Honor the Son W/Nathan Anderson

Matthew 16 and the Signs of the Times

In Matthew 16, Jesus chastised the Pharisees who could interpret the appearance of the sky but failed to interpret the signs of the time in which they lived. Who are the Pharisees of our day?

This strong hold of sort of whiteness and white identity and pristineness is really part of what keeps us from making progress.

We need to do better. The Church, rich in theological scholarship, has lingered in academic sanctuaries and ivory towers, failing to translate its lofty doctrines into a tangible and practical cultural apologetic.

At the Worldview Youth Academy we bridge this critical gap. Here theological depth is not an end in itself but a means to engage with contemporary cultural issues for the glory of God and the expansion of his kingdom.

Our mission is to cultivate thinkers who can articulate and apply Christian truths within contemporary societal challenges. So embrace this call to worship God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your mind.

We will do better as this next generation tears down the idols of our modern culture and works to build a brighter future toward Christendom. 2 .0.

Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their.

Courage.

Go into all the world and make disciples, not go into the world and make buddies, not to make brosives, don't go into the world and make homies, disciples.

I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, pastor.

When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

Psalm 2 and Honoring the Son

Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. That is Psalm 2 .12, one of my favorite verses, and you know the Ben Merkel version, translation?

Yes. You've told me before.

Kiss the son, lest you get smoked.

Yeah.

I like that one better, but nonetheless, it's a great verse and it's perfect for today's show.

Very perfect.

Which we'll get into here. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. Luke DeBear here, hosting again. Pastor Jeff is currently at the hospital with one of his twins, so he can be praying for.

Them.

I know they'd appreciate it, and I've got the little Zeezers on my left here.

Yeah, that's me.

Good to be here. Back in the street.

Director of Communications for End Abortion. Now. What's going on with EAN right now that we need to let the people know about?

So, we are, of course, always working to impact the church on a national scale, and of course impact our culture and legislative offices with the truth on life and biblical justice, of course, we're working towards with the gospel here, but right now the fight is local.

Arizona.

The wicked and their efforts to harm the lives of babies in the womb all the way up to the moment of birth, so there's a lot going on on that front, yeah, currently.

We be telling them legislators to kiss the sun.

Kiss the sun. Yeah, this is a preeminent example of that, an application of that text.

Right.

Well, we'll get into this quickly here. We got a special guest with us, but first I want to mention one of our sponsors, Ion.

Layer.

We both got today.

Yep.

Got it right here.

I see they went back to the regular overlay patch because those ones with the doubles were kind of a pain in the rear end.

Yeah.

Well, I'm sure they're always getting better at their craft.

But we love Ion Layer. They've been great partners with us for the sake of the gospel, and we're grateful for their product, their NAD patches. And I know we talk about them a lot, but you can go to ionlayer .com and put an apology in the coupon code to get a sweet discount on their product.

So I'll talk about the other sponsors later. Right now I'm excited to bring in our special guest all the way from Chile. What is it?

Pichilimu?

Did I say it right?

Pichilimu. Lemu.

Chile.

Luca has one language that he's proficient at.

It's true.

He's practicing.

Nathan, what's up, man? How are you doing?

Doing good, Luke. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'm excited. We've been planning this for a while, actually.

Yeah.

If you don't know Nathan Anderson, get to know him through his creative works, documentaries, films that he's producing. Great stuff.

Yeah.

So why do we have you on today, Nathan? You just did something.

Yeah.

I just finished a film, a documentary called Honor the Sun, and released that a few weeks ago now, I think. And yeah, it's available on numerous platforms to watch, on my YouTube channel, also on the Wrath and Grace app, the Relearn app, and the Boniface Media app as well.

So yeah, a few different places people can check it out.

Well, we'll get into that more. This is actually your third documentary, correct?

Yes. So this is my second full-length documentary. I also did a docu-series called Teach All Nations. That was my second project, but yeah, this is my third project.

What has the response been to your works here?

It's been good. It's been good. I mean, to be honest, it's been a long process, at least a year and a half since I started filming and working on this. So I'm excited just to finally get that out there, have something finished, and out there for the world to see.

So yeah, I've been really blessed and really excited by the response. And also, there's a lot of people that haven't seen my other projects, and so either they saw this one first and then saw the other ones, or vice versa, basically.

So been a lot of that as well.

Postmillennialism and the Outworking of a Biblical Worldview

Yeah.

I'm getting a distinctive theme also from the titles of these, that you might have a certain outlook on the future of the gospel, and its triumph in history, and the nations being taught and brought to their king, and all of the good stuff that we've talked about here for a little while.

So it sounds like that perspective is shared.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Not very subtle, not very nuanced in that, for sure. Yeah, definitely. The theme that kind of ties all these together is a post-millennial outlook, especially the first film, On Earth As It Is In Heaven, it really digs into the issue of post-millennial eschatology.

And what I've tried to do with these other projects is kind of build on that foundation. Not so much go back and try to present and redefend and kind of post-millennialism, but show the outworkings of that longer view of history, that longer kind of long-term view of faithfulness over time, and how that might look like from a Christian worldview perspective.

So, yeah, just tell us what your thought process was in doing them in the order that you have. Because you said you were kind of trying to lay out the thought there, so bring us into that.

Yeah, good question. So, well, the first film, it was pretty straightforward. Even when I started the project, my original goal was, I live here in Chile, South America, most people speak Spanish. And there wasn't a lot of Spanish resources out on post-millennialism.

And so I wanted to make my first documentary just a Spanish documentary about post-millennialism, just to have that as a resource for people here. And through a long series of events, the whole Spanish part didn't work out, and I ended up doing it in English, ultimately.

Oh, okay.

I got the chance to interview Pastor Doug Wilson and a few other, you know, Ken Gentry, Steve Gregg, a number of other folks. And, you know, it just ended up making more sense to release it in English.

But that was my original thought process. And, you know, by God's grace, that film, you know, it reached a lot of people, at least a lot more people than I expected to reach with it. And so after that, you know, after having On Earth as it is in Heaven out there, you know, Teach All Nations, my idea was kind of just to, yeah, further develop kind of a biblical worldview and what the outworkings of that would look like in the area, you know, different areas of life, in the area of economics, in the family, in the church, and even in politics.

But there is an episode, the last one is kind of on the issue of politics, but obviously there's a lot more that could be said there. And so really, in some ways, my third film, Honor the Son, is kind of a continuation of that fifth and final episode of Teach All Nations, and kind of digging into that whole issue of the intersection of faith and politics in a longer documentary form.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, yeah, it was excellent. I really enjoyed it.

You were part of it?

That was fun. I got to hang out at ReformCon a little bit, and he interviewed me, so thank you. That was cool to be a part of that. And I think I was the ugly sandwich in between two excellent slices of bread.

I think Toby and Andrew Sandlin, maybe.

Did you just give yourself a nickname there?

Ugly Sandwich.

You better be careful. That might stick with you. The Ugly Sandwich.

I've been called worse.

Oh, man. No, it's good stuff.

Yeah.

Really good stuff. I love all three. And like you said, the third one, the most recent one, I watched not too long ago, and you can tell, as you say, the progression. Like, you are applying now the biblical perspective of the future, but showing its application in the present, and in particular for the realm of civil government and Protestant political theory, and how Christians are to think through these types of issues, applying our worldview specifically to areas that Christians haven't been in recent history.

Right?

Like, it wasn't always this way. It wasn't just, you know, in recent history that we started to, you know, do these things. Our forebearers, you know, thought deeply about these things and how to apply the biblical worldview to every area of life.

But it seems like you're not just, you know, as a filmmaker, you're telling stories. You know, you're telling a story in a specific way, though, in seeking to recover what we would be convicted to believe are these biblical truths.

And these biblical truths have led to gospel freedom, gospel blessing for the world, the prosperity of entire nations and people groups that have internalized the Christian teachings. As a storyteller, what is your aim?

What are you trying to get across in talking about, you know, this biblical perspective of the future, postmillennialism, its various applications? What are you aiming at, and what are you hoping that people will see through the stories that you're telling?

The Documentary as a Conversation Starter

Yeah, so my aim in all of this is to start a conversation about a lot of these different topics. I obviously, and this is something that's been a criticism from some people in terms of some of my films.

It's like, well, he didn't talk about this, this, and that, and he didn't bring this issue in. But the idea with a documentary like that, it's not a work of systematic theology where we're just going to cover every issue related to these topics.

But it hopefully is enough to spark a conversation or to at least present some of these different pastors and theologians. And someone goes, oh, well, you know, maybe who's that guy? You know, maybe he's written a book on this subject and allow people to dig in a little.

Deeper.

And so that's really the hope I have with these films, you know, just to be a conversation starter. And also with the fact that today all of them are available for free, you know, it's as easy as you could just send a link, you know, to your friend and say, hey, watch this.

Or what do you think about this section over here? And so it's a great resource right now for people to share and to just, you know, or watch in their church, small group, or, you know, a lot of different venues in that sense.

Well, at that point, man, I appreciate I appreciate, brother, you having this up for free. I mean, we'll get into Chile later and like where you live and stuff. We were just talking before we started.

He it takes like 15 days to get where Nathan lives from anywhere. And I know from watching his films, you were all over the U .S. interviewing people. It's not like you like flew people down to your hometown to get interviewed.

You were all over the place. And I can't imagine the amount of time and money it took you just to travel around. And so the fact that you've been able to put this up for free for everyone is is amazing.

So thank you for that.

Yeah, no, it's definitely it's been some some great experiences, obviously, you know, trying to tie different trips together and doing that kind of thing. But yeah, we especially for, you know, especially for Teach All Nations and for Honor of the Sun, we did some long, you know, some long trips, you know, 11 interviews, 17 interviews or, you know, things like that in the space of like 10 days.

So, yeah, well, definitely, definitely has been a very fun experience, though, with traveling with a friend who's helping with the camera, some of the camera stuff and doing that. Yeah, it's definitely a lot of work.

But obviously most of the work and you guys know this, too, is sitting in the office trying to put all this stuff together, trying to figure, you know, after the fact in a lot of times how this all fits together, whether it fits together, you know, all those kinds of fun questions.

Yeah. I mean, I imagine the hardest part was figuring out what to take out, because I imagine you got some just I bet I bet you're like the stuff you didn't include is also incredible and you probably have enough content to do a lot of other stuff with that.

And I know like we've always we learn this when Marcus was here. We learned it from Darren Doan. You just let the story tell itself and you're just trying to put the pieces together. So yeah, I mean, I'd love to see some of that B-roll extra footage you got going on.

Well, on that note, too, you know, you're telling a coherent narrative and making these puzzle pieces fit together with that, which obviously takes skill. But one thing I really enjoy about what you've created so far is within these projects, you're also addressing the common objections, if you will, to the postmillennial position and even to just a simple position that doesn't relegate the scriptures to a church setting or, you know, certain spheres of government.

You're attempting to show how, you know, these objections such as, you know, applying the faith here is a violation of church and state and how Christians should think through these things. And so one thing I enjoy is that you're actually responding to these common objections that we hear in the public square.

Anytime a Christian attempts to walk out their door and start thinking Christianly.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, and it's hard because obviously there's a lot of different directions, you know, a lot of different interests you could take in a subject like this. And it's hard to find and decide what's, you know, what to keep and what's the most important aspects.

And so, you know, I think, you know, with the latest project with Honor of the Son, I really attempted to, you know, try to stay focused on some of these central issues in terms of, like, do rulers have, you know, an obligation to Christ as Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and just focus on those basic issues and just maybe pound those issues into the ground in some way so that people can deal with that, wrestle with.

That.

And then all the other conversations we might have would then flow out of that basic understanding of Christ's Lordship over all areas of life in that sense.

Just curious, are you planning on doing another one after this? Or you got something in the works?

Yes. Yeah. Good.

I am.

Glad to hear that.

Yeah, I'm actually... Well, I guess if you guys want an exclusive scoop on that, I'm... Why not?

I mean...

Yeah, let's hear it.

I am working right now on the very, very initial stages of a theme that's kind of been through all of these films, but I want to do something a bit more explicit in that regard, is I want to do a documentary on the whole issue of theonomy and Christian reconstruction, talk a little bit about guys like R .J. Rushuni, Gary North, Greg Bonson.

And so, yeah, that's what I'm...

Sweet.

That's the next project I have in the works right now. And yeah, that's what I've been...

That's exciting.

In the initial stages of kind of figuring that out.

Excellent.

For the record, between Nathan and Andrew Sandlin, you guys are like two of my favorite Facebook posters. Every time I see your guys' posts, I'm always like, it gets me fired up. So I'm grateful for what you usually post on Facebook.

Now, that'll be good. I'm looking forward to that project because, I mean, that will put you in the popular camp, talking about theonomy and raising those names. But I think it's important because this is the discussion the church is having right now.

It is.

And we're talking about gospel culture and addressing the topic of Christian nationalism and what are the differences with what we're saying versus what someone else would be saying. So I think it's needed.

I think clarity is important at this moment for what we mean and the vision that we're aiming at as Christians.

Theonomy, Christian Reconstruction, and Historical Confusion

Yeah.

Yeah, no, we're definitely in an interesting place in that regard because a lot of people are talking about Christian nation and throwing ideas out there. But yeah, the vision that guys like Rushdie and Gary North and Bonson had was pretty specific in what they were saying and what they weren't saying.

And so I think it's helpful to lay some of that stuff out there. And there's so many resources. You guys know this. Gary North was very generous with all the books he published. I mean, he left them all out there for free on his website on PDFs.

And so people who really want to look into those things, those resources are available.

Yeah.

Even the guys at Calcedon, they have a bunch of their resources to read online and stuff like that. So my goal with this next project is that, yeah, that people would take an interest in looking into some of those guys and what the work they've done.

I think that'll help because, honestly, these guys, brilliant minds, prolific writers, lecturers, and so on. And someone might be intimidated just to pick up one of their works and start diving in. When you read Rush Dooney, you're reading dense, dense theology and information.

But seeing his beliefs presented in a visual form, too, like you say, I think will give people an inroad in thinking, well, okay, there's more to what's being said here. And I need to investigate it because it's going to give some direction on what we're dealing with today.

Yeah.

Sorry, I just had a thought pop up. I wasn't planning on having this little mini discussion here. And I also meant to play the trailer at the beginning. Forgive me. I will play the trailer for the film.

But I don't know. Did you guys happen to see... I saw this clip a couple days ago. I'm not entirely sure when it was from. But it was Sam Waldron and Joel Beeky.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

They were discouraging the theonomy.

Yeah.

I'm just going to... Since we're talking about this, I'm going to pull this up real quick. And I was very disappointed.

Especially Beeky, right?

Beeky, who's like the guy on the Puritans. And then to see this clip. And anyways, let me... I'm going to go out and play this game. I pulled it up. If you can pull it up, and then we'll just discuss this real quick.

I don't have any audio, though. My fault.

Clip.

Sorry.

Anyways, let me...

Hold on. I'm going to go out and play this game. I pulled it up. If you can pull it up, and then we'll just discuss this real quick. That's my fault. Try this again. I had the show playing in the background.

But I forgot I had it muted.

All right.

Try this again.

You can't simply ignore the history of terminology. Gary North, Rishis Rastuni, and Greg Bonson, they are the origin of this. They're the fountain of theonomy. They identify themselves as theonomic. Now, if you're going to say you're theonomic, you either believe what they believe and pay attention to history, or you tell us plainly where you disagree with them.

Theonomy does not merely mean that you believe in God's law. I know that's the etymology, but that's not what it means. It's not what Rastuni, it's not what North, and it's not what Bonson meant. You know, the Reformers and Puritans were so clear on the biblical teaching of the law.

The categories are so just crystal clear in the role of the moral law, the civil law, the ceremonial law. They got it right. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. Theonomy is not the road to go for you or for your church.

You can't simply ignore the history.

So, Nathan, I'd love to hear your take on that, especially you're in that mode right now. You mentioned those guys they just mentioned, and I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Defining Theonomy and Reading the Puritans

Yeah, I mean, I think I don't have such a huge issue with what Sam Waldron said right there because, I mean, I think he's right. I think theonomy, you know, it's important how we define terms. Even Greg Bonson talked about this in the introduction to his, you know, his book on theonomy and Christian ethics, where, you know, he recognized that the term theonomy has been used by, you know, a lot of different thinkers to refer to a lot of different things, you know, Paul Tillich and other guys, and that he was using it in a specific way.

And so, you know, I don't have a huge problem with that. And, frankly, it's because I don't have a problem with Greg Bonson and Gary Dorff and these guys. It is true, and, you know, if you go to the larger clip, they start going into, well, these guys disagreed with each other on different things and all that.

And they use that kind of as an excuse, like, oh, well, you know, they disagreed, so, you know, that means, you know, we can't have them all together. I'm like, wait a second, so you got a Dutch Reformed guy on the stage there with a Reformed Baptist guy, you know, saying that, you know, well, these guys disagreed.

Well, you guys disagree, you know? And I find it really ironic that they would clip those two guys together because, you know, Sam Waldron being a Baptist and, you know, what's his name, Joel Beek, he's like, starts talking about the, you know, well, we don't need theonomy because we have the Puritans and we, you know, have the Reformers.

And it's like, I don't know how, you know, good it would be to be a Baptist in Calvin's Geneva, you know? I mean, if you guys want to be really specific, I think Gary North would probably have a better scenario for religious liberty than that particular situation.

So, you know, I don't know. But to me, what's interesting about the whole conversation there is they seem to be very concerned about post-millennialism and theonomy. I mean, the guys that come in at Baptist Theological Seminary, they keep publishing podcasts and articles and, you know, and in some ways I feel like even some of the themes of that conference they had, it was like, you know, optimistic amillennialism kind of a thing.

It was kind of, you know, also a nudge towards the whole post-millennial conversation that we've been having for a long time. And so they seem to be very concerned about what's going on in terms of theonomy and post-millennialism.

And on the other hand, I think a lot of people on our side are very appreciative of what those guys are doing. And, you know, I feel like the pushback's coming a lot from one direction and the guys on our side are responding.

You know, obviously when someone makes those kind of statements, you want to respond. But it's kind of an odd situation.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that a lot. And we've talked about this, especially with the whole Christian nationalism conversation. I think the reason that these topics, these conversations are so prevalent right now within the church is because we all agree that our position has the answer to the questions, the answers to the questions.

And the church has not had those answers. And so I think that's why we're seeing kind of a resurgence because we're like, yeah, we can answer that. We've been saying this for a long time, but we'll continue to say it.

And, you know, even there's been a lot of chatter, guys saying, well, you know, saying that theonomy and post-millennialism, they thought was dead and we're like zombies coming out of the grave sort of thing, which is just hilarious to me.

But, yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, just that we have the answers that the cultures, or I shouldn't say the culture, that the church is looking for to respond to the culture.

The Church, COVID, and the Need for a Biblical Public Theology

Yeah, I think that, you know, especially since COVID and since all the insanity broke loose, I think there's been some important dividing lines that have formed within evangelicalism. And, you know, people, a lot of things have come to light and kind of been exposed in terms of how a lot of evangelicalism had gotten used to responding to the culture, responding to the government, and, you know, and I think that the faithfulness of, you know, churches like you guys, you know, and others that were able to respond in a different manner was really rooted in those theological convictions you guys and we had before 2020 came around.

And so a lot of people were in 2020 looking around trying to, well, what do we do now? How do we respond? But as you were saying, we got to that stage having, I think, a lot of the tools and having the response that was, you know, written, you know, a long time ago as to what the role of the church is, what the role of the state is, and more than all of that, a optimistic view of the future that understands that, you know, these seasons will pass, you know, and it is important to be faithful in the midst of them knowing that Christ's kingdom will continue to advance and knowing that Christ's enemies will be put to shame ultimately, you know.

And so I think that's really important as we, you know, coming out of this whole situation and, you know, considering whatever else may lie ahead for us, you know, in the time period that we're living through, I think that that whole event just kind of shook people, kind of, you know, put a lot of these ideas out there, though not so much at the level of the seminary, you know.

I think it's more the people in the pews listening to podcasts, reading books, or watching movies. And so I think a lot of folks in the seminaries feel pretty threatened because it's like, well, these guys are talking about all these things that we didn't learn in seminary and that weren't, you know, that actually kind of contradict, you know, some of the ways we were taught to operate and to act.

And so I think there's definitely a conflict there. And I don't know, hopefully some of these conversations will trickle up into the seminaries, or I don't know. But so I think there's definitely a divide there, though, for sure.

And I suspect part of that is why we have, you know, guys like the guys at Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary so concerned about putting out all this material against theonomy and against post-millennialism.

I think you hit the nail on the head with, you know, the events over the last four years really were an unveiling. And it showed us how woefully inadequate and ill-equipped we were, the church, I should say, for the most part, to deal with things like civil tyranny and the encroachment upon the church's mission and the effects of the culture and all those things.

So I think you hit the nail on the head there. I think people are hungry for those answers, which we are of the perspective that, you know, we would say that our position has those things. What I find interesting about that clip is they speak very highly of the Puritans.

You know, the Puritans have that. And, you know, you mentioned Bonson's work, Theonomy and Christian Ethics. What I love about that book is at the end, he includes the early legal codes for the colonies and how every law, next to it, there's an Old Testament citation for the basis of it from the Pentateuch.

And so that fires me up because when you see that, you see what our nation's earliest legal codes were based on. Like, where were they looking as the source of authority? They were looking to God's Word to tell them what laws to write and how to write them, how to apply them in society.

So if someone is telling me, hey, listen, the Puritans got it right, stay with them. And I say, great, I'm going to go read the Puritans. And then I see things like that. And I think, well, are they Theonomy-ing?

Like, is that what they were doing? Because this looks a lot like the application of God's law and, in particular, God's judicial standards to the realm of civil government. Is that what I should be listening to then?

I think that's the problem that a lot of, you know, like you said, Christians that are just listening to materials and podcasts, not existing in the seminary realm so much are thinking like, okay, you told us to go read these guys and listen to these guys.

Well, guess what? We went and read those guys and listened to those guys, and they disagree with you. So there's a little bit of an internal conflict going on here.

Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate that. You want to add anything to that, Nathan?

Yeah, I mean, I think these conversations, I mean, when we go back into history, I think a lot of these guys have a very specifically curated, you know, understanding of some of the Puritans and others, you know.

Because, you know, but as you say, when they discover other aspects of what they thought, you know, it's a little shocking because it obviously doesn't line up with what is being taught and what is being set forth.

And either way, I mean, because obviously sometimes, you know, these discussions about historical theology can get, you know, extended and someone's like, well, you know, I studied John Owen, and, you know, I got this out of it.

But actually, I think John Owen thought, you know, differently. And, you know, we could get into long discussions about those kinds of things. But ultimately, we go back to just basically, well, what does the Bible teach, you know?

And what does the Scripture teach about these things? And when we are faced with these kinds of conflicts and strife, and where we actually have to go, well, no, the government's wrong about this. And, you know, that's when I think the rubber meets the road with a lot of these things.

And that's been really interesting for me. And even in my, you know, the story of my film, because I released my first film on February 15, 2020. And at least here in Chile, everything kind of went nuts.

I think it was around March 11th or 12th.

That was before shutdown.

Yeah.

How providential.

Yeah.

I know. And so I always, you know, in God's providence, I made a film about optimistic eschatology right before this, you know, world-changing event, basically. And so it's almost, you know, on paper, it's like, that's a weird time to release a film about post-millennialism.