Issues in Biblical Anthropology, Lecture
Key Topics
Transcript with YouTube timestamps
0:03in colossians 2 8 the apostle paul writes this see to it that no one takes you captive
0:10by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition according to the elemental
0:17spirits of the world and not according to christ this morning i’m going to be
0:25drafting off of some material i have delivered previously and that will be
0:30lord willing coming out in book form in coming months under the title christianity and
0:36wokeness there are youtube lectures that you can find of that name and i have adapted some of that material
0:42although i have also engaged new material for this lecture here at tms so that is what we will be
0:48proceeding with in a famous training session that was captured on video in 2017
0:55a woman named ashley shackleford opposed racism in memorable fashion and this clip went
1:01viral on social media some time ago in fact it’s gone viral a couple times separately standing before a room of
1:08women including numerous white women shackleford said this straightforwardly
1:13all white people are racists but not just this doubling down on the point she said no
1:20you’re always going to be racist actually even when you’re on a path
1:26to be a better human being she continued the point i believe all white people are born into
1:32not being human and she saved her strongest words for last white people according to her
1:40grow up because of their racist training because of their inherent racism
1:46to be demons to be demons this was a particularly strong form of
1:53what we call wokeness i’ll give you more on that in just a moment this is a kind of non-academic form
2:02as well of what is called critical race theory shackleford said some things that
2:09others would not say uh certainly whether they believe it or not
2:14but for our purposes when we hear these words we need to note that what we are hearing is really the
2:22actual beliefs of the system that i call wokeness according to standard woke ideology
2:30in general terms white people are indeed racist they are the historic oppressors of others
2:35and thus white people are guilty in what we would call objective terms as shackleford made
2:41clear in her training session there is no real solution for this condition it is indeed an
2:48endemic condition it is one that is passed down and it is not one that a white person
2:53can simply jump off of in terms of a path and jump onto a different path and be a better person
3:01no instead according to shackleford and others robin deangelo who wrote the
3:06best-selling book white fragility and has made millions off of it and her speaking for
3:11exactly these kind of ideas white people are trapped in their condition
3:16of racism there is nothing they can do effectively to get out of it there is not an antidote for it
3:22there is not a prayer you can pray there is not a course of action you can take to overcome the condition of racism in
3:30you instead this is always going to be the condition you face and d’angelo is especially
3:36clear about this you’re always going to be a racist and you cannot overcome that
3:41all you can do is fight it and all you can do is adapt certain behaviors and policies
3:48that will oppose your inherent racist nature well this is what we
3:56call wokeness wokeness is really the posture or the mindset that
4:03builds off of critical race theory critical race theory argues that effectively the world
4:10is structured as you heard me say a couple days ago according to two major groups there are oppressors and there are the
4:17oppressed these are categories that do not owe simply to racial considerations but to marxist
4:23considerations long before critical race theory ever became a thing critical race theory is not
4:29directly marxist but it is definitely influenced by and developed from marxism marxism
4:35making the critique that basically there are different categories of people inerratically in the world there are
4:42oppressors and there are oppressed and of course many of you are going to know that in economic marxism
4:47effectively if you are rich if you are wealthy you are an oppressor
4:53you are an oppressor your attitude doesn’t really matter there your heart condition doesn’t really
4:58matter there even your actions don’t really change that you are in the category of oppressor
5:04because you have something that other people have marxism
5:09is many things and is a complex system and of course has many proponents and many offshoots of it but at base it is
5:17really partiality a system of partiality against those who have wealth the wealth are
5:24read very simply as being oppressors why they are read as being oppressors
5:30because they have things that people do not so at base hear this marxism is at base
5:36a reading of difference it’s a reading of difference that’s really what it boils down to at
5:43base i mean many things to say about it but
5:48marxism as it develops from karl marx and engels and others
5:54looks at society sees the fantastically wealthy out there who have all sorts of
6:00blessings and benefits and privileges then looks around in the mid to late 19th century
6:07at the poor who are living in squalor and misery and fighting different diseases
6:12on and on it goes dying young much younger than many of the rich and marxism basically looks at these
6:20conditions and says it is wrong it is unfair that there are some who have a lot and
6:27some who have little and so what marxism does again we’re
6:32painting in broad brush strokes admittedly is it says what we need to do is we need to make this
6:38fair and here’s an important word we need to make this just the current conditions in which
6:47there are the haves and have-nots are conditions of injustice those who have a lot fundamentally
6:55are oppressors of the oppressed the oppressed are synonymous with the
7:01poor and so what needs to happen is that the society needs to be
7:06leveled and we need not simply equality of opportunity that’s what someone like me
7:12this is owen strand not karl marx speaking we need not simply equality of
7:18opportunity that is what we want to work for in a society in my view we want as much
7:24of that as we can get equality of opportunity make sure you
7:29get that make sure you understand that economic marxism in socialist form is very much alive and
7:36well today and is going to be a contender uh in our circles for for a
7:41long time societally marxism is back with a vengeance economically
7:49accordingly what needs to happen is not simply the pursuit of equality of opportunity but the pursuit of a quality
7:56of outcome equality of outcome in other words it’s not simply that we
8:03all want as equal a launch pad into life as we can get that’s what someone like me a free
8:09marketeer is going to say no it’s that we need to make sure that
8:14everyone’s outcome is the same or else society is unequal and
8:22unjust if there are differences in prosperity if there are differences in
8:29material conditions if there are improved neighborhoods these are all signs of difference and
8:36signs of difference are signs of injustice
8:42and so when you’re looking at disparities between communities or between races or between classes that’s initially where marxism
8:49is rooted you’re seeing not simply disparities or differences that owe to complex factors
8:55you are seeing injustice being fomented and it may be hidden and it may be silent and it may be quiet
9:01and no one may name it but rest assured where there is difference there is disparity and where there is disparity
9:07there is injustice i’m going to put that up on the board
9:13right here at the beginning so that we understand this foundational tenet of marxism where there is difference
9:22you can say it different ways but where there is difference there is inequity and where there is
9:28inequity there is injustice
9:40d i i where there is difference there is inequity and where there is
9:46inequity there is injustice welcome essentially to marxism this is
9:54really in the most basic form with much more to say on the table admittedly
10:00what a marxist set of principles boils down to when you’re looking at
10:05disparities when you see different communities having different levels of material conditions
10:10you’re not just seeing you’re not just seeing communities that have taken whatever
10:17opportunities they have had and manifested those opportunities at different measures
10:22for a whole variety of reasons a complex set of reasons which is what someone
10:28like me would would push us to to want to identify what are what are the complex reasons
10:35why communities are different or why neighborhoods are different or why one household prospers and another does
10:42not why one all the way down to the granule granular level why one individual thrives and another does not
10:50at the economic level we’re just at economics now you poor guys you didn’t know you were getting an economics lecture at 8 30 in the morning
10:56sorry actually sorry not sorry okay but at the granular level why do
11:03some individuals prosper and some don’t well there’s probably probably a complex
11:09conversation to have there yes there’s probably going to be some different factors as to why one person
11:15is a billionaire and why another person is struggling and let’s add in 10 more people why are
11:21these 10 people where they are and furthermore not just where they are now where have they been and where will they be can we not say
11:28that there’s probably some complexity of factor there there there’s probably what we call in
11:34historical terms and economic terms complex causality and there’s probably not at least in
11:39some cases at least in a good number of cases one sole cause of
11:45let’s say 25 different people being in different conditions certainly in america in the 21st century
11:52anyway there are no doubt societies where there are going to be more straightforward uh factors
11:59according to material conditions you think of poverty for example in communist russia well many people are
12:04poor because stalin is enacting in the 1940s and in other decades purges and he is uh he is
12:12effectively fomenting for starvation of his population so that is a as an instance where
12:17yes there is going to be less complexity of causation but in a lot of places in a lot of other
12:22contexts a context like ours there are going to be different factors and different causes
12:27that that all uh play into why 25 different people have different
12:33stories a hundred people have different stories a thousand people have different conditions what about a million people
12:38having different conditions what about 20 million what about 100 million what about 300 million there’s probably a fair
12:44amount of differentiation to note to put on the table
12:51but marxism marxism’s appeal
12:56is in major part because it takes all of that diversity
13:03and distinction and uniqueness and it boils it down into at base
13:12a very simple even simplistic formulation that
13:19plays into the religious instincts of the human heart
13:24and i want you to understand that yes marxism is a an economic ideology it’s not one that
13:30holds much water when you start examining it but it is also one that taps into an ideology that
13:37taps into the religious instincts of the human heart and it warps the conscience of the human
13:45person because we are set up by god romans 2 14 to 16 to hate
13:52injustice and want justice personally communally
13:59globally what marxism does is it takes those religious instincts and it takes that conscience
14:07and it says where you see somebody wealthy you’re seeing an oppressor and where you see somebody poor
14:13you’re seeing effectively someone who’s oppressed or someone who’s even righteous in their condition as a result
14:19and that simplistic ideology has had is having and i’m sure
14:26will have tremendous appeal for a good long while because man that is an easy way to look
14:35at the world and if you’re not rich it effectively
14:41it writes you a major check a blank check of frustration and anger and resentment
14:47and friends i want you to understand that the human heart is very adept at resenting
14:54one of the strongest forces in the human heart is the force of resentment
15:01is despising others especially despising others
15:06who have something that we do not have and one of the fundamental
15:11distinguishers in human existence in the world is wealth
15:17and thus one of the easiest ways for you to be resentful is to not have
15:25wealth and for others to have wealth of course it’s not restrained to money you understand this we can easily be
15:32resentful and jealous of people who have intellectual gifts we don’t have look in the christian context who have
15:38preaching gifts we don’t have who have a personality a strong charming personality that we don’t have
15:44uh who have a background a heritage that is cueing them up for for the
15:50trajectory we want to be on that we don’t have we can go on and on the the wife that we
15:56don’t have the the beautiful children that we don’t have the easy path the health the athletic ability on and
16:03on it goes resentment is one of the strongest forces in the human heart
16:09and we must proverbs 4 23 as men of god and as those in christian
16:15ministry called to lead churches what a high calling the highest calling on earth
16:21we must continually vigilantly keep our heart so that we not just marxists out there
16:28somewhere we are not living in resentment
16:36a lot easier to live in resentment than you might think resentment is one of those hidden quiet
16:43secret sins even your wife even your closest friends
16:50your roommates may have no idea that you resent a classmate
16:55that you resent a fellow pastor elder that you resent a family member
17:01resentment is is terrifying you can live in resentment for decades no one knows but you know
17:10we have to kill resentment we have to kill it at the personal level all of us all of us not some of us all of us
17:18resentment is what cain brings to the table with abel isn’t it genesis 4
17:27cain kane resents abel abel is is honoring god more
17:34than cain is naturally instinctually the force of resentment in genesis 4 is
17:39so strong that it causes cain to kill his brother his righteous brother
17:48so this is a strong force indeed and it is a strong force at the level of ideology it has wreaked
17:55havoc in the west in western civilization and the last 150 years
18:01and it will continue at some level to wreak havoc in our time
18:07sometimes you hear people say that wokeness or critical race theory or intersectionality is marxist cultural
18:14marxism this is the foundation this foundation dii difference leading to inequity
18:19leading to injustice this is the foundation that people are drawing upon and meaning really
18:24when they say that and they are correct in saying that it’s not necessarily that everybody who
18:30promotes critical race theory or wokeness has you know marx and engel’s book on
18:36capital out and are pouring over footnotes in the economic tradition or something like
18:41this to build cultural marxism where there has been economic marxism but the framework
18:46of the ideology the bones are the same the principles are the same and if you
18:52are equipped to see that you are going to spot the lie in cultural marxism
18:58much more readily than if you don’t know the linkage and many people don’t know the linkage
19:04most people in the christian church today including i would say even many pastors don’t
19:10know what they are dealing with with regard to wokeness critical race
19:17theory and intersectionality i’m not throwing heat at them i’m not scorning
19:23them i’m a theologian i i have time i’m supposed to sit in my study and read books
19:31and try to develop material that then can be passed on to the church hopefully in some form some small form
19:36and influence a few people that’s what i’m called to do in part so i don’t begrudge pastors who have a
19:43whole slate of duties to do and do not frankly have a lot of time in many cases to delve into complex ideologies and
19:49worldviews understand them grasp them boil them down and bring them before their people in order that their
19:55people would not be taken captive by them nonetheless hear the call clearly
20:00i do not think that many people understand what we are up against friends let me say this we have for
20:06about 20 years now in the christian church talked a lot about post-modernity of course you know about this
20:11you’ve heard messages about this you’ve probably read books about this and good that you have and you should continue to do that because a lot of
20:18people are postmodern in different senses and yet we need to note and i’m
20:24following james lindsay and helen pluck rose’s argument in cynical theories here because i think they’re right we need to note that postmodernity has
20:30shifted before our very eyes it has it was one thing and now it is another thing in truth it is
20:36different things in different places but in the academy and alert in elite circles today i want you
20:42to know that post modernity has shifted from what is called soft postmodernity to what is called hard post-modernity
20:50soft post-modernity is your teenager contexts post-modernity
20:59it’s hot topic post-modernity it’s shopping mall post-modernity it’s i do whatever i want to do there’s
21:07not really any hard and fast morality or truth in the world it’s college campus post-modernity i want to party i want to
21:14live it up post-modernity here as we talked about from on day one serves me well in that respect there’s
21:20no ultimate truth there’s only my truth i can do whatever i want um that’s soft post-modernity that’s good
21:27for you man i’m so glad you you’ve heard this when you’re evangelizing i’m so glad that you found something that makes you happy and gives you
21:33purpose in life that’s not for me but that’s for you and that’s good that is post-modernity in operation
21:40soft hard post-modernity has emerged
21:45in the last 10 years or so and has really been making hay in just the last few years in elite
21:52sectors of american culture and society and hardpost modernity still doesn’t believe in an absolute
21:58objective standard for truth and actually doesn’t technically believe in absolute
22:05or objective truth but operates as if there are absolute
22:10and objective truths in the world and operates as if one community
22:16has access has the sole claim to that truth so to be clear this is
22:24confusing but to be clear there isn’t a shift in postmodern circles to adopt a
22:31religious text or or a source as that which grounds all of
22:38thinking and living don’t misunderstand we’re still postmodern in this system okay
22:45no absolute standard remember that everything reduces to a standard
22:52what is your foundation what is your ground by what document by what source
23:00by what authority do you make these claims post-modernity is an attack
23:06on authority fundamentally and our society is in the business and
23:11has been for some time of stripping down deconstructing eating like
23:16acid authority anywhere it finds it and that has seeped very much into the church as well
23:25hardpost modernity is still ironically dead set against objective authority
23:32and yet it realizes that all of life is a power game that’s the claim it
23:38makes that there are power dynamics in the world and so instead of opting out of the
23:44conversation over influence and power in society and culture hard post-modernists say hey we still
23:51don’t have any objective standard of truth but you know what there’s a lot of ground to be
23:56won in the society and so we’re going to operate as if we have
24:01uh in these different categories the claim on objectivity and we’re gonna operate
24:09that way and we’re going to effectively even
24:16though none of this is real there is no wizard behind the curtain
24:21we’re going to we’re going to take power by making these strong
24:26claims in society and we’re going to see how far this gets us
24:32and that explains much of the ascendancy of critical race
24:40theory wokeness and intersectionality it is not
24:45that different figures in all three of those movements and their loose and sprawling movements have all of a sudden become religious of
24:53a kind or have embraced a spiritual document or something from on high that has given
24:58them enlightenment no it is that they have realized that there is a lot of cultural ground to be
25:05taken imperially through ideology and they’re going to start coming to the
25:10table and playing the game perhaps this is what has happened as postmodern people have matured
25:18in your teenage years and your college years and your 20s and your 30s hey you’re in the bloom of
25:24life you’re in the flower of your existence you might as well just have a lot of fun why get all serious live it up
25:31but then when the dust settles and that’s all over there there’s actually a lot of
25:37ground to be won and you need a broader purpose in your life other than partying or
25:42existentialism or epicureanism whatever whatever it is that has been driving you for those 20 to 30 years or whatever it
25:49may be you need something more now you’re you’re not drawing uh folks like you used to and so now you
25:56need to settle down and get a higher purpose and a cause and that cause for many people is the
26:01cause of social justice or more broadly the cause of
26:07justice making society fair making society right and that is the
26:15central burden of what we call wokeness to make society
26:22just wokeness and critical race theory come to us
26:28under the guise of those who would promote justice and equity and fairness
26:34that is the banner under which this whole movement which i call wokeness advances and by
26:41woke as a term this is what is meant you have awakened to the nature
26:49of the inequities of our society and now you you are again awake to
26:56injustice that is everywhere around you previously what you were asleep
27:02and you didn’t see it everything looked normal to you everything looked fine everything looked
27:09generally just but no longer now you have by understanding racial
27:16power dynamics which i’m about to talk more about now you have awakened and now you
27:22understand that our society is fundamentally unequal and as an unequal society it is
27:28fundamentally unjust and so you are now again marching under the banner
27:34of what is called social justice and you are now part of the great movement of the age for
27:41justice just as economic marxism uh trumpeted the need for uh the overthrow of economic
27:49oppressors such that the the oppressed the the the people the common people would
27:54be lifted up so today as we’ve already mentioned and we’ll be talking more about we understand that
28:01the racial dominance of whiteness in america and the west was the
28:07oppressor and now needs to be overthrown and the oppressed people of color minorities and so on need to be lifted
28:14up and so that is what it means to be woke you see this you see the fundamental
28:20inequity that whiteness causes in society and you want to work against it and make society
28:27fair that is effectively synonymous with the project called social justice social justice is nothing
28:34other than working against those conditions to dynamite the effects of whiteness and
28:40make the society fair and just
28:46and that is also called cultural marxism there are many different streams ideologically
28:53playing in here together
28:58all this means that we are having in our society and culture today a broad-ranging conversation over the
29:05meaning of justice and we should all recognize that this is a conversation that we want to
29:12have as christians we want to engage people as they are trying to figure out what justices
29:20and we want to engage people as they are pursuing fairness and we want to have the
29:26conversation over race and ethnicity because
29:31we recognize that god made the human person and so any conversation over race and ethnicity
29:37and related matters is at some level a conversation over the meaning and identity of humanity and we have
29:44profound things to say about these matters not because we are
29:49profound but because god is profound and his word is very truth itself his word is objective truth
29:57his word is absolute truth his word is written in the heavens his word
30:04is fully sufficient his word is authoritative it is inerrant it is inspired
30:10we come into these conversations with a lot to say not because we’re loudmouth and
30:15opinionated and we want to dynamite what anybody else would say but because we have been gripped by god saved by god
30:21and called by god to speak into our society including the most difficult conversations there
30:28are and i think this one is probably the toughest one to enter why do i say this because
30:36america’s racial past is definitely checkered in numerous ways two of the
30:42most obvious would be slavery and jim crow laws but there are numerous other examples of civilizational
30:50failing that we could name and we also must be clear about this the church has been complicit too often in racism and
30:57ethnocentrism not everywhere not every movement not every denomination not every person not every
31:02white person so let’s not let’s not be uncareful with that but let’s be honest up front and recognize
31:09that because we affirm total depravity we know why people are racist and ethnocentrist
31:16we know why these sins exist have existed and will exist it’s because the human
31:23heart is desperately wicked jeremiah 17 9. it’s actually not because there is
31:29only one class of person out there or one group of people or one skin color
31:34that is wicked it is because all people inherently from birth are evil
31:41we are not okay from birth you guys know these things we need to continually
31:47teach the doctrine of sin to our people without the doctrine of sin the other doctrines of the christian
31:52faith honestly don’t make sense now in truth every doctrine of
31:58christianity holds together christian doctrine is a spider web and if you push it at one point or if
32:06you pull it apart or if you tweak it the whole system is going to be affected and ultimately if you take
32:13out parts of christian doctrine and deny them the whole system will collapse
32:18nonetheless if you don’t have a strong doctrine of sin the other doctrines don’t make sense
32:26everybody wants to talk about grace today everybody wants to talk about the gospel we have book after book after book after
32:32book after book on grace and soteriology and the gospel and we need tons of books on those subjects that is
32:40the central reality of our life christ is all
32:46but how does the gospel make sense when does it truly shine in all its
32:53radiance how will we most appreciate what the gospel gives us
32:58god unless we give our people a strong and
33:04meaningful doctrine of sin that’s where we begin in these
33:10conversations that’s where we have to take these conversations
33:15we recognize absolutely that things go wrong in the world so here’s a contact point
33:21with unbelievers here’s a contact point with the woke i don’t mean that we have the same
33:26understanding of justice that they do don’t think that you must not think that
33:33you must free people in your ministry from thinking that lots of people use the same language we
33:41use the same words the same conversational descriptors
33:46that’s fine that’s not a bad thing we’re not hostile we don’t hear someone say the word
33:51justice and immediately jump on their back and try to wrestle them to the ground but what we do in apologetics and
33:59evangelism and even in discipleship is we make clear here again you’re picking up a theme throughout the course
34:05from me we make clear how biblical justice is the true justice and
34:12everything else is a counterfeit yes the human heart has instincts for
34:17justice god gave them that instinct every person but you will only only know justice when
34:24you know god savingly and that is what we are after
34:30we don’t want to have a conversation with an unbeliever get to a common point where it seems like we agree
34:36and say this is great well i hope that i have showed you that christianity is reasonable and i’m
34:43having the same conversation you’re having and now you know i just hope you’ll kind of wander your way into
34:49the church and christian faith and i’m not one of those fundamentalist christians one of those
34:54super conservative ones i i want you to see that i’m reasonable and i hope you’ll just
34:59man just take a little take a little hop step into the kingdom when you decide to do it
35:04no we are calling people to understand that even as their heart is bumping up
35:10against christian truth they don’t know god
35:15they have a heart that is wired for justice but will never find it we’ll never get it ultimately
35:24they have a sense of right and wrong god gave them that sense romans 2 but that will never ultimately
35:31justify them it will never ultimately lead them in themselves in their world view in
35:37unbelief to true justice true justice men is only
35:43found in christianity that’s that’s it that’s where it is
35:50it is found in biblical wisdom the church does not always practice
35:55justice as it should let that be said nonetheless we are trying to help
36:02people see that their understanding of justice ultimately
36:07as a non-christian falters because jesus is the one who executes
36:12true justice not any community not any political
36:17movement certainly not any individual not any religious group
36:24it is only jesus who locks in justice and until
36:31jesus does until the end of all things comes until the world
36:36is made finally right by jesus the heaven sent one all
36:43our efforts at justice are going to be proximate they are not going to be final
36:50they are going to falter at different points
36:55they will in many cases burn out this is not because we’re depressive
37:01individuals who haven’t been taking our medication and so we’re in a down week this is because we know
37:07that only god makes things right and so i want you to understand as well
37:12at the outset that wokeness is utopian critical race theory is utopian
37:20we are encouraged to believe that if we will join these secular movements of justice that
37:27have penetrated the church that things will be made right look you can make gains in this world don’t
37:34misunderstand me wilberforce really did for example praise god slavery was overcome in america
37:40the slave trade was ended jim crow’s jim crow laws did fall to the ground praise god
37:47they needed that some of you have backgrounds where you know you know the face of racism and
37:53ethnocentrism firsthand you may have family members who said terrible things about other people
38:01other races other ethnicities you know this firsthand
38:06so we know that there can be real societal progress on these matters there can be
38:14and it’s not always driven by christians it’s not always driven by born-again believers martin luther king jr was not
38:20a born-again believer from what we can tell and yet in common grace terms
38:25he was used in some impactful ways in this society doesn’t mean we write him a blank check
38:31and we baptize him as a born-again believer i’m not saying that i am saying that we can recognize that
38:37there is such a thing as common grace the reformed tradition is very clear about this from scripture
38:43the sun rises on the just and the unjust
38:48nonetheless in acknowledging all those realities we are not utopians
38:56and we must not fall prey to utopian visions
39:03and ideas and currently our society is drawn in that direction
39:11in truth marxism is a utopian vision
39:19it is the idea that in this life without divine engagement
39:26we can make the world equitable we can put the world to rights we can
39:33end wrongs christians are called to be salt and light matthew matthew 5 13 to 16. christians are
39:39called to work while it is still day christians are called to pray big prayers to god and
39:46ask that real injustices would end let’s do all of that but let’s never fall prey to utopian
39:52delusions and let’s not ever think that we or any
39:58grouping of humanity can make the world right in an ultimate sense only jesus can
40:07so we want to engage this conversation we’re happy to engage this conversation
40:13we need to engage this conversation societally but we need to do so very carefully and we need to
40:21do so understanding biblical justice and biblical categories and we need to do so understanding as
40:27best we can unbiblical categories we need to do everything we
40:32can to see to it that we and those we minister to
40:38are not taken captive and i want you to hear as we now move
40:44into more of a definition precisely of this worldview of this system
40:49according to its own proponents that wokeness is a take you captive ideology
40:57it should be understood in those terms colossians 2 8
41:03still speaks and it is still absolutely the case that godly men
41:11and women are in danger i mean real danger we are not engaging
41:19these issues issues we’ve covered already this week and others we can engage because we are
41:25angry because america is slightly less traditional than it used to be
41:31or because as an exercise of pride we want to refute those who we think
41:38are fomenting bad ideas that’s not why we’re here that may be why others are in the public
41:43square there are voices i can identify that have spoken courageously along these
41:48lines and they’re doing so for civilizational reasons and political reasons and other concerns we are here
41:57for a very precise purpose it is that we ourselves as leaders of
42:04god’s flock would not be taken captive
42:09and therefore that those we minister to or will minister to would not be taken captive because they
42:16will be if we do not equip ourselves to know the truth and every counterfeit that we
42:24can identify according to critical race theory race
42:31is a social construct so therefore uh hispanic
42:39people people from latin america asian people russian
42:46people paraguayan people greenlandian people are not
42:54different races there are there is not a hard and fast reality
43:00according to critical race theorists that we call race this is interestingly
43:07one area where i think critical race theory actually is bumping up against the truth
43:13not because it’s the true system not because it’s a system that we can use not because it’s an analytical tool
43:18that helps us out but because there isn’t taught in the
43:24bible the idea that different skin colors mean that there are hard and fast realities called
43:31races such that there are all sorts of different people out there who don’t
43:37have common ground instead as we have already established in this class there is what
43:44one human race of image bearers yes remember this there is one human race
43:53now as we’ll talk about later today i do believe that there are different
43:58peoples nations and i’ll use the term ethnicities i do believe in the concept of ethnicity
44:07in other words there are there are common groupings of people in different regions
44:13discrete regions where there are cultures traditions especially languages
44:21habits that develop and i do not read that reality
44:26necessarily of course as a negative reality i have more to say on that biblically in
44:32terms of a biblical theology kind of approach more to say coming nonetheless at the outset
44:39i think there is a distinction between race and ethnicity and i believe and have argued in public
44:45and will continue arguing in public that we can affirm the concept of ethnicity
44:51defined biblically but i don’t think we have a biblical grounding for what we call
44:56race we do have an understanding that there are different skin colors absolutely we do the bible is clear on
45:02that about the ethiopian for example in the old testament nonetheless we don’t draw
45:09the conclusion from different skin color different pigmentation that somebody
45:14with a different pigmentation is a different person than i am instead
45:20because of the imago dei we actually go the opposite way and we say i have more in common with
45:25you then i have a not in common with you as a human person you and i are both image bearers we are both fallen
45:34in our natural state we share a lot in common
45:39now your you may well be a different ethnicity from me in fact people who have the same skin pigmentation can be
45:45totally different ethnicities i’m from new england italian culture is big in new england
45:51i’m from maine and it is very much distinct from new england irish culture i’m an arden austin
45:59celtics fan what is what does that come from the irish the irish of boston
46:06celtics celtics are the true and greater basketball team and all of
46:12you who are lakers fans i’m praying for you
46:18actually you just tied you just tied the the celtics and the lakers are now tied for most championships
46:25i’m not exaggerating when i say that that fact gives me a measure of real grief i mean real
46:32grief like two percent just a little real grief but not fake grief real grief in new
46:42england the irish and the italians are not the same ethnicity they’re not the same culture
46:50this breaks down as much as you want it to break down in ireland people who have
46:57the same pigmentation and even are from the same soil break down further into groups
47:06the conflict between northern ireland and ireland is not a little bitty one the conflict
47:13between northern irish loyalists to the british crown
47:19and the ira was a terrible conflict in the 20th century
47:26and not not a small and glancing one in terms of how those identities were understood
47:32having the same skin color does not signal that you are uh exactly
47:40the same ethnicity it doesn’t signal that you have exactly the same background it certainly doesn’t mean that you are
47:47in every sense identical with somebody who has that same pigmentation even if you are talking about being in the same
47:5420-mile radius of geography
48:01so there we don’t want to in other words make the make the
48:10unhealthy and unprincipled conclusion that having the same skin color means
48:18that we are the same person effectively even as we don’t want to think that
48:23humanity can be divided into different races
48:28based on skin color and and those differentiation of races meaning
48:35something hard and fast about human identity as if having different skin color you means
48:41that you are a different human person from me
48:46but critical race theory strangely makes a move at this point
48:52even though race is a social construct and is not biologically based according
48:57to critical race theorists a number of crt proponents argue for
49:05what is called strategic essentialism strategic essentialism and this is that
49:12kind of hard post-modern move that i was talking about a few minutes ago so race isn’t essential to our humanity
49:20but we can strategically operate as if it is because others in the american past have
49:27operated as if it is an essentialist ontological in other words
49:33truly personally grounded reality and so you and i can be strategic essentialists
49:38and we can advance therefore the causes of minority peoples especially black
49:44people along those lines and operate as if even though there is not such a thing as race there is
49:53and we can make real gains in society along those lines you can say it this
50:00way race is america’s original lie that led to america’s original sin
50:06racism and so even if you don’t believe that race is ontological you can still use the category according
50:14to some in the crt movement in order to advance the interests of oppressed
50:20peoples according to the woke
50:28america was and is bedeviled by racism
50:35many people would agree depending on how that is defined america has had major
50:41problems as you’ve already heard me say with racism and ethnocentrism and i will
50:46further extend the point we have to fight against racism and ethnocentrism until
50:51until we leave this earth these things haven’t vanished because slavery and jim crow have been
50:57defeated no racism is grounded in the sin of
51:02partiality racism is in many senses allied with
51:08resentment and hatred and pride it’s not some
51:15undefinable sin undefinable problem that we can never make sense of
51:20no it’s the sin of partiality that we arrive at for a whole complex of reasons partiality is always
51:27wrong in other words pr preferring one person over another
51:34in an unjust way but that’s not exactly what the woke are
51:40arguing they’re not saying individuals can fall into the trap of racism
51:45crt especially focuses on what is called structural racism and systemic racism
51:52the entire civilizational order is shot through with racism
51:59that is the major claim now people like you and me as christians can
52:05look back in the old testament and see that israel is enslaved in egypt yes
52:12israel is in bondage to egypt so what that means is israel’s whole existence
52:18is permeated by wicked partiality by evil that is real
52:25injustice so we understand that sin certainly can seep all through a society and structure
52:32it even we understand this but we need to be
52:37very careful with this term someone like me is going to say look at
52:44jim crow look at slavery and you’re seeing clear examples of systems of oppression
52:52but what crt theorists mean by systemic racism is not just that there are policies
53:00governmental acts that foment racism crt makes the critique makes the
53:07argument that all the society is systemically racist
53:14from roots to branches it’s not just in other words that there
53:19is a a bad policy out there that is harming people
53:25it is that the entire order is racist in visible ways but also in invisible
53:32ways we therefore have a category for
53:38understanding sin at the structural level we do it could could be happening today and if
53:43we hear that there is systemic racism then we should i think take the claim seriously
53:50the the most famous example of this is police shootings today if we hear that the police are targeting
53:57minorities for racist reasons then that claim should be investigated
54:03but we need to be careful here because again there can be complex reasons why
54:10society is breaking down it could owe to racism we understand that it also could be that there are complex
54:16factors in play but crt says if there are police
54:22shootings if white cops for example are shooting black people or people of color then we have clear
54:28evidence of systemic racism i was watching marquette uh play basketball
54:36last night against yukon on fs1 at the hotel and before
54:44the game the basketball game the marquette players knelt down together and locked arms with
54:50black lives matter t-shirts in a form of protest against the fact that none of the chart
54:55none of the cops who ended up playing a role in the death of jacob blake in kenosha wisconsin this summer
55:02at the black lives matter protests have been charged with wrongdoing and so this this basketball team was signaling
55:08that the lack of conviction of the police officers is a sign
55:14of social injustice well again that’s a claim that needs to be adjudicated
55:20that needs to be handled and by the way that’s why we have a justice
55:26system we have a justice system to handle these things
55:31these matters are not supposed to be handled first and foremost by the kangaroo court of social media
55:36and what people watching a 10 second video then vent out to the world these matters are
55:42to be exquisitely handled with care by courts of law
55:50we don’t think that law courts are perfect but we do recognize that god has instituted government
55:56as a visible demonstration of his own rule on the earth and furthermore as a sign
56:03of common grace to humanity so we have much to say about
56:08these areas there’s a broader conversation there of course
56:14according to crt we know that america is systemically racist again not just
56:20because of policies or governance but because in fundamental terms the
56:25disease of whiteness proliferates and predominates white people believe that they are
56:32superior to black people here’s what robin d’angelo says about
56:37this reality in the book white fragility white supremacy describes the culture we live in a culture that positions white
56:44people and all that is associated with them whiteness as ideal so our major
56:52issue in society again is not per se public policy
56:59public actions even the trends i was just mentioning we are in a white supremacist culture
57:08and white supremacy is everywhere it’s the very air we breathe
57:17it’s a culture that positions white people and everything associated with them as ideal so whiteness is the major
57:25problem in america today now i want to pause here for just a minute having quoted d’angelo
57:32trying to show respect to the woke by not burning them down initially
57:39with a tweet but actually delving into their thought to try to understand it represent it
57:45fairly and only then critique it but i want you to know that we need to think through at this
57:51point we need to surface the matter of majority culture
57:57because my suspicion is that a lot of what is read as evil white supremacy
58:04is read in those terms because in past generations well in different communities there was
58:11a concept of whiteness that was used to oppress others in different ways
58:17and so the argument among crt theorists and activists is that just as that used to happen
58:23whiteness used to be a major part of society that oppressed others so it is
58:29functioning in those ways as well today but in reality with the defeat
58:36of things like institutions like slavery and jim crow i’m not convinced that anywhere you see
58:44whiteness predominate you see evil proliferate
58:50here’s what i mean very quickly every nation uh every city
58:58every town is going to have diverse groupings of people
59:03in many different settings there’s going to be what we call a majority culture majority cultures
59:10can be evil let that be said certainly could be we believe in total depravity but we
59:15have to be careful actually even as proponents of total depravity
59:20because we also have to comprehend the reality of common grace and we have to recognize that
59:28it is not necessarily the case that humanity is sinning
59:33as much as it possibly can at all times in all places therefore there can be majority cultures
59:40that are frankly probably a mix of good bad and neutral if you go to
59:45japan uh in different places is there probably going to be something
59:50that you can identify as a majority culture in fact they’re probably going to be different majority cultures in different parts of japan my guess is
59:57yes is probably the same thing true with india and different parts of india
1:00:03my guess is yes if you go to nigeria is there probably going to be majority
1:00:08culture and different forms of majority culture in different places my guess is yes if you go to
1:00:14british columbia and canada is is there probably going to be majority culture and different forms of majority culture
1:00:20in different places my guess is yes are all those forms of majority culture
1:00:28satanically wicked to the greatest possible extent
1:00:33they could be but probably they’re going to be a mix probably there’s going to be things that
1:00:39you find in any nation among any people group among any ethnos to use a biblical word a greek word and
1:00:47you’re going to say wow okay that’s good
1:00:52that’s bad that’s neutral i think that the same principle is
1:00:57probably true for american majority culture but i want you to understand that critical race
1:01:03theory poisons and weaponizes majority culture and it reads a lot of white people in
1:01:10one place so-called white in air quotes being white and air quotes as inherently
1:01:19evil and what i want you to hear me doing is questioning that reality
1:01:26i don’t want you to hear me as saying that a given majority culture is perfectly innocent i don’t think that
1:01:34myself i don’t want you to think that about any majority culture any time you have a whole lot of people
1:01:40together you have a whole bunch of sinners together don’t you but i also
1:01:46think you need to be careful about saying because there are a lot of people who share a language who
1:01:52share customs who share a common background you necessarily have
1:01:59festering evil of the most wicked kind you could you probably also don’t have that you
1:02:06probably also have customs and traditions that are fine you probably also have habits among
1:02:13peoples that are neutral and sinners live in that place
1:02:18and sinners engage that majority culture badly evilly righteously when they’re
1:02:26christians in some senses neutrally
1:02:31but what crt does is it looks at for example lots of communities in america let’s say that
1:02:37are predominantly white and it says because those
1:02:42similar communities and generations past fomented evils in america the present
1:02:48communities are fomenting evils in america so if there’s a lot of white people who
1:02:53have white culture what we have is white supremacy
1:02:59and i putting this together carefully trying to kind of quickly
1:03:05before you in this class want you to question that idea
1:03:10i’m not indicating that you should necessarily reject it but just as going to mexico city is
1:03:16going to bring you into contact with majority culture or different majority cultures
1:03:22in different places so being in different parts of america is going to do the same thing and they are not
1:03:28necessarily evil
1:03:36we must think with care on these matters
1:03:43i go to church at mission road bible church led by rick holland who was the
1:03:49long-time executive pastor of grace in kansas city
1:03:55the area that mission road bible church is in in kansas city is predominantly
1:04:02white there’s a whole lot of white people there
1:04:08there are other parts of the city that are much more diverse someone like me loves diversity i love
1:04:13meeting people from different ethnicities different backgrounds different regions different cultures i’m guessing many of you do as
1:04:19well i think your average christian person certainly many christian people fit that category they enjoy diversity
1:04:26they don’t want evils of the past to dominate in our time they hate racism they hate
1:04:32ethnocentrism i think many people in so-called white dominant prairie village kansas where
1:04:39mission road is where i go to church are probably pretty similar i think that is probably true even of a lot of
1:04:45non-christians not all but probably a lot of non-christians don’t want america to fall prey to the traps it fell into
1:04:52in the past so i want to be really careful about
1:04:57going to a predominantly white area or any majority culture on earth
1:05:03and necessarily and immediately conclude that because there are past sins there must be the present sin of
1:05:10festering racism there is white supremacy
1:05:16it is not necessarily the case i’m gonna i’m gonna sharpen the point here that when you
1:05:22have a lot of white people together you have white supremacy you could but it is not necessarily
1:05:29the case and your average person i do not believe should be read as a white
1:05:36supremacist i actually believe that that is a racist claim
1:05:41i believe that that is a wrong that is being done to a person who is called because of
1:05:47their skin color a racist that is evil i believe that is sinful i do not
1:05:55believe that should be done even though this ideology
1:06:01is now seeping into the church and it is now increasingly assumed that
1:06:07white people are guilty of the sin of racism and white supremacy
1:06:13because of their skin color because of their heritage because of their background because of
1:06:19their participation in so-called american majority culture
1:06:25it is possible that individuals communities and broader groupings of
1:06:32people are acting in racism ethos interest ways that is a possibility but it is not a necessary conclusion
1:06:40simply because you have a lot of people of the same skin color or background in a given place
1:06:47there is need for much greater complexity of evaluation of people than that
1:06:59white people it is argued by the critical race theorist crowd by woke
1:07:04activists commit continual microaggressions when for example a white person corrects
1:07:12a black person in public that is a microaggression according to
1:07:18some crt proponents in other words
1:07:24what is being adjudicated in that instance let’s say in a classroom is not a truth claim you’re not actually
1:07:31sorting out a matter of truth instead white people are continually fostering
1:07:39and promoting white supremacy by using their power against people of color
1:07:48and so microaggressions are effectively hidden racist acts it might seem like you’re
1:07:54having a conversation about matters of truth you’re actually as a white person
1:08:00trying to use your power over people of color
1:08:06that is a major part of the way that white supremacy is fostered
1:08:11in america through micro aggressions
1:08:16you wouldn’t even know you were being racist in such encounters you might be
1:08:23with a friend at a coffee shop talking about theological matters a friend with different skin color than
1:08:29you of various kinds of friends from different parts of the world and you might simply think that you’re talking about theology and trying to get
1:08:35at the truth but in reality if you’re a white person when you’re correcting people when you’re going against people
1:08:41you’re being a racist the only solution to this condition is to become an anti-racist this is
1:08:48according to ibram x kendi who is again like d’angelo one of the major theorists
1:08:56of the woke movement here’s a quotation from his book how to be an anti-racist
1:09:04we can knowingly strive to be an anti-racist like fighting an addiction being an anti-racist requires persistent
1:09:11self-awareness constant self-criticism and regular self-examination
1:09:17it is not enough to say for candy and his movement i i don’t actively
1:09:25act in racist ways or speak in racist ways that’s not enough according to candy
1:09:32and others of his tribe you are either a racist or an anti-racist
1:09:39you are either actively promoting racism or you are actively fighting racism at
1:09:47all times there is no middle ground there is no one who can say uh you know okay i’m not like marching
1:09:54in causes here and movements but i’m certainly not a racist person i
1:09:59just want to live my life i just want to be generally a fair person to everybody and treat people as human beings no
1:10:06according to kendy that kind of middle position which is probably i’m guessing where a ton of people in america would be
1:10:13that middle position is a position of compromise and you need to move out of that kind of
1:10:18so-called neutral category into the anti-racist category and you need to join the march
1:10:26and you need to be militant against racism now again you could hear that you you
1:10:32guys in the class and think well i should be militant against racism but that’s not exactly what the woke mean
1:10:38the woke don’t mean be careful about your language and be welcoming of the stranger and these sorts of things
1:10:44be a thoughtful christian person to people who are different from you who have a different background than you
1:10:49work for unity in the gospel and the church those are things we must do biblically that’s not extra credit
1:10:56that’s the call of the gospel for all of us praise god galatians 3
1:11:0127-28 there’s neither jew nor gentile among god’s people we are
1:11:06one body in christ no the the meaning of the crt crowd of the
1:11:14woke when they say be an anti-racist is they mean join our movement they mean see white supremacy as the
1:11:21central problem of the age they mean white person step back
1:11:27they mean white person check your privilege or people who don’t necessarily have
1:11:32white skin color but may even be a minority in technical terms but have benefited from the system
1:11:37of whiteness and this is part of how this movement you you understand gets truly insidious it’s not just that
1:11:44white people are white supremacists but anybody who is not opposing whiteness and white supremacy is a white
1:11:51supremacist and then there are different gradations of people according to their skin color or according to how they
1:11:57act within minority communities such that they may be effectively white even if they are not white themselves
1:12:04there is a great deal to say about the problems of these different realities of critical
1:12:11race theory and the woke posture the enemy of anti-racism break in a few
1:12:17minutes is as much color blindness therefore as it is intentional racial racial oppression excuse me the enemy of
1:12:25anti-racism is as much color-blindness
1:12:31as it is intentional racial oppression so for example mlk
1:12:37saying about 50 years ago that he wanted a society where his children would be judged not by the color of their skin
1:12:42but by the content of their character is really an insufficient statement at best
1:12:48candy in his writings critiques mlk in no uncertain terms
1:12:55mlk’s vision of a colorblind society or a color neutral society call it different
1:13:02things is not what we should be striving for that is an insufficient vision
1:13:08that is a naive vision instead we need an anti-racist society
1:13:16candy says this the most threatening racist movement is not the
1:13:22alt-right’s unlikely drive for a white ethnostate but the regular americans drive
1:13:28for a race neutral one this is how to be an anti-racist page 20. i’m going to read that again the most
1:13:36threatening racist movement is not the alt-right’s unlikely drive for a white ethno state
1:13:42but the regular americans drive for a race neutral one
1:13:49so here candy is critiquing in the sharpest terms
1:13:56people who would say the kind of things that i voiced just a few moments ago i don’t want to be a racist i don’t want
1:14:02people to be acting in wicked ways against one another because of the color of their skin i’m trying to live my life i’m
1:14:08trying to be a fair person uh i’m you know if i have a business i i serve all people of all
1:14:14backgrounds and ethnicities and skin colors and these sorts of things and i try to treat people as human beings
1:14:19those kind of words are not sufficient in fact the regular american is the most
1:14:26threatening racist movement there is
1:14:31this is why wokeness is so dangerous this is the sharp edge of wokeness not
1:14:38everybody’s going to say this who who would in some sense identify positive elements and critical race
1:14:44theory or wokeness not every christian leader uh who who would retweet a black lives
1:14:50matter hashtag would line up precisely with this statement let that be said
1:15:00but when you’re understanding world views you you shouldn’t understand where the
1:15:05middle part of the world view adherence are you have to understand the sharp edge of
1:15:12the worldview don’t you you have to understand where things go
1:15:20you have to understand where the most passionate proponents of the worldview
1:15:27want to take things
1:15:32this is true with every system if if you’re hearing a kind of soft
1:15:37marxism from christian leaders in economic terms
1:15:44those leaders may not be trying to foment stalinist purges
1:15:52but you need to know that even that soft ideology goes somewhere guys listen
1:16:00world views don’t stay in neutral
1:16:05they they don’t sit still we want them to sit still we think they
1:16:11will sit still the apostle paul does not say keep your
1:16:17eye keep your eye on ideologies because they can cause a little bit of
1:16:24harm in the christian community the apostle paul knows that ideologies
1:16:32that are not christian do not sit still and do not stay steady every ideology
1:16:38out there in some sense is is going to take people captive it’s going to have a hard edge it may
1:16:45not seem to have a hard edge it may be presented in soft terms but it is ultimately going to undermine
1:16:53the word of god the truth of god and the gospel of god
1:16:58it’s always going to be the case so we’re not saying anybody who would dip into a
1:17:04world view is immediately akin to the worst proponent of that worldview
1:17:10we’re not saying that it doesn’t make sense but we are saying that you can’t dip in and out of systems
1:17:18every ideology raised against the glory of jesus christ will take you
1:17:25captive eventually every last one of them will
1:17:30you can hear soft nihilism you can hear soft postmodernity you can hear soft
1:17:37existentialism you can hear a kind of soft psychotherapeutic
1:17:42affirm yourself worldview this is what we were talking about on day one
1:17:47this is the danger of the soft form of the world view
1:17:52it’s that you don’t know it’s a hard ideology it’s that you’re being told to just love
1:17:58yourself or believe in yourself well most of the time you hear that you’re not handed a 500 page
1:18:04book of philosophy that then grounds that claim and drives it to the most extreme form
1:18:10you could imagine of it you’re just hearing somebody say believe in yourself man believe in yourself
1:18:15you’re a good person you can do it you are fully sufficient you’re
1:18:21beautiful just the way you are i just want you all you masters guys on this zoom session to know you’re beautiful just the way you are okay
1:18:28no when you’re hearing that you’re hearing a soft form of something but the soft form
1:18:36is at least equally as threatening as the hard form and potentially more threatening because
1:18:43it’s harder to spot every person who retweets a hashtag
1:18:51along the lines of social justice is not necessarily thinking in kenyan terms but kendy is
1:18:58the leader of the movement kendy is the one who is defining this with several others
1:19:03kendi is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by boston university and by corporations
1:19:09and universities and all sorts of organizations that fly him in or now bring him in on a zoom session
1:19:16for a pretty penny in order to say these kind of things this is where the ideology goes
1:19:24you have to know where ideologies go ultimately this poisonous worldview
1:19:30will lead you to believe that the most threatening system out there the most threatening
1:19:36movement is not the alt-right skinhead with a shaved head
1:19:41and neo-nazi swastikas in the air at a march the most threatening move the most
1:19:46threatening movement is the normal american
1:19:51who wants everybody judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character
1:19:58mlk’s vision according to candy leads to terrifying racism
1:20:10and i want us to understand that mlk in his writing and speaking on
1:20:17unity and society and race and ethnicity did not give us ultimately
1:20:25the full biblical picture of these matters because he was not a born-again believer
1:20:32nonetheless in common grace terms i do think king captured some elements
1:20:39in a limited sense of what the bible teaches we don’t want a society where people are judged
1:20:45on the color of their skin that is true that’s not true because mlk said it’s true because that’s what the bible teaches
1:20:52we want a society that is generally equal and fair thankfully we have one but this is the
1:21:00central victory i’m going to give you a break here in just a second this is really the central victory of critical race theory
1:21:06you understand this it’s not to get you reading book after book in this system critical
1:21:13legal studies and other matters it’s to get you to believe that america is hopelessly divided and riven by racism
1:21:21now and white supremacy is everywhere and white people are the primary cause of it that’s the
1:21:28central victory it will win if it gets you to believe
1:21:33that oppression is everywhere and that differences of racial kinds
1:21:40are inequities that show us real injustice if you will believe this system that is
1:21:46really when crt and wokeness advances i’m back over here by the board
1:21:52we talked about this economically a bit ago but now let’s bring it back to critical
1:21:58race theory where you see different nutritional levels between uh different racial communities
1:22:07or where you see different educational attainments between different communities
1:22:12or where you see uh political representation of different kinds in different
1:22:17communities or where you see higher income per capita between different communities
1:22:23according to critical race theory and the woke you are seeing the differences and where you are seeing
1:22:29differences you are seeing inequities necessarily caused by racism caused by
1:22:34white supremacy and therefore you are seeing injustices you understand how we’ve moved out of
1:22:41the realm of economic matters into the realm of cultural matters which is why crt and wokeness is called
1:22:49cultural marxism because it uses the paradigm that was initially pioneered and applied
1:22:55to economics and it and it applies it to disparities in society along
1:23:03racial lines today any difference therefore that you’re spotting is
1:23:10showing inequity in any inequity is an injustice
1:23:18so the central victory that crt and wokeness will win is to get you to buy this
1:23:25to buy necessarily that where you’re seeing differences between communities
1:23:30you’re seeing evil in the most simple form here again let’s handle with care let’s
1:23:38be thoughtful thinkers yes you may be seeing injustice where you see
1:23:44differences you certainly could be but to jump from
1:23:50possible injustice to certain injustice is a jump indeed these things must be
1:23:58substantiated and proven if there are higher police shootings
1:24:04of certain minority groups than others that needs to be carefully thought out
1:24:12we’re not against that we want that we are not necessarily called
1:24:17to that work uh on a day-to-day basis as ministers of the gospel let that be said
1:24:23but we’re certainly for our society sorting this out if police officers are targeting minority
1:24:28communities because of racist means we we want that stopped but in reality when we look at data in a lot of cases
1:24:35for example in the police shootings that were popularized as racism this summer
1:24:41what you see is a much more complex situation in a number of cases the very least you do not see
1:24:48racist targeting of people of color you see tough
1:24:53conditions you see bad situations you see brokenness in communities
1:25:00absolutely but you are not necessarily seeing
1:25:06racist cops hunting down people of color in a number of instances that is not a
1:25:12fair characterization and it is not necessarily the case that there is injustice in those situations
1:25:18there can be but that has to be proven and it is not proven to repeat this by
1:25:24hot-headed twitter people it is proven in courts of law and the justice system
1:25:31is not intended to be microwavable is it it’s intended to to sift
1:25:37claims carefully what do you do in courts of justice you hear different sides what is
1:25:42presented in courts of justice evidence what then takes place
1:25:47well the evidence is disputed there’s a whole process of justice that frankly owes
1:25:55not to the secular enlightenment thinkers but to god to the bible
1:26:01who gave us systems of justice who has given us the law it is not a bad thing to have police and
1:26:08communities police can sin absolutely fundamentally though we need to understand that
1:26:13god put the sword into the hand of the king romans 13. god did that not man
1:26:22many many communities today including minority communities will
1:26:28actually include many voices that speak not to the desire to defund the police
1:26:35but to have more police for example look these issues are complex
1:26:42i can’t sort them out in a single day of class i’m simply trying to lay out some
1:26:51principles here for us to think through these things i’m trying to where
1:26:57necessary deny certain claims that are made i’m trying to say in a good number of
1:27:04instances these things are not simplistic causation realities they’re caused by complex
1:27:12factors and all of this is us trying not to let a worldview take us captive
1:27:18and therefore not to let it take people we minister to captive because this is a marxist paradigm and
1:27:25it is one that must be rejected it should not be embraced by christians
1:27:31sadly though some are embracing it
Standing Before God, This We Are and No More 