Issues in Biblical Anthropology, Lecture
Key Topics
Transcript with YouTube timestamps
0:03all right any questions for me from the first part of today anything you want to chase down we have
0:10plenty more to come um uh ben
0:18uh i read an article about pastor talking about he said in principle he
0:23believes that reparations are biblical and
0:29i guess what they said and principally means is that you’re identifying that they’re in their wrong that was done
0:35and that payments for the wrong gun happen and then there will be closure for both parties
0:41and then when you talk about your ei at the beginning yeah the difference in inequity
0:48i could just see a lot of people saying that those differences and inequities would go away
0:54if there were reparations
1:02um i don’t see reparations in the new testament
1:09at all so in public policy terms i suppose
1:18there could be you could you could try to mount a case for reparations in the christian
1:25community specifically when you’re talking about the church and say white christians owing
1:32black christians reparations or asian christians reparations or native american christians reparations
1:38i don’t see any grounds whatsoever for that argument personally um there are some different
1:47texts to sort out in the old covenant with regard to what happens
1:54in order to make some different wrongs right in certain situations so we can have some conversations about the old
2:00testament but personally with my theology
2:06new covenant-driven theology of course which is going to overlap with i’m guessing many of you uh there’s
2:12different issues to to chase down regarding that but we’re new covenant christians we’re not
2:17under the administration of the old covenant i’m i’m gonna have a hard time
2:22uh buying that there is some sort of mandate for reparations
2:29based on the old testament because of that so i i don’t see any grounds for reparations and i don’t
2:37think furthermore at the principle level that there will be a sense of satisfaction of wrong
2:46i don’t think getting payments will end uh what pain is there
2:52at all i’m gonna save some words for uh in an hour or so in the class but
3:00i don’t think that’s actually at all the solution that is offered us in scripture um
3:08look ben we can we can mourn the past as as christians
3:15or even just as americans you know when you’re in this country for example you read about our
3:21racial issues of the past and you grieve them i don’t know of any
3:27other reaction you could have but the question before us
3:32is are we supposed to stay grieving and then in the church
3:40are we supposed to live in the past some of you have a family member perhaps
3:47who lives in the past and past issues past grievances past
3:52difficulties dominate their life and it’s one of the saddest ways to live honestly
3:58i think we have a better way forward suffice it to say than reparations and i don’t think
4:04reparations nothing man does for man is going to solve
4:11anger and pain that we may feel justly or unjustly over what has happened in the
4:16past in any area of life so those are some of my responses
4:23there’s a broader conversation about reparations in general but i would not encourage christians to see the new testament as
4:31in any sense commending reparations if somebody finds
4:37finds a system of reparations tell me but that does not seem to be what
4:44ephesians 2 holds out for example i’m going to be going there uh soon
4:51so let that be said jared
4:58so in my understanding of uh robin d’angelo’s understanding of racist or racism
5:06there’s the traditional like we’ve always understood racist to be this but then there’s this fuller meaning of
5:13racist and so a white person is both a racist but not a racist uh is that
5:21like a fair way to understand what they’re saying and then like an obvious problem they’re saying
5:28you’re racist but you’re not a racist it’s just illogical is that fair to analyze um
5:34it’s a good question i don’t i agree with you that d’angelo teaches that we are racists white people those those
5:40who are of white skin are racists that that is clearly what d’angelo argues i don’t
5:47know that deangelo argues that white people are not racists
5:52i i think what you may be getting at is that we don’t know that we are
5:58racists i think that’s really i think that’s really what d’angelo is after and that’s
6:04why i’ll go back to you in a second that’s why when she goes to these different seminars and corporations right if you
6:11read her book you’ve read her book over and i start i’m going to go back at some point
6:16and mark out just how many times this woman cites how many bad reactions she has gotten
6:22from people i mean it’s got to be in the 20s because she’ll go to groups of it sounds like predominantly white people or at
6:28least a lot of white people and she just gets she gets crazy reactions and
6:34i think it’s because she’s she’s telling them you’re a racist but you don’t know you’re a racist
6:41and so i think what you may be getting at and a point that i didn’t fully draw out earlier is that
6:48everything’s racism for for this movement and if everything is racism honestly at
6:54some level nothing is racism if everything is is racist where is racism part of the
7:02problem with this movement is that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t
7:08so if you say um
7:13if you say i’m not a racist you are told that you’re a racist if you say i have acted against racism
7:21that’s not enough anti-racism if you say i’m skeptical about this whole thing
7:27that i’m a white supremacist prove it that proves it
7:33whenever you have a system that has you saying without any authority any text grounding this from god that is
7:40whenever you have a system saying um you’re you’re guilty of this if you say you’re
7:47not guilty of it that is called a non-falsifiable system
7:52you can’t you can’t falsify the claim there’s no ability to distinguish the
8:00proper behavior from improper behavior so it’s a trap of a system really
8:07somebody says i’m not prove to me i’m a racist you just proved it you questioned it oh
8:14what okay if you’re if that’s if that’s the strength of your system
8:20your system does not hold water steve
8:30yeah you mentioned um how marxism both economically and socially um
8:38cease equality of outcomes and that you are in favor of equality of opportunity yeah and um i’m just curious
8:46that because that’s a little different than you know i understand you know based on leviticus 1915 uh
8:53equality under the law to be the the primary concern of
8:58christians right maybe could you explain a little bit further what you mean by equality of
9:03opportunity basically the same thing basically what you just referenced that
9:11uh when we’re talking about justice um the just society is one that does not
9:18inhibit you from pursuing opportunity so you have a quality of opportunity
9:25there should not be laws for example that say uh people under five foot seven inches
9:32tall can’t go to college that is a law that
9:37that hinders equality of opportunity yes but it is not a law that guarantees
9:44equality of outcome so i want equality in a sense but i want
9:51basically what you just cited equality under the law so so don’t bar short people from
9:58college uh and then i want and then i want everybody to recognize they have
10:04fundamentally hopefully equality of opportunity but you and i are not responsible for
10:11going into every house in los angeles and making it such that everybody is going to have an
10:18equal income there’s no way for us to do that
10:23that would be fair what we can do is we can try biblically
10:29to create a society where there are not hindrances to opportunity
10:34to growth to income to flourishing so something like something like jim
10:41crow law that’s a hindrance to a quality of opportunity
10:46jim crow laws so so those those should be struck down but what marxism pursues is a vision of
10:53society based in a vision of justice based on equality of outcome such that there should not be the one
10:59percent in the 99 we should tax for example the one percent
11:05punitively and then redistribute uh uh funds so really
11:12biblically if you want a one one word term for justice biblical
11:17justice is essentially retributive when there are when there are uh
11:22hindrances placed upon people those hindrances should be taken off
11:28and when people do wrong things to other people that hinder their opportunity if you
11:34will i’m just using this phrase i think you know what i mean then they should be punished biblical
11:41justice is fundamentally retributive marxist justice is fundamentally
11:46distributive and that’s the premise that’s the vision of justice that crt is premised
11:53upon distributive justice which is another way of saying equality of outcome um well
11:59i just want to see if i can clarify so the i think in white white fragility robin
12:06d’angelo she talks about all those people that disagree with her thing and are upset that she’s calling them a racist
12:12yes and she i think she goes to lengths to say well you’re not a racist in the way that we’ve always understood
12:18what a racist is yes i affirm you you’re not a bad person or whatever right but you are a racist in the sense
12:25of this new interpretation so it seems like she’s adding a definition but using the same
12:31word to mean two different things so that you could be both a racist and not a racist and an
12:36anti-racist racist so it just seems like such a you know that’s obviously bad so
12:42is that like a fair way of understanding what she’s doing i think so yeah i think that’s fair um
12:51yeah i think that’s right you the fundamental problem she is after is
12:57you don’t know you’re a racist going back to what i said a minute ago that second category you don’t know
13:04you’re a racist but you are so um
13:11but yeah i’d have to i i’d have to go back to the book and see if it’s technically accurate to say d’angelo
13:17teaches you could not be a racist and be a racist she may well her her position is
13:22nonsensical ultimately so that may well be what we reap from it but i do know that her major
13:29burden is to go to people and say to them you don’t think you’re a racist
13:34but you are one and if you cry white tears upon hearing that
13:40reality you’re only showing further that you are part of the problem
13:47robin d’angelo is to use the language of social media savage i mean that woman that’s the hard
13:54edge again candy gets you to the hard edge of wokeness and robin d’angelo gets you to the hard edge of wokeness
14:00and there ain’t no grace in those systems man there there is no softness whatsoever people who
14:08recommend white fragility to church staffs and people who read candy you know as pastoral teams with
14:15good intentions in some cases they don’t know what they’re bringing in because these are uncompromising takes i mean
14:22d’angelo by the end of her sessions is going to have you
14:28branded as a racist and there’s nothing you can do about it you can only oppose yourself for the
14:35rest of your life that’s it and that’s why as i said a minute ago
14:40throughout her book white fragility which all of you should read by the way all of you should read it it’s not a long heavy read you guys are reading 800
14:47pages of esoteric old testament you know theology and exegesis i mean you should read
14:53white fragility you could read it in a day or two you should read candy as well all of you
14:58should read these two books these two authors that is um yeah
15:04by the end of it she has you pinned to the wall and there is no grace and wokeness
15:12none and that’s that uh the question about reparations was a
15:18good question um along these lines because guys think about this i’m gonna say more
15:24along these lines in a few minutes but what does every ungodly system really reduce to
15:31well it’s going to reduce to following man’s wisdom as i said yesterday and it’s going to fall it’s going to end
15:37up with you doing certain works to justify yourself and that is
15:43precisely what you get this is why it’s so crazy that fellow christians don’t see this for what it is
15:50because a system of penance which is what reparations are that’s we dealt with this we dealt with
15:57this in the first century with paul facing down the judaizers
16:02so that’s bible but then we dealt with this 15 centuries later with the reformation overturning the catholic system of
16:09salvation defeating catholic ceteriology including significantly
16:15the system of penance doing works to absolve yourself of ritual guilt over and over and over again some of you
16:23know just how hard just how crunching it is to be in a system like that
16:29where it’s your works it’s your performance over and over and over again that you have to focus on in order to
16:35make yourself right and that’s really if you scratch reparations what it is
16:41it may come to you couched in a framework of grace it may it may be uh presented as the
16:48outworking of what the gospel does in your heart it makes you want to give reparations
16:53reparations though is a system of penance and that is all ultimately that wokeness signs you
16:59up for it doesn’t sign you up to be forgiven that would be a problem because you know that’s a theological
17:04claim but it it makes our work a little easier doesn’t it in opposing it in not letting it take us
17:11captive because it’s just another workspace system where the way you show you’re an anti-racist is you you do
17:18penance you either pay money or you encourage the payment of money
17:24to people for sin guys think very hard it won’t take you long is that biblical
17:32is that biblical now if you rob someone if you take someone’s money
17:40okay now we have a conversation about restitution of course we do but in general when you
17:47and i sin against one another in different ways does the new testament commend to us
17:53paying each other money okay if if you’re drawn to that you’re
18:00going to need to really ground and substantiate that from the word of god and i wish you all good tidings justin
18:08could you give us the name
18:19and his book is probably the one i’d point you to he has several how to be an anti-racist
18:27that’s where he is clearest on the situation and his diagnosis
18:36yeah if you read just a few books i would say these robin deangelo white fragility you heard
18:43me say that sadly i’m i’m making these people money but hey
18:49don’t blame me take it out from the library if you can uh then ibram x candy
18:54how to be an anti-racist and i would encourage you to read jamar
19:00tisby the color of compromise some of what tisby says about american
19:06history i would agree with because he critiques slavery we all we all critique slavery we should
19:13right but then where he his case is not fully balanced about the past because of
19:18course it’s in large part christians who overcome slavery so there’s much more to say i’m not
19:24commending color of compromise as a solid sound work just so you hear me but you should read
19:30it i believe so those are three to read you could
19:35also read eric mason’s woke church to see where wokeness goes from a christian standpoint
19:42of course d’angelo and kennedy are not christian and then mason and tisbe are professing
19:49christians and and listen you can go to your local barnes noble if they let you through the
19:55door and uh you will find displays now my my suburban non-exciting barnes and
20:03noble in kansas city i went in a month or two ago big display on race
20:12one text after another they’re just rolling off the presses at this point
20:17opposing essentially whiteness and white supremacy it is now a cottage industry it’s coming more and more and more uh
20:25tv programs movies more and more and more on these themes this is this is the ideology of the day this is
20:31the ideology of the day and it’s picking up steam so you you’re not you’re getting equipped through me
20:36i’m forcing you to be somewhat equipped on this um and i’m guessing some of you already have been to some degree but then you
20:43should you should launch off of this and you should read up on other books
20:48and know where this conversation is going uh okay cayden and then jack cayden
20:57yeah i had a question about strategic essentialism uh just to make sure i understood that
21:03the right way basically you’re mentioning with crt that the
21:09some of the proponents there don’t necessarily see race as an ontological reality
21:15but still are willing to use it to accomplish the goals that they’re trying
21:21to bring about yeah so basically then are they sort of using that to trick people almost or just using that
21:27as sort of a malicious tool to bring about what kind of ends thereafter i guess i asked the
21:35question because i always kind of wondered if proponents of dangerous worldviews like this
21:41knew what they were doing or knew that certain aspects of them were false and
21:46just still want to do it anyway to reach their ends good question kaden here we’re in
21:52some of that gray territory that we were in i think on day one when i was talking about the different cultural views
21:58in that it can be hard to discern um who is a true believer who is all in on
22:05this ideology and really thinks um from a uh
22:10uh uh uh taken captive perspective that it is true there’s some people out
22:16there for whom that is true right true believers so to speak and then there are others who are
22:22who are grifters and making a buck and making a name for themselves and using
22:27the system and so on and it’s hard to say who is who frankly
22:33but strategic essentialism could be used by either group because
22:40you could use it simply to foster your promotion of social justice and the books you’re
22:46writing and the speaking tours you’re on etc and and so you could use strategic
22:51essentialism um to convince people of color primarily but then of of course also
22:58many white people that this is a massive problem even though race isn’t real
23:04or you could be all in and you could truly believe that your cause is just but you need you need
23:10to act as if race is not a social construct in order to advance the interests of this group which
23:17according to you really is oppressed really is oppressed
23:23so even though race isn’t a thing it’s an invention actually of racists which i agree with
23:28this is this is a contact point of of me and critical race theorists i do think
23:35race is an invention i do think it’s an invention of racists and therefore we shouldn’t use it but
23:42some will use blackness for example capital b now
23:48in order to advance in their view this oppressed group
23:54so that’s how it plays in different ways um very confusingly actually
24:01because you have it said that it’s it’s a construct at the same time that you have people capitalizing black
24:06for example
24:12um especially on white privilege oh and i like the idea i mean
24:18obviously going to biblical categories when we talk about partiality
24:23but it seems like um and i’m talking with a friend of mine
24:28who’s up in the bay area who is in enmeshed in this stuff engulfing this stuff and he wants
24:33conversations with somebody outside of the bubble okay and he has uh concluded he’s a
24:39white guy he’s married to an african-american woman and happily married for years and years
24:45and his kids are at cal and usc and they’ve been taught critical race theory
24:50and they’re coming home and he’s bought into all this and it seems like reputation as another
24:57biblical category is something to think about reputation being more valuable than riches can we respond
25:04to the of privilege for certain people
25:10with a statement and again it maybe even sounds racist to say right now that there are certain people
25:16who have a better reputation that’s why the grocery store in a white community doesn’t have cars
25:24on it whereas a grocery store and another community does have bars in it on the windows you know yeah
25:31i’m saying you’ve got those things and it seems like what’s at play is reputation which the bible says is
25:38valuable is that just my white privilege talking
25:43huh that’s interesting i i’m thinking through what you’re saying i think fundamentally what
25:50what is sometimes said to be white privilege to go back to our earlier discussion of majority
25:56culture is simply the fruits of living in a majority
26:01culture so there there is a kind of
26:08norm that obtains in in any to go to any place on earth
26:14go to any nation there’s going to be uh sort of an insider element to that
26:22place and an outsider element it’s not necessarily the case that an
26:27insider element is evil so that’s that’s where i would try to
26:34start talking about some of these things that um
26:40just because you know in a in a certain community there are going
26:45to be a lot of faces of a certain type on a billboard or on tv screens in a given country or something like this
26:51does not mean that then other peoples are not welcome
26:56it could mean that it also could just mean that there’s a lot of this type of person there
27:02and so that reflects majority culture now we can talk about the church and how
27:09we engage these things sure we don’t just receive majority culture as if it’s perfect we’re creating new
27:15culture in the church so let that be said but i don’t want to encourage you
27:23in teaching you to read elements of majority culture as necessarily
27:28evil and i do want to also represent the fact that yes getting at
27:34what you’re talking about with crime levels in different societies it’s not racist for example to say that
27:40one community has more issues of policing than another that require greater security these
27:47sorts of things that’s not endemically inherently necessarily
27:52a sign of racism it could be but it also could not be
27:57so there’s a there’s a lot more to say white privilege is very simply probably
28:02in a lot of places being part of a majority culture if you go to kenya there’s probably some
28:09form of privilege that would be correlated with being part
28:14of the majority culture that’s not necessarily wrong
28:20it could be wrong it’s not necessarily so that’s some of what i would want to say if
28:27if checking your privilege which we commonly hear about today means stepping back as a white person
28:34so-called i i would not encourage anyone to embrace that thinking
28:40i want people to be who they who who they are who god made them to be in christ and
28:47to be a gracious christian to all people sure but i don’t want somebody to think okay he’s
28:53called to the pastorate but the american church doesn’t have enough diversity so he shouldn’t put his himself forward to
29:00become a pastor or something i’m trying to make this applicable on the fly he could think that
29:06stepping out of the running for a pastoral position is checking his privilege and stepping back but i i think that’s i
29:13don’t think there’s a biblical call or command or even instinct that
29:19would encourage him to think that i think that he should try to be on the staff and he should
29:25in building a staff let’s say if he’s a senior pastor try to hire people who are qualified people regardless of what
29:31their skin color is there’s a lot more to say frankly about
29:38white privilege i have a few more comments coming but
29:43suffice it to say that it’s a very troubling idea i believe and can be used
29:50very harmfully against image bearers who may have a certain pigmentation or lack thereof in their skin but
29:58i think that’s the draw for some
30:06that we’re believers to be sensitive to these issues and acknowledge okay you know we agree
30:14there’s injustice but then some of those that lead the way
30:19and people that we follow it seems to me we have to make a choice whether we’re
30:24going to follow them if i may just give an example you mentioned eric mason
30:30and a guy who was recently moved to his church is ted tripp that’s ted past there paul tripp
30:38paul okay i i’ve mixed it up i thought it was a ted uh my question is then how shall we
30:46approach those guys that are leading the way and saying we need to follow
30:51uh you know hook line and sinker with their example or
30:58should i pull his books off the shelf you know i mean how are you responding
31:03to guys like that who have crossed that line that previously had my respect and all
31:09of a sudden they’re going to those places and you’re kind of shocked at what they’re saying
31:15boy that’s a piercing one uh i think that there are a number of individuals whom
31:22we have commended and supported in days past and we’re in some interesting territory
31:28now with the example you just mentioned for example so i think i think we’re gonna have to
31:35handle these things with care i think we’re gonna therefore in in this susp this
31:40specific instance i think i’m gonna have i’m gonna have a
31:46hard time commending those who are pro-woke right now
31:52uh now there’s gonna be a spectrum there because some are more ardently in than
31:58others i want to be careful about not making everybody the same you’ve heard me try
32:05to do some of that work so far for example by saying that not everybody
32:11who retweets a hashtag is the same as ibram kendy in terms of promoting these
32:18ideas i want to be careful there and i’ll have words for you on that in just a moment
32:24on the other hand if a major teacher is embracing wokeness i’m now at a point where at the very
32:29least i think i’m having to start warning people about that element of their
32:35program and it may well be the case depending on how much they’re enmeshed in the system
32:42that i have to pull books i can’t say to you not because i’m
32:49trying to dodge this or something i can’t say to you what the precise moment is when the line is crossed i think you i
32:56don’t think you’re trying to pin me down in that sense i don’t know exactly what it is but i know there’s a line
33:02and i know there’s a point at which i i have to say all right he is now publicly aligning with wokeness this is
33:09an anti-gospel ideology i can’t commend these books i can’t commend this ministry
33:14and with a good number of individuals like the one you mentioned i think we’re either getting to the line or we’re at the line
33:25so that’s what i would say there
33:34part of what happens with these kind of ideologies is they get into the church
33:41and they don’t get into the church in a lot of cases all the way in other words not everybody
33:49who embraces some form of the ideology is promoting all of it they’re promoting
33:55some of it and we want to be careful because we want to recognize that we ourselves stumble
34:02in many ways and and and we don’t want to fall into a mindset where unless somebody agrees with us
34:09perfectly uh we can’t consider them a christian we can’t consider them a brother in the
34:15faith but we have to recognize as well that there are boundaries here it’s not that we
34:21have no boundaries we have to have boundaries so this puts us in difficult territory
34:29the in-between crowd that’s the hardest crowd to deal with are those who
34:35seem to love jesus christ and maybe have a track record of loving jesus christ but are dipping into this system
34:43in different degrees and i’ll just stop there and say a few more words about how
34:49we handle that coming up because i do have some thoughts let me just say at this point this is
34:54hard this is complicated
34:59this is what happens when ideologies do take people captive and do penetrate
35:06the church and the shepherds of god’s flock do not respond by the way i want to say a word about
35:12this shepherd today we are hearing from some
35:17that we shouldn’t really emphasize a sort of hard-edged understanding of the pastorate
35:23we should emphasize that pastors are shepherds um jesus is this kind of
35:31gentle figure and he’s a shepherd he’s not a warrior he’s a shepherd this sort of thinking is
35:38is getting out there in reformed and conservative circles i just want to say a quick word
35:45jesus is the the good shepherd he’s the shepherd of his sheep we’re
35:51sheep so amen to jesus being a shepherd in exegetical terms and theological terms
35:59i just want you to think though about what a shepherd is and does biblically do you remember the stories
36:06of david as a shepherd everybody thinks about psalm 23
36:11shepherd lying down but beside cool waters these beautiful poetic words
36:16right do you recall though that david according to first kings
36:22fought off numerous beasts that tried to kill his flock
36:29read first kings 17 18 again in your devotions do you recall that
36:37that shepherds in psalm 23 have a rod and a staff
36:42the staff is for leading the sheep the rod is for fighting off
36:47any foes so a vision of the pastorate that would say
36:53we’re not you know super theologians and jesus isn’t really a warrior king in any
36:59meaningful sense we should instead focus on being a shepherd
37:05just know that a shepherd is a form of a warrior
37:11the rod of a shepherd is used to beat back foes and if necessary
37:19slaughter them jesus as the shepherd gently leads his sheep but jesus has a
37:27staff and that staff will be applied to his enemies at the end of all things
37:33so jesus as a shepherd does not get you out of jesus as a kind of warrior figure and
37:41that goes all the way back to david david as a shepherd does not mean that
37:47david sits in a nice little grassy area and and hums soft tunes to himself
37:53and never dares to pick a dandelion because he might kill it david being a shepherd means he among
38:00other things fights anything that would kill the sheep of necessity
38:06he keeps watch over the flock that’s what shepherds do move ahead to the new testament in a new
38:13testament church you as a shepherd know you’re not going to physical war
38:18against unbelievers first and foremost in your duties but you are you are the guardian of your
38:26flock and that is a military guardianship do you understand that
38:32you are in a little sense a warrior for your people
38:38in in doing what we are doing and doing what i’m trying to help train you to do this week
38:44not have ideologies take you captive or your people captive you’re fighting against unbelief
38:52you’re f you’re fighting against corrupting ideologies you’re taking up you’re taking up a rod
38:58man and you’re and you’re going to war against principalities and powers
39:06that would lead the sheep astray so be a shepherd embrace the shepherd
39:11motif running throughout biblical theology just make sure you have the right conception of the shepherd as you do so
39:19we need to mention another movement here at this point called intersectionality that is closely linked
39:25to wokeness and critical race theory intersectionality as a term refers to
39:31this minority groups have together been oppressed minority groups of
39:38various kinds and their interests in overcoming unjust oppressors intersect
39:47that’s what intersectionality as a term means i’ll repeat minority groups
39:54of various kinds have together been oppressed have suffered oppression from normative
40:01groups and their justice interests intersect and so they can make
40:08common cause against oppressive forces in society
40:14that’s what we mean when we talk about intersectionality sometimes shortened to is
40:22intersectionality involves the overcoming of harmful power dynamics against
40:30minority groups the predominant privileged group in society according to is
40:37theorists and activists is heteronormative white
40:44patriarchalism heteronormative white patriarchalism
40:52that according to bell hooks and others is the group
40:58that is seen by many as the dominant force in society and to
41:05bring social justice into being white heteronormative patriarchy
41:12needs to be overcome and overthrown and it is only when it is overthrown
41:19and minority groups of various kinds are lifted up that society will be just
41:26what are some of the intersectional groups that we can identify
41:31what are their arguments here are several men oppress women
41:38men fundamentally in history have had a position of leadership and
41:44authority in society and various dimensions and by virtue of having authority
41:52men have oppressed women when you hear language about toxic
41:57masculinity as i’m sure you hood you you have excuse me then you are hearing an intersectional claim
42:06when you hear people say things like complementarian theology
42:12has led to all sorts of injustices against women that is an intersectional
42:20framing that is an intersectional framing
42:26because it’s not reading men and women fundamentally in terms of creation order remember that everybody
42:33remember creation order remember that god is the one who set it up
42:40do men in some cases do harmful things to women yes do women sin against men as well
42:48yes is manly authority in the home and the church wrong
42:55oppression no no it is not but that is how
43:00intersectionality frames it so if you’re listening to a christian leader and they frame
43:06complementarity interaction between the sexes uh men being pastors and shepherds of the flock
43:14men being heads of their wives men being leaders in the home as unjust as fomenting on
43:22injustice you are hearing intersectionality talk whether you know it or not
43:30according to intersectionality the rich oppress the poor
43:35this is an old one but a very common one to have different economic
43:43levels signals that there is injustice
43:48the what was the one percent and 99 movements of just a few years ago that
43:53swept across america after it was after the targeting of the
43:59one percent because the one percent in having this fantastic wealth
44:0450 times the average wage earner in a company for example the ceo being
44:09far more wealthy than a normal wage worker in the environment that is fundamentally seen as
44:15unjust you need to understand that that is a
44:21marxist claim it could be the case that a ceo is unjustly compensated
44:30but that is not a necessary conclusion there are rich people throughout
44:35scripture they are not necessarily evil for being rich
44:40that is not a biblical conclusion that is the conclusion of a partial thinker somebody is who is
44:47falling prey to partiality in first timothy 6 17-20 paul does not
44:53condemn the rich for having money he calls the rich to be rich in good
44:58works it is not wrong to have wealth job had tremendous wealth
45:04job had greater resources than any man around he was not wrong for doing so
45:11this is resentment in operation in many cases according to
45:17intersectionality physically able people oppress physically disabled people this is
45:24called ableism it’s an actual ideology ableism
45:30according to ableism as an identified mentality
45:36society is structured to make physically able people normative
45:44and in doing so that oppresses physically disabled people who are then marginalized and led to
45:52feel strange this is an example of dii this is an example of there being
46:00differences between physically able people and physically disabled people and that
46:05difference is read as necessarily an injustice it could be the case i think you’ve now
46:11heard me say that phrase 65 times today it could be the case that physically disabled people are
46:19being hindered from equality of opportunity well that is not good
46:26we should not support that but it is not necessarily the case that having a lot of able-bodied people
46:33means you have the oppression of disabled people
46:39difference is read as oppression in this category
46:44intersectionality argues that thin people oppress fat people
46:50you say strand you’re getting a little impolite here with us come on man no fat studies is a fast-growing part of
46:57the academy fat studies this is actually a big trend
47:03in society no pun intended that there is no ideal body size
47:12all sizes are beautiful you shouldn’t try to be thin you
47:18shouldn’t try to be fit you shouldn’t necessarily try to be healthy anywhere there’s a normative
47:27standard intersectionality argues that normative standard must be corrupt
47:37uh it’s not good to see a fat person as subhuman the biblical
47:45witness would militate against such a conclusion
47:50but it is good to be self-controlled in biblical terms
47:56we must not be mastered by our appetites of any kind
48:02and we do want to recognize that bodily training is of some value so when
48:07you see a man first corinthians 9 27 in leadership who is under submission to
48:16christ in all areas eating not being the most important part
48:22of his life but being a part of his life and and he keeping himself under submission
48:30to christ in every area you’re seeing a man who is emulating the apostle paul
48:36and when you see a family that is trying to steward their bodies well as
48:42christians they are doing what they should do i believe they’re honoring and glorifying
48:48god can that be taken to an extreme absolutely it can can your body
48:55become an idol for you definitely it can never do that but do pursue
49:02real self-controlled discipline grace driven self-control as a christian
49:09if you are drawn to be undisciplined in your bodily appetites you should repent of that confess it to
49:16god and pray to god to give you wisdom about how to build new patterns of self-control
49:22and personal discipline and this is an area where many christians today sadly are writing themselves a blank check they’re actually being more
49:28cultural than biblical
49:35straight people oppress sexual minorities intersectionality argues
49:42heteronormativity means that sexual minorities are oppressed
49:48if somebody is using the language if a christian organization is using the language of sexual minorities
49:55they are using intersectional language and that should be a warning bell in your ears
50:05the bible does not present god’s standard fosis nature
50:12as if it is a matter of oppression biblical norms are not oppressive
50:19biblical norms are doxological they glorify god god’s glory is
50:26bound up in god’s design god’s will god’s commands god’s law god’s standards
50:35and and those matters are not fundamentally oppressive they are fundamentally
50:43good the standard
50:48of man woman marriage as we talked about yesterday is not an oppressive standard the
50:55standard of most people being called to marriage per divine design for humanity
51:03to fulfill the dominion mandate pre-fall is not fundamentally oppression of
51:09single people single people are not fundamentally oppressed
51:15by the bible’s call to marriage in the family for most people do not read
51:21marriage in those terms i have observed the very troubling trend on social media
51:28if i post something about the goodness of marriage within seconds i will get replies about
51:35how i am probably discriminating against single people and leaving them out and
51:41giving them no voice and etc and on it goes and that is frankly silly having a
51:50standard does not mean for a christian
51:55that we are creating oppression it does mean that for intersectionality
52:02advocates who read differences and standards in those terms
52:11for a christian for god to establish a norm is god for his own glory
52:18doing something that honors him and shapes us for good
52:27we could take that standard and use it for evil ends we shouldn’t do that we shouldn’t
52:34say only married people are full-fledged men and women or something like this
52:40that could happen if so repent but the mere exists here’s the point
52:46very clearly men the mere existence of a divine standard does not signal oppression holding
52:54high the call to marriage which most people need to respond to
53:02which is the pathway for most people of maturity and growth in godliness
53:09and adulthood a key part of adulthood is not a matter of oppressing single
53:15people of course in our whole council of god
53:22teaching we’re going to be those who are going to say most people are called to marriage to glorify god and grow as a believer
53:30some people are not some people are given the gift not so much of singleness but the gift
53:35of chastity first corinthians 7 and they are called
53:40called by god to be single and they will glorify him by
53:46signaling among other realities that sex does not make you a full-fledged human person
53:52having sex does not solve all your problems getting married does not mean that you have become this perfect
53:58human being they will show that there is a higher
54:04call in life the call of christ and praise god for that
54:09but in celebrating the beauty of marriage we must not be heard as oppressing
54:15people because that is not the case we are more influenced by
54:21intersectionality than we know i mean our movement holding out
54:29standards today means that you will hear people say
54:34you are you are effectively oppressing me you’re not including i’m not included in your category
54:40and so i’m being i’m being wronged by you it’s valentine’s day pastor you preached
54:48a sermon on the goodness of husbands and wives what about me i’m left out
54:57you preached a sermon on on the blessing of children i’m childless i’m left out
55:04you’re wronging me pastor i’m alone
55:11we don’t want to jump to that conclusion and if we hear people saying such things we want to walk them through how that is
55:18not the the case graciously lovingly firmly
55:24and convictionally they’re believing the cultural lie that holding up a standard a divine
55:30standard is injurious to them and that is not a
55:36biblical reality in truth when a pastor preaches about
55:42marriage the the joys of covenantal companionship
55:47for life of a husband and wife a single person who is godly and mature
55:52should celebrate that should give thanks that the pastor is honoring god
55:59and celebrating what god loves and when a married couple hears the
56:05pastor preach about singleness they shouldn’t think anything untoward there either they should think praise
56:11god at least for much of his life paul was single jesus was never married
56:18you can really and truly honor god in that life life calling
56:26but this is one way do you understand what i’m saying this is one way that soft forms of ideology creep into our
56:34thinking we may never have read a solitary page from an intersectional author
56:39yet we may be thinking in intersectional categories without knowing it
56:49adults oppress children that’s the last one i’ll mention here adults and of course you would assume
56:55that race is a factor here white people oppress minorities too but we’ve talked about
57:01that at length i’m trying to fill this out adults oppress children you see here again where people have
57:08authority authority is read as bad so adults having authority over children
57:13is read as a negative reality and i want you to understand that that is not what the bible teaches
57:21authority can be abused but authority is not fundamentally bad authority flows from god the father all
57:28the way down and authority is a divine reality and god has constituted the world such
57:35that in the world god has made there is authority there are authority figures pastors are
57:40authorities for example fathers are authorities in
57:47their home they have authority whether they know it or not and they need to exercise it in a
57:54god-glorifying way nonetheless their authority is not bad
58:01authority is not harmful we must have authority those who are anti-authority in our
58:07world ironically set themselves up as new authorities
58:14authority is inevitable in this world people are actually in general form
58:21very much wanting leadership they want to be led most people do
58:28and they need to be led most people are not called to lead god’s church
58:36they’re not called to it they’re not fitted for it
58:42only a few are it’s not a bad thing that this is the
58:48case it’s a good thing so we must steward the call to authority
58:54very carefully but we must recognize that it is a
58:59divine call oh boy is it a high standard
59:05it is the highest standard there is it is a standard that convicts all of us
59:12challenges all of us all of us fail it in certain ways in many ways it requires continual
59:18humility vigilance to keep your heart regular confession of sin and yet
59:26does not involve laying down the call to authority it involves
59:33embracing it
59:39and you must be an authority figure in your kids lives you are not their best friend you are
59:46not their buddy you should love them every minute of their life
59:52but you are their authority figure and men you are authority figures in your home
59:58you are the head of your wife by extension you are the authority over your children
1:00:05and that should be a call that grips you by the caller every day of your life and that causes
1:00:12you to pursue christ zealously and that practically gets you up and gets you in
1:00:20the word and gets you to prayer and gets you to confession of sin
1:00:26and causes you to serve the church and you you should serve the church not only
1:00:32when the call comes that you most desire you get to fill in on a sunday night at grace
1:00:38or something like that you should serve the church in small ways you’re in seminary many of
1:00:45you are young you should embrace the small things this is not the time of big things for for
1:00:50most of you anyway this is the time of small things this is the time of humble anonymous service this is the
1:00:58time to clean the toilets this is the time to teach the two-year-olds or the three i
1:01:05guess that’s a little young teach the four-year-olds this is the time
1:01:10to work in the elderly saints ministry whatever that may be this is not a time when you’re going to
1:01:16get the highflown job on this campus or whatever campus you’re at most of you
1:01:21this is a time for you to get the low-level job and serve in it to the fullness
1:01:29of your ability and give it everything you have and not seek the high places too early
1:01:37this is a time for you to get your hands dirty and do hard work and get training whether you’ve had a
1:01:42father who called you to that or not in order that in being faithful in the
1:01:48small things now you would be faithful in the bigger things
1:01:54later isn’t that interesting that there are small things biblically and there are
1:01:59big things biblically it’s not the case if you’re being
1:02:05properly spiritual according to scripture that everything’s the same in terms of
1:02:11calling there are small things and there are big
1:02:17things and when you are training for ministry it’s a day primarily
1:02:22of small things and you should embrace that humbly by the power of the gospel by the
1:02:29power of the spirit in you and you should do the small things to the best of your ability
1:02:37and then over time god will give you more and more and more as you are faithful clinging to christ by his grace there
1:02:44will be bigger opportunities it’s not unspiritual
1:02:50to recognize that it’s not unspiritual to want bigger things it’s not unspiritual to
1:02:55want a pulpit and to want to preach 48 times a year that’s not un-spiritual it’s like in
1:03:02sports you want alpha dogs on your team don’t you
1:03:09i mean kobe overdid it a little bit at different times but you need alphas you need
1:03:16guys who want the ball with six seconds on the clock down one you need those guys
1:03:23and the church of the lord jesus christ understood rightly needs those kind of men not men who are
1:03:30proud in themselves but men who are bearing the fruit of the spirit
1:03:36men who fit the qualifications of the elder men who are pursuing humility but yes
1:03:41also men who are able to teach and want to teach they want the ball we need men like that
1:03:47we must have men like that so it’s not wrong to want that but you
1:03:54have to be faithful in the small things you even have to pursue faithfulness in the small things not
1:04:00begrudgingly you need to enter into the small things with gusto
1:04:06as a man and then in god’s kindness as you are faithful there will be more
1:04:13and more added and what you have prayed for you don’t
1:04:18deserve it what you have desired will in many cases for many of you come
1:04:25and you will be in ministry in full and you will be responsible for
1:04:31shepherding souls to glory and on the last day you will be the one
1:04:39who won people to faith and who counseled marriages and brought them back to
1:04:46health and who took people who were plunging into sin
1:04:52and in human terms rescue them out of it you will be that one you will be the one
1:04:58who discipled them you will be the one who won people to the faith you will be the one who fought off
1:05:05wolves that were in the church acts 20 29 says fierce wolves
1:05:11not soft wolves fierce wolves you’ll be that figure who god used
1:05:19but until then until then faithful in the small things pursuing
1:05:27faithfulness in the small things
1:05:44so much material so little time
1:05:50what does all of this mean for christianity
1:05:55all of this means that we are hearing different ideas in the church today
1:06:04here is some of what we are hearing in our circles
1:06:10evangelicals are hearing that white people are white supremacists by nature
1:06:18white christians are being called to repent for their whiteness and their
1:06:25complicity as white people in racism
1:06:32of the past christians are told
1:06:38by prominent christian leaders that by virtue of their skin color
1:06:44they are guilty for past wrongs committed by people of their skin color
1:06:54and again christians are called to repent for this
1:07:01christians are encouraged today to align with black lives matter
1:07:07an organization with a polar opposite world view on matters of the natural family
1:07:14the sexes human sexuality image of god and more
1:07:22christians are told to see capitalism as oppressive unfair and unjust today
1:07:31with socialism of a hard or soft form as the preferable system the term
1:07:37capitalism by the way is a marxist term it’s marx’s term
1:07:46so i don’t use it that much i prefer the term free market and i
1:07:51believe the bible commends the free market and does not see it as evil
1:07:58christians are told that white interpretation has held the church captive to a white
1:08:06agenda christians are told what we need
1:08:12is effectively standpoint epistemology
1:08:18what is standpoint epistemology standpoint epistemology is the idea that different minority
1:08:26groups bring different interpretive strengths
1:08:31to the text let me repeat that different minority groups bring
1:08:37different interpretive strengths to the text we’re talking about christians
1:08:43to the hermeneutical challenge and furthermore minority groups
1:08:51because they have been oppressed actually have a greater purchase on the
1:08:56truth than privileged groups so minority status ends up giving you
1:09:05a better purchase on the truth
1:09:12if you have been following certain websites online you will know that different schools and institutions and
1:09:18churches are very much embracing this hermeneutical trend the idea
1:09:24that for example white scholarship leaves us bereft
1:09:30of interpretation that we need to properly understand texts
1:09:39christians are encouraged next to support reparations and distributive justice today
1:09:48the bible teaches retributive justice i believe and argue it does not
1:09:55teach distributive justice there is not a call to make sure that everyone has equal
1:10:03outcomes there is not a leveling effect that any of us can actuate
1:10:09such that we can make everybody’s income the same everybody’s material conditions the same
1:10:15everybody’s life the same fundamentally people are sinners and
1:10:21they make all sorts of choices really distributive justice is not just
1:10:28utopian it’s playing god
1:10:35it’s trying to make everybody’s life equal the same and no one can do that you
1:10:42can’t do that if you try there’s lots of reasons why one of them is human character
1:10:48not everybody has the same character some people will be in positions of
1:10:54privilege and squander it think of esau some people will be in
1:11:00positions of privilege or or positions of disadvantage
1:11:05and rise why who will how can we know we don’t
1:11:14people have different character
1:11:19people’s character changes over time doesn’t it human beings are so complex
1:11:26there’s your take away money quote for the week from anthropology what did you learn from dr strand as he
1:11:32came out to tms human beings are complex there is some genius theological insight right there
1:11:39honestly it’s true human beings are complex that’s one of the realities you learn as
1:11:44you study scripture and then as you turn to the book of nature
1:11:50and you study people around you your family your neighborhood your community your society it’s a
1:11:57fairly complex reality out there isn’t it are any of you in a perfectly normal
1:12:02family with no dynamics with no ebb and flow no one making strange choices
1:12:10maybe someone is a lot of us aren’t some of us know that family life as just
1:12:15one example is very complex and people are complicated why do people
1:12:21make the choices they make it’s complicated
1:12:27different ideologies will collapse that complexity
1:12:33and take it off the table and when they do so man you should hear alarms going off
1:12:40intellectually because the bible shows us that people are very complicated and
1:12:47they ebb and flow and there’s a certain mystery to humanity
1:12:52that is very hard to capture and when you’re meeting a person you’re not meeting a stereotype
1:13:00you’re meeting an individual part of what wokeness collapses
1:13:06and does away with is the uniqueness and even the brilliance of individualism
1:13:11individualism can be very bad but individualism is fundamentally the way god made the world isn’t it
1:13:20god didn’t make us amorphous group blobs who walk around sharing a
1:13:26brain ten of us and we all do the same thing or if we have a certain skin color or
1:13:32class background or heritage if we’re irish if we’re italian if we’re ethiopian
1:13:38if we’re chinese we all are the same that’s not true that’s not who we are
1:13:44that’s not how god made us look at scripture people from the same family right off
1:13:50the bat following the fall make totally different decisions cain and abel are from the same family
1:13:57they make totally different decisions they’re not the same person if you need a word against critical race
1:14:04theory and wokeness hear that one we’re not the same there’s not one word there’s not whiteness
1:14:10there’s no such thing as whiteness there’s no such thing as the average white person there’s no average white person there’s
1:14:17no average black person there’s no average age asian person there’s no average
1:14:22african person south american person who is this average person where are they do we have commonality
1:14:31yes we’re all image bearers we talked about that do we have sadly sinful solidarity yes we do we’re
1:14:37all sinners after that bro it’s basically a jump ball as to who we are
1:14:45we are individuals that can take a bad form absolutely that is also the way god
1:14:52structured the world
1:15:02these are some things we hear in the church evangelicals are hearing all this and
1:15:09more how should we respond to wokeness
1:15:14what do we do i’m going to respond to a few of those ideas in just a moment
1:15:19let me just say this i think there are different groups of christians out there
1:15:24today responding to wokeness differently
1:15:30there are four groups that i think we can identify at base first there are the non-woke
1:15:38in case you haven’t picked it up yet i’m in that category
1:15:45this is a group i believe that needs to continue contending for the faith
1:15:51but all we always needs to make sure that we’re being slow to speak slow to anger
1:15:58and quick to listen so we don’t have everything right even if
1:16:04we have sound convictions on these issues as i pray you do we still have to make sure that we are
1:16:11pursuing humility and graciousness and charity and listening
1:16:16second second group the confused many many people i’m talking about in
1:16:23the church by the way many people are confused over these matters
1:16:29if there are average people in your church so to speak if there is such a thing assume that
1:16:37confusion is the standard people are going to work they are
1:16:44hearing that they should be for justice they are turning on espn they’re seeing athletes kneel for
1:16:50justice they’re getting pressure to to hold to certain standards of fairness
1:16:58they’re watching on the news cities burn because black lives matter people are
1:17:05confused they’re confused in part because they know american history and they know there are real problems in american
1:17:11history they don’t know what to do they don’t know what to think
1:17:17confusion dominates the third category are the engaged the engaged
1:17:27these are people who are tweeting social justice hashtags and putting a black square on instagram
1:17:34but more than that these are people who believe in crt or they believe certain tenets of
1:17:41wokeness they believe that america fundamentally is a system of oppression
1:17:48they believe that whiteness is a reality as if there is such a thing as the average white person and they think
1:17:55that the average white person has real guilt
1:18:01and needs to check their privilege now i want to handle this group
1:18:06carefully because i’m not saying that this group is all the way in they’re engaged they
1:18:12still believe the gospel profess that they still want to be in
1:18:18the local church they don’t want to leave it
1:18:23they haven’t denied the faith
1:18:28and they’re even trying to sort some things out so this is a third group the engaged
1:18:36pro-woke and this is a group that in my view needs warning needs engagement
1:18:46needs the truth needs to be turned back as god would
1:18:52allow from all in embrace of this system
1:18:57and this leads us to the fourth category the committed the committed pro woke
1:19:05this is the group that is actively evangelizing for wokeness
1:19:11this is the group that is calling for reparations this is the group that is taking a pulpit of the lord jesus christ
1:19:18and calling white people to repent for their complicity and whiteness
1:19:25this is the group that believes that society is full of systemic racism this is the
1:19:32group that believes that white people are white supremacists
1:19:40and this group i believe as i have said publicly if they persist
1:19:46in their errors if they persist in their teachings as godly people confront them
1:19:52and try to win them back this is the group that needs excommunication if they persist in their
1:20:00teaching they need church discipline
1:20:05and if somebody passes from the third group the engaged group
1:20:10to the committed group and then again being confronted in the steps of
1:20:16discipline per matthew 18 continues in that vein
1:20:21to repeat myself they need to be removed from membership because they are
1:20:28bringing in ideologies that have taken them captive
1:20:34and will take others captive that is how high the stakes are with
1:20:41wokeness that is how high the stakes are with critical race theory
1:20:47that is how high the stakes are with intersectionality
1:20:52and that is why dr macarthur has said in his 53 years of ministry whatever it
1:20:59may be at this point this is the toughest challenge
1:21:04to the gospel he has seen
1:21:10and i agree with him i i do not have 53 years of ministry at this point
1:21:15but i think that this is a grave threat to the church i think that this is the most serious
1:21:23threat to the christian gospel since liberal christianity
1:21:28fostered by harry emerson fosdick and others in the 1910s 20s and 30s
1:21:36protestant liberalism which denied miracles which denied blood atonement penal
1:21:42substitution which denied the full divinity of jesus in many cases
1:21:48which denied the inerrancy and authority of the word of god protestant liberalism crept
1:21:56into the church took over churches as it took people
1:22:02captive and drove a stake in the heart of the american church a
1:22:08hundred years ago and everything changed as a result of it
1:22:14denominations divided churches lost their buildings
1:22:20missionaries ceased to preach the gospel on the field the word ceased to be proclaimed from
1:22:27once thriving evangelical pulpits denominations were
1:22:32lost this happened a hundred years ago
1:22:38and less than a hundred years ago not that long ago you guys study historical theology under
1:22:44dr boostnets here an excellent historian he you study trends that took place 500 years ago a thousand years ago
1:22:51seventeen hundred years ago eighteen hundred years ago in your church history classes and historical
1:22:57theology classes this happened barely a hundred years ago
1:23:03this is our grandparents generation
1:23:09ideology took people captive
1:23:16it just happened in historical terms
1:23:21and it’s happening today it’s happening now wokeness
1:23:29is the successor to protestant liberalism
1:23:34and it is the gravest threat of our lifetime so far
1:23:39and it is all hands on deck now
1:23:46not from a posture of anger not from a posture
1:23:55of hatred of any person not because we are those who get
1:24:01everything intellectually right from a posture of speaking the truth and
1:24:07love ephesians 4 15 being like the early church
1:24:13being like the apostles we are those who have to speak the truth in love
1:24:21and we have to warn people about the tremendous danger of wokeness we recognize that this is
1:24:28not simply not the gospel this ideology this is anti-gospel
1:24:33ideology at base and the stakes are terrifyingly high
1:24:39you know it’s funny because some of you may have some connection to fundamentalism and you may
1:24:46i’m guessing many of you hail from theological conservatism and so you will know that
1:24:52the stereotype of the fundamentalists in the 1920s is
1:24:57what what is the term associated with the fundamentalists of that era
1:25:03that they were fighting fundamentalists yes now fundamentalists especially
1:25:10in the mid 20th century did a fair bit to deserve that label that identifier
1:25:17they fought over a lot of things in retrospect probably that they shouldn’t have fought about
1:25:23uh there there came to be doctrines of you know separation that went further i think than the new
1:25:30testament goes so let that be said i don’t identify myself as a fundamentalist
1:25:36my engagement of culture of movies and art and beauty and etc would not fit
1:25:43the standard of different fundamentalist churches or individuals so i i’m not a fundamentalist myself
1:25:51but i want you to hear something along these lines for just a minute
1:25:56who was it who fought in the 1910s and 20s and 30s
1:26:04who was it who was fighting and who was it who wasn’t fighting enough
1:26:11let’s take one example a lot of you guys read old princeton you read warfield
1:26:17you read hodge you read others in that tradition
1:26:23certainly all of us you know are going to want to push people to warfield’s article on the inspiration of scripture
1:26:30for example to ground people in that doctrine how was it
1:26:36that in a generation princeton went from bb warfield to
1:26:43neo-orthodoxy how did that happen is it because the fundamentalists were
1:26:49fighting or is it because the fundamentalists didn’t fight enough
1:26:56what i want you to think through very quickly this isn’t church history class but
1:27:02i want you to understand that quietly behind the scenes liberal protestants
1:27:09were fighting they were taking over institutions they took over one after another
1:27:18everybody talks about the fighting fundamentalists but here’s what we should actually characterize the fundamentalists as in
1:27:25this period the losers they lost and they lost and they lost and they
1:27:33lost and why did they lose because they did not contend for the faith
1:27:40once for all delivered to the saints at least some of them some of them did and some of them still
1:27:46lost it’s not the case that if we just fight we’ll always win so i i don’t want to lay that at the
1:27:52feet of these movements of these figures
1:27:57it’s not the case though that the fundamentalists were fighters and the liberals weren’t they were men
1:28:03of peace and men of light and men of hope that’s what secular society tells us
1:28:10that’s a lie it’s the liberals who fought they out fought the conservatives
1:28:17and in god’s providence they won and as a result many churches ceased to preach the
1:28:24gospel many missions agencies started sending
1:28:29people who wanted to restore communities rather than preach the gospel many
1:28:36seminaries were lost and started promoting
1:28:42liberal protestantism and on and on it goes and so we’re in a similar moment and the
1:28:48stakes are similarly high and we need to make sure that we
1:28:54in our time contend for the faith speak the truth and love
1:29:00don’t hear me as saying you and i can save our institutions and preserve our churches none of us can
1:29:06do this but do hear me as saying the hour is
1:29:11late and we are in a very similar moment a hundred years after protestant
1:29:17liberalism and the specter of wokeness is is rising and it is as
1:29:23serious a threat i believe with dr macarthur as protestant liberalism was 100 years
1:29:30ago what are several major problems with this system then
1:29:35as we wrap up this part of our material first i have just a few for you first wokeness
1:29:42foments racism it creates actual racism in opposing racism
1:29:50it trains people for example to distrust and i think even dislike
1:29:58white people it encourages us to see whiteness as our chief problem today and
1:30:04therefore those who are white as inherently problematic
1:30:10we talked about this with d’angelo d’angelo makes millions of dollars going to
1:30:18big corporations telling white people that they’re racist
1:30:24that’s racism i don’t think there is such a thing as whiteness i
1:30:29don’t think there is such a thing as white white people i don’t think there’s such a thing as the average white person
1:30:37but i do believe that wokeness actually creates racism
1:30:43it creates division in the church it also creates self-hatred it causes
1:30:50so-called white people or or anyone who would be labeled white in a different uh a different people
1:30:58group it causes those people to hate themselves it causes people who have been given
1:31:05their skin color and their background by god to see that background as evil
1:31:12now look all of us are sinners of whatever background so we all must hate our sin but hating
1:31:20your sin is different from hating who god providentially made you
1:31:25you understand that distinction hating your sin is distinct from
1:31:30hating your ethnos you are not necessarily called to hate
1:31:36your heritage you are called to hate your sin
1:31:42second wokeness fosters partiality which james to expressly
1:31:51forbids it causes us to treat some people better than others some of
1:31:56you saw the headlines about covid vaccinations just a few weeks ago
1:32:03white people elderly white people were said to not need the vaccine
1:32:09because that is a group that on average enjoys pretty good health
1:32:14better health than other racial groups and so elderly the elderly community should not receive
1:32:20a greater share of the vaccination this is where we actually are in american society
1:32:26these are actual public arguments wokeness fosters partiality and
1:32:31partiality is wrong it is wrong no matter who the target is
1:32:37no one in this life in christian terms is supposed to be treated better than anyone else
1:32:44if a rich person comes into your assembly don’t treat him better or her better than a
1:32:50poor person if a person of ex-skin color comes into your assembly
1:32:55by extension don’t treat them better than a person of a different skin color
1:33:01if a person of high intellectual attainment and physical attractiveness or cultural
1:33:08cosmopolitan ship i just made a term up comes into your assembly don’t treat
1:33:14them better than a person of lower intellect or of poor origins
1:33:22or someone who’s not cultured don’t treat them better don’t treat them worse don’t be partial
1:33:29to anyone wokeness fosters this though it it intends to it tries to third wokeness makes
1:33:39ordinary people racists which actually hinders the fight against racism
1:33:46we should fight against partiality anywhere we find it if you have family
1:33:53members if you have friends if you have a church community that in some way
1:33:58is racist or says racist things don’t abide that in being against
1:34:04critical race theory and wokeness we’re not committing ourselves to be less
1:34:10anti-racist less against racism i don’t mean what candy means by that
1:34:16we should always fight partiality actual partiality but the problem with
1:34:22wokeness is it takes people who are not racist and it makes them racist
1:34:30everyone has the seeds of racism and ethnocentrism in their heart don’t misunderstand everyone has those
1:34:36seeds but to go up to a person of a given skin color
1:34:41and then fit them into a stereotype and say oh you’re racist is to
1:34:48actually hinder the work of fighting racism
1:34:53fourth wokeness reads majority culture in poisonous terms
1:34:58i’ve tried to convey to you that majority culture is a malleable reality
1:35:06it would be wrong for us to go to any country on earth go to any people group and say
1:35:12oh their majority culture is perfect and pristine we can’t do that anywhere you get around any number of
1:35:19people a group of people you’re dealing with sinners but it’s also not the case because of common grace
1:35:26that majority cultures can’t be read necessarily as 100 wicked and evil
1:35:35wokeness weaponizes majority culture it says where there are a lot of white people
1:35:40there is necessarily a group of white supremacists and the society is necessarily unjust
1:35:45and that is not a necessary conclusion that’s not a fair conclusion
1:35:52fifth wokeness renders the gospel ineffective to build the church
1:35:58it tells us we need the tools of critical race theory to build the church
1:36:03it tells us we need to make reparations for wrong doing it it tells us that
1:36:11we need to confess guilt that we might not even know we have but we surely have some of us by virtue
1:36:18of our skin color all of this goes beyond the gospel
1:36:25to build the church and to create justice
1:36:30when we have what we need to build the church to unify people in christ
1:36:35and we also have what we need from scripture to work for justice
1:36:44there is nothing extra to do once you have diverse peoples
1:36:52in the church if someone has done an actual wrong against someone
1:36:59else again as i said just a few minutes ago we have the system of church discipline to handle that
1:37:05wrongdoing so let’s say someone is being racist against someone in a church
1:37:10we should deal with that that needs to be handled
1:37:16but that’s not what wokeness is after wokeness says okay now you have a group of diverse
1:37:21peoples in the church and actually what’s going to need to take place is the white people are going to need to repent for their whiteness
1:37:27their complicity and past racial wrongs tabitian version of this just a few
1:37:34years ago at the mlk 50 conference he said that white people participed paraphrasing but
1:37:41participated in the murder of mlk our grandparents
1:37:46were complicit in that death the society itself the white driven society was complicit
1:37:53in that and so white people by extension share in that wrong
1:37:59that adds a new law to the gospel that means that there is something that
1:38:04has to be done to unify the people of god beyond the gospel
1:38:11when in truth what is needed to unify diverse peoples
1:38:17of every kind of every background of every tribe of every tongue is the gospel of jesus christ and even
1:38:24if there is a history of wrongdoing
1:38:29among those peoples in their background those peoples are not responsible those
1:38:35church members are not responsible somehow for writing all those wrongs
1:38:41i’m going to go to ephesians 2 in just a minute to to make that point
1:38:47but suffice it to say that christ is enough vody backham just a few years ago so
1:38:55powerfully said this in his talk on ethnic gnosticism
1:39:00for founders ministries he talked about you you read the chapter of course or
1:39:05will be for this class but he talked about how forgiveness is enough in breathtaking terms forgiveness is
1:39:13enough the forgiveness of jesus christ is enough it’s everything it is so powerful
1:39:22that it unifies people who have nothing in common perhaps and it’s enough to build the
1:39:29church it’s enough to save the soul and it’s enough to make us one body
1:39:36but wokeness compromises all of this sixth wokeness simplifies complex events and
1:39:42realities we’ve already talked about this at length but this is part of the appeal of marxism in various forms that it
1:39:48simplifies complex realities and gives you a a nice and neat
1:39:54diagnosis of those events and realities and then gives you a nice and neat
1:39:59prescription for them when in reality people are complex and society is
1:40:07complex look sometimes there isn’t going to be
1:40:14an easily reducible answer for what ails us in society
1:40:20sometimes there’s going to be multiple factors in play that result in breakdown
1:40:27in our communities and there’s not a straightforward oh this is the one sentence reason
1:40:34why why we are suffering breakdown sometimes there’s real complexity in
1:40:40life that isn’t dodging biblical truth that’s actually recognizing
1:40:46the complexity of sin the complexity of the human condition
1:40:53in one sense our world view is simple in another sense our world view comprehends complexity
1:41:00think about a marriage just take a marriage
1:41:06a marriage is a fairly simple reality right let’s say a christian marriage it’s a husband and a wife who love god
1:41:13but in any marriage are there not complex dynamics
1:41:19is there not give and take push and pull are are there not problems on the
1:41:26husband’s side that he brings to the table are there not problems that the wife brings to the table we shouldn’t fall
1:41:33prey to this thinking that women are somehow saintly and men are boorish idiots
1:41:39as if men are the cause of problems in the marriage alone that’s not that’s not the reality they both bring complexity to the
1:41:46marriage they both have a history they both have a background they both have failings sort that out
1:41:55give me a sorting out of a 25-year marriage in a sentence is that easy to do well in one sense we
1:42:02know why there’s complexity we know that sin causes pain and hardship of course in
1:42:10another sense it’s going to take you a little while probably to talk through the dynamics of a marriage i’m not
1:42:15meaning that we’re lost in psychological nowheresville and sorting out our marriages i am
1:42:22saying that the application of truth to a marriage is going to uncover complexity that’s just a marriage as a
1:42:29marriage think about your relationship with your father
1:42:35is there any complexity in that again we’re not in psychological
1:42:41territory here we’re talking about your lived experience in a fallen world
1:42:47probably some complexity for some of us so be careful of easy simplification in
1:42:53any dimension of life including that which wokeness offers seventh
1:42:58wokeness destabilizes truth making it narratival rather than absolute
1:43:08if all you have if all you have are um
1:43:18if all you have are white people sorry teaching you
1:43:26hermeneutics and biblical interpretation at your school wokeness would say you don’t have a full
1:43:33orb education you have not you’re not able to lay hold of all that the biblical
1:43:38text has lying within it that’s because we need to recognize the
1:43:44merits of standpoint epistemology and white people let’s say as one group
1:43:49of interpreters can’t lay hold of all that the text has to offer so wokeness destabilizes truth
1:43:55the reality is we don’t need certain skin color people of different skin colors even to
1:44:02come and interpret the text we need people who know god by god’s grace to interpret the text for us teach us to do so i mean
1:44:11whatever their background may be eighth and finally and we’re going to
1:44:16close in just a minute wokeness promotes a system of associational unrighteousness
1:44:24and performative righteousness let me say that again wokeness promotes a system
1:44:31of associational unrighteousness and performative righteousness
1:44:38so you’re unrighteous because of your association perhaps based on your skin color
1:44:44whatever it may be or you’re righteous based on your skin
1:44:50color if it’s minority skin color and performative righteousness this is not a
1:44:56grace driven system this is a system of this is a system of
1:45:02penance this is a works-based system this is one in which you need to prove
1:45:07your anti-racism so wokeness promotes associational unrighteousness
1:45:13and performative righteousness again to summarize here as we conclude i’ll have to save
1:45:19ephesians 2 for tomorrow because i have a meeting i need to go to
1:45:26this is not just not the gospel as an ideology this is an anti-gospel
1:45:34ideology my prayer in studying these things with you is not that you will now become an
1:45:40intellectual buzzsaw who yells people down whenever you hear
1:45:47sort of woke talk surfaced but that you will speak the truth in love
1:45:52that you will be a minister of grace and truth that you will listen to people as they
1:45:58talk about whatever complexity is in their background because there is real complexity for all
1:46:05of us in different ways and then that yes you will as much as
1:46:10you can as much as god will allow seek to speak the truth such that they are not
1:46:17taken captive by this ideology that is itself a loving act
1:46:24you want your speech to be gracious gracious excuse me season with salt but you also want to recognize that
1:46:31speaking the truth is an act of love
1:46:36so to be loving is not to be silent on this system
1:46:41to be loving is not to allow people to slide to be loving is to speak the truth
Standing Before God, This We Are and No More 