Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 399 | Rachel Hollis Gets Canceled & a Prayer to Hate White People

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Today we’re going to talk about the drama surrounding self-help author Rachel Hollis, as well as a few other crazy things we’re seeing from progressive Christianity. The problem with these self-help gurus is that if your problems are originating from inside yourself, you need to turn to something outside yourself for help. Specifically, God. Hollis made a video that drew ire from both the Right and the Left. She tried to offer an apology, but unsurprisingly, it made things worse. Then, we discuss a prayer book that includes a person asking God to help them hate white people. --- Today's Sponsors: Raycon wireless earbuds are built to perform anywhere & anytime, with water-and-sweat-resistant construction & Bluetooth that pairs quickly & seamlessly. Go to Issuu.com/podcast & use promo code 'ALLIE' to get 50% off if you sign up for a premium account. Issuu is the all-in-one platform to create & distribute beautiful digital content, from marketing materials to magazines, to flipbooks & brochures, & more. Visit BuyRaycon.com/Allie & save 15% off your entire Raycon order! --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Wednesday. I almost said happy Thursday. Kind of feels like Thursday, but no, it's only Wednesday, which is good because I still have a lot to talk about this week. Today we are going to talk about the author Rachel Hollis posting a video that got a lot of backlash. We're going to talk about the backlash. What I think is legitimate criticism, what I think is not legitimate criticism, why I think that her video was problematic and how I think that we as Christians can respond to something like this in a way that is actually glorifying to God.

Then we're going to talk about this book that has been circulating or a prayer in this book has been circulating. The book is called Rhythms of Prayer and the prayer that is in it, it's a compilation of prayers from various women. And this prayer that has kind of gone viral, and that people are talking about starts with,

Dear God, please help me hate white people. So we're going to talk about that and the problems with it might seem obvious, but I think that our analysis of that prayer and breaking down, what's wrong with that kind of perspective is going to be very edifying to you. So let us first start with this Rachel Hollis drama. So like I said, she posted a video on TikTok that she should,

shared on Instagram that she received a ton of backlash for. And before we play it, I want to give you some context. Just in case you don't know who Rachel Hollis is, she is the best selling author of Girl Wash Your Face. She also wrote a book pretty recently. I think last year it came out called Girl Stop Apologizing. If you've read my book, you're not enough and that's okay. We talk about Rachel Hollis's mindset, her work, her theology.

She's basically a life and business coach. Her books use her own experiences to try to help women gain confidence to fix their relationships, their health, their business endeavors. She and her now ex-husband. She announced a divorce not too long ago. Dave Hollis host a conferences inspiring, or I guess she still hosts these conferences, inspiring women to be their best selves. She has become very, very famous from all of this, very rich, it seems like, very influential.

And you'll see why I'm saying the very rich part in just a second. In the beginning of her rise to fame, a lot of Christian women, a Christian woman that I know followed her. Because, you know, she claimed to be a Christian herself. She seemed to be maybe on the conservative side of things, just a normal, happy mom and entrepreneur who wanted to help other women achieve their goals. And the issue that I have with Rachel's work, even though there were a lot of people that I like and know that followed her and listened to her is that she preaches and has always preached the gospel of self-fulfillment, of self-satisfaction. She propagates what I call in my book, a trendy narcissism, that everything that you need to be whole, to be healed,

to be happy is found or can be found buried deep inside you. And you just have to do the work of finding and unleashing that inner goddess that has been held back by societal expectations or toxic relationships or whatever. And that stuff might be motivating enough to help you reach your long-term goals or your short-term goals. But it's not how the Bible describes us. It's not the picture that the Bible lays out of who we are and what our journey actually is.

The Bible says that we are to be as Christians totally relying on God for our ultimate fulfillment and satisfaction. That doesn't mean that we don't work hard, that we can't be disciplined or that we can't have goals, but those things ultimately aren't going to be our satisfaction. We are called in the Bible to deny ourselves, to put on the new self given to us by Christ and then to follow him, to go to him as our source of fulfillment and satisfaction. As we've said so many times, if you've read my book, you likely remember this line. The self cannot be both the problem and the solution.

So if inside yourself you are finding all of these issues, these insecurities, these anxieties that you are just hoping that the next self-help book is going to help you conquer so you can be on the road to manifesting all of your dreams. If you're finding those problems inside yourself, there's no way logically for you to also find the solution to those things inside yourself. So you're not going to find the solution in the same place, the exact same place and the exact same person that you are finding all of your problems. You can't fix you. Your self-love and your self-empowerment will not regenerate you. They do not have that power. You don't have that power. It may make you feel better temporarily,

but ultimately because this kind of mentality is based or this kind of practice I should say of self-empowerment and self-fulfillment and self-motivation is based on, dependent on your ability to love and empower yourself. And because you, like all people, are finite infallible, you will find yourself on a roller coaster of ups and downs that is dictated and directed by your frail attempts at being enough for yourself. The good news is, though, the good news is that God's love, the one who creates, you, his strength, his sufficiency, his power, his enoughness is totally steadfast. It's sure.

It's reliable. It's stable. It is unconditional. It is trustworthy. And you get to release the burden of trying to be your own source of fulfillment, which you can't be. And look to God to fulfill you, to direct you, to guide you, to give you the wisdom and the truth and the love and the satisfaction that you're trying to fail in to find inside yourself because God can do that. And he will do that through Christ for the believer. It might not look like the life that Rachel Hollis and other self-help, self-motivational, self-empowerment gurus tell you that you need. Your life might not look like some boss babe that is constantly conquering the world

when you are following Christ. That's not what Christ promises you. He actually promises that your life is going to have trouble when you follow him. First Timothy tells us that all who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted. Jesus promises in this life, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. But what we're told through the gospel, it's not this promise of self-fulfillment and perfect happiness and reaching all of our goals here, again, not that it's wrong to have goals that align with God's will that God has called you to do. But that's not our promise. Our promise is not that all of our dreams will come true. Our promise is not that we're going to be rich. Our promise is not that we're going to have it all together

and lose all of the weight and be able to motivate and empower and fulfill and satisfy ourselves. Our promise is abundant life in Christ that even as things don't go our way, even as we falter, even as we fail, even as the circumstances around us outside of our control seem to crumble, that we have an anchor, we have a reason for joy in Christ, and that we have a hope that is not a part of this world, that's not in this world, that's not temporal, but is actually eternal. That's better news. And God says, look, like, you can't handle this responsibility of being your own satisfaction.

Like, you can lose all the weight. You can reach all the goals. you can get all the promotions, you can let go of all the toxic people in your life, you can do all the yoga, the exercises, you can sculpt your arms and lift your butt, whatever it is. And you're still going to be waking up in the middle of the night wondering, why am I here? Who made? Is there something is there something bigger than me? Like, is there something more than this? Is there something that transcends me? Am I really all there is? Like, is self-love really the only, the only goal? it's not enough. You're not enough for yourself. And that's where I think Rachel's books miss the mark. They might have some good advice. They probably have some catchy phrases and maybe some of them have actually helped you. But they miss the mark when it comes to who we are, what we truly desire, what will satisfy us, who God is, who we are in relation to God, what God actually promises in relation to us.

And I actually think that more and more people have figured that out. The more openly progressive and secular and kind of self-adoring, self-elevating she has become on social media, the more a large chunk of at least her conservative Christian audience, it seems, realized that, okay, maybe she should not be the go-to person for life advice or like my spiritual guru or anything like that. but it's not just that chunk of her audience. Like she's also seen as problematic for other reasons, none of which I just listed because the other people on the other side of the aisle, I would say like more of the progressive activist, the progressive self-help gurus wouldn't agree with anything

that I just said. Like they probably had no problem with whether, with like her theology or whether or not she was biblical. they have more of a problem because of because of her emphasis on what they would probably say is like capitalistic toxicity, like pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of thing. But she's also just generally been seen as problematic

because she's been accused of plagiarism in her books, which seems to be true. Like I don't know if that was her intent, but you can look at the articles on this. And it doesn't, like it doesn't look good. I don't know if that's what she meant to do by like taking people's phrases and trying to make them her own. But that's what it looks like happened, at least in Girl Wash Her Face. She's also been called out in the past for throwing her team under the bus publicly on social media when she posts something or says something that gets backlash.

And this time, the reason that she's in, you know, a whole bout of controversy now is because she posted this video. that made a lot of people left and right really mad. I would say it was probably, at least most prominently and most loudly, I saw people on the left, but I saw Christian conservatives, people who didn't necessarily follow Hollis before, really take issue with her video. I took issue with her video. So I'm going to play the whole thing.

It's very short. It was a TikTok video posted it on Instagram. Here it is. Doing a live stream. And I mentioned that there's a sweet woman who comes to my house twice a week and cleans. She's my house cleaner. She cleans her toilets.

Someone commented and said, You are privileged A.F. And I was like, you're right. I'm super freaking privilege, but also, I worked my ass off to have the money, to have someone come twice a week and clean my toilets. And I told her that. And then she said,

well, you're unrelatable. What is it about me that made you think I want to be relatable? No, sis, literally everything I do in my life, is to live a life that most people can't relate to. Most people won't work this hard. Most people won't get up at 4 a.m. Most people won't fail publicly again and again just to reach the top of the mountain. Literally, every woman I admire in history was unrelatable.

If my life is relatable to most people, I'm doing it wrong. So, like, at first I started watching it, and I was like, okay, like, but then every time she said something, I was like, oh, oh, oh, stop, please. I was just cringing. I couldn't believe that she, she, like, thought about this. She at least scripted it in her head. And she did a video. And then she posted it.

Like, that takes a lot of thought. And we've all made mistakes. I'm not saying I've never made a mistake and something that I posted that I just, like, didn't really think about. And it's possible, probable that that's what happens here. But, oh, that was hard to watch. watch it hard to listen to. I can imagine those of you listening who are driving in your car. Like, oh, did she really just say that? Yes, she really said that. And then the caption kind of makes

it worse. I agree with the people who had a problem with this caption. So the caption says Harriet Tubman, RBG, Marie Curie, Oprah Winfrey, Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Malala Yousafsi, Wu Zichan, all unrelatable A. F. So it kind of seems like people, or it kind of seems like she's comparing herself to these people, which is a little odd, definitely in different categories. People in the comments told her, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is really privileged. They said, you know, she's discounting the hard work of people who don't make as much money. as her, which I think, I think it's true. Like, I guarantee her housekeeper works very hard.

People were saying also that this is like whiteness on display. This was white privilege. This is degrading people of color who they claim haven't had the same opportunities in a white privileged system as she has. So you had those kind of progressive activist comments as well. Like I said, people also took issue with her, with her caption. trying to compare herself to not just very prominent women, but also, who, by the way, a lot of those women probably have never had a housekeeper, but also, like, they were women of color. And so people took issue with that. What I think is that this post was a whole lot of ego.

And that doesn't surprise me. Like I've always, like I said, like I think that her books promote what I call trendy narcissism. I think this ego has been, you know, something that she has had inside of her for a very long time. And it probably especially comes out when someone criticizes her. And I think that's what we saw. So after a couple days, I guess, of criticism, she tried to apologize. And so she posted an apology and she said, someday I'll learn. not yet apparently, but someday I'll learn.

Someday I'll learn that my intent and my impact can be wildly different things. I made a post last week that was upsetting to people. And even though that was never my intent, I owned that it was and I apologize. She said, and I'm not reading all the slides. There are several slides on Instagram. She says, I've talked a lot about this over the years. I have a nanny. I have someone who helps with cleaning.

I have a team at work who helps to build this business. And I think it's crucial that I keep talking about that. I could very easily pretend that I don't have any assistance. And so she's like kind of asking these questions in this apology. If I were reading all the slides, then you would see that. She was like, so like, was it upsetting to you for this reason? Well, here's my response to that. Was it upsetting to you for this reason?

Here's my response to that, which I found a little patronizing. And I found like, I'm sorry. I found it to be like, I'm sorry you feel that way, which is not a good apology. It's not a good apology at all. Again, I would say that that's pretty prideful. And then in her last slides, after she, you know, explains the situation and semi-apologizes for people's feelings about certain things, but at the same time, justifies herself. She says, that was where things started. But because I still haven't learned, I didn't respond to these things on Friday when I heard people were upset. Here's the kicker.

I listened to my team instead of my kids. gut. So she could have just ended on the word upset, but she had to follow up with that last sentence. I listened to my team instead of my gut. Then the last slide. This just makes me, this is really what bothers me that she's throwing these people under the bus. I listened when they, her team told me not to respond to let it blow over. I listened when they said they would monitor the situation, which meant monitor comments. And then I woke up this morning to find certain comments had been censored. And then she says, like, you know, these people, these activists that she follows should be able to call her out and say that she effed up. She says the word.

And we should all listen. Now, here's the irony. Here's the irony here. So in these last two slides, completely throws her team under the bus. And let me just make a comment. Like there's such a difference in the empowerment and advice authors that women get versus the ones that men get. And that would probably be why, as we've talked about before, like, I think women today are so toxic when it comes to cancel culture. So toxic when it comes to bullying over like performative activism on social media and in the name of social justice and doing the work and doing better or constantly bullying other female entrepreneurs on social media or other female influencers are trying to call people out and so-called hold people accountable because this is the kind of nonsense that we get

in the way of empowerment and advice, whereas guys are getting people like Jordan Peterson, telling them to make their lives better to actually mend their relationships rather than just cutting people out of your life, telling them to clean their room. We, men get Jock Willink, who are telling them. them, hey, take extreme ownership of your life, freaking get out of bed, stop being lazy, stop making excuses and just do the things that you want to do. I'm not saying, I'm not endorsing like the entire worldview of those authors or like the entire perspective or all of their tips or anything. I'm just trying to give you the contrast between what men get in the

way of advice and then what women get. This is the self-empowerment guru for women. Rachel Hollis. And she is modeling what she thinks leadership and character looks like, which is throwing her team under the bus. And men are being told to take extreme ownership of their lives and are being told that they need to take responsibility and to actually take steps to make their lives better.

no wonder women today are just so lost in chaos. The advice that we're getting, the people we're following are so actually toxic. And then here's the irony too. So she says in these last two slides, you know, I shouldn't have listened to my team. I shouldn't have followed their advice. I should have done what I know is right. And then in her caption for this, you know, so-called apology, she says, what you find on my social media feeds is me. For better or worse, it's all me. So hang on a second. Is it you? Is it you or is it your team? So it's your team when you don't want to take ownership for something. So she kind of apologizes here, but not really. I mean, she made the post. She made the post. She made the decision. As far as I know, she has access to her

account. She could have apologized if she wanted to. And she's not wanting to take ownership of that because it's the same ego that we, that we have always seen from the work. And I'm not saying that, like, that we don't all struggle with pride and we don't all struggle with ego, but we just need to call it what it is. And then, okay, so she kept on getting backlash. People called her out, I think rightly, on that apology. And we're like, what the heck? How are you still missing this? again, people that I don't necessarily agree with on, you know, all of their views and everything, but just saying like, look, this is, your apology is not correct. Of course, I will say that a lot of the people calling her out are never going to be okay with any kind of apology that she makes it.

Like, doesn't matter how humble she is, but I think they're right. This particular apology missed the mark. So what she ends up doing is she deletes this so-called apology. She deletes the original post and then she posts another, um, another apology in which she talks about, you know, she, she didn't, um, acknowledge the systems of privilege and the systems of racism that cause these disparities. And, um, she really just needs to do better and all this stuff. All this, you know, CRT, it's the same kind of apology. that we saw from like, for example, Chris Harrison when he defended that Bachelor contestant for being, for pictures resurfacing from 2018 in which she was wearing like, you know, Antebellum

garb. And he said, you know, I'm really going to do the work and systems of privilege and disparities. In my opinion, all of that still misses the point. Like that to, that's not why this was problematic. It was problematic because she does. actually disregard the hard work of other people who haven't, who, who, who haven't had the same life and the same opportunities that she has. Like hard work. It's not necessarily, I'm sure she does really work hard. And you can work hard in a lot of cases and do what she does and get what she gets, but there are a lot of people that work really hard that can't ever afford a housekeeper. Like there are teachers that work really hard for years and years. They're going to be

housekeepers that work really hard. They're going to be janitors. They're going to be accountants. They're going to be a stay-at-home moms who don't work that have worked really hard and work just as hard as Rachel Hollis does. And her equating her success exclusively with hard work and her ability to afford a housekeeper exclusively with hard work, I do actually think is problematic because it shows her narcissism, it shows her pride. It shows that bad theology, the gospel of self-fulfillment. Now, whether or not she is ignoring systemically racist systems, that is really up for debate. But regardless, I agree with her critics that this was just totally off. And to me, it revealed something that is actually going on and heard. And I hope because we're all imperfect,

and we all make mistakes and we all post things and say things that we shouldn't say. I do hope that she learns from this, but I hope that she learns the right lesson in that. I hope that God humbles her. I hope that God softens her heart. I hope God calls her to himself and that she realizes, wow, all of the gifts that I have come from the Lord and let me stop worshiping myself publicly and privately and let me worship and turn to him. That's what I hope.

And then you have people who are, you know, they're professing, Christians who decide that they are going to take it upon themselves to, quote, hold Rachel Hall as accountable. And I have a problem with this kind of response to shrouded in righteousness that I actually think is a form of bullying. And I talked about this. I talked about this on social media, this post by Oshita Moore, who I had never heard of before, but apparently she's influential in the world of like Christian social justice. And she talks about the importance of making sure. that Rachel Hollis basically pays for what she said. So she talks about in her post, for example, why she believes Rachel Hollis's video was problematic. She says it was steeped in meritocracy.

I worked hard. First of all, I don't have any problem with meritocracy. Like, I do believe that Rachel Hollis probably did work hard. I have a problem with what I just articulated a couple minutes ago. But I again, this like critical race theory idea that meritocracy is inherently racist and bad. I just don't get on board of that at all. Paternalism, the sweet lady who cleans my toilets. She said that this post or Rachel Hollis's video had paternalism. I agree that part was very cringy for me. The sweet lady who cleans my toilets, no thanks. And she says this post demonstrated white supremacy. No sis. Apparently that is appropriate. of the black vernacular,

Oshita Mora is saying. And so that was problematic. It did nothing but cause harm to so many people. So I will pray for those she harmed and pray for her ears to hear correction. So even though I don't agree with the entirety of that, like, okay,

whatever. At least you're ending with like, I'm going to pray for her. I'm going to pray for the people whose feelings have been hurt now. I think this word harm is being so overused right now by the same people who call. call people of a certain skin color fragile, like activists are constantly using this word harm to describe certain kinds of speech. And I just think that it belittles actual harm. But this is

the problem that I really had with this particular post by Ishida Moore. She says, I am a peacemaker and I take Jesus's teaching on the sermon on the Mount seriously. So I will continue to pray for Rachel. Okay. Awesome. I don't believe anyone is too far gone to change. Awesome. I will be emailing her partners. Okay. But that's not enough. I won't just go after her pocketbook and ignore her heart. I will pray.

She's in pain, so I will pray. She's bought into dangerous ideology, so I will pray. And if she asks me, I'll help her learn. She's profiting from harm. There's that word again. So I will pray for the Lord to make a possible for her to heal and protect those whom she has hurt. she may have to lose some influence and may need to go away for a while.

That's not frightening at all. That's okay. Even Paul had to get quiet, listen, and relearn. This is the only way I know how to be a peacemaker. So so close, so close. Lots of righteous sounding language. And then we've got right in there that apparently this person thinks it's her responsibility to go after Rachel Hollis's sponsors.

to go after her pocketbook, that's verbatim, to make sure she says in another part of the post that it's important that you want people to feel consequences for their actions. I'm going to talk about why I think that kind of response is also very prideful in something that we need to stay away from as Christians. We've talked about this before, but I just want to reiterate the importance of realizing that that's not actually a biblical response. to the video that Rachel Hall has posted as offensive as it was to so many people for so many different reasons. Here's the problem with this kind of response, even though it sounds so close

to being right. It sounds so close to being good. It's shrouded with that righteous sounding language. It almost sounds biblical. You're using the sermon on the mount here to be a peacemaker. Is this really peacemaking? Like, is this what God is talking? about when he's talking about peacemaking. Like I agree that peacemaking is not just sitting back and allowing things to happen. It doesn't mean that you can't disagree with people. I do agree that if you are to be reconciled to someone who has actually wronged you personally and directly, by the way, that's reconciliation. It's not this like intangible, ethereal idea of one large group, reconciling to another large group that doesn't know each other. It actually takes relationship.

It's reconciliation is predicated on a preexisting relationship. Let me just say that. But I also don't think peacemaking is, quote, going after someone's pocketbook. That's revenge. Like, that's petty. That is bullying. That is a prideful response. It is not up to you, random person on the internet, to quote, hold someone accountable. We've talked about the etymology. of that word accountability. And what we found was that that word accountability, especially every time it's used in scripture, denotes authority. It denotes the requirement of having authority to hold someone accountable. So we as constituents, we hold elected officials accountable. We have that authority,

or we're supposed to be able to have that authority because this is a government for the people and by the people and of the people. and as an employer, you hold your employees accountable. You give them certain metrics and certain goals and you can fire them. That's another part of accountability that we talked about. There has to be almost like a consequence that someone has the authority to dole out if a standard is not reached by the person they are holding accountable. And yes, a friend can hold you accountable, but only when you give them that access and the authority to do so.

So there is a particular position that you have to have in some kind of hierarchy or some kind of relationship in order to be able to say that you are holding people accountable. Like it is not your job to hold someone on the internet accountable because you don't like something that they said. Now, that does not mean that if someone says something that you don't like that you can't unfollow them or you can't stop supporting them or you can't publicly disagree with them. I publicly and privately disagree with people all the time. As we've talked about, like, that's not accountability.

That's not cancel culture. That's not bullying. That actually, I think is great. Like, have that public discourse, have that public dialogue, be able to say, here's what this person said. Here's why I don't believe it's true without attacking them personally. I have disagreed with Rachel Hollis for a very long time. I included her in my book.

Never one. Like, and I have thought that. her theology is extremely detrimental to people's understanding of God and the Bible and their world view for a very long time. Like I've had before these people thought that Rachel Hollis was problematic, I thought that she was problematic for different reasons. Have I ever for one second thought about going after her sponsors or contacting her sponsors are contacting her partners calling up Peloton and saying, you know, this person is promoting

trending narcissism. Do you really promote trending narcissism? And by the way, Peloton would be like, yes, we do. But I would never even consider doing that, even if I thought that it was effective. What I have said is like, look, here's what she says. Here's why according to scripture, that's not going to get us the place that God wants us to go. Here's what I think is true. Here's what I think is better. That is totally 100% not just fair game, but I also think very productive and very good. I have never even thought about trying to, quote, go after her pocketbook. That's not my responsibility. I don't have that authority in her life. I don't have that authority in general, nor do I want that authority. Why would I want to bear the burden of being

the vessel through which God exacts vengeance and some kind of forced humility? onto her through like through punishment. That'd be one thing if Rachel Hollis read my book and was like, wow, I see the light. That would be a wonderful privilege to be that kind of vessel. But I don't have the time, nor do I have the desire, nor do I have like the inclination or feeling of bitterness and resentment in and pointed. pointed anger to be able to take, I mean, I just can't imagine. I cannot imagine taking the time to try to go after someone's pocketbook, just an individual. We're not talking about a major

corporation. I also think that that's different. Go after someone's pocketbook because they made a video that I found offensive. You cannot try to tell me that that's biblical. Like that is petty vengeance. That is prideful bullying. Yes, it is totally fair for you to not support her anymore. It's totally fair for you to privately or publicly disagree with that person. It's even fair to say, look, this is where I think that she's wrong and I probably wouldn't follow her if I were you. That's totally fine. And you say that you're going to pray for her and that you hope that she, you know, has a different mentality and that she learned. Okay, whatever. That's fine. Do not try to say, that it is biblical peacemaking to target someone's sponsors?

Come on. Come on. Like that's just secular cancel culture, Maoist struggle sessions that you are trying to, that you are trying to make sound biblical. But it's not. That is your attempt to satisfy your fleshly desire for resentment. your fleshly desire to satisfy your resentment. And it's not biblical.

Like spend your time doing something else. The Bible actually says that if we want to heap coals on our enemy's head, and I'm not saying that Rachel Hollis is an enemy, then we're kind to them. Like we're abundantly generous to them. This is, it is not your authority to make sure that that person, this individual, again, not even a major. corporation feels the consequences of the offensiveness of her video, but you going after her

pocketbook, like, how evil is that? So I disagree with a lot of these things all around. Disagree with Rachel Hollis. Disagreed with the video. Didn't like the video. I thought it was yucky for lack of a better term. Disagreed with a lot of the responses in the comments of why it was problematic. disagree with this kind of bullying shrouded and biblical sounding righteous sounding language. And as we've talked about so many times, like this is the toxicity of women on the internet, especially professing Christian women. Like this whole do better culture, it's like, I mean, it's all intermixed too. It's this, like these people who are calling out Rachel, they think that they're so much better

than Rachel. But really, they're exemplifying the same problem. There actually, there's a lot of people in the comments that are trying to capitalize on someone else's mistake and point to themselves as who should actually be the go-to source to help someone find their self-fulfillment or self-empowerment because they're more woke or they're more intersectional or whatever it is. Like all these people are just intermixed with their own forms of confusion and idolatry. And I think as Christians, we need to stand away from it and say, here's why. according to scripture, you're wrong and you're also wrong and you're wrong. And guess what? I'm wrong in a lot of ways too. And the reality is that we're all dead and sin apart from Christ and in Christ. We are all made alive through him. There's not different levels of dead and sin.

There's not, I'm not superior to anyone who is also made alive in Christ. And we need to be gracious and humble and realizing that everything that we've been given is a gracious. gift from God. There's a whole lot of pride and ego stewing in this mess of a social media dumpster fire. So I just wanted to explain all of that. And now we're going to talk about another dumpster fire. And that is this book, Rhythms of Prayer. Help Me Hate White people is a line from a book or a line from a prayer in this book. Let me tell you a little bit about it first. So Rhythms of Prayer is a New York Times bestselling book edited by Sarah Bessie. There are a lot of other authors that are there are a lot of authors that contributed to it.

Like Nadia Bowles Weber, you might know who she is. You might remember that she had Women, this is very hard for me to explain because I can't physically roll my eyes hard enough to just to be able to match this level of ridiculousness of this story that I'm about to tell you or a reminder that I'm about to give you. Nadia Bulls-Weber is the woman who asks women to send in their purity rings. And I'm pretty sure it was along with glorious stuff. that she, they like melted these purity rings and made them into like a statue, like a golden image or a golden, um, a car, uh, I don't know, even what you would call it,

a statue or something of a vagina. Um, and they had women, um, you know, I guess saying, oh, I'm done with purity culture. I'm going to make this, uh, golden. image like a like a like a golden calf in the in the in the in the in the old testament if you remember that um and i'm going they are going to create a vagina out of it and it was very strange so if that gives you any indication of who is contributing to this kind of book i hope that just kind of helps you understand where this book is coming from and the kinds of women that are contributed to it and like the kinds of prayers that you can expect uh from this book but this particular

particular prayer, there was a woman who was at Target and she decided to look at this book and she opened up, I guess, to this page and she posted it on Twitter. And if you're wondering, well, how can you verify that this is really part of this book? Well, because I'll tell you, the author actually responds to it and it says that this is part of the book. So let me read you some of this prayer. It's by Shiniqua Walker Barnes, Dr. Shinikwa Walker Barnes. And this is part of the prayer, dear God, help me to hate white people, or at least to want to hate them. At least, I want to stop caring about them individually and collectively. I want to stop caring about their misguided racist souls to stop believing that they can be better, that they can stop being racist. And then she goes on to say, look, I'm not talking about the true anti-racist white women who have done all the right things, according to my standards, and have fought white supremacy.

I'm talking. She says on the next page, she said, I'm talking about the other white people, you know, the nice ones, the Fox News-loving, Trump-supporting voters who don't see color, but who make thinly veiled racist comments about those people. The people who are happy to have me over for dinner, but alert the neighborhood watch anytime an unrecognized person of Congress. color passes their house, the people who welcome black people in their churches and small groups, but Brandis is heretics if we suggest that Christianity is concerned with the poor and the

oppressed. That's a strong man. But anyway, those are the people that she asks God to help her hate. She goes on asking the Lord to harden her heart. She says, Lord, if it be your will, harden my heart. Stop me from striving to see the best in people. me from being hopeful that white people can do and be better. Let me imagine them instead as white hooded robe standing in front of burning crosses. Let me see them as hopelessly unrepentant.

Reprobate bigots who have been, who have blasphemed the Holy Spirit and who need to be handed over to the evil one. So if you remember, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the one unforgivable sin, which different interpretations have different understandings of what that means. But in light of all of Scripture, it simply means being unrepentant, rejecting God until you die. And she said that the white people, the ones who watch Fox News and who are nice and who have her over for dinner but aren't sufficiently anti-racist, that those people are going to hell.

Those people are going to be handed over to the evil one because Shinikwa Walker Barnes is, the, apparently the standard bearer for that. She's the one who gets to determine who is going to hell and who is not. And then at the end, she talks about that I want to be an agent and your ministry of justice and reconciliation. You have not allowed me to languish alone, but you have lighted the path towards beloved community with the loving witness of the ancestors, elders, and sojourners who have come before me and to stand with me today. Thus, in the spirits of Fannie and Ida and

Polly and Ella and Septima and Coreta, I pray and press on in love. And love? Not so sure about that. Now let's talk about a little bit before we get into actually talking about the ridiculousness of this prayer and the danger of this kind of prayer. And by the way, I'll put the link to this tweets in the description of this podcast so that you can read the prayer in its entirety. I don't want it to seem like I'm taking things out of context because this person posted all of the pictures of the entire prayer. So you can read the context and you can decide if the context makes things better. So Sarah Bessie is the editor of this compilation called Rhyms of Prayer.

She is the author also of bestselling and critically acclaimed books. This is according to her website. Jesus feminist out of sorts making peace with an evolving faith and miracles and other reasonable things. Along with her friends, the late Rachel Held Evans and Jim Chaffee, Sarah co-founded evolving faith. Evolving faith, according to the website is, this is what the website says about the organization. Maybe you're ready to reimagine the scripture and theology used to take for granted. Maybe you've been searching for answers at the intersections of faith, justice, belonging, scripture, church, and life.

You know it's long past time to decolonize your belief system and lean in to hard conversations, but you want to do that work in community. I just had to put the emphasis on some cliches that we often see in progressivism. Okay, let me try to break that down for you a little bit. If you're wondering what any of that means, it kind of helps set us up. for understanding this particular prayer where it's coming from and why it's wrong. So when this website of evolving faith, which is co-run by the editor of this book, Sarah Bessie, when it says decolonize, what does that mean?

That means less Western, less white, centering lived experiences of people of color, LGBTQ people, decentering. You'll hear those words decentering and centering a lot. decentering white cisgendered straight Western males, except conveniently for Carl Marx. I can't speak to what Sarah Bessie means by that completely or everything that she believes. So when I'm explaining what decolonization and sometimes deconstruction looks like, I'm not saying that this is exactly what Sarah Bessie believes, but using that language, this is typically how those terms are defined in what they look like.

So what happens in the so-called decolonization of your faith process is that you take out the part to the Bible that are culturally inconvenient, that are confusing. They're unpopular like the Bible's teachings on sexuality, on marriage, on sin, on sanctification, obedience, salvation. And you replace them with that which is culturally acceptable, politically liberal, socially permissible today. they replace progressive holiness, and I mean progressive as in literal progress of holiness throughout our lives through the Holy Spirit with, quote, doing the work that always includes operating from voting with and pushing for leftism and leftist policies. Like you're just not going to find someone who is politically conservative, who also has this kind of mentality about faith or is on this faith endeavor.

It's a different faith entirely. It's a different theology. It's a different worldview entirely from that of Orthodox Christianity. It sees Jesus not as a savior from sin, but a liberator from systems. He's not a king, but he is an oppressed activist. God's kingdom is not something that is coming one day and will one day manifest itself through Jesus' victory over sin and Satan, but is rather something that can be manifested through us via social justice, which always can.

conveniently includes, again, left-wing social causes. So acceptance of abortion, transgenderism, redistribution of wealth, reparations, you name it. People who hold to this don't always, by the way, get it entirely wrong on everything. Not everything that they say is necessarily untruthful. Sometimes they can recite scripture well. They may even point out to flaws in traditional evangelicalism or in the United States that are valid. But like I said, they're operating from a different. worldview than Orthodox Christianity, a different starting point with different goals in mind,

and a different method and path that they're taking from that start to that end that always is extra biblical and most often is anti-biblical. Many times they'll go so far as to say that a biblical inerrancy is a white supremacist construct or a patriarchal construct or that objectivity or the idea of absolute truth or white supremacist constructs, and they will use this as a way to reject real theological debates over scripture. They will justify taking a verse out of context and applying it and interpreting it how they want to according to their politics or according to their political ideology because they deny that there is any one way to read scripture. They deny the coherent inerrancy and infallibility and authority of scripture. So of course, if

you're deconstructed and decolonizing, you're allowed to take verses however you want out of context and apply them however you see fit. But of course, this is fallacious, this postmodernist denial of absolute truth that they so fiercely defend and put forth and use as a bludgeon on evangelicals who believe in in in fallibility and authority of scripture. Because by them saying that you are wrong for believing in the inerrancy of scripture or objectivity or absolute truth, they are asserting their own version of absolute truth and actually showing that they are more willing to depend on their own inerrancy, authority, and infallibility than the Bibles. And so both camps believe in inerrancy and infallibility and authority.

It's just that like one side, one camp, traditional Christianity believes that about God's word. and the other camp, Progressive Christianity, believes that about themselves. And that's what this paradoxical progressive Christianity does. Just like the prosperity gospel,

it replaces the God of Scripture with the God of self. Ibram Kendi, we've talked about this. He said recently in a video that was going around on Twitter that Jesus is not a savior, but that anti-racism can literally save humanity, which is super convenient since he is like the most prominent writer of books about anti-racism. And so it's very convenient to say that what you believe and what you write about

and what you get paid, tens of thousand dollars to speak about is going to save humanity. And it's actually a human construct that's very interesting. Raphael Warnock tweeted the other day. We talked about, we talked about this on Monday's episode that by helping others, we can save ourselves. We can save ourselves, that that's the most, that's actually the more transcendent meaning of Easter, he said. And these are great examples of, um, of what I'm talking about in this decolonization liberation theology. But the Bible speaks directly against that kind of mentality that we heard. Ephesians 2 8 through 10 says this, for by grace you have been saved and this is not your own doing or have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift.

of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. How emphatic is God through Paul about your inability to save yourself? And then verse 10 says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepare beforehand that we should walk in them. So we are called to good works. Good works are very important. It is a part of our faith. James says faith without work is dead, but that does not mean that we take any part in saving ourselves. God is sure. so clear in this passage that you don't get to boast that it's a gift that I gave you by grace, that you are dead in your sin, you're made alive in Christ, that is something that I offered you, not because you're good and you earned it, but because I am good and because I am gracious

and the salvation that you have, your saving of your soul cannot be done by you. No amount of decolonization or deconstruction or helping others or moralism or liberation is ever going to get you there. God makes that so very clear. Whenever someone says they are decolonizing or deconstructing their faith, that's always an indicator that that person is a proponent of something that is radically different in every theological, soteriological, eschatological way than Orthodox Christianity, which is exactly why and where we get a prayer like the one that we just read by the woman Dr. Shaniqua Barnes or Walker Barnes. Here's a little bit of her background, according to her website.

Dr. Shinikwa Walker Barnes is a clinical psychologist, public theologian, and ecumenical minister whose work focuses upon healing the legacies of racial and gender oppression. Her faith has been shaped by Methodist, Baptist, and evangelical social justice communities, as well as by Buddhism and Islam. her book, I bring the voices of my people, a womanist vision for racial reconciliation. Her website says, drawing upon intersectionality theory and critical race studies, she demonstrates how living at the intersection of racism and sexism exposes women of color to unique experiences of gendered racism that are not about relationships, but rather

are about systems of power and inequity. So when I say that this is a part of critical race theory and intersectionality that is not me invoking this bogeyman that doesn't exist, her website literally owns that, says that. And we'll talk about again in just a second what that means and why that's important. And the reminders that we get of ethnic Gnosticism when we read a description like that. But first, like, I just want to remind you of some of the things that the prayer says. So dear God, help me hate white people. She says, as I'm talking about the Fox News-loving nice ones that will invite me over to dinner, but are nonetheless racist to commit these kinds of microaggressions. And so she is asking God also to harden her heart against these people, to see them as the Ku Klux Klan and to realize that they are people who have blasphemed the Holy Spirit and need to be handed over to the evil one. So these are people that she believes,

these well-meaning white people that she believes are racist, she wants to hate, she wants to harden her heart against them, and she wants them to go to hell. That is what she is praying about. What do we even say to that? Like, what do we even say to that kind of madness? This comes from a heart. And I say this like as sincerely as possible. That is steeped in bitterness and resentment and self.

selfishness and loathing and self-glorification and narcissism. Now, remember what I just read from that prayer, and then let me read you, Colossians 3, 5 through 17. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. and these you two once walked when you are living in them. But now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander.

An obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircised, barbarian, scythian, slave-free. But Christ is all and in all. then it keeps going. And I wanted to stop there. I wanted to give you a shorter passage, but the next part is really important and applicable too. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all, and above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you are called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him. That's not just something that Dr. Walker Barnes needs to hear.

That's something that we all need to hear. Ephesians 431 is very similar. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you. Along with all malice, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. 1 John 420. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God, whom he has not seen. Galatians 522 through 23, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things, there is no law. her prayer that she thinks is to God is actually an appeal from hell. There is nothing godly about this. Now, here is how Sarah Bessie justified it on Twitter. Well, first of all, Dr. Walker Barnes says, apparently a screenshot of my prayer from a rhythm of prayer is floating on the socials. The folks critiquing have clearly never read Psalms.

other than 23 and 100 because then they'd recognize what it's modeled after. Sarah Bessie responds, I think my eyes just rolled out of my head. Grateful for you. Dr. Shiniqua Walker Barnes says, it's funny because people are acting like they're super good Christians who have never seen such a prayer.

They're essentially admitting they don't actually pay attention to scripture. And then I saw, I think it was Sarah Bessie or someone saying, oh, yeah, they're telling on themselves. Right. Right. It's people who have a problem with you, asking God to help you hate people of a certain skin color who don't agree with you politically to have the Bible wrong.

Not you, right. The hubris here is just amazing. So she claims that this is modeled in scripture, this kind of prayer of just what they are calling honest and raw and real before God. I don't see anything that mirrors this in scripture. nothing. The only thing that maybe I could think if you decontextualize it is anywhere close to this kind of thing, Psalm 139. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God. Oh, men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those

who hate you, O Lord, and do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them as my enemies. But the only thing, way, the only way that you could see this is comparable to her prayer is if you qualify all white people, the white people that she's talking about, so not the acceptable white allies who have proven to this person, their own, that they have reached this person's version of righteousness as wicked, which is what critical race theory does, which is why it is so frightfully dangerous. But hang on a second. Let's back up in this chapter.

Like even if we were to say, okay, this is reflected in scripture, which it's not, by the way, unless you are saying that all white people are wicked, which you don't have any biblical precedent for calling one race of people wicked because of what someone that looks like them may have done or because they don't reach your standard of what you think is sufficiently righteous and virtuous and anti-racist. no biblical precedent for that whatsoever. But let's even just back up a little bit in this very chapter and see why, even if you are trying to say that you're modeling this, God help me, hey, white people prayer off of the Bible, it just doesn't work. Like, let's just back up a few verses. Prolifers know these verses 13 through 16 of chapter 139 of the Psalms very well. For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works.

My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eye saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Now I do wonder just as an aside

if Dr. Walker Barnes is against abortion. I would guess not. Something tells me, maybe it's the pronouns in her bio that she's probably pro-choice. But the point is, in reading this particular passage, that white people, black people, brown people were fearfully and wonderfully made in their mother's womb. God loves people of all different kinds of skin colors. He made them intentionally with the skin color that he did, made them all in his image,

and ascribes value to them not based on their own. melanin count, but based on their humanity. Now, I understand that in the world of critical race theory, white isn't necessarily a melanin count. Whiteness is a construct, and therefore it is justified to be able to see whiteness as evil, but that still as scribes a certain kind of collective wickedness and guilt onto people who have that skin color. And that's why it's just so ugly. It's so ugly. He ultimately and eternally classifies people of all different kinds of skin colors and categorizes image bearers, not by their race ultimately, but by their faith in Christ. Either as Ephesians 2 says, we are all equally dead in sin. There aren't different

levels of dead apart from Christ or we have been made alive in Christ by grace through faith. When David is speaking of wicked people in Psalm 139, talking about hating people, he's talking about people who hate God. He's not talking about people with a certain skin color or whose politics you find abhorrent or people who don't fit into your standards of sufficient righteousness or people who don't engage in your brand of social justice activism, but people who have rebelled against God, who work against God, according to God's standards, who commit evil in God's cite according to God's standards, who, ironically, very often exemplify exactly the kind of hard-hearted pride and bigotry that we see emulated in this very prayer.

Here's what else Sarah Bessie, the editor of this book has to say. She says, if you actually read the whole prayer, you see the context of that line, you see her asking like Jesus modeled for a cup to pass from her. You get a glimpse of her grief, her lament, her weariness of the burden. of calling white people to repentance and confession. Oh, man. And so then she goes on to say, I have something to say specifically about that part of saying that this is a Jesus modeled prayer when Jesus prayed to let this cup pass from him.

Got a lot to say about that. But she goes on to say, she literally says a few lines into the prayer, I'm not talking about the white anti-racist allies. So as my granny would say, the pig that's bit, squeals. I love how she thinks that that makes it better, that she only wants to hate like white conservatives who will watch Fox News. Apparently, that's like a justification for asking God to help her hate only certain white people. Okay, got it. She said the prayer that is being splashed across every social media platform ends with her trusting God,

her resolution to carry it as to carry on as an agent in ministry of justice and reconciliation. She picks up her cross and rises again because her brain. of social justice activism is, of course, what Jesus is talking about when he says, take up your cross and follow me. So here's what we're getting out of that justification from Sarah Bessie, that the people who are mad, it's not just that we don't get it. It's that we're racist, of course. That's what is always given as the explanation for anyone who disagrees with this kind of thing. Critical race theorists love what is called a Kafka trap. It's a logical fallacy that prevents them from actually having to engage in arguments. So if you disagree with them,

it's not just because maybe they're wrong or maybe because scripture points is something different or there's another point. It's because you're demonstrating white fragility or white supremacy. It's a very unintellectual but convenient way to respond to pushback. Also, let me get to this point, which I just think is so important. Jesus did not model this prayer at all. In any way. What blasphemy. I mean, that just guts me to read something like that. In one of the most heartbreaking chapters of the Bible, Matthew 26, Jesus says, then he said to them, Peter, James, and John, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me. And going a little farther, he fell on his face. I mean, I could just get choked up right now.

I reading this and prayed, saying, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass. from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. Who. Jesus is talking about the crucifixion that he's about to face. The torture, the betrayal, the rejection, the murder, the pain, the distress, the desperation, the wrath that is going to be drained from the cup that he will have to fully drink on our behalf. That line from how deep the father's love for us, it always,

It always gets me. I can't get through it singing it. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry while I'm saying it. But singing it, I can't ever get through it without crying. But if you haven't heard it, that lie that says, ashamed, I hear my mocking voice, call out among the scoffers. It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought me life. I know that it is finished. Seeing that we as sinners are represented among the scoffers when it comes to Jesus's crucifixion, how humbling for all of us. If we all had that mentality, we wouldn't be praying prayers about hating people that look a different way or who look like someone who has offended us at one point. You're telling me that a prayer asking God to help her hate white people

is similar to the prayer that the son of God prayed in the Garden of Gisemone before he endured a gruesome death on a cross for the sake of our sins. You mean the prayer that he prayed out of total allegiance to God the Father, an unfathomable love for us for sinners to the point of ultimate sacrifice? That's what you think this petty, prideful, satanic prayer is like? I want these women to know the gospel so much. Desperately, sincerely, I desperately want them to know the wonder and their richness that lies in the Word of God in Jesus Christ and the good news that he brings.

I'm afraid that these women have totally lost the plot and missed the point. Worldliness and devilish doctrine has so intoxicated them that they cannot tell the truth from a lie. They don't know the difference between love and hate between righteousness and disobedience. This prayer makes me so sad. It gives me a pit in my stomach and not for myself. I don't care if she hates me. I'm sad for her that she is carrying this burden that she does not need to carry and is commanded if she is a Christian not to carry.

I pray truly that the Lord would relieve her of this burden, would open her eyes, would draw her to himself and free her to realize that her callousness is not just sinful but deadly. And yes, of course, it makes me sad for the readers for society that this putrid malignant is going to spread and teach black and brown people to hate people because of their skin color and that there are going to be mothers who teach their babies to hate other babies because of their skin color. If this is what is being passed around and passed down, we are doomed. I mean, honestly, do women who pray these kind of prayers? Do they also hate children of a certain skin color who have never done anything against them or anyone who looks like them? It sounds like

they actually think whiteness is the original sin, the inherited sin. And that's the, I mean, that's the natural implication of that kind of thinking. Hating people that you don't know because of their skin color is racism. It's just as bad as white racism against black people that resulted in all kinds of horrific injustices throughout American history. It doesn't matter that progressives have tried to say that only white people can be racist because the new definition of racism, is prejudice plus power, and because in this worldview of critical race theory, only white people have power, and so only white people can be racist. I'm sorry, I have no obligation to agree with stupidity and exchange the actual definitions of words for new and illogical definitions.

And because I feel morally obliged to keep insisting that 2 plus 2 and D equals 4, I will continue to refuse to agree with that inane assertion. Clearly, non-white people can be racist. Clearly, they can show bias and bigotry. And their melanin count will not justify them, will not justify any of us before God. Do you hear that? That's the important thing here. Your melanin count, your lived experience, your intersectionality points, your self-categorization, as on the side of the oppressed will not justify you before God. It will not absolve you of your guilt. It will not earn you righteousness. Only Christ can do that. That is what the collectivist form of justice of critical race theory does not understand. Because white is bad and black is good in critical race theory.

So it's totally fair game and actually logically necessary to say that you must hate white people and categorize all of them no matter what, no matter how poor or weak or disdain. they are as oppressors, unless they're white people who happen to agree with you and have proven to you that they've, quote, done the work, they've met your standards, they fit into your qualifications of what it means to be a decent white person. They've effectively divested of their whiteness in a way that you approve of. If they don't do those things, then they're apparently just bad, awful people who are oppressors and they're totally worthless and worthy of hate. This is what Vodibachim calls ethnic Gnosticism.

It's a form of standpoint epistemology. We just talked about this the other day. The idea that special knowledge and even special righteousness is granted to people, special clarity, special insight is granted to people in the world of critical race theory according to skin color and categorizing yourself according to skin color on the side of the oppressed. it will always lead to confusion. It will always lead to hate. It will always lead to resentment.

It will always lead to death. Church, Christians, you got to stop messing with this stuff. Stop getting close to it. Stop flirting with it. Stop preaching a message of repentance to your white congregants that you don't preach to your black congregants. Stop saying that this stuff is a tool for understanding history or that it's at least somewhat a useful framework

for understanding and injustice. It's not. It's not. It's also not new, by the way. Here's James Cohn in his 1970 book, A Black Theology of Liberation. Cohn advanced this kind of idea of God being on the side of black people and against white people.

He says, black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology, James Cohn says, is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community. Black theology will accept only the love of God, which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means that disposal unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

Exchanging the God of Scripture for the God of self. Stop preaching pastors two different gospels that excuse sin and bad theology in one group, but not the other. I mean, that is so patronizing. It's bigoted. It's racist. People of all colors need the same gospel. That doesn't mean that we have all of the same history.

or all of the same experiences, that we can't bring different perspectives to the table based on that different history and based on those different experiences. We can. But none of our lived experiences or marginalization status or socioeconomic status or whatever it is gives us a free pass for hate. That's not going to justify you before God. And if that's not going to justify someone before God, then that means that everyone of the same skin color needs the same gospel. You want reconciliation, you want totally equality, you want humility, you want love. Maybe start with the gospel that God has given us clearly in His Word and stop looking to doctrines of hate and trying to find love.

It's not going to work. Stop preaching intersectionality and secular moralism. Stop adopting the world's definition of justice and reconciliation in exchange for biblical definitions. Stop misusing and abusing Micah 6.8, please. to mean something that it does not mean, stop viewing the world and people primarily through the lens of melanin. I promise you that this doesn't end well. It doesn't end well for the church. It doesn't end well for society. Of course, thankfully, we know that the gates of hell will not prevail against the true church, that God's got his church. But man, oh man, I just long and pray for Christians

of all different types, of all different ethnicities, of all different classes, of all different backgrounds to be united under the banner of truth in love and the true gospel and the biblical definition of what it means to seek mercy and to do justice and to walk humbly with our God. All right. That's all I got for today. I will be back here tomorrow.