Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 90 | The Gospel of Grievance

Episode Date: March 25, 2019

First, AG Barr's summary of the Mueller report. Then: race, gender, socioeconomic status, and the divisive Gospel of Grievance that all Christians should avoid.   Copyright Blaze Media All Rights Reserved.

What is up, guys? Happy Monday. Welcome to Relatable. My name is Ali Suckie. Thank you so much for listening. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Okay, those of you who are listening to this are listening to a section of today's episode that is not on YouTube, that is not on Blaze TV. And the reason for that is last night, on Sunday night, I had to record a kind of bonus opening segment for this podcast that is different than the one that I recorded on Friday to be released today this morning. on Monday. And the reason for that is because Attorney General Barr released his summary of the Mueller report. In case you don't know, in case you've been living under some kind of rock for the past two years, which honestly, if you have, I don't blame you at all. There has been an investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump and the Trump campaign to see whether or not they colluded with the Russian government to win Trump the election. The investigation also looked into whether or not Trump obstructed justice. Okay, here's what we know.

What we have found out from William Barr, according to his summary, is that there was no evidence whatsoever of President Trump or anyone associated with his campaign colluding with Russia to win the election. This is a quote from the summary. The special counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states, this is a quote now from the report, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government

in its election interference activities. They also found that, yes, the Russian government, this is something that we already knew. The Russian government did succeed in interfering with our elections, they leaked particular emails from the Democratic side to WikiLeaks and to other organizations that were then disseminated. And members of the Russian government have been charged with those crimes. However, what we found is that no one from the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia. And that should be a good thing for all Americans to finally have peace about. It would be very scary to know that the person that has held the highest office in all of the world that he coordinated with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election. And we found

out that that is not true. That's good. We also found out in this report that there was not sufficient evidence to say that Trump obstructed justice. So that's also a great thing. Unfortunately, you have a lot of people on the left who for the past two years have been getting all of their clicks, all of their attention, and all of their affirmation from spinning this Russian collusion narrative. I mean, they have reported on this thing like it is the gospel truth. Like they know for sure that Trump stole this election from Hillary Clinton because he coordinated with the Russian government to make it happen. And we have found through the special counsel investigation, at least from what we can read from Attorney General Barr's summary,

that that did not happen or else they weren't able to find that that happened. And we know that this was an extremely lengthy and extremely thorough. And as far as we know, we know, know an extremely fact-based investigation into that matter. I mean, you had the left hailing Mueller as a hero ever since he has been appointed as special counsel. And unfortunately, for them, their narrative has completely unraveled. Now, do you see them saying, wow, this is, you know, this is not what, this is not what we thought. This is, you know, completely different than what we've reported on. And we apologize for stating things. as if they were factual before we knew everything.

Of course not. You're not going to see that. We saw this same kind of media malfeasance when it came to Kavanaugh, when it came to the Jesse, when it came to the Jesse Smollett thing, when it came to Covington, they start with a conclusion that they want to be true and they back up from there.

And so you can expect over the next few days for the media to do that same thing, for them to say, oh, well, does this really prove everything? I mean, you're already seen it. You're already seeing it from people on the left saying, we need to see the full report. Well, it says, in Attorney General Barr's summary

that he is trying to release the full report but has to go through an entire process to make sure that certain things are redacted that have to legally remain confidential. But we are going to see, I'm guessing more of the report, but Democrats are going to say, this doesn't mean anything.

Attorney General Barr is biased. No. I mean, that's just not likely. It's not likely that he's going to put out a completely unfactual and biased summary of Robert Mueller's report. Or else he would, would be in hot water. Someone would probably speak up from the inside and say, whoa, whoa, whoa,

that's not what the report said at all. He's not going to get away with making statements that are completely contradictory to what Robert Mueller said. And so Democrats are just wasting their time, hoping that this is going to eventually turn out to be something that works in the favor of their narrative. It's just not. Now, they are still going to talk about, okay, the Southern District of New York, there could be indictments coming there. And yeah, maybe so. But as far as the Russia, collusion narrative that they have been pushing since 2016. I mean, that's over. It's just over.

I mean, they've been wanting to say forever that Trump is an illegitimate president because of these alleged crimes that they said actually happened. And they're not able to say that. I don't even know what they're going to talk about anymore. They'll find something. But really, what are they going to talk about after Trump leaves office? I honestly do not know. But I just wanted to give you an update on that before we get into the rest of what we're talking about today.

We are not talking about anything in particular like that. In the news, we're going to kind of talk about something that is more big picture in politics and culture. And, of course, get into theology because that is what Mondays are for. So without further ado, here is the original episode that I had had planned and prepared for you guys. So the gospel of grievance, here's the narrative that we hear. around it, that if you are less privileged, you are owed something by those who are perceived as more privileged. So white people, oh, black people and Native Americans, a men, oh, women, the rich, oh, the poor. We also hear, in addition to that, that the citizen owes the immigrant,

especially the illegal immigrant, even sometimes we hear nowadays that the law abider owes the criminal. This is called what we've talked about many times. intersectionality or what I like to call the oppression Olympics. So anyone who has had traditional or systemic privilege or who is perceived to have traditional or systemic privilege owes the person who has not had those things. In race, that's how we get this case for something called racial reparations. In gender, that is how we get the case for feminism. In poverty, that is how we get the case for socialism. And it's from this gospel of grievance that we get social justice. Social justice is built on this idea that the privileged owe the oppressed. The problem, though, as we've talked about,

many times, especially over the last couple weeks, the problem with social justice is that it is impossible to truly understand who collectively has been oppressed, who hasn't, how much is someone owed, how much someone owes them, who owes them, and how that transaction will actually impact the people on both sides of the equation and just society at large. That is why the economist Thomas Sol calls social justice, cosmic justice, because it is striving for something that is cosmic rather than is something that is tangible. It's striving for this incalculable outcome that typically disadvantages one group in favor of the group that is deemed oppressed. An example of this is illegal immigration.

So many social justicians, not all, but especially social justicians on the left would say, we need to let illegal immigrants in because they're fleeing war. They're fleeing drug. They're fleeing a drug war. They're fleeing oppression. They are fleeing all of these terrible things. And the compassionate thing to do is to let them in. Well, okay, that's one side of the equation or that's one part of it.

We let them in because it seems like the right or compassionate thing to do. but the question that we have to ask is, what is on the other side of that equation? Who else has impacted on this? And the questions that people do not really want to ask on the social justice side is, okay, well, what happens practically to the sovereignty of a country who has no borders, pretty much?

What does that do to our ability to keep people safe? What impact does that have on the people who have been waited in line to become legal citizens for years? What does that do to the countries from which these people are fleeing. How does this impact everyone else? What is the other side of this equation? They don't want to ask these questions

simply because they want to say this is the right and compassionate thing to do for those who haven't been as oppressed or who the perception is that they haven't been as oppressed that citizens of the United States and people in the United States they need to help those who have been oppressed and that is the citizens of other countries

who are fleeing here. This is called the gospel of grievance that says, you owe something to me, no matter what, if you don't have the disadvantages that I or even my ancestors have had, then you owe me what you have been given, what you have. It is also known as the politics of grievance, but we are going to examine why Christians in particular have fallen into this trap and are wielding it from their pulpits. So the three topics that we see most covered by this gospel of grievance or these politics of grievance is race, gender,

and poverty. So in race, as we said, we see this in the form of advocacy for racial reparations. Here is the Democratic candidate for president, Elizabeth Warren, saying that we should have a national conversation about reparations from slavery. We live in a world where, for the average white family has $100. The average black family has about $5. So I believe it's time. to start the national, full-blown conversation about reparations in this country. We've also heard Kamala Harris talk about this. You've heard Corey Booker talk about forms of this. So let's talk about what reparations are since apparently they are such a hot topic. You're probably thinking, wait, slavery happened a couple hundred years ago. Why are we still talking about this?

Well, there's a reason for it. First, let's look at what reparations are. I do want to give a shout out to the Just Thinking podcast. I had Daryl Harrison, a co-host of the Just Thinking podcast along with Virgil Walker. He came on the podcast a couple weeks ago, or was it, yeah, a couple weeks ago to talk about wokeness in the church and how that's really damaging the holiness of the church. And they had a great podcast last week on racial reparations, what racial reparations are and why they are unbiblical. So I would highly encourage you go listen to that, to that to get a thorough examination, what

it is. I really love their perspective on it. But in case you haven't listened to the podcast, you're not going to. I'll give you just a rundown of what it is. It's basically the idea that the U.S. government, specifically through white taxpayers, should financially compensate black people in the country for what they have lost over the centuries because of slavery. So we today, we today, white people, should pay for the sins of our great, great grandparents, they say. Derek Hamilton is the executive director of the Kerwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State. And he says that racial reparations really is comprised of three parts. And that is acknowledgement, restitution, and reconciliation.

So that means that the country needs to acknowledge slavery and the material disadvantages that resulted from it over the centuries. So the fact that blacks were discriminated against individually and systemically discriminated against as well. And they need to be paid restitution. And then there needs to be some form of a formal reconciliation. So if you ask them, why do you believe this or why should black people in this country get racial reparations? They would say, well, a free black labor created wealth for this country and helped build the nation. And black people have not been compensated for that. And so they need to for the years that they worked for free and suffered under the hands of slave owners, they should be paid for that. And there was actually a plan for this after the slaves were

emancipated to give the formerly enslaved 40 acres and a mule. You might have heard that phrase before. That happened under President Lincoln. Then, of course, President Lincoln was assassinated. Andrew Johnson became president and then reversed that order. Just a little aside, Lincoln was a Republican and Johnson was a Democrat. Like, I just want to remind people of that. to Nehese Coates, I think that's how you say his name. Of course, he's a very famous writer. He wrote this article for the Atlantic, I believe it was in 2015, called a case for reparations. And that kind of broke the internet. It went viral. A lot of people were talking about this. And he basically outlined the systemic racism that still exists in our country or that he believes still exists

in our country and why the U.S. government should pay through essentially white taxpayers should pay for reparations to the black community. They argue, look, reparations have happened before. They obviously happened in Germany when Germany paid reparations to Holocaust survivors until 2012. America paid reparations to those involved in the Tuskegee experiment. The government paid money to survivors of the Japanese internment camps. They also say that the only reason the government doesn't want to give reparations to black

people is because they won't handle the money responsibly. There is this stereotype that says, oh, they'll just go out and buy these Cadillacs. And I am hearing this from people who, from black people who are advocating from reparations. They say that there is a stereotype from white people in the U.S. government that says that black people won't be able to handle this money responsibly. And they think that's the only reason why people won't hop on board for reparations. But that's not the case. The fact of the matter is, is that no one alive today, was a slave. No one alive today owned slaves, not in the United States anyway. Now, this happens elsewhere throughout the world. Sex slavery still exists. That is an industry worth billions of dollars

and indentured servitude still exist in other countries. But in the United States today, there is no one that has ever been a slave and there is no one who owns slaves. And so, this argument that Germany paid Holocaust survivors, that we paid survivors of the Japanese internment camps and their families, these are examples of paying directly the victims. This is not saying that we are going to pay people that descended maybe from slaves. The examples of reparations that are typically listed by those who advocate for reparations for slavery today was payment to people who actually were directly impacted by the kinds of oppression that solicited these reparations. That is not true today. And the argument that all of the wealth and the education and the property

ownership disparities between black people and white people goes back to slavery is not without its criticism. It's not foolproof. Thomas Sol makes this case in Quest for Cosmic Justice. He says it really wasn't until the 1960s that the black family started to disintegrate and you started seeing these huge gaps that you see today. You can't necessarily trace it all the. the way back to slavery. That's what Thomas Sol says. And there are a lot of questions about reparations from white people to black people, from the U.S. government to black people that really go unanswered that you don't hear people who advocate for reparations talk about. Why? Because social justice isn't justice and it never examines the other side of the equation. But here are the practical

questions that you have to ask when it comes to reparations. What about the black people in America today whose ancestors were not here during the time of slavery? What about first or second generation black immigrants. Did they get reparations? They weren't affected by the American slave trade. Same with white families. What about the first and second and even third generation white people whose families were not here during the American slave trade? What about them? Do they have to pay reparations? What about the white people who have suffered generations of poverty, who have been disadvantaged themselves? Did they have to pay reparations? What about wealthy, successful black families? Do they get reparations? You're telling me that a middle-class

white family needs to pay reparations to Kanye West? Does Barack Obama get reparations? Does Beyonce get reparations? What about black people who owed and sold slaves in America? His story in Joel Rogers says that free black people in this country bought and sold other black people and did so at least since 1654, continuing to do so right through the Civil War. Another historians have black people own slaves in each of the 13 original states and later in every state that countenanced slavery. So how do we find the ancestors of those people? Do those people need to pay reparations to other black people who descended from slaves? Native Americans own slaves. Should Native Americans pay reparations? I don't know how to answer any of those questions

that I'm not sure anyone who advocates for reparations does either. But this is the problem. with collectivist ideologies like that that we see on the left. Viewing people as racial groups rather than as individuals causes problems. But social justicians and those who advocate for intersectionality always view people as collective groups. When the fact of the matter is that there are oppressed white people, they're not oppressed black people, or there are poor white people and wealthy black people. And it doesn't make sense to just say that all white people should pay black people for

something that happened 200 years ago. And we're not even sure the exact effects that it has on people today. Now, can we look back at slavery and say that that was atrocious? Absolutely. Can we say that that was a stain on our history? Absolutely. Can we say that there are lots of stains on American history where we marginalize a certain person or a certain kind of people just because they were different? Totally. And should we have compassion when we're talking about that? Yes. But when we talk about reparations, people paying for the sins of people who existed, who lived 200 years ago, and we can't even really trace back any of our ancestry to find out who came from slave owners and who didn't definitively. I mean, I guess you have ancestry DNA and things like that,

but are you going to do that for every single person in America to make sure that people are getting compensated correctly? I don't think so. And the question still remains, is this going to help? Will this actually create equality? Because that's what they say that this is going to do, that it's going to put black people on the same playing field as white people. But will it? I mean, there's really no evidence whatsoever that financial compensation will create equality. There's none. Welfare has not made anyone rich. It's not given anyone an opportunity. Sending foreign aid, for example, has never brought a country out of poverty. But we don't talk about the practicalities in the world of social justice and intersectionality. The only question is,

in the gospel of grievance, and the politics of grievance is, when do I get what I? I'm owed. And this is what I'm owed and this is the calculation that I use because I'm a part of an oppressed group. I'm a woman. And so I should get something from men. And what anyone is owed is based on, as we can see, a completely subjective opinion with lots of factual holes in it. But it doesn't matter. So the second way we see the gospel of grievance manifested nowadays is through gender and specifically through the conduit of feminism. So we see this narrative, especially since the whole Me Too movement started. And I've talked about the Me Too movement, the goods and the bads of it. There are good parts of the Me Too movement, but there are also really damaging parts to the Me Too movement. And one of them is

this, that, hey, men should take a back seat. They should get out of places of power. Men should be quiet. They should stop mansplaining. They should really put women forward. they should allow women to to take the front lines. And we should be giving women these parts in Hollywood. We should be giving women these roles. We should make sure that we have a woman VP. We should make sure that we are diversifying gender-wise all of our areas and all of our spheres of influence because women need to be given more power and men kind of need to take a step back.

Somewhere you see this is California. They passed a law that says that all publicly owned companies must have the same number of women on their boards as men. Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, he said that he was going to have an equal number of women in his cabinet as men. You also heard this throughout the cabinet all thing that we need to believe all women.

Why? Because all women naturally tell the truth? No, of course not, but because they are women, because they have been traditionally oppressed. So we need to believe all women. We obviously hear this through the rhetoric of the gender pay gap, that women make 79 cents on a dollar to every, every man and that needs to change. The government needs to do something about that. I guess in addition

to the Equal Pay Act that has already passed, they say that the government needs to step in and make sure that women are getting paid just as much. They never talk about, they always talk about that black women are making even less than white women and other minorities are making even less the white women. They never cite the fact that Asian women make more than white women. I mean, when do I get to collect my impression points for being a white woman that doesn't make as much as Asian women. What the heck? But no, that's not really how it works in the world of intersectionality. But the whole gender pay gap is a lie anyway. We've talked about this, the uncontrolled gap versus the controlled gap. The uncontrolled gap is 79 cents to every dollar that a man makes. But you know

why women make 79 cents to every dollar that a man makes in the uncontrolled gap? Because the uncontrolled gap does not account for how much this woman works, what her title is. And is, what her background is, what her education is, how much overtime she dies. It is just the average woman worker to the average man worker. And guess what? The average man puts in more hours, puts in more overtime, takes less time off than a woman does. And typically, typically is able to, is willing to work longer hours and work harder to

move his way up to provide for his family or to provide for himself. there's just a different kind of ambition in general, not always, but in general among men than there are among women. Most women are okay with going home early to take care of their families or to not work as much because they want to do something else. That's just not true of men. The controlled gap, when you account for job title, when you account for hours worked, when you account for education, when you account for background, there is no gap. There is no gap. Men and women make the exact same in this country. You know what that tells us is that there is no systemic sexism in this country. That doesn't mean that sexism doesn't exist. That doesn't mean that bad guys don't exist.

Men are always going to be stronger than women. And so you're always going to see this problem of men using their physical power against women, unfortunately, because people are sinful fallen beings. And should we speak up about that? Absolutely. But this idea that in the workforce or in the government, there is sanctioned sexism is just not true. And, yet you get this cry of there there needs to be there needs to be something there needs to be restitution men need to pay reparations in a way by taking a step back so women can take a step forward um you hear this and saying that women should get paid the same as men in sports uh even though women aren't as good of athletes as men are in general and so they're not getting as much

revenue because not as many people are watching female sports because they're not as interesting to watch and so yeah women are not going to get paid as much as men do but you say They say, no, this is equality. This is what has to happen in the social justice world. The same thing with abortion. Abortion is how feminists think that women will gain full equality. Because if a man can physically walk away from a pregnancy, a woman should be able to physically walk away from a pregnancy too.

So that is part of trying to gain this kind of absolute sameness with a ma'am. You see this also through the feminizing of men. There was a story recently out of Santa. California, this middle school had an LGBT fair without parents' knowledge, without parents' consent, and the Family Research Council reported that drag queens were present, giving makeup lessons to 11-year-old boys. And the thought is, among some feminists and among a lot of people on the left, is that if we can degrade as much as possible what it means to make men, to make men men, then men men and women will be equal. It's what we've talked about before, equality through homogeneity.

can make men and women basically the same. If we can take away what makes men masculine, what makes them physically stronger, what makes them more aggressive, then we'll just have this amorphous blob of genderless comrades who are all equal because there's no difference. So they're trying to manipulate biology to fit their social views. And we already see how this social justice equation isn't working out very well. So in an effort to make all genders the same same. You've opened up the door for boys, transgender girls, boys who identify as girls, to play female sports and dominate. We have seen this in headlines almost every week over the past few months, if not over the past couple of years, wrestling track, et cetera. You see these transgender

girls, aka boys who have more testosterone, better bone density and more muscle mass and better anaerobic capacity beating girls in all of these sports because boys and girls are different. and no matter how you try to manipulate the social aspect of it, you're never going to be able to change biology. So we're already seeing how this other side of the social justice equation is inherently unjust and not just to men, but also to women who now don't even have a distinct identity or space to be a woman. But again, in this intersectional social justice world, the only people that matter are the most oppressed. And women are above on the intersection. and oppression Olympics totem pole.

They are above transgender people in the oppression and in the oppression hierarchy. And so, unfortunately, women are the ones who kind of get, who get jaded in all of this. But it's just another example that social justice is not justice. So the third way that we see this gospel of grievance or the politics of grievance is in poverty. And we've heard about this a lot recently with Bernie Sanders, with AOC, with all these people coming out and saying that they're a proud democratic socialist. Yeah, we see it through the redistribution of wealth. We see it in AOC's Green New Deal, where she said that she is

going to provide economic security for those who are unwilling to work. We did a whole podcast episode on this, the demonization of excellence, this idea that if you are the best at something, if you have done well at something, then you must be an oppressor. There must be something inherently bad about you. And there's this glorification of mediocrity. There's a glorification of laziness on the left. Not that all people who are poor or lazy. I don't think that's true at all. A lot of people do fall in hard times. They've worked really hard. But unfortunately, things have happened or they've had to take care of a sick relative or whatever it is. And they're in a tough position that I'm not saying that all people who are in poverty are lazy. But there certainly is a condoning of laziness in this

gospel of grievance that says you should not have to work for what you have. People who have something, they should give it to you. And it is the spirit of entitlement that we see that is so endemic on the socialist left in the gospel of grievance as it pertains to poverty. Now, the three things, or the three things that we just talked about have one thing in common. And that is this idea of the equality of outcome. In America, we don't guarantee the equality of outcome. We guarantee the equality of opportunity that anyone can take an opportunity that they are willing to work for. So in this way, you have unlimited potential to be as successful as you want to be. But equality of outcome, equality of outcome that we all end up at the same place, not that we all have

opportunities that we're willing to work for, but that we all end up at the same place. that is what the left sees as fair. That's what social justice see as fair, that we all have to end up in the same place. And if people don't end up in the same place, it must be a signal that discrimination is happening. It must be a symbol of injustice. That's not true.

That's not true. People end up in the same place because life is not always fair and because people make different choices. But the left doesn't want to think that the choices that you make actually have real consequences that could end you up at a difference. spot than someone else. They want equality of outcome, which really guarantees equality of mediocrity, not equality of success, a equality of mediocrity. So no matter how hard you work,

you will always be limited by the money and the power that you have to give the government so that they can redistribute that to those who don't have as much as you do. And equality of outcome sounds really great to people who don't want to work. As we've said, AOC and others think that it's totally fine if people are unwilling to work. But for anyone who has a bit of ambition, anyone who has a little bit of drive, anyone who has a little bit of work ethic and a little bit of human dignity, you realize that you're being punished for having all of those things. Not to mention, you're being punished for the color of your skin if you're white or your gender if you're male. This is the left's warped view of what it means to have a fair and righteous society via social justice and intersectionality that we have to put down the groups that are seen as privileged and lift up the group. groups that are seen as oppressed.

Ignore the individuals who break away from their stereotypes and just view people as these collections, no matter how, no matter how inaccurate that stereotype of that collection is. I mean, this is the exact opposite of what Martin Luther King Jr. said that he wanted, that he fought for, judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of your skin. Now people are only being judged by the color of their skin, by the superficial. qualities that the left says have led to oppression. Many Christians have fallen into that. Why? Because they feel guilty. And it sounds compassionate. It sounds sympathetic. It sounds like something that

Jesus would have fought for. We're fighting for the least of these. But that is not to be found in the Bible. And we'll get into that. You hear a lot of Christians using the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19 to make the case for reparations. And it says after Zekees, or this is after Zichias had been forgiven, after Zakias stood up and said to the Lord, look, Lord, here and now, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount. But let's distinguish what's happening here. Zikaas did this freely without coercion. The government did not demand this restitution. He gave charitably to the poor and the people he paid back where people he specifically cheated.

The left loves to say separation of church and state when it comes to things like marriage, when it comes to things like abortion, when it comes to things like morality, but insists that the government should be like the early church described in the gospels where everyone shared everything. But the difference is the early church gave what they had to each other freely, not by coercion.

Acts 245, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. But here's what 2 Corinthians 9-7 says. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. The early church gave to each other out of the goodness of their heart, charitably and cheerfully because the Holy Spirit compelled them to do so, compelled them to love selflessly.

That is not what is happening through reparations. that is not what is happening when people demand that the government demand that other people pay money to those who are oppressed. So saying that the government or that the United States should be like the early church, well, that just is not going to happen. Those things are completely paradoxical because you are stealing money from people who earned it themselves and giving it to someone else who did not earn it. That is not what the early church was about.

And that's not to say that taxes shouldn't be there necessarily. We are supposed to give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but there's not a Christian argument for socialism, for equality of outcome. You don't see that basis anywhere in the Bible. And it's obvious when you know how much suffering that these ideologies have caused throughout history, communism and socialism seek to make all people the same. They are called comrade. They seek sameness or they seek equality through sameness.

but that doesn't work. People are different. People have conflicts. People compete. People have different abilities and different efforts. There can never, there can never be equality of outcome without tyranny. Do you hear me? There can never, ever be equality of outcome without tyranny. In a tyrannical government, you know who's going to be the first to be cracked down on. It's going to be Christians. We are the number one target of religious harassment around the world. Christians and people of all religions, of all religions flourish the most in free societies in which all people, regardless of race or creed, can reap what they sow. But leftists nowadays want people to reap without sewing. If you want to reap without sewing, you know what that's called? That's called laziness.

And you know what the Bible has to say about laziness? Let's talk about what the Bible says about all of this and what this means for people who are Christians. The Bible says about laziness. Proverbs 1915, slothfulness cast into a deep sleep and an idle person will suffer hunger. Proverbs 10, 4, a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. There was a time. There was a time when hard work did not equal fair treatment in this country for black people and for women, but that time is no more. That does not exist today, not systemically.

And so you know what is in all of this and this advocacy for irresponsibility. and for laziness and for other people paying something that they don't actually know. You know what's in all of this in this gospel of grievance is covetousness. And you know what the Bible says about covetousness? There's this thing called the 10th commandment, Exodus 2017. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbors.

So if you are a Christian, oh, by the way, by the way, that is the biblical foundation for private property. Socialism, communism wants to confiscate private property. So again, not biblical. But if you are a Christian, what are you supposed to do if you do have a legitimate grievance against someone, if someone has done something to you, if someone has specifically oppressed you or treated you unfairly? Well, let's see you what 1st Corinthians 6 1 through 3 says. When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints that's you and me who are Christians will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?

Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more than matters pertaining to this life? There is nothing in there that says that we need to go to the government to get them to coerce people into financial restitution for the sins of our ancestors. All of this, all it does, all of this creates. bitterness and resentment against people you perceived as more privileged than you. What does the Bible say about bitterness? It says in Ephesians 431,

let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. This also creates racial and gender and socioeconomic divides in the body of Christ where there should be none. Galatians 327 through 29. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free.

There is no male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring. Ayers according to promise. That is it. That is our identity. Our identity is in Christ. And this is how, amidst the gospel and the politics of grievance that we see

so endemic in our society. This is how Christians are called to act should handle all forms of conflict with love. First Corinthians 13, 4 through 6. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Here's another thing that we know as Christians, you are not responsible for the sins of someone else. Now, the sense of someone else might have consequences on your life. The sins of your parents, the sins of your grandparents might have consequences on your life. The sins of other people might have consequences on your life. But you are not responsible for those sins. You don't ask forgiveness for those sins are personal.

Salvation is personal. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. So here's the bottom line. Social justice is a lie. Intersectionality is a lie. the politics of division and the gospel of grievance have no place in the Christian life. It creates in you an attitude that is not grateful, that is not joyful, that is not charitable, that is not generous, that is not anything close to the fruit of the spirit. It is not Christ-like, and it will hold you back, if this is even proper theological terminology, not sure that it is, from sanctification because you are caught in a trap of bitterness. and that is true for all of us.

All of us, no matter what your race is, no matter what your gender is, no matter what your socioeconomic statuses, all of us have the temptation to be caught in a trap of bitterness. I certainly have thought about what I am owed and what I deserve and what that person should give me the recognition that I deserve, that that person got something and I didn't and that's not fair. All of us get caught in that, but life isn't fair. The fair comes once a year and you can get it.

fried Oreos at it. It's great. But fairness of this kind, of equality of outcome does not exist in real life. And it is not just because it disadvantages the people that you see as privileged who in actuality are not. This is why Lady Justice is blind. She's not supposed to see a color or gender or socioeconomic status. She weighs facts and she determines guilt and innocence. That is the metaphor that we should look to when we try to understand what justice should be. And it's okay. for Christians to fight for that and to advocate for that kind of system. If there is systemic injustice, we do find ways to push back against it. There have been Christian abolitionists, Christian civil rights leaders, Christians who have

fought for the recognition of the value of women, Christians who have made sure that the poor are being treated fairly, fairly represented in the justice system. Christians who fight against abortion. We do these things in love and we fight for just outcomes, actual just outcomes. We don't look to push down people that we see as less suppresses the other people. That's not how justice works. And that is why I am a conservative because I see the individuals are able to help other individuals and allow them to be free.

The government can't do that. When I give to the poor, when I give to a clinic that helps women in crisis, I am not pushing down another group to lift another group up. I am giving out of a compelling of the Holy Spirit out of the goodness of my heart that was given to me by the Holy Spirit. It is freely. It is cheerfully. It is joyfully.

It is out of generosity. No one is hurt by that giving. That's the kind of giving that the Lord wants. The social justice stuff doesn't make any sense because as we've said so many times, it is not just. The gospel is the opposite of intersectionality. It is the opposite of the gospel of grievance. And I do fear Christians that have kind of gotten to this guilt trap of thinking that in order

to really love someone, they have to believe in reparations. They have to believe in feminism. They have to believe in socialism. That's a lie from the pit of hell. You want justice. You want people to be taken care of. You want people to be valued. You do it.

Don't demand that other people pay the government for them to do it. Bureaucracy is not compassionate. It never has been. The government does not have the ability to show true compassion. But you do. don't be a lazy Christian. Really, the only reason why people like socialism is because it makes them feel good about themselves without having to do anything.

Same thing with racial reparations. So that's it. That's the gospel of grievance. And I hope that I have equipped you with some good thoughts and maybe some good tools to push back against this when you see this in everyday life because you're going to. And also it's a challenge for you and me as individuals not to feel. feel this crazy idea that really comes from Satan that we deserve something. We don't. Everything that we have is a gift of common grace. And everything that we've been given is from

the Lord. And our attitude should be one of joy and it should be one of gratitude and it should be one of contentment. And I have to personally push back against the temptation to be bitter against other people that I think owe me, because that is not what the gospel has freed me toward. So I hope that you'll have a great Monday, and I will see you back here on Wednesday. So I hope that you'll have a great Monday, and I will see you back here on Wednesday for our news episode.