Ep 696 | Kids Are Not Public School Missionaries | Guest: Dr. Voddie Baucham
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
156.48698
Summary
Dr. Vodhi Bauckham joins Ken and Allie to discuss the culture war and why it matters to the Christian. She shares her thoughts on the mid-term elections and why Christians should care enough to vote.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Christian nationalism, equity, inclusion, diversity, social and racial justice, queer
00:00:08.280
theory, what in the heck do all of these things really mean?
00:00:13.300
Where do they come from and how should Christians biblically navigate them?
00:00:19.680
How do we walk our children through these things and raise them up in a way that is
00:00:24.920
good and right and true in a world that is hostile to the things of God?
00:00:30.660
To explain all of this to us today in his clear and compelling classic way is Dr. Vodhi
00:00:42.480
Now, before we get into that conversation, I do just want to shout out a couple of items
00:00:56.340
So our first sticker is this tombstone that says Rip Roe on it.
00:01:00.540
This is just in time for Halloween because Halloween typically celebrates death.
00:01:05.980
And I don't like celebrating death, but there are a couple kinds of death that I will celebrate.
00:01:10.220
One is the death to self when Christ by grace through faith makes you new.
00:01:14.840
The other kind of death that I will celebrate is the death of Roe v. Wade that led to the
00:01:21.900
So we are celebrating the Dobbs decision, the end to Roe v. Wade.
00:01:27.920
Get yourself a little $5 sticker that celebrates that Rip Roe.
00:01:34.980
And if you're listening, then we've got this other cute sticker that I absolutely love.
00:01:38.360
And that is our vote sticker with our trademark phrase around it.
00:01:43.420
Politics matter because policy matters because people matter.
00:01:47.040
So you need to make sure that you and your friends are going out to vote.
00:01:54.620
And also you can vote, obviously, on voting day.
00:02:00.720
Use it as an opportunity to make sure that your friends are informed, not just about the
00:02:04.920
candidates that you're voting for, but also about the propositions in your area that you are
00:02:10.360
voting for that really matter, that have an impact on people's lives.
00:02:13.480
Prop 3 in Michigan, that is going to have an effect on the lives of unborn children.
00:02:18.660
Politics matter because policy matters because people matter.
00:02:25.760
Pass them out to your friends and have it be a conversation starter about why politics matter.
00:02:30.880
And that's a little bit of what we are going to talk about today with Dr. Bauckham.
00:02:34.580
We are going to talk about politics and why all of these so-called culture wars really matter
00:02:40.320
And as always, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:02:47.440
Now, without further ado, here is our good friend, Dr. Vody Bauckham.
00:03:00.940
Dr. Bauckham, thank you so much for joining us.
00:03:08.440
You are one of my favorite and one of my audience's favorite guests for just grounding
00:03:14.200
us and giving us clarity when the world seems to be just waiting in confusion and chaos.
00:03:19.900
So that's what I want to start us out with today.
00:03:26.160
It seems that as there is more pushback and uproar by Christians, by conservatives against
00:03:33.140
the chaos of the culture when it comes to gender, sexuality, the family, race, it seems
00:03:39.220
that the other side is getting even louder, is accelerating even more.
00:03:48.100
And a lot of people are scared, worried about the future of the country, the state of the
00:03:56.200
I know that's a big question, but about where we are and as Christians who are just looking
00:04:03.120
out our window and we're like, how do we even begin to make sense of all of this?
00:04:12.820
And it's been a clash of worldviews all along, but we also live in this sort of social media
00:04:19.360
age where everybody's got a voice and everybody's got a platform.
00:04:24.580
And I think that's what's accelerating a lot of this.
00:04:28.880
So things that would have just been discussed in a gender studies colloquium at your local
00:04:36.860
college or university, those things are now taking place in the public square.
00:04:43.200
And they're taking place in the public square after a lot of groundwork has been done to
00:04:49.380
prepare people's moral compass for this kind of takeover, if you will.
00:04:59.420
So we've got people who for the last generation have been prepped for this.
00:05:03.560
For the last generation, they've been taught the foundational and fundamental ideas, this
00:05:11.280
sort of general Marxist, cultural Marxist ideology, this general view of the world and the way
00:05:22.260
And now as these things have sort of gone public, and not only have they gone public, but in many
00:05:38.340
And so a lot of Christians who haven't been in a gender studies classroom or on a college
00:05:45.320
campus, for that matter, in the last 40, 50 years, they see these things coming to surface.
00:05:56.340
Because people are saying, wait a minute, what is this?
00:06:03.000
So we got one generation that's saying, welcome to the party, and another generation that's
00:06:13.480
I think a lot of people believe that the gender stuff, that boys can be girls, vice versa,
00:06:21.720
that a lot of the race ideology that we saw poured out into the streets during 2020 and
00:06:28.960
And really, from about 2015, that idea kind of became mainstream, that all of this happened
00:06:35.120
all of a sudden, that maybe it was Obama that brought this on, although I do think that
00:06:39.560
his policies accelerated some of it, but that it's all of a sudden coming up, or it just
00:06:49.620
And kind of what I'm hearing you saying is that, actually, there is a long academic history
00:06:55.580
rooted in critical race theory and queer theory that has been in academia and intellectual spheres
00:07:06.240
And the ideologies of feminism and of LGBTQ and the, as you referred to, the Marxist racial
00:07:15.800
ideology, they have roots going back decades and decades.
00:07:19.760
But for Christians who had never heard of this stuff in the past few years, it seems like
00:07:27.300
How important do you think it is for Christians to understand the roots of these progressive
00:07:35.040
Like, do you think it's important for us to understand the roots of critical race theory,
00:07:39.720
queer theory, the standpoint of epistemology, all that?
00:07:50.640
I believe we need to know where these ideas come from.
00:07:56.240
And if you're just looking at the consequences, but don't understand the ideas that have brought
00:08:02.220
them about, then you're not very well equipped to, you know, have a reasoned response.
00:08:12.800
Now, do we all, you know, need master's degrees in critical theory or whatever, some kind of
00:08:22.100
But there are some general, you know, historical overviews that we need.
00:08:28.660
And there are some people out there who are being very helpful as it relates to giving
00:08:36.300
And I hope, my hope is that the work that I've done has contributed to that.
00:08:41.300
Yes, and your last book is called Fault Lines, and you do lay that out very clearly.
00:08:46.960
You don't have to read all of the original sources of critical race theory to understand
00:08:57.800
By the way, reading the critical sources, reading the original sources will give you
00:09:05.140
You know, a lot of these fields write in very obscure ways.
00:09:10.440
And a lot of people who've gone and found more of these original sources, these original
00:09:16.520
academic sources, they come away just scratching their heads, right?
00:09:20.920
Because people will say in, you know, 2,000 words what could have been said in 25.
00:09:29.560
Tell us how you think these previously just academic ideas spilled over into the mainstream.
00:09:37.560
You talked about how we have kind of been conditioned before these hit the mainstream to accept them,
00:09:43.920
whether it's through the rise of secularism, moral relativism.
00:09:48.140
We had already been primed with feminist ideology, the idea that men and women can be the same
00:09:56.320
The idea that white people are oppressors and all black and brown people are oppressed.
00:10:01.960
Even if we didn't know the words queer theory, critical race theory five years ago, we were
00:10:07.340
kind of already primed in general to accept them.
00:10:11.400
So what was the tipping point that all of a sudden it seems like these things are mainstream?
00:10:19.280
We've got corporations accepting the tenets of critical race theory.
00:10:24.080
When did all of this become part of our culture?
00:10:30.160
The critical theorists really did a good job of infiltrating the institutions, often referred to as the long march
00:10:40.180
And several areas in particular, the grievance studies areas, right?
00:10:48.400
Feminist studies, women's studies, queer studies, and all these kind of things.
00:10:54.340
But also, and more importantly, things like journalism, political science, and education.
00:11:04.640
People like Paulo Freire, right, and critical pedagogy.
00:11:09.800
When our teachers are immersed in critical theory, when our teachers are immersed in these ideas in critical pedagogy,
00:11:22.540
and when the overwhelming majority of Americans are sending their children to the government schools,
00:11:29.480
then over time, this is how you get a generation that's immersed in these kind of presuppositions, right?
00:11:39.740
Nobody's saying to them, you know, queer theory or critical theory, this and the other.
00:11:48.000
They're talking about these ideas of, you know, the oppressor, oppressed paradigm as an explanation for the way and the reason that things are the way they are.
00:12:01.520
They're talking about history through a particular lens.
00:12:06.340
And they're shading history in particular ways.
00:12:12.820
They're, you know, making decisions, you know, on the broader level in school systems about how they're going to teach in areas of sexuality.
00:12:25.500
And also, how they're going to conduct themselves.
00:12:28.520
Like, what are you going to do about bathrooms?
00:12:31.640
And what are you going to do about, you know, kids coming out?
00:12:34.040
And, you know, how are you going to handle these sort of gender identity things?
00:12:38.160
You know, all of those things have been going on within the educational system.
00:12:45.360
And when I say the educational system, I mean, first, the way we train teachers.
00:12:48.720
And then secondly, the way that they execute that training within our schools.
00:12:58.480
I have a lot of conversations with moms who have their kids, Christian moms, Christian conservative moms.
00:13:18.200
Now, I've also gotten to a lot of respectful, but I'd probably call them arguments,
00:13:22.760
respectful arguments with women about this, because I don't believe that if you can help it,
00:13:28.720
that you should have your kids in public education system.
00:13:32.760
And over the past couple of years, I have seen a lot of parents who previously thought it was okay,
00:13:56.040
And a lot of those, to their credit, a lot of those moms have actually come back to me and said,
00:14:01.820
Or it's very often been, you know, what Vodibachum said about not being able to send our kids to Caesar
00:14:13.680
And so, but I do know that in this audience, there are still parents hanging on to this idea that,
00:14:21.020
Well, my kids are going to be sharing the gospel.
00:14:23.780
My kids would never, you know, imbibe this kind of ideology.
00:14:27.840
What do you tell those parents who are still wrestling with whether they should give their
00:14:32.780
kids a Christian education or whether public school is okay?
00:14:37.700
A pupil is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.
00:14:42.780
And we need to understand that in the school system, the teacher is the curriculum.
00:14:49.240
And even in that good old Southern school where the teachers are members of, you know,
00:14:55.220
this church or that church, they're not writing the curriculum.
00:14:58.860
And the people who are writing the curriculum have an agenda.
00:15:03.520
The other thing that we need to recognize is that government education in America is anti-Christian
00:15:11.740
It cannot be anything other than anti-Christian.
00:15:15.620
And for those people who say, well, we just need to reform the schools, to reform something
00:15:20.660
needs to take it back, right, to its original purpose.
00:15:24.020
Well, in the 1870s, when we got government education in the United States, you know, Northeastern,
00:15:31.400
you know, liberal, Unitarians, Universalists wanted to establish the government education
00:15:39.380
system in order to eliminate what they called religious superstition.
00:15:44.180
When Tocqueville came and looked at, you know, America, one of the things he said was that
00:15:49.000
education was everywhere in the hands of the clergy, right?
00:15:59.020
And the goal was to eliminate the stronghold of Christianity and to establish a system of
00:16:09.380
So people just need to have their eyes wide open.
00:16:13.380
They, you know, by what, 1900, even into maybe the 1920s, two thirds of all students who would
00:16:20.960
graduate from high school, if you will, it was still the church or the home or dame schools,
00:16:31.060
That late, you know, we still hadn't sort of succumbed to this idea.
00:16:36.860
It was only later that people said, you know, if you can't beat them, join them.
00:16:40.260
And so the idea of us, you know, going in and evangelizing the schools was something that
00:16:46.520
And if that was going to work, it would work by now.
00:16:51.300
Expound on that a little bit more for the parents who say, well, you know, my kindergartner,
00:16:59.580
And if my Christian kid is not in this school, these other kids will never know Christ.
00:17:07.840
First of all, missionaries need to be trained, right?
00:17:10.960
And you don't send your missionaries to be trained by your adversary.
00:17:17.060
You don't send your missionaries to be trained and indoctrinated by the people that you want
00:17:24.660
You train them first and then you send them into that territory.
00:17:39.100
And I also think about the fact that it's not just what kids are learning or it's not just
00:17:49.660
So even if your child is in a school where gender ideology hasn't fully hit yet or critical
00:17:56.500
race theory hasn't fully hit, although I would say that's kind of hard to believe at this
00:18:00.360
point, that it's not somewhere in there, even if the parents don't realize it.
00:18:08.040
They're not saying today we're learning critical race theory.
00:18:10.820
It's today we're learning the real history of the United States or something like that.
00:18:14.860
Um, but it's also, I think what they are missing when they don't have a Christian education.
00:18:22.660
I'm very thankful that my parents were able to give me that from kindergarten through 12th
00:18:27.660
And I understand that's not a guarantee for a kid's salvation or a guarantee that they are
00:18:34.820
But when I think about, um, how that foundation set me up for the rest of my life, how I still
00:18:41.780
use the gospel centered education that I had in every subject, I just think that that is
00:18:48.920
one of the greatest gifts that my parents gave me.
00:18:51.640
Because even if in a public school, they're not learning some of the crazy progressive stuff,
00:18:56.580
I promise that they're not learning the gospel.
00:18:59.080
I promise that they're not learning how to apply their faith in math, in history, et cetera,
00:19:04.240
And Ellie, even beyond that, in modern American schools, they're also not learning how to
00:19:14.740
So for the Christian parent, what we're saying is I'm not only willing to compromise
00:19:23.780
By the way, kindergarten through 12th grade, a child spends 14,000 instructional hours in school.
00:19:30.780
So I'm, I'm number one, I'm willing to compromise theologically and teach my children by default
00:19:42.540
Number two, I'm willing to compromise academically because the American school system ranks middle
00:19:49.200
of the pack and below in math and science, for example.
00:19:54.440
So, you know, we're not only doing harm from a biblical, theological, Christian worldview
00:20:03.420
perspective, but we're also doing, doing harm from just a basic academic perspective as
00:20:12.320
And I think a lot of parents thankfully are waking up to that.
00:20:15.840
In every demographic, we have seen homeschool increase over the past couple of years.
00:20:23.300
The Christian schools that I know of locally, I mean, they have wait lists.
00:20:27.560
They've had families who more than ever have been transferring from either charter schools
00:20:34.000
or public schools to try to get their kids a Christian education.
00:20:37.280
So, I do think COVID kind of woke people up to not just the indoctrination, but also, wow,
00:20:43.880
the teachers unions don't really care about the students because they're willing to completely
00:20:51.260
And in a lot of people, that was the first time they got to see what their kids were learning.
00:20:55.440
Because now, okay, the kid starts doing this stuff online.
00:20:59.060
And there were a lot of parents who, for the first time, got a real glimpse into the material
00:21:08.880
and the source of their child's academic experience and were just appalled.
00:21:14.720
So, your book, Fault Lines, was primarily about kind of the social justice, critical race
00:21:30.620
theory ideology, which we've talked about for the past couple of interviews.
00:21:35.140
Now, there's been a lot of discussion and debate for the first time in a lot of churches
00:21:40.420
over the past couple of years, obviously, since George Floyd and the riots.
00:21:45.920
And we saw a lot of Christian teachers saying, okay, church, it's time to do the work.
00:21:50.860
It's time to read White Fragility, whatever it is.
00:21:54.540
And it's hard to determine whether things, when it comes to that particular conversation,
00:22:04.320
I do think some people have realized now Black Lives Matter was a scam.
00:22:07.840
A lot of that stuff that Christians were pressured into, it wasn't really biblical.
00:22:13.380
But man, I still see a lot of division when it comes to what justice looks like,
00:22:18.380
what oppression really looks like, what so-called racial reconciliation looks like.
00:22:24.340
What is your feeling of how Christians are approaching the subject now about two years
00:22:35.880
One, I think some people have gone underground, right?
00:22:39.160
And just they hope that people don't remember what they said, what they did, what they championed.
00:22:45.740
I think two, some people have just, they've kept the same ideology.
00:22:52.060
They believe, you know, the whole anti-racist ideology.
00:22:56.700
They believe the whole White Fragility ideology.
00:22:59.960
They, they, they, they, they imbibed it, but they're moving away from phrases, you know,
00:23:10.360
Black Lives Matter, them being exposed the way they have.
00:23:17.640
They're willing to say that, you know, the organization was bad, that, that, that, that
00:23:22.400
movement per se was bad, but they're still holding onto the idea, ideology that lay at
00:23:30.060
So they still believe fundamentally that our goal ought to be equity and not equality, right?
00:23:36.880
They still want the diversity, equity, inclusion, you know, uh, program.
00:23:41.320
And, and, and, and just in case there's anyone new here, can you just tell us the difference
00:23:47.280
So again, equality is that age old idea that everybody is equal and ought to be treated equally
00:23:55.020
and that everybody ought to, um, play by the same rules and have the same opportunities,
00:24:02.380
Um, equity is the idea that everybody ought to end up at the same place and that if they're
00:24:09.300
not ending up at the same place, and when I say everybody, I don't mean individually,
00:24:14.920
We, we, we have to, we have to racialize everyone and we have to see everyone as, as groups and
00:24:27.040
And if groups are not having the same outcomes, then the, the assumption is that that's because
00:24:40.920
And equity says, we then need to, you know, deconstruct the system, you know, to whatever
00:24:46.800
degree we need to in order to get to those equal outcomes.
00:24:52.740
And Thomas Sowell, as you know, has written many books on this really for, uh, I don't
00:24:57.820
know, 40, 45 years, but two of the more recent ones, quest for cosmic justice and discrimination
00:25:03.920
and disparities talks about that and quest for cosmic justice.
00:25:08.420
That's basically what he calls social justice is cosmic justice, because it's basically like
00:25:14.600
the people in charge see themselves as gods in the cosmos.
00:25:17.500
And they're saying, how can we hold this group back, push this group forward?
00:25:23.080
So everyone ends up on the same plane, basically punishing one group for having too much perceived
00:25:29.200
success, reward another group for having too much perceived failure.
00:25:36.920
It never works because the calculations aren't really based on reality and a correct view of
00:25:43.480
human nature, but just based on the belief that human beings are kind of just clumps of
00:25:48.420
cells that you can manipulate as you see fit, um, so that everyone will end up in the same place.
00:25:56.020
And there's a million different policies that I can think of that kind of align with that
00:26:02.300
And, and the assumption of course too, is that the only difference between people, um, is
00:26:19.140
There are certain groups of people that just aren't interested, right?
00:26:23.940
Um, you know, the Austrians make great violins.
00:26:28.040
Uh, well, praise God, let's go buy violins from the Austrians.
00:26:32.100
But you know, I, I, that doesn't mean that we say, well, no, no, no, no, no.
00:26:36.400
We've, we've got to have them make fewer violins and we've got to have these people make,
00:26:41.600
And, you know, how about we ask what it is about their culture, right?
00:26:46.580
What it is about their history, what it is about their interests, um, that, that leads
00:26:51.580
them to do that, that would explain why this group over here wouldn't be as proficient.
00:27:00.300
Let's buy our violins from them and let's go buy whatever else, you know, that these guys
00:27:06.840
But, but, but this, this whole, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion, um, mantra has
00:27:13.860
really got people buying an idea that number one is completely illogical.
00:27:18.460
No, no two groups of people have ever been, um, you know, completely the same in that way.
00:27:28.320
You could have twin brothers in the same family, same background.
00:27:31.980
I mean, pretty much like the same DNA and one could be an abject failure.
00:27:40.400
So if you can't get two twin brothers from the exact same family to end up in the same
00:27:45.980
place how do you think you can get two strangers from different parts of the country with different
00:27:51.700
families different backgrounds to end up in the same place just by manipulating policies right
00:27:56.100
it's an impossibility that actually leads to to policies that try to bring everyone down to the
00:28:01.500
lowest common denominator and that's the only way you can make it work you know that's that's the
00:28:06.480
only way you can make it work is um you know you cut out you cut off all the stocks to make them
00:28:11.460
the same height you know yeah use the classic illustration um yeah and it's unfortunate you
00:28:16.700
know um but but i think there's another more sinister aspect of this at the end of the day
00:28:23.920
this is about power at the end of the day this is about people saying you know there's power dynamics
00:28:32.220
at work these people have too much power take it from them and give it to me i mean essentially
00:28:40.360
that's what this is about and it's about those people who are representatives of you know so-called
00:28:48.180
disadvantaged groups um accumulating power for themselves nobody ever gets better because of
00:28:57.280
this but certain people um get richer because of this and get more powerful because of this and at
00:29:04.640
the end of the day this is a power play right and that i mean that's been going on especially when it
00:29:09.540
comes to race politics and activism for a while booker d washington talked about that how there's
00:29:14.640
a certain group of people that want to keep black people feeling like they're oppressed because they
00:29:19.240
make money off of that perceived oppression and man is that still true today i mean black lives matter
00:29:26.020
we've now seen basically just garnered millions and millions of dollars for their own mansions not to
00:29:32.600
do anything for the communities that by the way were destroyed by the riots that they provoked and so
00:29:39.920
it really is a huge gimmick in the name of social and racial justice and i i did just want to say
00:29:45.940
something about equity and equality because you can read in scripture how god cares about equity so when
00:29:52.140
we talk about the difference between equity and equality we're talking about progressives new
00:29:57.900
fangled definitions of equity equity in its true sense actually means you know impartiality yes that
00:30:05.360
the law should apply the same to everyone no matter your background that is biblical we read over and
00:30:10.560
over again in scripture god hates partiality do not defer to the poor or to the great in a lawsuit
00:30:16.060
yeah but in truth judge your neighbor and so but today's new fangled definition of equity is equality of
00:30:23.100
outcomes well and and and you make you bring up an important point because one of the things that
00:30:29.380
i've seen as people have talked about this um you know different different speakers and you know
00:30:36.140
different pastors or or whatever or not necessarily pastor different christian leaders who have been
00:30:42.180
advocating this critical social justice ideology and one of the things that they do it's this it's this
00:30:49.780
biblical biblical biblical sleight of hand and so they'll say you know these people are all upset
00:30:55.700
you know because of you know talk about equity or you can't say anything about oppression and then
00:31:00.660
they'll go to a bible verse right you know you you go to proverbs one and you know there's you know equity
00:31:06.780
and justice right and they're like it's right there in the scriptures or you know the the israelites
00:31:13.460
were oppressed right by the more and and they're like there it is in scripture so these people don't want
00:31:19.340
to talk about this but the bible talks about this and your point is spot on the bible uses those words
00:31:28.940
we're not talking about those words per se we're talking about the meaning that has been poured into
00:31:35.260
those words today right and by the way there are sinister purposes behind that because if you use words
00:31:42.540
that are familiar to people and that are attractive to people but you change the meaning of those words
00:31:50.780
that's one way that christians have been deceived into going along to one degree or another with these
00:31:58.860
movements because there are words like social justice okay anti-racism well i'm not pro racism
00:32:08.140
right equity you know um but you know those words are attractive to us because we belong to christ
00:32:18.140
because we love the body of christ because we love our neighbor and it sometimes you know by god's grace
00:32:27.420
people will recognize that these words don't mean what they thought they meant right other times um people
00:32:33.900
are carried along until they're shipwrecked and there are a lot of people um who've been shipwrecked
00:32:39.980
there's some of these leaders right um who who are who are now in another camp
00:32:46.780
i heard a spokesperson for the um nhl the other day say that they are working to reduce the number of
00:33:08.780
white people in the corporation they need more minorities working for them and you hear this a lot
00:33:15.980
you hear this from churches you hear this from christian schools saying that basically it's a
00:33:21.340
problem when you have too many white people almost like whiteness is some kind of like disease that
00:33:25.660
you need to eradicate or diminish so i mean how should christians think about that you like diversity
00:33:34.460
sure but should we be seeing whiteness as some kind of problem to be solved yeah you know i think we need
00:33:41.660
to be truth tellers um i i think we need to be people who treat one another with respect and with dignity
00:33:55.020
based on the fact that all people are made in the image of god i think we also need to be people who
00:34:01.020
recognize and appreciate the true diversity that god gives us right um in gifts talents abilities
00:34:11.180
desires whatever one of the things that's so sad about all of this is that these moves
00:34:18.860
to get rid of these people in favor of those people these moves give a a form of diversity
00:34:28.460
but they destroy another kind of diversity what i mean by that is this
00:34:32.620
they want people who are ethnically diverse but they don't want people who are ideologically diverse
00:34:40.780
so for example people say you know we need to elevate black voices okay great um how about
00:34:49.660
votie bachum oh no not his voice right because we don't want ideological diversity and so i think we need to
00:34:58.700
be honest with one another i think we need to um you know respect one another enough um to
00:35:09.020
live in that kind of honesty with one another and i think that we need to trust god enough
00:35:15.660
um to distribute his gifts um in in his own way um and just receive whatever it is that he gives us
00:35:25.820
i think you're right in that if we recognize that there is this malicious you know sort of
00:35:32.060
discrimination that's going on again as followers of christ um that can't be tolerated you know um
00:35:40.300
and then i'll go i'll go another step further i think one of the problems is that because we've just
00:35:47.740
decided number one that any kind of disparity is automatically the result of um racism and discrimination
00:35:55.740
right and then you know number two you know we don't want to victim blame and we don't want to
00:36:01.420
you know you know judge cultures or whatever i think because of that we're not getting behind the
00:36:06.780
numbers so for instance what i mean is if you know if black children for example are underperforming
00:36:16.300
academically we just say we need to change the standard we need to change the test we need to change the
00:36:22.220
system we need to change but what if there are reasons exactly behind that that need to be addressed
00:36:31.980
if we're just changing the standard and we're just changing the test and we're just changing the
00:36:35.500
institutions then what we haven't done is we haven't gotten to the root of whatever the real problem
00:36:43.980
might be and to me that's the sinister part of all of this right in san diego i think it was
00:36:51.660
that they basically did or they they did away with a grading scale because disproportionately black
00:36:57.820
and hispanic students weren't they weren't getting the same scores on math tests as the asian students
00:37:05.660
were and so kind of what we were saying earlier just lowest common denominator rather than saying
00:37:11.180
okay why is this group of students falling behind if this is the standard that people need to reach to be
00:37:17.420
successful in life to be productive members of society rather than lowering it so no one is a
00:37:23.260
productive member of society how can we bring this group up and actually if you look at the numbers
00:37:29.580
obviously fatherlessness has something to do with it but also asian students on average spend the
00:37:35.420
highest number of hours yes on homework higher than white students or anything else yes and they have
00:37:41.740
more wealth than white people as well so right right exactly the highest median income in the country
00:37:49.020
it's not white americans white americans is like mid way it's indian americans um which is a little
00:37:55.340
confusing if the whole system is apparently a white supremacist system so there are other factors there
00:38:02.620
that the very people who say that they care about liberation and lifting up black and brown communities
00:38:08.620
don't want to address because of what you said earlier that doesn't give them power yeah that
00:38:13.180
doesn't give the activists power yes absolutely and i mean listen like i said at the end of the day
00:38:21.020
this is a power play and at the end of the day um these people are not concerned the way they claim to be
00:38:32.780
concerned they don't have um these folks best interest at heart um and and and that's what's
00:38:40.460
just incredibly sad about it yeah i agree with you all right can you give some encouragement then to
00:38:46.780
christian parents as they are kind of wading through the chaos obviously we know god is sovereign but for
00:38:54.060
those who are thinking well you know this country is just going to hell in a handbasket it's hard for
00:38:58.540
them to maintain their hope and their joy in the midst of all of this yeah what encouragement do you
00:39:02.780
have for them ah boy if the first thing is to remember that this is not our home right um you
00:39:11.260
know we are citizens of another kingdom um but having said that you know we ought to keep jeremiah 29 in
00:39:19.500
mind right that that we we pray um for the welfare of the city where we've been sent into exile yes
00:39:27.260
because in its welfare we will have our welfare and god is faithful i mean he is absolutely faithful
00:39:34.940
and the kingdom of god is undefeated and so if we are on the side of the kingdom um and if we are
00:39:41.980
working to advance the kingdom then number one our hope is secure um but secondly um we have the privilege
00:39:51.180
you know i i don't live here anymore but we have the privilege of living in a place that has been
00:39:57.980
incredibly blessed by god and it is god's providence that has made america you know what it is we ought to
00:40:07.420
rejoice in that we ought to hope in that and we ought to take advantage of the fact that we have an
00:40:14.380
opportunity to turn the tide um it it it can it can happen right um and then finally we need to make
00:40:22.860
sure that our desire is not just for america to have the tide turned for america's sake but for america
00:40:31.260
to have the tide turned for the gospel's sake to me the greatness of the united states is the fact that
00:40:39.180
the gospel has prospered here and born fruit here unlike anywhere else or any other time in the
00:40:48.140
world and so my desire is for all of those things that allowed that to happen to continue to flourish
00:40:57.020
so that the work of the gospel can continue to flourish here and continue to be a blessing elsewhere
00:41:03.260
but dr bacham isn't that very scary christian nationalism absolutely it is yeah it is most
00:41:24.140
you know again now you open another can of worms i remember um it seemed like things started to get
00:41:30.300
traction right in terms of people waking up to the problems with um the this whole social justice
00:41:36.300
movement people started to speak up you know and speak out and all of a sudden the folks on the other
00:41:42.620
side i think got a little nervous and then they started going yeah well what about this christian
00:41:48.220
nationalism and for most of the rest of us we had to go wait a minute you can go look it up right
00:41:55.340
like what what what is that i may be with you right i may and you know this may be this big scary
00:42:01.420
boogeyman or whatever and then we go look it up and there's no clear definition of what it is and you
00:42:08.380
know there are different people who are defining it in different ways and essentially it was a smoke
00:42:14.060
screen and then if you just stop and think about it for a minute right okay if you don't want christian
00:42:20.060
nationalism what other kind of nationalism do you want yeah right do you want you know secular
00:42:28.060
nationalism muslim nationalism you know and or if it's not the christianity that's the problem
00:42:33.660
is it the nationalism that's the problem if we don't want nationalism what do we want do we want
00:42:37.420
globalism you know no thank you please right so with china in charge yeah exactly you know so yeah it
00:42:46.860
it does sound like a bunch of scary christian nationalism and so what you're right christians
00:42:53.740
are the only ones who are told to check their worldview at the door before they vote before
00:42:59.020
they teach secular progressivism is not neutral it's what characterizes our curriculum it's what
00:43:06.140
characterizes much of our legislation today it's what characterizes corporate policy today it's not
00:43:12.860
neutral it has its own theological claims it's pseudo religious claims and it's only when christians
00:43:20.460
say well you know what i've got a worldview too and i think it's better and so i'm going to bring my
00:43:25.420
ideas in my faith to the table when we're having these discussions all of a sudden that's scary christian
00:43:31.260
nationalism yeah but it's also not christian nationalism apparently on the left on the left when stacy
00:43:37.660
abrams or kamala harris or joe biden when they invoke the bible and basically say that the reverend
00:43:43.820
rafael warnock oh yes yeah when he invokes his faith to say oh no we need to force the taxpayer to
00:43:49.820
pay for the dismemberment right babies that's not christian nationalism it's only when conservatives say
00:43:56.060
well you know what i believe babies are made in god's image and we shouldn't be allowed to murder them
00:44:01.020
that's christian nationalism when gavin newsom puts a bible verse on a billboard trying to attract
00:44:07.660
people to california to kill their babies right so i mean for for a generation anytime you speak up
00:44:14.620
it's you know separation of church and state separation of church and state you know for christians for a
00:44:18.860
generation right and it bothered me so much people would come and they would say oh you know dr bacham
00:44:24.780
you know we know you apologetics and all this sort of stuff and you know how do we make an argument
00:44:29.900
you know about abortion or an argument about you know same-sex marriage but but not using the bible
00:44:36.140
because because because they don't believe the bible so we want to make an argument that doesn't rely
00:44:40.060
on the bible and now here they are using the bible unapologetically right with no shame at all
00:44:48.620
in order to advance these ungodly ideologies yes and man i could talk about that whole subject for 30 more
00:44:55.740
for 30 more minutes even just christians trying to get out of using the bible or using their faith as
00:45:02.140
the basis for what they believe about abortion and gender and yes you can make secular arguments about
00:45:09.260
those things but the end of the day only our faith informs not when life begins but why that life
00:45:16.940
matters when life begins not just that human beings are sexually dimorphic but why that matters more
00:45:23.260
than someone's feelings about themselves so actually i think that it's okay for christians to say
00:45:29.580
at the end of the day all of these things are informed in my belief that god created the heavens
00:45:35.740
and the earth and he says what is and what isn't christians shouldn't try to shy away from that because
00:45:40.300
they're scared of being called christian nationalists amen yeah okay thank you so much i hate to close this
00:45:46.700
out we're ending right on time though i really appreciate your time tell people where they can buy your book
00:45:52.700
follow you maybe follow your the speaking tours that you sometimes do in the united states how can
00:45:57.820
they do all that yeah you can go to vodibachum.org and uh v-o-d-d-i-e-b-a-u-c-h-a-m uh people ask me
00:46:05.420
that all the time how do you spell that yeah uh vodibachum.org you can find out whatever you need
00:46:09.340
need to find out about perfect thank you so much thank you you're very welcome