Tim Keller and Speech Act Theory

Tim Keller and Speech Act Theory. That is the topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian Worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and also to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through repentance of their sin and putting their faith in Jesus Christ, who He is and what He did for us on the cross. I'm David Wheaton, the host of the program, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Well, thanks for joining us today. Just a quick word to our listeners down in the Florida Panhandle. We have seen the devastation and we are just thinking and praying for you, any listeners we have down there, and maybe you're not even able to listen today because of the devastation so much, but we encourage our other listeners in other parts of the country to pray for and help those who have been just devastated by this hurricane.

Another one hits the shores of the United States. We're going to talk today about Tim Keller and Speech Act Theory and the reason that the framers of the statement on social justice and the gospel—we talked about that recently in the recent weeks in the program—wrote the document is spelled out right in its introduction. They say, we are deeply concerned that values borrowed from secular culture are currently undermining scripture in the areas of race and ethnicity, manhood and womanhood, and human sexuality. The Bible's teaching on each of these subjects is being challenged under the broad and somewhat nebulous rubric of concern for, quote, social justice, unquote.

So as we have recently discussed on the program, a division has taken place within the more biblically conservative side of evangelicalism over this issue of social justice. For instance, Tim Keller, the highly regarded evangelical founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, the vice president of the Gospel Coalition and author of numerous influential books, he said this about the statement, quote, you can't just analyze words by what they say. You also have to analyze words by what they do.

When I go through the statement, if you go really, really strictly, I think just about anyone would take about 80 percent of it. But in the end, what concerns me most about it is not so much what it's saying, but what it's trying to do. It's trying to marginalize people who are talking about race and justice.

It's trying to say you're really not biblical, and it's not fair in that sense, unquote. A Keller referenced the speech act theory as his basis for his view that words can't just be analyzed for what they say, but also for what they do. So our guest this weekend on the Christian Real View is Cameron Beutel. He's a researcher and writer for Grace to You, and he's going to join us to discuss his recent column on the ramifications of speech act theory.

Here's the first segment of that interview. We're going to be getting into a conversation on a column that you recently wrote for Grace to You's blog called Assaulting the Nature of Truth, and it was in response to something that the well-known pastor, the founder of the Gospel Coalition, Tim Keller, had to say in response to the statement on social justice and the gospel. I just want to read a short paragraph from that statement on social justice and the gospel, sometimes called the Dallas statement because it was written in Dallas. It says this in the introduction, in view of questionable sociological, psychological, and political theories presently permeating our culture and making inroads into Christ's church, we wish to clarify certain key doctrines and ethical principles prescribed in God's word. Then it goes on to say, the apostles' warning to the Colossians is greatly needed today. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

That's from Colossians 2.8. So this document that follows, they say, is an attempt to heed that apostolic command, and then it goes on to give affirmations and denials on some of the major subjects of the faith to do with scripture, justice, God's law, sin, gospel, salvation, the church, heresy, sexuality and marriage, complementarianism, and then race, ethnicity, and culture and racism. So it gives affirmations of certain biblical perspectives on those things and denials of what those things are not. And you say, Cameron, at the beginning of your column on assaulting the nature of truth, what is surprising, even disappointing about the pushback against this statement on social justice and the gospel, is the widespread failure of critics to engage with the actual content of what has been stated clearly in the articles, sermons, and the Dallas statement. Many evangelicals have chosen to argue against what they perceive those declarations to represent, not what they actually say. Then you go on to say, Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, is candid enough to admit his complicity in not dealing with the substance of the argument set forth in the document.

But that's because he believes how he feels about the Dallas statement is more important than what it actually says. Keller appeals to secular philosophy in order to make his case using speech act theory as the key to his interpretive approach. And so I'd like to play a soundbite where Tim Keller is asked about what he thinks of the statement on social justice and the gospel, and then get your response to that.

Here's the audio. There's a thing called speech act theory. And speech act theory, which is actually very helpful, says you can't just analyze words by what they say. You also have to analyze words by what they do. So they've got technical terms for it.

They talk about, in other words, you could say, you know, I love the way you look. And that can be perfectly true. But it depends on what you're trying to do. Under certain circumstances, that could be a rather, that could be a kind of coercive statement. So in other words, there's what it says isn't true, and then what is it trying to do? So when I go through there, if you go really, really strictly, I think just about anybody would take about 80% of it, you say, yup, yup, yup, yup, yup, yup. And then there's even some places you really push, and you kind of see why they would say that.

It depends on how they might maybe define church and things like that. But in the end, what concerns me most about is not so much what it's saying but what it's trying to do. It's trying to marginalize people who are talking about race and justice.

It's trying to say you're really not biblical. And it's not fair in that sense. So that's the reason why when somebody starts to go down it with me and say, would you agree with this? Would you agree with this? I would say you're looking at the level of what it says and not at the level of what it's doing. And I think what it's trying to do is it's really trying to say, don't make this emphasis. Don't worry about the poor. Don't care about the injustice.

It's not really that important. That's what it's saying. Even if I can agree with most of it, I don't like it.

So that's what it's doing that I don't like. So perhaps we could start out, Cameron, by just giving your response to Tim Keller's remarks about the statement on social justice and the gospel. One thing I would say initially is I would have written this article even if I didn't agree with the social justice statement, the Dallas statement. I have signed the statement and I'm happy to do so.

I totally agree with it. Now while he doesn't discount propositional truth, he subjugates it to his own feelings. And as such, he's invalidating words, what words are saying, just the plain meaning of words and projecting his own meaning onto it. What he's really saying is the words in this document, I can agree with those, but there's a motive behind that that I don't like. What does that do to make just regular communication difficult? Well, it takes the author out of the decision-making process into what things mean. The hearer becomes the one who gets to define what things mean.

You'll notice in the whole interview, he never engages with a single statement in the whole document. He bypasses that and projects his own meaning onto it and deals with that. And the implication is that he has made himself the sovereign interpreter in this. He gets to project meaning and he's very definite about it. He says, don't make this emphasis, don't worry about the poor, don't care about the injustice, it's not really that important. And then he says, that's what it is saying.

Very definite. His meaning that he projects onto it is nowhere said. There's nothing even remotely resembling those words in the Dallas statement. So let me give listeners an example of this. As I mentioned, there's about 12 or 13, actually more than that, there's 14 points that it gives affirmations and denials on. And one of them is race and ethnicity, since this is such a central one in the whole social justice movement that there's an oppression going on against people of color, particularly black people in this country. One of the points is on race and ethnicity in the statement on social justice in the gospel. Here's what they say, we affirm God made all people from one man. Though people often can be distinguished by different ethnicities and nationalities, they are ontological equals before God in both creation and redemption. Race is not a biblical category, but rather a social construct that often has been used to classify groups of people in terms of inferiority and superiority.

All that is good, honest, just, and beautiful in various ethnic backgrounds and experience can be celebrated as the fruit of God's grace. All sinful actions and their results, including evils perpetrated between and upon ethnic groups by others, are to be confessed as sinful, repented of, and repudiated. That's what they affirm about race and ethnicity.

And here's what they deny about it. We deny that Christians should segregate themselves into racial groups or regard racial identity above or even equal to their identity in Christ. We deny that any divisions between people groups from an unstated attitude of superiority to an overt spirit of resentment have any legitimate place in the fellowship of the redeemed. We reject any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression. While we are to weep with those who weep, we deny that a person's feelings of offense or oppression necessarily prove that someone else is guilty of sinful behaviors, oppression, or prejudice.

Just in reading that, I think most, at least Christians who have a theologically conservative understanding of scripture would say, well, right on. There's only one race. There's a human race. There are different ethnicities, different skin colors.

We're all valued in the sight of God. And most people would say right on. But I think Tim Keller is saying here that, well, I can agree with that, but it's doing something. It's really there's a motive. There's an intent behind what's being said there. It's really denying the fact that certain minority groups feel oppressed and therefore I don't want any part of this.

That's right. And that's what makes it so outrageous, David. That's not what the statement is saying. And he's saying that we're allowed to bypass the plain meaning of words if we feel badly about it. I heard James White, Dr. James White, say recently when talking about going on university campuses, that one of his great frustrations is that today's generation cannot reason.

They can only emote. And we're in a scary situation today where truth is being determined by how people feel about things rather than facts themselves. Cameron Beutel with us today here on The Christian World.

You're talking about Tim Keller and the speech act theory. You give the example of Genesis chapter three, verses one through five as an example of the reader or hearer of words being the determiner of the meaning of the words rather than the author. And this is where Satan tempts Eve. I'm just going to read the passage here. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord had made. And he said to the woman, indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden, God has said you shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die. And the serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.

Well talk about how that was the first example. Social justice is a gospel issue. This has become the mantra of many evangelicals. Rectifying perceived inequities of race, gender, sexuality, poverty, immigration, amongst others, is considered a top priority. But what exactly is social justice? Is working for social justice a biblical mandate, an application of the gospel? Cal Beisner has written an insightful booklet entitled Social Justice, How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel. Also included in this revised 44-page booklet is a copy of the just released Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. You can order this social justice booklet for a donation of any amount to the Christian Worldview. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. The mission of the Christian Worldview is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

For when Christians have a stronger faith and when unbelievers come to saving faith, lives and families and churches, even communities, are changed for the glory of God. The Christian Worldview is a listener supported ministry. You can help us in our mission to impact hearts and minds by making a donation of any amount or becoming a monthly partner.

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Monthly partners can choose to receive resources throughout the year. Call 1-888-646-2233 or go to thechristianworldview.org. Thank you for your support. Tim Keller in the Speech Act Theory. That's what we're discussing today here on the Christian Worldview radio program. I'm David Wheaton, the host. Our website is thechristianworldview.org.

I want to, before we get back to the interview with our guest today, Cameron Beutel. He is a researcher and writer for Grace to You. And just to be full disclosure here, he works for an organization who is headed by John MacArthur.

John MacArthur was one of the signatories on the one of the signatories on the statement on social justice in the gospel. So anyway, we want you to know that. And we're talking about Tim Keller's response to that statement, and that he said that if somebody starts to go down it with me, the statement and says, would you agree with this? Would you agree with that? I would say you're looking at the level of what it says, what it says and not at the level of what it's doing.

And I do think that's what it's trying to do. And what it's really trying to say is, don't make this emphasis. Don't worry about the poor. Don't care about the injustice.

It's really not that important. That's what it is saying. Even if I could agree with most of it, I don't like it. It's what it's doing that I don't like.

And so what he's saying there is he understands the motives behind it. The document says none of those things. It doesn't say we don't care about the poor.

We don't care about injustice. It actually says some of the opposite of those things. But he's saying we're going to impugn the motives of those who write it. It's not what they're saying. It's what this document's doing.

And I know what it's doing, he's saying. Now that's called speech act theory. And I want to read from Wikipedia what just the general definition of speech act theory is.

Again, Wikipedia has a bias in it because people, regular people can just feel them. But this is a pretty, I think, straightforward definition of what speech act theory is. It says a speech act in linguistics and the philosophy of language is an utterance that has performative function in language and communication. According to a man named Kent Bach, quote, almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention. There is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience. For much of the history of linguistics and the positivist philosophy of language, language was viewed primarily as a way of making factual assertions.

And the other uses of language tended to be ignored. As Austin states at the beginning of one of his lectures, quote, it was for too long the assumption of philosophers that the business of a statement can only be to describe some state of affairs or to state some fact, which it must do either truly or falsely. A man named Wittgenstein came up with the idea of don't ask for the meaning, ask for the use, showing language as a new vehicle for social activity. Speech act theory hails from Wittgenstein's philosophical theories.

Wittgenstein believed meaning derives from pragmatic tradition, demonstrating the importance of how language is used to accomplish objectives with specific situations. By following rules to accomplish a goal, communication becomes a set of language games. Thus, utterances or writings do more than reflect a meaning.

They are words designed to get things done, unquote. That's what speech act theory is. You don't take a writer by just what they're saying and find the meaning of what the author intends. You look beyond that and try to define or understand what is the author trying to do with this? What's their motive behind this? So you can ascribe a positive or negative motive that's not clearly written. Sometimes motive is written, as we're going to get into this segment with Cameron Buell. But when a motive is written, actually in the statement on social justice, the motive is to, I can get into it later when I have a few more seconds to read it, but it gives a clear motive at the beginning of the introduction. But what Tim Keller is saying is that's not really the motive.

It's fine what it says, but what it's doing is what he doesn't like, he doesn't agree with. And so before the break, I was asking Cameron Buell about the first instance of someone using really this speech act theory and not taking God for what he actually told Adam and Eve. He said, you can have fruit from all the trees in the garden, but there's just one that I don't want you to eat from.

Otherwise, if you eat from it, you will die. And so when Satan comes to tempt Adam and Eve, what does he do? He doesn't take God at his word for what he says. He changes the words and then he impugns God's motive from the words he originally used Adam and Eve. Now to be clear, I'm not comparing Tim Keller to Satan. I'm just saying the linguistic methodology here is similar.

Let's get back to the second segment with Cameron Buell. So how is that an example, Cameron, of the reader or the hearer, in this case Satan, determining the meaning of the author's words, God's was the author, rather than finding the meaning of what God actually intended? Satan projects a motive onto God, which is untrue, and Eve falls prey to that trap. Forget what the plain meaning of the words is, concern yourself with why he said that.

And he's claiming that God said that because he knows that you'll become like him if you eat that fruit. Again, we see with Keller here, he's saying don't worry about what it says, worry about the motives behind those who said it. So does motive matter then? Should we be looking for an author's motive when we read something in Scripture or somewhere else? I do think motive matters.

This is some of the critics have tried to point out that words can be weaponized, David, and people can do things in a way that is intended to hurt. I'm not disputing that, but when we interpret something, when we look at motive, it helps to bring out further meaning in what is said. But another case we find is that words still have value apart from motive, and we see in Philippians chapter 1, where Paul talks about there were people who were preaching the Gospel with false motives, but Paul rejoiced that the Gospel was preached anyway. And there he is affirming value in the propositional content of the message, regardless of the motives behind those preaching it, that the Gospel still has value regardless of the fallen messenger who preaches it.

And that should be encouraging to all of us. But bottom line, words matter, and we have to deal with those words. That's why we see in Scripture, and that's the way the Church has dealt with it through history, through our creeds and confessions.

What are they? They're written statements of objective truth apart from how we feel about them. We are looking at what they actually say is what matters. That is the way the Church has done it throughout history. And Tim Keller is trying to project his own meaning onto this, and then condemn the statement, reject the statement, based on his own projected meaning. In the Bible, we don't guess motives when we're dealing with Scripture. We use the Scripture to help us understand the motives behind letters. I'm thinking of John's Gospel, where John explicitly states his motive at the end of the 20th chapter. He says, But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. It's important, when we read the Gospel of John, to consider John's motive, why he's writing it.

That helps us to understand the letter better. But again, we don't find that meaning by imagining it, or projecting it onto it. We find it in Scripture itself.

We should not go beyond that, and we should not go beyond what statements say, or what we can know about it. Okay, that was Cameron Beutel from Grace To You, and talking about Speech Act Theory with regards to Tim Keller's comments about the statement on social justice in the Gospel. Now, just a reminder that we actually have a resource right now that contains this statement on social justice in the Gospel that we would highly encourage you to get. It's the Social Justice booklet, we call it. It's Cal Beisner's.

We had him on recently. It's entitled Social Justice versus Biblical Justice, How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel. That's what the booklet's about, but it also includes, because Cal Beisner was a signer on the statement on social justice in the Gospel, it also includes that. They've revised it, made it new, and we have it for a donation of any amount to the Christian Real View.

It's 44 pages long, and we'd love to get you a copy, and if you even want to, to give to someone else, we'd be glad to have you do that too. So you can just get in contact with us the usual ways through our website, thechristianrealview.org, calling us at our office at 1-888-646-2233, or writing to us at Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. And that contact information is given at other times throughout the program. So back to the idea of impugning motive for when a different motive is stated.

That's exactly what's taking place here. The signers of this statement on social justice in the Gospel wrote their motive in the introduction. It's right there. They said specifically, they talked about, in view of questionable sociological, psychological, and political theories presently permeating our culture and making inroads into Christ's Church, we wish to clarify certain key Christian doctrines and ethical principles prescribed in God's Word. Clarity on these issues will fortify believers in churches to withstand an onslaught of dangerous and false teachings that threaten the Gospel, misrepresent Scripture, and lead people away from the grace of God in Jesus Christ. There it is, the first paragraph of the statement. It gives their motivation for writing this statement. But then Tim Keller comes along and is asked about it, and he says, no, no, that's not what it is. I can agree with the points in there. But what it's really trying to do is, according to him, quote, don't, what it's really trying to say is don't make this emphasis, don't worry about the poor, don't care about the injustice.

It's not really that important. That's what it's saying. That's Speech-Act Theory, ascribing a motive or a meaning to an author's words that he didn't say or didn't mean. When we come back from this next break, we're going to just flip the scenario a little bit. Tim Keller was using Speech-Act Theory on the statement on social justice and the Gospel. We're going to do just the opposite. He wrote a recent op-ed in the New York Times. We're going to look at two things. What does he mean in his op-ed? And then try to use Speech-Act Theory to define what he's trying to do through it. That's coming up next on The Christian World of You. I'm David Wheaton. In his DVD, The Death of Discernment, Mike Gendron uses this apt analogy from A.W.

Tozer. Red cells are like faith. They carry life-giving oxygen to every part of the body. White cells, on the other hand, are discernment.

They pounce upon dead and toxic matter and carry it out of the body. Each member in the body of Christ is a white blood cell. We need to identify doctrinal error and make sure it gets out of the body.

That's the only way that the body of Christ can remain strong. The Death of Discernment DVD contains two messages by Mike Gendron. You can order it for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview.

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Your email and mailing address will never be shared, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Call 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. Tim Keller and Speech Act Theory. That is the topic we're discussing today here on The Christian Worldview radio program.

I'm David Wheaton, the host. And just by the way, I wasn't the one who came up with Speech Act Theory. This is what Tim Keller referenced himself in that soundbite we played of his in the first segment of the program that was the basis for how he was evaluating the statement on social justice and the gospel. He used it.

And so now what we want to do is flip the scenario. Whereas Tim Keller was analyzing the statement on social justice and the gospel, not just according to what the authors of it are actually saying, trying to understand what they mean, the traditional way of understanding any kind of writing. You read words to understand what the author is saying, but then taking it beyond that to saying, what is the author trying to do?

What's his motive? Ascribing a motive to an author that may not be specifically listed, but it is listed in the statement on social justice and the gospel. I just mentioned that, but he comes up with his own, as we talked about in the first two segments, that they don't really care about these things.

It's doing something else than what they're actually saying it's doing. So now let's flip the scenario and let's read something that Tim Keller just recently wrote in the New York Times, in an opinion piece of the New York Times just recently in late September. And so I wanted to think about two things, the two things we've been discussing here as I'm reading just portions of the column.

The first thing to listen for is to try to understand what Tim Keller is actually saying. What is the meaning of the words? Secondly, let's just for the example of it, let's use speech act theory to try to understand what his column is trying to do. What is his motive for the column beyond what he's actually writing?

So what is he saying and what is he trying to do? Those are the two questions. Let's try to keep in mind as we read some samples from here of his column. The column is titled, How do Christians fit into the two-party system they don't? Subtitle, The historical Christian positions on social issues don't match up with contemporary political alignments. So trying to understand what he's saying there is that Christians shouldn't be wedded to one party or the other, Democrats or Republicans, because historical Christian positions on certain social issues, which he'll bring out in the column, they don't match up with one party or the other. Christians could go either way. That's what he's saying there, if I'm understanding him correctly. The first paragraph says, What should the role of Christians in politics be?

More people than ever are asking that question. Christians cannot pretend that they can transcend politics and simply, quote, preach the gospel. Those who avoid all political discussions and engagement are essentially casting a vote for the social status quo. American churches in the early 19th century that did not speak out against slavery because that was what we would now call getting political, were actually supporting slavery by doing so. To be political, to not be political, is to be political. Now, this is a little side there. I'm not sure I agree with all that.

That's his opinion. The Bible shows, he goes on to say, believers as holding important posts in pagan governments. Think of Joseph and Daniel in the Old Testament. Christians should be involved politically as a way of loving our neighbors, whether they believe as we do or not. To work for better public schools or for a justice system not weighted against the poor or to end racial segregation requires political engagement. Christians have done these things in the past and should continue to do so. So that's the first few paragraphs of his column. And just as an aside, not to do with what we're talking about, speech act theory, but where is the example of Christ and the apostles being engaged politically in their time? He says, you're compelled to do this.

I personally think you should be involved. We have the opportunity in America, but I don't see that command in scripture or in the example of Christ and the apostles, that they were engaged politically at all in their particular timeframe. What they did was preach the gospel. And I think the reason they did that is because repenting and believing the gospel is the most powerful means of societal change. When people's heart changes through conversion, regeneration, being born again, however you want to describe it, then their worldview changes and they start to live and act differently. They start to treat people with justice. They don't treat people based on the identity of their ethnicity.

They're better people because they're following the goodness of God. There are a number of reasons to insist on this. One is that it gives those considering the Christian faith the strong impression that to be converted they need not only to believe in Jesus, but also to become members of the, quote, fill-in-the-blank party. It confirms what many skeptics want to believe about religion, that it is merely one more voting bloc aiming for power. Another reason not to align the Christian faith with one party is that most political positions are not matters of biblical command but of practical wisdom. This does not mean that the church can never speak on social, economic, and political realities because the Bible often does. Racism is a sin, violating the second of the two great commandments of Jesus, to love your neighbor. The biblical commands to lift up the poor and to defend the rights of the oppressed are moral imperatives of four believers.

For individual Christians, to speak out against egregious violations of these moral requirements is not optional. However, there are many possible ways to help the poor. Should we shrink government and let private capital markets allocate resources?

Or should we expand the government and give the state more of the power to redistribute them or redistribute wealth? Or is the right path one of the many possibilities in between? The Bible does not give exact answers to these questions for every time, place, and culture. And now he moves to an anecdote. He says, I know of a man from Mississippi who was a conservative Republican and a traditional Presbyterian. He visited the Scottish highlands and found the churches there as strict and as orthodox as he has ever been. He was a Christian, and he orthodox as he had hoped. No one so much as turned on a television on a Sunday.

Everyone memorized catechisms and scripture. But one day he discovered that his Scottish Christian friends he admired were, in his view, socialists. Their understanding of government, economic policy, and the state's responsibility was by his light's very left wing, yet also grounded in their Christian convictions. He returned to the US, not more politically liberal, but in his words, humbled and chastened.

He realized that thoughtful Christians, all trying to obey God's call, could reasonably appear at different places on the political spectrum with loyalties to different political strategies. Just for a pause here, back to our questions we're asking by reading this column. What is Tim Keller saying in this article? What are the meanings of his words? What is the point he is making? And what is he trying to do? To use the speech act theory on it, what is he trying to do with this column?

I think it's probably pretty clear what he's trying to do, but we have one or two more paragraphs to get to. It goes on to say, another reason Christians these days cannot allow the church to be fully identified with any particular party is the problem of what the British ethicist James Mumford calls package deal ethics. Increasingly, political parties insist that you cannot work on one issue with them if you don't embrace all of their approved positions. This emphasis on package deals puts pressure on Christians in politics. For example, following both the Bible and the early church, Christians should be committed to racial justice and the poor, but also to the understanding that sex is only for marriage and for nurturing family. One of those views seems liberal and the other looks oppressively conservative. The historical Christian positions on social issues do not fit into contemporary political alignments. And I'll just point out one way the use of words here, that seeking racial justice and helping the poor, that's considered a liberal issue, but he says that understanding sex for marriage and for nurturing family, he describes it as oppressively Christian. That's perceived as oppressively Christian. It just hit me as an odd choice of words.

Why not just conservative, as he used no modifier with liberal? Jesus forbids us, he goes on to say, last paragraph, to withhold help from our neighbors, and this will inevitably require that we participate in political processes. If we experience exclusion and even persecution for doing so, we are assured that God is with us and that some will see our good deeds and glorify God.

If we are only offensive or only attractive to the world and not both, we can be sure we are failing to live as we ought. The gospel gives us the resources to love people who reject both our beliefs and us personally. Christians should think of how God rescued them. He did it not by taking power, but by coming to earth, losing power, losing glory and power, serving and dying on a cross. How did Jesus save? Not with a sword, but with nails in his hands. That was about 75% of the article by Tim Keller in the New York Times, and it's linked at our website, thechristianworldview.org.

You can read it for yourself. And just as a little point before we go to the break here, Jesus didn't lose, as he said, lose any power on the cross. He chose not to use it. Scripture said that he could have called legions of angels to have everyone killed and got himself out of the situation. He didn't lose power.

He chose not to use it. So the questions we had for this column were, what is Keller saying in this column? What is he actually saying, and what is he trying to do? What is the speech act theory that he applied to the social statement on justice, social justice, and the gospel?

What is he trying to do? Well, take your phone calls and have some concluding discussion after this final break of the day. The studio number is 1-877-655-6755.

That's 1-877-655-6755. More on speech act theory coming up next. Here's Mike Gendron previewing his DVD on apostasy. We'll see how apostasy is the result of Satan's relentless attacks on the church. We'll also look at four steps that characterize a church's drift into apostasy. Then we'll look at the history of the church, a chronological development of the Roman Catholic religion, and its drift into apostasy.

And lastly, and most importantly, what are you and I to do in the midst of this great apostasy and the growing ecumenical movement? The DVD is titled, Roman Catholicism's Drift into Apostasy, and contains two messages. You can order it for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview.

Normal retail is $15 plus shipping. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Social justice is a gospel issue. This has become the mantra of many evangelicals. Rectifying perceived inequities of race, gender, sexuality, poverty, immigration, amongst others, is considered a top priority. But what exactly is social justice? Is working for social justice a biblical mandate, an application of the gospel? Cal Beissner has written an insightful booklet entitled, Social Justice, How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel. Also included in this revised 44-page booklet is a copy of the just-released Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. You can order the Social Justice booklet for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. All right, final segment of the day here on The Christian Worldview and just want to wish my mother today is her 85th birthday and mom just so thankful to God for you that he's given you to us not only as our mother but has given you to us for so many years and we are so grateful and blessed because of that looking forward to spending part of the day with you.

So happy birthday to my mom. As we get into this last segment here talking about this issue of Tim Keller and speech act theory, we've just read an article from the New York Times that Keller wrote on how do Christians fit into the two-party system. They don't. He says the historical Christian positions on social issues don't match up with contemporary political alignments and so we read the article or most of it and you can read it. It's linked at our website thechristianworldview.org but we're trying to understand what is Keller saying in this article.

That's what we should try to be doing when we read anyone's words. What does the author mean by what they're saying and then we're going to do what Tim Keller did to the statement on social justice in the gospel, even though I don't think we should do this unless a motive is clearly written. We're going to try to find out what is he trying to do. What's his motive behind writing this article because he didn't write a clear motive in here for why he wrote this article. He's writing things about what he thinks Christians should how they should approach politics.

So the first thing is what is he trying to say? What is Tim Keller saying in this article? Well he said that Christians are first of all compelled, they should be, it's a command to be in politics. Now I don't see that in scripture. I think that we should be involved, Christians should be, when we have the opportunity in this great nation we live in but I don't see the command.

Where is that command in scripture? You know Joseph and Daniel, they were involved in the politics of their day but that doesn't mean every Christian needs to be involved in politics in the way they were or anywhere else. So I don't think there's biblical chapter and verse to say Christians must be involved in the political process. But what is Keller saying on some of the other issues? Basically I think what he's saying is the Democrat party are more biblical when it comes to issues of race, poverty, and justice. Well he says the Republican party is better known or better affiliated with issues of sexuality and gender and therefore Christians or evangelicals shouldn't be wedded to one party because there are issues in both parties that Christians can support.

I think that's what he's saying. That's, you know, going back you can look at all the examples he gave in this article. He talked about Christians being involved politically as a way of loving our neighbors. He says to work for better public schools or a justice system not weighted against the poor or to end racial segregation requires political engagement.

Notice the examples he's using. Better public schools, a justice system not weighted against the poor, ending racial segregations. Which political party tries to assign political requirements to the poor and tries to associate itself with the champion of those issues? Well the Democrat party does.

Look at the other further down. Racism is a sin, violating a second of the two great commandments to love your neighbor. The biblical commands to lift up the poor and to defend the rights of the oppressed are moral imperatives for believers.

Individual Christians want to speak out against egregious violations of these moral requirements against the poor. Again, which political party tries to say they are the champion of the poor and the rights of the oppressed? The Democrat party is the one that tries to do that.

Now I'm not saying that's true at all, but I'm just saying that's the insinuation here. That the Democrat party is more biblical when it comes to race, poverty, and issues of justice, while the Republicans are more known for, but they're considered to be oppressively conservative on sexuality and gender. So is it true that the Democrats are more biblical on race, poverty, and justice?

Well I would say definitely not. On the issue of race, everything they see turns people into seeing themselves as their primary identity of what their ethnicity or skin color is. I think it actually reduces people to consider themselves or to see everything.

It divides people to see each other and themselves through the identity of their skin color or ethnicity. On the issue of poverty, is the Democrat party better on that? They believe in basically taking through taxation, which is inherently coercive. Taxation is an incredibly powerful act if you think about it. You can legally take money from someone. That's a huge, powerful—it's not theft because it's not against the law. The law is on your side with the force of law in the background, the power of violence in the background, to say unless you pay your taxes or else you go to jail or worse. So taxation is a very, very powerful thing.

It's completely coercive. So the Democrat party says we're going to take money, tax people who are income producers, and we're going to give as much as we'd like to those who don't produce income who we consider to be needing it. Then you have to ask the question, is that good for people? Or what degree should we be doing that?

Is it more the better? Just give, give, give? Does that help people get them out of poverty? Or does that enslave them to the government?

Or are there variations of how that should be enacted? The third issue is on justice. He talks about issues of justice and people being the poor, being hurt in our society, and so forth. But I just want to point out one issue that you probably noticed that he didn't bring up anywhere in this column.

The one elephant issue in the room, which issue did he choose not to write about in this column, which is the greatest example of injustice in our society? Abortion. Did you notice that there was nothing about pro-life issue in this whole article?

He didn't say anything about conservatives or Republicans are generally associated more with pro-life. I mean, what greater injustice is there in life in life than not being able to, than having them being told or being forced to lose your life in the womb? There's no greater injustice than that.

Any other perceived injustice does not even compare to the injustice of having no say in losing your life, which is what abortion does. So we go from what is Keller saying to what he's trying to do. So if we use the speech act theory on this column, we would say, what is the motive behind why is he writing this column?

Well, I'll ascribe the motive. Now again, I don't know it for sure, but I'll just do what he did to the statement on social justice and the gospel. I'd say he's trying to move some Christians to vote Democrat in the upcoming election. He's saying that you don't need to be wedded to one party.

That's not the right thing to do. Christians can vote both ways and be legitimate and have a good conscience in doing so. Now, knowing that 81% of evangelicals voted for Trump for Republicans in 2016, the tone of his column isn't trying to get the other 19% to move the way of the Republican side.

No, he's trying to take some of that 81% and saying, look, don't be so wedded to one party. There are issues on the Democrat side that Christians can be fully supportive of. I mean, even look at the anecdote he used about the man from Mississippi, the conservative Presbyterian who went to the Scottish Highlands and discovered that those who had similar theology were very liberal.

They were socialists in their economic policies. Every anecdote, every example he used was on people on the right moving to the left. It makes me wonder whether this whole evangelical social justice movement is a means of softening evangelicals to depart from their support of more Republican politics. I'll leave you thinking about that question today. Thank you for joining us on the Christian worldview. You know, we do live in a changing and challenging world, but there is one thing we can always trust in and count on. Jesus Christ and his word are the standard and they are the same yesterday, today, and forever. Until next weekend, everyone think biblically and live accordingly. We hope today's broadcast turned your heart toward God, his word and his son. To order a CD copy of today's program or sign up for our free weekly email, or to find out how you can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, go to our website, theChristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233. The Christian worldview is a weekly one hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to theChristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233 or write to us at Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. That's Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian worldview. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.