In Part 5 we are going to look at one of the other guys that Walter Strickland, Professor and Associate VP for Diversity at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recommended to read, J. Deontis Roberts. In Part 1 we defined the Gospel. In Part 2 we gave specific definitions for Justification, Sanctification, Equity and Equality. In Part 3 we discussed definitions for Racism, Justice, and Oppression. In Part 4 we saw to quotes from James Cone, and continue discussion on Justice, Welfare and Mercy for the Poor.
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Real World Example: We come to the last part of this series and to give another real world example I want to point again to what is going on at CRU. I mentioned a few podcasts ago that one of the speakers at CRU19 had put down white people and had the everyone in attendance stand up at repeat a Lament that was supposed to be part of white people’s repentance. Well the team over at Enemies Within the Church got so much feedback from that short clip that they put together a 15 minute clip from CRU19 of speaker after speaker upholding false history and putting down white people. The clip can be found in the article titled The Social Justice Movement Takes Over CRU19. Go right now and watch it. If you don’t realize we have a problem in the Church then I don’t know what to do to help open your eyes. For more context on this read the article Internal Documents Prove CRU Leaders Officially Promoting Social Justice and watch Jon Harris’ video in that article. You can start around the 30 minute mark to get to the portion about CRU. He has pictures of the actual documents with talking points that CRU put out to try to shut up any naysayers that may come along.
Let’s now look at a few points about one of the other leaders pushed by Walter Strickland along with James Cone in the video link that is given above to see where the ideas that have become so prevalent today originally came from.
J. Deontis Roberts is an author that is pushed by Walter Strickland who is a Professor and Associate VP for Diversity at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the video link above.
Liberation and Reconciliation book by J. Deontis Roberts in 1971
- “Black theology …will need to be informed not only by the Christian faith but by the explorations into the unconscious by Freud and his associates, as well as the analysis of social, economic, and political ills by Marx and other social philosophers. Whatever insight regarding human nature may result will then be taken up into Christian understanding and transformed by it. It appears to me that the black theologian has much to learn form Existentialism as she or he seeks to develop a helpful understanding of human nature.”
- “The black Messiah encounters the black Christian on the level of personal experience in the black church in its setting in the black community enabling black Christians to overcome their identity crisis…
- The often Bible based gospel knew nothing of justice in the here and now.
- “Free indeed,” as promised in the gospel, we understand to mean cultural, social, economic, political, as well as spiritual freedom.”
[Ed Note: Gospel is redefined. It no longer means as Paul laid it out in I Corinthians 15 that Christ Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture, He was buried, and He rose again thus purchasing our freedom from the penalty of our sins. Roberts redefines it in terms of oppression or freedom from oppression.]
- “Blacks in white churches must be ‘plagues on the houses’ of white racists who desire to be at ease in Zion while racial injustices continue.”
- “Consciousness of collective guilt does not allow whites to enter into self-pride concerning racism. They should be haunted by the sins of their fathers and mothers…
Whites are victimized as the sponsors of hate and prejudice which keeps racism alive. Therefore, they cannot know for themselves the freedom of Christians, for they are shackled by a self-imposed bondage.”
Sigmund Freud
“It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent Providence,… a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be…” Sigmund Frued (1856-1939)[1]
In his book, Grave Influence:21 Radicals and their Worldviews that Rule America from the Grave, Brannon Howse notes that “Sigmund Freud, like Friedrich Nietzsche who strongly influenced him, hated God and Christianity. In his own book, The Future of an Illusion, Freud describes his “absolutely negative attitude toward religion, in every form and dilution.
“As Dr. Benjamin Wiker points out in Ten Books That Screwed up the World:
We cannot forget Nietzsche’s assumption that religion was an entirely human creation. Since Freud read Nietzsche, this may have done as much as anything to help form his presentation of religion in The Future of an Illusion.
“With that viewpoint at the core of Freud’s thinking , Wiker goes on to describe the psychoanalyst’s resultant, perverted worldview:
His rebellion took the form of baptizing as natural the most hideously unnatural sins, sins condemned by every society as the most unholy and unthinkable…Freud damned as unnatural the Christian-based morality of Western society.
“Freud himself points out several of these “unholy and unthinkable” inclinations: “Among these instinctual wishes are those of incest, cannibalism, and lust for killing.
“Freud believed that it is the people who reject a biblical worldview and follow their “natural” desires that are truly sane. As Dr. Wicker explains:
“He [Freud] claimed that psychological disorders were the result of the unnatural repression of our naturally unholy and anti-social desires, and that some people just couldn’t handle the repression….Therefore, neurotics are the only sane people because they react to unnatural frustration by training to reclaim their original, natural, asocial and amoral state. The result: the anti-social psychopath who kills without conscience is the most natural of all. The interesting effect of Freud’s proclamation that evil is natural was the seemingly unintended consequence of making psychopathic insanity natural.”[2]
Black Political Theology by J. Deontis Roberts in 1973
- “The Bible as a source for theology is to be taken seriously but not literally.
- Our understanding of the Gospel is political. Man in black theology is a being who exercises power on behalf of his authentic manhood.
- The approach to a doctrine of man for blacks will need to take Freud and Marx quite seriously insofar as they contribute to our deeper understanding of human nature.”
The Prophethood of Black Believers by J. Deontis Roberts
- “The battel for the Bible has never and is not now a priority for black biblical scholars and theologians…People that suffer from racism, a systemic form of evil with institutional expression, need a message of deliverance.
- My view of the Bible is respectful but not literal.
- In my view the Marxist critique of capitalism needs to be taken seriously…there is an acceptable “communalism” inherent in the Christian ethic.”
Walter Strickland a professor at SBTS said “JD Roberts says that Jesus is whoever you are wherever you are. So to him God looks black but to a Japanese He would look Japanese…”
As we close this series out we tried to highlight the fact that rarely do we hear definitions being given for things like the Gospel, Justice, racism, equity vs equality, etc. In this series we gave definitions that were biblical definitions and highlighted some of the teachings of James Cone and J Deontis Roberts. I looked at specific leaders who are saying these things in the SBC as well as CRU. This is in the Conservative Evangelical Church. The Gospel Coalition has thrown off any attempt at trying to disguise their disgust for conservatives and they are encouraging supporting the party of abortion, otherwise known as murder, openly. In the 15 minute montage of CRU one of the speakers said that it is good to have people from both parties in our churches so the world sees that diversity and is welcome. Only from conservative pastors and churches do we hear condemnation of abortion and homosexuality and racism but they are receiving money to push this agenda and the conservatives in many of these organizations have been ousted so only liberals remain.
What do we
do with all of this information? We take it, we learn it, and we have
conversations with people about it. We do it kindly and gently but we do not
back down. We must preach the true Gospel and the Holy Spirit will change the
hearts. We are to be workmen who are not ashamed. Reach out to people of other
colors. Break down the barriers that have been erected by Cone, JD Roberts,
Walter Strickland, Jarvis Williams, Jemar Tisby, and Esau McCaulley. As we are
made more into the image of Christ everyday we are to be united with other
brothers and sisters in Christ and being merciful, just, and full of grace in
our daily interactions as part of our Sanctification. It is only through Christ
that we can reconcile with others. Let Christ be our reason for living. Go and
serve your King!
[1] Wiker, Benjamin. 10 Books That Screwed Up The World, 2008. P. 165.
[2] Howse, Brannon. Grave Influence: 21 Radicals and their Worldviews that Rule America from the Grave (Worldview Weekend Publishing, 2009) , pp. 299-300.