00:07:30.020for acknowledging that individual as a false teacher?
00:07:33.440yeah i don't think so um and i just want to say you know joel i appreciate what you just said i
00:07:40.300mean it takes it takes humility to say hey you know what i probably messed this up or i could
00:07:44.980have done better and uh i i do that all the time uh we all do and uh some of the one of the problems
00:07:51.620right now in my opinion is um there's a lot of guys that are probably you know and hopefully
00:07:59.260ignorant about the social justice movement. They bought into maybe certain aspects of it in some
00:08:04.240ways, or they've introduced it into their church, but they're not willing to admit that they were
00:08:09.440wrong. And so that's one of the main things that concerns me about guys who may even be
00:08:17.540Orthodox Christians. But what I see in scripture is there's calling out a false teaching and false0.88
00:08:26.180teachers, because the concern is the church, it's the sheep, that they could be mauled by wolves.
00:08:31.860I don't see that coupled anywhere with this prerequisite that you must know for certain
00:08:39.140that they have a relationship with Jesus and are going to heaven. If you do call them out,
00:08:44.360it doesn't necessarily mean that you're stating that they're going to spend all of eternity in
00:08:48.700hell. Really, it's just, that's a completely different focus. And so I've taken the tact
00:08:55.980that um the teaching is what the problem that's the problem and that's what's shipwrecking people's
00:09:03.400faith so when a false teacher comes in and says something false it's really not that that hard
00:09:08.520it's not rocket science false teaching means teaching that's false and um yeah specifically
00:09:14.580teaching that is um related to core doctrines that we would consider fundamental to christianity
00:09:22.240and the gospel in particular uh you mentioned the word heresy uh that which just means really
00:09:28.380schism it's a simple word but i would say right now what we see in the greater evangelical world
00:09:33.720is a schism and i don't think anyone would deny that there's a schism it's obvious um so i yeah
00:09:40.880all that to say it doesn't have to get personal but this is a tactic that's used uh if you call
00:09:45.360out false teaching and you say someone's promoting it immediately there's an offense like you're
00:09:49.720saying I'm not saved. It's like, well, I'm not saying that, but now that you're so defensive
00:09:53.960about it and you're unwilling to be corrected, well, now we're going through kind of a Matthew
00:09:58.04018 process and maybe people are wondering whether you are. So that's kind of the long answer, but
00:10:04.440yeah. No, that's super helpful. And I think part of what you're getting to right there at the end
00:10:08.360of your answer is that another important factor that I think Christians need to be aware of is
00:10:12.960we're not talking, right? This isn't 2017, 2016. So we're not talking about somebody who preached
00:10:19.420one sermon on racial reconciliation that got a little bit into the weeds with some critical race
00:10:25.340theory assumptions, and then we're calling them out on a podcast. No, we're talking about
00:10:33.700guys who for five years now, I mean, give or take, most of these guys that we're going to
00:10:40.080be calling out by name in this episode, it's been five years, and John and I both know
00:10:46.300firsthand that they have been corrected directly, just like Paul went to Peter, to his face.
00:10:53.700They have been corrected directly dozens of times, and there has not been repentance.
00:11:01.440So we're not talking about 2017, somebody gets up, preaches a sermon on racial reconciliation
00:11:08.020that really wasn't true to biblical justice and was more so of a social justice, kind of whatever.
00:11:15.200And, 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.
00:11:36.560I mean, every conference was racial reconciliation.
00:11:39.240Every 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.
00:11:51.780And to my knowledge, I cannot think of one instance this last year since my last annual repentance of committing the sin of racism.
00:12:00.640um so why does doesn't my repentance from last year count or or is this not repentance are we
00:12:07.960doing penance is this the vulgate are we you know what's going on here and um and it was
00:12:13.320frustrating and then eric mason he came out with his book woke church and um that and uh and and
00:12:19.380building animosity between uh some of the guys in my area uh acts 29 pastors because of my
00:12:25.220outspokenness against the racial reconciliation, which nobody, I'm not against racial reconciliation,
00:12:32.800but the way, what they meant by that term, and certainly Eric Mason's book, all that, you know,
00:12:38.600came to a head, and anyways, I, you know, I was, I was warmly invited to leave, and I, you know, also
00:12:45.300decided to leave, and so my point is, we're not talking about, you know, a one-off, we're talking
00:12:51.360about individuals who for years now, in conferences, in pulpits, in local churches, in articles,
00:12:59.240in writings, in books, have been going down this path. So it's not just a mistake. It's not a
00:13:06.520mulligan. And they have been corrected. And they're refusing to repent. And so, John, do you have
00:13:14.080any thoughts on that? You want to add anything? I think you're spot on, Joel. There's a few
00:13:21.340things that we could point to along the way that would have been like moments of uh dividing lines1.00
00:13:28.700i guess one would be uh the mlk 50 conference in 2018 then later that year you had the t4g
00:13:37.660conference where david platt got up and gave a uh horrific sermon on justice jose uh yeah yeah
00:13:46.040let justice roll down like waters and then and the church is guilty of racism and the rest of it was
00:13:50.520just, well, racial disparities exist. So therefore we're in sin because we somehow tolerate these
00:13:57.080disparities or something like that. Then you have after that, the resolution nine that was passed
00:14:04.080in the Southern Baptist convention in 2000, I guess, was that 19 now I'm losing track. The
00:14:09.780years are going by so quick. Yeah, I think so. And yeah, those are the three big ones. I mean,
00:14:15.020there's a lot of little ones you can point to in there, but there was kind of, you know,
00:15:46.360They 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.
00:15:55.300That's what they're saying, but they can't give one tangible example of something they would have worded differently.
00:15:59.540It's because they don't want to be aligned with this crew because of the optics, because of how it's going to look.
00:16:08.980And these are guys that I've always, you know, as a young pastor,
00:16:12.300especially when I was in California a couple years ago,
00:16:14.800I mean, that's one of the biggest things any Christian,
00:16:17.520especially pastor, struggle with is the fear of man, the fear of man, the fear of man.
00:16:20.920And so these are men that I look to as titans of biblical examples
00:16:27.020of what it is not to bow the knee to the fear of man.
00:16:34.420I don't know if you felt that sense, John.
00:16:37.140or what was your takeaway from from that panel do you remember uh yo i remember it yeah i wasn't
00:16:44.020there in person um i was actually i was driving back from liberty university and i started getting
00:16:50.100all these texts and uh i watched it later that night and i was up late because then they
00:16:55.300i think one of the things that led to it being so big even bigger was they removed it i think
00:17:01.620that night it was like the one session they deleted and then everyone was like freaking out
00:17:06.780And I don't know that that had anything to do with trying to hide it because they uploaded it again.
00:17:11.540But I just remember thinking, like, this is I wasn't surprised so much about Lincoln Duncan.
00:17:21.620I mean, he wrote the forward to woke church. I saw what he said at T4G and I knew it was it was way off.
00:17:28.960Mark Dever, I wasn't actually that surprised about either.
00:17:31.980um jonathan i know jonathan lehman and thabiti and abuile are involved with nine marks and both
00:17:38.480of them i would say very much in the social justice uh type of vein and then um but al
00:17:45.000moeller was the guy that i honestly was really just people were telling me that were close to
00:17:50.600him i mean people that were really close knew him for years they were reaching out to me saying like
00:17:55.640he's he's waffling on this he's not going to come through and I I just really doubted it I thought
00:18:02.200no he's going to come through he's conservative he's and then when I saw that I realized I don't
00:18:07.860think he's going to come through so it was it was kind of a an awakening for a lot of people
00:18:14.780we realized those who were paying attention at least to it that some of the men that we thought
00:18:20.420we're very solid theologically and have some track records of being solid, we're not going
00:18:25.660to stand up to the current threat, which is, I would say, worse in some ways than the prosperity
00:18:32.920gospel, because it is a false gospel, just like the prosperity gospel, but it's more subversive
00:18:40.000and it has a political dimension. And so it's very well funded. There's a lot of interest in
00:18:46.160trying to persuade christians to vote democrat or to not vote republican or to shift them more
00:18:52.200in more progressive direction and that's not coming from christians that's coming from secularists who
00:18:57.340really wish they could get rid of all these you know nasty trump voters and these pro-life voters
00:19:02.380so there's an engine behind this thing uh that is you know has a vested interest and that we don't
00:19:11.220see that as much with the prosperity gospel so yeah i mean i remember even john oliver you know
00:19:16.420making fun of prosperity gospel guys on a late night show you know so like you're absolutely
00:19:22.460right because i know right so hollywood and and you know any any major corporate i mean whether
00:19:30.200it's big corporate or whether it's it's tech or whether it's you know the government you know in
00:19:34.460in the civil magistrate um none of them are gonna suppress a video that we do calling out benny
00:19:41.020right they don't they don't care they don't have a vested interest but but when we start saying
00:19:46.560something about about social justice and the welfare state and you know these kinds of because
00:19:54.700because really what we're doing is we're finally and i think this is the problem but i think what
00:19:58.980we're finally doing is we're saying hey the scripture applies to more than just um marriage
00:20:04.640conferences parenting conferences and uh and how to run your church on sunday morning because that's
00:20:10.600what it's been in America for the longest time is home and church, home and church, home and church,
00:20:13.840as though that's all the Bible has to say. And that's why I appreciate guys like Doug Wilson,
00:20:19.660who some guys really don't like, and there's some doctrines that I would disagree with,
00:20:23.820but Doug Wilson, you know, he's got the serrated edge, you know, so he's got your sharp tone.
00:20:29.520And a lot of people, you know, they'll say a theological thing, but really a lot of them
00:20:32.580just don't like the way he says things, his tone. But I think he's been just on the money
00:20:38.060again and again and again when it comes to applying the scripture to every realm of life.
00:20:43.260Their whole saying with his church in Moscow, Idaho is all of Christ for all of life. All of
00:20:49.260Christ for all of life. And that doesn't mean that the Bible speaks, right? The perspicuity of
00:20:53.520scripture, which is an unclear word that means clarity. But the clarity of scripture, it doesn't
00:20:58.460mean that all scripture is equally clear. So it doesn't mean that the Bible speaks to all of life
00:21:02.820with the same clarity. But what it does mean is that the principles, God's law and his gospel
00:21:10.820have application and implications beyond just Jesus, Lord of my heart. And I think American
00:21:17.000evangelicalism has had this private lordship Christianity. He's the Lord of my sweet little
00:21:22.940heart. And he has something to say about how I parent my children, how I love my wife and the
00:21:30.520church i go to on sunday and that's it and now all of a sudden you've got guys speaking out like
00:21:35.920you and i um in the political realm economically you know and all these different things with
00:21:41.140legislation and uh and you're right so that like the guys who the social justicians in the church
00:21:47.900they're gonna have the world on their side and and it's yeah it's formidable yeah well some some of
00:21:58.520Like in my case, it's a counter reaction to social justice warriors that have stepped outside of that formula of home and church.
00:22:07.380And they've decided they're going to, quote unquote, engage culture.
00:22:10.720That'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.
00:22:18.540And 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.
00:22:41.200I 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.
00:22:58.560And 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.
00:23:13.960And so and that influenced our founding documents and where we are today.
00:23:18.680And so I think the social justice brand of Christianity ignores all of that.
00:23:23.680They, 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.
00:23:51.560I'm actually reading a book right now, um, by a social justice warrior in the church.
00:23:56.900And she makes this, uh, this whole, her whole entire book is premised on, uh, Genesis one
00:24:03.840and two, it's called the very good gospel.
00:24:06.100And it's like, and like every time she goes to reference Genesis one and two, I'm like,
00:24:10.400that's not what it means there, but she's got a pre-written script and then we'll put0.99
00:24:15.020a little Christian veneer over it and make sure and hope that the Christians don't actually
00:24:19.880like look into it too deeply. So they just kind of accept it. And that'll ingratiate us to the0.67
00:24:24.540world. That'll make us hip and cool. You know, they'll think that we're allies with them and
00:24:29.220they're not going to come and persecute us. And, you know, like they want to do, they'll realize,
00:24:34.340no, we're actually on their side of this. And I think that's a lot of, you know, the motivation
00:24:38.720behind it. So I agree. I agree. I think part of the problem also is, you know, so just law and
00:24:45.680gospel, law and gospel. And I think, you know, so the privatized lordship of Christ where he's
00:24:50.320Lord only of my heart, right? That Jesus doesn't actually want anything beyond my, you know, this
00:24:55.360private relationship with Jesus and home and church, home and church. There's that. But then
00:24:59.800I think there's also in terms of the law of God, there's such an aversion in evangelicals to the
00:25:06.440law of God, right? And anything that you start talking about obedience and immediately people
00:25:10.800think legalism or they think uh prosperity gospel like all the time i tell my church obedience
00:25:15.800brings blessing that's not the prosperity gospel right so if i teach my kids hey every single day
00:25:21.460if you buy a lottery ticket you're gonna win you're going to win eventually and it'll probably
00:25:26.040only take a week or two you're going to win you're going to be filthy rich that would be the equivalent
00:25:30.060of the prosperity gospel but if i teach my kids hey if you get an education you work really really
00:25:34.740hard at a trade and you're faithful and you don't get pregnant out of wedlock and you don't get
00:25:41.000into absurd debt, then ordinarily, ordinarily, God is sovereign and tragedy hits, you could get
00:25:46.700cancer, but ordinarily, by the end of your life, you'll be reasonably wealthy. That's not the
00:25:53.240prosperity gospel. That's called logic. That's just obedience brings blessing or the blessing of
00:25:57.880if I keep my wedding vows, which would be obedience to God's law, thou shall not commit adultery.
00:26:04.040my children will be better off than if I was an adulterer that's obedience bringing blessing and
00:26:12.520I think I think that just you talk about the law of God you talk about obedience and the blessing
00:26:17.620that comes by obedience and the imperative of obedience and um and Christians immediately just
00:26:22.680start saying legalism legalism just give me the gospel give me the gospel as though God's law has
00:26:28.300no bearing on the on the life of the new testament christian and i think i'd like to hear your
00:26:34.260response to this but i think part of that is because we have had historically such a wonderful
00:26:39.180nation with such just laws that the church kind of you know that you know i the church was able
00:26:46.160to say you know we don't really have to have to say a whole lot when it comes to justice in our
00:26:52.700nation because the civil magistrate is doing, in general, a pretty decent job. And so I know
00:26:59.140the church's job is primarily grace and sacrament or the ordinances, you know, and to the sword,
00:27:07.480the sword has been given to the state, not to the church. But I think that the church has a
00:27:11.640prophetic role in holding the state accountable to wield the sword justly according to, by what
00:27:19.240standard, by God's standard. And I think the church has just kind of conceded and given up
00:27:23.680that role because I think we've gotten apathetic because we've had, the state has historically done
00:27:29.300a decent job in America with legislation, with justice, with those kinds of things. And then it
00:27:36.660just got way off track. And then the church had lost its edge, so to speak, in terms of
00:27:43.840understanding biblical justice, understanding politics, understanding the law of God and its
00:27:48.940implications or like the 1689 talks about even the civil law having a general equity right that's
00:27:54.740what paul does he says don't muzzle the ox while it treads the grain he's saying all right if you
00:27:58.660muzzle your ox while it's treading the grain as a new testament christian that's that's really just0.60
00:28:04.200it's foolish but it doesn't necessarily it's not necessarily a sin but it's foolish but here's the0.91
00:28:09.260general equity let's apply it to paying a pastor a wage and so even the civil law like whether it0.98
00:28:15.180be a precipice on on the roof you know like you could you could say well that's uh speed limits
00:28:19.440and seat belts or what however you but there's a general equity and i think christians have just
00:28:23.580they've gotten rid of the ten commandments even and and even more so civil laws and and general
00:28:29.700equity and all the just as though that hasn't that's all legalism that's all irrelevant and
00:28:36.600now and now the state has shifted from justice you know to social justice which is not justice
00:28:44.020And the church is just biblically dull and not prepared to speak out.
00:28:53.820Would you agree with that or could you add some stuff to that?
00:29:00.780Yeah, 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.
00:29:12.800I mean, you had, you know, within that big tent of Christendom, you had Catholics and Quakers as well.
00:29:18.260But everyone had a general respect for the Bible and for the virtues expressed in it and those applied to the civil government.
00:29:26.940And 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.
00:29:37.060They would have required some kind of a religious test to even hold office.
00:29:41.200um there's been you can trace kind of this secular slide that's happened over the course of the last
00:29:47.820250 years and we're to the point now where the church is kind of like um in a bunker they're
00:29:55.820uh true christians who actually take the bible seriously are the kooks now and they they're
00:30:01.960very sensitive to that i think uh they don't want to be thought of uh in a negative light but they
00:30:07.200know they are, and they're feeling more and more like they're kind of a minority. And even though
00:30:12.320maybe there's a general respect for the Bible, it's nothing like the way that people hundreds
00:30:19.820of years ago respected it. So today, I think Christians who are trying to grope for some1.00
00:30:26.200kind of irrelevance are using the social justice movement as that opportunity. Lincoln Duncan even0.94
00:30:32.100kind of said as much in that Shepard's Q&A when he talked about his grandchildren and how he wanted
00:30:37.460them to not be courted into the arms of the LGBTQ lobby. And the price he had to pay was to get woke0.89
00:30:47.840on race. If he got woke on the race issue, maybe they wouldn't go that far. So you can already see
00:30:53.840this calculation going in his mind. Please like me. Please like Christianity. And if you think
00:31:00.060that we're, you know, kind of, uh, hip and cool and with the revolution that's going to overturn
00:31:05.640society and create a utopia, maybe you'll like us. And so, um, I think Christians have forgotten0.99
00:31:11.180largely kind of, uh, like I said before, there's thousands of years of tradition and, uh, the
00:31:17.560scripture has been applied in many different contexts to, to the political realm, but Christians
00:31:21.920have largely forgotten about that. And I think you're right. They haven't had to think about it0.52
00:31:26.040deeply. Most of the people that got elected to the office claimed to be Christian or were trying
00:31:32.100in some way, or they pretended to try to apply some form of Christianity. And so it just wasn't
00:31:39.200something the church needed to get involved with. Everyone knew the Bible stories. Everyone had
00:31:43.600their basic virtues kind of formed in them when they were young in Sunday school and that kind
00:31:51.740of thing. So now we're to a point where the church is like, the leaders in the church are
00:31:57.480like, that's not true anymore. And we never, we kind of got lazy. We didn't, we haven't developed
00:32:04.840at least recently. I shouldn't say we haven't developed. We haven't recently applied. We're
00:32:10.420not used to applying the standards that we've been given to the current context. And so I'm
00:32:17.420encouraged uh there's a lot of people like yourself um who are we're actually doing that
00:32:23.220now and we're just bypassing the evangelicals who would rather um gain merit from the state and
00:32:31.620uh try to be liked by them uh we're concerned about being liked by god because he's the only
00:32:37.440one that we are required to please so right and and in god's merciful providence you know you said
00:32:43.740were bypassing some of the, you know, we could call them gatekeepers in the past with evangelicalism.
00:32:49.400In God's merciful providence, I think of 500 years ago with the Reformation, it's not just that,
00:32:54.420you know, God put a fire in Luther, you know, to stand up to Roman Catholicism in his day,
00:33:00.980but at the same time, providentially, there was also this little thing called the printing press,
00:33:06.200you know, and it's funny how God and his sovereignty sometimes couples reformation
00:33:09.660the church with innovation um in the culture and in technology and i and i think of how merciful it
00:33:16.580is um of the lord as the church is is is going a direction that you and i would have some some
00:33:23.940serious concerns about um but for the lord uh simultaneously um to with with the internet and
00:33:32.060social media and what we're doing right now with where you can just you can sit in a bedroom with
00:33:36.480your phone, you know, and be able to be heard by thousands of people. And I just think what
00:33:42.620merciful providence of the Lord at a time when the church is, you know, so like when Rome's
00:33:48.140ramping up indulgences, God not only, you know, puts conviction in the mind and heart of a reformer
00:33:55.300to stand against it, but he also provides the technical, technological, I should say, means in
00:34:01.920order to spread uh that that reformation and i and i see something similar occurring in in our
00:34:08.860day it's it's a it's a scary but also really exciting time to be a christian oh yeah there's
00:34:16.420a lot of you know negative things we could focus on but hey we get to live at a very important time
00:34:22.200in human history and we're going to be able hopefully if we you know aren't persecuted at
00:34:27.640point of dying or something, we'll be able to tell our kids and grandkids, you know, about
00:34:31.200when we stood and that kind of thing. So this isn't time to shirk away from battle. But one of
00:34:37.660the things and I don't know if you were going to get here. And if I'm going premature with this,
00:34:41.060you just let me know. But I think you wanted to talk about kind of the social justice gospel
00:34:48.880and that the whole social justice panoply and why it's heretical and some of the names of the
00:34:54.560false teachers. So I can, you know, if you want to probe any of these things, we can do that,
00:35:00.160but I'll just briefly, if you want to go through why I think it's a heresy or a false teaching
00:35:05.380is the word I usually use. So, um, so most of your listeners probably I'm guessing here would be,
00:35:12.360uh, have no problem saying prosperity gospel. Hey, that's, that's wrong. That's a false gospel.
00:35:17.760I want them to think though, for a moment about, you know, Joel Osteen for a minute, let's say
00:35:22.020Like 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.
00:35:30.880Think of yourself. If you didn't know anything more about Joel Osteen, you just heard that one message.
00:35:36.360What would you have done if you were sitting in the audience or if you you had the opportunity to talk to him?
00:35:41.420You probably would think you'd want to give him the benefit of the doubt at first.
00:35:45.460Well, 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.
00:36:05.400And I think all of us have tried to do that with the social justice movement.
00:36:10.260Most of us, I should say, who are trying to engage this.
00:36:13.020When we see someone say something off, we want to engage it.
00:36:17.160But over time, like you said at the beginning, there's been repetition.
00:36:35.400about the gospel. That's all, that's all Peter was doing. Paul said he was being unclear about
00:36:40.740the gospel. He was sitting in a place that his actions were saying, do you agree with these
00:36:47.000Judaizers? Cause that's what it looks like. And that's all it took for him to oppose him to his1.00
00:36:51.020face. And so there's nothing wrong with doing that. So that's, that's the first thing I just
00:36:56.600wanted to say is even if this, what I'm about to describe as a slight infraction, which I don't
00:37:00.940think it is. There is precedent for confronting that. So the issue with the social justice stuff,
00:37:08.120there's a few things, but number one, it's a different epistemology, meaning their idea of
00:37:12.480truth and how you find truth and what truth is. They believe that they're postmodernists. They
00:37:17.960have a version of usually standpoint epistemology where someone has a greater insight into reality
00:37:23.420because of their social location. So that would mean some external feature like their race
00:37:28.100or their gender or something like their sexual orientation, uh, they, they have access to truth
00:37:34.500that we don't have. That's just like Gnosticism. Um, and it's solely based on their identity.
00:37:39.840It's not based on, uh, what scripture says. Everyone has access to the Bible and to the truth
00:37:45.560approved workmen. You need not be ashamed. The Brians studied the scripture. Um, it's,
00:37:51.260it takes work. It takes, uh, digging a bit, but, um, it's not, no one's prohibited because of
00:37:57.040their social location from understanding scripture. You might have to learn a language,
00:38:01.380you know, that kind of thing. But it's not like there's a wall that they're going to hit and
00:38:05.860they just can't go past it because they're a white male or, you know, they're a black female
00:38:10.800or whatever the case may be. So that's number one. That destroys revelation. You can't have0.58
00:38:16.540a revelation that you can rely upon if standpoint epistemology is true. The second thing is the
00:38:23.440the metaphysic of social justice. So their theory of reality, social justicians kind of look at
00:38:29.220reality and they see one thing they see oppressors, they see oppressed, they have very firm
00:38:34.140designations for those classes. And all of reality becomes one thing. That's why racism is like on
00:38:39.340the McDonald's menu, right? It's everything's racist. You walk into a room, you know, like the0.97
00:38:44.560cops do look at the crime scene with the flashlight that they can show blood and it's like everything's
00:38:50.080blood. And that's just an inaccurate reading of reality itself and the creation God's given us.
00:38:56.840He's given us five senses. He's given us a mind that can think. And reality is made up of a lot
00:39:02.440more than just power or just oppression. There's a fuller spectrum that the Bible conveys to us
00:39:10.860about what reality actually is. So that's the second thing. Third thing is their ethics.
00:39:14.960their ethics are redistributive they're egalitarian um instead of uh distributive and um and hierarchical
00:39:25.000so scripture presents hierarchies god's even woven some of them into creation um when there's
00:39:31.260an unjust hierarchy there's a there's a way to deal with it and it's not revolution it's reformation
00:39:35.900and um primarily i will get more into that if we want but uh broad painting with broad strokes
00:39:42.320That's what scripture teaches. And then justice is blind. Justice, you don't treat someone
00:39:48.820differently just because of some external feature or how it will benefit you or they're your cousin
00:39:53.700or they're poor and you have compassion. You apply the law evenly. And so that's biblical
00:39:58.900justice. Social justice is you account for disparities. So you actually have to be racist
00:40:04.860or have to be sexist to apply it in the way they actually want to apply it. So those are some of
00:40:11.140The 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.
00:40:28.920And 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.
00:40:38.400So 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.
00:40:57.700They'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.
00:41:03.540I 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.
00:41:17.140There's some kind of a law that you have to follow and that's the gospel.
00:41:20.920And the gospel and the law are two separate categories.
00:41:23.420so um paul would enanthematize the social justice gospel and he would be calling out today russell
00:41:31.720moore david platt the bd anabwile tim keller uh the list goes on and on he would call them out
00:41:38.020and he would say this is false and the guys that like al moeller uh who um you know maybe there's
00:41:45.480actually some things i could argue that al moeller might be on more on their vein but best case
00:41:50.660scenario, someone like an Al Mohler, uh, would it be like a Peter who's like, you're being
00:41:55.240confusing here, man. You're being unclear about the gospel. Why are you eating with them? You
00:41:59.780know? So, um, that's really fair. A lot of guys with Mohler just real quick to interrupt, but
00:42:04.860yeah, please with Mohler. Cause, cause if you listen to the briefing, I mean, most of the
00:42:08.380briefing, I really agree. Although the one thing with the briefing is sometimes I'm like, Hey,
00:42:11.660you know, like I'm, I'm all for ending abortion, but, um, there's some other stories that I feel
00:42:16.860you're not hitting on purpose uh to stick to you know but so it's not even um what he says it's
00:42:22.860it's what what he chooses to talk about but anyways the point is when you think of southern
00:42:26.640seminary and you think of guys on staff and you think of books on the shelf you know and i've
00:42:30.380talked talked to guys uh seminary students and those kinds of things it's um i think michael
00:42:35.760falin described it as the mott and bailey could you could you explain that uh briefly are you
00:42:40.200familiar with the mott and bailey strategy of just did you hear did you hear michael talk about
00:42:44.940that yeah yeah well um i'm not sure who came up with that originally i think james lindsey told
00:42:50.960me about it a few years ago uh and he so it's just like a trojan horse that's that's the analogy i
00:42:56.300usually use but the mott and bailey is like uh the mott is in a field and that's where people
00:43:01.740it's like you go into the tower and you defend yourself and then the bailey is you come out i0.92
00:43:06.380guess and so um they all right so like a term like black lives matter would be a mott and bailey type
00:43:13.920term where of course like does anyone disagree with that right black lives matter everyone agrees
00:43:19.040with black lives matter and so but the but what they're smuggling into it um when you're not
00:43:25.760looking when you're not paying attention is okay now you have to listen to black voices and do0.84
00:43:30.900whatever they say and it's only these approved voices who by the way are socialists and they're0.88
00:43:35.320going to tell you how to redistribute your platforms and your income and your influence
00:43:38.320and all that so like that that that somehow that's what black lives matter is and you're like
00:43:43.700wait a minute, hold on. Like, I just think they have intrinsic work. And so that's often how the
00:43:50.060social justice movement progresses by these very simple, obvious truths that no one disagrees with.
00:43:55.580But then they smuggle into them all these other terms and assumptions. And then they vilify you
00:44:03.240if you disagree with any of those assumptions. And they say, well, you clearly then don't believe
00:44:07.320Black Lives Matter if you're not willing to give up all your income or something.
00:44:10.560so um so the mot the mot is like the fortress the bailey is like where all the serfs are and all
00:44:17.480your agriculture and crops and the village and so so basically the bailey is like we're advancing
00:44:23.440we're taking ground we're we're we have an agenda a very progressive aggressive agenda and and we're
00:44:30.680pushing this and we're pushing that we're talking about reparations you know but then the mot is
00:44:34.400like your your fortress where whenever you're being countered with an argument um the mot is
00:44:40.660the more easily defensible portion of of your your position and so it's like you're out there
00:44:46.400on the bailey you know boom expanding expanding expanding going for reparations going for critical
00:44:51.740race theory going for this going for that and then and then somebody calls you on it and we see this
00:44:56.980within evangelicalism and and michael falman at least said that moeller might may be an example
00:45:01.680of it. That's not fair. If Michael O'Fallon was listening to this, he would say, no, he is an
00:45:06.280example of it. But the point is, to be fair to Michael O'Fallon, he would say he is an example
00:45:10.080of it. But the point is that, you know, you press somebody like Mulder and then boom, they can go
00:45:16.400back and retreat exactly what you're saying, John, into the easily defensible Mott, the strong tower0.98
00:45:22.160and say, look, all I'm saying is that black lives matter. Are you going to disagree with that, Harris?0.63
00:45:26.560well i'll show you what i'll share a personal story with you about danny aiken uh i had a 45
00:45:32.780minute phone call with him about a year and a half maybe two years ago now i don't remember now but
00:45:37.140it was it was a little while ago but it was all about southeastern which is where i graduated
00:45:41.500from and um and he did this throughout the entire conversation basically it's like all right dr
00:45:47.740aiken you have a professor there matthew mullins he said that if you are white you should not adopt
00:45:54.580a a black child because you won't be able to give them the life that they they should deserve and
00:46:00.400that they need and there's there's a lot of assumptions behind this and you know i i don't
00:46:04.800and and and then what what he did was well you know uh we just we just believe in diversity
00:46:13.060here at southeastern we just believe that people should be uh accepted and included and that and
00:46:19.060that's the kind of thing throughout the conversation i kept running into is i cite a specific example
00:46:24.080of something. Okay. You know, Walter Strickland said this, he conflated the law in the gospel
00:46:30.340and was a social justice version of the law. That's liberation theology. Well, what he was
00:46:35.140really trying to say is that we just need a world where, you know, that, that, that kind of thing.
00:46:41.620And so that's the Martin Bailey, where it's like, you never can quite, you can't pin jello to the
00:46:46.580wall. You can never quite understand, or they'll never, they'll never give you the right to think
00:46:50.860that you've understood them, they'll always say, what we're really trying to do is something that
00:46:54.860everyone already agrees on. We just want to fight racism here. We just don't want women to be
00:46:59.720oppressed. It's like, yeah, but you said something that you're saying that women should be preachers.
00:47:05.320No, we just don't want them to be oppressed. And then what happens is for any onlooker,
00:47:10.600so for any third party, right? So they do something that's on the Bailey. It's aggressive.
00:47:16.240it's it's crt it's reparations it's neo-marxism i mean it's it's socialism it's communism it's
00:47:22.460it's way out there it's clearly against god's word you call them on it right so then you're
00:47:26.900conservative christians with a spine the biblical biblical justicians we call them on it and then
00:47:34.480boom they they retreat back to the mot and say look all we're saying is it da da da da da some
00:47:40.900simple cliche thing that everyone and that's just that's just you and them but there's this third
00:47:46.400party watching and what it looks like to the third party is we're being we're being harsh
00:47:51.680right isn't that isn't that the play again and again and again well okay but john your tone though
00:47:58.580you know or you know and it's just in that 11th commandment is the 11th commandment is strong
00:48:04.660with you young padawan you know like it's just like this thou shalt be nice um and and all of
00:48:10.120sudden it's more important the bible does care about what we say right we want to rebuke i think
00:48:14.780of paul's admonition you know rebuke your opponents with gentleness not knowing if god might grant to
00:48:19.060them repentance um that they may that they may turn um and we always forget the last part where
00:48:24.360it says after having been taken captive by satan to do his will right so they've been like so our
00:48:30.660battle's not against flesh and blood however it's against principalities however the one who we are
00:48:35.780battling with does take flesh and blood captive to do his will. So that doesn't mean we pick up a
00:48:42.020sword and we slice down flesh and blood, but we do pick up a sword, a double-edged sword, sharper
00:48:46.860than a double-edged sword, the word of God, and we demolish strongholds and vain philosophy and
00:48:52.600every empty lofty opinion that sets itself over Christ. And it's not, I mean, that imagery is not
00:49:00.000a sugar and spice everything nice you know Mr. Rogers imagery it's it it is a it's warfare and
00:49:08.680and it's supposed to be warfare and and and so and I I can't help but think I really think that
00:49:14.360part of it see this is what I think give it five years right if things continue to go the way they
00:49:20.460are in the church and and in our nation in five years I think a lot of guys who called people
00:49:26.020like you, John, and me, and Votie Bauckham, you know, and Michael O'Fallon, these kinds of guys,
00:49:31.420a lot of the Christians who genuinely are, we don't know, we don't have election goggles,
00:49:35.800but let's say five years from now, let's just say they truly were regenerate. I think a lot
00:49:39.700of those guys who were calling us harsh today and a couple of years ago, in five years, if God
00:49:44.660doesn't send serious reformation to our nation and to the evangelical church, in five years,
00:49:51.060i think they'll be saying the same things um and and so my point is the difference is it's not that
00:49:56.700objectively what we're saying or even how we're saying it is objectively harsh by biblical
00:50:03.760categories the reason why it's perceived as harsh is because we have the majority of christians in
00:50:09.200the church today who don't realize we're at war so so when when you shoot when the enemy is storming
00:50:15.480the camp and you pick up your rifle and you see them right like like like elijah's servant you
00:50:21.120know um or elisha's servant and you see just this just multitudes and they're storming the camp and
00:50:27.980and you scramble and grab your gun and pick it up and and boom you pop one in the head
00:50:32.520you will immediately be indicted and accused of being harsh if if the three comrades that you're
00:50:41.460sitting with having a picnic with if they're so blind and so deaf that they they that they have
00:50:46.920no awareness whatsoever that the camp is being stormed they're like dude we're out here having
00:50:52.320a picnic you just picked up a gun and popped off around what are you like oh that's excellent
00:50:58.420you're harsh you're you're you're immature there's still a lot of youthful angst and zeal in you that
00:51:05.120needs to get worked out you know with maturity over time maybe maybe you're not ready to be a
00:51:10.240pastor maybe like and that's what you hear and that's what you hear and that's what and i like
00:51:13.560that illustration because i think it rings true i think that it's not that in clear objective
00:51:17.500categories we are missing the fruit of the spirit that is gentleness or we are actually engaging in
00:51:22.680harsh rhetoric that would be a sinful harshness um it's it's that we are using biblically
00:51:28.720permissible language so it's not just what we're saying is true theologically i believe in many
00:51:33.700cases, even how we're saying it does fit biblical qualifications for the fruit of the spirit, for
00:51:40.920godly character, not just in what we say, our content, but in how we say it, our tone. And yet
00:51:47.260it's being condemned again and again and again, because number one, the content they have no
00:51:52.900refutation for, because it's true. And so it's easier to condemn the man than the message when
00:51:58.660the message is true and and then in terms of the man i think one of the reasons the man is being
00:52:03.680written off in terms of well it's not what you said it's how you said it it's your tone
00:52:07.040is because not because he's objectively doing something sinful but because we we are we're
00:52:13.960we're watchmen on the wall saying that the enemy is at the gate and the whole town is having a
00:52:20.120picnic and don't want to be interrupted and none of them can see the flames that's excellent
00:52:37.140And 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.
00:53:03.260And they're going to try to sue the federal government, essentially, because of the directives
00:53:10.580coming down from the Biden administration on gender rules and that kind of thing that
00:53:16.400they just they can't have their statement of faith and abide by those rules, especially
00:53:21.060when it comes to dorms and those kinds of things.
00:53:23.600I know publicly now there's there. I can't remember the name of it. There's a Bible college.
00:53:28.820I was just looking at it. Ozark Bible College or Bible College of the Ozark, something like that, I think.
00:53:34.220But 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.
00:53:46.040And 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
00:53:58.920And there was light at the end of the tunnel. And that's just not the case.0.94
00:54:03.100You'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
00:54:12.500right? One of the things I think, and we're seeing this with COVID as well, and we're seeing
00:54:19.820this in a whole bunch of categories, actually, if you think about it, is this kind of blind trust
00:54:24.880of authority. No matter how many times egalitarians who hate hierarchy say they want to rip down
00:54:31.620hierarchy and they hate hierarchy, hierarchy is inescapable. And even if it's unspoken, there
00:54:36.740will always be a pecking order. There will always be a hierarchy of some kind. So right now we see
00:54:41.400with this kind of uh the tyranny of the lab coats you have a lab coat and the government's
00:54:46.460authorization then you're you're basically you have authority that is approaching divinity you're
00:54:52.620infallible you have pure as the driven snow goodness i mean you have all and you're unelected
00:54:59.200you're yeah dr fauci you're talking about an unelected official who's made it through what
00:55:03.100five i think five presidencies and you're talking about like a 40 year reign without ever having
00:55:10.480been elected i mean that's that's way more power than the president you see that this my point is
00:55:15.880you see the same thing though in the church you see that we we can say all day like we believe in
00:55:20.740the autonomy of the local church if we're baptists we believe um if you're presbyterian you believe
00:55:25.520in the presbytery but in in either case there's something else going on and i've seen this
00:55:30.740almost across the board there's there's a model that's not being talked about because it's not
00:55:36.960really defined, but there's kind of like this celebrity pastor kind of technical, I don't know
00:55:42.900what you even, how to even describe it, but there's people in positions of authority and it's,
00:55:48.760it's very disrespectful in many people's minds to say anything bad about, you know, J.D. Greer or
00:55:54.620David Platt or any of these guys, but they're not my pastor. They're not, you know, what,
00:56:00.380what authority do they actually have? Well, all they are is they have a local church and they're
00:56:06.060a pastor there and so there's no reason that they can't be challenged but there's an unspoken kind
00:56:12.520of like well they're the experts because clearly why because they have a good social media presence
00:56:17.140because that's what i'm saying that's what i was saying earlier about the gatekeepers i think there
00:56:21.480have been gatekeepers for a while now and i don't know how exactly what you're saying i i i don't
00:56:26.400have a whole lot of answers because i i don't i also don't know how how they got elected how they
00:56:30.280God, how this oligarchy within evangelicalism was formed. But what you're saying is it's real,
00:56:36.180it exists. And it's kind of, you know, like that touch not the Lord's anointed, like what we would,
00:56:40.640you know, what the, what the prosperity guys would say, you know, now, I mean, obviously it's,
00:56:44.800it's a little bit different to be fair, but, you know, but, but it's, it's this anointed oligarchy
00:56:49.660that can't, that cannot be challenged. And if, and if it is, then immediately the scrutiny is on
00:56:55.680the challenger um and and their and their tone and their character and you know you weren't gentle
00:57:01.400you were harsh and those kinds of things and and um and a blind eye is turned to like but what if
00:57:07.220what he said is true should i actually investigate this no that you know and and so that's certainly
00:57:12.220the thing and i think one of the things that makes me hopeful is that i think that that's
00:57:17.620being broken up i in the sense that i think that all of a sudden um people just a lot of christians
00:57:25.320I think, are waking up because of what's happening in our nation. This last year and a half
00:57:28.780has been horrible and amazing at the same time, in God's mercy, because that's what discipline is.
00:57:36.600Discipline is not pleasant for the time, but it is amazing because of what it produces. And I think
00:57:43.600the Lord has been disciplining his church and judging the nation. And so in that, there's
00:57:50.800already been a lot of blessings. And I think one of them is that Americans in general and
00:57:56.040Christians in particular are all of a sudden questioning authority in a good way, in a good
00:58:02.980way. And so I think that all of a sudden people are willing to actually... Well, just, and I agree0.99
00:58:10.620with what you said, but I would want to phrase it probably this way. It's not so much that they're
00:58:16.220questioning authority itself and i know you're not saying that uh they want we want authority
00:58:22.240we want but we want proper authority we don't want this fake artificial hierarchy that um
00:58:31.060it has been set up by people that have an interest in it but they're not they don't actually
00:58:36.960represent or help the people that they're supposed to represent and help and um there's kind of like
00:58:42.460people are waking up and like, wait a minute, I don't have to listen to him. Right. Um, if you're
00:58:46.420in the Southern Baptist convention, right. Ed Litton is the president, right. He's a pastor of
00:58:49.880a church. Well, look, uh, Doug Wilson's a pastor of the church. James White's a pastor of the
00:58:54.880church. Uh, JD hall is a pastor of a church. They're all pastors of churches, but there's
00:59:00.720sort of a, a sense in which people will treat, um, or it's popular is approved by the gatekeepers
00:59:07.880to treat certain pastors with disdain and you can say all manner of disrespectful things against
00:59:13.280them online or wherever and that's fine there's nothing wrong with it because they're the divisive
00:59:19.200ones they've convinced themselves that that's their justification but don't touch someone like
00:59:24.360you said don't touch the lord's anointed don't talk about edlinson don't talk about uh the guys
00:59:28.380who are in favor of the revolution that's an artificial hierarchy there's there's no reason
00:59:34.300they should receive preference or favorability just because of their political position or what
00:59:40.480they believe about politics. John, real quick address, because I've heard you on this before
00:59:45.020and it's fantastic. So for a moment there, you said they're the divisive ones. What does Paul,
00:59:51.640the apostle Paul, what does he say about which party is responsible, morally responsible for
00:59:57.120division do you know what i'm hinting at yeah yeah but like my point is that my point is somebody
01:00:04.740can come into the church and introduce different doctrines and they can do it kindly they usually
01:00:11.460do that's that's usually why they're successful is they do it kindly with a smooth tone and they
01:00:16.700lend you know they lead uh weak-willed women astray and is what the scripture and then someone
01:00:23.040opposes them and usually the one who opposes them with fidelity and faithfulness is is the one who
01:00:29.540uses strong language but the apostle paul is very clear that the one who is opposing with strong
01:00:35.400language is not the the divisive party the the party that's that's morally culpable for division
01:00:41.380is the party it doesn't matter their tones irrelevant it's the party that introduced
01:00:46.940the false teaching that's the divisive party right you think of even what first corinthians
01:00:53.260uh i think so i can't remember the text yeah yeah well early on in first corinthians i i want to say
01:01:00.160like in the first like four chapters chapter two or three but um it's it's the portion where0.97
01:01:06.000they're talking about where paul's addressing you you've tolerated a sin that the gentiles0.55
01:01:10.920won't even tolerate and they're like you know that's that's like our badge of honor that's like0.93
01:01:17.420look how great we are yeah five thank you yeah um they uh they they were wearing this as like a
01:01:25.460badge of honor like this is something that they're that's so it's great about them they're not going
01:01:30.200to confront this and paul's like uh hold on like you're tolerating this way too much and you need
01:01:36.320to be confronting these kinds of things there is a place for that we're supposed to admonish the
01:01:40.860unruly um encourage the faint-hearted help the weak so we got to like do some triage we got to0.99
01:01:46.720figure out okay who's unruly who's faint-hearted who's weak but um if you were a jerk right if you0.93
01:01:51.840went up to someone who was weak and you started admonishing them um that wouldn't be appropriate0.97
01:01:57.500and that there would be some maybe in that scenario you could say hey you're being too harsh
01:02:02.640but if you're yes just someone who's unruly being harsh that's exactly what you're called to do and
01:02:10.220Paul used very strong language at times.
01:02:12.080He called, he basically said in Galatians,1.00
01:12:25.740That's, that's, that's what it, that's part of what it entails.
01:12:29.220And, 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.
01:12:53.260So that's the gospel, but the law is important.
01:12:55.960So we're not saved by our attempts to be like Jesus.
01:12:58.820We're saved by Jesus living and dying in our place and our faith by grace through faith in Christ alone.
01:13:09.380Now, that said, 1 John 4, 19, that we love because he first loved us.
01:13:17.600And so it's God loved us in Christ, in the beloved.
01:13:20.300he awakens our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit in regeneration to that love and we
01:13:28.420cannot help but love God in return and then in that love the first question the Christian asks
01:13:34.000is all right I have now been awakened to God's love for me in Christ Jesus I am responding with
01:13:40.860a love for him God I want to love you with everything I have what can I do that would be
01:13:45.880gratitude um in not not to earn your favor but in gratitude for the free favor i've received by
01:13:51.940grace alone through faith alone in christ alone and jesus says if you love me you'll obey me right
01:13:57.540you'll you'll obey me and and and i so so all that being said then okay you know how do i obey jesus
01:14:04.640and what do i obey well love love god and love your neighbor and then well how how what does it
01:14:09.280mean to love my neighbor you know and because a lot of people think what it means to love your
01:14:12.160neighbor is to put mask on your kids and and everybody get the jab and you know and and we
01:14:17.260ruined the entire nation and our economy and livelihoods and suicide has gone up and chronic
01:14:22.140depression all this kind of stuff in the name of loving our our our neighbor um so so we need to
01:14:28.220look to the law of god of because god defines how we love our neighbor and god defines how we love
01:14:32.840him you know the even like the regular principle of worship worshiping in spirit and in truth um
01:14:38.720on the Lord's day. We don't get to just do church any way we want to do church. God has
01:14:42.720things to say. God has guardrails on how we obey him, how we love God, and how we love people.
01:14:49.040We don't get to decide how to love God and love people. So all that being said, we want to imitate
01:14:53.160Christ. So it's the law of God, but Jesus models the law. He fulfilled the law. And so we're looking
01:14:58.200at Christ. We want to model him, imitate him. And I think one of the big issues is that everyone's
01:15:03.520down to try to imitate Christ in his love. Everyone's down to try to imitate Christ in
01:15:08.920his humility, right? When he's taking off his outer garment and wrapping a towel around his
01:15:14.360waist and washing the feet of his disciples. These are the kinds of things we want to imitate.0.84
01:15:19.420What we don't want to imitate is Christ's polemic. We don't want to imitate his discourse with the
01:15:26.760Pharisees. We don't want to imitate him's whitewashed tombs. You know, we don't want to0.80
01:15:34.100imitate that. And so my point is, every single Christian, we're saying, be like Jesus. And when
01:15:41.560I fail, and I fail all the time, but when I fail to be like Christ in my attempts, for instance,
01:15:48.320to love my wife, there's a lot in the church at large, there's a lot of grace for that.
01:15:54.740there just is you know uh there's more understanding there's more more grace more mercy
01:16:00.740um so long as i'm repentant i want to get better i want to love my wife as christ loved the church
01:16:07.100or in in in parenting my children you know when i fail so when we fail to imitate christ in love
01:16:13.540there's grace when anyone fails to imitate christ or we might add if when someone succeeds
01:16:19.740imitating christ in his boldness in his confrontation in his polemic there's no grace
01:16:26.240at all and so and so i think like even donald trump as an example not saying the dudes are
01:16:31.340christian or anything like that um what i am saying though is um i miss him in in the oval
01:16:38.060office my goodness you know so um you know but my my point is you know i'm i'm going for ron
01:16:45.120DeSantis we'll see but but I you know Trump um I'm not saying he did it right I'm not saying I
01:16:51.040would defend him or endorse him you know as as a as an elder in a church or anything like that or
01:16:56.820but I I think just people looked at Trump and they saw his Twitter account right and and all
01:17:02.660these kinds of and it's just and and they just blasted him and blasted him and blasted him and
01:17:07.520I think that that's what's in in people's minds of like what you were saying John about being a
01:17:12.940man and the old westerns and that kind of image i really think that there's just anyone who
01:17:17.980attempts what i'm trying to say is trump i think at least tried to be a man and i think in a lot
01:17:22.300of ways in terms of his policies he succeeded in his rhetoric i think a lot of times he went too
01:17:26.840far and he he you know but my point at least he stood up and one of the most iconic things he said
01:17:31.540is that they don't hate me they hate you and i'm just standing in the way and i think that was true
01:17:35.540and and um and and so we look at that and i think a lot of evangelicals look at trump they look at
01:17:40.900the backlash, the bad press. And they think that's what happens when someone tries to
01:17:46.400stand up. That's what happens when someone tries to be a man. And so nobody even wants
01:17:50.780to try. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah. You're not rewarded for it in the eyes of
01:17:58.320the media elites. So you wouldn't do it for self-interest, but that's part of what being
01:18:06.360a man truly is. You have responsibilities outside yourself and you fit into a hierarchy,
01:18:13.140whether if you're a husband, you have responsibilities over your children and over0.92
01:18:17.440your wife to protect them, to love them, to nurture them, not in the way that a wife would
01:18:24.300nurture, but in providing, in encouraging. If you're a leader in a church, then the same
01:18:33.320at what would apply to the church. If you're a leader in government, the same that would apply
01:18:37.120to your constituents. But even if you're just someone in a community, we're not born blank
01:18:44.440slates without any attachments. We have attachments and obligations as we just grow up
01:18:50.720in a community of people. And men take that seriously, real men. They want to do their best
01:18:58.240for that. And I think in some ways, a knowledge of the divine, of knowing that you're going to
01:19:06.740be judged for this, probably helps foster some of that. But just having good role models and
01:19:15.020examples, Paul even said, basically, follow me as I follow Christ. And so it's good to have
01:19:21.760some good role models. And today, we don't have a lot of that. So there aren't men being held up
01:19:27.940as positive examples of this only negative examples if anyone ever tries to be a man
01:19:33.320they're made fun of all the sitcoms make fun of them so um so what we do need and i'm starting
01:19:41.560to see this a little bit at least in some quarters of christianity is uh good examples and there's
01:19:47.620plenty of them out there but uh christian manhood illustrated by people who um do have uh do take
01:19:56.960their responsibilities seriously, uh, and, and can exude, uh, that kind of, um, whatever that
01:20:04.560thing is that people want to follow, you know? Yeah. Right. And so, um, I, I am starting to see
01:20:12.820that. Uh, and I, and there's a lot of young men right now. Um, I think the Jordan Peterson kind
01:20:17.220of phenomenon showed this a lot more, but there are some smaller figures now in Christianity,
01:20:23.280I think that are starting to kind of have the same effect on a mini scale, but someone who is
01:20:29.200willing to buck the system because they loved others, because they cared about truth. That's
01:20:34.540infectious. That's young men without fathers who have come from broken households who have moved,0.99
01:20:40.160you know, three times and, you know, don't have a sense of place. They're looking for that
01:20:44.920stability somewhere. And this is the golden opportunity for Christians who, I mean, look,
01:20:50.840we got the man's man of all time, Jesus Christ. I mean, look, that guy went to the cross and was
01:20:58.260punished in a ways and had more pain inflicted on him than anyone else ever in human history
01:21:05.780and emotional and physical. And yet he endured it for the joy set before him and to please his
01:21:13.320father and to redeem a people. He accomplished something. And and that's what men wanted.
01:21:20.060He could have avoided it in that vein, in that masculine vein.
01:21:25.560So you're right, at great cost of himself, to the benefit of others.
01:21:30.160But also, for which of these works, right?
01:21:34.380His miracles, healing people, for which of these works are you seeking to kill me?
01:22:46.360That's what hung him on the cross, right?
01:22:48.160He got nailed to the cross because of his speech and because he was calling out sin.
01:22:58.420He was calling out the cultural norms, all these kinds of things that were flying in the face.0.64
01:23:02.640Well, 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
01:23:09.240And it'd be better if a millstone was hung around your neck.0.62
01:23:12.340And I mean, he said some things that go way past a lot of the things Trump said as far as harshness.
01:23:21.140And and yeah, I mean, he made bitter enemies because of it.
01:23:24.020But 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.
01:23:31.640I mean, he was gentle. I mean, he said, my burden is light.
01:23:35.400Um, my yoke is easy. So, you know, in Jesus, we, we have this figure that wants to defend the weak
01:23:43.580and then wants to, uh, take on the bad guys, really, um, expose them for who they are.
01:23:51.400And throughout, um, in our context, but Western history is filled with these examples. We see
01:23:58.640this template repeated over and over imperfectly, uh, in people like George Washington and, um,
01:24:05.060like I referenced those old cowboy movies and stuff. That's, that's kind of like they're,
01:24:09.000they're trying to reach for something. They're trying to copy something, a template that's
01:24:12.540already been laid down. And that template is what's been destroyed. And that's, that's a
01:24:17.940forbidden template. You're not supposed to be like that if you're a man. And I think here's
01:24:22.640the takeaway in my mind, this is like the big lesson here to wrap sort of like everything
01:24:26.420we're talking about up. But if you are a leader in a church or, and what, no matter how big your
01:24:32.080platform is if you want to let the bad guys get away with what they're getting away with maybe
01:24:38.020you'll even help them a little you know you give them a little bit of a a boost by uh sort of
01:24:44.640strapping christianity to their agenda or something um you'll have an easy life possibly i mean you
01:24:50.580take that gamble a little bit they could turn on you but you have a better chance of having an easy
01:24:54.680life and people won't have a problem with you as much and you'll be able to get through life
01:24:59.920Maybe you'll have a little more material prosperity.
01:25:22.320And you have an easy life, but you're a coward.1.00
01:25:24.080and you're going to be servicing a church for other cowards who also are interested in the1.00
01:25:29.200same thing. They want their ears tickled. But if you are willing to take a stand to call out the0.97
01:25:33.980names of people who are wrecking men's souls, um, and, and then physically even perhaps damaging
01:25:41.020people and communities, um, it's not going to be easy for you, but you can put your head on your
01:25:46.180pillow at night. You can have the pleasure of the Lord. You can actually know a joy that's even
01:25:50.760deeper and um and you'll have actual respect because you're because you're worthy of it
01:25:56.920because um i mean not i don't want to say anyone's worthy of anything but you're but you've actually
01:26:01.060earned it no you're right yeah you've earned it yeah we're all we're all worthy of hell but no
01:26:06.360trust trust and respect is earned and that doesn't mean that you know that we can earn um salvation
01:26:13.500but no in in in a horizontal human sense like love so forgiveness we we forgive freely because
01:26:19.960we've been freely forgiven you know and forgiveness i think it likens to love so i i can love my
01:26:25.100enemies and pray for those who persecute me but trust is a different category and i think
01:26:30.000forgiveness falls underneath the love banner and and respect i think falls underneath the trust
01:26:34.760banner and the bible agreed yep by the bible's mere mere commandment merely by the bible's
01:26:41.140commandment for us to be discerning that right there by way of implication tells us that the
01:26:46.500christian worldview says that trust is not assumed right if trust is assumed then there's no basis
01:26:52.360of discernment and so so trust therefore must be earned over time by action and word and and
01:26:58.820faithfulness and those kinds of things and so absolutely like we we earn trust and uh and and
01:27:05.140by proxy we earn respect and yeah man i like michael scott on the office i want people to be
01:27:12.840afraid of how much they love me. I want people to respect me. I don't want to just be loved or
01:27:19.880liked. And I think that's what, it's not even true love. What guys are settling for right now
01:27:24.560is not even the love of their parishioners or their congregants. They're settling for just
01:27:27.940their approval. It's not love. It's just being liked. I don't want to be liked. I want to be
01:27:34.320loved and I want to be respected more than even being loved. I want to be respected because I'm
01:27:39.860a man. Respect matters more to me than even love. And just, I think, the way that God's designed
01:27:45.520men. And so everything you're saying is great. Let's go ahead and wrap up. So we named a lot
01:27:51.080of guys. We named Matt Chandler. You talked about Tim Keller. And we talked about Eric Mason and
01:27:55.760Russell Moore. And we named a lot of guys. Let's end the episode with you just giving me
01:28:01.600name and reason as briefly as you can. Who are the two guys in evangelicalism that you're the
01:28:09.300most concerned about two guys name them yeah if you could just maybe give me two two guys okay
01:28:15.180yeah that's hard because i feel like every week it's like a new guy that i'm like okay that's
01:28:20.800that'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
01:28:27.840actually went back um and listened to the 2018 lecture at t4g by david platt because i i hadn't
01:28:36.720really focused on him a lot, but with the current issues at McLean, I wanted to just kind of review
01:28:41.480some of his stuff. And I would say, yeah, he, he's definitely, I mean, he basically links,
01:28:50.100the easiest way for me to put this is in that particular speech, and this has gotten worse
01:28:55.680than other things he said, but he accuses people, he accuses the church, he accuses everyone in the
01:29:01.700room, uh, at the conference of sin and grave sin. I mean, they need to repent. They're in danger of
01:29:09.180the judgment of God because there's disparities between black and white and they don't do it.0.99
01:29:15.800They don't do enough about it. That is not just a different take on sin or a different, like,0.99
01:29:22.200you know, category, I'm going to categorize this as sin when it's not, that's like a different
01:29:26.820concept of sin. You can passively be guilty of things that previous generations might have done
01:29:34.780or things that you really are not even tangentially related to, the things that are outside
01:29:41.340your purview. You may not be in sin at all, but you are because of the world and the environment
01:29:48.240that you inhabit. And this is pure Marxism, pure social justice stuff. But it actually tampers
01:29:56.740with an understanding of sin itself when you do that. And, um, when you, when you tamper with sin
01:30:03.420and what sin actually is, you, you start tampering with the gospel. So, um, what, what, what is the
01:30:10.300good news actually? Uh, you know, what, um, you're, you're going to constantly be guilty. There's no
01:30:18.340way to really repent of it. There's no way to get out of it. You're going to be on the hamster
01:30:21.500wheel forever. There's really no flight at the end of the tunnel of forgiveness in that paradigm.
01:30:26.740So 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
01:30:56.720Andy today. It's our obligation to give the poor as much as we can possibly give them. And it's
01:31:04.500all based on need. It's if because someone's poor, we have an obligation to give them as much as we
01:31:10.460can possibly give away. Now that may sound really good, but if you start to apply that, if you call
01:31:15.660that justice and say, that's what justice is, and you conflate charity with justice, which is what
01:31:20.020he's doing, then you get into this weird position where, okay, justice is also a concept that
01:31:26.720you know, apply that to the gospel. Everyone needs forgiveness. God doesn't forgive everyone.
01:31:30.840So is God now unjust? So it gives you into these weird spots. And so Tim Keller is another guy
01:31:37.200I think of as like a big threat. I'll give you just two more because I know we've got to wrap
01:31:42.880up, but these are Southern Baptist guys and they're smaller names, Jarvis Williams and
01:31:47.660Walter Strickland. So I've done a lot of work on them. Jarvis Williams has integrated critical
01:31:53.640race theory and Christianity more than anyone else I know. And the main issue with that is he
01:31:58.840comes up with a Galatian type heresy at the end of the day. The gospel is about racial reconciliation
01:32:02.980and racial reconciliation means that you have to platform these voices. You have to accept these
01:32:09.380narratives. You have to teach history a certain way. It's very specific. It's like, it's pretty
01:32:14.040long. But he makes that part of the gospel, that that's what Paul's talking about in Ephesians
01:32:22.800and in Galatians. What he's trying to do is break down that dividing wall of ethnicity
01:32:29.540and bring Jews and Gentiles together. But he then reads into that critical race theory.
01:32:35.800So dangerous guy. That's not what that's talking about. And then Walter Strickland is pushing
01:32:42.380liberation theology. He's one of the easiest in my mind because there's several times that he
01:32:48.080actually conflates the law with the gospel. And he literally adds works to the gospel.
01:32:53.980And we'll say things like, like there's one quote where he even says that the gospel is loving the
01:32:58.980Lord with loving the Lord or loving God and loving your neighbor is the gospel. It's like,
01:33:05.780that's the law, man. That's what condemns you. But then his, his version of love is liberation
01:33:09.800theology. So those are the four guys. So I'll give you a bonus too, but guys I'm concerned about
01:33:15.540guys who in different ways, uh, are, um, promoting ideas that either, if you think through them
01:33:24.140logically, they destroy the gospel or, um, they do directly actually, uh, tamper with the gospel.
01:33:31.140Yeah, I completely agree. That's super helpful. I'm going to throw on one, one myself right here1.00
01:33:36.760at 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
01:33:41.160saying this, I remember being in the conference. It was about four or five years ago. There was a
01:33:46.440panel. It was Eric Mason, Leonce Crump. Who else? Eric Mason, Leonce Crump, Brandon Washington,
01:33:55.580and Thabiti. Thabiti was the main plenary speaker for this conference. And so Thabiti was there,
01:34:01.060and there was one other guy, I forget his name, but it was five black guys who were either on
01:34:05.920the board or leaders in the X29 network, or like Thabiti were a guest speaker for that particular
01:34:10.640conference and matt chandler was the moderator and we were once again having a conversation
01:34:15.640about race except of course like all conversations about race it was all minorities right black voices0.98
01:34:23.000being elevated getting to talk no white person gets to talk you just shut up and believe right0.99
01:34:28.020you just shut up you listen no cross-examination no questions you just believe and it's all none0.98
01:34:32.540of its factual number it's um substance or or or statistics right if you ask for statistics then0.97
01:34:38.720you're being oppressive you know um but it's all it's story it has to be story um because that's
01:34:44.440the only thing that'll work and so it's just this manipulative emotionally manipulative play of just
01:34:48.560story after story from these men about how you know when i get pulled over by a police officer
01:34:54.540you know right they check the trunk of the car you know or and i'm not even saying that those
01:34:58.680things didn't happen but what i'm saying is that doesn't prove anything that you know like i because
01:35:03.780we can we can find five white guys in the room who can get up you know and so um and okay an
01:35:11.160individual police officer maybe it was racial first we don't even know it's racial second even
01:35:15.120if it is racial that doesn't say that it's systematic so anyways you you get it so that's
01:35:20.920going on and then at the end i remember chandler he says this he says um and he's just listening
01:35:26.480asking questions and it's just kind of like this layup and it was right after some some shooting
01:35:30.040happened i can't remember which shooting it was but um probably like like several of the shootings
01:35:36.320one that eventually you know after hindsight was proven that it was justified on the police
01:35:41.460officers you know like michael brown you know something like that but but i remember eric
01:35:45.980mason saying i'm so angry i can't he was like i don't even know where i am right now i'm dizzy
01:35:49.620you know i can't even see and i remember being like i remember being angry i was angry because
01:35:55.460it was like this was two days after a shooting took place you and i neither one of us know
01:35:59.640if it was actually unjust if what the police officer did was actually unjust you don't know
01:36:05.840and and in your presumption in your arrogance you're you're sitting up there and and saying
01:36:10.780i'm so angry right now and as all five of these men continue to give story after story
01:36:15.060all these the women because it's pastors and wives conference all these white women white
01:36:19.940pastors wives are crying and you can just see the shame and the guilt for this sin that none of them
01:36:24.840had committed right maybe a couple of them um and then at the end it's like that like the audacity
01:36:30.320the cherry on top Chandler asked okay so what can we do um to fix it like what are some and I
01:36:37.000remember he said what are some books that we could read and I remember Leon's Crump he responded by0.99
01:36:40.760saying you see this is is this is the problem this is what we call the the numinous negro and he said1.00
01:36:48.080you know did you ever watch the green mile with Tom Hanks you know it's always you know even in0.82
01:36:52.100the movies there's always some magical negro who fixes the white man's problems you got a an iphone0.77
01:36:57.400you can google you find out what books to read uh that you know and and i i wasn't this was too
01:37:03.760again four or five years ago five or six years ago actually and so i wasn't well versed in this but i
01:37:09.800didn't realize what what he was actually and then he proceeds to recommend like critical uh racecraft
01:37:14.220was one of the books he recommends this riddled with uh crt and so anyways but but after i mean
01:37:19.580so Matt Chandler, the president of Acts 29, has you up here, has appointed you to a position on
01:37:24.140the board, you know, has you up here to speak to all these people where you're just chastising
01:37:28.180every pastor and wife in the network. And then he's asking you, what can we do to fix the problem?
01:37:33.420And you just belittle him and belittle all of us, you know, and then you answer the question with0.70
01:37:40.140heretical, horrible books that no Christian needs to read other than to objectively point out what0.97
01:37:45.700is wrong in it. And I didn't have a language for it at the time, but I realize now in hindsight,1.00
01:37:50.980what he was referencing was absolutely this social justice, CRT, intersectionality thing. He was
01:37:57.880referencing ethnic exploitation. So he didn't use that word. And if he had, I wouldn't have known
01:38:04.300what it was. But he's saying, this is the numinous Negro, right? The white man relying on the black0.99
01:38:08.160man to fix his problems, even the problem of being racist towards the black man, which is essentially,0.85
01:38:13.500that's not a verbatim quote but that is what he said that is that is the spirit of what he said
01:38:18.000and so what he's getting at is is you're engaging in ethnic exploitation and and and i now look back
01:38:23.480and i realize the madness of crt is this idea of all right all white people are racist or really
01:38:28.600everybody's racist but white people are more complicit more morally guilty because they benefit0.82
01:38:33.180as the hegemony the dominant group from racism more than everybody else and so what do you do
01:38:39.980to atone for your sins well you got to do your anti-racist homework and what is that anti-racist
01:38:44.560homework well it's it's calling out racism in yourself and racism in the system and society
01:38:49.020at large but you can't do that as a white man because you're blind to it you're privileged
01:38:54.260you've been blinded by your privilege so you have to partner with a person of color someone who's
01:38:59.700of an oppressed intersection some you know and that's exactly what chandler was doing he's
01:39:04.440following the crt he probably didn't even know you know but he's he's doing what he's supposed
01:39:08.440right we want to do our anti-racist homework and and can you help us can you be our eyes and ears
01:39:12.700because we're blinded by my privilege and and but but leon's crump follows the script perfectly just
01:39:19.680like robin d'angelo and all that kind of stuff and and they didn't even know they were doing it
01:39:22.560probably and i certainly didn't know at the time but it's exactly the it's exactly what we see from
01:39:28.340all the you know from the frankfurt school and all this kind of stuff and so leon's crump without
01:39:32.340skipping a beat says this is the numerous negro and so basically what he's saying is you're you're0.93
01:39:36.540Everyone's racist, but you're morally complicit because you're white.0.97
01:41:01.880like and and it was all right there and everyone the result of it was it wasn't it it there was
01:41:10.240no racial reconciliation there was no unity unity is not the fruit of this stuff the result of it
01:41:16.000was manipulation guilt shame division and anger and I was one of the people and I remember just
01:41:23.600to use a Chandlerism and I'll end with this you remember the the famous you know Chandler video
01:41:30.280that went viral you know like jesus wants the rose right the guy's preaching so who would want0.99
01:41:35.680this rose after passing around all the petals fall off that's what a girl's like if she gives
01:41:39.620away her sexuality and her virginity and and and chandler says and i felt this i was visibly angry
01:41:44.900and i wanted to shout out jesus wants the rose well in in that meeting five years ago even though
01:41:50.260i didn't have all the language i have now to define exactly what was going on at the time
01:41:53.680I remember, to use Chandler's own words, being angry at Chandler, being visibly angry.
01:42:02.680Because the guy who said Jesus wants the rose, the hero, the guy that I looked to, that I admired,
01:42:09.440all of a sudden, he had become the bad guy. All of a sudden, it's like he completely sold out,
01:42:14.760completely compromised. His whole video of Jesus wants the rose, I could do a video
01:42:19.820exactly like that except he's now the preacher he's the preacher who's who's destroying the
01:42:25.640gospel who's destroying the rose who's making hundreds of women cry and he's overseeing this
01:42:31.180whole thing letting it happen um women being guilted for a sin that they haven't even committed
01:42:36.840and and i'm you know so i gotta throw matt chandler that that would be my name you know i feel
01:42:43.420like near and dear to my heart a guy that i i have appreciated and loved a guy whose network i was a0.73
01:42:49.100part of, I was a pastor in Acts 29 and that guy let the network go to crap. Um, absolutely go to0.81
01:42:55.980crap. And so, so I'll toss in on top of your, I see your Tim Keller and I see your, your Jarvis0.99
01:43:03.100Williams and I raise you a match. So, all right, John, well that, that's it. Uh, let, let our,
01:43:07.320let our listeners know how they can follow you. I know we've gone long on this. I really appreciate
01:43:11.200your time, but let us know how can our listeners follow you and pray for you? Yeah, my pleasure.
01:43:16.880um where can they listen i guess uh worldviewconversation.com is the website that has
01:43:22.800all the links to my social media where you can just go on youtube type in conversations that
01:43:26.980matter but if you go to worldviewconversation.com my books are up there and um articles and that
01:43:33.900kind of thing uh pray for me um there's a lot going on right now um i'm just in in some transition
01:43:42.100I 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.
01:43:57.920So 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.
01:44:05.340But, um, yeah, just pray that, uh, in this new season of my life, um, and I'm, I'm getting
01:44:13.280involved in church and all of that, that, you know, just be faithful and, um, be able
01:44:18.440to help, uh, the situation that's confronting us, especially with the gospel.
01:44:22.500But also I, you know, I feel like I want to do, I feel so bad for these people.