125. Interview with Jared Longshore (Postmillennialism and Education)

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

00:08

They are thoroughly pagan. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf.

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This is episode 125, my interview with Jared Longshore about post -millennialism and education.

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Well, welcome back to the podcast.

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

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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.

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It is going to be saucy, spicy, whatever you want to call it. It is 10 reasons why it's a sin to vote

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Democrat, and then I'm going to give an 11th episode on what my political views actually are.

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May surprise you, may not. But until then, we have some fantastic interviews that I wanted to share with you.

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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.

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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.

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Now, if you're not familiar, go check out Jared Longshore on social media, on Canon Press. And also,

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I totally recommend the interview that Jared Longshore and Pastor Doug Wilson just did on Grace Abounding on their

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YouTube channel. You can go check that out. It's well worth the three hours that you will listen to it.

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So thank you again for watching the broadcast and enjoy the interview. Well, hello everyone and welcome back to the broadcast.

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This is a special episode where we're getting to do an interview with Dr. Jared Longshore. I met

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Jared actually last year at the CREC Council, which is part of what I'd like to talk to him about.

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How did he end up at the CREC Council? So that might be a question that we cover. Jared is an author.

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He's a theologian. He is a pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and also he's

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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.

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So for those who don't know you, don't know what you've been working on, tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, well, you covered most of the waterfront.

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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.

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I used to serve down in Florida where I was kind of born and raised down there, pastored for a bunch of years now.

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I'm not sure how many. Yeah, right at jaredrlongshore .com, which is a blog called

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Reformation and Revival. It's also can be found on YouTube. I read some of the blogs that I write on YouTube there.

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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 fitting you ended up in Moscow because you're a bit of a wordsmith.

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Like 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

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BC 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,

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I think it's all PG Wodehouse. Like you just like, I just like reading PG Wodehouse. And then when you're writing, you're like, well, do

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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

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PG Wodehouse did. Yeah. There you go. Um, that, that gets to the question of how did you end up in Moscow?

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Because, um, you and I were in the SBC at the same time. And um,

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I remember watching you on founders and stuff like that. Uh, we became convinced of paid a baptism and then we made sort of our exodus and, and then along the way

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I found out that you did too. So like, how did you get to, uh, the CREC? How did you end up in those circles?

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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, uh, definitely got bit by the

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Lordship of Christ bug. As you can see, that's kind of permeates in the work that founders is doing.

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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 manifested itself everywhere in our society.

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All that was good. But then just became convinced of the covenant of grace and that our children indeed are in it.

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I became convinced that the Abrahamic covenant is the covenant of grace, which was a different concept than the concept

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I was working with at the time, which was kind of a recent recovery of 1689 federalism and kind of an older covenantal view, which

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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.

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Uh, I believe that God promised Abraham to be God to him and to his children after him and their generations.

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And I believe that same covenant promise, uh, is, uh, apparent in the covenant and the new covenant and the covenant of grace applied in the new

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

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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.

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I, there was an old, um, Presbyterian Scottish Presbyterian minister that I was talking to that said,

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Oh Jared, the, the, um, the, the, what the weight of the paradigm struck me like a thunderbolt.

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And I was like, Oh boy. And by that, by that, he just meant the paradigm of one covenant, two administrations.

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Like once you see it, you're like, Oh boy. So that happened. And then the, it was very natural to be end up here because of friendships and relationships and, um, not wanting to cause a problem in the credo

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Baptist world. I'm very, very grateful. And I know those distinctions and I grew up in the

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SBC my whole life and, um, thoroughly appreciate all the work that's done, not only in the broader credo

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Baptist world, but in the reformed Baptist world and knew like, Hey, I'm the one that changed.

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And I was not in a position to commend that right to, to the people

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I was serving with. It was just, obviously it was time for me to kind of go and follow the pedo

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Baptist ways that would be flowing from that change in doctrine. Yeah. Or sprinkled or poured or sprinkled, which

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I love out here. Like, uh, it, uh, it shocked some people, some people in the

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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.

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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 do you mean you do the, you do all the same stuff you used to do.

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And I was like, yeah. And even a mode is, you know, you can choose your mode out here.

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So I've baptized people upon profession of faith by immersion, just like I used to. And I joke that that's, that's,

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I'm still familiar with that. I don't 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.

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Well, you, uh, you said that this one thing affected on many things in your worldview and in your thinking and your theology.

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Have you had a chance to, is the dust settled and you've sort of, uh, recovered from, from that massive shift that happened or are you still pondering some things and still working some things out?

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Yeah. Well, in one sense, I think I'll be working things out for the rest of my life, um, because it's kind of like, it's like when you, for me, it was very similar to discovering the doctrines of grace.

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So I didn't grow up in a, in a, um, in a church that held to that. And you discover this tulip thing and you're like,

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Whoa, sovereignty of God, uh, election God is the God. I still remember the moment

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I became convinced that, uh, of unconditional election and telling a buddy of mine, like just kind of being overwhelmed with it and going,

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Oh my goodness, the, the God I serve is this God, this is who he is. And uh, so huge implications for that.

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And, and it's the same way with the covenant, you know, you, you really do have things to work out. I've had a few exchanges with, uh,

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James White on the internet, which have been really fun. James is a, uh, a friend and just a great interlocutor and he's, you know, he's got a, he's got the cradle of epistructure, which

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I know what he's, I know what he's saying and thinking. Cause I'm like, yeah. And then, and it's good cause you know, you have to read, you have to work things out on your end, um, on, on different various doctrines and how you're understanding them.

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And then you, then the histories are fascinating. I just, I'm absolutely fascinated with the, basically the growth of, um,

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Reformed Baptists in 17th century England, which I, it's probably a terribly boring idea to many people, but it's like so fascinating to me and the way that, in the way that they were thinking about the church, um, and even, uh, basically being separatists, you know, and that you goes all the way back to a guy named

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Henry Jacob, um, 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

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Reformed Baptist confessions with visible saints rather than visible church. Uh, 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.

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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

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Westminster Confession of Faith says. So big changes on, um, big changes on, uh, ecclesiology and then thoughts about, you know, if you go back to Francis Schaeffer's, um, he would talk about this problematic dichotomy between heaven and earth, uh, which is represented actually in both confessions,

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Westminster Confession of Faith and the second line of Baptist Confession of Faith, which speak of God condescending by way of covenant, um, which is, is referring of course, to the creator creature distinction, which is something different than the heaven and earth distinction.

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But what, what does that condescension by way of covenant mean? You know, what, what's going on there?

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So I think there's big implications there, um, so I could go on, but I think it's definitely that moment where you're like, things start to, um, stack up and you're like, oh, okay.

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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.

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Yeah. Amen to that. I, I, I continue to feel that I've arrived, uh, in a, in a coherent theology and I am continued to be humbled by the

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Lord who continues to expand it. So, uh, I'm very thankful. Uh, I want to say this right off the top before we move any further.

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I'm very thankful for the work of founders and, and what you did there, but also what Tom did. Tom was, uh, was huge and critical, uh, for us even being in the

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SBC to start with. Um, we weren't really ever SBC and we weren't really ever, uh, reformed

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Baptist. We were, we were kind of the reformed Baptist who would allow infant baptism.

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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, uh,

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Tom was great. I talked to him on the phone and he really convinced us to join the fight until, uh, until I became a pedo

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Baptist. So, but, uh, I'm, I'm thankful for him and thankful for founders. I do want to say that right up front because, uh, 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?

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That's right. I second the motion wholeheartedly. I thank the Lord for Tom, for his ministry, for founders.

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Um, I look back with great affection and I'm still grateful for the work they're continuing to do. Amen. Well, let's talk about another doctrine that, uh,

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I don't know where you started with it on, but I know now you you're in this funny place called post -millennialism.

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Uh, how'd you get there? Uh, was that something that, that shifted later in life or have you been a post -millennialist since you were born?

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Like, tell me about, what's your story with that? Well, speaking of Tom, you're right, Tom's obviously was, uh, uh, a very, very dear friend and mentor.

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I remember standing, um, this is a funny story. I was standing being, uh, kind of commissioned to do a church plant out of grace where Tom serves.

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And, um, Tom was interviewing me in front of the whole church. And is it a

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Jeff Thomas, are you familiar with that name? Jeff Thomas. I'm not sure his, all of his commitments, but I think he's

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Welsh. I don't know. But, uh, uh, well known in the reformed world kind of guy, he was visiting and, uh, there was like no questions from the congregation at all in, uh, out of the blue.

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This guy with his accent just cries out in the crowd. Does he have any funny ideas?

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And I still remember being like, uh, no. And, uh,

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Tom said to him, uh, Hey Jeff, anything in particular, you know, and he, and then

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Jeff responds, Israel. It's all he said. Uh, which

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Tom just fielded it and was like, looked at me, he's like, yeah, what's your eschatology? You know? Like, no, we'll go there with it.

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You know? I mean, it, even that Israel, like there's like 17 ,000 different things we could talk about.

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Um, 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,

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I was all male at the time. So I, I, uh, in seminary basically went from, um, historic pre -mill to all male.

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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.

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Yeah. I was like, okay. I was like, well, I think I said something like I'm all male, but I'm kind of interested in this post -mill stuff that I'm learning about, you know?

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So that was, what was I then I was, I was like 25 years old then. Yeah. Um, and I was pretty settled in the all male position.

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I remember being at seminary with a buddy and he was going historic pre -mill and I went all male.

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And then he called me like six years later, he's like, Hey man, I've joined you. I'm now all male.

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And I was like, well, about six months ago, uh, I, I became post mills though.

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We're still not quite together here. Um, so I don't remember when the shift was exactly, but it was around that time.

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The key ingredients were, um, you know, you have Ian Murray's, uh, was it eschatology?

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No. Puritan Hope. Puritan Hope. Puritan Hope. That was very helpful. And just going, okay, this is steeped in our tradition.

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Um, yeah, John brought us in the, in the Southern Baptist world, who was the first president of Southwestern.

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So then you're like, okay, that kind of feels at home. You, um, I had an eschatology of victory,

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Marcellus Kick, which helped me to deal with actually revelation 20 and the Olivet discourse. And then

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Keith Matheson's, uh, post -millennialism. And I don't know.

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I've heard that Keith, some people say he's just an, uh, he was an optimistic, um, millennialist, but the book's called post -millennialism bright red, yellow cover.

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And I worked through all of those things and thought, yeah, like who would, who would be against this?

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This is fantastic. Uh, so it wasn't much for me to bump from the, uh, mill world to the post mill world back there sometime in my twenties.

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Yeah. What do you think it is that, um, has caused post -millennialism to wane?

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I mean, there's, there's plenty of reasons historically that, ah, millennialism and post -millennialism are differentiated, especially probably in the modern history of it, because before that, maybe you could lump them together.

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Uh, but why do you feel like that? Um, there's been sort of a more recent resurgence, but even before that, a kind of an abandonment of that view.

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Well, when I was in seminary, I mean, they, uh, and I think this was representative.

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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 dispy pre -mill.

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So don't worry about that. They're like, your two, your choices are going to be historic pre -millennialism or a millennialism.

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I mean, the Puritans were post -millennial, but you know, like liberalism, salvation army stuff, like nobody does that anymore.

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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 that we just kind of brushed it aside.

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And so I was like, well, let's figure out historic pre -mill or, um, or all mill. And I think that's probably why

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I, um, that's, that's at least one reason why I think it's well, yeah, the seminaries in particularly like the first and second grade, you know, the world wars.

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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.

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The other is though, I wonder, I am suspicious that what Schaefer lamented in his escape from reason.

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So his little book escape from reason was extremely helpful and probably one of the many books that whacked me around in ways

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I didn't know, it made me a covenantal Presbyterian, um, was he laments this dichotomy of the upper story and the lower story.

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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?

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Faith is in the upper story. Reason is in the lower story. Um, God and heavenly things are in the upper story.

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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.

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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.

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Now there is a distinction between the upper story and the lower story, but a dichotomy, that word implies this great separation.

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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.

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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

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Schaefferian dichotomy, this hard separation from the upper and lower story. And I say kind of, well, what is the aumil position?

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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.

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That idea, it doesn't, um, that, which I would say is post -millennial doesn't fit with the

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Schaefferian dichotomy. Schaefferian dichotomy doesn't permit that kind of thing, right. My, uh, the stuff, the real stuff is up, right.

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Um, so I think that that say that worldview prohibits post -millennialism and that was probably by and large spread throughout a conservative

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American evangelicalism. And so post -millennialism is not going to fit. Would you say that that 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 that group that everything's on the upper story.

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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?

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Uh, it seems that way to me. Yeah. 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?

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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.

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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.

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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

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God made. And you're yes, that's right. Um, but don't miss what Paul's saying.

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So I, I think some healthy, um, balance is good there, but I do agree with you that I think this,

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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.

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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.

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Like that, 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.

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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.

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Um, but I I'm interested, I love that analogy of like poking holes in the floor and letting things drip down.

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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

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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?

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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.

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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?

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So how did you come to this biblically? Uh, I mean, there's just all kinds of places.

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You've already mentioned Psalm 2, you mentioned Psalm 110. Uh, both of those are keys. You have

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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.

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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.

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So what's he talking about? Right. And, um, that kind of intertwining, right.

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And then you have, um, the Lord's prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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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?

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Now I know that you mentioned the more, uh, pre -meal guy's going to say, well, yeah, that's just timing.

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But I want to press on and say, that's a weird, that's a weird faith.

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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.

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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.

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And it's like, faith is doing something different there than when you're saying,

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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.

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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.

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If one man's praying and he's really not asking, he's not even asking the Lord to bring the kingdom now.

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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

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Lord for? You're not asking the Lord to like make your town. Reform, right?

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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

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Lord Jesus to come back. Like, so everything kind of gets narrowed into that idea. Like every prayer becomes basically

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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.

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It's not going to lend itself to working with other Christians with whom you disagree.

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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

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Lord. Like, you know, there is a first advent, and that first advent was the son of God taking upon himself human flesh.

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You know, constituting a new humanity, who has become a life -giving spirit,

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Corinthians says. Like, he's actually, he's giving life. Ezekiel's temple vision, and of course, the water flowing from the temple, and then the

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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

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Jesus comes back. 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 when

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Jesus comes back. And they know that they have some kind of manifestation now, and the degree to which they do so,

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I think it's all post -mill. Like, I don't care. I really don't care what you call it. I just want that living faith that is producing good works, anticipating and trusting

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God for the manifestation of his promises, because God doesn't work apart from his means, so he doesn't work apart from people trusting him.

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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

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God to fulfill his promise. So, there's some. No, that's good. Excuse me.

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As you were saying that, I was thinking to myself, I hadn't really thought about the fact that praying the Lord's prayer,

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I mean, I've connected your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, 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.

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I was reminded of Jesus's own prayer in John 17, where he says,

28:47

I'm not just praying for these, the 12 who are ostensibly asleep, not doing guard duty for him,

28:54

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?

29:00

Or 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

29:08

Jesus is saying in his high priestly prayer. Right. And I add to that the great commission. I find that, and this is why

29:16

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, not by deceiving them, but by saying things like,

29:29

Jesus commissioned us to go and disciple the nations. And you can get a whole crowd of people that aren't really post -millennial and be like, yes.

29:37

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

29:46

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 -millennialist that it's hard to, it's hard to resist.

30:02

I remember Pastor Wilson saying one time, it wasn't on my show, but I was watching a show that he was on.

30:09

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.

30:16

And he said, if I use that term, everybody would, everybody would scowl and no one would agree with anything that he said.

30:22

And just that term is a defeater, I think maybe for some. Yeah. I think that's, 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.

30:36

And you can actually raise a whole host of, you raise your children, 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,

30:47

Jesus reigns down here. Like, of course, of course we're on the winning side. Like those, those are just, but, but the, but the, the leaders have to actually embody it and be like trusting the

31:00

Lord for, for the post -mill promises, if you want to call them that. Yeah.

31:06

Well, that leads us to what you're doing. You're a pastor, you're also a dad of seven, which, you know,

31:12

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

31:18

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.

31:29

Um, how did we get here? How do we get to this place? And then, and then maybe let's transition to say, how are, how's

31:35

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?

31:48

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.

31:57

Of course, um, people are probably very familiar with the Dabney quote about when they'll remove, uh, prayer and catechism from schools.

32:05

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.

32:20

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.

32:28

And because the evangelical church by and large had that fractured upper lower story, basically agree.

32:35

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.

32:52

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

33:00

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,

33:07

Shafirian model. We seated those things is what you're saying. Those were in the realm of the church education, maybe music, other things.

33:14

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

33:19

West. Yeah. I, um, I've become thoroughly convinced of that. The judgment must begin at the household of God, you know, the idea that, and this is another piece of the

33:30

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.

33:39

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 failure?

33:46

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?

33:52

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

33:59

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.

34:05

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 the, it's an absolute rot.

34:14

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,

34:24

Calvinist 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.

34:34

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.

34:46

I'm like, I mean, it's like 20 years ago. I'm like, yeah, Lee, this, this is crazy.

34:54

I mean, and we're still like dilly dallying around. Like we have manifestly not left them.

34:59

Like you there. And if you want to talk about like the recovery, I mean, this is basic stuff.

35:07

This is one, this is something that is, that is, um, that is remarkably hard to do.

35:14

Right. But you, but it's super clear what you know you need to do. So there are those moments in life where you're like, oh boy, this is going to hurt.

35:23

Right. Like I've got gangrene in the leg and I got to cut it off. Not going to be a good experience, but there are, there are no other options.

35:31

Right. That's, this is one of those situations for the Christian church in America. Everyone knows, like you can't be oblivious to this, this thing.

35:40

Now you must vacate the government schools. They are thoroughly pagan in worldview.

35:47

They do not acknowledge God. And, um, it's just, it's just crazy.

35:53

And you're, you're giving them this IV drip, right? So if you're like, I'm going to go IV drip them for eight hours a day, five days a week, you know, and I'm going to, the

36:03

IV drip is going to be don't acknowledge God. Don't acknowledge God. Don't acknowledge God. Don't acknowledge God. Whatever you're learning for eight hours a day, five days a week is not from him, through him into him.

36:13

Okay. It's not, and it's not under the Lordship of Christ. Whatever the telos is of what you're learning is not the

36:19

Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever the gift of education is, does not come from his hands. You, you will get people that don't acknowledge him.

36:27

This is like basic. I mean, this fits your assembly line worldview. Like, and we're just talking about sowing and reaping at this moment.

36:35

So you have to see how bad it is. Like it's, it's, it's absolutely terrible.

36:40

And the way you're going to get reformation and the way you're going to see kind of post -millennialism applied is by doing what absolutely ever is necessary to establish the new generation under the

36:52

Lordship of Christ concerning their education and realize that of course, all truth is God's truth. It comes from him, it comes through him, it comes to him.

36:59

And you have to actually have your mind and heart trained to, to apprehend that in all things, to apprehend him in all things.

37:07

And to see that, that full integration of, of all of God's truth under Christ's Lordship.

37:16

So yeah, well, practically we do that with our children. They attend Logos school out here.

37:22

Our seventh we'll be going into pre -K. So we have seven kids that are engaged in that particular institution.

37:30

We're doing that at NSA. It's a liberal arts and humanities, classical

37:35

Christian college. And so you're taking, it's not, it's not like a Bible school or a theology school, but they're learning all of these different disciplines.

37:45

And they're being woven in together. And that vision is huge.

37:51

We're only on the front end of it. Like there where, where we can, we're at a point where we can look back and you can look at ACCS and other endeavors and see that,

38:00

Hey, there's really something going on now. But when it comes to actually recovering what it's going to be like, we're like, we've barely taken the first step and what that recovery is going to look like.

38:14

Right. I was talking to a buddy of mine recently and I said, one of the most, um, one of the most incredible lies that the left has, has

38:23

I think convinced so many people of is you don't want to indoctrinate your children, send them to us, uh, you know, let them figure out who they are.

38:33

And in the entire time, the government schools and aim is to indoctrinate. Everyone is indoctrinating someone into something.

38:41

The question is, is it like you just said to the Lord Jesus Christ? Yeah, I mean, yeah.

38:48

Um, so NSA, let's talk a little bit about NSA. Um, I love the commercials by the way.

38:53

They're incredible. Like YouTube, the NSA commercials, they're fantastic. The first one I saw was the bathroom one.

38:59

And I was like, I love this. I'm going to send my children here. Um, but it's not just, it's not just a

39:05

Christian college. There's, there's plenty of those. It's different. I mean, it feels like to me, and I've, I'm not been a student there and I haven't sent any of my children there yet.

39:13

They're too young, but, um, it feels like that there's a robust, um, education really there.

39:19

There's a recovery of classical education. There's a recovery of, of rigor and, and hard work that goes into this because if we're

39:27

Christians, we ought to be the thinkers and the philosophers and the create the creatives and the entrepreneurs of society.

39:34

Right. So, uh, tell me a little bit about how NSA is trying to do that and what distinguishes it from just the, you know, obviously from the world, but from the regular old run of the mill

39:44

Christian college. Yeah. I, uh, actually have like up on my screen here,

39:50

I think a little phrase about our, um, about new

39:55

St. Andrews. So it's, this is not the entire statement on humanities that we have, but it's a portion of it says that new

40:01

St. Andrews college, we draw our cultural heritage primarily from the ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Romans from the

40:08

Christians of medieval Europe and from the reformed Protestant branch of Christendom. So if you think, where do you get your cultural heritage from?

40:17

Well, there you go. Like we're saying, these are, these are the sources. And that's actually a particular tradition.

40:23

I wrote a review of Aaron Wren's new book, um, life in negative world.

40:28

I wrote this on American reformer. And in that, I quoted, um, a work by, uh,

40:36

Crawford Gribben. So he wrote survival and resistance in evangelical America. That's an Oxford university press book.

40:42

And I was reading the book, of course, as the Dean of NSA. And I found him, uh, list, he listed out like all of our, uh, basically the sources that the, the primary texts that we read for the various disciplines.

40:55

And I got done. I was like, man, that's so great. Like, I'm glad Crawford has assembled all of those in one place for us.

41:02

You know, they exist and I see them, but the way he spelled them out. So I'll just re if you say what distinguishes it, let me read you the texts that NSA students read.

41:11

And that will kind of be an answer to your question. So this is quoting from Gribben's book.

41:16

He says at NSA and theology, students read Anselm Athanasius Augustine city of God and confessions

41:23

Irenaeus is against heresies, Luther's bondage of the will and Calvin's institutes of the Christian religion. Now, several of those are employed in the class that I teach and that Joe Rigney teaches.

41:33

So we split the freshmen in half. Uh, he takes half, I take half and we basically teach them the same content.

41:39

Uh, they read through the entirety of the city of God, which is probably say the most classic kind of gripping texts that people don't spend time reading that they should spend time reading.

41:49

So that's in theology. He continues in science students read Euclid's elements, Newton's Principia, and Darwin's origin of species in studying politics.

41:58

Students read Plato's Republic, Aristotle's ethics and politics, Cicero's Republican laws,

42:04

Aquinas's treatise on law, on kingship or and on kingship Machiavelli's the

42:09

Prince Hobbes, Leviathan Locke's second treatise on government, Rousseau's discourses and Marx's communist manifesto, obviously to disagree with it.

42:19

In history, they read Herodotus, Plutarch, Thucydides and Bede's ecclesiastical history.

42:25

The poet, uh, the poetry they read includes Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, Beowulf, Dante's Divine Comedy, Spencer's Fairy Queen and Milton's Paradise Lost.

42:35

They read Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles and Shakespeare in fiction by Bunyan, Defoe, Austin, Dickens, Dostoevsky and Faulkner.

42:44

They learn about art and architecture from Vitruvius and philosophy from Aristotle, Aquinas, Boethius, Descartes and Nietzsche, obviously to disagree with most of him as well.

42:56

To develop skills in communication, they study Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, Plutarch and Montaigne.

43:02

And so there is a really, um, when, when NSA says it's steeped in the liberal arts and humanities and drawing our cultural heritage from this particular tradition, um, it's serious.

43:15

There's, there's work of actually steeping yourself in those particular texts. And that's like a slow work of reformation.

43:21

It's far from like a Twitter work of reformation. If there's a problem, like with the up and coming generation,

43:27

I'm reading, uh, the fourth turning right now, which is a very interesting book. The fourth turning is here. I think that's the title of it.

43:34

And basically it's, it's kind of sketching out the different generations at this point. And I was just reminded,

43:39

I think it's called Homelanders is maybe the name they're toying around with for the generation that would be, um, after the millennials.

43:47

And I think that's like 18 year olds right now would be the top end of the Homelanders. If you're 19 or 20,

43:53

I think in up, you're in that, um, millennial realm. But if there's anything going on kind of with that younger generation now, it's like, well, they live in this society that has been dissolved and that they know it's bad.

44:06

Um, they feel the potency of the NSA ad. You mentioned of like a guy walking in a guy's bathroom and a girl walking in a girl's bathroom saying, we know science.

44:14

They're like, that's the world we live in. And the temptation for that generation would be to just like light everything on fire, be kind of revolutionary in their thinking.

44:24

So you, um, they're the ones that are like coming out and saying, okay, boomers, like millennials do that as well.

44:29

Right. They're not satisfied with the, with the slow pace set by their forefathers, that kind of thing.

44:35

And I'm all for the zeal and the gusto, but I'm saying you need to make sure that zeal has weight to it, has glory to it.

44:42

And you can't be like a puffed up emptiness. And basically if you're going to go and actually work through a text, you're going to go read the thousand pages of Augustan city of God.

44:54

That's somebody that's, that's actually saying, no, I know there's like a deep tradition and there's truths that I need to read.

45:01

You can't, I've, I've tell students, you know, you, you manifestly cannot scroll through Augustan city of God, right?

45:07

Like I, the very idea of scrolling is I make a quick judgment that I'm tired of whatever it is I'm looking at and I will just scroll and that man will disappear.

45:15

Whatever he was saying, uh, you know, so I can do that with our podcast right now. I think Dr Longshore is getting a little long winded scroll and I click away and then you create a whole systems of podcasts that make sure like they're, that you don't, you're never are long winded because people will scroll and I'll say, well, you got to read a thousand pages of Augustan and yeah, you have to do it.

45:35

And then we're going to talk about it. You know, like that's a, that's a deep formation that is antithetical to our vacuous pagan ways.

45:48

So I think it's going to that, that reformation in education that we need will actually go back to those sources.

45:53

That's not the only thing we want. Cultural analysis. We want sons of Issachar who can understand the times.

46:00

Um, I think I can say this cause we're not posting this this week, right? Not this week. Okay. So we have a, what we call an

46:07

NSA essay where the whole college sits and they get an impromptu, um, uh, prompt and they have to write a whole essay on it.

46:18

And, uh, that's coming up this Friday and it's going to be the, he gets us ad from the

46:25

Superbowl. I'm crazy when it's like shot through with like cultural Marxism and every other bad ideology that exists.

46:32

Jesus didn't teach hate. He washed feet. And so there's this, there's this, um, there's this ability to be steeped in the sources.

46:40

And then they're going to be asked the question, does the, he gets us ad, uh, faithfully shaped culture under the

46:45

Lordship of Christ, which is the mission of NSA. Does it do it? And you're going to have to assess, uh, kind of this modern phenomenon according to the ancient tradition that you've been, um, given.

46:57

Right. So you basically want an education that's going to be steeped in the sources and aware of the times.

47:04

Yeah. So would you say, um, not only teaching what to think, but even how to think, which is,

47:09

I think a lost discipline even today, right? Oh, yeah, sure. Sure.

47:15

Yeah. Rules of logic. Um, they get studied in that and worked through. Those are, those are also addressed.

47:23

Yeah. I was talking to a gentleman the other day. I said, um, you know, one of the, one of the best evidences that you've understood that Christ is

47:33

Lord over all is, is that you are studying and you're a theologian in your home.

47:39

This is a blue collar worker who's, who's probably not inclined to read like Calvin or Augustine or some of that.

47:46

But I said, read it, challenge yourself, learn and grow because you're gathering not just resources so that you can come home and, and pay the bills.

47:55

That's not your only vocation in life. You're, you're gathering from the word of God. You're gathering from your time with God and prayer and the means of grace.

48:03

You're gathering from the church, which are also challenge yourself and read books that are going to shape your theological worldview so that you can give it to the next generation because we have to have a longterm view.

48:15

And I feel like that's what NSA is doing. You're, uh, Moscow is, is probably most known for, um,

48:22

Twitter and some of the maybe controversies that have happened because you're, you're doing things now. But I love the underpinning of we're building for the future as well because you know, um, you know, like you said, you don't want to, you don't want to exhaust yourself with, with, with such shallow waters that you can't maintain it, uh, over generations.

48:40

Right. So you're building into these students. Yeah. I often, I think we need a, um, reformation on a local communal level.

48:49

So, um, that's another thing I put in that review that I wrote at American reformer. You, you actually have to find people to build with.

48:59

And, um, Moscow is known for that. You have a bunch of saints that are in a small town.

49:05

And so you feel the community is so thick. Everyone's just like five minutes apart. You know, he's in this kind of critical mass of people that are all, uh, close with the flourishing of culture and institutions and, um, all, all of that.

49:22

And that, that hasn't always been here. Right.

49:27

So you're 40 plus years downstream from, you know,

49:33

Doug saying, well, I don't think we'll send our kids to the, to the pagans.

49:39

I think we'll have to start a school. You know, I think NSA started with three students. Right. Um, I mean, that's just, you know, this is remarkable to see the time of actually doing the work.

49:52

And again, like the, you mentioned kind of the Twitter and the, the temptation of the, of the, the, the good guys are dear friends.

50:02

The conservatives now is to just get on the internet and just fire off all day.

50:09

And it's like, but you have to, the only way you grow something is by being a faithful gardener tilling it.

50:16

That's the way you do it with your family. That's the way you're going to do it with community. So I often say if you're going to find a community, that's really going to, um, say flourish in kind of the chaos that has come upon us.

50:30

I think the chief thing I would look for is a K through 12 classical

50:35

Christian education. Do you have, are people vested in that kind of idea?

50:41

Because it's just like the acid test because it's so terribly hard to develop.

50:47

Right. And, uh, this is not a shot against homeschooling. I think homeschooling is a perfectly fine option if I'm thinking about just like what a man can do.

50:57

I think there's tons of people out there with just financial limitations and they say, I can't, I can't do it.

51:03

I can't pay for four people in the cost of a tuition that it would be much less get one started.

51:08

So it's not like everyone needs to do it. I'm not saying that at all, but I'm speaking at a corporate kind of, um, 10 ,000 foot view.

51:16

If I'm looking at a community, are, and are they serious about their post -millennial flourishing?

51:22

Well, they at least have a plan to say, we're going to establish a school like this, right?

51:28

And we're going to go through the hard work of building the constitution and the bylaws and the board and the, and the funding and the marketing and the teachers and the sacrifices that are going to be made where you find a group of saints that are, have that vision and started to put feet on the ground.

51:46

That's where I'd say, boy, dive in there. That's a PR that's people that are not, um, LARPing their post -millennialism.

51:53

Yeah. What do you mean by that? LARPing their post -millennialism? Well, the LARPing, right? When you dress up and you go out with like foam swords and you pretend to fight.

52:01

Um, it's like that. You're basically faking it. Like you love the ideas, but you haven't actually put any feet to pavement.

52:09

Yeah. Yeah. And that's such a, it's almost like Calvinism when you first come to it, there's a cage stagey, uh, sort of moment where you become post -millennial and you're loud and you've got your megaphone and you're like announcing

52:21

Jesus's victory, but doing nothing to see it come about. Um, you know, I, I appreciate that analogy, um, of, you know, the thumb war or sword fighting or whatever.

52:31

Um, with that though, brother, um, I know we're running close to our time and I want to honor you in that.

52:38

What is, what would you say to the person who's watching this as far as, uh, personal education, uh, family education?

52:45

What, uh, what advice would you give on developing the Christian mind? Okay. So, well, it's different depending on what you're stationed in life.

52:53

So if you have kids, you need to see that it is your fundamental duty to educate them. And that's extremely difficult to do.

53:01

And you just have to, you have to pray hard and you have to invest in it.

53:07

Uh, and you have to, and that includes, that would include sports, right? And the kind of these extracurricular activities, idea that all of that is forming and it takes time.

53:17

It takes effort. It takes attention. It takes drop offs and pickups. It takes a certain placement of that family in society.

53:24

And I think that you should be finding other saints to do that with, and you should be investing in that particular vision of their education.

53:33

Um, uh, if you're later in life, then I would say, don't, don't be overwhelmed by that long list that I just read you, right?

53:41

You think, Oh, I'll never be able to read all those books. Yeah. Well, sure. Like nobody reads all of those books. All right. This is a, this is a particular college that I'm talking about.

53:49

And we always are kind of overwhelmed by, I can never get through a big book, that kind of thing.

53:56

Um, I would say start very small and, uh, read a couple of pages out of a book that you know that you should have read.

54:02

So you say, okay, city of God, right? A thousand pages. Um, before I turn on Netflix at the end of the night, because I'm totally tired and can't think straight,

54:12

I'm going to read two pages of Augustan city of God. And with a highlighter, marking something that jumps out, whether I understand it at all or not is another thing.

54:21

Also use cliff notes when you're reading a book, there's nothing at all wrong with like trying to get the whole concept by finding a good summary of it and going, okay,

54:28

I've read that. Um, but I think you should applaud in your educational endeavors for yourself.

54:34

If you're later in life, um, and you should not be overwhelmed. Your kids should be smarter than you. That's like the best thing when your kids come home, like speaking their

54:43

Latin and you're like, what, what'd you say? Um, that, that should not be a hindrance to you, but a blessing.

54:51

That's so good. Um, brother, thank you so much for being on the show. And thank you for just kind of talking about the things that you've been doing and talking about how

55:00

NSA is trying to do that. I pray that that Moscow is not the only city. I pray that 40 years from now, we will see that there were pastors who are faithful right now who over 40 years from now, there's, there's 40

55:12

NSA. There's a hundred, uh, Christ churches. There's, uh, I'm praying that that longterm view is already sort of working itself out now through faithful ministries.

55:22

I pray that for Massachusetts and I pray, uh, the Lord would bless you and all of your endeavors, brother. Thank you so much for being here with us, man.

55:28

Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for watching another episode of the podcast until next time.

55:37

God richly bless you and we'll see you again very soon. Now get out of here.