Biblical Fidelity and Freedom in America

Hello, this is Will Hardy with ManTalk Radio. We are all about breaking down the walls of race and denomination. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few minutes. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. Critical race theory, wokeness, socialism, communism, it's invaded America, and tragically, it's invaded the American church. A man who's been a leader in the American church. He loves Jesus. He's been the head in the past of the religious nexus committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. He's been the president of institutions. He's on the radio nationwide. He's really been a sterling voice of truth in the culture. His name is Dr. Richard Land.

Dr. Land, thanks for popping in. We're at the Religious Broadcasters Convention, really a group that is keeping the gospel legal and protecting freedom of speech, but there's a battle within the church attacking our freedom of speech, and you're trying to call pastors in a gracious way back to biblical fidelity and to freedom that our country was founded on. Well, critical race theory is a mortal threat to America, and the gospel is the only answer. Critical race theory is Marxist in origin.

Class struggle didn't work in America because Americans don't hate rich people. They want to be rich, you know, and so, but race has worked. They've used race to divide us. Race has been the serpent in the garden, American Garden of Eden, since the beginning, and we have a racist past. We are not a systemically racist society any longer, thanks to many, many people, including Dr. King, but critical race theory is the antithesis of Dr. King's dream of a country in which we're judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character. Critical race theory judges everyone by the color of their skin. All white people are racist by virtue of being white, and all black people are victims by virtue of being black. Now, that's just nonsense. It's dangerous nonsense, and what it does is it perpetuates racism because the leaders of Black Lives Matter and others who have been pushing this, they say that the only remedy to past racism is future racism, you know, reverse racism.

Well, what does that do? It leads to perpetual racism. We don't get beyond racism. We get divided America into tribes, ethnic tribes, and the one country in the world that is the most susceptible to this is the United States. We're the only country in the world that was not founded on soil or blood, ethnicity. We're founded on an idea that all men are created equal, and they're endowed with a creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If we abandon that ideal and we descend into the tribalism of critical race theory, it will literally rend this country asunder. But Dr. Richard Land, I'm Stu Everson. This is Truth Talk. I'm broadcasting from the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. So many Christian leaders are here, so much influence, so many godly men and women who are fighting ambitiously to keep our freedom, our airwaves, open so we can do this kind of interview and not be shut down for a hate crime. Dr. Land, you hear CRT, critical race theory. A pastor here is like, well, I'm not a racist. I want to make sure that that we love black and white, you know, red and yellow, black and white.

They are precious into sight. Black lives matter. You hear these little statements, but they sound like we need racial reconciliation. Are you against racial reconciliation, or can you make the distinction between, you know, just to be devil's advocate, between what's going on with god healing, racial divide, especially in the deep south and things like that, but these Marxist communist groups that are forcing an agenda that drives more hate? Well, I led the effort on racial reconciliation in the Southern Baptist Convention. I helped to draft the resolution that we passed in 1995, apologizing for having supported racism and slavery in the past, and asking for forgiveness of our African American brethren, and committing to racial reconciliation and to a society where everyone is judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. So I certainly believe in racial reconciliation. I certainly believe in in expunging racism wherever and whenever we can, but critical race theory is reverse racism. Critical race theory says that whites are perpetually guilty. They can't help but be guilty. They're guilty.

If they're white, they're racist. This is this is utter nonsense, utter nonsense, and it divides America, and what it is doing, it is undoing the wonderful success of Dr. King's ministry and Dr. King's dream, because, you know, I grew up right on the edge of the civil rights revolution. I graduated from high school in 1965. Dr. King was a personal hero of mine. I watched him give his speech. I have a dream speech in August of 1963, and I would encourage every American, everyone listening to me, before you go to bed tonight, read Dr. King's letter from the Birmingham jail. I think every American should have to read that to graduate from high school, and what he says in there is the church, it shouldn't be a thermometer reflecting the values of society, but a thermostat setting the values.

Thermostat, not a thermometer. That's right. I like that, Dr. Land. Dr. Martin Luther King, MLK, would condemn today's critical race theory. Absolutely. Is that not aghast, though? I mean, people would be aghast to hear that. They don't mention him. Black Lives Matter and all these woke groups, they don't mention Dr. King. Because he said something about don't judge a man by the color of his skin by the content of his character.

That's right. That's exactly right, and he said that those you would change, you must first love. And he was all about reconciliation.

He was about gospel reconciliation. So Dr. Martin Luther King would condemn this Black Lives Matter organization. Of course, Dr. King would agree with the Bible that black lives do matter, but this organization, you're saying they're not such a nice group, and they're against American values, right? They're Marxist. So the truth about what's really behind these movements, CRT, Black Lives Matter. Of course, MLK would be the champion of Black Lives Matter.

The statement, the biblical fidelity of that statement, you know, before God Almighty who made us all in his image. Yes, we need to love our black sisters and brothers. We need to love our sisters and brothers of all races.

And yes, they have suffered immensely in the early stages of this country, especially. And yes, there's racism day. But Dr. Land, what's the answer for the church?

What's the answer? Is it CRT and this communist organization called Black Lives Matter? Whatever the problem is, critical race theory is never the answer. Dr. King believed that black lives matter.

He believed all lives matter. And, you know, people have to learn racism. You put a bunch of children together who are just of different ethnicities, and they don't notice race. You have to be taught racism in society. And what they're doing with critical race theory is they're teaching kindergartners and first graders that white people are guilty and that black people and other people of minorities are victims. And what's interesting to me in my hometown of Franklin, Tennessee, the push against it in the public schools came from immigrants. It came from Indian Americans and other Americans who've come here and said, no, wait a minute, we left where we lived and came to America to get away from this. My son, who is of Asian American extraction, comes home and he's feeling guilty. He's been taught to feel guilty because he's white and he's an oppressor. That is child abuse. There's no other way around it.

To do that in elementary school and in junior high school or high school, that is child abuse. And it's going to breed terrible, terrible division. It will rend the country asunder.

It will turn us into a collection of tribes instead of a nation. Do these pastors, churches, other Christian groups that are embracing CRT, maybe ignorantly, maybe they haven't talked to godly biblical scholars like you, Dr. Land, do they understand the communistic socialism underpinning? Do they understand that that racial hatred that is being engendered by CRT and by the Black Lives Matter organization that's a full communist organization by their own admission, do they understand that it's the same socialism and communism that destroyed Venezuela, the fourth wealthiest country in the world, 20 years ago until they elected a communist leader. And now it's 96% of Venezuelans live below the poverty rate. And all they did is say, hey, bunch of racism. They tried to get people to hate each other. Cuba, same way.

The Soviet Union, the same way. They attack the races and then you start to get in the moral. Then after that, it's the morality thing because we know that the transgender deal is next and hate crimes and all that.

I mean, do they understand where all this is going? Well, part of Black Lives Matter, one of their primary goals is to destroy the nuclear family. And if you destroy the nuclear family, you've destroyed any society. No society can survive the tearing down of the basic building block of civilization, which is the nuclear family. We've not found in the United States, with all of our resources, any substitute for the nuclear family to eliminate or to alleviate poverty. Look at the war on poverty. We have poverty in this country primarily related to the breakdown of the nuclear family. If you have a father in the home, you have like a one in 10 chance of being in poverty, as opposed to a much higher chance.

If you don't have a father in the home, you come from a broken home. So we have to understand this and understand that Dr. King was talking about the racism that is common to mankind, but that we as Christians are supposed to be the thermostats, saying that God created all of us equal. There's only one human race. One race, it's the human race. We have different ethnicities, but blood transfusions work across all ethnicities. And now, science has actually come into the conclusion that the Bible came to a long time ago.

He was the mother of all living. We're all one race. We have different levels of melanin in our skin.

That's right. There's one human race divided into different ethnicities. Christ's command to love one another goes to the Samaritan woman, who were hated by the Jews in John 4. It goes to the zealot Matthew. It goes to all the different dynamics, even the discipleship group, where they would racially hate each other. But Jesus brings us together, and He's the only one that can bring us together. Even Peter had to learn not to be prejudiced against Gentiles, and the Holy Spirit and the Apostle Paul helped him do that. The Bible says you're not to think of yourselves more highly than you are to think. That means that racism is always wrong.

Always wrong. It is the antithesis of the gospel. And the church is there. You've got a racist person in your church? Church discipline.

That's why it's there. We need church discipleship. We need to disciple each other. We need to have healthy relationships across people that are different than us, loving, knowing that we are different from God. He reached out to us while we were yet sinners. We were aliens. We were enemies of God, right, Dr. Lane?

That's right. And, you know, we've made enormous progress towards a multi-ethnic society. And I appreciate the African Americans that say, you know, it is derogatory and demeaning to say that if we're black, you're a victim.

Christianity says no matter what your background or your circumstance, you can overcome it in Christ. Wow, Dr. Richard Lane. Dr. Lane, thank you. The pulpits in America, they need to be hot again with the gospel. They need to preach the truth, but not let these cultural mores, these valueless agendas that have nice names to them. I mean, how nice does pro-choice sound? Well, well, we want, you know, you know, we want to pro-death.

It's pro-death. We've got to see through that. We have to need some discernment, don't we, Doc? We need to be biblically literate, and we need to train our children and those around us and decide we don't be angry and mad and say, hey, you dummy.

Hey, hey, come here, because you know what? I was ignorant about the same stuff until a godly man like you took me aside. And we should be working toward our churches, reflecting our society. And the way to do that is evangelism. You know, a lost person does not have a worship tradition. A lost person does not have a music tradition. So if you go out and you win a lost person to Christ who happens to be African-American, he's going to be perfectly comfortable in your church.

Or if you win somebody who's Hispanic or Asian-American, and we ought to be working toward having churches that reflect the society in which they operate. Yeah, Dr. Richard Land, thank you, sir. You got a website or something that people can learn about your commentaries, your ministry, you do so much for the kingdom?

Just go to rdland.scs.edu. Okay. And also I do, I'm executive editor of the Christian Post, and so I do a weekly column for them.

Awesome. And folks, the most important thing I can say to you is this. Would not it be tragic for someone to be racially, politically correct, and go through all the steps to say, okay, I love and accept all races, all people that are different, but not to have Jesus Christ in their heart.

You see, what is the profit of man if he gains the whole right, talking points, social, all that stuff, but loses his own soul? So make sure you have Jesus. By the way, when you have Jesus, that kind of fixes the other stuff, doesn't it, Dr. Land? Well, and wouldn't it be, isn't it tragic and sad if you're so concerned about being woke, you're so concerned about being politically correct, that you don't share the gospel?

Because the fact is, everyone, everyone needs to come to repentance and salvation in Jesus Christ. What a blessing, Dr. Richard Land. Thanks for being on us on Truth Talk. Please share this with everyone you know. Share it with your pastor. It can be encouragement to him, and let's make the gospel the preeminent. And someone that disagrees on this, we're going to disagree. There's people in this room at NRB that are going to just read, Dr. Land.

Let's have conversation. Let's love each other, and let's remember that the ground is level, the foot of the cross, and we need a Savior, and all these things should point to him. That's right. Well, you know, we can love people, but when you love people, you tell them the truth.

That's right. And people who are promoting critical race theory are promoting a lethal poison that will destroy our society. And if America is rent asunder, God help the world. Think about a world without the United States. The Putin's and the Chairman Xi's of the world would run the world. It would be run by thugs. We would have a worldwide mafia-like leadership if it weren't for the United States. We have been the biggest influence for human dignity and freedom in the world, and missions. This is the Truth Network.