00:23:03.420It could mean to cause someone to distrust or desert the person that they were supposed to be following and trusting and obeying.
00:23:10.580It could mean to cause someone to fall away.
00:23:13.260And you can hear in that Greek word skandalizo, scandal.
00:23:16.620When a scandal happens, that causes someone to distrust the institution in which that scandal happened or the person that was involved in that scandal.
00:23:25.440If you think about a scandal, you kind of think about this revelation about someone that you thought you knew.
00:24:43.820The only time he is saying that it is sinful to eat meat sacrifice to idols, if in doing so, you are offending your brother or sister in Christ who thinks that it is sinful for meat to be sacrificed to idols.
00:24:59.900And in this case, he is saying that it is someone with a weaker conscience or with a weaker faith who could not handle eating meat sacrifice to idols.
00:25:08.540And out of the spirit of humility, out of the spirit of love, out of the spirit of respect, and not wanting to cause your brother to be tempted to sin against what he sinned against or oppose his own conscience, you would abstain from eating meat.
00:25:27.120So it really is all about self-service to your brother or sister in Christ.
00:25:32.520And then Romans 14, 15 through 19, it says something similar.
00:25:37.840So then let us pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding.
00:26:08.720It's not really about what you are eating.
00:26:10.760It is about the conscience of your brother or sister in Christ.
00:26:14.100It is about ensuring that they are built up in love and that whatever you are doing, whatever they are seeing you doing, is pushing them toward the Lord and pushing them toward truth and in love.
00:26:26.880And so when you look at something that is happening in the SBC like this, why I think that it matters more than some secular entity doing what they do, abusing and sacrificing children, is because the church is supposed to be the light of the world.
00:26:53.560But unfortunately, because you don't even know if everyone within a church is even a Christian, but because people fall and because people sin, unfortunately, things like this are going to happen.
00:27:04.860And it's always sadder when it happens within the church than when it happens outside of the church, because we are supposed to be an example of love.
00:27:11.880We are supposed to be the refuge for the children.
00:27:14.800We are supposed to be led by a shepherd who protects the sheep.
00:27:18.040There aren't supposed to be wolves among us.
00:27:20.040There aren't supposed to be wolves among the flocks.
00:27:22.580And unfortunately, not only are there wolves among the flocks, but also sometimes those wolves, again, are protected by the people who are supposed to be their shepherd.
00:27:30.420And I do think that that is even worse than what happens in the outside world, because it causes a stumbling block.
00:27:41.740It causes a scandal that can cause people to distrust God.
00:27:45.680Now, we understand that God is sovereign over people's salvation.
00:27:49.060Of course, we believe that God is going to preserve his saints.
00:27:53.860And we believe that it is the gospel that is good, that is Jesus who is perfect, that no entity, no denomination, no pastor, no leader is the centerpiece of or the keystone of our faith.
00:28:11.740And yet, these leaders in the church, they are supposed to be representatives of Christ.
00:28:16.660And when we fail in this way, not just when there's abuse, but when there's abuse cover-up, I mean, we really fail at the core mission of the church, which is to be a light of the gospel and also be a refuge, a safety for the most vulnerable.
00:28:31.740And when we fail to do that, again, we cause a scandal.
00:28:37.120And so I just pray, by the grace of God, that God would use this report, that God would use this moment to help those within the SBC who need to repent, to repent, to ensure that there are systems and guardrails in place to protect victims, to prevent future victims, to listen to victims, and that people would have the courage to come forward.
00:29:03.380And that we would stay rooted and grounded in the love of Christ and the truth of his scripture, which is sufficient in dealing with all of these things that we are talking about today.
00:29:17.960It is sufficient in guiding us in the right direction toward accountability and justice for these egregious sins and crimes.
00:29:27.440Now, one thing I will say before we get into the conversation with Tom Askell, and I just think it's worth noting, and I wasn't sure exactly where to put it in, but because some people are talking about it, I wanted to point it out.
00:29:39.880Now, Guidepost Solutions, this is the organization that did the independent report on the sexual abuse allegations and the alleged cover-up.
00:29:49.340And they did tweet just the other day on June 6th, a picture of the pride flag with the black and brown and then the rainbow, and tweeted,
00:30:00.100Guidepost is committing to strengthening diversity, equity, and inclusion and strives to be an organization where a team can bring their authentic selves to work.
00:30:06.600We celebrate our collective progress toward equality for all and are proud to be an ally to our LGBTQ plus community.
00:30:12.980Now, I'm a little confused about this because you might not know this, but the SBC's tithing dollars, like tithing dollars from the SBC churches, went to the creation of this report, which was led by Guidepost Solutions.
00:30:27.840And I was under the impression that Guidepost Solutions was a Christian organization.
00:30:34.680And so I do think it's a little bit confusing that the SBC would hire this kind of independent organization that holds values that are completely opposed to the gospel,
00:30:44.140that are completely opposed to everything that Christianity says is good and right and true,
00:30:48.300and that our tithing dollars would be funding an organization like this.
00:30:54.680So I do want to note that I understand people's complaint about that.
00:30:59.700There seems like there could have been better options out there.
00:31:03.340However, I don't think that this is a reason.
00:31:05.960I'm not saying anyone is doing this, but just to note, I don't think this is a reason to discredit the findings that we see in the report.
00:31:14.280I think it's a shame that this is the organization that was chosen and that they tweeted something that is opposed to what we know about biblical marriage and Christianity.
00:31:23.000However, I don't think that this would be an excuse for us to look the other way and to say, well, this report is no longer credible.
00:31:32.500Let us ask for humility and grace for God to guide us in the right direction.
00:31:36.340And let us pray for these victims and the victims' families who have had to deal with not just the pain of the experience,
00:31:43.240but also the secrecy and the shame that has been placed on them, unfortunately.
00:31:46.400And let us mature into Christ that reminded me of a passage that I just want to read before we get into the conversation with Pastor Askell.
00:32:01.740And I think that this is what we should all be striving toward.
00:32:09.360That's a big and high calling so that we may no longer be children.
00:32:33.980That is the goal and the calling of the church.
00:33:01.160Therefore, that is the goal and the calling of the SBC.
00:33:04.120And may we pray for the manifestation of this as we go into the convention, the conference next week in which leadership will be chosen.
00:33:11.540Let us pray for the direction of the largest Protestant denomination in the country that has an effect on the entirety of the world with its mission organizations.
00:33:21.000We want people leading this denomination who are committed to making sure that the body of Christ grows so that it is building itself up in love.
00:33:35.340Pastor, thank you so much for joining us.
00:33:39.220And today we are talking about the SBC, the Southern Baptist Convention, your candidacy for the president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
00:33:49.180First, tell us what is going on right now in the next few days in Anaheim, California, and why does it matter?
00:33:56.080Well, in the Southern Baptist Convention, we're going to meet next week in Anaheim on the third.
00:34:28.520The SBC has had a lot of problems over the last several years with these kind of cultural winds that have blown through all of the institutions of our nation and really Western civilization.
00:34:41.120And churches have not been immune, and that's certainly true of Southern Baptist churches and more significantly of the institutions and agencies that the 47,000 Southern Baptist churches own and operate.
00:34:54.720And so we've had lots of difficulties for years that have been building.
00:34:58.000And then most recently with the Sex Abuse Task Force report that has come out over the last couple of weeks, it's just more difficulties have been uncovered.
00:35:08.520And we are having a time of reckoning in the convention, and we are certainly being faced with the reality that we need to repent and return to a fear of the living God.
00:35:19.900If God gives me opportunity to do so, I want to herald that message far and wide.
00:35:25.260A lot of people think that this breaks down in the SBC as a fight between the liberal wing and the conservative wing.
00:35:32.760Would you say that that's a correct assessment, or is it a little bit more complex than that?
00:35:38.520Well, it's a complex issue because there's lots of things involved.
00:35:43.900And as I've mentioned, these cultural winds and the ideologies from the world have crept in.
00:35:48.560But beyond that, we have forsaken our own ecclesiology, that is, our own understanding of what the Bible calls a church to be and really what the Bible calls a Christian to be.
00:35:59.480And so we need to do deep spiritual work and deep theological work as well as deep structural work in how we handle our institutions.
00:36:10.600Like we have six seminaries, and those seminaries educate one-third of all the evangelical seminary students in North America.
00:36:18.000We have two mission boards, and those mission boards constitute the largest missionary sending force in the world right now.
00:36:24.200And so we have multiple layers to the Southern Mavs Convention.
00:36:27.560Again, 14 million members in those 47,000-plus churches.
00:36:31.620So you can imagine there's all kinds of complexities involved with the problems we face, assessing those problems honestly,
00:36:39.080and then charting a course forward to address them that is faithful to the Word of God.
00:36:43.920One of the biggest arguments or debates in the SBC over the past couple of years has been over social justice and what some people refer to as racial justice.
00:36:54.580There are people within the SBC who say that there is a problem of certain leaders and pastors, churches embracing the tenets of critical race theory and intersectionality without, of course, using those terms.
00:37:08.700And many of them deny that they are employing the tactics of CRT.
00:37:14.000And then there's a wing of the SBC that, like I said, who either they deny the existence of CRT or they say, well, it is actually a useful tool.
00:37:25.160It's a useful tool for studying the Bible.
00:37:27.360There is actually some redemptive and legitimate aspects of CRT that do need to be employed in preaching and teaching the Word.
00:37:37.660Just I know that we could talk about that alone for an hour, but just give me an assessment of where we are there.
00:37:45.380Is that still a hot topic of debate within the SBC?
00:37:49.700Well, there have been many people that have tried to sublimate it and keep it from being a debated topic.
00:37:55.900As you know, in 2019, we had this resolution, infamously remembered as Resolution 9, that came to the floor of the convention.
00:38:05.000That resolution was on critical race theory and intersectionality.
00:38:08.940The original author of the resolution, a member of a church, actually a pastor in California, wrote it in order to renounce critical race theory and intersectionality.
00:38:18.980The resolutions committee that J.D. Greer had appointed that year took that resolution, completely rewrote it to say 180 degrees opposite of what the author intended.
00:38:29.420And then they presented it to the convention. I and others tried to fight against it.
00:38:34.040I wanted to see it amended significantly. We were defeated on the floor by the platform and that resolution passed.
00:38:41.540It's grievous that it passed. And it was called in the critical race theory was called, along with intersectionality, as helpful analytical tools.
00:38:49.440Well, I've attempted since then to try to get that resolution rescinded or to have a vote on the floor of the convention to renounce it or to have another resolution.
00:39:01.500We had 1300 Southern Baptists sign a resolution last year, submitted it to the committee.
00:39:06.820The committee refused to bring it out. And so the problem about critical race theory and intersectionality, yeah, it still is an issue.
00:39:14.180We're just we're not being allowed to talk about it. And so it's kind of been sublimated.
00:39:18.540And what's happening, I fear, is that people are no longer willing to use the language because they recognize that doing so marks them out pretty significantly today.
00:39:28.040But they're still imbibing the concepts and the principles and they're advocating those things.
00:39:33.260And our establishment leaders in the SBC, those on the platform every annual meeting, they refuse to let us have an honest conversation about it.
00:39:42.240So that's part of the reason that I allowed myself to be nominated for president this year.
00:39:47.600So hopefully we can begin to at least talk about these things openly and honestly.
00:39:51.680Yes. And you and I have both talked about this. You've talked about this very thoroughly.
00:39:55.680What CRT and intersectionality looks like within Christianity from the pulpit, even if they are not using explicitly academic or Marxist language.
00:40:07.460Can you talk about how that may show up for people who say, well, you know, I think that my pastor may peddle in this stuff, but I'm not totally sure because he's not outwardly quoting or explicitly quoting Ibram X.
00:40:22.660Kendi or, you know, one of those authors or Karl Marx.
00:40:26.260So what does that look like? And why is CRT not a tool that should be employed when trying to read and understand scripture?
00:40:37.660Yeah, well, let me just cite Kevin DeYoung in a recent sermon he preached at the T4G conference.
00:40:42.280He talked about people that came to his church and said that their pastor had said, you need to repent of your whiteness, that whiteness is a real problem.
00:40:49.700And they're just they're shocked by that. Well, that kind of language is born out of the ideology that that is embedded in critical race theory and along with intersectionality.
00:41:01.180So this idea that because of the color of your skin or because of your gender or because of your religion or your able bodiedness or whatever it might be,
00:41:11.120you are either in an oppressed class or the oppressor class.
00:41:16.620And so when you begin to hear things like this is, look, we need to acknowledge this majority culture.
00:41:21.980We have been abusing the minority culture inevitably for generations.
00:41:26.120This whole system has been rigged to benefit us, not them, to oppress them.
00:41:30.840And we need to listen to these voices.
00:41:33.220We need to recognize that the disparity in outcomes in our society are exclusively the fault of the oppressiveness of whiteness or the oppressiveness of the powers that be in majority culture.
00:42:15.800Those who promote critical race theory, those who call themselves critical race theorists,
00:42:19.920they tell you up front that we are seeking to deconstruct the hierarchies that are present in society because we think there is a more just way forward only as we do that.
00:42:33.040And, again, it's the cultural winds of today.
00:43:56.340We agree that hate can happen, that injustice can happen, that laws can be unjust.
00:44:02.260That doesn't make CRT something that needs to be redeemed.
00:44:05.880That just means the Bible said it first.
00:44:08.180That just means that scripture said it first, that the creator of truth and justice said it first.
00:44:11.900So we don't need, we don't need the meat that comes with CRT if scripture has already spoken to the things that we are saying CRT speaks to, correct?
00:45:40.420And that unity, those unities are completely destroyed whenever you start talking in terms of critical race theory and intersectionality,
00:45:49.680which are inherently divisive and inherently designed to set different people against each other when we should see the unity that we have because of God and the Lord Jesus.
00:46:15.960It really is a religion and a worldview, as you said.
00:46:18.540I do want to get your response, which I'm sure you have already put out there.
00:46:26.640You have already put out there your response to the guidepost report about sexual abuse within the SBC over the past several decades.
00:46:36.980How should we be thinking of this as Southern Baptists, as people who hate sexual abuse, as people who believe, as you said, that everyone is made in the image of God and any kind of deceit or dishonesty or abuse is something that grieves us.
00:46:49.920So how do we look at this honestly with repentant hearts and make a way forward from this?
00:46:57.660Yeah, well, again, this is a very complex issue, but fundamentally, any situation, any occasion where somebody has been mistreated, sexually abused, that is reprehensible.
00:47:13.020We ought to do whatever we can to keep that from happening.
00:47:15.060When it's discovered, we need to deal with it the way God has called us to deal with it.
00:47:19.300So I want to say that from the outset.
00:47:20.740The guidepost report has revealed hundreds of cases that they discovered or they say they discovered, but they're most of them public and most of them have already been adjudicated in the court system.
00:47:31.700So most of the people that they name in their list are serving time or they've already been dealt with by the judicial system, which is right.
00:47:40.580However, they did uncover some things that none of us knew about, and they showed some ways that perhaps these issues were not dealt with the way they should have been dealt with by Christians and want to honor God.
00:47:50.740And so the way forward for me and for all Christians, I would hope, is that we must come back to what does the word say?
00:47:58.020God has instituted authority in this world.
00:48:01.440He's given the keys of the kingdom to the church so that we might deal with sin and righteousness in the church.
00:48:07.680Whenever there's unrepentant sin in the church, he's told us what to do.
00:48:11.440Churches are to carry out the Lord Jesus's admonitions in Matthew chapter 18, where he tells us what to do with those who call themselves Christians, members of our churches who refuse to repent.
00:48:23.740We are to do what Jesus says to do with them there, exercise the keys.
00:48:27.700The state is God's authority to deal with crimes.
00:48:31.240And Romans 13 very clearly tells us that the state is to punish wrongdoers.
00:48:50.700The church is to deal with sins, and the state is to deal with crimes.
00:48:54.740And the church can't adjudicate crimes, and the state can't adjudicate sins.
00:49:00.800And I think what's happened is sometimes in our Southern Baptist life together, as this report did make known, that I think sometimes there were some Southern Baptist leaders who tried to adjudicate crimes when they should have called the state and said, we've got a crime here.
00:49:20.060And so the way forward, in my hope, is that Southern Baptists will recognize how badly we have handled these things, not just in sexual abuse issues, but across the board, that we'll humble ourselves and say, oh, God, we call ourselves a people of the book.
00:49:35.360But in reality, we have neglected your book.
00:49:37.720We have not lived simply under the authority of Scripture.
00:49:40.580And we repent, and we ask you to have mercy on us, and we will start treating sin the way the Bible tells us to treat sin.
00:49:47.240We'll start treating crimes the way the Bible tells us to deal with crimes, and we will care for people who've been sinned against and who have been abused.
00:49:55.620And we will do that according to the grace that is in Jesus Christ, counseling, helping them to find the healing, the wholeness that is available in our crucified and risen Savior.
00:51:09.480Let's get honest before God and realize Hebrews 13, 17 tells us we're going to give an account before God on the day of judgment for how we shepherded this flock that he's entrusted to our care and leadership.
00:51:19.680And that would be, I think, as significant as anything.
00:51:23.020There will most likely be next week in Anaheim some proposals adopted by the messengers.
00:51:29.320And if so, those might include something that would instruct the president on things to do in terms of appointing a new task force or appointing those that would guide us and bring recommendations next year for specific proposals.
00:51:46.180But without a doubt, I think if God would be pleased to use me and others who believe this as well, to begin to sound this note that we need to repent.
00:51:56.660We need to come face to face with the reality that we wouldn't be living this way.
00:52:01.280These kinds of things would not be going on and treated so lightly if we genuinely feared God.
00:52:07.000And we need to repent and come back to that.
00:52:09.180I don't believe we have one problem in the SBC that could not be solved by a genuine return to the fear of the living God.
00:52:17.460And if the Lord would do that, then we'll work out the details on these specifics in that spirit.
00:52:23.720And tell us a little bit more just about the mechanics of how this works for people who are listening, who go to SBC churches.
00:52:31.400Most of us, I mean, we know how it's set up.
00:52:34.960It's not like the Catholic church to where it is all uniform hierarchy.
00:52:39.080And so a lot of people who go to SBC churches, they don't know anything about the convention.
00:52:43.920They don't know anything about the SBC president.
00:53:00.060Yeah, well, I would say, first of all, talk to the leadership of your church, you know, talk to your pastor and say, hey, help me understand this.
00:53:07.120One of the sad realities is that though we have 47,000 churches in the SBC on any given year for our two day business meeting that's held each June around the nation, it moves around the nation.
00:53:20.400We never have more than eight or nine thousand churches represented.
00:53:23.360Every Southern Baptist church is eligible to send two messengers, voting messengers, and you can send more up to 12, depending on how much money you have contributed to joint Southern Baptist causes.
00:53:37.340They own the institutions and agencies like the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board.
00:53:43.020And we elect trustees every year on a rotating basis to hold those institutions and agencies accountable to the churches.
00:53:50.120But another problem that we have that we've got to address in the SBC right now is that those trustees very often have not been doing their jobs.
00:53:58.260Sometimes the trustees come across like they're unpaid public relations departments for the institutions and agencies so that when, as I've done recently, trying to address trustees, you get a response of kind of circle the wagons.
00:54:13.160You need to be quiet and go back to your place.
00:54:15.340And that's not the way it's supposed to be done.
00:54:17.000So one of my proposals is we need to completely restructure how we train trustees so that they understand their fiduciary responsibilities and holding the entities in trust for the churches that bought them and paid for them.
00:54:29.780We have a website that we've established called wehaveabook.com.
00:54:51.860It will impact the nations because we export our Christianity through missions.
00:54:57.280And it's only as we are healthy that we can have great hope of seeing the gospel run through healthy channels around the world.
00:55:04.180So I would plead with all Southern Baptist churches and pastors, even if you've never been to a convention, go to wehaveabook.com and figure out how to sign up as a messenger.
00:55:14.020Because it has to be a process followed.