The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Calling Out “Woke” Pastors! (Yes, We Name Them) ｜ with Jon Harris

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00:00:40 All right, welcome back to another episode

00:00:42 of Theology Applied.

00:00:43 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webben

00:00:44 with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:46 Now, I have an exciting announcement.

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00:01:18 This is one of my favorite episodes.

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00:01:26 Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to Theology Applied.

00:01:32 In today's episode, I was privileged to have as a special guest, John Harris.

00:01:36 He hosts a podcast called Conversations That Matter.

00:01:39 He's also written a few books, and he's really specialized.

00:01:42 The Lord has used him uniquely in the area of calling out the social justice gospel for the heresy that it actually is.

00:01:49 And so this episode, we've titled Calling Out Woke Preachers by Name.

00:01:53 John throws some names into the ring, and so do I.

00:01:56 it's intense, but it's good. I hope you enjoy.

00:02:02 Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:02:13 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. As I've already said,

00:02:17 my special guest is John Harris. He has a podcast that I'm familiar with called Conversations

00:02:23 that matter that I've been listening to, especially over the last month. And he's had a lot of great

00:02:28 commentary in regards to social justice and also in regards to, well, really a lot of things just

00:02:36 in the past few days regarding the jab or the point, you know, before you get the point. So

00:02:42 anyway, so that's been really helpful. And so I'm grateful for his ministry. I'm grateful for his

00:02:46 teaching. John, welcome to the show. Please introduce yourself to our guest. Yeah, thank you

00:02:51 so much uh well there's not much to say about me other than i guess um i i can't kind of came

00:02:58 to podcasting and writing um without a plan to do so it just kind of happened and uh and here i am

00:03:06 but um i was saved by grace at a young age i grew up in upstate new york my dad's a pastor and uh

00:03:12 i um went to seminary and while i was there i found out that the social justice movement was

00:03:20 taking a hold and it really was something that happened very quickly almost overnight and it

00:03:25 concerned me greatly I had been at secular university and heard a lot of the same talking

00:03:30 points and now they're coming out of the mouth of seminary professors so that's what inspired me to

00:03:34 start talking about this issue but I consider myself you know a furniture a pair man a hiker

00:03:41 I don't know I love studying the word of God and preaching and I love cycling there's a lot

00:03:49 I guess I don't want to give you all my hobbies, but, um, all that to say, um, it wasn't what I

00:03:55 was planning, but it was what God has for me right now to focus on and, uh, it's helped some people.

00:04:00 So, uh, hopefully, you know, as we talk today, some people will be, um, just edified by our

00:04:07 conversation and they'll get to understand maybe some of the errors of this teaching. Uh, and,

00:04:12 um, not, not a lot of people want to go talk about errors and make that, you know, a big part of

00:04:17 their life. But for right now, that's been a major part of mine. So. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well,

00:04:25 we'll go ahead and just jump right in. A little bit of context here for our listeners. I've

00:04:31 already shared this with John through email, but part of the purpose in doing this is a few months

00:04:36 ago, we did an episode with a special guest, Justin Peters, and Justin Peters brings all the

00:04:41 boys to the yard, you know, calling out the prosperity gospel. And we're grateful for Justin

00:04:45 Peters and really the whole, you know, MacArthur camp and those guys. And I think back to their

00:04:51 Strange Fire conference. I think that's when Justin Peters really came on the scene. Other

00:04:54 guys like Todd Friel would kind of be in that camp and grateful for the master's crew, grateful for

00:05:00 their work against the prosperity gospel. And that's important. But I know that John would agree

00:05:07 because I've been following him for a while now that this social justice gospel, this wokeology,

00:05:14 critical race theory, neo-Marxism, that it is a heresy, or at least the tenets of it by way of

00:05:21 implication, if you follow the logic through. The only way you cannot be a heretic is if you're

00:05:27 just theologically and logically inconsistent, which we pray that some of our brothers are and 0.99

00:05:31 that they come back around. But it lends towards heresy, and many have shipwrecked their faith

00:05:37 because of it, and it's perhaps, I think, more dangerous, and I know you think this also, John,

00:05:43 because of how subtle, it's subtle nature.

00:05:46 It's not $76 billion jet planes, you know?

00:05:49 I mean, like some of these guys, Jesse Duplantis,

00:05:53 I mean, you listen to some of the things they say,

00:05:55 you know, Creflo Dollar,

00:05:55 and they literally sound like a rapper.

00:05:58 It's not hard to discern that, you know?

00:06:01 Now, still, they've deceived millions of people,

00:06:04 and so that ministry is important.

00:06:06 But me and Justin, when we were doing our episode

00:06:08 on calling out false teachers and the prosperity guys,

00:06:11 especially particularly we stopped short intentionally him and i both we stopped short

00:06:18 from calling out some of the woke guys and um and i have felt um a strong conviction over the past

00:06:25 few months and i wanted to share this with our listeners a strong conviction over the last few

00:06:29 months that um that we should should not have stopped short and um and that we should have

00:06:35 called out some of these woke pastors by name and I've listened to John Harris and I think he's

00:06:43 he's the man for the job so I wanted to invite him to help me on this episode calling out woke

00:06:48 preachers by name so the first thing that I wanted you to do for us John because the thing that made

00:06:52 me and Justin Peters I think stop short and and to alleviate Justin Peters of any guilt he probably

00:06:58 stopped short because that's that's what I kind of led in that particular episode us to do and he

00:07:03 is probably just honoring me.

00:07:05 But we did stop short.

00:07:06 I take full responsibility for that.

00:07:09 And so I'll just speak for myself.

00:07:10 The reason why I stopped short is because this idea of,

00:07:14 I think a lot of Christians think

00:07:16 if we call someone out for being a false teacher,

00:07:19 we are definitively saying that they are unregenerate.

00:07:23 And so my question to you, John, is this,

00:07:24 is certainty regarding an individual salvation

00:07:27 a necessary prerequisite

00:07:30 for acknowledging that individual as a false teacher?

00:07:33 yeah i don't think so um and i just want to say you know joel i appreciate what you just said i

00:07:40 mean it takes it takes humility to say hey you know what i probably messed this up or i could

00:07:44 have done better and uh i i do that all the time uh we all do and uh some of the one of the problems

00:07:51 right now in my opinion is um there's a lot of guys that are probably you know and hopefully

00:07:59 ignorant about the social justice movement. They bought into maybe certain aspects of it in some

00:08:04 ways, or they've introduced it into their church, but they're not willing to admit that they were

00:08:09 wrong. And so that's one of the main things that concerns me about guys who may even be

00:08:17 Orthodox Christians. But what I see in scripture is there's calling out a false teaching and false 0.88

00:08:26 teachers, because the concern is the church, it's the sheep, that they could be mauled by wolves.

00:08:31 I don't see that coupled anywhere with this prerequisite that you must know for certain

00:08:39 that they have a relationship with Jesus and are going to heaven. If you do call them out,

00:08:44 it doesn't necessarily mean that you're stating that they're going to spend all of eternity in

00:08:48 hell. Really, it's just, that's a completely different focus. And so I've taken the tact

00:08:55 that um the teaching is what the problem that's the problem and that's what's shipwrecking people's

00:09:03 faith so when a false teacher comes in and says something false it's really not that that hard

00:09:08 it's not rocket science false teaching means teaching that's false and um yeah specifically

00:09:14 teaching that is um related to core doctrines that we would consider fundamental to christianity

00:09:22 and the gospel in particular uh you mentioned the word heresy uh that which just means really

00:09:28 schism it's a simple word but i would say right now what we see in the greater evangelical world

00:09:33 is a schism and i don't think anyone would deny that there's a schism it's obvious um so i yeah

00:09:40 all that to say it doesn't have to get personal but this is a tactic that's used uh if you call

00:09:45 out false teaching and you say someone's promoting it immediately there's an offense like you're

00:09:49 saying I'm not saved. It's like, well, I'm not saying that, but now that you're so defensive

00:09:53 about it and you're unwilling to be corrected, well, now we're going through kind of a Matthew

00:09:58 18 process and maybe people are wondering whether you are. So that's kind of the long answer, but

00:10:04 yeah. No, that's super helpful. And I think part of what you're getting to right there at the end

00:10:08 of your answer is that another important factor that I think Christians need to be aware of is

00:10:12 we're not talking, right? This isn't 2017, 2016. So we're not talking about somebody who preached

00:10:19 one sermon on racial reconciliation that got a little bit into the weeds with some critical race

00:10:25 theory assumptions, and then we're calling them out on a podcast. No, we're talking about

00:10:33 guys who for five years now, I mean, give or take, most of these guys that we're going to

00:10:40 be calling out by name in this episode, it's been five years, and John and I both know

00:10:46 firsthand that they have been corrected directly, just like Paul went to Peter, to his face.

00:10:53 They have been corrected directly dozens of times, and there has not been repentance.

00:11:01 So we're not talking about 2017, somebody gets up, preaches a sermon on racial reconciliation

00:11:08 that really wasn't true to biblical justice and was more so of a social justice, kind of whatever.

00:11:15 And, you know, just to be frank, I, I can't remember, but I probably said some things in 2017. I was, I was a part of the Acts 29 network. I don't know if I told that to you, John, but I was a pastor in Acts 29 and, you know, and, and I don't think I was ever drinking the Kool-Aid, as much Kool-Aid as they were pouring, you know.

00:11:36 I mean, every conference was racial reconciliation.

00:11:39 Every conference, we're repenting, corporate repentance, which is funny, you know, because it's like if every year you're repenting, and then it's like the next year, you're like, okay, now, this last year has been a year, and we all repented last year.

00:11:51 And to my knowledge, I cannot think of one instance this last year since my last annual repentance of committing the sin of racism.

00:12:00 um so why does doesn't my repentance from last year count or or is this not repentance are we

00:12:07 doing penance is this the vulgate are we you know what's going on here and um and it was

00:12:13 frustrating and then eric mason he came out with his book woke church and um that and uh and and

00:12:19 building animosity between uh some of the guys in my area uh acts 29 pastors because of my

00:12:25 outspokenness against the racial reconciliation, which nobody, I'm not against racial reconciliation,

00:12:32 but the way, what they meant by that term, and certainly Eric Mason's book, all that, you know,

00:12:38 came to a head, and anyways, I, you know, I was, I was warmly invited to leave, and I, you know, also

00:12:45 decided to leave, and so my point is, we're not talking about, you know, a one-off, we're talking

00:12:51 about individuals who for years now, in conferences, in pulpits, in local churches, in articles,

00:12:59 in writings, in books, have been going down this path. So it's not just a mistake. It's not a

00:13:06 mulligan. And they have been corrected. And they're refusing to repent. And so, John, do you have

00:13:14 any thoughts on that? You want to add anything? I think you're spot on, Joel. There's a few

00:13:21 things that we could point to along the way that would have been like moments of uh dividing lines 1.00

00:13:28 i guess one would be uh the mlk 50 conference in 2018 then later that year you had the t4g

00:13:37 conference where david platt got up and gave a uh horrific sermon on justice jose uh yeah yeah

00:13:46 let justice roll down like waters and then and the church is guilty of racism and the rest of it was

00:13:50 just, well, racial disparities exist. So therefore we're in sin because we somehow tolerate these

00:13:57 disparities or something like that. Then you have after that, the resolution nine that was passed

00:14:04 in the Southern Baptist convention in 2000, I guess, was that 19 now I'm losing track. The

00:14:09 years are going by so quick. Yeah, I think so. And yeah, those are the three big ones. I mean,

00:14:15 there's a lot of little ones you can point to in there, but there was kind of, you know,

00:14:20 The Shepherds Q&A, right, that one.

00:14:22 Yeah, I was there in person, in person.

00:14:25 And I remember when that happened, I mean, I was just like, this is historic.

00:14:29 Like something just happened here.

00:14:31 This was not just like this panel.

00:14:33 They didn't mean for this to happen.

00:14:36 Like they got heated.

00:14:37 I mean, Moeller, he was angry.

00:14:39 He was defensive because it was just like, what do you disagree with, with this statement?

00:14:45 Well, I'm just not, you know, I just don't really sign statements, you know, him and Ligon and Mark Dever.

00:14:50 guys who I have really, really appreciated and still appreciate on certain aspects and certain

00:14:55 points. But it was just, it was like, why did you not sign the statement? Well, I wouldn't have

00:15:02 written it that way. Okay. Could you give me one tangible example? What's one portion of the

00:15:07 statement that you, you, maybe you didn't even disagree, but you didn't like the wording

00:15:11 and they couldn't cite one example. And so really what was, what was not said, but absolutely said

00:15:16 was we couldn't sign the statement

00:15:20 because there's something going on behind closed doors

00:15:24 that if we signed, you know what I mean?

00:15:26 And to thousands of people, it was just like the cover

00:15:31 was ripped off and everyone got to see.

00:15:34 And we were like, like, you know, like everyone was shocked.

00:15:37 Like Ligon Duncan, Mark Dever, and Albert Moeller,

00:15:42 they won't do this.

00:15:46 They will not do this because, not because they have a theological reason, not because there's actually something wrong in the statement, not because they disagree with it, not even because it's worded differently.

00:15:55 That's what they're saying, but they can't give one tangible example of something they would have worded differently.

00:15:59 It's because they don't want to be aligned with this crew because of the optics, because of how it's going to look.

00:16:08 And these are guys that I've always, you know, as a young pastor,

00:16:12 especially when I was in California a couple years ago,

00:16:14 I mean, that's one of the biggest things any Christian,

00:16:17 especially pastor, struggle with is the fear of man, the fear of man, the fear of man.

00:16:20 And so these are men that I look to as titans of biblical examples

00:16:27 of what it is not to bow the knee to the fear of man.

00:16:30 And I remember being so disappointed.

00:16:34 I don't know if you felt that sense, John.

00:16:37 or what was your takeaway from from that panel do you remember uh yo i remember it yeah i wasn't

00:16:44 there in person um i was actually i was driving back from liberty university and i started getting

00:16:50 all these texts and uh i watched it later that night and i was up late because then they

00:16:55 i think one of the things that led to it being so big even bigger was they removed it i think

00:17:01 that night it was like the one session they deleted and then everyone was like freaking out

00:17:06 And I don't know that that had anything to do with trying to hide it because they uploaded it again.

00:17:11 But I just remember thinking, like, this is I wasn't surprised so much about Lincoln Duncan.

00:17:21 I mean, he wrote the forward to woke church. I saw what he said at T4G and I knew it was it was way off.

00:17:28 Mark Dever, I wasn't actually that surprised about either.

00:17:31 um jonathan i know jonathan lehman and thabiti and abuile are involved with nine marks and both

00:17:38 of them i would say very much in the social justice uh type of vein and then um but al

00:17:45 moeller was the guy that i honestly was really just people were telling me that were close to

00:17:50 him i mean people that were really close knew him for years they were reaching out to me saying like

00:17:55 he's he's waffling on this he's not going to come through and I I just really doubted it I thought

00:18:02 no he's going to come through he's conservative he's and then when I saw that I realized I don't

00:18:07 think he's going to come through so it was it was kind of a an awakening for a lot of people

00:18:14 we realized those who were paying attention at least to it that some of the men that we thought

00:18:20 we're very solid theologically and have some track records of being solid, we're not going

00:18:25 to stand up to the current threat, which is, I would say, worse in some ways than the prosperity

00:18:32 gospel, because it is a false gospel, just like the prosperity gospel, but it's more subversive

00:18:40 and it has a political dimension. And so it's very well funded. There's a lot of interest in

00:18:46 trying to persuade christians to vote democrat or to not vote republican or to shift them more

00:18:52 in more progressive direction and that's not coming from christians that's coming from secularists who

00:18:57 really wish they could get rid of all these you know nasty trump voters and these pro-life voters

00:19:02 so there's an engine behind this thing uh that is you know has a vested interest and that we don't

00:19:11 see that as much with the prosperity gospel so yeah i mean i remember even john oliver you know

00:19:16 making fun of prosperity gospel guys on a late night show you know so like you're absolutely

00:19:22 right because i know right so hollywood and and you know any any major corporate i mean whether

00:19:30 it's big corporate or whether it's it's tech or whether it's you know the government you know in

00:19:34 in the civil magistrate um none of them are gonna suppress a video that we do calling out benny

00:19:41 right they don't they don't care they don't have a vested interest but but when we start saying

00:19:46 something about about social justice and the welfare state and you know these kinds of because

00:19:54 because really what we're doing is we're finally and i think this is the problem but i think what

00:19:58 we're finally doing is we're saying hey the scripture applies to more than just um marriage

00:20:04 conferences parenting conferences and uh and how to run your church on sunday morning because that's

00:20:10 what it's been in America for the longest time is home and church, home and church, home and church,

00:20:13 as though that's all the Bible has to say. And that's why I appreciate guys like Doug Wilson,

00:20:19 who some guys really don't like, and there's some doctrines that I would disagree with,

00:20:23 but Doug Wilson, you know, he's got the serrated edge, you know, so he's got your sharp tone.

00:20:29 And a lot of people, you know, they'll say a theological thing, but really a lot of them

00:20:32 just don't like the way he says things, his tone. But I think he's been just on the money

00:20:38 again and again and again when it comes to applying the scripture to every realm of life.

00:20:43 Their whole saying with his church in Moscow, Idaho is all of Christ for all of life. All of

00:20:49 Christ for all of life. And that doesn't mean that the Bible speaks, right? The perspicuity of

00:20:53 scripture, which is an unclear word that means clarity. But the clarity of scripture, it doesn't

00:20:58 mean that all scripture is equally clear. So it doesn't mean that the Bible speaks to all of life

00:21:02 with the same clarity. But what it does mean is that the principles, God's law and his gospel

00:21:10 have application and implications beyond just Jesus, Lord of my heart. And I think American

00:21:17 evangelicalism has had this private lordship Christianity. He's the Lord of my sweet little

00:21:22 heart. And he has something to say about how I parent my children, how I love my wife and the

00:21:30 church i go to on sunday and that's it and now all of a sudden you've got guys speaking out like

00:21:35 you and i um in the political realm economically you know and all these different things with

00:21:41 legislation and uh and you're right so that like the guys who the social justicians in the church

00:21:47 they're gonna have the world on their side and and it's yeah it's formidable yeah well some some of

00:21:58 Like in my case, it's a counter reaction to social justice warriors that have stepped outside of that formula of home and church.

00:22:07 And they've decided they're going to, quote unquote, engage culture.

00:22:10 That's the term they often use. And what they meant by that, though, was they're going to put a Christian veneer on progressive politics.

00:22:18 And the counter reaction has been, I think, a rediscovery for many people of the really thousands of years of Christian tradition and, of course, coming from biblical principles, but developed over time by a lot of people, a lot of smart people, people that thought deeply about the government.

00:22:41 I mean, John Calvin, even if you look at I mean, we're reformed guys here. So if you look back at the institutes, I mean, he has a whole chapter on the civil magistrate and thinks very highly of the civil magistrate and is very thoughtful about what that role is.

00:22:58 And we've had development in different regions and different traditions, but all Christian over thousands of years and centuries in and in our context, the English common law, very influenced by Christianity.

00:23:13 And so and that influenced our founding documents and where we are today.

00:23:18 And so I think the social justice brand of Christianity ignores all of that.

00:23:23 They, they don't, they really just want to cherry pick a few scriptures, you know, let justice roll down like waters, you know, revelation, justice, what is justice, right? They never do. Yeah, they just assume the world's definition of these things. Revelation seven, look, every tribe, tongue and nation. So that means egalitarian equality and equity and diversity. And it's like, well, that, that's not in the passage, but they just assume these things and press them into scripture.

00:23:51 I'm actually reading a book right now, um, by a social justice warrior in the church.

00:23:56 And she makes this, uh, this whole, her whole entire book is premised on, uh, Genesis one

00:24:03 and two, it's called the very good gospel.

00:24:06 And it's like, and like every time she goes to reference Genesis one and two, I'm like,

00:24:10 that's not what it means there, but she's got a pre-written script and then we'll put 0.99

00:24:15 a little Christian veneer over it and make sure and hope that the Christians don't actually

00:24:19 like look into it too deeply. So they just kind of accept it. And that'll ingratiate us to the 0.67

00:24:24 world. That'll make us hip and cool. You know, they'll think that we're allies with them and

00:24:29 they're not going to come and persecute us. And, you know, like they want to do, they'll realize,

00:24:34 no, we're actually on their side of this. And I think that's a lot of, you know, the motivation

00:24:38 behind it. So I agree. I agree. I think part of the problem also is, you know, so just law and

00:24:45 gospel, law and gospel. And I think, you know, so the privatized lordship of Christ where he's

00:24:50 Lord only of my heart, right? That Jesus doesn't actually want anything beyond my, you know, this

00:24:55 private relationship with Jesus and home and church, home and church. There's that. But then

00:24:59 I think there's also in terms of the law of God, there's such an aversion in evangelicals to the

00:25:06 law of God, right? And anything that you start talking about obedience and immediately people

00:25:10 think legalism or they think uh prosperity gospel like all the time i tell my church obedience

00:25:15 brings blessing that's not the prosperity gospel right so if i teach my kids hey every single day

00:25:21 if you buy a lottery ticket you're gonna win you're going to win eventually and it'll probably

00:25:26 only take a week or two you're going to win you're going to be filthy rich that would be the equivalent

00:25:30 of the prosperity gospel but if i teach my kids hey if you get an education you work really really

00:25:34 hard at a trade and you're faithful and you don't get pregnant out of wedlock and you don't get

00:25:41 into absurd debt, then ordinarily, ordinarily, God is sovereign and tragedy hits, you could get

00:25:46 cancer, but ordinarily, by the end of your life, you'll be reasonably wealthy. That's not the

00:25:53 prosperity gospel. That's called logic. That's just obedience brings blessing or the blessing of

00:25:57 if I keep my wedding vows, which would be obedience to God's law, thou shall not commit adultery.

00:26:04 my children will be better off than if I was an adulterer that's obedience bringing blessing and

00:26:12 I think I think that just you talk about the law of God you talk about obedience and the blessing

00:26:17 that comes by obedience and the imperative of obedience and um and Christians immediately just

00:26:22 start saying legalism legalism just give me the gospel give me the gospel as though God's law has

00:26:28 no bearing on the on the life of the new testament christian and i think i'd like to hear your

00:26:34 response to this but i think part of that is because we have had historically such a wonderful

00:26:39 nation with such just laws that the church kind of you know that you know i the church was able

00:26:46 to say you know we don't really have to have to say a whole lot when it comes to justice in our

00:26:52 nation because the civil magistrate is doing, in general, a pretty decent job. And so I know

00:26:59 the church's job is primarily grace and sacrament or the ordinances, you know, and to the sword,

00:27:07 the sword has been given to the state, not to the church. But I think that the church has a

00:27:11 prophetic role in holding the state accountable to wield the sword justly according to, by what

00:27:19 standard, by God's standard. And I think the church has just kind of conceded and given up

00:27:23 that role because I think we've gotten apathetic because we've had, the state has historically done

00:27:29 a decent job in America with legislation, with justice, with those kinds of things. And then it

00:27:36 just got way off track. And then the church had lost its edge, so to speak, in terms of

00:27:43 understanding biblical justice, understanding politics, understanding the law of God and its

00:27:48 implications or like the 1689 talks about even the civil law having a general equity right that's

00:27:54 what paul does he says don't muzzle the ox while it treads the grain he's saying all right if you

00:27:58 muzzle your ox while it's treading the grain as a new testament christian that's that's really just 0.60

00:28:04 it's foolish but it doesn't necessarily it's not necessarily a sin but it's foolish but here's the 0.91

00:28:09 general equity let's apply it to paying a pastor a wage and so even the civil law like whether it 0.98

00:28:15 be a precipice on on the roof you know like you could you could say well that's uh speed limits

00:28:19 and seat belts or what however you but there's a general equity and i think christians have just

00:28:23 they've gotten rid of the ten commandments even and and even more so civil laws and and general

00:28:29 equity and all the just as though that hasn't that's all legalism that's all irrelevant and

00:28:36 now and now the state has shifted from justice you know to social justice which is not justice

00:28:44 And the church is just biblically dull and not prepared to speak out.

00:28:53 Would you agree with that or could you add some stuff to that?

00:28:57 Yeah, no, all great points, Joel.

00:29:00 Yeah, so historically in America, I think because it has been such a Christianized country and most of the people coming, even if they were a different variety.

00:29:12 I mean, you had, you know, within that big tent of Christendom, you had Catholics and Quakers as well.

00:29:18 But everyone had a general respect for the Bible and for the virtues expressed in it and those applied to the civil government.

00:29:26 And so when you have a country that starts out with seven of 13 of its states are basically theocracies in the modern parlance, they would have at least called them that.

00:29:37 They would have required some kind of a religious test to even hold office.

00:29:41 um there's been you can trace kind of this secular slide that's happened over the course of the last

00:29:47 250 years and we're to the point now where the church is kind of like um in a bunker they're

00:29:55 uh true christians who actually take the bible seriously are the kooks now and they they're

00:30:01 very sensitive to that i think uh they don't want to be thought of uh in a negative light but they

00:30:07 know they are, and they're feeling more and more like they're kind of a minority. And even though

00:30:12 maybe there's a general respect for the Bible, it's nothing like the way that people hundreds

00:30:19 of years ago respected it. So today, I think Christians who are trying to grope for some 1.00

00:30:26 kind of irrelevance are using the social justice movement as that opportunity. Lincoln Duncan even 0.94

00:30:32 kind of said as much in that Shepard's Q&A when he talked about his grandchildren and how he wanted

00:30:37 them to not be courted into the arms of the LGBTQ lobby. And the price he had to pay was to get woke 0.89

00:30:47 on race. If he got woke on the race issue, maybe they wouldn't go that far. So you can already see

00:30:53 this calculation going in his mind. Please like me. Please like Christianity. And if you think

00:31:00 that we're, you know, kind of, uh, hip and cool and with the revolution that's going to overturn

00:31:05 society and create a utopia, maybe you'll like us. And so, um, I think Christians have forgotten 0.99

00:31:11 largely kind of, uh, like I said before, there's thousands of years of tradition and, uh, the

00:31:17 scripture has been applied in many different contexts to, to the political realm, but Christians

00:31:21 have largely forgotten about that. And I think you're right. They haven't had to think about it 0.52

00:31:26 deeply. Most of the people that got elected to the office claimed to be Christian or were trying

00:31:32 in some way, or they pretended to try to apply some form of Christianity. And so it just wasn't

00:31:39 something the church needed to get involved with. Everyone knew the Bible stories. Everyone had

00:31:43 their basic virtues kind of formed in them when they were young in Sunday school and that kind

00:31:51 of thing. So now we're to a point where the church is like, the leaders in the church are

00:31:57 like, that's not true anymore. And we never, we kind of got lazy. We didn't, we haven't developed

00:32:04 at least recently. I shouldn't say we haven't developed. We haven't recently applied. We're

00:32:10 not used to applying the standards that we've been given to the current context. And so I'm

00:32:17 encouraged uh there's a lot of people like yourself um who are we're actually doing that

00:32:23 now and we're just bypassing the evangelicals who would rather um gain merit from the state and

00:32:31 uh try to be liked by them uh we're concerned about being liked by god because he's the only

00:32:37 one that we are required to please so right and and in god's merciful providence you know you said

00:32:43 were bypassing some of the, you know, we could call them gatekeepers in the past with evangelicalism.

00:32:49 In God's merciful providence, I think of 500 years ago with the Reformation, it's not just that,

00:32:54 you know, God put a fire in Luther, you know, to stand up to Roman Catholicism in his day,

00:33:00 but at the same time, providentially, there was also this little thing called the printing press,

00:33:06 you know, and it's funny how God and his sovereignty sometimes couples reformation

00:33:09 the church with innovation um in the culture and in technology and i and i think of how merciful it

00:33:16 is um of the lord as the church is is is going a direction that you and i would have some some

00:33:23 serious concerns about um but for the lord uh simultaneously um to with with the internet and

00:33:32 social media and what we're doing right now with where you can just you can sit in a bedroom with

00:33:36 your phone, you know, and be able to be heard by thousands of people. And I just think what

00:33:42 merciful providence of the Lord at a time when the church is, you know, so like when Rome's

00:33:48 ramping up indulgences, God not only, you know, puts conviction in the mind and heart of a reformer

00:33:55 to stand against it, but he also provides the technical, technological, I should say, means in

00:34:01 order to spread uh that that reformation and i and i see something similar occurring in in our

00:34:08 day it's it's a it's a scary but also really exciting time to be a christian oh yeah there's

00:34:16 a lot of you know negative things we could focus on but hey we get to live at a very important time

00:34:22 in human history and we're going to be able hopefully if we you know aren't persecuted at

00:34:27 point of dying or something, we'll be able to tell our kids and grandkids, you know, about

00:34:31 when we stood and that kind of thing. So this isn't time to shirk away from battle. But one of

00:34:37 the things and I don't know if you were going to get here. And if I'm going premature with this,

00:34:41 you just let me know. But I think you wanted to talk about kind of the social justice gospel

00:34:48 and that the whole social justice panoply and why it's heretical and some of the names of the

00:34:54 false teachers. So I can, you know, if you want to probe any of these things, we can do that,

00:35:00 but I'll just briefly, if you want to go through why I think it's a heresy or a false teaching

00:35:05 is the word I usually use. So, um, so most of your listeners probably I'm guessing here would be,

00:35:12 uh, have no problem saying prosperity gospel. Hey, that's, that's wrong. That's a false gospel.

00:35:17 I want them to think though, for a moment about, you know, Joel Osteen for a minute, let's say

00:35:22 Like the first time Joel Osteen, let's say, gave an off color message where he's just kind of like, you know, there's something just off about that.

00:35:30 Think of yourself. If you didn't know anything more about Joel Osteen, you just heard that one message.

00:35:36 What would you have done if you were sitting in the audience or if you you had the opportunity to talk to him?

00:35:41 You probably would think you'd want to give him the benefit of the doubt at first.

00:35:45 Well, maybe he's just talking about God's blessing, but he went a little too far there, almost acting like it's guaranteed. Let me talk to him. Let's figure out what he's actually getting at. And I think that would be the appropriate, instead of like denouncing him as a heretic at first, I think that would be the appropriate posture.

00:36:05 And I think all of us have tried to do that with the social justice movement.

00:36:10 Most of us, I should say, who are trying to engage this.

00:36:13 When we see someone say something off, we want to engage it.

00:36:17 But over time, like you said at the beginning, there's been repetition.

00:36:21 There's been confrontation.

00:36:22 There's been rejecting that confrontation.

00:36:25 And I think it starts out kind of like Paul confronting Peter.

00:36:29 And all it really takes, it doesn't even take false teaching.

00:36:31 This is really key.

00:36:33 All it really takes is being unclear.

00:36:35 about the gospel. That's all, that's all Peter was doing. Paul said he was being unclear about

00:36:40 the gospel. He was sitting in a place that his actions were saying, do you agree with these

00:36:47 Judaizers? Cause that's what it looks like. And that's all it took for him to oppose him to his 1.00

00:36:51 face. And so there's nothing wrong with doing that. So that's, that's the first thing I just

00:36:56 wanted to say is even if this, what I'm about to describe as a slight infraction, which I don't

00:37:00 think it is. There is precedent for confronting that. So the issue with the social justice stuff,

00:37:08 there's a few things, but number one, it's a different epistemology, meaning their idea of

00:37:12 truth and how you find truth and what truth is. They believe that they're postmodernists. They

00:37:17 have a version of usually standpoint epistemology where someone has a greater insight into reality

00:37:23 because of their social location. So that would mean some external feature like their race

00:37:28 or their gender or something like their sexual orientation, uh, they, they have access to truth

00:37:34 that we don't have. That's just like Gnosticism. Um, and it's solely based on their identity.

00:37:39 It's not based on, uh, what scripture says. Everyone has access to the Bible and to the truth

00:37:45 approved workmen. You need not be ashamed. The Brians studied the scripture. Um, it's,

00:37:51 it takes work. It takes, uh, digging a bit, but, um, it's not, no one's prohibited because of

00:37:57 their social location from understanding scripture. You might have to learn a language,

00:38:01 you know, that kind of thing. But it's not like there's a wall that they're going to hit and

00:38:05 they just can't go past it because they're a white male or, you know, they're a black female

00:38:10 or whatever the case may be. So that's number one. That destroys revelation. You can't have 0.58

00:38:16 a revelation that you can rely upon if standpoint epistemology is true. The second thing is the

00:38:23 the metaphysic of social justice. So their theory of reality, social justicians kind of look at

00:38:29 reality and they see one thing they see oppressors, they see oppressed, they have very firm

00:38:34 designations for those classes. And all of reality becomes one thing. That's why racism is like on

00:38:39 the McDonald's menu, right? It's everything's racist. You walk into a room, you know, like the 0.97

00:38:44 cops do look at the crime scene with the flashlight that they can show blood and it's like everything's

00:38:50 blood. And that's just an inaccurate reading of reality itself and the creation God's given us.

00:38:56 He's given us five senses. He's given us a mind that can think. And reality is made up of a lot

00:39:02 more than just power or just oppression. There's a fuller spectrum that the Bible conveys to us

00:39:10 about what reality actually is. So that's the second thing. Third thing is their ethics.

00:39:14 their ethics are redistributive they're egalitarian um instead of uh distributive and um and hierarchical

00:39:25 so scripture presents hierarchies god's even woven some of them into creation um when there's

00:39:31 an unjust hierarchy there's a there's a way to deal with it and it's not revolution it's reformation

00:39:35 and um primarily i will get more into that if we want but uh broad painting with broad strokes

00:39:42 That's what scripture teaches. And then justice is blind. Justice, you don't treat someone

00:39:48 differently just because of some external feature or how it will benefit you or they're your cousin

00:39:53 or they're poor and you have compassion. You apply the law evenly. And so that's biblical

00:39:58 justice. Social justice is you account for disparities. So you actually have to be racist

00:40:04 or have to be sexist to apply it in the way they actually want to apply it. So those are some of

00:40:11 The big things. And then one last thing, and then I know you probably have a point to make, but the their gospel, their gospel that they give us when it's syncretized with Christianity is completely antithetical to the Christian gospel.

00:40:28 And it's just like the prosperity gospel, except instead of an individual getting rich and that being the point, the gospel becomes an engine for egalitarian social change.

00:40:38 So it's all of society gets better. All of society is going to prosper and you're going to have a utopia if everyone just gets together corporately and does this thing. And oftentimes it comes across just like the Galatian heresy. So gospel issue, you'll hear that term a lot or gospel above all or the just gospel conferences.

00:40:57 They'll, in fact, in the book, it's not out yet, but I just wrote it and it'll probably come out in about a month.

00:41:03 I have a whole chapter on this and I just go quote after quote of guys like Russell Moore and Matt Chandler and David Platt and a lot of these guys and where they talk about the gospel and then they smuggle works in.

00:41:17 There's some kind of a law that you have to follow and that's the gospel.

00:41:20 And the gospel and the law are two separate categories.

00:41:23 so um paul would enanthematize the social justice gospel and he would be calling out today russell

00:41:31 moore david platt the bd anabwile tim keller uh the list goes on and on he would call them out

00:41:38 and he would say this is false and the guys that like al moeller uh who um you know maybe there's

00:41:45 actually some things i could argue that al moeller might be on more on their vein but best case

00:41:50 scenario, someone like an Al Mohler, uh, would it be like a Peter who's like, you're being

00:41:55 confusing here, man. You're being unclear about the gospel. Why are you eating with them? You

00:41:59 know? So, um, that's really fair. A lot of guys with Mohler just real quick to interrupt, but

00:42:04 yeah, please with Mohler. Cause, cause if you listen to the briefing, I mean, most of the

00:42:08 briefing, I really agree. Although the one thing with the briefing is sometimes I'm like, Hey,

00:42:11 you know, like I'm, I'm all for ending abortion, but, um, there's some other stories that I feel

00:42:16 you're not hitting on purpose uh to stick to you know but so it's not even um what he says it's

00:42:22 it's what what he chooses to talk about but anyways the point is when you think of southern

00:42:26 seminary and you think of guys on staff and you think of books on the shelf you know and i've

00:42:30 talked talked to guys uh seminary students and those kinds of things it's um i think michael

00:42:35 falin described it as the mott and bailey could you could you explain that uh briefly are you

00:42:40 familiar with the mott and bailey strategy of just did you hear did you hear michael talk about

00:42:44 that yeah yeah well um i'm not sure who came up with that originally i think james lindsey told

00:42:50 me about it a few years ago uh and he so it's just like a trojan horse that's that's the analogy i

00:42:56 usually use but the mott and bailey is like uh the mott is in a field and that's where people

00:43:01 it's like you go into the tower and you defend yourself and then the bailey is you come out i 0.92

00:43:06 guess and so um they all right so like a term like black lives matter would be a mott and bailey type

00:43:13 term where of course like does anyone disagree with that right black lives matter everyone agrees

00:43:19 with black lives matter and so but the but what they're smuggling into it um when you're not

00:43:25 looking when you're not paying attention is okay now you have to listen to black voices and do 0.84

00:43:30 whatever they say and it's only these approved voices who by the way are socialists and they're 0.88

00:43:35 going to tell you how to redistribute your platforms and your income and your influence

00:43:38 and all that so like that that that somehow that's what black lives matter is and you're like

00:43:43 wait a minute, hold on. Like, I just think they have intrinsic work. And so that's often how the

00:43:50 social justice movement progresses by these very simple, obvious truths that no one disagrees with.

00:43:55 But then they smuggle into them all these other terms and assumptions. And then they vilify you

00:44:03 if you disagree with any of those assumptions. And they say, well, you clearly then don't believe

00:44:07 Black Lives Matter if you're not willing to give up all your income or something.

00:44:10 so um so the mot the mot is like the fortress the bailey is like where all the serfs are and all

00:44:17 your agriculture and crops and the village and so so basically the bailey is like we're advancing

00:44:23 we're taking ground we're we're we have an agenda a very progressive aggressive agenda and and we're

00:44:30 pushing this and we're pushing that we're talking about reparations you know but then the mot is

00:44:34 like your your fortress where whenever you're being countered with an argument um the mot is

00:44:40 the more easily defensible portion of of your your position and so it's like you're out there

00:44:46 on the bailey you know boom expanding expanding expanding going for reparations going for critical

00:44:51 race theory going for this going for that and then and then somebody calls you on it and we see this

00:44:56 within evangelicalism and and michael falman at least said that moeller might may be an example

00:45:01 of it. That's not fair. If Michael O'Fallon was listening to this, he would say, no, he is an

00:45:06 example of it. But the point is, to be fair to Michael O'Fallon, he would say he is an example

00:45:10 of it. But the point is that, you know, you press somebody like Mulder and then boom, they can go

00:45:16 back and retreat exactly what you're saying, John, into the easily defensible Mott, the strong tower 0.98

00:45:22 and say, look, all I'm saying is that black lives matter. Are you going to disagree with that, Harris? 0.63

00:45:26 well i'll show you what i'll share a personal story with you about danny aiken uh i had a 45

00:45:32 minute phone call with him about a year and a half maybe two years ago now i don't remember now but

00:45:37 it was it was a little while ago but it was all about southeastern which is where i graduated

00:45:41 from and um and he did this throughout the entire conversation basically it's like all right dr

00:45:47 aiken you have a professor there matthew mullins he said that if you are white you should not adopt

00:45:54 a a black child because you won't be able to give them the life that they they should deserve and

00:46:00 that they need and there's there's a lot of assumptions behind this and you know i i don't

00:46:04 and and and then what what he did was well you know uh we just we just believe in diversity

00:46:13 here at southeastern we just believe that people should be uh accepted and included and that and

00:46:19 that's the kind of thing throughout the conversation i kept running into is i cite a specific example

00:46:24 of something. Okay. You know, Walter Strickland said this, he conflated the law in the gospel

00:46:30 and was a social justice version of the law. That's liberation theology. Well, what he was

00:46:35 really trying to say is that we just need a world where, you know, that, that, that kind of thing.

00:46:41 And so that's the Martin Bailey, where it's like, you never can quite, you can't pin jello to the

00:46:46 wall. You can never quite understand, or they'll never, they'll never give you the right to think

00:46:50 that you've understood them, they'll always say, what we're really trying to do is something that

00:46:54 everyone already agrees on. We just want to fight racism here. We just don't want women to be

00:46:59 oppressed. It's like, yeah, but you said something that you're saying that women should be preachers.

00:47:05 No, we just don't want them to be oppressed. And then what happens is for any onlooker,

00:47:10 so for any third party, right? So they do something that's on the Bailey. It's aggressive.

00:47:16 it's it's crt it's reparations it's neo-marxism i mean it's it's socialism it's communism it's

00:47:22 it's way out there it's clearly against god's word you call them on it right so then you're

00:47:26 conservative christians with a spine the biblical biblical justicians we call them on it and then

00:47:34 boom they they retreat back to the mot and say look all we're saying is it da da da da da some

00:47:40 simple cliche thing that everyone and that's just that's just you and them but there's this third

00:47:46 party watching and what it looks like to the third party is we're being we're being harsh

00:47:51 right isn't that isn't that the play again and again and again well okay but john your tone though

00:47:58 you know or you know and it's just in that 11th commandment is the 11th commandment is strong

00:48:04 with you young padawan you know like it's just like this thou shalt be nice um and and all of

00:48:10 sudden it's more important the bible does care about what we say right we want to rebuke i think

00:48:14 of paul's admonition you know rebuke your opponents with gentleness not knowing if god might grant to

00:48:19 them repentance um that they may that they may turn um and we always forget the last part where

00:48:24 it says after having been taken captive by satan to do his will right so they've been like so our

00:48:30 battle's not against flesh and blood however it's against principalities however the one who we are

00:48:35 battling with does take flesh and blood captive to do his will. So that doesn't mean we pick up a

00:48:42 sword and we slice down flesh and blood, but we do pick up a sword, a double-edged sword, sharper

00:48:46 than a double-edged sword, the word of God, and we demolish strongholds and vain philosophy and

00:48:52 every empty lofty opinion that sets itself over Christ. And it's not, I mean, that imagery is not

00:49:00 a sugar and spice everything nice you know Mr. Rogers imagery it's it it is a it's warfare and

00:49:08 and it's supposed to be warfare and and and so and I I can't help but think I really think that

00:49:14 part of it see this is what I think give it five years right if things continue to go the way they

00:49:20 are in the church and and in our nation in five years I think a lot of guys who called people

00:49:26 like you, John, and me, and Votie Bauckham, you know, and Michael O'Fallon, these kinds of guys,

00:49:31 a lot of the Christians who genuinely are, we don't know, we don't have election goggles,

00:49:35 but let's say five years from now, let's just say they truly were regenerate. I think a lot

00:49:39 of those guys who were calling us harsh today and a couple of years ago, in five years, if God

00:49:44 doesn't send serious reformation to our nation and to the evangelical church, in five years,

00:49:51 i think they'll be saying the same things um and and so my point is the difference is it's not that

00:49:56 objectively what we're saying or even how we're saying it is objectively harsh by biblical

00:50:03 categories the reason why it's perceived as harsh is because we have the majority of christians in

00:50:09 the church today who don't realize we're at war so so when when you shoot when the enemy is storming

00:50:15 the camp and you pick up your rifle and you see them right like like like elijah's servant you

00:50:21 know um or elisha's servant and you see just this just multitudes and they're storming the camp and

00:50:27 and you scramble and grab your gun and pick it up and and boom you pop one in the head

00:50:32 you will immediately be indicted and accused of being harsh if if the three comrades that you're

00:50:41 sitting with having a picnic with if they're so blind and so deaf that they they that they have

00:50:46 no awareness whatsoever that the camp is being stormed they're like dude we're out here having

00:50:52 a picnic you just picked up a gun and popped off around what are you like oh that's excellent

00:50:58 you're harsh you're you're you're immature there's still a lot of youthful angst and zeal in you that

00:51:05 needs to get worked out you know with maturity over time maybe maybe you're not ready to be a

00:51:10 pastor maybe like and that's what you hear and that's what you hear and that's what and i like

00:51:13 that illustration because i think it rings true i think that it's not that in clear objective

00:51:17 categories we are missing the fruit of the spirit that is gentleness or we are actually engaging in

00:51:22 harsh rhetoric that would be a sinful harshness um it's it's that we are using biblically

00:51:28 permissible language so it's not just what we're saying is true theologically i believe in many

00:51:33 cases, even how we're saying it does fit biblical qualifications for the fruit of the spirit, for

00:51:40 godly character, not just in what we say, our content, but in how we say it, our tone. And yet

00:51:47 it's being condemned again and again and again, because number one, the content they have no

00:51:52 refutation for, because it's true. And so it's easier to condemn the man than the message when

00:51:58 the message is true and and then in terms of the man i think one of the reasons the man is being

00:52:03 written off in terms of well it's not what you said it's how you said it it's your tone

00:52:07 is because not because he's objectively doing something sinful but because we we are we're

00:52:13 we're watchmen on the wall saying that the enemy is at the gate and the whole town is having a

00:52:20 picnic and don't want to be interrupted and none of them can see the flames that's excellent

00:52:26 That's excellent.

00:52:26 You know what I mean?

00:52:27 And so what are you doing?

00:52:29 You're ringing bells.

00:52:30 You're blowing horns.

00:52:32 You're shouting.

00:52:33 Sit down.

00:52:34 Peace, peace when there is no peace.

00:52:36 Yeah.

00:52:36 Right.

00:52:37 And a few years from now when they break through the walls, and God forbid, maybe not, but if things continue and they break through the walls and all of a sudden the evangelical church can see them, you know.

00:52:50 Well, that's already happening.

00:52:50 I think, yeah, you're right.

00:52:52 That's already happening.

00:52:53 Go ahead.

00:52:53 I mean, we have there's a seminary that has not made it public yet.

00:52:57 That's going to be trying to it's in North Carolina.

00:53:02 I'll say that much.

00:53:03 And they're going to try to sue the federal government, essentially, because of the directives

00:53:10 coming down from the Biden administration on gender rules and that kind of thing that

00:53:16 they just they can't have their statement of faith and abide by those rules, especially

00:53:21 when it comes to dorms and those kinds of things.

00:53:23 I know publicly now there's there. I can't remember the name of it. There's a Bible college.

00:53:28 I was just looking at it. Ozark Bible College or Bible College of the Ozark, something like that, I think.

00:53:34 But they were also challenging it. But in both cases, they did not know of any other Bible schools or seminaries or Christian institutions willing to challenge it with them.

00:53:46 And so we have a situation where the Christians, for some reason, think that if they whistle past the graveyard, it's all going to be OK and we'll make it through. 0.95

00:53:58 And there was light at the end of the tunnel. And that's just not the case. 0.94

00:54:03 You're going to have to fight these things. And being woke on BLM is not going to save you when the gender police come to your door. 1.00

00:54:12 right? One of the things I think, and we're seeing this with COVID as well, and we're seeing

00:54:19 this in a whole bunch of categories, actually, if you think about it, is this kind of blind trust

00:54:24 of authority. No matter how many times egalitarians who hate hierarchy say they want to rip down

00:54:31 hierarchy and they hate hierarchy, hierarchy is inescapable. And even if it's unspoken, there

00:54:36 will always be a pecking order. There will always be a hierarchy of some kind. So right now we see

00:54:41 with this kind of uh the tyranny of the lab coats you have a lab coat and the government's

00:54:46 authorization then you're you're basically you have authority that is approaching divinity you're

00:54:52 infallible you have pure as the driven snow goodness i mean you have all and you're unelected

00:54:59 you're yeah dr fauci you're talking about an unelected official who's made it through what

00:55:03 five i think five presidencies and you're talking about like a 40 year reign without ever having

00:55:10 been elected i mean that's that's way more power than the president you see that this my point is

00:55:15 you see the same thing though in the church you see that we we can say all day like we believe in

00:55:20 the autonomy of the local church if we're baptists we believe um if you're presbyterian you believe

00:55:25 in the presbytery but in in either case there's something else going on and i've seen this

00:55:30 almost across the board there's there's a model that's not being talked about because it's not

00:55:36 really defined, but there's kind of like this celebrity pastor kind of technical, I don't know

00:55:42 what you even, how to even describe it, but there's people in positions of authority and it's,

00:55:48 it's very disrespectful in many people's minds to say anything bad about, you know, J.D. Greer or

00:55:54 David Platt or any of these guys, but they're not my pastor. They're not, you know, what,

00:56:00 what authority do they actually have? Well, all they are is they have a local church and they're

00:56:06 a pastor there and so there's no reason that they can't be challenged but there's an unspoken kind

00:56:12 of like well they're the experts because clearly why because they have a good social media presence

00:56:17 because that's what i'm saying that's what i was saying earlier about the gatekeepers i think there

00:56:21 have been gatekeepers for a while now and i don't know how exactly what you're saying i i i don't

00:56:26 have a whole lot of answers because i i don't i also don't know how how they got elected how they

00:56:30 God, how this oligarchy within evangelicalism was formed. But what you're saying is it's real,

00:56:36 it exists. And it's kind of, you know, like that touch not the Lord's anointed, like what we would,

00:56:40 you know, what the, what the prosperity guys would say, you know, now, I mean, obviously it's,

00:56:44 it's a little bit different to be fair, but, you know, but, but it's, it's this anointed oligarchy

00:56:49 that can't, that cannot be challenged. And if, and if it is, then immediately the scrutiny is on

00:56:55 the challenger um and and their and their tone and their character and you know you weren't gentle

00:57:01 you were harsh and those kinds of things and and um and a blind eye is turned to like but what if

00:57:07 what he said is true should i actually investigate this no that you know and and so that's certainly

00:57:12 the thing and i think one of the things that makes me hopeful is that i think that that's

00:57:17 being broken up i in the sense that i think that all of a sudden um people just a lot of christians

00:57:25 I think, are waking up because of what's happening in our nation. This last year and a half

00:57:28 has been horrible and amazing at the same time, in God's mercy, because that's what discipline is.

00:57:36 Discipline is not pleasant for the time, but it is amazing because of what it produces. And I think

00:57:43 the Lord has been disciplining his church and judging the nation. And so in that, there's

00:57:50 already been a lot of blessings. And I think one of them is that Americans in general and

00:57:56 Christians in particular are all of a sudden questioning authority in a good way, in a good

00:58:02 way. And so I think that all of a sudden people are willing to actually... Well, just, and I agree 0.99

00:58:10 with what you said, but I would want to phrase it probably this way. It's not so much that they're

00:58:16 questioning authority itself and i know you're not saying that uh they want we want authority

00:58:22 we want but we want proper authority we don't want this fake artificial hierarchy that um

00:58:31 it has been set up by people that have an interest in it but they're not they don't actually

00:58:36 represent or help the people that they're supposed to represent and help and um there's kind of like

00:58:42 people are waking up and like, wait a minute, I don't have to listen to him. Right. Um, if you're

00:58:46 in the Southern Baptist convention, right. Ed Litton is the president, right. He's a pastor of

00:58:49 a church. Well, look, uh, Doug Wilson's a pastor of the church. James White's a pastor of the

00:58:54 church. Uh, JD hall is a pastor of a church. They're all pastors of churches, but there's

00:59:00 sort of a, a sense in which people will treat, um, or it's popular is approved by the gatekeepers

00:59:07 to treat certain pastors with disdain and you can say all manner of disrespectful things against

00:59:13 them online or wherever and that's fine there's nothing wrong with it because they're the divisive

00:59:19 ones they've convinced themselves that that's their justification but don't touch someone like

00:59:24 you said don't touch the lord's anointed don't talk about edlinson don't talk about uh the guys

00:59:28 who are in favor of the revolution that's an artificial hierarchy there's there's no reason

00:59:34 they should receive preference or favorability just because of their political position or what

00:59:40 they believe about politics. John, real quick address, because I've heard you on this before

00:59:45 and it's fantastic. So for a moment there, you said they're the divisive ones. What does Paul,

00:59:51 the apostle Paul, what does he say about which party is responsible, morally responsible for

00:59:57 division do you know what i'm hinting at yeah yeah but like my point is that my point is somebody

01:00:04 can come into the church and introduce different doctrines and they can do it kindly they usually

01:00:11 do that's that's usually why they're successful is they do it kindly with a smooth tone and they

01:00:16 lend you know they lead uh weak-willed women astray and is what the scripture and then someone

01:00:23 opposes them and usually the one who opposes them with fidelity and faithfulness is is the one who

01:00:29 uses strong language but the apostle paul is very clear that the one who is opposing with strong

01:00:35 language is not the the divisive party the the party that's that's morally culpable for division

01:00:41 is the party it doesn't matter their tones irrelevant it's the party that introduced

01:00:46 the false teaching that's the divisive party right you think of even what first corinthians

01:00:53 uh i think so i can't remember the text yeah yeah well early on in first corinthians i i want to say

01:01:00 like in the first like four chapters chapter two or three but um it's it's the portion where 0.97

01:01:06 they're talking about where paul's addressing you you've tolerated a sin that the gentiles 0.55

01:01:10 won't even tolerate and they're like you know that's that's like our badge of honor that's like 0.93

01:01:17 look how great we are yeah five thank you yeah um they uh they they were wearing this as like a

01:01:25 badge of honor like this is something that they're that's so it's great about them they're not going

01:01:30 to confront this and paul's like uh hold on like you're tolerating this way too much and you need

01:01:36 to be confronting these kinds of things there is a place for that we're supposed to admonish the

01:01:40 unruly um encourage the faint-hearted help the weak so we got to like do some triage we got to 0.99

01:01:46 figure out okay who's unruly who's faint-hearted who's weak but um if you were a jerk right if you 0.93

01:01:51 went up to someone who was weak and you started admonishing them um that wouldn't be appropriate 0.97

01:01:57 and that there would be some maybe in that scenario you could say hey you're being too harsh

01:02:02 but if you're yes just someone who's unruly being harsh that's exactly what you're called to do and

01:02:10 Paul used very strong language at times.

01:02:12 He called, he basically said in Galatians, 1.00

01:02:14 like, I wish these Judaizers, 1.00

01:02:15 they would get a real circumcision. 1.00

01:02:18 They go all the way, right?

01:02:19 All the way.

01:02:21 So, I mean, that's-

01:02:22 Emasculate themselves.

01:02:23 Yeah.

01:02:24 Yeah, see, I don't even want to say it

01:02:25 because I'm like, you know, but Paul said it.

01:02:27 I want to say it because it's in the Bible,

01:02:28 but I feel, yeah, I understand.

01:02:31 That's right.

01:02:32 But you're right, yes.

01:02:33 No, you're right.

01:02:34 I think, so that's a huge thing.

01:02:35 So, one, so we can say,

01:02:37 because I think this is helpful.

01:02:38 I hope our listeners will be blessed by this, but how do we define the sin of harshness biblically?

01:02:43 So I think what we're getting at together, we're kind of doing it tandem, but one is your content.

01:02:49 First and foremost, before how you say something comes into play, it's what you say, the substance, not tone, substance.

01:02:55 Tone matters. There's a biblical precedence for tone being important, but not over and against, not overshadowing substance.

01:03:05 substance trumps tone but tone still matters in biblical terms so first what are you saying

01:03:12 that's one of the things to consider when we're trying to to discern is so and so being harsh so

01:03:17 first what are they saying is it biblical is it true is it faithful to the scripture secondly what

01:03:22 what john's getting at is who are you saying it to so what are you saying what's the doctrine

01:03:27 what's the content and then and then who are you saying it to right are you saying it to

01:03:31 the smoldering wick and the bruised reed? Because the scripture says that if we want to be Christ-like

01:03:36 that he doesn't despise, he doesn't snuff out the smoldering wick, right? That would be a weak

01:03:41 convert. And the Puritans did a lot of great work on this. Thomas, I'm thinking of Thomas Watson, 0.69

01:03:47 Baxter, the reformed pastor. But this idea of, it is hard, it takes discernment, like John's saying,

01:03:53 but the difference between a false convert and a weak convert. And so part of the reason, you know,

01:03:58 like i mean the apostle paul who's bewitched you right i was just there all of a sudden you know

01:04:03 i i come back to his his letter to the galatians who's bewitched you you're you're you are so 0.99

01:04:08 foolish and that's sharp language he's saying basically you are so foolish it seems as though 1.00

01:04:12 you must have have had a spell cast on you because surely you could you could not be this foolish 1.00

01:04:17 on your own it this has to be a supernatural foolishness that's how foolish you're being 0.99

01:04:22 right that's strong language um but but but what's in question there is is this a weak convert 0.76

01:04:28 or a false convert is this a denial of the gospel or is this something that's tertiary and so so i

01:04:34 think categories for discerning like am i being sinfully harsh is first substance of what i'm

01:04:39 saying is it biblically true second um the the audience who am i talking to is this a sweet old

01:04:44 woman who you know what i mean or or is this um a a pastor who should know better and who's been

01:04:52 corrected for five years and, and refuses to repent. Um, so what am I saying? Who am I saying

01:04:57 it to? And, and then, and maybe you could add a couple more to this, John, but I think then we

01:05:02 would say, and how am I saying it? Tone. So I would put personally, I would put tone down here

01:05:07 as like a, a third in, in a list of priority. I would say first, what am I saying? Second,

01:05:13 who am I addressing? And then thirdly, how am I saying it? And I think that evangelicalism on the

01:05:18 whole has has basically reversed that and said how you're saying it is what's firstly important

01:05:24 and and i think in many evangelical circles it's the only thing that's important it's all that

01:05:30 matters is just how you're saying something and so if you can gently introduce error then

01:05:37 you're the good guy and then anybody who opposes them even if they do say something nice even if

01:05:44 they have a nice tone simply by nature of being the opposer simply by nature of addressing having

01:05:50 to address you're wrong right because it's not just refute that it's refute those for titus

01:05:57 chapter one verse nine an elder that's one of his qualifications he's got to be able to teach

01:06:02 what's true and refute people that also first timothy chapter one says uh verses three through

01:06:07 five uh you know that um um to that this is why i left you here is to charge certain persons not

01:06:14 just certain ideas but to charge that mean that we're charged it's a charged word charge it's

01:06:20 that means to sharply rebuke and confront certain people and and so my point is that's one of the

01:06:26 qualifications of being an elder in christ church is the ability to teach sound doctrine and the

01:06:33 ability to rebuke, to charge, to confront not only bad doctrine, but the people peddling,

01:06:43 the people, not just the ideas, but the people. And so my whole point is that I think, you know,

01:06:49 if somebody introduces error into the church softly, which they typically do, and that's why

01:06:55 it tends to be successful, even if you try to softly and gently, which we should try to gently

01:07:01 oppose them just by nature of you being the the the person who's you're you're the one who's

01:07:08 picking a fight and so no matter how gently you say it and I think it was gentle at first you said

01:07:14 this earlier John but I think at first when this first started creeping in I think there was a lot

01:07:18 of I think like you used the Joel Osteen um analogy you know or illustration like the first

01:07:24 time he was a little bit off and how you would approach him and I think I bet you that probably

01:07:28 was nine times out of 10 as this was creeping into pulpits around the nation um i bet you

01:07:34 most congregants and most elders and most you know who are on the biblically sound faithful

01:07:39 side of things probably did address it very very kindly gently humbly um but then there was

01:07:48 resistance and then you up the ante and you're no no no no this is it and then all of a sudden

01:07:54 And what happens is that people are like, Joel, John, you're disrupting the peace, right?

01:08:01 You're disturbers of the peace.

01:08:04 Lock these men up.

01:08:05 Like Paul, I mean, the apostle Paul was charged as one who incites riots, one who stirs up riots.

01:08:11 When like Paul's like, I'm not the one causing a riot here.

01:08:15 I'm preaching Christ and him crucified.

01:08:18 and everybody is losing their ever-loving minds and throwing things and yelling and you know what 0.99

01:08:25 i mean like and burning down buildings you know like black lives matter movement i'm not the guy

01:08:29 doing that you know what i've never heard that the uh riot in nephesus compared to blm but that's uh

01:08:37 that's a that's probably a fair comparison i guess um yeah no you're you're right about i think i

01:08:44 I think everything you just said, I agree with, and that your way of prioritizing, you

01:08:49 know, the content, who you're talking to, and then the tone is absolutely correct.

01:08:55 As far as naming names, there's just so many passages.

01:08:58 I mean, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm.

01:09:02 I urge Yodio and Syntyche.

01:09:04 You see Jesus rebuking the Pharisees while they're standing right there.

01:09:09 In fact, the rich young ruler comes to him, and he turns away, and then he looks at his

01:09:13 disciples.

01:09:13 They know who he's talking about. And he starts talking about the guy right behind his back.

01:09:17 You know, John the Baptist says, you know, go tell Herod that old fox, you know.

01:09:23 So there's there's just there is a precedent for this naming names.

01:09:28 And even when names aren't named, it's because the audience knew who was being referred to.

01:09:33 If you don't know who is being referred to, it doesn't really help.

01:09:35 So and there's no disembodied heresies floating out there without someone to propel them.

01:09:42 And so we have heresies are named after names.

01:09:47 They are, you know, like, so, yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

01:09:51 Yeah. Maybe we should call the social justice syncretism. 0.98

01:09:54 I don't know, Kellerism or something, but I mean, it's,

01:09:57 and in the future, well, in the future,

01:10:01 it may be that they pick some prominent teacher and they do that. But,

01:10:05 but yeah, I mean, it's, it's,

01:10:07 it's really an aversion to confrontation, which is,

01:10:10 I think part of something much bigger in our culture right now, where men don't want to be

01:10:16 men, they don't want to confront evil. In fact, I mean, I don't know if you grew up this way,

01:10:21 but I grew up, my parents let me watch a lot of like old westerns and war movies and things when

01:10:29 I was a kid. And I'm not saying all of what's portrayed there is always good or the way that

01:10:34 men should act. But one thing I think is indisputable, they were men. And they were

01:10:39 trying to at least portray men and how you know men men are going to go out and they're going to

01:10:44 get the bad guy and they're going to save the day or whatever at great personal sacrifice to

01:10:49 themselves and we don't have that a sense of that anymore it really i guess since the 1970s especially

01:10:56 even in hollywood you see the this anti-hero character and if they're going to be tough

01:11:01 it's going to be for themselves they're out for their own gain they won't sacrifice themselves

01:11:05 for anyone else. They're only for themselves. They're selfish. And we're to the point now where

01:11:12 I look around and I see the tyranny that's before us with the COVID stuff, overreach or the BLM

01:11:20 stuff. And you wonder where the men are. And sometimes they'll complain behind closed doors,

01:11:24 but they're not actually going out there and doing what they need to do. And so when someone

01:11:29 does do that, it stands out. People see that and people think, well, why is he doing that? What's

01:11:35 his problem. Um, a hundred years ago that, I mean, a lot of the things that I'm saying,

01:11:40 I would have been considered tame probably, uh, for saying some of them. So, um, we've just really

01:11:47 become effeminate as a culture. I don't really know what else other word to get to it. And I

01:11:52 think that's a symptom of it. So you're right. It's yeah, it's men in soft clothing. You know,

01:11:57 I mean, like, what did you come out into the wilderness to see, you know, soft clothing,

01:12:01 Like, you know, those, those guys live in palaces.

01:12:03 You didn't come out to see limp-wristed, fairy, you know, effeminate men.

01:12:07 That's, uh, you came out to see a man, John the Baptist, right? 0.89

01:12:10 A voice crying out in the wilderness, eating locusts and wearing camel skin, right?

01:12:14 Like basically Jesus is saying, you know, like John the Baptist, the prophet. 0.86

01:12:18 Um, but what was a, what was a prophet like?

01:12:21 He had grit.

01:12:22 He was like John Wayne.

01:12:23 That's what he was like.

01:12:24 He was masculine.

01:12:25 That's, that's, that's what it, that's part of what it entails.

01:12:29 And, and I think, I think this is part of it also, you know, so like we want to emulate Christ. And, and so we want to, we want to look at Christ and we want to say, all right, first and foremost, the gospel is not be like Jesus, right? Because if that's the gospel, then we all go to hell. And so that praise God, that's not the gospel. Be like Jesus is law, not gospel. So that the gospel is Jesus was Jesus in your place. And so thank God for Jesus.

01:12:53 So that's the gospel, but the law is important.

01:12:55 So we're not saved by our attempts to be like Jesus.

01:12:58 We're saved by Jesus living and dying in our place and our faith by grace through faith in Christ alone.

01:13:09 Now, that said, 1 John 4, 19, that we love because he first loved us.

01:13:17 And so it's God loved us in Christ, in the beloved.

01:13:20 he awakens our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit in regeneration to that love and we

01:13:28 cannot help but love God in return and then in that love the first question the Christian asks

01:13:34 is all right I have now been awakened to God's love for me in Christ Jesus I am responding with

01:13:40 a love for him God I want to love you with everything I have what can I do that would be

01:13:45 gratitude um in not not to earn your favor but in gratitude for the free favor i've received by

01:13:51 grace alone through faith alone in christ alone and jesus says if you love me you'll obey me right

01:13:57 you'll you'll obey me and and and i so so all that being said then okay you know how do i obey jesus

01:14:04 and what do i obey well love love god and love your neighbor and then well how how what does it

01:14:09 mean to love my neighbor you know and because a lot of people think what it means to love your

01:14:12 neighbor is to put mask on your kids and and everybody get the jab and you know and and we

01:14:17 ruined the entire nation and our economy and livelihoods and suicide has gone up and chronic

01:14:22 depression all this kind of stuff in the name of loving our our our neighbor um so so we need to

01:14:28 look to the law of god of because god defines how we love our neighbor and god defines how we love

01:14:32 him you know the even like the regular principle of worship worshiping in spirit and in truth um

01:14:38 on the Lord's day. We don't get to just do church any way we want to do church. God has

01:14:42 things to say. God has guardrails on how we obey him, how we love God, and how we love people.

01:14:49 We don't get to decide how to love God and love people. So all that being said, we want to imitate

01:14:53 Christ. So it's the law of God, but Jesus models the law. He fulfilled the law. And so we're looking

01:14:58 at Christ. We want to model him, imitate him. And I think one of the big issues is that everyone's

01:15:03 down to try to imitate Christ in his love. Everyone's down to try to imitate Christ in

01:15:08 his humility, right? When he's taking off his outer garment and wrapping a towel around his

01:15:14 waist and washing the feet of his disciples. These are the kinds of things we want to imitate. 0.84

01:15:19 What we don't want to imitate is Christ's polemic. We don't want to imitate his discourse with the

01:15:26 Pharisees. We don't want to imitate him's whitewashed tombs. You know, we don't want to 0.80

01:15:34 imitate that. And so my point is, every single Christian, we're saying, be like Jesus. And when

01:15:41 I fail, and I fail all the time, but when I fail to be like Christ in my attempts, for instance,

01:15:48 to love my wife, there's a lot in the church at large, there's a lot of grace for that.

01:15:54 there just is you know uh there's more understanding there's more more grace more mercy

01:16:00 um so long as i'm repentant i want to get better i want to love my wife as christ loved the church

01:16:07 or in in in parenting my children you know when i fail so when we fail to imitate christ in love

01:16:13 there's grace when anyone fails to imitate christ or we might add if when someone succeeds

01:16:19 imitating christ in his boldness in his confrontation in his polemic there's no grace

01:16:26 at all and so and so i think like even donald trump as an example not saying the dudes are

01:16:31 christian or anything like that um what i am saying though is um i miss him in in the oval

01:16:38 office my goodness you know so um you know but my my point is you know i'm i'm going for ron

01:16:45 DeSantis we'll see but but I you know Trump um I'm not saying he did it right I'm not saying I

01:16:51 would defend him or endorse him you know as as a as an elder in a church or anything like that or

01:16:56 but I I think just people looked at Trump and they saw his Twitter account right and and all

01:17:02 these kinds of and it's just and and they just blasted him and blasted him and blasted him and

01:17:07 I think that that's what's in in people's minds of like what you were saying John about being a

01:17:12 man and the old westerns and that kind of image i really think that there's just anyone who

01:17:17 attempts what i'm trying to say is trump i think at least tried to be a man and i think in a lot

01:17:22 of ways in terms of his policies he succeeded in his rhetoric i think a lot of times he went too

01:17:26 far and he he you know but my point at least he stood up and one of the most iconic things he said

01:17:31 is that they don't hate me they hate you and i'm just standing in the way and i think that was true

01:17:35 and and um and and so we look at that and i think a lot of evangelicals look at trump they look at

01:17:40 the backlash, the bad press. And they think that's what happens when someone tries to

01:17:46 stand up. That's what happens when someone tries to be a man. And so nobody even wants

01:17:50 to try. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah. You're not rewarded for it in the eyes of

01:17:58 the media elites. So you wouldn't do it for self-interest, but that's part of what being

01:18:06 a man truly is. You have responsibilities outside yourself and you fit into a hierarchy,

01:18:13 whether if you're a husband, you have responsibilities over your children and over 0.92

01:18:17 your wife to protect them, to love them, to nurture them, not in the way that a wife would

01:18:24 nurture, but in providing, in encouraging. If you're a leader in a church, then the same

01:18:33 at what would apply to the church. If you're a leader in government, the same that would apply

01:18:37 to your constituents. But even if you're just someone in a community, we're not born blank

01:18:44 slates without any attachments. We have attachments and obligations as we just grow up

01:18:50 in a community of people. And men take that seriously, real men. They want to do their best

01:18:58 for that. And I think in some ways, a knowledge of the divine, of knowing that you're going to

01:19:06 be judged for this, probably helps foster some of that. But just having good role models and

01:19:15 examples, Paul even said, basically, follow me as I follow Christ. And so it's good to have

01:19:21 some good role models. And today, we don't have a lot of that. So there aren't men being held up

01:19:27 as positive examples of this only negative examples if anyone ever tries to be a man

01:19:33 they're made fun of all the sitcoms make fun of them so um so what we do need and i'm starting

01:19:41 to see this a little bit at least in some quarters of christianity is uh good examples and there's

01:19:47 plenty of them out there but uh christian manhood illustrated by people who um do have uh do take

01:19:56 their responsibilities seriously, uh, and, and can exude, uh, that kind of, um, whatever that

01:20:04 thing is that people want to follow, you know? Yeah. Right. And so, um, I, I am starting to see

01:20:12 that. Uh, and I, and there's a lot of young men right now. Um, I think the Jordan Peterson kind

01:20:17 of phenomenon showed this a lot more, but there are some smaller figures now in Christianity,

01:20:23 I think that are starting to kind of have the same effect on a mini scale, but someone who is

01:20:29 willing to buck the system because they loved others, because they cared about truth. That's

01:20:34 infectious. That's young men without fathers who have come from broken households who have moved, 0.99

01:20:40 you know, three times and, you know, don't have a sense of place. They're looking for that

01:20:44 stability somewhere. And this is the golden opportunity for Christians who, I mean, look,

01:20:50 we got the man's man of all time, Jesus Christ. I mean, look, that guy went to the cross and was

01:20:58 punished in a ways and had more pain inflicted on him than anyone else ever in human history

01:21:05 and emotional and physical. And yet he endured it for the joy set before him and to please his

01:21:13 father and to redeem a people. He accomplished something. And and that's what men wanted.

01:21:20 He could have avoided it in that vein, in that masculine vein.

01:21:25 So you're right, at great cost of himself, to the benefit of others.

01:21:30 But also, for which of these works, right?

01:21:34 His miracles, healing people, for which of these works are you seeking to kill me?

01:21:38 None.

01:21:39 Nobody had a problem with his works.

01:21:41 But it's because you make yourself out to be equal with God,

01:21:44 a.k.a. what the Pharisee said was, it's because of what you say.

01:21:48 It's not what you do.

01:21:50 It's your words.

01:21:51 And so at any point, Jesus could have avoided the crucifixion

01:21:54 by not speaking courageously as a man does.

01:22:00 You know what I mean? 0.60

01:22:01 So Jesus set this example of masculinity by sacrificing himself,

01:22:06 taking great pain, great cost to himself to the benefit and the life

01:22:09 and the welfare of others, everything you're saying,

01:22:11 but then also adding to that, and at any step in the road,

01:22:15 even in his correspondence with Pilate, at any step, he could have ended it.

01:22:19 Not just by calling a legion of angels down

01:22:23 when he was already hanging on the cross.

01:22:24 I'm saying, no, in practical terms,

01:22:27 he had the constant temptation, just as we do,

01:22:30 except he resisted it perfectly,

01:22:32 but the constant temptation at any point

01:22:34 to just stop talking.

01:22:37 Just let it slide.

01:22:38 Just let it go.

01:22:39 Don't say something confrontational.

01:22:41 Don't say something courageous.

01:22:43 Don't speak up.

01:22:44 Don't speak out.

01:22:46 That's what hung him on the cross, right?

01:22:48 He got nailed to the cross because of his speech and because he was calling out sin.

01:22:58 He was calling out the cultural norms, all these kinds of things that were flying in the face. 0.64

01:23:02 Well, he was calling the Pharisees, you know, that they're making their proselytes twice as much a son of hell as they are. 0.93

01:23:09 And it'd be better if a millstone was hung around your neck. 0.62

01:23:12 And I mean, he said some things that go way past a lot of the things Trump said as far as harshness.

01:23:21 And and yeah, I mean, he made bitter enemies because of it.

01:23:24 But you see that I mean, this principle that God resists the proud gives grace to the humble for those who were sinful, but humble and repentant.

01:23:31 I mean, he was gentle. I mean, he said, my burden is light.

01:23:35 Um, my yoke is easy. So, you know, in Jesus, we, we have this figure that wants to defend the weak

01:23:43 and then wants to, uh, take on the bad guys, really, um, expose them for who they are.

01:23:51 And throughout, um, in our context, but Western history is filled with these examples. We see

01:23:58 this template repeated over and over imperfectly, uh, in people like George Washington and, um,

01:24:05 like I referenced those old cowboy movies and stuff. That's, that's kind of like they're,

01:24:09 they're trying to reach for something. They're trying to copy something, a template that's

01:24:12 already been laid down. And that template is what's been destroyed. And that's, that's a

01:24:17 forbidden template. You're not supposed to be like that if you're a man. And I think here's

01:24:22 the takeaway in my mind, this is like the big lesson here to wrap sort of like everything

01:24:26 we're talking about up. But if you are a leader in a church or, and what, no matter how big your

01:24:32 platform is if you want to let the bad guys get away with what they're getting away with maybe

01:24:38 you'll even help them a little you know you give them a little bit of a a boost by uh sort of

01:24:44 strapping christianity to their agenda or something um you'll have an easy life possibly i mean you

01:24:50 take that gamble a little bit they could turn on you but you have a better chance of having an easy

01:24:54 life and people won't have a problem with you as much and you'll be able to get through life

01:24:59 Maybe you'll have a little more material prosperity.

01:25:02 You'll be thought of a little better.

01:25:05 But in the end, you won't actually be respected.

01:25:08 Not real respect.

01:25:11 You won't have, you know, little boys aren't going to be growing up with stars in their

01:25:15 eyes looking at you because you saved the day and are a war hero or something like that. 1.00

01:25:20 You're a coward. 1.00

01:25:21 That's what you are. 1.00

01:25:22 And you have an easy life, but you're a coward. 1.00

01:25:24 and you're going to be servicing a church for other cowards who also are interested in the 1.00

01:25:29 same thing. They want their ears tickled. But if you are willing to take a stand to call out the 0.97

01:25:33 names of people who are wrecking men's souls, um, and, and then physically even perhaps damaging

01:25:41 people and communities, um, it's not going to be easy for you, but you can put your head on your

01:25:46 pillow at night. You can have the pleasure of the Lord. You can actually know a joy that's even

01:25:50 deeper and um and you'll have actual respect because you're because you're worthy of it

01:25:56 because um i mean not i don't want to say anyone's worthy of anything but you're but you've actually

01:26:01 earned it no you're right yeah you've earned it yeah we're all we're all worthy of hell but no

01:26:06 trust trust and respect is earned and that doesn't mean that you know that we can earn um salvation

01:26:13 but no in in in a horizontal human sense like love so forgiveness we we forgive freely because

01:26:19 we've been freely forgiven you know and forgiveness i think it likens to love so i i can love my

01:26:25 enemies and pray for those who persecute me but trust is a different category and i think

01:26:30 forgiveness falls underneath the love banner and and respect i think falls underneath the trust

01:26:34 banner and the bible agreed yep by the bible's mere mere commandment merely by the bible's

01:26:41 commandment for us to be discerning that right there by way of implication tells us that the

01:26:46 christian worldview says that trust is not assumed right if trust is assumed then there's no basis

01:26:52 of discernment and so so trust therefore must be earned over time by action and word and and

01:26:58 faithfulness and those kinds of things and so absolutely like we we earn trust and uh and and

01:27:05 by proxy we earn respect and yeah man i like michael scott on the office i want people to be

01:27:12 afraid of how much they love me. I want people to respect me. I don't want to just be loved or

01:27:19 liked. And I think that's what, it's not even true love. What guys are settling for right now

01:27:24 is not even the love of their parishioners or their congregants. They're settling for just

01:27:27 their approval. It's not love. It's just being liked. I don't want to be liked. I want to be

01:27:34 loved and I want to be respected more than even being loved. I want to be respected because I'm

01:27:39 a man. Respect matters more to me than even love. And just, I think, the way that God's designed

01:27:45 men. And so everything you're saying is great. Let's go ahead and wrap up. So we named a lot

01:27:51 of guys. We named Matt Chandler. You talked about Tim Keller. And we talked about Eric Mason and

01:27:55 Russell Moore. And we named a lot of guys. Let's end the episode with you just giving me

01:28:01 name and reason as briefly as you can. Who are the two guys in evangelicalism that you're the

01:28:09 most concerned about two guys name them yeah if you could just maybe give me two two guys okay

01:28:15 yeah that's hard because i feel like every week it's like a new guy that i'm like okay that's

01:28:20 that's that's a guy who's kind of you can give me 17 guys if you want but yeah so um yeah i just

01:28:27 actually went back um and listened to the 2018 lecture at t4g by david platt because i i hadn't

01:28:36 really focused on him a lot, but with the current issues at McLean, I wanted to just kind of review

01:28:41 some of his stuff. And I would say, yeah, he, he's definitely, I mean, he basically links,

01:28:50 the easiest way for me to put this is in that particular speech, and this has gotten worse

01:28:55 than other things he said, but he accuses people, he accuses the church, he accuses everyone in the

01:29:01 room, uh, at the conference of sin and grave sin. I mean, they need to repent. They're in danger of

01:29:09 the judgment of God because there's disparities between black and white and they don't do it. 0.99

01:29:15 They don't do enough about it. That is not just a different take on sin or a different, like, 0.99

01:29:22 you know, category, I'm going to categorize this as sin when it's not, that's like a different

01:29:26 concept of sin. You can passively be guilty of things that previous generations might have done

01:29:34 or things that you really are not even tangentially related to, the things that are outside

01:29:41 your purview. You may not be in sin at all, but you are because of the world and the environment

01:29:48 that you inhabit. And this is pure Marxism, pure social justice stuff. But it actually tampers

01:29:56 with an understanding of sin itself when you do that. And, um, when you, when you tamper with sin

01:30:03 and what sin actually is, you, you start tampering with the gospel. So, um, what, what, what is the

01:30:10 good news actually? Uh, you know, what, um, you're, you're going to constantly be guilty. There's no

01:30:18 way to really repent of it. There's no way to get out of it. You're going to be on the hamster

01:30:21 wheel forever. There's really no flight at the end of the tunnel of forgiveness in that paradigm.

01:30:26 So that's David Platt. I'll try to be quicker with you. Okay. So, um, yeah. So, so like Tim Keller, right. Um, he constantly, um, what, what he does often is he'll make justice, this obligation that, um, like, if you don't give, this is a quote from him, like in 2010, he said, if you don't, um, and I'm kind of summarizing it a little, but he is in, uh, the, I think it was in the Christianity

01:30:56 Andy today. It's our obligation to give the poor as much as we can possibly give them. And it's

01:31:04 all based on need. It's if because someone's poor, we have an obligation to give them as much as we

01:31:10 can possibly give away. Now that may sound really good, but if you start to apply that, if you call

01:31:15 that justice and say, that's what justice is, and you conflate charity with justice, which is what

01:31:20 he's doing, then you get into this weird position where, okay, justice is also a concept that

01:31:26 you know, apply that to the gospel. Everyone needs forgiveness. God doesn't forgive everyone.

01:31:30 So is God now unjust? So it gives you into these weird spots. And so Tim Keller is another guy

01:31:37 I think of as like a big threat. I'll give you just two more because I know we've got to wrap

01:31:42 up, but these are Southern Baptist guys and they're smaller names, Jarvis Williams and

01:31:47 Walter Strickland. So I've done a lot of work on them. Jarvis Williams has integrated critical

01:31:53 race theory and Christianity more than anyone else I know. And the main issue with that is he

01:31:58 comes up with a Galatian type heresy at the end of the day. The gospel is about racial reconciliation

01:32:02 and racial reconciliation means that you have to platform these voices. You have to accept these

01:32:09 narratives. You have to teach history a certain way. It's very specific. It's like, it's pretty

01:32:14 long. But he makes that part of the gospel, that that's what Paul's talking about in Ephesians

01:32:22 and in Galatians. What he's trying to do is break down that dividing wall of ethnicity

01:32:29 and bring Jews and Gentiles together. But he then reads into that critical race theory.

01:32:35 So dangerous guy. That's not what that's talking about. And then Walter Strickland is pushing

01:32:42 liberation theology. He's one of the easiest in my mind because there's several times that he

01:32:48 actually conflates the law with the gospel. And he literally adds works to the gospel.

01:32:53 And we'll say things like, like there's one quote where he even says that the gospel is loving the

01:32:58 Lord with loving the Lord or loving God and loving your neighbor is the gospel. It's like,

01:33:05 that's the law, man. That's what condemns you. But then his, his version of love is liberation

01:33:09 theology. So those are the four guys. So I'll give you a bonus too, but guys I'm concerned about

01:33:15 guys who in different ways, uh, are, um, promoting ideas that either, if you think through them

01:33:24 logically, they destroy the gospel or, um, they do directly actually, uh, tamper with the gospel.

01:33:31 Yeah, I completely agree. That's super helpful. I'm going to throw on one, one myself right here 1.00

01:33:36 at the end, since I used to be in X 29, I'm going to throw Matt Chandler in there and I'll do it by

01:33:41 saying this, I remember being in the conference. It was about four or five years ago. There was a

01:33:46 panel. It was Eric Mason, Leonce Crump. Who else? Eric Mason, Leonce Crump, Brandon Washington,

01:33:55 and Thabiti. Thabiti was the main plenary speaker for this conference. And so Thabiti was there,

01:34:01 and there was one other guy, I forget his name, but it was five black guys who were either on

01:34:05 the board or leaders in the X29 network, or like Thabiti were a guest speaker for that particular

01:34:10 conference and matt chandler was the moderator and we were once again having a conversation

01:34:15 about race except of course like all conversations about race it was all minorities right black voices 0.98

01:34:23 being elevated getting to talk no white person gets to talk you just shut up and believe right 0.99

01:34:28 you just shut up you listen no cross-examination no questions you just believe and it's all none 0.98

01:34:32 of its factual number it's um substance or or or statistics right if you ask for statistics then 0.97

01:34:38 you're being oppressive you know um but it's all it's story it has to be story um because that's

01:34:44 the only thing that'll work and so it's just this manipulative emotionally manipulative play of just

01:34:48 story after story from these men about how you know when i get pulled over by a police officer

01:34:54 you know right they check the trunk of the car you know or and i'm not even saying that those

01:34:58 things didn't happen but what i'm saying is that doesn't prove anything that you know like i because

01:35:03 we can we can find five white guys in the room who can get up you know and so um and okay an

01:35:11 individual police officer maybe it was racial first we don't even know it's racial second even

01:35:15 if it is racial that doesn't say that it's systematic so anyways you you get it so that's

01:35:20 going on and then at the end i remember chandler he says this he says um and he's just listening

01:35:26 asking questions and it's just kind of like this layup and it was right after some some shooting

01:35:30 happened i can't remember which shooting it was but um probably like like several of the shootings

01:35:36 one that eventually you know after hindsight was proven that it was justified on the police

01:35:41 officers you know like michael brown you know something like that but but i remember eric

01:35:45 mason saying i'm so angry i can't he was like i don't even know where i am right now i'm dizzy

01:35:49 you know i can't even see and i remember being like i remember being angry i was angry because

01:35:55 it was like this was two days after a shooting took place you and i neither one of us know

01:35:59 if it was actually unjust if what the police officer did was actually unjust you don't know

01:36:05 and and in your presumption in your arrogance you're you're sitting up there and and saying

01:36:10 i'm so angry right now and as all five of these men continue to give story after story

01:36:15 all these the women because it's pastors and wives conference all these white women white

01:36:19 pastors wives are crying and you can just see the shame and the guilt for this sin that none of them

01:36:24 had committed right maybe a couple of them um and then at the end it's like that like the audacity

01:36:30 the cherry on top Chandler asked okay so what can we do um to fix it like what are some and I

01:36:37 remember he said what are some books that we could read and I remember Leon's Crump he responded by 0.99

01:36:40 saying you see this is is this is the problem this is what we call the the numinous negro and he said 1.00

01:36:48 you know did you ever watch the green mile with Tom Hanks you know it's always you know even in 0.82

01:36:52 the movies there's always some magical negro who fixes the white man's problems you got a an iphone 0.77

01:36:57 you can google you find out what books to read uh that you know and and i i wasn't this was too

01:37:03 again four or five years ago five or six years ago actually and so i wasn't well versed in this but i

01:37:09 didn't realize what what he was actually and then he proceeds to recommend like critical uh racecraft

01:37:14 was one of the books he recommends this riddled with uh crt and so anyways but but after i mean

01:37:19 so Matt Chandler, the president of Acts 29, has you up here, has appointed you to a position on

01:37:24 the board, you know, has you up here to speak to all these people where you're just chastising

01:37:28 every pastor and wife in the network. And then he's asking you, what can we do to fix the problem?

01:37:33 And you just belittle him and belittle all of us, you know, and then you answer the question with 0.70

01:37:40 heretical, horrible books that no Christian needs to read other than to objectively point out what 0.97

01:37:45 is wrong in it. And I didn't have a language for it at the time, but I realize now in hindsight, 1.00

01:37:50 what he was referencing was absolutely this social justice, CRT, intersectionality thing. He was

01:37:57 referencing ethnic exploitation. So he didn't use that word. And if he had, I wouldn't have known

01:38:04 what it was. But he's saying, this is the numinous Negro, right? The white man relying on the black 0.99

01:38:08 man to fix his problems, even the problem of being racist towards the black man, which is essentially, 0.85

01:38:13 that's not a verbatim quote but that is what he said that is that is the spirit of what he said

01:38:18 and so what he's getting at is is you're engaging in ethnic exploitation and and and i now look back

01:38:23 and i realize the madness of crt is this idea of all right all white people are racist or really

01:38:28 everybody's racist but white people are more complicit more morally guilty because they benefit 0.82

01:38:33 as the hegemony the dominant group from racism more than everybody else and so what do you do

01:38:39 to atone for your sins well you got to do your anti-racist homework and what is that anti-racist

01:38:44 homework well it's it's calling out racism in yourself and racism in the system and society

01:38:49 at large but you can't do that as a white man because you're blind to it you're privileged

01:38:54 you've been blinded by your privilege so you have to partner with a person of color someone who's

01:38:59 of an oppressed intersection some you know and that's exactly what chandler was doing he's

01:39:04 following the crt he probably didn't even know you know but he's he's doing what he's supposed

01:39:08 right we want to do our anti-racist homework and and can you help us can you be our eyes and ears

01:39:12 because we're blinded by my privilege and and but but leon's crump follows the script perfectly just

01:39:19 like robin d'angelo and all that kind of stuff and and they didn't even know they were doing it

01:39:22 probably and i certainly didn't know at the time but it's exactly the it's exactly what we see from

01:39:28 all the you know from the frankfurt school and all this kind of stuff and so leon's crump without

01:39:32 skipping a beat says this is the numerous negro and so basically what he's saying is you're you're 0.93

01:39:36 Everyone's racist, but you're morally complicit because you're white. 0.97

01:39:39 You benefit from racism the most.

01:39:41 Therefore, you must atone from that sin of racism by doing your anti-racist homework,

01:39:46 but you can't do it because it involves seeing something that you can't see

01:39:50 because you're blinded by privilege.

01:39:51 You need us, which is precisely why you have this panel going on right now,

01:39:54 why we've been appointed to the board rather than somebody else

01:39:58 who's been in the network and been more faithful.

01:40:00 And then when you ask for us to help you see, be your eyes and ears

01:40:05 so that you can do your anti-racist homework,

01:40:07 then you're done messed up. 0.97

01:40:10 A.A. Ron, turns out you're racist twice 0.97

01:40:12 because you've just engaged in ethnic exploitation 0.95

01:40:14 by using a person of color

01:40:16 simply to posture yourself as a good white. 0.85

01:40:19 And all that, my point is, 0.57

01:40:20 none of the language,

01:40:21 I'm using CRT, intersectionality language,

01:40:23 that we've all come to recognize after the fact.

01:40:27 Thank God for guys like James Lindsay.

01:40:29 That guy, I mean,

01:40:30 that guy has been a wonderful friend to the church.

01:40:34 He's not a brother in Christ,

01:40:35 but God has used him in his common grace, wonderful friend.

01:40:38 None of us had the language at the time.

01:40:39 I didn't have the language at the time.

01:40:41 But I look back now and it was all, to the T, critical race theory.

01:40:46 It was all social justice.

01:40:48 It was all ethnic Gnosticism, ethnic, you know, the whole,

01:40:54 like Vody talks about ethnic Gnosticism and the standpoint epistemology,

01:41:00 you know, relativism.

01:41:01 like and and it was all right there and everyone the result of it was it wasn't it it there was

01:41:10 no racial reconciliation there was no unity unity is not the fruit of this stuff the result of it

01:41:16 was manipulation guilt shame division and anger and I was one of the people and I remember just

01:41:23 to use a Chandlerism and I'll end with this you remember the the famous you know Chandler video

01:41:30 that went viral you know like jesus wants the rose right the guy's preaching so who would want 0.99

01:41:35 this rose after passing around all the petals fall off that's what a girl's like if she gives

01:41:39 away her sexuality and her virginity and and and chandler says and i felt this i was visibly angry

01:41:44 and i wanted to shout out jesus wants the rose well in in that meeting five years ago even though

01:41:50 i didn't have all the language i have now to define exactly what was going on at the time

01:41:53 I remember, to use Chandler's own words, being angry at Chandler, being visibly angry.

01:42:02 Because the guy who said Jesus wants the rose, the hero, the guy that I looked to, that I admired,

01:42:09 all of a sudden, he had become the bad guy. All of a sudden, it's like he completely sold out,

01:42:14 completely compromised. His whole video of Jesus wants the rose, I could do a video

01:42:19 exactly like that except he's now the preacher he's the preacher who's who's destroying the

01:42:25 gospel who's destroying the rose who's making hundreds of women cry and he's overseeing this

01:42:31 whole thing letting it happen um women being guilted for a sin that they haven't even committed

01:42:36 and and i'm you know so i gotta throw matt chandler that that would be my name you know i feel

01:42:43 like near and dear to my heart a guy that i i have appreciated and loved a guy whose network i was a 0.73

01:42:49 part of, I was a pastor in Acts 29 and that guy let the network go to crap. Um, absolutely go to 0.81

01:42:55 crap. And so, so I'll toss in on top of your, I see your Tim Keller and I see your, your Jarvis 0.99

01:43:03 Williams and I raise you a match. So, all right, John, well that, that's it. Uh, let, let our,

01:43:07 let our listeners know how they can follow you. I know we've gone long on this. I really appreciate

01:43:11 your time, but let us know how can our listeners follow you and pray for you? Yeah, my pleasure.

01:43:16 um where can they listen i guess uh worldviewconversation.com is the website that has

01:43:22 all the links to my social media where you can just go on youtube type in conversations that

01:43:26 matter but if you go to worldviewconversation.com my books are up there and um articles and that

01:43:33 kind of thing uh pray for me um there's a lot going on right now um i'm just in in some transition

01:43:42 I just moved back to upstate New York where I spent most of my time growing up and where, you know, I got a lot of friends in the medical community and they are in danger of losing their jobs right now.

01:43:57 So this is kind of I feel like I like landed into a war zone a little bit and just a little surreal to watch kind of what's happening.

01:44:05 But, um, yeah, just pray that, uh, in this new season of my life, um, and I'm, I'm getting

01:44:13 involved in church and all of that, that, you know, just be faithful and, um, be able

01:44:18 to help, uh, the situation that's confronting us, especially with the gospel.

01:44:22 But also I, you know, I feel like I want to do, I feel so bad for these people.

01:44:26 I want to do something.

01:44:27 I'm not sure what that is.

01:44:28 Um, but that's the main thing I always ask people to pray for, just faithfulness and,

01:44:33 good time management. There's a lot going on, so I keep the Lord first. Those are my personal

01:44:41 prayer requests, at least, and I appreciate you asking. Great. John, thanks so much for coming

01:44:46 on the show. God bless you, brother. Yeah, my pleasure. Have a good one. Thanks so much for

01:44:50 listening, but real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five-star

01:44:56 review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this

01:45:02 biblically faithful content to as many people as possible. Thanks so much.

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The NXR Podcast - January 24, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Calling Out “Woke” Pastors! (Yes, We Name Them) ｜ with Jon Harris

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