Warriors For True Social Justice
As I am writing the bulletin article for this week, I am four weeks ahead of the time you are reading. This is necessary, as you see I am not attending the service today because of my trip to Kentucky. This week I should be in a brief loop to Washington D.C. and then back to Kentucky tomorrow. This gives me opportunity to visit my son and his church. Each trip I tell you what a delight it is to hear his pastor speak. He is a young man who gives hope for the next generation of preachers who must lift the name of Christ.
This thought is the basis of my article this week. Due to the offset nature of the timing of bulletin articles to accommodate schedules, I drafted this one the day after the death of Dr. Voddie Baucham. Dr. Baucham, 56, died of heart failure on September 25. You may not know of him but those of us who attended the Shepherd’s Conference for years were always anxious to know if he would be on the guest list of speakers.
It seems I never know the proper ways to address a person’s race because of razor thin skins who take offense at the slightest provocation. Bear with me if you do not approve of what I am about to say. Dr. Baucham was a large black man who grew up in the slums of Los Angeles. Most would not have given him a chance to break free of those social restraints but through an intelligent mind and diligent work he became a voice of hope for those who struggle as he did. Dr. Baucham was clear that receiving Christ as his Saviour was the bedrock on which he built his life. This man was important because as a black man he stood against this society’s wholesale surrender to the false tenets of social justice. Today, this is known as Critical Race Theory (CRT) that bogs down any progress in this country towards racial equality by saddling every white person with the moniker of racist. You hear the claim nonstop from certain political parties which are glaring examples of their divisive racial politics.
Dr. Baucham authored a best-selling book that I highly recommend. The title is Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe. It is a warning against the infiltration of CRT and Intersectionality into the church which is reshaping Christian doctrines of race, justice, and morality. These redefine and undermine the doctrines of salvation, objective truth, and sufficiency of scripture to supply us with the true gospel and unite us in the fulness of Christ. Dr. Baucham contends the “Cult of Antiracism” is a works-based salvation that offers no true forgiveness and replaces categories of sin and salvation with secular notions such as white privilege and reparations.
Now I must tie the first paragraph and the last together. Dr. Baucham was a defender of the faith. There are few preachers who have not fallen to the nonsense of the social justice movement. The disagreement over this created a rift in the dais of the Shepherd’s Conference with preachers we had confidence in falling victim to the social justice movement. They are no longer dependable to safeguard the gospel at all costs. Sadly, MacArthur passed and is also gone who at least kept his venue cleared of these compromising speakers. Now Voddie is gone, and my prayer is that young men who stand unashamedly on the gospel of Christ will continue the good fight until Christ comes to receive His people to their home and purge this wicked world of its hellish schemes.
Pastor V. Mark Smith