Want to Know if You're Racist - Check Your Skin Color - TGC

The Demonic Rhetoric of “Racism Is Demonic”

All right, welcome to the third week in September. Yeah, hope you're primed up to have a good week. I know I sure am. And I wanted to just chat with you about a couple things that I saw over the weekend and today, nothing like the Russell Moore stuff last week.

This will be hopefully pretty brief. But in any case, I wanted to mention this ridiculous tactic from Gospel Coalition. This is on their main page. It's called Racism is Demonic. Ooh. Now, I want to make sure this is clear.

I do believe that demons exist. I do believe that Satan tries to deceive people. I believe all of those things. So I'm not saying that demons don't exist. But this kind of a tactic where you kind of try to attempt to set up your opposition as demonic opposition.

It's so tired. I remember I was in a church once and there was a controversy with the pastor and then some like key elders in the church. Not like official elders, but like people that have been there a long time, that think that they're elders.

Anyway, and I remember at a men's group meeting once, one of these guys was saying how nothing, Satan will love nothing more than to divide like this. And he was strongly implying that the pastor was being influenced by demonic forces.

And that's just so stupid. It's so stupid. Obviously, Satan tries to deceive. I believe that the scriptures in Matthew, I think it's chapter 24, Jesus talks about false prophets and false messiahs that will try to even deceive the elect if they can.

So I believe that that's actually true, but obviously everyone thinks that they're right in any controversy. And so to pretend like you know for a fact that the demons are influencing the person you're against, I find that very silly.

But anyway, that's basically what this article does. Racism is demonic. Who doesn't agree with that? But this is the thrust of the article. He says, nothing would delight the devil more than for Christians to believe that racism in America and particularly in the church has been dealt with.

Now this is such a tactic. It's such a ridiculous tactic. Imagine if I said, because here's the thing, he's basically implying that if you think that racism isn't as much of a problem as Gospel Coalition thinks it is, then that's the demons that are making you think that because that would please the devil for people to be like, oh, there isn't racism when there really is.

You see how stupid this is? Imagine if, imagine it for the Kavanaugh thing, the Supreme Court justice thing. So someone's come to him, or someone's come up and said, hey, he sexually assaulted me when he was a teenager or something like that.

So imagine if this was the argument that you heard, and I'm sure you probably will hear this argument. You know, he's guilty and we have to take this seriously because nothing would please the devil more than for you to think that sexual assault doesn't exist.

Imagine if that's how we did this, if that's how we decided what was true. We just said, oh yeah, yeah, you know, it's definitely true what we're saying because nothing would please Satan more than for you to think that it's really not happening.

I always see this too, where people say, well, if you believe in total depravity, then you have to believe in systemic institutional racism, exactly how I've defined it. It's so stupid. That is so dumb.

It's completely horrible logic. It's a fallacy. No, you don't have to believe every accusation just because Satan would like you to not believe it if it were really true. That's not how this works. God has a standard for this.

You need witnesses, you need proof, you need to prove it. You can't just say things and expect people to believe it. God's standard says you need to have evidence. Does that mean that maybe someone that's guilty might get away with it?

Yeah, maybe, but still, this is God's standard. It's not my justice, this is God's justice. And so if you want Christians to believe in all this racism stuff that you claim is rampant and it's all this stuff and it's intentional and it's institutional, systemic, all this stuff, you gotta prove it.

You have to. Just because Satan would like to pretend like he's not at work, it doesn't mean that automatically every accusation that's made is true. You really wanna go down that road. There's lots of stuff that people are accused of at the Gospel Coalition.

Do you want us to believe that it's true? Lots of people say you're all Marxists, you're all false prophets, you're all apostate. So wouldn't Satan like nothing more than for you to think that you're true Christians, but really you're apostates?

See, this is the scare tactic, it's nonsense, it's all just, it's just supposed to get an emotion welling up within you and robs you of your reason. That's not how we do this, this is not how we do this.

Thomas Sowell on Historical Guilt and Present Responsibility

Anyway, this is what I really wanted to talk about today. There was a Twitter, not a Twitter, a Facebook conversation yesterday that one of my Facebook friends, I don't know this person in real life, quoted Thomas Sowell.

And I'm actually gonna black out the names because this person deleted this conversation. And so I wanna respect her decision to not have people see this. I think it's kind of silly, but she decided to do that and that's up to her.

So I'm gonna black out the names, but this was a conversation between me and a Gospel Coalition conference speaker, a well-known person. And I'm gonna read it to you and we're gonna talk about this, but this is so interesting, I thought, because it really shows you the mindset of some of these people.

It's absolutely despicable mindset. I said that this was an abhorrent thing, and I think that's probably why it was deleted. I think that this person didn't want her followers to see me accusing this person of what it was, it was racist, abhorrent beliefs.

But let's look at this. So this is the quote from Thomas Sowell. He says this, he says, by the way, Thomas Sowell, genius. You should follow him, you should read him, he's a genius. Here's what he says, he says, Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity when some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?

I completely agree with Thomas Sowell. He's exactly right. That is the absurdity that we've reached. Lots of white people are accused of things that they had nothing to do with, things that were done before they were born.

And meanwhile, liberals are breaking commandments of God and they're doing unjust things today and they're never held accountable for it. It's completely absurd. Thomas Sowell is right as usual. So again, if you don't know Thomas Sowell, definitely read him, definitely follow him.

He is an economic genius. Now, this Gospel Coalition speaker, well-known person says this, we are held responsible for the sins of the father when we don't repent of like-mindedness. Christians also hold to federal headship doctrine.

We believe by one man, sin came into the world. The idea that the past impacts the present and we are held responsible for redemptive, repentant living isn't too far-fetched. What we do with our benefits from social sin, no sin is truly personal, it's all systemic sin, works itself out with humility and Christian liberty.

And so this conference speaker is pushing back and saying that you are held responsible for your parents' sins because you have to repent of having the same mind, the same like-mindedness. And in a sense, she's right, because I think that there is such a thing as generational sin.

In other words, pagans will teach their pagan children how to peg, you know what I mean? Like pagans beget other pagans in general. And so they will oftentimes worship the same idols. They will oftentimes do the same evils that their parents did.

And then when Christ saves one of those children and changes their heart, changes their mind, they repent of all their old pagan ways that they learned from their parents. And so when God judges generations, when God judges generations, that's how he does it.

I mean, again, pagans beget other pagans. That's how it typically works until the Holy Spirit comes in and changes things. And then typically Christians beget other Christians. I mean, that's typically how it works.

But the problem is though that there isn't a sin of like-mindedness. This conference speaker is inventing a sin. There is no sin of like-mindedness, there's just sin. And so if the parents are bowing down to the idol of Baal or they're dancing around the Asherah pole like a pagan, it's not that the like-mindedness is the sin, it's the actual idol worship, right?

So when the children start dancing around the Asherah pole and bowing down to Baal and stuff like that, that's the sin, right? So it's not the like-mindedness, but here's what I said. I wanted to be charitable to this.

And so here's what I said. The problem is that like-mindedness is often defined very broadly to the point where it is essentially the same thing as telling people they are held responsible for things that those people have never done.

And so here's the thing. This is what my point is. Like-mindedness isn't a sin. So in other words, if someone's parents were worshiping Baal but the kid never worshiped Baal, and they always thought, that's kind of silly.

I don't really think he should worship Baal. That child would not be guilty of worshiping Baal, right? And so you can't define like-mindedness in this broad way. And people tend to do this with white people very often.

They tend to say, well, white people, even if they're not racist themselves, they still have the same, they believe in capitalism. They believe a lot of the same things that the racists used to believe.

Even if none of them are racist, they still have to repent. And that's not true at all. Just because you're connected to racists doesn't mean you should repent. And she responds, she says, I imagine that this can be misused, but I don't see that our problem as humans is that we love our neighbors too much, are eager to accept responsibility for our sin, and we make too much of a fuss of deep restorative repentance.

It's not hard to determine if we hold sinful ideologies of our forefathers, but it is intimidating. It's a worthy of prayer as well. God, show me the ways that I feel entitled to sin against my neighbor.

Show me the ways in which I make excuses for other suffering as to block myself from repentance. In what ways do I bear responsibility for the long around me? Thank you that your blood does not render me overwhelmed with guilt or denial, but rather free to love, serve, and repent.

I believe God is faithful to answer prayers that will make us more like Jesus. And you see, that's all great. All of that is great. It's good to ask those kinds of questions to yourself. But the reality is, even once you ask those questions, you still shouldn't repent of sins you haven't done.

And you shouldn't be guilted into doing that. And so I said here, I said, these are all good questions to ask yourself. I agree. But my problem is that these are typically asked in one direction, towards white people.

The reality is that lots of white people don't have like-mindedness to repent of regarding racism. Yet they are told every single day that they do, just by virtue of their skin color. I find that abhorrent.

And I do, because here's the thing. Asking God, show me the ways that I'm sinning against my neighbor. That's good. There's nothing bad about that. That's a great thing. But when you do that and you find that you're not racist, you don't have these biases, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You shouldn't repent of racism if you're not racist. Yet these people, from this perspective, say every single day that you should do it. And so I went on. I said, trying to guilt non-racist people to repent of racism just because of their skin color is a sin.

It's a sin of partiality, by the way. Even if it's for the good cause of trying to get real bona fide racists to repent of their racism. When you say, I imagine this can be misused, I think that's the understatement of the century.

That's what this person said. He says, I know this can be misused, but we're not misusing it. That's the point. And again, I know that these people want racists to repent, but it's no good to say, well, all white people should repent whether you're racist or not, just to encourage the real racists to repent.

I think that's what they're doing a lot of the time. I think they recognize that not all white people are racist. At least that's what I thought. And here we go. This is where things get super interesting, in my opinion.

Whiteness, Caste Systems, and the Charge of Racism

The final comment. This person, this conference speaker, this Gospel Coalition conference circuit speaker, well-respected, I said not all, basically what I said is not all white people are racist. Some of them have like-mindedness to repent of, some of them don't.

That's my only point, right? I think that's pretty tame. That's a pretty tame, obviously true belief. Some people are racist, some people are not. So the ones that are racist should repent of racism, but the ones that aren't shouldn't.

That's all I said. Listen to this. This is an honest answer. I find this disgusting. I find this absolutely abhorrent. She says, what makes you think white people don't have like-mindedness to repent of?

Is that based on a theological or sociological or anthropological teaching? All people need to repent and not be afraid to ask God to reveal our self-entitled biases and prejudices. In terms of racism and white supremacy, I would encourage anyone who is white and Christian to ask God if they have like-mindedness to repent of.

What we don't pray about is often our idol. Whiteness, not a European-American identity, but whiteness is a caste system identity, and it is fairly new identity marker, but throughout history and presently, there are others.

Caste systems are throughout society. It's not a new thing, and it was very really, and it was a very, and it was very really issue in the, I don't know what that's supposed to mean, a very real issue in the early church, I guess is what she means.

Christians have to make sense out of caste identities that some with perks, and we often do this, we do this often in self-deceptive ways when we want to keep them. Just ask Jesus. He will tell you and all of us where we must repent.

So this is the amazing thing. I said some people are guilty of racism. Some people aren't. I said all people should ask God to show them where they're sitting. I think that's good advice for every person, not just white people, obviously, but if they're not racist, they shouldn't repent of racism.

If they're not like-minded to their racist parents, they shouldn't repent of that. And that was offensive to this person. She says, what makes you think white people don't have like-mindedness to repent of?

In fact, she says whiteness is a caste system. So whiteness in itself is a sin to repent of. That's disgusting. That is absolutely disgusting. Whiteness is a caste system identity, and whiteness must be repented of, and there is no person, white person, that doesn't have like-mindedness to repent of regarding racism.

I find that disgusting. I find that absolutely unbiblical. I find it abhorrent, and I find it a bit racist as well. She says here, she tries to make a distinction between whiteness and European-American identity.

Honestly, don't really care so much about that because the reality is she's using the skin color to determine whether or not you have something to repent of regarding race, and that's disgusting. That's actually quite racist.

Now, this is a major conference speaker, Gospel Coalition conference speaker. This is someone that will be given a platform again and again and again, and she is a racist. It's just that simple. She is a racist.

She makes it clear. I'm not talking about European-American identity. I'm just talking about whiteness. That's a racist statement. She's using skin color to determine whether or not you have a sin, a specific sin to repent of.

Obviously, all white people have sins to repent of. Nobody would disagree with that. In fact, I very specifically said that I don't disagree with that. I'm talking about a specific sin, so basically to this person, you wanna know how you're racist?

Look at your skin color, and then ask God to forgive you for your racism. I find that completely abhorrent, and in fact, that's what I said here. I said, this proves my exact point. Thank you for your honest answer.

I find what you have said abhorrent, and I, of course, said this just so she didn't make herself look stupid by calling me white. I say this as a non-white, since I know identity markers matter to you.

They don't matter to me. People criticize me about this all the time. They say, well, you're quick to talk about the fact that you're not white. Yeah, I am, because I know you guys care about it. I don't care about it.

Any other conversation, it never comes up. It only comes up in this conversation, because I know you give skin color a street cred. I think it's stupid, but I'm answering the fool according to his folly.

Do you see what I'm saying? So I'm playing your dumb game, even though I don't believe in it. The point is, though, that this idea, I'm gonna keep this tweet up here for a bit. This is a disgusting idea.

This is a disgusting idea. The fact that white people are guilty, because they're white, and whiteness itself is sinful. It's a caste system that needs to be destroyed. That's not true. That's not biblical.

She talks about, where am I getting my ideas? Theological or sociological or anthropological teaching? I'd ask you, where are you getting your ideas? Because it ain't in the Bible. Anyway, I hope this was helpful.

God bless.