Racism: Is America Racist?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

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We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we seek to answer the age -old question,

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Is America Racist? Now, normally what we try to do with this show is, typically we try to present you title questions that are not normally the questions everyone is asking themselves, at least out loud anyways.

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Part of the joke is we introduce these as age -old questions, but then normally no one's really asking them anywhere.

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Typically people want to know the answers, but they're not normally going around to everyone they can and asking them these types of questions, and that's meant to be part of the joke on our end, but then this is a unique episode where our title question,

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Is America Racist? is actually something that everyone is talking about, and everyone is wondering either,

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Why is our country so racist? Why are we permeated with this weird, treating one race as if it's lesser than all the other races?

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Or they're wondering, Why are we talking about this so much? I don't see racism anywhere, but everyone's talking about it like it's everywhere.

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I don't understand. And so this is actually the kind of question that really everyone is asking. And so,

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Tim, why don't you just start us off by just addressing that question head on. Do you think

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America is racist from your perspective? Yeah, well, as you think about the idea of that kind of question,

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Is America Racist? This is a question that really, the word racism is a word that has a meaning, it had a meaning, but then in common parlance it's being used in so many situations now that basically anything and everything is being called racist.

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So an individual who is arguing with a liberal will inevitably be called a racist.

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Anyone who essentially is standing in the way of something that an African American wants, they're going to be called racist.

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Anytime anyone resists anything that the political left is trying to shove down your throat, you're going to inevitably be accused of racism in one way or another.

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If you have eyes in your head, you're going to be accused of racism. And so, when you think about this idea of racism, right now, the truth is that if everything is racist, then there's nothing that's racist.

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And so it's a word that is remarkably overused, and it's overused to the point where most people are somewhat sick of it.

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And it doesn't have the same kind of terror -inducing, gut -wrenching kind of fear associated with being labeled as a racist as it used to.

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It used to be that people were so afraid of having that label attached to them that essentially they would do whatever the left wanted them to do.

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They would apologize and fall all over themselves to essentially give in to whatever demands were made of them because they were so terrified of that label and the canceling power that was associated with that.

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Now, it's just being used to such an extent it's so overused that it's just functionally meaningless.

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But then it is a word that had a unique historical meaning that is associated with what's described as scientific racism.

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And so scientific racism was the idea that essentially humanity is divided into various races of people who were almost what you might consider sub -human categories of people sub -human species.

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And so you think about in an evolutionary framework this is an idea that Darwin essentially advanced to where humanity was evolved from a common ancestor with apes and the different groups of people whether it's

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Africans or Asians or Europeans or Caucasians or whatever each one of these races are basically in an evolutionary sense descended from apes this common ancestor with apes to varying degrees.

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And so Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of the

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Favored Races and the Struggle for Life this idea of scientific racism was found in his actual his book there.

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He wrote a follow -up called The Descent of Man and essentially in that he said the

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Western nations of Europe now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors that they stand at the summit of civilization.

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And then he says the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world.

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And so this idea of racism was built into the fabric of Darwinism and it was essentially this belief that mankind could be divided into various subspecies of humanity almost subhuman species that were further along on the evolutionary ladder than others.

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But then it was this idea that basically gave a basis for chattel slavery that we see.

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And so the idea of enslaving blacks was perceived through a

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Darwinian lens as being basically okay because they were lower on the evolutionary ladder than the favored races were.

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And so under that kind of idea of scientific racism I would say that there's very few people today who actually think that way.

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I mean you're going to have some southern redneck guys out in the middle of the Ozark or whatever who basically think that Africans are essentially apes or something along those lines.

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And so you'll have those kind of individuals or on the left you'll have Nick Cannon essentially arguing that white people are essentially devils and subhuman and due to their lack of melanin he says their lack of melanin they're unable to have basic morality and inherently savages.

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But that kind of thing is basically pretty rare in America in general.

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Very few people actually think of humanity as being divided into these quasi -subhuman kind of species as far as that's concerned.

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So when you think about the idea of racism in general there really isn't this overwhelming or pervasive racism in the scientific sense around today.

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Most people realize that the human race is essentially unified and we more naturally talk about different ethnicities than we do races.

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Or if we do if we are talking about races we're not races in general we're more naturally appealing to a concept of ethnicity for the most part in the vast majority of cases particularly with Christians.

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But I would say no I mean America in and of itself is not fundamentally racist anymore we all, not in that scientific sense for sure.

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Okay, so not in the scientific sense are we racist at least as a general statement there's not really groups of people that are going around saying hey this other group of people are barely human.

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Yeah, I mean that's what the Nazis did with the Jews and that's what we did during chattel slavery.

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But very few people are, like it's so anti -PC to even talk that way at this point.

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But I don't think most people even think that way anymore that people are almost different species of humanity as far as that's concerned.

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With the genetic advancements nowadays I mean we realize that we're more alike than we are different.

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Yeah, yeah and just as a side note I do think it's really funny that you know evolution in general is pretty even though it's just a theory that hasn't been proven it's pretty much widely accepted as fact in the secular world but then the downfall of you know the theory of evolution is you get stuff like this and it's totally if you want to stay consistent with that theory it's totally okay to be a scientific racist.

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Well yeah I mean it makes the most sense of a Darwinian world view I mean the idea that we are all you know one shared humanity descendant from Adam that comes from a biblical world view but then the idea of survival of the fittest and you know natural selection like there's like Hitler was following the logic of Darwinianism you know the slave trade was following the logic of Darwinianism I mean that's where it naturally leads it makes right you know survival of the fittest like you know if you like there are some people groups obviously who were more technologically advanced than others and why wouldn't you think it was because they were higher on the evolutionary ladder than others and if they are higher on the evolutionary ladder than others what is to say that they didn't have the right to exterminate other groups of people basically we are all fighting over shared resources and that was

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Hitler's thing I mean we are all fighting over the same shared resources scarcity of resources is a thing and you know eventually given enough time we are all going to be going to war anyway so why not circumvent the process and you know let the higher races prevail as they are destined to do right?

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Yeah definitely a faulty world view to say the least but you know

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I think when it comes to the conversation if you can really call it that over the last few years in America I don't think most people that would say

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America is racist I don't think they are probably I don't think their critique would typically be well most people in America view you know normally

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African Americans most people in America normally view African Americans as essentially subhuman

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I think at least from my perspective it seems more like the critique is hey it seems like most of America is might view black people as humans the same as everyone else but then they still we as a country still treat them in a way that we don't treat white people basically that's the critique

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I see more than anything else so that seems different than scientific racism so addressing that critique more directly do you think

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America is racist in light of that? Yeah I mean there are any number of reasons why individuals could be treated in a way that's different based on certain that has some sort of correlation with skin color for sure but like in terms of just you know your standard definition of racism in the dictionary one of the things that you're going to find is you can just look up racism in Merriam -Webster and it's a belief that race is fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race so I read that again a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race so even the definition of racism in the dictionary is largely appealing to that notion of scientific racism there but then there's also what now is being described as systemic oppression of a racial group to the socioeconomic and political advantage of another and so that's essentially what's happened is we've changed the definition from the common usage from what normally is called scientific racism more to what is being described as systemic racism along those lines and so people now are asking because there are disparities in the world between whites and blacks or between Asians and whites and Asians and blacks because there are these disparities in a simplistic way essentially what's being argued is that all those disparities ipso facto are evidence of systemic racism and this is essentially what

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David Platt was arguing in his infamous T4G sermon on Amos let justice roll down like waters where he without any thought whatsoever essentially listed economic disparities between blacks and whites economic and social disparities between blacks and whites as ipso facto evidence of systemic racism and so now we're using racism basic racism now is being used to basically as an all purpose explanation to explain why these disparities exist but then that's moving away from what might be described as conscious prejudice towards members of an opposite race if you want to use that unhelpful category to implicit bias and microaggressions and all these things like that and so as you're answering that kind of question if you're going to talk about is

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America systemically racist in that way I would say well the only systemic racism that exists in America as far as the actual laws that are there is laws that favor

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African Americans over whites or Asians ok yeah so basically what you're saying is there's a lot of people who are looking around and seeing that you know when it comes to African Americans typically it seems like they're normally not as well off financially they don't normally have which stands to reason they don't normally have the same high paying jobs that white people might normally have and so their answer to that their explanation for that observation is to say obviously this means that there's systemic racism which essentially yeah that's defined as like prejudice plus power so because white people are in power then they're creating a system which inherently favors white people over black people and so in that way they may not even be conscious of the nature of their exercise of power in that way but they created a system which inherently is going to privilege people of their skin color over and against others and individuals like Robin DiAngelo who wrote a book

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White Fragility is essentially arguing that racism is the normal state of affairs in our country but then racism is defined in that way as prejudice plus power meaning it's only white people who are able to be racist and not blacks and that's why a lot of individuals basically say

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I'm black I can't be racist it's because we've changed the definition from the scientific notion which

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Nick Cannon is certainly guilty of a black man and rednecks some rednecks but then you have now it's prejudice plus power and so then you have this system supposedly that's rigged against African Americans in favor of whites and it may not be conscious racial animosity towards members of a different ethnic group but there's a system that's in place and so Robin DiAngelo basically would be quoted as saying something along the lines of it's not whether racism occurs it's how did it occur in any interaction and so racism is the normal state of affairs basically basically you're getting that from the notion that any economic or social disparity is there's only one explanation for it that can possibly be conceived and that is the systemic racism essentially yeah okay well

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I guess that really leads to two inevitable questions I guess and the first would be number one is the claim true then that African Americans for example financially are typically much worse off than Caucasians in America that would be the first question so basically the claim that America is racist is based off of that premise so that needs to be true in order for the claim that America is racist to be true the second question that would have to be asked then is can you clarify that question real quick what was the question there basically just saying number one are black people financially worse off or more disadvantaged disadvantaged yeah

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I think that's a term that they use a lot disadvantaged compared to white people so that would have to be true for their claims to make any sense and then the second question would have to be well is the only explanation for something like that that they're being oppressed whether consciously or unconsciously are there any other explanations that could be given for why that's happening does that make sense

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I think I could probably answer both of those in one question essentially or in one response you know the

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National Museum of African American History put out their infamous poster online do you remember that coming out

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I do yeah I saw that this poster is essentially talking about race essentially it said aspects and assumptions of whiteness or white culture in the

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United States and so it's basically this flyer that they put out that they received a lot of heat from and it's difficult to know what to make of their retraction of this because this is essentially what's being argued but then they put it this way they say white dominant culture or whiteness refers to the way white people and their traditions attitudes or way of life have been normalized over time and are now considered standard practices in the

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United States and since white people still hold most of the institutional power in America we have all internalized some aspects of white culture including people of color and so basically in order to interact with something like this you have to put on your multicultural lenses essentially and you have to basically basically view all cultures as being fundamentally neutral so think about it that way all cultures under their view are perceived as being fundamentally neutral and so then the fact that white people are basically ahead in the world that we live in today is basically because white people built the culture and society we live in and there are certain aspects and assumptions of whiteness or white culture in the

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United States that black individuals by and large don't share but then when you actually examine their list of things that's what is somewhat shocking about it so basically here are some characteristics of what they call whiteness the idea of rugged individualism so the individual is considered the primary unit there's this idea of self -reliance or independence and autonomy are highly valued and rewarded individuals in this way are assumed to be in control of their environment so you get what you deserve in other words now so far maybe okay maybe white people are more individualistic and black people are more communitarian okay whatever but then you think about family structure assumptions of whiteness you have the nuclear family a father a mother and two to three children is the ideal social unit so that's not an aspect of whiteness that's an aspect of the bible right?

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a family husband is the breadwinner or the head of the household that's not an aspect of whiteness that's an aspect of the bible that's western civilization built on a christian world view the husband is the breadwinner the provider but then this has to be an aspect of whiteness because black illegitimacy rate at this point is you know 78 % or something ridiculous along those lines but then think about this the wife is the homemaker and subordinate to the husband you know so but that again that's biblical christianity right?

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children should have their own rooms be independent okay that's the individualism component there again but then where it gets really crazy is so right now whiteness is being viewed as predominantly a biblical world view responsibility placed on the individual and all that but then they go on to say emphasis on the scientific method so objective rational linear thinking is characteristic of whiteness well what's the inverse of that?

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being irrational and being subjective like so again I mean these are biblical values this isn't just you know multiculturalism that one you know you can't criticize any kind of culture these are problems you know the national museum of african -american history is saying that black people are irrational and illogical they don't understand cause and effect relationships like white people do meaning if you shoot someone you're going to go to jail you know like that's just a matter of whiteness right?

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quantitative emphasis right? this is scientific method this is how we built our society

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I mean you can't send a rocket into space without an emphasis on scientific method you can't build a car without emphasis on scientific method you can't accomplish anything in life without emphasis on the scientific method like this is if god is an orderly creator he made the world in such a way that reflects his character like we're not going to be able to subdue the earth and have dominion over it if we don't have an emphasis on objective rational linear thinking okay?

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so basically you know the bottom it's like protestant work ethic you know hard work is the key to success

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I mean my goodness I mean just read the bible read the book of proverbs this is straight out of the book of proverbs

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I didn't know king solomon was blinded by whiteness my goodness you work before you play it's like yes we all have eyes we know that african american culture is obsessed with sports and games and everything else but that's what you're telling us you're telling us that essentially african americans are lazy and that they're illogical and everything else if you don't meet your goals you didn't work hard enough protestant work ethic it goes on to talk about being polite things like this so what's happening is you have to put your multicultural lens on this kind of framework and then essentially you're viewing all cultures as neutral and you're not allowed to criticize any cultures and basically the idea then is just that white people have created a society that prefers the things that they subjectively decided to value for whatever irrational reason they decided to value but then if you have a black built society then essentially that was characterized by laziness and disrespect and single motherhood and irrational illogical thinking then essentially in that kind of society blacks would excel but then the problem is this isn't reality this isn't the way reality works and this isn't biblical they were forced to take that down because everyone was basically they could read the subtext there so you're saying that I guess white people are hard workers and nice and polite and illogical and African Americans are lazy and prioritize playing over work and are rude and illogical and so they had to take it down but then part of the problem though is you do have a clash of values that are happening a clash of values that are happening in our society right now and that matters and so a lot of these things aren't just there's an objective standard in the bible about how to get ahead in life and it's largely with what the national museum of African American history calls whiteness essentially but if that's an accurate reflection of reality which it seems to be you're not allowed to say it but they knew what they were saying and we all can understand what they're saying but if that's the case

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I mean look you're not allowed to say these things but just to give examples of the way that this actually works it is a very different experience to go to Hardee's than it is to go to Chick -fil -A related to the idea of niceness one culture prioritizing niceness over another culture as far as that goes and as far as just hard work and everything else emphasis on the logic and scientific method and everything else just watch a rap video and you're going to see that there are problems in the

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African American community. The African American community right now is profoundly anti -intellectual in the same way that southern white redneck culture is profoundly anti -intellectual and so there are problems there that from a biblical world view but if there is such a thing as objective truth and the

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Bible does give us a way to get ahead then these aren't just issues of whiteness I mean these same traits are at work in Asian societies too this is not just something that white people invented

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I think Asians are now considered white it's not supposed to make any sense if I'm up to date on all of my social media stuff

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I'm pretty sure Asians are now considered white people they're also people of color colorless people over and against the people of color so you look at these things and it's like no

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I don't believe that there's some kind of systemic oppression of black people that are holding black people back in fact there's a systemic favoritism towards black people in our society right now if you try just a little bit in our society you'll get ahead you'll have any number of people if you're an

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African American person who just tries to speak English and tries to apply yourself to your studies you'll have any number of people who will fall over themselves to try to give you whatever you want in our society and you don't even have to try near as hard as a standard white person

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I went to seminary and I had an African American friend and my

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African American friend he had professor after professor after professor he had 20 professors offer to be his mentor his personal mentor during our education and you can imagine how many professors offered to be my mentor

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I'm guessing not 20 zero I don't begrudge that but I'm just trying to say that there are opportunities there the fact that I was a quarter

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Mexican didn't even count you know it didn't count I wasn't minority enough but it didn't count

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I mean the thing is we're living in a society that's falling all over itself to be diverse and show reverse partiality there we're not living in a society trying to hold anyone back and there are simple ways to get ahead in the world and if African Americans want to take them at this point in history there's nothing to stand in their way but then the problem is that you have testimony after testimony of individuals like Ben Carson or Votie Baucom those kind of individuals who basically say describe their childhood of them trying to learn as being accused of being white at various points there's a cultural pressure within the

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African American community to keep the African American community back and that's the biggest one of the biggest threats that's happening right now

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Speaking of biblical teachings racism ultimately is a question of morality above all else and so we as Christians we want to go to the

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Bible and let God tell us what is right and what is wrong and so we spent about 30 minutes talking about pretty much how the world would define racism so Tim why don't you explain for us now how the

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Bible would categorize racism how does the Bible define racism for us yeah

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I think this is hard because racism is obviously not a word that's found in the Bible but then the problem is the concept of race really isn't found in the

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Bible either in the same kind of way so the Bible doesn't teach that individuals are essentially subhuman species that are higher up on the evolutionary ladder the

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Bible teaches that the entire human race is descended from Adam and it's basically kind of inappropriate to talk about race the concept of race because there aren't races in the scientific

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Darwin sense of races we have different ethnicities we have different nationalities and it's not entirely true that everyone of a particular skin color really even shares the same traits in any kind of homogenous way so all

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Caucasians aren't obviously the same in any way there's vast cultural differences between different types of Caucasians and the same thing is true of African Americans I mean there are politically conservative

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African Americans but they don't apparently count as African Americans because the southern white or the southern black redneck culture is basically defined as true blackness at this point now but then biblically speaking this idea of race isn't really it's a figment it's a figment of people's imaginations we do better to talk about ethnicity at that point because we're all one human race descended from Adam and then

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Noah and his family so with that the Bible doesn't address this topic of racism because racism is really kind of a new concept that has happened but then if you were to think about some of the things that are called racism then what you would do is try to ask what are the things that are being called racism that the

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Bible either approves of or disapproves of does that make sense? so the idea of what might be what you might call ethnic pride or something like that the idea of a sense of moral superiority to be found in one's own ethnicity that would be repugnant to a biblical world view

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I shouldn't think of myself as being superior because I'm a particular skin color to any other well what's hard about that is that I guess apparently because of the effects of critical theory in the world, 75 % of myself wants to deport the other 25 %

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I can't I just I mean I live in a permanent schizophrenia there to where you know it's just you know 75 % is racist and the other 25 % is an oppressed minority and I mean just imagine the psychological damage that happens with that kind of thing but no

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I mean look so I mean there's plenty of people though that have a sense of ethnic superiority based on who they are

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Chinese people can be pretty as I've interacted with Chinese people there's a strong element of that within Chinese culture that is this ethnic superiority there like that almost a pride and that's different than just like general thankfulness for who you are you know your people, your country where you came from a general kind of patriotism kind of thing that's different than like you know black pride or you know like all the kind of pride that individuals are told to black pride could be as innocent as just you know thankfulness for how

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God made you and your culture and everything else but at times it appears to be more than that and certainly no one's allowed to say white pride without being

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Hitler incarnate or something like that but I think like the Bible would repudiate a kind of glorying in your own like superficial characteristics or background to where you consider yourself superior to anyone else so that would be a type of racism that I think the

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Bible would validate as being wrong if you could distinguish it from just general patriotism, thankfulness kind of thing, love of your culture kind of thing you know it may be that like in an innocent way you think oh man you know

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I'm Italian and you know I'm not actually Italian but you know I'm Italian and we have the best food in the world or something like that that would be somewhat innocent you know but we as a people are superior to every other people that would be where you would get in trouble that kind of racial pride like the idea of discrimination is much more complicated so a common element of racism in the way that we think of is like any discrimination but that's a lot more complicated than the simplistic way that we're viewing discrimination right now so to discriminate between two things is essentially to say like this and not that so a man of discriminating taste would be a man who was able to pick a high quality you know couch or car or something like that or suit you know so like discrimination is not necessarily as problematic as what we point out and that would be making certain assumptions about certain groups of people that are either positive or negative that would be in some sense bound in some sense based on facts right so when

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Jesus comes up to Nathaniel he says to Nathaniel behold an Israelite in whom there is no deceit or no guile right now that's you know that would fall fly of our common definition of racism because like we think of racism as any negative like stereotypes related to any particular people group but then the problem is that it does matter if you're if the

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Jews at that point in time had become a bunch of swindlers just like their father Jacob right you know and Jesus calls him on it right behold an

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Israelite in whom there is no deceit or guile right he's calling him on it he's calling him on that scenario that happened with Jacob and Laban and the flocks and the you know trading trading you know

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Leah out for Rachel and all that like if that had become characteristic of a society that they were swindlers then that might affect how you how you do business there right so I mean that's just sanity that's just wisdom at that point and you know

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Paul says of the Cretans that they're always you know lazy evil beast and gluttons and then he says you know as a prophet of your own says and he says this testimony is true you know like that they're always lazy so I mean you imagine you're living in that time it's like would you want to hire a

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Cretan you know I mean you might want to have you know and if you were the kind of person who says hey maybe we should have a few more references for the

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Cretan applying for the job I mean like that's just like you know so racist in our minds and like scandalous but then it's just like that's just you know a group of people can make a name for themselves and have a certain reputation you know if you're

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Americans going into the trying to settle in the new world and you know you keep on getting your scouts scalped by rating parties you know you might make adjustments as far as that goes you know and exercise a lot more caution with the natives so you know

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I don't know that the idea of discrimination in the way that we think like we think of discrimination as if like you have to just have a you start every encounter with a different ethnic group with just a total blank slate with no inherent assumptions made whatsoever and I just I don't know that that's realistic or biblical or it seems like you have some direct bible verses that would contradict that kind of thing so I think the racial vainglory that's definitely a no the discrimination thing that's complicated that's complicated that's a little more complicated in terms of the biblical morality of it like the idea of systemic oppression like in general the bible gives us this protestant work ethic the importance of two you know family homes like there are every sociologist would tell you that if you want to get ahead in the world you need two parents you know of opposite genders this single mother thing results in crime and failure and everything else and you're not going to get a full picture of image of God so the systemic oppression kind of idea

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I think that's somewhat bankrupt like it's more complicated than that and so but I think the main idea though is just this either glory like the racial vainglory or the glory in one's ethnic group and inherent hatred like you might call it a hatred for members of different ethnicities that would also be what you might describe as something the bible would condemn that is also categorized as racism and then maybe finally just like this idea of individuals being higher on the evolutionary ladder the scientific kind of thing that would basically deny the doctrine of creation at a biblical level so that would be prohibited in the bible also so what about would partiality fall under that hatred of other races or is that another biblical category that we need to make room for I think in some sort of simplistic way if an individual is just basically the idea of partiality is like the idea that partiality is when basically you show preferential treatment to one individual over another who has an equal claim to treatment does that make sense so like partiality with the idea of partiality there's individuals who have equal claims so there's that idea so I show partiality to my wife over and against all other women because she has a greater claim to my love and affection than anyone else right?

44:51

the same thing with my children like I show partiality to my children but then over and against other children in the world so Jesus says it's not good to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs or whatever my children have a greater claim to my provision and protection and everything else but then within those children you would think all children at that point they all of my children deserve the same kind of treatment because they all have equal claim to being my children right?

45:23

so then you know at a government level when a government is showing preferential treatment to one group of citizens over another that would be a violation of biblical partiality and that would be part of what you would describe as in the sloppy way now of racism does that make sense?

45:44

yeah in one sense the government is actually racist but not in the way that most people would say that would be an example of that but then you know the idea of partiality is like the idea of equal claim but then like if that doesn't that doesn't mean though then that you know like if you're let's say you're a black person and you want to marry another black person that like you don't have the freedom to pick who you want to pick or something like that right?

46:21

so not everything that we're like you have freedom to have desires and preferences so not everyone has some sort of right to be your marriage partner you have the freedom to pick a marriage partner and so a lot of like the issues of partiality get somewhat complicated as you think through you know how it works in the world but then you know you have to think in terms of those equal claims and so but yeah partiality can be a big thing you know you have a lot of churches right now who are showing ethnic partiality towards blacks you know like Matt Chandler saying he wanted a black he would take a black 6 over a white 8 you know or something like that on his pastoral search thing you know that would be an example of racism in that way sure so okay so we have that biblical category for you know what most people would call racism we kind of have a few we don't have like a category called racism in the bible there's not like a verse that says thou shalt not be a racist right you just basically have to take everything that people are describing as racism and work it through a biblical filter and say is that fine or not does that make sense right yeah yeah on a case by case basis because everything's called racism now so like if you oppose like or if you support voter

47:49

ID laws or something you're going to be called a racist but is that racist to want to have an accurate vote right so you have to work through each one of those things in that way but there's certainly some things along those lines that are that would be sinful that aren't called racist does that make sense yeah yeah well if we're thinking about this biblically then what exactly would you there's been a lot of conversation from people on the left who are pushing the idea that America is systemically racist and they're basically who was it that you said earlier

48:33

David Platt? no you quoted that said Robin DiAngelo it's not about if racism happened it's about how it happened or something yeah that was white fragility

48:45

Robin DiAngelo yeah you have a lot of people who are basically saying like hey look if you're a white person you're inherently racist right because you're part of a system that is designed to keep minorities down by virtue of appealing to these biblical criteria so I guess my first question

49:10

I wasn't planning on when I started talking I wasn't planning on asking the question

49:15

I'm going to ask you now but I guess my first question then now that I'm thinking about it would be well from a biblical perspective is there isn't that just a totally outlandish thing to say like hey if you're a white person you're inherently a racist whether you want to be or not isn't that totally unbiblical to say yeah

49:43

I mean this is essentially like a religious claim that's being made and so racism is a bad word right you can't accuse one group of people on the basis of their superficial skin color being inherently more sinful than another group like by virtue of factors that are beyond their control and essentially this is what's happening is you have like a biblical doctrine of original sin being applied only to white people and so when you think about the way that critical theory and all that actually works it's just there's no more oppressive kind of doctrine than the idea of critical theory in that way because you're accusing people of a certain skin color of essentially being irredeemably wicked and all they can do is just constantly be in a state of permanent repentance over the factors that they can't control but then biblically speaking if racism is a sin it has to be a sin that everyone can commit there are no sins that only one people can commit over and against another person right so you if this really is a sin then it has to be something that everyone is able has the ability to commit in some way or another you can't just categorically dismiss it and you can't just pretend like life is so simple to where there are no like even if you say ok well yes oppression is a you know a sin that people in power have to commit so then you know white people are in power that's just a completely oversimplified view of the way the world actually works there's a lot of black people in power right now ok so the idea then is yes it's just like this doctrine of original sin being applied only to white people and basically you're in a permanent state of sin with no hope of redemption

51:42

I mean there's no hope of ever doing enough in order to right the scales until essentially all black people own at least 4 or 5 white people or something like that and at that point maybe we'll still be talking about how evil and wicked we are and we'll basically go the other way at that point until the black

52:06

Hebrew Israelite dream is realized well that's what I was going to ask you next was what exactly you know this sounds like a very religious claim that's being made all white people are inherently sinful there seems to be a lot of presuppositions that you're making there and so one of the things that they inevitably lead to next is well you've got to fix it somehow if you're a white person you're inherently sinful you need to do the work and so what exactly are they saying is the quote unquote repentance in their world view yeah repentance is just giving black people unearned favor and privileges divesting yourself of property, divesting yourself of positions of authority divesting yourself of like power there's no end to it there's no end game here meaning like you can't ever repent enough you can't, it's just a works righteousness system that you can never win until in some sense the scales are totally reversed but then the problem is that you can do that all day long and like they're like you're not going to build a good society a good society is going to be built on logic and reason and the scientific method and if you can like my goodness man like I went to this

53:41

I was the white guy on the basketball team growing up and I have former you know facebook friends that used to be on my basketball team and you know many of them are like we went to the same exact high school and they're barely literate like they're barely literate they can barely speak the english language and I'm not saying that like I'm not making any

54:04

I'm just making a claim to say we had the same education and they can barely communicate in english and they're posting pictures of themselves you know doing gang sign poses and dress like thugs and everything else and it's just like are you going to ask them to build a car right are you just going to make them like the

54:27

CEO of a major corporation they don't have the skills necessary to be a CEO of a major corporation like what are you going to do and it's like well they must have systemic oppression it's like my goodness man we went to the same high school we got the same education like it wasn't about that I looked at them in high school that I went to they didn't pay attention they're constantly like joking around stealing stuff like getting in trouble getting in fights you know being what do you do with that like you can't just in some simplistic way say hey like that's all racism that did all that and the only answer is just for white people to give them stuff that they didn't earn and they didn't work for and they didn't care about and they didn't prioritize like you do that you're just ending society is what you're doing like in order to build anything that actually requires like you have to have competence in order to build anything like you can do the diversity hires like with you know across the board and do it all day long but all you're doing is you're putting unqualified people into positions they don't know how to fulfill and like that's the truth that's the truth like not only is it like a system that you that is destructive in that it's putting one people group at enmity with another and basically blaming all the problems of one group on the shoulders of another and then taking resources from one group and giving it to the other that are unearned like it's just a recipe for disaster like if you want all the lights to go off if you want all the shipments to stop like if you want you know all the cars to quit being produced then just you know basically call anyone who tries in life a racist and tell them that the only solution is to you know give up all their stuff and eventually what you're going to have is you know if you keep it up you know everyone will just give up right and we all surrender this protestant work ethic you know work before you play kind of thing and then what you'll have is you'll have the ghetto is what you'll have that's the truth you know you're not allowed to comment on that but it's just like what do you want, what do you want in society you know like so you have to think through these things these are not you can be you can be naive about what we're talking about and idealistic or you have to look at the cold hard facts of reality and talk through well what does the bible say about these things if that makes sense yeah so opposed to that kind of world view and I guess the narrative that the people on the left are trying to push in terms of racism as Christians what advice would you give to the person who's looking at themselves and genuinely asking the question hey or they're thinking to themselves hey look

57:27

I don't want to be the person who shows partiality towards other people

57:32

I don't want to be the person who's quote unquote racist in God's eyes even though that might be kind of a clumsy way of wording it maybe you get the sentiment behind what they would mean so what kind of counsel would you give to that person in order to help them really just be able to analyze themselves internally analyze their own heart to determine whether or not they are in sin in any way when it comes to how they interact with people of a different culture or a different skin color or whatever yeah the bible tells us not to show partiality to the rich or to the poor and so you don't want to show partiality either way and you don't want to be showing preferential treatment in isolation across ethnic lines right

58:32

I think what you have to do is you have to like make basic distinctions between different types of things and so Thomas Sow in his book

58:46

Black Rednecks and White Liberals he essentially one of the things that he did there was he gave a good book if you want to read it and learn a little bit more about some of the things that we're talking about in terms of why we are where we are but then one of the things that's happened in an unfortunate way is that essentially

59:10

Sow was making this argument that southern white redneck I'm going to do a monologue and then

59:16

I'll get to the question but he's essentially making the argument that ghetto culture is essentially southern white redneck culture and one of the things that happened was there was an intellectual movement in the 60s to basically identify this southern black redneck culture or ghetto culture as authentic black culture if that makes sense and so everything that's associated with your standard rap video like that these character traits are the same character traits that you're going to find in southern redneck culture you know the anti -intellectual kind of culture the focus on big purchases rejection of delight gratification focus on games and entertainment hair trigger violence that kind of stuff all that has been associated with blackness now in a way that is totally destructive to black culture and so if you're wanting to think through issues of partiality like certainly you're going to have to make distinctions in your mind between what type of person am

01:00:22

I looking at does that make sense yeah and so like southern white redneck culture is like I think the vast majority of people are not going to want to like you know if you have a branch manager job and like a guy comes in there with a mullet and a wife beater you know and you know a wife beater you know dirty clothes and you can barely understand him because he's so country right you're probably not going to give him that job and because you're going to make certain assumptions about his competence level but then the same way if you have someone come into your branch you know trying to get a branch manager job who is in full

01:01:08

Tupac get up right like you're probably not going to want to hire them to because the way that they're presenting themselves as saying something about their character saying something about the level of customer service that you're going to get and everything else and so like there's a kind of like so you wouldn't want to describe like partiality across ethnic lines and some kind of simplistic way to say that anyone of any skin color with any kind of traits associated with that it's all neutral it's like no

01:01:40

I mean like my goodness like I you know if my daughter wanted to go on a date and like what rolled up to my house was a you know an escalade with you know huge rims and a banging stereo system and you know you know four gangsters walked out individuals dressed as gangster walked out she wouldn't be going on that date you know

01:02:05

I would make certain assumptions and that isn't partiality that's more about a culture that you're embracing that I view as destructive does that make sense yeah so as a

01:02:14

Christian you have to make distinctions between skin color proper ethnicity proper and certain destructive subcultural traits that are unnecessary to that does that make sense so as a

01:02:28

Christian I think what you want to do is you're thinking through this issue of racism as you're asking like I don't think that you just take any culture and say all cultures are neutral and all you just ignore all the cultural baggage that's associated with certain kinds of cultures does that make sense yeah yeah so like you don't ignore all those kind of things like you know in that way like there are destructive cultures but at the same time any ethnicity

01:02:55

I think you want to like if all you're looking at is ethnicity like in a person's looking at like like a an

01:03:04

African American and a white person both of whom are practicing delayed gratification both of you who are exercising clear logical linear thinking both of whom are you know trying to behave in a respectable way like my goodness like there's no reason to prefer one over the other at that point does that make sense so you have to be able to make those kind of distinctions as it relates to partiality and if you're a

01:03:29

Christian you're not gonna you know if you're the kind of person who's just so excited that you have like you know black people on your worship stage you're so excited that you have black people in church leadership and that kind of way what you want is you want someone who's competent who is able to handle the word of God even at Jeholical Church right now like they're falling over themselves to show partiality to ethnic minorities that they basically let a bunch of prosperity people into the church and they let a bunch of critical race theory embracers into the church and it's caused a lot of damage you know and we've had to ignore it for years and years and years but that's what's happened and so you want someone who has doctrinal integrity who knows what the

01:04:08

Bible says who knows how to teach it who can think clearly who's an expert in the scriptures you're not looking at skin color at that point you are trying to appeal to you know what

01:04:17

Martin Luther King was advocating you know that adulterous heretic that color blindness which has become so problematic at this point you are not trying to judge someone solely on the basis of their content or their color of the skin but on their content of their character sure if you do have some kind of inherent view that your ethnic group is superior to other ethnic groups

01:04:41

I mean you need to repent of that if you have a hatred for ethnic groups even with all their problems you need to repent of that that's sinful you know but that doesn't mean you can't acknowledge that like certain cultures have certain problems that are holding them back and causing damage in the world and critique that as well does that make sense yeah yeah so to the individual

01:05:07

Christian you know rid yourself of any kind of pride and in who you are you know any sense of moral superiority based on superficial you know traits of your background your upbringing your skin color rid yourself of all that remember that we're all one human race interact with the world in a wise way too and I think you'll be going a long way the next question

01:05:37

I wanted to ask you kind of going along with that idea of identifying the various sins that some people today might categorize as racism is could you just kind of take a few minutes to just compare the quote unquote repentance required by people today who are claiming that America is systemically racist compare that to the repentance that God requires for the person who is quote unquote racist could you just compare the two and I guess kind of comment on which one you think is better yeah

01:06:24

I mean biblical repentance is going to be like if you want actual reconciliation in the world if that's what you want if you want people to be reconciled then what you're going to have happen is you're going to have a biblical view of partiality you're not going to prefer one you know skin color indefinitely over and against another

01:06:44

I mean that's just a way to stir up racial tensions and anger and animosity

01:06:50

I mean and that's basically what our society is doing at almost every single level

01:06:56

I mean all the black on Asian violence right now is somehow in the news being called you know a product of white supremacy

01:07:03

I mean that's insane you know like if you let certain groups of people riot and loot and burn down cities and blame it all on you know white supremacy like this you're just having a recipe for disaster and so biblically speaking like each man is going to be held accountable for their own sins like you can't blame your sins on other people we all enter into the world as fundamentally sinful but then not only do we enter into the world as sinful we we're all sinners there's not one group of people who are uniquely sinners over and against others we all have sins that we commit on an everyday basis but then

01:07:36

Jesus offers us free and total forgiveness of that if we ask and we can be reconciled to other people if we ask forgiveness like this idea of you know forgiveness and racial reconciliation in the critical theory sense is you're putting two people at odds permanently with no hope of reconciliation like until some day the agreed party you know some day determines that they're over all their bitterness and able to go to church with you

01:08:04

I'm looking at you G. Mard Tisby after Trump was elected he was so emotionally damaged he couldn't even go to church but I mean it's just like because he was so triggered but I mean my goodness you live in a world we all sin against each other in a variety of ways the humble person is going to see that their sin against God is way bigger than anyone's sin against them and we're not going to hold this record of wrongdoing over each other's head until we plunder them of everything that they have in undisguised envy and greed forever

01:08:45

I mean the Bible offers like real reconciliation that means that we cast each other's debts against us in a sea of forgetfulness and remember it no more just like God does and like that and we're not holding the sins of you know our ancestors over against other people's heads in perpetuity forever constantly at the mercy so biblical solution is far better okay yeah and I realized that was a bit of a you know

01:09:13

I guess almost borderline rhetorical question but I figured it probably needed to be talked about but I guess okay so before we end the episode

01:09:28

Tim do you have any like final comments or closing thoughts that you would want to leave everyone with yeah

01:09:36

I would just say that yeah just summarize it I don't think America is systemically

01:09:41

I don't think America is racist I think the vast majority there are a few racist people out there in terms of the scientific version of that like Nick Cannon would be a good example of that but no

01:09:58

I don't think that we're scientific racist anymore but I mean if you follow a Darwinian world view we might as well be like there's no reason not to it's only the

01:10:06

Christian world view that has a solution to racism and that's going to be found in the knowledge that we all are members of the same human race and because we're all members of the same human race we have to look at what the bible says and if you want a real racial reconciliation of the world you're going to look at what the bible says about how to achieve it what you're not going to do is look to Robin DiAngelo basically to put one class of people permanently at the mercy of another okay well hopefully this has been a helpful episode for you guys on a pretty

01:10:40

I guess complicated topic if not just because the waters have been so muddied by all of the conversation if you can call it that throughout the last few years on this topic so hopefully this has been helpful for you guys and we want to thank you for listening and we look forward to seeing you guys on the next episode this has been another episode of bible bashed we hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion we thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to bible bashed and share our podcast with your friends and on social media please reach out to us with your questions pushback and potential topics for us to discuss in future episodes at bible bashed podcast at gmail .com