Ligon Duncan Follow-Up | Apologia Radio/CrossPolitic Mashup

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that doesn't mean that you are the most faithful when you are lobbing the most grenades indiscriminately in every direction.

00:08

And when you are doing click -baity stuff on, you know, it's one thing to LARP faithfulness and courage on social media.

00:16

It's another thing to do it in real life. And you've got a lot of live action role -playing going on in the social media world from guys acting like they're tough that put them in a room and you'd have them in a fetal position in three seconds.

00:33

And it's not good for that voice to influence our young folks.

00:38

We are gonna have to cultivate backbone, but we're also going to have to cultivate a love for the world that hates us.

00:46

Hey y 'all, welcome to CrossPolitik and Apologia. This is Apologia CrossPolitik mashup.

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Pastor Toby, Waterboy, No Knocks, and of course we have Jeff and Luke the Bear on the other end.

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It's the Ninja and Luke the Bear. I messed that up. I messed that up. That works. Is that good enough? I don't know.

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It's good enough. Is Jeff back, Luke? The Ninja is so sneaky he's not even here. He's hiding. Jeff's not even here.

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Go to SamaritanMinistries .org slash CrossPolitik. But wait, there's more.

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And be sure to check back regularly as they're adding new products all the time. And never forget, 1643 happened before 1689.

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What's that? 1643. 16 and a half is better. No, that was 1647. 1640. Ah! You didn't even get it right.

03:07

Man, you are the water boy. I set it up so good. And then I did that. Okay. Grateful to have Luke. Try to throw a punch and miss.

03:14

Oh, oh. Swing and a miss. Chef the Ninja is back. And Luke the Bear. Thanks for joining us, guys.

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What's up, fella? What up? It's always good to have you. So we, I mean,

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Lig Duncan, I mean, we already talked about this. You guys talked about this. Joe Boots talked about it.

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A bunch of people hit it. He kicks off with this LARPing business.

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Moscow Mood LARPing. We were LARPing when I got arrested. You know, we were LARPing when we build church community here, we're

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LARPing when we set up a college, we're LARPing when we set up a classical Christian education institution. Doug is

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LARPing, debating the greatest atheist of our time, Christopher Hitchens. He's LARPing at the

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University of Idaho, engaging with transgenders and LGBTs. So Gabe, you tweeted out this last week, kind of following that show.

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You said, here's the deal. I believe there's far more corruption in the church than what meets the eye. On the surface, you have

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KDY, Kevin DeYoung, Lig Duncan, or Ligon Duncan, as Aiden Robles calls him,

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Russell Moore, and organizations like Crew and TGC. But under all that, it gets worse.

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Some of this, I know by firsthand experience with churches I attended in Texas, New Mexico, and Oregon. Some comes from frequent phone calls

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I get. Some of this is just a feeling of intuition. The reason why America has so much corruption is because the church refuses to deal with its own corruption.

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The good thing though is that the sheep are waking up. Now, Gabe, I mean, corruption,

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I mean. Yeah, so some people did take offense to equating KDY and Lig with corruption.

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I don't think anybody took offense about Moore or TGC. Or Crew. But what my point was is,

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I mean, I honestly think KDY is a faithful husband to his wife. It's not a shot there.

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It's a shot at what their leadership is doing to the church. So I honestly think

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Lig is acting a coward. I think Kevin DeYoung, both their church and seminaries, they followed all the government protocols during COVID in 2020.

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And they have blog posts and emails and letters out to their churches and Facebook posts out to their churches saying, yeah, we're shutting down and all this stuff.

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Lig, I should, oh man, Neil, I didn't give you this. Lig has a photo of him, or he said,

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I got Vax and he shows his Vax card and everything. And then in the comment sections, this is like in like whenever the

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Vax came out or whatever. And the comment section is like, oh, I thought only those 65 and older could get access to the

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Vax in Mississippi right now. And he, in the comment, replied and said, yeah, but pastors have special exemption to be able to get in front of the line.

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And I'm like, I'm like, you have, all right, if COVID's a big threat, you're getting

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Vaxed and there's all these weak and vulnerable in your church and you're hopping in the front of your line because of your special privileges.

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What kind of leader is that? So I'm pointing at like the surface of their leadership and what they're doing really is seeping down into bigger and bigger corruption in the church.

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If you're a coward here and it's not, it's like, I mean, how many pastors just buckled under government and obeyed all the government and you got

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JK rolling in a UK this week. She basically told the

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Scotland police, she begged them to come after an arrestor for disobeying the transgendered laws of hate speech.

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Oh wow. She just did that this week. It's like, come and get me, come and arrest me. Wow. And how many pastors won't even do that because the cops might come and arrest them, you know kind of thing.

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So there's this culture of cowardiceness and the inability to engage and see themselves for who they really are because you got

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Lig also talking about how Moscow is sowing disunity. It's like, okay.

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Lobbing grenades indiscriminately. At us, sowing disunity, calling us non -Christians because he got there.

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And then saying, we're the ones that are sowing discord. Okay, fine, let's have that conversation.

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Let's sit in the room. If you really want to work on unity, here's where we work on it. You don't work on unity, yeah, yeah.

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You don't work on unity because you're all unified. But you got Doug is a leader in cultural

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Christianity here in America, whether you like it or not. Lig is, Lig is the chancellor of RTS.

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All right, so let's get the leaders in the room and let's work on unity. Right, but yeah, and you think of Kevin's article, again,

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I think well of Kevin, generally speaking. And at the same time, it's just like, it's just not, you're really not working on unity when you say,

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I'm going to write this long article that is going to go absolutely berserk all over the internet about the mosque mood.

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And then say, and this is, I'm not going to talk about it. That's right. I'm not going to, no follow -up conversations.

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I will not have any follow -up conversations. Let's not work on unity. It's just like, do you want to work on unity or not?

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Yeah. Is, I mean, Luke, Jeff, I mean, is it, I mean, is this, is this actually, is this, so take people like Ligon, take people like Kevin DeYoung, who are in many, many respects, faithful, orthodox,

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Christian. Believers, yeah. Right, I mean, like go through the, they go through the Westminster confession. They check all the boxes.

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The 1943 version though. 1943? 1643,

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I just said the dating of the mosque. Oh my goodness. That was like a joke off a joke that was even worse. If there was a 1943 version, it would be awful.

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I'm sure. It would be awful, yeah. It'd be woke, DEI. But like, is what Gabe is saying, like, is this a kind of like, is this proto -corruption?

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Is this how corruption happens in the church? Is this how corruption has happened in our land where you have otherwise relatively orthodox guys who have just, you know, at the key points where they need to stand or be courageous or address something directly, they're dodging.

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And I mean, is that what's going on? Well, I was gonna say like, prior to Ligon jumping on the

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SS Wokitania in 2020 or whatever that was, I had a lot of respect for him. You know, he's just kind of gone downhill from there.

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But I think that interview was just honestly embarrassing. He said so many things that were just not even close to being true or accurate.

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And I think it would be insulting to him to say that he said those things out of ignorance. And I think it would be insulting to us for him to come out and say that I said that out of ignorance.

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So the question then is, then why did you say it? That's where I keep coming back to. And I don't wanna ascribe motives and intentions to him, but it looks awfully fishy.

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Like, what are you up to? Why would you say these things? Yeah, and I think it's important for us as we talk about this to do all the foundational groundwork of saying we respect these men, these men are brothers, they're

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Orthodox, faithful Christians, they preach the gospel. There's no question about that.

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And I've benefited greatly from Ligon's teaching and his ministry over the years. And haven't heard so much from Kevin, but I have read some stuff and appreciate some of the stuff that I've seen.

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But when we talk about Ligon Duncan in this interview, it was out of, to my mind, it felt so unbelievably out of character in terms of the man that I thought that he was through his preaching and teaching ministry.

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And like I said, I've benefited so much from him. And I'm talking about the Ligon from like 20 years ago, listening to stuff from him and drawing just a lot of great spiritual benefit from the feasts many times he's given.

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So all that said, there's the foundation. The next point is this seems so out of character. And honestly, and I mean this with as much respect to the man as I possibly can muster, it was embarrassing.

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He made some scriptural mistakes in trying to throw a punch at Moscow or guys like us.

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He made some, he confused John the Baptist with Jesus at a point. He got historical information wrong regarding Roe versus Wade in the abolitionist movement and showed that he's willing to speak on things out of abject ignorance and to get it wrong publicly and to leave a public record of error.

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And all of us are gonna make mistakes. All of us are fallible. All of us are gonna do that. But I think one thing we should all fight against is ever leaving a public record of error, of egregious error which he did a number of times through that interview.

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It was again, so out of character for him. And then when he goes after the issue of theonomy, some of the mistakes he makes there.

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It was, I think again, from my perspective about Ligon and how I feel about the man and how much respect

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I have for him, it was embarrassing. It was so out of character. But I think it gets us to this main point.

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And it's the point that is the problem of the pulpit in the West where many even faithful gospel preaching, theologically sound and rigorous ministers of the gospel really hold to a dualism and a perspective of the world and the spiritual and the kingdom of Christ and its impact on the world that is just fundamentally not biblical.

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It is not Christian and there's the disconnect. So you have a movement and let's be honest, and I don't mean this in any kind of haughty way or braggadocious way.

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It's just what God has done. You've got two major platforms. You've got you guys, you've got

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Canon Press, everything Christchurch has, and then Apologia Church that are, let's be honest, when we talk about impacting the world and ideas of post -millennialism and theonomy, those are two major platforms that are doing that.

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And so this message is - It's been around for a long time. Yeah, it's been happening for a long time. And so this message is spreading, people are being impacted by it.

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And you have faithful pastors that actually hold to a perspective that is so unbiblical and Christians over here are going, yeah, but these guys have answers and they're answers from the

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Bible and they're consistent. And you have guys like Ligon that don't really have a consistent standard.

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He wants to deny pluralism, but he's clearly displaying some kind of attachment to it.

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And so the problem I think is you have in the West, you can have faithful, Trinitarian, gospel preaching, evangelical pastors that know the gospel, that respect the word of God, but they have a perspective of the world and the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven in it that is far from biblical and the wheels are coming off of this system.

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People are saying, it doesn't work. You don't have an answer. Like you're saying that God's standards of justice don't apply today.

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There's no abiding relevance to those things today. So it leaves it up to what culture and society to determine today what is actually just when

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God's spoken as to what is actually just. You've got this massive historical

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Christian tradition that goes all the way back in history, everywhere the gospel goes and cultures are transformed, people come to Christ.

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The assumption is from those people that if we're gonna build a culture and society and build a government and establish law, by what standard?

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Who's the God over the system? And so you have so many examples. My favorite is the more recent one in history is the

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Puritan missionaries that go to the islands of Hawaii. Within 20 years of evangelism, over 90 % of the

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Hawaiian islands are professing faith in Christ. And when they make their sovereign Hawaiian Christian or sovereign

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Hawaiian constitution, it names the God of the Bible and says that no law of the

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Hawaiian kingdom will be at variance with the laws of Jehovah God. That was in 1820 to 1840.

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That's not very long ago at all. But that's where Christians, that's where their mind has been in history.

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You see it in our own nation here in America. You see it, of course. You see it in Scotland. You see it in France.

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You see it in England. There's a whole history of it. And Ligon is acting like that's some weird, strange new thing that you have

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Christians that wanna see Christ honored as Lord in every sphere of life, including government, and God's law being the standard that we look to to say, okay, what would

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God say to this? They act like that's so foreign, but it's not foreign to anyone who knows church history.

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We're not saying it's perfect in history or some sort of utopia. They're always got it right. But this is not, we're not strange.

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He referred to theonomists as like zombies that came out of the grave. And it's like, zombies, the

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Puritans? Neil, can you play the clip with him talking about Christian liberty?

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This ties right in with what Jeff was talking about. Protestants invented religious freedom.

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And in America, Baptists and Presbyterians really forged the consensus that came about on religious freedom.

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And now you've got a group sort of wanting to call that into question. Let's go back to monarchy. Let's go back to state -sponsored persecution, et cetera, et cetera.

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That's the way to be really faithful. And it's very childish to me.

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It also feels, it feels like a visceral response. America, this thing that we've loved for so long that we felt in control of, we're losing that.

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We're terrified. And listen, I get it. I don't want drag queen story hour any more than you do. But as good

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Bible guys, we're the reformed guys. We can't just say, let's take America back.

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That feels carnal. It's almost like theonomy allows us to baptize that instinct.

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Well, now I'm trying to find theological rationale for this impulse, you know? So I can actually say, no, me fighting to save the country is a biblical thing.

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So, I mean, I just want to start by just where he begins. Like, he's absolutely right.

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Protestants invented the idea of liberty, of religious liberty, Christian liberty. And the

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Baptists and the Presbyterians in our country established that. And, but you just like, you want to pause and you want to say, yeah, and what was the theological basis for establishing that religious liberty?

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What was the theological basis for building that liberty? And who exactly is he talking about that wants to reinstitute state -sponsored persecution?

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And monarchy? Like, I mean, I suppose there's probably a few Christian nationalists out there who think maybe we could have a king like they do in England or whatever.

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But like, those are not exactly the same things. Like having a monarchy, like David was king, you know, is not the same thing as reestablishing a state -sponsored persecution.

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That's right. The roots of what he's talking about, the

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Protestant establishment of religious freedom are thoroughly theonomic. Like this is not something new and childish.

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This is something that got worked out in the Protestant Reformation. And they were building on church fathers like Augustine and of course, going all the way back to the

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New Testament itself and the Old Testament. But the reformers had to work this out as they brought the scriptures to bear to everything.

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This is why the Reformation is sometimes referred to as the Magisterial Reformation. It was a reformation of the magistry.

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It was a reformation of magistrates, which is we're talking about political rulers. Many of the treatises that Luther and Calvin and others wrote were, if you read the dedication page, they were dedicated to princes and kings and governors.

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And that's because they were bringing the word of God to bear in the public square. This is not something that's brand new.

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It's what built the Christian Protestant West. It's what built out the sort of Protestant consensus that had developed all the way up until about 15 minutes ago, where now you're some kind of wacko.

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I mean, it's what you're talking about. What got established in Hawaii was that broad

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Protestant consensus that there's no freedom apart from Christ. There's no freedom apart from God's word applied to every area of life, including the public square.

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That's right. Yeah, and you know, there's a big difference between these Christian Protestants that developed this doctrine of religious freedom and wanting religious freedom.

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They had a context and understanding of what that meant. And over against what people think that that would actually allow for today, like building satanic altars at the

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Iowa State House. Right. And so there's a framework for it. There's a belief system.

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There's something, and you're right, it's theonomic through and through. And it's important to note that when you have these

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Protestants that are developing a historical Christian doctrine based upon scripture about how the world should look, when they talk about things like separation of church and state, you've got the

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Covenanters and the Huguenots was developing a biblical doctrine that would protect against something like sacralism.

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So, so much of what Lig is saying there, of course, we would disagree with this blending of the church and the state, just like our forebearers didn't believe in it.

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But the reason we don't believe in the blending of church and state is because of theonomy. It's, you know what

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I'm saying? So, you know, it's funny when you lob these grenades out and you're like, oh, they just want this, you know, state -sponsored persecution and all these different things.

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It's like, wait, hold on now. Wait a second. The Covenanters were Puritans. Sorry, sorry,

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Presbyterians. The Covenanters were Presbyterians like you, Lig. And they had a really serious history and story surrounding church and state relations.

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And they developed a very solid doctrine from scripture against it. And it doesn't seem like Lig is even aware of that because the theonomists today understand that.

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They understand law. They understand its application in society. They understand some history, some Christian history that led up to this in terms of doctrinal development.

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And it just doesn't seem like he has any understanding of what theonomy actually is, what theonomists believe.

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I mean, state -sponsored persecution. I mean, like I said, Bonson has a whole section in his book,

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Theonomy and Christian Ethics, that he goes into a whole discussion about, here's how God punishes people in scripture, like with, say, leprosy, for trying to breach the line between church and state and not blend those institutions together.

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And so I have a problem with how he's trying to describe theonomy. But when you talk about this state -sponsored persecution,

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I want to know, whatever do you mean by that? State -sponsored persecution, what do you mean by that?

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Are you saying that in reference to like a church -state sort of beast that persecutes

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Presbyterians in the state and sort of throws them out? Yeah, who wants that?

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No one wants that. I think we've learned from those lessons in the past. We're not talking about that. What do you mean state -sponsored persecution?

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Do you mean like if we say we want to execute rapists, that that's somehow bad?

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Or state -sponsored persecution, some sort of overbearing Christian government? I want to know what he means by that, but there's just a lot of lobbing of grenades and it's just a mess.

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It's so messy. Or I wonder, like almost, I want to ask him like, Pastor Duncan, are you talking about what we have right now?

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I mean - State -sponsored persecution, right. We have the DOJ targeting pro -life leaders and trying to put them in prison for 11 years for peacefully singing hymns outside of an abortion clinic.

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Is that what you're talking about? I mean, like, it seems to me that one of the things that we've inherited from Bonson and I think maybe

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Rush Dooney before, but the whole idea of this inescapable concept is that it's not weather, but which.

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So you're going to have a standard and in some sense, there is going to be certain actions and activities and speech and practices that are going to be suppressed.

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And there are going to be certain speech and activities and beliefs and so on that's going to be celebrated.

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Right. And like, it's not weather, but which. And so in a Christian society, you actually have the maximum freedom for the maximum number of people, which includes people, lots of people that disagree, you know,

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I disagree with. People that - Atheists, it includes atheists all the way. It did invent religious liberty. Protestantism invented religious liberty, which included the ability for, yeah, for some heretics to exist and false religions to exist.

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But at the same time, it's like, you've bought all the liberal, secular talking points to think that we're not currently living in a state that sponsors persecution.

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Like we - That's right, that's right. To the whole point about Roe versus Wade and ending abortion.

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I mean, at the top of the list of people who've been persecuted by our state are unborn human beings.

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Right. Who have been butchered and murdered by the millions in our land in order to make room for our state religion, which is the autonomy of man.

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And I mean, so it's like, in Christ's economy, there's actually a standard that says, no, that stuff needs to stay over there in the church government.

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And that stuff over there is civil and Christ is Lord over all. But when you don't have the word of God, when you don't have some form of theonomy, some form of God's word overall, then what you end up with is whoever is the strongest is overall, which ends up being the state.

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And if the state is overall, then the state is God. And that's the world we live in right now.

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Well, and it's important to note too, I'll just say quickly that within a Christian framework, if you have a Christian government that acknowledges the

25:39

Lordship of Christ and looks to the law of God to say, what is just and true and good? You're gonna have a nation, a community that actually thrives in this freedom.

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That's what the law of God will ultimately do. It's gonna bless, it's gonna bring light, it's gonna give freedom to people, it's gonna have love for neighbor, it's gonna respect personal property.

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You're gonna have this hugely, I'll just use the word here, don't read too much into it, libertarian society where liberty is extolled and heralded and people expect it and respect it.

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However, if it's a Christian society that acknowledges the Lordship of Christ and the law word of God, it's also gonna be the only thing that provides boundaries around a sinful fallen heart that has liberty because it'll have boundaries to say, here you have all this freedom, but it's not an unlimited freedom that allows for the victimization of neighbor.

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And so you're gonna have like definitions and standards that give you liberty, but put borders around liberty to say, but not to the extent that actually violates neighbor or victimizes neighbor.

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And so the point being is you're not gonna have true liberty in a society, whether it's religious liberty or personal freedom and liberty or whatever the case may be, apart from the law word of God, you're not gonna get it.

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So you're not gonna get it because you can try to have liberty and freedom outside of Christ and it's gonna have no borders, no boundaries and it's gonna lead to things like, well,

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I have the liberty to kill my child in the womb because I have freedom, because I have autonomy. And so the law word of God actually prevents a line of demarcation there that says, well, yes, you have personal liberty, but not when it extends to violating your neighbor and not loving your neighbor.

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And only the law word of God can do that. And so all this talk of liberty and freedom and religious freedom, you can thank the theonomist in history for that.

27:36

It seems to me that, and we've talked about this, that a lot of these guys are just trying to distance themselves as far as a way they can from anything that smells like Christian nationalism.

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We had many shows on Owen Strand's remarks at G3, which

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I think you guys covered as well, but it just seems like they're allergic to it. And from one aspect,

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I understand why, because with the election coming up, anyone that votes for Trump is now an extreme white

28:07

Christian nationalist. And so there's this idea, like, I don't want anything to do with that. So they're just lumping theonomy, because that smells like it.

28:16

So they're in there, they're extremists, they're saying all this crazy stuff that we're not saying. And it's just like, they're just trying to distance themselves as far away as they can.

28:26

So the interviewer in that conversation, I forgot the guy's name, Sean or something like that. He says something like in passing, he says, no,

28:34

I don't want drag queen story hour. Nobody wants that. Why? By what standard?

28:39

Yeah, and it's like, yeah. So are you gonna restrict their liberty?

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And on what basis? By what standard? But then he goes on and he says, he feels like it's sort of this fleshly reaction that Christians are having to, we're losing our nation.

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And he says, and it seems like what this primarily is, is trying to like basically have some kind of theological justification for our flesh.

29:07

And that doesn't seem right, because we shouldn't, we're not trying to take over the country. I mean, what do you say to that?

29:16

I'm glad you brought that up, because I did forget that was one of the main things I wanted to talk about with regard to that clip.

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But that kind of comment is just to me, so astonishing.

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And I'm not exaggerating, it's astonishing that somebody would go after the idea of Christians in whatever culture, whatever nation wanting to actually see that nation come under the rule of Christ and submission to his

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Lordship and to turn to him in faith and that to be just seen across the board.

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I want this nation to come to Christ. I want my nation to know Jesus. And you know, these people really want this.

29:52

They actually think it's gonna happen. And it's like, on what basis is it fleshly for me to appeal to Matthew 28, 18 through 20?

30:01

Is it fleshly for me to believe Daniel chapter seven, verses 13 through 14? Is it fleshly to actually desire to see that the nation comes under the obedience of Christ in Romans one,

30:12

Romans 16? I mean, I thought this stuff was like standard, fair Christianity 101, that that's what we're trying to do, win the nation to Christ.

30:21

Everyone believes in Jesus. Everyone's under his authority. They love the law of God. They're taught what Jesus has commanded.

30:27

It just seems so odd to me. It's like, how did this become so foreign to us in the West that we're trying to win the nations to Jesus and everyone bows and confesses to him as Lord?

30:38

I thought that's what we were trying to do. I thought that's what every Christian believes. And somehow we have this strange version of the

30:48

Christian faith that just wants to have Bible studies in basements and wants to have this sort of private Christian experience and like, yeah, we're supposed to win in the nations, but like, don't expect it to actually be successful.

31:00

You know, it's kind of wishful thinking here, guys. We're not really believing the great commission as something that's gonna happen.

31:07

So I do, I find it with as much respect as I can muster towards these guys. I find it astonishing that they speak in the way that they do about the kingdom of Christ and its victory in the world.

31:18

Well, it wasn't this clip, but he said in a different clip, there's no possible world where that would work. Oh, yeah.

31:24

And I was like, what about the world that God created? Yeah, he's like, talk to the people in China. Like, this would never work.

31:30

And you meant, we were chatting about this before we started recording, but we mentioned this on our show, but like, yeah, Pastor Wang Yi.

31:36

He'd be dying for theonomy right now. It's like, what do you mean? Like, why do you think he's in prison? He wishes he was in a theonomic country.

31:43

Well, that's why, and that's the point we were talking about is Pastor Wang Yi in China is hopefully alive in a dungeon or cell somewhere in China.

31:53

And he's there for the very thing Lig said is not how

31:58

Chinese Christians believe. He's there because when he preached, he preached the authority of Jesus Christ and God's standards over the

32:06

Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. They caught wind of it. They prosecuted him for it.

32:13

And their official statement, anyone can go read it, was that the reason he is being condemned and he's being punished is because he was trying to subvert the authority of the

32:23

Chinese state. They understood that his message is very different than many modern evangelicals today.

32:30

His message was that Christ is actually Lord of Lords and King of Kings and even Lord over China and the

32:35

Chinese government. That's why he's in jail for the very thing that Lig said is not a thing

32:42

Chinese Christians believe. Isn't it amazing that, oh, it's like the current controversy right now.

32:48

We don't need to dive into it too much, but this whole current controversy of people saying Christ is King, anti -Semitic, and Christ is

32:54

King, offensive and everything else. It's like, oh, does that bother you? Western people, does it bother you that Christians are actually speaking biblicalese and they're speaking

33:05

Bible and they're saying that Christ is King, that he's a ruler over all the kings of the earth, that he's actually

33:10

Lord of Lords, does that bother you? Isn't it amazing you get this reaction from people when they actually come into contact with the real

33:17

Christian message, that Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth, that he's the ruler of the kings of the earth.

33:23

When that message is really being brought into culture and society, you have Christians dying, like in China, in North Korea, and in every place that Christians have actually brought the real true gospel of the kingdom message, every place it goes,

33:39

Christians die. Because when people start realizing, oh, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second, you're not saying this is a private thing.

33:46

You're saying he's Lord over me, and that I won't have. And so it just goes to show that when you truly preach the gospel and the authority and Lordship of Christ, it has dramatic consequences in culture and society.

34:01

And people today, waking up going, wait, hold on, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Christ is

34:06

Lord, I didn't really know what you meant by that. I thought you meant like personally, at least personally, you're a homeboy or something.

34:12

But you're saying he's King over me? Like he's my boss? I'm offended. And it's like, well, yeah,

34:17

Caesar was offended too. Right, and this goes back to what you were saying at the beginning, Gabe, about the COVID stuff. I mean, this is why the

34:23

COVID thing has been such a gift from God, actually, is like, okay, because no doubt,

34:30

Kevin DeYoung and Ligon Duncan would say Christ is King, Christ is Lord, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, and maybe even be willing to go so far as to say, well, yeah,

34:38

I mean, he's King of China and King of America. But then like, but the whole point we're making here is this, okay, so what does that mean?

34:47

So what does that mean? How does that touch down? How do you acknowledge the Lordship of Christ in America?

34:53

How do you acknowledge the Lordship of Christ in China? How do you acknowledge the Lordship of Christ in these places?

35:00

And that's where the COVID record kind of matters because what you ended up with was a bunch of people who were, again, otherwise

35:07

Orthodox, understand the gospel, understand the confession of faith and so on. But at this particular point where the testing point came, where courage was necessary to say, no, we will not submit to these decrees because you're not in charge here, because Christ is

35:23

King, because Jesus is Lord. He's our boss. And it's actually interesting.

35:29

I mean, it's based on, I mean, the whole COVID thing, the reason why churches in particular really needed to say, no, we will decide whether we're gonna hold worship or not.

35:38

We will decide what we do in worship services or not because the church is a government that's instituted directly by Jesus Christ.

35:45

And it stands on an equal footing in this world before God with the state.

35:51

We're not under the state. The state is only in charge of the things that Jesus has given them to be in charge of, which are crimes that are as defined by scripture.

36:01

And so when, but when they say, you're not an essential service, when they say no singing, when they say no communion, when they say you have to wear a mask in the sanctuary before the living

36:11

God, they're going into, they're the one breaking the division that God has established between church and state because Jesus is

36:22

King. And so that's, and I think that's where - They're the ones not being Protestant. Exactly, exactly.

36:28

Well, yeah, that's the important point just needs to be said that there was a burst. So the resistance to all the

36:34

COVID tyranny, the solid gospel biblical resistance to the

36:39

COVID tyranny from the government was churches flexing, flexing the separation between church and state.

36:48

So that very theonomic principle was being applied there. You don't have jurisdiction over this.

36:54

So far from being this, you know, some people just want like this blending of church and states. It's like the very people who are the theonomists and everyone else who was resisting all this tyranny were applying theonomic principles and defying the state and showing separation of church and state, not some like joining together of them.

37:14

We're saying, no, you got two different institutions, two different spheres here on equal ground before God. And on that basis, we resist you as the state.

37:23

Separation of church and state was being employed there. Right, so let's end here. I got to read another ad still.

37:29

Do you got to read another ad? Okay, why don't you read another ad and then I'll end with this part of the conversation. No, I actually got a good follow -up that we can end on.

37:37

All right, public houses or pubs are not just places to drink beer, wine, cider, or even something a little stronger.

37:43

It's also a unique social center, very often the focus of community life in villages, towns, and cities throughout the world.

37:51

We here at CrossPolitik hope to emulate that for you and yours. That's why you should grab yourself a Fight, Laugh, Feast pub membership.

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Fight, Laugh, Feast pub membership at fightlaughfeast .com. We need you on this ride with us, so pull up a chair, grab a pint, and join us at this conversation center.

38:09

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38:27

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38:33

And I'll just do one exhortation there. Sign up on our website, not in the Apple App Store or Google App Store, because they just get a cut, and we don't want them to get a cut, so go to our website.

38:42

Don't let the Amalekites take their cut. That's right. It seems to me, whenever something like this happens, where someone lobs a bomb at us, which we've happy to answer and answer questions and have conversations.

38:56

Oh, we'd love to have conversations with Kevin and Ligon. But even like the

39:02

LARPing charge, I think, actually, the only person in this room that's ever been a

39:08

LARPer is Jeff Durbin. Jeff. Yeah, he's a Mortal Kombat LARPer. Yeah. Is that LARPing, though?

39:16

What is the definition of LARPing, though? Like really? Live action role play. Yeah. Live action role play.

39:21

That's right. All right. You did it. Yeah, I guess so. It was more of a professional stage, Broadway stage.

39:27

You were getting paid for it. It wasn't like at the park. I think about LARPers as the guys out in the field, directing like wizards, like, fireball, fire, fire, fire.

39:36

I wasn't involved in that. Mortal Kombat does throw fire at times. Yeah, definitely. You're not that far.

39:41

You're not helping yourself. No, I'm not. No, I guess not. The truth comes out. You're on a stage and not in a field, though.

39:47

That's right. Ligon was talking about Jeff Durbin. Let me land this. Let me land this question for you,

39:52

Jeff. And so it seems to me when these things happen with these charges and bombs coming our way, it's like they're the ones actually doing what they're charging us with.

40:02

So they're the ones sowing discord. They're the ones LARPing. They're the ones who aren't being accurate about their brother's theology or their abolitionists and what they're really doing.

40:15

And they're the ones slandering and mocking. Lig didn't mock, but he absolutely slandered us.

40:23

And he's charging us with all that. I mean, I don't know why that happens. What's the, you know, us sowing discord.

40:31

And then he charges us with, you know, like you said at the very beginning of the show, like one of the things

40:37

Lig said was that we'd walk into a room and we'd all fall down in the fetal position in three seconds.

40:42

In other words, we're cowards and we wouldn't hold up to the challenge. Yeah, and look, to just grant him this,

40:50

I know, look, I can't stand and I have to work on my own sanctification, armchair evangelists and armchair debate professionals online, people that have no history of debates and try to critique debates and try to act like they know exactly what everyone should have done.

41:07

It's like, well, you need to have like some street credit before you can like, you know, start telling everyone else how they need to do this.

41:13

So I do have a problem with that. And I'm sure there are guys that talk a lot of smack online and what we ought to be doing and let's storm the gates and everything else.

41:20

And they just don't do that. They don't have the street credit to say it, but let's be honest. I don't think that's who Ligon was talking about.

41:26

When you talk about people who are LARPing and if I had them in a room, they'd be in the fetal position and they act all brave and courageous online.

41:34

It's like, well, do we need to go through like just a short summary history? How about the Psalm singing? How about being arrested for standing in the public square, proclaiming

41:43

Christ and his glory in the public square, being stopped for doing that? How about debating the world's most famous atheist?

41:48

Like I noted with Christopher Hitchens, going toe to toe with the world's best. How about, you know, standing in the public square and getting just vilified and college campuses and people protesting you and all that.

42:02

And in terms of our own ministry. Planned Parenthoods. Yeah, in terms of our own ministry and what

42:07

God by his grace has allowed us to do, standing in front of Planned Parenthood, saving thousands upon thousands of lives outside of the most difficult place and the gates of hell are like right there.

42:17

How about standing before legislatures and calling them to repent for their allowing children to die in their state?

42:24

How about calling them to repent and turn to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation and warning them about a day of judgment that's coming where they're gonna be held accountable for how they respond to a bill that we've presented.

42:36

Which is actually loving your neighbor. Which is actually loving your neighbor. I'd like to know who's LARPing because I'm sure

42:42

Lig's done a lot of great things. I praise God for him. Again, look, we're all a work in progress and all of us have our failures and our blind spots.

42:49

I get it. But if you're gonna make the accusation of LARPing, then show me the street credit. Give me the street credit.

42:55

Now tell me how you can display, look, over the last 10 years of my life, here's my street credit to show you that I'm actually brave and I'll put you in the fetal position because the people you're talking about are the ones that seem to be doing the moving and the shaking in the culture around us.

43:11

We're the ones who are in the public eye being persecuted and being attacked. I mean, the

43:17

New York Times does a full page thing of Apologia Church and yours truly and going against us and talking about all the kids we have in our church and all this stuff.

43:28

It's like, I think we have, my point is this, is I don't know who you're talking about. Are you talking about Moscow?

43:34

Are you talking about Apologia? Because we don't fit what you're talking about. So who is it you're going after here and trying to critique and trying to correct?

43:43

Because the people that you're talking about, I think are the ones that actually have the street credit to show a bold confrontation of the culture under the watchful eye of the

43:53

Lord Jesus and under his standards, trying to be the best we can as fallible human beings, humble and bold at the same time and faithful.

44:02

And so all I would say to somebody who's looking from the outside is like, well, just look at it objectively, step outside of it and look right above it and say, okay, who's got the street credit here?

44:11

Who looks like they're being bold? Who's the one actually taking steps that could actually come with dramatic consequences?

44:19

Because let's be honest, you're safe within the walls of a seminary. That's right. It's very safe.

44:26

It's super safe. You're surrounded by Christians. It's lovely. It's wonderful. I've experienced it. It's great. You're not safe on Mill Avenue downtown.

44:35

You're not safe at the Phoenix City Council in terms of being hated and having pro -choice are standing next to you, sneering at you, and having the mayor just be scowling at you.

44:48

Those aren't safe places. So all I want to say is this, is step outside of it, look down and ask the question, who is truly

44:54

LARPing? Yeah, that's so good. And I would just close here and just back to your point about leadership, Gabe, is

44:59

I think you can't lead if you're not going into battle.

45:05

You just cannot lead your people into battle. And this is, I'm reading through 2 Samuel right now, so this is fresh on my mind, but of course,

45:13

David spends his whole life going into battle. It's when he stays home from battle that he gets in trouble with Bathsheba.

45:18

That's right. But ordinarily he's going out into battle and he's doing it until the very end of his life when finally he's growing weak and some of his top generals are like, all right, you're done.

45:27

You're becoming a problem for us out on the field now. You need to retire, but you cannot lead. And I think that's what's happened in COVID.

45:34

I think it's been exposed that there's been a leadership failure at this particular point.

45:40

And I think to Kevin and Ligon, I think there's a legitimate place where they could change course.

45:47

They can say, you know what? I shouldn't just sit in my armchair and say this,

45:54

I should engage these brothers. And maybe engaging us is them telling us where they think we really have blind spots or they think we're wrong.

46:03

Engage us and actually bring the truth to bear. That's what shepherds do.

46:09

They lead, they go into battle, they go into battle with the pagans and they also go into battle like Paul did with Peter with standing to his face.

46:18

And if we're wrong, we'll acknowledge that. And I think this is another place where many leaders fail is they think that they have to save face, they can't admit they're wrong.

46:31

And this is one of the places where I have, despite various differences I have with John MacArthur, one of the reasons

46:37

I have such great respect for him is because of the about face they did at the beginning of COVID.

46:44

They said, we're gonna submit. And they did that for, I don't know, three weeks or six weeks or something. And then they announced, nevermind, that's wrong.

46:51

We studied it again and we're opening and we don't care. And I will always, always have very, very deep respect for that move and his leadership in particular.

47:03

Theologically explaining why he did what he did. And taking tons of flack from many people in the broader reformed evangelical world.

47:13

But this is a place where you can apply these principles all the way down and you need to. Don't be a larper, don't you be lobbing grenades and not actually practicing this in your home, in your marriage, with your kids.

47:26

And if you've been wrong, make it right. That's right. And don't be like this, just issuing fiats to your family, issuing fiats in your church.

47:37

Be the pastor. Writing blog posts and not wanting to have any more conversations. Be the elder, be the deacon, be the father, be the brother who is willing to have the conversations with the truth as the standard,

47:48

God's word as the standard, all at the very core of your life. And then all the way up.

47:54

And insist that your leaders do the same. And the good thing is, is this what I said in my tweet is, I think a lot of the church, the chiefs are waking up.

48:02

Yeah, they are. You guys can see the same thing. You know how many podcast downloads you're getting.

48:08

And it's not just coming from your church. You know where they're getting downloaded, which states.

48:13

Which we know how many blog posts hits we're getting. We know who's sharing our tweets. We know who's reading our stuff in a lot of ways.

48:19

And a lot of it is Lig Duncan's people. And a lot of it's KDY's people. Yeah, or you can just see how full your church service is on Sunday morning.

48:29

Yeah. We're running out of room. And how many people are moving to Moscow? How many people are moving to Arizona? Apology, I mean, like we can see that.

48:37

I think the reason why Lig and KDY are doing what they're doing right now, because it is a concerted effort.

48:43

Lig Duncan referenced that KDY, even before he dropped the blog post a month or two ago, told him about it and discussed it.

48:50

Yeah, had run it by him or something. Had run it by him and all that stuff. It is a concerted effort. It's because their people are listening to us because they're finding answers in our theology that Lig and KDY are deficient in in their own theology.

49:03

And I mean, I would assume they're all males why some of this is being driven from their all male kind of two kingdom perspective.

49:09

So, hey guys, thanks so much for coming on the show. Love doing our annual Cross -Politic Apologia mashup with you guys.

49:16

Yeah, I appreciate you guys very much. Always love it, guys. Thank you for having us. I got a good old 19, no, 1647.

49:23

You still can't get it right. You know, 1689, if you're single, get married. If you're married, have kids. If you have kids, go baptize them.

49:31

The 1689 was cool with it. Until next week, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Go fight, laugh, and feast.

49:37

Welcome to Cross -Politic Apologia mashup. God commands us to let his word dwell on us richly in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

49:45

We're to worship him musically. We're to proclaim his word musically. And so we want to train up our students, our children, to be able to sing skillfully with music, to understand what they're doing.

49:57

Bible says, sing with understanding. But it's all couched in studying God's word, growing up as Christian worshipers.

50:05

Sometimes I know people are a little scared of music camp because maybe they're not a musical family, but it's for everybody.

50:12

It's a mix of real beginners and more advanced students, and they help one another that way. But the thing that really gives it weight and glory is that the whole week is focused towards a concert, a glorious presentation of the music we've been working on all week long.

50:30

So there's this goal in mind. There's something that the students not just participate in, but actively create.

50:38

I'll see students who come in who have had no musical experience. You can tell they're overwhelmed by first day.

50:44

They're just awed by it because they've been part of something that is new to them and much larger than them, something they've not experienced before.

50:51

And I would say the majority of times, those kinds of students come back because they've tasted something that's really glorious, foretaste of heaven.

50:59

These students are learning through the course of their time at music camp, not to be music consumers, but to be active participants in making music.

51:10

So not only to learn how to sing well, how to understand music as it's written on a page and how it comes together in a group environment, but to be able to take those experiences and have them be the seeds that are planted for their involvement their whole life in the musical life of the church.

51:30

We want these students to be the next wave of worshipers in the church who know how to sing to God.