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The failure of religious people to address the Christian church’s response to the violence and uprisings in 2020, and their wholesale acquiescence to woke ideologies and social justice mantras that do not align with God’s truth has been sobering. TPUSA and Amfest founder Charlie Kirk spoke at a Southern California church recently, and he expressed that he was appalled by the lack of courage and complacency among the clergy. He defined the “woke mind virus,” as part of this culture war, and declared,

“Right now, we need wartime pastors.”

Personally, I appreciate that Kirk is following through on seeking to build the warfare mentality needed for these times. Many of the panels and breakout sessions at Amfest have focused on shoring up pastors and the church community for this spiritual warfare against the lies of social justice and equity disguised as Christian love and duty.

“Biblical Justice Isn’t Social Justice,” was one of those panels. The panel was moderated by Kevin McGary, whose organization, Every Black Life Matters, was a direct response to the deception and violence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Dr. Raleigh Washington, pastor emeritus at Rock of Chicago’s Our Salvation Evangelical Free Church and president and CEO of Awakening the Voice of Truth; Virgil Walker, pastor, discipleship leader, and podcaster; and public speaker and author John K. Amanchukwu rounded out the panel.

The panelists gave direct and insightful responses to the damage done to the culture and the church and exposed the Marxist roots embedded in the social justice and woke ideologies, like critical race theory and transgenderism, that have infected Christian churches and the educational system. McGary is an entrepreneur, author, and public speaker who was also appalled by the pastoral response to the violence of 2020 and BLM. He unpacked that a bit earlier this year on a Dr. James Dobson Family Talk podcast:

“We started, ‘Every Black Life Matters’ as a direct response to BLM and the riotous behaviors that we saw, and really the response of the church to BLM. We thought it was perplexing, because we didn’t see a gospel response, we saw a cultural response and a political response! Again, we hear all the time from pastors, ‘Oh, no, no, we don’t want to be political!’ On this movement, we saw all these pastors come out and take a political stance with this political movement.

“And for some reason there’s this sort of cognitive dissonance that BLM is not political. Excuse me?! Everything they did in 2020 was political! It was unbelievable.”

McGary asked Dr. Raleigh Washington to speak to the false narratives running rampant in our nation, and the division that they have created.

McGary questioned, “How do we, as believing people, take a stand against this?”

Dr. Washington’s response started out measured.

“We are incredibly divided as a nation, and that division has become very toxic, and that toxic division is from our house to the White House. We’ve allowed truth to go to sleep, and we need to wake it up.”

Dr. Washington’s answer to how to accomplish this was simple: Returning to “In God We Trust” and those foundational, biblically-based Judeo-Christian principles.

“We need to awaken the truth, and to wake that motto up.”

As any good old-time preacher, Dr. Washington was merely warming up, before getting into the meat of his message, declaring:

“If we put our trust in God today, we will love our neighbor as ourselves. If we put our trust in God today, we will not cancel or erase people, but we will love them. If we put our trust in God today, we will not mutilate individuals, especially our young ladies, but we will honor God’s creation, and bless it from womb to tomb.”

There was much applause at this part, and even a few standing ovations. Dr. Washington continued:

“If we put our trust in God today, we will actively refute untruth with the Word of God. If we put our trust in God, we will establish relationships between Blacks and Whites and eliminate racism.

“If we put our trust in God Almighty, we will establish relationships between Jews and non-Jews and we’ll eliminate anti-Semitism. If we put our trust in God, we will obey the great commandment: Love God with All Your Heart, All Your Mind, All Your Soul and All Your Strength. And that is the dynamic.

“I close with this. There are a lot of Millennials here today, and all of us, and I just want to give you a challenge, and that challenge is this: We need to awaken the voice of truth. We need to awaken this motto that’s been asleep and wake it up. Let’s do it all across the nation! You can awaken truth today, and Millennials, you need to lead the charge!”

Dr. Raleigh Washington’s words were delivered with the spiritual weight and gravitas that come from years of being in the gospel trenches, and being in alignment with and preaching the truth of God’s Word. I grew up in the Black church, and have seen my share of so-called spiritual leaders who tickle the ears with their oration, and say all the Christian buzzwords, but they are as shallow as a wading pool. Dr. Washington’s depth and spiritual power resonated in his voice, which literally shook with force as he presented his treatises.

McGary then moved to Virgil Walker, who talked about his ministry’s purpose: to educate, encourage, and equip local churches with sound biblical theology and practical guidance.

“We are addressing the specific things that make lives, in all poor communities, but especially the Black community, better. And that’s the encouragement of fathers, the encouragement of the nuclear family, the encouragement of school choice programs, the encouragement of free markets and capitalism, those types of things.”

Walker has done this work for decades and spoke about standing against Marxism, CRT, DEI, ESG, and all the ideologies rooted in these that have infiltrated businesses and congregations.

“We’re standing against it, so we’re actually going to corporations and telling them, look, you don’t have to take the Woke, anti-racist training that [Ibram X.] Kendi is promoting. We will help you stand for racial sensitivity training—our training—which will train you on the roots and foundations of racism, and help you and your employees really rally around the truth as opposed to the false narratives, and advance the voice of truth by virtue of our training instead.”

McGary then turned to John K. Amanchukwu and asked him about the invasion of Marxist politics within the Black church. Amanchukwu declared:

“Blacks have become the cheap prostitutes of the Democrat Party. They screw us, and barely pay us, and we keep coming back for more.”

You could hear a pin drop in the auditorium after this. Amanchukwu continued: “And let me make this plain as well, I’ve come to fight today: I don’t get my talking points from the D-N-C, or the R-N-C, I get my talking points from the B-I-B-L-E! I get my talking points from this right here,” he declared, holding up a well-used bible. “How about you?!”

The auditorium went from silence to raucousness, as the audience broke out in loud applause and rousing cheers.

“There is an attack on biblical truth. And there’s an infiltration of liars who use propaganda to dupe Black people. They want to keep us on the proverbial liberal plantation, they demonize truth, and they find creative ways to keep us in the dark and out of the way of knowledge. Let me make this plain today: Our focus today should not be on winning the next election. We need to bring revival to America. But the only way that you can get to revival is that first and foremost there must be repentance. Repentance leads you to revival.”

Dr. Washington helped to bring the panel to a close by challenging the immobility and the silence of the clergy.

“The Church of Jesus Christ is silent, primarily because of fear. Pastors do not want to be called racist. Pastors look at sin in the White House or in Congress or anywhere else, and say, ‘Well, we don’t want to be political.’ The issue is not about politics, it’s about sin. And the Church needs to be woken up, utilize the truth against all the false narratives. Pastors need to be awakened.

“We initiated a movement called ‘Awaken The Voice Of Truth.’ Our goal is to educate, challenge, and motivate and embolden pastors to use, exactly what Pastor John said, the Word of God to defuse false narratives.”

Dr. Washington pointed to demonic influence which takes a kernel of truth and uses that to paint an entire false narrative. It started in the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve,

“Who drank the Kool-Aid, believed what he [the Serpent] said, and the result was the Fall of mankind.

[…]

“We need to encourage pastors, we need to pray for pastors, we need to challenge pastors because they are the keepers of the Word of God. And if the pastors are not preaching it, the people are not getting it.

“Preachers, stop drinking the Kool-Aid, preach the Word of God, and destroy all false narratives!”

In June of 2021, Dr. Raleigh Washington gave a powerful message and Q&A on “Racial Reconciliation and the Church.” It is well worth the listen.