SRR #49 | Answering Questions Christians Have For Other Christians

Cultural Christianity, Polemics, and the Show’s Opening Announcements

I do a podcast.

I'm not interested in your podcast.

Folks, these are wolves. Truth be told, I oftentimes lay awake at night trying to figure out how I can get rid of wolves.

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as fashion is itself fashion. It's not hate. It's history. It's not fashion. It's the Bible.

Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way. As opposed to, blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

It is.

On. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.

Alright, welcome back everybody. This is Tim with Simple Riff around the radio. And I have with me our other co-host Joseph Rios. Very glad to be with you guys. We're very glad that you're tuning in to our podcast.

We are part of the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network.

And.

I believe Wrath and Grace radio has stated that they are going to leave, but there's I think there's nine other podcasts. I'm not sure if we've kept the number to ten. Because I think we added a podcast.

Well, actually, it wasn't a podcast. It's a sermon. I think it's, do you know what it is, Joseph? Is it Christ the Rock?

I have no clue. I feel like we should know this though, right?

Yeah, yeah. We should keep up with everything that comes on. Alright, so it is Christ the Rock church sermons. I've been listening to it. I think they have some pretty good stuff. He quoted the Westminster Confession of Faith.

I believe that they're Reformed. I'm not sure if they're Presbyterian or Baptist, but I've enjoyed the last couple of episodes that I've heard from them. So it looks like, you know, I know that Tim is always looking for good quality content.

So, you know, I know that we're losing Wrath and Grace radio, but hopefully we'll be getting some other good stuff coming our way. So with that, I also wanted to mention that the series that we did on Mother Mary, Tim Coffman is actually doing a blog series and this is really, really good because as we were recording those episodes, I had access to Tim Coffman's notes.

And all of that stuff, he's putting in a blog. So that goes perfectly with the episode. You can listen to the episode, follow along. It's great stuff. You have the resources right there. It's a knockout for the Roman Catholic position on Mother Mary.

So I definitely want to recommend that to you. I just republished an old article from our old blog site. I wrote the article like two years ago, I believe, or maybe a year ago, but it's titled Rejecting Logic.

So we're going to be trying to transfer some of that content over to the Semper Reformanda radio blog page as we go along. So just if you want, make a profile, join our group, so that way you can get updates on everything that we do.

And.

So that's pretty much it for the way of announcements. Today what we're going to be doing is we've been planning to talk about this for, what has it been now, Joseph, a month, two months, three months, and it just keeps getting pushed back?

Yeah, no, it's been a little while now. I remember writing up the questions for this, and then we realized there were more questions than who had originally thought. But I think that it's interesting.

I don't think that when this came out matters. I think these are things that we deal with regularly. I don't think they're going away anytime soon as far as.

The content.

So I'm looking forward to talking about it.

Yeah, and I remember so I canceled on you twice, and then you canceled on me, and we've just been hitting the ball back and forth, and so finally we're going to record this. We're going to talk about a video that's on YouTube.

It's a pretty popular video, and we're going to go ahead and play it, and it's titled Questions Christians Have for Other Christians.

And.

I guess the reason I wanted to do this was because there's a character in there that seems to be pretty well liked by the Christian community. His name is John Crist, and he's a Christian comedian, and I'm sure that a lot of people, a lot of Christians have seen his stuff because I've seen them like it and post it, but he does the Church Hunters YouTube thing where it's a little spoof of House Hunters.

He does.

A couple of other comedy videos from a Christian perspective. I believe that he's a Christian comedian, and he's part of this video, and it kind of raises a lot of concern about where he's at theologically.

I know a lot of people are liking his stuff and promoting his stuff, but I think that we just got to be careful with what we promote and who we promote,.

And.

I don't know where this guy stands as far as his faith or his Christian walk, but I would not be caught dead in a video like this. So, I mean, it raises concerns. I don't see anything blasphemous in some of the videos that he's done outside of this.

I know that, Joseph, you said you had kind of an issue with the Church Hunters.

Deal.

You want to tell me why again?

Yeah, no problem.

So,.

Like I was saying to you earlier, the part of it that I like is it's kind of calling out what I would say professors of faith but not possessors of it, the way they look for a church body. It's about pleasing them.

It's about making themselves happy and fitting them and needing to fit everything they want, need, and if it doesn't, if it's not perfect, then they'll look for another one. So, I appreciate.

The...

I mean, that kind of needs to be pointed out. It's helpful in a way, but the problem is that he presents it as if those are Christians.

And.

So, I think the Scripture makes clear the priorities of somebody who's of faith, and these people don't have those priorities according to the way he does his comedy. It doesn't seem he has them either.

And so, I don't see how that edifies the body. I don't see how that.

Shows.

Love and care for.

Your.

Brothers and sisters in Christ.

And so,.

I think that, I don't know, they're not blasphemous against God, but I think we need to... I think it's actually a good reminder for all of us that we need to be very careful how we talk about Christ's bride, whether it be the individual.

Or the group.

Well, let me ask you, do you think that the video could be taken as.

Um,.

What is it, like hyperbole? Is that the word I'm looking for? Where it's sort of an exaggeration where, you know, Christians are looking for that perfect church, and then it's like, ah, you know, they don't have a bookstore, they don't have a coffee shop, or man, I can't stand the worship here.

And I always find that one funny because, you know, it's like, what... When you look at the churches that Paul was writing to, it's like, what did they have as far as music? You know,.

I really wonder...

Possibly the Psalms?

Yeah, I know, right? But they didn't have this band, they didn't have... I mean, they were meeting in houses, they didn't have all this stuff, and so, I'm just wondering if maybe it could just be hyperbole.

There's another video that I caught part of, um, I might have watched the whole thing, and it's where, you know, he's acting as if somebody that has the Bible verse for every occasion. And so everything I've seen from him really is just about making fun.

Of.

Certain types of Christians. And.

So,.

It seems to be that that's his form of comedy, is to make fun... I guess it's one thing if you were to make fun of yourself,.

Right?

But I don't see the benefit, I don't see the good side of the source of amusement that you show the world is how you think all these Christians are messed up and got it wrong, and they take themselves too seriously, or however you want to put it.

I haven't seen any of his comedy that doesn't make fun of the body. So it seems to be his modus operandi.

Yeah, yeah, okay. I mean, I'll have to think a little bit more about that, because I think I need to go back and watch the videos again. But let me do this. Let me step away real fast. We're going to do a time lapse here, because I need to charge my phone, and the charger's downstairs.

I'm going to get myself some water real quick, too.

Time out, everybody. Or you know what? I'll just go ahead and play the commercial right now. All right, we'll be back in a minute.

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Okay.

So I got what I needed and those are our sponsors. So please check out Tracked Planet. Joseph, let me ask you. When you go out and do evangelism, do you use tracks?

Yes, I do.

No.

I mean, it depends on which one I'm doing, but I usually have them with me. I always have tracks on me.

Yeah. One of the, I think, neat things of Tracked Planet, and I really want to do this, I just need to take the time to do this, is you can actually make your own tracks. So if we're talking to Roman Catholics, like, dude, we could totally put on a, like, check out these articles that we've written on Roman Catholicism.

So I definitely am going to, I'm going to put that in motion, okay?

I don't know when.

I've got, like, a million things I'm doing right now. This week, man, this week was so busy because we had the Classical Conversations Practicum. But, you know, that's just been really busy. But what were you going to say?

I was going to say, there's two of the people that I do evangelism with my, you know, on Sundays with the men that I worship with were both raised.

Roman Catholic.

And both of them speak Spanish. And so I'm sure one of them, if not both of them, one of them who wants to do tracks for our own church, so then that way we're handing out our own stuff. And then the other one who has written out something for himself that I haven't read yet.

That would be helpful, because I know that between the.

Italians,.

The Hispanic population, and the Irish, we've got almost all Roman Catholics on Earth covered, and so Spanish might be helpful also.

Yeah, I think it would be. You should get with those guys, man, and maybe get some tracks. Alright, so look, we're going to go ahead and play this video. It's titled Questions Christians Have for Other Christians.

Now some of the things that the people in here say, I think probably is an indication that they may not be a Christian. And I can't make that statement definitive. I don't know, but I would say that it's very alarming, and I would say that this is very much representative.

Of.

Where cultural Christianity is, and it reveals a serious lack of wisdom, discernment, and knowledge. And so I wanted to read this from an article written by John Robbins, and the article is titled The Church Irrational, and it says, The purpose, plan, and providence of God.

Further, they fail to indicate how God carries out His plan, how He darkens minds, how He withholds His light and His face. Objectively, this darkening is the dearth of preaching and the publication of the Word.

Subjectively, it is the rejection of revealed truth, including, at the present time, the revealed truth about logical thought. And so, if these people are Christian, they have no discernment. And I think that it's because they lack wisdom, they lack knowledge, and they do not believe.

The Word.

Everybody's at a different point in their sanctification, and I'd hope that they are Christians. I'm not going to affirm that because of what they say. But what John Robbins also points out is the first cause of this is basically the purpose of God, that God withholds knowledge, and I believe that, in light of Romans chapter 1, I believe that we are currently experiencing the outpouring of God's wrath on this nation, which, you know, the first thing that happens is He darkens their minds, He removes knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, and I believe that that is the outworking of God pouring out His wrath on a people.

The first thing that He does is He makes them foolish. He removes wisdom from them, truth from them, and He hands them over to a debased mind. He hands them over to a reprobate mind, and you know, it's alarming where we're at in our society because man, I remember growing up as a kid and I never heard anything about homosexuality on TV.

So, we've gone from homosexuality being okay to now they're pushing transgenderism, and they're not only doing this in the mainstream, but they're doing this, they're targeting kids, and we've talked about that before.

So, this is another example of people who are professing to be Christian and who are, it's very subtle, but I believe that they're pushing an anti-Christ agenda. And unfortunately, this comedian that everybody likes, John Crist, he's in this video.

He asks a couple of questions, and so we're going to play this video and then we're going to go through and we're going to try to tackle some of these questions. Now, some of these questions are stupid, they're just superficial and it's like, well, okay, you're just making a cute little video, like, we're not really going to take much time to answer that because it's dumb.

So, let's go ahead and play the video and then we'll take it from there, okay?

Do you really think he's freaking out because his name is not on a cup that you could hold for ten minutes while you drink a pumpkin spice latte? Why does Christian music always sound like a mixture of, like, Nickelback and Third Eye Blind?

Did your devotions actually happen if you didn't post about it on Instagram?

How come we all love Tim Tebow? I mean, I do love him, I just don't.

Know why. Why can't you just pray? Why does it have to be a prayer and then, like, someone in the background being like,.

Yeah, how come everyone's still supporting Donald Trump? Why are we.

So afraid to talk about sex? Sex is good. Have you read Song of Solomon?

How come we all love Chick-fil-A?

Why do you think Facebook is an appropriate place to discuss theology? Why when Paul said that we all have our own individual gifts, that we feel the need to fit into this absolutely perfect mold, that's impossible.

Why are we as Christians more known by the things we hate than by our acts of love? Why do you think Christianity and science are incompatible? If anything, science makes God look a lot cooler. Why are you so adamant about exercising your religious freedoms but then get so offended when people of other faith exercise their religious freedoms?

Why do you feel like I have to constantly be preaching in order to be a good Christian? Is showing my friends love and grace not allowed to just speak for itself sometimes?

How come. There's a church on every block but for some reason we can't figure out a way.

To work together? Why is there so much racism, sexism, and homophobia in the church? Galatians 3 .28 says there's neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor male nor female, for all one in Christ Jesus.

So doesn't that pretty much tell you that none of that stuff matters? Why when the main message of the Bible is to love one another that we choose to do the opposite? How come when we talk about men having several wives in the Old Testament we say cultural context but then when we talk about marriage today it's strictly one man and one woman?

Why does having a diverse group of friends make me less Christian? Why does the church consider LGBT Christians as less than? I don't remember there being a demographic of people that Jesus saw as less than.

You know all that grace and forgiveness and love we've all received? How come we can't find a way that extends that to other people?

Why do you feel like love the sinner and hate the sin is an okay thing to say? You realize that's condescending and still separating them as an other, right? Why do you think you can judge my relationship with God off of a handful of statements?

You get mad at me for not being able to back up what I have to say, but you end up taking Scripture out of context so many times. What makes you decide what makes me a good Christian? Last I checked, everyone's relationship with God is personal.

In the end,.

The grand message here is that you're supposed to love one another, and I'm sorry if I sound like a hallmark after-school special, but it's the truth.

Why Cultural Christianity Lacks Discernment

Alright, that was the horrible antichrist agenda, or commercial, or whatever you want to call it. So, Joseph, first thoughts, man. How awful was that?

When you first sent me the video,.

My.

Response was questions non-Christians have for Christians. I think that says how I feel about it. Nothing about that was Christian. Nothing about the questions were. I can understand.

The error,.

Or the tone which was used.

Had an error.

Of,.

I don't know, arrogance might be the right word, condescension.

They were.

As if it was absurd that they had to ask the question in the first place, and I would agree it would be absurd to ask those questions if you knew what the Scripture taught on those things.

Yeah, and.

So the last question I think applies to you. What makes you decide what makes me a good Christian? Last I checked, everybody's relationship with God is personal. So that's for you, Joseph, because you just questioned.

And then,.

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with the description of condescension, which is kind of funny, because the one girl that was accusing Christians of being condescending, I thought she was being condescending.

So this was an awful hot mess. What do you say. We just go through these questions and tackle them and we will try to answer some of these stupid questions that these professing Christians have for Christians.

What do you say, man?

That sounds good.

Okay, so the first question is, do you really think he is freaking out because his name is not on a cup that you have to hold for 10 minutes while drinking a pumpkin spice latte? Obviously, they're going after the whole Red Cup, Starbucks.

Debacle.

I really don't have much to say on this. It doesn't look like you typed out many notes on this, because I think this is dumb.

It sets the tone, right? It sets the tone for the whole thing. It sets the tone to make all of the questions seem as if they're absurd to be asked in the first place.

Well, you're right,.

But here's the other thing. This is what's really interesting. As a Christian, I would agree. As a Bible-believing Christian who takes my faith very seriously, I would agree that that whole let's protest Starbucks because they have a Red Cup and they're not putting Santa Claus and Christmas stuff on it.

I think that was really absurd. I think that was really dumb. They're presenting themselves as the rational, the intellectual Christian. It's like, look, guys, this is absurd. Let's not get carried away with protesting a company because they have a Red Cup or because his name isn't written on the cup.

It's.

Kind of.

Interesting that this is.

The first.

Question. It's almost like a gateway drug. It's like, okay, yeah, you got me. Yeah, I agree with you and that sounds reasonable and therefore you're reasonable and so I'm with you. Then from there, they take that and then they just jump into.

Well,.

Let's continue with this idea that we're rational, that we're intellectual, that we're not the Fundy Mundies of the Christian world. We're not the weirdos and the lunatics.

I agree.

With them on that to a point, but I think maybe there's a better way to ask that question and deal with that.

Issue.

Anything else on that one?

Unfortunately, I think from the liberal side of things, I can't comment on that because I don't have any personal experience with a pumpkin.

Spice latte.

I'll have to withhold my opinion since I don't understand.

You're going to have to explain that. That went over my head.

No, no, no.

If you haven't gone through the experience, then you can't talk about it. If you're not one of these people, you can't talk about it. I'm excluded.

From.

Being able to have a valuable opinion on this. It's a stupid.

Question. You know what's really funny? Side track, side note. The article that I recently just wrote, I criticized Stephen Hawking with something that he says about the universe creating itself. One of the guys at work said, you're not a physicist, so you have no basis for criticizing Stephen Hawking because you're not a physicist.

Man, I took that to the bank. I was like, okay, he's not a Christian and you're not a Christian, so you can't criticize Christianity. He just cut himself down with an axe. It was beautiful, man. Everything he said, I was like, well, you're not a Christian, you can't answer that.

Convert to Christ and then you can criticize Christianity. Once you do that,.

You're not going to be.

Criticizing it once you do that.

Anyways,.

I liked your little comment right now.

Why does.

Christian music sound like a mixture of Nickelback and Third Eye Blind? I don't really know. I really don't know. I really don't remember who Nickelback was or who Third Eye Blind was. I mean, it was back in, I think, the 90s or early 2000s.

I don't know. I don't care. I saw that you wrote something on that. Did you want to say anything about it?

Yeah, sure. I'd say for.

I'm just.

A fan of contemporary Christian music to a degree.

It's almost.

Like as far as quality of music, the standard in general is lower. That might be why it sounds that way. But I would say it doesn't. To that effect, I wouldn't qualify all music that's called Christian as Christian.

I mean, there's a couple of groups out there that come out of different and I hate. I'm trying to find another word for churches, but.

That aren't.

That aren't Christians.

You've got.

This is my notes. I'm almost reading it verbatim. You've got Bethel and Hillsong. Neither one of them are Christian churches,.

But.

People think they are. So they call it Christian music. The worst part is I've listened to one of the songs that I like and I would never point somebody to that band or to that song because I don't want to point them in the direction of.

Any.

Of those places. Even if a broken clock's right twice a day.

You don't use it to tell time. Let's go on to the third question. Did your devotions actually happen if you did not post about it on Instagram?

Does Twitter count?

They didn't ask that question.

I don't know.

Maybe we could do devotions on YouTube and record them. Or we could do it like this and we'll do our devotions.

Or Facebook. There's Twitter, there's Facebook,.

There's...

You can do Snapchat too.

If you have a group going.

In Marco Polo, you can do it that way. Marco Polo's actually super useful.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

It's something my wife and I use.

Okay.

I think that the main... That's a good question. Interestingly enough, I think that there's two reasons.

Why.

People do that. One of them is to point to God given glory. The scripture says do your good works before men so that they may give glory to your Father who is in heaven. And you've got the contrast to it, which is beware of the warning of practicing your righteous works before others to be noticed by them.

Otherwise, you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. You've got those two contrasts. I think it just depends on what your goal is. I think that a lot of people put that kind of stuff up. This sense of piety of, you know, I have my coffee, my Bible.

I've posted those kinds of pictures.

In there.

They do it so that people can see them do it. And then there's people who post that stuff just to be an encouragement to others that this is what they're studying. This is what they're working through so they can be encouraged by that.

And so.

The bad part about it is some people do it for the wrong reasons even though some people do it for the right ones.

Why Christian Music, Devotions, and Celebrity Christianity Can Become Performative

Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you said that. Okay, so the next question is by John Crist.

And he.

Says, How come we all love Tim Tebow? And then he says, I mean, I love him, but why? Or something like that. You know, I really don't care that much. I don't, I really I mean, it's kind of like, if I saw Tim Tebow, I'd probably just shake his hand and say hi.

I mean, the people that I would be more excited about seeing would be somebody like John MacArthur.

Or.

You know, Vody Baucom.

Or.

Paul Washer or somebody like that, like R .C. Sproul.

You know,.

I'd be more excited about seeing some of those people, and I think the reason why is because I feel like, man, I would have so much more to talk to them about than with Tim Tebow. Like, I don't really watch football that much, you know.

It's like, I just don't care. And, you know, it's like, hey, I heard he saved somebody on a plane or he did something like that, like gave somebody I don't know what he did. He did something on a plane, and I might be able to ask him about that, but like, hey, if I meet John MacArthur, I want to talk about some things.

If I meet R .C. Sproul, like, I want to talk about his eschatology. Like, I want to talk about, like, what he thinks about Clark. Like, I could spend a lot of time with these guys talking to them.

And.

So, yeah, I mean, I love Tim Tebow as a brother in Christ, but I get what he's saying. It's like, why do we all look up to him? He's awesome. I don't really have much more to say about that.

Yeah, and my thoughts, I think people have a lot of they put a lot of hope in popular Christianity or popular Christians. They see, and I think some of this stuff actually can be really encouraging. They see somebody who is in what is typically a very, like, you know, worldly position, whether, you know, they're influenced either by their fame or by their money, and they seem to be consistently faithful, and I think that's why a lot of people like him or are encouraged by him, but I also think that, you know, people jump on the whole, you know, celebrity Christian thing and just are so, you know, encouraged, but perhaps just because of their status that they're doing that, but they're speaking their faith in that public forum.

My question to that just ends up returning to how encouraged are you by somebody who stands outside that you don't know proclaiming the gospel? Why would you be one more than the other?

Yeah, that's a good contrast. And this is not to knock Tim Tebow because I think the guy is cool. You know, I like him. I just, I don't know what I would talk to him about.

So, I mean,.

I could talk to him about.