History of Fundamentalism with Joshua Barzon

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Hey guys, it's Keith Barsky and this is your Calvinist podcast I'm glad to have you with us today

01:13

And I'm excited to have my friend Josh Barzon Who's going to be coming on the show in just a minute

01:18

We're going to be talking about the history of fundamentalism And so before we do that I just have a little bit of housekeeping

01:25

I want to do This week at Sovereign Grace Family Church We are hosting our end times conference

01:32

Me and my fellow elders are going to be preaching three messages Actually four now because I'm doing one on Sunday But four messages on the subject of eschatology

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So if you're interested in a partial preteristic view And a amillennial view

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And you want to know what that means And you want to learn more about it We're going to be doing messages on that So I would encourage you to come and visit us

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If you're in the Jacksonville area And if you're not in the Jacksonville area Then you can visit us online at youtube .com

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And just go and look for sgfcjacks That is Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville Also want to mention that I have some new friends

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Over at 1689 Cigars And they have sent me some cigars Now I want to mention this is not a paid promotion

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I simply want to mention them as Good Brothers in Christ And the cigars that they're making are quality

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I don't smoke cigars though So what I did was I took some of the ones that they gave me And I've allowed them to be smoked by some of my friends

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Who do smoke cigars So they can give me a true review And once they give me a true review I'm actually going to have the guys come on And talk about what they do

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Because these cigars help to fund their ministry And there's a lot that goes along with that So just put in your mind that if you're a person

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Who enjoys a good cigar And you're looking for that And you're looking for a place to go I would give a pre -review

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And say that these are good brothers And you should support them And later I'll give a full review After I've had some of my cigar smoking friends

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Tell me how great they are Well again, I'm thankful to have my friend Josh Barzon With me today

03:04

And I'm going to bring him on to the show now Josh is a former independent fundamentalist

03:12

Baptist Teacher and minister He is the author of The Forgotten Preface Surprising Insights on the

03:19

Translation Philosophy Of the King James Translators He serves his local church as a worship leader Connection group leader

03:25

And fill -in preacher and speaker For local churches in the area And he is an alumni of my show

03:32

Because this is not his first time This is actually the second time I've had him on So now he knows just what to do

03:39

So Josh, thank you for being on the show today The Kool -Aid, once I sipped it once I had to come back and get some more of your

03:47

Calvinist Oh great Well, I'm so thankful to have you on the show

03:52

And thankful that you were willing to do this Because I reached out to you And I said, you know,

03:58

I wanted to have you back on the show The last time we were on We talked about the King James Bible We talked about the

04:03

Preface And your book And I want to say it was very helpful for me And I got a lot of positive feedback from our viewers

04:11

People who said they really appreciated your tone And the way that you approached this subject And the attitude that you're doing it with You're not coming from a place of anger

04:21

Or vitriol You're just trying to put out some facts For people to understand And I know that not everybody welcomes you

04:29

Especially from the group that you have been formerly a part of How are you doing with that? Has it been a struggle with moving away

04:38

From the fundamentalist movement? You know, it's just funny how quick time goes on In a short amount of period that it's bad

04:46

But since I've written my book Coming up this May It'll be two years since it was released

04:52

And at the time that I published it I had already been out of the

04:58

IFB movement for a little while So given it several years now I think at the beginning there was some skepticism

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Of my previous crowd and people that knew me Because oftentimes to leave the

05:12

King James Bible To leave their movement Is seen as this slippery slope into apostasy

05:19

And eventually rejecting the faith, etc And I knew it

05:24

And it's something the Lord just reminded me of in His word And just in prayer That God is my judge

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And I do what is true Not based on some group telling me to do what's true But because Jesus is my

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Lord And He's the one that's begun a work in me That He has promised to continue until redemption

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So three years out now I think it's funny that people see me on Facebook They see me on Twitter They see me in town

05:49

And, you know, I don't have 666 tattooed on my forehead You know, I'm not drinking goat's blood

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You know, some people would say Well, yeah, just give it time, you know But I think the test of time has shown

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I still love God I love my family I love the brethren I love the body of Christ And I love the gospel

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And I've actually seen some relationships get repaired And people that maybe I haven't had much contact with In the initial times of leaving

06:16

That, you know, see me with some legitimacy now That, you know, we're still brothers We're in the same faith together

06:23

Amen And as far as your book goes What is the most positive feedback that you get? What do most people say that you get

06:29

That's really good feedback? Yeah, and I know we talked about it on the last show That was kind of our topic was the book

06:36

One thing I want to tell you that was interesting Is soon after you released that episode I get a call from a guy that built a fence for me

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A couple years ago And he's like, hey, I'm a trucker now And I listen to this Your Calvinist guy all the time

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And he goes, and you were on the show I couldn't believe it, you know And this guy built the fence for me a couple years ago

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And I find out, you know, he listened to you And he was like, that was great, I loved it But yeah, for those,

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I guess, that aren't aware Or didn't see that episode This is my book, The Forgotten Preface And it's made for people like me that like short books

07:09

So you can pinch it nice and thin And really this book was kind of a testimony

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And kind of a help to people Trying to understand the King James issue Coming out of, you know,

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King James -only -ism And understand God's word in clear, modern, vernacular English And yeah, there's been some hit pieces

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There's been some people that didn't like it Obviously, that I knew that would happen But that's been a minority

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I have received so much encouragement And I would say the most encouraging reviews

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Have been people that separately, privately Have reached out to me and said Josh, I've been struggling with this for a while I've been really back and forth between Do I have the liberty to read modern versions or not?

07:53

And your book was the linchpin that the Lord used To kind of free my conscience And help me to read modern translations

08:00

Without guilt on my conscience So I'm saying, I've gotten those from Bible college students And, you know, fundamentalist colleges

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I've gotten those messages from pastors and missionaries That are older than me, that are on foreign fields

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That are saying, like, thank you This was a huge stepping point for me and my faith And then

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I'd say second to that is People that have emailed me saying Hey, we've ordered 10 copies to keep at our church

08:23

For people that maybe have this in their past Or have this as an issue they're struggling with And your book is a resource now for us to just keep on hand

08:30

So, man, I tell you what That was worth every negative review Or just hard situation

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I had to go through Writing it to know, you know, The Lord is using this to build His church Amen, amen

08:43

And I'm thankful that that brother heard it on the show And made that connection

08:48

That's wonderful encouragement to me Well, brother, we're going to talk today

08:53

About the history of fundamentalism And I want to sort of start the conversation With something

08:59

I said maybe about a year ago It was in a sermon And I want to get your thoughts Because when we talk about fundamentalism

09:05

Versus liberalism That's typically the distinction that's made And what I said in the sermon is

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I said The issue with fundamentalism and liberalism Is essentially the same

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They both have a problem with What is essential The fundamentalists think everything is an essential

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And the liberals think nothing is an essential And you end up with these two widely divergent groups

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Where the fundamentalist makes everything you do Essential from the translation of the Bible you read

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To how long your pants are To all of those things And the liberal will say nothing is essential You don't even have to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus You can still be a

09:42

Christian And do you think that's at least a semi -accurate representation

09:47

Of what we have going on with the two divergent groups? Yeah, I think, you know, when we want to just summarize

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And talk in simple dialogues To make people stick in their mind I think that's a great analogy

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And I've used that before A phrase that I heard once to tag on to that is You know, when everything's a fundamental

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Then nothing's a fundamental And to unpack that And it's very true That's what helped me kind of leave my brand of fundamentalism

10:14

Was for me to put my style of music at church You know, the items of clothing that a woman may or may not wear

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The translation of the Bible I used To put that on the same level as the blood of Christ You know, the penal substitutionary atonement

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You know, the trinity To put those tertiary issues of dress and music and Bible translations

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On the level of matters of life and death Negates the importance of those issues

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And therefore, I would say, brings down the importance Of what I would call truly fundamental issues

10:49

So, on the other hand You know, the liberalistic side in a sense of Well, nothing really matters

10:56

That does play out of, and we'll see it as we talk And the progression of this in the last 120 years

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We see this shift of, well You can be a Christian and not believe in the resurrection of Christ And that's where we say, well, no

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There are fundamental issues So my, you know, premise here from the beginning

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Is don't look at me as this ex -anti -fundamentalist I would like to actually make the premise

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That I believe I am more of a true fundamentalist In the literal sense Than my independent fundamental brethren that I have come out of And we'll get into kind of the details of why

11:31

I believe that In this sense Absolutely, and we do have an outline We're going to try to follow today

11:37

That you gave me, the origins of fundamentalism The evolution of fundamentalism The current state of fundamentalism

11:43

Important fundamentalists And the impact of fundamentalism And that's a lot to get through in the short time that we have

11:48

But we're going to do our best So we're going to start I do have one thing I'm going to cut to for just a minute For the audience This is something I've been doing for every show

11:54

So we'll be back in one minute Hey guys, I just want to quickly say Thank you for watching this episode And if you're enjoying it, please hit the thumbs up button

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And the bad news is this That we are all sinners Sin is breaking God's law So we stand guilty before the

12:34

Lord of the universe But the good news is God sent His Son into the world To pay the penalty for everyone who would believe in Him Jesus came into the world

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Lived a perfect life And He died a substitutionary death For everyone who will believe And He calls us all to repent of our sin

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To turn from our unbelief And trust in Him as Lord and Savior And if you've never done that I encourage you to do so today

12:57

Now back to the show Alright brother, thank you for that And for being patient with that Want to now move on to our outline

13:08

So the origins of fundamentalism When somebody says you're a fundamentalist Or you're part of the fundamentalist movement

13:15

That's got a lot of different tones Yeah, yeah

13:20

So give us a rundown of the origin Yeah, so, and like you said We're going to try to run through this

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If you have deeper questions Feel free to DM me or Keith separately And then

13:31

I do have books here I've got a whole book stack that every now and then I'll kind of plug some books that Are good to know on this topic

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To say, we don't have three hours But read this book So, to kind of start off as an introduction

13:44

I would say, we need to understand What does the term fundamentalist mean And not just what does it mean

13:49

But what does it mean to the person that's using it We all know connotation and denotation

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You know, a word can mean something But the connotation can be different So, you know, high level

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We have the general pop culture You know, definition of fundamentalist Which is just a fanatic

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You know, someone, it doesn't even have to be Christian It can be an Islamic fundamentalist You know, a

14:13

Mormon fundamentalist You know, a Hindu fundamentalist Even, you know, an atheist fundamentalist To some degree

14:20

The way that's being used Is just someone who's extremely Obsessed or committed about something

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That's not how we're using it today A step down You have kind of a Christian pejorative View of fundamentalist

14:34

Which I laugh about It's just anyone a little bit more to the right than you Anyone a little bit more conservative than you

14:40

Is a fundamentalist And you know That's not a good way to use the term either Because then you're always a fundamentalist

14:47

To one person and you're a liberal to somebody else It's a moving term So I would like to argue for the historical

14:53

Definition and usage of Fundamentalist And I would say it's a term that really is

14:58

It's in history It doesn't exist today the way that it did Decades ago

15:04

And a fundamentalist was somebody In a point in time in history That was dealing with A growing

15:12

Opposition to the gospel That took ways that Needed to be defined as to What were fundamental issues that a true

15:20

Christian believes I'll reference this book If you haven't read it and you're interested on this topic

15:26

This is the staple The book to read On fundamentalism It's George Marsden's Fundamentalism In American Culture And I think my screen's mirrored

15:37

But you can look that up separately On your own if you want And George Marsden gives a definition

15:42

Of fundamentalism and he says it is militant Anti -modernist

15:47

Protestant Evangelicalism So I'll say that again, that's a lot But he uses his words with economy here and he means them

15:55

Fundamentalism is militant Anti -modernist Protestant evangelicalism

16:00

So to just sum that up simply He's saying it's those that Were doing battle against these

16:07

Modernist ideas that were opposing Christianity Among evangelical Christians in the historical

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Time frame when this was happening Which, to put a date on it, we're talking Late 1800s

16:18

Early 1900s So as simply as I can, that is the Context of fundamentalism

16:24

And really just kind of a working historical Definition of what a fundamentalist is Awesome And that is very helpful

16:33

And like you said, it was not a It was in response to something It wasn't just that It happened out of the ether

16:42

Or a bunch of guys got together and said Hey, we're going to become this thing It was in response to a growing

16:48

Would you call it a growing liberalism? How would you define what they were Going against? Yeah, so what

16:54

I would define it as And I'll kind of jump ahead in my outline a little I would recommend

17:00

An article as well If you're wanting to kind of Get some more beef on what we're talking about But at the

17:06

Gospel Coalition, there is An article by Justin Taylor called The Four Phases of Protestant Fundamentalism In America Very good read

17:14

And I'm going to steal Justin Taylor's kind of sub -outline Of what we're talking about What are these fundamentalists battling against?

17:22

And the first point he makes In kind of the history of fundamentalism Is what he calls the formative phase

17:27

Which is like 1893 to 1919 And then after that You have the militant phase of 1920 to 1936

17:35

And I'm going to stick within that The reason I mention these dates is This was Christians in America Specifically This is very

17:45

American based The fundamentalist movement Opposing new ideas That were encroaching upon Americans And American society

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And the big three would be German higher criticism Or German rationalism

17:58

Darwinianism And then the social For lack of a better word Social gospel

18:04

Or I don't like that phrase I kind of like social justice Not the same way we look at it today

18:09

But it is kind of a grassroots beginning Of what we see today In the areas of social justice So those were some ideologies

18:15

That were being fought against By the early fundamentalists That we're talking about Yeah it's interesting that you mention social justice

18:25

We think of that as a more modern term But the heart of that Has been there all along Did you ever see the movie

18:33

Time Changers? Oh man, yeah that's like one of those Christian films From back in the day, right?

18:39

The guy that goes back in time From like the 1800s Well he was

18:44

I watch it, I actually enjoy it I'm not a huge fan of Christian media Yeah, yeah

18:49

A lot of it's cheesy And glorified sermon illustrations But this movie

18:56

Was about a guy who wrote a book In the 1800s About how you could have Christian morality

19:01

Without Christ And he said this was a way For us to win people

19:07

If we can win them with our morality Then they'll come to Christ And his opponents were saying

19:13

No, you need to understand that If you give people morality without Christ You're not giving them the gospel You're giving them a false gospel

19:19

Anyway, he ends up getting in a time machine It was just cheesy

19:25

And he gets to come to the modern day And he gets to see the church Where it is now Where the gospel is in many churches

19:32

Just absolutely not there anymore And so it was like a learning lesson

19:37

For him and he went back And reputed his book But I just think about That's the time period you're talking about That's what the movie is

19:45

Yeah, exactly And if I'm thinking right Then at the end of the movie It's like he tries to get back in the machine And he can't go further anymore

19:51

Or something like that And I think like the Kendrick Brothers They preach at their church or something In the movie

19:57

So yeah, it's funny to talk about a movie But in their time Let me explain

20:03

Why was this such a big issue? We live so past these issues now We have so many amazing resources

20:09

From Answers in Genesis And Ken Ham And different people

20:16

Helping Christians apologetically Like our church We use the Gospel Project For a lot of our kids -based ministries

20:24

At this time You really have established denominations You have the Southern Baptist Convention You have

20:31

Presbyterianism You have the Methodist Church Before it was today's Methodist Church Even the

20:37

Episcopalian Church And as a whole All these mainline denominations were orthodox In doctrine

20:44

They would differ on issues Such as Covenant theology Or different views of church ordinances

20:53

But as a whole There was kind of this unity Among Christians in the late 1800s

20:59

And I think that can be attributed Much to the revivals Of the early and late 1700s

21:05

A lot of people don't realize this But the term Evangelical Is not a modern

21:11

Last hundred years term Evangelical was really a term That sprouted from the

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Great Awakenings Of Christians rallying together Around the Gospel Regardless of their denominational affiliations

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And that's why we see people like Whitfield and Edwards And these men Going to different denominational churches

21:30

And preaching and rallying people together And then we see later In this formative era

21:35

That Justin Taylor gives to the early phase D .L. Moody We see him and the

21:41

Niagara Falls Conference Uniting Christians together Regardless of denominational

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Or what we would call secondary issues That would separate Christians So we have kind of this beautiful Almost golden age

21:54

In the late 1800s Of Christianity And now we have the enemy We have true apostasy, true heresy

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Denying fundamental issues And to just break it down You have German rationalism

22:08

Or higher criticism Which is saying we just need to approach the Bible Like any other book of literature

22:14

It has errors It's not all the way true And we can't take it literally German rationalism is saying

22:20

Also along with heresy These miracles are They're myths that we can learn from But they're not true miracles

22:28

That a true deity Jesus did And then the big one is The resurrection is just the capstone

22:34

Of this amazing story of how to love people Give yourself to love others But Jesus didn't really rise from the dead

22:41

Well now we have that Along with Darwinianism saying God also didn't create you, you evolved You have no moral

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King over you that you're Accountable to And you have all three of these coming together

22:54

That really are opposing True Christianity And making these Christian groups say

23:00

Okay, we need to get on the same page About which of these are fundamental issues Which are secondary

23:06

And this really I would say is kind of the Driver or the harbinger Of the fundamentalist movement

23:12

Of people trying to get on the same page about What the faith is Yeah And that's, there's a ton

23:19

So interesting there But in your outline you gave me You said that there was an evolution that occurred

23:26

And I know we're not talking about Darwinian evolution No, no, no But obviously the evolution

23:32

Of the fundamentalist movement How it went from what you just talked about Which seems like a positive thing, trying to bring people together

23:37

Under the banner of the gospel And then it became something else So Yeah So yeah, let me

23:45

So to kind of transition there This is the book I would say Is kind of where we're at in our talk

23:51

And then we'll transition past that So this here, this book is called The Fundamentals It's a very thick volume

23:58

It's a modern reproduction But this is the Keystone book of essays

24:05

Compiled by the fundamentalists That kind of helped coin that term The fundamentalists back in the early 1900s

24:11

This was put together By a man that many people would know R .A. Torrey He previously was

24:18

Kind of a skeptic and agnostic Dealt with a lot of these issues And almost fell prey to becoming a

24:24

Liberal in his theology And then really swung To a conservative side

24:30

And helped to author this Along with dozens of other fundamentalists Now when this was put out

24:36

And I believe like the 1910s To the late 1920s Or early 1920s

24:42

This was not like an attack On modernism, like some canankerous Like let's just pound these guys

24:48

And destroy them This was really a very gentleman -like Apologetic of guys

24:54

This is what we believe, these are the common issues That unite Christians Whether you're a Methodist, a

24:59

Baptist, a Presbyterian Together And it's interesting that the articles

25:04

That are written, I'm looking at the Table of contents There's 64 different Articles that are written

25:12

And I mean there are so many different things Such as the virgin birth of Christ Justification by faith

25:18

Is Romanism Christianity The atonement, divine Efficacy of prayer

25:24

The purpose of the incarnation, the true church And you have people like J .C. Ryle You have people like R .A.

25:30

Torrey You have like J. Gresham Maycomb You have very big names that we know That are these early fundamentalists

25:36

That are helping to write this Interestingly enough Some very wealthy Christians Businessmen in California Put millions of dollars into sending a copy

25:47

Of this to every single Christian minister In America In the 1910s to the early 1920s

25:52

It's estimated that Legitimately 90 % plus of every church in America Received a copy of these

26:00

Showing that there was A common consensus about what Was believed to be a fundamentalist

26:06

Now I'm saying all this to segue into the evolution Because Before we segue into the evolution

26:13

I want to kind of point out five points Of what made somebody a fundamentalist And this really was the five rallying points

26:20

Of objectively What made you a fundamentalist So in 1910 I think it was the

26:25

Presbyterian Church of America Actually put out Their five point Confession basically

26:32

And Calvinists love us in five points Yeah We got five points of Calvinism And we got five points of fundamentalism

26:42

Boy we I know I'm like I'm thinking of other things That you can think of that would be five pointed

26:48

But yeah your five point sermon outlines Right I'm looking up Because I didn't write it down The five points of fundamentalism

26:58

Were the inspiration of the Bible By the Holy Spirit Meaning it was inerrant The virgin birth of Christ The belief that Christ's death was an atonement

27:08

A penal substitutionary atonement for sin The bodily resurrection of Christ And the historical

27:14

Reality of Christ's miracles And then there could be a sixth one that was Put in there of the

27:19

Return of Christ Not how he would return Not when he would return

27:25

But that he would return So here's what I want to point out And this is where it really helps us get

27:31

Into the evolution of Like wow Josh that is not what I think of with Fundamentalism today Exactly notice what you didn't hear

27:39

That these groups were rallying around They weren't rallying around A particular translation of the Bible They weren't rallying around A very formal church service

27:48

They weren't rallying around Formal dress attire when coming to church Or along with that What garments of clothing a woman

27:56

Should or shouldn't wear You know pants or skirts or dresses etc They weren't rallying around What type of music

28:04

What kind of instruments you should use in your church Now granted I know the modern instruments we use today

28:10

Were not necessarily around at this time But I would argue with the spirit I see Even if it was that would not have been

28:16

Included in a fundamental issue Because you know what else was not included In the fundamental issues to divide over Was eschatology

28:23

We see post -millennialists We see amillennialists We see starting now pre -millennialists

28:30

All gathering together You know you have J. Gresham Macomb He was an avid amillennialist

28:36

And then you have a lot of the Preachers of the second great awakening And the first great awakening

28:42

Which were very post -millennialist You know looking at these revivals as ushering in the return of Christ And then now you have

28:50

Dispensationalism really booming on the scene And we can get into that later Remind me if you want to talk about Why in this era

28:57

Dispensationalism really boomed But I won't digress there at this point Because what you see here

29:03

Is these were not issues That were made to be fundamental issues These were secondary and tertiary issues

29:10

The last thing I'll throw in That was not divided over Was issues such as Local church versus Universal church

29:17

What is called landmarkism Or local church onlyism And then many other things

29:24

Such as denominational separation Now that list I just gave Those are all hallmark points

29:30

Of what kind of defines a fundamentalist Today So we'll get to there How did we get there

29:36

But there is an evolution that leads there From this is the true faith This is what it means to be a

29:42

Christian And we must separate from Non -Christians corrupting the faith To the current state today

29:48

Where within fundamentalism as a whole We see a separation not only from unbelievers And apostates

29:53

But a separation from true Christians as well And it was quite the journey That gets us from one point to the other

30:02

That's amazing I mean just thinking about How that worked together And just the

30:09

This is not a small subject We're looking at a hundred years I'm trying to keep it a primer

30:14

No I understand And I have a thousand questions I was writing down If anybody's watching me here

30:21

I wasn't not paying attention I'm sitting here writing why dispensationalism took off The local church onlyism

30:27

I actually had a conversation recently With a new friend He's going to be featured on the show soon

30:33

His name is Aaron Brewster And he is a counselor, great guy And he and I were talking

30:40

And he had not heard The local church onlyism argument Because I said A lot of fundamentalists think

30:46

That there is no such thing as a universal church It's only the local church And he sort of pushed back on me And said well

30:51

I don't think that's true I said well it's not all of them I think Have that same view But that is a view within the movement

30:57

It's a majority point It is only a minority that I have ever met Within established independent

31:03

Fundamental Baptist realms That would not hold to A local church onlyism

31:08

And a denial of the universal church But are they denying Since we're on the subject I do have to ask

31:14

Were they denying that there is a universal bride of Christ That everybody who's a believer is part of the bride of Christ Or is it just the word church

31:24

That they're tying themselves to How do they make that distinction I think it's one of those things where there's a hierarchy

31:29

And I really want to be fair And not lump everyone together Because I've gotten into these conversations online

31:35

And someone's like hey Josh You're kind of misrepresenting me by putting me in that bucket But as I talk with them

31:40

I'm like You are in the bucket You're just like the light version of the bucket So to go extreme you have

31:47

Baptist briders or landmarkists Who literally will say That the only legitimate churches today

31:53

Are Baptist churches And if you're not a Baptist church who can trace your lineage back To the first church in Jerusalem You're not a true church

32:01

Which is funny because that's like Roman Catholic You know apostolic secessionism When you look at it just from a different perspective

32:08

So I don't deal too much with those guys In my past but I would say the general You know what you're going to get

32:15

In your ecclesiology course At your average IFB college Whether you go to West Coast Baptist College Heartland Baptist College Golden State Baptist College You know you don't know these names

32:26

But if people that are in my past hear this They know those are kind of like your main colleges You go to You're going to be taught in your ecclesiology

32:34

That there is no universal church Every church independently Is the body of Christ And They don't really connect together

32:43

How we're all connected together It's like they want to say well that's the kingdom of God Even though You can't make the kingdom of God and church

32:51

The same thing Because we know that does not fit together When we start looking at how that parts us apart

32:58

But I think it really is a knee jerk reaction To You know established denominationalism

33:04

And kind of the very Separatist views that we see Independent Baptist kind of even this time The fundamentalist you know forming off of We are accountable to no council

33:13

You know to no hierarchy Which I get that I'm all for a local church government But then it kind of devolves into You know and we're not part of any

33:22

General church invisibly There is only the visible church So yeah we can talk hours on this

33:28

But that's I think your general consensus Of what you get about that Yeah I remember my conversation with Thomas Ross Which I reached out to you about Because I mentioned

33:37

Athanasius And he said well I don't consider that Part of the true church and I was like okay

33:42

That was I didn't realize But he was coming from that landmark Trail of blood perspective

33:48

And again I don't want to misrepresent him I've invited him on the show and he said he would come on I just have never scheduled it

33:53

So it's not like he's dodging me Or anything it's my fault He's a great guy as far as a human being

34:00

He's a great And I believe in the brother in Christ Yeah and he graduated from the same college that I went to In Indiana Yeah Fairhaven Baptist College So I think he graduated there

34:11

In 2000 I graduated there In 2016 so I never Overlapped with him but like I've heard his name

34:17

During my time when I was there So yeah me and him would have gotten the same You know ecclesiological training at that college

34:23

There Gotcha And I don't want to jump ahead too far But I'm super interested in this

34:29

You mentioned the rise of dispensationalism Now if that's further down the line of what you want to talk about We can put that on pause

34:35

But I wrote it down because Obviously I'm friends with Spencer Smith I recently did a debate with him

34:41

On the subject of the pre -tribulation Rapture this coming weekend My church is doing the eschatology conference

34:47

And we're obviously not dispensational If we hold to amillennial And partial preteristic views

34:53

Of some of the texts of the bible So how did dispensationalism Get a foothold?

34:59

Yeah so it's very interesting And I think we're right on the same Timeline of what's going on You have in the late 1800s

35:06

Really a very optimistic view Of the future among American Christians as a whole

35:12

We've just seen these revivals We're seeing America expanding America's becoming a prosperous nation

35:19

And we're also a Christian nation quote on quote So God must be blessing us We've had

35:24

D .L. Moody and these great revivals And he's going over to England and Australia And it looks like the world is getting

35:31

Converted The nations are being discipled The gospel is going out And that is why at this time

35:37

The majority of Christians Unarguably were postmillennialist

35:42

Or amillennialist at the least To be premillennial Or to be a dispensationalist

35:47

Was a minority position to hold Now I do want to be clear here I'm not saying it didn't exist I do think it's an unfair proposition

35:55

To say that dispensationalism was created In the early 1900s I would definitely say

36:01

It got it's foothold from Some unestablished ideas Through men like Darby and C .I.

36:07

Schofield But it was not a majority Position before the 1900s And the reason we see this shift

36:13

And why it became popular is We see this pessimism growing now Moody has passed away

36:19

We see the old guard Kind of getting older and now in their place We see liberal theologians

36:25

Rising up in their place We see men like Harry Emerson Fosdick Who was one of the

36:31

Poster boys of liberalism He was the one that in 1922 Preached the message Shall the fundamentalists win

36:38

Basically scoffing at the fundamentalists Saying you guys are fighting a battle that's not gonna win

36:43

Liberal theology will prevail We see in Europe We see war brewing

36:48

We see nations falling apart We start to see the vices of large cities

36:53

Growing and the sin and corruption That comes with often times Urban areas and Poor people and minorities

37:01

Not being taken care of So now all of a sudden you have this optimistic We live in the country

37:07

We're all these glorious Christians Now faced with all these vices of the modern world

37:12

And these encroaching ideas Of liberalism and Darwinianism And higher criticism So it really was the feeding ground

37:19

That allowed the seeds of dispensationalism to flourish Because it allowed a view Of eschatology that was pessimistic

37:26

To take hold It was basically saying well I look at the future And it seems gloomy So this eschatology that says it's only gonna get worse

37:34

And worse makes sense to me And then I see that along with I would say Darby's writings that he put out

37:43

And then C .I. Schofield's notes In the Schofield reference bible Which was one of the first Very easily available reference bibles

37:50

A Christian could buy at that time That had notes on the side Up until this point the

37:56

Geneva bible Was really the last bible that had Extensive notes throughout the entire bible

38:01

That were not just giving Interpretations of the text So we have from the 1600s

38:06

Till the 1900s Of this vast expanse Of study bibles

38:12

Not being a big thing And now you have a study bible With very heavily dispensational notes

38:18

Throughout the entire bible Being published and accessible by Christians All around the world

38:23

So that's kind of my short version of That definitely allowed dispensationalism To kind of have a running head start

38:30

When it really started to take off at that time Do you think also And this is just me

38:36

Sort of Just kind of asking your opinion The dispensational view

38:41

At least the friends that I have that are dispensational Really Really Push the fact that they believe they're

38:47

Interpreting the bible literally And among the The amillennial view

38:54

They'll say you just don't interpret it literally You interpret it figuratively and therefore you're liberal I've been told that, I've been told I'm a liberal

38:59

Because I don't interpret the bible literally Do you think that possibly had a part In it too that there was this

39:06

Sort of crass literalism that needed To be imposed upon the text and therefore If you don't believe this you're not

39:12

Really a fundamentalist or whatever Yeah, oh absolutely I think what you're saying

39:17

This knee -jerk reaction of These darwinianists want to say Genesis is just An allegory, it's not literal

39:25

So what's the pushback? No, it's literal We need to take the bible And it's hermeneutical

39:32

What is it, the plenary Grammatical, yada yada yada Interpretation Basically these strung out words saying

39:39

The bible needs to be taken literally But there's always an asterisk there Of unless if you decide this part

39:45

Isn't literal You know it's funny, I even asked dispensationalists I'm like, do you really believe a dragon is going to Come out of the ocean and start eating people up Well no no no, that's figurative

39:54

I'm like whoa whoa, how can you Get to decide that's figurative You know, but then

40:00

I talk to some And they're like, oh yeah it is, and locusts will be eating people And you know, but then I go to Isaiah And I'm like, so So is

40:07

Jesus actually a lamb That is being beaten Like did he transform into a lamb Because that would be the literal interpretation

40:14

You know, of the messianic prophecies Of him as a lamb For our sins, taking on our transgression

40:20

Well no no, you're being ridiculous To take that literally So you kind of have this moving standard

40:25

That I think we see of the literalness Literalness in a sense

40:31

But what you're saying I think definitely fed into The beginnings of Dispensationalism being taken

40:37

You know, kind of whole hog I remember in A conversation, and I don't remember

40:43

The exact when it was But I remember a person saying Well we take the

40:49

Bible literally But that doesn't mean that certain passages Aren't figurative, and I said wait a minute You're, again

40:55

It's like nailing jello to the wall Oh yeah So So we see the evolution

41:03

We see the advent Of the dispensationalists And those things, and it brings us

41:09

To the next step In our conversation, and I don't know if you want to go To where we are now, or how we got to where we are

41:15

But I'll let you pick up where we left off And take us on Yeah, so this really puts us at like The 1930s, 1940s

41:23

You know, we have Christians that have banded together You know, against modernism And to make this part kind of short

41:29

Now we have kind of a third group That pops up in the middle So you have fundamentalism over here

41:36

You have liberalism over here But now we have in the 40s and 50s What is called neo -evangelicalism

41:42

And neo -evangelicalism is kind of a Okay guys We definitely believe

41:48

Some apostate teachings Of the liberals is wrong But come on you fundamentalists guys

41:54

You guys are now starting to become Not just militant, but divisive And starting to kick people out of the kingdom of God Based on what we're talking about Added fundamentals that did not

42:05

Belong in the fundamentals of faith So you have this neo -evangelicalism Which again is saying

42:11

Hey, in the 1700s and 1800s We all rallied together as evangelicals Around this gospel that was being preached

42:18

At these revivals Let's make that our emphasis again And then we see

42:23

The formation of the NEA The National Evangelical Association And we see some big names

42:29

That actually are part of that Such as Bob Jones Sr. You see John O 'Rice Who was a fundamentalist forefather

42:36

But then you see them pull out When it doesn't really meet the needs Of their very fundamentalist leaning tendencies

42:42

The biggest event I want to point here That shows the evolution And how we get to the modern state Is Billy Graham So you have

42:49

Billy Graham Who everyone knows Billy Graham And people don't realize often That Billy Graham He went to Bob Jones University A very fundamentalist university

42:59

Him and Bob Jones did not get along And he ended up, I believe he left Bob Jones And went to Fuller Theological Seminary And Billy Graham Was a gifted orator

43:09

Preacher of the gospel But he got into trouble with the fundamentalists When he would speak at conferences

43:16

Alongside Actual liberal theologians For the common goal of preaching about the gospel And the thing with Neo -evangelicalism is

43:24

There was some virtue of As Christians we are supposed to do social justice

43:29

We are supposed to care for the poor And the marginalized But we know that is not the gospel That's an outflow of the gospel

43:36

So I do see Billy Graham and people like him Wanting to unite the good of the two together

43:41

But what happens when you stand in the middle Of a battlefield You get shot at by both sides That's what we see happen

43:48

Billy Graham gets pushed out By people like Bob Jones And whether people know this or not

43:55

John R. Rice was really a father figure To Billy Graham Really took him under his wing

44:02

Was a mentor to him And even John R. Rice To some point had to separate From Billy Graham Because of his association

44:10

With more liberal Christians So to really fast track We do find this really

44:18

Devolving Landscape of Christianity Of fundamentalists

44:23

Liberal theologians And then these neo -evangelicals And it got to the point that a lot of mainline denominations

44:29

Ended up splitting You have the Southern Baptist Convention And the American Baptist Convention Doing ways with each other

44:37

You have the Presbyterian Church of America And I forget what the other branch They split off into was

44:42

In the Methodist Church So now we're seeing mainline denominations Split from each other And become the conservative side

44:49

And the liberal side of each other How we get to where we're at today Really kind of picks us up In the 1980s

44:58

The Southern Baptist Convention Was going in a dangerous direction There are flagship colleges

45:04

Southern Seminary, Southeastern Seminary And some other ones that are tied in There as SBC colleges

45:10

There was an issue that There were professors who were full -blown Progressive Christians Teaching Progressive Christianity That the resurrection could be

45:22

A secondary issue It's not a fundamental issue, etc. So you see in this 1980s, 70s, 80s, 90s

45:31

You see a lot of Southern Baptists Just average people going to church Leaving those churches

45:36

Because they're worried about the direction The Southern Baptist Convention is going And at this time, no mainline denomination

45:42

That started dabbling in Modernism ever came back to a conservative side They always went

45:48

Full -blown, into full liberalism Full modernism So the expectation in the 70s and 80s was

45:54

Okay, the SBC is going this direction And this will be a sub -point We'll get to at the end

45:59

This is where independent, fundamental Baptist churches, what I have come out of Really boomed and grew

46:06

Because you have now People that are Baptists But not wanting to be under the

46:12

Southern Baptist Convention Saying, well we want to go to an Independent Baptist church that is not Affiliated with the

46:18

Southern Baptist Convention So you see Churches that are exploding That are these

46:23

IFB or Independent fundamental Baptist churches Because they were really eating up Members from SBC churches that were

46:30

Leaving in droves and wanting a more conservative Theological church to join So what happens in the 80s

46:37

And it's interesting, 70s, 80s Most people in your audience And I know you would know his name as well We all know

46:42

Adrian Rogers And Adrian Rogers Just a good old Southern Baptist preacher

46:48

Very conservative And he helped lead what was called The conservative resurgence in the

46:54

SBC Basically helped to push out The liberal theologians Teaching in these colleges

46:59

And set forth Even what today is the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, it's been updated several times

47:06

But really bringing The SBC back to a Very conservative position

47:12

Which was unprecedented Because no mainline denomination Had ever rebounded from leaning

47:17

In a very liberal position So now you have late 80s, 90s Into the 1000s

47:23

And you have guys like Al Mohler You have Adrian Rogers coming off the scene You have many other people

47:29

We can talk about that were Southern Baptists That now were very conservative In a sense were fundamentalistic

47:36

In a sense And had brought this denomination back To what it historically was As a very conservative organization

47:42

Now here's where it gets interesting At that point you have these independent Fundamental Baptist churches

47:48

That now their members are like Oh hey, we left that church Because they're going liberal

47:54

And we grew up with that church Well now they're conservative again Let's go back over there And what we start to see happen

48:00

And really I would say the de -evolution Of the independent fundamental Baptist church movement Is they had to create more differentiators

48:08

Between them and the SBC churches That made them different So now it wasn't just what we hold

48:13

To conservative theology we hold to the fundamentals Now it was Hey we're living in this hippie time

48:19

Of the 60s and the 70s and this Woodstock era And you know your kids are going to get Eaten up by these modern universities

48:26

And you know the party culture That goes along with it We now are going to separate

48:32

Off of social issues as well We're going to separate from people based off of the music they use The dress

48:38

I mean I remember when I was in college At the time this wasn't a rule But it had been a rule that You couldn't wear wire rim glasses or pleated pants

48:46

Because those were worldly fashions Yeah so These were things that people knew Were knee jerk reactions

48:54

Guitars were bad instruments Because the rock bands used those At a time even

48:59

If you're going to be at a church and sing You shouldn't hold a microphone Because the worldly people that are performers

49:06

Hold microphones You put the microphone on the pulpit You have a lot of these tertiary issues Becoming separation issues

49:12

That divided the independent fundamental Baptist churches From the now conservative

49:18

Returning SBC churches And I think that's where we see The modern state of fundamentalism

49:25

As far as the branch That I have come from There are so many areas I could go here

49:31

To not miscategorize To clarify But I'll just stop it there to kind of answer your question

49:36

In long form of that's the evolution process We see from the 1920s, 30s Through the 80s

49:42

To what we see now on the present day Well that's super helpful I do have a question

49:48

As you were talking Do you know, and you may not But do you know when the first church

49:54

Identified as an independent Fundamentalist Baptist The first IFB or was it a group

50:00

Of IFB churches that were the first ones Yeah okay Great question So it's like nailing jello on a wall

50:08

Because let's just be honest What makes you an independent fundamental Baptist It's connotation and denotation

50:15

So let me give you just kind of an analogy My church I go to is here In my town of Indianola I go to New Heights Church We are an independent church

50:24

We have elders at our church They are the highest level Of authority at the church

50:30

We don't answer to a board or anyone else You know what I mean In that sense we're independent aren't we

50:37

We are an independent operating church Fundamental Is my church fundamental

50:42

Well to take the fundamentals literally Yeah we hold to the inerrancy of the bible You know the virgin birth, the miracles etc

50:49

We are fundamentalist In the sense of the true fundamentals And then are we

50:54

Baptist Yeah we do hold to a Baptist You know polity of church government And we do baptize by immersion

51:00

So to take each of those words separately We are independent We are fundamental in doctrine and we are

51:06

Baptist But when you put those together We are not independent fundamental Baptist We're not IFB IFB is a connotation

51:14

No matter how you want to cut it That I've had people at my previous church That have warned people

51:20

Of ever attending my church Because our church is going a dangerous direction Because we have drums and we have guitars

51:26

And our pastors don't wear suits When they preach And we don't use the King James Bible So then

51:32

I stop and I go Okay where did this IFB come from That's your question

51:38

And to answer that I would truly say You can oppose me or message me if you think differently

51:44

I would say the first Independent fundamental Baptist That I would categorize as IFB Was J.

51:50

Frank Norris And J. Frank Norris if you don't know Was an early fundamentalist at the time

51:56

Of J. Gresham Akum R. A. Torrey, W. B. Reilly But he was a guy

52:02

That was just He was a bully He liked to fight He loved contention

52:08

He liked to separate from people And it's interesting Do you not know much about J.

52:14

Frank Norris Muchkeith? No not much Okay look into him There's a book called

52:19

The Shooting Revivalist So he in the 1930's or 40's Pastored the two largest churches in America Simultaneously He pastored

52:27

First Baptist of Fort Worth And First Baptist Detroit And traveled on the weekends

52:32

Back and forth by train To pastor both churches They were like tens of thousands

52:38

Of people He was a very controversial figure He grew up in the home of an alcoholic

52:44

Yeah go ahead So what you're saying Is he invented the multi -site

52:50

Before there was If he could have multi -sited himself in If he could have digitally sent himself in He would have done that But instead he took a train

52:58

I know And not to go on But things for you and people to know

53:04

Why I say he's the first fundamentalist You see a lot of Characteristics In IFB churches today

53:12

In him as a character You see him separating from the SBC Not over theology But over money

53:18

He didn't like certain cooperative programs They were doing and he wanted the money for himself

53:24

He was known for being very eccentric His sermons were very topical Did not have a lot of content

53:30

In them a lot of times He was known for baptizing a horse In his baptistry at one time Yeah he baptized a horse

53:38

In his baptistry in Texas To help cowboys come to church Okay I'm going to write that down Because I make little short videos off this

53:45

And that's going to be a short right there Yeah modes of baptism He was known for being very contentious

53:52

With local politicians He used his Sunday services Often to get a crowd in To hear something amazing he was going to say

54:00

So one Sunday He announced in the newspapers The week before that he was going to expose

54:06

A prominent politician in Dallas For having an affair For embezzling

54:11

And for being a dishonest crook And if you came to his church that Sunday You could find out who that politician was

54:17

And the story goes that he had 12 politicians Begging him not to give out their name At his sermon

54:25

That he gave So you just see this Very knee jerk

54:30

Controversy strung guy The biggest controversy he got involved in Is he shot a man dead in his office

54:36

In the early 1930s And Mr. Chips Was his name he was a department store owner

54:42

Who was very angry At J. Frank Norris for something he said In one of his sermons

54:47

He mentioned that Mr. Chips had an affair And he said that to the congregation as a whole

54:53

And it was a private matter And Mr. Chips went to meet with J. Frank Norris And nobody was in the office

54:59

When it happened And there was a bang the janitor heard it And Mr. Chips was shot dead And when the police came and investigated

55:06

This is all public records you can find this online Anywhere Mr. Chips did not have a gun or anything on him

55:13

J. Frank Norris said he shot him in self defense There was no weapon on Mr. Chips And he was later acquitted

55:19

Because there weren't any witnesses to testify either way The reason I say this Is that you can find

55:26

In modern IFB colleges when they go through Baptist history They attribute their lineage to J.

55:33

Frank Norris And they count him as a father of their IFB faith There's a clip I can give you of Jack Treber He's the president of Golden State Baptist College And they have a hall of heroes of the faith

55:44

And they have J. Frank Norris up there His picture Crown College down in Kentucky Clarence Sexton was the pastor there

55:51

Until he passed away recently They have J. Frank Norris up there When I learned at Fairhaven We learned about J.

55:57

Frank Norris as This father of the faith That stood against compromise

56:02

And then I grow up and I learn about him And I'm like this guy Was just a bully But I think we see

56:10

Kind of this rose colored glasses of Modern fundamentalism is Let's divide from anyone that's not like us

56:16

What makes us different? Let's divide over issues that make people liberals And us conservative And I think you see the grassroots of that In J.

56:24

Frank Norris coming through So sorry to answer with such a long answer But that is

56:29

I would say The first independent fundamental Baptist As we see them today So we got a horse baptizing

56:37

Man shooting Multi -site preaching I have got to spend some time

56:43

Looking this guy up Because again I had no idea

56:50

Wow And I'll throw one more name at you So this is the string It goes J.

56:56

Frank Norris After him the next progenitor in line Would be John R. Rice Which are you familiar with John R.

57:02

Rice at all? I've heard the name John L. Rice John R.

57:08

Rice John R. Rice So he was the publisher of The Sword of the Lord which still exists today

57:15

It was a very fundamentalist Platform newspaper And he was from Wheaton College in Illinois His daughters went there

57:23

And John R. Rice was really Kind of a mentee Under J.

57:29

Frank Norris Kind of learned under him They stood together But even J. Frank Norris separated from John R.

57:34

Rice Because John R. Rice didn't take a hard enough stand Separating from Billy Graham and others Etc So I would honestly argue that John R.

57:43

Rice Was a more moderate IFB Pastor But still held most of these

57:48

IFB beliefs We hold The funny thing is John R. Rice was not King James only Even in the

57:54

Sword of the Lord Endorsed the NASB when it was first Published And even has an article called

58:02

Problems with King James Onlyism And I've published that online before And it drives

58:07

IFB people crazy Because they all revere John R. Rice He is The grand poppy

58:14

He's the nice forefather After J. Frank Norris Of the IFB And you see even him not holding a lot of these more militant

58:23

Doctrines and beliefs That we see the IFB church hold And then lastly The last connector would be

58:29

J. Frank Norris, John R. Rice And then you have the man that I would say Created the modern form

58:36

Of fundamentalism today Which is Jack Hiles And Jack Hiles Was a man that I truly

58:44

Doubt was even a believer And was even a saved man that I'll see in heaven one day Multiple sexual

58:50

Abuse allegations Very racist There's a sermon of him even

58:56

Talking about if you got saved You know from another version besides the King James Then you're not even saved

59:01

You can only be born of incorruptible seed Which is the true word If you got saved with an NIV Then you're born of incorruptible seed

59:09

I've heard of that It's bad but he was known for having The largest church in America I think in the 1980s

59:16

Their Sunday school program I think at one time their largest day Had 20 -30 ,000 people in attendance

59:22

Right there in Hammond, Indiana Right outside of Chicago And he wrote this book here

59:29

Called The Hiles Church Manual And this literally They would have a pastor's conference every year

59:36

That thousands of pastors of IFB churches Would go to And that's him if you've never seen him

59:41

That's Jack Hiles Pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana I mean would often brag that They had the largest

59:50

Church in America And this is a way to grow your church Just like him And a lot of people separate from him today

59:58

Because they don't want to be associated with The sexual abuse allegations His methods of evangelism

01:00:04

Were horrible It was the whole say this prayer and you'll be saved In a crowd of a thousand people

01:00:09

And baptize people right after Without any true understanding of their salvation But if you read this manual

01:00:16

Even people today That would say oh we're IFB But we don't associate with Jack Hiles Their churches often times

01:00:23

Will operate exactly like his As you read through this manual Which makes me say okay you can say you don't like him

01:00:29

But your church still operates Very identically to what he put in this manual Which I think we see

01:00:35

Kind of the modern state Of fundamentalism today Wow See these are things again

01:00:43

I went to a Southern Baptist seminary But I grew up in a church that wasn't connected To the IFB So these names and some of these things

01:00:50

That you're saying are guys that I have not Come across and it's just amazing So very helpful

01:00:56

Sorry to info dump I feel like that is actually the lightest Simplest and like Less time consuming way

01:01:03

I think I ever Could have gotten through that whole string of people No I get it

01:01:08

So The impact of fundamentalism And I don't want to jump too far but I do We're getting at the hour mark

01:01:15

And I want to start drawing to a close When we talk about the impact of fundamentalism You put in your notes that you sent to me

01:01:21

The good the bad and the ugly So you're not saying it's all bad You're not saying that everything is bad

01:01:26

There's some goodness here And I want to be fair again I'm going to be doing a bow tie dialogue With Tommy McMurtry and a few of his friends

01:01:32

That are all IFB pastors And Tommy and I we were in a show together Recently and he was very kind to me

01:01:39

And I want to count him as a brother And say these are guys who Obviously we differ on some things

01:01:44

But we're not There are some men that we would question Like you mentioned with Jack Hiles and others

01:01:50

But ultimately We're not kicking anyone out of the kingdom I know you're not So what's the good what's the bad

01:01:59

What's the ugly If you would I'll keep it simple so the good is

01:02:05

And if you're listening and you're like Oh Josh you miscategorized us We don't You know we're not we see some things

01:02:11

Like what you're saying but not all the way That's what I'm saying this is a generalization There are some good independent

01:02:17

Fundamental Baptist guys out there That I would still you know visit their church You know they wanted me to preach from them

01:02:22

You know I'd go in and preach And I would call them like moderate IFB You know people that you know

01:02:28

Actually categorize some of their Doctrines as secondary and not fundamental So there are some good men

01:02:35

You know in the IFB that I think Have just gone along with tradition You know so it's kind of hard to Pull away from tradition when that's your friends

01:02:43

That's your network etc Most independent Fundamental Baptist I think

01:02:48

Truly do have a heart to reach the lost And evangelize and give the gospel out I think they're misguided oftentimes

01:02:55

In the way they do it I think We see it too and a lot of knee jerk Against anything reformed or You know

01:03:02

Calvinism Is that horrible C word you shouldn't say And I think there is such this Emphasis on like we need to reach

01:03:09

Everyone because it is up to us To reach everyone at any point In time with the gospel And I think there's a good to that Of realizing yeah there is an accountability

01:03:18

We have to share the gospel To reach people you know And be evangelistic and I definitely

01:03:25

See that as a whole in independent Fundamental Baptist churches They're misguided on Their view about the

01:03:32

King James Bible But I think at the heart they truly Do love God's word and they Treasure it very deeply

01:03:37

I just think they're misguided about Translation being equivalent to You know the original and what

01:03:44

God's word actually is So I would say those are good things The bad and then the ugly

01:03:50

I think the bad is just A lot of legalism of things That are preferences

01:03:56

Or tertiary issues that get placed On issues of Sanctification To where a woman in general

01:04:04

In an IFB church is told If you wear pants You're either sinning

01:04:09

Not wearing what you should And you're not going to grow the way that God wants you to grow If you

01:04:15

Aren't using this Bible translation If you listen to any kind of drums Or guitar or rock music

01:04:21

You're polluting your soul with the devil's music Etc. So I think we just have some Misplaced priorities about certain doctrines

01:04:28

And how they factor into sanctification And then I would say the ugly Is that unfortunately

01:04:33

There is a massive Sexual abuse problem within Independent fundamental

01:04:39

Baptist churches as a whole A documentary was just Released on HBO In Discovery called

01:04:44

Let Us Pray P -R -E -Y Going through Jack Hiles, Bruce Goddard Out in Wildermar, California Jack Scott who was

01:04:56

The son -in -law of Jack Hiles Who took over First Baptist Hammond And just got out of prison recently

01:05:02

For abusing An underage girl So we see a lot of ugliness

01:05:08

And I think it comes from unchecked authority A lot of times there is All the authority placed on one man within the church

01:05:14

Not a group of elders And people that give checks and balances And then I would say the ugly as well

01:05:20

At times can be Just anti -intellectualism And kind of an affront To expositional

01:05:27

Hermeneutically based preaching In favor of more topical Very emotional based

01:05:33

Get a response, come to the altar Preaching So that's my consensus as a whole

01:05:39

There's good, there's bad, there's ugly And my hope for the IFB In a sense today

01:05:44

Is that those that would consider themselves Moderate IFB or IFB -lite

01:05:49

Would actually do What they've been trained And separate from the error Even within the

01:05:55

IFB Things that encroach upon the gospel And that they would continue to rank things

01:06:01

As fundamental, secondary And tertiary issues And allow the gospel to truly be

01:06:07

The prime thing that brings Christians together Not just our secondary differences That happen to make us

01:06:13

Denominationally different Great And I do want to say this

01:06:18

Because I know that I have seen guys Who are part of the IFB Who've had, you know

01:06:25

Who've come out and said Hey, you know, we recognize The issues of the sexual

01:06:30

The Let Us Pray video Some have responded and said it's not true But others have come out and said Hey, this is, you know

01:06:37

This does not identify all of us And I think we would both be fair to say

01:06:42

Yeah, I do not put everybody in that boat Good godly men And it is sad

01:06:48

How much, you know I remember when the Catholics were You know

01:06:54

When it came out about the priests And the things that were happening there And everybody was like, whoa, look at the Catholic church

01:06:59

Look at what's happening there Well, there was things happening in other denominations as well Catholics don't like to be called a denomination

01:07:06

And I don't count them But you understand Within the broader language of Christendom You know

01:07:14

There are issues But you're right, this is something that has to be Dealt with, this is what church discipline is for This is what the police, you know

01:07:21

The government does not bear the sword in vain, right There's a time and place To get the law enforcement involved

01:07:28

All of these things Which cannot be swept under the rug And I'm thankful that many

01:07:34

Many IFB pastors would Agree with that, they would say it needs to be Absolutely So brother,

01:07:40

I want to thank you for One, just being a good friend I've enjoyed our time on Facebook seeing you And the things that you're doing

01:07:46

And you're being willing to come back on the show And I do hope that people will get your book If they haven't already got it

01:07:52

Maybe being reintroduced to you through today And Tell them how to get in touch with you

01:07:59

If people have questions Or if people want to shoot you a question Or even follow your ministry

01:08:05

Do you have an online presence That people can go and find Yeah, definitely I love connecting with really anyone

01:08:12

That's in the body of Christ with me Even if you're not in the body of Christ I like engaging with you because you're still

01:08:18

Someone that is made in the image of God And God wants you to find The fullness of life in Jesus Christ And if my resources

01:08:27

Can help connect you to the message of the gospel That's what I'm all about But you can reach me mostly online

01:08:33

On Amazon .com That's where my book is sold I have it as Paperback You can get it as an audiobook and as an ebook as well

01:08:42

And I keep it very Cheaply priced, really just enough To cover printing costs because I want everyone

01:08:48

To have a copy of it if they want it Honestly, I have no problem Saying this to your crowd

01:08:53

If you don't have the money for it and you want an ebook copy Email me, I'll give you a free ebook copy

01:08:59

I'll call it The Keith Foskey Special So reach out to me You can hit me up on Twitter That's usually where I engage in more of these conversations

01:09:08

I normally keep Facebook kind of more personal Pictures privately With family and stuff

01:09:13

But if you reach out to me on Messenger I get a lot of requests On Facebook Messenger as well

01:09:20

So yeah, Twitter is Ground zero for debates As Keith and I know

01:09:25

And I love engaging And showing people that we can Show truth in a loving way

01:09:32

And we don't have to be divisive as we speak truth And that's really kind of my guiding principle As I talk about these issues online

01:09:39

Amen And what's your Twitter handle for the group, for everybody to know how to find you? Yeah That's a great question, let me look

01:09:45

I need to create something really cool like you have My Twitter handle is At Joshua Barzon Okay, alright

01:09:53

Well that works good I have your Calvinist And people know that But sometimes people

01:10:00

Don't always connect my real name with that So that's why the podcast Changed to that name Last time you were on we were conversations with a

01:10:07

Calvinist But now it's your Calvinist We tied it to the Twitter name So that people would be able to make that connection

01:10:14

Because we have a lot of people Yeah, I love it, I'm not big stuff like you Keith So I just keep my name on it at this point

01:10:22

Well brother I'm very thankful for all that you do And I certainly learned a lot today And I know our audience did as well

01:10:29

So thank you Joshua Thank you family for giving you to us for this hour And God bless you and your ministry Thank you brother, appreciate it

01:10:37

And I want to thank everybody For being a part of your Calvinist podcast today Please remember that if you're watching this on YouTube Hitting the thumbs up really helps us out

01:10:44

Subscribing to the channel helps even more And if you want to donate to the show You can go to buymeacoffee .com

01:10:49

slash your Calvinist Also don't forget This coming weekend is our Bible conference

01:10:54

At Sovereign Grace Family Church If you're in the Jacksonville area come visit with us And if you're not and you want to visit online

01:11:00

You can go to YouTube and type in SGFCJACKS. Well, it's just SGFCJACKS On YouTube, but you can go to our website

01:11:08

At SGFCJACKS .org I want to thank you again for listening to your Calvinist podcast My name is Keith Foskey And I've been your