Did the Emergent Church Become Big Eva?

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Did the emergent church actually become Big Eva? That's what we're going to talk about today on Conversations with a Calvinist, which begins right now.

00:27

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:30

My name is Keith Bosky, and I am a Calvinist.

00:33

And I am excited today to welcome my guest on the program, Pastor Gabriel Hughes, who serves at the First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas.

00:42

He serves alongside of Tom Buck, who I recently had on the program.

00:47

Now I'm getting to have Pastor Hughes as well.

00:50

And Gabe is also the founder and voice behind the very popular online ministry, When We Understand the Text, featuring hundreds of videos addressing a wide variety of biblical topics.

01:02

Gabe is husband to wife Becky and father of their five children.

01:07

Gabe, thank you for being on the program with me today.

01:10

Brother, it is a privilege.

01:11

Thanks so much for asking me.

01:13

Yeah, absolutely.

01:13

I'm excited to have you.

01:15

And I want to begin right away by saying if anyone is unfamiliar with When We Understand the Text, this is a online video ministry where Gabe takes topics, various topics.

01:28

He makes short form videos, and he addresses these topics, and it always has a tagline.

01:33

We know it when we understand the text.

01:35

So I'm going to show a quick video from his online ministry just to introduce you to him if you are unfamiliar.

01:44

This poll question was presented on social media.

01:47

Do you believe that God has commanded everything that comes to pass, whether good or bad? Seth replied, if yes, then God is worse than the devil, for the devil is merely doing God's bidding.

02:00

He shared a lengthy quote from C.S.

02:01

Lewis about man having free will.

02:04

Epistemic trespasser said, no, things happen despite God's will, but there's an eschatological horizon to which God directs everything in the end.

02:10

Think of it in terms of the calculus of variations.

02:13

And then he shared a chart of something.

02:15

Ben said, I feel uncomfortable voting on a word the Bible doesn't use.

02:19

David said, commanded is not the right word.

02:22

Hannah said, not commanded, but ordained.

02:24

Andy said, the answer is no, commanded or ordained.

02:28

Sam said, no, God allows, that's not commanding.

02:32

But the Bible says, who has spoken and it came to pass unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? Lamentations 3, 37-38.

02:46

Roger shared Isaiah 46, 9-11, where the Lord says, I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning.

02:54

I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass.

02:57

I have purposed, and I will do it.

03:00

Tim shared Isaiah 45, 7, the one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity.

03:07

I am the Lord who does all these.

03:11

Selwyn shared Genesis 50, 20.

03:13

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.

03:20

Acts 4, 27-28 says that God predestined the murder of His Son, even who would do it, for the salvation of His people.

03:29

May the sovereignty of God be a comfort to you, that God works all things together for good, for those who love God, and are called according to His purpose when we understand the text.

03:43

Brother, that is awesome.

03:44

I love your videos, and that one in particular certainly is right up my alley, of course, because I'm a Calvinist, so it really helps people understand what we mean when we say God has decreed and commanded all things that are coming to pass.

03:58

Can you share with us how you came up with the idea for when we understand the text? Yeah, it actually came about because some members of my congregation were sharing stupid videos on social media, and it was one of those.

04:14

I had only been a pastor, or a senior teaching pastor anyway, for about a year, not quite two years, and I felt like I was doing a great job.

04:22

I'm preaching and I see so many nodding heads in the congregation.

04:26

I'm going, wow, I'm doing pretty good here.

04:27

Not too many arguments or quarrels over what I'm saying.

04:30

I must be doing a good job.

04:32

Then I'd go home and pull up social media, and members of my congregation are sharing videos exactly contrary to what I had just preached that morning.

04:41

I was over at a friend's house.

04:42

His name is Joe, and I was ranting about it, probably wasn't being terribly charitable in my own heart as I was complaining about what I was witnessing online.

04:52

I was just saying, they're sharing these dumb videos, and Joe just simply said to me, well, make your own videos.

04:57

It was like it just dawned on me.

04:59

I'd never thought of this concept before.

05:01

I could make my own videos.

05:03

So I have a lot of years in radio.

05:06

I've actually still been in radio ministry longer than I've been in pastoral ministry.

05:10

I was in radio for 22 years.

05:13

And so kind of using that experience and that background doing broadcasting and bringing that into being able to come up with these videos that address Bible topics and short spurts because everything we did on the radio was like in 30-second increments, 30, 90 seconds, two minutes, or something like that.

05:30

So I kind of brought that into doing these short videos addressing these Bible topics.

05:35

There were a couple of other ideas that we bounced around before we settled on when we understand the text.

05:41

One thing for sure I knew I wanted to do, I wanted to end every video with the same phrase.

05:46

That's kind of the characteristic, you know, Paul, Harvey, and now you know the rest of the story.

05:51

And so I wanted to finish with some tagline.

05:55

And when we understand the text was what we came up with.

05:57

And somebody, a friend of mine pointed out, you know, if you abbreviate that, it says what? Yeah.

06:03

Somehow, yeah, all of that just kind of pulled together in that way.

06:07

But that wasn't the intention in the very beginning.

06:09

I did not think it was ever going to get thousands and thousands of views.

06:13

I really was only making them for my congregation.

06:16

But by the grace of God, he's used those for bigger things.

06:21

Yeah, absolutely.

06:22

It's interesting having a radio background that you do that you just said that about having the tagline because I sort of do that.

06:29

I always start with, you know, I'm Keith Foskey.

06:31

I'm your Calvinist.

06:31

I end with I've been your Calvinist.

06:34

That's my your Calvinist is my tagline.

06:36

And I do that for that very reason.

06:37

And now on social media and stuff that sort of becomes how you're known.

06:42

And so, yeah, there is a purpose behind it.

06:45

It isn't just my mom actually recently asked me, she said, why do you call yourself a Calvinist? I was like, well, you know, there's a whole lot of reasons.

06:52

But mainly it's because, you know, that's how people know me.

06:55

And it's helpful.

06:58

Now, I have to ask this as a fellow video maker.

07:02

And I've been making videos ever since I had my dad's Betamax camera when I was a kid.

07:08

Oh, wow.

07:09

Oh, man.

07:09

Oh, yeah, I'm dating myself quite a bit there.

07:12

But I used to love to make movies and things.

07:16

And so my question for you is on a production level, because I do a lot of my stuff by myself.

07:21

My wife helps me, but mostly it's just me and her and sometimes just me.

07:26

Do you have like a production team? Your stuff's so well done.

07:30

No, it's actually entirely me.

07:33

And now in the beginning where I was coming up with ideas and making scripts, I did have some friends and even some pastoral acquaintances that I was talking to.

07:41

I'd throw a script and say, am I getting all this right? Is there a better reference that I could use here? And sometimes with the elders of the church where I was at when I started all of this, when we would have our elders meetings, like we got together for an hour or two every week, we'd eat some good pork.

07:58

And then we'd talk about...

08:01

Enjoying that new covenant.

08:02

Amen.

08:02

That's right.

08:03

Exactly, man.

08:04

We would either talk about each other's respective Sunday school lessons or what I'm going to be doing in the sermon that Sunday.

08:10

And sometimes I'd throw them script ideas.

08:12

And I had one guy in particular among my elders that, man, he was just a master of being able to take 12 words and say it in five.

08:20

And so when you're trying to make quick videos and get it quick to the point, that was a really valuable skill.

08:26

And so he kind of added some great ways to be able to say things in fewer words.

08:31

But anymore, I'm doing it by myself.

08:34

My wife is involved a little bit.

08:35

And sometimes I'll read the scripts to her and say, is there a better way that I could say this? Does it make sense to you? Because I know if it makes sense to my wife, it's going to make sense to other people.

08:44

And there's even a few videos where my kids are involved.

08:48

You can hear my kids' voices in some of those videos.

08:50

And so we've made it a family effort.

08:53

And my kids like watching it.

08:56

In fact, a member of my church just came up to me just last week and said, hey, my daughter just grabbed my smartphone and she just started watching what videos? And she was like 10 or 11 years old.

09:05

And he just said, is that OK? All the content's OK? And I said, yeah, my kids watch them.

09:10

I think you'll be fine with everything in there.

09:12

I don't think there's anything you disagree with.

09:15

So we get emails from families that say they watch them together.

09:19

And that's great to hear.

09:20

Awesome.

09:21

Awesome.

09:21

Well, again, I want you to know, I think it's a great show, as I said.

09:24

And I've often shared and recommended it to people.

09:27

And I want to continue to do so and let my audience know if you have a Bible question or if you're dealing with a subject, maybe you're having an online interaction with somebody and you're having trouble putting into words what you want to say, man, go over to it's www.utt.com.

09:43

Isn't that right? Is it? Yeah, that's correct.

09:45

Go over there.

09:45

Just type that into a YouTube search and it'll bring up all the videos.

09:49

And there's a ton of subjects.

09:51

I mean, everything from climate change.

09:53

I saw a video on that.

09:53

That was almost the one I pulled up because I was interested in it.

09:58

But I just thought the other one on God's command was a little more apropos for this show.

10:04

But yeah, there's so many good things.

10:06

And again, this is solid content from a solid man of God.

10:11

So thank you, brother, for doing that for sure.

10:13

Thank you.

10:14

I appreciate it.

10:15

Absolutely.

10:16

We're going to move on now to a different segment of the program.

10:18

And this is something that listeners, you're going to have your ears open on this because we're doing another giveaway.

10:24

And this giveaway is actually a really, really big deal.

10:28

Ryan Dubia, who is one of our listeners, has made an offer of two brand new Reformation Study Bibles.

10:38

These are the faux leather Reformation Study Bibles.

10:41

And because he's giving us two of them for free to donate, we're going to make this a Valentine's Day giveaway.

10:49

And here is how you are going to be able to participate.

10:52

If you want to be enrolled in this giveaway, you go on to this video, go to the comment section of YouTube, and tell me how you met your significant other.

11:04

And if you do that, you will be entered in.

11:07

And sometime in about a week from now, I will go in.

11:11

I will take all the names.

11:12

We will draw from those names, and we will send you two brand new Reformation Study Bibles, which you will have as your Valentine's Day gift from Conversations with a Calvinist.

11:23

So that is our gift to you for Valentine's Day.

11:26

And all you have to do to enter in is go to our YouTube page.

11:30

Can't do this on Facebook.

11:31

I'm not going to take any enrollment from any...

11:33

I know this goes out in different media platforms, but I can't go searching for everything.

11:39

So we're going to do it in one place.

11:40

It's going to be on our YouTube page.

11:43

And just go, if you don't know where we're at, we're at Conversations with a Calvinist on YouTube.

11:48

And go on to this video.

11:50

Leave a comment.

11:51

Tell us how you met your significant other.

11:53

We will put your name in the drawing, and we will draw one week from the day this video goes out.

11:58

So that's our giveaway this week.

12:00

And again, just real quick, it is two brand new Reformation Study Bibles.

12:05

All right, my friend.

12:06

That's an outstanding gift.

12:08

Yeah, absolutely.

12:08

And I'm so thankful for everything we've been giving away lately.

12:12

I've been giving away stuff on the program, and it's all been donated.

12:14

People send me emails saying, hey, in fact, Ryan, the gentleman who's giving us this, is he's even going to ship it.

12:21

He's just going to ship it to them.

12:22

So if you win, you're going to give me your address.

12:25

I'm going to give it to him, and he's going to ship it directly to you.

12:28

And it's a wonderful thing to have people who are willing to do that.

12:31

And I'm very thankful.

12:33

So we're going to move on now to another part of the program.

12:37

And this is what we call Craziest Thing This Week.

12:43

Now, Craziest Thing This Week, Pastor Gabe, is a short video that I show.

12:47

And you have no idea what it is.

12:50

Nope, I've not seen this.

12:52

This is part of the fun.

12:54

Every week, I bring in a different video.

12:56

Usually, it's something I find through Twitter or Facebook or something like that, something someone shares.

13:01

And I just put them into folders, and I keep them for fun.

13:04

And this one, I think, will appeal to you because the level of crazy is just a little extra.

13:10

And so I thought you might like it.

13:12

Well, I'm truly curious.

13:13

All right.

13:14

This is from a debate at Oxford on the subject of whether or not we ought to eat meat.

13:23

The assumption that the best protein comes from corpses is a racist belief.

13:28

How do you know the animal would have picked you to feed off their corpse? 21st century animal eating requires our complicity in a new colonialism.

13:38

These events especially affect girls and young women.

13:43

Your hamburger comes with a dose of misogyny.

13:46

Popular culture is flooded with references to sexy cows, sexy pigs, sexy chickens, sexy fishes who all just want to have fun.

13:57

Meat eating is also one of the ways gender-based structures of oppression are perpetuated.

14:02

Masculinity, a construct of the gender binary facing constant destabilization, feels always under threat.

14:11

And eating animals is its protection racket.

14:14

White supremacists weaponized eating meat, eggs, and dairy.

14:19

And the baiting of liberal men as so-called soy boys are all part of the neo-Nazi messaging.

14:27

To say you care about animals is considered a sign of weakness in a world still committed to the gender binary.

14:34

Meat eaters like anti-abortionists have forgotten that one quality of non-existence is not having awareness about existence.

14:42

When all else fails, meat eaters assert that animals are not our equals.

14:47

I heard all your laughter.

14:48

I know some of these must be new ideas or you think they're fringe or whatever.

14:53

Our whiteness is part of the problem of meat eating.

14:59

Okay, all right.

15:01

Oh, dear.

15:03

No pun intended.

15:06

All right, brother, I'm gonna let you have it.

15:09

What are your thoughts? That's Carol Adams and that's at Oxford in a debate called Beyond Meat.

15:14

That was just mumbo-jumbo nonsense.

15:18

I mean, it's like the apex of the woke movement.

15:25

You just call everything racist, everything misogynist in order to break down certain systems that you don't like and be able to regain power or be able to gain power in the system that you're trying to build up.

15:38

That's the woke movement.

15:40

I mean, you're deconstructing everything.

15:42

You're calling everything racist or sexist or whatever in order to claim authority based on your experience.

15:50

So you're the oppressor.

15:52

You've oppressed me and apparently through meat eating is how I'm an oppressor now.

15:57

I'm a white meat eater, male, so man, I've got all kinds of things running against me here.

16:02

So you don't have any authority in this play.

16:05

I'm the one with all the authority and yeah, we're just gonna cut down these systems of oppression until I gain the power that I want to have.

16:14

Absolutely.

16:14

And what was great was where I found this and I don't remember what platform it was on, but there were some comments under it and one of it was from a young lady who said, I'm a Native American and my people have been hunting and fishing and killing and eating animals for generations.

16:31

And so to say that it's colonialism just doesn't make sense.

16:35

She's where she is because of meat eaters.

16:38

You would not even be in the position that you are in if it wasn't for your ancestors hunting and killing animals and eating game in order to survive.

16:47

Absolutely.

16:48

Absolutely.

16:49

And I just thought it was so funny and I thought you'd get a kick out of it.

16:53

All right, my friend, we're going to go now to, we're going to go to our next segment.

16:58

And this one, again, is just a way for our audience to get to know you a little bit better.

17:01

You're going to get to make a choice now.

17:03

And your choice is whether you're going to play Battle of the Decades or Would You Rather.

17:13

And that is, Battle of Decades is a card game.

17:17

It has trivia from 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s.

17:22

So you can choose your decade or you can choose a Would You Rather.

17:28

Now, some people want to do both and I'm willing to let you do both because I'm not, I don't have a time constraint.

17:34

But I will tell you this, the Battle of the Decades cards, we got them at Christmas, my wife and I got them.

17:41

And the first time we ever did this on the show, my wife was my guest.

17:45

We were doing a show on hospitality or on ministering within the church.

17:50

And so she was my guest on the show.

17:52

And they're a lot harder than you think.

17:56

So I'm just going to warn you, the Battle of Decades cards are kind of hard.

18:01

Well, I was already intimidated by that in the beginning because I'm not that clued into a lot of pop culture stuff.

18:08

So I'm going to go with Would You Rather.

18:10

All right.

18:10

Would You Rather.

18:11

Well, I'm going to take two cards out of the Would You Rather.

18:13

I'm going to ask you, Gabe, would you rather have blue or red? Let's go with blue.

18:19

All right.

18:20

And the reason why I'm asking is each card has a blue side and a red side.

18:23

So we're going to go with, we'll go with blue on both sides.

18:26

All right.

18:26

Well, I just pulled random out of the box here.

18:30

All right.

18:33

I don't even understand this one, but I'll ask you.

18:36

Okay.

18:37

All right.

18:37

So the question is, would you rather have a hamster the size of a house or would you rather eat cat food? So Clifford, the big red hamster.

18:51

That's right.

18:51

Yes.

18:52

Or would I rather eat cat food? Well, the latter I've done before.

18:57

I don't know.

18:58

What kind of cat food are we talking about? Friskies or a happy cat? I don't know.

19:03

All I think about is Christmas vacation when they're chowing into the jello.

19:06

And he says, aunt Bethany, does your cat by any chance eat jello? I don't know about the cat, but I sure am enjoying it.

19:13

I think my kids would really get a kick out of the giant hamster.

19:16

So let's, uh, let's go with that one.

19:19

That sounds like fun.

19:20

Well, just for, just for giggles, if you had to choose a, um, if you did have to choose a decade, what would you have chosen? Nineties.

19:28

Nineties.

19:28

Nineties.

19:29

Yeah.

19:29

Well, I just pulled a random card, the nineties question, which singer received the 94 Grammy award for album of the year for their album that also featured as a soundtrack to a popular movie.

19:40

That's really weirdly odd.

19:42

Yeah.

19:43

I mean, basically you're picking the Grammy award winner.

19:46

That was a soundtrack of a popular movie in 1994.

19:49

I'm not sure who that would have been.

19:51

I'll give you, I know what the movie is.

19:52

It was bodyguard.

19:53

So maybe you'll know that.

19:54

Oh, okay.

19:54

Yeah.

19:54

Right.

19:55

Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner.

19:57

Yeah.

19:57

That one was a little easier.

19:59

The one that my wife asked me was, uh, the, the, who won the master, the, the only Spanish golfer to ever win the master championship and it would say they Ballesteros and I had no idea.

20:12

No, I didn't.

20:13

I even, I even like golf, but I don't, I don't know that I would have known that.

20:21

Well, we're going to move on now to what most people tuned in for today.

20:24

And that is the main topic.

20:26

And the question that we're going to be asking is, uh, did the emergent church become big Eva? Now I know that's not the way that you worded it, but this is spawned off of a tweet that you posted.

20:41

And so I want to read the tweet because when I saw this, I thought, man, that's a great topic for show.

20:46

I'm going to reach out to pastor Gabe and see if he's interested in coming on the program.

20:49

And it just so happens that you were.

20:51

So I'm great, very grateful for that.

20:52

And this is what you tweeted.

20:55

It's astonishing how many so-called evangelical preachers sound just like the emergent preachers of two decades ago.

21:02

The emergent church movement didn't die out.

21:05

It went mainstream.

21:07

It became the norm.

21:11

Now, when I read that, I thought that's very insightful and that's worthy of, uh, of a discussion, but I know this, there are some people today, especially some of my younger listeners.

21:21

And interestingly enough, I do have some younger listeners that may not know what the emergent church is.

21:28

So Gabe, if you don't mind just for a moment, sort of give us a history of what that term means when it was used, when it was popularized and what they were trying to accomplish.

21:38

Yeah, certainly.

21:38

Well, the word itself means to emerge out of, that's why they chose that name for their movement.

21:44

And they wanted to emerge out of traditionalism and some of the, uh, the classic things that were going on in the church, fundamentalism, especially was what they were trying to eschew.

21:56

And so then also even merging with the culture.

21:59

Now the, the word itself wasn't meant to imply we're merging with the culture, but that, that's really what effectively they were doing.

22:06

So we need to become more relevant.

22:08

And the emergent movement really was the liberal movement of old.

22:12

It's the same old liberal stuff, which is also the same old heresies.

22:16

And we can talk about kind of the characteristics of liberalism.

22:19

Like what, what do we even mean when we say liberal theology? And I can get to that a little bit later on.

22:25

But the emergent movement actually named itself back in the seventies and even came up with an emergent organization in 1990.

22:34

It was called US Emergent.

22:36

And some of those guys that were behind it, pushing the emergent movement included names you still see today, like Brian McLaren, Scott McKnight.

22:43

Some of the biggest names that were behind it included Pete Enns, Matthew Paul Turner, Doug Padgett, Rachel Held Evans.

22:51

Rob Bell was kind of the biggest name, the most well-known name for about a decade.

22:55

And the, you know, it was Bell that did the NUMA videos, as far as like branding goes, kind of the two biggest things that came out of that.

23:04

The, the zenith of the movement was in the early two thousands.

23:08

So even though it was prominent throughout the nineties, it really didn't became, it really didn't become a pop culture stream until after the 9-11 thing happened.

23:19

So it was kind of a post 9-11 era movement that caught on through the two thousands and then the 2010s.

23:26

And of course, Rob Bell was like one of the biggest names.

23:29

He came out with his NUMA videos and those videos started, I think 2002 or three or somewhere in there.

23:35

And, and he went on through about 2011 doing those videos.

23:39

And it was the, the short spurt videos.

23:42

Believe it or not, all of this had started before YouTube.

23:45

So there was no age of YouTube yet.

23:48

That website didn't even become established until 2005.

23:51

So in 02 and 03, Rob Bell is making these NUMA videos, which become widely circulated in a lot of churches.

23:58

And it, you know, I have to admit, I must confess, I got sucked into it.

24:02

I thought they were really neat.

24:04

And I thought this was teaching me a new way to understand the Bible that I had never heard before.

24:08

Of course, that was kind of part of the whole idea.

24:10

And it was actually a pastor friend of mine.

24:12

I was a youth sponsor at the time.

24:14

I wasn't the youth leader, but I helped sponsor the youth and the group that I was a part of.

24:19

And me and a friend of mine had been watching these NUMA videos.

24:22

And my friend was the one that introduced them to me and he was going to show them at the youth group.

24:26

And so I invited a pastor friend of mine to come.

24:28

And I said, you got to watch these.

24:30

These are fantastic.

24:31

And tell me what you think of them.

24:33

And it was, it was, you know, we showed them to the youth.

24:36

And I can't remember which two we showed.

24:39

That doesn't even stick out of my mind really.

24:41

But after it was over, I went to my pastor friend and I said, so what did you think? He said five words to me that really changed my thinking and my discernment pretty much for the rest of my life.

24:50

He said, it's garbage, throw it out.

24:52

That's what he said.

24:54

And he didn't elaborate on it any more than that.

24:56

He didn't tell me why it was trash.

24:58

But I just trusted his opinion enough that after that, I got online and I started researching this.

25:03

Who else has been watching these NUMA videos and what have they said about it? I came across a guy named Cameron Butel.

25:09

And I think his old blog is still up.

25:12

It's called Once Upon a Cross.

25:14

And he works for Grace to You Ministries now.

25:17

So he's out in LA, was in New Zealand at the time.

25:21

And there was this video that he did where he played one of the NUMA videos, just one video, but then used scripture to examine, is this actually biblically accurate? And I was, I held scripture in high regard.

25:34

I really thought Rob Bell was teaching scripture.

25:36

It was one of the reasons why I got roped into it.

25:38

My dad raised me to have a great respect for the Bible and everything had to be weighed according to scripture.

25:45

So I'm suddenly made aware of the fact that Bell actually isn't using scripture, even though it sounds like he is.

25:51

And just by Cameron Butel walking us through the Bible and evaluating this video from Bell, which he didn't even play the whole thing.

25:58

He just played four or five minutes of it or something like that.

26:00

But convinced me that this movement really isn't as biblically solid as it plays itself to be.

26:07

Now, they wanna say that they are the true tradition.

26:10

What they're doing really is what Jesus and the disciples had in mind 2000 years ago.

26:15

That's the way that they'll try to present their movement.

26:18

But when it comes down to it, they don't have a high regard of scripture.

26:21

In fact, that's one of the central tenets of the emergent church, is that scripture is not inerrant.

26:27

And in fact, it is open to interpretation.

26:29

And some of these interpretations have been wrong and have created these traditions and this fundamentalism within the church.

26:35

And we've gotta get rid of all of that.

26:37

So they really deconstruct what they have.

26:42

Deconstructionism is a big part of the movement, even though that word wasn't in use in the early 2000s when the movement was kind of big.

26:52

Anyway, like I said, just kind of the old liberalism were repackaged with a new label.

26:57

It's interesting you mentioned about the inerrancy issue.

27:03

One thing that I find, and this is sort of a tangent topic real quick.

27:08

One thing that I find as I'm dealing with more and more people is people will use the language of inerrancy because they know that it's sort of necessary to get their foot in the door with some people.

27:22

It's like certain fundamentalists have to hear that word, but then they reinterpret it or change it to say, well, yes, the scripture's inerrant, but your understanding isn't.

27:35

And therefore- Yeah, that's something Beth Moore has said exactly that.

27:39

Yeah, exactly.

27:40

So they end up with this idea of, yeah, well, we have an inerrant Bible, but we have no way of knowing what it means.

27:47

And therefore, what does it matter if there is an inerrant Bible? And do you think that guys like Rob Bell, I don't know, how long have you been a believer? I don't know, before, let me see.

28:01

Well, I've been a Christian.

28:02

I mean, I put my faith in Christ at age four.

28:06

My parents raised me up in it.

28:07

There's never been a time when I did not know Christ and knowing him as savior, I remember at four years old committing my life to Christ, not at my parents prompting, I did it on my own.

28:18

Although it wouldn't be until I was 16 years old that I got baptized, but I still, it's one of my earliest memories.

28:23

I remember committing my life to Christ.

28:25

And though I had an understanding of sin that still needed to mature, I knew that Jesus was savior and that by faith in him, I was forgiven my sins and had everlasting life with God.

28:36

Well, praise the Lord.

28:36

I think about my own children and pray that for them.

28:42

So to be saved at a young age is a wonderful thing.

28:46

All right, so what would you say is the most dangerous part of the emergent theology slash philosophy? Well, it's the fact that it's so fluid.

28:55

It's going to go with whatever the cultural attitude is.

28:58

That's kind of the design of the whole thing.

29:01

So what do we need to do to become appealing to the most number of people? And that has been the emergent playbook since its inception in 1970.

29:12

It was the idea of we need to be more culturally relevant.

29:16

We need to not be so committed to tradition and these fundamental ideas.

29:20

We need to be more about people's experiences and a little bit more allowing of other concepts.

29:28

So there's a lot of interfaith play that even comes into the emergent mindset of bringing in other beliefs, other ideas, except for those who are fundamentalists or Calvinists or things like that.

29:39

That's too rigid.

29:40

We can't allow them to be into this.

29:43

We're never welcome to the party ever.

29:45

Right.

29:46

It seems to be that way.

29:47

But of course, if we're committed to biblical faithfulness, we wouldn't want to be aligned with that camp anyway.

29:52

We're calling out those false teachers.

29:54

We don't want to be in partnership with those false teachers.

29:57

So the fact that these things are, it's the word of God that doesn't have high value in the emergent movement.

30:05

They, like I said before, don't want the scriptures to be inerrant.

30:08

They want it to be open to interpretation.

30:10

They believe that Jesus and the disciples will be doing exactly the same things that they're doing, which is kind of a contradiction.

30:16

You don't want to trust the scriptures, but yet you say Jesus and the disciples, which we know about according to the scriptures, would have been in alignment and in agreement with you.

30:26

So there's a lot of contradiction there with regards to that as well.

30:29

No authority though.

30:31

Once again, if everything's just kind of going along with whatever the culture is doing, then it's whatever is in my judgment is the way that we need to go, not according to what God's word says.

30:41

It's not based on anything objective or outside of myself.

30:45

It's all entirely subjective and driven by my feelings or fear of man, whatever the culture thinks of me, and I want them to like me.

30:54

So let's be more in line with what the culture is doing.

30:57

Yeah, and then it becomes almost impossible to define because it's like nailing Jell-O to the wall.

31:03

They're a chameleon.

31:04

They'll be whatever they need to be.

31:05

And so, yeah.

31:06

Yeah.

31:07

And really there was kind of a period of time where the emergent church wanted to eschew the label.

31:12

And in fact, if you listen to guys like Rob Bell and Don Miller today, they're still out there.

31:18

These guys that were kind of the pinnacle names in the emergent movement in the early 2000s, Donald Miller with his book, Blue Like Jazz, but they will make fun of who they used to be.

31:29

They're making fun of the very people that they were and make caricatures of themselves because they don't want the emergent movement to be limited to a label.

31:37

If you do that, then it kind of goes against the tenets of our movement.

31:42

Then we're starting to draw the same fundamentalist lines that we want to go against.

31:47

So that's one of the ways that the emergent movement was able to become so subversive in the church because they make it difficult to kind of pinpoint and say, oh, that's emergent.

31:59

Now you even hear the word progressive or you hear the word deconstructionist.

32:03

All of these things are emergent ideas just under different labels.

32:06

Because like I said from the very beginning, this is just the same theologically liberal movement, but with a new name on it.

32:13

All right.

32:14

So when you said that the modern mainstream is the emergent of yesterday, because like you just said, emergent is sort of not a thing anymore.

32:25

It's not something people use.

32:27

Even the guys who had that term don't really use that term anymore.

32:29

But you said in your tweet that the emergent movement didn't die out.

32:33

It went mainstream.

32:36

What makes you think that? What makes you, what are you seeing that makes you think that's the case? Well, it's the fact that all of these folks are using the same terminology that the emergent people were using, or it seems like they're following the same playbook.

32:53

You've got, as we said before, Beth Moore, who was saying that, yeah, the Bible's inerrant, but your interpretation of it is not.

33:02

Or you have J.D.

33:03

Greer who has said that we need to get rid of the systems of hierarchy and patriarchy.

33:09

Well, that was one of the central tenets of the emergent movement back in the 70s, where it was being established.

33:16

We need to be opposed to any sort of hierarchical structure in the church, or we need to be opposed to systems of patriarchy.

33:24

They're very strongly egalitarian.

33:27

So women can be preachers just as much as men can be, which is kind of funny because when you look at the beginnings of the movement, it was mostly male-driven.

33:34

A lot of those names that I mentioned to you were guys.

33:37

I think the two women that kind of emerged out of the emergent movement as being prominent names were Rachel Held Evans and Nadia Bowles-Weber, but there weren't many other women that had a lot of prominence in the emergent movement other than those two.

33:53

But again, you're seeing a lot of the same things that they were doing before.

33:57

And cultural relevancy is a big deal to the emergent movement.

34:03

Whatever is going on in the culture, whatever's moral in the culture, well, that must be, we can make that Christian.

34:09

We can make the Bible say that it's in agreement with this particular moral movement.

34:13

So adopting things like Black Lives Matter or even being involved with LGBTQ rights movements or claiming to be Christian feminists and so on and so forth, these were all things the emergents were doing.

34:25

And you see many people in the church doing that.

34:28

But of course, again, we're trying to stay away from the labels.

34:31

So a person like, oh, the gal that wrote Jesus and John Wayne or Kristen Cobes-Dumé.

34:41

So she'll say something like, I'm totally Orthodox.

34:44

I subscribe to Orthodox statements of faith and she'll even list them.

34:49

Or somebody like Brian Zahn will do the same thing.

34:51

He'll say all of my statements of faith are Orthodox and yet they're pro-LGBTQ.

34:56

They will claim that they are historically Orthodox Christians, yet they align themselves with sinful cultural practices that the Bible, the word of God says, that he will judge.

35:08

1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10.

35:10

These will not inherit the kingdom of God.

35:13

And so as much as they wanna say that they align with these doctrinal viewpoints, they're actually heretics.

35:19

They're wolves in sheep's clothing.

35:21

And they will use these doctrinal statements in order to claim some sort of a credibility so that they can get into the church and try to subvert these traditional views.

35:31

Yeah, absolutely.

35:33

And you brought up Brian Zahn.

35:34

Brian Zahn also denies penal substitution and atonement.

35:37

That's right.

35:38

Which is a huge, that's a huge thing.

35:40

And a lot of people don't even realize that that would be something that someone would deny.

35:45

But the idea of God being a cosmic child abuser, things like that, those are phrases that come out of, I mean, I heard him say it in his debate with Michael Brown, you know, that makes God a monster.

35:58

In fact, the title of the debate was The Monster God.

36:01

If you believe in penal substitution or atonement, you believe that God's a monster.

36:05

And I mean, and in that sense, denying the, when you said orthodoxy, you said he subscribes to orthodoxy.

36:11

I would say that denies orthodoxy, but at least denies the Protestant understanding of what happened on the cross.

36:18

And so very dangerous teaching there for sure.

36:24

Yeah, absolutely.

36:25

And the pragmatism that you see that goes on in a lot of the biggest denominations, especially the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Protestant denomination, that pragmatism also came from the emergent movement.

36:38

So it was wanting to be attractive to the most number of people.

36:42

Even if the objective was, we wanna get the most number of people in the door so that we can evangelize them.

36:48

But again, their concepts of evangelism were still largely based on experiences.

36:52

How can we relate to one another? There was a lot of social causes that were tied into the emergent movement, which is why something like Black Lives Matter becomes so attractive and gets pulled into the church.

37:03

All of that's under the influence of theological liberalism.

37:08

So as I said earlier about the emergent being just kind of liberalism, there are certain tenants of liberalism.

37:18

And if you got time, I can kind of go through these.

37:20

And this also becomes indicative of the emergent movement.

37:24

So there was a theologian by the name of Gary Dorian that kind of wrote the preeminent book on liberal theology.

37:32

And these points are from his book, but I'm getting this summarized from Kevin DeYoung.

37:37

And liberalism will follow these seven characteristics and you'll find these characteristics also prevalent in the emergent movement.

37:45

So number one, true religion is not based on external authority.

37:48

And we kind of established that about the emergent, although they'll say that they affix themselves to orthodox ideas or the inerrancy of the Bible.

37:56

It's not really their authority.

37:58

The Bible is not understood in the right way, or it needs to change with the times or something to that effect.

38:04

Number two, Christianity is a movement of social reconstruction.

38:09

And again, that's the social progressive stuff that will tend to get roped into emergent or liberal concepts.

38:16

Number three, Christianity must be credible and relevant.

38:19

So how can we make this relevant to the most number of people in our culture that we may attract them into the church? We don't wanna repel anybody.

38:26

We gotta bring the most number of people in and then even soften the doctrine when they're in the doors.

38:31

The emergent movement was all about what they called gracious orthodoxy.

38:35

So it was just like, how can we make our orthodoxy not as fundamentally dogmatic so that it won't repel people, but instead welcomes the biggest variety of people that we can get together.

38:48

And then of course, then they'll boast in the fact that look at how diverse we are.

38:51

Not just in skin color, which seems to be the big thing right now, but even a diversity of ideas.

38:58

So something like Jesus' claim in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

39:03

No one comes to the father but by me.

39:05

That doesn't fly with an emergent or a liberal.

39:10

They won't say it's wrong.

39:12

They're just gonna redefine it as something else.

39:14

It was kind of like what Carl Lentz said in his interview with Oprah, where he said that, well, what Jesus was saying there was I'm the road marker.

39:22

They just terminize, but they'll add terminology to it that's just totally not what the words mean or not what a plain reading of that text would establish.

39:32

Number four, understanding that truth can be known only through changing symbols and forms.

39:39

So again, these things are fluid.

39:40

It's always constantly changing.

39:42

It's never established a truth that is unchanging, but things that change with the culture and with the times.

39:49

Number five, theological controversy is about language, not about truth.

39:55

And we're seeing a battle over language happening in our culture right now, even within the church, the battle for the dictionary.

40:01

Number six, the historical accuracies of biblical facts and events are not crucial so long as we meet Jesus in the pages of scripture.

40:11

And you might've wanted to bring up something about Andy Stanley.

40:14

I was just thinking that.

40:16

That's, yeah, absolutely.

40:18

That's what he's saying.

40:19

That is exactly what he's saying.

40:21

Right, right.

40:21

It's just about believing Jesus.

40:24

It's just about having a Jesus experience or just believing the resurrection.

40:27

Everything ties back into the resurrection.

40:30

He'll get rid of every other, you know, the truth of scripture.

40:36

He'll dismiss all of that as long as you believe in the resurrection.

40:40

But where do we get that from? We get that from the Bible.

40:43

Exactly.

40:43

Yeah.

40:44

The very thing he says that we don't need to say the Bible tells me so and we need to be more fluid in that.

40:51

And then number seven, finally, the seventh characteristic of theological liberalism, the true religion is the way of Christ, not any particular doctrines of Christ.

41:00

So it's just, again, saying that I love Jesus, not having to believe or trust in the words that Jesus said.

41:07

But as Jesus said in Luke 9, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, I will be ashamed of him on the day that I return with my angels in the Father's glory.

41:21

Yeah, absolutely.

41:23

So, and that was wonderful, giving that outline like that.

41:28

And you said that was from Kevin DeYoung, who put that together or? Yeah, it was from the book that Gary Dorian wrote on theological liberalism.

41:36

And then DeYoung pulled those seven points out of what Dorian laid out about the movement.

41:42

Gotcha.

41:42

Gotcha.

41:43

Very helpful.

41:44

Well, you mentioned Andy Stanley, and I know that I had made a little note in my pre-show notes that I sent to you that he was trending on Twitter when I was writing my notes for this show.

41:57

And I was just sort of thinking about the questions I wanted to talk to you about and walk through with you.

42:03

Because I was going to ask this question.

42:04

I am going to ask this question.

42:05

Who among the mainstream, would you say right now, most exemplify this philosophical problem? Who's the most dangerous? I guess, and I would have to just say, Stanley was on my mind when I asked that question.

42:24

So if you want to start with him, that's fine.

42:25

But I'd like to hear some other thoughts too.

42:28

Well, it really does kind of depend on the week, doesn't it? So, I mean, sometimes Beth Moore might be the most prominent name, somebody like that.

42:35

And it's interesting to see Moore's evolution.

42:40

And I know that some people have written on this extensively too to see how much she's changed.

42:44

There was at one time when she was fundamentally opposed to the positions that Rachel Held Evans held.

42:52

But when she died, when Evans died very tragically and very early, you saw Beth Moore almost kind of sympathize with everything that Rachel Held Evans had been speaking about in the years before.

43:04

Suddenly, Moore was adopting those positions.

43:08

Russell Moore, the same way.

43:09

At one point, Russell Moore was holding a biblical definition of patriarchy.

43:15

And then suddenly he's eschewing concepts of patriarchy and saying that it's our, it's affixing ourselves to patriarchy that's led to a lot of the systems of abuse that exist in the church.

43:25

So Christianity Today is one such publication as he is the lead editor of now, the Southern Baptist Convention and all the pragmatism that they've adopted and continue to push.

43:38

And it's not just through the North American Missions Board, although that becomes a target because that's the world in which we live, the Western culture that we're a part of.

43:46

But they're doing it internationally as well.

43:48

I talked to pastors who will go overseas and will be part of the missionary movements in other countries.

43:53

And they will say, one of the biggest hurdles they have, one of the strongest difficulties that they have to overcome where they're trying to witness and minister is whatever it is the IMB missionaries are doing.

44:05

That's tragic to hear because I know that there are some solid missionaries with the International Missions Board, but at the same time, those same pragmatic institutions that the Southern Baptist Convention is trying to push here in the US, they're also attempting to do internationally as well.

44:20

So yeah, Andy Stanley is a big name, but it just kind of depends on the week.

44:24

There might be another name that resurfaces that this is the dangerous figure this week.

44:29

Yeah.

44:30

Did you see the Beth Moore, Jonathan Edwards thing that she posted? Yeah, I saw a little bit of that and I had posted in response to that too.

44:39

Oh, did you? Yeah, I've been very, very hesitant.

44:43

I'm new to Twitter.

44:45

I don't even know how long, I haven't even been on for a while.

44:47

I do little funny videos that have gotten some attention and it's been, allowed me to be more active on Twitter, but at the same time- Oh, they're great.

44:58

I love them.

44:59

Hey, I saw that you're one on the different denominations and guns.

45:04

I think you're over 250,000 views on that video.

45:07

Yeah, it's doing really well.

45:09

And what's funny is my first videos I put on TikTok, that one they wouldn't let me put on TikTok because- Oh, no kidding.

45:15

Yeah, because it has guns.

45:17

It immediately kicked it back.

45:18

It said it has weapons.

45:19

I thought about going back and refilming it with water guns just so that I could put it on Twitter.

45:25

So that may eventually happen.

45:28

That's hilarious.

45:29

I'm not on TikTok at all.

45:31

That is one social media platform I did not want to touch.

45:33

And I've told people, hey, if you want to take what videos and adapt them and put them on TikTok, more power to you, but I'm not going to get involved over there.

45:41

Well, I don't want to make this about me, but real quick, because some people may wonder why I'm on TikTok.

45:46

It started out, I was actually at the shooting range with one of our church members.

45:50

We were, shooting range is my dad's house is where we shoot.

45:53

And so when you live in the woods, you can shoot in your yard.

45:56

So we were out in the woods shooting.

45:59

And he had, I showed him this video that I made.

46:02

And it was a one minute video I made for Facebook on my imagination of what would happen if all the denominations got in a room and had a conversation.

46:11

And I was playing the part of each one.

46:13

And he said, man, this is funny.

46:15

He said, I'm going to put this on TikTok.

46:17

And I said, okay, I'm not going to use TikTok.

46:19

It's Chinese spyware as far as I'm concerned.

46:21

You know, I was saying, I don't want anything to do with it.

46:22

Well, he posted it at three o'clock on Saturday.

46:24

Well, the next morning he comes to church.

46:26

He said, Keith, this has over 100,000 views already.

46:30

And one, like within 12 hours or however long it was, it went over 100,000.

46:34

I was like, oh, there's an audience there.

46:36

Okay.

46:37

And what's been good about it is I've been able to also share a lot of gospel stuff along with that.

46:42

And that's been the, I say humor, missionary humor is my, is the goal with that.

46:50

Well, you have done some great theological things too.

46:52

I liked your video on the four views on four different ways that we can read the book of Revelation.

46:58

I've heard Vodie Bauckham walk through that before as well.

47:01

So that was a great, concise little, here's how different people have interpreted Revelation throughout church history.

47:08

And I think those things are important.

47:10

It's great that we have an ability or a platform to be able to put those things in front of people.

47:15

Well, I appreciate it.

47:16

And thank you for watching.

47:17

Yeah, I appreciate that very much.

47:20

When we talk about going back to the Beth Moore thing, we were talking about her on Twitter and the thing, her thing with Jonathan Edwards, for those who didn't see it, she said, Jonathan Edwards just doesn't speak to my heart.

47:31

I think was the way she said it was because, you know, I don't need to hear that I'm like a spider over a web.

47:38

You know, that doesn't make me feel like God loves me.

47:41

And it does show some of the vapid and somewhat vacuous spiritual nature of a lot of these teachers, because there's no depth.

47:52

It's like we only want to consider one aspect of God, and that is God's overwhelming love.

47:59

But we don't want to consider God as judge.

48:01

We don't want to consider God as king or sovereign or one who will condemn the sinner.

48:10

And I think that is something indicative of the emergent style of teaching as well.

48:17

I mean, Rob Bell, you know, his whole idea was, you know, love wins.

48:22

So everything else is secondary to God's love.

48:27

Yeah.

48:27

When he wrote that book, which came out in 2011, there was that moment that happened on social media where John Piper said, farewell, Rob Bell.

48:38

And, you know, the young restless and reform movement, which was still pretty young at that time, had been butting heads with the emergent movement.

48:45

And everybody kind of signaled that moment on social media as like the knockout punch of the emergent movement.

48:51

And everybody was like, oh, yeah, John Piper knocked him out with that statement.

48:55

And it was like the emergence overplayed their hand when Rob Bell comes out with this book that was notoriously universalist.

49:03

Everybody goes to heaven because love wins.

49:06

And so it was like a step too far.

49:08

Now you're actually going against, I mean, we can point to the Bible and we can see where Jesus is talking about people going to hell.

49:14

So, yeah, these emergence have finally been exposed and John Piper knocks him out.

49:19

But it actually, though it looked like that was the death of the movement, it really served it better.

49:26

The emergent movement recovered nicely because it pushed it back into the shadows, which was what they wanted to be able to do in the first place, to be able to covertly kind of usurp all of the things that were going on within biblical Christianity that they wanted to undo.

49:44

And so covertly, that subversiveness of these men and women being able to get into the church and kind of undo the traditional systems.

49:54

And now that we're not burdened by that label emergent anymore, we're not having to be pinned down by a certain thing that allowed them to be able to continue to undo things, which, yeah, again, they've been at for the last 12 years.

50:09

That moment was 12 years ago.

50:11

But like I said in the tweet, the emergent movement didn't die.

50:14

It just became the mainstream.

50:16

Yeah, and it's interesting because you've mentioned guys like J.D.

50:19

Greer, Beth Moore.

50:20

These are people who, you know, a lot of people would think of as, you know, being positive fixtures in evangelicalism, you know, especially J.D.

50:35

Greer.

50:35

I mean, I remember when he was first made the president of the SBC, and there were Reform guys because they were saying, well, we're excited to have a Reform-minded person or Calvinistic-minded person in the presidency of the SBC.

50:48

And I remember some of my Southern Baptist friends who weren't Calvinistic, you know, sort of saying that that was negative from their perspective because he was Calvinistic.

50:57

And yet at the same time, Calvinism doesn't assure that anyone's going to remain true to the scriptures.

51:05

Just because he holds to Calvinistic, or did, I don't know if he still does, hold to a Calvinistic soteriology, you can still get caught up in wokeism.

51:14

You can still get caught up in all this other stuff.

51:16

Yeah, I'll say in the 2010s, honestly, I was really, really optimistic because of the things that I was seeing happen with the Young Restless and Reform movement.

51:24

And I thought, wow, this is really taking hold.

51:27

Almost became post-mill in the middle of all of that.

51:30

It was like, hey, we love sound biblical doctrine.

51:34

Look at how the Reform movement is starting to take hold.

51:38

It's like the popular movement in the church.

51:39

I never thought that I would see such a thing.

51:42

And the commitment to expository preaching, I thought this was a move in a positive direction.

51:49

And I was looking at that very optimistically, that things are changing in the church in America for the better.

51:54

I had no idea that the Young Restless Reform movement would ultimately lose to the infection of the Emergent movement, which took it over.

52:05

And when the Black Lives Matter stuff came up, COVID hit, all these kinds of things.

52:09

I mean, that really signaled the death of the movement.

52:12

And they fell very quickly into social justice causes and out of the orthodoxy that they had regarded and held so highly before.

52:21

Yeah, and it was hard hearing things like, you know, and I don't mean to drag up old things, but hearing Chandler say about choosing the Black 7 over the White 8 and things like that, I mean, that's just, you're just announcing at that point that, yes, you have capitulated to the culture.

52:42

Right.

52:43

You have given in to this movement, and very dangerous movement at that.

52:48

So absolutely.

52:50

Now, here's sort of taking a little different question, because I want to start making application for some of our listeners.

52:59

You know, I imagine a lot of people who listen to this show are probably reform-minded, Calvinistic-minded, hopefully in good churches.

53:06

And if you're not in a good church and you're trying to find a good church, I say this to the listener, if you're not in a good church and you're trying to find a good church, please reach out to me.

53:14

I have connections through FIRE, which is the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals, which I'm a part of.

53:20

I'm also, our podcast is part of the Truth and Love Network.

53:23

I can help find a church in your area.

53:25

We also have friends in the Founders Movement, which can help find churches.

53:29

And if you're in Lindell, Texas, I think I know a good church.

53:33

I might be able to recommend one, yeah.

53:35

Yeah, absolutely.

53:37

But have you noticed that this has made its way into the smaller churches, or is this just something that's in the sort of upper echelon, you know, Big Eva problem? Or is this something you're seeing among the rank and file smaller churches? Yeah, I am seeing it in small churches too, especially when the name you referenced before, Andy Stanley, I'll walk into a small church where there's 80 members or something like that, and they'll have Andy Stanley's book sitting on the table right there at the very entrance.

54:10

And when I see that, I know that, I'm not looking at the church going, ah, you're done, close your doors or anything.

54:16

I just know that there's not some good discernment here.

54:19

You've already let the wolf in the door, and there he is sitting on the coffee table right inside where people can see the name prominently.

54:27

And I've seen churches desire, well, for example, some of the guru articles that'll get published by guys like Kerry Newhoff, who's, I mean, he's totally a part of the whole Big Eva movement as well.

54:40

Or, oh, trying to remember the other guy's name, he used to be with Lifeway.

54:44

Or Ed Stetzer, you know, his articles and things like that.

54:48

When these small churches will read those articles, and they'll aspire to be and want to become, you know, maybe they're not looking, they don't have big Eva goggles on.

55:01

They're not looking at becoming a megachurch or something like that.

55:04

But they still think, you know, as Ed Stetzer put out there, you need to be able to get over the 200 member threshold.

55:09

And so they're thinking, well, we can at least get that far.

55:11

And so they'll welcome all of those guru ideas, which are inherently Big Eva and have been influenced by the emergent movement and theological liberalism.

55:20

Yes, it is just as dangerous, dangerous in small churches, just as prevalent there as it is in big ones.

55:26

That's important to know.

55:27

And I mean, our church is a small church, and most of the guys I know pastor churches that are small.

55:32

And a lot of people I know go to small churches.

55:36

And what should someone do? And this is, again, practical application for listeners.

55:43

If they're in a church and they see this kind of thing happening, because one of the things I would be afraid of, I wouldn't want anyone to hear this and think that our recommendation is to go in with an ax and try to split your church in half, because that wouldn't be my recommendation.

55:58

I'm sure that it wouldn't be yours either.

56:00

But there are some ways that I would think of that this issue could be broached and dealt with.

56:06

What would be your recommendation if somebody reached out to you and said, Pastor Gabe, I'm in a church, my pastor's selling this Andy Stanley book on the Northex table, and I'm hearing things that are all about church growth, and we're not seeing a lot of expository preaching, things like that.

56:22

What are your thoughts about that? And how would you counsel? Because I get messages like that quite a bit from people, especially now, as I'm starting to get more emails and stuff from people.

56:32

And I just talked to a gentleman yesterday who was saying he's in a church that's basically a big Eva church, and he doesn't know what to do because he doesn't want to leave.

56:38

But at the same time, he doesn't know if he should stay.

56:41

So, yeah.

56:42

Well, I mean, 1 Thessalonians 5, with the Apostle Paul saying, test everything, hold fast to what is good, abhor that which is evil.

56:50

1 John 4, 1, test the spirits, for not every spirit comes from God, and there are many false prophets that have gone out into the world.

56:58

We have to be willing to examine these things, and we have to be willing to examine it according to what the Word of God says.

57:04

I think it's a good, healthy principle to establish for yourself what are going to be the marks or the signs.

57:11

We use the term marks.

57:12

What are the marks of a healthy church, thanks to a certain book? But what are the characteristics? What are we looking for in a godly church that loves the gospel, that calls out sin, that preaches repentance, that practices church discipline, that has a right practice of the ordinances? All of these things guided by Scripture.

57:33

And really, the first central thing that a church needs to be committed to is preaching the Word of God.

57:39

And I know this is a drum that gets beat a lot, but the main diet of a church has got to be expository preaching.

57:46

It has got to be verse-by-verse preaching through the Scriptures.

57:50

It doesn't mean every single sermon has to be that, but that has to be the main diet of the church.

57:55

And the point of the text has to be the point of the sermon.

57:59

Amen.

58:00

The first pastor that I served under, he would have called himself an expository preacher, but I'm telling you, brother, every sermon that he did was topical.

58:09

He went verse-by-verse through the Scriptures, but it was a topical sermon every time.

58:14

And it was him taking his ideas and imposing that onto the Scripture.

58:18

The concept of expository teaching has to be that the point of the text is the point of the sermon.

58:25

And so you're testing the teaching that comes from the pulpit like that, according to what is said in the Scripture, examining those things, so that that is the diet of the church, and we're sitting under the authority of the Word of God.

58:36

We're not putting our authority on God's Word, but we're acknowledging that all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for rebuke and for teaching and for training up in righteousness.

58:47

And so it's that concept that we are sitting under as a church, where, as my friend Tom Buck will say, as goes the pulpit, so goes the church.

58:58

So what the direction of the pulpit is going to be is the direction that the church is going.

59:02

And if you see in your church that your pastor is starting to stray from that, he's leaving expository teaching, he thinks there's these other topics that are culturally relevant that we have to address, may not even be, you know, relevant to your church.

59:18

I'm not saying that you shouldn't talk about racism.

59:20

Maybe you should.

59:22

That might be going on in your church.

59:23

But just because these things are happening in the culture doesn't mean it pertains to your body and your congregation.

59:30

And so if you see your pastor starting to stray from those things and going after those things that are culturally relevant, have godly, kind, loving conversations.

59:39

Be patient with one another.

59:41

Understanding, you know, what Paul said in moving the church toward unity under Christ-likeness, according to 1 Corinthians.

59:49

In 1 Corinthians 13, 4, love is patient, love is kind.

59:52

It is not self-seeking.

59:54

It is not rude.

59:55

It keeps no record of wrong.

59:57

And so we're patiently having these conversations with one another.

01:00:00

Don't start beating people over the head with your theological baseball bats, but be willing to acknowledge that the Lord, by his grace, has given you eyes and ears to be able to see that there's something wrong.

01:00:12

Be patient with your brothers and sisters and hopefully guide them in the direction of recognizing the same things that you do, all under the authority of the word of God.

01:00:22

Amen.

01:00:22

Amen.

01:00:23

And I know that we could do an entire show on the question of when is it time to finally leave a church? I know that's an entirely different subject, but there are times when it is necessary to pull up the tent stakes and move your family elsewhere.

01:00:41

And I did do a show a few months ago with Pastor Kenny Roberts on the question of what to do if there's not a good church in your town.

01:00:50

We did an entire hour on that.

01:00:52

So I want to recommend for anyone who is going through that right now, if you're in a church or you don't have a church and you're trying to figure out what to do and you feel like there's no church in your town that you feel like you can attend, go back and listen to that because you might find some wisdom that you can draw and apply.

01:01:09

Well, Pastor Gabe, I know that for you and for me, it is very late and you just finished the long elders meeting before coming on to the show tonight.

01:01:17

So I want to thank you for giving your time to our audience and your wisdom and being able to share with me and with all of us what was a very helpful insight into the emergent church.

01:01:29

I want to thank you for coming on the show today.

01:01:32

Thank you, brother.

01:01:32

I hope it was indeed helpful.

01:01:34

I tend to ramble.

01:01:36

No, it was great.

01:01:37

But I love God's word.

01:01:39

I have a passion for God's word and I am so very grateful to God that he raised me up in the family that I was born into because I had a dad who loved the scriptures and taught me how to read the scriptures.

01:01:49

And so this is not, it is not my doing that I love God's word.

01:01:53

It is God's grace upon me and I desire for you to love God's word as well.

01:01:57

It contains the words of eternal life.

01:02:00

Don't sell it short.

01:02:02

Don't just know the gospel but know those things that are connected to the gospel that we may be raised up in Christ likeness.

01:02:09

Well, you just made a good point.

01:02:11

You said know the gospel.

01:02:12

And I would like to ask you to do one last thing for me and you only take one, two minutes.

01:02:17

And if there was somebody who's listening to us and they just happen to be listening and they don't know what the gospel is, can you tell them what the gospel is and just how you would normally share on the street if you met with someone on the street? Absolutely.

01:02:29

Well, I might ask the person if I'm meeting on the street, do you think you're a good person? And they're most likely going to say yes and take them then through the law so that they would recognize we've all broken this law.

01:02:40

We're liars.

01:02:41

We're thieving blasphemers.

01:02:44

We're adulterers at heart.

01:02:46

And because of these things, because we've broken God's law, what we deserve is judgment.

01:02:50

We deserve the wrath of God.

01:02:52

But as John 3, 16 says, God was merciful to us.

01:02:56

He so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

01:03:02

And that son is Jesus Christ.

01:03:05

He who died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for sins, paying the penalty that we deserve because of our rebellion against God.

01:03:12

He rose again from the grave, conquering death itself so that whoever believes in him will not perish under the judgment of God that we deserve, but we have everlasting life with him.

01:03:23

And though the body will die, the promise that we have is that we will be raised again and we will live forever with God by faith in Jesus Christ.

01:03:31

Judgment is coming upon this world.

01:03:34

It doesn't take much to look around and see how wicked and evil it is.

01:03:37

I don't think I have to convince you of that.

01:03:40

Be sure that you are on the side that has victory in the end, and that is the side of Christ who is king and ruler over all.

01:03:48

He will return to judge this world, the living and the dead, but all who are in Christ Jesus will rise and live again to be with him.

01:03:57

You have just heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:03:59

It is a message that demands a response.

01:04:02

Now, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to continue in your sin and in the way of the world, or are you going to repent and turn to Christ for forgiveness and for everlasting life? Thank you, brother, so much for sharing that.

01:04:15

And just know that if you heard that, you now understand the text.

01:04:21

Well, thank you, Gabe, so much for sharing that with us.

01:04:23

And thank you for spending the time with me.

01:04:25

I've really enjoyed getting to know you better and having you on the program.

01:04:28

And I want to thank you again, listener, for being with us for this hour.

01:04:31

Thank you for continuing to support the program.

01:04:34

And I want to mention again our giveaway of the two Reformation Study Bibles.

01:04:38

If you want to be a part of that, please go into our YouTube channel, leave a comment with how you met your spouse, and you'll be entered to win.

01:04:46

Don't forget also that I am part of the Truth and Love Network.

01:04:48

There are several other podcasts on this network, and I would encourage you to go and look into those as well.

01:04:54

I want to also encourage you to go find my shows if you want to continue looking at what we're doing.

01:05:00

It is at calvinispodcast.com.

01:05:03

And if you have a question that you'd like for me to address on a future episode, you can go to calvinispodcast at gmail.com, send me an email, I'll get that email directly.

01:05:11

And if I'm able to, I will add it to a future program and answer it on air.

01:05:17

And again, I want to mention one last thing because Pastor Gabe is still with us.

01:05:21

Pastor Gabe, can you tell us one more time how people can get in touch with you if they're interested in watching? What's your website again? Yeah, the website's wwutt.com, or you can just go to YouTube and search WWUTT.

01:05:34

It'll bring up all of our videos.

01:05:36

I also have a podcast.

01:05:38

It's 20 minutes, at least 20 minutes of Bible teaching five days a week.

01:05:41

And you can find that whatever podcast app you use, just type in WWUTT and it'll come up for you.

01:05:48

Awesome.

01:05:49

Well, again, thank you for being on there.

01:05:50

Thank you, listener, for being with us.

01:05:52

And thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.

01:05:54

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

01:05:57

May God bless you.