NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Calling Out “Woke” Pastors! (Yes, We Name Them) | with Jon Harris
Aired: 2023-01-24
Duration: 01:45:06


=== Context and Gratitude (14:35) ===

[00:00:00]  All right, listen, guys, I get it.
[00:00:01]  Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry because you're spending your cash and your lives on raising young children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
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[00:00:40]  All right.
[00:00:40]  Welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.
[00:00:43]  I am your host, Pastor Joel Webben with Right Response Ministries.
[00:00:46]  Now, I have an exciting announcement.
[00:00:48]  We are no longer months, not even weeks, but mere days away from launching our brand new studio.
[00:00:55]  You might notice this is a little bit different than the backdrop I've had in the past.
[00:00:59]  Rest assured, this is not the new studio.
[00:01:01]  This is a mere type of And shadow of the great substance that is to come.
[00:01:06]  The new studio will rock your socks off, and it is coming very soon.
[00:01:10]  This is likely one of the last Right Response Theology Applied episodes before we unveil all the glory that is the new studio.
[00:01:19]  This is one of my favorite episodes.
[00:01:20]  It's a rerun, but one of my all time favorites, and there's a good chance that you haven't seen it before.
[00:01:26]  So enjoy it now.
[00:01:27]  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.
[00:01:58]  It's intense, but it's good.
[00:02:01]  I hope you enjoy.
[00:02:05]  Is Theology Applied?
[00:02:13]  All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.
[00:02:16]  As I've already said, my special guest is John Harris.
[00:02:20]  He has a podcast that I'm familiar with called Conversations That Matter that I've been listening to, especially over the last month.
[00:02:27]  And he's had a lot of great commentary in regards to social justice, also in regards to, well, really a lot of things just in the past few days regarding.
[00:02:38]  The jab or the point, you know, before you get the point.
[00:02:42]  So, anyway, so that's been really helpful.
[00:02:44]  And so I'm grateful for his ministry.
[00:02:46]  I'm grateful for his teaching.
[00:02:47]  John, welcome to the show.
[00:02:49]  Please introduce yourself to our guest.
[00:02:51]  Yeah, thank you so much.
[00:02:52]  Well, there's not much to say about me other than I guess I kind of came to podcasting and writing without a plan to do so.
[00:03:03]  It just kind of happened.
[00:03:05]  And here I am.
[00:03:06]  But I was saved by grace at a young age.
[00:03:09]  I grew up in upstate New York.
[00:03:10]  My dad's a pastor.
[00:03:12]  And I went to seminary, and while I was there, I found out that the social justice movement was taking a hold.
[00:03:21]  And it really was something that happened very quickly, almost overnight.
[00:03:25]  And it concerned me greatly.
[00:03:26]  I had been at Secular University and heard a lot of the same talking points, and now they're coming out of the mouth of seminary professors.
[00:03:33]  So that's what inspired me to start talking about this issue.
[00:03:37]  But I consider myself a furniture repairman, a hiker.
[00:03:43]  I don't know.
[00:03:44]  I love studying the word of God and preaching, and I love cycling.
[00:03:49]  There's a lot, I guess, I don't want to give you all my hobbies, but all that to say, it wasn't what I was planning, but it was what God has for me right now to focus on.
[00:03:59]  And it's helped some people.
[00:04:00]  So hopefully, you know, as we talk today, some people will be just edified by our conversation and they'll get to understand maybe some of the errors of this teaching.
[00:04:12]  And not a lot of people want to go talk about errors and make that, you know, a big part of their life.
[00:04:17]  But for right now, that's been a major part of mine.
[00:04:21]  So.
[00:04:23]  Yeah.
[00:04:24]  Yep.
[00:04:25]  All right.
[00:04:25]  Well, we'll go ahead and just jump right in.
[00:04:27]  A little bit of context here for our listeners.
[00:04:31]  I've already shared this with John through email, but part of the purpose in doing this is a few months ago, we did an episode with a special guest, Justin Peters, and Justin Peters brings all the boys to the yard, you know, calling out the prosperity gospel.
[00:04:45]  And we're grateful for Justin Peters and really the whole, you know, MacArthur camp and those guys.
[00:04:49]  And I think back to their Strange Fire conference.
[00:04:52]  I think that's when Justin Peters really came on the scene.
[00:04:54]  Other guys like Todd Friel would kind of be in that camp and grateful for the Masters crew, grateful for their work against the prosperity gospel.
[00:05:03]  And that's important.
[00:05:05]  But I know that John would agree, because I've been following him for a while now, that this social justice gospel, this woke ology, critical race theory, neo-Marxism, that it is a heresy, or at least the tenets of it by way of implication, if you follow the logic through.
[00:05:25]  The only way you cannot be a heretic is if you're just theologically and logically inconsistent, which we pray that some of our brothers are and that they come back around.
[00:05:33]  But it lends towards heresy, and many have shipwrecked their faith because of it.
[00:05:38]  And it's perhaps, I think, more dangerous, and I know you think this also, John, because of how subtle.
[00:05:45]  It's subtle nature.
[00:05:46]  It's not $76 billion jet planes.
[00:05:51]  Some of these guys, Jesse Duplandis, you listen to some of the things they say, Creflo Dollar, and they literally sound like a like a rapper.
[00:05:58]  It's not hard to discern that, you know, 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're doing our episode on calling out false teachers and the prosperity guys, especially, particularly, we stopped short intentionally.
[00:06:16]  Him and I both, we stopped short from calling out some of the woke guys.
[00:06:23]  And I have felt a strong conviction over the past few months.
[00:06:26]  And I wanted to share this with our listeners, a strong conviction over the last few months that.
[00:06:32]  that we should not have stopped short and that we should have called out some of these woke pastors by name.
[00:06:41]  And I've listened to John Harris, and I think he's the man for the job.
[00:06:45]  So I wanted to invite him to help me on this episode, calling out woke preachers by name.
[00:06:48]  So the first thing that I wanted you to do for us, John, because the thing that made me and Justin Peters, I think, stop short, and to alleviate Justin Peters of any guilt, he probably stopped short because that's what I kind of led in that particular episode, us to do, and he was probably just honoring me.
[00:07:05]  But we did stop short.
[00:07:07]  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, I think a lot of Christians think if we call someone out for being a false teacher, we are definitively saying that they are unregenerate.
[00:07:23]  And so my question to you, John, is this is certainty regarding an individual salvation a necessary prerequisite for acknowledging that individual as a false teacher?
[00:07:34]  Yeah, I don't think so.
[00:07:37]  And I just want to say, you know, Joel, I appreciate what you just said.
[00:07:40]  I mean, it takes.
[00:07:41]  It takes humility to say, hey, you know what?
[00:07:43]  I probably messed this up or I could have done better.
[00:07:46]  And I do that all the time.
[00:07:48]  We all do.
[00:07:49]  And one of the problems right now, in my opinion, is there's a lot of guys that are probably, you know, and hopefully ignorant about the social justice movement.
[00:08:01]  They bought into maybe certain aspects of it in some ways, or they introduced it into their church, but they're not willing to admit that they were wrong.
[00:08:10]  And so that's one of the main things that concerns me about guys who may even be Orthodox Christians.
[00:08:18]  But what I see in scripture is.
[00:08:22]  A there's a calling out of false teaching and false teachers because the concern is the church, it's the sheep that they could be mauled by wolves.
[00:08:32]  I don't see that coupled anywhere with this prerequisite that you must know for certain that they have a relationship with Jesus and are going to heaven.
[00:08:43]  If you do call them out, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're stating that they're going to spend all of eternity in hell.
[00:08:49]  Really, it's just that's a completely different focus.
[00:08:52]  And so I've taken the tact that the teaching is what the problem is, that's the problem.
[00:09:01]  And that's what's shipwrecking people's faith.
[00:09:04]  So when a false teacher comes in and says something false, it's really not that hard.
[00:09:08]  It's not rocket science.
[00:09:09]  False teaching means teaching that's false.
[00:09:12]  And yes, specifically teaching that is related to core doctrines that we would consider fundamental to Christianity and the gospel in particular.
[00:09:25]  You mentioned the word heresy, which just means really schism.
[00:09:28]  It's a simple word, but I would say right now, what we see in the greater evangelical world is a schism.
[00:09:34]  And I don't think anyone would deny that there's a schism, it's obvious.
[00:09:39]  So, yeah, all that to say, it doesn't have to get personal, but this is a tactic that's used.
[00:09:44]  If you call out false teaching and you say someone's promoting it, immediately there's an offense.
[00:09:49]  Like, you're saying I'm not saved.
[00:09:50]  It's like, well, I'm not saying that.
[00:09:52]  But now that you're so defensive about it and you're unwilling to be corrected, Well, now we're going through kind of a Matthew 18 process, and maybe people are wondering whether you are.
[00:10:01]  So that's kind of the long answer, but yeah.
[00:10:04]  No, that's super helpful.
[00:10:06]  And I think part of what you're getting to right there at the end of your answer is that another important factor that I think Christians need to be aware of is we're not talking, right?
[00:10:15]  This isn't 2017, 2016.
[00:10:18]  So we're not talking about somebody who preached one sermon on racial reconciliation that got a little bit into the weeds with some critical race theory assumptions, and then we're calling them out.
[00:10:31]  on a podcast.
[00:10:32]  No, we're talking about guys who for five years now, I mean, give or take, most of these guys that we're going to be calling out by name in this episode, it's been five years.
[00:10:44]  And John and I both know firsthand that they have been corrected directly, just like Paul went to Peter to his face.
[00:10:54]  They have been corrected directly dozens of times.
[00:11:00]  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 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 can't remember, but I probably said some things in 2017.
[00:11:22]  I was a part of the Acts 29 network.
[00:11:24]  I don't know if I told that to you, John, but I was a pastor in Acts 29.
[00:11:28]  And, you know, 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 were repenting, corporate repentance for, and it, 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, this last year has been a year and we all repented last year.
[00:11:52]  And to my knowledge, I cannot think of one instance this last year since my last annual repentance of committing the sin of racism.
[00:12:02]  So why does doesn't my repentance from last year count or is this not repentance?
[00:12:07]  Are we doing penance?
[00:12:08]  Is this the Vulgate?
[00:12:09]  Are we, you know, what's going on here?
[00:12:11]  And it was frustrating.
[00:12:13]  And then Eric Mason, he came out with his book, Woke Church and that and building animosity between some of the guys in my area, Acts 29 pastors, because of my outspokenness against the racial reconciliation, which nobody, I'm not against racial reconciliation, but the way what they meant by that term and certainly Eric Mason's book, all that, you know, came to a head.
[00:12:39]  And anyways, I, you know, I was warmly invited to leave and I also decided to leave.
[00:12:46]  And so my point is we're not talking about, you know, a one-off.
[00:12:50]  We're talking about individuals who for years now in conferences, in pulpits, in local churches, in articles, in writings, in books, Have been going down this path.
[00:13:04]  So it's not just a mistake.
[00:13:06]  It's not a mulligan.
[00:13:07]  And they have been corrected and they're refusing to repent.
[00:13:13]  And so, John, do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:13:14]  You want to add anything?
[00:13:16]  I think you're spot on, Joel.
[00:13:20]  There's a few things that we could point to along the way that would have been like the moments of dividing lines, I guess.
[00:13:29]  One would be the MLK 50 conference in 2018.
[00:13:35]  Then later that year, you had the T4G conference where David Platt got up and gave a horrific sermon on justice.
[00:13:43]  Jose.
[00:13:45]  Yeah, yeah, let justice roll down like waters.
[00:13:47]  And then the church is guilty of racism, and the rest of it was just, well, racial disparities exist.
[00:13:52]  So therefore, we're in sin because we somehow tolerate these disparities or something like that.
[00:13:59]  Then you have after that, the Resolution 9 that was passed in the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000, I guess, what was that, 19 now?
[00:14:09]  I'm losing track.
[00:14:09]  The years are going by so quick.
[00:14:11]  Yeah, I think so.
[00:14:12]  And yeah, those were the three big ones.
[00:14:14]  I mean, there's a lot of little ones you can point to in there, but there was kind of the Shepherd's QA, right?
[00:14:21]  That one.
[00:14:22]  Yeah, I was there in person.
[00:14:24]  Yeah.
[00:14:25]  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.

=== Civil Magistrate and Equity (15:45) ===

[00:14:35]  They didn't mean for this to happen.
[00:14:36]  Like they got heated.
[00:14:37]  I mean, Moeller was, he was angry.
[00:14:39]  He was defensive because it was just like, what do you disagree with?
[00:14:43]  With this statement.
[00:14:45]  Well, i'm just not, you know, I just don't really sign statements.
[00:14:48]  You know him and Ligan and and Mark Devere guys who who I have really, really appreciated and still appreciate on on certain aspects and certain points um, but it was just, it was like, why did you not sign the statement?
[00:15:01]  Um well, I wouldn't have written it that way.
[00:15:03]  Okay, could you give me one tangible example?
[00:15:05]  What's one portion of the statement that you, you maybe you didn't even disagree, but you didn't like the wording and they couldn't cite one example?
[00:15:13]  And so really, what was what was not said but absolutely said was, um, We couldn't sign the statement because there's something going on behind closed doors that if we signed it, you know what I mean.
[00:15:26]  And to thousands of people, it was just like the cover was ripped off and everyone got to see.
[00:15:33]  And we were like, you know, everyone was shocked.
[00:15:37]  Like Ligan Duncan, Mark Deverett, and Albert Moeller, 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.
[00:16:09]  And these are guys that I've always, you know, as a young pastor, especially when I was in California a couple of years ago, I mean, that's one of the biggest things any Christian, especially pastors, struggle with is the fear of man, the fear of man, the fear of man.
[00:16:21]  And so these are men that I look to as titans of biblical examples of what it is not to bow the knee to the fear of man.
[00:16:31]  And I remember being so disappointed.
[00:16:34]  I don't know if you felt that sense, John, or what was your takeaway from that panel?
[00:16:41]  Do you remember?
[00:16:42]  Yo, I remember it.
[00:16:43]  Yeah, I wasn't there in person.
[00:16:45]  I was actually driving back from Liberty University and I started getting all these texts.
[00:16:51]  And I watched it later that night and I was up late because then they, I think one of the things that led to it being so big, even bigger, was they removed it, I think that night.
[00:17:02]  It was like the one.
[00:17:03]  Session they deleted, and then everyone was like freaking out.
[00:17:07]  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 Lingan Duncan.
[00:17:21]  I mean, he wrote the forward to Woke Church.
[00:17:23]  I saw what he said at T4G, and I knew it was way off.
[00:17:29]  Mark Dever, I wasn't actually that surprised about either.
[00:17:33]  Jonathan, I know Jonathan Lehman and Tabidi Anabwile.
[00:17:36]  Are involved with nine marks and both of them, I would say, very much in the social justice type of vein.
[00:17:43]  And then, but Al Moeller was the guy that I honestly was really just people were telling me that were close to him.
[00:17:50]  I mean, people that were really close, knew him for years.
[00:17:53]  They were reaching out to me saying, like, he's waffling on this.
[00:17:58]  He's not going to come through.
[00:17:59]  And I just really doubted it.
[00:18:01]  I thought, no, he's going to come through.
[00:18:03]  He's conservative.
[00:18:05]  And then when I saw that, I realized, I don't think he's going to come through.
[00:18:09]  So, It was kind of an awakening for a lot of people.
[00:18:15]  We realized, those who were paying attention at least to it, that some of the men that we thought were very solid theologically and have some track records of being solid were not going to stand up to the current threat, which is, I would say, worse in some ways than the prosperity gospel because it is a false gospel, just like the prosperity gospel, but it's more subversive and it has a political dimension.
[00:18:42]  And so it's very well funded.
[00:18:44]  There's a lot of Interest in trying to persuade Christians to vote Democrat or to not vote Republican or to shift them more in a more progressive direction.
[00:18:54]  And that's not coming from Christians.
[00:18:55]  That's coming from secularists who really wish they could get rid of all these nasty Trump voters and these pro life voters.
[00:19:02]  So there's an engine behind this thing that has a vested interest.
[00:19:10]  And we don't see that as much with the prosperity gospel.
[00:19:13]  Yeah, I mean, I remember even John Oliver making fun of.
[00:19:18]  Prosperity gospel guys on a late night show.
[00:19:21]  You know, so like you're absolutely right.
[00:19:23]  That I know right.
[00:19:24]  So Hollywood and, and you know any, any major corporate, I mean, whether it's big corporate or whether it's it's tech or whether it's, you know, the government, you know, and the civil magistrate um, none of them are gonna suppress a video that we do calling out Benny Him right, they don't, they don't care, they don't have a vested interest.
[00:19:45]  But, but when we start saying something about, about social justice and the welfare state and you know these kinds of because, because really what we're doing is we're finally and I think this is the problem, but I think what we're finally doing is we're saying hey, the scripture applies to more than just um, marriage conferences, parenting conferences and uh, and how to run your church on sunday morning, because that's what it's been in America for the longest time is home and church, home and church, home and church,
[00:20:14]  as though that's all the bible has to say.
[00:20:16]  Um, and and that's why I appreciate guys like Doug Wilson who um, some guys really don't like and and there's some doctrines that I would disagree with, but Doug Wilson, He's got the serrated edge, so he's got your sharp tone.
[00:20:29]  And a lot of people, they'll say a theological thing, but really a lot of them just don't like the way he says things, his tone.
[00:20:36]  But I think he's been just on the money 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.
[00:20:49]  All of Christ for all of life.
[00:20:50]  And that doesn't mean that the Bible speaks, right?
[00:20:52]  The perspicuity of scripture, which is an unclear word that means clarity.
[00:20:56]  But the clarity of Scripture, it doesn't mean that all Scripture is equally clear.
[00:21:00]  So it doesn't mean that the Bible speaks to all of life with the same clarity.
[00:21:05]  But what it does mean is that the principles, God's law and his gospel have application and implications beyond just Jesus, Lord of my heart.
[00:21:15]  And I think American evangelicalism has had this private lordship Christianity.
[00:21:21]  He's the Lord of my sweet little heart, and he has something to say about how I parent my children, how I love my wife, and the church I go to on Sunday, and that's it.
[00:21:32]  And now all of a sudden, you've got guys speaking out like you and I in the political realm, economically, you know, and all these different things with legislation.
[00:21:42]  And you're right.
[00:21:44]  So that like the guys who, the social justicians in the church, they're going to have the world on their side.
[00:21:53]  And it's formidable.
[00:21:57]  Yeah, well, some of it, like in my case, it's a counter reaction to social justice warriors that have stepped outside of that formula of home and church and they've decided they're going to quote unquote engage culture.
[00:22:10]  That's the term they often use.
[00:22:12]  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.
[00:22:45]  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.
[00:22:59]  We've had development in different regions and different traditions, but all Christian over thousands of years and centuries.
[00:23:09]  And in our context, the English common law is very influenced by Christianity.
[00:23:14]  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.
[00:23:25]  They really just want to cherry pick a few scriptures, let justice roll down like waters.
[00:23:32]  Who's justice?
[00:23:34]  What is justice?
[00:23:34]  Right.
[00:23:35]  They just assume the world's definition of these things.
[00:23:38]  Revelation seven, look, every tribe, tongue, and nation.
[00:23:41]  So that means egalitarian equality and equity and diversity.
[00:23:46]  And it's like, well, 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.
[00:23:54]  By a social justice warrior in the church.
[00:23:57]  And she makes this whole entire book premised on Genesis one and two.
[00:24:04]  It's called The Very Good Gospel.
[00:24:06]  And it's like every time she goes to reference Genesis one and two, I'm like, that's not what it means there.
[00:24:12]  But she's got a pre written script.
[00:24:14]  And then we'll put a little Christian veneer over it and hope that the Christians don't actually look into it too deeply.
[00:24:21]  So they just kind of accept it.
[00:24:23]  And that'll ingratiate us to the world.
[00:24:24]  That'll make us hip and cool.
[00:24:26]  Uh, you know, they'll think that we're allies with them and they're not going to come and persecute us, uh, and and you know, like they want to do, they'll realize, no, we're actually on their side of this, and I think that's a lot of you know the motivation behind it.
[00:24:40]  So, I agree, I agree.
[00:24:42]  I think part of the problem also is you know, so just law and gospel, law and gospel, and I think you know, so the privatized lordship of Christ, where he's lord only of my heart, right?
[00:24:51]  That Jesus doesn't actually want anything beyond my you know, this private relationship with Jesus and home and church, home and church.
[00:24:59]  There's that.
[00:24:59]  But then I think there's also, in terms of the law of God, there's such an aversion in evangelicals to the law of God, right?
[00:25:07]  And anything that you start talking about obedience and immediately people think legalism or they think prosperity gospel.
[00:25:13]  Like all the time, I tell my church, obedience brings blessing.
[00:25:17]  That's not the prosperity gospel, right?
[00:25:19]  So if I teach my kids, hey, every single day, if you buy a lottery ticket, you're going to win.
[00:25:24]  You're going to win eventually.
[00:25:25]  And it'll probably only take a week or two.
[00:25:27]  You're going to win.
[00:25:28]  You're going to be filthy rich.
[00:25:29]  That would be the equivalent of the prosperity gospel.
[00:25:31]  But if I teach my kids hey, if you get an education, you work really, really hard at a trade and you're faithful and you don't get pregnant out of wedlock and you don't get into absurd debt, then ordinarily ordinarily, God is sovereign and tragedy hits.
[00:25:46]  You could get cancer those, but ordinarily um, by the end of your life you'll be reasonably wealthy.
[00:25:52]  That's not the prosperity gospel, that's called logic, that's just, obedience brings blessing, or the blessing of, if I keep my wedding vows, which would be obedience to god's law, Thou shalt not commit adultery.
[00:26:05]  My children will be better off than if I was an adulterer.
[00:26:09]  That's obedience bringing blessing.
[00:26:12]  And I think that just you talk about the law of God, you talk about obedience and the blessing that comes by obedience and the imperative of obedience.
[00:26:21]  And Christians immediately just start saying, legalism, legalism.
[00:26:25]  Just give me the gospel.
[00:26:26]  Give me the gospel.
[00:26:27]  As though God's law has no bearing on the life of the New Testament Christian.
[00:26:31]  And I think.
[00:26:33]  I'd like to hear your response to this, but I think part of that is because we have had historically such a wonderful nation with such just laws that the church kind of, you know, the church was able to say, you know, we don't really have to say a whole lot when it comes to justice in our nation because the civil magistrate is doing, in general, a pretty decent job.
[00:26:58]  And so I know the church's job is primarily grace and sacrament or the ordinances.
[00:27:04]  And to the sword, the sword has been given to the state, not to the church.
[00:27:10]  But I think that the church has a prophetic role in holding the state accountable to wield the sword justly according to by what standard, by God's standard.
[00:27:20]  And I think the church has just kind of conceded and given up that role because I think we've gotten apathetic because we've had, the state has historically done a decent job in America with legislation, with justice, with those kinds of things.
[00:27:36]  And then it just got way off track.
[00:27:38]  And then the church had lost its edge, so to speak, in terms of understanding biblical justice, understanding politics, understanding the law of God and its implications.
[00:27:49]  Or like the 1689 talks about even the civil law having a general equity, right?
[00:27:54]  That's what Paul does when he says, don't muzzle the ox while it treads the grain.
[00:27:57]  He's saying, all right, if you muzzle your ox while it's treading the grain as a New Testament Christian, that's really just, it's foolish, but it doesn't necessarily, it's not necessarily a sin, but it's foolish.
[00:28:08]  But here's the general equity.
[00:28:10]  Let's apply it to paying a pastor a wage.
[00:28:12]  And so even the civil law, like whether it be a precipice on the roof, you know, like you could say, well, that's speed limits and seatbelts or however you would.
[00:28:21]  But there's a general equity.
[00:28:22]  And I think Christians have just, they've gotten rid of the Ten Commandments even.
[00:28:26]  And even more so, civil laws and general equity and all the, just as though that hasn't, that's all legalism.
[00:28:34]  That's all irrelevant.
[00:28:36]  And now the state has shifted from justice, you know, to.
[00:28:41]  Social justice, which is not justice, 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, I mean, you had.
[00:29:14]  You know, within that big tent of Christendom, you had Catholics and Quakers as well, 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.
[00:29:43]  There's been, you can trace kind of this secular slide that's happened over the course of the last. 250 years, and we're to the point now where the church is kind of like in a bunker.
[00:29:54]  They're true Christians who actually take the Bible seriously are the kooks now, and they're very sensitive to that.
[00:30:02]  I think they don't want to be thought of in a negative light, but they know they are, and they're feeling more and more like they're kind of a minority.
[00:30:11]  Even though you know maybe there's a general respect for the Bible, it's nothing like the series, it's nothing like the way that people hundreds of years ago respected it.

=== Merciful Providence in Culture (03:43) ===

[00:30:21]  So, today.
[00:30:23]  I think Christians who are trying to grope for some kind of irrelevance are using the social justice movement as that opportunity.
[00:30:31]  Lincoln Duncan even kind of said as much in that quote, Shepard's QA, when he talked about his grandchildren and how he wanted them to not be courted into the arms of the LGBTQ lobby.
[00:30:44]  And the price he had to pay was to get woke on race.
[00:30:49]  If he got woke on the race issue, maybe they wouldn't go that far.
[00:30:52]  So you can already see this calculation going in his mind.
[00:30:55]  Please like me.
[00:30:56]  Please like Christianity.
[00:30:59]  And if you think that we're kind of hip and cool and with the revolution that's going to overturn society and create a utopia, maybe you'll like us.
[00:31:08]  And so I think Christians have forgotten largely, kind of like I said before, there's thousands of years of tradition and the scripture has been applied in many different contexts to the political realm.
[00:31:21]  But Christians have largely forgotten about that.
[00:31:23]  And I think you're right, they haven't had to think about it deeply.
[00:31:26]  Most of the people that got elected to the office, Claimed to be Christian or were trying in some way, they pretended to try to apply some form of Christianity.
[00:31:37]  And so it just wasn't something the church needed to get involved with.
[00:31:41]  Everyone knew the Bible stories.
[00:31:43]  Everyone had their basic virtues kind of formed in them when they were young in Sunday school and that kind of thing.
[00:31:52]  So now we're to a point where the church is like, the leaders in the church are like, that's not true anymore.
[00:31:59]  And we never, we kind of got lazy.
[00:32:02]  We didn't.
[00:32:03]  We haven't developed, at least recently.
[00:32:06]  I shouldn't say we haven't developed, we haven't recently applied.
[00:32:10]  We're not used to applying the standards that we've been given to the current context.
[00:32:16]  And so I'm encouraged.
[00:32:18]  There's a lot of people like yourself who are actually doing that now.
[00:32:23]  And we're just bypassing the evangelicals who would rather gain merit from the state and try to.
[00:32:33]  Be liked by them.
[00:32:34]  We're concerned about being liked by God because He's the only one that we are required to please.
[00:32:40]  Right.
[00:32:41]  And in God's merciful providence, you know, you said we're 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, you know, God put a fire in Luther, you know, to stand up to Roman Catholicism in his day, 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, in his sovereignty, sometimes couples reformation in the church with innovation um in the culture and in technology, and I I think of how merciful it is, um of the lord uh as the church is, is is going a direction that you and I would would have some some serious concerns about, um but for the lord uh simultaneously um to with with the internet and social media and what we're doing right now with where you can,
[00:33:34]  just you can sit in a bedroom with with with your phone, you know, and and be able to be heard by thousands of people.
[00:33:41]  And I just think what merciful providence of the Lord at a time when the church is, you know, so like when Rome's ramping up indulgences, God not only, you know, puts conviction in the mind and heart of a reformer to stand against it, but he also provides the technical, technological, I should say, means in order to spread that reformation.

=== Reality Beyond Broad Strokes (07:31) ===

[00:34:05]  And I see something similar occurring in our day.
[00:34:09]  It's a scary, but also really exciting time.
[00:34:14]  To be a Christian, oh, yeah, there's a lot of you know negative things we could focus on, but hey, we get to live at a very important time in human history, and we're going to be able, hopefully, if we you know aren't persecuted at the point of dying or something, we'll be able to tell our kids and grandkids, you know, about um when we stood and that kind of thing.
[00:34:33]  So, uh, this isn't time to shirk away from battle, but um, one of the things, and I didn't know if you were going to get here, and if I'm going premature with this, you just let me know, but um, I as I think you you wanted to talk about kind of um.
[00:34:47]  The social justice gospel and that the whole social justice panoply and why it's heretical and some of the names of the false teachers.
[00:34:55]  Help, help, so I can.
[00:34:57]  You know, if you want to probe any of these things, we can do that, but I'll just briefly, if you want, go through why I think it's a heresy or a false teaching, is the word I usually use.
[00:35:06]  So, um, so most of your listeners probably, I'm guessing here, would be, uh, have no problem saying prosperity gospel.
[00:35:15]  Hey, that's that's wrong, that's a false gospel.
[00:35:18]  I want them to think though for a moment about, you know, Joel Osteen for a minute, let's say, the first time Joel Osteen, let's say, gave an off color message.
[00:35:26]  Where he's just kind of like, you know, there's something just off about that.
[00:35:31]  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 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]  You know, well, maybe he's just talking about God's blessing, but he went a little too far there, almost acting like it's guaranteed.
[00:35:54]  Let me talk to him.
[00:35:55]  Let's figure out what he's actually getting at.
[00:35:58]  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, there's been confrontation, 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, this is really key.
[00:36:33]  All it really takes is being unclear about the gospel.
[00:36:37]  That's all Peter was doing.
[00:36:38]  Paul said he was being unclear about the gospel.
[00:36:41]  He was sitting in a place.
[00:36:44]  His actions were saying, Do you agree with these Judaizers?
[00:36:47]  Because that's what it looks like.
[00:36:49]  And that's all it took for him to oppose him to his face.
[00:36:52]  And so there's nothing wrong with doing that.
[00:36:55]  So that's the first thing I just wanted to say even if what I'm about to describe is a slight infraction, which I don't think it is, there is.
[00:37:03]  Precedent for confronting that.
[00:37:05]  So, the issue with the social justice stuff, there's a few things, but number one, it's a different epistemology, meaning their idea of truth and how you find truth and what truth is.
[00:37:16]  They believe that they're postmodernists.
[00:37:17]  They have a version of usually standpoint epistemology where someone has a greater insight into reality because of their social location.
[00:37:25]  So, that would mean some external feature like their race or their gender or something like their sexual orientation.
[00:37:33]  They have access to truth that we don't have.
[00:37:35]  That's just like Gnosticism.
[00:37:37]  And it's solely based on their identity.
[00:37:40]  It's not based on what Scripture says.
[00:37:43]  Everyone has access to the Bible and to the truth.
[00:37:45]  Approved workmen, you need not be ashamed.
[00:37:48]  The Brians studied the Scripture.
[00:37:51]  It takes work, it takes digging a bit, but it's not, no one's prohibited because of their social location from understanding Scripture.
[00:38:00]  You might have to learn a language, you know, that kind of thing, but it's not like there's a wall that they're going to hit and they just can't go past it because they're a white male.
[00:38:09]  Or they're a black female, or whatever the case may be.
[00:38:13]  So that's number one.
[00:38:14]  That destroys revelation.
[00:38:15]  You can't have a revelation that you can rely upon if standpoint epistemology is true.
[00:38:21]  The second thing is the metaphysic of social justice.
[00:38:25]  So their theory of reality.
[00:38:27]  Social justicians kind of look at reality and they see one thing they see oppressors, they see oppressed, they have very firm designations for those classes, and all of reality becomes one thing.
[00:38:38]  That's why racism is like on the McDonald's menu, right?
[00:38:41]  It's everything's racist.
[00:38:42]  You walk into a room, you know, like the cops do, they look at the crime scene with the flashlight that can show blood, and it's like everything's blood.
[00:38:51]  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.
[00:39:00]  And reality is made up of a lot more than just power or just oppression.
[00:39:07]  There's a fuller spectrum that the Bible conveys to us about what reality actually is.
[00:39:12]  So that's the second thing.
[00:39:13]  Third thing is their ethics.
[00:39:15]  Their ethics are redistributive, they're egalitarian instead of distributive.
[00:39:24]  And hierarchical.
[00:39:25]  So, scripture presents hierarchies.
[00:39:27]  God's even woven some of them into creation.
[00:39:30]  When there's an unjust hierarchy, there's a way to deal with it, and it's not revolution, it's reformation.
[00:39:36]  And primarily, I would get more into that if we want, but painting with broad strokes, that's what scripture teaches.
[00:39:45]  And then justice is blind.
[00:39:47]  Justice, you don't treat someone differently just because of some external feature or how it will benefit you or they're your cousin or they're poor and you have compassion.
[00:39:56]  You apply the law evenly.
[00:39:58]  And so that's biblical justice.
[00:39:59]  Social justice is you account for disparities.
[00:40:02]  So you actually have to be racist or have to be sexist to apply it in the way they actually want to apply it.
[00:40:10]  So those are some of the big things.
[00:40:12]  And then one last thing, and then I know you probably have a point to make, but their gospel, their gospel that they give us when it's syncretized with Christianity is completely antithetical to the Christian gospel.
[00:40:29]  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.
[00:40:40]  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.
[00:40:47]  And oftentimes it comes across just like the Galatian heresy.
[00:40:51]  So, gospel issue, you'll hear that term a lot, or gospel above all, or the just gospel conferences.
[00:40:57]  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.
[00:41:24]  So Paul would anathematize the social justice gospel, and he would be calling out today Russell Moore, David Platt, the BD Anna Bouillet, Tim Keller.
[00:41:35]  Uh, list goes on and on.

=== The Mott Bailey Analogy (04:55) ===

[00:41:37]  He would call them out and he would say, This is false.
[00:41:40]  And the guys that like Al Moeller, uh, who, um, you know, maybe there's actually some things I could argue that Al Moeller might be on more on their vein, but best case scenario, someone like Al Moeller, uh, would be like a Peter who's like, You're being confusing here, man.
[00:41:56]  You're being unclear about the gospel.
[00:41:58]  Why are you eating with them?
[00:41:59]  You know, so, um, that's really fair.
[00:42:02]  A lot of guys with Moeller, just real quick to interrupt, but yeah, please.
[00:42:05]  with Mueller because if you listen to the briefing, I mean, most of the briefing, I really agree.
[00:42:09]  Although the one thing with the briefing is sometimes I'm like, hey, you know, like I'm all for ending abortion, but there's some other stories that I feel like you're not hitting on purpose to stick to, you know, but so it's not even what he says.
[00:42:22]  It's what he chooses to talk about.
[00:42:24]  But anyways, the point is when you think of Southern Seminary and you think of guys on staff and you think of books on the shelf, you know, and I've talked to guys, seminary students and those kinds of things, it's, I think Michael O'Fallon described it as the Motton Bailey.
[00:42:38]  Could you explain that briefly?
[00:42:40]  Are you familiar with the Mott and Bailey strategy?
[00:42:43]  Did you hear Michael talk about that?
[00:42:46]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:42:46]  Well, I'm not sure who came up with that originally.
[00:42:49]  I think James Lindsay told me about it a few years ago.
[00:42:53]  And he, so it's just like a Trojan horse.
[00:42:55]  That's the analogy I usually use.
[00:42:56]  But the Mott and Bailey is like the Mott is in a field.
[00:43:00]  And that's where people, it's like you go into the tower and you defend yourself.
[00:43:04]  And then the Bailey is you come out, I guess.
[00:43:06]  And so they, all right.
[00:43:10]  So like a term like Black Lives Matter would be a Mott and Bailey type term where, of course, like, does anyone disagree with that, right?
[00:43:17]  Black Lives Matter, everyone agrees with Black Lives Matter.
[00:43:20]  And so, but the but what they're smuggling into it, um, when you're not looking, when you're not paying attention, is okay, now you have to listen to black voices and do whatever they say.
[00:43:31]  And it's only these approved voices who, by the way, are socialists and they're going to tell you how to redistribute your platforms and your income and your influence and all that.
[00:43:39]  So, like, that that that's somehow that's what Black Lives Matter is.
[00:43:43]  And you're like, wait a minute, hold on, like, I just think they have intrinsic worth.
[00:43:48]  And so, um, that's often how the social justice movement progresses by these very Simple, obvious truths that no one disagrees with, but then they smuggle into them all these other terms and assumptions, and then they vilify you if you disagree with any of those assumptions.
[00:44:05]  And they say, Well, you clearly then don't believe Black Lives Matter if you're not willing to give up all your income or something.
[00:44:11]  So, the Mott is like the fortress.
[00:44:15]  The Bailey is like where all the serfs are and all your agriculture and crops and the village.
[00:44:20]  And so, basically, the Bailey is like, We're advancing, we're taking ground, we have an agenda.
[00:44:26]  A very progressive, aggressive agenda and and we're pushing this and we're pushing that.
[00:44:31]  We're talking about reparations, you know, but then the mot is like your, your fortress where, whenever you're being countered with an argument um, the mot is the more easily defensible portion of of your, your position.
[00:44:45]  And so it's like you're out there on the bailey, you know boom expanding expanding expanding, going for reparations, going for critical race theory, going for this, going for that, and then, and then somebody calls you on it, And we see this within evangelicalism, and Michael O'Fallon, at least, said that Muller may be an example of it.
[00:45:02]  That's not fair.
[00:45:03]  If Michael O'Fallon was listening, he would say, no, he is an example of it.
[00:45:07]  But the point is, to be fair to Michael O'Fallon, he would say he is an example of it.
[00:45:10]  But the point is that you press somebody like Muller, and then boom, they can go back and retreat exactly what you're saying, John, into the easily defensible motte, the strong tower, and say, look, all I'm saying is that Black Lives Matter.
[00:45:25]  Are you going to disagree with that, Harris?
[00:45:27]  I'll share a personal story with you about Danny Aiken.
[00:45:32]  I had a 45 minute phone call with him about a year and a half, maybe two years ago now.
[00:45:36]  I don't remember now, but it was a little while ago.
[00:45:38]  But it was all about Southeastern, which is where I graduated from.
[00:45:43]  And he did this throughout the entire conversation, basically.
[00:45:46]  It's like, all right, Dr. Aiken, you have a professor there, Matthew Mullins.
[00:45:51]  He said that if you are white, you should not adopt a black child because you won't be able to give them the life that they should deserve and that they need.
[00:46:01]  And there's a lot of assumptions behind this.
[00:46:04]  And then what he did was well, we just believe in diversity here at Southeastern.
[00:46:14]  We just believe that people should be accepted and included.
[00:46:18]  And that's the kind of thing throughout the conversation I kept running into I'd cite a specific example of something.
[00:46:25]  Okay, Walter Strickland said this.
[00:46:28]  He conflated the law in the gospel, and it was a social justice version of the law.

=== Tone Versus Substance (05:52) ===

[00:46:32]  That's liberation theology.
[00:46:34]  Well, what he was really trying to say is that we just need a world where, you know, that kind of thing.
[00:46:41]  And so that's the Mott and Bailey, where it's like you never can quite, you can't pin jello to the wall.
[00:46:46]  You can never quite understand, or they'll never give you the right to think that you've understood them.
[00:46:52]  They'll always say, What we're really trying to do is something that everyone already agrees on.
[00:46:56]  We just want to fight racism here.
[00:46:58]  We just don't want women to be oppressed.
[00:47:00]  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.
[00:47:08]  And then what happens is for any onlooker, so for any third party, right?
[00:47:13]  So they do something that's on the Bailey, it's aggressive, it's CRT, it's reparations, it's neo-Marxism.
[00:47:20]  I mean, it's socialism.
[00:47:21]  It's communism.
[00:47:22]  It's way out there.
[00:47:23]  It's clearly against God's word.
[00:47:25]  You call them on it, right?
[00:47:26]  So then you're conservative Christians with a spine, the biblical justicians.
[00:47:32]  We call them on it.
[00:47:34]  And then boom, they retreat back to the mott and say, look, all we're saying is that da-da-da-da-da, some simple cliche thing that everyone will and that's just you and them.
[00:47:45]  But there's this third party watching.
[00:47:47]  And what it looks like to the third party is we're being harsh.
[00:47:52]  Right.
[00:47:53]  Isn't that the play?
[00:47:54]  Again and again and again.
[00:47:56]  Well, okay, but John, your tone, though.
[00:48:00]  And that 11th commandment is strong with you, young paddlewine.
[00:48:06]  It's just like this, thou shalt be nice.
[00:48:09]  And all of a sudden, it's more important.
[00:48:11]  The Bible does care about what we say, right?
[00:48:13]  We want to rebuke.
[00:48:14]  I think of Paul's admonition, rebuke your opponents with gentleness, not knowing if God might grant to them repentance that they may turn.
[00:48:22]  And we always forget the last part where it says, after having been taken captive by Satan to do his will, right?
[00:48:29]  So they've been, like, so our battle's not against flesh and blood.
[00:48:32]  However, it's against principalities.
[00:48:34]  However, the one who we are battling with does take flesh and blood captive to do his will.
[00:48:40]  So that doesn't mean we pick up a sword and we slice down flesh and blood.
[00:48:44]  But we do pick up a sword, a double-edged sword, sharper than a double-edged sword, the word of God, and we demolish strongholds and vain philosophy and every empty, lofty opinion that sets itself over.
[00:48:56]  Christ.
[00:48:57]  And it's not, I mean, that imagery is not a sugar and spice, everything nice, you know, Mr. Rogers imagery.
[00:49:07]  It's warfare.
[00:49:08]  And it's supposed to be warfare.
[00:49:10]  And so, and I can't help but think, I really think that part of it, see, this is what I think, give it five years, right?
[00:49:18]  If things continue to go the way they are in the church and in our nation, in five years, I think a lot of guys who called people like you, John, and me, and Vodie Bacham, you know, and Michael O'Fallon, these kinds of guys, a lot of the Christians who genuinely are, we don't know, we don't have election goggles, but let's say five years from now, let's just say they truly were regenerate.
[00:49:39]  I think a lot of those guys who were calling us harsh today and a couple of years ago, in five years, if God doesn't send serious reformation to our nation and to the evangelical church, in five years, I think they'll be saying the same things.
[00:49:54]  And so my point is the difference is it's not that objectively what we're saying or even how we're saying it is objectively harsh by biblical categories.
[00:50:05]  The reason why it's perceived as harsh is because we have the majority of Christians in the church today who don't realize we're at war.
[00:50:12]  So when you shoot, when the enemy is storming the camp, and you pick up your rifle and you see them, right, like Elijah's servant, you know, or Elisha's servant, and you see just this, just multitudes, and they're storming the camp and and you scramble and grab your gun and pick it up and, and boom, you pop one in the head.
[00:50:33]  You will immediately be indicted and accused of being harsh.
[00:50:37]  If, if the three comrades that you're sitting with having a picnic with, if they're so blind and so deaf that they they that they have no awareness whatsoever that the camp is being stormed, they're like, dude, we're out here having a picnic.
[00:50:52]  You just picked up a gun and popped off around.
[00:50:56]  What are you Like?
[00:50:57]  that's excellent.
[00:50:59]  You're harsh, you're immature.
[00:51:02]  There's still a lot of youthful angst and zeal in you that needs to get worked out, you know, with maturity over time.
[00:51:08]  Maybe you're not ready to be a pastor.
[00:51:10]  Maybe, like, and that's what you hear, and that's what you hear, and that's what, and I like that illustration because I think it rings true.
[00:51:15]  I think that it's not that in clear, objective categories we are missing the fruit of the spirit that is gentleness, or we are actually engaging in harsh rhetoric that would be a sinful harshness.
[00:51:26]  It's that we are using biblically permissible language.
[00:51:30]  So it's not just what we're saying is true theologically.
[00:51:32]  I believe in many cases, even how we're saying it does fit biblical qualifications for the fruit of the Spirit, for godly character, not just in what we say, our content, but in how we say it, our tone.
[00:51:46]  And yet it's being condemned again and again and again because number one, the content they have no refutation for because it's true.
[00:51:56]  And so it's easier to condemn the man than the message when the message is true.
[00:52:00]  And then in terms of the man, I think one of the reasons the man is being written off in terms of, well, it's not what you said.
[00:52:05]  It's how you said it.
[00:52:06]  It's your tone is because, not because he's objectively doing something sinful, but because we are, we're watchmen on the wall saying that the enemy is at the gate and the whole town is having a picnic and don't want to be interrupted and none of them can see the flames.

=== Naming Names of Sin (15:22) ===

[00:52:24]  Yeah, that's excellent.
[00:52:25]  You know what I mean?
[00:52:27]  And so they're like, what are you doing?
[00:52:29]  You're ringing bells.
[00:52:30]  You're blowing horns.
[00:52:32]  You're shouting.
[00:52:34]  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]  I mean, we have, there's a seminary that has not made it public yet that's going to be trying to, it's in North Carolina, I'll say that much, and they're going to try to.
[00:53:06]  Sue the federal government essentially because of the directives coming down from the Biden administration on gender rules and that kind of thing, that they just can't have their statement of faith and abide by those rules, especially when it comes to dorms and those kinds of things.
[00:53:23]  I know publicly now there's, 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.
[00:53:35]  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 okay and we'll make it through.
[00:53:58]  And there was light at the end of the tunnel.
[00:54:01]  And that's just not the case.
[00:54:03]  You're going to have to fight these things.
[00:54:05]  And being woke on BLM is not going to save you.
[00:54:09]  When the gender police come to your door, right?
[00:54:14]  One of the things I think, and we're seeing this with COVID as well, and we're seeing this in a whole bunch of categories, actually, if you think about it, is this kind of blind trust of authority.
[00:54:25]  No matter how many times egalitarians who hate hierarchy say they want to rip down hierarchy and they hate hierarchy, hierarchy is inescapable.
[00:54:35]  And even if it's unspoken, there will always be a pecking order, there will always be a hierarchy of some kind.
[00:54:40]  So right now, we see it with this kind of The tyranny of the lab coats.
[00:54:44]  You have a lab coat and the government's authorization, then you're basically, you have authority that is approaching divinity.
[00:54:52]  You're infallible.
[00:54:53]  You have pure as the driven snow goodness.
[00:54:56]  I mean, you have all of the.
[00:54:57]  And you're unelected.
[00:54:59]  Dr. Fauci, you're talking about an unelected official who's made it through, what, five, I think five presidencies?
[00:55:05]  And you're talking about like a 40 year reign without ever having been elected.
[00:55:11]  I mean, that's way more power.
[00:55:14]  Than the press, you see that this my point is, you see the same thing though in the church.
[00:55:17]  You see that we can say all day, like, we believe in the autonomy of the local church.
[00:55:22]  If we're Baptists, we believe, um, if you're Presbyterian, you believe in the Presbyterian.
[00:55:26]  But in either case, there's something else going on, and I've seen this almost across the board.
[00:55:33]  There's a model that's not being talked about because it's not really defined, but there's kind of like this celebrity pastor kind of technical.
[00:55:42]  I don't know what you even how to even describe it, but there's people in positions of authority.
[00:55:48]  And it's very disrespectful in many people's minds to say anything bad about, you know, JD Greer or David Platt or any of these guys, but they're not my pastor.
[00:55:58]  They're not, you know, what authority do they actually have?
[00:56:03]  Well, all they are is they have a local church and they're a pastor there.
[00:56:07]  And so there's no reason that they can't be challenged, but there's an unspoken kind of like, well, they're the experts because clearly, why?
[00:56:15]  Because they have a good social media presence, because they have a good.
[00:56:17]  Well, that's what I'm saying.
[00:56:19]  That's what I was saying earlier about the gatekeepers.
[00:56:21]  I think there have been gatekeepers for a while now.
[00:56:23]  And I don't know exactly what you're saying.
[00:56:26]  I don't have a whole lot of answers because I also don't know how they got elected, how this oligarchy within evangelicalism was formed.
[00:56:34]  But what you're saying is it's real, it exists.
[00:56:37]  And it's like that touch not the Lord's anointed, like what the prosperity guys would say.
[00:56:43]  Now, I mean, obviously, it's a little bit different, to be fair.
[00:56:47]  But it's this anointed oligarchy that cannot be challenged.
[00:56:52]  And if it is, then immediately the scrutiny is on the challenger and their tone and their character.
[00:57:00]  And, you know, you weren't gentle, you were harsh, and those kinds of things.
[00:57:04]  And a blind eye is turned to like, but what if what he said is true?
[00:57:08]  Should I actually investigate this?
[00:57:09]  No, that, you know, and so that's certainly a thing.
[00:57:12]  And I think one of the things that makes me hopeful is that I think that that's being broken up.
[00:57:19]  I do too.
[00:57:19]  In the sense that I think that all of a sudden, people just, a lot of Christians, I think, are waking up because of what's happening in our nation.
[00:57:27]  This last year and a half 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.
[00:57:43]  And I think the Lord has been disciplining his church and judging the nation.
[00:57:48]  And so in that, there's already been a lot of blessings.
[00:57:52]  And I think one of them is that americans in general and Christians in particular are all of a sudden questioning authority in a good way.
[00:58:03]  And so I think that all of a sudden people are willing to actually.
[00:58:08]  Well, just, and I agree with what you said, but I would want to phrase it probably this way.
[00:58:15]  It's not so much that they're questioning authority itself.
[00:58:18]  And I know you're not saying that.
[00:58:20]  They want, we want authority.
[00:58:22]  We want, but we want proper authority.
[00:58:24]  We don't want this fake authority.
[00:58:27]  Artificial hierarchy that has been set up by people that have an interest in it, but they're not, they don't actually represent or help the people that they're supposed to represent and help.
[00:58:40]  And there's kind of like people are waking up and like, wait a minute, I don't have to listen to him, right?
[00:58:45]  If you're in the Southern Baptist Convention, right?
[00:58:47]  Ed Litton is the president, right?
[00:58:49]  He's a pastor of a church.
[00:58:50]  Well, look, Doug Wilson's a pastor of the church.
[00:58:53]  James White's a pastor of the church.
[00:58:55]  JD Hall is a pastor of a church.
[00:58:57]  They're all pastors of churches.
[00:58:59]  But there's sort of a sense in which people will treat, or it's popular, it's approved by the gatekeepers to treat certain pastors with disdain.
[00:59:10]  And you can say all manner of disrespectful things against them online or wherever.
[00:59:15]  And that's fine.
[00:59:16]  There's nothing wrong with it because they're the divisive ones.
[00:59:19]  They've convinced themselves that that's their justification.
[00:59:22]  But don't touch someone, like you said, don't touch the Lord's anointed.
[00:59:25]  Don't talk about Ed Litton.
[00:59:26]  Don't talk about the guys who are in favor of the revolution.
[00:59:30]  That's an artificial hierarchy.
[00:59:33]  There's no reason they should receive preference or favorability just because of their political position or what they believe about politics.
[00:59:42]  John, real quick address because I've heard you on this before and it's fantastic.
[00:59:46]  So, for a moment there, you said they're the divisive ones.
[00:59:50]  What does Paul, the Apostle Paul, say about which party is responsible, morally responsible for division?
[00:59:58]  Do you know what I'm hinting at?
[01:00:00]  Yeah.
[01:00:00]  Yeah.
[01:00:01]  But, like, my point is that.
[01:00:03]  My point is somebody can come into the church and introduce different doctrines and they can do it kindly.
[01:00:11]  They usually do.
[01:00:12]  That's usually why they're successful is they do it kindly with a smooth tone and they lend, you know, they lead weak-willed women astray and is what the scripture.
[01:00:22]  And then someone opposes them and usually the one who opposes them with fidelity and faithfulness is the one who uses strong language.
[01:00:31]  But the apostle Paul is very clear that the one who is opposing with strong language is not the divisive party.
[01:00:38]  The party that's morally culpable for division is the party, it doesn't matter.
[01:00:43]  Their tone's irrelevant.
[01:00:45]  It's the party that introduced the false teaching.
[01:00:49]  That's the divisive party.
[01:00:51]  You think of even 1 Corinthians.
[01:00:54]  I think so.
[01:00:54]  I can't remember the text.
[01:00:56]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:00:57]  Well, early on in 1 Corinthians, I want to say, like, in the first four chapters, chapter two or three, it's the portion where they're talking about where Paul's addressing you've tolerated a sin that the Gentiles won't even tolerate.
[01:01:12]  And they're like, you know, that's like our badge of honor.
[01:01:16]  That's like, look how great we are.
[01:01:20]  Yeah, five.
[01:01:20]  Thank you.
[01:01:22]  Yeah.
[01:01:24]  They were wearing this as a badge of honor.
[01:01:26]  Like, this is something that they're, that's so, it's great about them.
[01:01:29]  They're not going to confront this.
[01:01:31]  And Paul's like, hold on.
[01:01:33]  Like, you're tolerating this way too much.
[01:01:35]  And you need to be confronting these kinds of things.
[01:01:38]  There is a place for that.
[01:01:39]  We're supposed to admonish the unruly, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak.
[01:01:44]  So we got to like do some triage.
[01:01:46]  We got to figure out, okay, who's unruly, who's faint hearted, who's weak.
[01:01:49]  But if you were a jerk, right, if you went up to someone who was weak and you started admonishing them, that wouldn't be appropriate.
[01:01:57]  And that there would be some, maybe in that scenario, you could say, hey, you're being too harsh.
[01:02:03]  But if you're someone who's unruly, being harsh, that's exactly what you're called to do.
[01:02:10]  And Paul used very strong language at times.
[01:02:12]  He basically said in Galatians, like, I wish these Judaizers would get a real circumcision.
[01:02:18]  They go all the way, right?
[01:02:19]  All the way.
[01:02:21]  So, and then I believe themselves.
[01:02:23]  Yeah.
[01:02:23]  Yeah.
[01:02:24]  I see.
[01:02:24]  I don't even want to say it because I'm like, you know, I want to say because it's in the Bible, but again, but I feel you.
[01:02:30]  Yeah.
[01:02:30]  I understand.
[01:02:31]  That's right.
[01:02:32]  But you're right.
[01:02:33]  Yes.
[01:02:33]  No, you're right.
[01:02:34]  I think so.
[01:02:34]  That's a huge thing.
[01:02:35]  So one, so we could say, because I think this is helpful.
[01:02:38]  I hope our listeners will be blessed by this.
[01:02:40]  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.
[01:02:46]  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.
[01:02:56]  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.
[01:03:10]  So first, what are you saying?
[01:03:13]  That's one of the things to consider when we're trying to discern is so-and-so being harsh.
[01:03:17]  So first, what are they saying?
[01:03:19]  Is it biblical?
[01:03:19]  Is it true?
[01:03:20]  Is it faithful to the scripture?
[01:03:22]  Secondly, what John's getting at is who are you saying it to?
[01:03:25]  So what are you saying?
[01:03:26]  What's the doctrine?
[01:03:27]  What's the content?
[01:03:28]  And then who are you saying it to?
[01:03:30]  Are you saying it to the smoldering wick and the bruised reed?
[01:03:34]  Because the scripture says that if we want to be Christ-like, that he doesn't snuff out the smoldering wick.
[01:03:40]  That would be a weak convert.
[01:03:42]  And the Puritans did a lot of great work on this.
[01:03:45]  I'm thinking of Thomas Watson, Baxter, the Reformed pastor.
[01:03:50]  But this idea of it takes discernment, like John's saying, but the difference between a false convert and a weak convert.
[01:03:57]  And so part of the reason, you know, like, I mean, the Apostle Paul, who's bewitched you, right?
[01:04:01]  I was just there.
[01:04:02]  All of a sudden, you know, I come back to his letter to the Galatians.
[01:04:06]  Who's bewitched you?
[01:04:07]  You are so foolish.
[01:04:08]  And that's sharp language.
[01:04:09]  He's saying, basically, you are so foolish.
[01:04:11]  It seems as though you must have had a spell cast on you because surely you could not be this foolish on your own.
[01:04:18]  This has to be a supernatural foolishness.
[01:04:21]  That's how foolish you're being, right?
[01:04:22]  That's strong language.
[01:04:25]  But what's in question there is, is this a weak convert?
[01:04:28]  or a false convert?
[01:04:29]  Is this a denial of the gospel or is this something that's tertiary?
[01:04:33]  And so I think categories for discerning, like, am I being sinfully harsh is first, substance of what I'm saying.
[01:04:39]  Is it biblically true?
[01:04:40]  Second, the audience, who am I talking to?
[01:04:43]  Is this a sweet old woman who, you know what I mean?
[01:04:47]  Or is this a pastor who should know better and who's been corrected for five years and refuses to repent?
[01:04:56]  So what am I saying?
[01:04:57]  Who am I saying it to?
[01:04:58]  And then, and maybe you could add a couple more to this, John, but I think then we would say, and how am I saying it?
[01:05:04]  Tone.
[01:05:04]  So I would put, personally, I would put tone down here as like a third in a list of priority.
[01:05:11]  I would say, first, what am I saying?
[01:05:12]  Second, who am I addressing?
[01:05:14]  And then thirdly, how am I saying it?
[01:05:16]  And I think that evangelicalism on the whole has basically reversed that and said, how you're saying it is what's firstly important.
[01:05:25]  And I think in many evangelical circles, it's the only thing.
[01:05:28]  That's important, it's.
[01:05:29]  All that matters is just how you're saying something, and so if you can gently introduce error, then you're the good guy.
[01:05:39]  And then anybody who opposes them, even if they do say something nice, even if they have a nice tone, simply by nature of being the opposer, simply by nature of addressing having to address your wrong right, because it's not just refute that, it's refute those.
[01:05:56]  For Titus, chapter one, verse nine, an elder, that's one of his qualifications.
[01:06:01]  He's got to be able to teach what's true and refute people.
[01:06:04]  That also first.
[01:06:05]  Timothy, chapter one, says, uh, verses three to five uh, you know that um, um to this is why I left you here is to charge certain persons, not just certain ideas, but to charge that mean that word charge it's a charged word, charge it's that means to sharply rebuke and confront certain people.
[01:06:25]  And and so my point is that's one of the qualifications of being an elder in Christ's church is the ability to teach sound doctrine and the ability to rebuke, um to to um, to charge, to confront not only bad doctrine but the people peddling that, the people, not just the ideas, but the people.
[01:06:46]  And so my whole point is that I, I think you know if somebody introduces error into the church softly, which they typically do, and that's why it tends to be successful, even if you try to softly and gently which we should try to gently oppose them.
[01:07:03]  Just by nature of you being the the the person who's, You're the one who's picking a fight.
[01:07:09]  And so no matter how gently you say it, and I think it was gentle at first.
[01:07:13]  You said this earlier, John, but I think at first, when this first started creeping in, I think there was a lot of, I think, like you used the Joel Osteen analogy, you know, or illustration, like the first time he was a little bit off and how you would approach him.
[01:07:27]  And I think, I bet you that probably was nine times out of ten, as this was creeping into pulpits around the nation, I bet you most congregants and most elders and most, you know, who are on the biblically sound, faithful side of things probably did.
[01:07:43]  address it very, very kindly, gently, humbly.

=== Imitating Christ Alone (04:20) ===

[01:07:47]  But then there was resistance.
[01:07:49]  And then you up the ante and you're, no, no, no, no, this is it.
[01:07:53]  And then all of a sudden, 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.
[01:08:16]  I'm preaching Christ and Him crucified, and everybody is losing their ever loving minds and throwing things and yelling, and you know what I mean, like and burning down buildings, you know, like Black Lives Matter movement.
[01:08:28]  I'm not the guy doing that, you know what I mean.
[01:08:32]  I've never heard that the riot in Ephesus compared to BLM, but that's uh, I that's a that's probably a fair comparison, I guess.
[01:08:41]  Um, yeah, no, you're you're right about I think I think everything you just said I agree with, and that your way of uh prioritizing, um.
[01:08:49]  You know, the content, who you're talking to, and then the tone is absolutely correct.
[01:08:56]  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 Yodia and Syntiki.
[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 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.
[01:09:24]  So there's just 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.
[01:09:36]  So, and there's no disembodied heresies floating out there without someone to propel them.
[01:09:43]  And so we have to.
[01:09:44]  Most of our heresies are named after names.
[01:09:47]  They are.
[01:09:48]  You know, like, so yeah, go ahead.
[01:09:50]  Sorry.
[01:09:51]  Yeah, maybe we should call the social justice syncretism, I don't know.
[01:09:54]  Kellerism or something.
[01:09:56]  But I mean, it's maybe, and in the future, it may be that they pick some prominent teacher and they do that.
[01:10:04]  But yeah, I mean, it's really an aversion to confrontation, which is, I think, part of something much bigger in our culture right now where men don't want to be men.
[01:10:16]  They don't want to confront evil.
[01:10:19]  In fact, I mean, I don't know if you grew up this way, but I grew up, my parents let me watch a lot of like old.
[01:10:27]  Westerns and war movies and things when I was a kid.
[01:10:29]  And I'm not saying all of what's portrayed there is always good or the way that men should act.
[01:10:35]  But one thing I think is indisputable they were men and they were trying to at least portray men and how men are going to go out and they're going to get the bad guy and they're going to save the day or whatever at great personal sacrifice to themselves.
[01:10:50]  And we don't have that, a sense of that anymore.
[01:10:53]  It really, I guess, since the 1970s, especially even in Hollywood, you see the This anti hero character.
[01:11:00]  And if they're going to be tough, it's going to be for themselves.
[01:11:02]  They're out for their own gain.
[01:11:04]  They won't sacrifice themselves for anyone else.
[01:11:07]  They're only for themselves.
[01:11:08]  They're selfish.
[01:11:10]  And we're to the point now where I look around and I see the tyranny that's before us with the COVID stuff, overreach, or the BLM stuff.
[01:11:20]  And you wonder where the men are.
[01:11:22]  And sometimes they'll complain behind closed doors, but they're not actually going out there and doing what they need to do.
[01:11:28]  And so when someone does do that, It stands out.
[01:11:31]  People see that and people think, well, why is he doing that?
[01:11:35]  What's his problem?
[01:11:37]  100 years ago, I mean, a lot of the things that I'm saying, I would have been considered tame probably for saying some of them.
[01:11:44]  So we've just really become effeminate as a culture.
[01:11:49]  I don't really know what other word to give to it.
[01:11:52]  And I think that's a symptom of it.
[01:11:54]  No, you're right.
[01:11:55]  It's men in soft clothing.
[01:11:58]  What did you come out into the wilderness to see?
[01:12:00]  Soft clothing?
[01:12:02]  You know, those guys live in palaces.
[01:12:03]  You didn't come out to see limp-wristed, fairy, you know, effeminate men.

=== Christian Manhood Illustrated (04:54) ===

[01:12:08]  You came out to see a man, John the Baptist, right?
[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.
[01:12:19]  But 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.
[01:12:26]  That's part of what it entails.
[01:12:29]  And I think this is part of it also, you know, so we want to emulate Christ.
[01:12:35]  And so we want to look at Christ and we want to say, all right, first and foremost, the gospel is not be like Jesus, right?
[01:12:40]  Because if that's the gospel, then we all go to hell.
[01:12:43]  And so that, praise God, that's not the gospel.
[01:12:45]  Be like Jesus is law, not gospel.
[01:12:48]  So the gospel is Jesus was Jesus in your place.
[01:12:51]  And so thank you, Jesus.
[01:12:53]  So that's the gospel.
[01:12:54]  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.
[01:13:21]  He awakens our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit in regeneration to that love, and we cannot help but love God in return.
[01:13:31]  And then in that love, the first question the Christian asks is, all right, I have now been awakened to God's love for me in Christ Jesus.
[01:13:40]  I am responding with a love for him.
[01:13:41]  God, I want to love you with everything I have.
[01:13:43]  What can I do that would be right to you?
[01:13:47]  Not to earn your favor, but in gratitude for the free favor I've received by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
[01:13:53]  And Jesus says, if you love me.
[01:13:56]  You'll obey me.
[01:13:57]  You'll obey me.
[01:14:00]  So all that being said, then, okay, how do I obey Jesus?
[01:14:04]  And what do I obey?
[01:14:05]  Well, love God and love your neighbor.
[01:14:07]  And then, well, how?
[01:14:08]  What does it mean to love my neighbor?
[01:14:10]  Because a lot of people think what it means to love your neighbor is to put masks on your kids and everybody get the jab.
[01:14:17]  And we ruined the entire nation and our economy and livelihoods and suicide has gone up and chronic depression, all this kind of stuff in the name of loving our neighbor.
[01:14:27]  So we need to look to the law of God because God defines how we love our neighbor and God defines how we love him.
[01:14:33]  You know, even like the regular principle of worship, worshiping in spirit and in truth on the Lord's day.
[01:14:39]  We don't get to just do church any way we want to do church.
[01:14:42]  God has things to say.
[01:14:44]  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.
[01:14:51]  So all that being said, we want to imitate Christ.
[01:14:53]  So it's the law of God, but Jesus models the law.
[01:14:56]  He fulfilled the law.
[01:14:57]  And so we're looking at Christ.
[01:14:58]  We want to model him, imitate him.
[01:15:00]  And I think one of the big issues is that everyone's down to try to imitate Christ in his love.
[01:15:06]  Everyone's down to try to imitate Christ in his humility, right?
[01:15:10]  When taking off his outer garment and wrapping a towel around his waist and washing the feet of his disciples.
[01:15:17]  These are the kinds of things we want to imitate.
[01:15:19]  What we don't want to imitate is Christ's polemic.
[01:15:22]  We don't want to imitate his discourse with the Pharisees.
[01:15:27]  We don't want to imitate him's whitewashed tombs.
[01:15:32]  You know, we don't want to imitate that.
[01:15:34]  And so my point is, every single Christian, we're saying, be like Jesus.
[01:15:41]  And when I fail, and I fail all the time, but when I fail to be like Christ in my attempts, for instance, to love my wife, there's a lot in the church at large.
[01:15:53]  There's a lot of grace for that.
[01:15:55]  There just is.
[01:15:56]  You know, there's more understanding.
[01:15:58]  There's more grace, more mercy, so long as I'm repentant and I want to get better.
[01:16:04]  I want to love my wife as Christ loved the church or in parenting my children.
[01:16:11]  So when we fail to imitate Christ in love, there's grace.
[01:16:15]  When anyone fails to imitate Christ, or we might add, when someone succeeds imitating Christ in his boldness, in his confrontation, in his polemic, there's no grace at all.
[01:16:27]  And so I think like even Donald Trump, as an example, not saying the dude's a Christian or anything like that.
[01:16:33]  What I am saying though is I miss him in the Oval Office, my goodness.
[01:16:42]  But my point is, I'm going for Ron DeSantis.
[01:16:45]  We'll see.
[01:16:46]  But Trump, I'm not saying he did it right.
[01:16:50]  I'm not saying I would defend him or endorse him as an elder in a church or anything like that.
[01:16:57]  But I think just people look at Trump and they saw his Twitter account, right?

=== The Cost of Taking a Stand (03:26) ===

[01:17:02]  And all these kinds of, and they just blasted him and blasted him and blasted him.
[01:17:07]  And I think that that's what's in people's minds of like what you were saying, John, about being a man and the old Westerns and that kind of image.
[01:17:15]  I really think that there's just anyone who attempts, what I'm trying to say is Trump, I think, at least tried to be a man.
[01:17:21]  And I think in a lot of ways, in terms of his policies, he succeeded.
[01:17:24]  In his rhetoric, I think a lot of times he went too far.
[01:17:28]  But at least he stood up.
[01:17:29]  And one of the most iconic things he said is that they don't hate me, they hate you.
[01:17:33]  And I'm just standing in the way.
[01:17:34]  And I think that was true.
[01:17:36]  And so we look at that.
[01:17:38]  And I think a lot of evangelicals look at Trump.
[01:17:40]  They look at the backlash, the bad press, and they think that's what happens when someone tries to stand up.
[01:17:47]  That's what happens when someone tries to be a man.
[01:17:49]  And so nobody even wants to try, I don't know what you think.
[01:17:55]  Yeah, you're not rewarded for it in the eyes of the media elites, so you wouldn't do it for self interest.
[01:18:05]  But that's part of what being 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 your wife to protect them, to love them, to nurture them, to not in a way that a wife would work, nurture, but In providing, in encouraging.
[01:18:30]  If you're a leader in a church, then the same would apply to the church.
[01:18:34]  If you're a leader in government, the same would apply to your constituents.
[01:18:39]  But even if you're just someone in a community, we're not born blank slates without any attachments.
[01:18:46]  We have attachments and obligations as we just grow up in a community of people.
[01:18:53]  And men take that seriously, real men.
[01:18:56]  They want to do their best for that.
[01:19:00]  I think in some ways, a knowledge of the divine, of knowing that you're going to be judged for this, probably helps foster some of that.
[01:19:11]  But just having good role models and examples, Paul even said, basically, follow me as I follow Christ.
[01:19:20]  And so it's good to have some good role models.
[01:19:23]  And today we don't have a lot of that.
[01:19:25]  So there aren't men being held up as positive examples of this, only negative examples.
[01:19:31]  If anyone ever tries to be a man, They're made fun of.
[01:19:35]  All the sitcoms make fun of them.
[01:19:37]  So, what we do need, and I'm starting to see this a little bit, at least in some quarters of Christianity, is good examples.
[01:19:47]  And there's plenty of them out there, but Christian manhood illustrated by people who do take their responsibilities seriously and can exude that kind of.
[01:20:04]  Whatever that thing is that people want to follow, you know, yeah, that's the quality.
[01:20:09]  Right.
[01:20:10]  And so I am starting to see that.
[01:20:13]  And there's a lot of young men right now.
[01:20:15]  I think the Jordan Peterson kind of phenomenon showed this a lot more, but there are some smaller figures now in Christianity, I think, that are starting to kind of have the same effect on a mini scale.

=== Rejecting Ethnic Exploitation Narratives (07:19) ===

[01:20:28]  But someone who is willing to buck the system because they loved others, because they cared about truth.
[01:20:34]  That's infectious.
[01:20:35]  That's young men without fathers who have come from broken households, who have moved three times and don't have a sense of place.
[01:20:44]  They're looking for that stability somewhere.
[01:20:46]  And this is the golden opportunity for Christians who, I mean, look, we got the man's man of all time, Jesus Christ.
[01:20:54]  I mean, look, that guy went to the cross and was punished in a way and had more pain inflicted on him than anyone else ever in human history, and emotional and physical.
[01:21:09]  And yet he endured it for the joy set before him and to please his father.
[01:21:14]  And to redeem a people, he accomplished something.
[01:21:18]  And that's what men wanted.
[01:21:19]  And he could have avoided.
[01:21:22]  And he could have, that's right.
[01:21:23]  In that vein, in that masculine vein.
[01:21:25]  So you're right, at great cost of himself, to the benefit of others, 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, aka what the Pharisee said was, it's because of what you say.
[01:21:49]  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 by not speaking courageously as a man does.
[01:22:01]  So Jesus set this example of masculinity by sacrificing himself, taking great pain, great cost to himself to the benefit and the life and the welfare of others, everything you're saying, but then also adding to that.
[01:22:13]  And at any step in the road, 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 when he was already hanging on the cross.
[01:22:24]  I'm saying, no, in practical terms, he had the constant temptation, just as we do, except he resisted it perfectly, but the constant temptation at any point 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, um, he was calling out sin, he was calling out the cultural norms, all these kinds of things that, um, well, he was calling the Pharisees, you know, that they're making their proselytes twice as much a son of hell as they are, and it'd be better if a millstone was hung around your neck.
[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, um, and and yeah, I mean, he made bitter enemies because of it, but.
[01:23:24]  You see that, I mean, this principle that God resists the proud gives grace to the humble.
[01:23:28]  For those who were sinful but humble and repentant, I mean, he was gentle.
[01:23:33]  I mean, he said, My burden is light, my yoke is easy.
[01:23:39]  So, you know, in Jesus, we have this figure that wants to defend the weak and then wants to take on the bad guys, really expose them for who they are.
[01:23:51]  And throughout, in our context, but Western history is filled with these examples.
[01:23:58]  We see this template repeated over and over imperfectly, uh, in people like George Washington, and um, like I referenced those old cowboy movies and stuff.
[01:24:07]  That's that's kind of like they're trying to reach for something, they're trying to copy something, a template that's already been laid down, and that template is what's been destroyed.
[01:24:16]  And that's that's a forbidden template, you're not supposed to be like that if you're a man.
[01:24:22]  I think here's the takeaway in my mind this is like the big lesson here to wrap kind of sort of like everything we're talking about up.
[01:24:27]  But if you are a leader in a church, or no matter how big your platform is, if you want to let the bad guys get away with what they're getting away with, maybe you'll even help them a little.
[01:24:39]  You give them a little bit of a boost by sort of strapping Christianity to their agenda or something.
[01:24:48]  You'll have an easy life, possibly.
[01:24:50]  I mean, you take that gamble a little bit, they could turn on you, but you have a better chance of having an easy life, and people won't have a problem with you as much, and you'll be able to get through life.
[01:24:59]  Um, maybe you'll have a little more material prosperity, you'll be thought of a little better, but in the end, you won't actually be respected.
[01:25:08]  Um, not real respect.
[01:25:10]  Uh, you won't have you know, little boys aren't going to be growing up with stars in their eyes looking at you because you saved the day and are a war hero or something like that.
[01:25:19]  They're you're a coward, that's what you are, and you have an easy life, but you're a coward, and you're going to be servicing a church for other cowards who also are interested in the same thing, they want their ears tickled.
[01:25:31]  But if you are willing to take a stand to call out the names of people who are wrecking men's souls and then physically, even perhaps damaging people and communities, it's not going to be easy for you.
[01:25:44]  But you can put your head on your pillow at night.
[01:25:47]  You can have the pleasure of the Lord.
[01:25:49]  You can actually know a joy that's even deeper.
[01:25:52]  And you'll have actual respect because you're worthy of it.
[01:25:56]  Because I mean, I don't want to say anyone's worthy of anything, but you've actually earned it.
[01:26:01]  You've earned it.
[01:26:02]  No, you're right.
[01:26:02]  Yeah.
[01:26:03]  You've earned it.
[01:26:03]  Yeah.
[01:26:04]  We're all worthy of hell.
[01:26:05]  But no, that's right.
[01:26:07]  Trust and respect is earned.
[01:26:09]  And that doesn't mean that we can earn salvation.
[01:26:13]  But no, in a horizontal human sense, like love.
[01:26:18]  So forgiveness, we forgive freely because we've been freely forgiven.
[01:26:21]  And forgiveness, I think, is likens to love.
[01:26:23]  So I can love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me.
[01:26:26]  But trust is a different category.
[01:26:29]  And I think forgiveness falls underneath the love banner, and respect, I think, falls underneath the trust banner.
[01:26:35]  And the Bible, by the Bible's mere.
[01:26:39]  Mere commandment merely by the Bible's commandment for us to be discerning that right there by way of implication Tells us that the Christian worldview says that trust is not assumed Right if trust is assumed then there's no basis of discernment and so so trust therefore must be earned over time by action and word and and Faithfulness and those kinds of things and so absolutely like we we earn trust and and and by proxy we earn respect and Yeah,
[01:27:08]  man, I Like Michael Scott on The Office.
[01:27:12]  I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.
[01:27:16]  I want people to respect me.
[01:27:18]  I don't want to just be loved or liked.
[01:27:20]  And I think that's what it's not even true love.
[01:27:22]  What guys are settling for right now is not even the love of their parishioners or their congregate.
[01:27:27]  They're settling for just their approval.
[01:27:30]  It's not love.
[01:27:31]  It's just being liked.
[01:27:32]  I don't want to be liked.
[01:27:33]  I want to be loved and I want to be respected.
[01:27:36]  More than even being loved, I want to be respected.
[01:27:39]  Because i'm a man, respect matters more to me than than even love, and just, I think the way that God's designed, designed men, and so everything you're saying is great.

=== Jesus Wants the Rose (12:45) ===

[01:27:48]  Let's, let's go ahead and wrap up.
[01:27:50]  Um so, we named a lot of guys.
[01:27:51]  We named Matt Chandler.
[01:27:52]  You talked about Tim Tim Keller, and we talked about Eric Mason and Russell Moore, and we named a lot of guys.
[01:27:59]  Let's, let's end the episode with you just giving me name and reason, as briefly as you can, who are the two guys in evangelicalism that you're the most concerned about.
[01:28:11]  Two guys, name them, yeah.
[01:28:12]  If you could just maybe give me two guys.
[01:28:14]  Okay.
[01:28:16]  Yeah, that's hard because I feel like every week it's like a new guy that I'm like, okay, that's a guy who's kind of.
[01:28:22]  You can give me 17 guys if you want.
[01:28:27]  Yeah, I just actually went back and listened to the 2018 lecture at T4G by David Platt because I hadn't really focused on him a lot.
[01:28:38]  But with the current issues at McLean, I wanted to just kind of review some of his stuff.
[01:28:43]  And I would say.
[01:28:45]  Yeah, he's definitely.
[01:28:47]  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 in other things he said, but he accuses people, he accuses the church, he accuses everyone in the room at the conference of sin and grave sin.
[01:29:06]  I mean, they need to repent, they're in danger of the judgment of God because there are disparities between black and white, and they don't do enough about it.
[01:29:17]  That is not just a different take on sin or a different, like, you know, category.
[01:29:23]  I'm going to categorize this as sin when it's not.
[01:29:26]  That's like a different concept of sin.
[01:29:28]  You can passively be guilty of things that previous generations might have done or things that you really are not even tangentially related to, the things that are outside your purview.
[01:29:42]  You may not be in sin at all, but you are because of the world and the environment that you inhabit.
[01:29:49]  And this is pure Marxism, pure social justice stuff.
[01:29:54]  But it actually tampers with an understanding of sin itself when you do that.
[01:30:00]  And when you tamper with sin and what sin actually is, you start tampering with the gospel.
[01:30:07]  So, what is the good news actually?
[01:30:15]  You're going to constantly be guilty.
[01:30:18]  There's no way to really repent of it.
[01:30:19]  There's no way to get out of it.
[01:30:20]  You're going to be on the hamster wheel forever.
[01:30:22]  There's really no Flight at the end of the tunnel of forgiveness in that paradigm.
[01:30:26]  So that's David Platt.
[01:30:28]  I'll try to be quicker with you.
[01:30:29]  Okay.
[01:30:29]  So, yeah.
[01:30:32]  So, like Tim Keller, right?
[01:30:34]  He constantly, what he does often is he'll make justice this obligation that, like, if you don't give, this is a quote from him, like in 2010.
[01:30:51]  He said, if you don't, and I'm kind of summarizing it a little, but he is in, I think it was in the Christianity Today.
[01:30:58]  It's our obligation to give the poor as much as we can possibly give them.
[01:31:04]  And it's all based on need.
[01:31:06]  It's if because someone's poor, we have an obligation to give them as much as we can possibly give away.
[01:31:12]  Now, that may sound really good, but if you start to apply that, if you call that justice and say that's what justice is, and you conflate charity with justice, which is what he's doing, then you get into this weird position where, okay, justice is also a concept that, you know, apply that to the gospel.
[01:31:28]  Everyone needs forgiveness.
[01:31:29]  God doesn't forgive everyone.
[01:31:31]  So is God now unjust?
[01:31:33]  So, it gives you into these weird spots.
[01:31:35]  And so, Tim Keller is another guy I think of as like a big threat.
[01:31:41]  I'll give you just two more because I know we got to wrap up.
[01:31:43]  But these are Southern Baptist guys and they're smaller names Jarvis Williams and Walter Strickland, because I've done a lot of work on them.
[01:31:50]  Jarvis Williams has integrated critical race theory into Christianity more than anyone else I know.
[01:31:56]  And the main issue with that is he comes up with a Galatian type heresy at the end of the day.
[01:32:01]  The gospel is about racial reconciliation, and racial reconciliation means that you have to platform these voices.
[01:32:08]  You have to accept these narratives.
[01:32:10]  You have to teach history a certain way.
[01:32:12]  It's very specific.
[01:32:13]  It's like it's pretty long.
[01:32:15]  But he makes that part of the gospel that that's what Paul's talking about in Ephesians and in Galatians.
[01:32:24]  What he's trying to do is break down that dividing wall of ethnicity and bring Jews and Gentiles together.
[01:32:32]  But he then reads into that critical race theory.
[01:32:35]  So, dangerous guy.
[01:32:38]  That's not what that's talking about.
[01:32:40]  And then, and Walter Strickland is pushing liberation theology.
[01:32:43]  He's one of the easiest in my mind because there are several times that he 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 Lord with loving the Lord with or loving God and loving your neighbor is the gospel.
[01:33:05]  It's like, that's the law, man.
[01:33:06]  That's what condemns you.
[01:33:07]  But then his version of love is liberation theology.
[01:33:10]  So, those are four guys.
[01:33:12]  So, I'll give you a bonus two, but guys I'm concerned about, guys who in different ways.
[01:33:18]  Uh, are promoting ideas that either if you think through them logically, they destroy the gospel, or they do directly actually tamper with the gospel.
[01:33:31]  Yep, I completely agree, that's super helpful.
[01:33:34]  I'm going to throw on one myself right here at the end.
[01:33:37]  Since I used to be in Acts 29, I'm going to throw Matt Chandler in there, and I'll do it by saying this I remember being in the conference, it was about four or five years ago.
[01:33:46]  There was a panel, it was Eric Mason, Leonce Crump.
[01:33:51]  Who else?
[01:33:52]  Eric Mason, Leonce Crump, Brandon Washington, and, oh, Thabiti.
[01:33:57]  Thabiti was the main plenary speaker for this conference.
[01:34:00]  And so Thabiti was there, and there was one other guy, I forget his name, but it was five black guys who were either on the board or leaders in the Axe 29 network, or like Thabiti were a guest speaker for that particular conference, and Matt Chandler was the moderator.
[01:34:13]  And we were once again having a conversation about race, except, of course, like all conversations about race, it was all minorities, right?
[01:34:22]  Black voices being elevated, getting to talk.
[01:34:24]  White person gets to talk is just shut up and believe right, you just shut up, you listen, no cross-examination, no questions, you just believe and it's all.
[01:34:32]  None of it's factual, none of it's um substance or or or statistics right, if you ask for statistics, then you're being oppressive.
[01:34:40]  You know um, but it's all, it's story.
[01:34:42]  It has to be story because that's the only thing that works.
[01:34:45]  And so it's just this manipulative, emotionally manipulative, play of just story after story from these men about how you know, when I get pulled over by a police officer, you know right, check the trunk of the car, you know, or?
[01:34:57]  And i'm not even saying that those things didn't happen, But what I'm saying is that doesn't prove anything.
[01:35:03]  Because we can find five white guys in the room who can get up.
[01:35:08]  And okay, an individual police officer, maybe it was racial.
[01:35:13]  First, we don't even know it's racial.
[01:35:14]  Second, even if it is racial, that doesn't say that it's systematic.
[01:35:18]  So anyways, you get it.
[01:35:20]  So that's going on.
[01:35:21]  And then at the end, I remember Chandler, he says this.
[01:35:24]  He says, and he's just listening, asking questions.
[01:35:27]  And it's just kind of like this layup.
[01:35:28]  And it was right after some shooting happened.
[01:35:30]  I can't remember which shooting it was, but probably like several of the shootings, one that eventually, you know, after hindsight was proven that it was justified on the police officers, you know, like Michael Brown, you know, something like that.
[01:35:45]  But I remember Eric Mason saying, I'm so angry I can't.
[01:35:47]  He was like, I don't even know where I am right now.
[01:35:49]  I'm dizzy.
[01:35:49]  You know, I can't even see.
[01:35:50]  And I remember being like, I remember being angry.
[01:35:54]  I was angry because it was like, this was two days after a shooting took place.
[01:35:58]  You and I, neither one of us know if it was actually unjust, if what the police officer did was actually unjust.
[01:36:05]  You don't know.
[01:36:06]  And in your presumption and your arrogance, you're sitting up there and saying, I'm so angry right now.
[01:36:12]  And as all five of these men continue to give story after story, all these, the women, because it's pastors and wives conference, all these white women, white pastors' wives are crying.
[01:36:21]  And you can just see the shame and the guilt for this sin that none of them had committed, right?
[01:36:26]  Maybe a couple of them.
[01:36:27]  And then at the end, it's like the audacity, the cherry on top.
[01:36:32]  Chandler asks, okay, so what can we do to fix it?
[01:36:36]  Like what are some, and I remember he said, what are some books that we could read?
[01:36:38]  And I remember Leon's Crump.
[01:36:40]  he responded by saying, you see, this is the problem.
[01:36:44]  This is what we call the numinous Negro.
[01:36:47]  And he said, you know, did you ever watch The Green Mile with Tom Hanks?
[01:36:50]  You know, it's always, you know, even in the movies, there's always some magical Negro who fixes the white man's problems.
[01:36:56]  You got an iPhone.
[01:36:57]  You can Google.
[01:36:58]  You find out what books to read.
[01:37:00]  You know, and I wasn't, this was two, again, four or five years ago, five or six years ago, actually.
[01:37:07]  And so I wasn't well versed in this, but I didn't realize what he was actually, and then he proceeds to recommend, like Critical, Racecraft was one of the books he recommends.
[01:37:15]  It's riddled with crt and so anyways.
[01:37:18]  But but after I mean so, Matt Chandler, the president of ACTS 29, has you up here, has appointed you to a position on the board, you know, has you up here to speak to all these people where you're just chastising every pastor and wife in the network, and and then he's asking you, what can we do to fix the problem?
[01:37:33]  And and you just belittle him and belittle all of us, you know.
[01:37:37]  And and then you, you answer the question with heretical, horrible books that no, no Christian needs to read other than to objectively point out what is wrong in it.
[01:37:47]  And I didn't have a language for it at the time, but I realize now in hindsight what he was referencing was absolutely this social justice, CRT, intersectionality thing.
[01:37:57]  He was referencing ethnic exploitation.
[01:38:00]  So he didn't use that word.
[01:38:03]  And if he had, I wouldn't have known what it was.
[01:38:05]  But he's saying this is the numinous Negro, right?
[01:38:06]  The white man relying on the black man to fix his problems, even the problem of being racist towards the black man, which is essentially, that's not a verbatim quote, but that is what he said.
[01:38:16]  That is the spirit of what he said.
[01:38:18]  And so what he's getting at is you're engaging in ethnic exploitation.
[01:38:22]  And I now look back and I realize the madness of CRT is this idea of, all right, all white people are racist, or really everybody's racist, but white people are more complicit, more morally guilty because they benefit as the hegemony, the dominant group from racism more than everybody else.
[01:38:38]  And so what do you do to atone for your sins?
[01:38:41]  Well, you've got to do your anti-racist homework.
[01:38:43]  And what is that anti-racist homework?
[01:38:45]  Well, it's calling out racism in yourself and racism in the system and society at large, but you can't do that as a white man.
[01:38:52]  because you're blind to it.
[01:38:54]  You've been blinded by your privilege.
[01:38:56]  So you have to partner with a person of color, someone who's of an oppressed intersection.
[01:39:02]  And that's exactly what Chandler was doing.
[01:39:04]  He's following the CRT.
[01:39:05]  He probably didn't even know, but he's doing what he's supposed to do.
[01:39:08]  We want to do our anti-racist homework, and can you help us?
[01:39:11]  Can you be our eyes and ears because we're blinded by privilege?
[01:39:16]  But Leonce Crump follows the script perfectly, just like Robin DiAngelo and all that kind of stuff, and they didn't even know they were doing it probably.
[01:39:23]  And I certainly didn't know at the time, but it's exactly what we see from the Frankfurt School and all this kind of stuff.
[01:39:31]  And so Leonce Crump, without skipping a beat, says this is the numinous Negro.
[01:39:34]  And so basically what he's saying is everyone's racist, but you're morally complicit because you're white.
[01:39:39]  You benefit from racism the most.
[01:39:41]  Therefore, you must atone for that sin of racism by doing your anti-racist homework, but you can't do it because it involves seeing something that you can't see because you're blinded by privilege.
[01:39:51]  You need us, which is precisely why you have this panel going on right now and why we've been appointed. to the board rather than somebody else who's been in the network and been more faithful.
[01:40:01]  And then when you ask for us to help you see, be your eyes and ears so that you can do your anti-racist homework, then you're done messed up, AA, Ron.
[01:40:10]  Turns out you're racist twice because you've just engaged in ethnic exploitation by using a person of color simply to posture yourself as a good white.
[01:40:19]  And all that, my point is none of the language, I'm using CRT, intersectionality language, that we've all come to recognize.
[01:40:26]  After the fact, thank god for guys like James Lindsay, that guy, I mean, that guy has been a wonderful friend, um to to the church.

=== The Manipulation of Guilt and Shame (04:32) ===

[01:40:33]  Uh, he's not a brother in Christ, but God has used him in his common grace, wonderful friend.
[01:40:38]  None of us had the language at the time, I didn't have the language at the time, but I look back now and it was, it was all to the t?
[01:40:45]  Um critical race theory, it was all social justice, it was all ethnic um um, ethnic gnosticism, ethnic um that.
[01:40:53]  You know that the whole like, like Voty talks about ethnic gnosticism and uh ethnic uh, the standpoint epistemology, you know relativism, like and and it was all right there, and everyone.
[01:41:06]  The result of it was it wasn't it it?
[01:41:09]  There was no racial reconciliation, there was no unity.
[01:41:12]  Unity is not the fruit of this stuff.
[01:41:15]  The result of it was manipulation guilt shame, division and anger.
[01:41:21]  And I was one of the people and I remember just to use a Chandlerism and i'll end with this you remember the, the famous, you know, Chandler video that went viral, you know, like Jesus wants the rose, right?
[01:41:33]  The guys preaching and say who would want this rose after passing around all the petals fall off?
[01:41:38]  That's what a girl's like if she gives away her sexuality and her virginity and Chandler says and I felt this I was visibly angry and I wanted to shout out Jesus wants the rose.
[01:41:48]  Well in in that meeting five years ago even though I didn't have all the language I have now to define exactly what was going on at the time 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, all of a sudden, he had become the bad guy.
[01:42:12]  All of a sudden, it's like he completely sold out, completely compromised.
[01:42:16]  His whole video of Jesus wants the rose, I could do a video exactly like that, except he's now the preacher.
[01:42:23]  He's the preacher who's destroying the gospel, who's destroying the rose, who's making hundreds of women crying.
[01:42:30]  He's overseeing this whole thing, letting it happen.
[01:42:34]  being guilted for a sin that they haven't even committed.
[01:42:37]  And I'm, you know, so I got to throw Matt Chandler.
[01:42:41]  That would be my name.
[01:42:42]  You know, I feel like near and dear to my heart, a guy that I have appreciated and loved, a guy whose network I was a part of.
[01:42:49]  I was a pastor in Acts 29, and that guy let the network go to crap.
[01:42:55]  Absolutely go to crap.
[01:42:56]  And so I'll toss in on top of your, I see your Tim Keller, and I see your Jarvis Williams, and I raise you a Matt Chandler.
[01:43:04]  All right, John.
[01:43:05]  Well, that's it.
[01:43:07]  Let our listeners know how they can follow you.
[01:43:09]  I know we've gone long on this.
[01:43:10]  I really appreciate your time, but let us know how can our listeners follow you and pray for you?
[01:43:16]  Yeah, my pleasure.
[01:43:17]  Where can they listen?
[01:43:18]  I guess worldviewconversation.com is the website that has all the links to my social media, where you can just go on YouTube, type in conversations that matter.
[01:43:28]  But if you go to worldviewconversation.com, my books are up there and articles and that kind of thing.
[01:43:35]  Pray for me.
[01:43:37]  There's a lot going on right now.
[01:43:40]  I'm just 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 yeah, just pray that in this new season of my life and I'm getting involved in church and all of that, that, you know, just be faithful and, Be able to help the situation that's confronting us, especially with the gospel.
[01:44:22]  But also, I feel like I want to do something, 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.
[01:44:29]  But that's the main thing I always ask people to pray for just faithfulness and good time management.
[01:44:36]  There's a lot going on.
[01:44:37]  So I keep the Lord first.
[01:44:41]  Those are my personal prayer requests, at least.
[01:44:42]  And I appreciate you asking.
[01:44:45]  Great.
[01:44:45]  John, thanks so much for coming on the show.
[01:44:47]  God bless you, brother.
[01:44:48]  Yeah, my pleasure.
[01:44:49]  Have a good one.
[01:44:50]  Thanks so much for listening.
[01:44:51]  But, real quick, before you go, do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
[01:44:58]  This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible.
[01:45:06]  Thanks so much.