A Christian Pastor Tells His Story of Rejecting the Social Justice Gospel, with Edwin Ramirez

i disconnected my people being christians from my people ethnically and i started to associate myself more with my ethnic people people of the flesh as more than i did with my people who were of the faith [Music] welcome to the alisa childers podcast i've got a great guest to introduce you to today but for context we've done some episodes on something called critical race theory critical theory and often i think concepts like that can be difficult for us to get our hands around like what do we mean when we're talking about critical race theory and critical theory there's this sort of critical theory proper that's this very academic discussion and then there is how critical theory and critical race theory seem to be manifesting in churches and in families and that's really what we're going to talk about today it's this whole idea of this movement that's coming into christianity some might call it woke christianity some might call it woke-ism cultural marxism you've heard it referred to as so many different things with different titles and it seems like in the past few years many churches have begun to shift their focus from an emphasis on teaching scripture to an emphasis on things not found in scripture maybe shifting focused from the atonement of jesus on the cross to more of an emphasis on social justice and so my guest today is someone who has lived this this is a a person who went through woke christianity bought into its tenets and ideas saw how damaging and destructive it can actually be in churches and in families and i'm so excited to bring him on to share his story today pastor edwin ramirez so great to have you on the show thanks for being here god bless you sister thank you for having me well it's such a joy to have you on i've watched several of your videos and for people watching uh you can find more content from edwin on the proverbial life podcast and that's on youtube as well he's also the pastor of faith bible chapel in buffalo new york and uh edwin i i wanted to have you on because i really want to help people understand a from somebody who's kind of walked through this but also you're a pastor you have a pastor's heart and i want to analyze what we're seeing happen in the church from the perspective of a pastor you know who has a heart for the church a heart for god's sheep and so for for those who may not be familiar with you or your work tell us just a little bit about yourself and then we'll we'll just go from there yeah sure so uh my name is edwin ramirez i'm the pastor of faith bible chapel as alyssa mentioned and the uh what an honor it is to be so and to to preach christ on a weekly basis it's a shepherd god's flock and you know as you were giving me the introduction and talking about the the uh the woke movement and my former involvement which we'll get into in a moment i'm thinking to myself i don't know how i could properly shepherd god's flock and still hold to those ideas that i held to uh several years ago and so i hope that we get into that um some more uh as far as the youtube channel i have a youtube channel the proverbial life and really there we just want to look to christ and that's the model uh look to christ live wisely and leave a legacy behind for generations to follow i want to equip people with god's word and encourage them to see the fulfillment of christ and be satisfied in him and then the responsibility of training our children and discipling our wives and wives you know vice versa loving their husbands and and so on and so forth and so really just taking the christian walk and applying it uh to every area of our lives is really the desire of the channel and what i try to live out in my life well and i love that your heart comes so much from a place of wanting to point people to christ and of course sometimes in doing that we have to reject and call out certain doctrines but i love that your focus is yeah we have to call that stuff out but ultimately the goal is to disciple and to point people toward the truth and the joy and the life that we find in christ and in the true gospel and so let's let's just get our hands around your story a little bit so we talked before we went on the air that you grew up in long island which i have you know a special place in my heart for new york and especially long island because i have some friends out there and i had uh attended a church out there for a few years or not couple years when i lived in new york uh so so talk to us about growing up did you grow up in a christian home and if you know when did you become a christian how did that happen yeah this that's great yeah so i was not raised in a christian home um my stepfather raised me uh met my stepfather when i was three uh didn't know my biological father met him one time when i was 21 years old so it was it was a blessing that my my dad stepfather came into my life and just to be able to see a man and to to you know have him to talk to and all those sorts of things and then uh not also not be able to go to certain places my stepdad was very strict and in the moment i hated it and despised it but it saved me from a lot of trouble growing up uh and so when i was three my mother moved me out of the bronx to long island and i spent my uh young adulthood there up until the age of about 21 22 moved out of the house and got into a lot of trouble fast forward i would say about a year or two later um about the age of 21 22 the lord saved me um and yeah so i had i had a very uh i was a follower growing up uh as a young adult always wanting to do what others were doing and the lord was using that he was drawing me to himself um you know by virtue of different people in high school and out of high school sharing christ with me and it wasn't until later in life that the lord really just got a hold of me and i came to faith in christ and yeah then just been growing ever since so that's kind of my yeah young adulthood so now you had a brief sort of four-way foray into jehovah's witness is that right yes tell us about that yeah um so i had a good friend of mine uh his name is herbie that's my brother in the lord now uh he and i uh were just close you know as we can get we we spent time together and we were not believers at the time and his cousin was a jehovah's witness who was studying to be a doctor and he would talk to us about jehovah and we would have bible studies and i remember in fact there were times when we were walking herbie and i and there was a church right outside they said jesus is lord and we would say you know that's blasphemy and just say all sorts of things concerning christ and how they were wrong and then era and i was working at a hospital and there was a man i'll never forget him he was about five six black man uh had a gold tooth in his mouth and he asked me if i was a christian or what i believed and i said i said yeah i'm a jehovah's witness and i remember him just kind of smirking and laughing and i just the the gold tooth was significant because i just remember him cocking his head back and seeing his tooth and thinking this guy like what's so funny you know he was he said i got something for you come in tomorrow and i have something for you and so he gives me this tape which dates me he gives me this tape and he says i want you to listen to this this is my pastor preaching a sermon about jehovah's witnesses so i listened to the sermon and he was just going in on the false teaching of the jehovah's witnesses and i just remember that doing something in me like a shock so i give it to my friend herbie he listens to it and that was the beginning of what the lord used to really bring us out of the kingdom hall uh something god used afterwards to give us an opportunity to share the faith with many jehovah's witnesses as well so it's pretty neat to see god's providence in working through that co-worker and how he used that to bring me out of that cult that's amazing and i love how god sort of in his sovereignty leads us in and out of things like that so that we will have such a deep understanding so that we can help others and and share the gospel uh in a way that's you know so compelling because we understand the other side of it you know whatever it is the lord has walked us through so let's let's talk about wokism and just woke christianity whatever we want to call it when did you begin to become what we might call woke was it before you were a christian was it after and how did that intersect with your christianity yeah that's a great question um as i as i prepare to answer that question i did want to say this you know the lord is is working before in the midst and throughout the process of our lives and you know i remember when i was an unbeliever looking back seeing the lord working you know in the moment i didn't see it i was blind to my sin i didn't know the lord didn't want to know the lord and i look back and see the lord drawing me to himself bringing different people in my life different relationships allowing certain things to take place uh and then and then being a christian i look back and see when i was involved in the woke movement the lord using different means to bring me out of that but the the beautiful thing about the lord is that as we see in john 10 right he knows his sheep his sheep know his voice and uh the lord promises that he will lose none of his own and that's really an encouragement to us he he saves us and he keeps us and he completes the work he started in us and so to answer your question about vocalism and when i was in in the movement uh i tell people this that i was i was woke before i was a christian uh it was the environment that i grew up in i grew up having an angst toward white people um i wasn't um i didn't hate white people uh but i didn't trust them because that was the environment that i lived in that was the music i listened to from tupac and biggie and nas and that that culture right i listened to that music that was the those were my people right black people were my people my stepfather was black i was raised in an all-black context and so i saw myself as black more than puerto rican you know um and and and that was significant because in the in that culture where i grew up in um there was this angst toward white people there was this angst toward uh the government and police and you know so so that was that was my context prior to coming to faith in christ and then i got saved the lord saved me um and uh when when i became a christian oddly enough uh all the all the things that i believed about white people uh and about um you know society and the culture and and all those things little by little the lord was renewing my mind right so i didn't see why people as oppressor i saw them their brothers and sisters in the lord uh and and i didn't see them as people who were trying to um hold me back or pushing me down and all these things as i thought previously coming to faith in christ but then but then i i as i grew in the lord about 2000 i would say 2015 through 2016 is when um colin kaepernick took place and we have a lot of the the public police shootings that we saw take place and the black lives matter movement uh came into existence um i i i i reverted back to the the life and the thinking that i adopted prior to coming to christ but the difference now which actually made it more deceptive was um they were there there were a group of people that i could follow that actually held to the same ideas i had prior to being in christ who now had this veneer of christ on the outside and so they were right on the doctrines of grace and they will write on the reformation and they will write on all these theological stances that i held now being an older mature christian but they also adhered to ideas that i was familiar with prior to being in christ and so it was very attractive to me um and so that's kind of how i was introduced to the movement you know when i when i saw when i saw a young black man being shot down it wasn't about me thinking through um the details of the the evidence or you know phil kind of working through what was taking place it was an identification with those are my people right those those are my people uh being massacred in the streets and uh those are my people who who are being minima minimized and who are being oppressed and so on and so forth so i disconnected my people being christians from my people ethnically and i started to associate myself more with my ethnic people people of the flesh as a more than i did with my people who were of the faith that's a good distinction and you put your finger on something a moment ago that i think is particularly confusing for christians trying to navigate these waters right now and that's that you're following people who bear the name of christ they've got the essentials of the gospel correct they're you know they're people that it's not like you can point to a heresy which you know for me that's what's made this so hard to analyze because typically i'm more in the realm of progressive christianity which frankly i think is a little easier to analyze because although certainly progressive christians aren't uh all the same they generally tend to reject the same thing so they're rejecting uh you know substitutionary atonement they're rejecting original sin they're rejecting a future second coming of jesus generally speaking so that's a little easier to identify it's easier to say hey this is heresy like we we need to stay away from this it's much more confusing when it's coming from people where you look down the doctoral doctrinal statement and all the right boxes are checked and so i'd love to ask you when you found yourself sort of drawn back to it after the lord had done you know some sanctification in you after you got saved you began to see things differently then you get kind of sucked back in a little bit what did the process look like of god walking you back out of that and and what were some maybe some thoughts you had some some things you realized along that process yeah sure that's great so there's a lot there um you know i was just talking to my wife about this because you know the ideas have consequences and the ideas that i held to affected many people and one of those persons was my wife and my children um you know my wife is not a person of color and um it was there was there was a cloud over my life during that season and um that that cloud had a direct impact on my wife and uh they were there i was starting to get into ideas that were undermining the work of christ that were undermining the scriptures and the sufficiency of the word of god christ was enough but he really wasn't and um you know i i i love my wife and i accept my wife uh but she's she she there's more that she needs to do right and and there was always this this more that she needs to do on the basis of her skin color because she she didn't meet the qualification and which by the way she had uh no ability to meet the qualification right god providentially gave her the ethnicity and the melanin count that she had uh and so there was no way for her to ever meet um the qualifications that i had laid out for her and that the movement and the ideology had laid out for people like her and so it just i was i was in this cloud and it perpetuated uh guilt on other people who didn't look like me and so it was a very long and grueling process um and and you know one one of the things that the lord used throughout this process to bring me out of it was the very thing that god used to bring me out of my sin when i was not a believer and it was the truth of god's word you know it was it was brothers being faithful to proclaim the truth of god's word to love me enough to tell me that i'm wrong and not to pet my sin and not to allow me to embrace ideas that were not true and unfortunately i lost some really good friends in the midst of that and i excused my actions by saying that they just didn't get it they couldn't see they were blinded um and and i'm thankful for them as i look back as i tried to make those relationships right uh and i'm thankful for my wife and the other brothers that have come alongside and just continually point me to the truth you know and so that was really ultimately what the lord used to bring me back it was the truth of his word you know the truth about what christ accomplished on the cross the truth about our true identity in him um the truth about um you know christ satisfying the father's wrath on my behalf the all those foundational key truths that we tend to think we can graduate from are the things that god used to bring me back to himself out of that movement now when we think about becoming woke and becoming i guess you could say unwoke it's almost like there's this aha light bulb moment when you talk with people who are in you know if we call it a movement or whatever we want to call it sort of just this cultural tidal wave really more than anything and it's like you'll you'll see the facebook posts from people saying you know i didn't see it before but now i see it and it's like i once was blind but now i'm woke yeah so i'm wondering for you was there um because you're describing this more as a kind of a long process of sanctification was there an unwoke moment for you where you just went oh my goodness that that was wrong yeah absolutely there was um yeah so so there was there were several things and i did draw some notes down i had a really good conversation with my wife prior to um this recording and you know it's neat to see i i i i lived in this time of what i like to describe as a fog um and it was a dark season in my life and and and so i was living that but then it was neat to hear the perspective of my wife on how she felt on that and and while i was going through that and and she she pointed out a couple things um that led up to this aha moment um you know one of the things and i and i think this is important for our listeners to to be reminded of we're told in ephesians we wrestle not against flesh and blood right this is a spiritual warfare and the spiritual warfare that satan wants to um to fight in this is a battle for the mind so the ideas and uh he oftentimes will give you truth that's wrapped in lies and so he so even the truth that he presents is a lie because it's not the whole truth and so i was i was embracing lies that had a veneer of truth and one of the things that he did to me to make this attractive and appealing was he used my current life situation to to to give me uh kind of fodder uh to to spark the flames for me to continue to believe this so during during this season uh when when i initially embraced the woke idea and the ideas and the ideology i was going through a really difficult time of transition uh i was pastoring in florida uh my wife and i uh prayerfully decided to move back to new york uh we were living in a one-bedroom apartment with four children um it was excuse me with four people in total and it was just really depressing and dark um and i was trying to find my identity you know in my pastor anymore and i not this is this was challenging and then i take a job that was just this really difficult and hard to work and we were we were on food stamps and dependent on the government and so it was just really it was just there was just so much that that was taking place in my personal life and then and then here comes this this world view that kind of swoops me in that i was primed for and and in the midst of embracing all the things that i listened to the books that i'd read the youtube channels that i had listened to that was feeding this ideology the truth of god pierced right through all the lies and i can't help but think of uh hebrews right that the word of god is sharper than any two-edged sword and so here i am in the in the depth of this spiritual darkness this depression it's affecting my marriage it's affecting my relationships and then god is using the truth of his word to pierce right through so there were several aha moments but i didn't really get them until they were kind of compounded on top of each other and there's one significant one that i think of i remember ironing my clothes in the room in preparation for the week and i remember listening stumbling across some videos by a guy named edie robles i'm listening to him and he's talking about this woke movement and i was like what is that you know and i'm listening to it and as he's describing it those are the things i believed and those are the ideas that i was embracing and they actually coincided with some of the other friends that were reaching out to me privately uh and and saying e like you're you're in the deep end here like you're in the woods this isn't right and i remember calling my wife in the room listen and say i said baby listen listen to this like listen to what this guy is saying and and and i spoke to her about that today and she said she said baby when you when you said when you were listening to the a.d videos i left the room praising god because my wife never embraced the ideas i believed she was prayerful praying for me she was concerned for me because she saw the end of where those ideas were taking me she said edwin now she's looking back she said baby if you if you continue down those ideas the end result would be then you couldn't be with me anymore because i i was white and i am white and i could never meet the qualifications for what this ideology resulted in the end so god used a multiplicity of truth to bring me to himself and i remember distinctly one time listening to these uh these videos and it being wow i don't believe this anymore like i i see now and then it was just scripture coming to mind and then i just started listening to other brothers i remember coming across the just thinking podcast and i remember uh coming across other brothers uh who were faithfully proclaiming the truth and it's just being like yes yes like i i see it now i believe it and now just then sorry and then just afterwards just being just really wanting to give myself over to help rescue people who were drifting away into this ideology as well you know wanting to be a rescuer uh for the wanderers who were embracing this idea that's good you mentioned a couple minutes ago this this concept of spiritual warfare this is a battle in the for the mind really this you know in fact uh growing up although spiritual warfare verses i were interpreted one way and when i really started studying theology i was like you know this is mostly about taking every thought captive all these words have to do with what's happening in your mind with deceptions and of course all deceptions coming from satan which the bible describes as the father of lies this is the father of lies who's coming up with all kinds of clever deceptions and the deceptions are never going to be really overt they're going to be really tricky they're going to contain a lot of truth there are going to be observations made that ring true in inside in some way but either they're going to lead you to a false conclusion or they're going to sort of um color that in a way that that sort of infects it with deception and um i hope it's okay that i quote you because you sent me a line in an email as we were preparing for this podcast that i thought was so powerful and you were talking about the father of lies and these deceptions and you said he would rather us focus on social justice as opposed to upholding biblical justice he would rather us focus on white guilt as opposed to looking at the one who took on our guilt i wonder if you could expand on that a little bit yeah yeah he you know it says that satan was the most craftiest beast in the garden um he he comes to steal kill and to destroy and he will use he you know he's he's a street fighter he'll take dirt off the ground and throw it in your eyes and he won't play fair and he's he's diabolical and he's wicked and if if he can't take our souls which he can't right right we're secure in christ if we're truly in him if if he can't take away our salvation then he will try to make it the most miserable sanctification he can ever have and i think i think we need to be aware of that we shouldn't be ignorant to his devices and i i i look back and i see the devices of satan he he loves to clothe things um in garments that are that that look good um and that that look pious and that that use language that we can accept on the surface uh similar to the cults right they they use jesus and they use church and the bible uh but when you start to peel back those layers of what those words actually mean uh you end up finding something completely other than what the scriptures teach pertaining to christ in the bible and the word of god and so on and so forth and so yeah i i think about um i really so so all that being said i i i'm giving myself over and i have given myself over to really um to understanding um this this the tactics of satan um and and the way in which we understand the tactics of satan is by familiarizing ourself with the word of god i think oftentimes um we are and i say we generally speaking um there's a sector of christianity that has given ourselves over to um these popular christian voices throughout the years that we have kind of propped up as our heroes um and and and we have kind of put on stage as our defenders of the faith and we've believed what they've told us and and those were true things and and yet satan has has used them similar to how he used peter right don't go to the cross lord you know never you can never do that and pete and jesus tells peter get behind me satan right and so in a lot of ways many of the people that we respect and love have been used by satan to embrace ideas that are poison but they've done so by giving us language that we have readily accepted in the past because we trust them we should trust the ideas that they embrace as well so there's just so many layers to say it's tactics that that this is why it's imperative that we are people of the book and that we be people who are testing what people say uh in light of the scriptures because things sound real good um but then when you peel them back they may not be exactly what they are presented as so i don't know if that answers your question but there's so many there's so much there yeah so as a pastor what do you think is missing or lacking uh either in sermons that are being preached or messaging like you mentioned that's being put forth online and on big platforms or even in discipleship in local churches what is missing from that that's allowing this sort of christianity to come into churches so boldly and frankly so quickly yeah now that's great this so again there's a lot um i think i think one we have to keep in mind that the wheat and the tear grow together so there are people who are in the church but are not of the church right and so those people um who are not truly the lords um are are are going to um fall away and and and and those people need to be evangelized right um the the problem is is that um oftentimes people we desire the people to know the lord and to come to faith and so we oftentimes have like a superficial um uh view of you know you know okay this person prayed the prayer or this person um you know they've been they've been walking with the lord forever and so of course they're a believer right so so there's so there's that sector there's people who don't really know the lord um and but now they're in prominent positions or now they have a following right and so so and and so now they have influence over people's life so there's that group but then there's people who um who who really don't know the scriptures like they're they're babes in christ and they don't know the word of god and yet they have a heart for people who have been oppressed or who've been victimized and who have gone through hardship because they can relate to that in their own lives right and because those people don't have a biblical uh worldview and their minds are not steeped in the word of god they they don't filter what they see in society and in their own life or in the lives of others through the word of god and i think that would be my biggest um cry for all of us as believers is that we need to do a better job than i'm generalizing but but each of us we need to we need to have a more robust understanding of the sufficiency of scripture and practically we need to let everything filter through the word of god so when we when we put on the news right and we see um someone being killed at the hands of a police officer regardless of the color of their skin what does the bible say about justice um you know and and that question needs to filter through the word of god needs to test all of that and so i think so there's that and then i think in the pulpit we need to get back to the call of the minister of the gospel right um the the man of god is to preach the word of god the word of god is our final authority our opinions i'm sure are great right uh our experiences i'm sure are great but at the end of the day we are people who have to be bound by the word of god you know the the one message that we have is the message that god has given us in the 66 books contained in the word of god that's it and and from the word of god we need to communicate what god has spoken and um and and i think and i think that's what's missing now you know again i've talked about this on my channel where people use the word of god and they rightly divide but then they are heretical in their application of the word of god and i think that's another thing right so so in our preaching we need to be biblical in our application we need to be biblical and it needs to be christ-centered and the holy spirit is the one who sanctifies right the holy spirit is the one who will draw his people keep his people and finish the work that he started in his people so pastors need to to stay in their lane preach god's word and let the spirit of god sanctify his people and we're not the heroes jesus christ is and i think all those things put together and more are some of the things that we need to be thinking about as pertains to the local church and our call as pastors one of the things that i think people are confused about is the difference between teaching the bible and preaching a sermon where a lot of bible verses are used and so i'll give a a practical example from my own life on this for many years i didn't understand the difference between these two things and um in fact just recently i attended a church with uh with a friend who this was not my home church and it it kind of was it was bothering me that the pastor's quote unquote sermon was really more of a political message and then he was bringing in bible verses from all over the old testament and the new testament and filtering those verses into the political view that he was putting forward and i had a conversation with with the friend after and i just said yeah i said you know i wish that it would just be bible teaching and the friend was like but it was i mean there was so much scripture and you know even when i had my experience in the progressive church that pastor used more scripture than almost anybody i'd ever heard before and so you know as a pastor as a bible teacher what do you want to tell people about what to look for how to tell the difference between a pastor actually preaching and expositing the word of god versus using a lot of scripture but it might not actually be teaching the bible yeah absolutely that's good um that that that's challenging it is because again it's it's good for you to have a heart to want to obey your leaders right that's that's that's good that's biblical right um but we shouldn't be blindly obeying our leaders uh we should submit to their leadership um and again this is important too we should submit to our leadership but that isn't um a blanket statement for them to just do whatever they want with the word of god and with the people of god and so we want to we want to believe our pastors and and as pertains to their adherence to the word of god we desire to do that and and yet we're called to be discerning and discernment uh comes from the word of god right when we when we know what god has said when we're when we're growing uh in in understanding god's word and believing what god has said we actually are growing and discernment we're able to discern truth from error and so i would encourage um christians this you know the bible is it should be applied to all of life right uh when we think of the bible has a lot to say about politics he does and and it gives us principles by which we should uh discern truth from era and and be able to to make wise decisions in the voting booth right um and it has a lot to say about justice uh and it has a lot to say about every sphere of life right and it gives us principles and and practical implications on how we should do those things um but there there are people who cherry-pick the bible and the cults do this um you know and and other religious movements do this as well so i would encourage christians um if if they right if you're a christian you have the spirit of god right the spirit of god has been given to you uh when you came to faith in christ so you have the spirit of god and the spirit of god will lead us and guide us into truth right that's what that's what the scriptures teach us right and so when we hear something that just doesn't sit right with us um it's good that we ask questions right it's good that we bring that to the lord in prayer god is that is that what james meant when he said that uh james the writer right i love my pastor i respect him i hear what he's saying but is that what james meant by what he said and i think that's a good question to ask um and then um i think it's important for us to maybe seek out some answers right we can we can obviously ask our pastor and pastors and we should uh and then we should seek out the counsel of other believers and maybe even people who we may not necessarily agree with uh on other matters upfront and and just be bereans and and to ask and inquire and to pray and to be diligent i think that's important for the average layperson right that doesn't mean to be skeptical about everything your pastor says and to be or you know so critical that you can't receive anything um but but it but if these alarms come up in you and and they're not in alignment with what you think the scriptures teach um then then we should we should investigate we should ask we should pray we should you know pursue an answer that is adequate and aligned and in alignment with the word of god we should do that yeah that's good so as a pastor there might be pastors listening to this there might be pastors wives listening to this uh who you know can have conversations with their pastor husbands or the pastoral staffs or just people in church leadership as a pastor if you see some of these ideas coming into your congregation um maybe there's a staff member that's starting to express some of these ideas maybe there's even an elder or just congregants that are expressing these woke ideas within the context of christianity as a pastor what advice would you give to other pastors about how to handle that how do we like let's get real practical here what what do you do when you see that coming into a church that you're uh an elder uh you know over yeah that's a great question and and i think i think this is important for us to keep in mind that there are nuances um there are nuances to the degree of locism that you embrace and you know talk about crt you know how how far is an individual from you know believing in um you know systemic racism into whiteness into all these other categories right so i think this is why the local church is so vital and so important it's because um every christian should be involved in a local church they should have pastors right a pastor or pastors watching over their soul they should have brothers and sisters that are keeping them accountable and watching their life in their doctrine all that is important and i think um as as a pastor you're you're um you're taking you're you're taking a given situation and you're evaluating it based on the situation at hand right and so with with some people when you think about this with christ right uh when when christ dealt with um the woman at the well he dealt with her in in a specific way right uh that was different than the way he dealt with the religious leaders um and and yet he didn't shy away from the truth he got to the heart of the matter but he was a surgeon right with the truth of god's word and so so i think as pastors just very practically i think we need to know our people uh we should be educated on the dangers that are confronting the church um and we shouldn't shy away from dealing with issues when needed to be deal with now that doesn't mean that we should uh confront every issue in the same way and this is what i'm kind of getting at right so there may be someone who uh who who who believes racism exists and absolutely that's that's good because it does it does exist and unfortunately there are people who name the name of christ who adhere to racist ideas and those people need to be spoken to about that and and and yet so as a pastor you you take a given situation of someone embracing ideas uh or toying with ideas that are uh dangerous you need to have a conversation with that person um you know what what's going on you know what do you think about this what are you thinking what are you feeling and then depending on where that person is so if this is a fellow elder uh it needs to to to be at a higher level because this person has teaching influence this person has discipleship influence right uh if it's someone who's a new christian and is struggling with these things then you need to also deal with that and confront that head-on but this is also uh um they need some discipleship they need some training they need a mentor they need someone to come alongside them so i i would say that there's different spheres of this right i would say lastly um for a wife i think obviously first and foremost she needs to be praying for her husband or the leaders of the church uh who may be embracing this and and prayerfully thinking about ways to um to to steer an individual in the right direction whether it be the resources such as this podcast or books uh i know thaddeus wrote a book uh confronting injustice right uh and and there's different means that that god will use to draw someone back to the truth but primarily you need to see the error and confront the error uh in a way that is loving but not getting away from speaking the truth we can't we can't win people back to the truth without using the truth right we have to use the truth and um you you you may not know how to articulate the truth the best way or the clearest way but nonetheless the spirit of god will always use truth to to bring people to himself or back to himself so we can't get away from the truth that's good i'm glad you mentioned thaddeus williams book confronting injustice without compromising truth because your story is featured in that book isn't it yes yes so we've had thaddeus on the podcast so if people are watching or listening go back into the archives and check that out um i edwin i'd love to ask you the same question but on the flip side so someone's in a congregation they're they're a congregant of a church they're uh they are members of a church and they're noticing the messaging from the plat platform becoming more and more in line with this christianity they're seeing their pastors focus less on the atonement and the gospel and more on what we might call social justice issues and things like that what do they do what would your advice be to them yeah they need to they need to have a conversation with their elders uh and give them their concerns and depending on the elders response um you know maybe the elder doubles down and um you know again and unfortunately this this this boils down to is the pastor white or is the pastor black um or is the pastor a person of color or not because um you as a congregant are you white or non-white you know and unfortunately these are the these are the games that have to be played because uh if you're a black pastor or a person of color and you are a white congregant that is going to them um there is a certain perspective that the pastor is going to have uh you being the white person coming to them you know you uh you just don't want to hear this because of white fragility so i i would say you you speak to the pastor you bring your concerns to the pastor if you know this is almost like the reverse of matthew 19 right the other side of the coin so like you you you actually the the the the elders um for an individual who is in sin is to privately go to this individual and they are to have this conversation if the person doesn't repent then you bring another witness and and so on the flip side of it you go to the elder and you say pastor i'm concerned these are some of the things you're teaching this is some of the things you've said this is when you said it uh this was the context in which you said it i disagree and the pastor let's say he doesn't receive that now you should bring another brother with you by virtue of accountability and you know to to verify that this was said and this conversation happened hey pastor we are concerned and i think at some point if there isn't repentance or if there isn't um a a full throttle acknowledgement that this is something that is problematic then at some point you need to leave the church and i i say that as an individual who's in that situation you need to leave the church but but also for the sake of your family so if you're married for the sake of your wife as a husband uh for the sake of your children right you're you're you're making disciples in the home and a part of the extension of that discipleship in your family's life is also the local church and so you may be against those ideas and you may be having conversations with your pastor but but your wife and your children are also um whether consciously or unconsciously in being taught ideas that you believe to be antithetical to the word of god and so at some point if things don't change um you have to leave and when you do leave uh i i can't say black or white whether or not to leave quietly or not and i don't mean to you know throw chairs or anything of that nature but i mean uh there may be times when you need to let others know exactly why you left um pastor's been teaching ideas that are uh uh antithetical to god's word i'm concerned i've had several conversations with him this is this is why we're leaving we love him we love you but we cannot remain here and i would implore you to leave as well if this does not change and i think i think that form of accountability is vital right because that may be the very thing that god uses to bring forth true transformation out of this movement that's good well in a moment we're gonna do our patreon only subscriber portion of the interview this is where patreon supporters get to ask the questions to my guest if you'd like to know more about that you can go to patreon.com alisa childers take a look at the different tiers one tier will give you early access to podcasts like this one if you go a level up you're going to get access to the bonus content that we're about to record if you go level up from that you get a part to be a part of a facebook group that's private for patreon supporters only where we do a monthly live stream but that's also where you get to ask the questions to my guests for our special bonus content for uh patreon supporters but as we uh go ahead and we close out this portion of our discussion today ed when i want to give you the last word i always like to give my guests the last word what would you say to people just anything that's on your heart whether it be to somebody who might be tempted by these kind of ideas maybe somebody who's intimidated by them they may know the truth in their heart but they're afraid to say anything because they're going to get called a racist or they're going to you know get called different names um go ahead and leave us with some some pastoral thoughts whatever you want to say just on this issue today my last words to those who are listening is this soak yourself in the person of jesus christ read the word of god and see what christ accomplished on your behalf and when you look at the beauty of christ and what he accomplished and you look at the life that you now have in him and how you are hidden in him and how you are joint heirs with christ and how you've been united to christ when you see the beauty of what christ accomplished everything every other ideology every other idea pales in comparison to the beauty and the excellency of christ and i would say steep yourself in the epistles as paul and the other writers of the new testament write to the local churches and put yourself uh as as a recipient of what those writers have written to the church and be encouraged and be nourished and be satisfied in that and then i would uh encourage you to just continue to pray to that end that god would do that in the life of your brothers and sisters who are believing uh ideas maybe they believe the very things that you believe doctrinally but they add a plus sign to the end of what christ accomplished i would say pray wholeheartedly for them that god would remove veils or scales over their eyes over their hearts that would help them to see not only to see but to believe in their heart of hearts what christ has accomplished and i would say that's enough right and that's really again to close with the proverbial life that that's the desire we want to look to christ that is our desire as christians and and in looking to christ we live wisely and we desire to leave a legacy behind for generations to follow so keep doing what god has called you to do outlined in the word of god and you will be pleasing to the lord and you will make many disciples for his glory and for his namesake and that's it well i want to thank my guest pastor edwin ramirez today for joining me with such a rich discussion on what we're seeing coming into so many of our churches and into the church at large i want to thank you all for watching if you're watching on youtube be sure you subscribe and click that bell icon because that lets you know every time we release a new video if you're listening on audio platforms such as itunes or google or spotify always helps if you leave a good review it just works with the algorithms to get the message out to more people so be sure and do that be sure and comment on facebook or instagram or wherever you see this podcast show up thanks so much and we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Alisa Childers

Views: 49,227

Rating: 4.9208145 out of 5

Keywords: apologetics

Id: cRq-FWKKN0A

Length: 55min 26sec (3326 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021