Live Dividing Line at ReformCon 2022!

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. We are at ReformCon 2022. I will confess that I Really didn't know what to expect

I did not know how many people were gonna be here or from where or anything like that at all and It's a really nice venue and so far.

We've been having a lot of fun Hopefully we'll be having some in fact. We have a guest coming right now.

In fact to join us, but I've already spoken this morning, which means everyone has gotten their nap and are rested up now that I'm out of the way and But we have some other folks that haven't spoken yet and come on in brother.

We're we're we're doing it we're doing things live here and One of the folks that will be speaking

I think primarily tomorrow tomorrow Greetings and welcome and let's turn the no this this camera here

There you go Should be familiar to the audience of The Dividing Line except you're normally sitting on a flat panel screen

And in fact, I I don't think we've had you on from England yet. You haven't been over there all that long No, just a couple of months actually.

Yeah, I mean that is home. It is home. Yeah. Yeah, so Honestly, where would you rather be

England or Canada? Well, let's just say I'm I'm glad at this stage in my life with my family's be back in England.

Okay With with your World Economic Forum Prime Minister And and your digital currency and yeah, it's it's all anyway, we won't go into the depressing things right now even though one of the funniest things

I saw was a book that has yet to come out about the rise to power of Liz truss and the authors are like Getting ready to jump off a bridge or something like that because that didn't really

No, even though she's got quite the nice pension, yeah What is it?

140 something. Yeah somewhere in the region of her. Yeah, if you've been Prime Minister you get this Oh, I think it's about a hundred and ten maybe a hundred and seven.

That's yeah That's not bad for 44 days Especially because she's not that old

I think there is a question mark over whether she's gonna accept it being the shortest serving Prime Minister Yes, I think she has a legal right to it.

Well, she probably does she probably does. Yeah, so And I'm very thankful that you were able to join us after your period of mourning for the

Queen You know, I actually you know when I heard about it, I have been thinking for a long long time

That I just I I thought she was the most classy world leader around There was a level of stability there.

You know when you think of 70 years is fairly fair amount of time and The King I could ask you lots of interesting questions about theologically and Just real quickly.

I heard confirmed for me whether this turn up Bishops in the

Church of England The new Prime Minister has a role in help in in actually in picking them with the king

Is that true the most senior bishops? Yeah, okay, like the Archbishop of Canterbury the the Prime Minister does have a does have a role and the

Prime Minister is a Hindu That is now correct. Yes, in fact,

I think he was just I think I just saw that he hosted some sort of Yali celebration at Downing Street.

Yes. He was lighting candles. That's right, which All this raises some interesting questions

Because we're talking about Christian nationalism in the United States but England has

The church baked in Yeah but Looking at the church in England and what has happened with it.

Is there something to learn? about the necessity of regeneration when we're talking about When we talk about the kingdom of Christ and an application and culture a lot of what

My background was is You push that away because every time it's been have it's been tried in the past it ended up in nominalism

How do you how do you avoid them? I'm not sure. There is a

Way to entirely avoid the possibility of nominalism. I mean, we've seen it in even in new church movements

Amongst the independents. I mean if you look at some of the most apostate churches today Methodism Presbyterianism Where there would have been an emphasis on regeneration holiness and holiness and holiness movements and yet they've slumped into formalism nominalism and then eventually, you know

Apostasy, I mean you've hit on some really interesting things and actually even as you were kind of Reading them back to me the recent history a few things were occurring

The I mean the one of the interesting things about the Queen's passing The timing of it this year

She wrote she designed her own funeral. Yes years and years ago. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's like 20 years ago and if you actually there was there were actually two services what one was at in London, of course at the

Abbey and then the other was at Windsor Castle and Both were actually quite powerful

I found the the second one perhaps a little bit even even more powerful than that than the main than the first one and four billion people

Yes, nearly four billion people were watched in whole or in part that funeral and the scripture readings

It was incredible. It was that it was like watching a gospel message So and that kind of spoke to the the issue you mentioned of with respect to Elizabeth that there was a kind of soft power

We talk about soft power she had very little formal power when people sort of say well Why didn't the Queen put a stop to this and the

Queen could have put a stop to that? That work that way monarchy's changed over the over the centuries

And so the power that she had was soft power and if she had turned away some of these bills from Parliament I mean it would have immediately created a constitutional crisis and a

Question of you know, what does politics look like? We may essentially a revolutionary Political action would have been to say

I'm not signing that that bill into law And it would have created now some might argue.

Maybe she should have created a constitutional crisis perhaps but the point is it that her influence was soft power and when she died and I actually was

Much more affected by it than I thought I would be I mean she is you know what people say, you know That when they when you referred to the

Queen there was only one person that people had in mind Yeah, even though there's lots of Queens in Europe. It was the

Queen Elizabeth because she projected this incredible sense of stability. She was there in many respects the last

Touchstone of old Christendom. She was the last referent for people to that from that older Christian era and there was an interesting article in the

Telegraph a major British broadsheet a couple of days later that I was interested in and the headline of it was

Britain is yearning for traditional Christianity. Hmm and it was this it was this incredible moment where Very few people are relatively speaking now

Church of England's fallen below a million people Are in church on a Sunday morning in an

Anglican Church? Listening to the gospel and yet four billion people tuned into the gospel at the end of the

Queen's life the point being The the the mainline churches have thought that if we water down the gospel if we have a if we have a

More politically correct woke version that we think is going to be less offensive. It's going to draw people It's going to be more attractive.

It's gonna be more relevant and actually the opposite is true And even the Daily Telegraph realized that this is what people think

Christianity should be there at the Queen's funeral So it was it was hard on from that perspective.

It was also difficult from the other point you raise which is who's following her and Into the into into the role now, you know there would had been talked previously about well when

Elizabeth dies is going to be a Constitutional crisis and people are gonna be calling for the for the end to the

Establishment in England and so on Charles is gonna be defender of the faiths plural and everything That didn't really happen.

And in fact, he said that he made quite clear that he was committed to his mother's faith And that he was going to defend the faith

And take his role seriously as a as an Anglican How seriously one can take that given his track record

That's a problem. And I think the proof of the pudding will be in the eating I also think it was significant that Liz truss was the last prime minister that Queen Elizabeth Invited to form a government and basically within a few weeks has been a coup because she wants a small state

She's a nominal Christian, but she wants a small state. She wants to cut taxes. She wants to basically put a have a war on woke and The market said no yeah, at least the markets influenced by the articles from the elites from the banks from the and the all of the

Opposition that she immediately now one kids one could argue and it has been argued. Well if she did delivered these punches slowly

And the presentation had been better for a budget and you know quasi quiet time had done it slightly differently

Maybe there's some merit to that that it could have been handled differently and therefore gone over better But I was speaking to one of our fellows

Graham Leach, he's a Remarkable Christian economist in the UK thought it was the both the best budget and the best

Cabinet since the era of Margaret Thatcher. Hmm But that's not what the the elites want.

They don't want the state rolled back. They don't want the The state largess and the handouts and and they don't actually

I would argue not sure they even want incredible growth and productivity to release the small business businessman and the ordinary working person and the have the self -employed into prosperity and so within a few weeks you have a coup giving us the shortest -serving

Prime Minister in British history and then the coronation really of Our new

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Who happens to be Hindu now and Wealthier than the king and healthier than the king.

He married a billionaire I think she's a billionaire And and I think he also has a green card

Now it's been interesting to see what some of the Christian commentators have said because they've sort of said well better a competent Hindu Than an incompetent nominal

Christian And on the surface that sounds plausible, but then the next minute, you know, you've got

Diwali Celebrations happening at Downing Street and I would say that and in fact,

I was in the process of writing a short article on this is that I Think that Rishi Sunak is a reasonably competent politician and he's

Actually got some some solid people in his cabinet including people like Kemi Bonadek Who I'm not sure

I've got her name quite right there, but that's close Kemi who's a who's a devout

Christian an evangelical and the only reason that in a certain sense

Rishi's Perspectives don't represent a direct is religious perspectives Don't currently represent a direct threat to British politics is because he's been radically watered down by Christianity Hmm, and that's the point.

He's operating within a Christian constitutional arrangement and I'd have to sit down with the man to discover what he really believed about Hinduism and so forth

But presumably he's not going to try and institute the caste system in the UK we're not gonna be reintroducing the burning of of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, so he's got a

Christianized Western version of Hinduism That allows him actually people a lot of Christian commentators fail to appreciate that they say oh what a triumph for religious pluralism and you know

He's a Christianized. He's a he's in the Conservative Party. He's a he's a Christianized Hindu Who is now operating within that framework and the the the actual root religious motives of the faith?

He professes don't have can't take Can't take the reins And you know,

I'm not even sure that he would How committed he would how much is he a nominal Hindu is difficult to answer

But I do think there's been something of a coronation there of a Prime Minister who wasn't picked by the

Conservative Party faithful But he was the elites choice and and the first Prime Minister therefore that King Charles the third invites to form a government is a

Hindu Right Whereas the last one that Elizabeth the second invited to form a government was a nominally

Christian Conservative so it's a very interesting time in the UK, but there is some

Growing pushback against Wokery. There's been a closing of the of the of the the gender clinic.

Yes there's mermaids, which is a radical trans Organization in the

UK is now under investigation And you've got several in the current cabinet who are

Basically being tasked with pushing back against some of this woke agenda. We've had a piece of legislation that's enforcing freedom of speech in the college campuses because it was disappearing

So there are a few small positive signs, but they are few and far between and what people seem to want is

Bread and circuses. Yeah. Yeah, and The the same situations you all were facing in Canada remain as far as the restrictive legislation and You don't see much in the way of bright lights.

Well, it's getting worse. Well, but but the in Alberta Yeah in Alberta, you did have at least the new premier there.

Yeah, it's pushing back a little bit So that's the most conservative province in Canada and the premier there would be the equivalent of a governor of a state, right?

Okay, so How much authority does she really have? Over against yeah some decree from Trudeau Well, there is actually a the

Wild Rose Party in Alberta is is pushing for either full separation or at least a much greater degree of independence for Alberta Alberta is the is the one province that has talked about this for a long time and there are certain

Constitutional potentialities in Alberta that would allow them to to separate

How much traction wild rose really has is is is difficult to say but she is certainly where the new premier is certainly aware that there are a lot of people in Alberta who are sick to the back teeth of the federal government

And historically that's often been true in in in that part of the of the country and so She's pushing back a bit.

She'd so in in Canada. You've got certain powers are Devolved to the provinces including things like Education and health and a certain amount of taxation, too

So the powers actually interestingly of a provincial Parliament in Canada are actually probably even greater than a regional

Governor in a state governor in the in the USA but they never used mainly because or they're very rarely ever used mainly because much of The Canadian provinces are on the take from the federal government.

And so it's always about the taps being turned off If if there's any kind of pushback, so that's that's part of the issue

But in terms of the broader Canadian landscape over the last Six months 12 months things from a legislative point of view just keep getting worse.

So we've now got bill c11 Which is now in in its final readings in the

Senate Which is basically a bill to put it bluntly And if people want to check my

Twitter feed they can see an article from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms on this bill the bill c11 It's going to give basically control of Internet content to the federal government videos

Podcasts, it'll be it Basically hands to the hands the key levers of authority and power

To the federal government to essentially start controlling the Internet in Canada It's it's a highly dangerous bill bill c11

And then you've got the expansion of what they call made coming up now in March next year in Canada Which is medical assistance in dying.

So again when this starts you're told well It's just gonna be for people who've several doctors have said they're terminally ill and they're like They're almost about to die and we're just gonna give them dignity

Well, lo and behold, it's been expanding and expanding and expanding and now Canada is facing in the new year

Children and depressed people being legally Euthanized they call them mature minors.

So children who are deemed mature enough to make the decision and people who are depressed will have assisted suicide made available to them and To top it all off.

I just had a pastor contact me from Canada. I was in Canada last week speaking and A pastor of a large church in Ontario contacted me said

Joe I've just had a situation this week. He said the police came to the church and They are threatening me with being charged with criminal harassment because we are exercising church discipline a member of the church received a letter from the elders about church discipline and He's being threatened with charges of criminal harassment

For church discipline in the life of the local church. These are some of the things that are actually

Are going on just north of the border with no sign of Letting up at the moment so with all that said obviously the subject of Christian nationalism in the

UK has a different Obviously a bit different background the the state church situation there makes

In Correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection is in the mission of God there was a section and I think

Rush Juney was quoted a number of times in regards to the nature of What would have to happen as far as a move of God To Bring about true conversion

Yeah, so as to any type of Quote -unquote Christian culture would have to be

Christian in reality Not merely in name. Yes, and I'm hearing a lot of people pushing back because again, as I said from my tradition the idea is

We've already tried this and it it fails every single time So what has to be different,

I mean, you know, you look at a Charles you look at You look at his life You look at Diana you look at Marriage you look at his view of sexuality and everything else and you just go ouch

That that's not what we would we wouldn't Well, we'd be facing doing discipline.

Yeah And in that in that situation, and of course you can't when he's the head of the church But there's so much discussion of it now in the context of well, what's your other option?

Because we're seeing now what secular Globalism in essence is

And then on the other side you simply have political anarchy. Yes there has to be some guiding principle and yet to have obedience to God's law that is something other than Formalistic that's that actually flows from the heart

There has to be a large number of actual Christians in a society Yeah, isn't that isn't that required shall we say before you can even be speaking?

And so what are we talking about when we talk about Christian nationalism? They are we simply saying to our society?

You need to have objective standards that are that can be passed from one generation to the next and secularism cannot provide you with any thing like that and therefore

Christ or chaos. Yeah is is is that all we're doing until There is this major move of the

Spirit of God that changes Hearts and minds because right now I look around the hearts and minds and my heart breaks because there is a love of death

There is a love of self -destruction There's a hatred of God's law and a hatred of God's way that is all around us.

Yeah That doesn't that have to change? Yeah. Yeah, I see where you I see your thought process in this

It is a It's an interesting question because Part of the situation we're in now is is uncharted territory.

I mean before we were pagan and then we Christianized and it was because people were becoming

Christians and because of the Transformation this degree and it was gradual.

It was steady it was it was gradual change and it took of course the Reformation and men like John Knox and John Calvin and the

Puritan Revolution in England and even the the Glorious Revolution post 1688 to actually get us to the the point

Where we could have something like the the evangelical awakening in in England So I I think if you look at the history of it you see both things going on you see

What we might call political struggles and squabbles about which states are going to be Catholic and which are going to be

Protestant which probably which were not primarily driven by regeneration of matters of the heart and then at the same time without the

There would have been no lasting Impact for some of those political changes hadn't if there hadn't been

Incredible fruit in evangelism and Christian education and so on going on at the same time So we are in this uncharted territory because we've with this decrystallizing point

Secularization and secularism is fade failing all around us. It's collapsing multiculturalism is imploding radical

Progressivism is eating itself alive and Where does the where does the culture actually go now if we look at say the the arrangement in England And of course you have the slightly different arrangement in Scotland with with Presbyterianism King Charles the third is the titular head of the

Church of England So it's a ceremonial role and the 39 articles make clear that he has no

Authority inside the life of the church. He hasn't the authority to teach the word or administer the sacraments

So there is a there there is a maintenance of a distinction between the role of church and state within the constitutional arrangement in England that of course has allowed the proliferation of freedom for all kinds of denominations historically

They didn't need to enforce Anglicanism That was a struggle, you know that you know the history of all of that and you know that for a time

Even some of the Presbyterians would have liked and would have liked a Presbyterian establishment in England and so these different Protestant reforms denominations

It took time to figure out what was going to be the the the ideal arrangement Where we are

I think now in a place like England is we're surrounded now with these cultural vestiges of Christianity It's like the archaeology of Christian, but it's a kind of living archaeology.

I mean, that's what you saw with the Queen's funeral Yeah, you see this sort of living a

Yeah, that's probably the best term for it a living archaeology of these vest cultural vestiges of the

Christian faith and people casting about now for some kind of sense of identity some kind of sense of security as all of the

Areas that we used to think of was sure and firm. I mean a lot of the grief over the Queen is Is people grieving over the fact that that there was a symbol of security of stability and now she's gone

They'd actually fully appreciate that. The only reason she was that symbol and that she had these

Virtues that people so appreciated was the depth of her Christian faith. That's what Made her who she was and you know people sort of praising her sense of duty and loyalty and all this

Well, those virtues don't just drop down out of the sky. They're the product of a deep religious commitment which speaks to the your point, which is where is society going to go if you've not got virtue and duty and Responsibility and justice and righteousness and so on and these things being in central to society what's going to happen to it?

so it's I think that part of the key is Despite the

Reformation and despite the English Revolution we get to a point in the 70s at the 1700s.

So the 18th century where things are a terrible mess and there's a there is a real very real threat of a revolution breaking out in England like in France and there was a genuine fear

That that might happen but then you had men like George Whitfield and John Wesley Taking who were

Anglicans actually and he remained Anglicans taking to the fields because some of the

Ministers and the bishops would not let them into the pulpits to preach to preach the fullness of the gospel and regeneration and repentance and renewal was was a big part of it and that produced men like William Wilberforce and Who was about the political?

cultural Reforms and it wasn't just the one that he's most remembered for which is of course the abolition of the slave trade but it was also the well what he called the

Essentially the recovery of morals right for for for Britain, what would it mean to?

Have a reformation of morals and so there were various instruments of government to suppress vice

Wilberforce talked about the fact that if you can Culturally suppress the small things that are considered the smaller vices

You deal what you naturally would to deal with the bigger ones And that he realized took education.

And so there was a big Educational movement at that time and by the time Queen Victoria is

Queen Victoria is a child and she's being prepared for the throne She's got an evangelical chaplain so And yet at that point only a relatively small percentage of the

Anglican clergy were truly evangelical So it was you see there.

I think of both and now I'm not trying to suggest that that the 18th century was

Analogous to our situation in so far as it was a still more

Christianized culture From a structural from the plausibility structure point of view than our own

But I think there may be a lesson there in this. I mean John Wesley's last letter the very last letter he ever wrote was to William Wilberforce hmm and it was a letter of encouragement and it was telling him that you know, if if if if if If God before you who can be against you, but men and devils are gonna wear you out if this isn't the work of God And Wesley understood certainly as did

Whitfield the importance of this of Regeneration the power of the Holy Spirit to even get these cultural political tasks actually done.

So I think of course, it's a both and Where are things gonna go now if we were looking into if we're asking ourselves as we look at scripture and history, you know

How do we prophesy into this situation? I do think we're getting pushing towards a point where it's

Christ or chaos where We're gonna we are increasingly seeing the radical decay of Of course in Britain.

There's the threat of Islam too as you will know because of the sheer numbers of Muslims in the country and their aspirations and their goals for European society

The question is are we gonna see a turning back towards Christ or are we gonna see a further falling off?

and I think the the only way to That what will determine that question in the sovereignty of God, of course is how the

Christian Church responds now How Christians respond in these next couple of decades?

To what is taking place if we if there is if there is a continued retrenchment in pietism in retreat ism in escapism in creating two kingdoms doctrines of Radical separation of of this age or the age to come or of nature and grace then

I don't see anything but a falling away of our cultures into complete decadence and then it will be a missionary effort from the global south to try and recover our nations for the gospel in the future, but if the church now can

Get a hold of a transformationalist vision of the gospel Rooted in the transformation of the regeneration of the heart to touch every single area of life

You don't need a massive majority to change your culture. We know this from looking at the radical woke queer movement tiny tiny percentage of radicals radical intellectuals getting into Largely from the

Frankfurt School, of course getting into US universities spreading their poison. Of course it

There was a similar movement coming out of the French Revolution And we've been living in the wake of that ever since but that radical movement, you know pre -world war two

That then exported itself to the West tiny numbers of people radically changing the culture 120 in the upper room filled with the

Holy Spirit And so I think there it's hard. I struggle with sometimes flip -flopping between Hope and despair.

Yes on this one yes, and so it is hard to live in that that middle space of Well, we can only be faithful in our time and generation and God is able to do the miracles that That we perhaps can't even imagine right now in our cultural moment.

Just kick the camera down there that's that's the that's the challenge for me is holding together the the promised hope

Together with the reality that there are There are some real deep valleys that we've already gone through in the past and and could be facing another situation

We're we'll be looking at that again If that's God's will then our role is to be faithful and wherever we're placed but you said something there and this wasn't what

I was thinking about talking about but I I Really wonder What happened in the

UK and in Europe as a whole because of the horrific loss of life and death

In World War one. Yeah, and we're we're I mean World War one was just a slaughter pen. You just you know

The numbers were astonishing for you know for ten yards worth of land and then you had the the bombing in World War two and and in Germany, you know

You know, we think about the bombing in England Yes, but by the time the end of the war it was the

Allies that were taking out entire cities Dresden Dresden did not have to happen.

I think we can honestly say that was just completely inappropriate and wrong and it just seems to me like there was a

A Fundamental cultural change after because it was two wars, but they were so close together and so they impacted two generations massively, but it just seems like the 60s and the rebellion and the collapse of ethics and morality and and a recognition of The worth of life that's the generation coming after the ones that experienced the horrors of the war and I think it happened more slowly here because the war didn't happen here

That there was there were no buildings. There was you know, yeah, it all took place over here And yeah, we lost a lot of people but in comparison to the

UK or Germany or something is infinitesimal It just seems like wars like that If they're undertaken on Cultural There was some when when there's when the guys jumped off those boats at Normandy there there was still the impetus the momentum of a

Christian culture and self -sacrifice. Yeah, and these people were fighting our evil and and So we're doing it for this reason

That's gone. Yeah, and so it just seems like there was a massive change as the reason as a result of this huge loss of life and Maybe the maybe the church just didn't address it.

Maybe the church just didn't see it coming But I feel like we're still dealing with the results of all of that and have just never really realized

How much changed? When all those men did not come back or as we know now many of them that did came back so damaged and so Destroyed internally and we just didn't we just told people to get over it get back to doing what you're what you were doing

And it just makes me wonder a little bit. Yeah, if in hindsight, we could have done something a whole lot better and if if that did not hasten the

Abandonment of any type of commitment to the Christian faith and to the idea of God and purpose and Things that made such a difference in the past in Western culture.

I'm sure that's right. I mean Can you I don't think you can look at those two conflagrations that the worst in all of human history

So fun so far and not imagine that they wouldn't have a radical impact culturally

We have to of course see an element of the judgment of God On Western culture in those two great wars

Churchill called World War two, of course that the fight for the survival of Christian civilization So you're right when those men were landing on the beaches and whatever arenas of war they were in in World War two they saw themselves as Fighting for something that really mattered fundamentally religiously

That it was a fight for the survival of civilization itself of Christian civilization itself

And of course after the war Churchill is is stunned by the fact that he's thrown out of office

Having delivered victory and the people vote for socialism and so There's a there's a there's some other factors here and you know this history better than me but at the end of the 19th century by the end of the 19th century, you've got these philosophies and theologies developing of progress of Utopian basically philosophies at the end of the 19th century that really see man on this

Inextricable upward curve and Marxism has this inbuilt notion of progress and utopia inbuilt and What you're seeing is the secularization of post -millennialism, right?

you're saying the secularization of they think that they can they can Deracinate they can they can strip a

Christian eschatology of the Christ and the God and the kingdom of God and a

Christian anthropology and a Christian anthropology and Build the kingdom of man and you can retain that was liberalism's essence, wasn't it?

You can retain the morals you can retain the virtues But you don't need the Christ of Scripture And this was already happening in the churches and it was happening at the end of the 19th century it was making deep inroads and I Think then that with the wars and then the men going away and I think you make a very important point there

That this loss of the men of fathers and the ones that did come back

Are so broken. I'm in my own grandfather Radically damaged and broken by the war post -traumatic stress and they didn't fully even understand that Then they didn't they didn't know how to shock.

Yeah and He was so incapacitated

Emotionally and mentally until actually later his conversion, but even then, you know, the damage was there

By the war that he wasn't able to raise his four sons and daughter in the way that he would have wanted

And that damage gets it gets passed down And to the next generation and I don't know whether you remember

Mary Abba starts book how the West really lost God and She talks about Sociologically, we usually make the assumption that people stop believing in God and then they stop believing in the family

And the family collapses so you stop believing in God the family collapses she says that's only half true when you study it sociologically as Family collapses as fatherhood and family ebbs away

People stop believing in God the father and so I found that a very interesting book she talks about this reciprocal relation between collapse of the family and then collapse of belief and so I think that it's interesting that with those wars and The steady because what followed as you said was, you know in the 60s

Was the radical destruction of the normative structure of the family and sexual ethics and morals

Well it from a fatherless generation. They called my grandparents generation England the silent generation The silent generation you didn't pass on the values of that older world to to the next generation and so partly because you may have lost

Faith in them you had seen such terrible horrible things exactly that why bother?

precisely, and I think that that following that as then the family starts to collapse and And the men started emptying out of the churches that was followed by the women and you know, the decades that followed but the men left first and Then you'd so then you start getting this radical process of decrystallization

So I think that the these false secular eschatologies that were all about the

Parliament of man and his inconquerable greatness in in in in in taking over all of history and bending it and the universe itself to His will and then he's hit with two

World Wars shows his own failure doing all of that shows the absolute failure of of the of the liberalism that had made such

Inroads into the churches too and then because that was already sewn that was already there

I mean one of my ancestors was involved in the formation of the United Church of Canada Which was a merger of the

Methodists and the Presbyterians in 1925 became the largest Protestant denomination in Canada 20 years later 34 30 35 years later.

The denomination is being decimated today. The United Church of Canada is a real estate board They just all they do is sell property.

I mean, I'm Exaggerating the point. I mean they still call themselves a church But all they're doing is selling all the buildings that they they can't put people in anymore

So I think it's a combination of those factors and I do think that those those terrible wars played a part in that but I asked myself when you look at conflict now in Europe with Russia and Ukraine and the immediate threat to the

United Kingdom and all of that would would my generation And would the generation under me?

Go to war in terms of justice and truth and and and the whole idea of Of Christian civilization of righteousness,

I don't think the courage is there. I don't think the belief is there Now that the words of Churchill would would ring very hollow.

Yeah, there's there's no The lexicon has been changed. That's right. The lexicon has been changed completely and that that's why

I I look at our situation and I Understand what people are saying people are saying we need

To tell the world This is where if you're tired of the chaos No, I I have a

I don't know if you've seen these but there's these LED strips They're made of LED lights so you can you can put a message across them

And I have I've got one the back of my truck. I'm on the back of my RV and One the back of the

RV I can run while I'm driving. So I have axe Act 1731 about the coming judgment

That's scrolling across the back while I'm driving. I'm eventually gonna get shot or run off the road or something.

I would assume But in my truck I have a briefer message that says it's

Christ or chaos and personally I'm tired of the chaos And I've got to remember I have it running because you have people pull up next to you and They'll pull into your blind spot and then they're just sitting there and I'm like, what are you doing?

Well, they're reading my message and I and I keep forgetting about it and then they they're pulling First I'm like what and then oh, yeah.

Hey cool. Yeah I have to keep in mind that I've got the thing going but it but it's true.

It's It's Christ or chaos and I'm tired of the chaos. Mm -hmm. And and we see this we see this chaos happening around us right now and Look that people are looking to us who have a voice.

Yeah To give direction In a pretty unique situation.

I know the scripture says there's nothing new under the Sun. That doesn't mean that there aren't new

Conjugations of evils and things I've often said from my perspective

It seems to me that the greatest evil that has ever stood up on planet

Earth is secularism because it is the Exact negation of everything that Christ teaches is good

Every that there's no purpose there's no judgment there's there's no meaning all these things is what secularism is saying and so if Christ's enemies

Need to be put under his feet Something's gonna happen that is going to do that to secularism now you were saying earlier, but you know

We're seeing it coming apart at the seams Part of me is concerned because I have to wonder if that isn't exactly what they want

To create such a position of chaos. Yeah that once people are in chaos They're willing to say look we just want order no matter what that order is authoritarian order authoritarian totalitarian order

And they'd be willing to accept that And the problem is as soon as that comes in There's a they're not going to be doing that on the basis of transgender rights or anything else

They're gonna get rid of all that stuff but they're also going to establish

It would seem to me a very anti -christian attitude in the process because you can't have totalitarianism

When you have the principle of freedom principle of freedom that comes from the risen

Christ So as I as people are looking to Christian leaders

The past few years Have demonstrated that up until this point outside of a few weirdos at Frankie Schaefer's house

And at Rush Dooney's house, and maybe they ran into each other once in a while or something we were

Quite happy to just get along. Yeah, and didn't put a whole lot of thought into all this stuff now

You had the mission of God before Kovat and stuff like that and and you obviously addressed a number of things there though clearly

Even you would probably go I'd want to add this this this and this to what

I wrote back then now in light of what we've experienced and sort of Ruler of Kings sort of adds that aspect of it

For for you. I'm speaking of dr. Boots books here But I'm I'm feeling a lot of weight as a

Christian leader because these are These are very weighty questions and they are they're coming from a position of I've never experienced this stuff.

Yeah, this is this is this is new territory and People keep asking well you teach church history.

So how do people handle this in the past and I go Well, they didn't that's the problem that we've never been in a situation where you literally have the ability on the part of governmental agencies to track

Every person's movements, they know exactly where they are They know and and and pretty soon to even even control their speech.

Yeah, what can and cannot be heard? It's really really hard to look in history and go.

Oh, yeah, they handled like this in past because we've never faced it before And so we're all having to think through a lot of stuff.

We really really are and Obviously You all up there in Canada, I think we're put into a pressure cooker

That we didn't like here in here in Arizona Most churches did close down.

Apologia didn't we were one of only how many you think there were two or three in the valley?

Yeah, that didn't And so we still had fair amount of freedom and and That magnified our voice.

Yeah, because people were then looking at Well, here's the church's didn't shut down So let's listen what they have to say, but you guys were up there in the pressure cooker.

You were facing the imminent possibility of Law enforcement officials showing up to your front door.

Yeah, I mean you and your family undoubtedly talked about that, right? Yeah. Yeah, and So you wrote out of that context and it makes a difference doesn't it does

It Talk to me a little bit about that. How did you feel that that changed?

Writing the book that that John Cooper and I wrote endorsements for Because because when

I listened to it John was asking me a lot of the same questions and I'm like So I think I think

I wrote you and said hey, can I can I can I slip a free publication copy to John? And yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I go ahead. So How did how did that pressure cooker? Change your writing process and your what you're what you feel you need to address.

Yeah Well, I Mean I wouldn't

I wouldn't want to say that mission of God was theoretical purely Because we were seeing all of the early signs of this and I was feeling in Canada at the time even though I was being called a hysteric and all this sort of stuff back in 2014

That You know as a as a pastoring a church as I was at that time as well in downtown Toronto I could see the questions changing

I could see what was changed things shifting and changing in the culture and the voices that I thought

Really mattered from the past were just not being heard and there was no interest in hearing them but with ruler of Kings We had and I was experienced the immediacy of my own ministry being effectively shut down we weren't

Technically allowed to be running programs for the for the Institute Fortunately, we had access to a farm property at the time and and so we were farming

During our during our programs, but we had My own church on one day had an invasion of the police

Into the church into the church building and I did have conversations with my wife about What's the plan right if and when they come to to arrest me and so on and there were of course several passes in Canada that actually did happen to So for me,

I guess there was a there was a greater sense of urgency To to the to the right does it clarify theology?

It certainly does it sort of cuts away some of the some of the excess there Yeah, and you're and you're less concerned

You're definitely less concerned about being sort of seemed to be measured I mean I had a chapter called the cult of the expert in there, right?

And I wasn't be concerned about trying to maintain some sort of academic distance in in the writing

It was absolutely it was becoming so clear and yet We were in and remain in a tiny minority in the

Canadian landscape And the major movements and the major evangelical movements basically in took a public stance against open churches and And I've been circling the wagons for the most part

Ever since trying to despite the fallout being so obvious and undeniable

I mean, there's all there's all kinds of talk now about Canada pioneering its ID system and I was even hearing from Political figures last week that mask mandates may might might be returning to Ontario and this kind of thing and so I think one of the key differences is that That sort of an added element in ruler of kings as well.

And you've you talked about it I mean number of years decades ago actually a book by of an obscure Dutch thinker called van recent he wrote a book called the society of the future and he talks in there about the the inescapable direction of Western culture with the abandonment of the principles of sphere sovereignty

Being totalitarianism that's 40 or 50 years ago He was writing about this and so the mask got torn off during those last two or three years of what was already going on Behind the scenes and I was kind of talking about a mission of God, but during that period

The mask gets ripped off and you see this technocratic Scientific socialist order that is wanting to impose itself on on society and as people saw up in Canada, you know the federal government seizing people's assets riding people down with horses who were holding candy floss and You know and having a street party the freedom convoy and all of that at the extent to which the state was ready to go tossing pastors into jail

Most most Christians couldn't have even have imagined that that even ten years ago. They'd have thought you'd we losing it

So I think it did help me at crystallized There is a certain in ruler of kings.

There is a certain development of thought especially especially in this area of the nature of a

Christian political thought That crystallizes for me in in ruler of kings and will continue to do so I trust as I continue to learn and develop

I Am absolutely convinced that we are simply in a hiatus right now

III They're they're retooling Climate's the next big one.

Oh it is it it is it is the mechanism they're going to use to Continue to push for this ultimate

Totalitarian technological totalitarian state and Something you touched on that almost no one touches on at all the transhuman transhumanism and the

Insertion of what we call medical devices, but really you know if you listen to Novel Noah Yuval Harari, yeah with the world economic forum

The next stage is in human evolution are all going to be you know the digital interface between the brain and the internet and all the things that come along with that and of course all the

DNA and everything else that we're doing If if these advances were taking place within the context of a

Christian worldview that's totally different. Yeah, then having these advances taking place within the context of Secular humanism that has absolutely no place for the value of individual human life

That's where I'm I'm looking at this situation and and and and going There's gonna be more clarification coming.

Yeah, and sooner rather than later. Yeah, we've got a little bit of a vacation here

But what do we do with this time? What what do we do with this time? Now I know well, we'll wrap up here in a moment but Ezra Institute is seeking to impact the next generation

Seeking to encourage young leaders we need people Who have well, let's just face it

Joe. You're younger than I am a little bit but we're Yeah Yes Yes, yes, okay you can stop there

But but still the fact the matter is we need the younger people who have the energy and the drive and We have to we have to be sowing into Investing into the next generations, especially if we are going to be facing this kind of tremendously difficult time

It's they and their children and their grandchildren That need to have a foundation that's going to last and give them that that place to rebuild because a society that can't tell just between a boy and a girl is not gonna last forever and a society that is built upon technological tyranny

Also cannot last It's it does scare me because I have grandchildren I Don't want them to go through this

But if they're going to then I have to do everything I can to give them the foundation to be able to do so Yeah, and it has to be a positive foundation.

Not a fearful foundation. Not a we're giving up and you know Don't polish the brass on a sinking ship type stuff

But it also has to be realistic in that we could go through some really challenging times and so You have your institutes.

Do you have in various locations? In hindsight in 2019 when

Jeff and Luke came up and they said yeah to cut you had to come along That would have been my one shot to get across the border and to get back get back again in one piece

Well, we're coming to America for you. So you can come you can turn up in your van. That's true But you're going to California, right?

Florida first. Okay. All right. Well, Florida is free. So we're good. We're good on Florida for now I'd avoid

California if I were you Anyway, sorry Californians. I did nothing nothing nothing personal there, but I like I like freedom but so you you're working to do that kind of investment into the into the next generation and that's what the

Ezra Institute's about and yeah, and So we we want to encourage you to continue to do that and get the word out through through this and Encourage people along those lines and and challenge them as well.

And so you're gonna be speaking I think tomorrow here What are you speaking about? So while my they gave me the broad subject of ruler of Kings So I'm gonna talk a little bit about The the fact that there is a there is a third alternative to we tend to think on Christians tend to think that you either we're either faced with this choice of a return to a unified ecclesiastical culture

Like that of the medieval world and that sort of the Constantinian boogeyman idea or we have to accept secularism, right?

And that's the those are the two choices and I'm gonna be saying what actually no, that's not Christian libertarianism.

That's right There is actually a third option here that hasn't perhaps fully been tried

Historically, and I think you made a very important point in saying that you know, we're as Christians. We're not opposed to cultural work we're not opposed to technology right and putting

Human thought human creativity that the making of tools And so on to use for for the glory of God the issue comes when

If science if the science is in the broadest sense human human knowledge are

Used to try instead of tracing out God's norms and laws are used to try and control and reorder society the first casualty is

Human free the human person is liquidated because freedom is is liquidated in a technocratic social order what we want is a

Christian order where we're putting all of our efforts all of our powers all of our gifts all of our humanity towards the glory of God and his kingdom and his order and that brings

Liberty So it's an order of tyranny or Liberty slavery or freedom. And so in my session tomorrow

I'm going to be just trying to give people an understanding of these how these two Primary ideas have diverged and how there is actually a third

Possibility that we can in obedience live under the Lordship of Christ and Apply in all of our cultural work and efforts including the areas of technology

And serve the Lord faithfully. So how do we avoid falling foul of that false dichotomy?

Basically, I think it'd be very very helpful because a lot of people They hear the standard objections and they're always based upon what was done in the past and yeah and that kind of thing and the the chapter that I listened to multiple times

To try to get hold of and you might find this interesting. I think it was because of my Eschatological past and how it was raised

Was I think I think it's the last or almost one of the last chapters on the distinction between the church and the kingdom

I'm gonna talk about that tomorrow. That was that was Incredibly helpful because if you were raised in a dispensational fundamentalist background, you know, you've you have to read that one three or four times to go

Okay It's such a shift. Yeah from from where you were to where you need to be to understand

Yeah, how to make application of these things. So I Bought a half case myself when it came out

Most people don't do that, but I but I did and I buy a few more skids to get me on the New York Times Jeff we got the budget for that.

I don't see Jeff around here. Anyways, he's hiding. So so yeah No, so I do highly recommend it. In fact friend of mine has a webcast up in Las Vegas and not

Las Vegas, Nevada area and I just thought he needed some encouragement. So I sent him a copy of To Amazon so it was another sale for you.

Thank you of the book and and I keep telling people Okay, get ready to be challenged.

You're not gonna it's not gonna be an easy read not in the sense of Difficult language, but I mean you are

British so I mean there is that and I think you misspell honor and labor and All -sorts of extra use you don't really need anywhere.

It could be a much shorter book without the all the extra big sins But Anyways, I sent that up to him and he say you say he's gonna get to it

So we keep trying our best to get that out there. So if you know We do have it here.

Okay, just so people know so all of my books None of it comes to me. It all funds the

Ezra Institute So when you buy a copy of mission of God or ruler of Kings it's all helping the Institute put on programs and Advance our work.

So we're just opening a new office in Tennessee in the USA and we're going to be starting to offer training in the

USA very soon and Well, that means I can put Chattanooga on my on my route list.

Absolutely Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so and I hope things are getting better because you know a few years ago

Things were so bad that you invited me to be one of your fellows So I'm hoping that things have have picked up sense

At least if we start doing stuff in the in the US you can actually come and speak I can actually do something be a proper fellow rather than on online online the internet which

For some reason the net never liked me being on with you guys. It's not as incarnational. Let's face it. That's true

That's true. That's true. That's true. Well, thank you sir very much for for joining us and I think we

I think we There you get pretty good pretty good close on that and we've got our we finally ended up with it with a studio audience

Because you were all in there watching a session which wasn't supposed to be going on right now anyways, so there you go, but thanks for thanks for showing up for the dividing line and We'll see you next time.