Thoughts on Thanksgiving, a Bit More Cone, Matt Hall and CRT

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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but you know for most for most folks that's that's right when you start reaching for the caffeine if you can do caffeine which which

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I really rough its fifth time, whether it's

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Sunday or whatever else it might be. But anyways, great to have you with us today.

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Yeah, we've got a big old winter storm heading our direction. I don't know if you're farther north than us, getting to have snow and all sorts of other fun stuff.

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Right as I was getting, right as the program was gonna start, I don't know why it's popped up because it says it's posted 23 minutes ago.

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But Peter Gurry at Phoenix Seminary says, Codex Sinaiticus will not be alone at the

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Phoenix Seminary Library for long, folks. Stay tuned. To which

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I responded, say what? I would, I want to know what that's all about.

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Are you awake? Are you just comatose or what? Yeah, you're staring, you're sitting there like this.

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You're staring at me. You're not even moving. You're like, like, like you're frozen in space. I am determinately listening.

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I am paying undivided attention. Now's not the time for that. That's later on.

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It's when you get distracted with phone calls and stuff like that and I'm trying to do something. That's when, that's when it goes. But I look, look, see, as I'm here again rocking my proper winter sweater, mono -colored, but I am zeroed in and I am listening.

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See what happens, folks, when I'm actually paying attention. I get this.

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You didn't even move. I'm talking to you and you're just staring at me like, like you're dead or something.

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But anyway, so here we are and I've got a big winter storm coming in.

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I'm sort of looking forward to it. It's supposed to hit on Thanksgiving. And I know, I know, I know, I know, in other places that creates all sorts of traffic, travel havoc and stuff like that.

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But I like, I like, yeah, I like holidays where it's not 72 degrees.

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And I know some of you, oh, we wish, but if it was every year, you'd get tired of it too.

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You really would. And I hate when Christmas is, you know, you can't even wear your sweaters outside.

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You're playing golf and shorts or something like that. But anyway, so we hope you have a wonderful time with your family.

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If you have that opportunity this year or whatever your situation be. I know there are folks that, you know, you're, it's been a rough year and you're sick and tired of hearing about what everybody else is doing.

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I get it. I understand. But speaking of which,

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I could not help but remind myself of the fact that a lot of our listening audience is not in the

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United States and you don't have Thanksgiving where you are, maybe at the same time.

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I think, I guess Canada does it at a different time. And sometimes we, that would be the one thing

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I wish we could really export. We export so much garbage to the rest of the world that it'd be nice if we had exported a real solid commitment to a day of giving thanks to God.

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Because years and years ago, I started thinking about the holiday of Thanksgiving and just how odd it was in a secularizing society.

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And as we see article after article coming out about the the huge explosion in the number of nuns, and I know

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Roman Catholicism wished that was spelled N -U -N -S, but it's N -O -N -E -S, the huge explosion in nuns in our society.

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What will be the future of Thanksgiving when when the Millennials are approaching retirement age?

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What will, what will this nation look like? And will there be such a thing as Thanksgiving?

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I mean, honestly, when you think about the term, first of all, remember, we have been, when

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I say we, I'm referring to my fellow Reformed evangelicals.

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Whether you want me in your group or not, there's a lot of you that don't, that's fine, whatever. But we have been robbed of a beautiful, beautiful word.

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I've mentioned this many times before, and I'll mention it again, it's appropriate this time of year. Eucharistia.

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Eucharistia. From which, of course, you get Eucharist. And we have been robbed of this term.

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That's the term for Thanksgiving. That's the substantival form for Thanksgiving. Not the giving of thanks, but Thanksgiving, the noun form.

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And we've been robbed of it because so many are former

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Roman Catholics. And as former Roman Catholics, you have heard the term Eucharist over and over and over again, and it's associated, in your mind, with, quite simply, an idolatrous religious practice that fundamentally denies the finished work of Jesus Christ, because that's the

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Roman Catholic Mass. That's the, that's the historic, man, anymore,

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I have to put it this way, that's the historic Roman Catholic Mass. Who knows what the Roman Catholic Mass is gonna look like in the future, the way things are going.

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But classical historical Roman Catholicism teaches that the

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Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice, but it is not a perfecting sacrifice.

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So just like under the Old Covenant, you had propitiatory but non -perfecting repetitive sacrifices, same thing under the

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New. It's a fundamental undoing of the completedness of the work of Christ.

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That's why I've only gone to services where the

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Mass was held to observe and research. I would never go simply as a part of a wedding or,

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I just couldn't do it, because it is a blasphemy against finished work of Jesus Christ.

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One that is well known and established down through the centuries. Anyway, so we don't use the term

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Eucharistia, we don't use the term Eucharist. And so it's been stolen from us, in essence, and it is really absolutely central to Christian character.

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You cannot understand how the Apostle could write to believers who, look, in comparison to almost any believer that Paul was writing to in the

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New Testament, we are kings and queens. As far as physical possessions and ability to travel and medical care and just ease of life,

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I mean, indoor plumbing is cool. I mean, wow, most of us would just not even know what to do with ourselves if we had to live in the ancient world.

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We have it so easy and whine about it constantly.

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That's the odd thing. These people did not have a tenth of what we have, faced sudden death.

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I mean, infant mortality rates so higher than anything we could even begin to imagine.

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The heartache. I mean, you look at just the Reformers, just as, and this is in the ancient world, obviously, but you look back at the

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Reformers, how many of them lost children? Luther lost child, Calvin lost child. Infant mortality rates.

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Disease. Plague. Plague. Every year you had to wonder, is it going to come back?

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Is it going to hit us? How many people are going to die? I mean, we have it easy.

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So you would think that being thankful and eukarystia would be second nature.

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But the reality of our nature is, the more we have, the less thankful we are for having it.

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And the easier we come by it, the less we value it. And so, it just seems to me that when you look through the

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New Testament, and you look at the term Thanksgiving, even amongst those of us who should know what it means, we generally don't.

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We don't practice it. And so, should we be overly surprised that fundamentally in our society,

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Thanksgiving is just a time to get together with the family and eat incredibly fattening food and watch football.

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It doesn't have, there was a time in the not -too -distant past in the

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United States when Thanksgiving, when in times of war, the President would call the people to prayer.

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There would be national days of fasting and national days of prayer. You remember, some before last,

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I think, the movie, oh, brain just froze up, the

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British getting all their people out. Dunkirk.

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And there was criticism at the time, because though the movie was really well done, and it was very interesting how they did it, and made it all come together, and all the rest of that stuff, that was incredibly well done, and all that stuff.

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But they did not have an emphasis on what actually took place historically, and that was the call on the part of the king in England for everyone to gather in prayer, and people flocked to the churches to pray that those men would be rescued from the onslaught of the

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Nazis, and the vast majority of them were. So, we are living in a day where some still remember, not very many, but some still remember a cultural understanding that the term

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Thanksgiving would have meaning, and that you knew who thanks was being given to. I mean, every year there's somebody put a meme up about, you know, an atheist at Thanksgiving, because they have no one to give thanks to.

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Even if they feel thankful, there's no one to give thanks to, not in their worldview.

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And that is becoming more and more the cultural reality that's certainly the enforced cultural reality under communism, that's certainly the desired forced cultural reality under the leftists in our own country who want to take us to the same place

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China is, and they are becoming more and more bold and open in their promotion of that kind of totalitarianism.

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And one of the things that is fundamentally detested by a totalitarian government like China is anything like Thanksgiving, because they want everyone to be looking to the state and be thankful to the state.

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In fact, if you look at what's going on right now with Xi trying to replace Mao with himself, and now it's

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Xi thinking rather than Mao thinking, and these guys cannot help but make themselves little deities.

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I mean, we look at North Korea and go, what a weirdo. You look at China, much, much bigger, same attitude.

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Just not as wacko crazy as far as how it manifests itself, but it's the same attitude.

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And Xi wants thanks for him, for the state, because you're supposed to be dependent completely on the state, the state's the ultimate authority, and that's why they're getting rid of the

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Christians and the Muslims. Because Christians and Muslims, and if there was a significant

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Jewish population that was still believing, they'd have the same issue just like they did in the early church. We can't bow to the state in that way.

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This nation, the United States, was never ever ever intended to take the place of God.

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The founders never dreamed of such such a concept, but that's the nature of leftism.

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And so the natural desire on the part of the individual creating the image of God to give thanks, where does that come from?

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Remember Romans 1? What does Romans 1 tell us? The natural order is sufficient to demonstrate to us that God exists, and he's powerful, and therefore what should we do?

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We should give thanks. That's one of the necessary, clearly communicated realities of general revelation.

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The world in which we have been created teaches us that we should be thankful, and so if you don't want people giving thanks to God, because you can't control people who are thankful to a higher authority than you.

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You can try to influence them, but you can't own them because they have a higher allegiance than you.

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And so that's why the Chinese are going after the Christians, going after the Muslims, because both the

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Christians and Muslims have higher authority than the state. In fact, it's an authority that the state is subject to.

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That's what was so wonderful in that letter, I don't know, a year and a half ago, that the

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Chinese pastors sent to the communist government, basically saying, we will do everything we can to be good citizens.

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However, you're under the Lordship of Christ, and you will be judged by Him. Yep, that's exactly right.

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And they just can't handle it. So isn't it an amazing thing to consider that in our land, more and more people have no one to whom to give thanks for the plenty that is ours, for now.

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Remember, economic, physical blessings come from God's hands and can be withdrawn at any point in time.

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And I just simply tell you, a nation that does not honor God, does not honor truth, does not honor the family, does not honor life, will not long have physical blessings.

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Will not long have physical blessings. That's just reality. And I believe, in my lifetime, we will see a major degradation in the quality of life in this nation if there is not a fundamental turning from the selfish godlessness that is the essence of secular humanism.

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But at the same time, okay, we still have lots of Christians in the

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United States, a small minority of true Christians, but how thankful are we?

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Really, thanksgiving and contentment, contentment flows from thanksgiving, and so the biblical teaching that we are not to be complainers and whiners is the negative flip side of the positive assertion that we are to be thankful, abounding in thanksgiving.

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I was just looking at a few texts, I noticed Paul, for example, here with the Corinthians said, you will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

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Produce thanksgiving to God. When was the last time any of us thought, I want to live in such a way as my actions will produce thanksgiving to God, the giving of thanksgiving

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God. There's so much in the New Testament about the attitudes that should be ours, and I just, this again is why you need regular exposure to the

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Word, you need exposure to the Word within the church, because we are so exposed at every part of our day, voluntarily, to the pressures of the world.

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We are conformed to the image of the world, and so we expect that, you know, God's gonna provide me with this, and he's gonna provide me with that, and if he doesn't,

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I'm gonna be mad at him because he's not being nice to me, and we don't have, in many instances,

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I'm not, I know I'm talking generally, but in many instances, we just don't have a biblical,

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New Testament, spirit -born attitude. We just whine and complain, and anything goes wrong, and we're questioning

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God's love, and it's, I mean, we all know, how many times do you walk into someone's home and up there on the wall you'll have

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Philippians 4 -6? Be anxious, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by what?

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Prayer and supplication, with what? With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto

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God, and then the peace of God passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds, you know, you see that, you've seen that in posters and embroideries, and you know, it's one of the most popular ones, but when you think about it, it says something extremely important, and that true attitude of thanksgiving just simply can't exist in the same heart, in the same mind, as a constant attitude of complaint and discontent, because look, if you're complaining and you're discontent, who are you primarily complaining against?

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It's God. It is a, it is a lack of satisfaction with what

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God has given you, where he's placed you, it's a lack of satisfaction.

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There are a lot of people say, well, yes, you shouldn't, shouldn't be, you should always be striving to be better. Well, striving to be better in glorifying

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God, yes, striving to be better in hoarding stuff, that's different.

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That's different. So, we should be thankful, there's no question we should be thankful for all the things that we have, and everybody in this audience has things, and God has been good enough to give us all sorts of things, but what that means is you should never, ever, ever find yourself thinking about what somebody else has, and being jealous and envious, because again, jealousy and envy is directed fundamentally at what?

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God. God's the one that only gave me certain gifts and certain abilities, and so he's the one to blame if I don't get to have this, that, or the other thing.

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Thanksgiving would, would cultivating a constant attitude of Thanksgiving would not only massively increase the amount of sanctification in the

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Church, solve 95 % of the backbiting and griping in the fellowship, but it would probably extend our lives by three to four years a person, because envy, anger, discontent robs you of sleep, raises your blood pressure.

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It's not good for the body. It's simply not good for the body. God didn't design our bodies to be under that kind of pressure that we place upon ourselves by those types of attitudes.

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But Thanksgiving is not something you just do once a year, and it's not something you just flip the switch on.

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It really involves an attitude, a recognition that God is sovereign, he can put me in this place, he's put me where I am in this life, and I am to seek his honor and glory in that context, and that's...

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the world is going to hack away at that attitude as much as it can every single day.

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And so it's a, it's a discipline. It's, it's a discipline to cause ourselves to recognize we're in war, and whenever the enemy gets us into a situation where we're in constant complaint and discontentment, he's won.

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He's won. He's got us. We can, we can think we're doing great and everything else, but if we have a constant attitude of discontentment, we won't be effective.

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It won't be effective. That's all there is to it. So Thanksgiving is, is not a, you know,

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I, like I said, I think it's just a wonderful, uniquely American holiday.

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It's wonderful to realize that there was a time when there were enough Christians in this, this nation that we were able to establish a tradition like that, and all of that's, that's wonderful.

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But from a biblical perspective, nurturing an attitude of Thanksgiving.

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What a, what a simple biblical truth that is.

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And it's good that in the United States, at least once a year, we get to be reminded of that.

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Come April, let's admit it, probably not as likely to be as focused upon it as we should be, but it is a vitally, vitally important, important reality.

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Been going back and forth a little bit with His Grace, the

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Right Reverend Bishop Talbert Wesley Swan II. We had a time how long it takes to take that.

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I'm not sure you can fit that in, I mean, what, what font size do you have to get that down to, to get it onto a business card?

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I mean, it's, it's, it's interesting. Yeah, I think it's second, third, fourth, fifth line.

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Yeah, something like that, yeah. But the redoubtable

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Bishop Talbert Swan, 16 hours ago, tweeted,

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White evangelical theology used scripture to justify genocide of Native Americans, enslavement of Africans, murder and dehumanization of blacks, subjugation of non -whites, theft of land, war, murder, mayhem, demonization of Muslims and non -Christians.

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This is your religion. And that was aimed, that was said to me. So, white evangelical theology, what is that?

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I don't know. It's anything that isn't woke, I guess. It doesn't seem that the good

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Bishop Swan is real big on specific definitions, or documentation, or anything like that.

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And the woke movement isn't big on that. It has come to recognize that it's much more effective to just simply throw out broad categories.

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That gets the people you want under your control all excited, and you'd have to worry about details that way.

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Details bore people. And so, this is your religion, is, is what he had to say.

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And how do we, how do we understand it? Well, in the last program, I read to you from, oh, it is interesting.

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Last night, I started getting these tweets from him.

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And one of them had to do with James Cone. And again, he's like, oh, James Cone, he's just a freedom fighter.

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Just, man, I, you bet I follow him. And yeah, I'm, I'm proud of it.

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And so on and so forth. So what I did is I posted, what was it, three, four? Yeah, three or four, maybe a fifth.

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I don't remember. I'd have to go back and look. I just opened up Kindle. It was still at the same point.

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That's one nice thing about Kindle. You know, didn't have to be on this computer. This computer synced with all the other ones.

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And so I opened it up at home. It's still the same point where I've been reading. And so, ah, let's, let's, let's do some quotes about how, for example, whites, if they're to be reconciled to God, have to come through black people.

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Um, and just these, these wildly racist, heretical statements, just so far out there that when you read them, you stop and go, what, what, what did this guy just say?

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You know, page before he's quoting Bart and now he's saying this and there's no connection between the two, but anyway.

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And so, so I posted a bunch of James Cone quotes, crickets, absolute crickets, not as far as I could see.

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And maybe I just have way too big a block and mute list, but as far as I could see, nobody touched those with a 10 foot pole.

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Nobody, nobody's going, yeah, or nothing. It was just like silence, pure silence.

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Found that rather intriguing. So yesterday I was reading from the black power book, uh, but I want to read just,

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I'm not gonna read as much, but I want to read today from God of the Oppressed. Because again,

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I hear so many of these professors in our seminaries talking about James Cone.

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They did when, when he died, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary put up these podcasts, you know, honoring

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James Cone. And of course they said, well, there were things we would disagree with. That, that, that's like, that's like when the current prophet dies in Salt Lake City.

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If we were to put up a series of, of podcasts honoring him.

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And just at the start we say, now there are things we disagree with, but he was such a great guy. What do you mean?

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There's some things that it's a different religion. Same thing here.

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Same thing here. So from the God of the

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Oppressed, according to Kindle page 220, where I'm starting, whether for us or against us, white people seem to think that they know what is best for our struggle.

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It was this white attitude that led to the rise of black power and the exclusion of white people from the civil rights struggle in the 1960s.

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Black people came to realize that our liberation depends solely on our actions and decisions and not on white folks.

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From the black power consciousness emerged black theology, a theological enterprise defined of, for, and by black people in the struggle of freedom.

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Whether we like it or not, the days of integration are over. Although this does not mean that we blacks are for separation, though I pause to say we're seeing situations today where that's not the case, they are.

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It means that separation is a fact of life. The ghettos of this country are ample proof that white folks intend to keep it that way.

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Thus, it is absurd to talk about reconciliation to people who are determined to separate us for the purpose of oppression.

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Our task then is to begin to develop structures of behavior that do not depend on white folks' goodwill.

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We must recognize that our liberation begins and ends with the decisions we make and the actions we take to implement them.

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All talk about reconciliation with white oppressors, with mutual dialogue about its meaning, has no place in black power or black theology.

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I am not ruling out the rare, that's in italics, possibility of conversion among white oppressors, an event that I have already spoken of in terms of white people becoming black, but conversion in the biblical sense is a radical experience and ought not to be identified with white sympathy for blacks or with a pious feeling in the white folks' hearts.

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In the Bible, conversion is closely identified with repentance, and both mean a radical reorientation of one's whole life and personality, which includes the adoption of a new ethical line of conduct, a forsaking of sin, and a turning to righteousness.

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Do you hear that? Folks can be spot on in defining a phrase, in defining a concept, and then completely out to lunch in application.

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It just reminds me of whenever you're studying Mormonism, what does eternal life mean to a

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Mormon? Well, it's having children for eternity. And you go, what?

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Yeah! So they'll talk about eternal life, they'll quote verses about eternal life, they'll talk about exaltation, they'll use our terminology, but it's the application that's completely wrong.

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Same thing here, that's not a bad definition of conversion, but when you then apply this to whites and blacks, as if conversion means whites becoming blacks, the point is that everything must be sacrificed to the reality now present in the midst of human existence.

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The person who repents is the one who sells all and redefines his or her life and commitment to the kingdom of God. That is why in the

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Bible and the black religious experience, repentance is connected with death. It means dying to sin and alienation, being born anew in Jesus Christ, and thus living in faithful obedience to God's will to make whole the brokenness of human existence.

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Amen! Therefore, there can be no forgiveness of sins without repentance, and no repentance without the gift of faith to struggle with, and for the freedom of the oppressed.

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Whoa, wait a minute. Without the gift of faith to struggle with, and for the freedom of the oppressed.

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When whites undergo the true experience of conversion wherein they die to whiteness and are reborn anew in order to struggle against white oppression and for the liberation of the oppressed, there is a place for them in the black struggle of freedom.

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Here, reconciliation becomes God's gift of blackness through the oppressed of the land.

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Now, if you're sitting there going, wait, wait a minute, how can you, how can you have a whole paragraph where you're saying everything right, and then there is this complete left turn, and it's left turn, believe me, a complete left turn, and now you're, what are you even talking about?

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Now you get the idea. Here, reconciliation becomes God's gift of blackness through the oppressed of land, but it must be made absolutely clear that it is the black community that decides both the authenticity of white conversion, and also the part these converts will play in the black struggle of freedom.

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So, everything that we talked, that you just, preceding paragraphs about conversion, conversion, spirit, newness of life, totally different context.

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It's not the Bible's context anymore. It's black theology. It's the

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American situation in the 1960s. It's completely removed from anything that would have any global application or any application from generation to generation.

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It's a localized, Americanized, total redefinition of all the meanings of all the words, and even if you undergo this conversion, it must be made absolutely clear that it's the black community that decides both the authenticity of white conversion, and also the part these converts will play in the black struggle of freedom.

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The converts can have nothing to say about the validity of their conversion experience, or what is best for the community, or their place in it, except as permitted by the oppressed community itself.

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So, there's, there is never unity. There is never equality.

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There is never oneness. Remember, we read before, the yesterday, yesterday, the black community is to nurse its feelings of aggression and alienation so that you'll honor blackness.

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When we talk about this being divisive, it's on its face. As is true of every member of the black community, accountability remains an essential ingredient of all who share in the struggle of freedom, but white converts, if there are any to be found, if there are any to be found, it's right there on the page, must be made to realize they're like babies who have barely learned how to walk and talk, thus they must be told when to speak and what to say.

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Otherwise, they will be excluded from our struggle. This, this is, this is not a warm, open invitation for us all to become one.

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No, not even close. And then there's a typo in the electronic version here.

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At is always ruled out, I think it's what? What is always ruled out?

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Is white converts using their experience in our community as evidence against blacks, claiming that reconciliation with whites is possible.

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Whites must be made to realize that they are not only accountable to Roy Wilkins, but also to Imamu Baraka.

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I have no idea. Sorry. And if the latter says the reconciliation is out of the question, then nothing the former says can change that reality for both are equally members of the black struggle of freedom.

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Unless whites can get every single black person to agree that reconciliation is realized, there is no place for white rhetoric about the reconciling love of blacks and whites.

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So everybody's got to agree. For if whites are truly converted to our struggle, they know that reconciliation is a gift that excludes boasting.

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It is God's gift of blackness made possible through the presence of the divine in the social context of black existence.

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With the gift comes a radical change in lifestyle, wherein one's value system is now defined by the oppressed engaged in the liberation struggle.

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Black people must be aware of the extreme dangers of speaking too lightly of reconciliation with whites.

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Just because we work with them and sometimes worship alongside them should be no reason to claim that they are truly

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Christians and thus a part of our struggle. Every mistake we make regarding white integrity will lead to the further entrenchment of our oppression by white people.

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I, yeah, um, I think,

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I think you've, I think you've, I think you got the idea. Um, I think you got the idea. Let me, let me just, let me just, one more time.

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Just because we work with them and sometimes worship alongside them should be no reason to claim that they are truly

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Christians and thus a part of our struggle. Do you now understand Talbert Swan?

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Oh yeah. Do you understand why a man can approach ministers of the gospel who have been preaching and teaching for decades, doesn't care anything about that, but instead is willing to dismiss them, treat them as, as dirt, blame them for everything under the sun, not, not even try to represent them accurately.

39:49

I'm reading the guy. He said, I read you his own tweet. He is a follower of James.

39:56

My theology has been formed by this man. So I'm reading him. He, will he do that in return?

40:01

Of course not. Of course not. Not going to do that. He will treat people in this way.

40:11

And you go, how can this be? Just because we work with them and sometimes worship alongside them should be no reason to claim that they are truly

40:21

Christians and thus a part of our struggle. James Cone, the same James Cone referenced by professors in Reformed and Southern Baptist seminaries as being key to their understanding of the racial tensions in America.

40:41

The same James Cone, the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary put up podcasts. Oh, James Cone has passed away.

40:48

What a great scholar he was. I don't think that these quotes ended up in the

40:58

Southeastern podcasts. I don't, I don't think they did, but, but there you go.

41:07

There you go. Which leads us, which leads me to yet another, oh,

41:15

I get myself in so much trouble. All right.

41:22

I'm just going to be straight up front. I'm confused.

41:29

And on the one side, you have one certain group that's going to say, you're only confused because you're naive.

41:39

Just realize everybody on that side lies all the time and all will be well. Okay. So there's that group.

41:46

And then on the other side, you've got the never, ever, ever say anything whatsoever about a fellow brother or sister.

41:59

There can be no, no, we've all, we've all got to pretend like we're all singing Kumbaya.

42:07

In between, well, that's interesting.

42:17

Daryl Harrison just tweeted a picture of Pete Buttigieg in a black church.

42:28

Pete Buttigieg coming to Reverend Barber's church as Democrats compete for black voters. Goldsboro, North Carolina.

42:37

Yeah. We need to, after the holidays, I'm going to be in St.

42:43

Charles next week. We'll be discussing a lot of the critical race, social justice stuff.

42:50

And then we've got the holidays coming up. It's going to be a busy 2020.

42:55

There's no two ways about it, but somewhere in there, early on, we need to address the

43:01

Pete Buttigieg situation and interact with some of his stuff, because Christians, if you can't just listen to this guy and take his arguments apart, we're way behind the curve on it.

43:18

Because he's just your standard leftist when it comes to his argumentation.

43:25

Brilliantly bright guy. No question about it. There's a lot of brilliantly bright people that will help to drive this entire society right into, right into destruction, and many of them.

43:36

All right. So article posted, I didn't see a date on it, at the

43:46

Southern Seminary website from Matthew Hall. He is our peace, the centrality, the gospel of Christ in racial reconciliation.

43:59

There's not a lot in it that positively

44:05

I would have issues with.

44:10

I do have a strong issue with capitulating on the language of quote -unquote racial reconciliation.

44:20

I do not believe that races are reconciled. Mankind is reconciled to God.

44:27

Believers are reconciled to one another because of their reconciled state to God, and because of the fact that each one of them stands on the same ground as every other one before God.

44:44

So in other words, since my forgiveness for God is dependent upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, without any works that I can add to that, and that anyone who will stand before God will stand before God on that same basis, then all of the races, ethnicities is a much better term, all the ethnicities in the body have been reconciled when they recognize that their identity is now determined by Christ, not by their great -grandfather.

45:16

So theologically, it seems to me that to give in to this language is to sacrifice a key definitional truth of the gospel.

45:32

Or even if you say, no, no, no, you're right about that part, but there is a cultural milieu, a cultural context in which we can talk about racial reconciliation within a particular culture.

45:53

I wish people would emphasize very strongly because we as Americans are unfortunately exporting poisonous

46:03

American -based divisions into churches in the

46:10

United Kingdom, Europe, South Africa, Australia, all over the world.

46:20

And we're creating divisions that are based upon reading relationships based upon the

46:28

American experience of slavery, and then continued racial divides based upon what the

46:40

Democrats did in the South, basically. Jim Crow laws, those types of things. So when you export that to places that don't have that background, the result is horrific, and I've seen it.

46:56

I've been talking with people about it. I travel. I see it. It's a horrible thing. Anyway, so people will say, well, we're only talking about racial reconciliation.

47:06

Well, the problem is you're using biblical language. And what we're seeing in the social justice movement is biblical language always ends up becoming secondary to the cultural layer placed upon top of it, placed over it.

47:20

That cultural layer becomes the lens through which the rest is read, and unfortunately, in the modern context, what that means is a fundamental degradation of the biblical categories.

47:33

So I would strongly disagree that there is, in the

47:40

Christian faith, a need for racial reconciliation, because I'm talking biblically. But notice some of these statements.

47:52

For example, he says, as a historian theologian,

47:58

I am interested in the ways sin takes form within specific cultures and historical contexts.

48:05

It does so in complex ways. Not only does sin bring about guilt or culpability on individual sinners, but it also brings corruption on whole societies or cultures.

48:12

For example, I believe that future Christian generations will be horrified at the evil of legalized abortion in our time, and will rightly give attention to the multidimensional realities of that demonic sin in its individual and structural forms.

48:24

There is an individual guilt that those who participate in the abortion industry bear before a righteous God, but our

48:29

American culture has been deeply affected and corrupted by the culture of death in ways we may not always notice. I agree.

48:35

I agree. The fact that this is a culture that is closing its eyes to the murder of unborn children,

48:44

God is perfectly just to bring judgment upon the entire culture. He's done that, and we warn people that's what he's going to do.

48:52

That's what he's going to do. And so, just in passing, it did strike me.

49:01

I believe that future Christian generations will be horrified. Is there a hat tip toward a little post -millennialism there?

49:11

Maybe? I don't know. It goes on.

49:17

In recent months, the topics of critical race theory and intersectionality have prompted no small measure of discussion in Baptist life.

49:24

Well, not just Baptist life. It would be virtually impossible to get into a complete review of CRT here, but let's be very clear.

49:32

Okay, here's Matthew Hall. Many people see him as being second in line. Well, first in line after Dr.

49:39

Moeller. Let's be very clear about CRT. Good.

49:46

Christian witness must reject CRT and the ideological foundations that shape it, along with the proposals it offers for change.

49:56

In the big picture, it seems to me that CRT assumes a basic materialism, ignoring spiritual realities and, in particular, the truth that human beings are made in the image of God.

50:05

Anybody disagree with that? Have I not said that over and over again over the past number of—now we're getting into the years, aren't we?

50:15

At least months. It also seems to me to have a deficient teleology, one that sees history most basically as a contest between oppressors and the oppressed.

50:26

That's for sure. Because of its deficiencies, CRT can never adequately diagnose the fundamental problems inherent in racism, nor can it adequately prescribe a true solution.

50:36

Only the gospel of Christ can do that. Similarly, this is why liberation theologies are irreconcilable with the biblical gospel, while the biblical worldview certainly acknowledges injustice in a fallen world.

50:46

The defining story of scripture is redemptive, centered in the person and work of Christ, propelling history forward to the glory of God.

50:53

Now, I stop and say, and CRT and all of its children are always forcing us to look backwards.

51:00

We can never look forward. We are constantly living in light of the sins of the past. There's no forgiveness.

51:06

That would be a good thing to have added in there. This story is inseparable from the miracle of the new birth and necessity of personal saving faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

51:13

The church is to be the community where the reconciling power of the gospel is displayed in the world. So, great.

51:23

I'm glad to hear that. But from whence cometh my confusion?

51:31

Well, my confusion comes from the same source as a lot of other folks.

51:37

And I'm going to be pulling up a video here, Rich, so you'll want to wake up now.

51:47

I'm picking on Rich. You know, I wouldn't pick on Rich if he was wearing a Coogee, but mono -color sweaters, it's just screaming out to pick on me.

51:59

Not only that, he should know I'm a Trekkie. What color is his sweater? Rich, what color?

52:09

Go ahead. Make my day. You don't seem to understand.

52:15

Oh, no. When you're wearing a red shirt, look, it's never Kirk that kills him. The aliens are going to get you.

52:22

And it's going to be a really lousy death. I'm sure. I mean, some of them look really painful.

52:30

It's bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You do realize that that's fiction, right? I don't know.

52:40

I've got a Borg cube right there. I've got a warp core going in the back. Yeah. Yeah. I've got triples. Yeah. I've got triples.

52:47

See? Okay. All right. This poor triple needs a new battery.

52:56

They didn't realize in that initial one that all they had to do was just let the batteries run out and everything would be fine. Anyway. Okay.

53:05

Does Kazwan do to take stock in his employment futures? Living in a world of fiction.

53:15

All right. All right. All right. So back to serious things. You got this ready to go? I do.

53:21

Okay. So here is my honest source of confusion.

53:28

I read the words of the article posted today, and the necessary result and application would be this.

53:43

But then there's video like this.

53:49

I am a racist. Okay. So if that freaks you out, if you think the worst thing somebody can call you is a racist, then you're not thinking biblically.

53:59

Because guess what? I'm going to struggle with racism and white supremacy until the day

54:05

I die and get my glorified body and a completely renewed and sanctified mind, because I'm immersed in a culture where I benefit from racism all the time.

54:16

You say justice. You talk about racial justice and white folks get very nervous. People are far less ashamed to say whatever is running through their minds with white folks.

54:27

There has been a normalization and an empowering, a legitimization,

54:33

I would say, of almost explicitly racist rhetoric in the church.

54:41

And things that even two, three, four years ago, folks would have said, I'm thinking this, but I don't think

54:48

I'm supposed to say it. Now they're like, I'm just going to say it. Everything that you assumed or thought was normal in the world or everything that you thought was true about your tradition, your denomination, your own family,

55:03

I'm going to pull the veil back and what would look like this beautiful narrative of faithfulness and orthodoxy and truth and righteousness and justice.

55:13

I'm going to peel that back and I'm going to show you the rotting corpse of white supremacy that's underneath that surface.

55:20

Okay. Oh man, I wanted to, I wanted to keep it right there. There it is.

55:26

The rotting corpse of white supremacy that's underneath that surface. Okay.

55:34

So how do you put these together?

55:45

John Harris on Twitter posted a series of 10 questions.

55:54

No, Siri, I'm not talking to you. Yes. No. Very strange creature.

56:06

So here's some questions for Matt Hall from John Harris. And I, I have the exact same questions.

56:13

Do you still consider yourself to be a racist? Do you believe, turn it off.

56:23

You're supposed to be upside down. That's supposed to work when it's upside down. Do you still, number one, do you still consider yourself to be a racist?

56:29

Number two, do you believe there is structural racism in the United States? And if so, where? Three, if you believe there is, who is guilty of structural oppression?

56:38

Four, do you believe multi -ethnicity should be a pursuit of the church? Five, if so, why?

56:46

Six, do you believe race ought to be taken into consideration when hiring church workers? Seven, do you reject

56:52

Resolution 9? Let me stop for a moment and point out. The chief architect of Revolution 9 teaches at Southern.

57:01

So would be one of his, not so much employees, but fellow professors.

57:09

So do you reject Resolution 9? And see, here's the problem. In the

57:15

Southern Baptist Convention, you have the 11th commandment. The 11th commandment says, thou shalt not speak evil of a fellow Southern Baptist in public. Therefore, if a fellow

57:22

Southern Baptist is behind Resolution 9, all of a sudden, Commandment 11 becomes,

57:28

I can't say anything about Resolution 9, even though Resolution 9 says that CRT is what I just said CRT isn't, in a different statement.

57:36

And that leads to an uncertain sound of the trumpet, shall we say, to use a biblical analogy. Number eight, do you reject your previous statements in favor of CRT?

57:46

Because what we just listened to is soaked in CRT.

57:53

I mean, I've tried to listen to it and go, okay, how could someone try to hold these two things together? And I don't think it could be done, but I can sort of see some of the directions someone might try to go.

58:05

Number nine, can you define whiteness? Or white supremacy?

58:13

Because it's just being used constantly. I mean, a few years ago, we never, who even said it?

58:21

But now we're being told the only reason nobody was saying it is because everybody was it. And those of us out here in the real world are going, we weren't even thinking about it.

58:32

And they're going, that's the whole point. No, it's not. Can you define whiteness or white supremacy, for that matter?

58:39

And number 10, do you believe critical race theory can be used if subordinate to the gospel?

58:45

I suppose that would be related to number seven. Do you reject

58:51

Resolution 9? Because that's basically what Resolution 9 was trying to say. These are absolutely, perfectly proper questions.

59:03

They really are questions that I think need to be answered.

59:10

Because I can't hold, I'm appreciative for the vast majority of what was found in that statement, agree, have said the same things.

59:21

What's missing to me are, for example, is the necessary emphasis that if racism is a sin, and it says it is, it's a sin of prejudice.

59:35

It's a sin of, hold on a second here. I know I'm going over just a second, but where did

59:41

I go? There it is. Toward the beginning, it specifically identified sin.

59:51

Yeah. At its core, racism is about the sin of partiality. It imposes a double standard on one group of human beings on the basis of perceived physical characteristics.

59:59

The Bible is clear that God shows no partiality and expects his people to reflect his character. Like all sin, this can take a variety of forms and deeply shape an entire culture or society.

01:00:07

Like all sin, it is often deceptive. Okay, so can we identify

01:00:15

Talbert Swann's anti -white racism as black racism?

01:00:21

Is it a sin? If we are so captive to the society that we're going to buy the society's teaching that only one group is guilty of this sin, and no one else can be,

01:00:38

Talbert Swann says, I can't be a black racist. I can't. James Cone says you can't be a black racist.

01:00:45

Okay? If we've capitulated there, the battle's done, it's over, the war's over, just put a chain on the door and go home.

01:00:55

Because there's no way to have a biblical discussion when you're telling somebody that because of the nation you live in and its history, certain people can't commit sin.

01:01:07

That undercuts the entirety of the gospel, folks. That's it. It's gone. It's done. So I would love, see,

01:01:21

I'm not one of those folks that wants to see Dr. Hall hung from the gallows.

01:01:27

I'm not one of those people. I'd love to talk to him. I'd love to be able to ask him these questions.

01:01:36

But I think these are valid questions. And my concern, my deep, deep, deep concern, the

01:01:43

Southern Baptist Convention is in trouble. And the one thing that will keep the convention from being able to right itself and to survive the cultural onslaught, maybe as much smaller, but much healthier, is if the 11th

01:02:05

Commandment remains in place. The 11th Commandment does not save the

01:02:10

Southern Baptist Convention. The 11th Commandment has become the mechanism whereby those seeking to destroy it are able to do so without criticism.

01:02:22

That's, I think, vitally important. I really think it's vitally important. So there you go.

01:02:29

There you go. So we got some discussion of Thanksgiving in there. Please, as you, if you, if in the

01:02:41

Lord's mercy and goodness, you have the opportunity of being with your family and enjoying prosperity and the blessings of God, remember those who do not have opportunity.

01:02:56

Remember God's great graciousness toward you. And especially as you gather on the coming

01:03:01

Lord's Day, be very thankful that we still have the freedom in this country to gather in the name of Jesus Christ, sing hymns to his name, praise the triune

01:03:11

God, proclaim the gospel. We are a blessed people. We need to be thankful for the blessings while we have them.

01:03:18

And the true test of Thanksgiving will be if those blessings are withdrawn, will we still be thankful for what

01:03:26

God has given to us and thankful for the salvation that is ours, even when we will now be persecuted severely for remaining faithful?

01:03:35

That's the real question as to what the source of our Thanksgiving really is. Thanks for watching the program today.