Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 96

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. I hope that everyone had a wonderful weekend. So we have

00:00:06.940 a really big episode. If you are watching this on YouTube, by the way, if you're listening to this,

00:00:12.280 you should subscribe to YouTube so you can watch my episodes. But if you are watching this on

00:00:18.580 YouTube right now, you are going to notice that I'm looking down at my computer a lot,

00:00:22.740 a lot more than usual. A lot of times I just kind of look at it for reference, for notes,

00:00:27.420 and I riff, I kind of go off what's happening in my brain. But this is a very specific episode and

00:00:34.600 I don't want to just riff. I don't want to just do this extemporaneously. I really need to follow

00:00:42.400 my notes closely because what we're talking about is not only important, everything we talk about is

00:00:47.320 important, but it's very specific. And it took a lot of research and a lot of writing actually took

00:00:52.160 me a really long time to prepare this one because it's such a big and it's such a weighty subject and

00:00:58.520 it deserves a lot of nuance. But it's also, it's really, really crucial to where the world is right

00:01:04.900 now, as far as race relations go, as far as where we are as a church theologically. And I'm going to

00:01:10.300 do my very best to address this with compassion and with clarity. And of course, with biblical truth,

00:01:16.080 it might not be perfect. And I look forward to hearing your feedback as I always do and look

00:01:22.120 forward to having honest dialogue with you about this very complicated subject. Okay. Now that we've

00:01:28.060 got that, let's talk about what we are actually going to discuss today. I want to set up the context

00:01:33.600 for this and tell you why we're talking about it at this specific time. So we're going to kind of get

00:01:39.560 into identity politics and specifically black theology and something called a black liberation

00:01:46.020 theology. Now you might be asking, Allie, you're a white girl. Why are you talking about this? Well,

00:01:51.300 because it's a theological subject and it happens to be very popular. It happens to be something that a lot

00:01:55.780 of people are talking about right now. And I don't think the color of your skin or the amount of melanin

00:02:00.260 that you have in your skin either qualifies or disqualifies you from talking about something that

00:02:05.140 the word of God has something to say about. And so, like I said, I'm going to approach this with

00:02:10.360 nuance. I'm going to approach this in a spirit of understanding and even a spirit of teachability,

00:02:15.360 knowing that I don't know everything about not only this, but anything. I don't know everything

00:02:19.940 about anything. And so I'm always open to dialogue, especially if, or really only if we're talking

00:02:25.960 between Christians, our ultimate source of truth is the word of God. If it's not, if our ultimate

00:02:32.220 source of truth is ourselves or our emotions or some other subjective standard, then the

00:02:37.100 conversation that we're going to have is going to be completely fruitless because we're going to be

00:02:41.060 on different pages, literally. So the reason that we are talking about this is because this is

00:02:46.960 something that was brought up at a very popular conference called the Sparrow Conference that

00:02:51.580 happened in Dallas a couple weeks ago. It was an evangelical women's conference. There were a lot of

00:02:56.640 popular speakers that spoke at it. I was unable to go, but I actually received a text from

00:03:01.960 one of my friends who had another friend who attended, who reached out to her and said,

00:03:06.800 Hey, I'm really concerned about what was taught at this particular conference. And here are my

00:03:12.840 thoughts about it. And so I heard the concerns and then I dug a little bit deeper into it. This friend,

00:03:19.260 by the way, who came and talked to me about this is not white. So before anyone says out there,

00:03:24.980 Oh, this is just a bunch of white girls complaining about black theology at a, at a conference that they

00:03:30.320 didn't attend. No, that's actually not an accurate description. But like I said, I'm just trying to

00:03:35.660 understand as best I can. I will go ahead and say that this particular episode is not about the

00:03:39.940 Sparrow's or the Sparrow conference. I wasn't there. I can't judge everyone that spoke, nor do I want to

00:03:45.340 judge everyone that spoke or anyone that spoke. Um, all I can do is judge based on what I have and what

00:03:51.300 I know for sure was said, and then use that as a jumping off point to talk about this very important

00:03:57.220 topic. But I did want to mention Sparrow conference because it, um, it points to why we're talking about

00:04:04.160 this right now and why this came into my radar. So I want to read you first a quote from a white

00:04:10.860 Christian teacher at, uh, this conference a couple of weeks ago, talking to black women. So the quote is

00:04:18.020 the thing for black women to do is to divest from blackness. Blackness is wicked. You must divest

00:04:25.520 from blackness. Blackness kills black people too. Uh, so you're listening to that and you're probably

00:04:30.340 like, okay, that's racist. Um, yep, that is racist. Uh, that person definitely isn't going to be asked to

00:04:37.600 speak again. Uh, I would be asking, did they not check on this person? Like you're going to tell

00:04:41.760 black women to divest from blackness, that blackness is wicked. Like, are you kidding me? You want to

00:04:46.260 talk about bigotry? Like that is bigotry. Now, um, what if this person, what, what if this person,

00:04:53.300 this white person who said this quote said, no, no, no, no. I I'm not saying that black people are

00:04:59.340 evil. What if she said, I'm just saying that blackness is a social construct is evil, that

00:05:03.840 the social construct of, of blackness, um, is characterized by things like fatherless homes or,

00:05:09.620 or black on black violence. So that's evil, not black people. What if, what if she said that

00:05:14.580 you would probably still say, no, I'm not going to take that. That's still pretty racist because

00:05:21.600 why? Because you are generalizing a whole group of people based on the color of their skin and

00:05:26.420 calling the social construct that is associated with the color of their skin. Wicked that is racist,

00:05:32.760 right? I mean, you're denigrating an entire group of people based on an immutable characteristic

00:05:37.660 and you would be right. I would agree with you, but, but let's, let's see what happens when we

00:05:44.940 read the quote a different way. So let's read this quote like this. The thing for white women to do

00:05:51.040 here is to divest from whiteness. Whiteness is wicked. You must divest from whiteness. Whiteness

00:05:57.320 kills white people too. Now, all of a sudden that changes it a little bit. Now, some of you maybe

00:06:04.580 might say, okay, that's not racist. That's just woke. So now all of a sudden, if you argue with

00:06:10.700 that statement, it's not because you think it's racist. It's because you're fragile, right? You're,

00:06:15.800 you're just ignorant. Well, the version of the quote that we just read is actually the real quote.

00:06:21.720 This was spoken by Ekamini. I'm not totally sure how to pronounce her name. It's really pretty name.

00:06:28.140 I just can't, I don't know for sure how to pronounce it. Ekamini Uwan at the Sparrow conference,

00:06:33.340 which is like I said, the evangelical woman's conference in Dallas. And so the quote that

00:06:38.020 white women need to divest from whiteness, that whiteness is wicked, that whiteness kills white

00:06:43.360 people too. That is a direct quote coming from this speaker at the Sparrow conference. Now this

00:06:48.660 conference included people like Lauren Chandler, who is the wife of Matt Chandler. He is the pastor

00:06:53.420 of the village church in the DFW area. Matt Chandler actually was a huge part of my story and my

00:07:00.200 coming into the faith and really realizing the intellectual part of Christianity that really

00:07:05.820 is part and parcel with the Christian faith. His sermons probably back in 2009, 2010 had a huge

00:07:14.080 effect on me in a very positive way. This radical idea that you do not graduate from the gospel.

00:07:20.060 You just move deeper into the gospel. The more that we read the Bible, the more that we study

00:07:24.220 theology, the more beautiful and rich and big the gospel becomes, not smaller. And so I attribute a

00:07:31.480 lot of my spiritual growth early on in my walk to Matt Chandler. So I don't want it to seem like I'm

00:07:37.720 denigrating him and his entire family. There are things that I disagree with him on now. I think that

00:07:42.680 he has approached racial reconciliation the wrong way. It makes me sad to hear him talking about things

00:07:48.240 like white privilege and the church being woke. Um, I really disagree with him on how he has

00:07:54.960 approached those things, but, but I also appreciate a lot of his ministry and a lot of the truth that

00:08:00.660 he brings. He changed the game in a lot of ways, not just for me, but also for a lot of young

00:08:05.780 Christians when he was really becoming, um, I don't want to say famous, but kind of really becoming

00:08:11.300 well-known on the Christian stage. Now his wife, uh, Lauren Chandler has been kind of known to be a

00:08:16.900 little bit more progressive than him when it comes to, uh, when it comes to how she has at least

00:08:22.340 talked about her theology. Again, I'm not calling either of these people false teachers, but these

00:08:27.980 are the people that was there, not Matt Chandler, but Lauren Chandler and also Jen Wilkin, who is also

00:08:32.360 part of the village church in the DFW area. That's Dallas Fort Worth. If you don't know, and this is a

00:08:37.700 reformed Baptist church, this is an evangelical church. This is a mainstream church, a church that at one

00:08:42.620 point probably would have been considered theologically conservative, uh, might still

00:08:47.800 might still be considered theologically conservative in a lot of ways, but certainly have allowed the

00:08:53.880 social justice doctrine that I believe is secular to be trickled in. Um, so like I said, this is a

00:09:00.340 mainstream conference with mainstream people. They hosted a very wide variety of, uh, progressive

00:09:06.580 female Bible teachers. You can go to sparrowomen.com. You can click on their 2019 teachers.

00:09:12.260 Uh, I researched every single speaker that was listed publicly on the site and the majority of

00:09:18.140 what I found, not all of them, not all of them, but the majority of what I found, um, have a social

00:09:23.840 justice left-leaning bit, at least in what they publicize on their websites, on social media, on

00:09:30.020 some of the things that they've said during podcasts, they are very concerned with social justice. Um,

00:09:35.880 this does not negate their faith. It doesn't negate all of their credibility. It doesn't make them

00:09:40.180 bad people. Uh, this is just an observation and it's important. I think it's pertinent to the

00:09:45.480 discussions that we have been having about how progressivism and about how social justice

00:09:50.140 are kind of reaching into previously what were considered theologically conservative circles.

00:09:55.260 It's important that we recognize that trend is actually happening. Um, so like I said, a friend

00:10:00.940 reached out to me about this, who had a friend herself. And I have since connected with this friend a

00:10:06.000 little bit who had concerns about the conference. And then, so I started digging in. That's when I

00:10:10.400 started looking at these speakers. And then I, I came across an article on a website called The

00:10:16.920 Witness. And you can go to, I think it's thewitness.com. Uh, let's see, it is thewitnessbbc.com.

00:10:24.700 And so you can go and you can look at this article that is called Captive Audience,

00:10:29.980 a Black Woman's Reflection on the Sparrow Conference. So I always want to tell you whenever I remember to,

00:10:34.880 the source, because I want you guys to be able to fact check me. I never want you guys to sit there

00:10:39.540 and wonder, well, is Allie, is she exaggerating this? Is she not telling me the truth? Well,

00:10:43.820 I want you to do the research for yourself. I want you to come to your own conclusions. I can

00:10:48.080 supplement your own critical, supplement your own critical thinking and your own analysis

00:10:52.040 and your own research, but I can't do it for you. And nor do I want to think for you.

00:10:56.520 And I want to be held to a high account of truth and, um, being factual. So go to thewitnessbbc.com.

00:11:04.240 If you would like to look at this particular article, but I read this article, um, about the

00:11:09.780 conference that highlighted an interview with Ekamini Uwan, uh, the lady that we just quoted

00:11:14.960 at the very beginning of this podcast. She is a self-proclaimed theologian. I don't say self-proclaimed

00:11:20.740 to denigrate her, but she does proclaim herself a theologian whose main focus, uh, seems to be on

00:11:26.980 deconstructing white supremacy and anti-Black racism. Uh, I wanted to actually watch the interview,

00:11:32.180 but unfortunately there is, there is a link to the interview in this article, but sadly Sparrow

00:11:38.880 conference has, uh, taken the video off of YouTube. Um, it is nowhere to be found on the internet.

00:11:45.320 I searched high and low for it. If you are able to find it, please let me know. Um, and I think that

00:11:51.320 we will see quickly as we keep talking why they took down that interview and why it is causing a lot

00:11:56.620 of controversy, not just at the conference itself, but also in the reaction after the conference.

00:12:01.760 So some of that, uh, reaction is coming from Uwan herself who tweeted after Sparrow conference,

00:12:09.380 uh, took the YouTube video of her interview down. She said, this is not an apology. This is a terrible

00:12:16.240 PR cleanup job and a terrible one at that. I went into that racist space talking about Sparrow conference

00:12:22.140 and did what I was supposed to do. Tell the truth as a fully embodied black in all caps woman,

00:12:27.100 instead of being thanked for truth. I shared in grace and love. Rachel joy, director of Sparrow

00:12:31.420 has chosen to withhold my pictures. She goes on about that. She nor her racist organization are

00:12:37.320 sorry for their mistreatment. She says, understand these three things about me. It is impossible to

00:12:42.220 silence me. I cannot and shall not ever be erased. And if you come for the queen, you best,

00:12:47.880 you best not miss. And then she includes a GIF of Rihanna putting on a crown. Um, and Jackie Hill

00:12:56.340 Perry, who has an awesome book that is called gay girl, good God, who has just an incredible testimony.

00:13:02.320 Uh, she tweeted out in support of Uwan saying that she fully supported everything that Uwan said that

00:13:07.500 she had nothing but amen. And that honestly, the white people that had any bad reaction to anything,

00:13:12.940 um, that she said who were offended by this, it was because they were being, uh, confronted with

00:13:17.500 idols and their identities. And it's because they're prideful. Um, she apparently doesn't feel

00:13:23.660 like Uwan had anything wrong or theologically off to say, and that it's really just kind of white

00:13:28.760 people's fault for, um, being offended. So that's, that's where we are on kind of either side of

00:13:35.940 this. So first, like I said, I'm not going to speak to Sparrow conference as a whole. I didn't go.

00:13:41.040 I'm sure that there were wonderful, godly, biblical gospel centered things that were said at the

00:13:45.180 conference, done at the conference. I'm not making judgments. I just don't know about the

00:13:49.600 motives of all the people who put on the conference. I'm not saying that everyone there

00:13:53.140 was a, was a false teacher or anything like that. Um, but again, the reason why the Sparrow

00:13:59.040 conference is relevant is because it is mainstream because it is evangelical because it is in the

00:14:04.320 Protestant reformed circle in the Dallas, Texas area. I mean, that is like the hub or what a lot of

00:14:10.720 people consider the hub of like mainstream evangelicalism. And what I mean by mainstream

00:14:16.160 is I don't mean, I mean that it's not far left. It's not like coming out of nowhere. It's not coming

00:14:21.400 out of the margins. I mean, this is in the thick of the reformed, uh, reformed evangelical world.

00:14:28.140 Um, so this, this conference or this, yeah, this conference hosted, uh, people like Uwan and other,

00:14:36.540 uh, social justicians. And that is important to know that there is this kind of change happening

00:14:42.220 and this willingness to share a stage with people like Uwan who says something like whiteness is

00:14:47.760 wicked. Um, and if you want to know why I believe, cause I'm not going to get into this entirely,

00:14:53.920 I'll get into it a little bit, but if you want to know why I believe according to the Bible,

00:14:58.480 uh, that social justice theology is wrong. Um, there are six episodes that I would like you to listen

00:15:04.940 to. Uh, you can listen to episode 19, social justice isn't justice. Episode 45, you're not a

00:15:11.100 victim. Episode 58, the religion of progressivism. Episode 86, woke Christianity. Episode 87, suburban

00:15:18.860 white women and episode 90, the gospel of grievance. So we really have covered this a lot, uh, because

00:15:25.420 it's, it's so important. And I believe it runs counter to what the gospel says. And it's important that

00:15:31.600 we kind of take the blinders off and we're able to see this very popular doctrine for what it is.

00:15:37.280 So I'm going to use quotes from this article, the captive audience article on witnessbbc.com that's

00:15:44.000 making the rounds. And I'm also going to use quotes from the interview with Uwan and things that she

00:15:49.100 has also written and use that as kind of our jumping off point to talk about identity politics and

00:15:54.220 theology, particularly as, uh, we are seeing it manifested in something called black theology or

00:15:59.440 black liberation theology. We're not even going to be able to get into all of what black theology is.

00:16:05.120 We don't, we don't even have time to do all of that. There's so much in this. Maybe I'll even do

00:16:09.560 like a few part series. I am learning this. I am researching this. I am trying to be as thorough as

00:16:14.880 possible. So there's always going to be more to uncover more that we know. I hope to have people on

00:16:19.340 the podcast to be able to talk about this for both sides of the issue. So this episode is really

00:16:24.220 just kind of a primer of it all. So here, uh, here is part of the article. First, the author of this

00:16:30.680 article, she bemoans what she calls the quote monolithic culture of the conference, which she

00:16:35.580 says was centered on whiteness from the get-go. That's what she noticed from the very beginning.

00:16:39.400 She said that she felt welcome, but she didn't really feel like she was a part of things. Um,

00:16:43.820 this wasn't for lack of representation. I think that's important to point out. So if you do go to

00:16:48.260 sparrowwomen.com and you look at the list of speakers from 2019, you will see that they were

00:16:52.760 extremely racially diverse, but the author of this article felt that most of the conference centered

00:16:57.820 on whiteness and catered to white women, um, until it once spoke. And like I said, I wish that I could

00:17:03.820 show the interview. I wish I could watch the interview, but Sparrow conference has taken it

00:17:07.700 off YouTube. Now, according to this article, Uwan said in her interview at this conference,

00:17:12.980 she said, quote, Jesus rose bodily as a Brown skinned Palestinian God, man. Uh, she then

00:17:20.340 reminds the audience though. The gospel is offensive. She also said, quote, race is a social

00:17:27.260 construct that was organized around strife, difference, and racial stratification. White

00:17:32.280 people on the top, black people on the bottom. She also said whiteness is rooted in plunder,

00:17:37.440 theft, enslavement of Africans, and the genocide of native Americans. Whiteness is a

00:17:42.960 power structure. The thing for white women to do here is to divest from whiteness. Okay. So the

00:17:49.060 author says that the white women around her were visibly angry that one of them apparently whispered

00:17:54.180 that she was going to tell someone about this, or someone was going to hear about this. Apparently

00:17:58.000 at one point, Uwan said, uh, that those who voted for Donald Trump are to blame for all of this.

00:18:03.340 And, uh, also reportedly women got up and walked out. I heard that from multiple sources. Uh, this

00:18:09.480 article also says, quote, uh, Uwan touched on the recent college admissions scandal, the 2016

00:18:16.420 presidential election, detention camps in Texas, calling the modern day concentration camps,

00:18:22.040 all products of whiteness. Um, now the funny, the funny thing right off the bat, the ironic thing

00:18:28.040 about this is that Sparrow's theme, at least this year, I don't know if it's in general or just this

00:18:32.400 year is peacemaking. Uh, the conference was said to be about making peace. Uh, maybe the other

00:18:38.640 speakers accomplished that. And that's great. That's something that we all need to learn about,

00:18:42.800 especially me. Like I need to be a much better peacemaker. I need to hear some sermons about

00:18:49.040 peacemaking. And that's something that we all need to apply to our lives. Now, Uwan's defense might be

00:18:55.100 my defense. A lot of times that speaking truth is not the same thing as not making peace. Uh, I talk

00:19:00.420 about very divisive things and Uwan is absolutely correct to say that the gospel is offensive. The gospel

00:19:05.640 is offensive, but what she is preaching, at least here, at least exemplified in these quotes is not

00:19:14.260 the gospel. The gospel is not that whiteness as either a skin color or a social construct is wicked

00:19:23.780 or a social structure is wicked. The gospel does not compel you to divest of your whiteness or your

00:19:31.120 blackness or your Asian-ness, whatever it is. The gospel is not even, it's not even centrally the freedom

00:19:38.840 from worldly oppression. That is not the good news. That is not what makes the gospel offensive.

00:19:46.520 The gospel is that you, no matter who you are or what you are, black, white, Hispanic, illegal immigrants,

00:19:54.240 citizen, rich, poor, slave, free, oppressed, unoppressed, disabled, able-bodied are a wicked,

00:20:00.480 depraved sinner in need of a savior. Romans 3, 22 through 23, for there is no distinction for all

00:20:08.820 have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the

00:20:14.360 redemption that is in Christ Jesus. All have sinned, the Bible says, all, all, every single one of us.

00:20:20.800 We don't read that certain people who have benefited from the social structures, according to their

00:20:24.800 skin color, have sinned more than others. There is no distinction, Romans says. It says, all have

00:20:31.660 sinned, all have fallen short, all are justified by the same grace, the same gift, the same redemption,

00:20:37.160 the same atoning work of Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2, 1, 2, 1 through 5, and you were dead in the trespasses

00:20:45.500 and sins of which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power

00:20:49.680 of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived

00:20:55.740 in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by

00:20:59.880 nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great

00:21:06.020 love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with

00:21:11.680 Christ. By grace, you have been saved. The Greek word for all means all, each and every. It's pass.

00:21:21.160 I don't really even know how to pronounce it. It's P-A-S. It means the whole of it, each and every,

00:21:25.600 of all types. Okay, so we've all fallen short. We are all dead in sin apart from Christ. By definition,

00:21:32.320 there are no varying degrees of death. Your heart is beating, your brain is functioning, or they're not.

00:21:37.240 So the Bible says in Ephesians 2 that we are dead apart from Christ. That means that there are not

00:21:42.120 good people, bad people, and people in the middle. There are not oppressors and un-oppressors. When it

00:21:48.120 comes to the kingdom of God, there are dead people bound for hell and alive people bound for heaven.

00:21:56.160 So it would seem a little odd for us to look at an entire group of people and say, you need to divest

00:22:03.400 of this immutable characteristic and the social structure that it represents in order to be more

00:22:07.680 like Christ, in order to understand this so-called offensive gospel. Well, the gospel is offensive

00:22:14.360 for the exact opposite reason that Uwan is saying it is offensive. The gospel is offensive because it

00:22:21.240 does not discriminate. It is indiscriminatory in its condemnation of sins and sinners. Neither slave nor

00:22:27.900 free nor Jew nor Greek nor male nor female is free from the eternal consequences of sin and nor are any

00:22:35.560 barred from eternal life based on their earthly station or their ethnicity. So that means that

00:22:42.060 neither whiteness nor blackness is the root of our problems. Neither liberals nor conservatives,

00:22:47.860 neither Trump supporters nor Trump haters. Sin. Sin is the cause of the problem for all of us,

00:22:54.920 both systemic and individual. And the gospel is the only light that shines on the darkness of sin

00:23:01.260 and dries it all up till it crumbles and dissipates. Now you might say, Allie, this is the only thing that

00:23:07.820 you've heard from this person. You are taking her out of context. Well, yes, that is partly right.

00:23:14.100 What she is saying is not in context because I cannot watch the video, which is why I can't make a

00:23:18.840 holistic statement about this woman's entire theology. That's not what I want to do. I don't know that she

00:23:23.560 truly doesn't understand the gospel herself. I hope that she does. And this was just maybe she

00:23:29.260 misspoke or maybe she said all of this later. And these just happen to be very, very unfortunate

00:23:36.840 quotes that completely contradict the gospel. I'm not judging her salvation. I can't judge the motives

00:23:43.100 entirely of her heart, but her publicized words do beg a response from scripture. All of our words

00:23:49.280 should be scrutinized under scripture. And I am not navigating these waters blindly. This is not

00:23:55.540 someone who has not said similar things in public. She is a public figure who has made her views known.

00:24:02.120 She wrote an article last year for her website called Sista. So systematictheology.com called

00:24:09.160 Decolonized Discipleship. And again, I encourage you to go to this website and actually look at this blog

00:24:14.500 post where she argues that Christianity in America has been colonized by white people.

00:24:20.880 This is manifested, she said, in urban areas that resemble colonies. I do not know what she means

00:24:26.460 by that. I really don't. She doesn't actually explain it specifically in this article. She tries

00:24:31.860 to, and we're going to get to that. But she doesn't talk about exactly what that looks like. Side note

00:24:38.560 about that. This is very typical. It's a typical technique of social justicians. They fill their

00:24:45.780 arguments with kind of pseudo-intellectual, academic, sophisticated words so that if you ask them to

00:24:50.960 clarify, they can just claim that you're ignorant, tell you to Google it, tell you that you are just

00:24:56.040 fragile and avoid revealing that they don't actually know what they're talking about either.

00:25:00.400 Very typical. So here is a quote from this article.

00:25:04.080 What kinds of disciples are being made? Do the minds and the lives of these urban disciples reflect a

00:25:10.580 baptism of faith in the marginalized brown-skinned Palestinian God-man, Jesus Christ, who was

00:25:16.440 bludgeoned and hung naked on that rugged cross at Calvary? Or does their baptism reflect in a

00:25:22.180 capitalist white Jesus clothed in a polo blazer, khakis, and loafers? There are grave consequences for

00:25:28.520 worshiping the latter, which is no more than an idol and discipling people of color to do the same.

00:25:34.080 Okay, let's unpack this for a second. So number one, Jesus was not Palestinian. He wasn't. It would

00:25:40.780 be fine if he was, but he wasn't. That is a historically erroneous statement. And it's made

00:25:47.860 in an effort to fit Jesus into our current political arguments about Israel and Palestine and to align

00:25:53.340 Jesus with yet another group that the left sees as marginalized and oppressed. That's what she is

00:25:59.940 trying to do here. And it's wrong. So Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, which is now in what is

00:26:07.340 the geographical region considered Palestine. But in the Bible, Palestine was not known as Palestine.

00:26:12.460 Okay. So it's completely inaccurate to say that Jesus was born in Palestine and much less that he was

00:26:20.620 a Palestinian. Palestine as a geographical region didn't actually exist until 135 AD. So that's 135 years

00:26:27.900 after Jesus' death. Plus, let's also include here, Jesus was a Jew. It would have been much more

00:26:35.820 biblically and historically accurate to say that this Jewish God-man, Jesus Christ. So right away

00:26:42.880 with this description, we have to question and we have the right to question whether or not we should

00:26:47.800 be taking Uwan seriously as an expositor of the word. Because already we see that she's attempting to

00:26:53.100 fit Jesus into her current political views rather than the historical and sociopolitical context of

00:26:58.560 Jesus' time. Already, she is bending what God's word says to her political worldview. Because her goal

00:27:05.960 here, again, is to give Jesus as many intersectionality points as possible, as is considered intersectional in

00:27:13.800 2019. She is trying to make him look like the most marginalized person in America today rather than who he

00:27:21.520 actually was. Okay, so second point. Her quote, or does their baptism reflect faith in a capitalist

00:27:27.940 white Jesus cloth and a polo blazer, khakis and loafers? She calls this Jesus an idol. And I would say

00:27:34.560 true. I mean, I don't know personally who is doing this, but I don't doubt, I don't doubt her at all that

00:27:40.980 this happens in churches. I don't doubt that there are people who have wanted to make Jesus more like

00:27:45.740 them. I mean, it is documented that Jesus used to kind of be painted sometimes as this blonde-haired,

00:27:51.040 blue-eyed guy, which is absolutely ridiculous, by the way. That is ridiculous. And I agreed that that's an idol

00:27:55.980 because that's not who Jesus was. And so it says a lot about someone's heart who would depict Jesus to look

00:28:02.040 more like them rather than who he actually was. So no doubt about that. People have been doing this since Jesus

00:28:09.120 lived on earth because they are uncomfortable with his divinity. And so in a lot of different ways, not just

00:28:15.200 physical ways, they have tried to make Jesus more like him. Like you see, there is a whole subsection,

00:28:22.940 not the entirety of the LGBT community, but there's a subsection of the LGBT community who wants to say

00:28:29.140 that Jesus was feminine, that maybe he was gay. People have been doing this since the beginning of

00:28:34.320 time, trying to make Jesus more like them so that they can be more comfortable with him and they can be

00:28:39.560 represented by him. And I agree with her that that is wrong. We've talked about that on this podcast,

00:28:45.140 not making God into someone who fits your own expectation. So God is not your boyfriend. God is

00:28:50.740 not your gal pal. God is not here to tell you how awesome you are. God, Jesus is the great I am,

00:28:57.080 the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega. That's not up for negotiation. That's not up for

00:29:01.120 interpretation. But what I would say to Uwan, while we agree on that point, that this apparently that

00:29:08.520 this Jesus that is apparently being propagated by people as white wearing a polo blazer, khakis and

00:29:14.980 loafers. Again, I haven't seen that, but I would agree that that Jesus is wrong. But in the same way

00:29:21.100 that that Jesus is wrong, so is Palestinian Jesus. Because again, this is an attempt to make Jesus look

00:29:28.220 like the people that we deem oppressed in 2019 in order to make an extra biblical point. That is an

00:29:34.760 idol. By calling Jesus Palestinian to support your politics, you have just created an idol. Not because

00:29:40.320 it really matters that much that whether or not he was born in the geographical region of Palestine.

00:29:46.780 Of course, it does matter, but it's not like a salvation issue. But when you look at why you're actually

00:29:52.540 doing that, why you're doing it, it's the same thing with people saying like America is God's

00:29:58.200 chosen nation. Or it would be the same thing as saying Jesus was born in a place other than

00:30:03.820 Judea. You're making an idol out of him because you are trying to fit God, fit Jesus into your

00:30:10.740 current definition of who you want him to be. And that is idolatrous. So as Matthew 7, 3 says,

00:30:16.200 I would say, why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the log

00:30:21.220 that is in your own eye? Because she just accused white people of doing the very same thing that she is

00:30:25.780 doing by calling Jesus a Palestinian God-man. He was not Palestinian. Also, I think it's interesting,

00:30:34.160 the use of the word capitalist. We also see that her political views are dominating her view of Jesus.

00:30:40.700 Capitalism is apparently part of this idolatry that she's seen in whiteness to her, which denotes to me

00:30:46.800 that she probably, I don't know for sure, but she probably might would say that Jesus is a socialist,

00:30:52.000 which is the opposite of capitalism, which we also know that's not true. Because I would say that

00:30:57.400 Jesus is neither. There's no evidence that he was either. That he transcends all economic systems.

00:31:03.520 I, of course, would say, though, just as a side note, that as far as worldly systems go,

00:31:08.680 capitalism has been the greatest force to eradicate poverty and suffering that has ever existed. And

00:31:12.740 there's just no factual question on that. That's not to say Jesus was a capitalist or a socialist,

00:31:18.400 but to latch capitalism onto this white idolatry doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.

00:31:25.880 Again, but we're seeing that political ideology coming through and how she characterizes Jesus.

00:31:30.920 She goes on to say, quote,

00:31:32.960 given the ubiquity of white supremacy in this nation and the church's role in perpetuating it in the past

00:31:38.220 and present, the time has arrived for the church to implement decolonized discipleship,

00:31:43.160 rescuing people of color from contempt for their skin, hair, body, and culture,

00:31:47.480 and bringing them into the delight in and love of who God created them to be ontologically.

00:31:52.860 So ontologically can have a few different meanings, but it's typically related to the

00:31:56.960 nature of being or like what is existence. She goes on to explain how white supremacy,

00:32:02.560 what she says is everywhere in the United States and in the American church is taking place through

00:32:07.220 the colonization of churches in urban areas. She says that black men and women are kind of told to

00:32:13.000 hate themselves, to resent themselves, to hate who and how they are, what they look like,

00:32:17.180 how they talk, how they dress, how they worship. She says, quote,

00:32:21.040 one way this manifests itself in the church is in the onslaught of biblical manhood and womanhood

00:32:25.460 teachings. These teachings are extra biblical and center on white middle upper class norms

00:32:30.000 communicating to male singles that they should look for, desire, and pursue a marriage partner who

00:32:35.380 embodies the characteristics of a biblical woman. As a consequence of this legalistic teaching,

00:32:40.760 black women are implicitly taught to assimilate and aspire to whiteness. Okay, well, let's break this down.

00:32:47.180 So black men are told that they should look for and pursue a marriage partner who embodies the

00:32:52.900 characteristics of a biblical woman and that somehow makes black women aspire to whiteness.

00:32:59.320 I'm going to need some examples of that. She puts biblical womanhood in quotes, but she doesn't

00:33:03.760 explain what that version of biblical womanhood is that is making black women feel like they need to

00:33:09.620 be more white. And I would love to hear about that. Truly, I'm not being sarcastic. I would love to learn

00:33:15.000 more about that. What are you talking about? I want to know what kind of sermons you're talking about.

00:33:19.340 What kind of doctrine are you talking about? What verses are being misused in order to direct males

00:33:24.660 to desire someone that is more white than black? Like, I want to know what definition of biblical

00:33:31.320 womanhood is being propagated by these, what would seem to be false teachers that is leading people

00:33:37.380 in this direction. But it's just this very vague, very, um, again, academic sounding sentence that

00:33:44.500 we are just supposed to say, yep, that happens. I just, I need to know a little bit more of what

00:33:50.440 that looks like. Are you saying that biblical womanhood is inherently white? Because that's

00:33:55.320 not right. I mean, both of us, if we care about God's word should be able to go into God's word and

00:33:59.820 say, okay, well, this is what God says that biblical womanhood looks like. And it has nothing to do with

00:34:05.420 race. It has nothing to do with ethnicity. This is the word of God that is true for everyone

00:34:09.440 everywhere. And so we should be able to agree on that. Right. But that's not where she ends up here.

00:34:15.280 We're kind of left hanging with, well, what were these teachings that made people believe that we

00:34:19.860 don't know. And if this was true, if this was true, then I think that it's bad and we need to have

00:34:25.100 a conversation about it, but it needs to be based on the Bible and it needs to be faced based on fact.

00:34:29.800 But what happens is when I push back, when I ask for specifics, the response that

00:34:35.240 is gotten, and you can see this all over social media, I've seen this happen in the past week or

00:34:39.480 so of people have discussed this specific article, the response is trust black women, trust black

00:34:45.260 women. That's the three word mantra that you're going to see when you question this. White people,

00:34:50.900 we will get, we will get accused of white fragility. That is honestly just a logical fallacy of ad

00:34:59.340 hominem. Um, and fallacies are typically used to avoid actual engagement, which typically means

00:35:05.440 that they don't really have anything to back up what they're saying, but you're just told that

00:35:09.280 you're fragile, you're ignorant, that you just need to trust black women. Kind of like we were told to

00:35:15.360 believe all women during the Kavanaugh hearings. We are to let go of reason. We're to let go of doubt.

00:35:20.440 We're to let go of any questions that we have. We're supposed to reserve, uh, any,

00:35:25.120 any wondering that we have about the veracity of these statements, or even just about the specifics

00:35:31.020 of these statements. Uh, we are just told to not in agreement and understanding. Um,

00:35:36.480 she says that black women and men, uh, have been indoctrinated with this colonization.

00:35:42.200 And a lot of them have believed this false theology and a false gospel. Um, the people,

00:35:48.260 she says that there are people who have kind of just fallen into this and they aspire to this

00:35:52.220 whiteness. Well, that's how she is avoiding the question of, okay, well, what about the black

00:35:56.800 people who don't feel oppressed by the church? Uh, what about the people who haven't lived your

00:36:01.000 experience and feel comfortable in a, in a mostly white church or feel comfortable in these urban

00:36:05.560 churches that you say are violently, she uses the word violently, violently colonizing the people

00:36:10.100 around. She would probably say, well, they've been so colonized that they don't even know they're

00:36:13.800 brainwashed. Basically. I'm guessing that's probably what she would say deducing from what she said in

00:36:17.640 this article. Um, yeah, I, I mean, I, I get, yeah, I think that that's pretty much just,

00:36:25.240 that's just a cop out. That's just a cop out to basically say, um, to basically say that I don't

00:36:31.880 want to contend with outliers. Like I don't want to contend with people or who she would consider

00:36:36.860 outliers. And there's nothing you could say. I mean, that's like what I would say. I would say,

00:36:39.940 okay. I mean, there's, there's nothing you can say to that. And I think that she would probably know

00:36:44.860 that that's how she avoids that question to say that anyone who is in the church, who is black,

00:36:49.140 who disagrees with her, it's just basically brainwashed. So she goes on to say, quote,

00:36:53.480 uh, white supremacy is a global project. Consequently, America is a white supremacist

00:36:57.800 nation as a function of this reality. And this means that we people of color have all had our

00:37:03.780 minds colonized to varying degrees. So again, uh, we see her singling out whiteness as the source of

00:37:10.580 evil, which is not only inaccurate, but it's also unbiblical as we have already read. It is the same

00:37:15.840 thing as saying masculinity is the source of evil or femininity is the source of evil. If we want to

00:37:21.500 go back to Eve, I mean, Eve ate the fruit for the first time. Do we really, are we comfortable with

00:37:26.000 saying femininity has caused all evil? Are you comfortable with that? I'm not comfortable with

00:37:29.460 that. I'm not going to take responsibility for, for something that Eve done. Of course I play a part

00:37:34.780 in original sin, but I'm not responsible directly for, for what she did. I'm not comfortable with

00:37:41.160 saying that all women are to blame or all men are to blame. Are you comfortable with that? You

00:37:44.960 shouldn't be. Uh, I mean, what, so let's just apply this. Let's apply this to other people who

00:37:49.520 are not white. What if I said, look at the black community in America, look at the crime rates,

00:37:54.200 look at the black on black homicide, look at fatherlessness, look at the abortion rates.

00:37:58.500 What if, what if I use that to say that blackness is the root of evil or that blackness is evil?

00:38:03.560 What if I said, look at the Muslim majority countries, how havoc is wreaked by fundamentalists

00:38:08.540 every day? Uh, what if, what if I said, look at Africa and the middle East where slavery exists

00:38:13.760 to this day? What if I use this to say, well, the problem is blackness. The problem is being,

00:38:20.200 is being, uh, Arab. Well, what if I said that that would be wrong, right? That would be racist.

00:38:25.600 Why? Because blackness is not the problem, uh, is not the reason for the problems in the black

00:38:32.260 community. In the same way, the whiteness is not the problem. Sin is the problem and sin might

00:38:37.200 manifest itself differently in different countries, different churches, uh, different regions. But to

00:38:42.180 say that anything other than sin is to blame for division or oppression is again, replacing the Bible

00:38:47.480 with your political views. Uh, she says that we need to look at which theology we are preaching

00:38:53.480 quote, does this theology, uh, cause me to look in the mirror, marvel at God's handiwork instead of

00:38:59.640 despising my reflection. When I close my eyes and picture Jesus, do I see a white man or a brown

00:39:04.980 skinned Palestinian man? First question. Yes. To a degree. I don't think that we need to be too

00:39:11.660 concerned with what we look like, but, um, appreciative of how God made us. Absolutely. I mean,

00:39:17.660 as Romans nine says, now this is talking about more eternal things, but I think it goes to this

00:39:22.600 too. Will the clay say to the potter, why did you make me this way? No, we are to delight in God's

00:39:28.020 creation in the same way that Romans nine is talking about. We are supposed to delight in God's eternal

00:39:32.980 plan and his predestining plan. Um, but the second question that she asks, when I close my eyes and

00:39:38.700 picture Jesus, do I see a white man or a brown skinned Palestinian man? I'm not really totally on board

00:39:44.320 with that. Yes. I think we should see Jesus accurately as he was in flash, because it might

00:39:49.320 say something about our heart. If we are picturing him a wrong way, then what's depicted to make

00:39:53.140 ourselves more comfortable. But I still think that she's putting way too much stock in what Jesus looks

00:39:58.320 like. And there she goes with this Palestinian thing again, which to me shows her own idol. Um,

00:40:04.360 here's the thing. I am really unconcerned with the amount of melanin in Jesus's skin.

00:40:09.960 I am exclusively concerned with the amount of power in his crucifixion. Okay. So we need to put

00:40:18.440 priority on the right thing. Uh, she says we need to account for white supremacy in our circles.

00:40:24.400 We need to make sure it's being addressed. Okay, let's do that. Wherever we see racism,

00:40:30.080 you're right. We need to call it out. But the argument, uh, from this side would be that it's

00:40:35.440 not always direct, that it's not always tangible, that it's not always personal. It's a system. It's

00:40:39.320 pervasive. It's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. Um, I read that article multiple times and I still

00:40:45.280 don't really know what she's talking about. And of course it will be said that it's because I'm not

00:40:49.760 woken off because I haven't lived her experiences, but I understand that I haven't lived her experiences

00:40:55.820 and I'm not saying that I know everything and I'm not saying that I have, but what I want to know

00:41:00.280 is what this stuff really tangibly looks like. Show me the doctrines that are being taught.

00:41:04.680 Show me the false teachings that are being propagated. Show me how these churches are

00:41:10.340 colonizing urban areas. Show me what that looks like. Show me the word said, show me the actions

00:41:16.680 taken. I want to know examples. I want to see what this looks like so I can wrap my brain around it.

00:41:22.180 And we can join, uh, hands and say, yes, that is wrong. That specific act is wrong. That specific

00:41:28.280 teaching is wrong. But instead we get these big generalized academic explanations of how whiteness

00:41:35.100 has colonized and marginalized black people in the church, but we don't know how we're just

00:41:40.100 supposed to accept it and say, yep, that's right. Like I want to know the theology that is being put

00:41:46.000 out there that is denigrating people who are not white, especially in urban areas. I, and that's not

00:41:51.600 to say it's not there. I just want to know what it is so we can talk about it, but I can do nothing

00:41:57.500 with this article except point us back to the word and say, what you're saying doesn't line up with

00:42:02.780 what God's word says. And maybe the people that you're talking about, the people that are colonizing

00:42:07.780 these urban areas, maybe they're not lining up with what God's word says either. And we all need

00:42:12.440 to come together and go back to our objective standards and say, what does God say about this?

00:42:16.920 What is the Bible? Who was Jesus? That's, I mean, when you don't have, when you don't have any kind of

00:42:29.200 tangible grounding or any kind of physical evidence that you're pointing to for your arguments,

00:42:34.920 it becomes non-falsifiable, which is kind of, which is almost a logical fallacy. It's almost

00:42:41.200 what these kind of social justicians typically do because they don't want to be proven wrong.

00:42:47.020 And so if you base everything on your own experience, then you can't have any kind of

00:42:51.720 logical or theological discussion about it whatsoever because it's your experience. Well,

00:42:55.920 experience is something, but it's not everything. I mean, think about how I'm making my own argument.

00:43:01.060 I have stated this premise over and over again, but even in this podcast, Marxist social justice,

00:43:06.340 I know that's a buzzword, but it's accurate. Marxist social justice is overtaking the church,

00:43:10.980 but here's how I back that up. I say, here's how I know. Here are the people preaching it. Here are

00:43:17.000 the words that you will hear used and the messages that you will hear conveyed. Here are the examples

00:43:21.640 of this. I try to prove, I try to bring concrete examples. That's what I'm doing right now. I'm reading

00:43:26.280 from a specific article, a specific person who spoke at a specific conference that is relevant to our

00:43:31.940 conversation. I'm not just saying this is happening and I feel like it's happening, or I heard this

00:43:36.020 happen once, or these are the experiences of other people that I've talked to. I'm pulling from real

00:43:42.500 words that someone said, and we've looked at numbers for the past few weeks about this. This

00:43:48.380 is something that is happening that is falsifiable. It's not false, but it's falsifiable, and you can

00:43:56.040 see it depicted, and I'm pointing you to real examples of it. I don't just give you a bunch of

00:44:00.960 concepts and then leave it to you to understand. I say, no, here's what I'm seeing. Here's where I'm

00:44:05.500 seeing it. Here is what it specifically sounds like, and here's what scripture has to say about

00:44:10.160 it all. But when you understand where Uwan and people like her are coming from, you understand

00:44:16.180 the lack of specificity that is being used. So Uwan's theology is what is referred to,

00:44:22.240 maybe not in totality, but specifically from this article, Black liberation theology. So really,

00:44:27.840 it's a theology that claims to focus more on praxis, meaning the physical manifestation of the gospel

00:44:33.800 demonstrated through liberation from oppression, liberation of the poor, liberation of the

00:44:38.120 marginalized. This is a consequence or a product of 19th century social gospel that came from

00:44:44.980 liberal theology that said that the Christian's job is to lift people out of poverty and out of

00:44:49.340 oppression. But the social gospel separated itself from evangelism, separated itself from sharing the

00:44:55.980 gospel, and from the gospel, from the central idea of Christianity that Jesus is the way, the truth,

00:45:01.820 and the life. Now, there was a reaction to the social gospel of the 19th century in the 20th

00:45:07.080 century that moved in the other direction, saying, hang on a second. Nope, it's all about evangelism.

00:45:12.580 It's all about the gospel. But then that movement kind of started forsaking social responsibility,

00:45:18.780 our responsibility to the least of these. So what we are dealing with now, what we've been dealing

00:45:23.060 with for really over 20 years, is the merging of these two things. 19th century, 20th century,

00:45:28.760 21st century, they're coming together and there is tension. The realization that the gospel

00:45:33.820 is central, that it cannot be forsaken or replaced or deprioritized or watered down,

00:45:40.720 but, and well, not really even but, but, and God does care about justice on earth. The Lord's prayer

00:45:46.120 may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But I would argue that black liberation theology,

00:45:52.980 theology, identity politics theology is a product of the 19th century social gospel movement that

00:45:58.580 makes the salvation of Christ and the unity offered by the gospel less important. And it prioritizes

00:46:05.600 race relations and power dynamics. It's part of something called critical theory. Critical theory

00:46:12.280 is the analysis of the oppressor versus the oppressed. It ties every individual's identity to a group

00:46:18.700 and that it, based on, you know, their skin color, socioeconomic status, whatever, and then assigns them

00:46:23.540 to either the side of the oppressor or the oppressed. Everything is viewed through that lens.

00:46:30.240 Critical theory is a part of Marxism. Again, that buzzword that people kind of turn off when they hear

00:46:34.900 it. But I mean, it's a real ideology. It was the ideology, of course, of Karl Marx that pits class

00:46:41.080 against class, the oppressed against the oppressor. He, of course, believed in abolishing capitalism,

00:46:46.560 which is why it shouldn't really surprise us that when we look at all of these things together,

00:46:50.720 that Uwan assigned capitalists to this white idolatrous Jesus, she is pointing to this oppressed

00:46:56.820 versus oppressor dynamic, which is so central to Marxism, to critical theory, to black liberation

00:47:03.080 theology, which all have, which all kind of go hand in hand. So here are the questions that we need to

00:47:10.380 answer in the midst of all of this. Is Bible-believing Christians as if there were any other kinds of

00:47:14.600 Christians that exist? Number one, does racism exist? Yes. Are there white supremacists? Yes.

00:47:22.240 Do they exist in this country? Yes. Has white supremacy been a part of America's history? Yes.

00:47:28.360 Yes. Of course. Yes. And number two, is racism a sin? Yes. Racism is hate. First John has a lot to say

00:47:35.700 about hate. First John 3.10, by this, it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children

00:47:42.360 of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his

00:47:49.100 brother. First John 4.20, if anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who

00:47:56.180 does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. Number three, should we

00:48:05.020 speak up about racism? Well, in light of number one and number two, I say, yes. I think so individually

00:48:11.060 and where we see it systemically. But there are arguments on what systemic racism looks like in

00:48:18.340 2019 in America and if it actually exists. There are real legitimate arguments about this, not just

00:48:23.620 made from white people, but also from black people. Some people say that the criminal justice system is

00:48:28.240 racist. Some people say that the death penalty is racist. Some people say that police brutality is

00:48:32.940 systemic racism. Some people say that welfare is systemic racism. I would say yes to that one, to the

00:48:40.500 welfare. And I would also say that abortion is systemic racism. The majority of babies killed are

00:48:45.620 minorities. And I believe that we have a responsibility as Christians to fight against that.

00:48:52.820 But that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask questions. It doesn't mean that we

00:48:58.640 shouldn't look at the facts of police brutality and say, OK, well, there are more white people that

00:49:03.280 are killed by the police every year than black people. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask

00:49:08.080 that question or we shouldn't look a little bit deeper into that. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't

00:49:12.120 dig further into the criminal justice system and look for evidence of racial bias. And when we find

00:49:19.660 evidence, we need to seek justice. As the Bible says, seek justice and love mercy.

00:49:25.120 Number four, racism is a sin problem. It must be confronted with the gospel, just like all sins,

00:49:33.660 just like the sin of abortion, just like the sin of theft, just like any other sin. It has to be

00:49:38.780 confronted with the truth of the gospel, with the power of Christ on the cross, dying for our sins and

00:49:45.340 then rising again to defeat death forever. The gospel does compel us to reconciliation. But here is

00:49:52.440 gospel-based biblical justice. It has a few characteristics that differ from the justice

00:49:57.660 that it sounds like Uwan is talking about. Number one, it's obviously based on the Bible. So that

00:50:02.880 means a few things. Number two, it is based on evidence. That means it is based on reality. It is

00:50:07.580 based on truth. It is based on facts. We do not abandon reason in exchange for experience or emotion.

00:50:14.820 Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is wicked. No one can understand it. Matthew 10, 16, Jesus tells us to be

00:50:19.900 wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We do not abandon reason. That is something that we often

00:50:25.420 hear from the social justice left, that we have to use people's experiences as the basis for our

00:50:30.480 beliefs. No, not entirely. Experiences are important, but our beliefs have to be backed up on truth,

00:50:37.260 have to be backed up on evidence, and the evidence must be looked at as a whole. We do not abandon our

00:50:42.980 intellectual capacities when it comes to justice. That is part of why God gave us intellectual

00:50:48.540 capacity so that we could reason, so that we could have wisdom, so that we could have a discernment

00:50:54.600 that is based on actual truth, not just on an experience. And number three, it is direct.

00:51:02.440 Justice is based on truth, that is based on fact, that is based on the Bible, and it is not general.

00:51:08.660 It is not assigned to entire groups. It is assigned to those involved. We do not have the capacity as

00:51:14.940 finite human beings to denigrate an entire group of people for the sins of a few, because the equation,

00:51:20.040 as we've discussed, doesn't work out that way. Now, God is a little bit different. We see him

00:51:24.680 condemn all of Israel in the Old Testament. He can condemn the entire world if he wants to,

00:51:28.840 apart from Christ. We are all guilty. We are all part of original sin, but justice here on earth

00:51:34.340 doesn't look like that because we don't have that capacity. We don't have the ability to condemn

00:51:39.220 entire groups of people based on the sins of a few people that share their melanin counts.

00:51:43.580 We don't have the ability to do that because that is not just because guess what? Some people don't

00:51:48.720 fit that generalization. This was the problem with racial reparations that we talked about last week

00:51:53.160 that, okay, if you say all white people have to pay all black people, are you going to say

00:51:57.220 that the middle-class family who was struggling to get food on the table, that they need to pay

00:52:02.140 reparations to Beyonce and Kanye West? Is that what you're telling me? What about the people who had

00:52:06.420 nothing to do with slavery, black and white? What about the black people who did sell slaves? What about

00:52:10.840 the Native Americans who sold slaves? That's the problem with collectivist justice, with social

00:52:15.880 justice as people who are propagating today's social justice are advocating for. That's the

00:52:24.020 problem with it. It's not just because it's not based on reality. It is not direct and the equation

00:52:28.940 doesn't work out because we are finite and so we are not able to come up with the proper equation for

00:52:35.880 this. This is what Thomas Sowell calls cosmic justice. So if we say that all white people

00:52:41.820 are to blame for oppression, that whiteness is wicked, that we need to divest from whiteness,

00:52:46.820 as she said at the Sparrow conference, then we violate both the truth-based qualification for justice

00:52:51.940 and the basis for directness because black people have had animosity against Asians. Hispanics have

00:52:58.360 animosity against black people. Black people have owned slaves, like I said, and like I said,

00:53:02.940 so did Native Americans. So that doesn't really work. It's not based on truth and it's not direct.

00:53:09.460 So how can we say that that is righteous judgment, that that's righteous justice? Here's a quote by

00:53:14.860 Thomas Sowell. To this very moment, slavery continues in parts of Africa and the Islamic world. Very little

00:53:19.920 noise is made about it by those who denounce the slavery of the past in the West because there is no

00:53:24.260 money to be made denouncing it and no political advantages to be gained. And so again, we see the

00:53:30.880 selective outrage from critical race theorists and from social justice advocates, leftist social

00:53:39.380 justice advocates, forgetting about oppression that has existed all over the world in every place

00:53:46.600 of people of all skin colors. And so to say that whiteness is wicked misses the point of the gospel

00:53:52.560 entirely that we are all depraved. That doesn't mean it doesn't manifest itself differently in different

00:53:57.280 places with different people. It does. But to say that whiteness is wicked, that is wrong and it's

00:54:02.600 racist. So biblical justice is true. It is unbiased and it is direct. It does not look at skin color,

00:54:10.320 at socioeconomic status, at gender, and that goes both ways. So it is wrong for a system to favor

00:54:15.360 white rich people. That's not biblical justice. And it is equally wrong to not give justice to white

00:54:21.320 rich people because they are rich and white. That is what social justice seeks to do. They say that

00:54:26.400 these people are privileged. Let us hold them back while we hoist the other up. The problem with that

00:54:32.580 is people, as we have just discussed, are not a part of groups. They are individuals. So saying

00:54:38.520 that all white people are culprits of oppression is not accurate because there are white people who

00:54:43.440 have been oppressed themselves. To say all black people are oppressed isn't accurate because there

00:54:47.020 are black people who are not oppressed and who have oppressed other people. Same with people of

00:54:54.500 all types and all skin colors. And that, my friends, my relatable listeners, is the beauty of the

00:55:00.720 gospel. 2 Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed,

00:55:08.120 new has come. That means we have a new identity in Christ. Galatians 3, 27 through 29. For as many of

00:55:15.080 you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave

00:55:20.080 nor free. There is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ,

00:55:25.620 then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. So that, so what does that mean? How are

00:55:30.900 we supposed to act? Ephesians 4, 31 through 32. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and

00:55:37.940 slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one

00:55:44.120 another as God in Christ forgave you. 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7. Love is patient and kind. Love does

00:55:51.620 not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable

00:55:57.960 or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things,

00:56:02.980 believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Ephesians 4, 31. Actually, I already said

00:56:08.500 that. I guess it was just really important for me to put into my notes twice. Hebrews 12, 14 through 15.

00:56:14.600 Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it

00:56:20.100 that no one fails to obtain the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble

00:56:25.000 and by it many become defiled. So this goes both ways. White, black, oppressed or not, the oppressed

00:56:32.600 are held to the same standard of holiness as the unoppressed. All races to the same standard of

00:56:39.000 perfection, which Christ obtained for us on our behalf so that we could look at one another and

00:56:43.580 say, oh, you got it together? You got it? No? Oh, okay. Me neither. Okay, then let's do this together.

00:56:49.440 Then let's seek to truly understand each other, realizing that we are not just a part of our groups,

00:56:55.820 not just the color of our skin. We're not just our gender. We are individuals. And I want to learn

00:57:01.820 from my friends who have experienced racism and sexism in the church. I want to cry with them.

00:57:05.720 I want to hold their hands and say, okay, let's make this right. We are all sinners. We have all

00:57:10.340 fallen short. We've all been given the same amount of grace. We were all dead in our sins apart from

00:57:14.480 Christ. And now we are in Christ. We have a new identity. We are a family now. We are one. We are

00:57:19.640 part of the body of Christ. How can we combat real injustice together in a tangible way? I want to

00:57:27.460 mourn with those who mourn. I want to rejoice with those who rejoice. I want to

00:57:30.700 be defined by empathy and love, but I am not going to seek a justice or a theology that is not based on

00:57:37.840 truth. And that is not direct. I am not going to assign blame to all men, to all power, to all the

00:57:44.460 rich people, to all the people of any group. I'm not going to stereotype. I will see the body of Christ

00:57:49.200 as my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I will seek peace with them. And I will love them more than

00:57:54.620 I love myself doing what the Bible tells me to do, which is outdoing one another in honor.

00:57:58.760 That is what we are called to do. People call that colorblind. No, not really. I think people

00:58:06.080 of different backgrounds have different experiences that are valuable, and that we should listen to

00:58:10.280 people of different backgrounds. But if you're asking me to look at you differently or value you

00:58:13.880 differently based on the color of your skin, then yeah, I'm not going to do that. And God's not going

00:58:18.560 to either, quite frankly, no matter what color your skin is. We are all, each of us, made in his image.

00:58:24.640 End of story. And that's it. That's what the Bible says. That's where I land on all of this,

00:58:30.180 on this critical race theory, this, I'm going to pitch you against this person, the oppressed versus

00:58:34.920 the unoppressed or the oppressed versus the oppressor. No, I'm not going to do that because

00:58:41.540 the gospel rids us of grievance. The gospel does not allow us, does not allow us to say,

00:58:47.700 here's what you owe me. And once you pay me this, once you pay me this, then we can be reconciled.

00:58:53.960 Then we can repair this relationship. You know what God says to people who look at their fellow

00:58:58.520 man and say, you owe me this. You owe me this, especially for something that happened 150 years

00:59:03.700 ago. Like people are asking when they ask for racial reparations. You know what God says? He says,

00:59:07.460 are you kidding me? Do you know what you owed me? And I paid it for you on the cross because all of

00:59:13.140 you, no matter what the color of your skin is, you are all in the same place. And none of you owe

00:59:18.340 any, owe anyone, anything except to love one another. That's what the Bible says. You owe me

00:59:24.080 everything. And I paid that debt for you. And so your only responsibility is to love one another and

00:59:29.340 to forgive one another. That does mean eradicating racism. That does mean eradicating injustice where you

00:59:35.080 can, where it is based on truth, where it is based on actuality and not just some subjective

00:59:40.500 standard of social cosmic justice that can actually be actuated in real life. So anyway, that's my

00:59:47.940 whole story. I told myself I was going to finish in an hour and we're almost there. I hope you guys

00:59:52.920 have a great rest of your day and I'll see you Wednesday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 08, 2019

Ep 96 ｜ Wayward Wokeness

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