President Reagan’s Faith, Interaction with Dr. Albert Mohler, Brief Comments on Justice

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is an early edition of the program today, 9 o 'clock in Phoenix, Arizona.

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That's pretty early for us, but that's when we're doing it today, noon back east.

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Let me start off. I'm going to be, and we didn't test this, but going to be playing clips.

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And I've got it up on the screen and all, and hopefully you're ready for that.

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It's not just audio, it's video. Okay. Playing clips from Dr.

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Mohler's comments at the Southern Baptist Seminary Chapel last week in regards specifically to the statement on social justice and the gospel.

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But before, just before we do that, just briefly, I don't know if any of you saw something.

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It certainly meant a lot to me, but I'm getting to be old, so maybe it won't to everybody else.

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But many, I remember

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I just missed getting to vote for my first presidential election in November of 1980.

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Obviously, it'd be like November 4th, November 5th, somewhere around there. And I turned 18 in the middle of December.

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So a month and a half, I missed getting to vote on that one.

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And so I didn't get a chance to vote for Ronald Reagan the first time.

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I did the second time in 1984, the first presidential election that I got to vote in.

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And I remember we had an honors class at like 7 .20

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in the morning back then. And one of the other top, you know, it was for like the top 10, 15 students in the class.

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And one of the other, she was one of the salutatorians eventually. Her name was

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Laurie Daniels, and she was an atheist, way on the left, atheist.

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I can remember how many times, especially in that honors colloquium class, that we crossed swords.

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It was interesting. But just how, you know, we watched the returns and the news coverage and stuff.

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And just how completely upset she was. I probably wasn't overly gracious at winning in that particular situation.

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But, you know, the whole attitude of the nation changed. Jimmy Carter was a bummer.

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I mean, the whole nation was just like, and, you know, the

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Iran hostage thing. Remember on ABC? I mean, day 387, you know, just kept going and every night.

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Was that Ted Koppel, I think, that got stuck? Poor guy. I mean, is that how 2020 started?

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Oh, yeah. Well, anyway, man, it just went on and on and on. And then, you know, very shortly after Reagan's elected, we better get rid of these guys.

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Goodbye, you know. But it just changed the whole attitude of the nation.

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It really did. And, you know, back then we were not nearly as divided as we are now. You know, you could actually say something and assume that most people around you might give you the benefit of the doubt, might not just automatically accuse you of everything under the sun, twist your every word into a pretzel and find some way of spitting acid at you.

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It's just the way it is today. It was very different back then. But did you all see the letter that was just released last week?

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I saw a few things about it and it took me a while to track it down. Well, to get around to track it down, all you do is put

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President Reagan letter father -in -law. It's right there. But someone doing a book on Nancy Reagan going through the

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Reagan library came across a folded up letter in Nancy Reagan's correspondence that was written by President Reagan in 1982.

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So halfway through his first term. Handwritten on the stationery of the

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President of the United States. And it was to his father -in -law, Nancy Reagan's father, who was very close to death, back just a matter of days away from death, and who identified as an atheist.

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And it is a passionate, very good letter written by Ronnie to his father -in -law, pleading with him to recognize who

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Christ is and to come to Christ. And if you look at the last page, there's the

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President of the United States in his own handwriting, citing John 3 .16. And he had earlier talked about messianic prophecies of Jesus and all these things.

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And, you know, it just struck me at the time in reading it that we've been blessed in this nation.

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I mean, there are nations where that just simply could never, ever take place.

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And I've been blessed to, you know, he was certainly not the first president

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I was aware of. I was weird. I think I've shown it. I think I brought it in and showed it on the program once before.

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I have a letter from Richard Milhouse Nixon written to me when I was,

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I think, first or second grade. I had written a letter to him about the

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Vietnam War and about the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia. And I guess the fact that someone of my age was that interested in what was going on,

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I remember very clearly how often we would listen to the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite on a black and white television set.

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And for some reason at that age, I was really focused on that stuff.

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And so, yeah, I had actually kept track of that stuff from a very, very young age.

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But like I said, I've always considered Jimmy Carter to be one of the poorest presidents the

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United States has ever had. And so I guess by way of contrast, that sort of helped.

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But to have lived through those years, what a contrast with some who've come after him.

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A real, real, real, real contrast. And so if you haven't seen it, may I suggest you

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Google President Reagan's letter to his father -in -law that he had taken the time to handwrite there as president of the

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United States. And read some of the articles because some of the articles did indicate that Nancy Reagan had said that there had been some reaction to it.

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And a positive reaction to it or something on her father's part. Who knows? God knows. God knows those things.

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But it just struck me that it's something we do not give thanks for very often.

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The fact that we've, you know, I think of some leaders in Washington right now.

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I think of one young man, a senator. I won't embarrass him by saying his name.

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Everybody's going, this man needs to run for president because he is just so clear thinking and so straightforward and so refreshing.

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And I just wish he'd quit and get out of Washington before that sinkhole destroys his soul.

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Because anybody who tries to act with consistency or integrity or anything,

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I still don't even know how you survive in Washington anymore.

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I really, really don't. It's just shouldn't be that way. But it is. And and that's what we look at.

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But look that up. I think you might find it encouraging, useful and stuff like that.

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So, yes. Summer said, I got a letter from the president. Should be two.

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You beat me by a few years, though. Yes, I. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, spell spell checker got spell check or even get summer.

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Yes, summer. I've told we had summer on the program to talk about the letter she got.

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But it was a different president. Summer never knew Ronald Reagan. And so I'm awful glad that I did get to experience that.

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I was actually born during Kennedy's administration, but he was assassinated very.

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I think I was I wasn't quite a year old when he was assassinated. So but that's where I started anyways.

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And but anyways, that's neither here nor there, I guess. Just interesting thing that you might want to look up and and be be aware of.

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OK, so I you may recall that last Wednesday we did a program.

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We did it so that I could get away. I did about 30 to 36 hour quick trip up to Flagstaff, Arizona.

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If you don't know Arizona, a lot of people don't know Arizona. They just figure we still are being chased by Indians and and that it's all just one big, huge desert.

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Well, it's not. Arizona is a huge state. There's something called the Mogollon Rim. And you climb up the

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Mogollon Rim and all of a sudden you have things called trees, literally forests.

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Until the the fire about 10 years ago, I had the largest ponderosa pine forest in the world over toward Payson in that area.

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And then I think that that was also one of the largest forest fires ever. 473 ,000 acres, as I recall, something like that is huge.

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So it's no longer the largest ponderosa pine forest in the world. But anyway, the point is that you can get up to altitude and you start having all the different life zones.

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And and so I like to go up to Flagstaff for a bunch of reasons. One of the primary reasons is if you ride, if you run between 7 and 9000 feet above sea level, it has positive beneficial effects upon your fitness.

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And so I love riding my bike up the Snow Bowl Road up to the

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Snow Bowl ski area on the San Francisco Peaks, Mount Humphreys.

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They're called different things up there in in Flagstaff. And if you've ever driven up there, then you realize that riding a bicycle up that is quite the interesting task, especially to do it multiple times.

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But some of you know, I also do a little stargazing now.

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Thanks, Jason Lyle. And I started doing a little astrophotography and it's very enjoyable.

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And Flagstaff is a great place to Phoenix. Forget it. Not only light pollution, but you're only at 1200 feet.

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It's dusty. Good luck seeing anything. You can't even see the Milky Way here. You have to get out of town to even begin to see that.

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But you get Flagstaff and I've found some places right around 8000 feet above sea level.

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They're nice and wide open and you can get some beautiful, beautiful shots. And so I was out there in the pitch pitch black.

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It was fascinating. I took some pictures when the moon was still up and moon was only at a quarter. And it man, it looked like noonday when you're using a low

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F stop and stuff like that. It looked like the sun was up. It wasn't. It was the moon caught the Andromeda galaxy.

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Didn't get didn't get a lot of good pictures. A shot. Couple of reasons for I'm working on I'm learning.

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There's a lot to learn. You would think it'd just be easy. It ain't.

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Focus in the dark. Good luck. It's it's it's tough stuff. So anyways, as I was up there,

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I started getting a lot of contact about the fact that Dr.

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Moeller had commented on the statement in two contexts on the same day.

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One was a chapel session at Southern where people could ask questions.

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And then there was a ask ask anything session on YouTube and pretty much same comments have been made in both, though, in a much more extended fashion in the in the chapel.

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And so even though I was away and I didn't have my main computer and how like that, I managed to track down the video and actually listened on my drive back from Flagstaff.

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It's only about two hours. And was able to listen in. Now, obviously, you know, even last night when

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I announced I was going to do this, you know, there was someone said, yeah, someone's going to say that you're being so respectful to him just because he's white.

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And. On some levels, yesterday was really depressing along those lines. And certainly there are there is

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I call them the lying slanderers club or the slanderous liars club, which it doesn't really matter which one it is, but there's a there's a group of individuals in social media.

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They literally have sat around watching old dividing lines, try to find anything they can twist.

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And it is twisted. These are deceptive, deceitful men. They are driven by a a narrative and a promotion of a particular perspective.

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And truth means nothing to them. It is irrelevant to them. They are they are cut straight out of the mold of the leftist media in the

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United States today that will take anything and twist the meaning of the words into any shape just to accomplish what they want to accomplish.

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It's a sad thing to see, especially as they claim to be Christians. There is absolutely no basis for their absolute unwillingness to to even consider the possibility that maybe just possibly what was said might have some type of a of a less offensive reading.

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No, I will I will read into whatever James White says, whatever I need to read into it. James White says he's evil, he's nasty, and I'm just going to slander him everywhere

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I can. They crawled out yesterday and started injecting their venom and trying to hype stuff up because that's what the left does.

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You don't want meaningful conversation taking place. You've got to blow it all up. That's that's what critical race theory is about, too, is blow it all up anyway.

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So, you know, yesterday could have been really, really depressing, but it sort of ended up on a on a on a on a good note.

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I had been going back and forth with Pastor Dwight McKissick first in the morning and then and then we picked it up again the evening.

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And and, you know, at one point he said, we're going to drive each other nuts. And that was just enough of an opening for me to try to demonstrate to him that I actually am a human being and that I don't hate him.

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And, you know, he he asked for prayer. He's got a sort of an outpatient procedure today.

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So pray for Pastor McKissick down there in Arlington, Texas. Those things can be very trying and and and troublesome.

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And and we're going to try to do something. And I said to him, I said, you know, if you want to do something where we debate this issue, we're actually debating reform theology.

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How racism got into I have no idea. But well, I do. I mean, in the sense that I had specifically asked him, don't you think that believing slaves in 1850 had an appropriate right to believe that Romans 828 applied to them?

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That God was working all things for their good. And there's a theology behind that.

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You can't quote Romans 828 without recognizing that Psalm 135, 6, that's

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Daniel chapter 4. That's Isaiah chapter 43. That's that's Genesis 50. That's Isaiah 10.

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That's that's all that's Psalm 33. It's all those texts where God says, I do as I please.

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And I am accomplishing, you know, Job 13, 23. I have many decrees and I'm accomplishing these things.

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And that's the that's the theology that's behind it. And so I had asked that question because the the topic of conversations are on off for a few days had been in regards to God's sovereignty and and the matter of American slavery.

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And obviously, I think it's inappropriate to limit it to that to any slavery at any time or to wars or anything else.

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Just you have to have a a meaningful, robust theodicy. You can't just focus upon one area of evil.

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You need to recognize the entire purposes of God if you're going to really present the whole counsel of God anyway.

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And so the somehow race had been inserted into it because of that.

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He Dwight had referred to the Calvinist, the warped

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Calvinist view of a of a racist and warped, a warped and racist

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God, something along those lines. And it had gotten pretty hot and he had accused me of being a racist and all the rest of this type of stuff, which happens a lot.

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And yet once I said, you know, you know, why don't we get together?

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But before we do that, what we should do is we should find something where we could stand together as brothers and something we agree about first.

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And I think half of the Twitterverse fainted. I think

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I helped a lot of people sleep last night, mainly just because they collapsed. They just they just fainted.

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They just couldn't believe that that was happening. And I'd like to see that happen. I'd like to I'd like to see that happen.

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You know, if as I travel, I have the opportunity, for example, to sit down with someone like the guys at The Witness.

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You know, I was thinking about responding to everything they said. I sort of said everything I needed to say to the one young man who

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Jamar may be the the titular head, but the other young man is the one who does more of the talking on the programs,

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I think. And I think it's Taylor or Tyler.

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I don't have anything in front of me. I decided I wasn't going to address it. I said what I needed to say on Twitter yesterday.

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You know, when when on that program, for example, it was said, I don't even know if James White thinks we're believers because he accused

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Jamar of promoting agnosticism. And of course, the context was

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Jamar's statement that how do we know what the best presuppositions for a culture are?

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Who is to say what's the best presupposition for a culture? And I said, Christians, we have the word of God.

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The word of God tells us that it's better to enshrine biblical concepts in your code of law than to be like those cultures that engage in rape and warfare and slavery and everything else.

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Like you have amongst a lot of peoples, even to this day and in certain places still in the untamed parts of the world.

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And so what I was identifying is was agnosticism is as well. Who can say I wasn't saying that you're an agnostic, you don't believe in God.

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I mean, I truly sometimes despair of having meaningful dialogue today because you can pick out any sentence from the middle of anywhere and make it say anything.

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And if you're willing to do it, then then you can you can you can you can accomplish. Anyway, all of that background to state that when

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I chose to go ahead and respond to what Dr. Moeller said, you know,

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I do so obviously with great trepidation. I've learned, you know,

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I hear Dr. Moeller's voice five times a week during most of the year, not during July.

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That's how I know the Tour de France is on. It's because that's when the briefing takes the summer break.

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But other than that and the Christmas holiday break, and I think there is there a spring break? I think there might be a short break, but anyway, it takes a few breaks during the year.

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But most of the time I've taken, you know, I did this morning. I fired up the briefing and started doing my crunches and I just do crunches during the briefing.

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So that's what I've been doing. And so you just put the phone on the floor next to you and start going and listen for the whole time you're you're doing your sets.

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And so I've learned a great deal from Dr. Moeller. He's obviously a very brilliant and bright man.

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And he's in a very, very difficult situation. You certainly can tell by what he said.

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You know, I tried to find the exact spot where he said it. I was unable to do so. I apologize. I was looking for it, but you know how it is trying to find stuff in a video file.

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But he pointed out that he is the, and then he gives the name of someone, I think Brown, professor of Christian theology at Southern Seminary and says, you know, that man was a senator from Georgia.

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He rescued this institution, which was about to collapse in the 1870s financially. And he was the

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Confederate governor of Georgia during the war. And he even quoted from him.

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He gave a quote where he had said, every white man, no matter what his status in life, always has the comforting thought that no matter where he is in life, he is the better than any black man.

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So it was a direct statement of white supremacy, racially based, whole nine yards.

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He says that that's the professorship that I hold. And as most everybody knows, most of the buildings at Southern Seminary are named after people that were slave owners, because that's the history of that part of America.

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And so he is in an incredibly difficult situation.

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And I honestly think that that part of maybe his frustration and you could tell, you know,

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Al's normally a very smooth presenter, but there was a lot of stopping and starting because he was having to run a lot of filters.

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This is this is the kind of thing I cannot do. OK, I'm telling everybody right up front.

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I could never be the president of an institution like this. I can barely survive rich.

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OK, I mean, it's and we've known each other forever. So trying to captain a ship through the the mine infested waters of modern culture and everything else.

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Don't don't think I'm sitting here saying I could do a better job than him. No, no.

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I'm going to I'm going to sit here and tell you right now. No way. I couldn't even do the briefing.

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We have we keep moving. We keep moving the time of this program. All the time as it is.

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We only do it twice a week. It's sort of like, you know, Michael Brown, the guy's got to carry this equipment with him.

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That's the problem with doing programs like that, where you have to do it every day, same time.

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I can't do it. And I certainly could not navigate the shark infested in mine infested waters that he is attempting to navigate.

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And I I'll just be honest with you. I think he wishes we hadn't rocked the boat. With this statement.

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Now, someone asked me last night, was he invited to participate? And I can't speak for the whole group, but the assumption was in light and in light of what he said, he would have declined anyways.

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But in light of his very close connections to Southern Baptist entities,

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I don't think there is it even crossed our mind because it wouldn't be a possibility.

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Before I start playing some things, you need to remember something. And I'm not saying anything that is that is not known widely, but I think it needs to be factored in, especially as we consider the

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Southern Baptist interaction here. A number of the men who were involved in the crafting of the statement and in the current promotion of the statement are

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Southern Baptists. And obviously, a number of the people that are being responded to in part or in full, all depends on where they are, are likewise

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Southern Baptists. So we see a lot of things going on at the ERLC and Russell Moore that we find very troubling.

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Problem is, obviously, a lot of people, well, if you disagree with one thing Russell Moore promotes, then you must disagree with everything.

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No, that's not the case. There's not much critical thinking that's being applied by folks that think that way.

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But just look at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. It is the social justice capital of Southern Baptists today.

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You can go on their website and you can find pretty much anything you want about intersectionality and privilege.

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And James Cone was honored there and all the rest of this type of stuff. And it's just like, wow, here is something you need to understand.

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Because people are asking, well, how come no one from Southern has signed the statement and only one person from Southwestern?

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And no one's asking why nobody from Southeastern has signed the statement because I don't think there's anybody left there.

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There would have been a few years ago. There were a few years ago, but you may have noticed they're not there anymore. And it's not so much that they were fired as they just got sick and tired of the constant social justice focus of everything there.

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Anyway, what you need to understand is what's called the

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Eleventh Commandment. And that's what it's called among Southern Baptists, the Eleventh Commandment. Thou shalt not speak ill publicly of another

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Southern Baptist, especially when you are employed by a

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Southern Baptist entity and they are employed by a Southern Baptist entity. This is the

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Eleventh Commandment. It is right up there with the other ten.

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And I'll be perfectly honest with you, in most situations, it eclipses almost all the other ten as well.

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I learned this back in 2004 when I engaged in a fair, accurate, gracious, non -mean -spirited interaction with the writings that had been published for like 10 years of Mark Seifert, who at the time taught at Southern Seminary.

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And he denied the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, and he denied the categories of active and passive obedience, and so on and so forth.

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And I had had a pastor bring this book to me and say, how do you respond to stuff like this?

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And I figured if a pastor like him, who was so well -read and so grounded, had questions like that, a lot of other people did too.

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So I did a series of blog posts. This was back when blogging was brand new.

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And it's all still there. You can go back to 2004 and see all this stuff.

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Well, I guess that was okay up until the point where I contrasted the views of James P.

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Boyce, whose abstract systematic theology is sort of the statement of faith, in essence, that needs to be agreed to at Southern Seminary.

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I contrasted what he said with what Seifert said. Well, it was an accurate contrast. It wasn't mean -spirited.

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It was just, hey, here's what Boyce says, here's what Seifert said. Wow, did the wheels come off on that, circle the wagons, all the rest of this stuff.

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And I've told the story before, a Southern Baptist editor with whom

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I had worked on a book contacted me during that time and said, I'll never work with you again. And I'm like, why?

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And first I asked, have you read what I said? Well, no, I haven't. So there you go. But it didn't matter what

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I said. It didn't matter how accurate it was, how fair it was, how gracious it was, how important it was. None of those things mattered.

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I was teaching for Golden Gate at the time. He's teaching at Southern. Therefore, he is out of bounds.

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He can say anything he wants and you just have to shut up. Just zip. I'm not going to say anything about it.

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The Eleventh Commandment. And I've never heard from that guy again. So, yeah, it's the Eleventh Commandment.

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You shall not speak against another Southern Baptist, even evidently if it's really important to do so.

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That's problematic. That's really problematic. But it's powerful, very powerful.

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And I think that's what's going on here. Not entirely, but when you hear what

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Dr. Mueller says, the conflict that you can sense. I really love

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John MacArthur, but, you know, I really love Tim Keller. And, you know, I'm more on this side than that side.

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And for someone who is normally so incredibly clear, just spot on clear in saying, we disagree with this secular source that says this because of this.

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Most people have been left going, so you didn't sign it, but why again?

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I listened to 45 minutes and I'm not sure. And that's because no one's sure.

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Well, you know, I would have said things differently, but, you know, I just I can't because I'm here.

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And it was very, very nebulous. It wasn't like, well, here's the statement.

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Well, it wasn't even a quotation. That was what was so unusual about this. There was one section that was cited about victims, and there was a lengthy discussion of victims.

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I hope we can get to it. If I don't start doing so now, we're never going to get to it. But where you're just like.

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So what you're saying is someone you recognize that someone could read the statement in a way that, you know, none of us who were involved in writing it intended it to be taken.

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And that there are other things in the statement that would clearly make that clear.

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Dr. Mueller knows that no matter how clear you are, he himself has been has had his words taken out of their context and used inappropriately over and over and over again.

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So how is it a proper objection to say I can't sign it because someone might read it this way?

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Well, any statement, if Dr. Mueller himself wrote a statement on social justice, there would be people who would read it outside of the context that Dr.

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Mueller's own entire life work would provide for it. So every time he turns on the microphone and does the briefing, he's running the risk of someone's going to take his words.

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And believe me, like I said, we've got the liar and slanderous club. Doesn't matter what I say.

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You can take words, you can twist them as long as you're just not honest about the worldview and actual intention of the person you're you're you're examining.

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So we were all left sort of going, well, and let me read the section.

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Who knows? Maybe I'll do the complete response just by saying, well, he said this. And because I at the rate we're going,

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I'm not going to get very far. It was 45 minutes. I mean, if I stopped and commented, it would take three hours to do this.

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But it was the section. This is section 12 on race and race and ethnicity.

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Let me read the whole thing. So the whole thing is available. We affirm

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God made all people from one man, though people often can be distinguished by different ethnicities and nationalities.

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They are ontological equals before God in both creation and redemption. If you heard my sermons on Sunday, you know how often

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I emphasized especially the redemptive aspect of that. Race, in quotes, is not a biblical category, but rather a social construct that often has been used to classify groups of people in terms of inferiority and superiority.

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All that is good, honest, just, and beautiful in various ethnic backgrounds and experiences can be celebrated as the fruit of God's grace.

37:30

Where have you heard that before? All sinful actions. Yeah, I wrote that part. All sinful actions and their results, including evils perpetrated between and upon ethnic groups by others, are to be confessed as sinful, repented of, and repudiated.

37:48

Straightforward. All sinful actions and their results. So in other words, God's law has to be supreme over all cultural, experiential, anything else.

38:05

God tells us how we are to relate to one another. But it was the denial.

38:12

Here's the section. We deny that Christians should segregate themselves into racial groups or regard racial identity above or even equal to their identity in Christ.

38:25

So what are we talking about here? We're talking about identity politics becoming identity religion.

38:32

It's interesting. I spoke with a sister in the Lord who is black after my sermons on Sunday.

38:42

And not to give any information away, but she told me about her experience in a black church where the constant drumbeat emphasis was, your identity needs to be found in your blackness.

38:59

Your identity is to be found in your ethnic orientation. That's where your identity is. Now, any of us,

39:05

I hope, would recognize that if you are in a church anywhere that says your identity is to be found in your whiteness, get out.

39:18

But how come the same can't be said if people say your identity is to be found in your blackness?

39:25

Or in your Chinese -ness? Or in your Russian -ness? Or in your Indian -ness?

39:31

Or your Korean -ness? Or your Japanese -ness? Or whatever. The point that is being made is the identity in Christ has to be the identity that is ours and not an ethnic identity.

39:50

In light of what was said before, all that is good, honest, just, and beautiful in various kinds of backgrounds and experiences can be celebrated as the fruit of God's grace, yes.

39:59

But that's not what gives you your identity in Christ, nor is it the foundation of your relationship to other believers in the body.

40:08

And so, we deny that Christians should segregate themselves into racial groups or regard racial identity above or even equal to their identity in Christ.

40:20

When I preached Sunday night, we went straight into the Lord's Supper, and I made the direct application.

40:26

There is no other place like this place at this time that demonstrates our unity in Christ, because we are all proclaiming the

40:35

Lord's death until he comes. And there is nothing about the shade of your skin in any of this, and there can't be.

40:43

Or it ends up undermining the reality of what it is we're doing.

40:50

We deny that any divisions between people groups, from an unstated attitude of superiority to an overt spirit of resentment, have any legitimate place in the fellowship of the redeemed.

41:07

And so, it can be an unstated attitude of superiority or an overt spirit of resentment.

41:15

And folks, those can be and are experienced by people of every ethnicity.

41:24

Every ethnicity. This isn't a white -black issue. These attitudes have no legitimate place in the fellowship of the redeemed.

41:35

And then here's the sentence. But what are we talking about here? We're talking about things that improperly divide the fellowship of believers.

41:47

We reject any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves...

41:57

So we're talking about... One of the fundamental problems here is just the whole idea that you can bring just one racial group as if it's monolithic.

42:10

It's not. Blacks are not monolithic. Whites are not monolithic.

42:16

Whatever whites are. Go to Europe. Just a bunch of white people.

42:21

Yeah, right. Look at their history. Asians are not monolithic, etc., etc.

42:29

But we're talking about racial groups to view themselves... So we reject any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression.

42:44

Now, people have said, well, why didn't you give a specific definition of social justice?

42:51

And Dr. Muller spent a great deal of time. I encourage you to listen. We will link to his presentations.

42:58

I encourage you to listen. He gave a very good discussion. It was interesting. He sort of said, I've been dealing with this stuff since I was a kid.

43:04

In fact, I was dealing with this stuff... Some people talking about this stuff now haven't read anything like what

43:11

I've read. Okay, maybe so. But he gave a very accurate definition of social justice, which he described as poisonous, which involves what?

43:25

Neo -Marxism, the Frankfurt School, and what? Intersectionality, and what's the next term that automatically comes up?

43:36

Patterns of oppression. These people define everything in categories of oppressor and oppressed.

43:48

And if you allow categories of oppressor and oppressed to remain unchallenged within the fellowship of the faith to where you are having to...

44:00

I would say that the people in that row are the oppressed, but the people in that section back there are the oppressors.

44:10

There cannot be categories of oppressor oppression and all the related power dynamics that become a part of this lens through which people view things.

44:24

That's why most of us sit back and we listened as the word the was turned into an expression of power.

44:39

And we're all just going, it's just the word the. We don't get it because we don't have that lens.

44:49

Those that do, and if it's been surgically implanted, it can be very painful to take it off, which they have to do if they're actually going to be in the fellowship and be willing to look at others in such a way that they're not automatically forcing everybody else into these categories.

45:07

So it's this oppressor oppressed. So we reject any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors.

45:16

No one objects to that. Of course. It can't be white supremacy or in other parts of the world fill in the blank supremacy because it exists all around the world.

45:27

It's a sin that every racial group at some point experiences, including blacks in Africa.

45:33

Including blacks in Africa. No question about it. As privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression.

45:46

So if you say to an entire group, no matter what the

45:52

Lord's actually done in your life, no matter where you are. If you're a part of this racial group, then you are the entitled victims of oppression.

46:03

We say that's wrong because that ignores the reality of God's sovereign providence.

46:11

There are individuals who are racial minorities, ethnic minorities in the

46:18

United States that are a whole lot better off than I am. And that are a whole lot better off than all sorts of non -minority people.

46:30

So are we to be jealous of that? No. It's God's providence.

46:37

God raises one up. God blesses one. God gives some people just incredible skills at, for example, sales.

46:44

I know some really good salesmen and they can make really good money. I have to be so honest about anything that I sell that it's very, very good that I was not called to be a salesman.

47:00

It's not that I don't know how to twist things. I could do that, but I can't.

47:08

So yeah, God has the right to raise up, to give certain gifts, to not give certain gifts.

47:18

And this goes against the secular, neo -Marxist mindset of absolute equality in everything.

47:27

Equality of outcome. Everyone's got to be all on the same plane. And that's impossible. That's not going to happen in this life.

47:34

It shouldn't happen in this life. It is not a goal to have in this life. And certainly there's no basis for that within the

47:41

Christian faith. So, we reject any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression.

47:50

It seems like what Dr. Mohler said was, I can't sign that because it sounds, we need to recognize there are true victims of oppression.

48:03

We're not saying that there aren't victims of oppression. We're saying that you don't teach an entire racial group in the church to view themselves as if they are victims of oppression.

48:17

And the next line sort of bears that out. While we are to weep with those who weep, we deny that a person's feelings of offense or oppression necessarily prove that someone else is guilty of sinful behaviors, oppression, or prejudice.

48:29

In other words, you have to uphold justice. And so, you can be in a group that is taught to feel oppressed and victimized.

48:40

But as Christians, we have to say, God's justice demands that there actually be acts of oppression and acts of victimization for you to be guilty of those things.

48:50

You can't just simply look at a people group, because you're in this people group, and say, that people group is oppressing me, and therefore

48:58

I'm a victim. This will divide the church. How is that objectionable? I mean, from the very comments that Dr.

49:07

Moeller makes regarding the poisonous nature of neo -Marxist thought, the poisonous nature of this secular, divisive, break it all down, blow it all up.

49:30

And that's what we're seeing around us. People are seeing around going, why do we all hate each other all of a sudden?

49:36

How come we can't get together about anything? That's the whole purpose of critical theory, is to break it all up and rebuild something else in its place.

49:46

The communist socialist utopia, which has to be built upon an utter denial of Christian anthropology.

49:54

You have to believe that man is something other than what he is. And so, that's what's happening.

50:03

And what the statement says is, there is no place for that in the church. There is no place for that in the church.

50:11

Christians should not segregate themselves into racial groups. There's no place for divisions between people groups based upon unstated attitudes of superiority, overt spirits of resentment.

50:26

And we cannot allow this narrative that everything has to be seen as oppression, as those who oppress and those who are the oppressed.

50:38

Why? Because the Bible doesn't view it that way. It ignores the reality of the fact that God is sovereign over what he decrees for your life.

50:54

Now, that leads us to a division amongst

50:59

Christians as to whether God has a decree that he's accomplishing and all the rest of that stuff. But the point is that those of us involved in the writing of this do believe that God is sovereign over these matters.

51:12

And therefore, this socialist panacea of oppression, non -oppression, intersectionality, and all the things related to it, it doesn't work.

51:27

And it needs to be kept out of the church. And then that last line, while we are to weep with those who weep.

51:33

So, in other words, we are to be compassionate people, but we are to be mature, compassionate people.

51:40

And let me expand upon this for just a moment. And I'm sorry, Dr. Mohler, I was going to play bunches and bunches of stuff.

51:46

But the problem is, you play somebody else talking for 45 minutes.

51:52

If you talk just as much as they do, it could be 90 minutes long. You know how this works. He does know how this works because the briefing never plays clips.

52:03

Ever noticed that? He has to summarize everything. So I'm just doing it the same way he did it. So, as Rich will tell you, he's standing there on the screen right now.

52:10

It's been the whole time. He's got it ready to go. But I just haven't gotten to it because there's too much to get to here.

52:19

And I apologize for that. Anyway, I want to emphasize, there is a mature empathy that is enjoined upon us in Scripture, but it's a mature empathy.

52:43

In our society right now, what we have is childish empathy.

52:50

Now, what's the difference? We live in a society that encourages childlike emotionalism, rather than the obtaining of a level of maturity that allows you to be empathetic, but in a properly moral and ethical fashion.

53:17

I should not have empathy toward the criminal who...

53:29

Well, I saw a video yesterday. Interestingly enough, it happened in Canada.

53:37

But there are these guys that are carjacking cars. And then they trash the one, they carjack the next one.

53:44

Just one of those sort of like, it must be LA. It wasn't. It was somewhere in Canada. If you can believe that. It's summer.

53:50

So they thought out long enough to do something. But there are these two obviously hyped up, hopped up people.

54:02

And they've trashed the car, second car I think they're in, on a freeway. And they're running down the freeway in traffic.

54:11

And there's this guy with his gun trying to get people to stop. Well, somebody,

54:18

I think it was a lady, knowing what was coming, just ran the guy over.

54:26

Gun goes fly in one direction. He goes fly in the other direction. Just ran him over. Well, didn't run him over.

54:32

He didn't go under the car. But he went flying up in the air. And the gun went flying up in the air. And probably broke his leg or something.

54:38

I don't know. Because I think the next scene I saw, they had him in handcuffs. There are people in our society, they would go, oh, that poor man.

54:49

And I go, good job, lady. You did the right thing. She is innocent.

54:56

She's in her car. She might be a mom going to get her kid. She might be a grandma. I don't know.

55:01

But she has the right to safety in her car. And if some hopped up criminal is running down the freeway aiming a gun at her, good for her that she accelerated rather than stopping.

55:14

But in our society, we say, oh, the poor man. Just bad decisions in his life.

55:21

He's a criminal. And he got what was coming to him. There is this total lack of maturity in applying moral and ethical categories to showing empathy or sympathy or the expression of emotion.

55:42

Adults are supposed to be people who are in control of the expression of their emotions.

55:52

At least, no society will survive long if at the top tiers, the people in charge don't have that understanding.

56:03

Don't have that understanding. The society will collapse. As Christians especially, we have an inspired word that includes

56:18

Paul saying, if you won't work, you shouldn't eat.

56:25

That's what it says. Literally, at some point, Paul says, man up.

56:31

Stand firm. Act like men. But man up. Show some maturity.

56:37

Quit whining. It's in our inspired scriptures. And we may not like it, but it's there.

56:47

And we should probably ask ourselves questions why we don't like it. So when it says, while we are to weep with those who weep, as mature believers, we are to judge righteously.

57:02

We are told to judge righteously. That's how we must do it. So that means we should be slow to speak, slow to anger.

57:13

We should be focused upon, I need to know the truth of this situation.

57:19

I'm not going to come to a snap judgment. And only when

57:25

I have all the facts in hand, do I then make a decision as to how

57:31

I'm going to relate to this situation. And then, look, if you have a black brother or sister in your congregation that experiences an overt act of racial animus, then you should be the first one to express outrage and anger and try to do what is right for that brother or sister.

58:02

If you have a non -black, non -minority,

58:09

Anglo brother or sister who likewise experiences racial animus in the same way, you should be just as angry.

58:23

Because it's not a matter of what group it is, it is a matter that justice doesn't see color.

58:33

Do you remember the pictures of Lady Justice? She's got a blindfold on.

58:39

She's not supposed to be seeing color. And we're not supposed to be seeing color either.

58:46

And so it is perfectly appropriate to weep with those who weep. It is not appropriate to weep with those who are using the providence of God in their life in an improper fashion to try to gain sympathy from people when the reality is they're just not willing to submit to God's discipline in their life or whatever else it might be.

59:12

Again, it matters not what color they are. It doesn't matter.

59:20

Victimhood exists, but it should not be a state in which we are encouraging people to live.

59:29

Victimhood should outrage us because it is an individual experience, not because it is the constant type of situation.

59:41

That's what's being argued is, oh, no, no, that's the way it is. In our society, that's the way it is.

59:47

No, it isn't. You simply can't substantiate that.

59:53

You can't substantiate that from issues regarding police shootings when you actually look at the numbers.

59:59

You can't look at that as far as just so many other areas.

01:00:08

We have come so far. If you want to see if someone is more influenced by a secular spirit of Neo -Marxism or by a biblical spirit of viewing the world as we should view it, what is the emphasis upon in their experience?

01:00:37

Is the emphasis upon constant complaint and victimization and oppression and everything is down and everything is bad, or is the emphasis always upon thankfulness for all the good things that God has done for them, all the good things that God has given them?

01:01:04

Is there contentment in that personal Christian's life?

01:01:11

If you imbibe a worldview that is acidic to contentment and to eucharist,

01:01:20

Thanksgiving in the Christian life, that's battery acid.

01:01:28

It will destroy you. It will destroy your relationships. It will destroy your life.

01:01:35

If there's almost anything that is the key to being a happy Christian, it is

01:01:40

Thanksgiving and contentment. If that is your overarching attitude, then when you experience oppression, you're going to be looking for God's purpose in all of it and the body should come alongside you, but it doesn't become something that absolutely turns you inward upon yourself and causes you to push others away.

01:02:06

So while we are to weep with those who weep, that weeping must be done in light of God's revelation in the

01:02:15

New Testament as to what is true and honest and just and ethical and moral and everything else.

01:02:21

We deny that a person's feelings of offense or oppression necessarily prove that someone else is guilty of sinful behaviors, oppression, or prejudice.

01:02:28

I'm certainly seeing this. I mean, just yesterday, there are people who are saying, you're oppressing this person or you're doing this or you're doing that and they're basing it all on, well, you know, someone might have interpreted your action as involving this or your words as involving that, which had nothing to do with the entirety of my life ministry, teaching, or anything in the context whatsoever.

01:03:04

You would have to be digging and searching for reason to be offended to come up with this kind of stuff.

01:03:10

It is the end of meaningful conversation. It just stops it. It's done. There can be no communication.

01:03:17

There could be no understanding. It divides everybody and that's the whole reason of critical theory is to atomize everybody, blow it all up, destroy anything that we can have in common with one another, make us all individual oppressed people.

01:03:34

That's what intersectionality is about, the whole nine yards. And now it's in everybody's face, whether we want it there or not, it's in everybody's face.

01:03:47

And so the statements, words, make perfect sense.

01:03:53

They're biblical. I don't understand why there would be a statement.

01:03:59

Well, you know, this could be read as saying that there are not victims of oppression any longer. There are not only victims of acts of racism, but every ethnic group experiences it.

01:04:20

This is part of the false meme, the false narrative of our day. And what it's done is it said to certain people, especially people in minority situations, you don't have to check your heart regarding feelings of resentment toward others, racism, anything else.

01:04:44

That's only those folks, only those folks can do that. I will take seriously anybody's thoughts on this subject who will start off by saying racism is a sin and it is committed by every ethnic group and will call out the clear open racism that is practiced and encouraged amongst certain minority groups and yes, amongst black

01:05:13

Americans as well. If you'll call that out, you point any one of us to any church anywhere that says we only want white folks here or only white folks have the blessings of God and we will come down on that church like a ton of bricks and you know it, and you know it.

01:05:36

But oh, the number of black churches that pretty much say the same thing. But can't talk about that.

01:05:44

No, no. It's okay to segregate out. No, no. Can't say a word about that.

01:05:51

That kind of inconsistency just, it can't be allowed in the Christian conversation. It just can't.

01:05:58

So are there victims of oppression? There are.

01:06:04

Are they of every ethnic group? They are. Should we stand with them when it is demonstrated that it's not just their emotions and feelings that are being expressed, but it's a true act?

01:06:16

Yes. But must we not apply God's standards for determining when these things have truly happened?

01:06:23

I think we have a situation right now. Folks, and I'm sort of wrapping up here and moving on to some, right now what's happening in the

01:06:38

United States with the Brett Kavanaugh situation should truly be troubling to any person concerned about justice.

01:06:50

Biblical justice. I know, I know, I know. I did that series on God's law.

01:06:59

I did the series on the Holiness Code. And as a part of that, we had to deal with how it is that accusations are to be handled and the necessity of witnesses.

01:07:14

And those texts are just not texts that get preached much these days. And so I guess

01:07:19

I can understand why the church is just so disconnected here.

01:07:30

The reality is that I think what we're seeing, and we have the situation here, if those of you are watching years later, maybe you've forgotten, but an accusation of sexual misconduct toward Judge Kavanaugh has been brought up from 35 years ago.

01:07:56

35 years ago, when the man was 17 years old. Now, people say, Ah, 17, that's a minor!

01:08:04

Yeah, in biblical law, not a minor anymore. So, not the issue.

01:08:13

And the issue is not the sinfulness of the act, if it were to have taken place, or the reality that that kind of a culture has existed on university campuses or high school campuses.

01:08:26

Back in my day, he's only a few years younger than I am. And I knew the party kids.

01:08:32

I knew the kids, everybody, probably even up in, it couldn't have been quite as bad up there in the woods.

01:08:40

There was a little more morality up. I was in Phoenix, you know?

01:08:46

I don't know. You're not good. I got bored and got nothing to do. I understand.

01:08:53

I knew the party kids. I knew the kids that were getting drunk. Everybody did.

01:09:02

And this is a culture, a subculture, that we knew was there.

01:09:10

And you had to make a choice whether you're going to be a part of it or not. So there's no question about the sinfulness of drunkenness and all these other things that are there.

01:09:19

But here's the issue. What has happened in our society is there is no longer a belief that justice will eventually be done at the final judgment.

01:09:34

There's no final judgment to worry about anymore. The consciousness of God that you can find in Western writings well into the last century that informs so much of our morals and ethics has been banished by Darwin and by the overflow of secularization so that the human animal, once it dies, there is no category of justice left for that human animal.

01:10:24

And therefore, there is this, and we don't even stop to think about where it comes from, but there is this desire to see justice done.

01:10:34

We just extradited a 95 -year -old guy because we believe he was a prison guard back in World War II for the

01:10:47

Nazis. Why?

01:10:53

Because of this innate, really can't be explained by evolutionary theory, but this innate desire for justice.

01:11:02

But now we've got a problem because we're still made in the image of God and so we want to see justice done.

01:11:10

But we don't believe there's going to be a final judgment where God is going to actually bring about justice. And so justice has to be done now.

01:11:19

And so the worst thing that could happen is that someone get away with something in this life. The worst thing could happen.

01:11:28

And so, statute of limitations? No, you can't have a statute of limitations.

01:11:36

And so we read the words of people who came before us, the founders and originators of liberty itself, and we read them saying that it is better that ten guilty people go free and get away with what they did than one innocent person be in prison.

01:12:02

And now we have it the exact opposite. The idea now is we'd rather imprison ten innocent people than let one guilty person go free.

01:12:13

What's happened? Where was the shift? The shift was liberty could exist when you had a trust that no one's ever going to get away with anything.

01:12:25

There will be final judgment. Now, we are to seek justice in this life because we're commanded by God to do so.

01:12:35

But there is a limitation placed upon how far we can go.

01:12:41

There have to be witnesses. There has to be a reporting and a complaint within a reasonable period of time.

01:12:52

You cannot come up to someone who's 60 years old and accuse them of something from 40 years ago because there aren't any witnesses left.

01:13:03

There's no way that mankind, given his limited resources...

01:13:08

God has unlimited resources. He can just roll the tape back. And that's what happened. Exactly. Because I was there,

01:13:15

I saw, I have perfect knowledge. That's how you can have perfect justice. We can't do that. How many times have we imprisoned people?

01:13:23

And then thanks to DNA, whoops, sorry. Sorry about that. 25 years just took out of your life. And so because of the worldview change, we now don't...

01:13:39

We want cosmic justice now, but we don't have the cosmos power to do it.

01:13:49

And the only way to try to approximate that is to greatly risk liberty, freedom, and justice now.

01:13:57

So you can accuse anybody of anything and destroy them, whether you have the required biblical standards of evidence or not.

01:14:11

That's what we're watching. That's what we're seeing. This could not have been conceivable only a few decades ago.

01:14:19

Could not have been... Not until Clarence Thomas did we... Well, Bork.

01:14:25

Not until Bork did we... Well, Bork wasn't the same. I guess Clarence Thomas. It was Anita Helping. Not until that time period did we see this happening.

01:14:34

It could not have happened in the decades before that because there was still the societal impetus that recognized, no, we have rules, and the rules are there for a reason, and the rules are there to make sure that justice doesn't run over the innocent.

01:14:55

And that does mean that some guilty people will get away with things in this life, but not the next.

01:15:04

But not the next. There is no next now. There is no judge who sees all.

01:15:12

The judge of all the earth will do right. We've gotten rid of the judge. So right can't be done anymore.

01:15:21

And the result, I just think is absolutely horrific.

01:15:29

Who can... Is anybody else as absolutely freaked out about the fact that someone can come along and accuse you of stuff?

01:15:40

How clear is your memory from 35 years ago? I mean, really? Really? Okay, I was...

01:15:48

Okay, 35 years ago I was about 21. Okay, so I was at Canyon.

01:15:58

So I would have been what, junior? Junior year, somewhere around there. See, I can't even remember which year

01:16:04

I was in. Was I still working that job?

01:16:10

I don't know. I'd have to sit down for long periods of time just simply to get broad categories of what

01:16:22

I was doing and stuff like that. I mean, I know we were going to Salt Lake City and stuff like that.

01:16:31

But remembering specific events from a particular day, I suppose there might be incidents, you know, a conversation outside the...

01:16:46

That'd be around the time I had that conversation with that guy outside the Northgate, you know? But those are things

01:16:52

I've told over and over again over the years, not stuff that just all of a sudden in 2012 all of a sudden pops back up again.

01:16:59

There is a reason why Scripture has standards of what evidence is.

01:17:07

And you might say, well, that would let some people get away. That same

01:17:13

Scripture says no one's getting away. Nobody's getting away. And if anything, the person who gets away with it now, that's a greater condemnation.

01:17:24

Because the person who gets caught now might, because of that, have the opportunity of repentance unto life.

01:17:31

But the person who gets away with it and just keeps doing things to their life, I mean, there are deathbed conversions, but they're pretty rare.

01:17:41

That might very well be the increase of God's judgment upon that person's life and upon that person.

01:17:50

If they get away with it now, only to face perfect justice without any answer, without any defense, and certainly none of their own righteousness in that great day.

01:18:03

So, very, very concerning issue there.

01:18:10

And it's all a part of just how rapidly the society has disconnected itself from a

01:18:19

Christian worldview. And that's what's behind a lot of the concern of the statement.

01:18:26

And that's what's behind a lot of the concern that we have concerning the potential of division within the

01:18:33

Church that is based upon inappropriate things. So, it's...

01:18:39

Back to Dr. Mohler. He's trying to walk a line that I can't tell him how to do it.

01:18:47

I'm not smart enough to do it. Once again, tremendous gift to the

01:18:54

Church. Learned so much from him. Would love to have him sign the statement.

01:19:01

Fully understand why he does not believe he can do so. But, when it comes to the objections, they were just extremely nebulous.

01:19:16

This was the only citation from the text, or at least allusion to...

01:19:21

It wasn't really a citation, but an allusion to the text that he expanded upon.

01:19:27

And so, that's why I have expanded upon my understanding of it. And how

01:19:34

I don't think that it is a fair objection to us to say, well, it could be read as if you are saying.

01:19:44

No, I don't believe that it fairly can be. And I know that Dr. Mohler perfectly understands the necessity of authorial intent and that anything he says could likewise be understood by someone with great bias in a way that would be opposite of his intention.

01:20:10

And that he doesn't, therefore, avoid saying anything as a result.

01:20:18

I don't think that the issue with the document has anything to do...

01:20:23

Some people did bring up the issue of his statement that you could go to Grace Community Church, John MacArthur, or to Tim Keller's church, and get equally clear presentations of the gospel.

01:20:43

I've never been to Tim Keller's church, never met him. Obviously, Dr.

01:20:49

Mohler knows these individuals far better than I do. My concern, and the concern that I think is expressed within the statement, is that while that may be true now,

01:21:01

Dr. Mohler, you know the history of seminaries in the United States, and the history of denominations and churches in the

01:21:10

United States. And you know that when the focus begins to move away from the centrality of the proclamation of the gospel, and foreign categories of interpretation and perspective become central in a denomination, and as you know, it normally starts in the seminaries.

01:21:44

The result is almost always fatal. You yourself, so often, talk about what's happened to PCUSA, what's happened to the

01:21:56

United Church of Christ, what's happened to the United Methodists, what's happening to the Anglicans. You know the divisions that exist there.

01:22:04

You know our faithful brothers down in Sydney that are fighting the good fight. But why are they having to fight the good fight?

01:22:14

And so, it's been troubling to me, Dr. Mohler, to listen to Dr.

01:22:22

Williams, to listen to the dean,

01:22:31

I thought it was dean, I had to look it up again, might have been dean of students, but from Boyce, doing a video on white privilege.

01:22:40

I just, it's troubling to see those things.

01:22:46

It's troubling to see discussions of intersectionality and things like that. And at which of those two churches is there a greater probability that you're going to encounter a sermon that has been influenced by inappropriate external categories of thought than the other?

01:23:17

I think you know exactly what I mean. So, if you attend on 10

01:23:22

Sundays, or, let's change that, over the course of 10

01:23:29

Sundays, if you attend on three, what's the probability of getting a clear, solidly biblical, non -socially influenced, in a negative fashion, presentation of the gospel?

01:23:52

That, I think, is a worthy consideration. And I think that's why some people have responded to that aspect of what it was you said.

01:24:03

And so, I really hope that, and I know, no matter how carefully

01:24:17

I've approached this, no matter how much I've expressed my appreciation for Al Mohler, no matter how much

01:24:29

I see him as a gift to the church, on the one side, you're going to have his enemies twisting,

01:24:41

James White takes out Al Mohler! You know how it is on YouTube. They'll take a clip, and this kind of stuff.

01:24:49

Because I've disagreed, or because I've said, I sensed conflict, and I sensed, when he's talking about other things, laser clarity.

01:25:06

Objection to the statement? No laser clarity. There just wasn't. Let's just be fair. I honestly would hope that Al Mohler could hear me saying,

01:25:15

I didn't see any laser clarity. He'd go, yeah, I didn't have my laser with me, and I don't know that I can have a laser in this situation.

01:25:24

That may not even be a possibility for me. I think that's what he'd say. I don't know.

01:25:32

And then on the other side, they're going to be, oh, you're just being way too, just being obsequious.

01:25:38

You're just being, you know, you're just afraid. I got nothing to lose. I mean, believe me, if this is not how you try to, what is it that Jamar and the guys at The Witness were saying?

01:25:54

Build your brand. We have meetings about building our brand every day, don't we?

01:26:01

No, we've never had a meeting about it. Come on. It's the last thing. Trust me. If we wanted to build our brand, this is not what we're going to be talking about.

01:26:12

No, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to be blasting away at somebody that everybody can get excited about us blasting away.

01:26:20

We're going to be doing Radio Free Geneva every other episode and getting all the

01:26:25

Calvinists all excited. And that's what we'd be doing. So why do this? Consistency.

01:26:33

You know, we've always said the church is our focus. We're not a church.

01:26:39

We're not going to take the place of a church, but we want to be a benefit to the church. And this is clearly, clearly bringing division and distraction.

01:26:52

And don't give me this. Yeah, well, they said that back in the days of slavery. I don't care what they said back in the days of slavery.

01:26:57

We're not in the days of slavery. It is a proper observation now. That's an improper form of argumentation.

01:27:03

Stop it. Just go watch the thing with psychologists.

01:27:12

Stop it. Just stop it. Bob Newhart. Whatever he was in that particular one. It doesn't matter.

01:27:18

Just quit it. I know people are going to twist everything. But my hope is that for the fair -minded people, the people that don't have such an overriding narrative, that this has been a useful response that tries to clarify things, at least from my perspective.

01:27:39

I do not claim to speak for every person who worked on the document. I do not speak for John MacArthur.

01:27:46

I do not speak for Votie Balcom. I don't speak for Josh Bice or Tom Askell. I speak for myself.

01:27:54

And as I listened, I heard a conflicted brother who agrees.

01:28:01

I was going to play a section where he says most of what's in this statement is not arguable.

01:28:07

Well, that's true. But I can't sign it. And it seemed to me that the primary reason

01:28:15

I can't sign it is because of who I am and where I am and what I have to deal with. And what

01:28:22

I'm saying is, I don't want to be where you are. Could not be where you are. God bless you where you are. God's put you where you are.

01:28:28

God give you wisdom as to where you are. Couldn't do it. Smarter man than I.

01:28:35

Far more pressure than I would want. No question about it. But people were asking, well, what about the objections he raised?

01:28:42

And when I look at the objections, I go, yeah, if you dig in a little bit there, there's really no reason to believe that we were denying that real victims exist.

01:28:52

Real victims do exist. But even in saying that,

01:28:58

Dr. Moeller said, now there is a victimhood sales going on out there and a victimhood culture.

01:29:06

And yeah, but there are real victims. We agree. We agree.

01:29:11

And I think the statement could be signed by someone who would emphasize that there are true victims.

01:29:17

Because there are. There's nothing there that denies that in any way. So there you go.

01:29:23

There you go. Can't believe I... I guess it was better to do it that way than stop, start, stop, start.

01:29:30

There's more coherence, I guess. I guess there was. Even though the problem is, I threw the thing in about the

01:29:37

Kavanaugh stuff in the middle of that stuff. So anybody who wants to just listen to the social justice thing, it's related.

01:29:44

It's related worldview -wise. And everybody, I think, needs to realize this is a worldview issue. This is...

01:29:49

If you want to know why it's vitally important and the last person on the planet is going to object to critically analyzing events from a

01:29:59

Christian worldview, this could be Al Moeller. Because that's his thing. That's his very statement.

01:30:05

Was there something you were... Yeah. Yeah.

01:30:11

Yeah. That's the exact same thing. Yeah. No two ways about it. No two ways about it. Anyway, I'm thinking that we might actually be with you again at our normal time on Thursday.

01:30:27

We might be getting some rain. Did you see that there is a little... What are they?

01:30:32

Typh... You don't want to hear about... Oh! Yeah. Yeah, you don't want to hear about it.

01:30:39

You don't want to hear about that typhoon down there. It might come up the Gulf and just sit on top of your house.

01:30:51

I know. I know. Every time they've said, hey, this could come up in Arizona, it always just goes someplace else.

01:30:57

Yeah. But this will be the one time. Because of you, it'll be the one time that we're going to get it.

01:31:05

So we might be getting some rain on Wednesday and Thursday. But anyways, we'll try to... We won't pull the

01:31:10

CNN thing. We're here! And someone's going to walk in.

01:31:19

Oh! What? We do need to do a parody about that. Yeah.

01:31:29

Yeah, Jeff Durden with his beard flowing off to the side. Yeah, that would be great. Anyway, we're supposed to be here on Thursday. Lord willing, we'll see you then.