injustice is such a problem.

39:56

So she's saying, is CRT a worse problem than systemic injustice? Systemic injustice is such an issue.

40:03

So anyway, obviously I do not agree with her assessment of systemic injustice, her views on probably any of the related issues.

40:13

We'd be on opposite sides. But we both agree on this. Statement's not clear. These presidents are not clear.

40:20

And it's worthless basically making statements like this. It's a PR move is what it is.

40:27

So they're not buying it. We're not buying it. Here's conservatives reacting. I posted,

40:34

Tom Buck says, a lecture demonstrating how SEBTS is teaching a hermeneutical approach based in standpoint theory, which is a basic tenet of intersectionality.

40:43

Danny Akin should address this. We need action from our leaders, not merely signed statements. So Tom Buck isn't buying it either.

40:51

Neither Tom Buck nor Beth Moore are buying this. Michael S. Miller. So suddenly all of us who stood behind Tom Askell voting for the amendment to Resolution 9 are supposed to feel warm and fuzzy about this?

41:01

Where were seminary presidents that day? He's noticing the inconsistency. Peter Lumpkins.

41:06

Here's the deal, guys. I'm through listening to your words. Done, D -O -N -E, done. Words work when trust prevails.

41:13

Many of us have heard far too much meaningless blather to trust. The only thing that works now is action, and even action will be scrutinized.

41:22

Here's, and that's appropriate, by the way. If you can't trust someone, they have to build trust with you.

41:28

So you gotta scrutinize it. Here's, this was interesting to me. Jacob Brunton and Michael O 'Fallon had this exchange, and I thought this is actually really, this is a good point.

41:36

Jacob Brunton says, every one of them also signed this statement. They are either lying or they are stupid, and they aren't stupid.

41:43

And the statement is the statement on the death of George Floyd. And Michael O 'Fallon says, correct, Jacob, this is a political move, saying one thing, but yet doing another.

41:50

In other words, duplicity. I wanna show you, okay, so here's the thing. The guys who just, it's an excellent point,

41:58

I have to say, excellent point. So that the people, the seminary presidents who just affirmed that we're against critical race theory, supposedly, this is what they signed this year,

42:10

May 30th, 2020. A few months ago, they signed this. I quote, as a convention of church is committed to the equality and dignity of all people,

42:20

Southern Baptist grieved the death of George Floyd, who was killed May 25th, 2020. While we all must grieve, we understand that in our heart, our fellow citizens of color, in the heart of our fellow citizens of color, incidents like these connect to a long history of unequal justice in our country, going back to the grievous

42:42

Jim Crow and slavery eras. The images and information we, you know, stop.

42:48

I don't even, I'm just stopping. I don't even need to read more of this. I'm telling myself to stop. Here's the thing.

42:57

They're connecting this, let me show it to you here. I'll put it up on the screen. They're connecting this incident immediately without any proof that this was racially motivated, and there still is no proof that any of this was racially motivated.

43:09

They're connecting it to Jim Crow and slavery, that somehow this is the same thing.

43:16

We grieve to see examples of the misuse of force and call these issues to be addressed with speed and justice.

43:21

We thank God for law enforcement. We also lament when some law enforcement officers misuse their authority.

43:28

We grieve minority brothers and sisters in the wake of this death. They're making this all a race thing.

43:35

In the misuse of force, an inequitable distribution of justice needs to come to an end.

43:41

Inequitable distribution of justice. What does this have to do with George Floyd, guys? And we could go on,

43:50

I'm sure, and read the rest of this and find stuff. But this is the point. The same presidents who just said we're against critical race theory affirmed just a few months ago that the death of George Floyd was somehow related to Jim Crow slavery.

44:05

The inequitable distribution of justice and without any evidence whatsoever.

44:13

Racism is normative. Racism is systemic. It's just embedded. You can't give it a clear example or proof, but you don't need that because you have an assumption.

44:23

And it's a religious assumption. Make no mistake. This is a fundamental religious assumption, metaphysical religious assumption.

44:34

So, I don't buy it with these guys. This relies on the same assumptions critical race theory rely on.

44:46

I mean, it relies on basically critical race theory assumptions to make this work. And the assumptions that came before critical race theory was even a term that was used because the critical race theory is a continuation of new left ideas that were already saying similar things.

45:03

So, here's the confusing reactions. This is the disguise in my point of view. These are the disguising things that just, they don't help.

45:12

But there's a lot of reactions like this. There's a lot more that I could have posted, but I just wanna give you a few names that you may be familiar with because they're bigger names.

45:20

Well, some of them are bigger. Some of them aren't as much, but my audience probably is familiar. So, here's Neil Shenvey. He says about the statement, this is good.

45:28

The SBC seminaries agree that the affirmation of critical race theory, intersectionality, and any version of critical race theory is incompatible with the

45:33

Baptist faith and message. Neil Shenvey says, this is good. He says, I only add that pastors need to be specific about precisely which assumptions and claims of critical theory are incompatible with the

45:41

Bible so that they're not susceptible to the Mott and Bailey. I may write an article about this.

45:46

And he's right about this. The Mott and Bailey being the idea that they could come out with, hey, racism's a problem, right?

45:54

And then go right back into their tower. And after those who are suspecting them of critical race theory go away.

46:06

And they're not watching anymore. Oh, you're just against racism. And then they can smuggle in all their ideas.

46:11

That's, it's a tactic. It's a battle tactic. But here's the thing.

46:18

Shenvey's saying, this is good. This is good. It's not good though. This statement is not good.

46:23

Because if what it accomplishes is essentially masking what's actually going on, if there's no actual repentance,

46:32

I mean, this is how you're supposed to deal with this. You know, some of our professors said stuff that was wrong. They're apologizing.

46:38

Our institution is apologizing, probably firing some people. We are going through a process to try to regain your trust.

46:47

And here's very clearly what we did and said that was wrong. That would be a Christian way of handling this when you do something wrong, not covering it up.

46:54

This is an effort to cover up. So it's not good. It's bad. But you have people like Neal Shenvey here saying this is good.

47:00

You have people like Eric Erickson saying, good to see. Owen Strand, thankful for this marker laid down.

47:08

CRT has no place in the SBC seminaries nor the SBC itself. Now, here's the thing. I'm not trying to be too hard on these guys, especially, you know,

47:16

Owen Strand, I just read. I'm not trying to be too hard on him. I mean, he can be thankful for that. But I just wanna ask you guys, like, if you had, let's say, let's change the example a little bit and to drive the point home.

47:30

What if your wife or your husband or your boyfriend, your girlfriend, significant other of some kind was cheating on you, right?

47:38

They were being secretive about it. You know, you tried to bring evidence. I took a picture of your car in front of this person's house and how dare you bring up, you know, you bring that picture up.

47:50

I'm gonna delete off your phone. You know, and they try to cover their tracks, you know, with everything they have. And then they make a statement, you know,

47:59

I am going to reaffirm my marriage vows. I am against adultery. But you have all this evidence that they've been committing it.

48:08

How would you feel about that kind of a statement? You know, and now we're just supposed to have a nice Valentine's Day, a nice anniversary.

48:15

You know, you should get me flowers or whatever, you know. We would say that's ridiculous.

48:20

We'd say, hold on a minute. Your actions aren't matching your declaration.

48:26

You've broken the trust. So what needs to happen, if we're gonna work this out, you have to admit what you're doing, what you've done, what

48:33

I have evidence of you doing. And then we have to go to counseling. We have to go through a process of regaining that trust.

48:40

That would be the Christian way to handle this. But in this situation, when you have seminary presidents and those under them teaching ideas contrary to the

48:50

Baptist faith and message, they wanna keep pointing at the marriage vows. They wanna keep pointing at the

48:56

Baptist faith and message, saying, but, but, but, but this. They want to erase, in the case of myself, you know,

49:03

Southeastern wants to erase things I've posted. Here's the picture of your car outside the apartment. No, we can't have that.

49:09

That's a violation of copyright. They want to accuse people like me of being fringe.

49:17

People like yourself, if you've shared some of those things, or if you've done some of your own research, you're fringe. You don't love the institutions.

49:23

What would you say if your wife said to you, or your husband, you know, you don't love me because you're trying to expose my adulterous affair or something?

49:33

You'd say that's ridiculous. Well, this is kind of the situation we're in. And so the trust between the pew sitters funding these institutions and the institutions themselves has been broken.

49:46

What do you say? What do you say to that if someone comes out and says, you know what?

49:51

I do affirm the marriage vows. I don't think I would be saying what these guys are saying.

49:57

I wouldn't be like, well, this is good. Good to see. Thankful for this marker laid down. Baptists have regularly followed the

50:02

Reformation practice of using confessions of faith to define and defend what the Bible teaches on timeless doctrines, as well as issues of the day.

50:09

The anniversary statement is a fine example that upholds this tradition. From Jason, I think it's doozing or dizing.

50:16

Not the first thing that would come to my head. Now, some of these guys may not be aware. I have a very hard time thinking that these guys are not aware, honestly.

50:24

I have a very hard time believing that they're not aware. But there you go. That's, I think that's the last slide

50:30

I have here. So what are the takeaways from this? Well, I think, number one, like I've said two times, the ruse is up, the jig is up.

50:42

You can't hide. These guys are not, it's working with some who are probably, they're somehow tied to these institutions, loyal to them, the institutionalists.

50:53

But with those who aren't loyal to the institutions, who actually have convictions on the left and the right and understand what's going on, those two things, they're not buying it anymore.

51:04

And so there's a real split coming. And this is, it just makes it obvious. The split's kind of already here. It's just taking time.

51:11

And with a year when the convention can't meet, I mean, it's just prolonging the inevitable. But I think it's a teaching moment, too, for all of us to learn how these guys function.

51:27

If the SBC is going to recover, it's gonna take someone who's gonna be willing to do some scorched earth chemotherapy because we got stage four cancer.

51:36

It's gonna, a guy coming in who's gonna clean house. And you can't work with these guys. Guys who would sign a statement like the

51:42

Floyd Statement and then sign this anti -CRT statement and then have professors teaching at their seminaries and say things like,

51:49

I don't know how that's compatible. How do you, you can't. And so I think, this is just my advice for anyone listening who's a conservative who wants to take back the denomination.

52:00

You're gonna have to have someone who's very clear, who's running for president, who's conservative theologically, and who is going to make the hard -to -call shots and really clean house completely.

52:13

Put his own guys in, try to find guys who are not. And I know there's limitations on what a president can and can't do.

52:20

It's not just as simple as getting a president. But that's what we're dealing with. And it's not even about critical race theory or social justice anymore.

52:27

It's about basic honesty. We don't have it in that denomination. Not at the high levels, it seems.

52:35

So those are some of my takeaways. And for the Southern Baptists out there, I hope that was beneficial for you.

52:40

I hope my analysis helped. And I hope some of the evidence I brought forth helped as well, especially if you're new to this show and you're trying to think through these things.

52:49

It's hard. We don't wanna think that anyone is guilty of being lying or being deceitful or any of these things.

52:59

We love to just say that it's ignorance. And with people like Al Mohler, I can't say that anymore.

53:06

This has been going on. He's right, it's been two years. It's been over two years. And it's not even about CRT guys.

53:13

Don't get off track. It's about these ideas that, I mean, and I've gone through them so many times, but that truth is not objective.

53:23

These perspectives we need in order to approach reality. It's about the idea that we can just, without due process, make accusations about institutions and people and groups of people that they're racist somehow without actually proving it.

53:38

And that includes Derek Chauvin. I mean, it does. If we're gonna believe in due process, we can't just make accusations of racism when we don't have evidence for it.

53:51

And that subverts the biblical justice that we have. It's the people that will promote this as something attached to the gospel.

54:00

That's been an issue, the soteriological issue. It's the

54:05

Marxism, it's the remedies for these things that often get brought up, that we have to platform or somehow feel guilty.

54:12

Platform minorities feel guilty for the color of our skin. These kinds of things, that this is just foreign to biblical justice.

54:21

That we need to be guilty for the sins of fathers, grandfathers, and great -grandfathers.

54:26

I mean, I go on and on and on with all the things that contradict a biblical understanding.

54:32

But those who listen to this program, you know what those things are. Those are the issues. That's principles.

54:38

It's not critical race theory as a label. And I think some of these guys in the elite positions,

54:44

I think, want to reduce it to that. It's just about this term. And if we can just distance ourself from that term, but keep teaching some of the same things, then we'll be fine.

54:51

No, you won't. No, you won't. And we will be honest. We will call you out for it. We do know where these ideas came from.

54:58

We do know what they stand for. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a nerd to figure it out.

55:04

So, there you go. Coming up, this was for Southern Baptists. We got some more episodes coming out.

55:12

I actually, I did an interview that I'll be releasing with Kevin McGarry.

55:18

And he was on before. Many of you really liked having him on. And Neil Mammon, who are with Every Black Life Matters.

55:26

And they're gonna be touring the country to help churches navigate this stuff, this social justice stuff.

55:32

And I think that's a very brave thing. So, I'm gonna show you an interview I did with them and give you more information on how you can connect with them if you want to.

55:39

And we're gonna talk about the Naples documentary, the enemies within the church put out.

55:46

And there's so many more things, so many side projects that are going on right now as well. And I appreciate your prayers.

55:52

Appreciate the support. Pray for the Southern Baptist Convention. Pray for Christianity in this country.

55:58

And pray for this country. I didn't mention it in this podcast, but these hearings that are coming out about election fraud are jaw -dropping.

56:08

And this isn't about President Trump, guys. This is about the, I mean, we're talking about in a denomination kind of dishonesty.

56:16

And it's on a whole nother level in the halls of power in our national government, in our state governments, and even in some of our cities.

56:25

So, we need the Lord. We need revival. If men do not fear the Lord, which is what I think is happening, if men do not fear the

56:32

Lord, that is a very dangerous place to be. And that's when corruption comes in. We need to get back to fearing the