Impact of "Shepherds for Sale" on Revival (pt.2)

Hello, and welcome to episode three of the Bennett Broadcast on Matt Bennett. We're looking at Megan Boschham's book Shepherds for Sale. In particular, we're looking at how it has an influence on National Revival and Reformation. This is a key to look at. It's an important book. A lot of people have been reading it. There's been a lot of discussion and social media on it. And I think appropriately so for a bunch of reasons. But we want to look beyond just the messaging of the book and maybe a little of the criticism and look at how this plays a role in the renewal of our nation. That's what we want to see happen by the grace of God. That's what this whole podcast is dedicated to that lives would be radically changed. That America returned to God wholeheartedly when some of the things that she addresses in this book are along those lines. This material that we are looking at is a material that largely unfamiliar with. I keep up on these matters. I lead Christian Union, a ministry to college students, some of the most academically intense schools in our nation. We started at Princeton, Harvard Yale and Sanford other schools. Also, we work among alumni and in any of their peers and friends that come out and programs across the country. And I need to keep up with all of us to do my job well and be current on these matters that she covers a lot of important subjects. So we in the first episode on this book, we covered up through chapter five. Now we're going to look at chapter six, seven and eight and the conclusion. And this is needed for Christians to understand and know in our current day and age. These are really important subjects. Some of these chapters will spend more on them and less on the others. But they're all important to know because they've all been having an impact on the church in the United States. So let's look into chapter six. The next chapter we're going to review called critical race profits. Now, this issue isn't as controversial today as it was a few years ago, but a few years ago in this country. It was extraordinarily controversial race matters and policing and what that means critical race theory. It settled down quite a bit, but it had the potential to be even much, much more divisive than it was. And of course, like anything that affects the church, usually there's some parts of it that are quite good to look at and consider. But then some parts that can throw us off and set us down around path in different ways. And that's what I feel was the case with CRT. And that's what Bosham documents in her book. And her view and I largely agree with her is that too many churches allowed themselves to uncritically swallow so much of the teaching coming out of this movement. And what she points out is that it's got some bad roots to it. And even though it has some kernels of truth that it comes out of a Marxist background. And I did a lot of research on this for training for my own ministers on our campuses. So I know the subject well, I read as some of the pros and cons on this. I read that Kennedy's book on anti racism. Let's see, the Angelo's book on white fragility. And then on the other side, Bachens book on fault lines, called fault lines, also Thomas Sol's book called this discrimination and disparities, as well as others work. And I read other books and other articles. Those are some of the top ones. And I largely sided with those who are criticizing the movement. It starts with something that's very important that is all people are equal and valuable before the Lord in any system or any setup in our society that doesn't treat people well or equally needs to be addressed. But CRT would often go far beyond that and make a lot of assertions that were difficult to prove. And a lot of times the assertions weren't proved. It was just moving on and implementing some of the ideas. It is a bad thought or wrong way of thinking that you go beyond. And everybody is saying equal opportunity. But then it's up to people themselves to have what outcome they get from it. And then we got to make sure along the way of course that there's not an unlevel playing field for people. But it does people know good to help in certain ways or tilt the field to make up or to do something that in the end makes it not equal for everybody. And Christians can disagree on some of these matters for sure. We can't disagree on the fact that all people equal in God's eyes, but how to make a situation the best in the United States between the races. Christians can sit down and talk through our member and discussed this a lot with my own ministers in dealing with the fact that if you notice in the gospels that Jesus he on the one hand accepted Matthew. And he was a tax collector that sided with the Roman Empire and you can imagine how other people saw him and he was a total trader and he got rich off of it in the mean while. Also though he had among his disciples a man named Simon DeZellat not Simon Peter. The Simon DeZellat and it was those people's view that the answer to the Roman occupation was violent overthrow revolution. So you can only imagine what those discussions were like with Jesus and these two different people here. And so Christians need to be able to affirm what's the centrality of the gospel and to be able to talk through different matters and test everything by the scriptures. DeZellat was being adopted and CRT that wasn't quite tested by the scriptures one by one. And as mentioned the roots of this is Marxist theory and is probably best just to start with the scriptures and leave all of this out and Marxist theory is created to create conflict among different groups. The most famous of which is different classes within society the working class versus the more business class and create conflict for the purpose of revolution. And in Marxist theory the question is well if you want a revolution and people seem content it's hard to have a revolution. If you can create conflict between groups then you can get there. So that's the roots of all of this and it has a intellectual covering to it and there's a number of more well known academics and I won't go into all the back. But we've got to be very cautious and very careful about everything that comes our way. Now this among the different chapters does have a big impact on revival because Christian unity is so important in revival. And we have a saying in Christian union that unity the spirit precedes fillings of the spirit and you see this pattern numerous times in the Bible for instance when the first filling of the spirit happened in Acts chapter two. It's not coincidental that all of the disciples and women and others a bunch were together praying for 10 days and have such a unity of the spirit around them you see this in the book of Acts such unity among them when they would have fillings of the spirit. So this is really critical and the devil definitely wants to divide up the American church along different ways we got to make sure that our devotion to Jesus Christ and devotion to the body of Christ is much stronger than a secondary political ideology or our race or anything else and so may the Lord give us grace and the devil is going to do everything he can to try to stir up division problems animosity among us. So Lord help us with that. Okay, the next chapter chapter seven is called me to church to and in a apocalypse. Now this chapter what basham is arguing and making the case for is that during the me to movement a lot of thinking about how to handle abuse in different ways is to be adopted from the wider secular world. And of course the wider secular world can alert us to maybe we have been doing something according to the scriptures, but the whole mindset of how we're to handle what San is and the accused and victims. It needs to come from the scriptures and a lot has been wholesale adopted simply from a larger culture kind of an frenzy almost in some ways that this is how we need to resolve matters and here she has a few quotes that I'm going to read from the book that I think are helpful. One point she's wanting to put forward is that even if there is a power differential between people, it doesn't necessarily mean that the person with the less power is innocent, even if maybe you can argue that the person with more power is more guilty, but it doesn't mean that the person with the less power. Now we're not talking about children, of course. But here's a quote she pulls in relation to Joseph in the Bible and making this point, I think it's worth reading here she says. The idea that a lack of power excuses willful knowing sin is found nowhere in the Bible by the opposite. So a basham, I believe is correct in this and this needs to be remembered, even again, as there should be consideration of power balances in certain circumstances, for instance, some states do have laws, just as they're laws to protect the counselor and the council and in terms of an inappropriate relationship. So there are laws between any kind of intimate involvement between a pastor and the sheep under his care and I think that's appropriate in so many cases I'm not every case. There is a trust there and there can be a manipulation there and so we need to be very, very mindful of that. Now she also speaks about something that's been come to call, be called trauma informed investigation and in the zeal to protect people and to prosecute wrongdoers, this has developed, but there's a lot of trouble with this theory. I'm going to quote again from basham, it says. Trauma is also used to explain why an accuser might not have resisted or even said no to her abuser. It holds that she may have entered a quote tonic immobility, a catatonic state wherein the victim freezes for an extended period unable to voice or signal any distress or displeasure during an assault. It might seem like consent except this is all junk science and she documents how there's a lot of trouble to this mindset and this so called trauma informed investigations. It seems as she puts forward in the book and experts on this have noted that it seems like the purpose of this is when the account gets the most fuzzy or perhaps implausible. That's when you lean in and tell them and give them the most assurance that this is exactly what happened and we've got to be very cautious with that. What this reminds me of is other times where sometimes in our rush to convict people or to get rid of wickedness, we can go too far I think of the sale on which trials in the late 1600s. There was something called spectral evidence if you can believe it at that time where testimony could be entered in of what most of these accusers were girls, young girls. They were accusing if you remember people practicing witchcraft and causing them to have seizures and everything else. They said that they would have these visions of these persons and out of their body or they would see them doing witchcraft on other people and this would be admitted as evidence, this spectral evidence. This sort of thing is not allowed in court now nor should it be and it led to a lot of people who were 20 people who were executed many more put in jail because of this and really really odd and later people were exonerated but that's too little too late for those who pay the ultimate price. There also you think back the 1980s and there's a movement on recovered memories and for those of us all to remember that that was a scissoria in many ways and people be accused of satanic rituals and these memories being recovered decades later and it's been shown that a lot of that isn't quite accurate and people are open to the power of suggestion. Don't get me wrong, some of these things happen and there are people who get caught up in these really really awful things but relying on recovered memories can be very dangerous when it comes to accusing somebody putting them in jail. So what we want in our system in the US, Basham argues rightfully is to be very cautious about convicting people who are innocent and that's why it has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt when a person is convicted and she goes on at linked about how the standard has changed. She has changed even on college campuses and a lot of people are accused and the evidence really fully isn't there and then the university ends up getting sued because of it because those accused were accused falsely and she refers to William Blackstone. She says American jurisprudence is built on a cornerstone known as Blackstone's ratio named for the 18th century British juris William Blackstone who famously wrote that quote it is better that 10 guilty persons escaped than one innocent suffer and then Benjamin Franklin up the ante saying it was better to let 100 guilty go free than risk injustice against one blameless man. This philosophy finds its expression in the presumption of innocence which in turn finds it's grounding in biblical principles and so this needs to be remembered and of course there is question about a person or situation doesn't mean they need to have access for instance. I think it's been very good that many more churches have been doing background checks for their people anybody works in nursery or volunteers and our ministry to always does background checks we need to take very strong steps and if there's any question along these lines then certainly you can move a person to a different position. We can't just take the risk of children especially but we also of course need to not smear people and if they could be innocent. So we need a balance in all of this and so made the Lord give grace in the midst of all of this so presumption of innocence due process she provides a necessary corrective in all of this and something else I want to add for my good measure not covered by Washington per se is that a lot of these offenses should have much harder. It should have much harder harsher punishments something done in a proco children or some other aggressive act between adults that's non consensual should have the death penalty to it and people get led off far too easy and these situations these are awful awful crimes and can damage person or their whole lives. All right chapter 8 chapter 8 is the last chapter that you have the conclusion and this one I think is probably the most significant in terms of derailing the church and causing a lot of trouble for the church and the reason why is that it's called chapter 8 and none dare call it sin lgbtq and the church. And this is an enormous problem in the church today and not just that issue but sexual immorality in general and addressing it as serious there are many passages in the Bible that highlight the centrality of sexuality and how it's needed to be faithful in this area well or of course to be repenting of it when you sent in order to be good with God and to have a chance that you're going to heaven. So let me mention here what Basham puts quotes here about the subject to says for the most part our current culture will not fault you as liberals did in J. Gresham, Machen or Francis Shafers day for having orthodox beliefs about the resurrection or the anerity of scripture. They will often not even fall to you for saying Jesus is the only way to heaven but simply brush the belief off as an antiquated oddity the thing that could shut you out of careers cost you social standing and even land you in a years long legal struggle as happened with the Colorado Baker Jack Phillips is refusal to capitulate on what the Bible says about sex sexuality and marriage and this is the case. We know from our own experience as a ministry that this causes so much trouble on campus when we affirm God's doctrine beautiful doctrine of the family we get more pushback and harassment from universities on this than anything else. And ministry that on camp on Arbor campus a number of years ago they threatened to kick us off campus because we brought in a woman who had been in a lesbian lifestyle and then came out of it but there's a lot a lot of harassment against us as a ministry because of that. And what basham documents is that there's a very concerted deliberate effort by secondary minded people to change this in the church and this is really sobering to know that people are dedicating millions of dollars to try to change church doctrine. And so she says this as she says in 2000 John striker gay air to a 100 billion dollar surgical supply conglomerate kicked off the new millennium by launching the Arcus foundation a grant making institution that soon became the largest funder of LGBTQ initiatives in the United States. So this foundation gives a lot of money to a number of organizations to promote this heresy in the church giving it to people who call themselves Christian. Who are not but call themselves Christian in order to try to normalize this to say that it's totally acceptable to rebel against God in these ways or to say that it's something Christians can simply disagree about and this is not the case and this causes an enormous damage and problems. Now I appreciate something that Tim Keller wrote a few years ago and where he shows that this is not an issue that you can just agree to disagree on with other Christians. He says in his book open times of fear explains why sexual immorality cannot be dismissed as an issue which Christians of good faith and agree to disagree. Quote the Christian sex ethic was understood by the apostles to be a non-negotiable part of orthodoxy one of the poor beliefs of Christianity. What Christians taught and practice about sexuality was as much a necessary implication of the gospel and the resurrection as with the care for the poor and the quality of the races. This makes it impossible to argue as many try to do that what the Bible says about caring for the poor is right but what it says about sex is outmoded and should be discarded. I'm really glad that Keller did this. I live in New York City and would attend his church periodically and knew him a little bit. He was criticized and I would say rightly so from time to time for not speaking enough from the pulpit on sexual morality and it just wasn't talked about and it was a problem in the church. It's always a problem in churches but because it wasn't talked about from up front a lot of people called to the standard then a lot of people simply didn't have the reminder or knew what was expected of them when it could be caught in this area. So I'm very glad that he put this out there to say indeed he's absolutely 100% right that this is not something Christians can quote agreed to disagree about it. Now when it comes to the doctor of the family I will say that for those Christians who adopt the unbiblical view on this and say it's all right to have those kind of relationships with people persons of the same sex. We've got to keep a couple of things in mind. One is that when a person first becomes a Christian of course it takes a while to disciple them. They can see and learn from the scriptures after time if they're learning from the scriptures and seeing what the Lord teaches and they refuse to change their views or behaviors then that's when you have to say I don't know that you really are a Christian. Also we need to remember that nobody's perfect and people fall when it comes to sexual immorality as of every other sin but the Christian acknowledges it repents and strives to be better and some people struggle with some sense more than others for a variety of reasons it's never acceptable but the true Christian does repent. So but for those people who have been taught this doctrine and they willfully teach that it's okay and they never repent if they engage or they teach other people that they can be Christians and I'm rejecting God's design for the family then they are false shepherds. And a false shepherd or false pastor or false teacher it isn't just someone who teaches something that we're highly confident that is false that term gets thrown around a lot but it's a person who presents themselves as Christian or Christian minister and they are teaching doctrines such that if those doctrines are believed they will lead a person to help. Now because a person can believe different doctrines on secondary and tertiary matters but if a person believes and absorbs these wrong doctrines on sexuality then indeed they are going to help and so persons who teach that are false teachers and she highlights a number of folks and especially Andy Stanley who indeed is a false teacher. He's pastor of a very large church in Atlanta called North Point and in a number of places and situations he's made it clear that he thinks it's something that Christians can disagree about it and all indications are such that he's wanting to nudge his whole church to believe that and to be okay with this sin in their church. So she basham tells a story of a pastor named Ryan Visconti who was called to a part of a small dinner meeting with Andy Stanley one time and it says Ryan Visconti says he put up this all out on X Twitter he says Stanley shocked the room by arguing that they shouldn't so much confront this sin as much to accommodate it. He said he would encourage any gay couples in his congregation to admit to each other now that's astonishing that's unbelievable and you think about that be said about any heterosexual couple if they're not married but as long as you commit to yourself it's okay but you do absolutely not and no way shape or form. It says here Visconti remember Stanley likening same sex attraction to a disability something that can't be helped. Quote telling gay people they have to stop being gay to follow Christ is like taking a wheelchair away from a guy who can't walk an expectation of celibacy he argued would be unfair now can you imagine that this is a Christian ministers view and that this is what's being taught. It goes on and says Andy Stanley went on in another place to call first Corinthians six Leviticus 18 and Romans one quote clobber passages echoing a phrase common among a activist when referencing Bible versus that address homosexuality now step back and imagine this that any. I'm commandment in the scriptures and if we didn't want to do it or felt like we want to rebel against it all we have to do is name those passages clobber passages and then we don't have to do it. Husbands don't have to love their wives anymore because quote those are clobber passages we don't need to be generous to the four because those are clobber passages all of this is unbelievable yet it's what Andy Stanley pastor of a very large and very influential church believes. And there are others that she named and goes through in this chapter and this is very very concerning. I want to give you some verses here in chapter Jude that highlight this that show us how important it is we do not allow a posture of grace to allow this kind of immorality and you'll see here this passenger about to read these verses. That's sensuality and that is sexuality if we think that that's can be okay we are denying our only master in Lord Jesus Christ. So here it is this is Jude book of Jude verses three and four it's only one chapter long Jude it says beloved although I was very eager to write to you about a common salvation. I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the sites and that's what bash him is doing in her book especially in this chapter and I applaud her for it. So I could I encourage you appeal to contend for the faith for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation ungodly people. Here you go who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. This is it right here if you teach that the grace of God covers all of this then you are denying our only master Lord Jesus Christ. And sadly there's another book coming out that I'll write about now by a Duke Divinity professor now emeritus and his son Richard B. Hayes used to be orthodox on this issue. I think it's called a widening of God's mercy whereas his famous and previous book on ethics and the New Testament held up the biblical view on this now here they're saying that it doesn't matter and it's okay. You'll quote a widening of God's mercy here they're perverting the grace of our God into sensuality and denying our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. So wow this is shocking when every Christian should be enormously alarmed. Of course we're going to have people ourselves and others and send in all sorts of different ways and sexuality and everything else. The Christian acknowledges that the Christian repents of it and seeks to help other people to be strong in this way in the Lord. May the Lord have mercy on this on us in this way. It says they are concluding the chapter it seems it that see it says there seems little doubt that apostasy will be introduced to many ministries and churches through this issue. But while to those found sleeping though the alarms have been sounding and to those through whom the apostasy comes. Yeah and then to that may the Lord give us grace and may we be alert. So in your own church and your own ministry there are organizations out there training members and churches to be infiltrators and to try to get the church to reject God's design for the family. So be aware of it and be alert to it and and learn up on this issue. And now this chapter has an enormous effect on the importance of revival because revival comes when there's deep repentance. And this is an important issue sexuality all through the scriptures is a very important issue in terms of holiness and devotion into the Lord. It's not the only one but it's important. And if we don't understand this well that we won't call people to repentance. If you have pastors and leaders not calling people to repentance and this is part of it then there's little chance so they're being outpouring the spirit and revival come. So we need to focus ourselves on this. All right let's look at the last chapter conclusions of the book shepherds for sale. She's got a number of wonderful summary quotes and then I'm going to give my overall kind of take on everything. So it says here I'm going to give a couple of quotes it says it's a practice of walls to dismiss the concerns of those who see compromise and false teaching slipping into the church to accuse those sound in the alarm of making mountains out of mole hills. Yet scripture never encourages us to minimize or turn a blind eye to such matters. Instead we are commanded to contend earnestly for the fate. I just read that. Dude the whole book of Jude is on the subject and I can just add a little bit of my own here having studied this whole chapters of the New Testament are dedicated to dealing with false shepherds coming in to the church. And so it's a big subject in the Testament. So the Apostle Paul uses no soft language in Galatians one to address those who bring other gospels to the church. He calls them a curse Jesus does not treat lightly those using the temple to pedal worldly goods for worldly gain he drives them out with a whip. Now she gives a bit of a charge here and. One of the last pages now is our moment lay men as well as ministers to stand in the fence of the gospel against foreign doctrines and have come into the church is our moment to pray that the Lord will strengthen our hands and emboldened our hearts from the task. Boniface Luther Calvin Spurgeon Machin Schaeffer and Lewis not to mention the Apostles Peter Paul and Jude. Horragiously called nonsense nonsense and heresy heresy these are heroes of the faith. She's right and continues on here says that's what we are open war is upon us and has been for a number of years but we possess a power that no other in the world can rival listen to the progressive strategies that they complain that evangelicals have been the toughest nut to cracks by tens of millions of dollars they have spent promoting elite church influencers who voiced their preferred views. So and wrapping up the book and I'm going to give my comments here remember the thesis of the book is that influencers institutions Christian ones ministers are allowing themselves to be influence sometimes outright with grants money sometimes influence through being given access to certain elite spaces or invitations and inclusion certain ways by being influences way and are adopting these secular minds sadness. So this is when the first quibbles I have in it that she would bash would often use the phrase a leftist now I like to use the phrase secular not that every view on the left side of the political aisle is secular it's not but at the same time we as Christians what we care about most is not so much whether something is left to write what we care about is something is secular whether it's Christian. And if it's still an allowable Christian view then we need us Christians to sit down and some of us might come out more in this side or that side of an issue but that's what matters to us most is is this a Christian is it a secular mindset so we take the LGBT issue for instance well that's outside of Christianity and certainly one party may adopt a more Christian view than another on that but we care most about what's pleasing to the Lord not what. Not what political side something falls down on let's see here. Something else too that I would do differently in a book like this is I rarely use the terms LGBTQ I used to like to use the term rainbow cult I try to think about using language in the way that the New Testament would use it how would the Apostle Paul. Talk about a group of people who were very active and shaming intimidating manipulating using levers of power to force others to adopt or believe and sometimes even live these sexually immoral practices it wouldn't be a nice ginger Lee a crafted phrase like the LGBT community nor are those churches that have gone apostate would be a possible ever call them quote affirming churches like this comment. In this book in many other ways they're not affirming in any way shape or form they rejected the Lord's ways they are apostate they are heretical and to be continuing for the faith to be godly we've got to use the language that God uses the language that he uses and any so called church that's rejected God's design for the family is not a church it is a collection of apostates and dedicated to us odd sex cult rainbow sex cult. So made the Lord have mercy on us so all these problems that are highlighted in this book are symptoms for the deeper issue is the powerlessness of American Christianity we have lost our zeal and our ability of seeking after the Lord and in the spiritual realm not much good happens because our prayers are lifeless often and we don't do it very much also pray very much we also don't call people to repentance very much. We rarely humble ourselves seek the Lord with fasting and so this is what this is the root of how you see revival comes to any nation or any city or any group of people and in the first episode of shown how I've been a part of that a couple times and even been to other parts of the world that's been the case. So what is laid out in here this is important and has to be addressed and a number of places has to be repented up but we got to go far far beyond this if we want to see reform of the American church with a broad deep culture of people seeking God and to see more about this go to Daniel spirituality.org or christian union dot org slash seven keys and you can see much more about this. And I encourage many people who watch this broadcast thank you very much everybody our cornerstone partners you want to help with this mission then please go to christian union dot org slash cornerstone and learn how to become a financial partner to help. All this come about by the grace of God so thank you everyone you're being part of this community and much grace to you made the Lord give you grace and peace and life and strength as you walk with them it's my deep deep desire that individually as cities families and nation we return to God and give him the praise. Glory and honor belongs to his name so i'm going to close with the prayer your lord you are awesome your great you are blessed you are holy your true you're wonderfully I saw your great name you are wonderful to be praise help us for have mercy on us give us break through stir up and us give us purity and holy and devotion and zeal to honor you and to be devout and to give you the praise and Jesus name amen. So thanks again everybody it's been joy doing this and God bless. you