Thread by @WokePreacherTV

Thread: @timkellernyc's "Racism + Corporate Evil" speech, debunked. This is a foundational work in the woke canon, cited or plagiarized by pastors great + small, shared in many a Facebook comment thread to argue for reparations, contra Ezekiel 18. 1/32

@timkellernyc We'll see here that Tim's scriptural case for corporate guilt (restitution for + from entire demographics), applied to modern sociology, is sloppy if not misleading. A doctorate, fame, and best-selling books do not excuse sloppy and misleading exegesis. 2/32

@timkellernyc POINT 1: In Joshua 7, Keller points to Achan's whole family receiving punishment for his sin. By quoting nothing directly, he skips over verse 15, where God commands: "Whoever is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him." 3/32

@timkellernyc Sure, there's a truism here about family culture shaping one's individual choices, or if a father is church disciplined, it will affect his whole family, etc. But the endgame of this talk, and the woke socjus movement, is about CIVIL JUDGMENTS ie. restitution. 4/32

@timkellernyc The Mosaic law, which has served as a bedrock of the western legal system, has two main forms of punishment: execution and restitution. If you commit a crime like theft and you are proven guilty, you pay back the value of the stolen item plus interest. (Num. 5:7) 5/32

@timkellernyc More severe sins such as murder, adultery and idolatry carry the death penalty (eg. Ex. 21-22). This reinforces Keller's general point: the community must purge itself of evil (Deut. 17:7) or else that evil will corrupt the community + God becomes the one to purge its evil. 6/32

@timkellernyc But there are no collective punishments by the faith community. Restitution is always from the one who sinned. In Deut. 24:16, it says: "Parents are not to be put to death for their children" nor vice-versa, "each will die for their own sin." How does this fit with Achan? 7/32

@timkellernyc Let's answer that question w/ a question. Why don't we repeat the conquest of Canaan, the subject of the book of Joshua? We are surrounded by wicked nations but we seek to save, not destroy their people. If we emulate the judgment of Achan, we can emulate the judgment of Ai. 8/32

@timkellernyc The narratives of scripture do not outweigh the didactic portions of scripture. God made judgments on Canaan and the family of Achan, and he commanded the Israelites to carry them out at a specific time in history. Principles from these stories do not supersede the Torah. 9/32

@timkellernyc POINT 2: Keller says "Daniel, in Daniel 9, confesses sins — repents for — and says it’s his responsibility to repent for sins that his ancestors did that he didn’t do at all." This is another instance of paraphrase and summary in lieu of thorough exegesis. 10/32

@timkellernyc Clip is a two-parter. On "Linsanity" (this talk is from 2012): "some members of the community can bring guilt on the whole community and some members of the community can bring credit on the whole community. We don’t get it but that’s only because of our cultural myopia." 11/32

@timkellernyc TK doesn't support this claim of "his responsibility" with anything from the text. My best guess is v. 13: "Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our sins." 12/32

@timkellernyc To address this, we should also bring in this argument from Dr. Michael Rhodes, another blog that I've seen passed around by newly-woke people. As always, the bottom line is reparations: hebraicthought.org/repenting-inte… 13/32

@timkellernyc He writes: "A closer look at Leviticus 26:40–44 suggests...What’s required is not just that the present generation confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, but also that they 'make amends (yirṣû) for their iniquity.'” (26:41b, 43). 14/32

@timkellernyc Cont'd: "If the damage one generation does is not fixed in their own day, that damage does not simply disappear at their death. The wrong must be righted, and the job may well fall on their descendants." 15/32

@timkellernyc The translation of this verse is not so clear cut. "Yirṣû" is rendered "make amends" in NASB/NRSV but "accept" in others (ie. accept one's guilt/punishment). It is used in the psalms to speak of approving or even delighting in something. 16/32 biblehub.com/hebrew/yirtzu_…

@timkellernyc How exactly does one make amends for Israel's idolatry/injustice? God was the only one who could + did exact proper punishment (Lev. 26:28), the exile of his people + destruction of Jerusalem. "Accept" is the better term, affirming their guilt + the rightness of his wrath. 17/32

@timkellernyc Back to Daniel, his prayer makes this explicit (v. 14, 18): "The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster on us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does...We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy." 18/32

@timkellernyc Now take an actual "closer look" at Lev. 26. God says when the people confess, "I will remember my covenant w/ Jacob/Isaac/Abraham + I WILL REMEMBER THE LAND." 2x Daniel prays on behalf of God's "holy hill" (v. 16, 20), a phrase translated as "holy mountain" elsewhere. 19/32

@timkellernyc This phrase is messianic (Ps 2:6 "I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain"), ecclesiological (who can be there? the sanctified, Ps 15+24), + eschatological, ie. messianic peace + God dwelling w man (Is 11:9+65:25, Zech 8:3, Ps 87, etc.) 20/32 crossway.org/articles/what-…

@timkellernyc This is about redemptive history. This is about the land that brings Jesus, not about tribes, ethnicities, or any other demographics settling scores with each other. For Keller and his acolytes, this conflation is a fundamental category error. YOU ARE NOT DAVID (or Daniel)! 21/32

@timkellernyc POINT 3: TK says in Romans 5, "by virtue of being in the entire human race, you’re responsible for things that you didn’t individually do...If you really want to go all the way down and say I’m only responsible for what I have done and only I have done, there is no gospel." 22/32

@timkellernyc No serious critic of Keller denies the doctrine of original sin or federal theology. This is just a straw man. He has neglected even to attempt to tie this topic to human govt or to form a coherent theology of demographic-level restitution. Thus, no need to counter-exegete. 23/32

@timkellernyc So there you have it. That's his entire biblical case to get beyond due process for individuals. TK cites scripture only 1x later, James 1:9, to say: "If you are a Christian affluent person, you should remember that you are a sinner." Um...

https://twitter.com/timkellernyc/status/1326847964569079809

24/32

@timkellernyc Note: TK did the "poor kids/white kids" gaffe years before Biden. "The gospel takes white people + keeps them from getting their identity from their place in society + it takes poor people + keeps them taking their identity out of their place that's been assigned to them." 25/32

@timkellernyc Bottom line: We have a hard enough time when we are judging individuals + legal entities. If we as a society move into a place where we try to judge intergenerational, demographic-wide disputes, we are guaranteed to commit injustice with penalties against the innocent. 26/32

@timkellernyc Some may object: TK doesn't mention reparations in this talk + talks about other structural reforms. Let's address that briefly. "America is not Israel" cuts both ways: neither wacko end-times prophecies nor calls to society-wide reform apply to the U.S. faith community. 27/32

@timkellernyc 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 is clear on this: the church does not presently judge those outside the church. 1 Peter's "exiles" metaphor has been in vogue lately, but it cuts both ways, too: an exile does not dictate how his temporary host's society should be ordered. 28/32

@timkellernyc The church can only model an alternative to the world, at times breaking into its broken systems. For instance, with mass incarceration, churches can help criminals make restitution rather than go to jail, as described in Tony Evans' "Oneness Embraced" ch. 15. 29/32

@timkellernyc But to sear the church's conscience with society-wide structural change goes beyond scripture, adding a requirement to care for the pagan world as much as, or even more than, the *brethren* in Christ (Mt. 25:40 is another one where incomplete quotations abuse the text). 30/32

@timkellernyc And you'll almost always see bad application spring from bad presuppositions. In TK's case, his illustration of "racism + corporate guilt" is one person changing his business model + thousands of customers who did nothing wrong by negotiating well. 31/32

@timkellernyc I think this speech has done a lot of harm to the church, so may God use these thoughts in some small way to repair that. Remember, the woke movement only succeeds if it intimidates you from standing on the word of God. Read it well + you can challenge hype + stature.

Fin 32/32