News Roundup: Good News at Samford, What Is a Nation?, & Kevin DeYoung on Christian Nationalism

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversation Does That Matter Podcast. I'm your host, Jon Harris, for a bit of a news roundup, I guess, today.

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Things I've had on my phone that I thought, well, I should talk about this, and I haven't gotten around to it, and today's the day.

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We'll talk about a number of things, currently even things that are happening right now on social media related to Christianity and social justice, of course.

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And we're going to actually, at the end, I'm going to play, it's a cold read, as some people call it, but it's,

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I guess, a cold listen. I'm going to listen to a five minute Kevin DeYoung clip on Christian nationalism.

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We'll see what he has to say on that topic, but we're going to listen to it together. It's fun to do that sometimes.

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Most of the time, though, I'll tell you what, I really like to know what I'm getting into. I like to know ahead of time.

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I like to have all available facts. I like to have a paradigm that makes sense of those facts so that I can then give it to you so that you know, at least you have the information you need to navigate an issue.

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In my mind, that's what I try to do on this podcast, because there's so many slanted narratives out there that give you incomplete information, and it's agenda -driven.

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And it doesn't mean I don't have agendas. It doesn't mean God doesn't have agendas. It doesn't mean the Bible doesn't have agendas.

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What it means, though, when I'm using the term agenda is specifically a use of unequal weights and measures, a attempt to deceive, a suppressing of information that doesn't fit a certain narrative in order to make you think something.

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And that's one thing that I don't intend to ever do. And when I do it, if I do it on this podcast,

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I will apologize. And there's been, I can count it on one hand, but there's been a few times I've gotten something wrong here or there.

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I didn't have all the information. And I'll come out and I'll say, Hey, let me clarify something. This is, I didn't know about this and here you go.

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But in general, that's what I intend to do. And so I want to let you know at the front end of this podcast, there are a number of things

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I've sort of teased that I haven't gotten to. I'm still doing them. I probably got like six irons in the fire right now, as far as I've been still slowly going through the

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Tim Keller book, Engaging Keller, which talks about a lot of things. It's actually very eyeopening.

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I was pretty surprised at how unorthodox or at least innovative many of Tim Keller's views are on things not related to social justice, but even just core

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Christian doctrines, like his understanding of sin and of hell and other things, the

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Trinity. I'm also going through right now, the mini study on the federal vision issue.

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It's not something I'm very interested in. That doesn't mean it's not important though. And a number of people, let me show you a poll

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I put out last night. A number of people have waited and they want me, 85 % of you want me to comment on this.

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I asked, should I do a podcast explaining Doug Wilson and the federal vision controversy so far 617 votes.

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And the choices were, yes, I can't seem to find good resources, 85%.

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And then no enough people have weighed in. And the comments really did, for me at least, confirm something, a suspicion

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I've had about that whole issue. Many of you don't know what I'm talking about. And it's an issue related to Sola Fide, the nature of the church, a number of core doctrines.

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I read the document. There is a document, there is a spectrum I know of federal vision beliefs, but there is a document, a core document that advocates signed and I read it.

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And frankly, I thought at best, at best, it's very confusing in my mind. And without really listening to any critiques of federal vision,

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I was coming to the conclusion while reading it, I mean, I thought this sounds almost like a return to Rome or something,

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Roman Catholicism, not that it wasn't Roman Catholic. It just some of the language in it made it seem almost that way.

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And I, so I read it and now

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I'm in a process of trying to understand it better because it is, man, it is complicated. I didn't realize how much material is out there on this particular subject.

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The reason though, it's coming up now is because Doug Wilson is,

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I think it was Kosti Hinn might, might've been one of the ones to bring this up. He reposted a podcast from Mike Eberndorff, No Compromise Radio.

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I haven't actually listened to that episode yet, which I'm intending to do, but it was critical of the federal vision, but Kosti Hinn is a big platform.

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And so the internet exploded and I was on vacation, so I didn't read through it and I'm some people were messaging me about it.

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And I just thought, you know, I don't know if this is something I want to weigh in, especially when I was on, well, vacation slash family trip that we had a memorial service for a step -uncle.

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We had also a, my grandfather's 100th birthday, and that was like a three -part event.

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And, and that was a blessing. And so I was tied up with all that while this was going on. But anyway,

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I, I pondered it for a few days and thought, you know, this is something

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I, at least even if I don't do a podcast on it, which I think I will do a podcast, but even if I didn't, I want to have a better handle on this because some of these issues are very important issues.

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These are like fundamental doctrinal issues that this controversy concerns. So I don't really have anything more to say about it in this particular podcast, but just know that's an iron

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I have in the fire as well. And I, I'm, I don't want to be irresponsible by trotting something out.

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That's incomplete that putting something out there that I don't feel like I have a good handle on just to get material out there so I can get views because it's a hot topic.

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Now I'd rather wait. And even if things have settled down, give you just a better, more accurate, helpful take.

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So some of the, some of the reasons I don't always chase new cycles is, is because of that.

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I'm thinking through what's the most helpful for you in the audience. So anyway, that's another iron.

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I'm guilty though, of having a lot of irons in the fire that I don't go back to. Like I remember when the grooming thing was a big deal months ago, when

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Rhonda Santus was passed that bill, signed the bill into law to prevent children from being exposed to sexual deviant behavior and teaching in school.

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And it was, you know, Disney got involved. It was a whole thing. You remember it.

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And I started this big study of quote unquote, grooming of pornography and of all that stuff.

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And who was behind it for like the past hundred years and what court cases decided how that determined how we got to the point we're at now with the, just, it's so loose that you can post so many things online, but also just even in the public square in general and billboards and stuff.

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I mean, it's, it's semi -pornographic, some of the things that are out there and how did we get here? So I did this whole study and I was halfway through and the new cycle changed and I lost it.

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I mean, I still have it, but I, I decided to take a brief break, I suppose.

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And that brief break has now turned into months and who knows if I'll go back to it. So I'm guilty of doing that quite a bit.

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Cause I want to give you a, just a really good handle on a topic. And so that's what you get with the conversations that matter podcast often.

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Sometimes I am flying a little bit by the seat of my pants, I suppose, but just cause of the content and the volume of content

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I'm putting out there. But most of the time, if it's something that I'm just going to play, it's cause it's something

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I've already thought through. And, and so the Christian nationalist thing, I've looked at a lot of the literature and just the volume of information.

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There's a lot of it coming out, but I think I have a decent handle on it. So we can listen to a Kevin Young podcast.

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So there you go. You're, you're getting to know, I don't know why I'm saying all this, but you're getting to know a little bit about the method behind my madness sometimes and why

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I put out content on certain things and not other things. Another iron in the fire right now is

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I am doing a study on the Axe 29 network and just their connection to social justice.

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And there, there was a helpful brother in Axe 29, who sent me a whole bunch of information and combing through that information. It's a lot, it's a lot.

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So I don't know exactly how I'm going to do it. I thought, well, we'll just do one podcast on Axe 29.

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And I'm looking through all this and I'm like, that's not possible. That is not possible with all this information. So we may do a few on the

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Axe 29 network and just showing you where to look for pastors and just people who are confused about it or have a question about it.

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You know, is Axe 29 woke? Should I associate with them? Should I partner with them? Should I church plant with them?

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I will at least give you the information you need so that you can, you can look in the right places to determine whether or not they're for or against social justice.

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And I would submit to you, they are way more for social justice than I had initially thought. I thought they were fairly neutral, but kind of left -leaning, not so much.

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They've really bought social justice thinking at a very deep level. And a lot of the material is like from 2017, 2018, but up through even fairly recently.

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The gentleman who sent me information sent me through 2020 and yeah, it's definitely very on the woke side.

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And so as they say in the popular vernacular now. But anyway, those are just a few things.

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There's a bunch of other things I'm studying and hopefully we'll present to you fairly soon. I wanted to make an announcement.

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I forgot about this. I've never said this on the show. I'm kind of going through things that I've meant to say for the last week and a half that I just haven't had much of an opportunity to say because of my travels.

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But if you go to, let's see, worldviewconversation .com slash shop, worldviewconversation .com

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slash shop. I don't believe I've mentioned this on the podcast. You can check it out.

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It's a, there is now a study guide for Christianity and social justice religions in conflict, and it's free.

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I was going to just make it free for patrons. And I just decided it was easier. And I just thought it's, it's something

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I want out there for free. I want you to be able to take advantage of this for small groups. So there are individuals even using

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Christianity and social justice, the book to teach courses on social justice, even at the college level.

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And if you want a helpful resource and it's just really questions and you can get the plain text version or the workbook,

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I put the workbook together. My brother's actually the one that was putting the questions together, but you can see right here, it just takes you through each chapter.

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So chapter one, history of social justice, and it just asks you questions. And these are really good for group discussion so that you understand.

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And it takes you through biblical passages, you know, does Galatians 2 .4 speak to critical race theory, social justice advocates in the church?

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Would it be appropriate to label such advocates false brethren? Why or why not? These are really helpful things to think through.

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And so it's got some graphics in it. It's fun. But there's, it's six lessons.

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I mean, you can, I guess, do 12 if you want. You can go as slow as you want. But this is for the book, Christianity and Social Justice, Religions, Conflict.

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And I will endeavor to put the link in the info section for those who are interested in this because I don't, and I'm not just saying this,

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I'm not trying to toot my own horn. I read a I don't know of any that give you, that are as helpful for leading small groups as the one that I've prepared.

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And I prepared it with that in mind. I want it to be as comprehensive and systematic as possible.

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I wanted you to be able to grasp concepts, build on those concepts, go to the next chapter and be able to grasp even more complicated subjects because you've read the previous chapters.

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And so by the end, you understand this issue. That's the point of the book. Okay. And so that workbook is out now for free for anyone out there.

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You don't even have to be a patron. Patreon's got it first, but you don't have to be a patron to to get a copy of that book.

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I'm trying to think anything else. Oh, I was going to mention, you know, this is funny. As I was leaving two weeks ago now to fly to California, as I was leaving, literally

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I am waiting for the shuttle to take me to the airport from where I parked.

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And I'm, I checked my phone and there's a huge blow up, apparently on Twitter.

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I'm not on Twitter, but people are texting or messaging me that Karen Swallow Pryor, apparently the professor at Southeastern, where I got my

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MDiv, formerly Liberty, where I got my MA. So she's been at the institutions I've been at. I've never actually met her though.

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I saw her on campus like twice, I think, from like, she was always going somewhere though.

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It was like from a distance. I never got a chance to really talk to her or anything like that. But anyway, she put out a tweet.

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I'll see if I can pull it up while I'm talking to you about this. Accusing myself and A .D.

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Robles and Joel Webbin of human trafficking. I kid you not.

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Here's capstone report, I guess, saved. So if you Google it, it comes right up. So I thought this was kind of funny to me.

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And, you know, it doesn't, it's not like I have to mention this stuff, but it was, it's just, it's humorous to see the line.

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Okay. So here's, here's what it is. Kyle J. Howard, who, it's funny in a way, because in this particular video,

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A .D. Robles goes after Kyle J. Howard a whole lot. I don't really think I, I don't think I said much about him at all, if anything, but A .D.

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Robles really goes after Kyle J. Howard for being, kind of being, to, to summarize, being effeminate in crying about how horrible his life is, trying to get kind of a maternal sympathy for the, the plight that he has.

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And it's just not something that men really are as motivated to be moved by, but women tend to be more.

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And that was really the point, I guess, of the, of the video. So Joel Webbin from Right Response Ministries, he does this interview or this panel discussion with A .D.

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and myself. And so he, he uses this, he takes the clip from this video and he just puts it out there like an 18 minute clip.

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And it's on the topic I just mentioned. And so Kyle J. Howard tweets it out. Oh, and, and, and he labeled it.

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Joel Webbin labeled it. He put Kyle J. Howard's name in it. Kyle J. Howard and Other Pathetic Men. So it wasn't my label, it was

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Joel Webbin's, which is fine. That Joel Webbin can label his videos what he wants to label his videos. But Kyle J.

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Howard sees this and it's got my face right there. And I saw, I saw that. I was like, oh, I didn't know there was a video of me calling

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Kyle J. Howard pathetic. And so then I watched it. I was like, oh, you know, A .D.'s calling him pathetic. And then I'm kind of piggybacking off of what

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A .D. said. And I'm giving a broader point about this, about pastors and who they're trying to cater to.

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And anyway, Kyle takes this and he goes, my wife, kids, and parents, and those

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I provide soul care for don't consider me pathetic. So I'm good. Y 'all fellows have at it.

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The amount of YouTube videos that exist about me, y 'all wild. Now here's the funny part to me.

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The funny, there's like three funny parts. The first is that the point of the video is that Kyle kind of cries boohoo about at least what

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A .D.'s saying in the video that Kyle takes things about, takes things that happen to him and then uses those to try to garner sympathy.

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And a very video, the very video about that is a video that Kyle takes to garner sympathy.

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It's like he's kind of doing what A .D. said he does. That's the first funny part to me. It's like,

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I'm just wondering, does Kyle see how he's proving A .D.'s point? Now, for those who don't know,

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I should probably say Kyle J. Howard is, according to him, a racial, I think it's trauma counselor. And he's,

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I believe, a graduate from Southern Seminary. I know at least he went there for a while. And so that's kind of his thing.

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But the reason he's somewhat significant, I suppose, is because he has been in close proximity at certain points to people like Danny Akin and Beth Moore and Russell Moore.

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And just there's a bit, I mean, in fact, I think he calls Russell Moore like a mother in the faith.

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I mean, there's a close kind of relationship there of some kind. And so it's the people who kind of have a platform, a big one, that give

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Kyle somewhat of a credibility that makes Kyle, I think, somewhat of a significant figure in this whole social justice debate and evangelicalism.

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And so, and again, proving that this point, Karen Swallow Pryor from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary responds, manufacturing and monetizing outrage is just another form of trafficking human beings.

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They do it to me too. I don't know what to say to this.

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It's just, it's a self -parody. You don't really have to say much about it. Manufacturing and monetizing outrage.

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I guess Joel probably had an ad on the video or something. So if you have a YouTube ad, then you're monetizing outrage.

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I mean, there's several assumptions that you have to make is that the whole point of this is to try to evoke outrage, which

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I would contest. That's not the point of that video, but you'd have to make that assumption. You'd have to also make the assumption that it's manufactured.

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So it's not real outrage over real things happening in the real world. It's all fake. So there's some, there's a bit of deception going on.

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I would argue that too. We're not deceiving anyone with, we're bringing up real life examples of things actually happening and then monetizing.

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So putting, I guess, an ad on the YouTube video with Joel did, which is funny part to me is that AD and I weren't, we didn't monetize that.

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That was Joel, but of course we do both have ads on our YouTube videos.

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And so I guess you could say the same thing about us. And so because we get, there's a little bit of money that comes in from ad revenue from these videos that is human trafficking.

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So now you have to make the assumption that if you someone and get paid anything to do it, or if you critique, even if it's constructive, then you're trafficking human beings.

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And I just wonder, like, would this apply to the apostles or Jesus? I mean, was he, if he received donations or the apostle

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Paul received donations from a church and he's critiquing the false teachers, is he monetizing outrage somehow?

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Right. So, so, and then of course she has to add, they do it to me too. So of course she's, she's a victim just like Kyle.

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And I pointed this out before with people more on the left, I've noticed this tendency to, they, even when they have institutional power, even when they're connected with people with a lot of power, which

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I would say Joel, AD and I were not, we're just, we, we don't have those connections, but it's the people who do like Karen Swallow Pryor, like Kyle J Howard, they have to be the victims.

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So even if they're in the seat of having more influence and power or connected to people who do, they still have to portray themselves as victims.

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And it's an interesting dynamic to me. So I thought that was a new one. I was like, well, I, you know,

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I get the Christian nationalist, toxic masculine, the Neo -Confederate, the,

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I don't even know, there's so many, but I was like, this one's a rich one. This one's, you know, if I was like Phil Johnson used to do on his

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Twitter background, if I still had Twitter, I'd put that right on the background of my Twitter page that, you know, human trafficker, according to Karen Swallow Pryor.

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And I have to say too, I'm looking at this, this picture of A .D. Robles and I, and it's really not fair that A .D.

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looks like he has this really nice kind of olive tone to his skin. Like he's tanning and stuff. And this isn't,

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I think this is in summer or maybe this is like spring, but so I'm sitting there and I look like I'm a ghost.

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I'm so white. And you know, the reason for this isn't because I'm just so white.

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I know many of you think that. And I, I even have a very bright light on me right now. I'm all right. I'm white.

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I got it. But it's so exaggerated because I was sitting close to the light in the room and A .D.

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was farther away from it. So I just want to make that point anyway. All right. So that was, that was kind of funny that, and I never talked about it because I was literally getting on a plane and then it was like,

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I didn't have internet. I didn't have time to even podcast or anything, but I figured I'd at least mention it.

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Cause it was kind of funny. So the inside joke, now it's not so inside online, I guess since then has been anytime anyone criticize someone, criticizes someone else, you accuse them of human trafficking.

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I guess that's how that works. All right. Well, let's start off today. Where are we going to start? Let's start off with some good news.

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We could use some of that. Couldn't we? So I had marked this down as something I wanted to talk about because I thought, man, this is really good.

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And it's kind of old, I guess it's, it's almost a month old. Sanford, uh, September 14th, Sanford university turns away

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Episcopalians, Presbyterians from event due to LGBTQ plus views.

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Activists says, and this is from the mainstream media. This is a MSN and it says this, a campus minister at Sanford university turned away

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Presbyterian church USA and Episcopal church college chaplains that asked to be included in a recent campus ministry fair because the two denominations have stances supporting same sex marriage.

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According to the founder of safe Sanford and LGBTQ rights group, Brit Blalock, who founded safe Sanford in 2011 said that Madison Vaughn ministry coordinator for Ookirk campus ministry representing the

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Presbyterian church USA had tried to reserve a table at the church and ministry expo event on August 31 on campus.

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Blalock said that the Presbyterian church USA and Episcopal church college chaplains had taken part in previous ministry fairs at Sanford with no problems.

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Um, Vaughn was told that she would not be given display space at the event and later contacted the

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Reverend Emily Colette, a chaplain at Trinity commons, a similar campus ministry organization. And Colette had reserved a table at the event and agreed to share space with Vaughn.

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After Vaughn shared plans to attend the event on social media, Colette received a call from Sanford university campus pastor,

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Bobby Gatlin, uninviting her to the event. And this is what Blalock said.

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He was explicit in saying that the reason was her denomination's affirmative stance on LGBTQ people and did not mention any policy she was in violation of.

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So this is interesting. And you know, to what extent is this true? I don't really know, you know, maybe this is a bunch of bluster.

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I'm just, I'm kind of hoping it's, there's something true about this, that they're at Sanford is a

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Baptist college. So if they're getting serious about, we have a statement of faith here and yes, we believe in academic expression, but you can't advocate against what our university itself is founded upon the principles of our university.

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I would hope that's actually happening. And so it goes on.

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And of course I know this is from the mainstream media, so I take it with a grain of salt. And that's pretty much the gist of it.

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So I'm sure that there's going to be more. It says update on Wednesday, Sanford university defended its stance on the matter in a letter sent to students and shared with faculty staff, vice president of affairs,

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Philip Kimrey noted that the university has a responsibility to formally partner with ministry organizations that share our beliefs.

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So it sounds like it's true. This is good news. And I would just hope that this continues, that this happens at other universities and not just even on this issue, but that other issues are also taken more seriously, social justice related matters.

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But this is a really good development, I would say, and a brave one, very brave. You know, you hear all about the bravery of coming out and stuff.

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It doesn't take bravery today. Everyone celebrates you in the world. You know, it could be that your family, if they're, you know,

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Christians, and they're serious about their beliefs, and maybe, maybe there's some blowback there.

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But those in power, in institutions are going to celebrate you. This takes real bravery to go against everything that all the people have institutional power are saying at the same time.

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So I want to let you know that, pray for them, pray that they would be resolute in this, and God would reward them.

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We also, I wanted to bring this to your attention. This was, this happened while I was in California. But it's just, it's sad to me.

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It's just sad to me. VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer comes out as pro -choice on abortion, according to the dissenter.

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Now, I looked at the tweets, and it's, it's not full -blown pro -choice, okay?

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But here, let's just read the tweets. Let's, we'll skip the article, read the tweets. The tweets here. Plenty of trans -affirming white churches have very orthodox statements of faith to, and so we're jumping into sort of the middle of the discussion here.

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Something has gone wrong with these churches. And Phil Vischer says, and if your church is anti -refugee or supports lying and cheating and leadership, also rotten, question mark.

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So he's talking about Trump, I think. He's talking about migrants coming across the border, that kind of thing.

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And can you tell me exactly what the biblical position is on the permissibility of abortion, when it is allowable according to scripture?

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And William Wolfe, who we've talked about before, great guy, he said, never easy. What's your answer? Phil Vischer says, and what scripture leads you to that conclusion?

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So William Wolfe's saying, abortion's never acceptable. There's, it's, it's wrong. It's anti -biblical. That's a compromise.

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It's, if a church embraces that. And Phil Vischer wants to nuance this. He says, oh, sorry.

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When it will save the life of the mother is an easy one for most Christians to agree on. Well, not, not me necessarily.

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I have to know what you mean by that exactly. Cause there's two things that could be, one is abortion for, actually,

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I don't even know what this category really would be, but the mother's going to die. We have to perform an abortion.

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Usually the classic case is the ectopic pregnancy. That's one way of framing it.

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Okay. And then the other way is to say, we want to do everything we can to save both lives.

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And in order to save the life of the mother, cause both mother and baby are dying in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, we have to remove the baby.

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And, and there's, and I know some Catholic theologians have come up with ways of removing the fallopian tube so that it's still an act of God and not a, or a, you know, naturally occurring thing.

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And it's not directly related to a surgical process. It's not technically an abortion, but the thing with what

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Phil Vischer is doing here is the way he's framing it is kind of that former way, not the latter way he's framing it.

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It's, it's an abortion. And I wouldn't necessarily characterize if what he's talking about is an ectopic pregnancy as an abortion necessarily.

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But he says, cases of rape and incest are supported by many, but you probably know this already. Now there are some

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Christians, by the way, who they'll say, no, I mean, I'm, I'm going to keep the baby. I don't even if it's ectopic.

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And I mean, I've heard of situations where it's actually worked out. But that's in a true ectopic pregnancy.

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I don't know how that, how that will work out, say by a miracle of God. That's, that's a, that's death, generally speaking.

28:57

So William Wolfe says, Phil, do you support legal abortion in instances of pregnancy resulting from rape?

29:03

He says, I don't have a specific position, but probably if it's in the early stages or early in pregnancy.

29:10

So this is, I think the big giveaway here. This is bigger than what I just read. This is Phil Vischer saying, look, if it's in the early stages, you know, it's probably okay.

29:19

Whoa, whoa. So when does it become a human? That's the question.

29:25

And he's just leaving that open now. And so someone says, this means you're pro -choice. And Phil Vischer says, I believe

29:30

I'm pretty close to most major pro -life organizations. And the sad thing is he might be close to some of them.

29:37

But that's like saying you're close to those who think adultery is wrong, but you just allow for once a year hall pass.

29:43

It's actually a really good response. And he says, no, most organizations also support exceptions for life of the mother, rape, and incest.

29:51

And the response is I'd ask two things then which ones, and why would you call themselves pro -life?

29:56

So Phil Vischer, I think one, someone predicted this. It might've been me.

30:02

I can't remember. But when Phil Vischer started doing the whole racism in America narrative using

30:08

Michelle Alexander's, the new Jim Crow and critical race theory, sources from critical race theory.

30:15

And when he just, I critique his whole video in Christianity and social justice, religions and conflict.

30:21

I went, I go through that video and I just, I spent, I spent like days, probably like two days at least, just researching statistics and crunching numbers.

30:31

And just, and it is a horrible, just so off historically, so off sociologically representation of what's taking place and has taken place in the

30:42

United States. There's some truth to it, but it's not, it's so lopsided. And I remember the prediction was made at that point that Phil Vischer is going to eventually be pro -choice.

30:53

Phil Vischer is going to go right into the democratic party. And it's interesting because, and I think it was like 2018 or 19, there's a clip of Phil Vischer.

31:02

I played it on this podcast once, creator of VeggieTales, mocking those who said that he was racist because there was blowback for the fact that I think it was in the episode of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

31:15

There's a character, Nebuchadnezzar is voiced by Phil Vischer, and he gives him kind of this black voice and that was supposedly racist.

31:25

And look, you're making the villain black. And Phil Vischer mocked it. Phil Vischer on his,

31:31

I guess it was a podcast. I know I played the audio on this podcast, was saying how, what is everything racist?

31:39

And that same Phil Vischer in the course of just a couple of years is now making the arguments pro -choicers make.

31:48

I mean, it's crazy to me. It's crazier to me. This is a guy who, and I was never a

31:53

VeggieTales fan, so I'm not too heartbroken over it, but some of you might be. And I just, this is the slide.

32:01

I've said before that the woke church is the off -ramp from Christianity. It's a slide and it's incremental steps.

32:09

You just get farther and farther away from orthodoxy. And this is one of the ways you can tell. Now, switching gears here to another thing,

32:18

I wanted to point this out. This is something that happened in, it's not a big, big thing,

32:24

I suppose. It's, man, this didn't even get a lot of traction, this tweet, but it's big apparently in some small worlds, but important worlds, in PCA worlds.

32:34

Okay. So for PCA stuff, there's, it's important enough that I decided to talk about it. So Zach Garris and Sean McGowan, I would call them both friends.

32:44

They're, I don't, I'm trying to think of, I don't think I've actually ever met them in person, but they're, I've had them on the podcast before and they,

32:54

I've read what they've, some of what they've written, and I just think they're, they're good brothers in Christ.

33:01

They have a good heart for the PCA. And they were attacked this last week now.

33:08

When was it? It says September 30th. Okay. Last week, by an individual on Twitter. I don't even know if repeating his name is profitable.

33:16

It's someone, no one knows who this guy is really, but anyway, it got a little bit of traction and in PCA circles.

33:24

And this is what this gentleman said. He said, apparently there are pockets in the PCA that are okay partnering with kinists, kinists.

33:34

That might be a new word for some of you. Kinism, and this is what his definition equals, a white nationalist interpretation of Christianity that claims that the

33:41

Bible prohibits miscegenation and racial integration. I'm not sure where he's getting that definition from, but I'll, I'll address the kinist thing in a moment.

33:51

What he's retweeting here, what his commentary is based upon is an individual by the name of,

34:01

I guess you would pronounce that John or Jan Schlebusch, who claims to be a kinist.

34:10

He says, with all due respect to all the folks in the new movement, and I think that new movement is Christian nationalism. He says, we kinists did the

34:15

Christian nationalism thing decades before it was cool. So excuse me for being skeptical, skeptical about the motives of anyone who refuses to embrace our clear and well -defined biblical definition of nationhood.

34:26

And I will submit to you that that probably is the key issue here is what a nation is.

34:33

And so he is saying, I'm part of this group, this, this kinist group. Now he happened to write,

34:42

I think one article for a website called knowing scripture .com and Zach Garris and Sean McGowan, both

34:48

PCA pastors are also contributors to knowing scripture .com. So therefore, here's the logic, right?

34:56

Therefore, if they both contributed to the same website and, and, and this guy, Jan did not, he didn't write anything about kinism on knowing scripture .com,

35:08

totally unrelated. So he wrote something for this website that wasn't related to kinism.

35:15

And because he did that, and he's a contributor and Zach Garris is a contributor and Sean McGowan is a contributor.

35:20

Well, we know that they're okay partnering with kinists therefore, and the interest.

35:27

So there's a few interesting things about this immediately. I, and I know Zach and Sean well enough, and I'm not going to, this is delicate.

35:34

I don't think bringing families into this is appropriate. I'm not showing you to show you pictures of families or anything like that, but I will just say this.

35:44

I knew that they're both of them, both of them are in marriages in which let's just say, if by this definition of kinism that Daniel Claven gives a white nationalist interpretation of Christianity that claims the

35:59

Bible prohibits miscegenation and racial integration by that definition, if that's what kinism truly is,

36:04

Zach and Sean are in violation because of who they married. Neither of them married necessarily from within their, their ethnic group, they married outside.

36:17

So they would be in interracial or interethnic uh, marriages, however you want to phrase that.

36:25

The interesting thing to me about the individual critiquing them here is that if you, if you look them up on social media at all, not only is the guy pasty white, but his family is, is also,

36:40

I just thought this is so weird. You, you have the guy whose family would be that by that definition of kinism, he would be right within those boundaries doing, doing what the kinists want apparently.

36:53

And the two guys who violated that definition of kinism are the kinists or the ones okay, partnering with kinists or something.

37:01

You can't make this stuff up. And it just reminds me, sometimes it's like, it's the most pasty white people often who are the most woke.

37:09

I don't understand it. Why is that? Why do I constantly run into that? Not all the time, but often the most aggressive, the most.

37:18

So, uh, so this gets, I'm not going to come and this gets crazy.

37:24

It's a whole thread anyway. Uh, so, uh, I believe that, uh, both

37:31

Zach and Sean, I know at least Zach did respond to this and basically be like, look, we didn't even know he was a kinist or claimed to be a kinist.

37:37

You, you, you, you're shooting at us, but we, we had no knowledge of this and they don't claim to be kinists.

37:45

And how, if that's what kinism is, how could they, right? And, um, and then though there was a thread and I thought this was a, this was a brilliant thread in some ways, uh, by Jeff Wright and Jeff Wright, um, said he, he critiques this gentleman, uh,

38:04

Clavin is his name. And he says, look, this guy, Clavin, who's, who's complaining about this.

38:10

What's the root issue here, right? Kinism means it's misogyny, it's against or prohibits miscegenation and racial integration.

38:17

Okay. That's, that's the root thing. That's the problem here. Well, here's that individual Clavin, uh, or Clevin, I'm not sure he pronounced his name, that he actively promotes on his

38:29

Twitter, uh, W E B Dubois. And what position do, do, did Dubois hold on that issue is the question.

38:37

Well, Dubois in the 1930s, Dubois began promoting separatist solutions to exploitation oppression.

38:42

Dubois did so for compelling philosophical reasons, specifically his intellectual encounters with Freud and Marx. So Jeff Wright says, so the white dude married to a white girl calls racist kinist on guys in mixed ethnicity marriages, while also accusing them, no joke of holding to ethnic separatism while elevating a guy who actually did make ethnic separatism, a pillar of his public life and work.

39:06

I don't have to read anymore. That it's, it's it, it's done. That's like it. That's like, what more do you say?

39:13

And then he, he goes on though with this thread and just shows, I guess, a lot of other instances of hypocrisy, et cetera.

39:21

And, uh, it's, yeah, it's just, it's woke city here is really what it is. But this, this individual, uh,

39:28

Clavin, um, promoting someone as positive who is known that that's one of the things that is commonly known about Dubois.

39:41

They didn't know this about, uh, about Jan, you know, Zach and Sean didn't know it about this guy,

39:47

Jan Schlebusch, but it is something that's pretty known about Dubois. So, so it's just, it's the hypocrisy is incredible.

39:55

Now, just, just a moment. Uh, I don't think I've ever mentioned kinism on this podcast. Maybe I'll have to do a podcast eventually on it.

40:02

I, I hope not because it's no one knows what it is. And that's part of the issue with this is, is the trouble with defining it.

40:12

I've asked questions. I've seen threads on Facebook where there's just hundreds of comments of people going back and forth and call it's a substitute for racist, really.

40:21

I mean, there, when someone calls you a kinist, they're calling you a racist. And I'm like, well, what, what's, what is it?

40:26

And I've been given definitions and many of the definitions are, they're different. There's multiple competing definitions.

40:34

The crux of the issue seems to be this idea that they're against interracial marriages.

40:41

That's the crux of it, that they, uh, that kinists are against that. Some of the definitions

40:47

I've read though, are from people who say specifically, we, we don't think it's a sin for interracial marriages.

40:53

We just don't think it's wise or something along those lines. And I'm, and I'm thinking to myself, that's what all this hubbub is about.

41:03

I've, I don't know that I've ever met a kinist. I don't know that. I mean, maybe

41:08

I have, and I don't realize it. I've seen the term wielded against people like Thomas Accord, who's by the way, half, he's half, half white and, um, half

41:21

Mexican. So like, again, that's, that's your kinist, but, and, and he isn't, he doesn't think interracial marriage is wrong.

41:31

And yet he gets that label. Why does he get that label? And this is, I think the deeper issue of all this.

41:38

And it gets to the heart of what this, uh, this guy, Jan Schlebusch said, what is a nation?

41:46

That is, I think the source of a lot of the confusion. There are competing definitions of what a nation is.

41:53

And painting with a broad brush right now, but before modernity, what academics call modernity, the concept of race, ethnicity, nation, people would have been pretty much synonymous.

42:08

Now race is a newer word in the English language, but, uh, came about really during the beginning of the age of exploration.

42:15

And it's used in very similar way to the way that ethnicity was used and the way that people is used.

42:21

In fact, the word ethnos in Greek is often translated people in the New Testament. And I noticed not too long ago,

42:29

Doug Wilson put this whole thing about kinism out there, which I, I just, I thought, again, it was, it muddied some waters because it was just, he wants to retire the word race because it's been so abused,

42:41

I guess, by the left and use the term ethnicity. But he also, it was kind of blasting kinists in, in, in his blog.

42:49

And I remember just walking away from it, feeling very confused about the whole thing. What, and the confusion centered around nationhood for me.

42:59

Like, well, what, what's a nation? That's a biblical category. The term ethnos is, is one of the terms used, uh, for, for nation, um, or for people and all these things would have been kind of the same thing.

43:13

But then in the last 200 years, really, since the rise of the industrial revolution, mass transit, modernity, what we have now is a situation where you can have people of different genetic makeups who, and sometimes a large population of them living within the boundaries of a country that calls itself a nation in the case of the

43:36

United States or even great Britain, many Western countries, especially. Uh, but now it's happening in Africa.

43:41

I mean, you have a lot of Chinese who have moved into, um, Africa and South America and other places.

43:47

And so you, you have borders, but within those borders are just very multi -ethnic yet.

43:55

They think of themselves in some respects as a nation in the United States, the way that they've tried to bind people together.

44:02

Conservatives tend to say it's our ideals of freedom or something. Leftists try to say it's our ideals of equality, but it's, it's some ideal.

44:08

It's some that it's something in your mind that makes you American, which I I've critiqued that before that, that can't, that can't be what a nation is.

44:16

It's not biblically what a nation was. You have people though of different religions, different ethnicities from different places now moving for jobs, um, because of multi -national, uh, international companies.

44:32

And it, it creates a confusing scenario in some ways, at least with the categories that we used to have that were a lot more fixed.

44:42

And so the, the temptation I think is to impose these categories onto the scripture. And that's what

44:47

I want to caution against. If there's any concern I have about this whole issue with kinism or whatever it is, uh, the debt, what a nation is really defining what a nation is, it's that we don't take understandings today and commit the fallacy of presentism and impose them on what the

45:03

Bible says about this ancient literature, or even up through until the age of exploration.

45:09

Uh, even up, up through even parts of the industrial revolution, you still had this understanding that a people and ethnicity, a culture, uh, that these were all kind of the same thing that these, these lines all, they paralleled one another.

45:23

And, um, and, and today that's very fragmented. And so I don't really want to say much beyond that, just that it's an, it's an observation

45:31

I have. And I think that it'd be very helpful if someone might have to be me, we'll see, but maybe someone's already done this, but really if we're going to have

45:42

Christian nationalism, we need to know what a nation is, right? If we're going to have any kind of nationalism, anything, we need to know what we're talking about.

45:52

Are we talking about it? Is there an ethnic component to that? Is there a genetic component

45:58

I'm talking about? Is there a genetic component to that? Um, is it like a family where you can have a family that have certain characteristics?

46:10

Uh, they, you know, the mother and the father get together and that's, of course, that's what produces a family, but those mother and father can adopt people into the family, right?

46:17

And so you have people that don't share genetics, but they're adopted into the family. So they're part of the family by nature of adoption.

46:24

That doesn't mean genetics isn't significant. Actually, it is still significant. In fact, that's what makes adoption special, is it not?

46:31

That you've taken someone, that's what makes it, uh, um, a loving thing to do.

46:37

Someone who's, uh, did not come from you genetically, but you are giving them all the, this is what

46:42

Christ does with us too, or what God does with us in Christ, that we get all the benefits of being part of the family in which we weren't born, were adopted in.

46:52

Beautiful. And so is that what a nation's like, is like a big family? And then you can sort of make sense of these other ethnic groups that aren't necessarily in the majority because they, they're adopted in and they've adopted the, the family rules and they under, you know, how do you cut that, that pie?

47:11

How do you figure that out? And all I hear from people on the left, and one of the things they do is this kines charge is anyone who wants to say there's a genetic component whatsoever to the concept of nation, which in the

47:24

Bible there would have been, they're immediately branded a kinest. So this is going beyond what this particular thread, but I wanted to make a general observation about the way that term is wielded.

47:35

And if there's a term that needs to be retired, I would think it'd be the term kinest, honestly, not the term, the term racist.

47:42

Okay. Maybe, but the term kinest is much more confusing, but you have some people that seem very adamant about, um, continuing to use the term kinest, but wanting, wanting to retire the term racist.

47:54

And let's face it. I think there's a reason for that on the part of the left. It's because racist does not have the same sting.

48:00

You call someone a racist, everyone rolls their eyes. Okay. Whatever. So they have to come up with all these other things.

48:05

Christian nationalists, um, kinest, uh, you know, neo -confederate, uh, proto -fascist, uh, they're creating actually very creative ones.

48:16

Now there was one, what did I say? A prenatal nationalist or something weird, some weird, like if you support an ending abortion and you're a nationalist, they're coming up with these kooky, uh, alternatives to what they really want to call you, which is a racist because they know that doesn't have the same sting.

48:33

So I would just say in general, when you hear someone from the using this chart, I just, I would ignore it to be honest with you.

48:40

If they can't give you, if, you know, they give you a definition and doesn't even fit what you believe, you know, and, and here's the thing too with this.

48:48

And one last point with this thing was Zach Garris and Sean McGowan, who are great in my mind, PCA pastors, they're trying to do this guilt by association thing, which

48:58

I thought that's what fundamentalists did, right? Isn't that like the second degree, third degree separation thing? I don't know.

49:04

I'm just saying there's, that's why in the, I wrote, um, social justice goes to church. I have a whole section on the new fundamentalists.

49:11

And I make the point that the progressive evangelicals of like the sixties and seventies, Jim Wallace and West Granberg, Michaelson and Ron Sider, et cetera, that they were, um, all essentially parroting or, or continuing many of the habits of their parents and grandparents who were fundamentalists.

49:31

So, uh, there you go. All right. So let's, uh, let's, let's switch gears again and let's get to this.

49:38

This is, uh, the gathered and scattered pastors breakfast.

49:49

And this just happened. This was tweeted out by Kevin DeYoung. So he wants people to see it. October 5th, 2022.

49:55

What are your thoughts on Christian nationalism? What are your thoughts on Christian nationalism? Let us play.

50:01

You all heard that phrase and there's a lot has been written and being written on it.

50:07

There was, so there's a new book by Paul D not Paul Miller of the prayer book, but a different just a couple of days ago wrote a good review of that book.

50:21

So two things, one, I think by and large

50:27

Christian nationalism has become a phrase used by people toward other people who are not using that phrase and never did use the phrase and don't know what the phrase means.

50:42

So when I hear Christian nationalism, or if it's especially scary, it's white

50:47

Christian nationalism. I hear oftentimes it gets sort of dumped out to me when you say stuff,

50:56

I don't like when you're, when I don't like your politics, it's Christian nationalism.

51:01

When I, I have not heard or seen the book. I mean, you can go, there's a

51:08

Republican platform. There's a democratic platform. There's a tradition called progressivism.

51:13

There's a tradition called conservatism. There's a tradition called libertarianism. There is not as yet.

51:20

What are the articles that define Christian nationalism? The Perry and Whitehead book, which

51:27

I have a lot of problems with, but by some of their measures, almost a majority of people in the

51:34

United States are Christian nationalism and a majority of traditional black

51:39

Protestants are white Christian nationalists by some of their definitions. If you say. Actually, this is an excellent point that it's very hard to know how to define something.

51:50

It's the same problem we just had with the term kinest in a, in a similar, it's similar, at least in that it's a pejorative, it's a smear, it's trying to signal that you're a pariah, but you're being shot at from when that term comes at you from a location in which you're, you're, you're, you don't know where the shots are coming from.

52:11

You're being ambushed. And so you can't really fire back because you don't know exactly what the charge is.

52:18

You just know everyone is in agreement that's supposed to be against this, that you're a bad person.

52:25

How do you deal with a charge like that? Right. And I've thought of this when it comes to other topics, when you, when you're called a racist, you don't exactly know where that's coming from.

52:37

How do you deal with that? When you're called a toxic masculine person, you know, how do you deal with that?

52:45

Because it could be such a small thing that they're using, or it could be nothing. It could be, they're just, they're imposing their own warped perspective onto you and they don't often define exactly what they mean by it.

52:59

And so we're having a breakdown of language in general in the political discourse of this country that is,

53:07

I think, dangerous to some extent because communication breaks down when language breaks down.

53:12

When you can't agree on terms, you don't really have communication anymore. And a level of mistrust is just, it's at an all -time high.

53:22

I should probably, at some point, there's an essay by the gentleman who wrote 1984, and why is his name escaping me off the top of my head?

53:34

His name should not be George Orwell, George Orwell, on the politics of language.

53:40

And I think it gets into some of this in a very helpful way, but we're living in his nightmare right now.

53:46

And I think Kevin DeYoung's making that point. And it's a brilliant, it's a very true point that he's making that it's like,

53:51

I don't know what to do with this term. The dust hasn't really settled. Now, Kevin DeYoung maybe he's not aware.

53:58

I'm not sure that there is, the term has been used before, but it wasn't used by people on the right.

54:03

That's the thing. A hundred years ago, it was used by people on the left to mean something totally different. So it's within the last 10 years, for really five years, the term is used as a smear against Christians, just normal, everyday, ordinary

54:16

Christians, like John MacArthur. Now he's a Christian nationalist. The guy who spoke against the religious right is now a Christian nationalist because he thinks, well, some biblical principles should be applied to politics.

54:26

Christian values should influence the government. I think Christians should be in politics, sort of things that almost every Christian is going to say yes to.

54:32

So there's the, there's a big part of me that wants to push back on the whole conversation to say, what do you mean by this label other than to put it on the sort of people that you don't like?

54:47

However, it is true, whatever we want to call it, there is among conservative

54:54

Christians at times a kind of mindset that is nation first,

55:00

Jesus second, or no one puts it quite that baldly. I would put it this way.

55:06

Christianity and Jesus have a utilitarian effectiveness. So it's one thing to say, and I'm going to write an article about this in the next couple of weeks,

55:17

Christianity -related politics. It's one thing to say our politics grows up out of Christianity, our politics is influenced by Christianity.

55:24

It's another thing to say our Christianity is instrumental toward the political aim that we want.

55:30

That's to make politics ultimate instead of Christian. That's to say our ultimate aim as churches is to see the nation flourish, when our ultimate aim is to see this international body flourish that is the church.

55:44

But that doesn't mean that we don't have an interest in seeing the Babylon in which we live flourish.

55:51

And to Paul's prayer in 1 Timothy 2, we don't want to invite persecution.

55:58

We don't want to look askance at the United States or think that if the

56:03

United States falters that it won't have many, many deleterious effects on the church.

56:10

There's a reason that the great missionary force has been sent out from so much of the

56:17

Anglo -American sphere, because they had... I just, I want to make a little point here. I think it'd be incredibly helpful to draw some lines between really to introduce a way of organizing this according to a

56:32

Protestant two kingdoms view, not the Escondido view, but the Protestant two kingdoms view, where you can say, look, on the one hand, we want the church to do well.

56:44

We want the gospel to go forward and people to be discipled. And at the same time, we also want our household to do well and our nation to do well, our country, our state, our region.

56:55

We want all of these things to do well, and we want to forward policies that are going to do well for all of these things.

57:03

So we're not thinking monolithically. We're thinking in terms of all these different interests, and they're not competing interests.

57:10

They're interests that we... I mean, if you're a father and you're a husband, how do you prioritize the concerns you have and the obligations you have towards your wife versus your children?

57:21

And then add to it the complexity of being a church member who has spiritual gifts to use in your church, and add to it the complexity of being part of a state, a region, a country, and whatever other voluntary associations you're part of.

57:36

You're going to have extended family that also you have somewhat of an obligation toward. You have a job that you have people.

57:44

There's a hierarchy at your job. I mean, all of these things matter. You want your job, the place of employment that you work at to flourish as well.

57:54

So all these things can work together. They don't have to be... It doesn't have to be one thing, and it doesn't...

58:00

And I would never want to make it out like, well, you should really be more concerned about your wife than your kids. It's an odd way of thinking.

58:08

Who thinks that way? We're concerned about both. And depending on the obligations you have,

58:16

I mean, you have a different set of obligations, perhaps. Some of them overlap. Some of them don't to your children and to your wife.

58:22

But we're not used to trying to separate all these things so that we can have one primary interest at the top of all of it and say that's the only thing that really matters.

58:36

I understand when people say the church is the only institution that lasts, the only thing that matters. I get what they're saying. But they're talking in terms of the eternal realm.

58:44

We live in a physical realm. We live in an eternal realm, temporal realm, eternal realm.

58:50

We can make these distinctions. And that's where I think Kevin DeYoung, right now, he's sounding weak to me on that particular point.

58:57

I mean, even in his justification for caring about the United States is, well, they send a big missionary force. Well, yeah, that's good.

59:03

But there's a lot of other things. This is our home. Would I say, well, I really want my home to flourish, my house, where my family lives, because we just do so much in the church.

59:14

We're involved in music and we're giving and we're... Well, no. That would even be the first thing on my list.

59:22

It's because it's my home. There's ownership and obligation there. I shouldn't even really have to justify it in those terms.

59:29

I should just be able to say, I want it to flourish because it belongs to me. It's part of who I am. It's my responsibility.

59:36

It's what God has entrusted to me to be a good steward of. So that, I think, is the heart behind the

59:41

Christians who have decided to make this calculation where the left is saying, you're Christian nationalists. And they're saying, you know what?

59:46

Yeah, we are. And to them, at the basic level, what that seems to mean is we take stewardship of our country.

59:54

We love it and we want it to do well, and just like we would our household.

01:00:01

And apparently that's bigoted. You don't care about other people. It's not that we don't care. It's that we love our own. That's all it is.

01:00:08

God's given uniquely to us, in proximity, these people for us to steward and to have obligations toward and to love.

01:00:15

It doesn't mean that we don't love other people too, but we have limited capacities, so we have to make choices.

01:00:21

And the choices that we have in the proximity in which we live, our neighbors are those who are going to be closest to us.

01:00:27

And that's who we're going to love. That's all I've ever seen in the positive case for Christian nationalism. But so Kevin DeYoung, I think, is the grounds on which he's trying to sort of justify

01:00:38

Christian concern and even the concern he has that maybe some go overboard and think of the nation above the something.

01:00:46

I mean, I haven't really seen that so much. I'm sure that that exists. There's going to be people who believe that kind of thing,

01:00:56

I'm sure. But there's also going to be, conversely, people who prioritize the church way too much over their home.

01:01:04

Have you ever met someone who was involved so much in ministry? Maybe a pastor. It's kind of typical for pastor's kids to be because their dad is so involved, he forgets about his family.

01:01:13

What's the problem there? It's because he prioritized the church too much over his family.

01:01:20

Both have to be prioritized, right? We can do both. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

01:01:26

That would be my gentle suggestion to someone like a Kevin DeYoung who's trying to navigate this without making these distinctions.

01:01:34

Prosperity to do it, the freedom to do it, the liberty to do it. So there's a lot that we can lose, and I do think that taking an interest in these things is important.

01:01:44

What I've tried to say to some of my church people who are, you know, I had to cash in some chips in 2018 after I'd been there only a year to say we're not going to have candidates give their greetings in the church.

01:02:01

And there was some tradition of doing that in the past, and in our church that would only be Republican candidates that would want to come to our church probably.

01:02:10

So I said we're not going to do that. We're not doing voter registration. We're not handing out voter guides in the church.

01:02:15

I'm not telling you that you absolutely can't do any of those things. I try to push back and to say none of these voter guides are neutral even if you think they are.

01:02:28

So the ones that you want, ask the 16 questions you'd like, and this other one, you know, you want, if you want the

01:02:35

Family Research Council, value neutral one. Do you want the Sojourners value neutral one?

01:02:41

No, they're not neutral either. So I want people who care about politics.

01:02:46

I want people who care about the nation. I'm really interested in these issues myself.

01:02:53

But this is one of the things I just said this week, the other week, and somebody came up and I thought this was just obvious, but the person said,

01:03:01

I'm coming from a church where this hasn't felt obvious. I said, we cannot fall into the trap of being motivated to hate the people who hate us.

01:03:14

And we know not to do that as Christians, but here's what we're drawn to. We like the people who hate the people who hate us.

01:03:22

And that gets it here. Negative polarization means you don't have to be for, we don't care what you're for as long as you're against the people that we're against, and you're against the people that are against us.

01:03:33

So that very human mindset is alive and well in lots of our churches.

01:03:39

I don't call that Christian nationalism. I call it fallen human nature. And we need to find ways to address that without saying that these other sorts of issues are unimportant.

01:03:52

I give it a B minus that if I was saying how helpful this is, it would be,

01:03:58

I'm tempted to say C, but the reason being that he doesn't give a lot of specifics.

01:04:04

I don't know what he's talking about. We love, we like the people who hate the people who hate us.

01:04:10

Okay. But give me an example. Is it Jordan Peterson? Is it that, because that's been a critique that the left has made in evangelicalism.

01:04:18

All these evangelicals are listening to Jordan Peterson too much, or some secular conservative thinker.

01:04:23

They're listening to the Daily Wire instead of listening to people that are

01:04:31

Christians, or they're getting their critiques of CRT from James Lindsay. And is that what he's talking about?

01:04:37

I don't know what he's talking about exactly. So it's hard for me to even have an opinion, form an opinion on it.

01:04:43

What I really liked that he said though, and good for him to say, look, it's a nebulous term and it's weaponized against people who are simply wanting to have a

01:04:54

Christian influence in the government. And we should have a Christian influence in the government. Now he can do what he wants at his church.

01:05:00

If he doesn't want to have voter drives and stuff, that's fine. I think the responsibility of a pastor though, is to teach the principles.

01:05:09

And I think the application to some extent to teach people how to apply biblical principles in the lives that they have, which is going to include political decisions.

01:05:19

So it doesn't mean you have to have a candidate or a voter drive, but it doesn't mean that you don't necessarily, you gotta be careful

01:05:26

I think with some of that because you don't want to have mission drift. But it's not,

01:05:31

I don't think it's wrong to have a candidate who's standing for the right things come to a church. I just saw that a few weeks ago at a church in California where I was not expecting to see it.

01:05:39

And I think the situation is so dire there. It's probably not as dire in Charlotte, North Carolina, but in Los Angeles, it's getting pretty dire.

01:05:47

Christians are becoming second -class citizens. And in that vein, I want to show you this.

01:05:53

This is what's happening in Australia. And I saw this this morning, this is the

01:05:59

Victorian premier, Dan Andrews. So the premier of Victoria province in Australia.

01:06:09

So this is not the United States, this is Australia. But how far away are we in the United States from someone saying this, an elected official?

01:06:14

He says, Christians need to be more kindhearted and inclusive after a

01:06:19

Christian is forced out of his job for going to church. Here's the clip. Does his resignation show that a conservative religious figure can't take on a public role or you know, they might need to hide their religious beliefs?

01:06:31

No. No, they might want to have a think about whether they should be perhaps a bit more, a bit more kindhearted, a bit more inclusive.

01:06:40

Aren't we all God's children? Like seriously, seriously, there's no place for bigotry.

01:06:46

There's no place for stigmatizing people. Reminds me of something

01:06:51

Paul Washer had said like over a decade ago in a sermon in which he basically said that you're going to be persecuted as Christians, not for being

01:07:03

Christian, it's for being a bigot, for being a hater. And that's what you see. You see that exact same thing starting right now.

01:07:11

And the question the report is asking is basically, can someone who has religious views hold public office?

01:07:18

Of course they can, as long as they hold my religion first. They pinch that incense to Caesar, as long as they're not a bigot, as long as they're inclusive and kindhearted and according to his definition of what that means.

01:07:30

That's where we're heading. And so these are very real threats that I think when they come, sometimes it's often too late, but when they come, you see churches reacting differently.

01:07:44

And throughout the South, especially, but in the Midwest, a lot of Christians have lived in a bit of a bubble.

01:07:50

I hate to say it, but I noticed this just in my travels, in living in North Carolina and Virginia, they take for granted sometimes.

01:07:59

I'm not saying everyone, but many take for granted what they've lived in. Sort of a culture that is accepting of Christianity.

01:08:09

Being from California, having grown up in upstate New York and interacting with a lot of people from New York City, it is a different world.

01:08:18

And Europe's a different world and Australia's a different world. And that world is coming to the heartland. And a lot of these churches who have been able to just say, well, we can have

01:08:28

Republicans and Democrats both in our church. We can sidestep these issues, these political issues. We don't have to focus on them as much.

01:08:36

They start changing their tune. I think they will when it starts knocking on their door. And so, anyway, that is the podcast for today.