Voddie Baucham Talks Social Justice, Manhood, and Faith With Ben Shapiro

Voddie Bauchaum, dean of theology at Zambia’s African Christian University and author of the recent book Fault Lines joined Ben Shapiro for his Sunday special to discuss social justice and what it means to be a man, allowing the former pastor to witness to the Daily Wire host.

The two kick off by talking about social justice and the redistribution of wealth, with Voddie pointing to the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 as the reason it’s so unbiblical.

One of them has done better with his talents than the others. And he doesn’t take from the one who did poorly, or take from the one who did well and give to the one who did poorly. He actually takes away from the one who did poorly, and gives it to the one who does well. I refer to that parable because it really flies in the face of the idea that the Christian attitude ought to be equal outcomes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Christian attitude is justice writ large, right? God’s justice, the righteous and equal application of God’s law, but not equal outcomes.

Shapiro asks Baucham where he received his values from:

You know, there was a long and winding road. You know, when I was younger, I would have been more in the sort of black nationalist vein. If you think about Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, I would have been more on the Malcolm X Black Power side. But I came to faith later in life. I never heard the gospel until I was in university. I was raised by a single teenage Buddhist mother in South Central Los Angeles. And so that was kind of my faith reference point. And, you know, I heard about Christ, I heard about Christianity, and I believed the gospel. I believed in Christ as my Lord and Savior and it changed my life. And slowly it began to change my worldview as well. And so it was a process of recognizing the things in my life that I had believed that I had taken on board, because of what I had been told, much of which was not accurate or true. And then looking at the scriptures, and being serious about what it meant to be a follower of Christ. And so slowly, that began to change my worldview.

The two discuss the role of men as protector and how we should understood manhood.

When you take manhood and try to look at manhood in isolation, you’ve already got a problem. The God who created us, He created us, male and female. And so you cannot understand maleness apart from femaleness, right? You have to understand what it means to be a man, first of all, by what it means to be made the image of God. And second of all, by what it means to be made, as this counterpart to a woman. And this idea that God created us to be priest and prophet and provider and protector…

They discuss the fact that so man religious leaders have gone astray or have compromised, and Baucham points out that while this may be true for some, there are a lot who haven’t.

I want to say that there’s, there’s 1000s who have not bowed the knee to baal, and there good, solid folks out there. Unfortunately, most of them get don’t get cameras pointed their way. But there was a movement really in the 80s and the 90s of the Church Growth Movement. And you just basically described it to a tee, it was all about doing whatever was necessary to get people into the doors, to keep people in churches, you know, we’re growing like gangbusters, all of a sudden, you’ve got churches all over the place that are running 1000s.

And, you know, there’s a saying ‘whatever you do to get “em is what you’re going to have to do to keep ’em.” And so the compromises just continued. But I’m hopeful, because I do, I know a lot of those guys who haven’t bowed the knee, and I run into people all the time, who are looking for those guys. They’re saying, ‘where are those guys near me?’ Right? And a lot of people are looking at and listening to and following people online. You know, everybody sort of, you know, bashes social media and, you know, social media deserves bashing. But the fact of the matter is, there are people who are finding those voices and then they begin to look for other voices. So I’m encouraged.’

Finally, Shaprio asks Baucham what he would do if college students come to his house and start telling him that God doesn’t exist and that the Bible was written by a bunch of idiots in caves 1000s of years ago, and how he would respond.

You know, what I want to do is I want to show them that that’s all based on presuppositions. Right? The last thing that I want to do is get down on their level and say, ‘Okay, fine, let’s just leave that aside.’ No, I want to say to them, “all of that is based on presuppositions, you’re taking leaps of faith back there, in order to get here and make that argument. Your presuppositions have been tried before, and they’ve led to catastrophe. Mine is based on presuppositions as well, but my presuppositions has led to Western civilization.” So that’s the first thing that I want to say.

The other thing that I want to say is that I’m not coming at this blind, right? I choose to believe the Bible because it’s a reliable collection of historical documents, written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies, and they claim that their writings are divine, rather than human in origin. So again, this is not just, you know, close your eyes and hope you feel something, you know, type stuff. We do not have a God who calls upon us for blind faith. We have a God who speaks, we have a God who has revealed himself. So those are the two things that I want to do, right? Number one, just you know, get off your moral high horse, because you got presuppositions just like me. And number two, look at what your presuppositions have wrought. And then number three, let me talk to you about mine.

For more on Baucham

Lecrae Disses Voddie Baucham in New Song ‘Deconstruction’
Veggie Tales Creator says Voddie Baucham Doesn’t Represent Black Christians
Lifeway DOESN’T Carry Voddie Baucham’s #1 Best-Selling ‘Fault Lines,’ but Has Entire Landing Page for Christine Caine
Voddie Baucham Stable and Recovering after Quadruple Bypass Surgery

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