The Value of the Local Church (Interview with Kris @Kdubtru)

I'm super excited to have with me today K-Dub. He is married, he is an apologist, he is a rapper, and he is here to talk to us about Christ. Stay tuned, Conversations with a Calvinist begins right now.

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. And today, as I mentioned in the introduction, I am joined by a new friend of mine. He is a YouTuber. He is, as I said, he is a married man, a rapper and an apologist.

And I recently learned about his YouTube page through a mutual friend, Bobby McCreary. Bobby, if you're listening, God bless you, brother. I'm thankful for your ministry. Bobby is an evangelist and a street preacher.

And Bobby posts things on his Facebook page and I had the opportunity to see something that Bobby had posted. And Bobby posted a video from K-Dub and the video was on a sermon by Dave Ramsey, which was recently posted on the, or was recently preached at Elevation Church.

And I thought the commentary on the video was great. I thought the way that it was handled was biblical and godly. And I thought the response was worthy of being shared. So I shared it all over my Facebook page and I reached out to K-Dub and I asked him if he'd be on the program and he was willing to come and share with us today.

So K-Dub, thank you for being on the program. I appreciate you being here, brother.

Christian Identity, Reformed Theology, and the Local Church

Yeah, thank you, man. Thank you for having me. I'm super blessed when people reached out and want little old me to come on their platform. So I appreciate it.

Absolutely, absolutely. And as I said, you know Bobby, that's correct?

Yes, yes.

Well, good. I'm glad he's a sweet brother and I've known him for a long time. How long have you been a Christian? How long have you been a believer?

Oh, I've been a Christian for about 12, 13 years now. So yeah, I became a believer around 20 years old. And so yes, ever since then, man, just been interested in serving the Lord and walking with him as best as I can.

So yeah.

Absolutely. Okay, so 12 or 13 years ago, you were 20. So I'm bad at math, but I'm saying you're in your early 30s and you say you're married. How long have you been married?

Seven years. It'll be seven years next week, yes.

Nice. Now, when you met your wife, was she... Cause I know my wife and I met, we were unbelievers. We both got married and then got saved in the same year that we got married. How was your wife already a believer?

Did you meet her in the church or?

Yes, we met in the church. She was a believer, she was reformed. And so a lot of those foundational things were already worked out even before we got married. So that was great.

Wonderful. Now you mentioned reformed. I didn't, I know I'm wearing the Calvinist t-shirt. I know the name of the program is Conversation with the Calvinist. I don't hide who I am, but I know that not everybody I have on the program is a Calvinist, but you are, you are reformed?

Yes, I am. I became reformed or Calvinistic pretty early in my conversion, probably two to three years after I became a believer. I was just awakened to the sovereignty of God by listening to Shilin and yeah, his music really kind of, I like the expositional preaching in the music.

And so I gravitated towards that. And I remember hearing a song, funny enough, the first point of the TULIP system that I heard explained or articulated in a systematic way was actually limited atonement.

And I was just kind of like, I've never heard anyone say this. So I started doing my own research and reading books and I was like, man, I think I agree with this. And so that's kind of the journey for me, how it started.

On a personal note, talking about the limited atonement, that being the first one that you were introduced to, that tends to be the one that most people are opposed to, the people who would call themselves four-point Calvinists, which I say, you guys are weak.

No, I'm just kidding. And it's usually the L, but it's interesting. That was the one that you first heard. Now, I know for me, I was actually in seminary when I was first introduced to Calvinism, but it was in the negative.

I was introduced as Calvinism kills churches. You don't want to be a Calvinist because that's going to destroy your church. And so my initial taste was bad because it was sort of force-fed into me that this was a bad thing.

It took about two years of being sort of confronted with scripture and confronted with good, solid teachers like Dr. Sproul and MacArthur and James White, men who really, really were found, for me, were helping me see these foundations.

How long did it take from the moment that you first, because you said you never heard it before, how long did it take before you were willing to say, yeah, I'm a Calvinist?

Well, when I first heard the L articulated, I really didn't have a response to it. I was kind of like, man, this guy is bringing all this scripture. I can't really argue with that. I've always, when I first became a believer, I've always been, man, show me a scripture, I'll believe it.

Even if it's something that I'm like maybe having an adverse reaction to initially. And so when he said all these things, I'm like, well, though I've never heard it, I can't really go against all the scriptures he's bringing out.

And so I probably immediately accepted the L before I knew about all the other points. I didn't know there was a tulip. I just knew there was a limited atonement. Here I am affirming this. And someone made it aware to me that there's, no, there's a whole tulip system.

I was like, oh, okay, well. And then that led me into the sovereignty of God by A .W. Pink. And I mean, first, second chapter, I'm like, I agree with all this. And the only problem I had initially was like, I don't know anybody else who believes this because I had never heard this stuff.

And so I was just kind of like walking around eggshells initially, but I would say, man, right when I heard it, I believed it, you know, because I had some fundamental groundwork to understand these things.

I didn't know what total depravity was, but I had some pretty close form of that and perseverance of the saints. I had a very close form of that stuff. I just didn't know. I didn't have a systematic to call it that.

You know what I mean? Didn't have a name for it.

Yeah, didn't have the name or the language even to express a lot of this stuff. And so, you know, when I heard all of it, I was like, so very shortly after, maybe a couple months after I initially heard, you know, that song to where I understood it, I was viewing myself in a Calvinistic way.

Awesome.

Ecclesiology, Accountability, and Christian Online Influence

Now, did that change your church situation? You said you weren't hearing it. So are you still in the same church you were in then?

Well, so when at that moment I was, I did not have a good view of the local church. And so I was not in a local church to my shame, right? The Lord has matured me and grown me in my ecclesiology where I have now not just a reformed soteriology, but a reformed ecclesiology now.

And so it has changed some relationships, right? Just with, you know, some people didn't like, you know, the expression of a sovereign God or, you know, and things like that. But no, at that time I was unfortunately not in the local church.

Okay, all right. How long have you been at the church you're in now?

I have been at my church for, wow, eight, over eight years, nine years.

So yes.

Now is your apologetics ministry, is that an arm of the church? And let me back up. Is that what you would call what you do online in apologetics ministry?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just with, yeah, apologetics ministry with different focuses, you know, essentially bad teaching, you know, with that encapsulates numerous, you know, theologies and things like that.

Yeah, and real quick before I go further, just for the audience, if you haven't seen any of his videos, you can go right now or don't go now, wait until the video is over. But once this video is over, go to, it's KDUBTRU, K-D-U-B-T-R-U, just type that into YouTube.

And there are dozens of good videos. I've been watching them in preparation for today, but also just for fun. I mean, just the one I was watching right before we started was the one you did on The Chosen, because I have a lot of people, I've never seen it.

I've never watched The Chosen and I have a lot of church members. Hey, what do you think? What do you think? And my only response so far has been, well, I think it has some ties to Mormonism. I didn't know what those ties were.

I just heard about it. And I say, well, here's your video. Now I have something to point people to. So that's great. So yeah, so is your apologetics, then is it tied to your church or are you independent of the church or how does that function?

Well, I would say I'm accountable to my church. I believe all Christian online ministry should be accountable to their local church. I think that's one of the problems today is that there are so many people putting out content and some of it, not all of it is bad, right?

But there's no accountability to the local church. And so my elders know exactly what I'm doing. Some will drop in my video, some will watch the live videos or watch the video. So they know what I'm doing.

And so I never wanna have a ministry. I never wanted to have a platform apart from the local church. I view my ministry as assisting local churches, not a replacement of the local church.

Absolutely. And I hope people who make YouTube and online content heard what you just said clearly, especially people who are Christians. And I wanna ask you this question. I recently heard the term Christian influencer.

And it was from a man who makes YouTube videos. I don't remember his name, but he said, hey, I'm a Christian influencer and I'm talking to other Christian influencers. And I got to thinking, I'm a YouTube creator.

Am I trying to be that? And in my mind, I was thinking, I don't know if I like that term, but it sort of, I didn't really sit well with me. I don't know what your thoughts are. What are your thoughts on that term?

So it depends how you define it because in one sense, even if you're not online, you're a Christian influencer, right? Like if you have people peeping and peering into your life, you're a Christian influencer.

But usually what people mean by Christian influencer is something where, oh, well, I'll put it like this. I heard a Christian influencer once say that if you, that some people with, some Christians with big platforms should be viewed as pastors, online pastors.

And I was like, wait a second, wait a second. No, that is not biblical. Just because you are, this is not your sheep. This is not your flock. They're not accountable to you or vice versa. And so I think that's what many people mean by Christian influencer, where they have a large following, you know, hundreds of thousands of subscribers and they're just viewed almost as an authority by virtue of having a lot of subscribers, if that makes sense.

No, absolutely. And as a pastor, it can be sometimes very difficult when you hear someone say, well, hey, this guy online said this. And even if that person is a pastor, I mean, there are guys I respect like Jeff Durbin and James White, guys that I appreciate what they do, but people will come in and will say, well, Jeff Durbin said this.

Yeah, well, Jeff Durbin's not our pastor. And I don't mean that in any way to be disrespectful.

That's a great point. You know, I tell people, I tell people, people ask me who's my favorite pastor. My pastor, you know, he's my only pastor, technically, realistically, because, you know, and, you know, other elders alongside, you know, my other, we have three elders.

So the three, those are my favorite pastors because they're the life I see. I see their preaching. I see their practice. I see all this stuff. I don't, I love John MacArthur, but I don't see that. I love Votie Baucom.

I don't see any of that. They're not my pastor.

They're not accountable.

I love their content. I will continue to watch and support their content. But if I had to listen to only one person, it should be your pastor. You know, he may not have the big name. He may not have the big ministry, but what, you know, I would argue your pastor should be the one you are listening to the most.

Amen.

I'm gonna put that on a loop and I'm just gonna play that every Sunday.

Hey, that's for all the pastors out there. That's an encouragement to all the pastors who maybe they have a small ministry, but the Lord is pleased in you supporting your local pastor. I'm a huge proponent of that.

I'm a huge proponent of the local church.

Amen.

And what church are you with? I just am curious. I like for people to be able to promote their local church. Are you, where are you located and where's your?

I'm located in North Dallas. I attend a church called Heritage Grace Community Church in Frisco, Texas, where our elders are Emilio Ramos, Lynn Kaler, and Landon Cozzini. And so those are my elders right there.

So I always tell people, hey, if I'm not here acting a fool on YouTube or online, contact my elders, you know what I mean? But that's why it's so important to know where people are at, because if they're just saying like, you know, YouTube, there's no accountability.

It's just like, well, at best I can just make a video about you, but I think it's important to know what church you're going to, so you can have accountability. If I have an issue with you, I can bring it to your elders.

That's right. And a lot of guys who are doing YouTube, but also doing things like street evangelism and stuff like that, they're out there and they don't have any accountability. They're an island to themselves.

And if you can't call them to account with their church, because they don't have one, you know, they have that sort of what you said in your video, I am the church, you know, that attitude. And I remember one night, my wife and I was on her birthday, we were in a restaurant and a young man came up and he was our server and he was great.

He has a very nice personality and he sang happy birthday to my wife with this really beautiful vibrato voice. And when he was done, we began to talk about church. And I introduced myself and I said, yeah, I said, I pastor a local church and do you attend church?

And he says, no, I am the church. And I said, no, you're not.

You're right.

And he just stopped and looked at me. I said, I'm really not trying to be rude or ugly. You're very, you seem like a very sweet young man, but you can't be the assembly by yourself.

The church exists of many members, not one.

That's right.

You're a part of the local church. You're a member, you know, but you are not the church. I mean, I used to use that same unbiblical language until I started to read my Bible and have many godly men point these things out to me that no, you're not it.

You're not at the center of all what God's doing. It's the whole bride, not just you.

That's right, that's right. Now, the first video that I saw outside of the Dave Ramsey, and by the way, the Dave Ramsey one was brilliant. I thought the way you handled that was great. And I am tempted though.

I don't have a lot of money, but I am tempted to see what happens if I go put $300 on the table at a Waffle House.

At a Waffle House.

I do, I can't imagine he's probably right that she probably would be very happy. I mean, I would be happy if I walked in and somebody just laid $300 on the table. But he did have a lot of things that he said that were very pretentious and very presumptuous.

Like you notice, by saying, well, you just reset her net worth. You don't know that, you don't know this lady.

Right, she could be retired from a great department and now she's just working at Waffle House for the fun of it. And it really devalued gospel preaching ministry and kind of replacing it with money. That's my issue.

And I say this as a person who believes, look, if you're a Christian, you should tip well.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

And so we're not saying don't tip. And I made that very clear in the video, but he and the other spectrum, he devalued leaving tracks, which I think is sad. So yeah, there's a few problems in that video.

Yeah, we actually print, we print our own tracks at the church, but I did buy some tracks, their thank you cards. I don't know if anybody's ever seen them.

Oh yes.

And on the back it's a track and it says, if you've owed a tip, we're gonna give you a tip, but we also wanna give you this information. And we pass those out to our people and say, yes, please leave a good tip, but also leave the gospel because I heard years ago and it was actually at a conference.

It was Bobby was at the conference with me. One of the preachers teaching, he said, you know what, atheists hold doors. Atheists do nice things. And just doing nice things is not preaching the gospel.

Nope.

Yeah.

Nope, not at all.

Another thing on your channel as I was going through and the very first day I was there, I was looking, I saw your Dave Ramsey video and then I saw your, at the time your featured video, which has recently changed, but your featured video at the time was a song.

It was a rap song called I'm Black.

Yeah.

And I mentioned this to you before the show. I wanted to mention, first of all, my kids loved it. But it is funny to see very white kids running around the house saying, I'm black, I'm black. That's the chorus of the song.

I love it. I love it.

So I had to sort of explain to them, okay, we can sing this and it's fine. But if we're out in public and you start singing this, nobody's going to understand because you are, your daddy is very British.

Your mother is very, we had a 23andMe test done.

Oh yeah.

Mine was like 99 British and then like 1 Scandinavian. Like I'm as white as. Anyway, I just thought that was.

That's funny.

No, I love it, man. I've had a lot of white people seeing it and encouraged by it. So, hey, that was the point. Hey, we can all get down with the message of what it's talking about that. There is no monolithic, you know, ethics standard.

You know, there's no what it means for you to be white. There's no standard for what it means to me to be black. I mean, I'm who I am, you know, by the grace of God.

And so, yeah.

And so the motivation for that song, and then you have other ones, like you said, the more serious version, there's one that's a featured video now, which is the Wakanda video. Your motivation behind that is to say that, that there's not a monolithic attitude of what it means to be a black person or a black Christian.

Yeah, so the motivation of those songs arose from like the same thing, like having a lot of social media interactions with people and, you know, explaining my view. And a lot of the pushback was like, well, you're not black or you're Uncle Tom or you're a sellout or all this, you know, not really dealing with what I'm saying.

And so if you see, like, if you listen to those songs, that'll be a lot of the, you know, the pushback for me saying, well, hey, I mean, that's not really responding to what I'm saying. All you're doing is, you know, trying to put certain people in a monolithic framework of what you think it means to be black or white.

And then, especially from a Christian standpoint, which Wakanda is more from, well, they both are from, but Wakanda is very explicit about it, is that this is not what the Bible teaches. You know, we're all one in Christ and that's what we should be striving for, right?

Not what it means to be white or black, but what it means to be more of a Christian, right? What it means to look more like Christ. And so that was the goal of that song.

Race, Social Justice, and Cultural Christianity

Yeah, and it really is, we have been placed in a very difficult context. And when I say we, I mean, Christian pastors and leaders, because if you say one thing, a certain group hears it a certain way.

And just like you said, the response is, well, if you say that, you're a sellout. If you say that, you're in the term Uncle Tom, which I know is a terrible thing to say about somebody, is that basically means you've sided with the oppressor.

You've taken the side of the people who you intend to hurt and intend to push down people and to oppress people. And that is, unfortunately, because I know that there have been times where I have been in conversations about race or the difficulties of racism and problems like that.

And I might quote someone like Thomas Sowell. I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Sowell.

Yes, absolutely.

Who is not, I don't know, do you know if he's a Christian?

He's not a Christian, no.

Yeah, but I would quote him in regard to sociological or historical things, because he's written a lot on that. In fact, his book he wrote, Cosmic Justice, was a strong critique against the whole idea of social justice and how that works and how everybody's seeking to, basically seeking to provide a justice which only God can provide, that perfect cosmic justice.

But if I quote him and I say, well, Thomas Sowell said this, somebody will say, well, you're choosing, you're cherry picking the people that already agree with you.

Right.

And the same goes for Vodibachan. If I say, well, Vodibachan said this in Fault Lines, well, Vodibachan is wrong because he's taken the side of the oppressor.

Right.

Yeah.

And I mean, I'm assuming you've had to deal with some of that and had to hear people say that.

Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, a lot of the starting point, I think, I was just telling a brother the other day, you know, when you talk about critical race theory and, you know, social justice stuff, it actually starts from the framework where I would actually argue is very racist because they start from the framework that the white man is superior.

You know, to me, I actually think that's racist because, you know, white people aren't superior, but, you know, social justice, critical race theory assumes that to be the truth. And now we're to work in harmony, right.

And all do the work, right, of social justice to, you know, seek to undo that, you know. So I would argue they start from a framework that's racist. And so, you know, but yeah, I've been blessed by the men you've mentioned.

And yeah, as soon as you mentioned those names, right, you can hear the, oh, well, those are already sellouts. So yeah, you're just confirmation bias, right?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And recently I had the opportunity, I sat down with a pastor who I am dear friends with, and he and I, we get along so well. And we were talking about an issue in his church. And he said, and by the way, we're in Florida, I know you guys are in Texas, but we would all be considered, I guess, sort of, I don't know, is Texas South, is that still considered the South?

Yeah, it's the South.

I mean, I know it's South this way, but the Mason Dixon line sort of does like this sort of, you know, so, you know, we're almost Georgia because we're Jacksonville, Florida. So we're literally one river away and we're in Georgia.

So we're in the South. And what he said, he's a pastor of a local church and a very sweet godly brother. He said in his church, what he is seeing is not so much a push for wokeness or a push for social justice, but rather a knee jerk reaction against it to the point that anybody who says anything about racism or anybody who says anything about society's injustices, which are true, there are injustices, that that person is automatically kicked out of the, you know, out of the kingdom.

They're automatically considered to be just, you know, you can't listen to him anymore. And an example, this is a bad example, but an example would be Tim Keller. You know, there was a long time where Tim Keller was, you know, a lot of people liked him and a lot of people promoted his books and things like that.

But he now, a lot of people won't touch him with a 10 foot pole because the argument is he's gone woke. Now, I would say there are some problematic things with Tim Keller. In fact, one of my videos I did was on something that he said.

But what do you think about that? Do you think that the knee jerk reaction has been too much or do you think that it deserves it?

Yeah, that's a tough question because I would argue it's contextually, but I understand the knee jerk reaction, but no, we don't wanna swing the pendulum the other way, right, and start arguing, well, there's no racism, there's no need to do justice, right?

That shouldn't be our response either to social justice. But I think some people have because they're tying their hearing about the presuppositions of what it means to do justice, right? Like, I'm not gonna lie, sometimes when I hear that phrase, we need to do justice.

Well, my ears stand up a little bit like a dog and like, well, to where at least I'm saying, what do you mean by that? You know, but 15, 20 years ago, if someone would have said that statement, I'd be like, yeah, of course, you know, because I knew that framework that the presuppositions didn't exist, you know, just like when people say, hey, we just need to love our neighbor.

Well, 15, 20 years ago, no one would have questioned what that person meant, but now we know it all comes with that, LGBTQ plus, you know, whatever, alphabet after that.

So I call them the letter people. I can't keep up anymore.

Yeah, the alphabet people, yeah. Yes, but you know what I mean? It's certain language. And when I first kind of had that kind of, when I was coming out of the word of faith theology, you know, God wants to prosper you.

Okay, yes, but what do you mean by that? You know, so certain language with certain audiences for me gives me like cause to pause. I don't automatically reject it, but now I'm listening a lot more closely.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, that's right. Just this last week, I preached on Joseph. I'm preaching through Genesis and I preached on Joseph and the house of Potiphar. And it says the Lord was with him and he was a successful man.

And then of course he goes through being accused by Potiphar's wife and then he gets put into prison and it says, and the Lord was with him and he was a successful man. And so I addressed in the sermon how, because you mentioned prosperity gospel, a lot of prosperity preachers would take that and say, see, if the Lord is with you, you're automatically gonna be successful in whatever you do.

And success is going to look like cars and parking spaces. And, you know, cause that's what, that's what, you know, Joel Osteen said, you know, if you're doing what God wants you to do, then you're gonna have the best parking spot.

You're gonna have the best places in the restaurant at work or whatever. And I said, that's not, first of all, this is an indicative, you know, this is saying something that happened to Joseph that God was with him and he was successful.

That's not necessarily the promise that we're always gonna have the same form of success. You know, the only promise we have is that we will suffer. You know, and that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be successful Christians, but the prosperity gospel has contorted that to say, if you're not successful, it's because you lack faith.

Right.

You're not prospering, you know, with the Lamborghini or the Benz or whatever, then you're not, you're not a faith.

Right. Absolutely.

Yeah.

So, I just say that to, you know, I think language is important in like, like if you were to say like what you just said, hey, the Lord, you know, cause, you know, Joseph be prosperous. I would, you know, I wouldn't take any issue with that.

Cause I know your presupposition. I know your framework. I know you don't affirm the prosperity gospel. But now I'm listening to Creflo dollar. I'm like, I know what he means by that when he says it, same statement, but I, but two backgrounds or ideologies, you know, so all I'm saying is like, when the social justice guys say all this stuff, it leads me to like, I know what they're saying when they say justice, they're not generally speaking, it's not God's holiness, justice, right.

Every man's going to be judged by God. It's justice now becomes code word for what you to put you as an oppressor to do to the oppressed, right. Or, you know, what we're to expect out of this. And so, yes, obviously I would disagree with a lot of what they say with that.

So, yeah.

Yeah. And that's, that's the thing. Words have meanings, but they also have contexts and within a context, you know, it's a, it's a dangerous thing. You know, even the word gospel, if you walk into a Mormon church and say gospel, they'll say, yeah, we affirm the gospel, but it's not the gospel.

It's not the God. It's not, it's not the one gospel that saves. It's the, you know, the odd Mormon gospel, which is based on an entire pantheon of false teaching.

So define your terms in conversations. That's what I would encourage.

That's right. That's right. Amen. So with all the videos that you've made, it's obvious that you sort of had to have a keen eye to recognize error. And I, that is, I think is in a way that's, not everybody has that.

You know, a lot of people see things and they just don't even see that it's a problem. What do you think, and maybe we can say the top three, but what do you think are some of the biggest issues in the church today, as opposed to maybe, you know, you said you got saved, what was it, 12 years ago?

You know, do you think that the issues have changed? Cause I know me, like I grew up in the nineties and the nineties were, yeah, I was born in the eighties. I grew up in the nineties and the nineties were the time where the mega churches and the mega youth groups and the, you know, that sort of a commercialization of Christianity really took hold.

And there was, you ever see the movie Saved?

Oh, I have not.

There's a movie with Macaulay Culkin and in the movie, you remember him from Home Alone? He was in a wheelchair in the movie. And the movie is about a, it's about a town where everybody goes to the same mega church.

And if you're not saved in the mega church, then you're sort of an outcast. And the movie promotes sort of that outcast being, you know, not part of the church and how, but there's a point where the guy walks out, he's a youth pastor and he goes, who's down with G-O-D?

And like, everybody like, you know, explodes. And it's the most cringe thing. But if you watch that, that's what the nineties were like. That was the issue, was the big youth group, the big promotion of like this sort of, this sort of make Christianity cool.

And so that was 25 years ago, as I consider how old I am and starting to cry. You know, as I see my white is coming in very nicely.

Yeah, yeah.

But what do you think are the top issues of today? If you, if I were to say, you know, K-Dub, what, you know, you made tons of videos. What are the things that are consistent within those videos?

So I would, just with the topic we talked about, I think critical theory, social justice is something new. The church really, elements of this, we've kind of exploded on the church that wasn't there 20 years ago.

You know, even 10 years ago, I would argue in large with the church, but so that LG alphabet, right? Community is definitely something that's new in some sense. But I think also we're living in the age of the children of word of faith or children of like the pastors that, you know, that desire to make Christianity cool is still, I would say plaguing, plaguing the, you know, the church, and I use that lowercase C, church, but the church in large, I mean, I just did videos on Mike Todd where, I mean, I don't know if you've met the pastor who's spit on the face of the guy and rubbed it in his face.