Christianity & Race - A Special Episode

Lord, thank you so much for the blessing it is to have these brothers and fathers in the faith. Lord, I thank you for their love for you and for how your Holy Spirit has worked in their lives and their hearts and how you have given them your word. Lord, I thank you for the time that they've generously given to having this conversation. Lord, we pray that it might be enlightening that we would be an iron sharpening iron, Lord, that you would care for us and that you would let this conversation do much good.

In Jesus's name, amen. Amen. Well, I know each of you men, but my church isn't going to know you. So can you just start, maybe we'll start with Reverend Truss and then we'll go to Reverend Robinson and then we'll go to Mark Brown. And you guys can just kind of tell us Mark, you're almost at that reverend, but you guys could go ahead and just kind of tell us. Yeah, exactly. You guys could just tell us a little bit about where you're from and your current ministry context. Okay. Well, my name is Reverend Richard Truss.

I am originally from the Pittsburgh area, a lifelong resident of this area in a little town from, about 15, 16 miles from Pittsburgh, known as McKeesport, Pennsylvania. I think if you want to really recognize the area, just look for the Kennywood sign. I think everybody on the planet knows about Kennywood Park. So we're just over the river from Kennywood.

Currently, I am one of the seminary students at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Just got off our spring term, and I'm trying to learn how to relax a little bit. But I've been for the past five years pastoring the Zion Baptist Church here in McKeesport. It's a small congregation, about 75 members, primarily seniors. But we are the next oldest Baptist church in McKeesport with 100 a history of 105 years. That's basically what I'm doing. It was good to be able to be asked to participate and share a little bit that I have. Wonderful. Wonderful. I'm Mark Robinson. I'm a lifelong, well, born and reared here in Pittsburgh. Went away for school of ministry for probably almost half of my life.

Came back to the area about seven years ago. I'm technically, as you guys will probably know what this is, but I'm a teaching elder at a PCA, technically without call. But what I've been doing for the last six, seven years is doing consulting projects with churches, teaching part-time at Geneva College, part-time at RPTS Seminary. And over the last two years, It's just regular itinerant ministry for churches that don't have pastors. So that's what I'm doing now. And recently, I was a teacher doing some work with Teen Challenge.

It was a faith-based substance abuse rehab center. I was teaching for them during the day. Yeah, so now I'm back to, you know, since the pandemic's been lifting, I've been back to preaching at a lot of different, a number of different churches in the region on Lord's Days. So, glad to be with you, Ben. Glad to be able to just share, talk, do Koinonia via Zoom. Amen. Mr. Brown. My name is Mark Brown. I am a ruling elder with the RPCNA and have been for, oh, since about 2000, I want to say 12, if memory serves me correctly.

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh and now I live in Selma, Alabama. I'm serving the church there, the Selma RP Church as a pastoral intern while I hope to conclude my ordination exams successfully. And if the church will still have me at the end of that, then I hope to stay here and serve this church. It's a cornerstone in the civil rights movement, and actually I found out that while Brown Baptist gets most of the press, the movement actually started in this church building, but they had to move up the street because they ran out of parking space. And this congregation has been in steady worship since 1874. So it's an honor and a blessing to have them want me here to serve them. And it's a small group. Right now we are at about 23 members, but hopefully we'll be able to start growing and affecting our city one more time.

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, I think it'd be helpful just to start off with defining terms. And so one of the biggest terms that I think we need to define, and if you can give some biblical light on this possibly, is how would you define racism? I think if I were to, or go ahead, Mark. Oh.

The first thing that comes to mind is like Romans 2, where God says, you know, he's no respecter of persons, but judges, you know, righteously. So partiality, I would say simple partiality based upon someone's race. So making a sinfully partial judgment based on nothing more than the race of a person. So whether that's hiring, whether that's the right to vote, whether that's, can you live in my neighborhood, are we going to sign off on your, if the basis of that kind of judgment is race, that's racism.

Okay. What do you think, Mark, Reverend Truss, anything that you would want to add to that? I would agree with that. I tend to look at racism as anytime someone ranks a people group based on nothing more than their ethnicity. color of skin, you can see even among people of the same color skin in certain European countries and South American countries, you can see how people will divide and say, this group is here, this one's here, this one's here, based on nothing more than either color of skin or ethnic origin. And I see ethnicity and racism and race tied together. I believe racism itself can be classified as irrational, just like irrational thoughts. And I agree with both brothers, Mark, that the attitude that solely because of a person's skin color, that person isn't deserving of any kind of advantages, the inalienable rights that this country says that we're founded upon. But that racism is based on unfounded facts. Well, I can't even say facts. It's based on of our false reality.

Well, that's very helpful. That's great. So let me ask a follow-up question to that, then. And that's something that someone pushed back on a little while ago and asked me. They said, well, OK, I understand if you want to say racism. And I gave them a similar answer to you. But they said, but is there really systemic racism? And if there is systemic racism, what is it? How would you answer that question? Yeah. Sin doesn't just work at the individual level. Institutions are made up of sinful individuals. So institutions are going to run in ways that perpetuate sin.

So I would say an example of systemic racism is Planned Parenthood. 90% of the Planned Parenthood centers are smack in the middle of black and brown neighborhoods. That is a system, an institutional system that is targeting black and brown women. They put them so you can see it everywhere you go in that community and you got to walk by it and drive by it. So I would say that's an example of a systemic racism. That's an excellent example. It's an excellent 21st century example, but we have to put it in its historical context as well.

Going back to the foundation or the founding of this nation, racism was built in to the framework of the government. African-Americans, Black people, even In some Caucasian instances, there was no equality of the races. In the Constitution of the United States itself, the black man was not considered as equal to the white man. He was property. He was traded back and forth, just like you trade cows and pigs and animals.

And then when it came to fair representation within the government itself, you have the clause built into the Constitution itself, where they said that when you want to count the Negro, you can only count three of every five. And that's where the three-fifths of a man came from, so that they cut off the possibility of being overrun, so to speak, by the African-American population. So it's systemic because it's built into the system, intentionally, intentionally built into the system. So this is where I'm gonna ask a question, and I hope you'll let me play devil's advocate here for a second, because these are the types of things that I'll hear people say. So we understand the Three-Fifths Compromise, and that that was directly related to slavery, and that the Southern states wanted more representation within the Congress.

But now that emancipation has happened, Well, there's no more Jim Crow laws. And so does systemic racism even still exist then? I don't think that all the Jim Crow laws have been taken off the books. There may be some. There's some implicit Jim Crow-ism.

Again, going back to what Brother Mark said, that sinful heart set that individuals are not were the same advantages as the members of the dominant culture. Well, let me ask then kind of getting into, and by all means, you're more than welcome to give anecdotal stories from your life, from congregants life and families lives and things like that as well There is some other questions to ask and so one of the questions that I've seen as people say We shouldn't be supporting black lives matter because it's all radical left Marxist ideology How would you respond to that? I think that the believer has to be extremely careful in supporting any organization. You have to go in with your eyes wide open and you have to ask yourself, what does that organization stand for overall? And you can go to the Black Lives Matter website and see very clearly that their primary goals place them at opposition with Christian goals.

The uplifting of sexual perversity, the destruction of the type of government that has made America, the breakdown of the family unit, which can't help but break down society because the family unit is the core of society. And so if we are going to say Black Lives Matter, we have to be extremely careful in how we say it as to not align ourselves with an organization, with those tendencies, with those ideologies, because at that moment, we've taken what they believe and compromised our faith with it.

Right. Yeah, it's so easy to... let the trumpet give an uncertain sound when we align ourselves. You know, what fellowship does Christ have with Belial, light with darkness? Without question, Black Lives Matter, the organization, the movement is a dark, evil movement. Some of the reasons that Mark mentioned there.

Here's the challenge though. The real challenge is being able to not fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness, but yet live the parasitic truth out that is being trumpeted by the organization. So the challenge is not fellowshipping with Black Lives Matter, but showing in our life, our community, in our relationships, and the way we love our neighbor who's not like us, that black lives do matter.

So I think that's the challenge. So clearly, the movement's evil. I think people are being deluded and seduced by the obviously, boringly obvious sentiment that Black Lives Matter. So reject the movement, but show by our life, show that, you know, in a John 17 way, that we love our Black neighbors. So I think that's the challenge. The organization's clearly evil, but do we show the better way, as 1 Corinthians 13 says? Paul shows us the better way of charity, of love. Do we exemplify that in very obvious, demonstrable ways? Reject the counterfeit, because we have the truth.

And I think that much of the attention Um, especially recently with the, um, the murder of, uh, uh, George Floyd, um, brought to the forefront, the, um, the, the difficulties or the inequities in, in, in the system with a systemic, um, racism, uh, that's been on display. especially with the treatment of unarmed Black men and boys by the police. And I think that's one of the major pushes that Black Lives Matter has been framed around. And again, as Brother Mark said, how do we you know, respond to that in such a way that we are showing that better way, that we do, you know, support the fact that, you know, all lives are valuable.

But right now it's our house that's burning down and that the fire department doesn't need to, you know, hose down every other house in the neighborhood. It's our house that's being burned down as far as the the racial tensions and all that's concerned.

So let me ask, because you bring up George Floyd, and so one of the common things that has happened lately that I've been seeing swirl around in certain areas of social media is George Floyd was a felon. George Floyd had narcotics in his system, possibly. And then if people bring up Ahmaud Arbery and they'll say, oh, well, he was found trespassing and had a criminal record.

How would you respond to that? There is a level of responsibility that you have to take when you put yourself in a position to come into conflict in the first place. I tell young people, if the police pull you over, the gun wins. You don't fight, you don't struggle. You get out of there, and then if he did something wrong, that's when you pick it up. I'm not one who believes all the police are evil by any means. but you don't want to get in a situation where you're struggling even with a good officer, because once it turns physical, there's no telling how far it's going to go.

But at the same time, if you've got someone who maybe has done a dozen crimes in the week before, the authority figure still bears the responsibility of self-control and executing proper justice. And there are some things that are just not excused. And what happened to that man, George Floyd, to have a knee on the back of your neck for that length of time with four officers there who have been since shown to have some pretty spotty records themselves in terms of their behavior. But there's just no excuse for that.

Those in authority have a higher calling to execute proper justice. And when you see them, and they're trying to talk down a bomber, or someone attempting to commit suicide, and everyone's saying, why don't they rush in? They don't rush in because they're exercising that self-control that allows justice to happen in that situation, by all means possible. When they don't do that, and you get a situation like this, and everyone says, why did you rush in like that and do that thing that you did?

So, yes, you shouldn't put yourself in that position. And if you have a record, you're more likely to suffer that type of incident. But that doesn't excuse the incident by any means. Yeah, I think Mark makes a really helpful distinctions there. I think in our, the emotion of these kinds of events cause people to think uncritically.

And I think as Christians, and particularly as ministers, we have to exercise what the Apostle Paul says, soundness of mind and judgment. And I think, you know, so for now, so soundness means making the proper distinctions. And I think to the couple of the distinctions that get collapsed in these is One, there are fifth commandment obligations that all human beings have. We owe, I love the way that the catechism puts it, we owe obedience to those in authority. And so officers are lawful authorities to which we owe proper regard when they're seeking to enforce the law.

And even when they're doing it a little bit imperfectly as they inevitably will do as centers. We can point out that a lot of these men were killed seemingly in the commission of a crime. And in part, in varying degrees, not respecting a lawful authority. And the Proverbs has a lot to say about the way of the foolish is hard and tends to destruction. So I think it's right to point out, look, you know, some of these men were involved in sin, which brought a kind of temporal judgment.

But let's not leave it there. We also need to go to the Sixth Commandment, which says we got to do everything possible to preserve life. So cops are obligated, as Mark pointed out, to use the utmost restraint given that they have guns and the law behind them anytime they encounter a civilian. So regardless of whether or not the person they are apprehending, seeking to apprehend, take in is a is in commission of a crime, is high on drugs, whatever, is threatening to blow up a building, they're still an image bearer. They're still a Mago Dei, and we need to do everything within our power to protect them.

So I think both sides in this, these kinds of, both raging sides have a point. Don't be a fool. The fifth commandment is central to civil society. Don't be overly aggressive and violent. Sixth commandment, do everything you can to preserve life, whether you have a gun or not, whether you have the law behind you or not. So I think soundness of mind, soundness of pastoral judgment is going to make proper distinctions and separate out the issues and not be carried by our passions inordinately in one direction or another.

I had heard these statements about Mr. Floyd that there was fentanyl in his system and that even that he had the coronavirus. But it's like you're comparing oranges with apples. Where was his crime? It's not a crime for him to have fentanyl if it was prescribed.

But as Mark said, the law, the person in charge of enforcing the law have to exercise a greater amount of restraint and responsibility because it's not their responsibility to try and execute an individual based upon what somebody else's notion about that individual is.

You know what I'm saying? So let me ask, this is more of a Christian type question as we hear these types of things come in and I'm hearing what you're saying about keeping the fifth commandment and upholding the sixth commandment about inferiors and inferiors, superiors and all that. But there's a common phrase that pastors will use, you know, nothing turns a sinner to a saint faster than a eulogy. So how should we think about I mean, and I'm not, again, this is me asking a question. How do we think about someone like Mr. Floyd? Or how do we think about someone like Mr. Aubrey? If this was somebody in your congregation, one of the things I've heard is, oh, if these people were in our congregation, we wouldn't be extolling them as the model Christian, but we would have them under church discipline.

And so this is where I, maybe this might rub some grain, and I want to hear your responses. Can you be a little bit more specific? Brian, what are you asking specifically? So some Christians I've heard in some pools of social media are saying Christians are upholding, specifically George Floyd, as a model Christian and as a gospel legacy layer.

When in all reality, if he was a member in one of our congregations, he'd be under church discipline. where I wanted to open that up, however you want to take that. I think, I mean, I've done funerals with people that I didn't know really what their state was and what I did know probably wasn't that good.

Well, this is, that's a ninth commandment issue. You don't preach to people into heaven. You don't lie. Right. Human beings throughout scripture, you know, uh, people, people served as righteous or, or wicked, uh, examples for us. So, The wicked in their death is an example, is a warning. The righteous are an encouragement.

So I wouldn't lie about George. I would say it's clear that he had some struggles and troubles. The Lord is the Lord of our salvation. He knows whether or not George belonged to him or not. Let his life serve as a warning where it should be a warning. be encouraged by the things we should be encouraged by? I don't know.

I just think it's a ninth commandment issue where you just need to be, we need to tell the truth. The church is the ground and pillar of the truth. We don't lie people into heaven. We don't try to turn the righteous into sinners either. You know, so I don't, I don't, you know, I don't have any more specific than that and just be honest. in a way that scriptures encourage us to be honest in our assessment and judgment of things. Well, that's really helpful. I think that's really helpful on specifically the ninth commandment. Let me move the conversation a little bit.

Again, some people and again, other pools of social media and online interaction I've heard, and I had to go and search some of this out because I wanted to have fodder for our discussion. But one person said, oh, great, we're having all these riots over one black guy getting killed. Why don't we talk about black on black violence? How would you respond to someone who said that? I would say, OK, let's talk about it and test their genuineness in that moment. Or if they were just saying that, because they were trying to make some sort of point. And if they wanted to talk about it, I'd engage it because it is an issue.

It's a massive issue. It makes me think of the phrase, you know, the heart of the trouble is the trouble of the heart. And hearts are wrong today. And in our neighborhoods, And when I say our, I don't just mean black neighborhoods. I mean, a generation, the last couple of generations have lost touch with that which kept them at least morally grounded for so long. The respect for the authorities around them, even if they wanted to do wrong, they had some sense that I'd better not do this. But as that was eroded and taken away, we did see that increase in crime. And black-on-black crime is an absolutely major issue. But for those who just use that as a club to try to swat down the other issues, I find that hypocritical. And I don't want to hear it. But if they are serious, okay, let's talk about it.

What are you doing? How are you helping? Whose lives are you pouring into? How are you loving your neighbor as yourself and showing them there is a better way? Where I live, where I serve. I've got nightly gunshots coming from about a block and a half away. I've got sirens four, five, sometimes eight, nine times a day. And it frustrates me to no end.

But that's why our church is working hard to try and reach the young people. Because if you can reach the hearts of the children, their parents are going to want to know what's going on. And then you have an inroad to the parents. And if you can change one family for the better, Lord only knows how far he'll take that with other families. And if we work with them, we can achieve a lot.

And then going back to the matter of Planned Parenthood, We give that a pass because they're largely Democratic supported. And because so much of what is called the Black community in America votes Democrat, we don't like to look too closely at them. but they are the biggest murderer of blacks and brown people in this country. And not only that, they are hunting down and killing, and I'll say it that way, they are hunting down and killing brown people globally by their efforts and they get a pass.

So yeah, that's an issue. And it's one that a lot of people want to set aside because it's easier to say, Look what that white guy did to that black guy. Look, it's a major social eruption. We have to focus on this because it's easier. It's not easy when you have to look your entire community in the face and say, I'm going the other way. That question, and is used to deflect or divert from the original issue.

Yes, there is black-on-black crime. There's white-on-white crime. There's Chinese-on-Chinese crime. But the matter at hand that brought the whole issue of racism and inequality into focus right now is the fact that a group of white police officers executed this black man in the street. And if it had not been recorded, then they would have gotten possibly gotten a pass. Yes, we have to deal with Black on Black crimes, but at the same time, we have to deal with all the underlying factors that add to that problem that is within the African-American communities and so forth. But at the same time, we have that issue of dealing with the systemic racism that continues to see instances like George Floyd and the whole list of them.

Young man that was shot in his car. You know, legally, he had the legal right to be a gun carrier, but he was, you know, gunned down right in front of his girlfriend and his child. It makes no sense. And again, going back to the individual who is charged with enforcing the law, What's his heart condition that allows him to think that it's right to just take this person's life because he feels threatened?

So I'm going to ask a related question. And I'll give Pastor Robinson the opportunity to respond to this one. And they are closely related. And I think I know where you're going to go with this. So this is, is this really a racism issue where the police are against, uh, you know, black and brown people, or is this just a reality of the culture, the society, and specifically, uh, the glorification of violence, sexual immorality, and narcotics within black and brown communities? Is the, Is the what a issue? What specifically? I'm sorry.

So people will tell me, well, just go look at black culture. Go look at rap music and see the glorification of narcotics, violence, of sexual immorality. And you're able to see that this isn't a racism issue. This is a immoral culture versus law issue. I got you. I got you. I got you. How would you respond to that one?

Yeah, I mean, I think the fact that that is constantly a question, whether it's a culture or color, shows that it, in a fallen world, I think both are at work, but I think culture drives kind of behavior and response and things like that. So I do think, I mean, I just think, so we're 13% of the population and we account for, last I saw, 49% of the murders. So if you just look at that whole stat, you know, It makes it intelligible why a cop or otherwise, a regular citizen would think when they see a certain young African-American male behaving in a certain kind of way, they raise the question in their mind, and it raises the question for black people as well as white people and other people, is this person one of those likely to do this kind of crime or something like that, right? So what is that? Is that culture? Is that race? What's that operation? What's that work in that kind of dynamic?

I say it's largely culturally driven, but given the way the human mind works and just the sinfulness of the human heart, that we do have thoughts that is this tied to the fact that this person is of a certain race. Remember, for hundreds of years, I mean, there were arguments in our country whether or not black people descended from Adam and Eve, like white people, or they came from different people. So, you know, people were thinking these kinds of thoughts, which shows that that's the fallen human heart and mind goes there. But I think culture, I think when you behave a certain way, that brings about certain consequences, certain reactions, you know. in culture. And if people don't understand your culture and it seems alien and foreign to them, they're going to be likely be a little bit more fearful of it.

But yeah, I do. I think, you know, we could talk about the fifth commandment. When it was a failure of authority at the root level, you know, in families and in communities, you should expect to see as a consequence of that kind of covenant breaking, bigger failures as people get older. You know, right? Train up a child, discipline your child, you know, the heart of foolishness, drive the heart of foolishness from them. Well, look what happens to children where that doesn't happen, right? They end up leading lives of folly.

So you can't leave that out. So I guess what I'm saying is there's a mix here. I think it's primarily just a breakdown of covenant keeping at very basic levels, which is, I guess we could equate that with culture. And when you add to that, that the culture is also, while that's breaking down, while those chains of affection and authority, and I say affection and that family bond are broken, Human nature is to seek out both society and affection.

And so these young boys and girls who don't get it where they're supposed to get it at home, in the way they're supposed to get it, in godly fashion from mom and dad, or at least from siblings, are going to get it somewhere. And so when we allow our TVs and radios and every other form of entertainment to be filled with vile garbage, that's going to start affecting the people who are imbibing it. And they are going to be the influencers now. And so when these kids are thinking, okay, I'm not getting it at home, where can I get it?

Where can I fill this hole? and they go out into the community, and those that have been filled with the garbage say, come with us, they're going to go. I've read several testimonials from people who were caught up in cults, who said that they absolutely knew that what they were doing was the wrong thing, but they felt loved, so they stayed anyway. And what Pastor was just talking about, that breakdown in our culture, that separation from God, that separation from family, that disobedience, dishonoring of authorities, and the failure of the authorities to exercise their rightful roles is a huge contribution to this.

So then I guess the question has to be, why so much in communities that are mostly populated by blacks? Now, did you notice I didn't say Black community? I'm not the biggest fan of that. But in communities mostly populated by Black folks, you do tend to see certain things arise.

So then we have those statistics. And we have to say, why here? And I do believe, as both pastors have pointed out, It's been a long ongoing thing. It's been systemic. It's been ongoing. It's been on one hand, an active effort to break this community. On the other hand, it's the natural consequences of those things being allowed to take hold, to root and to grow here without being forcibly yanked out of the ground and dealt with. And this is the fruit now.

I mean, for so long, how many government statements do there have to be uprooted that indicate an intent to keep the Black community, Black Americans, under control? What's the famous quote from the president? Was it Lyndon B. Johnson? I don't want to misquote. I'll have those N-words, voting Democrat for the next 200 years. Wasn't that what he said? I'll look it up while someone else answers another question, because like I said, I don't want to misquote.

But there was an intentional government action to start pouring onto this community those things that would create the nanny state. for lack of a better term, it's pretty fitting. If a man doesn't have to go to work to get money, human nature, why go to work? If a woman doesn't have to have a husband and she can still get a paycheck while having kids, why should she have a husband? These things, the worst thing you can do to someone sometimes is to give them everything they want, because then they stop wanting.

And one of the things we talk about here in this congregation, it's one thing to say generically, I owe this generation for my right to vote. But I am looking daily into the faces of the people who bled for me to vote. They are here in this church now. They've seen how we've become so damaged in just the short generations since they shed that blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge just a couple of miles from here. It's been within their lifetimes. That sort of thing doesn't happen by accident. It just doesn't, that's too fast, it's too complete.

But where we have to exercise that critical thinking that Brother Mark talked about earlier, we have to stop. One of my radio mentors said something to me that stayed with me from the first day he said it. He said, don't believe anything you hear and only believe about half of what you see.

If we would exercise that and stop being reactionary, we'd be in a lot better shape. If we stop just believing things because our favorite celebrity said it, even if it's a celebrity pastor, and we investigate it for ourselves, if we were to be Berean and investigate whether or not the things being said are true, and then respond to them with a level head, not acting rashly, not speaking before we've heard, a lot of what's happened would not have happened. And in these riots that came out of the protests, the instigators, Antifa and whoever's backing them, they're not even hiding it anymore. They don't have to because we still give them the response they want.

Well, that's kind of... By the way, thank you for giving us a mini-sermon there, that was wonderful. I'm sorry, it got me. But that actually is going to lead me into my next question, right? Is there are people, some conspiracy theorists, some who are just pretty far on one side of the political spectrum who say, all the riots and everything going on is nothing but a media ploy and Antifa trying to take over. How would you respond to that? Pastor Trost, do you want to maybe speak into that one? And again, just as Brother Mark said, if we deal with the facts as opposed to what is being stated.

I know here in Pittsburgh, there were some demonstrations and there was some, you know, police cars burned and stores broken into and destroyed, that kind of thing. And it is, although the group was not identified, it came to the fact that there were people who were from outside of this area who came intentionally to kill, steal, and destroy. They came equipped. to burn. They came equipped with, you know, bricks and hammers and torches and those kind of things when the initial protest was not going in that direction. And of course, when things get, you know, driven into a different direction, the mentality of the mob goes in that direction. and it's hard to bring them back. Now, I don't know if these were people who were Antifa or whatever.

All we know is that their intention was to be more disruptive than the protest. Their intention was to really put a bad name on the protest transform the protests from protests and demonstrations to purely riots. And again, that's something that is still being investigated, not only here in McEastwood, but in the original city of Minneapolis and St. Paul, that there were people who were from the outside who were intentionally, who had the intention of the destructive aspect of tagging that onto the protests. I'd say definitely the media is being, the media is a neutral tool in and of itself, but it is being used for evil purposes.

I mean, they want to make money, right? And if it bleeds, it leads. So of course, the thing they're going to put in front of your face constantly is the most sensational, dramatic thing. Of course, the editorializing, they're going to spin around. around it is the most dramatic and sensational, so as to get us all alarmed to watch. I mean, everybody wants to watch a car on fire. Everybody wants to see an accident.

So the media is not innocent here. I mean, we know we're engaged in massive spiritual warfare against the principalities and the powers. Do we think that media conglomerates and companies are exempt from the forces at work, the evil powers? that drive a lot of different things? No, of course they are. So I think, again, a Christian, a Christian who's wise is gonna understand that we've got to make righteous judgments in what we see and not be sheep that just kind of follow along.

The news, you know, they have 30 minutes and millions of things or thousands of things happen around the world. Why are they giving us those few? that they do give us out of all the things that happen. I think dozens of people are murdered a day, right? Tons of crimes happen. Why are we getting the very few that we do get? There's a reason, you know? Who stands to gain and profit? You know, just look at that, just look at the, you know, the sinful motives of the heart show us what's going on, you know? So yes, so I would agree with the person that would say the media.

They're not causing all of it, because sin happens. Sin is a reality in a fallen world before new creation. But they are definitely, through evil techniques and through desire for filthy lucre, perpetuating and fostering a lot of evil in all of this. So two kind of follow-up questions, and I'm going to smash them together, and you can split them apart if you want.

The first question is, if someone participates in one of these protests anywhere in the country, are they saying that they don't care about police officers? That's question one. Question two is, if a Christian is participating in a protest, and that protest turns into a riot, are they morally culpable?

Question number one, I don't believe that participate in the protests as they don't care about police officers. I don't think that's what it's about. I think the most honest protests are, here is another black man killed by a white man in authority, and we're sick of it. And I say we just to emphasize what's going on, not necessarily to join in, but that's what's being stated. And number two, I believe that if that Christian is convicted to join that protest, he should. But if it begins to become something evil, he's either got to then stand against it or get out of it and away from it. I agree with that. The day after here in Pittsburgh, the day after the rioting, number of the various religious leaders had a protest, a demonstration that started in the exact same spot as the one the day before.

And it was peaceful, there was prayers, there were, you know, of course, the the speeches that were not condoning violence, but they were the speeches that were addressing the systemic aspect that led to what was happening. And of course, it was not their intent. It was not the intent of the religious community to do anything that would be interpreted as violent. But I'm quite sure that should that element had shown up, it would have been addressed. It definitely would have been, you know, Welch, that element would have been removed. People would have been advised and counseled and prayed for, prayed with, and so forth. So that the culpability aspect would be minimized.

Because like you said, we're living in a sinful world. And all of us are still sinners. and we have to deal with our own stuff as well as, you know, the sinful attitudes and behaviors of others. But, you know, deal with them in the manner that, you know, God through his word, through his spirit would have us to, you know, deal with them. So, yeah, I think Christians can be co-belligerents.

You know, I've participated in the various pro-life causes and there's always a ton of Roman Catholics and people who are not of my theological tribe. So, but I do believe in co-belligerence in the sense of being zealously affected in a good cause. But the issue that you must not ever lose sight of is to be careful to not let your good be evil spoken of. I can't participate in a Black Lives Matter march, even if it's peaceful bunch of Christians because I don't, I foresee people not being able to see me in there with Black Lives Matter signs and separate out any particular good I feel like I'm achieving from the larger programmatic evil that is represented by an organization like Black Lives Matter.

So I don't have a form, I don't think there's a formula for how this works out perfectly. I just think we can be co-belligerents in a good cause and perpetuating and pushing forward truth and justice, but you always got to be careful to not let your good be evil spoken of and not find yourself fellowshipping with unfruitful works of darkness.

Where is that line? I don't know. It's a wisdom call. For me, I'm not participating in these protests because I feel like I'd be bowing down to a cultural bell. But I will go to a pro-life march with Muslims, Roman Catholics, and all men are, you know, atheists who believe that life begins at conception.

So why one the other? I think I give my rationale for what wisdom looks like in that. Maybe someone else will reach a different conclusion. But I do think those are, there are multiple considerations beyond just Because you can be accountable to your question, Brian. I think you can have some moral culpability if you are participating in something that leads to an evil, sinful end, even if you don't support that end or support any sin within the movement or cause that you're joining up with. Well, I want to be careful with your time, so I just have a few more questions for you. And this is actually two questions. One, we can go with Francis Schaeffer, how then shall we live? So what should we do next? Where do we go from here? And the related question is, is there any hope and how can Christians be that voice of hope at this time? I'm sorry, I cut over you. I'm sorry, what did you say, Mark? No, no, that's all right. Go right ahead. No, you said something, and I didn't hear what you said.

Oh, I was going to say a faithful gospel presentation is always the foundational answer. And something I think we have to realize is it hasn't been that long since Blacks in America were not allowed to vote or to sit where they wanted to at the lunch counter or drink from whatever water fountain, et cetera, et cetera. And we're legally discriminated against. And because it hasn't been that long since those rules, those laws have been removed, the effects of those laws are still being felt. And that's why that combination, first and foremost, the gospel preaching followed by clear, critical thinking is the key. I'm sorry, go ahead, Pastor. No, I appreciate what you said. I appreciate what you said. And that's what we're called to do. We're called to preach the gospel.

We're called to realize that God has appointed us to that ministry of Reconciliation, whether it's reconciliation within the, as you say, the community where black folks reside or in inter-community aspects. I believe it's in Colossians where it says that from one blood, God created every nation. And therefore, if he made everybody from just Adam and Eve, and that's a foundational truth, that there is not a single one of us ethnically or racially God created us all from that one same lump of clay, whatever that clay looked like. But that's where we began with that message that God is God of all, that we are created in His image And if I do something to damage you, then I am damaging the image of God in you that I should see in you.

And of course, as we preach, we continually pray because we realize that God does have the answer. Now, how all this will you know, pan out and settle down and all that. I don't know because I don't have God's mind, but it is incumbent upon us to continually, you know, stay on our knees before Him and be that priest that intercedes for those who are unable and even unwilling to, you know, approach God on their own.

It's a continual process. You know, the fire on the altar never went out. So we have to keep that fire burning. The fire in the incense never went out. We have to keep that going. So one of the wonderful things about the kingship of Christ is Christians don't have to engage in any kind of moral panic when the nations rage. Jesus is still in the business of procuring the nations to himself, even the raging ones at which he laughs now, but is creating his own people out of them, calling everyone to pay homage to the son, lest they face eternal judgment. So the church just needs to be about being the church. Our tools haven't changed.

When nations arise, when they fall, when the world is mourning, when the world is singing, the messages and our responsibilities are the same. We have the word rightly preached, you know, sacraments and discipline. So we always feel pressure to innovate when new things happen and just don't have to, you can resist that and just continue to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Closing Prayer

I will say, This is a wonderful opportunity, whenever you have these kinds of divisions break out and fracturing in the social fabric, it's a wonderful opportunity for the church to put on display in a special way our love for our neighbor. You know, in the first century, when there were plagues, the Christians went out and, you know, pulled people into their houses who were kicked out by their own families because they didn't want to, you know, get the play. So it's a real opportunity for us. I think what you're doing, something like this, Brian, reaching out to black brothers, I think pastors and other pastors I know who are reaching out in their communities, you know, and trying to seek wisdom from brothers they might not otherwise seek wisdom and seek to love them and put on display Christian unity. You know, like it's obvious that Pastor Richard's got a lot of wisdom. You know, this is a time, I think, where brothers can talk with him and learn his own experience and get some of the wealth of his perceptions and perspectives as a pastor and just as a man who's lived and lived out a lot of the things that are going on. So let's keep going with what the church is called to do, but let's seek ways to love our neighbors as ourselves, especially neighbors that are racially, culturally other. I love it, I love it. Pastor Robinson, will you close us in a word of prayer? Sure, let's pray together.

Father, we know that in Christ you are calling out a people to yourself, out of darkness into your wonderful light, from the kingdoms of this world into the kingdom of your dear son. And that's been what you've been up to throughout history, working out your plan from all eternity, electing us from the foundation of the world, adopting us as sons to the praise of your glory. And Father, would you help us in especially troubling times when the foundation seemed to shake, when the water seemed to rise, would you help us to continue on faithfully, loving you, being assured that you who've begun a good work in your people will complete it in the day of Christ, knowing that by your spirit, you're present with us till the end of the age. And may that give our hearts great confidence as we seek to minister to others. Lord, help us to be those beacons of light that do proclaim and show forth the praises of the one who has called us out of darkness into his name.

That we have an answer for the reason of the hope that is within us. Lord, help us not just for our own good. We desire the good of our nation. We desire the good of our neighbors. We desire the good of those in our pastoral cares. But ultimately for your great glory, that your glorious name would be seen, known, and that you would be worshiped by all. Help us to this end, Lord. We have great hope and confidence in you. Our hope is in the Lord, who has made heaven and earth. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you so much, brothers. That's been a huge blessing to me, and I really appreciate the time that you gave. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Brian for guiding us.