Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 25, 2019


Ep 90 ｜ The Gospel of Grievance


Episode Stats

Length

44 minutes

Words per Minute

181.47311

Word Count

8,064

Sentence Count

470

Misogynist Sentences

32

Hate Speech Sentences

51


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 What is up, guys? Happy Monday. Welcome to Relatable. My name is Ali Stuckey. Thank you
00:00:04.900 so much for listening. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Okay. Those of you who are listening to
00:00:10.780 this are listening to a section of today's episode that is not on YouTube, that is not on Blaze TV.
00:00:17.140 And the reason for that is last night on Sunday night, I had to record a kind of bonus opening
00:00:22.840 segment for this podcast that is different than the one that I recorded on Friday to be released
00:00:28.360 today, this morning on Monday. And the reason for that is because Attorney General Barr
00:00:33.320 released his summary of the Mueller report. In case you don't know, in case you've been living
00:00:38.820 under some kind of rock for the past two years, which honestly, if you have, I don't blame you
00:00:43.280 at all. There has been an investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump and
00:00:49.340 the Trump campaign to see whether or not they colluded with the Russian government to win Trump
00:00:54.980 the election. The investigation also looked into whether or not Trump obstructed justice.
00:01:02.620 Okay. Here's what we know. What we have found out from William Barr, according to his summary,
00:01:08.720 is that there was no evidence whatsoever of President Trump or anyone associated with his campaign
00:01:16.040 colluding with Russia to win the election. This is a quote from the summary. The special
00:01:23.220 counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or
00:01:29.800 coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
00:01:36.740 As the report states, this is a quote now from the report, the investigation did not establish that
00:01:41.740 members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election
00:01:46.180 interference activities. They also found that, yes, the Russian government, this is something that we
00:01:51.040 already knew, the Russian government did succeed in interfering with our elections. They leaked
00:01:57.920 particular emails from the Democratic side to WikiLeaks and to other organizations that were then
00:02:03.300 disseminated. And members of the Russian government have been charged with those crimes. However, what we
00:02:08.600 found is that no one from the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia. And that should be a good,
00:02:13.500 that should be a good thing for all Americans to finally have peace about. It would be very scary to know that
00:02:23.300 the person that has held the highest office in all of the world, that he coordinated with the Russian
00:02:31.140 government to steal the 2016 election. And we found out that that is not true. That's good. We also found out in
00:02:37.780 this report that there was not sufficient evidence to say that Trump obstructed justice. So that's also
00:02:43.700 a great thing. Unfortunately, you have a lot of people on the left who for the past two years have
00:02:49.880 been getting all of their clicks, all of their attention and all of their affirmation from spinning this
00:02:56.100 Russian collusion narrative. I mean, they have reported on this thing like it is the gospel truth, like they
00:03:01.740 know for sure that Trump stole this election from Hillary Clinton because he coordinated with the Russian
00:03:06.820 government to make it happen. And we have found through the special counsel investigation, at least
00:03:12.060 from what we can read from Attorney General Barr's summary, that that did not happen or else they
00:03:17.980 weren't able to find that that happened. And we know that this was an extremely lengthy and extremely
00:03:24.460 thorough. And as far as we know, an extremely fact based investigation into that matter. I mean, you had the
00:03:31.200 left hailing Mueller as a hero ever since he has been appointed as special counsel. And unfortunately
00:03:38.800 for them, their narrative has completely unraveled. Now, do you see them saying, wow, this is, you know,
00:03:46.820 this is not what this is not what we thought. This is, you know, completely different than than what
00:03:52.620 we've reported on. And we apologize for stating things as if they were factual before we knew everything.
00:03:58.680 Of course not. You're not going to see that. We saw this same kind of media malfeasance when it
00:04:02.600 came to Kavanaugh, when it came to the Jesse, when it came to the Jesse Smollett thing, when it came
00:04:06.900 to Covington, they start with a conclusion that they want to be true and they back up from there.
00:04:11.740 And so you can expect over the next few days for the media to do that same thing for them to say,
00:04:17.360 oh, well, does this really prove everything? I mean, you're already seeing it. You're already
00:04:21.860 seeing it from people on the left saying we need to see the full report. Well, it says in Attorney
00:04:26.580 General Barr's summary that he is trying to release the full report, but has to go through
00:04:31.660 an entire process to make sure that certain things are redacted that have to legally remain
00:04:35.780 confidential. But we are going to see, I'm guessing, more of the report. But Democrats are going to say
00:04:40.860 this doesn't mean anything. Attorney General Barr is biased. No, I mean, that's just not likely.
00:04:48.520 It's not likely that he's going to put out a completely unfactual and biased summary of Robert
00:04:53.980 Mueller's report or else he would be in hot water. Someone would probably speak up from the inside
00:04:59.160 and say, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not what the report said at all. He's not going to get away
00:05:04.100 with making statements that are completely contradictory to what Robert Mueller said.
00:05:07.680 And so Democrats are just wasting their time hoping that this is going to eventually turn out to turn
00:05:13.920 out to be something that works in the favor of their narrative. It's just not. Now, they are still
00:05:19.320 going to talk about, OK, the Southern District of New York. There could be indictments coming
00:05:23.060 there. And yeah, maybe so. But as far as the Russian collusion narrative that they have been
00:05:27.840 pushing since 2016, I mean, that's over. It's just over. I mean, they've been wanting to say
00:05:35.480 forever that Trump is an illegitimate president because of these alleged crimes that they said
00:05:40.700 actually happened. And they're not able to say that. I don't even know what they're going to talk
00:05:47.860 about anymore. They'll find something. But really, what are they going to talk about after Trump leaves
00:05:51.580 office? I honestly do not know. But I just wanted to give you an update on that before we get into
00:05:58.360 the rest of what we're talking about today. We are not talking about anything in particular like
00:06:03.040 that in the news. We're going to kind of talk about something that is more big picture of politics and
00:06:08.740 culture and, of course, get into theology because that is what Mondays are for. So without further
00:06:15.460 ado, here is the original episode that I had had planned and prepared for you guys.
00:06:21.520 So the gospel of grievance, here's the narrative that we hear around it, that if you are less
00:06:29.120 privileged, less privileged, you are owed something by those who are perceived as more privileged. So
00:06:35.900 white people owe black people and Native Americans. Men owe women. The rich owe the poor. We also hear,
00:06:43.120 in addition to that, that the citizen owes the immigrant, especially the illegal immigrant.
00:06:47.380 Even sometimes we hear nowadays that the law abider owes the criminal. This is called what we've
00:06:54.300 talked about many times, intersectionality or what I like to call the oppression Olympic. So anyone who
00:06:59.880 has had traditional or systemic privilege or who is perceived to have traditional or systemic
00:07:07.200 privilege owes the person who has not had those things. In race, that's how we get this case for
00:07:14.880 something called racial reparations. In gender, that is how we get the case for feminism. In poverty,
00:07:21.440 that is how we get the case for socialism. And it's from this gospel of grievance that we get social
00:07:29.100 justice. Social justice is built on this idea that the privileged owe the oppressed. The problem,
00:07:36.220 though, as we've talked about many times, especially over the last couple weeks, the problem with social
00:07:41.180 justice is that it is impossible to truly understand who collectively has been oppressed, who hasn't,
00:07:47.900 how much is someone owed, how much someone owes them, who owes them, and how that transaction will
00:07:53.840 actually impact the people on both sides of the equation and just society at large. That is why the
00:08:00.300 economist Thomas Sowell calls social justice cosmic justice because it is striving for something that is
00:08:06.780 cosmic rather than is something that is tangible. It's striving for this incalculable outcome that typically
00:08:13.640 disadvantages one group in favor of the group that is deemed oppressed. An example of this is illegal
00:08:21.580 immigration. So many social justicians, not all, but especially social justicians on on the left would say,
00:08:28.480 we need to let illegal immigrants in because they're fleeing war. They're fleeing drug. They're
00:08:34.420 fleeing a drug war. They're fleeing oppression. They are fleeing all of these terrible things. And the
00:08:41.460 compassionate thing to do is to let them in. Well, OK, that's one side of the equation or that's one
00:08:47.340 part of it. We let them in because it seems like the right or compassionate thing to do. But the question
00:08:53.620 that we have to ask is, what is on the other side of that equation? Who else is impacted on this? And
00:08:59.300 the questions that people do not really want to ask on the social justice side is, OK, well, what
00:09:05.520 happens practically to the sovereignty of a country who has no borders, pretty much? What what does that
00:09:12.380 do to our ability to keep people safe? What impact does that have on the people who have been waited in
00:09:17.060 line to become legal citizens for years? What does that do to the countries from which these people are
00:09:22.320 fleeing? How does this impact everyone else? What is the other side of this equation? They don't want
00:09:28.420 to ask these questions simply because they want to say this is the right and compassionate thing to do
00:09:33.360 for those who haven't been as oppressed or who the perception is that they haven't been as oppressed,
00:09:39.120 that citizens of the United States and people in the United States, they need to help those who have
00:09:43.720 been oppressed. And that is the citizens of other countries who are fleeing here. This is called the
00:09:48.520 gospel of grievance that says you owe something to me, no matter what. If if you don't have the
00:09:54.840 disadvantages that I or even my ancestors have had, then you owe me what you have been given what you
00:10:01.300 have. It is also known as the politics of grievance. But we are going to examine why Christians in
00:10:06.740 particular have fallen into this trap and are wielding it from their pulpits. So the three topics that we
00:10:13.620 see most covered by this gospel of grievance or these politics of grievance is race, gender and
00:10:20.340 poverty. So in race, as we said, we see this in the form of the advocacy for racial reparations.
00:10:27.460 Here is the Democratic candidate for president, Elizabeth Warren, saying that we should have a
00:10:33.860 national conversation about reparations from slavery. We live in a world where for the average white
00:10:40.540 family has a hundred dollars, the average black family has about five dollars. So I believe it's
00:10:49.140 time to start the national full blown conversation about reparations in this country. We've also heard
00:10:58.320 Kamala Harris talk about this. You've heard Cory Booker talk about forms of this. So let's talk about
00:11:04.660 what reparations are, since apparently they're such a hot topic. You're probably thinking, wait,
00:11:09.240 slavery happened a couple hundred years ago. Why are we still talking about this? Well,
00:11:13.620 there's a reason for it. First, let's look at what reparations are. I do want to give a shout out to
00:11:18.780 the Just Thinking podcast. I had Daryl Harrison, a co-host of the Just Thinking podcast, along with
00:11:23.700 Virgil Walker. He came on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, or was it? Yeah, a couple of weeks ago
00:11:29.340 to talk about wokeness in the church and how that's really damaging the holiness of the church.
00:11:34.040 And they had a great podcast last week on racial reparations, what racial reparations are and why
00:11:41.700 they are unbiblical. So I would highly encourage you go listen to that, to that, to get a thorough
00:11:47.840 examination, what it is. I really love their perspective on it. But in case you haven't listened
00:11:52.480 to the podcast, you're not going to, I'll give you just a rundown of what it is. It's basically the
00:11:57.480 idea that the U.S. government, specifically through white taxpayers, should financially compensate
00:12:02.840 Black people in the country for what they have lost over the centuries because of slavery.
00:12:08.320 So we today, we today, white people, should pay for the sins of our great, great grandparents,
00:12:16.560 they say. Derek Hamilton is the executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and
00:12:22.740 Ethnicity at Ohio State. And he says that racial reparations really is comprised of three parts,
00:12:31.260 and that is acknowledgement, restitution, and reconciliation. So that means that the country
00:12:36.400 needs to acknowledge slavery and the material disadvantages that resulted from it over the
00:12:42.100 centuries. So the fact that Blacks were discriminated against individually and systemically
00:12:47.360 discriminated against as well, and they need to be paid restitution, and then there needs to be some
00:12:53.920 form of a formal reconciliation. So if you ask them, why do you believe this? Or why should Black people in
00:13:00.720 this country get racial reparations? They would say, well, free Black labor created wealth for this
00:13:06.360 country and helped build the nation, and Black people have not been compensated for that. And so
00:13:13.020 they need to. For the years that they worked for free and suffered under the hands of slave owners,
00:13:18.140 they should be paid for that. And there was actually a plan for this after the slaves were emancipated
00:13:23.620 to give the formerly enslaved 40 acres and a mule. You might have heard that phrase before.
00:13:29.260 That happened under President Lincoln. Then, of course, President Lincoln was assassinated. Andrew
00:13:33.860 Johnson became president and then reversed that order. Just a little aside, Lincoln was a Republican
00:13:38.720 and Johnson was a Democrat. Like, I just want to remind people of that.
00:13:44.260 Tenehese Coates, I think that's how you say his name. Of course, he's a very famous writer. He wrote this
00:13:51.300 article for The Atlantic. I believe it was in 2015 called A Case for Reparations, and that kind of
00:13:56.480 broke the Internet. It went viral. A lot of people were talking about this, and he basically outlined
00:14:01.760 the systemic racism that still exists in our country or that he believes still exists in our country
00:14:06.040 and why the U.S. government should pay through essentially white taxpayers should pay for reparations
00:14:13.540 to the Black community. They argue, look, reparations have happened before. They obviously happened
00:14:18.840 in Germany when Germany paid reparations to Holocaust survivors until 2012. America paid reparations to
00:14:25.340 those involved in the Tuskegee experiment. The government paid money to survivors of the
00:14:31.640 Japanese internment camps. They also say that the only reason the government doesn't want to give
00:14:36.760 reparations to Black people is because they won't handle the money responsibly. There is this stereotype
00:14:42.440 that says, oh, they'll just go out and buy these Cadillacs. And I am hearing this from people who,
00:14:48.940 from Black people who are advocating from reparations. They say that there is a stereotype
00:14:53.180 from white people in the U.S. government that says that Black people won't be able to handle this money
00:14:57.200 responsibly. And they think that's the only reason why people won't hop on board for reparations.
00:15:02.460 But that's not the case. The fact of the matter is, is that no one alive today was a slave.
00:15:09.200 No one alive today owned slaves. Not in the United States anyway. Now, this happens elsewhere
00:15:17.460 throughout the world. Sex slavery still exists. That is an industry worth billions of dollars.
00:15:24.780 And indentured servitude still exists in other countries. But in the United States today, there's
00:15:30.440 no one that has ever been a slave. And there is no one who owns slaves. And so this argument that
00:15:38.860 Germany paid Holocaust survivors, that we paid survivors of the Japanese internment camps and
00:15:43.340 their families, these are examples of paying directly the victims. This is not saying that we
00:15:52.320 are going to pay people that descended maybe from slaves. The examples of reparations that are typically
00:16:00.580 listed by those who advocate for reparations for slavery today was payment to people who actually
00:16:07.540 were directly impacted by the kinds of oppression that solicited these reparations. That is not
00:16:13.960 true today. And the argument that all of the wealth and the education and the property ownership
00:16:18.800 disparities between Black people and white people goes back to slavery is not without its criticism.
00:16:24.520 It's not foolproof. Thomas Sowell makes this case in Quest for Cosmic Justice. He says it really
00:16:29.180 wasn't until the 1960s that the Black family started to disintegrate. And you started seeing these huge
00:16:34.220 gaps that you see today. You can't necessarily trace it all the way back to slavery. That's what
00:16:38.800 Thomas Sowell says. And there are a lot of questions about reparations from white people to Black people
00:16:43.800 from the U.S. government to Black people that really go unanswered that you don't hear people
00:16:47.660 who advocate for reparations talk about. Why? Because social justice isn't justice and it never examines
00:16:53.940 the other side of the equation. But here are the practical questions that you have to ask when it comes
00:16:58.480 to reparations. What about the Black people in America today whose ancestors were not here during
00:17:05.640 the time of slavery? What about first or second generation Black immigrants? Did they get
00:17:10.500 reparations? They weren't affected by the American slave trade. Same with white families. What about the
00:17:16.040 first and second and even third generation white people whose families were not here during the
00:17:22.380 American slave trade? What about them? Did they have to pay reparations? What about the white people
00:17:28.140 who have suffered generations of poverty, who have been disadvantaged themselves? Do they have to pay
00:17:33.420 reparations? What about wealthy, successful Black families? Do they get reparations? You're telling me
00:17:39.720 that a middle-class white family needs to pay reparations to Kanye West? Does Barack Obama get
00:17:45.400 reparations? Does Beyonce get reparations? What about Black people who owed and sold slaves in America?
00:17:52.940 Historian Joel Rogers says that free Black people in this country bought and sold other Black people
00:17:57.560 and did so at least since 1654, continuing to do so right through the Civil War. Another historian said
00:18:04.720 Black people owned slaves in each of the 13 original states and later in every state that countenanced
00:18:10.620 slavery. So how do we find the ancestors of those people? Do those people need to pay reparations to
00:18:17.880 other Black people who descended from slaves? Native Americans owned slaves. Should Native Americans pay
00:18:25.160 reparations? I don't know how to answer any of those questions. I'm not sure anyone who advocates for
00:18:31.220 reparations does either. But this is the problem with collectivist ideologies like that that we see
00:18:36.780 on the left. Viewing people as racial groups rather than as individuals causes problems. But social
00:18:42.860 justicians and those who advocate for intersectionality always view people as collective groups. When the fact of
00:18:50.200 the matter is that there are oppressed White people, there are not oppressed Black people, or there are
00:18:55.400 poor White people and wealthy Black people, and it doesn't make sense to just say that all White people
00:19:02.340 should pay Black people for something that happened 200 years ago. And we're not even sure the exact
00:19:08.500 effects that it has on people today. Now, can we look back at slavery and say that that was atrocious?
00:19:13.500 Absolutely. Can we say that that was a stain on our history? Absolutely. Can we say that there are
00:19:19.780 lots of stains on American history where we marginalize a certain person or a certain kind
00:19:24.200 of people just because they were different? Totally. And should we have compassion when we're talking
00:19:28.940 about that? Yes. But when we talk about reparations, people paying for the sins of people who existed,
00:19:34.420 who lived 200 years ago, and we can't even really trace back any of our ancestry to find out
00:19:39.600 who came from slave owners and who didn't definitively. I mean, I guess you have ancestry
00:19:44.380 DNA and things like that. But are you going to do that for every single person in America to make
00:19:48.480 sure that people are getting compensated correctly? I don't I don't think so. And the question still
00:19:54.080 remains, is this going to help? Will this actually create equality? Because that's what they say that
00:19:59.340 this is going to do, that it's going to put Black people on the same playing field as White people.
00:20:04.240 But will it? I mean, there's really no evidence whatsoever that financial compensation
00:20:08.380 will create equality. There's none. Welfare has not made anyone rich. It's not given anyone an
00:20:14.040 opportunity. Ascending foreign aid, for example, has never brought a country out of poverty.
00:20:19.100 But we don't talk about the practicalities in the world of social justice and intersectionality.
00:20:23.740 The only question is in the gospel of grievance and the politics of grievance is,
00:20:28.860 when do I get what I'm owed? And this is what I'm owed. And this is the calculation that I use
00:20:34.020 because I'm a part of an oppressed group. I'm a woman. And so I should get something from men.
00:20:40.900 And what anyone is owed is based on, as we can see, a completely subjective opinion with lots of
00:20:47.820 factual holes in it. But it doesn't matter. So the second way we see the gospel of grievance
00:20:53.740 manifested nowadays is through gender and specifically through the conduit of feminism.
00:20:59.200 So we see this narrative, especially since the whole Me Too movement started. And I've talked
00:21:04.480 about the Me Too movement, the goods and the bads of it. There are good parts of the Me Too movement,
00:21:09.180 but there are also really damaging parts to the Me Too movement. And one of them is this,
00:21:13.340 that, hey, men should take a backseat. They should get out of places of power.
00:21:17.520 Men should be quiet. They should stop mansplaining. They should really put women forward. They should
00:21:22.520 allow women to take the front lines. And we should be giving women these parts in Hollywood.
00:21:29.200 We should be giving women these roles. We should make sure that we have a woman VP. We should make
00:21:33.840 sure that we are diversifying gender-wise all of our areas and all of our spheres of influence because
00:21:40.880 women need to be given more power and men kind of need to take a step back. Somewhere you see this
00:21:45.920 is California. They passed a law that says that all publicly owned companies must have the same number
00:21:51.360 of women on their boards as men. Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, he said that he was going
00:21:57.640 to have an equal number of women in his cabinet as men. You also heard this throughout the Kavanaugh
00:22:03.040 thing that we need to believe all women. Why? Because all women naturally tell the truth. No,
00:22:08.640 of course not. But because they are women, because they have been traditionally oppressed. So we need
00:22:12.740 to believe all women. We obviously hear this through the rhetoric of the gender pay gap that women make
00:22:19.340 79 cents on a dollar to every to every man. And that needs to change. The government needs to do
00:22:24.640 something about that, I guess, in addition to the Equal Pay Act that has already passed.
00:22:28.960 They say that the government needs to step in and make sure that women are getting paid
00:22:33.340 just as much. They they never talk about they always talk about that black women are making
00:22:38.460 even less than white women and other minorities are making even less than white women. They never
00:22:43.060 cite the fact that Asian women make more than white women. I mean, when do I get to collect my
00:22:47.400 impression of my impression points for being a white woman that doesn't make as much as Asian
00:22:51.820 women? What the heck? But no, that's not really how it works in the world of intersectionality.
00:22:57.640 But the whole gender pay gap is a lie. Anyway, we've talked about this, the uncontrolled gap versus
00:23:02.300 the controlled gap. The uncontrolled gap is 79 cents to every dollar that a man makes. But you know why
00:23:09.680 women make 79 cents to every dollar that a man makes in the uncontrolled gap? Because the uncontrolled
00:23:15.700 gap does not account for how how much this woman works, what her title is, what her background is,
00:23:22.900 what her education is, how much overtime she does. It is just the average woman worker to the average
00:23:30.780 man worker. And guess what? The average man puts in more hours, puts in more overtime, takes less time
00:23:38.080 off than a woman does. And typically, typically is able to, is willing to work longer hours and work
00:23:45.360 harder to move his way up to provide for his family or to provide for himself. There's just a different
00:23:51.080 kind of ambition in general, not always, but in general among men than there are among women.
00:23:56.380 Most women are okay with going home early to take care of their families or to not work as much because
00:24:03.080 they want to do something else. That's just not true of men. The controlled gap, when you account
00:24:07.840 for job title, when you account for hours worked, when you account for education, when you account
00:24:12.820 for background, there is no gap. There is no gap. Men and women make the exact same in this country.
00:24:18.120 You know what that tells us is that there is no systemic sexism in this country. That doesn't mean
00:24:23.240 that sexism doesn't exist. That doesn't mean that bad guys don't exist. Men are always going to be
00:24:27.860 stronger than women. And so you're always going to see this problem of men using their physical
00:24:33.980 power against women, unfortunately, because people are sinful fallen beings. And should we speak up
00:24:38.720 about that? Absolutely. But this idea that in the workforce or in the government, there is sanctioned
00:24:45.040 sexism, uh, is just not true. And yet you get this cry of there, there needs to be, there needs to be
00:24:52.060 something. There needs to be restitution. Men need to pay reparations in a way by taking a step back.
00:24:57.480 So women can take a step forward. Um, you hear this and saying that women should get paid the
00:25:01.940 same as men in sports, uh, even though women aren't as good of athletes as men are in general.
00:25:07.520 And so they're not getting as much revenue because not as many people are watching female sports
00:25:11.800 because they're not as interesting to watch. And so, yeah, women are not going to get paid as much
00:25:16.240 as men do, but you say, they say, no, this is equality. This is what has to happen in the social
00:25:20.560 justice world. Uh, the same thing with abortion. Abortion is how feminists think that women will
00:25:27.580 gain full equality because if a man can physically walk away from a pregnancy, a woman should be able
00:25:33.580 to physically walk away from a pregnancy too. So that is part of trying to gain this kind of
00:25:39.160 absolute sameness with a man. You see this also, also through the feminizing of men. There was a story
00:25:46.360 recently out of Santa Ana, California. This middle school had an LGBT fair without parents' knowledge,
00:25:51.880 without parents' consent. And the family research council reported that drag queens were present,
00:25:56.600 uh, giving makeup lessons to 11 year old boys. And the thought is among some feminists and among a lot
00:26:02.840 of people on the left is that if we can degrade as much as possible, what it means to make, uh, men,
00:26:08.960 to make men, men, then, then men and women will be equal. It's what we've talked about before.
00:26:15.380 Equality through homogeny. If we can make men and women basically the same, if we can take away what
00:26:21.000 makes men masculine, what makes them physically stronger, what makes them more aggressive,
00:26:25.700 then we'll just have this amorphous blob of genderless comrades who are all equal because
00:26:31.600 there's no difference. So they're trying to manipulate biology to fit, uh, their social views.
00:26:38.800 And we always, we already see how this social justice equation isn't working out very well.
00:26:45.240 Uh, so in an effort to make all genders the same, you've opened up the door for boys,
00:26:50.240 transgender girls, boys who identify as girls, uh, to play female sports and dominate. We have seen this
00:26:55.780 in, uh, headlines almost every week over the past few months, if not over the past couple of years,
00:27:00.800 uh, wrestling track, et cetera. Uh, you see these transgender girls, AKA boys who have a more
00:27:07.860 testosterone, better bone density and more muscle mass and, uh, better anaerobic capacity,
00:27:14.040 beating girls in all of these sports because boys and girls are different. And no matter how
00:27:18.460 you try to manipulate the social aspect of it, you're never going to be able to change
00:27:22.920 biology. So we're already seeing how this other side of the social justice equation
00:27:28.280 is inherently unjust and not just to men, uh, but also to women who now don't even have a distinct
00:27:35.580 identity or space to be a woman. But again, in this intersectional social justice world,
00:27:41.360 the only people that matter are the most oppressed and, um, women are above on the intersectional and
00:27:48.000 oppression Olympics totem pole. They are above, uh, transgender people in the oppression and,
00:27:53.260 in the, uh, oppression hierarchy. And so, um, unfortunately women are the ones who,
00:28:01.100 who kind of get, who get jaded in all of this, but it's just another example that social justice
00:28:06.380 is not justice. So the third way that we see this gospel of grievance or the politics of grievance
00:28:11.380 is in poverty. And we've heard about this a lot recently, uh, with Bernie Sanders, with AOC,
00:28:17.140 with all these people coming out and saying that they're a proud democratic socialist.
00:28:20.720 Yeah. We see it through the redistribution of wealth. Uh, we see it in AOC's green new deal
00:28:27.340 where she said that she is going to provide economic security for those who are unwilling
00:28:31.900 to work. We did a whole podcast episode on this, the demonization of excellence, this idea that
00:28:37.380 if you are the best at something, if you have done well at something, then, um, you must be an
00:28:44.340 oppressor. There must be something inherently bad about you. And there's this glorification of
00:28:48.720 mediocrity. There's a glorification of laziness on the left. Not that all people who are poor
00:28:55.160 are lazy. I don't think that's true at all. A lot of people do fall on hard times. They've worked
00:28:59.180 really hard, but unfortunately things have happened or they've had to take care of a sick relative or
00:29:03.520 whatever it is. And they're in a tough position that I'm not saying that people, all people who are
00:29:08.400 in poverty are lazy, but there certainly is a condoning of laziness, um, in this gospel of grievance
00:29:15.320 that says you should not have to work for what you have people who have something, uh, they should
00:29:21.420 give it to you. And it is the spirit of entitlement that we see that is so endemic on the socialist
00:29:28.280 left in the gospel of grievance, um, as it pertains to poverty. Now the three things or the three things
00:29:36.260 that we just talked about have one thing in common, and that is this idea of the equality, uh, of
00:29:43.580 outcome in America. We don't guarantee the equality of outcome. We guarantee the equality of opportunity
00:29:49.960 that anyone can take an opportunity that they are willing to work for. So in this way, uh, you have
00:29:55.760 unlimited potential to be as successful as you want to be, but equality of outcome, equality of outcome
00:30:02.380 that we all end up at the same place. Not that we all have opportunities that we're willing to work
00:30:07.300 for, but that we all end up at the same place. That is what the left sees as fair. That's what
00:30:12.080 social justice should see as fair that we all have to end up in the same place. And if people don't end
00:30:16.840 up in the same place, it must be a signal that discrimination is happening. It must be a symbol of
00:30:23.800 injustice. It that's not true. That's not true. People end up in the same place because, uh, life is not
00:30:30.660 always fair. And because people make different choices, but the left doesn't want to think that
00:30:34.880 the choices that you make actually have real consequences that could end you up at a different
00:30:39.200 spot than someone else. They want equality of outcome, which really guarantees equality of
00:30:44.400 mediocrity, not equality of success, uh, equality of mediocrity. So no matter how hard you work,
00:30:50.620 you will always be limited by the money and the power that you have to give the government
00:30:55.100 so that they can redistribute that to those who don't have as much as you do.
00:31:00.560 And equality of outcome sounds really great to people who don't want to work. As we've said,
00:31:05.400 AOC and others think that it's totally fine if people are unwilling to work. Uh, but for anyone
00:31:10.080 who has a bit of ambition, anyone who has a little bit of drive, anyone who has a little bit of work
00:31:14.900 ethic and a little bit of human dignity, you realize, uh, that you're being punished for having all of
00:31:20.200 those things. Uh, not to mention you're being punished for the color of your skin, if you're
00:31:24.160 white or your gender, if you're male, uh, this is the left's warped view of what it means to have
00:31:30.240 a fair and righteous society via social justice and intersectionality that we have to put down the
00:31:36.700 groups that are seen as privileged and lift up the groups that are seen as oppressed, uh, ignore the
00:31:42.320 individuals who, uh, break away from their stereotypes and just view people as these collections, no matter,
00:31:48.740 uh, how, no matter how inaccurate that stereotype of that collection is. I mean, this is the exact
00:31:55.640 opposite of what Martin Luther King Jr. said that he wanted, that he fought for judging people by the
00:32:01.280 content of their character rather than the color of your skin. Uh, now people are only being judged
00:32:06.060 by the color of their skin, by the superficial qualities that the left says have led to oppression.
00:32:12.400 Uh, many Christians have fallen into that. Why? Because they feel guilty.
00:32:18.740 And it sounds compassionate. It sounds sympathetic. It sounds like something that
00:32:23.000 Jesus would have fought for. We're fighting for the least of these. Uh, but that is not to be found
00:32:30.760 in the Bible. And we'll get into that. You hear a lot of Christians using, uh, the story of Zacchaeus
00:32:35.540 in, in Luke 19 to make the case for reparations. And it says after Zacchaeus, uh, or this is after
00:32:42.820 Zacchaeus had, uh, been forgiven after Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, look, Lord here.
00:32:48.240 And now I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anybody out of anything,
00:32:53.100 I will pay back four times the amount, but let's distinguish what's happening here.
00:32:57.420 Uh, Zacchaeus did this freely without coercion. The government did not demand this restitution.
00:33:03.920 He gave charitably to the poor and the people he paid back were people he specifically cheated.
00:33:08.880 Uh, the left loves to say separation of church and state when it comes to things like marriage,
00:33:15.140 when it comes to things like abortion, when it comes to things like morality, but insists
00:33:19.060 that the government, uh, should be like the early church described in the gospels where everyone
00:33:24.780 shared everything. But the difference is the early church gave what they had to each other freely,
00:33:30.900 not by coercion. Acts 2 45. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing
00:33:37.440 the proceeds to all as any had need. But here's what second Corinthians nine, seven says, each one
00:33:44.240 must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful
00:33:49.620 giver. Uh, the early church gave to each other out of the goodness of their heart charitably and
00:33:56.780 cheerfully because the Holy Spirit, uh, compelled them to do so compelled them to love selflessly. That is
00:34:03.680 not what is happening through reparations. That is not what is happening when people demand that the
00:34:08.040 government demand that other people pay money to those who are oppressed. So saying that the
00:34:17.940 government or that the United States should be like the early church, well, that just is not going to
00:34:22.700 happen. Those things are completely paradoxical because you are stealing money from people who earned
00:34:27.620 it themselves and giving it to someone else who did not earn it. That is not what the early church
00:34:31.660 was about. And that's not to say that taxes, uh, shouldn't be there necessarily. We are supposed
00:34:37.900 to give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but there's not a Christian argument for socialism, for equality of
00:34:42.800 outcome. You don't see that basis anywhere in the Bible. Um, and it's obvious when you know how,
00:34:48.740 how much suffering that these ideologies have caused throughout history, uh, communism and socialism
00:34:53.960 seek to make all people the same. Uh, they are called comrade. They seek, uh, sameness or they seek
00:35:00.700 equality through sameness, but that doesn't work. People are different. People have conflicts. People
00:35:05.280 compete. Uh, people have different abilities and different efforts. There can never, there can
00:35:11.180 never be equality of outcome without tyranny. Do you hear me? There can never, ever be equality of
00:35:18.240 outcome without tyranny, uh, in a tyrannical government, you know, who's going to be the first to
00:35:23.880 be cracked down on. It's going to be Christians. We are the number one target of religious harassment
00:35:29.260 around the world. Uh, Christians and people of all religions of all religions flourish, uh,
00:35:34.420 the most in free societies in which all people, regardless of race or creed can reap what they
00:35:39.560 sow. But leftists nowadays want people to reap without sowing. Uh, if you want to reap without
00:35:45.860 sowing, you know what that's called? That's called laziness. And you know what the Bible has to say
00:35:50.000 about laziness. Let's talk about what the Bible says about all of this and what this means to, uh,
00:35:54.300 for people who are Christians. The Bible says about laziness, uh, Proverbs 19, 15, slothfulness
00:35:59.740 cast into a deep sleep and an idle person will suffer hunger. Proverbs 10, four, a slack hand
00:36:04.780 causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. Uh, there was a time, there was a time when
00:36:11.340 hard work did not equal fair treatment in this country for black people and for women, but that
00:36:16.960 time is no more. Uh, that does not exist today, not systemically. Uh, and so, you know, what is in
00:36:23.060 all of this and this advocacy for irresponsibility and for laziness and for other people paying
00:36:29.580 something that they don't actually know, you know, what's in all of this in this gospel of grievance
00:36:34.240 is covetousness. And you know what the Bible says about covetousness. There's this thing called the
00:36:38.800 10th commandment, Exodus 2017. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your
00:36:43.600 neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is
00:36:49.940 your neighbors. So if you are a Christian, Oh, by the way, by the way, that is the biblical
00:36:55.640 foundation for private property, socialism, communism wants to confiscate private property.
00:37:01.740 So again, not biblical, but if you are a Christian, uh, what are you supposed to do? If you do have a
00:37:08.640 legitimate grievance against someone, if someone has done something to you, if someone has specifically
00:37:12.860 oppressed you or treated you unfairly, well, let's see what first Corinthians six, one through three
00:37:16.980 says, when one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the
00:37:21.680 unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints that's you and me who are
00:37:26.500 Christians will judge the world. And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try
00:37:32.120 trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more than matters pertaining to this
00:37:39.140 life? There is nothing in there that says that we need to go to the government to get them to coerce
00:37:44.740 people into financial restitution for the sins of our ancestors. Uh, all of this, all of it, all it
00:37:51.640 does, all of this creates bitterness and resentment against people you perceived as more privileged
00:37:57.200 than you. What does the Bible say about bitterness? It says in, uh, Ephesians 4 31, let all bitterness
00:38:06.260 and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Uh, this also
00:38:14.220 creates racial and gender and socioeconomic divides in the body of Christ, where there should be none.
00:38:21.020 Galatians 3 27 through 29, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There
00:38:27.600 is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male nor female for you are all
00:38:35.060 one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
00:38:42.200 That is it. That is our identity. Our identity is in Christ. And this is how, and, uh, amidst the gospel
00:38:50.500 and the politics of grievance that we see so endemic in our society, this is how Christians are called to
00:38:57.200 act, should handle, uh, all forms of conflict with love. First Corinthians 13 4 through 6, love is patient
00:39:04.480 and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own
00:39:10.580 way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
00:39:18.760 Here's another thing that we know as Christians, you are not responsible for the sins of someone else.
00:39:24.560 Now the sense of someone else might have consequences on your life. The sins of your parents,
00:39:28.580 the sins of your grandparents might have consequences on your life. The sins of other people might have
00:39:33.000 consequences on, uh, your life, but you are not responsible for those sins. Uh, you don't ask
00:39:38.880 forgiveness for those sins. Sins are personal. Salvation is personal. And anyone who tells you
00:39:43.400 otherwise is lying. So here's the bottom line. Social justice is a lie. Intersectionality is a lie.
00:39:50.640 Uh, the politics of division and the gospel of grievance have no place in the Christian life. It creates
00:39:56.920 in you an attitude that is not grateful, that is not joyful, that is not charitable, that is not
00:40:02.900 generous, that is not, uh, anything close to the fruit of the spirit. It is not Christ-like and it
00:40:09.580 will hold you back. If this is even proper theological terminology, not sure that it is, uh, from
00:40:16.700 sanctification because you are caught in a trap of bitterness. And that is true for all of us,
00:40:21.540 all of us, uh, no matter what your race is, no matter what your gender is, no matter what your
00:40:25.860 socioeconomic status is, all of us have the temptation to be caught in a trap of bitterness.
00:40:32.140 I certainly, I certainly have thought about what I am owed and what I deserve and what that person
00:40:39.500 should give me the recognition that I deserve, that that person got something and I didn't,
00:40:43.660 and that's not fair. All of us get caught in that, but life isn't fair. The fair comes once a year
00:40:49.140 and you can get fried Oreos at it. It's great. But the, but fairness of this kind of equality of
00:40:55.060 outcome does not exist in real life. And it is not just because it disadvantages the people that
00:41:00.240 you see as privileged who in actuality, uh, are not. This is why lady justice is blind. She's not
00:41:06.740 supposed to see a color or gender or socioeconomic status. She weighs facts and she determines guilt and
00:41:12.300 innocence. Uh, that is, uh, the metaphor that we should look to when we, when we try to understand
00:41:18.340 what justice should be. And it's okay for Christians to fight for that and to advocate for that kind of
00:41:22.860 system, uh, that kind of system. If there is systemic injustice, uh, we do find ways to push back
00:41:28.840 against it. There have been Christian abolitionists, Christian civil rights leaders, uh, Christians who
00:41:34.200 have fought for the recognition of the value of women, Christians who have made sure that the poor
00:41:38.980 are being treated fairly, fairly represented in the justice system. Uh, Christians who fight against
00:41:44.380 abortion. Uh, we do these things in love and we fight for just outcomes, actual just outcomes. We
00:41:50.500 don't look to push down people that we see as less oppressed as the other people. That's not how justice
00:41:55.720 works. And that is why I am a conservative because I see the individuals are, are able to help other
00:42:01.880 individuals and allow them to be free. The government can't do that. Uh, when I give to the poor, when I
00:42:08.300 give, uh, to a clinic that helps women in crisis, I am not pushing down another group to lift another
00:42:14.920 group up. I am giving out of, uh, uh, a compelling of the Holy spirit out of the goodness of my heart
00:42:20.720 that was given to me by the Holy spirit. It is freely. It is cheerfully. It is joyfully is out of
00:42:26.520 generosity. No one is hurt by that giving. Uh, that's the kind of giving that the Lord wants.
00:42:32.440 The social justice stuff doesn't make any sense because as we've said so many times,
00:42:36.780 it is not just, um, the gospel is the opposite of intersectionality. It is the opposite of the
00:42:44.240 gospel of grievance. And I do fear Christians that have kind of gotten to this guilt trap of
00:42:49.660 thinking that in order to really love someone, they have to believe in reparations. They have
00:42:53.840 to believe in feminism. They have to believe in socialism. That's a lie from the pit of hell.
00:42:58.540 You want justice. You want people to be taken care of. You want people to be valued. You do it.
00:43:03.200 Don't demand that other people pay the government for them to do it.
00:43:07.380 Bureaucracy is not compassionate. It never has been. The government does not
00:43:10.800 have the ability to show true compassion, but you do. Don't be a lazy Christian. Uh, really the
00:43:18.460 only reason why people like socialism is because it makes them feel good about themselves without
00:43:23.180 having to do anything. Same thing with racial reparations. Um, so that's it. That's the gospel
00:43:30.060 of grievance. And I hope that I have equipped you with some good thoughts and maybe some good tools
00:43:37.840 to push back against this when you see this in everyday life, because you're going to, and also
00:43:41.420 it's a challenge for you and me as individuals, not to feel this, uh, crazy idea that really comes from
00:43:48.140 Satan that we deserve something. We don't, uh, everything that we have is a gift of common grace
00:43:54.100 and everything that we've been given, um, is from the Lord. And our attitude should be one of joy
00:44:01.520 and it should be one of gratitude and it should be one of contentment. And I have to personally push
00:44:07.780 back against the temptation to be bitter against other people that I think owe me, uh, because that
00:44:13.760 is not what the gospel has freed me toward. So I hope that y'all have a great Monday and I will see you
00:44:19.460 back here on Wednesday for our news episode.