And so Christians who sign on to say quote unquote anti racism will necessarily have to at some place down the road, become validly feminist validly LGBTQ affirming, they have to improve and Kennedy in his book How to be the anti racist says, one cannot be anti racist and be homophobic or transphobic you have to you cannot be the two you have to choose your you will be racist, and hold to biblical sexuality basically, or you will be anti racist and rejectable sexuality.
Welcome to Ideas have consequences the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance, a show where we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, but to also transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of our mission. And today, Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as I rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Well, welcome everybody to another episode of ideas have consequences. This is the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance. And my name is Scott Allen. I'm the president of the DNA and I'm here with my co workers and friends, Dwight VOGT And Luke Allen, and our very special guest today is Neil Shen v. And, Neil, it's wonderful to have you I think you're joining us from North Carolina. Is that correct?
That's correct.
Yeah. Neil, thank you for making time. This is the second time we've, we've had the privilege of having you on the podcast where I you know, actually, maybe it's the first because I think we were doing Facebook Lives when you came and joined us. That was probably a couple of years ago. So it's great to have you back. And Neil and let me for those of you who don't know who Niels Shen B is, let me just give a brief introduction. And Neil, you can, you can certainly fill in more detail, which would be great. But Neil is a husband and father to four children. And he's very involved in as a homeschool dad. And Neil, are you still involved with classical conversations?
Yep. I'm a tutor for challenge three next year, actually.
Oh, that's fantastic. So I'm also a homeschool Dad and I have a daughter and classical conversations. So we have that in common. Actually, two of us on the team are involved in that same program with with our kids. So anyways, I know that's really an important part of your life. But Neil is just such a fascinating background. He's probably most well known as a writer and a blogger and and now an author, a published author. He's got a couple of books, one was published last year called a recent excuse me, author, excuse me, Why believe is the title of the book, a reasoned approach to Christianity that was published last year. And Neil is working on putting the final touches on a new book called critical dilemma, and that that's a book about critical theory and social justice. And that's how I became acquainted with Neil was around that topic. More on that in a second. But just back to Neil's bio. Neil is undergrad, received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his doctorate from Berkeley. So it deals like highly educated guy here. And his PhD is in theoretical chemistry. So that's very different Neal from critical theory. So I just think that's kind of fascinating that you, you have this very, you know, very diverse and varied background. And then you've also done some postdoctoral work at Yale. So you're no, you're no educational slouch, Neil. And then Neil became a Christian while he was at Berkeley, and I've heard you on some different podcast talking about that, that's it'd be fun to explore that to just how God was working in your life at that time. But as I said, my, my connection to Neil, our connection at the DNA was really right around the time that I was working on my book on justice, biblical justice and social justice. And I was looking for some guides in the evangelical community and was kind of distraught frankly, this is going back about three years, two and a half, three years ago. Because a lot of the the people in the evangelical community that I thought should be speaking out and kind of warning against this false ideology coming into the church or not. And in fact, a lot of them have been kind of compromised with it. We're we're making kind of a Christian case for it, if you will, and And that really kind of kind of rocked my world a little bit. And I kept thinking who we'd got to, there was a lot of books that were published around that time books like, woke church by what's his name? Neil, you probably remember, Eric Mason, Eric Mason. Yeah, and others, you know, many others actually, there was a whole slew of them, that were kind of making an Evangelical, apologetic for kind of critical theory or, or social justice. And so, I probably am the, the least likely person to step up and write a book on that subject. But I did, because I just, I just, I was just waiting for the book to come out. Now they're coming out many. But in that process of my researching, on this subject, I came across you, Neil, and you were just such a breath of fresh air, I just thought, here was a guy who was really a clear thinker, and also really courageous and not afraid to kind of speak truthfully on this subject in a time where we really did need some truthful and clear guidance. And so I'm just, I've always been so grateful to you, Neil, and just appreciate your your voice in this. Really excited about this new book that you're you've got coming out, because most of your work on this has been in the area of the you've got a really excellent blog site and on podcasting, but having a book from you will I just think will be really terrific. We'll talk a little bit more about that later. But, Neil, I would like to my first question for you is just, you know, is one of the kind of the first prominent evangelicals to be publicly critiquing critical theory, critical race theory, woke ism more broadly. Many others right now, of course, have followed your lead. And now we have kind of two camps within evangelicalism, you've got, you know, this kind of large camp of people that have been really critical vodi, Bach, him and others have written prominent books. And then you got still you've got a number of people in evangelical circles that are that are advocates for it. You know, I would love to hear your thoughts just on what I call the state of the debate today. What do you think has changed? Neil? Neil, since you started discussing this? Several years ago? Where do you think we stand today, both inside the church, but also on the society more broadly?
What your questions got? So I do think more evangelicalism are willing to critique critical race theory and wokeness by name. Yeah, I people like Kevin D. Young, Carl Truman, in his book, The Rise and time for the modern self talks about critical theory. And actually, he has a book he's working on right now, I know on the history of critical theory. So there are people that are willing to say, you know, to say what this is, these ideas are and how they're incompatible with Christianity. And so that's one way it's changed. Another thing that's changed that some of the people that have that were vocally woke, have actually left the Evan Jellicle church. And I think that they probably go hand in hand, I think both. As of angelical, pastors became more vocal in saying these ideas are bad. I think some of the moderates who were kind of more accommodating of these ideas realized, Oh, this is a real danger. And then they, they stay pulled back from kind of walking alongside people that were more progressive. In other words, they realized there has to be a kind of line in the sand that we can't cross. And when progressive evangelicalism realized that they were no longer pulling people with them, they just left. And I think that's actually probably a good thing. Because I do think at some, at some level, these ideas are, are like a cancer. And you can't walk alongside cancer and kind of talk to cancer and hope that cancer changes its mind. You have to cut it out. Again, that's not cancer is not the people with cancer, the ideas? Yes. And obviously, we don't want to cut people out of the church. But we do want to say, hey, we can't accept these ideas. And then unfortunately, they will often leave themselves when they realize that well, their their thinking is not compatible with your thinking on these issues. But I would say that the culture though, we can see that wokeness has not peaked. I hear people talking about we hit peak work, some crazy thing will happen at Stanford or at some at the New York Times, Washington Post, people will say we're finally done. But no, we're not done. And I think it's most demonstrated by the fact that people who are now in high school and college and graduate school and law school and medical school, all those super work, people are going to be our pastors, judges, CEOs, doctors, lawyers, in five to 10 years. So we haven't come close to that yet. So unfortunately, wokeness isn't going anywhere.
Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you brought that up, Neil, because I've heard the same thing. You know, people. There's some that feel like, Oh, it's just another fad. This is just another ideological fad. It's going to come and go and so don't Don't get yourself too uptight about it. You know, that kind of optimistic take on it. I guess I've felt more like you that. It certainly it's exposed at a level, I would say that it's never been exposed, you know, to before because I think there's a subversive aspect to this ideology. It doesn't want to be, you know, kind of seen and recognized for what it is. And it likes to be very abstract. And, you know, I'm sure you've had lots of conversations like I've had where you talk to advocates, I've no, you don't understand it, oh, you're not using the right words or language. So there's this whole kind of aspect to it. But you, us, I think there's greater awareness. But I also Yeah, I feel just like you do that. We're far from, you know, the end of the road on this, because it's so embedded now in our institutions. And you don't, that doesn't change quickly. Those kind of ruling ideologies within institutions, that takes time and so yeah, what, what, what do you think? What do you think is important, Neil, in terms of just what's next in this? You know, the whole debate around this? Where to where do we need to go from here?
I think the, the big thing that has to happen is institutions have to begin committing to taking a stand against these ideas officially. And unfortunately, I think even to the extent that people that have been hired and insist on promoting these ideas into institutions have to be fired. That sounds drastic. But I think that when you're talking about people that are in leadership positions, who are teaching things that are not true, and are ultimately corrosive to Christianity, you can't allow that to metastasize, especially when they're when they're influencing students and people like that. So I think, like you said, institutions are important. And it's, you know, it's wonderful that people are individually saying, Hey, this is bad, this is wrong. But until there's an institutional consensus, and a desire to really remove these ideas from institution, they're gonna, they're gonna succumb eventually. And this is what's actually happening at a secondary level, I mean, secular level universities are just captured by these ideas. Yes. And they're, they're so deeply rooted in the administration, they can't be, it can't be removed, they can be excised, the best you can hope for is a slow bleed as these institutions die. And I'm just pleading with evangelicalism to realize that that you can't simply turn a blind eye and let because the cancer will spread. So I do think there's going to come to a place where these organizations, the administration has to be courageous and say, here is, at least officially, they should put a statement saying here is exactly what we oppose, we reject this, it will not be taught here. And then if they don't have the courage to fire people, at least, that they're clear on those statements, then the people promoting these ideas will maybe just leave you guys. But if for the administration can't take this hands off laissez faire approach. They have to actually say, No, we will not teach this at our institution. And it's happening some places, but I think more often than not, administrators tend to be pretty conciliatory. I think it's a very dangerous thing.
Hi, friends, thank you so much for joining us today. As always, to learn more about our guests and find more information on all the resources that we mentioned in the episode, go to the episode landing page on our website. Again, please consider pre ordering a copy of Neil's upcoming book critical dilemma, because those pre orders really help authors launch their books, and we want to help him as much as possible with that. If you'd like to learn more about critical theory in the modern social justice movement, you can also check out Scott Allen's most recent book, why social justice isn't biblical justice and urgent appeal to fellow Christians in a time of social crisis. This book also has a study guide for those of you who would like to take an even deeper dive into the topic. Again, to find those just head over to the episode landing page, which I've also linked down in the description below. Before we resume discussion, if you could do me a favor and hop on the podcast app that you're currently listening on, and leave the show a rating and review that would be a huge help as we continue to reach more people with this show. Again, thank you for joining us on ideas have consequences and I hope you enjoy the rest of the show.
I think your your analogy to cancer is exactly right. You know this is and I felt from the very beginning people evangelicals don't take ideas seriously enough ideas are so powerful and you're right to separate ideas from people right I think that's really important. You know, we can I've had lots of bad ideas that have taken me in wrong directions and that doesn't mean I'm you're redeemable as a person you know. So we have to As Christians, we have to separate those two things just like you did. I think that's really important, but the ideas themselves can be so destructive. And this is a really destructive set of ideas. What about critical theory or woek? ISM generally Neil, would you say is the most in your view after just looking at this so hard and so long? What do you think are some of the most destructive elements to it?
Like I there's so if there's so many, I think probably the biggest one is how it connects and for the immediate relevance to the Christian church. The most important problem is how it connects racism and classism, and sexism with heterosexism, gender binary transphobia ableism all of these oppressions are interlocking in the within this worldview. And so Christians who sign on to say quote unquote, anti racism will necessarily have to at some place down the road, become a validly feminist validly LGBTQ affirming, they have to improve and Kennedy in his book had to be the anti racist says, one cannot be anti racist and be homophobic or transphobic. You have to you cannot be the two you have to choose your you will be racist, and hold to biblical sexuality, basically, or you will be anti racist and rejectable sexuality. So we're coming to that point. And that's once this is one idea. One other idea is the idea that lived experience is a sort of foundational way of knowing the truth. That very notion is going to destroy your theology in 1000 ways. Because when you come to the Bible, you have to interpret the text that's there. According to authorial intent. And if your lived experience as an oppressed person, can trump anything can trump good exegesis can drink background research can trump the meaning of the meaning of the author's meaning? Well, that's going to destroy anything you want it to you can justify anything if your trump card is, well, I'm an oppressed person, therefore, my interpretation is correct. And you can't challenge it. If you do, you're racist, you're sexist, you're trying to defend your power and privilege that's going to destroy anything ie the Bible becomes a wax knows at that point, you can make it say anything you want. Yes, and there are other ways too, in terms of how critical theory thinks about hegemonic power, meaning the power of ruling the ruling class to impose their values on on a society, in the church already seeing these calls to decolonize your theology and to dissenter whiteness? Well, what that can that inevitably leads to is questioning things like the Reformation reformation was a European movement, right? And how he can you keep affirming the Westminster Confession of Faith or the 39 articles or even the five Solas the Reformation? When you're committed to decolonizing? Your theology? Of course, the answer is, Europe does not own the Bible. Europe doesn't own the document information, these things are true. And whether or not they're affirmed by whites or blacks or Asians or Hispanics. But once you commit to the idea that ideas are socially located in, they come out of some place, we have to decolonize your theology. Well, you're going to end up inevitably tampering with things like sola scriptura, or salvation by faith alone. So anyway, there are 1000 ways that these ideas will degrade your theology. And we're seeing that right now.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's funny, I was talking to a friend of mine who got really caught up in wokeness, as an advocate and a pastor. And he was bemoaning to me when we were having lunch, he was saying, you know, somebody, my young people are deconstructing their faith. And he, he just couldn't see the connection? I'm like, Well, yeah, it's because of wokeness that they're deconstructing their faith, you know. So, you know, for me, Neil, when I think of the destructive elements, the ones that have risen to the surface just personally have been, yeah, the dividing it's this kind of, we're we are not creatures made in God's image, it has to do with kind of who we are as people. We're sociologically determined, according to wokeness. And you can be fitting into one of two groups oppressed or oppressors. So this is coming out of Marxist, you know, the Marxist background to this. And so it draws that line between good and evil between groups, right, not between and I just think that's whenever any ideology does that. And it says, you know, we're gonna divide good and evil between groups, not based on you know, actions or behaviors, but just on group identity, that's just deadly. And then, of course, there's no basis in this ideology for redemption or forgiveness. Any ideology that doesn't have a basis for redemption or forgiveness is going to destroy you. It can. I often say try to live with those ideas in the most basic Society of all just your own marriage, like her see how that works. It won't you'll you'll, you'll, you'll destroy your relationship. I mean, much less at a you know, The level of the whole society so they're really bad ideas, just destructive ideas y'all gotta dwell on. Neil,
you talked about the need to take a stand and say, we'll say no to these ideas. Do you see that happening? And what's the pushback? Because those who go first get hit hardest? No.
Yeah, I think I think there have been some individual pastors and leaders who've spoken out and said, Here's what we disagree with. The problem is, there's no you know, there's not going to be anytime soon some ecumenical creed on wokeness is not going to happen. I think what, and frankly, there needs to be I don't know how effective it's going to be to say, we're gonna have a new list of questions for applicants, asking them about how they feel about critical race theory and queer theory, why? How's it gonna work? I actually think that in Christian academia, to take one example, the, the actual, we have there already, we have mechanisms already in place, which they, most universities have statement of faith that they make their, their teachers sign, yearly and affirm, I affirm the statement of faith. Unfortunately, I think that in Christian academia, you're seeing more and more that those statements of faith are really not being enforced. You have people that have gotten gotten woke, are teaching these woke ideas and their views on sexuality have, as I pointed out, shifted, it's inevitable. They are progressives when it comes to sexuality and gender, but the administration will not just kick them out because they're tenured or because they're famous. Well, I think it's got to change this says, well, we don't really have to have new statements of faith. I think we just have to enforce the ones we have. And I think so. Now, I guess you could, in theory, say, This is what our college policy is on a critical race theory say, you can't really force people to sign a statement that's kind of kind of echoes McCarthyism there. I don't agree with that, maybe. But I do think that, say a church, a ministry can say what their official position is on these issues clearly. And I really believe that if administrators had the guts to just say, clearly this organization, as an organization feels this way that you do, you will see people resigning, because they are trying to influence the organization, when they realize they can't do that they're going to leave. Because remember, if you're fully woke, you've embraced all these ideas, then, in some sense, your theology is probably ahead of your profession. In other words, you're probably already embracing elements of liberation theology, you're probably already affirming quietly. So oftentimes, that hasn't caught up with what you were willing to express openly. But when you see, and you're trying to push your organization towards that, that more progressive theology. And when they put their foot down and say, We will not move, I think many of these people will just leave. So maybe it's a that's kind of requires a minimum amount of courage from the administration to simply say, we're going to enforce our savings of faith that we already have. And we're going to make an official policy or statement about these ideas. And oftentimes that what I had been encouraged by is, it seems like a lot of Trustees, of colleges, the boards, who are composed of everyday Christians, often are more conservative than the administration, and can put pressure on the administration to say, Hey, this is happening in your student body, wake up, or we will put pressure on you to make a statement. And I'd encourage if you are on a board or a trustee, that you continue to put pressure on your administration to simply enforce the theology claim to hold. That's all required, I think,
yeah, yeah. You know, Neil, I'm curious, your thoughts, this is something I've observed, and it's an encouraging thing. You know, the elite kind of capture of the wokeness, or let's say, the, maybe I said that wrong, the, the woke capture of the elites kind of, it seems like a elites, leaders of institutions, you know, have gravitated towards wokeness for a variety of reasons. But when they've gravitated towards it, as Christians in Christian churches and institutions, the people, if you will, haven't gone with them, largely, you know, they've kind of they've changed churches, they've left schools. And so I've been I've been kind of impressed by that, you know, that there hasn't been this widespread embracing of these ideas. It seems like by the people in the pews, it seems like they've kind of moved the other direction. I see this a lot with churches, you know, so if the pastor start embracing kind of a woke theology, they don't gain people they lose them. So you know, I just said something about kind of where everyday people are at maybe in this country regarding that. What are your any thoughts or observations Do you agree with Have that or have you seen that?
Yeah, I think it's true. I mean, I do think that true people can leave churches, obviously we know for really bad reasons, too. And so I don't want to simply say, oh, you know, the Vox Populi, Vox Dei, I could stop that the people are always right. And leaders are always wrong. But I do you think that oftentimes, the everyday Christian just tends to know something's wrong? Like, right, I can't put my finger on it. But something's wrong with his teaching.
It's just as common sense, right? There's this kind of common sense level of something's wrong. Exactly. Yeah.
And so I think it's helpful then for people to be able to put a name and to give shape to their concerns, which is what I've tried to do is say, here's what, here's what's bugging you about this statement, or this idea or this book. And then and I think I do want I'm I'm not, I'm not this sort of populist who wants to destroy institutions and burn them all to the ground? I would really like to, to win these institutions back and say, hey, here are the problems, just take a stand against it. Because this is the problem. I think that we were lamenting the fact that woke ism has captured all these elite colleges, universities, administration's governments, whatever. And, and we're seeing how powerful the institutions are. And then conservatives are like, great, burn them down or like, no, the whole point is how powerful they are. And so rather than burning them down and let being left with nothing, maybe we should recapture them, we should figure out how do we take them because they're influencing huge numbers of people? That's so it's almost your like, your you want to burn the ship, you're sailing on that? Okay. Might be a last resort, but you really ideally want to retake the ship and put it in the right direction.
Yeah, I think that's there's a really, that's a really important kind of strategic conversation. I think of my wife's parents were, you know, very involved in the Episcopal Church. And at some point, they went through this with the Episcopal Church, where do you reform it? Right, because it really gone off the rails theologically. Do you try to reform it? Or do you leave, and then, you know, leave and start another church or something like that. So I think there's a really important discussion to have around that. I think that's true of universities as well. I mean, at some point, it's really hard to reform institutions that are so deeply captured doesn't mean you burn them down, but you may be starting new ones, you know. So I think it's an important discussion. A couple of things, Neil, it's interesting, I would, I would love your thoughts on this. I've been wanting to ask you this question. As I've been talking to people about those who've influenced my thinking on this subject I mentioned you often I say, you know, I've been very helped by Neil Shen V in his writings. And it's funny sometimes the evangelical opponents of CRT that I've talked, I've mentioned your name, too. They go, Oh, no, Neil, he's no, you don't want to listen to him. So I've noticed you've got some critiques against, you know, on the side of people that are opposed to CRT and evangelicalism. And of course, you've got opponents on you know, the other side to the advocates for CRT definitely got opponents on that side. So you've kind of charted out this unique course. I just wonder if you could comment on that. You know, what are what what are your thoughts on? Why is it that you've got kind of opponents on both sides of this? Do you think Neil?
Well, I do think that if you had to classify me I'm undeniably the anti woke. I mean, I sighs toilet poison. I call it fundamentally in battle with Christianity, I call it Yes. devastating to your church. And there's no question that I'm not wishy washy. So I'm not sure. So I think the criticism is that I, I do openly acknowledge the elements of truth that you'll find in the writings of critical social theorists, I'll say that's true. That's true of critique. I'll say, you know, the sort of classical liberal ideas about things like colorblindness, I'll say, Well, that's the that's not the ideal way to think about race. Whereas that sounds like No, no, that's the that's the right way to think about race. They'll say no, they have a point when they say that some conceptions of colorblindness actually are not ideal. And I'll also speak very openly about racism and say racism really is still a problem in our society, and even in the church. And I'll quote statistics and experiments and, and I talk a lot about that. So I think I also, I think many people really do want to just firebomb these ideas or even not just the ideas that people they're like, just these people are poison. They're all wounds. And they're like you're coddling the world. And I think, well, one thing is I just take very seriously Jesus admonitions to seek the unity of the church and to be hesitant to castable out yes, you have to take a stand against false teaching and against false teachers sometimes, but you want to be very hesitant throw labels like Harry TIG, I see some people and I always the goal always is to win people to the truth. Yeah, not to guess cast them out prematurely. Yeah. So I think that's a big thing. When people people criticize me for not naming names, I don't go pick people out and say this person is a wolf and cast them out. I focus on ideas. And in my upcoming book, we do name names, but never with the intention of going after the people are always giving examples are saying these ideas have these consequences. And here's some examples of that. But our goal is never to, we always want to win those people seek their repentance, and also to warn others but we're not we're doing gleefully and saying this is great, we can find some more heretics to cast up. I think that I think people to be fair, I do think people are right, that they have a greater sense of urgency about these issues. Maybe I am too hesitant to, to say this person is gone. He should not be trusted. But so am I don't bear people ill will for saying Neil's not trusted, that's fine, you know, oh, kill me. Let me go about my business and and like like Paul admonishes the Corinthians, you've got all sorted out in the end. So don't don't worry about the people.
Well, for the record, I I really resonate with what you're saying, Neil, I just think your positioning on that is just is just right. And it's interesting, some of the strongest pushback I got from my book, you know, why social justice is not biblical justice was from evangelicals. And the reason that they there was pushback was because I was advocating that Nancy Pearcey famously said, it's not enough to criticize a bad worldview, you have to offer a better one. And clearly, Christianity is a better worldview, it offers so much more in terms of hope for redemption, and reconciliation and forgiveness. And this better view of what it means to be a human being and just you name it, it just results in so much, that's very positive. And so I ended my book with really a appeal to Christians to bring those ideas into society and into culture and be unapologetic about advocating for these better ideas. But then this is where I got the pushback, which was, you know, we shouldn't really be engaged in culture and society, really, you know, we should be kind of trying to win souls out of society. And, you know, any kind of engagement in society is kind of a distraction. And I thought, oh, that's part of the reason we're in this problem right now in the first place.
Yeah, this idea of withdrawal from culture is, that's why we're,
yes, that's why we're here is why we're here. And it's funny,
because you're like, Well, we're gonna withdraw from culture will tell where you're gonna send your kids to school, or to college, or even to work or to anywhere, you can't escape the culture. And then your kids come back with these crazy ideas? Well, because you abandoned the the public square. Now, I'm not saying I'm not really super big on the whole cultural transformation, we're going to, no, I'm just pointing out that you can't withdraw all of the influence of Christianity from the culture and expect it not to eventually come back to bite you. So I also am primarily concerned with the church and with people's souls. But I don't think it's ever an excuse to just, you know, get into a bunker and keep away from influencing the culture through legislation through just public presence. I just think those things are important.
The way I see it, Neal, is that some set of ideas are always going to be at the foundation of a society, right? If you keep drilling down, you know, there's always going to be, there's policies, there's principles, but below that, there's always ideas, there's, there's belief, you know, belief systems, faith, religion, you know, and if it's not the biblical one, it's going to be something else. And if it's not the biblical one, it's going to be destructive, almost inevitably, not that there's never any truth to it, but it's largely going to be destructive. So as Christians, we shouldn't be apologetic at all, we have something. It's about blessing nations. It's about doing our mission, frankly. But, you know, it's I listened to a podcast by with Jordan Peterson recently and he was talking with a Luke, you know, who this constant teen I can't remember his name right now. Oh, kissin constantly Exactly, yeah, and that a really interesting discussion about wokeness. And they were saying they were both, you know, strong critiques of it in culture in society, which is true as non Christians. Both of them are, you know, certainly Jordan Peterson is, you know, very sympathetic and, you know, to the Bible and a biblical worldview. But, but their discussion was, again, it's not enough to just critique it. In other words, people are drawn to this ideology. There's something that attracts them to this, right. It gives a sense of meaning and purpose. It does things that good you know that the religion does if you will. So it's not enough to critique it, you have to offer something that meets these real needs that people have. And so their discussion was all about what will that be like? What's the positive if we're, you know, not just the negative of critique, but the positive. And it was just such a fascinating discussion, because they weren't again, they weren't necessarily speaking as Christians. But it got me thinking about the church and our role in that. And, you know, where do you see us kneel in terms of the evangelical church? And in that discussion, are we doing a good enough job of offering this better worldview? You know, I think it's, I really applaud you for your critiquing. But I do think it's important for us to kind of come together around you know, here's, here's not just why this is a no, but here's the Yes, or something like that, you know, what are you? What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I agree. And actually, one of the things that we do in our new book is the we do present a the Christian Evan Jellicle. What basically a worldview and how it impacts all these areas, identity, meaning purpose, morality values, all these we just give a holistic picture of the Christian worldview, and then point out how it offers an alternative to critical theory. And I think actually our book we it's written primarily, primarily to Christians, but we also explicitly address non Christians, we actually have a prominent right now, at least one prominent atheist endorser. And we wrote the book with people like that in mind, who's we have a whole chapter on Evan Jellicle theology and explaining what do Christians even believe, if someone has no background, and just start from beginning start with well, God created the universe, we live in God's reality, God created human beings, male and female, God created from one man, all men, so we just go through basic Christian doctrine, and just a whole chapter on just that, nothing else. And then, such as we go back. The book is the the first half of our book, chapters one through seven, is the simply descriptive, we offer no critique, almost at all of these ideas, zero, we just say here is what critical social theorists teach. That's it critical race theory, queer theory, contemporary critical theory, we go through and we have this entire the first part of our book, the first half of it, is just descriptive. And then we have an excursus on angelical theology. So here's what Christians believe about the whole world, not just these issues, but just holistically, you know, he's a coherent picture for what Christians think the world is like. And then in only the second half, do we then take that biblical worldview, and apply it to race and power and truth and gender and sexuality. But the, the way that that the book has been structured, is we're hoping to give a non Christian reader a vision, not only for why Christians take the stances we do, but also for seeing that it's good. Hoping that they say, Hey, actually, actually, this is a I have until this shirt before I got a DM on Twitter, probably a year or a year and a half ago, two years ago, random person on Twitter. And they, they said, I was an atheist in college, and I was very anti Christian. And I actually got, I got in trouble with the administration for opposing wokeness. I didn't like wokeness, that I knew it was bad. And I got in trouble for staying to get against. And I was trying to find resources for opposing these ideas. And I stumbled across one of your talks on critical theory. And I listened to it but when I got to the part in the talk, when you begin talking about a Christian view of identity and a Christian, why Christians oppose racism. Why do Christians think racism is bad? And you talked about how all human beings are made in God's image? Yeah, so we all bear his sin, we are all equally valuable. And he said to him, this is him telling me now, when I got that part, I realized that I, as an atheist could not explain why racism was bad. And I began to realize that you as a Christian hated racism, and you had a reason to hate racism, because I just had this kind of intuitive, emotive idea. But it began to I began to realize Christians have a reasonable racism and to begin to think about Christianity. And actually, now I became a Christian. Yeah. And so it was like, Whoa, because my talk was obviously not about the gospel of Christianity, but the fact that I could give him a worldview, that not only opposed critical theory, but that also connected the dots in terms of Well, why do you think racism is that thing? Because we're made in God's image? Well, that is what we're hoping to do with this book is that non Christian readers can pick it up and get not just a critique of critical theory, or an analysis of it, but also a positive vision for how Christians See the world in a better way?
Oh my gosh, I'm so happy to hear that, you know? Yeah. Sounds like you need a study guide with this book. Yeah, no, but you know what, I just think that's there's such a crying need for these truths, you know? Yeah, non believers need to hear these things, you know. So I'm just
thinking of a friend that I have breakfast with every couple of weeks. And he's in a large company. And they have dei training every month. And the boss above him doesn't agree with the person, some bolt that they report to him don't agree with it. And they all nod kind of each other and wink, and yet nobody can say anything. Yeah, really? Because there's nothing. What do you say? And I'm thinking they should read your book.
Well, that's it. Yeah. So that's our book is written to be definitive. And we definitely, although it's written for Christians, primarily, we definitely make it accessible to non Christian, we speak to them dry, where like this book is for you Don't Don't Don't close it, writing both the Christians and non Christians. And we do at the end, we say yes, Christianity does oppose critical theory, they're not compatible. And yes, Christianity can offer you ways to refute and rebut critical theory. But your non Christian, your main need is for Christ, it's not to have some better story to tell. It's to believe the gospel. So yeah, definitely this book, we know we we have the non Christian reader in the back of our minds, and not just that they'd be given ammunition to combat workers in their workplaces. That's fine. But primarily, we want to share the gospel with them. So that's, that's in the book, too.
Well, listen, you're not going to have any pushback from us on sharing the gospel. It's the very center of the biblical worldview. And it's what everyone needs, people need to know the Lord. But at the same time, you know, I feel like evangelicals have said, this is all we have as far as a message. You know, it's just this kind of, you're a sinner, Christ died for your sins. And you know, what, what they forget is it's an incomprehensive worldview that makes sense of what it means to be a human being and how do we think about power? And how do we think about social relationships? And that I think I often say, Neal, we have a lot more good news to tell than you think. You know,
I wouldn't undermine undersell that either, I think presenting the biblical worldview at the level of image bearing and God's purposes for human beings and how he made the universe. Speak to everybody. Well,
that's what's that's the crying need of the hour right now reminds me
of a friend that was a missionary in Bolivia years ago, he had this story, and he went and planted churches and saved and saw people come to Christ. And then he realized they still thought like, animals animals. Yeah. I had to actually go back and re convert their worldview. Yes, yeah. them to understand what they actually thought they believed. Right? Because without that they weren't truly Christian. So anyway, and you know what? Good for you to go deep on this.
And I think that again, when I yeah, there's, it's funny. What is a Doug, Doug Murray, in England, or even Jordan Peterson, it's these non Christians that are just gravitating to the biblical worldview, because they see the power and the beauty of it, this beauty of a biblical understanding of equality and of what it means to be a human being and just reconciliation, forgiveness. I just find that so ironic, because it's like the evangelical should be out there in the forefront of that, but but we're having others non Christians kind of discover the power of that and bring it to the forefront right now. Yeah. So which I think is great. I mean, you know, but boy, I'm like, boy, we need to be the ones that are out in front championing that. So I'm so happy, Neil, that you are not just critiquing, but you're you're offering the beauty and the power of what Christianity teaches. So much of wokeness is it's it seems to me, it's, well, I mean, again, Marx did this, he kind of took Christian ideas and secularized them and distorted them so that the Christian idea of equality, for example, became something very different in his worldview. So I think a lot of it is just Yeah. You know, these are powerful ideas, anti racism, these are all very powerful ideas, but we've got to think of them biblically, you know? So I'm really grateful that you're you did that. I guess one question I might have to nail it seems like right now, there's because the church is so polarized on this issue, increasingly, and on other issues as well. One of the trends that I have seen is this kind of push for a third way, right? It's not, you know, you've got these two polar opposites on issues like abortion or in critical theory, you're for it, you're against it. So you've got this group, Tim Keller, I think is very, you know, kind of prominent in this. Let's look for the third way. And I've been critical of that, you know, because I feel like it's not really engaging with the ideas as much as trying to just kind of find some maybe middle ground between two ideas that are incompatible. What are your thoughts on that whole third way approach, Neil, that seems to be very popular.
Yeah. When when Keller characterizes the third hysterical halt the third way approach, but he'll characterize it as not in the middle, he'll say, it's not like one or the other, we're on the spectrum. It's not on the spectrum at all. So a good example of this is actually a book by Christopher Watkins called biblical critical theory with a preface or foreword from Tim Keller, where he explicitly says, I'm not saying left or right, or even or in the middle, he's saying that the biblical approach is often not even on that spectrum at all. So for example, you could ask questions like, Is Christianity individualistic? Or collectivistic? And the answer is, will neither, you know, Christians have a right we haven't totally individualistic view of the human person that we have, we have individual rights and individual responsibilities. And we're saved individually as human beings. But then, on the one hand, is extremely values the individual, not just the collective, right. So on the one hand, is extremely individualistic in a sense, but then also, you're saved into the church that spans all tribes, tongues and nations. You're part of a family, the family of God, you're a nation, a holy nation now. So it's not that Christianity is in the middle, it's that it's both extremes at the same time to the fool that's Watkins metaphors. He says, We're not saying left or right or middle, we're saying both of these ideas, in their most extreme forms, are fulfilled by the biblical vision. Now, so that's, that's how he characterizes this via media this third way approach. Now I but I do still have even given that framing, which is how he often frames it, I would still have offer critiques to it. So one thing is that I don't think it's always helpful to frame everything as a third way because there's not so you get into that mindset, oh, I can always looking for ways to frame every issue as a third way. But that's not really true. For example, if I said, is Christianity, theistic or atheistic? You could say and I've heard I've heard Keller say, well see, Christianity is theistic, we believe in a God. But in the ancient world, Christians were actually called atheists because we didn't believe in the pantheon of gods so in us, they believed in God, man, Jesus Christ. And so there were not really either. And the answer is, that's kind of not really true, though. We're definitely theistic.
That's not very helpful, right? Yes. Right. Or like
is Christianity is IT pro or anti abortion, you say, well, we're anti abortion, because it's, it's we think it's murder. But we also care about the mother. And so really, we're gonna wait, that's not an opposition at all, though, right? So to frame it as we're neither pro or anti abortion is a bad way to frame it. We are anti abortion, we should just own that. So I think I'm not saying Keller does that. But I think the tendency can be for people looking for a third way to always gravitate to it, I find two poles that we can then say we're neither of those, or we're both of those in the most extreme. I'd say no, sometimes we're just one of those things that you know, are there two genders or 1000 genders? Are there 499 genders? And the answer is they're two genders. Right? So I that that instinct that third way, instinct can often lead to just bad thinking about, about issues. And then the other thing it can affect people as pastorally an individual person will rarely face both extremes equally as a temptation. So a man who is contemplating an affair with another woman does not need to be told it a Christian is it's it's not anti adultery, or pro Delta. It's kind of a third way. He he needs to be told, you cannot do this. It is a wicked sin. That's no no, no nuance. No, no, no, no, no subtleties, no talking about how Christianity is not moralism. It's not it's not legalism, it's antinomian you just need to be told that's a sin. Now I'm not accusing Keller of of in a pastoral situation of doing that. But when when you talk constantly in this third way frame, that it can lead us individually to think about all every temptation every situation, every issue in a third way frame, which is often a very dangerous way to approach situations in ideas. So I think that's my criticism of it. And I think you'd actually asked earlier about in the your email about the Aaron Rennes negative world. And we're Christianity is now in a negative world culture were used to be a positive world where people were it was a good thing to be Christian. And then I think in the 50s, it kind of transitioned or 70s it we became a neutral world where it's neither positive nor negative socially to be a Christian, but around 2012 With Obergefell We moved into a negative world where now being a Christian publicly, is socially bad. It's a bad thing. And I think this plays into a lot of the disconnect between the way that Keller who's lived for most of his life in in neutral world has framed his ministry because his approach, generally speaking, is that we should play up the ways that Christianity fulfills your deepest longings as a non Christian. So you know you long for justice, well, Christianity fulfills that desire, you, you longing for freedom, Christianity fulfills that desire for freedom. Now, again, I agree with that we should present the Christianity does fulfill these deep, deep longings. But the other side of that especially that becomes irrelevant in a negative world is that when people are actually the idea was if we can show people that their deepest longings are fulfilled in Christ, they'll become Christians, right will preach the gospel to them, they become Christians. But that doesn't work when their deepest longings that they are aware of are actually antithetical to the gospel. So in your deepest longing, if, for example, if a man's deepest longing is to have anonymous sex with 1000s of women, that's his deepest longing, then you can't really say, well, we can fulfill that longing in Christ. No, you can't, though. You might say, well, you're really searching for meaning, and you know it and that lungs, but it's not always helpful to say, oh, to basically downplay the offensive parts of the gospel or Christianity and play up the positive elements and people's felt needs, because sometimes their felt needs are for the things that are actually bad for them. And a good test case would be you know, for example, be a sort of Third Way posture and neutral word posture be you know, don't put say sexuality front and center, or abortion in front and center right in people's faces. Right, right. Because start with things like your you need salvation Jesus, Ito is a savior for bad people, you can rescue put a Christianity cares about justice, Christianity cares about this world and human flourishing, don't lead with abortion or sexuality, which are the main stumbling blocks to people who are progressive coming into the church. Now, on the one hand, I think, okay, that's true, the gospel should be central. But if you look at how the gospel presented in, say, x, the off the apostles often lead with the offensive. You crucified Jesus. Now he's here offering you salvation, or Herod, you know, you are sleeping with your brother's wife, that's a sin, or, you know, so things like that they they actually front load the discussion with people sin, and then offer them salvation from their sin. Now, I'm not gonna I'm not actually saying that that's the right way or wrong way to do evangelism. I'm just pointing out that we can't fit everything into this one approach. And there are there actually, obviously, their person with a sandwich board walking around that says, you're all gonna go to hell. That's, you know, I'm not saying they're doing the wrong by the way, I'm just saying that that approach may not win people as effectively as other approaches, some, some people are, some people are actually hurting from their sin. They're miserable. They need to hear the gospel, that you can be forgiven from this, they already hate themselves. So they need to be told the good news, but other people who are hardening their sin need to be told the bad news, you know, you can be broken with by God's law, so that you can be bound up by the gospel. My point is that one size does not fit all. And I think you can tend to just say, this is the way to share the gospel, this is the way to preach the gospel. And third way approach, I think it's become less and less useful, as our culture is more and more opposed not to their their false ideas about Christianity. Yes, that's not true. They're opposed to what Christianity actually teaches. So saying, hey, hey, guys, we're not like that. That's not gonna work. Because we are like that, you know, they're they're right to
think we actually believe in to Jen, you know, male and female, right? Yeah.
Yeah. So it's it I think Keller's model was Christianity is not what you think it is. And and there are people definitely, absolutely, who don't understand Christianity. They think it's just about like conservative politics. And it's all you think it is. It's just a conservative politics by different label. And so he's right to say no, it's not just that Christianity is actually primarily about something entirely different, which is salvation from sin. On the other hand, if someone comes to you and says, I think Christianity is a pose to transgender and homosexuality, we can't say, oh, no, you're totally wrong. That's not true at all. We have to say, well, that's actually true, but it follows from what we think about God and humanity and what human flourishing actually is rooted in but I think we can't downplay their offense because they're they're just there. Right? Yeah, we shouldn't try to hide that.
Yeah, no, I agree. I think we have to own these things and you know, expect to be misunderstood in the negative world. And I really appreciated what you said, though, about there's not one size fits all, when it comes to evangelism or sharing the gospel. I, I think in that neutral world, you know, we were all trying to be very kind and winsome, and, you know, very attractive and appealing. But you're right, in the gospels, and in, in the Bible, often sin was front loaded. And I, in our church, we just finished studying the book of Jonah. And I was, I was just so struck by Jonah's, you know, one sentence, you know, kind of message when he went to Nineveh, actually, which was, you know, yeah, rip, well, no, it wasn't repent, there was nothing about repentance at all, in five days, Nineveh is going to be destroyed. You know, it's like, there's a God who's angry at sin, and he's going to judge it and destroy it. And I think sometimes people need to hear that too. You know, not everybody, but there's a place for that, you know, for people that are being convicted of their sins by the Holy Spirit. So well, these are all such helpful thoughts, Neil, I really appreciate your your kind of take on just what does it mean to be a faithful Christian in this current cultural environment? You know, I just think these are, these are great thoughts. The book again, is called critical dilemma. Correct? Did they get that title? Right, Neil? Yes. Yep. What's the subtitle? Is there a subtitle? Oh, I think is too long. That's okay. If you don't have it down. Yeah,
it's I have it right for me. So the subtitle is the rise of critical theories and social justice ideology, implications for church and society. And it, it's actually available for preorder right now on Amazon. Okay, we'll be definitive, it's, um, it has, like I said, around 760 footnotes. It's, it's, it's, we cite primary sources heavily. So it will be, we hope to go to resource for Christians trying to understand these ideas. Again, as I said, we spend the first half of the book is devoted to simply understanding what these theorists are saying accurately. That's it next, our editor said, after the first half of the book, you're gonna have some readers wondering, are you in favor of this stuff? Because we haven't seen any criticism? And he said, you might want to put in a paragraph or two warning readers that No, no, we're opposed to this. But we actually came back and said, Hey, that's actually a good thing. You know, what you're telling us is, we've been so fair, and so precise, and so descriptive, that people can't even tell where we stand personally. Now, they should get the sense from the first chapter in the cover. But our point is that we really, really want to emphasize that we're treating these ideas accurately and fairly. We're not biased against them, except to say that they're wrong. But that all comes later. So if you only want to understand these ideas, then this book is going to give you a really thorough grounding in critical social theories like critical race theory and queer theory. If you stick around, we critique them in the end. Yeah,
you sound like classical conversations down there, Neil, all of a sudden, we're Yeah, good. If you're if you're doing good debate, you have to be able to make your opponent's arguments better than they do. Yeah, exactly. So well, I, again, am excited to read this book, when I encourage all of our listeners, if it's available for preorder, go do that, go to Amazon and look up Neil's book, critical dilemma and pre order that that's going to be a really important book. Neil, we'll certainly be advocating for that in doing our part here at the disciple nations Alliance. And yeah, just thank you again for your voice, Neil, and just for you know, just the voice and the influence that you have in the church right now. I think it's really important and we're, we're grateful to have you on today. Great, thank you for that. Okay. God bless. And thank you guys for listening to another episode of ideas have consequences, the podcast at the disciple nations Alliance.
Hi, friends, thank you for listening to this discussion with the world's one and only Christian apologists, homeschooling theoretical chemists, Dr. Neil Shandy. To find him He's on Twitter at Neil Shen v. And his website is Neil Shan V. apologetics.com. If you're stepping back from this discussion, like I am desiring to more deeply understand God's comprehensive way is framework to approach everything topic and issue that you may face in your life. A helpful place to start this journey is with our flagship resource, the Kingdom iser training program, which is a free video biblical worldview course. So if you want to join me and start going through that course yourself, you can head to this episode's landing page where you'll see all the information that you need to sign up for that course today. Don't miss next week's discussion with another special guest, Dr. Owen strand, who joins us to talk about the ideas and consequences of today's talk. sic war on men in a desperate need for strong men of God to rise up and lead us out of this mess we find ourselves in. Ideas have consequences is brought to you by the disciple nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry you can find us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube or on our website, which is disciple nations.org. Thanks again for listening and have a great rest of your week.
