Interview With Steve Nichols

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Reading Books, Church History, and Why Jesus in America Matters

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm your host. And today is the day that we look at books that can help you. I think of Harry Truman even saying that leaders must be readers.

John Wesley, I believe, said that you should read four hours a day or get out of the ministry. And so I'm trying to encourage you to read books about the word, about our Lord, and about church history so you can learn biblical truth.

And today on the line, we have Dr. Stephen Nichols, a well-known author. And Dr. Nichols, welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Oh, thanks for having me. Looking forward to the conversation with you.

Well, I've read many of your books. I maybe have them all. I'm not sure, but I specifically wanna talk about Made in America today, subtitled A Cultural History from the Puritans to the Passions of the Christ, a book on IVP academic.

Dr. Nichols, give us an overview of what the book is, Jesus Made in America, and then we'll kind of look at some specific chapters.

You know, one of my interests is just American church history, American evangelicalism, and just the way as American Christians we're so influenced by American culture. And as I began to try to figure out how to put some of my ideas on the paper, I thought I need something sort of specific to focus on.

And I thought of, well, let's talk about how we think about Jesus, because there's really nothing more crucial than that. It gets right at the heart of the gospel and right at the heart of what we're about as a church.

So the book explores Jesus, and it looks at some of the past centuries, and it starts right off with the Puritans, and then it spends a lot of time in the 20th century. We explore music and film and even trinkets, you know, the bracelets and the holy hardware, I think sometimes it gets called, and just looking at where Jesus pops up in culture and how that affects how we think about Jesus, how we worship Jesus, and then even what

Well, Tim Chalice said, I read his review of your book, one of the most engaging, informative books I've read this year. How about that? Very kind of him. I appreciate that. I love the introduction, you start off with Robert Detweiler, and here's his quote, Americans apparently want Christ, but they do not want him straight.

Why'd you start that off, the book off that way?

Well, that was a great quote, and it sort of, to me, it gets right to it, of the American Jesus. I mean, I think all evangelicals

Well, Dr. Nichols, now you've spoiled my childhood. You mean that picture that my grandma had with kind of the feathered hair. Jesus, white skin, blue eyes, that's not what Jesus looks like? Well, this is deviating, I think, a little bit from the book, but when I tell people, I think Jesus looked pretty much like his mother.

Is that a fair statement or not? I guess he couldn't have any of the attributes of Joseph.

Never thought of putting it that way, but that's great. Well, the book I'll have to do a second edition and have it.

Yeah, that's right. Stephen Nichols is online, Jesus Made in America, IVP book. The titles range from the Puritan Christ, Jesus as Gentle and Meek and Mild, Jesus Hero, Jesus on Vinyl, Jesus on Big Screen.

I really have enjoyed this book, and if you're listening today on WVNE, I'd suggest you get a copy, Jesus Made in America by Stephen Nichols, a great church history scholar in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

I almost said Lancaster, Mass, since that's my hometown, but Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And you are a professor there at Lancaster Bible College, and you got your PhD from Westminster. And this is a book that is very readable and very engaging.

The Puritan Christ and the Deity and Humanity of Jesus

Let's talk about the Puritan Christ. We have about 20 minutes left, so we should talk a little bit about the Puritan Christ. When you say the Puritan Christ, what do you mean?

Well, I start with the Puritans, because chronologically that's where we start with American Christianity. But I also think the Puritans, and they had their faults, but I think they had a lot of things right.

And one of the things they had right was on both the humanity of Jesus and how Jesus relates to us and connects to us, but they also had a place for the reverence of Jesus and the deity of Christ and to see Jesus as God.

First thing is they were very medical, early church creeds of the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Creed. So when they talked about Jesus, they made sure they were very theological. The other thing is we sometimes...

Well, Stephen, you're a church history buff or church history expert. And you know what I like is I like that you talk about pop culture a little bit, and you have a sense of humor as well. And so, see, sometimes I think of these church historians as stodgy, very kind of dour, almost like the liberal sync of Jonathan Edwards, yet even in your little subtitle there, Puritan Christ, W-W-J-E-D.

I mean, I just like that.

Well, you know, I think that comes from teaching undergrads. You know, you can't get away with dry, boring history with 18 to 22-year-olds times, I guess.

Jesus for a New Republic and the Myth of Christian America

Well, that could be true. Now, moving quickly to the next chapter, Jesus for a New Republic, the politics of piety of Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, and Paine. And of course, this radio station is going out here in Massachusetts.

And so what do you say to our friends who are listening, evangelicals, who think that this is an American, excuse me, this is a Christian nation, and all our founders were Christian. And I have to say the Benjamin Franklin quote, my mother grieves that one of her sons is an Aryan, another an Arminian, made my day.

Yeah, in hot water. Good cow, the Christian America thesis, but safer to let readers just read that and determine for themselves where the truth lies.

Well, I thought it was interesting when you quoted Weems regarding Benjamin Franklin and how he was looking on his dying bed for comfort via a cross of, excuse me, a picture of Christ. And he said, oh, it was a noble picture, sure enough.

It was the picture of our savior on the cross. So happy Franklin died, blessed in death with his closing eyes, piously fixed upon Jesus.

And there's no historical evidence for that at all.

So that's the humor there, I guess. Well, it sounds so good. It's like the mother who gets interviewed by the TV show and her son has committed an ax murder and the son has been convicted red-handed and she says, my son didn't do it.

And basically she's probably saying, I love my son. Let's talk a little bit about Jesus in pop culture. Tell me about the whole Jesus is my boyfriend thing. Did you coin that or did Mark Driscoll coin that?

No, I didn't coin that. Actually, I think that first showed up, I can't remember the author's name, in an old magazine that IVP used to Christian music that whatever the guy's name is. Yeah, Debbie Boone, you light up my life.

Baptized and they'd go out the path.

And you have in this chapter, Jack Hiles preaching a sermon in 1971 entitled Jesus Had Short Hair. Short hair. Wasn't that kind of like Paul having Timothy circumcised? You have a quote here regarding this whole music issue and I am in complete agreement with you because what Christians do as they follow the world is they usually do things too late and they do it poorly.

Hank Hill, although I've never seen King of the Hill, the animated series, said in relation to Christian rock in your book, you are making Christianity, you aren't making Christianity better, you're just making rock and roll worse.

That is so true. It's just a cheesy knockoff of what the world does so often.

Yeah, and these things are fun. Like I said, I try to bring some humor into the book and I enjoy talking about the book. But the thing is here, we've got to look at how others look at us. And I think sometimes that self-awareness, we're not always comfortable with it.

But we really need to hear what others think about us. And I think sometimes the stuff we do to a watching world just looks silly. And the gospel really suffers for it. You know, we think we're being relevant and connected.

Sometimes they get us for what we really are. Well, we're talking to Stephen Nichols,.

Author of Jesus Made in America, IVP book, a cultural history from the Puritans to the passions of Christ, really talking about how people make God in their own image. He's kind of this malleable piece of clay and everyone seems to want Jesus to be just like them.

Jesus on the Big Screen, Theology, and the Problem of Representation

Dr. Nichols, tell us a little bit about the next chapter that I'm looking at here, Jesus on the Big Screen. You quote Brooks, every Jesus film has been about the current movement or moment. What do you mean by that?

Yeah. So you would say that it's not necessarily seeing a picture of Jesus that is incorrect, but what the theology is behind the movie, that would be the thing that we'd have to watch out for. Would that be a correct statement?

Yeah, I think a lot of people use it for evangelistic.

It's interesting, yes. How do you show the wrath of God and propitiation being made at Calvary? The scriptures say that the world went dark from noon to three. And many times I see in the Old Testament, darkness as the judgment of God.

And so I guess you could have three hours of darkness and sit through that. I'm not sure if that would sell well. Tell us a little bit about chapter seven, Jesus on a Bracelet. Now, when I read the part about Charlton Heston, I almost fell off my seat.

We're talking to Stephen Nichols, IVP book, Jesus Made in America. Did you really talk to Charlton Heston?

I'm so glad. That's my, I mean, I know I don't wanna sound, that's my favorite paragraph in the whole book.

Oh, you've gotta tell, we've got about six minutes left. Go ahead and elongate. Speaking of elongation,.

Go ahead and tell us a story. Yeah, well, back when I was in seminary, I went to the Christian Booksellers Association. And these days, it's no longer called that. It's now called the International Christian Retailer Show, which shows you, you know, Christian bookstores have gone away from books and are now trinkets, but.

It's a proper title, at least. Exactly. But at that time, it was still called the CBA, Christian Booksellers Association. It was in Mannheim, or went there. And Charlton Heston had just narrated a video and then narrated an audio of the Bible, and they were selling it, or, you know, promoting it.

And they had an audio. And at the time, I don't know if your listeners remember this, but there were these series of Bud Light commercials that were running with Charlton Heston. And when it came my time to go up to the table, I said to him, I really liked you in those Bud Light commercials.

And I don't know if he was offended because, when talking about a commercial, the autograph that later was, I don't think I put this way, like out of the limo and into the venue and then back into the limo.

Well, maybe you should have given him a dozen of the witnessing golf balls that have the John 316 on them. That's a true story, too. Well, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say, we've got about three minutes left, Dr. Nichols, and we've done some critique.

Tell our listeners who are actual Christians, they have been born again by the Spirit of God, give them a couple minutes of exhortation on where they can find the real Jesus and maybe some practical things they can do to make sure they know who the real Jesus is.

Finding the Real Jesus in Scripture and Reading the Gospels

Well, I appreciate that. And that's really the whole point of the book because we can point our fingers at others, but the real are we personally to our own predilections. And I think we're in self-criticism so we can have that sort of healthy sound doctrine.

But I think the bottom line issue here is we've gotta take Jesus as he comes to us. We are very good about talking about Jesus as our friend, and certainly Jesus is.

Well, that's a great answer. And when I look at Colossians, for instance, or the book of Hebrews, the great high priest, or of course the gospels, we just see Christ who looks nothing like the man-made Christ that we as society have come up with.

We see him as a king and alpha and omega and the surety and the son. And so I try to get our people who are listening and those here at the church to read the gospels. And I was listening to S. Lewis Johnson the other day, and he said, the Americans' problems usually come, evangelicals' problems come because they don't read their Bibles enough.

And so if people are listening today, I'd encourage you to open up the book of Matthew and read it, and you'll never see anyone like Jesus Christ because there's no one like him because he's the God-man.

That's great. See, I start preaching now all of a sudden. I'm supposed to interview, but I'm supposed to preach. It's in your blood. It is. Stephen Nichols, Jesus Made in America. I'd encourage our listeners to get the book on IVP Academic.

There are other great books he has on other publishers, with other publishers, the Reformation, How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World. I really appreciated that book as well. 10 seconds to go. Do you have any other book in the works right now, Dr. Nichols?

Well, I just had a book come out called Church History ABCs. It introduced them to some of the great heroes of church history. Perfect.

For those that like more information, you can go to IVP's website or Amazon, our Christian book distributors. God bless you, Stephen.

Oh, thank you. God bless you too, Mike. Thanks for having me. It was great. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.