9 Marks on a Winsome Hotseat - AD's Analysis

Alright, well I haven't done this in a while. If you want to support this channel but get something in return, please consider buying a

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No Despair, baby. There's two designs. Thank you so much for considering doing that. Now, I wanted to talk about Jonathan Leeman again, and I know people are getting sick of this, and that's fine.

I'm not going to talk about Jonathan Leeman forever, but he's just such a very useful avatar for the problems of Big Eva in general, and I was trying to think about why is that?

Why is he such a good example to use when you're talking about Big Eva? And I think probably it's because he's a little more sloppy than most, and what

I mean by sloppy is he's sometimes a little too honest, and so you can catch him in all kinds of inconsistencies and contradictions, so he's a very useful example in that way, and some of the other kind of Big Eva figureheads, they have mastered the art of speaking but saying nothing way more than Jonathan Leeman has, and that's a good thing.

When you speak, you should say things, so I'm glad that Jonathan Leeman hasn't mastered this art, because it's really the art of deception, but it's not good for him because he's still trying to be part of the guild and trying to hold all of these contradictions together, but he's not able to do it as well as a guy like Russell Moore, for example, because Russell Moore can speak for 20 minutes and literally say nothing of value.

So talk about Jonathan Leeman one more time, because he's a good avatar for Big Eva. Now, I mentioned last night on Reform Jellicle, by the way, if you don't watch

Reform Jellicle with me and Matt Williams, definitely start watching it, it is a fantastic show, I believe the last few episodes have been some of the best content that I've ever been a part of on YouTube, so check it out,

Reform Jellicle. I talked about my appearance on this podcast, this is called the

Defend and Confirm podcast, oops I'm not subscribed, shame on me. Go ahead and click the subscribe button, they only have 200 subscribers right now, and to be honest, like I've only watched a little bit of their content, but these guys deserve a lot more subscribers, they're actually really, really good.

So let me explain my take on these gentlemen. It's two guys,

I forget their names, oh my goodness. I'm sorry guys, Russell is one of them and then

Sam is the other, I don't remember their last names, but anyway, they seem to be on the right side of this critical race theory woke church stuff, right?

So I've seen them speak on this and they seem to understand the dangers, they understand the issues, they understand what critical race theory is, and they're also, they're willing to push back on evangelical leaders like Jonathan Lehman.

Now, they are friendly to Jonathan Lehman, you know, I think one of them writes for Nine Marks and seems like he's a personal friend of Lehman and stuff like that, and there's nothing wrong with that,

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but they're willing to push back, but only so far.

So when you watch this interview, a lot of it you're going to be very encouraged by, and you're going to get a lot of use out of it, but you're also, if you're like me, you're also going to be very, very frustrated because they do kind of go down the trail of challenging

Lehman, but then when Lehman kind of weasels out of answering a question or he wants to change the subject or he gives a non -answer answer, they pretty much drop it right there.

And look, I'm not saying that that's inappropriate, there's a room for interview, there's space for interviewers like this.

I would say that these guys, they're like the Ezras, right? They're on the right team, they're doing the right things, they have their heart in the right place, but they're not willing to beat you over the head and pull out your beard kind of thing, and there's nothing wrong with that,

I'm okay with that. This interview will help you though, because you will see the weaselly tactics of Jonathan Lehman completely exposed by these two guys.

They don't push as far as I wish they would, but that is totally fine because I'm willing to step in the gap there.

So I want to talk about this because at one point in this interview, this was uploaded on October 1st of this year, at one point in this interview, they're talking a lot about critical theory and Jonathan Lehman says,

I'm against critical theory, which a lot of Big Eva people are saying right now. But then these two brothers, they try to apply it to specific situations and they challenge him and they say, you know,

Jonathan, you've actually done gospel centered events with self -proclaimed critical theorists.

And they basically ask him, how do you defend that if you're saying that critical theory is so dangerous to the unity of the church and it undermines the gospel, which it definitely does.

And so let's listen to Lehman's answer and some of the give and take. And this is very interesting because this illustrates a problem, a very endemic problem to Big Eva, where they're willing to talk about things in the theoretical, but they're very unwilling to take it to the streets, which doesn't do people any good.

It's not appropriate shepherding, in my opinion. Let's listen to this and I'll tell you what I mean. ...vulturous views that I am unaware of, of course, my job is to continue to work against those and to root them out, but certainly it's possible.

I guess I'd turn the table and say, is it possible those who are making those charges, is it possible they are wrongfully misrepresenting and being divisive in ways you don't recognize?

Right. Absolutely. What they've asked him here is, is it possible that Nine Marks is influenced by critical theory without knowing it?

And he admits, yes, it is possible. That's a very good answer because of course it's possible to be influenced by things that you're unaware of the origin of.

That's the most obvious answer of all time. So let's continue. I'll turn that question around.

Is it, so is it, what was the second part of your question, is it Nine Marks? Is it possible that Nine Marks has succumbed?

There we go. Well, I mean, by the same token, yes, it's possible. The calls coming from inside the house.

I genuinely don't think it's the case, but no, I don't think so.

Okay. Next question. These guys are way hipper than me. Way hipper. Good on you guys.

I oppose it and I think it's... Yeah. All right. The pastorally tender answer is it's ridiculous.

That's right. Okay. So did you hear what he just said there? This is Jonathan Lehman coming out strong against critical theory.

He said that he opposes critical theory and that the pastorally tender answer is that it's ridiculous.

That's a strong statement and I appreciate that strong statement. Don't hear me taking anything away from Jonathan Lehman.

In the theoretical, he thinks that the pastorally good response to critical theory is that's ridiculous.

I agree. I think depending on the situation, you could go stronger than that, but hey, I agree with Jonathan Lehman here.

So let's continue and hear where this is going. This one is a little bit... This is a paragraph, but stick with me.

You spoke at the Just Gospel Conference, which featured two self -proclaimed critical theorists.

I'm not going to name them unless anybody wants me to. Name them! Along with a number of other speakers who

I think many would say are very much influenced by critical theory, even if they would not call themselves critical theorists by training.

So two questions here. Can you explain to someone who might struggle with the idea of sharing a platform with people that you would disagree with on these issues?

And then two, can you speak to second -level separationism and how you and Nine Marks in particular think about second -level separationism?

All right. So let's stop right there because this is a very good question, brother.

I don't know if you're Russell or Sam, but great question. Great question. This is a challenging question.

It's a direct question. And again, his style is very different than mine. This is why he gets an interview with Jonathan Lehman and I would never get one, but that's okay.

So he says, Jonathan Lehman, you just said you oppose critical theory. You said the pastorally sensitive answer is that's ridiculous.

Good on you. Now explain this. You've appeared at a gospel -centered conference with two self -proclaimed critical theorists.

In other words, they themselves call themselves critical race theorists, okay?

So this is not somebody assigning that to them. This is them themselves saying, I hold to critical race theory.

I promote critical race theory at the Just Gops Gospel Conference about justice.

I promote critical race theory, which Jonathan Lehman has just said that's ridiculous. Now this is a great question.

Thank you brothers for doing this. Let's hear what Jonathan Lehman's response is. Yeah, sure.

I'm not aware that you mentioned those names to me ahead of time. The one name, I just simply don't know at all.

And I vaguely remember he gave the talk and I don't think I was paying attention, I was doing something else. And the other individual name,

I know him a little bit better. I've read a few things of him.

I'm not aware that you say he's a self -proclaimed critical theorist. A, I didn't know that.

B, I've not read anything that he's written or heard anything that he's said that would make me think that that's true.

Okay, so his first instinct is to distance himself. That's fine because he's saying, I don't know one of the guys.

And the other guy, I know him, but I didn't know he was a self -proclaimed critical theorist. Okay, you get some,

I'll give you some grace there because if you don't know what you don't know, there are things I don't know about people. I might appear with them on a stage and I didn't know that they were certain whatever.

And I can't be held to know everything about everyone. Totally fine. I get that. I get that.

But here's the thing, guys. He was speaking at a conference. This is the problem that we have because this man, a self -proclaimed critical theorist,

I'm assuming the brother's not lying about that, right? He speaks at a conference directly related to the issue of racial justice.

And Jonathan Lehman was unable to discern that he was speaking in a way highly influenced by critical theory.

That's a big problem. That's a big problem. And I think that's where we have a lot of this disconnect because so many of us hear what people are saying and are like, oh yeah, that clearly comes from critical theory.

That's not biblical. And then our leaders are saying, how dare you slander that brother? But they are so ill -equipped.

He couldn't even tell that at a racial justice conference, there was a critical race theorist preaching and teaching critical race theory.

He couldn't tell. I'm not saying that it's bad that he doesn't know, but he doesn't know. And so instead of coming back at us and saying, how dare you slander that brother?

Admit you don't know what you're talking about. That's a big problem. If you can't discern that something's influenced by critical race theory, maybe you should sit this one out.

Justice suggestion, that's a huge problem. You get this all the time, people pushing back saying, oh, you're slandering a brother from people who admit right here.

He heard the whole talk. He knows this guy, he's seen his writing, he's friends with him and he didn't know he's a self -proclaimed critical theorist or he didn't even know that his opinions on justice and race were highly influenced by critical theory.

That's a problem. That's a big problem. So he distances himself and then he reveals his ignorance. That's fine.

It's okay to be ignorant. But if you're going to be ignorant, you got to stop talking about this stuff. You got to stop talking about this stuff in such a way that puts you up as an authority figure.

Look, you can hash this out with brothers, but when you're at a conference and you're saying, oh, how dare you slander?

Because he just said that. He said, isn't it possible that you're slandering brothers? Sure, it's possible, but you don't have a clue what you're talking about because you just admitted that.

Let's continue because this gets even more interesting. Well they are. Instead of just slapping down these bumper stickers.

Oh, right. I forgot to mention this. He's bristling at the name, right? I just don't like labeling people critical theorists.

But the brother just said, no, no, no, no, I'm not labeling them. They've labeled themselves. I'm just recognizing the label.

So why would you even bring this up about labels? Look, I didn't use a label. They used the label. You see what

I'm saying? This is very weaselly. Let's continue. He's like, critical theorist. I just want to say, okay, can we talk about specifically what he has said that would jeopardize the gospel or undermine the gospel or the unique authority of scripture?

I'd rather have a conversation. You're telling me for the first time that this guy is a self -proclaimed critical theorist.

It's a great point though, because we should talk about specific things that specific people say and we do all the time and we're told you're slandering that brother.

You know what I mean? So they get you both ways. This is a distraction tactic. We do do this.

We do talk about the specific things that specific people say. In fact, I rarely use the term critical theory in my content.

If you go at my previous content, you will see that I very rarely use the word. I only talk about specifics of what people talk about because there is a danger about misapplying labels and stuff like that.

I understand that. I'm not saying it's bad to use the term critical theory. If it's critical theory, it's critical theory.

Nothing wrong with that, but I rarely use the word. I do talk about specifics and yet it's still a problem for these folks.

So you can see this kind of sidestep dance that Lehman's trying to accomplish here and he's doing it with two brothers that are very winsome.

God bless them. They're doing a great job here and one of them is going to, well, let's just see what happens.

This is a very insightful kind of interesting moment in my opinion. Two guys.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Two guys. Okay. A, I've never heard that. B, I've never heard this one guy say anything that would make me think that.

C, let's not use labels. Let's talk about specific things he has said that are problematic.

That would be how I'd want to respond to that. Let's not use labels even though they label themselves, right?

What about the ability for a black person to own something themselves? Why can't we talk about that?

If he's a critical theorist, then just accept it if he's admitting it, right? But no, no, no.

No. Can't do that. I just can't answer it beyond that. Sure. I think that's helpful. Tell him he's a self -proclaimed that.

Okay. Stop this. So that guy says, I think that's helpful. This is a great moment. I really like this.

I've just not heard him say anything that ruins our question. Yeah. And I actually think I disagree with Russell.

I don't, I don't think it's helpful at all. I think if somebody calls themselves something, we should let the label stand. Well, I'm saying obviously, obviously, if somebody says,

Hey man, I'm a critical theorist. Why wouldn't you trust them to understand what they're saying?

Right? Maybe they're wrong. It's possible that they're wrong. They just don't understand. But why would you assume that?

Yeah. That's not helpful at all to be like, well, you know, let's not use the label that he himself uses when we're talking about his beliefs and his opinions on justice and stuff like that.

It's directly relevant. It's directly relevant. If I say to someone, I believe in the general equity of God's law.

You should assume that I'm being truthful about that. Like, wait, does it make any sense? Good stuff here.

I don't remember who, which brother this is, but very good. That's not helpful. Yeah. I'm saying it's helpful to hear that Jonathan really doesn't know what we're talking about.

Oh, I see what you're saying. That is helpful. Okay. So then they, he corrected himself. It's helpful to know that Jonathan doesn't really know what we're talking about.

I agree. I agree, Jonathan. And so what I would suggest, this is my suggestion here, figure it out and then rejoin the conversation because the reality is when you get up on your high horse and you get your holy robes on and you tell us, well, you're slandering this brother.

You actually don't have any idea what you're talking about. You've just admitted that you've just admitted that.

And so if I were to, I can easily see this happening. If I were to say to this about this brother, Hey, that's a critical race theorist.

I could easily see big Eva getting out of bed. How dare you say that? And it's like, yeah, but he's a self -proclaimed critical theorist.

There are self -proclaimed critical theorists in the Presbyterian church in America. And I've been told that I've slandered those brothers who said that they are self -proclaimed critical theorists.

And this happens all the time on Twitter, on, on social media, in personal conversations, this kind of thing happens all the time.

And so my suggestion, Lehman, as you've just admitted, you don't know what you're talking about. Sit this one out until you do know what you're talking about.

That doesn't mean you can't have your platform and talk about other things where you're much more knowledgeable, but rather like, but anyway, let's just continue.

I have a little few more minutes to listen to here. And then there's another video I want to bring to your attention. I would say now that we know, now that we're on the same page, these guys are critical theorists and let's assume that they really mean critical theory when they say it, which we know is anti -gospel.

What do they really mean? Look at, let's take a - Stop here. Great question. Again, these brothers let

Jonathan get away with a lot of weaselly stuff and that's fine. I'm not criticizing that. That is totally fine.

There's a place for that. But you see what I mean? Like this is a great interview. These guys did a great job.

They're asking the right questions. God bless you guys because you did a great job. I know, brothers,

I know you don't agree with me and my tactics and that's fine. I know that you have some issues with what I say, especially about Lehman.

That's fine, man. I have no ill will towards you. I appreciate this. I really appreciate this. Great question, brother.

Forget these two guys. If you're going to give me an imaginary - Stop. Do you see what I'm saying? So he's saying, okay, let's try this a different way.

He says, so let's just assume that these two guys are actually critical theorists.

And so he's going to start to ask him a question and instantly Jonathan's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Forget these two guys. Forget these two guys.

Do you see this mentality? He's not willing to actually apply this to real situations.

He's only willing to talk about this in the theoretical. That's a big problem in my opinion.

There's nothing wrong with talking about things in the theoretical, but eventually it has to touch real life. Eventually it has to touch flesh and blood, right?

Because there's no such thing as disembodied error. Error is believed by people, by real people that you interact with every single day.

Like you have to take it down into real life eventually. Lehman's not willing to do that here.

He stops the question in its tracks. Brother, that was a great question. Let's just assume that these guys are really what they say they are because why wouldn't we?

Good question. Lehman's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's hypotheticalize it. Let's forget these two guys. No, we can't forget these two guys.

We can't. And notice, I could see like, okay, maybe I want to save their reputation. The guys haven't even been named at this point.

Nobody even knows who we're talking about and yet he is unwilling to apply the theoretical to everyday life.

This is a big problem with Big Eva. That's why I'm talking about Lehman again because Lehman is the avatar for this.

This is a problem that's endemic through Big Eva. Let's hear him out. So let's hear him out in his hypothetical because he's willing to talk about this in hypothetical.

Let's hear him out. It really is. Sharing a platform with a critical theorist. So would I share a platform with the author of White Fragility?

No. Especially if it's a gospel conference, a just gospel conference? Yeah. No. Certainly not. Because, I confess

I haven't read it, but I've read a lot of reviews of it. You know enough about it, yeah.

I know enough about it. So from what I can tell, there's an undermining of the gospel there. Again, even

I have to imagine this one a bit because I haven't read the book. You see, he's very comfortable talking about imaginary situations and in fact he even says even this one is a very imaginary situation because I haven't read the book.

By the way, I know some people will be disappointed with him about that, talking about a book he hasn't read. It's okay to do that, guys.

It's okay to do that. If you know what the book is about, it's okay to not read every piece of garbage that comes your way.

It's okay to just reject it out of hand. That's a totally legitimate option, so fine for Jonathan Lehman there.

But do you notice he's like, well I wouldn't share a stage with a critical race theorist, right? And he says, well

I didn't even know he was a critical race theorist. Okay, fine, fine.

Let's just give him that. Let's just say he really hasn't thought about it. This is

October 1st, 2020. And he's acting like he didn't know that some of this stuff comes from critical theory.

He wouldn't have ever thought that it comes from critical theory. And if you watched earlier in this episode, this is minute 35 in a 55 minute episode.

If you look at this whole episode, they talk a lot about critical theory and the problems that it has. In fact, later they talk about Tim Keller's statements about if you're white, you're guilty of oppression.

And he does the same thing. He wants to distance himself from that. Wait, wait, wait, no, Keller didn't say that. Someone's attributing that to him.

They're like, no, no, no, guys, no, this is a quote from Keller. And he's like, well, let's not talk about that. He does the same thing. He tries to not talk about people in the here and now.

He wants to keep it theoretical. But even if you keep it in the theoretical, he's claiming he didn't know that some of these ideas come from critical theory.

But I know he did. I know he did. He's being deceptive here.

I know that's a heavy charge. You know, and when I talk to these brothers on their podcast, they said, you got to be careful with levying charges like deception.

I know. I know. But the thing is, I know that Jonathan Lehman does know that some of this stuff comes from critical theory.

And I didn't go looking for it. I didn't go looking for it. People sent me this stuff. I watch it.

And I'm just like, I'm floored. This is a video that Jonathan Lehman put out in June of this year.

So this is well before this interview, right? Well before this interview. And it's, the title is,

Teaching Your Church About Issues Related to Race. And you got two white guys, two black guys.

I think they're all pastors. It seems like they're all pastors. And I want you to listen to this because the brother on the bottom here, he says something that, let's just listen to it.

When you may not do the thing that's acceptable for your camp. I think if you're sticking to the scriptures, man, like you just got arrested, you're not going to be able to please everybody.

And that would be my encouragement to any pastors wrestling with this is like, if you're going before the

Lord, you're praying heavy about this thing and you're searching the scriptures and this is what the scriptures have led you to.

And you got other brothers that love the Lord and they're affirming these things as well. But in some ways,

I mean, we say it in other areas like, Hey, you're going to be hated for following Jesus at times.

Jesus came to bring us forward. There's going to be times where the truth will literally divide and people will call you names and they'll say this.

But man, if this is what the scripture calls us to, man, I just like, don't be afraid when you get pushback or people call you names.

And I wouldn't believe the lie and fall into that lie to somehow think that there aren't Christian leaders and Christian theologians that you can learn about these issues.

Because I know for me, like I know there's helpful words that come from like different trains of thought or different theories.

People bring up critical race theories. There's helpful words can be said. I actually try to avoid all those words, not because I think they're inherently wrong, but I'm like,

I can show you the same thing from scripture. And then I never said that word. It's kind of like with Calvinism. Like, I don't tell anybody

I'm a Calvinist, but I'll walk through you with the doctrines of grace and you're like, do you believe this? And I think it's the same thing with some of the concepts that people may coin as Marxist.

I'll just point to the scriptures. This is how this is applied. And do you have a problem with my exegesis? Because at that point, if I'm not exegeting this passage wrong, the problem is not with me, it's with God.

And I think like. See, this is the thing, right? So so so this he's admitting that there are helpful words from critical race theory, but he doesn't say critical race theory because, well, we've we've seen this song and dance before.

I don't mention James Cone because then, you know, people would have their guard up and I'm just going to show you from the scripture.

And the problem is like we we tackle it both ways. Right. Like it's like the way that they're presenting this is like, well, we just say you're a

Marxist, you're a critical race theorist and we don't look at your exegesis. And that's just such a fabrication. Of course, we look at your exegesis.

Again, I rarely accuse people of being critical race theorists. What I do instead is say this is why you're misinterpreting what you're saying here in the scripture.

Oh, and by the way, this is very obviously influenced by an outside source. And sometimes

I will say critical race theory. This brother admits it. This comes from critical race theory.

And so he's allowed people's and he said, look, don't don't think that there's not people in the past that we're teaching this. He's probably talking about James Cone.

Of course, yes, we all know that James Cone influenced how a lot of people look at the scriptures, but he was a heretic and he and the areas where he's influenced the issue of race and justice is part of his heresy.

It's not like he had a heresy over here, but his race and justice issues were over here. No, no. It's all part and parcel of the heresies.

You know, you must become black with God in order to be saved. Becoming black is synonymous with salvation.

You know, stuff like that. It's part and parcel of his heresy. I don't know if he's talking about James Cone, but it certainly sounds like he is.

The reality is that Lehman is sitting here and he's hearing a critical race theorist or at least someone who's admitting, yes,

I've been influenced by critical race theory, but I don't really bring it up in the same way that I'm a Calvinist.

But I don't really bring it up because I don't want people to have their guards up. I just don't understand that. I just don't understand that.

Like, I've never once been concerned about someone actually on Twitter who I know is somewhat antagonistic towards Calvinism asked me, are you a

Calvinist? And I had no, I had no even inkling to like mis like lead her.

I was like, yes, I'm a Calvinist. You know what I mean? Like, there's no reason for me to deny that. That's a very good descriptor of what

I am. I'm much more than a Calvinist. I'm not just a Calvinist, but why would

I want to hide that? Like what, what, that's nothing wrong with that. That's a very helpful, you know, shorthand to, to explain what

I believe about the doctrines of grace. Like, why would I hide that on Twitter? It doesn't make any sense to me.

If somebody asks me if I believe in the general equity of God's law, I would say yes. If somebody asked me if I was a theonomist,

I would say I would completely own that title. I know that some people make theonomy mean something that I don't believe.

So if you want to know specific, sure. But yeah, I would call myself a the, I don't have a problem with that. I just don't get this whole thing where you try to hide like where you're getting your influence from.

Actually, I do get it. I know why you're trying to hide it because critical race theory is a Marxist ideology.

And so if you were to admit that, then you'd have to also likewise admit that people aren't slandering you when they say,

Hey, that's a very, that, that idea, very influenced by Marxism. You see, that's not the point. Like, I'm not trying to criticize this guy here.

At least he owns it. Sort of, he sort of owns it. But Lehman is here months before this podcast where he says he'd never heard anything that this was related to critical race theory.

And he's saying, well, I didn't know that. I didn't know that, but he clearly did. He was in a conversation where someone admitted it openly, but the point is though, maybe he doesn't know.

So let's just believe all things here. He doesn't understand that certain things are highly influenced by critical theory instead of the scriptures.

That's a problem. That's a problem. And that's why we're having this controversy because one side is very familiar with what critical theory teaches and says,

Hey man, like that doesn't really come from the Bible because the Bible actually teaches X, Y, Z. I can prove it with the scriptures here.

When you interpret the Bible as saying X, Y, Z, or ABC, I can see that that's obviously something that's coming from another source, by the way, here's the source, critical theory, here's the source,

James Cone, here's the source, whatever, whatever. And then we, then the pushback we get is, Oh, you're slandering that brother.

When you don't have the first clue, what you're talking about, as you've admitted on this podcast,

Jonathan, this kind of stuff has to stop. It just has to stop. You, you, you share the stage with critical theorists and you have no idea.

You put people in nine marks that are obviously influenced by critical theory and you claim you have no idea.

Eventually you're going to have to take some ownership here, take some ownership and actually start dealing with the real issues.

If you're unwilling to take the theoretical and apply it to people like Tim Keller's teaching, like your two, the two brothers that you mentioned in this podcast is teaching, your flock is always going to be ill prepared.

And all you're going to do is sow division because you don't know what you're talking about. If you're unwilling to say, yeah,

I know that this is wrong. And when I hear Tim Keller saying it, well, I don't want to talk about that.

Make room for someone who's willing to talk about that. In fact, you don't have to make room for someone who's talking about it because we'll just take it.