How Liberal Can a Person Be and Still Be a Christian?

How liberal can a person be and still be a believer that's what we're going to talk about today on conversations with a Calvinist which begins right now Welcome back to conversations with a Calvinist My name is T Foskey and I am a Calvinist and I am joined today by the not yet Calvinist Matthew Henson and the man whose knee is currently touching mine Richard We Are not in the studio today.

We are literally in my home studio, which is kind of only made for one person Yes, but we are together.

And so we're Shoulder-to-shoulder, this is gonna call it an intimate setting.

Yes.

Yes, but not not by design It's a necessity because out in the woods where I live the Internet is terrible Yes, so you will you will no longer be seeing Richard on the zoom He and I will either be doing the shows that he attends at our church studio Which is a nice setup or you'll be seeing him here in the home studio, which if I can get a longer Network cable or if I can get my friend who does networking who is literally right there to come I can do that me a network to my to another room in my house.

We could do this somewhere else Okay, that's what we need to do Matthew, can you do that sure can all right I know nobody cares about what we're talking about, but I said today is gonna be unscripted Unscripted conversation with a Calvinist.

I'm the Calvinist this guy beside me is a Calvinist and you are on your way So we have okay All right I'll say this though.

We are having a conversation with I'll say it like this today's conversation was is with two deacons Hmm because Richard is a deacon.

That's right at Greg Abel's Baptist Church and Matthew is a recently Made deacon at Switzerland Community Church.

So that's right.

We're Yeah So and we were supposed to have a fourth we were supposed to have our friend Austin But I know he was unable to be with us tonight.

Hopefully he'll be on the program again soon I was gonna be two pastors and two deacons, but now it's just gonna be Just me and two deacons so we're talking today and the reason why I wanted to get to the group together is we're talking about a recent video that was Published and the subject matter of the video was Progressive Christianity has a conversation with Conservative Christianity and they had three if I remember correctly Three people that represented progressive Christianity and three people who represented Conservative Christianity they had three what looked like bar stools and they would they would pronounce the topic like I think the first topic was Homosexuals should be able to be married in the church.

Was that the first? The first one was Regarding the the two major political parties in the United States is one of them more Christ centered than the other Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah very very odd But they would come up they would sit on the bar stools and I'm gonna play a clip from that so you can kind of get the feeling of what's there and We'll throw that clip in and you'll be able to see what it looks like.

Yeah.

Well, I do believe that Homosexuality is a sin.

I Can't tell you what you can can or can't do with your life and I do think that you should have the same rights that I have well, I'm married to a wonderful man and so So, of course, I would have to agree with the LGBT people should be allowed to get married in the church But again, I don't see the harm.

I see beautiful couples like this gentleman here But when they come to the church and they're saying can you approve our marriage before God? I can't disregard what I believe the Bible says and say oh forget what the Bible says So that could be more accepting of people and the Bible equates homosexuality to sexual immorality You can no longer say that's horrible.

What's happening over there? Because this theology is the basis of that suicidal ideation in many cases It is the basis of transphobia in many cases if you see all of this atrocious pain We're causing the LGBTQ plus community then we need to look at the plank in our own eye and say wait why is this happening and Now that we've seen the clip which for us was a second because we didn't get to do that We will now discuss Our feelings about it.

I want to I want to kind of go around the room.

I'll start with Richard and say Richard You've you've watched at least a portion of the video You said you had a hard time making it through it What were your initial when I when I first messaged you I said hey watch this video.

What were your first thoughts about it? Initially when it said it's progressive Christians were you know having debates with conservative Christians as I'm watching it I'm Part of me was thinking where's the conservative Christians? There's not really conservative Christians on that panel One fella for as far as I got into it Seemed the most the he was the one that during the homosexual discussion Basically said he struggles with the tendencies, but he doesn't Submit to them.

So he was about as close as to it as you can get it because he's actually trying to Be a Bible Bible says Um, but all the other ones at some point or another Said some kind of wackadoo stuff That doesn't line up with conservative Christianity as it's defined as it's defined in my mind at all So that was my first thought was where's the where's the conservative Christians in this group? There's there was not a Paul Washer among them.

I mean, so you ain't got James White Paul Correct.

Yeah, yeah So anyway, that was my initial thoughts from I was watching it and I said only got like 15 minutes in of the 24 How about you Matthew? Did you watch the whole thing? I did I listened watched and listened to the whole thing It was an interesting video things.

What was it? What'd you say you suffer? I said, we're in we're in second so so 20 minutes before this was recorded.

We just concluded our small group.

And so we did second Timothy.

We're in second Timothy and Chapter two there's a verse on there where Paul says I endure all things for the sake of the elect And so I feel that this was my Paul was in prison Being starved and beaten and all that and so I think I can watch a Facebook video.

So I Yeah, so this I mean it was a well-made video it had high production values a lot of camera angles a lot of lighting and close-ups of people and all that and I I think it was helpful because as Richard was saying he was saying could the you know, could the could the true conservative in the room, please stand up because it was very difficult to figure that out sometimes When someone says a conservative or a progressive Christian What are those terms? Mean to different people is kind of murky to nail down It's a it's a bevy of different issues.

We have to consider on You know if you hold some of these but not others of those and and analogies to politics are often not helpful, but are often made But to the point I saw they presented I think four or five different issues it was hot buttons it was politics of like which party should we support there was a question of Their terminology LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign tilde at symbol People should be able to get married in the church.

That was that that was what they say should be able to get married in the church Yes Would Jesus have supported the Black Lives Matter riots or the demonstrations, excuse me? What do you supported the those demonstrations and there was one of the question Yeah, and so these are these are hot-button issues and I will say this I sent the link off to another friend of mine who he and I were in the same church But I said, you know, this was really useful for me because I am blessed with a biblically centered and Grounded church and biblically centered grounded friends.

I don't interact with this world very much And so this is actually useful to me to be able to see how the other side thinks Because someone walks into my connect group, which is we we treat them as an evangelistic idea a lot of people won't go to church, but they will go to someone's house for dinner and So someone walks in and I just start making a case from the biblical text When they're not even operating in anywhere close to that worldview.

It's not that I shouldn't do that It's that I need to take a different start before I get to that end.

It doesn't mean we water down It doesn't mean we squish out on stuff It means I need to understand a little bit more that this person may not be coming from quote-unquote cultural Christianity And I need to take a different a different approach and this I'd say this video was useful in showing how that can happen yeah, and I would say You know when I first saw it and I appreciate both of your thoughts by the way, let's say that and When I first saw it come up that was why I sent it to you guys because I said I do think that this is this does have some value in pulling back the veil But I think it really is in one sense one-sided This is where I would probably agree with with Richard and you you seconded it Matthew So agree with both of you that you know, there wasn't a there wasn't really a representation of what we would call conservatism or biblical Christianity the one guy at the toward the end Really took a hard stand and said you guys have a wrong hermeneutic And when I hear somebody say that that typically means that at least they have some kind of training You know usually when they use that word or have have heard, you know Sound teaching at some point and he said you guys have a wrong hermeneutic and this is the conservative guy and then the very next thing we see is he is The guy beside him the other conservative says well, I agree with what he's saying, but he was so curt Remember that he said he said I had to be so curt and I'm like Dude, why is it that we are so afraid? to ever be at all a little bit hard You know Just say hard truths and a heart.

No, no No, you have to sugarcoat everything you have to put everything under a mountain of jello pudding it cannot be It can't just be said and when this guy said it even his So so to speak the person on his side was yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you that was well You know, I would agree with him, but he didn't he was so curt He was just so and I thought man.

Have you met Richard Roden? This guy's like a chainsaw to a blade of grass I don't know what you I'm just kidding.

I'm giving a hard time because he's next to me, but You know talk about Kurt, you know the idea and and and I do think that there are times where our side can be blistering with its words, but Nothing the guy said in my estimation should have been Contrived as as Kurt, I don't know if you think this Matthew if you if you feel the same way I know Richard he checked out before that point, but you know No, I I'm with you on that I think So so a Generational difference is that I'll say my generation because I can't I can not really estimate.

I'm 28 I can't really estimate exactly how old they they all were in this video But there were a couple that around my age group and I'll say quote-unquote.

My generation is a much more emotive generation there's not as much of a Emphasis on propositional truth or things like that.

And so when I'm having discussions with people in my age group appeals to And this is the the post-modernism modernism thing.

We talked about Keith a few episodes back There is an emphasis on will my perspective is different and you can have your perspective and I can have my perspective and that's fine I cannot believe how many times I can't believe how many times I heard over and over again Okay, well that can be your belief and that's fine, but I'm gonna have my belief over here and Interestingly enough the American society we live in with our First Amendment protections on on exercise of religion That is the cornerstone Interpretation which is to say you may practice your religion over there and I will practice my religion over here and there the twain shall meet and we'll be fine and That's a good thing on a civic level but when that sort of Merges into how we talk about biblical truth.

It gets dangerous Yeah, I recently heard a guy make the argument actually I didn't hear a guy and now that I come to think of it it was actually What's that pastor's name big-name pastor Bald-headed guy wears glasses Gets himself in trouble all the time now with conservatives.

He's supposed to tell her Guys But Tim Keller said a In a tweet, I think it was That you know Idolatry is unbiblical and homosexuality as unbiblical the conservatives are only trying to outlaw Homosexuality nobody's trying to outlaw Idolatry and and he and his post was actually much longer than that He he took that what I consider to be an asinine proposition and maybe you guys see it differently But he took what I consider to be an asinine proposition and then he elaborated on it to basically come to the point That you can't you can't really say that Christianity would tend to one side or the other And you you read it Matthew because I remember yeah Do you think I'm being fair with what he said there that he basically came down on saying you can't you can't you can't say Christianity is conservative or progressive He did say that so Keller's thing and I think he and NT Wright must have been spending some time together on their their lack of clarity sometimes and you know, and you and I had a podcast about that and I think I was a bit more Defensive isn't the right word maybe a bit more complimentary of him then you might have been and that's fine But I recognize he has a clarity, right? Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Yeah, and that that's fine.

But Keller someone posted it quoted the tweet and said They said is there a week that goes by that Tim Keller doesn't say you know what this issue could use a whole bunch of Vague and ambiguous statements that mean nothing And he just kind of has a checklist he's like abortion we're doing that one and welfare state we're doing that one and BLM We're doing that one.

Like what this issue really needs is a bunch of vague statements that lead nowhere, you know, yeah So to your point, yes Keller's point was he'll say this all the time The Bible tells me abortion is wrong and I agree But what's the best way to fix it? Is it to outlaw it which is the Republican position or is it to massively increase spending on social services? So that it's not needed anymore, which is the Democrat position a Christian can pick either one These are both equally valid positions and it's like dude, I mean Yeah, I would argue that's not the Democratic position.

They're not it isn't.

Oh, yeah They're not trying to make it less the whole idea of safe rare and what was it safe safe legal and rare? Clinton mantra safe legal and rare.

Yeah, Bill Clinton mantra was also I didn't have sex with that woman.

So just to be clear anyway Now Bill Clinton would be a centrist Republican most of the time now I mean, yeah, you look at you look at and we're digressing a bit But the Barack Obama 2008 you actually look at archived versions of his campaign website and the positions he held the dude was to the right of 2016 Donald Trump on a few things which is an unbelievable thing when you I mean Sanctity of life, you know safe legal rare abortion is a rare thing that it's we try not to do it but sometimes you just have to and marriage is between a man and a woman and We should not allow people to skip the immigration It's like a lot of those of those positions were held by him circuit 2008 now He didn't govern that way, but that's what he campaigned on and it's a wild shift in the last decade Sure.

Sure.

Well getting back to the Well getting back to steps cousins.

I wanted to mention one thing other about the Tim Keller tweet because I do think that The comparison that he makes between making idolatry illegal and was it abortion or was a homosexuality Remind me it was abortion because the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion was in the news.

Yeah, okay I said decided to inject a bunch of fog into things for no reason.

Yeah, but his point again I would say is ass I maybe you guys would correct me, but I say it's asinine because you're looking at Idolatry is a grave sin and and and and theonomist would say my theonomist friends would say it should be illegal and and from the perspective of From the perspective of sheer God's law is Could be the basis of man's law there.

There's some sense in which I would I would I would sympathize with that But but yeah, but be that as it may the issue with abortion is The most fundamental right to life it's something that if we with the advent of Ultrasound technology with the advent of Scientific advancements that have taken place since Ruby way the idea that we just say this is just a clump of cells Those arguments are not even they're not even worth speaking anymore.

And yet they're still being used.

They're still being Propagated they're still being repeated and the idea that you can that you can simply say that you can have the Democrat opinion of Go ahead and kill the baby and still be a Christian and that's and that's really what? Today's conversation is about because based on that video the idea is it really doesn't matter what you believe you can still call yourself a Christian I think that if you say that then you have abandoned Christianity and you've replaced it it you've you've replaced it with something other than Christianity no matter what you call it It's not Christianity anymore.

Yep, Richard Richard talk.

You've been I've been kind of going back and forth with Matthew here And I feel like I'm leaving.

Yeah Yeah, I thought um Well with the killer tweet.

The first thing I thought was what are you even saying right now? It's just well, I don't even understand what this has.

What is was what is this? And Again with Keller the thing I hate the hate that disappoints me with Keller is you know 15 years ago in Our young Mary glass when me and Fell down Tim Tim was teaching it.

We went through prodigal God that he wrote.

It was a great book There's an excellent book and was well on the parable of the prodigal son and all that and it was great And he handled the text.

Well, it was and then As times going on he's dove in the culture is affecting him and it's obvious the culture is affecting him and it might be where he Passes I think he passes what in New York or something like that or it's some liberal state.

But anyway, he's getting Influenced by the culture around him and he's caving a little bit and I remember you asking the question in the text back and forth about how we're gonna do that what we're gonna Center on this show and you asked the question of when does Liberal or progressivism, but how far can you go before you're no longer Christian? Yeah, and that's a difficult question to answer because I was thinking about him on the way over here Well, how do you answer that question? So you take a guy like Keller who at one point? Was conservative and the whole nine yards, but now he's getting on like some of this woke social justice train okay, so do we have a man who's a Christian who's Falling off the rails and needs to be have big correction and discipline and needs to repent and recant some of this stuff Or do you have a man who? Has never been a Christian in the first place? Because if you ask the question, how far can you go before he's no longer Christian? Well, if you're if you dive so far into progressive Christianity and liberalism that you're holding to abortions fine And the whole night all these things we've been talking about Well, you if even our non Calvinist friend would say our almost Calvinist friend would say Yeah, would say if He gets to the point if the person like Keller gets so far down the line to the point where he you you can say He's no longer bearing the fruit of a Christian and he was never Christian in the first place Mm-hmm.

So you take his earlier work and say was this the work of an unregenerate man? Or was he is he always been a Christian II you see what I'm saying? That's a difficult question answer What's the line? That's where my mind's been as we've been talking about this because that question was what you originally posed So do you think that I'll ask both of you and you just give me a yes or no.

Do you think that that fundamentally that Keller has has Rejected any essential tenet of the gospel it it depends Because one of the things that Matthew and I are going to be doing if we get a chance Thursday I know we're still we're still working on our schedules, but we're gonna do it an episode of not only water, which is our Which is my other show and we're gonna talk about the essentials versus the the secondary things and then the tertiary or adi offer things And we're gonna discuss that because because for pastors that's an important question You get somebody who comes in your church who wants to be a believer and you say, okay All right.

I'm sorry not wants to be a believer.

You either are you aren't I mean, we rephrase that you who wants to be a Member, right and yet they're a person who? proudly supports the LGBT Movement, they're not themselves gay, but they proudly support it They you know, they wear the God, you know, God is for pride or shirt or whatever to church, you know What do you do with that? And so that's that's what we're gonna talk about a little bit on the show is is what are the essentials? What are the non-essentials and what are church related matters? At least I think that's what we're gonna talk about Am I am I am I right now? Yeah, I actually put a third category in there I call it and not to do too many spoilers on the not only water thing and we only have limited time That's okay.

It needs it needs a bigger audience So go ahead and tell people what we're gonna talk about so they'll come listen.

Sure.

Sure.

So it's a practical question So new Christian comes to me and says hey our church does communion Once a month and this other church does it once a week? Does that mean that they're not real Christians, you know, and and we can kind of chuckle about that but for a very new believer, that's like Yeah, like again we can we sarcastically jaw about it, but for a new believer like they don't know How how does how do we do this? So I what I do and this will inform the rest of this and I'll be as quick and brief as I can on this I draw three concentric circles on on a whiteboard usually and in the center I write the word definitional and then in the middle ring I write essential and then on the outside I write a Greek word Adi Afra and so Adi Afra means the the other things and so from the center The center ring is definitional.

If you do not believe this you are Definitionally not a Christian and it's not an insult.

It's I'm not trying to Whatever.

It just means this is if words have meaning this is what this means and in there You would have things like the deity of Christ the bodily resurrection The fact that atonement happened I know there's some nuance of different atonement theories, but but the fact that atonement happened the incarnation Christ return things like that that if you if you say You know you do the Jesus was just a good teacher kind of thing then you're not a Christian you can claim it But you're not Then outside of that the second ring essential doctrine.

This means that if you deny this You're probably still a Christian, but I won't go to your church So if you ordain women or something like that, I think that there are many saints that work in churches that have female pastors I think that's not consistent with biblical Direction on how a church should be I think that needs to not be a thing But I'm not going to pronounce everyone in that church out of the kingdom I think it's just a disordered and improper way of doing things Other things in church governance things like that would go in there and then audio for the last circle is Things that people within the same lowercase C Church should be able to maturely disagree on This is music style.

This is communion once a week once a month This is how many vacation days does the pastor get sorry Keith there may be some dispute on that, you know, yeah Yeah Vacation days.

Yeah Richard's holding up the zero.

Yeah What church? No, see we're Puritans I get a sabbatic.

Ah, there you go.

That's right so mature believers should be able to disagree on these and these are the things that Sort of in a Romans 14 way if you're if it's gonna cause your brother to stumble you should be able to give on this You know like okay, I wanted hymns, but the new people don't want them, but I've been in the faith for 40 years I can I can have music that isn't my favorite for the sake of the newer weaker Christians and that's a good thing to do now the the error of Fundamentalism takes the definitional ring and it stretches it all the way out and it says everything is definitional If you're not in a three-piece suit and tie, you're not a Christian if you don't preach out of the 1611 King James You're not a Christian if you don't and on and on and on and just every little thing you're kicked out of the faith Stop right there.

I just want to add.

I just want to add a thought.

Yeah, because The when we say you can't be liberal or Christian or whatever.

There are people who would call me a liberal Yeah, because I because I preach from ESV Yeah, because our church sing songs that are less than a hundred years old You know, there are people who would say your church is liberal we've had people walk into our church and leave Because they saw that we were preaching out of ESV.

So just understand when we talk.

Yeah, we talk about liberal versus Conservative it's not as cut-and-dry as some might think so.

Yeah, please Sure, you're good.

So fundamentalism takes that center ring and makes it everything progressive Christianity liberal Christianity Left-wing Christianity whatever kind of terminology you want to use takes the outer ring adiaphora and Pushes it all the way to the center and it says things like the deity of Christ the resurrection the atonement Well, you know we can all disagree on that if you don't think Jesus is God, that's fine.

That's okay You know, whatever.

We're all okay with that.

That's the error of progressive Christianity What we must do is be ordered in our thinking and be able to sort these things into categories and say this is Something we cannot move on and this is something that we cannot move on within a church But if another church does that maybe we don't do ministry with them but there are probably some Christians in there and then the outer ring is people within a church should be able to differ on this Maturely and that will come in when we start talking about some of the issues that they discuss in the video yeah, and that that gets us back on track because When we win that video if our audience goes and watches it's only 24 minutes So it's it's not like it would take a big part of their day to watch it unless you're Richard Might have been a gag reflex more than a timing issue Yeah, if you go and watch it you will you'll pick up on a few things at least I did Probably the number one thing is how quickly The Scriptures though, they are though they were affirmed Tacitly are thrown out Wholesale like for instance at one point they said I love the Bible.

I read this is the progressives.

I love the Bible I read it every day one guy said every week, which I thought was funny.

He said I Times a year, that's good Yeah, but but they were they were basically trying to say we love the Bible but then when somebody quoted the Bible Well, that's Paul and Paul doesn't speak for God and they said no he's inspired.

Well, he's inspired But that doesn't mean that's God speaking.

It's like no, that's exactly what the word the apne stas means It means God breathed and so the idea that the the scriptures being in fact, I don't like the word inspired I think the doctrine of inspiration The fact that we use the word inspired and it's the same word we use whenever we say well This artist was inspired to paint this painting or this this songwriter was inspired to write the song or that or I was inspired By the mountain.

Yeah, or the or the Sun or the moon or whatever, you know, it inspired me that that that's that's a problem Because we have a nomenclature issue.

That's why I do for the term God breathed that I prefer the term, you know God's Word Versus just saying the Bible So Those are those are issues that were main for me in the video because it just kept they kept they kept spitting it out we love the Bible, but Paul's yeah Paul's not you know authoritative and then they did the they did that when it came the homosexual thing They committed the gravest sin of all they tried to go to the Greek and they flopped They absolutely did as they said arson a coy taste means pedophilia no it and melancholy.

Yeah Malik.

Oh, yes No, it doesn't Take it away Matthew.

Tell us what it means.

Well, yeah, so What so inspired is actually inspired as a is I'm gonna sadly I'm gonna agree with you and disagree with you It's it's sadly a great word Because it means in spirited Spire meaning to put the spirit into someone Yeah as Christians, that's how we believe the Bible happened men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit Yeah, God's Spirit did not grab their arm and typewriter them or something like that.

But they auto-writing what? What's that? No, it was Indiana Jones reference.

Forget it.

Got it.

Yeah, so they These men spoke from God as they were carried along Conducted guided by the Holy Spirit and so the Holy Spirit is God's Holy Spirit is the source of Scripture and so Inspired all scripture is inspired.

It is it is it has the spirit upon it is true But you're right in our common parlance.

It's not it's not used that way.

It's unfortunately The word is is used in a bunch of other ways.

I I just you know, the honest sauce is fantastic I like God breathes the ESV actually renders that all scripture 2nd Timothy 316 all scripture is breathed out by God It just goes ahead and makes an idiomatic expression of which I think is fantastic Yeah, so the point about the the homosexuality bit and the utter flop on the on the translation They said this refers only to pedophilia And this is a common escape hatch for people who Who are trying to get around this trying to avoid the teaching of this text these words are used by Paul in first Corinthians chapter 6 Romans chapter 1 and I believe first Timothy 1 10, I think it is It's in a vice list there but the assertion was this is referring to Just pedophilia the problem is if you look at arson a coitus you have arson arson oz you know for the word for a man just the Greek word for man and Coitus which is a cognate in the English language According to the big bang theory.

Yes.

Yeah and so Yeah, who's gonna get that? What I'm about? Keep going keep going.

I'm for some reason.

I just became the pop culture guru of the group, but nice Uh, and then you have the second word Malakai which just really means soft And so this is probably the active and passive partner in a in a male homosexual relationship How this could be construed as Pedophilia I'm I've heard other assertions.

I don't I think it was just asserted in this video I don't think there was any evidence put behind and there and this is what gets me about the video And you you you correct me if you think I'm wrong both of you can can chime in on this.

I think the video intentionally allowed for certain things to be expressed from the progressive side and Not so much from the other side here because I don't think there was a fair hearing on both sides It just like you said, where was the conservative? nobody on the conservative side was making Greek word arguments.

Nobody said the opnistos or anything like that, but the people on the other side Obviously came loaded for bear.

Well arson a coitus means Pedophilia, and that's what I mean.

No, it doesn't but somebody you know, what was the guy who wrote the the homosexual book? Rob I'm not wrong.

Yeah Matthew Matthew Vines.

Yeah, even though Matthew Vines has convinced the world Or at least the the LGBT, you know the letter people he's convinced the letter people that this is That that this means something other than just homosexuality It just doesn't hold up under so you just showed that doesn't hold up under scrutiny the idea of This is obviously what they meant Is Just seems to me to be I don't care.

I'm sorry Richard.

Go ahead.

Well, I was like say what I noticed was one The fellow that brought up, you know, Paul's Paul wasn't Paul was the one writing it wasn't God writing It was wasn't God's words Paul's words was the one man who was a married to a man So this was his attempt to justify his His lifestyle you gotta you've got to twist something.

You got to take something out You got to remove God from the equation so that you can justify your lifestyle.

God didn't say this Paul said this so Paul's wrong God wouldn't would never say that I shouldn't be in a relationship with a man whole nine yards, um, the other thing is like going to your point Keith is Anytime one of the progressives Spit something out and Challenged the so-called conservatives in the group.

The conservatives got real quiet real quick.

It's like they weren't prepared to Or they were afraid to really contest up to the 15-minute point anyway contest what they were saying Because when when the one girl the one girl on the left-hand side with long hair kept she would spout something out of the fellow Across the room who was struggling with homosexuality anytime she would get kind of not really aggressive, but Challenge him he'd clam up like he didn't have he didn't know how to answer her questions He wasn't prepared to answer questions where I think you're right afraid.

He's afraid to fear And I've noticed that too is when it comes to conservative Christians or Christians in general anytime they come across Someone who wants to challenge them and challenge them hard They're afraid to be Kurt as the one guy said or to offend or make somebody mad Well, I'm sorry.

The gospel's offensive.

So At some point you're gonna have to offend someone or to quote Jordan Peterson in order to think you have to risk being offensive if you're going to Speak your mind on the situation.

You may offend someone and you don't have to try to be offensive But if you offend them as that's I'm sorry, that's too bad.

I'm just giving you the truth here um, so We're gonna call you captain Kurt The USS the USA I Followed the follow the order of argumentation here and it went something like this it was that one of the gentlemen said well, I'm What he claimed was married to another man and so obviously I think the church should approve this and when someone else said well it says She said we're all trying to get to heaven, right? Like that's the goal of Christianity, which is a tell that you've got a bad root at your and this is one of the conservative Christians, but you've got a bad root there but let's sidestep that for just a minute and She said well, I read first Corinthians 6 9 and 10 and it says this group of people drunkards idolaters fornicators Homosexuals will not will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

And so I don't want to be in that group, which was her defense So, okay fine, you know points for effort there grounding in Scripture and that's when the the counter to that was well That's arson of Cortez and Malakoi and that means an older man and his slave and so this is not to do with Homosexuality it has to do with that and then one of the quote-unquote conservatives made a point that actually that was pretty good They said well, okay, you look at Romans 1 and Leviticus 18 It says if a man lie with a man as he lies with a woman.

So the word homosexuality is not used.

It's describing the activity That's unequivocal, right and then The cop-out for Leviticus was well, that was just for Israel.

That's not for us and the Counter for the Romans passage was twofold one.

It was well, that was just Paul.

That wasn't God Pretty standard and the other one was well He's what Paul is describing is unnatural affection for one another and I am naturally drawn towards men Therefore unnatural for me would be to be with a woman so it's natural for me to be with a man So I'm I'm obedient to this passage, which is weird because five seconds ago.

You said it was just Paul writing So why do you even care if you're obedient to the passage? Yes, so, you know Yeah, now I just just as a thought When we're thinking about that that that last argument, you know, and you know, well this is Not not the one about it being Paul, but the one before that.

What was it the one before? It was well, well, my natural affection is for men.

Therefore.

I'm yeah this passage.

Thank you.

Thank you right, so What would because I know how I would respond to that and I would imagine some people would say Chainsaw to a blade of grass.

It would not be the nicest response, but but I know how I would respond If somebody said to you look the Bible says the natural desires Are what if somebody going against natural desires wrong my natural desires for for those of my same sex Therefore, it's not wrong.

What would be your response? I'm gonna get my response.

Mine will probably be the least articulate and probably Probably the last one somebody should use but go ahead and yeah, give your go ahead.

I just I've had this conversation before and I just kept it simple.

I just started with Genesis God made the male and female Adam and Eve and I know that's what a lot of people say it wasn't it was every way Adam and Steve I didn't go that far and be stupid about it.

I said, but God created the male and female he created Adam He created all the animals as to try to find a help mate Didn't work out then he made a woman for Adam to be his help mate It was a man and was a woman his natural affection was for the woman.

Her natural affection was for him That's the way it was at the creation that's the way it wasn't beginning that's the way God intended it to be so now that we're thousands of years into the future Sin has just run rampant in creation.

The whole creation groans under it.

I mean creation itself is under the burden of sin Your unnatural affection your natural affection for someone of the same sex is an unnatural affection It's a sinful affection because of the brokenness of this world and the sinfulness of this world that has marred it You may feel like it's a natural affection, but according to God's plan for Men and women to procreate in the natural affection they should have toward the opposite sex is how he ordained it to be Because of the way God ordained it and God is the creator God.

He's the one who set this he put this together He's the one who made it this way.

So he's the one who determines how it should be He has made the determination is how it should be.

So therefore No matter how natural you think it is.

It is unnatural according to God's design for how Man and woman should operate together and how sexual union should be Be done so Okay, that would be my argument articulate and and and to the scriptures to the point Matthew How would you if somebody said I know my natural desire is for the Hmm for my same sex What you think? Well, if I'm if I'm answering that I think context matters I mean if I'm answering that in a in a scholarly debate or something like that if I was in the situation of this video And I'm I'm sitting in a chair across from someone and and the point is for us to be having an exchange of ideas That's different than I have someone come to my small group and says wait, hold on I've heard Christians are hateful against gay people.

I'm You know, I'm attracted to my same-sex partner.

Is that wrong? You know, it's natural for me.

So there's a again, we don't want to we don't want to run away from the truth, but we also want to present this in a way that that We understand that the person can understand it and will not be needlessly offended One of the things Richard was pointing out the Gospels offensive and I agree with that but something else that one of my pastors at church says is the goss at our church the gospel should be the only offensive thing In the building and I completely agree with that We should not do anything else Unnecessary to offend people let the gospel duty offending Now that said let's say I am I am doing this in more of a of an evangelistic standpoint I would make many of the same points Richard did and so I won't repeat those I would say yes God as creator has said this is how this is supposed to work And so I'm just gonna copy paste that Yeah, exactly, right.

The only thing I would add is Okay, are there any other? instances in the New Testament where something is called sin and You would say well, it's natural for me to do that.

Is there any other circumstance? Being given to bouts of rage drunkenness idolatry all of these things That Paul lists alongside this sin Are there any of those that you would say it's okay for me to do this because it's natural to me because I would Tell you this for someone who's not in Christ.

I agree with you.

That is natural to you The Bible talks about humans having a nature that desires to sin constantly.

I completely agree with you The the comment and the short retort has always been while I was born this way.

Okay agreed You must be born again moving on next question Like, you know that that's not a hard one for me.

It's like yeah, I bet you were born this way Time to be born again, my friend.

Um, and so that's that's kind of where I would go Yeah, okay.

Good.

I gave you that I was yeah, I'm Just bumping me fist bumping you from a distance there All right, so I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna do what I'm not supposed to do.

I'm gonna be needlessly offensive Okay If it's three guys hanging out on a zoom call that's different than if someone is in your living room saying Keith I'm struggling with this I don't know if I can give this up because I want to be a Christian but I can't give up my husband if they're A man, you know, that's different.

Okay, that's different now.

Yeah different.

That's different Yeah and because if I did have and I have and I want people to know this I have had people who've Come into my life and who've asked the question They've said I'm you know, I'm homosexual, but I believe that it's wrong.

The Bible says that it's wrong I want to deal with that.

I want to live the way that God's called me to live I'm I'm I'm asking this so just to specifically address what how I'm gonna answer is based on a certain context Yeah, because the certain context is someone who comes to me and says what they said in the video and that is the natural desire I have is for The same sex and therefore Paul is not Condemning me.

He's condemning people with unnatural Desires.

Yeah.

Yep, and I well, I'm gonna say I would say this I might not I don't know.

Maybe I'm being a little I'm trying to be careful, you know Just up to the line where we get kicked off of YouTube, but not quite.

I Would say Possibly depending on the context depending on my level of comfort with the person.

I Would say I have a natural desire to punch you in the face Because do the listener Richard is nodding he's Anything but he is nodding.

I just want to point that out Because I tell you the best and and I know Doug Wilson is a powder keg some people love him Some people hate him But Doug Wilson does have a very good lesson on this subject and I forget the name of it.

I think it was called When some Tartness I think when some witness no when some tartness like tar.

Oh, so that must have been okay So when some witness was something from J.D.

Greer or something like that? He was no no beats I'm sure it was a parody or play on words from that.

Oh, I I didn't even know that And when some tartness he said this he said if somebody comes to you with this Argument for their progressive position and they give you an articulate position and they start really articulating their position He said you can respond by like Richard did go to scripture take him through the scripture He said or like you did take him to how their argument is logically indefensible.

That's what you did I would say Matthew you took him to logic.

You said here's you know, here's this Richard's was more of a scriptural argument.

Both of you were scriptural, but you know, I understand I understand But he said sometimes you just got to look at him and say I don't think so Skippy And he said he said what you're what you say when you're saying I don't think so Skippy is you're saying not only is your argument Unbiblical, but it's foolish and I'm not going to I'm not going to sit here and pretend like you're making a logical argument I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna show you By virtue of my willingness to say I don't think so Skippy That it's not you are not you are not coming at this in a legitimately Logical or biblical way you are coming at this in a way that is meant to be Foolish and I'm gonna treat it as such now not everybody agrees.

That's why you should handle it I'm not saying that's the way I would handle it every time I'm just saying if somebody said to me I have a natural affection for men If I say I have a natural affection to punch you in the face, does that make me right? Yeah, yeah Does that make me right and they would obviously say no because one they don't wanna get punched in the face and two they know Punching people in the face is wrong and yeah So if I can say punching someone in the face is wrong and you can say punching someone in the face is wrong But we can't say Anal sex between men is wrong Then we have we have left the reservation and I don't think so Skippy that's the point is we have yeah two men molesting one another and using the body's evacuation point for a point of sexual gratification is disgusting and is immoral Mm-hmm.

Now what I'm saying is offensive and I can see both of you're like, yeah, nobody wants to hear this Nobody wants to hear this but that is the point Is sometimes Sometimes you got to call a spade a spade.

You have to say this is what it is.

This is what this thing is Mm-hmm.

All right well, I agree with that and I've done that before and Probably not Yeah And they'll always go over.

It never really goes over well But there's times but when I've done that it's always been I've had the conversation with this person 15 times and After so many times it's just like okay at some point you just got to say listen, dude, here's the truth We got to quit Beating around a bush here and you just lay it out for him one thing going back to the video though that I noticed that I found interesting and I just thought about it as we've been talking is most of what progressive Christians Were saying in the video and their responses, you know in the short time that I listened to it Has been it was some of the same exact Argumentation that I hear from unbelievers all the time Mm-hmm.

You know I'm saying there wasn't much different between them and any random person who would claim to be an atheist They're making this I've heard from Unbelievers that want to argue with me about homosexuality using the same thing.

Well, it doesn't it's not really homosexuality It's not that's that what they'll argue me said it but it wasn't in the Bible to the 1900s or something Yeah, the word wasn't there.

Well, that's fine because our son of Cortez was there.

So that was good No, you know and I've heard all that stuff, but I've heard it from unbelievers So many times so that's what that's so when I'm looking at the video listen to video.

I'm like, so We've got like maybe one or two Christians in this panel.

Anyway Judging by what they're saying because they're so on point with the world's Reasoning There ain't nothing biblical in it.

What they might be able to quote some scripture.

Well, Jordan Peterson's quote scripture, but he ain't no Christian Not yet.

We're praying.

He's getting but you know, so Brother, I feel like you have a thought about what I said I have my ears.

I have my ears covered and it's getting hotter and hotter in this room as Keith knows from the studio so no, it's Honestly, I don't I don't have a I'm not myself offended by the terminology.

I just I wonder Yes, there comes a time to call a spade a spade I Wonder I Wonder how effective that would be so, okay.

So let me let me ask you.

Let me say this Saitam Bruggen case says I don't do Bible studies with atheists and and 100% there it doesn't make sense to be labor and to present and to Spend all of your time casting your pearls before swine on pouring out God's truth But At the same time to someone who is Are you saying you agree with I don't agree with I I do agree with I okay I thought you said 100% I just wanna make sure I didn't know what okay Yeah, so size says I don't do Bible studies with atheists and that's that's great because if you know We believe the Spirit must animate someone to be able to understand the things of God that being said Scripture tells us that I'm my my I Was an old King James Raised on the old King James.

So a lot of my memory verse has still come out that way So you're gonna hear some some some some THS on the end faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God yes, so Like you were saying if you prefer to refer to it as the Word of God rather than just the Bible if we need the Word of God to communicate divine truth to someone and Not to go into a soteriological angle but to give them faith, I know it's not us doing that but if if if the the process by which faith comes is by the Word of God and instead what we say is I Think you're wrong.

And what you're talking about is confused disordered and disgusting and we don't go any further than that Then I think we've missed an opportunity there Okay, that's and I'm not saying you have to yeah I'm not saying you have to have it on a keychain and quote a specific verse every time like but but there must be some If we believe that God's people respond to God's Word then on the chance as Spurgeon said that we don't have red X's on the back Of the elect so we don't know but on the chance that we do these quote Calvinist.

He's quoting Calvin Yeah I Do want I do want to and again not to defend my position because yeah, sure I'm not saying I would do that every time.

I here's my point just to clarify if I'm in that point of the conversation We've already been talking about scripture because they're using the Romans one passage of natural versus unnatural.

So that Conversation is not how I start.

Yeah, I'll give you I'll give you a great.

I'll give you a great example There was a lady and people for me tell the story before you maybe even heard it Matthew Because I know you listen to some of our stuff but a few years ago we were doing a Evangelism outreach at the Calhoun fair and a lady walked by our booth and she said I'm a lesbian and I'm going to hell And that you know, haha, you know, she yelled at us and I yelled out to her I don't want you to go to hell.

I love you, and I don't want you to hell Well, she the next day one of our workers that was at the booth Came up to me and said hey, there's a girl over there She she she needs to talk to you and I looked and it was the same lady and so I walked over there and we had about a 30-minute conversation about Homosexuality and I didn't even address that as her grievous sin.

I addressed the fact.

I started just the whole Ray Comfort thing I said, have you ever told a lie? Yeah before God is a liar.

I said, let's so you think you're a good person Yeah Good So and my point was because I wasn't there to address her homosexual issue I was there to address the fact that she's a sinner before a holy God and needs a Savior and That Christ can save us from all sin.

Not just the not just the simple ones, you know, he can save us from everything So anyway, the point is that I am I'm not saying this is how I would handle every situation I'm just saying it's at a certain point.

I think that When they called that dude Kurt miss all that you're being Kurt I'm like this dude is like this nicest guy ever if they met me they would think I was another butter man They would just they wouldn't be able to handle it.

This guy probably peace sitting down like come on Okay, ladies and gentlemen I want to say that was awesome like right like he definitely does not Walk Someone called Steven Anderson and all my Steven Anderson friends.

Yeah That this is a banner show this that's gonna be great and look at us We look like we're in a movie theater because my I changed the position of my monitor It's on the wall now.

So we're both like we're at AMC Theatre I can't wait for this to exist for 38 minutes on YouTube before it gets pulled down That's gonna be a great a great half hour.

Yes, we have we have done everything we can well, yep Can I uh, this ain't this kind of off-topic this goes back to your comment from side 10 How do you say his last name? So I can brew again Bergen cake.

Yeah, brooking gate It's like trying to figure out if it's vote of your body Anyway, um, he says he doesn't do Bible studies with atheists And I'm guessing because it used the reference of tossed your purpose for swine is yeah when he made that statement Is he talking about? People that are hostile to it or just in general.

Yeah.

No, he's Yeah, he's saying that that he won't as you would sit with a fellow believer if you had a fellow believer who was who you believe to be in Christ and and Said I just need some clarity on this issue because I'm not sure then you would open Romans 1 you'd open 1st Corinthians 6 You'd go to Genesis 2 and Matthew 19 and you would lay it all out for them And you would say here's how God's Word is consistent and connects and all that What he's saying is a hostile atheist who's like, why do Christians hate gays? He said I'm not doing that with them That's a way.

Okay.

I just want to clear that because I know a guy at Andy's church.

He told me we saw it on the phone for a while And he did a Bible study with a friend of his at work once a week for like 45 minutes And the guy was completely had what didn't want anything to do with Christian.

He wouldn't hostile He's willing to listen, but he's got a year winning a year And then one day I had the blue the guy called him and like in tears And repentance so good.

That's when would you sit when you made that comment? Like well, hang on a minute Size statement is the is shorthand because he's open a preacher You're an often opener preachers are limited to short sound bites It's shorthand for saying I'm not going to debate the truth of Scripture with an unbeliever I'm going to size is also a presuppositional apologetic apologist as well.

So yeah Well, I agree a hundred percent with the don't toss pearls for someone I've seen him on college campuses and it's you know, he's explaining the gospel and somebody will come up and say well What about slavery in the Bible? I don't do Bible studies unbelievers That's his response because it's quick and you wouldn't understand what the Bible means about slavery and in the distinctions between How slaves were treated then and treated now and things that you wouldn't understand that so why would I have a Bible study? That makes that makes progress.

Well, thank you for the clarity on that.

Yeah, I would say it when when I say Bible study, I mean Opening the scriptures and studying them so that we can become more like Christ Yeah, and I would say if there's an atheist in the not even necessarily in the room If an atheist is the subject of my study, that's not a Bible study.

That's evangelism That is opening the Word of God and letting it breathe.

Those can look similar But tonight when we went through first Timothy chapter 3 We didn't get all the way to verse 16, which I'm saving for next week because I wanted to save it for its own week But it talks about that's all scripture as God breathed and okay Did I say first yeah, that's First Timothy 316 is God was or he who was manifest in the flesh seen by angels vindicated in the spirit It's the following up of the elder deacon That's why I was like I was like, okay, all right, but you were in the you're in there So but but even going even leading up to that you have this a huge vice list one of the biggest in the New Testament you know all the things that these people do wrong and And then we got into a discussion because someone said isn't it so this is really weird because you've got like they're brutal and haters of Mercy and like all of the God haters and all this kind of stuff and then there's they're disobedient to parents You know and someone my favorite one Someone in the study like again, not they've probably been a Christian.

Actually.

I was there when they were baptized about a year and a half Easter of 2020 so two years ago, and so they're still they're still they're not baby Christians anymore But they're still building their understanding of the text and you know, they're looking at that and kind of cocking their heads sideways like hmm That's interesting That appears in the list with all the others Okay, so Just a few minutes ago.

We had a major technical malfunction.

We thought we lost the whole hour of video I cried he tried to throw himself out the window.

I had to grab him Matthew was over there I saw him take a drink of something.

I'm not sure what it was, but it's not only water.

I Look like that's right It was that was homemade in his backyard.

He's got nothing but corn and a pipe and it that's right Hey, I've seen Dukes of Hazzard man, that's right.

I'm good.

Jesse uncle Jesse All right, so I'm not quite sure where we are because it's been 10 minutes We had to cut but I'll try to edit it together as nicely as I can But we do have to bring this episode to a close because we have gone for well over an hour We've had a very lively conversation about this subject and ultimately I I'm gonna ask you both to kind of summarize this thought and the question is really do we think that the the concept of liberal versus conservative is that really even a helpful designation and Can a person truly be? Liberal and still hold to the tenets of Christianity and if so, what does that look like? I know that's I mean, it's basically what we've been talking about for an hour But it's certainly if you have a maybe a two or three minute way of fleshing that out and I know Richard sitting here going don't it's Yeah, I guess it depends if you're I guess the only easy answer I can give for it if you're Liberalism Gets to the point That as what Matthew was talking about earlier with his concentrant circles if the definitional elements of the faith begin to get skewed or rejected because you've adopted so much of the culture's worldview Then that's where you've crossed the line And you can see some of that in this Social justice Gospel element where they're supplanting the gospel with this Social justice version of it.

Yeah, and when you cross that line when you start messing with the gospel Start messing with the deity of Christ start messing with the authority of scripture in the whole nine yards then I think you you've crossed the line and as I said before If you have say you've been a Christian for X amount of years and then you cross this line well, the reason you've crossed this line is because as first John says when those Members of the church went out after Gnosticism they went out because they never were among us in the first place So if you're if the Spirit of God did not convict you to repent and repent and come back to the truth and you went out after the falsehood and You adopted all this then I would say that you weren't a Christian in the first place That would be where I would draw I would have to draw the line because it can get the water get real muddy real quick with this with that question because there's not like a Like I was talking about before with Keller or you got David Platt who's gotten on kind of the white privilege train you've got I keep using celebrity pastor because I can't mention a Friend because nobody knows who he is, but you you can look up some of these folks Not you No, but I mean Chandler Mark Driscoll all these guys have kind of gotten off the rails in places, you know, so you can you can say well How far have they gone? Has it gone too far? You see I'm saying so yeah, I use those as examples So that would be my answer to the question.

I'm sure Matthew will be a lot more smarter than I am on it He's definitely an articulate young man Thank you Thank you, I appreciate that in the most heterosexual way possible He still has a youthful 20 year old mind.

It's not it's not a 42 year old mind.

I ate up with all these children My brain needs glasses And it hasn't it hasn't been messed up by years of Calvinism either oh shoot And I'm dying yeah, you know, it's Anyway, all of my best friends truly are Let's say greater than 80% or Calvinist.

So you're you're in great company.

They are all pulling on me too.

But anyway Yeah, how do we sum this up Thinking through issues of what does it mean to be a Christian if we're going to operate in a world where words have meaning where words like love and Tolerance and compassion and natural versus unnatural if all of these are going to have a meaning and we're going to agree in a at least in a a a Transcendental worldview where there is something beyond time space and matter That we're not just yeah, that we're not just as Jeff Durbin likes to say bags of fizzing chemicals in a universe that doesn't care if There's something more than that Then there must be at least some definable way of Understanding what is and what is not and if we can if we can at least get that far Then we could say that there is some way that we can differentiate between Good and not good God does it consistently and this was good and this was not good and he defines good and evil the very first instance of sin in the whole Bible was two humans deciding that they wanted to take the prerogative of defining good and evil for themselves and That goes all the way back to the very first sin.

And so we still see the bitter fruits of that to this day if we are going to If we are going to say this is or is not sinful Then there must be some standard by which we are doing that and in this video what we saw was the quote-unquote conservative Christians making a Inconsistent and belated attempt to do that and Then the quote-unquote progressive Christians Making a passing.

Oh, yeah, the Bible's nice and all but and putting something else over top of that And so, excuse me, I think that the sum and we always get back here.

The sum total issue is authority From whence comes these statements? How can we say this is acceptable and this is not because if these folks had been worth their salt in this video they would have pushed back and said God's Word says this and then that puts the person on the other end in the necessary position of either disputing the point and Come now.

Let us reason together as God says in Isaiah or Saying well, I reject that and if you reject that that's fine Well, it's not fine.

If you reject that that's at least consistent.

You can at least say I don't agree with that at all I don't need that Bible.

I'm something else.

But at that point we're no longer talking about Christians.

So in summary the liberal Christian The further they detach themselves from the reality of what God has revealed the further and further away they get There is rarely a single moment where they have crossed the literal red line in the sand it's very difficult to pinpoint where that happens, but at some point it does happen and Eventually God will honor that request to move further and further and further away from his family and He will say he will he will allow that to occur and at that point the person is truly lost and I would not be at all surprised to see More than just three there were six people in this video to see more than three of these people five years from now Writing a book about their deconstruction journey and how they left Christianity It would not surprise me even a little bit and I say that for the conservatives and for the progressives in here They all demonstrated certain amounts of squish See everything you just said I was trying to say The old rule for leadership good leader surrounds him with people smarter than him Hey, I like I like surrounding my people with This episode it's gonna be huge.

It's got to be the best episode anyone has ever had believe me While we've gotten Ray Comfort and Donald Trump, I don't know.

Yeah, I'm telling you what Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna give my final my final thought That's my Jerry Springer my final thought, okay Well, that's what he always says on the show, but you don't sound like it.

Anyway, I don't watch the show either just Impressions to Hanson and you just every every time every time I go get my tires rotated They're always showing Jerry Springer a discount tire.

So I With the show.

Yeah Okay, oh, let me sorry whack the microphone there, okay Again agree with you with you guys You know very well articulated I do want to I do want to take a step back before I close the show I do want to say one thing.

I mentioned earlier punches to me in the face.

I don't want to clarify.

I Don't have a desire to punch people in the face, especially people that are you know claim to be Homosexual whatever I don't want I don't want it I don't want it to ever be said that Keith said on this show that he desires to punch homosexual people in the face That's not what I said Just to be clear what I was saying is a natural desire to punch them in the face is wrong So to say that a natural desire is By nature makes it correct is the same thing as saying someone who has a desire to molest a child or a desire to steal something or a desire to you know, we all have sinful desires and the idea that that That somehow makes it okay that it's natural You know is is the argument I was making and so just just wanted to clarify that Now on to the this this idea of the line and I and I think I think you both are right It's hard to define the line But if we were answering the question say how liberal can someone be and still be a Christian here? Here's what I have recognized and this video obviously is not the first time but this video does sum this up It shows that once you once you are willing to Begin a Direction that direction is not satisfied with Just a slight Variance you have to go all the way and and I'll give you an example of this from the past I know that Matthew and I talked about John Shelby Spong We talked about when he died we did a special show about his death John Shelby Spong was a liberal bishop in the Episcopalian Church self-defined One who would say he did not believe the major tenets of the gospel He did not believe the resurrection of Christ.

They didn't he did at a certain point.

I think he said we didn't even believe Necessarily in the afterlife.

I mean he had a very very humanistic Naturalistic view of faith and yet he was an Episcopalian priest and the I think when people begin to say well, that's what I mean when I say liberal is that and we say well how close to that you got to get to become out of the kingdom or whatever I think the Maybe the more appropriate way to approach is rather than what is the minimum that a person has to be to be a Christian because that's really the question we're saying what what's the Minimum people have to leave is rather to say shouldn't we as Christians? Want to be moving toward a more biblical worldview rather than saying How much can we get away with? How much can someone can believe or not believe and still be a Christian and I know that I know that it really doesn't answer The question but when somebody does come to me and say because I've had this question, maybe you've had it Matthew I know you both are Sunday school teachers as well as or you teach small groups Matthew.

He teaches Sunday school I know you teach You know you we always get the question What's the minimum someone has to believe? To be a Christian and and I hate that question because even though I understand the heart from where it comes You know the whole mere Christianity CS Lewis idea of you know, what's the minimum? Someone has to believe are we called to the minimum and certainly the answer is no and so when someone starts to say well a person can believe this and still be a Christian or a person can believe that and still Be a Christian what what we are what we are missing is that a call to faith in Christ is a call to a an acceptance of the the the truth and veracity historicity of The scriptures which tell us about Christ and even somebody like Andy Stanley who has in in the last few years Made very bold claims about not needing the Old Testament, you know We can jettison the Old Testament and some people say I'm misrepresenting him there, but to be clear Unhinged he says word he's saying that these are Really unnecessary.

We don't need the whole thing.

We just need this one thing which is for him.

It's the resurrection and How long is it gonna be before he gives that up? How long is he gonna how long is it gonna be before even a belief in the resurrection becomes like Union Theological Seminary? Well, we don't believe in a physical resurrection.

We just believe in a spiritual resurrection and Like the springtime brings life to trees that were dead during the winter, you know, that's what that's what resurrection is it's some some nonsense and and I guess this is where I I I think that while I while I do have I do think there's a danger in fundamentalism expanding the circle out and I do think Matthew's 100% right on that and we're going to talk about that on Thursday.

Hopefully this week The ultimately I do think that the the danger the the overall danger is saying You know That we should be looking for a minimum that we should be looking for a minimum even though that's even though I know that's where people land is Is by saying we should be looking at a minimum of beliefs.

What's the minimum that somebody has to believe to be a believer? You know because again, where do people it used to be we had to believe in the divinity of Christ You had to believe in the resurrection you have to well now the divinity of Christ is gone It's just a resurrection for some people and so and like I said, I'm starting another podcast.

I don't mean to I know you're tired I'm tired and many people are tired But my final point on this is simple Let us not Embrace the idea of the minimum let us not embrace the idea of just what's the minimum somebody has to believe but to point them Wholly towards a person of Christ and say as we are rejecting this for whatever reason We are we are rejecting what God has given to us the truth of the scripture.

So hopefully that's helpful Simplicity of it.

We're we're going through first John.

That's why I brought it up earlier To your point to his you know words have meaning there's definitions in the Bible.

There's definitions of sin Yes, well John makes it very clear.

It's a very black and white book if you love me You'll keep my commandments and those born of God will not continue in a habitual practice of sin And what you see in some of these progressive Christians, especially the one who's in a homosexual relationship is in a habitual practice of sin Yeah, we can't be born of God that that's very clear straight and forward and the other part of that Is those who are born of God will be in a habitual practice of righteousness? Yeah, so there isn't a minimum there's growth Yeah, yeah, so anyway, I'll stop talking because we're out of time Well, I want to thank you Matthew for being with me and Richard as always you guys are yeah You know, I have many good guests recently.

I had a new friend Daniel Burton during the program.

He was awesome Jake corn was on he was awesome got a lot of good compliments for those guys but you guys have been on the show more than anyone and I want to thank you all for your continued support and I pray that this would reach someone help someone if nothing else to encourage someone to Stand fast and to be steadfast in the faith.

That's a man to accomplish in this.

So, thank you both Thank you listener for being with us Please take the time if you like today's episode to like and subscribe if you have questions Please send them to Calvinist podcast at gmail.com and if you would like to leave a comment Please do so if you're on Facebook or YouTube.

Thank you for listening to conversations with a Calvinist My name is Keith Foskey And I've been your Calvinist.