August 15, 2023 Show with Virgil Walker on “A Biblical Theology of Public School Education”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father

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James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

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This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 15th day of August 2023.

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And the G3 Conference is rapidly approaching. The G3 Conference, if you're not aware of it, you must not listen to this program until today because I've been announcing it multiple times every day for quite a while.

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The G3 Conference is my, by far, favorite conference to attend where I have been manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for quite a number of years, and this year, the

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National Conference is being held from September 21st through the 23rd in Atlanta, Georgia, on the theme,

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The Sovereignty of God. And we have today an individual who is the

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Executive Director of Operations for G3 Ministries. He's a returning guest, one of my favorite guests to interview.

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He's also an author and co -host of the Just Thinking podcast, along with Daryl Bernard Harrison.

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And today, we're not only going to be discussing the G3 Conference and promoting it, we're also going to be discussing a theme that Virgil has burdening his heart and mind, a biblical theology of public school education.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Virgil Walker. Hey, brother.

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Can you hear me all right? I hear you perfectly fine. Good. Listen, it's a joy to be with you.

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Glad to be back and having the opportunity to speak with your folks who listen and looking forward to what we have in store for the

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G3 Conference. That's for sure. And why don't you tell our listeners who may be unfamiliar with G3, like I said, if they are, this must be their first time listening today to the show.

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But why don't you tell them about the conference? Absolutely. G3, the G3 Conference, the

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G, the number three, stands for gospel, grace, and glory. G3 has for years, nearly a decade, been primarily a conference -based ministry, all begun in 2013 with the idea of bringing just a solid theology conference with fantastic expository preaching to a local church, which is my local church here in Douglasville, Georgia, at Praise Mill Baptist Church, under the leadership of Dr.

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Josh Bice, who kind of had this brainchild and wanted to just bring solid biblical teaching, solid expositional preaching to the pulpit here at Praise Mill.

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That grew over the course of some time. And by 2017, they hosted the first major event at a convention center there in Atlanta, Georgia, with about 2300, 2400 people in attendance at that first conference, again, away from the local church.

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I was there at that one. Chris, I think you were there at that one, were you not? Yes, I was. Yeah. And so that was my first in -person experience.

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Of course, I've been watching since 2013 online as the videos began to post from the local church conference here.

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Of course, it grew, and over the last few years, we've just seen explosive growth.

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In 2020, Josh Bice reached out to me and had been watching me from afar.

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I was in Omaha, Nebraska, and he had asked me to begin doing some writing for G3. The ministry was taking a pivotal turn, not away from conferences, but more trying to kind of put a flag in the ground as it relates to providing sound biblical teaching in content form.

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So G3 Press was formed. Blogs were formed. The ministry began to kind of have its own banner of a 501c3.

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I was hired as the executive director of operations to provide oversight for the conferences. As well as workshops that we do.

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So we have a biennial conference, a national biennial conference, so every other year. And then in the off years, we have regional conferences around the country.

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And so we kind of do that at least twice, two times during the course of the off years. It has grown.

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In 2021, our national conference had about 6 ,500 people in attendance. And currently, as I speak to you right now,

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Chris, we've got a little over 7 ,500 people that are registered for the conference for 2023.

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We're still about 40, a little under 40 days remaining before the conference actually hits.

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And so as you can imagine, I've got a ton of work to do. But at the same time, we're extremely excited about the fact that we really feel confident that we'll actually sell out, we'll get to the 8 ,500 capacity that the venue allows us to have.

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The conferences are amazing. There's so much that could be said about them. The resources that are provided in the bookstore, we'll have 12 to 13 different publishers, more than 7 ,000 titles that'll be available at amazingly discounted prices.

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You'll definitely want to load up on those. And then again, in our exhibitors hall, there'll be more than 100 different vendors with all different kinds of ministries.

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I know you'll be as a podcast, as Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, you will be there as well.

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This year, we have a podcast row, if you can believe that, with all our media and our podcasters kind of all in the same space and place so that as speakers want to be interviewed and they come through, they'll be able to kind of go one booth after the next, after the next, and be able to engage different media outlets that are there and available.

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So we're looking forward to that process. And again, all of that is just the excitement around brothers experiencing the conference together, kind of having an atmosphere of really family reunion that you experience when you come to these things, especially if this is not your first time.

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In addition, we have some of the absolute best preaching happening in the world.

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It will be, the men who will be preaching will be speaking on the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

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Just amazing speakers, you know, from Josh Bice to Votie Bauckham to Stephen Lawson to Paul Washer to Phil Johnson to James White to Mike Riccardi, Justin Peters, Ken Ham, Owen Strand.

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The list goes on and on and on. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of about 30 speakers and all of them are just absolute rock stars as far as I'm concerned and are lights out as it pertains to just powerful expositional preaching and teaching.

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Even the breakout sessions have some of the absolute best of the best who are going to be doing their thing.

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Myself, I'll be there. Daryl Harrison, my partner, will be there as well. We have a breakout session where we'll be doing a live experience of the

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Just Thinking podcast. A lot of great things that are happening during the conference. We've got things happening during the pre -conference.

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We've got things happening during the conference. We have things happening after hours. So there's all kinds of things going on around the clock beginning on September 21st.

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Our pre -conference, of course, starts on the 20th. If you're interested in that, you'll definitely want to go to g3min .org

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to learn more information about all of that. But you can set this conference up in a way that is very specific to the issues, the challenges, the ideas that you're wanting to learn about from just some of the best preachers in the world.

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Now, I want you to find out from Voti Baucom exactly how much I have to pay him to do an interview with him while he is there at the

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G3 conference. I hope he gives me the first shot on interview row or podcast row, as you call it.

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Yes, yes, yes. Well, he'll definitely be there. I know he also has a booth for his ministry that's there and available.

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And so, yeah, it'll be awesome. It'll be a great opportunity to meet for folks to come and meet him and engage him and the like.

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He when he's in those contexts, it's rare to find him doing many interviews, but I've seen him.

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I've seen him do a few from time to time. Yeah, he only the only interview I ever did with Voti was at a

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G3 conference about five years ago or so. Yeah, yeah.

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And he was walking by. I had to hit him with a tranquilizer dart and guide him to a chair.

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He woke up staring into a microphone. But anyway,

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I'm looking forward to it with bated breath and I'm always thrilled. It is

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I feel like a kid at Christmas when I go to the G3. I'm not even exaggerating.

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It's something that I look forward to all year long, and I look forward to being there and I no doubt will be just as blessed, if not more than I always am attending and manning my booth at the

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G3 conference. Don't forget, folks, the the 30 percent discount code is

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G3ISIR. That's G3ISIR for Iron Troupe and Zion Radio. And so if you're registering at G3men .org,

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make sure you use the discount code G3ISIR. We are discussing, as I mentioned earlier, the a -biblical theology of public school education.

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And some people might immediately misunderstand that title and think, are they trying to give biblical proof to support sending your child to the public school system or as it is probably more accurately called the government school system?

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Why don't you clarify that? Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you taking my kind of topic switch as you did.

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I've been here as of late. Chris, I've been really burdened as school has begun in session and swing in most areas of the country, as I watch kids get geared up for the fall, get ready to head back to school, as I look at the landscape of education, as well as I think about the culture in which we live in, a culture that really embraces everything that's contrary to a biblical worldview.

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There's just great concern. I had the wonderful opportunity this past summer, it was in late

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July, to go to a Christian school in West Virginia.

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And the name of the school was Emmanuel Christian School. And they had been doing

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Christian education to the best of their ability since 1973. And when you have a school that is 50 years old at this time, you begin to examine how do they do.

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You know, many Christian schools maybe started out very orthodox in their view, very connected to scripture, took very seriously the idea that education is indeed discipleship, and tried their best to maintain that stand.

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But what they found, and what many schools like theirs would find themselves wrestling with, is not very different from what we've witnessed happen in seminaries across the country.

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There's always this tug and pull as it relates to whether or not the school is going to maintain a foothold on a biblical worldview, or if the school is going to capitulate on a number of different issues in an effort to remain relevant to culture, in an effort to embrace some of the ideologies that are found in the culture.

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So again, as I went to this school and examined what they did, they somehow were able to hold on to very strict ideas around orthodoxy.

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And I was very, very glad to hear that. They asked me to come in particular because they knew about my history with Just Thinking.

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They had heard me talk about issues related to critical race theory and the like.

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And they wanted to kind of reemphasize the importance to maintain the vigilance as it pertains to holding the scripture, and scripture being sufficient.

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They wanted to maintain their vigilance in that regard and encourage their teachers, many of whom had been with them for decades, to stay the course.

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They're in an area where there's an onslaught of pushback with regard to simple issues.

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Simple issues like a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and a man can't be a woman, and a woman can't be a man.

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The ideas around gender fluidity, ideas around critical race theory, there's this constant pushback for them to embrace social justice.

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And they really care about biblical justice. They really care about what the

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Bible has to say about these issues. As a result, I spent some time in preparation for the talk there looking at issues around education, thinking about parents who were sending their kids to public schools, and thinking about how should we think about that.

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Are we to think biblically about that, or do we just do the absolute knee -jerk thing and send our kid into a public school?

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I think Votie does a fantastic job with this, as he really challenges us to think about sending our kids off to Caesar, and by that he means to government schools.

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If we do that, we should not be shocked when they come back, not as Christians, but as Romans. If that's the case, then

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I think it begs the question that it's imperative that we do begin, as parents, regardless of the decision that you make, think about how you navigate that from a biblical perspective.

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And so, again, a parent at this event had asked me a question that I thought was germane to this conversation.

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It got me to thinking, and as a result, I began writing about this particular subject. So I've got an article that I'm working on getting out, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk with you about it and to get some feedback, even from guests who are rather free.

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Are you there, Virgil? For some reason, I can't hear you. Okay. I wanted to, can you hear me now?

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Yes, I hear you perfectly well now. Good. I wanted to make sure that, you know, I wanted to have the opportunity to kind of flesh this out with you,

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Chris, and perhaps some of your audience, and talk about these issues as I begin to put pen to paper and begin writing an article as it relates to this as school begins back in session.

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Sure. In fact, let me give our email address to our listeners right now. It's chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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In fact, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to our first commercial break right now to prevent me from having to interrupt you mid -sentence, and so you already have the email address, folks.

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If you want to submit a question so you can join the conversation, it's chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Virgil Walker right after these messages from our sponsors.

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I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life.

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The Sovereignty of God. I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

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We're now back with my guest today, Virgil Walker, and we are discussing a biblical theology of the public school system.

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If you have a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

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Well, if you could begin with your first element of your discussion today. Yeah, I would be glad to do that.

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I got a really interesting question while I was out giving a particular lecture, and the question was from a teacher, and the teacher had just kind of asked, you know, as it relates to education, as a teacher, as a parent of students, you know, what do

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I do? How do I navigate culture and what we're dealing with as it, you know, as it pertains to education?

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My talk, as I kind of laid it out for her, kind of went back to a time period in 1933, and this was a time when, you know, the turn of the century had already taken place.

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We're beginning to feel the impact of the Depression. Government is beginning to increase in size and scope for very necessary reasons as the economy takes a downturn, but also some very unnecessary reasons as government begins to kind of stretch its tentacles into the public sphere in a deeper way.

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During that time period, churches primarily were the ones who were responsible for education.

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Parents were the ones who were dictating where, you know, where children went to school and how school was given to them.

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It would be a man by the name of J. Gresham Machen who would give a talk in 1933 at the

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Educational Convention in Chicago. Here's what he said, Chris. I found this very interesting.

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He says this, quote, Christian education is to be favored for two reasons.

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In the first place, it is important for American liberty. In the second place, it is important for the propagation of the

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Christian religion. These two reasons are not equally important. Indeed, the latter includes the former as it includes every other legitimate human interest.

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Machen would continue by saying this. He said, we are witnessing in our day a worldwide attack upon the fundamental principles of civil and religious freedom.

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In some countries, and he mentions Italy, he mentions Mussolini's Italy, he mentions

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Germany, he mentions Russia, he says those countries have actually crushed the system of freedom by really being completely tyrannical in their approach to a variety of things, not the least of which being education.

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While at the time he said, Machen said that he believed that Italy, Germany, and Russia were the greatest foes of freedom, particularly in education, he was also concerned about the monopolistic government intrusion into American education, end quote.

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Now, keep in mind that this time period was 1933, right?

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This is - During the fundamentalist modernist controversy. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so he's looking at culture, he's noticing the encroaching powers that are around the world as it relates to oppression, as it relates to tyranny, and the first place is that these tyrannical governments and regimes begin to kind of stretch their influence or express their influences in the area of education.

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He would say this, and I'll stop here. He says this, quote, the attack upon liberty is nothing new.

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He says, always there have been tyrants in the world. Almost always, tyranny has begun by being superficially beneficent, and always it is ended by being both superficially and radically cruel.

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But while tyranny itself is nothing new, the technique of tyranny has been enormously improved in our day by the tyranny of the scientific experts, and that is the most crushing tyranny of all.

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That tyranny is being exercised most effectively in the field of education.

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A monopolistic system of education controlled by the state is far more efficient in crushing our liberty than the cruder weapons of fire and sword, end quote.

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And so he recognized that if you want to take down a country, you want to upend a system of governance that provides independence and freedom, that the best way to do that would be for government to take over the control of the education within a certain populace.

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And the reason for that is because oftentimes, well -intentioned though government systems might be, the end result is tyranny.

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The end result is control. The end result is the erasure of the individual, of ideas, of thought, and more of a conformity for the purpose of making young people in particular into mindless machines that can be controlled by the powers that be.

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Now, I know that language, even in using it, sounds as if it's conspiratorial.

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But if we examine what's happening in our culture today with our young people, and we look at the fact that the vast majority of them think that socialism is something to be admired today, the very fact that many of them are very ambivalent about issues related to some very basics, gender, sexuality, and the like, issues around race and ethnicity, we see the lockstep direction that they're taking, we can point the finger directly at government and government systems and structures and see what's happening in those spaces.

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Now, when we see polls reflecting the great popularity of socialism amongst young people, aren't these young people, and I will be as clean as possible, full of baloney?

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Because the young people of today are the most materialistic bunch of idiots that the country has seen.

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I don't believe for a minute that these kids really are socialists.

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It's just a way to be hip. It's a way to rebel against their parents.

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It's a way to just be against conservatism or what have you.

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But these kids would never want to give up, especially if they are in middle class and upper middle class and wealthy homes.

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They would never want to give up their financial freedom and so on.

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Am I right? Right. No, you're absolutely right. It's one of those things where they've received the benefits that capitalism and freedom have provided, and as a result, the bubble that they live in, they believe that the rest of the world has the same experience.

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So it's easy to believe that if we just spread the wealth around and gave everybody an equal share, that all of us would be equally independently wealthy or at least satisfied to the degree that we wouldn't have to work anymore, that we wouldn't have to get up and be active in any kind of way anymore.

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And they don't really have any idea that the rest of the world does not live to the degree that we do here in America, that many experience here in America.

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And that those regimes that have embraced socialism have been some of the most desperate places in the world by which to live and that people have endured great harm, great tragedy as a result of living in an environment where socialism was proliferated.

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I mean, you don't have to go far. You can look at Venezuela and see what's happening in that part of the world and other areas where, again, the common refrain is, well, that kind of socialism, the kind of socialism that they want to embrace, that democratic socialism, as AOC would tell you, is a different kind of socialism.

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It's the kind that people vote for, right? My thought about that is if you embrace poverty at any level, even if you vote for it, it's still poverty at the end of the day.

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But as it pertains to education, you know this because we've witnessed what's happened in woke circles.

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There's been an absolute decline of an appreciation for America and for American exceptionalism and for what we've experienced in the way of freedom.

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We're told constantly that our forefathers of this country were simply slave owners who cared nothing for Black people, that they never provided a system that had any intention of benefiting anyone who didn't look like them.

37:26

That the ideals that are founded in the Constitution of the United States are simply those of an oppressor class that would never see fit to believe that Blacks were any more than two thirds of a human being.

37:45

When you have education that constantly bombards young people with that kind of narrative and those kinds of ideas, it's easy for them to reject the very economic system that brought them the freedom to experience those things, which is capitalism, and then for them to embrace an idea that's actually foreign to them, which is socialism.

38:07

Yeah, it was disgusting to not long ago see the leftist outrage over a school curriculum being introduced in Florida, I believe, where a part of the curriculum was brought to light how certain slaves used the gifts that they had to progress in their status and so on, whether it be carpentry or anything else that they were gifted at.

38:39

And the left outlashed against this because anything positive that would dare to be mentioned about something occurring in the life of a slave or during the slavery period was an abomination to them.

39:00

That's just absolutely insane. Absolutely, absolutely it is. In fact, it was a slave himself,

39:08

Booker T. Washington, who was the one who said, cast down your bucket where you are.

39:14

That famous quote from Booker T. Washington, if anyone ever has the opportunity to read his book,

39:20

Up from Slavery, I personally think it should be required reading for every

39:25

American young person. But you have the story of Booker T. Washington, a man who did not know what his name was, had grown up under slavery and had made something of himself to the point where he would eventually be a consultant to two presidents of the

39:45

United States. How did he do that? Well, he did that because he recognized that there was absolute value from what he learned as a slave as it pertained to hard work and doing a full day's work in the time that he was in after slavery for a wage.

40:08

He saw great benefit in that. He even mentioned in his book that many slaves, as soon as slavery was over, they really wanted to separate themselves from any kind of labor, any kind of hard work or labor.

40:23

And so they began to gravitate toward areas of jobs and the like, whether it was preaching at a predominantly black church or teaching in some way, shape, or form as many of the slaves began to learn to read.

40:38

The idea was, as long as I don't have to work with my hands, that's a better job.

40:43

That was looked upon as the job. Whereas Booker T. Washington said, hey, I'm going to cast my bucket down where I am.

40:50

I'm going to figure out what I have, the skill sets I have, and use those to the greatest advantage so that I can advance forward.

40:57

That's good teaching. It's irrelevant where it comes from. It doesn't matter if the curriculum in the

41:05

Florida schools is promoting those ideas or if it's the all -black

41:10

Booker T. Washington High School that I was next to there in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Who it comes from is irrelevant.

41:18

The message is still a great message, and his message in particular is one that all students should pick up a book and begin reading about.

41:26

But those are the kinds of things that I think about as it pertains to education. We've got to think about what's being taught.

41:33

We've got to think about what would Scripture tell us? How would it inform us about these issues?

41:39

How should we proceed as we see culture absolutely doing the opposite, doing everything counter -antithetical to a biblical worldview?

41:50

We have a question from an anonymous listener who asks, don't we have to be very careful about not vilifying parents who send their children to public schools surely because of the fact that they cannot afford private

42:09

Christian education, they cannot provide homeschooling for one reason or another, and there might not even be

42:14

Christian schools anywhere near where they live? Yeah, I think that's a great question.

42:22

I think we have the tendency to think of things in a zero -sum way in that if I'm promoting

42:32

Christian education, if I'm promoting classical Christian education, if I'm promoting a departure from a public school system that's absolutely degraded anything known to be education, that then the person who is the villain in that is the person who can't afford, whereas my encouragement would be let's figure out ways for more people to take full advantage of the best education that they can.

43:07

Let's have parents who are in that position figure out ways to be active at school board meetings, to be active in a church, to figure out ways that the church can provide additional help, resources, and they themselves.

43:25

As poor parents figure out a way to open up the Word of God, that would be the simplest thing that they could do.

43:33

Open up the Word of God at home and begin properly educating their children on a biblical worldview.

43:40

That would be step one in that process. And we also have a question from Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania.

43:51

Is it ever appropriate for a Christian to teach in a public school setting? Yeah, I think that's a fantastic question, and my response, because I get asked that often, my response to that is it really depends.

44:07

And as much as I like to have clear lines about specific issues, I really think that's a fair response in this way.

44:17

I do believe that every Christian teaching in a public school is going to be in a position to have to, at one point or another, make a decision.

44:26

There's going to have to be a line in the sand that's drawn to say, I will go no further.

44:32

And by that, I mean, I as a Christian teacher in a public school will not teach that there are more than two genders.

44:41

I as a Christian in a public school will not teach the idea that two men getting together and calling themselves married is indeed marriage.

44:54

I as a Christian will not violate my conscience and my Christian belief to say that young boys can become young girls or that young girls can become young boys.

45:05

I do believe that there will come a point in every area of education in our country where Christians who find themselves in public schools are going to have to take a stand.

45:18

Many of them had to do this as it related to COVID and the taking of vaccines.

45:24

Again, I think there's some instances where some people can justify taking the vaccine, some could not, and others were willing to lose their jobs.

45:33

I think that any Christian who finds themselves in a public education system are going to have to come to the point where they're willing to make the decision and then trust

45:42

God for the outcome. In other words, at the point that the line is crossed, they will have to make a decision to remove themselves and then look for employment in a variety of other ways.

45:51

And again, I think that that really provides a wonderful opportunity for them in the same way that churches that were open during the pandemic provided a wonderful opportunity for them.

46:04

Many churches who early on followed the government rule and said, okay, I'm going to find out what this thing is, much like our dear friends out in California did at Grace Community Church with Dr.

46:16

John MacArthur. Initially they closed the doors and said, you know, we'll abide by what the government tells us about this issue.

46:23

And then after some time, as they did their research and they realized they're not being told the whole truth, they decided to open their doors and deal with the consequences and repercussions.

46:34

And what ended up taking place was that it benefited them. In other words, there were other believers, other

46:39

Christians who made the decision that they wanted to obey God rather than government, and they made their way to a church willing to deal with the consequences.

46:50

Many churches around the country who did that actually grew in size. They saw that,

46:56

A, the pastors, the elders of that church took very seriously what

47:01

God's word said, that Jesus Christ is the Lord of the church. Jesus Christ is the bride who is,

47:10

I'm sorry, the groom who has a bride, which is the church, and he is in charge.

47:15

You know, God himself is in charge and is indeed sovereign. We have to believe that, too, in the area of education, that it is

47:22

God who is the one, who is the way, the truth, and the life, that we are indeed going to follow him, that we are going to indeed stand upon the truth of Scripture and deal with the consequences as they come.

47:34

My charge would be, I think we, too, if we follow God's way, God's word, that we'll find great benefit in ways that we had never really known were available to us before, and so that would be what

47:48

I would share with any teacher who's a Christian who finds themselves in a public education system.

47:56

Excellent. We have an anonymous listener again who says,

48:02

Don't you think the burden is often upon,

48:08

I think that the person meant to say should be upon, the

48:13

Christian schools themselves to offer education to children at an affordable price?

48:20

Yeah, you know, that's a question for each school to deal with. One of the things that I believe is that parents are able to do, parents are able to open up the word of God and begin sharing

48:39

Scripture with those that they love at home. I'm a big, firm believer in having a time of Scripture reading, of prayer, of singing of songs there in the home for parents.

48:56

So before we push the button too quickly on requiring others to do something for us,

49:05

Christian schools should do this for us. We should have churches do this for us.

49:11

Before we begin to push the ball forward in those areas, we have to begin asking ourselves,

49:16

What can we do for ourselves that would help us to properly disciple our family?

49:24

And I think the very beginning of that is indeed family worship. I think that's an important place to start, to begin, and then allow

49:32

God to open doors for you that advance that cause, that put your children in places and spaces that make sense.

49:41

Begin having conversations with schools that you think would be beneficial for your child to attend, and look for ways, not always for the free, but look for ways that you can contribute because education does cost.

49:55

I think, in fact, where I was this past summer in West Virginia, they had made it a law that the money attached to the child paid in taxes actually goes with the child.

50:09

So parents, rather than simply sending a big check to the government and paying for education at a public school, there's a portion of their money that they could take with them and invest in a private

50:24

Christian school of their choice. And so I think things like that, governmental policy programs like that, could be a solution for many other spaces and places.

50:34

I'm fully aware, as I deal in the conference space and church spaces and other places, that all the things that we believe need to be free do cost someone something.

50:49

And so we all have to take that into great consideration and figure out what are the best ways that we could take advantage of unique opportunities that provide value to each and every one of us.

50:59

And of course, scholarship funds are a perfect answer, especially when you may have congregants in a particular church that are of a wide spectrum of financial brackets, income brackets.

51:18

So you have some very wealthy people or upper middle class that may want to contribute to a fund where the poor families can send their kids to the

51:28

Christian school. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think those are unique opportunities.

51:34

And again, I want to place the burden of education where it belongs, and that's squarely on the parents.

51:45

It really does. And as difficult as that sounds, that's the truth. And we are going to our midway break right now.

51:54

If you would like to submit a question to Virgil Walker, send it to ChrisArnson at gmail .com,

52:00

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

52:07

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. I remind you folks, please be patient with us because the middle break is longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

52:19

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the FCC requires of them to localize this program geographically to Lake City, Florida, where they're located.

52:32

So they do so with their own public service announcements and other local things in the middle of the show while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

52:42

So use this time wisely. Please write down as much of the contact information as you can for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

52:54

And we hope that means you will, on occasion at least, buy their products, use their services, and visit their churches.

53:00

But when you can't do any of that, please do one thing that every Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener can definitely do.

53:07

Contact our advertisers and simply say, thank you for sponsoring Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

53:13

That should go a long way to convince our advertisers that their money is not being spent in vain and that their sharing of their wealth with us has been a good investment, even if it just means the nourishing of souls.

53:28

So please thank our sponsors for advertising on our program and funding us with this urgently needed source of income.

53:37

And as I said, send questions to Virgil Walker, to Chris Orensen at gmail .com. We'll be right back. Please do not go away.

53:44

The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023, The Gospel at War, September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, featuring

53:55

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. We are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference.

54:02

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity, the debate topic.

54:13

Is gay Christian a biblically acceptable identity for a member of Christ's church? So come join us for the sixth

54:18

Future of Christendom conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day

54:26

Saturday with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reform Bible Church. This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching with a theme of the gospel at war in many areas of our culture, including government schools, the

54:38

Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits. Head to futureofchristendom .org.

54:57

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my long -time friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

55:08

G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd, on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

55:21

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

55:33

And there's more great news. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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Go to g3min .org, that's g3min .org, and enter promo code

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Chris Arnzen and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the

56:00

G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on the sovereignty of God. Make sure you stop by the

56:06

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor Booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while you're there.

56:11

Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 % discount off the registration fee.

56:30

Oh This is

56:38

Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

56:44

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

56:49

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially. Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

57:05

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

57:12

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

57:25

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

57:35

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

57:43

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

57:49

Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

58:03

If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Hansen is doing is

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Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society. Their mission?

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To foster belief in the credibility of Scripture as the written Word of God. They go to various churches, schools, and institutions to publicly display a rare collection of biblical texts, along with a fascinating presentation by Mr.

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. I'm Dr.

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.

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That's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711.

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01:09:43

Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before I return to Virgil Walker, we have some very important announcements that we have to make.

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So if you're going to advertise with us, send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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As desperate as we are to receive your financial help and as urgent as we need that help,

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I never want anybody giving their own church less money than they normally do or falling way behind in your own bills and taking food off of your dinner table as a result of giving us a gift.

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The two things that are clear about our finances in the Bible is that we are to provide for our church and our family, and providing for this radio show is obviously not a command.

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Click to Donate Now. Also, I want to remind you about the three -day conference coming up here in Pennsylvania, in Lancaster to be more specific, and even more specifically,

01:12:28

Manheim, Pennsylvania. Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries is going to be conducting a three -day conference on the theme,

01:12:36

The Gospel at War. This is a conference of the Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society.

01:12:41

I helped arrange this conference for them. The actual conference is called

01:12:47

The Future of Christendom, and on top of the conference, they are going to be having a debate between Dr.

01:12:56

James R. White and a Christian who identifies as a gay Christian.

01:13:02

That's Dr. Gregory Coles, and the theme of that debate will be, Is Gay Christian a

01:13:08

Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church? The conference is

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Friday through Sunday, the 15th through the 17th of September. The debate itself is on Saturday, September 16th, 3 .30

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to 6 .30 p .m. If you want to register and get the best price possible, I urge you to do so quickly at futureofchristendom .org,

01:13:30

futureofchristendom .org, and by the way, on Saturday, free refreshments and a free lunch will be provided to you.

01:13:39

Also, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, well,

01:13:53

I'm urging you to send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put,

01:13:59

I need a church in the subject line. I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I've helped many people in our audience in all parts of the planet

01:14:07

Earth find churches, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live, and that may be possibly you too.

01:14:14

So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put, I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Virgil Walker on a biblical theology of public school education.

01:14:26

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:14:32

And we have a questioner.

01:14:38

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who says, if a

01:14:43

Christian school teacher does not need to compromise anything he believes, wouldn't his use at a public school be even more needed as far as being a witness for Christ and using his gifts there?

01:14:59

Yeah, I think, can you hear me all right? Oh yeah, I hear you perfectly. Yeah, man, I think that's a great question, and again,

01:15:05

I go back to the same answer and say it really depends.

01:15:11

I think there's some context where a Christian could be a light and add value, promote their worldview, their

01:15:22

Christian worldview in those spaces and places. Primarily though, what we see in most instances is that there's such darkness in those places and spaces that a

01:15:34

Christian really has, you know, finds themselves needing to compromise. I think one of the things that really brought this to light,

01:15:41

Chris, was the, you know, unfortunately, I spend quite a bit of time on Twitter and seeing, you know,

01:15:49

Twitter channels like Libs for TikTok on Twitter and watching some of the really crazy things that teachers are trying to express to children, prepubescent children, about their own sexuality and their own gender identity.

01:16:09

And when you see that to the degree that you do, the wonder is, would we not be better off as Christians if we simply left those spaces all together and created spaces where true believers could really stand to be the light that they need to be, could truly be honest about what they feel, what they believe, and promote a

01:16:35

Christian worldview? Could they stay in those places and spaces and be a light?

01:16:40

Absolutely. Light definitely conquers darkness. But I think each individual has got to determine,

01:16:49

A, the line, like I mentioned early on, that they'll have to draw in an effort to stay sane in those places.

01:16:56

And B, I think it behooves us to ask the question whether or not we would be better off separating all together and figuring out ways to educate children.

01:17:07

Because what we're talking about here is not a person who's made the decision to go be a missionary in a foreign country.

01:17:13

We're talking about a person who, for the most part, is not theologically trained and educated, but simply has a desire to teach students, not fight battles.

01:17:23

And if that's their primary goal rather than fighting the powers that be, it may be, again, may be in their interest to find a place where they could do that in a way that's

01:17:34

God -honoring. We have Pamela in Brewster, New York, who asks,

01:17:41

Have you and or Daryl written specifically on the subject of education? Yeah, you know,

01:17:47

I, both of us, you know, and talk often with one another about the topic, about the subject.

01:17:55

I have just, I think this past summer has really kind of opened my eyes as graduations began to happen.

01:18:04

We've been getting more and more calls to go into those spaces and to speak, preach, and teach.

01:18:12

I got a call the other day from, you know, the University of Georgia here in my home state and was asked to answer questions about issues related to climate change and biblical worldview.

01:18:26

That is really going against the current tide of colleges and universities to actually invite a conservative onto the campus to counteract the lies of liberalism and leftism.

01:18:41

Yeah, and so, you know, I'm now in conversations that I haven't been in before because of, you know,

01:18:49

God has truly blessed our platforms, platforms like Just Thinking, Chris, you know, your platform at Iron Sharpens Iron, and so, you know, because of that, people who have not heard are beginning to hear and are asking questions, and they reached out email, and we've since had conversations.

01:19:07

I've actually invited some of the professors to the G3 conference. I'm hopeful that they'll attend and with the hope that we'll continue an ongoing dialogue about education and about the need to get back to truth.

01:19:19

Some of those teachers who are our Christian are just absolutely frustrated, but they've been beaten down for so long and have capitulated on so many issues, and again, not knowingly, not in a big way, you know, they didn't wake up yesterday and go from zero to 100.

01:19:36

It's been a very slow process, and they realize as they begin to hear maybe

01:19:41

Daryl and me on a podcast or us on another platform, they realize how far they've gone.

01:19:49

It's kind of like the frog in the boiling water, right? Doesn't really know that the heat is turning up, and slowly and slowly and slowly as each degree turns, you know, he doesn't know that he's actually being cooked.

01:20:02

It's very similar in that sense with a lot of these educators, and so we're getting opportunities to speak into those spaces and places that we look forward to that, and you know,

01:20:14

I'm hopeful in many instances that we'll begin to see a change. By the way,

01:20:20

I have guest recommendations for you for Just Thinking.

01:20:25

A couple of guys that are Christians and thorough experts in the whole area of climate change.

01:20:33

The first is Calvin Beisner. I don't know if that name rings a bell with you. Calvin has been a

01:20:40

Christian apologist for decades. He used to be fairly regularly featured on the John Ankerberg show in the 80s and 90s, and today he is the national spokesman for the

01:20:51

Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, and he does a lot of excellent work debunking the climate change hysteria, and also

01:21:04

Gregory Wrightstone, who's been a guest on this program as well, he has written a book called

01:21:11

Inconvenient Facts, the Science that Al Gore Doesn't Want You to Know, and they've both been guests on my show.

01:21:19

If anybody wants to look up those names in my archive. So, and in regard to education in general, another very dear friend of mine,

01:21:30

Dr. Ernest J. Zara, he has written an excellent book, actually he's written more than one book on this issue, and the book in particular that's sticking out in my mind that he has written is titled

01:21:50

From Character to Color, the Impact of Critical Race Theory on American Education. I strongly recommend that book and also for our listeners to listen to those interviews with Ernest Zara, Z as in zebra,

01:22:03

A -R -R -A, so I just thought I'd throw that out there. And those are great.

01:22:09

I'm looking forward to checking some of that out. I do recognize, again, as people are beginning to reach out, that there is a hunger, especially with believers, to stand on biblical truth.

01:22:22

And again, some of them just need the encouragement of hearing someone stand on truth to do so.

01:22:30

And so that's definitely my encouragement. I'm hopeful that more opportunities like this will present themselves.

01:22:35

The person who asked the initial question asked if Darrell and me, if Darrell and I had written on the topic on the subject of education,

01:22:45

I mentioned that because, again, after this summer kind of tour, so to speak, again, this has been on my radar screen.

01:22:53

I've been reading extensively about the subject, reading a variety of different books in a number of different spaces and places.

01:23:01

And so I'll begin that process as the fall kind of continues to commence when opportunities about specifics and culture, be it a particular newsworthy issue, begins to rear its head.

01:23:18

I'll have some things in queue and be ready to connect the dots with that and the like. But for me at this point, it's a lot of blog articles.

01:23:25

I'm actually submitting those to some of the professors that I mentioned here in Georgia with the hope that they'll provide some feedback and that will begin what will hopefully be a productive and ongoing dialogue about these issues.

01:23:40

Okay. Before I go to any listener question, would you like to go to another step in your discussion? No, I think that'll do it for now.

01:23:49

Yeah. Okay. Well, we have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

01:23:57

And Susan Margaret says, what advice do you have to grandparents when they are trying to make sure their children send their own children to private

01:24:12

Christian schools? Yeah, yeah. That's challenging.

01:24:17

I wish I had the answer for that. Primary role and responsibility of children is definitely parents.

01:24:26

Grandparents are just such a wonderful addition to the life of the entirety of the family.

01:24:32

And I think every opportunity that presents itself where grandparents can participate and be a part of that educational process is incredibly important and greatly beneficial.

01:24:45

At the end of the day, you know, the decision of primary education would be that of the parents.

01:24:50

But my thought would be, I don't know many children who have children of their own who wouldn't want to take advantage of a grandparent who says, listen, if you make the decision to send our grandchild to XYZ Christian school, we'll pay for it.

01:25:13

It would be a rare situation where I would think that young people wouldn't take full advantage of an opportunity like that.

01:25:24

Anyone pushing back against that, there are probably other issues at play. Maybe the children of the grandparents haven't accepted

01:25:35

Christ, and maybe they don't have a relationship or walk with the Lord. In that instance, it's of primary importance to begin praying for the entirety of the family with the hope that they'll come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

01:25:47

I think that would be primary for sure. We have Thurmond in Port St.

01:25:53

Lucie, Florida, who asks, have you done much investigation about classical

01:25:58

Christian education? I know that Chris Arnson of Iron Trip and Zion has had several programs promoting it.

01:26:05

Yes, I have. Yeah, yeah. I absolutely think that's the best education.

01:26:13

In fact, I quoted earlier from J. Gresham Machen, and again, you're talking about someone who received a classical

01:26:22

Christian education and promoted that at Princeton Theological Seminary.

01:26:28

Of course, Princeton is far from those days where they embraced a richly biblical worldview.

01:26:37

But at the end of the day, I think that is the absolute best form of education. What it does is it encourages the idea of thinking for oneself.

01:26:50

It doesn't tell you exactly what to think, but it definitely shows you how to think, how to think logically about things, how to make proper deductions of things, how to reason, how to argue, how to properly debate, how to properly engage in all of the ideas that are part of our world.

01:27:10

I'm a big proponent of classical Christian education wherever you can find it. We are here at G3 are working toward putting something together in the of a classical education with regard to a college.

01:27:26

We've got a number of things in the works that we're looking down the lines with and that we're working on here, but that's what we advocate.

01:27:36

Yeah, I think it's the best way to educate a young person. Yes. I'm going to be very careful here not to identify the school until it is 100 % established, but I've heard very promising news that a

01:27:53

Christian school, a classical Christian school that I'm very familiar with, may very likely at this point, it's not 100%, but may very likely in 2025 have

01:28:04

Votie Baucom as their fundraising banquet speaker. So I will keep you all updated on that and I will let you know the exact name of this school if and when that is 100 % confirmed.

01:28:18

Let's see here. We have RJ in White Plains, New York, and RJ in White Plains asks, should you ever pollute another school with your child if your child is out of control, unrepentant, and a problem maker?

01:28:45

Shouldn't these kinds of children be homeschooled without disrupting the lives of other children?

01:28:54

I think that's a great question to think through.

01:28:59

I do believe that most schools have some kind of disciplinary process by which to manage these young people, these children, but at the end of the day, it's the primary responsibility of parents to ensure that their kids are not unruly or not disruptive, actually are able to engage in education.

01:29:26

But again, I'll go back to this, Chris, and I think that the primary nature of the setup of education as it's currently designed is not conducive for young boys in particular.

01:29:41

It works for young girls who are a little bit more demure, who are a little bit more kind of willing to kind of sit and engage and think and listen, where young boys who are hyperactive and are antsy and ready to kind of rip and run, the current system set up is one that's not designed in a favorable way for them.

01:30:06

At the same time, that doesn't negate the need for parents to properly train their children.

01:30:13

I think every Lord's Day is an opportunity for us to do so. I'd even argue that a lot of what we see in the way of Sunday school education, the way that we put kids in kind of a

01:30:24

Sunday school environment where they're not required to sit for any lengthy period of time, that they're always standing, jumping, running, bumping, doesn't properly train them, even boys, to develop the discipline of sitting down and listening and gaining and learning information.

01:30:43

And so I do think there's a give and take there, you know, and that's something that at the end of the day ultimately resides with parents.

01:30:54

Yes, and I don't know if you're talking about yourself, a listener, or another parent or another set of parents, but I will make it a point to pray for those parents and their child, whoever that may be.

01:31:16

Now, let me ask a question of my own as far as uh, you know, we hear these nightmarish things going on in the government school system when it comes to not only teaching the equality of homosexuality with biblical sexuality that is only between one man and one woman in the bonds marriage, but you even have pornography, homosexual pornography.

01:31:51

Now, when we see these things on the news, especially on the conservative outlets, because normally your mainstream media doesn't want to uh, inform the general public about this stuff.

01:32:05

But is this an evidence that this stuff is really permeating the entire system?

01:32:16

Are these rare exceptions? Is there hysteria in the conservative community over these things that are not as widespread as we think?

01:32:26

Yeah, you know, what do you know about all of that? Yeah, you know, I think those are great questions, and whether it's the

01:32:34

LGBTQIA agenda, whether it's critical race theory, which is now termed social emotional learning.

01:32:42

That's kind of the new nomenclature for what was CRT. There's a different way that they're addressing it, or the genders.

01:32:51

There are, what we're seeing in culture is just reflective of the devastating impact of what

01:32:58

I and others, in fact, James Lindsay coined the term the Marxification of education, the

01:33:04

Marxification of education. He has a book by the same title, where what he does is he examines all of education, the process of pedagogy, what they're teaching, how they're teaching, and that framework.

01:33:20

And what's happening in schools, or whether it's the overt teaching of the gender wars, of the

01:33:28

LGBTQ, or if it's something muted, all of it is designed to create the oppressed and oppressor groups.

01:33:36

So, for example, if you're in a classroom, a math class, and perhaps you're looking at, you know, maybe a word picture that challenges you to think about math.

01:33:48

Remember, you would have these stories that say, okay, Sally has five apples, right? Mark has six apples.

01:33:57

And then Joey, who's an African American, has three apples. The question then becomes not how many apples do they all have combined?

01:34:08

The question then becomes, why does Joey, the African American, have fewer apples than the other two?

01:34:16

And so now that it's never about mathematics, the idea with the Marxification of education is the whole thought process of creating victim classes, so that whatever the subject, whether it's mathematics, whether it's economics, whether it's social studies, whether it's geography, whatever science you could think of, all of it is designed for the purpose of pointing you to oppressed and oppressor groups.

01:34:42

And so, again, you asked the question, you know, is this everywhere? Are we seeing this everywhere?

01:34:48

Or is this kind of in some, you know, some big places and maybe some smaller rule settings where that's not the case?

01:34:55

All of education has taken on this perspective, this point of view, and so you're seeing it everywhere.

01:35:03

It's, again, shrouded under the language of social emotional learning.

01:35:08

Public school systems have absolutely just exchanged the whole idea of education in favor of just social deconstructionism, and their aim is just re -engineering, the re -engineering, rather, of a of a progressivist utopia created in their own image rather than one that's subject to God's natural order and design.

01:35:30

So you see it everywhere. Now, in your observations, have you ever come to a conclusion or even an educated guess as to why this field of employment, meaning the education system, school teachers, and so on, why is this such a magnet to leftists?

01:35:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I think the issue there is the left years ago, and, you know, the late 30s, early 60s saw the opportunity that is indeed education.

01:36:12

They knew that leftist ideology would not be something that the general public, especially one that's steeped in a

01:36:21

Judeo -Christian biblical worldview, would embrace. They knew that the only way forward for them would be to invade the institutions, right, to invade education, to invade the justice arena, which is why now what you hear with the leftist agenda is, you know, we've got to get into the judiciary.

01:36:45

We've got to stack the Supreme Court. Why? Because they know that the average citizen is not going to vote in favor of that which negatively impacts them as an individual for the purpose of the collective growing stronger.

01:37:01

We are too individualistic here in America, even still, though the collective is gaining ground.

01:37:07

But what's taken place is the halls of education were the primary means by which the left saw the opportunity.

01:37:16

So if you look at any of our post -secondary educational institutions, you look at any of the colleges or universities across the

01:37:24

United States, the predominant ideological framework is leftist ideology.

01:37:33

And so it's no wonder that students fall in line with those ideas as a result.

01:37:39

By the way, I found out something really shocking and alarming when I interviewed

01:37:44

Pete Hegseth of Fox News. I had him on the program last year to discuss his book,

01:37:53

Battle for the American Mind, Uprooting a Century of Miseducation, the origins of the

01:37:59

Pledge of Allegiance. Most patriotic conservative

01:38:04

Americans love that pledge and want that pledge to remain in the schools and so on.

01:38:11

It actually began as a Marxist tool to replace

01:38:17

God with the flag. And in the original pledge, One Nation Under God was not included in the pledge.

01:38:24

And I can't remember if it was Thomas Dewey specifically, but it was definitely that era.

01:38:31

Yeah. If it were Dewey, I would not be surprised. Yeah. And if anybody wants to listen to that program, just type in Hegseth, H -E -G -S -E -T -H into the search engine at irontreponsirenradio .com

01:38:45

and that interview will come up. You'll find it quite fascinating.

01:38:50

We're going to our final break right now. And if anybody has any questions, I would suggest strongly that you send them immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:38:59

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. We'll be right back with Virgil Walker. Don't go away.

01:39:29

a personal journey of faith and sexual identity. The debate topic is gay

01:39:34

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01:39:59

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01:40:18

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnton is doing is

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Daniel P. Buttafuoco, serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.

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Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society. Their mission?

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To foster belief in the credibility of Scripture as the written Word of God. They go to various churches, schools, and institutions to publicly display a rare collection of biblical texts, along with a fascinating presentation by Mr.

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Buttafuoco, demonstrating the reliability of Scripture. To advance the cause of the gospel, they created a beautiful, perfect facsimile of the genealogy of Jesus Christ from the original engravings contained in a first edition 1611

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King James Bible. This 17th century hand -engraved chart shows the family tree of Jesus Christ going back to Adam and Eve.

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This book is complete with gorgeous full -size illustrations of Noah's Ark and the

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Tower of Babel, and an explanation of why the genealogy of Jesus is so important for His claims to the throne of the universe.

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Originals of this work are in museums, and nobody has ever made it accessible to the public in a large book form before.

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You can have your copy of this 44 -page genealogy book for a donation of $35 or more.

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Visit historicalbiblesociety .org. That's historicalbiblesociety .org.

01:51:27

Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders, and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of dads and moms can use the

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Scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness. Please visit us at truthloveparent .com.

01:52:37

As host of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

01:52:48

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

01:52:58

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how He shall be worshiped and how

01:53:04

He shall be represented in the world. They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

01:53:12

God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

01:53:17

God -centered focus. Reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, baptism, and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.

01:53:32

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

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.com. That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com,

01:53:48

or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

01:53:57

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And don't forget, folks,

01:54:13

Grace Covenant Baptist Church of Flemington, New Jersey has a new website, gcbc -nj .org.

01:54:22

gcbc -nj .org. Disregard the website provided in that commercial. Well, Virgil, I would like you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about this very important theme of the public school education system.

01:54:39

Yeah, I think it's imperative that, as believers in Christ, we don't automatically assume that the best thing for our children is indeed public education, and that we think about how we're going to educate our children and think about it through the lens of a biblical worldview.

01:55:02

Many people are in situations and circumstances and financial situations where a high -level

01:55:09

Christian education is not a possibility. And it's with that in mind that we need to think, what are our alternatives?

01:55:17

What can we do? We know that this secular school system, this humanistic school system that we see in every area of the country is promoting that which is antithetical to a biblical worldview.

01:55:34

And as believers in Christ, we have got to think about what it means to educate, equip, train, and encourage the young people given under our care.

01:55:45

I think churches also have to think through these issues with great care about how to help believers that are in their care navigate this process.

01:55:59

At the same time, at the end of the day, the total responsibility relies on parents.

01:56:08

And I think we just need to do a better job. We have to recognize that we are indeed in a battle, and that the battle that we're in is a battle for truth.

01:56:17

And that as a result, we have to declare that truth in the public square, and it begins with our children.

01:56:24

And that's kind of the message, I believe, that's incredibly important for us to think through, to think about, and to be prepared to give an answer for how we're choosing to probably educate our kids.

01:56:38

And I think a good way to think about this is for parents who right now might be thinking it is relatively harmless to send their kids to public schools.

01:56:51

Just imagine you have neighbors and the couple who have their own kids.

01:56:58

They are 180 degrees opposite from you or to you in regards to their religious ideas, their ideology.

01:57:10

And they were to say to you, when your children are in our home, we are going to act as if we are their parents and you are not.

01:57:19

We are going to teach them things that contradict your beliefs. We're going to mock your beliefs.

01:57:26

And we're going to be involving your children in things that we are going to do without your permission or knowledge.

01:57:36

And we're going to tell them it is not necessary for you to ask their permission involving certain things that we are going to involve your children in.

01:57:44

You'd say, are you out of your mind? I would never let my kids go over to that person's house. Well, that's exactly what the public school system is doing.

01:57:52

Right, right. And they've got plenty of time to do it. You know, they've got eight hours a day, six to eight hours a day, depending upon where you are in the country to to indoctrinate your children in that belief system.

01:58:04

And so, man, we've got to think about these things. These are incredibly important things to think through. Amen. Well, I want to remind our listeners, please register for the

01:58:12

G3 conference if you haven't already at g3men .org, g3men .org.

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Use promo code G3ISIR to get a 30 percent discount off the registration fee.

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That's the Iron Trippin's Iron Radio promo code G3ISIR. And I want to remind you also, if you live in Douglasville, Georgia, or if you are traveling through there or if you have family, friends and loved ones who live in or near there, go to PraiseMill .com,

01:58:42

PraiseMill .com, the website for Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia. And also,

01:58:48

I want to remind you about the website to register for the upcoming three -day conference and debate featuring

01:58:55

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. That is a conference and a debate on the theme,

01:59:05

Is Gay Christian a Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church? The conference is

01:59:11

Friday through Sunday, September 15th through the 17th. The debate itself is on Saturday, September 16th, 3 .30

01:59:19

p .m. to 6 .30 p .m. Go to futureofchristendom .org, futureofchristendom .org.

01:59:24

Thank you so much, Virgil, for doing such an outstanding job as you always do. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater