Ep 258 ｜ Does the Truth Matter？
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 6 minutes
Words per Minute
176.78316
Summary
In this episode, I discuss a recent study that was published in the New York Times titled, "The Christian Woman's Duty to Stand Firm on the Facts." This episode explores the role of the Christian woman in standing firm on the facts and standing firm in the word of God.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. So we have a lot to talk about today, a lot
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of heavy things to talk about. I have been thinking about this episode probably since
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Friday, have been planning it for over three days, which is a lot longer than I usually
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take to prepare an episode. It's usually I kind of either do it in the same day or the
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day before I'm able to just collect all the stories I want to talk about and write my
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analysis fairly quickly. That is not true about this episode because we are going to talk
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about a heavy topic, a big topic, a topic that is multifaceted. We are going to talk about
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George Floyd, the riots, insurrection, racism, police brutality, crime. We are going to talk
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about statistics. I'm going to be direct. I am going to speak the truth in love as gracefully
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as I possibly can and as clearly as I possibly can. That is always my goal and I fail often
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and I will absolutely try my best praying for the grace of God to help me do that. If this
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podcast, if this episode was shared to you by a friend and you are coming into this episode
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expecting to disagree with me, you are kind of settled into your preconceived notions of who
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I am, what I'm going to say, what I represent. First of all, I want you to know that I'm glad
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that you're here. I know it takes a lot to listen to a perspective that you know you are probably
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going to disagree with and that is going to challenge your assumptions. Most people won't
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do that. Most people will stay stuck in their ideological camp. They will stay stuck in their
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perspective. So if you are here because a friend shared it with you and you are anticipating
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to disagree with me, which you probably will, I just want to say thank you for being here
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and that shows a lot of who you are. And I hope truly that if you do disagree with me after
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this episode is over, like I always say, feel free to reach out to me. I am happy to have a
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dialogue with you. I want there to be a productive conversation. I want there to be more voices, not
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fewer voices. So if after this episode you were like, I couldn't disagree with you more or I
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disagreed when you said this or have you seen this study, whatever it is, feel free to reach
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out to me. And again, thank you for being here. I believe that everyone listening to this podcast
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is worth speaking truth to. So you are worth leveling with. This topic is worth speaking truthfully
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about because it's that important and not enough women. This is a podcast primarily focused on women
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and primarily to women. The fact of the matter is, is that not enough women are willing to have
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truthful, straightforward conversations, biblical conversations about justice or really just
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politics in general. Women are so often spoken to in emotionalism and euphemism because it's what we
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respond to. If we're honest, we are literally constantly tossed to and fro by every wind of
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outrage, by every trend, by every hashtag on social media. We latch onto it because of the emotionalism
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that they carry with them. And I understand that because I've done it. I have been guilty of that.
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I am a woman. I feel things strongly and deeply. This is a good thing about being a woman. This is a good
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thing about femininity. It's not a bad thing. And I know our pride doesn't want us to admit that an
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inherent weakness of most of ours is to allow our deeply felt feelings to get the best of us, especially
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when it comes to understanding political and social issues. But it can be. And I don't speak for everyone.
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I don't speak for all women. I don't speak for anyone. I don't. I am trying to give you the best,
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most truthful and gracious Christian perspective on everything that is going on. And I just happen
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to know from being a woman and being around women and knowing a lot of women that one of our weaknesses
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when it comes to high emotion situations and issues is to forego truth, is to forego biblical accuracy,
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and to forego facts in favor of emotionalism. But the truth is, the truth is, that is not what the
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Christian woman is called to. We are to be rooted in truth. We are to care about the facts. We are to
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stand firm on the word of God. That doesn't mean that feelings and sympathy don't have a place. It
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just means that we cannot let them rule us. We have to be subject to the authority of Jesus Christ. We
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have to subject our feelings, our emotions, all of our preconceived notions to the authority of Jesus
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Christ and his inerrant word that he gave to us. So this episode is for you, Christian woman. This
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episode is for us. I am telling you, as a sister in Christ who loves you, that many of us have ventured
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outside the realm of reality and outside the realm of biblical Christianity as we are having conversations
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about this. And I'm going to try as best as I can to get us back to reality and to the eternal truth
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of God's word. First, I want to do something that unfortunately a lot of people on both sides of
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this issue have failed to do, have deemed unimportant, and that is remembering George Floyd, not as a
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movement, not as a hashtag, not as a mascot, but as a human being, as a person. So let's remember that
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for just a second. Like, let's take a step back from all of this chaos for just a second. George Floyd
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was a human being. What does the Bible say that that means? It means that he was made
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in God's image. So he has a soul, an eternal soul. Like all humans, he was knitted together in his
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mother's womb. He was fearfully and wonderfully made. The Lord planned out all of his days before
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any of them came to be. That's what the Bible says about all of us. He was a son. He was a brother.
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He was a friend. He was a father. He was a grandfather. The people who knew him said that he was
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peaceful. He was personable with a desire to make his life better, to be a better dad. He grew up in
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Houston and people who knew him there said that he was always looking out for other people. He was
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always looking out for the younger people in his community. It's reported that he was a believer.
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Thank God. Which means if that is true, he is totally whole right now with Christ as we speak. And we
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can praise the Lord for that. All of this means that the Christian has a much higher view of George
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Floyd in his life than any secular activist out there. It doesn't matter how loud they protest,
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how many Instagram posts they write. If you do not believe that George Floyd is valuable because he
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is a human being made in God's image, but only because he is important as a representation of
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your political movement, then your view of George Floyd is actually very low because you have objectified
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him. He has become a mascot for you. But for the Christian, we care much more about George Floyd
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than any secular activist or influencer does because we believe that he is eternal, that his
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life mattered because God said it mattered because God made him. And according to those who knew him,
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he is also our brother in Christ and we will see him again one day. So we should have a much deeper
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and better and higher and more eternal view of George Floyd, a much deeper appreciation for his
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life than any person who claims to care about justice, but who does not know God. Let us also
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keep praying for his family who is mourning right now. Let us pray that the peace of Christ would rule
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in their hearts, that God would give them the peace that passes all understanding, that he would
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bind their broken hearts, that he would draw near to them as they draw near to him, that God would
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even somehow be glorified, that the gospel would be carried out through this tragedy. Let's continue
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to pray for the people who were directly affected by this. This is all what makes his murder a horrific
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tragedy. He was an image bearer who was pinned to the ground by a police officer named Derek Chauvin
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for nine minutes while three other police officers did nothing. He screamed that he couldn't breathe over
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and over again. He called for his mom. He called for his mom, you guys. Any of you who are moms,
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you can imagine just the gut-wrenching nature of that reality, of his desperation. It breaks my heart.
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And of course, we know he later died. The initial autopsy report says that he didn't die from
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asphyxiation, but that it was a combination of underlying conditions Floyd had plus the restraint.
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But that doesn't mean that Chauvin didn't kill him. He did. Now, I think that I have agreed with the
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person that I'm about to quote maybe a total of one time in my entire life, but I agreed with her a
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second time when she tweeted this. Here is AOC. She said, if you killed a man with health conditions,
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you still killed a man. George Floyd couldn't breathe. Three officers held him down and one
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with a recorded violent history kneed his neck as others helped. They waited nine minutes for his last
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breath. This was not an accident. It was murder. That's absolutely right. I agree with that.
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And by the way, so did the justice system. The justice system also agreed with that.
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Derek Chauvin was convicted of third-degree murder, which is defined in Minnesota as,
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quote, causing death of a person by perpetrating an act imminently dangerous to others and evincing
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a depraved mind. There must be an intent to kill with that, but it's different, of course,
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than second-degree murder, which Minnesota defines as either intentional but unpremeditated murder
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or unintentional murder while also committing another felony. First-degree murder is premeditated
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murder, among some other things. He was also charged with second-degree manslaughter. Minnesota
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law defines this as, quote, an unreasonable risk and consciously takes chances of causing death or
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great bodily harm to another. So with these charges, the police officer would be looking at a max of about
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35 years in prison. If he gets the max, that means he will be a very old man by the time he gets out
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of prison. According to Minnesota state law, these charges seem correct. It wasn't premeditated as far
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as we know. Now, if it somehow comes out that it was premeditated, that's a totally different story.
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The prosecutor doesn't seem to think that there was an intent to kill him. Of course, we don't know
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what was going on in his heart and mind. And of course, that doesn't make the killing right by any
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means. But the prosecutor feels that these charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter
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were fair. Now, the other three officers who just stood there and did nothing to help the poor man
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have not been charged. So we are awaiting that. But the good news is that Derek Chauvin has been
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charged and we will continue to hope for justice to be fully carried out and expedited as we do in all
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situations of injustice. And I want to zero in on that for just a second. And I know we've talked about
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this so often on my show, but since this word justice and this word injustice, they can mean so many
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different things to so many different people. I think it's important that we take just a second to define
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justice. After that, we're going to spend a little bit of time on the issue of police brutality, take a look
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at the numbers and also talk about practical solutions, and then an exhortation and encouragement
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for Christians. We'll discuss some of the narratives surrounding all of this and what I think the correct
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biblical reaction should be. There seems to be a lot of confusion over this word justice, and you expect
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the secular world to be confused about it because justice, true justice, is rooted in the Bible.
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God invented justice. He defines justice. God's definitions of justice are what the Western rule
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of law is based upon. Property rights, due process, equality under the law. These are all originally
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biblical ideas that Christians as believers in the Bible should know about and be fond of and adhere to.
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For the Christian, we should not be confused. The God that we worship as Christians defines justice,
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and he tells us exactly what it is in his word. Here are four characteristics of God's justice
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as he demonstrates in the Bible. Four characteristics, truthful, impartial, proportional, and direct.
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Truthful, impartial, proportional, and direct. So it's truthful. It's not based on the opinions of
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the mob or our feelings. It's based on facts, evidence, due process. Impartial. It does not defer
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to race, to socioeconomic class, to gender. It is unbiased. It is why Lady Justice wears a blindfold.
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It is proportional. The punishment fits the crime. It is direct. Those who are responsible are those who
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are punished. I'm going to read you the biblical support for this, mostly from the Old Testament,
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as God is giving his commands to Israel. And of course, we know that as Christians, we are not
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beholden to all of the laws, like the cleansing laws of the Old Testament, and we don't live in
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this theocracy. But the way that God gives these commands to Israel and the reasoning he gives for
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them shows us God's unchanging definition of what justice looks like. So we'll start with Exodus 23,
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one through three. You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man
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to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many who do evil, nor shall you bear
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witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor
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man in his lawsuit. Right there in his commands to Israel, we see two major aspects of God's definition
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of justice in his heart has not changed. Truthful and impartial. Truthful and impartial. Not siding
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with the many to do injustice, but siding with truth. Not being partial to the poor. Not being
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partial to the rich either, as we read later. Leviticus 19, 15. You shall do no injustice in court.
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You shall not be partial to the poor, nor defer to the great. But in righteousness, you shall judge
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your neighbor. Again, we see impartiality. We see also the characteristic of directness. You are judging
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your neighbor specifically for a crime he or she has committed. Listen to Deuteronomy 19, 15 through 21
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and God's concern with the truth, with impartiality, with proportionality, and with directness when it
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comes to justice. A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong
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in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or
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three witnesses shall a charge be established. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of
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wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before priests, and the
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judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently. And if the witness is a false
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witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his
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brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst and the rest shall hear in fear and shall never
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again commit any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be a life for life, eye for eye,
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tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Now, I want to say something about the last line,
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because you might be thinking about Matthew 5, 38 through 42, in which Jesus says, you've heard
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it's eye for an eye. But I say, if someone strikes you on the right side of your face,
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then turn to him the other cheek. Also, I consulted my notes about this, which explains it this way,
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my notes in my ESV study Bible. Jesus shows that this principle, which was meant to guide judges
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in assessing damages, was never intended as a rule for ordinary personal interpersonal relationships,
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which the faithful should seek to imitate God's own generosity. So that's how we reconcile that
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without forsaking this principle that is still supposed to apply to the judicial system.
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The New Testament makes clear that God's judgment and therefore his definition of justice is
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impartial. Acts 10, 34, Peter preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. So Peter opened his mouth and said,
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truly, I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does
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what is right is acceptable to him. That's not talking about the judicial system, but this is the
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nature of God. James 2, 8 through 9 says, if you really fulfill the royal law, according to scripture,
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you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show partiality,
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you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. That's the New Testament. If you
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show partiality, then you are committing sin. So God's justice is truthful, impartial, proportional,
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and direct. God's justice also recognizes people's inherent rights. It rectifies them if they have been
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taken away. And again, this kind of rectifying justice is truthful and partial, proportional,
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and direct. God's justice is the only true justice that exists. Anyone who tries to define justice
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in any other way is operating under a subjectivist, morally relative worldview. There is no objective
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morality outside of God's definitions of morality, and there is no true justice outside of God's definition
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of justice. If you don't believe in God, I don't expect you to agree with me. But if you do, there
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is no way for you to coherently disagree because it's not me. It's what scripture says. So first and
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foremost, it needs to be pointed out that objectively, George Floyd did not receive justice. He did not
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receive justice in his murder. He allegedly was using a fake $20 bill, and he was murdered for that.
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He was handcuffed while he was being restrained. He wasn't a threat to police officers, and there were four
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of them. I mean, what was he really going to do? They said that he resisted arrest, but what was he
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going to do? And even if you did have to restrain him, did you have to put your knee on his neck for
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nine minutes until he couldn't breathe and died? He was murdered. And the three other cops involved
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were cowardly and complicit from what we can see. This is a perfect example of what true injustice looks
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like. And unfortunately, this is not the first case of police brutality, obviously, as we know.
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Breonna Taylor was in her home when police came in and shot and killed her. Atatiana Jefferson,
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who was shot by a police officer in her home last year in Texas. We know the story of Botham Jean,
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which was just an awful, tragic case. He was literally sitting at home eating ice cream,
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and someone accidentally walked into his apartment, an off-duty cop, and killed him. These are unarmed
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people literally doing nothing wrong, unfortunately, tragically, unjustly killed by the police.
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We also know the story. Actually, you probably don't know the story for reasons that only the
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media could tell you. The story of Tony Timpa. He was pressed into the ground while the police
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officers cracked jokes, and then he died. Michael Davidson, an unarmed man, shot and killed at a
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traffic stop in Alabama. Daniel Shaver literally begging for police officers not to shoot him with
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his hands over his head. They shot and killed him anyway. Justine Damon, a woman shot by a Minneapolis
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police officer after she called the police to report an assault in her alley. He killed her,
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only got 12 years in prison. All of these people were murdered, and they are not the only cases of
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unarmed people getting unequivocally, unjustifiably, unjustly killed by the police. These are examples
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of injustice according to the biblical definition of justice. But it's important that we ask ourselves
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in this conversation, since we are to be lovers of truth as Christians. How big of a problem is this?
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Shouldn't we want to know that? Is police brutality pervasive? Is it everywhere? And the big question
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that all of this controversy is really resting on, is police brutality racially biased? And to answer
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these questions, we have to do something super uncomfortable, at least to me. I am super uncomfortable
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doing this. It's something that I have been avoiding. I've said in several episodes, I don't like doing
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this, and that is reading the numbers. The reason I don't like to list the numbers and the statistics
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that talk about crime and police brutality and racism within the police force is because I am like a lot of
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you. I don't want to hurt people's feelings. I don't want to sound calloused because I'm not. It feels
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better to let the narrative go unchallenged. And the narrative is that Black Americans need to be
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scared for their lives every day and that they are hunted by white people, particularly white cops,
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whenever they go outside. Honestly, it is more comfortable for me to let that be as it is.
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But then I think, hang on, is that loving? Is it loving for me to affirm fear and terror if,
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if reality tells a different story? To fan the flames of anxiety when there may be another side to the
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story that shows us a reality that may be a lot better than what the media are reporting? No, it's
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not loving. Yes, let us mourn when tragedy strikes. Let us stand up when injustice occurs. That means in
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the case of George Floyd, we have every reason to be angry and to protest. It was a case of injustice
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and it absolutely was a tragedy. We know that. But the question is, is it right and is it accurate to use the
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case of George Floyd as a symbol of systemic racism in the police force against Black people? Are Black people
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killed disproportionately by white cops, which is what we hear? So we have to take a look, as uncomfortable as it is
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for me, as much as I don't want to. I believe that you guys are worth telling the truth to. According to
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the Washington Post database on police shootings, 1,004 people were shot and killed by the police last
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year, 2019. Now that obviously it doesn't include people who have been killed by the police in other
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ways or who have been victims of non-fatal disproportionate force. And we will talk about
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that as well. But it is the kind of force most discussed when it comes to police brutality is police
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shooting. So 1,004 police shootings. 370 of these were white last year. 235 were black. The rest were in other
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categories. These are very similar numbers to other years. Of the 1,004 police shootings, 41, only 41 were of
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unarmed victims. That's about 4%. So 96% of all police shootings last year were of a person wielding a weapon.
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And of those who were unarmed, we still don't know the particular case. If the victims tried to grab the police
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officer's weapon, if they attacked the police officer, we don't know what kinds of interactions
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these were. We can't assume that all of these people who were unarmed and shot by the police
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were not a threat. We just don't know that. Of the 41 unarmed people killed by the police last year,
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19 were white, 9 were black. So 1% of all fatal police shootings were unarmed black people. That's
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one female and eight males. If you look at the database, which starts in 2015, year over year,
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this is the case. Roughly more white people killed by the police with black people trailing fairly
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close behind. However, that alone does not settle the case. That alone doesn't tell us that black
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people are not killed disproportionately by the police, which is the claim. Why? Because white
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people obviously make up a much higher percentage of the population. So white people make up about 70%
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of the population and black people make up only about 12% to 13% of the population. So you will
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hear and read that black people are much more likely to be killed by the police than white people
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because there is a higher percentage of total black people killed by the police than the percentage of
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total white people killed by the police. The website mapping police violence says this, 36% of unarmed
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people killed by the police were black in 2015, despite black people only being 13% of the
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population. And that is true. But the reality is, according to FBI data, black Americans, despite
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only making up 12% to 13% of the population, committed disproportionately large number of violent crimes.
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In 2018, black Americans committed about 40% of all homicides. White people make up about 70%
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of the population and accounted for about 30% of all homicide offenders. A 2012 to 2015 report by the
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Bureau of Labor Statistics found that white Americans commit about 44% of all violent crime
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and black Americans commit about 23% of all violent crimes, again, making up about 12 to 13% of the
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population. So the likely reason black Americans have a fatal confrontation with the police at a rate that
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is disproportionate to their population size is because the crime rate in the black community is
00:24:37.960
also disproportionate to their population size. And in fact, there is a study showing that to be
00:24:43.280
true that we'll get to in just a minute. Let's look at killings overall, though, police killings
00:24:48.220
overall, since the case that we're discussing now, a man, George Floyd, was killed without being shot.
00:24:53.940
According to mapping police violence.com, which looks at all deaths of people by the hands of the
00:24:58.700
police. It is an activist website, but it has a pretty comprehensive database. There was a total
00:25:03.600
of 1,098 people killed in all ways by the police in 2019, 114 unarmed. Of those, 48 were white. 28 of
00:25:13.080
these were black. And again, we don't know whether those killings were justified. We don't know the
00:25:18.840
race of the police officer. So the number of unjustified killings of unarmed black people, which is
00:25:24.820
really the center point of all of these controversial conversations, the number of unjustified killings
00:25:31.920
of unarmed black people by white police officers in 2000, 2019 is somewhere under 28, probably
00:25:39.280
significantly under 28, because as we will also look at in just a second, if you are a minority
00:25:44.920
in a minority community, you are more likely to interact with a minority police officer that doesn't
00:25:50.760
make these situations right or good or not tragic or even justified. I don't know. I'm not saying we
00:25:56.180
should ignore these cases, but that is what they are. Those are the facts. So let's put this into
00:26:03.040
context even more as we discuss this question. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
00:26:08.840
there were over 50 million interactions between the public and the police in 2015. That's the most
00:26:13.720
recent year. There's data for it. That number has ranged over the years, but every year, tens of millions of
00:26:20.440
people interact with the police. So if we take that estimate of 50 million police interactions in
00:26:25.180
2019, and according to the Post, there were 1,004 fatal police shootings in 2019. You are looking at
00:26:32.380
about a 0.002% of all interactions between the police and the public that end in a fatal shooting by
00:26:40.840
the officer. 41 of these shootings were unarmed people. That is about 0.009% of all
00:26:50.280
interactions. And nine of these were unarmed black men. And that is about 0.002% of all police
00:27:01.600
interactions with the public. And if we're just talking about killed by any fatal force, and we go
00:27:07.200
to mapping police violence data, that's 28 are unarmed black people killed by the police, either
00:27:13.800
justifiably or not, either by a white officer or not. And again, by any means, not just shooting.
00:27:19.400
That is 0.00056% of all police interactions. Also, just as an aside, when you hear that white people
00:27:28.260
are hunting black people on a daily basis, as we heard after the tragedy and also the injustice of
00:27:33.720
the Ahmaud Arbery case, FBI crime data just doesn't back that up. 533 white people killed by black people
00:27:41.200
in 2016. 243 black people killed by white people in 2016. Similar statistic throughout the years.
00:27:48.720
And of course, every murder matters. Every instance of injustice matters. Absolutely. But when we hear
00:27:54.300
constantly and without evidence that white supremacists and racist cops are gunning down
00:27:59.460
unarmed black people on a daily basis, we have to find out. We have an obligation to find out whether or
00:28:05.820
not that's true. And there was a time in history when that was more of a reality. And we can
00:28:10.480
acknowledge that history, and we should. We should learn about that history. We should learn from
00:28:14.500
that history. But is that our pervasive reality today? The numbers don't exactly show that. And
00:28:21.720
that is good news. That's good news. Isn't that what we want to remind people of? Roland Fryer,
00:28:27.800
an economic professor at Harvard University, conducted a thorough study in July 2016,
00:28:32.860
looking at the existence of racial bias in the police force, specifically police shootings. He
00:28:39.340
examined over 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments in Texas, California, and Florida.
00:28:45.360
He said the results of the study, quote, they are the most surprising result of my career. That's what
00:28:52.280
he said. This is according to the New York Times. Mr. Fryer, the youngest African American to receive
00:28:58.020
tenure at Harvard and the first to win a John Bates Clark medal, a prize given to the most
00:29:02.640
promising American economist under 40, said anger after the deaths of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray,
00:29:07.740
and others drove him to study the issue. You know, protesting is not my thing, he said, but data is
00:29:12.360
my thing. So I decided that I was going to collect a bunch of data and try to understand what really
00:29:16.980
is going on when it comes to racial differences in police use of force. In shootings in these 10 cities
00:29:22.880
involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked
00:29:28.160
when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally
00:29:33.140
likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results undercut the idea of racial bias in police use of
00:29:39.340
lethal force. But police shootings are only part of the picture. What about situations in which an
00:29:44.600
officer might be expected to fire but doesn't? To answer this, this is still the New York Times article,
00:29:50.080
Mr. Fryer focused on one city, Houston. The police department there let the researchers look at reports
00:29:55.340
not only for shootings but also for arrests when lethal force might have been justified.
00:29:59.980
Mr. Fryer defined this group to include encounters with suspects the police subsequently
00:30:04.580
charged with serious offenses like attempting to murder an officer or evading resisting or
00:30:10.120
resisting arrest. He also considered suspects shocked with tasers. Mr. Fryer found that in such
00:30:17.180
situations, officers in Houston were about 20% less likely to shoot if the suspects were black. This estimate
00:30:24.780
was not precise and firmer conclusions would require more data. But in various models controlling for
00:30:30.300
different factors and using different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were
00:30:35.680
either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites. A 2019 peer-reviewed
00:30:42.840
study titled Officer Characteristics and Racial Disparities in Fatal Officer-Involved Shootings. It was
00:30:48.420
published in a scientific journal aimed to examine, and the study was aimed to examine racial bias in
00:30:55.440
police shootings, and it found that black cops are more likely to shoot black civilians, Hispanic cops
00:31:01.420
are more likely to shoot Hispanic civilians, and white cops are more likely to shoot white civilians.
00:31:08.240
That it's really about the demographic rather than any evidence of racial bias. Here's what the study
00:31:13.700
found. As the proportion of violent crime committed by black civilians increased, a person fatally shot was more
00:31:19.720
likely to be black. As the proportion of violent crime committed by Hispanic civilians increased, a person fatally shot
00:31:25.680
was more likely to be Hispanic. Conversely, as white crime rates increased, a person fatally shot was less likely to be
00:31:35.060
We did not find evidence for, this is what the study says, we did not find evidence for
00:31:40.740
anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings, and if
00:31:46.460
anything, found anti-White disparities when controlling for race-specific crime.
00:31:52.620
Now, the study by the Harvard professor Roland Fryer did find that Black people are more
00:31:58.140
likely to be on the receiving end of non-fatal police force than White people.
00:32:02.300
Again, we don't know if that's by White officers or what the situations or the motivations
00:32:07.820
are, but they apparently are more likely to get roughed up, at least by his estimates,
00:32:15.040
That in itself doesn't point to systemic racism within the police force, but it is troubling,
00:32:21.260
which is why, and this is where we start talking about some solutions, this is why I believe
00:32:33.480
I'm not talking about just racial bias training.
00:32:38.240
34 states do not have any de-escalation training.
00:32:41.480
The average recruit only receives 10 hours of de-escalation training.
00:32:45.520
A de-escalation meaning not allowing a potentially violent situation to get violent.
00:32:51.620
There has also been an increase in the militarization of the police.
00:32:55.820
That's not always necessarily bad, but it can have bad consequences.
00:33:00.240
This is according to an article in National Review by Arthur Reiser and Brett Tolman.
00:33:05.420
The ACLU found in a 2014 analysis that 79% of the 50,000 annual SWAT call-outs were for executing
00:33:14.240
Most commonly in drug investigations, only 7% were for hostage, barricade, or active shooter
00:33:20.140
scenarios in which SWAT teams are typically used and supposed to be used.
00:33:23.940
At least 60% of these operations featured the use of no-knock entries and or potentially
00:33:32.900
There needs to be, in some places, not just better training, but also better culture.
00:33:38.380
The vast majority of police officers, as we see from the numbers, do not resort to violent
00:33:46.680
Most police officers are excellent at their jobs, and we should be thankful for that.
00:33:50.680
Unfortunately, having a bad apple in the police force isn't the same as having, for example,
00:33:58.540
Because when you have a bad apple that's a police officer, people unjustly die, and they
00:34:03.560
are abused when there are people who do not use their authority responsibly, which is why
00:34:10.280
I think there needs to be some cultural and training reform within precincts that need it.
00:34:16.240
And here is the second thing, more importantly, and this will transition us into this kind
00:34:24.940
We have to get rid of public sector unions that make it almost impossible to fire bad
00:34:31.420
So unions, as you guys know, they represent employees.
00:34:35.740
Public unions represent employees in the public sector, employees whose salaries are paid by our
00:34:41.800
So that's firefighters, police officers, public school teachers.
00:34:44.740
These government employees are represented by unions, which, like all unions, collect dues
00:34:52.000
Then they use those dues, which you will remember are our tax dollars, to support union-friendly
00:35:01.560
They then negotiate contracts that guarantee wages and terms and pensions for these public
00:35:07.240
These contracts have bankrupted some cities and states.
00:35:10.360
And yet, because Democrats and unions depend on each other, it just keeps going.
00:35:16.160
Unions make it very difficult, if not altogether impossible, for any government employee that
00:35:22.220
pays their dues and therefore is protected by them to be fired.
00:35:27.160
If you have ever heard of rubber rooms, that's where public school teachers who have been accused
00:35:31.940
of misconduct go, while still being paid their full salary, while they are waiting, quote,
00:35:39.960
They are placed on hold in these centers, not working, while still getting a full salary
00:35:45.160
paid for by taxpayers, thanks to the teachers union and the Democratic politicians that support
00:35:51.540
New York Post reported on a man last year named Aria Eller, who has been in a rubber room
00:35:58.280
in this reassignment center, as it's called, not teaching, for 20 years after he was accused
00:36:07.780
And his salary hasn't just remained steady for 20 years.
00:36:16.800
That's taxpayer money plus pension and full benefits.
00:36:20.180
This is the result of the teachers union and the Democratic politicians that unconditionally
00:36:25.400
Unions and Democrats depend on each other for power.
00:36:28.740
Unions make it nearly impossible, as I've said, to fire government employees, including
00:36:32.820
bad police officers like Derek Chauvin, and including terrible teachers, which also, by
00:36:38.060
the way, directly and seriously affects the black community.
00:36:41.760
These are there are points made constantly about racial disparities in graduation rates
00:36:47.520
in public schools, how public schools with mostly minority students are failing, and we
00:36:53.600
This is a sign of systemic racism, we hear, that they don't have enough money.
00:37:00.600
Democratic politicians are largely controlled, like I've said many times, by the unions, especially
00:37:11.760
They don't want a voucher program that allows a child from a failing school to go to a better
00:37:17.020
school outside of their district, outside of their zip code, even though school choice
00:37:21.980
has been proven to help kids from poor areas succeed.
00:37:27.680
They're afraid this will result in lost jobs of teachers and less money, and they paint it
00:37:32.440
in a way that makes it sound like they care about failing public schools.
00:37:36.780
Listen to this 2017 headline from The Washington Post.
00:37:40.860
Obama administration spent billions to fix failing schools, and it did not work.
00:37:46.880
According to the article, one of the Obama administration's signature efforts in education,
00:37:51.460
which pumped billions of federal dollars into overhauling the nation's worst schools,
00:37:58.540
According to a federal analysis, test scores, graduation rates, and college enrollment were
00:38:03.380
no different in schools that received money through the School Improvement Grants Program,
00:38:07.220
the largest federal investment ever targeted to failing schools than in schools that did
00:38:14.020
So the failing schools received up to $2 million a year for three years if they adopted some
00:38:18.960
of his new education policies, and there was no improvement.
00:38:22.760
In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever that simply pumping money into failing schools helps
00:38:31.500
Because, I mean, there may be many reasons, but a big reason is that these incompetent teachers
00:38:38.300
cannot get fired thanks to the teachers' union.
00:38:40.880
There are still underlying problems that aren't addressed.
00:38:43.640
Of course, we will talk about these actually in a second, fatherlessness, but this is a huge
00:38:50.320
Public schools are a huge problem for poor communities, and they are exacerbated in a lot
00:38:54.920
of cases even caused by the teachers' unions and the Democratic politicians that prop them
00:38:59.520
So you want to reform the police so that incompetent murderers like Derek Chauvin can get fired?
00:39:06.060
You want to change the public school system or change public schools so poor kids can have
00:39:10.260
a choice of what school they go to through a voucher program or another school choice program?
00:39:19.420
And I know that it probably feels like we are too far past, like it's impossible to do
00:39:25.220
this, but I'm just telling you this is something that will have to happen if we want to improve
00:39:29.840
the station of the people that we are saying that we care about.
00:39:32.600
Thomas Sowell, a very famous economist who also happens to be Black, and I have to say that
00:39:36.520
because a lot of you out there care about that in relation to these topics, but he makes
00:39:42.220
the point in several of his books that it is the welfare state, not the so-called legacy
00:39:47.400
of slavery, that has done the most damage to the Black community.
00:39:50.440
He says this, despite the grand myth, this is Thomas Sowell, that Black economic progress
00:39:55.800
began or accelerated with the passage of the civil rights laws and the so-called war on
00:40:02.360
The cold fact is that the poverty rate among Black people fell from 87% in 1940 to 47% in
00:40:13.240
Nearly 100 years of the supposed legacy of slavery found most Black children being raised
00:40:20.480
But 30 years after, the liberal welfare state found the great majority of Black children being
00:40:26.860
The murder rate among Blacks in 1960, according to Thomas Sowell, was one half of what it became
00:40:31.940
20 years later, after a legacy of liberals' law enforcement policies.
00:40:35.780
And it was before the toxic message of victimhood was spread by liberals.
00:40:39.420
We all know what hellholes public housing has become in our times, thanks to liberal policies.
00:40:45.320
The same toxic message produced similar social results among lower-income people in England,
00:40:50.860
despite an absence of a, quote, legacy of slavery there.
00:40:54.860
Sowell argues that the welfare state has incentivized fatherlessness because a woman is guaranteed
00:41:02.520
We see evidence of this to this day that has been happening now for decades.
00:41:06.240
And fatherlessness, as every social study you will ever read, shows increases the likelihood
00:41:11.400
of children of all ages to be more depressed, more suicidal.
00:41:18.540
It increases the likelihood of teen pregnancy, of committing crimes at a young age, to be incarcerated
00:41:26.820
And 65% of Black families are fatherless, which has an effect also on the sky-high abortion
00:41:34.680
Jason Reilly, on the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who has written a lot on the Black community
00:41:39.840
since he himself is also Black, and again, that is very pertinent to a lot of you in regards
00:41:46.540
to this conversation, said this in an article in 2018.
00:41:51.320
Nationally, Black women terminate pregnancies at far higher rates than other women as well.
00:41:56.340
In 2014, 36% of all abortions were performed on Black women who are just 13% of the female
00:42:04.000
The little-discussed flip side of reproductive freedom is that abortion deaths far exceed those
00:42:12.280
via cancer, violent crime, heart disease, AIDS, and accidents.
00:42:16.640
Racism, poverty, and lack of access to health care are the typical explanations for these
00:42:21.600
But Black women have much higher abortion rates even after you control for income.
00:42:26.320
Moreover, the low-income ethnic minorities who experience discrimination, such as Hispanics,
00:42:31.780
abort at rates much closer to white women than Black women.
00:42:37.300
The Brookings Institute found in a study that people who follow these three rules drastically
00:42:42.580
increase the chances for them to avoid living in poverty.
00:42:49.980
Number three, wait until you're 21 to get married and then have children.
00:42:53.640
Of course, there are always going to be other factors at play in people's lives, circumstances
00:42:59.520
But the point is that as much as we can, we should be encouraging the kind of life that leads
00:43:05.780
That is not going to be found in another government program.
00:43:09.420
How many trillions of dollars have we been spending since the 1960s on the war on poverty?
00:43:17.060
Upward mobility for people of all races has been offered by free enterprise, not unconditional,
00:43:23.920
Which means that all of these issues that are affecting minority communities, predominantly,
00:43:29.320
failing schools, lower graduation rates, fatherlessness, poverty, incarceration, all go hand in hand.
00:43:39.180
It's true for very poor white communities as well.
00:43:42.940
Where are the activist groups when it comes to these issues, by the way?
00:43:46.480
What do they have to say about children being shafted by the public school system?
00:43:50.600
The welfare state that leads to fatherlessness, that leads to juvenile crime, that leads to
00:43:55.320
incarceration, that leads to poverty over and over again.
00:43:58.900
About the thousands of Black men and children, children killed by other Black men every year.
00:44:05.900
About the thousands upon thousands of Black babies that are aborted before they take their
00:44:15.920
But instead, we are only seeing certain instances of Black death that pale in comparison numbers-wise
00:44:24.640
to the other problems and to the other causes of death that we are seeing in the Black community.
00:44:35.280
Like, why am I not seeing Christians post about that?
00:44:38.100
You only care about Black lives when it's trendy.
00:44:43.620
So to recap, if we want to give children the opportunity to succeed, get rid of public
00:44:49.400
unions so that public schools can actually be held accountable.
00:44:52.400
And again, I'm not saying there's not more reform to be had there.
00:44:55.780
Allow school choice so parents can send their kids to a better school in a different district
00:45:02.920
Get opportunities to work if they are given the opportunity to succeed by going to a better
00:45:08.720
Shrink the welfare state, which I know that seems like an impossible task, which maybe it
00:45:12.620
is, but to this day encourages the fatherlessness that we see devastating many communities and
00:45:18.920
stop setting up Planned Parenthood clinics in minority communities to take black mothers'
00:45:23.220
money and abort their babies, which, by the way, is what Planned Parenthood has been doing
00:45:27.260
since it was founded by KKK supporter Margaret Sanger.
00:45:32.300
These are all a great starting point for positive change, argued not by me, but by black intellectuals
00:45:43.400
Because pushing for these issues, getting rid of public unions that protect bad teachers
00:45:49.860
and police officers, offering school choice, shrinking welfare, discouraging widespread abortion
00:45:54.680
is synonymous with saying one thing that the media that the left does not want to say.
00:46:03.540
Democrats have been in charge of every city with a large minority community for decades,
00:46:09.260
All of these cities where crime is high, where black teenage boys, kids are being murdered in
00:46:18.460
These are democratic cities and have been for a very long time.
00:46:22.380
Some of them have been led specifically by black Democrats for decades.
00:46:27.080
Democrats are behind every single failed policy that we are talking about right now.
00:46:33.680
And their support for the black community is a farce.
00:46:36.560
These public unions and Democrats prop each other up all over the country.
00:46:40.060
Democrats get votes by promising more destructive welfare.
00:46:43.420
Democrats rely on the support of Planned Parenthood, killing thousands and thousands of black babies
00:46:50.640
It should offend you when these democratic politicians who have been in office for decades tell you
00:46:59.760
You can hate Donald Trump and Republicans all you want.
00:47:02.920
And I'm not telling you to vote Republican because, yeah, I'm not trying to convince you of that.
00:47:07.400
I understand Republicans have our own problems, their own problems, and can do a heck of a lot
00:47:13.380
a better job of governing and a better job of outreach.
00:47:17.720
I'm just saying you can't blame them for what's going on right now.
00:47:21.180
Democratic politicians have a strong hold on the black community, and they are not helping.
00:47:27.360
They're beholden to the unions actively fighting against the interests of the poor.
00:47:31.000
They're beholden to their special interests, which contradict the interests of the communities
00:47:36.760
So why aren't more Democrats, for example, condemning Antifa, the mostly white group of anarchists,
00:47:43.680
helping fund and organize the riots throughout the country?
00:47:46.220
I've seen video after video of black protesters, peaceful protesters, asking white Antifa members
00:48:00.420
I don't think we can see that from the videos, but they are, at the very least, throwing gasoline
00:48:06.420
Why aren't more Democrats taking a stand against these riots, which are literally obliterating
00:48:13.660
There might be some speaking out in general terms saying, you know, stop being violent,
00:48:20.860
But are any of them calling out Antifa specifically?
00:48:23.860
They are mostly saying a lot of these Democratic politicians who won't condemn the riots at all,
00:48:28.880
who won't condemn violence, and not just Democratic politicians, but also liberal members
00:48:35.320
Ridiculous things like riots are the language of the unheard.
00:48:42.340
These people are not burning down Capitol buildings and looting Target and breaking into Louis Vuitton
00:48:50.020
Remember when we talked about justice at the beginning of the episode?
00:48:54.100
True justice is truthful, direct, proportional, and impartial.
00:49:05.020
I don't even care if whatever cause you're protesting for, I'm not talking about this
00:49:09.640
situation, but in all situations, I don't care.
00:49:12.580
It is your right, your First Amendment right that I will fight for over and over again for
00:49:17.280
you to be able to peacefully protest for the causes that you believe in.
00:49:21.600
And by the way, if police or anyone using force is trying to stop peaceful protests, I am
00:49:28.920
You have a constitutional right to peacefully protest.
00:49:32.000
And by the way, there are a lot of peaceful protesters about this.
00:49:36.880
I love seeing the videos that I am seeing of police officers and community members hugging,
00:49:50.060
But I am against a lot of the hypocrisy that we're seeing, the glorification of violence
00:49:54.380
and the violence itself that are ruining people's lives.
00:49:59.280
I want you to watch or listen, depending on how you are taking in this podcast, to this
00:50:08.900
Your frustrations, and I would love for you to share them with the community right now because
00:50:13.760
you and so many others are going through such a rough time.
00:50:21.380
I live in the high rise right back here, and I'd seen them as they came down Lake Street.
00:50:28.580
But then they turned and started coming over here, and I'm sitting up looking out my window.
00:50:35.100
And they went straight to Office Max, the dollar store, and every store over here that I go to.
00:50:48.720
I have no way to get there because the buses aren't running.
00:51:03.600
And last night, I'm going to be honest, I wish I was where George was because this is
00:51:25.740
These riots are literally punishing people for a crime they did not commit.
00:51:31.580
And enough with the absolutely absurd statement.
00:51:42.840
Do you know what these homes and some of these apartment complexes that are burned down represent?
00:51:56.800
Quite honestly, I cannot think of anything more privileged than you.
00:52:03.780
Posting on Instagram about how virtuous you are.
00:52:06.440
Saying ridiculous things like businesses can come back, but George can't.
00:52:12.060
Do you know what it's like going from paycheck to paycheck?
00:52:15.160
I don't, but I'm trying my best to put myself in their place to have the only affordable grocery
00:52:20.320
store in your area burned down, set on fire by rioters, many of whom don't even live where
00:52:25.160
you live, to now have nowhere to get formula for your newborn baby or diapers, to be a poor
00:52:31.820
elderly person who now has no public transportation to get where they need to go.
00:52:38.380
That's the reality for thousands of people right now thanks to these riots.
00:52:42.120
And unlike some of you, apparently, I and a lot, millions of logically thinking people
00:52:48.340
can care about them, can care about the people whose lives have been ruined, and also care
00:52:53.920
about police brutality wherever it shows up, can also care about injustice, and also care
00:53:03.840
I don't know why except for, I guess, that so many people have ceased to be able to critically
00:53:10.200
I guess that's why so many people are unable to simultaneously hold two thoughts in their
00:53:15.600
They're simultaneously unable to say, wow, this was murder, this was injustice, we should
00:53:21.980
be outraged about George Floyd's murder, and any instance of injustice, in any instance
00:53:26.740
of murder that we see, and we should also care about the people who don't have access
00:53:34.700
That doesn't mean that we don't know the gravity and the permanence of murder.
00:53:42.080
I've been talking to you this whole time, but I am just, I'm trying to shake you by the
00:53:47.120
Do you think, do you think, honestly, from what you know about God, not what you feel
00:53:51.400
about God, but what you know about God in the Bible, do you think that God doesn't care
00:54:03.220
They are evil, and all the celebrities, Justin Timberlake, Seth Rogen, Steve Carell, funding
00:54:08.660
bailouts for arsonists and assaulters and anarchists.
00:54:16.120
Let's see if these celebrities want to bail them out when they come to their gated communities
00:54:25.200
And as we've already talked about, the numbers don't support the narrative that the media
00:54:29.600
and Democratic politicians are so passionately trying to push, which is only making the reaction
00:54:36.240
Barack Obama comes out in his subtle way, condemning the violence, but validating the feelings
00:54:40.960
of hate and insisting that Black people just need to vote in November.
00:54:48.040
But the question is that he doesn't address, and what none of these Democratic politicians
00:54:55.200
Didn't Ferguson happen under your watch, Barack Obama?
00:54:58.680
Didn't failing schools continue to fail under your watch?
00:55:02.060
I am so sick and tired of the moral ambiguity of our politicians on the right and the left,
00:55:08.940
Our journalists, our church leaders, who are all regurgitating leftist talking point after
00:55:14.320
talking point without stopping for one second to ask if what they're saying is true.
00:55:25.620
I'm so tired of white women on Instagram who read the news, who maybe read the news for
00:55:30.940
the first time in their lives yesterday, all of a sudden becoming experts on social issues.
00:55:38.900
And most people on both sides of the aisle actually agree with this sentiment, like we
00:55:44.380
Again, I ask, particularly to Christian women, do you know if what you are saying is true?
00:55:55.280
Are the remedies being prescribed just, truthful, and good?
00:56:00.340
That's something that I have seen going around a lot in white Christian circles on Instagram.
00:56:04.800
Instagram, we should just ask quickly, is white privilege a thing?
00:56:08.460
At one point, I probably would have said unequivocally no.
00:56:11.040
And if you ask a black conservative, they will definitely say no.
00:56:14.360
But honestly, I think from my opinion that it depends on how you define it.
00:56:18.160
What most people mean when they say white privilege is actually majority privilege.
00:56:25.140
I'm not necessarily justifying all forms of that, but it's true.
00:56:30.020
If you are the ethnic majority in the country, you have the privilege of being represented more
00:56:35.400
in the media, having more products that cater to you, having more politicians that represent
00:56:40.340
This is true for every majority in every country on earth.
00:56:43.860
Now, that's not to say that white privilege that comes at the expense of black people has never
00:56:50.320
That's very obviously seen throughout our history.
00:56:54.420
And majority privilege throughout the world often comes at the expense of the minority and
00:57:04.140
But we have to be specific when we're talking about what white privilege is and what we actually
00:57:09.500
What most people actually mean is some kind of majority privilege, not something that is universal.
00:57:15.560
Sure, you can talk about white privilege, but you can't say.
00:57:19.520
People in Afghanistan don't have white privilege.
00:57:21.940
There are not people in China who have white privilege.
00:57:25.420
And the most important question isn't really whether it exists or what it looks like, but
00:57:31.820
I've seen a lot of commands for what people with privilege should do to make sure we are
00:57:37.920
Some of the things are overt and obvious and other things are not so much.
00:57:42.300
Apparently, a meritocracy, for example, is white supremacist.
00:57:50.260
And this is what Christians' social justice, false liberation theology does.
00:57:55.360
It exchanges the free truth of the gospel for a social gospel, which is not about advancing
00:58:01.120
Christ's kingdom here on earth, but manifesting a socialist utopia where all outcomes are equal.
00:58:06.220
What Thomas Sowell calls cosmic justice, which is really not justice at all.
00:58:11.260
I highly recommend his book, Quest for Cosmic Justice, as well as Vision of the Anointed.
00:58:17.060
They place burdens on people that are heavy, that are unattainable.
00:58:23.300
You can't ever be contrite enough for the fact that your ancestors 200 years ago may have
00:58:37.000
You're supposed to love yourself, but also divest of your whiteness.
00:58:40.520
Don't be ashamed, but repent of the white supremacy that you were never even guilty of.
00:58:49.140
The Bible has good news that that is not the gospel.
00:58:52.140
The gospel is that Jesus died to save you from your sins and reconcile you to a holy God
00:58:57.000
in exchange for the heavy burdens and difficult yoke of sin and worldly standards of righteousness.
00:59:02.200
He gives you a light burden and an easy yoke that he empowers you to carry, which is this.
00:59:08.300
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor
00:59:15.020
Don't get caught up in the worldly virtue traps.
00:59:19.160
The virtue trap says, unless you post right now and you repeat all the woke talking points
00:59:24.400
and express appropriate outrage toward the things that you must care about, you are not truly virtuous.
00:59:33.440
Following Jesus means that you are free from trying to meet the ever-changing standards of the world,
00:59:39.880
When the church is taking cues from the world on how to respond to tragedy, we've got a huge problem.
00:59:46.660
Of course, we should be mourning with those who mourn.
00:59:54.080
You can see how to help people who are rebuilding their businesses and cities, at least in Minneapolis.
00:59:59.120
I'm going to try to do this for multiple cities.
01:00:01.180
Give your time, money, energy to those who need it.
01:00:04.360
If you care about changing things on a political level, get involved in local politics.
01:00:08.540
See what's going on in your public school system.
01:00:11.260
You never know if you are the impact, if you are the change by the grace of God that your community needs.
01:00:17.320
And if you care about racism, which of course does exist because people are sinful and we have hate in our heart.
01:00:23.300
As my friend, Daryl Harrison says, though, we have a sin problem, not a skin problem.
01:00:31.420
Stand up where you see all hate, not just when people assume it, but when it's actually there.
01:00:40.280
Avoid selective outrage, which I too have been guilty of.
01:00:46.380
Remember the names of the people that we listed at the top who have recently been shot and killed by the police?
01:00:52.360
You probably knew some of their names, but not all of them.
01:00:55.960
Because the media only promotes one set of names.
01:00:58.980
My mom was giving me this analogy that if you look, if you only saw, if you were, held a microscope, if you had a microscopic view of a beach ball and you only saw the red part of the beach ball, you would assume that it's a red ball.
01:01:14.440
There are lots of different colors on the ball.
01:01:15.820
That is what, that's what the media does when it comes to the racial narrative.
01:01:23.060
And unfortunately, Christians, along with everyone else, we take our, we take our cues from the media.
01:01:30.140
We take our cues from the mainstream and we, um, we gin up outrage and we follow along with movements without knowing the other side of the story, without knowing the rest of the data, without knowing or caring about the truth at all.
01:01:43.460
We want the world to, we want to fit in with the world's definitions of compassion and justice and truth.
01:01:50.520
Remember that Minneapolis cop who murdered the white woman in cold blood?
01:01:57.220
She was a white woman, only got 12 years of prison.
01:02:04.520
We don't just care about what the media tells us to care about.
01:02:09.540
We don't jump onto trends and fall into virtue traps.
01:02:12.480
We speak what we know is true to the best of our ability.
01:02:16.220
And above all, believe in and share the gospel, which changes hearts.
01:02:19.700
And is the only way to change communities and society as a whole.
01:02:24.720
Pastors, pastors, why aren't you preaching the gospel right now?
01:02:29.240
What the world needs isn't another conversation about white privilege.
01:02:35.860
Don't you know that that is the only good news that truly reconciles, that first reconciles us to a holy God,
01:02:41.820
the most important reconciliation that exists and also makes our relationships right with other people.
01:02:54.280
But I'm seeing too many pastors not talk about the gospel at all.
01:02:58.140
And all of their tributes and all of their posts and all of their, I'm sure, very well-meaning conversations about social justice.
01:03:04.600
I am seeing so many pastors say, you know, we've got to do better.
01:03:16.220
And nowhere in that post did I see two simple words.
01:03:22.700
That the gospel is the only answer to what ails us.
01:03:31.320
And by the way, that's not your job as a Christian.
01:03:32.860
I've seen so many Christian women resharing these popular worldly memes about what we need to do
01:03:38.540
and talk about what they're going to do in the way of social justice, not mentioning Jesus's name once.
01:03:48.280
Do you think he doesn't care about people's souls?
01:03:57.180
When I see white pastors, they talk about on Sundays to their mostly white churches.
01:04:04.580
They preach the Bible to their white congregants.
01:04:08.020
But then when they start talking to black people and the black community, they don't talk about the gospel at all.
01:04:19.920
And not the issue that all of us have is that we live forever.
01:04:25.180
That is the issue, that we live forever, that our souls are going to one of two places, and that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only life.
01:04:32.940
And no one comes to the Father except through him.
01:04:35.140
Do white pastors that only talk about white supremacy to black people, that only apologize for white privilege, that only talk about systemic racism rather than the truth and the transcendent reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
01:04:55.160
If you're a Christian that is only preaching, I'm not saying we can't talk about justice.
01:05:02.500
Of course I believe we should talk about earthly issues that are also, of course, spiritual issues.
01:05:08.820
Of course I believe we should talk about controversial topics.
01:05:11.240
But if your answer is social justice, a hashtag, blacking out your Instagram picture, or conversations that are not actually rooted in truth, and not sharing the saving gospel of Jesus Christ, maybe it's time for you to check your privilege.
01:05:31.420
I know there are a lot of other things that you guys want me to talk about, but I will be back here on Friday.
01:05:35.100
I'll be talking to Albert Moeller, and he is host of the podcast called The Briefing, as well as he holds several other titles.