8e7ff5ac-8482-f623-c7e6-e126aafb58b5
00:00:00.000 | I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast.
00:00:15.620 | The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's
00:00:19.740 | been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand
00:00:24.600 | the test of scrutiny.
00:00:26.620 | As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people
00:00:32.340 | in the right direction.
00:00:39.940 | In episode 5, I explored the topic of social justice and entitled that episode Social Justice
00:00:47.580 | Chapter 1.
00:00:49.340 | At the time I put the working draft together for that episode, I didn't think I'd have
00:00:53.440 | a chapter 2.
00:00:55.440 | At around the time I finished recording chapter 1, I felt convinced that there was much left
00:01:01.660 | unsaid and undealt with.
00:01:04.500 | Although that sentiment is arguably true for every topic I've addressed so far, it would
00:01:10.940 | only be true if we were thinking about it in a very strict sense, but I'm not talking
00:01:17.020 | about it in a strict sense, rather I'm thinking about it in a very podcast-y sense.
00:01:24.700 | So that's how this episode was birthed, and also the reason why in the beginning of this
00:01:29.560 | episode I want to recommend some resources as any competent signpost theologian would
00:01:35.480 | do, and as you know, I am aspiring to be a competent signpost theologian.
00:01:41.540 | None of the topics I cover do I cover exhaustively, so if you want further follow-up for this
00:01:49.940 | topic, here are some resources.
00:01:53.820 | Professor Vodie Bauckham's sermons/lectures on these issues are a must.
00:02:02.300 | I've alluded to them before, but if you were to input his name into any search engine and
00:02:08.260 | include the words "ethnic Gnosticism", "racial reconciliation", or "cultural Marxism", they
00:02:15.940 | are very helpful, Vodie is spelled V-O-D-D-I-E, last name is Bauckham, B-A-U-C-H-A-M, just
00:02:24.460 | input his name and "ethnic Gnosticism" or "racial reconciliation" or "cultural Marxism"
00:02:30.460 | and you'll see his one-hour sermons/lectures.
00:02:34.540 | Neil Shenvey, N-E-I-L Shenvey, S-H-E-N-V-E-Y, I've already endorsed him, but he has written
00:02:43.060 | extensively about critical race theory and I heard today actually that he is going to
00:02:48.660 | be coming out with a book scheduled for 2022 concerning apologetics.
00:02:54.940 | If you go to his website, Neil Shenvey Apologetics, you will find a treasure trove of resources
00:03:01.880 | as it relates to critical race theory, social justice, and other topics.
00:03:07.540 | I've mentioned repeatedly the Just Thinking Podcast and I will do so again with Daryl
00:03:12.420 | Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker.
00:03:15.060 | The Bar Podcast Network, Just Thinking is a part of the Bar Podcast Network and that
00:03:21.700 | is headed up by Dwayne Atkinson.
00:03:24.980 | The Center for Biblical Unity has been doing great work in this area.
00:03:29.420 | They are headed up by Monique Dusson and Krista Bontrager.
00:03:35.020 | Edwin Ramirez over at the Proverbial Life Podcast is another notable one along with
00:03:40.500 | Jamal Bandy, he is over at Prescribed Truth.
00:03:43.960 | I really also like Ali Beth Stuckey over at Relatable.
00:03:48.580 | If you are more of a blog person, there is a ton, but I think Samuel Tse, S-E-Y, Samuel
00:03:55.060 | Tse, he has done some really extensive good work on cultural race issues, pro-life issues.
00:04:07.800 | He speaks with clarity, with candor, and with conviction.
00:04:14.180 | He is interesting because he is actually a Ghanaian-Canadian, he is not an American dude,
00:04:18.180 | he is a Ghanaian-Canadian.
00:04:20.260 | He immigrated over from Ghana, he is currently out in Toronto, and he writes from a very
00:04:33.340 | witty perspective, almost GK Chesterton-like, and what I mean by that is he is able to take
00:04:39.880 | vast avenues of thought, shrink them, and still hold their meaning.
00:04:47.860 | So that is a very high compliment to say he is very GK Chesterton-like, I don't say that
00:04:53.680 | lightly.
00:04:54.680 | I have a lot more, that's already a lot right there, but I have much more that I can point
00:05:01.020 | you towards.
00:05:02.600 | Feel free to reach out to me at thesurpassingvalue@gmail.com.
00:05:13.280 | Initially for this episode, I was going to amalgamate two books.
00:05:20.080 | That was going to be the structure of this episode.
00:05:23.960 | Those two books were Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth by Thaddeus Williams,
00:05:31.000 | and the other book was By What Standard, and that has contributing authors, Tom Askell,
00:05:37.200 | Vodie Bauckham, Mark Koppinger, Jared Longshore, Tom Nettles, and Chad Vegas.
00:05:43.720 | However, as I was putting this episode together, there was no way I could amalgamate those
00:05:51.280 | two books because this episode would have been way too long.
00:05:54.640 | I would have had to have done two separate episodes, maybe even a chapter three, which
00:05:59.400 | is possible.
00:06:01.640 | At this point, I don't plan on it.
00:06:04.480 | So for the remainder of this episode, what I'm going to do is essentially do a book review
00:06:12.080 | on Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth, which is a book that's due out December
00:06:18.320 | 22nd.
00:06:19.320 | By the time this episode hits, it might already be out.
00:06:22.840 | It'll probably be past December 22nd.
00:06:25.960 | I am recording this on December 3rd.
00:06:30.040 | Now, By What Standard, by those contributing authors, in my opinion, acts as a very nice
00:06:36.960 | complement to Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth.
00:06:41.760 | I think you can read those two books together, and there isn't too much that's qualitatively
00:06:48.880 | duplicative.
00:06:52.360 | You would benefit tremendously from those two books.
00:06:56.440 | If you could only read two books on this ginormous issue, those would be the two books that I
00:07:05.400 | would recommend.
00:07:07.200 | To a lesser degree, I would recommend Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice by
00:07:12.080 | Scott Allen.
00:07:13.080 | I say to a lesser degree.
00:07:14.520 | I don't mean to cast a negative shadow on the book at all.
00:07:18.480 | I'm only saying that because I understand that we all have a limited amount of time,
00:07:23.280 | and realistically, we do need to triage what we read.
00:07:28.160 | Another book I would recommend is Political Visions and Illusions by David Koizis.
00:07:37.760 | That's another good one if you want to understand in a very non-partisan way the worldviews
00:07:45.160 | behind socialism, capitalism, conservatism, liberalism, and other worldviews.
00:07:55.800 | This book gives a fair treatment into the ideas behind various political philosophies,
00:08:01.860 | as opposed to just virtue signaling and anti-intellectualism, veiled insulting, and cherry-picking that
00:08:11.240 | is very prevalent on social media and amongst other self-professing Christians.
00:08:19.000 | I think this is a good spot to emphasize a reminder because I am proffering all these
00:08:24.560 | resources.
00:08:25.560 | So, as I proffer all these resources, I wanted to emphasize a reminder to the listener, and
00:08:32.760 | this comes from Ecclesiastes 12, 11-14.
00:08:37.680 | Ecclesiastes 12, 11-14 says this, "The words of the wise are like goats, and masters of
00:08:49.100 | these collections are like driven nails; they are given by one shepherd.
00:08:54.520 | But beyond this, my son, be warned, the writing of many books is endless, and excessive study
00:09:02.160 | is wearying to the body."
00:09:04.760 | The conclusion, when everything has been heard, is fear God and keep His commandments, because
00:09:10.600 | this applies to every person.
00:09:13.160 | For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is
00:09:18.880 | good or evil.
00:09:22.920 | Emphasizing verse 12 here, "But beyond this, my son, be warned, the writing of many books
00:09:28.640 | is endless, and excessive study is wearying to the body."
00:09:36.280 | Verse 13, "The conclusion," after he says this, "The conclusion, when everything has
00:09:42.120 | been heard, is fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person."
00:09:51.920 | In your own personal life, there is only one book that will actually feed your soul.
00:10:02.800 | There is only one book that you prioritize as the crown jewel that dictates how you view
00:10:12.760 | everything else.
00:10:15.000 | No other book is truth absolutely.
00:10:21.120 | This includes even the writings of other hallowed and sacred theologians.
00:10:27.080 | There is only one book that is all you need for life and godliness.
00:10:37.240 | This ties in with the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture, which I do plan on covering
00:10:41.760 | in some future episode.
00:10:43.760 | But for now, I want to remind you that I'm giving you these resources not because I feel
00:10:51.780 | that it is necessary for your life per se that you read up on them.
00:10:58.720 | I'm giving them to you because if you are interested in the topic and you want the falsehood
00:11:06.360 | to be unveiled, then those resources are available for you.
00:11:13.080 | At the same time, I am hoping that you are able to philosophically and theologically
00:11:20.560 | triage in your own personal life what is necessary versus what is important versus what is frivolous.
00:11:34.080 | Do not sacrifice the necessary or the important for the frivolous.
00:11:43.560 | If anything is going to be taken out, take out the frivolous and then you can have the
00:11:48.840 | important but you never sacrifice what is necessary.
00:11:56.920 | For the rest of the episode, I'm going to be conducting a book review for confronting
00:12:02.760 | injustice without compromising truth.
00:12:06.080 | Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth by Thaddeus Williams.
00:12:10.740 | I was very fortunate to be part of the launch team prior to the book being available to
00:12:17.240 | the public and I have to say that this book exceeded my expectations.
00:12:25.240 | Professor Williams states in the preface that it took him four years to write the book and
00:12:31.360 | I could easily see why it took him four years to write the book.
00:12:36.520 | The book is not only well written but it is easily digestible, it is heartfelt, it is
00:12:41.660 | charitable without skipping on intellectual rigor.
00:12:47.000 | The other exceedingly high compliment I would give it is that I came out of reading this
00:12:52.520 | book thinking that the author completed this gargantuan task of tackling social justice
00:13:01.280 | in the angle of the thoroughness of covering that subject.
00:13:06.760 | I find that no less than remarkable.
00:13:12.600 | As a disclaimer, as I conduct this book review for the rest of the episode, I'm going to
00:13:19.520 | be taking quotes from the book.
00:13:22.480 | I'm not going to be saying quote each time because I will be saying it way too many times.
00:13:28.320 | I typically do that in other episodes.
00:13:32.120 | If I'm quoting someone, I'll say quote.
00:13:35.040 | For the rest of this episode, I'm not going to be doing that because I will be doing that
00:13:38.920 | every other second.
00:13:41.240 | It's a book review.
00:13:42.720 | It's all his work.
00:13:45.920 | The entirety of it.
00:13:47.680 | I'm bringing it to you because this is a book review.
00:13:55.440 | On to the book review itself.
00:13:58.120 | The foreword of this book is written by a former civil rights activist named John Perkins.
00:14:05.000 | John Perkins is one of the few living civil rights activists who was active during the
00:14:15.320 | civil rights movement and is still alive.
00:14:17.360 | So if you don't know who he is, insert him into a search engine and you'll quickly find
00:14:21.400 | out who he is.
00:14:23.600 | John Perkins writes in the foreword, "I was born on a Mississippi cotton plantation in
00:14:29.840 | 1930.
00:14:31.400 | My mother died of nutrition deficiency when I was just 7 months old.
00:14:35.440 | My big brother, a WWII veteran, was gunned down by a town marshal when I was 17 years
00:14:40.760 | old.
00:14:41.760 | As a civil rights activist, I was jailed and beaten nearly to death by police.
00:14:47.120 | They tortured me without mercy, stuck a fork up my nose and down my throat, then made me
00:14:51.800 | mop up my own blood.
00:14:53.380 | I have known injustice.
00:14:55.600 | It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to answer hate with hate."
00:15:01.200 | He goes on later in the foreword, "We are in the midst of a great upheaval.
00:15:06.200 | There is much confusion, much anger, much injustice.
00:15:09.880 | Sadly, many Christian brothers and sisters are trying to fight this fight with man-made
00:15:14.640 | solutions.
00:15:15.920 | These solutions promise justice but deliver division and idolatry.
00:15:20.440 | They become false gospels.
00:15:23.520 | Thankfully, in these trying times, new conversations are happening and the right questions are
00:15:29.440 | beginning to be asked."
00:15:32.600 | Professor Thaddeus Williams then begins the book by asking the question, "What is social
00:15:38.440 | justice?"
00:15:40.440 | What is social justice?
00:15:44.480 | Every age of church history has its controversies and now the society and the church has our
00:15:48.760 | own.
00:15:49.880 | He writes that in this century, you could learn about social justice auditing a college
00:15:53.720 | course, joining an activist chapter in our coffee shops, ads for soda, shoes in the Super
00:15:59.000 | Bowl, movies, Twitter feeds, national media, and our pulpits.
00:16:03.480 | It is absolutely ubiquitous and it's everywhere.
00:16:07.760 | While pinning today's situation, the author goes on to note that justice isn't optional
00:16:12.080 | for Christians.
00:16:13.360 | It is not optional for Christians.
00:16:15.760 | Indeed, the author rightly states that to seek justice is a clarion call of scripture
00:16:22.480 | and those who plug their ears to that call are simply not living by the standard of scripture.
00:16:29.840 | The Bible's call to seek justice, though, is not a call to superficial, knee-jerk activism.
00:16:36.680 | We are not to seek justice but to truly seek justice, presupposing that there are untrue
00:16:42.280 | ways to seek justice.
00:16:44.760 | We are to hold fast to what is good and test everything.
00:16:48.360 | To aid in how the reader should think about the term social justice, the author, Professor
00:16:52.640 | Thaddeus Williams, proposes to frame the dialectic, we know that word by now, into two positions
00:16:59.280 | he calls social justice A and social justice B. Social justice A would encapsulate efforts
00:17:08.000 | to abolish human trafficking, work with the inner city poor, invest in microloans to help
00:17:14.000 | the destitute in the developing world, build hospitals, upend racism, protect the unborn.
00:17:20.560 | Social justice B would be defined as a sort of thing that has taken an extremely charged
00:17:25.080 | political meaning and has become a waving banner over movements like Antifa, the waving
00:17:31.160 | banner of a disproportionate ratio of professors and universities around the nation where the
00:17:36.840 | oppressor vs. oppressed narrative of deconstructionism is taken as objective.
00:17:43.200 | Movements with the stated mission where they are trying to disrupt a western prescribed
00:17:48.980 | nuclear family structure, and movements on college campuses that have resorted to violence
00:17:53.480 | to silence opposing voices.
00:17:56.680 | Using social justice A and social justice B, he calls upon Christians to not look down
00:18:05.400 | on those who call for biblical discernment but rather to not be naive to the meanings
00:18:12.360 | that have been baked into many minds with the word combination of social and justice.
00:18:21.600 | The author goes on to state that the problem is not necessarily the quest for social justice
00:18:26.360 | but what happens when that quest is undertaken from a framework that is not compatible with
00:18:33.800 | the scriptures.
00:18:35.760 | Many Christians accept conclusions that are generated from worldviews that are wired with
00:18:40.560 | very different presuppositions about reality than those we find in scripture.
00:18:47.400 | We shirk God's commands and hurt his image bearers when we unwittingly allow unbiblical
00:18:53.280 | worldview assumptions to shape our approach to justice.
00:18:59.240 | Before beginning the book, he lists four disclaimers and they are the following.
00:19:04.280 | Number one, social justice A, the kind of justice that flows from scripture, is not
00:19:10.560 | synonymous with the republican party or its policies.
00:19:14.540 | Number two, he is not building a straw man of social justice B, and his portrayal is
00:19:20.780 | indeed representative of social justice B. Number three, this book should not be used
00:19:28.080 | as a billy club to bash brothers or sisters that we disagree with.
00:19:33.160 | Number four, the book takes aim at ideas and not people and it takes aim at those ideas
00:19:41.360 | because they hurt people we are called to love.
00:19:49.600 | After reading this portion of the book, my appetite to finish the rest of the book was
00:20:00.200 | increased dramatically.
00:20:04.240 | You can tell he's not only hitting the right points, but he understands the knee-jerk reaction
00:20:18.360 | to reject what Christians might believe to be merely republicanism or merely competing
00:20:28.880 | theories.
00:20:32.800 | Here are the 12 questions that he asks in the book.
00:20:37.280 | These are the 12 questions.
00:20:38.520 | He divides it into four parts, and so each of the four parts has kind of a grouping to
00:20:47.720 | it.
00:20:49.480 | Part one is this, Jehovah or Jezebel, three questions about social justice and worship.
00:20:56.920 | Part one, Jehovah or Jezebel, three questions about social justice and worship.
00:21:01.660 | Number one, the God question.
00:21:04.240 | Does our vision of social justice take seriously the Godhood of God?
00:21:11.360 | Does our vision of social justice take seriously the Godhood of God?
00:21:15.800 | Number two, the Imago question.
00:21:18.260 | Does our vision of social justice acknowledge the image of God in everyone, regardless of
00:21:24.640 | size, shade, sex, or status?
00:21:29.400 | Number three is the idolatry question.
00:21:32.180 | Does our vision of social justice make a false God out of the self, the state, or social
00:21:39.040 | acceptance?
00:21:42.040 | Number two, unity or uproar, three questions about social justice and community.
00:21:49.920 | Fourth question is the collective question.
00:21:52.480 | Does our vision of social justice take any group identity more seriously than our identities
00:21:59.560 | in Adam and in Christ?
00:22:02.180 | Number five, the splintering question.
00:22:04.540 | Does our vision of social justice embrace divisive propaganda?
00:22:10.200 | Number six, the fruit question.
00:22:12.280 | Does our vision of social justice replace love, peace, and patience with suspicion,
00:22:18.640 | division, and rage?
00:22:21.560 | Part three, sinners or systems, three questions about social justice and salvation.
00:22:29.620 | Number seven is a disparity question.
00:22:32.080 | Does our vision of social justice prefer damning stories to undamning facts?
00:22:39.300 | Number eight, the color question.
00:22:41.400 | Does our vision of social justice promote racial strife?
00:22:48.400 | Number nine, the gospel question.
00:22:51.400 | Does our vision of social justice distort the best news in history?
00:22:57.560 | Last part, part four, truth or tribes thinking, three questions about social justice and salvation.
00:23:05.960 | Truth or tribes thinking, three questions about social justice and knowledge.
00:23:13.000 | Number 10, the tunnel vision question.
00:23:15.500 | Does our vision of social justice make one way of seeing something the only way of seeing
00:23:21.080 | everything?
00:23:22.740 | Does our vision of social justice make one way of seeing something the only way of seeing
00:23:27.460 | everything?
00:23:29.120 | Number 11 is a suffering question.
00:23:31.120 | Does our vision of social justice turn the lived experience of hurting people into more
00:23:36.760 | pain?
00:23:37.940 | Does our vision of social justice turn the lived experience of hurting people into more
00:23:43.360 | pain?
00:23:44.360 | The last question, number 12, the standpoint question.
00:23:48.640 | Does our vision of social justice turn the quest for truth into an identity game?
00:23:56.280 | Does our vision of social justice turn the quest for truth into an identity game?
00:24:02.640 | The book also lists a pretty robust appendix section that tackles various questions that
00:24:10.960 | are intriguing and relevant to many, such as abortion and the right to life, capitalism
00:24:18.160 | and socialism, defining sexuality, fragility and anti-fragility, and an appendix entitled
00:24:24.640 | — a portion of the appendix entitled Good News to the Poor.
00:24:28.200 | At the end of each chapter for the 12 questions, he includes a short, often personal story
00:24:35.480 | related to the topic of social justice.
00:24:39.800 | There are 12 chapters, so there are 12 other contributing authors.
00:24:44.680 | This group is eclectic in nature, and they include people who came out of the woke movement
00:24:51.240 | or are otherwise related to the topic of social justice.
00:24:54.760 | Many of them are active on social media.
00:24:56.920 | I've already recommended a couple of them to you, Jamal Bandy, Samuel Tse, Monique Dusson
00:25:01.280 | are also contributing authors.
00:25:02.880 | They're active on social media, they're also active in the celestial blogosphere.
00:25:09.360 | So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to pose some of the questions, six of the 12,
00:25:17.840 | and I'll give you a little snippet from the book of how we answered it.
00:25:24.200 | Number one, the God question.
00:25:25.600 | This is the first question.
00:25:27.160 | Does our vision of social justice take seriously the Godhood of God?
00:25:32.160 | The God question.
00:25:33.520 | Does our vision of social justice take seriously the Godhood of God?
00:25:38.520 | He says this.
00:25:39.840 | Professor Thaddeus Williams, the author, states, "Paul knows that the human tree is so hopelessly
00:25:46.920 | sick that whatever soil you plant in it, toxic fruit will form.
00:25:52.080 | No amount of political revolution, social engineering, or policy tweaking will stop
00:25:57.320 | envy, strife, deceit, and maliciousness from sprouting out of our sick hearts.
00:26:03.320 | Why were all the utopias of the modern era doomed to fail?
00:26:06.480 | Because the evil did not originate in politics, society, or the economy.
00:26:11.000 | It is expressed there, but evil originates in human hearts that exchange the glory of
00:26:17.000 | the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things,
00:26:23.280 | and the sun and water and gold and sex and power."
00:26:28.560 | The Imago question.
00:26:30.760 | Does our vision of social justice acknowledge the image of God in everyone, regardless
00:26:36.020 | of size, shade, sex, or status?
00:26:39.960 | There's a snippet from that chapter.
00:26:42.120 | The author states, "There is a tendency today to reduce people not to bodies but to
00:26:46.440 | ideologies.
00:26:48.200 | We don't see a human being so much as we see social justice sylphics to our left and neo-Nazis
00:26:54.000 | to our right, or we see and treat people on the basis of their skin color or gender or
00:26:59.120 | whom they want to sleep with.
00:27:01.280 | That is why giving God his due is so important to real justice."
00:27:06.880 | The Idolatry question.
00:27:10.000 | Does our vision of social justice make a false God out of the self, the state, or social
00:27:15.800 | acceptance?
00:27:16.800 | The author states in part, "The question is, who has the right, the trustworthiness,
00:27:22.120 | the goodness, and the authority to render their verdict about who we really are?"
00:27:26.880 | Social Justice B answers, "We do."
00:27:29.480 | Herein lies one of the deepest problems with idolizing the self as sovereign.
00:27:33.320 | The omnipotence-demanding task of constructing an entire person's nature is forced onto
00:27:38.880 | our all-too-shaky, infinite soldiers.
00:27:42.000 | Tragically, we buckle under the impossible weight.
00:27:47.880 | That was question number three.
00:27:48.880 | Now I'm going to tackle question number six from the book.
00:27:53.480 | Question number six is the fruit question.
00:27:56.500 | Does our vision of social justice replace love, peace, and patience with suspicion,
00:28:03.920 | division, and rage?
00:28:05.320 | Does our vision of social justice replace love, peace, and patience with suspicion,
00:28:09.760 | division, and rage?
00:28:10.880 | The author states, "The kingdoms of the world play the self-defeating game of tribalizing,
00:28:17.240 | retaliation, and escalation, running up body counts in the name of justice.
00:28:22.040 | The kingdom Jesus invites us into does not play by those rules."
00:28:25.640 | Corrie ten Boom showed her citizenship in Jesus' kingdom rather than the world's kingdoms
00:28:30.440 | when she extended forgiveness to the Nazi.
00:28:35.040 | The kingdoms of the world play the self-defeating game of tribalizing, retaliation, and escalation,
00:28:40.200 | running up body counts in the name of justice.
00:28:42.360 | The kingdom Jesus invites us into does not play by those rules.
00:28:45.640 | Corrie ten Boom showed her citizenship in Jesus' kingdom rather than the world's kingdoms
00:28:50.400 | when she extended forgiveness to the Nazi.
00:28:53.040 | If you don't know that story, look up Corrie ten Boom.
00:29:00.640 | The disparity question #7.
00:29:02.360 | Does our vision of social justice prefer damning stories to undamning facts?
00:29:07.840 | The author states, "The point is not that there is no such thing as racism or sexism
00:29:11.360 | or other vicious 'isms' wreaking havoc on earth.
00:29:15.240 | Sinful 'isms' inflict hurt on some people groups that other people groups never have
00:29:19.320 | to cope with.
00:29:20.480 | The point is that shouting 'systemic injustice' at every unequal outcome is too easy.
00:29:26.240 | In a world unlike ours with zero racism or sexism or any other evil 'ism,' there
00:29:31.920 | would still be vast inequalities based on things as boring and undamning as geography,
00:29:40.600 | age, birthdays, birth order, shopping, habits, desire to lay bricks, and so much more.
00:29:49.560 | When we automatically assume damning explanations for unequal outcomes, we not only lock ourselves
00:29:56.400 | in a prison of never-ending rage, but also dull our sense to the point that we will be
00:30:01.320 | useless for the sacred task of recognizing and resisting the real racism, real sexism,
00:30:08.600 | and other real vicious 'isms' around us."
00:30:14.480 | The last question I'll tackle here, the gospel question, that's number 9, the gospel
00:30:18.440 | question.
00:30:19.520 | Does our vision of social justice distort the best news in history?
00:30:23.880 | Does our vision of social justice distort the best news in history?
00:30:28.440 | The Bible also commands that we tell the truth, that we give generously, that we love our
00:30:32.160 | neighbor and so on.
00:30:33.680 | None of these commands are optional, yet none of these commands is the gospel.
00:30:37.900 | We should not confuse any of these commands with the first thing.
00:30:41.360 | If we do, then we will not only lose the gospel, but also find ourselves adhering to these
00:30:46.520 | commands in a way that obliterates their essence.
00:30:50.160 | Without the gospel first, we become graceless in our truth-telling, cheerless in our giving,
00:30:56.360 | and our neighborly love turns into self-righteous showmanship.
00:31:00.720 | Likewise, when the gospel is not our first thing, social justice becomes something else
00:31:06.480 | entirely.
00:31:11.200 | So those are 6 questions out of the 12 in the book, and I've used 6 snippets from the
00:31:20.160 | book to address those 6 questions that the author asks.
00:31:24.920 | As you could probably tell from those snippets, the author's insight is astute, insightful,
00:31:34.600 | and thoroughly grounded in proper theology and reality.
00:31:40.960 | He really did go into great pains into interpreting reality correctly so that when he did apply
00:31:49.200 | Biblical truth, we get a corresponding result that is right on the mark.
00:31:56.680 | Interpreting reality correctly does seem to be a lost art, a lacking skill that very,
00:32:02.760 | very few have at the moment.
00:32:06.520 | To emphasize its importance, I want to quote to you from 1 Chronicles 12.32.
00:32:12.560 | 1 Chronicles 12.42 says this in part, "From the sons of Issachar, men who understood the
00:32:22.480 | times with knowledge of what Israel should do."
00:32:28.720 | Here, when you think about what it takes to build a proper kingdom, society, nation, church,
00:32:42.520 | you have to have men who understand the times.
00:32:50.680 | That is another way of saying interpreting reality correctly, because if you don't, it
00:32:56.000 | is very easy to take truth and misapply it.
00:33:02.040 | When someone is diagnosed with cancer, I'm not going to give them a Band-Aid.
00:33:11.000 | If someone needs a Band-Aid, we are not going to say, "You should go and get radiation therapy."
00:33:19.600 | You can see how and why men who understand the times is so very important.
00:33:31.220 | If you are interested in this subject, I hope this episode whetted your appetite for the
00:33:36.040 | book.
00:33:37.920 | I took the bulk of this episode to do a book review, because as I said in the beginning,
00:33:47.320 | I found it remarkable that the author covered this subject in a very thorough manner that
00:33:57.560 | was also very charitable.
00:34:01.480 | That was very impressing to me, which is why I'm saying the same thing yet again at the
00:34:07.040 | end of the episode.
00:34:09.500 | Being a self-described signpost theologian, this is one of those moments where I'm absolutely
00:34:14.560 | pointing those who are interested in that direction.
00:34:19.920 | Thanks for making it to the end.
00:34:22.160 | I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it.
00:34:26.520 | To Him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion.
00:34:30.320 | James Hong out.
00:34:43.640 | [music]
00:35:01.720 | (upbeat music)