Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 460 ｜ How Social Justice Activism Is Infecting The Church ｜ Guest： Dr. Voddie Baucham

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Today we are talking to Dr. Vody Bauckham. He

00:00:16.200 is the author of Fault Lines. Of course, he has written many books, and he has spoken

00:00:22.880 many places and worked many places within evangelicalism. And you guys, I'm sure, know

00:00:28.380 him well. The last episode that I did with him, almost a year ago probably, was one of

00:00:34.240 my most popular episodes ever, both on YouTube and listening. And so if that is any indication

00:00:40.380 to you of how good this interview that you are about to listen to is going to be, I don't

00:00:46.840 know, let that be your indication because he really is such an insightful and clarifying

00:00:50.820 and wise person, especially when it comes to the issues of social justice and racism that

00:00:56.540 are really just so controversial within the church today. So he's going to give us a lot

00:01:02.960 of his insight into that today. So without further ado, here is Dr. Vody Bauckham.

00:01:15.540 Dr. Bauckham, thank you so much for joining us again. Can you please tell everyone, this

00:01:22.160 is the pressing question that everyone's been asking me to ask you, and that is how you're

00:01:26.920 doing health-wise? Because the last time we were supposed to talk a few months ago, before

00:01:31.660 my maternity leave, you were having heart issues. And I know a lot of people in this audience

00:01:36.480 have been praying for you, you know, donated, have been thinking about you. So can you give

00:01:41.140 everyone an update? Yeah, I'm doing great. We ended up having to leave here and go to the Mayo

00:01:51.320 Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. And I had a couple of surgeries, a couple of heart procedures,

00:01:57.820 including open heart surgery. And everything went well. My heart is fixed. And I feel great. You know,

00:02:07.080 I'm back in the gym. I'm back doing everything that I was doing before. And yeah, no, I'm so

00:02:12.680 grateful for just all the encouragement and people's prayers and support. And it was really,

00:02:21.940 I mean, the only word I can use for it is overwhelming. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I am so thankful

00:02:27.160 for that. I mean, praise the Lord for health care, for how I know there were a lot of logistical

00:02:32.680 things that you guys were trying to figure out at the time. And so it really seemed like just the

00:02:38.460 Lord's sovereignty. He just had his hand over all of that and that whole process. But during this time,

00:02:43.560 you also had a book come out, Fault Lines, which I really want to talk about today. I know a lot of

00:02:49.760 people listening or watching have already read it. I think we're going to go through it with the

00:02:55.020 book club that I have on Facebook. Can you tell us first what this book is about and why you wrote it?

00:03:02.680 Yeah. Fault Lines is a book that I've been marinating on for a while and didn't want to

00:03:10.580 write, felt like I had to write. The subtitle is The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicals

00:03:18.720 Living Catastrophe. And I see the social justice movement, critical social justice, as a threat to

00:03:26.500 the gospel. I see much of what's happening in anti-racism as another gospel, which is no gospel

00:03:33.880 at all, because there is no forgiveness of sin in anti-racism. There is no redemption in anti-racism,

00:03:42.440 only perpetual penance. And so this book is really designed to help people understand what's been going

00:03:49.000 on, where this comes from, and what the consequences really are.

00:03:56.540 Yeah. And can you define some of those terms for us? You said, one, critical social justice. And like

00:04:02.920 you said, the subtitle is The Social Justice Movement. What do you mean by social justice and critical social

00:04:09.160 justice? Yeah. Well, in the book, what I try to do is outline the ideas of critical theory. And

00:04:18.520 really, critical theory is neo-Marxism. It comes to us from Marx via Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist,

00:04:27.980 and then the Frankfurt School. The Frankfurt School is where we really get the term, you know, critical

00:04:33.480 theory. And so there's a whole suite of ideologies and disciplines and fields that fall under that

00:04:45.180 umbrella. Critical race theory, critical pedagogy, feminist theory, queer theory, you know, all of

00:04:52.680 these things. And really, the critical social justice movement is sort of the practical outworking

00:05:01.840 of these ideologies. It's built on the premise of equity, not equality. Equity is about getting equal

00:05:13.160 outcomes, not equal opportunities. It's based on the faulty premise that all things being equal,

00:05:20.920 people from various ethnic and racial groups ought to have identical outcomes. And if they don't have 0.79

00:05:29.180 identical outcomes, if they have disparate outcomes, then the only explanation for that, when it is to

00:05:35.220 the disadvantage of non-white people, is discrimination, is racism. So critical social justice is the effort to

00:05:48.420 rectify those inequities through redistribution, redistribution of resources, redistribution,

00:05:58.360 redistribution of wealth, redistribution of opportunities, and really redistribution of power. Because critical

00:06:06.800 theory really sees the world in terms of power structures and power struggles, power inequities. It separates the world

00:06:17.960 between oppressors, and those whom they oppress, and really sees the struggle within a society as this struggle. It's a real, that's I mean, that's the core of Marxism. He's doing it, doing it on an economic level. But neo Marxism, critical theory, looks at it from a social level.

00:06:41.820 Right. And I want to take a note, I want to make a note on equity, you talked about how equity,

00:06:49.500 instead of equality, instead of equality means equal outcomes. Real equity, that is how critical social justice advocates define equity. Real equity is the equal application of the law. But critical social justice advocates have subverted it. They have changed the meaning to mean, and Kamala Harris actually said this in a video the day before the election back in November,

00:07:15.000 she had a video that came out that said equity is everyone ends up in the same place. Well, that's not the real original definition of equity, but they've changed that definition to mean equality of outcomes, which is why we say that something like critical race theory does have Marxist roots, and people get very angry about that. People have, you know, they say it has nothing to do with Marxism, or you hear a lot of people within evangelicalism say, well,

00:07:42.020 I'm not a Marxist, or I don't believe in Marxism, or I don't believe in critical race theory. And yet, you give a lot of very concrete examples of the outworking of CRT, and what you're calling neo Marxism, within evangelicalism. I mean, you talk about Anthony Bradley, you talk about David Platt, you talk about Tim Keller. These are all people who consider themselves conservatives. So can you talk about, you know, some of those specifics that you include in the book,

00:08:11.820 why you decided to go ahead and just kind of name these people and give examples, because I imagine you got some pushback about that.

00:08:19.740 Yeah, in the end, I did it because it would have been cowardly and unclear not to. If I'm writing a book and saying we have a real problem in evangelicalism, and I'm saying that this stuff is creeping into evangelicalism. And again, in the book, I make it clear that it's creeping in in different ways. For some people, they've gone whole hog, right? They are critical social justice warriors, if you will.

00:08:48.500 But for other people, they haven't gone that far. They're sympathetic to these movements, and they use the language of these movements. And for another group, there are people who are really just ignorant of what's going on.

00:09:05.140 But if I said that there was an issue and didn't name names, then the critique would have been, well, he says it's there, but he doesn't show how it's there.

00:09:16.600 So it was necessary to do that. The other reason I did that is because the Scripture gives us both examples of naming names and a mandate, I believe, to name names.

00:09:29.540 Paul in 2 Timothy names names in at least three different places. And my favorite is when he talks about Alexander the coppersmith who did him great harm, you know, as though he wants to be really clear about which Alexander it was.

00:09:44.940 But then in Titus 1.9, you know, as an elder, as a minister of the gospel, I'm called to hold firm to the trustworthy word so that I can exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict.

00:09:59.940 Not just refute unsound doctrine, but refute those people who contradict sound doctrine.

00:10:10.200 So, you know, we both have, we have an example, or multiple examples, I should say, and we also have, I believe, a mandate to do that.

00:10:20.760 One of the reasons people have a problem with it is because, really, to be quite honest, modern Christianity is so effeminate. 0.99

00:10:29.940 We, you know, the 11th commandment is thou shalt be nice, and we don't believe the other 10.

00:10:36.380 And anytime you do something that is as, you know, forceful, forthright, madly, if you will, there's always this kind of response to it.

00:10:50.100 And the thing that amazes me is that people are more offended by me naming people's names than they are about this wretched ideology running roughshod in evangelicalism.

00:11:04.260 And, you know, you say that that's the 11th commandment for a lot of people, thou shalt be nice, and yet you do have a segment that I really agree with because I see it so prevalently on the side of people who profess to be, you know, Christian social justice advocates, whatever, is you talk about a lack of clarity and a lack of charity.

00:11:27.460 And I see a lot of people on that side who say that they don't want to have a debate, they don't want to have a discussion because they would maybe accuse someone like you or maybe someone like me of, you know, wanting to not being, not doing this in good faith, of maybe being dishonest.

00:11:45.460 Dishonest, and so we're just not worth the time, we're not worth the discussion.

00:11:52.080 And then they will applaud when someone on the other side who opposes the social justice theology is dissed or is taken down or is, you know, ridiculed in some way. 0.95

00:12:05.660 I'm thinking of when Charlie dates, he called Virgil Walker Uncle Ruckus, which is, you know, a character from a cartoon who thinks that he's white.

00:12:14.540 It's, you know, another way of calling him an Uncle Tom.

00:12:17.440 I mean, person after person underneath, prominent Christians who would call themselves theologically conservative underneath, applauding it, saying, yeah, Charlie dates, you get them, you say it.

00:12:30.500 I mean, talk about a lack of charity.

00:12:32.780 And then those are the same people who would say someone like you, that you're stirring the pot, that you're aggressive, that you're the divisive one.

00:12:40.580 I mean, what's that called?

00:12:43.000 So why is that?

00:12:44.240 Like, why is it, how do we reconcile that, that simultaneously the same people who are constantly calling for empathy and niceness and sensitivity and not to offend people have no problem offending someone like you,

00:12:57.880 or slandering you or someone who represents the arguments that you and I both represent?

00:13:06.520 Yeah.

00:13:07.540 Part of that is this ideology.

00:13:10.720 When you accept this ideology, you see people as oppressors.

00:13:16.280 You see the whole world.

00:13:17.500 You see all of American history and all of American society as about this wicked, evil oppression of people, this hegemonic oppression, to use Gramsci's terminology.

00:13:31.060 And if that's the case, then they see it as acceptable to lash out against such overt evil, which is, I mean, it's quite ironic because, you know, one of the reasons that we do what we do is because we believe that, you know, this ideology is a pernicious ideology.

00:13:57.060 But we're attacking the ideology, not individuals.

00:14:03.300 And that's why even when I name people's names, I try to do it in as gracious a way as possible.

00:14:09.680 It wasn't about attacking people, especially since a lot of these people were my friends and some of them my mentors.

00:14:19.040 Right.

00:14:19.800 And that can be it can be really difficult, I think, to strike that balance.

00:14:24.360 And I do want to make sure that people who believe the things that you and I believe that, of course, we're not just throwing around the word Marxist or calling anyone who talks about race and racism a Marxist.

00:14:37.300 And that's not what we're doing.

00:14:38.880 That's often what we're accused of doing.

00:14:40.720 But can you help people who are trying to draw that line and make that differentiation?

00:14:46.620 Like, how do we talk about race and racism and true biblical justice in a way that is God-glorifying versus the way that is God-less?

00:14:58.780 I think it starts with definitions.

00:15:00.700 And this is the rub, right?

00:15:06.420 Critical social justice starts from this presupposition of oppressor oppressed.

00:15:15.080 It starts with that paradigm.

00:15:17.140 It starts with this idea of hegemonic power and the idea that people are oppressed by the hegemonic power.

00:15:24.380 They're oppressed by the ideology that's been imposed on the culture by this hegemonic power.

00:15:32.900 And because of that, that's why they talk about things like structural racism and systemic racism, right?

00:15:40.620 They take it out of the individual heart and locate it in the broader society.

00:15:48.860 And so, once that's done, we're having two different conversations.

00:15:54.040 When you and I talk about race and ethnicity and racism, first of all, we understand that there is one race, maybe two, if you look at the race of the first atom and the race of the last atom.

00:16:05.640 But secondly, we understand that ethnic pride, prejudice, you know, classic racism is about the heart.

00:16:14.940 It is about demeaning individuals because we value them less than ourselves.

00:16:24.180 And if we're having a conversation, and I'm talking about the heart, and you're talking about governmental structures, then we're missing each other.

00:16:33.880 And so, one of the things that we need to do is we need to clarify our terms.

00:16:39.560 And, I mean, that's what I'm trying to do in Fault Lines.

00:16:41.680 I'm trying to clarify terms.

00:16:43.060 I'm trying to sort of lay these things out so that we can be clear about what we're talking about and then have an honest discussion, debate, whatever you want to have once we've clarified our terms.

00:16:58.180 Yeah, and that's the thing that I loved the most about your book.

00:17:01.200 One, it's very readable.

00:17:02.400 It was also very interesting in the beginning just to hear about your story, especially within the SBC and your personal experiences.

00:17:09.720 They really differ from a lot of the accusations that we hear about the SBC.

00:17:16.880 Obviously, you outlined differences that you guys ended up having.

00:17:20.880 But there's a lot of accusations of deep racism and white supremacy, McCarthyism, of course, within the SBC.

00:17:28.960 What do you make of some of the drama that we've seen and some of the allegations that we are hearing leveled against the SBC of just being this kind of racist, white supremacist entity?

00:17:41.960 Those things are simply not true.

00:17:53.200 And a lot of the individuals who are making those accusations are individuals who are dishonest and have been dishonest for a long time.

00:18:04.060 They're race hustlers. 0.80

00:18:05.180 They're race hustlers within the SBC.

00:18:07.020 And they stay within the SBC because the race hustle is good, you know, for them. 0.98

00:18:13.780 But there's nothing that you can point to in the SBC that says, you know, this is a racist, white supremacist entity.

00:18:22.700 The other important point is that the SBC is a convention of confessing free churches.

00:18:27.920 There are, I believe, 47,000 churches that make up the Southern Baptist Convention.

00:18:33.920 There is no top-down authority over local churches in the Southern Baptist Convention.

00:18:39.920 So for that reason also, it's disingenuous to talk about the organization and the entity as this racist organization or entity because structurally, that's not even possible.

00:18:52.680 Yeah, it's—yeah, that's true.

00:18:54.860 I think that's a really good point.

00:18:56.580 And I guess that's part of having that collectivist mindset that something like critical social justice gives you is that you don't view people as individuals.

00:19:05.940 You view them as part of a group.

00:19:07.700 And it's so easy to just lump all white evangelicals, which you think is represented by the SBC on the side of the oppressor, and just say, well, that's what it is, without, you know, looking at what you just said, that it's not really this cohesive hierarchy, that there are churches that make their own decisions.

00:19:26.180 They're preachers who preach what they're going to preach, and so to say that the entity as a whole is some white supremacist entity just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

00:19:35.120 But nevertheless, there are people who talk a lot about the historic racism of just white Christianity or the white church.

00:19:43.500 Jamar Tisby, you talk about this in your book.

00:19:46.660 I've had a lot of people say, you know, is there anything to that, and what do we do?

00:19:52.420 What do we do about the fact that, you know, parts of the white church didn't stand up for civil rights in the 1960s?

00:19:58.080 Like, do we rectify that, reparations, whatever it is, or we hear that there has to be some racial reckoning within the white church?

00:20:05.860 What does that mean?

00:20:07.160 And what do well-meaning people who want reconciliation do with all of that?

00:20:15.080 Reconciliation is something that Christ has done.

00:20:19.460 It's something that He has accomplished.

00:20:22.160 It is a finished work.

00:20:23.580 We are reconciled through Christ, because of Christ.

00:20:28.420 We're reconciled to God, and we're reconciled to one another.

00:20:31.060 Beyond that, when we sin against each other, right, when we offend one another, we repent.

00:20:43.420 And we repent because of that reconciliation that Christ has brought.

00:20:47.900 Now, what people are talking about here is the only way you get there is you go from talking about individuals to this racial essentialism that says white people, by virtue of their whiteness, are part of, you know, part of the Borg, you know, to use a sci-fi term, right?

00:21:15.300 All white people, by virtue of their whiteness, are part of this entity that we call the white church and that we call, you know, white America, and are as guilty right here, right now, today, as an individual who was involved in a lynching or who owned slaves. 0.75

00:21:35.280 And you just can't get there from here. 0.86

00:21:40.420 Is it true that America has a very, you know, colored and sinful past as it relates to race? 1.00

00:21:52.520 Well, of course it is.

00:21:54.660 You know, every multi-ethnic country in the world has that.

00:22:00.240 Is it true that in that context that many, you know, people, many Christians, many, you know, evangelicals, if you will, participate in that?

00:22:11.380 Yeah, it's true that those people participated in that.

00:22:15.960 And to the degree that there's anyone around who participated in that, then they should repent. 0.91

00:22:22.760 But the idea that you can collectivize that to where, you know, everybody who has white skin is now, you know, carrying that guilt, that's absolutely ridiculous. 0.96

00:22:37.200 That dog won't hunt. 0.99

00:22:38.540 Yeah.

00:22:39.000 That's just, that's just not biblical.

00:22:41.020 There was an article, I don't know if you saw David, David French put out an article about kind of some of the division that's going on within David Platt's church.

00:23:00.180 We talked about it yesterday on this podcast where David French, who has been a very influential conservative voice for a long time, basically said, look, structural systemic racism is not woke.

00:23:11.980 It's just a fact.

00:23:13.860 And he said, you know, David Platt is right on this because David Platt said it makes a difference if you're white or black in this country. 0.99

00:23:22.120 These disparities exist.

00:23:23.920 David French points to these different disparities between media and income.

00:23:27.660 And he talks about redlining and all the different, you know, actually systemic racist laws that existed and how they still have an effect today.

00:23:38.220 And a lot of people look at that and they say, OK, well, that does seem like a problem.

00:23:42.140 Like there are these really big gaps between white America and black America when it comes to various factors of success.

00:23:48.920 What do we do about that?

00:23:51.120 How do we close those gaps is the question that I'm hearing a lot from even conservative Christians.

00:23:55.800 What's your what's your response to that?

00:24:00.280 Well, the first thing we have to do is reject the idea that disparities can only exist as a result of discrimination.

00:24:11.640 Right.

00:24:12.120 That's crazy.

00:24:13.440 And it's not true.

00:24:15.340 You know, for example, and one of the things people hate, they hate when you start talking about out of woodlock birth rates.

00:24:21.840 Right.

00:24:22.860 Because the fact of the matter is growing up without a father makes you several times more likely to be poor.

00:24:30.140 I think five times more likely to be poor, you know, and nine times or 10 times more likely to drop out of school.

00:24:37.640 You know, something like 20 times more likely to be incarcerated.

00:24:41.200 I mean, we know this for a fact.

00:24:44.060 Right.

00:24:44.640 That's a disparity.

00:24:46.340 There's there's disparities between people who have two parents and people who don't.

00:24:51.220 Now, in the black community, more than 70 percent of children are born out of wedlock.

00:24:58.940 So we would expect that there would be disparities at just as a result of that.

00:25:06.580 Now, is am I saying that that's the only reason that there are disparities?

00:25:13.340 No, I'm not saying that that's the only reason that there are disparities.

00:25:16.620 Another reason for disparities is median age.

00:25:19.880 Right.

00:25:20.100 People's income goes up as they age.

00:25:23.120 The median age of white people is like a decade older than the median age of black people.

00:25:28.360 Am I saying that that's the only explanation for disparities?

00:25:32.980 No, I'm not.

00:25:34.400 But what I am saying is just like it would be wrong to point to one of those things as the explanation for disparities.

00:25:43.600 It's also wrong to point to the idea of lingering institutional, lingering structural, lingering systemic racism, because that's what they're talking about.

00:25:55.440 Right.

00:25:55.620 Like redlining is, you know, has been illegal for three, four decades.

00:26:02.980 You know, Jim Crow's been gone since before I was born.

00:26:07.420 These these things are not on the books.

00:26:09.460 Not only that, but there are dozens of federal agencies designed to monitor these issues.

00:26:16.460 Affirmative action is still in place.

00:26:19.020 You know, racial preferences for people, you know, going to colleges and whatnot. 0.93

00:26:23.140 So the idea that you can point to racism as this sort of univariate, you know, reason for the disparities between people is absolutely ridiculous.

00:26:38.040 And it only you only you can only do that if you accept these premises of the critical social justice movement.

00:26:47.600 If you accept the assumption of the oppressor, oppressed paradigm, if you accept the assumption of the reality of hegemonic oppression, if you accept that assumption, then you view everything through that lens.

00:27:03.780 Yeah.

00:27:04.780 And it's it's unbiblical.

00:27:06.780 It's absolutely unbiblical. 0.94

00:27:08.780 I've often said to people, right, you show me the law.

00:27:12.020 You show me the system that exists today that that is racist.

00:27:17.900 And I mean, I'm with you.

00:27:20.100 Let's go.

00:27:20.920 Let's go get it right now.

00:27:22.940 But all people point to is things that are 40, 50, 60 years old to argue for their their lingering effect.

00:27:32.260 Yes. And I think or they will change the definition of racist to do the whole Ibram X.

00:27:40.920 Kendi sleight of hand, which is racist is not malintent.

00:27:45.940 It's not it's not any intent at all.

00:27:48.740 A law can be racist, Ibram X.

00:27:50.340 Kendi would say.

00:27:50.980 And as you said in your book, not because it intends to be racist, but if its impact is so-called racist.

00:27:57.520 And so if there is a law that he says create some kind of racial disparity, then that law is racist, whether or not it intends to be that.

00:28:06.460 That is what the dissent in the Supreme Court recently said when it comes to, for example, like voter ID laws. 0.96

00:28:14.540 If that happens to have a disparate impact on black Americans, then that law is racist, even if the intent wasn't racist, which is ridiculous.

00:28:22.280 Like you said, that is not actually that's not actually biblical.

00:28:26.580 And as you have argued, there are a lot of different reasons for various disparities in the same way that the fact that the Asian median income is so much higher than the white median income doesn't mean the Asians are discriminating against white people.

00:28:41.220 But if you bring that up, which I have in conversation with a lot of these people, you're just dismissed as, well, that's a model minority myth, which is a tenet of CRT.

00:28:50.260 It's in one of the books about CRT.

00:28:53.460 And so you're not even allowed to bring that up.

00:28:55.960 Or if you bring up, OK, well, here's another.

00:28:57.900 And it has to be.

00:28:59.120 Go ahead.

00:28:59.780 And it has to be in there because it obliterates the argument.

00:29:04.020 By the way, so do first generation Nigerians.

00:29:07.020 First generation Nigerians do better than white people as well. 0.51

00:29:10.140 And so not, you know, not to mention, you know, other black people.

00:29:15.200 But one of the things we don't want to talk about the fact that when it comes to the number of hours that people dedicate to their homework, you know, you look at Asians and everybody's in their dust. 1.00

00:29:30.960 You know, white people, black people, you know, so on and so forth.

00:29:35.460 Attitudes toward education.

00:29:37.780 You know, these things matter.

00:29:40.680 These things are important.

00:29:42.420 But here's the other issue, though.

00:29:44.900 The other issue is, OK, if there are these structures out there, if there are these these laws out there and nobody's pointed them out to me.

00:29:54.920 But but but if there are these laws out there, then what am I supposed to do?

00:30:04.340 And I ask that question because a lot of the people who are now working toward anti-racism and wanting to deal with structural racism, all of a sudden, these people who used to talk about, you know, theonomists like something on the bottom of their shoe have become theonomists.

00:30:28.720 You know, all of a sudden, you know, these people who have accused even me, you know, being too political.

00:30:35.520 I remember in 2008 when, you know, I was talking about Barack Obama and his Marxist ideologies and whatnot.

00:30:44.100 All of a sudden, these people were like, you know, you shouldn't be involved in in in politics like this.

00:30:51.260 Right. Now, some of these same people are arguing for anti-racism, which is at its core political activism.

00:31:01.500 And now we're saying that it's, you know, it's it's gospel work.

00:31:05.520 Right. But ultimately, it's political activism, plain and simple.

00:31:10.720 Yep. And well, first, I want you to explain for those who don't know, what is a theonomist?

00:31:16.720 How do you see these people becoming the very thing they used to hate?

00:31:21.260 Yeah. Well, theonomists are individuals who believe that the law of God ought to be applied in the civil realm.

00:31:31.240 Right.

00:31:32.640 You know, to the same degree and in many of the same ways that it's applied in other realms.

00:31:39.900 So, like, you know, the church and the family, for say.

00:31:42.320 Right. And again, at one level, I believe all Christians are theonomists. 1.00

00:31:50.140 Right. But when we're talking about theonomists, we're talking about individuals who really want to impose and act, you know, sort of Levitical and Deuteronomic laws.

00:32:04.240 It's within the context of our culture or other cultures on really kind of a one to one basis.

00:32:15.840 Right. And the social justice side, like they would call someone like that a Christian nationalist or they would say that that is wrong.

00:32:26.280 And yet, like, because those are the same people that say the people who are anti-theonomy and things like that, which I'm not, I would not call myself a theonomist.

00:32:35.700 But they are separation of church and state when it comes to things like abortion or when it comes to things like marriage.

00:32:41.960 And yet they think some of these people, not all of them, but definitely people who profess to be progressive Christians think that Jesus's command to give all you have to the poor should absolutely be applied to everyone.

00:32:54.780 And that that's an endorsement of socialism and would 100% apply what they see as the right version of Micah 6-8 on the country as law in the form of reparations or the redistribution of wealth.

00:33:10.320 So that's how you see the same people who say anti-Christian nationalism.

00:33:14.880 We don't believe that Christians should be able to influence laws at all. 1.00

00:33:17.880 You crazy conservatives, they're coming along and they've got their progressive interpretation of Scripture.

00:33:23.960 And they absolutely believe that that social justice interpretation of Scripture should influence laws. 0.81

00:33:32.080 And so they don't believe in the separation of church and state when it comes to their version of what justice is.

00:33:38.240 Is that what you're kind of talking about?

00:33:40.440 Yeah, absolutely. 0.99

00:33:41.840 It's completely hypocritical. 0.62

00:33:43.520 And it's amazing because, you know, some of these same people have argued against this sort of cultural transformation. 0.89

00:33:55.720 They've argued against the idea that, you know, we would apply the gospel, you know, and apply the law more broadly than just being about, you know, the salvation of souls.

00:34:09.500 And some of these people now are making arguments to apply the law of God in a much broader sense to political issues like the ones that you mentioned, like the idea of reparations, for example.

00:34:29.420 People, you know, they want to go to Old Testament texts, Old Covenant texts and bring those texts in and say, you know, we need to do this in American law, just like we find it here in this Old Covenant text.

00:34:45.380 And I just I find it fascinating because some of these same people, you know, were pointing at me not that long ago saying that, you know, you know, I was I was I was I was too much into into politics and too much into, you know, fighting cultural wars and, you know, dealing with these things outside of the church.

00:35:11.800 Yep. And we got a lot of cultural warriors now. And two points on that.

00:35:17.420 One, that was one thing that David French said in his article.

00:35:20.200 He used an example of David asking for mercy from the from the consequences of sins that had been committed by past Israelites. 0.64

00:35:27.280 And he used that as a precedent for us today, you know, repenting for sins of our past of, you know, the sins that our ancestors committed and things like that.

00:35:38.200 Obviously, we believe that there are consequences for generational sin.

00:35:42.640 However, I see this a lot that, you know, like you said, the idea of reparations or repenting for something that my so-called ancestors did the same way Israel did without recognizing or pointing out that one America is not modern day Israel.

00:35:59.580 When David is talking about his ancestors or Daniel or any of the people in the Old Testament asking for mercy from the sins of, you know, their ancestors, they're talking about actual ancestors. 0.52

00:36:09.780 They're not talking about like when I say, oh, and when any white person in America says, oh, my ancestors owned slaves, they really just mean some white American sometime 200 years ago.

00:36:21.020 They have no idea if their ancestors actually committed or owned slaves.

00:36:24.240 I have no idea if my ancestors did.

00:36:27.700 And so, listen, I have no idea if my ancestors did.

00:36:30.880 Right.

00:36:31.980 Because, you know, there's a possibility that my ancestors did, too.

00:36:35.860 Right.

00:36:36.320 Well, that's one thing for sure that we're not allowed to talk about.

00:36:40.540 I was actually I was looking at a terrible story this morning about I think it was like 3,400 Nigerian Christians who have been terrorized and hacked to death in the past few months by radical Nigerian Islamists there.

00:36:53.320 That kind of thing, I know, you know, is happening all the time.

00:36:58.800 Intraracial, if you want to use that term, injustice, that apparently we're just supposed to turn a blind eye to because of this myopic sense of the world that it's white versus black, white oppressors versus black oppressed.

00:37:12.180 Do you see the consequences of that, of our compassion becoming too narrow along white, black lines that we turn a blind eye to other things? 0.67

00:37:24.120 Absolutely, I do.

00:37:25.300 And not only that, but even when you look at it in church, and I think I wrote about this in 2004, my first book.

00:37:31.400 But, you know, we start talking about reconciliation and we start talking about, you know, caring about the other.

00:37:39.900 Before coming to Lusaka, I was in Houston, Texas.

00:37:43.060 Houston is the most ethnically diverse city in America.

00:37:45.680 Not L.A., not New York, Houston.

00:37:49.140 And it would be interesting and funny to me when pastors who would have a church that was, you know, 60-40 black-white would, you know, break their arm patting themselves on the back because they had this, you know, diverse church and they're seeing this picture of the kingdom.

00:38:04.260 When, you know, within 10 miles of their church, there's, you know, 70 different ethnic groups that aren't represented in their church.

00:38:14.900 And we don't care anymore about those 70 other ethnic groups. 0.99

00:38:20.380 But to go back to what you were talking about before, this point about, you know, corporate guilt and how we respond corporately to guilt.

00:38:31.480 I'd say that we've done that.

00:38:34.260 I'd say that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were acts of repentance.

00:38:42.800 I'd say that the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and, you know, so on and so forth.

00:38:48.540 I'd say that those were acknowledgments of wrong.

00:38:52.860 Those were acknowledgments of sin.

00:38:57.060 And I think they were appropriate.

00:38:59.920 You know, people like to point back to, you know, what happened with the Japanese after World War II.

00:39:07.780 And they'll say, well, if you think that was appropriate, then you think, you know, there ought to be reparations for people.

00:39:13.720 Well, no, because those reparations were paid directly to the individuals who were wronged.

00:39:23.720 You'd be hard-pressed right now to actually be able to pinpoint who are the actual descendants of people who were wronged in slavery.

00:39:37.000 And what people are arguing is not for doing that.

00:39:40.120 They're not arguing that we should do DNA testing or whatever else.

00:39:44.660 What they're arguing is we look at the pigmentation of people's skin.

00:39:49.500 And, again, this is racial essentialism, right? 0.67

00:39:52.760 We look at the pigmentation of people's skin and then we make the determination there.

00:39:59.020 Which, I mean, that becomes dicey.

00:40:02.680 You know, what do you do with bi-ethnic people? 0.79

00:40:04.760 Yeah.

00:40:05.320 Does Barack Obama get a check or does he cut one?

00:40:08.100 Right.

00:40:18.720 Well, there are a lot of different problems.

00:40:20.360 That goes back to also what you said, that there were Black Americans who also owned slaves.

00:40:25.000 There were Native Americans who owned slaves.

00:40:28.060 There are Black people here today whose ancestors weren't even here at the time of slavery.

00:40:32.540 There are white people here today whose ancestors weren't here at the time of slavery.

00:40:35.740 So how do we do that math?

00:40:37.520 But I think how they get around that is this narrative that we hear.

00:40:41.200 And you talk a lot about narrative in your book that even the whole idea of systemic racism,

00:40:45.260 and people get mad when I say this, but Derek Bell, they admit this kind of thing.

00:40:50.680 Richard Delgado, it is based on a narrative view of the world, not necessarily historical facts.

00:40:57.700 They do sprinkle facts in to support the premise that America was, you know, based and founded on white supremacy.

00:41:05.520 But it is a form of narrative persuasion, not fact-based persuasion.

00:41:11.620 People get really mad when I say that, but it's true. 1.00

00:41:15.260 And that's one of the key tenets of critical race theory, right?

00:41:19.980 Right.

00:41:20.160 That idea of narrative and counter-narrative being the means through which we access truth, right?

00:41:30.240 Or determine truth.

00:41:32.300 You know, and I sort of outlined that.

00:41:34.380 And I let, you know, Delgado and others, you know, speak for themselves in the book in giving those tenets of critical race theory, which really come to us from, you know, its grandfather critical theory.

00:41:47.540 Yeah.

00:41:47.740 But yeah, and here's the other thing, because it's narrative-based, right?

00:41:53.340 We say what's true about America, the 1619 projects, for example, if you really want to know what America is based on, you don't look at the documents that were written.

00:42:06.600 You go back, not to 1776, you go back to 1619, and you talk about something, you know, incidental, like, you know, that's, you know, when slaves came to America in 1619.

00:42:22.600 And you say, that is what America is really about.

00:42:28.920 Like, don't believe what they wrote.

00:42:33.320 Don't believe the systems that were established based on what they wrote.

00:42:40.240 Believe instead the narrative, right?

00:42:44.080 Because we got nothing but the narrative that says that what they were really doing this for was something else.

00:42:51.440 And here's what's crazy about that.

00:42:54.740 What's crazy about that is you'd have to believe that people had to come to America in order to have slaves, which means you'd have to ignore that virtually every culture in the history of the world had slaves.

00:43:13.880 Yeah.

00:43:14.660 And many still do, by the way.

00:43:16.760 There's more slaves in the world today than there were at the height of American slavery.

00:43:21.440 You just let that sink in for a minute, you know, and most of them in the Arab world. 0.99

00:43:27.760 But the idea that Americans needed to, or that, you know, British at that time, and that's another issue, right?

00:43:38.080 Because if you're talking about what happened in 1619, that wasn't America.

00:43:43.600 But I digress.

00:43:46.080 No, yeah.

00:43:47.800 Go ahead.

00:43:48.940 Yeah.

00:43:49.440 That was Great Britain.

00:43:50.820 Those people weren't America. 0.61

00:43:52.420 There were no Americans at that time.

00:43:54.500 The United States of America didn't exist.

00:43:56.520 So anything before, you know, 1776 or 1787, you can't call America.

00:44:04.380 And so, again, the way that we're doing history is about narrative.

00:44:12.220 It's about forwarding a narrative.

00:44:14.260 Don't look at the documents.

00:44:16.240 Don't look at the laws.

00:44:17.860 Look at the narrative.

00:44:18.720 Yeah.

00:44:19.640 And there's enough, you know, there's enough truth sprinkled in to, I think, make it believable.

00:44:25.700 For example, kind of going back to, well, how do we square the whole reparations thing when there's so much math that just doesn't seem to add up?

00:44:32.160 The narrative that we hear is that there is an unbroken legacy of slavery from 1619 to today that went from slavery to Jim Crow and then to mass incarceration.

00:44:44.080 That's what we hear today is like the new form of slavery.

00:44:48.260 We saw on the 4th of July, Representative Cori Bush said Black people aren't really free today.

00:44:52.600 And so there are people who really believe that basically slavery is still happening and therefore every black person does deserve a check from a white person because just by nature of being on the side of the oppressor and the side of the oppressed, you know, they would say I'm upholding probably even you are upholding these racist systems.

00:45:12.020 And therefore I owe the people who have been victims of that racist system, whether or not they actually have ancestors who were slaves.

00:45:21.440 And so that's how they get around that.

00:45:23.040 But you talk about in your book, I've talked about many times, Thomas Sowell busts that narrative time and again of this unbroken thread of oppression.

00:45:32.380 Can you talk about that?

00:45:33.300 Yeah, Sowell and others kill it because what they show is this dramatic improvement in the lives of black people after slavery up until in the first hundred years, for example, after slavery.

00:45:49.980 A lot of the things that we see now are far worse today than they were in those hundred years after slavery.

00:46:00.140 You know, for example, back then it was, you know, highly unusual.

00:46:03.840 Less than 20 percent of, you know, black children would have been born out of wedlock back then, you know, compared to now.

00:46:10.320 There were times during that hundred year period, large swaths of that hundred year period where employment rates were higher among blacks than there were among whites, for example.

00:46:21.260 And so as bad as things were, when there's, you know, actual, real, in-your-face racism, you know, many of the things that we blame on systemic and structural racism today were actually better than what we're seeing now.

00:46:42.000 And so, you know, Sowell's work, and you notice a lot of people don't talk about Sowell.

00:46:49.440 Of course.

00:46:50.060 They don't deal, they don't deal with Sowell.

00:46:52.520 They don't, they don't, you know, they, they, they want people to ignore Thomas Sowell and the incredible work that he's done.

00:47:01.380 But, you know, I don't intend to let him.

00:47:05.760 Yeah, I mean, he's not narrative driven.

00:47:08.520 He's facts driven.

00:47:09.540 And so reading his books is not necessarily as exciting or sometimes as compelling as reading, you know, maybe Nicole Hannah-Jones or someone like that.

00:47:19.440 It's not narrative driven.

00:47:21.720 He looks at the data, even the data that might not seem to support some kind of conservative conclusion.

00:47:28.100 Like, he is not afraid, he's not, he's not afraid to talk about that.

00:47:32.120 And he talks about, of course, he believes, and this is a theory, and I think you would acknowledge this, that it's really the welfare state that started in the 1960s, that started to create some of the disparities that we're seeing today.

00:47:42.660 But it's also this whole narrative of the reason disparities exist is only because of the legacy of slavery from 1619 on is also disrupted by the fact that you see in the 1960s that the white fatherlessness rate goes up at the exact same rate.

00:47:59.480 Not the exact same numbers, but the exact same rate at the black fatherlessness rate. 0.59

00:48:04.640 So if the black fatherlessness rate, which is what we hear is because of mass incarceration and the war on drugs that targeted specifically black people, then why is it that from the 1960s on, we also see the white fatherlessness rate go up at the same, go up at the same rate?

00:48:21.540 Again, still there's a disparity there, but there are way more white fatherlessness homes, white fatherless homes than there were in the 1960s as well.

00:48:30.500 And so, like, what's the explanation for that?

00:48:33.700 All of this, the whole social justice narrative sounds really good until you just start to think a little bit.

00:48:40.420 But it's an oversimplification.

00:48:43.960 Again, there is racism in the world.

00:48:48.220 There is discrimination in the world.

00:48:50.400 And the problem is that the critical social justice movement is operating from a worldview and from presuppositions that say racism is the only acceptable explanation.

00:49:08.580 In fact, in her book, White Fragility, you know, and I talk about this in Fault Lines, but Robin DiAngelo has a word for it.

00:49:17.260 She calls it averse of racism.

00:49:20.220 Averse of racism is when you ascribe anything other than racism as the cause for a disparity.

00:49:28.360 Right.

00:49:29.040 So, I mean, I mean, they've just it's complete circular reasoning.

00:49:33.460 Right.

00:49:33.980 Yeah.

00:49:34.800 You know, this is racism.

00:49:36.660 The only reason that we have this disparity is racism.

00:49:40.760 And, you know, if you're arguing that there's another reason for it, well, that's just because you're a racist, which proves that racism is the cause of all of our problems.

00:49:52.240 And it's ironic because we get to have our cake and eat it, too.

00:49:55.480 Right.

00:49:55.680 You know, 70 percent of the NFL, 75 percent of the NBA is black.

00:50:04.540 And what we want to argue is that that's because we work harder.

00:50:13.640 Right.

00:50:14.400 You talk to an NBA player and he's going to talk to you about how early he got up and his time in the gym.

00:50:20.560 And, you know, all of the time that he spends, you know, on the court working on his game and honing his craft.

00:50:26.660 Right.

00:50:27.120 And that's the reason that he's there.

00:50:31.380 But then you get off the field and you start talking about another group of people who excel in another area.

00:50:39.660 And immediately you're going to dismiss any effort and you're going to say that's because of systemic racism.

00:50:47.980 Yeah.

00:50:48.520 Not every group of individuals has the same set of skills, the same set of desires.

00:50:58.000 Not everybody wants to do the same thing.

00:51:00.000 Not everybody's interested in the same thing.

00:51:02.560 And so, you know, again, Thomas Sowell, we talked about Thomas Sowell, but his book, Discrimination and Disparities, you know, I think if people haven't gotten a hold of that, you need to get a hold of Thomas Sowell's book, Discrimination and Disparities.

00:51:17.160 And what he shows is how everywhere in the world you have huge disparities among groups of individuals and people who, wherever they go in the world, you know, tend to excel.

00:51:36.280 And, you know, it's a fascinating read.

00:51:39.860 And like you say, it's incredibly fact-based, fact-based.

00:51:43.420 And what I love about it is it gets out of the system that we have in the United States and demonstrates how everywhere in the world you find this.

00:51:52.760 You know, here in Zambia.

00:51:53.740 Here in Zambia you find this.

00:51:55.780 Not every tribal group, you know, has the same level of success.

00:52:02.060 And there are, you know, sort of these power disparities between tribal groups in a country where all the tribal groups are black.

00:52:10.420 Like, that's the norm.

00:52:14.100 Disparities are the norm in the world. 0.99

00:52:16.600 And that's because God made this incredibly diverse world.

00:52:20.760 And not everybody has the same strengths and same witnesses and same desires and same passions.

00:52:28.640 And the beautiful thing is that's why, you know, we are able to appreciate excellence.

00:52:38.460 Yeah.

00:52:39.660 And Sol also in that book, people are going to think that I'm paid to promote discrimination disparities because I talk about it all the time, too.

00:52:47.340 But he also makes the argument, like, he dismisses, which this isn't a popular argument anymore, but maybe it was at one point, that there are, like, inherent biological differences between the races that make some races more successful, other races less successful.

00:53:02.180 He dismisses that by, like you said, looking at world history and saying, okay, well, you know, the Jewish people were really successful in this area at this time.

00:53:11.180 They weren't in this area at this time.

00:53:13.480 Same with, you know, Scandinavian people. 0.93

00:53:14.940 He just talks about there are different cycles in history, different places where people are, different principles that certain groups follow that then change after a few generations that change the outcomes for people.

00:53:26.440 And also, yes, there are systems in place that oppress people.

00:53:29.240 Obviously, the Jewish people are familiar with that, has nothing to do with their own choice.

00:53:33.280 Same with slaves here in America. 0.79

00:53:34.880 And all that is true.

00:53:36.300 But he makes the argument that you're making that it's not inherent and biological differences that push people down.

00:53:43.000 It's also not always systems that push people down.

00:53:47.480 And, unfortunately, you also talk about this in your book.

00:53:51.260 For whatever reason, when it comes to race, we're not, it's almost, we're not allowed to talk about the truth.

00:53:58.240 Like, we're not allowed to talk about facts.

00:53:59.760 You're not allowed to question it.

00:54:00.900 Or else, you are seen as committing the cardinal sin today, which is being unempathetic.

00:54:06.680 Can you talk about why you think it is?

00:54:08.540 Yes.

00:54:09.120 With this one thing, it seems, that we're not, like you say, that you can't have justice without truth, which is true.

00:54:15.260 And yet, when we talk about instances of police brutality, so often the facts get pushed to the wayside.

00:54:21.420 Why is it when it comes to this subject?

00:54:25.120 Again, it's all about presuppositions.

00:54:28.840 It is all about narrative.

00:54:31.700 You know, you start with the presupposition of the oppressor, oppressed paradigm.

00:54:35.680 You start with the presupposition of hegemonic power that we get from Antonio Gramsci.

00:54:40.640 And then, you look at everything through the lens of those presuppositions.

00:54:47.700 It's all about your starting point.

00:54:51.220 And so, this is why, a lot of times, here's what's been interesting for me, is people will say,

00:54:59.000 Okay, I agree with you, I don't accept CRT, but what are we supposed to do about systemic racism?

00:55:11.020 Right.

00:55:11.220 And I'm like, okay, the concept of systemic racism, right, comes to us from CRT.

00:55:20.600 Or they say, what are we supposed to do about racial injustice?

00:55:24.120 And I go, okay, what is racial injustice?

00:55:28.360 And then, when they answer that question, racial injustice is disparities between racial groups.

00:55:35.240 So, people are saying, listen, I reject CRT.

00:55:41.740 I just accept all of their purposes and the way they view the world and all of their assumptions.

00:55:50.280 So, let's just get CRT out of here, and now let's deal with these things that I got from CRT.

00:55:57.700 And it just doesn't work like that.

00:55:59.920 And then, you know, some people ask me, you know, well, what about people who have sort of a balanced view on this?

00:56:05.720 And then they'll start saying names.

00:56:08.640 And basically, what people mean when they say balanced view in this issue is somebody who accepts all of the presuppositions,

00:56:17.220 tenets, and principles of CRT, but they say gospel a lot.

00:56:21.700 Yeah.

00:56:22.240 Yeah.

00:56:22.780 Or they reject—well, I think a lot of people who accept the premises of CRT,

00:56:27.320 one, they don't know, like you said, that they actually come from CRT.

00:56:31.520 They're just like, well, yeah, duh, white privilege.

00:56:33.500 That is not CRT.

00:56:34.680 Well, actually, it is.

00:56:35.660 It comes from Derrick Bell and Kimberly Crenshaw.

00:56:38.700 That is a CRT idea.

00:56:40.460 Whether you agree with it or not, it does come from CRT.

00:56:43.140 And then the other premises that you just listed there.

00:56:47.000 But they—if you asked them, if you said, well, do you also agree with the assertion that, for example,

00:56:57.000 due process rights aren't really important and should kind of be pushed to the side in favor of rectifying discrimination?

00:57:05.960 So discriminating against white people in a variety of ways in order to help black people. 0.85

00:57:10.420 Like, do you agree with getting rid of, for example, free speech, our First and Second Amendments?

00:57:15.180 Because that's what critical race theorists believe.

00:57:17.500 They don't believe in inherent rights.

00:57:19.480 They call equality under the law equality theory, and they look at it with skepticism.

00:57:24.920 If you asked someone, a conservative Christian, they would say, no, I don't believe in that.

00:57:29.980 Yeah, but the reason that they argue that is because of Gramsci's hegemony.

00:57:38.520 So their idea is that these laws don't exist because anything is objectively true.

00:57:47.220 These laws exist because the oppressor has established his hegemonic power.

00:57:53.880 And these laws are the means through which the oppressor establishes and maintains his hegemonic power.

00:58:01.420 So that's why we can just dismiss these concepts altogether because of the assumptions about oppressor, oppressed paradigm, and hegemony.

00:58:13.040 Yeah. I mean, that's a scary world when you think about rights being something that someone wants to get rid of in the way of justice.

00:58:22.480 I mean, we've seen this story play out in history, haven't we?

00:58:25.200 Haven't we seen this story play out in the 20th century?

00:58:27.980 Even, I would say, Zimbabwe is a good example of this happening more recently.

00:58:32.940 They're my neighbors to the south.

00:58:34.700 Yep.

00:58:35.460 You know?

00:58:35.940 We know how that went down.

00:58:37.320 They border us to the south.

00:58:38.240 Right.

00:58:38.420 And then right after them, South Africa is our other neighbor to the south.

00:58:41.240 You know, yeah, we've seen this.

00:58:44.080 We've seen this all over the place.

00:58:45.580 And, you know, again, when people, there's catchphrases like that, right, that just sort of make, you know, make red flags just wave everywhere.

00:58:57.580 When somebody starts talking about racial injustice, right, and in order to help people understand the significance of this, I point to the George Floyd case.

00:59:09.980 And so we look at what happened with George Floyd, and everybody's like, that's the smoking gun, you know, that's the case right there that demonstrates and that proves this racial injustice.

00:59:21.140 And they couldn't, you know, we couldn't hide this because we caught it on film.

00:59:24.560 What's interesting is, you know, in the Chauvin case, they didn't just throw the book at him, they threw the library at him, right?

00:59:31.540 I mean, they charged him with everything that they could conceivably charge him with, but they didn't charge him with a racial crime.

00:59:40.040 Why?

00:59:40.860 Because there's zero evidence that what happened to George Floyd had anything to do with his race.

00:59:48.720 Zero evidence to that fact.

00:59:50.520 That's scandalous to say.

00:59:51.540 We're supposed to just assume that.

00:59:53.500 Yeah, we're supposed to just assume that.

00:59:54.940 But we assume that because we have the assumption that disparities can only come from discrimination.

01:00:04.400 And so we look at disparities in, you know, killings, you know, with police, so on and so forth.

01:00:11.780 And, you know, by disparities, what we mean is, you know, a thousand people killed by police on average every year.

01:00:18.840 About 500 of those being white people, about 250 of those being black people, right?

01:00:22.860 So, you know, twice as many white people as black people being killed by the police.

01:00:26.440 And most of both races being armed, by the way.

01:00:29.000 Very rare that an unarmed person is killed by the police.

01:00:32.100 Only a fraction of those will be killed by the police who are unarmed.

01:00:36.580 But even that, it's more white unarmed people than it is black unarmed people.

01:00:41.660 But then they go to, no, no, no, well, black people make up 13% of the population, but, you know, 25% of the unarmed people killed by police.

01:00:49.660 So it's that disparity in and of itself that proves the point.

01:00:57.120 That's why you can come back to the George Floyd case and say that was racial injustice.

01:01:03.960 Yeah.

01:01:04.400 So if somebody's going to do that kind of calculus, not only can we not solve problems, but we can't even have a conversation.

01:01:15.000 Yeah.

01:01:16.440 And it doesn't point to the other disparities that no one wants to talk about.

01:01:22.060 There are also disparities when it comes to homicides, when it comes to violent crime.

01:01:25.920 Like you can say that, yes, there are only 13% of the population, but make up 25 to 37% of unarmed killings, whatever it is, by the police.

01:01:34.280 But, okay, there are also some other, there are also some other disparate statistics that we would have to talk about that 13% of the population also commits 40% of the homicides and also gets, you know, a majority of abortions.

01:01:47.940 And that's really sad, but we're not allowed to talk about those real problems that are really killing black lives, those two issues.

01:01:54.920 And I can't talk about those disparities.

01:01:57.180 And I guess it's because of the presuppositions that you're talking about.

01:02:00.120 And because this is ultimately about power, the bottom line here is that this is about power.

01:02:07.500 So you start with these assumptions about the oppressor and the oppressed and about hegemonic power.

01:02:13.860 And what do you do with this hegemonic power?

01:02:17.900 You have to, there has to be a revolution.

01:02:21.860 Critical theory is revolutionary, right?

01:02:24.160 And this revolution has to overthrow the hegemonic power and replace it.

01:02:31.840 It has to cede power to others.

01:02:34.940 So ultimately, this is about power.

01:02:40.820 I mean, it's sad, but it's true.

01:02:42.960 When you find yourself in a position where, you know, you've got, you know, white people bowing down to black people and, you know, you've got organizations out there trying to, you know, find people to throw money at.

01:02:57.420 When you've got universities out there trying to find black people to fill seats in their university, both in terms of, you know, students and faculty, you know, when you've got these kinds of things happening, there's a vested interest.

01:03:15.640 Yeah, and it goes back to what you were saying earlier about all these people who called you too political when you were talking about the election.

01:03:34.100 And when you ask a lot of these Christians, like, okay, what do we do? 1.00

01:03:37.720 Okay, I'm with you.

01:03:38.980 If there's injustice, show me where the injustice is.

01:03:41.660 What do we do?

01:03:42.320 It always essentially comes down to voting Democrat.

01:03:46.700 Like, that's, that ends up being what it is.

01:03:49.320 Well, they'll say, fight for justice, we'll fight for racial justice, advocate for these causes, or, you know, advocate for these programs or redistribution.

01:03:57.280 So really what you mean is vote for the same party that has been running majority black cities for decades.

01:04:04.780 Like, why do we expect that voting Democrat again is going to help the very communities that you say are oppressed and yet are led by Democrats?

01:04:13.560 But that's always what it ends up coming down to.

01:04:15.740 Yeah, I mean, it's a believable answer.

01:04:19.280 It gets away from the issue of the heart.

01:04:22.180 It puts this into the realm of politics.

01:04:25.040 And that's why I believe it's sinister and why I believe it's demonic.

01:04:28.560 Because ultimately, this gets us away from preaching the true gospel.

01:04:32.520 This gets us away from calling individuals to repent before a holy God because of their sin.

01:04:40.880 Also, in terms of racism, you know, it's interesting when you read, you know, a lot of the books that are out there, when you read, again, I list a lot of them in my book.

01:04:52.680 But when you read them, one of the things that they're doing is they're telling people, listen, you've got to stop being offended by the idea that you're a racist because racism doesn't mean what you think it means.

01:05:06.740 Racism is structural.

01:05:08.280 Racism is systemic.

01:05:09.700 So it's no big deal for people to call you a racist because you are by virtue of the structure and the system.

01:05:16.740 Do you know what that does?

01:05:17.780 That says to the person, even a person who really is racist, it says to them that the problem is not inside you, the problem is outside of you.

01:05:30.200 That gets us away from the real sin issue.

01:05:34.300 It gets us away from the heart.

01:05:36.560 It gets us away from the power of the gospel.

01:05:39.500 It gets us away from that individual doing business with God, right, and recognizing that that's a sin for which Christ came to die, and that the only way around that is through repentance and faith in him.

01:05:54.560 And it says, no, no, no, no, no.

01:05:56.360 You can just go do the work of anti-racism, which essentially is, you know, apparently complaining on Twitter about disparities.

01:06:05.540 Yeah, that's the cheap form of sanctification that doing the work does.

01:06:12.000 And there's no, like, there's no hope at the end of it either.

01:06:15.300 Like, we hear that you'll always be racist. 0.60

01:06:18.400 You'll, you'll, you're never really as a, especially as a white oppressor, going to completely divest of your whiteness and your racism and your oppression and all of that stuff.

01:06:28.400 But you just need to keep on doing the work, which is voting Democrats, saying the right things, performative activism.

01:06:35.680 And, you know, I don't know.

01:06:38.420 What do you think the future of all of this is?

01:06:40.660 Like, do you think that people within the church are waking up to it?

01:06:43.580 Because I'm starting to just, I'm sensing, like, I don't know.

01:06:49.720 People are very angry about, they think that Marxism is a boogeyman, they think that CRT is a boogeyman, and that it's not real, that we're making too big of a deal of it.

01:07:00.640 And I'm just worried that it's going to end up backfiring.

01:07:05.240 But what do you think?

01:07:07.680 Yeah, people are waking up.

01:07:11.000 People are figuring out what's going on.

01:07:14.740 People are, you know, people are being educated.

01:07:20.200 That's what you see in these school board meetings, right?

01:07:25.180 And not that everybody who's going off at a school board meeting knows exactly what they're talking about, you know.

01:07:34.320 But there are a lot of people.

01:07:36.460 They know enough to know that it's wrong to tell a white kid that he's on the side of the oppressor.

01:07:40.900 And that's all you need to know.

01:07:42.060 You don't have to have read Derrick Bell.

01:07:43.380 Yes, that's all you need to know.

01:07:44.080 So, yeah, and it's happening, you know.

01:07:47.860 And it's happening in some churches.

01:07:50.940 You know, we're seeing a lot of churches where there's a backlash now.

01:07:57.400 And, you know, it's unfortunate.

01:08:00.400 And the reason I titled the book Fault Lines is because, you know, that metaphor was what best described what I saw.

01:08:11.380 That, you know, there is this divide and, you know, I grew up on a fault line in Los Angeles and experienced the earthquake, you know, a couple of times in my life.

01:08:23.380 But when you live on a fault line, you know, that it's always just a moment away, right?

01:08:31.400 The big one is always just a moment away.

01:08:35.120 And I think we're in the middle of—I don't know if it's the big one, but it's a big one.

01:08:43.400 Yeah.

01:08:45.380 And it's not as—it's not complicated.

01:08:48.600 A lot of people are worried about it being complicated.

01:08:51.300 I mean, God tells us exactly what to do.

01:08:54.200 You want to racially reconcile.

01:08:56.840 You want to make sure that you're glorifying the Lord in all of this.

01:09:00.320 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

01:09:02.800 Love your neighbor as yourself.

01:09:05.220 Stick to the word of God and the gospel.

01:09:07.100 Yes, there are political solutions to political problems.

01:09:11.400 There are, and I believe that.

01:09:13.420 But when it comes to the problem that what we're talking about, it is essentially a problem of the heart, and it has to be treated as that.

01:09:22.400 You can't get political solutions to heart problems, and I think that's the disconnect that we're seeing here.

01:09:29.760 Can you just end us with some more encouragement and where people can get your book?

01:09:37.100 Yeah.

01:09:39.860 You know, my encouragement is this, that the kingdom of God is undefeated.

01:09:45.040 And, you know, the kingdom of God is not about to take a loss now.

01:09:50.180 And even though, you know, we talk about this being catastrophic in terms of, you know, what's happening in evangelicalism, it's not catastrophic in terms of the kingdom.

01:10:00.820 The kingdom will prevail.

01:10:03.820 The king will reign.

01:10:05.640 And so, you know, we fight, we engage in this fight, but we recognize that regardless of what we see with our eyes, in the end, the Lord reigns.

01:10:21.140 The Lord wins, and he will protect his bride.

01:10:23.840 He will preserve his bride no matter what.

01:10:26.100 You know, in terms of where people can get the book, you know, you can get it anywhere that books are sold.

01:10:32.700 I just encourage people to go to local bookstores because even though this book, you know, I mean, this book was a national bestseller.

01:10:42.380 You know, it debuted at number seven on Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestsellers list and spent weeks and weeks on bestsellers list.

01:10:54.280 And yet, you know, you go into a Barnes and Noble and either they won't have it or it'll be in the back somewhere or hidden away on the shelves.

01:11:04.800 But it won't be up on, you know, kind of trending or bestselling, you know, books or anything like that.

01:11:10.640 So I'm encouraging people to go to their bookstores and ask for the book and encourage them to get it in stores.

01:11:20.080 Even Christian bookstores are not carrying the book.

01:11:23.960 Like, it's interesting, Lifeway had their, you know, bookstore open at the Southern Baptist Convention and they didn't carry the book.

01:11:31.300 Wow.

01:11:32.760 Yeah, even at the SBC.

01:11:34.740 So, you know, go to your bookstores.

01:11:38.040 Also, you know, there are a number of stores that have decided that they were going to carry it.

01:11:41.900 Like, for example, Hobby Lobby.

01:11:44.440 Hobby Lobby bought a bunch of them, you know, to put in their stores.

01:11:48.340 So, you know, go support, you know, those folks as well.

01:11:51.500 But really, just, you know, go find out if it's in your bookstore.

01:11:57.060 And if it's not, find out why.

01:11:58.840 Yeah, just ask them.

01:11:59.900 Because, you know, yeah, ask them.

01:12:02.040 And it's not surprising because, you know, this was a book that, you know, evangelical publishers, for the most part, did not want to touch.

01:12:13.860 I mean, the big boys were not going to touch this.

01:12:17.340 And so, you know, shout out to Salem Books for, you know, being courageous.

01:12:24.060 And you see, you know, over here, Christianity and Wokeness, Owen Strand.

01:12:33.060 And then, you know, over here, you see, you know, Fault Lines.

01:12:39.100 It's no coincidence that Salem published both of those books because other publishers, they did not want to touch these books.

01:12:47.180 And you're just not finding books from an anti-critical social justice perspective.

01:12:55.220 You're not finding it in Christian publishing houses.

01:12:58.980 They just won't do it.

01:13:00.800 Yeah, I know.

01:13:02.280 It's hard to do.

01:13:03.020 I just had one segment of my book that talked about this, but I didn't make it the, it wasn't the central theme of my book.

01:13:12.720 So I think I kind of got away with it.

01:13:15.360 And it was a couple years ago.

01:13:16.480 Things have changed really quickly, as you know.

01:13:18.540 So I do applaud Salem Books.

01:13:20.420 I'm sure they're very glad that they took this chance on you because the book is done so well.

01:13:24.860 And so congratulations on that.

01:13:26.580 Praise God for that.

01:13:27.660 Thank you so much for taking the time to come on.

01:13:31.160 I really appreciate it.

01:13:32.240 I know people are going to gain a lot of clarity, not just from this conversation, but also from your book.

01:13:36.900 So thank you.

01:13:38.920 You're very welcome.

01:13:40.160 It's been my pleasure.

01:13:41.200 Thank you for everything that you're doing.

01:13:43.360 It's really encouraging to see.

01:13:45.000 Well, thank you very much.

01:13:46.060 I appreciate that.

01:13:46.860 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 27, 2021

Ep 460 ｜ How Social Justice Activism Is Infecting The Church ｜ Guest： Dr. Voddie Baucham

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript