Shepherds For Sale by Megan Basham: Critical Race Prophets

 5. Critical Race Prophets:

***Pastors taking on the role of the Holy Spirit

CRT defined: a system built upon allocating privileges, power, and opportunities in inequitable ways 

-collective repentance of racism

-non-black leaders sought forgiveness for being blind to their white privilege 

-non-black leaders sought forgiveness for being complicit in perpetuating systemic racism

-leaders still apologized but not have any specific prejudices or bigoted acts to confess themselves 

-non-black members were called to repent themselves

“The non-black leaders had been passive about the pattern of systemic racism we see in our nation and so they were repenting.”

-exhorted white members to resist being defensive and not to run away from hard conversations

-asked member to be committed to being anti racist

-churches dedicated to collectively repenting of their complicity in racism

Christ Central:

-held a for black women by black women conference

-is your faith deeply oppressive

-conference on white Christians were making making black Christians fit into a particular mold

-conference had decolonize discipleship form witness 

-Book study dedicated to ongoing discussions of racism “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo

-white members should be open to seeing their unconscious bias 

-white members lament is wasteful as white women’s tears were a manipulation tactics to avoid responsibility

-members need the racism discipled out of them

-church intentionally utilizing some lesson from Critical Race Theory

Dismantling Structural Racism/Promoting Racial Equity:

-in government and schools, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion departments throughout the country

-you just can’t be against racism, but embrace your bias in every aspect of your life

-the key element of CRT is white privilege 

-CRT is the solution to racism: Marxist perceived good of the group over the liberty and private rights of the individual

“If white people are the oppressors and minorities are the oppressed, the struggle between racial groups takes the place of Marx’s class struggle.”

Public Schools:

-CRT unequivocally has socialist & Marxist origins and objectives

-teaching students that some are privileged while others are more oppressed because of the color of their skin

-CRT rebranded civil rights 

-rewrite American history 

-Black Lives Matter is a positive example of CRT activism 

-Restorative Justice Practices

Baylor University (Baptist school):

-give students 5 tips to Cultivate Cultural Humility and Antiracism through diversity, equity, and inclusion

Wheaton College:

2021-held a racially segregated graduation ceremony for minority students

Pennsylvania Grove City College (conservative religious school):

2020-the president’s office was launching a diversity council

“Freedom, justice, and democracy, especially for black people and other people of color, are in imminent danger.”

-held “racial struggle sessions”  that pressured students to admit their inner racism and white guilt 

-added a new course titled Cultural Diversity and Advocacy to teach students on “how to become actively anti racist”

-syllabus including Kendi and DiAngelo texts requiring student to create a racial reconciliation community project

***Social Justice Replaced the Great Commission

-ethnic minorities are encouraged to view themselves as the oppressed and whites are automatically defined as the oppressors

-dethroning white supremacy

-CRT’s Marx-based redistribution ideology

-surrender leadership to black candidates

Contrasts:

**CRT causes unbiblical division

**CRT is unscriptural

**CRT  = victims and oppressors

**Bible = sinners and saints 

**CRT = there is no forgiveness

**Bible = Individual forgiveness by faith through Jesus

**CRT = Kendi “fundamentally rejects Savior theology”

Question: Is Critical Race Theory UnChristian? YES

CRT = earthly utopia without God 

Conclusion:

-we are being trained in fear, suspicion, bitterness, and resentment, so why would the Church ever want to synthesize such ungodly lessons with the Gospel that reconciles men to each other by reconciling them first to Christ

Theologian Voddie Bacham, himself Black, addressed this well with his coinage of the term ethnic Gnosticism. It is the idea that people have special knowledge based solely on their ethnicity. He wrote “Fault Lines,” a book on CRT’s devastating impact on the Church. 

Shepherds For Sale by Megan Basham: Government used Pastors to Spread Covid-19 Propaganda

 4. Government used Pastors to Spread Covid-19 Propaganda:

Southern Baptist Convention

ERLC

World Health Organization

CDC

European CDC

World Bank

NIH (preferred coronavirus narratives)

Bill Gates 

Protestant denominations 

Rick Warren (pastor of Saddleback church)

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

World Economic Forum: DAVOS (Switzerland)

Institute of Politics (senior Obama advisor David Axelrod) 

-the churches job is to tell people to blindly trust in the government

-how pastors should respond to church members’ resistance to getting the vaccine

-use spiritual manipulation

-guilting people to wear masks

-masking and getting vaccinated were proof that one was following Jesus

-the Bible commands not to give up meeting together (Hebrews 10:25), but churches closed their doors 

-send the message that closed doors save lives 

-pastors complied with church closures 

-preach closed doors and wearing masks is not an invasion of your personal freedom or a political statement 

-love your neighbor, get the shot

-high-profile church leaders helped spread federal Covid-19 dogma to have immediate impact on ordinary Christians 

-Fauci was content to leave it to church leaders to combat scientific ‘misinformation’

-pastors and theologians parroted that official Covid-19 policies reduced harm to “the least of these” 

“Churches needed to remain closed and that pastors needed to use their offices to convince their congregations to comply with government orders that violated their First Amendment Rights.”

“If you believe that God gives us the opportunity to act as His agents to try to relieve suffering and death…and if we are trying to model ourselves after Christ, who spent so much of His time on this earth in healing activities, it seems like we could take advantage of what science, through God’s grace, has given us as a means of ending this terrible pandemic.”

-Federal Government used Evangelical leaders to speak covid propaganda to churches 

-used “gracious dialogue” included suppressing the opinions of medical experts that disagree with Fauci

-pastors promoted that scientists “stay a home” orders would reduce cases 

Pledges taken because of their faith in Jesus Christ:

1-Wear Masks because mask rules are nor experts taking away our freedom, but an opportunity to follow Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself

2-Get Vaccinated: because vaccination is a provision from God

3-Correct Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories when encountered on social media and communities because Christians are called to love the truth so we should not be swayed by falsehoods

Critics:

-Suentra Gupta opposed pandemic policies like lockdowns and questioned  conventional scientific wisdom about the severity of the virus 

-experts talking about herd immunity were silenced 

-Desantis followed advice to resist most restrictions 

-Bhattacharya “It’s one thing to have a public health campaign to help people know how to get vaccinated, but to tie that to moral behavior–to say–if you don’t get vaccinated, you’re a bad guy or sinning is dangerous.”

-truth revealed: Covid has been a bioengineered bioweapon manufactured in a lab

-truth revealed: it does manipulate a person’s RNA

-pastors who kept their doors open believed “the devil can’t get into my church”

-truth revealed: Supreme Court defeated the White House on policy that attempted to force employers to mandate employees get the Covid-19 vaccinations

Christianity Today:

-article: “On Christmas Spreading Corona Conspiracies: Gullibility Is not a Spiritual Gift”

-article: “It’s time to Forgive Each Other Our Pandemic Sins”

Billy Graham Center at Wheaton:

-Ed Stetzer, director, stated “that evangelicals who entertained that lab leak hypothesis needed to ‘repent’ and to ‘consider taking Christia off their social media profiles so the rest of us don’t have to share in the embarrassment.”

The Gospel Coalition:

-called critics examples of sinful Covid conspiracy mongering

 -questioning a still-developing public health crisis were guilty of sin

Church Leaders Podcast:

-focused on way Christians who wanted to obey Christ’s command to love their neighbors must get the Covid vaccine and submit to mask mandates

“I want to exhort pastors once again to try to use your credibility with your flock to put forward the public health measures that we know can work” (Collin).

-it is unloving of Christians who questioned the efficacy of masks, specifically framing it as a matter of obedience to Jesus

-wearing a mask is the great commandment: love your neighbor as yourself

-church leaders have an obligation to convince religious people to accept the government’s narratives about Covid-19

-it is a responsibility of faith leaders is to tell people to trust the science 

-openly mocked churches whose doors stayed open as disturbing examples 

House Oversight Committee:

-Suppress truth and cover Fauci’s tracks over funding gain of function research at eh Wuhan Institute of Virology that fell below recommended biosafety markers

Church Mandates:

-use influence to urge members of the county’s largest Protestant denomination to submit to vaccine mandates in the name of Romans 13’s directive to be ‘subject to governing authorities’

New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian:

-Time Keller segregated its church body based on vaccine status, allowing the fully vaccinated to sit on the main floor of the sanctuary

Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina:

-required to get the vaccine for all employees

Southern Baptist Convention:

-mandated vaccination for all missionaries and family member over ag 16

-2020 panel discussion on the subject of racism

-preaching on works like hegemony and cultural representation

-throwing out theological terms like soteriology and hypostatic 

Great Commission Baptists:

-called for a racial reckoning

-provided  systemic laws definition as part of the racism argument that it is not just individuals harboring sinful bigotry in their hearts, but a all-encompassing problem throughout American life 

“Structural racism is ot something that a few people or institutions choose to practice. It has been a feature of the social, economic, and political systems in which we all exist.”

“White people had been in power for so long in the United States, the systems of law and governance they had put in place still benefit them at the expense of minorities. Civil rights reforms have not done enough to ensure that the scales of justice are not out of balance”

Trinity Bible Chapel:

-”Wear your masks. Make your kids wear theirs. Shut down your churches. Take the vaccine. Shut up about your employer demanding you take a vaccine. And do it all to show you love Jesus and your neighbor.”

Government you can trust:

-defends experimentation on fetuses obtained by abortion

-protects the use of human fetal tissue 

-speaks fluently on ‘structural racism’ against minorities in AMerica’s institutions

-holds progressives as holy LGBTQ orthodoxy

-applauds the trans movement as courageous and resilient 

-allows grant money for experimental transgender research on children 

-set federal Covid policies as nonpartisan

-2021, Biden administration used aggressive policy of coerced jabs under threat of unemployment

-the U.S. government does have the authority to mandate vaccinations if there is an outbreak that is threatening people, because it’s not just about you, it’s about the people you’re going to infect 

-made those vaccinated the victims

-there is no separation of church and state when there are Covid-19 policies in place 

***Question: Can Christian be leaders in publicly-owned corporations and government agencies that are committed to many Non-Christian values? NO

Shepherds For Sale by Megan Basham: Pro-Life Movement

 3. Pro-Life Movement:

“The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life” (Thomas Sowell).

Religion News 

Gospel Coalition

Christianity Today (silent)

Trinity Forum fellow (Christian think tank seems to be assembling a certain type of thought)

Guttmacher Institute

Christians for Social Actions

National Association of Evangelicals (social tinkering to protect the sanctity of human life, ought we not be for a little tinkering to protect the environment)

Fall of Roe:

-pro-life activists and evangelical leaders took opportunity to argue for bigger government and to bolster pro-abortion narrative that Christians only care about babies before they’re born

-women choose abortion because the United State is insufficiently feminist and fails to provide enough entitlements

-pregnancy forces women to choose between children and themselves

-abortion narrative that babies are a fundamental obstacle to female fulfillment

-evangelicals come out as lamenting over Roe being overturned

“May the Lord give grace to victims of rape whose pregnancies are daily reminders of the worst violation” 

“May the Lord give grace to women whose lives are at risk in their pregnancies & to medical providers wondering if they can intervene to save their lives”

-focused on social program that churches and lawmakers might offer in response

*** for decades it had been uncontroversial for Christians to place significant weight on a candidate’s stance on abortion when evaluating how to vote

***2019 focus not on the restrictions of abortion but twist it to support candidates that are pro-abortion but promise to address systemic racism would be more pro-life, given better education and higher paying jobs so minorities may choose to keep their babies

-Biden’s administration promised to protect abortion access, expand LGBTQ power, and erase religious liberty protections to boot

“White evangelical Protestants stand noticeably apart from other religious people on abortion restrictions” (Associated  Press).

“We remember that being fully pro-life means caring about the whole life, in all its fulless and diversity” (Christians for Social Change).

-evangelical used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground, but now it is just synonymous with hypocrite 

-evangelicals should back Democrats despite their stance on abortion

-evangelicals called to be the road map for navigating the unprecedented social and cultural changes  we are facing 

-evangelicals as an authoritative voice on political ethics

-Republicans no longer use abortion as a wedge issue 

-refuse those evangelicals who had propelled Trump to victory

-distribution of online abortion drugs has ramped up

-need to transform the definition of pro-life to mean everything 

-be pro-all-of-life from conception to the grave, including every ethnicity

-deny abortion, but pro-life means anything from supporting sex abuse victims to someone being denied a job because of race

-pro-life is wearing a mask during COVID pandemic

-pro-life is gun control 

-pro-life is antiracism

**Being pro-life is everything except the baby in the womb

Media and Money Men:

-evangelical media covers the same topics as secular news outlets and culture journals

Christianity Today:

-progressive slant

-Interview: self-professed Christian psychology professor bemoaned the fact that states had been banning transgender medications and surgeries for children because these are complex clinical issues 

-Article: highly racially divisive essay titled, “White Churches, It’s Time to Go Pro-Life on Gun Control”

-reports promoting lax border policies with no counterbalance to show the harms of unfettered illegal immigration

-no coverage of the dozens of laws being passed across the country that ban transgender surgeries and treatments on minors, drag queen performances in front of children, or bills mandating that schools keep gender indoctrination out of the classroom

-funding coming from secular foundations 

-deep desire for approval of the secular elites

**Elite evangelicalism is a form of cultural accommodation dressed as convictional religion

Money:

-used to taint Christian thought

-2 million grant to Christian Today for a project called “Create a Future for Christian Thought” 

-Lilly endowment’s patronage of Billy Graham’s magazine between 2019-2022

-money used to educate preachers

-money used to equip preachers in bringing their message of life

Thriving in Ministry Initiative:

-overtly left-wing that its participants promote abortion, reparations, illegal immigration amnesty, and LGBTQ agenda

Funding:

-political donation support for Democrats

-candidates who ran on platform of protecting abortion without exception

-repealing the Hyde Amendment that prevents federal tax dollars from funding abortions 

-support the Equality Act: threatens parental  rights over children who claim to be transgender, decimate conscience rights for medical workers

-cancel religious freedom 

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

“The Equality Act represents the greatest threat to religious liberty in the United States in our lifetimes and would totally transform the United States as we know it” (Albert Mohler, president).

BUT

-funded to campaign of candidates pledging to vote for it 

Religion New Service:

-money supported aggressive LGBTQ grant maker the Arcus Foundation

-push LGBTQ affirmations in the church as a question of civil rights rather then biblical rights

-recruit and equip LGBT supportive leaders and advocates to counter rejection and antagonism within traditionally conservative Christian churches

-overtly push LGBTQ doctrine

Ex. LGBTQ Bias May Be Driving Them Away

Babylon Bee:

“Our jokes are not anti-trans. They’re pro-truth” (CEO Seth Dillon).

Political Evangelicals:

-Soros/Gates/Secular foundations/Church

-world’s richest people have a strong interest in shaping society

-world’s richest people launch grant-making foundations

-take money from core partners like George Soros

-Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: left wing promotes vote-by-mail initiatives, socialized health care, and gun control 

-Capital Research Center money

-Trinity Forum (research the role of Christian leaders in political life)

-Obama administration argued that it would be best for our nation if evangelicals embraced pluralism

-evangelicals should show less interest in their own beliefs enshrined in American law and mor willingness to accommodate the policies of the left 

Public Religion Institute:

-accused White Christian churches of being responsible for constructing and sustaining a project to protect white supremacy

Conservative Christians Dominionists:

-not just want religious freedom, but religious authority

-stop the efforts to purge books off school shelves (not mentioning that those books available to middle school children depicted pornographic images like boys performing oral sex on each other

-counseled evangelicals to give up the ghost on traditional marriage as a matter of law

-decisions are permanent is how pluralism is supposed to work

2024:

-Trinity Forum partner with other secularists to create Bible Study Curriculum

-bring politics into the church to help reframe Christian political identity

Rockefeller Philanthropy:

-2022 announced funding to the beneficiaries of it New Pluralists Project

-bank rolling Bible Studies 

-seeking to promote leadership of rural LGBTQ+ people

-keeping and returning fossil fuel resources in the ground in the name of climate change

-collaborative efforts to the Collaborative for Gender and Reproductive Equity

-fund efforts to safeguard abortion rights

-ensure that youth have access to gender affirming care 

Enumerical group One America Movement:

-leader of the LGBTQ+ affirming synagogue

-cofounder of the Black Lives Matter of Greater New York

-excuses rioting as self-defense

-called Jesus a black radical revolutionary

After Party:

-racist racial justice warriors

-frames America as systemically racist and that Christians should vote to ensure racial justice

-voting on abortion is complex but voting on the issue of racial injustice is clearcut

-books pastor’s conferences

-convinced Christian Colleges & Universities to adopt their Trinity Forum curriculum

-implement Trinity Forum curriculum through student development, student life, chapel services, discipleship groups, residence life, and student orientations 

-integrate Trinity Forum curriculum into political science, theology, and pastoral ministry courses 

“The irony that creating a Bible study curriculum devoted to teaching Christians how to be less political is, in itself, inappropriately politicizing Scripture.”

“Rockefeller bankrolling Bible studies to convince progressive evangelicals that they need to be less partisan or more willing to embrace conservative policies for the sake of pluralism or crucifying the self.”