Continued review of (Dis)Ordered by Rev. Christopher S. Esget.
Immanuel LCMS Fairview Podcast
Bible Class - September 22, 2024
All right, so we, last week we, in our book of disordered, this book explores the ways in which we have lived life in disordered ways and one of the ways now, last week we talked a little bit, answered some of the questions about the phenomena of transgenderism and why it seems to have gone from zero to front and center everywhere we look, it is in front of our eyes and everything and how quickly things changed in our culture and so many people suddenly identifying as trans at such a high rate. We talked about truth a little bit and then the last question we asked was how we should approach conversations with people who disagree with us and I think we've all kind of thought about that ourselves and one of the best ways, how can we answer that question? What is some of the, how should we approach conversations with people who disagree with us? Have you thought about that this week? That was the last question we talked about. How do we approach conversations with people we disagree with? What, yeah it lives. I think you were raising your hand, I don't know, it's kind of a, yeah, with love. Yeah, somebody said speak the truth and love. How do we define love many times, right? That's the question. Yeah, according to our vocation, right, where, how am I called to love this person? We are called to love our children different than we're called to love our parents. We're called to love according to how the Bible orders our life according to where God has called you. Love does not look the same in all, in all times, right? Right now our culture says love. What would you say now? How does our culture define love right now? Yeah, tolerance. What'd you say, Jessica? Affirmation, permissiveness, right? Love is not objecting to anything, right? And so we've spent these six chapters kind of pointing out and saying, well, maybe our heart, our mind being disordered by sin is not the best judge of that. That we need God's word to guide us with this, okay? So next, as it goes from transgenderism and this idea of man versus woman and what that means for us as Christians in the gospel, that Jesus was a true man, you know, as man and that's very offensive to a lot of non-Christian religions. The fact that Jesus was born of a woman, right, Islam thinks that's ridiculous, that God would become man, that's silly, other religions and even our own sinful flesh sometimes recoils at the fact that God became man, became just like us. So now then in chapter seven, we're going to talk about the topic as race and culture. Race and culture, sensitive subject, but nonetheless, of course, a topic of conversation, even when you don't try, even when you don't try to talk about it, comes up, let's hear the introduction on page 105. This is what the author is discussing, so chapter seven, we're going to discuss the contents of chapter seven as best we can today. Page 105, the discussion of race is everywhere today. Critical race theory steeped in Marxism as stoking the fires of resentment and dividing people anew by skin color. Since all human beings come from a single union, the marriage of Adam and Eve, all humans have the same dignity and worth. It is ultimately unhelpful to speak about different groupings of people as races. This suggests a similar distinction between humans as there is between species of animals or birds, saying that people are of different origins and are radically other leads to dehumanizing those people. This technique effectively prepares for conflict with and violence against the other. Christianity recognizes that while there are different people groups descended from various families and divided, especially by language, there's truly one human family descended from Adam. By his incarnation, Christ assumes into his person the human nature. He is the new Adam in whom for the entire human race is redemption and ultimate reunion. Then the author goes into talking about CRT, critical race theory, and what were some of the observations that he raised in answering one? How does CRT differ from civil rights teachings of earlier generations? Did any of y'all find any of that in the chapter? So many hands. Who am I going to choose? I'll just put my finger on my paper and whatever letter it lands on, that's the first name of the person who I'm going to call on. Just kidding. What do you think? What are some of the differences that he noticed? Or do you know? It rejects the American founders, the idea, founding ideas of the United States, all men being created equal. What else? On page 108, he points out and says race, that first full paragraph, he says that race in CRT worldview is a social construct, developed to protect white privilege and supremacy. That the idea of race is not a basis to treat everyone the same, but CRT says that race, the whole reason we have races, and the whole reason we talk about it is to protect white privilege and supremacy. So right from the very beginning, modern CRT already upholds one race as thinking it's superior to the other, whereas in earlier generations, civil rights focused on more of a biblical perspective of it, more of the idea that we are all the same. We all have all come from one marriage, one family, Adam and Eve. And further on in that paragraph, as critical race theory developed in the late 20th century, its activists began to demand safe spaces, decry microaggressions, and work against freedom of speech by inventing a category of hate speech. Civil rights in the past didn't deny speech, it didn't close off, but it encouraged debate, it encouraged ideas and speaking out and things of that nature. Then he goes on page 109, talking about question number two. How is public schooling different now than in previous generations? 70s and 80s, he says he was in public school, kindergarten through his first year of college. So if the author who notices these things is a faithful Christian, if this author was steeped in public school his whole life, is there hope for public school, what was the author's opinion on that? He didn't mince words, did he? He said this is one of the greatest threats to the Christian faith right now. So what has changed? What do you think? There was more of an honor, a gosh, movie, public school, I mean to say the Lord's Prayer to just include that without singing like Messiah in a high school choral myself, that was the year that they banned that out. You know, I mean just so much influence had really run into the term, I guess the normal world upside down for these four of the great. Yeah, yeah. Do you think there was a common truth in public schools historically? Yeah, yeah, more involved and more part of it. Now with this idea too then, what about universities? How have universities changed or have they? Oh yeah. How did most major universities, especially Ivy League schools, how did they start out? Not just Christian universities, they started out as seminaries. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and this is one of the interesting things with higher things, that as we go to these, I don't know, have you seen some of this Albury? I can't remember which universities have you been to with higher things. Do you recall? Brett Meckwan, just this last summer, Concordia and Trinity, have you been to four or just three? I'm trying to remember, what was your, what was the other one? You went to Montana also, right? Yeah. So this has been one of the interesting things, is that almost all these colleges, even if they're secular, had a chapel. And the first higher things we went to, hey back in 2014 or 2016, something like that. We went to the University of Florida in Gainesville, right? And it was one of the most beautiful chapels. I would have sworn I was in, and what, how would you have described it, Kerry? Dark wood everywhere, they had gargoyles, pylons, all dark wood, there you go, that's what, yeah, you felt like you're in, and this was an American university, their chapel. Their organ was just, boom, and it was just, it was beautiful. And I couldn't believe it, walking onto a secular campus, University of Florida. And being like, wow, this, they almost put as much money into this as they did their football stadium. I mean, back in the day, can you imagine, right, the stadium that I drive by every day on my way home in McKinney, you know, the amount of money that they put into that shows, right, where the culture, where their importance is. So yeah, schools, universities, it's, it's all, it's all changed. The perspective and things, Dennis Prager is, is somebody who addresses this, a Jew, and he calls universities, he calls them secular seminaries. True. Yeah, yeah, kind of an interesting, an interesting. Yeah, yeah. How about this illustration that he spoke of, Pastor Esquith? He talked about the story of the, the kid who wouldn't do his, who didn't know his catechism work. But what did the kid do? Yeah, he saw him throw away a can or something and didn't recycle it. And the kid said, you're killing the, you're killing the planet. And he said, yeah, this kid knew the 10 commandments of, of the secular world, but would not, could not even state the 10 commandments in catechism. What do you think, can you think of other examples where kids are indoctrinated in schools, universities? Yeah. I mean, this isn't CRT, but they were talking about gender theory, and she, her husband is talking about that sort of topic. Such young kids. Yeah. Planting the ideas in their heads, yeah. You said gender, gender theory, right? Yeah. Gender studies or something, but, you know, I got a, as a, getting a question younger, they don't have the ability to decide. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The ability to discern. Yeah. The children, in a sense, on the end of the lecture, it's like, we own your thoughts. This is how you're going to think. And you're our property, not your parent. Yeah. The devil, you know, a lot of people accuse the Christian church of saying, well, you make everybody come into agreement with you. Well, that's what the devil does. That's what the secular world does. They have their own orthodoxy, too, that if you don't toe the line, you are excluded. You are unorthodox. So it's not the problem that there is a demand for orthodoxy or a demand for unity. It is, what is it that you, that you demand? What is your orthodoxy? What are you following? I also liked, too, what he, what he said. I, page 111, I had starred this, a father whose children abandoned Christianity in college once said, I don't know what more I could have done. I took them to confirmation class, bottom of page 111. A one-hour class during seventh and eighth grades will never overcome the everyday stream of indoctrination during 13 years of K through 12 environment. And then, like a successful, big league closer in the ninth inning, the higher education curriculum steeped in Marxism takes the mound to seal the deal on total indoctrination. And it's not so much the fact that they're exposed to foreign ideas or bad things at a later age, but it's a lack of good things that kids are exposed to. It's a lack of seeing the good and hearing logical, beautiful, like seeing art, right? If you've never seen beautiful art, you're going to think, hey, or if you've never seen color TV, right, you're going to think black and white is just, oh, that's such technology. Look how beautiful. Then you see a color TV, and you then start to see beautiful, and you are able to contrast it with how wicked and evil, evil things can be. So it is being immersed, and in my mind, I see and fear just being immersed always in the negative, you're bad, you're wicked, this and that is one of the ways that indoctrination takes over. You don't get any good. All you hear and see is the bad. And that almost, it's kind of like all of us, right, when you're a kid, and your mom and dad say, no, you can't watch the rated R movie, right? You can't handle it. And as kids, what do we say? Oh, I can handle it. I can take it, right? And then they're watching, you know, and the parents are watching the movie, and you're up at the top of the stairs, and you watch the movie, and then you're scared, and then you go to bed, and at two o'clock in the morning you wake up with nightmares, like, mom and dad, help save me. We all think we can handle it, right? We all think we can take it, but evil is very patient. Evil will let you bring it in, soak it in, and then it will jump at your time. Time of need. But this chapter, this whole thing is about this idea of reinforcing the beauty that we are all one people, that there are no, there are, I mean, there are differences between us, but we celebrate them. They're beautiful. They're good. This is, you know, God's creation as we look at all the animals, and how varied and beautiful they are also, too, we see that in people, okay? How does the Bible then describe this? Question three, look at page 112, the scriptural view of the human family. This is where this starts. He traces from Genesis to Revelation how the scriptures keep putting before us the human, the human race, not one race, two races, three races. You're all the same, from the beginning, from Genesis, all the way to the end to Revelation. Remember when John looks at Revelation, he's given a picture into heaven, and what does he see? Does anybody remember? Every tribe. Yeah, every tribe, every nation, and one of the interesting things is, is that he can understand what they're all saying together. John's given a view into heaven, and he sees the people, are they still different? Yeah, he can notice, he says, every tribe and every nation of the earth, I see all this, but they're all doing one thing. They're all praising God, and we all know that they're speaking what language? American. American, not English, American, American, no, we all know they're speaking German, right? That's, that's, that's been a fun question that Old Testament professors throw at us. They say, what language did Adam and Eve speak? Yeah, most likely, we're not sure. We know, you know, Moses, right, because he wrote it. Anyway, but in Revelation, John sees all the people. They're united with one voice. They're singing the praises of God, the lamb who is on his throne, and they're all clothed in white, right, white robes. They're all there. They're all the same. That's why I wear the white robe on Sundays and the acolyte to remind you of what John sees. That as you're sitting there in church, you are surrounded by angels and archangels, such a cloud of witnesses, that when you see me, you look at me and you say, man, it is not tab, you know, the man up there that we're supposed to see, we're supposed to see that he's clothed in this robe and that all of us are going to be clothed white and Christ and that now, even now, we are surrounded by saints that we don't see, and it is not our uniqueness, right? It is not our differences that separate us, but actually bring us together in Christ, that it's all taken captive to Christ because we're all singing the same praises to the lamb of God who's on the throne. Standing as if he had, standing as, what does John say, standing as if fallen or standing as wounded, that's why our beautiful logo, wherever it is, we need the logo in more places, audio, video man, where is it, oh yeah, here it is, oh and of course it's missing the little red mark on it, but John says he sees the lamb on his throne as if wounded or as if hurt, that he still sees the wounds of Christ, right, standing victorious as Jesus showed the disciples when he came to them on Easter. So this whole idea of trying to take us back to the Bible, what Bible stories talk about languages, Tower of Babel, of course, and what Sunday do we hear Tower of Babel reading usually? Yeah, on Pentecost. And it's not so much that all languages right here, we have an accounting of where God confuses the languages and Pentecost is not that all of us speak the same language again, but what? What is Pentecost a celebration of, do you think? Because we aren't, the Holy Spirit is what proclaimed, right, that's what all the people standing around say, they say, we hear the, what is it, the working, the works of God in our own languages. It becomes then that Christ fulfills the promise of sending the Holy Spirit and the gospel is now to be proclaimed in all languages, to be taken out and to go forth, that the Holy Spirit that God takes all languages indeed to himself and to use this as a way in which the Holy Spirit is given. There's no language that you cannot use to preach the gospel. So connected to people and in different areas, so number four, did you see that one? This is an interesting topic, why do you think he brings this up on page 113? Why did God order the destruction of the Canaanite? Sounds pretty racist, doesn't it? Right, this is a people who descended from Noah's family who were just steeped in wickedness and evil, child sacrifices, slavery, all the modern day things that everybody says is so evil and wicked, and look how long God tolerated it. And he called them to repentance, however, they were destroyed because of the evil that they were committing, it's not because of their race, of course not. So then we see this idea that God does in his time, he brings justice against evil as he sees fit. The author then takes us not only just to the Old Testament, but he talks about something that hits a little close to home for us, as Lutherans, right, didn't any of y'all get to that section, it's one of the first things people who are in the know bring up when they find out I'm a Lutheran pastor. What's the first thing they say? They say you sure are ugly for a pastor. So they find out you're a Lutheran, what's the first thing they say? Is that like Catholic, yeah, that one or they say you follow Luther, Luther's your pope. You don't follow the pope, you follow Luther. And then if they're historically a stoop person, what do they say, or if they've been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, they say you don't like Jews, and the author doesn't shy away from it, right, in the book. Talks about Luther, and yeah, indeed, Luther is not our pope, like we just saw from the pope last week say something pretty unreasonable, pretty ridiculous. We know that Luther's a sinner, you know, he said many things. He didn't just say bad things about the Jews, he said bad things about the Germans too. He said we Germans are just a sack of worms, we're evil and wicked, but he did, it's impossible to turn away from some of the things Luther said about the Jews in his day and age. But also note that Luther's what we would call now a day is what we would call anti-Semitism, right, that term anti-Semite, Luther, his critique, the bad things he said was not based on their race. It was based on what? Okay, their beliefs take it further too, right? Why their beliefs? Why would Luther have an animosity toward them? Okay, yeah, but there were other people, other religions who didn't, I mean Islam, Luther wrote things about Islam, Luther was one of the first, right, to study Islam, to read the Quran in his day. Why the Jews though? I mean, because he was a sinner, Luther was a sinner, but yeah, this is, this is what Saint Paul does in Romans too, right, Saint Paul in Romans says, oh, I wish that I could die on behalf of my brothers who they had the prophets, they had the word, they saw the miracles, and yet they rejected Christ, right? Even Saint Paul himself calls them out, and that's also too why some people say the New Testament is racist, but it's, God selected you, God chose you, and you rejected. And that too is part of Luther's antagonism, Luther's anger at the Jews. And you can understand, no, I don't want to say that, we're not going to give any recognition of acceptance of it, because I don't want people to accept where I'm wrong, is, is that, you know, Luther said you guys had everything, and you rejected it, and you are spreading this false gospel, you are, you are pulling people from the Christian faith. So Luther was really, really upset, really angry. And he saw it in his own community as well too, those things, but we wish he never said those things, it's a blot on our church's reputation, and people are ready and willing to point that out, and we should, we should not be afraid of it, right, we should not be afraid of it. Because we also have page 117, we also have some of the greatest opponents to true anti-Semitism in Nazism, right, and that's also too, right, that's why where we get American flags in our sanctuary, that Luther and churches, they wanted to show during World War II, they wanted to show that we are not Nazi sympathizers. So one of the ways they did that is to have American flags in the sanctuary to say, look, we're not, we're not supporting Germany in this. This is kind of where American flags started making their presence in a church sanctuary, which is very unusual, because the church is considered, why would that be unusual to have a flag in the sanctuary? Protection? Like a, like a solitary church in the station. Yeah, if we want to say, well how do you mean that? Well, like it says, sin, where does it say that in the Constitution? Yeah, well the idea that, okay, the idea that, yeah, okay, that there is not one religion that is, that the government can force upon the people, right, but the protection, right, okay, why would flags, why would Christians not have flags in the sanctuary? Because our kingdom is not of this world. Exactly. This, the church is seen as an embassy, if you will. The church is a place of neutrality, well not neutrality because it's the kingdom of God. It's a, it's a place, this we mark here in this world. Now, is there anything wrong with flags? I don't think so, not particularly, but as long as we understand, right, that we are not here to support and say the United States is always right. The United States is God's, we do thank God for a country where we can vote, but what happens now if our government is taken over by anti-Christian forces, one might be able to say it's already taken place, what, what, what then do we do, do we still, do we still, do we still, we replace it with the Texas flag, oh, oh, oh my goodness, this, this. Where can we write that on the walls in here somewhere? We need to spot for that, yeah. Then we put the Texas flag, yeah, what, what happens then, do we keep the American flag in the sanctuary? That would be for the church to have to decide. But in, in this idea that, you know, this, this race or this country, especially there, you know, we've got to be, we've got to be careful of that when we, when we talk about these things and all people being unified in Christ. Good and bad, it's just something to consider, something to think about. Now, as we look around in the room, we, higher things this year was great. As we pointed out, we had a record selling very popular rapper, Lutheran rapper named Flame, or as we called him Mr. Flame, is it Mr. Flame or Sir Flame? And he, he was great, right? He was rapping about Lutheran doctrine in the book of Concord. It was amazing. But he came out to hire things, a group of 2000 young Lutherans, and he came out, one of the first things he said was, "I feel like the last cocoa puff in a bottle of milk, in a bowl of milk." It was hilarious, it was great, you know, it was, it was just wonderful. But then the question is, as we look around, people accuse us of being, you know, a white church, right? Your congregation, obviously, you are just white. So, what do we say to that? What do you say to that? Is there a defense of that? Is there a defense for us? And not just pointing out that there are some churches that are just one grouping of, of people. What do we, what do you say to that? Have you heard that? Have you heard that? Yeah. All the time. So, what do we say to this accusation? What do you think? Do you have anything? Yeah, our doors are open to everyone, but they would say, "Well, the proof is in the pudding." The proof is in the vanilla pudding, chocolate pudding. Maybe it's pistachio, I don't know. Anybody? Anybody have anything? What would you say to this? Do you have a defense? Go ahead. The church in Africa, larger than living. Yes, yes. I, I think this is, not that I think we have to answer this accusation, but, you know, we are called to be wisest, serpents, and gentle as dove. And one of the ways we speak against this is first we say, "Well, we don't prevent anybody. Our liturgy, our church order of service comes from a completely different culture and part of the world than we are even, can tie our family heritage to. This is not the culture here at the church is not leaning towards one, one group of people or the next. But it is the Word of God and we hear it and it is taught. We get the structure and things of the service from the scriptures themselves. And so to be wisest, serpents, as Liz pointed out and says, "Well, you know, we don't really look at the Christian church like we're the only Lutherans. We're the only Christians." It depends how small are you going to draw your circle? How small do you draw your circle and your exposure to other churches? If you just look at this room, right, it's going to be different than the people who look like who's here on Sunday morning, different people from different backgrounds and such. But if you're going to draw the circle of, okay, your church is racist, just in our neighborhood, okay, then take the circle out further in our state. Well, we Christians, we see the whole world as one people. And in fact, if you want to try to use statistics and percentages, like Liz said, we, if you want to call us white, we are the minority in the Lutheran church. We are the minority in the Christian church throughout all history. So how small do you want to draw the circle and at what time in history do you want to draw your circle? Because we can then come to you who's accusing us of racism and we can draw the circle small enough around you and at a particular time, we can accuse you of the same sin. So I have found it very beneficial, but a lot of times people don't want to be convinced. They just want to accuse you as being a racist, which is fine. I mean, it's not fine, but whatever. It's not like we're going to be able to say anything to convince them otherwise. The Christian church is always going to be a target, always going to, the current culture is always going to use whatever, whatever cultural accusation is in style at the time. Remember Christians in the ancient church were the first atheists. Christians were called, and as a cut down, if you will, or a derogatory term, they called Christians atheists, right, and Greco-Roman times, because we didn't follow all the gods of the Roman government. So you can walk around and say, "I'm an atheist, and culture now will respect you," whereas in Greco-Roman times, it was seen, because we only worshiped one God. They say, "Y'all are atheists, y'all are against gods." So it depends, right, this accusation. But we do, right, just like all other things, we have to make sure, right, that we are taking into account and examining ourselves. The scriptures themselves say, "Judgment is coming, and it begins." Where does it begin? It begins in the house of God. So we have to be able to put that mirror up in front of ourselves and live lives of repentance, first and foremost. Okay, sorry, I talked a lot. I wanted to get that last point in and last point out, because I have heard it. Many people have come to me with this concern because they think that the world has a point, you know, looking around you, right, look, "Y'all must obviously be racist," and it's not the case, and we have to stand up for the truth, and knowing that we aren't doing anything. Okay, one last comment, Abigail. I think it's important to move to, like, it probably wouldn't help in any conversation. I think that's an important distinction, I'm a Lutheran because I believe it's true. So, like, the prior ethnicity doesn't matter if we lose her because I believe the confessions true. Yeah. Yep. Yep, very good. Yep. Very good point. Not that it came from any particular part of the world. Not that it's, yep, not that they look like us or anything like that, yeah, absolutely. Very good. Okay, let's close with a prayer, and then we'll let you be about your day. Let us pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have called us out of darkness into light, that we as fallen sinners, that one commonality that we have with all humans, that of sin and fallen flesh, we thank you, that by the work of your son Jesus Christ, you have brought us to be your people. You have purchased us by the blood of your son Jesus. You have purified us, and now call us to be a chosen people, a royal priesthood, that our unity is found in our Lord Jesus Christ. Grant, that that is our confidence. When we see the wickedness of our flesh, not only in others, but in ourselves, call us to repent and to lead lives bearing fruit of faith. We ask this through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.