Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 409 | The 'Equity' vs. 'Equality' Trap | Guests: Darrell Harrison & Virgil Walker

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

Today we're thrilled to be speaking with both of the hosts of the "Just Thinking" podcast, Darrell Harrison and Virgil Walker. We'll be discussing the idea of "liberation theology," as espoused by Ibram X. Kendi, and how it gets both human nature and the Bible totally wrong. Previous episode with Darrell & Virgil: Ep 263 | Why Social Justice Can't Solve Racism https://apple.co/3noRoTY --- 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. Today I am so excited to talk to Darrell Harrison and Virgil Walker of the Just Thinking podcast. We are going to talk all about equity and equality in the social justice movement and people leaving the church based on some idea of what the church's responsibilities are in the way of racial reconciliation and reparations. We are going to talk about Ibrahimskindi and, and, um, his support of something or his adherence to something called liberation theology and his stated rejection of something that he calls savior theology, which is what you and I, Orthodox Christians, hold to. And we'll talk about that. I do want to, before I get into the conversation with Darrell and Virgil of the Just Thinking podcast, I do want to play you just a clip of this Ibramax-Kindy conversation at a church in Manhattan that we are going to break down at the beginning.

of our conversation, and then we'll go right into the interview with Daryl and Virgil. Liberation theology. In other words, Jesus was a revolutionary. And the job of the Christian is to revolutionize society, that the job of the Christian is to liberate society from the powers on earth that are oppressing humanity. Everybody understand that. So that's liberation theology. In a nutshell. Darrell, Virgil, thank you guys so much for joining me once again. Lots I want to talk to you about today. First, I want to talk about this statement that has been circulating on Twitter.

At least it was at the time that we are recording this. Ibrahimax Kendi at a Manhattan church talking about fundamentally rejecting savior theology and switching it out for something that's called liberation theology. Now, for people who have no idea what any of that means, Daryl, can you kind of just interpret? What does he mean by Savior theology versus liberation theology? Yeah, Ali, first of all, thanks for having us on. We appreciate it. I just want to say at the top here, I thought it was ironic that when Kendi was saying those words,

that he rejected Savior theology. I thought it ironic that he said those words in front of a sculpture that was right behind them on the stage that had the words of Jesus from Matthew 28, verse 18 through 20, where Jesus said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So there you have Savior theology in Jesus' own words right behind Ibram X. Kendi as he was uttering his confession that he doesn't subscribe to Savior theology. So I thought that was ironic. But I will give I will give Kendi this credit.

He described it perfectly. He gave a perfect definition of liberation theology. When Kendi says that the job of the Christian is rep to revolutionize society, that is the definition of liberation theology. He was exactly right. It is to liberation theology seeks to liberate in a temporal social construct people from oppression. So that is the distinction between the bill. biblical gospel, which seeks to liberate sinners from the wrath of God. So there's the distinction in the two.

So I'll give Kennedy credit there. He was absolutely right in his definition of liberation theology. But to say that he doesn't subscribe to his savior theology, he was right there too because a liberation theologian doesn't subscribe to biblical theology in that sense. So I'll give him credit there. Right. And I think that he realizes Virgil, what a lot of people who might define themselves, as some kind of social justice or progressive Christians don't actually realize that you can't have both.

So he says that he rejects Savior theology. He accepts liberation theology. But what I hear from people who still kind of consider themselves somewhat Orthodox Christians is that, yes, I still believe that Jesus died for my sin. So I still hold for, I hold to Savior theology. But I also believe that the reason why he came was to change these social structures and revolutionize society. in the name of liberation. Can you talk about Virgil, why those two ideas of why Jesus came and what Christianity is conflict? Well, Jesus came to save those who are lost. Jesus came to redeem sinful mankind, sinful humanity.

Liberation theology looks to save societies. Jesus wasn't trying to overthrow the Roman Empire. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to announce his kingdom, which was a kingdom built upon the transformation of the human heart. What you were hearing, Ken, de articulate was perfectly James Coneyan theology, the father of liberation theology. He had made a statement in his talk that his parents grew up in the black power movement and that he was a child of parents who kind of grew up with black theology. I want to give you one quote quickly, Allie, from James Cohn in his book, Black Theology and Black Power.

And I think it sums up in a sentence in James Cohn's own words, what liberation theology is all about. He says this, quote, for white people, God's reconciliation in Jesus Christ means that God made black people a beautiful people. And if they, meaning white people, are going to be in relationship with God, they must enter by means of their black. brothers who are a manifestation of God's presence on the earth, end quote. So what you're seeing in liberation theology is an identification with blackness and whiteness is something as sinful. And as Kendi explains this struggle that we're all in to overturn governments into transform society, based upon their theology, you would have to believe that Jesus was a revolutionary. You would have to believe, at least the Jesus that you serve. This is a different

Jesus and therefore different gospel. But you would have to believe that the Jesus that you serve is one that, you know, that is about revolution. Which that makes so much sense. That quote that you just read from James Cones makes so much sense with what Kendi said after or later in this conversation when he says that anti-racism or his version of anti-racism, or his version of anti-racism can literally save humanity. And so he doesn't deny, and I guess James Cohn didn't, Cohn didn't deny that we need a savior, that human beings do need redemption. We do need to be restored. They just deny that it's Jesus actually doing that. And it's actually, you know, they would say blackness or anti-racism. So, Daryl, can you, can you talk about that? Like, what is he

mean by anti-racism being the savior of the world? How does that even work? Yeah, I'm glad you asked that, Ellie, because when people like Kendi talk about, when they use terms like salvation and redemption, they don't mean it in salvific terms as Jesus Christ would use those terms. What Kennedy is talking about, when he talks about anti-racism, he is talking about creating a sort of heaven on earth. He is talking about how the church can partner with temporal entities like government, social agencies, and things like that to bring about a kind of societal equality whereby black people in particular, and I say that because we're talking about liberation theology here, black people in particular are given positions of power, they're given economic

opportunities solely based on the color of their skin. So when Kendi talks about redemption and salvation, he is talking strictly in a material sense. Those terms have nothing to do with the spiritual redemption that Christ came into the world to, as Virgil said, to give to those who are lost, to give to his elect by faith. So we're talking two different things, though we may use the same terms. we do not subscribe to the same theology that someone like Ibrahim Kendi subscribes to when he talks about salvation and redemption. And on that note, I think that's really ironic. So when Kendi says in that video that the job of the Christian is to revolutionize society, again, I think it's interesting because here's a guy who doesn't subscribe to savior theology. So if Jesus was not the Savior, then there are no Christians.

And yet he says that the job of the Christian is to revolutionize society. If Jesus wasn't deity, if Jesus wasn't God, if Jesus was just another human revolutionary, then why is Christianity the model? Why does Christianity have a job to revolutionize society in the first place? There were revolutionaries before Jesus came. There were revolutionaries after him. But what Kennedy is doing is he's robbing God. This is what Liberation theology does. It robs Jesus of his deity.

And without deity, Jesus has no authority. So how can Kennedy say, on the one hand, I don't subscribe. the Savior theology, and yet on the other hand, say the job of the Christian is the revolutionized society. I don't get it. Can I add something in here? Let me just add something, because if you listen to the full statement that he made, he acknowledges the fact that his theology, if you will, put in air quotes, is flawed. Because the solution is, as Darrell mentioned, the solution is to connect with government entities. The solution is to connect with political power. But he acknowledges that power corrupts absolutely, that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

He kind of stumbles over those words in the course of his talk. And what he says is that the answer then is to put someone in power, put them in a position of power, and hold them accountable. And then when they fail to find someone else to put into power, and then when they fail to find someone else to put into power. So by his very own admission, what he's, what he's positing, what he's suggesting, is absolutely flawed by the very nature of the flawed human condition that we all suffer from known as sin. Yeah. Yeah. And I like how he acknowledges the differences, not just when it comes to who he believes

that Jesus is, but also in his eschatology. You talked about how they have a different view of what they would consider the end times. They don't really view the in times the same way that we do, that God is going to bring his kingdom here on earth. Only then will we see perfect peace, perfect justice, perfect joy, no more sadness, sorrow, wickedness. They see that as something that we can manifest here on earth through the government in different kinds of social engineering to make sure that everyone ends up in the same place. And so he acknowledges that actually his faith is working towards a different end goal entirely. It's not just a different means by which to accomplish the same goal as Orthodox Christianity.

It's a different idea entirely. And that's why when people say, you know, I want to take a little bit of liberation theology, I want to take a little bit of progressive Christianity and keep my Orthodox views about sexuality or whatever. It doesn't work that way. You've got a completely different timeline of eternity that you were talking about when you were talking to someone like Iber Max Kendi, who, like you said, Daryl, isn't he used? uses this word Christian, but Christ means anointed one, chosen one. It's not Jesus's last name. And so what does it even mean to be a Christian? If you don't believe that Jesus was the Christ,

therefore the one who died for our sins. And so people just need to see it's a different gospel. It's a different religion. It's a totally different gospel. Totally different gospel. You're exactly right. It is a religion. And see, here's the thing about a God like Kendi. is when you listen to him or anyone else who preaches a quote, gospel, unquote, of anti-racism, what he totally avoids, if you listen closely, they will presuppose that there's systemic racism, but they never get, their apologetic never includes a root cause for that. So the root cause is always a societal or, a material, what they would describe as a material in equity. And it's always, it always has to do with

power, wealth, positions of authority, things like that. But what, what, what an anti-racist like Kennedy never gets to, he never gets to the sin issue. He never gets to the root cause of why these situations in his mind exists. Now, I don't subscribe to the reality of systemic racism. I do not believe there's systemic racism in America as we sit here today. But what Kendi does and arguing for that systemic racism exists, he never gets to the root cause. So he has no biblical anthropology within his theology of liberation theology. Liberation theology always starts with the symptom, never the cause. So there's always, but see, and this is how liberation theologians make their money, because there are always going to be symptoms, and there's

always going to be symptoms because of sin. But liberation theology, never addresses the sin issue. It's always the symptom. So the solution to them is always something material. We have to create these opportunities. We have to look at what's happening in Oakland right now. I just read as we before we came on the air. Oklahoma, California, now they're giving $500 payments to black people, but if you're white or some other ethnicity, you don't get the money. But see, that is the kind of solution that liberation theology, critical. race theory and they're closely joined, a point two. It's never spiritual. So there's no biblical anthropology at all within liberation theology. Yes. And it tries to, or it purports, to try to

write historic wrongs or what it perceived as historic wrongs with current injustice, which is exactly why Ibrahims Kendi would actually say that is, that's a good policy, because what you're trying to do is to make sure that what he would call historically marginalized groups, black and brown communities, are given opportunities and white people aren't. So maybe we can finally achieve some place of total equality of outcome. And so he doesn't actually believe that discriminating against, say, an Asian person or a white person in admissions when it comes to colleges or, you know, giving more money to black communities than white communities, he doesn't see that as racist, one because he defines racism as prejudice versus power, and he would say

only white people, or prejudice plus power, and only white people have that. And also he would say, well, this is just the way to balance the scales, to make everything equal. Virgil, can you talk to the people who are saying, okay, I get why maybe that's wrong, but aren't we called to do something for the oppressed? Like, shouldn't we care about equality? What's wrong with trying to to close these gaps. Like, how do you explain to them yes, but no? Yeah, I totally get where you're going with that. The idea that he shared in his talk was that policies that reproduce racial inequity are racist.

Now, there's a whole lot wrong with that statement. I mean, there's a lot of presuppositions embedded in that statement. But then he said policies that reduce racial inequity are anti-racist. What he fails to mention is that in order to enact equity, you're going to have to be unfair to another group. And when you're unfair to that other group, that's racist. And so it's racism in an effort to fix racism. To the point Darrell made earlier, never addresses the root problem.

Here's the other thing. If we take a step back even from those statements, and that's this, we act as if inequity is the greatest sin. The reality is that inequity is a part of the human condition. I mean, I'm as tall as I am. I'm five foot six. I'm a short guy, Allie. And guess what?

I don't get the same, I won't ever be equate. My height will never be, will never equate to a LeBron James. And because of the benefits of the inequity that he has, there's going to be some advantages that he has that I don't. Yeah. That's called the human condition. Yeah. If everywhere we look, we try to write all every inequity,

we're going to find ourselves on a rabbit trail that never, never ends. I mean, it's just problematic on every level. It definitely is. And I know that you guys who've talked about Thomas Sol's book quest for cosmic justice, where he calls what is now called social justice, actually cosmic justice. You're trying to rewrite the rules of this. game to try to make everyone end up equal. And I want to talk about these phrases or these terms really quickly, equity versus equality, because I think it gets confusing because there's

a biblical definition. There's good equity, which I think we all agree is equal application of the law. You got the same rules to everyone. Whenever you end up, you end up. That is what we consider fairness, no partiality, and something that would honor God. That's righteousness. equality of outcome is something that we don't believe can be achieved outside of tyranny. But we're seeing some kind of switch by these what you guys call social justicians to say that actually equity is not everyone starting with the same rules. Equity is everyone ending up in the same place. And so how someone like Ibermax, Kendi or Kamala Harris, because she put out that video saying equity means everyone ended up in the same place, how they just, They explain it like, okay, well, if you're a short person, we need to give you a box this tall.

If you're a medium person, we need to give you a box this tall. If you're a tall person, we need to give you a box this tall. Then everyone can see over the fence and it's fair. The problem is when you start assuming when it's not as clear as height, when it's something like perceived privilege, when it's something like your white privilege or what you may have experienced because someone who looks like you was a. slave 200 years ago, and we're going to give you your proverbial boxes and opportunities and money based on what we perceive to be your privileges and oppression. Well, that's when you get something like Oakland, that the 10,000 people living in poverty who are white in Oakland don't get the same kind of payment that someone who might be richer than them, but is black

get because of their skin color because of perceived oppression and the perceived height of their metaphorical box. And that is why this whole idea of trying to achieve equal outcomes by paying people money and the social engineering, it just, it doesn't work. It always leads to some kind of unfairness. Is that correct, Darrell? No, you're absolutely correct, Allie. And, you know, I find it interesting, you know, you bring up the whole slavery narrative, which incessantly comes up in situations of inequity and inequality and things like that. But as much as I studied the subject of slavery in America. I've never come across anyone who's been recorded, any former slave who was recorded as saying they wanted to be treated fairly because of their skin color. No former slave,

every argued that. I mean, you can go from the 1800s all the way up to the Civil Rights era in the 1960s. The equality movement of the Civil Rights era was an Imago Day movement. It was an Imago Day movement. They wanted to be treated equally under the Amago Day, under Genesis 127, which even, and we know this from Romans 1, even a slave knew this. A slave inherently knew that their enslavement was wrong, that it was inhumane because they were born and created with bearing the image of God. No slave ever argued. They wanted treatment on that basis, not on the basis that they were brown, black or black. That was never the case. But here you have. have, this is amazing to me, here you have people who are profiting monetarily off of a legacy like that. They're profiting monetarily off the legacy of slavery and thinking that, oh, yeah, for $500, that's great. So on the one hand, an anti-racist will say, well, slavery was horrible. It was abhorrent. It's inexcusable. But yeah, because there was slavery, I'm going to cut you this check. It's not cutting the check. It's accepting the check. It's accepting the check.

So if you're so adamantly against or anti-American because of America's legacy of slavery, the thing for you to do is to not accept that money. You don't leverage a historical sin like slavery and cash in on it if you really want to make a point. And look at what's happening in Evanston, Illinois right now. In Everston, Illinois, they recently passed legislation to what they call reparations in housing. discrimination. They're doing the same thing. Now, it doesn't matter now whether the person can afford the house. What matters is, are you black? Do you live in the house? Check, check, check, check, check. I can tell you right now, our black ancestors are rolling over in their graves over how black people are profiting from their misery. Yeah. I think that people in the, I got a tweet saying,

know, Shirley, I said something about God hates partiality in response to that the Oakland policy and someone said, you know, this is cherry picking. Surely, you can find some Bible verses that support, you know, closing the gap of so-called anti-black poverty or whatever they said using their social justice terms that my brain just sometimes can't compute. And the reality is, is that social justice as we see it today, and I want to get into this Lecrae saying that if you're against social justice, you're against God. But as we see it today, it functions on partiality. That's what it does. It says we have to be partial towards this one group in order to make up for the partiality of the past, not looking at people as individuals saying, okay, you know, you're guilty of this,

you're not guilty of this. You actually oppressed this person. You were oppressed. But again, we're making assumptions based simply on on what people look like and that leads to further discrimination and like Thomas Sol says the policies that are being proposed to try to fix black poverty have been tried in every country in many countries on earth but they have never ever worked it's never led to liberation not in Zimbabwe not in Venezuela not in China not in any of the countries that it has been tried it. It's only led to devastation for those who oppose the revolution and the revolutionaries themselves. And yet we see Christians, Christians who we, you know, a few years ago would have said,

yes, we are on the same page with the gospel. We've got this same theology now saying we need to embrace this kind of new fangled social justice. And if we don't, we're not just wrong, but as LaCray said in a tweet, which he deleted, and so I can no longer find, he said, that we're against God if we're against social justice. Like, Virgil, what do you think, what do you think that means? I think he was right in that he's serving a false God known as social justice. And so, yeah, the false God of social justice would be upset by the fact that you aren't beholden

or bowing the knee to racist ideas. In fact, it was Ibram Kendi who said that capitalism and racism are conjoined twins, that if you have one, you have the other. And it's interesting that someone who's getting the benefit of $20,000 an hour talks, his books being sold on Amazon and the like to the tune of hundreds of thousands of books, that he would be upset about capitalism. It's one of those things that's great for him, but not for you. Good for me, but not for it's kind of the thought process behind that. But it's insane to see and think about how, to the point you made earlier, Allie, folks who once held to Orthodox biblical Christian views are now

being exposed to the fact that we're now seeing from a standpoint of them being exposed that they really don't believe in the God of the Bible. I've said this before. I say this before and I'll say this again. I really think that the people who got on this train, the train of, of maybe a hip-hop culture being cool in Christianity. They got on the train of reform theology being kind of in vogue, got on a train rather than having a transformation that really took place in their heart. And so now the train has moved. And what's happening in cultures, the train has shifted, culturally speaking,

to this idea of wokeism. So they're just now on the next train. This is now the next train car that's moving that they want to jump on and leap on for their own personal advantage. And it's problematic and it really exposes. Unfortunately, as Scripture says, they left from us because they were not of us. Allie, can I ask something quickly to what Berger just said? Because Virgil just made an excellent point. Talking about jumping on the train.

See, the church is guilty of jumping on the same train. And the church is guilty of jumping on this train because the church doesn't know what the gospel says. The church is being, this whole social gospel, social justice movement, is leveraging the church's ignorance. on what the gospel is, the church has in some way, shape, or form, they have been convinced to think, into thinking that the gospel is a message of material equity and equality and where everything should be fair and everyone should have the same thing. No one should have an advantage

over something. That's not the gospel. Yeah. That is not the gospel. Listen, the gospel is a message of salvation from, I've said this repeatedly. Is it a message of salvation from sin? Christ didn't come to save society. He came to save sinners. He came to save sinners. And the church is being sucked in to this black hole of equality and equity. And because they don't know what those terms mean biblically. And until they understand what those terms mean biblically,

the other side is going to continue to continue to use those terms and then get us all emotively caught up into this movement that's seeking fairness and justice and equality. when the gospel is about none of that. Yeah. And I want to clarify some things. I'm wondering if you can do that, Darrell, because I'm hearing in my head people saying, well, aren't Christians supposed to care for the vulnerable in society? Like, shouldn't we actually care for oppression?

And as you talked about, Darrell, the civil rights movement was an Amago Day movement. It was saying these people are made in the image of God, and they should be treated as such true equity. being treated fairly under the law based on the inherent value that God has given them equal to the value of anyone who is white or any other skin color. Same with the abolitionist movement. Those were gospel-believing, Bible-believing Christians whose theology was based on the idea that you want to talk about equality, we are all equal and that we're all dead and sin

apart from Christ. Amen. And then once we are alive in Christ, we are all brothers and sisters and we're equal in that way. and we want to see the manifestation of that kind of equal treatment, not equal outcomes. So can you, Daryl, talk about what does it look like for a Christian to actually seek justice and love mercy according to God's word in a way that glorifies God versus what the social justice advocates say that we need to advocate for in the way of seeking justice and loving mercy? That micah six-eight. It's a great verse, but it's misused a lot. Yeah, yeah, that's the pet verse of the social justice is Michael 6-8.

But what we have to remember is, again, this is what we spend a lot of time on the Just Thinking podcast doing with defining terms. So I think Christians need to be willing to say, hey, when you say justice, what do you mean? When you say equality, what do you mean? There's no harm to asking questions because I promise you, the social justicians does not mean the same thing when they say justice inequality that scripture means. When you look in the scripture, justice is always attached to the righteousness of God, to God's character. So when we look biblically of what the word justice means, it is to do what is

right in God's eyes. It is to do what is righteous in God's eyes. Justice in the worldly sense, in the sense of the social justice and the liberation theologian, justice has to do with outcome. It always has to do with outcome. So for the social justification, if the outcome is the preferred outcome that they desire, that's justice. But if the outcome of a situation, is not what they desire. That's injustice. We saw that with the Trayvon Martin situation. We saw that we're seeing that now with the George Floyd situation.

That trial begins to get underway. But with God, in God's economy, justice has nothing to do with outcome. You know, Allie, you used the phrase earlier, closing the gap. Let me give you a biblical example where someone tried to close the gap, where we have a great distinction between equality and equity. Well, we have in First Kings 3, we had two women who came with Solomon asking King, asking King Solomon to resolve a dispute between them with regard to whose baby, which mother truly had rights to the baby. One mother said her baby had accused the other mother of rolling over on her baby and killing her own baby with this one baby is left. So we have two mothers here who are asking Solomon to close this maternal gap.

one of us is a mother one of us isn't Solomon ruled with equity Equity seeks truth regardless of outcome Solomon sought the truth he sought the truth knowing that one of those women was going to go home without a baby What equality does

equality emphasizes outcome without regard to truth you see so we have in society today we have a segment even within the church who are conflating those two terms. They're conflating equality with equity and vice versa. But biblically, they are not the same thing. Equity emphasizes, as you said, Allie, the equal, impartial,

objective application of God's precepts and laws to everyone without regard to outcome. Equality inverts that. Equality is an outcomes emphasis that gets to the truth later, if it gets to the truth at all. But up front, we just need to level the plan. playing field and close the gap. And that is not biblical. Yeah. And it gets, it gets very confusing, I think, because obviously these are very similar sounding terms. And like you said, secular social justice advocates, they kind of switch them. What secular social justice advocates mean when they

say equity, like you said, is equal outcome. So it would be cutting the baby in half and giving them to both. And so, but what we want in equity is equality of, of, you know, equal application, equality of application, equality in that sense. But they mean equal outcomes. So we're talking, we both are talking about equity and equality, but we're switching them. We're talking about two different things. So the thing is it's like, okay, well, it's not just one of those things of who is right. We can see the kind of new fangled equity.

I think Zimbabwe is such a good example. I've got a friend who is an immigrant from Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe was a terrible dictator there. And he made a lot of promises that we're kind of hearing from the so-called anti-racism movement here that, hey, these white farmers in Zimbabwe, they are taking your land indigenous people, Robert Mugabe said, and we've got to get our land back. And so we can finally have so-called equity. We can finally have fairness and we can have reparation.

So let's take down these white commercial farmers. And so he riled people up. They confiscated the land. They burned their farms. And they made sure that white people weren't able to commercially farm and that the indigenous people of Zimbabwe, you know, had their land back. Well, according to my immigrant friends, what happened then? Well, the people who confiscated the farms didn't know how to commercially farm in the same way that the people that owned the farms. And so Zimbabwe went from what was called the bread basket of Africa, having a lot of wealth for countries in Africa to be in one of the poorest countries in Africa.

they still have not recovered from the communist liberation Marxist revolution that Robert Mugabe waged in the name of liberating the black indigenous people in Zimbabwe. And that is the pattern that we see over and over again. That kind of equity always leads to blood. It always leads to war. And yet we have people, like for example, Jamar Tisbee, who I think a lot of evangelicals say that they really respect, he is now, he's a linking arms with someone who is purporting that kind of ideology by joining the organization of Ibrax Kendi and then telling other black Christians that they need to leave their churches and kind of do what he's done. And so I would love to hear either one of you kind of give your

reaction to that in and what you think. I'll jump in and say a couple things. One, I wanted to touch just briefly on what you just shared. And I think what's happening with culture is that you're seeing and hearing to the point, Allie, that you just made is these terms, equality, and equity are being transposed. And what's often meant is simply outcomes. When you hear it in culture, I think what your listeners have got to keep in mind is, are they talking about equal outcomes? When they use the term equity or equality, are they talking about equal outcomes? If they're talking about equal outcomes, that is absolutely wrong. If they're talking about treating people with the dignity that is inherent in them as a result of the fact that they're

image bears of God, that is equality and that's right. That's correct. So every time you hear outcome, you need to stop, pause, and go, okay, whether they use equality or equity, you need to listen to the piece about outcomes. As it pertains to Jamar Tisby, I'm not surprised. We've watched since the election of Donald Trump and the statements that he made about the fact that he could no longer worship with the people who were part of. of his white congregation, though they had never demonstrated anything in outrage or anger toward him directly. But the fact that they voted for Donald Trump, he could no longer worship with them to see him, you know, amplify his voice and with regard to his books, the color of compromise

and other books that he's written about this issue. Everything that he's written has leaned in the direction of liberation theology. So no one should be surprised that the, that the, that the trajectory of and direction of where he's going leads him to believe that since the gospel was insufficient to help him at his church, that the gospel is now insufficient and now he's going about by seeking other solutions. So now those solutions include political solutions, they include economic solutions, they include policy decisions to fix the temporal earth in order to bring about the eschatological result that you mentioned, which is the utopia that they believe that they're going to create by their anti-racist policies,

which is actually racism being leveraged in a direction that's favorable for the person of color. And, Ali, just to add to what Virgil just said, I just think it's the height of arrogance to think that you have the right to not only leave a church, but then advocate for others leaving the church, simple because you got your feelings hurt. Essentially, that's what we're talking about here. When you talk about this whole Leave Loud initiative, for instance, that Tisbee is involved in, to have the arrogance, to have the hubris to say that because your ego isn't being stroked enough, because you're not being recognized by your white or multi-ethnic brethren, your blackness, your sociocultural experiences,

Your narrative, your story isn't being acknowledged and recognized within the local church level is a reason for you to leave the church as if the church was about you? I mean, that's the height of arrogance here. When I look at, for instance, what Peter says here in Acts chapter 10, verse 34 and 35, Peter says, I most certainly understand that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation, a man who fears him and does what is right, welcome to him. That's every every every every believer is welcome to God. Now, now the church belongs. I think we need a reminder here that the church belongs to God, not to us, not to an individual.

The church belongs to God and to think that someone would have the arrogance to say, oh yeah, I'm leaving and you should get out. I'm getting out and you should get out to let's leave loud. I mean, how arrogant is that, how arrogant is that posture for someone, especially for someone who has no right to God's grace or mercy, but because God is gracious and merciful, has saved that person from an eternity in hell. I mean, what arrogance is that? Yeah. And, you know, I know that we all, all three of us get criticized of using critical race theory as a boogeyman that it's not anywhere in the church. This is just something I saw someone the other day say criticizing critical race theory is just a way to cover up for your Jim Crow evangelicalism, whatever that means. Well,

is a really great example of actually how the tenets of critical race theory, as you guys know, are dividing the church, seeing as everyone who has a certain melanin count in their skin as being on the side of the oppressed, everyone who has the melanin count of another kind in their skin being on the side of the oppressor. Therefore, the oppressor owes the oppressed. The oppressed is going to show the oppressor what they did wrong until the oppressor agrees to the terms that the so-called depressed people have laid out for them, then maybe I guess we can read some kind of reconciliation. I want to read a passage from Romans tomb that shows that critical race theory and the liberation theology that flows from it, this oppressed versus oppressor based on skin color,

and these categories of people, not based on what you've done, but based on what you look like, is not going to fly with God. It's not going to fly before the throne of God. And that's why, like we've said so many times, it's a different gospel. It's very similar to the passage that you just read in Acts, Darrell. This is Romans 2, 6 through 11. I think I can call it the elect standard version. Is that what you guys call it? So it says, verse 6, he will render each one, each one according to his works. To those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be at wrath and fear.

So those are the two categories that we've got. We don't see any other kind of categories. There will be a tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil to the Jew first and also to the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. And so we hear continually from social justice advocates that merit that the idea. have merit that rewarding people according to their works is actually racist in some ways because

you're not making up for these gaps. But that's exactly what we see will happen in eternity. So I think one of the consequences of CRT and liberation theology infiltrating the church is that you get black people being preached one gospel of, hey, you're oppressed and Jesus has come to liberate you. You get a message of repentance to white people. Hey, you've got to repent. for the sins of the past or whatever, and they both end up not getting the same gospel, and therefore there is actually no power. There's no taking down of the dividing wall of hostility because they're two different gospels.

They're both false gospels. They're both saying that they're going to bring each other together, but neither of them have the power to do that. It's a gospel of grievance and resentment that's only going to make that wall of hostility higher, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Go ahead, Bert.

I was just going to say, Allie, you alluded to the important verse of scripture in Ephesians chapter 2 versus 13. But now it says in Christ Jesus, you who are far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, not through critical race theory, not through social justice, not through intersectionality, not through a political movement. you've been brought near, you've been, you've been reconciled both to God the Father and to one another through the blood of Christ. That is the gospel. That's the gospel. Right, right. Yeah, see, Virgil, you're absolutely right. That is the gospel.

See, but what people like Kendi and other Liberations do, theologians do, they reduce what you, Allie and Virgil just talked about, Roman 6th and then Ephesians 2. They reduced that gospel to just another system of moralism. well, let's feed the poor, let's help the homeless, let's do this, let's do that. That's moralism. And moralism is not salvific. Moralism is not salvific, okay? And I fear that we have countless Christians, countless professing Christians in the church today, who really don't subscribe to a biblical gospel, as you both just alluded to in your respective passages that you just read.

But they subscribe to a moralistic gospel. where works are salvific. Works is the testament of being truly in Christ as opposed to being in Christ by faith, being in the church by faith, being saved by faith. You know, when you think about it, Allie, the gospel is a message of cosmic inequality. It is a message of cosmic inequality. And now I say that because not everybody's going to be saved. Not everyone, like Jesus himself said, not everyone who says to me, see, the liberation theory, would say to Jesus, well, Lord, every, every person who acknowledged you as Lord or who called

you Lord should be, should enter in the heaven. What's the problem? Aren't you, aren't you, aren't you a God of equality? Aren't you a God of equality? But just like you just read, Alley and Romans 6, no. The gospel itself is a message of cosmic inequality. Not everybody's going to be saved. And even in heaven, even in heaven, things won't be equal. Right. Right. That's something that I say a lot. And I would love for you to break that down a little bit, more because people get very perturbed when you say, look, there's actually no guarantee of equality of outcome in heaven. Of course, we're all going to be in heaven and we're all going to be in perfect peace and joy and all of that will be perfectly satisfied in Christ. But what do you

mean when you say there's not going to be equality in heaven? Well, to that person, I would just ask this question. Who's heaven is it? Who's heaven is it? I'm looking at Revelation 22, verse 9. But he said to me, do not, let me start in verse 8. I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship as the feet of the angel who showed me these things.

But he said to me, do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren, the prophets, and of those who heed the words of this book, worship God. Okay. Heaven is going to be a place where you worship God. okay you're you're you're you're we have we have let's listen equality has never been a biblical concept okay never that that idea is totally disintegrated by the by by virtue of the fact that there's god

and then there's us there's god and then there's not god okay so just intrinsic within that basic reality right there. We have inequality. So for someone to say, well, yeah, there's not going to be equality in heaven as if there should be. Okay. You're going to be in heaven. If you are going to be in heaven, you're going to be there solely by the grace and mercy of God and nothing else. Okay. So this conversation about where someone would get perturbed about there not being equality in heaven. It shouldn't even come up. Because again, you're going to be so busy worshiping God in your glorified state. Okay. equality won't even come across your mind. You're going to be so enthralled and engrossed with worshiping God in his heaven and by whom and only by whom your

presence is there to begin with. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Let me throw this into what what Darrell is saying because it amplifies the differences between the God of the Bible that Darrell is explaining and expressing the conditions of our worship of him, of our love for him, of how we interact with him. He is sovereign above all things. And as a result, we operate on that basis. It's his heaven. It's his church. He is Lord of all. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We operate from that vantage point. If you think about the social justice, God, the liberation theologians, God, that Kendi represented. Think about what he, what he represented. He either had Jesus as a revolutionary taking care of the oppressed. So really, he was beholden to man in man's

condition, or the other issue that he presented was a moralistic, therapeutic deist Jesus. So this is a Jesus that is only going to make you act right, right? He's going to, he's going to force you to act right. That was his framework for the Christian Jesus. In other words, he had no real idea about who the God of the Bible actually is or how the God of the Bible interacts with creation. And for someone like a Jamal Tisbee to make a decision to follow that kind of leadership is mind-blowing. But at the same time, it's incredibly revealing as well. that the direction that he's headed is not one leaning into orthodoxy, but away from orthodoxy. Excellent point, birds.

Yes, definitely. And as you're saying that, I'm thinking about critics will call us divisive for talking about this, and they'll call someone like Chamar Tisbee, who is encouraging people to leave their churches unifying. It's divisive to disagree, we're told, with this kind of divisive theology, with these kind of divisive ideologies. But we're told that it's actually racial reconciliation for Jamar Tisbee and for people to leave their predominantly white churches and to put some kind of burden on white Christians

that they don't place on themselves. There's a couple things I want to say, because you guys said so many good things. It's actually going back to something that Virgil said first, and then I'll go to something that Daryl said and kind of tie it together. that, and I don't even remember exactly what made me think about this, but I think it's important to realize when we're talking about that there's no guarantee of equality, that you can't guarantee equality of outcomes outside of tyranny, outside of injustice, outside of discriminating against one

group, as Thomas Soul talks about so much in Quest for Cosmic Justice. There's another book that he wrote that really just this phrase alone, the whole book was very eye-opening, but this phrase alone made me realize that, wow, this is, this misunderstanding is the subject of so many just fallacies when we're talking about systemic racism and things like that, that disparities do not equal discrimination. So people assume that a gap between, you know, white graduation rates and black graduation rates means that that is evidence of systemic discrimination or systemic racism. But that would be based on your definition, again, of. meaning equal outcomes rather than the equal opportunities or equal application of the law.

And what people say, when they point to those kinds of disparities to try to prove systemic discrimination between white Americans and black Americans, they almost always leave out that in all those categories comparing white and black Americans, there's Asian Americans over here that are doing better in all of those categories than white people are. So again, if the tenet of critical race theory is true, not just that America is systemically racist, but that it upholds white hegemony and white supremacy, that all of the systems are only made for white success, then the category of Asian people being successful really kind of throws a wrench into that. And that's just one example, just a practical example of how this idea of oppressed versus oppressor based on white versus black actually absolutely. is not just the gospel, but also your ability to see things rightly, and therefore your ability to define and apply justice and true equity because you can't see things as they really are.

You're trying to fit everything like the Atlanta shooter into your framework and make it about things that it's not because you have to. And that's what people just realize. CRT is an entire world view. It takes over everything you think. It's not just a philosophy. You can pick and choose from, right? Allie, I just want to say amen, amen, amen to everything you just said. You are reiterated some points that Virgin and I brought up in our three and a half hour episode on Critical Race Theory. Yes, it was really good.

And I really encourage people to go listen to it. Thank you. Yeah, Critical Race Theory, if they can get away with their presuppositions that they make, that's how they make their money. Because critical race theory is built upon because a presuppositional apologetic. And if they can get away with that, if they can keep you ignorant as to what the terms are that they use and what those terms mean, that's how they make their money. And that's how the churches are being sucked up into critical race theory because they don't know what is meant by the medacular and the terms that critical race theorists use. I mean, you look at what critical race theory argues, especially as it relates to what they call disparities, right?

Disparities. Let's take that word disparities, and what a critical race theory means by that. A critical race theory defines disparity, a difference as a disparity. Okay, every difference is a disparity. Now, let's say, for example, education aptitude, let's say GPA differences between black children and Asian children. Okay, they would say that what I would see is a difference, they would see it as a disparity. But when you look at how they use the word disparity,

there are intra-ethnic disparities. There are disparities within between black Americans. Disparities. Like Virgil just gave an example earlier. He's Virgil by height is shorter than I am. Is that a difference or is that a disparity? If it's a disparity, if it's a disparity, how are you going to give Virgil five extra inches of height?

Or are you going to take away from me five inches of height in order to make that equal? Right. You see, so as Christians, we have to remember what Jesus said. Jesus said, I am sending you out in the world as sheep among wolves. We have to stop pretending that there are no wolves out here. Right. You see, because under the guise of niceness, like I said, the Ligern Air Conference last week, niceness has become the sixth solo, almost, especially when we're reformed,

because we have six solas now. The sixth solo is niceness. So we've totally forgotten what Jesus himself said. He's sending you out among wolves. and we have to behave and prepare ourselves as if what Jesus said is still true because it is. Yeah, absolutely. Virgil, can you just kind of close us out, reminds people of what's true and also what they can do? Because a lot of times people hear these conversations and they just get discouraged.

They have friends that have fallen into this and they just, they don't know what they don't know what to do. They know what's true. Maybe they don't know how to articulate it or how to talk to their pastor about it. So just give some people some biblical. encouragement in the midst of all this craziness. Yeah. Well, again, I, first of all, again, thanks, Allie, for having us. We're always excited to join you. And so I know I speak for Dale and myself with regard to that.

I love the work that you're doing. I think Christians need to be armed with the gospel, with the message of the gospel, the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. The fact that Jesus came, lived a perfect life, died of death that he didn't deserve on a Roman cross and an effort to be the propitiation of Jesus of. our sins. He absorbed God's wrath for the purpose of us experiencing eternal life for those who would repent and place their faith in him. You want to talk about privilege? That's the greatest privilege that we can know, right? You want to talk about things being inequitable? That's inequity. The divine giving us an opportunity to have right relationship once again with him. That reconciliation

that he paid for not only reconciles us with God as if that weren't enough, and it is more than enough for eternity. What he paid for on a cross reconciles us one to another. We don't need critical race theory. We don't need intersectionality. We don't need social justice. We need to live out and to the point that Darrell has made, that I've made that we've talked about in this episode, Ali with you, and on numerous episodes of our podcast, what they need to understand is the full breath and depth of the gospel. The gospel's application doesn't just prepare you for heaven, but it also transforms you so that there's a sanctifying work that happens in the life of the believer so that we relate to one another differently. We see one another with the true lens of the

gospel, with the lens that God intends for us so that we treat one another with love, dignity, and respect as a result, not based upon someone's ethnic makeup, someone's the level of melanin in one's skin, but based upon the true nature of the manner in which God's created us. Amago Day. Yep. Yes, and amen. Daryl, do you have anything to add to that? No, I just want to thank you again, Allie, for having us on.

Thank you so much for being a courageous voice out there in a space like this. And again, I also want to echo something that Virgil said, you know, we need to remember what the gospel really is. What is the gospel about? The gospel is a message of salvation from sin. It is a message from God directly to us. that saves us from God. There's an irony there. God gives us this message of the gospel. It is a message of salvation from God, not from your circumstances.

Okay, that is not the gospel. So again, just again, Ali, thank you for having us on your blessing and congratulations on the upcoming birth of your second child. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to talk to us. I do encourage everyone to go out there and listen to you, listen to you guys' podcast, the Just Thinking podcast. They can follow along. They can follow you on Twitter. Sometimes y'all are getting into trouble on Twitter. And so if you like to get back and forth, you can follow both Virgil and Daryl for that.

Thank you guys so much.