125. Interview with Jared Longshore (Postmillennialism and Education)

Like, you can't be oblivious to this thing now. You must vacate the government schools. They are thoroughly pagan.

Introduction to the Interview and the Coming Program Changes

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 125, my interview with Jared Longshore about post-millennialism and education. Well, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you so much for being here. As I said last week, we finished our main series or a main part of our series on post-millennialism by going through the whole Bible. And because we finished Revelation, we finished the series.

And here we are. Now, we're not beginning our new series until next week, and it's going to be a doozy. It is going to be saucy, spicy, whatever you want to call it. It is 10 reasons why it's a sin to vote Democrat.

And then I'm going to give an 11th episode on what my political views actually are. May surprise you. May not. But until then, we have some fantastic interviews that I wanted to share with you. So there's going to be a couple of these interviews this week.

We're going to probably share three or four of them because they're great and we want you to have them. So today we're going to be looking, watching, interacting with, listening to Jared Longshore, and we're going to see what he says about the intersection between post-millennialism and education.

Now, if you're not familiar, go check out Jared Longshore on social media, on Canon Press. And also, I totally recommend the interview that Jared Longshore and Pastor Doug Wilson just did on Grace Abounding on their YouTube channel.

You can go check that out. It's well worth the three hours that you will listen to it. So thank you again for watching the broadcast and enjoy the interview. Well, hello everyone, and welcome back to the broadcast.

This is a special episode where we're getting to do an interview with Dr. Jared Longshore. I met Jared actually last year at the CREC Council, which is part of what I'd like to talk to him about. How did he end up at the CREC Council?

So that might be a question that we cover. Jared is an author. He's a theologian. He is a pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and also he's Dean of Students at New St. Andrews. Brother, I know there's a lot more about who Jared Longshore is that I didn't cover.

So for those who don't know you, don't know what you've been working on, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Jared Longshore’s Background, Writing, and Move to Moscow

Yeah, well, you covered most of the waterfront. So married to my wife, Heather, we have seven kids. I've been out in Moscow for just over two years, maybe two and a half years now. I used to serve down in Florida where I was kind of born and raised down there, pastored for a bunch of years now.

I'm not sure how many. Yeah, right at jaredrlongshore .com, which is a blog called Reformation and Revival. It's also can be found on YouTube. I read some of the blogs that I write on YouTube there.

Yeah, that's me. Yeah, those blogs are great, and I would recommend anyone go check them out because you've got sort of it's a it's a it's fitting you ended up in Moscow because you're a bit of a wordsmith.

Like I I'm always like, oh, you know, like went back in the 80s when you'd listen to a good rap album, you know, in our in our B .C. days, you'd be like, oh, he was dropping bombs. And I act the same way when I'm listening to your blog, brother.

It's all it's I think it's all P .G. Wodehouse. Like if you just like I just like reading P .G. Wodehouse. And then when you're writing, you're like, well, do I want to write it in a boring way or do I want to write a metaphor?

So it's like write a metaphor, you know, try to try to do what P .G.

Wodehouse did. Yeah, there you go. That that gets to the question of how did you end up in Moscow? Because you and I were in the SBC at the same time, and I remember watching you on founders and stuff like that.

We became convinced of paid a baptism and then we made sort of our exodus. And and then along the way, I found out that you did, too. So how did you get to the CREC? How did you end up in those circles?

Yeah, well, there was already like a lot of friendship between me and several of the men out here. And what we were doing at founders was mapping on in various ways to what was happening out here in Moscow and definitely got bit by the lordship of Christ bug.

As you can see, that's kind of permeates in the work the founders is doing. Yeah, I wrote a book with Tom Askew called Strong and Courageous. And we were basically pressing that truth into the corners in various places with the crazy paganism that's manifesting itself everywhere in our society.

All that was good. And then but then just became convinced of the covenant of grace and that our children indeed are in it. I became convinced that the Abrahamic covenant is the covenant of grace, which was a different concept than the concept I was working with at the time, which was kind of a recent recovery of 1689 federalism and kind of older covenantal view, which I was a part of and thought was really good and still appreciate the work that they're doing.

But I was through that, that I was like, oh, my oh, my mercy. I believe that God promised Abraham to be God to him and to his children after him and their generations. And I believe that same covenant promise is apparent in the covenant in the new covenant and the covenant of grace applied in the New Testament.

And that was obviously a big deal to kind of when you've when you've gone as far indoctrinated as I went, that's a it's a pretty big shift changes up ecclesiology and other things like that changes up some thinking on metaphysics, which was some which were the doctrines I was calling for reformation in.

But I didn't see all the way they were connected to the covenant until it until it struck me like a thunderbolt. There was an old Presbyterian Scottish Presbyterian minister that I was talking to that said, oh, Jared, the the the what the weight of the paradigm struck me like a thunderbolt.

And I was like, oh, boy. And by that, by that, he just meant the paradigm of one covenant, two administrations like that. You see it. You're like, oh, boy. So that happened. And then it was very natural to be end up here because of friendships and relationships and not wanting to cause a problem in the credo Baptist world.

I'm very, very grateful. And I know those distinctions. And I grew up in the SBC my whole life. And thoroughly appreciate all the work that's done, not only in the broader credo Baptist world, but in the reformed Baptist world and knew like, hey, I'm the one that changed.

And I was not in a position to commend that right to to the people I was serving with. It was just obviously it was time for me to kind of go and follow the pedo Baptist ways that would be flowing from that change in doctrine.

Yeah. Or sprinkled or poured or sprinkled, which I love out here. Like it, it shocks some some people in the Baptist world. But, you know, it's weird. I remember R .C. Sproul's in a debate with John MacArthur and he said this and R .C. Sproul's like, I am a credo Baptist.

I baptize people upon profession of faith all the time. And that messes people up that aren't quite acquainted like what you mean? You do the you do all the same stuff you used to do. And I was like, yeah.

And even mode is, you know, you can choose your mode out here. So I baptize people upon profession of faith by immersion, just like I used to. And that's that's I'm still familiar with that. I know how that one works.

You know, I'm still getting used. I'm still getting used to the to the small amounts of water.

Ongoing Theological Reassessment and the Covenant of Grace

Well, you you said that this one thing affected many things in your worldview and in your thinking, your theology. Have you had a chance to. Is the dust settled and you've sort of recovered from from that massive shift that happened?

Or are you still pondering some things and still working some things out?

Yeah, well, in one sense, I think I'll be working things out for the rest of my life because it's kind of like it's like when you for me, it was very similar to discovering the doctrines of grace. So I didn't grow up in a in a in a church that held to that.

And you discover this tulip thing and you're like, whoa, sovereignty of God, election God is the God. I still remember the moment I became convinced that of unconditional election and telling a buddy of mine, like just kind of being overwhelmed with it, you know, and oh, my goodness, the the God I serve is this God, this is who he is.

And so huge implications for that. And and it's the same way with the covenant. You know, you really do have things to work out. I've had a few exchanges with James White on the Internet, which have been really fun.

James is a friend and just a great interlocutor. And he's you know, he's got a he's got the cradle of infrastructure, which I know what he's I know what he's saying and thinking, because I'm like, yeah.

And then and it's good because, you know, you have to you have to work things out on your end, on on different various doctrines and how you're understanding them. And then you then the histories are fascinating.

I just I'm absolutely fascinated with the basically the growth of Reformed Baptists in 17th century England, which is probably a terribly boring idea to many people, but it's like so fascinating to me in the way that in the way that they were thinking about the church and even basically being separatists, you know, and that goes all the way back to a guy named Henry Jacob, which was not a Reformed Baptist, but was a separatist Puritan.

And then the way they were conceiving of the church, you know, and they then you see that manifest itself in the Reformed Baptist confessions with visible saints rather than visible church. There's particular churches and then there's the invisible church.

But there's no such thing as the as the visible church as one visible church on earth. I mean, that idea, well, that idea is very covenantal. You see, it's very like you're a member of the covenant and you're a member of the visible church, as the Westminster Confession of Faith says.

So big changes on big changes on ecclesiology and then thoughts about, you know, if you go back to Francis Schaeffer's, he would talk about this problem, problematic dichotomy between heaven and earth, which is represented actually in both confessions, Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second Line of Baptist Confession of Faith, which speak of God condescending by way of covenant, which is referring, of course, to the creator-creature distinction, which is something different than the heaven and earth distinction.

But what does that condescension by way of covenant mean? You know, what's going on there? So I think there's big implications there. So I could go on, but I think it's definitely that moment where you're like things start to stack up and you're like, OK, I'm seeing things more clearly than I have seen them before.

But I think there's always there's going to be things to work out for a long time.

Yeah, amen to that. I continue to feel that I've arrived in a coherent theology and I am continued to be humbled by the Lord who continues to expand it. So I'm very thankful. I want to say this right off the top before we move any further.

I'm very thankful for the work of founders and what you did there, but also what Tom did. Tom was huge and critical for us even being in the SBC to start with. We weren't really ever SBC and we weren't really ever Reformed Baptist.

We were kind of the Reformed Baptist who would allow infant baptism. If that was your story, we wouldn't re-baptize you. That was where we were at, which we didn't really feel like we fit anywhere. But Tom was great.

I talked to him on the phone and he really convinced us to join the fight until I became a Pedo Baptist. But I'm thankful for him and thankful for founders. I do want to say that right up front because they're our brothers and we love them and we're championing what they're doing, even if we're in a different lane, right?

That's right.

I second the motion wholeheartedly. I thank the Lord for Tom, for his ministry, for founders. I look back with great affection and I'm still grateful for the work they're continuing to do.

The Road to Postmillennialism

Well, let's talk about another doctrine that I don't know where you started with it on, but I know now you're in this funny place called post-millennialism. How'd you get there? Was that something that shifted later in life?

Or have you been a post-millennialist since you were born? Tell me, what's your story with that?

Well, speaking of Tom, Tom's obviously was a very, very dear friend and mentor. I remember standing, this is a funny story. I was standing, being kind of commissioned to do a church plant out of Grace where Tom serves and Tom was interviewing me in front of the whole church and was it Jeff Thomas?

Are you familiar with that name? Jeff Thomas. I'm not sure all of his commitments, but I think he's Welsh. I don't know, but a well-known in the reformed world kind of guy. He was visiting and there was like no questions from the congregation at all.

Out of the blue, this guy with his accent just cries out in the crowd. Does he have any funny ideas? And I still remember being like, no. And Tom said to him, hey, Jeff, anything in particular? And then Jeff responds, Israel.

That's all he said, which Tom just feel of it and was like, look at me. He's like, yeah, what's your eschatology? You know, like, no, we'll go there with it. You know, I mean, even that Israel, like there's like 17 ,000 different things we could talk about, but he's like, what's your eschatology?

And I had just found out from Tom recently that he was post-millennial and I was Amil at the time. So I, in seminary, basically went from historic pre-mill to Amil. And so kind of like leaned away from the mic and I was like, they all know that you're post-millennial?

And he's like, yeah, yeah. I was like, okay. I was like, well, I think I said something like I'm Amil, but I'm kind of interested in this post-mill stuff that I'm learning about, you know? So that was, what was I then?

I was like 25 years old then. Yeah. And I was pretty settled in the Amil position. I remember being at seminary with a buddy and he was going historic pre-mill and I went Amil and then he called me like six years later.

He's like, Hey man, I've joined you. I'm now Amil. And I was like, well, about six months ago, I became post-mill, so we're still not quite together here. So I don't remember when the shift was exactly, but it was around that time.

The key ingredients were, you know, you have Ian Murray's, was it eschatology? Puritan Hope. Puritan Hope. That was very helpful and just going, okay, this is steeped in our tradition. Yeah. John brought us in the, in the Southern Baptist world, who was the first president of Southwestern.

So then you're like, okay, that kind of feels at home. You, I had an eschatology of Victory, Marcellus Kick, which helped me to deal with actually Revelation 20 and the Olivet Discourse, and then Keith Matheson's Postmillennialism.

And I don't know, I've heard that Keith, some people say he's just an, he was an optimistic, but the book's called Postmillennialism, bright red, yellow cover, and I worked through all of those things and thought, yeah, like who would, who would be against this?

This is fantastic. So it wasn't much for me to bump from the mill world to the postmill world back there sometime in my twenties. Yeah.

Why Postmillennialism Declined and the Influence of the Schaefferian Dichotomy

What do you think it is that has caused Postmillennialism to wane? I mean, there's, there's plenty of reasons historically that Amillennialism and Postmillennialism are differentiated, especially probably in the modern history of it, because before that, maybe you could lump them together, but why do you feel like that there's been sort of a more recent resurgence, but even before that, a kind of an abandonment of that view?

Well, when I was in seminary, I mean, they and I think this was representative. I just remember a professor saying, okay, so your decisions are going to, you know, no one's like really like, um, no one's like rapture, dysphy, premill.

So don't worry about that. They're like, your two, your choices are going to be historic premillennialism or Amillennialism. I mean, the Puritans were Postmillennial, but you know, like liberalism, Salvation Army stuff, like nobody does that anymore.

Nobody does that after the, after the, uh, first and second world war in the 20th century, we obviously things aren't getting better. And then we just kind of brushed it aside. And so I was like, well, let's figure out historic premill or, um, or Amill.

And I think that's probably why I, um, that's, that's at least one reason why. Well, yeah, the seminaries in particularly like the first and second grade, you know, the, the world wars. So you do say like, you know, this is pretty, this is pretty rough.

Um, I think we're impacted by that kind of thinking. The other is though, I wonder, I am suspicious that what Schaefer lamented in his escape from reason. So his little book escape from reason was extremely helpful.

And probably one of the many books that whacked me around in ways I didn't know. It made me a covenantal Presbyterian, um, was he laments this dichotomy of the upper story and the lower story. Right. And, um, he says, we basically we've thrown the faith in the upper story.

And then the lower story is nothing but reason, right? Faith is in the upper story. Reason is in the lower story. Um, God and heavenly things are in the upper story. Science is in the lower story. You get along down here, um, just by common sense and know-how, uh, the angels are in the upper story.

The kingdom of God is in the upper story. The invisible church is in the upper story. Right. Um, and, and you just got this fractured, what he calls a dichotomy. Now there is a distinction between the upper story and the lower story, but a dichotomy, that word implies this great separation.

And I think that he was lamenting that back. I don't know when he wrote the book, like 50 years ago, um, something like that, and he was dead, right. And I will use this with my students at NSA after I kind of draw it on the board.

You got this Schaefferian dichotomy, this hard separation from the upper and lower story. And I say kind of, well, what is the a mill position? Like, where's the millennium it's up. Right. And of course, the more, the more optimistic you are, the more holes you have poked in the, in the, in the line and the kingdom starts dripping down, you know, um, but the idea that the kingdom of heaven in the millennial reign is at hand down here in the here and now, uh, as well as up, up and down that idea, it doesn't, um, that which I would say is post-millennial doesn't fit with the Schaefferian dichotomy.

Schaefferian dichotomy doesn't permit that kind of thing, right. My, uh, the stuff, the real stuff is up. Right. Um, so I think that, that say that worldview prohibits post-millennialism and that was probably by and large spread throughout a conservative American evangelicalism.

And so post-millennialism is not going to fit.

Pietism, Colossians, and the Need for Biblical Balance

Would you say that that's sort of, um, that, that came in, uh, it's not the, it's not quite the same thing as sacred secular divide, but pietism has sort of made a resurgence among, uh, that group that everything's on the upper story and, and, uh, you know, the, the regular stuff of life is on the bottom story.

Would you say that that's kind of happened around the same time and the same sort of cultural milieu has brought all of that in, uh, it seems that way to.

Me, it seems that way to me and it's right to know, like whatever, whatever position you're going to take, uh, it's right to know the dangers, right? Because the idea that post-millennialism would lead to some kind of wonky liberalism or carnal thought is a good check from the brothers that the post-millennialists would call pietists or those guilty of pietism.

Um, and we just need to know like, yeah, that's if I'm going to continue to talk about the good things of earth. And if I'm going to continue to talk about the advance of the kingdom of God on earth, it is, uh, it would be easy to neglect attacks like Colossians, which says, set your heart on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, not on earthly things.

And you say, well, I thought the kingdom, I thought the post mill deal was about all the earthly things. Give me the good things God make. And you're yes, that's right. Um, but don't miss what Paul's saying.

So I, I think some healthy, um, balance is good there, but I do agree with you that I think this, I think the Schaefferian dichotomy explains many things, including pietism.

Yeah. So, um, and that's a really good, uh, that's a really good thing for us to be thinking of as far as, you know, the check in the system, because, um, it's also produced the seven mountains craziness that's in that's at Bethel.

It's produced some other, some weird manifestations of theology. So you're right. In that sense, we have to, we have to be biblical more than we have to be post-millennial. Like that's a, that's a label of how to view biblical texts, but, uh, we can't continue to build doctrines on top of doctrines.

We have to build our doctrines from the text. Uh, so, uh, it's a really good, helpful thing right there that you just said. Um, but I, I'm interested. I love that analogy of like poking holes in the floor and letting things drip down.

Um, how did you see this biblically? Like it's, it's one thing to talk about a doctrine, but like, where's it out in the Bible, because I think that pre-millennial and post-millennial are really close, it's just the timing of when do these things happen, right?

Like when I'm in the book of Psalms and I'm looking at Jesus doing these things in Psalm 110 or Psalm 2, the pre-millennialist would look and say, absolutely. Amen. It's just the timing of it. That is it happened before he returns or does it happen after he returns and raptures us and all those things?

So how did you come to this biblically?

Biblical Foundations for Postmillennial Hope

Uh, I mean, there's just all kinds of places. You've already mentioned Psalm 2, you mentioned Psalm 110. Uh, both of those are keys. You have Jesus in the gospels when he says the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And I was like, at hand means like here, but Jesus was manifestly on earth. He said that. Uh, but he said it was the kingdom of heaven and we know heaven is not earth and earth is not heaven. So what's he talking about?

Right. And, um, that kind of intertwining, right. And then you have, um, the Lord's prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And I just often say, step back for one moment and say like, do you think he taught us to pray something that he's going to answer no to?

Now I know that you mentioned the more, uh, pre-meal guy's going to say, well, yeah, that's just timing. But I want to press on and say, that's a weird, that's a weird faith. It's like, and that would be a, maybe a, I don't want to, um, let somebody run with that in the wrong direction as if they're some kind of terrible poison.

I'm just saying, it's a strange idea to say like, I am praying to the Lord, asking for things that I know are not going to happen until the return of Jesus Christ. And it's like, faith is doing something different there than when you're saying, Lord, we're asking for it now.

And every, you know, already, not yet. Everybody talks about, but it would be so weird to say like, you know, give us this day, our daily bread. We're asking for things like, we're asking for this to manifest itself.

In the here and now, and I would say those two men are praying kind of, there's two different things going on in those men. If one man's praying and he's really not asking, he's not even asking the Lord to bring the kingdom now.

It wouldn't surprise me that if a bunch of Christians got together in a particular town and prayed along those lines, well, what are you asking the Lord for? You're not asking the Lord to like make your town.

Reform, right? You're not asking for the kingdom of God to actually manifest itself in your town at this moment, but you are praying for the Lord Jesus to come back. Like, so everything kind of gets narrowed into that idea.

Like every prayer becomes basically Maranatha come Lord Jesus, you know, which is a wonderful prayer to pray, but it's not, it's not going to lend itself to kingdom building. It's not going to lend itself to working with other Christians with whom you disagree.

It just doesn't orient itself that way. Now, there's obviously a lot of guys that in the pre-mill world are just far better than their theology, and they do work with all of those things, but I can't help but come to a text like your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, or even understanding the incarnation of our Lord.

Like, you know, there is a first advent and that first advent was the son of God taking upon himself human flesh. You know, constituting a new humanity, but who has become a life-giving spirit, Corinthian says.

Like, he's actually a, he's giving life. Ezekiel's temple vision, and of course the water flowing from the temple, and then the Lord Jesus saying, who comes to me out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.

And I want to step back and go like now, or like when Jesus comes back. Right. And I think most people don't want to put everything, so you can find, eventually you'll find texts that people are not comfortable with putting where Jesus, when Jesus comes back.

And they know that they have some kind of manifestation now, and the degree to which they do so, I think they're, it's all post-mill. Like, I don't care. I really don't care what you call it. I just want that, that living faith that is producing good works, anticipating and trusting God for the manifestation of his promises, because I do, God doesn't work apart from his means, so he doesn't work apart from people trusting him.

And if you're going to see it realized, you have to have people trusting him. And if the only thing they're trusting him for is some manifestation of his kingdom on the other side of the second advent, well, then you're not going to get, you know, you're not going to get it because you're not actually asking God to fulfill his promise.

So there's some.

The Lord’s Prayer, John 17, and the Great Commission

No, that's good. Excuse me. Um, I was, I was, as you were saying that I was thinking to myself, I hadn't really thought about the fact that praying the Lord's prayer, I mean, I've have, I've connected your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, but, but how weird it is actually to pray that prayer and to expect it not to happen dogmatically.

And it must happen at a later date. Um, I was reminded of Jesus's own prayer, uh, in John 17, where he says, not just praying for these, the 12 who are, you know, ostensibly asleep, uh, not doing guard duty for him.

I'm not just praying for them. I'm praying for all who believe because of their message that they would be perfected in unity. What does that apply now? Or does that, does that have to wait until a millennial kingdom at some point in the future?

And if that's the case, it really wouldn't make a lot of sense about what Jesus is saying in his high priestly prayer.

And I add to that great commission. Like I find that, um, and this is why I do, I appreciate a lot of guys who don't call themselves post-millennial, but basically are, but are just kind of trying to nurture the church, um, not by deceiving them, but by saying things like, you know, Jesus commissioned us to go and disciple the nations and you can get a whole crowd of people that aren't really post-millennial be like, yes.

And if you were like, and will he not do it? They would be like, of course he will. You know, they would just, they would just come right out and you're like, yes, that's right. And that's right. Now let's pray that he will, because we know he will.

And they like forget for a moment. Kind of the defeatist idea, or I think, so everybody has this kind of inner post-millennialists that it's hard to, it's hard to resist.

I remember, uh, Pastor Wilson, uh, saying one time, uh, it wasn't on my show, but I was watching a show that he was on and he said, you know, I go to a church and I preach a very post-millennial message, but I don't use that term.

And everybody says, amen. And he said, if I use that term, everybody, everybody would, would scowl and no one would agree with anything that he said. And just that term as a defeater, I think maybe for some.

Yeah, I think that's, uh, I mean, as you mentioned, making post-millennial practical, that is the way it's, it's actually just to believe it, like believe it and live it. And you can actually raise a whole host of, you raise your children.

You can raise, you raise up saints in the church that will just be, they might not even know the terms, but they're going to be like, well, like, of course, Jesus reigns down here. Like, of course, of course, we're on the winning side.

Like those, those are just, but, but, but the, the leaders have to actually embody it and be like trusting the Lord for, for the post-mill promises. If you want to call them that.

Education, Paganism, and the Need to Vacate Government Schools

Well, that leads us to what you're doing. You're a pastor, you're also a dad of seven, which, you know, I could tell your post-mill even by that. Um, but, uh, now praise the Lord for that brother. And you're also a, the Dean of students at NSA.

So, uh, maybe let's talk about education. Um, we would agree that education has gone really awry in this country. Um, how did we get here? How did we get to this place? And then, and then maybe let's transition to say, how are, how's NSA?

How are new St. Andrews? How, how are you in particular? How do you envision education and how do you envision that being a part of this optimistic eschatology of Christ, uh, increasing victory over the earth?

Sure. Yeah. John Dewey and his horde of bandits, or you go back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I mean, you could point to all these different plot points along the way of how we got here. Of course, um, people are probably very familiar with the Dabney quote about when they'll remove, uh, prayer and catechism from schools.

Like you, it used to be different. We really have to acknowledge that it used to be different. And, um, very, you can point to various places, but of course the kind of the radical revolution of the 1960s is another just massive testimony to that.

We, we played around and said, well, we'll, we'll make the voice of the people, the voice of God and our educational institutions will work just fine. And because the evangelical church by and large had that fractured upper lower story, basically agree.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. We'll give you education, right? You can't have religion and worship that's up here, but you know, the training of people to be, to be, um, um, to be the kind of like assembly line workers in a world, in a mechanistic universe and mechanistic earth.

We'll give you that. You don't have to acknowledge God when you're doing that kind of thing. And I think just susceptible to all of that.

So real quick, I'll just, even just clarify, um, that, that was super insightful. Now you've connected it back to that, uh, uh, Schaeferian model. We seeded those things is what you're saying. Those were in the realm of the church education, maybe music, other things.

We seeded those. That's, that's what you're saying in history. That's how they became the way that they are in the West.

Yeah. I, um, I've become thoroughly convinced that the judgment must begin at the household of God, you know, the idea that, and this is another piece of the American church has to get right is we have to stop thinking only in the sense that, oh my goodness, the, the world is impacting the church.

Um, well, yes it is. And so we don't deny any of that, but have you thought about the rotten things in your own teaching and your fail? And it makes perfect sense. If you couch it within, uh, the great commission, whose job is it to disciple the world to disciple the nations?

That's our job. Okay. So if they're acting up, we're not, we're doing something wrong now, particularly in a nation that has been so historically Christian, like our own. So we, this is certainly our problem.

And if we want to fix it, we've got to figure out what we're doing wrong. So, yes, I think we've done that with, um, we've done that with education. There's just no doubt about it. And that's why it's an absolute rot.

Um, I, I quoted, um, Albert Moeller recently, you know, and Al is known as a kind of a cultural analyst in the, uh, in that Baptist world, Calvinistic Baptist world, Southern Baptist world. And I said, and he's a, he's very strategic with his, like what he's going to hit and what he's not going to hit.

He's not a fire brand. Like he's not that kind of person. And it was like 20 years ago that he called for evangelicals or Southern Baptist to leave the government schools. I'm like, I mean, it's like 20 years ago.