Thabiti's Apology - Some Unsolicited Advice from 'ole AD
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I was glad to see this on TGC. In this video, I offer some unsolicited advice for Thabiti on how to move forward. In short, we need some details on exactly what you're apologizing for. I think your apology itself recognizes that this is important. We shouldn't be inexact with critique...but neither should we with apologies. This will be costly to you, but it would be extremely helpful to both sides of this debate.
- 00:00
- Alright, I wanted to do a quick video today, well I was intending, oh by the way, before we get started, if you hear some noise in the background, sorry about that, it's just going to be the way it is,
- 00:11
- I've got my fan on in my office, I don't have central air, so this is just how it's got to be, and my kids are playing in the next room, so you might hear some fun noises, or even some tantrums, or I don't know, but sorry about all that before we get started.
- 00:25
- I was fully intending on doing a video, actually not doing a video, I was fully intending on watching videos about UFOs, there's actually some really interesting stuff going on right now in the ufology community, if you don't know what ufology is, it's just the study of UFOs.
- 00:41
- Anyway, there's some research that says that there are some patents out there, military patents, I think it's the
- 00:47
- United States Navy has patents on devices and crafts that like warp reality to such a degree that it creates sort of like a quantum vacuum around the craft, and so it can essentially disregard air molecules, water molecules, so it can move very quickly, whereas normally you have to push up against these molecules, like the air molecules and stuff like that, well it can kind of warp reality to such a degree that it can just disregard them and move just as quickly through air as it can through water, as it can through anything.
- 01:21
- This is all based on theoretical science, but the interesting part is that the device, the ship that they use looks very similar to the craft that was spotted by the
- 01:33
- USS Nimitz, which is super interesting because like a house divided against itself and things like that.
- 01:38
- Anyway, all interesting, I would say that, you know, the UFO phenomenon is very unlikely to be aliens,
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- I've said this before on my channel, and more likely that the like the abductions and things like that, those are like demonic activities.
- 01:53
- And then the craft themselves are likely human crafts that we just don't know about yet. I don't know, we'll see.
- 01:58
- I honestly don't know what they are. I think the UFO phenomenon is extremely interesting, but that's not what this video is about.
- 02:04
- Because in my rush to sort of watch some new videos this morning, before I got my day started,
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- I saw a Gospel Coalition article that caught my attention. Now this is unusual because I pretty much disregard the
- 02:18
- Gospel Coalition at this point. I don't find many of their articles very interesting. I don't find even the clickbaity titles, you know, they don't really strike my interest enough.
- 02:26
- We're just on different wavelengths. It's just, there's no question about it. But this one did catch my interest, and it's an article by Thabiti Anyabwili, and it says errata, an apology to some evangelicals.
- 02:39
- Now this caught my eye because an apology, that is something that you don't see very often from the woke crowd.
- 02:47
- You just don't see it. It's not something that they typically practice at all. And so this was very interesting to me, and so I wanted to read it, and I did.
- 02:56
- And what I'm going to do here is I'm going to read it to you on this video and offer my perspective on it.
- 03:04
- And I haven't decided yet if I'm going to start and stop like I normally do, or if I'm just going to read the whole thing and then offer my unsolicited advice at the end.
- 03:12
- But Thabiti, if you watch this, I hope you do. I really hope you do. And let me just say to you, good on you for having the ability to reflect on yourself that I think all of us need to cultivate, including myself in that.
- 03:29
- I certainly do try to evaluate myself constantly, and it's obviously, you know, sometimes
- 03:36
- I'm more successful than others, but the ability to do this kind of thing and to make public your thoughts on it is something that's very good.
- 03:44
- I'm glad that you did it, and I'm going to give you some unsolicited advice at the end. So hopefully you watch this all the way through,
- 03:51
- Thabiti, and I would, of course, love to speak with you at some point, either online or privately.
- 03:57
- Anyway, let's read this article that was posted today. He says this.
- 04:03
- And he says, my family and I moved back to the United States in early January 2014. A few short weeks following, news outlets treated the country to a steady coverage of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
- 04:15
- The incident and the immediate fallout was a welcome back that tapped into my one fear about moving to the states and the inner city, the violence my then seven -year -old son would face.
- 04:24
- As Providence would have it, a long litany of police -involved shootings took place over the coming months. I began writing about my fear and the state of things as I saw them.
- 04:32
- In the process, I believe at various points I sinned against some of my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. I know that not everyone took offense, and a good many either appreciated or agreed with what
- 04:42
- I've written. I'm grateful for the many who have shared with me that some of my writing over the last five years has helped them or challenged them in various ways, straight licks and crooked sticks.
- 04:52
- Without discounting those who have been helped, I want to address those who have been hurt. To those genuinely offended and sinned against,
- 04:59
- I want to offer a sincere apology for several things. Now, let me stop here. I guess I'm going to start and stop.
- 05:05
- I guess that answers that question. Sometimes I just can't help myself. This is good.
- 05:11
- This is a good place to start because the reality is that whether you've hurt somebody or not, if you sinned against them, you should apologize for it.
- 05:19
- I'll just be honest with you, Thabiti, and I'm just going to talk to you as if you're face -to -face with me right now, even though you're not.
- 05:26
- I'll be honest with you, Thabiti. You've never offended me. You've never hurt me, but you have sinned against me and many other people.
- 05:35
- You see what I'm saying? For example, lots of people say lots of things about me ever since I've been doing this
- 05:41
- YouTube stuff. People have lied about me. People I don't know have said awful things about me.
- 05:47
- People I do know, people that were very close to me at one point, have lied about me consistently, publicly, overtly, just things that are demonstrably false.
- 05:57
- I can prove it and I have proven it many times to these people, but they still lie and hold on to these lies about me.
- 06:05
- It's just unbelievable. The thing is, when somebody lies about me, it doesn't hurt my feelings.
- 06:11
- When somebody calls me a racist or a white supremacist online, something like that, it doesn't hurt my feelings at all because there's no basis in reality.
- 06:19
- I feel sorry for you. I feel like you are so out of touch with reality.
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- It doesn't hurt my feelings when someone that's that out of touch with reality says something mean about me.
- 06:30
- It just doesn't. Now, it could hurt me in other ways. It could hurt me financially. It could hurt me career -wise.
- 06:36
- I probably would say that it probably has in a variety of different ways, but it doesn't hurt my feelings.
- 06:43
- I like what you said here, this last sentence, to those genuinely offended and sinned against, he wants to apologize.
- 06:51
- That's great. Whether or not you were offended, if you were sinned against, you should get an apology for that.
- 06:58
- Here's what he's going to apologize for. When I saw this article, I knew I was going to be interested in it.
- 07:04
- As I started to read, I'm even more interested and intrigued. Back to the article. He says, first,
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- I ask your forgiveness for writing out of fear and anger at times. God has not given us, hold on a second here,
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- God has not given us a spirit of fear. The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God, yet there have been times when either or both of those emotions have shaped my heart and my subsequent words.
- 07:29
- That's, I mean, honest, very honest. I think that if all of us were honest with ourselves, we would know that all of us have fallen prey to this as well, including myself.
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- Now, oftentimes, when I speak out of anger on these videos, and I think it's an inappropriate anger or an inappropriate fear or something like that,
- 07:48
- I usually edit it out. There's been a lot of videos that I have not put online that I've sincerely prayed about,
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- I've asked God for forgiveness for, things like that. To be honest, it's hard to discern the difference sometimes between a godly fear,
- 08:05
- I'm sorry, not a godly fear, a righteous anger and an unrighteous anger. Sometimes it's hard to discern the difference.
- 08:13
- So, I'll say this, I mean, I don't think you've sinned against me in this way. I think that your anger, whether or not it's unrighteous or righteous, that's between you and God, most likely.
- 08:24
- Again, it's hard to discern tone, it's hard to discern the difference between unrighteous and righteous anger, except when there's lies at play, you know what
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- I mean? When you're lying about someone, then it's very easy, but anyway, let's continue. Second, he says, I ask your forgiveness for writing in ways that were sometimes indiscriminate.
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- It's the responsibility of the writer to write in such a way that their meaning is unmistakable. There's a corollary,
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- I think. The writer should write in such a way that the persons he or she critiques, rebukes or admonishes should be unmistakable as well.
- 08:56
- One of the most painful things for me over the last few years is the realization that the lack of carefulness and specificity has sometimes injured people
- 09:04
- I had no intention of injuring. That's included members and leaders in my local church, persons in other churches that are dear to me, and people
- 09:12
- I've never met and some never sought to attack. My generalizations and lack of specificity have caused harm along with understandable frustration, discouragement, sadness, other reactions for which
- 09:25
- I ask forgiveness. Now to me personally, this is the most important one because this is the main criticism that I've given to Thabiti Anyebule.
- 09:36
- If you look at my YouTube channel and just type in Thabiti, you will see a number of videos about specific words that he said, specific phrases, articles, things like that, that he commits this exact sin where he makes these, let's just be honest,
- 09:52
- I'm going to say what it is Thabiti, racist generalizations, that's what you've done, race -based generalizations, in other words racism, and you've written about it in a pretty unapologetic way.
- 10:03
- Now you're apologizing here, and that's absolutely wonderful, and I stand ready to forgive that, absolutely, even though he really wasn't writing about my race, you know what
- 10:13
- I mean? So one of the things that people always say about my YouTube channel is that I'm in a position, since I'm not white, to speak where a lot of white people feel like they can't.
- 10:23
- Now you can, by the way, if you're white you can speak about these things, but I understand what you're saying. It's just a little bit more costly.
- 10:30
- It makes you feel like maybe you're kind of just trying to justify yourself or something like that, but this is the problem.
- 10:36
- Lots of his writing has been indiscriminate, has not been exact, and I've seen him in the past defend himself against this accusation.
- 10:44
- So it seems to me that he's admitting here that those defenses of him writing in such a way that is overgeneralized, that's indiscriminate, that those defenses were wrong, and so I am very appreciative that he's deciding to do that.
- 10:58
- So let's continue. He says, third, I ask your forgiveness for sometimes writing before I had sufficient details to comment effectively.
- 11:06
- I do not believe that having all the facts is a possible goal for leaders, but we should have sufficient facts before speaking or writing, or we should considerably qualify our comments if we must speak before we know enough.
- 11:18
- I should have been more circumspect at times. Failing to do so did not help matters and did not demonstrate the kind of grace or self -control incumbent upon Christians and Christian leaders.
- 11:28
- In some matters, the facts did not verify my view, and so my comments also misled at points.
- 11:33
- I ask anyone affected by this to please forgive me. This is a good one. Let's continue, and I'm going to come back to this second and third point at the end.
- 11:43
- Fourth, I apologize for my sometimes dismissive, disregarding, rude, impatient, and harsh tone on social media.
- 11:49
- The scripture is clear. Christians should not return reviling for reviling. I failed to keep my Lord's example, who, when mistreated, never said a mumbling word.
- 11:58
- Though the scripture enjoins us to answer opponents gently and patiently, I have done the opposite, and for that,
- 12:04
- I do sincerely apologize and ask for forgiveness. I'll just let that stand as it is.
- 12:11
- He says, fifth, I apologize for any ways I've misinterpreted anyone's motives, comments, or positions.
- 12:17
- I hate to be misrepresented, and I hate failing to accurately portray others. Where I've been made aware of any misrepresentation,
- 12:24
- I've sought to respond accordingly, but if any out there without access to me believe I've distorted their views or maligned their motives,
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- I do ask that you forgive me. If you would be willing to identify when and how I've misrepresented you,
- 12:36
- I would be eager to offer a retraction or restatement as the circumstance requires and allows. Now, I don't think,
- 12:42
- Thabiti, that you've ever spoken to me specifically or directly, but you've spoken, like you said, you've spoken to classes of people.
- 12:50
- And in an indiscriminate way, and I would probably fall into some of those classes. And so I'll just say, yeah,
- 12:55
- I forgive you. I forgive you for doing this. Please don't do it again. You know what
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- I mean? Please don't do it again. Don't misrepresent my motives. You know, don't like people's comments that call me a white supremacist, this and that.
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- It's just not true. It's so stupid. It doesn't hurt my feelings, like I said before. It's just so out of touch with reality.
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- So I would ask you not to do that again. But absolutely, yeah, I forgive you. No problem. He says, sixth,
- 13:23
- I want to ask your forgiveness for acting out of hopelessness. Frankly, hopelessness about the state of reconciliation and the pursuit of justice in the church has been my toughest spiritual battle until about a year ago when the
- 13:34
- Lord graciously convicted me of it. Prior to that, I had little hope of seeing some evangelicals support the cause of justice.
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- I have had little to no hope for genuine, honest discussion. That despairing attitude has been sinful.
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- It has been diminishment of the grace of God that I trust is at work in his people. Please forgive me. Forgiven.
- 13:52
- No question about it. Might I recommend, this is more of a joke, kind of, but not really. Might I recommend that you have a more optimistic eschatology, a more optimistic view of the church?
- 14:02
- I think that that is required for a Christian. Whether or not you decide to become a post -millennial, I think that you should act as if you were a post -millennial with a lot of confidence in Christ, a lot of confidence in the work he's doing in his church.
- 14:16
- One of the main reasons I do this YouTube channel is because I see so many willing to just trash the church, drag the church of Christ, the bride of Christ through the mud publicly on pagan news organizations, the
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- Washington Post, New York Times, things like that, and that pisses me off.
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- Okay? I really hate that. I hate when people trash the church. I absolutely do. It is so infuriating when people trash the church like that.
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- Regular Joes. You know, people don't, like, this is the honest truth, this is how I feel, and I think this is demonstrably true.
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- People want you to not talk about the leaders, the anointed class in evangelicalism, the teachers, the conference speakers.
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- You're not allowed to talk about them, but the people in the pews, the regular Joes, the run -of -the -mill folks like you and me, those people can be trashed all day long, and I hate that.
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- I hate that. That's the bride of Christ you're talking about. Let me let you catch me talking about my wife that way.
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- What do you think Christ is going to do? Anyway, so, yeah, that gets me all fired up, but I'm glad he's apologizing for it, and I hope he doesn't do it anymore.
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- Here's the final apology. Well, in this article. None of us have apologized for the last time.
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- Let's just be honest about that. He says, finally, I ask your forgiveness for offering this apology and seeking your forgiveness in so tardy a fashion.
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- Truthfully, I've known conviction and grief for a long time. I've justified not apologizing by thinking of the misrepresentation and mistreatment
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- I've received. Then I rationalized not apologizing by saying to myself that scoffers and the like would misuse even my apology.
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- However true or false those things may be, I know full well that I owed a confession and apology long ago, and I refuse to offer it.
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- That delay lacked integrity. So I ask that you might forgive me for withholding a confession when
- 16:05
- I knew it was owed to my all I've offended. I mean, absolutely forgiven.
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- No question about that. And I'm just glad that you did. Even now,
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- I mean, nobody should delay doing something that they know they ought to do. But that delay is also, it's too easy for that delay to become an excuse in itself sometimes.
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- Like, oh, it's so long ago, you know what I mean? Like, and then you don't apologize ever. And I think that, you know, there are people that will, you know, misuse this apology, and maybe you might consider this misusing it.
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- I don't know. I mean, I'm not trying to. But anyway, well written, well written.
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- Let's finish this article, and then I will go back to the first two that I mentioned. He says,
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- I offer this apology freely and genuinely. It's not offered in hopes of any return other than the forgiveness
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- I seek with those I've offended. Nor does it come as a result of any pressure, coercion, or force other than that graciously applied by the
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- Holy Spirit. I understand if some are unable to forgive me. I accept that this may be the consequence of my own actions where trust has been lost and not easily restored.
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- I accept that too. I do not feel entitled to either your trust or your attention.
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- In repentance, I accept the consequences of my action. Well, let me say this. I'm going to step out of the article. This is not
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- Thabiti talking. This is me talking. If you refuse to forgive Thabiti for that which he has apologized for and is attempting to repent for,
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- I'm going to say I don't understand that. Absolutely not. Thabiti might understand if you're unable to forgive them.
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- I do not. So you better forgive him for the things that he's apologizing for. You better. And you should look for repentance.
- 17:43
- I mean, he needs to bear fruit in keeping with repentance just like all of us. So if he continues to do these things that he's apologized for here, well then, yeah,
- 17:51
- I get it. I get it. I understand. But you have to forgive when your brother asks for forgiveness. It's just that simple.
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- That's one of my biggest criticisms of the woke church. They refuse to forgive when brothers have asked for forgiveness. And so we need to do the same thing.
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- I forgive you, Thabiti, and I think you should too. Not you, Thabiti. Other people who you're apologizing to.
- 18:11
- He continues. He says, I hope to reverse these errors and sins going forward. I hope you do too, and I'm looking forward to seeing it.
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- I commit to extending as much charity as I'm able in my writing. I do not intend to coddle or mollify, for that sometimes would be the sin of another sort, either flattery or dissembling.
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- But I do hope to be clear and perhaps confrontational without being uncharitable. I do hope to be incisive, but not judgmental.
- 18:35
- I do hope to state facts well while not wrongly extrapolating or generalizing. I do hope to make my meaning, audience, and subjects of critique unmistakable.
- 18:46
- Let's finish, and I'm going to address that point. For most of the last two years, I've been listening to the views of others.
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- While I've been active on Twitter, I've intentionally not engaged some discussions at blog length. I've benefited a great deal of my listening.
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- Much has been said. However, much still needs to be said. I hope to be useful to the Lord's cause, his church, and righteousness.
- 19:05
- As I say my part, I hope you will pray for me as I renew my commitment to pray for you when I write all for Jesus the beauty.
- 19:11
- Well, thank you very much, the beauty. This is a good article, but I have some advice for you because unfortunately,
- 19:19
- I think this article, even in the apology, commits some of the things that you're already apologizing for.
- 19:26
- So let's do this here. Let's take this last paragraph right here. Where he talks about, essentially, he's talking about repentance.
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- He's hoping to reverse these errors and sins going forward. Well, here's some advice for you, the beauty.
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- I know you didn't ask for it, but you're going to get it if you listen to this. He says, the last sentence of this paragraph,
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- I do hope to make my meaning, audience, and subjects of critique unmistakable. Now, I think it's not unfair to say, great.
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- I'm glad when you critique, you're going to make your subjects unmistakable. Now, this is actually something
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- I've been criticized for doing. So people would say, well, I don't like when you talk about Dr.
- 20:06
- Russell Moore, and you're beating up Matt Chandler, and you're beating up so it's and I'm like, well, yeah, but the thing is, like,
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- I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm talking to specific people and specific beliefs. So we, there's no such thing as disembodied beliefs, right?
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- Disembodied error. And so I'm going to be as specific as possible so that I do not do what the beauty is apologizing for here, being a little too general where nobody knows what
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- I'm talking about. So when I talk about Dr. Russell Moore and the specific words that he said, the reason
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- I do that is so that you know what I'm critiquing. I'm critiquing Dr. Russell Moore and people who believe like what he's saying in the article.
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- And so when I, when I do art, when I do videos about your words, the beauty, I don't do that because I don't like you.
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- I don't do that because I hate you, but I want people to know exactly who I'm talking about and the specific beliefs of who
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- I'm talking about. Now, the reality is the beauty that those on your side of this issue all do for the most part, what you are apologizing for here.
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- They all do it. They speak in overgeneralizations, whiteness is wicked, you know, things like that.
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- And, and, and this is stuff that within the last year, it's the beauty you've liked and you've participated in.
- 21:18
- You've talked about how encouraged you are about it. And so I, you know, I believe you that you're going to try to not do this, but you said you've been kind of convicted over the last year and you look at the last year and you've been guilty of all of these things.
- 21:31
- And so I hope that you can see that and that you can start to say, okay, this is where I need to improve. I need to stop cheering on people who say stupid things like whiteness is wicked, you know, things like that.
- 21:43
- That's just, that's racist and you've engaged in it. And so I'm glad that you're, you're apologizing for it. And I hope that you don't do it in the future.
- 21:49
- But what I wanted to say was he hopes to make his meeting audience and subjects unmistakable.
- 21:55
- Well, you can actually start adding stuff to this article, this apology, because here's the reality.
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- The beauty, the second thing here, you're, you're asking forgiveness for whiting writing in ways that are sometimes indiscriminate.
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- It's the responsibility of the writer to write in such a way that their meaning is unmistakable. What I think we need from you, the beauty, and I'm not saying that we need this in order to forgive you, but I think we need this in order to understand what you're saying in this apology.
- 22:23
- What we need are specific examples. You don't have to be exhaustive, but I'd like to see a specific example of what you're apologizing for here in your own writing.
- 22:33
- Because I can think of a couple things that I think you're probably talking about, but I don't know. Like, for example, for this, this second for, um, apology about writing in ways that are sometimes indiscriminate.
- 22:44
- I think you're, you're talking about things like that article where you said, I await your repel.
- 22:49
- No, no, I'm sorry. We await your repentance for murdering Dr. King white people. Like, I think that's what you're talking about.
- 22:56
- Cause that was a stupid title and a really bad article. I am not going to repent for the murder of Dr.
- 23:03
- King, not white, but even if I was, I would not repent of it because I didn't do it. Okay.
- 23:09
- And I had no feelings of hatred towards Dr. King. Nothing like that. I've never even murdered him in my heart.
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- You know what I mean? So no, I'm not going to do that. I think that's what you're talking about. So be nice. The BD, if you're going to practice what you say, you're going to practice over the next of the coming years to start with this apology, because this apology commits this exact thing.
- 23:29
- Your meaning is not unmistakable in the words of this apology, apologizing for not having an unmistakable meaning.
- 23:37
- I think we need some examples of this. And I think let's talk about the third point for a second. It's the same kind of thing he's asking.
- 23:45
- Okay. Here's the third point. I ask your forgiveness for sometimes writing before I had sufficient details to comment effectively.
- 23:50
- It would be great if you could give us one or two examples of this one too. It would be really nice because right now your meaning is not unmistakable.
- 23:58
- The BD. And so this apology, though, I feel like it's probably honest and heartfelt, and I think
- 24:04
- I know what you're talking about. I think it would be very helpful for all of your supporters and your critics to know what you mean, because I think the kind of thing you mean are the, as that Covington kid situation, remember when you call those, those, those, uh,
- 24:18
- Catholic boys racist. And then the facts came out and it actually wasn't like that at all.
- 24:24
- I did a video about it. I did a video about it. I think that's what you're talking about here or things like that.
- 24:29
- And it would be really nice to know that that's specifically what you're talking about. And I think it would really help the whole conversation, both your critics and your supporters.
- 24:38
- It would be helpful to know exactly what you're apologizing for here so that they can say, you know what, maybe
- 24:44
- I need to think about that in my own mind. Maybe I should think about those things in the times that I do that myself.
- 24:50
- In fact, I got on board with him with that Covington kids, the situation. And maybe I should, maybe I should think before I type.
- 24:56
- Maybe I should wait until they have sufficient facts. Like you say, I agree with you. We can't have all the facts before we speak.
- 25:02
- Just like I can't have all the facts. I don't know your heart. I don't know, you know, everything that you've ever said and the context of everything, but I know what you, you know,
- 25:09
- I wait until I know what you say until before I critique. And that's what I hope to do. And if you have examples of me not doing that in the past,
- 25:16
- I'd like to see them. And I'd apologize for them too, you know? So, so I think, I think we, we need to, we need more information to BD.
- 25:24
- I think this is a very, I'm glad to look, I'm going to forgive you for all of these things without more information.
- 25:30
- But I think it would be helpful for both your critics and your supporters to see what you're apologizing for. But here is the rub, right?
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- This is the risk that you run the BD. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to help you count the cost, okay? Of what repentance looks like in this situation.
- 25:44
- If you go into sufficient detail, the detail that we need, like if you say, yeah, I shouldn't have written that article about apologizing.
- 25:51
- Hey, white people, you need to apologize for murdering Dr. King. Or if you say like, I shouldn't have said that thing about the Covington kids and stuff like that.
- 25:57
- You run the risk of making some enemies on your own side, on your own side, where they're like, well, no,
- 26:03
- I still want to be able to say racist things and not apologize for them. You know what I mean? Like the real crazies on your side of which
- 26:08
- I do not count you as one of them. I don't think I ever have. I think that you're very wrong on a lot of things. I've critiqued you many times and I will continue to do so if I think that there's something worth critique.
- 26:20
- But, but I think that, that, that, you know, you, if you, if you do go, if you do take my advice and say, well, give me specific examples of what you're apologizing for.
- 26:29
- Don't just apologize indiscriminately. Because that's not really that valuable to anybody. If you do, if you don't just apologize indiscriminately, you run the risk of, of, of, of, you know, frankly, being a leader on the woke side that's willing to say, hey, maybe we've been wrong on some of this stuff.
- 26:45
- Maybe we've been wrong in some of our activities. Maybe we've been wrong to tell the church that you go to, I'm scared to worship with white people today.
- 26:53
- Like that's racism, man. That's sin. And I've pointed it out. I've pointed it out before.
- 26:59
- And so I think that you could be a leader Thabiti. Right now, you could be a leader in giving us some specific examples here so that others can look at that and say, man,
- 27:08
- Thabiti is apologizing for something that I do on the daily. Maybe I shouldn't do it anymore. And honestly, that's my biggest thing, man.
- 27:15
- That's my biggest thing. You know, I don't have a problem with someone disagreeing with me on something, but I do have a problem with people showing partiality in so much of their words, being willing to say untrue things about brothers, saying the social justice statement signers, they're motivated by racism, like Dr.
- 27:30
- Russell Moore said, and others and things like that, man. That's my biggest problem. When the church of Christ is slandered and lied and drugged through the mud.
- 27:38
- And unfortunately, you've participated in that. And so I'd like to see some specific repentance, some specific examples of articles that you say, you know what,
- 27:47
- I crossed the line there. I shouldn't have done that. Or tweets, I shouldn't have done that. Again, you don't have to be exhaustive, but some examples would be helpful.
- 27:53
- And I think that, you know, if you do that, you could be a leader on that other side that would be worth engaging. I also say this, you know, before I finish,
- 28:01
- I want all of my critics, you know, all of the people who know me personally, people who don't know me personally, to hear what he's saying here, what he's apologizing for here.
- 28:10
- This is why I don't do indiscriminate things like, oh man, those black evangelicals, they're all doing this.
- 28:17
- They're all doing that. I don't do that because race is number one. It's stupid, number two. And honestly, it's not honest.
- 28:24
- We need specifics here. So when I criticize Thabiti, you know I'm criticizing Thabiti. I quote him.
- 28:29
- I quote his words. You know what I'm criticizing when I criticize him. Do us the service of criticizing us specifically.
- 28:39
- Don't criticize classes of people that you have no idea whether your statements are true or not. Grow some backbone.
- 28:47
- And let's talk about this, man. If you're gonna critique us without talking to our faces, then do it naming names and quoting people and things like that.
- 28:56
- Or even better, let's have some conversations. Thabiti, this is not a criticism of you because you've had conversations with brothers you disagreed with.
- 29:03
- But so few on your side have. It's time to find your big point, big boy pants. Let's have some conversations so we can avoid this kind of stuff that Thabiti's apologizing for.
- 29:11
- We can avoid it if we would just talk. Anyway, I hope this video was helpful. I'm grateful for Thabiti's apologies here.
- 29:19
- And I hope to see some repentance in the way he writes going forward. Anyway, I hope this is helpful.
- 29:25
- God bless. You know,
- 29:44
- Thabiti, I'd love to talk to you one day. I really have. I really would, I should say.
- 29:50
- And so I'm gonna reach out to you on Twitter. And if you don't like me, you don't trust me, that's fine.
- 29:56
- I'm gonna try to figure out how to get ahold of you. But I'd like to talk to you about some of these things. And we don't have to do it on the air. That would be,
- 30:02
- I think, very helpful for the church if we decided to do something on video and things like that.
- 30:08
- I'd love to do it. And I think it would be helpful for the church. I think it'd be helpful for both you and I in particular.
- 30:15
- So let's do it, man. Let's talk. Let's talk. We can do it on CrossPolitik. We can do it on my show on the
- 30:21
- Fight, Laugh, Feast Network. I've got something else in the works coming up here. So let's do it, Thabiti. I think that would be very helpful to the body of Christ.
- 30:28
- And I think that we would get along, to be perfectly honest with you, Thabiti. I think we would probably get along if we got to know each other.
- 30:35
- But yeah, let's do it. I'm gonna try to contact you. And, you know, of course, I'd be glad to hear criticism of myself and my tone and all that stuff from you directly.