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.

The Southern Baptist Convention, Resolution 9, and the Rise of Critical Theory

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 layman advice for pastors because there's a lot of layman 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 Ariane.

Oh, 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 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 intersection alley identity politics?

Like if you could put a percentage on it or give a further definition.

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 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 in 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 9 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. Neal shin V 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 is a friend, you know I'll stand in 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 and scripture that might run along the lines. The problem is 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 Baptist the We were so stronger doctrinally when we began if you go back to 1845, right the first Southern Baptist Convention 293 delegates and every one of them came from churches or associations that held to the 1689 Confession.

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 bad dysfunction 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.

Clarifying Concerns with Pastors Before Accusation

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 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 world view 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 tenets 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, 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 head of 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 in 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. To do 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 deep 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. But 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 the layman do? What's step one? Tom.

How Laymen Should Approach a Pastor Teaching Egalitarianism

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 begin 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? Um express it the way you did. So clarification is where I would begin and then um.

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?

Yeah, jared. What if your pastor says? I disagree with you and i'm going to keep uh promoting uh racial reconciliation. Which means the church needs to be involved in reparations. Or i'll give you a specific example of someone who came to me um.

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. Um. 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 uh, 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, uh, hey you you white person. Has the same name as a black person in your congregation. You need to apologize to him. 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 and 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. I want to kill it, but I don't want to get caught up in trying to kill fake sin. I got too much real Silicon pill 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.

Uh, yeah, you do need elders and again any time 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.

What do you think and then go to him? You need to go sit directly with that pastor and you probably will 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 up and says mike to 6a, you know. What does god require of you to do justice love kindness walk humbly with your god?

Uh, 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 going to think that way. So you want to it's a murk in some ways because it's a philosophy.

It's kind of a murky area make sure like you did the specific example is 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?

Um 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. So patiently deal with that get clarification go to the pastor first if their attention is still big enough.

It's a big enough issue bring in other elders into that conversation and then uh. Go from there let me say as well that um as we clarify things here that This what we're both saying what all of us on the side have been saying is that 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 sectionality 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. Uh as the standard for making our judgments but I want to say this about just the type of church not only I believe ecclesiology is so important even when we're talking about issues like this as I talk 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 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.

Church Discipline, Repentance, and Regenerate Membership

Let me switch the scenario just a little bit. Um, I this is another uh, Story that um, someone told me who was directly involved but southern baptist church, uh plant baptizing uh some lesbians that weren't repentant, but they're hopeful the spirit of lord will work on them and Pastors confronted on it.

No, you know, I don't I think this is fine. We're we're going to handle this. We're going to work on them sanctification will have its uh process and I don't realize we don't know all the ins and outs Of this story, but let's just assume that the pastor's grounded, uh, the leadership is supporting this and um.

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 Um, I mean you mentioned getting another elder involved. Uh.

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, um. Well, we are baptists, I believe galatians one. Uh paul is writing to the churches and therefore the church has this. A final authority when it comes to that man preaching faithfully um when it comes so so that the way you're the way I would counsel a layman to conduct himself when it comes to an pastor who is an heir Is going to differ based on the significance of the air in the example that you gave of of baptizing an 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 um, 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. Um, 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 timothy five obviously, uh 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 in how we handle this.

And then once you've called another elder in if uh, if it is truly Uh egregious and a violation of god's word and how that those things are being handled and you follow through uh, what? Uh first timothy five 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 uh exempt as a pastor. From being held accountable to the congregation. For what I teach and what I say and i'm responding and that doesn't mean that I don't make errors in speaking sometimes errors even in uh 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 uh baptizing Anyone I don't care. Even if the 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, uh, the doctrine of the church, so um, anyway I would add in in cases of like baptizing people that are unrepentant, 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 for 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 Has 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 in 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 sure.

No, and then they say well, we think she's repenting and she's trusting lord. Let's baptize her and then somebody else says well, that's not repentance, right? So you can have you can get in all kinds of um 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 kinds 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. You just know your elders are going to know more about these discipline cases. Than you are as a 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.

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

When to Leave a Church and How to Discern the Severity of the Issue

It's a 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 leap and um, they don't follow these steps and um, and I think. What you're saying and 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 um. Kind of issue specific and what I would counsel somebody to do.

You're 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 we could take the first example.

You need to apologize to this family. And you know i'm not budging. Um 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.

Um, so so I know there's laymen having a hard time. Sometimes either breaking those ties or breaking them prematurely. And uh, 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 75 19 to 20. And really examining those things if it's if if you don't have that. But I want to I want to issue a word of caution in 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 pure there and I think that it's very common for people that are um passionate about truth to become very very narrow in their 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 um 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. Uh, hopefully what we would do is follow the tenets of scripture uh, try to be very clear about issues of conscience that we can um Allow for 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 that'll grab. Yep, if you've got a church that's doing a certain thing pushing crt and I and intersectionality run uh 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 will be more to tear the church up than it will to help uh. Bring clarification of the gospel and strengthen the church. Yeah, you know on the uh crt. It's interesting.

I want to 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 uh, crt is.

At least in delgado's analysis who's a common who's a who's a modern day critical race theorist. Um, he says, you know that there is a competency that is given to people of color when it comes to addressing racism.

Mm-hmm. 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, um African american people have suffered greatly of the.

The sin of racism has been against them, uh 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 a pastor comes out and says we need to have an open ear, you know. Because look if you're a white person you hadn't experienced some of these things.

You just need to have an open ear you'd be patient you'd listen be 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. Um, 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 I 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 but out of a heart of care and concern of 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 of law enforcement and I mean stories that I have absolutely verified there's These individuals are being honest and a lot of guys are just responding out of a heart of love and compassion.