#WokeChurch Chapter 2 - Dr Eric Mason's Progressive Justice

You know, one of the things that I've noticed regarding the conversation, the debate regarding social justice is

that the social justice advocate side of this is either, it's one of two things, they

either don't get it, they don't understand where the debate really lies, or they do and they're purposely avoiding it.

I just saw a tweet from Phil Johnson regarding a Russell Moore radio interview

where he said that the signers of the statement of social justice, they're very active and zealous

politically for social issues, but they're against racial reconciliation, and, you

know, that's just a lie.

I mean, we've shown on this channel how Russell Moore consistently lies about the people who

frame the social justice statement.

I don't know why he's lying, but the fact that he's lying is very clear.

So, you know, it could be that he just doesn't understand, he just doesn't understand what the actual issues are, or it

just could be that he's just lying for some other reason, I don't really know.

But this is very common, in fact, I just finished chapter two of The Woke Church here,

and chapter two isn't that bad, actually, to be honest.

I think it's pretty good, it's basically about how justice and the gospel go together.

Justice is a major theme in the Bible, according to The Woke Church, and I would agree with that.

I think justice is a major theme in the Bible.

In fact, when Paul is talking to Governor Felix about the gospel, Governor Felix asks him about the gospel, he

wants to hear about the gospel, what an amazing witnessing opportunity.

And the book of Acts tells us that Paul talks to Governor Felix about three things.

He talks to him about self -control, he talks to him about the coming judgment, and he talks to him about

righteousness.

And so, you know, righteousness, justice, self -control, coming judgment, that's what Paul decided

to talk to a governor about when the governor asked him about the gospel.

Anyway, so this is a major issue.

I agree with most of what he had to say.

But it started to go off the rails here.

He starts off on page 51, he says, unfortunately, today, justice

seems to be seen as a liberal word, not a word that pervades scripture.

And this is, again, either Dr. Eric Mason doesn't get it, or

he's purposely avoiding the real issue.

I have my opinions about what Dr. Eric Mason's doing, but I'm not gonna tell you right now.

But that's actually not the case at all.

The people that are saying that Dr. Eric Mason is a liberal politically, or Russell Moore is a progressive

politically, it's not because they talk about justice.

We understand that the Bible talks about justice, too.

The reason you're called a liberal, the reason you're called a progressive, is because your idea of justice

mirrors what the liberal progressive's idea of justice is.

It doesn't have anything to do with the Bible.

I know you say it has something to do with the Bible, but it actually doesn't.

And this is very clear.

If you just go, right after he says this, he lists, it looks like, I don't know, 10 verses,

all Old Testament verses, which is a very good thing.

That's exactly where we need to be.

10 Old Testament verses that mention the word justice.

I'll just give you a few of them.

Exodus 23 .6, he says, you must not deny justice to a poor person among you in his lawsuit.

Deuteronomy 16, pursue justice and justice alone so that you will live and possess the land the Lord your God has

given you.

Leviticus 19 .15, do not act unjustly when deciding a case.

Do not be partial to the poor or give preference to the rich.

Judge your neighbor fairly.

All of these verses, there's like 10 of them.

They're all Old Testament verses.

They all mention the word justice.

And guess what?

All of them, if you ask the person who wrote them, how do you define justice?

They would say the law of God.

The law of God is how you define justice.

And Dr. Eric Mason knows this.

On page 54, he says this.

Moreover, this justice acts in accordance with God's law, with his

law, he says.

This justice acts in accordance with his law.

So Dr. Eric Mason understands that the law of God is the arbiter of justice.

That's what justice is.

And so I don't understand why him and his buddies are saying, well, if there's

income inequalities and racial disparities, that that's an injustice.

I don't really get that.

Because if you look at the law of God, it actually doesn't say anything about that.

That's why you're called a liberal, because you're borrowing from liberal ideas of justice and pretending

like they're biblical ideas of justice.

So you either, one, don't get it, or two, you're purposely misrepresenting things.

Listen to this.

This is the next page.

Right after he says that God's law is what defines justice.

And I'm interpreting him there.

All he actually says is this justice acts in accordance with God's law.

I'm interpreting that to mean that he understands that God's law is the standard of justice.

I'm trying to give him a charitable interpretation here.

But look what he says the next day.

He says this.

He says, doing inner city work keeps my eyes open to the justice gaps

daily.

I see fatherlessness, violence, literally on our front steps, educational challenges,

gentrification, redlining, and the poor having very little access to healthy food options

which impacts education and morality.

That is an interesting list.

That's what he says the justice gaps are that he sees every single day.

Let's do a list here.

Fatherlessness, violence, educational challenges, gentrification, redlining,

and the poor having little access to healthy food options.

Do you catch what's going on with this list?

He just said that God's law defines justice.

He just quoted 10 verses where if you ask the prophet, if you ask the person who wrote the verses, they would

say, oh yeah, obviously God's law, the 10 commandments, God's law defines what this is.

And then he says that fatherlessness is a justice issue.

Fatherlessness, violence is a justice issue.

Educational challenges, gentrification, redlining, and the poor having little access to healthy foods.

What's so interesting about this list is it's a mishmash of different things.

Some of them are justice issues like violence, for example.

If it's very clear, the Bible's with the 10 commandments, thou shall not kill, that includes hurting people, that

includes other kinds of violence, not just murder, right?

So yes, that's very clearly a justice issue, you know?

But fatherlessness is a justice issue?

On the one hand, it doesn't seem fair that some people have fathers and some people don't, but is it a

justice issue?

Where in the scripture do you get that fatherlessness is a justice issue?

What you do see is that treating people with partiality because they're fatherless, that is a justice

issue.

Yes, you actually have to treat everyone the same, according to the law, whether they have a father or whether they

don't, whether they're a sojourner or whether they're not, whether they're rich or whether they're poor.

But fatherlessness as a justice issue, that's interesting.

Educational challenges.

He doesn't explain what he means by that.

And actually, this is a common thing in this book.

Eric Mason's writing style is not my favorite.

He will just say something, educational challenges, like I'm supposed to understand what he means by that.

I guess I'm not woke enough.

I don't get what he means.

But educational, does the law of God talk about educational challenges as a justice issue?

He just said that the law of God is what defines justice.

And now he's saying fatherlessness and educational challenges are part of it.

Gentrification, gentrification.

So if Starbucks comes into, I don't know, Flatbush Avenue and

opens up a Starbucks, and then a couple of days later, you get a Panera Bread in there.

And so now the neighborhood's kind of conforming to more middle -class standards.

This happens in New York all the time.

And there's areas in New York that used to be more of a certain culture, and now

they're turning into white middle -class areas.

Is that a justice issue?

Again, I just, this is a mishmash.

Violence is clearly a justice issue, but gentrification?

You see, this is why we call you a liberal.

It's not because you talk about justice.

It's because you've adopted their view of justice without admitting it.

That's the sad part, because you just got done talking about the law of God, and then instantly, you're talking about

educational differences, gentrification, fatherlessness, access to healthy

food options.

Are you serious?

Are you serious?

This is the thing.

This is the problem that we have, because there's only two options here.

Either you don't get it, or you're purposely being sneaky here.

I have my opinion on what you're doing, but I'm not gonna say it, because I can't prove it.

Healthy food options which impact education and mortality is the fact that someone

doesn't have a healthy food option.

How do you define that?

Again, this is a very liberal kind of thing.

I don't know how you define that, because it's not in the scripture.

You just got done saying that the scripture tells you what justice is, and now here you are talking about healthy food options.

It sounds to me like you're talking about the Obama lunch package, the Michelle Obama lunches at school.

That's what it sounds like to me.

I don't know that you're talking about that, because you don't define it.

That's your style.

You just kind of put these talking points out there, very liberal talking points.

It's not the justice that we're saying you're liberal.

It's the actual content of the justice.

It's not the word justice as you say, because here's what he says.

He says, unfortunately, justice seems to be seen as a liberal word.

No, Dr. Eric Mason, that's not it at all.

It's the content of your justice.

It's not the word.

We all agree that God's word defines what justice is, and we love the idea of justice, and we

care about the Lord, and so we care about justice, but we care about a specific kind of justice, God's

justice, not this liberal nonsense, not this liberal nonsense.

It's not the word.

It's the content.

I got in the same conversation with those brothers from Native Speaks, right?

They were saying, well, social justice, and they wanted to talk about the definition of social justice all day long, and

say, well, aren't you for social justice?

And I'm like, yeah, okay, it's not the word.

The word doesn't matter to me.

It's the content, so we gotta get past this idea of, well, you're against justice.

You're against social justice.

No, I'm against the content of what you claim social justice is.

You're a pastor, brother, so let's talk about the scripture.

Let's go to the word of God.

You've already said the law is the standard.

Show me from the law where access to healthy food, however you define it, is a justice

issue, where fatherlessness is a justice issue.

I'm not talking about partiality.

I'm talking about the actual fact of fatherlessness, where poverty is a justice issue.

That's what I need to see.

I need to see that kind of, gentrification, for goodness sake.

I, look, I don't think I'm being too arrogant.

Oftentimes, I won't make absolute statements like this because I'm not that arrogant.

I will make an absolute statement here.

Gentrification is not a justice issue according to scripture.

You'd have to do some serious scripture twisting in order for that to happen.

Anyway, that's chapter two of Eric Mason's Woke Church.

I think he's just missing it.

I don't know why he's missing it.

Again, just like Russell Moore earlier, I don't know why he's lying, but he is.

I don't know why Eric Mason is twisting this and saying that gentrification is a gospel issue,

but he is.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful.

God bless.