Calvin Robinson & Robyn Henderson-Espinoza: Has woke theology gone too far? 

“I don’t like labels.” Proceeds to love labels.

One of the things I have been noticing the woke spokesmen have in common: use of big words to discribe nothing. Wereas non-woke persons speak normally and it has real content.

Thanks for having Calvin. It’s as simple as he suggests: we should “ identify” as Christian at all times everywhere. Key seems to be the focus on Christ as opposed to all the social construct nonsense, all focused on SELF.

Thank you Justin for your perseverance! I'm not sure I've ever heard two such ideologically different people talk more congenially. Thanks also to Calvin and Robyn for conversing without hurling accusations or shouting at each other. This kind of open, respectful exchange is exactly what our world needs right now.

At the 24 years I was dramatically rescued by Jesus from a demonic spirit. The next day I was born again, free from 2 areas of addiction. 16 years later, ten years into a good marriage, a homosexual spirit, I believe, came on me, causing me to feel sexual attraction to men. I held my ground (Eph 6:13) for one full year, after which it departed. I believe many psychologically vulnerable people who are not solidly moored to the truth of God can fall prey to such an overwhelming attack. So yes, prayer is very important, and perhaps in some cases deliberate exorcism. Be Blessed!

Hold the Line Calvin Hold the Line ! 🙌

A discussion, not a debate. Quite civil. Interesting and worthwhile. Very well moderated.

I find it staggering when the C of E should be crying out for people like Calvin that he gets rejected whilst others who barely believe in Christ let alone the scriptures go on to be ordained.

Thank you Calvin for robustly upholding clear and self-evidently true biblical understanding!

“I use terms like trans-queer-LatinX because of apophatic theology.” Wait, what? Apophatic theology is about how God is beyond all names and beyond all categories. Why would this inspire us to apply labels to ourselves? Every human is an image-bearer, and has nearly limitless potential to reflect God, and you think the appropriate response is to slap labels on yourself? “Sure, I’m a microcosmic infinity reflecting the macrocosmic infinity, but what’s REALLY important is that I’m gay.”

I think we have really lost focus on God when we say things like I'm willing to be a Christian as long as I can do what I want to do.

I agree with Calvin. The Archbishop of Canterbury is coming from a woke world which is disappointing.

Calvin, I admire your being true to Christ's teachings and to your mission. Speaking from my own experience, I know that truth hurts more than anything else. That is the reason why you get attacked so much. Of course, it is easier to give in to our desires rather than abstain from them. As an Orthodox Christian I share all of the beliefs that you have addressed in this episode. Prayer and fasting are key to true enlightenment and without them I doubt that anyone will be able to be saved. Hedonism is the opposite, and thus it should be remembered that it opens a door (or rather, a gate) to hell. It is so good to see that there are still people around who realize that, and, which is more important, are prepared to speak out and to face defamation. God help you, Calvin, and guard you 🙏🙏🙏! Thank you, Justin, for inviting Calvin and for all of your work!!! God bless you all!

Just hearing Robyn's introduction should be enough for anyone to answer the debate question.

Amen, Calvin! Amen!

'Celibacy is not a dirty word.' God calls us all to live holy lives because God is holy.

I pray for Robinson that he continues to stand up for the Gospel.

I wish that I would can to sit with Calvin Robinson for a hour and talk about Christ and today's society.

I'm a Latino and is known that overwhelming that the Latin community don't like the term Latinx, so Robyn is like they offer a solution for a problem we don't have.

As a Baptist, a real one, or at least raised Baptist, I would like to assure the audience that Robyn’s “Baptist” position is very, very far from traditional Baptist theology…

Thank you Calvin for standing for truth...

“I don’t like labels” - but I’m queer, Latinx, non binary, liberationist, etc…

Thank you Robyn and Calvin for this great conversation! Thank you for being both clear and humble towards each other despite very clear differences.

Taking notes! I think conservatives are starting to get the picture of how to have these dialogs. The most important thing is to REJECT THE FRAMING. The best responses we can give a lot of the time is "I don't know what those terms mean."

Thank you for hosting this. This was a great example of how we should handle each other when on different sides of beliefs. People r too triggered now days. This was great to see something actually discussed respectfully with having different opinions. Thank you for doing this. We need more of this.

See Calvin Robinson along with other speakers at Unbelievable? the Conference on Sat 14 May www.unbelievable.live

God bless and have mercy on every one in this conversation.

Also it's interesting when Robyn says she and Calvin interpret scriptures differently but she rarely quotes scripture and when she rarely does she does so incorrectly. Praying for her.

This was refreshingly respectful by all. We need more of these conversations. I think it’s due to all participants being Christian and using that as their main platform. He was the perfect model in navigating relationships. Thank you!

Great conversation, thank you all.

So refreshing to hear people thoughtfully discuss without yelling at each other. Great people, very helpful.

Great conversation! Thank you. I am not from the UK nor the US, culture I live in is different, so I do not have hands-on experience with this matter. This was the first time I heard anything coming from Calvin Robinson & Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, so I did not come from any of the polarized camps, but admittedly with a bias towards valuing every person's humanity, and with the belief that God fundamentally loves us. I was AMAZED how composed, understanding, informative, and rational Robyn was. I wish I had that ability. To truly be more understanding of "others". I believe that is fundamentally Christian. Thank you once again for this conversation!

Thank you for your clarity and helping to reawaken my desire to live a Christian life.

I love how even Justin's fixed smile looks patience-strained for this one

Have doctors testified before governments as to the safety of homosexual sex acts. For example, see WebMD; it states that anal sex can cause urinary tract infections for both gay and straight couples.

Wow, what a fantastic conversation!

This was a clear distinguishing between coherent sound Biblical Truth provided by Calvin and the incoherent twisting of Sctipture to "scratch itching ears" by Robyn.

"male (zakar) and female (neqebah) He created them"

Thank you Calvin. ⭐️

This is a professor? She said that she doesn't like hypocrite yet she is one. She said she dislikes labels yet she uses a plethora of then to describe herself. Here's another one, she says she is a Christian yet she uses labels that contradict her declaration!

2 Timothy chapter 3 But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.But you must continue in the things you have learned and been assured of,and from childhood you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for SALVATION through faith which is in CHRIST JESUS

We aren't black or white. We are all a shade of brown. Some are a lighter brown and some a darker brown. Depends on how much melanin we have. We are just people. One race.

Despite the fact that I view many of her beliefs as fundamentally heretical I must commend the lady in this debate for having the decency and bravery to engage in it in the first place, may we pray for her to see the light of God.

"To live faithfully is to live Biblically". Great by Calvin Robyn never quotes with Bible with giving her opinions.

It seems for Robyn “conversation” is an end in itself. The elephant in the room is if there is such a thing as Christian truth that transcends culture, and how abstract or particular is it. Perhaps for Robyn “conversation” and the restriction of “power” in all forms is the most broad or broad at the meta level of Christian faith, whereas for Calvin it seems to be the written witness of Scripture. Both beg many questions, of course. I’m not sure many of those questions were broached in this conversation. Perhaps in future?

This Robyn person has such a warped view of Christianity. At the beginning she talked about agreeing with things John Calvin said. Which she also negated by calling herself a transqueer theologian. That is a contradiction of terms. John Calvin would say she needs to be excomunicated from the church until she repents. She may have a PHD in theology but she has shown she has no idea what the Bible actually says. I pray she repents and comes to a real knowledge of the truth. Thanks to Calvin for standing for Biblical truth here! I pray the church of England repent of their wokeness

Why is it that I know who is who before I watch the video? I must be amazing 🕺🏻🕺🏻🕺🏻

13:45 as a brown man from Chile I ask… what war on black and brown people are we talking about???

Robyn in today's terms is woke...and he's bending scripture to fit his narrative...

I love Calvin's questions!

I’m sure Robyn will be warmly welcomed by the church and unbelievable audience 😂😂

An example of Christianity dealing...or attempting to deal...with wokeism. My son is a Christian and against abortion and for, through the Spirit, attempting to live Biblically. His wife,,who ostensibly was Christian, finally came out as atheist she decided she's wasted her life being a stay at home mom, raising their two girls, whom she came to see as impediments to her doing something "important" - working and making lots of money. She took a job in Washington state and moved on (we live in Southern California). She supposedly wants my son to leave the girls behind and join her in Washington (I'm not sure that's really what she wants. Because he's a Christian, my son won't divorce her for leaving). She has come out in favor of everything that today is considered woke, considered "in", They were having one of their nightly discussions/talks and discussing abortion after 22 weeks. He did get her to agree that abortion is deliberately killing a baby (I go farther...I consider it murder). She sees nothing wrong with it but tends to think after 22 weeks is possibly not OK. She asked my son why they can't "meet halfway"? My son said he thought they were meeting halfway; they both agreed, basically, that abortion after 22 weeks is not OK. He asked his wife what represented "meeting halfway" to her. Her answer: "You coming over to my side". THERE YOU HAVE IT. THAT IS WOKEISM. YOU AGREE WITH US AND COME OVRR TO OUR SIDE, AND YOU DESERVE TO BE OSTRACIZED, CANCELLED, VILLAINIZED, IF YOU DON'T. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK...BUT WE ARE THE "TOLERANT" AND "INCLUSIVE" AND "COMPASSIONATE" ONES.

"I don't like labels" says an individual who uses labels in every sentence.

Unity is to be worked for! Amen.

My Spanish family say Latinx is used exclusively by white, middle class liberals determined to colonise a language and a culture with their own little empire. I really enjoyed this conversation, Calvin is always eloquent and thoughtful and Robyn's perspective was interesting, it's nice to hear a proper conversation with no name-calling or insults. So kudos to Robyn for taking part. I wish you'd get H M Sealey on, her Christian fantasies are fantastically good at stripping religion from Christianity and just focusing on the King (Jesus) But her dystopian books are even better, she has such a good handle of where the whole identarian thing is going and how bad it could be. Just read This Broken Land or the Privileged Few and tell me you don't feel a chill.

Why is there only one publicaly prominent Anglican critiquing theological liberalism? Come on, social conservatives, get your act together if you still want to have an Anglican church in a hundred years.

Too often when apophatic theology is invoked, I find it to be more of a punt, in the vein of an “it’s complicated” relationship status.

Calvin, The Lord Jesus upset quite a few people didn't he. God bless your wonderful witness. Hope you read this.

Catholic teaching is that sex is for procreation but also for building the relationship and its place is only in marriage. Building relationship is a very important part of it in Catholic teaching.

Very interesting discussion

“Evil be thou my Good.” ~ Milton, Paradise Lost

I didn't understand Dr. Henderson-Espinoza's opening speech.

Is the other voice speaking before Dr. Espinosa back feed or are they being coached answers

What sheer insanity.

When they look like that, they sure do like to talk about themselves a lot, don't they? "I think...." "I look at it...." "I've been all over...." "My opinion...." "I'm doing this...." "The way I look at it...." It's like every statement is couched in the notion that this person is special, so whatever they think is special, and it is special because they specifically are making it. If you listen for it, it's really irritating.

Go on Calvin!

Forgive me for being a bit simple on this. But I thought the key component of conversion was denial or death of self. And I can't see how all this emphasis on "what I am" fits with death of self.

It's nice to see respectful dialogue between people with different worldviews! The one constant problem with 'Woke' arguments pertaining to Christianity is there is nothing but circular arguments. How can relativism co-exist in a Worldview of Judeo-Christian ethics? I pose those questions with agape (Christian love) and respect. How?

What I find concerning is the lack of communication from the c of E on, as the Bible points out, humanity being in a spiritual battle and the existence of evil beings; evil is not negative energy, but is as Paul points evil is spiritual beings in high places. So why is it, I am Anglican, that the church of England seems to me to underplay and not spell it this out to the people.

Great Job Calvin

What Bible is This Robyn talking about 🤔🤔🤔

Very clever how one can mislead by using Biblical Hebrew. The Hebrew words "zakar" and "nekevah" that are used in the original text of Genesis 1:27 are commonly understood to refer to male and female, respectively. While it is true that the word "adam" (אָדָם) used in the verse can be translated as "man" or "human," or as Robyn said "Earth Creature", the word is often interpreted as referring to humanity as a whole, including both males and females. The use of the words "zakar" and "nekevah" in the SAME verse reinforces the idea that God created both male and female.

A fascinating conversation, and well done everyone for keeping your cool (esp. Calvin!) under pretty severe provocation! I have come across "theologians" of various kinds before, who put their "theology" before God Himself, which I have always considered to be a form of idolatry. Robyn seems to be pretty mixed up on a number of counts - not believing in labels and then immediately proceeding to label himself with a whole list of pretty much incomprehensible (at least to me) labels! He is also lacking in understanding of God's Word, in spite of his great education and all his various academic accolades, which rather proves the point that it isn't intelligence that is important, but belief in the Biblical Gospel and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Jesus Himself is quite clear what the basis of our unity should be: John 17:17 (praying to His Father for His followers): "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth." There is no unity to be found in personal opinion or fudging our beliefs to fit with the beliefs of others. True Christian unity can be found only through belief in the Bible. No other way. This man is also saying that certain beliefs and practices so prevalent in today's society, have a place in the Christian faith. The same can be said of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This wokeness in the Church, bringing the world into the Church to make the Church more acceptable and attractive to the world, has the reverse effect. The Church does not grow in this way and become more Christ-like. It simply becomes more worldly and its message is diluted and rendered ineffective. Satan is having an absolute field-day. You cannot expect a positive result from calling sin a good thing and asking God to bless it. Fudging around what the word "Adam" means is ridiculous. If you can't accept the words of Genesis alone, look to what Jesus said about marriage (Matt. 19:4-5) where He quotes the Genesis passage, and various teachings of the Apostles in the New Testament. For all his "learning," this person appears to be ridiculously misinformed and misled. He doesn't seem to understand the fundamentals of Christianity at all. As a teacher of students, highly dangerous. I pray for his victims!

Rev Robbison please come to S.A and address the so called " woke theology, im sure Prof Dawid De Bruyn , Dr Tm Kantrell, Dr Joel James, Dr Virl Taite will welcome you with open arms please, please pray about this.

The last point was very interesting. When putting inclusion in the place of God, we exclude those who don't include... and demonise racists ect. But excluding a person expressing racist views as evil is hating the sinner not the sin.

If gender is socially constructed then I as a member of society reject the attempts of reconstructing gender.

Somebody's gotta say it, his tone being nice and kind but Robyn is a false teacher and definitely should be called out and marked as such...

Calvin was fantastic. I disagreed with almost everything Robyn said, but, I would have to say, Robyn came over as a very likable and decent person who I'd like to hear in more conversations. I'm not sure I can give a a better compliment than that. 50% of the problems we have in the world today would be made better by simply having people as diverse in their views as these two individuals treating each other with this level of decency and respect.

What is "doctor" Robyn Henderson-Espinoza a doctor of?

There are currently three types of Christianity: 1. Hardcore rules and hardcore communication. "Do this and don't do that or burn in hell!!!" 2. Hardcore rules and kind communication. "We are all sinners. The rules will not change. We do not yell at people." 3. No rules because "Jesus loves everybody anyway". Number 3 is really weird and looks like some kind of an infiltration. Number 1 is scary and depressing. It also pushes people away from Christianity and Christians. I am an ardent fan of number 2. Tough rules (the ideals must remain!) and kind communication. That's why I find people like Calvin Robinson (but also Bishop Barron) close to my heart.

It's a battle of wills. Between your will be done, I.e God's will vs my will be done. Let everyone who calls himself a Christian ask for God's will to be done and for the revelation of his will in every life.

To start I have now deconstructed a faith which has been essential in my life for 50 years. My point is That I now have a deep suspicion of religious complexity as irrefutably demonstrated in this debate alongside the myriad of biblical interpretations as expressed in denominations. Surely a plan for salvation saving people from eternal hell would have to be pan religion, culture, geography, intellect, education, wealth, biology In other words there has to be a plan that is equally accessible to every human not only alive today but those billions who existed before religious books were ever conceived. So the complexity and diversity of claims within biblical Christianity convinces me beyond reasonable doubt that it has no relevance to the entirety of the human race, past and present.

Gender wasn’t created to “categorize” people. God was very clear why he created us male and female. It was to compliment one another in both social and biological ways.

What exactly is “biblical truth” and how does it, if at all, conform with objective truth?

19:25 and we see the question go completely unanswered 🙄

Just to be clear on Robyn’s comment about the Hebrew word ‘adam. It of course can mean humanity or humankind, but that is not really relevant in Genesis 1:27, because the words denoting male and female there are zakar and neqeba, respectively. Go do a simple concordance search, it’s clear that these words mean male and female, in the normal sense of those words, the two parts of a species which are needed for reproduction. See Gen. 7:3. There are also many verses which single out zakar as those who are to be circumcised (gen. 17:10-14) for the obvious reason that only males have the body part which can be circumcised. This betrays either a complete ignorance of the verses in Genesis which Calvin was originally referencing or intentional misleading on Robyn’s part.

We have given billions and billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine how is that not intervening? I'll say it. It is his will that none should perish but he also said get away from me for I do not know you worker of lawlessness. This person is leading people to hell and he thinks he's not going to get punished with the devil's going to take so much delight in punishing people like this

I hope everyone will listen to Caleb Kaltenbach about how to love LGBTQ+ people and welcome them to churches without turning away from Biblical teaching.

And I also would like to say that date have domesticated polarization. We have not. Conservatives especially Christian conservatives don't want to polarize anybody. We are called to love each other and that's all we want to do.

I agree with Rev Calvin , Theology alone is enough👍 , If we focus on Black theology , the we have to do white theology , Asian theology etc , now it's no longer Theology, about God, it's about people(idolatry) Black history yes, whites history, yes Asian history, yes, not theology of races, *Theology is about God* Rev, Calvin is tight

This is a very refreshing and respectful debate. Theologically , I’m probably closer to Calvin (though not to his Conservative politics ) but Dr Espinosa was very serious and has obviously weighed these issues seriously There was more respectful disagreement (and actually , a lot of agreements between them ). Extremely refreshing

They aren't speaking about the same Jesus. This lady has concocted her own Jesus out of herself.

Well he just stopped the debate right there when he said that words are violence! !

Thanks God this woke theology is largely limited to the USA and England. Hopefully it won't spread elsewhere.

Anyone who calls for "inclusivity" in the church is preaching a false doctine. It is not Yahweh who adapts to us. It is we who fall in line with the Law and Truth of Yahweh

With regard to Robyn's statement that the word "Adam" in the Bible (Genesis) means "earth creature" when translated from the original Hebrew language - I'm afraid I'm inclined to go with the tried, tested & well-accepted translations/words as provided in the various authorised Bible translations that already exist - none of which mention the words "earth creature". Arguably, a "creature" could also mean a non-human animal existing on the earth, rather than a human being, which it has always been understood that Adam was. Even though Robyn may have a PhD in theology & have studied the Hebrew language for a couple of years as part of that degree - I don't necessarily believe that it is sufficient to overcome the translations in the existing authorised Bible translations which have been done by panels of Bible scholars & experts (of many years experience) in the various languages from which the Bible was originally translated.

He did 2 years of Hebrew. Lol. I'm wondering how many DECADES of learning Hebrew it will take before I understand basic ANCIENT Hebrew context.

I think Robyn is correct about adamah meaning ‘earth creature’ or maybe more accurately ‘earth thing’, and while Calvin dismissed that argument entirely outright which is incorrect, I don’t think that social construction definitively follows logically from the interpretation as robyn attempts to posit. I wish robyn would have responded to the assertion that these critical pedagogies stemming from liberation theology assert identity as a primary axiom and often require you to put the self before God, Calvin I believe correctly points out that this is self idolatry.

Nothing like cancelling yourself out by embracing an "x" to show it. Hmmm.

Is there an objective test for trans identity? Don't all doctors do objective testing before doing surgery? They don't otherwise do surgery just on the patient's wants and desires. How do we know that a trans person is just not happy with being stereotyped with there current gender? For example, I understand that there is a real difference in the brain between males and females.