This week, Sean and guest co-host Thaddeus Williams discuss:

  • Kanye West's Controversial Statements on Faith: Kanye West, now known as Ye, expressed disillusionment with Jesus in a recent interview, questioning the efficacy of prayer and Christian support. He controversially declared himself as "the God of me," sparking discussions on the nature of faith, idolatry, and self-sovereignty.
  • Artificial Intelligence and Resurrection: Using artificial intelligence to "resurrect" the dead through digital simulations. This technology, known as ghost bots or death bots, allows for virtual interactions with deceased loved ones, raising questions about healthy grieving processes and the theological implications of seeking reunion beyond death.
  • The University of Florida's Departure from DEI Initiatives: The University of Florida announced the closure of its Office of the Chief Diversity Officer and the elimination of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) focused positions, sparking a conversation on the effectiveness and intentions behind DEI programs. Sean & Thaddeus explore the biblical perspective on diversity and unity, questioning whether current DEI initiatives align with Christian values and what a biblical approach to diversity might look like.
  • Listener Question: Family planning with a non-Christian spouse.
  • Listener Question: Bearing God's image and how perpetuated evil impacts one's humanity.



Episode Transcript

Sean: Kanye West says Jesus did not answer his prayers and calls himself God. Bringing back the dead through artificial intelligence. The University of Florida abandons its DEI office that is diversity, equity and inclusion. These are the stories we'll discuss today and we'll address some of your questions. I'm your host, Sean McDowell, along with special co-host today, Biola Professor and author, Thaddeus Williams. This is the Think Biblically Weekly Cultural Update brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Thadd, it's super fun to have you on. First time, we're gonna have you back assuming you don't drop the ball. (both laughing) Just kidding, you know I'm giving you a hard time. But we got some fascinating stories. You actually sent this one to me as we prep for this week. So, I wanna get to your thoughts, but let me lay out for folks a little bit what happened.

So Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, did an interview just this past week about a new kind of number one hit and musical success that he's had. Basically, as I listened to the whole interview, I don't know any other way to frame it then. It was kind of him giving the middle finger to everybody who questioned and doubted him, called him anti-Semitic, said he had mental health problems, couldn't be successful. He came out swinging. Now within that interview, by the way, folks can go listen to it, but I didn't count. There's probably 200 F-bombs in this, incredibly crude. So you have been warned. But in the middle of it, he said a few things about his faith that are important, because not long ago, he came out as a Jesus follower, did a gospel-based album, and a lot of Christians got excited about this. So here's some of the things that he said in the interview. He said, "I have my issues with Jesus. There's a lot of stuff I went through that I prayed, and I didn't see Jesus show up." He also said, "The main thing I really don't rock with about Christianity and Christians, is it's always just like, I'm going to pray for you, but you can actually physically do something yourself too," he said. Two more comments. He said, "I'm God, and anyone to disagree, I'm the God of me, and you can't tell me who I am. I'm the God of me. I don't know if I'm in heaven already." Now, in fairness, I don't think he's saying he's Yahweh, but I think he's saying he has supernatural powers and is the authority of his life, and no one's going to tell him how he can live his life and what he does. I think that was his point. Last thing I don't want you to weigh in, and there's so much to talk about here, is he says, "Another thing I don't like in Christianity, the fear of God," he says. "If God is love, why should you fear him?" Give me some of your thoughts and impressions on this.

Thad: Yeah, I mean, the first thing that jumps to my mind when I read this story, and I remember when Jesus' King dropped, walking into the halls of Talbot East and hearing from at least three or four different professors' offices, those beats dropping. So many of us were fans. There's some powerful songs on that album where you get a sense, almost like Nebuchadnezzar's realization in the book of Daniel, that trying to be his own sovereign Lord, pretending he was the God of his own little universe, the king of his kingdom, and he goes off the rails into insanity, and then he gets restored with a sense of all dominion is God's dominion. No one can stop his hand, his dominion is everlasting. And so, that's the way that original Jesus is King album landed for many of us is, wow, Kanye, who's got a long history of megalomania, of an over-exaggerated self-image, is finally bowing the knee, and that seems encouraging. So it was a little discouraging to read the headline, but the first passage that comes to mind for me is in Titus 3:8, where Paul, under the spirit's inspiration, says, "This is a trustworthy saying, "and I want you to stress these things "so that those who have trusted in God "may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good." Doing what is good. This is a running theme throughout the Old and New Testaments. Part of what Kanye is putting his finger on is, there can be, and I think we would both, we've witnessed this in the Christian subculture, a tendency to say, "Pray for you, bro," and then that gives me an out from having to lift a finger, where scripture is saying, "It's a both and." Yes, praying continually is a biblical command, not suggestion, but it's followed through with, you know, "Get off your butt and help where you can." So I thought that was a good insight, actually, from Kanye, I understand some of his frustrations there. I think where he goes from there to this, "I am God Declaration," and I agree, I don't think he means it, literally, but that jumps off the page to me because I just, a few months ago had my, "Don't Follow Your Heart" book release, where I argued that that idea of, "I get to be my own sovereign meaning maker. "I get to be king of my own castle, captain of my own soul." It sounds so liberating, it sounds so edgy, but at the end of the day, it is the most old-fashioned, out-of-date lie, literally, in the book. And so I argue, I think you remember from the book, I know you went through it with some of your students, the serpent's original temptation, "You will be like God, knowing good and evil," is ancient Hebrew shorthand for, "You can be your own functional deity." And I think what we see happening in the culture around us, that's taking the serpent up on that offer, like, sadly, Kanye seems to in some of those quotes, "I am God, I'm creating my own reality," the net result of that is, psychological, spiritual devastation, because we weren't ever intended to be our own sovereign lords.

Sean: That's right.

Thad: There's something soul-crushing about putting all that infinite pressure on ourselves, which goes to the final point, when Kanye says he struggles with this concept of the fear of the Lord. What he misses here is it's so freeing to have what the Hebrew Bible would call yerah, fear, reverence, to be awestruck at God. Scripture tells us that's where wisdom starts. Scripture connects yerah, fear of the Lord, with delight, with pleasure, with purpose. And so Kanye seems to just ice a cheat or read into the text, this trembling, cowering kind of a fear, versus in a biblical context, it is this sense of awe-inspiring reverence at the size of God. And when you have that, again, it's one of the most freeing experiences because I'm letting the creator be the creator, and I'm as a creature being authentically who I am as a creature by not pretending I run the universe. Did you have any thoughts that jumped out the page from the Kanye interview for you?

Sean: That's such a good response. So, I called my son, who's a student at Biola, he's 19, and he's a shoe guy, he sold Yeezys in the past, Kanye's shoe he used to have with Adidas, listens to his album. I said, "Buddy, give me your response to this." And he goes, "Dad, I'm just really sad." I said, "Tell me why." He said, "When Kanye became a Christian, it cost him his marriage and it cost him a lot." He goes, "But I don't know if he ever understood or knew the gospel in the first place, that this is often a part of what it means to be a Christian. God doesn't promise he's going to answer all of our prayers in the way we want them answered." And so, this sense of sadness, he goes, "Dad, I don't know if he really knew the gospel." And I thought that's a fair question, of course only God knows. But when he says, "There's a lot of stuff I prayed for Jesus and he didn't show up," some of that is a lament, right? Read the Psalms, read the book of Lamentations. There's a place for people to say, "God, you didn't show up, you're not answering my prayers." That's a kind of prayer that has space within the Judeo-Christian tradition. So that's a very Christian kind of thing to say. But with that said, I don't know what Kanye is praying for. I don't know what he's asking for. I wonder if he has an unbiblical view of the nature of prayer that's often taught so many times in churches. And so Jesus didn't answer the way based on his expectations of bad theology. And so he's upset with Jesus. And yet we're never promised that. That's one question that I would have. I also, in some ways I look at the story and I think it's a commentary on the church. Like I celebrate when he became a Christian, I was like, "Wow, you know, one sense, if God can save Kanye given where he's been through, he can save anybody." But I also think sometimes we just start celebrating and we put him on stage and we hold him up as a hero and we value that more than we do just any non-famous, non-powerful person who converts, who God celebrates just as much, makes me wonder how much we're playing by the script of the world as opposed to the script of scripture, which says leave the 99 for the one. So just yesterday, I was speaking with a former megachurch pastor and he told me, he goes, "I became a Christian at 20, with a broken background. At 24, because I was charismatic, they put me on stage. I was preaching every week to 5,000 people." And I thought, what are we doing? Because someone's charismatic because they can help us build and grow in the way of the world. We are quick to jump on that train. So I wish we could step back and just say, "Kanye, we don't wanna use you for anything. We just wanna love you, disciple you, stand by you, walk through with you." Now, whether that would change things or not, I don't know. But sometimes I just wanna say, let's slow down and let's make sure we're not following the script of the world and we're sticking with scripture. So any last thoughts on this?

Thad: Yeah, let me add one final thought here. You're absolutely right to put your finger on. There is this perverse connection between Christian culture and broader celebrity culture. I've seen plenty of cases that you got a big name, you got saved, there's the microphone.

Sean: Yup.

Thad: And so there's that side of the coin, but if you flip it over, there's also a sense that if you turn from us, if you don't stick to the script, you will become a casualty of the culture war. We will turn on you faster than you can blink. And so I just wanna, to our audience out there, echo some of what you said, to love on him. And if anybody's listening right now, take 30 seconds and lift up the soul of an image bearer of God named Kanye West that the Holy Spirit would do regenerating work in him, that the Holy Spirit would draw him to saving faith in Christ. I think so often we're conditioned by the culture war mindset, that we're trained to see people who maybe leave our troop or leave our side of the battle front as well, now they're the enemy, we gotta get them in our crosshairs. It's like, let's pray for these folks and leave that in the hands of a sovereign God. And then one final, final thought. I thought it was very helpful when you said, man, look at the Psalms, all the struggles with unanswered prayer. Think of where you are, God, Psalm. Psalms like Psalm 88. Darkness is where my closest friend is where the Psalm ends. There's an entire book of the Bible called Lamentations—the whole thing is lament. And so I think if Kanye, and not just him, but many people who have felt that discouragement with God or disappointment with God, had another category to process through that. So it's not either I'm all in and I'm overjoyed and God seems to be answering every prayer exactly how I want it to be answered, or I'm some kind of apostate, I've fallen away, I'm outside of the faith. For people to see it, man, it's not so black and white. There's this biblical gray area in between where I can barely think of a Christian in scripture who didn't have those experiences of disappointment with God is part and parcel of an ongoing relationship with a being whose infinitely smarter and more sovereign than we are.

Sean: Well said, good stuff. Well, let's move to this next story. Interestingly enough, Kanye is a part of it. We did not plan it this way. And in part, I picked this story because Easter's coming up. And here's what the story says. The title in this article is, "Ghostbots is Resurrection of the Dead Through AI, a Healthy or Haunting Experience. Know what the research suggests." Now, here's what's going on. They say, "Resurrection of the dead is now possible through artificial intelligence." Now, they don't mean literally physically bringing back the dead. I teach a class on the resurrection in our apologetics program, and always make a distinction between like revivification, reincarnation, and somebody coming back to this body and dying again. They don't actually mean physical resurrection like we see in the scripture. What they mean is this is referred to as ghostbots, deathbots, griefbots, et cetera. And the idea is that you take words from somebody, a short video, an email, plug it into artificial intelligence, and then a video can be created of this person talking or dancing as if they're really there in the present. So, what's crazy about this with artificial intelligence is now you could actually take somebody who maybe passed away at five, tell what they looked like at seven and 20 and 30 and 40, and be able to age with them as if that person is going with you through time. And I just saw this morning with artificial intelligence that we now have these kinds of automated responses that businesses can use kind of for customer service that are becoming increasingly impossible to tell with voice inflection and the beautiful responses, so to speak, whether you're really talking to a person or not. So they described this scene from "Avengers: Endgame." You know with me, it is always gonna come back to basketball or superheroes. And there's a conversation in which Pepper Potts and her daughter, Morgan Stark, the son of Tony Stark, watch an AI recording of Tony Stark playing from the helmet of the superhero's final Iron Man suit. He had recorded a message for his wife and daughter before dying as a martyr in the battle against Thanos. Now, of course, he really recorded this. Artificial intelligence is a part of it, but now you could create all sorts of conversations with somebody as if they are there talking to you, looking and sounding like that person. So, on Kim Kardashian's 40th birthday when Kanye was, when they were still together, he gifted her with a hologram of her deceased father, Robert Kardashian, speaking to her. I mean, just let that sink in. And then more recently, just last year, Taiwanese entertainer, Tino Bao, posted on Facebook a video of his daughter who had passed away two years earlier at 22. He used AI to create a video in which her digital version was seen dancing. Now those people have more money and resources than you and I do, but this technology is coming. So, pretty soon someone can just type in and a video pops up as if that person has been resurrected. Do you have concerns? Are you encouraged by this? Give me your thoughts as you see the story emerging.

Thad: Yeah, that's fascinating. I mean, one of the thoughts that pops into my head is it would be really cool to have an AI-generated Charles Spurgeon hologram preaching in my living room, you know, or getting to hang out with Francis Schaeffer, have an AI CS Lewis sitting there puffing—

Sean: Or the Apostle Paul, right? Or Jesus, literally. I mean, seriously.

Thad: Imagine that. So, when I hear stories like this of things that seem novel, strange uses of technology, I wanna ask the question, what deeply human need, what existential itch is this scratching? Because there is a real itch, a real desire, a real drive underneath this use of technology. And is that technology seeking to scratch the itch in a way that's compatible with how the God of the Bible would scratch the existential itch? And you see this, so what is the need here? I would say it's seeking to meet the need for reunion, the need to transcend the powers of death, the separation that death causes. But when you seek to meet that apart from God, obviously it leads to disillusionment, unfulfillment, and destruction. So the need here is, you're correct, Sean, to connect it to Easter, this just right around the corner. This is a need God cares about, the need for reunion, the need to transcend, to overpower, to overcome death. Man, we're talking about the heart of the gospel here. God declared what John Owen called the death of death in the death of Christ. And so one of the great resurrection hopes, one of the great Easter hopes that defines the people of God throughout the New Testament, throughout the New Covenant, is that hope of future reunion with your actual departed loved one who dies in Christ, not some cheap hologram of them. Like think of, you bring it back to superhero movies. For me, it almost always goes back to a Christopher Nolan movie. I love Christopher Nolan, I think he's just a genius. His movie “Inception,” spoiler alert, has the character Molly, who is Leo DiCaprio's departed wife, and not the real her, but a dream version of her keeps popping up in all these layers of the dream world. And there's a powerful line at the end where he confronts this projected version of his lost wife and says, "You're just not good enough. You can't capture the beauty in the nuances. You're just a cheap idol of the real thing." And so the resurrection hope in Christianity tells us we don't have to settle for the cheap hologram or the product of wish fulfillment. There is real reunion possible through the cross’s work and through the empty tomb of Jesus. So, just one more thought on this in terms of the church's role in scratching that existential itch, the need to transcend death, the need for reunion and resurrection. My wife and I have been going through some of Paul's shorter letters recently, and we hit on 1 Timothy, this whole section on the care of widows, which is a recurring theme. Even the book of James, right, says, this is true religion to care for widows and orphans. Why are these people pushed to the front of the line so often in Scripture? Because they're dealing with the same loss that this AI technology is trying to compensate for. The widow has lost her husband and the orphan has lost his or her parents. And so, there's a sense that part of meeting that need to hear before the bodily resurrection and the new heavens and the new earth is Christians stepping up, finding the lonely, finding the grieving in being a physical presence, not a hologram, not a AI-generated presence, but being an embodied presence around people who are in a state of grief to help them as we await the full effect of Jesus' resurrection in the new heavens and the new earth. So, there's a few of my thoughts.

Sean: Oh, yeah. Those are great, super helpful. I love that you approach it positively 'cause it's easy as Christians to be negative and be critical. Now, any technology can be used for good, but it also can be twisted for sin. So you mentioned the movie "Inception." There's also, people haven't seen it, Leonardo Capra and his team go into a dream and sometimes a dream within a dream, and their goal is to find people's deep-seated beliefs and then change their beliefs, because if they change their beliefs, then they're able to completely change their perspective on life and hence their actions. I started looking at this technology thinking, what if we could resurrect, and I use that with scare quotes, somebody with misleading information that's not true. They could literally change somebody's perspective of themselves and their life and their choices because it's increasingly hard to know what is fact and what is fiction. So, it could be manipulated in such a powerful way, like in "Inception," to quite literally change the trajectory of somebody's life. That's one concern that I have. This article really brings out some fascinating things. It talks about how there's already research on this stuff that ghost bots by the bereaved to interact with the deceased is not a healthy coping mechanism. So they make a distinction between saying, and I'd be open to this, in a controlled environment with a professional psychologist and with truth that's embedded, at times could you use technology like this for healing? Well, maybe it could be a piece of it. I don't wanna rule that out, but to rely upon this, they said it can become addicting, is not a healthy coping mechanism the way we're meant to deal with death. So this technology can actually keep us from grieving and moving on in a healthy fashion. That's a concern that this article raised. Yeah, they taught how it can be really kind of addicting. And they say it's unlikely to provide substantial comfort in part because of what you said, in the new heavens and the new earth, we are resurrected bodily. Resurrection is not just a spirit floating in space. It's not just returned to our broken bodies. 1 Corinthians 15 is that we are resurrected, new seeds where we develop, so to speak, there's continuity with this life, but we have a transformed physicality. And so this kind of resurrection is not even embodied at all, which is the kind of healing we need of appropriate touch and real eye contact. So, I don't wanna rule it having some role, but there's no way as real as it seems, it can actually be the kind of healing that somebody needs. They also said there's legal concerns about this, which is, I can't even comment on that, about what it means to control somebody's image. So anything else in this one, or we wanna move to an article that you wrote?

Thad: Let’s bring it back to the Old Testament for a minute.

Sean: Okay.

Thad: Because the reason I'm calling them existential needs is regardless of the time you're living in, regardless of the culture, regardless of the melanin levels in your skin cells, regardless of your XX or XY chromosomes, there's things that just unite us as humans. These shared drives, these appetites, these needs. And so, the same need that I think they're calling them ghost bots, ghost bots, these AI generated, departed loved ones, is something like, I would argue, what drove in the ancient Near East, certain cultures, certain tribes, to pursue necromancy, to try to contact the dead, divination, things like that. And so scripture is not silent on that. In Deuteronomy 18, verses nine to 14, very powerful, God speaking to his people says, "When you come into the land of the Lord your God is giving you, don't learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or daughter as an offering. Anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, a sorcerer, a charmer, a medium," right, mediums are supposed to be bridging that gap between the living and the dead. This technology is doing something very much like that, maybe not literally. A necromancer or one who inquires of the dead. And you better believe this AI technology, people would be using it precisely for those reasons, like, "Dad, did you really love me? Mom, why did you do X, Y, or Z?" It's an attempt to inquire of the dead in the language of Deuteronomy 18. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. Because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving him out from among you. And so there's several passages scattered through the Old Testament about very strong language. This is an abomination of the Lord. And what's fascinating, Sean, is if you really zoom in what's going on here, it's almost always connected to some form of idol worship. So, in the passage I just read, don't pursue mediums or necromancers or inquire of the dead is right there in the same context, Molech worship, worshiping the fire God, offering your sons and daughters to this false fire God. In Leviticus 20 verse six, if a person turns to mediums and necromancers, listen to the language here, it's strong language, whoring after them. I will set my face against them and will cut them off from among the people. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy for I'm the Lord your God. Heat my statutes and do them because I'm the Lord who sanctifies you. So, in Leviticus 20, the immediate context is also idol worship, Molech worship. And so seeking that kind of contact with the dead in Leviticus 20 is connected to idolatry. And then this language all over the Old Testament of whoring, of Israel stepping out on cheating on its covenant God. So, instead of getting their need for reunion, their need for resurrection, their need to transcend death, being met by the God who actually has the goodness, the power, grace to do that, they are turning away from, they are whoring themselves by seeking other means to scratch those itches. So, I think theologically thinking about AI in that context, are we pursuing these technologies under what Romans one would describe as creator worship, or has it become a subtle form of creation worship, bowing to the creation rather than the creator as we explore these new technologies together.

Sean: And this raises so many questions. I think about just yesterday, there's new artificial intelligence that William Lane Craig has with his ministry. You can plug in questions and it scours all the stuff he's written and gives a response that Craig might. Well, someday when he's gone, you could literally have him speak it as if he's there from his content. That doesn't strike me as mirroring the kind of passages in the Old Testament for that positive use, but some other uses might. And we should have some serious caution with anything called death pots and ghost bots for a reason. So I think that's a fair caution. All right, let's move to this. This last story is an article you wrote, it's excellent. And it's on DEI, which of course, diversity, my mind just went blank, diversity—

Thad: Diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Sean: There you go. You wrote this for World Opinions. Tell us what's going on.

Thad: Yeah, so this is a recent headline just about three weeks ago, beginning of March. The University of Florida made a shockingly counter-cultural announcement. According to their memo, if I could just quote it, the University of Florida has closed the office of the chief diversity officer, eliminated DEI positions and administrative appointments and halted its DEI focused contracts and outside vendors. Now, I say that's shocking and counter-cultural, Sean, because most businesses, most corporations, and more schools are, instead of downsizing or pulling back DEI initiatives, they're going more the direction that the University of Berkeley, University of California, Berkeley has gone, where their DEI staff in 2014, so 10 years ago, was about 118 DEI employees. That has ballooned to 190 last year. And the price tag on that is north of $25 million a year, coming from UC Berkeley, $25 million a year being spent on diversity. Now our listeners might be thinking, well, what's the problem? Isn't diversity biblical, right? God has an every tongue, tribe, and nation vision. I have a friend who said it better than I can, a friend named Matt Smethurst, who said that heaven would be the white supremacist hell. Why? There's too much diversity for the white supremacists, that every tongue, tribe, nation vibe in the new heavens and the new earth. So, sure, as Christians, we care about unity, we care about diversity, we care about including as many people to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus as humanly possible. But when it comes to a lot of the stuff, not all of it, but a lot of the stuff packaged under DEI, under that heading, a lot of it, as I argue in the article, just doesn't work. For all the theological reasons we give to question certain DEI ideologies, which I think are important questions to ask as Christians, if we're gonna be discerning, one of the most basic insights is that it doesn't work. This is according to Harvard Professor Roland Fryer. He says, and I quote, "Our intuition for how to decrease race and gender disparities in the workplace has failed us for decades. The average impact of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion training, the average impact is," listen to this, "zero. Some evidence suggests that the impact can become negative if the training is mandated." Now, this isn't some far right-wing crackpot who's got an ax to grind against DEI. This is a renowned Harvard professor and sociologist, who also isn't white, by the way. Under such training, according to another, I would argue mainstream academic source, the Harvard Business Review, substantiated after 50 pages, they reached the conclusion, "Your organization will become less diverse, not more, under your standard DEI training." And then Musa Al-Gharbi is a black sociologist who documents, he says, "There is a massive body of empirical literature that DEI training tends to reinforce rather than reduce biases. It tends to increase minority turnover. The typical DEI training diminishes employee morale, and has an adverse psychological and physiological impact on minority employees." And one of the reasons for that, as Musa Al-Gharbi unpacks his research, is that if we're being conditioned to see each other, first and foremost, in these group identities, and then prejudge people based on their given identity group, whether they're the oppressed, whether they're the oppressor, whether they have certain privileges, or they lack certain privileges, we are now no longer treating the people around us as unique image bearers of God. We're treating them just as ciphers, as stand-ins, as poster boys, as exemplars of an identity group. And when you do that, Al-Gharbi documents, resentments increase. And there's this mindset of, "I can't just walk into a room and see my employees. Now, because of certain forms of DEI training, I'm conditioned to categorize everybody into these preexisting categories to determine who in this room is friendly, who in this room is a tribal ally, and who's from the other tribe." And so tribalism is the impact, the net impact sadly, of many forms of DEI training. So there's a few thoughts from me, obviously I document more, but I'm curious, Sean, since we are on the Think Biblically podcast, what are some biblical motives to, if the DEI training is failing to deliver on its promises, Biblically as Christians, where do we go from there? Do we just say, "Well, let's flush the whole thing down the toilet." Do you have any thoughts on how we can do something better?

Sean: Let me give our audience some context here. People have asked me, "What do I think is the best book on biblical justice?" And I love Neil Shenvy and Pat Sawyer's book, “Critical Dilemma,” and your book, "Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth." In fact, last night I sent out a tweet, I said, "What book has changed your mind on something?" Got a ton of responses, and one person specifically mentioned your book. So, I mentioned this to our audience. If you wanna do a deep dive into this, check out the article, and I've taken high school students through your book twice. My wife loves it. You didn't ask me to mention this, I'm not getting anything for it, but I think your book is fantastic. I want folks to check it out.

Thad: Thank you. Let me interject real quick on that. Because there is a need, I get asked all the time, well, if the standard DEI curriculums now are problematic, and I would argue because of how infused they are with certain ideologues, Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, and thinkers who are pretty antithetical to a Christian way to do this, there is an alternative curriculum for diversity that's seeking to do biblical diversity. So, if you had a Christian organization, a church, a Christian school, and that's if listeners wanna look up “Reconciled,” it's just called reconciled, it's put out by the Center for Biblical Unity, it's by Krista Bontrager, who is a Biola and Talbot alum, along with Monique Doussaint, both dear friends of mine, reconciled. They spent a lot of time on this curriculum. It's a great alternative to some of the other stuff out there.

Sean: I'm glad you jumped in, 'cause I was about to flip the question back on you and say, what do you suggest? Do we just give up with diversity and not go there, or is there a biblical way to do this? And the irony is if it's biblical, it's actually going to work if it's truly biblical, because the scripture matches up with human nature and the way the world really operates. So that's why this is so helpful. I imagine there's some principles people could pull from this series, even if it's not for a church or a Christian organization, that they could apply that would be more effective. I'm gonna assume that's the case?

Thad: Sure, yeah.

Sean: Is that fair enough?

Thad: Yes, yep.

Sean: Okay. So, here's my other quick take, and then we'll move to some questions and answers. Much of DEI, I'm sure, is motivated by good intentions. People want to right wrongs. They want to give people a voice who maybe historically or in the present don't have the same kind of voice. They want a kind of diversity. That's good. But in many ways, it's like socialism can be motivated by good desires to spread out the wealth, help the have-nots. Like there can be good intentions behind it, but good intentions are not enough if your prescription, so to speak, doesn't match up with reality and doesn't actually work. So, the problem with DEI is not somebody's motivation. Built into it are non-biblical ideas, a certain kind of ideology that doesn't work. So let's bring in a biblical ideology, and I don't mean preaching chapter and verse in businesses, but understanding what biblical justice actually is. And then I think we can see some real reconciliation take place. By the way, I love that title, "Reconcile," because I've read DeAngelo, and one thing that's often missing is for there to be real unity, there needs to be forgiveness and reconciliation. That's a beginning point for all people involved, and then we can do justice.

Thad: Exactly. Let me throw in one more thought here.

Sean: Yeah.

Thad: One more thought on this. So, in the article, I bring up what I call the grape nuts problem, which goes back to the famous Jerry Seinfeld joke. It's sort of become a cliche now, but what's the deal with grape nuts? There's no grapes and there's no nuts. I mean, what's the deal? And so I argue that one of the problems with, again, I'm not with a broad brush saying all DEI is terrible. I'm just saying most of it. And I have the receipts to back that up. One of the problems with DEI is it promises diversity and equity and inclusion and tends to do the opposite of those things. And so, it's grape nuts without the grapes or nuts. And so, I document what we think of as the marginalized voices that need to be centered, because white voices and male voices have been hogging the microphone for too long. So, we need to diversify our workforce and add more seats to the table. All of these goals, what actually ends up happening if you do a deep dive into the literature is you find that the key concepts of most DEI training, that would include things like the concept of white privilege. That would include concepts like white fragility. That would include concepts like racism as prejudice plus power. It would include concepts like whiteness as a pejorative category. Those are four of the cardinal dogmas of DEI training. Are those four notions from voices of color? Not a single one of them. Patricia Biddle-Patva, a white far left ideologue, redefined racism in 1973 as prejudice plus power. Peggy McIntosh did the same thing with white privilege in the 1980s. Robin DiAngelo did the same thing with white fragility in the 2000s. Judith Katz did the same thing with whiteness in the 70s and 80s. So, if you actually look at the facts and there's mountains of studies on this, real voices of color tend to get marginalized. And what gets presented as the outsider of the marginalized voice tends to be one very rigid, I think, frankly, condescending vision of what it means to pursue racial justice. It is featured in the attempt to combat white supremacy, its very own insidious form of white supremacy.

Sean: Now you argue that in your article, we will link to it below. Folks can read it and assess it themselves, but I think that's a very, very fair critique that's brought in. Well, we get some amazing questions here. Sometimes I read them with that. I'm like, I gotta think about how to answer this one. I can't answer them perfectly. That's for sure. So, we apologize if we cannot get to your questions. We get a ton, which is positive and awesome. But let's take two. This first one, basically, I cannot fix it for this person, but here's what the person says. I'm married to a non-Christian. She's an advocate of abortion, transgenderism and other secularist issues. When we got married seven years ago, I was a nominal Christian who didn't care about such things. Now I do. We're in our thirties and very happily married, but we cannot have children because of our conflicting views. We have a desire to raise the family, so this is a real tension. I believe God can change hearts. And so, my church and I are praying that my wife would come to know the Lord, but she hasn't so far. Should I keep waiting on God and avoid talking about kids until she knows God? Or should I abandon the idea of having children?

First off, I would say I'm not a professional counselor. And so, I'm kind of putting on my hat, so to speak, giving you my two cents. And I just say a couple of things. Being married to someone who's not a believer, Paul says, one of our primary tasks within this marriage is to be a model to this person for Christ. So, I love that you've come to the Lord in the middle of this marriage. I'm sorry you find yourself in this predicament that I know you didn't desire for, but God is sovereign. And I pray that he gives you strength and patience to model and live out and just love your spouse the way Christ would want to. So my prayers are with you. The desire to have children is a good desire. So, that's not a bad thing, that's not a selfish desire. That is a good desire. So I think there's nothing wrong with continuing to pray. God, I hope that you will save my spouse. And in doing so, I hope you enable us to have children. Now, if you're in your 30s, that door is gonna close itself within a decade or so. And so, it's not something you have to live with forever. But I think we can live in a certain tension of desiring certain things and yet trusting God that maybe he'll deliver them and maybe he won't. That's in part what it means to trust God. So, I would only say stop talking about having kids with your spouse. If your spouse is at the point saying, I've closed the door on that, I don't want kids, stop talking about it. Then you just say, okay, when you're open to it, let's revisit that conversation, but don't force it if the person's not open. If they're open, there's nothing wrong with continuing that conversation. Beyond that, you're gonna have to go talk to a counselor and get some professional help. You wanna add anything to this or just move on to the next question?

Thad: Yeah, just one very, very general biblical principle here. Not sure exactly how it would cash out in this viewer's situation, but just in general, something that needs to be said again and again and again. From a biblical perspective, more babies in the world is a beautiful, beautiful thing. We do live in such a culture of death and over-stoked, anti-human fears that we're a cancer on the planet and we need to obliterate, dismantle the nuclear family, just to reiterate that biblical principle. More babies equals a good thing. And then following on the heels of that in Romans 14, Paul, again, on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells us that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. So, there's not some 11th commandment for this listener, thou shalt or thou shalt not have a baby in your case. I would say, have that conversation with Jesus and however you act, do it from that position of faith and being in tune to the Holy Spirit. And we hope it works out for you wherever you're at and that God changes your spouse's heart. We just pray that right now, Holy Spirit, would you go to work on this person's heart, draw them savingly to yourself, that what already was described as a beautiful marriage would become a beautiful Christ-centered marriage and that you would even bless them with precious little image-bearers, amen.

Sean: Amen, good prayer. Let's jump to this last question here. I'm gonna turn it to you for about a 60-second response here to wrap us up. But here's the question that came in. It said, "I recently listened to the Carmen Imes episode on her book, “Being God's Image.” I've been thinking about the meaning and implications of bearing God's image for some time. I'm drawn to the notion, posited by some theologians, that the longer evil is perpetuated by an individual, the more impact it has on that person's bearing God's image. In other words, the eviler a person becomes, the less human he/she becomes. This seems like a very satisfying approach that accounts for the continuing prevalence of evil while also justifying God's judgment of evil. What thoughts or feedback do you have about this idea of evil negatively affecting our personhood?

Now I'm gonna make a quick distinction here. This idea of what God's image is, is very complex. And there's a range of views. One views God's image as something more functional. It's unique capacities we have as human beings that separate us from animals and even likely from say angels, the capacity for reason, the capacity for higher level emotions, the capacity to create, et cetera. Other views, which is closer to what Carmen holds, is that being a God's image is how we represent God within creation, that it's our ruling over creation is meant to represent God's rule over the universe. Now, this probably opens up more of a can of worms, but I tend to think it's actually some combination of both. I think there's certain functional capacities we uniquely have as human beings that enable us to rule over creation uniquely like God does. So it's not either or as a whole, I think it's both and. So, take for example, what happened, what Hamas did to Israel. With 1200 people just butchered in the worst way imaginable. It fascinated me how much people struggled for language to describe, how evil and debased and wicked. And some people even used animal type language to describe what Hamas did. They're living out in a certain way, the exact opposite by that evil, destructive, death and lies of how human beings are supposed to live in bearing God's image. So, in that case, I would say because of the evil in their hearts, they're moving so far away from the way God wants us to live. Hence failing to image God in the world in the way they're supposed to. But even Hamas is made in the image of God and they have value as image bearers and God would desire that they still come to him. So, they don't lose the value of being God's image bearers. But the evil has so corrupted them and their choices that they're failing to live it out. And of course, there's other examples we could point to but that's one that's prevalent in the news. Any quick thoughts on that?

Thad: Yeah, very quickly, I think what you're saying, Sean, is what St. Augustine said far better than you. (both laughing) Just kidding.

Sean: I will take that for sure.

Thad: Let me at least say more succinctly than you although you made a lot of great insights there. But Augustine famously said, the image of God in us as a result of the fall, Genesis three, the image of God in us is effaced but not erased. It's damaged, it's caked out. Think of it like you're this masterpiece, you're a muddy masterpiece that's been caked over with fallenness. And so, we wanna be careful to not say, well, if you cross a certain threshold of sin, you forfeit your human nature and therefore we're justified in reducing you to an animal. We can do in our sin nature, very animalistic, inhuman things, but not for one second does that strip away the intrinsic dignity, value and worth. And one final thought, 30 seconds. The questioner is getting at what I think is how certain actions, certain sins, certain evils when you commit them, when you break God's law, it breaks you back. There's a rich tradition in Christian theology reflecting on that, that if I decide I'm gonna be unfaithful of my spouse and start sleeping around and accumulating notches on the bedpost, I'm actually going to shrink my capacity to bear God's image without ceasing to be an image bearer. I won't be trustworthy, my kids won't respect me. If I lie and break God's command to be a truth teller, I become untrustworthy, I'm gonna be a very, very lonely person. This is a running theme in scripture, it's a running theme of some of the best movies like Godfather II, it's some of the best shows like Breaking Bad, when we break God, the moral structure of reality is established by God, reality breaks us back, but thankfully none of that's beyond redemption in Christ.

Sean: Dr. Thaddeus Williams, great job filling in today. You are no Scott Rae or Augustine, but nice work my friend. (both laughing)

Thad: Those are just impossible standards, especially Scott Rae. It's always a joy to be with you, brother.

Sean: Lots of fun, we will do it again for sure. For those of you listening, this has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. We've got programs online, theology, Bible, apologetics, marriage and family, in person, fully online, think about joining us. To submit comments or ask questions, please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. That's thinkbiblically@biola.edu. Every rating on the podcast helps and it helps if you share it with a friend as well. We appreciate you listening. We'll see you Tuesday when a regular podcast episode comes out and remember, think biblically about everything.