Theology in the Raw - Live from Exiles25: Social Justice & the Gospel. Thaddeus Williams & Malcolm Foley

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Subscribe to Theology in the Raw on Patreon to instantly unlock Part 2 of this episode for FREE. You'll get to watch Malcolm and Thaddeus interact with questions from each other and our live audience! Just head to www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw and select “Join for Free” to watch now. For this first video, I invited Dr. Thaddeus Williams and Rev. Dr. Malcolm Foley to discuss and debate the role of social justice in the mission of the the Church. This took place at 2025 Exiles in Babylon Conference, hosted in Minneapolis April 3-5, 2025. Rev. Dr. Malcolm Foley serves as the Special Advisor to the President of Baylor University for Equity and Campus Engagement and as a pastor at Mosaic Waco, an intentionally multi-cultural, non-denominational church in Waco, TX. His book with Brazos Press, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money is the Root of Racism and How The Church Can Create a New Way Forward, argues that the only truly antiracist Christian communities are the ones that resist greed and exploitationThaddeus Williams (Ph.D., Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam) serves as tenured professor of theology for Biola University. He is also the author of the best-seller Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice. He has also taught Philosophy and Literature at Saddleback College, Jurisprudence at Trinity Law School, and as a lecturer in Worldview Studies at L’Abri Fellowships in Switzerland and Holland, and Ethics for Blackstone Legal Fellowship the Federalist Society in Washington D.C.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. What you're about to listen to is a recording of a session at last year's Exiles and Babylon Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This session was titled Social Justice of the Gospel, where we hosted a dialogical debate between two Christian scholars who overlap a bit in their perspective on social justice and the gospel and also disagree a bit on this topic. So the first speaker was Dr. Malcolm Foley, who is the special advisor to the president for equity and campus engagement at Baylor University. He has a PhD in religion from Baylor University and is the author of the book, The Anti-Greed

Gospel, Why the Love of Money is the root of racism and how the church can create a new way forward. The second speaker was Dr. Thaddeus Williams, who is an associate professor of theology at Talbot School of Theology. He has a PhD from Vri University in Amsterdam and is the author of several books, including Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth, 10 Questions Christians Should ask about social justice. So they each gave a opening talk and then they each gave a response to each other's talk. And then they sit on the couch and hash things out for a while, which is what we do at Exiles. So I hope you enjoy this episode.

All right, good morning officially. Welcome back to session two, social justice and the gospel. What is social justice and how is it related to the gospel? is social justice and how is it related to the gospel? Is this thing called social justice, is it like an intrinsic part of the gospel or is it subsidiary to the gospel? Like, can you say, Jesus is my Lord, and not commit on some level to pursuing social justice?

If you say, yes, you must pursue social justice as a Christian, is that adding to the gospel? Is this like, this is really good and important, but if you say it's part of the gospel, then now you're adding to the gospel. What is the gospel? And does it include this thing called social justice? These are the questions we're gonna spend

this morning wrestling with. The first part of this, there's kind of two parts to this session. The first part is a, what I call a dialogical debate with a capital D, dialogical, lowercase D debate. So much more of a dialogue around this issue from two brothers in Christ who I don't even know what, I don't even know what's gonna happen

in the next two hours, really, honestly. Like, all I know is these two brothers have been thinking about this question for a long time. I think there's gonna be some overlap in their perspective and also some differences. We'll see, I honestly don't know. All I know is both have written really incredible books on this topic.

So, well, let me introduce the speaker. So, Dr. Thaddeus Williams received his PhD from Vri Universitet. You're gonna pronounce this, but is it? Close enough, okay. He taught philosophy and literature at Saddleback College, jurisprudence at Trinity Law School, and as a lecturer in worldview studies

at Lebrie Fellowships in Switzerland and Holland, and ethics for Blackstone Legal Fellowship, the Federalist Society of Washington, D.C. You got a diverse rap sheet. Thaddeus is the author of this book forwarded by John Perkins, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth. 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice

by Dr. Thaddeus Williams. Would invite you to check that out. The next speaker is Dr. Malcolm Foley, PhD from Baylor University. Malcolm and I have done several things together over the last several months. I have known about him for a while. I first heard him speak live at a conference in Chicago

in September, we were both speaking at, and I remember hearing Malcolm speak and five minutes in my jaw was down and I'm like, I found my exile speaker. And I wanna be best friends with them. But Malcolm is the author of this recently released book, the Anti-Greed Gospel, Why the Love of Money is the Root of Racism

and How the Church Can create a new way forward would invite you to check this book out as well. So each one's gonna give a 15 minute talk, then they're gonna flip and give a 10 minute response. They're just gonna kind of go back and forth, back and forth. Then we're gonna get on the couch and have a fun dialogue. So please welcome to the stage, the one and only,

Dr. Thaddeus Williams. Good morning, Minnesota. It's a joy to be with you, to be worshiping with God's frozen chosen. I'm a California boy, so cold for me. I was telling my Uber driver when I flew out of Orange County, it was freezing. It was 60 degrees, 60 degrees.

Brutal, brutal. I don't even know if I can say frozen chosen, technically, because I know there's at least one open theist at the event, and so we'll see. Love you, Greg. All right, so Preston said that this is a, I think, dialogical debate. I'm glad because if it was a fashion debate,

I would immediately concede defeat because Malcolm, you are looking good, brother. You are looking good. But we're here to talk about social justice and the gospel and just pairing those words together, putting the word social next to the word justice is a lot like dumping Mentos into a Coke can. It's an explosive combination.

In fact, I was telling Malcolm backstage a few minutes ago that when my book can I get a copy of that up here? Just for some shameless self promotion. Thanks, brother. When confronting injustice came out on the same day as Zondervan and TGC dropped a Facebook blurb, a quote from the book basically saying, social justice is not optional for the Christian. And because the word social appeared next to the word justice, man oh man, the comment threads blew up.

Within the first 24 hours, I think I was called a Marxist at least 50 times. I was called, and then some people thought I was a neo-Nazi, and then some people called me a commie. Jan from Topeka thought that I was a social justice warrior snowflake. Bob from Ontario thought I was a fascist. So again, I recognize Malcolm and I are navigating a minefield here.

Now, let me just start getting into social justice and the gospel with a bit of personal backstory where I'm coming at in this issue. My amazing mother, Judy Williams, used to be on the board of the Indian Rescue Mission in Los Angeles. She, my whole childhood ran a ministry called Sunshine Outreach, Sun with an O.

And she took her model straight from the Old Testament from Ruth and the Gleaners. And so most of my childhood memories are in potato fields and strawberry fields and orange orchards, working alongside poor brothers and sisters, picking food so we had an excess to share around town. My earliest memories are heading south of the border into Tijuana and serving our brothers and sisters there.

And so I always had a sense that there's the gospel, the good news of Jesus. And of course that should spill over into action. Surely we have the kind of gospel that isn't about sit on our hands because hooray, we go to heaven when we die. It's bigger than that. And just to maybe give myself a little bit

of justice street cred for anybody who's looking at me askew thinking, is this one of those, you know, anti-justice guys, you just get to go to heaven when you die. I did get kicked out of a church. One of my proudest moments. My wife, Jocelyn and I were sitting in a big church down in Orange County and the pastor got up there and said as a Church we are just about the gospel We are just about the gospel so we don't want to waste our time with any listed things like poverty and stuff like that and I'm squirming in my seat my blood is boiling so afterwards I confront kindly as possible,

the pastor in the foyer. And I said, all due respect, I think the William Wilber forces of history and the Frederick Douglases of history and the Harriet Tubmans and Sojourner troops of history might think that the gospel has some more expansive implications. I was officially unwelcomed never to set foot

on the campus of that church again. So understand that there is a problem in Christendom in the 21st century of folks who say it's gospel and then that's it, end of story. I even asked the pastor if I wanted to say it's gospel and then that's it, end of story. I even asked the pastor if I wanted to do at the time I was running an organization called Abolition OC, which was fighting human trafficking. And just as a concrete example, I said, look,

if we were to use the facilities here to do a concert, to raise money, for 29 bucks, we could be able to pay for a raid on an Indian carpet loom and set some kids free. Is that something you'd be willing, you'd be open to? And he just without blinking said, nope, not the gospel. Yikes. Now, as we approach the question,

I think there's a man far wiser than me. I know he's a hero to many of you. He's a dear, dear friend of mine, a man I'm proud to count as a mentor. And that is the great living legend of the civil rights movement, John Perkins. And John has become a dear friend. There's a little bit of a generation gap with him.

I think he just celebrated his 93rd birthday. And so technology-wise, he'll call and FaceTime and he'll get to talk to John's chin for an hour or two. That's a lot of fun. But Perkins, I think he helps frame the whole conversation about justice, social justice and the gospel in a really helpful way. He says, through my 60 years of working for justice, social justice in the gospel in a really helpful way. He says, through my 60 years of working for justice, I offer four admonishments to the next generation

of justice seekers. He says, number one, start with God. Amen. Start with God. God is better than we can imagine. So we have to align ourselves with his purpose, his will, his mission to let justice roll down and bring forgiveness and love to everyone on earth. The problem of injustice, says Perkins, is a God-sized problem. If we don't start with him first, whatever we're seeking, it ain't justice. Second, says Perkins,

and this is so beautifully embodied in this room. It was last night, it is this morning. Be one in Christ. Christian brothers and sisters, says Brother John, black, white, brown, rich and poor, we are family, we are one blood. We are adopted by the same Father, saved by the same Son, filled with the same Spirit. And John 17, Jesus praised it, everyone who would believe in him, that people from every tongue tribe and nation would be one.

That oneness is how the world will know who Jesus is. If we give a foothold to any kind of tribalism that could tear down that unity, then we ain't bringing God's justice. Amen. that could tear down that unity, then we ain't bringing God's justice, amen? Amen. His third nugget. Third, says Brother Perkins, preach the gospel. The gospel of Jesus's incarnation, his perfect life,

his death as our substitute, and his triumph over sin and death, that's good news for everyone. It's multicultural good news. In the blood of Jesus, we're able to truly see ourselves as one race, one blood. We've got to stop playing, says Perkins, the race game. Christ alone can break down the barriers of prejudice

and hate we all struggle with. There's no power greater than God's love expressed in Jesus. And that's where we all find real human dignity. If we replace the gospel with this or that manmade political agenda, then we ain't doing biblical justice, amen? You guys are a little less enthusiastic about that one. Amen?

Amen. Fourth and finally, and this actually lines up with my brother, the Reverend Dr. Malcolm Foley, in his book that I've just been absolutely loving. I know Preston gave it a shout out. I showed Malcolm before. My copy is just all underlined exclamation points full of amens and a few holdups that you're gonna hear all about. We're gonna have a great time.

But the Reverend Dr. Malcolm Foley ends on we need to be prophetic truth tellers. And this is precisely where Dr. John Perkins lands. Fourth and finally, he says, teach the truth. Without truth, there can be no justice. That's exactly what Latasha Morrison said last night that was really powerful. If there isn't truth, there's no hope for us

unless we're telling the truth. It's not our feelings. What is truth? It's not our feelings. It's not popular opinion. It's not what feelings, what is truth? It's not our feelings, it's not popular opinion. It's not what presidents or politicians say. God's word is the standard of truth. So if we're trying harder to align

with the rising opinions of our day, then with the Bible, then we ain't doing real justice. Amen. So with Perkins framing our social justice and the gospel conversation, I wanna throw out something that I think is gonna help us have a conversation instead of what usually happens in the culture,

which is a shouting match. I describe in the book something called the Newman effect for reasons I won't go into. But the basic idea is I'm going to take somebody's position and I'm going to paint it in the most cartoonish, the most inflammatory, the most damnable light possible. And this is how our culture has conversations these days. Examples, let's go back to COVID, not really,

because that was terrible. But let's go back in our imaginations to COVID. So you had some folks in the culture, or in the church for that matter, saying, I think the lockdown orders save lives. I think that we should mask up. The Newman effect kicks in and the response is, oh, so you hate freedom

and you love totalitarian power grabs. And they're like, hold up, that's not where I'm coming from. Or put the shoe on the other foot. I think the lockdowns are a little bit Orwellian and I think maybe they actually aren't helping. I think maybe they're doing more damage than good. Newman effect kicks in, oh, so you just hate grandmas

and want more of them to drop dead. Right, I'm only slightly embellishing. This is kind of the way these conversations go. Or take another example. You know, I think racism is still a problem and the church should speak into that. Newman effect kicks in. Oh, so you're one of those Neo-Marxist critical race

theorists, you're one of those social justice warriors, or you're one of those snowflakes. Or put the shoe on the other foot. You know, I think maybe this or that example that's pointed to as racism, maybe there's some other things going on there. Maybe there's some deeper things going on and racism isn't the best explanation.

Newman effect kicks in, so you're in. So you're saying that you're basically the grand wizard of the KKK and you're a neo-Nazi fascist. Right? And so I'm saying this is the cultural moment we inhabit. I'm saying as Christians, we need to do better for some specific reasons. Because when we fall for the Newman effect, when we paint each other's positions

in the most damnable light possible, we are actually, there's a biblical word for it, sin. And it's a sin on at least three levels. It's a sin of slander. It's a sin of breaking one of the 10 commandments to not bear false witness. And it's breaking according to Jesus the second greatest commandment

to love our neighbors as ourselves. And so as Christians, we need to rise above the Newman effect. And so in that spirit, as we talk about social justice, I want to, I told Malcolm I was gonna do this before, but I wanna start with here's where we agree. Here's things that we can amen together as brothers in Christ.

Reverend Dr. Malcolm Foley believes that Jesus is about more than just getting individuals to heaven. I say Amen. Brother Malcolm says race is an artificial human invention, a social construct. I say Amen. Dr. Foley says that God believes that God commands not suggests justice. Amen. He believes the gospel has social implications, amen. He believes that God hates the exploitation of the poor, amen.

He says race was invented to mask greed, I say amen. He believes that racism and racial injustice still exists and is pernicious, I say amen. He thinks that Jesus calls us to urgently oppose and undermine racism, replacing it with love, solidarity, kindness, and truth, I say amen. He thinks we desperately need the power of the third person of the Trinity, the omnipotent Holy Spirit, in order to really fight greed and racism, I say amen. He says at the end of his book in the epilogue, he says he does not enjoy talking about race

any more than he enjoys talking or writing about violence. To that, having written the book, I can say a deep, deep amen. I was telling him before we came out here that having to research racism for several years, I can be vulnerable with you guys, having to research racism and violence and injustice to right confronting injustice, you could ask my wife, it sunk me into about a year and a half of deep depression. This is heavy.

But in lighter news, Brother Malcolm doesn't believe socialist central planning of the government is the solution to poverty. I say, amen. He rejects Gnostic Christianity that disembodies us and overlooks the material dimensions of love. Amen. He thinks love is tangibly expressed through material giving. Amen.

He thinks greed kills. Amen. He thinks systemic injustice is through material giving. Amen. He thinks greed kills. Amen. He thinks systemic injustice is a real thing. Amen. He thinks Satan is actively involved in systems of justice. I say, amen. He thinks paternalism is bad. Amen.

Now let me just close out my intro time here. You might be thinking, I thought you guys were supposed to debate and you're just kind of agreeing with everything. Let me just give you a couple truth bombs from my brother Malcolm Foley. He says, resistance to violence like resistance to greed should manifest in our preaching,

our practices and our politics. The scriptures calls to be personal, communal and cosmic peacemakers in union with the Prince of Peace. The people of God need to be encouraged regularly to live in such a way, to pursue peace in their families, peace in their communities, peace in their churches, and we can all say amen.

Amen, brother. There's so much more here. I wish I had more time. I'll wrap up here soon. Also from the pen in areas of social justice where we're gonna overlap, he says, the call to Christ is to do something new by the power of the Spirit,

not succumb to thinking that we must choose among only evil options. It's to follow the Spirit-filled imagination and consider whether we can create good option. We must flee from the logic that dictates violence as the only option and ask the Lord, what does it mean to create a community of love, non-violence, faith, and Christ-likeness

and invite people into that community? Can I get an amen? Amen. And finally, I have like 30 dog-eared pages here, but I'll just give one final mic drop moment. He says, with the almost overwhelming account of evil that we have seen, we must not forget that the light offered by the kingdom of God

is far more brilliant than anything the darkness can muster. While there is ample reason for despair, confusion, frustration, and burnout, the kingdom offers another way, a way of unquenchable joy and hope. Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again, and in the meantime, we battle the powers and principalities by the power of the Spirit. These powers will seek to wear us down, but listen to this, the God we serve will not let us lose. After all, the victory has already been won at the cross.

Amen? Some of my brothers and sisters in the black church have told me that a good way to embody an amen is to fan. And so I'm fanning you there, brother. You are fire. Oh man, okay. So no flowery intro for me. I'm just gonna jump, we'll just jump right into it.

So, Preston asked us to kind of address a few questions and I'm going to attempt to touch on each of them by beginning with some quotes from two people that you should not be used to hearing in the same paragraph. And those two people are Jesus and Margaret Thatcher. So first I wanna start with Jesus. I told folks yesterday and I tell folks anytime I speak, I kind of have one note.

In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6.24, Jesus says, you cannot serve two masters. You will either love one and hate the other or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon, which is the Aramaic word for money or riches. In this text, Jesus is reminding the people of God of something that God has told his people

for a very long time. He's telling them that economics change your soul. And quite frankly, brothers and sisters, evangelicals love to talk about culture all the time, culture, culture, culture. One of the most important elements of human culture is economics. The way that we use our resources

shapes the way that we think about each other and ourselves. And so one of the most important questions that we should ask of ourselves is, how am I serving, am I serving God or am I serving mammon? Margaret Thatcher, past Prime Minister of the UK, gave an interview in 1981 where she told the interviewer, for the last 30 years we've been moving toward a collectivist society. She didn't like that. She thought we needed to move towards a more individualistic one.

And so when she was asked how to do that, how to shift the national culture, how to shift the heart and soul of a nation, she said this, economics are the method, the object is to change the heart and soul. Economics are the method, the object is to change the heart and soul. I hold Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan responsible for the beginning of the encroachment of neoliberal capitalism,

the political economic project that has choked out the imagination of the church for now decades. We'll get there. Is social justice essential to the gospel? Well, being committed to justice, which is inevitably social, is central to what it means to be the people of God, and it's central to our understanding of the scriptures.

When God freed his people from Egypt, from material oppression, he wanted that experience to shape them and the way that they organized their own society. The people of God were called to be an attractive alternative to the nations. And one of the ways in which they were called to do that was in Deuteronomy 15,

in the example of the Jubilee and others, where they are given the blueprint for a just and redistributive economy. There are people who are told never to oppress, exploit or dominate one another because they knew what it was like to be enslaved. A commitment to social justice is an insistence on resisting all forms of material exploitation and domination because those are by definition social injustices.

That commitment is not an option. It is integral to what it means to be the people of God. And if that's what it is, I wanna give three big reasons why it's essential. And I hope that the theological content that I cram into these next 11 minutes will answer the other questions that one might have about this content.

So I'm not as interested in contrasting Christian social justice with other forms. What I'm interested in is calling the people of God to obey Jesus, which means committing to particular political economic realities. When the world sees the people of God doing that, they'll be attracted to it. They'll see, oh wait, this kingdom of God stuff seems a little different. Three points.

Social justice as an exercise in Christian hope, social justice as engagement in apocalyptic war, social justice as an outflow of Christology. First, a commitment to social justice as an exercise in Christian hope. Christian hope is not the hope that I or we will bring about comprehensive and lasting justice in the world. That is a false hope. You will not do that. You may grasp for political power and cultural influence because you're like, well, if I were in charge,

things would be better. You and I are not going to usher in the kingdom of God. The son of God has already brought it. And the son of God has promised to bring it. You see, committing to justice, committing to expending yourself for the material flourishing of your neighbor, when we do that, what we're doing is we're affirming

a faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You see, when you see your brother, sister, or neighbor suffering, the mercy that you show to them is you making the proclamation, things are not how they ought to be, but the Holy Spirit has enabled me to be an agent of the world that is to come. But many of us are blinded by other considerations

besides mercy. You see, neoliberal capitalism encourages us to see the poor as in their position because they have failed to take advantage of the system. They failed to work hard enough. They did something to deserve their suffering Well, what a commitment to Christ and his commands means is that I am deeply Enraptured by a vision of a future where every tear has been wiped away where all domination and exploitation has ceased and where inequality has been eradicated and

That future hope this sure hope that we have, necessarily plays its way out in the way that we act today. It's in view of that future that I expend myself for my neighbor now. Christian hope demands that we serve the material needs of our neighbors, brothers, sisters, and enemies now, because hope requires acts of love. And love is, according to the scriptures, material investment in the well-being of the person whom you claim to love, whether it's your neighbor, brother, sister, or enemy. If you want the text, you gotta have the text.

This has to be driven by the text. 1 John 3, 16. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. Therefore, we ought to lay down our lives for one another. If any one of you has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need and has no pity on them,

how can you say that the love of God is in you? If you witness or are party to the political domination or economic exploitation of your neighbor and you do nothing, how can you say that the love of God is in you? A proper living out of Christian hope is to commit yourself materially to the flourishing of your needy neighbors, the poor, the widow, the immigrant, those who have been dominated, those who have been exploited, all of them.

Second, commitment to social justice is also an act of apocalyptic war. We do not battle against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities This means that living a life of obedience to Christ, which I'll remind you is all that matters Requires that you understand what it is that we're up against We are up against the cosmic powers of sin death the devil and as and as Jesus names in Matthew and Luke, mammon. When we seek the material good of our neighbors, we are not just up against the greedy and the power hungry. We are not just also at risk of being the greedy and the power hungry.

We are also up against mammon and death. And this is why the battle for justice is so hard and why people get tired and why people even in the church debate about whether or not it's necessary. Quite frankly, and maybe this is controversial. I'm going to say it anyway. There is no way to read through the scriptures with any kind of integrity and come away from it without thinking that God requires of his people a consistent commitment to the flourishing of the poor and the needy as a basic ethical commitment. It's why the people of God are sent into exile,

for goodness sake. It's idolatry and their oppression of the poor. The prophets repeat it over and over again, your idolatry and your oppression of the poor. Amos 2.6. This is what the Lord says, for three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent. They sell the innocent for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor

as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name. They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their God, they drink wine taken as fines. Brothers and sisters, we are up against cosmic powers of darkness.

Mammon and death would prefer that we sit idly by while our neighbors are economically exploited and killed by unjust domination. To be committed to building just communities is to battle the principalities and powers by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lastly, a commitment to social justice is the outflow of an orthodox Christology. mythology, the Son of God took on flesh in order to share everything that he has with us. In an economy that encourages us to be first and foremost producers and consumers, encouraging

us to hoard for ourselves, the Gospel, through the example and sacrifice of Christ, through the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit, and by the command of the Father, teaches us to be sharers. If we truly believed that to be true, the Christian Church would not have been a powerful institution advocating for the continuation of racialized chattel slavery. If we truly believed that to be true, the Christian church would not be a powerful set of institutions supporting warmongering nations. If we truly believed that to be true,

we would be building communities that seek to comprehensively eject domination and exploitation from our midst, and then that commitment would overflow into us fighting to eject it from our neighborhoods. and would overflow into us fighting to eject it from our neighborhoods. Christ, in his perfect life, death, resurrection, and ascension has given us precisely what we need to build actually just communities,

communities without need. One of our most important material commitments is supposed to be to actually do that building. You see brothers and sisters, the Christian resists all forms of killing, of exploitation, and of domination because of a very particular political commitment. That is, a commitment to a particular polis or city and a commitment to a particular polis or city and a commitment to a particular basileus or kingdom. We are committed to the priorities of the city of God.

We are committed to the priorities of the kingdom of God. And the thing about that city and that kingdom is that they are free of injustice in all of its forms. We will not see injustice dealt with comprehensively in this life, but that must never stop us from fighting for it by the power of the Holy Spirit and with the priorities that the triune God has set for us. Now, I got three minutes, which means I can do this other thing that I wanted to do, which

is deal with a particular phrase that always comes up in the conversations about social justice, which is that this commitment is an implication of the gospel. I don't like that language. I really don't like that language. I really don't like that language. Because it sounds like you've gotta do work to get from the gospel to a commitment to justice. As though Jesus did not tell us over and over again that what it means to love him is to do what he says. that what it means to love him is to do what he says and

One of the things that he constantly tells us to do is to be committed to the poor and the needy Like it's not it's not just like extra step that I've got to take to get to these implications Like if I think about a fully developed doctrine of the Trinity, like there are elements of that that like I've got to work out, like I've got to bring a whole bunch of stuff together to work out this doctrine. There's nothing I got to put together to work out to get a commitment to the poor and the need. Like it's just, it's right there. It's right there. And so, and so so and so it's why I like like I just the language of implicate. I just don't know it's it's in there It's in there if you are joined like my and this is my thing and then I'll sit down and we'll we'll do our

We'll have our dialogue. I might not even do a response. I just wanna get the couch so we can just have this conversation But but but but I but I want us to understand that to be united to Christ is to share his priorities. And if there is, and mystical union with Christ is my like, is my doctrinal obsession. And part of it is, and a significant part of it is if I'm gonna be united to this Lord, this Lord whom I love so much because He loves me so much,

then that means I've gotta be committed to the things that He's committed to. And one of the main things, and we see this even in the Incarnation, is that one of His main commitments is to the suffering and to the needy. And if I'm gonna claim his name, I've gotta claim that commitment.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So instead of turning the entire session into just a commercial for Malcolm's book I Mentioned, you know, we I gave about two dozen amens

But I did say this is a dialogical debate after all that there's some pushback and so I Want to sort of paint a big picture here that by making social justice essential to the Christian life I would say we're being biblical. God does not suggest, he commands that we do justice time and time again in the text. But making social justice, and obviously that's a loaded term and we'll unpack some of the

disparate meanings of that, part of the gospel is a different question. Is it essential to the Christian life? Yes, amen. Is it essential to obeying Jesus? Yes, amen. Is it essential to the oon-ga-leon, the good news? That's a good question. Here's my concern. If we take social justice and then we bake into those terms,

certain political implications, certain economic implications, and we turn out to be off base on some of those, and we turn out to be off base on some of those, then we have now tainted the gospel itself. And so I believe that Christianity has a lot to say about capitalism. I believe Christianity has a lot to say about socialism. I think there's a lot of problems with these views. But if I christen my understanding of economic policy and what helps the poor best as gospel,

and I turn out to be off base on some of my critiques, I have now taken the best news in the universe and compromised it. And I think that's a really, really big problem. If we hitch a social justice vision to the gospel, and that social justice vision has holes in its tires, we're gonna be slowing down the progress of the best news in the universe.

So let me get specific here. A couple, after all the amens I've said, here's a couple holdup moments. Think of these statements, these statements directly from the pen of Brother Malcolm. He says, the kingdom calls us to default not to judgment, but to charity and to love. I say, amen. He says, we must distance ourselves from and discourage lies and slander. I say amen.

Preston last night said that's part of the ethos of exiles in Babylon is to not be slanderous of one another. Brother Foley says, prejudging others without knowing them is wrong. He warns us about stories we tell ourselves to justify evil. Let me give some examples of this. Those people are slaves because they are savages, subhuman, less than, who only want boos, they're not thrifty, they're ignorant.

So some of the thinking that Dr. Foley exposes coming from Atticus Hague in the lynching era to try to justify that viciousness. Or take this claim, that poor man is poor because he's lazy or unintelligent or just wants to mooch off the welfare system. I would say when we're claiming here to have x-ray vision into people's true motives and then we indict those motives, we're playing God. We're slandering, we're bearing false witness, we're failing to love our neighbor. How about this one? That immigrant is here illegally because they want to rape and murder.

That Marxist is Marxist because he's envious, hates the rich, and wants to set up a totalitarian state. Or those Jews are well off because they are evil, imperialistic, lying, conniving, murderous, greedy oppressors. You see the problem, if I take any of those issues and I'm now claiming here's your real motive, not only am I slandering, bearing false witness and breaking the second greatest commandment to love my neighbor as myself,

I'm also violating the fundamental creator creature distinction by pretending I have omniscience into people's hearts. And I know their true motives. I know what really makes them tick. That's dangerous. So now let's put the shoe on the other foot. What would we say of an ideology

that takes someone's economic status and claims they reached it due to an inherent moral flaw? I think we would say that's a problem. We'll take this statement. think we would say that's a problem. Well, take this statement. That rich person is rich because he's greedy. And just wants to exploit his neighbor to stockpile more and more for himself.

Is that statement true? I'm sure in many cases, but in some cases, maybe not, and in some cases, definitely not. And if we're wrong about that statement, we make such sweeping indictments of other people's motives, we sin, we slander, and we should take that seriously. So what if the whole objection against, say, neoliberal capitalism or the indictments of wealth

rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of how free markets work. The false assumption that wealth is a zero sum game, that wealth is a baked pie. It's the size it is. If I want a bigger piece for myself, I gotta force you to eat a smaller piece. What if that's just not the way markets work?

You see, in the Bible, the indictments against the poor were written to a zero sum, or excuse me, the indictments against the wealthy were written in a zero sum agrarian culture, where more often than not the only way to get rich was by taking somebody else's pie. It was not a capitalist, it was not a free market society. And so there was an assumption that was safe to make then that if you're rich, you got it by exploiting the poor. That's not necessarily true today.

In many cases, tragically it is, and we should fight that, but it's not necessarily true today. What do I mean? But we could ask the question, do free markets require certain virtues? Put it this way, if I wanna be greedy to my core, and I'm in a capitalist society, something crazy happens. I cannot accumulate, accumulate, accumulate

unless I find something that other people, that serves other people. In a socialist context like Cuba or Venezuela, if you want more, you take it through force. In free markets, if I want to get get more I have to provide a good and service to others. According to an economist Deirdre McCloskey she says parents, partners, children, friends, cousins, pets, we buy and sell for each other all day long. Something like half the marketed portion of national income is gotten on behalf of

someone else. Did you catch that? Half of the national income is gotten not for selfish gain, not for greed, but for someone else. The market has widened the opportunities for caring, says McCloskey. She continues, she says, look how far capitalism, let me be crystal clear, I am not saying capitalism is the gospel or part of the gospel or an implication of the gospel.

My whole position is that the gospel is such sacred news that it transcends these other swaffles about politics and economics, and that's essential to keep that distinction because if I'm wrong about capitalism or wrong about socialism, now I take the gospel. That's the problem. So how far has capitalism, which is not the gospel,

brought us in two centuries, asks McCloskey. The grocer is made better off by the sale of a loaf of bread. So is the woman who earns eight bucks an hour at Starbucks spending it on four loaves of bread. The grocer then spends his profit maybe on a cappuccino at Starbucks. In any case, he is better off. So is she.

The bread buyer is to or she would not freely buy the loaves. So are the owners of the Starbucks and accepting her offer to work for eight bucks an hour. And so is she in offering it. So are the customers enjoying their cappuccinos. So exchange in a capitalist market is what economists call mutually beneficial. Mainstream economists, therefore, cannot make sense of the Marxist claim

that exchange is exploitation. If you wanna dive deeper into this, I encourage you. It's all free on YouTube. You can watch the poverty cure videos. It's a fascinating series put out by the Acton Institute that shows how free markets have lifted the world out of abject poverty in a profound way. And so let me just close. I got less than eight seconds here. So I'm gonna speak like the micro machine man as fast as humanly possible. Brothers and sisters, the gospel is so precious.

Something Paul calls us to contend for, something so precious that Paul called down curses on anyone who would add to it. Something he was willing to face the cat of nine tails, the vicious mobs, the lonesome prisons, and ultimately Nero's lost his head to Nero to preach faithfully and defend from all distortion. So if we add social justice to the gospel, and if our vision of social justice has some holes in it,

or it's even possibly wrong, then we've compromised the best news in the universe. Now, when I critique, Brother Malcolm's critique or understanding of capitalism is fundamentally greedy and fundamentally zero sum, I want to be wrong. I want to be wrong. I want to be wrong. If I'm totally wrong in my critiques of Dr. Foley's vision of social justice, good, great, I hope so. And the gospel is intact. But I think on just a few of the points I've

highlighted, I'm probably right. But even if I'm only possibly right on any of the objections I've highlighted, I'm probably right. But even if I'm only possibly right on any of the objections I've made, then we've possibly lost the best news in the history of the universe. So if we adopt a vision of social justice that has any holes in it, then fuse it to the gospel, we put holes in the gospel. If there are any falsehoods in our social vision and we marry that vision to the gospel, then we compromise the truest truth there is. We have a hard enough time with just the 10 commandments, so let's not go adding an 11th commandment, thou shalt be anti-capitalist. And essentials, unity, and non-essentials, liberty. If we make anti-capitalism essential to the gospel, then we haven't really allowed liberty in non-essentials. I think you can have socialists and capitalists

and different stripes saved by the same Jesus like we saw this morning, worshiping the same God, we're adopted by the same Father, inhabited by the same Spirit. And I think it becomes unnecessarily divisive when we add a social justice vision into the gospel, it gives us room to anathematize each other.

The Judaizers added circumcision and dietary restrictions to the gospel of our Lord Jesus. It was the finished work of Christ plus these actions, that's the gospel. Dear brothers and sisters, my final thought here, let us not fall into the lethal trap of saying the gospel is the finished work of Jesus plus combating racial capitalism as much as we should.

It's Jesus plus dismantling free markets. Jesus plus undermining neoliberalism or advocating Christian socialism or in the other direction we must never say the gospel of is Jesus plus free market capitalism or Jesus plus a growing economic pyre, Jesus plus anything. We are not saved by any political or economic theory, red or blue. Salvation comes not through a Republican elephant or a Democratic donkey, the kingdom comes

through a crucified lamb who sits on the throne now and forevermore. Thank you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.

God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. Oh, I'm so glad, so glad that just happened. As one point, I don't mean to add being anti-capitalist as an 11th commandment.

I see it as a faithful expression of the other ten. So I'm going to be very, very brief here because I want us to get to the couch. I am also not interested, so one of the things, I think I say this in the book, if not I've just said it podcasts like we're not the goal is not to overthrow global neoliberal capitalism I don't like that. The world is gonna do what the world does As I said yesterday You know the the beast the apocalyptic beast is gonna do apocalyptic beast things but the responsibility of the people of

God is to be the church. And what continues to be compelling to me is the story of the church in Acts 2 and Acts 4, that immediately after the Holy Spirit descends on the people of God, they're marked by four things. Devotion to the Apostles teaching, prayer, the breaking of bread, and the fellowship, koinonia. The word koinonia is variably translated sharing, fellowship, partnership, participation. But the question is like what are they sharing? They're sharing their material goods. In chapter 4 we're told that God's grace was so powerfully at work among them that there were no needy people in their midst. Not because they kicked the needy out, but because they recognized that everything they had, just as a note, not because they kicked the needy out, But because everyone recognized everything that they had as meant to be shared. And so

when somebody had need and came into their community, they shared with them to meet those needs. And one of the things that I want to talk about when I talk about kind of the way that our particular political economy shapes the way that we imagine ourselves and our goods and one another is that it constantly tells us like this is mine to do with it as I want and what God tells us is like actually all this stuff is mine meant for my purposes and one of my purposes is that you share So so so my so even the suggestion so even the kind of suggestions that I give in the book with strong language our suggestions that I give for the church I

Come like this is what I with this with this This is how God wants the people of God to look because the fact of the matter is is that the window when the people of God look this way It's not a judgment on the fact of the matter is that when the people of God look this way, it's not a judgment on the rest of the world, it's an invitation to them. It's an invitation to like, hey, like you're used to being in a position, like you're used to being in a world where people's decisions are driven by greed,

that is mammon worship. Look, we're investing in the building of a community where that's not true. of the Lord do the work that He seeks to do among His people. That's all I'm going to say right now because I want us to get to the couch. So thank you. If you would like to listen to the lengthy couch conversation between Thaddeus and Malcolm, then just head over to patreon.com forward slash theology into raw, or just click on the link in the show notes and become a free member of the theology in the raw community. You don't need to enter a credit card or anything. You can simply sign up with no strings attached. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash theologyandaraw. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.