The Dallas Statement

The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel (or the Dallas Statement) is a statement of faith, drafted in the summer of 2018 in Dallas, TX by a group of evangelicals led by John MacArthur, in response to how certain evangelicals have drifted away from the Christian Gospel towards a social gospel, the latter being some conglomeration of Critical Race Theory, Cultural Marxism, and Rauschenbuschism (a socialist view of Christianity that desired to produce an utopia kingdom of God on earth). The Statement was a long overdue strike against the false racist Critical Race Theory and other false doctrines that have found their way into the Church. Critical Race Theory is the theory that the law and legal institutions are inherently racist and that race itself, instead of being biologically grounded and natural, is a socially constructed concept that is used by white people to further their economic and political interests at the expense of people of color. It maintains that existing power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color. In essence, if you are white you are inherently racist and always will be, which is a thoroughly racist viewpoint.

The Dallas Statement is a series of affirmations and denials with supporting verses which include the following points:

1. The Bible is the final authority for truth and socially-constructed standards of truth or morality, and notions of virtue and vice that are constantly in flux cannot result in authentic justice.

2. No person is morally culpable for another person’s sin and one’s ethnicity does not establish necessary connection to any particular sin.

3. Political or social activism should not be viewed as integral components of the gospel or primary to the mission of the church.

4. God created mankind either male or female and this is determined biologically at conception and not subject to change. The curse of sin results in sinful, disordered affections that manifest in some people as same-sex attraction. God’s design for marriage is that one woman and one man live in one-flesh, covenantal, sexual relationship until separated by death. There is no such thing as a “gay Christian” as a legitimate biblical category.

5. God created mankind, both male and female, with inherent biological and personal distinctions between them. Though there is no difference between men and women before God’s law or as recipients of his saving grace, God has designed men and women with distinct traits and to fulfill distinct roles. In marriage the husband is to lead, love, and safeguard his wife and the wife is to respect and be submissive to her husband in all things lawful. In the church, qualified men alone are to lead as pastors/elders/bishops and preach to and teach the whole congregation.

6. All races are ontological equals before God. Any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression is wrong. A person’s feelings of offense or oppression does not necessarily prove that someone else is guilty of sinful behaviors, oppression, or prejudice.

7. Some cultures operate on assumptions that are inherently better than those of other cultures, because of biblical truths that inform those worldviews that have produced these distinct assumptions. Having said that, the various cultures out of which all have been called have features that are worldly and sinful and those sinful features should be repudiated. No individuals or sub-groups in any culture are unable, by God’s grace, to rise above whatever moral defects or spiritual deficiencies have been engendered or encouraged by their respective cultures.

8. Racism is a sin rooted in pride and malice which must be condemned and renounced by all who would honor the image of God in all people. All cultures, including our own, at times contain laws and systems that foster racist attitudes and policies. Individuals of any particular ethnic group are capable of racism.

Hooray for John MacArthur and the others who came up with this wonderful statement of faith that addresses the sins of racism, homosexuality, transgenderism, placing on some false responsibility for others sins, placing social activism above the gospel, and women leading and teaching men in the church. In this day when many churches are straying away from the Truth it is encouraging to see that 7,000 have still not bowed to Baal (I Kings 19:18), actually almost 15,000 at last count have signed the Statement.