Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 282 | Exposing & Opposing Social Justice Theology | Guest: Dr. Voddie Baucham

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

For nearly two decades, Dr. Voddie Baucham has studied and warned the church about Marxism, liberalism, and postmodernism. He is an expert in expressing why these worldviews are so imminently dangerous and how we are seeing the results of these thoughts in our current culture.  Today's Link: https://www.voddiebaucham.org/

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. Today I am talking to Dr. Vody Bakum. I am so excited about this, and I know a lot of you are too. He has been so helpful in helping me shape my biblical worldview. And his ministry has been so influential over thousands and thousands of people. And he has special insight into social justice theology and how it is damaging the evangelical church today and the particular ways that it is incongruent with the biblical worldview. So I am so excited to talk to him, to hear about his story and his testimony, how he came to know the Lord and how the Lord has led him down this journey of having so much influence. And then we will talk especially and particularly about the gospel

and why it is better than the critical theory, theology, and philosophy that is being shoved in our faces today. So without further ado, here is Dr. Voddy Bacom. Dr. Baccombe, thank you so much for joining me. It's my pleasure. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad we finally work this out. Yes, me too.

I think most people listening to this and watching know exactly who you are. They have watched your videos, especially lately. But can you tell everyone who you are and what you do just in case there are some people who don't know? Yeah, well, I'm Vody Bacom. I am, I mean, I wear a lot of hats. I've been preaching for three decades now and have served the church in a number of capacities as pastor and an itinerant preacher. Five years ago, we moved to Lusaka, Zambia. I was serving in Houston, Texas, where we planted a church there in spring in North Houston.

And the Lord called us to Zambia five years ago to come and help start the African Christian University here, which was started by the Reformed Baptist Churches of Zambia. And so, yeah, we've been here for the last five years. I'm married to Bridget for 31 years. We have nine children, seven sons and two daughters. And we have now two grandsons. And seven of our children are actually here. They're still at home.

They're still here with us. So, yeah, that's who I am. And you were born and raised in Los Angeles. Were you raised in a Christian home? No. I was raised by a single mother, a single teenage Buddhist mother. My parents met and had me when they were in high school. Got married because that's kind of what you did.

I was born in 1969, but they didn't stay married. And so my mother raised me as a single mother. She grew up in church, but eventually left that behind and went into Buddhism. A lot of people are shocked to hear that, but there was a vibrant black Buddhist scene in Los Angeles during that time. It was kind of the whole age of Aquarius type thing, you know, and Eastern mysticism was big. Yeah, Eastern mysticism was big and all of the free love culture and the drug. drug culture and the psychedelic culture and Buddhism just really was on the rise at that time. And so she didn't like how political in her understanding the black church had become.

And she didn't want to be part of the black power movement. And generally, those were kind of the two streams. You know, it got Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. And so my father was more of a kind of Malcolm X type person. and, you know, some of the people around were more of the, you know, nonviolent, you know, Martin Luther King, you know, political means type people, but she was looking for something more transcendent. And so she became a Buddhist.

And, you know, I didn't grow up going to church. I didn't grow up around Christians or Christianity. I never heard the gospel, really, until I got to university. Well, that's what I was about to ask. How did you hear the gospel and how did you become a Christian? I mean, I know that could be an entire conversation in itself, but just kind of briefly, how did that happen? Yeah. Well, I went to high school in San Antonio.

And, you know, in Texas, you know, football is everything. Right. And not only that, but there's the fellowship of Christian athletes is this really big, you know, deal. And so in Texas high school football, when I was playing. and there were three things that you did. And all of these three things had to do with the coach getting as much time with you as legally possible, right? The state has all these rules about how much time you can practice,

how much time you can, you know, spend, you know, in meetings and all this other kind of stuff. And so you played football and then you ran track because that was the way for you to get in shape and get bigger, stronger, faster, you know, while you were preparing for football the next season. And you participated in the FCA, which again, I didn't mean a whole lot for me other than, you know, there's another group, you know, on campus that I was adjacent to.

And so when I went off to play football in college, it was, you know, kind of a big buzz, you know, because I was, you know, considered a little bit of a big deal. And there's a guy on campus who was working in Campus Crusade. saw in my bio, and it's always interesting when you first go to college as a college athlete, you know, it's not a whole lot to put in your bio. You've never played a game in college, right? You've got to, so you just throw everything in there. And so you saw on there that I was affiliated with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Had no idea that this didn't mean anything to me. And came and talked to me about the possibility of starting a Bible study with the football players, realizing a couple of minutes that I didn't know Jesus from the man in the moon.

Right. And basically he spent the next three weeks talking to me about Christianity, about the gospel. I had a lot of questions. I didn't really understand a lot of things. He tried to use this sort of four spiritual laws, you know, with me. But there were so many assumptions even in that that he needed to back up, you know. And so we spent about three weeks together. His name was Steve Morgan.

You know, we still stay in contact to this day. but one day Steve came to meet with me. It was Friday, November 13th, 1987, and I realized I didn't have any more questions. And I got it. And so I laid down on the floor in the locker room while I was waiting for him. And I just prayed. I didn't even know what to pray.

I was like, God, you know, the thing you did for Steve that he's been telling me you want to do for me, now's good. Wow. And, yeah, and just sort of never looked back. Wow, that is awesome. And you went to seminary. you have several degrees. So how did that happen? Did you know immediately that you wanted to pursue this professionally?

Or what was that journey like? No, not at all. I was, you know, as we say, you know, I was on fire for the Lord. Right. I was excited about this. And that excitement came from a number of sources. You know, when Steve came into the locker room, he was late. I don't know why it was late that day.

And he would bring me material. I would ask him questions. And he would answer my question or if he didn't have an answer, he would go get material to help answer my questions. And, you know, I guess he was late getting some stuff together for us to look through or read through together. And he came and I'm just bawling. And he asked me, you know, what's wrong? And I'm telling him what's going on. He's, man, that's good news.

And I'm still just bawling. And he says, what's wrong? And I just said to him, you know, I had a, a. a cousin named Jamal. Jamal and I were about six months apart in age. I was six months older than him. And when I got old enough to find a little trouble in South Central L.A. or for trouble to find me, my mother shipped me out.

And I moved from Los Angeles to Beaufort, South Carolina, where I went to live with her oldest brother, my uncle, who's a retired drill instructor in the Marine Corps. And I got out of trouble. you know, very, very quickly. And it was amazing. Just not only having a man in the home, but having G.I. Joe in the home. It was just, it was incredible.

And he had retired after 22 years in the Marine Corps. And anyway, Jamal didn't leave South Central. Jamal started selling drugs. And eventually, Jamal was shot and killed. And I had gone to Jamal. funeral the year before I went to college and so Steve comes to the locker room I'm sitting there ball and he's asking me what's wrong and I said I should be able to pick up the phone right now and call my cousin but I can't because he's dead and if this is true and I believe it

is then I don't think I'll ever see him again and so Steve did two things number one he sat there and he cried with me and number two he asked me if there was anybody else that I needed to call. And so I started calling people. I started calling family and friends and, you know, and just started evangelizing, sharing my faith. And eventually started talking about that on campus. Eventually, I joined a fellowship with Christian athletes at Rice University

and, you know, really had my first preaching opportunity through that group. and when I had my first preaching opportunity at this group of meetings that we were doing at some high schools, I just, I didn't know what to say other than I think I found what I was supposed to do. And I went until the pastor of the church that I was attending at the time. And, you know, there's this joke about, you know, black church experience versus white church experience, you know, and white church experience, you go tell your pastor, I think I'm called to preach. And he says, okay, great, we'll sign you up for seminary. For me, I went and told my pastor, I think I'm called the preach, and he looked at the calendar and said, third Sunday of next month, we'll all find out.

Oh, my gosh. And so, you know, that was that that was it, you know, sort of a baptism by fire. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. And so you ended up at Oxford several years later, correct? Yeah, yeah, I did. So I eventually, I left Rice my senior year. nobody told me that you're not supposed to transfer in your senior year but I started preaching when I was a junior and you know here I am a football player you know this future NFL prospect and I start preaching and you know in Texas what that means is you're going to get invited to go speak at all kind of you know events all over the place and that's what was happening but again I was very young in the faith I didn't know much at all

had just begun to, you know, read the Bible and understand the Bible. And, you know, here I was. Because when I preached at my church, then they licensed to me, right? So now I'm a licensed Baptist minister, which, again, whatever that meant. And so I'm getting all these invitations, but I don't know anything. And so I was just convicted. I need to know what I'm talking about. And so I looked into, you know, transferring findings.

some place where I could go and study. And providentially, the Lord sort of hemmed me in where I needed to stay in Houston. You know, my wife, Bridgett and I, we married the summer between my sophomore and junior year. And yeah, yeah, yeah. We met January 21st and married June 30th. Oh, wow. That's amazing.

Yeah, yeah. And then we had our first child 10 months later. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, we were efficient. So Bridget was pregnant. She was student teaching. She had to stop student teaching because of some preterm labor issues. So she couldn't leave Houston.

So I'm like, okay, I need to start preparing. Where do I go? I'm riding around Houston one day and I see Houston Baptist University. Never heard of it before. I go and talk to some people there and talk about what's happening with me and what I want to do. And long story short. I end up transferring my senior year to Houston Baptist University. And I did, I was at Houston Baptist for 14 months.

I took 46 credit hours in 14 months at HBU and, you know, being married and a new father. And then I went immediately from there to Southwestern Seminary. And then I went and did a doctor of ministry degree at Southeastern Seminary. And I felt like two things. One, my credentials were two Baptist. And two, I had some other personal things that I wanted to do. So I got permission to do the last year of my doctor-administer degree as the first year of a Ph.D. or a DeFill, and they call it in Oxford, the DeFiel at Oxford.

I got special permission from the president, Paige Patterson, to go and do that. So we sold our home. We moved to England and spent a year. year there at Oxford. While we were there, Bridget became very ill. We almost lost her that year, and we ended up moving back. Again, by God's grace, I was able to finish the first doctoral degree, but didn't finish the second one. And, but, you know, that was our little foray into academic life in the UK. Oxford was interesting. You know, where, people get excited when you talk about studying at Oxford, but it was an ordeal. It was hard. The best way I could describe it is, again, it was a theological, you know, education. But the best way I could describe it is that the people that I was studying with there and learning from there, they believed little and practiced less. And it was rough being in that environment. But I praise God for it because it really helped prepare me for the ministry. that he called me to.

Amen. And you have had a long ministry at this point, at least it seems that way from what I know. We were listening to you when you were on Focus on the Family many years back. When I was growing up, that's a program that my parents listened to often in the car when we were going to school. You've written several books. But recently, a lot of people who are my age who maybe didn't know who you were before, didn't listen to you before, even though you've been around for so long, they have now watched your videos on things like cultural Marxism, on ethnic narcissism, on social justice, and they have

gained a lot of insight from you, and your sermons and your interviews on these topics have really opened a lot of people's eyes into these dangerous and insidious forms of theology that are seeping into the evangelical church. How did you start talking about these subjects and what made you realize, okay, these things are a threat and I need to start discussing them? So, you know, it's really interesting. And I'm glad we segueed into it this way because a lot of people don't really understand why I deal with these things from this perspective.

Some people will say, you know, I'm trying to curry favor. with white people. Some people will say, I'm insensitive. Some people will say, I don't understand blackness or the black struggle or whatever, you know. But here's the deal. My first book was published in 2004. The title of the book was The Ever Loving Truth. Can Faith Thrive in a Post-Christian Culture? So here I am at Oxford, you know, around, you know, 99, 2000. And I'm working on my dissertation, a critical analysis of the history and theology of the nation of Islam, right? The black Muslim movement, Malcolm X, and, you know, and these guys and Elijah Muhammad and so on and so forth. And I'm there at Oxford and I'm running into this pernicious influence of liberalism and postmodernism.

and I'm seeing this stuff. And so I just really begin to be wary of these threats, this threat of post-Christian culture, of these sort of influences. And so I started, you know, looking into things like Foucault and Derrida and, you know, all of this sort of stuff. and also, you know, ideas of inclusivism and all these liberal ideas, right, that are coming to the church. And eventually, I start reading about people like, you know, again, not just Marx and Hegel and people like this,

you know, the sort of classical Marxist stream, but also Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School and this sort of new stream of cultural Marxism and critical theory and so on and so forth. And so I've been talking about this stuff for nearly two decades now. And it's, it's, and I've been saying for nearly two decades now that this stuff is dangerous and that its foundations are, are creeping in and, and will have devastating effects.

And so this is kind of how I came to this. And the way I described it to someone, you know, because people have said things like, well, you talk about this, but then you don't talk about that. or you talk about this, but then you don't mention, you know, these justice issues or this or that or the other. And what I say to them is I've been standing on this wall for almost two decades, right? I'm not saying that there are no other walls to stand on. But this one's mine. Right.

This is the wall that I've been standing on. And by the way, the enemy that I've been saying for two decades is trying to, come over this wall? Well, well, they're over the wall now. And so this is definitely not the time when I'm going to abandon this wall. So it's interesting. The other interesting thing is, so I wrote, that was my first book in 2004. And then I wrote a trilogy of books, family driven faith, family shepherds, what he must be, if he wants to marry my daughter. And these books, really, I put in the category of applied apologetics, an apologetic for biblical manhood and the importance of the family and family discipleship. I've been putting.

home education and family discipleship for a long time. The interesting intersection between these things is this. According to critical theory, you know, there are a lot of forms. Racism takes a lot of forms. It is inherently structural and it takes a lot of forms in one of the forms. You know, Robin DiAngelo is famous for this. She calls it aversive racism. Right.

And she gives a list of things that qualify as aversive racism. racism. And one of the things that qualifies is attributing disparities between majority and minority or between oppressors and depressed. If you attribute those disparities to anything other than racism, that is aversive racism. Right. And so one of the things that people, you know, are harping on is, you know, people who are talking about, you know, fatherlessness and, you know, abortion and, you know, these sorts of things and educational issues and stuff within minority communities, the immediate accusation is you're victim blaming and you're perpetuating white privilege and white supremacy because you are attributing disparities to something other than racism and saying that people

can and should do better, right? This is just not allowed. And so interestingly enough, so here's look at my publishing record and the stuff that I've written and people are using the things that I've been writing. By the way, I grew up without a father. I grew up in a community.

I can remember. I didn't know people who had fathers. Right? It just didn't happen. It just did not compute that you had a mother and a father in your home. And so I experienced these, devastating effects. I see these devastating effects, and I start writing about these things because

of the devastating effects that I've seen. And ironically, because I put the emphasis on that syllable, people say that I've actually internalized racism. And so it's just, it's pernicious. It's incredibly pernicious. Right. Tell me, well, again, we could spend hours just on this topic. but social justice, I think, well, you can tell me if you think that it is the umbrella under which things like ethnic narcissism and cultural Marxism exist, or maybe you feel that Marxism is the umbrella under which social justice and ethnic gnosticism exists. Or maybe you feel like critical theory is the umbrella. So whatever you feel like is the umbrella, if you could describe what that is. I think critical theory is the umbrella.

And I really, I think you had Neil Schia, Shinvi on a while back. Yes, they did. And I love Shinvi. I love Shinvi's work. One of the things that I've really gleaned from him is how counterproductive it can be to talk about cultural Marxism. One, because people kind of get confused because, you know, there's a couple of different

strains of it. And secondly, because it does exactly what social justice does, but in the opposite of it. direction. And so I've said for a long time that the problem with the idea of social justice is that it frames the conversation in such a way that if you disagree with it, you are not just wrong, but you're ungodly because you're against justice, right? And so it really shuts down the possibility of any pushback. Well, I think the same thing happens when we start talking about cultural Marxism. And, you know, nobody wants to be. be a Marxist. And when I talk about cultural Marxism, again, I've been talking about this

for decades now and not just sort of pointing the finger and saying, ah, you're a cultural Marxist and, you know, this and that and the other, putting people outside the camp. But I think talking about critical theory, which really comes from the cultural Marxists and especially the neo-Marxist and the Frankfurt School. I think doing that helps people understand that this is a worldview. And because, you know, when you hear cultural Marxism, we know what Marxism is and everybody's like, no, you know, I'm not a Marxist, so whatever you're saying, you know, I'm not that.

I think when you start talking about critical theory and presenting critical theory as a worldview, which it actually is, I think it sort of opens up an avenue for people to understand what's going on and why it's important to address it from a worldview perspective. Right. And basically, in very simple terms, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but all of these terms have to do with seeing the world as the oppressed versus the oppressor. Hegemonic power is basically how you classify people according to their group identity. That is how you understand truth, that's how you understand morality, that's how you understand economics and politics is the oppressed versus the oppressor and defining equity as redistributing power from the perceived

oppressor to the perceived oppressed, whether or not that oppression is actual, whether or not that oppression is individual, but simply according to group identity, categorizing people as oppressed versus oppressor and then trying to get power from the so-called oppressor and giving it to the oppressed by whatever means possible. Would you say that that is an apt description of kind of all of these things in a way? Yeah, I think that's a very good description of it. It's really about power dynamics. I mean, that that is the issue that everything comes down to power dynamics and people

who have power versus people who don't. And there's a whole worldview. And I would say a whole quasi-religion, a cult, if you will, that's built around these terminologies that are designed to explain these power dynamics. But yeah, that's what it's all about. And it does. This comes from, you know, Hegel, who's Marx's mentor and Marx. You know, these things flow from that. And a lot of people just sort of jump on Marx, but you got to understand when Marks is writing, you know, when he's writing, coming out of the feudal era and into the industrial era.

And early industrialism wasn't pretty, you know. These big factories and, you know, child labor and all this, you know, it just, it just, it wasn't pretty. And so people have, people are trying to explain, you know, how, um, how, um, how, you know, how, it just, it wasn't pretty. Um, and so, and so people have, people, people are trying to explain, you know, um, how, um, how, how this thing works. And so that idea, you know, coming from, even from the feudal era where there are the haves and the have-nots and then using that as a framework to understand this new industrial era as well, it really is a lens and it's a set of worldview assumptions that that sees everything from that perspective and can only see things.

from that perspective and views the act of not seeing things from that perspective as a byproduct of the oppression of that perspective right right and that is why as you said earlier that when you don't ascribe to the tenets of for example critical theory people accuse you of internalized white supremacy or internalized oppression and so it really is a way i mean it's really an epistemology. It's a way to understand knowledge and to understand truth altogether. And it challenges the very idea of objective reality. I know you talked about on Glenn Beck's program that document that was put out by the Modern Museum of African American History and Culture that that associated whiteness with rational thinking and objectivity.

Yes, scientific method. Right. And I think we can laugh at that. So let's look at that. So let's look at that. So let's look at that in light of what's happening right now. So Black Lives Matter is built on this narrative. And again, I'm here in Zambia and it's just horrible being an expat living outside of the United States right now, seeing the picture

that's being painted of America. And the narrative is that police officers are hunting and killing black men. Do people believe that where you are? That that's happening in America? Yes, they do. Yes, they do. That the police

officer just, you know, hunting and killing black men. And, and then you look at the numbers. And the numbers just do not bear that out. And then they go, well, okay, but, you know, that's, that's the numbers, but, you know, aren't, you know, black people disproportionately more likely to be shot? No, actually, the research demonstrates to us now that, no, it's not. We're not being disproportionately targeted, you know, being killed by the police. Then they go, okay, yes, but these particular occurrences. And there have been a couple of articles that have been just awesome, one by Hughes and one by McQuarter, where they have basically mapped out how every one of, you know, these names that we know, right? Philando Castile, you know,

George Floyd, you know, Tamir Rice. All of these. All of these. Every one of them has happened to a white person, usually multiple times. Right. And so people know George Floyd's name, but they don't know Tony Tempa's name. Very similar to George Floyd, except they had their knee on his back for 14 minutes instead of, you know, under nine minutes. And they mocked him while he died.

So, you know, all of these points of the narrative, right, are they're just not. not true. But when you start going to the data to try to demonstrate this, ah, guess what, now you're using the scientific method, right? Now you're using quantitative analysis. And that, by the way, is white. Right. And so now it's like, wait a minute. You have a narrative that's not true. We can demonstrate that the narrative. is not true. But when I use quantitative analysis to demonstrate that the narrative is not true, your argument is that the way I'm disproving your narrative is actually part of the oppression that your narrative is trying to teach. And so what's the answer? The answer is you have to listen to black voices. You have to listen to black people's stories. But only certain black voices. They would not recommend your black voice. No, no, no, no. So they would say

that I'm not a black voice. I'm a black body, but not a black voice. The only black voices are the black voices that agree with critical theory. And Robin DiAngelo. Exactly. Exactly. Well, Robin DiAngelo is the queen of critical theory, you know. And so, you know, the assumption, there's a worldview assumption that is the starting point. The starting point is critical theory. And so critical theory sets the table as to what is true versus what is. what is not true. This is the worldview. This is the meta-narrative, right? For us, it's creation, fall, redemption, consummation. For them, it's whiteness, white privilege, white supremacy, and then white fragility, you know. Right. And so, you know, again, even, we can't even,

people say, well, we need to, we need to have the discussion. Well, I mean, you know, I was born in 1969, all we've been doing my entire life is talking about race. What do you mean we need to have the discussion? We've never stopped having the discussion about race. And the whole idea there is another idea that comes from critical theory, and that is that this truth comes from narrative. This truth comes from the voice of the oppressed, because the oppressed, and this goes all the way back to Hegel, right?

the oppressed, by virtue of their oppression, have access to a knowledge and understanding above and outside of the hegemony that those who are inside of the hegemony don't have. And so this is where I came up with the term ethnic Gnosticism, right? It is a form of Gnosticism that locates truth in stories and narratives of the oppressed. But the stories and narratives of the oppressed have to be. told from the perspective of oppression. Because if they are not, then they are being told from the perspective of the oppressor and they are actually upholding and reinforcing that oppression. So it's complete circular reasoning. It's nonsensical and it gets us nowhere. And Christians have either

imbibed it and or they are trying to ignore it. But they're using the terminology that comes out of it. Mm-hmm. Well, I think that there is a lot of, there's a lot of white guilt that I think perpetuates or encourages particularly white evangelicals to embrace this kind of stuff for the exact reasons that you articulated. I have sincerely Jesus-loving friends who after George Floyd was killed started out of nowhere. It seemed like to me regurgitating these kind of white privilege, white guilt talking points

when we hadn't even figured out whether or not this was actually a racist murder or racist killing of a man. It was all of a sudden, like it was just an automatic regurgitation and reaction because of this guilt. They have been convinced that they collectively bear and that they have to agree with the narrative or else, like you said, they're just proving their white supremacy. And you can't talk about data. You can't talk about truth because that's just. just proving that you're on the side of the oppressor. No Christian wants to be on the side of the oppressor because we hear Jesus came for the oppressed. And so, like, what do you do? What does someone like me do to my Jesus loving friends who seem to be motivated by this white gilder

and are just regurgitating things that simply aren't true and are not biblical because they want to come across as loving? Yeah. Well, you know, I've been talking about just these five things. One, we have to expose and oppose critical theory and all of these ideologies. We've got to expose this and we've got to oppose it. We just, we have to have that as our starting point, right? You know, another thing that we need to do is we need to make sure that we keep law and gospel in order. One of the things about this new religion, this of wokeness, is that it is very legalistic. It's, you know, you have to do the work of anti-racism.

That's how you do this. There is no forgiveness. You have to do the work of anti-racism. You have to do it until you die. And we don't always know what that means, by the way. It's always do the work and do better, but what does that mean? Yes. And there's never solutions, right?

There's never solutions. I think a third thing is we need to have a mature and realistic understanding of our history. And what I mean by that is there's a couple of ways to have an immature understanding of our history. One is that childish understanding. You know, my kids, I love to hear the older kids and the younger kids debate about me, you know. And things will happen like, you know, one of my younger sons the other day was saying how I could pick up. up the car. And the older son was like, no, bad strong, but he can't pick up the car. And the younger one is like, of course he could, you know. But that's being naive and immature.

They think, you know, that I can do no wrong and they think that I can, you know, I'm a superhero and I, and there are some people who think about America like that and they're absolutely wrong. But then on the other side, there's the 1619 project, right? Which has the opposite of that, which is our parents can do no right. You know, everything about America is racism and white supremacy and, you know, and nothing else is to be understood about America unless it's understood through that lens. Well, you know, I think we have to have a mature view of who we are. And I think also we need to make sure that we are.

fighting demons and not chasing ghosts. And what I mean by that is, you know, when you ask people, people say, well, you know, structural racism, obviously. And I just go, okay, what is structural racism? Right. And generally, they'll eventually get around to two things. One, a narrative, right? And it'll go something like slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, you know, mass incarceration,

redlining, you know, and all the disparities of today are the result of all of those things. And because those things caused the disparities, all of the disparities are de facto evidence of systemic racism. Right. Which, again, critical theory. Anytime you see disparities, the answer for the disparity is, you know, systemic oppression. Discrimination, right. Yes, discrimination.

And so the problem. with that is when you see these videos, the really popular one that went around a while ago was, you know, the Bob the Tomato guy. Yes. I guess his name. You know, he's just. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here it is. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And then he does what everybody does. You know, he takes this, you know, this selective tour through history. And then he says, I don't know what the solutions are. Exactly. Well, why don't we have solutions? Well, because we're chasing ghosts. We're talking about, you know, things that theoretically manifest themselves in these ways, and we won't even allow for other potential explanations,

which means we also don't allow for things that could be, that could alleviate some of these things, right? And so that's what I'll refer to when I say chasing goes, because you got to do the work of anti-racism. Well, what is it? I don't know. A black person will tell you. You know, but no, no, no. But you also hear at the same time, if you ask a black person, especially someone who is on the left side, while black people shouldn't have to educate you, there are plenty of resources out there we hear. And so what is it?

Do we need black people or should we not? Exactly. But so when I talk about, you know, fighting demons, you know, I'm talking about things that we know that are out there that we can see. For example, you know, racism is very real. And one of the things that we're not talking about is the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm that gives rise to modern racism. Yes. I've been thinking about that a lot recently. I'm glad you brought that up.

It's an idea that black people and white people that the different races are different because they've evolved from different primates. Right? Black people evolved from the stronger, less intellectual apes and white people from the weaker, you know, more intellectual chimpanzees and so forth. And this explains the differences between it. Well, that's racism, right? Right. And so on one hand, we're upholding this evolutionary mindset that really dogmatized racism.

Again, there was the idea of racism before, you know, Darwin sort of codified. these ideas, and by the way, he wasn't the first one to think in these terms. But as far as the modern expression, that's the way that we think. Well, we need to attack that head on. And so then you get to things like eugenics and the eugenics movement. And, you know, black people making up 13% of the population, but, you know, more than 30% of the abortions, you know, in black urban areas, more black babies are aborted than born. You know, that's really. The people who are fighting against school choice, who, by the way, happen to be teachers' unions, right, who want to keep black students trapped in underperforming schools. And so the answer is not throwing money at them because we look at schools like the New Jersey school system.

There's an excellent documentary called Waiting for Superman, right? And everybody's like, what's wrong with our schools? They started off that way. What's wrong with our schools? More money, more money, more money, more money. And then they show these people how much per student is being spent. And immediately these people start going, okay, what are they doing with all this money? Right.

Because it's absolutely ridiculous. And then charter schools are outperforming public schools, which is why the LA Unified School District, right? Yeah. They're now saying that they want to end all funding for charter schools before they'll come back. By the way, they also want to defund the police, which is a whole other. All together because education and defunding the police with it. Yeah.

And so one of the things that I've been involved in for a long time is promoting the idea of home education because the National Home Education Research Institute, you know, their research, and I'm so appreciate the work that they've done, is demonstrating that home education is one of the ways that the achievement gap is bridged between black and white students, right? And so promoting things like home education and things like, you know, vouchers and things like this, police reform. By the way, there's a huge difference between police reform and defunding the police. What's the difference? It's worldview. See, critical theory, critical theory sees the police as enforcers of hegemony.

Yep. As the oppressor. Yes. So if the police are enforcers of hegemony, well, that's why you talk to a black police officer disrespectfully, if you're a young white girl, because it's not a black person. It's the police. It's the hegemony, right? And so if the police are a necessary strong. and things like this, well, then we reform policing. But if the police are part of the hegemony, you don't reform it, you defund it. Yes. So this language itself speaks to where these people are coming from. Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, the language of defunding the police is the language of revolution. And by the way, when you accept critical theory, the ultimate end is revolution.

And the reason everybody wants to say, I don't know what the solutions are, is not because they don't know what the solutions are. It's because they don't want to admit it. Because the solution, the solution is overthrow the hegemony. The solution is revolution. But you can't say that, right? Right. And so anyway. And that worldview also takes away moral responsibility from the oppressed.

All of their responsibility for what ails the world is put on. the so-called oppressor. And so if someone brings up, for example, homicide in these inner cities that is typically happening between black young men, they don't want to talk about that because they are part of an oppressed class. And because they are part of the oppressed class, it is actually the fault of the oppressor, whom they would say are the police officers that are causing that violence to happen. So I think that's why you hear a lot of them say, okay, well, if we don't have the police officers anymore, then you won't have that structure of oppression and then crime will actually go down. I heard a representative say the other day that if we defunded the police in

these local cities, it would just look like the suburbs, just all of a sudden. But like you said, that is a worldview. Yeah, because one of the big things about over police, yeah. Yeah. Yes. It is. It is. It is a, it is a worldview. It is a worldview. And so, you know, But my thing is the ironic aspect of this is that as you just pointed out, critical theory puts us on the

track of chasing ghosts while they work toward revolution and overthrow and takes us away from the track of actually putting our hands on things that are

real and dealing with things, you know, that are real. And it's interesting, you know, again, so I'm a martial artist and I practice Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And I've been training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu since 2012, competing in Brazilian and jiu-jitsu since 2012. And a lot of police officers are trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Now, the reason that they're trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu is, because unlike other martial arts, Brazilian jiu-jitsu is about subduing an opponent with the minimum amount of force necessary. Right. So whereas other arts are about, you know, hitting somebody as hard as you can or kicking

them as hard as you can, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu is about using various forms of control to subdue an opponent with the least amount of force necessary. And so one of the things that people are talking about, and this is just one example, right, of where you sort of get off the rails is they talk about chokeholds right and you know people hear chokeholds and they think you know when you're choking somebody you're trying to kill them and actually chokeholds save lives it sounds crazy right but in brazilian jiu jihitsu we use chokeholds all the time. I teach people how to employ chokeholds. I use them

when we're grappling. I use them in competition. And it is a way to subdue a bigger, stronger opponent in a matter of seconds. And very rarely are their complications. Again, because you're, especially because you're not windpipe chokes, you're not cutting off

people's breathing, but they're, you know, artery chokes where you're, you know, cutting off blood supply. And people will go out in a matter of seconds and they can then be handcuffed, you know, in the car or whatever. Now, the problem, however, is that the police get very little training in going hand-to-hand and in using things like Brazilian jiu-jitsu. So here's the great irony. One of the things that I've been involved in since 2012 is training with police officers

who are being trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu so that they can use these things and use them very effectively. And the answer is for police officers to have more training, not less. Because here's the deal. If somebody my size, and I'm trained in martial arts, if a police officer goes hand on with me, I have better training than he does. And I will probably end up in a better situation. We saw this in Atlanta where two police officers couldn't handle, you know, this, this, you know, Richard Brooks. Richard Brooks, right? And so he ends up, you know, overpowering them, taking their weapon, and ends up getting shot.

But here's the thing. If police officers are going to take a guy like me, you know, my size with my kind of training, and they're going to go hands-on with me and I'm not going to go willingly, well, they're either going to have to, if they can't choke me, they're going to have to beat me into submission. and of course that film will be all over the place and my family will get millions or are they going to have to tase me which they tried to do with Richard Brooks

and that didn't work out so well or they're going to have to shoot me I would much rather these guys be trained properly in the use of these restraints and methodologies but instead of doing that we're just going nope we're outlawing this and actually we're ironically

putting people in more danger by these sort of things not happening. So that's just kind of one example of what I'm talking about when I say, you know, there's this narrative here. And we, you know, go down the road of this narrative and think that we're working towards solutions and think that anybody on the other side of this, right, is somebody who's just, you know, trying to, you know, increase oppression or whatever when nothing can be further from the truth. And unfortunately, this is Republicans and Democrats kind of fail in this arena that we only pay attention to the inner cities when we're kind of talking about them only almost as political ponds as a way to either indict the Democrats that are over these cities or Democrats saying that we're having guns flood in from the red states and different things like that.

And it's really unfortunate. And as we are unwilling and unable to have these productive conversations like you were just talking about of solutions, there are unfortunately. people suffering. They're a police officer suffering. There are these inner city suffering. And so critical theory and the worldview that it brings has disastrous and very tangible effects, especially on vulnerable communities. So I appreciate you bring that up. Could you, I know that we have to let you go. Could you do me just one favor before we leave? There are people who are listening to this while most people who listen to this podcast are already Christians and they are seeking to strengthen their biblical worldview. There may be people who are listening to this who do not know

the gospel. Could you just briefly share the gospel to those people who maybe haven't heard it before? Yeah. You know, it's great. We've been talking about this worldview and how this worldview, you know, sees what's wrong with the world and critical theory sees oppressors and oppressed. And the Bible has a worldview as well. And we talked about that meta-narrative, creation, fall, redemption, consummation. There's a God who created the world. and he created this perfect world. But then there was a fall. Our forefather Adam fell into sin,

and all of us are guilty because of Adam's sin. He was our federal head, our representative, if you will. And that brings not only guilt, but it also gives us a sin nature. And we are selfish, and we desire our own way, and we are opposed to God, and opposed to all things that remind us of God and our God is holy and he is just

and he must and he will punish sin and we all know that which is why one of the first things that we learn how to say is that's not fair right we want justice we crave justice and that's because the God who created us is a just God but justice demands that we pay for our sin and that payment for our sin is separation from God and separation not only through death

but eternal separation in hell. But again, creation, fall, redemption. Where's that redemption come from? Even when the fall happens, God says, as the curse comes down upon the serpent, I'll put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He'll bruises heel, but he'll bruise your head.

And so Christ, the God man, God wraps himself in flesh. He not only takes on our humanity, but he takes on our guilt. He dies of our character. carious substitutionary atoning death on the cross, he dies a death that he doesn't owe in order to atone and pay a debt that we owe but can't pay. And because of that, as Paul says in Romans, God is able to be just because he punishes sin in Jesus and the justifier of the one who plays his faith in Jesus. And so we come to Christ, our substitute, acknowledging our need for him,

repenting of our sin, turning to Christ and his finished work. And God grants to us the righteousness that belongs to Christ and places upon him the sinfulness that is ours. That's creation, fall, there's redemption, and then consummation. Listen, our hope is not in doing the work of anti-racism. Our hope is in the age to come. God will restore everything that is broken. And we have a promise of that in His Word, a guarantee of that because of the, person and finished work of Jesus Christ, who will return again and set all things right. And in the

meantime, our prayer is, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so we are interested in these issues, and we do pursue these things, not because we're looking for heaven on earth, or believe we can create heaven on earth, but because we have a yearning in us for that which is broken to be repaired. And Christ will come again and do that, beginning with the individual who comes to him through faith in his person and work. Thank you so much. Amen. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today amidst your busy schedule. People can find you online, Vodybockham.com. Is that correct? Dot org.

Dot org. Okay. Yeah. And if they have a hard time with that, just put VODD-D-I-E and you will find me. Yes, there aren't very many who share your name. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining us today. That's you. It's my pleasure. Thank you. So I just wanted to add a little closer to this episode because I wanted to go a tiny bit deeper on what we were talking about when I brought up sincere Jesus loving people, particularly women regurgitating these critical theory talking points and regurgitating things about white guilt and white privilege and doing the work of anti-racism, not realizing that they are borrowing from an

anti-biblical worldview. And if you need to know more about that, go listen to my interview with Neil Shinvi. We talked about critical theory, what it is, what all of these terms that we talked about today really mean and how they are so damaging to biblical theology. Go back and listen to that conversation. It's going to blow your mind if you haven't listened to it. If you have listened to it, go back and listen to it again and take notes. It is so important to understand what critical theory is and why it is simply incongruent with biblical theology. And look, to the Christian women out there who have been reading things like white fragility

and trying to apply it to their lives, who have been told that in order to be a good Christian, you have to, quote, do the work of anti-racism and you have to talk about so-called systemic racism, and you have to look at every discrimination or every disparity that exist between different ethnic groups and different socioeconomic classes and ascribe those disparities to discrimination and racism, I would just highly encourage you to take a step back and to look at the worldview that you are propagating and realize that it is not a biblical worldview. You can listen to more videos and sermons by Dr. Voddy Bakum. You can go to shinviapologetics.com. My friend Samuel Say has a really good blog with resources and book reviews that talk about all of this.

friend Neil Shinvi at shinviapologetics.com. He has reviews on color of compromise, on be the bridge, on white fragility, on white awake, all of these books that are being encouraged and are being promoted by the church right now, they at least deserve a second look from a biblical perspective. And let me just tell you, if you are a Christian who has bought into the idea that you have to push the social justice narratives in order to be loving, in order to be loving, in order to to be kind in order to be on the side of justice and mercy, I just want you to know that you have been duped. You've been duped. All the answers that we need for what justice looks like, for what mercy looks like, for what love looks like, for what treating people as equal image bearers of

God looks like, it can all be found in scripture. We don't have to borrow from critical theory in order to be lovers of justice. In fact, we have to go into God's word to tell us what justice actually looks like. We have to go into the Word of God to tell us what love and treating people equally and well and respectfully actually looks like. We don't need to borrow from secular ideologies in order to be better Christians. That's ridiculous. And even if you have so-called Christians professing Christians perpetuating this kind of ideology that doesn't mean that it's Christ-like. It doesn't mean that it's right. And so I would just encourage you to take a step back and to examine some of the things that you have not just read, but you've internalized and then regurgitated in the name of justice and mercy, and weigh them against what the word of God says. And I just pray for me, for you, for all of us to be discerning, to be as wise as we possibly can and to realize that the gospel is not only enough, it is the only thing that is enough. And that doesn't mean that we don't also, that we don't also obey God in our

our lives. That doesn't mean that we don't also pursue just policies. That doesn't mean that we don't care about justice and injustice. Of course, we do. And yes, sure, there is work associated with that and making sure that you are trying to vote for a government that represents, that is representative of real equity and real justice. And so a government that is not discriminating against the rich, a government that is not discriminating against the poor, a government that is not discriminating against white or black, of course. That is something that we all want while still realizing that societies don't change without changed hearts and hearts don't change without the gospel of Jesus Christ. And critical theory with the worldview that says everyone is the oppressed

versus the oppressor in every disparity between those two groups is based on oppression and discrimination and racism. It is incongruent with a biblical view and a biblical definition of justice. And plus, it's just not accurate. That's another thing that I want to say really quickly. So unfortunately, I have gotten into contiguous conversations with Christian friends in bringing up data that we talked about today, that questioning the narrative that says that black people are being hunted by white people or being hunted by white police officers, that the fatherlessness rate, the abortion rate in the black community, it's all due to systemic racism. If you push back on that, even citing so-called black voices like Thomas Soul, like John McWhorter, like Jason Riley,

like Vody Bakum, you get lambasted and you get accused of not being sufficiently empathetic. You get accused of not being sufficiently compassionate because we are just supposed to listen and agree to people, you know, Black Lives Matter activists, for example, without saying, hey, that's actually not factually true. The data doesn't actually back that up. And actually the biggest takers of Black Lives are abortion and Black on Black crime in these inner city communities. If you say that, that is considered racist. That is considered not compassionate. Well, I would just caution you from taking on that mentality. And for, I would caution you from buying into the lie that says that you just have to nod in agreement

when someone says that their experience equates to national data or when an experience or a perspective is absolute truth that applies to the entire American system. I would just caution you from embracing that. It is. not lacking compassion to talk about data in a truthful and in loving way. It is not lacking compassion to talk about real solutions like we did today, better training for police officers, school choice, making sure that mothers are cared for and well equipped to care for their children and making sure that Planned Parenthood doesn't plant their abortion mills, specifically in these poor minority communities to make sure that they are getting as much

business as possible from killing these black and minority babies. It is not lacking compassion to push back against that because you see that embracing the narrative that every discrimination or every disparity that exists is due to discrimination or that black people are disproportionately being hunted by white police officers. You see what kind of disarray and what kind of chaos that causes when it's not based on reality. It's just not based on truth and it is not loving to allow someone to react to something that is not based on reality and truth. And like he said about the Veggie Tales video about systemic racism, you point to all of these disparities and you just say that it's due to discrimination without any proof whatsoever. And then you say there's

really no solution. You just have to do the work of anti-racism, whatever that may be. And I just don't think these nebulous conversations help anyone. I don't think they help anyone. So I encourage you. I've got some homework for you. Read discrimination and disparities by Thomas Soul. Go listen to more of Vody Baccombe's stuff. Go read people like John McWhorter, listen to people like Glenn Lowry, Coleman Hughes. Those are not conservatives, by the way, but they have a very nuanced perspective on things like systemic racism. And allow yourself to be challenged. I allow myself to be challenged, reading Color of Compromise and Wide Awake and other books that, you know, the authors, I don't necessarily agree with politically, but I am able to take in some of the things that they say that I think

are productive and then realize that some of the worldview that they are perpetuating simply isn't a biblical worldview. And so I will never discourage you from reading things critically like that, but just make sure that we are imbibing information critically from all sides and allowing ourselves to be challenged by truth and by fact, not just by one person's experience or perspective, but by truth and data and facts. And most importantly, challenged and shaped and honed the gospel of Jesus Christ and by the Word of God, which is supposed to shape our worldview. So I just wanted to end on that. And I wanted to challenge you specifically, those of you who are listening to this who disagree with me on everything that I say to widen your perspective, dare I say,

listen to black voices is what we're always told. But maybe listen to those that are outside of your ideological camp. And just allow yourself to be honed and to be shaped in that way. And I think It would be much better if we were able to have conversations from between the disagreeing sides that don't erupt in accusations, blanket accusations and empty accusations of racism simply because someone has a pushback. Okay, that's all I have to say. I hope that you guys have a great day and a great weekend. And I will see you back here on Monday.

We will be talking about next week. We'll be talking about the in times with Jeff Durbin. And I'm so excited about it. So I will see you guys then.