Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 295 ｜ Trump vs. Biden 2020： Justice

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a great weekend. There

00:00:15.460 is a lot of craziness that's going on right now, and we're going to break some of that

00:00:19.340 down. We are continuing our election series. The first bit of the election series, the

00:00:25.780 first episode of it was about abortion, and we compared Trump versus Joe Biden on the issue

00:00:32.160 of abortion. We talked about what abortion is. We looked at abortion policy, and so make sure

00:00:37.480 that you listen to that. The second episode was last week. I interviewed Dr. John MacArthur

00:00:42.780 at the end, but before that, we talked about religious liberty, the importance of religious

00:00:47.200 liberty, what I think the Trump administration and Republicans in general have done to protect

00:00:52.060 religious liberty and what I want them to do and why I believe that the democratic platform

00:00:56.220 is an assault on religious liberty and why that's something that Christians should care about.

00:01:01.020 Today, we are going to talk about justice, justice from a biblical perspective, and this is going

00:01:06.700 to be different than the previous two episodes where we kind of look specifically at the policies

00:01:12.560 between the two parties and between the two candidates, because I just want to look at this

00:01:18.020 issue of justice in general. And for those of you who have been listening to or watching Relatable

00:01:26.680 for a good amount of time, you know that we have talked about justice and social justice so much,

00:01:33.680 because I think it is an issue that many Christians and professing Christians are very confused about,

00:01:40.600 and it is damaging your worldview. It's damaging your theology. I have seen people get this one subject

00:01:46.980 wrong, and their entire worldview falls apart. Sooner or later, they end up saying, well,

00:01:53.700 maybe Jesus is not the only way, the only truth, and the only life. Maybe there are other ways to get

00:01:59.180 to the Father except through Him. It's very interesting that this subject, when you link arms with the

00:02:04.180 world, the rest of your biblical perspective kind of disintegrates. And because there is so much

00:02:10.660 confusion, I think coming from evangelical pulpits, I want to try to offer as much clarity as I can. I mean,

00:02:17.180 I've seen so many Christians jump on this social justice bandwagon, especially in relation to the issue of

00:02:24.720 race. And there's so much that I could talk about today that we won't get into that I'm sure I will get into

00:02:30.740 in another episode soon. But I want to relate this conversation back to the things that are happening

00:02:35.540 right now, back to the incident with Jacob Blake, and back to the riots and the arson and the looting

00:02:41.740 and the protests and the demonstrations that are going on across the country right now. Because I

00:02:46.860 want to make sure that as Christians, we have a right view of this. Maybe you are someone who is on

00:02:53.620 the other side of the aisle, and your friend shared this podcast with you. You are going to disagree

00:02:58.380 with me. You're probably going to be uncomfortable at certain points of this. First of all, I'm really

00:03:02.560 glad that you're here. It really takes a lot to listen to a podcast that you know that you're probably

00:03:07.520 going to disagree with. And some of you in the past week or so have reached out to me. And we've had a good

00:03:13.360 productive dialogue about this. I mean, I had a conversation with someone who it sounds like is very far

00:03:18.880 left. And she was so respectful and so kind, and sent me links. And we went back and forth on our perspectives. And

00:03:25.720 she said she was going to listen to further episodes. And that just that just means the world to me. And that

00:03:30.920 gives me a lot of hope. I am not hopeless, because there are a large number of people who disagree

00:03:36.280 with me. First of all, I don't think that I'm right on everything. And I think that disagreement is

00:03:41.220 good. I am, I don't, I'm not despairing, but I'm disappointed. What I am disappointed in is that we

00:03:49.100 seem to not be able to, in so many instances, have any kind of rational, rational disagreement,

00:03:55.180 or productive dialogue, because it so quickly becomes emotional. And we're not on the same page

00:04:00.640 at all. We don't have the same starting point at all. We don't have the same goals or aims at all.

00:04:05.860 And so it becomes very difficult to have any kind of discussion or debate. But when those of you who

00:04:10.760 do disagree with me, reach out to me, and we have a respectful dialogue, that just gives me so much

00:04:15.640 hope. And it also teaches me a lot of things. It teaches me about your perspective. Maybe I won't

00:04:19.380 change my mind. Maybe you won't change yours. But it's really helpful. And what I want this podcast to do,

00:04:24.420 for those of you who do tend to agree with me and who are Christians and conservatives,

00:04:29.320 I want this podcast to be equipping for you. I want it to at least be a starting point for you

00:04:35.000 to do your own research and certainly do your own study of the Word of God. Don't take my word

00:04:39.520 for everything, certainly. And don't let me be the only source of information or wisdom that you have

00:04:45.780 by any means. But I want it to be a starting place for you, a jumping off point for you. I want it to

00:04:51.860 help equip you to have conversations with people that you disagree with, because I do think that is

00:04:57.020 so important. There are friends that I have, I know we disagree on politics. And so I don't bring it up

00:05:01.600 often. But when I do have the opportunity, I try to push a little bit back on what I believe they are,

00:05:11.840 they have erroneous positions on. And then you just kind of have to have the emotional intelligence

00:05:17.180 to realize when to back off because that friendship, that relationship is more important

00:05:22.640 than your political and in some cases your theological disagreement. So I hope this podcast

00:05:28.060 is that for you. That's what I desire today. As a lot of you guys are, I'm really tired. I'm really

00:05:35.120 tired. And to be perfectly honest, I'm anxious about everything that's going on in the country.

00:05:39.860 Jesus tells us time and again, not to be anxious, not to worry about anything. I mean, he closed the

00:05:45.960 lilies of the field and how much more valuable, Jesus says, are we human beings, God's children,

00:05:53.600 those whom he has called? How much more valuable are we to God than the lilies of the field or the

00:05:59.940 sparrows who he makes sure are also taken care of, who cannot fall out of the sky apart from his will?

00:06:08.120 Jesus says, Jesus tells us not to fear. God tells us over and over again, his people to be courageous.

00:06:13.800 He says that I am going to be with you. Psalm 37 is one of the most comforting chapters in the Bible

00:06:19.640 because it doesn't just say, hey, don't fear, just sit back and try not to worry or be anxious about

00:06:27.100 anything. It actually says that God is going to take care of the evildoers, that he is going to take

00:06:32.800 care of wrongdoing, that he is going to make sure that the wicked are destroyed and that the righteous,

00:06:39.720 those who by grace through faith are in Jesus Christ, are taken care of, that they are the ones

00:06:44.760 that inherit the earth. So ultimately, I know we don't have anything to worry about, that we are,

00:06:49.800 America is, especially you're in my life, it's just a tiny blip on the span of eternity, a tiny,

00:06:56.120 tiny blip in God's grand story of redemption. And God is completely in control. He has not gotten off

00:07:01.720 his throne. He is not surprised. He is not taken aback. He is not thrown off. He's not been taken

00:07:06.540 off guard. He's not looking down saying, what the heck are you guys doing? God is suspended

00:07:11.520 in the eternal now. He is not bound by linear time. He is not wondering what's going to happen

00:07:17.260 in the future. He's not regretting things that happened in the past. He is over all of it,

00:07:23.120 in control of all of it. And I've said something in the past that I think is a little bit,

00:07:26.960 a little bit misleading. I comfort us by saying that one day God is going to rule in perfect peace,

00:07:33.860 which of course is true. In the new heaven, in the new earth, there's not going to be any evil.

00:07:38.320 There's not going to be any sadness. There's not going to be any anxiety or sorrow. But I think it's

00:07:42.760 important for me to emphasize and clarify that God is putting all the enemies under Jesus's feet right

00:07:49.420 now. Jesus is at the right hand of God in heaven right now. Jesus is King of Kings right now. He is

00:07:58.280 the ruler right now. He is sovereign and in control and in charge of everything right now. So even when

00:08:06.740 it seems like things are chaotic, I know that God is in control. All of that said, knowing all of that,

00:08:13.780 that is why I'm a little bit ashamed to admit to you that I know all of that. And yet I feel nervous.

00:08:19.920 I have to fight the anxiety when I'm going to sleep at night. It doesn't help that I end my day

00:08:25.160 typically and sometimes start my day as well on Twitter, the most anxiety inducing place in the

00:08:30.940 world. But I just feel kind of this urgency to know what's going on in America's major cities. And

00:08:37.200 it's just wearing me out, you guys. And I know that a lot of you feel the same way. Some of you are

00:08:43.320 close to Kenosha, Wisconsin, and you're thinking, I never thought that this was going to happen to

00:08:47.400 me. I never thought that this was going to happen to my city. Now my city is burned down. What do I

00:08:51.960 do? Some of you are thinking, when is this coming for me? You've seen the videos of people harassed

00:08:58.640 in DC restaurants, outside of DC restaurants. You've got Black Lives Matter, Antifa activists that

00:09:03.660 are coming up to these women or to these people yelling in their face, telling them that they have to put up

00:09:08.740 a black power fist. And if they don't, they're going to do something to them. They were pushing

00:09:13.900 against this woman who was sitting there, minding her own business, demanding to know if she was a

00:09:18.460 Christian. And so this is mob rule that's happening in parts of our country that I do believe they're

00:09:24.860 coming for us, no matter where you live, unless the law is enforced. And of course, we'll talk more

00:09:31.520 about that today. But I just want you to know, like, I know how you feel because I feel the same

00:09:37.900 way. I'm nervous and I'm anxious, but we do have to remember what I reiterated to us, that God

00:09:43.240 is sovereign, that He's completely in control. When we see Him doing one thing, He's doing a million

00:09:48.260 things. And as I've said before, God's work does not make headlines. People right now are being reached

00:09:54.540 with the gospel. People are coming to the Lord or the Lord is pursuing them and saving them. People

00:10:01.780 are being reconciled by the cross of Christ to a holy God right now as we speak. And He is still

00:10:08.640 using you and me. And our job is to be obedient. But another part of our job is right now, as we are

00:10:14.560 looking at the world around us, to make sure that we have a proper perspective, that we have a biblical

00:10:18.960 perspective of the world around us. And actually, it does bring a lot of peace. And one of the things

00:10:23.380 that we have to make sure that we get right, because as I already said, it has implications

00:10:27.480 for the rest of our perspective, the rest of our worldview, is the definition of justice.

00:10:33.480 There are a million people who have their fists raised in the name of justice, who are rioting

00:10:38.300 and looting and burning down and harassing and assaulting in the name of justice. And we need to

00:10:44.400 ask ourselves, do we have a place as Christians to criticize that? Or should we say, you know what,

00:10:49.120 at least they're doing it for the right cause. And I don't feel like I have a place to criticize

00:10:52.320 that because at least they are doing it in the name of justice. We have to ask ourselves,

00:10:57.460 is that justice? I mean, the answer to that question changes completely how we react to

00:11:02.200 that. And so I want to make sure, as I have many times on this podcast before, to explain

00:11:10.080 what, according to the Bible, justice as it pertains to law and order, as it pertains to

00:11:17.220 wrongdoing, actually looks like, according to the Bible, which American law is supposed

00:11:22.140 to be based on. And yes, I understand that we have imperfectly implemented these biblical

00:11:27.840 principles in American history and still do in some cases to this day. But that is what

00:11:34.360 we go back to. Like, that is our starting point. And I will get into that. Now, to back

00:11:38.440 up, I talked about this last Wednesday, but I'm going to talk about it again. Give us more

00:11:42.280 context for why the current riots are happening. Really, riots in Portland and Seattle that

00:11:47.860 have killed people and destroyed people's businesses and have moved people out of Portland

00:11:51.680 and Seattle. Those have been happening for three months. The liberal Democrat politicians

00:11:56.700 in those cities have told police officers not to do anything and to simply allow this lawlessness

00:12:03.160 to ruin their cities because these are their voters. They're scared of this. This is their

00:12:07.840 base. And this is the leftist worldview played out is that they are very soft on crime to

00:12:14.200 the detriment of their law abiding citizens. And we will get into a little bit more of that.

00:12:20.240 But the the the new set of riots that are going on in places like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and are

00:12:25.840 having an effect in places like D.C. as well, is because of a black man named Jacob Blake, who

00:12:33.500 was shot seven times in the back last week by a white police officer. We saw the video from across

00:12:40.080 the street. I didn't play it last Wednesday, but because I think that it adds clarity and it adds

00:12:47.080 some context to the situation, I will play it. I'm just letting you know if you're watching this on

00:12:51.800 YouTube, you probably don't want your kids to watch this. It is very disturbing. Fast forward if you

00:12:55.940 have to. But so I'm trying to give you a fair warning. But here is that short clip.

00:13:14.600 Wow. So what we can see if you're listening to this, not watching on YouTube is that he was walking

00:13:20.460 to his car. Police officers are yelling at him. They already have their guns drawn. So that

00:13:25.900 indicates to us that whatever interaction they were having has been going on for a little bit of

00:13:31.300 time. They're telling him to stop. He continues. He bends over to get something from his floorboard

00:13:36.520 in his car. And the police officer, one of the police officers, shoots him seven times in the back.

00:13:42.440 Now, here are the facts about what happened that we know so far. We still don't know everything.

00:13:49.240 People pretending like they know everything. People ascribing motives to the police officer.

00:13:54.000 They simply do not know. Now, the context that I am about to give is not meant to say this context

00:14:03.020 alone does not justify what happened. I am not trying to say, giving this context, that this

00:14:07.680 justifies being shot in the back seven times. I am simply giving you context because I think it does,

00:14:13.960 it helps us understand what happened and it helps us distinguish some of the false narratives out there

00:14:21.280 from what is actually true. So I'm simply providing context. People always say, well,

00:14:26.880 when you provide context, that means that you're trying to justify it or excuse it or say that it

00:14:31.100 was right. That's not what I'm doing. But if you don't know the truth, then you're going to believe

00:14:35.460 a narrative that says that he was just a guy that was a good Samaritan and he was doing nothing wrong.

00:14:41.560 He was actually breaking up a fight and the police came after him and just hunted him down and shot him.

00:14:46.900 Well, that doesn't help us get to the answer. That doesn't actually help us secure and execute

00:14:53.240 justice in this case. So we actually have to know what is true. The Wisconsin DOJ did an independent

00:14:59.420 investigation. And what we have figured out from the 911 audio is that Jacob Blake's girlfriend

00:15:06.560 called the police on him because according to her, he was intimidating her at her house.

00:15:11.320 And according to her, he was not supposed to be there. We don't know what happened before or when

00:15:17.460 the cops got there. Did she tell them that, hey, he's armed and dangerous? Did she tell them that

00:15:22.460 he is trying to hurt her or kill her? We don't know. But we can only guess or but we can guess we

00:15:29.420 can assume pretty safely why she was scared and why she called the police. Jacob Blake had had a warrant

00:15:35.140 out for his arrest since July 9th for third degree assault against her, against his girlfriend.

00:15:41.100 And in Wisconsin, that is rape. And so he has been accused by this girlfriend who called 911 last

00:15:47.300 week and said, hey, my boyfriend, Jacob Blake is trespassing at my home. He's not supposed to be

00:15:53.380 here. He already had a warrant out for his arrest because she accused him of raping her back in May.

00:15:59.700 So that is probably why she was afraid that Jacob Blake was at her house and why she called the

00:16:05.200 police. Like I said, there was a warrant out for his arrest for that rape, but also for domestic

00:16:10.520 abuse and for disorderly conduct. They have three kids together and the kids were apparently there.

00:16:18.120 So you can see why clearly his girlfriend called the police officers to help her. She didn't want to

00:16:24.040 be raped again. If indeed that accusation is true, she didn't want her children who were there,

00:16:29.700 to be harmed. Probably knowing the context that we have, that is seemingly what is going on here.

00:16:36.560 That was not his first run in with the law. He reportedly has a history of domestic violence.

00:16:41.560 And in 2015, he had to be subdued by a police canine for wielding a gun while intoxicated. Again,

00:16:48.920 I am not saying that these facts are what justifies what happened to him, but I am providing context that

00:16:54.360 he does have a history. The girlfriend probably or did know this history when she called the police

00:17:00.680 and asked them to please protect her from Blake. The police did know this history. We know that

00:17:06.380 before they showed up. And I just want to pause for a second because we often hear, and very often

00:17:14.520 rightly so, about the problems in our justice system. And there are problems with our justice system,

00:17:19.920 but most people who talk about this mean that the justice system is too harsh on criminals. And that

00:17:26.700 may be true in the cases of some nonviolent drug offenses. I think our bail system is messed up and

00:17:35.740 can disproportionately at times, unfortunately, and unjustly affect poor people. And so there are

00:17:41.840 problems in that regard with our justice system. But how about the fact that a guy charged with

00:17:45.920 raping his girlfriend had been walking around for free for almost two months with impunity to the

00:17:51.460 point to where he was able to go and harass that same girlfriend who accused him of rape? Like how

00:17:56.940 about the parts of our justice system that don't protect victims and potential victims from predators

00:18:01.540 who should already be in jail? Like that's a problem too. Now carrying on, the Wisconsin DOJ have found

00:18:08.380 that Jacob Blake had a knife in the floorboard of his car. So was he reaching for that knife? We don't know.

00:18:13.740 He could have just been reaching for a cell phone to call his lawyer. He could have been reaching for

00:18:18.060 his license. He could have been reaching for a what? We don't know. Now the officer could have

00:18:24.120 seen the knife and that's why he shot him. Did the officer based on Blake's history assume that he had

00:18:29.420 a gun and that's why he shot him? Officers often don't know if they're completely unarmed and we just

00:18:35.860 don't know. We know from the Wisconsin DOJ investigation, the police had already tried to use a

00:18:41.340 stun gun on him, but that did not work and Blake continued to resist arrest and disobey orders

00:18:46.380 then went into his car, reached down into his floorboard and that is when the officer shot him

00:18:51.120 seven times. Now that there is an investigation into that officer and into the interaction that is

00:19:00.100 still going on and there will be that will continue until we know exactly what happened and until they

00:19:08.580 decide whether or not the shooting was justified. I think that there are many people who are

00:19:13.720 understandably questioning why the police officer shot him seven times in the back at point blank range

00:19:20.160 if the shooting was justified. I think a lot of people are asking why not just once. I don't I don't

00:19:25.340 know the answer to that. I've never been a police officer. It's easy for me. It's easy for us to litigate

00:19:30.800 the situation from here and say seven times seems really excessive. I would agree with that and I

00:19:37.100 think if if that was all the discussion was like if if that was our contention with this issue then

00:19:44.880 we could have a productive conversation about that. We could say hey was it necessary for this guy to be

00:19:50.980 shot seven times in the back and we could all be on the same page and have a conversation with that

00:19:55.620 about that. But because the defense of Blake has gone so far on the left in particular so far beyond

00:20:02.820 what actually happened and instead says something like this this is another example of the epidemic

00:20:08.180 of unarmed innocent black men being shot by a racist police force and this was just an innocent father

00:20:13.920 and an innocent son going about his business when he was pursued and terrorized by the police.

00:20:18.400 Well that means that we're not on the same page that we're not starting with an honest premise and so we

00:20:22.620 can't have a productive dialogue. We're forced to peel back the layers and say hang on what is

00:20:27.100 actually the truth here? Because as I've said in order for us to come together which I desperately

00:20:32.080 want us to do in order for us to have meaningful dialogue that leads to meaningful change which I

00:20:36.940 think is important. Whether that is for further transparency in the police apparently none of these

00:20:42.420 police officers were wearing body cameras. Whether that is better de-escalation training which I think a lot

00:20:48.040 of precincts already have a lot of good training but maybe other precincts don't. Whether that means

00:20:53.820 taking a look at the policies of the police unions. You guys know I don't like public unions

00:20:59.660 in general. Whatever reasonable reform looks like. Whatever changes we can make to get the number down to

00:21:07.160 zero of unarmed people who are shot and killed by the police. I think that it is worth having that

00:21:12.820 conversation. But in order to do that we have to start with truthful premises. We can't craft a

00:21:18.580 narrative that makes the situation seem different than it actually was. And if you start on the page

00:21:24.660 that says that Jacob Blake was nothing more than an innocent man going about his day when he was

00:21:28.860 targeted by racist police officers and this is an example of systemic racism in the police and the

00:21:34.160 police are disproportionately shooting black people. Well then we can't have a meaningful conversation

00:21:38.620 and change will never happen because those starting points are untruthful. And we will get to the numbers

00:21:44.240 and the data once again that talk about this in just a minute. Just a minute. If we started from

00:21:50.320 the place of hey we don't know what happened leading up to this but seven times in the back

00:21:55.460 seems excessive. So I think we need a full investigation here and talk about what we can do

00:21:59.880 to make this less likely. Then I think that that would be great. And don't tell me that that kind of

00:22:05.320 conversation does not work. It does. Republican Tim Scott introduced a police reform bill the

00:22:10.400 Democrats refused to even debate. And Republican Rand Paul is the one who introduced the Justice for

00:22:16.200 Breonna Taylor Act which put an end to no-knock warrants which is the type of warrant that allows

00:22:20.740 police to basically barge in to not state their purpose or to state their authority with and they

00:22:26.760 can just kind of come in without permission. Now there's a there's a lot of details with the

00:22:32.060 Breonna Taylor that quite frankly I haven't investigated which is part of the reason why

00:22:36.180 I haven't talked about this. But I think this is a good piece of legislation to say that no-knock

00:22:41.280 warrants should not be allowed. I think that is a small government issue. I think that's a justice

00:22:45.340 issue. It was Republican Rand Paul who introduced that. So don't tell me that things cannot be

00:22:49.820 accomplished through peaceful and democratic means. Things have been accomplished since the 1960 civil

00:22:54.760 rights movement. Things have been accomplished through peaceful and democratic means that have led to

00:22:59.300 progress for specifically black people in this country but all demographics in this country. So

00:23:05.480 when a grifter like Sean King says that we need violence and we need unrest because America doesn't

00:23:11.380 listen to peace that is a lie. That's just a lie. That is a historical myth. That is an excuse for the

00:23:17.660 anarchy that the left thinks will help them destroy the country and usher in socialism. That is what this is

00:23:23.800 all about. And unfortunately a lot of people have been duped into believing that this is a genuine movement

00:23:28.580 towards justice and it's just not. And what is currently happening right now, what is currently

00:23:35.100 happening right now is a left-wing revolution that depends on anarchy, that depends on chaos, that

00:23:43.740 depends on upping people's emotions and getting people riled up to the point to where they are

00:23:49.680 willing to burn down buildings and loot and doing it all in the name of justice so people will be convinced

00:23:56.140 to engage and they believe that burning things down will create the foundation for them to destroy or

00:24:02.220 will create the foundation for them to build the kind of left-wing government that they want to build.

00:24:09.700 The night Jacob Blake was shot, riots broke out in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Churches were burned down.

00:24:15.160 Car lots were incinerated. Businesses and stores were burned down. Here is a short video of that.

00:24:21.860 This morning, get up, come down here and what I see, I was not prepared for. I knew it was going to be a

00:24:33.980 disaster, but I didn't know what a disaster looked like until I saw it. And you, I can hear the emotion

00:24:40.200 in just in what you're saying. I mean, what is the family feeling right now? It's tough. You know,

00:24:46.600 this is a business that, that my parents started 40 years ago, small out of their garage is a small

00:24:51.840 business. Uh, did it just to make a few extra dollars and eventually it grew. Um, 31 years ago,

00:24:59.820 they bought this building. And so we've been here ever since. And here's a video of an elderly man

00:25:05.260 trying to defend his business who has knocked out colds by a rioter. They just threw a bottle at this

00:25:11.720 guy. And we keep hearing, we keep hearing from people, Christians and non-Christians are like,

00:25:34.380 it's just property. It's just property. Why do you care more about property than you do people's

00:25:38.900 lives? It's not just property. Yes. People are more important than property. Obviously I believe

00:25:43.560 that God's, uh, God believes that, but God does care about property by the way. Like the 10 commandments

00:25:48.760 do forbid, uh, not just theft, but also envy. Like you're not even supposed to covet your neighbor's

00:25:55.340 property, much less steal your neighbor's property. I mean, God is very clear that private property is

00:26:01.140 legitimate, that it is a crime to steal or to harm your neighbor's property, or even to want your

00:26:06.820 neighbor's property that isn't yours. I mean, you want to talk about a defense against socialism in

00:26:10.780 the Bible. Those two commandments, very simple. Do not steal, do not covet. That's it for socialism,

00:26:15.320 according to the Bible. But what we're seeing right now is, um, not just a destruction of simple

00:26:22.460 property, but property, property that correlates to people's lives and livelihoods. This property

00:26:28.100 represents people's businesses, the way that they provide for their family, the businesses that people

00:26:33.360 own or use in order to survive. This doesn't affect, by the way, the rich and so-called privileged

00:26:39.100 people. It affects poor people. It affects the middle-class people. It affects the people trying

00:26:43.720 to get by. And very often it affects most disproportionately black and brown people.

00:26:49.880 Furthermore, this is punishing people who did nothing wrong, who didn't do anything to Jacob Blake,

00:26:55.300 who didn't do anything to George Floyd. And is there any better, is there any more accurate

00:27:00.060 definition of injustice than punishing people for something that they did not do?

00:27:06.840 Uh, but they say riots are the voice of the unheard. Uh, this is what we have to do because

00:27:11.340 until unarmed black people stop getting killed by the police, we've got to just, uh, we've got to just

00:27:17.960 burn it down. Guys, the fact is this, this is the simple fact, and this is what people don't like to

00:27:24.680 hear. This is what people say is racist. It's not right. I don't even understand how this can be

00:27:29.260 construed as racist. It is fact, and this should be, I mean, it's disturbing, but for the people

00:27:35.460 who want to believe that police officers are disproportionately targeting black people in

00:27:39.980 police shootings, this should actually give a form of comfort. Still, it is disturbing what I'm

00:27:45.500 about to say, but it should bust that myth in a way that allows us to have healthy dialogue about

00:27:52.320 necessary police reform. For every unarmed black person who gets killed by the police,

00:27:57.460 there is one or more, uh, unarmed white person who was killed by the police. In 2019, there were 15

00:28:04.720 unarmed black people killed by the police. There were 25 unarmed white people killed by the police.

00:28:09.180 And I know what some of you are thinking, well, the black people only make 13% of the population.

00:28:15.020 They account for 35% of the police shootings. We are going to get into that statistic and why it is

00:28:19.960 misleading. White people killed by the police in 2019, whose names you do not know. This thread

00:28:25.640 was compiled on Twitter by Leonidas Johnson, and he gave a list of some of the names. And this is just

00:28:32.280 an abbreviated sampling of that list. Matthew Cooper was shot and killed by the police in

00:28:39.560 Lake City, Texas while he was assaulting an officer. He was unarmed. Robert Sycon was shot and killed by

00:28:45.480 police in Carroll County, Ohio. After fighting with police during a traffic stop and then attempting

00:28:49.820 to run away, he was unarmed. Cameron Eli was shot and killed by the police in Santa Barbara, California

00:28:54.940 after stabbing his mother to death and pretending to draw a firearm when confronted by the police.

00:29:00.880 He was unarmed. Dwayne Morgan was shot and killed by police in Gregg County, Texas after fighting with

00:29:05.980 a police officer and attempting to choke him. He was unarmed. Riley Paye was shot and killed in Greenville

00:29:11.600 and Glenville, Georgia after fighting police officers at a pawn shop. He was unarmed. David Engel was shot

00:29:17.680 and killed in Joplin, Missouri after fighting with officers and shaking off a taser. He was unarmed.

00:29:23.060 Maggie Brooks. This is tragic. Maggie Brooks was shot and killed in Arlington, Texas after an officer

00:29:28.680 shot at a dog that was running towards him and accidentally shot her. She was unarmed. Luke

00:29:35.000 Patterson was killed in Montgomery, New York after he was found walking down the highway, refused to

00:29:39.740 cooperate with state troopers and tried to get into a patrol car. He was unarmed. Thomas Viral

00:29:44.660 was shot and killed in Kalamazoo, Michigan after telling officers he had a gun and would kill

00:29:51.580 and would kill them himself, refused to show his hands and then made a sudden move forward.

00:29:56.320 He was unarmed. There are many more. That's just a sampling. The common thread in most of those is

00:30:01.540 that they were resisting arrest, which is the common thread in most of these situations. And most of the

00:30:07.520 officers who shot these unarmed people have not been charged. And that's just in 2019. We didn't even

00:30:13.720 talk about Tony Tempa, Justine Damon, Daniel Shaver, these white people who were also unarmed.

00:30:21.420 They are situations, those particular situations are situations that those three should not have

00:30:28.220 been killed by the police and yet were. It is simply a myth that police officers are less likely

00:30:33.900 to kill a white person and get away with it than a black person. That is not true. Roland Fryer,

00:30:39.320 an economic professor at Harvard University. He also happens to be black. He conducted a thorough

00:30:44.700 study in July 2016, looking at the existence of racial bias in police force, specifically police

00:30:50.540 shootings. He examined over 1,000 shootings and 10 major police departments in Texas, California,

00:30:55.320 and Florida. He said the results of the study, quote, is the most surprising result of my career.

00:31:02.700 This is according to the New York Times coverage of this particular study. Mr. Fryer,

00:31:07.260 the youngest African-American to receive tenure at Harvard and the first to win a John Bates Clark

00:31:12.060 Medal, a prize given to the most promising American economist under 40, said anger after the

00:31:17.340 deaths of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and others drove him to study the issue. You know, protesting is

00:31:21.740 not my thing, he said, but data is my thing. So I decided I was going to collect a bunch of data and

00:31:25.880 try to understand what is really going on when it comes to racial differences in police use of force.

00:31:30.300 In shootings in these 10 cities involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons

00:31:34.900 without first having been attacked when the subjects were white. Black and white civilians

00:31:41.140 involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results undercut

00:31:47.880 the idea of racial bias in police use of lethal force. But police shootings are only part of the picture.

00:31:54.000 What about situations in which the officer might be expected to fire but doesn't?

00:31:59.580 To answer this, Mr. Fryer focused on one city, Houston. The police department there let the

00:32:04.400 researchers look at reports not only for shootings but also for arrests when lethal force might have

00:32:09.540 been justified. Mr. Fryer defined this group to include encounters with suspects the police

00:32:14.300 subsequently charged with serious offenses like attempting to murder an officer or evading

00:32:19.200 or resisting arrest. He also considered suspects shocked with tasers. Mr. Fryer found that in such

00:32:25.960 situations, officers in Houston were about 20% less likely to shoot if the suspects were black.

00:32:33.480 This estimate was not precise and firmer conclusions would require more data. But in various models

00:32:39.160 controlling for different factors and using different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found

00:32:44.520 that blacks were either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites.

00:32:50.140 A 2019 peer-reviewed study titled Officer Characteristics and Racial Disparities and Fatal

00:32:55.940 Officer-Involved Shootings published in a Scientific Journal aimed to examine racial bias and police

00:33:01.000 shootings found that black cops are more likely to shoot black civilians and Hispanic cops are more

00:33:06.860 likely to shoot Hispanic civilians and so on. Here is what that study found. Quote, as the proportion

00:33:12.980 of violent crime committed by black civilians increased, a person fatally shot was more likely to be black.

00:33:18.720 As the proportion of violent crime committed by Hispanic civilians increased, a person fatally shot was more

00:33:24.300 likely to be black or Hispanic. It goes on, quote, we did not find any evidence for anti-black or anti-Hispanic

00:33:39.440 disparity in police use of force across all shootings and if anything found anti-white disparities when

00:33:46.820 controlling for race-specific crime. And yet you will see statistics like this, like mappingpoliceviolence.com,

00:33:54.280 says 36 percent of unarmed people killed by the police were black in 2015, despite black people

00:34:01.400 only making up 13 percent of the U.S. population. That is the statistic over and over again that you see

00:34:08.320 in order to support the idea that black people are disproportionately targeted by a racist police

00:34:13.560 system. But as Coleman Hughes says in City Journal, who is, by the way, a black liberal, said that he's voting

00:34:19.780 for Joe Biden, he says this, quote, to demonstrate the existence of racial bias in the police, it is not

00:34:25.460 enough to cite the fact that black people comprise 14 percent of the population, but about 35 percent

00:34:30.680 of unarmed Americans shot dead by police. By that logic, he says you could prove that police shootings

00:34:36.360 were extremely sexist by pointing out that men comprise 50 percent of the population, but 93 percent

00:34:42.820 of unarmed Americans shot by cops. And of course, you wouldn't you wouldn't say that. Instead, you must

00:34:49.200 do, Coleman Hughes says, what all good social scientists do, control for confounding variables

00:34:55.280 to isolate the effect that one variable has upon another. In this case, the effect of a suspect's race

00:35:01.680 on a cop's decision to pull the trigger. At least four careful studies have done this, one by Harvard

00:35:06.860 economist Roland Fryer, one by a group of public health researchers, one by economists Sandil

00:35:12.020 Moulinathan, and one by David Johnson et al. None of these studies has found a racial bias in deadly

00:35:18.640 shootings. Of course, this hardly settles the issue for all time. As always, more research is needed.

00:35:24.540 But given the studies already done, it seems unlikely that future work will uncover anything close to the

00:35:30.100 amount of racial bias that BLM protesters in America and around the world believe exists.

00:35:35.860 Black Americans tend to have a disproportionate number of police interactions than other groups,

00:35:41.820 according to a peer reviewed study by Ted R. Miller et al. Blacks, Native Americans and Hispanics

00:35:48.020 had higher stop slash arrest rates per 10,000 population than white non-Hispanics and Asians.

00:35:54.140 On average, an estimated one in 291 stop slash arrests resulted in hospital treated injury or death of a

00:36:01.620 suspect or bystander. Ratios of admitted and fatal injury due to legal police intervention per 10,000

00:36:08.680 stops slash arrests did not differ significantly between racial slash ethnic groups. Ratios rose with

00:36:16.340 age and were higher for men than for women. Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal. He has written a lot

00:36:24.680 about these issues in the Black community because he himself is Black. He has a lot of insight into this, has

00:36:30.480 read, written many books about these issues. He says this in Wall Street Journal, quote,

00:36:35.560 so long as Blacks are committing more than half of all murders and robberies while making up only 13% of the

00:36:41.080 population, and so long as almost all of their victims are their neighbors, these communities will draw the

00:36:47.560 lion's share of police attention. Defunding the police or making it easier to prosecute officers

00:36:53.460 will only result in more lives lost in those neighborhoods that most need protecting. What we

00:37:00.960 have found, like we said earlier, that it is more likely for a Black police officer to kill a Black

00:37:09.780 suspect, a Hispanic police officer to kill a Hispanic suspect, or to just shoot at them, and the same with

00:37:15.840 a white police officer towards a white suspect. And of course, you don't hear about any of those.

00:37:22.260 A peer-reviewed study by David Johnson et al. found as the proportion of Black or Hispanic officers in a

00:37:27.080 fatal officer involved shooting increases, the person shot is more likely to be Black or Hispanic than

00:37:32.400 white, a disparity explained by county demographics. Race-specific county-level violent crime strongly

00:37:38.820 predicts the race of the civilian shot. And we find no overall evidence of anti-Black

00:37:45.520 or anti-Hispanic disparities in fatal shootings.

00:38:00.900 Now, all of this said, does this justify disproportionate force used by the police?

00:38:07.340 Am I trying to say that we should just not care about it, that we shouldn't call for investigations,

00:38:11.240 that we shouldn't call for justice? Absolutely not. Does, and am I trying to say that all this stuff

00:38:16.660 then supports the idea that the police officer was justified in shooting Jacob Blake seven times in

00:38:25.380 the back? No, that's not what I'm doing. Does this mean that there are no racist cops, or that Black

00:38:30.560 people somehow deserve bad treatment by the police? Absolutely not. Or that Black people are inherently more

00:38:36.240 violent. No, that is not what this is about. Clearly, it would be better if no unarmed person

00:38:41.400 got shot and killed by the police. And whatever common sense reforms can be taken to help that

00:38:46.320 number get closer to zero, I am all for talking about that. But the premise is that this is happening

00:38:52.720 disproportionately to Black people due to racism, and that assertion is simply not backed up by the truth.

00:39:00.380 And you, Christian, are bound to the truth. You are bound to fact. You are bound to evidence.

00:39:06.760 God forbids and hates murder. The unjust killing of a person. So the killing of an innocent person.

00:39:14.640 That means he also, he hates abortion. He hates when police kill a person that they should not have

00:39:21.180 killed. He hates when a white person murders a Black person or a white person. He hates when a Black

00:39:27.300 person murders a Black person or a white person. God's anger and wrath and sadness towards murder

00:39:33.380 does not increase or decrease based on the victim's or the perpetrator's skin color. So that means that

00:39:41.120 ours should not either. God is just as angry when thousands of Black young men are killed by each other

00:39:48.180 every year in their own neighborhoods. The number one cause of preventable death for young Black men is

00:39:55.380 homicide. Do you think that God cares less about those murders than other kinds of murders? You would

00:40:03.060 think, according to what the social justice Christians talk about, you would think that he does. But he

00:40:08.940 doesn't. Only one-third of all gang violence and murder is ever prosecuted. Ever. It is not true that Black

00:40:19.400 people don't get away with things that white people do on a large scale in 2020. One-third of all gang

00:40:25.900 violence and murder in these predominantly Black communities are ever prosecuted. That means the

00:40:31.520 vast majority of victims of violent crime in these inner cities, they never see justice. Their perpetrator

00:40:37.200 is never placed into jail. Do you think that God cares less about the nine-year-old, Tyshaun Lee,

00:40:44.860 the little boy who was killed by a gang member in Chicago a couple years ago, whose murderer then

00:40:49.940 laughed about it as he described what happened in jail? Does God care less about that? Then why do

00:40:56.100 we, according to our outrage, according to the things that we are writing about and posting about on

00:41:00.440 social media, does God care less about Sequoia Turner, the eight-year-old that was murdered by rioters

00:41:06.600 in Atlanta after the police officers shot Rayshard Brooks? Does he care less about Antonio Mays,

00:41:11.980 the 16-year-old, murdered by rioters in Seattle? Both of these children were Black, and they were

00:41:17.700 murdered by rioters in these cities. If God doesn't care less about their lives, Christian, if God

00:41:24.040 doesn't care less about their murders, Christian, then why does it seem like some of us do? Why does

00:41:29.980 it seem like our outrage is not dictated by injustice, but whatever social media is mad about? Is that what

00:41:36.300 God calls us to? Why do we as Christians post Black squares and say hashtag Black Lives Matter or hashtag

00:41:41.700 say their names or become social media activists for only one type of murder and not the kind of

00:41:47.760 murder that represents the vast majority of murders of Black people? Does God care less about the retired

00:41:54.760 Black police captain, David Dorn, who was murdered in the St. Louis, in the St. Louis demonstrations by

00:42:02.140 rioters, by looters who live streamed his execution on Facebook? Does God care less about his life? Does

00:42:11.160 God care less when a white person is unjustifiably killed by the police than a Black person? According

00:42:17.400 to FBI data, there are more white people killed by Black people every year than the other way around.

00:42:22.040 Does God care less about that? Does God care less about Cannon Hinnant, the little five-year-old

00:42:28.300 white boy riding his bike in his front yard who was shot at point-blank range in the head by a Black

00:42:34.460 neighbor in front of his sisters? You would think, based on what social justice Christians post about

00:42:41.100 on social media and what they are selectively outraged about, that God only cares about one

00:42:46.140 type of murder toward one kind of person. And that is based on the false premise that that one type of

00:42:52.800 murder is happening more than any other type of murder or more disproportionately than any other type of

00:42:57.660 murder. And it's not. It's just not. So all the people who cannot bring themselves to call out the

00:43:05.460 violence that's destroying our cities, who thinks that you are helping things by immediately latching

00:43:09.540 onto a narrative that is not true, who thinks you are being compassionate or biblical or merciful or

00:43:14.760 godly by repeating talking points that are not based on fact, you are not. You've been lied to

00:43:20.260 and you have believed the lie. What's happening right now in our streets is not like the civil

00:43:26.960 rights movement of the 1960s, which simply said very righteously that Black people deserve to be

00:43:35.820 treated equally under the law because they are image bearers of God and that they deserve to have

00:43:41.840 an opportunity to fulfill the promise of liberty and justice for all, which for so long had been held

00:43:47.920 beyond their reach. That is exactly the right premise. That is correct. It is still correct. And we have

00:43:54.720 made so much progress since then. Is America perfect? No. Are there still racist? Yes, there probably

00:44:00.600 unfortunately always will be because ism, they are hate. All isms are a form of hate and that exists in the

00:44:08.080 human heart. And God says you cannot love God and hate your brother. And so there are going to be people

00:44:12.880 who hate God who are racist or they have other isms that are in their heart, unfortunately, that always

00:44:17.960 exist. But have we made immense progress through the civil rights movement in the 1960s? Yes, we

00:44:23.940 absolutely have because it started with a true premise. What's happening in our streets today is

00:44:30.320 nothing like the civil rights movement, no matter what Jamar Tisby says on Twitter and everything like

00:44:34.880 the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the Maoist cultural revolution in China, Mugabe's revolution in

00:44:40.360 Zimbabwe, the Venezuelan revolution, Pol Pot's revolution, the Cuban revolution. Read about them.

00:44:46.700 Read about them. Read about all these revolutions and read what happened. Tell me, did it end in

00:44:53.620 prosperity? Did it end in peace? Did it end in liberation from oppression, from poverty, from these

00:45:00.580 unjust systems? No, it didn't. It led to more lawlessness, eventual tyranny. It leads to destruction.

00:45:08.580 This leads to and led to oppression. These left-wing revolutions always lead to persecution.

00:45:16.900 This is a left-wing revolution that is looking to overthrow the country. And they realize the

00:45:21.440 easiest ways to do that is to make it about race. And I don't think that most of the people that are

00:45:26.100 latching on to this even realize that, but that's what it is. It is a class war that is described as

00:45:32.080 a race war because making this about race and racism shames white people and stirs up black people so

00:45:37.940 that the left-wing radicals can achieve what Marxists have always tried to achieve, a proletariat

00:45:42.380 overthrowing of the bourgeoisie. That is what is going on right now. These demonstrators have guillotines

00:45:48.780 out there, like the French revolutionaries. They've got guillotines slicing their heads off teddy bears

00:45:53.140 and depictions of Donald Trump. I'll just show you a little video of that so you can believe me.

00:46:03.620 They're assaulting police officers, attempting to murder police officers by throwing bricks at them,

00:46:08.440 harassing and killing innocent people in these riots. This is not justice, Christian. This is not

00:46:14.620 God's justice. And if you have bought into it even a little bit, you have been duped and you are

00:46:20.900 perpetuating chaos and injustice that the left-wing revolutionaries desperately want you to engage in

00:46:27.600 because they believe that it is going to bring about the anarchy that they believe will lead to

00:46:35.000 a socialist utopia. Again, we've seen this over and over again throughout history. It always leads

00:46:40.160 to more violence, always leads to more oppression. They start with the promise of justice and compassion

00:46:45.660 and equality. That's what they have to do to get people to join their cause. And then it ends up with

00:46:50.340 more injustice, more inequality, and more oppression and less compassion. So if you have been duped

00:46:58.500 into perpetuating this chaos and injustice, you need to go before the Lord and you need to repent.

00:47:04.760 You need to ask him for forgiveness and you need to ask him for wisdom, which according to the book

00:47:08.800 of James, he promises to give you. I'm not saying that I have it all figured out. I know that I have

00:47:13.460 blind spots. I know that there are things that I need to learn and know. And I am not saying that if you

00:47:17.940 care about justice or if you care about racism or if you care about things that really do

00:47:22.840 disproportionately affect the black community or poor communities or whoever the least of these are

00:47:28.060 in our society, that you are wrong. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if you buy into the false

00:47:33.560 narratives and the selective outrage that says that apparently God only cares about one type of murder

00:47:39.620 or one kind of injustice and you are latching on to the leftist prescriptions that are being pushed by

00:47:47.200 these left-wing radicals, then you have attached yourself to a movement that is not biblical and

00:47:53.360 that is only going to end in more suffering. And you need to realign yourself with God's word.

00:48:00.280 When it comes to wrongdoing and punishing wrongdoing, God's justice is four things according

00:48:05.020 to the word of God. I've talked about this a lot on this podcast. Here we go again. Four things when

00:48:10.800 we're talking about wrongdoing and taking care of wrongdoing and helping both the accuser and the

00:48:17.940 accused and treating them fairly. Four characteristics of God's justice in regards to this. One, it's

00:48:23.960 truthful. Number two, it is impartial. Number three, it is proportionate. Number four, it is direct.

00:48:30.480 And in this way, God's justice is very good and very merciful. Exodus 23, one through three,

00:48:37.580 quote, you shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man

00:48:43.520 to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness

00:48:49.920 in a lawsuit siding with the many so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man

00:48:56.720 in his lawsuit. So God wants to make sure that when we are adjudicating something, when we are deciding

00:49:03.020 between right and wrong, that we are not showing partiality to the poor person. We are not showing

00:49:08.180 partiality to anyone, that we are not assuming motives. We're not slandering people based on what

00:49:12.940 they look like or based on what we think or based on a certain narrative. God is very clear that your

00:49:17.640 accusations must be truthful, that the witnesses must be truthful. Right there in his commands to Israel,

00:49:23.080 we see two major aspects of God's definition of justice. His heart has not changed. Truthful and

00:49:29.960 impartial. Leviticus 19, 15, you shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor,

00:49:36.620 nor defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. Again, we see partiality.

00:49:43.420 We see truthfulness. We also see the characteristic of directness. We're talking about judging your

00:49:49.880 neighbor, the person who did you wrong, the person directly involved with the crime. Not an entire

00:49:56.580 city who did nothing to you, not innocent people who did nothing to you, but the person directly

00:50:00.820 involved. Listen to Deuteronomy 19, 15 through 21, and God's concern with truth, with impartiality,

00:50:07.260 with proportionality, and directness. A single witness, God says to Israel, shall not suffice against

00:50:13.940 a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with an offense that he has committed,

00:50:18.540 only on the evidence of two witnesses, or if three witnesses, shall a charge be established.

00:50:24.320 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, so a malicious witness is someone

00:50:29.200 who is not telling the truth, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord,

00:50:33.560 before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently,

00:50:38.680 and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to

00:50:43.420 him as he had meant to do to his brother. So if someone says, if someone is a false witness and

00:50:50.860 says, yes, this person committed murder, therefore, according to God's law, they should get the death

00:50:56.360 penalty. And it turns out that that witness was a false witness, then God says they should also

00:51:00.500 get the death penalty. That is how seriously God takes truth when we are talking about justice.

00:51:06.580 So you shall purge the evil from your midst, God says, and the rest shall hear in fear and shall

00:51:12.620 never again commit any such evil among you. Now, we know that when it comes to the gospel, that God's

00:51:20.720 justice was satisfied on Jesus Christ. And so we do not have to pay the debt that we owe because of our

00:51:28.740 sin. And we rejoice in that grace. Grace does exist. It is a part of the new covenant. And that

00:51:36.280 is wonderful. That does not mean that we do not punish wrongdoing. Romans 13, a part of the new

00:51:42.920 testament, is very clear that the servants of the Lord, the government is supposed to be a servant of

00:51:49.220 the Lord, that they do not bear the sword in vain, that they are supposed to execute justice to punish

00:51:53.940 the wrongdoer and to reward those who do good. That's what Romans 13 says. The new testament makes it

00:52:00.360 also very clear that God's judgment and therefore his definition of justice is impartial, as we've already

00:52:05.960 read a couple of times now. Acts 10, 34, Peter preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. So Peter

00:52:10.900 opened his mouth and said, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation,

00:52:17.080 anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. James 2, 8 through 9 says,

00:52:22.700 if you really fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

00:52:28.740 You are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law

00:52:35.780 as transgressors. And God doesn't like partiality. So when we only show outrage, when black people get

00:52:43.440 murdered by white people, when a police officer is unnecessarily brutal towards a black person and

00:52:51.000 not any other kind of murder and not any other kind of injustice, we are showing partiality. And God

00:52:56.620 says that is a sin, especially when it's based on a false premise. That means that our definition of

00:53:01.180 justice is not truthful. God also says that's a sin. So we have to make sure that our definition of

00:53:06.600 justice, the problems that we are pointing to, and the solutions that we are prescribing fit God's

00:53:12.080 definition of justice in relation to wrongdoing. God's justice is truthful. It is impartial. It is

00:53:19.320 proportionate. It is direct. And so should our definition of justice be. I've seen a lot of

00:53:26.060 evangelical leaders say lately, this just must be the talking point, the line that's going around.

00:53:31.420 I've seen it from Beth Moore to Tim Keller to a dozen other evangelical leaders. Because they

00:53:35.860 talked about biblical justice isn't Marxist. First of all, I think a lot of the people who are giving

00:53:40.860 this rebuke, they don't, I'm not saying this about Tim Keller, because I think he does know what

00:53:45.180 Marxism is. But I think a lot of people repeating this haven't even taken the time to look into what

00:53:49.600 Marxism is. We are not saying that talking about biblical justice is Marxist. We're saying that

00:53:55.400 Marxism is Marxist, and take care that your definition of justice is biblical and not Marxist.

00:54:02.360 A Marxist definition of so-called justice is not justice according to the Bible at all,

00:54:06.520 because it is the opposite of truthful, direct, improportional, and impartial.

00:54:10.800 It ascribes guilt and innocence based on whether you are part of the proletariat,

00:54:14.820 so the working class, or the bourgeois, the rich. And that can be, those terms can also just be

00:54:24.560 generally applied to the lens of the oppressed versus the oppressor. And remember, this worldview

00:54:29.940 of critical theory says that you are the side of the oppressor if you are white, whether or not

00:54:35.100 you've actually oppressed anyone. You are on the side of the oppressor if you are a straight,

00:54:39.860 cisgender male. You are on the side of the oppressed automatically if you are a black person.

00:54:44.820 If you are gay, if you are Muslim, if you are transgender, whatever it is, that is what

00:54:52.920 critical theory says. It is concerned with power dynamics. It splits people according to their

00:54:58.460 sexual, religious, racial characteristics into the oppressed versus the oppressor. And it assigns

00:55:05.560 guilt and innocence based on your group identity. That is a form of Marxism, who split people into the

00:55:13.380 oppressed versus the oppressor based on their socioeconomic class. Critical theory takes that

00:55:17.440 further to categorize people on oppressed versus oppressor based on things like skin color. When you

00:55:24.480 view the world in that way, you will automatically, automatically give into an unbiblical definition

00:55:31.400 of justice because God does not ascribe guilt or innocence based on someone's skin color, based on

00:55:37.280 the perception of oppression. And God does not categorize you as oppressed or oppressor based

00:55:44.300 on your immutable characteristics. And thank God for that. That is so anti-gospel. The reality is,

00:55:50.100 as I talked about with Monique on Friday, the reality is that there are only two categories.

00:55:55.460 You are dead in your sin or you're alive in Christ. And all of us who are alive in Christ are on equal

00:56:00.060 footing. Everyone who is dead in Christ is on equal footing. Now, does that mean that there is no

00:56:05.360 injustice or there's no inequality in the world and that we shouldn't care about those things?

00:56:09.220 No, Micah 6, 8 does tell us to do justice, to love mercy. And so, yes, we are supposed to do

00:56:16.040 justice, but our definition of justice, so many people quoting Micah 6, 8 that have no idea what

00:56:20.380 God's justice is. Our definition of justice is according to God's word. It is not this Marxist

00:56:25.860 definition of justice, which gives you guilt that is based on your skin color or immediately implicates

00:56:31.020 for having white privilege without even knowing what your station in life is, and who implicates

00:56:36.720 you for being fragile as a white person or being a bigot or perpetuating white supremacy as a white

00:56:44.480 person simply based on your skin color without any evidence of that. That goes directly against what

00:56:50.820 God calls justice. That is not truthful. That is not direct. What we're seeing, the consequence of that,

00:56:56.760 the riots that are going on, are not proportional, and it's certainly not impartial. So, Christian,

00:57:02.000 when you quote Micah 6, 8, and when you say biblical justice isn't Marxist, define. Define your terms.

00:57:08.240 Define justice. I have learned that that is kryptonite to critical theory. That is kryptonite to social

00:57:12.920 justice theology. Define your terms. Ask clarifying questions. What do you mean by blank? Like, that is the

00:57:21.860 most difficult question for social justicians to answer. What do you mean by justice? And really,

00:57:28.780 the better question is, what does God mean by justice? Marxism is not biblical justice. It is

00:57:34.480 all law and no gospel. There's nothing that you can do according to critical theory. There's nothing

00:57:40.700 that you can do as a white person to ever be exonerated of your guilt and of your complicity.

00:57:47.820 Thank God that that is not the case. There's so much freedom and liberation in the gospel,

00:57:51.880 and there's so much fairness and biblical justice. And so, I simply believe that the Bible has given

00:57:56.500 us all that we need for life and godliness, according to scripture. And I believe that the

00:58:01.740 Bible is everything that we need for justice and for loving mercy and for making sure that the least of

00:58:10.860 these in our society are treated fairly and equitably. I do think that that is a worthy cause to pursue.

00:58:16.700 But ensure that your definition of justice is God's and not Karl Marx's and not the world's.

00:58:23.860 Christian, if you have the same definition of justice, if you are a part of all the same causes

00:58:30.560 as all your atheists and agnostic friends, if you vote the same way, if you think the same way,

00:58:36.480 if you have the same view of a so-called racial justice and social justice as all your atheists

00:58:43.420 and agnostic friends, people who don't believe in God, people who don't believe that God created

00:58:47.900 the heavens and the earth and therefore has authority over all of it, who don't believe

00:58:50.980 human beings are made in the image of God, then you need to double check. You need to make sure

00:58:55.860 that your definition of the causes that you are fighting for align with God's heart, align with

00:59:02.260 the word of God. That is what I, that is what I encourage you to do. Get in your Bible and don't

00:59:08.900 read your Bible as a guidebook for socialism, as a guidebook for social justice. Don't read your Bible

00:59:17.080 with you in the center or the so-called oppressed in the center. Read your Bible with Jesus at the

00:59:22.400 center and say, what does this mean? Go into the context, study the history, study the original Greek

00:59:29.760 and Hebrew. Start in the book of John. Get you a big systematic theology book that helps you break

00:59:35.720 down theology and answer so many of your theological questions. GotQuestions.org, an amazing resource for

00:59:41.900 a lot of your theological questions. Make sure that your worldview is being shaped by the Bible and not

00:59:48.900 the world. If you look like and think like and are talking like and are posting on social media like

00:59:55.340 the rest of the world, all these people that you don't know God, that, that you know, don't know

01:00:00.160 God, then it is time for you to check your worldview. It could be that they are doing a better job of

01:00:04.720 evangelizing to you than the other way around. So it's time for you to make sure that your definition

01:00:10.680 of justice, that your worldview is truthful, that your definition of justice is impartial, that it is

01:00:16.800 proportional, that it is direct as God's is. You don't need Black Lives Matter or Marxism

01:00:23.080 to advance the cause of justice for people, as you can see, because it's actually leading to

01:00:27.700 injustice right now. It's actually leading to violence, as Marxism always does. The Bible is

01:00:32.600 sufficient. Speak up on behalf of real injustice, real victims of real oppression. Yes and amen. That

01:00:39.480 is what we are called to do. But be correct in naming the problem and biblical in prescribing the

01:00:45.700 solution. Right now we're seeing a lot of injustice. We're seeing that secular worldview take root

01:00:51.740 and fan itself into flames in Democrat led cities. These are not happening in Republican cities.

01:00:58.320 They are not happening where there are Republican leaders. Now, I personally think that Republicans

01:01:02.680 in Congress, most of them have been extremely weak on this. They have not been willing to say,

01:01:07.500 hey, we need to stop destroying property. We need to stop allowing violence. These organizations

01:01:13.200 very often are made up of domestic terrorists who want nothing more than anarchy. And this is a left

01:01:18.880 wing revolution, just like any left wing revolution that we've seen in the past 100 years that has led

01:01:23.140 to so much murder and oppression and starvation and poverty. Too many Republicans won't speak up

01:01:28.280 about that. They want to be quiet about it. They kind of want to acquiesce a little bit and they don't

01:01:32.440 want to get in trouble for it. But the fact of the matter is, is that this isn't happening in

01:01:36.740 Republican cities because Republicans have the backs of their police officers, good police officers.

01:01:42.280 Democrats don't. This is the leftist worldview that says, OK, as long as it's for the cause that

01:01:48.920 I want it to be for, as long as it aligns with my ideology, I'm going to let these people destroy

01:01:54.260 my cities. This is what Democrats have done to the detriment of law abiding people of all shades,

01:02:00.800 of all demographics, of all socioeconomic classes, violence, uproar. It's the cause of bad

01:02:06.900 liberal policies. It is the cause of weakness. It is caused by a leftist worldview. This is how,

01:02:15.240 like I've said, Marxism always ends up. Biden making a statement about Jacob Blake,

01:02:20.060 immediately saying that this is about systemic racism and that he is somehow going to uproot

01:02:25.060 systemic racism in our country. That raises the temperature in this country by assuming something

01:02:30.660 that we do not know that is not. It could be. It could be a cause. It could have been caused by

01:02:36.280 racism. Maybe this was a racist cop. Maybe there there was racial bias that we have evidence of.

01:02:42.520 And I think, you know, we can obviously talk about that if that is true and if we can find

01:02:47.680 evidence of that. But to assume that just raises the temperature and exacerbates tensions in the same

01:02:54.440 way that Obama did. It was the Obama DOJ, by the way, who said that George Zimmerman, who killed

01:03:00.400 Trayvon Martin, that there was no sufficient evidence to charge him, George Zimmerman was

01:03:07.200 acquitted of that. And that is actually why Black Lives Matter started, because they were not okay

01:03:11.680 with that conclusion when it was the Obama DOJ that actually said there was no further evidence to be

01:03:17.920 able to further charge him. And yet Biden and Obama always raising the temperature through their

01:03:24.900 rhetoric by racializing things that we do not know. We simply do not know are racial.

01:03:31.120 Something that I think is really good that the Trump administration has done, I will read you

01:03:35.840 from the DOJ website. Attorney General William Barr announced the launch of Operation Legend,

01:03:42.100 a sustained, systematic and coordinated law enforcement initiative across all federal law enforcement

01:03:47.520 agencies, working in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight the sudden

01:03:52.660 surge of violent crime beginning in Kansas City, Missouri. Operation Legend was created as a result

01:03:58.080 of President Trump's promise to assist America's cities that are plagued by recent violence. And by

01:04:01.740 the way, he has tried to do that. He has offered the National Guard. He has offered federal help to all of

01:04:07.040 these cities, and they have all turned him away. The media has helped him with this, has helped them

01:04:13.160 with this. These liberal politicians saying, oh, no, no, no, this is fascist. These are peaceful protests.

01:04:17.820 It's totally fine. There was a hilarious CNN chyron where the reporter was literally standing in front

01:04:24.080 of the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, that was burning down behind him. And the chyron CNN said, fiery,

01:04:31.080 but mostly peaceful protests. OK, if a protest is fiery, like if buildings are burning because of the

01:04:36.420 protest, it is not peaceful. But again, they are along the ride. They are they are supportive of this

01:04:43.840 ideology that leads to the clash that we are seeing now. Operation Legend, the DOJ goes on, is named after

01:04:51.380 four-year-old legend Talaferro, who was shot and killed while he slept early in the morning of June 29th

01:04:59.560 in Kansas City in the latest in a string of violence, the latest in a string of violence to plague Kansas City

01:05:06.240 in recent weeks. Kansas City has already reached 100 homicides this year, a 40 percent increase from last year.

01:05:13.500 This is happening in a majority in a large number of Democratic-led cities. It's not happening in

01:05:20.840 Republican-led cities. This is happening in Democrat-led cities where they have decided to pull

01:05:25.100 back the reins on their police in the name of social justice. Places like New York City, places like

01:05:30.140 Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Oakland, Austin, you are seeing crime rise in those cities because the

01:05:37.200 Democratic politicians have decided that they are going to tell their officers to stand down in the name

01:05:42.200 of social justice. As Thomas Sowell says, social justice is actually anti-social justice since what

01:05:47.620 is typically not considered is the cost to society. The DOJ goes on to say, President Trump has made

01:05:53.700 clear the federal government stands ready and willing to assist any of our state and local law enforcement

01:05:58.920 partners across the nation responding to violent crime. Operation Legend will combine federal and local

01:06:04.320 resources to combat the disturbing uptick in violence by surging federal agents and other federal assets

01:06:09.640 into cities like Kansas City, a city currently experiencing its worst homicide rate in its

01:06:14.420 history, said Attorney General Barr. The department's Operation Legend is named in honor of one of Kansas

01:06:19.980 City's youngest victims. As we just explained, it's a reminder that violent crime left unchecked is a

01:06:26.480 threat to us all and cannot be allowed to continue. As part of Operation Legend, Attorney General Barr

01:06:31.360 directed federal agents from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, DEA, and ATF to surge resources to Kansas

01:06:38.520 City in the coming weeks to help state and local officials fight the surge of violent crime. They

01:06:44.640 will be working alongside state and local law enforcement agencies. Department of Justice assets

01:06:48.960 will include over 100 FBI agents, U.S. Marshals, DEA agents, and ATF agents. In addition, Timothy A.

01:06:55.880 Garrison, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri will be surging additional resources from

01:07:03.080 his office to ensure he is able to handle an anticipated increase in prosecutions. And so

01:07:09.560 President Trump, they're doing what they can legally to help these cities. But this is a city-state-local

01:07:17.040 problem. And President Trump has tried to help, and I hope he continues to try to help. But there's only so

01:07:23.720 much he can do when Democrats say, no, no, no, I don't want you. And when you've got Democrats in

01:07:28.280 Congress, when you've got Democrats in the media who refuse to acknowledge that these cities are

01:07:33.920 being ravaged by violence because of left-wing policies, and in many cases because of left-wing

01:07:38.720 revolutionaries, they just refuse to say anything about it. Proverbs 28.5 says,

01:07:43.960 So let us understand justice. Let us, as Micah 6.8 says, do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with

01:08:08.240 our God. But let us know what justice looks like. It is truthful. We have to start with truthful

01:08:13.520 premises. We have to start with the truth. We have to start with facts or else we cannot have a

01:08:18.960 meaningful conversation that enacts meaningful change. Let us try as best as we can to make this

01:08:25.560 country align with our foundational values, which no matter what the revolutionaries tell you are good,

01:08:31.480 even if they have been imperfectly implemented in so many ways throughout our history. Liberty and

01:08:36.640 justice for all, equality under the law, endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights,

01:08:42.860 among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are good ideals upon which our

01:08:47.560 nation was founded, and we have gotten closer and closer to fully realizing them the longer we have

01:08:54.620 been around. And now we are trying to take steps back because of people who say that America has never

01:08:59.780 been good, that the ideals upon which we were founded are completely empty, that they're hollow,

01:09:03.920 that we have to go scorched earth and start over. Those people are dangerous. Those people are wrong.

01:09:09.620 Those people, as Proverbs 28, 5 says, are evil men who do not understand justice. And let us all set

01:09:17.620 ourselves apart as Christians, as people who seek the Lord, who understand justice completely. And let us

01:09:23.860 pray for wisdom. God calls wisdom a promise in the book of James. He also calls it a process in the book

01:09:30.020 Proverbs. That means we ask him for wisdom. He promises to give it without reproach, but we also

01:09:34.860 have to seek wisdom through his word, through our own research, through our study of history, as Proverbs

01:09:40.900 makes clear. And how awesome, through common grace, that he has given access to all of these things.

01:09:47.180 And so be diligent, Christian. Be diligent in all of these things. And let us pursue justice. Let us pursue

01:09:55.240 mercy in making sure that it aligns with God's definition of justice and mercy. We talk about all

01:10:01.500 of this, while part of this, we talk about real justice in my book, You're Not Enough and That's

01:10:06.560 Okay. And we really talk about the worldview that helps us get to the point of understanding what

01:10:13.120 biblical justice is. And that starts with removing ourselves from the center of our universe and no

01:10:18.860 longer bowing down to the God of self and instead bowing down to the God of Scripture. And that is

01:10:24.940 what I want for all of us. That is what I want for you. I'm praying for the writers. I'm praying for the

01:10:30.200 protesters, who the peaceful protesters obviously should not be conflated with the writers, but I'm

01:10:35.340 praying for both. I mean, I think it's similar to how Jesus felt when he looked out at the crowd

01:10:43.080 in the Gospels when he said that, when the Bible says that he felt compassion because they were like

01:10:48.700 sheep without a shepherd. I think that most of these people out there who are writing and looting,

01:10:53.840 they're like sheep without a shepherd. They are godless. Many of them, they're doing this because

01:10:59.400 they've actually never felt any love or identity or acceptance in their life. And they're trying to

01:11:04.240 find some kind of worth and purpose through this anarchy. This is the first time that they have felt

01:11:08.940 powerful and they need Jesus. And so I'm praying for calloused hearts to change. I'm praying for

01:11:15.160 justice to be better realized in our own justice system in the United States. And I just have to

01:11:21.720 trust that God is in control and that he is still using his church. But gosh, the church has to be

01:11:25.720 united, has to be united in biblical integrity and biblical definitions of things like truth and

01:11:31.300 justice. Okay. I know this is a long episode, but that's all I got. I will be back here on Wednesday.

01:11:38.940 I will be back here on Wednesday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 31, 2020

Ep 295 ｜ Trump vs. Biden 2020： Justice

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