Video Transcript: Introduction to First Mini-Course Section

Henry - I'm Henry. Reyenga. With me is Steve Elzinga, you know, we've been  doing this for 30 years, working together, right in ministry,  

Steve – but Henry, We've never taken on a topic this. no, risky,  

Henry - no. I guess we usually go for the gospel things the best training people  so forth,  

Steve - but this is we're taking on in this little mini course, The most  controversial, top topics of our day. And why are we going to risk everything on  this?  

Henry - Well, first of all, because of you are facing these things every day they're in the news media, every day you and your families are dealing with some of  these issues in your churches, in your ministries. 

Steve - and the Gospel does not shrink back from the agenda of the culture. It is relevant, and sometimes we have to go into scary places and say things now  we're gonna, we're going to we're talking we're calling this critical Grace theory.  And one of the things going to get going to ask you is to have some grace as we talk about this. We might not use the exact word that you would prefer, or, you  know, we are giving our best shot at at giving the gospel slant on these critical  issues of today. 

Henry -Right. So we see just these words critical. We see the word theory, and  in our society, that's what's really happening. A different theories are being made pretty much about everything.  

Steve - So what is this mini course about? It's about critical theory, okay, seven  current, hot cultural, culturally divisive topics. Okay? And we're going to look at,  why have these topics become so prominent in our society. We're going to look  at, how does Grace change everything. So critical theory?  

Henry - Well, critical theory is kind of an intellectual buzz word for the study of in  social sciences. It refers to the study of deconstruction. Is a word they're  deconstructing certain things to construct other things. 

Steve - taking apart. Yeah, that's sort of the critical part, but also the kind of the  scientific look at something and theory.  

Henry - Well, theory really is another word for philosophy. We have a philosophy program here during the philosophy classes you can take here, but philosophies

theory making okay? So it really is heavy duty stuff, but it's very practical as  well.  

Steve - So our culture has grabbed on to these two words, and then they put  topics in there, like critical race theory, yeah, or critical gender, gender theory  theory, or critical whatever equality theory? Yeah, so we're going to look at all  these things, and we're going to see what the culture is really saying about  

these things, and we're going to look at some of the good and bad of that, but  then, sort of as an answer to it all, we're going to talk about critical Grace theory. That changes the perspective on all of these.  

Henry - You know, one of the things we've talked about as we were preparing  this class is we see the trend toward taking God out of everything, right, right?  And I think that's going to be an interesting inquiry as we see how each of these  theories try to create a world without God, right, right?  

Steve - And so obviously, if you put God in that world. It makes all the difference. So what are the topics? So here are the topics that we're going to look at.  Number one, race. Number two, gender. Number three, pleasure. That's  interesting. What critical pleasure theory? Yeah. Okay. Number four, equality.  Number five, evolution. Number six, blame and number seven, conflict. So as  we look at these topics, what do you expect out of this short, mini course? I think I we're all dealing with this. We're all dealing with it one way or another, and  we're right now in a culture that can't talk about these things, right?  

Henry - The elephant in the room. Yeah, talking about one of these things, you  can get canceled.  

Steve - Yes, right? You can get fired. You can have someone never talk to you  again. We have people that are in the same family that now cannot talk about  many topics, right? I'm hoping that that when you're finished with this little mini  

course, that you actually have some tools with which you can have a decent  conversation with somebody and actually maybe make some progress.  

Henry - My expectation is that we can do ministry even more effectively, that we  can actually know the spirit of this age a little better, or the spirits of the age. But  then see the power of God in his grace that changed, changes our hearts and  changes the hearts.  

Steve - And to show how relevant the gospel is, it is relevant to all the subjects,  all the issues of our today. You know, a lot of people think Christianity is old 

fashioned, out of touch, and all those things. But no, it is as relevant as it can  be.  

Henry - I love that when the phone goes, because that's how life is. So welcome to this mini course, and may God bless you as we dive deep into the  controversial subject of our day.