The Here I Stand Theology Podcast "Authors Insight" on RULES FOR REFORMERS w/ Doug Wilson

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The Here I Stand Theology Podcast "Authors Insight" on RULES FOR REFORMERS w/ Doug Wilson

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00:00
Here in just a moment. We're gonna have a very special guest on the podcast Y 'all might know his name
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Starts with the D and sounds like Doug Wilson. Yes, Pastor Doug Wilson from Moscow, Idaho We are going to be talking about his book rules for Reformers so hang tight for just a moment.
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We'll be right back here.
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I stand I Can do no other Will you recant or will you not?
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Since your majesty and your lordships desire a simple Reply I will answer unless I am convinced by scripture and By plain reason and not by popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves my conscience
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Is captive to the word of God conscience is neither right nor safe I cannot and I will not hear us here.
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I said I can do no
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I can do no other welcome to the here
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I stand theology podcast where we are a podcast devoted to a pointed and Spirited debate of biblical doctrine as we mentioned in the teaser there.
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We've got a very special guest in the studio Well in the studio live via the interwebs in any case he is here with us.
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Let's not delay any longer Let's just go ahead and bring him in. Mr. Doug Wilson. Wait, that was very that was very nice Well, we aim to please we aim to please
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So glad that you're with us Doug today thankful. This is your second time being on the here.
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I stand theology podcast We appreciate your time in your effort in your energy.
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I do want to say this personally I appreciate the work you do as a minister as a man of God appreciate your stance
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And I just want you know, we love you in the Lord so that We've got a a couple of things.
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We'll jump right into here. I know you've got a lot as we mentioned pre -show I know you got a lot on your plate So we'll just we'll get right into some of the the heavy stuff right here at the beginning
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I don't know if you remember the first time you were on the podcast We asked you a very important question
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We explained that this really sets the tone for the entire podcast our entire time here my question to you the first time was if you and Toby Sumter had to arm -wrestle who would win and Your insightful answer was it doesn't matter who
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I would arm -wrestle They would win and then you paused and you said because I would let them win
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Yeah, and so just just for to be completely transparent
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That didn't hit me till about an hour or two after we finished that episode and I'm like, hang on a minute
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That was snarky So so the question for the current day is this in light of your and James White's Debate tomorrow on pato communion if you and if you and James White had to arm -wrestle who would win
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It'd be a stalemate It'd be a stalemate. Oh Here we go again
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Doug we are going just to be kind of going through a few to get some insights and really and truly this is just on the
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Section one of your book. There's so much good stuff in this book and Just there's so much practical information practical truth that we can apply and I know that you know on the on the page before the table of contents
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You give that you put the Chesterton quote there But really the final part of that Chesterton quote was but reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put that into shape and Most importantly and we know what that shape is, right?
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So so tell us a little bit because I know I know most of our audience knows you
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But there may be some folks that are just getting to know you becoming aware of who you are and your stances
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You are a lover, of course of GK Chesterton Yeah, correct.
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Correct. Tell us a little bit about how your How your love for his writing grew so it
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It began when I was a freshman at the University. I Went into the Navy first So I served my just under four years in the
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Navy in the submarine service and so I came back to college and majored majored in philosophy as an older freshman, so I was
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I was 22 as a as a freshman and I started taking philosophy courses and started to Encounter the fact that many of these learned 50 pound brains who run the world are are out of their minds, you know just like It's just good grief and somewhere in my freshman year
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I picked up Chesterton's orthodoxy, which was sort of a lifeline of sanity
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While I was studying philosophy, he's just nothing but horse sense and it's just really good sturdy common sense and And so I I fell in love with Chesterton then and have been reading him off and on pretty regularly since then
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Awesome Awesome. So in in this book If if folks have really done the study or even read the introduction to your book
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They realize as the the title of it. The intro is a tip of the hat to Saul Alinsky Can you communicate to the audience just a little bit about who
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Saul Alinsky is? Although he was a leftist obviously you're not as in as the book states, but how you came about Writing the book here, right?
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So he was a community organizer. Shall we call him? in Chicago in the mid 20th century and he was a leftist a hard leftist and but a brilliant tactician he he was just really he was brilliant and he wrote a book and very influential book called rules for radicals and That that book was one that I was introduced to at the early end of Obama's tenure.
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So Alinsky had a big impact on Obama Saul Alinsky had a big impact on Hillary Clinton and somebody said hey, we conservatives need to check out where a bunch of this is coming from so I Picked up rules for radicals and read through it.
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There were there were a lot of takeaways that conservative Christians can use Some things obviously we couldn't but something many things that we could
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And so what I did was my father had written a book called principles of war back in the 60s and he what he did is he took the military principles of physical warfare and applied them to what he called strategic evangelism and so what
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I did is this book is sort of a Mashup inspired by Saul Alinsky on the one hand and my father's book principles of war on the other
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Trying to equip conservative Christians who are sort of it at at sea when it comes to how do we?
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How do we engage in these culture wars? And to give sort of a handbook a handbook on how we should think about our conflicts
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Good so very first and we'll just move right through these so just a few insights
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Several insights will take from section just section one of your book again is all we're really gonna be focusing on but the very first sentence page 15 the very first sentence you open the chapter up and it says principles that govern every form of conflict a constant in all possible scenarios, so Talk to us a little bit about that.
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All right, so The distinction that everybody has to master at the front end is the distinction between principles and methods
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Okay, principles are one thing and principles never change Methods Change according to the the age the warfare is occurring at so if two if two tribes attack one another with rocks and sticks
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The rocks and sticks are the method the principles would be things like surprise mobility
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Concentration so the tribe that is Runs They have the mobility
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The mobility is going to be a value in a
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Stone Age conflict and a medieval conflict and in a modern conflict mobility matters
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Surprise matters the general who is surprised is at a disadvantage You want to always want to be the general or the admiral who surprises right, right?
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But you might but you might surprise them with a carrier fleet or you might surprise them with bows and arrows
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So so the The surprise is the ingredient the principled ingredient that is constant in every form of conflict methods are weapons, basically
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Once you use the particular things you so in a cultural I'm flicked a weapon or it might be taking a newspaper or dropping a video
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There's nothing Principle about using video. That's just a tool
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Right. What what should conservative Christians have done before there were videos?
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Right they should they should mark the principles so people who are trained in Thinking in terms of principles and not methods are going to be at a great advantage
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Back to your regularly scheduled program changing something.
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That's probably good enough right there. Yeah, that's quite enough. Thank you Doug Wilson responds to the to the spitting in the face by Michael Todd of his in a sermon illustration
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What do you what do you how do you respond? My response would be twofold one would be crikey and the other would be jeepers
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Cranky and jeepers I'll be honest my response the first time
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I saw that was holy hell Batman Religiously prudent, but my goodness, but it's better than spitting.
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Yeah. Oh My gosh. Yeah. Yeah, that's uh, that's the kind of stuff that goes on in the in the charismatic circles in a lot of the megachurches, so Unbelievable.
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Yeah. Yeah. So let's uh, let's get back to the good stuff here now and Let's let's get back let's get back on point here we can just completely get rid of that off my screen
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Okay, so ten principles of war moving on here in section one the ten principles of war as listed out by you here are objective offensive concentration mobility security surprise cooperation communication economy of force and pursuit these are the ten principles of war and If we if we're just jumping ahead a little bit to page 18 and 19 in your book the decisive point
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I wanted to read just a little bit from that section in this chapter you said this one of the first things a reformers got to get used to is is the experience of being despised and unpopular societies do awful things that which need to be reformed because they want to and The reformer is the one beckoning them to a state of affairs that they don't much want
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The scripture says you shall not fall in with many to do evil nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit Siding with the many so as to pervert justice nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit
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Exodus 23 2 and 3 ESV Notice what this passage requires of us you state that these are
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There are times when the doing of evil is popular many want to do evil and they summon you to join them
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There are other times when you are being pressured to bear false witness in a lawsuit Siding with the many in order to pervert justice, and if you didn't trip over the next verse you weren't paying attention
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It prohibits every form of affirmative action along with all its ugly cousins The next paragraph you state a reformer has to be the kind of man who can stand up to the clamor of the mob
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This is the vertebrate mentality exhibited by Athanasius when he was informed that the world was against him
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Well, then he replied let it be known that Athanasius is contra moondom against the world a true reformer gives the
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PR department bits so We we live in a day in a time.
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I think I and I don't know I don't want to over or over or under characterized
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Reform us as reformed folks, right? I think many who who we know to be
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Friends and Calvinistic reform so on and so forth
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Many of them don't seem to seem to have a problem standing up and going kind of a get going against the flow
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But so where were you coming from when you wrote this? Did you have any specifics in mind?
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Sure you could It goes back to the first principle of war which is objective so uh, the fundamental question that every pastor every theologian every
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Evangelist needs to ask when they get up in the morning is what am I here for? What's What's the mission?
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Because if if we don't have a clear -headed view of the mission, which would be the great commission
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Right, the mission is birth and twofold Aspect to the great commission birth and growth and don't stop until the world is converted
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Amen. All right. That's that's the mission So if if you don't have a clear -eyed view of that mission
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The mission is going to devolve down to something a lot less significant
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Your your mission is going to become to to pay the bills Or to keep the lights on Or to keep the staff happy or to make payroll right, um and And so basically the reason you you think your church should exist
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Next year is because that it existed all last year Right, the reason the reason we should be here is that we're here our our existence justifies
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Itself Well, that's not that's not how a general a successful general or successful admiral thinks.
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What are we here for? so um so the the
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Thing I have in mind is people who have who are undergoing mission drift
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Even though they can still sign the westminster confession of faith Yeah Right, so They still they think oh, there's no mission drift here because we still all of us still believe this stuff
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Right, right But wait, wait are are you trying to persuade the world to believe it also?
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Right. We're we're not looking for uh, small victories. We're looking for total conquest, right?
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Right Right and kind of not having uh from an evangelical perspective.
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I mean uh, if if Honoring christ honoring christ's word isn't our goal.
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Then we are wandering stars Right. Yeah, I mean what hebrews 12?
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um We're foreseeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses Let us lay aside every weight in the sin that does so easily beset us and let us run the race with patience
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Looking unto jesus the author and the finisher of our faith Right, I mean not having that that first object that first principle of war objective
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I think is Is so very very important. It's not starting off with a a random
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Go a random aim. I mean when we go on vacation, we don't think to ourselves
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I don't look to my wife and say april next week. We're going to go on vacation. Where are we going dear?
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I have no idea. We're just going to get in the car and drive and that inevitably is going to lead to frustration and and disunity in the household because We're gonna we're not going to be where we know where we're going.
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Therefore. It's going to cause more problems It just gives us a good point of perspective. I think let me give you two two quick examples on this in the vietnam war when we lost
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Our sense of objective. What was the objective of the war? In world war ii it was to conquer berlin and it was unconditional surrender
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On the part of germany and japan that was the objective in vietnam. We had no court no objective like that But you need to have some sort of objective that you can point to day to day and so in so the the
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The american forces started pointing to body counts Like how many people how many of the enemy were killed today?
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How many americans were killed today? How many of the south vietnamese were killed today and I remember the newscasts with body counts but body counts are militarily and strategically irrelevant right
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Right. It has nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do with anything that you went to war for So that that was a good example of a military mission drift.
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The same thing is happening to the russians in ukraine right now Yeah, right they they don't have a clearly stated
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Objective and a bunch of their own troops don't know why they're there. And so the whole thing is devolving into flattening civilian cities right so what's
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So what's the goal? So people are God has made us uh teleological beings meaning that we are focused on the end goal
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And if it's if it's not the scriptural end goal, we're going to come up we're going to cook up one of our own.
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Yeah exactly so objectives important second point is uh
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Offensive we should look for a way on page 37 in your book You wrote we should look for a way to stop responding to initiatives
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To the initiatives of the adversary and start behaving in such a way that they have to figure out how to respond to us
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Right, so Am I correct in understanding here? We need to stop being so worried about how others or or or uh, i'm, sorry uh
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That that we need to stop worrying about how we're going to respond to the enemy but give the enemy
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A reason to be have those same concerns within themselves, correct? Usually if you're coaching a football team, usually you score your touchdowns when you have the ball
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You know occasionally deep the defense scores a touchdown, but they do it by getting the ball and turning into the offense
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We we need to stop Christians have a bunker mentality generally when it comes to the culture wars
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We wake up wake up in the morning and we say to ourselves. What are the progressives going to do today?
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What are the secularists going to do today? What what fresh hell are they going to unveil?
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Right, um today And that mentality, although it's it's good that you're on the right side and you don't want the bad guys to win
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The that mentality is why they're going to win Yeah, you need to get up in the morning and and ask yourself
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What can we do that's going to flabbergast them? Yeah So So, uh on that, uh, well that leads us really right into the next, uh principle principle three, uh, the the idea of concentration so objective offensive and concentration
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Obviously, this is not talking about how hard you think but how well directed your thoughts are
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Correct, correct. That's exactly right So in in your book on page 38 on the second paragraph, uh in this first section here
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You said concentration will be most effective when applied to a decisive point a place where it is likely that your
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Concentration will work and where it will matter a great deal to the enemy if it does work, uh, the tip of the spear is the term that you use
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I think that's a uh, that's a analogy that Highly goes overlook and misunderstood by many today
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Christian non -christian alike. So can you talk to us about the importance of concentration? Yeah concentration would go together
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Like you said with the decisive point and in any given battle or in any given war
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Or metaphorical war or spiritual war. There is a decisive point
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And the decisive point has two characteristics The first characteristic is that it is it is of great strategic value
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So if you take that point it matters greatly to the battle or to the war or to this stage of the war
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Uh, it matters if you take it Okay How strategic is it? Uh, the second characteristic is of a decisive point is that it has to be feasible
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Yeah, okay um, so This feasible means that if you attempt to take it
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You've got a reasonable expectation of success all right, so You a target could be
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I'm speaking evangelistically Culturally here a target could be strategic and not feasible like new york city
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Yeah. All right, if we took if we took new york city for jesus, it'd be all over right
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Um, the problem is that new york city is not feasible Okay, uh, it's a that's a bigger target
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So we could you i'll have to fill you in a little bit on on this. Uh, we could take
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Beauville idaho for jesus Uh, beauville is a little town bend in the road a little bit east of us here um, nobody knows quite how many
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People live in beauville Because in the history in recent living memory, no one has ever returned a census form from beauville ha ha ha
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They're kind of doing they're kind of doing their own thing out there It's not much of a town and we could take beauville for jesus
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Uh in the time it took us to unload our moving vans. Yeah Okay, we but then when all was said and done all we would have is beauville
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So So it's feasible but not strategic It's and then on the other end los angeles or new york is strategic but not feasible so wherever you are if you live in new york or if you live in a big city or in a more populous, uh play if you live in a place like New york, you have to stop thinking in terms of new york city as a whole and ask yourself
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What are the decisive points within new york city? Right? Okay, so scale it down till you get to the point where you've got a feasible target that matters
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Yeah, okay, and then you want to concentrate your efforts At that place.
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Yes Okay. Okay. So the reason the reason we're here in moscow.
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Idaho is my dad as I mentioned wrote the book Uh principles of war and he did he decided back in the 60s that the decisive points
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Culturally in north america were major universities in small towns So the small town made it feasible the university made it important And then he found out that moscow.
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Idaho and pullman, washington Are two small towns eight miles apart in two different states and with a major university in each one
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So Washington state university is in pullman eight miles west of us and university of idaho is here in moscow
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So he moved here. So the name of the game was to concentrate fire concentrate your forces concentrate your efforts
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In a place that actually matters and you get a lot bigger bang for your buck
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And one of the reasons why all the cascading material is coming out of moscow
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Now is because of that decision that he made back in the 70s to move here
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It would he was concentrating his fire and the fire of the people that he would influence in one place
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That would be a force multiplier Earlier earlier in the earlier in this section of the book you made
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I think it was earlier that you made the the statement Uh Reforming is the long game.
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We always have to be playing the long game, right? Correct, correct
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All right. So concentration there. We've got that so mobility As far as we're concerned you wrote here in the book mobility
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Is a state of mind and I want to read this because I love these I love these quips that you make here in speaking of david and goliath and saw
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Uh You said of course the greatest faith here concerning david's defeat of goliath
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The greatest faith here was david's but it is worth noting that it was an act of faith on saul's part
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Also, this was a single combat that put all of israel's armies at stake and saul gave his blessing to it
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At last it is not often recognized that the five smooth stones represent what later came to be known as the five points of calvinism
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Um again, I love that I love that I love that that that was an example of a concentrated statement being
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Interjected at a decisive point Look, so I I refer to myself as the happy calvinist
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Uh, I know there's some folks who say there's no such thing as happy calvinist, but I I beg to differ
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There are plenty of happy calvinists Yes And if you don't mind, um, i'd throw in that Saying identifying the five whose smooth stones with the five points of calvinism
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Is also a an appeal to the element of surprise. Yes so uh
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If you're writing for someone who's not a calvinist, for example, that sort of joke can be disarming.
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Yeah Yep, you're up Yeah So mobility, it's a state of mind being ready always really to make that those adjustments that are necessary right now on a
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An important point on mobility and we're what we're doing here is an example of it right um
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I don't even know. I don't even remember where you are. Um, we're on we're on mobility actually, um, you know where where you are
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Knoxville, tennessee, you're right. You're in tennessee. Yeah all right, so Uh, the the fact that we live in a generation
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Where someone could be having a video conference like this? With someone across the continent
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And then say oh, yeah, where are you by the way? Are you in brazil? Um, that's an example of mobility.
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Yeah, right. Um, so that means that words and clips and content can travel much faster than it used to be able to now what you what you want to be you want to couple this with the previous thing we talked about concentration because the internet basically
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Enables us to move our our inanity or our ignorance around the world at high rates of speed
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Right, so it's possible for me to instagram my lunch
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Take a picture of it instagram it and show the people in new zealand what I had for lunch and that's
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That's quick and they they see it within seconds and it also doesn't matter
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Right, right. I'm just i'm just i'm using up ones and zeros but if Uh preachers of the gospel if people who are committed to Filling jerusalem with your doctrine as the complaint was against the early church
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These tools the tools that the internet has given us are massively potent and important as we can see from the attempts of google and facebook and twitter to censor
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Them they want this horse has gotten away from them and they want to get a bit and bridle on it
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And so they can control so they can control manipulate because they don't want renegade calvinists talking online and And then depositing that content in new zealand in australia in brazil
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So what we're doing here has extraordinary mobility So what we want to do is then learn how to target it learn learn how to Apply these things in a concentrated way
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Where the people who would most benefit by getting this content are informed of it
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That's right. That's right. And that's the aim and the goal of of the podcast itself the here
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I stand theology podcast We want to inform and educate our uh audience there
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All right. So next point Um would be security, right? Or yeah.
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Yeah security. So on page 46 in the last two paragraphs you write and so we come to security security cannot be a standalone principle and you you
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Expound on this very clearly guarding oneself against the possibility of defeat is important But prudent security is not the same thing as a risk -free warfare
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A war in which there is no possibility of things going wrong is not really a war It's like i'm like, you know, it's like playing
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Playing a three -year playing basketball with a three -year -old. There's not there's not a possibility really much of a possibility of you're losing
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So you can't really call it a sport the Sun tzu put it the good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat and then waited for An opportunity of defeating the enemy.
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So rather than reading that next paragraph, I think that's that's a good place to stop on that there so um, talk to us a little bit about the importance of security and principled security really and practical
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Yeah, security means that you work with people that you can trust That doesn't that doesn't mean that the trust is absolute um
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Judas betrayed the lord and demas deserted paul. So you but but qualifications for leadership matter
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Uh, you you might have someone in your leadership team. You might have someone in your group that flakes and and Rears off and does something but what you shouldn't have and that's that's just you're no better than the lord
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You're no better than the apostle paul, but what you shouldn't Uh have is someone in your entourage or your group who flakes
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And you were worried about them from the moment you hired them So if if you said
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I don't know, I don't know I don't know and then finally it happens that would be a violation of security right the
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You can't guard absolutely against This is the fallen world you can't guard absolutely against someone flaking on you
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But you you should be able you you should not have security risks in your group
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Simply because you lack the courage to ask pointed questions Yes I'd agree 110 there 110
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Moving forward the element of surprise very important you touched on this as well.
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Um And i'm actually uh, again another chestertonian
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Quote in reference here on page 52 You wrote to the extent that they have a character caricature of a speaking calvinist
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We should do whatever we can to dismantle that caricature all at once surprise
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For example, they want to write off all social conservatives as throwback puritans with crabbed pinched faces worrying
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Desperately about somewhere somebody calling that number on the bathroom wall And having a good time
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The answer is to cultivate a sunny calvinism a chestertonian calvinism Chesterton himself would of course be annoyed at my appropriation of his great name to serve as an adjective to my soteriology
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But as you said, we all have our crosses to bear and I would add what's he going to do about it?
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He's dead And and as a calvinist now, yeah He he gives us his posthumous blessing
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So so the the the element of surprise how important is that when it comes to the principles of war
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I think it's very very important. So And I would say there's two uh strong elements of surprise that we should be looking to do one would be the um, the tactic the the you know, let's say you have a a concert or a conference or you you you want to Think about things like having it in an odd place or or having it in a way that makes everybody go
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Whoa, what what are they doing? Or what are they? You know, what are they up to what's that for so it's just the things you do
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But i'd say the biggest element of surprise is the way you are
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All right, so, uh, one of the things that is um So I have a grandson who's um in at columbia, uh in new york city and one of the things that he's interacting with a lot of liberals and One of the things that's striking to him is how many of the liberals and the progressives?
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Have bought in completely To the propaganda the incessant propaganda about white supremacists
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And the way the red states are and that sort of thing and he's been in conversations with people who are convinced that if they if they
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Went to a small town In flyover country, they would be taking their life in their hands
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Yeah, so they think that they actually think That the the rhetoric that has gotten everybody up up to this fever pitch is um
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Is it is a true threat to them now? Here's the thing if someone like that come visits your church or visits your town or uh, let's say a secular journalist who
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Uh comes to interview you and you are pleasant
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Yeah, you you listen to them you don't stand on your chair and yell at them
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That you you're gonna basically your interaction with them is going to break all the paradigms right all the stories that they've heard um one time many years ago, um
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My wife used to sell uh fabric out of her house as a sort of a side gig And at the time
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I was I was a newspaper columnist Did a weekly conservative column for our local paper
40:03
And a lady that nancy didn't know came to buy some fabric and they were chatting And as time went on it slowly began to dawn on this woman
40:12
Who nancy was? And she finally said you're you're not married to doug wilson.
40:18
Are you? and nancy said Nancy said well. Yeah. Yes. I am and the lady said
40:24
But you're so nice But you're so nice That kind of thing really is disarming.
40:35
Yeah. Okay. It's surprise um And then ultimately you want a surprise with the gospel
40:42
Is people think that conservative christians? are Harbinger are messengers of hard condemnation
40:51
That that we want to build the handmaid's tale that we want to we want to do horrific awful things we want reformed ayatollahs with weird beards chopping off hand chopping off people's hands and And when when they hear you preach and you're preaching a message of free grace and forgiveness for everyone
41:13
Yes Purchased for you on the cross that doesn't fit in any of their compartments
41:19
Yeah, right and and it's a surprise you're right along those lines I think about and I can't remember which
41:27
Uh, I think it was it may have been whitfield that said it that we ought to preach the gospel promiscuously
41:33
And that's exactly right freely to all Right freely to all.
41:39
All right. So the element of surprise there you you illustrated that one more I love the again.
41:44
I love this john montague the earl of sandwich was up against john wilkes a reformist politician Montague looked at wilkes in exasperation and said upon my soul wilkes.
41:54
I don't know whether you'll die upon the gallows or syphilis The comeback of the age was that will depend my lord on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress that that That put him on his heels.
42:09
No doubt Yeah So, uh the the next principle moving right along here and we'll we'll we'll just go just a few more minutes here doug
42:17
All right for the principle of cooperation How important that is obviously co -op that's kind of one of those, uh, you know plain
42:25
Plain principles set forth cooperation involves the doing involves the doing it is one of the most
42:31
Difficult principles to observe it's it's highly clear and yet it is one of the most
42:37
Challenging to achieve Yeah, so I would say the thing
42:42
I would push, uh for here is what I would call an evangelical ecumenism um, so there are all kinds in the baskins and robbins of Evangelical christianity
42:56
There are all kinds of flavors and and it's not just a matter of Pick the flavor that suits you because it the bible does teach one thing and not another
43:08
So i'm not a charismatic and i'm not an arminian and i'm not a dispensationalist And i'm you know, so they're and I think that the people who embrace those theologies are in error but My question is is god in fellowship with them.
43:25
Is that person? Is that person walking with god? If that person is walking with god mistakes and all
43:33
Just as I walk with god mistakes and all I should be willing to cooperate as far as it's possible
43:42
With anyone that I believe the lord is in fellowship with Amen Okay.
43:47
Now that doesn't mean that I hide or pretend to agree where I don't Right, right
43:53
Uh, I I don't tell lies in order to cooperate Right, but but I can have a cooperative disposition
44:01
And say look, um, god bless you guys um, this is you know
44:06
A number of years ago. I had a real good lesson in this a good example of this
44:12
I should say We had one of our periodic uh controversies here locally and I was accused of Racism and wanting to bring back back bring back slavery and a bunch of a bunch of false charges, right so, um, and there were people
44:32
Who had known me for years? And who knew that I wasn't a racist who were and who were more who were closer to me theologically than others
44:42
Who backed away? Okay Okay They backed away and then in the middle of this, you know friends sort of pulling their skirts away um
44:54
In the middle of that. I got a phone call from a charismatic minister who um
44:59
Invited me to a charismatic minister's luncheon, which this was an odd Yeah, this was an odd event
45:08
Right, and so I I went and and they said basically
45:13
Oh slavery shmavery, you know, um, this is all about jesus, you know, this is all about jesus
45:20
So they prayed for me. Um You know, they they sort of they gathered in and I think it's because charismatics
45:30
Whatever errors they have are used to being looked down on They're used to being sort of the outliers and Uh, the evangelicals who backed away from me wanted to be didn't want to be in that position
45:47
And so I want to cooperate these people were clearly People who love the lord and were prepared to love a calvinist from another state
45:56
Um, and who made a made a point of doing that That is the kind of cooperation.
46:02
I think the lord blesses when you're at war. You don't want your army fighting with your navy
46:08
That's right you want your army and navy and air force all to be dealing with the
46:14
The larger issues so the the things that the progressive left
46:20
Well, the things that the progressive leftists have in store for us Are the sort of things that make me want to?
46:27
set Theological debates to the side for the present not that they're unimportant
46:33
But the they're less important than the klingon klingon invasion that we're dealing with I agree cooperation about There there's more for us as christians to cooperate and to agree upon than there is to disagree to a to a large
46:51
And remember what the lord taught about what the lord taught about? um straining out mint mint, uh
46:59
Straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel and tithing mint dylan cummin So if I meet a charismatic brother
47:07
At a pro -life march And I don't agree with him on tongues or prophecy at all, but we agree on let's not chop up the babies right, okay um, we agree on that well
47:21
You know god bless you man. Let's Let's deal with that. Let's deal with that first Exactly exactly
47:28
So cooperation is important because without cooperation Uh those the previous principles really they they really begin to build and come to a head here
47:38
Next is communication the importance of communicating on page 62 You wrote when you're communicating with a large number of people.
47:45
It's important not to say too much The point is to communicate what needs to be done and demote everyone to do it
47:52
The point is not to explain everything in excruciating detail That being said let's move on to the next point because that was that was that was it that was clear
48:02
All right, uh the next uh, the next uh principle would be number nine. That is economy
48:07
Of force so how we use our force right economy of force combines in an artistic way objective offensive security surprise mobility concentration
48:20
And cooperation economy of force Is the pursuit of efficiency in war?
48:27
So what would be the converse to efficiency in war? uh being scattered disorganized um uh flailing so Uh, basically what the russians are doing in ukraine right now.
48:41
Yep Do this no wait do that Do the other thing that didn't work now what?
48:48
Um that so basically economy of force is the is probably the um, one of the more obvious Principles that they are neglecting
49:00
Right. Um, and so what we want to do is we you want to have a smooth decision -making
49:08
Uh polity in your church. Let's say your church is your unit right
49:14
Uh, you don't want to have cultivated a democratic ethos this goes back to the communication
49:22
Point where you say, okay What we're going to do folks is this we're going to um the elders have decided that we're going to do this and then have 25 of your people say why how come uh, we didn't get
49:39
Um, basically you have to have uh, embedded trust
49:46
In between the leadership and the people. Yes, so that when a decision
49:52
Has to be made and you have to turn on a dime um The decision can be make made quickly and this goes back to mobility right, so Uh, we we recently had a a situation
50:07
Uh, I was I was just so pleased with our elders Uh where a a small church building downtown.
50:13
Moscow came up for sale And we were able to make that decision Turning it around inside a week
50:20
And it it was a good um It was a good example of communication within the elder board economy of force
50:28
Uh is sort of an elegant placement of what this this church is going to matter and and mobility we were able to do it quickly and Surprise whenever when when it's revealed to the town.
50:40
Hey, look who's there? Yeah It almost not even not even words you just wave as people drive by All right, and last of all the 10th principle of war is pursuit
50:58
Failure to pursue frequently reveals that the objective in the campaign was not victory
51:03
But rather some version which you talked about at the very beginning here today But rather some version of the upper hand.
51:10
We don't want the upper hand we want Conquest right? and um the reason um after the battle of gettysburg the this
51:22
Civil war went on for two more years because pursuit was not
51:28
Because the union forces did not pursue um We won the battle.
51:34
Isn't that enough? Well, no No, so and that's what uh, that's what gideon, uh does when when he
51:43
Wins his great victory. They they pursue And they pursue ardently
51:49
Uh, it's it's a it's a very important Uh principle principle of war and that means you you don't want to settle for fighting off the bad guys successfully so we
52:04
We withstood their assault That's not enough Uh, what you want to what you want to do is counter attack
52:12
Um, and again, we see this right in front of us with ukraine Uh, it shouldn't be enough for the ukrainians to fight the russians to a standstill
52:22
What they need to do is fight them to a standstill then take the offensive which is another principle of war um and Push them back, right
52:31
Right. I agree whip their tail Right Um, so lastly here sir, uh in well, we're going to cut off here in a minute again
52:42
I want to tell you I appreciate your time But I would like to ask one more question and really this is for for me struggling
52:49
I I guess to for articulate purposes of articulation uh in my life to uh to my uh circle of friends to to our church,
52:59
I pastor here at ramada baptist church in knoxville, but the The for for years
53:06
I have struggled with articulating the difference if you might help me here articulating the difference between uh being post we're post -millennialists obviously, but articulating the difference between Post -millennialism and kingdom now theology or dominionism how what is the simplest most direct way to articulate that difference because I I think from from folks look standing on the outside looking in they kind of it can really kind of blur together
53:38
Yeah, and i'd like to make draw a clear distinction and how can we do that? Right? So before I give this distinction
53:47
I I fully recognize that you might have something of a venn diagram. There might be some overlap.
53:53
So So there might be some people Who would call themselves in the dominion camp who agree with what i'm about to say?
54:03
Yeah, right So i'll i'll i'll recognize the border might be somewhat porous
54:08
But here's the this is the distinction that I would make I I believe that Uh diminished sort of kingdom now dominion stuff and and not having read a pile on this strikes me as sort of a
54:22
A global version of name it claim it a global version of health and wealth
54:29
So what we need to do is have a really exciting camp meeting um revival here and And sort of claim our city for jesus
54:41
Um now I think we should be thinking That we want to win our city for jesus christ
54:47
And we should believe that it's inevitable that it's going to happen But the living water that flows out of ezekiel's temple is just a wet spot on the pavement right outside the door
54:58
And then it's half an inch deep And then it's ankle deep and then it's knee deep and then finally it becomes
55:06
A river that you can't swim across Okay, so the jesus teaches us that the kingdom is like a mustard seed
55:14
It grows to a huge plant and daniel. It's a um It's the rock that's cut out from without hands and grows to become a mountain to fill the earth um
55:25
It's like leaven that's dropped in the loaf that works gradually slowly through the loaf.
55:30
So Uh, my goal here in moscow is to have this town be a christian town.
55:37
Yeah, I I want Moscow to be as full of the knowledge of the lord as the waters cover the sea
55:43
But I also believe that it might be 300 years before that happens Right, so I want to behave in such a way where I can see progress and I can see that we're making headway
55:54
I can see that we're trusting the lord for these things. This is the mission That's that's the objective but I don't want to pretend
56:04
That I attained the objective Simply because I had an exciting revival meeting
56:10
I I don't want our Our cultural evangelism to be like a charismatic healing service
56:18
Where you pretend to be healed because you know you ought to be Right, right, and that would be stopping short.
56:26
That would be stopping short of Conquest, right? Yeah. So so I just wanted to ask that.
56:32
I appreciate your insight on that as well. Um Again, doug. Thank you.
56:37
Pastor. Douglas wilson for being on the episode on the podcast here with us once again
56:43
Don't forget folks, uh this episode won't be airing till tomorrow. So it'll be after your debate uh, so, uh pedo pedo communion debate james white doug wilson tomorrow at 3 p .m.
56:59
Uh pacific standard Time and i'm assuming you all will be recording that correct and posting it up later.
57:06
Yeah, everybody will love that. That'll be awesome All right, so again, thank you sir so much for your ministry for your work for your character just for who you are
57:16
You've been a great encouragement to me thus far and i'm sure you will continue to be um
57:22
Folks if you haven't yet gone to uh, find doug, where can folks find you on twitter doug?
57:29
At douglas wills is my handle but the best place to find every best clearinghouse is my blog
57:36
Doug wills .com Doug wills .com Watch me Go ahead blog and may blog and i'm going to be in knoxville in a few months in october
57:48
Yeah, right, right the fight left feast thing. Yeah. Yes, and i'm i think i've i've communicated with gabe
57:55
Uh tentatively we've got a uh a time we're gonna get together with them So maybe you can drop by we can meet in person.
58:01
That'd be awesome Yeah, thank you again, sir, if I can ever be of assistance to you, you let me know hope you have a great day