John Piper Reveals His True Goals on Critical Race Theory

Well, let's, uh, let's continue this video about Pastor John Piper's opinions on Critical Race Theory and the relationships involved.

Now, before we begin, I just wanted to respond to one comment. Still a lot of people pushing back, a lot of people really like John Piper.

I get it. No issues there. But somebody said that they, in criticism of what

I'm doing here, they think I should be pursuing unity rather than division or disagreement.

And I don't really understand the criticism. I think, you know, the only unity that actually matters or counts for anything is a unity around the truth.

And so, of course, if you're going to have unity with brothers in Christ or people that you respect or things like that, you have to be able to tell them the truth, and you have to have the audacity, the courage, the love, really, to tell them when they're wrong.

And to be perfectly honest, you know, this John Piper video on Critical Race Theory, at least the first half of the first video, has been horrendous.

It has been divisive, but not divisive over the truth, actually divisive over obfuscation and being vague.

That is not helpful. That's actually the evil kind of division, the kind of division that you just kind of throw something out there without any evidence whatsoever.

That's the evil kind of division. Dividing over truth is actually the good kind of division. And so this video is a call to Pastor John.

Look, stop speaking in these ways. Stop throwing accusations that you don't know are true. And stop defending things in a way that is vague and muddies the waters rather than clarifies them.

I find this video to be a huge example of that, muddying waters that really are quite clear.

And I think I know why he's doing it, but we will save that for another video. Let's continue.

I hope you find part three of this response video helpful. A word about each of those principles, because my guess is that the first one may offend some critics of critical race theory.

And the second one may offend some justice warriors, both of whom may be doing exactly what they should be doing.

And neither of whom do I want to offend. So first a word about—

So the thing is, though, Pastor John, is that if you don't use examples, which I'm very likely to assume that you will not.

This is just a standard Big Eva practice. They just go and say things. And they don't give examples.

They don't actually call anybody out by name or directly. And all that serves to do is throw shade on everybody.

And so I believe you that you don't want to offend people, because offense is one of the cardinal sins of Big Eva.

I get it. But your actions are very difficult to discern that you actually really don't want to offend people.

Because if you didn't, you would be very specific. So let's just find out if maybe you're the first Big Eva person ever to use specific examples when you're making accusations.

I do that every day. That's why I name the people that I'm criticizing. That's why I directly speak to the people

I'm criticizing. Let's see if Pastor John breaks ranks with the Guild and actually does that. Because if he doesn't, then all this video serves to do is to throw shade on everybody, which is a big problem for a guy like me.

Jesus said, what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, false witness, slander.

These are what defile a person. Paul said that our new identity in Christ involves putting away all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander, but that we be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you,

Ephesians 4 .31. And Peter said that when we're born again, we should put away all malice and all slander, 1

Peter 2 .1. And that quote from Jesus was Matthew 15 .19. Slander, what is it?

Slander is speaking untrue, pejorative things about someone, usually in public.

And Jesus and Paul and Peter say, that's just not what Christians do. We don't do that to each other.

Now, my guess is that when Pastor Barry says that he and others were pinned with critical race theory label before they even knew what it was, some critics of critical race theory will point out that you can be infected with a disease without knowing the name of the disease.

Which, of course, is true. We all know that's true. But I am underscoring that it is a very serious thing to tell the world, which is what social media does, that somebody has a deadly intellectual and moral disease, which you may even think is worthy of excommunication, when all you see is a few symptoms of the disease, which may not be owing to the disease at all, but owing to some other cause.

Right, but the thing is, any other cause for the kinds of symptoms that we're seeing from social justice warriors and woke church advocates is an evil symptom.

So let's just say, wildly, that somebody is spouting critical race theory nonsense, but they actually don't get it from critical race theory, they get it from somewhere else.

So it doesn't matter, really, where they get it. Obviously, you want to be as accurate as possible.

It makes perfect sense that they get it from critical race theory, because that's something that's very powerful and prevalent in our culture.

I don't think anyone would deny that. But let's just say they get it from somewhere else. Okay, so we were inaccurate that they got it specifically from critical race theory.

Maybe they got it just from straight -up Marxism. I don't know where they got it. But the point is, it's not biblical. And that's the thing.

That's what most of us care about. Most of us don't care. Let me give you an example. If somebody is a physicist, a physicist and a

Christian, nobody's going to say to you, if you're spouting true physics, and you're teaching true physics about the way the world works, actual physics, nobody's going to come to you and say, hey, dude, that's not biblical.

Well, maybe some people would. Maybe some people would. But people aren't going to be like, well, you didn't get that physics from the

Bible. You didn't get that physics from the Bible, so therefore you're evil. Nobody would do that. Instead, what we do do is say, well, not only does this not come from the

Bible, it actually overturns key aspects of what a Christian ought to be.

And so it's undiblical. It's either critical race theory or maybe something else. But the point is that it's not true.

It's actually a lie. And it actually seeks to overturn the ethics and the morality that God says

Christians ought to embrace. That's the important part to me. It's not the fact that it came from another course of study regarding how the world works and stuff like that.

That's not the issue. The issue is that it's against the scripture. And so, OK, we do want to be accurate and we only want to be, you know, calling ideas that are infected by critical race theory, you know, you know, critical race theory.

However, even if it's not exactly critical race theory, our problem with it is not the fact that it's called something.

It's the fact that it's not interpreting the world correctly. It's lying about how God created the world.

It's lying about ethics. It's lying about people. That's our big problem with it. So I agree with Pastor John.

You want to be as accurate as possible. But the reality is we have to make a call at some point.

And whether it's going to be critical race theory or something else, the point is that it's not true.

That's the point. We're calling it out for not being true. Guys, we should try to be accurate and we should try to be as accurate as possible.

But the point is you do eventually have to make a diagnosis like every diagnosis.

This is something that I think we need to realize that when you go to a doctor, they're always playing the percentages.

Because your symptoms might be very serious. Because you have noticed like everything has flu -like symptoms.

Every sickness has flu -like symptoms. You ever notice that? Well, that's true. Most diseases have flu -like symptoms.

And so the doctor needs to play the percentages. When you go to the doctor, you give him the list of your symptoms. You tell him about your lifestyle, your history, stuff like that.

He's going to tell you, oh, it sounds like it's just a cold. Just go home. He might be wrong, but he's playing the percentages.

He's knowing what's probable given the symptoms that you're seeing.

And so do we know with 100 % accuracy if somebody somewhere along the way imbibes some deadly poison of critical race theory?

No, we don't necessarily know with 100 % accuracy. But we have to make judgment calls all the time without 100 % of the facts.

And so it's true what he's saying here, but I'm wondering what the point is.

Who is he talking about? Again, let's get specifics here. Let's give him an opportunity because he's only about 13 minutes into a 22 -minute video.

Maybe he does give us specific examples of what he's talking about. I highly doubt it, but maybe he will.

What if one of the symptoms of the disease is excessive perspiration, but this perspiration is owing to long hours of hard work on some worthy cause?

This is exactly what I was talking about. Because you go to a doctor and you say, well, I'm perspiring. I'm sweating.

And the doctor also notices that you're breathing heavy. And they say, well, tell me about your last half hour.

And he goes, well, I ran over to the office because I was so sick. Yeah, but you ran, and so you know you sweat when you run.

See, the doctor's always playing the percentages, and that's what we're doing as well. Because the thing is, the idea here that Pastor John is presenting is that there are a lot of people.

Because you'd have to assume that he thinks this is a serious problem. He spent some of his precious time doing a podcast on this.

So you'd have to think he thinks there's a lot of people like this that just woke up one morning and said, I'm going to go call a bunch of people critical race theorists that I don't like.

Like, John, this is the problem with this. Because so many of us are like me, where they woke up one day, and they started hearing all kinds of stuff from people that they respect that is untrue.

Lies, things that they don't understand. They felt discombobulated. Some felt discombobulated for a couple days.

Some felt discombobulated for a few weeks or months. In my case, it was months. I started hearing lies from people that are in positions of power.

Positions like you, John Piper. In fact, some of your friends, people that know you directly. I started hearing people saying lies about my brethren.

Saying lies about people, public people, private people. Saying these ideologies and things that did not come from the scripture.

I knew that they didn't come from the scripture. And for months, I sat with this uncomfortable, discombobulated feeling.

And I'm like, what in the world is going on? And so I researched, and I studied, and I watched a ton of videos, and I watched a ton of podcasts, and I read a bunch of blogs, and I did a lot of due diligence.

Before I did even one video on this topic. And lots of people are in this same boat.

You know how I know? Because they tell me. Like, man, a couple years ago, man, I didn't know what the heck was going on. I started wondering, why are these people saying these things that are untrue?

Obviously, demonstrably untrue. What's going on with these preachers and pastors? I read their books,

I love them, but all of a sudden they're saying this stuff. And this is how it goes, guys. We didn't just wake up one morning and say, screw it,

I'm going to start slandering people. Pastor John, this is the kind of thing that's just so ridiculous about this, unless you start giving us some examples.

Because if you do, then I'm going to have to eat my crow. But I would be willing to bet almost every dollar

I have that you're not about to go and name some names and give specific examples of the kind of thing you're talking about.

You're giving this impression that there's a legion of men out there that are just saying,

I'm just going to call people critical racists. I don't even know what it is, I'm just going to call them that. Because it's a pejorative, and I don't like those people.

There's probably a few people like that, but probably not enough that warrants a whole podcast episode about it.

The disease is a loss of appetite, but this loss of appetite is owing to deep sorrow rather than to the disease.

Christians should be so hesitant to slander a brother with pejorative labels that we go the extra mile to make sure we know.

We know whether his actions or statements are really owing to his infection with the lethal aspects of critical race theory or not.

Let's be real here, John. Pastor Razul said he went to school and studied

Afrikaner studies, and you're telling me that you don't think that it stands to reason that there was some critical race theory in that class?

Just like the same kind of class that I took about Afro -Caribbean philosophy. I said it in two episodes ago.

Afro -Caribbean philosophy. My teacher taught me critical race theory, but what he did not do is say, all right,

Adam, today we're going to have a lesson about critical race. No, the whole class was critical race theory, and the books were critical race theory.

But he wasn't saying, okay, we're going to learn a contrary philosophy. It's called critical race.

That's not how we did it. That's not how we did it. He said, this is the Afro -Caribbean philosophy, contributions of the great

Afro -Caribbean philosophers, and all it was was critical race theory, but I didn't know that, and you mean to tell me that a movement that has infected the academics of almost every institution in their

Afrikaner studies classes weren't teaching things that were informed, that were founded and grounded in critical race theory?

That's what you expect us to believe, John Piper? And all of a sudden he sounds like a critical race theorist too, but no, no, no, he didn't get that from his schooling.

So it's like we're expected to believe that he was exposed to the virus, is exhibiting symptoms of the virus, is defending the virus, but he doesn't have the virus.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Christians ought to be so hesitant to slander that we never decide on anything.

I guess. That's preposterous, John Piper. That is preposterous. In fact,

I think one of the best ways to avoid slander in these highly contentious days is this.

If you hear or read a brother say something that you think is unchristian or unbiblical with regard to race, don't call it critical race theory.

Call it unchristian. Call it unbiblical. Preferably in a private email, not a public tweet or blog or podcast, and give solid biblical evidence for your concern.

John, we do this every freaking day. Every day we do this.

Every day I get messages from people, and they say, Adam, what would you recommend that I read or that I suggest somebody read?

A loved one who's saying these things, they're clearly not biblical, they sound to me like they're informed from critical race theory, but I have a relationship with these people.

What do you suggest I do? And every suggestion, every time I suggest the same thing.

I say, here's how you handle this. You speak with them. They're a person in your private life.

You speak with them privately. You ask them questions about where they got their ideas. You don't come on too strong with any pejoratives or anything like that.

You ask them questions. How did you come to that conclusion? What Bible verse told you that part? Tell me about this.

And then you confront them with the Bible verses. There's like five of them, and I suggest them very often to people.

There's like five verses that each one of them on their own destroys the entire race -baiting narrative of the social justice movement.

And I say, well, you bring these verses to them. They're easy to understand. They're very simple to memorize.

And here's the verses that you use. In fact, I'm writing a book about these verses. And so it's the same thing every time.

People are having these conversations privately all the time. This is going on.

It's going on within churches, church bodies, within friends, in the DMs. It's going on everywhere,

John. But here's something that will not happen.

Okay? People who are publicly slandering other brothers or sometimes entire segments of people, people like Jamar Tisby, whose hatred of white people is so palpable, people like Dr.

Eric Mason, whose hatred of white people is so demonstrably easy to demonstrate, people like Matt Chandler, who's just so okally -dokallying people all day long as long as they're progressive.

Okie -dokie, you know, that kind of thing. People like you, John, who are public figures and are going to be taken very seriously, as you should, as you've earned.

They're going to take your opinion, and they're going to run with it. People like you who've got these public platforms will be critiqued publicly, as is appropriate, as the

Scripture demonstrates is appropriate. We will not stop doing that.

You have a huge platform, John, and you've earned it. And the problem is, though, that what you've done in this video so far is just muddy the waters and pretend like there's this huge problem of people just pejoratively slandering great brothers in Christ that have never even been exposed to a single iota of critical race theory, but yet you're calling them a critical race theorist.

That's a fantasy, John. You've created a fantasy, also known as tilting at windmills.

You've created a monster, a giant, that you can go and slay now because it's very easy to prove that a

Christian shouldn't slander somebody. What's difficult to prove, John, and you've got about six minutes to do it,

I highly doubt you're going to do it, is to actually prove that someone has slandered somebody.

That's very difficult, and that's what Big Eva folks like you never do, and I'm going to call it out publicly every single time.

So let's not pretend like people are just blasting each other on social media all day long. That's just not what happens.

And I think you know it. Everyone and their mother is having these conversations, and most of them are happening privately in the context of a family, in the

DMs, in a church family, in a circle of friends. This happens every day, John.

But what does not happen, and what will not happen, and what should not happen is people that have big platforms like yourself being allowed to continue to lead the sheep astray from a distance.

We will not allow it, and we'll call it out every single time publicly because that's the biblical way to go about it.

Here's one more point on this first biblical relational principle of avoiding slander.

One way to avoid slander is not assuming that we know a person's ethical or intellectual or doctrinal stance on the basis of the questions they ask rather than the answers they give.

If I pose the question why there may be racial disparities in healthcare or education or anything else, and you assume that because of my question

I'm infected with the disease of critical race theory, you're on the brink of slander.

John, this is slander, what you're saying right now. This is the brink of slander because, again, you've created a fantasy.

No single person, that's not true, I can't say no, but very few people have ever done what you're saying is like the biggest problem in Sin Sliced Bread.

You didn't say that, but you did a podcast about this, so obviously you think this is serious. Has there been any person on the planet that has looked at Thomas Sowell's book about discrimination disparities where he asks the question, why are there these disparities in X, Y, Z?

Has anyone ever said, yeah, that Thomas Sowell, that's a critical race theorist. I talk about discrimination and race and disparities almost every single week on my

YouTube channel. I've never been accused of being a critical race theorist. Why do you think that is?

John, why do you think that is? How can that be? You would think at least one time someone would have slipped up and said you're a critical race theorist,

A .D. It hasn't happened though. And do you want to know why it hasn't happened,

John? It's because the amount of people that you're addressing here that say, well, if you just ask the question, you must be infected by the deadly disease is so minuscule that it's not even worth addressing.

Here's the reality, John, and you know intimately the kinds of just asking questions that we're talking about here because it's the same kind of I'm just asking questions that you cast off Rob Bell into the outer darkness for.

Rob Bell, when you wrote that farewell Rob Bell article, that was an appropriate article to write.

Good on you, John. Good on you. But Rob Bell was just asking questions.

Don't assume that you know his doctrinal positions just because he's asking questions.

He wasn't just asking questions. That's the point. That's the point.

That's progressive rhetoric. And you know that, John. You can just ask questions in a way that actually secretly low -key is putting forward ideas.

And Rob Bell made a career on doing that. I don't know if he's still doing that because who cares, right? Who cares about Rob Bell?

But just asking questions is not enough to get you labeled a critical race theorist or even to have somebody wonder is that guy infected by critical race theory?

No. It's asking questions in a certain kind of way. And we all know what

I'm talking about because I ask those questions. Thomas Sowell asks those questions.

Legions of people ask those questions on their platforms and never get tarred and feathered as a critical race theorist.

And it's because they're actually trying to answer their questions. They're not putting forward a narrative by the questions that they ask.

That's the difference. That's the difference, John. There are some people that ask questions as a form of rhetoric to push forward ideas that they're too effeminate to actually just put forward themselves.

It's the lowest form of rhetoric I can imagine. It's the least respectful form of communication that I can imagine.

I have no respect for it. Nobody should have any respect for it. I'm glad that you saw it in Rob Bell. Now it's time to open your eyes to the legions of social justice warriors and woke church advocates that are doing the same thing.

Listen, John. You don't agree with me that they're doing that? That's fine, but let's not pretend like I just woke up one morning and I didn't even put any thought into it and I just wanted to slander a bunch of brothers in Christ.

That's slander. That's slander. And you would say, well I'm only talking about the ones that are doing that.

Yes, but by not giving us examples which let's just be honest. I might have to eat crow.

We'll see. He's got five minutes left. You're not going to do that. All you're doing is throwing shade on everybody.

Everybody. Making people suspicious of everybody.

Just like what Big Eva always, always, always does. They make a mountain out of a molehill. They set up these windmills that they pretend are giants.

They slay them. And all it serves to do is throw shade and suspicion on every single person that is engaging in apologetics and in polemics regarding your favorite pet projects.

You wouldn't put up with it if people were acting this way regarding Rob Bell and you shouldn't. But for some reason this woke church idea has all kinds of pastors shaking in their boots to face the mob, the mob justice of this woke church.

And listen, if you guys, I would love, I would love to recommend Pastor John Piper materials on Critical Race Theory but if you guys aren't going to step up to the plate somebody else is going to.

And that's what we see going on right now. There's a big shift coming and that's all there is to it. I'm not patting myself on the back here.

I'm just standing inside of a gap. That's it. That's it. That's all I'm doing. That's all a lot of us are doing.

There's a new guard coming up that's willing to step up to the plate on this issue. We are not scared of feminists. We are not scared of these race hustlers.

We're not scared of any of these people. And just because so many pastors are petrified of these people canceling them and it certainly seems like the entirety of Big Eva is that way maybe with the exception of Owen Strawn at this point doesn't mean that we're not on the right side of this.

We're on the right side of this. And I think it's very clear to people that are paying attention. Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful.

We'll continue if you want me to do it. And we'll go from there. Oh, but before I do, let me say this.

Thank you to all the Patreons. I had a couple new Patreons this month. Thank you so much for joining.

are much appreciated. God bless you. I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.