Agree to Disagree | Theocast

Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, we talk about how to disagree agreeably. There seems to be drawing of lines in all areas of theology and even politics, and Christians seem to get really upset and don't know how to disagree, and when they do get behind the keyboard or a phone, they seem to lose something called the fruits of the Spirit.

Jimmy and I have a lively conversation about theological disagreements between different denominations. That also leads into the members' podcast, where we discuss politics and Christians and disagreement.

We hope you enjoy the conversation. Hey guys, as a quick reminder, if you'd like to join Theocast in helping other people find rest in Christ, a simple way of doing that is simply by leaving us a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.

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To learn more about how to support Theocast, simply visit theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed perspective.

Your hosts today are Jimmy Buehler, pastor of Christ Community Church in Willmar, Minnesota, and I'm John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church here in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Before I let you go, Jimmy, I just found out that one of my new church members actually grew up not far from Willmar and used to go to Willmar all the time for different school activities.

Wow.

So, she was so happy to come and tell me on church on Sundays. She was like, oh, I used to live near where Jimmy was at.

So, anyway.

Funny.

Total side note.

Small world, as they like to say.

Right.

The cliche.

So, Jimmy, dude, it's been a while.

It has.

Give the people what they want. How are you? What are you for and against?

Well, it's good to be back on the mic with you, John, although we are missing JP, our beloved JP.

Yeah.

It's sad.

Right. So, obviously, I haven't been on Theocast in a while. We are back in school here in Minnesota, and so my schedule is just kind of erratic. It's good compared to last spring when everything was just kind of shut down.

It's good to be back in a somewhat regular, and I know normal is like the new naughty.

Word.

We're not allowed to say normal anymore, but like a new normal schedule. So, it's been good to see students again and have my kids in school and be doing some of those things. Although, that just kind of leaves a hole of trying to schedule a time between us three to sit down.

So, it worked out for you and I to sit down this afternoon. Normally, we're in the morning, but we're in the afternoon. But, man, since I've been gone, I've just really been thinking of some things of like how to ostracize people and how to make people upset in my pro-con decisions.

I've been dropping some bombs on Twitter, and people are opinionated. People are really passionate about particular things I'm learning.

Your bombs are opinionated. What are you talking about?

Listen.

Chocolate and peanut butter.

Meh.

What's your problem?

I only speak facts, so this is me speaking the truth in love. So, I said this one on Twitter a few weeks back and it got a lot of traction, and so I thought by way of sharing with our listeners. First of all, remember our conversation about M &Ms, where we were talking about M &Ms?

Oh, yeah.

That one got a lot of traction. Man, I had so many people talk to me about that, so many listeners in our area that were talking to me about M &Ms, so much so that I was preaching at a church. There is a Christian Reform Church.

That's a CRC. It's a denomination here in Minnesota. They have an evening service, and they're without a pastor, and so I was preaching at their Sunday evening services, and my last Sunday there, I was with them for a couple months.

I walk up to the pulpit, and there's a giant bag of regular M &Ms. I was really offended, and I threw that. No, I didn't. It was great. It was funny. So, all right. Here's my pro con. We are approaching Halloween, where people are giving out candy by the time we record this.

I'm not sure when it will be released, but when it comes to candy bars, I think you know what I'm going to say.

Oh, boy.

When it comes to candy bars, I am pro-almond joy. I love almond joys. I just think it's the right amount of sweet. It's got the nuttiness from the almond. It's got the coconut nonsense or whatever going on in the middle.

I am pro-almond joy, and I am con just about every other candy bar. I just don't. Snickers, meh. Reese's, meh. I know. Half of you stopped listening, so if you're still with me, the rest of candy, they're just too sweet, and they're too rich, and they just make my stomach hurt.

I don't know.

Can you actually call an almond joy? Is it more like a chocolate candy?

No, it's a candy bar. If you go to the candy bar aisle, it's going to be there, and as it should, because it's far superior.

I blew some minds on social media, apparently. I don't like s'mores. I think it's a whole lot of work. It's a lot of mess, and it really doesn't take that great.

Wow.

I know. I've never been a s'mores fan. I don't like s'more ice cream. I don't even like Rocky Road.

I think it's disgusting.

Yeah, I'm with you there. Yeah, that is gross.

Rocky Road, I should have saved this for my pro con, but it has to be the worst ice cream ever invented.

I agree.

I'm just going to say that right now.

I approve.

It's disgusting.

I approve.

What I do is that when we do s'mores at our house, I make sure there's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and all I do is I take a nicely brown roasted marshmallow, just one, for the whole night, I do one marshmallow and one cup, put them together, and it's amazing.

If you haven't done it, you have to try it.

I can see that.

No graham crackers. No graham crackers.

Forget that. Maybe what I'll do is I'll make a s'mores, but I'll use Almond Joyce.

I think that would be...

Oh, bro, take a nicely brown marshmallow and put that on there. I'd do that.

See?

I'm down with that.

So all of you haters out there that think Reese's are the second coming of Christ equivalent. I mean, I just can't.

It is the second coming of Christ equivalent.

No, it's just not.

It's not.

See, I'm okay.

I'm okay with you having your opinion. So I think we can disagree agreeably.

I disagree with that. Well, there you go, John. So what are we talking about today?

That was a perfect transition.

It was.

I like that transition. It was good. Well, today we're going to talk about something that through the history of Theocast, this is something we have learned as we have grown as a podcast and we've brought different hosts on is that our podcast obviously is one that we talk a lot about what we disagree about and things that we point out that we think is wrong.

And one of the things that Jimmy and I were discussing before we come on the podcast is this is kind of a lost art on how to disagree with someone agreeably, especially when someone gets behind a keyboard or behind their phone, they dehumanize the discussion and they will say and do things that you would never do in person.

And they even would take up arguments or positions that probably they don't hold, but they want to make a point so bad and they want to be right. So, you know, they, they desire to be right, but they ended up doing things that I read comments of, I've even seen comments from people I know personally, and I'm going, you would never say that in person, like I know you.

So one of the things we wanted to talk about is where we, Jimmy and I disagree with a broader evangelicalism, how we it is that we can agree with them, even though we disagree, like find some agreeableness around theology.

And then we're going to talk a little bit about where we have struggle, where some people, there are points that really bother us and those tend to turn up the heat on us a little bit. Jimmy, start us off with just kind of the, you know, broadly speaking, we partner with a lot of people.

We disagree with them and I think we do it agreeably, but what is it that kind of centers us and then where, where do we find ourselves in certain areas saying, yeah, we wouldn't agree on those conclusions.

Yeah. That's super helpful. So actually right now in my world religions class, we're walking through Christianity, even though I teach at a Christian school. I never want to assume that the vast majority of my students understand kind of the basic things of the Christian faith.

And so we're walking through core tenets of Christianity right now and this is a conversation that we're having. And so I wrote in really large letters on my whiteboard, I wrote the word nuance. And something that social media has done is it's, it's, it's kind of removed our ability to have a nuanced conversation that we've lost that art.

We've lost the art of having a conversation with somebody in a way that's kind and generous and gracious. I was just texting with some friends the other day and we were, I mean, we were just talking about the ninth commandment.

Don't bear false witness. And often in a conversation, what we do is that's all we do. All we do is break the ninth commandment and we just, we bear false witness and we it's like we begin the conversation with the goal to obliterate our opponent rather than to reach mutual understanding.

And when our goal is to merely obliterate our opponent, one, we're not seeking to understand those who have been created in the image of God and give them the dignity and respect that we should as people.

And two, we're again, we're bearing false witness. We're not understanding them on their terms. And so as we think about just us, I mean, John, we've had, you and I have had some passionate conversations on the phone.

I think specifically on your porch, whenever we're together, it's like we just sandbag everything until we get together and then we let it all out. But the thing is, is what, what centers my relationship with John Moffitt and what centers my relationship with Justin Perdue, even though we are three pastors at three churches that are similar, but not the same, what centers us is the gospel.

I know that at John's church, he and his elders preach Christ and Christ crucified from all of the scriptures. They're seeking to help their people find rest in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. I know this is the same for Justin, and I believe that these guys say the same thing for me.

Now our worship at all three of our churches, it looks different. We have different convictions of how things go about, but at the end of the day, this is why we can partner with people. I'm just going to name a few guys like Chad Byrd.

Chad's a Lutheran. Certainly, Chad and I doctrinally disagree on some things, and yet I know and I trust that at the end of the day, Chad can preach a gospel of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone.

That is kind of the center of what grounds us, what holds us together. I think even something as ecumenical as reciting the Apostles' Creed, that these are the truths that the Christian church has recited throughout centuries.

If we can recite these and believe these and trust these wholeheartedly, then we can jive together. That's where I would begin, is really the gospel.

Absolutely.

I think that's good that you mentioned the Apostles' Creed because it does create so much unity if we're talking about those to whom we are going to partner with. Theocast and we have partnered, and we have had on our podcast, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, non-denomination.

We've had a good broad perspective of people that are on here. The three of us are 1689 confessionally Reformed. This is the conviction that we hold to. One of the conversations that I wanted to have is that within Christianity, one of the issues that really bothers me is that we get so concerned on what I would say are the second level or even third level issues, and we begin to argue and fight about them.

Denominations get really heated, and there's these ongoing conversations. We have people who are not understanding the gospel, who don't understand assurance. Justification has been lost in the wind, and it breaks my heart because I have strong convictions and disagreements with a lot of different denominations, but we have to remember what is the primary mission and goal of Christians, and it's the advancement of the gospel.

If I can partner with people that I know are preaching a true and pure gospel, they are leading people to truly rest in Jesus Christ and Him alone, that they are not placing the law and burden on people.

They are separating the law from the gospel, rightfully so. On the secondary issues of how the function of the church and eschatology and even modes of baptism, I may never serve in their church, and they may never serve in mine, but I have no problems promoting their message and encouraging them to continue in what they're doing because the gospel message is going forward.

I don't think the Baptists are the only ones who got it right, and I know some denominations have really strong opinions on that. Really, what this conversation is about is, I think Christianity has lost its way, and I'm not saying, oh, we should all be one denomination.

No, I think denominations are helpful, and I think people have convictions and conclusions about the Bible, and I think they should hold to those. But the reason why Theocast is not going to ever isolate ourselves is because we think there are good men and good ministries doing good work, and we should partner with them and promote them and make sure that work continues because more people are going to rest in Christ if that is true.

Yeah, so something that you just said, I kind of want to summarize a couple of things that you just said. Certainly, when we talk about Scripture, we talk about the gospel, we want to be mindful of clarity.

We want to be clear. We want to be clear about the things that we mean, the things that we're teaching, and whenever we're chasing after clarity, that necessarily means that we're going to create some categories.

Whenever we necessarily create categories, that is where we begin to draw some distinctions. So, don't hear us say, as you just said, that we're aiming for just one big lovey-dovey denomination. Now, when we recite the Apostles' Creed, what do we say that we believe?

We say we believe in the holy Catholic, that is, the universal church. Certainly, we want to aim for Catholicity, meaning we keep in mind the universal church. We want to be in partnership for the gospel moving forth to all nations, to every tribe, tongue, language, nation.

However, when we create these categories or when we seek clarity, we have categories, we create distinctions. There is a difference, and here comes nuance, there is a difference in my mind between distinction and division.

Distinction allows me to be defined by categories and through the process of seeking clarity from my Lutheran brothers and sisters. There's a distinction. However, that doesn't mean that I have to be divided from them.

We live in such a binary time where you're either Democrat or you're Republican. You're either right or you're left. You're either conservative or liberal. You're either this or that. Again, we've lost this ability to have nuanced, helpful, generous conversation.

Do I have distinctions from Lutherans? Do I have distinctions from Anglicans? Do I have distinctions from Presbyterians and so on and so forth? Absolutely. They would say the same things about me and one another, but do I have to be divided with.

Them?

No, I don't think that that's actually very helpful.

No, I think that's a very, very helpful way. I like the distinction versus division. I think that's even divisive. One of the things that I experienced growing up in the denomination that I was in, and I still see it today, is that we create wrong dividing lines.

Where we, you know, Jimmy and I, you would agree that there are Baptist, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Lutherans that were like, I don't even know if you're evangelical.

Yeah.

There is like, whoa, you know, and we are going to drop the hammer of division going, no, no, you missed the gospel. And you are denying, you're denying where Christ, where the Bible says this is clear sin, you're saying it's not, that's not evangelical.

We can't, we're going to have to divide over that. And this is where quite people come in and ask, okay, where does the dividing line happens? And at what point do you drop the hammer? And I would say there is primary doctrines where this is where Theocast and Jamie and I have no problems partnering with as long as we can agree on these primary doctrines.

And, you know, we're talking about the doctrine of God, the doctrine of justification, the doctrine of depravity. These are doctrines that we believe that if you remove one of these primary doctrines, you know, the eternality of Christ, the Trinity, you remove these, you actually are messing with the gospel at this point.

Inerrancy of scripture, so on and so forth.

Right.

So we have to be very careful on these primary doctrines where we look at them and say, okay, we agree. We may even explain them a little bit different. We may even have different language, but we're all coming to the same conclusion.

And we're not going to really divide over, and we might say certain ministries are more helpful than others, some more clarifying than others. So not just because we agree on the primaries, are we going to say they're clear on all other areas, which part of Theocast, we would say there's a lot of evangelicals out there that we disagree with and we think aren't helpful, which is kind of where I'm going next.

But there are secondary and third issues. For instance, if Jimmy has a man in his church that desires to be an elder, but there are some massive disagreements on, let's say, the function and role of an elder or even women in ministry.

There would be very hard for the church to get unified between Jimmy and a separate elder who are leading the church in two opposite directions. We're not talking about small opinions on, well, I like guitar and I like piano.

We're talking about massive understandings of how the gospel ministry goes forward. On a personal level, on a church level, those become a little bit more important because we need to have as much unity as we can when it comes down to a local body.

This is why there are denominations and people look at Scripture and they do their best to interpret Scripture, and they find themselves leaning towards a denomination that they think has the best interpretation, and that creates unity.

At Theocast, we're not anti-denomination here. Some people are like, oh, denominations are bad. In a sinful world, I think they're necessary. But where I want to go next is that where Jimmy and I and Justin, one of the struggles that we have is that even in this primary doctrine, this first level, one of the problems that's happening in today's world is that that primary issue, that primary doctrine of justification, the doctrine of God, the doctrine of the Trinity, the nature of God, all of this is becoming questionable in how people are presenting these doctrines.

I would say they're being careless and they're not using historical theology to help govern them, which is why we're big fans of confessional theology. A good example of this is final justification. That doctrine that's come to be kind of plaguing all kinds of denominations right now is a good example of a primary doctrine where they aren't necessarily fully heretics teaching it, but they are being very careless in what they are presenting.

We're excited to announce that we have a new free e-book available at our website called Faith vs. Faithfulness, a Primer on Rest. We the hosts put this together to explain the difference between emphasizing one's faith in Christ versus emphasizing one's faithfulness to Christ, and how one leads to rest and how the other often to a lack of assurance.

You can get this at theocast .org slash Primer. If you've been encouraged by what you've been hearing at Theocast, we'd ask you to help partner with us. You can do that by joining our Total Access membership.

That's our monthly membership that gives you access to all of our material that we've produced over the last four years, or simply by donating to our ministry. You can do that by going to our website, theocast .org.

We hope that you enjoy the rest of the conversation.

A lot of times, where a lot of these things happen, to go back to clarity, category, distinction, is that these distinctions, and I would say even these categories, get collapsed into one another, where we do see a kind of collapse of the doctrine of the Trinity, an understanding of the one essence of God, the distinction and role and function, and yet we kind of collapse all of these things.

Where were most of the heresies in the early church? What were they around? Well, they were around the Trinity or Christological heresies, and so we're just recycling old heresies, to use that language.

But again, particularly when it comes to gospel, if we're thinking about what's the most important question that a person can ask in their life, which is most likely, how can I be saved? We want to be able to give them a very clear and assuring and comforting answer.

That's right.

That we find this good news of the gospel, that this is what I'm preaching on this week in my church, 1 Corinthians 15, that Jesus Christ has died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That he was an historical person, and that he rose from the dead for our justification, and that there were witnesses, actual eyewitnesses to this truth.

And when we begin to take the gospel, and as you said, John, we begin to become reckless or muddy with it, where we are no longer giving a clear approach to how it is that people can find rest in Christ.

We can no longer find what it means to be forgiven of our sin. This is when you start to see the guys at Theocast and many others become really fiery. Because I can just speak for myself of the damage that it really does to people.

The damage that it can do to an individual who, even though they might have the Jesus fish on their car, are just inwardly tortured by their own sin because the gospel has never been truly explained to them.

So that's where I personally get really fiery. I always find it interesting that the people who kind of get on my case for being, in their language, divisive over stuff like this, are the same people who have no problem changing churches because they don't like the worship style.

Justin Perdue. Or children's ministry.

Jimmy Buehler Exactly. And I'm like, okay, we need to have a conversation about primary and secondary doctrines.

Exactly.

I don't know if you want to speak into that as well, John.

John Donner. I do. This is where the longer people listen to Theocast, they start picking up what really does become most important. I think Christianity needs to be working more and more and more on clarifying the gospel and bringing greater and greater amount of clarity.

Because the clearer Christ is to the believer, the more they can rest and the more joy they can find. But instead, I feel like a lot of what Christianity is built around is building bridges to self-righteousness.

And we tend to push Christology and the gospel to the, okay, yeah, but that's what God has.

Said.

We really need to get down to the crux of what's going on here. And we begin to mold and mix in together justification, the way in which our standing is before God, and sanctification, that which God uses to transform us into His image, and those get pressed in together.

I just want to make an example here. I love guys like Michael Horton, and I love our Lutheran brothers who understand the role of justification, sanctification, the law, and the gospel, and they keep those things separate, and they press in sola fide into the believer.

That is someone that I absolutely want to read, listen, and be shepherded to, and encourage people to listen to and be shepherded by. Because they are making primary the gospel, and all of these other areas, they do become secondary.

Where my struggle is, to go back with what Jimmy is at, is that sometimes we draw lines and disagreements, and we begin to call people heretics. And it's unbelievable the things that will be said, and it's just pure old school fundamentalism.

That's all it is. Like, if you don't agree with me on every single point, on every single doctrine, I can not only not promote you, I cannot recommend you, but I will not, and they call it sharing the platform.

Now I'm not going to give you a platform with my people. And it is so inclusive and divisive that it is confusing that every doctrine becomes a primary doctrine. Everything becomes an issue. And I've seen this.

I've seen this in the Presbyterian world. I've seen it in the 1689 world, where the most ridiculous doctrines that should never make it to a primary level, Christians are fighting over, dividing over, will not associate, won't even talk with each other, because there's a disagreement on a particular doctrine that is not a primary, and it's never been a primary in the history of the church.

And so I think we have to be careful in making sure that we look at what Scripture procreates as a primary. And Scripture says, man, if you disagree with this, then you're standing before God as in question, and realizing that something, for instance, do you have services on Sunday morning and Sunday night?

Maybe not. But I've seen people being called liberal heretics because they don't have church on Sunday night. And I'm just like, have you lost your mind?

Have you all lost your ever-loving minds? I haven't said that one in a while. It's a good one.

Or varying views on the Sabbath is a great one. You know, Sabbatarianism is another one that I see a lot of people fighting over, and it's disheartening.

Well, if everything is a primary doctrine, then nothing is a primary doctrine. You know what I'm saying? So, if everything is primary and central to the justification of the believer, then nothing.

Is.

Because, in fact, we're just kind of muddying what it is. And so, I just want to throw this out there that praise be to the name of God that we are not saved by right doctrine. Praise be to Jesus Christ that we are not saved by perfect doctrine, because frankly, to think that we have perfect airtight theology is rather arrogant, and I've been guilty of this.

And so, I think this is what should drive us as we interact with people that we disagree with, is not this obstinate desire to be correct, but rather a spirit of humility and gentleness and respect and also understanding.

I have a friend of mine that I really respect. He asks great questions, and he said something to me a while back where it just kind of landed on me and impacted me, where he said, when I approach a dispute or a conversation that is of a lively manner, he said, I've tried to shift to begin with, I'm just going to assume that I'm wrong, or I'm going to assume that I'm misunderstanding.

And he said that that has kind of helped him as he's interacted with different theologians and different people who he would disagree with, because it helps others to be humanized. Frankly, this is why battles on Twitter and battles on Facebook are just so nonsensical, because you can type something and walk away and not have to bear the consequences of body language and hurt feelings or whatever.

It dehumanizes conversation, and frankly, it's why we are so polarized today, not just theologically, but politically. It's because we've dehumanized people. People just become subject of memes and whatever.

We have to be so careful that as we're talking about things, we hold tightly that which God has given us to hold tightly, which is Christ and him crucified for the forgiveness of sins by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone, and everything else.

And when I say everything, I know a lot of people are going to kind of throw up their hands. But when it comes to things outside of that, when it comes to the things outside of what the church has confessed ecumenically throughout the centuries, the Athanasian Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed, I think we need to win back or take back what Paul urges us in 1 Corinthians 13 that has less to do with weddings and more to do with how we talk with one another.

It's a spirit of love. It's a spirit of, I want to aim for unity. What if when you approach conversation that had disagreement, your goal was unity, not to be right?

That's right, without giving up conviction.

That's right.

What I'm not saying is that, and you're not saying, Jimmy, you're not saying lay down conviction.

No, unity and uniformity are not the same thing.

Nope, they are not. That's absolutely true. I think one of the things that's been lost is that in Christianity, we talk a lot about being godly and holy and pursuing sanctification. What is interesting to me is that somehow the fruits of the Spirit and holiness are getting separated.

Godliness and the fruits of the Spirit don't go together because we're talking about meekness and gentleness and humility. We're talking about being patient. These are all fruits of the Spirit. Godliness is patience.

It's meekness. It's humility. It's preferring one another. And when we get into these theological discussions, patience, meekness, humility, and preference go out the window.

That's right.

And I've seen it. I've been in these discussions before around certain topics, and I just have to sit back and say, what are we doing here? You will hear arguments that are centered around, we've all heard them, when it's the Calvinism versus free will or Paedo-Baptist versus Credo-Baptist or different.

You start hearing arguments to get thrown out there, and they go from, hey, we're having this gentle, loving, brotherly conversation to saying things that are mean and hurtful and there's no benefit in what was said or what was written.

One of the things that I think is lost is the art of discussion. We're not able to have meaningful dialogue without there being offense and saying things that are frankly offensive.

I like that you talked about the fruit of the Spirit. And just last night at men's group, one of the guys in our group, he was emphasizing how the Christian life is extranose. It's outside of us. We receive the gospel outside of us.

But also, Luther talks about this and the freedom of the Christian, that we also become extranose as we walk with others, that we are freed by the gospel to love and serve our neighbors generously. So, even the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Tell me one of those that only benefits the individual.

Tim Cynova. Yeah, no. I'm going to be patient with myself.

Give yourself some patience. What? Who talks like that?

Tim Cynova. Self-control, maybe, but it's still for the.

Benefits of others.

Aaron Powell. Self-control, maybe, but man, if you're married, self-control, that's really going to benefit your spouse. Trust me. You know what I'm saying?

Tim Cynova. Keep your mouth shut.

Aaron Powell. Even those, those are extranose fruits of the Spirit, that they're outward focused. It's not only that we receive the benefits and the goodness and the grace of the gospel extranose outside of ourselves, but also we give it.

Not that we become livers of the gospel. We don't live the gospel. We receive it. But rather, we give the grace that has been given to us in Jesus, and we give it freely to others. I know other people are going to be like, well, you're just a pietist now.

I'm like, okay, whatever. If that's pietism, then call me a pietist. That's not pietism.