Cultural Issues And Woke Christianity – With Dr. Michael Youssef – Woke Christianity is a widespread issue now in the church and must be addressed. Dr. Michael Youssef joins us to discuss this topic and his new book, “Hope For This Present Crisis: The Seven Step Path To Restoring A World Gone Made”.

Air Date: 04/05/2021

Guest: Dr. Michael Youssef

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

You find your way to the intersection of faith and the culture Welcome to WallBuilders Live where we take on the hot topics of the day, giving truth and courage, but through a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. That’s how you get those things. And our topics vary greatly, our guests vary greatly. We also have our Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs and Good News Friday programs. But thank you for being a part of it and joining us today.

I’m here with David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim Barton’s with us, national speaker, and pastor, and president of WallBuilders. My name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator, and America’s Constitution coach. And later in the program, Michael Youssef will be with us.

While you’re at our website, wallbuilderslive.com, you can get archives of the program. You can go into the map and see what stations we’re on across the country and find one close to you. But while you’re at the website, be sure and consider making that one-time or monthly contribution: it’s a great way to expand this truth and get it in as many hands as possible.

You know, David and Tim, a lot of people right now are frustrated about the country, and they want to do something, but they don’t know what to do. And so this program really does equip them with truth, and then it gives them action steps that they can do in their own community. So it’s a big part of saving our constitutional republic. So every time somebody comes along and donates with us, they’re coming alongside us, they’re locking shields with us, and they’re making it possible for more people to get, not just the encouragement, but the actual equipping to go make a difference.

David:

Yeah, we’re getting mail from across the nation, Rick, about how folks are saying, I didn’t know that, I went and did that and it’s made a difference. And so we’re seeing people apply things and really getting excited over being effective and being able to do some things or being able to take on folks and debates and discussions and have some information that the other folks didn’t know that they heard here. So we got lots and lots and lots of responses showing that people really appreciate that.

But at the same time, as you mentioned, this is kind of a rough time in the culture. We’ve already seen some 7,000 groups or individuals that have been deplatformed by big tech, because they don’t like their message. We do encourage people to come alongside and if you appreciate the information you get, help to support us, help to keep us on there, help to keep this moving, so that we don’t have to face that same kind of crack down and same kind of withdrawal of people hearing the message.

Rick:

Alright, well, Michael Youssef will be with us later in the program. And actually, what he’s going to be talking about is exactly what we just said that we do here on the program, that really acknowledgment of truth, and then giving people the courage to go act on what we should be doing as citizens, taking that biblical worldview and apply it. And Dr. Youssef, of course, a pastor, he’s got a large church there in Georgia, from Egypt actually, incredible life story. But he’s really addressed some of those major issues of the day, basically saying, look, the world’s gone crazy, what do we do about it?

Tim:

Yeah, guys, one of the articles that we saw in just the last couple of weeks was by Michael Youssef, and he was talking about how woke Christians, and woke Christianity was hurting the movement of the gospel, the movement of potentially the church in America…

David:

And I’m going to ask you to define woke Christianity, because that’s still a new term for a lot of people in the culture.

Tim:

Well, and yeah, so first of all, we can have a link to the article on our website today so people can go and see that. But woke Christianity are people that are embracing the cultural trends as opposed to the Word of God, whether it be with gender, or human sexuality, things that the culture says, well, this is right, and a lot of Christians are saying, okay, so… And actually, Michael Youssef makes this point is that there are schools in Atlanta where there are little white boys who are being made to apologize to black kids, because these little white kids are racist. And he says, what have they done? They’re children, they were playing together in the playground.

But this is where you have pastors embracing ideology that is a Marxist ideology, whether it be from critical race theory, or critical theory in general. We can go down the list of these things. So woke, “whether it be Christianity or just woke in general”, so woke is a new embracing, an embracing of this new ideology. And maybe it’s, because there’s been an awakening, that you are now woken up, right, you are woke you now see the truth that you didn’t see before. And so this is one of the challenges that we are seeing inside of Christianity. ‘

And actually, after I read the article, we shared it around our staff, we shared it with a lot of people, in the article he talks about, he outlines, it’s in his book, and I thought, okay, then I got to get the book. So I got his book, I listened to on Audible’s one afternoon and I’ve shared it with so many pastor friends saying guys, he is so on point with what he’s talking about. And in the midst of him addressing the challenge of with culture inside of Christianity, inside of the church, the title of the book is “Hope for This Present Crisis”, because he identifies, obviously, we’re in a crisis, but there is hope in this crisis. There is hope that if we go back to the biblical truth of the Word of God, and we know that God’s ways work, we just have to get back to doing what God says.

And he goes through seven different topics or seven areas where we are seeing crisis in culture, whether it be with families or in education or with freedoms or inside the church, he goes through seven things, and says, here’s where we’re seeing problems, but here’s where the Word of God can bring restoration. And there is hope that if we do things God’s way, it will work and be effective.

And guys, as soon as we read the article, as soon as we went through the book, we said we need to get him on, because he is on point with the battles that we are seeing inside of the church in America, inside of the idea of truth or Christianity in general in America. And this is a very noted Christian leader who is speaking out. When you have a mega church pastor speaking out about some of these major issues, this is a really good win for culture, for Christianity in America. And so it was so exciting to have Dr. Michael Youssef on to be able to talk about some of these cultural issues.

Rick:

Dr. Michael Youssef with us when we return; you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

BREAK

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. As the American war for independence began, the president of Yale was the Reverend Naftali Daggett. When New Haven, the home of Yale came under attack, about 100 citizens rushed out to meet the British, the Reverend Daggett gout by them on horseback, his clerical robes flowing behind him in the wind, and he took up a solitary position atop a hill.

The 2500 British soon put the townsfolk to flight. But the Reverend Daggett continued to stand alone, firing down on the advancing troops. A British officer confronted him, “What are you doing there, you old fool, if I let you go, will you ever fire again on the troops of His Majesty?” “Nothing more likely” was the preachers reply. America’s early pastors personally confronted danger and courageously led their communities.

For more information on Pastor Daggett and other colonial patriots, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Great to have back Dr. Michael Youssef. Always good to have you, brother. Thanks for some time today.

Michael:

Thank you, Rick, good to be with you and with all your listeners.

Rick:

Well, you are hitting once again a very hot topic condemning woke culture, your new book. Man, this is so needed in the church, outside the church, throughout the country. But certainly, from a biblical perspective, what made you decide to address this very hot topic?

Michael:

Well, I mean, it’s become beyond ludicrous. I mean, I understand, not really, but I try to understand, in the pagan culture with atheists and so forth, they fall for a Marxist ideology of dividing people by race and by sex and so on. But then when it invades the church, and I’m not talking about, I mean, this is the Evangelical Church now, I have been part of the mainline denominations, 30 plus years, 35 years ago I left and I fought those wars and those battles there. And I never thought they will come to the evangelical junction today.

So many megachurch, pastors, evangelical pastors are preaching woke culture and the cancel culture and even preaching this victims and victimized and oppressed and oppressors, and this so called social justice, and many of them are really jumping at it, because it’s just a bandwagon, but they don’t really understand the Marxist antecedent of all of this stuff that’s going on. And the judgment, the Bible said, has to start in the household of God. So I am pleading with fasters and young pastors, the old pastors, anybody, elite church leaders to wake up and realize that all of this is falsehood, then there’re just they’re all designed by the devil to take our eyes and our attention from Jesus who is the one we need to be preaching.

Rick:

Yeah. Yeah. And it seems what a crafty tool the enemy is used here because the church seems to think or so many of these pastors and the congregation seem to think they’re being compassionate, this shallowness of thinking that they are actually loving people and being compassionate based on lies that they’re living a lie, and yet they feel like they’re loving people.

Michael:

Well, they’re not really loving people. To be truthful, they’re loving themselves. They really want to be popular. They want to be liked. And I hate to be Judge of motives. But in reality, if you listen carefully to some of them, they said, hey, I just don’t want to offend people. I don’t want people leave the church. And so if the kids are into this and the parents don’t know how to deal with it, so I just go along with it and try to kind of baptize it into the church and give it a theological color.

But then reality is falsehood that has sneaked into the church. Because, I mean, we know Satan appears as an angel of light, and if he’s ever done that, throughout history, he’s certainly doing it very, very cleverly today. And that is why we need to say like the Apostle Paul, of his devices, we’re not ignorant, that we need to be alert as to the tricks that he is playing on our next generation. And we have a very intentionally trying to train the next generation in our church to understand what they’re up against. And every church need to do that. Every pastor need to talk about these things openly, they need to show them where the falsehood lies. And if people get upset and leave, well, God bless him.

Rick:

Amen. Wow. You just cut through, I mean, sliced through the fog. It’s not even just that they are thinking that they’re loving people, it’s a selfie, it’s actually, wanting to be loved, wanting to be liked, wanting to be popular.

Michael:

Exactly. It is their popularity that they’re really after. And unfortunately, this is a very slippery slope. If you want to be liked, well, you know, where did Jesus is going to fit in? And the problem is the Holy Spirit can be grieved, and can be quenched. And he can depart from a church. And he can depart from a pastor. As we’ve seen I mean, it’s mind boggling, every week, literally, some pastor apologize for preaching the gospel and the pastors apologize for teaching the biblical truth in the past. I mean, some pastors even turning their back completely on the face.

So we are really in a very, very serious and dangerous times. And that is why I felt that at least as a person, who was born in Africa, who have experienced the world as I have been around the world 66 times, I’ve felt God was telling me, I am the one to write this book, “Hope for This Present Crisis”, because it is a crisis. And it’s a crisis that has invaded the church with vengeance, and those where I present seven areas of hope, and how to go about bringing those seven things into the home, into the church, into Christian education. In fact, all those seven items are book and them, the first is the truth on one end, and the church on the other. But you have to begin with the truth because the crisis we’re facing is a crisis of the truth.

Rick:

It is, without question. “Hope for This Present Crisis: The Seven-Step Path to Restoring a World Gone Mad” That’s the name of the book. You hit it head on, in terms of even the Marxist ideology, and how I mean, people are buying this lie of oppression that simply does not exist in our culture today to the extent certainly, that they’re saying. And you’re telling people, look, you’ve got to see past that and look at the truth. What do you say to that young person out there that says, well, you know, America is evil because of racism and slavery, and I’m just trying to correct that and love on people?

Michael:

Well, slavery is long, long, long, long time ago. And if anybody who has really liberated and change this whole horrible thing called slave trading, is a Christian man who has stood up on the Bible and on the authority of the Word of God and for 23 years, he became alienated from his own family, from his own colleagues and friends. I’m talking about William Wilberforce who single handedly, because of his biblical conviction and the encouragement of evangelist John Wesley, he single handedly decimated slave trading.

And so it is the gospel that liberates people. It’s the gospel that changes things. Not Antifa and all these kind of losers I’m talking about. And that’s why we need more William Wilberforce today who, saying, look, we have absolutely apparent about what had happened in the past, but that’s the past we, we now have equality in everywhere. We have billionaires who’re African Americans and we have president who is an African American, and dwelling in the past and dredging the past, it doesn’t mean that discrimination and racism, it’s in the heart, it’s the question of the heart.

I’ve been living in this country 42 years, as I told you, I was born in Africa, and I’ve been here 43 years. And to be quite honest, this whole issue of racism has been, it goes up and down and up and down, it’s seasons, seasons with the item that comes in and somebody stirs it up, and we talk about it again. But let’s be realistic and realize what has happened and what can happen. But only the gospel of Jesus Christ will change the heart of a man or woman, young or old, it doesn’t matter. That will change the heart of the person to love the individual, whether they are of the same skin color or not. That has nothing to do with it.

Rick:

Yeah, and it’s one thing to, you know, if you’ve been racist, and you’re convicted of your sin, that’s one thing. But man, we have people that haven’t been racist, and yet are apologizing for their whiteness and for racism when they weren’t even part of the problem. I mean…

Michael:

Little kids in school here in Georgia, I mean, white kids lined up to apologize to the black kids in the school. And I mean, they normally play together, they don’t even think about black and white, they kids are very, and now they’re begin to say well, go home and why did I apologize? What did I do? And this the whole thing is just deceptive, deceptive, deceptive.

Rick:

And you talk about the fact that as the pulpit goes, so goes the Pew, as the pew goes, so goes to culture. That’s something that you’ve preached for a long time.

Michael:

Absolutely.

Rick:

How is that now? You know, is the pulpit not doing its job or is it actually leading us the wrong direction too often in the church today?

Michael:

Sure, you know, when you preach falsehood for so long, people are going to accept it as a truth. And so many young people that I meet and talk with and they will say, but that is not the real… I said no, that is not the real thing. And I’ve tried to put them straight, but only one person. And the book, “Hope for This Present Crisis” is really a book for high school students, for college students. I want the younger generation as well as the moms and dads to read it, and in fact, they should study it together with their families. Because I mean, there’s nothing there that is not on the news, all the crisis, all the issues, I deal with them, and then I come at the end and show where that hope plays and how to go about this hope in the present crisis. Because without hope, we’re all doomed. And we can sit down and wring our hands and so start cursing the darkness and I curse of darkness too, but I love to light the candle.

Rick:

I love that. “Hope for This Present Crisis”. And that’s a perfect title. Because not only do you have this deception that is from the critical race theory, but then because we’re seeing so much of that deception, others are then just getting depressed and saying, we’ve lost the whole culture. And so you’re addressing both those things to say, this is not a time to recede, and it’s not a time to pull back from the culture, this is a time to lean in with truth.

Michael:

Absolutely. And we need to engage the culture. And we need to say, okay, tell me where you got these facts? What facts? I mean, you’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts. As the facts show that Howard Zinn, when he wrote that book, many years ago, we thought it would stay in academia, I mean, we’ve known about it in academia when I was part of the university here at Emory University in Georgia. Howard Zinn’s book “The History of the American People”, it’s literally that it’s a false history, it’s a false narrative to say, this is American history. No, it is not. It’s wrong. And I’m as an immigrant, I can tell you it’s wrong.

But people who are born here, and they just feel really guilty because of they’re privileged and they don’t realize that their parents work their life, and sweat and blood to give them what they have. And instead of working hard, and give away to help other people, I tell people, I said, we have social justice in the Bible. It’s in the Bible. And it’s in 1 Timothy 6, command the rich of this age not to be deceived by the riches, but to give it away, to share it. And we are commanded to share and commanded to give. But voluntarily, not for somebody come and put a gun to your head and take it away from you, as I have experienced growing up in Egypt in the first 18 years of my life.

I mean, when socialism came into the country, it was they took a country that back in the 30s and 40s literally used to be the bread basket and made it a basket game. Socialism never worked anywhere. And so they want to bring it in, the churches says oh, yeah, yeah, we need the government to help the poor. No, you don’t. The church is the one who help the poor, we the believers are supposed to help the poor, not the government. Government can never do a good job doing anything, to begin with, let alone really care for the poor.

Rick:

That’s right. That’s right. “Hope for This Present Crisis: The Seven-Step Path to Restoring a World Gone Mad”. Dr. Youssef, one more question for you. You talk about the Roman Empire fell in one generation. I remember having Rabbi Daniel Lapin on a year ago talking about the 250 year cycle. And we’re approaching that in America. When you have hope for America, do you believe that restoring these biblical principles can restore our nation and break that cycle?

Michael:

There can be no question, we’ve noticed from history, it’s happened again and again. In fact, before the first Great Awakening, America was in deep trouble, and God brought that awakening and turn things around. And then the second Great Awakening, just a layman really in New York started a prayer meeting 170 years ago, and we had the second Great Awakening before the Civil War.

And so what I’m saying is that God can still do that, but it’s going to take God’s people to rise up in prayer, but rise up in action as well. And instead of sitting home and say, well, the election is rigged, I’m not going to vote. Now, that is absolutely the defeatist attitude that some people have taken and we ended up with people who are absolutely committed to the destruction of our biblical history and historical foundation of this nation. And so we’ve got to start educating even politicians, they need to be educated.

Rick:

Yeah, absolutely, this book absolutely, it’s going to teach people how to stand up to the attacks on our faith to defend Christianity. The Seven-Steps, real quick: remember the truth, restore the soul, revitalize the family, reestablish the classroom, respect our freedoms, reform our society, and revive the church. Dr. Michael Youssef, this is such a timely book for such a time as this. “Hope for This Present Crisis: The Seven-Step Path to Restoring a World Gone Mad”. Thank you so much for your time today, sir.

Michael:

My pleasure, Rick, thank you for having me.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

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Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the wall builders guys to come to my area, and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school, or public school, or some political event or activity.

If you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.wallbuilders.com and there’s a tab for scheduling. And if you’ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers BIOs to events that are already going on. And there’s a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms, go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. And thanks to Dr. Michael Youssef for joining us today. Be sure to check out his new book, you can get it work on anywhere books are sold. You can get it it’s called “Hope for This Present Crisis: The Seven-Step Path to Restoring a World Gone Mad”. You can get, by the way, also available on Audible, Tim, that’s how you listen to it, right, you enjoyed it on Audible?

Tim:

I did. And I really appreciate listening to books on Audible because I can speed them up, so that I can get through more content faster. So I’ve really loved being able to get through more content faster. And I loved it. The challenge of being on Audible is you can’t take notes as easily. And there were so many moments I thought, oh my goodness, I need to write this down. And so that is the challenge you run into, and so I have notes on my phone.

But as he goes through the book, and he identifies the seven battles that we are dealing with in culture, whether it be with truth, the soul of the individual, or the family or inside the classroom, the freedoms we have in America, our society in general needing reformation and inside the church, as he goes through the seven things, he identifies the challenge that we are facing, but then he presents the fact that the Bible gives us the answer for all of these things. But if America and specifically, Christians in general, if they don’t recognize there’s a crisis, they will not try to bring the answer, the reformation that is needed to solve those problems.

So the first thing you have to do before you can solve a problem is identify there is a problem. And this is what he has done so well on this book is identify there are some major problems. America is in a crisis. If you look inside of Christianity, look inside the classroom, you look inside the attack on our freedoms and in our society in general, the culture that we have, he goes through these seven things and I would encourage this book for every Christian to read because it is such a good foundation look at the battles we are facing. But then what we can do on a very practical level, as parents right now what you can do for your kids for their education in their school board and their school district, inside of the church, it’s such practical information that’s so beneficial. Would highly encourage and recommend this book.

Rick:

Alright title of the book again, “Hope for This Present Crisis: The Seven-Step Path to Restoring a World Gone Mad” by Dr. Michael Youssef. Thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to visit our website today wallbuilderslive.com, we got a lot of other great interviews there, our Foundation of Freedom Thursday programs, Good News Friday programs. You can access all of that at the website, wallbuilderslive.com.

And while you’re there, as we said at the beginning of the program, please consider coming alongside us, you can lock shields with us and be a part of the solution. A lot of people wondering what to do, you can help equip them to make a difference in the culture. And one of the things to do, if we’re going to give of our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, one of the things to do is to donate to good causes out there, help to fund this kind of good information so that we can speak that truth with an even louder voice.

Tim, we’re reaching a lot of people on these stations and with the podcast and the different ways we train pastors and young people and, you know, legislators even, so those donations go into a lot of different areas that help to save our culture.

Tim:

It does. And this is something that the Bible teaches that you want to sow into good soil. And this is something looking at what we are involved in, looking at the things that we invest in, we would certainly believe that WallBuilders is good soil. So if you want to make a difference, go to wallbuilderslive.com, click on that Donate button. You can make a difference. We’ll see you tomorrow.

Rick:

Thanks for listening, folks. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.