#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 all, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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 a, what an amazing witnessing opportunity. And the book of Acts tells us that, 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, so this is a major issue. I, I agreed 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's today, justice seems to be seen as a liberal word, not a word that pervades scripture.

And this is again, either Dr. Eric, 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 going to tell you right now, but that's actually not the case at all.

The people that are saying that, 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 to, um, the reason you're called a liberal, the reason you're called a progressive is because your idea of justice mirrors what the liberal progressives 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, and, and, 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, uh, 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 at Exodus 23, six, he says, you must do not, 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 of 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 10, there's like 10 of them.

They're all old Testament verses. They all mentioned 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, his, uh, 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, you know, if there's, if there's income inequalities and, and, uh, racial disparities, that that's an injustice.

I don't really get that because the, 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.

He, he, what he, what all he actually says is this justice acts in accordance with God's law.

Uh, 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 with 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 me, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's do this to 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, God, 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 what the

Bible is, the 10 commandments, thou shall not kill. That includes hurting people. That includes other kinds of violence, not just murder.

Right? So, so yes, that's very clearly a justice issue. You know, um, but, but, but fatherlessness is a justice issue.

On the one hand, you know, it's, it's not, it doesn't seem fair that some people have fathers and some people don't, but, 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, whether 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 that actually, this is the, 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, 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, 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, um,

I don't know, Flatbush Avenue and opens up a Starbucks and then a couple of days later, you know, you get a

Panera bread in there. Uh, and so now it's, it's the, the neighborhood's kind of conforming to more middle -class standards.

This happens in New York all the time. And there's, there's areas in New York that, that, uh, you know, used to be more, you know, of a certain culture.

And now they're turning into white middle -class areas. Is that a justice issue? Again, I just,

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 you're instantly talking 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, this is the problem that we have because you're, 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 you know, I'm not going to say it because I don't, I can't prove it. Healthy food options with which impact education and mortality is the fact that someone doesn't have a healthy food option.

Now, how do you define that? 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. Now here you are talking about healthy food options.

It sounds to me like you're talking about the Obama lunch package and 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, 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 be, 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, the, you know, social justice. And then we wanted to talk about the definition of social justice all day long and, and say, well, aren't you for social justice?

And I'm like, yeah, okay. It's the, it's the, it's not the word. The word doesn't matter to me. It's the content. So we got to 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.

And 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. I 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, is twisting this and saying that gentrification is a gospel issue, but he is anyway.