Arguing for Alabama's Pro Life Bill and Against SJWs in the Church

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris, and this is going to be a shorter episode, but I think an important.

One.

Alabama’s Pro-Life Bill and the Left’s Critical Theory Response

There's two issues going on right now that I want to talk about. The first is all over social media, and of course that is the House Bill 314, Human Life Protection Act in Alabama, which was signed by the governor yesterday.

If you go on social media, you're going to see reactions kind of like this one. This is from NowThis, which portrays themselves as kind of a liberal news organization, and I would take issue with the word news.

In fact, I'll digress a little bit here for a second. I saw just maybe two days ago, this is very typical of NowThis, a video they put out where there was a police officer who happened to be a Caucasian man, and he did something foolish.

He made a mistake, and he went into the driveway of an individual who, according to the video, it didn't show this, but they said in the video, in the caption, that there was a man playing ball with his son, and he happened to be a minority, and I guess fit the description of someone who had stolen a car, something like that.

The police officer sort of detains him in a gentle way, but he didn't have a warrant, and he's in this guy's driveway, so it didn't look good, and of course, I think anyone putting themselves in the spot of this gentleman who was playing ball with his son would be outraged, and understandably so.

But of course, and it got verified, and they had the wrong guy, but NowThis injected ethnicity into the discussion, and said it was a white cop, and somehow that's significant. Somehow it was racial prejudice, and that's how people took it.

This was just racism in the police department. Now, there's no evidence for it, that's the problem, and that's what NowThis does all the time. They put out constantly videos that drive wedges between people, and I've seen many of them that just, there's no evidence.

And so anyway, that's NowThis, but getting back to the point at hand, here's a video they put out yesterday. It says, these are the 25 men who decided to ban abortion in Alabama, and then it goes to just pictures with a little background track playing of the 25 men.

Now, this is supposed to be the reason, or at least one of the major reasons that this abortion ban is morally detestable to the left, because white men are the ones that decided to put it into law. Now I want to talk about this for a minute, because I think this is important.

Of course this is critical theory, of course this is the idea that there are power structures, and if you're white, you're privileged, if you're a man, you're privileged, and if you look at abortion statistics, a lot of, well, per capita, more minority women tend to have abortions.

And for whatever reason, Planned Parenthood, I'm not going to get into the history or why that's the way it is, but Planned Parenthood tends to target those areas where minority women tend to live. And so, of course, white men legislating to minority women, making a law that's going to affect them, this is seen as horrible, because they shouldn't have any say.

Now, here's one of the responses I think that we should have. And this is pointing out the hypocrisy of the left. Last I checked, now, I think I'm within my rights to do this, I know it's 2019, but the governor of Alabama is a Republican, her name is Kay Ivey, and I think I'm okay, I'm not treading on some sandy ground here when I say she is a woman.

Kay Ivey is a woman. Now she is the governor, the chief executive, and she signed this bill yesterday, which I will point out would make this bill a bill that had more female support from a governmental standpoint.

There was a female chief executive, perhaps the most important part of this whole piece, getting this passed would be the chief executive signing it. This bill has more female support from a governmental level than Roe v. Wade had.

That's an important thing to point out, I haven't seen anyone point that out yet, I'm sure people are, but I think this is fairly significant. Now in addition to that, if we're pointing out the hypocrisy, this is a picture of the Berger court, and Warren Berger, who is the chief justice, is of Austrian and German descent.

You can see him there in the middle, and of course this was the court in 1973 that passed.

Roe v. Wade.

I say passed because they are not a legislative body, but they behaved as one. There's no Kay Ivey, there's no woman involved. This is the problem. The leftists who are opposing this abortion bill in Alabama for reasons that have to do with white men being behind it are completely in support of the 1973 decision.

I think every chance we get to point these kinds of things out, we should take it. Another thing I wanted to point out is the hypocrisy of applying critical theory selectively. Why could not someone who believes in the critical theory paradigm, who believes there's these power structures, say that there's adult privilege and there's baby privilege?

If you're talking to a leftist, fetal privilege, whatever, if you want to say that, I'll stick to the baby privilege, but adults obviously have more power, babies tend to be helpless and they're dependent, and why should adults be legislating and protecting the right to kill an underprivileged victim of society?

I don't know why, but we can't apply the critical paradigm to this. Why can't we call those who would be against Alabama's abortion bill babyphobes? They're babyphobic. They're just afraid of babies. This is the kind of things that conservatives have to deal with all the time.

You're homophobic. You're Islamophobic. Why can't we just say babyphobic? This paradigm is selectively used, and so I just want to point that out as well. Now, of course, that's not a full case for pro-life.

I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy, but I will put in the info section a debate that I had a few years ago at a state university in New York with a female who was representing an atheist organization, and we had a debate on abortion.

I borrowed heavily from the SLED paradigm and Scott Klusendorf's work in The Case for Life, so I'd recommend that book, recommend getting to know, you should know, the SLED paradigm or acronym. I think that debate hopefully should be helpful, so I'm going to put that in the info section just in case you're wondering, how do I argue for a pro-life position?

That was the first topic. I just needed to get that off my chest. The second one, I'm going to take a little bit more time on, and that is the issue that's going on right now in regards to social justice, critical theory, liberation theology, and academic institutions and evangelicalism being subverted by these ideas.

There's a, I'm just going to call it the woke church, to borrow, I think it's Eric Mason's title for his book, Woke Church. There's three strategies on my side of the fence when it comes to how to approach this.

Issue.

This is going to be some inside baseball. I'm talking to people out there, I think, who already agree with me, and so this is for them specifically. First of all, there's, maybe I'll call them the separatists.

There's those who think that we need to attack the ideas, but we also need to attack the people who carry the ideas. Obviously, ideas are articulated by individuals, and we need to name names, we need to separate, and sometimes there's like, you know, separating with someone who's associated with someone who's associated with critical race theory or something like that.

So depending on how restrictive you get, you can just throw out almost every organization and parachurch organization and evangelicalism if you're really strict on this. So those are the separatists, I'll call them.

And then there's the Puritans, we'll say. Those who want to, in SBC terms, obey the 11th commandment. So never speak ill of a Southern Baptist. And this is the same for the PCA, I would say. It's not just the Southern Baptist, but we're not gonna fight people, we're gonna fight ideas and that's it.

And there's a, I think most of the significant movers and shakers who are trying to fight this are probably a little more along those lines, and I don't know for sure. I mean, they're fuzzy lines a little bit, but those are the two opposite ends.

And then I would consider myself more in this vein. There's those who are, you know, they see a point on both sides, and I do, and I think that the ideas, everyone agrees on this, must be attacked. But the false teachers also need to be called out.

And the difficulty and the discernment come in in how do you identify who's a false teacher? And so I want to discuss that just a little bit and give my take on this. And I think there's, you know, it takes all kinds of spokes to make the wheels turn.

So I'm not meaning to criticize anyone in particular and how they're approaching this. I'm grateful for everyone who's fighting this, but I have some concerns. I'm gonna share those. So I think the first question to ask is, is critical theory a false worldview philosophy?

Is there a false gospel attached with it? What exactly is it? And the same goes for liberation theology and all the rest of it. And I think depending on how you answer this is going to be one of the determining factors with how you deal with it.

Now, Gospel Coalition put out an article, and this is extremely interesting to me the other day, called The Incompatibility of Critical Theory in Christianity by Neil Shenvey. And it was a good article, I have to say.

Gospel Coalition for the last few years has been instrumental in carrying the water for the woke church. So it's almost shocking that this happened, but this isn't the only thing that happened. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary scrubbed the Kern Family Foundation from their Intersect Project website, which I don't know exactly what that means, but it looks like there's some kind of a distancing going on.

So I don't know the particulars, but something's happening. And then you see, you know, Danny Akin was one of the guys that did this, but there was a number of people that were sharing this article from the Gospel Coalition.

And there were people who had been either promoting critical theory, or liberation theology, critical race theory in the case of Southeastern, or allowing it to happen at the very least. And then also saying, well, this article is also good, which I found confusing, for lack of a better term.

So, but getting back to the point at hand, I think it's fair to say that there's a problem with critical theory, and there is a false gospel attached with this, and it is a false worldview. False, I mean, a false gospel is going to come out of, spring out of a false worldview.

And a false worldview answers these basic questions of life. Who are we? What went wrong? How do we get back on the right path? I mean, critical theory answers these questions. It diagnoses the problem, gives us solutions.

And so, the difficulty then, though, becomes, once we say that critical theory is bad, and there's, you know, it's a heresy if you try to invoke this in the church, there's those who see this as, through the lens of critical theory, everything in life, so it's a worldview to them.

Then there's those who just use it as a tool. And they try to marry it with Christian ethics, and there's a lot of people in that category. So, at best, I'd say there's syncretism going on, because one of them is going to have to win out, because they're diametrically opposed.

Critical theory and biblical justice, biblical ethics, they cannot coexist. Now, let's just put those who are full-fledged critical theory, social justice, warrior types, kind of like over here, and say, yeah, they need to be called out.

Hopefully, we agree with that. But then let's discuss, how do we approach those who are just using critical theory as a tool, maybe they haven't thought through the implications of it? There's the ignorant, and there's those who are purposeful.

There's the ignorant, haven't thought through implications. And there's, of course, grace for ignorance. I mean, we were all ignorant at one point, and there were still areas where we're probably ignorant and we're not consistent.

So once an error is pointed out, I mean, even Matthew 18 assumes this, right? There needs to be a confrontation of some kind, so that confrontation needs to happen. But then there are those who are purposeful.

And the way that I think we determine that is, has enough evidence been presented? Has a confrontation occurred? Has there been ample opportunity for someone who is giving cover for critical theory to see that that's what they're doing?

Those dots have been connected, and they're persisting in advocating it. That's when I think they go from being ignorant to purposeful. And there are a number, I think, of high-profile evangelicals who are sliding into this.

The opportunities have been there. I mean, if you want to start your time clock at MLK 50 and say, okay, it's been over a year now, and criticisms have been made, I know for a fact there's a lot of private conversations that have happened.

There's some public, but information's there. And you have people who are still wanting to marry critical theory with ethics from the scripture. So this is where, though, it's a little dicey, because who wants to be the one to call out an individual?

And I think the first crowd, which I mentioned, which would be the separatists, they are willing to attack at the drop of a hat anyone who even mentions an idea that sounds like it could be critical theory.

There are those in that camp. And then there are those who are the Puritans, and some of them would want to always give the benefit of the doubt, even to the point that there really is no benefit of doubt to.

Be given.

They're just assuming that there's ignorance going on. And I understand the reason for that. I remember Greg Bonson wrote about this in his, I think it was Theonomy and Christian Ethics, which I think was his dissertation, and he tells the story of a mother who has some boys who are ornery, and they're not to be trusted.

And she tells everyone that they're good boys, and they would never do anything wrong. But then when they come to stay with her, she hides her wallet, she makes sure it's locked, that they can't find it.

She doesn't want them robbing the jewelry box, because deep down in her heart, she knows that there's something wrong. So there's a deception going on, a self-deception. And of course, Greg Bonson wasn't applying it to this, but I am.

I'm saying there is a danger, I think, to run cover for your friends and say, because I love someone, because I've gained from them, and we've had experiences together, I don't want to face the music.

I don't want to believe that they really are ushering in false doctrine into the church. I've seen them in other contexts, and they've been faithful, so how can they be wrong in this context? And self-deception can easily, I think, creep in.

And I think what we—this is my way of looking at it—what we need to do is try to operate by innocent until proven guilty. We need to give benefit of the doubt as much as we can until it's obvious that, you know.

What?

You've been confronted, and the evidence has been presented to you, and the dots have been connected, but you are continuing in the path in which you were going before. Now, this is, I think, made even more difficult when you're dealing with someone who might be hypocritical, which I think some of these—I mean, it takes a certain level of hypocrisy sometimes to even adopt categories like critical theory, which seemed obviously unchristian, but then also hold on to biblical Christianity.

And I'm not saying there's ignorance out there, but it seems like someone who is well-versed in Christianity should see the contradiction there. And there are those who—I hate to say it—but there are hypocrites, and they will try to give lip service to both sides.

They'll give lip service to woke church individuals, and they'll give lip service to biblical justice individuals. And I think for those who are the Puritans, it's going to be hard not to be persuaded that, hey, this individual who runs this seminary or this organization that's a parachurch, you know, they're really with us, just give them some time.

And so, how much time do you give them? And this got me to thinking about Jesus and how he dealt with the scribes and Pharisees, because I think it's obviously that's the person we want to emulate the most, and this is by no means an exhaustive study here, but Jesus, when he dealt with the scribes and Pharisees—there's a few passages here I want to highlight—he called out their hypocrisy, Mark 7.

You know, Isaiah prophesied about them, that they're hypocrites, their heart is far away, so he got into their motives, because they were teaching as doctrines the precepts of men, and that's what they were doing externally, which was wrong.

And I would say the same thing of those who advocate for social justice. There's a mixing here. You're teaching—you're saying this is a gospel issue. You're saying that in order to believe the gospel, you must advocate for reparations, for instance.

Well, that's the precepts of men, and you're trying to smuggle that into the idea of restitution in Scripture. That's not going to work. Or, you know, look at Matthew 15. This is what Jesus says. He says, they transgressed the commandment of God for the sake of their tradition.

And so, there's, again, the same thing. The tradition is outweighing the, thus saith the Lord. And so when you're having critical theory supersede the Scripture, you're reading critical theory into the Scripture.

That's exactly what's going on. Matthew 23, Jesus says, they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. They do all their deeds to be noticed by men.

And he goes into some details on what those deeds are. Now, this is another area in which I've seen a lot of hypocrisy. I know personally many men who advocate for the social justice paradigm, and they talk a lot about advocating for diversity in churches and being in diverse neighborhoods, and meanwhile they live in the most middle-class neighborhood.

The men and women that they work with, or men I should say, are Caucasian. They go to churches that are mainly white. I mean, they're doing all these things that, they're laying heavy burdens on others, but they're not, they don't practice it themselves, and I've seen this.

And there's a pride that also goes along with the Pharisees. They want the chief seats, and I've seen this as well. So this is how Jesus treats the Pharisees. Now, this is quite interesting to me. He views them, the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees, as a group oftentimes, and he'll say, woe to you.

And even the Sermon on the Mount, early on in his ministry, I mean, he's condemning them. Your righteousness must surpass the scribes and the Pharisees. But then Nicodemus is in this group, is he not?

So is Jesus painting with a broad brush? Well, he seems to be basing his criticism on their teachings. And remember, Jesus taught in the synagogues. So these are men, some of which he probably knows personally, and he's basing it on the main teaching of the body, of the Pharisees.

This is what they're advocating. And he's saying to people, I advocate for the positions that they hold. I believe that those are legitimate. You need to respect them. They're in the seat of Moses, but don't follow their example.

And I think we can say the same thing. We can have respect for the office. We can have respect for professors. If you're a seminary student, have respect for them, but that respect does not mean that you don't see error and you don't call out error.

Jesus did that. Now, he had a harsh tongue sometimes as well. And this is where we have to be careful, but he calls them ravenous wolves. Matthew 7, Matthew 23, they're blind guides, brood of vipers. And it seems like progressively, you know, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, he's talking about, I mean, he says ravenous wolves about false teachers, but he's speaking a little more generally.

And as time goes on, he's becoming more specific. By Matthew 23, it's, hey, I'm talking to you guys. And he's doing it publicly, by the way. He talks to them when they're standing there. And he's saying that they're brood of vipers.

And this is what you do. You make men who are proselytes twice as much of a son of hell as you are. I mean, so there is this, I think, if you look at Jesus' ministry, the sense of going from the general to the specific.

Now, Jesus seems to be, I think, concerned for laymen as well, meaning people that are listening to him. So when he calls out the scribes and Pharisees, Sadducees in a crowd, he is doing it for the sake of those around him, not just his apostles, but those who would be deceived, because he's giving them instructions.

Don't follow them. And this is the main thing I want to drive home, whether you're a Puritan or a Separatist, or you see points on both sides, and you're trying to get people to listen to you. Navigate this, we need to have a concern for laymen in the church.

And I don't, this is one of my concerns, I don't know that that is the chief concern among some that are more in the Puritan mindset. You see, you know, friends of yours who are high profile, maybe they're advocating social justice, and you want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But meanwhile, as we're patiently waiting to give them that benefit of the doubt, there are situations that are going on in churches, which are tearing churches apart. Churches are splitting apart, and I'm getting the stories in my inbox, and it's bad.

And so there needs to be, I think, a sense of urgency. I'm not pointing, by the way, I need to make this clear, I've already said this, but I'm not pointing the finger at anyone in particular. All right, but if my point hits you, and you're convicted by it, then that's my intention.

I think we need to have a concern, like Jesus did, for those who are being deceived. So laymen would be included in this, pastors who are reading these resources, who are being trained in seminaries right now, they need to be, I think, in our chief concern.

So to reiterate, I think the separatists are too fast sometimes at dismissing those who may not be even advocates for social justice, they're just deceived by it, and maybe said something that sounded like they were advocating it, and there are those like that, and they are discredited when they do that.

There are those who are Puritans, who I think are very cautious here, though, and they're a little too slow, and they can get played by the heretics, because the heretics can say the right things to them, and especially if they're friends, this is, they just muddy up the water, and then when the water's muddy and things aren't clear, it's like nailing jello to a wall, you're not going to be able to get anywhere.

And hypocrites tend to say, just like the Pharisees, what will keep them in power. So they will be happy to say what the Puritans would want them to say, and they'll be happy to say what social justice practitioners, or as Doug Wilson calls them, social justice pirates want them to say.

So to kind of wrap this up, I think we should applaud the Gospel Coalition for putting out this article. I think we should applaud the fact that Southeastern has scrubbed Kern from their Intersect project in a way, but we also need to call out or apply the standard of consistency, and ask questions, and say, hey, if this is true, then could we, Gospel Coalition, could we get rid of all your other articles that forward these ideas of critical theory then, if you are advocating now that critical theory is not consistent with the Gospel?

We need to, I think, hold them accountable for this. And so, very positive, I'm very happy that Shenve was able to put this article out, it's surprising a little bit, but those who are reposting it and putting it out there who are advocates of social justice, we need to say, hey, do you see how this doesn't line up with other things that you've covered for, or said, or promoted, or allowed to happen when you had power to disallow it?

Last thing, I'm just going to mention this briefly, is the reaction to the video that I put out a week ago about SCBTS, and it's very interesting to me, this is, it's gotten, I took this screenshot earlier this afternoon, but I mean, it's probably by the time I'm posting this, it's going to be near 1 ,500 views, the Critical Theory, Liberation Theology, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and I had privately said this to someone before I put this out, I said, it'll be interesting to see how people react to this video, because there is a group, on Twitter especially, who loves to discount anything I say about Southeastern or have said, that I'm just blowing smoke, and that those who say that, I mean, it's more broad than just me, that those who say neo-Marxism is making inroads into evangelical institutions, don't know what they're talking about, that's not actually happening, there's no examples of it, and I'll point out examples, I'll put links and things, and I'll link to videos that I've made before, and it's just not enough, and they're always asking for more evidence, and this is one of the tactics I've seen, but this video, I said to someone in a private conversation, it's an hour and a half, and there are so many references in this video, I mean, it's distilled from hundreds of pages of transcripts and blogs, and it's not even exhaustive, it's just tip-of-the-iceberg stuff, but I said, I don't think anyone's going to be able to criticize the video or to say there's no information here, they'll try to maybe do a character assassination on me, but that's the only thing I could see happening, and the interesting thing is, this has gotten some coverage, but I haven't heard anything from those who typically like to denounce me, I haven't seen anything, it doesn't mean it's not happening, but the claim hasn't been made once that I'm just blowing smoke here, so it's interesting from that end, I think, but I just wanted to share that, I think it's encouraging, I think we are making some inroads, I think people are starting to wake up and realize that this actually is taking place, and people aren't just making this up, this kind of thing, it's hard for me personally, I mean, watching this happen is like, it's watching the funeral for a friend, I went to Southeastern, and I don't think I can emphasize this enough, I don't get any pleasure out of this, I hate doing it, but it needs to be done, and I've explained that before, I've gone through that, but this is tough stuff, and my hope is that there will be a revival of sorts, that there will be a waking up of evangelical institutions like Dallas, and Southwestern now in some ways, and Southern and Southeastern, that they can see, and the PCA schools, that they can see what threat is challenging them.

Upcoming Speaking Engagements, Research, and Future Episodes

Moving forward in the next couple weeks, there's some big stuff coming up this summer, I have a few speaking engagements already in different areas of the country, and I'm going to hopefully let you know about those as I progress through the summer, so if it's open to others attending, if it's not just for the groups I'm speaking to, that you can come, so I will be announcing those as they come up.

But I've also been doing some researching, this week I read Who's Afraid of Postmodernism by I think it's James Smith, and I read also a book by James Cone, and I'm reading a lot of other stuff as well, but I've been thinking through the postmodernism, critical theory, liberation theology, and by the way, James Cone, oh man, there is nothing, I can't see anything redeemable about this guy, it shocks me, I mean he himself applied his own theories to homosexuality, I mean I don't know how this doesn't destroy orthodoxy, but I'm thinking of doing an episode on James Cone, but there's just a lot to be done, I want to talk about the founding fathers a little bit, and the foundations of the United States, I may get into a little bit of the denominational divisions that happened before the war between the states, and that's been an issue that I've heard some folks in prominent evangelical positions talk about, I think the most recent was Lincoln Duncan and Al Mohler last year, and since I'm a history guy and I enjoy that kind of thing, I might do some episodes on that, but I also need to mention this, I was contacted from the head of Young Americans for Liberty at Liberty University, I put out a video a month and a half ago maybe on the LGBT and Me Too protests that happened there, and she didn't like some of the things that I said, and I am going to show you what her concerns are and then respond to that, but there's so many other things, but just wanted to let you know what I'm working on, and I already have some book reviews as well, I want to talk about the book Single Gay Christian a little bit, I'm going to use that book to address some of the issues surrounding revoice, and yeah, I've got some exciting interviews, so it's all thanks to, namely my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ first, but it's all thanks to you guys too, I've gotten a few people that are donating to the Patreon account, and it really does help, it helps me go and buy these books that I'm reviewing, it gives me time, because I don't have to go and do side jobs and things, so if you're considering donating, I appreciate it, please do so, and give me prayer support as well, because some of this stuff isn't easy, I'm really thankful for that, so just wanted to mention that, thank you for your support, those who watch this and post it, and I could use more, I could always use more, but pray for me and my family as well, and that's all I have for you today, next week we will see what happens as the world turns in evangelical circles with the social justice issue, and political circles, so God bless, have a good day.