Tom Buck and Jared Longshore on Approaching Pastors & Laymen on Critical Theory and Social Justice

All right, welcome to conversations that matter podcast My name is John Harris, and I'm honored to have with me today

Tom Buck aka as James White calls you the troublemaker from Texas and I didn't know that for a while I don't know who you were, but now

I do so you're infamous Then Jared Longshore from founders ministries appreciate the work.

You guys are doing. It's the peacemaker from Florida All Right, so we got a troublemaker and a peacemaker this is gonna be exciting so, you know, there's been a lot of conversation going on over the last week since it's been eight days since resolution 9 passed and all sorts of angles to look at this thing from and I kind of want to take a step back and not really talk about Resolution 9 but just kind of the

Southern Baptist Convention as a whole Advice for laymen advice for pastors because there's a lot of laymen and pastors who are concerned now who didn't know about critical race theory or intersectionality two weeks ago and now they do and So, how do we approach this topic and I wanted to start off if it's alright

I wanted to play a clip for you guys and we're not hearing it on our end. Are you're not hearing it? No Okay.

Well, I'm just gonna tell you what what he's saying You might have been in the room when this particular Thing was happening.

So Essentially the board the presidential search committee at New Orleans got up and was talking about their search committee and in the course of that he says that they had this many of this ethnicity and this many of this ethnicity and it was a great search committee because of The diversity of the search committee.

I don't you remember that when you were There and You know, this obviously didn't make headlines.

It's it's small potatoes. It's not a big deal but this in my mind kind of was just the flavor that I would

I'd get every time I Turned on the Southern Baptist Convention. It was some kind of you know diversity push of some kind and And so we've been talking about resolution 9 quite a bit

But I just wanted to take a step back for a moment and ask you guys since you were there You know resolution 9 is getting the headlines but is there a flavor kind of a backdrop to this that is just in the water or You know, where is the

SBC leadership you think on critical race theory intersectionality identity politics?

Like if you could put a percentage on it or give a further definition Tom Well, I mean

I I don't know how to really answer that question completely I think what you're seeing at the convention is A reflection of the leadership of the president dr.

JD Greer and Many things that I respect him for I think that I was you know,

I think he has pushed towards evangelism and every Southern Baptist Passionate enough about evangelism to have someone in their life that is there one as he's calling it to To reach for Christ.

I think is was one of the highlights and encouraging things but On the other side.

We know that Dr. Greer has consistently talked all year long about wanting to have diversity and every time that he is appointed a

Committee at least the times that I've seen it He's Heralded the fact that about the diversity of of that last year he used the very language of that we would find within those who hold a critical race theory and intersectionality when he said that we need to he talked about along with dr.

Moore with empowering women and Greer specifically said tear down the hierarchical structures.

Yeah, so I'm not going to say and I don't know what's in people's minds I don't know what's in their hearts.

Only God knows that sure. I don't know if if there is an intentional Employing of critical race theory and intersectionality that people have sat down and said we're going to bring this into the life of the

SPC but there is no doubt that the Concepts and the way of talking that you hear those who completely hold the critical race theory and intersectionality

Has been injected into the conversations of Southern Baptist life Infiltrated into the way that many of the leadership think at least in how they express what they're thinking and So that's why there's a huge concern for me with resolution nine because I believe we're already

Utilizing what they're calling analytical tools, but the world mindset is already there and I think you get that when you have reports

Like that from the seminary that says what makes what we're doing. Great is the fact that we are

Being diverse and how that we go about pointing a leader It used to be that qualifications were what mattered and that we didn't look at someone's

Ethnicity or someone's gender to be the qualification a qualification bar

Mark or whatever, but now it is and if it's not included it's considered to be out of bounds

So I I think there's a serious problem. I don't be interested in what Jared might say Yeah, it's a it's a hard question to answer because of What critical race theory and intersectionality are, you know?

They are these theories and I'm I don't claim to be an expert in it Neil Shinvey stuff has been very helpful to me

I read Richard Delgado's book Which was recommended by Jarvis Williams at Southern seminaries that I wish

I think some like he wishes every evangelical would read this book So I read that very good. I know

Curtis Woods who was the chair of that resolutions committee as a friend, you know I'll stand there trying to Speak for Tom's Amendment on the floor of the convention.

I know he saw me I texted him right after and said, you know, I love you brother And I don't believe that it's just an analytical tool.

I believe that it is a Philosophy that's contrary to Christ and we need to identify that before we're going to employ it as any kind of analytical tool

So you've got like the high -level people that are studying critical theory or going all the way back to Horkheimer in the

Frankfurt School Right are wanting to appreciate nuance and all that and then you got the way it shakes down in common practice and common culture

Where we begin thinking these categories and it begins to I don't what's interesting Colossians to where it says guard against these worldly philosophies

I'm not sure that people Know when they're being kind of discipled by this philosophy and so things kind of pop out here and there

That that don't sound right to somebody who's looking at the text and going that doesn't sound right and you can find certain

Themes in Scripture that might run along the lines. I mean we promise we do care about the oppressed.

We do care about Seeing that women are flourishing in Christ We do know that those who are given the homosexuality or are hardened and blinded and we want them to come out of that to Christ So it's interesting.

We're seeing a lot of the same Problems, but you have different solutions that are being offered and you you have to be able to speak clearly these things and acknowledge qualification

So I think that in some ways when I look at Southern Baptists that we were we were so stronger

Doctrinally when we began if you go back to 1845, right? Yeah, the first Southern Baptist Convention 293 delegates and every one of them came from churches or associations that held to the 1689 confession

Well, I mean we can't even talk about strengthening the Baptist faith the message a little bit right now without getting in trouble for being too doctrinal and so if you look at The 20th century the

Southern Baptists have been pragmatic our evangelistic strategy the presuppositions about how we engage the world kind of worked in the 1950s and now that culture has changed and I that's the concern is like we have some pragmatic presuppositions some theological

Malnutrition and the culture has shifted on us with a Bergafel and the way the world's thinking now and so I don't think that you know

I don't think that a bunch of the SBC leaders are Really well educated in critical theory and trying to advance critical race theory intersectionality some of them maybe but I think many of them are probably just used to functioning how

Baptist function and some of these ideas about Kind of get an egalitarian worldview

They're adopting them and they're speaking more and more in those categories. So that's a little bit of my thoughts about the lay of the land

Yeah, that's good. And I'm glad you left room there You mentioned either people are doing this because we can't judge necessarily heart motives and we haven't heard what everyone thinks

But it's not necessarily something that they're conscious of at least some of them it's just kind of in the water you just kind of absorb certain aspects of this push for diversity and so I think that's what

I was sensing now My my next question because I think setting the stage for knowing what we're dealing with is important How serious is this and I don't mean necessarily ideas

We know the ideas are serious, but as far as to what extent that they have reached in Southern Baptist life

Kind of what are we? What are we up against? If we want to sound the alarm about critical race theory intersectionality liberation theology, you want to start with that Tom?

Well, I think one of the things that we're against is that most people are ignorant of what those concepts mean

They're ignorant of their origin. They're ignorant of their world the the reality of the worldview that they both hold and And Southern Baptist, I'm afraid

I don't think the messengers had a good working knowledge of of what they were voting on if if the leaders aren't well versed as Jared said in Critical race theory and intersectionality.

I certainly don't think that the people that were messengers were it's kind of like this you know

Howard Hendricks used to say in preaching that a Mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew and I would say that a mist from that committee it's going to be a tremendous fog in Southern Baptist life regarding these things and We already have a world that's filled with pushing identity politics and pushing many of the tenants of critical race theory and intersectionality and So I think that it's going to seep in more and more

I compare it to this when I was Going off to Bible college in the 80s.

The big battle was we can employ worldly psychology Freud Skinner and we can use the tools that they give us to bring in to Understand counseling better as long as we do not allow those that worldly psychology to subvert scripture

Right, very very similar in in my thinking we were waving red flags

Then saying this is these analytical tools are not going to stay analytical tools very long now we have

Swaths of churches. In fact, I don't think most churches do biblical counseling Most of them do this integrated type thing where there's an eclectic approach and the problem with Worldly psychology is somewhat the same as CRT NIS and that is they both have a fundamentally flawed

Anthropology and if you don't have your anthropology, right, you will never get your soteriology, right?

And that's one of my biggest concerns about this agreed Yeah, yeah, I think it is a big problem pastorally

We are all over this in our church and it's not it's not that we want to it's not about just discipling our people to understand what critical race theory is or critical theory or intersectionality or even radical feminism

It's it's that I remember hearing when I was yeah I don't know how long ago this was right when

I was had my first child. I was listening to Ted Tripp and he was talking about shepherding child's heart and he said, you know, we live in an egalitarian world and an egalitarian world

Here's how you think about authority You know You can have authority over me if you're stronger than me or you can have authority over me if I let you have authority

Over me, but he's like we don't live in an egalitarian world. We live in a hierarchical world, right? Hierarchical world and my mind was just blown, you know, there's a book called

The Accidental Feminist I was like the accidental egalitarian worldview guy. I said, yeah, we live in a hierarchical world and so it's not surprising to me that we've had people at the highest levels of the

SPC saying let's tear down all hierarchy and saying kind of Buying into that way of thinking.

I think our people I don't think it's just a problem with the leaders of the SPC I think it's indicative of what's going on in the churches

You know, I'm kind of known for You know and love for our flock kind of Elbowing Disney princesses constantly because this is this is all that happens

I mean you track down every single princess story and there's some ignoramus dad That's standing in the way of her being free of her doing whatever that she real love

Patrick Dineen, he's a professor. I think at Notre Dame wrote a great book called why liberalism failed and he talks about this like Deconstructing of all hierarchy, so I think it's it's just there in so many ways there's there's a very popular song about Was it the greatest showman thing and this woman singing about you know?

She was she was kind of put down and she it's very clear She was oppressed and she said I know I deserve your love because there's nothing

I'm not worthy of And I said what in the world we've got people singing this and not thinking about it Let it go thing with Elsa, you know, no, right.

No wrong. No rules for me. I'm free It's all about being freed from this kind of oppression

So I think the worldview is set in deep and we have to we have to help people

Understand God's hierarchical world the way he's designed it Yes, there are victims.

Yes, there are the oppressed We have to think about this in categories of God's holiness and our sinfulness and human depravity and and then apply right solutions

I Couldn't agree more and this has been going on Predating terms that even existed like intersectionality and critical race theory this march towards egalitarianism autonomy freeing oneself from the constraints of nature and the constraints that God has given us in his special revelation, so so it's coming in from the culture like you said and And so as you said

Tom We need to educate first and foremost, so I have a specific question

I've gotten this a number of times Let's say there's a layman and they're sitting in church and their pastor and this has happened many times starts to preach some egalitarian messages from the pulpit or things that just they just don't sound right and they sound like they could be from this worldview that You know allies itself with intersectionality and critical race theory so forth.

What should that layman do? What's step one? Tom Well, I think step one is to seek clarification

I do think that one of the things that happened on My side of the fence so to speak those who were passionate about trying to defend every form of truth we can

Quickly began renunciation instead of seeking for clarification. So I think that you always start there

I think you don't make assumptions. So you need to go have a conversation Hopefully and this is what is a little concerning to me in Southern Baptist churches is hopefully they would have an elders a group of elders because I think that a group of solid men who are

Qualified according to 1st Timothy 3 and are grounded in the word We'll always think better together in in sharpening one another than one guy at the helm

So it does bother me a little bit that I think our ecclesiology is going to be Lead to more dangerous use of things like this

But I think you go to clarify if you have elders you go to clarify with them I would not go in accusatory fashion.

I would go like it's clarifying asking questions What what did you mean when you said this and and I think it's fine to say, you know

This is the world's view of this. Where do you where are you finding this in Scripture? And why didn't you? Express it the way you did.

So clarifications where I would begin and then Depending on what you get from answers from that will depend where you go

Next Jared might have further thoughts and talk about what do you go with? Where do you go next if yeah, Jared what if your pastor says

I Disagree with you and I'm going to keep promoting

Racial reconciliation which means the church to meet needs to be involved in reparations or I'll give you a specific example of someone who came to me

You need to apologize to someone else in your church Who shares a last name with you because that must mean that your family owned their family 100 years ago 200 years ago

And the pastor just says I'm gonna hunker down here and I think I'm sticking to truth, where do you go after that?

Yeah, if it's a if it's on the the specific example of reparations or saying that you need to apologize to somebody who you have

Not wrong, then you have a problem in those two in those two cases So you you know if your pastor if you make sure

I clarify if your pastor stands up and says Hey you you white person has the same name as a black person in your congregation.

You need to apologize then Just for having the same name because of what might happen in your great -great grandfather

That would be shocking to me if a pastor said that if he doubled down that on that and that's a big problem

So yeah, I would Try not to be easily offended and just go sit with your pastor and say well by by what standard am

I to apologize? I want to confess my sin. I want to repent of it I hate my sin and want to kill it, but I don't want to get caught up in trying to kill fake sin

I got too much real can't so it's in Phil good answer And so I would be very gracious to him and like try to peer out and hopefully he sees that and then you deal with The book you have the standard

Yeah, you do need elders and again anytime in a broader deal with this clarification.

I'm with Tom That's exactly right and get and go directly to the pastor with that. Don't don't think well

Let me go ask a whole bunch of other people in the church He wouldn't think and then go to him You need to go sit directly that pastor and you probably would get it resolved and if you don't get it resolved well, then meet with the pastor and another elder and and see if he's willing to do that can we sit down if you still have pressing questions and this is a troubling this is a tough spot because yeah

I mean if if your pastor gets some says Micah 6a, you know, what does God require of you to do justice?

Love kindness walk humbly with your God He's not a critical race theorist, right? So I do think there are people that will that are that are hot and that are that are gonna think that way

So you want to it's a merc in some ways because it's a philosophy It's kind of a murky area make sure like you did the specific examples great reparations if somebody's advocating for that That's a big deal.

We need to sit down and talk about the book. What's it mean to? Restore check out founders .org.

By the way, we talked about reparations You can go to our the sword in the trial podcast and what's the difference between restitution and reparation?

Let's have a Bible study Let's look at the text in the Old Testament. How did this operate in the Old Testament? How should it operate now?

And and so patiently deal with that get clarification go to the pastor first if their tension is still big enough it's a big enough issue bring in other elders into that conversation and then

Go from there. Let me say as well that As we clarify things here that this what we're both saying what all of us on the side have been saying is that there we have to have a

Standard and the standard has got to be God's Word It's got to be the law of God if we do not allow

God's Word to be the standard Then critical race theory or sexuality begins to be the standard

That's one of the another thing the resolution did not articulate it talked about Scripture as a whole it would have been great if it had said the law of God is the thing that determines finally what you know, how we

As the standard for making our judgments But I want to say this about just a type of church

Not only I believe ecclesiology is so important even when we're talking about issues like this as I spoke about elders

But even back to the issue of how we handle Scripture Everybody needs to be in a church

Where the pastor is handling the scripture in an expository way now I'm not talking about preaching through books of the

Bible Although I that's what I do and I think that it's a better way to do to preach expository But I'm talking about where that we do not add nor take away to the text we allow the text to speak it to be the standard and if the pat if you have a pastor that is up preaching and Can get all kinds of crazy things out of any other passage

Then I'm not going to be real surprised if he also finds a way to squeeze critical race theory into Amos 5

So I I think that we we've got to be sure that we're in churches that are truly preaching the

Word of God In a way that teaches people how to rightly handle the Word of God because there's a lot of bad

Application taking place because there's a lot of bad interpretation going on Let me switch the scenario just a little bit.

I this is another Story that someone told me who was directly involved but Southern Baptist Church plant

Baptizing some lesbians that weren't repentant, but they're hopeful the Spirit of Lord will work on them and Pastors confronted on it.

No, I you know, I don't I think this is fine. We're gonna handle this We're gonna work on them sanctification will have its process and I realize we don't know all the ins and outs of this story but let's just assume that the pastors grounded the leadership is supporting this and It where does where does it become an issue of church discipline

How should a layman approach that with a pastor because that that is a hard I mean you mentioned getting another elder involved

That's intimidating for a layman and and this is a question. I've been asked is how do I bring my pastor up for church discipline?

We've had these discussions Whoever wants it I'll let

Jared take that one Yeah Well, we are Baptists.

I believe Galatians 1 Paul is writing to the churches and therefore the church has this a final authority when it comes to that man preaching faithfully

When it comes so so that the way you're the way I would counsel a layman to conduct himself when it comes to and Pastor who is an error

Is going to differ based on the significance of the air in the example that you gave of Baptizing and woman, who's an unrepentant

Lesbian well, I mean if that's very clear and she's continuing in a lesbian relationship

And she's not moving out of being with this person and they're continuing to have sexual morality together

Well, yeah, you don't you can't do that. So right that's a significant deal.

I would go meet with the pastors I would say I stand in opposition to this we need, you know We don't have to be perfect people, but we do have to be repenting people and this woman is in an open public lesbian relationship with somebody so So you have to deal with it you go to the pastor and say this is wrong this is an error if he says no way it's not then you follow the course of Matthew 18 and Gather another person in and go sit down with that pastor again and say this is wrong.

This is an error You know, I would be willing to double down on an issue of baptizing people who are in public grievous sin

Yeah, I think that first of the five obviously in Correlation with Matthew 18 because I think it's pointing back to that Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses so it's extremely important that again clarification goes on and you follow

God's word that God's words are standard and how we Handle this and then once you've called another elder in if if it is truly egregious and a violation of God's Word and how that those things are being handled and you follow through what first Timothy 5 says as For those who persist in sin rebuke them in presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear.

So I am NOT Exempt as a pastor from being held accountable to the congregation for what

I teach and what I say and I'm respond and that doesn't mean that I don't make errors and speaking sometimes errors even in What I might preach therefore,

I'm responsible to be held accountable to the congregation and I'm responsible to repent so if a pastor is

Abusing the gospel, which I think that's what it is. If Baptizing anyone

I don't care Even if the Homosexuality to the side if they're baptizing someone who is not repented

Then that's a huge issue and I would go to I would say that that's been going on a lot long prior to a situation with with lesbians and part of what the problem is is that we've been asleep at the wheel for a long time regarding these types of things of protecting the doctrine of the church, so Anyway, I would add in in cases of like baptizing people that aren't repentant, too

I would want I would call people to patience and clarity again Because especially with a with our

Baptist understanding that we baptize we're seeking regenerate church membership What does it mean someone to have repented?

so, you know if I were to dig around in that story a little bit and find out that hey this lady has as Confessed her sin and it's wrong and she's moved out of this home and she's you know

Trying to not contact this lady and she's gone on a while and doing that but she admits that she still has same -sex lust in Her heart, but she's trying to put that to death and hey

She happened to text her a couple times and she shouldn't have her know and then they say well We think she's repenting and she's trusting a little bit baptized and then somebody else is well, that's not repentance, right?

so you can have you can get in all kinds of issues on what second Corinthians 7 means with this what is the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow and I would

I would Encourage in those kind of situations where it's not crystal clear like she's not blatantly in this public relationship

You need to defer to the elders and you need to defer to those who are on the ground in those conversations

They know they know more Elder we help our people understand. Mm -hmm

You just know your elders are gonna know more about these discipline cases Then you are as one of the members of the church and certainly we want to give you as much information as necessary When we call for the church to act

But keep that in mind and the 1689 confession is helpful on this that at times when there's real conflict in a church to bring in other churches, though, we believe that every church is autonomous and Jesus has given the keys of the kingdom to that congregation

There's still great wisdom and saying let's bring in other elders and get outside perspective. So that's another option

Great work. I agree. One of the tendencies that I've noticed is Laymen who get upset about something in this case where I mean we could talk about a number of issues

But we're talking right now about kind of a political movement Sociological movement so forth coming into the church they hear something on Sunday that offends them or they maybe it's legitimately not right and they just leave and They don't follow these steps

And and I think what you're saying and I would agree with it is this needs to be followed and pursued if it's pursued

Would you agree? And you know, they don't get anywhere the pastor and the elders are kind of entrenched

They're going to follow something that's unbiblical a philosophy that is not in accordance with God's Word.

Do you leave that? Do you make the decision that we need our family needs to go somewhere else? I think the answer might be obvious, but Yeah, it's going to depend on the issue for me.

So it's just how how significant is what's going on? so you got to really take that with Kind of issue specific and what

I would counsel somebody to do You sure sure. Yeah, and I'm this is a big tent

We're talking about this the social justice movement broadly speaking But yeah, a pastor is let's say going to hold the critical race theory and you take the first example you need to apologize to this family and You know,

I'm not budging You know there comes a point I think that you know as a

Husband I would say, you know what? I can't have my wife under this teaching because it might it might not be good for her and I've tried everything

I can do So so I know there's laymen having a hard time sometimes either breaking those ties or breaking them prematurely and So what

I hear from you guys is Matthew 18, right? Just well as for one passage and I obviously said first Timothy 5 as well

Of course, that's yeah the elders responsibility to help over oversee that that's part of the problem of what or one of the reasons why you need a plurality of elders because who's going to carry out first Timothy 5 19 to 20 in really examining those things if it's if you don't have that But I want to I want to issue word of caution in regards to this because having been a senior pastor for 25 years,

I've run into all kinds of people who just aren't happy anywhere and They're they always are finding a reason of why this little doctrine or that little doctrine is all here there

And I think that it's very common for people that are Passionate about truth to become very very narrow in there in in the way that they

Flesh that out of who they can fellowship with so one of the things I always tell people is What if you had nowhere else to go?

What would you do? and I think that's always a wise thing to think at the beginning because we just have to be able to pull up and run down To another church down the street and if we had nowhere else to go

Hopefully what we would do is follow the tenets of Scripture Try to be very clear about issues of conscience that we can

Allow for freedom in and as Jared said how important is the particular issue?

how how critical is it to the foundations of the faith and the gospel so It's I want to be really careful in how we answer this because I know there's some people who don't grab

Yep, if you've got a church that's doing a certain thing pushing CRT and I and intersectionality run because They will they will do it at the drop of a hat so many people and they won't do it in a way

That's godly and honoring and it were to tear the church up than it will to help Bring clarification of the gospel and strengthen the church

Yeah, you know on the CRT it's interesting one of the show how this is a really tough

It's a really tough topic to think about how to how to work it out in the church. We need wisdom humility prayer fasting all that because one of the one of the principles of CRT is the least in Delgado's analysis.

Who's a common who's a modern -day critical race theorist He says, you know that there is a competency that is given to people of color when it comes to addressing racism

Well, think about think about what a fine line we're walking. I've tried to say Okay, the the problem is we it is not competency

We're not going to we're not going to use the language of competency when it comes to address a sin

That if you're a certain skin color, you know, if you're white Well, you have more competency to address this issue.

And if you're black you have more competency to address this issue However, it is true that in our land

African -american people have suffered greatly of the the sin of racism has been against them Throughout slavery and Jim Crow and all of that And so should we not listen to people that have experienced something that we haven't well, absolutely

We should right I mean and so, you know, it's such a loaded stuff So the pastor comes on says we need to have an open ear, you know

Cuz look if you're a white person you hadn't experienced some of these things used to be have an open ear You'd be patient. You'd listen the quick listen slow to speak and I don't want somebody going.

Oh, he's a critical race theorist So it's they're fine points and especially at a layman's level.

It's like, okay be patient But but yeah, you do need to get wisdom and counsel because these are issues that we're facing

But Jared, let me ask you this question. See if you agree with this I believe that and maybe I'm being Pollyanna in this view, but honestly believe the vast majority of People in evangelicalism and particularly pastors and local churches that are

Talking in language of CRT and is it's out of a true heart of compassion for people that are have been suffering and so they're

They're employing things not to try in nefarious motives to try to infiltrate the church with this evil ideology out of a heart of care and concern of Individuals like I've talked to that shared with me how they have been they've suffered levels of abuse at the hands of law enforcement and I mean stories that I have absolutely verified there's

There these individuals are being honest and a lot of guys are just responding out of a heart of love and compassion

That doesn't excuse using CRT and is but I think that's really what's going on in most cases.

Would you agree with that? I I would agree. Absolutely and and I think you know one of the one of the

Things that I that I think we talk about using as an analytical tool I don't know that I don't even know that CR I'm saying

I'm not using CRT now as an analytical tool But one thing I think people are getting at that are trying to emphasize

That might I even that I might disagree with one thing I want to grant them is that we actually

I think it's the people that believe in a hierarchical world So for egalitarian, here's my pencil. We're egalitarian and somebody here is mean to somebody else

Well, okay. There's a wrong done and it needs to be dealt with That's the egalitarian world but if we live in the hierarchical world and we say oh

We know that there are abuses of power and when there are abuses of power

It's worse than if you were just in an egalitarian world and it's like the people that understand that God's world is hierarchical should be

Should be the guys that are that are really keen on seeing when there's some kind of oppression and even understanding how mercy and Compassion work in that and that we don't want to cripple anybody.

That's that even is a victim We don't want to develop a victim mentality But we do want to acknowledge when there are people that don't have all of the advantages and that does complicate your life

We went and planted a church a few years back in a really tough area and I was just struck

You know, it feels like wartime gunshots every night People that didn't have fathers or grandfathers that taught them just basic life stuff people take their

Children to the hospital didn't know they were supposed to take the children to the hospital when they were in really bad shape when they Did didn't know that you're supposed to pay money and you know, here you are

I mean, how can you not have compassion say? Oh my goodness. This person needs patience and sympathy and or empathy or and so I think there's

Some people are trying to get at that and I don't want to be quick to be like, oh you're cultivating a victim mentality well, you may be and we need to guard against that but it's like I Think the guys that understand the hierarchical design of God's word world and the way authority works man, we need to be the

Kind of leading the way and caring for the the widow the orphan the oppressed I'm just gonna make a quick statement here about critical race theory

This is kind of how I see it It assumes and this this is not Comprehensive, but this is four things that it assumes that legal cases should be decided according to group identity instead of equality before the law

That biblical hierarchy is oppressive, which you just talked about Jared That children should pay for the sins of their parents and that it is morally imperative to decenter

Majority cultures and and of course I can put Bible verses next to all four of those to show that it is completely 180 degrees away from what the scripture says about all of those issues and My concern this is maybe stepping back to get a big bird's -eye view

Is that the only hierarchy that's going to exist if critical race theory and just critical theory in general were to take its toll?

is the hierarchy between a federal government in our case or just some kind of grand court that is going to arbitrate these things and the individual and us and I mean hierarchy is inescapable.

You're gonna have it but we've just gotten rid of God's design for families and churches, etc and and so I mean

This is where I think it's going politically and to see it in the church and to march through institutions And I'm just gonna say

I think I mean I was a Boy Scout. I love Boy Scouts I think it's going through the Boy Scouts. It's going through the NFL It's going through like all the institutions in our country on some level in some way for it to come to the church

It's concerning as someone who's been watching this for years and and I've talked to other laymen who

That's kind of the way they look at it They've been paying attention and now they're pastors saying things that are that seem in line with that And so I so I appreciate what you said be gentle.

This is probably good motivations for a lot of these guys But it's it's destructive. I mean fascism had some good motivations behind it.

Initially a lot of bad ideas do So anyway, I guess where I was going with that is

When laymen or pastors come to you guys who want to spread the word about the the message

Of critical race theory to educate as you were saying needs to happen Tom What resources do you send them to how do you advise them to do it?

So layman first and then pastors You gonna start Tom Uh, well as far as repeat your question of how to advise them to do what again?

Yeah, so if they want to educate So if you're a layman and you want to notify your church leadership, hey, this is a threat and it could be coming to our church

Maybe it isn't yet, but I haven't heard anything What resources would you put in their hands or what kind of things would you tell them to do in?

Approaching their leadership and then vice versa for a pastor who wants to educate their congregation Well, I would be honest and I'm not just saying this because Jared's here but I think

Founders Ministries and Is what is probably the place to start especially in Southern Baptist life?

Even for layman because this is such a hard concept to get your mind around anyway Critical race theory intersectionality.

I mean goodness gracious I'm just really beginning to scratch the surface myself of understanding it better.

So Jared can probably tell you exactly where to go, but there's been a couple of different conferences that have been done and they can find videos where Josh Bice, Vodie Bauckham, Tom Askell have all spoken on these issues in ways that I think are

Non -inflammatory They're not incendiary in any way They're informative and and completely biblical.

In fact, I have a Particular pastor for example, who was very leery of some of the ways that I was talking about The concerns

I had around these things and I pointed them to a couple of videos on Founders Ministries and they came back and said oh now

I get it I see what you're saying. This is very helpful and they found it to be very balanced So that would be where I would send people immediately and and and sending people good.

Yeah, that's fine You can go to founders org and then you will contract down on our website

The talks we had a conference down here in Florida the Southeast Founders Regional Conference where Vodie Bauckham addressed racial reconciliation he addressed ethnic

Gnosticism term he's coined He addressed cultural Marxism Josh Bice dealt with complementarianism.

I just addressed the sexuality issue, but it was that conference was all about Micah 6 -8 How do we really do justice and?

And then Tom's given a talk I believe on white privilege Vodie's given a talk on social justice.

It's really good. So try to track those down just in the past year We also have a YouTube channel so you can go to YouTube go to founders ministries and find all of our content there and Then in our podcast the sword in the trial we walked through every

One of the articles and the statement on social justice in the gospel that was published

I guess last year sometime We just dealt with every article Tom and I did trying to get to the root of these things and we've addressed

Intersectionality critical critical race theory I would recommend, you know If any layman's getting stirred up on this and there's a pastor, that's just not quite sure

There there it does It does require wisdom, you know, it's it's easy to it's easy to say well look at this pastors, you know, not with it

He's a coward because he won't talk about these things When there's a when there's a battle if your church is strong We know for instance, we're gonna get eat because we've talked about this but by God's grace

Tom's been pastor in Grace Babs Church for 30 -something years and and The church is strong and healthy and we're able to speak to some of these issues

I would say be mindful. You don't want to put your pet, you know You you don't want to say pastor if you're not speaking about these things, you're not being faithful Well, he he can be leading and shepherding and addressing them

So have those conversations with them But be patient with that and think about where your pastor is on on these issues.

I was sent this I don't know if you can see it's called social justice verse biblical justice by Calvin. I think it's

Beisner I don't know if you've seen that it's got resource yeah, and I it was suggested to me that this would be a good thing to hand to layman if you're a pastor and for You know layman who's concerned to hand to their pastor or elder team?

Jared what's the book that? Doug Wilson did it justice. Yeah justice a justice primer.

That's excellent. Justin because that's coming up principles of justice Especially the sexual abuse stuff is fascinating to me and people don't want to it's you know

This takes courage because people don't want to talk about biblical justice. What does it mean to have two or three witnesses? Well, I mean sins and crimes

What's accountable witnesses? What does that? What does that have? What does that mean? So that's a great book on that resource

I'd also point people to Melvin Tinker's book Called that hideous strength how the

West how the West was lost. He's riffing off of CS Lewis's that hideous strength And Tinker is like an

Anglican guy. I think from England and boy we read that's very small and he gets into cultural mark cultural

Marxism He boy, he's it's a very small boat, but it's packed full of good stuff.

All right Question for you about the convention itself in 2020 and you can take this in any direction you want, but there are some churches out there and some pastors and congregations who have been educating themselves and there are some churches that will start to educate themselves now that they're aware because of the resolution 9 and And they're probably going to want to vote for a president in 2020

They're they might want to change the direction of some of the things going on in the Southern Baptist Convention You may have layman show up.

I mean, that's that's the hope I guess I would have at least Is there is there?

Kind of a preliminary plan. I know founders is doing a documentary that you guys want to get into the hands of layman

I know I've talked to judge Saul and they're doing a documentary kind of more broadly But they want to get that into the hands of layman

What is what's the plan? You want to start Jared? We don't have one

Pray preach, you know, I mean, but we're pastors. So when you say what are we going to do? We're gonna preach the word. We're gonna shepherd the flock of God.

We're going to talk pastors we're gonna pray and we're gonna counsel and I am

I'm encouraged by a number of conversations that I'm having with guys that are in the SBC at different seminaries and different organizations

My read on it Is that a lot of even even even guys that might think the founders is a little too

Outfront a little too strong on these things even guys like that are going. Hey, you know, we got something in the water

We got a problem, you know, so I'm kind of encouraged by that So when it comes to the upcoming

SBC, I do think it's a significant one So I would say yes, we need to it'll be interesting.

The presidency thing will be fascinating and the way that goes You know, we

I think one strategy is we need to talk about what it means to be a joyful warrior We need to we need to reconsider our evangelistic strategy.

Look at the book of Acts How did how did how did the gospel advance? It was three yards in a cloud of dust

I mean it was it was you getting kicked out of every city. And so the idea of The world thinking that we're we're nice Well, yes, we need to be kind to all men and the qualification for an elders to be well followed by outsiders but at the same time, you know,

Jesus says beware when all men speak well of you and rejoice when they Persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you because so they did the prophets

I think we need a heavy injection of that into Southern Baptist life so that we are not just saying

Oh, well for the sake of our witness the world thinks this so we're gonna have to do this when we go into 2020

I would hope we have a sense of manhood and a sense of honesty and integrity and biblical fidelity and genuine love

Speaking truth and grace. I would love to see that kind of permeate Which I do think that is a big course correction from where we've been

Yeah, I don't have an idea of a plan either. I'm not very I'm not very much of a political animal but I do know that in some way politics does play into this to one degree or another that who

President is shapes the direction to one degree or another the convention I mean, that's how the conservative resurgence was brought about and so the reason you had so much focus on diversity at the convention this year is because that's

The focus that JD Greer wanted and we've been talking about so whoever the president is is going to be doing that type of thing

I expect more of that And at the 2020 convention, I hope that we can see some of this stop.

I think we also have to know that It has been for some time at least several years that a lot of this ideology of critical race theory and intersectionality has been pushed

To one degree or another and I'm not saying that intentionally pushed but the concepts are for instance the book divided by faith

I encourage every single pastor to read divided by faith And the reason I do is because there are those within our seminaries that are pushing this book nine marks has been pushing it

They've been training the interns for several years requiring them to read divided by faith. I think the book's fundamentally flawed

I love those at nine marks. They're friends of mine, but I think you you need to read it.

You need to see exactly Where it's coming from saying that the problem within within the church today is is a white evangelicalism

That's what the book specifically says now I'm not saying that those who are pushing the book to be read embrace everything in that book

But we need to know what the opposition and I'm not talking about nine marks or anything like that at this point the opposition of divided by faith is doing and Pushing into its ideology so that we can also then understand the other side as well

And that will help people see how that these ideologies are being utilized as they go and listen to Some of the concerns that that are raised by founders ministry videos and so forth

Jared is there going to be a place specifically at founders where we can go and find a pastor can find these things very readily

And it accessible without having to spend a lot of time to search Yeah, well the the videos we've done go to the founders ministries

YouTube page Follow us on all social media Twitter and Facebook. You're gonna find stuff quickly when you go to founders org

If you click on I think it's probably events or you can use the search to kind of track down specific things

That's gonna pop right up for you our podcast. You can follow our podcast anywhere podcasts are played.

So John I want to say one other thing about diversity. Yes regarding you asked earlier and One of the things that that and this is coming back to allowing

God's Word to control us on this when we come to the New Testament the emphasis isn't on diversity. It's on unity

And it's on and whenever it talks about diversity It always talks about it in such a way to show how that week we were diverse and now we're unified in Christ So I am really shocked in one sense about where we're taking the worldly concept of diversity

And that's what you hear when you hear this at the subversive mention. We have to have a diverse board We have to have a divorce a diverse committees, whatever it may be

Where did diversity originate if it wasn't as a result of sin? I mean, it's almost like that They argue that God's judgment at the

Tower of Babel was his gift of diversity mankind that's enhanced us All what we I think there's a misreading of Revelation 5 because what we see in Revelation 5 is that God Overcomes those divisions so that he redeems for himself from every group not to celebrate diversity

The eternity is not going to be gathered around the throne celebrating diversity It's how God through Christ is united all of us into one unified people

We were redeemed out of diversity and into unity in Christ And so I believe we need to stop this thing of constantly focusing on how the world does it

What is so attractive about the Church of Jesus Christ is that when we come in we're not all in our fed

You know in our our groups of Federation or whatever you want to say a Federation of groups We are coming together as one people in Christ Neither male nor female neither

June or Greek neither barbarian or Sisyphean We are one in Jesus Christ and the more that we emphasize diversity

The more that we're taking away the attractiveness of the gospel That's presented in the New Testament of how we are unified around the table of the

Lord Jesus Christ and are no longer defined by those Things so I don't know exactly how we can use the tools of critical race theory and intersectionality

Which are solely based in in pointing out and emphasizing our differences when the

New Testament is constantly Pointing us to our unity in Christ Jesus good word

Excellent, and that gives hope I was gonna ask you if in some parting comments

You can give hope to folks who are concerned and have been watching this and that certainly does it

Any other partying comments that you might have Jared? No, I'm good man, thanks for having a song be with you guys

I do want to say you guys have the most boring Twitter handles I think I've ever seen at Tom Buck and at Jared Longshore.

So I mean, it's simple. It's memorable It's not like, you know, dr

Oakley or whatever like James finding James White's hard or mines like worldview combos, but you guys oh, there's not a stronger name than Tom Buck You know,

I don't know if you notice anybody want to change that that's why Hey, my life's ambition is to be average

I Don't know if y 'all noticed. I mean I put different things sometimes in my videos just in the background and I have

Behind me. I have a buck. I got some antlers Yeah, I got some antlers on my desk and I didn't know if anyone would notice them

But they didn't so I just figured I pointed out You've seen my Yeah You notice how many points are on the deer head, right?

I haven't counted them. No five points on that deer head. Oh It's a

Calvinist sir, I got you settle you remind me of an unreconstructed

Dorian Tom All right, well, thank you so much and again founders .org

is the website for Jared Longshore and Tom Askell's ministry You want to go check that out? God bless you guys, and we'll be praying for you.