Radio Lux Lucet 72

You're listening to Radio Looks Loose and I'm your host Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for episode 72. The title of this episode is The Salvation Army Woke and Broke. All right, well here we are on Saturday.

It's December the 18th. Hard to believe it's one week until Christmas. It's coming up pretty quickly here. I've been talking about our neighbor's light display here the last few weeks and it is kind of interesting.

I got up the other day to go to work and it's early in the morning and I look out and there's all this bright light coming from the front yard and I looked over and they had the the light display was up and running and I thought well that's that's really weird because they usually shut that thing down at night of course and I always wonder how much juice, how much electricity it takes to run that thing.

I don't know how expensive it is but generally they don't keep it on all night. In fact they never do and so it's kind of unusual to see it on at six o 'clock in the morning and I thought well maybe they forgot but it seemed kind of odd to me that they would forget to to turn them off just because they are so bright.

Well when I was going to work as I was going down the street coming the other way there was a news van from one of the local TV stations and what I suspect they probably had an appointment scheduled for when this news crew was supposed to show up and film their house.

So that would that would be my guess why they had the lights blazing at six in the morning. Anyway you know I had a pretty good week this week. I hope you did as well. This was my week for getting stuff done.

I got more stuff done this week. I don't know that I've gotten done in a long time. I had these nagging issues you know how it is you get this these nagging stuff the stuff you know you got to get done fixing something cleaning something up this kind of thing but you know for one reason or another you you just don't get around to and you keep putting it off putting it off and putting it off.

Well that's kind of what I did and I actually though today I had quite a bit of stuff that I was able to get taken care of. One of the things I got my car fixed. I was having problems with my the passenger side headlight was out and it's been having trouble the last couple months.

I keep thinking I get it fixed and it doesn't stay fixed and it turned out that the the there's this connector that goes into the headlight bulb and that had melted for some reason. I think maybe there had been a bad connection or something and it did it melted this thing and anyway I've had to get that thing and get that replaced which I was able to do but on top of that was even better than I finally got my headlight lenses buffed out.

You know how you have these cars mine's an older car and and the the plastic the the headlight lens covers you know they begin to cloud up and it might have gotten not as bad as some cars I've seen but they were definitely clouded up and and I got this as a turtle wax kit to you can buff your lights out and all that it did a really nice job those things look uh brand new that made a big difference too so I can actually see when I drive I guess that's kind of a nice thing for my neighbors to know too.

Anyway yeah that uh that uh that made a big difference so that was some stuff I got done and and I got some cleaning done this week too it's pretty pretty amazing it's like a lot of stuff that I wanted to get done for a while I finally got it done now that's a nice feeling you know you kind of just you get it done and you you step back and you're like yeah yeah it looks pretty nice I'm really glad I did that so so yeah I had uh had a good week of getting stuff done uh this week and I hope you did as well I know it's uh kind of a busy time of year with with Christmas and all that coming up and there's there's all kinds of stuff going on.

I know our church last week we did a uh cantata a Christmas cantata and I sing in the choir I sing bass in the choir and uh yeah that was a lot of work getting that together but it went well and uh that was uh I enjoyed uh enjoyed doing that all right so I wanted to kind of get into today's topic here a little bit and the uh thing I wanted to talk about is just kind of going back to the title of Salvation Army Woke and Broke now you know like you know I mean a lot of people look I like I like my Christmas traditions I do and you know the Salvation Army I think a lot of people think the Salvation Army is something very traditional Christmas right.

I mean you've got the the bell ringers you know and they're a lot of times they're at the uh the local grocery store the local Kroger store and you know they'll be out there and they'll ring the bell and they've got their kettle and and these kinds of things and and you know I've I've never really known a lot about the Salvation Army um you know doctrinally or or what have you but they they seem like sincere people and yeah I mean I've donated to them in the past you know drop uh drop a few bucks in a kettle or something like that I've done that probably a lot of you have um that's that's a pretty common thing but you know what I found out here is after what I've learned here over just the last week I'm not going to be giving to them I haven't given to them this year and I don't intend to give to them and I don't intend to give to them in the future.

I mean unless something unless there's some real repentance and some real change that's that's simply not going to be on my list of uh of organizations to to which I donate uh anymore and I'm going to going to get into that a little bit here today and explain why that is uh because it turns out that that the that venerable organization it was founded back in the I think the 1880s in uh in England but surprisingly or not that venerable organization um has like so many organizations gone woke and uh now appears that they're they're going broke or if not technically broke.

I don't think they're going to go up and disappear next week or anything like that but they're definitely having a uh trouble with their donations. Uh I was reading one article they said that they think they get 75 percent of their donations in the month of November and December months of November December so you know that that closing couple months of the year the you know basically the Christmas season and they're not doing so well this year.

You know there is a an article here and let me let me go ahead and share do a screen share here just a moment let's okay. Yeah here we go um screen share this is from Fox News channel 13 in Seattle and the headline there says the situation is dire.

Salvation Army facing toy donation shortage ahead of holidays. And when you read through the the article here a little bit it it gives some explanation here. It says for instance I believe this is quoting uh Colonel Cindy Cindy Foley the Northwest Salvation Army of the Northwest Salvation Army Division.

So she says here there are many reasons why both financial and toy donations are down this year not the least of which is likely pandemic fatigue and concerns about employment and the future. We're actually trying to provide food shelter toys and clothing to double the number of families we served last Christmas.

In the midst of the growing need we are seeing fewer people donating at our virtual and physical kettles. Then it continues not only is the non-profit organization short of donations they are also in desperate need of bell ringers to staff the red kettles seen to businesses around the country and the Colonel Cindy Foley continues.

Quote the situation is dire and we're asking our generous supporters in the region to donate to the virtual Northwest Red Kettle as well as make donations at every physical kettle in whatever way you can end.

Quote said Foley. Okay so you know what we read here in this article it talks about you know the the explanation is given by this person from the Salvation Army is that the the reason the donations are down is is because of uh pandemic fatigue is what she says and concerns about employment in the future.

And those things may be true there may be be something to that although I have a hard time seeing how pandemic fatigue would have anything to do with it. If anything pandemic fatigue makes me want to just go out and do something.

So I I don't know but I mean I could certainly see employment. I mean the the economy is not doing particularly well and and so I mean I think that that can certainly be at least a partial explanation but I'm not sure if that's the whole picture granted some of this is speculative but you know there's there's another reason their donations may be down.

Of course I hinted at it in the the title of this particular podcast and that is the Salvation Army's uh they've gone woke. You know there's that old saying you know get woke go broke and well I don't know if that's always true or not but I think maybe in some cases that that can be true.

So let's take a look at at the uh at that idea here the Salvation Army recently. In fact I'll bring this up here. Um this is from the Salvation Army website. It's got a headline it says the Salvation Army's response to false claims on the topic of racism.

This dates from November 25th 2021. So it's yeah you know a few weeks ago I guess three three to four weeks ago and I just read through a part of this here and it says update elements of the recently issued let's talk about racism guide led some to believe we think they should apologize for the color of their skin.

Or the Salvation Army may have abandoned its biblical beliefs for another philosophy or ideology that was never our intention. So the guide has been removed for appropriate review. And there's some explanation that goes on here and talks about talks about this particular issue.

Well the the guide they're talking about let's talk about racism as the paragraph there in the Salvation Army website mentions they've removed it so I can't actually access it and find out exactly what it says word word for word.

But I did find an article. This is an opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal that does tell us at least in part what this particular guide let's talk about racism had to say. And this is an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.

It's called let's see what can infiltrates the Salvation Army. It backs away from a call on members to lament repent and apologize for racism. And this particular piece is by Kenny Hsu. And he says this.

Although the Salvation Army was founded in London in 1865 it's in America that it's red kettles have become a Christmas staple. The Salvationists have earned broad respect in American society after more than a century of charitable giving.

But an internal coalition of woke ideologues now endangers the organization's reputation. And he continues. This year the Salvation Army's International Social Justice Commission published a discussion guide called let's talk about racism.

The document its authors say was designed to stimulate gracious discussion among Salvationists who choose to participate. But its radical woke overtones against American Christians seem to make such gracious discussion impossible.

And then he quotes some additional items from the from the guide. So let's read through that. This is a quoting from the let's talk about racism guide quote. Why is it so difficult to acknowledge the sin of racism and the seeking of God's forgiveness both individually as believers and corporately as the church for our complicity and racism the document suggests as a conversation starter.

Well it just sounds that sounds like a great way to start a conversation. I'd love talking. I'd love that conversation wouldn't you. It's also called on Salvationists to quote stop trying to be colorblind and to lament repent and apologize for their biases against people of color in America.

Much of time is spent explaining why the U .S. is racist. We must stop denying the existence of individual and systematic institutional racism. The materials say they exist and are still at to keep white Americans in power.

End quote. So you know these this is a kind of a hint. I mean I and I think just reading through this. I mean it's not the full pamphlet but I I think you can it's it's pretty easy to kind of get the drift of the the particular Salvation Army publication let's talk about racism.

It's just critical race theory sprinkled with a little bible dust. I mean that's what this stuff comes down to. You know there's a it's interesting there's a a twitter feed that I just became aware of within the last week or two.

It's called woke preacher clips and the the whole thrust of that particular twitter feed is it it's quotes and sometimes videos and things of some of these these woke preachers and most of them are you know protestants evangelicals of one sort or another and there is a lot of wokeness in the in the evangelical church in the protestant church in churches that used to be considered fairly sound and and conservative.

This this Marxist inspired philosophy has really wormed its way in very deeply. It's it's kind of amazing. And here it is in the Salvation Army and I love these these kinds of materials for you know like the let's talk about racism pamphlet and and how it's designed to stimulate gracious discussion among salvationists.

Well one thing that that I have noticed consistently with anything critical race theory related is that there's no discussion what it is. It's it's a beat-down lecture and it's a one-way monologue. It's basically somebody said sitting up on their their moral high horse and then lecturing you on what a horrible person you are you know and this is particularly directed at white people and and you're you know you're told that you're a horrible person that you need to feel guilty and ashamed and and uh and this sort of thing and and you know you're an eternal oppressor and and such like a victimizer against persons of color pox pocs sometimes they call them even bipox which I think stands for black Indian people of color bipoc you know and they are the oppressed the victimized the righteous and the holy and the just and everything they do is awesome and everything if you're a white person everything you do is is sinful and terrible and awful and horrible.

And and of course all of this is is a false gospel and we'll come in and we'll we'll talk a little bit about that later but one thing that that I have noticed about critical race theory is that nothing and I mean nothing is is uh there's nothing gracious about it and there's nothing discussion about it.

I mean there's no no uh give and take here it's it's uh you know they do all the the giving and and you do all the taking. It's it's really amazing stuff uh to watch some of this. So I mean here we just have the um the sort of uh you know leftist progressive Marxist whatever you want to call it rant um basically put into a format for you know into Christian formats the Christian version of of critical race theory and and this kind of brings me to another point I didn't want to get too far afield in this but the thing that just annoys the living daylights out of me about the current the state of the Protestant church anymore is that we don't know how to do our own thinking.

You know all the the leading Protestant intellectuals do is they just go out and they borrow this garbage from the world you know this this empty deceit this worldly philosophy and they you know they they dress it up in a uh you know they sprinkle it with some magic bible dust or something like this and then you know dish it out to congregations as though somehow it's original uh and biblical and it's neither I mean it's derivative and it's it's unchristian you know and this is true whether you're getting into things like critical race theory whether you're getting into feminism whether you're getting into immigration I mean immigration is another one that drives me nuts.

You know there are there is very little sound Christian commentary on the uh the issue of immigration and what little commentary is done by by Protestant churches. It's almost all borrowed from the Roman Catholics more from the liberals but more from the Roman Catholics than anything else I mean as as Protestants I mean we need to learn how to think for ourselves.

We need to learn how to think biblically as Christians. You know instead of borrowing all this this garbage from the world from people who don't even know what they're talking about you know and this is another example of that this whole thing with the salvation army and their critical race theory pamphlet one of the things that's interesting though in this this particular article and I think it was is really this uh this opinion piece in the in the in the wall street journal this got a lot of attention there has there's been a lot of discussion I think this drove some discussion and even before that there's there's been a lot of discussion about this particular pamphlet from the salvation army so people send people focused on this I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Well I did a little bit of digging and what I found is that there's actually and you might not be surprised by this. It's kind of like the theory you know that you you don't have just one cockroach. Right.

You know if you see a cockroach you can be sure there's a whole bunch of others hidden away someplace you know and when you see something like this this critical race theory pamphlet put out it's reasonable to assume there's a whole lot of other theological cockroaches in the salvation army hiding out somewhere and it's just a matter of doing a little bit of digging and you're probably going to find them.

Well I found out that I did a little bit of digging and what did I do. I found out there certainly is actually quite a bit of in the way of cockroaches. What I did is I found this one particular page and this is on the salvation army website and you can see this on the live stream here international social justice commission and it's a it's an entire web page and apparently this is where they had posted that particular pamphlet let's talk about racism.

You can even see a copy kind of like the cover of it up here on the page although it's been removed and it says consistent with the scripture foundations of salvation army stands against racism in all forms.

Elements of the recently issued let's talk about racism guide led to some believe we think they should apologize for the color of their skin blah blah blah. And it says that was never our intention. So the guide has been removed for appropriate review.

So apparently this is where you would go to find that particular pamphlet and I wish I had gone there earlier because I'd love to have a copy of the thing to to read to my read for myself although that that wall street journal editorial by kenny shoe did quote some probably the most relevant portions of it.

But what you find out here as I said they've it wasn't just a single pamphlet you know it wasn't just let's talk about racism. They have a whole page dedicated to international social justice called the international social justice commission.

Well I mean social justice is a term no christian should ever use. Uh social justice is not justice. It's a term that originated apparently with the jesuits in the 19th century. I've heard chris pinto talk about that on his uh on his podcast his noise of thunder radio podcast.

In fact I found out that he's got a a whole lecture series on the jesuits and social justice. I went ahead and I actually ordered those I may have a chance to listen to them yet they haven't come. But I'd like to because you know this this whole concept of social justice is something you hear talked about all the time and I've even heard ministers who are you know I think for the most part fairly sound in their theology talk use the term social justice and I'm not sure they really know the origins of social justice or what it means.

I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe they do know and they you know they're they're maybe not as sound as I think they are. I I'm not sure but I'm not going to render those kinds of judgments.

But I have heard people talk that. And this is not a term social justice it should ever be on the lips of any christian preacher if unless he's there to criticize it of course. But it's certainly not something that any any christian minister or any elder any deacon any ordinary church member should be talking about in a positive way.

But the salvation army has an international social justice commission. And something else that I found out too is the salvation army. This is on the same page the international social justice commission page.

The salvation army talks about openly about its affiliation with the united nations. Well I didn't know that I didn't know that until yesterday when I was doing a little bit digging around on on the website it says here the salvation army has been an affiliated non-governmental organization with the united nations uh un since the un's formation.

So that goes back what I think 1948 47 48 something like that right after the end of world war ii as one of the founding ngos as non-governmental organization the salvation army holds consultative status at the un and may formally contribute to its work in conjunction with other non-governmental non-profit public or voluntary organizations and faith-based organizations with similar status.

Well you know that right there raises huge red flags. I mean united nations is not a christian organization. Uh it's a globalist organization and a great deal of what it proposes is is globalist socialist in nature.

Certainly ungodly. I mean this this whole thing you know just the whole pandemic and all this this nonsense that's come out of the who the world health organization I mean they have been some of the primary pushers of this bogus pandemic that we have and that's just one example.

You can go you can find many more and you can think of many more. You know the whole climate change agenda for example is being pushed by the un you know in its attempt to impose socialism on the world and create world government.

And it's one of the biggest vehicles for for antichrist you know the antichrist vatican uh the pope is is khan is uh majorly involved in the work of the united nations. No christian should be associated with this and frankly I mean when you see the salvation army affiliated with the un and they say since the founding of the un so I mean we're going back you know about 75 years pretty close to it.

That's a real problem. That is a major problem you know and again these are things that I didn't know this and I I doubt probably most people know this this is all very new to me. I've had my my eyes opened uh here about the uh about the salvation army.

Let's take a look here. I wanted you know we we talked some about the the pamphlet that they did pull down but there's a bunch of other stuff up here on this uh this international social justice website that's worth looking at like let's take this here's a here's a study guide on racism and it's uh written apparently by this colonel richard munn director international social justice commission and when you read through this it uh it's the typical kind of thing that you would get from some sort of uh critical race theory spouting uh lefty progressive marxist type person.

And one of the things that really jumped out at me when I was reading through this let's see here is is their definition of of racism and and this is critical let's see if I don't see if I can find that here let's do a quick word search.

Okay here here we go so they define racism as the problem of racism is pervasive and complex is described as prejudice plus power. Now defining racism is prejudice plus power. That is right straight out of the critical race theory playbook and the way they in in this is a very important concept.

It's a very important definition because it's from this definition then that they're able to make all kinds of really outrageous types of statements that sounds innocent enough but it's it's very dangerous because here's how they reason.

They say that racism is prejudice plus power. What they what they go on to say is that minorities for instance black people etc have no power and since racism is prejudice plus power if you have no power you can't be racist.

But what they then say is they is there say well white people are prejudice but they also have power and so it's white people only who are racist. And this is how they get from this idea that somehow if if you're a white person that you are always and ever a victimizer and if you're a person of color that you are eternally the the victim because you have no power.

Now that definition is not the standard definition of of racism. I went back and i actually i have a dictionary that i use uh all the time as a reference book it's uh the webster's seventh collegiate dictionary published in 1965.

And i actually bought a copy of this used online and i bought it for that specific reason because it is an older dictionary because it predates all of the the the woke wokester nonsense that started coming in the late 60s.

And it's it's just it's good standard english. And let me read you the definition of racism this is from the 1965 webster's seventh collegiate dictionary. It says this quote. Racism is a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce inherent superiority of a particular race.

Now notice in that definition there's no mention of power. The only thing present there is the idea of prejudice. So it's the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce inherently inherent superiority of a particular race.

So based on that definition anyone and that that can be regardless of what one's race is anyone can be racist. Anyone can say you know a white person can say oh you know i think that that uh i'm superior because i'm a white person you know.

But a black person could turn around say well i think i'm superior because i'm a black person or someone who's asian come and say well you know i i'm superior because because i'm chinese or something like that.

So that definition can apply equally to anybody because it doesn't talk about power. It just simply talks about one's particular attitude toward one's own race vis-a-vis another race. And in that kind of prejudice can exist within anyone.

You know there was that uh an example here of uh of anti-white racism right here in the united states. And it was very uh very obvious example of this. And this is the example of of darryl brooks. Darryl brooks you may recall he was the guy in uh in waukesha wisconsin who he he took an suv and he ran over uh people in a christmas parade.

He killed six people he injured i think uh several dozen of them. And this guy had all kinds of really racist stuff that he had written on various social media outlets. And here's a headline this is from the new york post.

It says darryl brooks shared pro hitler memes called for violence against white people. And says the ex-con charger of the deaths of six people at wisconsin christmas parade shared social media posts calling for violence against white people and suggesting hitler was right for killing jews.

Darryl brooks jr who has a decades-long rap sheet shared a series of disturbing memes and messages on social media most of which have been deleted since his arrest for sunday's deadly carnage. They included numerous posts attacking cops comparing them to the ku klux klan members and calling them violent street gangs as well as calling for violence toward white people according to screenshots.

Learn not taught behavior he wrote on june 9th last year amid the violent upheaval over george floyd's murder and by a minnesota cop according to a screenshot shared by the daily mail. So when we start back knocking white people out i want to i guess why i don't want to hear it the old white people to knock them out period.

He wrote under his rat name you know and he kind of goes on a rant like this. But i think you kind of get the uh get the flavor of uh of what he said. I cleaned up his quote there a little bit as well.

But yeah i mean this was a guy that that hated white people. I mean he he had met he was massively prejudiced against white people. But what the critical race theory people would say. Well he didn't have any power so therefore he wasn't racist.

Well i say that's bunk you know. And i think they're trying to to combine two ideas. They're trying to combine an idea of uh of race they're trying to and then add to it the idea of maybe class or or political power.

Well those two you know they're they're really mixing two things that don't go together. Anyone can be racist anyone can be. It doesn't matter what your background is you know that definition of prejudice plus power that is at the very core of critical race theory at the very core of it.

It's right at the core i remember and this is years back this was a late 80s early 90s. There was stuff like that that was being pushed at the university of cincinnati when i was a student there i remember that caused quite a stir and they were they they actually literally said that black people can't be racist now.

That was the first time i had ever heard that and that was right at the dawn of when critical race theory came out. They had this big get together in the summer of 1988 which really is is considered i can't remember there was a conference someplace here in the united states i can't remember offhand what it was but that particular conference in the summer of 1988 is generally thought of as sort of the birth place of critical race theory.

And that was one of the ideas that came out of of this particular symposium that they had or maybe it didn't come out of it. But it was certainly i maybe it was formalized there perhaps. But it was from that point on that you began hearing arguments like this that blacks cannot be racist you know because because racism is prejudice plus power and so what's the salvation army do doing.

Well they're taking this this idea that comes from these sort of neo-marxist type people and they're importing it into a putatively christian organization now that's the exact kind of thing we're not supposed to do as christians you know we're supposed to rebuke the world through the word of god.

You know what did paul say. You know beware let's anyone take you cheat you through uh philosophy and empty deceit. Well i mean these people are allowing themselves to be cheated by a worldly philosophy because you can't square the idea that racism is prejudice plus power.

You can't get that out of out of the scriptures at all. You can't get that out of the bible. But so they're importing this idea in from these these ungodly marxists or at least people that have marxist leanings certainly progressives leftists of various sorts and they're importing this into the church and then trying to palm it off on on christians as though somehow this is a idea which it most certainly is not so that's their their uh pamphlet on uh on uh racism.

And they've got another pamphlet up and this one this is one that's on on sexism and it's very similar to the guide on racism. In fact it's kind of interesting that their definition of sexism is is basically identical to their definition of racism.

It says sexism often includes a combination of prejudice plus power. It's expressed through systemic structured prejudice and cultural discrimination can be present in a family in family communities of faith and societal and national cultures.

And again this goes it goes on. I'm not going to read through all of it but when you you look at this particular guide to to just you know sexism this is the this is the standard kind of failure that you could get out of any kind of women's studies department at most liberal universities out there or you know you you could listen to some some uh rant on on msnbc or cnn or or maybe go you know buy a book by you know some feminist author and this is the exact kind of thing that you would see in there.

I mean there's nothing here intellectually that's original or christian. And in fact it's really embarrassing to me that it should be embarrassing to the salvation army that they would put garbage like this out and try to palm it off on people as though it's christian when it most certainly is not now it's kind of interesting when you you scroll through this let's see how you know the the problem is all men you know because sexism is is prejudice plus power is is the way they they try to define this and i guess men have all the power and women have no power.

So only men can be sexist and women are not. In fact it's kind of interesting when you combine the first pamphlet that we looked at the one on racism with the one on sexism here racism says that white people are bad and people of color are awesome.

And the one on sexism says that men are bad and women are awesome. And so you know who's who's the uh who gets left out in this whole thing. Of course it's it's white men. And of course white men was uh we're constantly told by every university is are toxic and terrible and and all around very very bad people.

And and you again you can go to any any liberal university you can go watch any uh particular uh program on on your average news network you get exactly the same message. There is nothing here that is unique uh that is that is original with original with christian that's original with any kind of christian scholarship or anything that's actually biblical.

And it's super frustrating to to read through this stuff. Now one of the things that's interesting and again i'm i'm skipping over a lot of stuff here they actually do quote scripture and they they bring forward a lot of scripture here that that is designed to show that that women men pretty much do all the same things and there really isn't a whole lot of distinction.

They they do at one point claim that men are are head of the household. So i guess they they get that part of it right. But when you look through all of these these uh scripture quotations and all of these are are fine.

I mean they're it's the word of god but it's not what they say. It's what they don't say. That's important. There's you know they they don't quote the passage from first timothy where paul says you know i forbid a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.

Interestingly enough that passage is not cited in this particular pamphlet. It says nothing in the passage from i think it's what's first corinthians 14 where paul says let the woman remain silent in the churches.

It was shameful for a woman to speak in church. It doesn't say that that is not anywhere noted in here. There's nothing in here that talks at all about the requirements. Paul's very clear requirements for deacons and elders.