Last week, Evangelical Dark Web did an expose on Josh Howerton’s well-documented history of wokeness, which could have gone even deeper. Now, one caveat was that the George Floyd sermon was scrubbed from the internet, indicating a cover-up. However, we got a tip from someone who found what AI could not. And what they uncovered is as bad as anyone could have anticipated, if not worse.
Please Clap
While Josh Howerton claims to have repented of not speaking truth to culture, this was an objective lie. Howerton insisted in this sermon, titled “Racism. Justice. Hope. // The Gospel and Race” that the church must be the conscience of the nation, and went further to suggest, rightfully so, that his church would be judged by how they responded to George Floyd. As a cringey aside, he solicits his limited audience to provide Amens and other cheers even before diving into the sermon proper. His reason was to give the impression that the church was united in his message. It was quite Jeb! Bush. But make no mistake, Howerton clearly stated his intentions.
Standpoint Epistemology
Using a water bottle as an illustration where the audience sees the other side from him, Howerton asserts that we cannot understand the water bottle until we understand other people’s perspectives. This tactic of standpoint epistemology was widely used at the time to elevate non-White, male, Christian, and even heterosexual voices because their perspectives on societal ills were skewed.
Blackwashing Antioch
Josh Howerton takes a Netflix approach to reading the Bible. Howerton cites the church in Antioch as a diverse church to make a grandiose claim, suggesting that Simeon was Black because he was called Niger.
Of those five leaders, one was from the Middle East [Simeon or Manaen], one was from Asia [Paul], one the Mediterranean [Barnabas], and one from Africa [Lucias]… Why does it tell us these names and where they’re from?… The unequivocal answer is in the church, God is out to destroy the dividing wall of hostility and create one new man from among every nation of men under our brown-skinned Middle Eastern Savior.
However, all of the leaders were likely Jewish. Lucius was a common Hellenistic Jewish name in Cyrene, a city with a sizable diaspora. There are many possibilities for why he was called Niger, including hair color, darker skin, or even his demeanor, but among the least likely is that he was Black. We know Paul and Barnabas were Jewish. And both Simeon and Manaen are transliterated Hebrew names. So, this church is not evidence for Howerton’s point. He is trying to make this cast a lot more diverse than it actually was. And he tacks on the assumption of Jesus’s skin color to score woke brownie points in the process, which was the point.
Multiethnic Church Push
Big Eva spent many years pushing the multiethnic church model. Using Revelation, Josh Howerton asserts that a church should strive to be even more diverse than the culture around it. “This is not optional,” Howerton explains. “We must pursue” racial justice and integration in the church.
Anti-Racism
Howerton once more plunges into the political, speaking against both sides in a classic Tim Keller Third-Wayism and quoting Tony Evans. He denounces partisanship with classic Big Eva tropes, not recognizing that the Black community’s idolatrous relationship with the Democrat Party most of the time supersedes faith.
Making the point we must seek love and not tolerance.
The goal is not the elimination of racism, it the achievement of diversification.
In other words: it’s not enough to not be racist, you must be replaced too.
Musical Chairs
Josh Howerton goes on a long tangent about church music and how different people have different preferences. A couple of minutes in, he finally asserts that the Lake Pointe’s music needs to be “more expressive” in order to reach more people.
In a surprising move, Howerton admits that the worship style was meant to put butts in seats, or behind computer screens since he locked down his church. But the butts Howerton wants are Black butts as indicated by an anecdote he gives that leads him to conclude that the church music must be more expressive to accommodate one group’s preferences and sensibilities. Josh Howerton’s embrace of Sir Mix-A-Lot evangelism was quite stunning to watch.
Church music can obviously be divisive, and unnecessarily at that. And the issue wasn’t even evangelism, rather attracting other believers. But it is insulting to the existing members to say that their preferences are matter less because the church wants to attract a different crowd.
Black 7s and Anglo 8s
Josh Howerton explicitly makes the same point that Matt Chandler made about diversity hires. Howerton explicitly argues that Lake Pointe should prioritize diverse leadership. He states that this is not tokenism, where unqualified people are selected or qualified people are not empowered. But of course, this necessitates discriminating against White people. It’s the same exact logic, though longer-winded, that Matt Chandler used to become the woke icon he is today.
The “Talk”
Josh Howerton recounts a story of his Black friend telling him that his father had a talk with him about how to walk into a store and not raise suspicion. Howerton views the story as heartbreaking but implies that racism is to blame rather than the Black criminality that led to the stereotype that his friend endured. His father did the right thing by having the talk that the kids with no fathers did not receive.
In an age of “teen takeovers” and “changing consumer habits,” it’s hard to come away thinking Howerton’s friend was victimized by shopkeepers.
Anti-White Messaging
Back in 2020, Black culture was the cool culture in America. And accordingly, Josh Howerton wanted a piece of the sweet potato pie. Now that this is no longer the case, Howerton has changed his tune. But Howerton made it a priority to make his church less White, either through outreach or churn (though he didn’t mention this).
One of the reasons that this is the real him is that Howerton invokes his mixed-race family, featuring 2 adopted children, in the sermon. He also talks extensively about his college experience being woke. Suffice to say, Howerton was woke well before George Floyd and even his 2018 clip. About-faces on wokeness have proven not to last, with Owen Strachan being an example.
Josh Howerton’s anti-White messaging was laced with seeker-sensitivity. What happens when the cultural shift away from wokeness and the rise of Black Fatigue make a pastor’s woke convictions a liability? Then we get a disingenuous shift away from overt Critical Race Theory and maybe even a sermon attacking the same ideology taught with no acknowledgement, in complete hypocrisy.
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