Ray Ortlund Separates Himself from Bible Belt Christianity

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00:12

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I'm getting the podcast out a little bit late tonight, but I've been running around and there's been a lot of things going on today.

00:24

And one of them is, it's a very important announcement, right? I did not,

00:30

I did not, I repeat, get the vaccine, right? And I took a picture of myself not getting the vaccine.

00:38

I said, here it is. I said, here's me not getting a vaccine. And in my car, of course, with the seatbelt right over my chest, looking kind of down at the camera, right?

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So kind of the same pose that you see with a lot of other people who actually do take the vaccine.

00:57

Of course, I did not take the vaccine, but people who do take the vaccine. And I think it's catching on because, yeah, within about an hour,

01:06

I had over, if you're friends with me, I guess you could see this. I'm not sure if it's publicly, actually,

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I should check that to see if it's publicly available. It's catching on. Other people are saying that they should do it, but I have to confess,

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I was not the one that came up with that. Someone else I saw last night for the first time had posted a picture of themselves not getting the vaccine.

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And I thought, this should be a thing. We should all just do this. Because it seems like the algorithms, for some reason, favor that, right?

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Because getting the vaccine's good, but the algorithms, I don't know if they're smart enough yet to detect when someone is posting about themselves not getting it.

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So that's an idea for you. Maybe post a picture of yourself. If you're not getting traffic, if you feel like you're shadow banned, post a picture of yourself not getting the vaccine and see what happens.

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Now, it might cause a debate. I already got 61 comments and I didn't post this all that long ago. But yeah, for the most part, most people, at least my friends, maybe you'd expect that, but a lot of the friends that I have seem pretty positive about that.

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Even some people that you wouldn't normally think would be on a more politically conservative side, there's lots of skepticism about the vaccine.

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Well, I will say this, because I don't want to get too banned, right? If I start talking about this topic, then that could be very problematic for my

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YouTube channel. I mean, of course, I've already talked about other things like a certain election that just happened and the results being, maybe not in keeping with the votes that were cast, that kind of thing.

02:42

But so maybe I should just talk about it sometime. Maybe we'll do that. We'll do an episode on the vaccine.

02:47

I listened to actually an interesting lecture the other day on that. And one of the things that I gleaned from that is actually even the people taking pictures of themselves getting the vaccine, right?

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They say they are getting the vaccine. Technically, they're not getting the vaccine either. They're still taking a picture of themselves not getting the vaccine.

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So those who are taking pictures of themselves, like me, not getting the vaccine, and then those who are taking pictures of themselves supposedly getting the vaccine, they're actually not getting a vaccine either because technically it doesn't qualify for what a vaccine is because of the way it functions.

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The mRNA technology is technically not a vaccine. It's, from what

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I understand, fooling your body into producing these cells meant to fight viruses, but it's not injecting the disease into you.

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It's not, you're not, the body's not reacting to like a mini dose of the disease to build up antibodies. It doesn't work that way, which would be the way a vaccine works.

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So, and as I understand it, China is using, and not just China, but other countries are using the traditional, the actual vaccine, you know, old school technology.

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We are, we're just having a mass experiment, mass human experiment that I'm participating in by being in the control group.

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So you have to have something to compare, right? You know, so I'll be that person, the person that everyone compares to me to see how they're doing in relationship to how

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I'm doing because I did not get the not vaccine. All right, so enough about that.

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Just an idea out there for those who, and I'm not an anti -vaxxer, by the way. I should probably say that.

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I'm technically, from what I understand about anti -vaxxers who are against all vaccinations, I'm not like against all vaccinations or anything like that, but then again, this isn't a vaccine technically anyway.

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So you could, I guess you could hypothetically, you could still be an anti -vaxxer and favor this particular treatment if you want to call it that, cause it's not a vaccine.

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All right, I'm beating a dead horse. Let's get to the topic today. I want to talk about Ray Ortlund.

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Ray Ortlund is a, oh, that was not the first slide

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I thought I was going to be showing here. That's okay though, we will make that the first slide. Ray Ortlund is a pastor, from what

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I understand, in Tennessee. So Bible Belt, right? The South, Nashville. And has some other ministries, but the main,

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I guess he's authored some books, but the main place that you, the recognizable thing about him, I guess, is that he is on the board for the

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Gospel Coalition and he writes a lot for the Gospel Coalition. And I want to read for you first.

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This is from a fairly recent podcast that he did with, or interview with,

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Sam Albury. And this is something that he said. And I think it's just very illustrative.

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Ray Ortlund really has given, I've just seen little things of his over the years. He's not a huge, huge name, but he's out there.

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And I think he exemplifies very well the attitude from what

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I, there's different names. Some people say Big Eva, right? But I think this sort of elitist attitude that comes from some of Gospel Coalition type people.

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It's not everyone at the Gospel Coalition necessarily, but there is this underlying attitude and there is an elitism.

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I definitely saw that at seminary to some extent. And it's sometimes, especially if you live in it, it can be hard to identify because you're so used to it.

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And again, it doesn't like, it's not like every single person who teaches at a seminary. I'm not broad brushing here.

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I'm just saying that there is a general pattern that I've noticed. And Ray Ortlund just, he personifies it.

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So I'm gonna read for you some things from him. And by the end, you'll know more what I'm talking about here. But when we talk about evangelical elitism, when we talk about the kind of this sense in which that evangelical elites want to, they think of themselves as elites before they think of themselves as Christians sometimes.

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They try to separate themselves from the common masses of evangelicals and then ingratiate themselves to secular elites and the secular elitist agenda.

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Sometimes virtue signaling goes hand in hand with this. I've been seeing a lot of examples of this lately because I've been immersed in writing a chapter for the book that I'm trying to finish.

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And anyway, Ray Ortlund has given me an example.

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I don't know if I'll put it in the book, but interesting nonetheless. So I'll read for you here what he said recently.

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He said, what is it that impedes the progress of the gospel in our moment in time? Is it our cultural moment?

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I do not believe it is secular progressivism, the sexual revolution, politics in Washington and so forth.

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Those things are worthy and significant considerations. Because he's saying it's not these secular things that are impeding the gospel.

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He says, but what impedes the progress of the gospel in the world today is churches that preach the gospel from the pulpit and have it in their doctrinal statement, but looking at the church, the tone, the social environment, they create the relationships, the history of that church.

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It looks like an anti -gospel. And I should stop there.

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That is a very strong charge to levy. Let's say that it's an anti -gospel, right?

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There's these churches out there with great doctrinal statements. They actually preach the gospel, but even though they're preaching the gospel, they're anti -gospel.

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Paul didn't even say that about those who were preaching the gospel with ill intent. He didn't say that they were anti -gospel.

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He said they were doing it for the wrong motive, but he's saying that because of the tone, the social environment, the relationships, and the history, they're anti -gospel.

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So here's what I want you to see, if I can kind of give you before we finish reading that.

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You have kind of like first layer priorities, second layer priorities, tertiary issues, first, second, third, kind of if you think about orthodoxy, you have those issues that are primary to the gospel as being so important that if someone does not believe them or rejects them, we would consider them and they propagate that, that's false teaching.

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Second layer objections, we don't always think of them that way, but they are very important nonetheless.

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They can undermine those first layer objections. And then tertiary issues, generally, those are more or less insignificant.

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I think of, just give you an example here. Obviously, the divinity of Christ would be a primary importance.

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You reject that, then you don't have the same Jesus. A second level belief that you still have the gospel, but hey, this is kind of important, would be something like, trying to think,

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I'm trying to be careful here about which secondary issue I bring up, because I wanted almost,

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I'll avoid the example I'm thinking of, and I'll go with maybe eschatology. Eschatology is very important, but it's not necessarily, you can have different eschatological beliefs and still have those primary things.

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And then tertiary issues, I mean, and different people categorize these a little differently, but I don't know, did

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Adam have a belly button or not? I don't know, that's very tertiary, but you get the point, you get the principle.

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So Ray Ortlund here, when he says that you have these churches that are doctrinally pure and they're preaching the actual gospel, but because of their tone, social environment, relationships, and history, they look like they're anti -gospel, he's actually elevating some things that would be probably, think more tertiary, secondary to tertiary, and saying, and he's elevating that to say, well, you can be anti -gospel even though you have the gospel, right?

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That's the position, because of what? The tone of the church. And of course, this is the kind of thing you hear from secularists, they were mean at that church, they were judgmental, they weren't inclusive enough.

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And that goes right along with everything else he's saying, social environment, relationships, the history of that church.

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Hey, the Southern Baptist Convention, I mean, didn't they have, weren't there people that had slaves in the

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Southern Baptist Convention at one time? These are the kind of things he's saying, well, hey, it just looks like it's anti -gospel.

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There are mean people over there. And of course, there's some truth to the idea that you can have good doctrine, and then, or on paper, it's a good statement of faith, but then the church itself is not, certainly not living up to that statement of faith, not reflecting that they actually believe that statement of faith, not acting like redeemed

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Christians at all, or like, and it only takes a generation to get there.

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And so, there's a ring of truth here, but at the same time,

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I don't want you to miss that he's using very strong language. Anti -gospel is very strong.

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It looks, they're against the gospel, even though they're preaching the gospel. And he says, the real problem is always in amidst the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them.

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So, the real problem, he says, always, so it's without fail, I guess, there's no exceptions, is that it's gonna be, if the gospel's not progressing, it's because of Christians.

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It's not the circumstances around them. Now, I'm thinking, like, tell that to Christians who live in countries that have severe persecution against the church, like certain

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Muslim countries I'm thinking of. The gospel's not progressing because it's your fault.

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I mean, I get kind of antsy even using that language because God says he'll build his church.

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I understand, ultimately, the propagation of the gospel, and the one who opens men's hearts is

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God. Of course, we are his vessels, we are the means that God uses. How will they hear without a preacher?

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But I don't like even getting into this kind of a conversation. But if you're just more on a pragmatic level, talking about, hey, why aren't, haven't there been as many baptisms?

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Why are people leaving the faith? Why are people not wanting to go to church? These kinds of things, these metrics, then if you're saying there's no exceptions, it's always just the fault of the church, then you're,

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I just don't know how that corresponds with places in which there has been severe persecution, the church has been snuffed out.

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And there are many countries in the Middle East that are like that. So anyway,

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I mean, tell that to an area that's been dominated by ISIS or something. It's like, what's your fault? The gospel's not going forward.

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So he says, we decide if the gospel is going to advance. Now, that's a, hmm, okay.

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And we decide that, not just at the level of what our formal doctrine is, but what our informal relationships are.

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And when our nation can see us in the kind of grace, mercy, love, and dropping, and the dropping of judgment,

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God has lowered his gun in looking at us and embraced us to his heart. When we can demonstrate that kind of mercy toward one another, that joy over one another, that receiving one another, then the gospel will explode.

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So he's saying, basically, the church doesn't love each other enough, which is what I was saying earlier, when he's like, hey, your culture's anti -gospel, but you're preaching the word, and you're preaching the true gospel.

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Well, that's what he's saying. You're not loving enough in the eyes of who? The eyes of the world. When our nation, he says, can see us in this kind of grace, then the gospel will explode.

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So the world, or the nation, the people around us, they have to see us loving each other, and then they're gonna wanna, they're gonna be attracted to that.

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They're gonna, and this, you know, that can happen to some extent. God can use those things, but that, you know, primarily not the reason people actually receive the gospel is, hey,

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I saw those people, and they were just so loving, and I was attracted to their love they had for one another. Of course, be salt and light.

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You want men to see your good works, glorify your father in heaven, but ultimately, a man has a sin problem, and there's gonna have to be some judgment in there.

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There's gonna have to be, there's gonna have to be a tone that is, that demonstrates the anger that God has with sin.

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That has to be there. Otherwise, there's no reason. I mean, this is the, ultimately, the wrong reason to receive the gospel is because you just wanna be part of a good club of people that are nice to each other.

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I mean, you can get that in other places. Maybe it's not as nice as the genuine, you know, love that Christians have for one another, but there are people in the world that can demonstrate a certain level of, more motivated by a selfish desire, but they can certainly replicate, to some extent, a type of love and acceptance.

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Sometimes, usually around the wrong things, but what they don't have is the cure for the cancer that every person has in our nation and across the world, and there are no exceptions to this, and that's sin.

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And that's why people come to the gospel. And this is just basic Christianity, right? But Ray Ortlund's saying, no, it's not these ideologies that basically say that there's no sin.

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It's not the sexual revolution. It's not progressivism. It's not all these ideologies that completely contradict the gospel, that completely undermine the idea that man is innately sinful and in need of a savior.

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No, not those ideas. It's the church because the church isn't loving enough. So this is what Ray Ortlund thinks. Until then, he says, maybe if we're not willing to make our relationships right, then could we have the honesty to shut up about gospel doctrine?

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I mean, that's great, right? Until your relationships are right, then you just better shut up.

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Don't share the gospel. Don't fulfill the Great Commission. And look, you know, I just get concerned about some of the people that can hear this and think, well, my relationships are never perfect because no one's are, no one's are, ever.

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You'll never match up to whatever it is that your own standards you can't even match up to, let alone

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God's, right? That's why we need Jesus. That's the point. So yes,

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I think the solution here though is we love him because he first loved us.

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The love of Christ is what compels us to then go and love other people. And understanding the love that he has given us that has been undeserved.

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So I don't understand this like, well, you have good doctrine, but you don't have good culture or something, a good way of loving each other.

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And you just better not even preach the good doctrine if you can't do the latter.

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Now, the problem here is it's just so vague. We don't know what he's talking about. I mean, if people in the church are just lying about each other all the time and backbiting and they're not

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Christians and they're living like the devil, then there's a good chance the gospel is probably not being preached there, number one.

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But if that's the situation, then the gospel is gonna do something. You have one or the other.

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That gospel doesn't live in, you're not gonna be able to have that for long in that kind of an environment.

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So the key thing in this is he separates. There's the doctrine, right?

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There's the teaching, there's the truth of the gospel, there's orthodoxy. And then there's something that the real thing, the really important thing that people need in order to be attracted to the church.

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And that's this culture, the love and the joy and the mercy and these kinds of things.

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That's the way that he wants to do this quote unquote cultural engagement. Now, let's move on because there's a controversial tweet he put out this week.

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I wanna talk about it. First though, here's another tweet where he kind of gives us another glimpse into that mindset he has.

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He says, it's a picture for those listening of Klansmen in a church. And it says, Jesus saves.

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Now, I don't know what the situation in this church is. I'm not sure if that's a picture of the church.

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I mean, it looks like a Reverend there in the front or if that's just, hey, that's where we have our Klan meetings or I don't know.

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I'm not sure what it is. But he says, hey, is this a faithful church? In doctrine, yes.

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And this is from March 4th of, I think it's this year, I guess, or it's recently.

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Is this a faithful church? Picture from like the 19, probably 20s or 30s, maybe. Yeah, in doctrine, it's a faithful church, he says.

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And I don't know how he knows that. How in the world does he know that this church has good doctrine? I don't know.

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I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt there. Something just tells me they probably don't.

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There probably is something lacking there, something somewhere. I was thinking about this when

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I was putting the slideshow together. Would I say Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary has good doctrine, they have good doctrine there?

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No, I don't think I could in good conscience say that. Are there some people that may have some good doctrine there?

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Yeah, but there's error there. I wouldn't say that it has good doctrine.

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Now, do they have good doctrinal statements? Yeah, they have some good doctrinal statements. So if the doctrinal statements are being undermined or compromised in some way, then you don't say they have good doctrine, right?

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And I would think that that would probably be the scenario here, but I've known nothing about this picture or the context or any of it.

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But Ray Orlin seems to know, it's a faithful church. But he says they're faithful in doctrine, but they're not faithful in culture.

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In culture, they're not. And the culture makes the doctrine bitterly distasteful to any honest person. This Christianity, quote -unquote, is anti -Christian.

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It started long ago, Galatians 2, 11 through 21, and it's still around. I oppose all such, quote -unquote,

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Christianity. So, what

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Ray Orlin is doing here is he's trying to redefine, he's making a separation here.

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He's saying there's real Christianity and there's false Christianity, just like in the last statement I showed you. There's real churches who exercise love, et cetera, and then there's the kind of churches that are anti -gospel even though they have orthodoxy.

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What's the thing, what changes? What's the element in there that determines whether or not a church is actually faithful or not?

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The element is whether they get culture right, in Ray Orlin's mind.

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They have to get culture right somehow. And, of course, using Galatians 2 for this just makes no sense.

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I mean, it's like, Ray, you're the guy that's on the other end of this. You're the one trying to add to, it seems like, the doctrine here by saying, add to the gospel by saying, oh, there's this works.

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There's some works of some kind that you need in order to be really faithful, to be truly evangelizing the world, to be truly the good church.

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You need these works as well. It's not enough to have this good doctrine. Of course, we know that the good doctrine, if it's truly believed, if it's truly a church that has the gospel, it's being preached and people believe it, then we know the fruit of that is going to be, there's going to be good works.

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And it doesn't mean there's not correction. Paul had to correct the Corinthians. It doesn't mean that Christians don't still sin, of course, but it's a progressive sanctification.

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And we know that in that process, people become more and more like Christ. And that's the effect that the gospel has.

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This is the kind of thing I think of Galatians where Paul says they were not being clear about the gospel.

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He talks to Peter in Galatians 2, 14, maybe, somewhere in there.

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He talks about Peter not being clear about the gospel. And that's what

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I think about Ray Wortland right now. There's a lack of clarity here in what he actually means on a theological level.

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But on a political level, it makes all the sense in the world. And I'm going to keep showing you that as we keep going.

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And I'm going to show you the play that's going on here. Here's another one, February 9, 2019.

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When integrity no longer, and I'll start with, he's retweeting David French. David French says, by the way, the porn affairs and hush money payments by themselves are enough for me to never ever vote for Trump.

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And that's just one thing of many. Ray Wortland retreats and said, when integrity no longer matters to us, it's because God no longer matters.

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Okay, so I guess if you vote for Trump, integrity doesn't matter to you.

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I don't know if that's the insinuation, but that's what it sounds like. It no longer matters.

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God no longer matters. God no longer matters to you if you vote for Trump is what I'm getting from this.

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Not enough for us to keep our integrity come what may, which illustrates why our task in this generation is not to preserve

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Christianity, but to rediscover it. Our Christianity is non -Christian. Okay, there's a third example, guys.

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And I'm sure there's many more. I didn't spend a lot of time on this. This is a third example of Ray Wortland saying, our

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Christianity, quote unquote, again, it's not really Christian. This is serious stuff.

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We have to rediscover Christianity. We don't have it. We don't have Christianity because people are voting for Trump.

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I want you to think about this and think about it seriously. This isn't just someone, you know, who's a nobody saying, you know, whatever comes to his head on Twitter.

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This is someone who has repeatedly said very similar things. And he's a board member and blogs a lot for the

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Gospel Coalition, which is supposed to be very much about the gospel, but a man who believes we don't even have

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Christianity really. We have to rediscover it. Serious charge based on what?

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Based on works? Based on voting for Trump? That's what it sounds like. That's one of the works.

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Based on not being accepted in the world because we're viewed as too hateful and not loving enough?

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Based on a picture of Klansmen in a church from probably 90 years ago?

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Is that, you know, that's the disqualifier somehow that our

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Christianity is somehow not real Christianity? And if not, then who's the one that's gonna teach us about real

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Christianity? Who's the example of that? Well, Ray Ortlund apparently can transcend this, this cultural milieu that all these other people are in.

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It's, you know, big enough that he can characterize all of Christianity this way. He can transcend that and he can see these problems.

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And that's where you start getting the elitism. You start seeing it here. Now, I'm gonna keep going. You're gonna see it much stronger.

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Again, we're leading up to the tweet that was controversial this week, but it's gonna make a lot more sense after we go through all this.

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Here's Ray Ortlund directly separating himself from Christians around him, transcending them.

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He can see things differently. Here it is, June 28th, 2018. He says, last evening, a magnificent African -American brother called me woke.

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I felt honored, grateful. Might Jesus be making an impact on me? Of course, some won't like this, but go ahead and at me all you want.

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I don't care. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. Well, obviously he does care.

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He's posting about it. I don't know if people have forgotten this, but there was something earlier this week that made me think about this.

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When you post something online, you're intending for people to look at it. I know for some people, for some reason, that concept,

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I don't get it. They treat the online world like a personal diary, like how dare you looked at that?

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But you're actually trying to get people to look at what you're posting. It's public.

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Everyone knows that, right? So I just, I want to remind you about that. When he posts this, he's intending for you or other people to see this.

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Anyone can see this, that he's, it's trying to convey some kind of a bravery.

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Go ahead and at me all you want. I don't care. But really deep down inside, he is trying to communicate to you that he's woke, that he, and that in the eyes of an

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African -American brother, he's woke, right? And he's honored for that. He's grateful for that.

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Might Jesus be making an impact on him? This is supposedly an example of Jesus making an impact on him if he's woke.

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That's the result of that sanctification right there. I mean, I guess he was doubting it before.

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I don't know, man. Did Jesus make an impact on me? And then an African -American said he was woke. Living for that approval and then needing to broadcast it to everyone else.

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This is what typically would fit the definition of a virtue signal, which

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I'm planning on doing an episode on that soon, by the way, virtue signaling in general. Here again is 2020,

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November 15th. He says, for he himself is our peace who has made us both one, Ephesians 2 .14. Why don't white supremacists come after white

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Christians like me with more murderous purpose? Now that's a question I've never really asked myself.

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Have you asked yourself that question? Why aren't clansmen? Why aren't neo -Nazis coming at me trying to murder me?

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I don't understand it. I mean, I don't agree with them. I condemn them. So why aren't they coming after me and trying to kill me?

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Is there a problem somewhere? Am I doing something wrong? Most normal people don't think this way, but Ray Ortlund, apparently, this is a question he asks himself.

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And of course, if you lived in a critical race theory world, you would be asking yourself this probably because there's a paranoia that comes with that.

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There's neo -Nazis behind every tree. They're ready to kill you and you have to protect yourself.

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And we need systems in place to protect. Of course, not the police. They do a horrible job. They're part of that. But I mean, it's just, if white supremacy is so pervasive, then yeah, you would ask that question,

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I guess. I mean, why aren't they coming after me? He says this though. Here's his explanation. What holds them back?

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They secretly know they are against Jesus and his purpose. Repent, join us.

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So they secretly know. They deep down in the hearts of the neo -Nazis, it's

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Jesus they are really ultimately against. And that's why they're not murdering someone like Ray Ortlund or beating him up or something like that.

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The fact that anyone thinks this way and is trying to come up with explanations for why they're not being roughed up by neo -Nazis makes no sense to me.

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Whatever that world is, I'm not like, it's almost like he expects, well,

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I'm woke now. Like, shouldn't they come after me? And again, posting this for people to see it.

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He wants people to see this. That he's the kind of person that they should be going after, right?

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He's the enemy of them. That's how he's promoting himself. He's the enemy of the white supremacists. He's the enemy of racists because African -American brothers claim he's woke.

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He's setting himself up here for he, this is who he is. And he's different than what

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I just showed you he described Christianity to be. The Trump supporting, the 1930 picture of Klansman in a church, which we don't know the context for the, what was the first one?

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Not being loving enough. He's separating himself kind of from that. So I really want you to see this, this self -righteousness oozing from this guy's

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Twitter account. And I know I'm probably get some flack for this. I just challenged people listening though, who might disagree.

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You tell me, how do you, give me a paradigm that makes sense of all of this. Now here we get to the controversial one.

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Here it is. Here's what he said this past week. He says, I rejoice at the decline of Bible Belt religion.

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It made bad people worse in the name of Jesus. Now may we actually believe in him so that our churches stand out with both the truth of the gospel doctrine and the beauty of the gospel culture.

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To that end, I gladly devote my life. And now there he is again with, we don't, we, and he uses the we, that pronoun, the inclusive pronoun,

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I guess to sort of have this, I'm part of this too, but clearly he doesn't think he is based on those last two tweets we just read.

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May we believe that our churches, they stand for the truth of the gospel and the beauty of the gospel culture.

32:53

So they weren't doing that before. They weren't standing for the truth of the gospel because of what? The Bible Belt religion. Bible Belt religion, it was just bad.

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It's making bad people worse. That's what it was doing. Now, this is the end to which he devotes his life, apparently, getting rid of Bible Belt religion.

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That's great. Standing with the true gospel. Now here's the thing. We all know that in places where there's a lot of cultural

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Christianity, there's a lot of cultural Christianity and it's not legitimate all the time.

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It's good for society in some ways because people have some social rules to follow that are actually somewhat related to what the

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Bible teaches instead of... Look, I've lived in places that are definitely not

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Bible Belt. I grew up in upstate New York. I've also lived though on the West Coast. I've lived in Los Angeles, lived in North Carolina, lived in Virginia.

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And there is a very vast, big difference between places that are Bible Belt and places that are not.

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And you would rather raise your kids in a place that's Bible Belt. And in fact, Ray Ortlund is pastoring in Nashville from what

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I was able to read on his church website. So he's in the

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Bible Belt. It's about a region. You think of Flannery O 'Connor calling the

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South Christ haunted. There's a tradition there. Sometimes it is just tradition, but there is an understanding and a history of Christianity.

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And you know what? I'm gonna just say it. It's a beautiful thing. There's nothing wrong.

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In fact, it's very good to have that kind of a tradition to appeal back to, to have influence your society.

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The architecture, the symbols, the songs, the habits and the traditions and just the patterns of life and what stores are open and closed on certain days and whether you can sell liquor here or there, those things aren't all bad.

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Now, some of them might be, but to have a Christian influence is a good thing.

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And in a particular geographic region, it's a good thing. Now, Ray Ortlund wants to point out the hypocrisy of this, but here's the thing.

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If he wanted to say, I rejoice at the decline of hypocritical Christianity, I rejoice at the decline of fake

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Christianity, I rejoice at the decline of cultural Christianity and the replacement with authentic Christianity.

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That would be one thing, but he had to use the word Bible Belt religion. He had to talk about that area of the country that the progressives hate, that they're trying to overcome somehow, that place, the red states, the places that voted for Trump, that Bible Belt religion.

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That's why I don't buy this explanation. I know some people have had, oh, he's just talking about hypocritical

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Christians. No, I think there's more to it than that. And I'm gonna give you another piece of evidence that shows there's more to it than that.

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Here it is. 2016, October 10th. We're losing a Bible Belt religion that held us back anyway.

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We've gained Acts 29, the Gospel Coalition, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the

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T4G, reformed hip hop and poetry, et cetera. Great!

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Exclamation point. And I saw someone on Twitter comment on this and said, it was a Trump meme. I think it said, this was the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, which

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I thought was hysterical. Because I was like, look at this. I think I actually laughed when I saw that because I was like, yeah, he's so right.

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That is the worst trade deal. You're losing the Bible Belt religion, but look what you get in return. You get some reformed hip hop and the

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ERLC. Isn't that great? No, that's actually terrible. This isn't the first time he's used this term.

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And this is what he juxtaposes it with. And most of these networks, in fact,

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I'm prepared to say pretty much all of them are woke. And it doesn't mean every single person at all of them.

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There's some speakers at T4G that might not be as much, but just about all of them, they're characterized by being social justice.

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And that's the authentic Christianity. Now, we're getting closer now to what

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Ray Ortlund thinks of as authentic, real Christianity. Bible Belt religion holds us back.

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Authentic Christianity, it's the new woke stuff. Now, I did wanna also make this point.

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Where is that stuff popular? If you've thought about it, I mean, it's kind of, what's the word

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I'm looking for? It's like, it feeds off of the

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Bible Belt. It's a parasite. That's the word I'm looking for. These entities,

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I wanna be careful. I'm not saying they're all parasites in every single way, manner, or form, but they have to live.

37:50

We'll take the ERLC as one, for instance, as one of the ones who use the ERLC, right? Who does the ERLC represent?

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Southern Baptist. Where do Southern Baptists primarily reside? The South, Midwest, Bible Belt.

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Yeah, that's where they reside. So when he says this, he's talking about organizations that actually have to kind of survive in those areas.

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The ERLC isn't popular, or influential, or anything in the state of Massachusetts, or the state of California.

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It's just, their influence is pretty much where Southern Baptists are.

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And that's just how it is. Reformed hip hop is, again, it makes inroads mostly with reformed people in primarily, that's the fan base, primarily

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Bible Belt areas. So, you're replacing one,

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I don't know, I just, using that term doesn't make sense. But the reason it makes sense on a political level, and it doesn't make sense on a logical, or maybe a theological level, but on a political level it makes sense is because the

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Bible Belt is disparaged by secular, progressive individuals and institutions.

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So, there was a time though, that the Bible Belt itself would have been truly primary, there would have had to been revival and orthodoxy.

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Otherwise, you wouldn't have a Bible Belt today that's primarily culturally Christian. I don't know if Ray Ortlund thought of that, but it's the truth.

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So, let's keep going here. Just a few more things, and then I'm gonna sort of lead up to the main point that I'm making in all of this.

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Stephen Wolfe, I thought, had a good response to this controversial tweet by Ray Ortlund about rejoicing at the decline of the

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Bible Belt religion. Stephen Wolfe said, perhaps you have some implicit biases that you need to reflect on and seek relationships to uncover when listening humbly to poor working class whites.

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And yes, he's using their logic and turning it on them. I guess, do you have a problem with poor working class whites?

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I mean, have you looked at the world from their perspective, Ray? Have you really put on their glasses? Have you sat at their feet to listen through their experiences?

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I mean, I did an episode not too long ago pointing out that all the disparities that exist in Appalachia, and they get no press.

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And so, here's another thing Stephen Wolfe said. He said, the culturally Christian poor white working class is an instrument for upper middle class urban evangelicals to denounce and then appear approvingly countercultural to their peers and secular counterparts.

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Disdaining them is a class marker. And I think there's some truth to that. I think that is motivating a lot of this.

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There is a sense in which they rather side with elites and say they're the true Christians, and then decide with the working class, more, you know, the rednecks, for lack of a better term.

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And, you know, it comes out in these things. Now, here are the Bible verses that I thought of when I was going over this.

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Is Orlin's behavior the norm for someone who loves their people? Two examples from the Bible. Paul, Romans 9, two through five,

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I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my countrymen, my kinsmen according to the flesh who are

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Israelites. And it goes on about the promises and the blessings that they have.

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But listen to Paul and what he thinks of his own people. Great sorrow, unceasing grief, willing to sacrifice himself for them.

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I mean, I can't say this even about my own love for my family, separated from Christ for the sake of my countrymen.

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That is a love that is incredible. Exodus 32, 31 through 34,

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Moses had something similar. Moses returned to the Lord and said, oh, this people has committed a great sin and they have made a

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God of gold for themselves. But now, if you will forgive their sin very well, but if not, please wipe me out from your book which you have written.

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However, the Lord said to Moses, whoever sinned against me, I will wipe him out of my book. But go now, lead the people where I told you.

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So Moses himself also siding with his people. You know, they've done something so wrong that Moses did not participate in.

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But Moses is saying, I'm with them. I'm attached to them in some way. I care about them. I love them.

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Paul, similar attitude. And these are examples from scripture of men who had all the reason in the world to completely separate themselves from their culture, their people, and to say,

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I'm better than them. I'm woke. You know, African -American brother said

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I was. I, you know, the reason the white supremacists aren't going after me,

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I still, I could crack, I don't know why. That's a funny tweet to me. Like who thinks that way? But the reason the white supremacists aren't coming after me is because they just really hate

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Jesus so much. It's not me. And then Paul, you know, Paul could have just slammed them over and over and over.

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And of course he does slam, you know, Jesus of course slammed the Pharisees. And Paul does slam that kind of thinking.

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But Paul, but I want you to see at the end of the day, Paul identified with his people. Moses identified with his people and his culture.

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And, you know, Ray Ortlund's pastoring in Nashville, Tennessee. And there's a separation there.

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There's a separation from the Bible belt. Bible belt's bad, evil, bad, not true

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Christianity. I mean, he's anathematizing them, basically. They're not Christians. In so many words, that's what he's trying to communicate.

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And he's the one with the truth. And on what basis? On the basis of the gospel or on the basis of works somehow that they're not, they have certain works that they're just not doing that he thinks they should be doing.

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So the goal in my mind, and I think Stephen Wolf is correct. The goal in my mind of many progressive evangelicals, which

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Ray Ortlund, I think just beautifully demonstrated is to ingratiate themselves to the powers that be, to support the narrative that, yeah, the

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Bible belt's bad. Yeah, you know, those Christians are racist and terrible. Yeah, they're not loving.

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Yeah, you know, your critiques about them are all right, but I'm not that. And it's to carve out a place where these more elite evangelicals, if you wanna even call them that, can exist with the preference and the approval of the world and they're willing to throw their people, for lack of a better term, under the bus in order to do that and to forge a new path ahead and try to get the formerly people, part of whatever the

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Bible belt religion was, to join them in their woke Christianity. And I'm one person that's not gonna do it.

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And I'm also not gonna take the not vaccine. So, in case anyone was wondering.

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All right, well, that's all I had for today. I hope that was at least helpful. The reason I did this is, I know it's a little discouraging, but hopefully it was helpful in just kind of explaining the mindset and connecting some of these dots.

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Because I know you're hearing this from other places. I know these are the kinds of things that pastors are saying on other levels.

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I actually have way more examples of this that I am finding all over the place in doing my research. But you start putting pieces together.

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You start taking, getting a paradigm for everything someone has said and you start realizing what they're actually saying and how they actually feel.

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And it's not a pretty picture. It's really not. And my hope for someone like Ray Ortlund, I don't know him personally.

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My hope though is that he would see how this comes across and that he would just have the love that Moses had and that Paul had for their people.

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And that the people that he's ministering to in Nashville, Tennessee, I don't know who they are, but I mean, look, you're in the

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Bible belt, Ray. I would hope that you would maybe identify with them a little more.

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See the true and valuable things maybe in the area in which you minister, with the people in which you minister.

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See the things that are worth preserving, that you can compliment. And all that love you're saying that needs to exist in the church, demonstrate that yourself by not constantly throwing the church under the bus and saying they don't have the gospel.

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And then maybe more important than all of that, figure out really what having the gospel, what orthodoxy really looks like, what having the gospel actually looks like.

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And consider whether or not you think that works are somehow part of that. And I'm not talking about evidence and fruit.

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I'm talking about, do you actually think that somehow there's this grounding or you're standing before God or this maintenance language or something that you gotta have these woke things present as well to have the gospel?

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Because if that's true, then I'm wondering if you have the gospel. Because the gospel is the power of God of salvation for those who believe.

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It is justification by faith. It is the work of Christ. It's not our work. It's the work of Christ, what he does.

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That's the good news, that God makes us right with him through Christ. And adding anything to that, well, you cited

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Galatians earlier, Ray, and now I feel like I'm talking directly to him. He cited Galatians earlier.

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He's read it, obviously, and he knows the dangers of adding. So that is my warning.

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And I did not grow up in the Bible belt, but I tell you what, and I see the problems that exist in a place where there's cultural

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Christianity, but I'm grateful to be in a place where there is cultural Christianity.

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And that's, I can see the advantages to raising kids in a place like that. There's advantages and disadvantages, but I think there's far more actual true

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Christians as well, probably where I live now than where, in fact, that's not even a question in my mind.

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There's way more true Christians where I live now than where I lived in New York or Los Angeles per capita.

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And yeah, there's some fake Christians there too, but anyway, I just, I don't see this.

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I don't see the world that Ray's talking about, or if I do, I think he's blowing it out of proportion because it serves a political agenda, and I would hope he wouldn't do that.

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So there we go. That's the end. Tomorrow is the last chance. Actually, today's the last chance,

48:52

I guess, to today and tomorrow, before tomorrow night. I think there's still a few seats open, if I'm not mistaken, to sign up if you live in the

49:00

Bible Belt near Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. If you are anywhere in that perimeter,

49:06

I would encourage you, come on out. You can meet me, meet Juan Riesco, and that's on Saturday.

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So you have, I guess you have today, you have tomorrow, and then you have a little bit of, you know,

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Saturday morning. You can, hopefully, if there's still seats available, you can sign up. The link is in the info section of this video.

49:24

Go to the info section, click on the events link, and it'll come right up. And RSVP, if you're coming out, and you get to see

49:31

Paint the Wall Black, we're gonna have some food there, some snacks. I'm not sure exactly what they have planned.

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And then you can meet me, meet Juan Riesco. We're gonna have a panel discussion. It's gonna be good. And I hope to see you there.