Repost: Biblical Justice vs. Social Justice | Voddie Baucham

YouTube Transcript

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amen all right well
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let’s uh let’s get started here it’s been very interesting trying to put
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this session together particularly because as you uh just heard i have a book coming out
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on this topic so trying to deal with this in in one session i’ve yeah okay all right
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but we need to deal with this question of of social justice and uh biblical justice and really this
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this this concept that has become um so common and so familiar among us and
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still is often not very well understood
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nobel prize winning economist friedrich hayek once said i have come to feel strongly
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that the greatest service i can still render to my fellow men would be that i could make the speakers and
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writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term
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social justice
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and i could not agree more with that sentiment i think it’s a term that we
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need to avoid to any and every
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degree that we can and i think it’s a term that we
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don’t get um one of my all-time favorite
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uh movie characters is enygo montoya
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and if you don’t know who he is you might need to go reevaluate your
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faith and watch the princess bride
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but diego montoya has this famous line you keep on using that word
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i do not think it means what you think it means
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and i think for many christians that’s true when it comes to the idea of social justice we we
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keep on using that word but i i don’t think it means what we think it means
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and and most people who use it they mean well but we need to understand that the term
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social justice the concept of social justice is a concept that has a very specific
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and well-defined meaning and my desire and my intent here is not
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to build a straw man and say you know he here’s what social justice means and pour my
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own meaning into it no what i intend to do is to allow those who have defined
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this term to do so for themselves
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so when i’m talking about social justice i’m not talking about a version of it that i’m
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presenting i’m not talking about a version of it that i want to sort of you know narrowly define and as negative
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a way as i possibly can i want us to understand this term and
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this concept from the perspective of those who have developed it and who
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have written thousands upon thousands upon thousands of pages
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and articles and books on the topic it’s a well defined
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concept and what is the meaning of this matter it matters because god demands justice
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it matters because injustice is sin and if social justice is truly justice
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then anything that does not align with it is sin
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and this is why the term is incredibly problematic and this is why so many of us fall prey
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to it because we know that god demands justice amen micah chapter six
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verses one through eight hear what the lord says arise plead your case before the
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mountains and let the hills hear your voice hear you mountains the indictment
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of the lord and your enduring foundations of the earth for the lord has an indictment against
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his people and he will contend with israel o my people what have i done
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to you how have i wearied you answer me for i brought you up from the land of
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egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery and i set before you moses aaron and
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miriam oh my people remember what bala king of moab devised
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and what balaam the son of baar answered him and what happened from shateem to gilgal
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that you may know the righteous acts of the lord
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with what shall we come before the lord and bow or with what shall i come before the
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lord and by my bow myself before god on high shall i come before him with burnt offerings with calves
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a year old will the lord be pleased with thousands of rams with ten thousands of rivers of oil
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shall i give my firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul
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he has told you o man what is good and what does the lord require of you
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but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your
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god justice is not optional god
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demands justice from his people and so it is imperative
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that we understand what justice is because injustice is sin amen
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so it’s imperative that we be clear about this and that’s why as people sort of throw out this
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terminology and this ideology of social justice it’s important for us to understand what
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it is because if social justice is justice and injustice is sin then we
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must be about the business of social justice but what
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does social justice mean kevin deyoung wrote social justice is a
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nebulous term unassailable to some and arousing suspicion
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in others and i understand what what he means by that in terms of the way we use the
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term in common parlance however as i’ve said before
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the concept of social justice is very clear and completely and
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utterly unambiguous we know exactly what it means
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oxford dictionary of the english language social justice it’s a noun
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chiefly politics and philosophy justice at the level of a society or state
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as regards the possession of wealth commodities opportunities and
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privileges and it says see distributive justice
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again this is not me this is the oxford dictionary of the english language
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and it says social justice is distributive justice
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it’s distributive justice and specifically in politics and philosophy
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it’s justice at the level of a society or a state as regards possession of wealth
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commodities opportunities and privileges that’s what social justice
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means that’s not what i say social justice means that’s what the oxford dictionary of the english
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language says social justice means i’m not building a straw man
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there’s a lot of academic literature that lays out and defines social justice
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william young academic social science and social justice he writes
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while often an amorphous term social justice has evolved to generally mean state redistribution of advantages
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and resources to disadvantaged groups to satisfy their rights
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and social and economic equality
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social justice is state redistribution that’s what
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social justice means state redistribution it is not a
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heart issue from a biblical perspective justice is a heart issue
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and a law of god issue amen it is a heart issue and a law of god
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issue if the law of god says this and you do that it is unjust
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if the law of god says this and your heart goes toward that it is unjust
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social justice by definition is not a heart issue it’s a state issue
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and it’s about state redistribution and redistribution again advantages and resources
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disadvantaged groups social justice is not about individuals
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it’s about groups it’s another very important distinction it’s not about
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individuals it’s about groups and outcomes for groups
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in teaching for diversity and social justice by the way these uh are these these books and and
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academic papers that i’m referencing um these are and if any of you are have
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gotten a degree specifically in education um that’s probably the area where
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these things would be most common or in what’s commonly referred to as the grievance studies um if you’re doing
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ethnic studies african american studies chicano studies feminist studies queer studies gay and lesbian studies
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you know all of these yes you can get a degree in all these things by the way um if you’re doing any of these then then
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then these these books these papers these articles they’re they’re mainstays
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in those disciplines and also in political science if you will um so teaching for diversity and social
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justice an analysis of how power privilege and
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depression impact our experience of our social identities
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let me just run back over that sentence and again this is academia
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so social justice is an analysis of how power privilege and oppression
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impact our experience of our social identities
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not the reality of our social identities but the experience of our social
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identities what you will find by the way is that in many of these academic disciplines
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there’s there’s not much academia at all
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in fact i’ll give you a prime example of this the seminal paper on white privilege
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is peggy mcintosh’s paper of 1989 that she published um white privilege unpacking the
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invisible knapsack right and the the idea um
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was put forth long before macintosh but that’s the article that that really
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everybody goes to and refers to when they’re talking about the concept of white privilege
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there’s not a single footnote in her paper
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there’s not one source in her paper
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it is purely observational that’s all that’s all
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and it’s the foundation for the academic understanding today of the concept
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of white privilege so again an analysis of how power
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privilege and depression impact our experience of our social identities
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full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to
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meet their needs to meet the needs of whom groups
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social justice includes a vision of society in which the distribution of resources is equitable
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now there’s a difference between equality and equity we’ll talk about that and all members of a space community
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or institution or society are physically and psychologically safe and secure
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again these are academic sources okay i’m not defining social justice
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i’m allowing these sources themselves to define social justice here’s a
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warning a stark warning about social justice
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this is from new discourses which i’d recommend to you highly
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social justice by the way this is a little bit lengthy but i think worth
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it social justice is the ultimate trojan horse term where it seems to mean one good thing
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as most people understand it social justice a more fair and equal society but actually means
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something else that something else is very specific and most people if they knew what they were encountering
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would be unlikely to accept it the idea advertised by the phrase social
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justice doesn’t match the ideology and worldview bearing the seemingly identical name
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it continues social justice means something more specific it means critical social justice and i
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believe i i told you yesterday about that term critical social justice um and this term is used
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this term critical social justice is not just used by opponents of social justice um robyn
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d’angelo if you know anything about social justice you know that name robert niegelo most famous for
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her book white fragility but also in her book with sensoi her book is everybody equal which
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is used in a lot of schools of education um they make it clear that they are referring to critical
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social justice and they use that terminology because they want to connect their understanding to critical theory and
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critical race theory and intersectionality so they use critical social justice in
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order to be clear that they are referring to social justice as it relates to the literature to the
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long-standing academic literature about social justice
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this is in fact an ideology that very aggressively pursues the social cultural
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institutional and political installation and enforcement of a very specific and
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radical understanding of social justice as derived from various critical theories
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and their specific analyses of socially constructed dynamics
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of systems of power as such they do not necessarily seek to achieve
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social justice in the broad sense or the sense that many people would assume
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of the term instead they seek to empower and enforce their particular worldview
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that revolves around one narrow and authoritarian interpretation of the concept
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you keep on using that term i do not think it means what you think
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it means and this is why hayek says
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he wishes he could use all of his energies and efforts to make the writers and speakers
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that he could influence ashamed to use the term
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social justice all right what about the mission of social justice
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part of us understanding the difference between justice writ large
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um and and social justice this concept of social justice
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uh is to understand that what what the mission of social justice
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is because our mission of justice as christians for example
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as christians if if we’re following what the bible requires of us injustice what is our mission
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our mission is to align ourselves with the law of god amen that that’s our mission in justice
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is to see to it that things align with what thus saith the lord um that’s
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that’s not that’s not the mission of social justice um in fact in order to understand the
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mission of social justice you have to understand um a couple of concepts
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and when you understand these concepts when you understand that they’re talking about critical theory
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and critical race theory and intersectionality um and when you understand the roots of
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these concepts then you then you discover something very interesting as it relates to
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biblical justice and how social justice is inherently
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incompatible with biblical justice for example um the idea of critical social justice
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the idea of critical theory critical race theory intersectionality
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these terms uh are part of a very long line of ideas and ideology
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we go back for example to karl marx and marx’s concept of conflict theory
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and conflict theory from marx basically was his way of explaining
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um sociology and the relationships between people and marx really saw at bottom uh
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the the root of relationships between people as a conflict over limited resources
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so the whole idea of the bourgeois and the proletariat the whole idea of the haves and the
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have-nots this whole idea of marxism versus capitalism right
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it’s rooted and grounded in conflict theory later on the frankfurt school develops
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this idea and we and we get to to to critical theory
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which again the critical part of critical social justice
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this comes to us by way of a guy by the name of antonio gramsci gramsci was an italian marxist and
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gramsci is part of a he’s part of this bridge gramsci looks at for example i mean
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marxism was supposed to spread uh by way of revolution
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right the revolution was supposed to come and we see the bolshevik revolution but we don’t see revolutions after that
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we don’t we don’t see the proletariat uprising all around the world overthrowing capitalism what’s
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wrong and so gramsci um this italian marxist who you know is in prison in his prison
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notebooks he’s thinking through this whole idea obviously there’s something that is keeping people from
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seeing how evil capitalism is and they’re not overthrowing capitalism and gramsci comes up with this idea of
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of hegemony hegemony is this this concept of
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there’s a there’s a ruling group in in a culture and in society and they
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establish the rules of the game and they establish the rules of the game
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in order to benefit themselves and those like them and to oppress
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all other groups of individuals this power structure this power struggle
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oppressors and depressed based upon what groups you belong to
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we see the whole idea being really brought forth and manifested in critical theory through the frankfurt school
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and eventually through the institutions and even studies and things like this
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now what does all of that have to do with this idea of social justice well when you get into the literature
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here’s what you discover that the hegemony today if you look for
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example at america generally we think about the oppressor oppressed paradigm
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this very marxist paradigm this this paradigm that says you divide
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all the world and all reality into oppressors and the oppressed
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and for most people if you say okay well in america if you’re thinking in those terms oppressor and oppressed
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who would the oppressor be
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right somebody say rich people somebody say white people okay um that that’s that’s that’s part
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of it but according to critical social justice
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the the hegemony in america the oppressor class in america
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is white male heterosexual cisgendered able-bodied
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native-born christian
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now there’s several others that make the list right and most people have heard of white
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privilege and you heard a male privilege in fact macintosh in her paper on white privilege
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she’s coming at this from uh the the feminist studies perspective and
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dealing with male privilege and equating male privilege with white privilege okay so most people heard of white
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privilege and male privilege but they haven’t heard of christian privilege and you may think i’m a christian
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privilege that’s of course that’s something that you’re making up no um absolutely not
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in the literature and readings for diversity and social justice for example christian privilege is identified
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as a major source of oppression and western culture in general and in
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american culture in particular christian privilege is as evil as white
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privilege christianity is the oppressor
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so if christianity is the oppressor
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and social justice is about alleviating the
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oppression then social justice has to be
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opposed to what christianity
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it’s absolutely necessary for social justice to be opposed to
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christianity but chris because christianity in this culture
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is a major and for some people the major means of oppression
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okay all right let’s continue to look here at
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the the mission of social justice this is from joe fagan as i see it social justice
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requires resource equity now equity and equality
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different things remember we talked about so equality has to do with people being viewed
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equally and treated equally under the law okay that’s equality that’s not
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equity equity is about outcomes
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equity is about outcomes equality says regardless of who you are
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regardless of where you come from regardless of the color of your skin regardless of any of those things you
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are viewed the same under the law and you are given the same opportunities
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that’s equality social justice is not about equality social justice is about
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equity so equality would say we are going to you know we we’re going
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to have uh entrance exams and we’re going to take the best students
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equity says you know we looked at our entrance exams
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and when we look at our entrance exams we end up with a less than representative
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group of individuals that’s not equity so we have to continue
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to add factors until we end up with
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equity not equality
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and so both harvard and yale for example right now are being sued
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because of their admission policies why
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because those admission policies discriminate against asians
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because the ivy leagues are noticing that they have too many asians
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that’s where equity gets you
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that’s where equity gets you so as i see it social justice requires
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resource equity fairness and respect for diversity as well as the eradication
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of existing forms of social oppression by the way christianity is an existing form of social oppression
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social justice entails a redistribution of resources from those who have unjustly gained them
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to those who justly deserve them and it also means creating and ensuring the processes of
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truly democratic participation in decision making it seems clear that only a decisive
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redistribution of resources and decision-making power can ensure social justice and authentic
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democracy you keep on using that word
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i do not think it means what you think it means
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so what is this mission first identify
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disadvantaged groups there’s a there’s a there’s a holy
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trinity of social justice diversity equity and inclusion it’s the
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holy trinity of social justice diversity equity and inclusion diversity has to do with
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identifying these disparate groups um and they continue to multiply
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i mean it makes sense that these groups would multiply especially when there are advantages
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that you know advantages to to be gained by belonging to these particular
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groups equity we’ve already talked about right equity has to do with
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outcomes and then inclusion is the way that we
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pursue the inclusion of all of the diverse groups and whatever the thing is that we’re doing so first
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identification of disadvantaged groups and by the way if white
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male heterosexual cisgendered able-bodied native-born uh christian so on and so forth if this
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is the hegemony if this is the oppressor um then
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then who who are the oppressed if white is oppressor non-white is the
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oppressed male is the oppressor non-male is the oppressed
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heterosexual is the oppressor non-heterosexual is the oppressed cisgendered is the oppressor
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non-cisgendered is the oppressed you follow and so on and so on and so on
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okay so what diversity does is diversity looks at all of these
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identifies as many of these groups as possible and says okay
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our goal is to have the inclusion of as many of these groups as we
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possibly can by the way this is where intersectionality comes in because intersectionality um is really
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the idea that you multiply oppression to the degree that you multiply
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participation in oppressed groups so if if a black man
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is oppressed a black female is doubly oppressed because she has two
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intersections of oppression well if she’s a black female
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transgender now she adds a third intersection of oppression if she’s
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black female transgendered not able-bodied
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do you see so here’s here’s here’s where intersections come in
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where this gets interesting is that intersectionality is of great
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benefit to those pursuing the holy trinity of diversity equity and inclusion
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here’s why i can either try to find one member of 10 15
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20 groups
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or i can get multiple points in one fell swoop
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by getting somebody who’s a member of multiple groups
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i’ll leave you to your imagination with that one
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so first identify these disadvantaged groups secondly
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assess group outcomes group outcomes thirdly
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assign blame for disparate outcomes if we see disparate outcomes we have to
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assign blame and then finally
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redistribu uh redistribute power and resources to redress those
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grievances that’s the mission of social
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justice that is that is not the mission of biblical justice
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that is antithetical to the to the mission of of biblical justice
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what are the top social justice issues i’m just going to give you a few examples here
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social work today they had an article several years ago identifying the top social justice
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issues number one celebrating diversity number two child welfare welfare
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number three health care reform number four poverty and economic injustice and number five affordable housing those
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were the top five issues maryville university had their own list number one climate change or climate
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justice have you noticed that used to be global warming now it’s not global
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warming it’s climate change and now we’ve moved
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from global warming to climate change to now climate justice
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now climate justice is a form of social justice social justice has to do with
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redistribution what does climate justice have to do with
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redistribution on a global level
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so number one climate justice number two racial equity racial equity not equality equity
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equity has to do with outcomes number three lgbtq plus rights
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and number four affordable health care we see affordable health care again yeshiva university what does yeshiva
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university’s list look like number one justice two healthcare three
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refugee crisis four racial justice five income gaps
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six gun violence seven hunger and food insecurity
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and eight equity beginning to see a pattern here
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education for justice this is a long list we’ll just end with
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that with their list again for most christians and when most christians get sucked into the social
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justice movement they usually think about one area and one area alone and they think about think about race
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you think about race as christians we love the brethren as christians we don’t we
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don’t racism is ugly to us it’s evil to us so when somebody says there’s issues here related to race and
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justice we go where where point me in the right direction and let’s go to war
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and the social justice movement comes and it sounds innocuous right social
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justice racial justice and bam here we go
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and we’re on board having no idea that the social justice movement is like
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a train with multiple box cars there’s an engine driving the train the
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engine driving the train is critical theory critical race theory intersectionality that’s the engine
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driving the train and then right behind it comes
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racial justice right and as christians we’re like no we’re
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we’re one in christ there’s no room for racism and so we jump on you know because we see that
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boxcar and then right behind that boxcar is the lgbtqai plus boxcar
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and then right behind that boxcar is the climate justice box car right behind that and then there’s all these box cars and
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many christians think that they can jump onto the racial justice boxcar and not be
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attached to all those other box cars and you can’t
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you can’t anyway we won’t go through the list well yes we
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will education for social justice here’s their list
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consumerism death penalty education genocide homelessness human trafficking immigration
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intergenerational justice land grabbing mental health natural disasters racial justice
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restorative justice sexual abuse crisis in the church terrorism u.s elections water
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climate change hunger migration
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signs of the times economic justice inequality torture gender equality interfaith
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u.s poverty war health care
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sustainable development refugees human rights liberation theology global poverty
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uh integral ecology and and racism
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and it goes on and on and on
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in other words everything is a social justice issue why because social justice
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is about redistribution until you see equity which means anywhere
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that there’s not equity not equality but equity anywhere where there’s not equity there
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is injustice so you go to any area and anything covet
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19 for example covet 19 we look at cover 19 deaths and
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we see black people minorities
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disproportionately dying from covenant
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social justice there it is inequity inequity
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we see it it’s there it’s what we know we know that that is racial injustice
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how do we know [Music] we know because the numbers
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aren’t equal and anytime the numbers aren’t equal the answer is injustice
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because in a just world every disease would kill people
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in perfect accordance with their demographic representation
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never mind that nothing else in nature works like that
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amen there’s nowhere in the natural universe where you see an exact representation
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percentage-wise of anything period full stop it doesn’t exist
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for example firstborns have an advantage over second borns and
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third borns and so and so it’s it’s it’s not equitable
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it’s not equitable does that mean that there is inherent
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injustice in birth order
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so here’s another thing when we and and
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i’ll sort of bring this to a close one of the big differences
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is the way that the social justice movement
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gets to its conclusions and it has to get to its conclusions uh by force
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and we say this and we’re like you know
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straw man red hairy you’re making that up no
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first of all that is that is a logical extension of this argument right
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but secondly i don’t have to make it up do you know the name ibram x kindy if you know the literature at all
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on this then you know the name ibra mex kindy if you don’t know his name you probably know the title of his book
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how to be an anti-racist now his book how to be an anti-racist is being used
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um you know in in government agencies in universities fortune 500 companies um probably the
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two most popular books that people are using for diversity training are robin d’angelo’s white fragility and
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ibra makes kindie’s uh how to be an anti-racist okay
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and if you don’t know his name and you don’t know his book you you certainly know his ideas because
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they are everywhere in fact they’re beyond everywhere they’re airware okay um there are christian
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organizations and christian ministries now who are using ibrahmix kindy’s book how
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to be an anti-racist it is pure critical race theory it is critical theory critical race theory
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intersectionality on steroids it is antithetical to biblical thinking biblical theology biblical ideology
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and it is being used in churches all over this country and ministries all over this country in
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diversity training
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ibrahim x-kindy proposed an amendment to the constitution
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an anti-racist amendment to the constitution
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listen this is again remember this is the guy by the way he makes between 20 and forty thousand dollars
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an hour for his presentations at twenty to forty thousand dollars
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an hour fortune 500 companies are falling all over themselves to book this
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man to come and speak to them on diversity training
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and here’s his proposal to fix the original sin of racism
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can we just pause right there many have said and i have said i call it
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the cult of anti-racism it is a religion
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it is a religion they have their own doctrine they have their own saints they had their own
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canon have their own priests theologians
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and kindie’s one of the theologians of this movement but notice this is an amendment to the constitution and it
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starts with to fix the original sin of racism
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there’s a book by the title america’s original sin
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by jim wallace the founder of sojourners jim wallace is arguing that racism is
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america’s original sin by the way the 1619 project you’ve probably heard of this right this pulitzer prize-winning
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horrible piece of history the 1619 project what is the 1619 project all about the
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1619 project is about moving the founding of america or our understanding of the founding of america
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from 1776 to 1619 because if the founding of america is 1776
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then it’s founded on some documents and ideas that are pretty good but if the founding
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is seen as 1619 when the first slaves came
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to america then
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america is rooted and grounded in the original sin of slavery and racism that’s what the
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1619 project is all about at bottom
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getting away from the idea that america is based on what america says america is based on
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to fix the original sin of racism americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the u.s constitution
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that enshrines two anti-racist principles one racial inequity is evidence of
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racist policy and two the different racial groups are equals
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the amendment would make unconstitutional racial racial inequity over a certain
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threshold be unconstitutional if you have racial inequity and again equity is
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about outcomes right if you have outcomes that are disparate over a specific threshold it would make
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it unconstitutional as well as racist ideas by public officials
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with racist ideas and public officials clearly defined it would establish and permanently fund
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the department of anti-racism comprised of formerly trained experts
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on racism and no political appointees who wants to take a guess at who’s going to formally train the experts
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the doa would be responsible for pre-clearing all local state and federal
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public policies to ensure they won’t yield inequity monitor those policies
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investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces
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and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas the doa would be empowered with
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disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not
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voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas
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this has nothing to do with the heart it has everything to do with politics
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and power this is antithetical to biblical justice
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in every way imaginable
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and and here’s what you need to know again i’ll go back to what i said
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earlier church has a big bull’s-eye on her
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as the source of these inequities
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is the root of these inequities
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listen to this from milton friedman
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another economist a society that puts equality
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in the sense of equality of outcomes ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor
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freedom the use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom and the force introduced for good
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purposes will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests
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this is not how we in the body of christ function we are not about gaining political power
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in order to force people to do justice
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we are about the proclamation of the gospel recognizing that true justice
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must and can only come from hearts transformed through the person and work
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of jesus christ
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our greatest political desire is freedom to proclaim the gospel in the marketplace of ideas
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amen but guess what critical social justice will ultimately
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not tolerate proclaiming the gospel in the marketplace of ideas
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because it is a source and a means
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of oppression
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you keep on using that word
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i do not think it means what you think it means
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we must pursue justice injustice is sin
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and what i’ve come to discover is that the difference between social justice and biblical justice it
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we’ve been going at it the wrong way we’ve been trying to look at it we’ve been trying to say you know
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here’s here’s here’s what the bible would say you know is required to do justice here
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and here’s what the here’s what social justice was saying is required to do justice here and what i’ve discovered is that the
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difference is not in our application of justice i mean there are differences there the
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difference is in how we define injustice
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the bible would define injustice
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as that that which that which fails to comply with to comport with to to rise
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to the level of the law of god
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that’s how the bible would define injustice in in my relationship to another and my
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relationship to you know the state and my relationship my family injustice would would come down to the law of god
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and whether or not i was submitting to the law of god in
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this circumstance that’s not how social justice defines
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injustice social justice defines injustice as anything that produces or allows
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an inequitable outcome so for example the parable of the
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talents would be injustice
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in fact god would be unjust
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because there’s things that he hasn’t done equitably he blessed me with more melanin than
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most
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that’s inequitable
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are you taller than most people and equitable
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more intelligent inequitable
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you see what i’m getting at the world the way god designed it
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would not qualify as socially just
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because it’s filled with inequity
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do we want everybody to be the same height do we want everybody to have the same amount of melanin
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same level of intelligence the same kind of intelligence
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i mean do we do we want do we want that
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no but that’s at bottom what critical social justice is pursuing
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through diversity equity and inclusion
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no we want justice
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but what we mean by that is thy kingdom come thy will be done
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on earth as it is in heaven that’s the justice we want
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let’s pray
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father we thank you again for this this time that you’ve given us
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for these moments that you’ve given us for this opportunity
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to set our minds on these issues grant by your grace that we would be
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good stewards of what you’ve given to the end
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that we might honor christ in whose name we pray amen

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