Freedom In Christ

The following program is sponsored by evangelical life ministries.

Welcome to engaging truth, the manifestation of God's word and the lives of people around us. Join us each week. As we explore the impact of his message of spiritual renewal from the lesson of forgiveness forged and the crucible of divorce, to the message of salvation learned by an executioner from a condemned killer to the gift of freedom found in the rescue of victims of human trafficking. This is God's truth in action.

Welcome to engaging truth. Rob, we engage the issues of the day with the truth, the power and the wisdom of God's word. I'm your guest host Dr. Gregory. Seltz the executive director of the Lutheran center for religious Liberty in Washington, DC, where our job is actually to protect the church's public voice so you can preach and teach and proclaim the whole council of God. For the sake of those who hear and on our program today, I've got a leader in our church whose job is to actually, uh, lead our church in all the issues and challenges of the day. So they can be useful in God's hands. Our, our guest today is Dr. Lucas Woodford. He is the president of the Minnesota south district of the Luther church of Missouri Senate, pastor of Trinity Lutheran church in Farmington, Minnesota. And he's also a writer he writes and speaks and researches on a lot of issues, uh, for doxology. And the one we're gonna talk about today is responding to social justice and critical race theory. Uh, welcome Lucas, how are you today?

I am great. Thanks for having me. It's uh, great to be with

Ya writing for doxology. Okay. And I love what, what it says that, that your job is to do this research, writing, speaking, uh, reser regarding the care of souls. And I think, uh, some people know that my PhD is in some of the same stuff, black liberation theology and its challenge to Lutheran river ministry. And it's all about caring of souls and reaching people for the sake of the gospel. All right. So what is the, how does social justice and critical race theory get in the way of that? What's the issue?

Sure. Well, some of the challenges I think with, uh, critical race theory, social justice and, and it's blocking of soul care, I think it's, uh, well, we might put, it's not always a rational thought, uh, and doesn't have allow people to engage on rational, uh, grounds, I suppose. Okay. But it's an ideology that isn't helpful, uh, for, uh, understanding truth, uh, where truth is at. And as one who cares for souls coming from the Christian perspective, uh, look at the nature and the identity of a soul as one, that's been redeemed by the blood of Christ. And, uh, how is that soul afflicted by the maladies of society, um, and their own, including their own sins or sins committed against them, as well as the sins they commit. And so critical race theory, um, in its popularized version. And I just for, uh, depending on how the hearers are, who are listening right now, uh, critical race theory itself was a legal theory used in the seventies, but it's popularized now in a manner that the social justice movement has been, uh, co-opting it, uh, to push forward and to, to label and categorize people in demeaning ways, doing the very thing that it, it says, uh, was done, excuse me, done to black people

Yeah. Was done to them. So, yeah, it's using racism to solve racism. One of the things that, and again, folks, you know, we're not coming at both, uh, Lucas and I, um, Dr. Woodford and I are, we've actually been in, in situations where we've had to actually deal with this straight up because we care about the people in the neighborhood and the folks in the neighborhood didn't necessarily look like us either. We were empowering them. It was for their sake that we fought these things and what I learned and I'm sure what he's gonna talk about too. Like black liberation theology, didn't liberate anybody. Right. Most politics didn't liberate anybody. And I was about empowering the neighborhood and it's the same thing with critical race theory and, and social justice. It brings a justice that isn't just, and so when you get to that as Christians, we're like, no, we really want to do what's right. For the sake of others. So, all right. Let's get to some of the particulars of CRT. Um, you know, so for people who don't really know what this is, they use a lot of terminology that we kind of go, oh, I think I know what that means, but then we really don't like systemic, uh, sin versus personal sin or things like that. Talk about some of the, the precepts of it and why it starts to, uh, kind of go, uh, uh, far afield from what we really need to be talking about.

Sure. Well, some of the concepts, uh, that go within are, are different words, bringing new words in, um, and definitions are important. Excuse me, definitions are important for that. And so we recognize first racism itself. We'll talk about that. That's evil, right? And viewing someone as, uh, inherently inferior based on a color of skin or where they're from. We recognize that as sinful and evil over within the social justice setting, you got terms like white guilt, white privilege, white fragility, um, and those have implications for how you treat people, particularly white people and how they view government's roles should be involved in it. So white guilt, simply something along the lines of individual or collective guilt felt by white people for harm resulting from racist treatment of ethnic minorities, white privilege, unearned advantage based on race, which can be observed both systemically and individually. And it, when we talk about systemically, it means, uh, the phrase might be it's baked into the system.

Um, and so the, the point of, uh, the whole United States itself, it says it's based on, uh, white privilege. And the whole point is to try and keep down minorities. Of course, we, um, don't believe that. And we don't treat, uh, minorities in such a way wrote white fragility, same way. It says that white people are so fragile. They can't handle even a minimum minimum amount of racial stress, uh, becomes intolerable for them triggering defensive motives. And if they exhibit white fragility, it proves their racism, uh, and their inability for that few other key terms, I think are things like equality and equity, right? Uh, which goes towards the belief that, uh, we should have, uh, equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity, right? The idea of critical race theory wants to, uh, force the equality of outcome upon people and wants the government to enact that over against the equality of opportunity. Mm-hmm, equality of opportunity allows for meritocracy and people's effort and pushing that forward, but critical race theory and its popularized version, uh, is an effort to try and, uh, put white people in their place for the oppressive nature and, and reparations, if you will, that were, uh, deserving from the sin of slavery, uh, that had gone on. And again was horrible. Uh, but now we've got an overcorrection and reaction coming at people and culture, which are really dividing people, including the church as well.

Well, and I think on top of that, I always say, what's your solution, the fir you know, cuz again, we can get into whole discussions about the roots of the problem, how extensive the problem is and all these different kinds of things. And that goes on forever. Um, then, then you say, well, what's your solution? The solution is state coercion of certain people versus state coercion of other people and treat this group like they're a group, even if their ancestors had nothing to do with it. That's where this stuff gets really rotten to the core because it's a state solution. Whereas our founding fathers understood the state could be corrupt. They understood that the state could be coercively bad and they wanted to limit that so that they could set religiously free, motivated people to self govern and to actually live virtuous lives for others.

And by the way, that's why the west finally got rid of slavery because it's the only culture that said it's, it's gotta be evil. Our foundational principles cannot allow us to be this way. And like you said, now we're actually saying that the west is foundationally evil. And when it's the very principles of the west that got rid of this thing. So again, as we go through this, this starts to confuse things like personal responsibility, personal accountability. What's my relationship to God. What's my ultimate identity. Um, that's destructive because it finally starts to make us think more about being part of a particular group and not even thinking about a relationship to God into one another.

Oh, for sure. And I think that that was one of the challenges I think is as you've, uh, written much on liberation theology, it reduces even the, I the idea of Christianity to that of color itself. And it, it does the very thing that it accused white people of doing categorizing people into tribes or groups and us and them and creating divisions that need not be there, especially when our identity is in Christ. Uh, whether it's neither Jew nor Greek slave nor free. Uh, but when we're baptized into Christ, that's where our identity comes from. And so it, it's a offensive ideology. That's intent on, uh, airing grievance and punishing those who are perceived to be a part of an oppressive, uh, class or race of people, uh, that for Christians it's in inimical to the gospel and understanding that and then, and reaching out and understanding people as a creature of God and their identity as a creature of God, which then dovetails as well with natural rights and understanding, uh, our constitutional Republic and how the founding fathers, um, understand that.

One of the things that I think frustrates me sometimes of those that I dialogue with on this say, well, you're just parroting, Republican talking points and really has nothing to do with Republican talking points. It's about the principles of what principles our constitutional Republic have and where that overlaps from Christian perspective on natural rights. Right. Um, and so one of the objections I have regarding, uh, what people say, but you need to lay down your white privilege and you need to, uh, I had some people even in Lutheran, pastors arranging knee downs in front of black people to demonstrate of our white privilege. And then we need to lay down these rights that we would have because of our evils heed upon, uh, the black community. Right? Well, it's, it's a confusion of what God has endowed all people with, right? Uh, and somehow saying, I'm gonna lay down these rights.

What I can't give them up because God is the one who's given them to me. And that's why I wanna treat every ethnic minority, white people, black people. Uh, we have a large HMG population here in the twin cities that they're all endowed, uh, with this natural right by the creator. Um, but because of the, um, and this, if we can go on a different topic on this, but because the 24 hour news cycle is in the face of people with things on critical race theory and teaches them only how to emote and not how to think, um, it reduces them then just to piles of emotion, uh, that were white guilt then of course is played upon, uh, and then creates more divisions rather than solutions.

And they want, they want us to give up the, because I've seen this and they don't really clearly define white privilege and white supremacy and all that because Western thought now is considered white supremacists, right? And those are the inalienable rights of individuals outside of their color ethnicity, which is really the most unique thing in human history. I wanna just say, just so people know that we really are taking this stuff really seriously. Look, 20th century, uh, Chicago, world's fair was a white supremacist expression. I I'm with you on that, but it was built on Darwinian notion of, of humanity. And so if you're a Darwinist, by the way, the, when I start with the whole discussion of Darwinism today, someone says, well, that's who I am. I'm a secularist. And there is no God. I say, oh, then you gotta be a racist because Darwinism is the foundation of racism.

But this notion that God created us all and we're all have we all are made in the image of God. And we have, we have an intrinsic value because we're created by God, that's the Christian worldview folks. And so we've been fighting this enlightenment secularism for hundreds of years. And for some reason we never attack it. It's, it's the foundation of all this nonsense. And so it just happens to have a, a more diverse face now, but it's still supremacy still based on, based on skin color, still based on outward characteristics that don't define you as a human being, uh, by God. And so again, I love what you're doing here. You you've written this paper that really is extensive. If people wanna, I think we'll get to where they can get a copy of this because it really lays out a lot of these terms.

And, and we can't get into all that today. But our, our goal is to tell people, folks, we have a message. We have a message that cuts through this that allows us. If we need to repent, we repent. But it, it gets to that foundational notion of who we are in God's image, who we are because of what Christ has done and how we can become a community of believers. And it doesn't matter what ethnicity we are. And that's really the nefarious part of this stuff. They're saying things like there's a white gospel, there's a black gospel, there's a Hispanic gospel and on and on and on. Right,

Right. And that's just, that's not how the scripture speaks and dividing it up in those such categories is not how the scripture speaks at all. And how revelation speaks about where there'll be a great gathering from every nation tribe and language. Um, and the reality is of course, Christ the shed blood of Christ is where we find, uh, the remedy and a way forward in the midst of this, this side of eternity, we're always gonna have these issues and challenges because the depravity of humankind, but in Christ, and this is where we can begin looking in the church, brings a solution for this. We certainly recognize the, uh, lovelessness meaninglessness and, and the challenges that have been brought upon the black community as result of many of offenses done to them. But we do have a response of an ethic of love and care, uh, from our particular, our, our Lutheran understanding of things, knowing that we wrote it in the two kingdoms, we call it, uh, where, uh, as Luther said that, uh, a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and his neighbor

Neighbor mm-hmm

. Yeah. Otherwise he's not a Christian. And so he lives in Christ through faith, but he lives in his neighbor through love. And this neighbor through love, meanings, any fellow human being, and that's irrespective of their skin color

That's right.

And so they live in them by love. And so, yes, we will stand with someone who is, uh, receiving injustice and come to their defense and defending the neighbor yet as our own individual, we'll suffer all things as we take up our cross and follow Christ, but our neighbor is the one who needs that love. And so that's an ethic of love that leads us forward. Now what defines what's right and wrong as we go about in that ethic, of course, that's God's word again, simply put 10 commandments, a guides us in that, which includes then of course, justice, biblical justice, the virtue of justice, as opposed to the idea of, uh, the, the false belief of social justice. Um, or as a, uh, one author put a cosmic justice, right? I'm trying to make sure everything is absolutely equal for everyone, which is an impossibility.

And it's, and, and again, the notion that we that's all in our hands, that's the modern lie that the state can solve. These things. Technology can solve these things, et cetera. Let's back up a little bit, cause you said two kingdom and I, and a lot of times our listeners are like, well, what is that? And as simply as I can say it, and, and you tell me if this is helpful too, it's God is at work, but he works two different ways in the world to preserve the world. And that's usually in the realm, the States's that realm, preserving work, family, all that, and God can even work through non-believers if you will, just on, they're just trying to do outwardly what is right? And God can keep the peace. He can keep things civil. So that's, God's preserving work. And then in Christ alone, God's saving work.

And we differentiate that work as we get involved in these things. The real problem today, I think, is that people in, in these kind of preserving discussions, they are actually talking like, it's salvation. Like if we get this law in place, or if we get this group of people knuckled under, or if we get this thing passed, I haven't heard one politician say we're the Matthew 25 caucus as if taking money from one group and giving it to another is, is fulfilling the gospel and serving our neighbor in Christ. That is the, the, that, that is merging. God's work into one where God differentiates that. So is, is that helpful? Just keeping it that SIM I know it's simplistic.

No, I think that's, I think that's very helpful. Yeah. Um, where you're talking about that, I think another way of looking at it is just simply when we're the left hand kingdom, if I use that language,

That's preserving.

Yeah. It's our horizontal relationships, meaning from person to person, neighbor, to neighbor where the acts of love, the ethic of love is carried out and then the kingdom of the right, um, that's where God is at work and by faith where we live by faith and trusting in Christ for the forgiveness of sins. And so it's a simultaneous, uh, that's going on, but working in two ways. And so certainly God uses, uh, like Romans 13, where it talks about, uh, the state, if you will, doesn't bear the sword for, for no reason, right. There needs to be order, uh, there needs to be structure and that's for the good of society. And that, of course, I think goes in, in somewhat with natural rights or natural law, if we talk about that, that there's structure and order, and that God has established this for people.

So, um, I think for Christians, we can certainly be mindful of that, but don't get carried away by all the rhetoric and the emotion, right. Uh, that simply would in the news cycle constantly, rather than allowing us to think rationally about what this really means, uh, and how this affects the life of all people from a Christian perspective, it reduces the, the value and worth of human beings, right? It removes agency from them. It, uh, it doesn't allow for the sovereignty of who they are and their rights to defend themselves. Uh, but subjects, people, and, and essentially perpetrates the very thing that this began as a protest against.

Right. And that's why it's clear. I think your paper's great at this stick to the, the definitions. We will fight with Christians and non about equality, uh, of access. Everyone gets to a fair starting line. That's why we, that's why we actually support parental choice from education. So people can get a good education. You know, you can go to any school you want and black parents and Hispanic parents and white parents want it. But then these status say, no, we're gonna put you all in this one place. And so they, they then will determine what they call equality of outcome, which is to take all of your decisions away from you and just make sure everyone ends up at the same place. Well, that's not a world you want to live in. And so we need to attend to these definitions because the definitions are bringing into for a whole different solution.

Let me give you an example of what I mean to defund the police movement. We got involved in this and this is kind of an outgrowth of CRT. And I, I was talking to somebody, I said, yeah, two kingdoms. I, man, look, I don't wanna a police state in my neighborhood who would wanna have a police car on every corner driving home. So I look at people, would you like that? You know, I even say, you know, those signs where you have like how fast you're driving, you know, if you had a camera on every one of those signs, would you wanna live in that neighborhood? Of course not. I don't wanna live like that. And there's some, uh, cause for that kind of thing in some of our communities, but here's the question. If you, if you, um, take a police, uh, you know, have less, a limited police force, limited government in, in a neighborhood, you gotta have stronger families.

They, they are inverse relationship to each other. So I said, so if you're gonna do that, you cannot also be defunding and destroying the family in your policy, which is what these groups were doing. Defund the police destroy the family chaos and make 'em all dependent. And we just came in and said, no, if you're gonna defund, then you gotta in, uh, incentivize the family. If you disincentivize the family, then you gotta have a strong police force because human beings do really terrible things to each other. And so we got involved in that and everyone said, wow, we've never heard that argument before. , you know, and that's two kingdoms, you know, that's, God's preserving work and we can make that argument. And then, but God's saving, work's gonna come from free hearts and free people serving and caring for each other. And I think you're right, that's what we've gotta start doing. Hey, go back to this one thing I, in your paper, you talked about how our identity. Yeah. And this is ultimately our, about our identities folks that ultimately our identity is the key here and how the gospel actually is calling us in a whole different direction.

Right? Well, so, uh, as one who's been redeemed by Christ, uh, we are covered by, uh, Christ shed blood, uh, the language we talk about and just simply how scripture talks, we are baptized into Christ. So our human identity, we have as a creature of God. And that's where, of course being a creature of God made in his image. We don't wanna reduce the value of any one creature, regardless of what race, ethnicity, nationality, uh, or, or sexuality they might have, but in Christ, uh, and, and being the person that God has made us to be, we have a baptismal identity, then it cuts across all of them, right? And because of that identity in Christ, one who has claimed us and named us as his very own, uh, then he gives to us a particular character where identity and character go together. So the gospel then calls us to a daily contrition and repentance.

So again, it goes back to knowing what's, uh, not only morally right and wrong, but spiritually right and wrong. And so repenting of those things that are, are wrong and sinful, and in that repentance, then, uh, we are receiving the righteousness of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, but this character then also, uh, baptismal character leads us forward in our behavior and behavior that looks to defend those. And that does seek biblical justice. It has an ethic and action as citizens as well. So we understand that we are redeemed by Christ, uh, but we also bear that vocation of a citizen in a country. And we recognize the rights, uh, and the reality of the government there. And so we enact those vocations as citizens, uh, which again can include defending our neighbor. Uh, and so that human, uh, that identity as a human being redeemed by Christ is integral to understanding then the life that the Christian has in a social, uh, uh, challenge in the challenges that are going on in our society today.

Well, you know, I, you've got so much good, good work in this. And again, I would have people we'll, we'll again, try to direct them worthy. I can get a, a hold of the paper, but I love kind of what you were talking about too, with long gospel, a hundred percent sinner, hundred percent Saint, when it comes down to who we are as human beings, we're all a hundred percent sinner. So God levels, the God levels the field. You, you, if you're gonna say that group's innocent in this, group's not, there's no such thing, right? So there's a hundred percent sinner. And what, what social justice theory and, and black liberation theology does, it says, and, and if you're part of this group, you cannot share God's saving work with this group. Uh, and so what, basically all we're saying, what, what Dr. Woodford and I are saying is, look, I'm a hundred percent sinner.

He is too. And we're fighting for the right and opportunity to proclaim, to whomever God sends into our life. That they can be a hundred percent saints in Christ alone because of who Christ is for them. And you will not deter us from that, but we'd like to legally fight back so that we have the right to do it freely in this culture, in which we live, um, Dr. Woodford, where can they get a hold of this paper or, or, or learn more about this? I know you've written on this. Is that something that's on the, uh, website someplace? Or can we make it available here at engaging truth?

Yeah, we I'll, I'll shoot you the link for it. It's, uh, I'm, I'm a fellow with a group called, uh, doxology, which is the, the Lutheran center for spiritual care and council. Uh, it's a monograph, uh, but it's in digital forum, free for people. Um, it's will provide the link from doxology.us. Uh, but it's a, a sub link on there as well. I'll make sure I get it to you so people can grab it.

Well, thanks for writing this. Thanks for your service to the church. I know you are a blessing and we'll talk with you again soon.

Sounds great. Thanks so much for having me

Have a good day.