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All right, everybody, let's get back to this. This should be the last episode, and it might be the last episode either way, whether or not I get through this whole thing. I think eight is probably the limit on a thing like this.
So we will get started and try to finish this up. We are again with Dr. Owen Strawn and Dr. Josh Howard. And before I begin today, I wanted to just make a comment. A lot of people in the comment section and then also in the DMs have noticed just massive inconsistencies in Owen's position.
And there's just so many of them. There's no internal consistency whatsoever. It's just, it really is sort of like cherry picking beliefs here and there and trying to fit them all together to be an anti-Christian nationalist.
And it's very weird.
And I was thinking of one just the other day, yesterday rather, where it's like, his whole case is based on the fact that, I don't see the apostles in Acts trying to have a Christian nation. And so I don't see them doing that.
I just see them spreading the gospel. And we talked about that at length at this point, but it's just so internally inconsistent because he'll say that out of one side of his mouth and then out of the other side of his mouth, he's like, I don't believe in political quietism.
We should be advocating for good law.
Well, I mean, Owen,.
I don't see the apostles in Acts advocating for good law. I don't see them doing lots of stuff, but we understand. I mean, and Owen understands this too, that it's not like the apostles are giving us a completely comprehensive list of the things that we should be doing.
No, of course not. They were in a position to advocate for good laws in a very, very, very, very limited way in Rome. And we have a much more expansive way here in the United States. I mean, the situations, there's so many differences between the two situations that it just makes that whole line of reasoning pretty preposterous.
You know, the only thing he would have is if the apostles said, under no circumstances, Christians, are you to be advocating for a Christian nation because you are a new nation. You don't get anything like that.
So anyway, you know, I think lots of you have kind of seen just, it's a real mess. That's what I've been saying. It's a mess. His beliefs are a mess. And what I mean by that is they don't follow from what he's saying often.
And also they often contradict what he's saying. It's very, very strange. Anyway, let's continue. Let's go.
The Great Commission.
Let me give one small bit of pushback. And I appreciate what you just said, but let me give one small bit of pushback. And then if it's okay with you, because I know I've taken up half your afternoon, I'll let you close if that's okay with any closing thoughts.
If you're gonna argue with someone in, you know, big Eva, mid Eva circles, you gotta call it pushback. It's gotta be pushback. That's what I'm saying. Dr. Howard, he's perfect for this because he knows the right lingo to not scare Owen off.
I think the one thing I would agree with you on, as well as kind of just push back a little bit, would be the conception of, number one, you know, you're pointing out that a people can fall away from great light, great gospel hope, great blessings of God, and they can fall away from that quite quickly.
And in that, I agree with you. You know, this is, it always cracks me up. Like, I'll tell people that my favorite book in the Old Testament is Judges because it's just the least boring book in the Bible.
It's fascinating. There's so much going on there. But, you know, Judges, you got this, like, drumbeat that people did what was right in their own eyes. And all of a sudden, it's just like this, you know, it's like a spinning cycle down into sin and destruction.
It's tragic, and it's tragic because you've got a people. And again, I know Israel, Old Testament, we're dealing with some nuances there. But you've got a people who were given much, and yet they wander away quite quickly and are brought to destruction.
My pushback would be when you look to modern nations, and this isn't exactly a biblical argument, but it's circling it. I say it's not a biblical argument. The people that were involved, like Bonhoeffer, made the biblical arguments.
When I looked at Germany, we have a lot of German heritage in our family. So, you know, Germany is always on my mind. But you look to Germany during the Reformation, you know, you guys just did a tour of Reformation spots.
No, you weren't on the continent. You guys were over in England. But in any case, you've got so much that came through the Reformation. God blessed Germany. And we could, you know, again, we could disagree over whether he blessed Germany or the people in Germany.
But you have God blessing the people in Germany and exporting so much gospel light and so much truth all over the world. And yet you fast forward, and then all of a sudden Adolf Hitler comes to power and you have an institutionalization of evil and statedly anti-Christ policies.
And they're exporting death and darkness to the whole world. When I look to those things, I think it's proper to say, when Germany submitted to God, when they kissed the sun lest he be angry, I think that God does bring blessings to that.
And I think the converse is true too, when they rage against the sun, and I'm using the Psalm 2 language, obviously, but when they rage against the sun, I think that God does bring punishment on that people.
And I think we could walk through all the exigencies of that. But in general, I think that that's a theme that seems to play out and seems to be biblically anchored, that we're not to expect a people this side of eternity to persist without sin waylaying us.
We don't see any people groups that are just without sin, pressing on to perfection. And yet at the same time, God does in fact judge those who rebel against him. So that'd be my little bit of pushback, but I've taken up a lot.
That's exactly the argument that I made. If you look throughout history, you can see the hand of God in all of it. And again, that doesn't mean that we can know at any given time exactly what God is up to.
That's not for us to know. That's not for us to figure out. But we can understand in general, if a nation's in rebellion, God's not gonna let that happen in perpetuity. It's not like they're just gonna rebel forever and there's no consequences for that nation.
You know what I mean? We get that, we understand that. We see that in the Old Testament, and there's really no reason in the New Testament to believe that that's been overturned. And then you look at history and you're like, oh yeah, God's still doing that.
He's still doing that. And so it's just a very, very weird distinction that Owen wants to make there. And it's an argument from silence, and it's an argument against some clear passages in the Scripture that reference the Old Testament and bring it into the New Testament and all these kinds of things.
And yeah, the New Testament is new, but it's not new in the ways that Owen is saying here, where it's a completely different system. God's not concerned with how nations operate anymore. Righteousness does not exalt a nation.
Like, these are very, very strange things for a Christian to believe, and he just puts it out there as if it's obvious, and those things need a lot of evidence, and he really doesn't have anything. I mean, think about it.
Like, if a teacher told you righteousness no longer exalts a nation, it doesn't, and sin is no longer a reproach to a nation, it isn't, you'd be like, what? I'm gonna need some information here, and it's not coming because it's not there.
How would you close this? And specifically, maybe if you have thoughts toward the common ground that we do hold, not just you and I, obviously, I'm talking about those in our circles, those who are discussing these matters, those who are trying to work through, for many of us, mountains of historical Protestant thought on these issues and trying to see a way forward, because you mentioned at the front end, well, we both mentioned at the front end, that we're kind of in a strange time.
Things have become unraveled to a certain extent. I don't think we're in, like, a worse time than Christians have ever experienced, but things are on fire in certain places, and I think everybody, every Christian that has his head on straight is trying to look around and say, what biblical admonition do we have to putting out whatever fires we're called to and forging a path forward?
So we're all trying to figure that out, bumping into each other on the way.
There was a lot there also. Dr. Josh Howard has kind of couched some arguments inside of a question. It's like, look, we're all talking about this here. We don't have it all figured out. Yeah, that's true, you know?
And so some people are gonna say things that you've never heard before, and some of those things are gonna be wrong. Some of those things are gonna be right. And then he also said, we're going through this mountain.
It's a mountain. It's a huge amount of reformed Protestant thought on this topic. That's what we're doing, and we're kind of trying to bring some of that back into the modern age, because some of it has been forgotten.
Some of it has been so forgotten that if you say it, someone goes, wow, you must be some kind of a heretic. It's really, really a weird place that we're in, because Stephen Wolf does this all the time, and you may not like this, but this is something he does, and I think it's fascinating.
He'll say something that he knows is gonna trigger tons of evangelicals, right? And it sounds outlandish, oh my goodness. And he'll let people respond and call him all kinds of names and stuff like that, and then he'll quote Calvin saying the same thing, or he'll quote whoever saying the same thing.
And it's like, oops, I guess Calvin's the worst person around, and some evangelicals think Calvin's the worst person around, but a lot of these people are reformed and they love Calvin and things like that.
It's very interesting. So very good question, Josh, thank you.
What are you saying, Owen?
Yeah, that's a good word. I just would, I think I'd just introduce a little nuance in what you said and say, yes, it's not that Germany didn't bow the knee to Christ. Germany didn't get baptized. It technically didn't, by the way.
But what happened is God brought a work of the gospel and his sovereign grace to Germany, and we should not be heard as downplaying the immense overflow benefits and effects. I've tried to, I spoke of that with the gospel's blast radius, that's what I was getting at.
There is going to be glorious effects of the true church, especially when it kind of explodes in a place. That's gonna be wonderful. There's gonna be effects.
Because he, this is not him admitting this. He's always said this, the blast radius of the gospel, right, and it's gonna be great and stuff like that. That's all the same thing Christian nationalists are saying, by the way.
The only difference is that we are saying it, this is an overtly Christian thing. This is something that Christians should try to do.
This is part of the work, the good works.
That we're supposed to be doing. This is Christian. The blast radius of the gospel is Christian. It's overtly Christian, and we should be self-conscious about that, and we should admit it. We should say, yes, this is Christian.
And Owen's saying, no, no, no. In fact, not only is he saying, no, no, no, we shouldn't call that Christian, but he's also fighting against it. He's saying, no, no, that's dangerous to call it Christian.
It's dangerous to be overtly Christian in that way. So the blast radius of the gospel should affect the government, and we should have better laws, just as long as you don't, you're sneaky about it, and you don't call it Christian.
You don't call it a Christian nation, because the minute you do that, Owen is now your enemy. What a weird thing, and he'll fight against it, too. That's the other thing. He'll fight against it. He'll fight against the blast radius of the gospel if you're so dangerous to call it a Christian.
You might be one of those extremists.
It's so weird.
So business, arts, politics, commerce, everything, right? Education, I'm not like, no, don't do those things.
But you are like, don't do those things if you're going to overtly call it Christian, because you think it's some kind of a weird psy-op that we're gonna all be in the gulag. So you are against those things, because we're not ashamed of calling it Christian.
No, no, this is a Christian thing. We're doing Christian politics. You wanna have a Christian government, a Christian nation. We wanna have Christian businesses. And you fight against that, because you think it's dangerous.
The blast radius of the gospel to Owen Strawn is dangerous if you overtly call it Christian. Well, at least in politics. I don't think he'd really say the same. He wouldn't be as aggressive with it if it was just a business, or just art, or just the family.
It's really only politics that has this special place where you cannot be overtly Christian in it. You could have Christian blast radius influence, but you can't do it overtly Christian, because then it becomes dangerous.
It's just a mess. This is a mess.
The gospel. Some people out there may be hurting those terms. I can't answer for them. I won't try. I'm not remotely speaking to that. That's what I mean when I talk about Kuiper. I'm talking about a bold, big vision of gospel influence.
But that's gospel influence. That's not Christianity itself. That's not the nation becoming Christian. That's the gospel influencing of people.
And that would be fine.
If he just stopped right there, right? I would think he's still a mess. It's a very weird distinction to make. Like, that's a gospel influence, but it's not Christian. Okay, fine. If that's what you want to say, I'm okay.
I don't agree, but we would have no beef, and that would be the end of the discussion. But that's not the end of the discussion for Owen, because not only does he say, oh, no, no, this distinction's very important.
I'm a very important person making a very important distinction. Not only is he saying that, but then he's fighting against those people who do not make that distinction, and they become dangerous, and they become racist, and they become kinnest, and they become heretics, and all this stuff.
And he'll spend valuable conference time just ripping them a new one, saying they're the most dangerous people around, saying they might not understand the gospel. That's something that Owen has told me, that because I didn't think Stephen Wolf's tweet about white evangelicals was the worst thing ever, I might not even understand the gospel.
That's what he told me. So this guy, if he just stopped there, that would be fine, but that's not where he stops. He actively works against those of us who do not make the same distinction that he makes.
We think, oh, yeah, gospel blast radius, yes and amen, to use your terms. Yes and amen to gospel blast radius. Oh, and by the way, that's Christian. That's Christian politics.
That's Christian government,.
And we ought to have a Christian nation. He works against people like that. It's very weird. There's some analogy to the pro-lifers working against the abolitionists. We could be fine with pro-lifers.
This is the thing. You know, that whole debate is a very interesting one, because you would think that pro-lifers and abolitionists would be on the same team, but it's impossible for us to be on the same team because they work against abolitionists.
It's like, we're trying to do the same thing you're doing, and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, yes and amen, but we're gonna work against your bills and work against your this and that. It's just very weird.
It's a very strange thing. There's some kind of analogy there.
So that's how I would nuance that, but folks can still disagree with me for all the reasons that we've been talking about. I think the point of common ground, nice way to end, is to say there really is a desire for something better than neither left nor right public theology.
That's where I'll say, I can say lots of different things. I'll say that. Now, I understand why people are drawn to CN or Post Mill or theonomy or different. It's in part because this really is a unifying word.
There's no subtext behind it. It's in part because evangelicals gave up on, it appears, meaningful public theology in the previous generation, at least some of them did, and that has left their children without any meaningful answer to very, very hard questions.
And I agree with Aaron Wren, for example, that we are in what is called a negative world. I disagree that we now get post-exegetical and say, well, that theology was for the early church because it was tiny.
We don't really deal with those New Testamental directives. That was just for a suffering little band. Those epistles, they don't really bear on us. That is an incredibly dangerous position to be in. You never want it wherever you are.
Don't be post-exegetical. Don't be post-New Testament. Don't buy arguments that say the New Testament doesn't apply to us. That is grave danger. But I am very much with those who would say, things have changed.
It is cold out here. I don't think that necessitates a reworking of the Great Commission into the great Christianization, but I do think it's understandable. And even, I just get it. I totally get it and empathize with the younger generation who weren't handed a body of public theology that said anything other than basically be nice and be liked.
And that isn't gonna get it done with the laws coming our way. That isn't gonna get it done.
This is the problem, Owen. This is the primary problem because in some ways you are right. In some ways you are right. Modern teachers have completely failed. And a lot of these guys are your friends, Owen, and actually you used to be this way.
You failed.
You gave us a steady diet of milk. Big Eva is an infinite milk machine. The milk never runs out. Okay, and so this is the problem that we have because there are guys, there are men who are saying, yeah, man, I'm sick of all that milk.
And by the way, we used to have meat. We used to, we didn't always just have milk. We wasn't always, Christianity wasn't always an infinite milk machine. And they're going back into the previous century.
And then they're finding guys like Calvin. They're finding guys like, what's his face? Man, what's the guy who wrote Lex Rex?
Oh, man.
Whatever, whatever. They're finding all this stuff. All you gotta do is look at the citations in the case for Christian nationalism. They're finding guys like that. And then they're reading them. And they're understanding them, too.
That's the other thing.
They're reading them and they're understanding them. Because a lot of these guys are quoted by the infinite milk machine. The infinite milk machine loves quoting Calvin selectively.
So we're going back to Calvin and we're like,.
Man, man, we used to eat good. We used to have ribeyes. We used to have New York strips.
We used to have flank steaks.
It was amazing back then. Organ meats occasionally. And they're bringing that stuff and they're understanding it and then they're bringing it into our current situation.
And they're saying, huh, how about this?
And then guys like you, Owen, say no, that's so dangerous. That is very scary.
I'm very concerned.
See, you wanna bring us back to the infinite milk machine. That's what you want, Owen. You want us to remember the infinite milk machine and how good we had it. And all that meat, that's dangerous. It's like the articles you read about how eating meat is dangerous.
It'll give you a heart disease and all this stuff.
That's you, Owen.
You are the FDA lying to our faces, pretending that we can't eat the meat.
Because it's too dangerous.
You want us to eat bugs and milk. That's the, you're right about the problem. But when someone offers a solution, hey, let's stop eating the milk. Let's go eat some meat.
You're like, oh, it's dangerous. That's dangerous.
And I'm not sure that Stephen even understands. Stephen's a kinist. There's some latent kinism in there. He'll quote Calvin, latent kinism. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Actually, it's totally believable.
And I think, well, let me not say that. Let me not say that. Anyway, that's what's going on. That's what's going on.
This is a retrieval.
This is a realization that you don't have to just suck at the teeth drinking milk all day long. You can grow up and you have teeth now and you can be like my five-year-old who loves steak. And every time I cook a steak for myself after a workout, he's like, dad, can I have some of your steak?
You can be like that. And right now we're eating good over here. We're eating good over here. And lots of people are joining us. And that is a big part of what this is all about.
I said it.
I just said it.
That's a big part of what this all about. This is growing and this is dangerous and threatening to the infinite milk machine. The infinite milk machine that will consistently buy tickets to your conferences, rehashing the Reformation again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
The infinite milk machine, if it was a stock, it would be, the technicals would be looking pretty bad right now. This would not be a stock that you'd want to go long on. Big Eva stock is ripe to be shorted.
Done with the attacks. That isn't gonna get it done with what's being forced upon our children. So there's a moment of common ground. I'm thankful for those who are seeking to take a stand for Christ.
I just think we have to be very technical and precise. If you try to fly the plane without everything bolted on and very careful, as we've seen even in recent days, things aren't gonna go well. So the precision in terms of the mission, in terms of what is the Great Commission and what is the fruit of the Great Commission, for example, the precision in terms of what is the old covenants understanding of the people of God and what is the new covenants, all of that matters greatly.
I won't try to walk back through all of that, but wherever someone lands, that precision is of the greatest importance.
This is the prototype. This is the class that Dr., not doctor. Everyone's a doctor here now. This is the class that Pastor Doug Wilson, Reverend Doug Wilson was talking about in that famous line. This is a time for courageous men, not careful men.
The careful men come later, writing biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage. That's the difference here. We've got Owen, and he's very careful. Not too sharp, but careful. So careful that he's decided to fight against the faithful men.
It's as simple as that.
It's as simple as that. And guys like this will always come at the end, and they'll join, and I'm okay with that, and I don't need to say I was there first. I told you so. I was the first Christian nationalist on Twitter.
I was the first one to identify X, Y, Z. I don't need all that, and I suggest you guys don't worry about that either, because you know what? God knows, God sees, and that's all you really need to know.
That's it.
And so, Owen, I welcome you when you decide to join the Christian nationalists, and maybe you'll never be a Christian nationalist, but you'll be our friend, and you won't fight us anymore, and you'll even help us from time to time.
I welcome that, and I look forward to that, Owen. I do.
Very good. Owen, thank you so much for joining me. One of the things I really appreciate about this is, as you mentioned at the front end, and I don't wanna just pat our backs, but I really hope that there's more consistent engagement between Christians where we do have disagreements, where we're still locking arms.
It's substantive, it's not for nothing disagreement, and yet it's something where I want to really understand what you're saying, so that even if I do have to disagree, we can still lock arms, and I can still understand you.
So thank you so much for coming on today.
Sure, thank you for having me. Great discussion, great questions, and really appreciate your godly manner, even if you disagree with the advice.
Awesome, thanks so much, Owen. Appreciate you, brother.
Thank you, man. Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. That was a very good video, and I think the guy who runs the Not Gonna Make It Awards recommended that I do this. I think so. Good recommendation, man.
That was very, very helpful. You know, we've been asking for interaction like this for a long time, and I think Dr. Howard was the perfect guy to do it. I think that there was a lot of clarity brought onto this issue.
Not so much from Owen's positions, because they're a mess, but there's clarity brought out that Owen's positions are a mess. They're a complete mess, and it's all in one hour and a half little video here, and he did it in a very non-threatening way.
He did it in a very approachable way, and so for that, Dr. Howard, for the last time, I'm gonna take my hat off for you, buddy. Thank you so much. By the way, by the way, this is hot off the presses. Your boy A .D. Robles is going to be a guest on the Eschatology Matters podcast.
I am looking forward to that. They gave me a topic, and I think it sounded pretty good. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, because I don't know if they do that. Maybe they just wanna surprise you. I don't know what they wanna do, but it's gonna be interesting.
It's gonna be very interesting, and I'm looking forward to it. God bless you all. I hope you found this video series helpful.
God bless.
Fuego, mi amor pa' mis muros
