Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 24, 2022


Ep 696 ｜ Kids Are Not Public School Missionaries ｜ Guest： Dr. Voddie Baucham


Episode Stats

Length

46 minutes

Words per Minute

156.48698

Word Count

7,243

Sentence Count

264

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

15


Summary


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
00:00:39.100 Bauckham.
00:00:40.000 We are going to discuss all of this and more.
00:00:42.480 Now, before we get into that conversation, I do just want to shout out a couple of items
00:00:49.520 that we have on our merch store.
00:00:53.300 And that's these two wonderful stickers.
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
00:01:20.200 slaughter of tens of millions of babies.
00:01:21.900 So we are celebrating the Dobbs decision, the end to Roe v. Wade.
00:01:26.780 Praise God for that.
00:01:27.920 Get yourself a little $5 sticker that celebrates that Rip Roe.
00:01:32.720 We'll link it in the description on YouTube.
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.
00:01:51.120 Early voting starts in most places.
00:01:54.620 And also you can vote, obviously, on voting day.
00:01:57.760 Get these stickers.
00:01:58.980 Pass them out to your friends.
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.
00:02:21.880 So get these little $5 stickers.
00:02:24.240 I can't wait for mine to come in.
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
00:02:39.540 to the Christian.
00:02:40.320 And as always, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:02:43.540 Go to GoodRanchers.com slash Allie.
00:02:45.660 That's GoodRanchers.com slash Allie.
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.
00:03:03.340 I think this is the third time.
00:03:05.180 You are.
00:03:05.680 Yes.
00:03:06.280 It's the first time in person.
00:03:07.440 First time in person.
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.
00:03:23.260 We're ahead of the midterms in the U.S.
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.
00:03:45.700 It just feels like we are at a pressure point.
00:03:48.100 And a lot of people are scared, worried about the future of the country, the state of the
00:03:52.780 world for our kids.
00:03:54.240 Can you just give us some perspective?
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?
00:04:07.540 Yeah.
00:04:08.000 I think there's a couple of things there.
00:04:09.860 Number one, it's a clash of worldviews.
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
00:05:20.760 things work.
00:05:22.260 And now as these things have sort of gone public, and not only have they gone public, but in many
00:05:29.120 instances, they've been accepted, right?
00:05:31.900 They've taken the field, so to speak.
00:05:36.720 There's just the chaos.
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.
00:05:54.480 And that's where the panic comes from.
00:05:56.340 Because people are saying, wait a minute, what is this?
00:06:01.160 Where did this come from?
00:06:03.000 So we got one generation that's saying, welcome to the party, and another generation that's
00:06:08.920 saying, the sky is falling.
00:06:12.400 Right.
00:06:12.920 Right.
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
00:06:28.240 are still seen.
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
00:06:47.880 originated in the last few years.
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
00:07:04.260 for a while.
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
00:07:24.740 all of a sudden the world has gone mad.
00:07:27.300 How important do you think it is for Christians to understand the roots of these progressive
00:07:33.620 ideologies?
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?
00:07:43.400 I do.
00:07:43.840 I really do think it's important.
00:07:45.820 You know, my last book, I addressed that.
00:07:48.860 And I addressed it for this very reason.
00:07:50.640 I believe we need to know where these ideas come from.
00:07:54.240 Ideas have consequences, right?
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.
00:08:10.380 So yeah, we do need to know these things.
00:08:12.800 Now, do we all, you know, need master's degrees in critical theory or whatever, some kind of
00:08:20.020 grievance studies?
00:08:20.660 We don't.
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
00:08:33.860 us those general overviews.
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
00:08:54.500 what it is.
00:08:55.640 Although that could be great, but...
00:08:57.800 By the way, reading the critical sources, reading the original sources will give you
00:09:03.360 less of an understanding.
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.
00:09:28.060 Right.
00:09:28.560 You know.
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
00:09:53.520 anyway.
00:09:54.120 They're basically interchangeable.
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?
00:10:17.380 We got drag queen story hour.
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?
00:10:28.200 Yeah.
00:10:30.160 The critical theorists really did a good job of infiltrating the institutions, often referred to as the long march
00:10:39.120 through the institutions, right?
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.
00:11:02.480 And I think education above all.
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.
00:11:46.080 But they're talking about these ideas.
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.
00:12:10.980 They're talking about sexuality.
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.
00:12:54.120 That's been going on for generations now.
00:12:56.640 And it's been preparing the ground.
00:12:58.480 I have a lot of conversations with moms who have their kids, Christian moms, Christian conservative moms.
00:13:15.000 They have their kids in public school.
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,
00:13:39.760 who previously thought, not my district.
00:13:42.180 We live in Alabama.
00:13:43.720 We live in Georgia.
00:13:44.740 We live in Texas.
00:13:45.720 It's not going to happen here.
00:13:47.300 And I'm equipping my kids.
00:13:49.320 They're going to be light in the darkness.
00:13:50.780 And we've got good Christian teachers.
00:13:52.760 Oh, they go to our church.
00:13:54.060 They're in our Sunday school.
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,
00:13:59.920 you know, I changed my mind.
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
00:14:09.680 without them coming back.
00:14:10.860 Romans, that really resonated with me.
00:14:12.180 I hear that a lot.
00:14:13.680 And so, but I do know that in this audience, there are still parents hanging on to this idea that,
00:14:18.400 well, I had a public education and I was fine.
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?
00:14:35.960 Luke 640.
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
00:15:09.180 by federal mandate.
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?
00:15:52.160 And in the 1870s, that was the goal.
00:15:57.020 It was based on the Prussian model.
00:15:59.020 And the goal was to eliminate the stronghold of Christianity and to establish a system of
00:16:05.960 secular humanism.
00:16:07.340 And that's exactly what we have.
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,
00:16:27.620 you know, as they would call them.
00:16:28.480 We now call them co-ops.
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
00:16:45.860 came in later.
00:16:46.520 And if that was going to work, it would work by now.
00:16:49.520 Right, right.
00:16:50.560 Yeah.
00:16:51.300 Expound on that a little bit more for the parents who say, well, you know, my kindergartner,
00:16:56.420 my fifth grader is basically a missionary.
00:16:59.580 And if my Christian kid is not in this school, these other kids will never know Christ.
00:17:06.540 Can you address that argument?
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
00:17:23.340 them to share the gospel with.
00:17:24.660 You train them first and then you send them into that territory.
00:17:29.780 So we're doing it completely backwards.
00:17:32.300 Our kids are not the missionaries.
00:17:34.340 They're the mission field.
00:17:36.380 That's a really good point.
00:17:37.960 That's a really good point.
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
00:17:47.900 what they may not be learning.
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.
00:18:04.060 It's in the curriculum.
00:18:05.100 Right, right.
00:18:06.280 And even as you said, it's subtle.
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
00:18:27.380 grade.
00:18:27.660 And I understand that's not a guarantee for a kid's salvation or a guarantee that they are
00:18:32.800 going to remain in the faith.
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,
00:19:03.720 like I did.
00:19:04.240 And Ellie, even beyond that, in modern American schools, they're also not learning how to
00:19:09.380 read and write and do math.
00:19:11.080 Right.
00:19:11.660 Right.
00:19:12.060 Right.
00:19:12.420 I mean, our schools are terrible academically.
00:19:14.740 So for the Christian parent, what we're saying is I'm not only willing to compromise
00:19:20.360 theologically my kid's education, right?
00:19:23.780 By the way, kindergarten through 12th grade, a child spends 14,000 instructional hours in school.
00:19:29.360 Okay.
00:19:30.360 Okay.
00:19:30.780 So I'm, I'm number one, I'm willing to compromise theologically and teach my children by default
00:19:37.900 that Christ is not Lord over academics.
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
00:20:09.160 well.
00:20:09.960 Mm-hmm.
00:20:10.660 I think that that's, I think that's right.
00:20:12.320 And I think a lot of parents thankfully are waking up to that.
00:20:14.900 We have seen.
00:20:15.580 Yes.
00:20:15.840 In every demographic, we have seen homeschool increase over the past couple of years.
00:20:20.980 Fastest growing segment in education.
00:20:22.800 Yes.
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
00:20:48.120 isolate them for the sake of politics.
00:20:51.260 And in a lot of people, that was the first time they got to see what their kids were learning.
00:20:54.900 Mm-hmm.
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,
00:22:00.780 have gotten better among Christians or worse.
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
00:22:30.620 out of when it was most tense?
00:22:34.000 I think a couple of things have happened.
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.
00:23:14.140 People are like, okay, that was bad.
00:23:16.380 They were wrong.
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
00:23:28.420 the foundation of that movement.
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
00:23:45.920 between equity and equality?
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,
00:24:01.160 right?
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,
00:24:14.060 right?
00:24:14.920 We, we, we have to, we have to racialize everyone and we have to see everyone as, as groups and
00:24:22.240 not as individuals.
00:24:23.080 And so groups need to have the same outcomes.
00:24:27.040 And if groups are not having the same outcomes, then the, the assumption is that that's because
00:24:36.940 of racism in the system, right?
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.
00:24:52.100 Yes.
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.
00:25:33.760 So everyone is on the same plane.
00:25:36.520 Yeah.
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
00:25:59.640 idea of cosmic justice and they never work.
00:26:01.620 Yeah.
00:26:02.300 And, and the assumption of course too, is that the only difference between people, um, is
00:26:08.420 the influences upon them, right?
00:26:10.640 There aren't differences in culture.
00:26:13.480 There aren't differences in ability.
00:26:15.220 There aren't differences in choices.
00:26:17.040 There aren't differences in interests.
00:26:19.140 There are certain groups of people that just aren't interested, right?
00:26:23.040 In certain things.
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,
00:26:40.340 you know, more violins.
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.
00:26:57.620 And, and then how about we say, that's great.
00:27:00.300 Let's buy our violins from them and let's go buy whatever else, you know, that these guys
00:27:05.080 are great at from them.
00:27:06.340 Right.
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.
00:27:25.280 No two individuals, no two individuals.
00:27:27.220 That's what Thomas Sowell says too.
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.
00:27:37.720 One could be a successful doctor.
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
00:41:09.980 assuredly very scary christian nationalism
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