(Part 2) Christian Nationalism & The Resurgence of Postmillennial Theology

So let's turn to the gospel of John chapter 18. Like I said I did a message on Christian nationalism and what's being said about it two weeks ago and I said you're gonna hear more about it in the future and we're gonna watch some of the

NBC News segment where they did did this a few days ago or in the past week.

I said before I believe Christian nationalism is a made -up term. I don't accept it.

I don't reject it. I think it's a made -up term meant to paint evangelicals who are patriotic in a bad light that they are a threat to American democracy.

I mean that's my opinion if you disagree with that. So I don't accept the term. I don't reject the term.

I think that's what's behind it and the pastor that's gonna be in this video Doug Wilson. I do not endorse

Doug Wilson nor do I renounce Doug Wilson. This is just information and we're gonna look at John 18 in a second but I just wanted to take one more

Sunday to discuss this. You had a hand up? The term this happens often a slogan or a title will be given that is favorable but then the how it's used or the definition of it or whatever.

Are we gonna talk about how this started or who started? We don't know. I don't know where the term came from but it's basically

I think a boogeyman. There's these Christian nationalists out there.

It's meant to be a bugaboo right a boogeyman to scare people that to create distrust to further the division.

Anytime the mainstream media does anything or the it's always against evangelicals.

A few months ago it was just white nationalists and then it evolved into Christian nationalists in the news.

Right yeah started with nationalism then white nationalism then it's Christian nationalism and they're saying that you know these

Christian nationalists are looking to impose their their beliefs on everybody else.

Yeah well the secular progressives are imposing their beliefs on us but I guess that's okay but you know if you have if Christians want to have a voice in this country that's that's theocracy that's dangerous and they're gonna get women in burqas and they're gonna you know stone people for breaking the

Sabbath and basically they're trying to say that it's gonna turn Christians are trying it's it's the

Christian version of the Taliban basically is is what I gather. Okay one more comment and then we're going to go to the video

Barb. The Christian nationalism movement is threatening to become you know to join church and state and every author history you can see that when the church in the state become one then you get people being burned to the stake you get the

Crusades you get persecution of other denominations you know the

Puritans kicked the Baptists out of Massachusetts and people yes unbelievers right now are really disgusted with American Christianity yeah because of the sexual abuse scandals yeah and the financial scandals from a while back we are the laughing stock of the unbelievers yeah

I know we always are but Christianity has given them plenty of food to do so yep yeah and if anyone attends on Wednesday night if you pay attention to what

I say on Wednesday night you know full well that I do not support the idea of theocracy that the government the federal government should make

Christianity the religion of the nation and we impose it upon people and then you get what the

Roman Catholic Church had with the Inquisitions and of course I do not think that's a good idea but of course

Christians have churches the scandals a lot of it came from Roman Catholicism the sexual abuse scandals yeah

I think the stuff with the Southern Baptists is I mean any what there's there's a political agenda behind it so they they takes things that happen that were legitimately terrible and there's there's an interest to kind of blow it up into something but let's just watch the video and then we'll comment on this welcome you've made it to episode 1 of season 5 of meet the press reports thanks for being here theocracy it isn't a word you often hear in American politics these days but given the religious rhetoric coming from some

Republican candidates this year it doesn't feel as far -fetched or hyperbolic as it would have been in the past frankly it feels possible there are candidates embracing the idea that okay

I'm sorry I can't help myself this is absolutely false the idea that the

United States is going to turn into a theocracy that it's the opposite of the truth the secular progressives have complete control over the government over the educational system over Hollywood the idea that Christians are going to take over the country is absurd it's not even close to being possible anytime soon so yeah and this guy's biased this guy hates what the

Bible teaches so I you know so it's absurd okay sorry I'm gonna try not to comment every five seconds okay let's continue the first amendment actually says about the free exercise or establishment of religion that this wall between church and state should actually come down and not only that these folks argue the wall was actually never supposed to be there in the first place in fact here's

Lauren Bowen she's a freshman member of Congress from Colorado she was speaking this summer to Congress here's what she said the church is supposed to direct the government the government is not supposed to direct the church that is not how our founding fathers intended it and I'm tired of this separation of church and state

John so the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania the nation's fifth most populous state said this to his supporters so much for this myth of separation of church and state that's right and here's that's the same position that Michael Perutka the

Republican nominee for Maryland Attorney General he's a position he's taken since at least 2014 when he called the separation of church and state quote the great love and yet there can be no separation of God from government because he capital

H there created okay so there's a bait -and -switch going on the separation of church and state meant one thing originally they've changed it to mean something else today and then the separation of God from government is something completely different but they're kind of mashing it all together so you heard and I know the reason they're doing this is not just to make evangelicals look bad it's about the election and you know the politicians they showed were

Republican I don't want to get in to all of that okay that's not why I'm doing this I'm interested in the

Christian angle but separation of church and state originally meant that the government is to stay out of the affairs of the church

Thomas Jefferson is the one who coined that term in a private letter to the

Baptist Danbury Baptist Association or something I from what

I understand he was trying to calm their fears that the government was going to be getting involved in the affairs of it so that's what it originally meant government stays out of the affairs of the church which we all agree with today's separation of church and state is meant to they've twisted it to me the exact opposite that you know your

Christianity your faith needs to stay in the church house and in your house and it shouldn't be brought into the public square that's false okay that's not what

I mean but the separation of God from government is what we are experiencing right now Christianity in the

United States of America it's been our identity historically the founding fathers all most of them professed to be

Christian whether they really were or not is another story they talked about the importance of Christianity in the

Bible there's a George Washington who said it is impossible to rightly govern the world without the

Bible so what they're so now what we're doing is we're just moving away from God and trying to erase any any history of Christianity the

Bible God being part of our nation since we're trying to do away and erase all of that so I this just isn't an accurate an accurate portrayal any any comments on that before we move on all right especially

Thomas Jefferson who was the first of the founders to use the phrase the wall separation metaphor to describe the

First Amendment's religious freedom protections other Republicans though are openly embracing

Christian nationalism we need to be the party of nationalism and I'm a

Christian I say it probably we should be Christian nationalism even the Dallas decision overturning

Roe vs. Wade has religious overtones it has been cheered on by conservatives on religious right and in fact it's actually led some liberals to look to the religious freedom restoration laws many of them vigorously opposed over the last decade to challenge to use these laws as an attempt to challenge these statewide abortion bans that are being passed around this country so as a country we are entering unknown territory what is that where is this movement my colleague

NBC News correspondent Anne Thompson traveled to Moscow it's a blue -eyed and otherwise

Ruby Red State that's grappling that has been grappling for years with questions about the role religion should play in the public square and everyday life okay

I told you to turn to John 18 I think we should probably look at that any comments on what you saw there let me let me just say this

I know there's gonna be somebody sitting here just preach the gospel just preach the gospel well

I know that's the way some people think and they want me to stand behind the pulpit or just tell you things that you already know and that you've heard a million times before okay sometimes you have to address things that are going on the culture

I know people I'm with you I know what the stuff that they're saying is hard to deal with I get it but sometimes

I think we do have to talk about what's going on if you read the Bible in every book every book of the

Bible what are they talking about they're talking about things that are going on at the moment and then they go back and quote what the scripture says to bring the

Word of God to bear to what they were going through we can't just talk about things that happened 2000 years ago we have to apply it to the modern day so that's why

I'm I'm doing things like this okay I know there's hands up give me a second John 18 33 through 36 says then

Pilate entered the praetorium again called Jesus and said to him are you the king of the

Jews and Jesus answered him are you speaking for yourself about this or did others tell you this concerning me

Pilate answered am I a Jew your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me what have you done and Jesus answered my kingdom is what not of this world if my kingdom were of this world my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the

Jews but now my kingdom is not from here so when Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world when he said that that was true but at the same time

Jesus said all authority has been given to me in both heaven and on earth Christ's kingdom today is not of this world and some people have taken that to mean that okay so whatever's going on in politics and government anything that's going on in the world that's completely separate and we should just withdraw and only open the

Bible and talk about the Bible that's a different kingdom Christ said his kingdom is of this world to just ignore it all that's the conclusion some people draw that's not what

Jesus is saying it's not what Jesus is saying his kingdom as of that moment and even now is not of this world but it will be it will it's called the second advent in the

Millennium and until then we are to preach all that Christ commanded and this is another pet peeve of mine that when a politician comments on something or when a political party takes a stance on a moral issue well now that's political and you shouldn't talk about it if it's if it's a moral issue the church needs to talk about it well yeah but that's a political issue so what they don't get to take things away from us and now we're not allowed to say anything that's what they want right they want us not to get involved they want us not to say anything they want to push us into a corner and and shut us up so I'm not playing along with that but Christ's kingdom is coming and we are to proclaim just like the

Old Testament prophets did to the kings of Israel and just like John the

Baptist preached to Herod about his behavior the the church is to direct the government in the sense that we speak prophetically of what

God said and we are to inform the whole world politicians and laymen and everybody else we are to proclaim the

Lordship of Christ and what he said and not let anyone make you ashamed of it so okay yes the gospel the reason the gospel is the good news and the reason why we do preach the gospel is because in fact this world is bad news this system and our own flesh the world the flesh the devil the cursed earth it's bad news why do we need a

Savior why do we call him Savior because we need to be saved from the consequences of all this bad news that's the goodness right what's the black and brown and blue and yeah the rainbow is the

LGBTQ thing the pink and blue is the trans thing and then they added black and brown for them you know black and brown folks and indigenous people so it's just kind of bringing it all together into to one flag but yes

Larry in Paul's teaching but everywhere

Paul went he was speaking to what was going on around him in and out of the church and a couple things happened to Paul everywhere he went he either got beat or stoned or thrown in prison you know and it didn't stop him from doing it and what

I see as the church in the past drawing away from persecution away from stepping into the culture biblically we've lost so many of our rights we've lost

God in school you know because Christians have taken a backseat sure and I you know hey

I'm guilty too yeah and I'm not necessarily pointing fingers but I can't you know there's no more door to get my foot in yeah right okay let's turn to Revelation 19 now and just because this came up and I know what people try to say and how they try to distort things whether it comes to someone who's black or I mean put someone who's african -american in the same category as LGB type that's one that has nothing to do with the other but what they're trying to do also with evangelicals evangelicals are just a bunch of racists they hate people who are different than them which these churches and they probably say this about us we just hate hate homosexual you know none of that's true

Barb mentioned the the history of all the problems in churches yeah that's true in Christian churches there have been racist people in Christian churches there have been people who hate others in Christian churches there have been people like that in secular organizations there's people like that everywhere because all have sinned and have come short in glory of God nobody's arguing that well the church has never done anything wrong have you read first Corinthians it's always this way so we don't hate anybody we want people to be we love them so much we preach the gospel and we want them to be saved and go to heaven that that's why we exist but they're just gonna frame it in such a way that you're just you know bigots and you know you know how that goes

Tony right now it's not so much as hate it's the people on the other side are looking at disagreement as hate right don't agree with me then you must hate yeah another slogan silence is violence so it's not only that you have to agree with them that you have to speak and say the same things they do because if you know your silence is violence

I mean there might be those situations were remaining silent is cowardice and it is terrible but yeah so there's all these slogans it's all going one way it's meant to demonize evangelicals in my in my humble totally unbiased opinion

I think we need to warn people of violence you want what's the most violent thing you can imagine

God's wrath that's violent and that's what's gonna that's what's happening to people that's what they need to be saved from right okay people don't the world doesn't understand that they think

God is love. It's all about love. So how can he be wrathful if he's all love?

People who say that they're ignoring two -thirds of the Bible probably all right let's look at Revelation 19 11 through 16 because the pastor that they're going to show again

I don't endorse him I don't renounce him I'm just showing you the video but he is a reformed

Calvinist and his movement is is really defined by his post -millennial theology and that that's something that we would disagree with Revelation 19 11 through 16 we are pre -millennial okay says now

I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he who sat on him was called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and makes war his eyes were like a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns and he had a name written that no one knew except himself he was clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is called the

Word of God and the armies in heaven clothed in fine linen white and clean followed him on white horses now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword that with it he should strike the nations and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron he himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God and he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written

King of Kings and Lord of Lords so we believe that this is describing the second advent of Jesus Christ at the end of the age that's

Revelation 19 in Revelation chapter 20 it talks about the establishment of the

Millennial Kingdom and it's called the Millennial Kingdom because it says six times that it lasts for 1 ,000 years so based on my view and this church's view of the end times

Jesus returns the Millennium is set up therefore the return of Christ is pre

Millennium it is before Jesus comes back before the

Millennium and because we believe that our view of world history is things are going to get worse and worse and worse and then at the end of the age

Christ will come he will lay waste to the armies of the

Antichrist the armies of this world that are fighting against the

Lord and his anointed and once the Lord destroys all his enemies puts them under his feet and he will establish his kingdom of righteousness for 1 ,000 years so because of that sometimes people who hold to that view pre -millennialism the idea that some of us have as well you know we're hoping the rapture happens next week or something like that or it happens in our lifetime in the tendency and this pastor that's in the video he would criticize people like us to say that we see we're not planning for the future we're not building for the future because we all think we're going to get raptured out of here next week he thinks we're going to be around for probably another thousand years or more so his view is we need to get working post -millennialist believe that they are to build the kingdom of God on earth we believe

Jesus comes and sets it up he believes and I'm not saying this to ridicule him I'm just telling you his belief system he believes that the church works to establish the kingdom therefore his take his position is is highly political because in his mind

Christians have to kind of take over that's the wrong way to put it Christians need to or will eventually be in control of world governments

Christians will basically rule the world the church is going to take over the world in a nonviolent way okay but it's the church that builds the kingdom so he's kind of coming at this from a very different point of view

I think that he has some valid criticisms but that's a fundamental difference between us and him so post -millennialist tend to be much more political than pre -millennialists some of us would just we just want to stay out of it

I don't know that that's the best approach I like Larry was saying we need to make our voices heard we need to preach the truth and the more people yeah but the more people that convert to Christ the more that's going to have an effect on society that's the way

I think it should be but let's let's listen along I believe what's happening in Moscow is a microcosm of what's happening all across the country that started here maybe 10 or 15 years earlier than what's happening across the country well just the radical division

I don't think our nation has been this divided since 1859 is divided and it's inflamed and that whole process

I think began being visible here a decade or decade and a half before it became radically visible in the nation as a whole pastor

Doug Wilson leads Christchurch in what he calls a Cold War Civil War our rights come to us from God and not from the government fighting in of all places a college town

Moscow home to University of Idaho in just eight miles from Washington State University exudes a live and let live bond one of the interesting things about Moscow is how these two entities live side -by -side and I mean literally right behind me that's the offices of the

Christchurch and right next door is the headquarters for the local Democrat party from this former art house movie theater

Wilson leads his campaign to make Moscow a Christian town I know is a very red state

Moscow's head was historically a very blue dot in this red state and so consequently the fact that we've done this has been disrupted in the minds of some but the feasibility of evangelizing

Moscow had to do with the importance of the university and the size of the town so in your version of a

Christian town would there be a place for non -believers oh absolutely yeah would there be a place for same -sex couples but you mean legally yeah you mean like marriage no no marriage but same -sex couple no marriage even though it's the law of the land in the

United States just like road used to be right in my belief system in our doctrinal stand and what we believe the

Bible teaches homosexuality is not a choice but a simple one yes it is a muscular masculine led vision of Christianity scripture tells the man to provide protect and love scripture tells the woman to honor help and submit expounded on he showed

Matt Rappaport men are going to be dominant no matter what you do and articulated in his blogs this one saying marriage is a little kingdom and the husband is a little king a wife she should be submissive to her husband as Paul teaches in multiple places yes so why should be submissive to her husband but in the blog post that you just cited

I made a special point of saying that the woman exercises authority over the selection of the one that she's going to submit so when you say why should be submissive to their husbands does this mean why shouldn't they be equal well because God created us a certain way so we want to fit with the design former baroness of change says the community has endured decades of Wilson's often incendiary ideas when some kind of outrageous statements were made early on about southern slavery as it was as a mutually affectionate relationship between master and slave or saying that members of our

LGBTQ community trans people should be exiled or possibly stoned that catches our attention

Wilson says he was misunderstood rebutting the many controversies on his website writing he does not believe in the death penalty for homosexual acts or that slavery was a positive good but the visible and invisible lines being drawn here and elsewhere across the country are setting off alarm bells for many big leaders do you consider the

Christchurch a church I don't really I really don't what is it then

I I see it as a dominionist cult reverend dr.

Elizabeth Stevens the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse in the public square

I don't see them representing Christianity I don't see them representing the values that that I find in the

Bible I see them representing patriarchy I see them fighting the culture war

Stevens position in that war is visible for all to see a stained -glass rainbow chalice

Wilson fights with the printed word a prolific author he's written dozens of books all distributed by his own

Canon Press it publishes more than a thousand different titles half of which are books hundreds of thousands of homeschool and Christian students nationwide

Wilson laughs off the cult accusation but the former Navy man embraces culture warrior you can't have a naval warfare without ships and you can't have tank warfare without tanks and as I tell

Christians all around the country you can't have culture war unless you have a culture our tagline is all of Christ for all of life so we want to be seven day a week 24 -hour

Christians and everything we do and a distinctively Christian culture is forming here and not reclusive and not cultic but it's distinct here in Moscow Wilson and Christchurch have built a multimillion -dollar enterprise that includes a came from 12 school a publishing house a college and a streaming show pursuits that some worry will change the very character of this town what scares me is that he is making

Moscow into a Wilson town Keely Emery mix is a former pastor what worries me is not that the stamp of Christ might be wrongly shoved down the throats of my my neighbors here in Moscow but that the stamp in the foot of Doug Wilson will be wrongly and is being wrongly crammed down their throats or standing on their neck

I think that his influence on this town has been despicable okay despicable well so let me just say this and I'll give you the last five minutes to comment on what you heard the what's what's happening what's gonna happen is they're just gonna push all even whether you like Doug Wilson whether you don't whether you all evangelicals are gonna get pushed into the same camp and demonized and then you're gonna have the secular progressives who are in charge and the division is just gonna keep going forward the tendency is to view them as the enemy they view us as the enemy whether we like it or not with you

I'm not part of that group doesn't matter if you profess Christ and you believe every word of the Bible they're gonna view you as the enemy we need to resist the temptation to view them as the enemy even though I mean there's truth there's truth in that we have to view them as the mission field

I know that's hard maybe but we want to see people saved

Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that people would be saved and even if they don't believe it we have to convince everybody that we're coming at this from a from a position of love and grace but it's gonna be really difficult because I don't know what's gonna happen in the next few years the next five ten years we're in from for some interesting times all right that that's all

I'm gonna say and now your turn yes I think of the conflict that there was when

Christ was on the cross and that people were spitting on him and throwing garbage at him and mocking him and everything and his attitude was was like you say one of love forgive them they know not what they do he told us that we should love our enemies and bless those that curse us and it is only

God that can cause that to be the case that you actually can love yeah and and care for these these poor fools there may be people that end up getting violent on both sides

I mean that might happen there might be people who call themselves Christians or even people who say

I'm a Christian and they do get violent even during the Reformation I believe Martin Luther was on the right side of things but even people who followed him some of them got violent and he had to kind of calm them down don't do this is not the way so we reject violence but I think they're trying to paint it out that all these people really are a threat you need to watch them

I just that's where I see this headed so we need to be praying about this Solomon said in Ecclesiastes is nothing new under the

Sun right this is not the first time something like this has happened even in Old Testament times but also in New Testament times and forward from there it's just it's a cycle that you know

Satan instead right now I believe it and I think you mentioned this at a point in time that Satan right now is setting the stage and hmm yeah

Larry male and female

Democrats Republicans right straight gay black white rich for right everything is a division right and you know that's

Satan's ploy is to but how do we culturally break divided well

I don't know that you can but I think you just have to recognize it for what it is this is a

Marxist strategy it's meant to divide the country to break down divide and conquer so they pit every identity group against each other and it creates chaos and then they swoop in with the solution

I mean socialist Marxist communist they've done it before so I think we just need to recognize it is what it is and we just need to live faithfully in this world and preach the gospel and not not get tempted to lash out don't be don't get in the flesh

I think that's what they want Carolyn I'm not saying

I do or don't I'm taking a neutral position I would disagree with his view of the end times yeah that's that's all

I said about that I would take a different view on the return of Christ in the

Millennium but I'm not saying that we would have some differences but you know like I said we're we're in the same group as him whether you want to be or not as far as the world is concerned so I I don't want to shoot arrows in his direction

I became a policeman because I wanted to help people and the first person's life that I was able to save spat on me threatened lawsuits and everything else because I held her down while the doctor pumped out her stomach we're not gonna be thanked yeah we're not gonna be thanked for trying to save people but in somehow in love you just have to say please see this from my viewpoint

I'm just trying to save you from wrath the wrath of God that is a that's abiding on everyone that is rejecting or just not just rejecting but ignoring the salvation that's available from the penalty for our sin which is which is eternal torment okay that's a good takeaway use this be aware of this but that's a challenge to be more like Christ we're gonna face challenges that you've probably never faced before things keep going the way they're going view it as a challenge to grow closer to the

Lord to be more like Christ and to show his love towards others even though it may be very very difficult but with the