Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 150

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Thank you so much for being here. I hope that you are having

00:00:05.060 the best week ever. I hope that you are enjoying your summer. Today we're going to talk about a

00:00:11.440 contentious topic. We're going to talk about race and racism and intersectionality. Now this is

00:00:17.680 something that we have talked about on my podcast many times. If you would like a thorough

00:00:24.920 understanding of where I or how I approach this subject, particularly from a biblical perspective,

00:00:31.700 I did a podcast about a year and a half ago about the fallacies in the argument for

00:00:36.580 so-called racial reconciliation that we're seeing in the church right now. I did one at the beginning

00:00:42.260 of the year called the Gospel of Grievance. I encourage you to go listen to that. I also

00:00:46.820 encourage you to listen to the one titled Wayward Wokeness. And then there was another one directly

00:00:52.080 after that about black liberation theology and its ties to Marxism and the nation of Islam.

00:00:57.980 The reason why we've talked about race so much is because it is something that is covered almost

00:01:04.940 constantly. It seems like at least once a day in the news, there is some story that has something

00:01:11.500 to do with race or with racism. It's been especially prevalent within evangelical Christianity. The

00:01:19.000 conversation about how Christians should approach race and racial issues. And like I said, racial

00:01:24.840 reconciliation. But if you want a basic understanding of what I think about racism as a Christian,

00:01:31.000 I mean, it should be fairly obvious, but racism is from the pit of hell. Any kind of hatred or animosity

00:01:38.940 that you feel towards your fellow man who is made in the image of God, no matter what they look like,

00:01:44.700 is evil. And as we will discuss, you cannot love God and hate your brother as 1 John makes very clear

00:01:51.640 at several points. So whether we are talking about systemic racism or whether we are talking about

00:01:56.880 individual racism, whether we are talking about an action that is spurred by racism or a word that is

00:02:03.420 spurred by racism, it is evil. And it is something that we as Christians believe that we should repent from.

00:02:09.540 And there are disagreements within Christianity of what that actually looks like and how that should

00:02:14.960 manifest itself. And I think there are good disagreements and conversations to be having.

00:02:20.440 There are conversations surrounding social justice and reparations, which we'll get into today. But what

00:02:26.000 we can agree on as followers of Christ is that racism is of the devil. It is of Satan. It should be

00:02:32.560 something that we should have no problem whatsoever condemning. And I don't know a follower of Christ

00:02:37.760 that does have a problem with condemning it. In fact, it has been the gospel of Christ that has

00:02:45.040 abolished some of the worst forms of racism, like slavery that we've seen in this country. William

00:02:51.600 Wilberforce, who fought for the abolition of slavery, was propelled to do so by the love and the gospel of

00:02:57.840 Christ. And of course, we as Christians should be on the forefront of fighting any kind of hatred that

00:03:06.160 manifests itself in, you know, some sort of outward discrimination or something like that today.

00:03:12.800 Now, I say all of that before I say this. Race is a topic that is disproportionately talked about. And I

00:03:22.560 understand that we're talking about it on this podcast because of that, but it's disproportionately

00:03:26.980 talked about. I heard someone say recently, and I don't remember who it was, but it wasn't me. So you

00:03:31.780 don't have to quote me on this is that the amounts or the number of times it seems like that we talk

00:03:39.080 about racism is completely disproportionate to the number of actual racists that we have in this

00:03:44.820 country. And I think that's true. Racism is a very serious issue where it exists, but it does seem like

00:03:52.200 we tend to amplify it and magnify it by how much we talk about it in comparison to how much it actually

00:03:59.760 exists. Um, it's something that we see covered a lot in the elections, especially among the democratic

00:04:06.560 candidates. It's something that, as we said, we see on nightly cable news. Um, and it's a very

00:04:12.880 confusing time. It seems like, I think a lot of people are blindsided by just how much we are talking

00:04:20.860 about this topic, just how much we are covering the issue of race. I think you've got a lot of people

00:04:26.000 that are taking a step back and saying, hang on, where did all of this come from? Was I completely

00:04:30.820 like, did I just not realize that we've been talking about this, this virulently, this passionately

00:04:36.700 forever? Have I been sleeping under a rock? And the answer to that is no, this is a pretty fresh

00:04:42.740 conversation. Now there's always been a conversation about race and racism and discrimination in this

00:04:47.620 country. There's always been that conversation because we have a very imperfect history when it comes

00:04:52.400 to that. That's to put it lightly. Uh, however, if you get the feeling that maybe this has been

00:04:58.920 amplified in recent years, uh, you are correct. It might seem like we are talking about this in a,

00:05:05.980 with a renewed vigor, like this is an even hotter point of contention than it's ever been. And you

00:05:11.840 are right. Um, now what we usually hear, however, I would say particularly from the left is that this

00:05:19.080 is because of Donald Trump, the racial division that we are seeing, uh, these flames of resentment

00:05:25.380 are being stoked by Donald Trump and those who voted for him because he is a white supremacist and

00:05:30.760 those who voted for him are white supremacists. Um, but that is not actually true. Now I am not

00:05:37.480 going to say that Donald Trump is the great racial reconciler that he has come into office and made all

00:05:43.120 things better, uh, between the races. I'm certainly not saying that. And I'm not saying that there is not

00:05:48.440 racist, uh, who didn't, who voted for him. Of course, they're racist on both sides of the aisle,

00:05:54.320 which is something that we are going to discuss a little bit, but it is not true to say, um,

00:06:00.320 that racism has grown or this polarized conversation about racism has started in the past couple of

00:06:09.880 years or the past few years since he took office. That is just not true. A study that we have cited often

00:06:16.520 on this, uh, podcast is a 2017 study by Pew research called polarization and politics,

00:06:23.340 and it measured the growing partisan divide on particular issues. And what it found is that on

00:06:28.980 every political and social issue, Democrats have moved to the left, particularly while Barack Obama

00:06:35.060 was in office and Republicans change on these issues was very slight. Um, and one of these issues

00:06:42.000 that was tested to see where Republicans, Democrats stand on this was the issue of race. So this was

00:06:48.020 the statement that the Republicans and Democrats who were pulled had to agree or disagree with,

00:06:52.900 uh, racial discrimination is the main reason black people cannot get ahead these days. So we're talking

00:06:58.720 about a particular minority, black people, racial discrimination is the main reason black people

00:07:03.200 cannot get ahead these days was the Pew research statement. Uh, the statement was first offered in 1994,

00:07:08.740 according to the survey and when it was first offered in 94, 39% of Democrats agreed and 26% of

00:07:15.900 Republicans agreed, uh, read that racism is the main factor, uh, that is holding black people back.

00:07:21.060 The statement was offered then every four years by 2010, only 28% of Democrats believe that to be true.

00:07:27.840 So that's less than what it was in 1994, about 11% less. Uh, so 2010, only 28% of Democrats believe that

00:07:35.280 to be true, only 9% of Republicans. So by 2010, that number had dropped in, uh, dramatically among

00:07:42.360 Democrats and Republicans, the number of people who believed on either side of the aisle, that

00:07:47.220 discrimination, that racism was holding black people back. And then something very interesting

00:07:52.780 happened, uh, by 2017 at the end of Barack Obama's presidency, uh, that percentage for Democrats

00:07:59.060 shot up to 64% while for Republicans, the percentage only went up to 14%. So from 2010 to 2017, while Barack

00:08:09.140 Obama was president, uh, the percentage of people who identified as Democrats who believed that the

00:08:14.300 main factor holding the black community back was racism rather than individual choices or something

00:08:20.040 like that shot up by 36% from a small minority to a large majority higher than it has ever been in the

00:08:27.540 history of this survey higher than it had been in at least 23 years. And by far the most significant

00:08:32.880 change in opinion happened while Barack Obama was president. Um, in 2010, 28% of Democrats believe that

00:08:41.540 racism was a major factor in hampering the success of black people in this country by 2017, 64% believe

00:08:48.740 that, uh, this created a huge gap, a huge gap between Democrats or Republicans and how they saw racism.

00:08:54.940 Um, and that had actually the gap had been previously a lot smaller than that. Uh, and Republicans views

00:09:01.880 changed only slightly. So what happened? Did racism really increase a lot by the time that Barack Obama

00:09:09.240 or during the time that Barack Obama was president? Now there's no doubt that there were some displays

00:09:14.760 and demonstrations that I think were public of racism because Barack Obama took office. There were people

00:09:20.560 who existed that didn't want him to take office because he was black. And so maybe that those got

00:09:25.180 some airtime. And so the idea that, uh, there were, there was more racism than ever before. Maybe that

00:09:31.620 was exacerbated because of that, but was racism. Did racism really increase systemically in any kind of

00:09:38.940 pervasive or significant way while Barack Obama was president for this percentage to shoot up this much?

00:09:44.700 No, there is no citation that shows that whatsoever. Uh, the reality is, is that if we look at the other

00:09:51.580 issues, the Democrats views changed on, we see that this is a general trend for their party. So it wasn't

00:09:56.900 just on the issue of race, uh, their favorability of immigration of immigrants shot up by about 40

00:10:03.080 percentage points. While Barack Obama was president, 71% of Democrats in 2017 believed that the government

00:10:09.800 should do more to help the needy versus only 54% believed that in 2010. Um, now Republicans views

00:10:16.640 varied on these issues, but not nearly as much as Democrats did. Uh, the same study shows that there

00:10:22.280 are fewer people in the middle, uh, with moderate views, at least, uh, at the point of 2017 with moderate

00:10:28.640 views than there ever has been. And from 2015 to 2017, the far left grew in number significantly. Uh,

00:10:35.760 the median Democrat, uh, has moved significantly to the left from, or did move significantly to the

00:10:41.520 left from 2015 to 2017. And the median Republican stayed in the exact same place. And, and according

00:10:48.460 to the survey is more moderate than the median Democrats. So that feeling that you have about

00:10:53.860 Democrats being further left than Republicans are right is correct. And the feeling that you have

00:10:57.880 of there being more of them, at least in 2017 is correct. Republicans have become more conservative

00:11:04.800 since the 1990s. That is true, but they have not become more conservative in the past five years,

00:11:09.640 the way that Democrats have become more liberal, uh, in the last five to 10. Uh, so by 2017, America was

00:11:16.700 more polarized than it had ever been. And according to this study of the largest chunk of that happened

00:11:21.540 while Barack Obama was president and the group that changed its views the most were Democrats. That's

00:11:28.020 just statistically true. Uh, so this study tells us a few things that the polarization that we are

00:11:34.300 experiencing, whether it's on race or on other issues is not because of Trump. Like I said, maybe he

00:11:41.020 exacerbated, exacerbated it. Maybe he has made it worse. Um, I think that he was in a lot of ways, a rude

00:11:48.640 awakening to the group that was moving to the left while Obama was president and thinking that there would

00:11:52.680 never be any backlash. Well, there was Donald Trump was the backlash. Um, Obama had the opportunity

00:11:59.260 when he came into office to be this great reconciler, uh, between, uh, the black community and between

00:12:05.580 white people. When he took office, as the numbers show in this Pew study, the vast majority of people

00:12:10.900 on the right and the left, uh, when he won the presidency did not believe that racism was a huge

00:12:16.360 issue. Um, this doesn't mean that racism didn't exist or that they didn't believe that racism existed.

00:12:21.760 It did. Um, like I said, there was a lot of nastiness that came out in full force. When Obama became the

00:12:28.000 first black president, unfortunately. So not everyone of course had this post-racial mindset

00:12:33.280 or this post-racial mentality, but in general, it seems on both sides of the aisle, people were ready

00:12:39.720 to be brought together, at least on this issue we had suffered through. And this is this next part

00:12:45.280 is just my conjecture, my own analysis. We had suffered through nine 11, uh, both the right and

00:12:52.300 the left of course had their beef with overseas wars. Um, and it was an opportunity, whether

00:12:58.300 someone liked Obama or not to be united under his presidency, it was a new era. It was a new age,

00:13:05.360 but that's not what happened. Uh, Obama was far more progressive than a lot of people had originally

00:13:10.820 thought. Uh, he peddled, he waited in identity politics constantly. Um, he was constantly speaking

00:13:17.300 to the unfair divide between the different groups, between the rich and the poor, the whites and the

00:13:23.540 non-whites, uh, America and other countries. He went on his famous worldwide apology tour that I'm

00:13:29.100 sure that you've heard about where he bowed down to other nations and said, sorry for America's

00:13:33.380 strengths. Now, just to say, of course, I don't think that Trump has been perfect in that. I don't

00:13:37.720 like it when he acquiesces, at least in speech to Putin or to, uh, or to North Korea or to Kim Jong-un.

00:13:45.120 So I'm, I'm not saying that president Trump has been the polar opposite of that in every single

00:13:49.940 way, at least rhetoric wise, policy wise, it's a different story. Um, Obama also said those who

00:13:56.760 built their businesses didn't really build that. I mean, that made a lot of entrepreneurs and small

00:14:01.100 business owners mad. Of course he winked and nodded to the narrative that all cops are racist. Um,

00:14:06.240 and that's not to say me saying that doesn't mean that there have been no instances of racism,

00:14:10.180 but Obama really bought into the narrative and perpetuated this narrative that there's a systemic

00:14:15.040 racist, uh, racism problem in the police force. And that is not necessarily true. Again,

00:14:21.660 any instance of racism that we see in the police force is wrong and bad in any kind of overuse of

00:14:28.540 force or brutality in the police force is bad and should be called out. But he really condoned and

00:14:34.500 perpetuated this, um, narrative of the police being the racist oppressors and the communities that

00:14:41.980 they serve and they protect, uh, being the oppressed. Also Obamacare fundamentally changed what people

00:14:47.900 expected from the government. Um, so he brought attention through all of these things, uh, to what

00:14:54.060 he believed were unfair power dynamics between the haves and the have nots between whites and minorities

00:14:59.760 between the rich and the poor America as a strong nation and, uh, against the weak nations in his mind.

00:15:06.680 I think Obama was uplifting the oppressed and, uh, attempting to hold back those who had, uh,

00:15:15.180 been traditionally unoppressed or who had been the oppressor. Uh, this is a key tenet of Marxism.

00:15:22.100 So that's probably another word that you feel like you've heard more than ever over the past 10 or so

00:15:27.700 years is Marxism. Uh, we, we talked about Karl Marx in the socialism episode, so I won't go too in depth

00:15:33.560 here, but the father of socialism, uh, he viewed everything from the lens of the oppressed versus

00:15:39.400 the oppressor. The oppressor must be brought down so the oppressed can be uplifted. And who are the

00:15:45.140 oppressed? The ones who have had the least amount of power and wealth. Marxism, we know deeply affects

00:15:51.040 a liberation theology, which deeply influenced the teachers and the preachers that Barack Obama has

00:15:57.180 been under the influence of for decades of his life. You can go back and you can listen to my black

00:16:02.200 liberation theology episode where I break that all down. So it shouldn't be surprising to us that

00:16:07.040 this is how he approached the presidency. He has been deeply affected by Marxism in order to accomplish

00:16:13.240 pushing down the so-called unoppressed or the oppressor and lifting up the oppressed. Uh, you have

00:16:18.900 to categorize people based on characteristics that you believe have corresponded to power. So in this

00:16:25.380 country, people have deemed these characteristics as race, as gender, as sexual orientation, et cetera.

00:16:30.460 The less of a white male you are, who has traditionally had the most amount of power,

00:16:34.840 uh, the less privileged you are. And therefore, according to the left, the more social and

00:16:39.480 political capital you have, the more you deserve. This is also known as intersectionality. Uh, the more

00:16:46.360 intersection points that you have, the more minority status that you have, uh, you should be the more

00:16:52.660 likely you are, or the more deserving you are of being brought to the forefront and, uh, your voice being

00:16:57.920 made the loudest. It is, uh, this, uh, this mindset that views everything as, uh, how victimized you

00:17:06.040 have been because of the groups that you belong to. This is the ideology that rose dramatically under

00:17:12.500 Barack Obama. A lot changed while he was in office, not all directly because of him, but certainly while

00:17:19.620 he was in power because of this mentality and just the growing progressivism, um, of a large portion of

00:17:27.180 our country, uh, the percentage of the religiously unaffiliated rose under his presidency. And again,

00:17:32.460 I'm not saying that that was his fault. It just happened at the same time. Uh, the famous Supreme

00:17:37.020 Court, uh, decision on gay marriage happened while he was president and Americans views on gay marriage,

00:17:41.860 uh, shifted to the left. Transgenderism and gender fluidity moved to the forefront of the national

00:17:46.800 conversation. We became more expectant of things like government provided healthcare. Uh, thus we became

00:17:52.800 more open to things like socialism. Bernie Sanders, a self-avowed socialism never would have had a chance

00:17:59.600 of winning the nomination for presidency. If Barack Obama had not been president, there is no way that

00:18:05.300 he would have seen it. He would have been laughed off the stage if we had had John McCain, then Mitt

00:18:08.960 Romney. There's no chance, but because we had eight years of Barack Obama, we had been conditioned to a

00:18:14.840 kind of progressivism that America really hadn't seen before, both socially and politically that really

00:18:20.680 set the stage for someone like Bernie Sanders, not winning, but having very significant influence.

00:18:25.640 Um, now having socialist views in the democratic party is seen as almost a qualification for running

00:18:31.760 for president or just being, um, being a leader in the democratic party. Uh, Democrats became more

00:18:38.840 liberal on immigration. This Pew study shows they became dramatically more liberal on, uh, abortion as

00:18:45.100 well. It used to be safe, legal, and rare. Now it is at any time on demand, no matter,

00:18:50.680 no matter what, they became more liberal on guns. They're talking about actually gun buyback programs

00:18:56.180 and confiscation of guns, whereas they used to be more moderate on this issue. And all of this

00:19:02.720 occurred primarily, uh, before Trump took office and is probably, uh, it's probably even moved more

00:19:09.840 to the last, I would say, since he took office because we are extremely reactive as people. Uh, Trump

00:19:15.820 was a reaction to the move to the left that conservatives saw and feared. Uh, they wanted

00:19:21.100 to, they wanted a fighter. They wanted someone who was going to advocate for them. They wanted

00:19:25.040 to make America great again. And I think that the radicalism, and it truly is radicalism that we're

00:19:30.720 seeing on the left. If you look at what their, uh, parties views have traditionally been, I think that

00:19:36.480 that is in large part in reaction to Trump. Although of course he himself is not terribly ideologically

00:19:41.960 conservative. I think they fear losing the power that they have had for so long under his reign.

00:19:48.420 Um, one of the many issues, one of the many issues, of course, as we've been saying, that has been

00:19:54.420 caught in the crosshairs of this political polarization over the last 10 years is race.

00:19:59.960 And particularly in regards to the black community. Um, so we need to say though, that race is important

00:20:06.780 as it is, if you are as important as it seems to be, if you turn on the news, um, it is nothing more

00:20:13.220 than a social construct that we as people have ascribed value to. So race only means, if you

00:20:19.320 look it up, it only means someone's physical attributes, ethnicity actually speaks to culture

00:20:24.540 or ancestry, uh, from the ancestry from which someone comes. Nationality is the actual nation from

00:20:31.180 which someone is, uh, people have different ethnicities, people have different nationalities,

00:20:37.800 but race is the least significant of these differences. Race is completely superficial and

00:20:43.920 we have ascribed value to it as just members of a particular society, but it in and of itself

00:20:50.940 doesn't actually hold, uh, any significant difference. It's ethnicity and nationality that speaks more to

00:20:58.820 cultural differences than race does. Unfortunately, uh, in America, we have used race as a dividing,

00:21:06.460 a dividing factor. Um, having the physical characteristics of a black person, for example,

00:21:12.000 has equal discrimination in the past, whether or not you were born in Africa or America, that is called

00:21:17.260 racism. Um, and it does exist today. Of course it does. It exists when a white person hates a black

00:21:23.420 person because of his race. It also exists when a black person condemns a white person because of their

00:21:28.340 race. Um, it exists between different minority groups. Don't let anyone tell you that only white

00:21:34.260 people can be racist. That is not true. Racism is hatred or it's, uh, or the fruit of hatred because

00:21:40.800 of race. And as we said at the beginning, we know it's Christians that racism is wrong. It is the product

00:21:46.340 of sin. It is a product of corruption. It is evil. It is hate. First John 3 15 says everyone who hates

00:21:52.640 his brother is a murder. And you know, that no murder has eternal life abiding in him. It is

00:21:57.720 impossible to be a racist and to love God. You are essentially serving two masters. You are attempting

00:22:02.140 to serve the master of hate and a master of love. And you can't do both. And because we realize as

00:22:08.880 Christians that any kind of discrimination or oppression on the basis of racist hate, um, that it

00:22:14.080 is sinful, it is wrong. Uh, we also realize that anything that manifests itself either, uh, legislatively

00:22:21.700 or individually needs to be combated. It needs to be pushed against. It needs to be spoken about. Of

00:22:27.500 course, slavery was the objectification of a group of people made in the image of God based on some

00:22:32.500 arbitrary standard of personhood because of where these people were from. Jim Crow was a continuation

00:22:37.000 of that objectification. Same with the Chinese railroad, same with Japanese internment camps, punishing

00:22:42.460 people or withholding people's rights on the basis of some kind of immutable characteristic is wrong

00:22:47.740 and is counter to the principles this country was founded on much more than that. It's counter to

00:22:51.840 the gospel. Um, so we as rational people, we recognize that we also have to recognize, um, that America

00:23:00.040 has thankfully though, we have made some great advances in regards to race. So separating ourselves from

00:23:08.040 what seems to be, um, such, uh, a terrible issue that we are so divided because of race in America is

00:23:15.020 such a, a racist company or a racist country. We have to look at, um, what has actually happened

00:23:22.120 in our country over the past few decades. So there's one Swedish study that certainly doesn't speak to

00:23:27.860 our entire racial climate in this country, but it's interesting. It was a Swedish study published by

00:23:32.540 the Washington post, um, and asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of

00:23:37.300 people that they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents picking from a list chose people of

00:23:43.160 different race. Uh, so people of a different race that those are the people that they wouldn't want

00:23:48.040 living next to them. So the country with the lowest number of people to choose that option, that they

00:23:52.500 wouldn't want someone living next to them. That was of a different race. The countries to, uh, the

00:23:57.120 countries with the lowest number of people to choose the option were the United States, the UK, a variety of

00:24:03.120 countries in Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavian countries also had a low number.

00:24:08.980 Um, the least tolerant, according to the answers to this one question were India and Jordan. And

00:24:15.140 there were many countries in Africa and Asia who also expressed intolerance. Um, now of course this

00:24:20.760 is not the only indicator of racial tolerance, but it is one. Um, of course, racial discrimination by

00:24:27.460 companies is outlawed in this country. Uh, at one point, interracial marriage was outlawed, which is

00:24:33.100 crazy to think about. And of course now it's not. There are a variety of programs, some helpful in my

00:24:38.420 opinion, some very unhelpful in my opinion, uh, to increase diversity, to up the chances of success for

00:24:45.840 kids and teens in minority communities. There has been a lot to be done to make sure that there is

00:24:52.240 equity in this country. Like I said, some of the leftist so-called solutions for that, I don't think

00:24:57.420 have been helpful at all. And some things that we've tried to do as a country have been extremely

00:25:02.140 helpful, but of course there are still disparities. Um, poverty rates are much higher in the black

00:25:07.120 community. High school and college graduation rates are lower. Incarceration rates are much higher.

00:25:12.040 Um, there are indications or have been indications of what some people would call systemic racism.

00:25:17.100 It is the, uh, intentional pushing down of black people in favor of white people. And, uh, those,

00:25:23.400 they say those who talk about systemic racism a lot, they say that those who are not working

00:25:28.180 against these systems are themselves racist and are complicit in the white supremacist scheme.

00:25:34.940 However, however, these issues typically that they point to these issues of disparity,

00:25:40.820 like graduation rates and poverty rates, things like that, they are complicated. Um, it can almost

00:25:46.620 never, it can be very rarely proven that these disparities definitively, uh, point to systemic

00:25:54.240 racism. Uh, there is no doubt that systemic racism has existed. For example, the crack versus

00:25:59.980 cocaine issue in the war on drugs that disproportionately, uh, punish crack you,

00:26:04.700 crack users and dealers over cocaine users and dealers, knowing that crack is used more by black

00:26:08.900 people than white people. Uh, that is unjust. There is of course mistreatment that exists in our

00:26:14.320 prison systems that we should care deeply about. That is very troubling that disproportionately affects

00:26:18.900 black people. But, uh, we know that the solution to these problems is actual justice, justice that

00:26:24.500 is based on truth, justice that is impartial. It is in holding our judges and our law enforcement

00:26:30.620 and our legislators accountable to make sure that our laws do not discriminate against anyone white or

00:26:36.120 black, rich or poor, but are equitable, are colorblind and are fair and recognizes the rights of all people

00:26:43.380 as people made in the image of God. But what is not justice? And this is where we get caught up.

00:26:49.840 I think, especially Christians in the emotional side of this, of this conversation of just saying,

00:26:55.420 okay, well, all white people are bad or all people of one group are bad. And we all need to feel guilty

00:27:01.280 and we're all complicit and we're all condemned and we all just need to take a step back. And we all need

00:27:05.960 to make sure that only these kinds of voices are heard and only these kinds of words are heard.

00:27:10.840 And only this kind of social justice is talked about. I think that that's wrong. That's not

00:27:15.460 justice. Demonizing one group of people based on the color of their skin is racism. So demonizing all

00:27:21.420 white people or all rich people or all men or all people in power as wicked or evil or guilty,

00:27:27.620 is not justice because it's not based on truth. You are defining people by generalizations, by a part

00:27:35.000 of, by being a part of a particular group, rather than looking at them as individuals and seeing what

00:27:40.540 they have done with their lives and with their actions and with their words. For example, we've

00:27:46.600 talked about reparations a lot that is often offered both within and outside of the church as a solution

00:27:51.880 for racial disparities. But not only have we not seen in any way that this actually eliminates any

00:27:58.500 kind of disparity or inequity or inequality that we see between the races, but it's also not a form

00:28:05.400 of justice because so reparations is supposed to be white people paying black people back for the

00:28:12.740 damages that have been caused by slavery, which we can all agree there have been long-term damages

00:28:18.820 that slavery has incurred and it was wrong and it was terrible and we should mourn over that. And it

00:28:24.060 was a, uh, an egregious injustice. However, paying reparations now for that is extremely complicated

00:28:31.500 and therefore is not just, not just because it's complicated, but because there are so many

00:28:36.160 questions that we can't answer. What happens to the black people, for example, who didn't have

00:28:42.040 ancestors that were enslaved in America? What about the white people who, for example, didn't have any

00:28:47.340 ancestors that own slaves, uh, who pays who and how much? So does a middle-class white family, do they

00:28:54.520 need to pay Beyonce and Jay-Z? Do they need to pay reparations for them? And, and, and why? So there are

00:29:02.340 a lot of questions that go along with that kind of form of collective justice. And we don't see that

00:29:08.660 reflected in scripture. Uh, we don't see that kind of demand in scripture. A lot of people cite

00:29:16.760 Zacchaeus and say that he paid back to the poor, what he had extorted, what he had stolen from him, but

00:29:22.820 that was direct justice that was based on evidence. And that was based on truth. Uh, we are not called to

00:29:29.980 pay restoration for sins that we have not committed. And Joe Biden, for example, used to agree on that, but

00:29:36.880 that's become a hot topic, um, in the, in the, in the primaries among the Democrats, because this, again, this

00:29:45.260 racial issue has been exacerbated and has grown so much over the past 10 years, uh, because of the

00:29:52.440 identity politics that have grown, have popularized among the left. And that I would say thrived under

00:29:58.980 Barack Obama. Again, it's not entirely his fault, but certainly his leadership changed how a lot of

00:30:05.140 people saw these intersectional social issues. And I would say the uttermost issue, the foremost issue

00:30:12.160 has been race. So the point here is, is that we have to make sure when we are looking at issues of

00:30:19.640 race and racism, that we are thoughtful, that we are truthful, that we look for real justice that is

00:30:27.980 based on truth, that is based on evidence, that is based on fact, that is direct, that is individual,

00:30:33.400 that we do not buy into the emotional narrative that says one group has been categorically oppressed.

00:30:39.880 And one group has been categorically the oppressor. That's not true. That's not going to get anyone

00:30:46.160 anywhere. I think that we can listen. I think that we can be attentive. I think that we can

00:30:51.040 be humble in these things, but we have to look for just solutions, not collective solutions that make

00:30:58.460 an entire group who is not necessarily guilty or complicit feel bad. And another group all feel like

00:31:04.160 victims who haven't necessarily been victimized. And so whether it comes to what we advocate for

00:31:10.060 policy-wise or what we advocate for personally, what we have to remember is that the justice that

00:31:17.860 we seek, the biblical justice that Christians seek is based on truth. It is based on reality. It is not

00:31:24.680 based on some group identity, social justice myth that an entire group that has been traditionally in

00:31:32.020 power deserves or has to pay back another group for the lack of power that they may or may not have.

00:31:38.300 You see how that gets complicated. And when you break things down to an individual level,

00:31:43.100 it kind of just all falls apart, but that's what we're actually called to do. And I think that what

00:31:48.300 we have to remember as Christians too, is that we are called to share the gospel. There is nothing that

00:31:54.880 social justice can tell us that the Bible doesn't already tell us. Like there's no other message

00:32:01.100 that we gain out of something like liberation theology or some kind of secular social justice

00:32:07.180 advocate that Jesus hasn't already advocated for. And so anyone telling you that there is a solution

00:32:13.660 to any kind of, any kind of division that we have, any kind of hatred that we have, any kind of injustice

00:32:19.440 that we have that supersedes or is more fundamental than the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are lying to

00:32:26.100 you. Jesus came primarily to reconcile everyone of all ethnicities, of all ethnicities, all nationalities

00:32:33.900 to himself, not to each other. Now in reconciling Christians to himself, we are reconciled to one

00:32:42.380 another in the same way that if a spoke is placed into the hub of a wheel, it is going to be in right

00:32:49.100 relation to the other spokes. If it's out of the hub, which is Christ, it's not going to be in right

00:32:53.780 relation and it's not going to work. So our reconciliation to Christ means that we love

00:32:59.320 others as we love ourselves, no matter what their skin color is. So make sure when we are approaching

00:33:05.420 issues of race, that one, that we recognize that we don't know everything, that we recognize that

00:33:11.520 our call to be humble in all things and to learn in all things, but we are not to abandon truth for

00:33:17.120 emotionalism. And I think it's important also that we realize where this conversation is coming from,

00:33:22.220 that we don't blame the wrong people here. And that we realize this conversation is very

00:33:27.100 new and it's being stoked and it's being exaggerated by something that has really developed mostly over

00:33:34.620 the past decade or so, and is not being woke is not some new qualification for being a good person.

00:33:41.680 So I think it's important and it, and it's the onus is, is on us to make sure that we are

00:33:47.320 researching this stuff, that we are reading these stories for ourselves and that we base our position

00:33:53.120 on something that's contentious, uh, as race on truth. And of course we know that truth primarily

00:33:58.700 comes, uh, from the word of God. So just be, just be wary of the context of all of this, uh,

00:34:07.000 and the conversations that we're having, because it's probably going to be one of the hottest topics

00:34:10.860 or the main topics that you see played out through the election. So I think that this just brief

00:34:16.680 summary of the context of the conversations that we're having about it, um, is important for you

00:34:21.460 to know. Okay. That's all that we have for today. I will see you here next time.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 14, 2019

Ep 150 ｜ Race & Intersectionality

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