Jonathan Leeman Said What?!? -(9 Marks)

I can't believe it. All right, let's get started today.

I hope you had a good Lord's Day yesterday. I definitely did. My pastor preached a great sermon. I'll link it in the description of this video and on Gab.

Really good stuff. It's a wonderful time to be with the people of God and just worship

God. And it's just an amazing thing, an amazing thing when you think about how many people were worshiping the Lord yesterday in spirit and truth.

What a fantastic thing to think about. We're not alone, not by a long shot. But even if we were alone, we still wouldn't be because God is for us.

God is for his people. That's something that we need to remember all the time. But there's a lot to talk about. But I wanted to get right to this.

This is an article by Jonathan Lehman that is pretty decent in my opinion.

Now, don't think I'm getting soft. I'm definitely not getting soft. In fact, I spent yesterday, I was outside, kind of just enjoying life and smoking a cigar.

I was listening to some of my old content about Jonathan Lehman. There's some really good stuff back there. And I was asking myself, was

I too hard on Jonathan Lehman? And my conclusion is definitely not.

I was definitely not too hard on Jonathan Lehman. Out of all the people in Big Eva, I may have done the most content on Jonathan Lehman, which is interesting because he's not, in my opinion, one of the lead guys, one of the main guys.

He's definitely a soldier, probably a capo if he was in the mafia, he'd be a capo. But he's definitely boots on the ground kind of guy.

So interesting that I've done a lot of content about him. I don't know. I kind of like Jonathan Lehman. I kind of have a lot of hope for him.

In fact, the last video that I did, I was saying he could be such a great ally. And after reading this article,

I think that he really could be. This is a good illustration of why that is. Now this article is not perfect.

And I don't mean like, I agree with everything, like that kind of perfection. Obviously, it's going to be very rare to find an article that's perfect in that regard.

But what I do mean, though, is that there's some either naivete or subversive stuff in here.

Now, naivete, if you're assuming that Jonathan Lehman's got his heart in the right place, subversive if you think he does not.

But either way, the result is the same. It actually, let me start with some of the criticisms. He's way too soft on postmodernism.

I think that that's very clear. In fact, a lot of people, when I said that I liked this article, responded in that way.

And I totally agree with that. Way too soft on postmodernism, gives it way too much credit. And I actually think that in the process, he actually betrays that he doesn't really understand postmodernism, as well as he thinks he does.

But still, there's a lot to praise in this article. And I'm going to, you know, we're not going to read the whole thing.

It's actually pretty long and thorough. So I'm not going to read the whole thing. But I do want to call out a few of the points here, because this is praiseworthy stuff, in my opinion.

We need to see more of this. This is a humongous step in the right direction. And I kind of felt better about myself when

I saw that Woke Preacher Clips also thought that there was some good stuff in this article. So let me just start off with, you know, the first thing.

As you read the article, this is about defending sound doctrine against the deconstruction of American evangelicalism.

There's an entire movement afoot that is seeking to deconstruct evangelical theology, biblical theology.

And he explains it pretty decently here. What is the deconstruction project, he says? Jonathan Lehman says this, "...the

basic charge of the deconstruction project is that evangelical doctrine, or what we might even call

Christian doctrine, is more culturally conditioned and self -interested than we realize."

One advocate of this project, liberal ethicist David Gushie, observes, and then he quote -tweets

David Gushie, talking about how, yeah, you know, there's really no official Bible interpretation.

You know, the interpretations are always going to be culturally conditioned, and all that kind of stuff. And he's a liberal, obviously.

And then he also quote -tweets here Dante Stewart. Now this is important, because listen to what he pulls out of these tweets.

This is such a good observation. It's nothing new if you watch this channel, but that Jonathan Lehman is saying this while quote -tweeting specific people, including

Dante Stewart, who was a rising woke star in evangelicalism. That's a big step in the right direction.

Listen to what Jonathan Lehman says here. This is key. He says, "...the indictment here is universal, as if to say everyone is culturally embedded and self -interested in their exegesis and theologizing."

Yet, really, the project's indictment focuses on white evangelicals.

White evangelicals center their doctrine and treat it as the norm or standard of Christian orthodoxy.

So, you see, this is critical, guys. He says that often what you'll hear from these people is that, we all do this.

We're all kind of centering our culture and stuff like that. But when you read them a little bit, you know that their target, their primary audience is white people.

This is at the heart of it. This is an anti -white movement. White theology is the problem.

White exegesis is what needs to be destroyed. It's not black exegesis or Latino exegesis or whatever.

It's white exegesis. This is a tremendous insight, and I'm glad that Jonathan Lehman knows it.

But the problem that Jonathan Lehman's going to have now is, we're going to hold him to this now, because now we know he's actually not naive.

Jonathan, I want to encourage you. I hope you watch this video, too. I don't know if you watched my last one yet. I know you probably will at some point.

But I hope you watch this one, too, because I want to encourage you. You see, you've kind of revealed your hand now. You know that there's partiality all over this.

They're treating white people differently, and now you're going to need to act as if that's true, because now you can no longer claim ignorance.

This is a big deal, guys. I have to say, this is a big deal. He goes on to explain a little bit more about this whole idea of being against white theology and being very suspicious of white exegesis as opposed to black exegesis and stuff like that.

If it's a white person exegeting, you have to wonder how much they're centering whiteness. It's racist, guys.

It's completely racist. I know some people who watch this channel don't like me using that term. If you don't like it, fine.

It's anti -white. I mean, it's racist, but it's also anti -white. We get that. But let's just move on.

I don't want this video to be too long. Listen to this next paragraph. This is another insight that I think is key.

He says this, Jonathan Lehman, it's worth noticing that none of these books emerge from the biblical studies departments like the egalitarian critiques of complimerantism did in the 1980s.

So he's talking about different books, and he actually name drops Color of Compromise among a few others, which is very, again, this is no small thing.

He's no small thing that he's saying that Color of Compromise is one of these kinds of books. That's a huge, listen, you've got to give credit where credit is due, guys.

This is not strong enough, in my opinion. We need more, we need it to be more aggressive, but listen, you've got to crawl before you can walk, right?

You've got to crawl before you can walk, and I think Jonathan Lehman is crawling out of the pit here. Let's just hope so, anyway.

Let's continue. He says that these don't come from biblical studies departments. He says, the deconstruction project does not begin as a conversation about the

Bible. Rather, the above books represent the works of historians, sociologists, and theologians.

The books may or may not offer a few claims about biblical texts, but the primary burden is historical or sociological.

It's less, here's what First Timothy means, and more, complementarians have interpreted First Timothy to preserve the patriarchy.

This is key, guys, because so many of us, and he talks about this exasperation, we're saying like, yeah, but the

Bible doesn't say that, and we're like, where's your, if you're going to come to me and say I'm doing white theology, then where's your biblical argument?

There's never biblical arguments coming, because they know they can't win there. They can't, and so what they do is say, well, you're just centering whiteness.

They say stupid nonsense like that, and oh, the history of white people is awful, so therefore you're wrong.

And to us, people who have dedicated our lives to understanding who

Christ is and what he's like through his word, it's like, what are you talking about? Christ has said this.

What does my whiteness have to do with that? Tell me where I'm wrong biblically. You'll never ever get even an attempt, because that's not what they're going for.

They're going for something completely different, and this is a tremendous insight from Jonathan Lehman.

He quote tweets Andrew T. Walker here, which I think is very milquetoast.

This guy is not someone that I would trust, and again, I'm not, by the way, guys, I want you to understand, I'm not saying that I trust

Jonathan Lehman right now. I hope this is him crawling out of the pit. It could very well be completely subversive.

I don't know, but this is, I'm encouraged by this. I'm encouraged by this, and I'll explain more about that in a second.

He quote tweets Andrew T. Walker here. This is actually a pretty good quote tweet. It says this, it is astonishing to me the incredulity of scholars who are unable or unwilling to understand that even though individuals might hold a good faith conviction due to honest biblical interpretation and not some ulterior motive to protect one's power or privilege.

If a theological position is wrong, demonstrate the error exegetically and not why it must be wrong because of the critics precommitment to their own sociological constraints or dare

I say worldview. Who knew that postmodernism would be this predictable and boring? Well, it's not boring because this is the air we breathe now.

And quite frankly, if we had even an ounce of this kind of pushback in the beginning, we wouldn't be in this position.

But you guys let this run roughshod over us for years. And oftentimes you guys pig piled on us saying we're racist and this and that we're evil, you're a meanie and stuff like that.

And now you, because you dog piled on us now they're emboldened and now you can't let this, you can't put this genie back in the bottle.

Now this is hard work now. So we need more of this guy. But the point is that I don't want this to be too critical.

That's a very good point. Andrew T. Walker's right. It's completely ridiculous what the way that they operate.

You have biblical arguments and they disregard them because of your skin color. It's partial. It's evil. It's wicked.

It's demonic. It's all of those things. We get it. And listen to this. This is where I think again, this is Jonathan Lehman.

This is praiseworthy. This is something that you guys don't typically do and we need to see more of.

Guys, I want to read this to you and I want you to understand how important this is.

This is a big deal in my opinion. Listen to what he says. Lehman. He says, Walker and Burke's reaction brings us to the nub of the issue

I'm interested in here. One side wants to have a conversation about the Bible while the other side effectively disallows it.

Walker says he's merely interested in honest biblical interpretation without some ulterior motive.

But Beth Allison Barr quickly responds in an article to Walker's tweet and confidently asserts that there is motive.

All right. He's just furthering his complementarianism, which in her mind translates to maintaining power.

He wants exegesis. She wants to exegete the exegete. If he tries to defend his position, the project is programmed like a computer to reply that his defense proves the original indictment.

He's protecting his power. History proves it. Sociological studies prove it. The patterns proved it. Lived experiences prove it.

Guys, this is nothing new if you watch this channel because we've been talking about this for years at this point.

We've been talking about how we want to have a conversation about the Bible and you just want to emote at us.

You just want to emote. You want us to empathize with your nonsense. You want us to affirm your stupidity and that's what you want us to do and we're not going to do it because we love

Christ more than we love you. We love Christ more than we love Fibidi Anyabwile.

We love Christ more than we love, you know, who put anyone else in there and that's true. So we're not going to give up the truth for your truth.

You see what I'm saying? Like we've been talking about this for years and Jonathan Lehman is 100 % right. This is a big deal because this guy is in the guild and here's why it's even more important.

Let's continue this because let me just read it and let me tell you why I think this is so key.

He says this, the same scenario played out to a tee with my friend

Kevin DeYoung and his review of Duke Quan, also a friend, and Gregory Thompson's book

Reparations. DeYoung said he found the book problematic theologically. Quan and Thompson replied that his so -called theological disagreements involved him in the political work of white supremacy even if it was unwitting.

This is another example both of the deconstruction project and how our broader church friend groups have been pushing in very different directions for several years.

This is huge guys because Jonathan Lehman is naming names and not only is he naming names but he's putting people on the same spectrum.

He's saying that this psychopath Dante Stewart up here. This guy is a, he hates white people so much.

He's a lunatic this guy. Putting him on the same perspective, the same wavelength as Duke Quan who he considers a friend.

Duke Quan also hates white people. Maybe not as aggressively as Dante Stewart, maybe not as openly as Dante Stewart but he also hates white people and he's on the same spectrum in this

Jonathan Lehman article of the deconstruction project as the most crazy progressive liberal.

They're on the same spectrum and that's exactly right. They are on the same spectrum. I think it's only a matter of time before Duke Quan is as crazy as Dante Stewart or that mushroom guy who took mushrooms and you know discovered

God or something like that. Like this is huge. This is huge. This doesn't happen in Big Eva very often and this ought to be supported because the reality is that if you guys,

Jonathan, if you guys had been doing this from the beginning with this level of pushback from the beginning, there would be no need for the

A .D. Robles YouTube channel. There'd be no need for it. But the problem is that you allowed this to go on under your noses and you regularly dogpiled with these idiots on top of people like me and others, you know,

Tom Askell, all these guys and now it's out of control. Now it's completely out of control and now there needs to be a bunch of Nehemiahs out there cracking skulls and pulling out hair.

You know what I'm saying? And look, we need Ezras too. I'm not going, listen, if you want to be an Ezra in this fight, brother,

I'm all about that and I'll support you. We need people studying and talking in these ways and we need that, right?

But the reality is that because of your guys's failure and Lehman, I'm not trying to insult you, but you guys failed for a very long time.

Now we need Nehemiahs out there cracking skulls, metaphorically speaking. It's just that simple.

It's just that simple. So good stuff. I couldn't believe it when he said Duke Quan was on this spectrum and did the same thing where he doesn't want to talk about the

Bible, he wants to talk about your whiteness because he's a freaking racist. We get that. I couldn't believe when I saw

Jonathan Lehman name drop Duke Quan. And the thing is guys, like, but this is the thing, Jonathan, like you need to work this out in your head, right?

Because let's just switch the races for a second here. Duke Quan is a friend and he hates white people.

He treats them differently than he treats other people and negatively in a bad way. Let's just switch the races around here.

If you had a friend, Duke Quan, who was saying the same kind of stuff about blacks, right?

Oh, that's just your blackness talking. You're black exegesis. You don't understand. Yeah, you just, you just think that black people are better than everybody.

Would he be your friend? Would he be your friend if someone ripped black people the way Duke Quan rips white people?

I think you need to search your heart there because I think that you know full well that he would not.

If someone was ripping black people for their blackness and how the blackness is just affecting them negatively and stuff like that,

I don't think they would be your friend anymore. So the reality is why is Duke, why are you, why do you consider Duke Quan a friend if this is what he's doing to white people at this point?

He's an evil, divisive person in the church trying to divide it up like a pizza, showing partiality against whites.

We need to, we need to come to terms with that and then, and then look inside and say, well, there must be some partiality in my heart too, because Jonathan, I think there is.

If you switch the races around a little bit here, there's no way you'd consider Duke Quan a friend. And yet you do because there is, it's acceptable to hate on white people.

It's acceptable in your heart, Jonathan, you need to search that out because that's a big problem.

There's so much anti -white hatred. I haven't commented on the Rittenhouse thing very much. I mean, probably in the beginning

I said, obviously it's self -defense because it obviously was. I mean, he shouldn't have been tried at all. I haven't commented on this, but somebody at church yesterday asked me, he said, what's the deal?

Why are people saying this is racist? Right? Why are people saying this was a racist shooting? And I told him,

I was like, well, if you're looking for a good reason, I mean, I don't have anything for you. You know what I mean? I don't have a good reason.

But the truth is that it doesn't matter of the facts of the case. What matters is that white people are just so degraded in our culture right now.

It is part of being a good citizen to hate on white people. And the reality is that this was a racist shooting because Kyle was white.

It had nothing to do with who he shot. It had nothing to do with why he shot. It had nothing to do with his beliefs. It's just because he's white.

That's why it was racist. So you could do anything you want to him because he's white. Our culture is fundamentally and systemically at this point, imagine that, ironic, systemically against white people.

Guys, it is so creepy. All the Black Friday commercials that are coming your way, you know, in the newspaper, catalogs, internet, like it is creepy how few white people appear in these advertisements because our country is still majority white.

And if you looked at our advertising and our media, it's like, they'd be like 10 % white.

It's creepy, guys. I don't know about you, but I find it extremely creepy that every time I see a commercial, it's always not a white person.

Creepy. Anyway, let's continue because there's still some more praiseworthy stuff in this article. Oh, and all that to say, the reason why,

Jonathan, you need to search your heart because the air we breathe right now is partial against white people.

And I think that this, the way you've written this article kind of betrays, there's some partiality in your own heart. You bought into some of this stuff.

And the reality is that you need to search that out and take those thoughts captive.

And essentially, you need to repent of some of your own partiality. It's just that simple.

Now, the next praiseworthy thing comes in the very next section here because this is, guys, again, it's not all good.

This article is not all good. So you're going to read some of this stuff, especially when it gets to his suggestions, like how pastors should respond.

That's the next section. We're not going to go into too much of that because there's a lot of squish there. And so I don't really think that that section is very good.

But listen to this. I want you to, this is praiseworthy, guys. This is praiseworthy. Listen to what he says here.

Jonathan Lehman says, My goal in this piece is not to offer specific responses to the books listed above, much less all their arguments.

Further, I'm not going to sort through the theological differences among members or sympathizers with the deconstruction project.

Some, like Gushy in his After Evangelicalism book, dismiss the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and claim that only parts of the

Bible are inspired, namely the parts that prove useful. Others, now listen to this, guys.

Listen to this. This is so important. He says, Some are complete pagans.

They deny inerrancy. Fine. Others may, for the time being, embrace inerrancy and a more conservative theology, though I believe these folks may soon discover they're sitting on the very branch that the project is trying to saw through.

Guys, this is no small thing. Look, Jonathan Lehman's pen is not barbed.

And we just can't, we can't hold him to the standard that we would hold somebody else to.

Like, if I was a big author, clearly my pen would be quite barbed. We get that. It would be very aggressive and all of that.

And there's authors out there that have very barbed pens. And we get that. We love them. But the thing is, the body of Christ needs all types.

Jonathan Lehman's pen is not barbed. However, in a very graceful, winsome kind of way, this is savage.

Jonathan, there's a little savage inside you, man. And this is proof of it. Listen to what he said.

He said, Some of them are total pagans. They don't believe the Bible. Others, and I think he's probably talking about Quan, he's probably talking about some of these guys that he's saying are on this spectrum.

He says, Others, for the time being, may embrace inerrancy. So what he's saying is, some are total pagans.

Others, for the time being, might not be total pagans. But pretty soon, they're going to have to make a decision.

It's going to have to be Christ and his word or these idiots out here. And listen, this is savage when you're winsome.

This is savage when you're winsome. He's saying that he believes, and I agree with him, that a lot of these people that are still conservative and still orthodox right now, before long, are going to totally abandon this.

They're on the road that leads to destruction, and it's just that simple. And they need to either turn, repent, and get off that road, or continue down that road and end up in the lake of fire where all the liars end up.

See, that's a more barbed way of saying it. But the reality is that he's saying it, and in Jonathan Lehman, according to his standard, this is savage.

And I think this is praiseworthy. And I want to come to his defense here. Guys, I saw a woke preacher clip say that some of the freaks out there, like the demon -possessed critical race theorists, not the nice ones that are kindly, but the demon -possessed ones, that there were dogpiling on Lehman for this article.

And I understand why, because they read it the way I read it, is that this is an attack, and this is as aggressive as he's going to get.

There's a little savage in Jonathan Lehman. This is as much as he's going to get, right? But man,

I got your back, bro, because this is good stuff. I got your back here. It's just that simple. Anyway, let's continue.

As I said, I don't want to comment too much on the advice, because I think the advice is kind of lame, in my opinion.

Sorry, Jonathan, I just think it is. I think you give way too much credence to some of these demonic doctrines. I don't think we should play footsies with the doctrines of demons, right?

But you're just coming out of this. I get that. You're starting to see clearly, so I'm not going to hold you to my standard.

I think some of the advice section is kind of lame, but let me rephrase that,

Jonathan. Let me rephrase that. I think that your advice section would have been good five or six years ago.

It would have actually been good if people were following this advice five or six years ago, but the problem is that the genie is out of the lamp, right?

The egg is scrambled. You cannot scramble it. Now we need to crack some skulls. Now we need to freaking excommunicate people.

Now we need the wolves to be shot, essentially, metaphorically speaking, because I don't believe in violence.

But the reality is like this advice would have been good before. It's not going to work now.

I think it's super naive, and I think at worst, it could be subversive, but listen, love believes all things, brother, and I want to believe all things.

So good advice for like a decade ago, but today we need to crack some skulls, metaphorically speaking.

But let me just talk about a couple things here. Here's what he says. The first one is this.

He says, if you're a pastor, perhaps you've had an experience like the following. A group of members in your church ask you for a meeting in which they want to discuss ways that they feel hurt by the elders or another group in the church.

As you sit and listen, two things become clear. First, though speaking collectively, you sense the members come from different places.

Some people have been genuinely hurt, and you sympathize. Some are overblowing their hurt, and you lightly sympathize, but not like they want you to.

And some are wolves that take wicked delight in posturing as protectors of their hurt and in attacking you, though you keep in mind that wolves never think they're wolves, but often feel a profound self of righteousness in their cause.

So this is actually pretty good. He's saying, when somebody comes to you, is their hurt real or is it subversive, postmodernism, evil speaking?

Because here's the reality, though. So this would have been good advice like six years ago, but the truth is now the lines are so blurred that you kind of have to treat them the same.

And let me tell you what I mean by that. Here's an article that's still on Nine Marks to this day.

In fact, I did a video about this article back when I was way less hardcore. So if you want to see Winsome AD talk to an article,

I'm going to talk about an article. I'm going to post this. This was in 2017. I responded to this article.

It's still a good video. I think it still holds up. But this is Winsome AD, and it's about how white churches are tough for black people, whatever.

One of the things that is said here is this. Black sisters are seen as second class. It just says that.

It's a tremendous statement. That better have some pretty good evidence for it. Here's what the evidence is. Perhaps no one is passed over more than black sisters in white churches.

They're rarely asked out on dates, if ever. Brothers have told them, I'm just not attracted to black women, and as a result, they felt ugly.

Now here's the thing. If the black sisters come to you and say, hey, I feel hurt because white people don't ask me out on dates, right?

Is the hurt real, or is it post -modernism speaking? Because here's the thing. That's what he's saying.

You've got to discern the difference, and you treat them differently. Okay. Let's just take this a couple of steps at a time here.

Is it possible that black women are really hurt by the fact that their white brothers come out on dates?

Yes. I think that's a fact that potentially they could be hurt by that. But if the black women come to you and say, see, they're racist, and this and that, that's also post -modernism speaking, because the reality is that just because somebody doesn't want to go on a date with you does not mean that they're a racist or a white supremacist.

You need to handle that. Maybe you handle it with a woman coming to you, or a group coming to you, or with this complaint.

You handle it in a certain way, but you do need to disavow them of the notion that just because someone doesn't want to date you means that you're ugly, because there's a theological problem there, and you can't just say, okay, well, now

I'm going to go bash white people because they don't like the black girls at my church. Yes, you need to have discernment, but the reality is that you need to nip the false teaching in the bud, because the false teaching there is that, as a black woman, my value is determined by whether or not white guys want to date me.

If that's what they're thinking, then you need to correct that theology, at the same time recognizing that there's some real hurt there, and you want to be maybe gentle with them, whatever, but there's a theological problem, and there's some postmodernism in there as well.

And so, the reality is, there could be real hurt, but there is also postmodernism speaking, and you can't ignore the postmodernism and the false teaching just because someone's actually hurt.

You can't. And this is what happens every time there's another shooting out there, and black people get online, black theologians get online and say,

Oh, the hurt, the pain! And it's like, okay, I believe you that you really feel hurt, but the reality is you can't then go and use that hurt as an excuse to blast all white people, like David Platt's pastor.

David Platt's pastor, I have a hard time, you know, I don't want to, I have a hard time not trying to blast all white people, it's like, or torch,

I want to torch all white people. Like, okay, I believe you that for some reason you're hurt when a black man across the country gets hurt or whatever.

I believe you, that your hurt is real, but your teaching is still false, and you need to shut your mouth, maybe if we need to set a cooling off period for you, you keep your mouth shut for at least a week, because we don't need any more emoting of nonsense.

We don't need Thabiti getting all emotional and crazy on Twitter every time there's another police shooting, right?

We don't need that. So, maybe, I believe you're hurt, for some reason that hurts you. I get it. We don't need your emoting, and so you got, you can't, hurt is no excuse for false teaching.

So that's one thing I wanted to say. The other part that I thought was kind of lame, this whole section is kind of lame.

There's one in particular that's actually pretty good, but most of this section is lame. But this part about learn history, he says, you know, it's really good to learn the history, but don't let it, don't let it control your theology.

And he talks specifically about Tisby's book, The Color of Compromise, which he says it's a good history book.

And to me, it's like, eh, I don't know about that. I don't know about that. It's probably not that great of a historical narrative.

I'm not a historian myself, but, you know, some of that book is just like, you know, a lot of cherry picking going on, a lot of fake analysis, disguises analysis, but really it's just, you know, opinion pieces and stuff like that.

At the very least, though, he does say that once he gets out of the history and starts talking about modern times, that it's total ideologue.

That's what he says. In a very nice, winsome way, Lehman says that Color of Compromise is an ideological book.

That, you know, so yeah, learn history, but a lot of times these historians are actually not really historians.

They just have an agenda. They're revisionists. They're just making stuff up. They're cherry picking to make the narrative seem a certain way.

We all get their scam. I wrote about this in my book, so that part's kind of meh as well.

But I do want to praise one more thing, because again, guys,

I want you to really see that this article has a lot of good stuff in it.

Again, there's still some stuff in it that is either naive or subversive, and so don't hear me saying this is a perfect article.

It's not a perfect article, but tremendous step in the right direction for all the reasons I've discussed.

But there's also, I think, could this be a nod to old AD? I don't know.

I mean, it could be. It could be. I want to just give him some credit where credit is due. Let me read this, because I think it's possible.

It's possible. Now, Jonathan Lehman did send me my book back, so he didn't read it, but maybe he's heard about it.

Maybe he's heard things. He's heard things. I don't know. But listen to this. I want you to hear this, because this is such a good insight.

It's probably not a nod to old AD, but if it's not, it's still a good insight. He says this.

He says, speaking of critical race theory, defenders are quick to say it's merely a legal theory.

Indeed, that's precisely what it is. It's a theory that legalizes all of life in racial terms.

Now, let me stop right there for a second. That's not the point I want to make here. That's actually a tremendous insight, because oftentimes the way we talk about it is like, oh yeah, it started as a legal theory.

Now it's just freaking hating white people. But Lehman says, okay, you want to say it's a legal theory?

I'll lean into that. It is. It's a legal theory that legalizes all of life in racial terms.

I think that's a tremendous insight. Good job, Jonathan. I'm going to steal that one. I'm going to steal that one. He goes on and says this.

Rules and traditions, work and play, health and sex, cities and nations and empires, your heart and mind, even older ways of opposing racism, all this it judges through the law of racialization and oppression.

Where the deconstruction project's gender conversation critiques authority, the postmodern race conversation, in a way, does the opposite.

It legalizes everything. It creates law. Critical race theory is

Moses on racialized hyperdrive. It is one of the premier

Pharisee -isms of today, offering a God's eye view on our society and culture that places them under permanent indictment.

We're all guilty until proven innocent. That is a powerful paragraph, in my opinion.

Listen, like I said, Jonathan Lehman, this is as barbed as his pen's going to get. I, for one, am very grateful that it got this barbed.

He's just not like me. He's not going to ever sound like me, and that is totally fine.

This is a powerful paragraph. It is one of the premier Pharisee -isms of today. That's why

I wrote my book and titled it the way I did, Social Justice Pharisees, because the whole thing is a tremendously burdensome law that you can never, ever live up to, and you will always be condemned until the day you die.

That's what it's set up to do. It's set up to condemn, condemn, condemn with no way out, especially if you're white.

It's Pharisee -ism, and it's racialized to the nth degree. It's all about hating and destroying and crushing white people.

It's just that simple, and Jonathan Lehman here has provided us a very clear way of looking at it in that regard.

And so the reality is that if this is true, if this is the premier Pharisee -ism of today, and it pretends to put culture under permanent indictment, we're all guilty until proven innocent, there's no freedom in Christ the way we know that there's freedom in Christ.

If this is true, Jonathan, you've told us too much now. You've shown your hand.

We know now that you understand. And so now, we're going to hold you to it, buddy.

We're going to hold you to it. And since this is the premier Pharisee -ism of our day, then we need to come against it strongly.

Guys, this is the whole point. I'll never forget this, the controversy at my church. The elder that was pastoring the church with me,

I looked him in the eye, and we were having a debate, man. And this was a debate where, I can't remember, but either this time there was tears in my eyes or it was a different time,

I can't remember. But I looked at him, I said, look, Jonathan, I said, Jonathan, Lehman was not my co -elder.

I said, look, assuming that John MacArthur is right, and this is the biggest threat to the gospel in his entire career, you're telling me that if I assume that, that I can't criticize people that are promoting this very thing inside the church?

And he was trying to protect his friends, and he said, no, no, you can't.

You can't criticize brothers in Christ. And I was like, okay, so if that's the case, then why do we ever see criticism in the

New Testament? Because if you're saying that even if this is the biggest threat ever, that it's inappropriate to criticize people that you say are brothers that are promoting it in the church, when can you criticize brothers?

And of course he had no answer. There's no answer to that question. But the reality is here, Jonathan Lehman, he's kind of told us too much now, because now we're going to hold you to this standard, and the next time one of your buddies starts promoting critical race theory and white supremacy and all this kind of nonsense,

I'm going to remind you of this paragraph. Brother, you said this is the premier Pharisee -ism of today.

Why are you not bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ and the law of God to bear upon these heretics?

This is a great article, in my opinion. It's not perfect. It's great, in my opinion, because it gives us a place to kind of stand within the

Big Eva Guild. Guys, this is remarkable because the Guild doesn't write articles like this. The Guild has rules and laws against writing articles like this.

In fact, Greenway spilled the beans on the law. You shouldn't be criticizing other Southern Baptists. You shouldn't do it.

Now he doesn't actually do that here. So he's still within the Guild guidelines, but even so, you're not supposed to criticize people that are part of this revolution.

He's done that here. This is remarkable. This is remarkable. And so within the Guild now, we've got a foothold to say, look, you guys admit that this is the premier

Pharisee -ism of today, so where are your cojones? Where is your backbone? Where are you pushing against it by name?

You need to push against these people by name, because they're teaching dangerous Pharisee -ism, the premier

Pharisee -ism of our time within the Church. It's time to get the teeth out. It's time to start cracking some skulls and kicking them out of your denomination, because they're teaching dangerous heresies within your walls.

This is a really good thing, guys. I'm encouraged by it. I'm going to defend Jonathan Lehman from all of these crazies out there that are going to see this for exactly what it is.

This is an indictment. This is as barbed as his pen's going to get, and that's okay. We need Ezra's. We need Nehemiah's.

The advice section, squishy, and I don't agree with it all. Even the stuff

I do agree with, yeah, it would have been good advice 10 years ago. We're way beyond that now, but the point is, though, that this is praiseworthy.

I think it's something that we ought to encourage more of. Anyway, that's all

I really wanted to say. If you disagree with me, I'd be glad to hear you out, so please comment in the comment section.

You can email me if you'd like. Totally fine with being wrong about this, but man, man, am

I encouraged. I really am. This is a really good thing. Guys, I hope you found this video helpful. Jonathan, God bless you.