AD on Russell Moore on Socialism - The 'ole Okeydoke (part 2)

Hello there, this is A .D. Robles and you're listening to A .D. on the Fight, Laugh, Feast Network. Alright, alright, well let's continue this response, review, reaction, whatever it's called, to the Russell Moore video on socialism.

If you remember last week, we did the first six minutes of this video, and I said that the video is essentially irrelevant. He defines himself in such a narrow way that it's just really not relevant to the conversations that are being had now.

He's basically saying, look, unless a government is officially socialist, and they own all the means of production and all of that, then it can't be socialism. And that's just not the case at all, because he even mentions a few things like social security, and what was the other one he mentioned?

Welfare, I think, socialized medicine, something like that. And he says, well it can't be socialism because we're not a socialist country and we have it. And it's just so stupid, that it's just so irrelevant.

And the reality is that Russell Moore, I mean, he has made a career out of putting out these videos and these podcasts that are so worthless. They don't really address any major issue. He seems to take a real strong stance, I hate socialism.

But then he defines it in such a way that essentially what he means is he hates communism. Oh, congratulations, you hate communism. But what about these other socialistic programs and things like that?

Well, he punts on that stuff. And the reason he punts on that stuff, well, we'll talk about that in a minute. But I think the reason he punts on that stuff is because he supports it. He supports a lot of socialistic policies, even if he's against full, complete communism and things like that.

It's kind of dumb, and he does this kind of thing all the time. He makes these videos that respond to positions nobody's taking. And he pretends like he's being this fierce lion for truth. And the reality is it's just a bunch of straw men.

He's the king of straw men. He's the king of the Mott and Bailey fallacy, the bait and switch. He's the king of that. It's just so unbecoming of a Christian to speak in this way, to position yourself in this way.

It's very political. I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Russell Moore one day runs for political office. And he's very skilled at being a politician the way the pagans are politicians. And so anyway, let's do this.

Distraction, Epstein, and UFO News

Oh, also, I want to say lots of things are happening right now. We've got this Jeffrey Epstein stuff, and we've got UFOs and various kinds of insane things that are happening. And I've got a lot of things to say about all of these topics.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if very major UFO-type news comes out publicly from the government and things like that very soon. Maybe we'll do a video later this week, and I'll talk about why I think that might happen.

I think it'll be a distracting mechanism. I think that the government's been studying this phenomenon for a very long time. They take it very seriously, even though they say they don't. They do. It's very documentable that they do.

And I think that they save this kind of stuff to be announced at a time when they need maximum distraction. And I think this Jeffrey Epstein thing is a time where they might need maximum distraction because that is sick stuff.

That is some sick stuff. And I've got to be honest with you. If you were surprised by this Jeffrey Epstein stuff, then you really just need to take a step back and realize that people have been talking about this for a very long time.

And they're kind of dismissed as conspiracy theorists and things like that. People have been talking about the Lolita Express a very long time, and his pedophile island and things like that. They've been talking about Bill Clinton being involved in this, riding the Lolita Express dozens and dozens of times.

People have been talking about this, but they get dismissed as conspiracy theorists. And it's just not the case at all. So I don't know. I think that there's going to be some crazy announcements, crazy distraction tactics that are going to be used very soon.

And eventually, we'll see what happens. But eventually, this Jeffrey Epstein stuff will have some fallout. It just has to. It just absolutely has to. Anyway, all that to say, let's get to the point of this video, finishing up Dr. Russell Moore's epic response to socialism.

He hates it. He wants to convince you that he hates it. But does he really?

The Early Church, Voluntary Giving, and the Limits of the State

So when you come to the New Testament, and some people will say, well, look, you've got the early church. They're sharing their resources. Yes, but this is not state action. This is voluntary, the work of the Spirit within people who are forming a counterculture.

Right. That's always the argument that people make. So Christians who call themselves socialists, they'll say, well, they all had everything in common. I mean, you know, they were sharing. Therefore, the New Testament approves of socialism or even commands it.

And he's exactly right. Russell Moore's exactly right. It was a voluntary thing. Voluntarily, they were forming this culture where they provided for each other and things like that. And the church should do that today.

Nobody denies that. I mean, Jesus, people were asking Jesus, what should they do and things like that. And he says, look, if you have food, share it with someone who doesn't. If you have clothes, share it with someone who doesn't.

Like this is this is this is very basic biblical commands from God. This is how we love our neighbors, how we love our enemies, things like that. But Dr. Russell Moore, do you see how confused you are?

I mean, I mean, honestly, you're supposed to be a careful thinker, supposed to be an ethics expert, things like that. Is Social Security voluntary? You say that's OK because most people say it's OK. So is Social Security voluntary?

What happens? What do you think would happen to me if I did not pay my 15 percent Social Security tax? What do you think would happen to me? What do you think would happen if I decided, you know, I'm not going to pay my portion of the welfare state?

What do you think would happen? It's not voluntary. The things that you say are OK. And so this is this is why this video is so irrelevant, because all these programs, he's like, well, most people agree that it's it's good to have a safety net.

The question is how much? Well, the Bible seems to indicate that voluntary charity, voluntary giving and things like that is OK, but not force giving. You seem to understand that in some context, but then what you give with one hand, you take away with the other.

It's either confused thinking or it's lying. I don't understand which one it is, but let's continue.

Since Ananias and Sapphira who are struck dead because they lied about having some some property and some money that they didn't bring into that counterculture. Well, the issue is not that they were being coerced into some sort of communistic system.

Simon Peter says that's not the case. You would not have had to do this, but you lied to the Holy Spirit. So the issue is they're giving an appearance that isn't actually the case. I also think that the Bible reveals limits on the state.

Again, doesn't detail those limits, but you have a clear limitation both in Romans 13 with what the state is given to do. And in terms of demonstrations of when the state oversteps those bounds in Revelation, chapter 13.

My goodness gracious. I just don't understand how he holds all this together. I mean, Dr. Russell Moore is a smart man. He's smarter than I am. No question about it. He's a smart man. So the only other option is that he's being dishonest on purpose.

And I tend to think that that is what he's doing to be honest. I'm going to reveal that right now. I don't often say this about people that I'm talking about. I don't often impugn their motivations. I don't do that very often, but there's been so many examples of Dr. Russell Moore flat out lying about people.

He lied about the people who made the social justice statement. He said that racism motivates them. There is no evidence, not even of one person that racism motivates them, but yet he's comfortable saying that kind of stuff.

People in his ERLC lie all the time. All the time. I just saw a tweet the other day from Karen Swallow Pryor basically just said that, you know, that white people, you know, they don't really care about poor people.

You know, they pretend to in the abortion issue, but they don't care about the plight of black people. And there's just no evidence of that whatsoever. Whatsoever. I just don't get that. So here's the thing.

Here's the thing. He says there are limits in the Bible of what the government should do. He points to Romans 13. What does Romans 13 say the government's supposed to do? He says it's not detailed. That's right.

It doesn't have to be detailed. Because we have a big book of law in the Old Testament that goes into some detail, but it gives us case law. And we can look at those cases and apply them to the modern context.

It's very easy to apply the general equity in many cases. Sometimes it's a little bit more difficult, but it's there. We have the case law so we can apply the general equity of those laws to the modern context.

It's exactly. It's not a one-to-one thing all the time, but the principles are there for us to use. That's the case law in the Old Testament. And then Romans 13, the New Testament says, what does it say?

It says the state is an avenger, a servant of God, an avenger. It says don't repay back evil for evil, evil for evil. Don't take vengeance on your own. That's what Paul says. He says vengeance is God's.

Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. And then in the next sentences, it says, because the state, the government is God's avenger to punish evildoer and reward the one who does good. That's the limit. It's a punisher.

It's an avenger. It's an instrument of wrath. It's an instrument of justice, not one of charity. That's the church. Because in the New Testament as well, we see the example of the church giving voluntarily.

You just said that Ananias and Sapphira, they could voluntarily give. They didn't have to. Their property wasn't owned by the church. It wasn't owned by anyone else. No one had a claim on that. The poor didn't have a claim to Ananias and Sapphira's money.

But they voluntarily give out of what they've been given by God. And so the state is an instrument of wrath. The church is an instrument of mercy. That's how it works. It doesn't have to be in every detail.

We don't have to have God say, well, Social Security isn't allowed. We don't have to do that because he's already said in Romans 13 that the government is an instrument of wrath, not of charity, not of a safety net.

That's the church. That's the church. Because the church is equipped to do that for its people in its community. The government is not. And it's not supposed to be doing it. God doesn't have to tell us that socialized health care is wrong.

Welfare is wrong. Social Security is wrong. He doesn't have to give us every single detail, every single scheme that human minds, evil minds can think up. God doesn't have to strike all of those down individually one by one.

All he has to do is say, here's what the government's for. It's for vengeance. It's for wrath. It's for justice to punish the evildoer. That's what the government's for. And so any kind of taxation that goes to any other duty besides vengeance and wrath and justice and punishing the evildoer is illegitimate.

We don't need God to give us every single detail. He gave us enough. And so why are you pretending like this is up for debate? It's not. And you know it because you're telling us right now. Sorry for being so animated.

I don't know. I just I just don't get. Let's continue.

Human Depravity, the Market, and Socialism's Economic Failure

So if we understand human depravity, that means that, yes, we're going to have a suspicion about what we can do in businesses. Nobody who has a clear eyed view of human nature would say that the market is morally neutral or that everything the market does will be morally right.

But if we have a clear eyed view of human nature, we would also say the state also is not exempt from that. And what happens in socialism is that the state tends to become nearly all encompassing in in dealing with.

Stop again. I'm sorry. I try to not stop, but I just have to. Do you see how he compares these things to the on round, you know, libertarians? They're just saying this market is always morally right. Everything that anyone does in a market economy is always right.

Like that's not what we say. This is what I'm saying. It's this is this is the bait and switch. This is the irrelevant straw man burning just nonsense that Russell Moore does all the time. No libertarian says that every action that anyone participated in a market ever takes is morally correct.

Nobody says that. What we say, though, is that the government has only certain things that it can limit. You know, if you have a marketplace and in the marketplace, people, one of the things that they do is steal from others.

The government can step in. It's not lawless. The government can step in and say, no, you can't do that. If you've got a marketplace and one of the one of the companies in the marketplace is constantly breaching their contract.

The government can step in and say no, because it's an instrument of vengeance. It's an instrument of justice. It can do that kind of stuff. Nobody's saying that just people should be allowed to do anything they want.

If you had a marketplace, a black market where one of the things for sale was was killing services, contract killings. Nobody's saying that that's morally right. See, this is the straw man that he's talking about.

Nobody's saying that. What we are saying, though, is that there are certain things that the government is not allowed to go into and regulate and things like that. And so in that case, the market is more, you know, biblically sound than than the government's intervention in it.

You see what I'm saying? And we would and we would look to the Old Testament case law to apply the general equity and things like that. So you see how he sets up these straw men. It's just so preposterous.

It's so ridiculous. I'm glad he agrees that the government can break God's law, too. Of course it can. And it does with Social Security, with the Tennessee Valley Authority, with with socialized health care, welfare.

All of those things are violations of God's law. It's it's it breaks the law against stealing. It also breaks the law against against. What am I trying to say?

Let's continue. But the economic aspect of life in a way that just doesn't work. Well, why? Because it's driven by an ideology that attempts to see the world through a purely economic lens. Marx and Engels and the Communist Manifesto have a utopian vision of upward progress.

And that ideology is why sometimes even very democratic socialists are reluctant to criticize authoritarian, thuggish socialist rulers around the world. Just as often people on the right are sometimes reluctant to criticize authoritarian, brutal right wing dictators around the world.

Is he serious? Give me one example. Give me one example. It's an ideology rather than a prudential understanding of how the world works. And that world works is important to me. It hasn't worked. Sometimes.

But why does it not work?

That's the question. And why? What is it supposed to look like? So if you know it doesn't work, you know what it's supposed to be, right? What is your standard? What is your standard? Because here's the thing.

God created the world in such a way that the economic laws that we have identified, that's the way it works. Because God created it to work that way. These aren't just brute facts. The laws of supply and demand.

The laws of scarcity. These kinds of things. These are things that God created. These were his ideas. So it doesn't work because God didn't create the world that way. That's why social security is completely evil.

It will never work because it steals from people and breaks God's law. God won't allow it to work. When your country is breaking God's law by their whole system, God will judge that. God will come in judgment there.

And so, you know, look, I mean, I'd love to hear his answers to these questions. I mean, obviously, I'm not talking to him. But it's just so muddled, isn't it? It's so muddled.

I just don't get it. People will say, well, it just hasn't been tried. They look at all of these previous socialist experiments and have said, well, what we're talking about just hasn't really been tried.

But that's not what people told us at the time. There were people who would come back from the Soviet Union and say, I've seen the future and it works. Didn't work. It led to the collapse of an entire nation economically and socially and also left behind rivers and rivers and rivers of blood.

So there are many other systems around the world that recognize that clear link between labor and reward. It doesn't mean that there aren't reforms that are needed within capitalist systems or non-socialist systems.

That's all true. And sometimes socialism can diagnose some things that seem to be true. And because of that, it can seem attractive to people. But I think it's only attractive to those who've never seen it really up close.

Russell Moore's Confused Case Against Socialism

That's the end of that. I'm not going to listen to this little end thing here. The question is, I'm struggling to think of what to say here because, again, I recognize that Russell Moore is more learned than I am.

He's better spoken than I am. He's better connected than I am, all of these things. And I want to be respectful because he's older than I am too. But you can see just the muddled thinking here. Let's just give him the benefit of the doubt and let's just say he's confused because I think that's actually the best case scenario, that he's confused.

He's confused in his own thinking and he's inconsistent in his own thinking because on the one hand, he tells us the Bible gives us these principles. It affirms private property. In Romans 13, it tells us what the role of the government is.

And on the other hand, he's saying, well, but it's not very specific and it doesn't really give us an economic system that we should do. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. By Romans 13 and by giving us these principles in the Ten Commandments of private property rights and things like that, it does give us an economic system.

It does give us an economic system. And the reality is you would agree with that, Russell Moore, because you would say, Dr. Russell Moore, I've seen you in other videos say the not quite truth statement that the Bible says you shall not enslave.

It doesn't say that, but you said that it does say that. You shall not enslave, but that's an economic system, though. You see, slavery was an economic system. It was an evil economic system in many ways, the African slave trade I'm referring to, but it was an economic system.

And so by your own words, you realize that you're confused because on the one hand, you say the Bible doesn't give an economic system. On the other hand, you say it does disallow certain economic systems.

And I agree. And socialism is one of them. Socialism is antithetical to the Bible. Even socialistic programs, when we're not a full socialism, like Dr. Russell Moore said, well, we're not a socialist country, but we have social security and things like that.

And it's like, yeah, okay, but those are socialistic programs. They're schemes of a socialist variety, and we might not be a completely socialist country. I grant that. Everyone grants that. But these kinds of schemes, health care for all, free college tuition, public schooling, grades K through 12, all of that, these are socialistic programs.

And the Bible says, no, the government can't do that. If they were voluntary, that would be one thing, but they're not. They're forced. If I don't pay my taxes, they will come for me. If I resist when they come for me, they will kill me.

This is forced. It's what you said was not allowed. You cited Ananias and Sapphira. What you said is not allowed is what social security does, is what socialized health care does, is what the Tennessee Valley Authority does, is what welfare does.

And so you're confused, Dr. Russell Moore. I just don't understand why you are. And so I do think that you are being dishonest, and I think you're intentionally being dishonest because, believe it or not, Dr. Russell Moore, you have an ideology.

You have an ideology. For some reason, I think you're desperately trying to make it biblical, and it's not. Look, Dr. Russell Moore, I'm not saying you're apostate. I'm not saying you are not a Christian.

I'm saying that you are inconsistent, and because you're inconsistent, your teachings are dangerous. People who are socialists, people who are Democrats, should be church-disciplined in the United States in the majority of cases.

They should be taught the principles of the Scripture that disallow their beliefs and the way that they're voting and things like that. And then they should be taught that. And then if they consistently, consistently refuse to repent and say, no, stealing is okay, no, this is fine, no, all this and that, if they refuse to repent, they should be church-disciplined.

I don't see how you could deny that because these systems inherently, objectively, obviously, intentionally break the law of God. All you have to do is look at the people who invented them and see what they were up to.

They were intentionally doing it. They wanted to unseat God and put the state as God. They have evil conceptions of what theology is and who God is and who Christ is, and so you can't marry that with Christianity.

You can't be syncretistic in that way. And the thing is, I wouldn't excommunicate people who voted Democrats or who consider themselves socialists right away. No, you have to train them first. We've failed in this in many ways.

We've failed in this in many ways. But you can't promote these things and engage in activism against the law of God for long and have any right to assurance of your salvation. So yeah, can someone be a socialist and be a Christian?

Yeah, God can forgive that. But as a pastor, you need to teach these people that socialism is not an option for a Christian. You need to know what to point to. You pointed to some of the right places, Dr. Russell Moore.

Romans 13 is a good one. That says that socialism is disallowed. Absolutely. Look at the case laws in the Old Testament. Those are valuable places where we can apply the general equity of those laws and say, yeah, you know what?

A system of government that makes me pay for somebody else's abortion is evil, and you can't vote for that. It's not that difficult. So what is Russell Moore up to? I think he's trying to distract. I think he knows that a lot of the social justice advocates have overplayed their hand in the past year.

They're going too far. They're getting too crazy, and so he wants to come out and say, well, I hate socialism, even while with the other hand, he says, a little bit of socialism is okay. I think he's running interference here.

I think Dr. Russell Moore is running interference, and he knows that if they continue to overplay their hand, he's going to be out of a job. He won't be able to run the ERLC for long, overplaying their hand as much as they continue to do.

Or maybe he will. I don't know. I mean, things have gotten pretty bad. Anyway, I hope you found this helpful. God bless. Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for AD on the Fight Last Feast Network.