Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 02, 2023


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


Episode Stats

Length

43 minutes

Words per Minute

158.79813

Word Count

6,911

Sentence Count

415


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Christian nationalism, equity, inclusion, diversity, social and racial justice, queer
00:00:08.220 theory, what in the heck do all of these things really mean?
00:00:13.240 Where do they come from?
00:00:14.840 And how should Christians biblically navigate them?
00:00:19.360 How do we walk our children through these things and raise them up in a way that is
00:00:24.840 good and right and true in a world that is hostile to the things of God?
00:00:31.020 To explain all of this to us today in his clear and compelling classic way is Dr. Vodhi
00:00:39.060 Bauckham.
00:00:39.940 We are going to discuss all of this and more.
00:00:42.360 As always, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:00:45.180 Go to goodranchers.com slash Allie.
00:00:47.400 That's goodranchers.com slash Allie.
00:00:49.260 Now, without further ado, here is our good friend, Dr. Vodhi Bauckham.
00:00:54.840 Dr. Vodhi Bauckham, thank you so much for joining us.
00:01:05.060 I think this is the third time you are.
00:01:07.180 Yes.
00:01:07.600 Yes, you are.
00:01:08.220 It's the first time in person.
00:01:09.160 First time in person.
00:01:10.180 You are one of my favorite and one of my audience's favorite guests for just grounding us and giving
00:01:16.920 us clarity when the world seems to be just waiting in confusion and chaos.
00:01:21.420 So that's what I want to start us out with today.
00:01:24.980 We're ahead of the midterms in the U.S.
00:01:27.880 It seems that as there is more pushback and uproar by Christians, by conservatives against
00:01:34.880 the chaos of the culture when it comes to gender, sexuality, the family, race, it seems that the
00:01:41.460 other side is getting even louder, is accelerating even more.
00:01:46.660 It just feels like we are at a pressure point and a lot of people are scared, worried about
00:01:52.540 the future of the country, the state of the world for our kids.
00:01:55.780 Can you just give us some perspective?
00:01:57.920 I know that's a big question, but about where we are and as Christians who are just looking
00:02:04.840 out our window and we're like, how do we even begin to make sense of all of this?
00:02:08.820 Yeah, I think there's a couple of things there.
00:02:11.580 Number one, it's a clash of worldviews and it's been a clash of worldviews all along, but
00:02:17.800 we also live in this sort of social media age where everybody's got a voice and everybody's
00:02:24.540 got a platform.
00:02:26.360 And I think that's what's accelerating a lot of this.
00:02:30.100 So things that would have just been discussed in a gender studies colloquium at your local
00:02:38.580 college or university, those things are now taking place in the public square.
00:02:44.820 And they're taking place in the public square after a lot of groundwork has been done to
00:02:51.100 prepare people's, you know, moral compass for this kind of takeover, if you will.
00:03:01.120 So we've got people who for the last generation have been prepped for this.
00:03:05.640 For the last generation, they've been taught, you know, the foundational and fundamental ideas.
00:03:11.840 This, this, this sort of general Marxist, you know, cultural Marxist ideology, this general
00:03:20.080 view, you know, of the world and the way things work.
00:03:23.800 And now as these things have sort of gone public and not only have they gone public, but in many
00:03:30.840 instances, they've been accepted, right?
00:03:34.400 They've, they've taken the field, so to speak.
00:03:38.500 There's just the chaos.
00:03:39.860 And so a lot of Christians who haven't been in a gender studies classroom or on a college
00:03:47.040 campus, you know, for that matter, in the last, you know, 40, 50 years, they see these
00:03:53.400 things, you know, coming to surface and that's where the panic comes from because people are
00:03:58.960 saying, wait a minute, well, like, what is this?
00:04:02.860 Where did this come from?
00:04:04.420 So we got one generation that's saying, you know, welcome to the party.
00:04:08.780 And another generation that's saying, you know, the sky's falling.
00:04:14.220 Right.
00:04:14.560 Right.
00:04:15.460 I think a lot of people believe that, that the gender stuff, that boys can be girls, vice
00:04:23.120 versa, that a lot of the race ideology that we saw poured out into the streets during 2020
00:04:29.700 and are still seeing and really from about 2015, that idea kind of became mainstream that
00:04:35.960 all of this happened all of a sudden, that maybe it was Obama that brought this on.
00:04:40.380 Although I do think that his policies accelerated some of it, but that it's all the sudden, it's
00:04:46.980 all the sudden coming up or it just originated in the last few years.
00:04:51.340 And kind of what I'm hearing you saying is that actually there is a long academic history
00:04:57.300 rooted in critical race theory and queer theory that has been in academia and intellectual spheres
00:05:05.980 for a while.
00:05:07.960 And the ideologies of feminism and of LGBTQ and the, as you referred to, the Marxist racial
00:05:17.520 ideology, they have roots going back decades and decades.
00:05:21.480 But for Christians who had never heard of this stuff in the past few years, it seems like all
00:05:26.920 of a sudden the world has gone mad.
00:05:29.020 How important do you think it is for Christians to understand the roots of these progressive
00:05:35.320 ideologies?
00:05:36.760 Like, do you think it's important for us to understand the roots of critical race theory,
00:05:41.440 queer theory, the standpoint of epistemology, all that?
00:05:45.120 I do.
00:05:45.560 I really do think it's important.
00:05:47.540 You know, my last book, I addressed that and I addressed it for this very reason.
00:05:52.380 I believe we need to know where these ideas come from.
00:05:55.960 Ideas have consequences, right?
00:05:57.960 And if you're just looking at the consequences, but don't understand the ideas that have brought
00:06:03.940 them about, then you're not very well equipped to, you know, have a reasoned response.
00:06:12.100 So yeah, we do need to know these things.
00:06:14.520 Now, do we all, you know, need master's degrees in critical theory or whatever, some kind of
00:06:21.760 grievance studies?
00:06:22.380 We don't, but there are some general, you know, historical overviews that we need.
00:06:30.460 And there are some people out there who are being very helpful as it relates to giving
00:06:35.580 us those general overviews.
00:06:38.040 And I hope, my hope is that the work that I've done has contributed to that.
00:06:43.020 Yes, and your last book is called Fault Lines, and you do lay that out very clearly.
00:06:48.680 You don't have to read all of the original sources of critical race theory to understand
00:06:56.220 what it is.
00:06:57.340 Although that could be great, but-
00:06:59.580 By the way, reading the critical sources, reading the original sources will give you less
00:07:05.280 of an understanding.
00:07:06.000 You know, a lot of these fields write in very obscure ways.
00:07:12.840 And a lot of people who've gone and found more of these original sources, these original
00:07:18.240 academic sources, they come away just scratching their heads, right?
00:07:22.620 Because people will say in, you know, 2,000 words what could have been said in 25.
00:07:29.780 Right.
00:07:30.280 You know.
00:07:30.580 Tell us how you think these previously just academic ideas spilled over into the mainstream.
00:07:39.280 You talked about how we have kind of been conditioned before these hit the mainstream to accept them,
00:07:45.620 whether it's through the rise of secularism, moral relativism.
00:07:49.540 We had already been primed with feminist ideology, the idea that men and women can be the same anyway.
00:07:55.700 They're basically interchangeable.
00:07:58.080 Um, the idea that white people are oppressors and all black and brown people are oppressed.
00:08:03.640 Even if we didn't know the words, queer theory, critical race theory five years ago, we were
00:08:09.060 kind of already primed in general to accept them.
00:08:13.120 So at what, what was the tipping point that all of a sudden it seems like these things are
00:08:18.580 mainstream.
00:08:19.100 We got drag queen story hour.
00:08:21.280 We've got corporations accepting the tenants of critical race theory.
00:08:25.620 When did all of this become part of our culture?
00:08:29.900 Yeah.
00:08:32.140 The critical theorists really did a good job of infiltrating the institutions, often referred
00:08:39.860 to as the long march through the institutions.
00:08:41.560 Right.
00:08:42.800 And several areas in particular, um, the, the grievance studies areas, right.
00:08:49.680 Um, feminist studies, women's studies, you know, queer studies and all these kinds of things,
00:08:55.640 but also, and more importantly, things like journalism, political science and education.
00:09:03.400 And I, and I think education above all people like Paulo Freire, right.
00:09:08.800 And critical pedagogy, um, when, when our teachers are immersed in critical theory, um, when our
00:09:20.300 teachers are immersed in these ideas and, you know, critical pedagogy, and when the overwhelming
00:09:25.860 majority of Americans are sending their children to the government schools, then over time, this
00:09:35.060 is how you get a generation that's immersed in these kinds of presuppositions, right.
00:09:41.420 Um, nobody's saying to them, you know, queer theory or critical theory, this, any other, but
00:09:48.060 they're talking about these ideas.
00:09:49.900 They're talking about these ideas of, you know, the, the oppressor oppressed paradigm, um, as
00:09:56.840 an, an explanation for the, the way and the reason that things are the way they are.
00:10:03.080 They're talking about history through a particular lens and they're shading history in particular
00:10:11.420 ways.
00:10:12.680 They're talking about sexuality.
00:10:15.500 They're, you know, making decisions, um, you know, on, on the, the broader level in school
00:10:22.460 systems about how they're going to teach in areas of sexuality and also, um, how they're
00:10:29.000 going to conduct themselves. Like, what are you going to do about, um, bathrooms and what are you
00:10:33.700 going to do about, you know, kids coming out and, you know, how are you going to handle, um, these
00:10:38.140 sort of gender identity things? Um, you know, all of those things are, have been going on
00:10:44.280 within the educational system. And when I say the educational system, I mean, first, the way we train
00:10:49.560 teachers. And then secondly, the way that they execute that training within our schools, that's been
00:10:56.500 going on for generations now. And it's been preparing the ground.
00:11:00.860 I have a lot of conversations with moms who have their kids, Christian moms, Christian conservative
00:11:05.380 moms. They have their kids, um, in public school. Now I've also gotten to a lot of respectful, but
00:11:12.400 I'd probably call them arguments, respectful arguments with women about this, because I don't
00:11:17.680 believe that if you can help it, that you should have your kids in public education system. Um, and over the
00:11:24.520 past couple of years, I have seen a lot of parents who previously thought it was okay,
00:11:30.600 who previously thought, not my district. We live in Alabama. We live in Georgia. We live in Texas.
00:11:36.560 It's not going to happen here. And I'm equipping my kids. They're going to be light in the darkness.
00:11:42.080 And we've got good Christian teachers.
00:11:43.860 Yeah. Oh, they go to our church. They're in our Sunday school. And a lot of those, to their credit,
00:11:48.460 a lot of those moms have actually come back to me and said, you know, I changed my mind.
00:11:52.340 And, or it's very often been, you know, what Vodibachum said about not being able to send
00:11:58.900 our kids to Caesar without them coming back Romans. That really resonated with me. I hear
00:12:03.300 that a lot. And so, but I do know that in this audience, there are still parents hanging
00:12:08.020 on to this idea that, well, I had a public education and I was fine. Well, my kids are
00:12:13.040 going to be sharing the gospel. My kids would never, you know, imbibe this kind of ideology.
00:12:18.380 What do you tell those parents who are still wrestling with whether they should give their
00:12:23.620 kids a Christian education or whether public school is okay?
00:12:26.740 Luke 640, a pupil is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained will
00:12:32.740 be like his teacher. And we need to understand that in the school system, the teacher is the
00:12:38.700 curriculum. And even in that good old Southern school where the teachers are members of, you
00:12:45.920 know, this church or that church, they're not writing the curriculum. And the people
00:12:50.660 who are writing the curriculum have an agenda. The other thing that we need to recognize is
00:12:56.820 that government education in America is anti-Christian by federal mandate.
00:13:02.260 Right.
00:13:02.620 It cannot be anything other than anti-Christian. And for those people who say, well, we just
00:13:08.920 need to reform the schools. To reform something needs to take it back, right, to its original
00:13:14.260 purpose. Well, in the 1870s, when we got government education in the United States, you know, Northeastern,
00:13:22.260 you know, liberal, Unitarians, Universalists wanted to establish the government education system
00:13:30.720 in order to eliminate what they called religious superstition.
00:13:34.260 When Tocqueville came and looked at, you know, America, one of the things he said was that education
00:13:40.280 was everywhere in the hands of the clergy, right? And in the 1870s, that was the goal. It was based
00:13:48.420 on the Prussian model. And the goal was to eliminate the stronghold of Christianity and to establish a
00:13:56.320 system of secular humanism. And that's exactly what we have. So people just need to have their eyes
00:14:02.860 wide open. They, you know, by what, 1900, even into maybe the 1920s, two thirds of all students who
00:14:11.620 would graduate from high school, if you will, it was still the church or the home or dame schools,
00:14:18.480 you know, as they would call them, we now call them co-ops. That late, you know, that we still
00:14:24.760 hadn't sort of succumbed to this idea. It was only later that people said, you know, if you can't beat
00:14:30.560 them, join them. And so the idea of us, you know, going in and evangelizing the schools was something
00:14:36.500 that came in later. And if that was going to work, it would work by now.
00:14:40.320 Right. Right. Yeah. Expound on that a little bit more for the parents who say, well, you know,
00:14:46.060 my kindergartner, my fifth grader is basically a missionary. And if my Christian kid is not in this
00:14:53.800 school, these other kids will never know Christ. Can you address that argument?
00:14:58.680 First of all, missionaries need to be trained, right? And you don't send your missionaries to
00:15:05.240 be trained by your adversary. You don't send your missionaries to be trained and indoctrinated by the
00:15:12.800 people that you want them to share the gospel with. You train them first and then you send them
00:15:19.220 into that territory. So we're doing it completely backwards. Our kids are not the missionaries.
00:15:25.200 They're the mission field. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. And
00:15:30.140 I also think about the fact that it's not just what kids are learning or it's not just what they
00:15:39.300 may not be learning. So even if your child is in a school where gender ideology hasn't fully hit yet,
00:15:46.780 critical race theory hasn't fully hit. Although I would say that's kind of hard to believe at this
00:15:51.200 point, that it's not somewhere in there, even if the parents don't realize it.
00:15:54.900 It's in the curriculum.
00:15:55.940 Right. Right. And even as you said, it's subtle. They're not saying today we're learning critical
00:16:00.620 race theory. It's today we're learning the real history of the United States or something like that.
00:16:06.760 But it's also, I think, what they are missing when they don't have a Christian education.
00:16:13.500 I'm very thankful that my parents were able to give me that from kindergarten through 12th grade.
00:16:18.900 And I understand that's not a guarantee for a kid's salvation or a guarantee that they are going
00:16:23.980 to remain in the faith. But when I think about how that foundation set me up for the rest of my life,
00:16:31.920 how I still use the gospel-centered education that I had in every subject, I just think that that is
00:16:39.760 one of the greatest gifts that my parents gave me. Because even if in a public school,
00:16:44.760 they're not learning some of the crazy progressive stuff, I promise that they're not learning the
00:16:49.160 gospel. I promise that they're not learning how to apply their faith in math, in history, et cetera,
00:16:54.500 like I did.
00:16:55.300 And Ellie, even beyond that, in modern American schools, they're also not learning how to read
00:17:00.400 and write and do math, right? I mean, our schools are terrible academically. So for the Christian
00:17:06.700 parent, what we're saying is, I'm not only willing to compromise theologically my kid's education,
00:17:14.300 right? By the way, kindergarten through 12th grade, a child spends 14,000 instructional hours in school.
00:17:20.200 Okay. So I'm, I'm number one, I'm willing to compromise theologically and teach my children
00:17:27.780 by default that Christ is not Lord over academics. Number two, I'm willing to compromise academically
00:17:36.640 because the American school system ranks middle of the pack and below in math and science,
00:17:44.360 for example. So, you know, we're not only doing harm from a biblical theological, um, Christian
00:17:53.800 worldview perspective, but we're also doing, doing harm from just a basic academic perspective as
00:18:00.000 well.
00:18:00.740 Mm-hmm. I think that that's, I think that's right. And I think a lot of parents thankfully are waking
00:18:05.120 up to that. We have seen in every demographic, we have seen homeschool increase over the past couple
00:18:11.140 years. Fastest growing segment in education. Yes. The Christian schools that I know of locally,
00:18:16.600 I mean, they have wait lists. They've had families who more than ever have been transferring from
00:18:23.600 either charter schools or public schools to try to get their kids a Christian education. So I do think
00:18:29.360 COVID kind of woke people up to not just the indoctrination, but also, wow, the teachers unions
00:18:35.580 don't really care about the students because they're willing to completely isolate them for the
00:18:40.800 sake of politics.
00:18:42.080 And in a lot of people, that was the first time they got to see what their kids were learning.
00:18:45.500 Mm-hmm.
00:18:46.280 Because now, okay, the kid starts doing this stuff online. And there were a lot of parents who,
00:18:52.860 for the first time, got a real glimpse into the material and the source of their child's academic
00:19:03.240 experience and were just appalled.
00:19:05.580 So your book, Fault Lines, was primarily about kind of the social justice, critical race theory
00:19:10.800 ideology, which we've talked about for the past couple of interviews. Now, there's been a lot of
00:19:16.140 discussion and debate for the first time in a lot of churches over the past couple of years,
00:19:23.000 obviously, since George Floyd and the riots. And we saw a lot of Christian teachers saying,
00:19:28.420 okay, church, it's time to do the work. It's time to read White Fragility, whatever it is.
00:19:34.660 And it's hard to determine whether things, when it comes to that particular conversation,
00:19:40.700 have gotten better among Christians or worse. I do think some people have realized now Black Lives
00:19:46.640 Matter was a scam. A lot of that stuff that Christians were pressured into, it wasn't really
00:19:52.140 biblical. But man, I still see a lot of division when it comes to what justice looks like, what
00:19:58.600 oppression really looks like, what so-called racial reconciliation looks like. What is your feeling of
00:20:06.200 how Christians are approaching the subject now about two years out of when it was most tense?
00:20:13.860 I think a couple of things have happened. One, I think some people have gone underground,
00:20:17.600 right? And just, they hope that people don't remember what they said, what they did, what
00:20:24.140 they championed. I think too, some people have just, they've kept the same ideology. They believe,
00:20:33.400 you know, the whole anti-racist ideology. They believe the whole White Fragility ideology.
00:20:39.880 They, they, they, they, they imbibed it, but they're moving away from phrases, you know, Black Lives
00:20:50.700 Matter, them being exposed the way they have. People are like, okay, that was bad. They were wrong.
00:20:57.460 They're willing to say that, you know, the organization was bad, that, that, that, that movement
00:21:02.720 per se was bad, but they're still holding onto the idea ideology that lay at the foundation of that
00:21:09.420 movement. So they still believe fundamentally, um, that our goal ought to be equity and not equality,
00:21:16.160 right? They still want the diversity, equity, inclusion, you know, uh, program in, in, in,
00:21:22.140 just in case there's anyone new here, can you just tell us the difference between equity and equality?
00:21:26.920 So again, equality is that age old idea that everybody is equal and ought to be treated equally
00:21:34.940 and that everybody ought to, um, play by the same rules and have the same opportunities,
00:21:41.080 right? Um, equity is the idea that everybody ought to end up at the same place and that if they're not
00:21:49.500 ending up at the same place, and when I say everybody, I don't mean individually, right?
00:21:54.300 We, we, we, we have to, we have to racialize everyone and we have to see everyone as, as groups
00:22:01.560 and not as individuals. And so groups need to have the same outcomes. And if groups are not having the
00:22:09.580 same outcomes, then the, the assumption is that that's because of racism in the system, right?
00:22:20.260 And equity says we then need to, you know, deconstruct the system, you know, to whatever
00:22:26.700 degree we need to in order to get to those equal outcomes. Yes. And Thomas Sowell, as you know,
00:22:34.200 has written many books on this really for, uh, I don't know, 40, 45 years, but two of the more
00:22:40.760 recent ones quest for cosmic justice and discrimination and disparities talks about that and quest for cosmic
00:22:47.920 justice. That's basically what he calls social justice is cosmic justice, because it's basically
00:22:54.200 like the people in charge see themselves as gods in the cosmos. And they're saying, how can we hold
00:23:00.260 this group back, push this group forward? So everyone ends up on the same plane, basically punishing one
00:23:07.160 group for having too much perceived success, reward another group for having too much perceived failure.
00:23:13.440 So everyone is on the same plane. It never works because the calculations aren't really based on
00:23:21.400 reality and a correct view of human nature, but just based on the belief that human beings are kind
00:23:27.120 of just clumps of cells that you can manipulate as you see fit, um, so that everyone will end up in
00:23:35.320 the same place. And there's a million different policies that I can think of that kind of align with
00:23:39.400 that idea of cosmic justice and they never work. Yeah. And, and the assumption of course too,
00:23:43.820 is that the only difference between people, um, is the influences upon them, right? There aren't
00:23:51.060 differences in culture. There aren't differences in ability. There aren't differences in choices.
00:23:56.960 There aren't differences in interests. There are certain groups of people that just aren't interested,
00:24:02.360 right? In certain things. Um, you know, the Austrians make great violins. Uh, well, praise God,
00:24:09.240 let's go buy violins from the Austrians. But you know, I, I, that doesn't mean that we say,
00:24:14.840 well, no, no, no, no, no, no. We've, we've got to have them make fewer violins and we got to have
00:24:19.440 these people make, you know, more violins and, you know, how about we ask what it is about their
00:24:25.260 culture, right? What it is about their history, what it is about their interests, um, that, that leads
00:24:31.500 them to do that, that would explain why this group over here wouldn't be as proficient. And, and then how
00:24:38.540 about we say, that's great. Let's buy our violins from them and let's go buy whatever else, you
00:24:44.140 know, that these guys are great at from them. Right. But, but, but this, this whole, you know,
00:24:50.140 diversity, equity, inclusion, um, mantra has really got people buying an idea that number one,
00:24:57.340 it's completely illogical. No two groups of people have ever been, um, you know, completely the same
00:25:04.240 in that way. No two individuals, no two individuals. That's what Thomas soul says too.
00:25:08.240 You could have twin brothers in the same family, same background. I mean, pretty much like the same
00:25:14.280 DNA and one could be an abject failure. One could be a successful doctor. So if you can't get two twin
00:25:22.720 brothers from the exact same family to end up in the same place, how do you think you can get two
00:25:27.960 strangers from different parts of the country with different families, different backgrounds to end up
00:25:33.240 in the same place just by manipulating policies? Right. It's an impossibility that actually leads
00:25:38.220 to, to policies that try to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. And that's the only
00:25:43.160 way you can make it work. You know, that's, that's the only way you can make it work is, um, you know,
00:25:49.300 you cut off, you cut off all the stocks to make them the same height, you know, use the classic
00:25:53.600 illustration. Um, and it's unfortunate, you know? Um, but, but I think there's another more sinister
00:26:01.120 aspect of this. At the end of the day, this is about power. At the end of the day, this is about
00:26:08.780 people saying, you know, there's power dynamics at work. These people have too much power,
00:26:16.100 take it from them and give it to me. I mean, essentially that's what this is about. And it's
00:26:22.300 about those people who are representatives of, you know, so-called disadvantaged groups, um,
00:26:30.060 accumulating power for themselves. Um, nobody ever gets better because of this, but certain people,
00:26:39.040 um, get richer because of this and get more powerful because of this. And at the end of the
00:26:44.960 day, this is a power play. Right. And that, I mean, that's been going on, especially when it comes
00:26:49.660 to race politics and activism for a while. Booker D. Washington talked about that, how there's a
00:26:54.700 certain group of people that want to keep black people feeling like they're oppressed because they
00:26:59.160 make money off of that perceived oppression. And man, is that still true today? I mean, Black Lives
00:27:05.580 Matter, we've now seen basically just garnered millions and millions of dollars for their own
00:27:10.980 mansions, not to do anything for the communities that, by the way, were destroyed by the riots
00:27:17.580 that they provoked. And so it really is a huge gimmick in the name of social and racial
00:27:22.880 justice. And I did just want to say something about equity and equality because you can read
00:27:29.320 in scripture how God cares about equity. So when we talk about the difference between equity and
00:27:34.280 equality, we're talking about progressives, new fangled definitions of equity, equity in its true
00:27:41.860 sense actually means, you know, impartiality that the law should apply the same to everyone,
00:27:47.580 no matter your background. That is biblical. We read over and over again in scripture,
00:27:51.580 God hates partiality. Do not defer to the poor or to the great in a lawsuit, but in truth,
00:27:57.920 judge your neighbor. And so, but today's new fangled definition of equity is equality of outcomes.
00:28:03.460 Well, and you bring up an important point because one of the things that I've seen as people have
00:28:11.160 talked about this, um, you know, different, different speakers and, you know, different pastors or,
00:28:17.920 or whatever, or not necessarily pastor, different Christian leaders who have been advocating this
00:28:23.880 critical social justice ideology. And one of the things that they do, it's this, it's this biblical,
00:28:30.040 biblical sleight of hand. And so they'll say, you know, these people are all upset, you know,
00:28:35.960 because of, you know, talk about equity or you can't say anything about oppression. And then
00:28:40.580 they'll go to a Bible verse, right. You know, you, you go to Proverbs one and, you know, there's,
00:28:45.940 you know, equity and justice. Right. And they're like, it's right there in the scriptures or,
00:28:51.400 you know, the, the Israelites were oppressed, right. By the moment. And they're like, there it is in
00:28:57.040 scripture. So these people don't want us to talk about this, but the Bible talks about this.
00:29:02.000 And your point is spot on. The Bible uses those words. We're not talking about those words per se.
00:29:12.060 We're talking about the meaning that has been poured into those words today. And by the way,
00:29:18.220 there are sinister purposes behind that, because if you use words that are familiar to people
00:29:24.480 and that are attractive to people, but you change the meaning of those words,
00:29:30.720 that's one way that Christians have been deceived into going along to one degree or another with
00:29:38.540 these movements, because there are words like social justice. Okay. Anti-racism. Well, I'm not
00:29:47.080 pro-racism. Right. Equity, you know, you know, those words are attractive to us because we belong to
00:29:57.120 Christ because we love the body of Christ because we love our neighbor. And it sometimes, you know,
00:30:05.720 by God's grace, people will recognize that these words don't mean what they thought they meant.
00:30:11.740 Right. Other times, um, people are carried along until they're shipwrecked. Yeah. And there are a lot
00:30:17.160 of people, um, who've been shipwrecked. There's some of these leaders, right. Um, who, who are,
00:30:24.120 who are now in another camp. I heard, uh, a spokesperson for the, um, NHL the other day
00:30:33.200 say that they are working to reduce the number of white people in the corporation. They need more
00:30:41.580 minorities working for them. And you hear this a lot. You hear this from churches. You hear this
00:30:47.100 from Christian schools saying that basically it's a problem when you have too many white people,
00:30:52.420 almost like whiteness is some kind of like disease that you need to eradicate or diminish. So,
00:30:58.560 I mean, how should Christians think about that? You like diversity? Sure. But should we be seeing
00:31:06.040 whiteness as some kind of problem to be solved? Yeah. You know, I think we need to be truth tellers.
00:31:11.880 Um, I, I, I think we need to be people who, um, treat one another with respect and with dignity,
00:31:23.300 um, based on the fact that all people are made in the image of God. I think we also need to be
00:31:29.180 people who recognize and appreciate the true diversity that God gives us, right. Um, and gifts,
00:31:39.560 talents, abilities, desires, whatever. One of the things that's so sad about all of this
00:31:45.740 is that these moves to get rid of these people in favor of those people, these moves give a,
00:31:54.700 a form of diversity, but they destroy another kind of diversity. What I mean by that is this,
00:32:01.020 they want people who are ethnically diverse, but they don't want people who are ideologically
00:32:08.480 diverse. So for example, people say, you know, we need to elevate black voices. Okay, great. Um,
00:32:17.800 how about Voddie Bauckham? Oh no, not his voice, right? Because we don't want ideological diversity.
00:32:26.320 And so I think we need to be honest with one another. I think we need to, um, you know, respect
00:32:33.660 one another enough, um, to live in that kind of honesty with one another. And I think that we need
00:32:42.580 to trust God enough, um, to distribute his gifts, um, in, in his own way, um, and just receive whatever
00:32:53.600 it is that he gives us. I think you're right in that if we recognize that there is this malicious,
00:33:00.140 you know, sort of discrimination that's going on again, as followers of Christ, um, that can't be
00:33:07.280 tolerated, you know? Um, and then I'll go, I'll go another step further. I think one of the problems
00:33:14.440 is that because we've just decided number one, that any kind of disparity is automatically the result of,
00:33:22.740 um, racism and discrimination. Right. And then, you know, number two, you know, we don't want to
00:33:28.400 victim blame and we don't want to, you know, you know, judge cultures or whatever. I think because
00:33:34.040 of that, we're not getting behind the numbers. So for instance, what I mean is if, you know,
00:33:41.580 if black children, for example, are underperforming academically, we just say, we need to change the
00:33:48.540 standard. We need to change the test. We need to change the system. We need to change,
00:33:52.380 but what if there are reasons behind that, that need to be addressed? If we're just changing the
00:34:02.340 standard and we're just changing the test and we're just changing the institutions,
00:34:05.320 then what we haven't done is we haven't gotten to the root of whatever the real problem might be.
00:34:14.480 And to me, that's the sinister part of all of this.
00:34:18.060 Right. In San Diego, I think it was that they basically did, or they, they did away with a
00:34:24.040 grading scale because disproportionately black and Hispanic students weren't, they weren't getting
00:34:30.060 the same scores on math tests as the Asian students were. And so kind of what we were saying earlier,
00:34:37.620 just lowest common denominator rather than saying, okay, why is this group of students falling behind?
00:34:43.620 If this is the standard that people need to reach to be successful in life, to be productive members
00:34:49.380 of society rather than lowering it. So no one is a productive member of society. How can we bring
00:34:55.500 this group up? And actually, if you look at the numbers, obviously fatherlessness has something to
00:35:00.640 do with it, but also Asian students on average spend the highest number of hours on homework higher than
00:35:08.540 white students or anything else. Yes. Um, and they have more wealth than white people as well.
00:35:12.740 Right, right. Exactly. The highest median income in the country. It's not white Americans. White
00:35:19.520 Americans is like mid way. It's Indian Americans, um, which is a little confusing if the whole system
00:35:26.140 is apparently a white supremacist system. So there are other factors there that the very people who say
00:35:33.560 that they care about liberation and lifting up black and brown communities don't want to address
00:35:38.780 because of what you said earlier, that doesn't give them power. Yeah. That doesn't give the activists
00:35:43.520 power. Yes, absolutely. And I mean, listen, like I said, at the end of the day, this is a power play.
00:35:51.820 And at the end of the day, um, these people are not concerned, uh, the way they claim to be concerned.
00:36:02.780 They don't have, um, these folks best interest at heart. Um, and, and, and that's, what's just
00:36:09.880 incredibly sad about it. Yeah, I agree with you. All right. Can you give some encouragement then
00:36:15.300 to Christian parents as they are kind of wading through the chaos? Obviously we know God is
00:36:22.000 sovereign, but for those who are thinking, well, you know, this country is just going to
00:36:26.540 hell in a handbasket. It's hard for them to maintain their hope and their joy in the midst of all of
00:36:30.460 this. Yeah. What encouragement do you have for them? Ah, boy. The first thing is to remember that
00:36:36.700 this is not our home, right? Um, you know, we are citizens of another kingdom. Um, but having said
00:36:44.520 that, you know, we ought to keep Jeremiah 29 in mind, right? That, that we, we pray, um, for the
00:36:53.280 welfare of the city where we've been sent into exile because in its welfare, we will have our welfare
00:36:59.640 and God is faithful. I mean, he is absolutely faithful and the kingdom of God is undefeated.
00:37:06.180 And so if we are on the side of the kingdom, um, and if we are working to advance the kingdom,
00:37:12.760 then number one, our hope is secure. Um, but secondly, um, we have the privilege, you know,
00:37:20.880 I don't live here anymore, but we have the privilege of living in a place that has been
00:37:27.120 incredibly blessed by God. And it is God's providence that has made America, you know,
00:37:34.900 what it is. We ought to rejoice in that. We ought to hope in that. And we ought to take advantage of
00:37:40.760 the fact that we have an opportunity to turn the tide. Um, it, it, it, it can, it can happen.
00:37:48.880 Right. Um, and then finally we need to make sure that our desire is not just for America to have the
00:37:57.200 tide turned for America's sake, but for America to have the tide turned for the gospel sake.
00:38:02.740 To me, the greatness of the United States is the fact that the gospel has prospered here
00:38:10.760 and born fruit here, unlike anywhere else or any other time in the world. And so my desire
00:38:19.240 is for all of those things that allowed that to happen, to continue to flourish so that the work
00:38:27.080 of the gospel can continue to flourish here and continue to be a blessing elsewhere.
00:38:33.340 But Dr. Bauckham, isn't that very scary Christian nationalism?
00:38:36.700 Absolutely. It is. Yeah.
00:38:38.380 It is most assuredly very scary Christian nationalism. You know, again, now you open another can of worms.
00:38:45.120 I remember, um, it seemed like things started to get traction, right? In terms of people waking up
00:38:51.320 to the problems with, um, um, the, this whole social justice movement, people started to speak
00:38:56.280 up, you know, and speak out. And all of a sudden the folks on the other side, I think got a little
00:39:01.940 nervous and then they started going, yeah, well, what about this Christian nationalism? And for most
00:39:08.540 of the rest of us, we had to go, wait a minute, you can go look it up. Right. Like what, what is that?
00:39:15.800 I may be with you, right? I may, you know, this may be this big, scary boogeyman or whatever. And then we go
00:39:21.700 look it up and there's no clear definition of what it is. And, you know, there are different people
00:39:27.680 who are defining it in different ways. And essentially it was a smokescreen. And then if you just stop and
00:39:35.080 think about it for a minute, right? Okay. If you don't want Christian nationalism, what other kind of
00:39:40.240 nationalism do you want? Yeah. Right. Do you, do you want, you know, secular nationalism, Muslim
00:39:47.300 nationalism, you know, and, or if it's not the Christianity, that's the problem. Is it the
00:39:52.340 nationalism? That's the problem. If we don't want nationalism, what do we want? Do we want globalism?
00:39:57.300 You know, no, thank you, please. Right. With China in charge. Yeah, exactly. You know? So yeah,
00:40:04.740 it does sound like a bunch of scary Christian nationalism and so what. You're right. Christians
00:40:11.780 are the only ones who are told to check their worldview at the door before they vote, before
00:40:17.180 they teach. Secular progressivism is not neutral. It's what characterizes our curriculum. It's what
00:40:24.380 characterizes much of our legislation today. It's what characterizes corporate policy today. It's not
00:40:31.100 neutral. It has its own theological claims. It's pseudo religious claims. And it's only when
00:40:38.220 Christians say, well, you know what? I've got a worldview too. And I think it's better. And so I'm
00:40:42.980 going to bring my ideas in my faith to the table when we're having these discussions, all of a sudden
00:40:47.940 that's scary Christian nationalism, but it's also not Christian nationalism. Apparently on the left,
00:40:54.580 on the left, when Stacey Abrams or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden, when they invoke the Bible and basically
00:41:00.740 say that they're- The Reverend Raphael Warnock. Oh, yes. Yeah. When he invokes his faith to say,
00:41:05.860 oh no, we need to force the taxpayer to pay for the dismemberment of babies. That's not Christian
00:41:12.040 nationalism. It's only when conservatives say, well, you know what? I believe babies are made in God's
00:41:17.100 image and we shouldn't be allowed to murder them. That's Christian nationalism. Or when Gavin Newsom
00:41:21.200 puts a Bible verse on a billboard trying to attract people to California to kill their babies,
00:41:27.960 right? So, I mean, for a generation, anytime you speak up, it's, you know, separation of church and
00:41:34.440 state, separation of church and state, you know, for Christians for a generation. And it bothered me
00:41:39.080 so much. People would come and they would say, oh, you know, Dr. Buckham, you know, we know you,
00:41:44.080 apologetics and all this sort of stuff. And, you know, how do we make an argument, you know,
00:41:49.040 about abortion or an argument about, you know, same-sex marriage, but not using the Bible because
00:41:54.600 they don't believe the Bible. So we want to make an argument that doesn't rely on the Bible.
00:41:59.140 And now here they are using the Bible unapologetically, right? With no shame at all
00:42:06.780 in order to advance these ungodly ideologies. Yes. And man, I could talk about that whole subject
00:42:13.080 for 30 more, for 30 more minutes, even just Christians trying to get out of using the Bible
00:42:19.140 or using their faith as the basis for what they believe about abortion and gender. And yes, you can
00:42:25.800 make secular arguments about those things, but at the end of the day, only our faith informs
00:42:32.160 not when life begins, but why that life matters when life begins. Not just that human beings are
00:42:38.540 sexually dimorphic, but why that matters more than someone's feelings about themselves.
00:42:44.100 So actually, I think that it's okay for Christians to say, at the end of the day,
00:42:49.460 all of these things are informed in my belief that God created the heavens and the earth. And he says
00:42:55.260 what is and what isn't. Christians shouldn't try to shy away from that because they're scared of
00:42:59.300 being called Christian nationalists. Amen.
00:43:01.880 Yep. Okay. Thank you so much. I hate to close this out. We're ending right on time though.
00:43:06.500 I really appreciate your time. Tell people where they can buy your book, follow you,
00:43:12.080 maybe follow your, the speaking tours that you sometimes do in the United States. How can they
00:43:16.240 do all that? Yeah. Go to Vodibachum.org and V-O-D-I-E-B-A-U-C-H-A-M. People ask me that all
00:43:23.940 the time. How do you spell that? Yeah. Vodibachum.org. You can find out whatever you need to find out
00:43:28.020 about it. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're very welcome.