In this edition of the Briefing, we talk about the Gospel Coalition’s transgender art show, their half gospel for advent, and their description of Jesus as a person who (much like a woman who has endless periods but no babies) failed to bloom. We then demonstrate the twisted, works-based, social justice “gospel” of TGC board member Darryl Williamson described in his video judging the circumstances of George Floyd’s death four days after it happened.
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Calvin University, the Michigan-based University belonging and affiliated with the conservative CRCNA (Christian Reformed Church in North America) has been lost.
We knew there were deep and abiding problems with them ever since the teachers got mad in 2009 and overwhelmingly voted against a policy that would have prohibited them from supporting homosexuality and same-sex marriage- due to their desire for “academic freedom” and differing opinions from the faculty- but this 15-minute promo released by the University praising Black Lives Matter and regurgitating Critical Race Theory froth shows in a frightening way the depths of which they’ve descended.
The video features a host of students and professors after professor after professor proclaiming that “Black Lives Matter” and all the ways racism is as pervasive and commonplace as air in our society, and as a result must be repented of. Here are just a few snippets from perhaps 100 separate clips all collated together.
“We repent of our complicity and structural racism.”
“We repent of our silence in the face of injustice.”
“We repent that we prioritize our own comfort while our neighbors live in fear.”
“We repent of the racism that runs deep in our tradition and our churches, our communities, and here at Calvin University.”
“We know that we all have implicit biases that impact the way that we think and the way that we behave. Racism isn’t something that’s perpuated by a few bad people, it’s in all of us through our socialization.We’re committed to deconstructing these biases, reckoning with them and helping our students do the same. We study human flourishing and we can’t all thrive we can’t all flourish unless black lives matter.”
“Educational systems for too long have perpetuated systemic racism. As teachers, we have a unique opportunity and responsibility to speak and act against racism and for justice. We commit to actively and continually dismantle racism and white supremacy in our classrooms, schools, and society.
“As geographers, geologist, and environmental scientists we recognize that oppression and inequality have been written into our maps. Into our cities. Into our infrastructures, and even into the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink. Therefore we commit as a Geo Department to building communities places and regions where all God’s children can enjoy peace and the goodness of God’s creation.”
“As scientists, we acknowledge that we working in a field that has long excluded and marginalized our colleagues and students of color much to our own detriment. And as educators, we commit to choosing pedagogies and structures that will help to amplify those voices of chemists of color and to prepare pathways for underserved students to contribute, to be heard, and to see themselves within STEM.”
“As world language teachers, we bring learners into practices of humility and empathy. As we work to express ourselves in a language not our own, it forces us to recognize our linguistic privilege, to de-center ourselves, to learn to respect the perspectives of others and briefly to experience what it’s like to occupy a position of less privilege. So we commit to help develop a radical empathy; one that grows our will and our ability to stand alongside our black and brown brothers and sisters.”
“As engineers, we acknowledge that whenever the work or products of engineering shuts out or marginalizes groups of people, it perpetuates injustice rather than building Shalom. And frankly, it’s just bad engineering. It is diversity that leads to innovation and the development of enduring solutions to global problems.”
And on and on it goes, teacher after teacher, professor after professor, until all that’s left is the echoing refrain of ‘Black Lives Matter’ ringing in the eardrums and the distinct impression that things for them will only get worse from here.
I have enjoyed your ministry over the years, listened to countless sermons by you, and have supported you when feasible to do so. Your preaching and teaching have edified me and my family and your steadfast commitment to the truth of God’s word has been an encouragement to many.
I pre-ordered your book, Fault Lines, and I was one of the first to read it when it came out. I found it to be refreshing and encouraging, taking a hard, no compromise line against the influx of social justice and progressivism in the Evangelical Church. Rarely do we see high-ranking men take such a strong stand; we need more such men like you.
This is why I felt compelled to write to you openly regarding your association with the Sing! Global 2021 Conference. I understand that your position is that you will faithfully preach the gospel as you always do. Further, I understand that your presence at this conference is not necessarily a direct endorsement of others who are attending. However, it is a tacit endorsement. And many of the ones you will be sharing the stage with at this conference are those who hold to and advance the same ideology that you refer to your book, Fault Lines, as dangerous and at odds with biblical orthodoxy.
In your book, on page 67, you write, “The antiracist movement has many of the hallmarks of a cult, including staying close enough to the Bible to avoid immediate detection and hiding the fact that it has a new theology and a new glossary of terms that diverge ever-so-slightly from Christian orthodoxy.”
Let me be clear: most–not all–but most of the speakers attending this conference are…
(Capstone Report) Controversy over church with woman co-pastor shows how SBC Elites treat the masses
A Woke church planted by the Southern Baptist Convention with a woman co-pastor highlights the problems of holding SBC Elites accountable. SBC Elites circle the wagons and spread misinformation and fake news to deceive the people. Here is how it unfolded this week.
First, Woke Preacher Clips posted this clip of Pastors Yasmin Roohi and Ali Roohi talking about race in America. It features all the Woke talking points attempting to shame Christians into supporting the Black Lives Matter
Seriously, who and where are these 12 million people being persecuted because of the color of their skin?
Also, don’t you love the framing of this political issue as not a political issue but a Kingdom issue. This is a variation of Russell Moore’s theme of declaring Leftist political priorities as a Gospel Issue™.
(WokePreacherTV) During the youth group of a Las Vegas megachurch, a father reveals that his preteen son (on the same stage with him) has been so dramatically affected by mass media, he is too afraid to play baseball in the backyard, because he believes accidentally throwing it in a neighbor’s yard could endanger him. To protect the minor’s identity, I have obscured his image and removed the audio when his father says his name. I will not link to the source video to keep this identifying information private.
—TRANSCRIPT
FATHER: I’m not raising him to be fearful. And I know that that for [redacted], he has seen a lot. This generation has so much, you know, so many different ways to see all the racism, in comparison to what I saw when I was growing up.
And I know that that fear has really played a part on my son. And I don’t want to raise him in a place, I teach them, I tell them all the time, like, don’t be scared. And my thing is, my fear is, the fear that this is generating for my son, and that’s something that I don’t want, because at the end of the day, I want him to be the strongest man he can be.
I know that he’s scared. I know he sees these things happening. I know that that plays a part on the way he looks at stuff. The other day he told his brother, he didn’t tell me, because he knew I would get mad, but he said, “Hey, I’m scared to go outside and throw the baseball in, around, in front of the house.” And I’m like, I asked my wife, I said, “Well, why say that?” And she’s like, “You know, he thinks something would happen if the ball rolled in someone else’s yard.” And it was right then and there where I knew that this, what’s happening right now, is putting so much fear into my son.
And that is something that I don’t want to live with. I can’t live with that, that he’s scared or he’s fearful and he can’t be all that he wants to be.
The moderator chimes in:
MODERATOR: That’s good. And I think that is so important. That’s why we are having these conversations, because nobody should feel fear from walking outside their house. And I know a lot of people are like, “Oh, just shut up about it, like, keep going on. Like, it’s not that bad.” But no, this is bad. Like, somebody’s fearful to even go outside their own house where they pay the bills. That, like, it’s just, it’s, it’s insane.
The following post was written and published at WPC’s YouTube channel.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s ‘outtess yet in’ Critical Race Theory (CRT) supporter Professor Jarvis Williams gave a message back in 2018 at Bethlehem College and Seminary, where John Piper holds sway at the chancellor. Speaking on PasCon panel on the subject of “Ethnic Harmony and the Holy Spirit, Jarvis joined SBTS Provost and notorious self-described ‘racist’ Matthew Hall, Mt. Vernon Pastor Aaron Menikoff, Arrabon founder David Bailey, and John Onwuchekwa, who took a bunch of NAMB money and then left the SBC.
Williams, one of the professors hooping CRT into the SBC’s flagship university, (see here and here), was last seen in a segment sharing how he intentionally chose to pass over white congregants when choosing people to be a part of his small group, instead picking minorities and ‘multi-ethnic’ persons of color, in order to serve as a ‘model’ for the church. He kicks it off by explaining that because of Adam’s sin, we have deep and abiding sin everywhere. He notes:
“Sin is the ultimate enemy of reconciliation and Christian unity. So then as we move into our context today, I think racial hostility or ethnic hostility shows up in racial hierarchy, and white supremacy, and white privilege, and white power. We must remember this… because of sin, racial hostility shows itself up violently but also ideologically.”
Backing up the notion racism is in everything we do, and to provide a bit of context of what white supremacy, Matthew Hall explains that the Idea of ‘race’ was birthed in the United States and that on account of 400 years of slavery:
“Christians, those who have a biblical worldview, an understanding of these, severity of the fall, and the cancerous nature of sin and the way in which sin corrupts everything not just the human heart and conscience but the mind and even social structures, we shouldn’t be surprised that sin, the sin and the wickedness of white supremacy remains with us and it still is reverberating throughout our culture four centuries later
At this point Jarvis tags in again:
When we think about white supremacy, it’s not only the overt, violent expressions that you see on the television. In Charlottesville, for example. But white supremacy is an ideological construct that believes that whiteness is superior to non-whiteness.
So then, how this shows up, in part, is it shows up in curriculum. Right? I’m a seminary professor, and in theological education, you’re hard-pressed to find many evangelical institutions that have a regular requirement of black and brown authors. And often what happens is whiteness becomes the standard by which all good theology is judged.
You understand what I’m saying? So that if it’s right theology, it’s written by a white scholar who is contextualizing that theology for white audiences. And so one of the things we see is, and hear this very, very carefully. There’s racism by intent and there’s racism by consequence.
You can have racism operating in a context where is [sic] there are no individual racists. And that, in part, is the way in which white supremacy works, in a socially sophisticated way.
Ie, even if there is no evidence of racism, in the midst of individuals who are not racists, in a context where there’s no reason to assume racism is occurring- there is, by default, racism and white supremacy – just done in a sophisticated, secretive way.
It’s nonsensical. Pick anything else. “You can have basketball operating in a context where are there are no individual basketball players. And that, in part, is the way in which basketball works, in a socially sophisticated way.
When you have whiteness as the priority, and when folks work and operate in such a way with curriculum, with economics, or with policies to maintain and to posture and to privilege that whiteness, and then to require those who are non-white to culturally colonize to whiteness. So then we think about reconciliation and ethnic hostility, the solution is not more black and brown faces in white spaces who colonize to whiteness.
The solution is fundamentally, yes, the gospel, the cross, the resurrection, right? The blood of Jesus. But also dethroning white supremacy in all of the forms in which it shows up in Christian spaces, folks. Because when Jesus died to disarm those principalities and powers, one of those principalities and powers, I would argue, is white supremacy and all that it entails. So feel that tonight. White supremacy’s not just violence or KKK or lynchings. It is also the belief, directly or indirectly, that whiteness is rightness, and everything has to be judged by that.
Ie, white supremacy exists because of the fall, and white folks are all white supremacists who believe that whites are superior to non-whites, as even a lack of racism on their part is evidence of a socially sophisticated secret racism and supremacy.
There is nothing Holy Spirit-filled about that claim, and you can thank Al Mohler at SBTS for keeping these men employed.
Prominent woke Pastor Charlie Dates, who recently left the Southern Baptist Convention on account of their failure to embrace Critical Race Theory, recently preached a message at the EK Bailey preaching conference, where he, as Reformation Charlotte describes, attacked other Black Christians as sell-outs simply because they have not devoted their lives to fighting an artificial boogeyman, white supremacy” and well as “lambasted them for saying things like “I’m Christian before I’m Black.”
“Once and for all delivered, we see that neither justice nor righteousness are well and (gone?) And I got to ask ya’ll ‘where we get that from?’ That ain’t part of our heritage, When did the black preacher become so dichotomized? When did black preaching start to break up?
Well, I got one idea. It’s how and where we’ve been trained. The further in and deeper down black preachers go into white evangelicalism, the more anti-justice and anti-black they become. They start saying stuff like ‘I’m Christian before I’m black.’
What? You are a bearer of the Imago Dei. You are made in the image and likeness of God. Your blackness is designed by God. Chosen by God. Formed by God. Cherished by God. And it doens’t mean that your blackness is superior, but it does mean that the people who told you that lie (Ed.Nt. that you should consider your identity in Christ above your ethnicity) need you to believe that lie, so that they can remain superior through that lie.
The Gospel Coalition author and pastor Thabiti Anyabwile joined fellow race-baiter Dwight McKissic to condemn a recent Texas Senate Bill designed to remove Critical Race Theory (CRT) from the classroom as an “insane” and “gutwrenching” tip-toeing back to the racist “Jim Crow attitudes and laws” of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Thabiti is referring to the terrible fact that several states in the mid-21st century enacted “separate but equal” laws designed to segregate races, with the idea that black folk would be given equal protection under the constitution and would be treated the same as white folk, but would have separate bathrooms, water fountains, busses, entrances, etc. These racist laws are evil in every way imaginable, and yet he’s saying that the same heart and motivation that came up with them, likewise is behind the banning of CRT from schools.
Of course, this is nothing but alarmist fodder and a dishonest reading. Texas SB3 does nothing of the sort and has absolutely nothing in common with Jim Crowisms. According to the article being quoted by Anyabwile, the bill would “remove more than two dozen teaching requirements from a new law that bars the teaching of critical race theory, an academic framework exploring racism’s shaping of the country”…and…”the measure also would bar the teaching of the 1619 Project— a New York Times initiative exploring U.S. history starting at the date enslaved people arrived in the English colonies.”
In a statement after the vote, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), said that “Parents want their students to learn how to think critically, not be indoctrinated by the ridiculous leftist narrative that America and our Constitution are rooted in racism.”
Teacher and historian Brian Franklin explains more on Twitter:
“Many folks are claiming TX Republicans are “removing” teaching requirements about the civil rights movement & its leaders from TX curriculum standards w/ #SB3. This is not true. But it contains just enough truth to make for powerful political fodder.
True: the version of the #SB3 bill that the TX Senate just passed (w/o Democrat support) did in fact remove a *bunch* of specific people & events from the bill, including stuff on civil rights, women’s suffrage, slavery, labor, & more.
Also true: the current version of the bill also removed mentions of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, the American GI Forum, the 19th Amendment, and *much more.* Why remove all of this? Well, I find myself reluctantly agreeing with Sen. Hughes’ explanation.
B/c specific requirements aren’t typically dealt with by statute, but in the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills standards (TEKS), developed by the State Board of Education.
And what civil rights history do we find in the TEKS? *A lot.* High school US history should teach a multiethnic array of civil rights organizations; King, Chavez, Parks, Garcia, Friedan; the Black Panthers; Letter from a Birmingham Jail; the VRA; more.
They’re not removing teaching about Martin Luther King Jr. or suffrage, but rather ensuring it only being taught in its rightful class, context, and without the specter of CRT wanting to strangle and hijack the narrative.
Apart from all that nonsense, these hysterics by Anyabwile and McKissic reveal a disturbing new tactic to deal with dissent. For certain professing Christians of a more progressive stature, apparently yelling “Jim Crow!” has become the new “RacistBigotHomophobe!” invective and accusation to paint the other side red with.
The Georgia voting bill that actually expands voting rights rather than constricts them, and has been lied about and trashed by dishonest democrats? Jim Crow! Refusing to go along with reparations as a means of social justice and reconciliation? Jim Crow! Resisting CRT being taught in our schools and churches? Jim Crow!
They may not always call you an outright racist, but seemingly they have a shiny new socially acceptable accusation to make the same connection.
Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church pastor Jonathan Sims announced on July 4th that his church was formally cutting ties with the Southern Baptist convention and leaving the denomination, the result of decades of rot that culminated with the gong-show that was the 2021 SBC General Assembly, and included the recent plagiarism scandal by current President Ed Litton and the fact that his wife tag teams sermons with him.
In the sermon he explains:
“I’m a fifth generation Southern Baptist, on both sides of my family. As far back as I can trace, they’ve all been Alabama, Southern Baptists, the Southern Baptist churches, all I’ve ever known. I was born again and baptised in a Southern Baptist Church. I was called to preach in a Southern Baptist Church. I received my master of divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which at that time, was the largest Theological Seminary in the world. I’ve pastored three Southern Baptist churches as a God called preacher. I’ve never been a member of any other denominational church, but a Southern Baptist Church.
Sims notes that the SBC has been bearing bad fruit for decades, to the point that as a congregation they unanimously voted two years ago to defund the local, state and national conventions of the Southern Baptist Convention, going from tens of thousands of dollars in giving to only 100$ a year, while they considered their next move. It didn’t take long as he announced:
But with this year’s convention in Nashville a couple of weeks ago, the Southern Baptist Convention has reached a point that my conscience will no longer allow me to even be loosely affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, I believe it’s time for us to formally withdraw from the Southern Baptist Convention effectively. You did that two years ago, but I think it’s time for a formal statement. I’ve said it for years. If I were starting over today, I would be a Baptist. I am a baptist to the core of my bone marrow. I believe the historic Baptist doctrine, polity and practice are an authentic expression of historical Christianity. But if I were starting over today, I would not be a Southern Baptist.
Sims then goes on to list his grievances, which include:
Weak local churches that supported or tolerated decisional regeneration, along with national leaders like JD Greear, resulting in the church being flooded with lost people.
Weak churches being planted by NAMB with women pastors and bad theology. Lack of church discipline. The SBC affirming Resolution Nine and Critical Race Theory the first time around, and then the fact that they couldn’t repudiate it by name at this last convention.
The leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention fiercely resisted a resolution calling for the complete rejection of all abortion using the language of incrementalism, the last two SBC presidents saying that God whispers about sexual sins like homosexuality, the plagiarism scandal, and the role and leadership of Russell Moore.
A sequel to the acclaimed and highly received “Uncle Tom: An Oral History of the American Black Conservative” documentary is in the works for release this fall and is set to feature former pastor and current Christian educator Voddie Baucham.
The first film, which was produced by conservative talk show host Larry Elder and co-written with Chad Jackson, examined the black conservative movement and how they reject victim mentality while promoting self-empowerment, resulting in them being excoriated as sell-outs, house negroes, and “Uncle Toms” by their peers and the media. Elder explains in an interview with Jeff Carlin:
The ‘Uncle Tom’ movie simply asks a very simple question: Why can’t we have an intelligent, healthy discussion within the Black community without a whole cadre of well-educated, bright, thoughtful Black people being maligned and discarded as sellouts? What’s prompting this?
The film has a 96-percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, a 4.7/5 stars based on 4491 reviews on Amazon Prime video, and an 8.8/10 based on 5,556 reviews on IMDB.
Now, for the follow-up, Uncle Tom will feature Voddie Baucham in some capacity. Though no synopsis yet has been given, it is speculated by some that it will revolve in part around his battle against Critical Race Theory and the release of his book Fault Lines, which has many progressive pastors and activists levelling those same “Uncle Tom” charges against him.
Voddie, who is doing well after his heart surgery and was recently spotted doing an interview with Daily Wire, has not yet commented on the extent of his involvement.
