Is This Anarcho-Tyranny? & Michael Horton Blames White Evangelicals

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September 8, 2022

Source for White Horse Inn Episode: https://whitehorseinn.org/resource-library/shows/recovering-the-fear-of-god-in-the-church/

00:13: The Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris, for a listener -generated episode today.
00:19: That's right, we're gonna be talking about another podcast or a radio show called The White Horse Inn and an episode from that show.
00:26: Now, The White Horse Inn is associated with the ministry of Michael Horton.
00:33: I am not overly familiar with Michael Horton. Here and there, I've seen articles from him seven or eight years ago when
00:39: I would be driving home from work. Sometimes I'd turn on the Christian radio station and I'd hear The White Horse Inn, probably on like three or four occasions.
00:47: And sometimes I kind of enjoyed it. But the last time I listened to The White Horse Inn podcast,
00:53: Michael Horton's part of, I heard, I think it was a guest, and see, this is a long time ago, so my mind's a little fuzzy on it, but I think it might've been
01:02: Sam Albury. At the time, I didn't know who that was. I didn't know about same -sex attraction and being introduced as an alternative category in Christianity that isn't sinful.
01:18: I wasn't familiar, I hadn't really heard that, but I heard it, probably for the first time, articulated clearly in this particular episode of The White Horse Inn, and I remember thinking at the time, well, that's rubbish.
01:30: I just thought, who would believe that, you know? At first, I still remember,
01:36: I remember where I was on the road, and I remember where the sun was, too. The sun was setting, and I heard this guy with a
01:42: British accent, so I think it was Sam Albury, saying that he had these attractions, but he chose to not participate in them because he loved
01:52: Jesus. And at the time, I thought, well, that's kind of good. Okay, good. And then, though, something just didn't sit right with me because in the same podcast, the point was made somewhere along the line that it was acceptable to live with these attractions, and I was kind of thinking, wait, hold on.
02:10: Don't you want to move on from that? Isn't the point to not have those anymore?
02:17: It was strange, and it was the first time I had heard this thinking, and it hit me wrong, and I didn't listen to The White Horse Inn after that, until today.
02:26: Someone sent me an episode and said, John, you gotta listen to this, and I finally did. It was last week they sent it to me, and when
02:34: I listened to it, I listened to it on double speed as I was working on my sink upstairs in our house, and I thought, you know what?
02:41: I do need to talk about this, and for a few reasons. One is because I think it does show Michael Horton's woke.
02:46: I didn't realize how woke he was. I wasn't that familiar with him, and now I'm like thinking, man. The other thing is there are some issues brought up that I think are important, and I want you to think critically about them, those who are listening in this audience, because I have a feeling that they are not addressed, it's not a feeling.
03:08: I know they're not addressed directly by most theological conservatives who are concerned about social justice.
03:16: These are issues that tend to be dodged to some extent, in my opinion. They're not faced directly, and so at least some of the issues that are gonna be brought up, and so that's one of the reasons
03:27: I want to go over this particular podcast. It's 38 minutes long. I don't know if we'll get through the whole thing, but hopefully we'll get through enough of it.
03:34: I do want to acknowledge, though, as we are doing this podcast, some things that are happening right now in the news, and I live in New York right now, and boy, some of the new laws that the state of New York has enacted concerning ammunition and firearms are some of the most, in my short life, some of the most tyrannical things
04:02: I have ever seen in our country regarding firearms. It's gonna be hard on churches.
04:08: It's gonna be hard, essentially, you can't buy ammunition without a certain license.
04:18: So you go to like a Cabela's in upstate New York, and they're gonna have, I saw a picture this morning, they have safety tape around the ammunition.
04:26: You cannot carry, concealed carry, a firearm in a number of places, but mostly public places, but it's including churches.
04:36: Can't conceal carry in a church, which makes you sitting ducks, which means churches are gonna have to consider now, are they gonna try to give security guard training to their security teams, because you can't conceal carry.
04:49: I mean, there's a lot of things that are gonna have to be navigated, and I remember two years ago, when the
04:57: COVID stuff started, thinking that, you know what, this is not gonna be the last time. It's actually gonna, there's gonna be more and more examples of government overreach and Christians and churches having to respond, and this is another one of those things.
05:10: And I know for those in other states, this isn't something that maybe you're concerned about as much, but look, even if you're in a state you think is red, you think, man, we're just conservative here, we're in my neck of the woods.
05:22: You might be in a rural area in New York, by the way, and in your neck of the woods, no one agrees with that, but it's coming.
05:30: And in many of these places where you have people moving in and the children, of course, being indoctrinated in public schools, this kind of thing that's happening here is,
05:40: I think, a foreshadow of what is to come in even other places. So it's something that we're gonna have to fight.
05:47: We're gonna have to think clearly about it. I think at some point, I'm gonna have to do some more podcasting on self -defense, and also the history behind why we, in this country, not just have a
06:00: Second Amendment, but many of the state's constitutions and their Bill of Rights include the right to bear arms.
06:09: And it's not for hunting. I'll put it that way, it's not. So anyway, that's happening right now in real time where I'm at.
06:20: And I don't sugar coat things on this podcast. I mean, there's plenty to be thankful for, but there's a lot of stuff going on that's not good.
06:28: And that's one of them. Another thing is, as I'm recording this right now, there is,
06:34: I'm sure there was, I'm not sure what the status is right this second, but there was a shooter.
06:41: I have the story here. Let me see if I can just pull it up for you all so you can see here. And my information is limited, but, and see, it was updated 10 minutes ago, so this is still ongoing, but a man, 19, driving around Memphis shooting at people, and I saw one of the videos of this guy on social media where he live streams himself shooting someone, and it's horrific.
07:08: And from one of the chat boxes I'm in where people inform me and I help inform them,
07:18: I mean, it's sharing information about some of this stuff. People were commenting that, and by the way, people from Memphis were commenting where this is happening, that essentially what's taking place is that this guy is shooting white people.
07:33: Now, that's preliminary. I'm not accusing him of that. I don't know. I just know, people
07:39: I know firsthand that I trust in Memphis, they're saying that that's what's happening, and it's already kind of being subdued, that narrative is being kind of disregarded.
07:53: So maybe I'll look into it later, but apparently there's video footage of this guy not, refusing to shoot or just not shooting black people, but then he'll shoot white people exclusively.
08:07: So I don't know if that's true at this point. I don't know exactly what's going on, but the only reason
08:14: I say that, I mean, whoever he's shooting, they're made in the image of God.
08:20: Of course, these are people, any people that die or are injured by this,
08:26: I mean, it's a horrible thing no matter what. I'm only bringing this up to just put the shoe on the other foot and say, if this is true, why is that kind of a narrative being suppressed?
08:39: Why is it, and here's another tweet thread I wanted to show you. Why is it that Republicans, I'm not talking about the
08:45: Democrats, but Republicans can't seem to practice the use of equal weights and measures when it comes to murder?
08:55: Let me give you this tweet thread from Pedro Gonzalez. And by the way, Pedro Gonzalez is, if you're on Twitter, I'm not on Twitter, but if you are on Twitter, he's someone that I would follow.
09:08: And he is, I believe, a chief editor of Chronicles Magazine, which I do receive at this point, and it's good.
09:15: So get Chronicles Magazine, follow what Pedro is saying here. But anyway, he says, the story of the abduction and brutal murder of Eliza Fletcher, a woman who dedicated her life to helping children should be the story right now if it's because Eliza was white, but it isn't because Eliza was white and her killer was black.
09:33: Like George Floyd, Fletcher's killer is a career criminal, someone whose existence is a net negative on society, unlike Fletcher.
09:40: That's what Pedro Gonzalez's words, not mine. He did 20 years behind bars for a previous kidnapping. When he was 16,
09:48: Cleotha Abston abducted and shoved Kemper Durand into the truck of his own car at gunpoint.
09:56: After several hours, Abston took Durand out and forced him to drive to a
10:02: Mapco gas station to withdraw money from an ATM. Before this,
10:07: Abston had been charged with theft, aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a weapon, and rape, according to Kemper Durand.
10:14: In Durand's case, Abston pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery and received a 24 -year sentence.
10:22: Two years after he was released, in November 2020, Abston abducted and murdered Eliza Fletcher.
10:30: Americans have been told that actual people like Abston are the real victims of the system.
10:37: That trick only works when you can't see the flesh and blood victims. So here's Abston's latest victim, a teacher, a mother, and a better human being than him, according to Pedro Gonzalez.
10:49: A lot of people are understandably blaming Democrat policies for people like Abston. That's true, but don't forget that the
10:54: GOP is also guilty. Remember that they prayed for Jacob Blake during the Republican National Convention as Kenosha went crazy.
11:02: Tim Scott, who had been heralded as the future of the GOP, sympathized with Blake and his family. Scott admitted that Blake had an open warrant for felony sexual assault at the time he broke into a victim's home.
11:13: Here is who Republicans said a prayer for during day two of the RNC. So he's putting
11:19: Jacob Blake up there and talking about his criminal record and stuff. There isn't much difference between Jacob Blake, George Floyd, and Abston, but that hasn't stopped
11:27: Republicans from pushing moderate Democrat crime policies founded on flawed studies about recidivism, which means essentially that term is referring to criminals that repeat, they're repeat offenders.
11:43: See the First Step Act, a gift to people like Abston, pushed by Brooke Rollins and people who went to form
11:51: AI or A1 policy. It was predicted on the idea that hardened criminals can be rehabilitated through anti -recidivism programs.
12:00: We can change people like Abston by having them wash dogs in prison. Of course, historically, you can see this all playing out when you go from prisons to now, what do they call them now?
12:14: I think it's, I mean, in my lifetime, they've been called correctional facilities where I live.
12:20: I don't even know what they're called now. Because I heard that correctional facilities is also too harsh now, so I don't know what the new word is.
12:28: But a first of its kind decade -long study by the US Sentencing Commission released in June 2022 exploded the argument used by Republicans and Democrats to promote jailbreak policies.
12:37: It found no statistical significant difference in the likelihood of recidivism among offenders who participated in occupational educational programs or federal prison industries compared to offenders who did not participate in the programs.
12:49: In other words, these policies that say, well, if you become a participant in some of these programs, it doesn't decrease the likelihood that you will repeat a crime.
13:02: The state of the US right now is that both parties, to some degree or another, sympathize more with Eliza Fletcher's killer than they do all the future
13:11: Eliza Fletcher's. Because we have decided that certain groups are sacred people, and this is the thing that caught my eye, because we have decided that certain groups are sacred people beyond reproach and discussion,
13:22: Eliza Fletcher is in the news right now because she was also a billionaire heiress. The media will try to forget her soon in a way that it never did and never will with George Floyd.
13:34: Again, it's not just Democrats. Here's Brooke Rollins bragging in a Fox News op -ed about closing eight prisons in Texas through her efforts in Texas before she helped push the
13:43: First Step Act in the Trump White House. No, let's see here, and the thread goes on, and he added here, going to add another example to this thread that is similar to the
13:54: Fletcher case, Reagan -Delaney tokes, or tokes, and I'm not, oh, he adds more, okay,
14:00: I haven't read this whole thread. So apparently this is a very similar situation, and he talks about that, and it just goes on and on.
14:09: I mean, he talks about what happened with Daryl Brooks when he killed six people in, where was that,
14:17: Wisconsin, I think, and had his bail set to 500 bucks, and let's see, what was that?
14:24: Oh, yeah, right, I remember that now. This is what Pedro says, Pedro Gonzalez.
14:30: "'Remember that Daryl Brooks killed six people "'and wounded more than 60 in Waukesha "'because of soft -on -crime prosecutors "'and jailbreak policies.
14:40: "'He shot his nephew in July 2020 over an old cell phone "'and had his bail set to 500, "'three weeks before the killings.
14:48: "'Brooks was scheduled for a plea and sentencing hearing "'related to the 2020 incident. "'On the day of that hearing, "'he had posted bail for a different violent crime, "'despite being flagged as a high -risk.
14:56: "'The top prosecutor in Milwaukee admitted Brooks' bail "'had been set inappropriately low, "'which is partially why he was able to kill.'"
15:03: Now, this whole thing is, there's a term that is coming to my mind right now as I read this and think about what's going on, on the streets in some of our cities right now.
15:17: And it's a term I believe Sam Francis coined called anarcho -tyranny, anarcho -tyranny.
15:24: And that's a term that we're probably going to have to get more familiar with because as I sit here in the state of New York, as I live in this state, people are not allowed to defend themselves.
15:39: In fact, if they do, I mean, there's so many things about these new gun laws that are so terrible.
15:48: And I don't wanna get into all of them right now, but you are the one that's going to be liable.
15:55: If you are, in fact, we had to talk to, I heard on Sunday, I overheard one of the leaders at my church talking to one of the guys who does evangelism and basically says, look, you can't carry when you're doing evangelism now.
16:07: Because if you do and something goes down and you have a firearm with you and you're approaching someone, let's say, to witness to them, you're going to be seen under the new laws apparently as the aggressor.
16:20: And it's almost impossible to defend yourself legally. So law -abiding citizens trying to defend their families, trying to defend themselves, they are now the criminals.
16:33: This is anarcho -tyranny. They're the criminals, so that's the tyranny part. The anarchy part is this, is this stuff.
16:39: And again, the state I live in, you don't have to show back up for bail. So you get a court date.
16:47: It's ridiculous and it's caused all kinds of problems. Crime's gone up and it's going up in many of these, our cities across the country because of policies like this.
16:57: And guess what? These policies are a lot different than the laws that God gave to the children of Israel about how to handle capital offenses.
17:08: And the law of God is considered very harsh by modern man. But the law of God is actually the thing that we are getting away from.
17:20: We are moving from harsh penalties for evil crimes capital offenses to being soft on them.
17:32: And we're doing it with the logic, with this understanding that if we are harsh or if we are hard on crime somehow, it's racist essentially, and police are racist.
17:50: And so you have on the one hand, law -abiding citizens can't really do much to defend themselves.
17:57: They're looked on with suspicion as criminals. And then on the other hand, I mean, we're hiring all these
18:02: IRS agents, right? This is where the emphasis of the government is. It's what does Biden keep talking about?
18:08: It's the real threat are these MAGA people, these extreme
18:13: MAGA people. Those are the real threats to the country. And yet you actually do have real criminals doing real crime and it's not even talked about.
18:23: Even if it's more heinous than some of the famous crimes that the media was all over that inspired riots and stuff.
18:29: So it's amazing to me to see this, but this is what we should come to expect.
18:37: As people get more corrupt, as society goes the direction it's going, we're going to have more and more of this.
18:43: I was on a thread with some people yesterday on Facebook.
18:50: And it was interesting because I think they were making all these statements and I think from an objective point of view,
19:00: I shut them down. I mean, I showed where their logical fallacies were. And I'm not trying to toot my own horn.
19:07: I'm just saying like they should have, in generations past, it would be time to cry uncle, but they never did.
19:13: And they never admitted they were defeated. They just moved on to the next thing to attack. And that's what I see a lot of.
19:19: The narrative is just propped up regardless of facts, regardless of reason, regardless of argument, you just keep going and attacking, attack, attack, attack, that's the only move, never admit any weakness.
19:35: And that's what we're seeing from the other side. And we have to just be honest with who we're dealing with often.
19:42: It's not people that are acting in good faith. It's not people that, we have to actually,
19:47: I think, take some cues from Jesus and the way he dealt with the Pharisees. And it's gonna be some sharp things sometimes we're gonna have to say, but in holiness and in humility, but in a direct confrontation of sin and hypocrisy, unequal weights and measures.
20:04: We are at that time right now. We have a society that's more and more marked by this kind of arrogant
20:12: Phariseeism. It's a secular Phariseeism, but it's the same kind of attitude that sets themselves up in the seat of God.
20:22: And they're not God. The fear of God is on the wane.
20:29: And that's honestly, that's the root of all of this. The government doesn't uphold God's laws and there isn't fear for God.
20:37: And so if there isn't fear for God, why should we value those made in his image? So on that note,
20:44: I'm sure so many of you found so inspiring, right? Hopefully you found it insightful.
20:49: That's the whole point. I hope that was helpful and maybe gave you some thoughts that you're mulling over the rest of this day.
20:57: And some concepts maybe that hadn't come into your head, like anarcho -tyranny, Sam Francis's term. You can go look it up. Let's talk about this.
21:05: Let's get to the main thing here. Before I do, I just wanna mention one thing. And it's a sponsor for this podcast,
21:13: Equipping the Persecuted. You can go to equippingthepersecuted .org. And I wanted to show you that an orphanage
21:20: Equipping the Persecuted is making. This is happening, this is a good positive thing. This is happening in Nigeria.
21:26: And if you're looking for a ministry to get involved with, maybe you were giving to World Vision or I don't know, some other ministry out there that did global relief or something, and they've gone woke and now you're thinking, well, who do
21:42: I give money to? Well, here's a ministry that's not woke. And they're doing some real tangible things here.
21:48: They share the gospel, obviously, that's part of it. I would never steer you toward a ministry that doesn't do that.
21:56: But they are helping our brothers and sisters as well in tangible ways. And one of them is this
22:02: Fountain of Hope Children's Home. So here's some pictures of it and some videos of them making it.
22:08: I mean, many of you on this podcast have donated equipping the Persecuted, so you're part of this. Here's some video of it.
22:18: And this is gonna, I don't know if it says how many children, there's a number of children, I know.
22:23: I mean, it's a pretty good -sized facility, but a number of children will, here's some workers working on it.
22:32: Here's inside, here's some of the progress. And many pictures, which is awesome.
22:38: So I don't know if it says how many, but it's about $300 ,000 to make this.
22:46: Oh, it does say, it houses up to 50 little ones, 50 children. So they're in progress.
22:52: If you wanna partner with them, go to equippingthepersecuted .org, check it out, and be part of what
23:00: God is doing and what you can be part of doing to help your brothers and sisters around the world. So that being said, let's get into the meat of the podcast.
23:08: We're gonna talk about this particular podcast by the
23:14: Whitehorse Inn, Michael Horton. And let's start, let's get into it a little bit.
23:22: Vision to suppress and deceive oneself. Five centuries ago, in taverns and public houses across Europe, the masses would gather for discussion and debate over the latest ideas sweeping the land.
23:38: From one such meeting place, a small Cambridge Inn called the Whitehorse, the Reformation came to the
23:44: English -speaking world. Carrying on the tradition, welcome to the Whitehorse Inn.
23:53: What does the church fear? We are ending our
23:58: August series on fear, looking at Mike Horton's new book, Recovering Our Sanity.
24:06: And Gallup and Pew has done some research and they have revealed the two major reasons why people are leaving the church.
24:15: The word for this is actually called de -churching and it is an important topic because the numbers indicate a significant problem.
24:23: And the two numbers are politics and hypocrisy. I'm gonna read to you from page 251 of Recovering Our Sanity.
24:31: In line with Gallup and Pew, the authors of the secular surge note that 30 years ago, the percentage of Americans identifying as having no religious affiliation was one in 20.
24:43: Now it is one in four and growing and politics plays a large role in this.
24:49: They don't need to hear more political pronouncements from pastors, but a richer, fuller and more biblical grounded faith that can inform their pilgrimage in the world.
24:58: And then with regard to hypocrisy, some young people have left the church because they've rejected
25:04: God's law and gospel, but others have left because they have been scolded for sins they struggle with while reading the sordid headlines about Christian leaders who preached one thing and practiced another.
25:17: A fair number have seen their own pastor fall into sin and his protectors cover up the evidence.
25:23: In this episode, we will be exploring the question, what does the church fear? And we'll reflect on the importance of communities and institutions in answering that question.
25:33: Welcome to White Horse Inn. For this conversation is the author and our friend, Michael Horton, who is a theology professor at Westminster Seminary, California, and Bob Hiller, senior pastor of Community Lutheran Church.
25:47: And my name is Justin Holcomb. I am an Episcopal minister and a seminary professor. Let me stop there and just ask you the question, pitch it to you.
25:56: What does the church fear? What does the church fear? What do you think? Christians in general, people call themselves
26:02: Christians throughout the United States, what do they fear? Maybe the government, maybe not being thought of as equitable, inclusive, and diverse.
26:09: I don't know. I mean, that's what I would think. That's what I see, but what do they fear? The whole setup of this is asking a question.
26:19: Why do young people, why are they leaving churches? What's the deal? And this is a question that has been asked since I was a wee little lad.
26:29: This question hasn't ever stopped been asking. And it's funny to me how over time, the answers to this change, you can already see that there's a signal in this particular podcast that it has to do with pastors being too political.
26:45: And you're gonna find out it's on the right end of the spectrum. They're too political and that's why people are leaving. That's one of the problems.
26:51: When I was younger, you would often hear that the reason people are leaving the church is because, and I think this was mentioned as well, but they sensed hypocrisy.
27:03: Or the reason they were leaving the church was because it wasn't cool enough that they didn't have the music that the young people liked.
27:12: And it was stuffy. And so we gotta change our style of music and the way we dress around so that the young people will stick around, which of course, that didn't work.
27:26: Over time, it's funny, the same questions are asked, but different answers are given. And I wonder whether or not there's something more basic going on here.
27:37: Maybe the Bible could even shed some light on this. And I'm not saying you shouldn't look into sociological reasons for things, but ultimately, the spiritual reality is when people leave the church, they're not going to any church.
27:57: They're not on any roster anywhere. They're gone. The blame ultimately, even if their church might be to blame, ultimately, that's their decision.
28:08: And that's actually a decision that they're making before God. That's a decision that they're making concerning Jesus because the church is his bride.
28:16: That's a decision they're making to disobey Christ because he says to use your spiritual gifts and to gather with the saints, not forsake the assembly.
28:26: And so if that decision is being made, then it's interesting to me how often it's laid at the feet of the church.
28:35: So I just want to say that up front. I also want to say one other thing before we get into more of this. It just dawned on me.
28:41: Michael Horton is kind of the guy, the two kingdoms theology guy, but it's not eternal versus temporal two kingdoms, the
28:49: Protestant two kingdom theology. It's the reformation or radical two kingdom theology of kind of, some people refer to it as a pietism, that the government and the civil realm and then the ecclesiastical realm or the church are so separate from one another that politics is essentially secular.
29:14: So I know that about Michael Horton. There, there's like two things I know about Michael Horton. He had, I think,
29:19: Sam Albury on his podcast once. And, oh, and I remember he too, he, no, my mind's being flooded with Michael Horton stuff.
29:26: He's also the guy, if I'm not mistaken, he wrote a piece. Man, was it in Christianity Today?
29:33: There was a piece that was going around in 20, end of 2020,
29:38: I think it was, after there was a rally for Trump, essentially.
29:44: It was like a, but it was a religious kind of rally. Michael Horton went like full, just blast against it.
29:52: And people were pointing out at the time, his hypocrisy that he, how soft he was on what had happened the previous summer.
30:01: And so anyway, I remember that about Michael Horton, but many of you probably can fill me in on other things that, the gaps that I don't know, but we're about to hear some woke stuff from Michael Horton.
30:11: So fasten your seatbelts. Last episode, we focused on what individuals fear and how we size up the other individuals to dismiss or deal with them and play the blame game.
30:25: But we want to focus and turn our attention more toward the institutions, the communities, and particularly the church.
30:32: Sunday morning is the most segregated few hours. So let's start with that,
30:38: Mike. Yeah, the two chapters on race and LGBT were the hardest for me to write because I was really struggling.
30:51: Am I getting these statistics right? I can't believe this. I wept over the first set of statistics because I thought, this is just painful.
31:01: So I started out looking at Gallup, Pew, and other resources.
31:06: There's a really good study that has been done that I quote quite a lot in this chapter showing that African -American and white evangelical churches are not divided over doctrine, but we know white evangelicals are divided over doctrine amongst themselves.
31:25: And we also know the statistics show white evangelicals don't know what they believe or why they believe it.
31:30: Sorry, I mean, that's just, that's where we are. And so when you actually ask the questions though, do you believe
31:39: Jesus is God? Do you believe that he died for our sins? Do you believe he rose again bodily on the third day?
31:47: Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God? Black Christians and white
31:52: Christians from evangelical backgrounds typically answer those exactly the same way.
31:59: And the only difference is statistically, African -Americans are more likely to go to church regularly and pray.
32:08: I wanna stop there. Think about how he set this up. He said that white evangelicals are divided amongst each other, but they have more in common with historically black denominations.
32:24: Now, that's an odd comparison to make considering that the things that divide white evangelicals from themselves, if they're truly evangelical, would be secondary issues, you would think, right?
32:40: Or tertiary issues, some very important issues, but the difference between Pentecostals and Reformed and Baptist and Presbyterian and Lutheran, and I mean, it's these denominational things.
32:55: If they're truly evangelical, which generally means that they subscribe to some kind of basic Orthodox theology and are committed to evangelism, and I mean, there's a couple things that go into it.
33:11: The, what was it? The Bebbington Quadrilateral, I think, is the standard for what makes an evangelical.
33:16: But if they're truly evangelical, the core issues they would agree on, whether they're white or black.
33:22: So it's like, I don't get what he's trying to say. They're divided amongst themselves, but they're actually, they're similar to black people, but here's the point he wants to make based off of that.
33:34: The point he's gonna drive home is that it's racism. That's why the churches are segregated.
33:40: It's obviously racism, that's the problem. And look, this is one of the proofs of that.
33:48: They're divided amongst each other, but they have more in common with black
33:54: Christians and historically black denominations, but they won't integrate with them or something like that.
34:02: Than white evangelicals. In fact, one of the statistics was that African -Americans who say that they are agnostics pray more frequently than white evangelicals.
34:17: Kind of a staggering statistic. Let me walk through this just a little bit to get a handle on it. That's not a good thing, though.
34:24: It's not, if there's a demographic that thinks, what does that mean to them?
34:30: What does prayer mean to them then? If you have a large portion of this demographic saying,
34:36: I don't know if God exists, but I pray to him more. I don't, see, Michael Horton's using that as like, well, that shows there's more godliness there because even their agnostics pray.
34:46: It just means it's part of the culture. That's what it means. It, I wouldn't say that's a sincere prayer if you're an agnostic who, you're just going through a mental exercise at that point.
35:02: Why is it sounds like we're just talking in the abstract. Nearly 80 % of African -Americans self -identify as Christian.
35:11: Okay, also 77 % of Latinos, 70 % of whites, okay?
35:17: So the highest percentage in America, African -Americans, 80%.
35:22: Next, Latinos, 77%. And then whites, 70%. So the first thing we have to get out of our heads is that Christianity is a white thing.
35:33: I don't want to stop this every two seconds, but it's hard for me because he keeps saying things that, they're meant to drive home a point, which he's working toward, but they're so, they're so incomplete and in some ways unhelpful.
35:51: For example, the stat he just threw out there. See, black people are more godly.
35:56: That's really what he's, that's what he's saying. Like, look, even their agnostics pray more. I mean, they're even more
36:02: Christian than the white, white people, you know, the white churches, whatever that is, white evangelicals.
36:09: You know, they have higher percentage of Christians. Now, I'm curious though, how this breaks down.
36:15: We live in a huge country that's very diverse. And white people,
36:21: I mean, if you're talking about quote unquote white people, you're talking about people from all over Europe that came here in different immigration waves and are in different cultures in different parts of the country.
36:33: If you're talking about people from the South who are white, then you're talking about a much larger percentage of professing
36:41: Christians. If you incorporate all the New Englanders in there, right? And then the
36:46: Pacific Northwesterners in there, you're not gonna get the same percentage. Historically, black people have been, well, they still live in the
36:57: South. And many who have left the South though, still are not many generations removed from that.
37:06: So there's a regional thing too that may make sense of some of these things that Michael Horton doesn't even mention.
37:11: It's just, it's so black and white.
37:17: It's just, there's white people, there's black people, there's all these demographics and regionally, wherever they are, that doesn't...
37:26: See, that would, to me, that would be an interesting factor to put in there. But I think he's not because he's gotta bolster this point that black
37:34: Christians are somehow superior in some way in America. 83 % say they believe in God with absolute certainty compared with 61 % of white
37:48: Americans, okay? 83 % of African -Americans say they believe in God with absolute certainty, 61 % of white
37:57: Americans. More than half of African -Americans attend church at least once a week, pray daily, and believe in God with absolute certainty, according to Pew.
38:05: Even those who identify as unaffiliated are as likely to believe in God and to pray as affiliated
38:13: Protestants and Catholics. So the divide can't be religious. In an exit poll for an election -
38:20: Wait, hold on, whoa. The what divide can't? So he's saying that it's kinda odd because the way they set this up is like, why are young people leaving the church?
38:31: It must have something to do with political preaching and it's not biblical. And then he launches into the churches are segregated and because they're segregated because not a religious difference, because clearly black people are more religious.
38:48: Black people share the same Orthodox views, and yet they're not sitting in the same pews on Sunday with many of the white
38:56: Christians. Now, of course, we know this isn't across the board true at all. We know that many denominations are very integrated.
39:02: We know that there's, I mean, the church I go to that I grew up at is extremely diverse.
39:09: So it's not something that I'm as familiar with, but I also know that in certain places, especially, there's,
39:17: I mean, even in my local area, to be honest with you, there are, you have your black churches and they tend to actually be very political, to be honest with you.
39:25: That's the reputation. And so there, that does exist for sure, but it's certainly not something that's across the board.
39:38: And the, to account for it is complicated. And one of the things that you'll notice ideologues do is they will posit very simple explanations for very complicated or multifaceted issues.
39:57: And that's what Michael Horton does here. It's a simple explanation that he's giving.
40:02: So he rules out, it can't be religious. Well, why can't that be part of it? Why can't that be part of the recipe that created this state of affairs?
40:11: When I was at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, I mean, it was full of people who just thought the church, churches are so racist.
40:21: It's terrible with these white churches. They'd use the same language. They're just white churches, white evangelicals.
40:26: They're horrible racist people. And the funny thing is the professors and the people who said that went to the whitest churches in town.
40:34: And we had close to us, close to campus, close to where they lived, a number of historically black churches.
40:41: Why wouldn't they go to those churches is the question I have. And I don't know one who did. Maybe there are some now, but at the time,
40:48: I don't know anyone who did. The whole thing was they need to come to our churches. Black people need to come to our churches and they're not coming because we're not welcoming enough.
40:58: So you want to pull them out of their churches? Like, it's weird to me. Like, they have churches, right? Why won't you go there if you're so committed to diversity?
41:07: Well, one of the things I knew was inhibiting it was that the local churches did not have the same theology and practice.
41:17: Now, Michael Horton's saying, well, look, they answered all these. They believe the Bible's the word of God. They believe, you know, on these. Well, let me give you an example of what
41:23: I'm talking about here. So here's an example. And I think he might get to this statistic.
41:30: Here's Pew Research, all right? 2021, widespread belief among black Americans that prayer can heal illness, evil spirits, and cause problems.
41:38: Now, here we go. All right, Protestants who attend a black church, 92 % of them believe that prayer can heal illness.
41:47: Now, if they attend a white church, 90%, right?
41:54: 81 % believe that evil spirits can cause problems in a person's life. Those who attend a black church, 82%.
42:02: So it goes through it. Now, listen to this one. Reincarnation, reincarnation.
42:10: Okay, black Americans who believe in reincarnation. Of all black people, it's 39%.
42:16: Of those who attend black churches, it is 34%.
42:23: Of those who attend white churches, 26%. Look at that drop. Here's another one. Prayers to ancestors can protect you.
42:30: 30 % of black Christians who attend a black church, 30 % say, yes, prayers to ancestors can protect you.
42:38: Those who attend a white church or other church, it's only 18%. Now, what makes sense of that?
42:44: There's a theological difference here going on of some kind. Now, you can look at that high number here and say, well, look, 92%, prayer can heal illness.
42:53: They're so godly. But it drops a little when those who attend a white church, but then you look over here and it's like, wait, what's this superstition going on here about prayers to ancestors and reincarnation?
43:07: And that's one of the things some of these basic polls aren't going to detect because they're not made for detecting some of this stuff.
43:16: If you're just asking, is the Bible the word of God? And that's what culturally, I mean, this isn't even a black white thing. If you're just like, if you're a
43:23: Southerner, if you're from a culture that values scripture in some ways or Christian tradition, and you're not even a practicing
43:35: Christian, you're gonna answer, yeah, of course the Bible is the word of God. And I go and chase women and go to the bars all week.
43:41: But Bible's the word of God. You're gonna say those kinds of things. You're going to say, if you just even not church going, but you're part of a culture like that, you're gonna say that prayer is important, that God exists.
43:57: All those things, those basics are gonna be check marks. If you went back in time, 100 years in this country, just about everyone would check all those boxes, right?
44:08: So it's not, I think it's more complicated than Michael Horton's trying to make it out.
44:15: And what he's giving you is an incomplete picture. That's really the bottom line of my opinion. He's giving you kind of an incomplete picture of what makes sense of the state of affairs.
44:24: He's giving you a paradigm that doesn't account for everything. And I knew right off when
44:29: I listened to this that, well, that doesn't account for the churches that were at the time when
44:36: I was attending Southeastern, the churches that were historically black in close proximity to Southeastern. A lot of them had a more of a
44:42: Pentecostal bent to them. There was a prosperity kind of bent to many of them.
44:48: And I know because I was looking online, I was looking at churches and I was perfectly happy and willing to go to a black church.
44:54: I've attended a black church, not in North Carolina, but in Virginia. And I had a great time.
45:00: Actually, it was a pretty solid black church from the service I went to. Different tradition, a lot of different things, but I was happy there.
45:07: And, but when I was in North Carolina, and this goes for many places, it wasn't an option really for me.
45:15: These churches were very loose on the complementarian thing. And so, yeah, they could have checked all those boxes, but there's some differences there theologically, and there are enough theologically.
45:26: Some of them even are, you know, they're very fundamental differences that there's no way
45:33: I would be able to worship at a church like that. Because, and I'm just talking theology, just theology.
45:39: I'm not even getting into where someone might be more comfortable if given options. And that does factor, there's cultural factors that certainly factor in.
45:48: You can't tell me that they don't factor in. You can't tell me that that's all evil either. I would not tell someone who just arrived here from another country, or even someone who's, let's say, been here, you know, generations, and don't go to church with your family and people that are part of your culture.
46:07: We have a Chinese church down the road from the church I go to. You know, don't go to that church because you guys are all
46:12: Chinese, and you speak Chinese, you carry on that tradition. I wouldn't, why would
46:17: I ever say that to them? Like, good for you, I'm glad you're going to church. Guess what, we're both part of the universal body of Christ. And we love each other, but based on that, it's obviously not a close love if I don't know the person, but there is a love because we're both
46:30: Christians. And if they go to another church, that's perfectly fine. I would never try to dissuade them from that, or tell them they're evil, or they're doing something wrong, or there's something bigoted about them because they choose to congregate with people that are similar culturally.
46:45: But we haven't even got, I'm not even getting into that. I'm just thinking theologically, I know that that wasn't an option when
46:51: I was at Southeastern. And so Michael Horton just kind of breezes over that. Like, no, it's like, they're all the same.
46:57: It's like, you check those boxes off. It's not, theology doesn't factor into this, apparently.
47:02: Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. So anyways, let's, oh, you know, and there's other things too.
47:09: I might as well just preemptively say this. It took me like three seconds to just Google this stuff, and it came right up.
47:17: But even if you check all those boxes, I believe in these basic Christian principles, Black Americans, on a social issue here, 46 % according to, and this isn't
47:32: Christian. These are just Black Americans. 46 % believe abortion's morally acceptable.
47:40: That 32 % believe it should be legal under any circumstances.
47:49: If you go to a religiously, this broken down by religion according to Pew Research, check this out.
47:57: White Evangelical Protestants, 74 % think abortion should be illegal.
48:04: 74%. Only 24 % think it should be legal. Go to Black Protestants, okay?
48:11: So White Evangelical Protestants, 74%. Black Protestant, 28 % think it should be legal.
48:18: 66 % think it should be legal. That's a huge difference. Why is it such a big difference?
48:25: That's a very, very big difference. So there's things like that, and there's probably many others that aren't even polled for, that also factor into this kind of thing.
48:35: Would you go to a church that the people attending, and probably the pastor, support abortion?
48:41: Well, 66 % of Black Protestants do. So would you, you can't tell me that's not a theological issue on some level.
48:49: It's not just a social issue. So anyway, Michael Horton saying, that's not theology.
48:55: What is it then? It's racism. That's gotta be it. It's gotta be the only factor. In Alabama, 76 % of Blacks self -identified as born -again, or Evangelical, compared with 72 % of Whites, and that's in Alabama, okay.
49:11: That's not a huge statistical difference. It's not a big, yeah, and again, look, that actually proved the point
49:18: I said earlier. He went to the South. He went to a Southern state, Alabama, and he's like, look, the comparison, it's, what do you say, 76 to 72 that claim to be
49:26: Evangelical. 76 % of Black people, 72 % of White people. It's not a big difference.
49:32: It's like, it's when you factor in those New Englanders, though, and those Pacific Northwesterners, and, you know, secular
49:39: White people that go to Harvard, and places like that, that it changes the numbers quite significantly.
49:48: Now, there's a whole history here. For instance, Martin Luther King Jr. went to Crozer Seminary because he couldn't get into an
49:55: Evangelical school. He was Evangelical in his convictions. He became more liberal theologically through his education.
50:03: What's really staggering is that even in National Baptist Church, Progressive Baptist Church, mostly
50:11: African -American denominations, African Methodist. By the way, maybe someone can get a source on that.
50:17: I know I've looked into that in years past, but I'm blanking. I know I had a history professor at Liberty, I think, telling me that that was contested, what
50:27: Michael Horton just said, that there's some thought that actually MLK really did want to go to the seminary he ended up going to.
50:35: But anyway, I don't wanna commit to that because I don't remember completely, so maybe someone can drop it in the comments.
50:43: Episcopal Church, though they are mainline, and by and large, very progressive politically, they are much more conservative, typically, than white mainline denominations, all right?
50:59: So Allison Calhoun Brown observes. Look at the switch that just happened.
51:05: He just compared black denominations to white mainline denominations instead of Evangelicals because we started this out, black
51:13: Evangelicals, white Evangelicals, and then he, now the comparison is to mainline. So we're talking about the, and it's statistically smaller and dying, but the
51:26: LGBTQ -affirming Methodists and Episcopalians and so forth.
51:33: The fact that African -Americans hold evangelical beliefs, belong to evangelical denominations, and show high levels of religiosity, black
51:41: Evangelicals do not mobilize with the Christian right. Major reason for this is not primarily a lack of conservative positions on family values, but major differences in symbolic political attitudes.
51:53: So it's not doctrine, it's not practice, it's not even family values.
52:01: So what is it then? What accounts for what I just showed you, this white Evangelical Protestant?
52:07: Because he was talking about mainlines, which would be here. Mainline Protestants would be, well, they're still not, it's still not the levels to which black
52:21: Protestants support abortion, but they support abortion quite a bit more than white Evangelical Protestants. But then he switches to the religious right.
52:29: Well, the religious right would be most, they would be most represented by white Evangelical Protestants in this category here on Pew Research.
52:37: So he goes back and forth, so now we're in white Evangelical Protestants, 74 % think abortion should be legal, black
52:45: Protestants, 28 % think abortion should be legal. So what makes sense of that? He's saying it's not doctrine.
52:51: So what is it then? What is that? It makes sense of that for me. That's a huge difference.
52:59: All right. So what is it? I'm gonna keep moving on. According to Pew, 42 % of the members of historically black
53:06: Protestant denominations believe abortion should be illegal in most, if not all cases.
53:13: That is a lower percentage than Evangelicals, who are at 63%, but higher than mainline, mostly white
53:21: Protestants at 35%, okay? Yeah, and I'm not sure where, it's funny, because I'm on Pew right now, and I don't know exactly where he's quoting, where he's getting this exactly.
53:32: But here's the thing, whether it's the stats he gave or the stats that I'm looking on right now on Pew, and this is what?
53:39: 1995 to 2022, so this is a recent Pew. That's still a big difference.
53:47: That's still a big difference. Across all religious groups in America, as in society generally, acceptance of homosexual behavior has grown significantly.
53:55: Wait, hold on. Let's go back here. Where are we at? 827, let's go back here. I wanna listen to this. Let's listen to this again.
54:02: He just skips right over it. It's not even family values. It's not family values.
54:08: Well, you keep moving on. According to Pew, 42 % of the members of historically black Protestant denominations believe abortion should be illegal.
54:18: 42%, that's not even a majority. So it's not family values, but it's 42%, according to whatever he's citing, 42 % think abortion should be illegal.
54:34: Okay, I'm not impressed by this. I don't know. This seems to be evidence against the point he's trying to make.
54:43: In most, if not all cases. That is a lower percentage than evangelicals, who are at 63%.
54:51: It's kind of a big difference. Even bigger if you're looking at the recent stuff that I'm looking at right here on Pew.
55:02: Okay, all right. Okay, but higher than mainline, mostly white
55:07: Protestants at 35%, okay. Across all religious groups in America, as in society generally, acceptance of homosexual behavior has grown significantly since 2007, especially.
55:19: In that year, 90 % of evangelicals said their faith strongly discourages or forbids homosexuality, 90%.
55:29: But in 2020, that number had fallen to 65 % of evangelicals.
55:35: However, nearly half of those who belonged to historically black denominations still share the traditional
55:43: Christian view in comparison with only 35 % of mainline
55:48: Protestants. So. Okay, so here's the question that I have. Okay, so it sounds like, what he's saying, it's still over, white evangelicals, whatever that is, they have, it's fallen precipitously, probably because of people like Michael Horton, as we're about to see, and doing episodes with, well, even in this episode, he says some things, but promoting same -sex attraction and stuff, it's not sinful.
56:18: I mean, that's the kind of stuff that leads to that, but okay, so 65%, he says, of evangelicals, white evangelicals are still hold to,
56:28: I guess, a biblical sexual ethic. And what he says, it's around half of, that's still a difference.
56:37: And I would wanna know, like, okay, so how do these decisions practically take effect in one's life?
56:44: How would you test that for sexual ethics? Okay, so Christians of different denominations or social groups, how do we test to see if they actually believe what they're saying?
56:53: Well, you would probably wanna go look at what's the rate of out -of -wedlock births? What's the rate of venereal diseases and that kind of thing in areas in which they live?
57:05: What's the voting patterns of these people? I mean, are they voting for candidates that are supporting the
57:11: LGBTQ agenda, or are they voting for candidates that oppose it? Those are the kinds of things that you would look at.
57:18: And I don't think I have to pull those up for you to probably test this, but it would not be in favor of the point
57:25: Michael Horton's trying to make here. Mainline Protestant living next door, white mainline
57:31: Protestant next door, and you're a white evangelical. You would assume that you kind of share similar culture, your kids go to the same schools, and you have the same experiences and backgrounds.
57:40: I wouldn't, I wouldn't at all. I would assume that, I would assume immediately
57:45: I probably have more religiously in common with a member of a black church, most likely, but I might not.
57:54: But I mean, where I live, if you're part of a mainline denomination, then you would be pretty compromised.
58:02: If an African -American family moved next door with whom you actually hold more in common, there would be a little bit more friction, frankly.
58:15: How do we know that? Because here are the statistics, okay? Not surprisingly, black
58:20: Protestants are more moderate Democrats, while white evangelicals are uber
58:25: Republicans. White conservative Protestants, that is evangelicals, are, as David French explains, quote, very, very
58:34: Republican. It's not about abortion and issues of sexuality and gender, rather, they're uber
58:41: Republican down the line. We're getting to the nub of it. White evangelicals - Okay, so we're getting to the nub of it.
58:48: Okay, so it's not about abortion. Don't believe what your eyes just saw in those statistics.
58:54: Don't believe the voting patterns. It's not about those social values. That's not the difference.
59:01: Here's the nub of it. Were more likely than any other demographic group, 70%, to say that recent police shootings of black men, quote, are isolated events rather than part of a pattern.
59:15: Negative attitudes toward interracial marriage have plummeted since 1967.
59:22: When it was made legal in the US, that wasn't that long ago. And by the way, I should have had it pulled up, but during that time, it wasn't that statistically significantly different between black people and white people.
59:37: And it's changed throughout time, but in that period, I saw a poll not too long ago from that time period that actually, it was black people were against interracial marriage almost to the same extent that white people were in the
59:53: United States. Maybe I'll pull it up for another podcast. I can't remember where I saw it, but I'm not saying that it was that way throughout time, but I definitely saw a poll from around that time period.
01:00:04: So it's not like this is, it's often portrayed that's uniquely something white people thought of, but that's, and it's certainly not the case with immigrants.
01:00:14: I mean, I know of immigrants who've come to this country from other cultures that are very adamant that their kids must marry people from within their particular group.
01:00:26: And I mean, they would be so offended if their children didn't. It's not even an option in their mind. And so if you, throughout time, throughout history, and in a global context, actually
01:00:40: Americans, white or black or Asian or green, I mean, Americans are very, very tolerant and accepting of interracial relationships, just saying.
01:00:52: However, Pew Research found that white evangelicals, 19 % are still the most likely of any group to say that interracial marriage is, quote, bad for society, more than twice the number of the general population.
01:01:07: So you're saying 19 % of white evangelicals say interracial marriage is bad for society. I do not know how this poll was done.
01:01:13: I don't have it pulled up. I would be curious to know the methodology behind this. And I don't know what the reason for people saying that would be.
01:01:20: That would be a question that I'd have. So why would it be bad for society? In what way is it bad for society?
01:01:26: From a, are they saying it's sin or are they saying that they just think that the more, that culture's lost in the longterm if this happens at high rates or something like that?
01:01:39: I mean, I don't know what their rationale would be. So there's a lot of unknowns here, but let's give Michael Horton the benefit of the doubt on this one.
01:01:45: Let's just say that's true. And let's say that's a point for him. Let's just, for the sake of argument, that there's a belief there that shouldn't be there.
01:01:57: I don't, personally, I'm not just gonna accept it because he said it, and I'm not gonna accept that the rationale used, if in fact people were saying that was necessarily because they thought this was a sinful thing or because they just hate other cultures or something like that.
01:02:17: But that's, I think, the implication Michael Horton wants you to believe from whatever that information is.
01:02:23: But he pairs that with the fact that they were less likely, white evangelicals, less likely to believe that police shootings of black men was systemic.
01:02:35: They were skeptical about the systemic racism narrative, and for good reason. So it's like, what is he really, let's read between the lines here.
01:02:44: What's Michael Horton saying? If you're a bunch of racists, white Christians, white evangelicals, you're a bunch of racists.
01:02:50: That's why there's a divide. That's why there's black churches and there's white churches. The historical complexities of this, the reality of Reconstruction and what happened during that time,
01:03:02: I was just reading a book right here. I have it right here. The sequel of Appomattox, The Chronicle of the
01:03:08: Reunion of the States talks about this very issue, and it's not the divided by faith narrative. I'm just gonna tell you that.
01:03:15: But that led to it to some extent. You have cultural factors. People tend to wanna associate with people like them.
01:03:20: You have obviously the different political views. You have different, and you do have, and Michael Horton's denying this, but you definitely do have some differences often in religious practice.
01:03:32: Now, some of the places like the Pentecostals, for instance, Pentecostal denominations historically have tended to be more integrated.
01:03:39: That's where Elvis learned a lot of his moves and stuff. He was imitating Pentecostal preachers.
01:03:44: He went to very integrated church settings. And I was back during the times of segregation, but not at his church.
01:03:52: And so there have always been where there have been more theological similarities.
01:03:59: There often have been attempts to integrate and stuff.
01:04:04: And there actually were even churches in the antebellum period, even in the early postbellum period that were integrated because I was reading about them.
01:04:14: I was reading about them in the John Jasper book that I just talked about last week. His church was integrated. It's in Richmond.
01:04:20: He was like a local celebrity, black preacher in the 1870s, 1880s.
01:04:25: So it's more complicated than Michael Horton's trying to get you to believe, and it's not all racism.
01:04:32: And that's the ideological problem here. Ideologues reduce it down to one thing, and that's what Michael Horton wants to do. And he's got to stretch so much to make this dog hunt, and it's just not gonna hunt.
01:04:42: While 13 % were, quote, very comfortable with marriage outside the faith.
01:04:48: So you can marry outside the faith, but not outside the race. According to white evangelical members.
01:04:53: Yeah, exactly. In 2020, most Americans still said
01:04:59: America has an obligation to welcome political and religious refugees. You know, the
01:05:04: Statue of Liberty, give them your tired, your poor. But when asked whether a policy against admitting refugees would be a good idea, just in general, admitting refugees, white evangelical
01:05:15: Protestants stand out as the only religious group among whom a majority favor this policy.
01:05:24: 40 % oppose, 58 % favor. 58 % of white evangelicals say, there should be a policy against admitting refugees.
01:05:34: That would be a good idea. Another statistic I have in there is, what issues do you care most about?
01:05:41: And white evangelicals placed immigration far above abortion.
01:05:47: Why is Sunday the most segregated day of the week? It's pretty simple.
01:05:52: The history of race in America. Civil rights movement happened, you know, lynchings don't happen anymore, and so on and so forth.
01:06:00: First of all, a lot of harm is still being done. A lot of social injustice is still out there.
01:06:08: But we're talking about in the church, where we have some expertise with the word of God. If the church, mass percentages of Americans still belonging to it, at least nominally, if the churches are fostering, or at least living with these divisions, then we have to ask ourselves some really difficult questions, and our
01:06:36: African American brothers and sisters. You know, you could say, well, why can't they come to our church?
01:06:41: That's just the point. Why'd you just say our church? When we say we, who's we?
01:06:48: Or our, what do you mean by these pronouns? We really mean, you're more than welcome to come to our church.
01:06:57: But as I put on the book, it's kind of like going to a persnickety grandmother's house where there's plastic on the furniture.
01:07:06: You're welcome to come to my house, but don't break anything. Kids never wanna go to grandma's house.
01:07:12: Wow, surprise, surprise. A lot of our churches, and here
01:07:18: I'm talking about white evangelical churches, including confessional ones, give off that impression that we, our, talking about a particular demographic that pretty vocally goes up against other demographics in American society with a pretty hard political stance.
01:07:43: What's nerve -wracking. Okay, we're gonna stop right there. You got a big chunk. I'm not here to analyze every stat he threw out.
01:07:49: I'm a bit skeptical of some of that, like evangelicals supporting immigration or caring about immigration more than abortion.
01:07:57: I mean, I don't see evangelicals churches, I've never been in one that had their anti -immigration
01:08:03: Sunday but I've been in plenty that had their pro -life Sunday. I've never been at a church and I've been in many churches that have asked me to go march in Washington against immigrants, but I've been in many churches who have asked me to go or said they were going to march for pro -life cause.
01:08:23: The resources, the volunteers at Care Net, I mean, there's no comparison. That's just a weird thing to throw out there and I would definitely wanna see in what sense the stat he's quoting was how the question was asked and that'll probably give me a lot better idea of where he's drawing this from.
01:08:43: But the main point, let's sort of back up and analyze the big picture here.
01:08:50: The big picture here is Michael Horton's trying to say, oh, it's not really cultural or religious theological factors that account for different churches that are ethnically different.
01:09:08: It's the fact that evangelical, white evangelicals are big meanies. That's all it is. It's just that white evangelicals are big meanies.
01:09:14: They're not allowing the other people to come into their church. And they're doing it in just, even using the possessive, our church is somehow wrong.
01:09:26: And it's funny, because that's like, when I hear people talk about our church,
01:09:32: I've never heard people who are white in evangelical churches think of themselves as white evangelicals.
01:09:38: They think of themselves generally as a member of First Baptist Church of wherever. That's the religious identity they have is this is my church.
01:09:49: They're not like, oh, I'm a white evangelical. So just as he's scratching my head,
01:09:59: I'm like, what world is Michael Horton coming from? But one of the things that you notice with social justice activists, and the more someone becomes that way, is they just see it detached from reality.
01:10:09: And Michael Horton's in California, which to me, I mean, that's where I was born. And my immediate family's from California.
01:10:14: I mean, that's one of the more, I would say, at least it has been more, the churches have been more integrated and just they haven't had some of the problems.
01:10:25: And I'm not saying they don't have problems. California has its problems. But I just wouldn't think
01:10:33: Michael Horton would be seeing the things he's talking about on the ground, really. It's a flimsy argument that that accounts for why there's different churches because white evangelicals are so politically motivated.
01:10:46: They're so mean. When everyone knows that the Democrat Party itself turns a blind eye, when they go after conservatives for political things in churches, separation of church and state, they turn a blind eye to what's happening in many historically black churches, where often the services, often enough, are political rallies in ways that you don't really see happening much in more,
01:11:17: I guess what these polls would consider white evangelical congregations. It's just, it's not done in the same way or to the same extent.
01:11:27: But Democrat politicians will, that's part of their campaign stops, generally, is to go to large, historically black churches.
01:11:35: Now, some Republicans do that, too. But it's not like it's one side that's the only white evangelicals are political and putting their political views in your face.
01:11:47: It's not like it's unique or something. To white evangelicals at all.
01:11:53: So I don't buy this argument at all. I think there's a lot of stretching going on here and a lot of just ignoring certain things that would kind of throw a wrench into the whole paradigm.
01:12:07: But I just looked at the clock and I realized that it is, I've been going over an hour.
01:12:13: So we're gonna wrap it up, actually. And I have not gotten into the truly egregious things that are said in this podcast.
01:12:21: But we've kind of gotten past the setup. The setup is making white evangelicals feel guilty, that they are the cause of a divide in the body of Christ, that this is a sinful divide, this is somehow, this is against the gospel, this is against the church's mission, and we are responsible for it if we happen to be white and evangelical to some extent.
01:12:44: Because it's our group that is making politics a fundamental issue of division. And it's our group that's horribly racist because of political views that the group holds to.
01:13:01: And it's probably not, I was just thinking again of the refugee thing.
01:13:07: It's probably not even refugees. It's probably more like unvetted refugees or illegal migrants or things like that.
01:13:13: But these kinds of things are what's tearing the bride of Christ apart.
01:13:19: And we're uniquely responsible for it. And so he doesn't make a compelling case, but it's a lopsided and very judgmental case against the church, the white evangelical church, according to him.
01:13:35: And then you'll see, it's funny, because he's definitely upset at them for being so hardline and judgmental and political.
01:13:42: But then you'll see the rest of the podcast, especially, he gets political.
01:13:47: And some of the things he's accusing of white evangelicals of doing, he's doing the very same things.
01:13:56: And yet somehow, if you're, I guess if you're more on the social justice side of things, that's just not considered political.
01:14:03: You get a pass. And that's the hypocrisy of the whole thing. There's a double standard going on.
01:14:10: So yeah, right? Right when we're living in this anarcho -tyranny world, you have really helpful people like Michael Horton coming to rescue the church from itself and the horrible division that's in the church by really sowing seeds, honestly, of more division, which is what he does.
01:14:30: What is the point of what he's saying? What is he trying to get churches to do? Well, you're gonna have to find out in the next episode.
01:14:37: And then I will give you the conclusion to the matter. And you will see what
01:14:42: Michael Horton says about not just the divisions that are caused, according to him, by white evangelicals being racially insensitive or something.
01:14:56: You're gonna find out what he thinks of LGBT issues and how white evangelicals are driving young people away from the church by their judgmental stands, even on that.
01:15:08: Which was funny because actually earlier, you heard him cite this statistic that he was proud that a high percentage, not to the level of white evangelicals, but a high percentage of historically black churches were trying to hold to sexual ethics.
01:15:26: And that was a good thing. And they haven't caved completely, at least.
01:15:32: And then you hear him later on giving you a little bit of a formula for what a cave might look like and how we should maybe be a little more lenient.
01:15:41: So we're so judgmental about these things. And so you're gonna hear some interesting things that I was honestly surprised.
01:15:50: That's why I decided to do this. Because I was like, I thought Michael Horton was more solid than that. I didn't realize that he had gone down this path.
01:15:58: So anyway, God bless. More coming. And you'll have to look forward to it. Bye now.